Forum venture investors, May 22, Moscow

The venture capital market in Russia, driven by the state, on the one hand, and the first successful transactions outputs, as well as the formation of the first private foundations in the post-crisis period, on the other hand, shows a positive development.
The state, represented by the state development institutions - RVC, RUSNANO and "Skolkovo" - more than ever before in the venture segment. The share of public money in the industry is about 50% of the total market. Launched more than a dozen venture funds parastatals.
Initiatives of state development institutions aimed, inter alia, and to attract foreign institutional and private investors.
The first international success stories - Yandex, EPAM Systems, Qik, Evernote, B2B-Center and others - show that the Russian and CIS market has great potential for transactions at the global level.
In contrast to the segment of Private Equity, the Russian venture capital market are active not only the local team, but also the Western venture capital players.
Do not stay away, get the information first hand, be informed of all developments in the market, find partners and co-investors in Russia and the CIS. Traditionally, our events are attended by representatives of leading companies in the local market.
This year, the forum will include representatives of organizations such as:
• Fund "Skolkovo"
• Russia Partners Tech Fund
• RUSNANO
• Almaz Capital Partners
• Salomons Partners
• iTech Capital
• EBRD Technology Venture Capital
• UFG Private Equity
• Alter Domus
• VTB Ventures
• Global TechInnovations
• Runa Capital

and other leading players in the market of Russia and CIS.
Special invited guest forum - Andrey Romanenko, Head and co-founder of the payment system QIWI, investor and co-founder of the fund iTech I, Addventure III and QIWI Venture, a successful entrepreneur, investor and venture capitalist.
Conference site - www.cbonds-congress.com/events/165/

MLBT13 - current view of mobile technology in business

May 15 Digital October center will take an annual international mobile conference MLBT, which will focus on mobile solutions for business and will be held under the motto "Mobile Trends and Challenges: changing the image of the world."

Experts from the U.S., Europe and Russia will talk about the use of case studies of mobile technologies that have changed the habits and behavior of the people, by the examples of decisions of the areas of medicine, sports, music, security, "smart cities", banking, and others, will discuss the next stages in the development of mobile devices, " global sourcing ", as well as share their plans for companies in the international and local markets.

At the moment, his participation in the event is already confirmed:

Kate TEAP, co-founder of TechCrunch and Just.me (USA);
Binrbaum Charles, director of development of mobile and international destinations Foursquare (USA);
Matteo Pentz, technical director of Frog Design Inc. (Italy);
Harri Koponen, executive vice president ROVIO Mobile Ltd. (Finland);
Florian Meissner, co-founder EyeEm (Denmark);
Ciara Byrne, IT-journalist, VentureBeat (Netherlands);
Rory Kenny, Director of Partnerships TripAdvisor (Great Britain);
Harald Neydhard, co-founder and chief marketing Smaato (Denmark).

MLBT program will consist of eight consecutive blocks. Guests of the event will know what the appearance of new business models should be expected in the market, "killed" a mobile banks physical separation and what is the role assigned to it in Google, listen to the safety report from the experts on iOS and Android, and get an idea of ​​how to learn " feel "your audience and when smart phones will change the tourism industry.

C a detailed schedule of the conference can be found here.

Participation in the conference is paid. Before May 1, the ticket price is 9000 rubles, later it will rise to 11,000. Register and pay for participation can be a link.

contacts:
http://mblt.ru/ru/pages/contacts

Apps4All April 5, 2013, III International Forum Developers

Apps4All-community, bringing together more than 800 Russian developers and IT-industry, will gather at the site of the III International Forum Developers Apps4All Center Digital October, to discuss new trends in the creation and distribution of multi-platform applications. The forum is traditionally attended by representatives of leading IT-companies: «LG» (the general partner), «Qualcomm» (official sponsor), «Softline» (strategic partner), «Google» (partner offline), «Microsoft» (sponsor of the Contest Apps4All), «VisionMobile», as well as authoritative public organization: "Support of Russia", "Development Fund for Venture Capital in Moscow" (strategic partner). The event is supported by the leading universities of the country: Moscow State University. University, HSE and MESI.
Apps4All III Forum will be held within four discussion panels with the participation of Russian developers, experts, world renowned manufacturers of mobile devices and such prestigious speakers as: Nikolay Nikiforov (Minister of Communications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation), Igor Agamirzyan (General Director of "Russian Venture Company") Igor Borovikov (Chairman of the Board of Directors of «Softline»), Michael Vakulenko (Strategic Director «VisionMobile»), Igor Klyukin (Director of Intelligence "Pixonis"), Paul Golub («ABBYY»). "Mobile interface - this is an important trend - says Sergey Belousov, co-owner of the venture fund« Runa Capital », - playground Apps4All combines many interesting applications and talented people. This is more than enough to interest such events. "
The participants of the Forum III Apps4All can discuss trends and developments of the leading companies, emerging market applications «Entertainment», «Enterprise» and «Education»; trends DPS platform and many other issues mobile ecosystem. The event will be summed up II Competition mobile applications Apps4All, which started on February 11 this year. The second competition Apps4All mobile developers will pass on 5 major categories - "Best Developer-outsourcer", "Best Developer of its own products," "Best game developer", "The best digital publisher" and "Best Mobile Startup project" - and four special categories from Google and Microsoft. The winners of the main nominations are determined automatically based on the site index Apps4All apps4all.ru. Winners in special categories, as well as in the "Best Mobile Startup project" defines Expert Council, consisting of leading experts in the field of information technology and representatives of venture funds. Winners will receive cash grants of $ 5,000 - $ 20,000 from sponsors.
All those wishing to visit the III International Forum Apps4all developers to register on the official website: forum.apps4all.ru

The Fourth International Payment System Security Conference

PCI DSS RUSSIA 2013
The Fourth International Payment System Security Conference
Date: March 13, 2013
Location: Moscow
The Fourth International Payment Card Industry Data Security Conference “PCI DSS Russia 2013” will be held on March 13, 2013 in the Golden Ring Hotel, Moscow. This conference is aimed to bring up for discussion the current issues of the implementation of PCI DSS, and remote banking system security in the environment of companies which comprise the market of payment services in Russia and CIS countries.

