investment across the financial technology by deal size and valuations

financial technology investment start ups and funding trends from Sumit Roy

broadcasters make hay as airwaves auction opening bids announced

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AIRWAVES AUCTION  OPENING BIDS FOR SELECTED MARKETS

The Federal Communications Commission( FCC)  has  set the opening bids it is making to buy broadcast television licenses in the spring, with high prices designed to bring TV stations into a process that will eventually clear new airwaves for wireless carriers.

The prices, which range from less than $100 million in smaller markets to as much as $900 million for a station in New York City.The  TV stations’ airwaves are  more attractive because they can carry wireless signals over long distances and deep into buildings.

According to wsj Some major broadcasters including CBS Corp. and 21st Century Fox Inc. have shown interest in selling some licenses in the auction.

Samsung take a beating in MENA region as local brands gain momentum

Middle east and North african ( MENA ) region continue to show brisk sales of overall mobile phones (smartphones + feature phones)  as the region 'mobile sales grew 23% Yoy.  Smartphone sales across these regions have been  growing 3  times faster that global  smartphone growth

MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICAN MARKET : MOBILE OEM'S ACROSS THE REGION

• Samsung , Huawaei and Tecno were among the top 3 biggest players in this regions,
•  Samsung's share in 2015 declined to 41%, a 9% decline from 50% share it had in Q3,2014
• Samsung loss was, was Tecno's gain .The local brand Tecno saw its marketshare grow from 4.8% to 8.2% 
•  Tecno became the 3rd largest mobile player, notching up 123% increase in mobile shipments in juts under a year 
• Apple' increased its marketshare in the MENA nations from 2.2% to 4%and broke into the top 5 largest players

These 10 Start up Unicorns are paying the best salary to retain the best

For unicorns.. getting the right people  are at times  bigger than clients. Unlike bigger and established  companies that have the continuity of legacy  infrastructure : to back them.. years of business continuity where systems and process are replicated to the T

In Start ups however its  the ability to scale up, adding value  and faster turnaround times needs more than talented people  who are willing to get out of their comfort zone at a cost.. Most of that times.. its " compensation" along with other perks that play a key role in getting the right people

This chart shows which Unicorns pay the  best salary based on the market. The data  is based on " crunchbase lederboard and been matched with glassdoor reviews

p 20 highest paying startup unicorns. These 10 Start up Unicorns are paying the best salary to retain the best

1.CLOUDERA - provides  Apache Hadoop-based software and support to businesses,
Compnsation :One of the best paymasters across start ups with mployee median salary coming in at more than $142,000. .

2.JAWBONE  –A wearable health and fitness company  which tracks  you while you work out
Average base median annual salary $130,000

3.MEDALLIA – provides cust services as SaaS platform  to hospitality, retail, and financial sectors  Average median annual base salary $121,920 –

4.PINTEREST– median annual base salary $118,420

5.DROPBOX – cloud storage start up.
Average median annual base salary $116,840

6.AIRBNB– biggest vacation and rental marketplace
Average  median annual base salary $116,840 –

7. KABAM – develops online Gaming
Average median annual base salary $116,840 –

8. APPDYNAMICS – Performance analysis app
Average median annual base salary $114,218

9. CREDITKARMA – provides free Credit Report to consumers
Average median annual base salary $111,760

10.OKTA – helps business manage  their security and online identity
Average  median annual base salary $110,000

healthcare, technology and real estate sectors saw the bigger merger deals in 2015

The three sectors which saw the biggest deal making including mergers in the year 2015

michael dell just raked in $4 billions selling spectrum on local TV stations

Michael Dell bought up a bunch of TV stations and is now looking to sell their spectrum in a first-ever incentive auction with the FCC.While a billionaire buying up hardly watched TV stations may sound odd, there’s a plausible reason for those investments: All of the stations own potentially valuable broadcast spectrum has been tapped by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to enhance wireless network reliability and speeds. Collectively, Dell’s investments could see him tally up to $4 billion on his $80 million investment.

registered vehicles with iOT( internet of things) application

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The above chart shows registered vehicles with Internet of things Application (IOT) forcasted till 2030
Meanwhile a recent Gartner estimates that IoT product and service suppliers will generate incremental revenues exceeding $300 billion in 2020. It predicts that around  4.9 billion connected things will be in use in 2015, up 30 percent from 2014, and will reach 25 billion by 2020

IDC forecasts that the worldwide market for IoT solutions will grow from $1.9 trillion in 2013 to $7.1 trillion in 2020

whats behind the 400% growth in the fintech investment across asia pacific market

What are the reasons for the spectacular growth of financial technologyg investment across Asia pacific region

Fintech investment in Asia-Pacific has skyrocketed in 2015 — from about US$880 million in all of 2014 to nearly US$3.5 billion in just the first nine months of 2015.

The largest share of fintech investment deals were in payments that made up 40 percent of total investments, followed by lending at 25 percent.his

The  rise in financial technology investment across the region was driven by investment deals made in and from China, including the  Alibaba Group Holding and its Ant Financial Services Group subsidiary, along with  Paytm, an Indian-based mobile payment and commerce platform; and fundraising efforts by Ping An Insurance Group venture Lufax.

total fintech investment activity by regions

global financial technology investment : US vs UK

US remains the biggest market for world financial technology investment . However across the European market In 2013, UK and Ireland together accounted for more than half of Europe’s fintech deals (53 percent) and more than two-thirds of its total financing (69 percent, or $265 million).

