Homebrew leads Z1’s effort to bring digital banking to Latin America’s teens

Z1, a Sao Paulo-based digital bank aimed at Latin American GenZers, has raised $2.5 million in a round led by U.S.-based Homebrew.

A number of other investors also participated in the financing including Clocktower Ventures, Mantis – the VC firm owned by The Chainsmokers, Goodwater, Gaingels, Soma Capital and Rebel Fund. Notably, Mantis has also backed Step, a teen-focused fintech based in the U.S., and Goodwater has also invested in Greenlight, which too has a similar offering as Z1.

Z1 participated in Y Combinator’s Winter ‘21 batch earlier this year, and at the time got $125,000 in funding from the accelerator. Maya Capital led its $700,000 seed round in March of 2020.

Put simply, Z1 is a digital bank app built for teenagers and young adults. The company was founded on the notion that by using its app and linked prepaid card, Brazilian and Latin American teenagers can become more financially independent.

Teen banking service Step raises $100M Series C, announces Steph Curry’s investment

João Pedro Thompson and Thiago Achatz started the company in late 2019 and soon after,  Mateus Craveiro and Sophie Secaf joined as co-founders. In its early days, Z1 is focused on Brazil but the startup has plans to expand into other countries in Latin America over time.

“Z1 is what we’re building to be the go to bank of the next generation, and not just be a digital bank for teens,” Achatz told TechCrunch. “We want to grow with him and one day, be the biggest bank in Brazil and LatAm.” 

Thompson agrees. 

“We’re acquiring users really early and creating brand loyalty with the intention of being their bank for life,” he said. “We will still meet their needs as they grow into adulthood.”

Image Credits: Z1

While Z1’s offering is not completely unlike that of Greenlight here in the U.S. the founders agree that its products have been adapted more to the Brazil-specific cultural and market situation.

For example, points out Thompson, most teenagers in Brazil use cash because they don’t have access to other financial services, whether they be traditional or digital.

“We offer an account where they can deposit money, cash out money via an instant payment system in Brazil or spend through a prepaid credit card,” he said. “Most sites don’t accept debit cards so this is a big step compared to what teens already have.”

Part of the company’s use for the capital is to make its product more robust so they can do things like save money for big purchases such as an iPhone and earn interest on their accounts.

Another big difference between Brazil and the U.S., the company believes, is that many parents in general in Latin America haven’t had a true financial education that they can pass down to their kids.

“We’re not top down like Greenlight,” Achatz said. “That approach doesn’t make sense in Latin America. Here, many are independent from an early age and already work whether it’s through a microbusiness, a side job or selling things on Instagram. They’re much more self-taught and the income they earn is often outside of their parents.”

Z1 has grown 30% per week and 200% per month since launch, spending “very little” on marketing and relying mostly on word-of-mouth. For example, the company is following the lead of its U.S. counterparts and turning to TikTok to spread the word about its offering. 

“Step has around 200,000 followers on TikTok, and we have a little under half of that,” the company says. “We’re well-positioned in terms of branding.”

For lead investor Homebrew, the opportunity to educate and provide financial services to Gen Z in Latin America is even more exciting than the opportunity in the US., notes partner Satya Patel.

Over one third of LatAm Gen Z’ers have a “side hustle,” generating their own income independent from their parents, he said.

“While millennials grew up during an economic boom, Gen Z grew up during recessions – 3 in Brazil over the last decade – and wants to become financially independent as soon as possible. They’re becoming economically educated and active much earlier than previous generations,” Patel added.

He also believes the desire to transact online, for gaming and entertainment in particular, creates a groundswell of GenZ demand in Brazil for credit card and digital payments products.

Latin America’s digital transformation is making up for lost time

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Google faces a major multi-state antitrust lawsuit over Google Play fees

A group of 37 attorneys general filed a second major multi-state antitrust lawsuit against Google Wednesday, accusing the company of abusing its market power to stifle competitors and forcing consumers into in-app payments that grant the company a hefty cut.

New York Attorney General Letitia James is co-leading the suit alongside with the Tennessee, North Carolina and Utah attorneys general. The bipartisan coalition represents 36 U.S. states, including California, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Colorado and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia.

