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New European Edtech Accelerator Kicks Off Search For 10 Startups Eager To Disrupt The Classroom
Jan 31, 1:18PM
Another development in the European edtech ecosystem: early stage startups with a plan to disrupt education are being encouraged to apply to join a new incubator that will kick off its first programme this September.Box Said To Have Filed For IPO, Could Go Public As Early As April
Jan 31, 1:13PM
Cloud-based storage company Box is said to have filed an IPO, according to an initial report from Quartz, later followed up by confirmations from The Wall Street Journal and Forbes. It did so quietly, filing the paperwork recently (possibly at the beginning of this week), according to the reports, and also silently, something it shares in common with Twitter, and which is made possible under a provision of the JOBS act for companies that drive less than $1 billion in yearly revenue. Box, which is often compared to similar service Dropbox (which raised $250 million at a $10 billion valuation recently), only just closed funding of $100 million in December, at a valuation of $2 billion. The timing of that funding round seems unusual, given the intent to IPO, but Forbes says that round was actually about lining up international investors and getting a new, stronger business portfolio to show off to Wall Street during the process of going public. Unlike its competitor Dropbox, Box has a strong focus on enterprise storage and file sharing. This should help it produce more consistent quarterly results that a Forbes source tells that publication will reassure and please investors. Originally, Forbes had reported that the IPO could take as long as until summer to become public and get underway, but a second source says the company is actually looking to go public as soon as April, if all goes well. A Box spokesperson had only the following to offer: We don’t have anything to share at this time. We’re focused on continuing to build our business and expand our customer relationships globally.After Little Eye Labs Exit, India's GSF Accelerator Goes Global
Jan 31, 9:52AM
GSF, the Indian startup accelerator behind Little Eye Labs, which was acquired by Facebook earlier this year, is launching a cross-border program with increased seed funding and global exposure for its third cohort starting April this year. The GSF Global Accelerator is partnering with AngelList, a platform that helps startups find funding and employees, to manage the application and selection process for its next batch. GSF’s next batch will have eight startups from India, and the remaining four from across South East Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa. “Little Eye Labs acquisition was the trigger for us to start thinking about a new model where startups could be exposed globally,” said Rajesh Sawhney who started GSF Accelerator in 2012 with support from investors including Dave McClure’s 500 Startups, InMobi founder Naveen Tewary, Blume Ventures and Kae Capital. The next batch starting mid-April will have four stopovers — starting with four weeks in Delhi, Bangalore, followed by two weeks at Singapore’s The Hub, then two weeks on the East Coast, and the final four weeks in the Silicon Valley. All this would also mean more funding for the selected startups. GSF’s next cohorts will get $40,000-$60,000 each in seed funding as part of the new program. Earlier, the startups received $30,000 in funding after getting selected. Out of the company’s two batches of 24 startups so far, nine have gone on to raise additional funding, and two of them have been acquired. Many Indian accelerators started with the idea of modeling on the kind of incubation provided by TechStars and Y Combinator in the U.S. But the Indian startup ecosystem is still nascent in terms of getting the global exposure. As Sharad Sharma, co-founder of iSpirt told me recently, Indian startups really need to get on the radar of newer Silicon Valley companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter who are more acquisitive. This is an area where more investors, accelerators and think-tanks in India are beginning to focus. For its part, GSF took several of its cohorts including Little Eye Labs for a World Expedition last year, which helped exposing them to potential acquirers including Facebook and Twitter. This year, GSF is planning demo days across important tech hubs in the world. “We’ll have four demo days — two in the U.S. and one each in Singapore and India,” said Sawhney. Clearly, the $10-$15 million acquisition of Little Eye Labs by Facebook is beginningBTC China Starts Accepting Deposits In Chinese Yuan Again
Jan 31, 7:49AM
