THE BUSINESS OF TECHNOLOGY
SoftBank Capital, the venture firm of Japan's SOFTBANK Corp., announced the closing of the PrinceVille Fund, a $250 million fund designed to help startups expand into Asia. “Due to its long-standing strategic relationship with SOFTBANK, a worldwide leader in Internet, mobile communications, broadband services and fixed-line telecommunications … [Read more...]
Gigya, the provider of social infrastructure, announced it has reached 1.5 billion unique monthly users, up from the billion it reported a year ago. That's nearly 2/3's of the global Internet population. It took some sizable companies to attain that kind of reach. The company surpassed 650 clients with 300 leading online businesses. Customers … [Read more...]
Foursquare took the excuse to celebrate the company recently crossing the 3 billion checkins threshold with its release of “The Best of Foursquare.” Rather than a guide curated by editors, travel writers or critics, Foursquare's approach is all based on user experience data. Taking all that checkin data as well as tens of millions of user … [Read more...]
by MATT GALLAGHER, Red Herring Though plenty of Q&A service sites sleep contentedly in the graveyard, ChaCha is thriving alive and strong. The company recently raised a new round of $14 million. The company will use the new funding to expand its mobile and online experience as well as enhance its advertising potential. The round was led … [Read more...]
Though it won't market a product until 2014, DataGravity has already landed some pretty serious capital. The stealth mode startup recently raised $30 million in a round led by with existing investors Charles River Ventures and General Catalyst Partners participating. It brings the company's total capital to $42 million. The company specializes … [Read more...]
Google broke another record, earning its first $50 billion in annual revenue in 2012, thanks in a large part to strong fourth quarter earnings that generated $14.62 billion, an increase of 26 percent over the same period the year before. Outpacing analyst estimates of $12.36 billion for the December quarter, Google's fourth quarter was about three … [Read more...]
Baidu, the Chinese search giant, has signed an exclusive deal with France Telecom and its subsidiary Orange to co-brand and pre-load its Baidu mobile browser on Android smartphones in Africa and the Middle East. It is the first time Baidu has signed such an agreement with a global provider and extends the company to 19 countries in a move that … [Read more...]
Acquisitions for gaming companies broke a new record last year, raking in $4 billion, an 18 percent increase from the $3.4 billion earned in 2011, according to recent research from Digi-Capital, the global investment bank. Gaming investments, however, had a difficult year, tumbling 57 percent to $853 million. Transactional volume dropped 27 … [Read more...]
While making his second trip to China as Apple's CEO, Tim Cook told China's state-run Xinhua news agency that China will one day become the company's largest customer. Currently, China ranks as Apple's biggest market. "China is currently our second largest market. I believe it will become our first. I believe strongly that it will," Cook told … [Read more...]
Sina Weibo, a social microblogger that has sometimes been referred to as China's “Twitter,” has rolled out an English language interface, widening marketing possibilities that could extend the service to more international markets. A Sina representative told Tech in Asia, "Countries in Southeast Asia [can] pick English or Chinese – this … [Read more...]