Conference Format
Representatives of International Payment Systems, of Russian EUROPAY members association, PCI and PA-QSAs of PCIDSS.RU Community, and researchers of Digital Security will speak at the event as well as representatives of leading Russian banking institutions.
The conference will last for one day. Representatives of financial institutions, processing centers, data centers, banking software vendors, other IT service providers, and merchant companies are welcome to participate free of charge. Advance registration is necessary.
Anticipated number of attendees: 250.
Event agenda is available at the website.

Contacts:
www.pcidssrussia.com
E-mail: info@pcidssrussia.ru
Phone: + 7 (812) 703 15 47

Mobile Developer & Business Day Russia

December 14 in Moscow the Mobile Developer & Business Day Russia - a day dedicated to mobile technologies. This year, in addition to the professional developers conference, the event was complemented by a special section for those who use mobile applications as a tool for business, and organized "Mall developers," where are the studio, performing application development under the order.

Alley developer (Developer Alley) - Exposure to the stands studios working in the market of mobile application development. The exhibition was to see their work and to discuss options for possible partnerships. For a more detailed negotiations customers and software developers organizers have allocated special space for communication.

After the opening of the conference in three rooms simultaneously began a professional program for mobile application developers. Market leaders shared their experiences in developing the format of reports, workshops and discussions.

Topics sections covering various aspects of the development and promotion of mobile applications - testing the usability of mobile interfaces, product development and custom application development, mobile game engines, mobile platforms and Smart TV. Discuss where to find investment in the projects, which offer new opportunities for vendors to developers. Among the participating companies - Zeptolab, Mediocre, Parallels, Samsung, Playmous, Polonium Arts, UI Design Group, Redmadrobot, iD EAST, Stanfy, Studio Mobile, Ozon.ru, Marmalade, GALS Software and others.

The conference also discussed the use of mobile technologies to improve business performance. Application developers and customers in the format panel will discuss the market for mobile advertising, marketing and mobile payments.

Details: http://2012.mdday.ru

Live Mobile! 21-22 November 2012 Get a good

More than 150 companies participated in the Live Mobile.
International and Russian mobile industry trends, the differences of the investment climate in Russia and the world, the impact of the mobile industry in the investment business, all of these important and exciting event participants discussed topics on the second day of the conference.
The first day was no less exciting than the second.

Billions of players and how they play the game? Simon pried from Flurry shared his thoughts on this.
Using the latest analytical data, Simon explained how consumers play mobile games, what are the main trends in their behavior, and how they will change in the future. Simon said the best use Flurry analytics to improve key indicators of mobile applications.

Babayigit Akin, manager of strategic alliances at Facebook, said that along with the Facebook mobile application developers have access to more than a billion audience.

They can communicate with this huge number of users through their mobile devices, and use viral channels to distribute their applications with efficient tools such as App Center and the Open Graph.

We should also highlight the excellent technical reports from Olega Pridiuk and Ken Noland Company of Unity3D.
Many thanks to the organizers of the conference, see you soon on the air!

Read More: livemobilecongress.com

Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia Lumia 820 now shipping

Espoo, Finland - Nokia today announced that the Nokia Lumia 920 and the Nokia Lumia 820 will reach the first operators and retail outlets in select countries this week. Both phones will appear in stores in France and the UK this week, then Russia, Germany and further select markets throughout the rest of November*.

In the US, AT&T will introduce the Nokia Lumia 920 and the Nokia Lumia 820, Verizon Wireless will sell the newly announced Nokia Lumia 822, and T-Mobile will offer the Nokia Lumia 810. All three will have phones in stores in November.

"After seeing the enthusiastic response to the incredible innovation in the Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia Lumia 820, we're eager for people to start experiencing the phones for themselves," said Jo Harlow, executive vice president, Nokia Smart Devices. "We are focusing our efforts on working with partners who recognize the value of that innovation, and who are committed to helping Lumia and the Windows Phone platform break through in key markets around the world."

The Nokia Lumia 920 includes the latest Nokia PureView camera, capturing five times more light than competitor smartphones for bright pictures without flash, even indoors and at night. It also features built-in wireless charging, making it easy to keep the battery topped up throughout the day, as well as a better-than-HD display. The Nokia Lumia 820, Nokia Lumia 810 and Nokia Lumia 822 offer exchangeable covers in a range of vibrant colours, including the option to add wireless charging. Like the Nokia Lumia 920, they boast the world's most sensitive touchscreen and Nokia ClearBlack display technology for easy visibility in the brightest sunlight. All phones come with the full suite of Nokia navigation applications, including Nokia City Lens, as well as Nokia Music for unlimited music streamed directly to the phone.

Operators and retailers will announce local pricing and exact availability for each country. Read More: nokia.com

Nokia introduced a mapping platform Here: PC, iOS, Android and Firefox OS

San Francisco, California - Today Nokia introduced HERE, the first location cloud to deliver the world's best maps and location experiences across multiple screens and operating systems. With the new brand, HERE, Nokia aims to inspire a new generation of location services and devices that make the mobile experience more personally significant for people everywhere.

"People want great maps, and with HERE we can bring together Nokia's location offering to deliver people a better way to explore, discover and share their world," said Nokia President and CEO Stephen Elop. "Additionally, with HERE we can extend our 20 years of location expertise to new devices and operating systems that reach beyond Nokia. As a result, we believe that more people benefit from and contribute to our leading mapping and location service."

Pushing location beyond Nokia
To further extend its location services, Nokia is launching a maps application for iOS under the HERE brand. Based on HTML5, it will include offline capabilities, voice-guided walk navigation, and public transport directions. The application is scheduled to be available for free download from Apple's App Store in the coming weeks.

Nokia further announced a strategic partnership with Mozilla to bring new location experiences to the Firefox OS. Nokia plans to debut a mobile Web version of HERE Maps for the new Firefox OS next year. The companies are working together to give people the best mapping experience on Firefox OS.

"Mozilla is a leader in HTML5, building the Web as a platform for developing compelling applications, and location is a key part of that platform," said Jay Sullivan, Mozilla Vice President of Products. "We are excited to work with Nokia as the combination of Firefox OS and HERE's location platform provides rich possibilities for mobile application developers to create amazing experiences for users."

Nokia also demonstrated an Android OS-based reference application and announced plans for the availability of a HERE SDK for Android OEMs in early 2013. This is aimed at enabling partners to create location-based applications for Android devices with Nokia's leading content.

Innovating modern mapmaking
To advance the 3D capabilities of HERE, Nokia announced the planned acquisition of Berkeley, Calif. company earthmine. The company's reality capture and processing technologies will become integral parts of HERE's 3D map making capabilities.

