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FreedomPop Takes Aim At Carriers With Its New, Free Phone Plan
Is your cell phone bill too expensive? So is mine. Wireless data startup FreedomPop has been trying to tackle that little financial truth for the better part of two years now, and it’s finally ready to take aim at traditional wireless carriers and their pricey monthly plans.
In exchange for a whopping zero dollars a month, you can have 500MB of data, 500 text messages, and 200 voice minutes. If you’re the sort who doesn’t need to be glued to a smartphone every waking moment, you may want to pay attention.
And the first smartphone to fly under the FreedomPop banner? The $99 refurbished HTC EVO Design 4G, a device that first debuted on Sprint’s store shelves in late 2011. It’s not just any EVO Design either — the device’s ROM has been modified so that it routes all voice calls over its 3G or 4G data connection in a bid to save the company some serious money. After all, the prospect of making money with a freemium service is a dicey one, even if you’re a mildly buzzy startup that’s raised north of $16 million since last year.
“We’re not touching the voice network at all,” FreedomPop VP Tony Miller explained. “If we were to go with Sprint’s voice network the cost of the deal would be orders of magnitude higher, and the free plan would between $15 and $20.” All of that backroom wheeling and dealing remains transparent to the end user though, as they can use the stock Android dialer and messaging apps just as they always could.
But for free? We’ve seen MVNOs like Ting and upstarts like Andreessen Horowitz-backed Zact tackle the plan pricing problem by allowing for fine-grained tweaking, but where does FreedomPop’s money come from? A slew of value-add features and bigger data, voice, and messaging buckets. If that free plan just isn’t enough for you, you have to option to shell out $10.99 to jump up to unlimited voice and texting. Too steep? A $7.99/month plan nets you 500 minutes, unlimited messages, and 500MB of data. So far, adoption of those plans seems to be moving in the right direction — Miller noted that 45 percent of the “six figure” FreedomPop subscriber base regularly pay for an additional feature or service plan, and the company is hoping to see that figure inch closer to 55 percent for its phone service.
The spec sheet of FreedomPop’s inaugural phone is dated to say the least, but the real bummer here is that you’re stuck with a WiMAX-only device — a quick look at the Sprint/CLEAR’s WiMAX footprint probably won’t leave you feeling too thrilled. In case you haven’t been keeping tabs on the nuances of the wireless data market these past few years (and man have you missed out), Sprint worked with Clearwire to develop a 4th generation wireless data infrastructure to rival LTE back in 2010. It eventually became clear that WiMAX was basically a dog, and Sprint shifted gears to build out an LTE network like the rest of its competitors. FreedomPop is all too aware that WiMAX presents a curious set of problems since they’ve talked up their own adoption of Sprint’s LTE network.
“When we launched LTE a few months ago it was with the phone in mind,” Miller added. “It puts us in a great position, and we’ll very quickly be able to throw high-end LTE devices onto the network.” It’s way too early to tell if the team will ever reach the critical mass it needs, but I suspect they may have finally found their footing with this idea.
Calling Hardware Startups, Compete In Hardware Battlefield For $50,000
Gadgets, gizmos and things are hot. With the rise of crowdfunding and easier paths to manufacturing, there are more gadgeteers than ever before. And we’re looking for some of the best hardware startups to compete on our Las Vegas stage for a giant $50,000 check, tons of publicity and the brand new Hardware Battlefield cup.
From the same vein of the Startup Battlefield, this new competition will pit 20 hardware startups against each other. The winner will be chosen by VCs, makers and TechCrunch Editors.
The best thing? The Hardware Battlefield is taking place at CES 2014 in Las Vegas but is open to all comers and you don’t need a conference badge to enter, attend the battlefield events, or simply spectate. Our goal is to find the diamond in the CE rough. We don’t care about Samsung, Sony, and Philips -– we care about you.
It’s free to enter. The competition is open to all hardware companies who are planning to launch (crowdfund or ship) product in a two week window before or after January 10. You can still be in prototyping stage but you must have a working, usable product by January 7 and be ready to offer pre-orders on that day or soon thereafter. We recommend launching your crowdsourcing page during the event, however, as it will have maximum impact.
