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If you are a web developer, you know how complex many of the traditional web content management systems have been. One of the big problems has been managing the underlying infrastructure for the system. Cosmic JS, a member of the Winter 2019 Y Combinator class, wants to simplify that by taking care of the infrastructure part for you, while providing a flexible front end for content creators.

“Our customers benefit from using Cosmic because they can avoid the pain of building and maintaining their own CMS infrastructure. For a monthly service fee, we provide a seamless infrastructure for them, and it allows them to focus on what really matters, building great products and user experiences,” Cosmic JS CEO and co-founder Tony Spiro told TechCrunch.

As with so many YC companies, this one started with a pain point the founders were feeling in their jobs developing websites in an agency setting in 2014. Spiro was building the websites and CMO and co-founder Carson Gibbons was servicing accounts, and they saw a problem with the infrastructure piece.

“We found that there was a huge bottleneck just installing and maintaining our own backend infrastructure management. So around that time, I began building out Cosmic on the side. I thought it would be great if there was just a web dashboard and an API to deliver content as a service. And so that’s how it all got started,” Spiro explained. By removing infrastructure management from the equation, Cosmic was freeing developers to concentrate solely on the customer-facing bits.

Cosmic JS content edit view. Screenshot: Cosmic JS

Spiro and Gibbons left their jobs to concentrate on Cosmic full time after the release of the initial version in 2016. They aim the product at web development teams with between 5 and 100 members. The product has three main user types: developers, site managers and content producers. So far, it has attracted 250 customers in 100 countries.

While it’s not open source, it does rely on community members to build extensions and apps. “We have hundreds of apps (ready-made websites and applications) and extensions built by our community,” Spiro said. These tools enable Cosmic to connect to best of breed services and tools like photos, videos or search without having to create them from scratch.

Cosmic JS website templates and apps. Screenshot: Cosmic JS

Spiro says that they joined Y Combinator at the behest of their advisors and investors and it has been a formative experience. “We applied and got in, and and now we’re surrounded by just some of the most impressive and intelligent people in technology.” Spiro said.

So far Cosmic JS includes the two co-founders with some contractors and freelancers helping out along with the extended development community. The company has received some funding, but the founders weren’t ready to share the amount just yet.

Their goal is to continue building the paid user base, and increase community participation through outreach and events.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2FY4XXt

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Well, that was short-lived: Just 36 hours after Curve, the London fintech that lets you consolidate all of your bank cards into a single Curve card, re-instated support for Amex, the feature has once again been unceremoniously blocked by American Express. This time, however, the context feels very different from 2016 when the startup was barely off the ground, with Curve telling customers in an email this morning that it intends to “fight Amex’s decision with our full might”.

Going up against the deep pockets and dominant market position of American Express will undoubtedly be a “David and Goliath” battle, although, unlike two years ago, Curve is now backed by an array of investors that includes Connect Ventures and Santander. Arguably, the startup will have U.K. and EU payments and competition regulations on its side, too, although it is hard to predict with certainly if the U.K. regulators will use their full teeth in a situation like this and how they will interpret those existing U.K. and EU regulations.

Curve’s position, however, is clear: In the same email to customers, the company has called the move “anti-competitive” and says the move is “entirely disproportionate and discriminatory” to Curve. “U.K. payment regulations clearly state that Curve should be allowed to access the Amex payment network on a level-playing field with every other fee-paying and legitimate merchant,” write the startup.

However, American Express disputes this, telling TechCrunch it doesn’t have regulatory obligations to work “with Curve or any individual merchants”.

Meanwhile, the credit card giant has been busy briefing journalists that it ended its merchant contract with Curve for business reasons, following what looked like a successful beta test with a small number of joint customers. Perhaps the trial was too successful, with American Express telling me Curve customers were using Amex added to Curve in ways that were different to its regular customers, which, one could argue, is the whole point. To truly innovate, you have to offer something new. Something truly new, has to be different.

With that said, the method with which Curve was accessing the Amex network is a well-established one. Technically, Curve had signed a “merchant” contract with American Express, just like any other merchant and many existing e-wallet products, such as PayPal or YoYo Wallet, which, notably, haven’t been blocked. As part of the trial period, the fintech had also made changes to its own product to accommodate Amex, requiring customers to top up their Curve card in advance if they wanted to spend from their Curve-Amex wallet.

In other words, this was definitely not a “don’t ask for permission, ask for forgiveness” situation on Curve’s part. The two companies had been working together for months, and in talks for even longer, to get Curve back on the Amex network. A merchant contract had been signed. What changed at the 11th hour is unclear, although we can be sure this one has a long way to play out just yet.

