Newswise — Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory recently demonstrated a new technology to better control how power flows to and from commercial buildings equipped with solar, wind or other renewable energy generation.
“We are creating an electric grid of the future that allows renewable energy to be deployed in the most effective way,” said ORNL’s Madhu Chinthavali, who leads the research. “With this new grid interface architecture, operators can control energy flows much more meaningfully, even when power generation is decentralized.”
Renewable energy is key to helping the U.S. electricity sector achieve national decarbonization goals. But they also add uncertainty to the electrical grid because they are unevenly available across the country and generate electricity intermittently. Developing and coordinating power electronic systems to incorporate these resources more easily is vital to creating a more resilient grid for reliable electricity.
Chinthavali’s research team designed a hybrid AC/DC power electronics hub to act as a gatekeeper between the larger grid and subsystems including renewables, generators and battery storage. The technology was developed and tested in the Department of Energy’s Grid Research Integration and Deployment Center, or GRID-C, at ORNL.
GRID-C offers a unique platform to build power electronics systems, starting with the smallest component, then testing and demonstrating full systems that incorporate both hardware and simulation. In the low-voltage lab, rows of metal containers house ORNL-developed power electronic converters, trailing cords thicker than a wrist and ending in plugs as wide as a plate. These converters provide different levels of power to electrical feeds based on different scenarios. They are paired with equally large power emulators that can mimic energy delivered by a solar array or a battery system. Huge touchscreens allow engineers to rearrange the system and tweak its operation.
ORNL engineers designed the power electronics hub to control how the converters interact with each other and the grid. Emulators are set up to mimic the electrical draw and generation of a solar array, a storage battery, an emergency generator and a critical data center with high electrical demand. The power electronics hub was programmed to autonomously manage the power flow of all these electrical loads, helping prevent fluctuations in supply and demand on the wider electrical grid.
The power electronics hub plays the role of a middle manager between the larger electric grid and the local power electronics. “Instead of the utility talking to, say, a million resources, this technology reduces that number by a factor of 10,” said ORNL’s Michael Starke, lead software architect for the project. “From a utility’s point of view, all the equipment managed by the power electronics hub functions as a single system.”
This is an advantage for power companies faced with incorporating distributed and intermittent energy from solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources into a century-old grid that was designed to push steady flows of energy out from centralized power plants.
Similar concepts have been tested by some utilities, but these approaches use a single vendor’s proprietary products in a prescribed way, Starke said. Because ORNL constructed the power electronic converters and many of the components, the resulting technology is openly available and can be customized to achieve specific goals.
For example, experiments by Chinthavali’s team have shown the power electronics hub can prioritize providing the most cost savings to customer-owned systems or providing a consistent supply of power for utility systems. ORNL researchers demonstrated that these objectives can be integrated directly into the hardware and software, and they have also developed the supporting communication and control infrastructure.
“It starts with pretesting and pre-automating systems that can be easily scaled up and deployed quickly,” said Chinthavali, adding that the project has led to three patent applications. “We’re trying to standardize systems so they are interoperable.” Moving beyond modeling to demonstrating the technology in wired hardware was a milestone that was only possible because of ORNL’s capabilities in GRID-C. “This is the only place where we could develop both the software and hardware to fully prepare to deploy this technology to industry,” Chinthavali said.
Several industries could see significant benefits. The technology could be used by a builder or building owner to save money and energy, or it could be installed by a utility for enhanced power control and reliability. The team is moving to the next step in the research: substituting higher-power, commercial converters secured directly from industry. This will demonstrate that the power electronics hub can manage the megawatts of power handled by electric utilities using components from commercial suppliers.
The ORNL team that developed the power electronics hub include Steven Campbell, lead architect for systems integration; Ben Dean, communication interface developer; Jonathan Harter, hardware systems specialist; and Rafal Wojda, magnetic systems specialist.
“We’re now working on how to extend these power electronics hubs from small scale to thousands working together, coordinating to deliver energy as needed from all sorts of different angles and different sources,” Starke said. “We’re trying to show that the power electronics hub can act like a battery almost, pushing power in and out under our control. That provides all kinds of flexibility to the grid that wasn’t there before.”