“Through its illegal conduct, the company has ensured that hundreds of millions of Android users turn to Google, and only Google, for the millions of applications they may choose to download to their phones and tablets,” James said in a press release. “Worse yet, Google is squeezing the lifeblood out of millions of small businesses that are only seeking to compete.”

In December, 35 states filed a separate antitrust suit against Google, alleging that the company engaged in illegal behavior to maintain a monopoly on the search business. The Justice Department filed its own antitrust case focused on search last October.

Google slammed for ‘monopoly power’ in new antitrust lawsuit from 35 states

In the new lawsuit, embedded below, the bipartisan coalition of states allege that Google uses “misleading” security warnings to keep consumers and developers within its walled app garden, the Google Play store. But the fees that Google collects from Android app developers are likely the meat of the case.

“Not only has Google acted unlawfully to block potential rivals from competing with its Google Play Store, it has profited by improperly locking app developers and consumers into its own payment processing system and then charging high fees,” District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine said.

Like Apple, Google herds all app payment processing into its own service, Google Play Billing, and reaps the rewards: a 30 percent cut of all payments. Much of the criticism here is a case that could — and likely will — be made against Apple, which exerts even more control over its own app ecosystem. Google doesn’t have an iMessage equivalent exclusive app that keeps users locked in in quite the same way.

While the lawsuit discusses Google’s “monopoly power” in the app marketplace, the elephant in the room is Apple — Google’s thriving direct competitor in the mobile software space. The lawsuit argues that consumers face pressure to stay locked into the Android ecosystem, but on the Android side at least, much of that is ultimately familiarity and sunk costs. The argument on the Apple side of the equation here is likely much stronger.

The din over tech giants squeezing app developers with high mobile payment fees is just getting louder. The new multi-state lawsuit is the latest beat, but the topic has been white hot since Epic took Apple to court over its desire to bypass Apple’s fees by accepting mobile payments outside the App Store. When Epic set up a workaround, Apple kicked it out of the App Store and Epic Games v. Apple was born.

The Justice Department is reportedly already interested in Apple’s own app store practices, along with many state AGs who could launch a separate suit against the company at any time.

View this document on Scribd

Apple terminates Epic Games’ App Store account

Tim Cook plays innocent in Epic v Apple’s culminating testimony

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Google faces a major multi-state antitrust lawsuit over Google Play fees

A group of 37 attorneys general filed a second major multi-state antitrust lawsuit against Google Wednesday, accusing the company of abusing its market power to stifle competitors and forcing consumers into in-app payments that grant the company a hefty cut.

New York Attorney General Letitia James is co-leading the suit alongside with the Tennessee, North Carolina and Utah attorneys general. The bipartisan coalition represents 36 U.S. states, including California, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Colorado and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia.

“Through its illegal conduct, the company has ensured that hundreds of millions of Android users turn to Google, and only Google, for the millions of applications they may choose to download to their phones and tablets,” James said in a press release. “Worse yet, Google is squeezing the lifeblood out of millions of small businesses that are only seeking to compete.”

In December, 35 states filed a separate antitrust suit against Google, alleging that the company engaged in illegal behavior to maintain a monopoly on the search business. The Justice Department filed its own antitrust case focused on search last October.

Google slammed for ‘monopoly power’ in new antitrust lawsuit from 35 states

In the new lawsuit, embedded below, the bipartisan coalition of states allege that Google uses “misleading” security warnings to keep consumers and developers within its walled app garden, the Google Play store. But the fees that Google collects from Android app developers are likely the meat of the case.

“Not only has Google acted unlawfully to block potential rivals from competing with its Google Play Store, it has profited by improperly locking app developers and consumers into its own payment processing system and then charging high fees,” District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine said.

Like Apple, Google herds all app payment processing into its own service, Google Play Billing, and reaps the rewards: a 30 percent cut of all payments. Much of the criticism here is a case that could — and likely will — be made against Apple, which exerts even more control over its own app ecosystem. Google doesn’t have an iMessage equivalent exclusive app that keeps users locked in in quite the same way.

While the lawsuit discusses Google’s “monopoly power” in the app marketplace, the elephant in the room is Apple — Google’s thriving direct competitor in the mobile software space. The lawsuit argues that consumers face pressure to stay locked into the Android ecosystem, but on the Android side at least, much of that is ultimately familiarity and sunk costs. The argument on the Apple side of the equation here is likely much stronger.

