Category: Billion Dollar Companies

The US is now home to the first sign language store of Starbucks, as reported by the Washington Post yesterday. With 24 deaf, hearing impaired, and hearing employees, even the logo is spelled out in American Sign Language (ASL).

Starbucks Supports the Deaf Community

Rossann Williams, the US retailer’s executive vice president, first announced this news in July 2018. US employees were tasked with visiting Starbucks signing store in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to observe the signing branch and create new ideas for the store in Washington, D.C.

Instead of calling out customers when their drinks are ready, the new store has a screen that displays the names as well as the number of the drink.

Starbucks has launched the signing store with the aim of providing more job opportunities for the deaf community. In fact, hearing customers are also encouraged to learn sign language by looking at Sign of the Week words on top of the register.

We’re proud to introduce our first U.S. Signing Store. Now open in Washington, D.C. 💚 #StarbucksSigns pic.twitter.com/ZLGeKVGFJ7

— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) October 23, 2018

Employees wear an apron that shows Starbucks written in sign language as well as an I Sign pin. A mural is also painted on one side of the store by a deaf artist and professor from Gallaudet University.

According to Camille Hymes, the regional Vice President of Operations at Mid-Atlantic, DC was chosen because the city has always supported the deaf community. Reports also show that DC. has the largest deaf population in the entire US.

Howard Rosenblum, CEO of the National Association of the Deaf, said that the employment and underemployment rates of deaf people are as high as 70%. Since it’s rare to see deaf people in high-level jobs, Starbucks plans to break this barrier and allow these people to succeed in every way possible. Kylie Garcia, a shift supervisor at DC’s first signing store, said:

The manager is always a hearing person because there’s a perception of limited ability with deaf people.

She previously worked at the coffee shop’s branch in Target. However, her job was to make the drinks while the rest of the employees would deal with the customers. Even though customers are still getting used to the new design, the store plans on collecting reviews and improving their structure.

Featured image from Starbucks.

Icon Ventures recently announced the expansion of its newest fund, from $265 million to $375 million. The re-opening of the fund and the $110 million as additional capital are meant to keep the fund “properly sized to today’s market opportunity,” according to a message from Joe Horowitz, Managing General Partner.

Icon Ventures positions itself as a traditional, experienced venture capital firm that’s looking to keep up with new trends, without quitting on business best practices.

US Venture Capital Investment to Reach $100 Billion in 2018

With so much capital flowing, Icon Ventures acquired more money to counter competitors like Softbank’s megafund. This way, they can continue to take advantage of investment opportunities, while remaining competitive and facing the challenges of the future:

“Though we are satisfied with what we have accomplished, we need to be prepared for what is ahead. It took a lot of planning and hard-work to position our firm for the future, to be properly positioned for the environment and to believe we are still… “busy being born.”

Joe Horowitz also spoke about the current situation of the capital market in the US. The tech investor has several concerns regarding the high number of unicorns that gather impressive capital during financing rounds. In the third quarter of 2018, 39 unicorn companies raised $8 billion, he explained.

Horowitz warned that the mega funds that finance tech revolutions across various industries could damage the balance of the traditional venture capital world. The manager also worries that too much capital could end in the wrong hands, saying:

“These are indeed unusual times in the venture capital world.”

Joe Horowitz Icon Ventures Manages over $1 Billion

With almost 15 years in the market, Icon Ventures has invested in 82 companies helping to create over 22,000 new jobs. The company’s portfolio includes 32 successful exits, reaching $42 billion in exit value. With $6.8 billion equity raised, the firm mostly invests in digital media, cloud computing, cybersecurity, and clean tech.

The company is known for its focus on Series B and C rounds. Among Icon’s partners, there are companies like 41st Parameter, FireEye, Calypto, News Corp, Proofpoint, and Palo Alto Networks. Icon Ventures has a central office in Palo Alto, as well as a solid presence in San Francisco.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Founder and former CEO of Oculus VR Brendan Iribe has joined the list of associate founders calling it quits with Facebook. While making this known on his Facebook account, he expressed profound gratitude for the cooperation he enjoyed with the rest of the team which inspired the birth of a new industry.

“I’m deeply proud and grateful for all that we’ve done together. We assembled one of the greatest research and engineering teams in history, delivered the first step of virtual presence with Oculus Rift and Touch, and inspired an entirely new industry.”

Iribe described the strides made in the course of his six-year stint at Facebook. His working relationship with the network of experts at Oculus and Facebook was a transformative experience in his career.