BTC China, the world’s largest bitcoin exchange, has started allowing users to purchase the digital currency with Chinese yuan again. This is significant because BTC China stopped accepting deposits in renminbi last month after the People’s Bank of China issued a memo warning national financial institutions not to trade in bitcoin. That decision triggered a quick and massive drop in its value. It also hurt Bitcoin’s public image, which has taken several shots in the past few months. BTC China CEO Bobby Lee told the Wall Street Journal that the exchange started accepting renminbi again on Thursday after studying the PBOC memo and determining that it was legal to accept deposits and transfer money into customer accounts, even though the banks that manage those accounts can’t conduct business in bitcoin. Reddit users and Coindesk picked up on BTC China’s decision, even though the exchange tried to keep it low profile. BTC China has not made an official announcement and timed the change to coincide with the Lunar New Year holiday, when trading volume is low. It’s still too early to tell what impact BTC China’s decision will have on bitcoin’s value. Lee told WSJ that BTC China, which recently closed a $5 million Series A round from Lightspeed China Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners, is treading carefully because the Chinese government can change its policies at any time. The Chinese government has taken a negative attitude toward digital currencies before. In 2009 the Chinese government banned the use of another popular digital currency, QQ, for the purchase of real-world items. Bitcoin is harder to control than QQ, however, because QQ was centrally managed by Internet company Tencent. “We are definitely in compliance with the Dec. 5 memo, but the government and the government agencies can change the rules anytime in the future. So we are going to take a wait-and-see approach,” Lee told the WSJ. We’ve emailed him for further comment.Inq Mobile, One Of The First Facebook Phone Makers, Shuts Down
Jan 31, 6:18AM
Inq Mobile, one of the first companies to build a Facebook phone, announced that it has shut down with a message on its site (h/t Android Police). The U.K.-based, Hutchison Whampoa-backed company didn't say why it decided to close. We've emailed them for more information.Salesfusion Acquires Marketing Analytics Platform LoopFuse
Jan 31, 2:46AM
Marketing automation platform Salesfusion has purchased LoopFuse, an analytics platform that helps clients find promising new leads, for an undisclosed price. The acquisition comes two weeks after Salesfusion closed a $8.25 million Series B round, bringing its total funding raised so far to $10.1 million.This Is Satya Nadella's Twitter Account
Jan 31, 12:45AM
After five months of Microsoft CEO purgatory, we're finally reaching a climax: It's most likely going to be Microsoft enterprise head Satya Nadella, though everyone except Larry Page wants it to be Google's Sundar Pichai (kidding).Founder Stories: Kakul Srivastava On How Tomfoolery Will Make Our Work More Social And Fun
Jan 31, 12:25AM
Mobile messaging and mobile communications tools have grown like a weed on the consumer side -- but what about in a work context? With more and more people buying better and better smartphones, taking them into work, where employers are beginning to pay for them and the services, are the conditions ripe for a breakout on the enterprise side? To hear Kakul Srivastava break it down, it appears the answer is "yes."Implisit Raises $3.3M For Self-Learning Service That Predicts Next Steps For Sales People
Jan 30, 11:41PM
Implisit has raised $3.3 million from Gemini Israel Ventures for its self-learning platform that mines CRM data to help sales people close more deals and cut manual data entry.Clinkle Gets Hacked Before It Even Launches
Jan 30, 11:09PM
Clinkle is the hottest app around to have done mostly nothing. The stealth payments service, which has raised $30 million from big-name investors, has yet to publicly launch. But that doesn't mean it can't be hacked. Today, a guest user posted a list of 33 usernames, user IDs, profile photos, and phone numbers to PasteBin. Based on the data provided, it seems as though these users are Clinkle employees who are testing the app.Amazon Prime Could See $20 To $40 Price Hike
Jan 30, 11:03PM
Amazon Prime might be getting more expensive. The retailer revealed during its quarterly earnings conference call that it might jack up the price of the yearly subscription by up to 50%. Prime currently costs $79 a year. It’s the best service a person could buy. Free two-day shipping on most everything Amazon sells? I don’t have to go to the store for toilet paper. Yes sir. Amazon is in a tough spot. After being the street’s darling for so many years, the company’s stock is tumbling thanks to a sub-par performance this holiday season. Analysts expected Amazon to report revenue of $26.06 billion, and earn $0.66 per share. Put another way, in a quarter of strong GDP growth, Amazon managed to miss expectations on both its top and bottom lines. As Amazon stated on its investor relations conference call, the cost of shipping is increasing and Amazon is unsure if it can continue to offer Prime at $79. It said it was considering raising the price by $20 to $40 a year. Since its launch, Prime has become more than just a free shipping service. Amazon also bundles its video streaming and Kindle libraries with the subscription. As a long time subscriber, a price hike would put a frown on my face, but I would still re-subscribe. I simply hate going to the store.Barry Sternlicht, Former CEO Of Hotel Giant Starwood, Invests In HotelTonight
Jan 30, 11:00PM
Last-minute hotel booking startup HotelTonight just announced that it has landed a personal investment from Barry Sternlicht, founder of Starwood Capital Group and former chairman and CEO of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. Sternlicht, who has been described as the "king of hotels," is also joining HotelTonight as a strategic adviser.CrunchFund Is Raising $40M For Its Second Fund, According To Filing
Jan 30, 10:32PM
