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Khan Academy

Khan Academy- An organization to provide worldwide free education

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Online education is reaching out to more students in need with every passing day. Millions of students around the world have benefited from the concept of e-learning. The best part about online education is you can learn around the clock and play the role of both student and a teacher. There are so many short-term courses that are launched due to the ease of e-learning on the e-learning platforms like Khan Academy. So, even if you are an educator, here you can play the part of the student as well.

Sal Khan
Image Source: Wikipedia

A non-profitable organization – Khan Academy

Most of the organizations maintain two plans, one for everyone and the other package for the paid users. It can either be a type of subscription process or a fixed amount that varies from course to course. But, none of the online e-learning platforms gives every course package for free because they are the most profitable organizations.

But, Khan Academy is doing an exceptionally good job with an aim for educating the mass. Khan Academy is a non-profit American educational organization created by Sal Khan. He created the organization in 2008 with a passion to create world-class education for everyone. One can visit the website of Khan Academy and start watching videos for any course they like from school to graduation level.

About the Founder

Salman Khan, famous as Sal Khan, is the founder of the Khan Academy. Born on 11th October 1976, Salman belongs to a Bengali family. Born and brought up in the United States, Salman went to Grace King High School followed by The University of New Orleans.

For higher studies, he went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics as well. Salman completed his master’s in Computer Science and went to Harvard Business School and acquired an MBA. After completing his studies, Salman joined Connective Capital Management as a hedge fund analyst.

How Khan Academy was founded?

A lot of successful businesses emerged as a solution to a critical situation. Similarly, Salman didn’t have any plan to create a free educational organization at an international level when he worked as an analyst.

It was back in 2003 when Salman started tutoring his cousin as she was facing trouble with Mathematics. Salman used Yahoo’s Doodle notepad to teach her and eventually, more family members joined it. The demand started rising as he was doing it for free until one of his friends suggested to record the tutorials and upload them on YouTube. By doing this anyone can have free access to the tutorials at any time from anywhere in the world. So, in 2009, Salman quit his analyst job and devoted towards creating his YouTube channel, Khan Academy. While doing so Salman received funding from Ann Doerr, wife of the famous American investor, John Doerr.

When Salman started Khan Academy, he added courses from multiple aspects of higher education such as arts, computer science, etc. But, the main focus of the website was to create high secondary mathematics videos coupled with online exercise to test yourself. The videos ranged from very basic mathematical operations to complex algebraic problems.

Expansion of the organization

After Salman started at a full pace, everyone kept asking about the business model. But, Salman says there is no business model. He started it as a hobby and now he has the passion to deliver education to anyone and everyone around the world for free. Yes, you heard me right, “for FREE”. Khan Academy, even after a decade of its establishment remains a non-profit organization trying to educate the mass.

Khan Academy became more famous when Bill Gates at the Aspen Ideas Festival mentioned that he was using the videos of Khan Academy to teach his child. After a few days, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation contacted him and provided massive support.

Within 2013, Khan Academy’s website witnessed around 6 million monthly active users and more than 10 million views. The website had more than 4,000 online tutorials that were useful for both the students and the teachers and the parents as well. Khan’s videos were limited to a 10-minute span which kept it crisp and not monotonous at the same time.

Funding

Since Khan Academy is a non-profit organization, the company runs from the funding received from donations, especially philanthropic organizations. Google donated $2 million in 2010, AT&T donated $2.25 million in 2015, and Carlos Slim donated to the institution for making Spanish version of the videos.

Critics

Despite doing a commendable job and service for the society that is in sheer need of education, many people pointed out that the videos lack the skill of professionalism. Some experts pointed out technical errors as well. But, the valuable content that Khan Academy is providing is huge compared to some of the glitch or inaccuracy

The Hut Group

Matt Moulding and John Gallemore’s The Hut Group become a billion-dollar company

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Based on Manchester, UK, The Hut Group is an e-commerce platform famous around the globe for selling Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG). FMCG are those products that are easily available at a low-cost and are sold very quickly. They are the products we use in our day-to-day lives like food packets, toiletries, etc. Matt Moulding and John Gallemore founded the company in 2004. Since then the company has sold a variety of products including games, electronics, and currently beauty and wellness products. The company always focused on a white label approach thus building its brand and technology. Initially, the entertainment products of THG didn’t turn out to be profitable until it acquired Zavvi and became very famous.

