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It’s great to see Nuvei have a successful IPO on the TSX last week — we believe robust IPOs are a very important part of the Canadian public markets ecosystem, even as US capital markets rediscover SPACs. Canadian VC also reported strong activity.
Canadian Technology Capital Markets & Company News
Nuvei’s (NVEI-TSX) red-hot IPO marks Canada’s largest tech offering. Payments company Nuvei Corp. jumped 31% in its trading debut on Thursday, riding the wave of demand for technology shares that has swept the globe in recent months. Montreal-based Nuvei, which supplies payment technology to the retail, travel, gaming and other sectors, is among a cluster of firms benefiting from the shift to e-commerce during pandemic lockdowns. The deal raised $700 million, making it the biggest tech offering in the history of the Toronto Stock Exchange, the exchange said in a statement. Information technology stocks are up 80% from their March 16 low on Canada’s largest exchange, compared to a 57% gain in the S&P 500 information tech index. Nuvei’s listing follows Dye & Durham Ltd.’s July offering, which raised $172.5 million (US$131 million). Another Montreal company in the merchant software business, Lightspeed POS Inc., raised $276 million in an IPO last year.
Shopify (Shopify-TSX, Shopify-NYSE) completes offerings of Class A subordinate voting shares and convertible senior notes, including full exercise of over-allotment option for convertible senior notes. The company completed its previously announced public offering of 1,100,000 Class A subordinate voting shares at a price to the public of US$900 per share and its previously announced public offering of US$920,000,000 aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due 2025, which includes the full exercise of the over-allotment option of US$120,000,000 aggregate principal amount of the Notes.
AppDirect closes US$185 million led by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. AppDirect, a San Francisco-headquartered startup founded by two Canadians, has raised US$185 million in funding, bringing the company’s total funding to date to approximately US$465 million. The financing was led by new investor the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, with participation from previous investors Inovia Capital, JPMorgan Chase, and Mithril Capital. AppDirect said the new funds will go toward the company’s “organic expansion,” acquisitions, and new hires. AppDirect’s last financing was a US$140 million round in 2015. According to The Globe and Mail, AppDirect will hire 150 new team members in its Montreal office, which opened in 2014, making it the company’s largest office by headcount.
Shoppers Drug Mart to expand Canadians’ access to virtual care through $75 million investment in Maple. Prior to the Transaction, Shoppers Drug Mart worked closely with Maple on two strategic initiatives that gave the Company an opportunity to more deeply understand Maple’s service offering. Maple virtual care is currently available in more than 160 Shoppers Drug Mart locations in British Columbia. Additionally, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two companies worked together to make virtual care more accessible for Canadians. In less than a month, this initiative enabled nearly 20,000 virtual care visits, during a time when Canadians were asked to stay home and stay safe. In addition to these initiatives, Maple’s strong history of implementing custom telehealth solutions for governments, hospitals, employers, and insurers made the investment in Maple an attractive choice.
ApplyBoard secures $70 million, pens deal to expand EdTech platform’s capabilities. ApplyBoard, which runs a recruitment platform helping international students apply to education abroad, has secured $70 million in a Series C extension and a new strategic partnership that extends the company’s capabilities. Remote learning and travel restrictions are some of the reasons ApplyBoard has seen “huge acceleration.” The $70 million all-equity extension came from non-profit education testing company Education Testing Services (ETS), Index Ventures, Blue Cloud Ventures, Harmonic Growth Partners, and other undisclosed investors. The majority of the financing was primary, with a minor secondary portion for ApplyBoard employees. In addition to the investment, ETS and ApplyBoard have penned a deal that will allow the two companies to create a more seamless application experience for international students that require language testing. ApplyBoard raised the significant extension five months after initially closing its $100 million Series C, a round that brought the Kitchener-Waterloo startup’s valuation to $2 billion. The latest capital brings ApplyBoard’s Series C to $170 million and total funding to date to $242 million.
Employee wellness startup LifeSpeak raises $42 million in first round of institutional financing. Kensington Partners and Roynat Capital also participated in the investment. Sanjiv Samant, founder and managing partner of the Round13 Growth Fund, told BetaKit LifeSpeak will use the new capital to build out its sales and marketing team and grow the company. LifeSpeak was founded in 2004 and targets its solution across 25 industries, ranging from financial institutions and telecommunications to governments and school boards. Until now, the startup has been funded by its co-founders, some senior executives, and a small number of individual and angel investors. LifeSpeak’s platform offers more than 2,000 video training sessions, podcasts, tip sheets, and other content that covers topics such as preventative health and mental health. LifeSpeak’s hope is to be both a proactive and reactive solution to well-being and training needs.
Virtual care software startup OnCall Health raises $7.9 million Series A. Toronto-based startup OnCall Health, which provides virtual care software to healthcare providers, has raised a $7.9 million Series A round, bringing the company’s total funding to date to over $10.5 million. Base10 Partners led the round, and OnCall Health’s existing investors, Ripple Ventures, Panache Ventures, and Stout Street Capital participated. OnCall Health will use the new funding to expand its customers across North America, build out its available integrations and developer tools, and grow its partnerships with payers and software vendors. Founded in 2016, OnCall enables healthcare enterprises to rapidly launch their own virtual care platform that is highly configurable to their brand and workflow. The startup also offers a real-time virtual care analytics dashboard, automated patient triage, self-scheduling, payment processing, insurance billing, and online prescriptions. Since being launched, OnCall Health raised a $2 million seed round, and its team has grown to just over 30 full-time employees. The startup claims it currently supports over 600 healthcare organizations and more than 7,000 primary care, mental health, and paramedical service providers in North America.
EdTech startup Edsby raises $5.3 million Series A. Edsby, a Toronto-based EdTech startup that offers a digital learning and data platform for K-12 education, has closed $5.3 million in Series A financing. The investment was led by education technology executive Chris Besse, with participation from existing investors MindAngler Capital, Byye Management, and XDL Capital Group. Edsby will use the funding to scale sales and marketing, as well as accelerate its global growth.
Shopify announces initial US$5 million in investments through sustainability fund. One year after the launch of the Shopify Sustainability Fund, the e-commerce giant has announced US$5 million in investments into 11 cleantech companies focused on reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. “In order for us all to thrive, including our merchants … we need to make a low carbon future reality.” Of the 11 total carbon capture companies that received an investment from the Shopify fund, three are Canadian cleantech startups. Shopify refused to disclose how much of the US$5 million each individual company received, citing the desire to maintain a competitive advantage across the companies, which operate in very similar areas.
Baby goods marketplace Rebelstork raises $2 million seed round. Toronto-based e-commerce startup Rebelstork, which has developed an online marketplace for buying and selling baby gear, has closed a $2 million seed round. This represents the first round of funding for the startup. “There’s a $2.1 billion market for used baby goods in Canada, and no one’s really monetizing it.” https://bit.ly/32J9wiF
Global Markets: IPOs, Venture Capital, M&A
Tech veterans Hoffman and Pincus join hunt for SPAC targets. LinkedIn Corp. co-founder Reid Hoffman and Zynga Inc. founder Mark Pincus are looking to set themselves apart from the ultra-wealthy who have started special purpose acquisition companies. For their SPAC, which began trading Thursday after raising US$600 million, the high-profile pair want to draw upon their experience building companies and taking them public without losing a “growth mindset,” they said in an joint interview. Despite their track records and reputations in Silicon Valley, Hoffman and Pincus are entering a crowded space where potential targets are being acquired quickly by SPACs, also known as blank-check companies. This year, 102 SPACs have raised more than US$39 billion in initial public offerings on U.S. exchanges, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s more than half the total raised by SPACs in all previous years, the data show. Billionaire investor Bill Ackman, whose US$4 billion SPAC that went public in July is the largest ever, has already spoken to Airbnb and Stripe Inc. Deals for venture-backed companies are being announced weekly.
Sequoia Capital considered forming SPAC, says partner. Sequoia Capital has considered forming a special-purpose acquisition company amid record hype for these “blank check” IPOs across Silicon Valley. One of the top global venture capital firms, Sequoia forming a SPAC could inspire a wave of venture firms to join the 2020 SPAC frenzy. At the TechCrunch Disrupt conference on Tuesday, Sequoia partner Roelof Botha, who leads the firm’s core U.S. business, said he’s thought about forming a SPAC but acknowledged doing so might be too complex for a VC firm. “When you establish a SPAC, you can’t have a specific target in mind,” he explained. “[Sequoia] couldn’t start a SPAC to acquire our own company.” Botha added that he loves “the fact that there’s innovation” in the IPO market but “it’s not obvious to us that [a SPAC] fits with … our vision.” Sequoia wouldn’t be the first VC firm to form a SPAC, however. Fintech fund Ribbit Capital filed to raise US$350 million for its SPAC, Ribbit LEAP, in late.
