新加坡数据分析初创公司TookiTaki 筹资100万美元以开拓亚太市场
新加坡数据分析初创公司 TookiTaki 于今天宣布，该公司已筹得 100 万美元的种子资金，这笔资金由 Jungle Ventures 领投，Rebright Partners 和 Blume Ventures 跟投。该资金将用于扩大 TookiTaki 作为软件平台在东南亚、日本、澳大利亚和新西兰的新市场。
TookiTaki 最初是一家广告技术公司，帮助用户解决在社交媒体网络和其他在线平台上在哪里打广告的问题。经过不断发展，TookiTaki 扩大其业务范围，为客户提供数据分析，以及有关客户行为、市场营销和产品销售的预测服务。
创始人兼首席执行官阿布舍克·查特吉（Abhishek Chatterjee）称，TookiTaki 的竞争对手包括为公司解读社交媒体数据的 Quantifand，以及自动购买针对性在线广告的 Taykey。查特吉称 TookiTaki 的不同之处在于，它着眼于从不同来源收集多个数据集，包括公开数据和线下数据，并利用这些数据集预测消费者行为，这能够更有效地帮助客户规划营销和销售活动。
除了开拓新市场，TookiTaki 种子资金的一部分也将用于研发。目前，该公司正致力于开发一个能对消费者如何发现特定品牌或产品这一行为做出预测的平台。
Singaporean Data Analytics Startup TookiTaki Raises $1M To Expand In Asia-Pacific
TookiTaki, a Singaporean data analytics startup, announced today that it has raised $1 million in seed funding led by Jungle Ventures, with participation from Rebright Partners and Blume Ventures. The capital will be used to expand its software platform into new markets in Southeast Asia, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.
TookiTaki started out as an ad tech company that helped users figure out where to place advertisements on social media networks and other online platforms. Eventually, TookiTaki expanded its services to provide data analysis and predictions about customer behavior, marketing, and product sales for companies.
Founder and CEO Abhishek Chatterjee says that his company’s competitors include Quantifand, which interprets social media data for companies, and Taykey, which automates the purchase of targeted online ads. Chatterjee says TookiTaki differentiates by focusing on gathering multiple data sets from different sources—including publicly available data and offline data—and using them to produce predictions about customer behavior that can help companies more effectively plan marketing and sales campaigns.
In addition to expanding into new markets, part of TookiTaki’s seed funding will also be used for research and development. The company is currently working on a platform that will give predictions about how consumers find out about specific brands or products.
来源：TC
微软新办公软件 Sway 面向所有用户开放
微软 Sway 是一款用于制作演示文稿的在线工具。这一工具目前已公开发布。此前有许多用户正在等待使用这一产品。
Sway 的正式推出已在意料之中。不过，令人有些惊讶的在于微软 在博客中公布 的关于这款产品的一些数据。
以下是来自微软的消息：
目前距离我们发布Sway预告 仅仅只有 10 周时间，而 Sway.com 的独立用户访问量已经超过 100 万，有 17.5 万人申请使用这款产品。这一数字仍在以每天数千的速度增长。
10 周时间是 70 天，这意味着到目前为止，Sway 网站平均每天的点击次数达到 14285 次，注册申请达到 2500 个。实际流量还可能更高，但由于微软仅仅提到“超过 100 万”，因此我们无法了解更精确的详情。
我无法猜测，像 Sway 一样的产品能获得什么程度的流量。这款产品来自一家大公司，这是一个很大的优势。不过，持续的等待很可能会不利于流量和用户申请注册的兴趣，至少到目前为止如此。
（微软，请继续提供数据。）
由于不再有传统的文件，例如由 Office 创建的文件，因此 Sway 是一款有趣的产品，基于云计算平台。毫无疑问，微软正在 将office转成云计算平台 ，从而通过用户订购获得经常性销售收入。我们将看看，这款产品将会有什么样的表现。
Microsoft’s New Office App, Sway, Is Now Open To Everyone
Microsoft’s Sway, an online tool for creating presentation documents, is now generally available to the public. Previously, a waiting list was in place.
That Sway has taken down its rope line isn’t surprising. What is perhaps slightly unexpected are the metrics that Microsoft announced in its blog post concerning the product’s availability.
Here’s the company:
It’s been only 10 weeks since we kicked off Sway Preview, and we’ve already had over one million unique visitors to Sway.com and over 175,000 requests to join, and those numbers grow by thousands daily.
