Azimo Raises $10M Series A Led By Greycroft Partners To Expand Money Transfer Service

More evidence that the online money transfer space is heating up significantly, as startups aim to disrupt the banks and incumbents such as Western Union. Money transfer startup Azimo has closed a $10 million series A round.

The new funding, which follows a $1 million seed round late last year, is being led by Greycroft Partners, with participation from Accion’s Frontier Investments Group, eVentures (who led Azimo’s seed round), TA Ventures, RI Digital Ventures, and KRW Schindler Investments.

The UK company says it will use the funds to accelerate European expansion and target other key markets in North America and Asia. Meanwhile, Kamran Ansari from Greycroft Partners, and Monica Brand, Managing Director for Accion’s Frontier Investments Group, will join Azimo’s board.

Launched in August 2012, Azimo aims to disrupt the remittance industry by letting users transfer money internationally to friends, family or other contacts via the Web, its mobile apps or Facebook, charging between 1 percent and 2 percent of the transaction, which is significantly cheaper than the rates charged by the likes of Western Union, PayPal or, indeed, the banks. The recipient receives the money either in their bank account, at local cash collection points, or as “mobile wallet” top-up credit.

It currently supports money transfer from numerous European countries to 192 countries globally, and cites fastest recipient growth in Latin America, West Africa, and South East Asia.

As we’ve previously noted, the European online money transfer market is a hot space right now, as is fintech in general. Just today, WorldRemit received a $40 million investment from Accel Partners. Last October, Dublin-based peer-to-peer currency exchange CurrencyFair raised a further $2.5 million led by Frontline Ventures. And just a few weeks earlier, Lithuanian-based TransferGo, which also operates a P2P model to undercut the banks, announced it had raised a modest €200,000 in funding to launch in the UK. Then of course there’s London-based TransferWise, backed to the tune of $7.35 million by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, SV Angel, IA Ventures, Index, Seedcamp, and TAG.

To that end, Monica Brand, Managing Director for Accion’s Frontier Investments Group, comments in a statement: “We’ve looked at the investment case for numerous remittance ventures around the world. The Azimo team’s track record in the sector, disruptive business model and their commitment to serve the two-and-a-half-billion unbanked potential remittance recipients, made us decide this was the business to back. We believe this is an exciting investment with potential for scale that can also change the world for the better.”

Change the world for the better, perhaps; money does make the world go round after all. And online money transfer startups are no exception.

View the original article here

Money Transfer Startup WorldRemit Collects Its First Investment, $40M From Accel

WorldRemit, a London-based startup that is tackling the antiquated consumer money wiring/remittance market with an easy and traceable online solution, has collected some money of its own: a $40 million investment from Accel Partners, the storied VC that has backed big consumer plays like Supercell and Facebook but also a number of financial services startups like GoCardless, Funding Circle and Braintree. This is the startup’s first VC investment, and one of the largest-ever Series A rounds achieved in Europe.

WorldRemit is addressing two different business opportunities with its product. The first is a basic consumer issue: there are a number of people who live abroad or immigrate to make more money, with the intention of sending some of those earnings back home — home being a range of different countries and currencies around the globe. They typically want easy, cheap and reliable ways of doing that, but many of the most common routes today involve spending the time travelling to a physical location that offers Western Union or MoneyGram transfers, paying a large commission fee, and then getting recipients to do the same at their end.

The second is more of a business and legal issue: financial regulators looking to reduce money laundering and funding for illicit activities like terrorism are increasingly cracking down on remittance services that cannot provide a clear enough electronic track of how money has moved.

“This industry has largely remained offline until now,” co-founder and CEO Ismail Ahmed tells me. “The market share for online remittances is just 5% today, but we expect this to increase to 30%.” Driving that will be incumbents needing to change practices to meet regulatory compliance, but also, the ongoing pressure on brick and mortar businesses. “It’s just not fit for the 21st century,” he says.

WorldRemit lets consumers make transfers from any computer or phone, and receive that money either straight into bank accounts, or mobile wallets or in the form of mobile airtime. And by its nature, the transfers are electronic and more traceable than those of offline services.

The company currently lets people send money to some 100 different countries and the funding will be used to extend that to over 200, Ahmed says.

It will also be used to extend the variety of ways that the money can be paid out: one other big issue for people sending money to family back home is the concern that it may not be getting used as intended, and so creating more channels for specific payments — say, for utility bills or education fees — is one way of solving that problem.

