Technology

Artificial Intelligence Big Data Cloud Computing Cyber Security Data Management Electronics Enterprise & Network Technology Financial Technology Hardware Mobile & Wireless Nanotechnology Semiconductor Software Telecommunications
News Release Digital Asset Direct

Be My Eyes Featured in U.S. Senate Committee Testimony on Overcoming Barriers to Employment for People with Disabilities

InclusionHub

Underscoring the importance of accessibility and inclusion as part of the hiring and employment process, Jenny Lay-Flurrie, chief accessibility officer at Microsoft, was recently invited to testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions. Titled “Lessons Learned from COVID-19: Highlighting Innovations, Maximizing Inclusive Practices and Overcoming Barriers to Employment for People with Disabilities,” the hearing also featured Dr. Lisa Schur, a professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations at Rutgers University; Francis A. Kineavy, a disability advocate; and Brian Dennis, a Disability Services Workforce Program coordinator for Iowa Workforce Development. In her address, Lay-Flurrie discussed key action areas related to disability employment, and outlined the current challenges facing people with disabilities in the job market. However, as might be expected for a Microsoft executive, some of the most insightful parts of her testimony dealt with the opportunities around accessible technology—during which she highlighted a number of current tools and features already in use at Microsoft. These included InclusionHub Founding Partner Be My Eyes, a free mobile app the company uses to support blind and low-vision customers through its dedicated Disability Answer Desk. Accessible Technology Use Cases In total, Lay-Flurrie’s testimony outlined the following seven key use cases for accessible technology: Improving Content Accessibility Making Accessibility Features Easy to Find Improving Remote Meeting Tools Expanding & Improving Legibility Options Creating & Improving Tools to Help Developers Identify & Mitigate Accessibility Issues Improving Awareness of Issues, Features & Etiquette Related to Accessibility & Disability Providing Support When & How People Need It (The Key Use Case for Be My Eyes) Lay-Flurrie also highlighted the need for addressing accessibility issues at scale, noting that individuals with disabilities are twice as likely to be unemployed as those without—a gap that persists even among college graduates. “I’m so glad to see these issues and potential solutions being highlighted in the Senate,” said Joe Weber, manager of Accessibility Solutions at Be My Eyes. “Around 70% of blind and low-vision people around the world are unemployed, which is a key challenge that we set out to solve with our app. Microsoft was one of the earliest adopters of our help desk solution, and we couldn’t be more proud to be part of their accessibility toolset.” Full video of the hearing can be found here. (Lay-Flurrie’s testimony begins at 39 minutes, while she also participates in a Q&A session beginning at the 55-minute mark.) Lay-Flurrie’s full written testimony—in which she mentions Be My Eyes—can be found on Microsoft’s blog. Contact Details Be My Eyes Todd Kuipers todd@bemyeyes.com InclusionHub Bryan Koegel bryan@inclusionhub.com Company Website https://www.bemyeyes.com/

