Veoneer has been honored by Ford Motor Company with a Create Must-Have Products World Excellence Award
Ford’s World Excellence Awards recognize companies that exceed expectations and achieve the highest levels of excellence in quality, cost, performance, and delivery
Award categories include Treat Customers Like Family, Turn Around Automotive Operations and Compete Like a Challenger, Create Must-Have Products, Sustainability, Diversity and Inclusion, plus Gold and Silver Quality awards
STOCKHOLM, Oct. 16, 2021 — The automotive technology company Veoneer, Inc. (NYSE: VNE) (SSE: VNE SDB), has been recognized as a top-performing global supplier at the 23rd annual Ford World Excellence Awards. Veoneer was announced as a Create Must-Have Products winner today at Ford Motor Company’s virtual event.
"We are honored for receiving Ford’s Create Must-Have Products World Excellence Award for our state-of-the-art Driver Monitoring System (DMS). Knowing the physical state of the driver, at all times, is also one of the most important safety factors in assisted and automated driving today. Veoneer’s DMS tracks the driver’s head position and eye gaze, to ensure drivers are paying attention to the road, which is an important hands-free driving feature," says Scott Brawner, SVP Customer Area North America.
"Ford Motor Company’s World Excellence Awards recognize our top-performing suppliers around the world for helping bring the Ford+ plan to life," said Hau Thai-Tang, chief product platform and operations officer. "Suppliers like Veoneer are key to Ford’s continued success as we leverage foundational strengths to build new capabilities and enrich customer experiences."
Honorees are recognized for achieving the highest levels of global excellence in categories including:
Primary brand pillar awards – Treat Customers Like Family, Turn Around Automotive Operations and Compete Like a Challenger, Create Must-Have Products
Diversity and inclusion awards for suppliers that excel in integrating diversity into their organization and business process
Sustainability awards for suppliers that improve the business environment
Gold and Silver Quality awards for supplier manufacturing sites demonstrating superior quality, delivery and cost performance throughout the year
Veoneer, Inc. is a worldwide leader in automotive technology. Our purpose is to create trust in mobility. We design, develop, and manufacture state-of-the-art software, hardware, and systems for occupant protection, advanced driving assistance systems, and collaborative and automated driving to OEMs globally. Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Veoneer has 7,500 employees in 11 countries. In 2020, sales amounted to $1.37 billion. The Company is building on a heritage of close to 70 years of automotive safety development. In 2018, Veoneer became an independent, publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: VNE) and on the Nasdaq Stockholm (SSE: VNE SDB).
– Fund Architecture/Consultancy: Midshore Consulting Limited
LONDON, Oct. 16, 2021 — Jacobi Asset Management has received approval to launch the world’s first tier one Bitcoin ETF. The Jacobi Bitcoin ETF is a centrally cleared crypto-backed financial instrument, authorised by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission (GFSC) and with custody provided by Fidelity Digital AssetsSM. It is Jacobi’s intention to list the Jacobi Bitcoin ETF on Cboe Europe, one of the largest pan-European equity exchanges, subject to Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) listing approval.
Launched in May 2021 to shape the future of digital asset management, Jacobi brings together decades of expertise from Banking, Regulation, and Fintech to shape the future of digital asset management by designing, issuing and managing institutional crypto products and funds connected to digital assets.
Jacobi is spearheaded by CEO Jamie Khurshid, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker and pioneer of regulatory transparency in financial markets. Jamie was named by Financial News as one of the top 40 under 40 in European trading and technology and ranked in the ‘Exchange invest’ Top 1000 most influential people in global financial markets. He has appointed a team with extensive financial services, regulatory and crypto asset expertise.
CEO Jamie Khurshidsaid: "We are excited to be launching a new secure, transparent and accessible product to track the performance of Bitcoin. We are de-risking investments in crypto by removing the technology risk associated with the physical asset and the counterparty risk associated with traditional funds or tracker products that are unregulated leveraged debt instruments. We are proud to collaborate with Europe’s leading regulated firms for a truly tier 1 offering to service market demand, subject to the necessary regulated approval. This is an exciting moment for Europe as regulatory approval comes ahead of those waiting for a decision from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission."