Home buyer Opendoor is going public in US$4.8 billion merger. Opendoor, an online platform that lets homeowners quickly sell their houses, announced on Tuesday that it will go public through a merger with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings II, a shell company helmed by Chamath Palihapitiya, a venture capitalist and early Facebook executive. The deal values Opendoor at an enterprise value of US$4.8 billion, and will generate up to US$1 billion in cash proceeds, the company says. Palihapitiya himself is putting US$100 million into the business. Founded in 2014, Opendoor is the dominant player in the “iBuying” space, a term for start-ups that let homeowners rapidly sell their homes to the company, which then lists it on its platform—taking a cut from both sides of the transaction. Opendoor utilizes data analysis to determine its pricing, a central element of its business plan; if it overpays for a home upfront, it could take a loss. If it tries to underpay, sellers will look elsewhere. The firm’s valuation has soared in recent years—it was most recently pegged at US$3.8 billion in 2019—helped along by a US$400 million infusion from SoftBank in 2018. Opendoor generated US$4.7 billion in revenue last year on 18,000 home sales across 21 markets. Still, the company is operating at a substantial loss. In April, it laid off a third of its employees.
Walmart’s Flipkart eyes overseas listing as early as 2021. Walmart controlled Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart is preparing for an initial public offering overseas as early as 2021, which could value the firm up to US$50 billion, sources familiar with the company’s plans told Reuters. Bengaluru-based Flipkart, which vies with players such as Amazon.com’s local unit in India and India’s Reliance Industries, will be aiming for a valuation in the US$45-US$50 billion range, according to one source with knowledge of the matter. If achieved, that would mean Walmart would have more than doubled its investment. Flipkart is likely to choose between Singapore, or the United States for the initial public offering (IPO), said two other sources, who asked not to be named as discussions are private.
SoftBank Group executives consider taking company private. SoftBank Group’s executives have revived discussions about taking the Tokyo-listed company private, the Financial Times reported. The executives are considering buying out public shareholders in part because they are frustrated by the wide gap between the Japanese tech investment company’s own market capitalization and the value of its shareholdings, the FT reported. Going private could also allow SoftBank to make key decisions without coming under intense shareholder scrutiny. Still, it is unclear whether the discussions will result in a privatization deal. SoftBank has considered such a move in the past, but internal opposition prevented it from happening, according to the FT. The talks come as SoftBank is selling its assets to finance share buyback plans and reduce its debt. On Sunday, U.S. chip maker Nvidia said it has agreed to buy chip design firm Arm from SoftBank for up to US$40 billion. SoftBank’s shares jumped nearly 10% Monday due to the Arm sale.
Alibaba is in talks to invest US$3 billion in Grab. The Chinese e-commerce giant, a sole investor in the round, will spend a portion of the funds to acquire some of the Grab stock held by Uber Technologies Inc., one of the people said, asking not to be named as the discussions are private. The deal may represent one of Alibaba’s biggest bets on Southeast Asia since its first investment in Lazada in 2016. China’s largest corporation has previously had limited forays in ride-hailing but a potential tie-up with Grab gives it access to data on millions of users in eight countries, a growing delivery fleet as well as a stake in digital wallet and financial services. One specific plan under discussion is to integrate Grab’s delivery network into Lazada, giving the Singaporean startup access to a wider network of consumers, one of the people said. The funding — about a fifth of Grab’s last known valuation of $14 billion — comes amid growing questions over the company’s ability to live up to its lofty price tag as it grapples with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Chief Executive Officer Anthony Tan said the company is facing its “single biggest crisis,” while co-founder Tan Hooi Ling warned in May of a “long winter.” Existing investors have also been frustrated by what they see as value-destroying competition with Grab’s regional arch-rival Gojek.
Nvidia’s purchase of Arm creates an A.I. computing juggernaut. Jensen Huang, the chief executive officer of chipmaker Nvidia, has presented his decision to purchase semiconductor design firm Arm from Japan’s SoftBank as all about artificial intelligence. “A.I. is the most powerful technology force of our time,” Huang said in a press conference on Monday and that by purchasing Arm for US$40 billion, “together we will create the world’s premier computing company for the age of A.I.”
TikTok deal with Oracle wins Trump’s approval, delaying ban. U.S. authorities delayed a looming ban on new downloads of TikTok shortly after President Trump told reporters Saturday he had given a corporate restructuring deal with Oracle his “blessing.” The deal will see Oracle become TikTok’s cloud hosting provider and manage its data for U.S. users, both companies said. TikTok also will enter into a “commercial partnership” with Walmart, allowing the retailer and Oracle to buy up to a combined 20% stake in a “pre-IPO financing round” for a new entity called TikTok Global. Oracle said separately that it will buy a 12.5% stake in the new entity. The Department of Commerce said Saturday that it will delay a ban on new downloads of TikTok in the U.S. that was set to go into effect on September 20—presumably to give more time for the deal with Oracle and Walmart to be finalized. Another U.S. ban on new downloads of the Chinese-owned messaging app WeChat starting September 20 isn’t changed. In a statement to TikTok’s staff seen by The Information, the app’s interim head Vanessa Pappas said the company was pleased with Trump’s approval of its proposal that “settles questions around TikTok’s future in the U.S.” TikTok said the deal will create 25,000 U.S. jobs. The full ownership structure of the TikTok Global entity, including what will be owned by TikTok’s current parent company, the Beijing-based ByteDance, is unclear. Under the Commerce Department’s new ruling, TikTok now has until September 27 to complete a deal that resolves national security concerns or be booted from U.S. app stores. If a deal can’t be completed by November 12, TikTok will be forced to shut down in the U.S. completely.
Investments between U.S. and China fall to nine-year low. Investments between the U.S. and China in the first half of 2020 dropped to a nine-year low, according to a research report from consultancy Rhodium Group. The decline was due to escalating political tensions between the two nations as well as the global economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, Rhodium said. Capital flows between the U.S. and China, including foreign direct investments and venture capital deals, fell to US$10.9 billion in the period, the lowest level since the second half of 2011, Rhodium said. U.S. venture capital investment in China fell to its lowest level in four years, while Chinese VC investment in the U.S. also dropped to a six-year low, according to the report. In recent years, the Trump administration has blocked some Chinese tech deals in the U.S. and stepped up its crackdown on major Chinese tech companies such as Huawei and ByteDance on national security grounds. “Unless Beijing demonstrates serious commitment to market reform and at least some political liberalization, the systematic concerns driving caution on Chinese investment in high technology, critical infrastructure and personal data assets will not subside,” Rhodium said. https://bit.ly/2EhFGbJ
Telehealth transformation will still take years despite pandemic boom, says Amwell co-CEO. Telehealth company Amwell made its public market debut Thursday after months of rapid growth because of the coronavirus pandemic. But co-CEO Ido Schoenberg told CNBC that the “enormous” digital transformation of health care remains a process that will take years. “This giant surge in visits may not be continuing into the same pace, and we fairly expect it to go down for a little bit,” Schoenberg said on “The Exchange.” “Our goal is not to count visits. … Our main performance indicator is the number of active providers on our platform.” https://cnb.cx/32IpMA
Alibaba unveils its own smart factory in China. Alibaba on Wednesday unveiled its own smart apparel factory that uses the internet giant’s manufacturing software as well as data on e-commerce sales and consumer preferences. The Xunxi Digital Factory, located in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou where Alibaba is based, is part of the company’s push to apply its technology to China’s old-fashioned manufacturing sector. If successful, the move could pave the way for a new business opportunity where Alibaba sells its technology services to many factory operators across China. Alibaba already has used a similar model to expand into China’s offline retail sector. Five years ago, it opened its own supermarket called Hema, hoping to use it as a prototype to show other Chinese retailers how their stores could benefit from Alibaba’s software and data. https://bit.ly/33DdBnX
Facebook’s Quest 2 VR headset is lighter, faster and cheaper. Facebook Inc. is upgrading its Oculus Quest all-in-one virtual reality headset with a faster processor for improved gaming, higher-resolution screens and a lighter design as it looks to fend off rivals in the growing VR space. The new headset’s power improvements have given the company enough confidence to discontinue its PC-connected Oculus Rift from next spring. The social network’s hardware arm announced the Quest 2 on Wednesday at its virtual Facebook Connect conference about a year and a half after the first iteration went on sale. The initial model was praised for its all-in-one capabilities — functioning without the need to tether to an external computer — but was constrained by supply shortages and some basic hardware and form factor limitations.
How traders use Google searches to see the economic recovery in real time. The use of so-called “alternative data” has been gathering attention for some time. Investors have been looking at things like credit cards or satellite photos of Walmart parking lots for insights into businesses before earnings or official government numbers come out. But during this crisis, alternative data has really come into its own. The speed of the crash and recovery happened so fast, it was clear that traditional numbers weren’t timely enough to get a read on what was going on. On this episode, we speak with Ben Breitholtz of Arbor Data Science, who explains how he’s been able to monitor thousands of different categories of Google Search queries to know instantly when the recovery started to happen and what sectors of the economy were leading the way.
