Author Archives: Startup365

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#Blockchain PR: Postar – Public Chain Transaction Platform

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Postar – Public Chain Transaction Platform

This is a paid press release, which contains forward looking statements, and should be treated as advertising or promotional material. Bitcoin.com does not endorse nor support this product/service. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the press release.

Recently, Postar, the world’s first public chain eco-transaction platform，has attracted the attention at home and abroad. However, emerging in the bear market, Postar faces many challenges and doubts. Today, we will be using a simple language to expound this platform at multi-levels.

Regular
At present, projects are difficult to keep from intermingling the good and the bad due to the different attitudes of the national regulatory bills on crypto assets. Investors are hard to be safeguard. Therefore, the legality of the project has always been one of the concerns of investors.

Postar is currently applying for a license with the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Under the guidance of Singapore’s national strategy, Postar develops a brand new public chain eco-transaction model by using the blockchain as the core technology and trading platform as the carrier. It will be building a regular trading platform by basing itself within Singapore and facing the outside world, relying on its prior talent management experience and the advanced trading system.

Professional
Postar has a strong and solid team. Its core members mostly come from world famous companies such as Apple, Alibaba, KPMG and well-known blockchain venture capital firms.

Roy Zhang, Postar CEO, is expert on customer relationship and account security. He is former senior consultant of App Store and anti-fraud management team in Apple Greater China and early investor and observer of the blockchain in Southeast Asia

Tony Yang is a the CMO of Postar, who was a former chief team manager of Greater China of Apple, the director of anti-fraud team of iTunes Store, the founder of BITSG Block Chain Service which is the first block chain service company in Southeast Asia, and the initiator of the BitShares community in Singapore.

Jack Zhang, Postar CTO, graduated from Oxford Brookes University with 6 years experience in Internet and blockchain development. He has led a highly skilled development service team to successfully develop a number of large-scale website projects.

Ronny Doe a key engineer in Postar and he has worked in Alibaba, where he was one of the main developers of AliExpress, who’s also an expert in the field of block chain content storage and copyright protection.

Sky Qiu is the Executive Consultant of Postar, and he was the Senior Auditor as well as the Chartered Financial Consultant of KPMG, with rich experience in legal affairs and risk management.

Patrick Mei, Postar Chinese community leader, worked in QuarkChain as community manager with five years of investment experience; Blockchain self-media writer; Founder of Chief Capital; Early investor in multiple high-quality blockchain projects

This group of elites, from different fields, gather together to build Postar a first-class trading platform driving the development of the block chain with sound advanced technology and firm belief.

Innovative
Currently, traditional trading platform is chaotic. Public chains also face bottleneck. Postar is positioned in the global first trading platform of public chain ecology and in addition to providing users with basic services such as coin-to-coin trading and futures contracts, the public chain ecology is another highlight. With cooperation and opening, Postar selects online high-quality public chains, takes its original currency as the value-anchored ecological trading area, in order to promote its ecological development and meet more trading needs of investors, thus letting investors to give it real market value. The establishment of the Institute aims to break the current vicious competition and isolation of the public chains in the blockchain world, and embrace the development of the public chain ecosystem with an open and win-win attitude. Through the cooperation between the public chains and technology complementation, Institute focuses on accelerating the application of blockchain technology and promoting the development process of blockchain technology in all fields.

Dividend
We are well aware that the success of a blockchain project is heavily dependent on their community support. Postar introduces innovative model called “PoS mining dividend”. PSTR dividend and mining awards will be rewarded to token holders. There exist many excellent exchanges in the market. The emergence of Postar is a great change from model to system. It is always committed to promoting the development of the public chain ecology and digital asset trading market while returning profits to investors and the market. The return of power to the community and ultimately integrated with the community has also contributed to an important step in the exchange’s transformation.

We firmly believe that Postar, a new rising star in the digital trading platform, will surely bring us great surprise in the near future!

For more information，please visit the twitter at：
https://twitter.com/PostarExchange

Contact Email Address
bd@postar.top

Supporting Link:
http://www.postar.top/web/index.html

This is a paid press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release.