February 18, 2022 09:45 AM Eastern Standard Time

Appier closes out FY21 with revenue increase of 41% at 12.7 billion JPY

Appier

Highlights and achievements of fiscal year 2021: Achieved 12.7 billion JPY in annual revenue with a 41% year-over-year (YoY) growth rate in 2021, surpassing previous guidance of 12.3 million JPY - marks the consistent growth acceleration for the second consecutive year Annual gross profit up 51% YoY. With an expanded gross margin, Appier’s gross profit growth acceleration outpaces revenue Annual EBITDA profit reached 42 million JPY and marked the first year of full year positive EBITDA margin in Appier’s history. Annual EBITDA margin increased 13 percentage points YoY Strong momentum in new market expansion via the U.S. with more than 50% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) growth in the last 3 quarters Highlights of fiscal year 2022 guidance: Appier forecasts a 38% increase in YoY revenue growth to 17.5 billion JPY and gross profit is expected to surpass revenue at 45% YoY A full-year positive EBITDA profit to 575 million JPY with 1259% YoY growth rate Growth across regions and product lines are drivers of strong financial performance. Highlight and Achievements of Q4 FY21: Revenue increased by 40% YoY and hit a historical high to 3.9 billion JPY. EBITDA margin achieved 3% with historical high EBITDA profit of 129 million JPY. Achieved 32% YoY growth in customer numbers and a historical low churn rate of 0.73% Closing out the year with a bang TAIPEI, TAIWAN - Media OutReach - 18 February 2022 - Appier Group Inc (TSE: 4180), henceforth referred to as Appier, today announced its fiscal and fourth quarter earnings results for the year ended 31 December 2021. Appier closed out the fiscal year of 2021 with an annual revenue increase of 41% YoY at 12.7 billion JPY - a consecutive second year of growth rate acceleration. An increase in the adoption of Appier’s solutions and growth in all regions are main drivers of this consistent growth. Annual gross profit has grown 51% YoY and annual EBITDA turned positive for the first time in Appier’s history. Appier is growing alongside its customers. A strong uplift of the Net Revenue Retention (NRR) at 123.8% for the year places Appier in a strong position entering 2022. The rate of net new customers reached 32% YoY in 2021 and Appier is now serving close to 1,100 [1] customers across the Asia Pacific and U.S.. Customers in the e-commerce (48%) sector continued to show strong demand as they aim to strengthen their ability to connect with consumers in a digital-led environment. Appier’s 2022 guidance comes with a forecasted annual revenue growth rate of 38% YoY and revenue at 17.5 billion JPY. The overall outlook for 2022 is optimistic with annual gross profit expected to surpass revenue at 45% YoY, as well as an expectation of a full-year positive EBITDA profit of 575 million JPY with 1259% YoY growth rate. Appier’s increasing growth across the regions and product lines are key drivers of this guidance for 2022. Highlight and Achievements of Q4 FY21 Appier's revenue grew at a rate of 40% YoY and recorded a historical high 3.9 billion JPY. EBITDA margin rose 3% to 129 million JPY, a historical high EBITDA profit. NRR maintained at a strong 123.8%, contributed by the growth from existing customers and the lowest customer churn rate of 0.73% in the company’s history. “To close out the fiscal year with such achievements is something we are all incredibly proud of. Our tremendous growth signals that the industry is responding well to AI technology that is first-party-data centric, and helping our customers grow has fueled ours,” said Dr. Chih-Han Yu, Appier’s CEO and co-founder. “Our ethos on innovation and customer-centricity has allowed us to iterate our solutions at lightning speed to adapt to moving market conditions. Customers are pivoting to solutions like ours that can help unify and enrich first-party data for their marketing and business needs. Demand for such innovation will only continue to grow,” Dr Yu continued. “As our world becomes increasingly digital and consent-based, the demand for AI-powered technology and analytics will only continue to rise and we see Appier as a key leader in supporting our customers with their AI-powered digital transformation,” he concluded. Adoption of AI and trend of first party data on the rise This quarter’s strong performance reflects the growth of the industry and the demand for AI-powered solutions that are first-party-data centric among our customers. Appier’s commitment to innovation and customer-centricity where we continue to adapt fast to industry trends, and iterate our solutions to offer the latest innovation to our customers is one of the drivers for the financial performance. Our relationships with customers continue to evolve as does the impact of our services on their business. Our momentum is also adapting to the ever-changing customer and business needs, and the growth of first-party-data centric consumer experiences. Cross-product synergistic solutions that add value to customers drive growth Now that BotBonnie, Appier’s omnichannel marketing platform acquired in May 2021 is integrating with AIQUA, their AI Personalisation Cloud, where customers will enjoy the benefit of unifying the first-party data across web apps and instant messaging to provide end-to-end personalised marketing and customer service while delivering interconnected personalised experiences to their customers and driving engagement at scale. AIXON, Appier’s customer data science platform and AIXPERT, Appier’s automated app advertising assistant, helps customers optimise their advertising campaigns with a 24-hour AI-powered operation. These cross-product synergies are a result of Appier’s ethos towards innovation. By continuously iterating and creating synergies across their solutions, they are able to add even more value to customers; help them make informed business decisions, overcome business challenges and ultimately achieve business growth. [1] Net new customers increased by 261 to 1,088 in 2021 at 32% YoY which maintains a high organic incremental increase of customers. About Appier Appier (TSE: 4180) is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that uses artificial intelligence to power business decision-making. Founded in 2012 with a vision of democratizing AI, Appier now has 17 offices across APAC, Europe and U.S., and is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Visit www.appier.com for more company information and visit ir.appier.com/en/ for more IR information. Contact Details Appier Media Contact pr@appier.com

