Y Combinator-Backed PicnicHealth Nabs $2 Million In Seed To Build Out A Virtual Healthcare Records PlatformA final coda to the opera that has been OnLive — the cloud gaming company that was once estimated to be worth $1.8 billion but, saddled with debt, went through a dramatic round of layoffs before a surprise sale for $4.8 million. Sony Computer Entertainment is now buying various assets of the company, including 140 U.S. and international patents for cloud gaming services. Meanwhile, Onlive itself will be closing its operations on April 30. As of today, the company is not renewing any subscriptions.
Specifically, OnLive says that the OnLive Game Service, OnLive Desktop and SL Go (Second Life) will all be available until April 30. But, “After today’s date, no further subscription renewals will be charged for any of these services. Users whose subscriptions renewed on or after March 28 will be refunded,” the company writes in a statement. “Following the termination of the company’s services and related products, OnLive will engage in an orderly wind-down of the company and cease operations.” It’s not mentioned but it sounds like CloudLift Enterprise is also included in this closure.
At one time, OnLive’s patent portfolio alone was estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, although it’s anyone’s guess whether the company was able to achieve that price because terms of the deal with Sony are not being disclosed.
Nevertheless, it comes at a time when Sony itself is reeling from its own gaming misfortunes. This positions it as a “formidable” IP holder, Sony says, which seems to point to both its ambitions to push ahead in its own gaming development via PlayStation, but potentially also to go after those who it feels infringe on its tech.
“These strategic purchases open up great opportunities for our gamers, and gives Sony a formidable patent portfolio in cloud gaming. It is yet another proof point that demonstrates our commitment to changing the way gamers experience the world of PlayStation,” said Philip Rosenberg, VP, Global Business Development of SCE and SVP Business Development and Publisher Relations of SCEA, in a statement.
A spokesperson for OnLive would not comment on how many users will be affected. In 2012, the company was estimated to have 1.2 million registered users, although no more than 1,600 were playing at any given time.
OnLive itself, meanwhile, currently has 80 employees. It’s not clear whether they will have jobs or not at the end of this month. “Sony has a number of positions for which they would like to recruit OnLive employees, but no decisions have been made yet,” the spokesperson says.
OnLive was a trailblazer in the world of online, cloud-based gaming and it courted big, strategic investors in its mission to take this mainstream. Investors once included Warner Bros, carriers like AT&T and BT, Autodesk, and HTC.
But, as tech history has proven time and again, sometimes being the first mover is not as lucrative as being the third or fourth. In the case of cloud gaming, many others piled into the space offering an approach to accessing games more sticky than OnLive’s subscription model.
Between competing against other, larger incumbents and smaller fleet-of-foot startups eschewing larger screens in the living room in favor of smartphones, OnLive was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The company had worked to rekindle its business in the wake of the sale with new deals to optimise AAA games for new devices. However, today’s news points to some of that effort perhaps failing to meet expectations.
Specifically, OnLive says that the OnLive Game Service, OnLive Desktop and SL Go (Second Life) will all be available until April 30. But, “After today’s date, no further subscription renewals will be charged for any of these services. Users whose subscriptions renewed on or after March 28 will be refunded,” the company writes in a statement. “Following the termination of the company’s services and related products, OnLive will engage in an orderly wind-down of the company and cease operations.” It’s not mentioned but it sounds like CloudLift Enterprise is also included in this closure.
At one time, OnLive’s patent portfolio alone was estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, although it’s anyone’s guess whether the company was able to achieve that price because terms of the deal with Sony are not being disclosed.
Nevertheless, it comes at a time when Sony itself is reeling from its own gaming misfortunes. This positions it as a “formidable” IP holder, Sony says, which seems to point to both its ambitions to push ahead in its own gaming development via PlayStation, but potentially also to go after those who it feels infringe on its tech.
“These strategic purchases open up great opportunities for our gamers, and gives Sony a formidable patent portfolio in cloud gaming. It is yet another proof point that demonstrates our commitment to changing the way gamers experience the world of PlayStation,” said Philip Rosenberg, VP, Global Business Development of SCE and SVP Business Development and Publisher Relations of SCEA, in a statement.
A spokesperson for OnLive would not comment on how many users will be affected. In 2012, the company was estimated to have 1.2 million registered users, although no more than 1,600 were playing at any given time.