American Express provided TechCrunch with the following statement:

We participated in a limited Curve beta test in which we explored enabling Card Members to load funds onto an e-wallet using their Amex Card in the Curve app. A very small number of Amex Card Members participated in the test. Based on the results, we communicated to Curve that we would not participate in the further roll out of Curve because of concerns related to the overall American Express Card Member experience. Subsequently we terminated our contract with them.

And here’s the full email sent out by Curve to customers, myself included:

Dear Steve,

We are extremely sorry that the top-up functionality of your Amex wallet is currently disabled.

Like thousands of other UK merchants, Curve has a valid merchant agreement to accept Amex payments into its e-wallet. However, on Tuesday evening, Amex decided to terminate this agreement and block all Amex transactions to Curve with immediate effect.

Amex has given no good or fair reason for their decision and we believe it is entirely disproportionate and discriminatory to Curve and all our (joint) customers. UK payment regulations clearly state that Curve should be allowed to access the Amex payment network on a level-playing field with every other fee-paying and legitimate merchant.

Rest assured that you can still spend the funds that you have already topped up to your existing Amex Wallets. If you have contacted us for support, we apologise for the delay in response and will endeavour to do so as soon as possible. We will update you as soon as we have any further information.

With your interests in mind, and our mission to deliver a truly innovative product, we intend to fight Amex’s decision with our full might. We believe financial freedom is the future and we are prepared to fight for yours.

Team Curve

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Wannaby, a startup out of Belarus that is building “AR commerce” experiences, has launched a beta of its latest app, which aims to make it easier to find the perfect sneakers.

Dubbed “Wanna Kicks,” the iOS app uses augmented reality to let you “try on” various pairs of sneakers. You simply choose a pair of kicks from the list of 3D models, point your camera at your feet and — bingo — you’re now virtually wearing your chosen footwear.

The effect is pretty instant and tracks reasonably well as you move and rotate your feet or change camera angle. You can even try walking and the AR app will follow your footsteps. It doesn’t work quite as well standing in front of a mirror, which would be more useful, but that is something Wanna Kicks’ makers say they are working on.

Ultimate, however, Wannaby believes its technology can help both customers and retailers. The premise is simple: the better idea you have of how a pair of sneakers will look when you’re actually wearing them, the more likely you are to make the right purchase and the less likely you are to return an item. Online retailers spend a lot of their margins trying to get customers to convert, and arguably even more servicing returns.

“Our mission is to break online shopping barriers,” Wannaby CEO and ex-Googler Sergey Arkhangelskiy tells me. “We believe that AR try-on can help customers to shop online and will wash away the difference between online and offline shopping. We see two major problems in the shoe market. Online conversions are quite low, and returns are quite high, in comparison to traditional ‘brick-and-mortar’ shopping. The ability to try sneakers with your phone before buying online should shift conversions, engagement, and returns”.

Arkhangelskiy argues that AR is also a great marketing tool. Unsurprisingly, Wanna Kicks lets you save a photo of your feed clad in new virtual sneakers, which you can then share on social media. Video sharing is in the pipeline, too.

“Many shoe brands are presenting their new releases both online and offline,” he says. “Lots of customers are eager to know more about new sneaker releases, and AR is a great new way for people to experience sneakers that are new to the market or are about to get to the market. Essentially, this is the main idea behind Wanna Kicks: allowing users to choose and decide whether they like a shoe or not without visiting a physical store”.

Under the hood, Wannaby says it uses sophisticated “3D geometry algorithms” together with neural networks to identify the position of the shoe in space. It’s these algorithms that the startup says are its secret sauce and the company’s main innovation. To onboard sneakers into the app, Wannaby utilises its own studio to create bespoke 3D models.

“We’ve built Wanna Kicks for Gen Z and millennials who are interested in buying sneakers and eager to know whether they will fit their style or not,” adds Arkhangelskiy. “The AR and AI community will love our launch as well — we’ve accomplished a really difficult task in computer vision and rendering”.

Meanwhile, Wannaby is backed by Bulba Ventures, and Haxus. The startup has raised $2 million in seed funding to date.

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

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Telecom company Altice is about to close a significant investment in French startup Molotov — the two companies have entered into exclusive negotiations. While terms of the deal are undisclosed, Altice should end up with a majority stake in Molotov for hundreds of millions of euros.

This is an interesting move as it greatly increases the reach of Molotov and opens up some new opportunities when it comes to internationalization, content and more.