The din over tech giants squeezing app developers with high mobile payment fees is just getting louder. The new multi-state lawsuit is the latest beat, but the topic has been white hot since Epic took Apple to court over its desire to bypass Apple’s fees by accepting mobile payments outside the App Store. When Epic set up a workaround, Apple kicked it out of the App Store and Epic Games v. Apple was born.

The Justice Department is reportedly already interested in Apple’s own app store practices, along with many state AGs who could launch a separate suit against the company at any time.

View this document on Scribd

Apple terminates Epic Games’ App Store account

Tim Cook plays innocent in Epic v Apple’s culminating testimony

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DeFi investor platform Zerion raises $8.2 million Series A

While crypto exchanges have demystified some of the largest cryptocurrencies for retail investors, many of the intricacies of decentralized finance are still lost on even more savvy investors as a result of DeFi’s weave of diverse offerings.

Zerion, a startup building a decentralized finance “interface” for crypto investors, has attracted venture capitalist attention on the back of recent growth. Amid a renewed crypto gold rush, the company has processed more than $600 million in transaction volume so far this year, now with over 200 thousand monthly active users, CEO Evgeny Yurtaev tells TechCrunch

The startup has also wrapped an $8.2 million Series A funding round led by Mosaic Ventures, with participation from Placeholder, DCG, Lightspeed, Blockchain.com Ventures, among others. Mosaic’s Toby Coppel and Placeholder’s Brad Burnham have joined Zerion’s Board, the startup also shared.

Zerion gives customers access to more than 50,000 digital assets and 60 protocols on the Ethereum blockchain through their app which streamlines the UI of DeFi. Users can access tokens and invest through the app similar to exchanges like Coinbase or Gemini, but do so using their own personal wallets like MetaMask, meaning user funds and private keys aren’t controlled by or accessible to Zerion, a sticking point for Yurtaev, a life-long crypto enthusiast and builder.

Image via Zerion

“There are a bunch of different tokens and protocols in the DeFi space,” Yurtaev says. “In theory, it’s supposed to be easy to navigate, but in reality, it’s all a mess… We try to demystify them.”

Alongside major growth in Ethereum and Bitcoin prices, DeFi volume has surged in 2021, up from just under $20 billion at the year’s start to nearly $90 billion this May. The DeFi market et large has proven just as volatile as Bitcoin, with market volume falling some 35 percent in the past couple months to just over $57 billion.

The startup’s mobile app on iOS and Android has become a particularly popular way for crypto investors to track the market and the tokens they’re backing. The average user opens the app more than 9 times per day, the company says.

Crypto’s 2021 upswing has drawn plenty of investor attention, not only to the assets themselves but to the platforms facilitating those transactions. Last month, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz announced that they had raised more than $2.2 billion to invest in startups building products in crypto spaces including decentralized finance.

Andreessen Horowitz triples down on blockchain startups with massive $2.2 billion Crypto Fund III

 

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Opioid addiction treatment apps found sharing sensitive data with third parties

Several widely used opioid treatment recovery apps are accessing and sharing sensitive user data with third parties, a new investigation has found.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to reduce transmission in the U.S, telehealth services and apps offering opioid addiction treatment have surged in popularity. This rise of app-based services comes as addiction treatment facilities face budget cuts and closures, which has seen both investor and government interest turn to telehealth as a tool to combat the growing addiction crisis.

While people accessing these services may have a reasonable expectation of privacy of their healthcare data, a new report from ExpressVPN’s Digital Security Lab, compiled in conjunction with the Opioid Policy Institute and the Defensive Lab Agency, found that some of these apps collect and share sensitive information with third parties, raising questions about their privacy and security practices.

The report studied 10 opioid treatment apps available on Android: Bicycle Health, Boulder Care, Confidant Health. DynamiCare Health, Kaden Health, Loosid, Pear Reset-O, PursueCare, Sober Grid, and Workit Health. These apps have been installed at least 180,000 times, and have received more than $300 million in funding from investment groups and the federal government.

Despite the vast reach and sensitive nature of these services, the research found that the majority of the apps accessed unique identifiers about the user’s device and, in some cases, shared that data with third parties.