The post PR: Postar – Public Chain Transaction Platform appeared first on Bitcoin News.

from Bitcoin News https://ift.tt/2SF4oUH PR: Postar – Public Chain Transaction Platform

#Blockchain PR: Postar – Public Chain Transaction Platform

Posted on by

Postar – Public Chain Transaction Platform

This is a paid press release, which contains forward looking statements, and should be treated as advertising or promotional material. Bitcoin.com does not endorse nor support this product/service. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the press release.

Recently, Postar, the world’s first public chain eco-transaction platform，has attracted the attention at home and abroad. However, emerging in the bear market, Postar faces many challenges and doubts. Today, we will be using a simple language to expound this platform at multi-levels.

Regular
At present, projects are difficult to keep from intermingling the good and the bad due to the different attitudes of the national regulatory bills on crypto assets. Investors are hard to be safeguard. Therefore, the legality of the project has always been one of the concerns of investors.

Postar is currently applying for a license with the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Under the guidance of Singapore’s national strategy, Postar develops a brand new public chain eco-transaction model by using the blockchain as the core technology and trading platform as the carrier. It will be building a regular trading platform by basing itself within Singapore and facing the outside world, relying on its prior talent management experience and the advanced trading system.

Professional
Postar has a strong and solid team. Its core members mostly come from world famous companies such as Apple, Alibaba, KPMG and well-known blockchain venture capital firms.

Roy Zhang, Postar CEO, is expert on customer relationship and account security. He is former senior consultant of App Store and anti-fraud management team in Apple Greater China and early investor and observer of the blockchain in Southeast Asia

Tony Yang is a the CMO of Postar, who was a former chief team manager of Greater China of Apple, the director of anti-fraud team of iTunes Store, the founder of BITSG Block Chain Service which is the first block chain service company in Southeast Asia, and the initiator of the BitShares community in Singapore.

Jack Zhang, Postar CTO, graduated from Oxford Brookes University with 6 years experience in Internet and blockchain development. He has led a highly skilled development service team to successfully develop a number of large-scale website projects.

Ronny Doe a key engineer in Postar and he has worked in Alibaba, where he was one of the main developers of AliExpress, who’s also an expert in the field of block chain content storage and copyright protection.

Sky Qiu is the Executive Consultant of Postar, and he was the Senior Auditor as well as the Chartered Financial Consultant of KPMG, with rich experience in legal affairs and risk management.

Patrick Mei, Postar Chinese community leader, worked in QuarkChain as community manager with five years of investment experience; Blockchain self-media writer; Founder of Chief Capital; Early investor in multiple high-quality blockchain projects

This group of elites, from different fields, gather together to build Postar a first-class trading platform driving the development of the block chain with sound advanced technology and firm belief.

Innovative
Currently, traditional trading platform is chaotic. Public chains also face bottleneck. Postar is positioned in the global first trading platform of public chain ecology and in addition to providing users with basic services such as coin-to-coin trading and futures contracts, the public chain ecology is another highlight. With cooperation and opening, Postar selects online high-quality public chains, takes its original currency as the value-anchored ecological trading area, in order to promote its ecological development and meet more trading needs of investors, thus letting investors to give it real market value. The establishment of the Institute aims to break the current vicious competition and isolation of the public chains in the blockchain world, and embrace the development of the public chain ecosystem with an open and win-win attitude. Through the cooperation between the public chains and technology complementation, Institute focuses on accelerating the application of blockchain technology and promoting the development process of blockchain technology in all fields.

Dividend
We are well aware that the success of a blockchain project is heavily dependent on their community support. Postar introduces innovative model called “PoS mining dividend”. PSTR dividend and mining awards will be rewarded to token holders. There exist many excellent exchanges in the market. The emergence of Postar is a great change from model to system. It is always committed to promoting the development of the public chain ecology and digital asset trading market while returning profits to investors and the market. The return of power to the community and ultimately integrated with the community has also contributed to an important step in the exchange’s transformation.

We firmly believe that Postar, a new rising star in the digital trading platform, will surely bring us great surprise in the near future!

For more information，please visit the twitter at：
https://twitter.com/PostarExchange

Contact Email Address
bd@postar.top

Supporting Link:
http://www.postar.top/web/index.html

This is a paid press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release.