The power electronics hub is an example of the type of technology developed in GRID-C that could be deployed with a potential consortium of partners. ORNL held an interest meeting today with stakeholders from industry, utilities and research institutions to discuss power electronics challenges and strategies. Participants discussed a possible framework for an organization to accelerate development and deployment of power electronics systems for managing the electric grid of the future.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
Rapidly growing payment orchestration provider BR-DGE has today announced a commercial and technological partnership with Vyne, the specialist account-to-account (A2A) payments platform.
This new partnership will provide greater choice for merchants who use the BR-DGE platform, optimising the merchant and consumer payment experience. BR-DGE merchants will benefit from Vyne’s Open Banking solution, which allows payments via bank transfer at a low cost for merchants. Each payment made through Vyne is also automatically Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) compliant, dramatically reducing the risk of fraud for customers and merchants while eliminating chargebacks, all without impacting conversion.
Through a single point of integration, BR-DGE’s merchants can access a world of payment providers, anti-fraud capabilities and alternative payment methods (APMs). Leveraging Vyne’s Open Banking powered payments solution, BR-DGE’s merchants will be able to reduce transaction fees and improve conversion rates and cash flow.
Vyne’s full stack solution enables merchants to receive customer funds instantly and further offer the ability to process full and partial refunds in real-time, as well as pay-outs and batched settlement with full reconciliation. The Secure Customer Authentication (SCA) embedded payment process will help to improve merchant checkout conversions by offering a seamless user experience via different channels, including online checkouts, payment by SMS, chat or email, and QR codes.
The collaboration will stimulate growth for both businesses as BR-DGE and Vyne innovate to improve the merchant and consumer payment experience. It builds on BR-DGE recently announcing a merchant partnership with leading independent travel company, Travel Counsellors. Vyne’s solution recently went live with a number of brands in the THG portfolio, including Myprotein, Glossybox, and Pop In A Box.
Commenting on the partnership, Tom Voaden, Strategic Partnership Lead at BR-DGE, said: “We are thrilled to be partnering with Vyne to enhance our payment offering to both merchants and their customers. At BR-DGE, we understand the immense benefits of Open Banking and are leveraging its power to provide a frictionless payment experience for all.
This latest partnership with Vyne further solidifies our Open Banking capabilities and ensures that our merchants continue to have access to the most convenient and secure payment solutions available. It also presents brilliant opportunities for both firms as we continue our journey of growth.”
Luke Flomo, Chief Revenue Officer at Vyne, added: “Merchants should be able to enhance their payments proposition easily, without strenuous development. BR-DGE enables merchants to seamlessly add payment methods through a single, simple integration. By adding Vyne’s Open-Banking-powered Pay with Bank to BR-DGE’s ecosystem, more merchants will be able to benefit from fairer fees, increased conversion and real-time cash flow. Our partnership with BR-DGE is an exciting move in our wider partnership’s strategy.”
In just three years, Beijing-based Well-Link Technologies has built a business on real-time cloud rendering, including helping miHoYo launch the cloud version of the hit game Genshin Impact.
Ina Fassbender | Afp | Getty Images
BEIJING — Singapore state investment firm Temasek is leading a $40 million funding round in a Chinese startup despite a dry spell of deals in the country.
The startup, Well-Link Technologies, counts Chinese tech company Xiaomi and Chinese gaming star miHoYo as investors, according to business database Tianyancha.
related investing news
The $40 million deal announced Monday is an early-stage, or B2 round, led by Temasek and includes existing shareholders Future Capital and VGC.
Temasek confirmed the deal in an email.
The Singapore firm’s publicly disclosed exposure to China has declined over the last two years, from 29% in 2020 to 22% as of this March. As of last week, Temasek had only participated in eight China financing deals, down from 41 last year, according to Dealogic.
In just three years, Beijing-based Well-Link Technologies has built a business on real-time cloud rendering, including helping miHoYo launch the cloud version of the hit game Genshin Impact.
Cloud gaming requires fast processing speed since it relies on remote servers and an internet connection to offer people a smooth gaming experience with just a small file download.
For example, the cloud version of Genshin Impact is just 78.5 megabytes on Apple’s App Store in China, versus the exponentially larger 3.7 gigabytes for the non-cloud version.
Soaring revenue
Well-Link claims its revenue for each of the last two years has grown by a whopping 400% or more, putting the company on track for revenue of several hundred million yuan — the equivalent of tens of millions of U.S. dollars.
