Showing posts with label unicorns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unicorns. Show all posts

2019-06-22

Tech Review 1) Big Tech & Antitrust, 2) World's Most Valuable Brands 2019

graphic "Tech Review" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
Tech Review (TR 2019-06-22)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news: Features • 1) Big Tech & Antitrust, 2) World's Most Valuable Brands 2019, Huawei? 3) Investing: The Week & Investor Notes: Where the 'Ready' Users of Libra & Calibra Are, 4)ICYMI Tech News: Unicorns, 5G, Nvidia & ARM, Google, Walmart, Slack, and more.

1) Big Tech & Antitrust
Antitrust expert Doug Melamed on the new probes into Big Tech

Doug Melamed, Stanford law professor, joins CNBC's "Squawk Alley" to discuss how the Microsoft antitrust case he helped bring to court might affect the new probes into major tech companies. CNBC Television video above published Jun 13, 2019.

2) World's Most Valuable Brands 2019
World's Most Valuable Brands 2019 | statista.com
Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Visa, Facebook, Alibaba, Tencent, McDonald's, AT&T.
For more: Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2019 (published June 2019).

Editor's note: Huawei? 
#47. Where will Huawei be next year? Huawei says U.S. ban hurting more than expected, to wipe $30 billion off revenue and Bloomberg.com: Huawei Braces for Phone Sales Drop of Up to 60 Million Overseas.
"The most ambitious start-ups attempted to transcend their region of origin to become seen as global brands."--brandz.com
Chinese Cash In Silicon Valley Is Suddenly Toxic: as U.S. startups reject their money, Chinese venture-capital firms in U.S. are structuring deals to avoid regulators or shutting down. See also:  World’s Top Bicycle Maker Says the Era of ‘Made in China’ Is Over and Apple Explores Moving Some Production Out of China--Trade tensions prompt iPhone maker to consider diversifying supply chain. On Friday the U.S. Department of Commerce expanded its national security “entity list” to bar Chinese supercomputer firms from buying U.S. parts and components without U.S. government approval.

3) Investing
graphic: "INVESTING"  ©2017 DomainMondo.com
The Week--NASDAQ Composite +3.0% | S&P 500 Index +2.2% | DJIA +2.4%--for the week all three major U.S. stock indexes gained at least 2.2%, with the S&P 500 hitting its first record close since April. 
The Backstory: U.S. stocks ended slightly lower Friday, but locked in strong weekly gains after the Federal Reserve indicated on Wednesday it could carry out rate cuts later this year if economic conditions decline, with investors eyeing a slowdown in the global economy, and the G20 meeting in Osaka, Japan, 28-29 June 2019, where a widely anticipated meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump may take place.
Investor Notes--where the 'ready' users of Libra & Calibra already are:
source: statista.com
Background:
  • Fed Chair LIVE Jun 19, 2:30pm EDT, ECB Draghi Chaos, Facebook Calibra & Libra"The first product Calibra will introduce is a digital wallet for Libra, a new global currency powered by blockchain technology."
  • In an opinion piece in the Financial Times on Friday, Facebook Inc’s co-founder Chris Hughes said the Libra cryptocurrency would hand over much of the control of monetary policy from central banks to private companies: “If global regulators don’t act now, it could very soon be too late,” wrote Hughes, who also said the corporations that would oversee the new currency would put their private interests - profits and influence - ahead of public ones. Editor's note: what Hughes describes is exactly how ICANN has been corrupted.   
  • The international Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has issued updated guidance concerning regulation of cryptocurrency and virtual assets at its meeting in Orlando, Florida.
  • European central bankers claim oversight over Facebook’s cryptocurrency--reuters.com. Reuters also reported that France is creating a G7 task force to study how central banks ensure cryptocurrencies like Facebook’s Libra are governed by regulations ranging from money-laundering laws to consumer-protection rules.

4) ICYMI Tech News:
graphic: "ICYMI Tech News" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
"Unicorns are amazingly deflationary vehicles. They're deflating rents, they're deflating driver salaries, they're deflating all kinds of things"--renown short-seller Jim Chanos explaining how Silicon Valley unicorns have pushed prices lower and why central banks are to blame.

According to latest estimates by Ericsson, 5G won’t really take off until 2021/2022. See also Crown Castle International: a play on the coming of 5G and the expansion of IoT--SeekingAlpha.com.