February 18, 2022 09:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

Velocity Global integrates Contractor Payments to its Global Work Platform

Velocity Global

Increased demand for a simple hiring solution as number of independent workers wanting to work from anywhere is on the rise Velocity Global makes hiring and managing independent contractors easy with consolidated invoicing, automated, seamless payments, and locally compliant contracts Manage all talent in one place, including contractors and employees Velocity Global, the leading provider of global talent solutions, today announced the integration of its Contractor Payments solution into its Global Work Platform ™ as the latest solution for businesses and talent to work with anyone, anywhere, anyhow. “Contractor management and payments are traditionally a cluttered time suck for both businesses and talent, but now the Velocity Global platform removes this friction,” said Eric Schroeder, Velocity Global chief operating officer. “In today’s virtual workplace, companies want to engage the best talent in any country, which adds more complexity. Our platform simplifies the process from onboarding to payments for contractors around the world. This now creates one single location for managers and talent to connect, contractors and employees alike, freeing them to focus on the task at hand - delivering results.” Businesses are increasingly turning to independent workers, a rising classification of knowledge workers. The number of full-time, part-time and occasional independent workers in the U.S. increased by 34% over just two years to 51.1 million in 2021, according to the State of Independence in America survey, and spending by businesses on contingent talent rose by 23%. “We are in a new era of work in which talent takes more control over their time, location, and how they choose to engage with their employers,” said Schroeder. “With this shift in talent comes a shift in investment from businesses to meet talent where it is. The world of work is changing quickly and we offer all of the tools for businesses and talent to engage with each other in a single, accessible platform.” Currently, most contractors face archaic onboarding processes and payment confusion, while companies face the administrative complexity of managing a distributed workforce. Velocity Global’s new Contractor Payments solution provides locally compliant contracts, consolidated invoicing, automated and seamless payments, and mobile access to solve these issues for both sides. Velocity Global’s Contractor Payments solution is now available in the company's Global Work Platform. Learn more at https://velocityglobal.com/platform/contractor-payments/ About Velocity Global Velocity Global accelerates the future of work for anyone, anywhere, anyhow. Its Global Work Platform™ simplifies the employer and talent experience through its proprietary cloud-based talent management technology, backed by personalized expertise and unmatched global scale. With talent solutions in more than 185 countries and all 50 United States, the platform combines global Employer of Record and Contractor Management to onboard, manage, and pay talent worldwide. More than 1,000 brands rely on Velocity Global to build global teams without the cost or complexity of setting up foreign legal entities or state registrations. Velocity Global was named a “Leader” in Global Employer of Record services by prominent analyst firm NelsonHall. Founded in 2014, the company has hundreds of employees across six continents. For more information visit velocityglobal.com. Contact Details Velocity Global John Hall +1 720-650-4348 news@velocityglobal.com Company Website https://velocityglobal.com/

February 17, 2022 07:01 AM Mountain Standard Time

Video Image

GMS Drives Business Growth & Performance Excellence to Increase Market Penetration with CSG’s Future-Ready Digital Platform