CEO Guo Jianjun told reporters the valuation that Temasek offered wasn’t the highest one the startup received. But he said the latest financing round is part of the company’s plans to expand its business overseas.
It was difficult to raise funds during the pandemic, and the startup still has a lot of money, Guo said. But he added that he’s confident in Well-Link’s future development and wants to stick to its fundraising plan.
One of Well-Link’s next steps is encouraging more developers to create games that originate in the cloud.
The company is also exploring how its real-time cloud rendering tech can help with the development of virtual reality and other technologies of the future.
On the issue of regulation, Guo said his startup faces little policy uncertainty, and noted that Well-Link is a not a consumer-facing company.
“From the time of this company’s founding in 2019, our requirement was that we must do compliant, reasonable and legal things,” Guo said in Mandarin, according to a CNBC translation.
“Really excellent and good companies and good content will continue to get [approvals] or support,” he said. “So all we need to do is serve the good content that’s in accordance with policy requirements.”
China’s gaming industry has come under increased regulatory scrutiny in the last 18 months, with tighter restrictions on how long minors can play. Regulators have also been slow to approve many new games by industry giants NetEase and Tencent, although the two companies each received approvals for titles this month.
Residential property developments dominated the Cape Town CBD property sector in 2021, with several residential or mixed-use developments coming on stream.
The conversion of commercial office blocks into mixed-use developments – which have a residential and commercial component – to provide flexible living options as well as optimising of co-working and co-living areas continued to be the stand-out development trend.
These were among the key property findings of the latest edition of the State of Cape Town Central City Report 2021 – A Year in Review (SCCR), published by the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID).
According to the report, the total value of all new property investments in the Cape Town CBD during 2021 is R5.7 billion, conservatively estimated. This includes completed developments and redevelopments, as well as those under construction and in the planning phase.
New trends
A new trend emerged during 2021, namely the rise of furnished – and in some cases serviced – apartments as the primary type of apartment rental available in the Central City. It appears likely that this was largely attributable to the numerous apartments which normally attract short-term rentals being moved to the long-term rental market.
According to the report, more than half (57 %) of the respondents of the annual CCID Residential Survey were tenants. As has been the case in recent years, the largest percentage (36.1 %) of respondents were 25 to 34 years old – presumably young professionals attracted by the “downtown lifestyle” and flourishing night-time economy offered by the Central City.
These young professionals, along with the growing number of digital nomads, may well prefer the flexibility of hiring a fully furnished – and possibly serviced – apartment. Increasingly new developments in the CBD offer buyers the option of furniture packages.
Apartment living
By the end of 2021, the total number of residential apartments in the Cape Town Central City was 5,791, up from 4,954 at the end of 2020.
Although the largest number of sales were recorded in The Fynbos, the 689 units have not yet been added to the total as the development was still in the planning phase in 2021.
Apartment sales
On average, apartments sold last year were slightly larger than in 2020, and also 26.1 % more expensive on a square metre basis at R39,102/ m².
The report says there is no evidence that the size of apartments is declining in spite of the growing micro-unit trend and their availability in the CBD. Just over 40 % of the sales recorded last year were apartments in 16 on Bree, which were an average size of 42 m², compared with the average micro unit size, which is typically around half that size.
Rental stocks
There was a significant increase in available rental stock in the Cape Town Central City in 2020, as repeated lockdowns during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic impacted the tourism industry.
The impact was particularly severe during periods of tighter restrictions when international and even, at one stage, inter-provincial travel was banned, the report showed.
“This trend appears to have been reversed during 2021, as the steady roll-out of vaccinations and the “normalisation” of living with the pandemic saw a rise in domestic tourism – and later an increase in international tourists – resulting in increased demand in the short-term rental market and the removal of at least some of these units from the long-term rental pool,” the authors stated.
As noted in the 2020 SCCR, the number of units listed for rent in the Central City rose from 180 units at the end of 2019 to a high of 475 apartments at the end of 2020 – the first year of the pandemic.
By the end of 2021, a total of 217 apartments were listed on Property24.com as available for rent in the Central City. This is less than half the 475 units listed at the end of 2020.
“At the time of writing this had declined to just 56 apartments. This is a particularly impressive achievement given the completion of both 16 on Bree and Foreshore Place during the course of last year which saw the addition of 562 new units to the Central City residential market,” the report’s authors said.