Nvidia says its accelerator chips will work with ARM processors by end of this year.

Google will eventually provide RCS Chat (replacement for SMS texting) directly to any Android user. Note also Google cancels plans for future tablets, focusing instead on Pixel phones and Pixelbooks (chromebooks).

Urban Mobility: Getting Beyond Gridlock--by 2030 robo-taxis, autonomous shuttles, and trains, will provide most urban mobility with private cars only a very small share, and buses almost non-existent.

Walmart: U.S. eCommerce Strategy and the Role of Jet.com. Walmart is the fourth largest online retailer in the US in 2019, according to eMarketer estimates, behind only Amazon, eBay, and Apple. See also: Apple says iPhones can now be fixed at all U.S. Best Buy stores, and Brick-and-Mortar Meltdown Gets Costly for Big Retailers--wolfstreet.com.

Slack closed at $38.62, June 20, 2019, up 48.5% from its $26 reference price, on its first day of trading as a direct listing, valuing the company at about $20B. Domain: slack.com. Investor relations: https://investor.slackhq.com/home/default.aspx.

UK: likely next Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, pledges to 'end the digital divide' by 2025, via a full rollout of fiber broadband.

Personal Tech: most U.S. mobile banking apps have security and privacy flaws, researchers say.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo


DISCLAIMER

2018-02-10

Tech Review | Elon Musk Week: Falcon Heavy Launch of Starman in a Tesla

graphic "Tech Review" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
Tech Review (TR 2018-02-10)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Elon Musk Week: Falcon Heavy Launch of Starman in a Tesla, 2) Analyst: AWS is Amazon's Fastest Growing Business, 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes: Trump Effect on Gold & Guns4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Elon Musk Week: Falcon Heavy Launch of Starman in a Tesla
photo of Starman in a Tesla
photo of Heavy Falcon side rockets returning in parallel landings
Falcon Heavy side rockets returning in perfect parallel landings
For more:
  • SpaceX (domain: spacex.com) is a privately held company founded by Elon Musk.

2) Analyst: AWS is Amazon's Fastest Growing Business

Tom Forte, D.A. Davidson analyst, discusses the outlook for Amazon.com Inc., Amazon Web Services (AWS) and how the acquisition of Whole Foods has been transformative. He speaks with Bloomberg's Alix Steel on "Bloomberg Markets" Jan 26, 2018.

Amazon Rolls Out Whole Foods Delivery

Bloomberg.com video published Feb 8, 2018: Bloomberg's Olivia Zaleski and Techonomy CEO David Kirkpatrick discuss Amazon's rollout for Whole Foods delivery.  They speak with Emily Chang on "Bloomberg Technology."

Amazon $AMZN--SeekingAlpha.com"Never in history has the largest, most valuable business on earth traded for 338x [or 217x] current-year earnings ... Large, profitable companies during the dot.com years had trouble even reaching 100x earnings ... Apple $AAPL ... trades for 14.5x FY2018 earnings consensus."

3) Investing
graphic: "INVESTING"  ©2017 DomainMondo.com
The Week: Worst Week in 2 Years for Stocks Ends on High Note: Markets Wrap | Bloomberg.com: "a furious rally Friday left the equity benchmark [S&P 500] 1.5 percent higher on the day."
S&P 500 is down only 2% since last day of trading in 2017 on Dec 29, but down almost 9% since Jan 26, 2018
Charts suggests 'strong, counter-trend' rally is likely for S&P 500 | MarketWatch.com Feb 9, 2018: "... charts suggest the S&P 500 is likely to experience a "strong, counter-trend (oversold) trading rally," that could take potentially take the index up about 7% from current levels, and "possibly higher," said Dan Wantrobski, technical strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott ..."

Worst of Market Turmoil Behind Us ... This is a Dip You Have To Buy, Fundstrat's Lee Says | Bloomberg | YouTube.com Feb 8, 2018 video--Tom Lee, Fundstrat Global Advisors head of research, discusses the selloff in U.S. equity markets, inflation, and his investment strategy.

How Two Tiny Volatility Products Helped Fuel Sudden Stock Slump | Bloomberg.com Feb 7, 2018: "Exchange-traded products ‘major driver’ of Monday mayhem--Lack of cross-asset contagion points to their role in stocks."

