Samir Bodas, co-founder and CEO of Bellevue-based Icertis, thinks the contract-lifecycle management industry his company serves could become as large as the customer-relationship management industry that propelled Marc Benioff into the Salesforce Tower. He just raised $50 million in additional funding to prove that theory.
The Series D round, led by Meritech Capital Partners, brings the total amount of money raised by the company to just under $100 million. The round also included the company’s current investors as well as two new ones, PSP Capital Partners and Cross Creek Advisors, and GeekWire has learned that the new round values the company at a little less than $500 million. (Bodas declined to comment on the valuation.)
It marks one of the largest venture capital rounds in a Pacific Northwest company so far this year.
Icertis built software delivered over Microsoft’s Azure public cloud that helps companies keep track of deals with suppliers and customers that require extensive contracts. Given how the legal system works, that’s a lot of contracts, and Icertis’ software also helps companies negotiate better contracts by highlighting ways to save money or move faster.
A sample Icertis dashboard. (Icertis Image)
“There’s tremendous opportunity to tease out risk, to tease out more value, to look at the text of the contract and say, ‘this clause doesn’t look right,’” Bodas said in a recent interview. He compared contract-lifecycle management software to the emergence of cloud-delivered CRM software used by a lot of companies to manage their sales cycles.
Both those services used to be handled as part of a huge enterprise-resource planning software package companies bought from vendors like IBM or SAP and installed on their own servers, but cloud computing has upended that market much the same way it has everything else. Icertis counts companies like Microsoft and Daimler among its customers, and has around 600 employees, including 400 or so based in India working on its technology.
The company has about 100 people in the U.S., 75 of whom work in Bellevue. Like most startups with fresh cash, Icertis plans to open new offices (mostly in Europe) and expand its work on sales, marketing, and customer support, Bodas said.
Icertis is also working on technology improvements that will bring machine-learning capabilities into its products, which is also something the CRM industry is trying to do. As noted above, such technology could be used to help customers find problems in contracts before it’s too late, and it could also make it easier to do the most important part of managing contracts: making sure the other party is living up to their end of the deal.
SpaceX’s Starman, drifting in a Tesla Roadster, has an incredible view of Earth on Tuesday. (SpaceX Image via YouTube)
This might be the ultimate space oddity.
High above his home planet, where millions of people are no doubt sitting in traffic in cars of their own, “Starman” drifted effortlessly through a wide open expanse on Tuesday.
The mannequin in a spacesuit — launched aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket on Tuesday — sat in the driver’s seat of Elon Musk’s cherry red Tesla Roadster. With the top down, Starman drove off toward a deep-space orbit listening to David Bowie’s “Life on Mars.”
(SpaceX Image via YouTube)(SpaceX Image via YouTube)
SpaceX beamed a live internet view of the unprecedented adventure via its YouTube feed, where more than 200,000 viewers were watching at one point.
Assorted camera angles captured views from inside the Roadster over Starman’s shoulder; from out in front of the hood looking back; and from off the driver’s side of the car looking back toward Starman.
Earth continuously moved into the frame to serve as a dramatic blue backdrop against an otherwise deep, black setting.
Clearly amused by his own stunt, Musk tweeted that “apparently, there is a car in orbit around Earth,” later adding that the Tesla was over Australia.
Watch the video below for as long as you can — Musk has said Starman and the Tesla could drift for “maybe in excess of a billion years.”
SpaceX now has a live feed of its Mars bound simulated astronaut, a dummy wearing the private space company’s new crew uniform. There are cameras mounted on the Tesla Roadster the dummy is “driving,” which was the primary payload for SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch, which went off almost perfectly as planned by SpaceX earlier today.
The livestream switches between cameras, including one mounted on the hood, one behind the Astronaut’s shoulder, and one facing back down to Earth. It’s quite the view, and it’s amazing.
This is easily the most fun payload ever sent to space, so good job Elon. Also, kudos on the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ref.
In a few short days the Olympics will descend upon the Earth, and with it will come hundreds of stories of triumph and failure that you need to be able to watch—or at least talk about the next day. Your best friend is about to turn into an ice skating expert, and your brother is going to painstakingly explain the rules of luging to you. The weird winter sports are upon us, and unless you want to spend your days glued to sites like Deadspin, eagerly waiting for the next clip of a guy taking a set of skis to the nards, you’ll need a way of watching these events.
So here’s a guide on how to watch the 2018 Winter Olympics. I’ve split it up into the different forms of viewing—from live to time delay to on-demand. Remember that this year the Olympics are in PyeongChang, South Korea, which is 14 hours ahead of the Eastern Standard Time Zone (so 15 hours ahead of Central, and 17 hours ahead of Pacific). If you don’t live in one of those time zones you can see how far ahead (or behind) PyeongChang is by checking this website, or you can add this Google calendar, which will tell you when every event is taking place.