Monthly rentals
- Studio/bachelor apartments: Monthly rentals ranged from R5,500 for a 38 m² unit to a maximum of R21,500 for 66 m², with the average monthly rental set at R9,027. There were 37 units available to rent in 2021, ranging in size from 11 m² to 66 m².
- One-bedroom apartments: Monthly rentals ranged from R4,250 for an unspecified size to a maximum of R25,000 for 94 m², with the average monthly rental set at R11,124. There were 88 units available to rent in 2021, ranging in size from 23 m² to 107 m².
- Two-bedroom apartments: Monthly rentals ranged from R9,000 for 66 m² to a maximum of R42,000 for 180 m², with the average monthly rental set at R17,768. There were 74 units available to rent in 2021, ranging in size from 66 m² to 110 m².
- Three+ bedroom apartments: Monthly rentals ranged from R10,000 for 98 m² to a maximum of R95,000 for 444 m², with the average monthly rental set at R40,314. There were 7 units available to rent in 2021, ranging in size from 75 m² to 444 m².
Read: Big economic shift to Cape Town spells trouble for Gauteng
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Redbox’s 36,000 DVD-rental kiosks are now owned by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment.
Dreamstime
One of this year’s most surprising tech deals was the acquisition of the movie-rental kiosk chain Redbox by
Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment
.
Don’t let the name fool you: Chicken Soup for the Soul is a video-streaming company that just happens to have grown out of the popular book series.
Today, Chicken Soup owns Crackle and other ad-supported video-streaming services. The Redbox deal gives the business some real scale, and it has turned the company into a bargain-bin small-cap bet on the future of video—one that the market is largely ignoring.
Chicken Soup’s roots go back to the well-known series of inspirational self-help books created by the writers Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. Since the original book was published in 1993, there have been more than 250 follow-ups (Chicken Soup for the Golfer’s Soul, Chicken Soup for the Preteen Soul, etc.), which together have reportedly sold more than 500 million copies. By 2007, Canfield and Hansen had begun to search for a buyer for their company, which included not only the Chicken Soup books but also a line of pet foods sold under the Chicken Soup brand.
They eventually found William Rouhana, who some investors might remember as the CEO of broadband provider Winstar Communications, which went bankrupt in 2001 as the internet bubble was popping.
Rouhana separated the books and pet-food business from the video segment and took the video-focused Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment (ticker: CSSE) public in 2017.
Prior to the Redbox deal, Chicken Soup owned a handful of other streaming assets, including Crackle (which it bought from
Sony
in 2019), a service under the Chicken Soup name, and a small ad-supported movie site called PopcornFlix.
Chicken Soup ultimately paid about $70 million in stock for Redbox and assumed $350 million in debt. The deal included an agreement to push out the due date on the Redbox debt, giving Rouhana time to clean up the company’s finances.
As the deal was pending, some Redbox holders bet that another bidder would emerge, at one point driving the price of Redbox shares to many times the value of the deal price. But Redbox never got any other options. The company was out of cash and likely headed for bankruptcy, a victim of a dramatic slowdown in film production during the pandemic. Rouhana says Redbox customers were still going to the kiosks but weren’t finding many new movies to rent.
With the transaction, Chicken Soup adds a network of 36,000 kiosks and expands its head count to about 1,500 from 200. The deal also revamps the company’s financial profile. In an interview at the modest Chicken Soup headquarters, above a CVS in Cos Cob, Conn., 35 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, Rouhana says the combined company should have earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda, of between $100 million and $150 million in 2023. Revenue should be at least $500 million, he says, about twice the Wall Street consensus forecast for 2022.
If Rouhana’s forecast is accurate, Chicken Soup’s stock—down about 50% since the deal closed—looks ultracheap. The company has a market value of just $164 million, and an enterprise value of a little over $500 million. “The market is just not accepting that there is a turnaround inherent in the situation,” Rouhana says.
Rouhana says Redbox revenue is historically tied to the number of new DVD releases available in its kiosks. In the fourth quarter, the number of new release rentals should jump to 35, from 13 in the current quarter, he says. In the long run, Rouhana expects the kiosk business to be a cash cow that generates capital for the company to invest in its core streaming business.
