TechCrunch
Uber Looking To Raise An Uber Round Of Funding Led By TPG, At A $3.5B Valuation
On-demand car service Uber is looking to raise another big round of funding, this time led by private equity firm Texas Pacific Group we’re hearing. And so is Dan Primack. And Liz Gannes. The round is expected to be between $150 million and $200 million, at a valuation of about $3.5 billion. The round hasn’t closed yet, but it’s close to being completed, or so our sources say.
The funding comes as Uber is growing fast, expanding into new territories and adding lower cost services. AllThingsD reports that the company is expected to pull in $125 million in revenue this year, which is higher than had been expected.
Uber is now available in more than 35 cities around the world with its on-demand black car service. But it’s quickly adding lower-cost options in many of those markets. In several cities, that means lower-cost hybrid cars taking passengers, while in others, the company is partnering with local taxi companies to use its e-hail service. With the funding, it will likely expand even more quickly.
TPG isn’t your typical tech investor, although it has held stakes in companies like SurveyMonkey and Travelocity parent company Sabre Holdings. But it has done a fair amount of investing in travel and leisure companies, including a number of airlines and hospitality businesses.
On that front, Uber seems like a good fit, as it’s not your typical tech investment. The company is looking to disrupt the urban transportation industry, which has been stifled by decades of regulation. But it’s also built a logistical framework that could be used for any number of things: in the past it’s experimented with barbecue and ice cream delivery, and it’s even been used to order canal boats in Amsterdam and water taxis in Sydney.
Google Ventures is also expected to be an investor in the round, according to Gannes and Primack, though we hadn’t heard about that.
Uber has raised $57 million since being founded in 2009. Its most recent funding round was for $37 million in late 2011, and came from investors that included Menlo Ventures, Jeff Bezos, Goldman Sachs, Benchmark, CrunchFund*, and Troy Carter. Other investors include Benchmark Capital, First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital, Founder Collective, and a whole bunch of angels.
Uber and TPG declined to comment for this story. We’re still waiting to hear back from Google Ventures.
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* DISCLOSURE: Some time ago, Michael Arrington founded TechCrunch. Later, he founded CrunchFund. And at some point after that, CrunchFund wrote a check to invest in Uber. But that all has nothing to do with why I’m writing this story about someone else possibly writing a check to invest in Uber.
Wunderlist Pro Gets File Sharing And Business Plan Pricing As Wunderlist Nears 5M Users
Berlin-based 6Wunderkinder is adding more features to its new Wunderlist Pro paid tier of service today, answering the number one request of its users with the addition of file upload and sharing. Users can add files to tasks and synchronize them across devices and team members for collaboration purposes. That, along with newly introduced pricing plans for Wunderlist Pro aimed at businesses, should help growth of the revenue-driving service skyrocket, says 6Wunderkinder founder and CEO Christian Reber.
“We had large corporations contacting us the first day we launched Wunderlist pro and ask us ‘Can we use this in our business, what can I do to sign up my entire team of 250 people?,’ etc.” he said in an interview. “That was exciting for us but unfortunately we didn’t have the business accounts yet, we didn’t have the dashboard to manage those people.” This change will help them sign on these new customers who have just been waiting for an opportunity to get on the platform.
The changes today aren’t only aimed at business customers big and small, however; Reber says that file sharing is something that should appeal across its user base, and drive up the value perception even for individual Wunderlist users who have been considering the paid option. “We think that files is a feature that everyone wants, and we think that we will see a very high conversion rate of free users to premium users also, because it’s a feature that everyone just asked us to build,” Reber explained.
Reber says they “quadrupled” their own internal expectations for new user growth with the introduction of Wunderlist Pro. The entire user base of nearly 5 million Wunderlist users (including free and paid) is around 29 percent U.S.-based, he said, but 40 percent of the paid customers come from the States. Over 40 percent of paying customers are businesses, too, which is why the business plan rollout is designed to unlock more of that potential market.
Ultimately, 6Wunderkind’s strategy is to become just as essential and widespread a productivity tool as a Dropbox or an Evernote, Reber tells me. Those have validated their business model, he says, though they target a completely different market. The aim is to grow from a simple to-do list to more full-featured collaboration software, while retaining focus on both individuals and business customers, instead of just one or the other.
Reber wasn’t ready to share specifics about conversion rates on Wunderlist Pro just yet, but he says that 6Wunderkinder does plan to be much more transparent about that kind of data with future releases, since it believes there’s value in showing other startups how it’s doing building a business, so expect to see more granular detail about how Wunderlist’s monetization strategy is working out in the near future.