How to watch if you have cable or satellite
If you’re one of the millions of cable and satellite subscribers in the US, you have the easiest method of watching the Games this year. NBC holds the exclusive rights to broadcasting the Olympics in the US, and claims it will be live streaming 1,800 hours of Olympic winter sports over the two weeks of the Games.
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The streams will be in HD and available via NBCOlympics.com on your Edge, Safari, Chrome, or Firefox browser. If you prefer to watch the streams on your TV, phone or tablet you can do so via the NBC Sports app available from the iTunes App Store, Google Play, Windows Store, Roku Channel Store, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Comcast X1, or Samsung TV.
The only thing required, besides solid internet, is the login for your cable, satellite, or telco subscription so you can prove to NBC you pay your carrier fees.
If you’d prefer to watch the games the old-fashioned way, with NBC curating them and deciding what events are and are not worth your time, then you can catch the (almost) 24/7 broadcasts available on NBC, CNBC, NBCSN, USA, and the Olympics Channel.
How to watch if you have no internet but do have some rabbit ears on your TV
If you are me circa 1996 and are lacking high-speed internet and cable, but you do have access to broadcast television, then you can catch the most popular events by tuning into NBC’s broadcast.
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You’ll need a good antenna, and your TV will need to have a digital tuner built in (check the manual to confirm). To assure that your house can even receive NBC over the air, check out the TVFool and punch in your address. The website will not only show you what channels are available in your specific location, it will also tell you which way to point that antenna to ensure the best reception for a particular channel.
NBC is channel 28, which means if I want to watch it at the office I should direct my antenna northeast. Image: Screenshot
How to watch if you have internet, $40, but no cable subscription
Respect to you, my card-carrying cord cutter. You’ve survived this long without sucking at the teat of big ISP. But unfortunately, due to NBC’s stranglehold on the games in the US, your options for watching the Olympics are limited.
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Your first choice is to watch what NBC airs on its local broadcast. Your second choice is to watch the streams available online; however, you’ll only get to watch 30 minutes before NBC requests you log in via your cable, satellite, or telco provider, so plan accordingly. Your third option is to hunt for illegal streams on YouTube, Facebook, or Twitch—but be advised that NBC protects its broadcast rights in the US with almost unusual zeal, and there’s no guarantee a stream will last through an entire event, let alone the whole two weeks of the games.
If you want to guarantee you’ll have access to all the events you want to watch, your best option might be to get a Hulu Live TV subscription for the duration of the Games. In fact, Hulu Live TV might be the best way to watch the Olympics, period.
If you’ve never subscribed before, a two-week trial is free and should cover you for the entire 2018 Olympics. If you have subscribed before, you’ll need to pony up at least $40 for the monthly subscription.
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Hulu worked with NBC and the Olympics to create its experience, which allows you to subscribe to specific sporting events. (For example, lovers of curling can get that weird thing and only that weird thing.) You can watch them live, or DVR them automatically, and you can also watch short clips, for when someone inevitably performs some heartbreakingly triumphant feat of human spirit and everyone at work won’t stop talking about it.
Hulu gave Gizmodo a sneak peek at the layout, which will be exclusive to its app, and we were definitely impressed by the polish. The first aspect of it, where you choose your favorite sports, is live now.
But remember, it costs cash, and if you aren’t already a Hulu subscriber, that might be a bridge too far.
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Subscribers of other live TV services, like YouTube TV, PlayStation Vue, and SlingTV won’t have as curated or customizable experience. Instead, you’ll need to stick with watching the games from the five available broadcast stations (your online TV login for these services, sadly, does not work with NBC’s live streaming solutions).
How to watch if you’re just plain broke
Look, we all hit hard times, and not everyone can afford $40 for a Hulu subscription or $60 for cable—at minimum. Unfortunately, NBC really does not care if you don’t have the money because its entire function on this earth is to make money.
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So if you’ve got no money and really, really want to watch the Olympics, you’re going to have to get crafty. One possibility is to use a premium virtual private network (VPN), connect to a UK server to give you a UK IP address, and access the BBC stream through TVPlayer.com. As TechRadar points out, BBC won’t stream everything, but you can the Eurosport channel for less than $10. Add in a VPN subscription (the free versions are not always reliable), and you’re looking at less than $20 for the full two weeks of the Games.
Another option is to check in with your local bars to see what events they’ll be tuning to and when. NBC and its affiliates will also post the coolest clips online, so you’ll be able to at least get a taste of what’s happening—and remember, you can still watch NBCOlympics.com for 30 minutes before it demands an authentication.
