News
More than half (55%) of online shoppers in China bought items from British brands over a three month period, a new survey has found.
To read more, click here.
Robotics and artificial intelligence are emerging as a new investment theme among family-backed investors as tech advances in both areas begin to make a big difference to their viability.
The theme of companies making a difference in the future obviously fits well with the robotics and AI sectors - and family investment groups also like the long-term potential of the sector. “Family offices are looking to get into ‘deeptech’ types of opportunities,” says Ilian Iliev, managing director of EcoMachines Ventures, an investment group specialising in the two sectors.
To read more, click here.
Airbnb continues to be an ecosystem in its own right, with a number of startups building a business by making the lives of hosts easier and potentially more lucrative. One such company is London-based Hostmaker, an upmarket Airbnb management service, which today is announcing $15 million in Series B funding.
The round is led by Sansiri, one of Thailand’s largest premium real estate developers, and Gaw Capital, a Hong Kong-based global hospitality real estate investor. Existing backers DN Capital, Ventech, and DSGCP also participated.
To read more, click here.
To read Yoox Net-A-Porter's trading statement for 2017, click here.
A driverless shuttle set free in downtown Las Vegas was involved in a minor accident less than an hour after it hit the streets, reported the local NBC affiliate KSNV. Not really the kind of publicity you want, or that self-driving cars need.
The shuttle, an egglike 8-seater Navya, is operated by the AAA and Keolis. It was a test deployment along half a mile of the Fremont East “Innovation District,” so this thing wasn’t cruising the strip. Probably a good thing.
Now, it must be said that technically the robo-car was not at fault. It was struck by a semi that was backing up, and really just grazed — none of the passengers was hurt.
To read more, click here.
Blippar, the leading augmented reality and computer vision technology company, today announced the launch of its new large scale augmented reality experiment in form of an app: AR City.
The app, currently in beta, harnesses both augmented reality and computer vision to allow users to access information and content as they travel and navigate around cities. This is the latest step in Blippar's mission to catalogue the world and redefine the way people discover, experience and interact with the world around them.
To read more, click here.
Tradedoubler's interim report has bee released, to read the report, click here.
Games development startup Mojiworks has raised a £2.1m Series A led by Balderton Capital.
Co-founded in November last year by childhood friends Matthew Wiggins and Alan Harding – the entrepreneurs behind Wonderland Software which sold to Zynga in 2011 – Mojiworks self develops and publishers multiplayers HTML5 games.
To read more, click here.
We’ve all collected something at some point in our lives — stamps, comic books, baseball cards. These are all physical assets, but Quidd is trying to bring the same excitement to the digital world by providing an online marketplace where users can purchase and trade rare digital goods, like stickers, GIFs, and 3D toys. The concept seems to be generating considerable interest, as Quidd today announced a $13 million investment led by top tier VC firm Sequoia Capital.
To read more, click here.
According to US Department of Commerce figures, discount and variety store sales have grown steadily since 2009, reaching $550.83 billion in 2016. The sector’s percentage of total retail sales, however, ticked downward during that same period, dipping below 17.0% last year.
To read more, click here.