SparkLabs Global Ventures' Technology and Internet Market Bi-Monthly Review 0127 2014

SparkLabs Global Ventures Technology and Internet Market Bi-Monthly Review
January 27, 2014
Weekly Highlights
Global Trends
Mobile ad spending to top $18B enroute to $42B by 2017 Mobile advertising will surge 37 percent to more than $18 bn this year and nearly $42 bn by 2017. And while display ads will account for the lion's share of spending, video is expected to enjoy the fastest growth toward the end of this explosive three-year period. By region, Asia-Pacific remains the most mature for mobile advertising, but it will still enjoy growth averaging around 30 percent a year through the next three years. North America is projected to enjoy the sharpest increase thanks to what Gartner calls the "sheer scale" of the region's advertising budgets and a shift from print and radio advertising to mobile alternatives. App revenue in Asia grew a massive 162% in 2013, driven by Google Play Over the past two years, Asia has emerged as the worlds top marketplace for appsand its still growing. Revenue in Asia rose by a massive 162% in 2013, annihilating growth in all other continents, according to a new report by Distimo. Furthermore, that increase was fueled in large part by Google Play, where revenue from Asia more than quadrupled in 2013. In comparison, the App Stores growth in Asia was much slower: a 94% increase in revenue for iPhone apps and 64% for iPad apps. But that was still faster than the App Stores total growth in Europe or North America. Worldwide pay-TV subscribers to exceed 1.1B in 2019 with increasing IPTV market share According to ABI Research, the worldwide pay-TV market reached 903.3 million subscribers in 2013, generating US$249.8 billion in service revenues. IPTV operators enjoyed 18.5% on-year growth in 2013 to 92 million subscribers with a total of US$37.2 billion in service revenues. Increasing FTTH subscriber base and bundled subscriber base of telcos are boosting the IPTV market. The IPTV subscriber base will grow to 161 million subscribers in 2019 accounting for 15% of the overall pay-TV market.
Asia Pacific
Korea
Samsung 4Q13 profits to fall Samsung Electronics has estimated its operating profits for the fourth quarter of 2013 at about KRW8.3 trillion (US$7.8 billion), down 18% from the prior quarter. Consolidated sales for the 4Q are set to stay flat on quarter at KRW59 trillion, Samsung disclosed. The forecast operating profits represent a 6.1% decrease compared to the KRW8.84 trillion reported for the 4Q12, while sales are expected to register on-year growth of 5.2% during the same period. Samsung reported a record KRW10.16 trillion in operating profits for the third quarter of 2013, buoyed by rising prices for memory chips as well as sales of mass-market smartphones in emerging markets. Samsung to flood market with tablets in 2014; to offer new 7-inch tablet at US$129 Samsung Electronics is reportedly planning to flood the tablet market with several different sized models including 7-, 8-, 10- and 12-inch in 2014 and will price its new 7-inch model, the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite at US$129 to attract consumers, according to sources from the upstream supply chain. Korea TV vendors focus on Ultra HD TV production amid low production yields for OLED Korea TV vendors plan to continue developing Ultra HD TVs in 2014 while development of OLED TVs is expected to remain slow due to low production yields for OLED TV panels. Samsung and LG continue to invest in OLED TV production but are still having trouble improving yields for OLED panel technology. This has led to high pricing for OLED TVs, which is expected to continue throughout 2014 and limit sales of the TVs. Kakao prepared to become a listed company next year Kakao will become a listed company in May of 2015. The company has finished overall preparation to be listed in Korea, and is planning to start a real business with the fund they would receive after being listed. Kakao recorded revenue of US$ 216 million in 2013.
SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul. 1

January 27, 2014
Galaxy S5 out by April Samsungs Galaxy S5 will be released by April and may include innovative eye-scanning technology. A new version of the companys Galaxy Gear smartwatch will be released at the same time as the new phone. Koreas largest Bitcoin exchange nabs seed funding from Silicon Valley bigwigs Several prominent Silicon Valley investors have provided seed funding to Korbit, a Korean bitcoin startup. Korbit is reportedly South Koreas largest Bitcoin exchange and was founded in July 2013. It lets users deposit funds from their bank accounts and buy, sell, and withdraw bitcoins. The company claims to have 20,000 registered users to date. The company will receive $400,000 from bigwigs including Tim Draper (formerly of DFJ and founder of startup school Draper University), Naval Ravikant (founder of AngelList), David Lee (founder of SV Angel), and Barry Silbert (founder of SecondMarket and Bitcoin advocate). South Korea raises regulatory penalties following massive data leaks South Korea has unveiled a new set of supervisory measures and tighter penalties, following a massive data breach earlier this week involving over 20 million bank customers. Under the proposed changes, top executives could face the sack while firms could be fined heavily and be suspended, said the Financial Services Commission (FSC). News broke on Sunday that at least 20 million customers under three credit card firms had their data stolen, reportedly by a temporary employee who later sold the data for 17 million won (US$16,000) to phone marketing companies. FSC plans to suspend the businesses of the three credit card firms for three months, and take punitive action against their top executives. South Korea to invest $1.5B to build 5G network by 2020 South Korea will pump 1.6 trillion won (US$1.49bn) through 2020 with local firms to build the fifth-generation network (5G) in the country. Under the plan dubbed "Creative 5G Mobile Strategy", South Korea will develop new features, which include Ultra-HD, hologram transmission and "cutting-edge" social networking services. The country also aims to work with global telecom authorities especially from the United States, China and Europe to establish standards for 5G, and to avoid excessive patent battles. The first test run for the 5G network will be on SNS sites by 2015, and gradually expand to cover mobile 3D images and cloud services in 2017 at the speed of 1 Gbps. This is compared with 75 Mbps on the current LTE network.
China
Chinese Internet giants Alibaba and Sina Weibo partner up to launch Weibo Payments Sina Weibo has partnered up with Alipay to launch a new payment platform called Weibo Payment. Users of Sina Weibos iOS app can now access Weibo Payment, which is an important part of the strategic partnership between Sina and Alibaba, two of Chinas top Internet companies. Sina Weibo has also added new features that not only facilitate offline payments, but also turn the microblogging service into a CRM platform that allows merchants to manage marketing campaigns and accept payments. Potential users include the 400,000 business accounts currently on Sina Weibo. Lenovo may lead in 2014 notebook shipments Lenovo is likely to ship 28.3 million notebooks in 2014, followed by HP with 28.0 million, Dell 18-19 million, and Acer and Asustek Computer 16-17 million each, according to estimates by Taiwan-based supply chain makers based on preliminary orders received from the vendors. While Lenovo dominates Chinas notebook market, HP has the largest notebook market share in N. America and the business-use segment. China lifts 14-year-old ban on gaming consoles China has lifted its longtime ban on video game consoles, opening a lucrative new market for manufacturers including Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft. The State Council said that it will now allow consoles to be manufactures in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, an experimental testing ground for economic reform. China had implemented a blanket restriction on the manufacture and sale of consoles and games in 2000, denying gaming companies access to the world's most populous nation. Chinese officials had cited worries over violent content and the potential for moral decay in explaining the ban. Meizu to launch smartphones in US in 3Q Chinese phonemaker Meizu is planning to break into the US market in 3Q13, betting on affordable prices and its simplified operating system based on Android called Flyme. Meizu joins the bandwagon of Chinese phonemakers, including Huawei and Lenovo, hoping to get a slice of the pie in the US.

January 27, 2014
Huawei unveils cross-platform game console Huawei has unveiled its own game console, called TRON, at the CES 2014, and says the device supports game titles that run on other platforms including PC, PS3, and NDS. It currently offers 12 game titles for the console and the Chinese telecommunication giant promised more games would be on the shelf by May 2014, when TRON will be commercially available. Apple opens new online store in China Apple has set up an official store on Tmall, the worlds second largest online retailer. The Cupertino, Californiabased company already has 10 Apple retail stores in four Chinese cities and its own China-facing site, but using Tmall gives it a major new channel, as well as several new marketing tools. Chinese municipal sets up foreign investment tech fund China's northern Tianjin Municipal has set up an investment fund that allows overseas Chinese investors to pump money into local technology companies. The fund already has raised 2 billion yuan (US$327.68 million) that will be plowed back into tech startups in China. Jointly established by the Chinese Overseas Entrepreneur Fund and Haitong Securities, the investment fund aims to support the development of Chinese enterprises by cooperating with larger financial institutions, said Huang Jingyu, managing director of the Chinese Overseas Entrepreneur Fund. Alibaba gives game developers 70% cut of sales Alibaba has pledged to give the bulk of sales generated from mobile games back to developers, as it looks to gain an upper hand on rival, Tencent. The Chinese e-commerce giant tweaked its revenue-sharing model that would now give developers 70% of sales of their games. Alibaba said it would keep just 20% of the proceeds, with the