Category: Technology

Finance

Snow Software Acquires Embotics

Author ByCFI.co Blogger

Snow fortifies its ability to deliver complete technology intelligence with Embotics’ award-winning hybrid cloud management platform

UK – Dec. 4, 2019 – Snow Software, the global leader in technology intelligence solutions, today announced it has acquired Embotics, a hybrid cloud management company. This acquisition brings together two market leaders, enabling CIOs to understand and manage their full technology stack from software and hardware to infrastructure and applications, regardless of whether they live on-premises, in the cloud or in a hybrid environment.

Embotics offers a platform-neutral cloud management solution with one of the quickest time-to-value in the industry. It provides a fast and easy way to automate provisioning, reduce costs and ensure governance across private, public, hybrid and multicloud environments. Leading enterprises such as Nordstrom, NASA and HBO, and service providers like LG CNS and NTT Data, use Embotics to drive their digital transformation.

“The rapid adoption of hybrid cloud by the enterprise has created new challenges for technology and business leaders who must maximise the efficacy and efficiency of technology without sacrificing innovation, productivity or security,”said Vishal Rao, President and CEO of Snow. “Technology intelligence is the future of asset and cloud management, moving beyond the silos created by point tools to provide the insight and manageability organisations need to gain a competitive edge. Embotics is a highly strategic addition to Snow’s portfolio. We are thrilled to welcome the team to Snow and deliver even greater value to our customers and partners.”

“We built Embotics to provide enterprises and service providers with an easier, faster, platform-neutral and fully integrated solution for managing the hybrid cloud and beyond”said Jay Litkey, Founder and President of Embotics. “Today, these organisations are strategically blending on-premises, private, public and multicloud architectures, and that requires a flexible and multi-faceted approach to gain agility through automation while controlling costs and risks. By joining forces with Snow, Embotics will continue to address these issues and answer the next generation of challenges with integrated capabilities at a global scale. Both organisations have a customer-centric DNA and commitment to innovation that will help us achieve our shared vision of technology intelligence.”

Together, Snow and Embotics will offer the first platform that delivers CIOs an integrated perspective across their entire technology stack, empowering them to tackle use cases that require insight into both on-premises and cloud services, such as cloud migration planning, Bring-Your-Own-License (BYOL) optimisation and hybrid cloud cost management. The process of integrating Embotics into the Snow platform will begin immediately, and the companies will have a single go-to-market strategy starting in 2020. The combined business will be optimally positioned for strong growth with an expanded market presence as well as the field and operational resources needed to deliver cloud management at a global scale.

“As IT organisations work to balance transformation initiatives with day-to-day operations, hybrid and multicloud strategies are essential for today’s enterprise,” said William Fellows, Founder and Research Vice President at 451 Research. “Workloads now span public cloud, private cloud and legacy on-premises environments, and that mix is constantly changing to address the needs of the business. With Snow’s acquisition of Embotics, the market will benefit from the combination of their respective strengths on-prem and in the cloud, most notably when it comes to solving the unique challenges of hybrid environments.”

For more information on the acquisition and Snow’s platform, visit www.snowsoftware.com.

About Snow Software

Snow Software is the global leader in technology intelligence solutions, ensuring the trillions spent on all forms of technology is optimized to drive maximum value. More than 4,000 organizations around the world rely on Snow’s platform to provide complete visibility, optimize usage and spend and minimize regulatory risk. Headquartered in Stockholm, Snow has more local offices and regional support centers than any other software asset and cloud management provider, delivering unparalleled results to our customers and partners. To find out more about Snow Software, visit http://www.snowsoftware.com/ and follow Snow on Twitter @snowsoftware.

Banking

Atos and Fintech Circeo develop innovative loan management solution for major worldwide retailer

Author ByCFI.co Blogger

A solution to help run Loan Management from a hybrid cloud leveraging Google Cloud Platform

November 20, 2019 – Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, and Circeo, a leading Fintech in developing next-generation retail loans software, today announce the development of an innovative loan management solution built with Google Cloud Platform. Developed initially for the bank subsidiary of a major worldwide retailer, Atos and Circeo will soon begin bringing the solution to market for other customers.