Of the 10 apps studied, seven access the Android Advertising ID (AAID), a user-generated identifier that can be linked to other information to provide insights into identifiable individuals. Five of the apps also access the devices’ phone number; three access the device’s unique IMEI and IMSI numbers, which can also be used to uniquely identify a person’s device; and two access a users’ list of installed apps, which the researchers say can be used to build a “fingerprint” of a user to track their activities.

Many of the apps examined are also obtaining location information in some form, which when correlated with these unique identifiers, strengthens the capability for surveilling an individual person, as well as their daily habits, behaviors, and who they interact with. One of the methods the apps are doing this is through Bluetooth; seven of the apps request permission to make Bluetooth connections, which the researchers say is particularly worrying due to the fact this can be used to track users in real-world locations.

“Bluetooth can do what I call proximity tracking, so if you’re in the grocery store, it knows how long you’re in a certain aisle, or how close you are to someone else,” Sean O’Brien, principal researcher at ExpressVPN’s Digital Security Lab who led the investigation, told TechCrunch. “Bluetooth is an area that I’m pretty concerned about.”

Another major area of concern is the use of tracker SDKs in these apps, which O’Brien previously warned about in a recent investigation that revealed that hundreds of Android apps were sending granular user location data to X-Mode, a data broker known to sell location data to U.S. military contractors, and now banned from both Apple and Google’s app stores. SDKs, or software development kits, are bundles of code that are included with apps to make them work properly, such as collecting location data. Often, SDKs are provided for free in exchange for sending back the data that the apps collect.

“Confidentiality continues to be one of the major concerns that people cite for not entering treatment… existing privacy laws are totally not up to speed.” Jacqueline Seitz, Legal Action Center

While the researchers keen to point out that it does not categorize all usage of trackers as malicious, particularly as many developers may not even be aware of their existence within their apps, they discovered a high prevalence of tracker SDKs in seven out of the 10 apps that revealed potential data-sharing activity. Some SDKs are designed specifically to collect and aggregate user data; this is true even where the SDK’s core functionality is concerned.

But the researchers explain that an app, which provides navigation to a recovery center, for example, may also be tracking a user’s movements throughout the day and sending that data back to the app’s developers and third parties.

In the case of Kaden Health, Stripe — which is used for payment services within the app — can read the list of installed apps on a user’s phone, their location, phone number, and carrier name, as well as their AAID, IP address, IMEI, IMSI, and SIM serial number.

“An entity as large as Stripe having an app share that information directly is pretty alarming. It’s worrisome to me because I know that information could be very useful for law enforcement,” O’Brien tells TechCrunch. “I also worry that people having information about who has been in treatment will eventually make its way into decisions about health insurance and people getting jobs.”

The data-sharing practices of these apps are likely a consequence of these services being developed in an environment of unclear U.S. federal guidance regarding the handling and disclosure of patient information, the researchers say, though O’Brien tells TechCrunch that the actions could be in breach of 42 CFR Part 2, a law that outlines strong controls over disclosure of patient information related to treatment for addiction.

Jacqueline Seitz, a senior staff attorney for health privacy at Legal Action Center, however, said this 40-year-old law hasn’t yet been updated to recognize apps.

“Confidentiality continues to be one of the major concerns that people cite for not entering treatment,” Seitz told TechCrunch. “While 42 CFR Part 2 recognizes the very sensitive nature of substance use disorder treatment, it doesn’t mention apps at all. Existing privacy laws are totally not up to speed.

“It would be great to see some leadership from the tech community to establish some basic standards and recognize that they’re collecting super-sensitive information so that patients aren’t left in the middle of a health crisis trying to navigate privacy policies,” said Seitz.

Another likely reason for these practices is a lack of security and data privacy staff, according to Jonathan Stoltman, director at Opioid Policy Institute, which contributed to the research. “If you look at a hospital’s website, you’ll see a chief information officer, a chief privacy officer, or a chief security officer that’s in charge of physical security and data security,” he tells TechCrunch. “None of these startups have that.”

“There’s no way you’re thinking about privacy if you’re collecting the AAID, and almost all of these apps are doing that from the get-go,” Stoltman added.