remaining 10% set aside to improve education in the country's rural areas. Game developers in China typically take only 10% cut from sales. Chinas own mobile OS has been revealed, and it looks a lot like Android COS, which stands for China Operating System, is the work, Engadget notes, of the Institute of Software at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISCAS) and the Chinese government. Judging from some of the demo images that Engadget unearthed, HTC is involved too with COS being show running smoothly on a HTC One phone and HTC tablet. COS is a Linux-based OS and its very reminiscent of Android. COS is currently trending on Sina Weibo with over 150,000 people discussing it. Walmarts online supermarket for China saw $1.9bn in sales in 2013 In 2013, China had an estimated 270 mn e-shoppers who spent about $180 bn on stuff including groceries. Chinas top online supermarket is Yihaodian, which has been majority owned by Walmart since 2012, though the e-store came online in 2008. Yihaodian saw close to $1.9bn in sales last year, which marks as new high. From 2012 to the end of 2013, registered users grew from 29 million to 57 million. Yihaodian now has 3.4 mn items in stock, double its 2012 tally. Also due to safety concerns over baby milk powder in China, Yihaodian accounted for 37.2% of Chinas imported baby milk formula last year. Forget Box, SkyDrive, and Dropbox, Tencents 10TB of free cloud storage is hands down the best In July 2012, Tencents Weiyun released its cloud service with a whopping 10TB of free storage, and it now reports 300 mn registered users. Tencent released an update that dramatically improved the interface and features. In addition to the old short URLs, you can also create a unique QR code for any file or folder you wish to share. Weiyun will automatically update any files you modify. The photo album feature makes all your pictures easily viewable across the browser, mobile, and desktop clients. China now has half a billion mobile web users, 618 million total internet users China now has 618 mn internet users and 500 mn mobile web users, according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). The numbers show strong growth from the agencys last report midway through 2013 when China had 591 mn internet users and 460 mn mobile netizens. The number of mobile web users has more than doubled from the end of 2009 when there were only 233 mn accessing the web via phones (More facts: 1) Chinas internet penetration rate is now up to 45.8%, 2) The number of mobile web users rose 19.1% from 2012 to 2013, 3) 81% of Chinas internet users are accessing it via phones 4) China now has 247 mn online video viewers).

January 27, 2014
App store Wandoujia seals $120 million in funding amidst Chinas Android boom Wandoujian, one of Chinas top Android app stores, has secured a massive $120mn in funding, the Beijingbased startup revealed. The investment is led by SoftBank, the Japanese mobile telco, with some funds also coming from DCM and Kaifu Lees Innovation Works Development Fund. Its the second major cash boost for Wandoujia, coming long after its $8 mn in series A funding in 2011, which was led by DCM and Innovation Works. In just 9 days, WeChat brings in over 100,000 taxi rides for Chinese passengers looking for a lift After 9 days WeChat, the messaging app thats dominating smartphones in China, added taxi booking and payments to its range of services, the total number of completed transactions meaning taxis hailed and paid for inside of WeChat have surpassed 100,000. The maker of WeChat, Chinese web giant Tencent, added support for the Didi Dache service after investing nearly $100 million into it. Chinese research firm iResearch estimates that Didi Dache occupies upwards of 50 percent of Chinas taxi-hailing app market when measured both for registered users and daily bookings WeChat leaps into banking, lets users set up online investment fund Tencent has just joined Chinas personal finance race alongside Alibaba and Baidu with its messaging app, WeChat. WeChat now has a wealth section where users can store their savings in a new monetary fund straight from their smartphones via TenPay, Tencents third-party payment system. Amount is capped at RMB 1mn ($165,400). The annual rate on the fund is 6.435%, and it requires no minimum investment. The fund is managed by Huaxia Bank. Baidus Baifa fund maintains the highest interest rate of the three, but its capped at a certain amount its users can collectively invest. Qihoo aims at 35% share of Chinas search engine market by end of year Chinese software maker Qihoo exploded into the search engine market in the summer of 2012 and managed to garner 10% MS in China in just a couple of week thanks to its popular PC web browser. At the end of 2013, Qihoo had clawed its way up to 22.5% share and now is aiming to reach 35% by the end of 2014. This is a threat to market leader Baidu whose own share of the pie has crumbled away as Qihoos has expanded. Fun Chinese photo app boasts 70M users, all without any marketing MomentCam, a photo effects applications, reached 70 mn around the world since it was launched in the China market in early July and opened to world market on October. Its user base is 45% Chinese and 55% overseas users. The company has reportedly raised 20 mn RMB in series A funding. Square-like Chinese startup QFPay swipes $16.5M in series B funding QFPay, maker of a Square-like gadget for taking e-payments via a smartphone, has secured series B funding worth $16.5M. QFPays main product is QPOS, which looks like a mini calculator. It connects wirelessly to Android tablets or phones, or iPhone or iPad; or theres a wired version that hooks up to a PC. It can be used by retailers of all sizes to take credit card or bank card transactions. China will buy 400M smartphones in 2014, penetration to pass 90% According to Gartner, 443.5M mobile phones will be sold in China in 2014, and 90% of them will be smartphones. Of those 400M, 20% will be high-end models. That figure is expected to increase to 32% by 2017. In total, China will have 1.08 billion mobile phone users by the end of this year. China will receive nearly a quarter of global phone shipments this year, which Gartner estimates will hit 1.9 billion, a five percent increase on last year. Customer service is the biggest determining factor when Chinese people buy smartphones, even for low-end phones.
Japan
Japanese investment firm Venture United forms $11M startup fund Venture United, a Japanese startup investment company, announced today that it has formed a fund worth 1.2 mn yen ($11 mn). Venture United and its parent company United, the company best known for homescreen app CocoPPa, have already invested in many startups, including (Lifenet Insurance, Enigmo, Unoh (acquired by Zynga back in 2010), and Nobot (acquired by Mediba, a KDDI company). Japanese language learning startup Lang-8 secures funding from CyberAgent Venture Tokyo-based startup Lang-8, which runs a language learning platform based on peer corrections, announced

January 27, 2014
that it has raised funding from CyberAgent Ventures. The exact details of the funding were not disclosed. Lang-8 has acquired over 73,000 users from 219 countries and regions around the world, with about 70% coming from outside Japan. According to the companys CEO Yangyang Xi, they plan to use these funds to develop a new service, and add three more engineers to their current three-person team. Toshiba finishes acquisition of OCZ for its SSD assets According to the terms of the agreement, OCZ will operate as a new subsidiary, OCZ Storage Solutions, and continue to sell its drives in both the consumer and enterprise markets. Toshiba claims that it can combine its NAND flash memory with OCZ's proprietary controller technology and software for future products. Growth in the SSD industry continues to explode, with some estimates predicting that a third of the entire storage market will be solid state based by 2017. That growth will come from consumer computing - whether as part of laptop storage or as a DIY desktop add-on as well as enterprise applications.
India
Indias Micromax launches a phone that pays you to watch advertisements Indian mobile device maker Micromax has launched its new Canvas Mad A94 model, which comes equipped with what it calls a MAd application. Mad, or Micromax Advertising, is an application that lets users watch advertisements and earn points which can then be converted into Indian currency and credited to users phone accounts. The app works across all of the devices affiliated telecom operators and the credits are applicable to both pre-paid and post-paid plans. CommonFlor, Indian property listings site, gets $10 million in fresh funds About six months after CommonFloor raised $7.5 million in funding from Accel Partners and Tiger Global Management, the startup has raised another RS 64 crore ($10.5 million) in series D funding. CommonFloor claims to be Indias largest real estate site, based on ComScores ranking for its site relative to local rivals. It has 75,000 property projects listed, for a total of 200,000 listings, coverings hundreds of cities. It doesnt just have new property listings and reviews but also incorporates a platform for residential community management. According to the company, the new funding will be used for product development and to fuel growth through new marketing initiatives. Its previous input of capital was used to open 11 new offices across India, so that it now has staff present in 18 cities. Little Eye Labs, Indian Startup, confirms its acquisition by Facebook, Deal worth $10-$15 million Little Eye Labs, an Indian startup that makes a software tool for analyzing the performance of Android apps, has confirmed its acquisition by Facebook. The deal is in the range of $10-15 million. This is Facebooks first acquisition of an Indian company and the entire Little Eye Labs team will move to Facebooks headquarters. Medypal raises $400K in seed round to help patients buy affordable healthcare in India Commerzpoint Networks, an Indian startup that owns healthcare marketplace Medypal, has raised around $400,000 in seed funding from Unitus Seed Fund. With this funding, Medypal will help patients find trustworthy service providers who will bid against each other for their spend on medical procedures. Medypal will use a reverse auction method to ensure that the services are competitively priced and patients are able to pick the service provider they want. India IT training school offers Bitcoin course Koenig Solutions introduced a four-day program that encompasses skillsets and focus areas such as the basics of Bitcoin, Bitcoin mining, secure trading with Bitcoin, and Bitcoin protocol specifications. The course is currently available at its Delhi training center, and will be offered to its other branches in India and overseas, reported The Times of India. It is estimated that India houses 30,000 Bitcoin owners who hold about 1 percent of the global circulation of some 12 million Bitcoins.
