Michigan-based in-space propulsion startup Orbion is working with a major new partner: The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). Orbion has secured a research contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Propulsion Directorate, specifically aimed at helping the DOD “enhance resiliency of U.S. systems in space.”

Basically, it sounds like that will boil down to seeing how Orbion’s propulsion technology can be applied to DOD satellites when used in larger constellation form, to provide those satellites with the ability to move propulsively while in orbit, and to do so in a way that can scale cost-effectively. In a press release announcing the news, Orbion CEO Brad King says that volume is a strategy when it comes to fortifying U.S. systems in space against potential foreign attack.

“One way to increase the resilience of space systems is to improve our nation’s ability to build and deploy small satellites in large numbers at low costs,” said King in a statement, “Orbion is developing mass-production techniques to build propulsion systems for commercial customers. With this research contract we are investigating how or if our manufacturing processes must be modified to meet DOD requirements.”

It’s true that in the past, the U.S. and other international powers with access to space have mostly focused on large, expensive, singular pieces of orbital hardware as their strategic assets. Shifting to the small satellite constellation approach currently being pursued by a number of private companies definitely has advantages in terms of redundancy and replaceability.

Orbion’s entire business proposition as a startup is that it’s applying mass-production to in-space thrusters, which will bring down costs and make their technology accessible to a much wider range of potential clients, and practical for application in small satellite design. The DOD may not have the same budget-constraint issues as a cash-strapped satellite startup, but long-term cost savings that also comes with a tactical advantage is a hard bargain to pass up.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Orbion partners with US Department of Defense on small satellite propulsion tech

This is it, code jockeys — your last call to grab a seat and compete in the TC Hackathon at Disrupt Berlin 2019 on 11-12 December. We limited participation to 500 people and, with just eight days to go, only a few spots remain. Do you have the skills, stamina and creativity it takes to build a working product in less than 24 hours? Well, do ya? Then apply to the Hackathon today and snag one of the few remaining seats.

Competing in the Hackathon is free, plus we give every participant an Innovator pass to take in the show on day two. Sweet! When you’re done hacking, explore the early-stage startups exhibiting in Startup Alley, including the TC Top Picks. Be sure to catch some of our incredible speakers — you can use the Disrupt Berlin ’19 agenda to help you plan your time.

New to the TC Hackathon? Here’s how it works.

You join a team — either one you come with or one you find on site — and pick one of the sponsored challenges. Sponsors look for working solutions to real-world problems, and they pony up cash and prizes for the winning team(s). Plus, TechCrunch will award $5,000 to one team it deems to have created the best overall hack.

Hackers have roughly 24 sleep-deprived hours to work their magic — and we’ll have plenty of food, drink and caffeine on hand to fuel your genius. When the clock runs out, the judges review every completed project and choose 10 teams to move on to the finals on day two.

Those 10 bleary-eyed teams will have two minutes to pitch their creation to the judges — in front of a live audience on the Extra Crunch Stage. Then it’s time for the big reveal. First, the various sponsors announce their winners, then TechCrunch names the team it deems the best overall hack-at-the-thon. See what we did there?

We’ll announce specifics about this year’s sponsors and challenges soon. In the meantime, check out the other sponsored contests, prizes and winners from DSF ’18 to get a sense of what awaits you in Berlin.

Strut your skills, compete for cash, prizes, adulation and the pure joy of coding something into existence. But don’t wait, because we have only a few seats left. Apply to compete in the TC Hackathon, come to Disrupt Berlin 2019 on 11-12 December and show us what you can do.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt Berlin 2019? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Last chance to apply to the Hackathon at Disrupt Berlin

Podcorn, the service that connects brands with podcasters to acquire in-broadcast sponsored time (not pre- or post-roll advertising), is officially launching its services today.

