VC valuations resilient in the face of coronavirus pandemic August 27, 2020 Venture capital pre-money valuations across all financing stages remained resilient during lockdown, according to new research. VC deal sizes remained healthy during the second quarter even as business optimism waned in the face of the pandemic. Pre-pandemic deals that remain to filter through have helped, as well as rising valuations tied to software and late-stage [...]
Alibaba’s Ant Group files for dual listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai August 25, 2020 Alibaba’s fintech arm Ant Group has filed for a dual listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai, in what could become the world’s largest ever IPO. Ant’s float would be the first simultaneous listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai’s Nasdaq-style Star market, in a listing which could raise as much as $30bn. Ant Group, which made [...]
Software giant Aveva buys OSIsoft in $5bn mega-merger August 25, 2020 Industrial software giant Aveva today said it has agreed to acquire US tech firm OSIsoft in a $5bn (£3.8bn) deal. Aveva said the tie-up would bring together the two companies’ “complementary product offerings” in industrial software and data management. The FTSE-listed firm said it will fund the takeover through a combination of rights issues and [...]
DEBATE: Will cyber attacks increase as we return to the office? August 25, 2020 Will we see an increase in cyber attacks as more businesses return to the office? Chris Hodson, CISO at Tanium, says YES Cyber criminals exploited business disruption in the rush to get workers set up from home in March. Our research saw a 92 per cent spike in attacks targeted at companies in the first [...]
Zoom down: Thousands of users unable to make calls as video app crashes August 24, 2020 Thousands of people in the UK and US were left unable to access work calls this afternoon after video conferencing app Zoom suffered a partial outage. Outage tracking website Down Detector showed there were nearly 15,000 reports of outages on the platform. These were concentrated on the east coast of the US, but also impacted [...]
A-levels are the tip of the iceberg — biased algorithms are running our lives August 24, 2020 The A-levels debacle has laid bare the stark reality of relying on algorithms to make important decisions. Between the results being announced and the government’s U-turn four days later, public outrage had reached a fever pitch at the idea that an individual could have their life chances limited because of the results other people had [...]
Is facial recognition technology finally being seen for the dystopian threat it is? August 21, 2020 In the end, even Silicon Valley has had to admit that there is something a bit sinister about facial recognition technology. Momentum has been building in recent months. Arvind Krishna of IBM was first. He announced in June that his company would no longer offer automatic facial recognition (AFR) software. He also said it would [...]
Alibaba gets lockdown revenue boost as US threat looms August 20, 2020 Alibaba today posted better-than-expected revenue and profit in its latest quarter as the coronavirus lockdown boosted trading in its core ecommerce business. The Chinese conglomerate booked revenue of 135.8bn yuan (£14.9bn) in the three months to the end of June, up 34 per cent on the same period last year. Net income also jumped from [...]
Apple becomes first US company to reach $2 trillion valuation August 19, 2020 Apple has become Wall Street’s first $2 trillion company, doubling its valuation in just over two years. As shares hit $457.77 in morning trading, the tech giant became the first Wall Street company to achieve the $2 trillion market cap in public markets. It is the second in the world to do so. The day [...]
Spotify crashes for users around the world August 19, 2020 Thousands of Spotify users were left unable to play music for more than an hour this afternoon after the service experienced technical difficulties. It appeared to affect customers around the globe, with the majority reported in Europe. According to outage tracker site DownDetector the issues started at around 1pm, with 92 per cent of the [...]