It’s a solution that is also being tapped by a startup I wrote about last year called Regalii, which cleverly offers its customers the option of selecting gift cards for specific services as one way of guaranteeing how the money gets spent. And these two are not alone. Just today another money transfer service, Azimo, raised $10 million. And TransferWise, which also recently raised a round, is another contender — although typically the average amounts being sent on WorldRemit are of a lower value so less directly competitive.

Harry Nelis, who led the investment for Accel, says that he was attracted to WorldRemit both because of the traction that the startup has already seen with users in the markets where it operates, as well as because of the track record of the founders.

“We like their focus on the long tail, and on the smaller corridors,” he says of WorldRemit. “Instead of focusing on Sterling to euro or to U.S. dollars, what WorldRemit does is think of how to service, for example, Filipinos in Norway remitting back to the Philippines.” He says that there are some 30-40 corridors like this one that are underserved by competitors right now, making for a very nice niche business.

What the long tail business also brings is repeat custom. “Once WorldRemit acquires customers, they end up transacting 20 times per year.”

Ahmed and Catherine Wines, his co-founder and COO of WorldRemit, both have been working in the remittances industry for 20 years. Ahmed has an economics PhD and has been a compliance advisor at the UN, with a focus on East African money transfer services, and he founded WorldRemit while studying at London Business School.

Wines is a qualified accountant who had been MD of First Remit, another international money transfer business acquired by Travelex.

View the original article here

Azimo Raises $10M Series A Led By Greycroft Partners To Expand Money Transfer Service

More evidence that the online money transfer space is heating up significantly, as startups aim to disrupt the banks and incumbents such as Western Union. Money transfer startup Azimo has closed a $10 million series A round.

The new funding, which follows a $1 million seed round late last year, is being led by Greycroft Partners, with participation from Accion’s Frontier Investments Group, eVentures (who led Azimo’s seed round), TA Ventures, RI Digital Ventures, and KRW Schindler Investments.

The UK company says it will use the funds to accelerate European expansion and target other key markets in North America and Asia. Meanwhile, Kamran Ansari from Greycroft Partners, and Monica Brand, Managing Director for Accion’s Frontier Investments Group, will join Azimo’s board.

Launched in August 2012, Azimo aims to disrupt the remittance industry by letting users transfer money internationally to friends, family or other contacts via the Web, its mobile apps or Facebook, charging between 1 percent and 2 percent of the transaction, which is significantly cheaper than the rates charged by the likes of Western Union, PayPal or, indeed, the banks. The recipient receives the money either in their bank account, at local cash collection points, or as “mobile wallet” top-up credit.

It currently supports money transfer from numerous European countries to 192 countries globally, and cites fastest recipient growth in Latin America, West Africa, and South East Asia.

As we’ve previously noted, the European online money transfer market is a hot space right now, as is fintech in general. Just today, WorldRemit received a $40 million investment from Accel Partners. Last October, Dublin-based peer-to-peer currency exchange CurrencyFair raised a further $2.5 million led by Frontline Ventures. And just a few weeks earlier, Lithuanian-based TransferGo, which also operates a P2P model to undercut the banks, announced it had raised a modest €200,000 in funding to launch in the UK. Then of course there’s London-based TransferWise, backed to the tune of $7.35 million by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, SV Angel, IA Ventures, Index, Seedcamp, and TAG.

To that end, Monica Brand, Managing Director for Accion’s Frontier Investments Group, comments in a statement: “We’ve looked at the investment case for numerous remittance ventures around the world. The Azimo team’s track record in the sector, disruptive business model and their commitment to serve the two-and-a-half-billion unbanked potential remittance recipients, made us decide this was the business to back. We believe this is an exciting investment with potential for scale that can also change the world for the better.”

Change the world for the better, perhaps; money does make the world go round after all. And online money transfer startups are no exception.

View the original article here

Money Transfer Startup WorldRemit Collects Its First Investment, $40M From Accel

WorldRemit, a London-based startup that is tackling the antiquated consumer money wiring/remittance market with an easy and traceable online solution, has collected some money of its own: a $40 million investment from Accel Partners, the storied VC that has backed big consumer plays like Supercell and Facebook but also a number of financial services startups like GoCardless, Funding Circle and Braintree. This is the startup’s first VC investment, and one of the largest-ever Series A rounds achieved in Europe.

