Biz Builder Mike

You can't sail Today's boat on Yesterdays wind - Michael Noel

No Code Digital Future: EasySend Raises $16 Million

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EasySend, a company that wants to help insurance companies, banks, and other financial services firms better develop their tech stack with an “AI-powered no-code platform,” has raised $16 million. The Tel Aviv based company reports that the Series A funding was led by Hanaco with participation from Intel Capital.

The new funding follows a previously undisclosed $5 million seed round from existing investors Vertex Ventures and Menora Insurance. The cash infusion will be used to boost staff and offices around the world as well as for further product development.

EasySend’s platform is designed to convert manual processes into “digital journeys” that can be optimized by non-technical staff without any coding via a simple drag and drop interface.

EasySend believes that now more than ever, financial services and insurance companies are searching for ways to digitize their operations effectively.

Tal Daskal, EasySend CEO and co-founder, says the world is changing and COVID has forced traditional businesses to embrace a digital transformation:

“Our no-code platform is uniquely positioned to make this digital transition easier for enterprises from a wide range of industries – especially insurance and financial services – enabling them to create new digital products efficiently and effectively while boosting and creating digital opportunities which not only save on development and maintenance costs, but also drive revenue growth.”

Nick Washburn, senior managing director, Intel Capital, added:

“EasySend’s no-code platform utilizes AI to digitize thousands of forms quickly and easily, reducing development time from months to days, and transforming customer journeys that have been paper-based, inefficient and frustrating. In today’s world, this is more critical than ever before.”

EasySend says it currently works with unnamed leading financial institutions in the U.S.A., Israel, and Europe, including top insurance companies.

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World’s “Smartest” Cities: Singapore, Helsinki, Zurich, According to Smart City Index Report for 2020

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Singapore, Helsinki (in Sweden) and Zurich (in Switzerland) have been named as the world’s “smartest” cities during this year. They’ve managed to outperform other major European and global financial hubs, according to the Smart City Index Report for 2020.

Geneva is another Swiss city that was ranked in the top 10 smartest cities (at the seventh spot).

The report has been published by the Institute for Management Development (IMD) and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).

The 2020 Smart City Index ranked 109 cities, which is 7 more than the 2019 inaugural edition. The rankings were determined by using economic and technological data. The Index also took into consideration the perceptions of local residents about how “smart” they think their cities were. It has been released under the guidance of the IMD Smart City Observatory (SCO).

The Index results for 2020 aim to provide insights into how digital technology is serving an important role in supporting critical services during the COVID-19 crisis. According to the report, there’s a positive correlation between “smarter” cities and those that have the most effective response to the Coronavirus.

In each city that has been ranked this year, 120 citizens were asked various questions during  April and also in May 2020 about the technological provisions of their cities across several  areas, including health and safety, mobility, activities, opportunities and governance. The score for each city has been determined using the “perceptions” of the past couple years that the survey has been conducted.

The top 3 “smartest” cities in 2020 represent a reshuffling of last year’s rankings. During 2019, Singapore was ranked first, Zurich came in second and Oslo (in Sweden) was third. Some of the most noticeable changes and arguably the most important findings of the 2020 Smart City Index were in underdeveloped cities across the globe.

The report noted that if we simply added free Internet services or WiFi to a city like Medellin (which is notably up by 19 places in the rankings in 2020), the locals would have perceived the positive change in their quality of life with technology to be quite significant.

Notably, a technologically advanced city like Zurich has residents that would naturally expect major changes or improvements to existing tech solutions before they would “perceive” anything to have really become better than before.

Singapore’s government has introduced several initiatives that will most likely continue to support digital technology adoption in the Asian country. Financial technology firms Active.ai, Cardup, Funding Societies, PolicyPal, and Transwap will be receiving new investments from Singapore’s AMTD Group.

Razer Fintech and Franklin Templeton will be offering digital wealth management services to Millennials in Singapore and other Asian countries.

Meanwhile, in Switzerland (a country that’s home to smart cities like Geneva and Zurich), the SIX Group will be leveraging Luxembourg Fintech LUXHUB’s Open Banking technology to streamline Switzerland’s financial sector. Switzerland’s Credit Suisse will also introduce app-only banking services to compete with Fintech Challengers.

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Amazfit Raises $3.3M on Indiegogo by Connecting Health with Technology

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Amazfit is on a mission to help people improve their health with technology, and they’ve recently used crowdfunding to launch two wearables: The Amazfit X smartwatch that monitors overall fitness and provides easy-to-understand health recommendations. The Amazfit ZenBuds are lightweight, noise-cancelling earbuds that can be comfortably worn all night long. The campaigns have raised over $3.3M collectively, inspiring both the Amazfit team and their crowdfunding backers to create a healthier world with technology. 