The post PR: Postar – Public Chain Transaction Platform appeared first on Bitcoin News.

from Bitcoin News https://ift.tt/2SF4oUH PR: Postar – Public Chain Transaction Platform

#Blockchain PR: Postar – Public Chain Transaction Platform

Posted on by

Postar – Public Chain Transaction Platform

This is a paid press release, which contains forward looking statements, and should be treated as advertising or promotional material. Bitcoin.com does not endorse nor support this product/service. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the press release.

Recently, Postar, the world’s first public chain eco-transaction platform，has attracted the attention at home and abroad. However, emerging in the bear market, Postar faces many challenges and doubts. Today, we will be using a simple language to expound this platform at multi-levels.

Regular
At present, projects are difficult to keep from intermingling the good and the bad due to the different attitudes of the national regulatory bills on crypto assets. Investors are hard to be safeguard. Therefore, the legality of the project has always been one of the concerns of investors.

Postar is currently applying for a license with the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Under the guidance of Singapore’s national strategy, Postar develops a brand new public chain eco-transaction model by using the blockchain as the core technology and trading platform as the carrier. It will be building a regular trading platform by basing itself within Singapore and facing the outside world, relying on its prior talent management experience and the advanced trading system.

Professional
Postar has a strong and solid team. Its core members mostly come from world famous companies such as Apple, Alibaba, KPMG and well-known blockchain venture capital firms.

Roy Zhang, Postar CEO, is expert on customer relationship and account security. He is former senior consultant of App Store and anti-fraud management team in Apple Greater China and early investor and observer of the blockchain in Southeast Asia

Tony Yang is a the CMO of Postar, who was a former chief team manager of Greater China of Apple, the director of anti-fraud team of iTunes Store, the founder of BITSG Block Chain Service which is the first block chain service company in Southeast Asia, and the initiator of the BitShares community in Singapore.

Jack Zhang, Postar CTO, graduated from Oxford Brookes University with 6 years experience in Internet and blockchain development. He has led a highly skilled development service team to successfully develop a number of large-scale website projects.

Ronny Doe a key engineer in Postar and he has worked in Alibaba, where he was one of the main developers of AliExpress, who’s also an expert in the field of block chain content storage and copyright protection.

Sky Qiu is the Executive Consultant of Postar, and he was the Senior Auditor as well as the Chartered Financial Consultant of KPMG, with rich experience in legal affairs and risk management.

Patrick Mei, Postar Chinese community leader, worked in QuarkChain as community manager with five years of investment experience; Blockchain self-media writer; Founder of Chief Capital; Early investor in multiple high-quality blockchain projects

This group of elites, from different fields, gather together to build Postar a first-class trading platform driving the development of the block chain with sound advanced technology and firm belief.

Innovative
Currently, traditional trading platform is chaotic. Public chains also face bottleneck. Postar is positioned in the global first trading platform of public chain ecology and in addition to providing users with basic services such as coin-to-coin trading and futures contracts, the public chain ecology is another highlight. With cooperation and opening, Postar selects online high-quality public chains, takes its original currency as the value-anchored ecological trading area, in order to promote its ecological development and meet more trading needs of investors, thus letting investors to give it real market value. The establishment of the Institute aims to break the current vicious competition and isolation of the public chains in the blockchain world, and embrace the development of the public chain ecosystem with an open and win-win attitude. Through the cooperation between the public chains and technology complementation, Institute focuses on accelerating the application of blockchain technology and promoting the development process of blockchain technology in all fields.

Dividend
We are well aware that the success of a blockchain project is heavily dependent on their community support. Postar introduces innovative model called “PoS mining dividend”. PSTR dividend and mining awards will be rewarded to token holders. There exist many excellent exchanges in the market. The emergence of Postar is a great change from model to system. It is always committed to promoting the development of the public chain ecology and digital asset trading market while returning profits to investors and the market. The return of power to the community and ultimately integrated with the community has also contributed to an important step in the exchange’s transformation.

We firmly believe that Postar, a new rising star in the digital trading platform, will surely bring us great surprise in the near future!

For more information，please visit the twitter at：
https://twitter.com/PostarExchange

Contact Email Address
bd@postar.top

Supporting Link:
http://www.postar.top/web/index.html

This is a paid press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release.

