Week 16 of 2016

DIDigital’s podcast made an interesting remark on how stock exchanges as we know them are about to lose their spot as “the highest level of funding” when platforms for trading/funding private companies securities get more traction, credibility, trust and acceptance i.e. Nordic bank Nordea’s move to open crowd equity funding platform.

– Biggest tech company funding round just closed, ANT – Alibabas payment service company raise USD 4.5 Bn at a USD 60 Bn valuation TechCrunch

– Apple shows decline in revenue for the first quarter in 13 years! DiDigital

– Rebtel opens service similar to Universal Avenue Link

– Saving app Dreams raise more capital from King founders amongst others Link

– Spotify comments Beyonce’s exclusive release of her latest album on rival plateorm Link

– MagicLeap reveals how your work space will look in Augmented Reality (AR) Link

– Nokia buys health hard/software provider Withings The Verge

– The story behind the company who will go for Mars in 2018 – the SpaceX history TechCrunch

– Bloomberg report on why Sweden have managed to build successful consumer technology companies Bloomberg

– Google, Ford, Volvo, Uber and Lyft form a coalition to urge federal action on allowing/trying self-driving cars in the US TechCrunch

– Comcast bought Dreamworks for USD 3.8 BN or a 51% premium to April 25th close CNN

– BBC seeks to have 50% of its TV hosts female by 2020 Resume

– Facebook develops a “camera first” application WSJ

– Spotify acquires concert photo service Crowd Album DiDigital

– The Guardian allows readers to step into VR Guardian

– The streaming war between Apple and Spotify DigitalMusicNews

– Snapchat has over 10 BN video views per day Bloomberg

– Google said to be focusing its developers conference I/O in June 2016 on VR & AR

Apple’s posted first decline in revenue for the first time in 13 years.

Amazon’s web services (cloud storage/servers) boosted its revenue growth.

Some interesting stats from a16z: