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Go Launcher Developer Raises $20M From Kingsoft, Qihoo360 Ahead Of IPO
Nov 14, 9:31AM
Go Launcher, an Android app maker out of Beijing that has been around for nearly a decade and has 42 million monthly active users across a portfolio of apps, just picked up $20 million in funding from Chinese antivirus software giant Qihoo360 and Kingosft. Technically, it’s Go Launcher’s parent company Sungy Mobile that picked up funding ahead of an IPO. The company filed go to public about two weeks ago, and plans to sell 7 million American depositary shares at between $9.50 and $11, making for an offering worth between $66.5 million and $77 million. Those depositary shares represent about 42 million ordinary shares in the company and the IPO could value the company at roughly $300 million. Go Launcher is behind several Android apps including GO Launcher Ex, which lets users customize their home screen with more than 10,000 themes and GO Locker, which lets Android users open apps directly from the lock screen. They posted $22.7 million in revenue through the first six months of this year, up 87 percent from the same period the year before. They're profitable with net income of $5.5 million in that period. They earn revenue from selling paid apps and premium themes, extra features, advertising and purchases of literary content. The paid apps and premium themes made up more than 40 percent of the company's revenue in the first half of this year, followed by mobile reading services at 31.8 percent of revenue. While the company is headquartered in China, about 70 percent of its user base is outside of the country.
Fanatix Partners With ESPN To Launch Social Mobile App For Cricket Fans
Nov 14, 9:00AM
Biz dev deals don't always bowl over readers, but in startup land they often point to good execution. Fanatix, the UK startup that offers a mobile-first app for sports fans to chew the fat, has done what looks like a decent bit of business. It's partnered with ESPN to release a new vertical dedicated to cricket.
MapQuest Updates Its iPhone App With Improved Cartography And Routing To Take On Google And Apple Maps
Nov 14, 8:01AM
On the iPhone, Apple Maps and Google Maps app have gotten all the headlines over the last several years, but MapQuest is still hanging in there, despite a lack of real innovation over the years. Today, the company is unveiling a huge update to its mobile app for iOS that provides a beautiful new alternative to the incumbents.
Short Shorts And Long Buses: Amazon Cloud Competitors Look A Bit Foolish At AWS Conference
Nov 14, 5:22AM
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is obviously making it very difficult for competitors in the public cloud market. That could not have been made more clear than how IBM and Rackspace are choosing how to make their presence felt this week at AWS re:Invent. For the past week, IBM has been getting trashed for its anti-Amazon ads that declare their superiority to AWS. The ads are a sad reflection on IBM and play very nicely for Amazon, which is quite happy to point out how the campaign is more about serving the customer than trashing competitors.
Online Real Estate Veteran Redfin Lands $50M From Tiger Global, Investment Giant T. Rowe Price As It Looks To Gain Market Share In The U.S.
Nov 14, 3:20AM
As the real estate market regains some life after an extended dip, people are beginning to get comfortable with the idea of selling their home again and, in turn, getting comfortable with looking around for that special place. To help in an increasingly fast-paced market, technology-powered real estate brokerage, Redfin, has been on a mission to help people not only find the right house, but to help potential sellers get feedback on the price of their home from hundreds of potential buyers. On the heels of launching a series of these “Price Whisperer”-like tools that aim to reduce the cost of the real estate search process for both homebuyers and sellers, Redfin is doing a little price whispering of its own. The company today announced that it has raised $50 million in late-stage growth capital from a handful of investors, beginning with Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price Associates. The new round, which also includes contributions from the company’s existing investors, like Greylock Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Vulcan Capital, Globespan Capital Partners and The Hillman Company, brings the company’s total funding to just under $100 million. In addition, from what we’ve been hearing from sources, the round values its online brokerage and search business in the ballpark of $500 million. Fortune also reported a similar valuation. With the new injection of capital, Redfin becomes yet another addition to the list of companies pursuing growth capital from backers outside the usual confines of the venture capital world. The investment is the second of its kind that T. Rowe Price has made in recent months, following its investment in MongoDB last month, for example. Furthermore, a raise of this size, at this point in Redfin’s growth, seems to give credence to and provide further supporting evidence to recent reports that have pegged Redfin as a potential IPO candidate in 2014. However, while an IPO is very likely in Redfin’s future, this could also buy the company some time. With the help of firms like Tiger Global, which have plenty of experience investing in mature companies in later stages of growth, the round also allows Redfin to extend its runway as a private company and delay an IPO for that much longer if it so chooses. In either case, the new capital allows Redfin to focus on increasing its existing marketshare, increase marketing and spend on boosting consumer awareness, which according to Fortune,
Voxel Brings Its App Virtualization Tools To Android
Nov 14, 1:49AM
After launching the iOS version of its mobile app advertising platform at TechCrunch's Disrupt conference in September, Voxel is announcing that it can now virtualize Android apps as well. The Voxel platform allows developers to run their apps in the cloud, which in turn allows users to interact with apps without installing them. The company is pitching this as a new way for developers to advertise their apps (so a user can play a game before being asked to download it). The technology could eventually be used for other purposes, such as virtualizing enterprise apps to protect sensitive data.