This offering is based on a hybrid cloud solution which combines Google Cloud Platform (GCP) together with Atos’ expertise in end-to-end cloud orchestration and management, and infrastructure services and support. It enables users to benefit from the advantages of a fully-managed and secure cloud service which is seamlessly integrated with Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

With this joint solution, clients can run Fintech software built on Oracle technologies on hybrid cloud infrastructures, and thereby benefit from elasticity, resilience, innovation and pay-per-use models – without the need to redevelop their existing systems. The Google Cloud Atos partnership ensures that the client benefits from direct, secure and high-performance network connectivity, for faster and optimised access to Google Cloud resources.

This new solution from Atos and Circeo will help the end-customer manage peaks of activity in Loans, particularly during sales and specific events such as black Friday thanks to the elasticity and resilience of GCP.

Circeo is an innovative Fintech delivering a next generation flexible digital lending platform, based in the Cloud, which enables tailor-made financial products to be made within just a few days. It is part of Atos’ FinTech Partner Program and one of Atos’ most dynamic Fintech partners.

“This solution demonstrates the unique value we deliver to our customers thanks to our ambitious Fintech Engagement program which aims to bridge the gap between banks and Fintech.” says Wim Los, SVP, global Head of Atos and Google Cloud enhanced Alliance at Atos. “Developed by Atos and Circeo, it is a framework which will be replicated for other clients, on other markets”.

“We are glad for this unique opportunity leverage our global partnership with Atos to promote and implement the Atos-Circeo Retail Lending Factory platform” says Laurent Clerc, Founder and CEO at Circeo. “By delivering unique value with Atos, we expand existing client portfolios and onboard new clients into production.”

We’re delighted that Atos and Circeo chose to develop this solution with Google Cloud Platform,” said Rayn Veerubhotla, Director, Partnerships at Google Cloud. “With this solution, customers can modernise their existing infrastructure and begin to take advantage of the core capabilities of Google Cloud.”

Atos was recently recognised as ‘Global breakthrough partner of the year’ by Google Cloud.

About Atos

Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with over 110,000 employees in 73 countries and annual revenue of over € 11 billion. European number one in Cloud, Cybersecurity and High-Performance Computing, the Group provides end-to-end Orchestrated Hybrid Cloud, Big Data, Business Applications and Digital Workplace solutions. The group is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic & Paralympic Games and operates under the brands Atos, Atos Syntel, and Unify. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea), listed on the CAC40 Paris stock index.

The purpose of Atos is to help design the future of the information technology space. Its expertise and services support the development of knowledge, education as well as multicultural and pluralistic approaches to research that contribute to scientific and technological excellence. Across the world, the group enables its customers, employees and collaborators, and members of societies at large to live, work and develop sustainably and confidently in the information technology space.

Business

Helsinki, World’s First City as a Service Is Not Just a Joke – Attracts Over 6500 applications from +100 cities

Author ByCFI.co Blogger
Helsinki, World's First City as a Service Is Not Just a Joke – Attracts Over 6500 applications from +100 cities
Helsinki, World’s First City as a Service Is Not Just a Joke – Attracts Over 6500 applications from +100 cities

 Helsinki and some of Finland’s most renowned tech companies launched a talent attraction campaign in September branding Helsinki as the world’s first City as a Service (CaaS). The campaign reframed the value that Helsinki offers to its “users” (current citizens) and potential “demo users” (tech professionals looking to relocate) using familiar vocabulary and tone of voice for international tech professionals. The campaign received close to 7,000 applications of tech professionals interested to relocate to Helsinki.

Now Helsinki is bringing its potential tech professionals to visit the city. Tech talent from Tel Aviv to New York will experience their potential new hometown Helsinki and its work-life balance during one of the world’s largest startup events, Slush, on 19–22 November. The visit is hosted by City of Helsinki along with Supercell, Smartly, Slush, Relex, and MaaS Global (Whim). 