Google is aware of ExpressVPN’s findings but has yet to comment. However, the report has been released as the tech giant prepares to start limiting developer access to the Android Advertising ID, mirroring Apple’s recent efforts to enable users to opt out of ad tracking.

While ExpressVPN is keen to make patients aware that these apps may violate expectations of privacy, it also stresses the central role that addiction treatment and recovery apps may play in the lives of those with opioid addiction. It recommends that if you or a family member used one of these services and find the disclosure of this data to be problematic, contact the Office of Civil Rights through Health and Human Services to file a formal complaint.

“The bottom line is this is a general problem with the app economy, and we’re watching telehealth become part of that, so we need to be very careful and cautious,” said O’Brien. “There needs to be disclosure, users need to be aware, and they need to demand better.”

Recovery from addiction is possible. For help, please call the free and confidential treatment referral hotline (1-800-662-HELP) or visit findtreatment.gov.

Read more:

• Location broker X-Mode continues to track users despite app store bans
• The truth about SDK integrations and their impact on developers
• Apple tells app developers to disclose or remove screen recording code – TechCrunch
• Google removes three Android apps for children over data collection violations

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via IFTTT

Opioid addiction treatment apps found sharing sensitive data with third parties

Several widely used opioid treatment recovery apps are accessing and sharing sensitive user data with third parties, a new investigation has found.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to reduce transmission in the U.S, telehealth services and apps offering opioid addiction treatment have surged in popularity. This rise of app-based services comes as addiction treatment facilities face budget cuts and closures, which has seen both investor and government interest turn to telehealth as a tool to combat the growing addiction crisis.

While people accessing these services may have a reasonable expectation of privacy of their healthcare data, a new report from ExpressVPN’s Digital Security Lab, compiled in conjunction with the Opioid Policy Institute and the Defensive Lab Agency, found that some of these apps collect and share sensitive information with third parties, raising questions about their privacy and security practices.

The report studied 10 opioid treatment apps available on Android: Bicycle Health, Boulder Care, Confidant Health. DynamiCare Health, Kaden Health, Loosid, Pear Reset-O, PursueCare, Sober Grid, and Workit Health. These apps have been installed at least 180,000 times, and have received more than $300 million in funding from investment groups and the federal government.

Despite the vast reach and sensitive nature of these services, the research found that the majority of the apps accessed unique identifiers about the user’s device and, in some cases, shared that data with third parties.

Of the 10 apps studied, seven access the Android Advertising ID (AAID), a user-generated identifier that can be linked to other information to provide insights into identifiable individuals. Five of the apps also access the devices’ phone number; three access the device’s unique IMEI and IMSI numbers, which can also be used to uniquely identify a person’s device; and two access a users’ list of installed apps, which the researchers say can be used to build a “fingerprint” of a user to track their activities.

Many of the apps examined are also obtaining location information in some form, which when correlated with these unique identifiers, strengthens the capability for surveilling an individual person, as well as their daily habits, behaviors, and who they interact with. One of the methods the apps are doing this is through Bluetooth; seven of the apps request permission to make Bluetooth connections, which the researchers say is particularly worrying due to the fact this can be used to track users in real-world locations.

“Bluetooth can do what I call proximity tracking, so if you’re in the grocery store, it knows how long you’re in a certain aisle, or how close you are to someone else,” Sean O’Brien, principal researcher at ExpressVPN’s Digital Security Lab who led the investigation, told TechCrunch. “Bluetooth is an area that I’m pretty concerned about.”

Another major area of concern is the use of tracker SDKs in these apps, which O’Brien previously warned about in a recent investigation that revealed that hundreds of Android apps were sending granular user location data to X-Mode, a data broker known to sell location data to U.S. military contractors, and now banned from both Apple and Google’s app stores. SDKs, or software development kits, are bundles of code that are included with apps to make them work properly, such as collecting location data. Often, SDKs are provided for free in exchange for sending back the data that the apps collect.

“Confidentiality continues to be one of the major concerns that people cite for not entering treatment… existing privacy laws are totally not up to speed.” Jacqueline Seitz, Legal Action Center

While the researchers keen to point out that it does not categorize all usage of trackers as malicious, particularly as many developers may not even be aware of their existence within their apps, they discovered a high prevalence of tracker SDKs in seven out of the 10 apps that revealed potential data-sharing activity. Some SDKs are designed specifically to collect and aggregate user data; this is true even where the SDK’s core functionality is concerned.