Matt Moulding and John Gallemore
Image Source: fasttrack.co.uk

A brief history

In 2004, the two founders, Matt Moulding and John Gallemore invested £500,000 to open their new business, The Hut Group. Some of the early investors who were associated with THG from the beginning include Stuart Rose, former Chairman, and CEO of Marks & Spencer, and Terry Leahy, former CEO of Tesco.

When the company was founded, the gaming products were suppressed by giant competitors like Play.com and Amazon. Both Matt and John realized that creating their brand and scaling up might be hard in a market crawling with tech giants. It will only be possible if they bring big partners in the house and they did so.

The company signed a deal with more than 15 partners who include Asda, Tesco, Dixons, etc. This strategy helped the company have a significant online presence when retailers weren’t operating on the web. The duo also says that they were inspired by Play.com and interviewed some of their employees. This cleared their perspective about what they should do and how to make more money.

About the Founders Matt and John

Matt Moulding comes from an economics background as he went to the University of Nottingham to study industrial economics. After graduating, he went for further studies and became a chartered accountant. After completing his education, he started working as the finance director at the Caudwell Group. After entering the professional world, he was intrigued by selling products online. And, this is when he decided to open his own business in 2004.

John Gallemore went to the University of Manchester to study economics. In 1990, he joined Deloitte as a chartered accountant and worked there for three years. Before co-founding THG, John was the Head of Finance (International Trading Business) at the Caudwell Group. He served as both the COO and CFO of THG. Currently, John is the CEO of THG Ingenuity.

Moving out from entertainment

When they started the company, digitalization was a new transformation in the world. So, in the beginning, they made a good amount of money. Within four years, THG made 35 million pounds in sales and it is pretty impressive. But, with every new technology hitting the market, the profit started dropping. So, Matt started thinking of an alternate category that can be as good as entertainment products.

So, the next best choice for him was nutrition, beauty, and fitness products. And, they went for it without giving a second thought. Initially, they targeted small brands, and eventually, they started expanding in the industry.

Business strategies 

Matt knew very well that at the beginning big companies like L’Oreal will never give them dealership. So, he specifically targeted the smaller ones that had a good relationship with the ones dominating the market. So, in 2010, the company acquired Lookfantastic.com from the Crown family.

Apart from selling beauty products, the company also had beauty salons across the UK. The main reason to buy the company was they had a dealership of L’Oreal. So, it was like a friend of my friend is my friend. After a few months, the company entered the wellness sector by acquiring Myprotein for £60 million.

THG Ingenuity

THG Ingenuity is THG’s operating platform built solely by them. They have end-to-end technology that has led the company towards scaling up its direct-to-consumer brands on a global level. The platform of THG Ingenuity helps many small and big retailers to make their brands bigger and have an international position in the market. For example, after acquiring Myprotein the company has grown 25-folds.

Acquisitions

After acquiring Myprotein in 2011, the company has made several acquisitions. In 2013, THG acquired Coggles, a luxury fashion retailer followed by Active Nutrition International next year. In 2016, the company bought SkinStore which is one of the leading beauty retailers in the USA and Australia. Last year, the company acquired Christophe Robin, a French hair-care brand.

THG is not only helping the brands grow through an online brand presence but also acquiring hotels and spa to have significant offline branding. Last year, the company bought the Eclectic Hotel Group with hotels in Manchester.

The founders of THG are expanding their business to leisure properties as well.