“Finding the best talent in the world is critical for us and other tech companies in Helsinki. It is a great place to live and work, with the best education system, best healthcare, opportunities to families, amazing international companies and happiest people in the world! It is easy to demonstrate that when we bring people here,” says Kristo Ovaska, CEO of Smartly.

Clever and engaging campaign noticed by the global tech community

The campaign turned city into a digital product of this decade and pitched Helsinki as a Service, highlighting its multiple perks: Helsinki’s 640,000 daily active users, key features such as free world-class education and healthcare. Helsinki’s bugs – darkness, snow and the flat skyline – were mentioned as carefully considered features. The city’s Mayor Jan Vapaavuori was recruited to act as the CEO of CaaS, encouraging potential demo users to apply for a free demo trip to Helsinki during Europe’s leading startup event Slush. 

The stunt was described as clever and engaging by Trendwatching and chosen as their Innovation of the Day. The results speak for themselves. In less than a month Helsinki received close to 7,000 applications from the wished target group of professionals in tech from software engineers, developers, AI researchers etc. 

“Helsinki has all it takes to make you feel like home but the problem was, not too many knew about its beautiful features. To make the world aware of what Helsinki has to offer, the city just needed a little repackaging.” says Alexander Pihlainen, CEO of brand company Bou behind the creative concept. 

Helsinki steps up efforts to attract international talent

This year the Finnish growth companies attracted the most venture capital investments to GDP in Europe, and hundreds of millions of euros in foreign capital have been invested in startups here. With a new approach to branding Helsinki, the city wants to improve the city’s image as a place to live. 

“Helsinki is located in one of the world’s most secure countries and inhabited by the world’s happiest people. The majority of foreign experts who have settled in Helsinki are satisfied with the quality of life here. The experience of a happy, good life is a combination of tangible – like housing, transportation, jobs and infrastructure – and intangible things. The intangibles – sense of trust and community, equality, closeness to nature – are essential values in building the quality of life”, says Jan Vapaavuori, Mayor of Helsinki.

Campaign site: www.myhelsinki.fi/caas

For more information, please contact:

Laura Aalto
CEO
Helsinki Marketing (Helsinki)
+358 40 507 9660
laura.aalto@hel.fi 

Helsinki Marketing is a company owned by the City of Helsinki. It is responsible for operative city marketing and business partnerships for Helsinki. Helsinki Marketing interacts with local residents, visitors, decision-makers and experts. 

Technology

CE-approval (Class IIa) for Heart2Save’s arrhythmia analysis service

Author ByCFI.co Blogger

AiVoni Analysis Service by Heart2Save from Finland determines four different arrhythmias, allowing especially detection of atrial fibrillation. Early detection of arrhythmia significantly reduces the number of strokes caused by atrial fibrillation and thus saves lives and secures higher life quality. AiVoni Analysis Service is based on clinically validated algorithms and has now been certified as a medical device (CE 0537 / Class IIa). The service is available for ECG device providers through the industry-standard interface, Heart2Save is especially looking for new players in the consumer market, developing new innovative ECG solutions.

Atrial fibrillation is a heart arrhythmia, which causes symptoms for some, but is asymptomatic for others. This means the person in question is often completely unaware of suffering from atrial fibrillation. The most feared consequence of atrial fibrillation is a cerebral stroke. In fact, atrial fibrillation causes no less than 40 % of cerebral strokes. The lifetime risk of a stroke is about 20 %.    

AiVoni Analysis Service by Heart2Save has been certified as a medical device, which means it has gone through the same process as devices that are used in hospitals, ensuring product quality and patient safety. The Service’s clinically validated algorithms analyse the heart rhythm and send the response within seconds to the user. The service generates a diagnostic ECG report, which facilitates the initiation of a treatment path.   

The algorithms have been validated in clinical studies, which proved that AiVoni Analysis Service can detect atrial fibrillation with high sensitivity (96 %) and specificity (99 %). Moreover, it can detect ventricular extrasystoles, bradycardia and tachycardia with high accuracy. 