CSG

LONDON, February 17, 2022 – CSG ® (NASDAQ: CSGS) enables today’s leading companies with game-changing technologies that drive dynamic customer experiences and business growth. Today, Global Message Services (GMS), the international messaging service provider for mobile operators and communications platform provider for enterprises, uses CSG’s integrated digital wholesale platform to boost efficiency and scale its business to add more value for customers. With CSG's technology at the heart of its operations, these gains empower GMS's overall performance, drive new growth, and enable access to the strategic person-to-application market. “At GMS, we aspire to deliver impactful value that sparks growth for more than 900 mobile partners as we continue our journey to become the leader for trusted and transparent messaging worldwide,” said Oleksandr Panov, Chief Financial Officer, GMS. “CSG’s leading revenue management and integrated digital wholesale platform provides the versatility to deliver best-of-breed services to GMS customers and partners. With CSG, we have modernised the way we collect data from the network and injected the agility and scalability we need to react to emerging business opportunities quickly." With CSG’s solution, GMS transforms how it connects the mobile messaging ecosystem while advancing its traffic processing performance to provide more flexible billing cycles. The improved performance system means GMS can drive more dynamic growth for its B2B partners, increase market penetration, and seamlessly scale as its business grows into the digital future. “Few markets are as competitive as wholesale telecom, and with players and partners constantly in flux, ambitious messaging service providers, like GMS, need agility to adapt and develop as fast as the market,” said James Kirby, CSG SVP and head of EMEA. “CSG’s digital wholesale platform enables GMS to accelerate its digital transformation and leverage the flexibility and scalability it provides to future-proof its business and enter new markets. We look forward to supporting GMS on this journey and helping to extend its industry leadership for trusted and transparent messaging worldwide.” CSG's digital wholesale platform empowers communication service providers to take the complexity out of wholesale relationship management and seamlessly manage and scale at pace with increasing transaction volume growth. The platform helps the world's leading brands capture, store, and process customer usage events of any kind. The platform also unifies processes across networks to reduce costs without compromising quality, increases efficiency, and scales digital service offerings to participate and prosper in the digital economy. Part of CSG’s Revenue & Customer Management solutions suite, CSG Digital Wholesale is the world's most widely deployed and proven partner management technology. Through comprehensive billing, mediation, and revenue management, the wholesale platform helps companies optimise efficiency, protect and improve interconnect margins, and deliver extraordinary customer experiences. CSG has a long-standing track record of delivering innovative wholesale solutions in disciplines such as trading, routing, QoS assurance and billing and settlement. The company has been twice recognised with Frost & Sullivan's Global Stratecast CSP Monetization Interconnect & Settlement Market Leadership Award. # # # About CSG CSG is a leader in innovative customer engagement, revenue management and payments solutions that make ordinary customer experiences extraordinary. Our cloud-first architecture and customer-obsessed mindset help companies around the world launch new digital services, expand into new markets, and create dynamic experiences that capture new customers and build brand loyalty. For 40 years, CSG’s technologies and people have helped some of the world’s most recognizable brands solve their toughest business challenges and evolve to meet the demands of today’s digital economy with future-ready solutions that drive exceptional customer experiences. With 5,000 employees in over 20 countries, CSG is the trusted technology provider for leading global brands in telecommunications, retail, financial services, and healthcare. Our solutions deliver real world outcomes to more than 900 customers in over 120 countries. To learn more, visit us at csgi.com and connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter. About Global Message Services GMS is an international messaging service provider for Mobile Network Operators and a communications platform provider (CPaaS) for Enterprises worldwide. GMS brings the mobile messaging ecosystem together by providing a single access point for messaging traffic exchange between mobile operators and enterprises. As a trusted partner of mobile operators, GMS enables their messaging business by optimizing P2P and P2A interworking while enhancing enterprise A2P messaging traffic management for revenue growth. For enterprises, GMS’s communications platform (CPaaS) enables brands to unify customer communications via a single API and self-service platform, making it simple to send and receive messages orchestrated across multichannel touchpoints - including SMS, Push, Viber, WhatsApp, and RCS. GMS is headquartered in Baar, Switzerland, with regional offices worldwide. To learn more, visit GMS at gms-worldwide.com and connect with GMS on LinkedIn and Facebook. Copyright © 2022 CSG Systems International, Inc. and/or its affiliates (“CSG”). All rights reserved. CSG® is a registered trademark of CSG Systems International, Inc. All third-party trademarks, service marks, and/or product names which are referenced in this document are the property of their respective owners, and all rights therein are reserved. Contacts: Kristine Østergaard Public Relations +44 (0)79 2047 7204 kristine.ostergaard@csgi.com John Rea Investor Relations +1 (210) 687-4409 john.rea@csgi.com Contact Details Kristine Østergaard +44 7920 477204 kristine.ostergaard@csgi.com Company Website https://www.csgi.com

February 17, 2022 01:08 AM Eastern Standard Time

OPPO to Launch its Flagship Find X5 Series on 24 February 2022

OPPO

Find X5 series is the first to feature OPPO's self-designed NPU MariSilicon X Find X5 Pro will feature Snapdragon® 8 Gen 1 Mobile Platform CHINA, SHENZHEN - Media OutReach - 17 February 2022 - The pioneering smart device brand, OPPO, today announced the launch of its high-end flagship smartphone with world-first imaging experiences – OPPO Find X5 series. OPPO marries breathtaking high-end design with best-in-class technology and camera innovation. Join OPPO and #EmpowerEveryMoment at the global Find X5 Series launch event, to be streamed live via OPPO’s official channel on 24 February 2022 at 11:00 GMT/19:00 GMT+8. At OPPO INNO Day 2021, OPPO announced MariSilicon X, the dedicated imaging Neural Processing Unit, which overcomes smartphone video capture’s greatest challenge – nighttime recording. Taking quality to new heights with its cutting-edge 6nm architecture, real-time RAW processing, and up to 20x faster 4K AI performance – Find X5 Pro shines a light on the night. Powered by the latest-generation, multicore Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, the Find X5 Pro stays cool under pressure and is supercharged to handle the most demanding games and applications. On the outside, it embodies a futuristic design to express a sense of calm and timeless beauty. With an ultra-hard, true ceramic back, the Find X5 Pro achieves clean, modern sophistication while creating a surface texture that reduces fingerprints, and follows a perfectly-smooth, uniform incline to gently cushion the camera module. With unrivalled night shooting capabilities, the high-end 5G flagship Find X5 Pro builds on the core DNA that makes OPPO a hit with consumers and critics alike. With a futuristic aesthetic, new ColorOS, world-class performance, ultra-fast connectivity and a camera system that’s out of this world, Find X5 Pro raises the bar for smartphones. Join the global online launch event to #EmpowerEveryMoment on Thursday February 24 th at 11:00 GMT/19:00 GMT+8 on OPPO’s official channel. About OPPO OPPO is a leading global smart device brand. Since the launch of its first mobile phone in 2008, OPPO has been in relentless pursuit of the perfect synergy of aesthetic satisfaction and innovative technology. Today, OPPO provides a wide range of smart devices spearheaded by the Find and Reno series. Beyond devices, OPPO provides its users with the ColorOS operating system and internet services like OPPO Cloud and OPPO+. OPPO operates in more than 40 countries and regions, with 6 Research Institutes and 5 R&D Centres worldwide, as well as an International Design Centre in London. More than 40,000 of OPPO's employees are dedicated to creating a better life for customers around the world. Contact Details OPPO OPPO International PR Team press@oppo.com

