The DeanBeat: The tragedy of the Star Wars: Battlefront II loot crates

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Electronic Arts made a great game in Star Wars: Battlefront II. But it stepped in a pile of controversy by adding an unpopular monetization system known as loot crates. Those crates appear in a lot of games, mostly free-to-play titles where you pay real money for the crates and a chance to get some good loot. Gamers viewed the loot crate scheme as a money grab. As of last night, EA decided to back off on the controversial microtransactions for the loot crates.

Call it a victory for consumers, but this is going to come at a price for everyone.

In console games, where you already pay $60 for a full game, they have been taboo. People feel like they’ve already paid once, and they don’t want to pay again to unlock something else. EA pushed the envelope with Battlefront II, removing the traditional fee for downloadable content (DLC) such as new maps and characters. That was good for gamers and keeping the community whole. But EA also added in loot crates that you could buy for real money. Those loot crates not only gave you cosmetic stuff. They also helped accelerate weapon unlocks and the use of heroes and villains, such as Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker.

“Battlefront 2 EA is said to have gotten rid of the whole DLC thing with their introduction of microtransaction galore,” said one gamer on Steam. “We’ve traded one type of evil for another in the form of casting aside DLC for loot crates.”

This kind of sentiment has been expressed about other games, like Middle-earth: Shadow of War, where the final ending was locked behind a number of grind-like missions, and fans fretted that they could shorten that grand by buying loot crates. But EA’s problem looks worse because Battlefront II — whose predecessor sold 14 million units — is one of the biggest titles of the year.

Above: Four human players play as heroes and take on four villains in Star Wars: Battlefront II’s Heroes vs. Villains multiplayer mode.

Image Credit: Electronic Arts/GamesBeat

Battlefront II launches today on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. But it is sad that this loot crate controversy has dominated the conversation. And it’s not necessarily the fault of oversenstive gamers who are raging. This problem is also a case of EA shooting itself in the foot. If you are a developer on this game, imagine the horror. You’ve spent a couple of years polishing this game, but it’s going to suffer because of the way monetization was built into the loot crate system.

Gamers have been strident, and EA has had to retreat and deal with the growing outrage.

Listen, the Battlefront II issue isn’t about pissy gamers complaining. It’s about what the industry has turned into and what people won’t tolerate anymore. If you purchase the game, you are basically telling EA it’s okay. When in fact, it isn’t. #StarWarsBattlefrontII

— Dalton Davis (@daltonldavis) November 16, 2017

In other games like Overwatch, loot crates unlock purely cosmetic items that don’t affect gameplay or the progression through the multiplayer ladder, which gets you access to better gear and makes you more powerful in multiplayer.

Above: Starfighter combat in Star Wars: Battlefront II.

Image Credit: Electronic Arts

But EA tied its Star Card system to more than just cosmetic items, and that made the gamers mad. It reeked of “pay-to-win” schemes where players who spent the most money can outplay those who don’t. Such schemes are OK in China but not so in the West.

Loot boxes, by the way, are also controversial for another reason. When you buy one, you don’t know what you’ll get. Sometimes you get something good. Sometimes it’s bad. That’s a lot like a slot machine. They’re akin to gambling, and some regulators think they should be regulated. In Japan, loot crates known as “gacha” systems were forcibly changed by regulators, as some personalities became addicted to the chance to win big in purchases.

Back to EA. The trouble popped up when EA showed off its beta and left gamers to interpret the loot crate system. In the beta tests, you could unlock things like weapons in multiplayer over time. Each class of character, such as a Heavy Gunner, had four guns. One was free. The others had to be unlocked. You could unlock them with points, but players noted how long it took to get those points through online battles. EA clarified at the time that some things you couldn’t buy with money.

But players still had complaints. You could unlock guns through credits that you earned through loot crates. And those loot crates could either be earned through gameplay or purchased with real money. The crystals that you purchased could effectively be used to unlock better weapons as well as heroes and villains. One fan estimated that it would take $80 or 40 hours to unlock Darth Vader. That’s a long time to unlock a character in a game that you have already paid for. EA’s response to this became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history.