Kabbage

Kabbage – Rob Frohwein, M. Gorlin, and Kathryn Petralia’s online financial tech platform, assisting small businesses to grow

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When it comes to measuring the development of any country, small businesses are as important as a well-established franchise. However, small enterprises face lots of problems while establishing the name in the industry. The basic need to explore the service is funding, which is not easily available for small-size enterprises. To help them, Kabbage Inc is working since it’s the establishment. In fact, Kabbage. Today, it provides cash to small firms more quickly than a bank can cash a check. R. Frohwein, M. Gorlin, and K. Petralia set up the firm in 2012. During this time, Kabbage successfully raised series c funding of 30 million dollars. That helped to explore the business of Kabbage. As well, it marked the name in the list of Red Herring’s Top 100 North American private firms.

About Kabbage Inc

It is Atlanta based online financial tech firm, supporting a number of small entrepreneurs to grow their firm. For that, it uses an automated lending platform. Kabbage acquired the investment from leading firms like Thomvest Ventures, Reverence Capital Partners, BlueRun Ventures, etc. The firm started it’s service in 2011. However, it has started offering loans to small firms all across the continents since 2012.

As well, it received the funding of 106 million dollars from SoftBank Capital in 2014. With excellent service, Kabbage raised about 1 billion dollars each year and continue the funding to small businesses.

Exploring the business

In 2018, Kabbage acquired the data and analysis provider platform Orchard. So that the small institutions can enjoy the data-driven services of Kabbage. As well, it acquired Radius Intelligence in 2019. With this acquisition, it successfully enabled cash flow solutions.

Awards and recognition

Kabbage set up the name in the Forbes’ list of  Top 100 Most Promising Companies in two consecutive years. As well, it ranked 59th in the list of the best entrepreneurial companies in America. In 2018, it was among the list of Fintech 50. This list is created for recognized Top Small Business Lending Platform. Apart from that, it also enabled a healthy workplace for the employees. For that, it honored as Best Places to Work by Inc.’s annual list.

The persons behind Success of the firm

Rob Frohwein

He is the present CEO of the firm. As well, he helped to establish the company in 2012. Apart from that, he is an author, inventor, and host. Rob also co-hosted the radio show during his early career. Moreover, he has 30 plus patents on his name.

Kathryn Petralia

She is a well-known entrepreneur in America. Kathryn is one of the founding members of Kabbage, presently serving as COO of the firm. Forbes honored her as a 98th most powerful woman in finance, 2017. As well, she awarded as Fintech Woman of the Year. Also, TechCrunch features her in the list of 42 women succeeding in tech.

Early life and career

She was born on 17 August 1970. Kathryn developed an interest in technology from childhood. Which helped her in her business ventures. Coming to her education, she attended Furman University to study English literature.

Petralia started her career in the e-commerce sector.  During the 1990s she launched west coast commerce startup. As well, she helped in the US web program. In 2008, she met Marc Gorlin, and Rob Frohwein, later on, turned out as a partner of Kabbage. Moreover, she also served as a chief operating officer of Kabbage.

Marc Gorlin

He is the serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Kabbage, known for dozen of tech companies. Marc’s father was also the serial entrepreneur, and inspiration for Marc to show him a path. To assist small enterprises, he set up Kabbage along with other partners.

Bottom Line

Small businesses are a must for economic development in any country. But most of the time, small entrepreneurs lack the resources despite being highly capable. Because investors prefer a well-established franchise for investment. So, they can get returns without risk. Thus, small size firms face lots of problems in raising the funding for exploring the business. However, Kabbage is working to sort out the funding problem of small size businesses. Thus, helping the small businesses to flourish all over the world.

darktrace

Darktrace- AI based Cyber Security Platform for advanced enterprise network protection

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Artificial intelligence is the future, each and every sector is using it. But one common thing about technology evolution that it comes with infrastructure complexity. The digital infrastructure is getting critical and complex. However, to protect such critical data system and advanced infrastructure, needed the one step ahead AI-based cybersecurity. Cyber AI is much advanced that can learn the technology by itself and can generate the needed security. Just like our immune system. Darktrace was the first firm that enabled such AI-based cybersecurity. Top mathematicians from the University of Cambridge established the firm in 2013. Today, it is much easier to perform probability-based calculations to secure the digital system with Darktrace.

