Daily Tech Snippet: Thursday, April 14

• Regulators plan to revoke Theranos’ federal license and ban founder Elizabeth Holmes: Theranos might find itself homeless soon. A federal agency plans to force founder Elizabeth Holmes out of her blood analysis startup for two years and take away the California lab’s federal license. First reported in the Wall Street Journal, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services sent a letter dated March 18 proposing sanctions barring Holmes and company president Sunny Balwani from owning or running operations in labs for at least two years – including in  both California and Arizona – and taking away federal licensing for Theranos’ California facilities in Newark and Palo Alto after Theranos’ continued failure to correct major problems with accuracy and competence. These actions would be a major financial blow to the startup valued at $9 billion. Theranos has the runway to keep working with approximately $700 million in the bank but the two labs make a good portion of the money for Theranos’ operations and a loss of the founder and president would strangle any hope of recovery.


• Artificial Intelligence for Everyday Use: How four programmers with almost no knowledge of Japanese designed software to read handwriting. Real-world artificial-intelligence applications are popping up in unexpected places—and much sooner than you might think. While winning a game of Go might be impressive, machine intelligence is also evolving to the point where it can be used by more people to do more things. That's how four engineers with almost zero knowledge of Japanese were able to create software, in just a few months, that can decipher handwriting in the language. The programmers at Reactive Inc. came up with an application that recognizes scrawled-out Japanese with 98.66 percent accuracy. The 18-month-old startup in Tokyo is part of a growing global community of coders and investors who are harnessing the power of neural networks to put AI to far more practical purposes than answering trivia or winning board games. "Just a few years ago, you had to be a genius to do this," said David Malkin, who has a Ph.D. in machine learning but can barely string two Japanese sentences together. "Now you can be a reasonably smart guy and make useful stuff. Going forward, it will be more about using imagination to apply this to real business situations." While handwriting recognition might be considered deep-learning 101, Japanese is a whole other ballgame. That's because the language includes symbolic characters such as kanji, which is composed of elements that can be read independently, making it difficult to know where one ends and another begins. There are also more than 2,000 common pictograms made up of dozens of strokes. The trick is to tackle one squiggle at a time. Reactive’s algorithm queries the neural network for a match, adds another stroke and repeats, all the while refining the probability of an accurate hit. The startup trained its model on about 1.8 million characters. Unlike a typical program built around rigid rules, deep-learning AI is modeled on how humans process information. Given enough data as inputs and a set of desired outputs, neural networks figure out what goes in the middle. This allows them to find solutions that have bedeviled traditional approaches, like interpreting speech or tagging images. And once built, a neural network doesn’t have to be limited to language applications. In their spare time, the four Reactive engineers showed the program 5,000 dresses downloaded from Google Images, then gave it a picture of a woman in a revealing outfit. "Sexy clothes," the software responded.

• Some Online Bargains May Only Look Like One: Amazon has some unbelievable bargains on its virtual shelves. A cat litter pan with a list price of $2,159 can be yours for a mere $28. A bag of doggy treats, normally $822, is only $8. A windshield wiper blade, which the unwary pay $1,504 for, has been knocked down 99 percent. You say you don’t believe that a plastic cat pan could ever have been sold to anyone for a couple of thousand bucks? Or that a six-ounce bag of Zuke’s Lil’ Links pork and apple sausage bits ever cost more than dinner at a five-star restaurant? It’s all part of the bizarre world of Internet “discounts,” which let retailers and brands assert that you are getting a stupendous deal because someone somewhere else — exactly where is never explained — is being charged much more. Boomerang Commerce, a retail analytics firm, compared the list prices of dozens of pet items on Amazon and the specialist pet site Chewy.com. In only a handful of cases did the retailers even agree on what the list price was. So a 22-pound bag of Blue Buffalo Basics Limited Ingredient Grain-Free Duck and Potato dog food had a list price of $131 on Amazon and $84 on Chewy. Yet the retail price at both sites was the same: $49.49. “A perceived deeper discount creates a higher conversion event — in other words, more buyers,” said Boomerang’s chief executive, Guru Hariharan, who previously worked at Amazon. Another consultant, Ripen eCommerce, analyzed 746,000 product searches on Amazon. Ripen’s goal was to help third-party clients who sell on the giant retailer jockey for a better position — say, on the first page of results rather than further back. A little over 44 percent of the products — some sold directly by Amazon, others by third parties — were billed as discounted, Ripen said. “It’s less than I expected, actually,” said Dave Rekuc, Ripen’s director of marketing. “Considering you can basically name your own list price.”

