Ideaforge

Latin America is getting another fintech unicorn thanks to Advent International’s acquisition of a 51 percent stake of Prisma Medios de Pago, an Argentine payments company formed as a joint venture between Visa International and local banks.

The deal, which values Prisma at $1.42 billion, is yet another sign of Latin America’s growing prominence for global investment and the central role that fintech plays in the development of an innovation economy in the region.

Prisma Medios de Pago is the leading payments company in Argentina, and one of the largest in Latin America, with a full suite of services including point-of-sale hardware rental, e-commerce gateways, transaction processing, payments processing and electronic bill pay.

Its newest business line, TodoPago, offers peer-to-peer payments, mobile wallets, point of sale offerings, QR code payments and e-commerce payments to merchants.

Across Latin America, fintech startups have hit billion-dollar valuations and raised hundreds of millions as investors vie for a piece of the region’s growing e-commerce and financial services markets.

Brazil’s StoneCo Ltd., a provider of payment technology and services, is worth more than $6 billion after its October 2019 initial public offering. It’s a decline from the $9 billion pop the company had back when it debuted on the Nasdaq, but still represents a healthy valuation for the Latin American technology company.

Waiting in the wings are companies like Brazil’s NuBank, which reached a $4 billion valuation last year on the strength of a significant investment from the Chinese technology giant, Tencent.

At the time, company co-founders Cristina Junqueira and David Velez said the opportunity for financial services startups to achieve significant scale was far higher in emerging markets like Brazil than in developed markets, because the barriers to banking are so much higher.

Financial services, Velez said, has been controlled by massive oligopolies that have erected unfair obstacles to wealth creation for the masses. Nubank and other companies like it are working to change that.

An article from Fintech Futures last year outlined just how large the opportunity was for Latin America. In 2018, roughly half the population of Latin America was unbanked. In Brazil, about 40 percent of the country have no access to traditional banking services and its small businesses face a credit gap of $237 billion, according to a McKinsey study cited by Fintech Futures.

Investment in fintech has soared alongside the opportunity. Two years ago, fintech investment on the continent nearly hit $600 million, and public offerings like Stone and PagSeguro point to public market appetite for the sector.

Source: Tech Crunch

Zynga founder Mark Pincus is raising up to $700 million for a new investment fund that will focus on publicly traded tech companies in need of strategic restructuring, according to a new report in Axios. It says his new firm is called Reinvent Capital and that Pincus is founding the outfit with hedge fund manager Michael Thompson, who has been steering his own New York-based firm, BHR Capital, for the last nine years.

Reinvest’s plans, says Axios, involve investing in up to 15 internet, software, and media companies, adding that the firm will be “size agnostic,” working with small, medium, and large-cap companies.

Pincus has been a founder and operator since graduating from Harvard Business School in the early ’90s, cofounding an early internet company called FreeLoader, a web-based push technology services that sold a couple of years later to a now-defunct public company. Pincus went on to cofound SupportSoft, a pioneer in tech support and cloud services, then an early social network called Tribe.net, before founding the social gaming company Zynga in the spring of 2007.

The company went public in 2011 at a $7 billion valuation. Seen as vulnerable to competition and to the whims of Facebook, whose rules had already changed in ways that hurt Zynga leading into its IPO, its shares began slipping almost immediately. Today, the market cap of the company —  where Pincus remains non-executive chairman after twice stepping into and out of top management roles — is $3.7 billion

That Pincus would become a full-time investor is less surprising than the stage of companies he will reportedly be targeting. Pincus has long been an active investor, though typically (as far as we know) taking very early stakes in companies. Among his most recent seed-stage bets, for example, is Spatial, a roughly year-old, Emeryville, Ca.-based cross-reality collaboration platform that turns rooms into 3D workspaces and that raised raised $8 million in seed funding last fall, including from Pincus, along with numerous other individual investors and early-stage venture firms.

Another is Invisible, a New York-based company that says it can customers to outsource their work (professional and personal) to real humans via AI, and which raised $2.6 million in seed funding last fall.

