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Pitch Deck Demolition: Protecto’s $4 million seed deck

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In an era where data is king and its volume and complexity are exploding, Security goals to eliminate the long-standing dilemma that corporations face between harnessing the ability of artificial intelligence while ensuring data privacy. With the surge in popularity of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, recalcitrant data is becoming easier to seek out, process, and do naughty things with. Protecto APIs are designed to guard sensitive data throughout the AI ​​lifecycle while maintaining its usability.

The company announced that it had raised approx $4 million seed funding round led by the Together fund, with the support of Better Capital, FortyTwo VC, Arali Ventures and Speciale Invest. This round brings Protecto’s total funding to $5 million.


Slides on this deck

Before submitting its deck to TechCrunch, Protecto made revisions to its short-term and five-year goals and specific details of its short-term product roadmap. A timeline of goals and milestones for the seed funding round has also been edited. Still, there’s lots you possibly can learn from a 14-slide deck:

  1. Cover slide
  2. Problem slide
  3. Urgent slide
  4. Interstitial platform slide
  5. Technology overview slide
  6. Results slide
  7. Slide with solution
  8. Case study, slide 1
  9. Case study, slide 2
  10. Competitive alternatives are shifting
  11. Team slide
  12. Go to market slide
  13. Slide with motion plan
  14. Ask and use the funds slide

Three things I loved concerning the Protecto pitch

There are just a few things missing from this deck, but there are also some good things value highlighting.

Competitive alternatives

This slide doesn’t discuss direct competitors (there are one or two). But the corporate still does a superb job of showing you this information:

(Slide 10) Competitive alternatives are an incredible solution to take a look at the competitive landscape. Image credits: Security

Competitive alternatives are corporations, methods, or approaches which might be different from yours but meet the identical customer needs or solve the identical problems. For example, if you happen to run a coffee shop, your direct competitor could be one other coffee shop, and a competitive alternative may be a tea shop or fast-food restaurant that also sells coffee and other beverages. These competitors matter because they represent alternative solutions to your customers, underscoring the importance of understanding broader market dynamics and customer preferences.

Understanding and analyzing these competitive alternatives might be powerful as an extra layer of data, uncovering potential opportunities for differentiation and helping to discover unmet customer needs. Having said all this, Protecto should consider its direct competitors, but this slide continues to be an incredible example of how a startup can examine its position available in the market.

Hello, team

This team slide is so solid – the one downside is that they put it because the eleventh slide:

(Slide 11) Solid team slide. Image credits: Security

To stand out within the suddenly crowded AI space, it is best to bring receipts to prove you may have the nerve to do it. The left side of the slide has an excessive amount of information (why are the funds, products, and customers on the team moving?), however the part on the best has a variety of great information.

CEO Amar Kanagaraj spent nearly eight years at Microsoft, including working on search and artificial intelligence, based on his LinkedIn. CTO Baskaran Alagarsamy spent seven years as a ‘manager’ at Apple India. I’d like to see more details about what exactly he was managing there (and why the slide says 18 years and LinkedIn says seven), but that is the beginning of a extremely solid team. If I were investing on this space, a team of this caliber would pique my interest and I’d likely schedule a gathering.

An elegant solution

Privacy and AI can quickly develop into painfully complicated. I appreciate Protecto’s efforts to simplify it to the purpose where most individuals can understand what is going on on in technology.

(Slide 5) Collect sensitive, private data. Replace with similar fake data. It is sensible to me. Image credits: Security

Three things that Protecto could have improved

The design of a pitch deck is not often that essential, however the design of this deck is especially bad. There are also rather more serious flaws hidden in these pages.

These case studies are usually not case studies

In a 14-slide set, Protecto wastes slide 4 as full-screen (it simply says “our platform”). He then wastes two slides titled “case studies.” However, a more accurate term could be “use cases”.

(Slide 8) This shouldn’t be a case study. Image credits: Security

A full case study would come with rather more information concerning the solution’s effectiveness (did the product manage to remove all sensitive data? How was this measured?), how long the combination took, and the way satisfied the client was with the answer. Slide 9 is one other “case study” that is comparable: a use case, not a case study.

The slide header is a promise that the remainder of the slide must fulfill. In this case, I used to be upset on each counts, expecting one kind of information and receiving one other. Proper case studies could be really helpful in telling this story.

Not an incredible “use of funds” slide.

Editorial aside, there’s not much here.

(Slide 14) Almost completely irrelevant information. Image credits: Security

The company wanted to lift $3 million. However, using funds is so fluffy; every point here makes me wish to ask, “But how do you know it works?”

  • Expand engineering: Yes, but why, for what purpose and for a way much?
  • Promote marketing: Yes, but for what purposes? Until when? How much growth?
  • Build channel sales: Yes, but which channels do you select first? Why?
  • Encourage developers to evangelize: What does that even mean?
  • Define category: ???

Basically, it’s all corporate jargon. Even if the founders themselves buy into it, investors probably won’t.

Yes, prediction and specificity are terrifying. What if you happen to fail? All plans and forecasts are predictions. We know. Investors know. The idea is to indicate how you’re thinking that whenever you analyze these predictions; investors can learn lots about you as a founder. This is incredibly helpful – and never optional.