So EA took one step back and, earlier this week, announced that it would cut the time required to earn Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker by 75 percent, and it would make it much easier to earn the lesser characters. That definitely helped, and EA did a Reddit conversation with its developers to help alleviate fan concerns. EA constantly said it was listening to fan feedback and would adjust the system. EA said that Epic Star Cards, or rare items that you can get in the loot crates, would have to be earned only through gameplay. Other Star Cards could be purchased through the loot crates still. But you had to reach a certain level of play to use the Star Cards.

Above: Loot create in Star Wars Battlefront II.

Image Credit: EA

In certain modes, you could still play as any of the heroes or villains, such as the multiplayer mode Heroes vs Villains. But that was different from regular multiplayer, where if you show up with a hero, then you have a chance to dominate gameplay.

But the fans still complained, and the conversation got even louder after the Reddit Q&A session. So last night, EA took the final step and disabled the system for purchasing crystals in the game with real money. Now you can’t buy loot crates at all, and all progression will be earned through gameplay. EA said that microtransactions will return, but only after EA had changed the system and the game.

Now the system will be fair for all players, from the point of view of gamers. But this will likely create far-reaching consequences. Encouraged by the success of microtransactions and live operations in games like FIFA, Madden, and Battlefield, EA tried to evolve the monetization too far.

We don’t what the consequences are yet, but gamers should know that nothing comes for free. If you take away monetization of DLC, and monetization of loot crates, you also take away the things that those make possible, like more and better game content.

EA has taken a lot of abuse online. Many fans called it greedy and the most-hated company in video games. Those words come after EA bought Titanfall maker Respawn Entertainment for $455 million last week. And after EA shut down Visceral Games because its Star Wars game wasn’t resonating with fans. Both the Respawn and Visceral moves prompted a lot of cynicism from fans. I thought the criticism was unfair and I gave EA the benefit of the doubt in those cases. But in my opinion, EA’s handling of the loot crates has been worse. The company has staged a long retreat, when a simple and short one would have been better, in hindsight.

We haven’t heard such hateful words about EA since former CEO John Riccitiello left EA in 2013 and the company appointed Andrew Wilson as its CEO. Wilson’s policy has been to put players first, but with this controversy, now his reputation has some tarnish on it. And the tragedy here? The game is good, particularly when you’re playing big 20-versus-20 multiplayer battles that make you feel like you’re in a Star Wars movie.

The PC Gaming channel is presented by Intel^®'s Game Dev program.

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PressCoin is a cryptocurrency for investigative journalists and their readers

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EXCLUSIVE:

A coalition of news organizations and journalists in various parts of the world have banded together to create a cryptocurrency to sustain funding for investigative journalism. Called PressCoin, the digital currency was made to get rid of the advertising revenue model, decentralize funding sources, and upend corporate media monopolies with collaborative content made to strengthen civic participation around the world.

A 28-day initial coin offering (ICO) is scheduled to begin November 22, with one PressCoin for sale at the value of $1.

“If PressCoin succeeds, I’m going to delete my Patreon account. Kind of a different ball game,” Nafeez Ahmed told VentureBeat in a Skype interview.

Ahmed, a London-based contributor to VICE and other periodicals, is editor of Insurge Intelligence, PressCoin’s flagship publication. Ahmed has raised funding for the online publication since 2014 by taking monthly subscriptions from readers using the crowdfunding site Patreon.

The Ethereum-based currency will be distributed to the wallets of both readers and journalists based on the level of engagement they are able to create, as measured using the Quintype content management system.

Readers will receive PressCoin for generating insights from thoughtful conversation. Compensation levels for readers and journalists will be based on reputation documented and recorded in the blockchain. PressCoin publications will not allow readers to engage in comments or interact with anonymous accounts.

“When you integrate something like that [reader compensation] on the blockchain and allow them to share in the total revenue that we’re generating, then you’ve got a real game changer I think in terms of how you incentivize people to interact,” Ahmed said.

Publications under the PressCoin umbrella will focus on specific areas of coverage such as democracy, politics, energy, education, health and wellness, and science.

