//

Continuing a trend that VCs here in London tell me is seeing an increasing amount of deal-flow in Europe attract the interest of top-tier Silicon Valley venture capital firms, TechCrunch has learned that email security provider Tessian is the latest to raise from across the pond.

According to multiple sources, the London-based company has closed a Series B round led by Sequoia Capital. I understand that the deal could be announced within a matter of weeks, and that the round size is in the region of $40 million. Tessian declined to comment.

Founded in 2013 by three engineering graduates from Imperial College — Tim Sadler, Tom Adams and Ed Bishop — Tessian is deploying machine learning to improve email security. Once installed on a company’s email systems, the machine learning tech analyses an enterprise’s email networks to understand normal and abnormal email sending patterns and behaviours.

Tessian then attempts to detect anomalies in outgoing emails and warns users about potential mistakes, such as a wrongly intended recipient, or nefarious employee activity, before an email is sent. More recently, the startup has begun addressing in-bound email, too. This includes preventing phishing attempts or spotting when emails have been spoofed.

Meanwhile, Tessian (formerly called CheckRecipient) raised $13 million in Series A funding just 7 months ago in a round led by London’s Balderton Capital. The company’s other investors include Accel, Amadeus Capital Partners, Crane, LocalGlobe, Winton Ventures, and Walking Ventures.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2RvyBJL

//

Acorn Biolabs wants consumers to pay them to store genetic material in a bet that the increasing advances in targeted genetic therapies will yield better healthcare results down the line.

The company’s pitch is to “Save young cells today, live a longer, better, tomorrow.” It’s a gamble on the frontiers of healthcare technology that has managed to net the company $3.3 million in seed financing from some of Canada’s busiest investors.

For the Toronto-based company, the pitch isn’t just around banking genetic material — a practice that’s been around for years — it’s about making that process cheaper and easier.

Acorn has come up with a way to collect and preserve the genetic material contained in hair follicles, giving its customers a way to collect full-genome information at home rather than having to come in to a facility and getting bone marrow drawn (the practice at one of its competitors, Forever Labs) .

“We have developed a proprietary media that cells are submerged in that maintains the viability of those cells as they’re being transported to our labs for processing,” says Acorn Biolabs chief executive Dr. Drew Taylor.

“Rapid advancements in the therapeutic use of cells, including the ability to grow human tissue sections, cartilage, artificial skin and stem cells, are already being delivered. Entire heart, liver and kidneys are really just around the corner. The urgency around collecting, preserving and banking youthful cells for future use is real and freezing the clock on your cells will ensure you can leverage them later when you need them,” Taylor said in a statement.

Typically, the cost of banking a full genome test is roughly $2,000 to $3,000, and Acorn says they can drop that cost to less than $1,000. Beyond the cost of taking the sample and storing it, Acorn says it will reduce to roughly $100 a year the fees to store such genetic materials.

It’s important to note that healthcare doesn’t cover any of this. It’s a voluntary service for those neurotic enough or concerned enough about the future of healthcare and their potential health. 

There’s also no services that Acorn will provide on the back end of the storage… yet.

“What people do need to realize is that there is power with that data that can improve healthcare. Down the road we will be able to use that data to help people collect that data and power studies,” says Taylor. 

The $3.3 million the company raised came from Real Ventures, Globalive Technology, Pool Global Partners and Epic Capital Management and other undisclosed investors.

“Until now, any live cell collection solutions have been highly expensive, invasive and often painful, as well as being geographically limited to specialized clinics,” said Anthony Lacavera, founder and chairman at Globalive. “Acorn is an industry-leading example of how technology can bring real innovation to enable future healthcare solutions that will have meaningful impact on people’s wellbeing and longevity, while at the same time — make it easy, affordable and frictionless for everyone.”

from Startups – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2MgOEoU

//

Today, Ubiquity6 has announced that it is acquiring Wavy, a small AR music startup founded last year.