About Darktrace

It is headquartered in San Francisco and Cambridge. As well, having about 44 offices all across the continents. The firm is a pioneer to use AI for cybersecurity. So, cyber defense challenges can be solved in an effective way. It launched the autonomous response technology for the first time. Thus, strengthen the network system of organizations that take action against cyber threats at an early stage. Darktrace is based on the future perspective to secure the IT data in the next generation. This realistic idea helped to acquired top investors. Summit Partners, KKR, Samsung Ventures, Hoxton, TenEleven, Invoke Capital, and several other top ventures have invested in Darktrace.

How does it work?

Darktrace made use of AI to overcome the challenges in cybersecurity. In fact, it results in a fundamental shift in the capability of securing the critical data system.

No doubt, the non-AI security platform offers the best protection against cyber attacks. But these cyber attacks are increasing day by day. As well, the methods, techniques, and the way of cyberbullying is also changing. The simple cybersecurity platform needs human assistance to advanced the program. However, Cyber AI is self-learning technology.  Thus, enabling the more advanced protection against pre-defined threats.

Exploration of the business

In 2013, the top mathematicians set up Darktrace and acquired investment from the leading enterprise. As well, the team of cybersecurity experts experienced in the government intelligence team contributed to enabling AI-based security. It was the time when cyber threats were rising. All the experts of Darktrace used their experience and the emerging technology and transform the cyber defense platform. Soon, the technology proved it’s the power to identify many types of cyber threats at the initial stages. Like insider attacks, cloud-based threats, etc.

Just after three years of its foundation, it launched the autonomous response technology for the first time in the world. This technology strengthens the immune system of enterprises to take action against cyber threats at an early stage. During one of the dangerous wannacry ransomware attacks hit several organizations, Darktrace protected its customer’s network. After that, many firms trusted Darktrace for their network security.

Poppy Gustafsson- Darktrace’s CEO

She is presently serving as the CEO of the firm. Prior to that, she served as COO and CFO at Darktrace. Under her policies, the firm successfully reached a 1.65 billion dollars valuation in just five years. As per The Financial Times, Darktrace becomes Europe’s 9th ‘Fastest Growing European Company. As well, Poppy’s leadership marked the Darktrace name as Fastest Growing Super Scale-up’(Tech Tour).

Early Career and Education

She is a Chartered accountant by profession. Before joining Darktrace, she worked in the technology and venture capital sector as a financial controller. Also, Poppy worked as a Fund Accountant at Amadeus Capital Partners.

Awards and recognitions

Poppy Gustafsson is the recipient of Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Awards 2019. As well, she set her name on Management Today’s list, ’30 Women, under 35′ in 2018.

Later success of the Darktrace

Recently in 2017, Darktrace started a new unit, solely dedicated to fighting against cyber threats in industrial as well as SCADA network. As well, it continues the excellence and focused on building a strong customer base that preferred Darktrace AI. It is working great to secure the national infrastructure with AI-enabled cybersecurity.

To automate the investigation process Darktrace launched a Cyber AI analyst. It also performs argument security analysis. The firm intelligently uses advanced machine learning to the cybersecurity software application. As a result, become a dominant firm that has no significant competitor.

AvePoint

AvePoint- TJ Jiang and Kai Gong’s unique company that enables software solution for infrastructure management

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An independent software manufacturing and vendor firm AvePoint has a name in the industry because of its miscellaneous service. It is known for the development and selling of software as well, for software management. In 2013, it marked its name in a list of Deloitte Fast 500 of the fastest-growing companies in the world. Also, it was listed as the fastest-growing company in America in Inc. magazine’s “Inc. 500|5000” list. Presently, AvePoint acquired 13,000 plus enterprise clients worldwide. Today, the firm is successfully serving the industrial, education, healthcare, financial, as well as energy sectors all across the continents.