"The Jacobi Bitcoin ETF will finally bring digital assets wholly into the mainstream investment infrastructure with the support of the leading firms we are working with. It will provide investors with the opportunity to participate directly in physically-settled Bitcoin. This new ETF provides simple, secure, accessible investing into one of the world’s most exciting asset classes via some of the world’s leading regulated entities," commented Roy McGregor, Chairman of Jacobi Asset Management and former CEO of Credit Suisse Channel Islands.
Jacobi Bitcoin ETF investors will benefit from the security of Fidelity Digital Assets’ enterprise-grade custody and execution services, designed to enable institutional investors to safely secure, trade and support investments in digital assets. Chris Tyrer, Head of Fidelity Digital AssetsSM in Europe, commented: "Greater diversity of investor interest has created significant demand for additional vehicles for exposure to help provide broader access to digital asset markets. While safekeeping of assets is a top priority for investors and asset managers in all asset classes, the highly technical nature of digital assets places even more emphasis on this and underscores the need for institutional-grade custody solutions like ours."
The Jacobi Bitcoin ETF was developed to meet regulatory standards by Christopher Jehan, Head of Fund Architecture and former Chair of the Guernsey Investment & Funds Association (GIFA). Christopher led the team at Midshore Consulting in designing the Fund with legal work performed by Collas Crill led by Partner Wayne Atkinson and Senior Associate Gareth Morgan.
Prior to FCA listing approval, Jacobi Bitcoin ETF investments will be facilitated through Sigma Asset Management (Guernsey) Limited ("Sigma"), the fund manager providing management and administration. Fund consultancy support will continue through Midshore Consulting.
SHENYANG, China, Oct. 15, 2021 — According to the Market Shares of Healthcare Security Information System of China 2020: Building a New Healthcare Security Information System recently released by International Data Corporation (IDC) for the first time, Neusoft Corporation ("Neusoft", SSE: 600718) ranks the top in the healthcare security information system market of China based on its comprehensive advantages such as deep understanding of the healthcare security industry, stable products and mature industry ecology.
Neusoft has devoted to developing and promoting healthcare security information systems since 1994, and has continuously innovated the systems along with the reform of healthcare security and medicine & healthcare in China for more than 20 years. Neusoft provides the complete series of healthcare security informatization solutions, including the core handling system of healthcare security, healthcare security public service, fund supervision and decision-making, big data governance and service, and improvement of informatization capability of designated medical institutions, so as to support the healthcare security management authorities to improve the healthcare security services.
As of September 2021, Neusoft has participated in the construction of the national and 23 provincial healthcare security information platforms, including the core handling systems of healthcare security in 9 provinces, established healthcare security information systems in more than 200 cities included in the national healthcare security arrangement, and successively launched the provincial systems online in Qinghai, Hainan, Hebei, Gansu, etc..
In the future, Neusoft will, based on the integration of the healthcare security, medical care, pharmaceutical solutions, leverage the internal and external resources in medical equipment, commercial insurance, health management, medical operation, scientific research and education to build a more complete new healthcare ecology, continuously innovate and improve the healthcare security information systems to meet the future demands, and lead the development of healthcare security informatization in China.
Leading Independent Solar Power Producer in the UK and Europe Eliminates Use of Spreadsheets and Improves Planning and Reporting Capabilities with Planful Platform
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Oct. 13, 2021 — Planful Inc., the pioneer of end-to-end financial close, consolidation, and financial planning & analysis (FP&A) cloud software, today announced that Amarenco Group, a leading solar IPP active in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific that develops, finances, builds, and operates commercial and utility-scale solar PV projects, deployed the Planful platform to automate the financial close processes and to upgrade the company’s planning and reporting capabilities. RSM UK, a valued Planful partner and the leading provider of audit, tax, and consulting services to middle market leaders, worked alongside Planful on the customer implementation.
Amarenco Group, headquartered in Ireland with offices around the globe, was previously using spreadsheets to consolidate more than 300 separate entities that use a variety of currencies. Siobhán Rice, Group Financial Controller at Amarenco, was looking to modernize how her team manages the company’s complex consolidation needs and bring efficiencies to their statutory reporting.
"Our goal was to replace spreadsheets with a modern cloud platform that automates our complex monthly elimination and consolidation processes," said Rice. "The Planful platform delivered those capabilities, while integrating with our existing technology stack, resulting in a 60% reduction in our monthly close cycle time. We’ve found the Planful consolidation and reporting solutions to be intuitive and with the level of support and engagement from RSM UK and Planful, we expect to further reduce our close process time and are excited to expand to additional Planful use cases."
