GridGain expands executive team to support the company’s next stage of growth

GridGain, provider of the leading unified real-time data platform, today announced that Andy Sacks has joined the company as its Chief Revenue Officer. The company also promoted Lalit Ahuja to Chief Customer and Product Officer and Elena Schtein to Chief Financial Officer. The expansion of the executive team reflects surging demand for GridGain’s solutions and will enable the company to continue to expand its teams and markets, and accelerate innovation.

Andy Sacks returns to GridGain as Chief Revenue Officer to lead GridGain’s global revenue strategy. With over 20 years of enterprise sales experience, Sacks brings deep expertise in developing robust direct and indirect routes to market across both pre- and post-sales organizations. He spent several years as an executive vice president of sales at Alloy Technologies, Imply Data, and early-stage GridGain. At each company, he developed and led the company’s global sales organization while posting triple digit growth year-over-year. At Imply and early-stage GridGain, he built the sales organizations from scratch. Early in his career, Sacks spent over 8 years at Red Hat where he joined as part of the JBoss acquisition and developed and led strategic sales teams while delivering substantial revenue to the company. He also held sales leadership roles at Bluestone Software (acquired by HP), RightWorks (acquired by i2), and Inktomi (acquired by Yahoo! and Verity), where he was instrumental in developing the company’s partner sales organization.

“We are excited to have Andy back as part of our executive team,” said GridGain President and CEO Eoin O’ Connor. “His track record speaks for itself, and the wealth of his experiences and deep understanding of our technology and markets will be critical to successfully and rapidly navigating our next stage of growth.”

“I’m delighted to rejoin GridGain as the company’s first Chief Revenue Officer,” said Sacks. “The amazing level of innovation at the company continues to be well ahead of the industry’s demand for processing massive amounts of data in real time. I look forward to helping GridGain expand the breadth and depth of our approach to the global market.”

Over the last five years in his roles as vice president professional services and senior vice president of customer services, Lalit Ahuja has been key to GridGain’s overall product strategy, matching the company’s ongoing innovations to the evolving needs of the market and GridGain customers. During Elena Schtein’s six years at GridGain as vice president of finance, she has adeptly positioned the company for financial health and continued growth despite the global pandemic and times of economic uncertainty.

“Based on their performance, promoting Lalit and Elena to support our company’s continued growth was an easy decision,” added O’ Connor. “I’m thrilled that Lalit will continue driving our product strategy and lead our new AI initiatives both internally and externally as Chief Customer and Product Officer. Elena has done an incredible job over the last six years at GridGain, so promoting her to Chief Financial Officer is a natural next step for GridGain as we move forward with our next stage of growth.”

MiniTool Software Limited has just released the new MiniTool Power Data Recovery 11.6, professional data recovery software for Windows users. The new version provides a new way to preview videos, audio, and pictures, and supports saving files in the preview interface. Besides, it adds some new file types under the "All RAW Files" path.

The main updates of the new version of MiniTool Power Data Recovery are as follows.

In MiniTool Power Data Recovery previous versions, audio & video preview are not supported. Now, in MiniTool Power Data Recovery 11.6, users are allowed to preview audio and videos that are no larger than 2 GB.

Supported audio file types include: "au", "mp3", "wav", "wma", "m4b", "aif", "mid", "ogg", and "mmf". Similarly, the audio size must be within 2 GB before it can be previewed.

Supported video file types include: "mkv", "webm", "mts", "flv", "3gp", "mp4", "m4a", "avi", "mpg", "asf", "wmv", "rm", "ram", "rmvb", and "mov".

This update is friendly to free users because free users have a 1 GB free data recovery limit. Previewing data before they recover videos or audio ensures that the recovered files are the desired ones.

In addition to changes to video & audio previews, the way image files are previewed also has been improved. The new version of MiniTool Power Data Recovery speeds up picture preview. With this change, users can recover deleted photos faster.

Supported image types for preview:
"JPF", "JPX", "JP2", "J2C", "J2K", "JPC", "JPEG", "JPG", "JPE", "BMP", "TIFF", "TIF", "GIF", "PNG", "EMF", "WMF", "WEBP".

