SoftBank Takes $4 Billion Stake in U.S. Chipmaker Nvidia, Sources Say
SoftBank Group Corp. has quietly amassed a $4 billion stake in Nvidia Corp. making it the fourth-largest shareholder in the graphics chipmaker, according to people familiar with the situation. The Japanese company, which just closed its Vision Fund, disclosed it owned an unspecified amount of Nvidia stock when it announced $93 billion of commitments to the technology investment fund on Saturday. A holding of 4.9 percent, just under the amount that would require a regulatory disclosure in the U.S., would be worth about $4 billion. [ Bloomberg ] E734: Live Crowdfunding Showcase & Pitches: Swiftmile, Lendsnap, Kylie.ai, LEAF, NowRX, Laugh.ly60+ Cybersecurity Companies Securing The Future Of Digital Identity In One Market MapCybersecurity companies saw a record number of funding deals last year and on a quarterly basis Q1’17 was the most active quarter for deals to private cybersecurity companies over the last five years. One increasingly hot area within the cybersecurity industry is Identity Management. In fact, in line with the overall industry, cybersecurity startups with a core product or service in Identity Management secured more funding deals in Q1’17 than any quarter since 2012. [ CB Insights ] Silver Lake Invests $400 Million in Gaming Toolmaker Unity
Private equity firm Silver Lake has agreed to a $400 million investment in Unity Technologies, said John Riccitiello, chief executive officer of the gaming software maker. The investment values the San Francisco-based company, which makes development tools for video-game creators, at $2.6 billion, according to a person with knowledge of the transaction. Regulators still need to approve the deal, Riccitiello said. [ Bloomberg ] Lawsuit Accuses Uber Of Fare FraudSome Uber customers think Uber is taking them for a ride–and not in a good way. According to a federal class-action lawsuit filed today, Uber is charging UberX riders based on different, less-efficient routes than the ones its basing driver pay on, resulting in higher fares for riders. The suit relates to Uber’s “upfront” pricing model, which offers drivers a guaranteed rate based on miles and minutes driven. The complaint, filed in Brooklyn federal court, notes this practice qualifies as unjust enrichment under New York general business law. [ FastCompany ] OTC Exchange Network Joins the FIX Trading CommunityOTC Exchange Network ("OTCXN"), an institutional trading network and infrastructure provider utilizing blockchain technologies, is now a member of the FIX Trading Community. CEO Rosario M. Ingargiola has also been named to the Digital Currency & Blockchain Working Group. OTCXN’s blockchain-based peer-to-peer electronic trading network democratizes access to wholesale markets starting with OTC Spot FX. [ Coin Desk ] Serena Williams is joining the SurveyMonkey boardTennis star and entrepreneur Serena Williams is joining the board of SurveyMonkey, along with Intuit CEO and chairman Brad Smith, the online survey company said. Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman and executive chairman Bill Veghte are stepping off as directors as part of the move. As most know, Williams is one of the most famous athletes in the world, having won the most Grand Slam singles tennis titles in history. Her most recent addition to that stellar performance was a win at the Australian Open. [ Re/Code ] Delivery Hero revenues have almost doubled in the space of a year to €121 millionFood delivery startup Delivery Hero announced on Tuesday that its first quarter revenues rose 93% from €63 million (£55 million) in 2016 to €121 million (£105 million) in 2017. The Berlin-headquartered company, which has expanded its takeaway service to more than 40 countries since it was founded in 2010, said it delivered 63 million takeaways during the last quarter, which is up 46% on a like-for-like basis. [ Business Insider ] SBE Australia launches E3 program for early-stage female tech foundersApple and Google are now valued higher than the GDP of all but America's two largest cities, according to a new BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research report. There is a growing concentration of wealth among a small number of tech companies that are mostly based in the same geographic regions (Silicon Valley and the Pacific Northwest). And that could ultimately lead to social unrest, particularly when juxtaposed against Trump-era economic nationalist. From the BAML report, which is titled Occupy Silicon Valley. [ Startup Daily ] Before Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg built a chat network called ZuckNetIt turns out Mark Zuckerberg has been building tech products for much longer than we thought. The Facebook founder and CEO actually built a chat service for his family — and for his dad’s dental business — when he was a pre-teen growing up in New York City. “Growing up, one of the neat things was that [my dad’s] dental office was actually connected to our home,” Zuckerberg explained on a recent podcast with Greylock Partner and early Facebook investor Reid Hoffman. “The dentists and hygienists needed to share data on the patients. So I built a system where he could communicate with folks across rooms, and also communicate with me and my sisters upstairs— and I called it ZuckNet.” [ Re/Code ] Airbnb is running its own internal university to teach data scienceTech companies, and increasingly even non-tech companies, are struggling with the fact that there are not enough trained data scientists to fill market demand. Every company has their own strategy for hiring and training, but Airbnb has taken things a step further — running its own university-style program, complete with a custom course-numbering system. [ Tech Crunch ] |