8.25.14

Entertainment:

·         Amazon Studios ordered five kids pilots, three animation and two live action

o   http://deadline.com/2014/08/amazon-studios-orders-five-kids-pilots-824176/

·         Aaron Paul started a production company ‘Lucid Road Productions’ and signed a first look deal with Sony Pictures TV

o   http://deadline.com/2014/08/aaron-paul-starts-production-company-inks-first-look-deal-sony-tv-823535/

·         Please see below for the list of winners at the VMAs

o   http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/vma-2014-complete-winners-list-727323

·         ‘Paper Planes’ wins at the CinefestOZ festival held in WA

o   http://variety.com/2014/film/news/paper-planes-wins-australias-richest-film-prize-at-cinefestoz-1201288930/

·         ‘Sin City: A Dame to Kill For’ opened to a grim $6.4MM over the weekend

o   http://www.thewrap.com/sin-city-dame-to-kill-for-takes-bullet-to-gut-at-box-office/

Tech:

·         DraftKings raises $41MM, led by Raine Group, and acquires StarStreet to capture a larger portion of the daily fantasy sports market

o   http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/25/draftkings-41m-starstreet/

·         Niche founders discuss how they believe social media offers exciting opportunities to implement fun and creative ads

o   http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/24/niche-aol-build/

·         Twitter is aiming to launch Stripe, an ‘in-tweet’ commerce project to purchase items through tweets

o   http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/23/buying-stuff-within-a-tweet-is-reportedly-coming-to-twitter-via-stripe/

·         Amazon is gearing up to launch its own ad network to retailers

o   http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/23/amazon-will-use-shopping-data-to-target-ads-better-than-googles-adwords/

Deals:           

·         Google acquired Gecko Design, which did the mechanical design of the FitBit, to help with its Google X special projects lab

o   http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/22/google-acquires-gecko-design/

·         Please see below on the reasoning behind Alibaba’s $120MM investment in Kabam last month

o   http://recode.net/2014/08/25/why-alibaba-is-betting-120-million-on-kabam-qa/

Business:

·         TiVo releases TiVo Roamio OTA DVR, a $49.99 over the air DVR

o   http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/25/tivo-roamio-ota/

·         A SpaceX Rocket exploded after launch in Texas on Friday the 22^nd

o   http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/22/spacex-rocket-explodes-after-launch/

·         Burger King is in talks to buy Tim Hortons and move to Canada (to save on taxes), and Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square made nearly a $160MM since the stock rose 16%

o   http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/08/24/burger-king-in-talks-to-buy-tim-hortons/?_php=true&_type=blogs&module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Mergers%20&%20Acquisitions&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body&_r=0

o   http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-25/ackman-s-pershing-square-makes-171-million-on-burger-king-wager.html

Exec Moves:

·         Dan Shear is now VP of Comedy at Universal TV

o   http://deadline.com/2014/08/dan-shear-joins-universal-tv-as-vp-comedy-822128/

·         Brad Mendelsohn is now Head of the Lit Department at Circle of Confusion

o   http://deadline.com/2014/08/circle-of-confusions-brad-mendelsohn-to-head-lit-department-822754/

Retail:

Startups:

·         Appcelerator raised $22MM in its Series D

o http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/appcelerator

Government:

Other:

·         Lord Richard Attenborough has passed away at age 90

o   http://deadline.com/2014/08/richard-attenborough-dead-at-90-823995/