From Unicorn to Unicorpse: Zomato Flounders

Over the past year, several companies have seen their valuations plummet. After years of stellar increases in valuation, some of it unjustified, the VCs have finally begun to reevaluate business models and assign justifiable valuations to companies. The process has resulted in the creation of several unicorpses*. One such story is that of India’s restaurant search and discovery portal Zomato. >>>

Featured Videos

Billion Dollar Unicorns: TutorGroup Enters the Club

According to research reports, the market for learning English in China is growing 25% a year and is expected to be worth $21 billion in revenue by the end of 2016. China state media claims that the country has as many as 400 million English-language learners at the beginning of the decade. Billion Dollar Unicorn club member TutorGroup is catering to this high growth market.

>>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Yello Mobile Acquires its Way into the Club

Unlike most other startups that stick to their core offering and grow inorganically, South Korean Billion Dollar Unicorn club entrant Yello Mobile has gone the other way. Yello Mobile’s mission from the beginning has been to provide users with mobile apps that can be used 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. To deliver on that mission, Yello Mobile has been on an unending acquisition spree since its inception.

>>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Japan’s Mercari Joins the Club

According to an AT Kearney report, global e-commerce sales are expected to grow from $840 million in 2014 to $1.5 trillion in 2018. US, China, UK, and Japan are some of the most attractive e-commerce markets due to their size, consumer behavior, and infrastructure. These factors have also helped Japan’s Mercari to make it to the Billion Dollar Unicorn Club. >>>

Salesforce Focuses on AI

According to MarketandMarkets, the artificial intelligence (AI) market is estimated to grow from $419.7 million in 2014 to $5.05 billion by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 53.65% from 2015 to 2020. The Media and Advertising sector is expected to drive the growth of AI during this period. IBM, Microsoft, and Google are key players in the market, and now Salesforce is trying to make inroads into it. >>>

Vertical Expansion and MarTech Dominate Oracle’s Cloud Buying Spree

Over the past 10 years, Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) has spent more than $50 billion on making more than 100 acquisitions. While the year 2015 was a bit tepid on the acquisition front, it has made up for it this year by already announcing five acquisitions, three of which were announced over the past month. >>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Decolar is the Latin American Entry to the Club

Analysts at Phocuswright estimate the Latin American total travel market to be a $100 billion market opportunity this year with online travel accounting for an average 15% of the spend across more than 20 countries in the region. The region is dominated by six key markets – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru with Brazil accounting for $36 billion gross booking market opportunity this year. Decolar is a leading player in the market and also a rare Billion Dollar Unicorn from the region.

>>>

SAP Eyes Cloud and Mobile Spend

SAP (NYSE: SAP) ended the year 2015 with a bang, surpassing all market expectations and causing its stock to touch 52-week high levels. But if the market was expecting a similar performance for the first quarter of the year, it was disappointed. The company reported rather lackluster results, following the footsteps of most of the other tech giants. Its recent investments in the Cloud and Mobile space are expected to improve its performance.

>>>

eBay Getting Into Wine

The market hasn’t been too pleased with eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) lately after it hived off PayPal as an independent company. Over the past few quarters, eBay has been delivering lackluster performance for its e-commerce division and has failed to keep pace with e-tail giant Amazon. To make matters worse, the company is facing increasing competition from newer and smaller niche players like Etsy and Poshmark and has also suffered from its vulnerability to Google’s algorithm changes in the recent past. But the recent quarter’s results suggest that all is not lost.

>>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Square Post Its IPO

According to eMarketer, mobile payments in the US are estimated to grow 210% to $27.05 billion in 2016 from $8.71 billion in 2015. The number of people in the US using proximity mobile payments is expected to grow 61.8% to 37.5 million by 2016. Square became a Billion Dollar Unicorn raising funds on ridiculously high valuations, but it recently went public that halved its valuation to a more realistic level. >>>