Indonesia
Indonesias internet speed gets an update, 100Mbps worth of it 4G internet speeds have become more widely available in Jakarta. A new home broadband service from First Media, internet service provider, has been rolled out since last month and it costs IDR 3mn ($252) a month. ITs currently available only in certain areas, and the team is still working to make sure it can eventually cover

January 27, 2014
the whole areas. Before this, the highest-speed First Media broadband service clocked in at 30 Mbps, but now up to 100 Mbps. KakaoTalk now has 15M users in Indonesia Its been about a year since Koreas Kakao Talk entered Indonesia and went on a marketing blitz. Kakao revealed today that it now has 15M registered users in Indonesia. The company also revealed that it recorded 320% growth from its iOS user-base in Indonesia last month.
Taiwan
LG to launch curved-screen smartphone G Flex in Taiwan market LG Electronics on January 6 unveiled G Flex, a smartphone with a curved screen and body, for launch in the Taiwan market. G Flex will be available for contract-bundled sale exclusively by Chunghwa Telecom (CHT). About 9 million smartphones were sold in the Taiwan market in 2013 and LG sold 300,000 units for a market share of 3.3%. LG plans to launch 10 smartphone models in the Taiwan market in 2014, four of which will be flagship models while two-thirds will support LTE. LG aims to ship 400,000-500,000 smartphones with an average sales price of US$300 in the Taiwan market in 2014 and account for 5% of the total sales volume and 8% of the total sales value. HTC unveils 2 LTE smartphones HTC on Jan. 7 unveiled two 4G LTE smartphones, the HTC ONE and HTC Butterfly S, for launch in the Taiwan market at recommended retail price of NT $19,900 (US$663) and NBT$20,900. The launch aims to meet demand for 4G smartphones as operations of 4G mobile communication services in Taiwan are expected to begin in 2H14. Acer partners with PChomePay Acer has announced a strategic partnership with PChome Group through investing in PChomePay, a provider of third-party e-payment services, for a 15.6% stake, marking Acers debut in e-commerce. Acer said it will subscribe to seven million new shares PChyomePay will issue to raise additional paid-in capital of NT70 million (US$2.33 million). Asustek expects 20% shipment growth for notebooks and tablets in North America in 2014 Asustek Computer expects its notebook and tablet shipments in North America to grow at least 20% on year in 2014, raising its ranking in the regions notebook market from seventh in 2013 to sixth. Since Chromebooks are gradually gaining demand in the sub-US$300 notebook market in North America, Asustek is also preparing related products, aiming to acquire some share of the market, especially in the education segment.
Thailand
Thailand sees huge boost in online shopping as Bangkok hit by shutdown Rakutens Tarad e-store, one of the largest e-commerce companies in Thailand, saw sales increase by 71% during the last three months while there were political protests going on for months in many cities in Thailand and Bangkok shutdown a week ago. Total visits shot up by 93% in that period compared to the same period the year before. Looking at mobile-only e-shoppers in Thailand, the growth of sales from phones increased by 637% during the ongoing protests. This big boost could also be the result of Rakutens mobile commerce campaign that the company started late last year as smartphone usage grows in the country
Singapore
Facebook co-founder joins online grocery store RedMarts $5.4M funding round Redmart, a Singapore-based online grocery service, announced the closing of its oversubscribed $5.4M bridge round led by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. The investment, a precursor to a larger Series B round which it is already raising money for and is slated to close within five months, will be spent on fulfillment technology and infrastructure. This latest round brings RedMarts fundraising total to about $10 million. Past investors include Skype co-founder Toivo Annus, games publisher Garena, Singapore-based investment firms East Ventures and Golden Gate Ventures, and angel investor John Tan.