• Verizon bets on Armstrong, M&A savvy in Yahoo bid:  Verizon is the clear favorite in the upcoming bidding for Yahoo's core Internet business, according to Wall Street analysts, in large part because the telecommunications company's efforts to become a force in Internet content have gone relatively well under the leadership of AOL Inc Chief Executive Tim Armstrong. Verizon acquired AOL last June for $4.4 billion - its first big foray into the advertising-supported Internet business - and it is not yet clear how well the unit is performing financially. Subsequent moves, including the takeover of much of Microsoft Corp's advertising technology business, a deal to buy Millennial Media for about $250 million and the recent launch of the mobile video service go90, are also too recent to assess. Yet analysts have given the big phone company high marks for allowing AOL to operate independently and folding in other recent acquisitions without much drama. And they said Armstrong seems to be driving Verizon's recent moves in go90 and recent acquisitions. Verizon showed interest in Yahoo's core business as early as December, when Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said the company would "see if there is a strategic fit" for Yahoo's holdings, which include mail, news, sports and advertising technology. Yahoo, under pressure from activist investors, launched an auction of its core business in February after it shelved plans to spin off its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. The first round of bidding is slated for next week, and Verizon plans to make a bid, sources familiar with the matter have told Reuters. Verizon is already working on increasing revenue through its ad-supported mobile video service go90, targeted at millennials and built on video streaming technology acquired from Intel in 2014. The app, which launched in October, offers videos from Comedy Central and Vice, among others, as well as basketball and football games. However, analysts cautioned that even a combined Yahoo-AOL would lack the unique data, such as user interests and tastes, that powers its rivals in online ads, chiefly Google and Facebook. Armstrong, who made his name leading sales at Google, is highly regarded in the advertising community - in contrast to Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, another former Google high-flyer, who has been struggling to revive Yahoo. Mayer would likely leave after a Verizon-Yahoo deal, analysts sa

• More Startups Are Getting Lower Valuations Than Joining the Billion-Dollar Club: According to a new report from KPMG International and CB Insights, 2016 has seen a larger number of startups taking new lower valuations than those earning the billion-dollar badge. “The first quarter of 2016 has borne witness to high-profile unicorn company issues, layoffs, down rounds and mutual fund valuation markdowns,” according to the report. Only five venture capital–backed companies entered the $1 billion club in the same period, less than half the number from any quarter since the first quarter of 2015. Meanwhile, CB Insights’ Downround Tracker shows there were 19 "down events"—or companies raising new money or being acquired at a lower valuation—during that same time frame, including big names such as Foursquare Labs Inc., Gilt Groupe Inc., and Jawbone Inc. Those downgrades may also cause other startups to wait to raise new money if they anticipate having to take cuts themselves.

