Month: February 2023
Pagos raises $34M as the demand for ‘payment intelligence’ rises
With global digital payments revenue expected to reach $14.79 trillion by 2027, payment infrastructure has arguably never been more critical. But at the same time the tech is becoming essential, the costs and complexities associated with it are increasing. One recent survey shows that merchants’ satisfaction with their payment processors has declined massively, particularly when
Pagos raises $34M as the demand for ‘payment intelligence’ rises by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch
With global digital payments revenue expected to reach $14.79 trillion by 2027, payment infrastructure has arguably never been more critical. But at the same time the tech is becoming essential, the costs and complexities associated with it are increasing. One recent survey shows that merchants’ satisfaction with their payment processors has declined massively, particularly when major technical hurdles arise.
Seeking to find solutions to these problems, Klas Bäck, Albert Drouart and Dan Blomberg founded Pagos, a “payment intelligence” infrastructure startup. Made up of payment experts with backgrounds from Braintree, PayPal and Stripe, Pagos turns disparate digital payments data into actionable insights without requiring customers to change their payment processors.
CEO Bäck and Drouart held senior leadership positions at Braintree/Venmo and PayPal over the last eight to nine years; Braintree/Venmo was acquired by PayPal in September 2013. Blomberg, for his part, has launched seven startups and sold five over the last two decades.
“Payment processing is fundamental to customer relationships, revenue and a business’s bottom line, but is getting more and more complex to manage well,” Bäck told TechCrunch via email. “Most companies don’t have the tools, data, or knowledge to develop or execute on an effective payment strategy; even those that do often leave significant opportunities on the table. Pagos was founded on the principle that almost all companies need help to be more data driven around their payment execution.”
Payments infrastructure vendors aren’t exactly a dime a dozen, but there’s a growing amount chasing after the massive market opportunity. Streamline, headquartered in San Francisco, recently raised $4 million for its business-to-business-focused payments product suite. Kushki is a much larger player — the Ecuadorian payments infrastructure startup landed $100 million last year at a $1.5 billion valuation.
So what does Pagos bring to the table? Bäck claims that it uniquely allows companies to stream and store their payments data — including commerce and fraud data — in one place. From a single dashboard, customers can visualize the data and keep track of metrics, including transaction, payment authorization and risk performance.
Pagos’ financial monitoring dashboard. Image Credits: Pagos
Pagos offers connections to payment processors such as Adyen, Chase, Braintree, PayPal, Stripe and WorldPay, as well as data ingestion APIs so that businesses can stream payments data and custom metadata into the platform.
“Our action products bring together a company’s data and provide APIs to give developers and business stakeholders in a company the ability to build more sophistication in their payment stack to address issues such as churn, risk, and cost — ask Pagos for recommendations on what credentials, where, and how to send your transactions for maximum upside,” Bäck said. “Pagos is different because we are not trying to offer new plumbing; we want them to use the collection of vendors and partners they have better, which could include changing processes and systems to address issues.”
In terms of customers, Bäck says that Pagos, whose platform has processed over a billion transaction events, is focused on companies that sell or bill their customers online as well as firms that service them, like fraud providers, payment orchestration platforms, acquirers, payment service providers, vertical software-as-a-service companies and marketplaces. Current clients include Adobe, Eventbrite, GoFundMe, Peek and Warner Bros Discover.
“Pagos allows businesses to see what’s going on inside a payments stack,” Bäck said. “Use cases include adding new payment partners and payment method, identifying optimal payment methods and routes, tracking payments and chargeback metrics and optimizing recurring billing to reduce churn.
Some investors see the value proposition. Pagos today closed a $34 million Series A round led by Arbor Ventures with participation from Infinity Ventures, Underscore VC and Point 72 Ventures. It brings the company’s total raised to $44 million, which Bäck says is being put toward funding new hires in engineering, product development and “faster customer implementation.”
“We actually weren’t seeking additional capital right now. However, we were flooded with inbound investor interest and recognized a unique opportunity to scale our customer base even faster, especially in today’s volatile economic climate,” Bäck said. “This opportunistic Series A round was substantially oversubscribed.”
