Mission Everywhere

Wall Street Journal : Early data after GDPR shows Google and Facebook are drawing ad money by gathering users' consent for targeted ads at far higher rates than competing services   —  Digital ad giants are gathering individuals' consent for targeted ads at far higher rates than many competing online-ad services, early data show from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2JlflKj

After 35 years of mediocre depression drugs, pharmaceutical companies are jazzed about several new drugs inspired by the club drug ketamine . Allergan, the multinational pharmaceutical giant known for Botox and birth control, recently dove into research on an injectable depression drug called Rapastinel. Most recently, the company announced it was working on oral pill version of that drug. After nearly four decades of dispensing the same mediocre medications to patients with depression, pharmaceutical companies are jazzed about several new drug candidates inspired by the club drug ketamine . Allergan, the multinational pharmaceutical giant known for Botox and birth control, recently dove deep into research on an injectable depression drug called Rapastinel, which works on the same brain pathway as ketamine. The company plans to file for approval with the Food and Drug Administration within two years. Last week, Allergan also announced plans to go after an oral pill formula...

Nintendo and The Pokémon Company announced four new games coming in the next year or so, to the delight of fans and investors. The variety of games shows how Nintendo and The Pokémon Company know what they're doing to satisfy mainstay fans, casual gamers, and newcomers to the series.   Nintendo and The Pokémon Company made big waves on Tuesday night by not just announcing one, or two, or even three, but four new Pokémon games coming out in the next year. The games: — "Pokémon Quest," a new game that's free to download right now on the Nintendo Switch, and is coming soon to iOS and Android devices. — "Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu!" and "Pokémon: Let's Go, Eevee!" , a pair of $60 games coming to the Nintendo Switch on November 16. — An entirely new entry in the "core" Pokémon series , coming in late 2019. My colleague Ben Gilbert wrote an excellent breakdown if you're interested in learning more about the individ...

Google, more recently by way of parent company Alphabet, has been a prolific investor in startups across the globe by way of entities like GV and CapitalG. Today, it announced its newest effort in this area, specifically outside of the US. The search and Android giant is partnering with Orange Digital Ventures, the corporate venture fund of the French carrier Orange, on a new effort to find, fund, and potentially acquire startups in the EMEA region, and specifically in the areas of the internet of things, cybersecurity, cloud services, AI, fintech and connectivity solutions. The two are not disclosing a specific fund size, nor are they talking about any financial terms in this deal at this point, except to note that the investments could potentially be made at any stage, from seed to growth, depending on the startup in question. The two expect the first investments to be announced later this year. “Our goal is to join forces in financing the most promising digital startups,” said Ma...

imToken , which claims to be the world’s largest Ethereum wallet, will focus on expanding in Asia and the United States after raising a $10 million Series A from IDG Capital, it announced today. The capital will also be used to add new features, including support for Bitcoin, EOS and other blockchains. imToken is the latest addition to IDG Capital’s cryptocurrency investments, which include Coinbase and Circle. In a press statement, global chairman Hugo Shong said “imToken has developed its product into one of the top crypto asset wallets in the world with such a sound reputation. We believe it will become a significant infrastructure for the tokenization manifesto, benefitting both the crypto economy and blockchain technology. We’re excited to back imToken.” Founded in 2016 by chief executive officer Ben He and based in Hangzhou, imToken’s core market is currently China. The company supports 30,000 tokens, claims more than 4 million monthly active users and says it handled $35 milli...

Ron Miller / TechCrunch : Data encryption startup Virtru raises $37M Series B led by Iconiq Capital   —  Virtru, the security startup that came out of research at the NSA, announced a $37 million Series B financing round today led by Iconiq Capital.  —  The company also announced the formation of Virtru Labs … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2J4zDnY

General Motors ' self-driving car unit, Cruise, is getting a $2.25 billion investment from Japan's SoftBank. The deal values Cruise at $11.5 billion — almost 20 times what GM paid for it in 2016.  GM surged more than 10% after the investment was announced.  Follow General Motor's stock price in real-time here.  Shares of General Motors surged more than 10% in early trading Thursday after Japan’s SoftBank tech fund announced a $2.25 billion investment in the company’s self-driving car unit known as GM Cruise. The investment will come in two stages of $900 million immediately and another $1.35 billion once Cruise’s autonomous vehicles are ready for commercial deployment, GM said. It will also invest $1.1 billion of its own money in cruise when the deal closes. "GM has made significant progress toward realizing the dream of completely automated driving to dramatically reduce fatalities, emissions and congestion," Michael Ronen, a managing partner at SoftB...

Fresh from agreeing its largest acquisition to date with a deal to buy European payment firm iZettle for $2.2 billion , PayPal is on the investment hunt once again after it backed India’s Pine Labs with a $125 million round. The financing jointly comes from PayPal and Temasek, the sovereign investment fund from the Singaporean government with over $200 billion in assets. Both will take undisclosed “minority shares” in Pine Labs. Sequoia made a seed investment in 2009 and it remains the startup’s largest-single investor, the VC firm said. The new deal takes New Delhi-based Pine Labs to $208 million raised from investors to date. It previously closed an $82 million investment from PE funds Actis and Altimeter Capital in March of this year at a reported valuation of $900 million. Recent reports speculated on the Temasek investment (but not PayPal) which would give Pine Labs a valuation of over $1 billion, thus vaulting it into the global ‘unicorn’ club. A spokesperson declined to gi...

Ecobee, a Toronto-based smart thermostat company, has raised $47 million CAD (about $36 million USD) in funding, bringing its Series C round to about $127 million CAD total.  Ecobee is backed by Amazon, and competes with Nest, Google's smart home gadget subsidiary.  Ecobee CEO Stuart Lombard says the plan isn't to "outspend" Google, but rather to ride the wave in the Amazon Alexa and Apple HomeKit ecosystems to become the leading alternative. The smart thermostat market is heating up. And yes, that pun is very much intended.  Ecobee, a smart thermostat company headquartered in Toronto, has raised another $47 million CAD ($36 million USD) — an extension to the round it first announced in March , bringing its Series C funding to about $127 million CAD altogether. The round includes participation from the Amazon Alexa Fund.  At the same time, Ecobee has added three key execs, as it deepens it executive bench: Jackie Poriadjian-Asch as chief marketing and r...

Dan Primack / Axios : SoftBank Vision Fund will invest $2.25B into GM's Cruise self-driving program, with plans to commercialize such vehicles next year   —  General Motors on Thursday announced that SoftBank Vision Fund will invest $2.25 billion into its self-driving program, with plans to commercialize such vehicles next year. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2Jlyz2g