Daily Tech Snippet: Thursday, April 16

• Boomerang Commerce Launches A/B Testing Platform For Pricing: Boomerang Commerce, a startup that helps online retailers optimize their pricing and a 2014 Disrupt NY Startup Battlefield finalist, today announced the launch of its A/B testing service for pricing. Marketers love A/B testing to see which message works best, but when it comes to pricing, offering two different customers two different prices for the same product can quickly become a recipe for disaster. You’re bound to upset some customers, after all, when they find out they paid more for a product than somebody else. Boomerang CEO Guru Hariharan acknowledges as much. “You can’t just use standard tools,” he said. “If you do that, you’ll lose trust. More often than not, it’s a bad idea.” So what Boomerang does is allow retailers to test different pricing strategies and algorithms across a small group of products, for example, to test which ones maximize the retailers revenues and profits. The idea here then is less about charging customer A one price and customer B another, but to see which pricing strategies work better. Say you have 100,000 products in your inventory (the company only works with very large retailers that do $25 million or more in online sales). Boomerang now lets them take a representative set of 500 of these and test different pricing strategies on them. “Merchandizers and analysts at click and mortar retailers have had to wait months to draw conclusive results from price tests,” Hariharan said. “In the digital world, you don’t have that kind of luxury with time and need to make decisions as quickly as possible – often with limited data. This is why we believe that facilitating rapid testing of pricing strategies would help them figure out a way to set the right prices for their products in a timely manner.” Besides A/B testing, Boomerang also launched a number of other new products over the last couple of months, including a price optimizer that helps retailers manage a product’s pricing lifecycle from introductory pricing all the way to clearance markdowns. The company also recently launched an improve competitive pricing intelligence service that helps retailers stay on top of what their competitors are charging. The company has grown from 15 employees a year ago to 70 employees now. Hariharan tells me Boomerang’s software now manages about $2 billion in sales every year.

• Six percent of U.S. adults plan to buy Apple Watch - that would out-pace Wall Street estimates - according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll: About 6 percent of U.S. adults plan to buy Apple Inc's smartwatch according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, with men twice as likely as women to purchase Apple boss Tim Cook's first new major product. If calculated based on 2014 U.S. Census projections, and excluding younger teens, this could mean potential sales of about 15 million watches, if those who said they intended to buy follow through with an actual purchase. Wall Street estimates had varied widely between 10 million and 32 million worldwide sales in 2015. Van Baker, an analyst at tech research firm Gartner, said the Reuters poll results indicated a "pretty high percentage" was interested in buying. "It should serve Apple well if they can even get close to that," he said. The poll showed the watch, marketed by Apple as a high-fashion item as well as a new frontier in technology, appealed to fewer than 4 percent of women compared with 9 percent of men Samsung Electronics, Sony Corp and LG Electronics have all released their own smartwatches, many of them powered by software developed by Internet company Google Inc. None have given sales figures but independent researcher Smartwatch Group estimates that 6.8 million smartwatches were sold worldwide last year, led by Samsung with about 1.2 million units. The Apple Watch, priced from $349 for a basic Sport model to a $17,000 gold timepiece, lets users check email, listen to music and make phone calls when paired with an iPhone. Reviews have generally praised its style but criticized battery life and slow-loading apps. According to the poll, adults aged between 30 and 39 were the most likely buyers, with 13 percent saying they planed to buy an Apple Watch, followed by 10 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds. Just under a third of respondents said they already own an iPhone. Not surprisingly, iPhone owners are more likely to spend money on the new Apple gadget, with about 15 percent saying they planed to buy.

• The EU formally accused Google of abusing its dominance: The European Union’s antitrust chief on Wednesday formally accused Google of abusing its dominance in web searches, bringing charges that could limit the giant American tech company’s moneymaking prowess. How Google responds in the case — the biggest since the case against Microsoft in the 2000s — and to what degree the accusations hamper its own business or aid its rivals remain to be seen. Google holds a roughly 90 percent share in the region’s search market, and the company contends that in both web searches and Android software it plays fair. If Google fails to rebut the formal charges, Ms. Vestager could levy a fine that could exceed €6 billion — about 10 percent of Google’s most recent annual revenue. But the largest single fine yet levied in such a case falls well short of that mark: The record is €1.1 billion in 2009 against Intel for abusing its dominance of the computer chip market. The Google case is the most weighty decision by Ms. Vestager since she took office late last year. But the decision to open a separate investigation, into whether Google’s use of its Android operating system, might turn out to be as significant. Regulators will look into whether Google abused its dominant position by pre-installing its apps and services onto Android smartphones that potentially gave Google preferential treatment compared with its rivals. The investigation could take years. More here: The European Union accused Google Inc on Wednesday of cheating consumers and competitors by distorting Web search results to favor its own shopping service, after a five-year investigation that could change the rules for business online. It also started another antitrust investigation into the Android mobile operating system, a key element in Google's strategy to maintain revenues from online advertising as people switch from Web browser searches to smartphone apps. Europe is very important to Google: The European market contributes about 35 percent of Google’s revenue, according to Carlos Kirjner, a New York-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Its market share in search exceeds 90 percent in most European markets, compared with about 65 percent in the U.S. Google dropped as much as 1.4 percent to $523.22 in New York trading. The shares fell 1 percent to $525.30 at 10:25 a.m. local time.