Molotov is an over-the-top streaming platform in France. You can find all major TV channels, stream live content and watch replays for free. There are optional subscriptions to unlock more features, such as cloud recordings and premium channels.

The service is available on all major platforms — desktop, mobile, tablet, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Panasonic, etc. It is one of the most popular apps on tvOS and Android TV, always at the top of the stores with Netflix and myCanal.

When I last covered Molotov, the company told me that it has 7 million users in France. Every day, 1.2 million users watch something on Molotov. They stream a total of 1.1 million hours of content. As you can see, those Molotov sessions can be quite long.

Altice currently operates in France under the name SFR, Israel, Portugal, Dominican Republic and the U.S. following the acquisition of Cablevision. Like many telecom companies, Altice and its founder Patrick Drahi also has invested in content and media.

The company owns NextRadioTV (BFM TV, BFM Business, BFM Paris, RMC Story and RMC Découverte). It operates premium sports channels as the company currently has the distribution rights of the Premier League in France. It owns different newspapers and magazines, such as Libération and L’Express.

Interestingly, Altice has also acquired video adtech company Teads. You could already imagine new monetization opportunities for Molotov and Teads.

As Altice has already negotiated distribution rights with every TV network in France for its own set-top boxes, you can imagine a better offering on Molotov in the coming months. For instance, you could imagine being able to subscribe to Canal+ or BeIN Sports from Molotov.

Molotov had raised around $35 million from Idinvest (Benoist Grossmann), Sky, TDF, Cherry Tree Invest and others. While the service will remain available to everyone even if you’re an Orange subscriber for instance, SFR customers will get an extended version of Molotov for free. Altice will keep the name Molotov.

Molotov co-founder and CEO Jean-David Blanc will remain at the head of Molotov. With this open approach, Altice doesn’t just want to integrate the service into its offering. Molotov will remain an independent service and grow independently from Altice’s telecom operations.

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

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Pinterest, the 11-year-old, San Francisco-based site known for the photos its users post about everything from wedding to beauty to art world trends, has hired Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase as lead underwriters for an IPO that it’s planning to stage later this year. Reuters reported the news and TechCrunch sources have since confirmed the development.

A Pinterest spokesperson separately declined to “comment on rumors and speculation,” when reached this afternoon.

Pinterest has raised roughly $1.5 billion over the years and was valued at $12 billion by its private investors during its last fundraising round in 2017. Notably, its backers include Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, among many other investment firms, both early and later-stage, like Valiant Capital Partners, Wellington Management, Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners.

The company’s revenue last year was $700 million, more than double what the company generated in revenue in 2017. It has 250 million monthly active users, compared with the 200 million monthly active users who were on the platform as of mid 2017.

Whether Pinterest has ever been profitable, we couldn’t learn this afternoon. But the company employs 1,600 people across 13 cities globally, including Chicago, London, Paris, São Paulo, Berlin, and Tokyo, and 50 percent of its users now live outside the U.S., with the international market its fastest-growing segment. Perhaps unsurprisingly, more than 80 percent of people access the service via its mobile app.

Assessing how Pinterest’s shares might be received by public market shareholders has become a favorite parlor game for Silicon Valley denizens. In a recent report, the outlet The Information posited that Pinterest’s offering could suffer because it’s a social media company that’s frequently lumped together with companies like Facebook and Twitter that have repeatedly raised concerns about users’ privacy and having been facing a nearly year-long backlash as a result.

It’s worth noting, though, that Pinterest is far afield from what most users think of as social media and more akin to a visual search and discovery platform, with people looking for ideas and inspiration rather than to reach other people.

“I’m a bull,” venture capitalist Venky Ganesan of Menlo Ventures told us recently on a TechCrunch podcast. Partly why, Ganesan explained, is that “there are no Russian trolls” on Pinterest. More, he’d said, “I haven’t seen Pinterest sell [users’] data. They’re using data to [figure out] advertising on Pinterest; they aren’t brokering [that information] to others.”

Pinterest, which could reportedly raise up to $1.5 billion in its IPO, is also entirely dependent on advertising, which is often the easiest expense for companies to slash when an economy begins to cool, as may be happening here in the U.S. Here, too, however, Pinterest could prove more durable than some of its competitors. While brand-image driven advertising often gets cut when budgets tighten, direct response advertising often does even better in down markets, as companies seek out clearer returns on their investment, and much of Pinterest’s revenue is driven by direct response advertising. Users see, they click, and they buy. As Ganesan offered during that same sit-down with TC, Pinterest might actually be “playing into the healthiest part of the economy. I’ve gotta tell you, I’ve got three daughters at home, and they spend a lot of time on Pinterest, and they buy stuff.” (Ganesan isn’t an investor in the company; neither is the broader Menlo Ventures team.)

Pinterest could reportedly seek to raise up to $1.5 billion in an offering, according to past media reports. Whether it targets more or less, we’re likely to learn soon, but an IPO has been expected for some time, in part because the company is now getting up there in years as startups go, in part because of its continued growth, and in part because of some new hires that seemed to suggest the company has been gearing up to become publicly traded.

In November, for example, Pinterest brought aboard its first-ever chief marketing officer in Andréa Mallard, who joined the company from Athleta, Gap’s activewear brand, and now oversees its global marketing and creative teams. Roughly a year ago, Pinterest also recruited its first COO, hiring  Francoise Brougher, who was previously a  business lead at Square and a VP of SMB global sales and operations at Google before that.

In fact, unlike many of today’s buzziest companies, Pinterest seems to have retained almost all of the executives who work at the company with one notable exception, In late 2017, it parted ways with its then president, Tim Kendall, who’d been with Pinterest for more than five years at the time and who left to start his own health wellness company called Moment.

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

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Knotch announced yesterday that it has raised $25 million in Series B funding.

The round was led by New Enterprise Associates, with NEA’s Hilarie Koplow-McAdams joining the Knotch board of directors. Rob Norman, the former chief digital officer of ad giant GroupM, is also joining the board.

“Brands have a desire to understand the effectiveness of their digital content across all channels, a gap that hadn’t been filled before Knotch,” Koplow-McAdams said in a statement. “Our conviction around the Knotch platform and team is driven by their impressive traction and comprehensive product offerings. We’re thrilled to partner with Knotch as they continue their growth trajectory, providing transformative marketing intelligence at scale.”

When we first wrote about Knotch back in 2012, it was a consumer product where people could share their opinions using a color scale. It might seem like a stretch go from that to marketing and data company, but in fact Knotch still collects data using its color-based feedback system — now, it’s using that system to ask consumers about their response to sponsored content.

In addition, Knotch offers a competitive intelligence product, as well as Blueprint, which helps marketers find the best publishers for their sponsored content.

“As [brands are building] their own content hubs and recognizing content as a really key piece of their marketing stack, as they’re turning to this space, there’s not a lot of great options for them to turn to and say, ‘Here’s a way to know in advance which creative themes and topics and formats [are going to resonate]. Here’s how we optimize this content, here’s a way to benchmark what you’re doing,” founder and CEO Anda Gansca told me.

And it sounds like Gansca’s vision goes beyond sponsored content.

“In this convoluted landscape, you need a partner that is going to be your Switzerland of data, who’s aligned with you, collecting transparent digital performance data across paid and own channels,” she said.

Knotch has now raised a total of $34 million. Customers include JP Morgan Chase, AT&T, Ally Bank, Ford, Calvin Klein and Salesforce.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2Sg34ez

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Darkstore, a technology-driven fulfillment solution for companies like Nike and others, has raised a $7.5 million Series A round. With the additional funding in hand, Darkstore plans to expand its fulfillment center into more categories.

Currently, Darkstore fulfills products for brands in the areas of footwear, home and consumer electronics. With the funding, Darkstore will expand into lifestyle, health and beauty and athletic leisure, Darkstore founder and CEO Lee Hnetinka told TechCrunch over the phone.

“There are other categories where we get inbound and turn it down,” Hnetinka said. Down the road, Hnetinka said he envisions additional categories, including groceries and perishables.

Darkstore works by exploiting excess capacity in storage facilities, malls and bodegas and enables them to be fulfillment centers with just a smartphone. The idea is that brands without local inventory can store it in a Darkstore and then ship out same-day. Darkstore charges brands across three areas: fulfillment, storage and delivery.

“Up until now, Darkstore has really been behind the scenes,” Hnetinka said. “We want to continue to do that and to be a superpower to our brands. Our mission is to enable the brands to be direct to consumer and we believe we can help them do that even better by creating what we call a branded movement.”

Specifically, Darkstore envisions creating a badge for brands to place on their websites to signal that it offers same-day delivery via Darkstore. Brands currently see Darkstore as a competitive advantage, Hnetinka said, so they’re unwilling to promote its use of Darkstore, but he hopes to change that. That change would ideally help brands to increase trust with its customers, while also undoubtedly providing more visibility and therefore more business for Darkstore.