The post PR: Postar – Public Chain Transaction Platform appeared first on Bitcoin News.

from Bitcoin News https://ift.tt/2SF4oUH PR: Postar – Public Chain Transaction Platform

#Blockchain PR: Postar – Public Chain Transaction Platform

Posted on by

Postar – Public Chain Transaction Platform

This is a paid press release, which contains forward looking statements, and should be treated as advertising or promotional material. Bitcoin.com does not endorse nor support this product/service. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the press release.

Recently, Postar, the world’s first public chain eco-transaction platform，has attracted the attention at home and abroad. However, emerging in the bear market, Postar faces many challenges and doubts. Today, we will be using a simple language to expound this platform at multi-levels.

Regular
At present, projects are difficult to keep from intermingling the good and the bad due to the different attitudes of the national regulatory bills on crypto assets. Investors are hard to be safeguard. Therefore, the legality of the project has always been one of the concerns of investors.

Postar is currently applying for a license with the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Under the guidance of Singapore’s national strategy, Postar develops a brand new public chain eco-transaction model by using the blockchain as the core technology and trading platform as the carrier. It will be building a regular trading platform by basing itself within Singapore and facing the outside world, relying on its prior talent management experience and the advanced trading system.

Professional
Postar has a strong and solid team. Its core members mostly come from world famous companies such as Apple, Alibaba, KPMG and well-known blockchain venture capital firms.

Roy Zhang, Postar CEO, is expert on customer relationship and account security. He is former senior consultant of App Store and anti-fraud management team in Apple Greater China and early investor and observer of the blockchain in Southeast Asia

Tony Yang is a the CMO of Postar, who was a former chief team manager of Greater China of Apple, the director of anti-fraud team of iTunes Store, the founder of BITSG Block Chain Service which is the first block chain service company in Southeast Asia, and the initiator of the BitShares community in Singapore.

Jack Zhang, Postar CTO, graduated from Oxford Brookes University with 6 years experience in Internet and blockchain development. He has led a highly skilled development service team to successfully develop a number of large-scale website projects.

Ronny Doe a key engineer in Postar and he has worked in Alibaba, where he was one of the main developers of AliExpress, who’s also an expert in the field of block chain content storage and copyright protection.

Sky Qiu is the Executive Consultant of Postar, and he was the Senior Auditor as well as the Chartered Financial Consultant of KPMG, with rich experience in legal affairs and risk management.

Patrick Mei, Postar Chinese community leader, worked in QuarkChain as community manager with five years of investment experience; Blockchain self-media writer; Founder of Chief Capital; Early investor in multiple high-quality blockchain projects

This group of elites, from different fields, gather together to build Postar a first-class trading platform driving the development of the block chain with sound advanced technology and firm belief.

Innovative
Currently, traditional trading platform is chaotic. Public chains also face bottleneck. Postar is positioned in the global first trading platform of public chain ecology and in addition to providing users with basic services such as coin-to-coin trading and futures contracts, the public chain ecology is another highlight. With cooperation and opening, Postar selects online high-quality public chains, takes its original currency as the value-anchored ecological trading area, in order to promote its ecological development and meet more trading needs of investors, thus letting investors to give it real market value. The establishment of the Institute aims to break the current vicious competition and isolation of the public chains in the blockchain world, and embrace the development of the public chain ecosystem with an open and win-win attitude. Through the cooperation between the public chains and technology complementation, Institute focuses on accelerating the application of blockchain technology and promoting the development process of blockchain technology in all fields.

Dividend
We are well aware that the success of a blockchain project is heavily dependent on their community support. Postar introduces innovative model called “PoS mining dividend”. PSTR dividend and mining awards will be rewarded to token holders. There exist many excellent exchanges in the market. The emergence of Postar is a great change from model to system. It is always committed to promoting the development of the public chain ecology and digital asset trading market while returning profits to investors and the market. The return of power to the community and ultimately integrated with the community has also contributed to an important step in the exchange’s transformation.

We firmly believe that Postar, a new rising star in the digital trading platform, will surely bring us great surprise in the near future!

For more information，please visit the twitter at：
https://twitter.com/PostarExchange

Contact Email Address
yhdswd@gmail.com

Supporting Link:
http://www.postar.top/web/index.html

This is a paid press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release.

