GoDaddy has beaten out the competition to buy Host Europe Group for $1.8bn December 6, 2016 Website domain name provider GoDaddy is buying rival Host Europe Group (HEG) for €1.69bn (£1.42bn) including debt. The move is designed to help accelerate GoDaddy’s international expansion and grow its services beyond the initial set-up of websites. Host Europe is currently owned by private-equity firm Cinven, which picked up the business in August 2013, and has a debt [...]
Ex-Liverpool chairman Sir Martin Broughton targets sophisticated investors for new sports venture December 6, 2016 Sophisticated investors in the UK are being encouraged to back sport businesses using a new online platform that puts them in front of a range of unquoted companies in the sector. Sports Investment Partners (SIP), the private equity firm founded by former Liverpool chairman Sir Martin Broughton, has teamed up with corporate finance adviser Envestors to launch [...]
Google’s DeepMind is using “blockchain related” technology to increase data transparency December 5, 2016 DeepMind is using technology "related to blockchain" in an effort to become more transparent in the way it handles patient data in a tie-up with NHS health trusts which has caused concerns over privacy. Co-founder Mustafa Suleyman said the British artificial intelligence company owned by Google is working on a "general transparency architecture" for monitoring [...]
London number one as it beats Paris and Berlin to top Europe’s tech hotspots December 5, 2016 London is leading the way among cities in Europe for technology companies, with the booming sector set to outperform other industries over the next four years despite the vote to leave the European Union, according to a new ranking. The capital beat Paris and Berlin into second and third places respectively, while the broader Thames [...]
Uber’s created its very own lab for researching artificial intelligence December 5, 2016 Uber is getting deeper into the artificial intelligence game, creating a dedicated lab staffed with top researchers by acquiring a startup with expertise in the technology. The 15 staff of Geometric Intelligence will form the basis for the billion dollar startup’s San Francisco Lab, which will research the growing area of AI and machine learning [...]
Now you can carpool a black cab for the price of a Tube journey December 5, 2016 Londoners will soon be able to share one of London’s iconic black cabs with a someone else heading in the same direction, with promises of making travelling by taxi as competitively priced as public transport. Uber rival Gett will launch a carpooling service, Gett Together, in the capital and plans to roll it out to [...]
This European flying car maker just raised €10m in VC money December 5, 2016 We may live in a world of talking virtual assistants, contactless payments and a world of knowledge in our pockets – but we won't truly be in the future until cars can fly. Pleasingly, though, flying cars came a step closer today, after a German company trying to develop a pint-sized plane raised €10m in [...]
VW’s launched a new company to discover the future of transport December 5, 2016 Volkswagen is launching a new business that will focus on the growing area of urban mobility such as on-demand travel and electric cars. Moia will operate as an independent company within the German car group based in Berlin and will "act more nimbly, like a startup" but with access to the expertise and funding of [...]
How tech startups and investors really feel about Brexit December 5, 2016 What is going to be the impact of Brexit on UK tech startups?Will the flat-whites downed by the geeks of Shoreditch turn even flatter? That’s been the topic on the lips of almost every observer of the scene in the last few weeks, especially given how international the staffing is in most tech companies, particularly in [...]
AppLovin: Firing the 5G starting gun December 5, 2016 Dubbed the “Brexit Budget,” this year’s Autumn Statement was one of few surprises – other than that it would be the last. The chancellor certainly lived up to his “Spreadsheet Phil” epithet. But Philip Hammond gave a welcome nod to UK tech industries, all too aware that their impetus will play a prominent role in [...]
