Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Facebook removes 3.2 billion fake accounts, millions of child abuse posts
Motorola Razr Revived as a Foldable Phone With 6.2-Inch Flexible Display
DJI Unveils Drone-to-Phone Tracking Amid Privacy Backlash
Google Pay to Offer Checking Accounts Through Citi, Stanford Federal
Amid privacy backlash, China's DJI unveils drone-to-phone tracking
Facebook Removes 3.2 Billion Fake Accounts, Millions of Child Abuse Posts
Indonesia’s Travelio raises $18M to help tenants rent apartments
More than 50% of residential apartments and other real estate properties in Jakarta are currently vacant, according to official estimates. A startup that is attempting to make it easier for tenants to rent these properties in Jakarta and other places in Indonesia said on Thursday that it has closed a new financing round.
Travelio has raised $18 million in its Series B financing round led by Singapore-based Pavilion Capital and Gobi Partners, the four-year-old startup said. Some existing investors also participated in the round.
The startup works with individual apartment owners and property dealers to allow tenants to find and rent apartments. People can book an apartment for a day to months, Christina Suriadjaja, cofounder and chief strategy officer of Travelio, told TechCrunch in an interview.
Travelio has over 4,000 properties exclusively signed up with the platform, she said. The startup takes between 20% to 35% of the revenue cut from its property owner partners, she explained.
Typically, it would cost a little more than $350 for someone to rent an apartment for a month from Travelio. In Indonesia, currently those looking for an apartment from property dealers and individual owners have to make a down payment of 20% and pay an advanced security deposit for more than a year. Through its pricing structure, Travelio is attempting to address this issue as well.
A number of startups including RedDoorz, Oyo, and Airbnb operate in Indonesia, but because they are focused on providing rooms for a day or two like hotels, this differentiates them from Travelio. Suriadjaja said Airbnb, which lists properties of Travelio, is more of a partner than a competitor. “Our competitors are property dealers,” she said.
In addition to offering these fully furnished apartments on rents, Travelio also takes care of house cleaning and maintenance of these properties. “In the coming months, we will work on expanding the services we offer,” she said. Some of the services it is exploring include interior design, daily necessities, financing, payments and other logistic-related offerings.
The startup aims to have 20,000 apartments on its platform in one year. “With Indonesia’s rising middle class population, Travelio is well-positioned to serve the growing demand for temporary housing, urbanization and affordable living options,” the startup said.
A recent research report by Google, Temasek and Bain & Co projected that Southeast Asia’s internet economy would top $100 billion this year. Indonesia, home to more than 260 million people, would be the biggest contributor to the internet economy’s growth in the region, the report said.
Motorola announces new Razr phone with a 6.2" touchscreen display that folds like a clamshell for $1,500, launching in January on Verizon in the US (Chaim Gartenberg/The Verge)
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Apple Music launches Replay, letting subscribers look back at their favorite music in 2019, similar to Spotify's year-end review, Wrapped, but updated each week (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
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Foxconn posts Q3 net profit of ~$1B, up 23.3% YoY, beating analyst estimates, despite Apple's declining iPhone sales, which it relies on for ~50% of its revenue (Yimou Lee/Reuters)
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All-India traders body seeks ban on e-comm portals
Breach affecting 1 million was caught only after hacker maxed out target’s storage
Enlarge (credit: Ryan Adams / Flickr)
The US Federal Trade Commission has sued an IT provider for failing to detect 20 hacking intrusions over a 22-month period, allowing the hacker to access the data for 1 million consumers. The provider only discovered the breach when the hacker maxed out the provider’s storage system.
Utah-based InfoTrax Systems was first breached in May 2014, when a hacker exploited vulnerabilities in the company’s network that gave remote control over its server, FTC lawyers alleged in a complaint. According to the complaint, the hacker used that control to access the system undetected 17 times over the next 21 months. Then on March 2, 2016, the intruder accessed personal information for about 1 million consumers. The data included full names, social security numbers, physical addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, and usernames and passwords for accounts on the InfoTrax service.
The intruder accessed the site later that day and again on March 6, stealing 4,100 usernames, passwords stored in clear-text, and hundreds of names, addresses, social security numbers, and data for payment cards.
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