The post PR: Postar – Public Chain Transaction Platform appeared first on Bitcoin News.

from Bitcoin News https://ift.tt/2SF4oUH PR: Postar – Public Chain Transaction Platform

#UK Cancer Research UK and AstraZeneca unveil world-class functional genomics hub in Cambridge

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Cancer Research UK and AstraZeneca are opening a new innovation hothouse in the Cambridge science & technology cluster to maximise the potential of functional genomics in the discovery and development of new drugs for patients with cancer.

The hub will be based at the Milner Therapeutics Institute at the University of Cambridge and operationalised through Cancer Research UK’s Therapeutic Discovery Laboratories – the charity’s in-house drug discovery unit focused on establishing drug discovery alliances with industry.

Specialist staff employed by both organisations at the centre will facilitate collaborative projects.

The partnership will explore in more detail the function and interaction of genes and proteins in cancer and apply new genome-altering technologies such as CRISPR, to create sophisticated models of the disease for research.

The centre will be a dedicated world-class resource for AstraZeneca and Cancer Research UK’s academics and alliance partners working at all stages of translational research, from target discovery and validation, to assessing novel drug combinations.

By combining the experience and expertise of both organisations in cancer biology and functional genomics, including CRISPR technologies, it’s hoped that this state-of-the-art facility will help deliver new treatments to patients much faster.

Building on the transformative potential of CRISPR for gene editing and understanding cancer biology, this centre will be a major driver for the use of CRISPR in drug discovery and development in the UK and is being established with the expert guidance of Professor Greg Hannon, director of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute.

He said: “This new centre will be a huge asset to the UK cancer research community and will accelerate the development of new treatments for people with cancer. “After two decades of effort, we’re making fast progress but we’re still only just beginning to tap into the full potential of CRISPR and to understand how this is applied alongside other functional genomics approaches.

“As we develop high-quality standardised techniques through the centre, we can create more sophisticated and powerful biological models of disease, handle larger and more complex data sets, and identify successful cancer drug targets with better accuracy.”

The Functional Genomics Centre will be a hub of expertise in genetic screens, cancer models, CRISPR tool design and computational approaches to big data. These techniques can be used to understand the genetic changes contributing to cancer development and to identify and validate potential drug targets.

CRISPR technologies are also improving our ability to model disease systems, allowing researchers to accurately predict how these new treatments will work in patients, and identify genetic drivers of drug resistance. While researchers from both Cancer Research UK and AstraZeneca will have independent access to the centre facilities, it’s also anticipated that it will be a catalyst for future collaboration.

Dr Iain Foulkes, Cancer Research UK’s executive director of research and innovation, said: “This exciting new initiative will give leading Cancer Research UK scientists and our alliance partners access to the latest in CRISPR technology.

“As we move into an era of personalised medicine, we’ve reached a turning point in our ability to harness powerful technologies in the pursuit of targeted cancer therapies. We hope that this will translate into urgently needed new therapies for patients with hard to treat cancers, such as lung, pancreatic, oesophageal and brain tumours.”

Dr Mene Pangalos, executive vice-president, Innovative Medicines & Early Development, AstraZeneca, said: “The best science doesn’t happen in isolation which is why AstraZeneca is committed to advancing innovative science through collaboration.

“This new centre of excellence with Cancer Research UK will combine our expertise in functional genomics and CRISPR technology to identify new biological pathways driving disease and will accelerate the development of new cancer medicines for patients.”

Preliminary research is due to begin in January 2019, with laboratory work expected to start in the second half of 2019.
Under the terms of the agreement both Cancer Research UK and AstraZeneca will own outputs of their respective projects with no associated option rights.

Each partner will have equal access to the centre’s screening capacity and joint projects will be identified on a case-by-case basis by mutual need.

from Business Weekly https://ift.tt/2L5kgxe

Posted in #UK

#USA Waggel launches ‘fully digital’ pet insurance

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Waggel, a new ‘insurtech’ startup in the U.K., is officially launching today to offer what it describes as “fully digital” pet insurance.

Founded by Andrew Leal, and Ross Fretten (a contestant of The Apprentice 2017), the company wants to offer more transparent cover for your pet, where you’ll know exactly how much you’re paying and for what provision, as well as offer rewards for improving the care of your animal.

