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Meet Collabio Spaces: An office suite app with a cloudless co-authoring twist that looks helpful if you need to collaborate on documents without having to worry about losing control of your data or the thread of changes.

The p2p software lets multiple people co-edit a document locally — from a mobile device or desktop computer — without A) the risk of uploading sensitive information to the cloud (i.e. as you must if you’re using a shared document function of a service like Google Docs); or B) the tedium of emailing a text to multiple recipients and then having to collate and resolve changes manually, once all the contributions trickle back.  

There’s more coming down Collabio’s pipe too. Document collaborating will be possible from anywhere in the future, not only (as now) via a local network: A major release slated for next month will add p2p collaboration that works via the Internet — but still without the privacy risk of having a remote server in the loop.

Collabio’s app is MacOS and iOS only for now — but Android and Windows versions are in the works, slated for release this year.

Current supported text formats are DOCX, ODT, XLSX and ODS. Other features of Collabio’s office suite include the ability to scan and recognise texts and images using a camera; annotate and comment on PDFs (including via audio); e-sign text documents and PDFs; and view presentations.

Image credit: XCDS/Collabio

Its maker XCDS (aka “eXtended Collaboration Document Systems”), which is headquartered in London, UK with an R&D hub in Prague in the Czech Republic, has been in business for around a decade at this point — but working on office tools for some seven years, per CTO Egor Goroshko, who says they see Collabio as a startup in its own right.

The app is being funded by (an undisclosed amount of funding from undisclosed) private investors, with the team planning to take in further funding to continue development in the near future as they build momentum for the product.

With the coronavirus supercharging remote working over the past 12 months there is certainly opportunity to improve on the current crop of collaboration and productivity tools — and help to safely break down any unwelcome workflow barriers which have been erected as a result of scores of office workers no longer being co-located. Although the current version of Collabio is designed for nearby, rather than remote collaboration — so its next major release looks the most interesting from that perspective.

The early team behind Collabio included some devs who worked on Quickoffice but didn’t go to Google as part of that 2012 acquisition. Instead they focused on thinking about how to improve the user experience around documents — finally bringing their long-developed p2p document collaboration product to market last fall.

“When we started with Collabio we were ready for the long game,” Goroshko tells TechCrunch. “We knew that we would need to implement most of the features [office suite software] users were familiar with, before we could start developing our own ideas.”

“Long story short, our cloudless collaboration works exactly the same way as a cloud one. Of course there is some difference in the way you connect to the document but after that, you have exactly the same experience as if you work in the cloud,” he continues.

“We started with an iOS app in September 2020 and introduced a macOS version in October. With our early releases, we mainly concentrate on testing the app with real users and prove our ideas. Starting from our launch, we’ve got almost 15K of installs and valuable feedback on what users need and what can be improved. We pushed intensively on the market starting in February 2021 this year and got more than one thousand users during this month.”

There are some key differences between Collabio’s p2p cloudless collaboration and the (more typical) upload-to-a-server flavor that are worth flagging.

Notably, the lack of constant access to the document that you’re co-authoring/co-editing. Although that limitation may also be desirable if you want to tightly manage collaborative access to your data.

“In Collabio we call cloudless collaborative editing ‘Ad-Hoc collaboration’, because without a cloud your peers have no constant access to the document, so this thing is essential for occasional document discussion and updates,” Goroshko notes.

Another important difference he points to is that a shared document remains on the owner host devices only — and a copy can only be saved by the owner (at least for now).

“Other peers have session document access but the application does not upload/transfer files to collaborators’ devices,” he explains. “[The] session lasts til the host keeps the document open. As soon as you close the document, peers lose their access and can’t save the document locally. This is made for reasons of privacy but we are now considering giving users the option to allow connected peers to save a copy of the document.”

Given that all document work is done on devices on a local network there’s no need for an Internet connection to be able to collaborate via Collabio — which the team argues can itself be pretty useful, such as in situations like business travel (remember it?) when a stable Internet connection may not be readily available.