IBM launches autonomous ship with a trans-Atlantic crossing scheduled in 2021. Artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous vessels are set to revolutionize the shipping industry in the years ahead. AI-guided ships instrumented with a suite of sensors could become the seafaring standard in the not-so-distant future. These highly sophisticated vessels exist in stark comparison to the wooden sailing ships of centuries past. To mark the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower launch in 1620, IBM in partnership with oceanic research nonprofit ProMare, have launched an AI-enabled robotic research ship with some 21st century cargo in tow. The vessel will allow researchers to gain insights related to global warming, animal conservation, and the accumulation of oceanic microplastics. https://tek.io/2FOgKJi
Media, Streaming, Gaming & Sports Betting
Amazon gets into podcasting. Amazon wants to be in the podcasting game. The company announced today that it is going to be carrying 70,000 podcasts within its Amazon Music service, available to both the free and paid subscribers. It faces fierce competition from Spotify and Apple, which have both built far larger libraries of podcasts along with exclusive titles. Given the head start that those two have in podcasting, it’s hard to see how Amazon will catch up. It does own Audible which has a large userbase and has been leaning into its Audible Originals program, which are podcast-like. But its real advantage here are the popular Echo devices. If Amazon can push its exclusive podcasts to Echo owners, it could open up the still-growing podcast market to an new audience.
YouTube is launching Shorts, a short-form video feature for smartphones that looks a lot like TikTok. Google’s YouTube announced Monday that it is rolling out YouTube Shorts “is a new short-form video experience for creators and artists who want to shoot short, catchy videos using nothing but their mobile phones,” according to a company blog post. Shorts videos will be 15 seconds or less and will allow users to use a new, multi-segment camera to stitch multiple clips together as well as the option to record video with music from a selection of songs, similar to how users can create TikTok videos. Shorts has reportedly been in the works for a while, according to an April report from The Information, but Google did not confirm the new feature at the time. Shorts will get a beta release in India this week for testing. India banned TikTok as well as dozens of other apps owned by China-based firms in June, citing national security concerns.
DraftKings seals exclusive partnership with NFL’s New York Giants. New York-listed DraftKings has been unveiled as the exclusive sports betting, iGaming and daily fantasy sports operator of the NFL’s New York Giants. The multi-year deal grants DraftKings access to official Giants marks and logos, in addition to a first of its kind virtual SportsLounge which will open on Giants’ game days and provide fans with unique and innovative ways to engage on all DraftKings platforms. The Giants and DraftKings have worked together for a number of years, with the operator set to benefit from a brand presence across MetLife Stadium during Giants home games. In addition, DraftKings will be recognized as a sponsor and exclusive category advertiser across all team-controlled media, including television (NBC, MSG Networks, MY9), radio (Entercom/WFAN), and digital and social (Giants.com and the official Giants mobile app). https://bit.ly/3kzClUZ
Adtech, Privacy & Regulatory
Nearly 2000 Magento 1 stores hacked over last weekend. Over the weekend, almost two thousand Magento 1 stores across the world have been hacked in the largest documented campaign to date. It was a typical Magecart attack: injected malicious code would intercept the payment information of unsuspected store customers. Inspected stores were found running Magento version 1, which was announced End-Of-Life last June. The Sansec early breach detection system, which monitors the global ecommerce space for security threats, detected 1904 distinct Magento stores with a unique keylogger (skimmer) on the checkout page. On Friday, 10 stores got infected, then 1058 on Saturday, 603 on Sunday and 233 Sunday. https://bit.ly/3izoxcq
The EU’s top court just closed a major loophole in Europe’s net-neutrality rules. Telecommunications providers in the European Union will have to stop the practice of “zero rating,” where they bundle their Internet access with services whose use is exempted from customers’ data caps—data-intensive content-streaming services such as Spotify and Netflix, as well as operators’ own rivals to those services, are popular examples.
SEC requires Seattle e-sports platform Unikrn to repay funds raised in crypto deal. Seattle e-sports platform Unikrn has agreed to pay more than US$6 million to settle a complaint by the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that the gambling site, initially backed by celebrities including Ashton Kutcher and Mark Cuban, raised US$31 million by selling unregistered securities. The US$6.1 million, substantially all of the company’s current assets, will go to investors who purchased the cryptocurrency UnikoinGold, issued by Unikrn in June 2017. The company promised investors UnikoinGold would become more valuable as Unikrn developed cryptocurrency-enabled gambling features for its platform and listed UnikoinGold on cryptocurrency exchanges, according to a cease-and-desist order filed Tuesday by the SEC. Those promises implied UnikoinGold was, in effect, a security similar to a share of company stock, the SEC alleged, meaning Unikrn was in violation of regulations requiring companies to register initial public offerings with the federal government.
iPhone’s new ‘orange dot’ feature warns you when an app is listening. Many iPhone owners are seeing a strange orange dot appearing from time to time in the top right corner of their screen. The dot is part of Apple’s latest iOS software update, and is part of Apple’s ongoing campaign to provide better privacy services. If you see the dot, it means an app is accessing your iPhone’s phone or camera. In many cases, this will come as no surprise—we use many apps precisely because they can take pictures or record a sound. https://bit.ly/3hIEPhR
Amazon is reportedly taking aim at Walmart’s greatest strength by establishing a fleet of 1,000 delivery hubs. Amazon’s latest barrage against brick-and-mortar rival Walmart is taking shape in the form of more than 1,000 small delivery hubs launching across the US. According to a report from Bloomberg, the tech giant is looking to expedite consumers’ online shopping experiences by opening warehouses that should help the e-commerce giant improve delivery times. The company ultimately hopes to open around 1,500 hubs each in suburbs and cities across the country in the future. The move also comes as the shipping wars between Amazon and major competitors like Walmart continue to heat up. While Amazon is an e-commerce native, Walmart has long held a key advantage in the form of its store footprint. As of 2019, 90% of US residents live within 10 miles of a Walmart, allowing the Arkansas-based retailer to convert its stores into fulfillment centers. Walmart has also launched its own Amazon Prime rival — Walmart Plus — on Tuesday.
Amazon hiring 100,000 workers in U.S. and Canada to meet surge in lockdown shopping. Amazon stepped up its hiring spree on Monday, saying it would recruit 100,000 more workers to meet the growing demand for online shopping, which has spiked during the pandemic. The roles offer a starting wage of at least US$15 per hour, and Amazon is offering sign-on bonuses up to US$1,000 to new hires in select cities. The news marks Amazon’s fourth hiring spree in the U.S. so far this year, and comes ahead of what it expects to be one of the busiest holiday shipping periods ever. United Parcel Service said last week it expects to add more than 100,000 extra workers to help handle an increase in packages during the peak festive season. https://on.mktw.net/3hyj8Rw
Fintech, Blockchain & Cryptocurrency
SoftBank wants to burn money. SoftBank Group, Japan’s most aggressive venture capital investor, thinks they might be onto something. Its latest multibillion-dollar technology bet is being marketed on a simple proposition: In the age of the coronavirus, cash is immensely dangerous. “Many people don’t want to touch paper bills and coins that may have been touched by someone else,” said Ichiro Nakayama, CEO of the new SoftBank-created digital payment app PayPay, in a livestreamed news conference in July. “Cashless is the way to enable touchless and contactless.” Cash phobia could not have come at a better time for SoftBank’s massive bet on digital payments in Japan. Cashiers across the country have begun asking customers to take extreme sanitary measures when paying, such as placing bank notes on a tray, wiping the tray with a sanitizer after each transaction, often while wearing plastic gloves. In South Korea, people have been cooking bank notes in microwaves to disinfect them. https://s.nikkei.com/3mk9UvX
Sony cuts PlayStation 5 forecast by 4 million due to chip woes. Sony Corp. has cut its estimated PlayStation 5 production for this fiscal year by 4 million units, down to around 11 million, following production issues with its custom-designed system-on-chip for the new console, according to people familiar with the matter. The Tokyo-based electronics giant in July boosted orders with suppliers in anticipation of heightened demand for gaming in the holiday season and beyond, as people spend more time at home due to the coronavirus. But the company has come up against manufacturing issues, such as production yields as low as 50% for its SOC, which have cut into its ability to produce as many consoles as it wishes, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because the deliberations aren’t public. Yields have been gradually improving but have yet to reach a stable level, they added. Sony shares erased gains and closed down 2.4% Tuesday, their lowest level since July. A Sony spokesman declined to comment. https://bloom.bg/3bZiPxU
Coffee giant Nespresso commits to making all products carbon neutral by 2022. The company told Business Insider that by 2022, every cup of coffee and espresso drink it produces in-store, as well as at-home pods, will be carbon neutral. In other words, all the carbon emissions associated with the growing, production, and brewing of each coffee will be offset, so the net emissions of damaging greenhouse gasses is zero. “We can’t wait, simply said. We have to do it now. We have to act now. Everyone — customers, employees —is expecting brands to generate more positive impact,” Guillaume Le Cunff, CEO of Nespresso told Business Insider. The announcement comes just days after 150 business leaders and investors, including Google and Apple, published an open letter calling on the European Union for tougher carbon emissions standards, and right before the business and nonprofit community convene for Climate Week 2020 in the US. It also comes as the US faces some of the most devastating wildfires, which have been worsened by climate change. To reach this ambitious two-year goal, Nespresso will have thousands of trees planted in and around coffee farms to sequester carbon and rejuvenate the soil, which is stripped of its nutrients through farming practices. It will also invest in “clean energy solutions,” which can range from everything from solar energy to wind power turbines for its approximately 110,000 farmers in 15 countries including Colombia, Guatemala, Ethiopia, and Costa Rica. https://bit.ly/33A4vr
Google has offset all the carbon it has ever produced, says CEO Sundar Pichai. Google announced Monday that it has offset all its historical carbon emmissions, claiming to be the first major company to do so. The tech giant’s CEO Sundar Pichai says it has offset all the carbon it has ever produced since it first launched in 1998. In a blog post on Monday, he said Google is aiming to run all of its campuses and data centers entirely on carbon-free energy by 2030, which is the company’s “biggest sustainability moonshot yet.” Pichai said that the multinational internet firm will pair wind with solar power sources, increase battery storage, and use artificial intelligence to optimize its electricity demand and forecasting. These measures will create 12,000 jobs by 2025, he said. Google’s other sustainability commitments include helping 500 cities across the world reduce annual carbon emissions by a total of 1 gigaton by 2030, as well as investing in manufacturing regions to enable 5 gigawatts of new carbon-free energy. Google’s efforts to reduce and eliminate its carbon footprint echo those of other large technology companies. Apple and Microsoft have set targets to become carbon neutral by 2030, and Amazon is aiming for 2040.