Ten weeks is 70 days, implying that Sway has seen around 14,285 hits and 2,500 signups per day, so far, on average. The actual count on the traffic side of things is slightly higher, but as Microsoft only specified “over one million,” we can’t be more precise.
I would have had no guess what sort of traffic a product like Sway could attract. It’s from a large company, so that was an advantage. But being placed behind a wait list likely detracted both traffic and signups, at least until now.
(Microsoft, please keep the numbers coming.)
Sway is an interesting product given that it doesn’t have traditional files, like the original Office suite. So it was built for the cloud. Microsoft, of course, is working to convert Office into a cloud product that it can sell on a recurring basis via subscriptions. We’ll see how well it does.
来源：TC
TC
2014年12月17日
TC
HaaS云服务提供商Altiscale完成B轮3000万美元融资
一提到Hadoop，大家可能就会想到数据中心复杂的内部设置，但Altiscale希望通过将全部服务转向云端，并提供Hadoop即服务（Hadoop-as-a-Service，简称“HaaS”），减少这种工作的复杂性。今天，Altiscale宣布完成B轮3000万美元融资，用以继续推进这一目标。
此轮融资由Northgate领投，红杉资本和General Catalyst Partners等现有投资方跟投，Altiscale的融资总额也由此达到4200万美元。
Hadoop是一个旨在帮助企业处理大数据的开源项目。
Altiscale同时还宣布，麦克·马希亚戈（Mike Maciag）加盟该公司担任首席运营官。马希亚戈具有丰富的从业经验，在加盟AltiScale以前已经在5家创业公司工作过。在这5家公司中，已有两家上市，有两家被收购，还有一家至今仍在运营。
马希亚戈曾见证了Hadoop开源平台的发展历程。他表示，自己之所以最终加盟AltiScale，是因为该公司已经打下了在这一领域获得成功的基础。正如他所说，AltiScale已经开发了相关产品，并证明该产品可以投入规模运营。现在，AltiScale需要更多的资金将这项工作推向深入，同时进军更广阔的市场。
此轮融资还表明投资方对AltiScale的产品创意非常有信心。之前1200万美元的融资令AltiScale有了今天这种成绩，现在他们需要更多的投资，创建一个组织来发现和支持更多的客户。
AltiScale在众多Hadoop厂商中之所以能脱颖而出，是因为该公司诞生于云时代，具有处理Hadoop工作负荷的明确目标。正如AltiScale创始人兼首席执行官雷米·斯塔塔（Raymie Stata）告诉我，运营Hadoop并不是一件轻松的事情，仍然需要付出大量艰辛。斯塔塔在雅虎开始了自己的职业生涯，雅虎旗下有一个庞大的组织来支持Hadoop相关项目，但大多数采用Hadoop平台的公司并没有这种资源。
斯塔塔表示，这也是他创建Altiscale的主要原因之一。通过将服务放入云端，Altiscale可以将Hadoop推向更广阔的受众，在客户遭遇一些不可避免的问题时，他们完全可以信赖Altiscale的服务。有时，Altiscale会在处理阶段发现问题，有时则是客户主动上报问题，因此客户不是被迫自己去追踪问题，然后留给Altiscale来解决。
斯塔塔称，解决问题的时间可以从几天缩短至几小时，因为他的公司完全专注于Hadoop。相反，对于大多数IT部门来说，这是另一个他们需要解决的问题。
值得一提的是，Hadoop近来已成为一个热门领域。另一家Hadoop厂商Hortworks最近宣布，该公司将提交S-1文件，迈出公开上市的第一步。去年3月份，Cloudera宣布该公司的估值超过了40亿美元。
Altiscale Lands $30M To Continue Building Hadoop Cloud Service
When you think of Hadoop, you probably think of a complex on-premises set up in your data center, but Altiscale wants to reduce some of that complexity by moving the whole thing to the cloud and offering Hadoop as a service. Today it got $30M in Series B funding to continue that quest.
The round is led by Northgate, with participation from previous investors Sequoia Capital and General Catalyst Partners. Today’s funding brings Altiscale’s total raised to $42M.
Hadoop is an open source project designed to help companies process big data.
The company also announced it brought Mike Maciag on board to be its Chief Operating officer. Maciag is a seasoned industry veteran with experience at five startups before joining AltiScale. He indicated two had gone public, two were sold and one was still operating.
Maciag, who has seen this process before, says what attracted him to Altiscale was that they have the pieces in place to succeed. As he explained, the company has created the product and proven it works at scale. Now, they need more money to bring that to the next level and take it to a broader market.
