Techmeme
December 7, 2021, 6:30 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Intel plans to take its Mobileye unit public, sources say at a $50B+ valuation; Intel acquired the self-driving car company in 2017 for about $15B  —  Move could value Mobileye at more than $50 billion, according to people familiar with the matter  —  Intel Corp. is planning to publicly list shares …
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
Microsoft seizes 42 domains allegedly used by a Chinese cyber espionage group that targeted organizations in 29 countries including the US  —  Microsoft said today that its legal team has successfully obtained a court warrant that allowed it to seize 42 domains used by a Chinese cyber-espionage group …
Cho Mu-Hyun / ZDNet:
Samsung merges its mobile and consumer electronics divisions into one business unit led by JH Han, and names Kyehyun Kyung as the CEO of its semiconductor unit  —  The Galaxy-device maker's smartphone and TV divisions will now be run by a single CEO.  —  Samsung said on Tuesday it has merged …
The Markup:
Sources: Life360, a family safety app with 33M users, has sold users' precise location since 2016 and is one of the location data broker industry's top sources  —  The app is a major source of raw location data for a multibillion-dollar industry that buys, packages, and sells people's movements
David McCabe / New York Times:
Ahead of a congressional hearing, Adam Mosseri outlines forthcoming parental controls for Instagram, including monitoring time spent and deleting posts in bulk  —  Adam Mosseri, the head of the company, is expected to face questions from lawmakers this week about whether social media harms children.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Report: the US DOJ has asked Roblox why it changed “games” to “experiences” on its website, and asked Roblox and other developers to clarify the difference  —  The United States Justice Department is investigating Apple for antitrust issues, and Roblox is an area …
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Lyft CFO Brian Roberts, who joined the company in 2014 and took it public, leaves to become CFO at NFT marketplace OpenSea  —  Lyft's long-time CFO Brian Roberts, who took the company public, announced Monday that he was departing the ride share company that he joined in 2014 to take the same role at NFT marketplace OpenSea.
Rita Liao / TechCrunch:
WeLab, which offers consumer fintech products across Asia, raises $240M and buys an Indonesian commercial bank Jasa Jakarta  —  A virtual bank is soon coming to Indonesia.  WeLab, a Hong Kong-based fintech unicorn, announced Tuesday its acquisition of Bank Jasa Jakarta (BJJ), an Indonesian commercial bank.
Jon Porter / The Verge:
WhatsApp now lets users set all one-to-one chats to disappear by default after 24 hours, seven days, or 90 days  —  Its disappearing messages feature is getting an upgrade  —  WhatsApp is adding new functionality to its disappearing messages feature, which lets users set messages in a chat …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Facebook Gaming announces Play with Streamer, letting lets creators invite audience members to join a game, launching alongside Pac-Man Community  —  Mark Zuckerberg unveiled that Pac-Man Community is debuting on Facebook Gaming as one of the first games where audiences can play together while spectating.
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
London-based Pento, which offers payroll services for SMBs, raises a $35M Series B led by Tiger Global and Avid Ventures, after raising a $15.6M Series A in May  —  One of the biggest pain points for any business, but especially SMEs, is managing payroll.  —  A startup that has built payroll …
More: Tech.eu and VentureBeat
Kaya Yurieff / The Information:
Universe, a mobile-based website builder, raises a $30M Series B led by Addition, and says over 500,000 creators and SMBs have used its sites in the past month  —  Creators are making custom websites in vogue again.  —  After years of watching social networks abruptly tweak their algorithms …
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
MongoDB reports Q3 revenue of $227M, up 50% YoY, a net loss of $81.3M, up from $72.7M YoY, and Atlas cloud database revenue up 84%; stock up 17%+  —  - Revenue growth accelerated, including in the fast-growing Atlas cloud service category.  — Sales and marketing expenses continue to mount.
More: ZDNet and MongoDB
D. T. Max / New Yorker:
An in-depth look at Welshman James Howells' desperate efforts to excavate his local landfill to recover a hard drive with 8,000 bitcoins mined in 2013  —  For years, a Welshman who threw away the key to his cybercurrency stash has been fighting to excavate the local landfill.
Antoine Gara / Financial Times:
Sources: Thomas Bravo is raising $35B for tech company buyouts; in 2021, the PE firm acquired RealPage for $10.2B and Proofpoint for $12.3B  —  US-based specialist on an acquisition binge is raising $35bn for more  —  The mood was buoyant when private equity executives congregated at the SuperReturn conference in Berlin last month.
Tweets: @robinwauters
Ashley Stewart / Insider:
Internal documents: Meta will prioritize selling products directly on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger in 2022, partially in response to Apple's ATT changes  —  - Meta is pivoting to focus on selling more products directly on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger, according to an internal document obtained by Insider.
Andrew E. Kramer / New York Times:
US investigators traced ransomware payments back to companies in the Moscow skyscraper Federation Tower East, suggesting Russia tolerates ransomware operators  —  Cybersecurity experts tracing money paid by American businesses to Russian ransomware gangs found it led to one of Moscow's most prestigious addresses.
Julian E. Barnes / New York Times:

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