For this local p2p connectivity Goroshko says Collabio uses both wi-fi and Bluetooth — “to achieve better discovering quality”. “This is a common approach used, for example, in AirDrop technology. When peers’ addresses are identified, the application establishes connection via WiFi to achieve better speed and the quality of data exchange,” he says.

“All work is done only on devices in the local network so our Ad-Hoc collaboration does not need the Internet, the same way as you do not need the Internet to exchange files via AirDrop,” he goes on. “Just like with AirDrop, you do not need any specific configuration for Collabio Spaces, everything is done automatically. You start a session and peers see it on their devices, they simply connect to a selected document, and if they know the code, they can edit the document.”

Goroshko says Collabio’s team has been inspired by Apple’s technology — and the tech giant’s ‘it just works’ philosophy. But are committed to bringing the product to non-Apple platforms, aiming for a release later this year.

“It is a large, complex and ambitious project but we believe we can introduce game-changing approaches,” he continues. “The Office software market is quite conservative and market expectations from new software are really high. This is the reason why it has taken so much time to get to a public release stage. But with such a high entrance threshold and with slow innovations in the area of office document management and editing, this creates great opportunities.”

He argues that Collabio has been able to get efficiency gains vs office suites that had to bolt collaboration onto a legacy product exactly because it was being developed from scratch — with “collaborative editing in mind from the first step of proof of concept”. Hence its implementation of collaborative editing algorithms can work “with minimal resources consumption even on mobile phones”.

Goroshko says a Collabio user can have up to five peers simultaneously connected if they launch a collaboration session via a mobile device — with all participants able to edit the document. (Desktops support more connections.)

“You launch a collaboration session with a honeycomb icon, and any nearby devices with [the] Collabio Spaces app show shared documents,” he explains. “Under the hood, it works the similar way as sharing files through AirDrop or streaming audio/video through AirPlay. People nearby can join editing, if they know the security code assigned to the session.”

These p2p connections are encrypted with “standard end-to-end encryption”, according to Goroshko — who admits to “some tricks to allow trusted connections in the local network without access to the Internet”, adding: “We believe that this is enough for the start but in the future we will probably improve this approach.”

So — as with any nascent and non-independently security-tested product — prospective users should approach with caution, weighing up the sensitivity of any data they might wish to share for co-editing purposes before trusting it to Collabio’s novel implementation.

The startup, meanwhile, sees plenty of potential growth coming from frustrated office workers trying to find smarter ways to work remotely.

“Our goal is to create an editor specifically for team work, to help people get the most from collaboration,” says Goroshko. “Working together with others gives you a lot of advantages but requires more effort to sync with others. Planning, tracking, discussions, reviews — currently most of this work is performed separately from the document or locked inside the document. We want to cover this gap and give our users the most from collaboration with each other.”

“We consider two main types of competitors on the market,” he adds. “Classical office document editing suites like MS Office, Google Docs and Libre Office. We do not consider direct competition with them because their features set is enormous. However, many people simply do not use most of these features!

“And now a few newcomers have appeared on the market like Notion or Airtable, introducing smart ways how the document editing process can be integrated into your business. We see ourselves somewhere in between these products and classical office suites.”

A subscription payment is required to use Collabio Suites but a free trial version is available for up to a week.

We’re also told there’s an option for free of charge usage where the user is able to view and edit documents as a peer but can’t be the host of a collaboration session.

The major release that’s coming in May looks set to expand Collabio’s utility greatly — enabling it to tap into the remote work boom — by adding the ability to do p2p collaboration from anywhere via the Internet, also without the need for a remote server sitting in the loop.

How will that forthcoming functionality work? In a word: Math. Goroshko says the implementation will rely on an Operations Transformation algorithm keeping the document consistent “at any moment” during co-editing — avoiding the need for true real-time operations.