• Netflix Q1 earnings: Revenue +24% at $1.57B, shares soar 12% as subscriber count stands at 62M: Netflix Inc. said its video-streaming service topped 62 million subscribers worldwide, as original shows such as “House of Cards” drew new viewers globally. The shares soared to a record high. U.S. subscribers jumped by 2.28 million in the first quarter, while international accounts rose 2.6 million, the Los Gatos, California-based company said Wednesday on its website. Both figures beat the company’s Jan. 20 forecast. Sales grew 24 percent to $1.57 billion, matching analysts’ projections. Netflix is investing heavily in original programming to keep the U.S. business growing and support Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings’s international expansion. While new shows such as “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” and “Bloodline” drove U.S. viewing, the rise of the U.S. dollar trimmed sales and contributed to losses overseas, the company said. “Netflix remains a subscriber growth momentum story,” Paul Sweeney, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, said in an e-mail. “As long as domestic and international subscribers continue to grow, bulls will have a reason to buy the stock.” Netflix rose 12 percent to $534.07 in extended trading after results were announced. If that holds Thursday, it will mark an all-time high, with the market value of the company exceeding that of CBS Corp. The stock fell 0.7 percent to $475.46 at the close Wednesday in New York. So far this year, Netflix has advanced 39 percent, fourth-most among members of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. First-quarter net income fell to $24 million, or 38 cents a share, from $53.1 million, or 86 cents, as the strong dollar contributed to losses outside the U.S. Excluding that, profit was 77 cents, the company said. Analysts forecast profit of 63 cents, the average of 35 estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Original programming is taking larger slice of Netflix’s content budget. The company’s obligations, which grew 30 percent last year, now total $9.8 billion. The growth in subscribers justifies the increasing costs, according to Rich Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG Research. Netflix extended its service to Australia and New Zealand in March. It rolls out its streaming service in Japan later this year, its first market in Asia. The company plans to offer its service worldwide by the end of 2016, though it is unclear if that will include China. A report this week by UBS AG projected Netflix would reach 87 million subscribers outside the U.S. by 2020. That total now stands at 20.9 million. In total, Netflix forecasts 2.5 million new subscribers this quarter, including 600,000 in the U.S. and 1.9 million overseas.

• Hyperlocal grocery delivery startups are hot in India: Grofers raises $35M in Series B round, and PepperTap bags $10M two days after ZopNow’s $10M round: Hyper-local grocery and fresh food delivery platform Grofers, has raised $35 million (Rs 218 crore) from its existing investors Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital, the company said on Wednesday. Its second round of funding comes just two months after it closed a Series A fundraise worth $10 million from Tiger Global and Sequoia. The startup had previously raised seed funding from Sequoia and Deepinder Goyal, co-founder and CEO of Zomato. Separate media reports, citing sources, pegged Grofer’s valuation in the new funding round in the $110-115 million range. The company said it will use the funds to add products in addition to expanding services to more cities. Founded by Saurabh Kumar and Albinder Dhindsa, Grofers allows users to order products ranging from grocery to pet supplies and baby care products online and enables delivery within 90 minutes. It allows consumers order products available at brick and mortar stores through the Grofers mobile app. The smartphone-based grocery delivery platform currently partners with more than 400 merchants in Bangalore, Delhi-NCR and Mumbai. It expects to start delivering products in Hyderabad and Pune by next month. Grofers claims to have witnessed a sharp increase in the number of orders and expects to execute over 20,000 orders this month.