“For brands, the benefit is that we are scaling the discovery of relevant podcasters of all sizes and making it possible to work with hundreds of really targeted podcasters within their niche at scale,” writes Podcorn co-founder Agnes Kozera. “Historically, if you look at programmatic pre-roll ads in video, programmatic wasn’t enough to sustain the creator ecosystem in terms of revenue and a lot of audiences skip those ads. And importantly, only a small portion of top creators end up making a sustainable income from programmatic because it is strictly based on impressions so smaller creators with niche but very engaged audiences don’t generate a sufficient amount of revenue.”

The company, which raised $2.2 million in a round of financing led by Global Founders Capital, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, 500 Startups, Alumni Ventures Group, Correlation Ventures and the investment firm Next 10 Ventures, was founded by Kozera and her high school friend, David Kierzkowski.

The two previously launched the influencer marketing company Famebit, which was acquired by Google three years after its launch — and after raising $1.5 million from 500 Startups and the Los Angeles-based incubator and early-stage investment firm, Science.

“[Podcasts] need alternative monetization such as native sponsorships (why influencer marketing blew up) because creators started making a lot more money from it than traditional ad formats because it takes into consideration other criteria that make their podcast valuable,” Kozera writes. “It also gives brands an opportunity to see the value of creators irrespective of size.”

Like the influencer marketing business which gave Kozera and Kierzowski their first exit, Podcorn connects brands with a range of different podcasting formats and manages the types of contracts these new media broadcasters can offer to increasingly targeted audiences that follow them.

It’s a strategy that’s been a boon for influencer marketing, and now that increasing numbers of ad dollars are going to podcasts, it was only a matter of time before the practice made its way into the new format.

Companies like Acast, Midroll, Audiogo and ThoughtLeaders are also all vying for a piece of the podcast advertising market.

“We are giving brands the opportunity to be part of the conversation, where listeners can hear from the brands – so not just pre, mid, and post-roll host read ads but brand interviews, panel discussions with experts and professionals who are within the brand’s industry,” Kozera wrote in an email.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Podcorn connects advertisers with podcasters and manages sponsored messages in podcasts

Uberflip is acquiring SnapApp, bringing together two startups that promise to help marketers use their content more effectively.

President and Chief Marketing Officer Randy Frisch argued that Uberflip focuses on content experience, not content marketing. In other words, it’s not selling productivity and workflow tools for marketers to write blog posts and create videos. Instead, it helps them present their existing content in a smarter and more personalized way.

For example, it worked with data warehousing company Snowflake to create content streams highlighting the topics most likely to grab the attention of different sales prospects, then embedded those content streams in Snowflake’s marketing emails.

“Content marketing has gotten a bad rap in some ways,” Frisch said, noting that there’s been “a lot of consolidation in that space in the last number of years,” so Uberflip has been working to distance itself from that term. (To that end, Frisch recently published a book with the colorful title “F#ck Content Marketing.”)

As for SnapApp, I wrote about the company’s interactive content tools back in 2015, but Uberflip CEO Yoav Schwartz told me that the product has changed dramatically in the last 18 months — it now offers “a better, smarter way to understand a visitor” by “peppering them with questions” as they’re browsing a marketer’s website.

So Schwartz sees this acquisition — Uberflip’s first — as a way to help the company improve its personalized content recommendations.

“We’re going to let SnapApp continue to run as is,” he added. “We’re not going to attempt to integrate on day one. We’re going to allow time to understand how those two technologies can work together.”

Frisch and Schwartz said that 10 to 15 SnapApp team members will be joining Uberflip, bringing the total headcount to around 150. And SnapApp’s current headquarters will become the Boston office of Toronto-based Uberflip.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. SnapApp previously raised $22 million in funding, while Uberflip has raised $36 million.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Uberflip acquires SnapApp for smarter content targeting

Salv, an anti-money laundering (AML) startup founded by former TransferWise and Skype employees, has raised $2 million in seed funding.

The round is led by Fly Ventures, alongside Passion Capital and Seedcamp. Angel investors also participating include N26 founder Maximilian Tayenthal (who seems to be doing quite a bit of angel investing), former Twilio CTO Ott Kaukver, and Taavi Kotka, former CIO for Estonia (the actual country!).