Beware Wall Street's Charging Bull: "We Are [Still] In A Massive Bull Market"
 Charging Bull
Investing Notes:
photos of Trump in 4 colors | DomainMondo.com
Trump has said he will “never, ever infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” Since Trump’s election victory in November 2016, gun manufacturer American Outdoor Brands Corp $AOBC has lost almost two thirds of its stock market value, while Sturm Ruger & Company Inc $RGR has fallen by a fourth of its value. See also: U.S. gunmaker Remington reaches deal with creditors to file for bankruptcy | Reuters.com.

4) ICYMI Tech News:
graphic: "ICYMI Tech News" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
From the Reuters.com feed:

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo


DISCLAIMER

2016-01-24

Bill Janeway, Economist, Venture Capitalist, on Tech, Finance, Innovation



Barry Ritholtz interviews Bill Janeway on this edition of Masters in Business (Audio released January 3, 2016) by Bloomberg View: “IPOs are the new down round" says Venture Capitalist Bill Janeway. Janeway is a managing partner at Warburg Pincus (warburgpincus.com) and author of Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy: Markets, Speculation and the State. He attended Princeton undergrad, and earned his Ph.D. in economics from Cambridge University on a Marshall scholarship.

Known as a “key creator of modern venture capital,” Janeway helped to created BEA Systems, which connected software applications to databases across much of the Internet. The initial cash investment of $54 million became a payout of $6.5 billion within six years. His work operates at the intersection of technology, finance, and economics. Janeway funded the Cambridge Endowment for Research in Finance in 2001 and funded the annual Princeton-Cambridge Finance Seminars in 2004.

re: technology, venture capital, finance, economics, innovation, startups, unicorns, bubbles




DISCLAIMER

2016-01-23

Nolan Bushnell: Funding Startups, Secret To Successful Mobile Games



The Secret to Successful Mobile Games, According to Atari's Ex-CEO - Nolan Bushnell, *NeoEdge Networks chairman and former Atari chief executive officer, discussed the funding environment for tech startups and the secret to successful mobile games with Bloomberg's Betty Liu on "Bloomberg Markets," November 6, 2015.

*NeoEdge Networks | CrunchBase"Acquired by Double Fusion (which is now closed) on December 14, 2011; Total Equity Funding $10M in 3 Rounds from 4 Investors; Headquarters: Toronto ... NeoEdge Networks is a tech and in-game ad company that enables casual game publishers and developers to deliver TV-like commercials."

Twitter: @NolanBushnell

Re: Mobile Gaming, Startups, Funding, Entrepreneurs, Unicorns, Venture Capital, Monetization Strategy




DISCLAIMER

2015-12-27

Warren Buffett: 2016 Election, Activist Investors, Acquisitions, Unicorns



Above video: Interview of Warren Buffett, Chairman, CEO, and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway [berkshirehathaway.com]. The Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, talks 2016 election, his acquisition of Precision Castparts [precast.com], activist investors, and unicorns. (Published Oct 13, 2015)

NYSE:BRK.A

NYSE:BRK.B

".... both individuals and institutions will constantly be urged to be active by those who profit from giving advice or effecting transactions. The resulting frictional costs can be huge and, for investors in aggregate, devoid of benefit. So ignore the chatter, keep your costs minimal, and invest in stocks as you would in a farm." - Buffett’s annual letter: What you can learn from my real estate investments - Fortune




DISCLAIMER

2015-11-25

LinkedIn Co-Founder: Less Than Half of Unicorns Will Be Successful (video)



LinkedIn (LinkedIn.com) Co-Founder: Less Than Half of Unicorns Will Be Successful - LinkedIn co-founder and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman describes what he's calling a "quasi-bubble," as company valuations fluctuate between the private and public market. He speaks with Bloomberg's Emily Chang. (Source: Bloomberg) Published on Nov 18, 2015

Unicorn: a term in the venture capital industry to denote a start-up company with a valuation (based on fundraising rounds) of at least $1 billion dollars.

See also on Domain Mondo:



DISCLAIMER

2015-11-20

Unicorn Valuations 'Crazy' & Why Tory Burch will NOT do an IPO (video)



Tory Burch, co-chief executive officer at Tory Burch (toryburch.com), and David Kirkpatrick, chief executive officer at Techonomy Media (techonomy.com), discuss the Square IPO, unicorn valuations, innovation, startups, tech IPOs, and why Tory Burch will remain a private company. They speak on "Bloomberg ‹GO›" on November 19, 2015.


Tory Burch: We Will Award 10 Entrepreneurs $10,000 - In the video above, Tory Burch, co-CEO Tory Burch, discusses the company's new fellowship program. She speaks on "Bloomberg ‹GO›."




DISCLAIMER

2015-10-19

Sequoia's Michael Moritz: Venture Capital Is 'High-Risk Poker' (video)



'We'll see extinct unicorns' - Sequoia's Michael Moritz: Venture Capital Is 'High-Risk Poker' - Michael Moritz, Sequoia Capital's chairman and a British honorary knight, comments on venture capital during an interview with Bloomberg's Emily Chang on "Studio 1.0." Published on Oct 19, 2015

Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm located in Menlo Park, California, United States.

Domain name: sequoiacap.com

re: risk, investing, VC, venture capital, unicorns, extinct unicorns, ratchet, high-risk poker




DISCLAIMER

2015-10-03

Jon Callaghan, True Ventures Founder, Discusses Tech Valuations (video)



Are Current Tech Valuations Sustainable? - Jon Callaghan, True Ventures' founder, discusses tech valuations with Bloomberg's Emily Chang on "Bloomberg West." Published on Sep 10, 2015

domain name: trueventures.com

re: startups, unicorns, venture capital




DISCLAIMER

2015-09-22

Bill Gurley, Future of Ecommerce, Why Google Is Losing to Amazon (video)

"Challenge someone that's a [Amazon] Prime member to shop and then challenge someone to start on Google. It won't even be close. The Amazon experience is far superior to the Google experience."--Bill Gurley, Benchmark

A Fireside Chat with Bill Gurley of Benchmark: The Future of Ecommerce — September 15, 2015

On September 15, 2015, in San Francisco, Sailthru hosted a fireside chat with Bill Gurley of Benchmark, one of the world's smartest tech investors, moderated by Emily Chang, correspondent and tech journalist of Bloomberg West. With investments in next generation technologies including Uber, OpenTable, Zillow, GrubHub, and Sailthru, Bill understands market opportunities, and can easily pinpoint how businesses can transform the status quo. In this chat, Bill examines the future of ecommerce and provides his perspective on the future of the unicorn market, how "funnel reversal" is impacting marketer's focus on Google, and why retention is critical to profitability over acquisition's hold on growth.

Some of what Bill Gurley has to say--

"Amazon has built up this logistics framework and their one click feature and their Prime program to the point where the consumer has zero anxiety about the quality of the product, immense trust about the deliverability, down to a day and a half for most people, less than a day for some items. They trust on price. That doesn't mean they are the absolute lowest price, but people don't think Amazon's trying to get em. So, now, for many of the people I know, they don't disclose Prime numbers, but someone was out saying, I think it may be 90 million? You start your searches with Amazon with Prime checked. And then the second thing you do if that doesn't work is you uncheck Prime. And then if that doesn't work, you go to Google. This is what I call a 'reversal of funnel', Google has gone from being the starting point to the search of last resort and that's pretty powerful. As companies can improve the bottom of the funnel that it's so much better, you go around Google. As people go around Google, it loses out on a highly lucrative part of search, which is e-commerce." (emphasis added)

Benchmark is a venture capital firm founded May 1, 1995.
  • Domain Name: benchmark.com
  • Offices in San Francisco and Woodside, California
  • More information on Benchmark 
  • More info on Benchmark's portfolio of companies: @benchmark »
Domain names / stock symbols of:

See also on Domain MondoGoogle Alphabet A Signal To Sell OR Short $GOOG and $GOOGL shares? (August 13, 2015)




DISCLAIMER

2015-08-26

'We May See A Lot Of Dead Unicorns' (video), China, and the Fed

"You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out"--Warren Buffett
UPDATE August 26, 2015:  The Emperor Wears No Clothes--China stocks fall again despite interest rate cut--
"Chinese equities have lost half their value since mid-June, as margin traders closed out bullish bets and concern deepened that valuations are unjustified by the weak economic outlook ... “The prevailing sentiment is still that investors want to cash out, whatever the government does,” said Ronald Wan, chief executive at Partners Capital International in Hong Kong. “Confidence is already damaged. Doubts over the effectiveness of policies are getting bigger. The market will remain under selling pressure for a while.” The People’s Bank of China said it will cut the one-year lending rate by 25 basis points to 4.6 percent and lower the required reserve ratio by 50 basis points for all banks. The move, which follows the biggest devaluation of the yuan in two decades earlier this month, comes amid signs of decelerating growth for the world’s second-biggest economy. A rate cut failed to boost the market for a second straight time as stocks ended lower after the last reduction in June." source: Bloomberg Business (emphasis added)

Unicorns, China, and the Fed--Where do we go from here?