We will have more details shortly but for now we invite you to submit your product. The rules are simple:
1. You must launch your product or crowdfunding campaign before January 7.
2. You must be a single proprietor or small company.
3. This must not be a feature update to an existing product.
4. You must be able to attend rehearsals and sessions in Las Vegas prior to CES and during the show.
5. You must launch first with TechCrunch and approach other media after you appear on our stage.
We will pick 15 entrants on October 30 and announce the location, time, and judges closer to the event. The grand prize winner will get $50,000 to go towards research, development, or whatever else your team needs to get by. All projects will be kept confidential until January 7.
We are very excited about this new event and we want to make it the best one ever. Remember to email sponsors@techcrunch.com if you’d like to sponsor the festivities and if you have any questions email john@techcrunch.com. We look forward to seeing what you’re working and we hope to see you in Vegas!
Redpoint Adds More Investment Talent; Nabs Former Twitter Platform Director Ryan Sarver As Partner
On the heels of closing its fifth $400 million fund, VC firm Redpoint is making some major hires in the partnership. The Silicon Valley firm is bringing on Twitter’s former Director of Platform, Ryan Sarver, as a Partner. Redpoint is also promoting Tomasz Tunguz to Partner adding Jamie Davidson (formerly VP Product at Hotel Tonight) to the team as a Senior Associate.
Sarver recently left Twitter after spending four years working with developers, and helping lead Twitter’s platform strategy. Sarver was an instrumental force in effectively communicating the confusion around how Twitter would be dealing with third parties after releasing its ecosystem guidelines in 2011. Prior to his tenure at Twitter, Sarver was the Director of Consumer Products at Skyhook Wireless. While Sarver has made a few angel investments (BlackJet and SmartThings), this will be his first formal investment role.
As Sarver tells us, he was looking to recharge his batteries post Twitter and was potentially thinking about starting his own startup. But once he started talking to the Redpoint partners, he became intrigued by the idea of being able to advise and work with entrepreneurs and startups. The icing on the cake was that the Redpoint team had the same ethos, and it felt like a real family, he explains. “I felt like I fit in immediately,” he adds.
He also sees the timing of his joining the investment world as ideal. With the additions of disruptive platforms like AngelList to the ecosystem, Sarver is looking forward to joining venture capital at a time of upheaval and transformation. As for what he will be investing in, Sarver is still deciding where his focus will be. He’s intimately familiar with platforms, mobile, and social, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see him doing an enterprise deal or two.
Tunguz, who has been a Principal at Redpoint for three years, has helped Redpoint with advising portfolio companies such as Looker, ERPLY, Electric Imp and Axial Market. As an investment partner, he’ll be focused on backing marketplaces, SaaS and analytics startups.
Redpoint, which was founded back in 1999, says it has invested in a total of 375 companies over the years, 120 of which have ended in either an IPO or M&A exit. Some of its recent bets on the early-stage side include mobile-focused social network Path, Internet-of-Things chip startup Electric Imp, flash storage company Pure Storage, payments startup Stripe, Sonos, and others
For Redpoint, the expansion of its partner team represents a broader change in the way the firm now invests. The firm says in the current world, it needs more coverage, more direct experience with the latest trends and more perspectives. Clearly Sarver, Tunguz and Davidson bring experience from working with some of most influential and compelling platforms in today’s tech world.
As I’ve written in the past, if VCs don’t usher in new, fresh-faced partners, they run the risk of being irrelevant when it comes to standing out in the sea of VC firms these days. Clearly Redpoint is thinking thoughtfully about recruiting the best talent to help lead the firm for future generations.
Watch Startup Bathys Creates An Atomic Clock For Your Wrist
While this watch may look goofy as all get-out, rest assured it holds an important spot in the history of timekeeping. It is one of the first “atomic” clocks that is accurate to a second every thousand years – provided the battery doesn’t die. Called the Cesium 133 it’s made by a small Hawaiian watch company called Bathys [Warning: Autoplaying audio]
The watch uses a small Symmetricon SA.45s CASC, an atomic clock on a chip. It provides the timekeeping system for the analog clock face. The creator, Dr. John Patterson, slapped the chip into a milled metal case, added a face and a strap, and is now working on figuring out how to manufacture these monsters. This isn’t even the watch’s final form. According to ABlogToWatch:
I’ve looked at some of Bathys’ other pieces on this site and the style and quality have always been top notch, especially for a US-based brand. I’m interested to see how these monsters come out when Patterson is finally ready to ship.
