A new round of funding has increased Uber's valuation to around $51 billion. The New York Times cites anonymous sources in reporting that Microsoft contributed about $1 billion, "a substantial amount of the financing." As you may remember, Uber recently acquired mapping assets and talent from Microsoft's Bing search engine division. Microsoft's participation in the latest funding round may indicate a "strategic alliance" between the company and Uber.
Uber needs all the billions it can get its hands on. It has followed June's announcement of $1 billion of investment to expand in China with a new $1 billion bet - this time to expand Uber India. Uber was recently banned in Delhi after a driver allegedly raped a female passenger. The company resumed operations in January anyway, and an Indian court lifted the ban on July 8.
Uber will face tough competition in India; existing firm Ola reportedly operates twice as many daily rides as Uber in over 100 cities, and is being valued at a measly $2.4 billion.
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TechCrunch reports that Uber is acquiring imaging/mapping assets and talent from Microsoft's Bing search engine division:
Uber will acquire assets from Microsoft Bing, including roughly 100 employees focused on the product's image collection activities. In short, Uber is absorbing data-collection engineers from Microsoft to bolster its own mapping work. The companies confirmed the transaction with TechCrunch, but each declined to name the terms of the agreement. Microsoft handing Uber part of its operating expenses is minor, given the financial scale of the firms. The technology transfer is far more interesting.
The move also underscores Uber's ambition. A firm doesn't hire 100 specific-focus engineers in a single move if it doesn't have large product aspirations. The new Uber kids are the folks who worked to get image data into Bing, meaning that the search engine's 3D, aerial and street footage is in large part their doing. You can therefore start to presume what Uber has in mind.
The deal continues a recent Uber splurge on mapping technology:
Although most Uber services rely on digital maps, much of its interest in mapping is focused on how to improve its carpooling service, UberPool. While Uber relies heavily on mapping technology from Apple, Baidu and especially Google, the company has taken strides to bring as much mapping expertise in-house as possible.
In March, Uber acquired deCarta, a mapping technology start-up. Uber has also aggressively pursued mapping engineering talent throughout Silicon Valley. And for months, Uber has been avidly competing to buy Nokia Here, the mapping division of the Finnish technology giant, in a deal that could be valued at up to $4 billion, according to several people with direct knowledge of the matter. A small number of bidders are still circling Nokia's business, according to these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations were not public.
In other news, two Uber managers were arrested in France and questioned over the firm's ongoing "illicit activity," following protests by taxi drivers and the ban of UberPOP by France's interior minister.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Sunday August 02 2015, @02:20PM
For a company whose business model is illegal in most of the world. Wall St. must be drooling with anticipation to get their hands on this so they can sell it to you. They'll make an even bigger killing than BABA or FB.
(Score: 3, Informative) by isostatic on Sunday August 02 2015, @02:28PM
Microsoft have been on the stock market for decades
(Score: 1) by Hyperturtle on Sunday August 02 2015, @02:45PM
It's true that Microsoft has been on the stock market for decades. I would also consider it to be true that many of the things they do are considered illegal in the countries the services are provided in, and that Wall Street has drooled in the past about profiting from such enterprise.
Uber is in good company, if perhaps not a good company for other reasons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @04:54PM
Non sequitur. He's talking about uber, not MS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @05:00PM
Them's the jokes, Son. Try, I say, try to pay attention. [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @08:10PM
That he replied to a message that commented that "Microsoft stock has been on the market for decades" and managed to weave in the actual article subject seems to be a non-non sequitur.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday August 03 2015, @01:40AM
OP stated:
For a company whose business model is illegal in most of the world. Wall St. must be drooling with anticipation to get their hands on this so they can sell it to you. They'll make an even bigger killing than BABA or FB.
Microsoft is a company whose business model is illegal in most of the world, but they've been on the market (Nasdaq?) for longer than I've been alive.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday August 02 2015, @02:55PM
I had high hopes when the Ballmernator got his walking papers they'd bring in somebody with some sense, instead we get Windows 10 which is so full of datamining and spy shit it makes Google look privacy focused and now you crap away a billion on Uber? Really? A company whose entire premise is "We use the magical word 'app' and don't have to follow any of those pesky worker or consumer protections" and which will probably get crushed in court?