Wearables designed by health experts

Amazfit’s story began 2013, when it was founded on a noble mission: “Connect health with technology.” The company set out to build biometric and bioanalytic technology and establish a global health ecosystem, and has since become one of the largest wearable manufacturers in the world.

Amazfit really wanted health to be the focus of their brand, so they hired a team of medical experts to help build and oversee their products, to ensure that wearables would measure the right things and offer sound medical advice. “Ninety percent of our medical expert team has a doctorate degree,” says Amazfit. “It’s what helps to distinguish us from other makers of wearable technology.”

“All of our smartwatches give you a reading that we call PAI: Personal Activity Intelligence. It takes all of your different fitness metrics into account and gives you a single number to help you understand your overall health,” says Amazfit. “We want to visualize the data that the biometric sensors capture and translate it into something useful and straightforward.”

The brand, which is headquartered in China, is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and has shipped over 100 million devices internationally since its founding. But despite their global reach, Amazfit isn’t very well known in the United States. Crowdfunding has been their chance to raise awareness and build an ecosystem of products and users in North America. 

“The brand doesn’t have enough exposure that we need in the US market,” Amazfit says. “But challenges are oftentimes opportunities. It’s a chance to share our company vision with a whole new group of people.”

The Amazfit X is one of their Indiegogo campaigns, and it has raised $2M on Indiegogo

Two amazing Amazfit products on one crowdfunding platform

Amazfit doesn’t do things by half measures. So when they decided to use crowdfunding to build a community in the United States, they did it with not one, but two campaigns. They unveiled multiple wearables at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, and then launched two of them on Indiegogo. 

The Amazfit X Curved Smartwatch is as beautiful as it is functional. The watch, which tracks heart rate, fitness activities, sleep quality, blood oxygen levels, and more, has a design that curves elegantly around the wearer’s wrist. “Everything on the watch is curved, even the battery,” says Amazfit. The battery, in fact, is what helps to set the Amazfit X apart: It can last up to seven days on a single charge. “Thanks to our own algorithm, AI chip and biometric sensors, we can make sure the data is accurate while consuming less battery,” says their spokesperson. 

The Amazfit X is also competitively priced for the number of features it includes. “You can’t find anything at a comparable price with this many features” says Amazfit. The Amazfit X also has a customizable, always-on display, making it the ultimate fitness companion.

Amazfit’s other crowdfunding campaign is for the Amazfit ZenBuds, a pair of lightweight sleeping earbuds that block noise, play soothing sounds, and monitor sleep. The ZenBuds are designed to be worn comfortably all night to help to trigger and deepen sleep cycles. They can also be worn during the day to help users drown out distractions and cultivate focus.

“We pay a lot of attention to feedback, because necessity is the heart of innovation. We make these products to solve health problems, and a lot of our users have reported that they are struggling with sleep,” the tech company says. “And there really isn’t any other product like the ZenBuds on the market.”

The Amazfit ZenBuds has raised over $1.3M on Indiegogo

Using crowdfunding to get inspired

Amazfit chose to launch these two products via crowdfunding because they wanted to get early feedback that could help them tweak the product. “The two products we launched on Indiegogo are relatively new in the industry. We wanted to choose products that were in production but not finished yet, because the feedback we’d get from backers would give us a chance to improve them,” explains Amazfit.

The Amazfit team have focused on engaging with community to get the exposure and feedback they need. “Building trust with backers is quite important with crowdfunding,” the company says. “We tell the story of who we are as an established brand and display pictures and videos of our factory.”

“We focus on maintaining relationships,” says Amazfit. “We’ve received a lot of funds and have 20K backers around the world. Those relationships don’t end when the crowdfunding campaign ends. They continue. We always want to make sure there’s a way for backers to reach out to us.”

Amazfit X and ZenBuds have been extremely popular on Indiegogo, collectively raising over $3M. “The results have been surprising to the team. The campaigns significantly surpassed our internal goals. The team is working extra hours to make sure we can deliver on time. We’re going to ship in batches instead of all at once.”

“Crowdfunding is a good way to build brand awareness. We’ve used it to get press coverage and find influencers. Our campaigns have let us show a new audience that our wearables are good for health,” says Amazfit.

Their campaigns have also indicated interest in these innovative new devices, and the team has found the response exhilarating. “The campaigns have shown demand,” says Amazfit. “But connecting with all of these backers? It’s inspired the team to create better products.”

To support the Amazfit campaigns, check out the campaign pages for Amazfit X and ZenBuds. 

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