At Planful Perform 2021, the company announced a range of customer experience enhancements, from focused customer engagement programs to pre-packaged Planful Now quick-start offerings. These transformative customer experience initiatives produced impressive customer satisfaction results, including an average Support CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) score of 92%, as well as a 96% customer referenceability rate for Planful implementations.
"Bringing rapid time-to-value, via the best user experience, to our customers worldwide is of the utmost importance to the Planful team," said Kimberly Simms, Chief Customer Officer, Planful. "Our cloud platform is allowing Amarenco Group to streamline their finance and accounting processes, so they can spend more time analyzing information to help the business make better financial decisions."
About Planful Planful (formerly Host Analytics) is the pioneer of financial planning & analysis (FP&A) and consolidations cloud software. The Planful platform is used by the Office of the CFO around the globe to streamline business-wide planning, budgeting, consolidations, reporting, and visual analytics. More than 900 customers, including Boston Red Sox, Del Monte, TGI Friday’s, and 23andMe, rely on Planful to accelerate cycle times, increase productivity, and improve accuracy across the end-to-end FP&A process. Planful is a private company backed by Vector Capital, a leading global private equity firm. Learn more at www.planful.com.
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 12, 2021 — Intento, the leading AI integration platform, has released its annual State of Machine Translation report, giving those working in and around the MT landscape an in-depth analysis of the current vendors and best strategies to successfully leverage their offerings. The report is conducted in collaboration with TAUS, the central authority in language data, offering the largest industry-shared repository of data, deep know-how in language engineering, and a network of Human Language Project workers around the globe. You can download the report here.
The 2021 edition delivers everything you need to know to choose the best-fit MT engines for your language pair and industry sector. It provides:
The performance of different MT engines across 7 industries (Education, Finance, Healthcare, Hospitality, Legal, Entertainment, and General) and 13 language key pairs.
The latest data on 24 commercial MT engines (Alibaba eCommerce and General, Amazon, Apptek, Baidu, DeepL, Elia, Globalese, Google, GTCom, IBM Watson, Microsoft, ModernMT, Naver, Kawamura / NICT, Pangeanic, PROMT, Rozetta, Systran, Tilde, Tencent, Yandex, Youdao, and XL8)
Along with 5 open-source pre-trained models (M2M-100-1.2B, M2M-100-418M, mBART50-EN2M, mBART50-M2M, and OpusMT)
The principal scores to rely on when studying MT outcomes, such as similarity scores (COMET, BERTScore, PRISM, TER, and hLEPOR)
A thorough comparison of scores: hLEPOR, BERTScore, PRISM, and COMET.
Coverage of language support, which jumped from 16k to 100k language pairs in 2021
Price comparisons
This year’s report is chock-full of novel insights and will consist of two parts. First, ‘Automatic semantic similarity scoring’ demonstrates various changes to the MT landscape over the past year, including information on all new players on the market.
The second part will provide a deep-dive linguistic analysis for 3 language pairs (EN → ES, EN → IT, EN → NL). Essential takeaways from this breakdown include:
The comparison of texts between 5 industry sectors: Education, Financial, Healthcare, Legal, Travel (ES).
Key conclusions on how automatic metrics relate to human estimation of translations.
Recommendations on the best-fit MT engines for analyzed language pairs and industry sectors.
Insights on how to enhance the power of all MT engines available on the market.
Intento is trusted by global companies to help select, deploy, and improve the best-fit machine translation and other AI services, including sentiment analysis, voice synthesis, image tagging, and optical character recognition. The report aims to provide an expert vision of the constantly-changing MT landscape to save internationally-facing businesses both human and financial capital. A deep comprehension of the MT landscape benefits your company no matter your experience in machine translation, as there are significant insights for implementing AI and machine translation across various departments to boost productivity and growth. Download the report here.
"Working with MT is like living on an erupting volcano. We had 16,000 language pairs available from 34 MT providers just a year ago, and today it’s about 100,000 from 46. We don’t have datasets to evaluate them all, but by working with TAUS we get a look into 13 language pairs and 7 domains," says Konstantin Savenkov, Intento CEO. "The level of quality we see from stock models in 2021 is unprecedented. However, real-world business applications demand even more, and simply knowing the best stock model is not enough to succeed with MT. Make sure you have domain adaptation, glossaries, tone of voice control, and other tools on your belt."