“The biggest problem in pet insurance and insurance in general is the lack of value that customers get with a policy,” says Leal. “You pay a monthly fee and get nothing in return except maybe a promise to pay out a claim in the future. On top of this, pet insurance has become extremely complicated for users with confusing policy names and jargon-rich wording. The industry is still largely paper based, slow and terrible at communicating with customers and as a result falling well short of todays consumer expectations. Insurance is very much a grudge purchase”.

Leal says that Waggel is attempting to solve this by offering a fully digital solution that puts the customer experience first “to alleviate the stress that is typical of insurance”.

You are able to get a quote within 30 seconds that explains in simple language what you’re getting for your money. You can also make a claim within the app and track that claim in real-time, while Waggel promises to be transparent on how much it is paying out and why.

“All without having to hear another minute of hold music!” quips the Waggel founder.

In addition to the startup’s core insurance product, Waggel offers a rewards programme that Leal says makes it easier and more affordable for customers to take preventative care of their pet through feeding them higher quality nutrition. This comes in the form of “discounts with our hand-picked quality pet food partners,” he says.

In terms of competition, Leal says there are numerous incumbents in the pet insurance space but cites PetPlan and Animal Friends as the main two.

“Pet insurance has gotten stuck in a vicious cycle,” he adds. “The market has developed in that competitors offer an extremely homogenous product. With not much separating the different offerings, price has become the main differentiator. On the other side, the average vet bills have continued to rise. This means that insurers are getting squeezed for profits and having to offer less and less value to their customers, whilst being stricter and stricter on claims.

“We want to bring a new fresh approach to the market in that we want to see our policyholders as members and their premium as a subscription, for which they can get continuous value for their monthly fee through our rewards programme”.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2E8wjsa

#Africa Egyptian e-health startup Vezeeta bags extra funding from IFC

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Egyptian e-health startup Vezeeta has raised additional funding from IFC to add to the US$12 million in Series C financing it raised earlier this year to continue its international expansion.

Launched in 2015 in Cairo, Vezeeta allows users to find and book appointments with over 10,000 doctors, and is also available in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The startup has managed three million bookings in the region and served 2.5 million patients.

In September, Vezeeta announced it had raised a US$12 million Series C funding round, which was briefly the largest single round ever raised by an Egyptian tech startup until ridesharing startup Swvl topped it in November. It has now secured an additional investment from IFC to help it continue with its expansion drive.

“IFC is a global power that will not only help fuel our growth but also bridge us to an incredible global network,” said Amir Barsoum, Vezeeta’s founder and chief executive officer (CEO).

The investment comes as part of IFC’s broader efforts to support entrepreneurship and to expand financial access to startups to create new markets. Last week it selected 100 startups from across the continent to take part in its Next Startups initiative.

“Startups like Vezeeta have the power to drive innovation in the Middle East and Africa,” said IFC CEO Philippe Le Houérou. “Entrepreneurs across the African continent have enormous creativity and drive – and they’re using the power of new technologies to tackle the region’s most formidable social and economic challenges.”

Vezeeta chief technology officer (CTO) Adel Khalil said the startup would continue to empower millions of patients in the region through data and new products in healthcare, ensuring that patients and healthcare providers are seamlessly integrated and engaged.

The post Egyptian e-health startup Vezeeta bags extra funding from IFC appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

from Disrupt Africa https://ift.tt/2ROr44U

#Blockchain $1 Million BTC Options Position Set to Expire on Dec. 28

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$1 Million BTC Options Position Set to Expire on Dec. 28th

Former portfolio manager at the University of Chicago endowment and current CIO of Blocktower Capital, Ari Paul, was reported to have made the largest-ever speculative play using BTC options during December of 2017. The contracts, which will expire on Dec. 28, 2018, are almost guaranteed to close as a total loss.

Also Read: Report: Indian Government Panel Submits Crypto Recommendations 

Ari Paul’s Record Options Position Set to Soon Flop

$1 Million BTC Options Position Set to Expire on Dec. 28The options were purchased for nearly $1 million when BTC was trading for approximately $16,200, 12 months ago.

The call options have a strike price of $50,000, meaning that BTC would have to spike by over 1,400 percent in the next two and a half weeks in order for the contracts to retain any value, as they will expire to be worthless should prices fail to sit above $50,000 as of Dec. 28.