It is worth mentioning that in the new MiniTool Power Data Recovery 11.6, a new "Save" button is added to the audio, video, and picture preview interface. So, users can save files directly from the preview window.

Besides, in the old version of MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free, users need to download the previewer tool before previewing files. The new version has a new preview tool built into the software, allowing file preview without downloading any tools.

First to market with GARM-aligned brand safety/suitability measurement for GVP

Integral Ad Science , a leading global media measurement and optimization platform, today announced the expansion of their Total Media Quality for Google Video Partners (GVP) offering, providing brand safety and suitability measurement on GVP inventory, enabling advertisers to share their video ads on publisher websites and mobile apps beyond YouTube with confidence.

GVP consists of publisher websites and mobile apps where advertisers can show video ads to viewers. These online destinations across games, sports, entertainment, news, and other categories must meet Google's quality standards for ads to appear on a range of devices, including computers, tablets, mobile web browsers, mobile apps, and TV screens.

"Independent brand safety and suitability measurement is critical to giving advertisers confidence about where their ads run," said Marvin Renaud, Director, Global Video Solutions, Google. "We're excited to expand our partnership with IAS to provide advertisers with the further assurance that Google Video Partners ads appear on brand safe content."

"Brand safety and suitability measurement continues to be crucial for marketers to protect their brand and maximize the return on their campaign investments," said Yannis Dosios, Chief Commercial Officer, IAS. "This expanded capability with Total Media Quality for GVP will take brand safety and suitability measurement to the next level and will help marketers assess media spend and coverage where it counts."

As the first brand safety/suitability measurement partner for GVP, IAS will now provide app- and URL-level transparency, along with valuable third-party affirmation that brands running video ads on GVP are appearing in brand safe and suitable content as defined by the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) framework. In Q2, IAS launched Total Media Quality for YouTube to provide new levels of insight into video content. IAS Total Media Quality is currently being used on other social media platforms to analyze millions of videos per year for marketers. With Total Media Quality for GVP, advertisers can view brand safety and suitability metrics for impressions served on GVP, in addition to viewability and invalid traffic measurement.

LunarCrush, the trailblazing crypto and media analytics platform, announced a successful $5 million Series A fundraising round, boosting the company's valuation to an impressive $30 million.

The round was jointly led by Draper Round Table / INCE Capital, with significant contributions from a consortium of investohttps://drapergorenholm.com/rs. Among these contributors, Blockchain Founders Fund, Draper Associates, WWVentures, TRGC, Bitcoin Frontier Fund, Draper Goren Holm, Side Door Ventures, MoonPay, EMURGO, LBANK Labs, FUNFAIR Ventures, and Techstars stand out. Renowned angel investors David Bleznak and Francisco Oliva-Velez Cancel also joined the round. LunarCrush is a proud Techstars LA 2019 alumni.

LunarCrush's additional capital will supercharge its mission to transform the way individuals consume social media. Built upon invaluable experience derived from the crypto and financial sectors, their pioneering tool allows users to curate their social media feeds. This innovative solution offers users the means to navigate the vast sea of social media content and identify trends resonating with their unique interests in real time.

"Our work in the crypto and financial sectors, where noise levels are notoriously high, underscored the need for custom algorithms that allow users to delve deeper into their preferred content and discover trending topics in real time," shared LunarCrush CEO Joe Vezzani.

Rather than merely following individuals, LunarCrush is catalyzing a seismic shift towards a topic-centric social media landscape. This transformative approach enables users to curate a more enriched, personalized experience, following their interests as they unfold in real time across various social media platforms.

Aly Madhavji, Managing Partner at Blockchain Founders Fund, an early investor in LunarCrush, expressed his enthusiasm about the company's evolution: "We believe in the LunarCrush team, vision, expertise and foresight. The company has seen tremendous growth a clear indicator of their strong capability to deliver a premier product and fill the need for social sentiment analysis and data analytics in the crypto and finance space. We're excited about the future and how LunarCrush will play a role to further user empowerment."