Heart2Save collaborates with Suunto, a leading sports watch provider, in developing the product for arrhythmia detection. Heart2Save is responsible for the analysis service, and Suunto produces the ECG sensor. Suunto’s Movesense medical-grade ECG sensor is now in the final phase of medical device approval.  

‘Congratulations for Heart2Save for medical approval. We will be there soon as well with the Movesense sensor and are looking forward to the success of Heart2Save’s product’, says Jussi Kaasinen, Director of Emerging Businesses, Suunto. 

To expand the possibilities for stroke prevention, Heart2Save is now looking for new partners for ECG device integration.

On Nov 21-22.2019, Heart2Save is attending Slush, the world’s leading startup event, presenting the AiVoni Analysis Service, and is looking forward to meeting potential investors and other stakeholders. On Friday 22.11 the company can be found in the startup area, booth E8.

For more information, please contact:   

Helena Jäntti  
CEO, Heart2Save  
+358 40 553 8438 | helena.jantti@heart2save.com   
 

ABOUT Heart2Save  

Heart2Save’s mission is to save lives and ensure high life quality by early detection of heart arrhythmias and prevention of cerebral strokes. The company has developed AiVoni Analysis Service that allows users to identify heart arrhythmia anywhere, anytime. The service is certified as a medical device (CE 0537 / Class IIa). Heart2Save’s team consists of doctors, top medical signal processing PhD’s supported by medical device R&D, quality and regulatory professionals. The investor team adds expertise from business and financing perspectives. www.heart2save.com

Technology

Extraordinary Opportunity to Experience the World’s 6G Hotspot Followed by the World’s First Open 5G Cyber Security Hackathon in Oulu, Finland

Author ByCFI.co Blogger

Hosted by National Cyber Security Centre Finland NCSC-FI / Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom

We invite you to join us at the opening of the world’s first Open 5G Cyber Security Hackathon at the global 6G and 5G hotspot – Oulu, Finland on the 29th of November. This ground-breaking hackathon brings together nearly 100 best hackers from 20 different countries as they complete different challenges set by Ericsson, Nokia and Oulu University.

Before the opening event, you get the unparalleled chance to explore Oulu – the home to research and development of top-tier cybersecurity on a
global scale. 6G is a flagship programme at Oulu University and about 60% of the world’s mobile phone traffic utilizes network technologies that were developed in Oulu. During this trip, you have the unique opportunity to learn about the latest 6G developments, get to know to the one of a kind ICT ecosystem in Oulu and visit some of the leading cyber security companies in the city, such as Bittium, F-Secure, Nokia 5G Factory and Tosibox. You´ll also have the opportunity to meet the head of Ericsson 5G Cyber Security.

Later, at the hackathon opening event, experts and decision-makers in 5G and cybersecurity join together to discuss the future of 5G and 6G as well as its security as the world enters a new digital decade. In addition, the hackathon’s challenges will be revealed.

This event will be followed by Leading Edge 5G Forum on February 13, 2020 in Helsinki, Finland that gathers the leading experts and decision-makers from around the world to single forum. The event´s speaker list includes major technology vendors, EU cyber security authorities, top decision makers and representatives from some of the biggest operators around the world, topped with leading professionals and evangelists in the field of 5G cyber security.

Please sign up by November 25, 2019. Registrations are handled by PR Agency Miltton, liisa.myllymaki@miltton.fi

Finance

Onguard’s new machine learning function enables companies to predict customer payment behaviour

Author ByCFI.co Blogger

London, 14 November 2019 – Onguard, the fintech company that streamlines the entire order-to-cash process, has announced that in collaboration with Altares Dun & Bradstreet and Quantforce, machine learning will feature in its platform to enable businesses to predict the payment behaviour of debtors and act accordingly. 

Available from early 2020, the platform brings together historical data from Onguard’s software, external debtor information from business data expert Altares Dun & Bradstreet and the relevant invoice and payment history of the customer via machine learning on a scorecard generated by Quantforce. The resultant score ranks the debtors in order of the risk of non-payment which enables organisations to estimate and anticipate the payment behaviour of customers at an early stage.