WorldRemit is addressing two different business opportunities with its product. The first is a basic consumer issue: there are a number of people who live abroad or immigrate to make more money, with the intention of sending some of those earnings back home — home being a range of different countries and currencies around the globe. They typically want easy, cheap and reliable ways of doing that, but many of the most common routes today involve spending the time travelling to a physical location that offers Western Union or MoneyGram transfers, paying a large commission fee, and then getting recipients to do the same at their end.

The second is more of a business and legal issue: financial regulators looking to reduce money laundering and funding for illicit activities like terrorism are increasingly cracking down on remittance services that cannot provide a clear enough electronic track of how money has moved.

“This industry has largely remained offline until now,” co-founder and CEO Ismail Ahmed tells me. “The market share for online remittances is just 5% today, but we expect this to increase to 30%.” Driving that will be incumbents needing to change practices to meet regulatory compliance, but also, the ongoing pressure on brick and mortar businesses. “It’s just not fit for the 21st century,” he says.

WorldRemit lets consumers make transfers from any computer or phone, and receive that money either straight into bank accounts, or mobile wallets or in the form of mobile airtime. And by its nature, the transfers are electronic and more traceable than those of offline services.

The company currently lets people send money to some 100 different countries and the funding will be used to extend that to over 200, Ahmed says.

It will also be used to extend the variety of ways that the money can be paid out: one other big issue for people sending money to family back home is the concern that it may not be getting used as intended, and so creating more channels for specific payments — say, for utility bills or education fees — is one way of solving that problem.

It’s a solution that is also being tapped by a startup I wrote about last year called Regalii, which cleverly offers its customers the option of selecting gift cards for specific services as one way of guaranteeing how the money gets spent. And these two are not alone. Just today another money transfer service, Azimo, raised $10 million. And TransferWise, which also recently raised a round, is another contender — although typically the average amounts being sent on WorldRemit are of a lower value so less directly competitive.

Harry Nelis, who led the investment for Accel, says that he was attracted to WorldRemit both because of the traction that the startup has already seen with users in the markets where it operates, as well as because of the track record of the founders.

“We like their focus on the long tail, and on the smaller corridors,” he says of WorldRemit. “Instead of focusing on Sterling to euro or to U.S. dollars, what WorldRemit does is think of how to service, for example, Filipinos in Norway remitting back to the Philippines.” He says that there are some 30-40 corridors like this one that are underserved by competitors right now, making for a very nice niche business.

What the long tail business also brings is repeat custom. “Once WorldRemit acquires customers, they end up transacting 20 times per year.”

Ahmed and Catherine Wines, his co-founder and COO of WorldRemit, both have been working in the remittances industry for 20 years. Ahmed has an economics PhD and has been a compliance advisor at the UN, with a focus on East African money transfer services, and he founded WorldRemit while studying at London Business School.

Wines is a qualified accountant who had been MD of First Remit, another international money transfer business acquired by Travelex.

View the original article here

How to increase adsense and ad revenue

If you are a blogger and Adsense is your prime source of revenue, you can’t afford to ignore the importance of Adsense optimization. When we talk about Adsense optimization, there are many things but the main target is to get high eCPM and get more Cost per click. Else, despite of good Adsense CTR, you might not be making good money. This is something very common about non-English blog. If you fall in the category of those adsense publishers, who are getting huge traffic but Adsense earning is still low, it’s time to understand points which are mentioned below and this will surely helps to increase Adsense CPC and overall revenue.What is Adsense CPC:

Factors that Affect Adsense CPC :

Domains – Blogs on Internet Domains Like Yahoo, Go Daddy etc. It pays highest CPC.
Gadgets – Tech Gadgets like Apple products
Google – Google Products
Microsoft – MS office
Banking
Automobile
Health
Real Estate
Home Loans
Jobs
Dating & Romance – It pays lowest CPC.

Try to block those category which are completely irrelevant to the content or niche of your blog. Suppose blog is about Technology then block the ad categories for Dating, Politics, Religion etc. This will surely increase your CPC and Adsense revenue.