FWD.us Hires CTO To Fight For Immigration Reform With Tech, Not Just Money
Nov 14, 1:36AM
With Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates as founders, you’d think FWD.us would focus on building tech tools to push for immigration reform. Yet it’s mostly used money to buy campaign ads for supportive Congress members and run grassroots campaigns. But now it’s hired Darius Contractor as CTO; he’ll be working with volunteer engineers and running hackathons to code the way to policy change. A Stanford computer science graduate and son of an Indian immigrant, Contractor was the VP of Engineering for Bebo from 2006 to 2009, where he helped grow daily page views from 100 million to 350 million before it sold to AOL for $850 million. Now he’ll be working for FWD.us, a bi-partisan lobbying group funded by Silicon Valley moguls that aims to create a path to citizenship for immigrants and expand the H-1B Visa program. FWD.us President Joe Green tells me he hired Contractor because he “combines technical background with experience organizing projects, and is someone who is well-connected and thought of in the tech community, and who was passionate about the issues.” The CTO’s first project was recruiting an army of mentors to help teams of young immigrant “DREAMers” at a FWD.us hackathon this weekend at LinkedIn’s headquarters. These mentors (some who I know personally) include Dropbox head of design Soleio Cuervo, Generator Lab co-founder Jay Zalowitz, open source guru Conrad Irwin, Quora growth product manager Rob Matei, IronPearl founder and current PayPal growth head Stan Chudnovsky, LivingSocial co-founder Aaron Batalion, and a slew of former and current Facebook product people including Arjun Banker, Itamar Rosen, Roddy Lindsay, and Bobby Goodlatte. The DREAMer hackathon will be hosted by Zuckerberg on November 20 and 21 and see over 20 young immigrants working with the mentors to build tools that teach people about the need for reform, and pressure Congress to make it happen. These could include a way to find friends in states with Congress members who are on the fence about immigration reform, and encourage them to call, write or digitally contact them showing support for the movement. I think a guide to navigating the citizenship process could be a big help for immigrant families. Contractor tells me he also plans to run “hack days” in the evenings from FWD.us’ San Francisco headquarters, so any talented Silicon Valley engineers, designers, or product people can come lend a hand. The CTO’s efforts could help repair FWD.us’ battered image if
Facebook Messenger Fights Chat Competitors By Bringing 'Contact Via Phone Number' To All
Nov 13, 11:22PM
Facebook is continuing its assault on SMS and competitors like WeChat and Line today by expanding its "contact via phone number" feature to Messenger for iOS. The option launched on Android to a select set of testers at the end of October, and is being pushed to all Androiders as well as all iOS users. The update is rolling out now and also brings a cleaner layout, and faster start-up and navigation
What Are The Revenue Targets Snapchat Must Meet To Be Worth $3 Billion?
Nov 13, 11:20PM
Today the Wall Street Journal reported that Snapchat turned down a $3 billion or more all cash acquisition offer from Facebook. The news has taken many by surprise, as Snapchat has no revenue, and is an exceptionally young company. The leaked offer could be a trial balloon of sorts to help Snapchat raise its next round, which was reportedly set to value the firm at $3.5 billion. The external market view of the company was recently that it would have little trouble raising a huge docket of cash at that price.
