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Inside Zuckerberg's plan to repair Facebook's image, including whimsical jokes on his Page, more media appearances, and discussing product more than policy
PitchBook: the number of "inside rounds", where only previous investors participate, rose to over 1,000 in 2020 with $30B invested, up 15% from 2019
Source: Dapper Labs, maker of NFT-focused NBA Top Shot, is raising a new round at a $7.5B+ valuation, just a few weeks after raising $305M at a $2.6B valuation
Sources: group messaging app IRL is in talks to raise $50M+ at a $1B valuation; the company was last valued at $100M in September
Sources: Anduril Industries is raising a new round that could value the military drone and surveillance startup between $4B-$5B, over double its value in July
Gupta Media: Facebook ad prices, measured in cost per thousand impressions, rebounded from a $1 monthly average last spring to almost $5 in November
Sources: Snap plans to unveil new Spectacles aimed at AR developers and creators in May and has begun a years-long project to make a camera drone
Sources: Ramp, a Brex rival offering corporate cards and tools to manage staff expenses, is close to raising two rounds, one led by Stripe valuing it at $1.6B
Apple Hosts Apps Run by China Paramilitary Group Accused of Uyghur Genocide
Apple Forbids Facial Scanning of Employees—But Not Factory Workers
Pitchbook: the median pre-investment valuation for a Series A round in the US has increased sixfold to $37M since 2010
Sources: the DOJ is investigating if Apple's use of its "Sign in with Apple" button makes it more difficult for users to switch to a rival device maker
Source: ~40%, or 40M, of Disney+ subscribers are in the US, and Disney has said 30% are in India, so Europe and LatAm seem to make up less than a third of subs
Source: Aviatrix, a provider of multi-cloud native networking software, raises $75M Series D led by General Catalyst, valuing the startup at $700M+
Sources: LinkedIn is developing a new service called Marketplaces to let its 740M users find and book freelancers, with plans to launch as soon as September
Sources: Twitter has told employees that they will receive just 57% of their 2020 bonus target after the company missed internal revenue and profit goals
Sources: Facebook is building an Android-based smartwatch with health and fitness capabilities, which it aims to launch in 2022
Source: Amazon Connect, its cloud call center software, had $175M in sales during 2020, up ~150% YoY, and the company expects $1B annual sales by 2022
Techmeme · 3 months ago