But the researchers explain that an app, which provides navigation to a recovery center, for example, may also be tracking a user’s movements throughout the day and sending that data back to the app’s developers and third parties.

In the case of Kaden Health, Stripe — which is used for payment services within the app — can read the list of installed apps on a user’s phone, their location, phone number, and carrier name, as well as their AAID, IP address, IMEI, IMSI, and SIM serial number.

“An entity as large as Stripe having an app share that information directly is pretty alarming. It’s worrisome to me because I know that information could be very useful for law enforcement,” O’Brien tells TechCrunch. “I also worry that people having information about who has been in treatment will eventually make its way into decisions about health insurance and people getting jobs.”

The data-sharing practices of these apps are likely a consequence of these services being developed in an environment of unclear U.S. federal guidance regarding the handling and disclosure of patient information, the researchers say, though O’Brien tells TechCrunch that the actions could be in breach of 42 CFR Part 2, a law that outlines strong controls over disclosure of patient information related to treatment for addiction.

Jacqueline Seitz, a senior staff attorney for health privacy at Legal Action Center, however, said this 40-year-old law hasn’t yet been updated to recognize apps.

“Confidentiality continues to be one of the major concerns that people cite for not entering treatment,” Seitz told TechCrunch. “While 42 CFR Part 2 recognizes the very sensitive nature of substance use disorder treatment, it doesn’t mention apps at all. Existing privacy laws are totally not up to speed.

“It would be great to see some leadership from the tech community to establish some basic standards and recognize that they’re collecting super-sensitive information so that patients aren’t left in the middle of a health crisis trying to navigate privacy policies,” said Seitz.

Another likely reason for these practices is a lack of security and data privacy staff, according to Jonathan Stoltman, director at Opioid Policy Institute, which contributed to the research. “If you look at a hospital’s website, you’ll see a chief information officer, a chief privacy officer, or a chief security officer that’s in charge of physical security and data security,” he tells TechCrunch. “None of these startups have that.”

“There’s no way you’re thinking about privacy if you’re collecting the AAID, and almost all of these apps are doing that from the get-go,” Stoltman added.

Google is aware of ExpressVPN’s findings but has yet to comment. However, the report has been released as the tech giant prepares to start limiting developer access to the Android Advertising ID, mirroring Apple’s recent efforts to enable users to opt out of ad tracking.

While ExpressVPN is keen to make patients aware that these apps may violate expectations of privacy, it also stresses the central role that addiction treatment and recovery apps may play in the lives of those with opioid addiction. It recommends that if you or a family member used one of these services and find the disclosure of this data to be problematic, contact the Office of Civil Rights through Health and Human Services to file a formal complaint.

“The bottom line is this is a general problem with the app economy, and we’re watching telehealth become part of that, so we need to be very careful and cautious,” said O’Brien. “There needs to be disclosure, users need to be aware, and they need to demand better.”

Recovery from addiction is possible. For help, please call the free and confidential treatment referral hotline (1-800-662-HELP) or visit findtreatment.gov.

Read more:

• Location broker X-Mode continues to track users despite app store bans
• The truth about SDK integrations and their impact on developers
• Apple tells app developers to disclose or remove screen recording code – TechCrunch
• Google removes three Android apps for children over data collection violations

from Apple – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/3wrUgSS

Raylo nabs $11.5M to get more mobile users to lease and reuse

UK-based smartphone subscription startup Raylo has tucked $11.5 million in Series A funding into its top pocket, led by Octopus Ventures.

The equity round follows a debt raise last year — and brings Raylo’s total raised since being founded back in 2019 to $40M (in equity and debt). Its roster of investors to date also includes the Macquarie Group, Guy Johnson of Carphone Warehouse and the co-founders of Funding Circle.

The new funding will be used to charge up a subscription smartphone play that nudges consumers never to own their own mobile device — but just pay a monthly fee to lease a new or refurbished SIM-free device instead.