A third recent and slightly later-stage bet centers on Cargo Systems, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based startup that helps ride-sharing drivers earn money by bringing the convenience store into their vehicles and that raised $22 million in Series A funding led by Founders Fund back in September.

In fact, Pincus appears to have generated much of his wealth via one very early bet on Facebook. According to tech journalist David Kirkpatrick’s book, “The Facebook Effect,” Pincus, alongside his longtime friend Reid Hoffman, had written an early $40,000 check to the company. When Facebook went public, Pincus reportedly sold roughly one million shares, about a fifth of his stake at the time, for what was expected to be $35 million in pre-tax dollars.

Hoffman, who famously cofounded LinkedIn and is today a partner with the venture firm Greylock Partners, is reportedly advising Reinvent Capital. It’s just the latest effort on which the two are teaming up.

In the summer of 2017, Pincus and Hoffman announced an effort called Win the Future, or WTF, that aimed to be a “new movement and force within the Democratic Party,” Pincus had told the outlet Recode at the time. Designed to be equal parts platform and movement, it began life by allowing site visitors to vote on topics like whether or not engineering degrees should be free to all Americans.  The site no longer features much at all, other than a descriptor as a “non partisan project lab.”

Hoffman more recently landed in hot water after it was learned that he had indirectly contributed funding to a deceptive social media campaign aimed at helping Democratic candidate Doug Jones win Alabama’s state senate race in 2017. Jones won narrowly; Hoffman has said he had no knowledge of the project, did not endorse its tactics, and that he “categorically” disavows the use of misinformation to sway a campaign.

We reached out to Pincus earlier today to learn more. We hope to have more information for you soon.

Source: Tech Crunch

Having reached critical mass, Netflix shows are now influencing culture — whether that’s prompting everyone to “tidy up” or causing chaos with “Bird Box”-inspired challenges. For good or bad, what happens on Netflix is talked about, memed and shared across the social media landscape. Today, Netflix is launching a new feature aimed at better inserting its brand into those online conversations: Instagram Story integration.

Launching first on iOS, Netflix users will be able to share their favorite movies and shows to their Instagram Story right from the Netflix mobile app.

The feature will add the title’s custom art to a users’ Instagram Story, where it remains visible for 24 hours. The Story can also be customized with other options, like a user poll, for example.

If the viewer has the Netflix app installed on their iPhone, they’ll see a “watch on Netflix” link in the Story that takes them to the show’s or movie’s page in the Netflix app when tapped.

This isn’t the first time you could share a show from Netflix’s app to a social platform — that’s been supported for some time. However, the existing experience will pull up iOS’s “share sheet” (the built-in sharing function in the iOS operating system).

According to a screenshot provided by Netflix, however, the new sharing feature is now a part of the Netflix app itself.

After tapping “share,” a screen appears with various options, including WhatsApp, Messages, Messenger, Twitter, Line and more, in addition to the newly added “Instagram Stories.”

The launch follows Facebook’s introduction of an option last year that allows third-party apps to share their in-app content to Instagram Stories. The idea was to provide users with an alternative to screenshotting what they wanted to share from other apps — like a song, a video, a playlist, etc. — to Instagram Stories. It’s also meant to provide a more seamless experience for the Story’s viewers, as they’re able to tap the Story to engage with the shared content — while also giving the brand more control over the look-and-feel of what’s being shared.

In Netflix’s case, it’s branding shared title art with the name of the show or film, as well as a teaser or slogan, and the words “Netflix Original,” where relevant. (The feature works with all titles, not just originals.)

The feature could prompt more word-of-mouth recommendations between friends and followers on Instagram, whose Stories platform alone is bigger than Snapchat, reaching more than 400 million users. And it could help content go viral within a certain fan base or demographic — like teen girl viewers or sci-fi fans, for instance — as prominent Instagram accounts shared the Netflix show.

“We’re always on the lookout for ways to make it easier for members to share the Netflix titles they’re obsessing about and help them discover something new to watch,” said Netflix in a statement about the launch.

Instagram Stories integration is launching today on iOS to Netflix users worldwide. An Android version is in the works.