“It does not matter what co-editors type for in the end they all have absolutely the same content,” he says. “The algorithm does not guarantee that the result will be meaningful. If several people type in the same place, they will get an abracadabra. But this will be exactly the same abracadabra after all changes have been synced between all participants. This is the point. Operations Transformation does not require true real-time operations, changes can come early or later, even after sufficient delays. In either case they will be transformed to become inline with other changes. So regardless of cloud or cloudless collaboration mode, you do not need specific infrastructure or high speed processing to support collaborative editing.”

Launched in only November last year, the Craft Docs app — which was built from the ground up as an iOS app for collaborative documents — has secured an $8 million Series A round led by Creandum. Also participating was InReach Ventures, Gareth Williams, former CEO and co-founder of Skyscanner, and a number of other tech entrepreneurs, many of whom are ex-Skyscanner.

Currently available on iOS, iPadOS and MacOS, Craft now plans to launch APIs, extended integrations, and a browser-based editor in 2021. It has aspirations to become a similar product to Notion, and the founder and CEO Balint Grosz told me over a Zoom call that “Notion is very much focused around writing and wikis and all that sort of stuff. We have a lot of users coming from Notion, but we believe we have a better solution for people, mainly for written content. Notion is very strong with its databases and structural content. People just happen to use it for other stuff. So we are viewed as a very strong competitor by our users, because of the similarities in the product. I don’t believe our markets overlap much, but right now from the outside people do switch from Notion to us, and they do perceive us as being competitors.”

He told me this was less down to the app experience than “the hierarchical content. We have this structure where you can create notes within notes, so with every chunk of text you add content and navigate style, and add inside of that – and notion has that as well. And that is a feature which not many products have, so that is the primary reason why people tend to compare us.”

Craft says it’s main advantages over Notion are UX; Data storage and privacy (Craft is offline first, with real-time sync and collaboration; you can use 3rd party cloud services (i.e. iCloud); and integrations with other tools.

Orosz was previously responsible for Skyscanner’s mobile strategy after the company acquired his previous company, Distinction.

Fredrik Cassel, General Partner at Creandum, said in a statement: “Since our first discussions we’ve been impressed by both the amount of love users have for Craft, as well as the team’s unique ability to create a product that is beautiful and powerful at the same time. The upcoming features around connectivity and data accessibility truly set Craft apart from the competition.”

Craft ipad app

Roberto Bonazinga, Co-founder at InReach Ventures, added: “We invested in Craft on day zero because we were fascinated by the clarity and the boldness of Balint’s vision – to reinvent how millions of people can structure their thoughts and write them down in the most effective and beautiful way.”

The launch and funding of the Craft startup suggests there is something of a “Skyscanner Mafia” emerging, after its acquisition by Trip.com Group (formerly Ctrip), the largest travel firm in China, $1.75 billion in 2016.

Other backers of the company include Carlos Gonzalez (former CPO at Skyscanner, CTPO at GoCardless), Filip Filipov (former VP Strategy at Skyscanner), Ross McNairn (former CEO at Dorsai, CPO at TravelPerk), Stefan Lesser (former Technology and Partnership Manager at Apple) and Akos Kapui (Former Head of Technology at Skyscanner, VP of Engineering at Shapr3D).

Two weeks ago, TPG’s Rise Fund invested $200 million in Airtel Mobile Commerce BV (AMC BV) — the mobile money business of telecom Airtel Africa. After closing the deal, the Bharti Airtel subsidiary noted that it was still in discussions to sell additional minority stake (25% of the issued share capital) to more potential investors.

Today, it has announced a new investor — global payments provider Mastercard in a deal that will see Airtel Africa receive an additional $100 million for its mobile money business. AMC BV — which operates one of the largest financial services in the continent, giving users access to mobile wallet, support for international money transfer, loan, and virtual credit card — is valued at $2.65 billion.

The two firms are no stranger to one another. In 2019, they inked a deal that enabled Airtel Africa’s 100 million subscribers in 14 nations access to Mastercard’s global network. (That partnership didn’t see any money exchange between Mastercard and Airtel Africa.)