Australia

January 27, 2014
Kogans 5-inch Android phablet debuts, costs 75% less than a Galaxy Note II Australian electronics manufacturer Kogan has announced a 5-inch phone-cum-tablet, otherwise known as a 'phablet', which will be one of the cheapest devices in the category when it arrives in the UK later in the year. Kogan is likely to meet some resistance in the highly competitive smartphone market, particularly from better established brands, but with an up-front cost that's only around 25 percent of a Samsung Galaxy Note II (currently listed at around 450 on Amazon UK) it could well appeal to the lower end of the market. (http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20140108PR203.html) Mig33 is now listed on the Australian Securities Exchange Singapore and Indonesia-based mobile social networking company mig33 is now listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), the countrys primary stock exchange. It did so via a reverse takeover, in which a listed company acquires a private company only for the shareholders of the latter to become majority owners of the combined group. Mig33 is actually acquired by Latin Gold, an Australian company that does mineral exploration and project investigation. It now owns 720 million of Latin Gold Limiteds (ASX:LAT) shares. The acquisition will see mig33 own 69.5% of Latin Gold while Latin Gold shareholders will own approximately 30.5% of the merged group. Credit card signatures to be phased out in Australia Australians will need to get used to using their PIN for credit card purchases, with signatures set to be phased out from the middle of 2014. The changes won't affect online purchases, but will apply to all transactions over a point-of-sale (POS) terminal. "The phasing out of signature verification will help protect consumers and retailers alike from fraudsters, said Australian Retailers Association spokesman.
United States
Apple confirms acquisition of Australian entrepreneurs SnappyCam photography app Apple has acquired an Australian entrepreneurs smartphone app that turned the iPhone 5 into a full action camera capable of shooting 20 high-quality photos in one second. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone launches new app Twitter co-founder Biz Stone launched a new Q&A app called Jelly. The app, available on iOS and Android, lets users crowdsource questions to their social networks. A feature also lets users take pictures and pose questions to friends and their networks. The concept: if you're walking down the street and see a flower you want more information about, you can take a picture of it, crop or draw on it, and pose a question to your social networks. Mashable raises $13M in its first outside funding Mashable raised $13 million in Series A funding. CNN (which was previously rumored to be in talks to buy Mashable) broke the news, and Mashable has confirmed the funding in a post of its own. Founded in 2005, the site has since expanded from its initial focus from tech, particularly social media, to include entertainment, lifestyle, and other news. The round was led by Updata Partners (a growth equity firm), with participation from New Market Ventures Partners, Social Starts, Buddy Media co-founders, Iglo Group CEO, and Havas Global CEO. Pinterest acquires image recognition and visual search startup VisualGraph Pinterest has just acquired two-man startup VisualGraph, which creates machine vision, image recognition, and visual search technologies. By understanding the visual content of what people pin, Pinterest could suggest other content or show people more relevant ads. For example, even without text or tags, if you pin a lot of long dresses, VisualGraph could help Pinterest recognize the shape of clothing, and let it know to show you similar apparel, opposed to short skirts. You can see VisualGraphs image detection tech in action in the images below. TiVo moves storage of TV shows into the cloud with new network DVR service TiVo is building products that would let consumers save their favorite shows not on a hard drive in a box, but up in the cloud. The company has spent the last few years adding cloud-based elements to its service and apps. With the network DVR, TiVo will be able to deliver the same consistent UI to users without having to have a hard drive in its set-top boxes.