The Sub-$200 Moto G Smartphone Is Google's Answer To Android's Laggy Low-End
Nov 13, 10:47PM
When Google bought Motorola there were plenty of theories about why it wanted the mobile maker. Patents, being named chief among them. But today's launch of the low cost Moto G smartphone suggests the strategy was -- or has certainly become -- multi-faceted. Google is using Motorola to chide and school its Android OEMs on what it takes to make decent budget handsets.
This Week On The TechCrunch Droidcast: Moto G Madness And CyanogenMod For All
Nov 13, 10:45PM
Do you like Android? Do you like multiple people trying to talk at the same time about what’s new in the Android world? I thought so. This week’s edition of the TechCrunch Droidcast is just a little more raucous than usual since Darrell and I aren’t arguing amongst ourselves — TC family members Natasha Lomas and Greg Kumparak joined us from London and California respectively to dig into ‘Droid. The docket this week is a pretty focused one: we four nerds explore the newly-announced Moto G and what it means for the rest of the companies churning out cheap Android phones, along with CyanogenMod’s first big push into the limelight with its new installer apps. Naturally, there’s very little we can agree on, but I like to think that’s just part of our charm. Enjoy! We invite you to enjoy weekly Android podcasts every Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. Eastern and 2:30 p.m. Pacific, in addition to our weekly Gadgets podcast at 3 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific on Fridays. Subscribe to the TechCrunch Droidcast in iTunes, too, if that's your fancy. Intro music by Kris Keyser. Direct download available here.
The Dual-Screen YotaPhone Will Launch Internationally In December
Nov 13, 10:17PM
Russia-based Yota Devices has been working on a curious beast called the YotaPhone for over a year now, and it's gained quite a reputation for itself because of its split personality. While the front of the phone sports a traditional LCD screen, the back plays home to a power-sipping eInk display because... well, why not? The launch date was one of the last big questions left unanswered, but that's no longer the case: the company has just confirmed to us that the YotaPhone will launch internationally before Christmas.
Twitter Now Lets Advertisers Target Users By Mobile OS Version, Mobile Device & Wi-Fi Connectivity
Nov 13, 10:07PM
Twitter today expanded its ad targeting capabilities by allowing marketers to now more granularly segment audiences on mobile (iOS and Android) by operating system version, device, and Wi-Fi connectivity. Before, the company had only offered the option to identify users by operating system alone, on mobile. The change is an important one, given that 76 percent of Twitter's install base of 230 million worldwide users access the social service using a mobile device.
Microsoft Re-Org Bingo: Rudder To "Advanced Strategy," Shum To MSFT Research From His Role At Bing
Nov 13, 9:51PM
The Microsoft internal moves continue, with news out today that executive vice president Eric Rudder (pictured) is leaving his role atop Microsoft Research to instead focus on a perfectly un-parsable role in "Advanced Strategy." The company is mum on what is next.
Jeff Bezos Believes AWS Could Be Amazon's Biggest Business
Nov 13, 8:58PM
In a press conference today, Amazon Web Services Senior Vice President Andy Jassy said that CEO and Founder Jeff Bezos believes AWS could be the company’s largest business. Amazon reported $61 billion in revenues for the 2012 fiscal year. The company does not report revenues for AWS but it is widely believed to be a $3.5 billion business and growing rapidly. Amazon built its business on e-commerce, and it remains the primary focus for the company. But the demand for cheap computing and storage power continues to scale as app development mushrooms and more people connect through their smartphones and other devices. Bezos has said before that AWS could be as big as its retail business, but saying it could be bigger shows far more confidence in the future of its cloud business. Here’s the full text of what Jassy said at the press conference: Jeff is very excited about the AWS business and he believes - like the rest of the leadership team does – that in the fullness of time- it is very possible that AWS could be the biggest business at Amazon. Gartner Research shows AWS as the far and away leader in the public cloud market, declaring that AWS is five times bigger than the other 14 companies combined that are included in the research. The viewpoint is undoubtedly optimistic but consider the IT market. It’s a trillion-dollar business that is moving to the cloud. If AWS gets a fraction of that business, then Bezos’s statement is an easy one to believe.
Google Challenges Apple's Dominance In Schools With Google Play For Education, Now Shipping
Nov 13, 8:56PM
Google is no longer the best-kept secret in education -- that is, if Google's presence in any market is ever "a secret." Over the last year or so, the search giant has been quietly expanding its footprint in education and is moving quickly to capture a greater share of the K-12 market. 
