Wednesday, November 5, 2014

11.5.14

Entertainment:      
·         Shutterstock has launched Sequence, a video editor designed for Chrome
·         Sam Mendes' London-based Neal Street Productions has been put up for sale for $63.8MM
·         Dallas Sonnier and Jack Heller's Caliber Media has phased out the majority of its management business and closed its Wilshire Boulevard office to focus on production
·         Private-equity group Bison Capital Partners IV bought a minority stake in Ease Entertainment Services, a LA-based production software and payroll-services company
·         Quentin Tarantino is ‘forcing’ potential foreign rights buyers to a script reading of “Hateful Eight”
·         Peter Chernin is nearing to re-sign with Fox in a production deal
·         Digital Film Cloud Network is launching an online marketplace aimed at simplifying the trading of global film rights
·         DreamWorks Animation's All Hail King Julien, a Madagascar spin-off focused on the lemur from the popular kids' film, is poised to become a Netflix original TV series
Tech:
·         Google is working on a pill that will help detect cancer
·         Michael Crumling has developed a bullet designed specifically to be fired from 3-D printed guns
·         Jawbone has revealed its new multi-sensor wearable health tracker, the Up3, but its roll out is being overshadowed by the Apple Watch
·         Two of the creators of FarmVille are launching a new app marketing product called Toro, which helps developers market their apps on Facebook
·         Amazon has launched same-day delivery in Toronto and Vancouver
·         Viddy, once touted as ‘The Instagram for Video”, will shut down on December 15th – the app was acquired by Fullscreen for $20MM earlier this year
·         LG and Google have struck a 10-year global patent agreement
·         Ex-Beats Music CEO has launched “Chosen”, an app that is similar to ‘American Idol’
Deals:
·         Ingo Money, a leading mobile payments technology provider, announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Fuze Network, a leading card disbursement platform
Business:
·         Content marketing is considered a massive a waste of time to a marketing technologist
·         Mobile Internet exits explode 700% to $94B
·         Pimco said investors withdrew $27.5B from its flagship Total Return fund in October, shrinking the size of the world’s largest bond fund to $171B
·         A new funding round could give Xiaomi a valuation of as much as $50B, but the Chinese company lacks the market dominance and innovation that would justify such a price
·         Alibaba reported a jump in profit in its first earnings announcement since its IPO giving it a market value of more than $250B
·         Buyout firms, facing scrutiny from regulators on fees and expenses, are trying to keep details of those matters and many others from becoming public through freedom-of-information-law requests being made by journalists, unions, private citizens and others
·         Time Warner beat Q3 earnings estimates
·         Activision Blizzard turned in third-quarter earnings ahead of Wall Street’s expectations today, with non-GAAP earnings per share of 23 cents and revenue at $1.17B
Exec Moves:
·         Former Fox Chairman Kevin Reilly has closed a deal to join Turner Broadcasting as President of TNT and TBS and Chief Creative Officer for Turner Entertainment
·         Chris Tsakalakis, the President of StubHub, has stepped down
Retail:
Startups:
·         Customer loyalty program startup Thanx launched today with both Visa and MasterCard partnerships and $4.7MM in Series A funding from Sequoia Capital
·         Agorize, a company that relies on open innovation and community crowdsourcing to let companies gather a lot of data on new ideas and ventures, raised $2.6MM
·         El Segundo-based Aggregage, which develops software driven B2B websites and newsletters which aggregate blog and news postings for specific industries, has raised $1MM in a convertible note
·         PPzuche.com, a Beijing-based P2P (peer to peer) car sharing platform, has raised $60MM in its Series B
Government:
·         Please see below for ‘the winners and losers’ in politics this morning
·         Republicans took control of the Senate and expanded their hold on the House in a rebuke of President Obama that will reshape the political landscape for his final two years in office
·         Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, has earned early national exposure and donor appeal having raised a record $102MM for races as chairman of the Republican Governors Association
·         Voters in Oregon, Alaska, and Washington, D.C. approved ballot measures that allow the use of marijuana by adults
·         Please see below for the best visualizations of the Mid-Term Elections
Other:


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