Walmart and Schneider Electric team up to increase supplier access to renewable energy PPAs. While corporate renewable energy procurement is on the rise, the overall number of companies involved is still relatively low, with just over 100 unique companies participating in the U.S. renewable energy market since 2008, according to the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance Deal Tracker. Some of the challenges to accessing renewable energy experienced by smaller companies include a lack of size needed to approach the market individually, insufficient education on the specific mechanics of renewable energy transactions and guidance on how to secure renewable energy. Walmart Inc. and Schneider Electric are collaborating to change that and increase access to renewable energy for Walmart’s US-based suppliers. The Gigaton PPA Program is designed to educate Walmart suppliers about renewable energy purchases and accelerate renewable energy adoption by participating suppliers through aggregate power purchase agreements. https://bit.ly/33BU9Ym
Sophic Capital Client Insights
Esports & Advertisers: A Primer. Brands cannot ignore those aged under 35 years. But these “Under-35s” don’t respond to traditional advertising. What sets this lucrative demographic apart from their elders is their interest in playing video and mobile games. But few brands know how to advertise to gaming and esports markets. We know who’s figured it out, though. https://bit.ly/35Oowhb
Reciprocity: Connecting Brands to esports. Those aged under 35 years (“Under-35s”) make up almost 47% of the U.S. population, yet many brands still haven’t resonated well with them. Part of the reason is that Under-35s need to trust brands before committing. A second reason for this disconnect is that brands haven’t leveraged one of the most appealing channels for Under-35s – gaming & esports. Reciprocity has the gaming & esports network and industry influencers to connect brands to these young eyeballs. https://bit.ly/3ciqdEA
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If there were any doubts about the Marriott-Starwood deal getting done, you can now toss them out because of the approval from Chinese regulators. Now, let's get on with it.
After an elongated review, Chinese regulators granted antitrust approval to Marriott’s acquisition of Starwood, the last remaining hurdle to closing the merger.
The chains said they expect the deal to close before the market opens in New York on Friday.
The approval follows Chinese authorities’ decision, which the companies announced Aug. 8, to take an extended look at the merger for up to 60 more days. The regulators made their decision before the Oct. 8 deadline expired.
There was some suspicion that the extension may have been motivated by the Chinese government and/or regulators’ desires to extract divestitures or other assets from either Marriott or Starwood during the approval process. However, a Marriott spokesperson told Skift, “The transaction was approved without any conditions.”
Marriott and Starwood had said all along that they expected the $12.2 billion deal to go through even as it had sailed through all other regulatory approvals.
The deal, when it closes later this week, will create the largest hotel chain in the world with 1.1 million rooms, spread out over nearly 30 brands.
As Skift previously reported, the road to closing this transaction, which Marriott and Starwood initially announced in November 2015, has taken numerous twists and turns, including an unexpected bidding war with China’s Anbang Insurance Group and its consortium in March 2016. Anbang eventually dropped out.
The extended antitrust review by the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China was the latest — and last — hurdle.
Regulators in dozens of other countries and jurisdictions around the world, including the U.S., the European Union, Saudi Arabia and Mexico, had previously decided not to stand in the way of the mega merger.
The Road to the Merger
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Photo Credit: This April, 28, 2014 photo, shows a Marriott hotel in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania. Marriott International announced on Nov. 16, 2015 its intent to acquire Starwood. Gene J. Puskar / Associated Press
Marriott CEO Juggles Growth Ambitions With Plan to Go Net-Zero by 2050
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Cameron Sperance and Matthew Parsons, Skift | 6 days ago
U.S. Hotel Performance Slips While China Roars Back to Life
The U.S. and China are riding a hotel performance see-saw where one goes up as the other comes down. But travel analysts and executives are downplaying the notion the Delta variant is going to lead to a travel doomsday scenario over the fall and winter.
Cameron Sperance | 2 weeks ago
Chinese Travelers Still See U.S. as Most Unsafe for Travel
Got the pandemic under control? That remains a key factor for Chinese tourists to go abroad, a new sentiment survey from Dragon Trail shows. None of that "living-with-the-virus" approach that some Asian destinations are starting to embrace.
Lebawit Lily Girma | 2 weeks ago

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Companies and corporations which are part of the top-tier Olympic sponsorship scheme will automatically become main sponsors of the Paralympic Games from 2021, under an agreement between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).
The change to the current system, where the IOC and IPC negotiate their sponsorship packages separately, will grant global entities such as Coca-Cola the same rights for the Paralympics as they have for the Olympic Games from the 2021-2024 quadrennial.
The Host City Contract for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, published by the IOC last week, does, however, allow room for "any Paralympic Games-specific marketing partner that may be appointed".
Of the 13 The Olympic Partner (TOP) sponsors, five - Atos, Panasonic, Samsung, Toyota and Visa - are also worldwide Paralympic partners.
The other eight - Coca-Cola, Alibaba, Bridgestone, Dow, GE, Intel, Omega and P&G - do not currently sponsor the Paralympic Games.
That is set to change when the new marketing plan comes into effect in three years' time.
The IPC has two other companies in its worldwide partnership scheme in Allianz and BP.
Seven TOP sponsors are committed until 2020: GE, Atos, Coca-Cola, Dow, P&G, Samsung and Visa.
Other renewal dates are as follows: 2024 - Bridgestone, Intel, Panasonic and Toyota; 2028 - Alibaba; and 2032 - Omega.
The exact terms of the agreement, such as what percentage of the overall fee paid by TOP partners will go to the IPC, are being negotiated by the two organisations.
It is also due to be discussed during the IOC Executive Board meeting in Lausanne from next Wednesday to Friday (July 18-20).
IPC President Andrew Parsons told insidethegames during this week's IOC Coordination Commission of Tokyo 2020's preparations for the Olympic and Paralympic Games that the deal makes sense for the IPC, IOC and sponsors.
The Brazilian also claimed it is set to provide a healthy boost in revenue for his organisation.
The agreement comes after the IOC and the IPC renewed their extensive cooperation partnership in March of this year.
"That is the idea [Olympic sponsors automatically becoming Paralympic sponsors] and that is one of the benefits that we signed in March," Parsons told insidethegames.
"We will integrate more on the selling of Paralympic property and the IOC will be driving more that selling process with our support.
"Today we still have two different processes of selling to the TOPs.
"What we will do now is one selling process including the Paralympic property.
"It makes more sense for the IOC, for us and for the sponsors, who will get the Paralympics as part of the package.
"It is a one-selling process instead of having two in different moments.
"It brings more insurance and stability for us and for the IOC and we think we can generate more revenue with that."


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A new app from the team that developed the Sonoma Rises app following the 2017 wildfires helps users cope with stress and anxiety amid the pandemic.
Now in its 15th year, Charlie Palmer’s annual Pigs & Pinot event is one of the hottest tickets in Wine Country.
TripAdvisor, the world's largest travel platform, has announced the winners of its 2020 Travelers' Choice Awards.
The recently launched event will feature hands-on experiences with local chefs, artisans and winemakers.
An interior designer teams up with a textile specialist to create a home for the holidays.
Visitors and locals will love this four-day itinerary featuring some of the best restaurants, wineries and activities Sonoma County has to offer.
Costeaux Bakery puts the icing on the cake.
Following power shutoffs and closures, Healdsburg is open for business. Chef Charlie Palmer shares a few favorite wineries and restaurants to visit.
Healdsburg has been a hot destination for more than 100 years. Here's how to make the most of the city today.
The latest way to go wine tasting is aboard a 14-person bike.