Unicorns: Marc Benioff says "We may see a lot of dead unicorns."--Unicorns May Struggle in Tougher Market--Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff discusses the selloff in the stock market and his concerns about technology and Web-based companies that have raised money at valuations exceeding $1 billion, called unicorns. He speaks with Bloomberg's Emily Chang, August 24, 2015, in the video above.

China: The Shanghai Composite Index has lost 22 percent in four days--steepest retreat since 1996--to 2,964.967 on Tuesday. DeMark Says Chinese Stocks Are at Make-or-Break Inflection Point - Bloomberg Business: "Tom DeMark, who predicted this month’s selloff in Chinese stocks, said the Shanghai Composite Index may extend its decline by 13 percent should it stay below a critical technical level on Wednesday. A failure to close above 3,200, or almost 8 percent higher than the Tuesday’s level, may open the way for a move to 2,590, which would be the lowest since November, according to DeMark, founder of DeMark Analytics. An advance above that level, however, would signal the stock rout which has wiped out more than $4 trillion in market value, may be over, he said. “We are teetering on the edge,” DeMark, 68, who has spent more than 40 years developing indicators to identify market turning points, said by phone from Scottsdale, Arizona." 

The Fed: China may be the "bunker buster" to the US Federal Reserve's plans to raise interest rates in September. Citi: The Fed Will Still Hike in September, But There's One Big Wild Card Ahead - Bloomberg Business: "Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer's appearance at the forthcoming Jackson Hole economic policy symposium [Aug. 27-29, 2015] is the 'key wild card' ... If he shows signs of worrying that the transitory downward pressures (commodity and energy prices and the appreciating dollar) ... THAT would be a big event ... [suggesting] reduced confidence in reaching the Fed inflation target in the medium term."



2015-07-26

Startups, Venture Capital, Tech Markets, Unicorns, a16z Podcasts



"This time is different." But it's always different! So what's going on now in the public markets? Why does this even matter? For one thing, tech markets have grown significantly. And one big reason is internet and mobile. It's like a multiplier for the market size and opportunity.

UPDATEAndreessen Horowitz is a Silicon Valley based venture capital firm. Its domain name is a16z.com ("a" is the first letter of firm name, "z" the ending letter of firm name, 16 characters in firm name between "a" and "z")--a 4 character dot COM. It is called a Numeronym and there are still millions of 4 and 5 character dot COM domain names available for reg fee of about $10.00 or less. In the age of Global + Mobile, expect to see more and more numeronym dot COM domain names used by established firms and startups--from Silicon Valley to China to India to Everywhere! And unlike the new gTLD domain names, dot COM domain names work as expected on the internet and do not break stuff!

In this episode of the a16z Podcast, Andreessen Horowitz managing partner Scott Kupor, mobile analyst Benedict Evans, and corp dev research partner Morgan Bender break down a slide deck we recently shared, including answers to what are these so-called “unicorns,” how it affects venture capital and the funding landscape, and how Andreessen Horowitz define a "quasi-IPO."



Taking the Pulse of VC and Tech | Andreessen Horowitz: "In this wide-ranging conversation about ‘stuff’ that took place at this year’s annual investor meeting (VCs have investors too, in the form of ‘limited partners’), Fortune’s Dan Primack interviews Marc Andreessen — and asks the tough questions. About VC and returns, founders and startups, ethical vetoes, Facebook, and more. Listen in on this edition of the a16z Podcast."