Founder Stories: The Struggle of Entrepreneurship Is An A/B Test
Nov 13, 8:30PM
It’s cliché to point out that most overnight successes in technology actually take years of work, yet in the case of Optimizely, we have yet another example of such a phenomenon. Earlier this year, Optimizely — on a tear — finally took a large round of venture financing and further solidified its founders’ goal to build a long-term, lasting, sustainable company. While it all may appear rosy now for the company, this was the third company for the Optimizely cofounders since the pair left their jobs at Google a few years ago. For this discussion, I sat down with with Optimizely co-founder Pete Koomen to discuss how he and his cofounder Dan Siroker left Google and started to build companies together (after Siroker’s stint with the Obama campaign in 2008 and thereafter). The duo launched an educational site to teach kids math, but felt disconnected from the target users and weren’t confident the service could grow. Later, they got into Y Combinator and, during that incubation period, dropped their initial idea (Company #2) and pivoted into what would become Optimizely. The rest, as they say, is history — for now. What struck me most about this conversation, as it was unfolding and as I’m watching it again, is that if you listen closely, you can hear the desperation in Koomen’s voice when he talks about tasting failure during the first two companies. You can hear the stress about not having a paycheck for a year. You can hear the ambition of someone who wanted to do something on his own, and was struggling to find that one “thing.” There seem to be some tough lessons in this story. Koomen and Siroker were accomplished technical engineers, held great positions in and out of Google, and had some of the best angels in the Valley behind them — and struggled for a while until they got to a point where they were revenue-positive and could focus on building the type of company they wanted to. Editor's Note: Michael Abbott is a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, previously Twitter's VP of Engineering, and a founder himself. Mike also writes a blog called uncapitalized. You can follow him on Twitter @mabb0tt.
Facebook Launches Open Academy To Give Kids College Credit For Open Source Contributions
Nov 13, 8:29PM
A perfect GPA isn't cool. You know what's cool? Advancing an Open Source project. To help computer science students prepare for jobs (and boost its own recruiting efforts) Facebook today publicly launches Open Academy. The partnership with premier CS universities sets up a special class where students get college credit for contributing to Open Source projects. After a successful pilot at Stanford last year, Open Academy is expanding to 22 universities.
SquareOne For iPhone Organizes Your Email, Gives You Better Control Over Notifications
Nov 13, 7:35PM
Dropbox's acquisition of Mailbox for $100 million has fueled more interest and development of mobile applications aimed at helping users triage their way through overcrowded inboxes. The latest idea in the making is SquareOne, an email app arriving now in beta, which will allow users to designate which emails are important and worth their time. But it does this in a different way than typical "priority inbox" scenarios do today. 
Amazon's New AppStream Service Lets Mobile Developers Stream Their Games And Apps From The Cloud To Any Device
Nov 13, 6:34PM
Amazon today announced a new service for mobile developers at its re:Invent developer conference in Las Vegas today. Amazon AppStream, which uses the company’s recently launched g2 EC2 instances, allows developers to easily stream their applications in high definition from the cloud to any mobile devices. Amazon is specifically marketing this for mobile developers, but there’s no reason desktop apps couldn’t use this service, too. The service is now in limited preview and developers can sign up for access here. This new service, Amazon says, will allow developers to “build high-fidelity, graphically rich applications that run on a wide variety of devices, start instantly, and have access to all of the compute and storage resources of the AWS Cloud.” Using Amazon STX, a new protocol developed by the company’s engineers, developers can now stream anything from the interactive HD video of complex 3D games to just the computationally intensive parts of their apps right from the cloud. Using Amazon’s g2 instances on EC2, developers can now just render all their graphics in the cloud. Apps using AppStream can use all of the device’s sensors, too, and then send this data back to the cloud. This, as Amazon’s VP of Amazon Web Services Andy Jassy noted in his keynote today, means mobile developers now have easy access to resources that wouldn’t otherwise be available on a mobile device. As mobile devices get smaller, he argues, the cloud becomes more important. Many of the most popular apps are already running on top of the cloud (and AWS specifically). This, the company says, means an “application is not constrained by the compute power, storage, or graphical rendering capabilities of the device.”
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