Daily Tech Snippet: Thursday January 15

• Facebook Ad Clicks Are Shifting to Mobile, so Why Aren't Conversions? Because users still convert on desktops - and as mobile traffic grows, overall conversions fall: 64 percent of Facebook ad clicks occurred on mobile devices during 2014's fourth quarter, just 34 percent of the social media giant's conversions—either a sale, download or completed lead-gen form—came from smartphones and tablets. This new stat, from Marin Software's quarterly Global Online Advertising Index, means nearly two-thirds of all Facebook ad conversions are happening on desktops even though the digital platform's usage is increasingly skewing toward mobile. The same study found that 39 percent of clicks on paid search ads from sites like Google were via mobile devices, yet 31 percent of the paid search category's purchases came from mobile viewers. So the clicks/conversions ratio clearly favors Google over Facebook. In Q4, Marin found that Facebook's desktop ads got a 1.1 percent conversion rate, while its mobile ads rendered a 0.3 percent conversion rate. Conversely, paid search on Google and other engines achieved a 10.1 percent conversion rate for desktop ads and a 6.6 percent conversion rate for smartphones and tablets. The reasons behind Google's appeal to direct marketers are obvious when looking at those numbers. But Marin CMO Matt Ackley touted Facebook's branding potential. "The disparity points to the value in Facebook advertising being closer to television or print than performance-marketing channels," he said. "Clicks on mobile ads are greater than desktop ads, indicating Facebook mobile ads are a great way for a retailer to build brand awareness and reach consumers on mobile devices. Consumers are not device or channel exclusive. They move from search to social sites." Therein may lie a challenge for Facebook: persuading retailers that their social ads can help search ads perform better. Meanwhile, there's absolutely no doubt that search is going mobile. Marin's data offers further proof, stating that as much as 49 percent of marketers' paid search budget is being manifested via tablet and smartphone. Finally, check out the software player's chart below that shows clickthrough rates for different marketing mediums.

Source: Adweek

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• Indian eCommerce pricing analytics Boomerang opines: Amazon.com is not always the cheapest place to buy everything. And neither is Wal-Mart. Both giants bill themselves as places for good deals, but a new report from retail analytics firm Boomerang Commerce compares their strategies and sheds light on the ways they engineer pricing to get that reputation. What the authors find is that Amazon has carefully priced some items low, while leaving others more expensive -- in some cases, much more expensive -- to bolster its reputation as a place for deals. For instance, items with high consumer ratings tend to be priced lower than what you'd find at Wal-Mart. Boomerang provided the example of the Belkin N450 Dual Band Wireless N Router (despite the complex name, it's just a standard WiFi router). On Amazon, it gets only 3.5 stars and is ranked 4,285 in the electronics department. Its price: $56.43. Wal-Mart's Web site has it for $39.99. Also, stuff that's highly visible -- products that either customers rave about or Amazon itself promotes -- also tend to be cheaper than at other places. But items that you wouldn't naturally associate with online retail, such as tires for cars, aren't cheap at all. And accessory items to highly promoted products -- think cable connectors for your new flat-screen TV -- aren't always that cheap. And then there's this: Amazon seems to know, likely by studying billions of shopping transactions, exactly the time of year when many people will buy an item even if the price is high, the study said. For instance, the online retailer seemed to know that a lot of people would be buying HDMI cables in the fall and the run-up to Christmas. Boomerang found that a pack of Twisted Veins HDMI cables went from just under $5 in the summer to more than $8 before Christmas. (Amazon.com chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos is the owner of The Washington Post.) The good folks at Boomerang created a chart that shows how prices interact with people's perceptions of Amazon and Wal-Mart. Below, the firm's chart shows common categories of products -- listed in the left column. The next column looks at what percentage of each category of products are sold by both retailers. The last two columns show how customers perceive the price differences between the two retailers (PPI stands for Price Perception Index). in the war for perception, Wal-Mart consistently beats Amazon in several categories, including automotive products, pet-related items, and household and home goods. People think those items will be cheaper at the big-box store than they are on Amazon's site. And that perception appears to have encouraged Amazon to leave the prices of those items high. Amazon, meanwhile, takes the low-price perception prize for video games, toys and a variety of electronic goods such as wearable tech, accessories, phones, GPS units and cameras. And the researchers indeed could find examples where perception matched reality. The two retailers are more or less evenly matched when it comes to computers, televisions, cellphones and sports equipment, according to the report. In a statement, Amazon called the Boomerang paper “flawed” and said that Amazon is “obsessed” with providing low prices for its consumers.