Source: Tech Crunch

The CNIL, the French data protection watchdog, has issued its first GDPR fine of $57 million (€50 million). The regulatory body claims that Google has failed to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) when new Android users set up a new phone and follow Android’s onboarding process.

Two nonprofit organizations called ‘None Of Your Business’ (noyb) and La Quadrature du Net had originally filed a complaint back in May 2018 — noyb originally filed a complaint against Google and Facebook, so let’s see what happens to Facebook next. Under the GDPR, complaints are transferred to local data protection watchdogs.

While Google’s European HQ is in Dublin, the CNIL first concluded that the team in Dublin doesn’t have the final say when it comes to data processing for new Android users — that decision probably happens in Mountain View. That’s why the investigation continued in Paris.

The CNIL then concluded that Google fails to comply with the GDPR when it comes to transparency and consent.

Let’s start with the alleged lack of transparency. “Essential information, such as the data processing purposes, the data storage periods or the categories of personal data used for the ads personalization, are excessively disseminated across several documents, with buttons and links on which it is required to click to access complementary information,” the regulator writes.

For instance, if a user wants to know how their data is processed to personalize ads, it takes 5 or 6 taps. The CNIL also says that it’s often too hard to understand how your data is being used — Google’s wording is broad and obscure on purpose.

Second, Google’s consent flow doesn’t comply with the GDPR according to the CNIL. By default, Google really pushes you to sign in or sign up to a Google account. The company tells you that your experience will be worse if you don’t have a Google account. According to the CNIL, Google should separate the action of creating an account from the action of setting up a device — consent bundling is illegal under the GDPR.

If you choose to sign up to an account, when the company asks you to tick or untick some settings, Google doesn’t explain what it means. For instance, when Google asks you if you want personalized ads, the company doesn’t tell you that it is talking about many different services, from YouTube to Google Maps and Google Photos — this isn’t just about your Android phone.

In addition to that, Google doesn’t ask for specific and unambiguous consent when you create an account — the option to opt out of personalized ads is hidden behind a “More options” link. That option is pre-ticked by default (it shouldn’t).

Finally, by default, Google ticks a box that says “I agree to the processing of my information as described above and further explained in the Privacy Policy” when you create your account. Broad consent like this is also forbidden under the GDPR.

The CNIL also reminds Google that nothing has changed since its investigation in September 2018.

Chairman of noyb Max Schrems has sent us the following statement:

“We are very pleased that for the first time a European data protection authority is using the possibilities of GDPR to punish clear violations of the law. Following the introduction of GDPR, we have found that large corporations such as Google simply ‘interpret the law differently’ and have often only superficially adapted their products. It is important that the authorities make it clear that simply claiming to be complaint is not enough. We are also pleased that our work to protect fundamental rights is bearing fruit. I would also like to thank our supporters who make our work possible.”

Update: A Google spokesperson has sent us the following statement:

“People expect high standards of transparency and control from us. We’re deeply committed to meeting those expectations and the consent requirements of the GDPR. We’re studying the decision to determine our next steps.”

Source: Tech Crunch

Tesla can now deliver Model 3 vehicles to European customers. The automakers midsize sedan was recently granted approval from RDW, the Dutch regulator and European authority tasked by Tesla to approve the vehicle for European roads.

The approval comes just ahead of the vehicle’s European introduction next month. Right now, it’s been reported that a cargo ship full of Model 3s is currently en route to Zeebrugge, Belgium and should arrive around February 2.

The nod from the European governing body was a critical last step. Tesla is clearly racing to get its least expensive vehicle in Europe ahead of the onslaught of EVs planned by European auto makers.

Last week, Tesla announced a cost-savings plan in an effort to shore up its international Model 3 deliveries. The automaker stated that it was cutting 7 percent of its full-time workers. In the email, CEO Elon Musk says the focus must be on delivering “at least the mid-range Model 3 variant in all markets.” He also warns those employees not set to be axed that there are “many companies that can offer a better work-life balance, because they are larger and more mature or in industries that are not so voraciously competitive.”

Source: Tech Crunch