The reasons behind his decision to take the exit route may not be known yet, but it will be recalled that co-founder of Oculus Palmer Luckey left Facebook following his political postures which got the company on the headlines for the wrong reasons. He was said to have funded “Nimble America,” a conservative group responsible for the creation of those viral, anti-Hillary memes.

The revelation of his misogyny accounted for the resignation of many female employees who were working with Facebook.

Brendan Iribe Follows Mass Exodus Trend from Facebook

Facebook has lately been struck by the exodus of big names among whom are Instagram Co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in September. The pair was alleged to have bowed out due to the ensuing tension they had in management with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Both parties disagreed on issues concerning changes to the product, changes to Instagram personnel, and Zuckerberg’s overwhelming control over the unit.

WhatsApp co-founders Brian Acton and Jan Koum forfeited $900 million and $400 million respectively by announcing their exit from Facebook.

The pair exercised the escape clause in their contracts with Facebook following a series of differences they had with the parent company. The issues which allegedly led to their exit from Facebook looked minor on the surface but might have been more complicated.

Both parties had different opinions on bathroom designs, desk sizes, and, chairs. The spat which followed prompted Facebook executives in labeling Brian Acton as “low class.”

Threats surrounding the security and privacy of user data including the spread of wrong information perhaps accounted for a large number of issues these co-founders had with Facebook.

Last month, Facebook found security issues that gave the opportunity to access the data of millions of Facebook users. Zuckerberg described it as a dire security threat which will be addressed urgently. The disclosure further compounded the decline in Facebook shares which slipped by 2.6%. Zuckerberg noted:

“Security is an arms race, and we’re continuing to improve our defenses… This just underscores there are constant attacks from people who are trying to underscore accounts in our community.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acquired Oculus VR for $2.3 billion on March 25, 2014. The acquisition was met with a spate of criticisms by backers who saw it as a slap in the face to the crowdfunding used in developing Oculus Rift in 2012.

Featured image from Rappler.com

As 30% of the S&P index gets ready to release their Q3 earnings figures this week, Amazon and Microsoft look set to report further significant growth in their cloud earnings and healthy overall results. Analysts are still saying shares in Amazon and Microsoft are a good bet.

Earnings from cloud-based computing services look set to top $25 billion across 2018 for both technology giants as the pair look to further monopolize both cloud computing and the entire digital market.

Amazon Web Services Predicted Q3 Cloud Earnings

Predictions by ex-Oracle Chief Communications Officer Bob Evans indicate that, based on 2017 and 2018 performance and growth, Amazon Web Services (AWS) could hit revenue of $6.1 billion. In Q2 Amazon’s earnings were up 48% at $5.4 billion.

Amazon’s recent cloud client acquisitions include Ryanair, Epic Games, and 21st Century Fox moving all or most of their cloud workloads to AWS. Formula One racing has closed its on-premises data centers to move to AWS and Major League Baseball has committed to using AWS for machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).

Considering the meteoric rise of Epic Games’ Fortnite, reaching 80 million players monthly, acquiring Epic’s cloud demands is no small deal.

Amazon has also revealed new cloud products like DeepLens, Amazon Neptune, Amazon QuickSight, and AWS Snowball Edge.

Microsoft Azure Predicted Q3 Cloud Earnings

Evans’ prediction for Microsoft’s cloud earnings, after achieving growth of 58% in Q3 with $6.9 billion revenue, is that they could hit $7.4 billion.

Microsoft already has the lead on Amazon but the leviathan has been increasing its cloud coverage to what it says is more than any other provider.

It has also added Azure Stack for hybrid environments, Azure Sphere, Azure Machine Learning, and Azure Cosmos DB. Microsoft boasts a total of 500 new capabilities for its Azure cloud platform in 2018.

Predicted Overall Q3 Earnings

CNN’s poll of analysts settles on an overall Q3 total earnings prediction of around $57 billion for Amazon, with its share price set to rise around 23% between now and this time next year. CNN’s consensus of 40 out of 47 analysts is that it’s still the right time to buy Amazon’s shares. Amazon will release its Q3 earnings on October 26.

For Microsoft, CNN’s analyst poll aggregates expected earnings for Microsoft in Q3 at $27.9 billion and its share price to rise in the next 12 months by around 14%. 28 out of 34 CNN analysts polled also still judge Microsoft shares to be a good investment. Microsoft is due to release Q3 earnings on October 25.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

It seems that rumors earlier last week that Saudi Prince Mohammad Bin Salman was to buy Manchester United were true. New reports are now circulating that a staggering $5.2 billion bid has been made for the legendary English football club.

Last Tuesday, the uber-wealthy Mohammad Bin Salman had shown interest in purchasing Man Utd. However, the current owners, the Glazer family, were adamant that the club was not for sale. What a difference a few days make!