February 16, 2022 08:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

Image

Temporal.io Raises $103 Million Series B, Company Valuation Passes $1.5 Billion

Temporal

Temporal, the leading state management systems company, today announced it raised $103 million in Series B funding. Index Venture Capital led the round and was joined by Sequoia Capital, Amplify Partners, Madrona Venture Group and Addition Ventures. Temporal raised more than $120 million since its founding in 2019, and Series B funds will be used to expand the team with a heavy focus on developer empowerment, growing the vibrant open source community, and developing new features for Temporal’s cloud offering. Temporal was founded by Maxim Fateev and Samar Abbas, the leading experts in application state management. Fateev and Abbas led the design and development of Simple Workflow at AWS, which was the first technology to solve the state management problem. Over the last decade, they architected business critical systems including Durable Task Framework and Uber Cadence before arriving at the ideal solution: Temporal - an MIT licensed platform for unifying and managing application state. “The challenges Samar and I saw at Amazon 15 years ago are the same challenges in front of almost every company today,” said Maxim Fateev, Temporal co-founder and CEO. “The average business application now lives across dozens of stateful servers and services, which has been great for flexibility and scale, but it’s also made applications increasingly brittle and difficult to troubleshoot or enhance.” “The cloud permanently changed software development,” said Mike Volpi, partner and co-founder of Index Venture Capital’s San Francisco office. “The benefits are tremendous but the cost of cloud application complexity is not sustainable. For more than a year, our conversations with Temporal users have revealed their extraordinary enthusiasm for Temporal's solution. The exponential growth of the community is a testament to Maxim and Samar's unique vision. Temporal has all the right ingredients and we're honored to partner with the company on its journey to become one of the industry's enduring software companies.” To further illustrate these challenges, containerization and service based architectures require engineers to manage state, a time consuming and error prone process which shifts the software development focus from business logic to brittle plumbing. Developers have historically relied on database transactions to maintain application consistency, but this is not an option for scalable cloud applications. So they’re forced to crudely assemble infrastructure like queues, databases, CRON jobs and more in order to reach some semblance of a cohesive application experience. Temporal provides a consistent and unified backend for stateful applications that empowers developers to use the languages, tool stacks, and deployment environment of their choice. Temporal’s underlying technology was built by its co-founders at Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, and is used to solve state management at big cloud and leading tech companies today including: Netflix, Doordash, Snap, Box, Stripe, Hashicorp, Coinbase and many more. Examples include: AWS, Azure and Google Cloud: Temporal’s co-founders led teams at AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, to address the challenge of writing and running modern stateful applications. Netflix: chose Temporal as the foundation for its next-gen CI/CD system which will be used by almost every Netflix developer. “We’ve been using Temporal as a critical and core component in developing our next-gen CI/CD platform at Netflix, where it’s being used to help orchestrate fast, safe, and reliable software delivery to multiple cloud providers’ data centers around the world,” said Rob Zienert, Netflix senior software engineer. “Netflix engineers spend less time writing logic to maintain application consistency or guard against failures because Temporal does it for them. The Temporal platform is easy to operate and fits naturally in our development workflow.” Descript: relies on Temporal to eliminate production incidents. "Descript had one incident every week just on the transcription workflow because it was too complicated to maintain,” said Nicolas Gere-lamaysouette, software engineer at Descript. “Engineers can test each worker separately, but it was impossible to test the logic for every new feature end-to-end, so they were afraid of doing any changes in that code path. The frequency of production incidents has declined from once-a-week to virtually zero." Instacart: seamlessly migrated multiple core systems to Temporal and now runs over 75 million monthly workflows. “The Temporal technology has been core to many new Instacart offerings, growing rapidly and without drama to over 75 million monthly workflows across vastly different use cases within only a few months after production launch,” said Josh Wickham, Instacart engineering manager, systems and frameworks. “Temporal the company and community have been key to that success, providing Instacart with clear, timely assistance and guidance for how to use the product at such a large scale.” Datadog: leverages Temporal for database reliability and developer experience, boasting over 100 internal Temporal users. Snap: is a vocal early adopter of Temporal, embracing it as a cross-organization solution for services orchestration and infrastructure deployments. “Temporal Cloud provides Snap a highly reliable and scalable foundation for Snap Stories, enabling us to deliver the amazing global experience our users have come to expect,” said Saral Jain, Director Of Engineering, Enterprise and Cloud Services at Snap Inc. About Temporal: The Temporal platform enables developers to create reliable applications using familiar tools that make them productive. Temporal is used by Netflix, Doordash, Snap, Box, Stripe, Hashicorp, Coinbase and others. Developers are empowered to build and operate resilient applications using developer-friendly primitives. Developers write business logic - not glue code - and Temporal takes care of the rest. More information is available at temporal.io. Contact Details Owen Media Forrest Carman +1 206-859-3118 forrestc@owenmedia.com Company Website https://temporal.io/