Nokia expects the transaction to close by the end of 2012.

"Maps are hard to get right - but location is revolutionizing how we use technology to engage with the real world," said Michael Halbherr, Executive Vice President of Location & Commerce and responsible for the HERE brand. "That's why we have been investing and will continue to invest in building the world's most powerful location offering, one that is unlike anything in the market today."

Using LiveSight(TM) to see more of the real world
As part of its announcement, Nokia introduced LiveSight(TM), a technology based on a highly accurate, 3D map of the world. LiveSight(TM) provides the most precise and intuitive augmented reality experience and uses a phone's camera viewfinder to make discovering the world as easy as lifting up a phone. Nokia City Lens, which was developed exclusively for Nokia Lumia devices, is the first application providing a LiveSight-enabled experience.

"Establishing a new brand is the right move for Nokia in the map and location business. Nokia's assets in this space are world class. We believe mapping and location will be increasingly important to developing next generation devices and services across a wide array of segments," said Crawford Del Prete, Executive Vice President and Head of worldwide research at IDC.
http://www.nokia.com/about-nokia.

Isocket Nabs $8M From Foundry, Tim Draper & More To Bring Modern Tech, APIs To Premium Online Advertising

Isocket a direct sales platform for premium online advertising, announced this morning that it has closed an $8 million Series A financing round, led by Foundry Group. New investor (and newly-launched firm) Costanoa joined existing investors Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Jeff Clavier of SoftTech VC, Accelerator Ventures, Quest Venture Partners, Blumberg Capital and a number of angel investors in contributing to the Series A raise. The round brings isocket’s total investment to $11 million.

As part of the round, Foundry Group Managing Director Seth Levine and former VP of Display Advertising at Yahoo James Beriker will be joining the startup’s board of directors. (Disclosure: TechCrunch uses isocket to power its direct advertising.)

So what is it about isocket that had these well-known investors and firms eager to open their wallets? According to Seth Levine, to date, a ton of time, energy and investment has been poured into taking the friction out of remnant inventory, which has resulted in a dearth of attention being paid to applying tech solutions to the premium side of the display advertising ecosystem. Furthermore, direct ad sales remains complicated and inefficient and aren’t allowing publishers and advertisers to effectively turn a profit, he said.

isocket launched in 2009 to solve this very problem, setting out with the simple goal of making it easier for advertisers and publishers to find each other and do business. In 2010, the startup went to market with its first solution, which targeted small self-serve advertisers, following that up the next year by launching BuyAds.com, an open marketplace for self-serve buyers that made isocket the first company to integrate with Google’s new DoubleClick ad server, says isocket founder and CEO John Ramey.

The motivation behind the approach, the CEO continued, was that, traditionally, premium advertising has been bought and sold by hand or through email attachments — this in spite of the fact that premium ads represent more than 75 percent of all online ad dollars. The problem has been that the vast majority of adtech built over the last decade has been to streamline the process around managing and selling remnant ad inventory, which gave rise to ad networks and exchanges, realtime bidding, etc.

Seeing a huge, unaddressed market, isocket launched what Ramey claims was an industry first — a programmatic platform for buying guaranteed display ad inventory, a process that was made easier by the fact that it had already developed this inventory through BuyAds.

isocket already had an advantage as an early mover in the space, and once it was able to scale its platform and offer programmatic direct sales via an API, customers started to take notice. Fast forward to the present, and over 1,500 publishers (which include AOL, Reuters and Gawker) and advertisers (like Salesforce, BMW and AppSumo) are currently using the startup’s platform.

Today, in conjunction with its new funding, isocket is launching its newest product, BuyAds Pro, an application dedicated to the needs of large-scale professional media buyers. For the many situations where demand-side platforms and realtime bidding are not the best way to buy online advertising,especially “guaranteed” buying, Ramey said, BuyAds Pros offers professional advertisers an extensive catalog of publishers, allowing them to buy real estate with one click.

In addition, the startup is also announcing that it has hired Mark Liao as its new CFO. Liao joins isocket from Yahoo, where he was most recently the VP of Business Operations and Operations Finance. He joined Yahoo in 2004 having been acquired as part of the management team at Overture. Liao joins a number of recent isocket hires, including Casey Saran from Admeld and Google and Lisa Backman from the Rubicon Project.

When asked why he decided to jump ship at Yahoo and join isocket, the company’s new CFO said, “The next big opportunity in online advertising is making the process of selling premium ad inventory easier for both buyers and sellers by replacing the spreadsheet with APIs and web apps. When direct ad buying and selling get easier, the tide will rise for everyone — advertisers get digital access to higher quality, guaranteed inventory, while publishers are able to properly monetize their best inventory.” As one of the early movers in the space, he said, isocket is in a great position to do just that.

The end goal? Ramey thinks that isocket can eventually become the Admeld for premium advertising. It’s a long way from a $400 million acquisition, but things seem to be moving in the right direction. Read More : techcrunch.com

EE's 4G prices, Apple's rubber band rebounds, Chromebook hands-on and more

Samsung refuted claims that its display business plans to end its LCD panel supply agreement with Apple, saying the report from a Korean publication was incorrect.

The Korea Times, citing an unnamed senior Samsung source, said Samsung was taking the step by the end of this year because it "believes its American partner is no longer a cash-generator due to the iPhone maker's stiffer supply-chain management structure." The United States Patent and Trademark Office has good news for Samsung, and Samsung has already shared it with Judge Koh in a late-night filing. In a non-final Office action the USPTO has declared all 20 claims of Apple's rubber-banding patent (U.S. Patent No, 7,469,381 invalid, including claim 19, which Apple successfully asserted against Samsung in the summer trial in California.

This is potentially huge for Samsung against Apple, because the "rubber-banding" patent - what happens when you scroll too far - was a linchpin in Apple's win. If Judge Koh agrees, she could overrule the jury and void many of the damages against Samsung. But it's a big if - this could be appealed and appealed. And in effect, Apple has got what it wants: Samsung (and Google) have already changed their software's scrolling behaviour. A non-patent that changed behaviours - and it's only cost millions in legal fees.
What happened? Google decided to stop fighting the desktop metaphor. Early Chromebooks, like Google's CR-48 and the first generation Samsung and Acer devices, were about as much fun to use as an airport computing kiosk set up to support Web browsing and nothing more. Chrome OS felt like a prison, like the desktop typically behind the browser had been hidden. That may have been nothing more than user expectation, but user expectation is part of the user experience, and that experience tends not to be positive when expectation is denied.