Savenkov continues, "This year, together with TAUS, we had a particular focus on using high-quality domain-specific data. It took more time to prepare, but the results should be relevant to a wider audience and applicable to more use cases than before. One key highlight we see from this year is the emergence of new semantic similarity metrics, such as COMET."
"The availability of high-quality, domain-specific language data powering MT models has become ever so significant as AI-enabled automatic translation becomes more and more common. We are pleased to have offered test datasets in 13 language pairs and 7 domains to Intento to be used in their State of the MT 2021 Report. We believe the findings will shed light on many use cases providing guidance on which MT engines are best suitable for users’ given requirements and above all demonstrate the value of high-quality, domain-specific data in increasing the quality of the final output." Jaap van der Meer, TAUS Director
About Intento:
Intento, the leading AI integration platform, helps global companies utilize the best-fit cognitive AI services and automate content creation (text synthesis), content transformation (between text, speech, and image), and content localization (machine translation), enabling enterprises to translate 20x more content on their existing budgets.
This year, Intento was recognized as a 2021 Cool Vendor in Conversational and Natural Language Technologies by Gartner for its success in enhancing the supply chain of the global translation business. The Intento AI Hub gives global corporations direct, easy access to a multitude of MT engines (such as Amazon, Google AutoML, or Microsoft Cognitive Services) and seamlessly connects them with all of their business systems.
Launched in 2017, Intento offers its patented, ISO-27001 and ISO-9001 certified platform to global companies across all industries, augmenting their Localization, Content Management, Customer Support, and Marketing Operations with AI. For more information, visit https://inten.to.
About TAUS:
TAUS was founded in 2005 as a think tank with a mission to automate and innovate translation. Ideas transformed into actions. TAUS has become the one-stop language data shop, established through deep knowledge of the language industry, globally sourced community talent, and in-house NLP expertise. We create and enhance language data for the training of better, human-informed AI services.
Our mission today is to empower global enterprises and their service and technology providers with data solutions that help them to communicate in all languages, faster, better, and more efficiently. For more information, visit https://www.taus.net/.
Cognigy has been recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide General-Purpose Conversational AI Platforms 2021 Vendor Assessment
DÜSSELDORF, Germany and SAN FRANCISCO and SYDNEY, Oct. 9, 2021 — Cognigy, a global leader in omnichannel customer service automation, has been named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide General-Purpose Conversational AI Platforms 2021 Vendor Assessment (Doc #US47354421 , October 2021). Cognigy is recognized for its AI strategies in the report, which covers a selection of vendors that are most conducive to success in providing AI services in both the short-term and the long-term.
Cognigy named Leader in IDC MarketScape Report Worldwide General-Purpose Conversational AI Platforms, 2021
"The conversational AI software platforms that the IDC MarketScape has evaluated have shown that organizations can develop and deploy sophisticated AI-based conversational agents that can truly interact and provide a wide range of self-service that wasn’t possible only a few years ago," says Hayley Sutherland, IDC’s analyst on the assessment alongside David Schubmehl. "Cognigy has created a multilingual, multichannel conversational AI platform with a low-code development environment that enables both business users and developers to create conversational AI applications across the enterprise."
As part of this evaluation, IDC analysts spoke with dozens of organizations using these conversational AI software platforms to develop and deploy applications that are providing great customer and employee service and generating significant return on investment.
The IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. The Capabilities score measures vendor product, go-to-market and business execution in the short-term. The Strategy score measures alignment of vendor strategies with customer requirements in a 3-5-year timeframe. Vendor market share is represented by the size of the circles.
"As a leader in customer service automation, we are honored to be recognized in a Leader category in this 2021 IDC MarketScape assessment as a multilingual, multi-channel Conversational AI platform. We place high value on our client services which has helped us to develop working solutions alongside our clients to provide a quality experience," says Cognigy CEO Philipp Heltewig.
Strengths of Cognigy include:
Strong technology support: Cognigy has developed very strong natural language processing capabilities as well as an extensive low-code developer toolset for creating and deploying conversational AI applications. Its natural language understanding (NLU) capabilities include support for over 100 languages and dialects including variations of English, Spanish and Portuguese.