As for what the future holds, Bäck says he isn’t too concerned about the challenging macroeconomic climate for startups. He avers, in fact, that the pandemic spurred a rush to e-commerce that, while since simmered down, has had lasting effects.
To Bäck’s point, the pandemic led to a measurable increase in the use of digital payments. The World Bank’s Global Findex 2021 database found that — in low and middle-income economies excluding China — over 40% of adults who made merchant in-store or online payments using a card, phone or the internet did so for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
“Backend financial infrastructure remains critical. Now more than ever, helping companies sell more and reduce their costs resonates quickly,” Bäck said. “Over the last 9-12 months, many companies have been extra focused on reducing their cost of operation. This is something Pagos is particularly well-positioned to help with — most companies can even get started without any integration work, making the return on investment extremely fast.”
Within the next year, Pagos plans to “greatly expand” the remote software, product, sales and account management teams within its 41-person workforce, Bäck says.
Pagos raises $34M as the demand for ‘payment intelligence’ rises by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch
Uber’s effort to eliminate its carbon footprint is now getting its own product event
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Uber is splitting its annual product event into two separate gatherings in order to place more emphasis on its efforts to go carbon neutral.
The first event, entitled Go/Get, will be held May 17th in New York City and will focus on “family and travel,” the company said. The second will be called Go/Get Zero and will be convened in London on June 8th. That event will highlight the various ways Uber plans to tackle climate change.
The choice to hold the sustainability event in London is no accident. The city is a microcosm of the company’s efforts to green its platform, with 15 percent of the company’s vehicle kilometers traveled done in electric vehicles. Uber drivers in London are also the first to get access to a fleet of EVs through the company’s expanded partnership with rental car company Hertz.
That event will highlight the various ways Uber plans to tackle climate change
The ridehail company has said it will attempt to electrify 100 percent of its fleet in the US and Europe by 2030, with the Hertz partnership serving as a vital piece of that effort.
The problem is certainly enormous, and Uber’s goals are not guaranteed success. A recent study from Carnegie Mellon found that trips in Uber and Lyft vehicles generate around 20 percent more greenhouse gases than regular private vehicles. The culprit is “deadheading,” in which ridehail drivers cruise around with no passengers in the car between ride requests.
The disproportionate amount of pollution generated by Uber and Lyft vehicles has prompted some governments to mandate that ridehail companies go carbon neutral. The state of California and New York City have both said the companies will be required to be zero emission by 2030.
But getting the millions of people who drive for Uber and Lyft to switch to electric vehicles will be no easy task. Ridehail drivers are classified as independent contractors, and many use their personal cars to drive for not just one but several gig economy companies. Also, EVs tend to be more expensive than gas vehicles despite costing less to fuel and maintain. That steep upfront cost may make it a challenge for many drivers, who typically operate with incredibly tight margins, to make the switch.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Uber is splitting its annual product event into two separate gatherings in order to place more emphasis on its efforts to go carbon neutral.
The first event, entitled Go/Get, will be held May 17th in New York City and will focus on “family and travel,” the company said. The second will be called Go/Get Zero and will be convened in London on June 8th. That event will highlight the various ways Uber plans to tackle climate change.
The choice to hold the sustainability event in London is no accident. The city is a microcosm of the company’s efforts to green its platform, with 15 percent of the company’s vehicle kilometers traveled done in electric vehicles. Uber drivers in London are also the first to get access to a fleet of EVs through the company’s expanded partnership with rental car company Hertz.
The ridehail company has said it will attempt to electrify 100 percent of its fleet in the US and Europe by 2030, with the Hertz partnership serving as a vital piece of that effort.
The problem is certainly enormous, and Uber’s goals are not guaranteed success. A recent study from Carnegie Mellon found that trips in Uber and Lyft vehicles generate around 20 percent more greenhouse gases than regular private vehicles. The culprit is “deadheading,” in which ridehail drivers cruise around with no passengers in the car between ride requests.
The disproportionate amount of pollution generated by Uber and Lyft vehicles has prompted some governments to mandate that ridehail companies go carbon neutral. The state of California and New York City have both said the companies will be required to be zero emission by 2030.