CrunchFund, the early-stage investment firm that's basically one giant conflict-of-interest statement for TechCrunch, is raising $40 million for a second fund, according to a regulatory filing. I've emailed partners Michael Arrington and Patrick Gallagher for confirmation, and I'll update this post if I hear back. (CrunchFund's third partner, TechCrunch alum MG Siegler, left to join Google Ventures last year.)Google Pleased With Hardware And Nexus Performance; Talks Nest, Glass And Other Wearables
Jan 30, 10:19PM
Google’s earnings call doesn’t feature CEO Larry Page this time around, which is a disappointment in terms of product discussion. But Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora discussed briefly hardware during the call, flagging the search giant’s growing satisfaction with the Nexus line and with the Nexus 5 in particular. Arora said that Google is seeing “strong interest in Nexus hardware,” and “great reception for Nexus 5,” especially during the holiday sales period. That’s due to the marketing team’s performance creating ads and also fostering a retail environment conductive to purchases. On the subject of Nest, Google reiterated the line it’s been touting so far, which is that they saw the goals of Nest and themselves in alignment. Google wants to help Nest scale, it said, and will continue to devote resources to this goal. That’s somewhat different from what TechCrunch heard recently, which suggested that the learning thermostat and smoke detector weren’t really the focus of the deal; instead, Google wants to put the Nest team in charge of all of its hardware projects. Asked whether the Motorola acquisition will affect their hardware plans, Arora said that he thinks their continued investments in other areas should show that they’re still committed to hardware. “As you know from the Nest acquisition, Glass and wearables, we’re continuing to innovate,” he said about their ongoing hardware projects. It’s an interesting characterization, because Google has yet to make anything public around wearables beyond Glass, yet Arora separated it out as a new category. Late last year, we heard that a Google smartwatch might be right around the corner, however, so this could be a tantalizing hint that this kind of device (or other wearable efforts) could indeed be on the horizon. Remember that Google acquired WIMM Labs last year, which made an Android-powered smartwatch.Yahoo Detects Mass Hack Attempt On Yahoo Mail, Resets All Affected Passwords
Jan 30, 10:13PM
The details are a bit sparse right now, but Yahoo has just disclosed by way of their Tumblr that they've detected what they're calling a "coordinated effort to gain unauthorized access to Yahoo Mail accounts".Microsoft's Next CEO Reportedly Will Be Its Cloud Boss Satya Nadella, Gates Could Be Replaced On Board
Jan 30, 10:11PM
After a search that stretched for months, reports are out today that Microsoft will select internal candidate Satya Nadella as its next CEO. Nadella is known for his work with cloud computing at Microsoft and deep technical knowledge. The company kicked off its hunt for a new head last year when long-time CEO Steve Ballmer announced that he would step down within a year. Nadella has long been a candidate for the role. If Microsoft does select him to replace Ballmer, it won’t be surprising. During the CEO dance, candidates from companies as far-flung as Ford were discussed. Internal candidates rose and fell, including the company’s soon to return former executive Stephen Elop. According to Bloomberg’s Emily Chang, the company’s founder and long-time chairman of its board could be replaced. The replacing of Gates would be more than symbolic. His stature on the board has caused some to fret that he could hold back a new CEO, exerting outsized influence as shareholder and former CEO. Microsoft declined to comment. Top Image Credit: FlickrAmazon Sheds 10% In After-Hours Trading, Erasing $19B In Market Cap
Jan 30, 9:51PM
After reporting both a top and bottom miss, Amazon fell 10.32 percent in after-hours trading. The company had ended the day at $403.01 and is now trading at $361.41. As a company, Amazon is valued by investors on the strength or weakness of its revenue growth. Amazon’s current share count is 457.73 million. At a per-share loss of $41.60 so far today, Amazon has lost around $19 billion in value. Amazon not only failed to meet street expectations in terms of profit and revenue, the company also had first-quarter earnings guidance that was immediately called down as lackluster. As CNBC reported after the news dropped, Amazon’s stated revenue guidance for the current quarter of between $18.2 billion and $19.9 billion was below the market’s expected guidance of $19.67 billion. As a company, Amazon is not valued by investors on its current or near-term profitability. Investors have given the company wide berth to invest in its revenue growth. As such, the company’s owners are not expecting it to generate profit in a way that could be disbursed to themselves in the form of dividends — at least for now. The other side of that coin is that Amazon’s external growth expectations are steep, as investors are allowing it to invest their potential profits into its expansion. This means that lower than expected revenue growth is something of a cardinal sin for the firm. And when it misses, as it did today, down goes the share price. We’ll have to wait and see if the company can recover in after-hours trading. Apple, VMware, and Yahoo reported disappointing earnings this cycle. Facebook and Microsoft, on the other tip, had strong quarters.