Lets start with answering basic question first and then we will move to some working tips to increase adsense CPC. CPC stands for Cost per click, in short money which you make/click is what CPC. Now, you might have noticed Adsense publisher talking more about CTR and less about CPC. If you are really serious about your Adsense revenue, you should work more on CPC than CTR. Getting thousands impression on your ad won’t be of much help but a blog with good CPC with decent CTR can create a huge difference. CPC has nothing to do directly with your traffic, if you would realize and noticed micro-niche blogs, you might have realized despite of less traffic such sites make more money from Adsense. Reason is simple and that is eCPM for such blogs are so high that you get paid really well for CPC and then there are other factors like Ad competition, Keywords and many more. Lets discus some of them here:

Niche
First thing first, choosing a right niche for your blog or website is of utmost important. Cost Per Click or CPC of an ad directly depends upon the topic on which you’re writing your blog.Well! Let me clarify one thing here that you’re going to choose niche however there are niches that can pay you high CPC. Yes! Here is the list of niches that can give you high return, I have arranged them in decreasing order of CPC.

Content
Second thing is the content, you must write content that should answer readers query. So before writing blogs try to find what your readers are searching on the Internet and then try to present them with solutions.
Remember you should always directly engage with your readers. Your content must be tailored according to your niche so that more and more readers can read your blogs. Hence good content will certainly ensure higher Adsense CPC rates. More over, Good content is what search engine loves, hence more click and more revenue if your ad is highly targeted and your traffic is from the countries like U.S.A, U.K. When you do a Keyword research, make sure to use Approximate CPC column.

Page Rank
Google Page Rank is not a new phenomena. In this your entire website or a particular page in a website are ranked from 1 to 10. Therefore try to rank above 4, if your PR is 5 or 6 then Google will show ads on your site which will pay you higher if someone clicks on them. Simply it means that ads of higher quality will be more shown on your website. For example your CPC will automatically increase from 10 cents to 40+ cents. So always try to improve the quality of your blogs as CPC directly depends on higher Page Rank.

Ad Review Center
In Google Adsense you will find Ad Review Center. You can go there and see yourself how much each ad category is paying you. This will show you different ads category that are showing on your website. If you find that any ad category is not paying much then feel free to block that category.

Competitive Ad Filter
Just like Ad Review Center there is Competitive Ad Filter in Google Adsense. You can go there and block the specific or general ads from appearing on your web pages. You can block the ads for entire domain or just a particular website in that domain name.The ads that you would block may belongs to your competitors. Therefore you can increase your CPC by not showing those particular ads.

Platform
Your blogs are read from different platforms like desktop, laptop, mobile etc. Although CPC is generally not much affected by the platforms on which ads are shown but you should try your best to target as many as readers. You will get most of the readers from desktop and laptop devices.
If you are able to reach to hand-held or mobile readers than CPC may increase as ads shown on cellphones are of higher quality. If you are blogging on WordPress platform, you can use plugins like Wp touch which will make your blog mobile friendly and you server adsense ads which is optimized for mobile screen size.

Country
One of the most important factor that can increase CPC is the country you are targeting. For example a click on an ad from USA can pay you up to $2 to $3 and click on same ad from India can end up paying only 20 to 30 cents.
Hence always tailor your blog and its content to audiences in English-speaking countries. It will also increase Page Rank of your website. So always keep in mind the country you are targeting.

Text & Image Format
Perhaps I should have explained this suggestion in the beginning of the blog. Anyhow, you must know to choose right format for your ad. If you can place three ads on a page then choose two 336 X 280 ads and one 468 X 60 ad.
Then ad format must be text because text ads have higher CTR (click through rate). You can even try ad format for both text & image simultaneously as it gives you more CPC. Image ads are usually less preferred for both reasons less CTR and lower CPC. Though at times, depending upon the niche and blog type, image ads perform better in terms of higher CTR but CPC won’t be as good as text ads. Anyways, as I mentioned above it differs from niche type and most important ad placement.

Placement
Never neglect the placement of your ads on the web page as it is directly proportional to your Adsense revenue. So where to place ads for maximum CPC? Answer is simple. Place 2 ads inside your blog post and 1 outside the post.As far as placing inside goes then place one 336 X 280 rectangle ad on the top of the blog just below the title and place second 468 X 60 ad in between the blog post. Remaining one ad you can place on your right side that is outside your post.
Though it should be your choice and depending upon your reason of blogging. For example, if you are a professional blogger and dependent on Adsense, you should not miss a chance to optimize ad and use maximum possible ad units on a single page. Though if you are a hobby blogger or blogging on personal blog, your first target should be giving quality content and less ads, as readers hate advertisement which distract them from reading.
Let me tell you the maximum clicks and higher CPC will come from 2 ads which are inside the blog post especially on the top.