In addition to Insurge, PressCoin’s initial publications include NextElection, an election tracker that tells the stories of challengers over incumbents; Mojonomy, a platform for citizen journalists around the world; and ChickenSoup.News, a news outlet bent on telling positive stories.

Other members of the PressCoin media team include war correspondent John Pilger and Indian TV host and Washington Post writer Barkha Dutt.

PressCoin is following a model being tested by several companies who recently launched their own cryptocurrency.

In September, chat app Kik raised $98 million in its ICO, which it plans to use to seed its bot ecosystem and to compensate users and developers based on the levels of engagement they’re able to generate.

Sensay, an anonymous advice service that runs on popular chat apps, had a token sale this fall to compensate advice givers. Doc.ai used a similar approach to compensate people for sharing their medical information.

A portion of PressCoin transactions will be set aside for use of the Quintype platform and to support an accelerator program to pay for the establishment of other news startups.

“A certain part of the proceeds go to our accelerator program, which is our own panel of founders, and extended experts will sort of help innovation happen in startups and in our countries around the world to help newsrooms and creating virtual newsrooms too,” said HigherOrderVC founder Amit Rathore, creator of the Quintype content management system currently used by Amazon, Fortune, and Bloomberg.

PressCoin was inspired in part, Ahmed said, by De Correspondent, where readers are encouraged to assist in the reporting process and interact with reporters. The Dutch news startup De Correspondent was launched in 2013 following a €1 million crowdfunding campaign used to create its own content management system.

Like De Correspondent, PressCoin will allow limited access to read its content, but to read full stories, interact with journalists, or comment on stories, users will have to pay for a subscription or make micropayments for individual stories.

After the token sale, people will be able to become subscribers or join the PressCoin system using fiat currency, credit cards, or online payment systems, PressCoin said in a statement shared with VentureBeat.

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7 tactics to recruit AI talent in a market dominated by tech giants

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GUEST:

Artificial intelligence and machine learning is a growing field. The amount of talent in the pipeline is not nearly enough to meet the demand as more and more companies turn to AI solutions. Universities are now developing curricula to meet these needs, but at present, experienced ML researchers and engineers remain highly sought after. So how can your business locate emerging talent in the area? And how can you differentiate yourself enough to convince them to come work for you?

Here are seven ways companies find the AI/ML workers they need, even in a tight hiring market. Even small companies can try these tactics to catch the talent, whether junior or senior level, that could otherwise slip by.

1. Cast a wide net

First, accept that you will need a different strategy for recruiting machine learning junior engineers versus senior researchers. The prevailing strategy these days when looking to hire junior-level engineers is to cast a wide net. According to eBay vice president of engineering Japjit Tulsi, it is necessary to broaden the scope beyond AI-specific backgrounds “because AI roles are important to most companies right now and so the actual true data scientists and applied researchers are few and far between.” Instead, companies should seek resumes that suggest an aptitude for adaptive learning and a commitment to tackling hard challenges.

2. Partner with universities

According to SnapLogic chief scientist Greg Benson, partnering with universities is a powerful way to recruit promising junior engineers. “It’s definitely worthwhile for companies who are looking for relationships to engage with academic departments,” he says. Corporate sponsorship of student projects enables businesses to identify top young talent and lets participating students experience machine learning work firsthand. Impressively, a third of SnapLogic’s engineers are students from its university internship program, though it doesn’t hurt that Benson is also a professor at the University of San Francisco.

3. Host a hackathon

Hackathons are increasingly used to identify top coding talent and quick-thinking creatives. These events bring together people with technical backgrounds to address a problem and collaboratively code a solution from scratch. Sugi Venkatesh, HR division vice president at ADP, played host to several successful hackathons at Georgia Tech. He explains that “for these niche areas, like AI and ML, we have unconventional hiring constructs.”

4. Look to education programs

As the demand for AI talent grows, a number of education programs now offer specialized courses to train junior talent and help them find jobs. Abhi Jha, director of advanced analytics at McKesson, hires data science students from Galvanize, a technical skills training provider. “We’ve had a lot of success hiring from career fairs that Galvanize organizes, where we present the unique challenges we solve in health care,” he says.

