Daily Tech Snippet: Thursday, May 21

• API-for-payments Startup Stripe In Talks For Up To $500 Million In New Funding That Could Value the Firm at $5B: Stripe is raising a new round of funding, according to sources with knowledge of the talks. One source with direct knowledge of the talks tells us that one of the leading investors in the deal is Yuri Milner’s DST Global. While all sources maintained that the round was “big,” there wasn’t a consensus on how much Stripe is looking to raise. The aforementioned source said that the round could be as big as $500 million and another source said the financing round would raise Stripe’s valuation to $5 billion. A Stripe spokesperson declined to comment on rumors and speculation. Stripe has seen rapid growth and is known for being very developer-friendly, having impeccable customer service, and being easy to implement. Processing payments can be quite a headache for young startups, and Stripe tries to make the process as easy as possible so that they can focus on what’s important: building a company. So far, the company has raised $190 million from some high-profile investors, including PayPal cofounders Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, Box CEO Aaron Levie, Khosla Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and Sequoia Capital. Stripe has been adding products and high-profile partners over the past year as it expands across the globe. Earlier this week, Stripe announced a private beta program for Japan, and there are rumors that the company is looking to move to Singapore as well. It also added a new product called Stripe Connect to help marketplace companies — like Lyft, which needs to accept payments from customers and send payments to drivers —and partnered with Twitter and Facebook to power the respective companies Buy buttons. Stripe also inked a deal to support AliPay, which might be coming to the US soon. The fundraising round could be used to further spur global expansion. Milner has invested in social media giants Facebook and Twitter, and more recently turned his focus to international e-commerce and marketplace companies, like FlipKart and Ola Cabs. International expansion costs money — Stripe currently operates in 20 countries, while competitors like Braintree support worldwide coverage. That being said, Stripe will be facing some increased competition from an independent PayPal when the latter spins off from parent company eBay sometime during the Q3 of this year. PayPal acquired payment processor Braintree in 2013 for $800 million, which has some big clients, like Uber and Hotel Tonight, and launched v.zero, a new payment API to help developers. Smaller competitors are itching to go abroad as well — WePay raised $40 million to expand marketplace payment processing across the globe.

• Spotify Takes on Apple and YouTube: to start offering videos: Spotify just laid out its plans to be more than a streaming music service, moving to add videos and podcasts in a new service that will now be available in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Sweden. The changes chart a path that puts Spotify into direct competition with YouTube at a time when Apple is planning to relaunch its own streaming service. Spotify touted a wide roster of content partners that include Comedy Central, Vice News, NBC, ABC, ESPN, and MTV The focus is on short clips. Digital video is a much bigger business than streaming music. Subscription revenue from audio service will top $5 billion in 2020, according to Generator Research, and by that date 100 million users will be paying for streaming music. This year, however, advertisers are already set to spend $7.8 billion on digital video, according to market research firm EMarketer. By adding video, Spotify is asking users to interact with its service in a new way: Stare at the app on your phones; don't just press play and stick it back in your pocket. Podcasts are an easier connection. While the podcasting industry can hardly match the financial heft of online video, it is having a bit of a moment. Spotify is launching with a number of high-profile partners in podcasting and radio. Slate, Radiolab, and American Public Media have all signed on. Spotify will also offer some original programming in both video and audio, including radio shows hosted by the rap group Odd Future, a video series showing a new dance move each day, and a podcast about new music. Spotify is taking a cue from Songza, an online radio startup acquired by Google last June, and will offer playlists that correspond to specific moods or activities (such as “chill” or “travel”). The company also announced a new feature that will use the sensors in a user’s phone to determine their pace when they’re out on a jog and then play music with beats that complement the workout. The timing of Spotify’s announcement isn't an accident. Next month Apple is expected to unveil its own streaming service built on its $3 billion acquisition of Beats. Sure, Spotify faces plenty of competitors already, but it hasn’t faced a serious rival since it broke away from the streaming music pack several years ago. Apple is hardly guaranteed success. It launched a music-based streaming service, Ping, which failed. Then it tried a Pandora competitor, iTunes Radio, which has been underwhelming. Nor is it clear how Apple can fundamentally improve on music subscription services that are a pretty good deal for serious music fans. “Subscription music is a good category. There really isn’t a problem here for Apple to fix,” says Andrew Sheehy of Generator. “The only actual advantage that Apple has is the install base and its market power.”

