Latest VatorNews stories

• King sets IPO price at $21 to $24, for $7.6B valuation

  by Steven Loeb, March 12, 2014

  The Candy Crush studio could raise as much as $532.8 million for its IPO

  In December 2013, King Digital saw its first quarterly decline in revenue and profit since March 2012. The company generated $159 million in profit on $602 million in revenue in the December 2013 quarter, which is down from $230 million in profit on $621 million in revenue in September 2013. And the company admits in its filing that the decline in revenue was due exclusively to a decline in Candy Crush

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• Credit Karma bags $85M for free credit monitoring

  by Faith Merino, March 12, 2014

  Google Capital leads the round and David Lawee joins Credit Karma's board

  The world of personal finance is a pretty crowded space, and Credit Karma offers many of the same features that other services offer, such as bill reminders, alerts, and spending breakdowns to show you where your money is going. The site also offers a comparison feature that lets you compare interest rates on credit cards and loans of all types. But the major difference between Credit Karma and other

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• Acorns unveils new micro-investing platform with $8.3M

  by Bambi Francisco Roizen, March 12, 2014

  New mobile platform is designed to help millennials invest as little as $5

  The company is also making public that it's raised $8.3 million, including a $5.5 million Series B round, led by Jacobs Asset Management, that just recently closed. The startup was founded by a father-and-son team. Watler Cruttenden, who was a founder of investment bank Cruttendon Roth (now Roth Capital) and also founder and former CEO of ETrade's online investment bank E*Offering, is co-founder and

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• Google acquires what's left of Green Throttle Games

  by Steven Loeb, March 12, 2014

  Green Throttle created a controller and app that allowed users to play Android games on their TVs

  Both Crowley and Townsend have updated their LinkedIn profiles to show that they now work for Google, with Crowley putting his title as "product guy," and Townsend calling himself, "hardware guy." Some are saying that the two founders have listed themselves as Google employees since November (I am only able to see their limited profiles) so it is possible that this acquisition actually took place late

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• POTUS Funny or Die clip now #1 driver to Healthcare.gov

  by Faith Merino, March 11, 2014

  Barack Obama's mock interview with Zach Galifianakis draws record 7M views

  Tara McGuinness of the White House Communications team tweeted Tuesday afternoon that the six-minute Between Two Ferns clip is currently the number one driver of traffic to Healthcare.gov. Published early Tuesday morning, the video has already amassed 7.1 million views. Galifianakis’ Between Two Ferns interviews typically average some 6 million views, making the presidential interview his most

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• PayPal hires Rocky Agrawal as new Director of Strategy

  Agrawal will help small business entrepreneurs understand PayPal's online commerce and payments

  When a company takes on a big client, for example a McDonalds or a Coca Cola, it makes such a big splash that it can be easier to forget that there is a ton of money that can also be made from small businesses. ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• New Jersey bans direct sales of Tesla automobiles

  Tesla is accusing New Jersey, and Governor Chris Christie, of protecting special interest groups

  The car manufacturer was on the losing end of a vote taken by the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, a spokesperson for the NJMVC has confirmed to VatorNews. The vote was unanimous, six to zero, against ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Thanks to Adap.tv, AOL sees big ad growth in its future

  AOL will see double-digit ad growth in the United States for the first time in years

  It has been less than a year now since AOL bought video advertising platform Adap.tv for $405 million. The purchase might have seemed a little risky at the time, given that t is one of AOL's largest acquisition ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• The Web at 25: What's in store for the next decade?

  Experts agree on where the Web is headed, but many disagree on what it means for society

  Tomorrow, the Web officially turns 25. To celebrate, Pew researchers interviewed 1,500 experts to get their predictions on what’s in store for the Web over the next decade. And the votes are in: ...
  By Faith Merino
  

• Why Startups Should Look to Corporate VCs for Funding

  Get 25% OFF registration with your vator code

  Strategic Investors: Why Startups Should Look to Corporate VCs for Funding DATE: March 12th, 6 - 8:30 pm LOCATION: 379 Lytton Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94301 PROMO CODE: 25% OFF with 25_PERCENT_OFF SIGN U...
  By Sponsored Story
  

• New WhatsApp feature lets you pay for your friends

  New feature seems less about monetizing and more about increasing the app's userbase

  Never mind that the app is free for the first year. Or that, by some estimates, as many at 40% of its current user base are using it for free, and there's no guarantee that they will want to pay when the ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Priceline buys Qlika for local targeted advertising

  Team at ad-targeting firm will likely work with local businesses to target Priceline customers

  It seems extremely bizarre to me, but did people really used to have to go to see another person who would then book their travel for them? I know that people like rail against technology for making certain ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Wanna make $15? Refer Google Apps to your network

  Google will pay out for news user referred to its business-targeted suite of Google Apps

  Of course I was being facetious. Honestly, I don't really know that anyone ever thought that ads that had doctors saying that drinking beer and smoking cigarettes were good for you ever fell for it. (I ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Comcast users to get Netflix shows sans subscription

  Comcast confirms that subscribers will now be able to purchase House of Cards in the Xfinity Store

  While Netflix has spent the last several years dutifully trying to convince content providers to license TV shows and movies to the subscription video-on-demand service—all while simultaneously developing ...
  By Faith Merino
  

• Kabam buys up RPG studio Phoenix Age

  Phoenix Age is the company RGP hit games Castle Age and Underworld Empire

  Interactive entertainment company Kabam is one of the more well-known gaming studios out there right now, especially when it comes to its free-to-play games. With a potential IPO looming, though, the company ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Google to release Android SDK for wearables in 2 weeks

  With a rumored smartwatch in the making, Google wants to jumpstart the wearables landscape

  Google may be gearing up to unveil its very own smartwatch later this year, but when has it ever bogarted its own OS? Google executive Sundar Pichai revealed at SXSW that Google plans to release the Android ...
  By Faith Merino
  

• Tencent takes on Alibaba with JD.com partnership

  Tencent is taking a 15% stake in the Chinese e-commerce company worth $214.7 Million

  E-commerce company Alibaba is probably the better known in this country, mostly because of its relationship with Yahoo, as well as its often discussed pending IPO. Tencent, on the other hand, might be ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Instagram's $100 million deal with Omnicon

  Omnicom can spend up to $100 million over the next year putting its brands on the photo sharing site

  When Instagram launched its first ad back in November, the ad was extremely successful, probably more so than anyone imagined it would be. That success no doubt peaked the interest of many brands and agencies, ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Box projected to double revenue to $200M in 2014

  Box ramps up revenue as it nears its IPO

  As Box gets closer to its highly anticipated IPO (its secret IPO—shhh), word has it that the company is en route to double its 2013 revenue this year. Unnamed insiders told Bloomberg that the company ...
  By Faith Merino
  

• Funding roundup - week ending 3/7/14

  Trusper, CloudBees, AppZero, Javelin, Business Insider, Aseptia, Boqii, Clinicient, ClassDojo, Speek

  Blend, a social networking app for college students, raised a $2.7 million seed round led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from Trinity Ventures, Foundation Capital, Lerer Ventures, Maveron, ...
  By Steven Loeb
  
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