5. Sponsor AI conferences or competitions

Hiring experienced data scientists and machine learning researchers requires a different approach. These people are easy to locate — through network connections, academic papers, and academic conferences — but difficult to recruit due to high demand. Many companies sponsor AI conferences or competitions in order to attract international talent and build their corporate reputation as an AI supporter. These events also expose potential candidates to the attractive features of the host company, such as large, high-quality datasets or interesting problems to solve.

6. Budget for at least one A-level player

Dominant tech companies have a significant advantage when it comes to recruiting the top tier. Google and Facebook hire university professors such as Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, and Yann LeCun with plum appointments and endless resources. This is a valuable recruitment strategy because A-level players want to work with other A-level players. Offering junior candidates the opportunity to work with established experts or offering experts the best and brightest of the new recruits appeals to both parties.

7. Retrain existing teams

Finally, the difficulty in finding experienced talent is inspiring many companies to offer retraining to update the skills of existing engineers. Explains Jenny Dearborn, chief learning officer and senior vice president at SAP, “We are always upgrading the skills and competencies of employees to align with being able to achieve our business objectives.” Larger firms can do this through corporate training programs, while smaller firms might bring in external trainers. Extended education courses, apprenticeships, and mentoring programs are all ways to bring greater machine learning experience to your team.

Closing the deal

At the end of an interview cycle, a strong AI candidate will typically have multiple offers in hand. To differentiate your company, show how a successful candidate will be able to make a meaningful impact and be core to your business’ success. This might be most important in signing millennials, who, according to Venkatesh, tend to be looking for a purpose.

Recruiting talent for AI projects may not be easy, but by tailoring your approach, developing strong partnerships with universities, and employing creative solutions like hackathons or academic conferences, it is achievable. Differentiate your company by offering strong proprietary data sets, top-level colleagues, and interesting and meaningful projects and the best candidates will find you.

Adelyn Zhou is the chief marketing officer at Topbots, a strategy and research firm in applied artificial intelligence and machine learning.

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Crisp CEO believes we can beat online hate speech, terrorist content, and fake news

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Social media has become darker, uglier, and meaner in recent years. It may be wrecking our mental health, destroying our politics, and tearing at the social fabric.

Adam Hildreth, founder and CEO of social media risk management firm Crisp, believes it doesn’t have to be that way. Hildreth argues that the tools exist to save social media, or at the very least to beat down the worst elements that have made platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube so poisonous.

But the first step, he says, is recognizing the urgency and scope of the problem

“We’ve seen a massive change over the past few years,” Hildreth said. “Social media was the Wild West. But because it’s now part of everyone’s everyday life, there has been a massive change. That said, I think this can be managed. And it’s so mainstream, we need to deal with these issues.”

Crisp was founded over a decade ago to help companies manage risk as they began to embrace user-generated content. More recently, the business expanded to begin working directly with social media platforms to help them deal with hate speech, racism, and terrorist-related content. Hildreth said he can’t disclose the names of his partners.

“What we saw in the last year was a surge in hate speech and terrorist content,” Hildreth said. “And the tools they were using weren’t going to work. It doesn’t matter how good you get at it, you still need teams of people involved.”

So what happened that drove this surge? Hildreth points to a couple of things. First, as noted above, social media has become so pervasive, so ingrained in our lives, that its potential impact has made it a richer target for groups looking to spread unsavory or misleading messages. In other words, the return on investment for hate groups and terrorists is strong.

The second is the rise of video.

“What video does is transform the message they want to get out there,” Hildreth said. “They’ve started really using the mechanics and tools of video in a sophisticated way.”

This move to images and video makes detection even more complicated for the platforms. It’s one thing to monitor for keywords, but another when it’s images.

“This makes a big difference when someone uploads user-generated content and they want to avoid detection,” he said. “When I upload video, I want to help Google find it in a positive way. So I add text and tags that highlight the content. But if they’re trying to avoid detection, they can overlap some positive imagery, positive soundtracks over things like beheading videos, that makes detection difficult.”

