Daily Tech Snippet: Wednesday, February 3

• Magic Leap, an Augmented Reality Firm, Raises $793 Million: Magic Leap, a secretive augmented reality start-up based in Dania Beach, Fla., announced on Tuesday that it had raised a $793 million round of venture financing, valuing the company at $3.7 billion, excluding the new funds. The round comes during a race to discover and create the next breakout platform for consumers, which many of the world’s largest tech companies think will be some form of virtual reality. In 2014 Facebook paid $2 billion for Oculus, a virtual reality company that plans to ship its first headsets to consumers in the coming weeks. Microsoft has been working on Hololens, and Apple is reportedly at work on its own efforts. But Magic Leap has drawn attention for the prominent investors it has attracted — Google, Fidelity Investments and Warner Brothers, among others — despite being almost completely closed off from showing the public any of its products. Only occasionally do the founders pop up to give interviews. This most recent round was led by Alibaba, the large Chinese e-commerce company, with participation from new investors including J.P. Morgan Investment Management, Morgan Stanley Investment Management and T. Rowe Price Associates. Magic Leap has raised more than $1 billion in funding to date.

• Image Recognition Invades Shopping As Curalate Raises $27.5M: Pinterest. Instagram. Tumblr. The future of the web is visual, but how does anyone make money on that? By understanding what’s in the images people post and connecting them to where you can buy what you see. That’s Curalate’s job. The image recognition marketing startup just raised $27.5 million led by NEA, bringing it to $40 million in total funding. If a picture is worth a thousand words, Curalate makes brands literate. Since Curalate is a suite of visual commerce tools rather than a single product, what the company actually does can seem a bit nebulous. Here’s a quick breakdown of what Curalate offers:  Like2Buy_home_cardLike2Buy – Turns the one link in a brand’s Instagram profile into a gateway to buy products from any of their Instagram posts. Fanreel – Pulls in user-generated images to a brand’s website and applies image recognition to tag products to show so they’re easy to buy. Visual Insights – Generates analytics about which of a brand’s products are being shared in images on Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and other networks so businesses know what’s hot Reveal – Makes images on a business’ website shoppable by tagging the products in them and linking them to detail and purchase pages. Ads – Allows brands to buy ads on Instagram and Pinterest using additional proprietary targeting options.

• Amazon Is Said to Be Planning an Expansion Into Retail Bookstores:  Amazon signs may be headed to more physical storefronts. The Internet retailer plans to open more brick-and-mortar bookstores following the unveiling last year of one such location here in its hometown, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential plans. But the company’s plans for physical stores are modest, this person said, especially in comparison with reports of an expansion suggested by an unusual source, the chief of a large shopping mall operator. Sandeep Mathrani, chief executive of the mall operator General Growth Properties, was answering questions from analysts on Tuesday about foot traffic in malls when he said, of Amazon’s bookstore plans, “Their goal is to open, as I understand, 300 to 400 bookstores,” according to a recording of the call. Even if Amazon is not planning to go nationwide with its stores anytime soon, any expansion of its brick-and-mortar presence is likely to send shivers down the spines of other booksellers. Amazon’s success as an online retailer of physical and electronic books has already devastated chains like Borders and seriously wounded Barnes & Noble. Independent booksellers, though, are seeing sales growth in many parts of the country, showing how reluctant some book fans have been to give up browsing store shelves. “There are all kinds of studies that show the best way to find things when you don’t know what you’re looking for is an old-fashioned bookstore,” said John Mutter, editor in chief and co-founder of Shelf Awareness, which publishes an email newsletter for booksellers and librarians. “I think that’s a major part of what Amazon is trying to do with this bookstore in Seattle.”

• Yahoo to look at job cuts, alongside spin-off:  After its core Internet business has continued to flounder, Yahoo says it is now exploring “strategic alternatives,” which could imply a number of things — including selling off its core business to another company, as was previously reported. Basically, this is an acknowledgment that things are not working over at Yahoo proper. The company released its full-year earnings today that showed, once again, flat earnings growth, and a series of products that still haven’t breached mainstream stardom. All this, taken together, is something that has investors very displeased. The company also said it was laying off 15% of its staff, including closing some international offices — which TechCrunch previously reported — as it continues to figure out what its core business looks like in 2016. Following the report, the stock basically went nowhere, meaning all of this was baked into expectations for the company’s earnings report. Mayer dismissed accusations of excessive spending, denying what she called an inaccurate report of a $7 million bill for its holiday party, saying the figure was exaggerated by a factor of three. Yahoo reported a 15-percent drop in adjusted quarterly revenue - after deducting fees paid to partner websites - to $1.00 billion from $1.18 billion as it struggles to keep its share of online search and display advertising in the face of tough competition.