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Kabam Acquires Exploding Barrel Games, Build Outs Presence In Vancouver
Jan 15, 1:00PM
Kabam, a midcore mobile and social developer that ended last year with about $160 million in revenue, just bought Exploding Barrel Games and is expanding its presence out in the Vancouver area. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. It follows on a series of other acquisitions including Fearless Studios, Gravity Bear, Wild Shadow Studios and Balanced Worlds — all of which have happened since the beginning of last year. Exploding Barrel Games has already collaborated on one unreleased title with Kabam and will add more than 30 designers, artists and programmers to the company. That will bring Kabam’s total headcount to around 600 people. Exploding Barrel Games, which produced MargaritaVille for THQ, includes developers that have worked on Need For Speed, Skate, FIFA and SSX. Kabam successfully pivoted from the Facebook platform to iOS and Android over the past year with its hit franchise Kingdoms of Camelot. Its mobile game, Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North was first on Apple’s highest grossing apps list for 2012. That helped its revenue shift from being 100 percent dependent on Facebook to seeing more than 70 percent of its revenue come from mobile platforms and the web. Kingdoms of Camelot crossed $100 million in cumulative revenue across all platforms last year. It also signed key licensing deals with Warner Bros. for the Lord of the Rings trilogy that eventually led to a strategic investment from the entertainment company. Yet at the same time, the company has raised more than $125 million in venture capital, which put a lot of pressure on expectations for an eventual exit. In the past, the company has talked about a potential initial public offering, but the disastrous performance of Zynga over the past year could put a damper on plans and substantially limit Kabam’s exit options.15Five Wants Employees To Have A Voice, Raises $1M From Yammer's David Sacks, 500 Startups, Ben Parr And More To Give It
Jan 15, 12:48PM
15Five, a startup that offers a cloud-based platform for employees to provide weekly feedback about their progress -- and for CEOs and other managers to be able to read all of it quickly, is today announcing that it has raised its first VC money, a seed round of $1 million from a list of investors including Richmond Global, 500 Startups, Yammer Founder David Sacks, USTREAM founder John Ham, Jason Calacanis, ex-Mashable editor Ben Parr's Dominate Fund, Sincerely CEO Matt Brezina, and Ben Ling.Apple's Warranty Practices Under Fire In Europe Again As Belgian Watchdog Agency Files Complaint
Jan 15, 12:38PM
Apple's warranty plans have drawn the ire of a Belgian consumer watchdog agency, Test-Aankoop/Test-Achats. The group has filed a complaint against the company over how AppleCare is sold and marketed to customers, who in the EU by default are entitled to a free two-year warranty with any consumer electronics purchase. The complaint says Apple markets its warranties in a manner which doesn't properly explain consumer rights to Belgian gadget shoppers.SevOne To Go For IPO, Raises $150 Million From Bain Capital To Expand P2P IT Monitoring
Jan 15, 12:30PM
SevOne, an IT management company that uses peer-to-peer (P2P) technology to manage all elements of a customer's IT infrastructure, has raised $150 million from Bain Capital to pursue mid-market enterprises and scale the company with an initial public offering.YouSendIt Acquires Found To Enable Integrated File Search Across Apps, Devices, Cloud Storage Platforms And More
Jan 15, 12:30PM
Cloud collaboration company YouSendIt has acquired Found Software, a startup that allows users to search for, find and discover their files, documents, and data across devices and cloud services. The acquisition price was not disclosed but we hear it was a cash and stock deal.TechStars Graduate DigitalOcean Switches To SSD For Its $5 Per Month VPS To Take On Linode And Rackspace
Jan 15, 11:44AM
DigitalOcean is a cloud hosting solution for small developers, looking for a cheap virtual private server to experiment, host web applications with low memory needs and run some cron jobs. While Linode and Rackspace provides cheap servers starting at $20 a month, DigitalOcean has two key advantages — it starts at $5 a month for a comparable offering, and it now uses SSD.How California's Online Education Pilot Will End College As We Know It
Jan 15, 11:30AM
Today, the largest university system in the world, the California State University system, announced a pilot for $150 lower-division online courses at one its campuses--a move that spells the end of higher education as we know it. Lower division courses are the financial backbone of many part-time faculty and departments (especially the humanities). As someone who has taught large courses at a University of California, I can assure readers that my job could have easily been automated. Most of college--the expansive campuses and large lecture halls--will crumble into ghost towns as budget-strapped schools hurd students online.Paymill, The Samwer Stripe Clone, Strikes Global Deal With PAY.ON To Expand Payment Options
Jan 15, 11:10AM
Paymill, the cloud-based payment provider backed by the Samwer Brothers' Rocket Internet startup incubator, is taking one more step to build out its Stripe-like service: it has signed a deal with PAY.ON, an international payment services aggregator that works with services like Amazon Payments to enable e-commerce services. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed in a statement issued by the two companies. The news comes a week after Paymill announced a $13 million investment from Holtzbrinck Ventures and Sunstone.OkCupid Launches Standalone 'Crazy Blind Date' Service For Blind Mini-Dates
Jan 15, 11:00AM
OkCupid has risen to be one of the most popular dating sites on the web, complete with a mobile offering on iOS and Android. But today marks the launch of the first brand new stand-alone product from the company, aimed at setting you up with awesome, one-off blind dates. Everyone in the space is going through a big push to get people together in real life, whether it be little guys likeCoffee Meets Bagel and Cheek'd, or Match.com with its mixers. OkCupid is taking the information it has from its user base of 15 million dating singles, and use the same algorithms in the realm of blind dates.Alibaba CEO Jack Ma To Step Down As CEO On May 10th, Stay On As Chairman Of China's Ecommerce Giant
Jan 15, 10:52AM