And presumably, it shows investor confidence in the idea. The first $12M got them to this point, but they needed a significant investment to build out an organization to find and support more clients.
What makes Altiscale unusual among Hadoop vendors, is that it was born in the cloud with the express purpose of processing Hadoop workloads. As company founder and CEO Raymie Stata told me, running Hadoop is not a simple matter and it’s still a bit rough around the edges. He got his start at Yahoo! which has a huge organization supporting its Hadoop efforts, but most companies trying to work with Hadoop don’t have that luxury.
He says that’s one of the main reasons he created Altiscale. By putting the service in the cloud, it brings Hadoop to a much wider audience and customers can lean on his company when they hit those inevitable issues. Sometimes the company picks them up in the processing stage and sometimes it’s in the form of a help ticket from the customer, but instead of being forced to track down the problem themselves, customers can leave it to Altiscale to do that.
And he says, that process of solving the problem can be reduced from days to hours because his company is entirely focused on Hadoop. Whereas for most IT departments it’s just another problem among many to track down.
It’s worth noting that Hadoop has been a hot commodity lately. Just recently Hortworks, another Hadoop vendor announced it was going public by filing an S-1. Last March Cloudera announced a valuation of more than $4B.
来源：TC
TC
2014年12月12日
TC
台湾教育应用开发商QLL 融资45万美元，剑指国际市场
QLL（Quick Language Learning，快速语言学习系统）是一家台湾教育类移动应用开发商，该公司获得了45万美元投资，领投方为B Dash Ventures，参与投资的还有Incubate Fund，Pinehurst Advisors，Viling 以及Coent Venture Partners。这家创业公司与加速器项目AppWoks 是同期毕业生。
自从2007年成立以来，QLL 已经开发了大约150款iOS 及Android 应用，该公司称这些应用在台湾被下载了650万次，目前月活跃用户数超过30万人。其产品包括Pocket Chinese Tutor，一款能纠正用户中文发音的应用，以及数款针对儿童的双语故事应用。所有的QLL 应用都对用户数据进行分析，从而提供个性化的学习课程。
如今QLL 希望杀入包括日本、韩国、东南亚、加拿大、美国在内的国际市场，其武器则是一个能让教育工作者开发、交换电子学习资料的平台，即便他们不懂编程也能使用。这一平台将会覆盖包括移动设备以及智能电视在内的多个平台，。QLL 将首先在新加坡推出应用作为试点市场，接着才会进军美国以及加拿大，在那里该公司将会寻找当地渠道合作伙伴。在印尼，QLL 很可能会选择华为作为他们的分发合作伙伴。
该公司专注于为二到六岁的儿童开发应用，此前曾与索尼、华为、富士康以及Fuhu 公司则样的硬件制造商合作，从而将其软件预装到平板电脑、智能电视和智能手表中。
联合创始人兼首席执行官叶璐璐（音译，Lulu Yeh）表示，QLL 之所以能与多邻国（Duolingo）相提并论，是因为这家创业公司也专注于语言学习，不过与面向个人用户的多邻国不同的是，QLL 的目标市场为教育工作者和学校。QLL 与可汗学院（Khan Academy）的相似之处在于同样提供了视频内容和测验项目，不过QLL 的不同之处在于它专注于亚洲语言课程，而可汗学院目前并不提供相应内容。
QLL 的收入来源于将内容授权给公司或在线教育工作者，应用销售和应用内购买，以及广告（叶表示，目前QLL 应用内广告每月展示量达到1000万次）。
原文：
Taiwan-Based Educational App Developer QLL Raises $450,000 For International Expansion
QLL, a Taipei-based developer of educational mobile apps, has raised $450,000 in funding led by B Dash Ventures, with participation from Incubate Fund, Pinehurst Advisors, Viling, and Coent Venture Partners. The startup is an alumnus of accelerator program AppWorks.
Since its launch in 2007, QLL has developed about 150 iOS and Android apps, which it claims have been downloaded 6.5 million times in Taiwan and now have over 300,000 monthly active users. Its products include Pocket Chinese Tutor, which corrects users’ Chinese pronunciations, as well as several bilingual storytelling apps for kids. All of QLL’s apps leverage user analytics to deliver personalized learning sessions.
Now QLL wants to expand into international markets, including Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, Canada, and the U.S. with an online platform that will allow educators to develop and exchange digital learning materials, even if they don’t know how to code. The platform will be available on multiple platforms, including mobile devices and smart TVs. QLL will first launch its apps in Singapore as a test market, before moving onto the U.S. and Canada, where it will seek local channel partners. In Indonesia, QLL will likely work with Huawei as a distribution partner.
The company focuses on apps for children aged two to six and has previously partnered with hardware makers like Sony, Huawei, Foxconn, and Fuhu to put its software on tablets, smart TVs, and smart watches.
Co-founder and CEO Lulu Yeh says QLL is comparable to Duolingo because the startup also focuses on language learning, but unlike Duolingo, which is geared towards individual users, QLL’s target market is educators and schools. It is also similar to Khan Academy in that it offers video content and tests, though QLL differentiates by focusing on Asian language courses, which Khan Academy currently does not offer.
QLL monetizes by licensing its content to businesses or online educators; through app sales and in-app purchases; and advertising (Yeh says QLL’s in-app ads currently get 10 million impressions per month).
来源：TC
TC
2014年12月02日
TC
TheLadders更新其iPhone应用专注职业推荐，同时推出“就业市场指导”功能
当你不找工作的时候，求职网站或应用又有何用处呢？这便是TheLadders当前正在解决的问题，该公司近日对其iOS版应用做出了更新，还推出了一项名为“就业市场指导”（Job Market Guide）的新功能。
TheLadders首席执行官亚历克斯·多泽特（Alex Douzet）告诉我，这两项举措只是TheLadders提出的新战略的第一步。TheLadders创立于2003年，最初的目标受众是寻找年薪超10万美元职务的人，近年来开始将业务重点扩大至更广泛的职业和收入类别。
多泽特指出，目前工作搜索问题“已经在很大程度上得到解决”，不仅TheLadders在此过程中做出了贡献，LinkedIn和Indeed之类的网站也功不可没。但他表示，这一市场仍然有进一步挖掘的空间，因为专业人士通常每隔三年或四年便会换一份工作。像TheLadders这样的网站“在三四年间给他们做的并不多”——多泽特希望随着这些新产品以及其他酝酿中的创意的发布，能够改变这种状况。
下面就让我们来谈一谈今天发布的TheLadders新版IOS应用吧。多泽特指出，即便你现在并没找工作，但你也可以给那些正在寻找合适人选填补职务空缺的团队工作，或是可以帮助好友找到理想的工作。虽然在线工作推荐并不是什么新创意，但根据多泽特及其团队昨天向我演示的这款应用，我发现它可以通过一种常见且便捷的方法来进行这种推荐。
你在TheLadders上面发布招聘启事时，需要填写许多基本细节——公司介绍、招聘职务、工作地点等，这些描述不得超过200个单词。职务空缺会显示在TheLadders应用中联系人的信息流中，这些联系人可以推荐他们网络中的熟人。如果发帖公司和被推荐者都“赞”了这份推荐，那么他们就可以在TheLadders应用中互相聊一聊。（你还可以推荐不是TheLadders会员的人，但他们会被要求下载该应用。
TheLadders专门针对移动用户开发了该应用，这一点同样至关重要。我不善交际，但可以想见，有些时候下班参与活动或是与朋友一起出去吃饭时，如果看到某个招聘启事，我会想，‘哎呀，我认识一个人特别适合这一工作’，然后我会记下来，等周围有电脑时继续跟进。有时候我可能会忘了这件事，有时候或许仍然记得。通过专注于移动端，TheLadders则可以让你在这些环境下立即采取行动。
TheLadders还会在其去年推出的应用中继续提供现有求职功能。多泽特表示，TheLadders移动应用的绝大部分用户都是iOS设备用户，所以该公司当前也专注于发展iOS平台，不过他承认“当我们看到使用量真的开始大幅增长时，我们会面向现有安卓版应用推出新的职务推荐功能，优化安卓用户的体验。”
与此同时，Job Market Guide预计将在下周正式发布，TheLadders今天推出的只是功能有限的“预览版”。Job Market Guide的想法是，聚合700多万TheLadders注册用户的所有数据，让他们可以掌握自己所选职业的最新信息。
例如，我正在搜索纽约市某些作家的数据，该应用会显示一个页面，里面包括平均工资、当前市场竞争程度，以及“最合适”这一职业发展的城市列表（列表由工资、竞争性和生活成本等因素确定）。你还能看到这一职业所需要的各种技能，甚至可以创建提醒功能，一旦有任何变动和新工作上线，你的电子邮箱都会收到提醒。
多泽特表示，TheLadders的就业指导是独一无二的，因为这一数据反映了用户讨论的最新趋势，而不是几个月前或是几年前某份研究报告透露的内容，并且会根据当地人的偏好做出调整——不仅是工资，还有雇主正在寻找的热门技能，而这些技能会因城市的不同而有所差别。多泽特指出，TheLadders的用户具有不隐瞒收入的动机，因为这有助于他们找到相应的工作：“如果他们隐瞒了当前收入状况，不久便会发现这种做法对他们有害无益。”
在被问及这些数据是否更偏向于那些高收入职业（TheLadders最早曾专注于为高收入群体提供服务）时，多泽特表示年薪低于10万美元的工作和年薪超过10万美元的工作之比现在是二比一。这或许并不能体现美国劳动大军的准确构成，但TheLadders表示其用户的规模和深度足以让这种数据变得有意义。
至于长期职业规划，多泽特表示TheLadders并不会向用户推荐他们十年以后应该从事哪种工作，因为职场并不是一成不变的，有时候并无明显的规律可循。他说：“没有一款产品能预言5年或10年以后你应该干什么。不过，职位介绍应该与相关工作有联系，所以，如果你是作家，想要成为一名编辑，仍然可以从这款应用中感受到你需要多少别的经验，以及什么样的新技能。”
TheLadders Revamps iPhone App To Focus On Job Referrals, Unveils Job Market Guide
What good is a job search site or app when you’re not looking for a job? That’s the issueTheLadders is tackling with the launch of a new version of its iOS app and a new feature that it calls the Job Market Guide.
