BardTech

The post Countingup, the business bank account that combines bookkeeping, raises £2.3M seed appeared first on BardTech . Countingup , the U.K. fintech that provides a business bank account that combines bookkeeping, has raised £2.3 million in seed funding. Leading the round is Forward Partners, with participation from previous backer Frontline Ventures, and JamJar Investments. Founded last year by Tim Fouracre, who previously founded cloud accounting software Clear Books, Countingup wants to simplify the life of sole traders and other small businesses by reinventing the business current account. Fouracre’s vision is that for small enterprises, business banking and accounting software should be merged so that bookkeeping and filing accounts can be a lot more automated. “If you are running a business then bookkeeping is a chore, wastes your time and is boring,” the Countingup up founder told me last year . “Your bank surprises you with hidden fees and you’ve probably lost faith in...

The post Wish, Netflix, Uber and ~100 others testing WhatsApp’s new Business API appeared first on BardTech . Earlier this month, WhatsApp announced the launch of its first revenue-generating enterprise product, the WhatsApp Business API. The API allows businesses to respond to messages from WhatsApp users for free up to 24 hours, then charges for any responses after that point on a per message basis. Though still in a limited preview, the company is now supporting around 100 businesses directly on its API platform, including airlines, e-commerce companies, banks, and others like Uber and Netflix , and plans to onboard many more in the months ahead. Because businesses have to first apply to gain access the API, there’s some misinformation floating around on backchannels about how to get approved. For example, some industry sources have been telling partners that no U.S.-based businesses are being onboarded to the API at this point. This is untrue, WhatsApp says. In fact, there’...

The post Shoes of Prey presses pause to select a business sale or pivot appeared first on BardTech . Shoes of Prey , a Khosla Ventures-backed shoe retailer whose website let women customize footwear purchases by selecting the color and material of the sandals or pumps they wanted to order as well as the size, has announced it’s stopped taking orders after almost ten years trading. The management team will now decide whether to sell or otherwise pivot the business. Founder Jodie Fox announced the shut down in an Instagram post in which she writes about the struggles to scale the company’s early profitability. “We tested many channels to scale what we had created. From award-winning physical stores, to wholesaling, and of course our direct to customer online experience,” she writes. “While all the indicators and data were positive, we were not able to truly crack mass-market adoption.” “We are making the difficult decision today to pause orders and actively assess all our option...

The post Travelstop brings business travel management to SMEs and startups in Southeast Asia appeared first on BardTech . Travelstop is a new startup in Singapore that aims to bring the benefits of business travel management to SMEs and other smaller companies in Southeast Asia. The company launched its product today after being founded in November 2017 by three entrepreneurs who worked at TravelMob, the Singapore startup bought by HomeAway in 2013 . Prior to TravelMob, the trio — Prashant Kirtane (CEO), Vijay Aggarwal (CTO) and Altaf Dhamani (CPO) — worked together at Yahoo Southeast Asia. They all moved over to HomeAway, which was later bought by Expedia for $3.9 billion in 2015  and Travelstop is their first independent venture following that spell. Already, the startup has a team of 12 in Singapore. Kirtane told TechCrunch in an interview that 90 percent of business travel in Asia is unmanaged. That’s surprising since the region accounts fo...

The post 5 Reasons Why Website Security Is Crucial for a Growing Business appeared first on BardTech . Growing your website’s audience can be difficult, but did you know the effort you put into your website security can result in faster growth? It’s true. Ensuring your site security features are strong and updated can boost your site traffic in ways you probably never considered. Let’s look at the various ways your strong security standards can help with your site promotion efforts. 1. Build User Trust The place where you’ll publish your security efforts to your visitors is your website privacy policy . One example of an embedded security section in a privacy policy is that of the U.S. Department of State. As a government organization, building trust around the website security is critical. The verbiage that the State Department uses is not so specific that you know what systems or technology they’re using. However, it does explain the extent of their security systems to prot...