Earlier this year, Google made its Chrome OS browser window behave like a browser on a Mac or Windows computer--it can now be minimized to reveal a desktop with files and icons. Chrome OS has gained a menu bar at the bottom of the screen with Web app icons. Clicking on a device-related icon, like the battery, produces a free-floating menu pane, without any reference to the Chrome browser. There's a files folder, accessible from the Apps menu in the menu bar, that displays local downloads and remote Google Drive files. In other words, Chromebooks have adopted more legacy user interface conventions and are better for it.
Not too long ago, Google and Bing seemed fully focused on adding as many social features to their search engines as possible. For Google, that meant adding lots of Google+ features and for Bing it meant making the best out of its exclusive relationship with Facebook. Since then, though, it seems the two search engines' strategies have changed, with Google slowly deemphasizing social search and Bing going all in by adding more social features than ever. Read More : guardian.co.uk

Developer forum Apps4all

Intensive business programs on advanced development and world trends of the mobile market has been divided into four thematic blocks. In the Great Hall of the Digital October was the official presentation of the results of the "First Russian market research mobile application development in Russia and the CIS", launched on 21 August 2012 on the portal apps4all.ru, as well as performances by Sergey Belousov (co-owner of the venture fund «Runa Capital») and Leonid Bugaev (founder and creative director of «Nordic Agency AB»). Touching upon the common mistakes developers of mobile applications, Sergey Belousov said: "startups who just want to make money, as a rule, do not get anything. The project must necessarily be noteworthy mission: he must solve real problems. This is one of the main criteria that we follow in deciding whether to invest in the company. "

Within the last week held an international forum Apps4All developers, LG Electronics held its discussion panels on Smart TV. This platform has already outgrown the position of Expanded TV to the Internet and slowly becomes a new segment of the ecosystem of applications for rights serious player.
Reports of the LG, both Russian and Korean offices, allowed to look into the future of the platform. Speakers focused the audience's attention on what has been achieved by a consortium of Smart TV and how the market is promising from the point of view of application development, and attentive audience delaminating clear hints of what will happen to the platform in the future.
The success of the application development ecosystem depends on several important factors. The first of them - the number of potential users, and in this direction Smart TV platform is developing quite vigorously. According to the graphs shown in the presentation, this year will be sold 65 million TV sets, on which to run applications. This figure does not fully reflect the potential - Smart TV features are made available to the common TV, if they are connected media, blu-ray players and other set-top boxes. Bought a new TV in the family is rare, and manufacturers know this, but to increase the penetration of the accessories can be without renovation of the TV.
The second factor - Platform Compatibility Smart TV. In essence, it is the assembly of the operating system with a graphical environment, and previously each manufacturer had its own platform. In June, consumer electronics manufacturers Philips, LG and Sharp have organized "Alliance Smart TV", declaring to work together on the platform and ensure compatibility between their "smart TVs." This is definitely the right step, which allows all market players for TV applications to significantly reduce their costs. According to the LG, with alliance members occupy most of the market.
The third factor - the provision of convenient and affordable way to pay for both the applications and shopping within them. Unfortunately, today it is - the weakest link in the universe of Smart TV. Personally, I did not manage to complete your registration by credit card to pay for their own applications on your TV, some of the benefit application developers successfully using the web interface of their services and micro-payments paid on the basis of SMS. For example, an online cinema can enter the TV in your own account that is configured on your computer, and the application, "NTV +" offer views broadcast by premium-SMS.
To market for applications for TV was the market, required not only to provide quality and convenient billing, but, in fact, applications that users would like to buy TVs. Speakers LG gave guidance to developers - Smart TV application users are lazy and want to be entertained, and if turned to the genre, the LG speakers recommended to pay attention to entertainment, social and familial applications. In the tradition of Cooper, the speakers talk about the purpose - to entertain, educate, inform, and peculiarities - the user is sitting on the couch in a relaxed position in a comfortable position, the screen is very large, and its distance of about 3.5 meters.
From staff reports, LG could isolate interesting information about how the company intends to not only lead the market applications for Smart TV, but also to shape the market. Korean as their sworn friends and colleagues from Samsung, has a strong position not only in consumer electronics, but also in the market of smartphones and portable electronics. Therefore, all the advantages, which I will discuss below, are unlikely to remain unique in the long term, in fact - similar services (except, perhaps, remote LG) already has competition. The only question is how quickly they will be implemented.
The first and foremost advantage over competitors LG - control MagicMotion. Hardly anyone had heard about this "magic wand", but if all of a sudden - it is remote with built-in gyro, on its functionality rather close to the joystick Wii. Due to the presence of such a device in a standard package of TV LG Smart TV with the developers the opportunity to use this unique for TV manipulator.
The second important feature of the LG - coming third with the appropriate version of the SDK. The main feature of the new version will not only support external data storage devices. This will allow developers to include in the application, especially games, the ability to save user progress, and use the content in external applications.
Include the ability to create a media player that will play the files that does not understand the built-in player TV. In particular, the previous generation of LG Smart TV could not play video files with audio track DTS. Now, you may receive a third-party application that can solve this problem. For strimingovyh services will be able to cache the content on the user's side, making services more convenient.
Another feature of the third version of the SDK - support interaction televisions and media players to smartphones LG. This feature either speakers or most of the audience did not pay much attention, but if the idea is to be brought to a logical implementation, then LG will have a unique opportunity to compete not only with other computers, whose services are already accustomed to Smart TV, and video game consoles. Just imagine - the whole game, and Randy gets a smartphone, whose specifications have long since left not only stuffing TVs, game consoles and even a generation ago. TV acts as a monitor and joystick is either the smartphone or a simple joystick to a computer connected to your phone via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Given the fact that Sony has made it possible to run games for PlayStation on smartphones Android, there is a futuristic vision of the future in which game consoles, no place.
But do not get too believe that all this will happen in the near future. SDK 3.0 for the LG Smart TV will only appear in 2013, and all the above features - just my interpretation of the pair of lines in the slide presentation, the speaker of the Korean LG. But agree - the potential is encouraging.
As I said, the discussions did not work - not enough time, but some of the details about the financial potential of Smart TV platform still managed to get through questions from the audience. First, in the second version of the SDK it is possible to organize applications in advertising and in-app payment. Secondly, every 10-15-s application (sic) in the store LG Apps - are paid. Third, LG covered all business models that are crucial to - traditionally paid, free advertising and free with the payments.
At the end of the show LG announced the second competition for developers of applications for Smart TV with an impressive prize pool.