See also on Domain MondoStartups, Best Practices (slides); Ben Horowitz at Columbia video


2015-07-03

Startups, Valuations, Unicorns, Venture Capital, a16z Slides/Podcast

Unicorn is a term in the venture capital industry, which denotes a start-up company whose valuation exceeds One Billion Dollars (US$). Examples are Uber, domain name: uber.com, a unicorn valued at $41.2 billion, and Snapchat, domain name: snapchat.com, a unicorn valued at $15 billion. Fortune magazine counted over 80 unicorns as of January 2015. According to Wikipedia, a new buzzword, decacorn, is now used for companies valued over $10 billion, such as Airbnb, domain name: airbnb.com, Dropbox, domain name: dropbox.com, Pinterest, domain name: pinterest.com, Snapchat, and Uber.
"While macroeconomic factors like low interest rates play a role, I think a big reason for the quantity of unicorns is the fear of missing out on one of the greatest periods of value creation we have ever seen. However, some of the most valuable opportunities — particularly the aforementioned market-makers — have strong winner-take-all characteristics: this potentially limits the number of quality unicorns. I think it’s this dichotomy that makes the current bubble discussion so difficult: most unicorns may be overvalued, but in aggregate they are probably undervalued. It turns out winner-take-all doesn’t apply just to the markets these startups are targeting, it applies to the startups themselves."--Unicorns - Stratechery by Ben Thompson (emphasis added)


U.S. Technology Funding -- What's Going On? 
From a16z.com - Andreessen Horowitz, venture capital firm - What’s going on in the public markets? What are all these so-called “unicorns”? What’s going on in venture capital?  "This time is different." It is different. Because it's always different... (published 15 Jun 2015)

Below: a recent a16z podcast: Taking the Very, Very Long View on Tech Investing--


It’s called “perpetual” or “eternal” capital, a very large pool of money that is invested on behalf of university endowments, foundations, etc., with a time horizon that extends generations into the future. The people who manage that money are driven by very different forces and thinking than your average Wall Street investor. Liquidity, for example, is not something this category of investors is immediately concerned with, nor are they swayed by your average economic cycle. At least, that’s the theory... how do these investors think in practice? In this segment of the a16z Podcast, Andy Golden of the Princeton University Investment Company, Ben Gomez of Pilothouse Associates, and Edwin Poston and Mel Williams of TrueBridge Capital Partners share their thoughts on tech valuations, liquidity in the markets, and what some in Silicon Valley may have a tendency to overlook.

So what's going on? Fewer IPOs, but more Unicorns that stay private for much longer, with multiple rounds of financing.


2015-05-15

Tech Startups, Unicorns, Angel Investing, Venture Capital in India (video)



Bloomberg TV India: Wealth Manager interview on the risks and rewards of angel investing in India - In the first quarter of 2015 alone, Indian start ups raised 1.7 billion dollars. The start-up landscape in the country has dramatically changed, and as a result, interest in investing in startups and becoming an angel investor has seen a manifold increase. Interviewed: Amit Banka, Founder, Equity Crest, and Shanti Mohan, Founder and CEO, LetsVenture.

Source: Bloomberg TV India: domain name: btvin.com

Referenced above:

LetsVenture | India's most trusted platform for Startups: domain name: letsventure.com

Fund Startups | Angel/VC Investing | Equity Crest: domain name: equitycrest.com

See also: Tech Start-Ups in India Attract Big Names, and Money - NYTimes.com: "... It took Mr. Chulet three years to get Quikr* its first backer. But now Tiger Global Management, Warburg Pincus and eBay are among its investors. Quikr soared to a $1 billion valuation (vaulting it to the ranks of so-called unicorns) after a funding round in mid-April involving its existing investors as well as Steadview Capital of Hong Kong... Masayoshi Son, the chief executive of SoftBank; Jack Ma, the executive chairman of Alibaba; and Mr. Murdoch, the media tycoon, have all made investments in India’s e-commerce companies. They are going head-to-head with other experienced tech investors like Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners... Only 300 million Indians, or less than 25 percent of the country, are Internet users, and while that is already the second-largest Internet market in the world, after China, five million users are added each month, according to Rajan Anandan, Google India’s managing director. The number of Internet users in India is expected to reach 500 million in three years, he said... India resembles China of seven to 10 years ago in its broadband Internet growth, creation of digital-native marketplaces and rapid user adoption... “So investors who won in China are playing in India. Those who missed in China, too, are playing in India. This is the land of opportunity,” Mr. Gururaj said."

*domain name: quikr.com


Domain Mondo archive