Keep Experimenting
Always keep trying something new. Experimenting can really pay you high dividends. You can try out for different niches, choose different ad placements and finally take as many as advice from Google Adsense center. Never bogged down into one style always try something new.

Conclusion
In conclusion I would only say if you follow and implement these 10 tips then you can surely increase your Adsense revenue from 30% to 40%. It is completely legal and genuine way to increase your earning in short time. You can also search for highest CPC adsense Keywords and compile one-two posts around it.
Do let me know what’s one trick which worked for you to increase Adsense CPC? Do you believe niche and traffic from certain countries creates a huge difference in Adsense earning?

Azimo Raises $10M Series A Led By Greycroft Partners To Expand Money Transfer Service

More evidence that the online money transfer space is heating up significantly, as startups aim to disrupt the banks and incumbents such as Western Union. Money transfer startup Azimo has closed a $10 million series A round.

The new funding, which follows a $1 million seed round late last year, is being led by Greycroft Partners, with participation from Accion’s Frontier Investments Group, eVentures (who led Azimo’s seed round), TA Ventures, RI Digital Ventures, and KRW Schindler Investments.

The UK company says it will use the funds to accelerate European expansion and target other key markets in North America and Asia. Meanwhile, Kamran Ansari from Greycroft Partners, and Monica Brand, Managing Director for Accion’s Frontier Investments Group, will join Azimo’s board.

Launched in August 2012, Azimo aims to disrupt the remittance industry by letting users transfer money internationally to friends, family or other contacts via the Web, its mobile apps or Facebook, charging between 1 percent and 2 percent of the transaction, which is significantly cheaper than the rates charged by the likes of Western Union, PayPal or, indeed, the banks. The recipient receives the money either in their bank account, at local cash collection points, or as “mobile wallet” top-up credit.

It currently supports money transfer from numerous European countries to 192 countries globally, and cites fastest recipient growth in Latin America, West Africa, and South East Asia.

As we’ve previously noted, the European online money transfer market is a hot space right now, as is fintech in general. Just today, WorldRemit received a $40 million investment from Accel Partners. Last October, Dublin-based peer-to-peer currency exchange CurrencyFair raised a further $2.5 million led by Frontline Ventures. And just a few weeks earlier, Lithuanian-based TransferGo, which also operates a P2P model to undercut the banks, announced it had raised a modest €200,000 in funding to launch in the UK. Then of course there’s London-based TransferWise, backed to the tune of $7.35 million by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, SV Angel, IA Ventures, Index, Seedcamp, and TAG.

To that end, Monica Brand, Managing Director for Accion’s Frontier Investments Group, comments in a statement: “We’ve looked at the investment case for numerous remittance ventures around the world. The Azimo team’s track record in the sector, disruptive business model and their commitment to serve the two-and-a-half-billion unbanked potential remittance recipients, made us decide this was the business to back. We believe this is an exciting investment with potential for scale that can also change the world for the better.”

Change the world for the better, perhaps; money does make the world go round after all. And online money transfer startups are no exception.

View the original article here

iOS Now Alerts You When Your Kids Are Free To Spend All Your Money On Fake Cat Food

Apple has apparently learned a lesson. After several high profile stories of children spending literal fortunes on virtual nonsense, the latest version of iOS now reminds users of Apple’s policies towards in-app purchases.

Following an in-app purchase, such as virtual coins or fake cat food, a message now appears in iOS 7.1 stating that unless changed, for the next 15 minutes, more in-app purchases can be made without needing a password. A button to iOS device Settings is also visible.

This policy is not new. It has been in place since the App Store debuted in 2008, but is easy to overlook. Just ask any parent who leans on an iPad as an impromptu babysitter.

Earlier this year, Apple agreed to pay $32.5 million in refunds as a settlement over unauthorized in-app purchases made by children. The FCC had been investigating Apple’s seemingly lax policy on the matter. This new notification will probably not stop all unauthorized purchases, but it should curtail it a bit.

In-app purchases is a booming industry among itself. Give a kid an app, he’ll play for an hour. Give a kid an app where he needs to buy things to play, he’ll pay for your yacht.

