It claims to have checked an average of 70 million arithmetic problems per day, saving users around 40,000 hours of time in total. The Seattle-based retailer has been valued at US$315.5 billion, up 52 per cent on last year with tech giant Apple coming in second, valued at $309.5 billion and Google in third place at $309 billion, Brand Z’s Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brand 2019 ranking revealed. Luxury fashion label ibm taos wall streetjournal Burberry has teamed with technology giant Tencent to launch its first social retail store in Shenzhen, China. Located in the new Shenzhen Bay MixC development, the Burberry social store features a unique design with a variety of materials and textures ranging from plywood to mirror and high-gloss finishes. Social networks, fintech and business services, and social advertising revenues all grew by nearly 30 percent.
Ashoka Concessions’s roads portfolio comprises 15 assets, including six operational BOT toll projects, one operational BOT annuity project and eight under-construction hybrid annuity projects. Lendlease, one of Australia’s largest owners of retirement villagers, will hold a 50% interest in the business, and the remaining 25% will be held by Dutch pension asset manager, APG Asset Management. Aware is also invested in Lendlease’s urbanisation projects in the US, such as Chicago, Boston, New York and Los Angeles. The practice took off during the COVID outbreak in China when people avoided entering public spaces, and many markets and grocery stores were shut.
Zhejiang Pearl River Investment Management, Green Pine Capital Partners and Guangzhou City Construction Investment’s SF Fund also participated in the round, along with unnamed insurance firms and sovereign wealth funds. In university – and crossover – news, Soul Machines, a New Zealand-based artificial intelligence-powered avatar platform spun out of University of Auckland, has received $40m in a series B round featuring the institution’s Inventors Fund. Singaporean state-owned investment firm Temasek led the round, which also included Salesforce Ventures, the corporate venturing subsidiary of enterprise software producer Salesforce. Daimler Financial Services, the financial and mobility services subsidiary of carmaker Daimler, was previously revealed as a backer when Soul Machines raised a first series B tranche in 2018.
LP is a global investment firm founded by Jerome Kohlberg, Henry Kravis, and George Roberts. The Firm is separated into three business segments which include private markets, public markets, and capital markets and principal activities. KKR’s private equity practice invests in management buyouts, take privates, corporate divestitures, industry consolidations, and partnerships with family-owned companies. KKR will consider investments in a broad range of industries located in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia/New Zealand.
Since its launch, 32 companies from around the world have completed the Lift Labs accelerator programme and 75% have secured pilots or agreements with a division or business unit of Comcast NBCUniversal. Chris Hill departed in December to become a strategic adviser at Retina AI, Andre Iguodala left his venture partner role at Comcast’s Catalyst fund and Morgan Polotan joined B Capital Group as a principal. The upshot is that only Andrew Cleland is left directly as an MD at Comcast Ventures, though other experienced people within the group include Sam Schwartz, executive vice-president and chief business development officer for Comcast.
