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1. Music streaming pioneer SoundCloud raises $75M from Pandora owner SiriusXM
The deal with SiriusXM is a positive development for SoundCloud and could represent a reversal of fortunes for the business. At one point, it was close to running out of money when it restructured and laid people off, with one founder, Alex Ljung, stepping down as CEO as SoundCloud raised emergency funding (he is still chairman), and the other co-founder Eric Wahlforss leaving last year.
SiriusXM describes this deal as a minority investment that’s partly related to the ad partnership that the companies have, in which Pandora resells SoundCloud’s inventory on its programmatic platform.
2. Judge rejects Uber and Postmates’ request for an injunction against California’s gig worker law
Assembly Bill 5 went into effect at the beginning of the year and limits how companies can label workers as independent contractors. While meant to protect contractors, the legislation has been criticized by some freelancers who say it restricts their work opportunities and ability to earn money, as well as tech companies whose business models rely on gig workers.
3. A list of MWC coronavirus cancellations so far
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A growing number of companies have announced they are pulling out of attending of the world’s largest mobile trade show. Others, such as Telenor, TCL and ZTE, have cancelled press events or said they will scale back their presence, though they’re still planning to attend.
4. Justice Dept. charges four Chinese military hackers over the Equifax data breach
U.S. prosecutors have charged four Chinese military hackers over the 2017 cyberattack at Equifax, which resulted in a data breach involving more than 147 million credit reports. The nine-charge indictment was announced Monday against Wu Zhiyong, Wang Qian, Xu Ke and Liu Lei.
5. Streaming accounts for nearly one-fifth of total US TV watching, according to Nielsen
The firm reports that among U.S. homes that are capable of over-the-top streaming, 19% of their TV time was spent on streaming during fourth quarter of 2019. Within that streaming time, Netflix accounted for 31%, compared to 21% for YouTube, 12% for Hulu, 8% for Amazon and 28% for other services.
6. 4 factors to consider before entering international markets
Deltapath CEO David Liu says that each time his team expands to a new market, they consider four primary factors before launching. (Extra Crunch membership required.)
7. Google backs productivity startup building algorithmic inbox for Slacks, emails and texts
The oddly named ’nuffsaid is releasing its first oddly named product, ‘nflow, into early access, bringing multiple collaboration platforms and a calendar into a single inbox.