View the original article here

The evolution of hackathons: From illegal to legal

Computer programming competitions known as "hackathons" have spread like viruses

It used to be that "hacking" was just a type of crime, a computer break-in. But today, the term is also part of a growing - and perfectly legal - mainstay of the tech sector.

Computer programming competitions known as "hackathons" have spread like viruses in recent years as ways for geeks, nerds and designers to get together to eat pizza, lose sleep and create something new.

The formal, marathon group brainstorming sessions are focused on everything from developing lucrative apps to using computer code to solve the world's problems. This year a record 1,500 hackathons are planned around the globe, up from just a handful in 2010.

"A hackathon is the fastest way to actually do something about an idea," said Nima Adelkhani, organizer of the weekend-long Hack for Peace in the Middle East competition in San Francisco this month.

Law enforcement has not abandoned the term. Dozens of federally convicted "hackers" are serving prison sentences for computer fraud and other cybercrimes. And the Justice Department's cybercrime budget this year is $9 million to target offenses that include " hacking."

But the new uses have popped up with increasing frequency since a pair of tech events in 1999 where developers worked together to write programmes. Yahoo gets recognition for the first official hackathon in 2005. And Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been largely credited with helping broaden the definitions by urging his staff to "hack" by "building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be done."

A new Facebook option that allows users more than 50 ways to identify their gender beyond male and female was conceived during a company hackathon four months ago.

This month, the first global hackathon for Black Male Achievement was held in Oakland, California Music Hack Day is coming in Tokyo and Hackomotive competitors will develop apps in Santa Monica, California, that make it easier to buy and sell cars.

During these sorts of tech-heavy, weekend competitions, teams of computer programmers, software engineers and developers huddle over monitors for hours, working up new apps for smartphones or other devices. A panel of judges selects winners, and prizes are usually awarded.

"Developers are a rare breed where they get paid a lot of money to do this job during the week, and they enjoy it so much they want to do it more on the weekend," said Jon Gotfriend, who's been going to hackathons for more than three years.

As such events have become more popular, a set of rules has coalesced. Teams are typically made up of a handful of people. Designs, ideas and even mock-ups can be worked on in advance, but everyone starts writing code at the same time. And teams own whatever they come up with.

The opening stages of a hackathon can be exciting as challenges, prizes, teams and judges are introduced. But within hours there's a quiet buzz and lots of keyboard clicking as programmers make their ideas a reality.

Participants arrive with sleeping bags, deodorant, toothbrushes, pillows and laptops. By morning's wee hours, pizza, energy drinks and bean bag chairs are in hot demand. Candy of all kinds is consumed, and by the time the buzzer goes off after 24 or 48 hours, most participants are disheveled and a little loopy.

Like the tech industry itself, hackathon participants are mostly men. But some organizers are trying to change that.

There was an unusually high number of women at a hackathon at the AT&T Developer Summit in Las Vegas last month after organizers promised $10,000 extra to any team with a majority of females. It worked; both winning teams were led by women. But in every other way, the event was typical.

"There are just four important things you need for a hackathon: food, wifi, power and people," said hackathon aficionado Mike Swift. "When you have those, people want to build together."

Swift went to his first hackathon in 2010. At an event a few months later, he and his friends created Hacker League, a program that helps organizers coordinate their events online. "Since then hackathons have totally exploded," he said. In December, Intel purchased Hacker League for an undisclosed amount.

Another well-known hackathon success story is GroupMe, a free online chat program inspired by a project conceived during a New York competition in 2010 and acquired by Skype in a reported $85 million deal.

But as these think sessions have grown from dorm room all-nighters to high-stakes events, problems have arisen.

In December, San Francisco-based Salesforce.com took heavy criticism from participants after it awarded a $1 million hackathon prize - the largest such reward to date - to a former employee who had used pre-existing code during the competition.

After reviewing the rules and judging process, the firm decided that though the prize winners didn't violate rules, they were going to choose a second team to also win the $1 million grand prize and declared the competition a tie.

"We heard feedback loud and clear," wrote Salesforce vice president Adam Seligman in a note to participants. "We didn't get this right. We should have been clearer."

Still, Seligman said the company intends hold more hackathons, using an outside firm to execute them. He said, "We want you to make awesome stuff and make money.
"