London, We Want To See You At Our Pitch-Off+Meetup On Monday
In preparation for TechCrunch Disrupt Europe I’ve been running around the Continent for more than a month, hitting the Balkans for a huge tour and Warsaw for an amazing meet-up. Now I’m back for a meet up+pitch-off with our own Mike Butcher and the rest of the UK team. Tickets are free so grab yours now.
There will be great networking opportunities, and a battle to the death to see which entrepreneurs can dazzle and excite in under 60 seconds.
PitchOff details:
- Participants interested in competing in the pitch-off will have 60 seconds to explain why their startup is awesome. These products must currently be in stealth or private beta.Application form for London is here or simply enter below.
ONLY FILL OUT **ONE** APPLICATION.
Office hours details
- Office Hours are for companies selected for the Pitch-off, these 15 minute 1 on 1 talks will be held on the day of the event. We’ll hear about your company, give feedback, and talk about the best pitch strategy for the 60-second rapid-fire competition. More information on Office Hours will follow in a post on TechCrunch.
Pitch-off winners
- We will have 3 judges who will decide on the winners of the PitchOff. First place will receive a table in Startup Alley at the upcoming TechCrunch Disrupt Europe in Berlin. Second Place will receive 2 tickets to the upcoming TechCrunch Disrupt. Third Place will receive 1 ticket to the upcoming TechCrunch Disrupt.
Venue in London
- Ground Floor – CAMPUS LONDON, 4-5 Bonhill Street, London EC2A 4BX
- Event runs from 3 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. on Monday July 29th, 2013
- We will de-camp to a local bar afterwards, sponsors welcome to support (email sponsors@techcrunch.com)
Remember we are holding our Berlin meetup later this week so if you don’t want to wing your way North we’ll come to you. Application form for Berlin is here.
Questions about the events? Please contact: events@techcrunch.com.
How To Become A Sponsor
- For more information on sponsorship packages and to discuss becoming a sponsor, please contact sponsors@techcrunch.com.
And whether you’re an investor, entrepreneur, dreamer or tech enthusiast, we want to see you at the event, so we can give you free beer and hear your thoughts. Come one, come all.
Microsoft Launches IE11 Developer Preview For Windows 7, Updates Modern.IE With New Tools
Almost exactly a month ago, Microsoft launched Internet Explorer 11 as part of the Windows 8.1 preview and today, it is also launching a developer preview of IE11 for Windows 7.
Sandeep Singhal, Microsoft’s group program manager for IE, told me earlier this week that IE11 for Windows 7 will bring all of the advances of IE11 for Windows 8.1 to users of Microsoft’s older operating system. One area Microsoft has focused on with this release is speed, including a much-improved JavaScript engine and a stronger emphasis on GPU hardware acceleration for 2D and 3D content, including fonts, JPG images and WebGL-based experiences.
IE11 is Microsoft’s first browser to embrace the WebGL standard for accessing the computer’s GPU for rendering advanced 2D and 3D experiences. As Microsoft’s senior program manager for IE Frank Olivier told me, his team has worked hard to ensure that WebGL in IE (both on Windows 7 and 8.1) is as safe as possible and can’t crash the system (it does, after all, allow very low-level access to your hardware). Indeed, Olivier showed me a demo that stressed IE11′s WebGL implementation to the point where it crashes. IE11 handles this situation gracefully and simply restarts its WebGL core as needed.
To show off IE11′s WebGL features, the company teamed up with GlacierWorks, a site that aims to raise awareness about the effect of climate change in the Himalayas, to add more WebGL content to its site.
Fast, But Not SPDY On Windows 7
All of these features will also be available to Windows 7 users and Singhal expects the Windows 7 version to offer virtually the same performance as on the new operating system. One feature Microsoft doesn’t bring to Windows 7, though, is support for Google’s SPDY networking protocol.
As for Windows 8, Microsoft tells me that it will ship IE11 with the free Windows 8.1 upgrade. Microsoft clearly expects most Windows 8 users to upgrade to 8.1 and it doesn’t look like it plans to make IE11 available as a standalone download for 8.
With today’s update for Windows 7, Microsoft is also updating modern.IE, its site for tools and resources for developing for IE. The site now features virtual machines for testing IE11 on Windows 8.1 and Windows 7, as well as a new screenshot tool that lets you see how your sites look across different browsers and devices. For a limited time, Microsoft is also offering developers a 25 percent discount on Parallels for Mac so they can run these virtual machines. IE11 itself, it’s worth noting, also includes a number of updated developer tools.
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