But getting the millions of people who drive for Uber and Lyft to switch to electric vehicles will be no easy task. Ridehail drivers are classified as independent contractors, and many use their personal cars to drive for not just one but several gig economy companies. Also, EVs tend to be more expensive than gas vehicles despite costing less to fuel and maintain. That steep upfront cost may make it a challenge for many drivers, who typically operate with incredibly tight margins, to make the switch.
Ellie’s joke book is an unlikely companion in ‘The Last of Us’
Will Livingstone probably didn’t know it when he penned a book full of cringeworthy jokes, but the fictional author’s thrown at least one fan a lifeline with it in post-apocalyptic America.
In HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us, co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann brought one of the game’s silliest constant companions along for the ride, Ellie’s joke book, which both provides moments of severely warranted levity among the story’s unrelenting quagmire of violence while reminding us that our tough protagonist is, in fact, a kid. But this beloved tome of wit has a deeper importance to Ellie (Bella Ramsey) than mere hilarity — mainly because of who gave it to her.
SEE ALSO:
‘The Last of Us’ finally adds Ellie’s favourite thing: Comics
In the show and the game, Ellie’s go-to reading material is her beloved Savage Starlight comics and a tattered joke book titled No Pun Intended: Volume Too by Will Livingston. (“You get it? ‘Too?’ Like T-O-O?”) In idle moments in episode 4, Ellie breaks out some cheeky Livingstone gold to both pass the time and get a rise out of Joel (Pedro Pascal). Shel gleefully gets revenge on Joel’s demand to stay put as he siphons petrol by reading out several cheesy jokes, many taken straight from the game.
“What did the mermaid wear to her math class?” she continues, giggling and ignoring Joel’s unimpressed looks. “An algae-bra!”
“I stayed up all night wondering where the sun went…and then it dawned on me,” comes another, which honestly reads like a Mitch Hedberg joke.
“What did the mermaid wear to her math class? An algae-bra!”
As Joel and Ellie make camp, Ellie drops another banger disguised as a “serious question.” Ellie slyly poses the thought, “Why did the scarecrow get an award?” When Joel surprisingly answers this one — “Because he was outstanding in his field” — Ellie squeals, calls Joel a dick and accuses him of reading her beloved book. He’s heard this one before.
Riley knew her best friend Ellie loved ‘No Pun Intended’. You can see it on Ellie’s nightstand.
Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO
So, who gave Ellie the joke book? In episode 7, we learn that Ellie has been a longtime reader of Livingstone’s work, as you can spy the first volume of No Pun Intended in her dorm room at FEDRA military school. “This otter be good,” reads a line on the front cover. Later in the episode, Ellie’s best friend Riley (Storm Reid) gifts her the second book during their date at the abandoned mall in the Boston QZ, reading out a few zingers to each other in a hilarious moment before impending tragedy.
“Shut up! He made a second one?” says Ellie after Riley hands it over.
Now we know Riley’s tragic fate, the importance of Ellie’s copy of No Pun Intended Volume Too intensifies ten-fold — this isn’t just a silly book, it’s the last thing her best friend and first love gave to her before she was Infected.
Featured Video For You
Does The Last of Us finally get video game adaptations right?
In the game, Ellie’s jokes to “lighten the mood” are a form of collectible. If you find them all, the game rewards you with the incredibly named “That’s All I Got” trophy. The only way to hear Ellie’s jokes in the game is to stand and wait with her between objectives; after a few minutes, Ellie will pull out her joke book out of boredom and rattle off a few zingers.
“I remember in the game being shocked that the game was suddenly offering me this thing that had no benefit for the game at all,” director Craig Mazin said on HBO’s The Last of Us podcast. “It was just gratuitous and yet lovely and human. It was sort of like saying, ‘Hey, you know what? You don’t have to be eyes in the back of your head or getting ready to run or shoot at every moment, you can take the time to stop, look around, experience the beauty of the world that’s been created.’
“What I also love about it and why it was essential to include in the show is that it undercuts this thing that happens when adults write kids. They either write them too young or too old.” Mazin said kids like Ellie fall under another category, a stage of life his friend calls “fuck you, tuck me in.”