So Crisp introduced a new service called Capture.

Given that it’s impossible to have someone review every piece of content on a platform, Capture starts by looking externally at where conversations about bad content are happening. That includes scanning the dark web and chat rooms, and even creating accounts to be able to scan some messaging platforms. The system uses a combination of artificial intelligence and people to refine its scanning and profile-building.

Capture is looking for the places where people are talking about creating this kind of content, sharing tips, making it, and strategizing about how to spread it. By finding these people and this content externally, Crisp can narrow its search within the various platforms. Capture then looks for content that is seeing a swell of sharing, using profiles of people sharing and creating it, and takes that information back to the social platforms to identify bad actors and content.

“We know where this content is shared,” he said. “Our view is that if it’s not being shared, you don’t have to worry about it because it’s not being seen.”

The biggest area of concern thus far is terrorism-related content. The company says it finds about 200 pieces of new terrorism-related content every day. Often, that content is reported and taken down within minutes of it appearing on social platforms, Hildreth said.

But, much like cybersecurity battles, the fight against undesirable content is fast-moving and always evolving. As the good guys take a step forward, the bad guys counterpunch.

Video, again, is a good example of this. Images and sound alone are not enough to classify something as terrorist-related or fake news. One person can take a video clip and use it to explain an event, while another can use the same clip out of context, putting text and audio over it to distort its meaning.

“I’d say it’s a constant battle,” Hildreth said. “We’re slightly ahead of the curve at the moment. The faster we remove stuff, the more they’re trying to figure out how to get around it.”

Fake news also presents a profound challenge. Governments are applying growing pressure on social networking and media companies to address this issue. But Hildreth says change needs to be led by the platforms and their customers if it’s going to have a serious impact.

He believes it’s imperative for the platforms to sharpen and refine their terms of service regarding fake news, including better defining what that term means and what constitutes a violation. Crisp builds its service around those rules, and the clearer the lines are, the more effective it can be.

“We’ve started with the very blatant breaking terms of service,” Hildreth said. “That’s black and white. But we are very much led by our customers. There are some lines we draw. But we’re working with our customers to improve on this.”

The real motivation, Hildreth believes, is likely to come from the advertisers that are the lifeblood of these services. The growing backlash against social media and networking services is damaging their reputations. Advertisers obviously don’t want their messages appearing next to hate speech or terrorist videos. But if the social platforms are tagged more generally as cesspools of harassment and racism, advertisers could be forced to walk away to protect their brands.

“I think this will change, and it will be driven by some of the big brands,” he said. “If you look at the amount of money they spend, the brand experience is absolutely essential. They don’t want to be associated with terrorism and hate speech. They want a strong brand experience.”

Hildreth adds that the role of those advertisers, and how they choose to wield or not wield their influence, will be crucial in the coming months and years: “They’re the ones that fund the internet in one way or another. And they fund these social platforms.”

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Disney Pixar takes first step into virtual reality with the skeleton world of Coco VR

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Disney Pixar is launching Coco VR, the company’s first virtual reality experience and a promotion for the upcoming animated film Coco.

The VR app debuts today as an exclusive on the Oculus Rift, and it’s one more example of a large media company embracing the new medium of VR. Pixar has a reputation for excellence in animation, and it is wading into VR with the same sort of calculated and meticulous effort, said Marc Sondheimer, Coco VR producer and Academy Award winner, in an interview with GamesBeat.

Coco, a film about a young musician’s journey into the Land of the Dead, debuts on November 22, and the exclusive Oculus Rift VR experience is a 20-minute interactive story that serves as a promotion for the film, Sondheimer said.

Above: The world of Coco VR.

Image Credit: Pixar

“We talked about doing a project in VR for a while,” he said. “This movie Coco felt like the right underlying creative to start with.”

Pixar’s VR experience is both interactive and social, as you can share it with friends. You can journey through the Land of the Dead (based on Mexico’s holiday tradition of Dia del los Muertos) with up to three other people in VR. You can model outfits or decorate your calaca head.

