Lyft is out pitching to investors while competitor Uber surrounds itself in controversy. The Wall Street Journal first reported that they are chatting about a $500 million round. We’re hearing that they are targeting a roughly $6 billion valuation, slightly above the $5.5 billion they were valued at in their last private round. The timing makes sense given the failed sale process last… Read More
from TechCrunch
When Snap prices its IPO after the closing bell today, it will be the first tech company to go public this year. It will also be the largest tech company to go public in the U.S. since Alibaba debuted in 2014. Because of the dearth of recent tech offerings, all eyes will be on the Snapchat parent to see what it means for the “IPO window.” The performance of large tech offerings… Read More
from TechCrunch
Snap has given a final price for its IPO, setting the company’s valuation at nearly $24 billion with a price of $17 per share, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. With that, it looks like Wall Street had plenty of an appetite for Snap despite multiple major concerns about the company’s business. Slowing user growth, rising burn and a dependence on Google and Amazon… Read More
from TechCrunch
In the market for online education, Udacity remains focused on teaching its students about software development, data science and machine learning. To this avail, Udacity brought out its M&A team for the first time to strategically acquire CloudLabs, a small shop building interactive coding environments that let groups collaboratively code from within their browsers. You… Read More
from TechCrunch
Snap will begin publicly trading tomorrow, which means that it will officially give a price for its shares in its initial public offering this evening. Originally setting a range between $14 and $16, the company set its own valuation lower than what tech observers might have expected given the hype of the first big tech IPO of 2017. Read More
from TechCrunch
Yelp has acquired restaurant reservation app Nowait for $40 million, in an all-cash deal, the companies announced this morning. The move will bring Nowait’s waitlist system and seating tool to Yelp, where it’s been integrated in the Yelp app, to complement the existing Yelp reservations product and its mobile food-ordering system, Yelp Eat24.
Founded in 2010 by Ware Sykes… Read More
from TechCrunch
The top audio equipment makers are teaming up in a massive deal. Sound United, owner of the Polk Audio and Definitive Technology speaker brands, announced today that it’s acquired D+M Group, owner of the Denon and Marantz receiver brands plus Boston Acoustics speakers and Heos multi-room audio. The combined companies will be known as Sound United, led by it’s existing CEO… Read More
from TechCrunch
There can be no hype without a unicorn. China’s newest startup money pit — bicycle rentals on-demand — now has its first billion-dollar valued company.
The industry has sucked in more than $300 million from investors this year alone — that’s counting just one company — and now Ofo has become the first in the space to reach the much-coveted $1 billion… Read More
from TechCrunch
Chinese travel site Qunar is all set to delist from the NASDAQ after it completed its sale to private equity firm Ocean Management. The deal was first announced last October and today it went through having gained shareholder approval earlier this week. The transaction values Qunar, which is backed by Baidu, at around $4.44 billion. The firm raised $167 million from its IPO in November… Read More
from TechCrunch
The phrase “3-D printer” typically brings to mind devices that churn out plastic objects like jewelry, toys, hardware prototypes or even prosthetics. Now, a startup building a 3-D food printer, BeeHex, has raised $1 million in seed funding to launch its first product, a pizza printer called the Chef 3D. Initially, BeeHex wanted to develop a printer that would be able to make a… Read More
from TechCrunch