OnLive itself, meanwhile, currently has 80 employees. It’s not clear whether they will have jobs or not at the end of this month. “Sony has a number of positions for which they would like to recruit OnLive employees, but no decisions have been made yet,” the spokesperson says.
OnLive was a trailblazer in the world of online, cloud-based gaming and it courted big, strategic investors in its mission to take this mainstream. Investors once included Warner Bros, carriers like AT&T and BT, Autodesk, and HTC.
But, as tech history has proven time and again, sometimes being the first mover is not as lucrative as being the third or fourth. In the case of cloud gaming, many others piled into the space offering an approach to accessing games more sticky than OnLive’s subscription model.
Between competing against other, larger incumbents and smaller fleet-of-foot startups eschewing larger screens in the living room in favor of smartphones, OnLive was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The company had worked to rekindle its business in the wake of the sale with new deals to optimise AAA games for new devices. However, today’s news points to some of that effort perhaps failing to meet expectations.
India’s Snapdeal has been on an acquisition spree in the last several months, tapping into the $1.1 billion it has raised from the likes of Softbank to expand from being a marketplace for goods into a platform for all kinds of online transactions. The latest chapter in this story is today’s news that it has acquired a majority stake in RupeePower, a provider of loans and credit cards.The terms of the deal have not been disclosed — we are asking — but it is a controlling stake. Snapdeal says that it will launch a financial services marketplace on the back of the acquisition, and projects that it will provide $1 billion of loans over the next two years through the platform. It is not completely clear how Snapdeal plans to finance these loans — we are asking — but it sounds like it will work with financial institutions to both help finance these loans and as a way of helping those banks sell more effectively into smaller markets.“Financial Services companies will now be able to leverage Snapdeal’s nationwide reach across 5000+ towns and cities,” Snapdeal noted. “Often resolving to following up on cold leads, these companies will be able to market and target their products and services to a captive audience on Snapdeal implying higher conversion vis-à-vis the traditional offline channels…The benefits thus realised by the financial services companies will be re-funneled and offered to customers as exclusive financial products/services offers on Snapdeal.”You can think of RupeePower as something equivalent to the Kabbage of India: using an online tool and algorithms that work in the background, RupeePower gives users the ability to apply for loans that will take many no more than 5 minutes to get approved. Unlike Kabbage, the loans are focused mainly on consumers rather than businesses and cover personal loans but also larger amounts for cars and homes.This will play specifically into the fact that autos and real estate are two of the new categories that Snapdeal is now selling online: now you can buy the vehicle and finance it in one place. Snapdeal also says it will use the current product — which also includes credit card services it runs in tandem with banks — to expand into other areas of financial services, which are fragmented and antiquated in India. These will include things like extended warranties — which, again, Snapdeal can offer alongside the products it sells on its main platform.“Realizing the various difficulties that consumers face while deciding and purchasing financial products/services and the challenges that companies face whilst reaching out to the ‘right’ audience, we have brought RupeePower into our family, to help solve the distribution challenges of the financial services ecosystem and make it more inclusive,” said Kunal Bahl, cofounder and CEO of Snapdeal, in a statement. “The same way Snapdeal has democratised retail in India, now we aspire to democratise access to credit.”RupeePower was founded in 2011 and says it has financed INR 1,500 crores ($24 million) in the current financial year. It’s tapping into the bigger trend in India (and the rest of the world) of services like this moving online, plus the growing middle class in the country that wants to borrow more money, and in this way specifically.Tejasvi Mohanram, founder and CEO of RupeePower, projects that digitally originated loans account for only 7.5% of all loans today, but that will rise to 40% in the next four years to reach $67 billion of loans. “Our emphasis will be on scaling RupeePower into the top match-making platform between lenders and borrowers, providing consumers with the best targeted offers and a super-simplified loan process, while ensuring lower opex & smarter credit match for lenders,” he said in a statement.The acquisition comes on the heels of Snapdeal making other investments, including acquisitions to build out its logistics services.
Thanks to a city ordinance passed last fall, this will be the first year on-demand ride services like Uber and Lyft will be competing for passengers in Austin during SXSW. As both companies prepare to meet demand that comes from the city’s biggest event of the year, Uber and Lyft will be urging passengers in Austin to share rides with strangers.