Broad based channel capabilities: Cognigy supports a wide range of digital channels including text messaging/SMS, rich web chat, email, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and others.
Voice capabilities: Cognigy Voice Gateway is a turnkey solution to deploy virtual voice agents for automated phone conversations, allowing seamless integration into any existing voice network and can connect to various engagement channels from where users initiate calls: SIP Trunk, PSTN or cellular, Enterprise Unified Communications (UC) and IP-PBXs, Contact Centers or WebRTC. It supports agent assist, intelligent routing, outbound voicebots and other use cases.
Cognigy is a global leader in omnichannel Customer Service Automation. Intelligent voice and chatbots powered by its Conversational AI platform help businesses improve service quality, reduce operational costs, and support teams across the enterprise. Cognigy’s award-winning AI understands user intents precisely and enables natural dialogs in over 100 languages. Easily scalable and pluggable, its low-code platform automates business processes through integrations into backend systems, operates as SaaS and on-premise, and is GDPR compliant. Cognigy’s worldwide client portfolio includes BioNTech, Bosch, Daimler and Lufthansa. Learn more at cognigy.com.
About IDC MarketScape
IDC MarketScape vendor assessment model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT (information and communications technology) suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of IT and telecommunications vendors can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective vendors.
PHOENIX, Oct. 9, 2021 — Renren Inc. (NYSE: RENN) ("Renren" or the "Company"), a SaaS company, today announced that it has entered into a Stipulation of Settlement (the "Stipulation") as a nominal defendant with respect to the consolidated shareholder derivative lawsuits currently pending in New York State Supreme Court, Commercial Division (the "Court") under the caption In re Renren, Inc. Derivative Litigation, Index No. 653594/2018 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. Cty.) (the "Action"). The other parties to the Stipulation include Oak Pacific Investment ("OPI") and the other named defendants in the Action (together with OPI, the "Defendants"), as well as Heng Ren Silk Road Investments LLC, Oasis Investments II Master Fund Ltd., and Jodi Arama (together, the "Plaintiffs") who have purported to bring claims derivatively on behalf of Renren.
If the Stipulation and the settlement and resolution of the Action contemplated therein (the "Settlement") is approved by the Court and the Settlement becomes effective, then, among other things, (a) the Action will be dismissed with prejudice, (b) the release of the Released Plaintiffs’ Claims (as defined in the Stipulation) will become effective, and (c) the administrator approved by the Court will distribute the Settlement Fund (as defined below) pursuant to the Settlement.
In connection with the Settlement, the Defendants will create a common settlement fund (the "Settlement Fund"), which amount, before any reductions for Settlement Fund Expenses (as defined below), will be the greater of $300,000,000 or the sum of (a) $38.6866 per ADS (as defined below) multiplied by the number of issued and outstanding ADSs held by Renren Shareholders as of the Record Date (as defined below) and (b) $0.859701 per Class A ordinary share multiplied by the total number of issued and outstanding Class A ordinary shares held by Renren Shareholders as of the Record Date. "Settlement Fund Expenses" include: (i) any taxes payable on any income generated by the Settlement Fund; (ii) notice costs, distribution costs, and administration expenses; (iii) any attorneys’ fees and expenses awarded by the Court to the Plaintiffs’ counsel; (iv) any other fees and expenses awarded by the court; and (v) any administrator fees associated with the Settlement.
Renren Shareholders, defined as holders of Renren’s Class A ordinary shares and American depositary shares ("ADSs"), each currently representing 45 Class A ordinary shares, as of the Record Date but excluding the Defendants and D&O Releasees (as defined below) will be entitled to receive a pro rata share of the Settlement Fund, after deducting the Settlement Fund Expenses. "D&O Releasees" are individuals that served as Renren directors and/or officers in June, 2018 and specifically identified as D&O Releasees in the Stipulation.
The "Record Date" will be set by Renren’s Board of Directors on the earliest practicable date after the approval of the Settlement by the Court has become Final (i.e., the date on which the time for taking an appeal of the Settlement expires or any such appeal has been disposed of) consistent with the terms of Renren’s Deposit Agreement and/or the requirements of any applicable New York Stock Exchange rule(s) or other applicable securities laws and regulations. Once the specific date of the Record Date is determined, Renren will file a Form 6-K to publicly announce that date.