As my colleague Jack Hough noted in Barron’s cover story last week, the decision by
Netflix
(NFLX) and
Walt Disney
(DIS) to launch ad-supported streaming tiers has cast a new spotlight on the potential for advertising in the streaming world, a category known as advertising-supported video on demand. Rouhana says the development “provides validation for the AVOD model” and should convince more advertisers that they “need to be there.” At least a dozen smaller ad-supported services like Philo and Crunchyroll have hired Chicken Soup to sell advertising on their behalf, Rouhana says.
The CEO notes that Chicken Soup is the only pure play among the five largest ad-supported streaming services, a group that includes FreeVee, owned by
Amazon.com
(AMZN); Tubi, acquired by
Fox
(FOX) for $440 million in 2020; Pluto, acquired by Viacom, now
Paramount Global
(PARA), for $340 million in 2019; and the Roku Channel, owned and operated by streaming-platform company
Roku
(ROKU). Rouhana thinks there is consolidation coming, and says that Chicken Soup expects to be a buyer. Rouhana isn’t talking about being on the other side of the deals, but it’s also conceivable that Chicken Soup itself could one day become a target.
In the long run, Rouhana says the ad-supported streaming model should eclipse the subscription business that has come to dominate the market. What Chicken Soup and others need to do, he says, is provide quality content, make it easy to find, and offer advertising that is both relevant and interesting to consumers. “That’s all doable,” he says. “Every piece of that is under way inside our company right now.”
If Rouhana’s vision plays out, his book could be called Chicken Soup for the Bullish Soul.
Write to Eric J. Savitz at eric.savitz@barrons.com
By Joe Hoppe
Boku Inc. shares rose Tuesday after it said it has entered a new multi-year commercial agreement with an Amazon.com Inc. subsidiary to supply its digital wallet and other local payment methods to Amazon.
Shares at 0727 GMT were up 8.4 pence, or 11% at 85.4 pence.
The London-listed mobile-payment and identity-verification company said that the agreement–which has a three-year term from launch, with a one-year renewal period–covers the processing of payments for Amazon Prime Video subscriptions for customers located in certain South East Asian and African counties.
Revenue for Boku from Amazon will be based on the percentage of Prime Video transaction value that it processes.
At the same time, Boku has issued Amazon warrant to subscribe for up to 11.2 million shares in the company, representing up to 3.75% of Boku’s existing share capital. Some 747,676 shares were vested on the warrant issue, and the balance vests are based on Amazon achieving certain revenue targets over the next seven years.
The warrants are exercisable at 81.2 pence, the 30-trading day volume weighted average price of Boku’s shares immediately prior to issuing the warrants, and are exercisable for 10 years from issue.
Write to Joe Hoppe at joseph.hoppe@wsj.com
The Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID) has published its latest State of Cape Town Central City report, highlighting strong investment growth into new and future developments in the Mother City.
A total of 13 property developments or redevelopments valued at more than R2.5 billion were completed in the Cape Town CBD during 2021, despite rolling lockdown restrictions prompted by the pandemic, it said.
The 13 projects are part of a total of 28 property investments that came on stream in Cape Town Central City in 2021 – either completed, under construction or in the planning phase – valued collectively and conservatively at R5.717 billion.
The value of developments under construction in 2021 is R1.732 billion, while those in the planning phase are conservatively estimated to be worth more than R1.5 billion.
These are some of the key findings of the latest State of Cape Town Central City Report – A Year in Review (SCCR), published by the CCID.
Data in the annual report – which is a sought-after investment tool that is indispensable to investors, developers and retailers seeking to invest in the most successful and dynamic city centre in South Africa –shows sustained confidence in the development and business investment potential of the Central City, said CCID board chairman and CEO of Boxwood Property Fund, Rob Kane.
“With the overall value of all Cape Town Central City property set at R43.8 billion according to the City of Cape Town’s 2018/2019 property evaluation, it is clear that the Cape Town CBD remains one of the country’s top property investment destinations,” said Kane.
New developments and redevelopments completed in 2021 include five hotels/aparthotels – The Rockefeller, Hotel Sky, BlackBrick Cape Town, The Capital 15 on Orange and Old Bank Hotel – valued at more than R1 billion, all of which opened last year.
Also completed were three residential developments worth more than R895 million, including the residential complex 16 on Bree (R860 million), and three mixed-use developments worth more than R523 million, including Foreshore Place (R373 million).