Adjusting workflows based on debtor information
Once the customer’s risk profile is known, it becomes possible to adjust workflows directly to payment risk with the help of artificial intelligence. When it is predicted that a customer will not pay or pay too late, it is possible to immediately take the necessary actions. This saves the organisation time and limits exposure and unnecessary tasks, such as sending reminders or transferring it to collection agencies. Similarly, this avoids those customers who are shown to regularly pay on time being bothered unnecessarily. 

“There is an enormous amount of data available both within and outside organisations, which is currently not being used,” says Daniel van den Hoven, VP Alliances & Partners at Onguard. “With all available data, organisations can better understand customers.  In addition, credit managers see at a glance which customer needs extra attention and can easily prioritise. The advantage for the organisation is that there is more focus on high-risk customers and that the processing time for invoices becomes shorter.”

Thanks to the collaboration between Quantforce, Altares Dun & Bradstreet and Onguard, it is possible for businesses to predict in advance whether and when customers will pay. This is beneficial for both the organisation and the customer because immediate action can be taken to find a solution when a payment fails. In this way, credit management is organised more proactively and efficiently

Rob Berting, Managing Director of Quantforce adds: “The collaboration between these three parties from the same market is logical. All three have our own expertise and because we have joined forces, we can offer even more value to the customer. Quantforce assigns the scores on the basis of proven algorithms and also applies machine learning. This makes it possible to automatically adjust workflows on the Onguard platform to the debtor risk. In this way Onguard can optimally support the customer and their debtors in the order-to-cash process.”

Adriaan Kom, Director Partnerships at Altares Dun & Bradstreet: “We place great value on the customer relationship and thanks to this collaboration we can add even more value to the customer.  The combination of data gives organisations an insight into how a debtor will behave in the near and distant future. In this way a company gains a more in-depth understanding of the customer which will elevate the business to a higher level.”

About Onguard

Over the past 25 years, Onguard has grown from a specialist in credit management software to a market leader in innovative solutions in the field of order to cash. The integrated platform ensures that all processes in the order-to-cash chain are optimally linked and that critical data can be shared. Intelligent tools which interface seamlessly combine to provide an overview and control of the payment process and help build lasting customer relationships. Users in over 50 countries worldwide work with the Onguard platform on a daily basis to achieve successful management and tangible results in Order to Cash and Credit Management. Read more at http://onguard.com/.

Technology

G-Core Labs and Wasabi Technologies partner to offer superior cloud storage and CDN services for the media and entertainment business

Author ByCFI.co Blogger

Boston, MA / Amsterdam, NL. Wasabi Technologies, the hot cloud storage company, today announces a partnership with G-Core Labs, an international provider of cloud and edge solutions for content delivery, hosting and security. Now Wasabi customers can leverage company’s cloud storage with G-Core Labs global content delivery network (CDN), whilst G-Core Labs expands the geography of its cloud storage in Europe, North America and Asia by offering  Wasabi.      

The integrated solution particularly benefits customers with applications that require large file sizes to be transported and stored with high performance such a media storage, gaming, e-commerce and online services. The partnership will significantly reduce costs for customers, while increasing their speed of operations and making it easier for them to scale internationally. It will also provide fault-tolerant data warehousing and content delivery network functionality with Wasabi’s 11x9s data durability and G-Core Labs CDN average response time of less than 30 milliseconds.

Dmitry Samoshkin, vice president of products at G-Core Labs commented: “By simultaneously providing high-quality cloud storage and accelerating the loading and delivery of multimedia content and business information, G-Core Labs and Wasabi are together offering ground-breaking, integrated solutions.Whether you are a fast-growing online multimedia service provider, a game developer, bank or medical company, your business requires a high-performance content delivery network that makes it easy to scale. This is what this partnership is offering – at market-leading prices.”   

“Through this partnership, customers can take advantage of G-Core Labs’ market leading content delivery network services in combination with Wasabi’s hot cloud storage offering” stated David Friend, CEO of Wasabi. e

“The G-Core Labs CDN is easily accessible for Wasabi customers in Europe, Russia and Asia as it has been integrated through our S3 API. Together, we are enabling customers to get ahead of the competition by cutting storage costs and ensuring faster, more reliable data delivery.”