Jack Ma, who has been CEO of Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba for the past 14 years (since it was founded in 1999), will step down on May 10 2013 but remain as company chairman -- focusing on Alibaba's strategic vision, talent development to grow the internal leadership team, and corporate social responsibility efforts. Alibaba's new CEO will be announced when Ma steps down.Owned It Wants To Turn The Order Confirmation Page Into A Social Commerce Opportunity
Jan 15, 10:00AM
The humble order confirmation page is a wasted opportunity. Or so says Owned it, a new social commerce platform which aims to help retailers increase referrals and conversions by offering customers incentives for sharing their purchases (and any related offers) via social media, post-checkout. Prior to today, the UK startup has been operating somewhat stealthily, although it claims to be already working with merchants from 18 different countries in the consumer electronics, gadgets, gifts and fashion space.Amiigo Fitness Tracker Bracelet Gets VC Investment, Kicks Off Indiegogo Campaign
Jan 15, 9:15AM
Amiigo, a fitness tracker bracelet, shoe clip plus app that can tell what type of exercise you're doing thanks to its combination of hardware sensors and gesture-based software algorithms, has kicked off its crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. Amiigo had originally planned to start the campaign back in October but delayed the launch to raise a VC funding round and develop the tech further.Non-Profit Innovation: How Minerva Plans To Make Its Affordable, Next-Gen University A Reality
Jan 15, 7:40AM
The Minerva Project burst onto the scene last year with an ambitious goal: To create the next elite American university, online, and, in so doing, help rethink the role of higher education in the Digital Era. Not only that, but the startup wants to establish rigorous, Ivy League-caliber standards, admitting only the best and the brightest, with a faculty to match, while offering tuition that's "substantially less than half" the price of today's elite universities, according to founder Ben Nelson. Given the current landscape, in which states are under pressure to cut spending, tuition costs and student debt are skyrocketing, class sizes are increasing, infrastructure is archaic and outcomes are suffering, it couldn't come at a better time, yes, but it's also an extremely tall order. Furthermore, while the company is full of exciting plans for what it wants to accomplish by the time classes begin in 2015, it hasn't offered much in the way of how it plans to make them a reality. In fact, for all intents and purposes, Minerva has remained largely silent since its debut in April of last year.Baidu-Kingsoft Alliance Rumors Gain Further Credence As Qihoo 360 CEO Fumes
Jan 15, 6:54AM
Reports that Baidu, the Internet giant known as "the Google of China," is planning to become a strategic investor in security software company Kingsoft gained traction today when Kingsoft announced that it is in discussions with "independent third parties relating to a possible disposal," though it gave very little away in the rest of the release.Canadian Internet Provider Rogers Buys Mountain Cablevision, Wireless Spectrum Licenses From Shaw
Jan 15, 5:21AM
Rogers Communications, one of Canada's largest wireless and Internet provider, said it will buy Mountain Cablevision and some wireless spectrum licenses from Shaw Communication for about $710 million USD ($700 million in Canadian dollars), reports Reuters.Moontoast Raises $5M For Premium Social Ads
Jan 15, 5:02AM
Social advertising startup Moontoast just announced that it has raised $5 million in Series B funding. CEO Blair Heavey told me that the company currently works with about 50 clients. It's not an enormous list, but one that includes names like Universal, Lexus, Nike, Ford, Lady Antebellum, Time, and Simon & Schuster. Advertisers use Moontoast to create custom, interactive ads for social media — the ad types listed on the Moontoast site include a "social store", surveys, sweepstakes, and a unit to offer free MP3s in exchange for email addresses.Polycom And AT&T Partner For Video Chat And Collaboration On Multiple Screens
Jan 15, 5:01AM
Video conferencing is fast becoming a popular tool for communications among a growing number of businesses. But few want to invest the money in deploying the hardware necessary to make enterprise-class video conferencing and collaboration. That's why Polycom is teaming up with AT&T to roll out a new managed offering to its business customers.Wi-Fi And Cellular Versions Of The iPad Mini And 4th-Gen iPad Will Hit China This Week
Jan 15, 1:38AM
Apple announced today that the Wi-Fi and cellular versions of the iPad mini and the fourth-generation iPad with Retina display will be available in China this Friday. iPad mini and the fourth-gen iPad are currently available in more than 100 countries, including China, the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the U.K.Y Combinator-Backed InstallMonetizer Is A Selective Ad Network For Desktop Software
Jan 15, 12:34AM
InstallMonetizer is an ad network for desktop software developers, a group that co-founder and CEO Vince Mundy says he once belonged to himself. "We looked really really hard to find legitimate sources of income [from free downloads]," Mundy said. "We found that there were other developers facing the exact same problem, so we created InstallMonetizer."Backed By New Partnerships With Humana, Aetna & Verizon, Blueprint Health Debuts Its Third Class Of Healthcare Disruptors
Jan 15, 12:17AM
If I've said it once, I've said it one bajillion times. If you're going to start a business accelerator, don't clone Y Combinator or TechStars, find a niche. With the glut of new accelerators today, the most successful are building vertical-specific approaches that bring together seed capital with meaningful industry partnerships to create real business (and learning) opportunities for their startups. Lately, digital health has been leading the way in this regard, as Rock Health, Healthbox, New York Digital Health Accelerator, DreamIt Health and Startup Health are all beginning to blossom. One of the veterans (a relative term) of this space is the NYC-based Blueprint Health, an accelerator that got its start in 2011 and launched its first batch in January of last year. Today, the accelerator is announcing its third batch of startups as part of its Winter Program, which kicks off on Monday.If at any time you'd like to stop receiving these messages, just send an email to feeds_feedburner_com_techcrunch+unsubscribe-hmdtechnology=gmail.com@mail.feed2email.net.
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