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The GameStop short squeeze saga caught the attention of Congress Thursday morning and that buzz is already panning out into hearings on the topic.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, announced plans for an investigation into the situation, pointing to a history of “predatory conduct” from hedge funds.

Waters didn’t call out Robinhood or any other trading services by name, but did note that a future hearing would focus on the systemic financial impact of short selling, “gamification” and online trading platforms. The hearing date is not yet set.

“Addressing that predatory and manipulative conduct is the responsibility of lawmakers and securities regulators who are charged with protecting investors and ensuring that our capital markets are fair, orderly, and efficient,” Waters said.

In the Senate, incoming Senate Banking Chairman Sherrod Brown announced his own plans for a hearing on the “current state of the stock market” in light of recent events. “People on Wall Street only care about the rules when they’re the ones getting hurt,” Brown said.

Earlier on Thursday, Democratic Reps. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna all condemned the startup Robinhood for halting some trades in the midst of the Reddit retail investor-led volatility. Morgan Stanley-owned E-Trade followed suit.

Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz echoed Democrats’ concerns over Robinhood’s actions, signaling that even in the midst of pandemic relief negotiations and an impeachment trial that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle still have an appetite for dragging tech in for questioning.

And apparently it’s not just Congress. New York Attorney General Letitia James also issued a short statement Thursday noting that her office is “aware of concerns raised regarding activity on the Robinhood app” and would be reviewing the situation.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/28/gamestop-hearings-congress-waters-robinhood/

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Just when we thought things couldn’t get worse in 2020, we received the news on the SolarWinds hack and its impact on more than 18,000 businesses and potentially dozens of U.S. government agencies — including the departments of Commerce, Energy and Treasury.

We’re just beginning to understand the extent of their infiltration, but this story brings to light what the cybersecurity industry has already known: Solving the cybersecurity problem will take more time and resources than we are currently allocating.

Adding to the challenge, COVID-19 has created fertile ground for the acceleration of cyberattacks that are more sophisticated, dangerous and prevalent. In this dire setting, cybersecurity has become even more competitive and a national security imperative and created higher demand for new solutions.

This is something we all — enterprises, startups, government and investors — need to work together to solve. So, from the venture capital perspective, where are cybersecurity investments being made, and where is the talent coming from to help stem the onslaught of hacks?

California’s Silicon Valley has traditionally been the epicenter of cybersecurity innovation. It’s home to some of the largest cybersecurity companies including McAfee, Palo Alto Networks and FireEye, as well as more recent high flyers such as CrowdStrike and Okta, providing a robust talent base for many willing venture investors.

However, that’s rapidly changing. Cybersecurity expertise is now budding in new regions where there is talent and a hands-on recognition of the need for innovative solutions. In particular we are seeing growth in areas such as the East Coast of the U.S. and in Europe, led by the United Kingdom.

Investment in Silicon Valley cybersecurity startups remained flat in 2020 as we are seeing record venture funding of cybersecurity companies in these emerging regions. And the reasons why may mean better solutions to solve current and future cyber needs.

The emergence of a new cybersecurity ecosystem

A new generation of cyber-experienced practitioners coming from government and financial services are becoming the next generation of entrepreneurs. Fueling new innovation, this newest breed of cybersecurity startups in emerging in cities like New York, Washington, D.C. and London, and away from Silicon Valley. East Coast businesses like IronNet*, founded by former NSA director General Keith Alexander, is one example of this growing trend of new leaders coming from federal government backgrounds.

These new cybersecurity leaders with front-line experience are developing solutions that fix the problems they faced as customers and, thanks to COVID-19, are hiring the best talent to join them regardless of their location. The pandemic has accelerated remote-working trends, increasing more flexible-location working opportunities in the cybersecurity industry. These companies are creating advantages over their West Coast counterparts in the ability to recruit better talent, lower costs and have closer proximity to customers and prospects.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/28/chasing-the-cybersecurity-investment-opportunity/

Few tech sectors had more to gain from the events of 2020 than home fitness. Interest in the category was swift, as gyms were declared one of the bigger problem areas amid the worldwide spread of Covid-19. Suddenly home workouts were more than just luxury.

For YC-backed Aviron, it was the ideal time to pivot. The Toronto-based startup had been providing gamified rowing machines for the B2B market – specifically for use in high traffic settings like hotels and apartment buildings. It’s still a small operation with 10 employees and around $750,000 raised to date.

Suddenly the company found itself in attempting to compete for market share against tech giants like Peloton.

Of course, thus far Aviron’s own sales are considerably more humble than the cycling giant. Until now, the company has largely relied on word of mouth sales, having sold in the neighborhood of 1,000 rowing machines since launching for the consumer market in July. The equipment retails for $2,299 a piece – though you can find it online for less.

The company works with an ODM to create the machine. And while it touts some nice touches like a quiet nylon belt and 100-pounds of automatic electronic resistance, Aivron’s main differentiator is the software – specially a connected gaming experience via the built-in display. The monthly subscription runs $20-$30 and the company is quick to note that you can cancel at any time.

“Rowing engages 85% of your muscles,” founder and CEO Andy Hoang tells TechCrunch. “It’s low impact. There are a ton of benefits, but it’s super boring and super tough. When you combine it with high-intensity training, you have a death machine that pretty much no’s gonna want to do. What better way to make it fun and exciting than by putting video games on there?”

The system sports six different workout categories, including real time competition with other rowers. There are a few introductory workouts, to ensure that first-timers don’t injure themselves by just jumping directly into competitive rowing, but on the whole, the system avoids Peloton-style classes.

“Our workouts are short,” says Hoang. “They’re like 10-15 minutes. You do maybe one or two of them, and by the end of it, you feel like you’re going to die because it’s so tough. Peloton is typically 40-60 minutes, a little bit lower intensity and with less resistance. And obviously it’s a class led by an instructor, rather than getting chased by zombies.”

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/28/pivoting-to-home-fitness-aviron-offers-gamified-rowing-machines/

Three of the popular retail stock market trading apps that have hosted much of the activity related to the Wall Street Bets subreddit-spurred run on stocks including GameStop (GME) and AMC, among others, have removed all restrictions on their exchange by their users. M1, Webull and Public had restricted transactions for the affected stocks earlier in the day, along with Robinhood.

M1, Webull and Public all attributed the restrictions placed on these volatile stocks not to any effort to curb their purchase or sale, but instead cited the costs associated with settling the trades on the part of their clearing firm, Apex. All three platforms employ Apex to clear trades made by users via their platform.

In an interview with Webull CEO Anthony Denier, Yahoo Finance confirmed that the restriction was not something the company had any hand in deciding.

Public confirmed via Twitter that users can now buy and sell $GME and $AMC and $KOSS on the platform, thanks to the resolution of the Apex blocker. Meanwhile Webull noted that all three stocks are now also available for exchange via their app, as did M1 shortly after.

Other platforms like SoFi so far haven’t restricted the stocks, CEO Anthony Noto confirmed on Twitter.

Robinhood earlier issued a blog post noting that it is restricting a number of stocks tied to the r/WallStreetBets action to counter short-seller hedge funds, arguing that it’s doing so in the best interest of users. This has not seemed to have been much appreciated by most users, based on the reaction on social media to that action thus far. Robinhood at no time references any technical barriers imposed by any clearing house.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/28/webull-and-public-remove-restrictions-on-memestocks-after-citing-trade-settlement-firm-as-the-cause/