• China's taxi app wars intensify: Alibaba-Backed Taxi App Said to Be Raising $500 Million: A taxi-booking service backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (BABA), is raising more than $500 million to expand in China, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Hangzhou-based company will issue new shares and receive investment from Alibaba, SoftBank Corp. (9984) and Tiger Global Management LLC, the person said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. Kuaidi would be valued at more than $2 billion, the person said. Kuaidi competes with Uber Technologies Inc. and Didi Taxi, which is backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd. (700), for the 500 million people in China using mobile phones to access the Internet for services and entertainment. Kuaidi prefers to pursue an initial public offering rather than be bought in a takeover, the company said in July. Kuaidi’s taxi booking app attracted 100 million users, who place about 3 million orders a day, according to an e-mailed statement from the company in July, which are the latest figures available. The service has more than 1 million drivers in about 300 cities. Kuaidi also introduced Yi Hao Zhuan Che, a luxury car-booking service, last year to compete with Uber. The San Francisco-based company’s valuation reached $40 billion in its latest fundraising round. Background: China’s taxi app market is dominated by two apps – Kuaidi Dache and Didi Dache. They both focus on regulated, licensed cabs, and so have avoided much of the legal issues that have beset Uber. In December last year, Didi Dache flagged down US$700 million in funding, making it the second highest funded taxi app in the world, netting more than Lyft, GrabTaxi and Ola. Tencent has put money into Didi Dache, turning taxi apps into a new frontier in the wide-scale battle between Alibaba and Tencent. Last summer Kuaidi Dache ventured into Uber’s area by launching a high-end on-demand car service called Kuaidi One. Kuaidi Dache now covers over 1 million taxis in more than 300 cities in China, including Hong Kong.

• Snapchat maybe getting ahead of itself in its ad monetization efforts: charges more than YouTube, advertisers balk at poor reporting: Snapchat Is Asking Brands for $750,000 to Advertise and Won't Budge Some brands balk at paying top dollar for one day of disappearing ads. Snapchat is asking brands for $750,000 a day for its new ads, according to multiple industry sources who have heard the pitch, and some say that's too expensive for the young app. "They [Snapchat] have minimums, and they are very firm on them," said one agency executive who has talked with Snapchat about advertising. "From a monetization perspective, they are looking for fewer, bigger, better." However, there are drawbacks to Snapchat ads, including the platform's lack of sophistication, sources said. Snapchat has limited reporting capabilities, for one; it can't even tell brands how many men versus women saw an ad, and there are no age breakouts, the executive said. Also, brands are wary of paying top asking prices when their ads disappear, sources said. (Users can view a Snapchat post briefly, then it vanishes in a snap.) "It's very hard for marketers to get their hands around advertising that is so ephemeral," the source said. Snapchat has been trying to address data and reporting, and to be fair it is still very early in its ad business rollout. Last week, the service released its first study done with the help of MillwardBrown that showed users enjoyed the app's first round of ads and that the ads helped boost brand awareness. "I'm a big fan of Snapchat, but they are going to market with rates that are significantly higher than what's competitive out there," a top executive at a major brand said. "It is difficult to go forward with a deal with Snapchat at the prices they are quoting." Snapchat is asking for rates that are higher than a masthead on YouTube, where a day costs about $500,000, another source said.