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Sales at Boohoo are rocketing after the online fashion group embraced plus-sized models and started selling the latest bodycon dresses, miniskirts and swimsuits in up to a size 26.
Boohoo co-founder Carol Kane said the company’s “fashion for all” approach had fuelled growth at the group, which also owns the PrettyLittleThing (PLT) online brand. “We’ve taken a bodycon dress and put it on a size 10 model next to a size 20 [model],” she explained. “We want to get across that, whatever your body shape, you can wear the same dress.”
While established high street fashion names like Topshop, New Look and Monsoon are in retreat, business at Boohoo is booming. It has enjoyed huge growth by targeting young shoppers who prefer to buy clothes on their phone and increasingly take their fashion advice from social media “influencers” rather than Vogue and Grazia.
On Wednesday, Boohoo reported a near-50% surge in annual group sales to £866m. Pre-tax profits were up 38% at £59.9m in the year to the end of February, a strong performance that sent shares up 10% to 239p.
Boohoo was started by the fashion entrepreneur Mahmud Kamani and Kane in 2006. The duo, who had previously supplied other clothing chains, were quick to spot the opportunity to sell online and in little more than a decade have turned Boohoo into a multimillion-pound brand.
Since listing on the stock exchange in 2014 Boohoo has bought several other brands in a bid to repeat that success, including PLT – which was started by Kumani’s three sons Umar, Adam and Samir – Nasty Gal and MissPap.
With a marketing spend of around £80m last year, the company was quick to spot the impact influencers could have on the shopping habits of British teenagers and twentysomethings via Instagram and other social media. To drive shoppers to its website it has worked on collaborations with high-profile celebrities, ranging from the actress and singer Jennifer Lopez to the model Ashley Graham and footballer Dele Alli.
“Fashion is being driven by celebrity culture,” explained Kane. “These people are not models so come in all shapes and sizes.”
The fashion industry’s reliance on svelte models has always been at odds with reality, with the average British woman now wearing a size 16.
Kane said the brands had different points of view, with Boohoo covering all wardrobe bases from workwear to nights out, while PLT’s image is the “feel-good LA lifestyle … with palm trees and blue skies” that appeals to younger shoppers.
GlobalData analyst Emily Salter said PLT, which has 10.6m Instagram followers, had become the “jewel in the crown” and was expected to usurp its sister brand Boohoo in sales terms this year. PLT’s sales more than doubled to £374m in the last financial year.
“The impressive performance of PrettyLittleThing in particular is due to its emphasis on trend-led items and newness,” said Salter. “PrettyLittleThing has embraced the diversity and body positivity movement, for example in its popular collaboration with Ashley Graham, which has resonated well with its customers.”
The breakneck growth has forced the retailer to invest in infrastructure, including new warehouses in Burnley and Sheffield, and more will be required overseas if sales take off in America and mainland Europe. To that end, it recently appointed its first external chief executive, John Lyttle, who joined from Primark where he was chief operating officer.
Lyttle said it would be a challenge to maintain current growth rates but overseas markets would “have a big part to play”. Boohoo makes nearly half its clothes in the UK and Lyttle said he had already toured the factories it uses in Leicester following reports that workers were being exploited.
Given the size of the prize – Boohoo has less than 1% market share in the US and mainland Europe, which taken together is a £500bn a year clothing market – they have dangled a big carrot in front of Lyttle: his package includes £50m in shares on top of his annual salary and bonuses if the company’s stock market valuation rises by 180% in five years.
“I’ve spent the first six weeks getting around the business,” he said. “To keep growing at this rate, I’ve got a lot of work to do.”


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one of the most listened radios in Italy, has recently celebrated its 40th
anniversary. Of course, the station has faced many technological changes
Producers, content generators and commercial brands are under constant pressure to speed up event production, thus meeting the expectations of audiences for instant news
approaches to encoding and delivery of live streaming content are enabling a
new generation of interactive services around auctions, betting, esports, and
live events. The integration
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1 more long weekend in 2023 after Vesak Day date is revised
Vesak Day in 2023 will fall on June 2 instead of June 3, said the Ministry of Manpower on Thursday.
The date was revised after the Singapore Buddhist Federation verified it with Chinese almanacs following public feedback.
The federation had earlier advised the ministry based on a standard Chinese-Western almanac.
In a statement on its website, the federation said: "We are sorry for any inconvenience caused and will in future conduct additional checks and verifications to prevent similar occurrences."
The revised date means that Vesak Day will now fall on a Friday, resulting in seven long weekends in 2023 instead of six that were announced in April.
Such long weekends are typically popular for holidaymakers to plan their trips around.
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Speech by Dr Amy Khor, Senior Minister of State for the Environment and Water Resources, at the Opening Session of the Citizens’ Workgroup on Increasing Demand for Local Produce on 18 July 2020
1 Good morning. I would like to thank everyone for spending your Saturday morning with us, and for committing to join us for the next five sessions. We are heartened by your support, and thankful for your understanding of the changes we have had to make to the sessions, such as moving from physical meetings to online meetings, and having to commit to more sessions due to the current COVID-19 situation.
‘30 by 30’ goal and our Singapore Food Story
2 Ensuring food security is an existential challenge for Singapore. We currently import more than 90 per cent of our food and this leaves us vulnerable to disruptions in the global food system due to climate change, disease outbreaks and volatilities of the global food market. This was underscored during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many countries undertook lockdown measures, and there was adverse impact on global trade and supply chains.
3 Even before the COVID-19 crisis, the Government has been planning and taking action to safeguard Singapore’s food supply. To mitigate the risks of disruption to our food imports, Singapore has been diversifying our sources of food imports and building stockpiles of essential food items. Another key strategy that we must seriously pursue is to boost local food production. By 2030, we aim to meet 30 per cent of our nutritional needs with food produced in Singapore — in short, our “30 by 30” goal. Nonetheless, this is an ambitious goal given our inherent constraints. Singapore is a small city state with only around 700 square kilometres of land, and currently less than 1 per cent of it is designated for agricultural use. The challenge is compounded by the need to produce food in a resource-efficient and sustainable manner.
4 Earlier this year, my ministry launched “2020: Singapore Food Story”, a year-long campaign to raise awareness of issues surrounding Singapore’s food security. As events would have it, and as highlighted earlier, the COVID-19 outbreak escalated quickly, disrupting global supply chains and affecting trade and commerce worldwide. This pandemic has certainly reinforced the need for us to boost our local food production capacities to ensure that we have a resilient and secure supply of food.
Accelerating local food production
5 The Singapore Food Agency, or SFA, has embarked on various strategies to increase local food production. Recently, a tender for the rental of rooftop spaces on nine HDB multi-storey carparks was launched, as part of efforts to open up more spaces for commercial urban farming. We received 88 proposals for the nine rooftop spaces and the tender will be awarded in the coming months. More multi-storey carpark rooftop sites will also be made available later this year.
6 SFA also provides funding support for the local agri-food industry to harness technology to grow more. The Agriculture Productivity Fund, or APF, and the $144 million of funding under the Singapore Food Story R&D Programme are two examples.
7 In April this year, SFA established a $30 million “30 x 30 Express” grant to accelerate local production of eggs, leafy vegetables and fish over the next six to 24 months. Once the companies have been awarded the grant, SFA will coordinate with agencies to facilitate the necessary regulatory clearances so that farms can start producing as soon as possible.
Government efforts to increase demand for local produce
8 The increase in local production of food has to be complemented by a growth in demand, for a commercially sustainable and vibrant agri-food ecosystem. Choosing to buy local produce will help to spur our farms to embrace technology and become more productive to meet the increased demand. Otherwise, there may be no incentive for our farmers to increase their supply.
9 In a food perception survey commissioned by MEWR and SFA in January 2020, 94 per cent of respondents indicated that they would be willing to purchase more local produce. However, only 65 per cent could easily identify food that was grown in Singapore when grocery shopping. To create top-of-mind awareness for local produce, SFA has launched a new ‘SG Fresh Produce’ logo online, and the logo can be found on local produce in retail shops and supermarkets from August onwards. In addition, we have been working with retailers, such as supermarkets, to carry more produce grown from local farms.
10 We are also helping to bring farmers and their fresh produce closer to consumers. SFA has worked with the Singapore Agro-Food Enterprises Federation, or SAFEF, to roll out the SG Farmers’ Market in various housing estates and community clubs. This is to make it more convenient for residents living nearby to purchase home-grown leafy vegetables, eggs and fish.
11 To date, a total of eight SG Farmers’ Markets have been organised in various locations across Singapore, including Singapore Turf Club, Bishan Community Club and Our Tampines Hub. In January this year, the SG Farmers’ Market expanded online with the launch of e-SG Farmers’ Market page on Lazada RedMart. Currently, we have 20 farmers on board and consumers can choose from a range of 100 local produce items, and have them delivered to their doorsteps. Through engaging the community, and encouraging citizens to purchase local produce, we hope to help Singaporeans understand the process behind bringing food from farm to fork, appreciate the hard work put in by our local farmers, and inculcate a sense of pride in Singapore produce.