Founded in June 2018 and initially offering consultancy, Estonia-based Salv has built a software platform that helps banks find and stop financial crime. The idea, says co-founder and CEO Taavi Tamkivi, is to move AML beyond just compliance to something more proactive that actually does defeat crime. That’s quite the promise, although he and his co-founders have a lot experience to draw from, both within fast-growing startups and AML.

Tamkivi built the AML, fraud, and Know Your Customer (KYC) teams at TransferWise and Skype. COO Jeff McClelland also worked in the anti-fraud team at Skype, followed by a stint at TransferWise, first as an analyst and then in HR. And CTO Sergei Rumjantsev was also formerly at TransferWise, leading the engineering team responsible for KYC and verification.

“This was a highly demanding role, especially given how fast TransferWise was growing, how many new markets were coming online, and how central user verification is for compliance,” Tamkivi tells me. “Under Sergei’s leadership, the team made the verification process incredibly smooth over time for genuine customers. But also robust enough to protect TransferWise from on-boarding bad actors”.

Bad actors within financial services are aplenty, of course. Yet, despite the European banking sector spending billions tackling the problem, it is estimated that only 1-2% of global money-laundering is detected.

“AML should be all about stopping money laundering but, particularly in the last decade, layer upon layer of regulations have been added for banks to comply with,” says Tamkivi. “This would be great if that meant that there was no more money laundering, but sadly, that’s a long way off. Today, between $1-2 trillion a year is still laundered. But the excessive regulations mean that nearly all of a bank’s compliance team’s effort goes into compliance. They have very little energy left to actually focus on improving their financial crime-fighting abilities. The software they’re using is similar, focused almost wholly on compliance, not crime-fighting”.

That is where Salv wants to step in, and Tamkivi says the main difference between the startup’s AML software and other existing solutions is a much greater emphasis on crime-fighting rather than a box-ticking compliance exercise.

“We’re aiming to create a transformation similar to what’s happened in virus scanning,” he says. “10-15 years ago virus scanners on everyone’s PCs were an enormous hassle, consumed tons of resources and stopped you from getting work done. The same is true in financial institutions today. They’re using outdated, heavy software and processes to handle AML. But today, virus scanning still happens, but nobody’s worried about it. It happens in the background, with few resources. We’ll do the same in the AML world”.

In addition, the Salv CEO claims that the company’s software is faster than competitors’ offerings, both in terms of set up time and integration, and making changes to the rules the system adheres to.

“Our system, by contrast, takes a month or less to set up and minutes to modify the rules,” he says. “As a result, our customers can take everything they learn today from new criminal patterns, encode it in automated rules tomorrow, and repeat that cycle every day to protect their bank. Moving fast is the only way to keep up with the innovative organised criminals moving millions or billions around the world”.

To that end, Salv already counts Estonian bank LHV as its first customer. “They offer a full suite of banking products across Estonia,” says Tamkivi. “They’re also active in London, in particular, supporting fintechs. We have another couple of customers in the Lithuanian fintech scene. One of those is DeVere e-Money”.

More generally, Salv’s product is said to be suitable for Tier 2 and Tier 3 banks, as well as regulated fintechs and challenger banks.

Meanwhile, the business model is straightforward enough. Salv charges a monthly subscription, while the price varies based on the number of active customers a bank or fintech has.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Salv, the anti-money laundering startup founded by ex-TransferWise employees, picks up M seed

Vancouver-based mobility startup Damon Motorcycles has entered the EV arena with a preview of its first e-moto, the Hypersport Pro.

The seed-stage company had previously focused on creating digital safety technology — like its 360-degree radar detection system — to augment two-wheelers made by other manufacturers.

Damon has determined to create its own EV model designed to overcome common flaws it sees in existing motorcycle offerings.