Considering Woz runs around with a huge Nixie Tube watch sometimes I suspect this behemoth will end up on some techie wrists when it’s finally complete. Bathys will make 20 of these watches in 2014 and they’ll be priced at $12,000 each, arguably a steep price to pay in order to get absolute integrity in your time keeping. However, now you know you’ll never be late.
Michael Dell, Silver Lake Get The Green Light From Regulators On $24.9B Plan To Take Dell Private
The government may now be in shutdown mode, but not before it gave the go-ahead to Dell to go private. The embattled PC company today announced that it has received all necessary regulatory clearance for Michael Dell, who founded and led the computer firm as CEO and chairman, and Silver Lake Partners to take the company private in a $24.9 billion transaction. This was the last big hurdle Dell needed to surmount, and now the transaction is expected to close before the end of Q3 2014, or November 1.
Until then, the company remains publicly-traded, a spokesperson noted today.
After the deal is finalized, Michael Dell will own about 75% of the company, with Silver Lake the remainder, and with some of that financed in part by Microsoft, which relies on Dell as a major OEM for its Windows products.
Prior to today, Dell had already secured the necessary votes from shareholders for the deal.
Like other PC makers, Dell has been feeling the pressure from the rise of newer, smaller and less expensive computing devices. Its own forays into that market have been less than successful, crowded out by other OEMs like Samsung and Apple.
In PCs, between 2001 and 2006, Dell was the world’s largest PC maker — a business first started by Michael Dell in his college dorm room in the 1984. But since then it has been in a gradual decline and is now in a number-three behind Lenovo and HP.
In an interview in September, Michael Dell talked about his ongoing strategy to position Dell as more than a simple device maker. “End to end solutions. We’re focused on and absolutely building Dell as an end to end solutions company. As it relates to PCs, we think PCs are an important part of the end to end solution,” he told Forbes. But there are many questions that come to mind from a statement like that. Does that make Dell more like HP? Or more like Samsung? Or Apple? And hasn’t Dell been following this strategy for years already?
Like BlackBerry, which is also going private, the big question is whether Dell will have what it takes to turn itself around: at the very least it will be able to try to do this without too-persistent scrutiny from the public markets.
These TechBikers Just Built 16 Libraries After Cycling From Paris To London
Last year a bunch of European tech startup founders got on their bikes and raised money for charity. This weekend just gone the TechBikers – 70 founders/techies – once again achieved their 200 mile, 3 day cycle ride from Paris to London in style. So we figured it was worth a quick mention in our normally action-packed coverage of breaking tech news.
As a result of last year’s ride, TechBikers built a school and two libraries in Nepal. This year they’ve so far raised $75,000, enough money to build sixteen libraries or schools in India, Africa and Asia, courtesy of the Room to Read charity. Each library can serve as many as 2,000 children in these countries. And you can still donate yourself here, go on, do it. The donations are powered by a genuine startup, believe.in, which allows all the money donated to go to the charity, and the payment fees were waived by Stripe.
Techbikers has quickly become one of the biggest startup/tech fundraising effort for charity in London, if not Europe, and it’s even spawned other chapters, notably in Germany, with TechBikers.de.
The Techbikers 2013 group is very representative of the London tech industry featuring VCs (Index, Balderton, WhiteStar), big companies (Google, Microsoft, Yandex, Yammer, Qualcomm), Co-working spaces (Techhub, Level39, Hoxton Mix, Central Working, Campus London) and a bunch of startups like Mixcloud, Stripe, GoCardless, GoCarShare, Qriously, Blaze, Knodium, Audience.io, Knodium.
The whole idea was the brainchild of Eze Vidra, head of the Google-backed Campus London facility for startups, who worked with Abraham Choi, Mark Jennings, Ben Southworth, Gerry Newton, Andy Young and many others.
Congrats everyone!
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