Behind the Scenes at Manchester United

Current Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho is having a mixed start to the season on the pitch. His team currently sits in the 10th spot in the English Premier League (EPL).

Mourinho has publicly struggled to handle high-profile players such as World Cup winner Paul Pogba off the pitch in an on-going power struggle story that has received much press attention.

It seems that these are not the only behind-the-scenes things happening at United at this moment in time.

If the circulating reports are true, the Saudi Prince Mohammad Bin Salman has made an earth-shattering $5.2 billion (£4 billion) bid for the club which will test the mettle of the current owners, Joel and Avram Glazer.

Mohammad Bin Salman Makes Unbeatable Offer

The Glazer family first bought the Manchester club back in 2005 for a reported $1 billion (£790 million). The latest alleged offer from Mohammad Bin Salman at over $5 billion would be a smart piece of business for the Glazers.

When initially purchasing the club, the Glazer family came under fire from unhappy Manchester United fans who believed the club would lose a part of its soul in the sale to a foreign party. Times have changed across the football industry as billionaires now flock to purchase British football clubs, much to the excitement of the fans.

Conflicting reports have surfaced that Avram Glazer was supposed to visit Saudi Arabia this week to attend an international business forum. But apparently, Avram has canceled because of the issues brought to the attention in the media of the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

One thing is for sure, though. When you have a supposed fortune of over $1 trillion like Mohammad Bin Salman, issues like this tend to evaporate into the ether.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

The world’s seventh largest automobile manufacturing company, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA), has sold its subsidiary, Magneti Marelli, to Japanese automotive company, Calsonic Kansei Corporation, for $7 billion.

According to the official press release, Calsonic Kansei’s holding company CK Holdings Co., Ltd. has bought Magneti Marelli and has changed its name to Magneti Marelli CK Holdings.

With a combined revenue of $17.49 billion, the combined company plans to become one of the largest suppliers of automotive parts in the world. The new company will work from 200 different facilities, and research and development centers located all around the world.

Beda Bolzenius, president and CEO of Calsonic Kansei Corporation, will be appointed as the head of the company while Ermanno Ferrari, CEO of Magneti Marelli, will join the Magneti Marelli CK Holdings team.

Bolzenius expressed his delight in teaming up with a company that has been placed in the top 10 automotive companies of the world. He said:

“Together, we will benefit from complementary geographic footprints and product lines, while our respective customers will benefit from an increased investment in people, processes and innovative new products.”

Ferrari called it a “transformative day” for both Fiat Chrysler and Calsonic Kansei Corporation. He added that the combined company will be secure, confident and ambitious in achieving its goals.

After the news of the merger broke, the shares of Fiat Chrysler leaped by 5% in Milan. Mike Manley, CEO of Fiat Chrysler, said that the merger is an “ideal opportunity” for Magneti Marelli to pursue the growth it promised to its customers.

Manley, who served as the CEO and president of the Jeep brand since 2009, replaced Sergio Marchionne as the CEO a few days before his death. Marchionne is remembered for pushing Fiat Chrysler to success after it suffered huge losses before 2004.

Under his leadership, Fiat Chrysler’s value became ten times higher than its original value. However, he had planned on leaving his position in 2018. He even told Automotive News in an interview in 2015 that he had trained his “crew of kids,” Manley and other executives, extremely well.

Earlier this month, Manley made headway in his plans to improve the performance of Fiat Chrysler in Europe by revealing the new management team.

Pietro Gorlier was appointed as the COO of Europe, Middle East and Africa region after Alfredo Altavilla left his position at Fiat Chrysler.

Manley also sent a letter to his employees telling them about the difficulties that will be faced by the company in the coming five years. However, he said that they will be able to tackle all the problems as well as the competition with “laser focus.”

Featured image from Shutterstock.

From the banal to the downright bizarre, if you hadn’t had enough of picturing yourself with Disney eyes and rabbit ears on Snapchat, you can now do the same with your cat.

In a desperate bid to claw back users (literally) Snapchat now comes complete with special filters just for cats. Which means you can now add glasses, hats, and a host of accessories to your favorite pet as well.

Of course, one could be forgiven for wondering what’s so interesting about that. But then, if you’re an aging millennial short on time and patience, and you’ve never owned a cat, you’re clearly not part of Snapchat’s vacuous target.

