Alternative Investments - Morning Brief - October 11th, 2017

Good Morning,

This brief is designed to keep readers informed of the key headlines impacting the startup space. Please let us know if you have any comments or suggestions.

Highlights:

-Snap Rolls Out Context Cards
-Lyft Partners with Chance the Rapper for CPS
-Ola Raises $1.1bn Led by Tencent
-Tech IPO's Finally Turning Around?
-For Sale: Citizenship on Vanuatu for less than 44 Bitcoin
-Accenture's Downplayed Data Leak
-Equifax Forgets To Mention the UK
-Alibaba to Invest $15bn in AI, Research, Tech
-Snapchat now lets you book Uber rides

Snap has announced a new feature called Context Cards yesterday that lets users book Uber rides and restaurant reservations directly through the messaging app. On certain Snapchat posts, users will now be able to swipe up for more related information, including maps, reviews and booking options. If a restaurant is tagged in a post, for example, Snapchat may offer the chance to make a reservation there through OpenTable, or book a ride to it through either Uber or Lyft. While the format of Context Cards is unique to Snapchat, the concept of integrating with third-party applications to allow for bookings is not new. Facebook Messenger already lets users book Uber rides and OpenTable reservations. What’s possibly the biggest upside for the company is that It also offers a potential new revenue stream by positioning the app as a powerful tool for discovering events and destinations.

Lyft announces partnership with Chance the Rapper to support CPS
Lyft announced yesterday that passengers can now round up their fare to the next dollar and donate the difference to Chance the Rapper’s fund to support Chicago Public Schools. The New Chance Arts and Literature Fund, devoted to creating and expanding Chicago arts education programs, is the first local organization Lyft is supporting through the “round up and donate” feature. The American Cancer Society, the American Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity are among the national organizations that have similar partnerships with the company. The Rapper announced the creation of the arts and literature fund in March, and last month his organization SocialWorks raised $2.2M to help 20 Chicago public schools.

Ola raises $1.1bn led by Tencent to fuel battle with Uber in India
It’s been a long while coming but Uber’s chief rival in India is finally raising a big round, and joining the unicorn club at the same time: Ola today announced that it has closed $1.1bn in fresh financing, which is also the largest funding round in the company’s six-year history and its first major raise since November 2015 when it closed $500M from investors. The company has since raised smaller, undisclosed amounts provided by existing investors, but it is fair to say that this new round has been much expected — and needed. It’s look like there’s more to come, too, with Ola telling media it is close to finalizing an additional $1bn that would take the round’s final close to $2.1bn. Ola has had its valuation clipped as low as $3.5bn this year, but a source with knowledge of the new deal says that the company is on track for a post-money valuation of $7bn once the full $2.1bn raise is finalized. China’s Tencent is a new backer and the lead investor of the round. SoftBank, an existing Ola investor (and an investor in Grab, Lyft, Didi AND seemingly soon Uber), is also in, but Ola isn’t disclosing which “U.S.-based financial investors” joined them.

Are Tech IPOs Finally Turning Around?
Switch is the latest tech IPO to be approved by the markets: The data center company went public on Friday, October 6, and rose 22.6% from its IPO price of $17. That day, the stock climbed as high as $24.90 early in the session but then declined to close at $20.4. According to the company’s prospectus, the company generated a net income of $35M in the first six months of 2017 and now has a customer base of over 800. They’ve also seen robust revenue growth, posting $318.4M in 2016, compared with $166.8M in 2013. Another company that just went public is Roku (ROKU), a video-streaming provider, which debuted on September 28. Both Roku and Switch have had great debuts. Roku has sustained a first-day gain of 67%, unlike Snap (SNAP), which tapered off after a great debut. Among these notable IPOs this year, Snap and Blue Apron (APRN) are lagging behind and have seen declines of 13% and 47.5%, respectively, since they went public.

You can now buy full citizenship on the Pacific island of Vanuatu for less than 44BTC
The South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu will accept payments in Bitcoin for its $US200,000 citizenship program, becoming the first country to accept the cryptocurrency in return for citizen status. Currently trading at $4,581 at current market rates, Vanuatu’s citizenship-by-investment program would cost around 43.64 Bitcoin. The small country is a member of the Commonwealth and citizenship provides visa-free travel to 113 countries including the UK, Russia and European Union states. Vanuatu also advertises its low taxes for citizenship buyers, offering a second passport in a country that levies no capital gains or income taxes. Included in the price is a state-sponsored concierge programme, entitling members to VIP access to government agencies dealing with immigration, driving licences, and work permits. As of this morning, Bitcoin has now recovered most of the 40% decline which occurred throughout the month of September, which was largely due to regulatory news out of China, with its market cap now sitting at $75bn. Despite the Chinese ban on ICOs, as well as hints that Russia may take new restrictive actions, the coin has has been able to regain poise in a relatively short period of time. Yesterday, it came close to its all-time high of $5,000 set in early September.

Accenture left a huge trove of highly sensitive data on exposed servers
Technology and cloud giant Accenture has confirmed it inadvertently left a massive store of private data across four unsecured cloud servers, exposing highly sensitive passwords and secret decryption keys that could have inflicted considerable damage on the company and its customers. The servers, hosted on Amazon's S3 storage service, contained hundreds of gigabytes of data for the company's enterprise cloud offering, which the company claims provides support to the majority of the Fortune 100. The data could be downloaded without a password by anyone who knew the servers' web addresses. Chris Vickery, director of cyber risk research at security firm UpGuard, found the data and privately told Accenture of the exposure in mid-September. According to him, the four servers contained data that amounted to the "keys to the kingdom." He also found Accenture's master keys for its Amazon Web Service's Key Management System, which if stolen, could allow an attacker full control over the company's encrypted data stored on Amazon's servers.

Equifax says 15.2 million UK records accessed in cyber breach
The hits just keep on coming for Equifax: the U.S.-based credit reporting agency said yesterday that the massive cyber attack it disclosed in September compromised the sensitive personal details of an additional 700,000 consumers in the UK. The company said that 15.2M UK records dating from 2011 to 2016 were exposed in the incident, which affected 145.5M people overall, but that 14.5M of the exposed UK records did not contain information that put consumers at risk.

Alibaba says it will invest more than $15bn over three years in global research program
Alibaba announced this morning it will invest more than $15bn over the next three years into a global research and development program to increase collaboration and develop new technologies. The program is called the Academy for Discovery, Adventure, Momentum and Outlook — DAMO Academy for short, with plans to set up seven research labs in Beijing, Hangzhou, San Mateo and Bellevue in the U.S., Moscow, Tel Aviv and Singapore, and recruit 100 researchers to staff them. The program will also be guided by an advisory board comprising researchers and educators from several top universities, including MIT. Alibaba said the program will help the tech giant fulfill its long-term commitment to serve 2bn customers and create 100M jobs in 20 years. Experts have previously said that China was moving more into the research and development of hardcore, cutting-edge technologies. In September, investment bank Goldman Sachs issued a report saying the world's second-largest economy has emerged as a major contender in using AI to drive progress.