“Going to the theater is a semi-social experience — you watch a film together, but it’s passive,” said Oculus executive producer Yelena Rachitsky, in a blog post. “In VR, you can actually go on an adventure with a friend. These experiences can create lasting memories, just like going on a trip together. But unlike a journey in real life, VR lets you explore the gorgeous world of Coco, full of unique Easter eggs that sprinkle a bit of magic at every turn.”

The Coco film team worked closely with their VR counterparts to create assets and animations that stayed true to the movie, Sondheimer said.

Above: Miguel in Coco VR.

Image Credit: Pixar

VR studio Magnopus brought the movie art to life in VR and added social and interactive layers. Oculus collaborated with both teams.

“Pixar’s films are masterpieces, and we didn’t want to just reproduce what you can see on screen,” said Rachitsky. “We wanted to put together an experience that feels inherently VR — where it’s all about the audience.”

Coco VR takes you behind the scenes, with unreleased footage, actual concept art, and storyboards from the film. Disney previewed the experience at select Dia de los Muertos festivities. Oculus has a VR partnership with Disney, which has also created VR experiences such as Moana’s Kakamora Orchestra, a 360-degree video on Facebook, and Lumiere’s Dress Rehearsal, an interactive experience available through the Disney Movies VR app on Rift and Gear VR.

Above: Up to four people can join each other in Coco VR.

Image Credit: Pixar

Sondheimer said the goal was to support the film and introduce audiences to “this amazing other worldly place.” It is both a marketing vehicle and a stand-alone experience, he said.

He said, “We wanted to allow audiences to go on their own adventure in that space. It’s like what it feels like to go into a Pixar set or environment. We are very exhaustive in creating believable worlds. Even though they are imaginary, we want them to be believable and researched and true. It has a loose story that you can experience from beginning to end in about 20 minutes. You get to have different perspectives on this art work only in a VR experience.”

Sondheimer said that it took a while for Pixar to embrace VR because “we are kind of control freaks at Pixar.” It took about nine months to complete, with help from both Magnopus and another company that assisted with the sound design.

“We control where your eyes look, every pixel you see, what your eyes see, and the whole process of creating that,” he said. “In VR, we have to give up a lot of those controls and be ok with it. And the process of making it.”

The underlying goal? “Just joy,” Sondheimer said.

The PC Gaming channel is presented by Intel^®'s Game Dev program.

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New York and Toronto business leaders discuss an ‘east coast alliance’

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Silicon Valley may still be the most well-known tech hub in the United States, but startup leaders New York City and Toronto are betting that by building a super connected “east coast corridor” that they can lure more talent and money from the west coast.

Earlier this month, New York accelerator Grand Central Tech announced that it was partnering with MaRS, a Toronto-based innovation hub, to offer support, services and physical workspace to Canadian technology ventures looking to expand to New York City. At an event on Tuesday hosted at Grand Central Tech, entrepreneurs and VCs from both Toronto and New York spoke about the advantages of startup up in their respective city, and what the other city can offer them. It’s all part of an effort to build what Grand Central Tech co-founder and managing director dubbed “an east coast alliance.”

New York City and Toronto, located approximately 500 miles from one, are no emerging startup ecosystems. Entrepreneurs at Tuesday’s event said that they looked to expanding to the other city not just to gain a foothold in New York City or Toronto, but in the United States and Canada as a whole.

But the partnership between Grand Central Tech and MaRS is indicative of an emerging trend in growing startup ecosystems — partnering with another city to help entrepreneurs get access to the talent, capital, or other resources they may lack in their own city. In August, two of Texas’ largest startup organizations — the Capital Factory in Austin and the Dallas Entrepreneur Center — announced that they would be offering their services in the other’s city as part of an effort to build a “Texas Startup Megatropolis.”

For some of the New York and Toronto entrepreneurs at Tuesday’s event, the need to expand to the other market was obvious. Michael Katchen, the founder of Toronto startup Wealthsimple, an investment service for young professionals, said that opening an office in New York was a no-brainer, given that Toronto and New York are both financial centers.