Co-creating and co-delivering solutions
12 While the Government will continue to ensure a resilient food supply and encourage greater support for local produce, it will take a whole of nation effort to reach our “30 by 30” goal. This is why we have invited citizens and residents to form this Citizens’ Workgroup, as part of the SG Together movement.
13 I am heartened by the response we received. Close to 400 members of the public responded to our call, and a diverse group of around 50 members from different ages, ethnicities, professions, and level of support for local produce, have now come together for this endeavour. Today we have with us, in the Workgroup, students, retirees as well as professionals who run food businesses. We also have people who grow their own food at home and some who help out at local farms and NGOs in their free time. We hope to tap on your unique strengths, experiences and ideas, and work with you to co-create and co-deliver solutions to improve demand for local produce, that are adapted to Singapore’s context.
14 Over the next three months, my colleagues will provide you with the necessary support and resources as you formulate your proposals. Subject matter experts will also be brought in to guide you along this journey. We are looking forward to the ideas that will arise from this workgroup, which will be presented at the last session on 24 October.
15 Once again, I thank you for your commitment to the Workgroup and look forward to partnering you to write a new chapter of the Singapore Food Story.


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Bethany Gomez of the Chicago-based consumer insights company Brightfield Group observes that the cannabis industry, and particularly the hemp-derived cannabinoid sector, is wild, crazy and ever-emerging.
“It’s a living, breathing thing – the only constant is change,” said Gomez, Brightfield’s co-founder and managing director.
Brightfield was founded in 2015 to address the scarcity of data in the rapidly growing cannabis industry.
“There were no good data options for companies to make strategic or investment decisions,” said Gomez, who previously worked at Euromonitor International in Latin America. “We saw a lot of opportunity.”
Over the last seven years, Brightfield has worked with most of the large CBD companies in the United States and Canada, Gomez said, as well as large consumer packaged goods companies looking to get into the cannabis industry. Government agencies also use Brightfield data to inform their decision-making around regulatory issues, she said.
Brightfield’s main offering is a SaaS platform that allows clients to access subscription data packages, such as CBD consumer insights. The data is gleaned from integration of survey data with social media and populates a self-serve dashboard, where clients can choose from a variety of consumer, social insights and market data.
The company’s website features free reports, including one that posits two scenarios for the growing CBD industry, one with and the other without FDA guidance.
Gomez says one of the company’s strengths is in “social listening,” a strategy that involves pulling data from key social media sites such as Instagram, Twitter and Reddit in particular areas of interest to clients. Brightfield uses machine learning techniques to analyze the conversations and to measure the volume of talk in each area, such as CBD, the hemp-derived cannabinoids D8 and D10, and attitudes toward various brands. This social listening tracker can be used to help guide clients to better marketing or product decisions, Gomez said. Brightfield also gathers information about people’s reasons for using certain products, such as to help with pain and insomnia.
“Social media is really the world’s largest focus group,” Gomez said. “There is so much data created by social media.”
Among Brightfield’s data packages for clients is the brand health tracker, which shows how consumers react to each brand in a category. The data can demonstrate which brands consumers recognize, what products and brands consumers are purchasing, and how loyal consumers are to those brands, among other things. Clients receive a scorecard that shows how their brand is viewed by consumers and how it stacks up against the competition. Clients also can also learn their typical customer’s demographic and psychographic profile and how that customer would describe the brand.
While Brightfield has been conducting consumer insights in cannabis for years, Gomez said Brightfield first launched brand health tracking services in the CBD space, then moved on to the Canadian cannabis space and is now analyzing U.S. cannabis markets.
“It’s challenging to do in a state-by-state industry,” Gomez said, explaining that the U.S. cannabis industry is fragmented — and that Brightfield provides a valuable service in aggregating the information for clients.
More recently, Brightfield’s evergi platform, launched in 2021, looks at the general population audience to discern emerging products and trends. Brightfield can see overall trends in the CBD space, how cannabis and CBD fit alongside other emerging products such as psychedelics and nootropics, and how cannabis and CBD compare to other health and wellness products and trends, Gomez said.
Gomez reports that the hemp-derived cannabinoid space, especially CBD, has transformed in the last 12 to 18 months. Companies have had to pivot, she said, as consumers have moved from buying products such as expensive tinctures to those CBD products more in line with vitamins and supplements. She noted that the price of CBD has come down dramatically.
She also remarked that associations with cannabis were no longer a problem for the hemp-derived CBD industry segment.
“Back in 2019, when the market was starting to explode, we saw so many companies trying to sanitize CBD — hide the hemp leaf, hide cannabis references, and try to divorce CBD from cannabis,” Gomez said. “That worked for a while, but what we see now is that the consumers have shifted dramatically … now the majority are also using cannabis products.”
According to Brightfield’s analysis, CBN, D8 and D10 are the most successful of the minor cannabinoids, with consumer use growing rapidly, Gomez said.
“Some industry watchers underestimate the category and think it’s only for younger consumers – the smoke and vape crowd – but we are actually seeing growth across other consumer segments,” she said. “There is also more combining when THC is available. CBD and THC can complement each other. Some people use CBD in the morning and then THC in the evening, and still control pain while not having the THC during the day. Some want the effects of THC all the time, some do not.”
Gomez also discussed the shrinking CBD e-commerce space.
“E-commerce is shifting,” she said. “People are going back out to stores. The percentage of consumers buying CBD online has plummeted in the past two to three quarters, which has impacted the companies in the space significantly.”
According to Brightfield’s data, 40% of CBD purchases were made online in the fourth quarter of 2021. In the third quarter of 2022, that number was down to 18.7%, with most purchases made at smoke and vape shops.
“It’s really incredible to have had a front row seat over the past few years,” Gomez said.


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It's 47,500 blue-collar workers in the U.S. will get $7,000 profit-sharing checks in March.
GENERAL MOTORS earned its biggest profit ever in 2011, but signs are emerging that its momentum could slow. Strong sales in the U.S. and China helped the carmaker turn a profit of $7.6 billion, beating its old record of $6.7 billion in 1997.
Yet the company lost ground in the fourth quarter. Its profit fell 8 percent and missed Wall Street expectations. Europe and South America reported losses. Still, GM is a vastly different company than it was in late 1990s. It has less debt and its contract with the United Auto Workers is less costly.
But it took a government bailout and bankruptcy protection in 2009 to cut its bloated costs. The company made record money last year even though U.S. sales were near historic lows of 12.8 million cars and trucks.
This year, GM expects to increase its revenue as global sales grow and it charges more for models. However, it will make less money per vehicle as the mix of sales continues to shift to cars from trucks, which have bigger sticker prices. It also expects to invest $8 billion on new products and technology, and says pension expenses will rise.
The company wants to keep expenses down by freezing its underfunded U.S. pension plan for salaried workers. That's good news for the U.S. government, which still owns 26.5 percent of the company and is waiting for the share price to rise .
"We clearly have work to do in Europe, we have work to do with the South American business," CFO said.
The 2011 profit of $4.58 per share was 62 percent higher than a year earlier. Full-year revenue rose 11 percent to $150 billion. During the year, GM's global sales rose 7.6 percent to 9.03 million vehicles to help it reclaim the title of world's largest automaker from Toyota Motor Corp. 47,500 blue-collar workers in the U.S. will get $7,000 profit-sharing checks in March.


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A new futuristic gaming hub is set to open in Stevenage next week. Called the NEWVU Gaming Centre, it will open on Thursday (August 25) with the owners now "beyond excited" to unveil their hard work.
The gaming hub will replace the former Burger King in Stevenage town centre and will be open for public use next week as part of Stevenage's regeneration project. After many residents have felt Stevenage become gloomy, this new centre will aim to attract many local young people, which NEWVU founder Andy Bishop is "beyond excited" about.
Andy said: "We are beyond excited for many reasons, we're very in tune to supporting the local area and being a part of this regeneration job of Stevenage. We really believe that we've brought something unique and different to the area, we'll be streaming E-Sports events which will be seen across Europe and this will be done from our flagship store in Stevenage. It is incredibly exciting to work with the local area and make this as big as we can."
The unique retail and digital gaming business, which will provide entertainment and training spaces for E-Sports and virtual reality officially opens next Thursday, however events are occurring in the lead up. Andy revealed the Mayor of Stevenage will be opening up the unit on Monday, August 22 at noon.
The day before the opening on Wednesday (August 24), there is an E-Sports gaming event, where influencers and YouTube channels will come down to do walkthroughs at the centre. The website also launched on Thursday, August 18 where people will be able to book from after the centre has opened.
The gaming place will consist of three floors - all for different types of people from casual gamers to professional E-Sports players, which NEWVU will be offering boot camps for to compile the team together after the opening. The first floor is for a casual gamer but consists of the most up-to-date virtual reality equipment, which four people can play at once with 12 to 15 different games that can be played.
Andy stated that the idea of the first floor is for a "younger family audience" where people may want to host a birthday party, school trip or corotate event. There are also oculus stations, interactive walls, a classic VR arcade gaming rooms and gaming console rooms.