“They are ready to go out on their own, they want a gun, they want to be in charge, they think they know everything. Also, they’re still children,” explained Mazin. “I love how Ellie has this joy for something so juvenile and infantile and stupid — and she knows it’s stupid but she loves it. It’s honest joy.”
Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey): One of these people likes jokes more than the other.
Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO
In The Last of Us, humour is the one avenue in which Ellie is allowed to be who she is, a kid, carrying around her joke book in her little backpack right beside her handgun. This contrast between silliness and premature adulthood is one of the strongest elements of Ellie’s character that both Ramsey and game voice actor Ashley Johnson seize upon to develop this complex, tough, hilarious teen.
Whether she’s messing with Joel through the discovery of a porn magazine in Bill’s truck in episode 3 or pretending to be Infected at the most inappropriate time around Joel and Tess in episode 2, Ramsey’s Ellie provides welcome chortles in a landscape of near constant stress and threat. As Mashable’s Belen Edwards writes, “Thanks for the laugh, Ellie. We really needed it after the show’s first three episodes, and based on everything you’ve been through, we know you need it too.” Ramsey’s delivery is consistently hilarious in its own right — remember that inappropriately perfect “hehehehehehehehehehehehehe” reading of Bill’s letter in episode 3?
Ellie’s jokes also play a bigger role than silly asides. Beyond their shared experiences of violence, loss, and grief, Joel and Ellie begin to bond over these ridiculous jokes, with their burgeoning pseudo-father-daughter relationship given a moment to actually be just that. When Joel triumphantly answers the scarecrow joke, we see a glimmer of camaraderie between them, reminding us of Joel’s past as a father who constantly joked around with his teen daughter, Sarah (Nico Parker).
Not the time for a joke. Ahhhh anyway, here’s one about diarrhoea…
Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO
This comes up again at the end of episode 4, when Ellie and Joel are hiding for their lives in a Kansas City attic, and Ellie finds it a perfect moment to drop a joke about diarrhoea: “Joel, did you know diarrhoea is hereditary? Yeah, it runs in your jeans.” As Mashable’s Sam Haysom writes, “The joke about diarrhoea is the first time Ellie properly makes Joel laugh, and seems to mark a key bonding moment in the pair’s relationship.” In the same episode, Joel organically shares genuine emotion with Ellie for the first time despite his former rules about “keep[ing] our backstories to ourselves,” opening up about Tommy in the car, answering Ellie’s questions about his worries over his brother. Pascal’s superb performance in episode 4 is the first major softening of Joel we’ve seen, and it’s all thanks to these extremely dumb jokes.
Ellie’s contrasting modes as a hilarious, joke-loving kid being forced to grow up in a cruel, threatening world makes her a truly compelling protagonist, one a guarded Joel attempts to both understand and protect. In the very same episode, book-ended by scenes showing Ellie making jokes, she shoots a man to save Joel’s life. In the same hour, we watch Ellie drop toilet jokes and attempted to kill someone. This is the world she exists in, a funny kid confronted with a horrific, kill-or-be-killed reality.
Livingstone’s joke book does more for Ellie than provide light reading, it allows her to create a damn break between the blood for her and Joel, while honouring her last gift from Riley. As Ellie warns Joel, “Just know, you can’t escape Will Livingstone. He’ll be back. There’s nothing you can do to stop him.”
The Last of Us is now streaming on HBO Max.
Will Livingstone probably didn’t know it when he penned a book full of cringeworthy jokes, but the fictional author’s thrown at least one fan a lifeline with it in post-apocalyptic America.
In HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us, co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann brought one of the game’s silliest constant companions along for the ride, Ellie’s joke book, which both provides moments of severely warranted levity among the story’s unrelenting quagmire of violence while reminding us that our tough protagonist is, in fact, a kid. But this beloved tome of wit has a deeper importance to Ellie (Bella Ramsey) than mere hilarity — mainly because of who gave it to her.
In the show and the game, Ellie’s go-to reading material is her beloved Savage Starlight comics and a tattered joke book titled No Pun Intended: Volume Too by Will Livingston. (“You get it? ‘Too?’ Like T-O-O?”) In idle moments in episode 4, Ellie breaks out some cheeky Livingstone gold to both pass the time and get a rise out of Joel (Pedro Pascal). Shel gleefully gets revenge on Joel’s demand to stay put as he siphons petrol by reading out several cheesy jokes, many taken straight from the game.
