Sometimes, in venture capital, it pays to specialize. The latest indicator is a Kansas City, Mo.-based venture firm that’s focused on seed-stage startups that are based anywhere from “Park City to Kansas City.” According to an SEC filing, it just closed on $16.4 million in capital commitments. It’s the third fund for the outfit, Royal Street Ventures , which was founded several years ago by two Kansas City natives — Laura Brady and Jeffrey Stowell.

It’s an interesting piece of geography to be so focused on, partly because, well, it leaves out a lot of opportunities elsewhere.

At the same time, the firm is hardly the first to plant a flag in an underserved area, then get to work. It’s hard to remember now, but when Foundry Group opened its doors in 2007 in Boulder, Colorado, it didn’t have many, if any, competitors kicking the tires of local startups — or bidding up valuations. Similarly, former Sequoia Capital investors Mark Kvamme and Chris Olsen hightailed it to Columbus, Ohio, in 2013 based on a hunch that there were plenty of savvy founders in the Midwest who investors on both coasts were missing.

Certainly, Brady and Stowell, who previously worked for a bank and the innovation center out of which Royal Street sprang, aren’t having trouble putting money to work. They’ve written checks to at least 40 Midwestern and Western U.S. startups since the firm’s launch in 2016, including an organic snack company in Park City called Allgood Provisions ; a Kansas City company called BacklotCars that’s building marketplace for the wholesale automotive industry; and a weather data company in Overland Park, Ks., called Main Street Data .

They’re also making the occasional investment in a startup off the beaten path. Blueboard , for example, an employee recognition and incentives program, is based in San Francisco.

Either way, the team’s new fund underscores a growing tendency on the part of limited partners to make bets on parts of the U.S. that are on the rise, thanks partly to soaring costs in places like the Bay Area and New York, as well as competition for talent in such tech hubs — a constant tug-of-war can hobble a startup before it gains meaningful momentum.

Among the highest-profile advocates for the trend, of course, is AOL founder Steve Case, who has been banging the drum about startups in underserved areas all over the U.S. in recent years. Case has also been helping to raise investing capital for them through seed funds dubbed Rise of the Rest, the second of which was announced back in October .

Odds are Samsung didn’t plan to leak news about its upcoming handsets the weekend before CES. But honestly, who knows at this point? A little early publicity never hurt. This one comes courtesy of a teaser video that got teased a little earlier than planned by way of the company’s official Vimeo channel. The leak was spotted by this individual on Twitter and posted to XDA Developers.

The video appears to be a promo for Unpacked, where Samsung is set to unveil its latest flagship, be it the Galaxy S11 or the Galaxy S20, depending which early reports you believe. The February 11 date lines up with some rumors (not to mention the synergy of 11), though others have had the company announcing the devices exactly a week later.

If past years are any indication, the event is likely set for San Francisco, keeping with the relatively recent trend of getting out in front of the Mobile World Congress news deluge by a couple of weeks.

The video animation also appears to point to a pair of devices. There’s a standard rectangle, likely representing the flagship device and a squarer foldable successor to last year’s troubled Galaxy Fold. Here are a bunch of rumors about the former. As for the latter, early speculation has pointed to a cheaper device, with a classic phone clamshell folding mechanism, akin to the recently announced Motorola Razr .

Notably, Samsung also recently announced a pair of “Lite” versions of its its flagship S10 and Note 10 devices.

It’s no secret that I hate predictions — not least because the security field changes rapidly, making it difficult to know what’s next. But given what we know about the past year, we can make some best-guesses at what’s to come.

Ransomware will get worse, and local governments will feel the heat

File-encrypting malware that demands money for the decryption key, known as ransomware, has plagued local and state governments in the past year. There have been a near-constant stream of attacks in the past year — Pensacola, Florida and Jackson County, Georgia to name a few. Governments and local authorities are particularly vulnerable as they’re often underfunded, unresourced and unable to protect their systems from many major threats. Worse, many are without cybersecurity insurance, which often doesn’t pay out anyway.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said ransomware is designed to “inflict fear and uncertainty, disrupt vital services, and sow distrust in public institutions.”

“While often viewed as basic digital extortion, ransomware has had materially adverse impacts on markets, social services like education, water, and power, and on healthcare delivery, as we have seen in a number of states and municipalities across the United States,” he said earlier this year.

As these kinds of cyberattacks increase and victims feel compelled to pay to get their files back, expect hackers to continue to carry on attacking smaller, less prepared targets.

California’s privacy law will take effect — but its repercussions won’t be immediately known

On January 1, California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) began protecting the state’s 40 million residents. The law, which has similarities to Europe’s GDPR , aims to put much of a consumer’s data back in their control. The law gives consumers a right to know what information companies have on them, a right to have that information deleted and the right to opt-out of the sale of that information.

But many companies are worried — so much so that they’re lobbying for a weaker but overarching federal law to supersede California’s new privacy law. The CCPA’s enforcement provisions will kick in some six months later , starting in July. Many companies are not prepared and it’s unclear exactly what impact the CCPA will have.

One thing is clear: expect penalties. Under GDPR, companies can be fined up to 4% of their global annual revenue. California’s law works on a sliding scale of fines, but the law also allows class action suits that could range into the high millions against infringing companies.

More data exposures to be expected as human error takes control

If you’ve read any of my stories over the past year , you’ll know that data exposures are as bad, if not worse than data breaches. Exposures, where people or companies inadvertently leave unsecured information online rather than an external breach by a hacker, are often caused by human error.

The problem became so bad that Amazon has tried to stem the flow of leaks by providing tools that detect inadvertently public data. Those tools will only go so far. Education and awareness can go far further. Expect more data exposures over the next year, as companies — and staff — continue to make mistakes with their users’ data.

Voter databases and election websites are the next target