Wasabi delivers a truly agile and cost-effective storage hub for hybrid and multi-cloud media workflows. This is built on a revolutionary file system and architecture, with multiple data centres across the United States and in Europe.

Wasabi writes and reads data faster than competing cloud storage services and the company has transformed the cloud storage market by offering a single tier of ultra-high performance storage with no charges for data egress or API requests.

About G-Core Labs

G-Core Labs is an international cloud and edge leader in content delivery, hosting and security solutions for any business, headquartered in Luxembourg, whose global infrastructure is included in the Guinness Book of Records.

G-Core Labs provides a wide range of services for customers of all industries that develop their business online. The company’s services include managed hosting, content delivery network (CDN), advanced media platform for professional broadcasts and streaming of any complexity, protection against DDoS attacks of any level, cloud content storage etc. G-Core Labs built its own global infrastructure on all continents (over 100 nodes in reliable Tier 3 data centers) with the best CDN performance in Europe, Russia and the CIS.

The company’s clients are leading international and regional brands in the field of telecommunications, finance, media, video games developers and publishers, including MTS, Beeline, Megaphone, Tinkoff Bank, Wargaming holding (World of Tanks, World of Warships, World of Warplanes), american publisher of games RedFox Games, TV channel “78”, etc.

 On content delivery network (CDN)

G-Core Labs created its own global content delivery network on five continents to solve the difficult problem of instantly transmitting the heaviest type of content — high-quality online games, with peak loads on the system. The infrastructure created was tested by millions of users playing at the same time and became the owner of the Guinness record.

G-Core Labs provides instantaneous transfer of content, speeding up customers’ websites and online stores and offering highly-efficient security.

G-Core Labs network is ready for any peak traffic, as the total network bandwidth exceeds 7 Tbit/s. G-Core Labs has about 4,000 peering partners, in addition to agreements with major operators and an ISP license.

CDN by G-Core Labs has the best performance in Europe, Russia and the CIS according to Citrix.com, a leader in independent monitoring and optimising CDN performance, in the following parameters:

  • The best throughput (the amount of data that a site transmits in fixed time)
  • The best response time (actual request processing time, plus the delay in transmitting information over the network and messages delay in the queue)
  • The best time of files downloading.

Furthermore, CDN by G-Core Labs allows for:

• More than 1 million full HD videos to be watched at the same time

• Over 2.1 million simultaneous requests to be sent to the site per second

• Five million song downloads per second

• More than 20 million tracks to be listened to at the same time

About Wasabi Technologies

Wasabi is the hot cloud storage company delivering disruptive storage technology that is 1/5th of Amazon S3 and faster than the competition with no fees for egress or API requests. Unlike first generation cloud vendors, Wasabi focuses solely on providing the world’s best cloud storage platform. Created by Carbonite co-founders and cloud storage pioneers David Friend and Jeff Flowers, Wasabi is on a mission to commoditize the storage industry. Wasabi is a privately held company based in Boston, MA. Follow and connect with Wasabi on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and our blog.

Technology

Veriff hires a top executive from Stack Overflow and opens an office in New York

Author ByCFI.co Blogger
Veriff hires a top executive from Stack Overflow and opens an office in New York
Guy Zerega

Online verification company Veriff hires Guy Zerega, a former Executive Vice President of Revenue of Stack Overflow. Zerega serves as the Senior Vice President of Sales at Veriff being in charge of building the company’s global sales organization and business expansion.

Zerega spent the last 8 years at a programmer-specific Q&A portal Stack Overflow leading the sales organization as their Executive Vice President of Revenue and working to make the internet a better place. 

According to Guy Zerega, Veriff SVP of Sales, the mission of a safer internet aligns perfectly with Veriff’s intention to make trust scalable and reliable the online world. “In a couple of years, the idea of online identity verification will become commonplace. I see  tremendous potential for Veriff to dramatically change the online verification processmeanwhile building and improving trust on the Internet.”