It’s a brainstorming session, not a plan

(Slide 12) This entry into the market is just too vague. Image credits: Security

There are many problems with this slide. The company says it can grow through product-led development. That’s great, however it rarely works in isolation – it must be done along side other marketing channels. “If you build it, they will come” shouldn’t be a thing within the crowded startup ecosystem.

I’d wish to know what these integrations actually mean and the way customers find them. I would love to know how Snowflake and Databricks impact this plan. What does he imagine about “solution integrators”?

This slide is a pile of words on a page, not an actionable and measurable go-to-market plan.

Plus all of the stuff is missing from the deck…

  • How big is the marketplace for such a thing?
  • How much traction do you may have up to now? Did the “case studies” repay? If so, how much? Did they still use the product?
  • There is nothing concerning the business model: how will they charge? How much?
  • How can this be defended? Does the corporate have any patents? Is there any special magic sauce?

Overall, the issue with this deck is that it doesn’t explain why this problem is difficult to resolve and why this company might be the one to resolve it. Perhaps this is just too simplistic within the deck, but based on what’s here, I believe I could get a handful of developers together and construct most of this product in just a few weeks. This cannot be true, right? Because if that’s the case, there’s nothing here. But since that is probably not the case, meaning there’s simply a storytelling problem. Yes, it is a big problem; now explain why it is a difficult problem to resolve.

Full deck


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This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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US medical device giant Artivion says hackers stole files during a cybersecurity incident

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Artivion, a medical device company that produces implantable tissue for heart and vascular transplants, says its services have been “disrupted” resulting from a cybersecurity incident.

In 8-K filing In an interview with the SEC on Monday, Georgia-based Artivion, formerly CryoLife, said it became aware of a “cybersecurity incident” that involved the “compromise and encryption” of information on November 21. This suggests that the corporate was attacked by ransomware, but Artivion has not yet confirmed the character of the incident and didn’t immediately reply to TechCrunch’s questions. No major ransomware group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Artivion said it took some systems offline in response to the cyberattack, which the corporate said caused “disruptions to certain ordering and shipping processes.”

Artivion, which reported third-quarter revenue of $95.8 million, said it didn’t expect the incident to have a material impact on the corporate’s funds.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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It’s a Raspberry Pi 5 in a keyboard and it’s called Raspberry Pi 500

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Manufacturer of single-board computers Raspberry Pi is updating its cute little computer keyboard device with higher specs. Named Raspberry Pi500This successor to the Raspberry Pi 400 is just as powerful as the present Raspberry Pi flagship, the Raspberry Pi 5. It is on the market for purchase now from Raspberry Pi resellers.

The Raspberry Pi 500 is the simplest method to start with the Raspberry Pi because it’s not as intimidating because the Raspberry Pi 5. When you take a look at the Raspberry Pi 500, you do not see any chipsets or PCBs (printed circuit boards). The Raspberry Pi is totally hidden in the familiar housing, the keyboard.

The idea with the Raspberry Pi 500 is you could connect a mouse and a display and you are able to go. If, for instance, you’ve got a relative who uses a very outdated computer with an outdated version of Windows, the Raspberry Pi 500 can easily replace the old PC tower for many computing tasks.

More importantly, this device brings us back to the roots of the Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi computers were originally intended for educational applications. Over time, technology enthusiasts and industrial customers began using single-board computers all over the place. (For example, when you’ve ever been to London Heathrow Airport, all of the departures and arrivals boards are there powered by Raspberry Pi.)

Raspberry Pi 500 draws inspiration from the roots of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a non-profit organization. It’s the right first computer for college. In some ways, it’s a lot better than a Chromebook or iPad because it’s low cost and highly customizable, which inspires creative pondering.

The Raspberry Pi 500 comes with a 32GB SD card that comes pre-installed with Raspberry Pi OS, a Debian-based Linux distribution. It costs $90, which is a slight ($20) price increase over the Raspberry Pi 400.

Only UK and US keyboard variants will probably be available at launch. But versions with French, German, Italian, Japanese, Nordic and Spanish keyboard layouts will probably be available soon. And when you’re in search of a bundle that features all the things you would like, Raspberry Pi also offers a $120 desktop kit that features the Raspberry Pi 500, a mouse, a 27W USB-C power adapter, and a micro-HDMI to HDMI cable.

In other news, Raspberry Pi has announced one other recent thing: the Raspberry Pi monitor. It is a 15.6-inch 1080p monitor that’s priced at $100. Since there are quite a few 1080p portable monitors available on the market, this launch is not as noteworthy because the Pi 500. However, for die-hard Pi fans, there’s now also a Raspberry Pi-branded monitor option available.

Image credits:Raspberry Pi

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Apple Vision Pro may add support for PlayStation VR controllers

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Vision Pro headset

According to Apple, Apple desires to make its Vision Pro mixed reality device more attractive for gamers and game developers latest report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

The Vision Pro was presented more as a productivity and media consumption device than a tool geared toward gamers, due partly to its reliance on visual and hand controls moderately than a separate controller.

However, Apple may need gamers if it desires to expand the Vision Pro’s audience, especially since Gurman reports that lower than half one million units have been sold to this point. As such, the corporate has reportedly been in talks with Sony about adding support for PlayStation VR2 handheld controllers, and has also talked to developers about whether they may support the controllers of their games.

Offering more precise control, Apple may also make other forms of software available in Vision Pro, reminiscent of Final Cut Pro or Adobe Photoshop.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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