Tianyi Jiang
Image Source: stern.nyu.edu

About AvePoint

It is a New Jersey-based software development and management platform, set up in 2001. As well, it has several operational centers across the continents. Some of the operational centers are located in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, China, South Africa, U.K, France, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, and the Netherlands. The firm is known for software development, selling, and management. So that enterprise collaboration systems work well.

Today, dozens of organization belonging to all kind of fields prefers AvePoint. In fact, it had more than 12000 enterprise customers from financial, legal, cosmetics, mining, health, and many other fields. Even the government and defense of many countries trust AvePoint for software management.

The services offered by AvePoint

AvePoint offers infrastructure and governance development platform with its DocAve software platform. It enabled the optimization, integration, management, and protection for its product SharePoint. In 2012, the newer version with more features was released. As well, to design the governance policies for SharePoint, it launched DocAve Governance Automation in the same year.

Moreover, it also offers a SaaS platform for Microsoft Office 365 along with online backup for MS office 365. Apart from that, it also enabled the platform to minimize the risk of privacy violations. To restrict malicious attacks, data piracy, it designed the AvePoint Compliance Guardian Online platform. Also, it’s governance Automation online s/m offers the best service to business-centric users.

Some other platforms are AvePoint Compliance, DocAve Content Shield, DocAve File Share Navigator, and many more.

Other Services

Apart from being independent software management, the firm has been working in partnership with Microsoft. In fact, it’s a gold-certified partner of Microsoft. AvePoint Works to enhance the compatibility of SharePoint products as per changing needs. As well, it involved equipment manufacturer partnership. Because it focuses on leverage it’s a technology using third-party applications.

Six years ago in 2014, Rackspace and AvePoint announced agreements. With this, the firms will focus on hosting and value-added reselling. Additionally, the content management products of AvePoint will be available for Rackspace’s clients.

Glimpse to Founders life

TJ Jiang

He is the co-founder and present Co-CEO of the firm. TJ attended Cornell University for a bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Electrical and computer engineering. However, he also went to NYU Stern School of Business. Presently, he handles the AvePoint business strategy and development. In 2010, he received Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award in New Jersey.

Early Career

Before co-founding AvePoint, his career focus was on designing and implementing fix-income trading systems, global equity program trading platforms. As well, he was interested in credit risk modeling and researching Data Mining. Throughout the career journey, he spends much of his time meeting with customers, partners, and industry analysts in order to better understand the customer journey. So that to consult on practical and effective business outcome-based digital transformation.

Kai Gong

He is one of the founding members and present co-Ceo at AvePoint. Before that, he was a senior software engineer at Bell Labs at Lucent Technologies. Prior to that, he also served at Jhonson and Jhonson as a software engineer. Kai Gong attended Southern University to study Computer Science.

Awards and recognition of AvePoint

In a very short duration, the firm proved it’s excellence and get noticed at the international level. It’s DocAve 6 product was recognized as Best of TechEd. As well, the firm was the finalist at Microsoft partner of the year award 2013 in three categories. Those categories were the SharePoint app developer, Content partner, and the public sector partner of the year.

However, it also received the Microsoft partner of the year award in 2014. Moreover, its name among Deloitte Fast 500 of the fastest-growing companies in the world.

Bottom Line

Since it’s the foundation, AvePoint Inc is providing miscellaneous service and software solutions for infrastructure management. It covers enterprise content management, web content management, governance, as well as cloud integration. AvePoint is a trusted provider of many enterprises from many fields. Today, more than 14,000 enterprises and 3 million-plus cloud users trust AvePoint to manage SharePoint as well as Office 365 data.

ZeroFOX

ZeroFOX- James C. Foster and Evan Blair’s security platform to make the world safe in this digital era

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Digitalization made life easier, isn’t it? Yes, of course! Many things are possible virtually with the help of digital mediums. It is useful for both common people and organizations to easier tasks. In this coronavirus pandemic, we actually witness the effectiveness of digitalization. From the conferences to the important meetings, everything is running uninterruptedly due to the digital medium and Information technology.  You’ll find no organization that runs the tasks without IT service. No matter how small the organization is, it will at least us computers to save its data.