February 16, 2022 09:00 AM Pacific Standard Time

Funding Societies raises US$294m to fuel expansion plans in Southeast Asia

Funding Societies

Funding Societies (which goes by Modalku in Indonesia), Southeast Asia’s largest SME digital financing platform, today announced that it has raised* US$144 million in an oversubscribed Series C+ equity round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with new investors notably Vietnamese tech giant VNG Corporation, Rapyd Ventures, Asia-based global investor EDBI, Indies Capital, K3 Ventures, and Ascend Vietnam Ventures. The company also received US$150 million in debt lines from institutional lenders across Europe, the United States, and Asia, some of which have been drawn down since 2021. This comes on the back of its US$45 million Series C raised between 2020 and 2021. The funds solidify Funding Societies’ position as a market leader in digital financing, and propels its expense management, and B2B payments services for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) across Southeast Asia. Its latest fundraise also provides US$16 million to former and existing employees via the company’s stock option plan, in the form of share buyback. Funding Societies was founded in 2015 by Kelvin Teo and Reynold Wijaya out of Harvard Business School to empower MSMEs in Southeast Asia. The FinTech company solves MSMEs’ key pain points for growth, starting with the region’s US$300 billion financing gap. Although small enterprises make up almost 99% of total enterprises in Southeast Asia, they also face many hurdles in obtaining business loans from traditional financial institutions due to a lack of a credit track record or collaterals to pledge. Funding Societies offers micro loans from US$500 up to US$1.5 million, which can be disbursed in as fast as 24 hours, answering in a timely manner to MSMEs who face the pertinent challenge of accessing business funds. Instead of using a traditional corporate supply chain approach to financial inclusion, Funding Societies has differentiated itself as a one-stop shop in SME financing with an AI-led credit model and value-added products to under-served businesses. A recent impact study**, with calculations using methodology by the Asian Development Bank, revealed that Funding Societies-backed MSMEs contributed US$3.6 billion in GDP. Seven years in, the FinTech company is now licensed and registered in four countries across the region - Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and operating in Vietnam. To date, it has disbursed over US$2.1 billion in business financing to MSMEs through more than 5 million loan transactions in Southeast Asia. Co-founder and Group CEO, Kelvin Teo, said, “We’re honoured by the faith of our new and existing shareholders. We started Funding Societies | Modalku to empower SMEs by solving their biggest problem, access to financing, especially unsecured financing. A common misconception is that we compete with banks. The reality is we ‘compete’ with savings, friends and families, and personal credit cards. There is a huge unsecured financing gap because it takes patience and focus, or you risk losing a lot of money. Having proven our AI-led credit capabilities in an unprecedented financial crisis, we look to serve SMEs even better with neobanking and deeper regional presence in Southeast Asia.” “SMEs across Southeast Asia have historically struggled to access institutional finance and instead been forced to mainly rely on personal funding to support growth”, said Greg Moon, Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “Funding Societies is establishing a bridge for these companies to access more sustainable and cheaper financing by building unique data sets on their performance and using AI-led technology to assess their creditworthiness more effectively than traditional models. We are delighted to partner with Kelvin Teo and the team to support their mission to improve societies in Southeast Asia by funding worthy and underserved SMEs.” Funding Societies’ annualised loan origination has exceeded US$1 billion in Q4 2021. Separately, a portion of the Group’s outstanding loan exposure comes from Europe-based institutional lenders. Since 2019, Funding Societies has expanded its suite of financial services beyond lending and plans to bring its operations to more locations in Southeast Asia within the next 12 months. About Funding Societies Funding Societies | Modalku is the largest SME digital financing platform in Southeast Asia, expanding into a leading SME neobank. It is licensed and registered in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and operating in Vietnam. It is backed by SoftBank Vision Fund, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Sequoia Capital India, Alpha JWC Ventures, SMBC Bank, Samsung Ventures, BRI Ventures, Endeavor, SGInnovate, Qualgro, and Golden Gate Ventures amongst others. The FinTech company provides business financing to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), annualising US$1 billion disbursement in 2021. It was given the MAS FinTech Award in 2016, the Global SME Excellence Award at the United Nations’ ITU Telecom World in 2017, KPMG Fintech100 in 2018, Brands for Good in 2019, and ASEAN Startup of the Year by Global Startup Awards in 2020. In 2021, it was honorably mentioned as Responsible Digital Innovator of the Year by World Bank IFC SME Finance Forum and won the MAS Fintech award for the second time.https://fundingsocieties.com/ Contact Details Funding Societies Bilal Mahmood +44 7714 007257 b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com Company Website https://fundingsocieties.com/

