Tech News

WeWalk, a U.K.-based startup developing a “smart cane” for visually-impaired people, today announced it has raised £2 million ($2.4 million) in venture funding from several notable institutional and angel investors — this includes Manchester City and German international footballer İlkay Gündoğan.

Founded out of London in 2019, WeWalk has developed a GPS-enabled smart cane and smartphone app, helping users navigate their surrounding environment. Time named the WeWalk Smart Cane one of the “best inventions” of 2019.

The cane, which costs around $600, can detect physical obstacles on the sidewalk and alert the user through vibrations and sounds, while the app integration enables turn-by-turn navigation too. Last year, WeWalk announced a partnership with Intel-owned Moovit to bring local transit data into the mix.

Fast-forward to today, and WeWalk is now looking to use its fresh cash injection to bolster its product with computer vision smarts, developed in partnership with Imperial College London and the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB).

Visual aid

While it’s not clear exactly what this will entail yet, the ultimate goal is to build something capable of reading road signs, or telling the user what number is on the front of a bus, or even what a specific object in their path is.

“We are aiming to maximise sensor efficiency and cost-effectiveness, leveraging smartphone sensing when appropriate,” WeWalk R&D lead Jean Marc Feghali explained to TechCrunch. “We are also investigating the state-of-the-art to determine what could be possible in different form factors.”

This initiative could also benefit from WeWalk’s existing partnership with Microsoft as part of its AI for Accessibility program, and may lead to deeper integrations with Microsoft’s Seeing AI app or Azure ML, according to Feghali.

The company has already started work on the project, recruiting some 30 people to help build and test the necessary software and hardware

“The RNIB is supporting user-testing and ensuring that our designs are human-centred,” Feghali said. “Imperial College is supporting the underlying sensing algorithms. We envision a product that could be attached discreetly, providing its sensors with the widest field of view without impeding the user’s typical motion. We will then look to different feedback mechanisms including auditory and tactile to inform the user of information necessary for their safe mobility.”

It’s still a while away though, with plans to have something ready for market by 2024, but the company said that it is already testing camera and remote-human assistance functionality within the WeWalk mobile app, using this as a “design platter” to add further computer vision tools in the future.

With a fresh £2 million in the bank, the company said that it also plans to support other groups by creating “adaptive mobility aids” such as walking sticks or frames for elderly people.

“We want to scale our business to reach a wider global audience and advance our technology to offer better, more meaningful information to visually impaired people, older people, and anyone that faces mobility challenges,” WeWalk co-founder and CEO Gökhan Meriçliler said in a statement.

WeWalk’s funding round was led by Nesta Impact Investments, King’s Health Partners (KHP Ventures) and APY Ventures, with participation from public investors via Crowdcube and, of course, İlkay Gündoğan.

WeWalk raises cash to bring computer vision to smart cane for visually-impaired people by Paul Sawers originally published on TechCrunch

Foxconn is investing another $500 million in its India business as it ramps up its plans to expand its chipmaking factories in the South Asian market that is slowly becoming a key hardware hub for Apple.

In a stock exchange filing in Taiwan on Thursday, Foxconn said its Singapore subsidiary is deploying the capital into the India entity, Hon Hai Technology India Mega Development Private Limited.

The move follows Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai, picking up pace to expand its smartphone production capacity in India as key partner Apple begins locally producing the current generation iPhone units in the country.

In late September, Apple began assembling the iPhone 14 models in India, locally producing the current lineup for the first time in the same calendar year in the world’s second largest smartphone market.

Analysts estimate that Apple will turn India into a global iPhone manufacturing hub by 2025 as it slowly cuts its reliance on China, where it has been producing the vast majority of its devices for over a decade. In a September report, JP Morgan analysts said Apple will move 5% of global iPhone 14 production to India by late 2022 and expand its manufacturing capacity in the country to produce 25% of all iPhones by 2025.

In a report Wednesday, Morgan Stanley analysts echoed many similar estimations, saying, Apple’s goal is to have India “contribute up to 10% of total iPhone production in 2-3 years.”

Foxconn also recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indian state of Gujarat to set up a $20 billion semiconductor and display unit in the coastal state that is home of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Foxconn said it will bring technical expertise to the venture whereas Vedanta, known for its mining business, will finance the project, top officials said. The state of Gujarat will offer subsidies on capital expenditure and electricity to the project.