January 27, 2014
Tesla and Audi to become AT&T cars Tesla and Audi are teaming up with AT&T to provide internet connectivity in their cars. According to AT&Ts head of emerging devices, these advancements reflect a major step forward in converting cars from mindless machines to intelligent gadgets. Everything is going to be connected making the car easier to use, safer, reduce distracted driving and deliver infotainment. BlackBerry to produce Foxconn phone that cost under $200 BlackBerry is working on a Foxconn-built touch-screen smartphone that will be priced under $200. The CEO of BlackBerry said, were not retreating from the consumer business. The focus of the company for the next 18 months will be on the enterprise, which is likely where its more traditional keyboard smartphone will come into play. Dropbox plants another distribution point on Dell devices Anyone who purchases a new Dell Venue tablet or Dell XPS, Inspiron or Alienware PC will also be eligible to receive 20GB of free Dropbox space for a year. Dell and Dropbox briefly announced a partnership a few weeks back, and now the distribution angle is becoming clearer as Dell peels back the curtain on its latest portfolio. Dell is now offering two cloud storage options with its products: Dropbox and PocketCloud, made by Dellowned subsidiary Wyse. Facebook acquires Branch Media team to lead new conversation group A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the Branch Media team will be joining the company. They declined to discuss the terms of the deal, but emphasized that it was a talent acquisition. Outbox shuts down its mail digitizing service Mail startup Outbox just announced that its shutting down its current service it sent people by your home to pick up your physical mail, then it digitized that mail all for $4.99 a month. After a pilot program in Austin, Outbox launched the service in San Francisco a year ago, and it raised a $5 million Series A led by Floodgate over the summer. The company itself isnt going away, but is now focusing on the team and resources on a totally new product. Petnet raises $1.125M to make a smart food dispenser for your furry friends th LA based startup Petnet announced on Jan 20 that it has landed a $1.125 million seed round from Grishin Robotics, Kima Ventures, SparkLabs Global Ventures, and Launch Capital. Petnet will use the investment to commercialize its first product, the Smartfeeder, which is scheduled to ship to customers in the middle of this year. Apple eyes two bigger displays for iPhone, another report says The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple will launch one iPhone with a screen size bigger than 4.5 inches and another boasting a display in excess of 5 inches. Earlier QQ Tech reported that iPhone 6 will feature 4.7inch and 5.7-inch displays to be launched in this June. In addition to a larger screen, Apple plans to ditch the plastic casing in the iPhone 5C and go with metal in both versions of the device. Microsofts Q2 strong: surface revenue hits $893 million Microsofts fiscal second quarter results were better-than-expected and the company provided a more details about Surface sales, which came in at $893 million, double from the first quarter. The results, largely powered by Xbox sales and strong enterprise sales, topped Wall Street expectations. AOL gets personal with $90M Gravity acquisition AOL announced it would acquire Gravity, a Santa Monica-based content optimization and personalization startup. To close the deal, AOL will shell out $83 million cash upfront and an additional $7.7 million that will be deferred over the next two years. The acquisition gives AOL some extra horsepower in the race among social networking sites and online content publishers to turn an ocean of user data and habits into a targeted stream of revenue-generating advertising opportunities. eBays Q4 strong; Outlook light; Icahn wants Paypal spinoff eBay's 4Q earnings were better than expected courtesy of mobile volume, PayPal and solid marketplace results, but the company's outlook for the 1Q14 was light. The company also detailed that investor Carl Icahn wants a PayPal spin-off. The company reported 4Q earnings of $850 million, or 65 cents a share, on revenue

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of $4.53 billion, up 14% YoY. eBay also has detailed that Icahn, the investor, who is quickly becoming a thorn in Apple's side, has nominated two of his employees to the board of directors and wants a PayPal spin-off. Icahn owns 0.82% of eBay, which has said that spinning off PayPal doesn't make sense. Google awarded patent for free rides to advertisers locations The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last week granted Google a patent for arranging free (or highly discounted) transportation to an advertisers business location. Googles now-patented algorithms would take into account things like a users current location, the route and potential forms of transportation (train, personal car, taxi, rental car, or shared vehicle) to an advertisers business, as well as the users daily agenda and the price competing advertisers are willing to pay for the customer to be delivered to alternate locations. Evernote gives 6 months of free premium service to Deutsche Telekom customers in 12 new countries Evernote inked a deal with telecom giant Deutsche Telekom last year, which saw the carrier offer its nearly 60 million mobile, broadband and fixed-line customers in Germany one year of Evernote Premium free of charge. Now that partnership will be extended to 12 new countries Albania, Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Montenegro, Macedonia, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia though Deutsche Telekom customers in these countries will only receive six months of Evernote Premium for free.