“What did the mermaid wear to her math class?” she continues, giggling and ignoring Joel’s unimpressed looks. “An algae-bra!”
“I stayed up all night wondering where the sun went…and then it dawned on me,” comes another, which honestly reads like a Mitch Hedberg joke.
“What did the mermaid wear to her math class? An algae-bra!”
As Joel and Ellie make camp, Ellie drops another banger disguised as a “serious question.” Ellie slyly poses the thought, “Why did the scarecrow get an award?” When Joel surprisingly answers this one — “Because he was outstanding in his field” — Ellie squeals, calls Joel a dick and accuses him of reading her beloved book. He’s heard this one before.
Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO
So, who gave Ellie the joke book? In episode 7, we learn that Ellie has been a longtime reader of Livingstone’s work, as you can spy the first volume of No Pun Intended in her dorm room at FEDRA military school. “This otter be good,” reads a line on the front cover. Later in the episode, Ellie’s best friend Riley (Storm Reid) gifts her the second book during their date at the abandoned mall in the Boston QZ, reading out a few zingers to each other in a hilarious moment before impending tragedy.
“Shut up! He made a second one?” says Ellie after Riley hands it over.
Now we know Riley’s tragic fate, the importance of Ellie’s copy of No Pun Intended Volume Too intensifies ten-fold — this isn’t just a silly book, it’s the last thing her best friend and first love gave to her before she was Infected.
Featured Video For You
In the game, Ellie’s jokes to “lighten the mood” are a form of collectible. If you find them all, the game rewards you with the incredibly named “That’s All I Got” trophy. The only way to hear Ellie’s jokes in the game is to stand and wait with her between objectives; after a few minutes, Ellie will pull out her joke book out of boredom and rattle off a few zingers.
“I remember in the game being shocked that the game was suddenly offering me this thing that had no benefit for the game at all,” director Craig Mazin said on HBO’s The Last of Us podcast. “It was just gratuitous and yet lovely and human. It was sort of like saying, ‘Hey, you know what? You don’t have to be eyes in the back of your head or getting ready to run or shoot at every moment, you can take the time to stop, look around, experience the beauty of the world that’s been created.’
“What I also love about it and why it was essential to include in the show is that it undercuts this thing that happens when adults write kids. They either write them too young or too old.” Mazin said kids like Ellie fall under another category, a stage of life his friend calls “fuck you, tuck me in.”
“They are ready to go out on their own, they want a gun, they want to be in charge, they think they know everything. Also, they’re still children,” explained Mazin. “I love how Ellie has this joy for something so juvenile and infantile and stupid — and she knows it’s stupid but she loves it. It’s honest joy.”
Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO
In The Last of Us, humour is the one avenue in which Ellie is allowed to be who she is, a kid, carrying around her joke book in her little backpack right beside her handgun. This contrast between silliness and premature adulthood is one of the strongest elements of Ellie’s character that both Ramsey and game voice actor Ashley Johnson seize upon to develop this complex, tough, hilarious teen.
Whether she’s messing with Joel through the discovery of a porn magazine in Bill’s truck in episode 3 or pretending to be Infected at the most inappropriate time around Joel and Tess in episode 2, Ramsey’s Ellie provides welcome chortles in a landscape of near constant stress and threat. As Mashable’s Belen Edwards writes, “Thanks for the laugh, Ellie. We really needed it after the show’s first three episodes, and based on everything you’ve been through, we know you need it too.” Ramsey’s delivery is consistently hilarious in its own right — remember that inappropriately perfect “hehehehehehehehehehehehehe” reading of Bill’s letter in episode 3?
Ellie’s jokes also play a bigger role than silly asides. Beyond their shared experiences of violence, loss, and grief, Joel and Ellie begin to bond over these ridiculous jokes, with their burgeoning pseudo-father-daughter relationship given a moment to actually be just that. When Joel triumphantly answers the scarecrow joke, we see a glimmer of camaraderie between them, reminding us of Joel’s past as a father who constantly joked around with his teen daughter, Sarah (Nico Parker).
Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO
This comes up again at the end of episode 4, when Ellie and Joel are hiding for their lives in a Kansas City attic, and Ellie finds it a perfect moment to drop a joke about diarrhoea: “Joel, did you know diarrhoea is hereditary? Yeah, it runs in your jeans.” As Mashable’s Sam Haysom writes, “The joke about diarrhoea is the first time Ellie properly makes Joel laugh, and seems to mark a key bonding moment in the pair’s relationship.” In the same episode, Joel organically shares genuine emotion with Ellie for the first time despite his former rules about “keep[ing] our backstories to ourselves,” opening up about Tommy in the car, answering Ellie’s questions about his worries over his brother. Pascal’s superb performance in episode 4 is the first major softening of Joel we’ve seen, and it’s all thanks to these extremely dumb jokes.
Ellie’s contrasting modes as a hilarious, joke-loving kid being forced to grow up in a cruel, threatening world makes her a truly compelling protagonist, one a guarded Joel attempts to both understand and protect. In the very same episode, book-ended by scenes showing Ellie making jokes, she shoots a man to save Joel’s life. In the same hour, we watch Ellie drop toilet jokes and attempted to kill someone. This is the world she exists in, a funny kid confronted with a horrific, kill-or-be-killed reality.
Livingstone’s joke book does more for Ellie than provide light reading, it allows her to create a damn break between the blood for her and Joel, while honouring her last gift from Riley. As Ellie warns Joel, “Just know, you can’t escape Will Livingstone. He’ll be back. There’s nothing you can do to stop him.”
Top 5 Most Secure Crypto Wallets to Use in 2023
We’ve come a long way from the earliest crypto wallets, with their difficult user interface, barebones features, and not-so-great security. In terms of sheer numbers, there are countless wallets ranging from hot and cold, standalone vs. platform integrated, minimalist to
We’ve come a long way from the earliest crypto wallets, with their difficult user interface, barebones features, and not-so-great security. In terms of sheer numbers, there are countless wallets ranging from hot and cold, standalone vs. platform integrated, minimalist to […]
Qualcomm’s satellite text messaging just became the next big Android phone feature
Qualcomm has announced that it’s signed up six major Android brands to make phones with its satellite text messaging service.
There’s a good chance your next Android phone will support Qualcomm’s two-way satellite text messaging service, as the chip maker has announced support from six major phone makers.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Satellite service is designed to let you text loved ones when you’re off-grid in remote locations that don’t have network coverage. And we’ve just learned that Honor, Motorola, Nothing, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi are all on board to develop phones that support it.
A notable absentee from that list is the world’s biggest Android phone brand, Samsung. That’s because Samsung has recently announced its own network modem that’ll allow two-way communication between phones and satellites. The Samsung Galaxy S23 was expected to support Qualcomm’s Snapdragon satellite tech, but it was curiously missing from that phone.
Now, though, the race is on to offer Android’s equivalent of the iPhone’s Emergency SOS feature. Unlike Apple’s system, Qualcomm’s tech uses the Iridium satellite network, and promises to be useful for more than just an emergencies on hiking trips – Qualcomm is suggesting that it can also be used for “recreation” in remote areas, and for getting in touch with family and friends when you have no signal.
It isn’t yet clear when we’ll see the first phones that support Qualcomm Snapdragon Satellite, but it shouldn’t be too long – Qualcomm says it’ll land on 5G devices with Snapdragon 8 or Snapdragon 4 chips, which means it’ll initially be restricted to premium and mid-tier phones.
Interestingly, Qualcomm also said that Snapdragon Satellite is coming to “other device categories in compute, automotive and IoT segments”, which means we can expect to see support for it in future laptops, cars and more, too.
Analysis: Lift-off for satellite text messaging
(Image credit: Motorola)
Satellite messaging has become one of the hottest themes of this week’s MWC 2023 show (which you can follow in our MWC 2023 live blog). And this Qualcomm announcement shows it’ll be one of the big features in your next Android phone – even if Samsung appears to be taking its own route.