As the Settlement is subject to approval by the Court and the fulfillment of other conditions set forth in the Stipulation, which involve inherent risks and substantial uncertainties, there is no guarantee that the Settlement will be consummated as contemplated under the Stipulation or at all.
The foregoing summary of the Stipulation is qualified in its entirety by reference to the complete text of that document, which will be filed as an exhibit to the Form 6-K that the Company intends to promptly file with the Securities and Exchange Commission thereafter, attaching this press release as an exhibit thereto.
About Renren Inc.
Renren Inc. (NYSE: RENN) operates several US-based SaaS businesses including Chime, a CRM and Marketing Automation platform, and Trucker Path, a trip-planning and business app for long-haul truckers. Renren’s ADSs, each currently representing 45 Class A ordinary shares of the Company, are traded on NYSE under the symbol "RENN".
Safe Harbor Statement
This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates" and similar statements. Renren may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about Renren’s beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from the forward-looking statements. In particular, as the proposed Settlement is contingent upon, among other things, obtaining the necessary court approval, the Company cautions investors that the forward-looking statements included in this press release are not a guarantee of future events, and that actual events may differ materially from those made in or suggested by the forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they do involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties, and these expectations may prove to be incorrect. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in our annual report on Form 20-F and other documents filed with the SEC. All information provided in this press release is as of the date of this press release, and Renren does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law.
Eric Amodio joins GitKraken as Chief Technology Officer in GitLens acquisition
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Oct. 9, 2021 — GitKraken, creator of the world’s leading Git GUI and CLI, announced the acquisition of GitLens, the most popular Git extension for Visual Studio Code. GitLens was created by Eric Amodio in 2016, and has since been developed and maintained nearly exclusively by Amodio in his spare time. He joins GitKraken and will serve as the company’s Chief Technology Officer, to lead GitLens and GitKraken’s entire suite of popular Git collaboration and productivity tools.
GitKraken Acquires GitLens for Visual Studio Code
GitLens is a free open-source Git extension for VS Code with more than 11 million active users and 71 million downloads in the past five years. Of more than 30,000 VS Code extensions, it is one of the most popular. It is relied upon by developers, DevOps professionals and enterprise teams around the world, to help them better understand and work with code. GitLens unlocks the untapped knowledge within each repository to help visualize code authorship, seamlessly navigate and explore Git repositories, and gain valuable insights via powerful comparison commands.
"I’ve always been passionate about making software development easier, more accessible, and inclusive. My mission with GitLens has been to make code easier to understand by leveraging the knowledge within each Git repository and making it accessible to everyone," said GitLens founder, Eric Amodio. "I am incredibly excited to join the GitKraken team to take our shared vision and accelerate it to create something truly wonderful together."
Amodio is an innovator, leader, architect, and seasoned full-stack developer. He is joining the GitKraken team to lead the continued development of GitLens for VS Code users, transitioning his GitLens involvement from a passion project on nights and weekends, to a full-time focus. By joining GitKraken, GitLens will have the full support and resources of a rapidly growing software company that specializes in Git collaboration and productivity solutions for development teams.
"GitKraken is on a mission to make Git easier, safer, and more powerful for developers and DevOps teams of all sizes," GitKraken CEO, Wayne Williams said. "The addition of Eric to the leadership team, and GitLens to the product line, could not be a better fit. His knowledge, vision, and leadership will help us advance the Git user experience across developer and DevOps surfaces."
GitKraken’s acquisition last month of Git Integration for Jira, increased its capabilities, reach and user base. With the GitLens acquisition, GitKraken’s user base is now well over 10 million developers and technology leaders from more than 100,000 companies around the world.
GitKraken is committed to developing GitLens for the Visual Studio Code platform. GitLens users can rest assured it will remain available for free and open source, and will continue to be invested in. GitLens users can find more information in this announcement article.
Developers and DevOps professionals can download the free GitKraken Git client and the free GitLens Git extension in the VS Code Marketplace.
About GitKraken GitKraken is an Arizona-based software company with headquarters in Scottsdale, AZ, and EU offices in Spain. It is the leading provider of Git productivity and collaboration solutions like the GitKraken Git client and Git Integration for Jira, relied on by 6 million developers in Agile DevOps teams at 85,000 companies around the world. The company was founded as Axosoft in 2002 and, in 2020, took on strategic equity investment from Resurgens Technology Partners, a private equity firm that is focused on high-growth software companies.