The $50,000 calls were purchased for $3,600 each. Twitter-based cryptocurrency commentator Bambouclub recently posted that contracts for $40,000 calls are currently trading for $9.60 on Deribit, estimating that Paul has already eaten a more than 99.73 percent loss.

Should the tides turn in Paul’s favor, the contracts would entitle him to 275 BTC value at $50,000 each, equating to $13.8 million worth of crypto.

Apparently-Doomed Options Position the Largest Taken on Ledgerx

$1 Million BTC Options Position Set to Expire on Dec. 28During December of 2017, Ledgerx chief executive officer, Paul Chou, confirmed the position, adding that such was the largest options trade to have been placed using the company’s platform.

While protecting the identity of the trader who placed the position, Chou described the trade as being indicative of increased institutional demand for cryptocurrency, stating: “Without a doubt, there are institutions out there that are looking at these types of trades or have done these types of trades,” adding that the trader behind the position was “not an individual.”

On Dec. 22, 2017, Business Insider reported that “people familiar with the matter” had revealed that the seven-figure position had been made by Blocktower Capital. The report also cited a tweet posted by Blocktower co-founder Ari Paul, stating “I wonder who bought these?” that was accompanied by a winking smiley and a link to Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the trade.

Options Position Taken to Manage Risk

$1 Million BTC Options Position Set to Expire on Dec. 28In an interview with CNBC that was published on Dec. 26, 2017, Paul confirmed that he had made the trade, stating: “I think it’s not quite as interesting as people make it out to be.”

Paul stated that the position had been taken in the interest of managing the risk of his fund’s portfolio, adding that he “wouldn’t recommend for most people to buy these options.”

“I manage a cryptocurrency portfolio and I’m trying to give investors access to the upside, but I’m also very focused on risk management,” Paul continued. “So these calls are a way for me to capture upside exposure, while actually owning less bitcoin [and] reducing my downside risk.”

What is your response to the apparently impending wipe-out of Blocktower’s record sized options position? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock

At Bitcoin.com there’s a bunch of free helpful services. For instance, have you seen our Tools page? You can even lookup the exchange rate for a transaction in the past. Or calculate the value of your current holdings. Or create a paper wallet. And much more.

The post $1 Million BTC Options Position Set to Expire on Dec. 28 appeared first on Bitcoin News.

from Bitcoin News https://ift.tt/2EozKfc $1 Million BTC Options Position Set to Expire on Dec. 28

#UK Seven Cambridge companies in UK gazelles hot 100

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Seven technology businesses born or rooted in Cambridge have made a new elite of Britain’s fastest growing businesses – the Top 100, created by Cambridge equity crowdfunder SyndicateRoom.

CMR Surgical, developing a next-generation surgical robot, was highest placed of the local fraternity in sixth. It is also the highest ranking medical devices business.

Improbable is seventh, Darktrace 34th, Healx 45th, Cytora 48th, Telensa 66th and Cydar 77th.

Martin Frost, CEO of CMR Surgical, said: “This is great recognition of a transformational year for CMR Surgical. The support from our investors, both new and existing, and the hard-work of our world-class team, has enabled the rapid growth of our company in 2018.

“This all gets us closer to our goal of delivering the benefits of minimal access surgery to all who need it.  We are now firmly focused on 2019 and launching Versius to the NHS and the wider world.”

The SyndicateRoom listing comes just months after CMR Surgical announced a record-breaking Series B funding round of $100 million – the largest ever Series B raise by a medical devices company in Europe.

The company has more than doubled in size over the past year, now employing over 250 people, and is moving into a 55,000 sq ft global headquarters on the outskirts of Cambridge.

Improbable was Cambridge’s 15th billion dollar business. It makes distributed simulation software for video games and corporate use.

The virtual reality sensation secured a $500m investment round led by Arm’s Japanese owner SoftBank earlier this year. It was founded by Cambridge computer science alumni Herman Narula (CEO) and Rob Whitehead (CTO) in 2012.

Its SpatialOS operating system is transforming capabilities across sectors as diverse as game development, smart city design, including transport networks, telecoms and monitoring of autonomous vehicles.

Darktrace is Cambridge’s most recent billion dollar company and is gaining increasing global traction with cyber security technology based on Cambridge University IP.