In a realm where people want to leave their echo chambers and understand trending topics holistically, LunarCrush's solution is game-changing. LunarCrush invites all to experience this ground-breaking tool and heralding a new era of social media, where personalized, real-time content is not just a possibility, but a reality.

• Consumer expectations will reshape the needs and economics of the internet. Today, more than 60% of consumers in EMEA¹ expect to connect cars, appliances, energy and water to the internet, and broadband networks must scale to support this.

• Increased dependence on broadband for everyday tasks, however, means that while speed is still the main priority for upgrades (40% of respondents), security is now a close second (38% of respondents).

• Sustainability is now a key driver of consumer choice with 77% of respondents willing to pay more for broadband with a lower carbon footprint.

The Cisco Broadband Survey¹, released today, finds that evolving consumer expectations will reshape the needs and economics of the internet. People in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and South Africa) are rethinking what they rely on the internet for, balancing classic demands for speed and reliability, with the intensifying needs of rising eco-consciousness, secure cloud infrastructure, and the consumerisation of technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) connecting our devices, from smart cars to home appliances. This has led to 79% of survey participants ranking broadband as critical national infrastructure, escalating the need for the technology industry to respond to these asks and accelerate the journey towards a more sustainable, secure internet for the future.

Consumers Want to Invest in Sustainable Broadband
The carbon-cost of broadband connectivity is a top priority for consumers. Cisco's Broadband Survey revealed that 65% of consumers in EMEA are now concerned about the carbon footprint of their broadband, with young people aged 18-24 the most concerned (73%). In addition, 77% said they would be willing to pay more for sustainable broadband, with around a quarter prepared to pay a price premium of more than 20%. This supports a wider market trend, shown in a 2019 survey by Nielsen and a 2022 survey by Globescan, revealing widespread consumer awareness around the environmental impact of the products they use and a demand for companies to step up and mitigate negative impacts on the planet.

Security Is a Priority as More Move Online
In parallel to growing environmental concerns, the emergence of hybrid work and the ever-increasing blur between the professional and personal lives of employees brings new risks into the home. Despite most consumers using their broadband for tasks like banking and work, passwords are still the most popular way (53%) that survey respondents protect home networks and devices; only a quarter have switched on their router's firewall. This is despite previous Cisco research revealing that 57% of consumers worry about cybercriminals hacking their devices. While speed is still the main priority among those planning to upgrade their broadband in the next year (selected by 40%), security is now a close second, ranked by 38% of consumers as a top priority when choosing their broadband package.

Connection to Increase as Consumers Expand their Digital Lives
As the number of IoT devices online grows from billions to trillions, so does the demand for bandwidth and processing power to analyse all the data produced. According to the Cisco Broadband Survey, there's no sign of this slowing down. Consumers are instead embracing the shift toward a 'smarter' digital life. A majority already have, or expect to have, their cars (67%), lights (74%), appliances (71%), energy (76%) and water (64%) connected. Indeed, more than half of consumers surveyed (54%) indicated feeling positive about new ways to connect their homes and lives to the internet. This is despite a majority (63%) saying that the cost-of-living crisis has changed the way they spend money on digital services: 21% have reported moving to a lower cost broadband package and 16% have cancelled streaming services.

"The carbon footprint of the information and communications technology sector is estimated to account for around 2.1 – 3.9% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and more than half of that comes from networks and data centers. Cisco is on a mission to transform the economics and sustainability of the Internet for the Future. That means designing products with energy efficiency and security in mind, adopting circular economy principles in product development and business operations, and taking a smart and sustainable approach to lifecycle management. In addition to the cybersecurity threat landscape constantly evolving and expanding, we have to deal with the increasing threat of climate change. Prioritizing sustainability and security in broadband infrastructure is therefore crucial to enable lasting and resilient digital transformation," said Gordon Thomson, Vice President Service Provider - EMEA, Cisco. 

"The old technology adage of 'faster, cheaper, better' has not been relevant for a long time. It's now about simplifying solutions and building networks that can fuel global connectivity and economic growth, facilitating and protecting the digitalization and automation of everyday activities, all without losing sight of our impact on the future," he continued.

