Author: JD
Bitcoin startup Circle raises $50 million from Goldman Sachs and IDG
BY STAN SCHROEDER Circle, a company that lets users easily send and receive bitcoins, has raised a $50 million funding round led by Goldman Sachs and China’s IDG Capital Partners, the company announced Wednesday. Launched in October 2013, Circle had two funding rounds prior to this one — $9 million at time of launch and another $17 million in March 2014. This latest round of funding brings Circle’s total raise to date to $76 million. According to the Wall Street Journal, the round brings the company valuation to around $200 million. SEE ALSO: Bitcoin experts will gather on Richard Branson’s private island, as you do In a blog post, Circle founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire (former CEO of Brightcove, which navigated that company through an IPO in 2012) wrote that the company “could not be happier” with the new investors, and it’s easy to see why. With Bitcoin exchanges failing left and right in the last year or so, sometimes under suspicious circumstances, a banking giant such as Goldman can bring a Bitcoin startup stability and confidence. “As the financial services industry continues to become more digital and open, we see significant opportunities in companies and solutions that have the promise to transform global markets through technical innovation,” Tom Jessop, Managing Director in Goldman Sachs’ Principal Strategic Investments Group, commented in a statement. The other principal investor, China’s IDG Capital Partners, is important for Circle’s plan to bring its products to China — one of the company’s plans includes the ability to send and receive the Chinese Yuan. Even though Bitcoin exchange Buttercoin was shut down in April due to lack of interest from investors, 2015 has been kind to several Bitcoin startups. Bitcoin trading platform Coinbase raised $75 million in January (with one investor being the New York Stock Exchange), and the Winklevoss twins launched another Bitcoin exchange called Gemini, also in January. Circle also announced a new feature Wednesday — the ability for users to hold, send, and receive U.S. dollars as well as bitcoins. The new feature is rolling out “selectively” for customers with dollar accounts; Circle plans to open it to more users on a weekly basis until it becomes available for all.
How to keep your best staff, By Richard Branson @richardbranson
Having launched hundreds of Virgin companies across a number of different industries, we’ve learned so many valuable lessons. One that always rings true, regardless of the industry, is that the best way for a company to succeed is to listen to its people. Image from Virgin.com Making money or moving up the corporate ladder is no longer considered the be all and end all of career success. Today, one of the biggest indicators of success is purpose. And, in a world where purpose reigns supreme, it’s only natural for people to want to be heard and have their opinions valued. More and more people are leaving their jobs out of frustration. If their ideas are not being listened to, or if they feel that their voice doesn’t count, they are likely to go elsewhere. Employers often shrug this off, making the excuse that they were simply not the right person for the role – this, in my opinion, is lazy thinking. Image by Virgin Trains/Hope and Glory I recently blogged about why all companies and leaders should listen to their employees’ ideas. I explained that companies that give their people an outlet to express their ideas, not only give their staff a sense of purpose, but also give their company a better chance at success. It’s a win-win. Who knows, one suggestion could be a million dollar idea! At Virgin, we encourage all of our companies to seek feedback from staff and implement great ideas where possible. Virgin Trains and Virgin Money have a long history of listening to their employees’ ideas, and as a result have a proud record of innovation and staff retention. Wonderfully, a quarter of the original cohort that launched Virgin Money 20 years ago are still with us today. Image from Virgin Money By supporting and encouraging the ideas of our people, we have been able to focus on staff wellbeing, and in turn create open working environments where people feel valued and thrive. And, if people do leave, they often move within the Group to a different Virgin company, or re-join us later down the track. Frustration in the workplace should be fleeting. A company with a listening culture is more likely to attract and retain great people. The message is clear: if you take care of your employees, they will take care of your business.
BORGATA SPRING POKER OPEN EVENT #1: ASHER CONNIFF BEATS MATT STOUT IN RACE FOR THE TITLE
Asher Conniff wins the opening event of the Borgata Spring Poker Open, after beating his friend Matt Stout in heads-up action, in the $1m guaranteed event. [Image Credit: Spring Poker Open Blog] The 2015 Borgata Spring Poker Open, in Atlantic City, has kicked off in fine fettle, after Asher Conniff defeated 2,408 entrants to take the first prize of $203,231. Conniff cut a deal with Matt Stout, and the reigning champion Carlos Alvarado, before going on to capture the first prize, the trophy, and all the plaudits. We don’t have the full details of the deal, but know that Stout picked up $140,000, and there was $20,000 left to play for. The event was a $560 buy-in event. It carried a $1m guarantee. There wasn’t even a sweat. Whilst Conniff won the title, the star of the show has to be Alvarado. Back in 2014 he topped a field of 2,483 entrants to capture the $209,547 first prize. To waltz through another meaty field to finish third is nothing short of spectacular. It was the eventual champion Conniff who ended Alvarado’s hopes of a repeat performance. The former champion moving all-in, on a flop of [7d] [3d] [3c], Asher called with pocket nines, Alvarado showed [6d] [4d] for the straight and flush draw, and the turn and river bricked. That exit saw Conniff take a huge chip lead into the final heads-up phase: 49m to 11m. Interestingly, both players qualified for this event online with Stout having parlayed a $60 investment into $140k. The final hand of the heads-up action saw Stout shoving the button, holding [Qh] [Jh], and Asher calling with [Kc] [Td]. The board ran out [Ac] [9s] [4s] [Ad] [8s], and the title went the way of Asher. Conniff’s victory was the largest of his career. In fact, his $203,231 first prize was more than the entirety of his bankroll since he started racking up live tournament scores back in 2009. For Stout, it was another close run thing. Despite earning over $3m in live tournament earnings, including six figure annual hauls every year since he started recording stats in 2006, he still hasn’t crossed the finish line first in a major event. One feels it’s only a matter of time though.
Instagram Debuts @Music, Its First Content Vertical
Instagram has unveiled @music, the Facebook-owned company’s first-ever content vertical and dedicated portal for highlighting artists and their activities. “For the past four years, we have become the home for artists big and small — a place where people across the musical spectrum come to share stories, reveal their creativity and connect directly with fans,” Instagram founder and CEO Kevin Systrom wrote in a post on the company’s blog Wednesday morning (April 29). Facebook Engineering Director Departs for Music-Related Startup Music has long been an important driver of the 300 million users currently active on Instagram — more than 25 percent of the app’s top accounts are musicians, with Beyonce (30.9 million) the platform’s No. 1 most-followed account, followed closely by the likes of Ariana Grande (30.1 million), Taylor Swift (28.3 million), Justin Bieber (26 million), Miley Cyrus (18.3 million) and Rihanna and Katy Perry(who each have 17.7 million apiece). But it’s also a place where emerging artists have carved out a growing niche for themselves. In the coming weeks, @music will host 11 series and six posts a week from Tuesday to Sunday spanning the globe of music, with U.S.-based Questlove among the first to be featured. Additionally, Systrom added, “[@music] means highlighting music photographers, album illustrators, instrument makers and, of course, fans. In the Instagram tradition, we will also welcome community participation with a new, music-themed Monthly Hashtag Project.” The content will be overseen by Jonathan Hull, head of strategic partnerships/music for Facebook and Instagram, and Alex Suskind, Instagram’s music editor. Since 70 percent of Instagram’s activity comes from international users, @music will be equally focused on shining a light on foreign talent, including J-pop singer Tricot, U.K. alt-R&B trio @UntilTheRibbonBreaks and Korean punk outfit @NoBrain. “One of our goals with this is to say, ‘How can we help facilitate artist discovery?'” says Hull. “We know these artists are creating companions to their live show, as an extension of their creativity, so how do we make sure more people are seeing that?” That will also include expanding Instagram’s long-form blog content, which in recent months has included an in-depth look at @Madonna’s colorful feed and Stockholm-based music obsessive @wikingens. “We consider ourselves treasure hunters, and we’ll search the platform for hidden gems and tell the stories behind those gems,” Suskind says. Facebook Buys Instagram for $1 Billion Instagram’s 300 million users makes the company on par in size with Twitter, which on Tuesday (April 28) announced in its first-quarter earnings that it had grown monthly active users 18 percent year-over-year to 302 million. But Twitter has also had a more ambitious, and bumpy, bid to increase its own music activity — last April, the company pulled its dedicated #Music app from the App store one year to the day after it was launched in 2013. (Twitter #Music has since evolved into the Billboard + Twitter Trending 140 chart, which debuted last May). On a staffing level, Twitter’s L.A.-based head of music Bob Moczydlowsky announced in February he was leaving the company as part of an ongoing restructuring to Twitter’s content teams. Whether @music will help Instagram start to monetize its tremendous activity among artists remains unclear — though the platform introduced advertising in 2014, the company’s relative lack of metadata to bundle accounts by category makes it difficult for brands to buy channel-specific ads the way they can on YouTube or Twitter. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also been vague on sharing monetization details regarding Instagram in recent earnings calls, though Citibank analyst Mark May estimated in December that the company could be worth as much as $35 billion — nearly double its previous $19 billion valuation. “Unlike Facebook, there’s not a field of structured data for people to identify as musicians,” Hull explains. “We just rolled out verification at beginning of the year, so we’re still getting to know the verified folks and developing a much more robust list of verified music accounts. We don’t have the number yet, but we can see how important music is when we just look at the top accounts — we know who they are, even if their name is @champagnepapi.”
PUMA Suede Basket Classic “Allover Splatter” Pack
PUMA return to their trademark Basket Classic silhouette for this suede “Allover Splatter” pack. Opting for a suede upper, the two sneaker styles have been treated with a paint splatter-effect, which is a print technique becoming increasingly popular with plenty of sneaker brands at the moment. The effect is available in either white on an all-black upper and white sole, or a multi-colored version on an off-white upper and white sole.
‘Nile Rodgers: From Disco to Daft Punk’ Documentary
Ahead of the release of Chic’s first album in 23 years, Franco-German TV network Arte.tv have crafted a documentary in honor of the band’s co-founding member, Nile Rodgers. In addition to recording a trio of solo albums, Rodgers has experienced notable success in collaboration with various acts such as Diana Ross, David Bowie, Duran Duran, Madonna, and more recently, Daft Punk, amongst others. The coinciding documentary is an hour-long exploration of Nile’s heralded career.