Billion Dollar Unicorns: Line Delivers a Successful IPO

According to eMarketer, over-the-top (OTT) mobile messaging services were used by more than 1.4 billion consumers in 2015, recording a 32% growth over the year. Total users are expected to grow to 2.19 billion by the year 2019 and will account for 68% of mobile phone Internet users. Two years ago, Japan’s mobile messaging service Line had abandoned plans to list. But early this year, the company finally took the plunge.

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The 5-Horse Race in Tech

Tech has become a 5-horse race: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft being the five horses fighting for dominance of Techdom. Google dominates Search and Mobile; Apple dominates mobile; Amazon dominates Commerce and Cloud; Facebook dominates Social; and Microsoft, despite its size, dominates nothing. >>>

From Unicorn to Unicorpse: Ad-Supported Media Businesses Are Not Viable Anymore

Since being founded in 2003, Mode Media, formerly known as Glam Media, had been trying to run a content-based business model that could be scaled while being profitable and relevant. After thirteen years of trying, the company finally gave up this month and abruptly shut down shop. The incident is yet another datapoint in the broader phenomenon driving the media industry: ad-supported businesses simply don’t work unless you are Facebook or Google.

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Adobe Creative Cloud Continues to Grow

According to analysts, the global digital media and the total addressable market for the Adobe Creative Cloud system is projected to grow to around $21 billion to $48 billion by 2018. Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) continues to expand its offerings within the segment and is thus delivering strong financial results each quarter. It recently announced its third quarter results, and this was the tenth successive quarter where it reported revenue growth.

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2016 IPO Prospects: Apptio Files Despite Reduced Valuation and Mounting Losses

A recent report by MarketsandMarkets on the global cloud-based IT Service Management (ITSM) market projects the industry to grow 15% annually over the next five years to be worth $8.78 billion in 2021 from $4.41 billion in 2016. It is dominated by big vendors including IBM, CA Technologies, BMC Software, Microsoft, and HP. But, Bellevue, Washington-based Apptio is part of the small vendors that are making their presence felt in the industry. And now, the company is ready to go public.

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2016 IPO Prospects: Selfie App Meitu Files to List on HKSE

According to an iResearch report, China’s photo app market user base is expected to grow from 226.7 million average Monthly Active Users (MAUs) in 2015 to 714.6 million by the year 2020. The report also reveals that as of June this year, nearly 71% of social network users in China shared at least one photo per week, and almost 21% of these people has used a photo app to enhance photos before sharing them on social media. China’s Meitu is benefiting from this photo sharing trend.

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Oracle Might Increase Its Offer for NetSuite

For the past couple of years, cloud has dominated Oracle’s strategy. In July, it announced its plans to acquire NetSuite for $9.3 billion, which underlines this focus. This would be one of its larger multi-billion deals with only the $10.4 billion acquisition of PeopleSoft in 2004 beating it. However, the deal has hit some hurdles as a result of opposition from T. Rowe Price, the second largest stock holder after Larry Ellison who is also a major shareholder in Oracle (NYSE: ORCL). >>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Zeta Interactive Counts on Inorganic Growth

According to an IDC report published last year, the global marketing technology (MarTech) industry is estimated to grow 12% annually to $32.4 billion by 2018. More recent trends also suggest a growing interest in MarTech industry, away from the AdTech industry, due to its more sustainable business model. A few years ago, I spoke with serial entrepreneur David Steinberg whose latest initiative Zeta Interactive is now a Billion Dollar Unicorn in the MarTech space.

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