Monday, January 12, 2015

1.12.15

Entertainment:
·         Alibaba announced today that it will produce its first movie project through Alibaba Pictures Group, previously called ChinaVision Media Group before Alibaba acquired a controlling stake last year
·         Please see below for articles on how Amazon and Netflix succeeded at the Golden Globes
·         Please see below for articles that overview the Golden Globes
·         Middleweight Boxing Champion Andre Ward is the latest high-profile athlete to sign with Jay Z's Roc Nation Sports
·         Netflix has released the trailer for season 3 of House of Cards, following up on Kevin Spacey's Golden Globes win for Best Actor in a TV Drama last night
·         Stephen Colbert will take over the Late Show on September 8th, replacing David Letterman after more than two decades as host
o   8-2015
·         Only days after swooping for the video assets of blinkbox, UK ISP TalkTalk has begun offering the Netflix subscription (SVOD) service
Tech:
·         Spotify, the music streaming service that is tipped to be soon in line for an IPO, has today announced that it now has 15 million paying users, and 60 million subscribers overall
·         TechCrunch has received a private document from 2013 which reveals Palantir’s extensive trove of data analysis tools and lists many of its key clients
·         According to Re/code’s, prices on the new e-commerce site Jet will typically be ~5% less than on other online stores, including Amazon
·         Imint wants to do real-time video stabilization for Android phones with the launch of Vidhance Mobile
·         Disney has built a robot to etch massive pictures onto the beach
·         X.ai is a virtual assistant that can schedule meetings using calendar/email intelligence
·         Lumoid allows customers to try out fitness trackers in a similar business manner as Warby Parker
·         Twitter is working with Nielsen to indicate TV data activity
Deals:
·         Zomato, the restaurant discovery site backed by Sequoia, has bought Urbanspoon from IAC
·         Citrix purchased Sanbolic, a company that provides virtual storage optimization services
·         Capital One has acquired San Francisco-based money management app, Level Money
·         Crossboard Mobile, an ad-tech company with a focus on helping businesses find sales leads, has beed acquired by two different companies
Business:
·         IBM set a patent record in 2014 with 7,534
·         SpaceX has successfully docked its Dragon spacecraft with the International Space Station again this morning
·         Alibaba and its financial services affiliate, which runs Alipay, are said to have agreed to jointly invest about $575MM in India’s One97 Communications online payment and marketplace businesses
·         Money raised by venture capital firms hit almost $33B in 2014, a 62% increase over 2013 and the highest total since 2007
·         Saudi Prince Alwaleed says oil will never hit $100 again
Exec Moves:
·         Marissa Mayer (Yahoo!) and Dick Costolo (Twitter) will remain as CEOs of their companies through 2015
·         Harold van Lier has departed his post as president of Entertainment One Films International after a year in the role as the company consolidates its international sales operations within its film production arm
Retail:
Startups:
·         Crowdynews, a social media curation platform aimed at media companies that want to integrate social feeds into their output, has raised €2.5MM in funding in a Series A
·         MongoDB, the company known for its next-generation open source database technology, has closed on nearly $80MM in new funding
Government:
·         The Irish government said Goldman Sachs would provide advice on how to make sure the bank is appropriately capitalized to maximize the potential return for taxpayers
·         The European Central Bank is planning to design a sovereign debt purchase program based on the paid-in capital contributions made by euro zone central banks
·         France dispatched thousands of police and military personnel to protect synagogues and Jewish schools, as the government warned of continued terror threats after three days of deadly violence
Other:


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