Techmeme
May 4, 2021, 12:55 PM

Top News

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Twitter buys Scroll, the $5/month service that removes ads from partner news sites; Scroll's Nuzzel email service will shut down on May 6  —  The Nuzzel email service is winding down and the future of Scroll is uncertain  —  Twitter's acquisition spree continues today with Scroll …
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Court docs: Epic's total gross revenue was $5.6B in 2018 and $4.2B in 2019, with the vast majority of revenue coming from Fortnite  —  New financial figures were revealed as part of Epic Games' antitrust case against Apple  —  After a meteoric rise to popularity in 2018 …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Epic vs. Apple trial begins with Epic attacking the App Store's “walled garden”, arguing Apple's 30% cut is monopolistic; Apple argues 30% is standard practice  —  Today marked the beginning of the highly-anticipated Apple vs. Epic trial, and things kicked off with both companies presenting their opening statements.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Court docs: in a 2011 email Phil Schiller floated cutting Apple's 30% fee, provided it could still generate $1B in annual App Store profits when the fee was cut  —  - Top executive proposed fee cut at $1 billion in annual profit  — App Store fee structure, policies at issue in trial with Epic
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Basecamp employees detail an all-hands that led to resignations, including the head of strategy, who questioned the existence of white supremacy at the company  —  I.  —  At 8AM PT on Friday, a bleary-eyed Basecamp CEO Jason Fried gathered his remote workforce together on Zoom to apologize.
Jeff Grubb / VentureBeat:
Sony says Discord will be integrated into PlayStation Network starting early 2022; Sony will invest an undisclosed amount in Discord as part of the partnership  —  Join GamesBeat Summit 2021, happening today!  Watch live here!  —  Sony is planning to integrate Discord into PlayStation Network starting in early 2022.
Sarah McBride / Bloomberg:
Justin Zhu, former Iterable CEO ousted for taking LSD before a meeting, on his disputes with key investors and the challenges of being Chinese in Silicon Valley  —  Justin Zhu, chief executive officer of digital marketing startup Iterable Inc., was walking down Broadway in San Francisco …
Rupert Neate / The Guardian:
Filing: Amazon had sales of €44B in Europe in 2020, but reported a €1.2B loss and therefore paid no corporate tax  —  Despite lockdown surge the firm's Luxembourg unit made a €1.2bn loss and therefore paid zero corporation tax  —  Fresh questions have been raised …
Reuters:
Sources: TSMC is planning to build up to five more chipmaking facilities in Arizona, beyond the one currently planned  —  TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) is planning to build several more chipmaking factories in the U.S. state of Arizona beyond the one currently planned …
Stephen Shankland / CNET:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Acronis, which provides data backup and protection services, raises $250M at a $2.5B+ valuation led by CVC  —  As cybersecurity continues to grow in profile amid an increasingly complex and dangerous landscape of malicious activity, a cyber security vendor that specializes in “all-in-one” …
Reuters:
Apple hires ex-Google AI scientist Samy Bengio, who left last month after colleagues' firings; sources say Bengio will lead a new AI unit under John Giannandrea  —  Apple Inc (AAPL.O) said on Monday it has hired former distinguished Google (GOOGL.O) scientist Samy Bengio …
Kate Clark / The Information:
PitchBook: the number of “inside rounds”, where only previous investors participate, rose to over 1,000 in 2020 with $30B invested, up 15% from 2019  —  Venture capitalists may be getting too comfortable with marking up their own portfolios.  —  The number of inside rounds …
Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
WorkBoard, which develops software to help companies manage their corporate planning, raises $75M Series D led by SoftBank at a post-money valuation of $800M  —  This morning WorkBoard, a software startup that sells software designed to help other companies plan, announced that it has raised …
More: FinSMEs and VentureBeat
Steve Kovach / CNBC:
Verizon says it will sell Yahoo and AOL to PE firm Apollo Global Management for $5B, keeping a 10% stake in the company, which will be rebranded as just “Yahoo”  —  - Verizon will sell its media group, which includes brands from AOL and Yahoo, to private equity firm Apollo Global Management.

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