Public Markets

Weekend Update: Facebook, Uber, And Bitcoin

Morning Report: Good morning and happy Monday. Here’s what you need to know.

We try to pick a single theme for each Morning Report. The goal is to tell you one thing that you should probably know, with a little context and perhaps a joke. This morning, however, we bring you three things.

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Why? Because they each matter, albeit in a different way. So strap on your nerd hat and let’s go.

  1. Facebook shares tanks further. News that the FTC is investigating the social company’s privacy practices has taken further shine off of Facebook’s shares. The company is off another 3.55 percent at the time of writing to $153.73 per share. Facebook’s 52 week high is, in contrast, $195.32. The firm pays no dividend and has voting control tied up in its founder.
  2. Uber cedes to Grab. Uber has sold its Southeast-Asia business to Grab, a local competitor, for 27.5 percent of the smaller company. The move follows similar Uber decisions around the world, including in China. Shares of Uber are unchanged for now, as the company is private. The move could stem Uber’s losses, as it takes a competitive market out of its red ink.
  3. Bitcoin is down. After a small comeback, bitcoin and friends are having another bad day, with bitcoin itself flirting with the $8,000 mark. Gone, for now, are the days of bitcoin at $20,000. Although, given how the crypto tends to trade, it’s anyone’s guess if $4,000 or $40,000 are next.

All that and have a bonus fourth thing: Shares of Dropbox are up 1.79 percent as of the time of writing. How about that.

From The Crunchbase Daily:

Uber sells Southeast Asia business to Grab

  • Uber has agreed to sell its Southeast Asia business to rival Grab. Under terms of the deal, Grab will take over Uber’s ride-hailing business in eight countries. In exchange, Uber gets a 27.5 percent stake in Grab and Uber’s CEO will join the company’s board.

General Catalyst raises $1.38B fund

  • Venture firm General Catalyst has raised $1.38 billion for a new fund, its largest ever, according to a securities filing. The fundraise comes as VC firms across Silicon Valley are scaling up in a bid to better compete with SoftBank’s massive $100 billion Vision Fund.

Pivotal files for IPO

  • Pivotal, a provider of enterprise cloud computing technology that is majority-owned by Dell, has filed to raise up to $100 million in an IPO.

Yes, AI will steal your job, eventually

Alarmist headlines abound about how AI and robots are stealing jobs from humans. To put that notion in perspective, Crunchbase News turned to AI expert and SparkCognition CEO Amir Husain, who maintains that yes, if you take the long view, it’s quite likely most jobs we see today will be done by machines.

Stay up to date with recent funding rounds, acquisitions, and more with the Crunchbase Daily.

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