Damn Nadella, at least when Ballmer shat away billions buying the gigabeat from Toshiba to slap a Zune label on it or buying the Kin and Sidekick at least he was getting actual products he could sell with the money...how the fuck does a dotbomb 'don't call it taxi or we might get another suit' company gonna tie into to MSFT? You gonna pay them a billion to show Bing ads and Win 10 promos on their app?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by schad on Sunday August 02 2015, @05:55PM
If Uber survives long enough for an IPO, MS will make their money back and then some. The only real risk is that Uber goes tango uniform first. But MS has lots of good lawyers. I suspect they wouldn't lose much money even if that happens.
But MS has something like $96 billion in cash. $1 billion on Uber is, to them, like $1000 is to you. Not pocket change, certainly, but if everything goes against you and you're completely wiped out it's not really a big deal either.
Really, this is yet another sign that there's just far too much money chasing far too few worthwhile investments. In a sane world, nobody would be giving Uber a dime until they demonstrated that they could overcome the legal obstacles. But when you've got nearly $100 billion burning a hole in your pocket...
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Sunday August 02 2015, @07:47PM
It's called hedging. MS has about $90B (that's billion with a B) they are sitting on. Blowing a billion on Uber is like a blue-collar worker buying a lottery ticket. If Uber is the next big thing, MS gets a ton of money. If not, they get a tax writeoff against future profits. They can't really lose. Plus they get free publicity with the boring name "Microsoft" in the same headline as the exciting name "Uber" everyone is talking about. (Remember when what's-her-face at Yahoo bought apps just to get a little buzz and relevance?) I'm as critical of Nadella's non-strategy as anyone, but this is one time when I can't blame MS for what they're doing.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Monday August 03 2015, @06:00AM
I'm curious, HairyFeet, what Microsoft has to do before you stop recommending it to your customers? I understand you have awhile to keep using older versions of Windows, but I'm curious if you've began to think about recommending an alternative to Microsoft.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @04:45PM
They will have to pass the "HairyFeet Linux Challenge®", which is designed to change as to always keep Windows in the lead. At least I won't have to bother discussing this with him since I'm posting as AC.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday August 10 2015, @08:41AM
Make an alternative that actually works? the Hairyfeet challenge has stood for 8 years, that is 8 fricking years, without a single consumer Linux distro passing, why? Because Linux has a broken driver model, one so bad it makes Win98 with its VXDs look high tech and which actually PREDATES the Win9x VXDs by nearly 5 years!
So right now the choices for people whose time is actually worth something is 1.- OSX, limited soldered to the board hardware, quickly abandoned hardware, expensive software, or 2.- ChromeOS, a hipster thin clinet no better and just as limited as a SunRay from 1997....sorry, but better to have to spend an hour or two striping out the spyware than it is to waste countless hours every upgrade deathmarch with Linus' messes or be trapped into extremely limited hardware or a device that is a brick without an Internet connection.
Say what you want about Windows but Vista drivers work just fine on Windows 10 (length of support 10 years, try doing that with a Linux driver!), more than 80% of the software works OOTB for Win 10 going back a full decade, sometimes longer(try using a 10 year old Linux program like Staroffice on Linux, can't speak to OSX but I hear its backwards compatibility is pretty poor) and you get 10 years of security patches WITHOUT having to do an upgrade deathmarch. What is the average length of support for consumer Linux now...a year and a half? And IIRC you get dumped at 5 years with OSX, and Google has shown itself to be a bad joke wrt updates (abandoning devices not even 2 years old) so I'm sorry but there still not competition to speak of, unless you can actually name something that gets the same support, doesn't require multiple upgrades that break shit, has good compatibility with older drivers and software AND costs less than the $100 price of an OEM copy of Windows?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @07:52PM
I guess uber can dust of IE's old tag line. At least until they are forced out of business by the insurance and tax requirements their drivers are skirting.