Unfortunately, all good comes with some flaws like phishing, piracy, online scams, malware, viruses, etc. If any individual or organization gets caught into the web of cybercrimes, face a huge loss. Either personally or professionally.

However, there are few cybersecurity firms like ZeroFox that are helping organizations to secure their online data from cyberbullies. It is set up in 2013 by Evan L. Blair, and James C. Foster in order to save individuals and organizations from phishing, spams, and all kind of cyberattacks. The prime purpose of the expert team of ZeroFOX is to make the world safe. Both for people and organizations in this digital era. 

About the Company

A Cybersecurity firm ZeroFOX is located in Baltimore, Maryland. It enabled a cloud-based SaaS for small to large size organizations. With ZeroFOX’s platform, it is easy to detect the risk of cybercrimes.

To improve the service and reach, ZeroFOX raised about 100M dollar funding from top investors. Including, NEA, Silver Lake Waterman, Highland Capital, Redline Capital, etc. Moreover, the firm has been known for its excellent service. For that, it awarded several top awards. Like the SINET16 Champion, Red Herring North America Top 100, and Dark Reading’s Top Security Startups to Watch. As well, ZeroFOX honored with Tech Council of Maryland’s Technology Company of the Year. Also, it bags the Security Tech Trailblazer of the Year award.

The backstory of foundation

In 2013, the journey of ZeroFOX get started under the name Riskive. Later on, it renamed ZeroFOX. Initially, the workspace is limited to the area of 8000 square feet only. At the time the firm is founded, there were very few firms in a similar field. As well, the rising cybercrimes were a hot potato. Because of the unique idea to tackle the problem of cybersecurity, the firm started attracting investors.

Soon in 2015, it raised Series B funding and outgrown the workplace.  Furthermore, the firm successfully raised 40 million dollar funding through Redline Capital Management. In 2017, it shifted its focus toward pre-IPO companies.

The masterminds behind ZeroFOX

James C. Foster

He is the present CEO at ZeroFOX. Under his policies, ZeroFOX successfully acquired the top investors on the earth, raising about 100 million dollars funding. As well, he is one of the board of directors of the firm.

ZeroFOX
Image Source: alchetron.com

Education and career

He completed the early study from the University of Maryland in Software Engineering. Thereafter, he attended Capitol Technology University to study Science Software Engineering. As well, James attended Wharton School International Business.

Earlier, he founded a top-level cybersecurity firm Ciphent. Also, he served as the CEO of Ciphent for a long time. Apart from that, he also served as an Advisory Board Chairman & Senior Vice President at Accuvant, Inc. While at Accuvant, Foster helped led the company through rapid growth where the company more than doubled in size under two years.

Evan Blair

He is one of the founding members of ZeroFOX. Presently, he is the Global Vice president, handling channel sales at ZeroFOX.

Evan is presently responsible for driving the corporate vision at ZeroFOX. As well, helping to build a partner-centric go-to-market strategy. To explore the business, customers play an integral role. However, Evan is contributing to the retention of customers understanding their security challenges. Also, he guides in solving security challenges and risks that digital business engagement presents to the modern business.

Education and other work

He studied International Economics at Cambridge University and holds a BA in Economics from Wake Forest University. Apart from that, Evan is a keynote speaker and startup advisor. Evan has presented at several conferences. Such as the RSA Conference, Digital Copenhagen, McAfee FOCUS, SINET, etc. As well, he has been featured by the New York Times and The Atlantic. Forbes and other major publications also honored him.

In fact, he was an integral part of the Leadership Team of Solution Practice at Accuvant. Furthermore, he also served at Ciphent.

Bottom Line

ZeroFOX is the ultimate platform to protect individuals and firms from cyber threats. With its vision to made digital platform risk free, ZeroFOX enhancing its platform day by day.