The organizers of the Forum II Apps4All by the «Polylogue" and «Apps4All». General media partners of the event: «Mail.Ru Group» and magazine «Computerbild».
Apps4All forum was supported by the leading universities of Russia: Moscow State University. University, HSE and Bauman. Bauman. In preparation for the II Forum for university students started a new series of master classes "IDEA ≥ 1 000 000", with the participation of experts of the Competition II mobile developers Apps4all, the results of which will be announced in April 2013 at the III International Forum Developers Apps4All.
Read More : apps4all.ru

Geeks-on-a-Plane Meeting Russian Startup and VC Community

In a progressive place in Moscow DigitalOctober 20 and 21 September a significant event for entrepreneurs and investors: Geeks-on-a-Plane Meeting Russian Startup and VC Community. Among the panelists would like to mention the representatives of companies VimpelCom, Yandex, Synqera, Bitrix, LinguaLeo. The event was attended by over 100 guests into the evening with interest absorbed the latest information on the development of high technology market.

In the first part of the conference participants in the debate about the development of the Internet in Russia discussed the development of e-commerce.
According to the results, the market for e-commerce in Russia is dominated by small players: only a third (38%) of retailers site traffic by more than 20 thousand visitors a day. At 38% it is less than 10 thousand, 24% is between 10 and 20 thousand visitors daily.
Certain market leader remains ozon.ru (1,05 million visits every day). Also in the top 10 included wildberries.ru (600 thousand), kupivip.ru (380 thousand), mvideo.ru (269 thousand), exist.ru (240 thousand), svyaznoy.ru (229 thousand) , wikimart.ru (210 thousand), eldorado.ru (177 thousand), ulmart.ru (132 thousand), quelle.ru (125 thousand).
Among the leaders in average daily attendance, so dominated by retailers involved in trading electronics, appliances, clothing, shoes and accessories, as well as a general store.
Gainers attendance for the period from April to June 2012 - a furniture store zvet.ru (29,1%), bike shop velostrana.ru (27,6%) and one furniture retailer lazurit.com (21,7%).
Average conversion sites segment of "children's products" was 3.2%, "cosmetics and perfumery" - 2.9%, "general merchandise" - 1.7%, "clothing, footwear and accessories" - 1.6% "do himself "," electronics and home appliances "- 1.4%," jewelry and watches "- 1%," furniture "- 0.5%," sporting goods "- 0.3%.
Of the 100 study 16% of retailers have a user rating of 5 for "Yandex.Market", 15% - rated by 4. 19% of online retailers, according to the auditors' on the triple "8% - bound 2.
42% of retailers available on the "Yandex.Market."
Of the top 100 retailers in seven involved in sales of clothing and footwear. During the period from March to June, site traffic this segment decreased by 38.4%.
Two of the hundreds of retailers involved in selling auto parts. Their visits to the positive dynamics. Growth for the period from March to June was 2.4%.
The largest increase in attendance in this period was at the general store. They are in the top 12, but the increase was 44.8%.

34 of the hundreds of retailers engaged in the sale of electronics and home appliances. They dynamics of attendance is negative (-8.8%).
Positive it in stores segment of "do it yourself" (tools, products for home and garden) and is 21.9%, and all shops in this segment in the top five.

The most striking was the performance of the partner fund 500 Startups, a successful business angel Dave McClure. Dave encouraged startups to abandon the illusion that they are simple and can easily change their areas of the market. Dave said that startups need to work hard on their product and business model to improve its position in the market, and in order to enable them to attract private equity.
He noted that in recent years in the Internet space have a unique situation: the leading platform on which to concentrate the majority of users, now missing, but there are several large resources, which spreads the audience. He noted that in general the situation for a start-up project is very favorable. Costs of Internet projects are negligible, while even without the involvement of a large investor can gain significant exhaust cheaper, faster, better and getting customers easier, more measurable. "We have a huge database of users of all ages, from children to senior citizens", - stated Dave.
Dave urged participants not to be afraid to start your projects, do not waste time learning the successful experience of their predecessors, and to act. "I do not read business books, do not pay coaches in the business schools. Learn from your mistakes. Try. And soon it will pay you money for you to tell the business school about their experiences or describe your case in a book "

Read More digitaloctober.com

Disruptions: Will Apple Be the First to Break $1 Trillion?