• Canadian eCommerce software maker Shopify valued at $1.27 billion at IPO price: Canadian e-commerce software maker Shopify Inc said its U.S. initial public offering was priced at $17 per share, valuing the company at about $1.27 billion. The company's IPO of 7.7 million class A subordinate shares raised about $131 million, after it was priced above the top end of the expected range of $14-$16. The offering was earlier expected to be priced at $12-$14. The company sold all the shares in the offering. "Pricing reflects big enthusiasm for these type of deals. It's a unique company in a hot area with lots of growth," said Josef Schuster, founder of IPO investment firm IPOX Schuster LLC. "There's going to be a big pop coming tomorrow." Ottawa-based Shopify, which is also expected to debut on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Thursday, makes software that helps small and medium-sized retailers to set up online storefronts. Shopify charges a monthly subscription fees of $29-$179. The company has also created online stores for a variety of retailers ranging from tattoo companies to fashion boutiques and vintage book sellers. Shopify said 162,261 merchants had subscribed to its platform from about 150 countries as of March 31. Shopify's biggest investors are venture capital firms Bessemer Venture Partners, with a 30 percent stake, and FirstMark Capital LP, which has a nearly 12 percent stake.

• Cinematic Pins: Pinterest has launched a new ad format - a new kind of Promoted Pin—one that is animated. The ad updates come more than a year after Pinterest first started selling Promoted Pins, and the changes are a big step for its ad technology. Brands will be able to target about a dozen audience types from foodies to gardening enthusiasts to millennials. The new animated ads are called Cinematic Pins, and they are a bit different from the moving ads developed by rivals like Facebook and Twitter. On those platforms, videos start when you stop scrolling over them and stop when you scroll away. On Pinterest, the opposite happens. The Cinematic Pins are seen in motion as the user scrolls, but the motion stops when the scrolling stops. "Users want to feel like they're in control, and we've done a bunch of user testing—users are delighted by this experience," said Tim Kendall, Pinterest's gm of monetization. "They wind up scrolling back and forth. They love controlling the motion." A number of brands already have tested the feature, including Unilever, The Gap, L'Oreal, Nestlé, Walgreens, Target, Visa and Wendy's. The Cinematic Pins and audience targeting are part of Pinterest's new three-stage advertising offering that starts with awareness marketing. The advertisers pay on a cost-per-thousand-view basis. Then there's a marketing model based on consumer intent—when they're still deciding on a potential purchase. This type of marketing lets brands buy ads based on a cost-per-click or cost-per-engagement basis—they pay when users click on or share a Promoted Pin. In the third phase, ads are sold on a cost-per-action basis when an app is installed or a sale completed. "We only want them to pay us when the ads create that value," Kendall said. "It takes the risk out of it for marketers." Kendall said Pinterest is showing brands impressive engagement rates—for every 100 Promoted Pin impressions, brands see 30 free views thanks to repinning. "That's a really high rate of earned media," he said. Pinterest does not say how much revenue it generates in ad sales annually, and it still is a private company. But, it gets about 76 million monthly visitors, according to comScore. The platform, which lets people curate digital pin boards for projects and wish lists, is seen as an accurate marketing window into consumer behavior.

• Salesforce Earnings: Quarterly Revenue $1.5B, +23% Y/Y Despite Dollar Strength: Shares Up 3%: Salesforce today reported adjusted profit of $0.16 per share on revenue if $1.51 billion in the first quarter of its fiscal 2016. The market had expected the SaaS firm to report $0.14 in adjusted, per-share profit on revenue of $1.5 billion. Shares of Salesforce are up around 3 percent in after-hours trading, a gain that is tempered by the firm’s 1.85 percent decline in regular trading. For the current quarter, the second of its fiscal 2016, Salesforce expects revenue of $1.59 billion, generating adjusted profit of between $0.17 and $0.18. A $7 billion run rate implies fourth-quarter revenue of $1.75 billion, or around $250 million more than in the now-past period. Salesforce’s revenue grew 23 percent in its most recent quarter. For the full fiscal year, Salesforce expects revenue of between $6.52 billion, and $6.55 billion, numbers that it calculates to include $175 million to $200 million in “FX headwind.” In short, the company is taking a hit, as is nearly every U.S.-based tech shop that sells abroad. The strong dollar can hurt revenue growth, given that top-line earned overseas converts more weakly into dollars. All told, it seems that Salesforce is on solid footing.