About GitLens GitLens is a free open-source Git extension for Visual Studio Code. In only five years, this product has more than 11 million active installs and 71 million downloads. GitLens was created by Eric Amodio in 2016, and has since been developed and maintained nearly exclusively by Amodio.
Instacart Will Integrate FoodStorm’s Technology into Its Leading Enterprise Offering, Enabling Retail Partners to Automate Their Catering and Prepared Foods Operations & Provide Customers with a More Seamless Grocery Meals Experience
FoodStorm’s Talented Team Will Join Instacart as Part of the Acquisition
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 8, 2021 — Instacart, the leading online grocery platform in North America, today announced its acquisition of FoodStorm, a SaaS order management system (OMS) that powers end-to-end order-ahead and catering experiences for grocery retailers. With this acquisition, Instacart is expanding its enterprise technology portfolio to further support its retail partners’ ecommerce needs, investing in more innovative technology solutions that help retailers grow, compete, and better meet the evolving needs of their customers.
The process for ordering prepared foods from grocers typically requires customers to call the store or place an order in-person – a labor-intensive and inefficient process that often results in both missed sales opportunities for retailers and a cumbersome customer experience. FoodStorm helps solve this problem by creating a more seamless experience for both retailers and customers. FoodStorm has developed a comprehensive SaaS offering that covers multi-channel ordering – ecommerce, phone or in-store kiosk – order management, and payment and fulfillment. Its technology also integrates easily with a large variety of third-party systems including point of sale systems (POS) and offers customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities that help grocers collect feedback, market their offerings and leverage promotional features.
FoodStorm was founded 14 years ago and has developed strong partnerships with a number of Instacart’s existing retail partners including Albertsons Companies banners Balducci’s and Kings Food Markets, as well as Bi-Rite Market, Mollie Stone’s Markets, Uncle Giuseppe’s and Roche Brothers Supermarkets. Looking ahead, Instacart will make FoodStorm’s technology available to more retailers through Instacart’s leading enterprise technology offering. In addition to acquiring FoodStorm’s technology and tools, Instacart is also excited to welcome the talented FoodStorm team, which is based in the U.S. and Melbourne, Australia to Instacart.
"As a retailer enablement platform, Instacart is focused on growing our partners’ businesses by investing in innovative new technologies and services that deliver significant value to them and their customers," said Mark Schaaf, Chief Technology Officer, Instacart. "Our goal is to help our retail partners increase their sales and ensure more of their customers’ everyday meals come from the grocery store. That’s why we’re excited to welcome the talented FoodStorm team to Instacart and integrate their end-to-end order-ahead and catering platform into Instacart’s leading enterprise offering. For retailers, this new enterprise solution helps them bring even more of their inventory online, enhance their ecommerce capabilities, grow their business and meet the evolving needs of their customers. And, for customers, this unlocks a healthier, more affordable alternative to restaurant delivery – creating an easier way for people to order prepared foods online directly from their favorite grocers."
Order-ahead technology solutions provide grocery retailers with a significant growth opportunity. On the Instacart platform, customers who purchase prepared foods and catering items like hot and cold side dishes, cakes and sushi from the grocery store have significantly larger baskets and shop more frequently than those customers who do not. For retailers, order-ahead items and prepared foods are also typically more profitable than traditional groceries like produce and package goods.
"I’m incredibly proud of what the FoodStorm team has achieved for our partners. We’ve developed market-leading software that makes it easier for grocers to execute on prepared food and catering orders more efficiently, and track everything from one central location. This is a huge growth opportunity for grocers, and we’ve seen increased demand for our products as more customers are searching for seamless online and in-store ordering capabilities," said FoodStorm CEO Rob Hill. "Grocery is an incredibly complex retail category, making the need for enterprise-grade solutions like FoodStorm and Instacart critical to the long-term success of the industry we all rely on to put food on our tables. We’re excited about this next chapter as we join the Instacart team and create new ways for retailers to serve the ever-changing needs of their businesses and customers."
"Delivering a world-class customer experience and excellent prepared foods is the mission of our business, and FoodStorm and Instacart have helped us do just that," said Russell McVeigh, Catering Director at Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace. "Once we deployed FoodStorm’s technology, online sales doubled and we were able to be more innovative with our menus because of the increased visibility FoodStorm’s platform provides. Both FoodStorm and Instacart have been critical to our growth and ability to serve our customers, and we’re excited to see what compelling enterprise products they’ll develop together."
