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Pinterest, the photo sharing site, has announced this week its acquisition of Jelly, the Q&A app founded by Biz Stone, cofounder of Twitter, in 2013. Jelly officially launched in 2014 and received a disappointing reception. Stone and fellow Jelly cofounder Ben Finkel subsequently changed directions by launching photo app Super before relaunching Jelly again in 2016. The latest iteration of the app repurposed the Q&A format as a search engine, but like… Read More
Ealrier this month, The Information reported that Airbnb is in talks to acquire social payments start-up Tilt, a move that would allow the users of the home share service to split the cost of their trips. According to the report, speculative prices for the Venmo competitor come nowhere near the $400 million valuation given in 2015, following the company successfully raising just over $62 million from four rounds of funding. Airbnb’s recent… Read More
It’s no secret that music streaming website SoundCloud is hurtling towards a period of financial difficulty. Last March the company followed in the footsteps of the likes of Spotify and Apple Music with the launch of SoundCloud Go, a premium music service that costs users $9.99 per month. Although it has since seen an increase in users, SoundCloud Go did little to alleviate the $52 billion loss the company reported for 2015,… Read More
This week the world was exposed to Salesforce’s M&A shopping list after an email from the company’s board member Colin Powell was leaked by “hacktivist” group DCLeaks. The list, which was part of an internal presentation, revealed the names of 14 public companies that Salesforce allegedly had their eye on back in May this year. Featuring mammoths in business such as Adobe, LinkedIn and Workday along with those on the smaller side… Read More
Author Terry Pratchett once said, “A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.” Nowhere is this truer than in the world of mergers and acquisitions. The potential buy-out of Twitter by Disney has been the subject of much rumour and this article looks at their veracity as well as examining other suitors that may be eyeing the micro-blogging site. Birds and eggs Twitter was launched… Read More
A month is a long time in business and nothing has demonstrated this as much as games giant, Nintendo. Just a few weeks ago we discussed the £11.1bn that gaming phenomenon Pokémon Go had added to the value of Nintendo, with shares soaring by more than 86 per cent. Now, we are looking at quite a different story. “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” Overnight, the whole world was talking about the augmented reality… Read More
If you have children or know any young adults, you may have noticed them being even more engaged in their smartphones than usual. The reason is Pokémon Go – the gaming phenomenon that’s sweeping the world. Its popularity has added £11.1bn to Nintendo’s value within just one week and its share prices are at a six year high. We take a look at why Apps are making companies so profitable and attractive… Read More