Also on the docket for 2019 is to explore a new giving initiative. Tentatively called Darkstore Giving, the idea is to make it easier for brands to reduce return-driven waste. Instead of throwing away lightly used items, Darkstore could facilitate the donation of those items to nonprofit organizations.

Darkstore first launched in 2016, counting mattress startup Tuft & Needle as one of its first customers. To date, Darkstore has raised almost $10 million in funding.

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

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What could Google’s parent company Alphabet, and the wealth management office of the likes of Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, understand better than the need for a service to manage all the data their companies are collecting?

As regulations in Europe begin to take effect (and European regulators show their teeth), companies like Collibra, which just raised $100 million at a valuation of more than $1 billion from new investor CapitalG (the growth equity investment fund from Alphabet) and returning backers like Iconiq (the family office of Dorsey, Zuckerberg, et al.), are only going to become more important.

Indeed, the recent $57 million fine from France’s data protection watchdog is only a taste of what could be in store for companies like Facebook and Google for non-compliance with new privacy laws. Companies like Collibra and its competitors like Alation, Adaptive Insights, Datum and Informatica are reaping the benefits of this by providing software to oversee how the data that companies are collecting is handled.

The company got its first big boost back in 2008 in the wake of the financial crisis when big banks were confronted with a whole new slew of regulations. Collibra is used to track what data is stored where and how, and to ensure that the data is being processed in ways that align with laws on the books.

Collibra’s new round is something of a victory lap for the company — which is coming off a record revenue year, according to a statement.

The company said it would use the new funding to add new products and push sales and marketing.

“Collibra is putting organizations back in control of their data, helping them comply with changing legislation, embrace emerging technologies and capture the information that will enable them to design services and solutions built for the future,” said Derek Zanutto of CapitalG. “We look forward to partnering with Collibra and marrying Google and Alphabet’s machine learning and AI expertise with Collibra’s leadership in data collaboration, workflow management and risk management.”

Collibra says it has more than 300 customers across industries like financial services, healthcare, retail and technology.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2S10qKA

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Taiwanese technology giant Foxconn International is backing Carbon Relay, a Boston-based startup emerging from stealth today that’s harnessing the algorithms used by companies like Facebook and Google for artificial intelligence to curb greenhouse gas emissions in the technology industry’s own backyard — the data center.

Already, the computing demands of the technology industry are responsible for 3 percent of total energy consumption — and the addition of new technologies like Bitcoin to the mix could add another half a percent to that figure within the next few years, according to Carbon Relay’s chief executive, Matt Provo.

That’s $25 billion in spending on energy per year across the industry, Provo says.

A former Apple employee, Provo went to Harvard Business School because he knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur and start his own business — and he wanted that business to solve a meaningful problem, he said.

Variability and dynamic nature of the data center relating to thermodynamics and the makeup of a facility or building is interesting for AI because humans can’t keep up.

“We knew what we wanted to focus on,” said Provo of himself and his two co-founders. “All three of us have an environmental sciences background as well… We were fired up about building something that was true AI that has positive value… the risk associated [with climate change] is going to hit in our lifetime, we were very inspired to build a company whose technology would have an impact on that.”

Carbon Relay’s mission and founding team, including Thibaut Perol and John Platt (two Harvard graduates with doctorates in applied mathematics) was able to attract some big backers.

The company has raised $6 million from industry giants like Foxconn and Boston-based angel investors, including Dr. James Cash — a director on the boards of Walmart, Microsoft, GE and State Street; Black Duck Software founder, Douglas Levin; Karim Lakhani, a director on the Mozilla Corporation board; and Paul Deninger, a director on the board of the building operations management company, Resideo (formerly Honeywell).

Provo and his team didn’t just raise the money to tackle data centers — and Foxconn’s involvement hints at the company’s broader goals. “My vision is that commercial HVAC systems or any machinery that operates in a business would not ship without our intelligence inside of it,” says Provo.

What’s more compelling is that the company’s technology works without exposing the underlying business to significant security risks, Provo says.

“In the end all we’re doing are sending these floats… these values. These values are mathematical directions for the actions that need to be taken,” he says. 

Carbon Relay is already profitable, generating $4 million in revenue last year and on track for another year of steady growth, according to Provo.

Carbon Relay offers two products: Optimize and Predict, that gather information from existing HVAC devices and then control those systems continuously and automatically with continuous decision making.

“Each data center is unique and enormously complex, requiring its own approach to managing energy use over time,” said Cash, who’s serving as the company’s chairman. “The Carbon Relay team is comprised of people who are passionate about creating a solution that will adapt to the needs of every large data center, creating a tangible and rapid impact on the way these organizations do business.”

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