In a blog post, the Wavy team confirmed that they’ll be joining the Ubiquity6 team and won’t be continuing their work on the Wavy app. “When we met the team at Ubiquity6, it became apparent that joining the team there would be a leap forward towards our shared mission of enabling creators to edit reality,” the post reads.

Wavy’s app sought to give musicians an outlet to bring concerts into phone-based AR users’ living rooms.

The tight team of 3 joins Ubiquity6 after what was generally a rough year for the consumer-focused AR industry. While the number of supported devices climbed, the actual user base didn’t see much growth. A lot of the progress came in the platform tools such as Ubiquity6, the startup closed a $27 million Series B led by Benchmark and Index Ventures in August.

The Wavy app shares some essential DNA with what Ubiquity6 is looking to build. The app allows people to drop 3D objects into spaces and upload videos of the “music experiences” unfolding in front of them. It’s very fundamental stuff but at its base level asks questions about how 3D content can interact with spaces and people and how those new environments change the context of the art and music.

This fits into what Ubiquity6’s idea of a spatial internet, where users can stumble upon 3D environments where AR content lives based on where they are and what their phone camera is seeing. The company hasn’t launched widely, but the had a pilot program with the SFMOMA last year and have also announced that they are working with Disney.

We chatted with Ubiquity6 CEO Anjney Midha at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 about the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for the consumer-focused AR industry.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2syf78p

//

Tyto Care, a telehealth company that enables physicians to conduct on-demand remote exams, announced today that it has added $9 million to its Series C, bringing the round’s total to $33.5 million. The new funding comes from strategic investors Sanford Health, Itochu and Shenzhen Capital Group. First announced last year, the oversubscribed Series C was led by Ping An Global Voyager Fund, run by the Chinese financial conglomerate.

Itochu, Shenzhen Capital Group and Sanford Health, the largest rural not-for-profit healthcare system in the United States, will serve as Tyto’s new strategic partners as it expands in Japan, China and the U.S., its largest market. The New York-based company has now raised $54 million to date.

Tyto’s telehealth service combines a set of connected hardware that patients keep at home to make video calls to doctors. Called TytoHome, the small handheld tools are used to examine the heart, lungs, throat, ears, skin, abdomen, heart rate and body temperature of a patient, enabling doctors to assess their condition remotely and decide if they need further medical care. Tyto also integrates with third-party tools for blood pressure, blood oxygen saturation and weight scales. Patient data can be aggregated into Tyto’s data platform, which the company says will eventually be used to help with diagnosis and health alerts.

Remote health exams are especially helpful for children, elderly people, patients with chronic conditions and patients recovering from operations who need frequent monitoring. In an email, CEO and co-founder Dedi Gilad told TechCrunch that the company also targets rural areas that have limited access to healthcare facilities or are affected by the global shortage of physicians.

The U.S., Japan and China “are all turning to digital health technology to help solve myriad public health issues, including expensive healthcare and aging and dense populations,” Gilad said.

Founded in 2012, the company launched in the U.S. in 2017 after receiving clearance from the Food and Drug Administration, and in 2018 in Canada after it also received regulatory approval there. Because of different healthcare systems and regulations in each of its markets, the company expands in new markets like Japan and China through strategic partnerships with health systems, telehealth companies (including Ping An Good Doctor in China, which has 170 million users), large private practices and self-insured employers. So far it has struck partnerships with 50 health organizations.

Tyto’s new funding will be used to find new partners in the U.S. and expand into new markets in Europe and Asia. It also plans to add new modular exam tools for home diagnostics and remote monitoring.

In a statement, Shenzhen Capital Group chairman Zewang Ni said “Tyto Care’s mission of making high-quality healthcare accessible from the comfort of home is crucial, especially in China. We believe that telehealth will significantly improve the lives of Chinese consumers, whether they are parents with sick children at home, elderly patients facing chronic illnesses, or citizens living in remote areas with less access to medical care.”

from Startups – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2RuHGTi