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Podcast : Tala founder Shivani Siroya on transforming microfinance & loans in emerging markets

Shivani Siroya is the CEO and founder of Tala, a company is tackling a massive problem: there are 3 billion people around the world that are currently underserved from financial services—they don’t have bank accounts, access to formal credit options, traditional loan products, small business loans, or insurance products. Tala makes micro-loans in Kenya, Tanzania and the Philippines by using a person’s smartphone, transactions, and app usage to figure out if they are creditworthy. To evaluate creditworthiness, Tala built an Android app that scores would-be borrowers in 20 seconds by using data on their phone. In addition, they make a credit decision to lend money in that 20 second timeframe and acts as the lender. Tala dynamically prices between 5%-11% for the term, which is dramatically lower than the average APR in these markets, which is 350%. In this episode, Siroya describes how she pioneered this new form of micro-lending. [ TWIS Podcast ] [ TED Talk ]

4 media companies including Thrillist and NowThis have merged — and Discovery just poured $100 million into it

Discovery Communications is making a $100 million investment in an entity called "Group Nine Media," a new holding company that ties together media brands Thrillist, NowThis, The Dodo, and Seeker (Discovery's digital network). Ben Lerer, Thrillist's CEO, will be the CEO of Group Nine.
[ Business Insider  ]

Casper Co-Founder: Why 'Buy One, Get One' Deals Are Bad for Business

Luke Sherwin, co-founder of Casper, explains why this mattress company avoids offering social activism incentives as part of their product. [ Inc. ]

SILICON VALLEY QUESTIONS THE MEANING OF LIFE. The tech industry is increasingly consumed by whether our existence is actually an algorithm.

In Silicon Valley, over the past year, one of the most talked-about advances in technology hasn’t been the latest Apple Watch, DJI’s fancy drones, or Uber’s impressive driverless cars. Instead, the Valley has been consumed by the question of whether our entire existence as human beings is actually a computer algorithm, and that we—all of us—are living in a simulation. Yes, a simulation. [ Vanity Fair ]

LATEST FUNDING

Cloud Communications Firm Cloud9 Technologies Secures $30M In Funding From A Consortium Including JPMorgan Chase, ICAP, Barclays, And Point72 Ventures

Cloud9 Technologies LLC, a cloud-based communication provider for financial firms and institutional traders offering advanced capabilities to leverage compliance, voice analytics and workflow solutions, announced today the close of a $30M funding round.  This round was led by JPMorgan Chase & Co., with ICAP, Barclays and Point72 Ventures.  The round also includes individual participation by the principals of several leading trading firms, such as Hudson Ridge Asset Management, who were among Cloud9's early customers. "We are thrilled to welcome Point72 Ventures and our other investors as we continue to build a technology that acts as a catalyst in terms of changing the communication and process around trading," said Gerald Starr, CEO of Cloud9 Technologies.  [ PR Newswire ]
 

DTI Management Receives $75M

DTI Management, an Alexandria, Virginia-based live event ticket inventory provider, secured $75m in funding. Backers included CVC Growth Partners and New Amsterdam Growth Capital. The company intends to use the funds to continue scaling its platform and to continue to invest in expanded technology and product offerings. Established in 2012 by Curtis Cheng, CEO, DTI streamlines live event ticket distribution, and provides a controlled secondary ticket selling environment for sports teams, event producers, music artists, venues, and ticket brokers. Current partners include the Cleveland Cavaliers, New Jersey Devils, and Phoenix Suns. [ Finsmes ]
 

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C1X raises $8.5M for its advertiser and publisher tech

C1X has raised another $8.5 million in what it says is the first part of a Series B round of funding. The company was founded by Mukundu Kumaran (CEO) and Daisuke Nagayama (chief operating officer and chief global strategist) — Kumaran previously worked as an engineering director at Yahoo, and he told me that his goal is “to simplify how the basic advertising transaction works.” The C1X platform includes products for advertisers and publishers, offering what Kumaran called “a full-stack platform that addresses the core issues that buyers and sellers face today. [ Tech Crunch ]
 