• Rumors swirl that Samsung will buy Blackberry for its patents; Blackberry stock surges, then falls on Samsung denial: Samsung Electronics recently offered to buy BlackBerry Ltd for as much as $7.5 billion, seeking its valuable patents as it battles Apple in the corporate market, according to a person familiar with the matter and documents seen by Reuters. Representatives from the two companies, which are working with advisers, met last week to discuss a potential transaction, the source said, asking not to be identified because the conversations are private. The Waterloo, Ontario-based company said in a statement that it "has not engaged in discussions with Samsung with respect to any possible offer to purchase BlackBerry. Shares of BlackBerry, which soared nearly 30 percent following the Reuters report, fell back about 15 percent in after-hours electronic trading following the statement. Samsung also told Reuters in Seoul that it has no plans to acquire Blackberry. "Media reports of the acquisition are groundless," a company spokeswoman said. BlackBerry, a one-time investor darling that pioneered smartphones, has regained some of its lost swagger under Chief Executive John Chen, who is leading a bid to regain market share it has lost to Apple Inc, Google Inc and Samsung. “To get a hold of the BlackBerry network and all its secure features, that would be a real coup for Samsung, looking to differentiate themselves from Apple and from others," he said. BlackBerry's patent portfolio is composed of roughly 44,000 patents, worth more than $1.43 billion in net book value as of August last year, although many analysts think they could be worth much more. Edward Snyder, managing director of Charter Equity Research, said it made sense for Samsung to target BlackBerry's patents in its outgoing battle with Apple and others, and that it likely would need to bid for the whole company because BlackBerry management did not want to only sell specific assets. "Samsung will have to buy the whole thing and then and shutter what they don't need,” he said. In the third quarter, revenue at BlackBerry, which is increasingly focusing on providing services like secure corporate networks, fell to $793 million from $1.19 billion a year earlier, falling short of analysts' expectations of $931.5 million.

• Zomato is in talks to raise $100M: Zomato Media Pvt Ltd, the company behind the popular restaurant listing and review site Zomato.com, is in talks to raise $100 million (Rs 625 crore) in a fresh funding, says a Reuters report quoting its co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal. This comes close on the heels of Zomato sealing its sixth acquisition in as many months and its biggest yet of restaurant information and table booking property Urbanspoon in the US for $52 million (Rs 325 crore). In November last year, Zomato had raised $60 million in funding at a pre-money valuation of $600 million from existing investors

• Investors Put $186 Million Into Lynda.com, an Online Tutorial Service, as US education startups get hot: Investor confidence in the education technology sector suddenly looks a lot more serious — at least for digital learning companies with proven business models. Lynda.com, an online video tutorial service that provides professional skills training to individuals and enterprise clients, announced Wednesday morning that it had raised $186 million in financing. The round was led by TPG Capital, a private investment firm. The sum dwarfs the largest ed tech financing deal of last year; in that deal, Pluralsight, another online training platform for professional skill development, raised $135 million from venture capital and private equity firms. The amount raised by Lynda.com also represents the largest ed tech financing deal in the last six years, according to CB Insights, a venture capital database that has been tracking the sector since 2009. Industry analysts said the Lynda deal was notable for other reasons, too. “It’s interesting, for one thing, that the round was led by TPG, a private investor likely to do more research on the market and revenue model than an early-stage investor focused on growth,” said Matthew Wong, a research analyst at CB Insights. Founded in 1995 as a training program for web design, Lynda.com is hardly a start-up. The company currently offers 5,700 courses online in English and other languages for professionals in business subjects like management; technology skills like programming and web development; and creative fields like video and photography. Lynda.com generated more than $150 million in revenue in 2014, Mr. Robison said, and has been profitable since 1997. He added that the company planned to spend the capital it raised on acquiring firms that specialize in technical and business skills training for professionals; on expanding internationally; and on improving the product experience for subscribers.

• Indian capital market regulator Sebi is working on crowdfunding guidelines: SEBI is is holding consultations for “evolving guidelines” on crowd funding that will help start ups raise funds. Crowd-funding typically involves young entrepreneurs and small groups of people raising funds for their ventures through various online platforms involving individuals as well as organisations. Sebi whole-time member Rajeev Agarwal today said the regulator “was evolving guidelines in consultation with government for funding arrangements for star up entrepreneurs”. The market regulator had, in July last year, come out with draft norms on crowd funding. Under the proposed norms, the issuer entities and their promoters and directors would need to meet ‘fit and proper’ criteria of Sebi, while they can not use multiple platforms to raise such funds within a year, among others. According to Sebi, there is a need for funding for SME through alternative sources as 2008 global financial crisis made it difficult for banks to lend money to the ventures or start-ups, which may have high risk element. However, Sebi said there is possibility of systemic risk associated with crowd-funding as well as chances that investors could be defrauded.