Motorola had already stolen Qualcomm’s thunder last week by announcing the Motorola Defy 2, a rugged Android phone that delivers two-way satellite messaging using a different service called Bullitt Satellite Messenger. It also announced the Defy Satellite Link (pictured above), a Bluetooth fob that delivers the service to older Android phones and iPhones, too.
But while Qualcomm and Bullitt’s satellite messaging services broadly promise the same service – two-way messaging in remote areas – they’re based on different networks and work in different ways. While Qualcomm is promising that Snapdragon Satellite will “offer truly global coverage from pole to pole” (as long as you can see the open sky), Bullitt’s satellite coverage is a bit more limited.
Qualcomm’s service will also integrate with an Android phone’s SMS text messaging, rather than requiring a separate app. But what we don’t yet know is how much Snapdragon Satellite will cost. Bullitt Satellite Messenger gives us a ballpark figure, though: $4.99/£4.99 per month (around AU$9) for the ability to send 30 two-way messages, plus access to its SOS assistance service.
Both Qualcomm and Bullitt’s services are more versatile than Apple’s Emergency SOS, and we’re expecting to see the first Snapdragon Satellite Android phones land later this year. While satellite text messaging remains a relatively niche feature right now, It’ll be interesting to see how both Apple and Samsung respond.
Going private: A guide to PE tech acquisitions
Signs point to robust PE buyout activity in 2023 supported by lower market volatility, falling valuations, a more stable interest rate environment and large pools of available capital.
Going private: A guide to PE tech acquisitions by Walter Thompson originally published on TechCrunch
Private equity (PE) firms spent a record $226.5 billion on take-private transactions globally in the first half of 2022, which is 39% higher than the same period in 2021. While overall mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity slowed significantly in the second half of last year with equity market volatility, the volume of large acquisitions by PE firms looking to capitalize on a period of lowered valuation expectations is rebounding as a result of bottoming valuations and a large supply of public company targets.
When public companies underperform, PE firms in pursuit of equity value creation opportunities are eager to purchase and take these organizations private.
Despite economic cycle peaks and troughs, these types of transactions represent a large and growing share of overall M&A activity. With this growth in the volume of PE-backed transactions, it’s increasingly important to understand the basics of these transactions and the potential implications on key stakeholders, including customers, partners and employees of the acquired company, in particular, those who are left to wonder how the acquisition will affect them.
Why do PE firms purchase publicly traded companies to take them private?
PE firms are investment funds that specialize in buying underperforming businesses with the goal of fixing performance and selling the business later for a profit. While PE firms can also buy private companies or take minority ownership stakes in businesses, their traditional approach has most often been to acquire publicly traded companies and take them private.
The software industry has seen significant take-private activity in the last year — Coupa, Citrix, Anaplan, Zendesk, Duck Creek and more — and the volume of such transactions is likely to increase given many newly public software companies (those listed in the last three to four years) are trading below their IPO valuations.
There are many reasons a PE firm chooses to buy a publicly traded company. The most common return on investment drivers (which by no means are mutually exclusive) are to significantly improve cash flows from operations, fix the company’s business operations and take advantage of untapped growth opportunities.
What happens after an acquisition is announced?
After the buyout agreement is signed and publicly announced, typically a deal will go into a multimonth pre-closing period while regulatory approvals are processed, debt financing is raised and closing conditions are satisfied. During this pre-closing period, the management of the acquired business generally freezes new investments, which often includes reduced hiring and the transition to near-term cost-rationalization.
The new PE owner will use this time to firm up its plans to shift short and long-term focus, including weighing the depth and breadth of cost cuts, changes to business practices and operations and defining new strategic priorities. Unfortunately, these pauses and changes create significant uncertainty and disruption for key stakeholders, especially employees and customers.
What happens after the multimonth pre-closing period?
Once all approvals and closing conditions are satisfied, the acquisition will close. The company will be de-listed and the PE firm officially owns the company. Most PE firms have a playbook for optimizing the operations of newly acquired companies and will begin to rapidly implement those strategies. Common changes include new leadership and corporate strategy reflective of the PE firm’s long-term experience managing through economic cycles and industry-specific market nuances.
Going private: A guide to PE tech acquisitions by Walter Thompson originally published on TechCrunch