According to Kaarel Kotkas, Veriff CEO and founder, it’s exciting to welcome Guy to Veriff’s team. “Guy brings over 20 years of sales, sales leadership, and building world-class sales and customer success teams globally to Veriff. He has lots of experience in opening new offices, market expansion and that’s what he is also going to focus on in Veriff. Together with Guy we can turn Veriff into a verb the fastest.”

Zerega started at Stack Overflow eight years ago being the employee number 38. Over the years, he built the company’s sales team from 3 to 135 people with three revenue streams. He has sold products and services in many different environments ranging from start-ups to the Fortune 50 companies. Under his leadership, Stack Overflow also opened overseas offices in London and Munich. 

“I am looking forward to doing the same at Veriff, it’s super exciting. Opening the New York office and setting up a sales team in the US is a crucial first step for the further global expansion,” Zerega added. 

Stack Overflow is a programmer-specific Q&A portal, where developers can ask their programming related questions by combining the idea of a Q&A site with voting and editing. With more than its 10 million users, Stack Overflow has grown into a trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.

About Veriff

Veriff is a global online verification company that protects businesses and their customers from online identity fraud by making sure that a person is who they claim to be. With the help of artificial intelligence, Veriff analyses thousands of technological and behavioural variables in seconds, verifying people from 190+ countries. Founded in 2015, Veriff serves a global portfolio of internet businesses including fintech companies, sharing economy providers and marketplaces in London, New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Vienna, and other major cities. Veriff is an alumnus of the startup accelerator Y Combinator and has raised €7.35m ($8.3m) in funding. Veriff employs over 300 people in Tallinn, Estonia. 

Finance

Rogue Device Mitigation Startup Sepio Systems Completes $6.5M Series A round led by Hanaco Ventures and Merlin Ventures

Author ByCFI.co Blogger

Gaithersburg, Maryland – US and Israel-based cybersecurity company Sepio Systems, has raised a $6.5 million in Series A funding round led by Hanaco Ventures and Merlin Ventures, with the participation of existing investors Energias de Portugal (EDP), Mindset Ventures and Pico Partners. Since its establishment Sepio Systems has raised $11 million.

Yossi Appleboum, CEO of Sepio Systems Inc.
Yossi Appleboum, CEO of Sepio Systems Inc.

In conjunction with the financing, Sepio also announced the appointment of two new executives to its management team: Gili Sahar joins as Chief Financial Officer and Chen Ben Eliyahu takes as Vice President of Business Development.

Sepio offers the world’s first end-to-end solution that detects and mitigates hardware-based attacks, rogue peripherals, invisible network devices, and manipulated firmware. The company’s Sepio Prime, which is a software-only solution, has been successfully deployed in over 25 banks, insurance, and telecom companies in the U.S., Singapore, Brazil, South Africa and Israel.

Rogue device cyber-attacks are rapidly growing as demonstrated by CNBC’s recent report on ATM attacks and the serious data breach in NASA, whose Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was hacked through the use of an unauthorized Raspberry Pi Computer.

“The increasing number of hardware based cyber-attacks is a major concern to all enterprises. While all other security solutions are focused on software threats, they are incapable of stopping threats coming from hardware”, said Yossi Appelboum, co-founder and CEO of Sepio Systems, Inc.

“Sepio defines and solves a problem most enterprises know they have but cannot quantify or resolve,” explains Alon Lifshitz Founding Partner at Hanaco Ventures. “Besides creating the Rogue Device Mitigation category, it’s rare as an investor to back founders that have worked as a team for over twenty years now building their third startup together.”

“Partnering with Hanaco and Merlin and the continuous support from our existing investors highlights the industry reception to our solution. This major investment allows us to grow faster, increasing marketing and sales activities and engineering resources.”, added Mr. Appleboum.

Merlin’s partnership with Sepio includes bringing its Rogue Device Mitigation solution to market in the US Federal space. “As soon as we saw Sepio, we realized it was filling a critical gap in supply chain security by extending network visibility down to the physical layer. Our model is to invest in differentiated cybersecurity technology that we can bring to market to solve our customers’ most difficult challenges, and we see Sepio as the perfect fit.”, added David Phelps, Chairman and CEO of Merlin.