Yet it seems that there are tribes of people with too much time on their hands and a penchant for wasting it. Snapchat announced the new feature on their official Twitter account:

Lenses. For cool cats 😎 and their cool cats 😻 Try them meow. pic.twitter.com/UFJtgt8ZWO

— Snapchat (@Snapchat) October 12, 2018

Snapchat Appeals to Cat Lovers with Time on Their Hands

The new filters from Snapchat don’t just stop at rabbit ears and glasses. Oh no, you can even “snap” your cat sporting unicorn horns, devil wings, and flower crowns.

“Didn’t this feature exist already?” You may be asking yourself. Well, kind of, although it was previously only available for dogs, and never worked on cats.

This latest update to the photo messaging app has been met with jubilation from its cat loving fans. Considering that cat lovers were found to ‘like’ an average of 398 cat-related posts and watch some 725 cat videos and pictures a year, it seems that the struggling social media giant is catching onto something here.

Not Enough to Rescue Falling Stock or Make Up for Botched Design

While cat fans are all aflutter, these feline filters won’t do anything about the company’s freefalling stock price. Cat lovers are presumably not powerful enough to boost that, make up for a botched redesign, or cash burn problem.

Snapchat is hoping that its new Snap Originals will help to do that and recover ground against rival Instagram. Yet, it’s another expense that’s worrying investors and the outlook is looking decidedly uphill for the young company right now.

But hey, who cares about that when you can decorate fluffy with a flower crown?

Featured image by jestPic.com.

Paypal Holdings exceeded Wall Street estimates on Thursday after it reported third-quarter earnings and revenue with a significant increase in payment volume for its mobile payments service, Venmo.

Having fared better than the 54% analysts’ forecasted, the California-based company is now on course to monetizing Venmo. Revenue in the third quarter also performed better than the $3.67 billion average projection by rising 14% to $3.68 billion, while earnings rose 26%.

Peer-to-peer payment app Venmo had its total payment volume rise by 78% in the third quarter, to about $17 billion. Venmo had hitherto been unable to prove its wherewithal as a money-making enterprise for its parent company, but investors will see the rise in payment volume as a sign of more good things to come.

With the renewed momentum, PayPal CEO Daniel Schulman hinted on a call with analysts Thursday that the company’s monetization efforts are yielding the right result.

“I’m especially pleased with the strong overall momentum surrounding Venmo. While it is still early, our monetization efforts appear to be reaching a tipping point.”

Debit Cards for Venmo

In June, PayPal rolled out debit cards for Venmo to smoothen the collection of transaction fees. Prior to the company’s report for last earnings in July, billionaire Dan Loeb’s Hedge Fund Third Point disclosed a stake in Venmo and expressed optimism about Venmo’s potential to churn $1 billion in annual sales within three years.

PayPal’s marketing strategy also incorporated liaising with retailers to accept Venmo transactions carried out on mobile phones of customers. A significant leap in this aspect was made after Uber Technologies in July agreed to include Venmo among its payment options.

During the week, PayPal increased the fee for quick fund transfer to bank accounts to a percent of the transaction amount from a flat 25 cents.

With many receiving the earnings report Thursday as a welcome sign, Mr. Schulman disclosed that there had been a 185% increase in the number of people using Venmo compared to the previous month.

PayPal is keen on wringing more profit from transaction fees by encouraging people to carry out purchases using their Venmo balance instead of a credit card linked to their accounts.

The total payment volume of PayPal fell marginally short of Refinitiv analysts’ expectations of $145 billion by reaching $143 billion during the same quarter. The amount nevertheless, represents a 25% increase. 40% of the payment volume was comprised of mobile payment growth while it constituted 45% growth in mobile payment volume for the third quarter. A 27% surge in total payment transactions amounted to 2.5 total for the quarter.

Accounts added in the third quarter of the year reached an unprecedented height hitting what the company called a “record” 9.1 million accounts, 15% higher than what was reported in the last quarter. The quarter closed with a total of 254 million active accounts.

Paypal Fourth Quarter Earnings

In line with forecasts given by analysts, fourth-quarter earnings guidance was raised by PayPal to a range of between 65 and 67 cents and the company also increased quarterly revenue guidance. Full-year earnings guidance was upped to a range of between $2.38 and $2.40 per share, and this was above the consensus expectations of analysts put at $2.34 per share.

Prequel to the report on earnings made known on Thursday; announcements were made about the company’s latest features and a more robust collaboration of its existing partnership with American Express which will now enable customers of the latter to make transfers via Venmo or PayPal directly from their Annex mobile app.

Also, American Express customers will be able to pay credit card bills with existing Venmo balances as well as being able to make use of Annex Membership Reward points for purchases made on PayPal. Meanwhile, American Express also reported earnings after the bell on Thursday.

Images from Shutterstock.