Lynch case takes another turn after co-defendant takes aim at key City witnesses November 17, 2021 THE continued fight over Mike Lynch’s proposed extradition to the US to face fraud charges has taken another turn after his co-defendant’s legal team attempted to discredit the evidence of two City analysts who have testified against Autonomy executives in previous court cases. In legal documents filed in Northern California, Lynch’s co-defendent Stephan Chamberlain alleges [...]
Darktrace backer Balderton unveils new early-stage $600m fund November 17, 2021 Balderton Capital, one of Europe’s most active venture capital firms, this morning announced it has raised its eighth fund focused on early-stage startups in Europe. At $600m, it’s the largest fund for investing in early-stage startups that the Kings Cross-headquartered firm has raised since it began placing its bets on Europe’s fledgling businesses in 2000. [...]
Blockchain start up Starkware valued at $2bn in latest funding round November 16, 2021 An Israeli start up that provides scalable blockchain technology for apps has secured $50m (£37m) in a Series C round led by Sequoia Capital. Starkware aims to solve the scaling issues faced by legacy blockchains in the crypto space by allowing companies to build apps on top of an ultra-fast chain capable of processing a [...]
Spotify and Snapchat among apps hit by network outages November 16, 2021 Social media sites and internet services including Snapchat, Spotify, Discord and Amazon have reported network downtime this evening. Google Cloud, which provides web hosting services, emerged as the culprit for site outages across the internet and while most sites are back online the company’s status page is still registering an outage to networking services. Amid [...]
Daily Mail publisher DMGT announces leadership shakeup November 16, 2021 The chief executive of dmg media is stepping down after 25 years triggering a leadership shakeup. Kevin Beatty is stepping down as of today and DMGT has announced plans to hand over leadership to internal hires with experience at the company. Rich Caccappolo, the current chief operating officer of the Mail Online will take over [...]
Lucrative for luxury: Metaverse could untap $50bn for brands by 2030 November 16, 2021 Opening the door to the Metaverse to meet the growing digital demand for luxury goods will present brands with a $50bn revenue opportunity within the decade, according to a new analysis by Morgan Stanley. In projections that are slightly difficult to compute right now, considering revenue streams for digital mediums for luxury brands are currently [...]
Revealed: £1.7bn worth of Covid-related contracts went to 47 Tory-referred companies November 16, 2021 A leaked list today shows that dozens of firms were given contracts worth a total of £1.7bn after being referred by Tory party insiders, even though the Government has insisted fast-tracked offers to supply PPE went through the same due diligence as any other route. The list shows that former health secretary Matt Hancock referred [...]
UK government opens national security probe into Nvidia’s $54bn Arm deal November 16, 2021 The UK government has launched a a full-blown national security investigation into Nvidia’s planned takeover of British chip designer Arm, introducing another obstacle in the way of the $54bn deal. Digital and culture secretary Nadine Dorries has ordered a “phase 2” investigation into whether the deal operates against public interest, thus instructing the UK competition [...]
Historic pharma precedent: Pfizer agrees to share its Covid-19 pill secrets with dozens of companies around the world November 16, 2021 Pfizer’s new Covid-19 pill could be made available to more than half of the world’s population after the pharmaceutical giant signed a deal with a UN-backed group to allow other manufacturers to make its experimental pill. In a statement, Pfizer said it will grant a licence for the antiviral pill to the Geneva-based Medicines Patent [...]
Post-Brexit payments space is ‘breeding ground for financial crime as Wild West culture’ looms, warns rising City star November 16, 2021 After the UK left the European Union, a range of payment providers reported so-called IBAN discrimination as a number of companies across Europe began to refuse Euro account bank details if they contained the country code ‘GB’. As a result of Brexit, sending a payment to Eurozone countries resulted in additional charges. Whilst the fee is [...]