3 riders about AT & T new unlimited data plan

AT&T New unlimited data plan comes at a time when most wireless carriers have either eliminated or raised the price of unlimited data plans. Sprint and T-Mobile, the only two carriers that still offer unlimited data to new customers, have bumped up prices.

AT&T's unlimited data plan is back, with strings attached. The first rider is  that to  get this unlimited data plan, consumers should also  subscribe to its TV service (only for customers who also subscribe to its DirecTV or U-Verse TV services. Enrollment began Tuesday.)

So does it technically offer unlimited data : Rider 2  .AT &T will only slow the connection for any customer who is in a data-congested area and who in a given month exceeds 22 gigabytes of data. This is equivalent to someone streaming 50 hours of video and 250 hours of music and then spending another 220 hours on the Internet each month.

Rider 3 : How much is the actual cost :The monthly cost for the data is $60, plus $40 for each line. The fourth line is free. This means one line costs $100 a month, two lines are $140, and then three or four lines cost $180. .

Who should go for this plan :This is a pretty good deal for anyone who needs a paid TV service and is a heavy user of wireless data. Specifically, it's best for individuals who use more than 10GB to 15GB of data per month
 know more on the details of AT &T new unlimited plan here

the most popular VR headset with highest buzz across social web

2016 is supposed to be the breakthrough year for virtual reality headsets. Virtual reality is something that has generated a lot of buzz last year , but 2016 is when the products for VR starts to get launched.. 2016 will   will see  360-degree videos displayed on smartphones giving consumers a first taste of what’s to come

 VR  helps users get immerse and experience real life  environment, thereby allowing users to be on  the surface of a mount everest or moon or mars. The most crucial device needed to experience VR ( virtual reality ) is  head-mounted display (HMD) which helps the user immerse in the virtual environment

Leading technology  experts predict  2016 as the breakthrough year for virtual reality headsets. This data shows which company has done the best job of teasing its product to the public? According to a survey conducted by Statista earlier this year, Facebook’s Oculus Rift scores highest in terms of consumer awareness with 35 percent of the respondents having heard of it.

top 10 tech industry's biggest philanthropists

TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY BIGGEST  NAMES  THAT HAS EMBRACED PHILANTHROPY 

Among the biggest names of tech industry's CEOS who have embraced philanthropy has been Microsoft's founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates.

Some other names which has not been heard too often have been mostly  from the tech industry .Among them   are WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum, Sean Parker of Napster fame and Nicholas Woodmann, the man behind GoPro. Google founders Larry page and Sergei brin has been into philanthropy for some time now 

Meanwhile recently Mark Zuckerberg  the Facebook Poster boy has joined the illustrious  league of extraordinary CEO's who have decided  to give back to the world by philanthropy 

mobile apps with more than 100% user growth

Latest data from Flurry's reveal that among all mobile apps , apps that provide "personalization"  functionality  has been growing the fastest.
Personalization apps (such as Android lock-screens and Emoji keyboards) were by far the fastest-growing, with sessions up 332% year-over-year. The news and magazines category, which had seen below-average growth in 2014, rebounded with a strong 135% gain last year.
No 3 fastest growing mobile apps were utilities and productivity apps maintained solid growth, up 125% year-over-year after a 121% increase in 2014.

top 10 technology brands with highest patents to its name

More than 300,000 utility patents were issued by the —United States Patent and Trademark Office in 2013 out which which 6788 patents was issued to IBM . The no 2 brand with highest patents to its name was Samsung electronics which had 4652 patents to its name

The global  top 10 patent holders :

In 2014 IBM was the first brand to surpass for the first time more than 7000 patents in a year with 7,534 followed by Samsung  which increased its tally to 4952

No  3 was Canon with 4055 patents to its name (Representative patent: "Focus Detection Apparatus" (US-8922703)
No 4 was Sony with 3,224  patents to its name (Representative patent: "Extensions to Trigger Parameters Table for Interactive Television" (US-8925016)
No 5 was Microsoft Corporation with 2,829  patents(Representative patent: "Automatic Batching of GUI-based Tasks" (US-8924329)  

no 6 was Toshiba with Patents earned: 2,608, followed by Qualcom with 2,590 and Google with 2566 patents last year (Changing a Rank of a Document by Applying a Rank Transition Function" (US-8924380)

how to catch your cheating partner red handed

Have you at times wished to catch your cheating partner red handed ?. At times when you felt that  there was a kind of " suspicious behavior" and  you wanted to get access to their phones and go through the call list .. However what if she or he have deleted all the messages and calls ? how do you confront them ?

You need to get access to their  mobile for just 2 mins.By using a mobile spy app  you can confirm your worst fear  and get get access to their

1) Call History
2) Erased call history
3)GPS

roundup of of wearables market: 3 trends for 2016

When it comes to just wearable technology,Its the  smartwatches which rule .Apple leads the race with  the company selling more than 4 million smartwatches in the first 6 months of 2015,compared to Samsung's 0.4million in the same duration.

Of the 74 percent of online American adults who are likely to purchase health and fitness technology in the next 12 months, one in three (35 percent) plan to buy a smartwatch, according to a report from the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). An NPD survey is suggesting that the Apple Watch has pushed watch sales to the lowest point since 2008.

However OEMs  apart from Apple and Samsung are still not able to address this growing market. For example  LG canceled its latest smartwatch model after less than a week on sale, citing hardware problems. And an embattled HTC, still  struggling  and has delayed its release of a planned co-branded fitness band with Under Armour.