Healx, specialising in re-formulating treatments for sufferers of rare diseases, is leveraging an AI platform – HealNet. The technology enables highly parallel and large-scale rare disease drug discovery, significantly reducing time, cost and risk.

HealNet was built and is maintained using a variety of machine learning methods applied to a wide range of data types from both publicly available and exclusive sources. These include scientific literature, patents, clinical trials, disease symptoms, drug targets, multi-omics data and chemical structures. HealNet is enhanced by a team of rare disease experts, patient advocates, pharmacologists, clinicians and scientific curators.

Cytora,founded and spun out of the University of Cambridge in 2014, is building new foundations for commercial insurance, enabling insurers to underwrite more accurately and deliver fairer prices to their customers. Its goal is to elevate the insurance industry to a new standard where insurance is simple, fast, and transparent, built on a foundation of tractable data.

Telensa is already internationally successful. The company makes wireless smart city applications, helping cities, regional authorities and utilities around the world save energy, work smarter and deliver more joined up services.

Cydar, based in Barrington, is working to improve care in the operating room. Co-founders Tom Carrell, a vascular surgeon and Graeme Penney, an imaging scientist, formed Cydar in 2012 to solve a true clinical problem – the need for better visualisation of the anatomy during endovascular surgery.

Since then, Carrell and Penney have been turning world-leading image processing research into a global first in cloud-based healthcare.

SyndicateRoom’s Top 100 report uses a unique methodology which analysed valuations over time to rank the UK’s top private companies.

Green energy supplier Bulb tops this year’s league table, having multiplied its valuation by 351x since 2015; 67 per cent of winners are based in London and only 12 per cent of companies have female founders.

Francesca O’Brien, head of private markets at SyndicateRoom, said:“It’s always great to see such a wide array of exciting companies leading the nation – but there is some cause for concern.

“The UK’s historical status as Europe’s tech hub is based in part on the easy access London startups have to VC financing. Brexit is happening, and it’s already affecting the level of funding available for our homegrown businesses. If the UK wants to remain at the edge of innovation, we need to find a new way to collaborate.”

SyndicateRoom is an online investment platform which has helped 140+ early-stage UK businesses secure more than £140 million in funding through its investor-led equity crowdfunding model.

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Posted in #UK

#Africa SA insurtech startup Pineapple accepted into US-based accelerator

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South African startup Pineapple has been accepted into the Hartford Insurtech Hub accelerator programme as it prepares to launch its product in the United States (US).

Pineapple, which raised funding last year and took part in Google’s Launchpad Africa accelerator earlier this year, is the world’s first insurance network, allowing members to insure things with the snap of a picture and keep all unused premium.

It is one of 10 teams from across the world accepted into the Connecticut-based Hartford Insurtech Hub, powered by Startupbootcamp, which strives to partner insurtech startups across the globe with insurance companies in the US

The three-month programme, which received more than 230 applications, begins in February, and offers startups the support, resources and industry and investor connections they need to help grow their businesses.

Pineapple co-founder Matthew Elan Smith told Disrupt Africa the startup was participating in the accelerator programme in an attempt to partner with insurance companies in the US ahead of a planned launch in the country.

“Getting into the Hartford Insurtech Hub is going to be a big catalyst to us launching Pineapple in the US,” he said.

“It gives us access to a huge network of mentors and professionals in the industry there as well as engagement with US carriers to partner up with. We are super excited for the opportunity because being able to take a proudly South Africa-built product into the US market will be a massive achievement.”

Fellow co-founder Marnus van Heerden said the ecosystem created by Hartford Insurtech Hub was “amazing”, demonstrating what a public-private partnership should look like.

“The mayor of Hartford was there, their head of regulation was their, they even have a state run venture capital arm. To back this up they invited all the major insurance companies, VCs and experts from across the board ranging from IP lawyers to design experts,” he said.

The state of Connecticut is positioning itself as the global hub for insurtech business, in much the same way as Silicon Valley is for venture capital in general. Its two advantages in this respect are the fact it is already the insurance hub of the US, and its proximity to both New York and Boston, which gives entrepreneurs based in Hartford access to resources from these cities without incurring the high cost of living there.

The post SA insurtech startup Pineapple accepted into US-based accelerator appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

from Disrupt Africa https://ift.tt/2zKv9jN