If Apple continues on its current trajectory, something remarkable might happen on April 9, 2015, at around 11 a.m.
That is, statisticians and investors I’ve spoken with say, a conservative estimate of when Apple could become the first company ever to be valued at $1 trillion. (Yes, you read that correctly: the number one, followed by 12 zeros.)
Other analysts are making even more aggressive estimates for the company’s value, which, as of Friday, was $656 billion. Those people put the trillion-dollar mark at less than a year from now: Aug. 16, 2013.
“It’s hard to imagine Apple growing any faster than it has grown on both the release of the iPad and iPhone,” said Michael E. Driscoll, chief executive of Metamarkets, a big data and predictive analytics company, and one of the people betting Apple will top $1 trillion in 2015.
Estimating when, or if, Apple will become the first to be worth $1 trillion is a bit of a parlor game, but we can all likely agree on one fact: today, it is a juggernaut.
Not long ago, Apple was a boutique PC maker. Since then, it has rolled over almost every company in its path, first with music players, then with cellphones and, more recently, with laptops. Nokia, Sony, Research in Motion, Dell and Hewlett-Packard have all watched open-mouthed as Apple took markets they thought were secured. Each time, Apple’s stock rose and their stock fell.
“They are certainly a different kind of company,” said Walter Piecyk, a wireless research analyst at BTIG Research. But, he warned: “So was Nokia in the late ’90s. No one thought they’d ever be challenged, and look at where they are today.”
Even with this growth, there is another possibility: that Apple never reaches $1 trillion. “In a worst-case scenario, Apple could befall the fate of Microsoft, which had a similarly dizzying peak in late 1999,” Mr. Driscoll said. “In this scenario, it will never happen.”
If $1 trillion were the peak of Mount Everest, Microsoft would have been rising through the highest base camp in December 1999, when its market capitalization hit an all-time high of $616.3 billion. Since then, the company has slid down the side of the mountain and is currently valued at a mere $261 billion.
Indeed, the flap over the poor-quality maps on the iPhone 5 has led some people to wonder if Apple has already jumped the shark. But remember how well it has weathered other challenges, like poorly functioning antennas and Siri’s erratic behavior.
Apple is different from Microsoft. “When Microsoft peaked in 2000, it had 20 years running the PC revolution. We’re essentially only five years into the smartphone revolution,” said Charles S. Wallman, a securities analyst who runs an investment group in Middleton, Wis. “Apple has 435 million customers based on the number of credit cards in iTunes. That’s 6 percent of the world’s population. It’s not a stretch to say it can get to 10 or 12 percent of the world’s population.” (Before we go any further, stop and reflect on the power that gives Apple.)
Even if Apple didn’t enter any new product categories, it could reach $1 trillion by doubling its sales. That’s hard for a big company, but in many respects, it is already happening. According to the latest statistics released by I.H.S. iSuppli, a research company, the Apple iPad accounts for nearly 70 percent of the tablet market. BTIG Research predicts Apple will sell 45 million iPhones in the December quarter alone. (During the same quarter last year, the company sold 37 million iPhones, doubling its revenue from a year earlier.)
While it used to be a presence in the United States and a nobody overseas, Apple is now rolling out products like the iPhone 5 worldwide on the same day. The company will also, predictably, continue to increase its global retail division of 388 stores. These stores make an average of $5,647 in sales per square foot. By comparison, shopping malls in the United States make an average of $341 in sales per square foot.
The company will continue to grow in China, too, where many of the more than one billion people who own mobile phones are upgrading to smartphones.
And don’t forget those clunky old PCs. While other computer makers have lost ground, sales of Macs have grown each quarter for the past six years.
And none of these staggering drivers of growth consider Apple entering entirely new markets.
“When we invented the car, it was a substitute for horses, but it was the second phase of the car revolution — when we invent things around the cars like gas stations and drive-ins — that created new business markets,” Mr. Wallman said. “We’re seeing this happen now with the technology we have in our hands. We’re entering the second phase of this revolution, where entirely new markets will be created, and Apple could create those.”
For instance, Apple could transform the television industry, making its own TV set built on iOS, which analysts estimate could bring in another $20 billion a year in revenue. Or it could try to reinvent money itself, turning on the 435 million credit cards it has on file and enabling mobile payments. And there are consumer electronics areas that haven’t even been invented yet, like wearable computing.
When Apple first introduced the iPhone, people slept in the streets to buy one. Five years later, people are still lining the streets to snatch the latest update, even though it is only a slight variation on the one before it. A company that can pull that off, selling two million iPhones in the first 24 hours, might be worth $1 trillion in no time at all.
Read More nytimes.com

Verizon to Pay TiVo $250 Million Settlement

TiVo has turned to litigation to generate revenue from licensing fees as it struggles with competition from low-cost rivals.
Analysts said the settlement could bode well for a TiVo victory in cases against other companies, including Time Warner Cable and Motorola Mobility, which is now owned by Google. TiVo reached a similar deal in January with AT&T, which agreed to pay $215 million.
TiVo also prevailed in a similar case against Dish Network and EchoStar in May 2011. Verizon declined to comment and referred questions to TiVo.
Regarding the continuing legal cases, “Verizon has set a strong precedent for Motorola to settle,” said Todd Mitchell, an analyst at Brean Murray, Carret, a boutique investment bank.
TiVo sued Time Warner Cable in connection with the Motorola litigation, and Monday’s settlement only improves the company’s position, according to Barton Crocket, an analyst at Lazard Capital Markets.
“It also potentially sets the stage for a similar settlement with Time Warner Cable over the next year or so,” Mr. Crockett said.
Time Warner Cable declined to comment on Monday. Motorola Mobility had no immediate comment.
TiVo said Verizon would initially pay $100 million in cash, and recurring quarterly payments totaling $150.4 million through July 2018.
As part of the deal, the companies were discussing having TiVo boxes carry a new Internet video streaming service that Verizon is developing with Coinstar’s Redbox to compete with Netflix. TiVo’s DVRs already feature video services from Netflix and Amazon.com.
In addition to the guaranteed compensation, Verizon will pay TiVo license fees on a monthly basis through July 2018 for each Verizon DVR subscriber above a certain number.
If Verizon and TiVo pursue “certain commercial initiatives” by Dec. 21, up to $29.4 million of the payments made by Verizon would be subject to a credit of an equal amount, TiVo said.
This appears to refer to a nonexclusive deal for Verizon to offer TiVo boxes to customers, according to Mr. Mitchell of Brean Murray.
The companies also agreed to dismiss all pending litigation between them.
Read More nytimes.com

Facebook prematurely sends out satisfaction survey to some users

Facebook sent out a rather strange survey to some of its nearly 1 billion users.

The social network advertised a multiple-page survey at the top of select users' News Feeds. But when some people clicked on it, the survey stopped short and was incomplete.

"For a brief period of time, an incomplete test survey was visible to a small percentage of users," a Facebook spokeswoman told the Los Angeles Times. "This survey has been removed."

There were several pages of questions related to satisfaction regarding users' overall Facebook experience and about some specific features, such as the News Feed.

That was followed by questions related to how users get their news, with Facebook mentioning Twitter, CNN and other outlets and mediums. The company then began asking users more personal questions, including when they were born, how much money they make and what race they identify with.

That's as far as I got with the survey before the pages no longer functioned, but then things really got strange.

According to MarketingLand.com, the Facebook survey then began asking users about their political leanings, including how they describe their political ideology.

The Facebook survey then literally started a news quiz on modern politics. Among the questions asked were who the vice president is, which presidential candidate supports allowing some illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S., and which company Mitt Romney used to run.

And the news quiz continued for five pages.

Afterward, the survey showed you the correct answers to all the questions it asked. It let you give feedback on how you felt about the survey (was it too long or too short) and it also gave you a text box where you could share any comments.

It's unclear what exactly this survey was for, but it could be that Facebook was trying to get data from users to improve its service. On the other hand, MarketingLand speculates Facebook could be readying surveys as another service clients can purchases in addition to the ads the social network sells. Read More latimes.com

Google introduces new YouTube app for the iPhone

Google rolled out a new YouTube app for the iPhone on Tuesday morning, making good on a promise to create a new app for the video service since the next iPhone won't have the app pre-installed.