Europe
Worldwide device shipments on pace to grow 7.6% in 2014, says Gartner Worldwide combined shipments of devices (PCs, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones) are projected to reach 2.5 billion units in 2014, a 7.6% increase from 2013, according to Gartner. Among the operating system (OS) market, Android is on pace to surpass one billion users across all devices in 2014. By 2017, over 75% of Android's volumes will come from emerging markets. French custom travel startup Evaneos raises $6M to ocontinue competing with European tour operators Evaneos, a French startup that competes with traditional tour operators by providing a marketplace for tailored travel experiences, has raised $6 million in Series B funding. The round is being led by XAnge Private Equity, with participation from previous investor ISAI. This brings total funding for the four year old company to around $7 mn, having raised a little over $1 mn in two previous rounds from various angels and ISAI. The new capital will be used for European growth, specifically to launch in new countries beyond France, Spain, Italy and Germany where it currently operates. Estonian farm management startup VitalFields raises further !500K Estonian startup, VitalFields, which offers web and mobile apps to put farm management into the cloud and harness otherwise untapped farm-related data, has raised !500,000 in follow-on funding. The round was led by original backer SmartCap, the venture capital arm of the Estonian Development Fund, with participation from new investor TMT Investments. Previous backers Wiser Financial Advisors, and Arvi Tavast, also participated, along with Ahti Heinla (one of the first Skype engineers) and Andres Kull. This brings total funding to !750,000, after VitalFields raised !250,000 in late 2012. The Eye Tribe is shipping its first $99 Eye-Tracking Units, raises another $1M The Eye Tribe, which develops hardware that allows users to control technology with the motion of their eyes, has started shipping its first units and software development kits ($99). The company also raised another $1 million in seed funding, bringing its total seed/angel funding to $1.8million. As investor interest heats up in Turkey, Pan-European accelerator startupbootcamp launches in Istanbul Startupbootcamp, the pan-European accelerator based loosely on the Techstars model, has expanded to the Turkish city and is currently accepting applications. As is now very familiar, it operates a 3-month bootcampstyle program to fund, mentor, house and showcase early-stage startups. Teams from anywhere can apply, but will need to relocate to Istanbul for the program, with applications expected from across Europe, the Middle East, CIS and North Africa. Startups accepted into the program receive !15,000 (in return for giving away 8% equity), 4+ months of office space, mentorship and whats being described as !250k+ in sponsor and partner services.

January 27, 2014
iZettle, Europes Square, releases an SDK for direct mobile payment integration on iOS iZettle - a mobile payments startup based out of Sweden that has been referred to as the Square of Europe for its small piece of hardware that attaches to a smartphone or tablet - is taking one more step to making its service more ubiquitous in the nine countries where it operates: its releasing an SDK that will directly integrate iZettle mobile payments into third party applications. Nokia sees Advanced Technology revenues rising to !600m a year after Microsoft deal Revenues from Nokia's new patent and R&D business, Advanced Technologies, are expected to rise to !600m a year and could rise increase even higher now the company doesn't need to withhold technologies for its own device business. The sum is based on part of the deal with Microsoft, in which Nokia has agreed to license certain existing patents to Microsoft for 10 years at a cost !1.65bn, of which !100m gives Microsoft the option to continue licensing the patents in perpetuity. Also yet to be determined is how much Samsung will end up paying Nokia to license its patents, after the pair's previous patent agreement expired this year. This is another factor that could dramatically affect AT's bottom line. The two companies are headed into arbitration over the exact sum Samsung will have to pay, which is expected to be settled in 2015. Google acquires artificial intelligence startup DeepMind for $400M Google will pay $400 million to buy London-based artificial intelligence company DeepMind. DeepMind was founded by neuroscientist Demis Hassabis, a former child prodigy in chess, Skype and Kazaa developer Jaan Tallin, and researcher Shane Legg. This is the latest move by Google to fill out its roster of artificial intelligence experts, and the acquisition was reportedly led by Google CEO Larry Page.
Israel
Bitcoin ATM Machine Arriving in Israel An ATM machine allowing conversion between hard cash and Bitcoins is set to arrive in Israel in March. The machine will be installed in Tel Aviv's "Bitcoin Embassy." The machine will be operated by Lamassu, Inc., and will support conversion between the virtual currency and more than 200 regular currencies in 25 languages. Once acquired, Bitcoins are stored in a digital wallet. In recent months, the device was installed in Canada, where customers are able to conduct transactions of up to 3,000 Canadian dollars ($2,700) per day. Israel and India to invest $40M in joint venture tech fund The Indian and Israeli governments have reached an agreement to establish a $40 million fund aimed at investing in joint technological ventures. Each country will contribute $20 million towards the fund over five years. The fund will support media, software, agriculture, energy, water, and aerospace ventures. The fund will help Israeli companies participate in large Indian government-led ventures, foster collaboration of Israeli and Indian companies in R&D projects and seek to adapt products developed in Israel for the Indian market. Incubator for Arab startups to be opened in Haifa Israeli venture capitalist Chemi Peres, JVP fund and Arab-Israeli businessman Imad Telhami, are in the process of setting up an incubator for startups in the fields of internet, media and mobile in the Arab language. TheMarker reports that the incubator, aimed at Arab-Israeli startups, will most likely be located in the city of Haifa and accommodate early-stage companies.

SparkLabs Global Ventures' Technology and Internet Market Bi-Monthly Review 0127 2014

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January 27, 2014