Apple partner Foxconn invests another $500 million in India business by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

Zeraki, a Kenyan edtech that has built digital learning and school data analytics platforms, has raised $1.8 million seed funding in a round led by Acumen Fund, for product catalog growth and regional expansion.

Save the Children Impact Investment Fund, Verdant Frontiers Fintech, Logos Ventures participated in the round, as did the Nairobi Business Angels Network (NaiBAN), and Melvyn Lubega, co-founder of Go1, an Australia-based edtech unicorn.

Zeraki co-founder and CEO Isaac Nyangolo told TechCrunch they plan on introducing more administrative tools for schools like timetabling software, in addition to supporting parents with fee loans.

“We’ve built an extensive distribution channel covering almost half of the high schools in Kenya and that means, we have an opportunity to solve other tech needs that schools have,” said Nyangolo.

“We plan on building more administrative tools for schools, and payment products on the parents’ side. We have also brought back focus on [the once dormant] digital learning platform, and also tested a number of products like timetabling,” he added.

Zeraki is also looking to enter 10 new markets over the next three years, after scaling in Kenya, Uganda and Guinea, where it currently operates.

“We’re expanding first into the regions that we understand and have similar business environments. We plan on first moving into the entire East Africa community and then exploring the Anglophone region,” said Nyangolo.

Co-founded by Nyangolo and Erick Oude (COO) in 2014, Zeraki initially introduced an interactive digital learning platform for high school students, which included quizzes and systems for tracking their performance, but it wasn’t until the Covid pandemic struck in 2020 that it became popular.

“We realized that schools were purchasing the product but not using it because they lacked the appropriate infrastructure, and teachers didn’t know how to integrate it within the school setting. We were bootstrapping at the time, and didn’t have enough resources to do consumer education. But around 2017 we realized that data was actually a much bigger problem in schools,” he said.

Zeraki then embarked on building the data analytics system to help schools to better manage their students’ data. The data analytics platform allows teachers to upload students’ grades from their mobile phones, and gives a performance breakdown for each student, subject or stream.

The platform, which is more popular than digital learning platform, also integrates a bulk messaging service for internal and external communication, in addition to allowing parents an avenue for tracking student performance and fee payment.

“Every child needs a report card at the end of the school term. And the platforms for producing these report forms were offline computer-based platforms. So, teachers had to line up behind two or three computers at a school to do the data entry in order to produce the report forms. By moving this to a mobile-first cloud-based experience, it means that as soon as they are done grading students’ grades at home, the teachers just enter the scores on their phone.”

Nyangolo added that, so far, over 5,000 schools with a total of 2 million students, are using the data analytics platform. He expects the demand to continue growing as they launch in new markets, and as more schools embrace digital tools to streamline their administrative tasks.

“Education is yet to be digitalized across most countries in Africa, and there is greater opportunity for us to build this market. Laying that foundation that introduces countries, schools and parents on how technology can solve the problems we have in education and being one of the companies in Africa that have shown that it is possible to do this at scale makes this an exciting opportunity,” he said.

Zeraki, a Kenyan edtech providing digital solutions for school admin, raises $1.8M by Annie Njanja originally published on TechCrunch

Many founders are reactive when business doesn’t go as planned. They may make knee-jerk reactions like: “If I lose 10% of revenue then I’ll just lay off five people.”

The problem with such approaches is that they don’t always solve the underlying business problem.

Take Peloton as an example: At the beginning of the pandemic, the at-home fitness company was riding high and nearly doubled its annual sales. The spike — largely driven by people turning to home fitness as gyms suddenly became untenable — would also be its downfall, unleashing a series of miscalculations that sent its stock diving.

What really happened with Peloton was that the unanticipated demand led to financial and planning mistakes. Peloton had banked on consumers changing their behavior and preferring to exercise at home. They were wrong.

What could Peloton have done to prepare for both the sudden upswing and downswing? They didn’t have a crystal ball, but luckily, we have something that comes close. It’s called a “Three-Case Model.”

What is a three-case model?

With case models, companies can proactively mitigate risk and forecast financial trajectories. The business climate, consumer preferences and competition can all send into motion sequences of events that nobody can predict with certainty. Thankfully, founders can still prepare for them.

Case models are a part of scenario analysis, which helps you visualize the mostly likely outcomes for a business. Through case models, founders can understand how shifts in the business climate could impact sales, cash flow, profits and more. They can also visualize the ramification of strategic decisions, such as what would happen if they make an acquisition, build a factory, raise prices or go after a new market.

To prepare for a downturn, build a three-case model by Ram Iyer originally published on TechCrunch