February 16, 2022 09:58 AM Eastern Standard Time

Image

Tim Bandos Joins Comodo as Executive VP of SOC Services

Comodo

Comodo Security Solutions is pleased to announce that Tim Bandos has joined the organization as Executive Vice President of SOC Services, bringing years of industry expertise that will strengthen Comodo’s threat detection and incident response services. Prior to joining Comodo, Bandos was CISO and VP of Managed Security Services at Digital Guardian, where he successfully developed and led their managed detection and response initiatives. Previously he led the incident response and threat intelligence team at Dupont, setting the strategic direction for their threat analysis capabilities. Throughout his career, Bandos has expertly guided CISOs at major corporations on risk mitigation and cybersecurity best practices, and has educated security professionals through speaking sessions at prestigious security conferences around the world, including RSA and Black Hat. “I am thrilled to join the team at Comodo, and to work within an organization with such solid technology and stellar industry reputation,” said Bandos. “I am looking forward to building upon the already established SOC team to strengthen and add additional value to the managed detection and response services that Comodo offers to our customers.” “I’ve worked with Tim in the past. He is an experienced individual contributor and seasoned executive, having most recently fulfilled the role of CISO,” said Ken Levine, CEO at Comodo. “Tim’s background as a security practitioner and engagement in myriad investigations offer Comodo a unique skill set which will allow us to immediately enhance the services we offer our clients.” About Comodo Headquartered in Bloomfield, NJ, Comodo’s mission is to help customers avoid breaches with groundbreaking isolation technology that fully neutralizes ransomware, zero-day malware, and cyber-attacks that other security providers can’t do. We deliver active breach prevention with patented auto containment technology. Our Unified Endpoint integrates this technology with critical components like our highly rated advanced endpoint protection, endpoint detection and response, and endpoint management to offer a single cloud-accessible Active Breach Protection solution. Comodo’s SOC-as-a-Service team makes the solution a frictionless, high-security implementation. For more information, visit https://www.comodo.com/. Contact Details Comodo Nicole Baker nicole.baker@comodo.com Company Website http://www.comodo.com

February 16, 2022 09:30 AM Eastern Standard Time

News Release

United Way of King County, Together with Ethan Stowell Restaurants, Introduce the Network of Giving to the U.S. Market