“The myriad residential and mixed-use properties coming onto the CBD property market indicate that agile developers – many of whom reconfigured commercial space to accommodate a changing inner-city property climate – are confident that there is a market for buyers,” said Kane.
According to the report, the stand-out property trend in 2021 continued to be the conversion of office blocks into mixed-use developments to provide both commercial and residential space and offer buyers flexible living options as well as optimising on the co-living, co-working trend.
Two key mixed-use developments in 2021 that were under construction were The Rubik (R500 million) and One Thibault (R500 million).
Connected living, a trend that emerged in 2020, was still prevalent in 2021, with Neighbourgood, a neighbourhood-centric property development company setting the trend.
Neighbourgood is responsible for two Central City developments, namely the conversion of the old Townhouse Hotel into Neighbourgood East City (R80 million) – offering fully furnished units with flexible letting options, convenience and exceptional amenities – and Neighbourgood Reserve (R75 million), which has studio units, office space and a conference venue.
All units are for rent only, with “members” able to access communal spaces and attend events at other Neighbourgood properties in greater Cape Town.
According to the report, residential property rebounded in the CBD last year, with the number of residential buildings increasing from 69 in 2020 to 77 in 2021. The median price of apartments increased by 32.8%, from R1.28 million in 2020 to R1.7 million in 2021.
Harbour Arch, the R16 billion Amdec Group development in the Cape Town CBD falls just outside the CCID’s geographical footprint and is therefore excluded from the total value of new property investment in the inner city during 2021. All data contained in the SCCR 2021 pertains to property and business in the CCID’s 1.6 square kilometre footprint.
Cape Town approves R14 billion Foreshore development – despite objections
The 34-storey high-rise, ‘Foreshore Place’ – commonly thought of as ‘The Absa Building’ due to its signage – is coming to market and will be sold as a mixed-use building in the city’s new financial district, according to Galetti Corporate Real Estate.
The building is located in the Foreshore – Cape Town’s financial district with the offices of Standard Bank, FNB, Luno and many other well-known companies all within walking distance.
“People are placing increased value on lifestyle and convenience by opting for mixed-use developments that combine retail, residential and commercial all under one roof,” said Justine Adriaanzen, commercial real estate broker at Galetti Corporate Real Estate.
Foreshore Place offers 13 floors of dedicated office space, 11 floors of residential apartments, a retail floor, five floors of parking and an on-site multi-floor hotel that will be operated by an international hospitality brand.
“The design and mixture of offerings within Foreshore Place are very much driven by what millennial and Gen-Z workers consider to be important when choosing where to call home,” said Adriaanzen.
“With the influx of people moving to Cape Town from other parts of the country and space in the city at a premium, we knew that we had to be clever and creative about what we would offer to distinguish ourselves.”
Hence the provision of five floors of parking in a city where safe off-street parking is a luxury. Other priorities for convenience-driven tenants include air-conditioning, on-site laundry facilities, on-site stores, coffee shops and eateries, proximity to public transport as well as 24-hour access control and security.
Foreshore Place’s 10 residential floors comprise studios as well as one- and two-bedroom apartments, ranging in price from R1.1 million to R4.2 million.
Investment key to avoiding urban decay
Foreshore Place will form part of the Foreshore Precinct, a node designed to attract new investment and win residents and office workers back to the CBD. The Precinct will be the home of the new Cape Station Project: a 3,085-bed student accommodation development featuring a world-class public square.
“Cape Town is currently faced with a student accommodation shortage, and this new development will bring much-needed housing to these students, as well as foot traffic to retail stores in the area,” said Adriaanzen.
Interesting to note is that both Foreshore Place and The Station Project fall under the Urban Development Zone (UDZ). “This means that if you buy, say, five apartments in a UDZ zone, you can claim back 55% of the purchase price over 20 years,” she said.
Student Accommodation
South African Student Accommodation Impact Investments, an investment platform managed by Eris Property Group, recently raised R400 million to increase committed capital to over R1.2 billion.
The platform, South African Student Accommodation Impact Investments (SASAII), is now able to initiate new projects that, once developed, will provide beds for more than 12,000 students in tertiary institutions across the country.
Completed in November 2019, the platform’s first investment units on Park in Hatfield, Pretoria was a 988-bed student accommodation property developed and managed by Eris Property Group.