Raylo says it’s seen 10x YoY growth of customers and revenues, and plans to plough the Series A into accelerating its growth in the UK — including by doubling its headcount and further developing its tech. And while it suggests it’s entertaining the idea of a future global rollout it remains firmly UK focused for now.

Back Market raises $335M for its refurbished device marketplace, now valued at $3.2B

Consumers opting to get the latest smartphone hardware through Raylo will pay a lower cost than the full RRP for a device since they won’t actually own the hardware at the end of the contract.

Environmental considerations aside, that may be an increasingly important consideration, given the inflating price of premium handsets like the top-of-the-range iPhone which has broken $1,000 for a few years now.

Plus the fact that most consumers simply won’t shell out so much for a handset. Leasing and returning offers an alternative way for people to get to use such expensive high-end devices.

With Raylo, the leased mobile is typically returned after the end of the 12 or 24-month contract — with the returned device refurbished for reuse via a second (or third) leased life with another user.

End of life devices are recycled (by partners), per Raylo. So it’s touting a circular model that promotes sustainability via device usage longevity vs the more typical upgrade scenario, via a carrier, where a consumer may just toss their old unused handset into a drawer, wasting its further potential utility.

Albeit, many people do pass on old devices to other family members or even sell or trade them in. But Raylo claims there are an estimated 125M smartphones in unused ‘hibernation’ across the UK. So, the suggestion is, plenty of smartphone users don’t bother ensure their old handset gets a second life.

Raylo reckons each of its subscription leased device can be used by a total of three customers over 6-7 years – which, if achieved, would mean a lifespan that it says is almost 2x longer than the UK average (of 2.31 years).

To further the longevity goal, all the phones it supplies come with a free case and screen protector.

Users also need to weigh up whether they want to shell out for insurance too, though, since they need to make sure they don’t damage the leased handset or risk having to shell out for expensive repairs or a non-return fee. (Raylo sells its own flavor of device insurance to users as an optional extra which slightly bumps up the monthly cost.)

Raylo competes with carriers’ own device subscription plans, of course. But again the claim is it’s cheaper to lease its way — although that’s as it should be since the consumer doesn’t own the hardware at the end of the contract (so won’t automatically have anything of value they could sell or trade in elsewhere).

If a user doesn’t want (or fails) to return a device at the end of the contract they have to pay a non-return fee — which varies depending on the handset hardware and how long they’ve been paying for it. But the fee can stretch to over £600 at the premium end — after 12 months of use of a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G with 512GB of storage or an iPhone 12 Pro Max, for example.

While consumers that want to continue using the same device rather than upgrading after their contract ends can opt to continue paying their usual monthly fees — with payments continuing up to a maximum of 36 months, after which the non-return fee drops to a token £1.

All Raylo’s leased devices come with a 24 month warranty, under which it says it will freely repair faults not related to user damage or accidents, or else supply a replacement device if the handset can’t be fixed.

Commenting on Raylo’s Series A in a statement, Tosin Agbabiaka, early-stage fintech investor at Octopus Ventures, said: “The subscription economy is rapidly transforming the way we access products and services — yet the smartphone, an individual’s most valuable device, is still locked behind a bundled, ownership-based model. This means most people are trapped in a buy-and-dispose cycle, with a steep financial and environmental costs.

“Raylo solves these problems by offering access to premium consumer devices at lower, subscription-based prices, helping to widen access to the latest technology. By repurposing its devices at the end of their cycle, Raylo is also the sustainable choice in this market and has built a product loved by its customers — the opportunity here is massive, and we believe that [co-founders] Karl [Gilbert], Richard [Fulton], and Jinden [Badesha] have the vision and depth of expertise to transform the way we all access our devices.”

A number of refurbished electronics businesses have been attracting investor attention in Europe in recent years where lawmakers are also considering right to repair legislation.

Recent fundings in the space include a $335M round for French refurbished device marketplace startup Back Market; a $71m round for Berlin-based Grover‘s subscription electronics business; and a $40.6M round for Finland-based Swappie, which refurbishes and sells secondhand iPhones, to name a few.

European lawmakers propose a ‘right to repair’ for mobiles and laptops

Fairphone’s new flagship, the 3+, costs just €70 as a modular upgrade

Refurbished electronics startup Refurbed raises $17M round, led by Evli Growth Partners

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