Coorpacademy, founded by former Google execs, raises $11 million to expand its edtech platform

Paris-based Coorpacademy announced today it has raised a new round of $11 million in venture capital as it seeks to build out its online platform for corporate education. Investors in the new round include Serena Capital, NextStageAM, and Debiopharm Investment funds. Launched in 2013, Coorpacademy hopes to use the new money to expand across Europe and develop new content partnerships. “The problem we had to attack is that corporate e-learning is boring,” said cofounder Jean-Marc Tassetto. “Our ambition is to bring back the pleasure of learning, and to encourage learners to develop their skills to their full potential.” [ Venture Beat ]
 

VenueNext Raises $15 Million And Signs San Jose Sharks

VenueNext has closed its Series B financing round of $15 million, led by Causeway Media Partners. The round allows VenueNext to take advantage of a total raise of $26.5 million to date, as it raised a separate $11.5 million in Series A financing in June 2015. The infusion of capital will be dedicated to executing on recent customer deployments while expanding internationally beyond sports, to include the hospitality and healthcare markets. One new customer in need of servicing is Sharks Sports & Entertainment, which owns the National Hockey League’s San Jose Sharks and the SAP Center. The Sharks franchise, which signed a multi-year licensing fee-based agreement, is already set up to use VenueNext’s technology at the team’s season opener on October 12. [ Forbes ]

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Self-driving tech startup Optimus Ride raises $5.25M seed round

With sights set on developing fully autonomous driving technology, MIT spinoff startup Optimus Ride has raised $5.25 million in seed funding, led by NextView Ventures and FirstMark Capital. With the funding, Boston-based Optimus Ride hopes to provide something unique to the self-driving technology market, powered by a team with over 30 years of collective experience in robotics, on-demand transportation, electric vehicles and more. “We have been working on new transportation systems that are based on new self-driving vehicle technologies, and we’ve been working on this for a few months already,” Optimus Ride co-founder, President, and Chief Scientist Sertac Karaman told me in an interview. “We have people on the team who have been working on autonomous vehicles for almost a decade.” [ Tech Crunch ]
 

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simPRO Software nabs AU$40Mn in growth capital from New York-based Level Equity

As part of an aggressive product innovation and major global expansion strategy, Brisbane-based cloud technology company simPRO Software has secured AU$40 million in growth capital.The funding was obtained from New York-based growth equity firm Level Equity, which is a venture capital and equity firm specializing in growth equity. The firm prefers to invest in small and mid-sized technology, software, internet, media, consumer and service companies which are product and technology innovators, serving large markets and delivering rapid growth. [ The tech portal ]

LATEST EXITS 

Google Acquires FameBit to Increase Branded Content Deals

Google has acquired FameBit, a technology startup that helps marketers connect with digital influencers, in an effort to bolster branded content deals in online video, including on Google’s video platform YouTube. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. FameBit is one of a growing number of companies looking to help bring more automation and data science to the art of connecting brands with digital talent. Digital creators can set up profiles using FameBit’s software. Then, via a web-based marketplace, brands can search for potential matches among thousands of creators, based on various criteria such as an influencer’s audience demographics. These marketers can then elect to hire these influencers to mention their brands in videos, or create videos on their behalf, for example. [ WSJ ]
 

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FUND RAISE

Form D Reporting: Immersive Capital Filing. Saurabh Srivastava Released Oct 11 Form D

The California-based Immersive Capital, L.P. released form D for $21.40 million offering. This is a new filing. The Limited Partnership raised $21.40 million. The offering is still open. The total offering amount was $21.40 million. The offering filing was filed on 2016-10-11. Immersive Capital, L.P.’s clarification was: The Issuer’s General Partner or an Affiliate of the Issuer’s General Partner may be entitled to receive a Management Fee in accordance with the Issuer’s governing documentation, as amended from time to time. [ friscofastball ]

 
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