The new projects under construction are Units on Jorissen in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, which is targeting Wits University with 1,071 beds, and Units on Cape Station in Cape Town CBD, which is targeting the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and surrounding academic institutions with 3,085 beds.
Both projects are set to open in the 2024 academic year.
DETROIT – Walking into the North American International Auto Show for the first time since January 2019, you can’t help but notice that the auto industry has come a long way since the last auto show in Detroit. Specifically on the development of electric vehicles.
After getting a look at some of the electric vehicles on the auto show floor, I came across a display area called Autel. It looked clean and futuristic. Perhaps a glimpse of what’s to come in the coming decades. I stopped to talk to some of the experts on the floor to learn more about what Autel is.
Autel stands for automotive intelligence. The company has been making automotive diagnostic tools for the past 18 years.
On display, they had home chargers and commercial ones. The home chargers were much smaller and take longer to charge your car. About 6 hours overnight can get you a full charge and they start out at around $500. These would likely be placed in your garage.
The commercial ones are being marketed to places like grocery stores, gas stations, car dealerships and apartment complexes. On display, they had a small prototype of what parking lots could look like at these facilities.
The commercial chargers start at around $30,000 and will get you around 60 kilowatts. But commercial places will likely want to purchase ones that have around 240 kilowatts, which can fully charge an electric vehicle in about 30 mins. This way people can park their cars, plug in, grab a few groceries or snacks and then be on their way with a full charge. Those cost about $67,000.
If you’re headed to the Detroit Auto Show, I recommend checking out the Autel display. A pretty cool glimpse of what our future could look like!
Copyright 2022 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Sep 19, 2022–
O2 Investment Partners ( www.o2investment.com ) is pleased to announce that through BerlinRosen, it has made an investment in and partnered with Derris ( www.derris.com ) and its founder and CEO, Jesse Derris, to grow its brand consultancy and communications practice areas that expand upon BerlinRosen’s current service offering. Terms of the investment were not disclosed. O2 made a significant investment in BerlinRosen in January 2022.
Founded by CEO Jesse Derris and Partner Lisa Frank in 2013, Derris is a leading brand consultancy and communications firm known for playing a strategic role in launching and marketing some of the biggest brands in fashion, lifestyle, and other direct-to-consumer sectors over the past decade, including Warby Parker, Everlane, and Glossier. Based in New York, with an additional office in London, UK, Derris employs over 75 individuals who possess a deep understanding of how to position high-growth consumer brands externally as well as maintain positive, proactive internal communications. Jesse [Derris] and Lisa Frank will continue to lead the firm under the Derris brand name while immediately benefitting from the expanded resources and talent of the BerlinRosen network.
“Valerie Berlin and Jonathan Rosen are building the integrated marketing firm of the future, and a place we’re thrilled to call home. More than that, they are wonderful humans and have a best-in-class team and culture,” said Jesse Derris. “We couldn’t be more excited to join forces and add our knowhow and team to what they’re building.”
Jonathan Rosen, Co-Founder and Co-Principal at BerlinRosen commented, “Look at Derris’s track record; from Warby Parker, Everlane, Glossier to Reformation, it’s like a greatest hits track of the fastest-growing, most impactful brands. The common thread between all of them is Derris helping shape their narrative, message, voice, and story from day one.”
Sean Darin at O2 commented, “Derris has demonstrated phenomenal success building brands in a marketplace that now more than ever requires consumer-facing businesses to uniquely differentiate themselves. We are thrilled to bring on Jesse, Lisa, and the rest of the Derris team onto the BerlinRosen platform and are excited for the growth we will achieve in partnership.”
About Derris
Derris is a brand consultancy firm helping clients develop and launch fast-growing, disruptive companies. Their services include brand positioning, strategic communications, content and creative, experiential, influencer marketing, internal and crisis communications. Derris currently employs 65 employees in their New York office and 10 employees in their London office. Additional information is available at www.derris.com.
About BerlinRosen
BerlinRosen is a fast-growing, full-service communications firm with more than 300 communications and campaign strategists in New York, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. Since its founding in 2005, BerlinRosen has powerfully expanded its presence in corporate, social impact / ESG, nonprofit, entertainment, media, racial justice, healthcare, real estate, technology, issue advocacy and workers’ rights communications. They have received many important accolades including Large Agency of the Year (PRNews), finalist Large Agency of the Year (PRWeek), finalist for Digital Agency of the Year (PRNews), Agency Elite (PRNet), Gold in Consumer Marketing (HSMAI) and Best Integrated Campaign (PRSA). Additional information is available at www.berlinrosen.com.