The company said the new YouTube app features more videos than before, notably adding more official music videos. The app also makes it easier for users to find channels they subscribe to, and videos can now be easily shared on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ or over text message.

The new YouTube app is available internationally starting Tuesday.

Google is launching the new app one day before a scheduled Apple event where the Cupertino, Calif., company is expected to announce the next iPhone and with it the next version of the phone's operating system, iOS 6.

Earlier this year, Google and Apple announced that the existing YouTube app would no longer come pre-installed on future iPhones, as it had during the phone's first five generations.

Though some people said they were happy to see this -- mostly because the app rarely got updated -- the exclusion of a YouTube app was another sign of the deep divide between Google and Apple. Read More latimes.com

Can Square Remain Hip

It’s not exactly a hip question right now. But what exactly is Square?

Excitement is building around the payments company, which is led by Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder. It’s close to raising $200 million of new capital, and Starbucks said in early August that it was going to use Square’s technology.

Disappointed by Facebook and Groupon, technology industry watchers at least have hope for Square. It’s easy to see how nifty card readers and other innovations can make payments much easier for small businesses and their customers. Meanwhile, the Starbucks deal raises the prospect that other large retailers may partner with Square.

But it may too early to anoint Square as the firm that will lead us into a cashless society. The main issue with Square is that it’s not yet clear what it wants to be.

Yes, on the surface, it’s a company that provides payments to hardware and software to merchants. But it may struggle to achieve burgeoning profits from the payments fees paid by merchants, according to an analysis of the economics of those payments.

Square is almost certainly working to develop a much bigger revenue source. The success of that will likely determine the success or failure of Square.

As innovative as Square is, it cannot easily get around the established fixed costs charged by the payments industry, which comprises processing companies, banks and firms like Visa and MasterCard.

Square charges merchants 2.75 percent of the amount transacted when a card is swiped, or $275 a month. That’s at the low end of the fee scale. But it may also be too low for Square to a profit on payments below $10, which are a big part of Square’s business.

Nebo Djurdjevic, chief executive of Cardis International, shows why. He simply calculates the money Square would take in with a 2.75 percent fee on a transaction and then compares that with the money it would have to pay out in fees to credit card companies and processors. (As a note, Cardis has its own product, which aims to cut the costs of smaller credit card payments.)

On a $5 transaction, Square would get 2.75 percent of $5, or 14 cents. But, citing public fee data, Mr. Djurdjevic calculates that, with a premium Visa card, Square would have to pay out 27 cents in fees. The theoretical loss to Square would therefore be 13 cents. The loss may be lower on other types of cards, according to Mr. Djurdjevic, who nevertheless thinks the Starbucks deal is a positive development for Square.

Square declined to comment on Mr. Djurdjevic’s numbers and their significance for Square’s business model.

The challenging economics won’t be a surprise to Square watchers. Enthusiasts may argue – correctly – that Square will make money on each payment that is over $10. And if Square gets picked up by larger retailers, larger payments may make up a large share of its business. Square may even have software that allows it to reduce slightly the amount it has to pay to card operators.

So what will the big, alternative revenue source be? Recent investors in Square must see one, given that the company now has an estimated valuation of $3.25 billion.

The company probably wants to take all the payment data and use it to help merchants with their marketing. Square might, say, take a cut of any business generated from that marketing. In other words, it may aim to be a more sophisticated version of Groupon. Square’s fans may say that, with a wealth of payments data, the company can do better than Groupon.

The more merchants that use Square’s payments system, the more data it will have. And with its low fees, Square may well draw in large numbers of merchants.

But as Mr. Djurdjevic’s numbers show, those low fees can also generate losses. And it’s not like other companies are standing still. For instance, PayPal and Discover recently announced that PayPal customers will next year be able to use the service in stores, not just online.

In all, it’s too early to tell whether Square is leading us, or itself, into a cashless future. Read More dealbook.nytimes.com

Thrive Capital Raises $150 Million Fund, Bolstering Profile

Thrive Capital, a venture capital firm based in Manhattan and run by Joshua Kushner, has raised $150 million for its latest fund as it seeks to raise its profile and become more competitive against larger firms.
The firm spent about 10 weeks raising the fund, receiving commitments from new and existing limited partners, a group that includes Princeton University, Hall Capital Partners and the Wellcome Trust.
The fund, which was oversubscribed, will operate under a broad mandate, with the flexibility to pursue early or later stage start-ups in the Internet sector. In total, Thrive has raised about $200 million across three funds.
“Thrive is opportunity driven,” Mr. Kushner, 27, said in an interview by phone. “We invest in assets as opposed to stage or geography.”
Mr. Kushner, son of the real estate magnate Charles Kushner and brother of Jared Kushner, owner of The New York Observer, has spent the last three years investing in social and e-commerce Internet start-ups.
He was an early backer of Fab.com, a flash sales site that recently raised $105 million; Hot Potato, which was sold to Facebook; and GroupMe, a messaging service acquired by Skype last year.
His firm was also one of the lead investors in Instagram’s $50 million financing round in April. The investment, which valued the photo-sharing service at half a billion dollars, was closed mere days before Facebook purchased the company for roughly $1 billion. However, the value of the deal, a combination of cash and stock, has since fallen as Facebook’s stock price declined sharply.
Though Mr. Kushner says he recognizes the weakness in the I.P.O. market, he remains bullish on the technology sector and the disruptive power of the Internet. And while Thrive has largely been defined by its consumer Internet plays, he said he was willing to invest in a broad array of start-ups, in the United States, Latin America or elsewhere.
“Many see the way the Internet has already transformed our daily lives and conclude that most of the change that was going to happen already has.” he said. “I am of the belief that it is only the beginning.”
The Wall Street Journal had earlier reported that Thrive was seeking to raise $150 million. Read More dealbook.nytimes.com

Zuckerberg On Instagram (Now 100M Users Strong): “No Agenda” Except Supporting App’s Growth