However, Toronto and New York entrepreneurs touched on a few lessons that are applicable to even smaller startup markets. First, that inclusivity can be an important selling point for prospective talent.

Toronto entrepreneur Allen Lau, the CEO of online storytelling platform Wattpad and co-founder of early VC firm Two Small Fish Ventures, said that he believes that Toronto’s reputation as a melting pot (50 percent of the city’s population comes from outside of Canada) has become increasingly enticing given the recent election of President Donald Trump in the United States, who has advocated for tightening immigration laws. In June, Canada launched a “fast-track visa”  to shorten the work permit and visa issuing process to two weeks for highly-skilled technical workers.

“We just hired someone born and raised in Detroit, who was working in New York for her entire career up until now. We just hired her through the fast-track visa to come to Toronto and work for us as a product manager.” Lau said. “It’s the diversity, it’s the inclusion that is really attractive to her. Given the climate here [in the United States] she wants a change.”

Second, that cities should take stock of what strengths their market offers that others might not. Some of the Toronto entrepreneurs in attendance said that they opened a New York office to take advantage of the city’s sales talent, and to build connections in the city’s media and marketing industries. Meanwhile, some of New York entrepreneurs said that they looked to Toronto for engineering talent, particularly from the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto.

Finally, startup ecosystems should consider the importance of having a “flagship organization” that entrepreneurs can turn to if they are interested in learning more about a particular market and expanding to it.  Dessy Daskalov, the CTO and co-founder of Nudge Rewards, a recent participant of MaRS’ accelerator program, said that her company turned to MaRS to figure out what potential customers and investors and her co-founder could reach out to in New York.

“Especially when you’re an early company, when you get an intro through an organization like MaRS, you’re a lot more credible,” Daskalov.

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Indianapolis’ Lessonly raises $8 million for its enterprise learning software

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Indianapolis’ Lessonly, a startup that develops educational software for teams, announced that it has raised an $8 million Series B round. The round was led by OpenView, and investors include Indianapolis-based High Alpha Capital and edtech VC firm Rethink Education.

Lessonly has approximately 500 customers, ranging from consumer startup Birchbox to payments processor Stripe. Lessonly CEO and cofounder Max Yoder told VentureBeat in a phone interview that customers use Lessonly’s software primarily to develop lesson plans for their sales teams and customer service teams, as both often have to stay up-to-date on public-facing information, such as pricing and return policies and the numbers and types of available products.

Yoder said that enterprise educational software has traditionally been developed with Human Resources or management teams in mind — teams whose main objective is to follow a rigid protocol for documenting what happens within the company.

“The compliance processes are well-documented, and the processes for managers are well-documented. But the process that I need as a salesperson or customer service person, the techniques that I need to understand in order to know how to do my job — they’re just floating in the ether,” Yoder told VentureBeat. “If you’re seeing inconsistent performances on those team — it’s probably because people have inconsistent information and knowledge.”

Yoder said that Lessonly’s software is designed to be easily adjustable. Anyone on a team can upload text, photos, and videos to create lessons that can take place monthly, bi-monthly, or weekly — though teams can ensure that a manager vets the lesson before it goes live.

Team members also have the option of asking questions within the lesson and can rank the lesson once they’ve completed it — features that Yoder said are designed to help teams develop more useful lesson plans over time.

According to Yoder, the average starting contract is $15,000 per customer.

Founded in 2013, Lessonly has grown quickly over the past year and a half, from 17 full-time employees to its current 80 full-time employees. The company’s reputation in Indianapolis has been buoyed by interest from some prominent players in the Indianapolis tech scene. High Alpha Capital, which participated in Lessonly’s Series A and B rounds, is led by ExactTarget cofounder Scott Dorsey. ExactTarget, a local cloud marketing startup, was acquired by Salesforce in 2013 for $2.5 billion.

In addition, ExactTarget’s other two cofounders, Chris Baggott and Peter McCormick, have backed Lessonly as angel investors.

Yoder said that the company plans to use its latest round of funding to develop software to help sales and support professionals “practice” the skills they’ve learned via Lessonly.

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