The second and third floor is targeted more towards a more "serious or pro gamer", with the latest technology and a gaming chair setup. From the PC to the chair to the desk, it is all of a "very high standard".
Speaking on the more serious gaming floors, Andy said: "These screens and desks are available to use on an hourly basis for members or you can use it for four or five hours if you need to. This is where we see people playing Fortnite or DOTA or whatever they play at home come and rent a desk that they wouldn't be able to afford at home because they're obviously quite expensive.
"They can come and play online with friends but the beauty of it is that everything is monitored. If people are streaming online, everything is monitored so from a safety element, for parents putting their kids or young adult in - they know everything they do is quite safe.
"We also have a streaming room, where we will have a lot of influencers who have huge a following in terms of gaming and social media. There's a green screen room where people can stream content within it and it's all soundproof.
"On the top floor there's an E-Sports team boot camp room, where teams will come, train and learn about E-Sports. It is a gaming place but at the same time there's a big steer towards education and safety that we're trying to bring to the town."
With gaming growing continuously in this country, Andy said it is "misunderstood" by parents and believes parents and young people should be taught about the industry. He said there are transferrable skills in the gaming world and not just about "people with their heads down playing on a computer screen".
Andy stressed that NEWVU is more than a gaming centre. He stated that the new Herts business will take teenagers or younger adults out of their bedroom to a more social environment to do what they are passionate about in a place that is "safe, well-monitored and there is an education sphere" to it.
NEWVU also want to be part of an educational process and allow local residents to gain a qualification about something they are passionate about. Andy said: "We're going to be hosting lots of local schools, colleges and we're going have a certified coding qualification that you can do at the site as well as programming and social courses. There's going to be a big education element to the site.
"From a gaming perspective there's a lot of interest from a younger audience in gaming. How is a game built? What do you have to do to build a game? How are the graphics done? How is a PC setup? What is the tech behind streaming online? We're working with a lot of partners like coding and design courses.
"You can start from a school or college perspective. A team could come down from a local school or college, they could play something on virtual reality and then they could go to the top floor and learn how that game and graphics were built.
"What was the design team doing, how do you translate that into a virtual reality experience, how does a headset work? There are lots of different elements that are really good from an educational point of view. The idea is we will have proper qualifications, through third parties, where people can do at the centre itself."
Gaming is now considered a profession, with E-Sports players considered athletes. However, Andy wants young Herts people to learn about what they do, as they aspire to be like them whilst watching them on YouTube.
NEWVU offer a membership for anyone interested in joining. Andy says there is a "low entree cost" from as low as £5 to £10. However, he stated that there are different memberships available depending on how serious of gamer you are.
The more expensive membership you have the "more value" you get within the gaming suite. Andy has currently employed five employees, who are all ready to start, have an interest in gaming and want to "try and move the business forward".
The new gaming centre can be found on 88 Queensway, SG1 1EG in Stevenage Town Centre. For more information about NEWVU, visit their website and sign up here.
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Sitharaman said the revenue foregone on reduction in corporate tax and other relief measures will be Rs 1.45 lakh crore annually, which means a $20 billion booster to an economy that grew at the slowest pace in six year in June quarter.
The announcements came in the fourth round of a series of measures that the government has announced over the past month, trying to pump-prime the economy, which has been witnessing a major slowdown in growth that plunged to a six-year low of 5 per cent in June quarter.
The FM said a new provision has been inserted into the Income-Tax Act to enable these measures and the new tax structure will be effective from April 1, 2019.
Accordingly, a domestic company can opt for paying income-tax at 22 per cent subject to the condition that it does not avail any other tax incentive or exemptions. The effective corporate tax rate for them will be 25.17 per cent, including surcharges and cess against the current base rate of 30 per cent.
Any new domestic company incorporated on or after Oct 1, 2019 and making fresh investment in manufacturing will have the option of paying an income-tax at 15 per cent. The rate of Minimum Alternative Tax (MAT) has been reduced from 18.5 per cent to 15 per cent.
- FM proposes to slash corporate tax for domestic companies
- Lower corp tax only if no exemption availed
- Effective tax rate will now be 25.17, including surcharge and cess
- Effective tax rate for new manufacturing companies at 17.01%
Analysts termed it a mini-Budget.
"It's not just bigger than the Budget, this is bigger than last 20 Budgets," said Samir Arora of Singapore-based Helois Capital.
“Domestic companies now have the option of paying income-tax at 22 per cent subject to the condition they do not avail any other tax incentive," Sitharaman said. The FM said companies opting for the 22 per cent income-tax slab won’t have to pay minimum alternative tax.
Dalal Street turned euphoric and benchmark equity indices Sensex and Nifty recorded the biggest intra-day gains in a decade at 4 per cent, with the former rising over 1,800 points and Nifty 450 points.
“The announcement is a big positive for corporate India,” said AK Prabhakar, Head of Research, IDBI Capital Market. He said Larsen & Toubro, Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra & Mahindra, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, HUL, Dabur, HDFC, Baja Auto, Hero MotoCorp, Colgate Palmolive, UltraTech and BEL are few high tax-paying companies, whose stocks may see huge short covering
Sitharaman said the objective is to provide relief to companies that continue to avail exemptions and incentives, the Finance Minister said. The measures will be implemented through an ordinance, she said.
The new corporate tax rate will be among the lowest in Southeast Asia. The measures are aimed at boosting the government's 'Make in India' initiative.
“The government has taken a bold and proactive step to bring the much-needed tax reforms, which will boost investment and also aid to private cycle capex. The lowering of corporate tax rates will widen the tax net and gradually bring in more revenues to the government. Overall, the move will make Indian companies globally competitive, a welcome step to arrest slowdown and lift up the market sentiments,” said Sanjeev Hota, Head of Research, Sharekhan.
The FM also said domestic companies would be allowed to spend the 2 per cent mandatory CSR fund in government-sponsored incubators. This will help boost the startup environment. The announcements came hours before the GST Council meeting, which is expected to take up a proposal for review of tax levies on cars, consumer goods and hotels and a few other items.
The FM also reiterated an earlier announcement that there will be no enhanced surcharge on capital gain from equity for FPIs. In order to stabilise funds flow in capital market, the FM said the enhanced surcharge introduced in Budget 2019 shall not apply on capital gains arising on sale of equity shares in a company or a unit of an equity-oriented gund, or a unit of business trust fund liable to STT in HUF, AOP, BOI or AJP. The enhanced surcharge shall also not apply to capital gains arising on any security including derivatives in the hands of FPIs.
She clarified that there will be no tax on buyback of shares in case of companies, which have made public announcements of buyback before July 5, 2019.
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text: Less than a year after ESPN spectacularly launched its Mobile ESPN product on Super Bowl Sunday 2006, the company decided to shut it down. ESPN won\u2019t have to sell off its cell phone towers and wireless networking equipment, however, because with the Mobile ESPN service, ESPN was acting as an MVNO, or mobile virtual network operator.An MVNO doesn't operate its own wireless networks, like a traditional carrier such as Verizon Wireless. Businesses such as ESPN purchase minutes of use from mobile phone operators, in ESPN's case Sprint, and offer wireless services with their brand firmly attached. In essence, the MVNO experience is the marketing department at its finest -- extending the brand of an already well-known entity to offer more of its (presumably) unique services to (naturally) make more money for said entity.Apparently Disney (ESPN's parent company) "flagged" ESPN for not having enough "players on the field," as in not enough subscribers willing to shell out the money for what ESPN claimed was a sports fanatic's dream phone. It's not like this came out of nowhere. Back in July, a Merrill Lynch media analyst suggested that Disney should shut the service down. The analyst, Jessica Reif Cohen, predicted that Mobile ESPN was likely to attract just 30,000 subscribers by the end of the year. Which, for those of you scoring at home, was really bad.Back in April, Wes Henderek, a senior analyst for wireless services at market researcher CurrentAnalysis, told me that because of the huge financial and technological investments, an MVNO is an extremely risky endeavor for companies. "The market is just being flooded, and there's no way all of these MVNOs are going to survive," he said.But if you look back even further in Mobile ESPN's development, maybe the product was doomed even before the first Super Bowl commercial was filmed. In my May 1, 2006, profile of ESPN technology chief Chuck Pagano, I discovered that ESPN's IT department wasn't even aware of the project until it was a "done deal," said ESPN's IT head Paul Cushing. When, in fact, Cushing and his staff found out about the project, they were able to deliver some key pieces of technology that were initially going to be outsourced. If IT had been brought in earlier on the initiative, maybe IT could have made a better impact, Cushing said. Hmmmm. Could IT's lack of involvement been a reason for the death of Mobile ESPN? Probably not. But it does raise some interesting questions, doesn't it?


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Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Capital Float Partners with Hyperverge to Launch Video-KYC to Onboard Customers in the Time of Social Distancing
As social distancing is the new normal, consumers and businesses are breaking all old habits that involve in-person meetings. And as they restart their lives, they are looking for new “presenceless” ways to conduct their work in safe ways.