As part of its expansion, Sepio is opening a new office in Mclean, Virginia for supporting the US federal customers.

About Hanaco Ventures

Hanaco Ventures is a New York and Tel Aviv based Venture Capital fund that invests in the most promising start ups from the Israeli ecosystem. Hanaco partners with Israeli companies, wherever they are in the world, helping them become category leaders beloved by their customers.
www.hanacovc.com

About Merlin Ventures

Merlin Ventures invests in emerging technologies to create enterprise ready products that protect government and commercial organizations. Merlin offers a broad portfolio of solutions that secure the enterprise from endpoints to networks, from governance to risk management, from infrastructure to information. Combining solutions with deep industry expertise and experience, Merlin delivers the cybersecurity solutions that organizations need to protect their most critical business assets while furthering their mission.
www.merlincyber.com

About Sepio Systems 

Sepio is disrupting the cyber-security industry by uncovering hidden hardware attacks. Sepio Prime provides security teams with full visibility into their hardware assets and their behavior in real time. A comprehensive policy enforcement module allows administrators to easily define granular device usage rules and continuously monitor and protect their infrastructure. Leveraging a combination of physical fingerprinting technology together with device behavior analytics, Sepio’s software-only solution offers instant detection and response to any threat or breach attempt coming from a manipulated or infected element.
www.sepio.systems

Business

Qualcomm set to benefit from wider 5G adoption

Author ByCFI.co Blogger

Comments from Anthony Ginsberg, Managing Director of GinsGlobal Index Funds

Qualcomm set to benefit from wider 5G adoption

Qualcomm has reported a drop in its adjusted earnings per share to 78 cents, but it was not as high as most analysts were expecting. The company was expected to provide a much gloomier report than it did, based off its Q2 numbers.

The company’s shares were up around 3% in after hours trading, while earnings are expected to trail last year’s figure.

Qualcomm’s large investment into 5G has proven fruitful for the San Diego-based semiconductor maker. We believe it will be a leader in the Internet of Things and benefit from the explosion in Cloud Technology too – since companies active in this sector will be dependent on 5G technology.

It’s likely 5G wireless networks will usher in a range of new possibilities for businesses. Health-care startups could use the speed and power of 5G to conduct remote surgery. 5G is predicted to be 100 times faster than the current generation of wireless. Qualcomm Inc.’s venture-capital division is setting aside $200 million to invest in 5G wireless startups – an indication of its commitment to this area.

Qualcomm is partnering with US phone carriers such as Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. – in the race to roll out 5G offerings. In September, Qualcomm announced new mobile platforms that will power lower-cost 5G phones – making them far cheaper than the current $1000 plus cost. This includes new Series 6 and Series 7 chips.

Meanwhile, Qualcomm is both working and competing with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. over 5G intellectual property and to supply 5G-compatible chipsets to smartphone makers as they introduce 5G-enabled phones.

We expect the US-China trade war to simmer down – now that Phase 1 is expected to be agreed to imminently. Qualcomm has previously been hurt by possible trade war worries. Qualcomm will likely be one of the biggest beneficiaries of a reduction in the trade dispute with China. Its share price has already started to show signs of recovery.

The importance of 5G

In the delivery of healthcare – 5G will be of tremendous economic benefit – especially in the areas of telematics and wearables – tracking how people are living. Healthcare accounts for almost 20% of the US GDP – so any efficiency drivers in this area will be widely adopted.

We believe wireless and 5G represent the future of business digitization. Qualcomm is well positioned to benefit from these significant trends. We expect early 5G innovations could occur in enterprise business settings next year.

About GinsGlobal

GinsGlobal Index Funds provides a wide variety of index-linked investment products.  These include traditional Index Funds (mutual funds), Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and Principal Protected (Capital Guaranteed) index notes. GinsGlobal has pioneered a common-sense investment approach that has challenged the fund management industry by offering customers a transparent and low-cost way to invest in any asset class whether it be stocks, bonds, real estate or alternative (hedge) investments.