Reimagining agile research solutions for progressive brands in a dynamic business landscape

In an era of rapid change, brands must be swift, adaptable, and insightful to succeed. Current research and insights approaches fail to deliver the necessary depth and agility to thrive in the current environment. Recognizing this challenge, Fuel Cycle today introduced the Research Engine, an innovative platform that enables brands to forge deep connections with their key audiences and harness actionable insights that drive confident business decisions.

Traditional research processes often yield slow, inefficient results that lack actionable insights which hinder effective decision-making across businesses. Moreover, most existing insights technologies typically connect with a narrow range of audiences and provide a small feature set, reducing their utility to brands.

Fuel Cycle's Research Engine solves these challenges and revolutionizes brands' approach to insights by offering access to any audience through dynamic insights communities and networks of global audiences. Combined with an agile insights platform that enables brands to rapidly uncover and adapt to customer needs, the Research Engine unleashes the power of decision intelligence that empowers brands to make informed and confident decisions for successful product launches, customer acquisition, and overall growth.

Highlights of Fuel Cycle's Research Engine include:

• Access to any key audience: Connect with customers, prospects, and employees through a single, unified platform.
• Seamless agile research: Standardized and validated solutions enable researchers and decision makers to rapidly conduct high-quality research.
• Industry-leading insights communities: The highest return-on-investment research community that enables in-depth qualitative and quantitative research.
• Powerful analysis, supported by machine learning: Automated processing calculates key performance indicators in seconds; machine learning enables discovery of priority audiences for business decision makers.
• Diverse customer and partner integrations: Secure APIs enable effortless unification of operational, experiential, and research data through bespoke integrations and ready-to-use workflows.
• Exceptional usability: Complex research processes have been simplified and standardized, decreasing time and effort to capture valuable insights.

"Fuel Cycle's Research Engine is a step-function change in market research, empowering brands to thrive in a fast-paced and demanding business environment," states Eran Gilad, CEO and President of Fuel Cycle, "By leveraging our enterprise-grade platform, brands can accelerate time-to-insight, increase efficiency, and make decisions with high confidence to steer business growth."

Accelerates, Automates Identity and Age Verification for Consumer-Facing Businesses

AU10TIX, a global leader in identity verification and management technology, today launched the AU10TIX App, empowering customer-facing businesses with automated, in-person and point of sale (POS) identity and age verification capabilities. The app enables companies to securely verify IDs in the field within 4-8 seconds, enhancing the customer experience and accelerating sales.

For industries where access control is crucial, manual ID examination is insufficient for effectively detecting sophisticated fake IDs. This poses significant challenges and potential liabilities for businesses, as even trained professionals struggle to distinguish highly realistic fraudulent IDs without investing considerable time and effort.

The AU10TIX app provides the ability to rapidly verify age and ID documents from around the world. It also incorporates biometric checks and advanced AI and machine learning technology to eliminate identity fraud risk. Each business can define its own process based on its specific needs. The plug-and-play app requires no setup, is user-friendly, and can be customized or branded to meet specific business requirements. Its advanced fraud detection capabilities also ensure compliance with KYC regulations.

"We understand the importance of seamless access control, and are committed to helping our customers keep their business moving. The AU10TIX app enables employees to verify anyone, anywhere, at any time -- in a matter of seconds," said Dan Yerushalmi, CEO of AU10TIX. "Organizations no longer need to worry about human error in the ID verification process."

The AU10TIX app is designed to support multiple customer-facing industries, including:

• Casinos: Prevent underaged and blacklisted players from gaining access.
• Sporting Events: Combat illegal ticket resale by scalpers and stop minors from purchasing alcohol.
• Hospitality: Enhance guest safety and security by efficiently identifying guests during check-in.
• Pharma and Healthcare: Strengthen patient verification, safeguard medication dispensing, and maintain regulatory compliance.
• Education: Verify student identities, prevent enrollment fraud, and ensure a secure online learning environment.
• Travel: Verify traveler identities, prevent unauthorized access, and enhance security.
• Delivery: Authenticate customer identities, prevent package theft, and ensure secure and reliable deliveries.