“We are for the first time being black and white about the fact that we are a full-on producer and we have a motorcycle we’re going to unveil at CES,” Damon Motorcycle founder and CEO Jay Giraud told TechCrunch.

That machine is the fully electric Damon Hypersport Pro. The news is a pre-announcement ahead of the full January debut, so Giraud would not offer much in the way of core specs — such as price, range, charge-time and performance.

He was clear the motorcycle is meant to be a direct competitor to the latest e-motos released by Harley-Davidson and California-based venture Zero Motorcycles — and to the gas-motorcycle market overall.

“We’ve come at this and the motorcycle problem in a way that no other company has,” Giraud explained.

“We’re trying to change the industry by addressing the issues of safety and handling and comfort and the problems that have persisted with everyone in the industry, including all the e-moto companies today.”

Damon’s Hypersport Pro is designed around the company’s CoPilot system, which uses sensors, radar and cameras to detect and track moving objects around the motorcycle, including blind spots, and alert riders to danger.

Damon has also taken on the problem of one-size-fits-all in motorcycle design, integrating a system on its Hypersport Pro that allows for adjustable ergonomics. The startup’s debut model will allow riders to electronically shift the motorcycle’s windscreen, seat, footpegs and handlebars to accommodate for different positions and conditions — from more upright city riding to more aggressive high-speed runs.

Damon Motorcycles is taking pre-orders for its Hypersport Pro and will skip dealers, opting to use a direct-sales and service model similar to Tesla . The startup’s Vancouver facility is equipped to build 500 motorcycles a year, according to Giraud.

The company recently brought on Derek Dorresteyn, the former CTO of e-moto startup Alta, as its COO. Full specs of the Hypersport Pro will come next month at CES, but Giraud did offer a glimpse, saying it would be more competitive and more powerful than existing e-moto offerings.

Harley-Davidson released its first e-motorcycle — the $29K LiveWire — in 2019 and California EV startup Zero Motorcycles launched its $19K SR/F, both in bids to go take e-motos mass-market. Aside from the price-gap, both have comparable charge times (about an hour), performance and range (around 100 miles for combined city and highway riding).

The U.S. motorcycle industry has been in pretty bad shape since the recession. New sales dropped by roughly 50% since 2008 — with sharp declines in ownership by everyone under 40 — and have never recovered.

Harley-Davidon’s EV pivot is likely to bring e-moto offerings from the other large gas manufacturers, such as Honda and Yamaha, which are also attempting to revive sales to younger riders.

Harley-Davidson’s LiveWire

With Damon’s pivot to e-moto production, the startup is not alone. Italy’s Energica is expanding distribution of its high-performance EVs in the U.S. Other competitors include e-moto startup Fuell, with plans to release its $10K, 150-mile range Flow in the near future.

Of course, there have already been some speed bumps and market attrition, with three e-moto startups — Alta Motors, Mission Motors and Brammo — forced to power down over the last several years.

So how does Damon Motors plan to succeed as a new entrant in a motorcycle market with stagnant new bikes sales and increased EV competition from established OEMs and startups?

“We have so many advantages the others don’t have and we’re leveraging everyone of their weaknesses,” founder Jay Giraud said. The company’s direct-sale model will lend to more competitive pricing and higher margins for R&D, he said.

Then there are what Damon Motorcycles sees as its Hypersport Pro’s purposely designed comparative advantages over existing manufacturers.

“You’re gonna love the horsepower and range and all that good stuff, but that’s not what makes Damon different from every one else,” explained Giraud.

“What’s different is that it’s a safer motorbike with the safety features and transforming ergonomics that will keep you from smashing into someone’s car,” he said.

Not crashing into other people’s cars is certainly a compelling feature to offer in a motorcycle. Time and sales will ultimately tell how Damon fares in the inevitable cycle of events — profitability, failure, acquisition — that will play out in the increasingly competitive e-moto space.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Mobility startup Damon Motors enters e-moto arena with EV debut