About O2 Investment Partners
O2 Investment Partners is a Midwestern based private equity firm that seeks to acquire majority interests in lower middle market B2B services, technology, and select industrial companies. The firm invests in businesses with earnings growth potential and a clear path to the creation of shareholder value. O2 invests with a view toward partnering with management to build and grow the business and take it to its next stage of development. This requires not only a clear vision and strategic plan to create shareholder value, but a close partnership and alignment of interest with management. Additional information is available at www.o2investment.com.
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CONTACT: O2 Investment Partners
Sean Darin
KEYWORD: NEW YORK UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA
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SOURCE: O2 Investment Partners
Copyright Business Wire 2022.
PUB: 09/19/2022 06:00 AM/DISC: 09/19/2022 06:02 AM
- EU regulation requires drivers in trucks, vans, buses and cars to have legal speed limit always displayed.
- Six commercial brands, 15 vehicle OEMs have selected HERE speed limit data to support EU’s Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) requirement.
- Technology fuses mapping and on-board sensor data for the highest quality output.
/EIN News/ — September 19, 2022
Hannover, Germany – At this year’s IAA Transportation Conference, HERE Technologies, the world’s leading location data and technology platform, is proud to announce the company’s work with commercial vehicle makers on the implementation of Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) technology to help increase road safety and reduce speeding under the European Union’s (EU) new regulation.
An onboard ISA feature indicates the road’s legal speed limit to drivers in direct line of sight. The information is shown on the vehicle’s dashboard cluster, navigation system or through an after-market device.
Since July 2022, it is mandatory to have an ISA feature onboard all new model cars, vans, trucks and buses sold in the EU market. All newly registered vehicles in the EU will be required to have an ISA feature starting July 2024.
HERE leads the mapping industry in supplying high-quality speed limit data required for ISA
HERE is working alongside its solution partners to support commercial and passenger vehicle makers’ ISA compliance by delivering high-quality speed limit information that covers all EU roads.
The HERE ISA Map has been adopted by 15 global automakers, representing more than 30 brands, among them are European and global commercial truck industry leaders.
“ISA features have historically been found in premium passenger vehicle systems, and within too few commercial applications,” said Giovanni Lanfranchi, Chief Product and Technology Officer at HERE. “We’re proud to deliver and validate this critical dataset as European nations focus on immediate steps to improve road safety, while paving the way for future deployments of ADAS and automated vehicle technologies.”
Capturing and validating speed limit changes
Truck and car manufacturers must pass an ISA vehicle test prior to sale, with a 90% accuracy in speed limit data over a 400km driving distance. The requirement is a minimum of three different explicit signs and three implicit, unposted signs.
European roads have the challenge of non-explicit speed limits and a patchwork of local speed limits, rules and regulations across countries. More than 60% of speed limits are implicit in Europe, with limits based on local road rules but not displayed on signage.
ISA content from HERE manages the non-posted speed limit challenge by delivering speed limit information based on a combination of data sources. Reliance on vehicle camera data alone, for example, is prone to quality challenges without a base map and validated mapping system.
The HERE ISA Map contains:
- Explicit speed limits visible on road signs, and implicit speed limits derived from road signs without numerical values.
- Speed limits that are defined by road rules and regulations, including national or regional speed limits and conditional rules which may not be sign-posted and therefore not detectable by onboard cameras.
- Required road topology with selected attributes to minimize the data footprint for smaller vehicle segments while still enabling electronic horizon providers to power an ISA feature.
For more information on how HERE powers ADAS and ISA features, click here.
Media Contacts
Dr. Sebastian Kurme
+49 173 515 3549
sebastian.kurme@here.com
Jordan Stark
+1 312 316 4537
Jordan.stark@here.com
About HERE Technologies
HERE, the leading location data and technology platform, moves people, businesses and cities forward by harnessing the power of location. By leveraging our open platform, we empower our customers to achieve better outcomes – from helping a city manage its infrastructure or a business optimize its assets to guiding drivers to their destination safely. To learn more about HERE, please visit here.com and 360.here.com.
HERE ISA
HERE Intelligent Speed Assistance Map for Commercial Vehicles