HyperVerge announces the release of Video KYC solution with Capital Float. Video-KYC allows a customer to remotely authenticate KYC verification with Capital Float from the comfort of their home or office. The entire process takes the customer between 2 to 5 minutes and offers an enhanced experience to the borrower, when compared to the tedious traditional verification processes. Thus, the system is safe from a COVID perspective, and it also offers a better customer experience than earlier.
The HyperVerge system is 100% compliant with the Jan 9 RBI regulations that permitted Video KYC for all regulated entities (banks, NFBCs, wallets). Further, it is built to enable each agent to be able to process 200 KYCs a day, which is an improvement of 10 times over in-person-verification. Lastly, HyperVerge AI checks for errors and frauds in real-time in a way that was not possible earlier.
This new way of working is a win-win for both the customer and for lenders, and is going to be the “new normal” for KYC. This is a critical moment in time where the government has relaxed lockdown rules and is stimulating the economy to restart while keeping infection numbers within limits. Movement of goods is increasing and consumption is resuming. Solutions like video-KYC play an important role right now as they allow for businesses to open up in a safe way.
Speaking on the development, Gaurav Hinduja, co-founder and managing director of Capital Float said, “Video KYC is the new normal post-COVID-19 as businesses have redefined their model of operations. This feature will enable customers to complete the verification process remotely, from the comfort of their homes or offices. The V-CIP solution is expected to drastically reduce onboarding time, subsequently shortening wait times for the borrower. We, at Capital Float, aim to constantly improve customer experience while ensuring compliance from a risk and regulatory perspective. We are excited to partner with Hyperverge in this regard and are pleased to extend the benefit of Video-KYC to our customers“.
Commenting on the launch, Kedar Kulkarni, Co-founder and CEO, HyperVerge said, “COVID-19 crisis is putting pressure on all businesses to innovate. Together with Capital Float, we have created a 100% safe and contact-less process that will be used by thousands of Indians who can get a loan without having to leave their house.”
HyperVerge is a B2B SaaS company providing AI-powered solutions focusing on enterprise sales to entities in BFSI - Banking, Lending, NBFC, Insurance, Mutual Funds. The HyperVerge Fintech Stack offers onboarding (digital KYC, video KYC), fraud check, data verification, credit scoring, contract verification with most solutions centered on vision AI. In the very recent past, HyperVerge technology has been deployed by food delivery apps to ensure that alcohol ordering and delivery is restricted to adults only.
With an accuracy of 99.5% (the highest among competitors) and 280 million KYCs in 2019, HyperVerge’s technology is built for scale. Today, the company has 50+ clients (JIO, Vodafone, MoneyTap, Bajaj Finserv, KrazyBee amongst many others) and has a presence in Mumbai, Delhi, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, Palo Alto, and Irving.


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Recycling fee avoidance leads to costs for the ratepayers
Scotland’s Press and Journal reports on a new scheme to allow motorists to legally dispose of used car tyres. It stated; “The council [Aberdeen] is introducing a new waste service after it was established drivers are finding it “increasingly difficult” to legally get rid of their tyres.
Since 2019, customers had been advised to deposit their tyres at private garages offering tyre-fitting services instead of the council’s Household Recycling Centres.
However, this appeared to cause issues with motorists being unable to find garages willing to accept tyres for disposal when they were not purchased from the garage.
Sadly, this is an issue repeated across the UK, not just in Aberdeenshire. Councils across the UK are having to establish tyre deposit points at local tips, costing the ratepayers up to £100,000 per year, according to one local authority.
The reality of the situation is that almost every single tyre fitted to a car or truck will have to be fitted by a retailer with the proper equipment, either static or mobile. When the old tyre is removed from the vehicle at a retail outlet, it becomes a waste product and should not leave the premises unless via a licensed collection service.
Retailers can charge a “green levy” on tyres removed/ replaced at their depot; some do this openly, and others hide this in their prices. They are not supposed to allow the consumer to take the waste tyres away. So, no tyres should be arising from retail premises. The news item is based on a falsehood or on retailers not complying with the rules.
The customer may have bought the tyres online, but they will still need to be fitted, and the fitter will charge a fee that should include a disposal fee. It matters not one iota where the customer bought the tyres. The legal responsibility for disposal lies with the fitter.
There is an exception. If a client has tyres replaced at his home, in his driveway (not on the roadside), the client may ask to retain the tyres to avoid disposal fees. However, Tyre and Rubber Recycling would hazard a guess that most domestic/ workplace fittings are on fleet cars. Fleets will have policies about recycling waste tyres in their fleet management agreement.
There should be no difficulty in finding a place to dispose of old tyres because they should be disposed of at the place of fitting.
The problem of illegally disposed of tyres comes down to a failure of the various agencies to ensure that retailers follow best practices. It is yet another argument for an Extended Producer responsibility scheme that has full control of tyre arisings in the UK (or its constituent parts). Proper recording of sales and waste tyre arisings should start to tighten the loopholes and minimise the evasion of the recycling fee.
The downside is that there remain issues with tax avoidance and criminal activity in some of the long-standing EPR schemes in Europe. So, it can be argued that EPR is not the solution, but neither is the ratepayer carrying the burden of those who seek to avoid what is compared to the cost of a new tyre, a small recycling fee.


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NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- IPG Photonics Corp. IPGP, -1.71% jumped 17% to $40.81 in early action on Thursday after the Oxford, Mass. company said it expects fourth-quarter revenue of about $100 million, ahead of its forecast of $80 million to $86 million. It expects fourth-quarter earnings of 53 to 56 cents a share, ahead of its earlier view of 30 to 35 cents a share. The maker of lasers said its "exceptional" performance was, "driven by broad-based demand strength."
IPG Photonics rallies on sunnier profit view


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Food groups are up in arms over a new regulation being reviewed by the White House that would require the listing of added sugars on nutrition labels.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2014 proposed that food producers be required to disclose on their labels when sugar is added to a product, though not the specific amounts.
But the agency changed course in July, proposing to require a “daily value” for added sugar that lists a percentage.
The Sugar Association is denouncing the agency for its turnaround, arguing there is not enough scientific evidence to justify the requirement.
“Fast forward 16 months, and now there’s a percent daily value,” said Courtney Gaine, the association’s president and CEO. “The way they’ve added the added sugar proposal is a deviation from the factors they consider when making labeling decisions.”
Gaine said the FDA has to be able to prove a public health link between a nutrient and a disease and some sort of quantitative number that is based on science before setting a percent daily value for a product ingredient.
The FDA said it added the value after the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee issued a recommendation — now part of the final federal guidelines — that Americans limit their added sugar intake to less than 10 percent of their total daily calories. Critics say that amount was solely based on intake estimates and not sound science.
Aside from their complaints about the process, food companies like General Mills argue the FDA’s rule will confuse consumers. It won’t be clear, they say, that the extra number for added sugars is part of the total sugar count, not in addition to it.
“Consumer research conducted by General Mills, FDA and the International Food Information Council has consistently shown that the declaration of ‘added sugar’ decreases consumer understanding of the total sugar content of a product, and shows that the proposed nutrition label format changes offer no clear advantage to the current format,” the company said in a statement.
“We have encouraged FDA to conduct additional consumer research on the totality of the proposed label changes and formats before issuing their final rule.”
Attorneys are already anticipating legal challenges to the regulation now under review by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
“It’s critical for rules like this that OMB be able to make sure all the procedures were followed and there’s enough scientific evidence to support it,” said Glenn Lammi, chief counsel of legal studies at the Washington Legal Foundation, a free-market-oriented public interest group. “Challenges filed against the rule may be successful if OMB’s not certain about that.”
Lammi said the FDA failed to give industry enough time to comment on the proposed rule or review the methodology used in reports on how consumers would benefit.
“I think there certainly are enough entities directly affected that might be willing to challenge this,” he said.
It’s the stigma the agency is trying to attach to sugar, -Lammi said, that has groups willing to fight.
“This country through government policy has had a fascination with one nutrient being the boogeyman of nutrition problems,” he said. “If it wasn’t fats it was carbohydrates, but all those efforts haven’t necessarily reduced the level of obesity in this country. We’re worried consumer will cut out added sugars and won’t necessarily become more healthy.”
Rachel Johnson, a professor of nutrition at the University of Vermont and American Heart Association spokeswoman, said settled science clearly shows that consuming a lot of sugar is associated with adverse health effects including, hypertension, heart disease, obesity and obesity-related cancers.
“It is my view and the view of the American Heart Association that the amount of added sugars in a product is important information for consumers to have,” she said.
According to the FDA, 13 percent of the average American’s total daily calories come from added sugars now.
“For the past decade, experts have advised consumers to reduce their intake of added sugars because they contribute empty calories to the diet, and the proposed new label information supports that advice,” the agency said in a statement. “If finalized, consumers would see the same information on the Nutrition Facts Label for added sugars that they have seen for other nutrients such as saturated fat and sodium.”
FDA said it would not speculate on when the final rule might be issued.


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