SMB4.0 LLC

United Way of King County today announced a philanthropic partnership to bring the Network of Giving to the Seattle market. The Network of Giving is a powerful hyper-local digital platform that fosters a community-minded movement through the connection of local consumers and merchants to community and charitable organizations – while creating efficiencies in digital fundraising. Gordon McHenry, Jr., President and CEO of United Way of King County, stated, “United Way of King County is pleased to help bring the Network of Giving platform with its benefits for local merchants, community organizations, and other non-profits. The Network of Giving provides another foundation for enhancing and strengthening our communities and aligns with our impact and mission. We are excited to lead its release into the Seattle market and hope to see it reach other United Ways across the country. It has the potential to enhance United Way’s positioning to provide critical support where it is needed most.” “At United Way we want to make the biggest impact possible and lift each other up. With digital commerce and the Network of Giving, we can seamlessly and efficiently benefit the equitable recovery of our community,” McHenry added. “The timing couldn’t be better,” said Steven Hooper Jr, President of Ethan Stowell Restaurants, “The Network of Giving platform aligns perfectly with our approach and philosophy as an organization. The Network of Giving enables significant support for the economic recovery of local merchants and provides tools to grow their business and give back to the community. As a founding merchant partner of the Network of Giving, and a strong local supporter of Seattle’s business community and United Way of King County, I believe the Network of Giving enables merchants to sustain their business, empowers consumers to support local, and enables the United Way to increase its positive impact in the community.” “Our team is working with United Way of King County, Ethan Stowell Restaurants (ESR), and the entire community to release America’s first Network of Giving in Seattle.” stated Rob Bennett, CEO of SMB4.0, the organization that enables the Network of Giving Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, “We know local businesses provide character and individuality to any community. They inspire, strengthen, and stabilize our local economies. The Network of Giving platform is a result of our unmatched commitment to delivering revolutionary, robust technology that is firmly grounded in the core principles of service, accountability, and innovation to better the community. For those local businesses, the Network of Giving changes the playing field by providing sought-after digital capabilities that deliver measured results on their marketing spend, create actionable insights that elevate their customers’ experience, and activate a community-minded movement.” Bennett added, “The Network of Giving is our unique, fully-automated solution that’s designed to meet the multiple needs of the community while requiring that everyone just continue to do what they normally do best. Recognizing that those needs are great right now in every community, Seattle citizens, businesses, and community organizations now have the premiere, digital solution that unites them and differentiates how local merchants can grow their businesses financially and socially.” About United Way of King County United Way of King County is committed to working toward a racially just community where all people have homes, students graduate, and families are financially stable. Signature United Way of King County programs include Home Base, which helps people with rental assistance and avoid eviction; ParentChild+ helps struggling parents gain the skills to be their child’s first, best teacher; Reconnecting Youth helps young people earn a diploma or GED because education is one of the best ways to end the cycle of poverty; and Bridge to Finish, a program that helps community college students finish their education by providing emergency grants, financial training and access to public resources at 10 campuses in King County. In 2020 United Way launched the Community Relief Fund to provide rental and food assistance to those most impacted by the economic impacts of COVID-19. United Way of King County directly impacts community thanks to a substantial endowment originally seeded by the Gates Foundation and designed to offset the bulk of organizational operating costs. Visit: www.uwkc.org About Ethan Stowell Restaurants Founded in 2007, Ethan Stowell Restaurants is a highly acclaimed restaurant group in Seattle founded and led by Chef Ethan Stowell. Ethan Stowell Restaurants include Tavolàta, How to Cook a Wolf, Staple & Fancy Mercantile, Ballard Pizza Co., Rione XIII, Mkt., Red Cow, Frēlard Pizza Co., Cortina, Cortina Cafe, The San Juan Seltzery, and Goldfinch Tavern in the Four Seasons Hotel Seattle. In 2019, Wolf opened in the Nordstrom flagship store in New York City. Visit: www.ethanstowellrestaurants.com About The Network of Giving The proprietary Network of Giving platform transforms communities and businesses by establishing an elevated standard of excellence in corporate and community social responsibility. The Network of Giving powers digital commerce with purpose by linking banking, fundraising, and marketing to inspire community contributions by businesses and consumers – at no cost to the consumer. The Network of Giving is committed to providing financial and social empowerment to drive positive change in communities and the world. The Network of Giving Software-as-a-Service platform is delivered by SMB4.0 and enables digital marketing opportunities for local businesses utilizing rich tokenized data to drive business decisions with a measured result on marketing spend. This enables and empowers business owners to gain key analytics and real-time actionable insights from the data. Visit: www.networkofgiving.com Contact Details Network of Giving (SMB4.0) David Saalfrank david.s@smb40.com United Way of King County Joseph Burris jburris@uwkc.org Ethan Stowell Restaurants Sennen David sennen@esrhospitality.com

February 16, 2022 09:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

1 ... 511 512 513 514 515 ... 654