Zynga Lays Off 314 Employees, Or 15% Of Its Workforce
Jan 30, 9:40PM
Paired with the news of a big half-billion-dollar acquisition, Zynga is also laying off about 15 percent of its workforce, or about 314 employees. This is part of a cost-reduction plan that is supposed to generate $33 million to $35 million in savings this year, excluding a $15 million to $17 million restructuring charge. In an interview today, CEO Don Mattrick said these jobs would mostly come out of “infrastructure” areas and wouldn’t involve shutting down any individual studios. Zynga has roughly 2,000 employees at a time when better-performing competitors lack anywhere near the same kind of headcount. Supercell, which sold half of itself for $1.53 billion last fall to Japanese carrier Softbank, currently has about 130 employees and was producing just shy of $200 million a quarter in revenue in the beginning of last year. Since Mattrick took over the company from founding CEO Mark Pincus, Zynga has engaged in a series of layoffs, cut out middle layers of management and shut down poorly performing games. Last summer, the company let go of about 520 people, or 18 percent of its workforce.Amazon's Stock Price Stumbles After Hours On Revenue, Earnings Miss And Weak Guidance
Jan 30, 9:09PM
Today after the market close Amazon reported its fourth quarter financial performance, including revenue of $25.59 billion, and earnings per share of $0.51. The company has operating income of $510 million in the period, up 26 percent year over year. The street had expected Amazon to report revenue of $26.06 billion, and earn $0.66 per share. Put another way, in a quarter of strong GDP growth, Amazon managed to miss expectations on both its top and bottom lines. In regular trading, Amazon was up a very strong 5 percent. In after-hours trading, Amazon is down sharply, nearly 8 percent. Amazon’s expected earnings-per-share growth was more than 200 percent, for reference. Despite the disappointing earnings, the company was upbeat: “It’s a good time to be an Amazon customer,” said founder and CEO Jeff Bezos on the earnings call. In the sequentially preceding quarter, for context, Amazon reported net sales of $17.09 billion, and an earnings-per-share loss of $0.09. That was the company’s second sequential loss. The gap between the company’s third and fourth quarter revenue is due to the holiday shopping period, a cyclically strong period for Amazon. In its year-ago quarter, Amazon had earnings per share of $0.21. For its calendar 2013, Amazon had revenue of $74.45 billion, up 22 percent year over year. Its operating income rose 10 percent in the same period to $745 million. Amazon ended the year with cash and equivalents of $8.6 billion. That Amazon was up in regular trading to more than $400 a share was perhaps due to Facebook’s stronger-than-expected earnings yesterday, which bolstered the social giant. Twitter was up a firm 8 percent today as well, riding the same winds. Now that we have the numbers, it appears those optimistic expectations were misplaced. For the coming quarter, Amazon expects to generate revenue between $18.2 billion and $19.9 billion, up 13 percent year over year. Amazon | Create Infographics Top Image Credit: FlickrGoogle Q4 '13 Beats With $16.86B Revenue, Misses With EPS Of $12.01 Because Of Motorola Weakness
Jan 30, 9:06PM
Google just published its Q4 earnings report and the results are mostly in line with Wall Street expectations, though it missed on earnings per share due to larger than expected losses at Motorola, which doubled from the year-ago-quarter. Over the last three months, the company reported revenue of $16.86 billion and $3.37 billion in net income. Non-GAAP earnings per share came in at $12.01 and GAAP EPS was $9.90. “We ended 2013 with another great quarter of momentum and growth. Google’s standalone revenue was up 22 percent year on year, at $15.7 billion”, said Larry Page, CEO of Google in a statement today. ”We made great progress across a wide range of product improvements and business goals. I’m also very excited about improving people’s lives even more with continued hard work on our user experiences.” Ahead of the earnings release, most analysts expected the company’s earnings per share to increase about 16 percent thanks to better ad revenues on mobile and YouTube. The analyst consensus was that Google would report revenue of $16.75 billion (up 37.8 percent from the year-ago-quarter) and earnings per share of $12.26. Last quarter, Google reported revenue of $14.89 billion and net income of $2.97 billion for an EPS of $10.74. Google Inc | Create Infographics For the last three quarters in a row, Google beat Wall Street’s expectations in large part thanks to improved results from its AdWords Enhanced Campaigns. Overall, though, cost-per-click, one of Google’s key metrics to measure its advertising performance, has been trending lower, with a 4 percent decrease in Q3 and an 8 percent drop year-over-year. Paid clicks, on the other hand, increased 8 percent in Q3 and 26 percent year over year. This quarter paid clicks increased by 31 percent and cost-per-click decreased by just 2 percent. Traffic acquisition costs increased to $3.31 billion in the fourth quarter, up from $3.08 million in the year-ago-quarter. This accounted for 24 percent of Google’s revenue, compared to 25 percent last year. The last few weeks have been particularly interesting for Google. The company announced its $3.2 billion Nest acquisition and just yesterday (and surely timed to preempt today’s earnings release), it said that it would sell most of Motorola to Lenovo. Motorola has been posting losses ever since Google acquired it in 2012. Last quarter it posted an operating loss of $248 million and this quarter it had revenues of $1.24 billionIf 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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