"Both Instacart and FoodStorm have been important partners in bringing our business online and have opened up brand new sales and customer service channels for us," said Adam Laliberte, Director of Food Services at Roche Brothers Supermarkets. "Before FoodStorm, our software systems weren’t compatible with our catering needs and we had a limited online presence which meant we were missing out on a huge opportunity. Because of Foodstorm’s flexible and easily configurable technology, we’ve seen an increase in our catering business and have the ability to manage this increase more efficiently so that our teams can focus more on our customers. I’m thrilled that they are now joining forces with Instacart and we’re excited to see what enterprise offerings they’ll bring to market together."
Instacart’s enterprise technology today powers the comprehensive ecommerce platforms of more than 175 local, regional and national grocers across North America, including Costco Canada, Heinen’s, Sprouts, The Fresh Market, and Wegmans. Instacart first began offering enterprise technology to grocery partners in 2017. Since then, the company has continued to make significant investments in its enterprise business, scaling its engineering team and developing new technologies for grocers.
About Instacart Instacart is the leading online grocery platform in North America. Instacart shoppers offer same-day delivery and pickup services to bring fresh groceries and everyday essentials to busy people and families across the U.S. and Canada. Instacart has partnered with more than 600 beloved national, regional and local retailers, including unique brand names, to deliver from nearly 55,000 stores across more than 5,500 cities in North America. Instacart’s platform is available to over 85% of U.S. households and 80% of Canadian households. The company’s cutting-edge enterprise technology also powers the ecommerce platforms of some of the world’s biggest retail players, supporting their white-label websites, applications and delivery solutions. Instacart offers an Instacart Express membership that includes reduced service fees and unlimited free delivery on orders over $35. For more information, visit www.instacart.com. For anyone interested in becoming an Instacart shopper, visit https://shoppers.instacart.com/.
New partnership will allow seamless management of external workers and contingent staffing within a single source-to-pay suite
JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Oct. 7, 2021 — Beeline, the leading technology solution provider for managing the extended workforce, and Ivalua, a global leader in cloud Spend Management solutions, announce a partnership which incorporates contingent staffing into the total procurement spend solution.
Beeline Extended Workforce Platform will interact with Ivalua’s comprehensive spend management platform, enabling clients to acquire talent, manage contingent labor, and optimize their external workforce seamlessly from a complete source-to-pay platform which enables the management of all suppliers and spend categories. Clients will enjoy an optimized user experience within one solution for automated data flow and control of the invoicing process, ensuring proper controls on spend, and easing payment.
"Procurement continues to face a need to manage more contingent talent and services spend for temporary staff, consultants and contractors," said Brian Hoffmeyer, Beeline senior vice president of market strategies. "Beeline and Ivalua will deliver an end-to-end solution where businesses can manage all categories of spend, suppliers, and talent engagements—cost effectively and in compliance."
"One of the most important strategies for Procurement today is having complete visibility across all supplier relationships and spend with transparency across all processes, from sourcing to invoicing and payment," said Dan Amzallag, COO of Ivalua. "To achieve this, our customers connect the Ivalua Platform to a wide range of technology providers for value-add or specialist activities and with Beeline they will now have access to a leading contingent workforce solution."
About Beeline
Beeline pioneered the world’s first extended workforce platform to solve the complexities of managing the modern workforce. With a data set encompassing more than 30 million workers and over $700 billion in talent spend spanning more than 20 years, its intelligence-driven platform transforms how businesses engage, manage, and optimize external talent across more than 120 countries. Enterprises benefit from our unmatched experience and innovation, deeply seasoned experts, and industry-leading partner network to connect them to the remarkable talent within the global extended workforce. To learn more, visit www.beeline.com
About Ivalua
Ivalua is a leading provider of cloud based Spend Management solutions. Our complete, unified platform empowers businesses to effectively manage all categories of spend and all suppliers, increasing profitability, lowering risk, and improving employee productivity. Trusted by hundreds of the world’s most admired brands and recognised as a leader by Gartner and other analysts, Ivalua maintains the industry’s leading 98%+ customer retention rate. Learn more at www.ivalua.com.