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social network is focused on supporting Instagram’s growth, following the close of a roughly $750 million deal to buy the photo-sharing app. Instagram is the most unusual acquisition in Facebook’s history, considering the huge sticker price, the startup’s small team, and a pledge to stay hands-off with the service. Most of Facebook’s other deals have been talent-oriented where they bring on a small team of engineers, shut down the core product, and re-shuffle people onto other company products.
“Our mission with Instagram is we want to help them grow to hundreds of millions of users,” Zuckerberg said on-stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco. “We have no agenda with making them go onto our infrastructure.” He added that Instagram just crossed 100 million registered users.
He said they’ll basically treat Instagram like an Open Graph partner (which means they should be like a big third-party developer that has priority access to features).
He also went into the history of the deal, which is often compared to Google’s acquisition of YouTube when the upstart video search engine was heavily competing with Google’s own attempts at the market. A more cynical take on the Instagram deal is that Facebook bought the app out of fear of its rapid growth and prowess in one area that Facebook has historically been weak — mobile. Photo-sharing was also a key piece — if not the key reason — why Facebook broke out from a number of social networking competitors five years ago. With a similar dynamic taking place on mobile platforms, Facebook was wise to duck in and take out a budding rival.
The history of how this thing came together is really interesting, especially the way that I got to know [Instagram CEO] Kevin [Systrom]. They started off building on top of our platform. They had just a great Open Graph integration that made it so you could take pictures and share them to Facebook. It was really first class.

They did a really good job with that. One of the things I like to do with all of our big developers is I like to get to know them personally. This is because I’m personally just interested in entrepreneurship. But I also want to get to know the people who are building on top of our platform.

Over the course of our discussions, we build a roadmap of all the things we could do together. They were starting to get a lot of distribution from our platform and there was this question: how much did they want to depend on one platform’s distribution? That was a big question for them. Then there was this question of how we could help them grow. But we had this question of how the value would accrue to us.

Eventually, I just brought up the idea to Kevin. ‘Hey, maybe we can just join and become one company.’ And that’s the game plan. We’re going to execute on features we decided on earlier.” Read More techcrunch.com

Maluuba Wants To Challenge Apple’s Siri With Its “Do Engine”

Ever since Apple launched its voice-driven personal assistant Siri, a slew of clones have appeared on the scene. Most of these, however, clearly show that Siri was the result of a massive research project that isn’t easy to replicate. Maluuba, which is launching at TechCrunch Disrupt today, is the closest thing I’ve seen to a viable Siri competitor on Android. In many ways, Maluuba is actually more reminiscent of Siri before Apple bought it, as the company describes it as a “do engine” that ties in with numerous third-party services. Maluuba, just like Siri, also allows you to set up meetings, alarms and location-based reminders and the app ties in tightly with your Google Calendar account, for example.

Maluuba isn’t shy about comparing itself to Siri and as the company’s co-founder Sam Pasupalak told me last week, the team believes that its solution is actually superior to Siri. Maluuba, says Pasupalak, sees it as its mission to make it really easy for you to find what you want. In his view, the next evolution of search has to do away with ten blue links and just allow users to get to “do” as fast as possible.

What Pasupalak is especially proud of is how quickly the team built out the number of domains the service currently understands. At this point, Maluuba focuses on 18 domains, including restaurants, movies, and general knowledge questions (which, just like Siri) are powered by Wolfram Alpha. Yelp, Eventful, West World Media (movies), Rotten Tomatoes, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Google Calendar, Weather Underground and Wikipedia are among the other APIs used by the service.

Here are some sample questions that Maluuba can answer for you: What’s happening this weekend in Montreal? Is today a good day to go hiking? I’d like to watch a romantic movie with my girlfriend. What can I do for fun tonight? Where can I practice Yoga? I’m really craving some sushi? How much is a Kindle Fire?

I got a chance to test a preview version of the app for the last couple of days and the service is indeed very impressive. Maluuba does a great job at answering your queries without the need to use specific keywords. The app’s design is somewhat reminiscent of Microsoft’s Metro design, with big, colorful boxes and a menu bar on top.

Maluuba, which is based in Waterloo, Canada, already received a $2 million Series A investment from Samsung Ventures in February, making it a strong possibility that Samsung could pre-install the app on some of its devices in the future. The company is also talking to other Android OEMs right now and as Pasupalak told me, there is a good chance we’ll see the service pre-installed on a number of Android phones in about six months or so. Pasupalak also noted that there’s been some talk about integrating the service with smart TVs as well.

Maluuba plans to make most of its revenue from these deals, but also from licensing its API and, of course, through deals with the third-party providers it taps into for things like restaurant reservations. Currently, these are affiliate deals, but the company plans to set up direct payment pipelines to its providers so that it can offer one-step movie ticket purchasing, for example.

The Maluuba team started working on the research behind its app in 2010. The company currently has 22 employees. For now, Maluuba’s focus is on the Android app, but iOS and Windows Phone versions are already in development and should arrive in a few months.Read More techcrunch.com

Spinlister Makes It Into Disrupt Battlefield With It’s ‘Airbnb For Bikes’

Peer-to-peer bike rental service Spinlister was chosen by the audience from amongst the Startup Alley companies today to pitch on stage as part of the TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield in San Francisco this week.
There are over 100 million bikes in the US and over a billion on the planet. But most bikes are not used daily, meaning there’s plenty of opportunity to meet demand. Normal bike rental from a store costs about $16 a day. On Spinlister you can rent a bike from $5 a day up to about $100 for a really nice bike. They are now in 275 cities in 40 countries with over 2,000 bikes listed.
Founded in May 2011, Spinlister is a peer-to-peer bike rental company allowing people to rent a bike online, either from other individuals or existing bike rental shops. It’s like an Airbnb for bikes. Pretty handy if you’re a tourist in a city. However it obviously needs lots of people to participate. So far it’s launched in San Francisco and New York but it announced on stage at Disrupt that it’s prepping a national launch this Fall and a new mobile app is in the works. International plans are also on the way.

Although it’s only being available in those two cities, back in May it managed to garner about 400 and over 2,000 from bike rental shops. Plus it’s reached bike renters in six continents globally.
In the first six weeks after its launch about 25 percent of listers completed a rental, and of those, about 25 percent did multiple rentals. That means those users make an average of $50 each renting out their bike. The more popular your bike the more rents you get, with some people making up to $100 a week. Spinlister also now offers a guarantee which insures your bike for up to $5,000, which helps with traction obviously.
The next stage is to decrease fulfillment times by getting renters and listers interacting.
So far Spinlister has raised $225,000 in seed funding from Angels.
Judges asked why the company did not start with mobile, but the team said the small team of three had come from a Web background and were now adding a mobile engineer to develop the mobile side. The team is also looking a ‘recreational enthusiasts’.Read More techcrunch.com