If you don’t mind wading into a gray area that definitely violates someone’s terms of service, you can try bugging a family member for their cable login like you usually do for HBO and Netflix. That will give you instant access to the best version of the Olympics without the 30-minute time limit.
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If you’re friends and family are as broke as you are, a VPN is too much of a pain, and standing outside a bar looking in on the happy paying customers just won’t fly, then you’ll have to resort to looking for those less than legal streams online. But again, remember, there is no guarantee on how long those streams will last. And if they’re not on a regular streaming website like Twitch (where they are a violation of the terms of service and will be quickly killed), then you may open yourself up to malware and viruses. So practice safe browsing techniques and don’t click on anything that looks big, shiny, and clickable—it’s probably something nasty.
And if all else fails, head to Twitter. Someone will absolutely be live tweeting the event you love as it happens.
The countdown makes me gasp every time. Ten seconds until the next episode of whatever show my daughter is watching. Nine seconds. Eight. Seven. Six.
“Okay, turn it off!” I say from across the room.
“The next one is starting,” the kid says in a giddy surge of rebellion.
Three. Two. One.
I lunge to grab the remote and then hit the power button, just in time.*
Video autoplay is designed to hook us to our screens—Tristan Harris, a crusader against technology’s race to hijack our attention, compares it the “bottomless bowl,” referring to a study that found you can trick people into eating way more soup if you give them a bowl that automatically refills itself. For parents, it makes setting screen-time limits a challenge. (“What? How are you on Season 8 already?”) If you want to make sure your kids aren’t watching an infinite stream of shows featuring a British pig family or a talking yellow sponge, reclaim your power by turning the autoplay feature off. Here’s how to do it:
Firefighters regularly risk their lives to save people, so we as a society should be providing them with the best designs for tools that help them in their work. One such invention, the newfangled PyroLance, takes a cue from the world of digital fabrication. With an assault rifle form factor, the PyroLance is a "transitional attack tool" that’s something like a handheld waterjet cutter.
When approaching a burning and enclosed structure, firefighters may need to breach it to fight the flames within. The problem is that breaching introduces a sudden influx of fresh oxygen to the fire within, which can lead to flashovers or backdrafts, catastrophic, potentially explosive escalations of the fire.
The PyroLance allows firefighters to remain outside of the structure and to cool the temperature inside of it–without breaching. By firing pressurized water loaded with a non-metallic (i.e. non-sparking) aggregate, the tool blasts a tiny 3mm hole through just about anything: It’ll blast through two layers of brick in 30 seconds, a concrete block in 35 seconds and 3/4" plate steel in just under a minute.
Once the hole is formed, the operator changes the jet to a spray, which fills the room as an ultrafine mist that’s still under high pressure. The reduced water droplet size contained in the mist allows it "to absorb heat and extinguish fires in record time," boasting a reduction of 900 degrees in under a minute, according to the company.
Here’s some footage of it in action. (Please note that the annotation "The powerful jet cuts a 6mm hole" is an incorrect statement added by Business Insider):
If you’re interested in the science behind how and why the PyroLance works, this video below explains further:
Someday, I will see the trailer for a new Star Wars movie and not get completely gooey inside. Today is not that day. Here’s the briefer “TV spot” (don’t call it a trailer!) that aired during the Super Bowl last night.
I think my insides and outsides briefly switched places when they showed Donald Glover as Lando.
Last night, we finally got our first look at the next chapter in Star Wars’ spinoff saga, the standalone Han Solo movie. Now, we’ve got an even better look at the past of one of the series’ most beloved characters, before he truly became the snarky smuggler we all know and love.
This trailer gives off a much better vibe of the film is going to be like, in comparison to the short Super Bowl spot that dropped last night—not just a chance to see more of the young Han himself (Alden Ehrenreich), but better glimpses at the new cast of characters that will be joining him and Chewbacca (now played by Joonas Suotamo) on a wild adventure that will see Han transform from cocky Corellian racer, to… well, a still cocky racer, that just happens to sit at the helm of the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.
It won’t be long until we see more: Solo: A Star Wars Story, directed by Ron Howard, hits theaters May 25.
The next Star Wars movie is out in three months. THREE MONTHS. But up until now, we haven’t seen a single image from it. That changed during the Super Bowl, though, as Disney, finally, revealed the first look at Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Here it is.
I mean – that looks pretty great, right? Definitely has that Star Wars feel. Lando looks awesome. It gave me chills.
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Directed by Ron Howard, Solo stars Alden Ehrenreich, alongside Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Woody Harrelson, Joonas Suotamo, and Paul Bettany.