Airtel Africa and Mastercard said today they have “extended commercial agreements and signed a new commercial framework which will deepen their partnerships across numerous geographies and areas including card issuance, payment gateway, payment processing, merchant acceptance and remittance solutions, amongst others.”

AMC BV’s $2.65 billion valuation on a cash and debt-free basis remains unchanged from the last time. This means TPG’s Rise Fund and Mastercard will own 7.55% and 3.775.% stake respectively upon the completion of their deals. For Mastercard, the transaction will close in two tranches — $75 million invested at first close (which will be finalized in the next four months), and $50 million to be invested at the second close.

By selling off a minority stake in the mobile money business to The Rise Fund, Mastercard and other potential investors, the telecom operator believes it can raise enough cash to monetize its mobile money business and pursue a possible listing in four years.

In addition to receiving investments from TPG’s Rise Fund and Mastercard, Airtel Africa has begun selling off some assets as well. Last week, the company sold 1,424 telecommunications towers companies in Madagascar and Malawi to Helios Towers for $119 million. Both Helios and Airtel Africa also agreed to trade tower assets in Chad and Gabon, although the details remain undisclosed.

These efforts are geared towards the company’s pursuit of strategic asset monetisation, investment opportunities, and, ultimately, debt reduction.

“With today’s announcement, we are pleased to welcome Mastercard as an investor in our mobile money business, joining The Rise Fund, which we announced two weeks ago,” CEO of Airtel Africa, Raghunath Mandava said of the investment.

“This is a continuation of our strategy to increase the minority shareholding in our mobile money business with the further intention to list this business within four years. We are significantly strengthening our existing strategic relationship with Mastercard to help us realise the full potential from the substantial opportunity to improve financial inclusion across our countries of operation.”

Two weeks ago, TPG’s Rise Fund invested $200 million in Airtel Mobile Commerce BV (AMC BV) — the mobile money business of London-listed telecom Airtel Africa. After closing the deal, the Bharti Airtel subsidiary noted that it was still in discussions to give up more minority stake (25% of the issued share capital) to more potential investors. 

Today, it has announced another investor — global payments provider Mastercard in a deal that will see Airtel Africa receive an additional $100 million for its mobile money business.

From the statement released, Airtel Africa and Mastercard have “extended commercial agreements and signed a new commercial framework which will deepen their partnerships across numerous geographies and areas including card issuance, payment gateway, payment processing, merchant acceptance and remittance solutions, amongst others.”

AMC BV’s $2.65 billion valuation on a cash and debt-free basis remains unchanged from the last time. And like the deal with The Rise Fund, Mastercard will hold a minority stake in AMC BV upon the completion of the transaction which will close in two tranches — $75 million invested at first close (which will be finalized in the next four months), and $50 million to be invested at the second close.

By selling off a minority stake in the mobile money business to The Rise Fund, Mastercard and other investors, the telecom believes it can raise enough cash to monetize its mobile money business and pursue a possible listing in four years. 

In addition to receiving investments from TPG’s Rise Fund and Mastercard, Airtel Africa has begun selling off some assets as well. Last week, the company sold 1,424 telecommunications towers companies in Madagascar and Malawi to Helios Towers for $119 million. Both Helios and Airtel Africa also agreed to trade tower assets in Chad and Gabon, although the details remain undisclosed.

These efforts are geared towards the company’s pursuit of strategic asset monetisation, investment opportunities, and, ultimately, debt reduction.

“With today’s announcement, we are pleased to welcome Mastercard as an investor in our mobile money business, joining The Rise Fund, which we announced two weeks ago,” CEO of Airtel Africa, Raghunath Mandava said of the investment. “This is a continuation of our strategy to increase the minority shareholding in our mobile money business with the further intention to list this business within four years. We are significantly strengthening our existing strategic relationship with Mastercard to help us realise the full potential from the substantial opportunity to improve financial inclusion across our countries of operation.” 

