Friday, March 3, 2017Snap's Most Unlikely Winner Is A High SchoolThe most unusual benificiary of the huge IPO of Venice, California-based Snap Inc. this week appears to be a Silicon Valley high school, which made $24M for its investment in Snapchat. Mountain View-based St. Francis High School apparently sold 1.4 million shares of its stock as part of the IPO, out of 2.1 million shares owned before the IPO. The school invested $15,000 thanks to Lightspeed Venture Partners' Barry Eggers, who apparently recommended the school's VC fund invest in Snapchat after (More info...)
posted on Friday, March 3, 2017(Full story)
NBCUniversal Puts $500M Into Snap IPONBC Universal has invested $500M, as part of the big IPO of Venice-based Snap Inc. yesterday, the company disclosed on Thursday. NBCUniversal said the IPO investment was part of a strategic investment and partnership. The company reportedly is one of the investors in the IPO who agreed to hold SNAP's stock for at least a year before selling any on the market.
posted on Friday, March 3, 2017(Full story)
Virgin Orbit Aims At Low Cost, Small Satellite LaunchesA new company, Virgin Orbit, formed by Richard Branson's Virgin Group, has launched to focus on low cost, small satellite launches--and already has 200 employees and 180,000 square feet in Long Beach, according to Virgin Galactic. According to Virgin Galactic, the new company will be led by Dan Hart, former Boeing Vice President of Government Satellite Systems. The new company is made up of the LauncherOne team at Virgin Galactic, which will now focus exclusively on commercial human spaceflight (More info...)
posted on Friday, March 3, 2017(Full story)
WashOS Targets On Demand Car Washing In SoCalYet another, on-demand car wash service, WashOS, has appeared on the market targeting Southern California. WashOS, led by Bertrand Patriarca, says it detailed 10,000 cars in 2016, with services starting at $29.99. The company--like many other on-demand app developers--uses a network of independent auto detailers which it runs through a three day orientation and training session, and also a background check. WashOS joins Washe, Envi, Squeegy--and probably many others--on the list of mobile car wa (More info...)
posted on Friday, March 3, 2017(Full story)
Esri Partners With Harris For Federal Agency PushRedlands-based GIS and mapping software developer Esri, and defense and government contractor Harris Corporation are in a new partnership, which will focus on offering up Esri's software to the federal government. The two said on Thursday that they are in an enterprise agreement, where Harris becomes an Esri Platinum Tier partner, and the two will work together to help federal agencies with advanced imagery analysis. Financial details of the five year partnership were not announced. The two sai (More info...)
posted on Friday, March 3, 2017(Full story)