Many companies had to adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic. For SOSV-backed Achiko, this meant shifting its focus from mobile payment services to affordable COVID-19 screening. Achiko’s platform combines an app called Teman Sehat (“Health Buddy” in Indonesian) for payments and keeping test records, and proprietary low-cost testing kits using DNA aptamers, or synthetic strands of DNA, that are cheaper to manufacture than rapid or PCR tests.

The testing kits, formerly code-named Gumnuts and now called Aptamex, were developed in a partnership with Barcelona-based biotech company RegenaCellx.sl and completed the first phase of its clinical validation trials in January, with the goal of moving to production in the second quarter of this year. Teman Sehat, meanwhile, was built on technology that Achiko had developed for a payments aggregator called Mimopay.

Founded in 2018, Achiko listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange the next year. Chief executive officer Steven Goh told TechCrunch that the company was in the process of expanding into buy now, pay later services in 2020 when COVID-19 disrupted international travel. As a result, the compliance process would have been much more lengthy and expensive. Achiko decided to see what could be created with its existing technology to address the pandemic instead, and launched Teman Sehat as a result.

The app offers incentives for people to get tested, take payments and keep records of test results that could be used for check-ins by workplaces and businesses. While working on Teman Sehat, however, Goh said Achiko’s team realized that the cost of COVID-19 PCR and rapid tests were too high for many people in emerging markets. While frequent mass testing might eventually be accessible in the United States and Europe, Goh told TechCrunch “the actual wholesale costs of rapid tests would be $5 to $8. By the time, you’re actually delivering a rapid test in the field, it could be anything between $20 and $70, and if you’re in a country like the Philippines or Indonesia, that sort of price point is too high.”

Achiko decided Teman Sehat’s potential would be limited unless it was coupled with a low-cost testing solution, and began working with Regenacellx.sl. In January, it appointed Dr. Morris Berrie, co-founder and chairman of TTS Global Initiative, as president to help with the development and production of Aptamex.

Achiko’s team emphasizes it is not meant to be a replacement for PCR and rapid tests. Instead, Aptamex will serve as an affordable screener, costing under 25 cents USD per kit, that can be used frequently (daily or every other day), and people who test positive will be referred to PRC or rapid tests.

Berrie told TechCrunch that the benefit of aptamers is that they are inexpensive to produce and can be ordered from suppliers of synthetic DNA. “It is incredibly cheap and synthetic and the test itself is non-invasive. All these things are big pluses. The most important of all is the price point is a fraction of other testing kits available,” he said.

To use Aptamex, people gargle a mouthwash, spit a sample into a tube and drop it off at a testing center. Then the saliva sample is diluted in Aptamex’s aptamer test conjugate and scanned with a spectrophotometer to see if the aptamers bind to the COVID-19 spike protein. Results are available within an hour and can be sent through Teman Sehat. Phase 1 testing for Aptamex in Indonesia showed results of 91% sensitivity (or how often it correctly showed a positive result) and 85% specificity (or how well it identified true negatives) in field tests.

Procurement and manufacturing for Aptamex tests is currently underway in Taiwan, and Achiko is preparing filings with Indonesia’s Ministry of Health with the target of shipping kits by the beginning of the third quarter. It is also applying for CE certification in Europe and plans to apply for FDA approval in the United States, too.

Goh said aptamers can used to develop tests for other pathogens, and applied in other formats, including microfluidics and electronic sensors. This means Aptamex can be adapted for COVID-19 mutations and eventually be used to screen for other diseases. One potential barrier to the use of aptamers in diagnostics is the lack of standardized protocols and kits, but Achiko believes those can be developed as the cost of chemical synthesis decreases and databases of aptamers are created.

In the future, Achiko will continue to focus on health tech instead of financial products. “There’s no intention to be a financial services platform going forward,” Goh said. “The vision of being able to use a new technology stack to detect first with COVID, but any universe of other pathogens or indications of possible ailments, and having a platform to integrate these things in a contemporary way is something we believe is worthwhile.”