CEO Alex Douzet told me that these are the first steps in a new direction for the company, which was founded in 2003. TheLadders was initially aimed at people looking for jobs that paid more than $100,000, before expanding its focus to a broader range of careers and salaries in recent years.
At this point, Douzet argued that the job search problem “has been mostly solved,” not just by TheLadders but by other sites like LinkedIn and Indeed. However, he said there’s still an opportunity to expand, because professionals usually only change jobs every three to four years. A site like TheLadders “is not really doing much for them in between” — something he’s hoping to change with these products, and with other ideas in the pipeline.
Let’s start with the updated app, which is launching today. Douzet pointed out that even if you’re not looking for a job, there’s a good chance you’re working on a team that needs to find good people fill open positions, or you may be able to help out a friend who’s trying to do the same. And while online job referrals aren’t a new idea, the app that Douzet and his team showed me yesterday offers a casual, convenient way to make those recommendations.
When you post a job opening in the app, you just enter a few basic details — your company, the title, the location, and a description, which can’t go longer than 200 words. The listing then shows up in the newsfeeds of your connections in the app, and those connections can recommend people in their network. If both the poster and the person being referred “like” the recommendation, then they can start chatting with each other in the app. (You can also recommend people who aren’t already members of TheLadders, who are then asked to download the app.)
The fact that TheLadders built this specifically for mobile could also be key. I’m no great connector, but even I can think of times when I was at an after-work event, or having dinner with a friend, and a job opening came up. I’d think, “Oh man, I know someone who’d be perfect for this” — then I’d have to make a note to myself to follow-up once I was at a computer again, which sometimes happened, and sometimes didn’t. By focusing on mobile, TheLadders allows you to take action right away in those situations.
The company will also continue to offer the existing job search features in the app, which launched last year. Douzet said added that the majority of TheLadders’ mobile usage is on iOS, so that’s where the focus is right now, but he acknowledged, “When we see the usage really, taking off, we will have to address Android” by introducing the new referral features to the existing Android app.
The Job Market Guide, meanwhile, is supposed to launch in full next week, but the company is releasing a more limited, “sneak preview” version today. The idea is to aggregate all the data from TheLadders’ 7 million-plus registered users and give people access to up-to-date information about their chosen professions.
For example, I looked up the data for writers in New York City, bringing up a page that includes the average salary, the current level of competitiveness, and a list of the “best” cities for that career (which is determined by a combination of salary, competitiveness, and cost-of-living). You can also see the kinds of skills needed for jobs in that profession and set up email alerts for changes and listings.
Douzet said TheLadders’ guide is unique because the data reflects what users are saying now, not what was reported in a study months or years ago, and it’s attuned to local differences — not just in salaries but also in the skills that employers are looking for, which can vary from city to city. He also argued that users on TheLadders have an incentive to be honest about their salaries, because that helps them to find relevant jobs: “If they lie about their current compensation, they find out very quickly that it’s not going to be useful for them.”
Asked if the data is skewed towards those high-income jobs that TheLadders started with, Douzet said the ratio between jobs paying less than versus more than $100,000 a year is now two-to-one. That may not be a perfect representation of the American workforce, but the company says the size and breadth of its user base is enough to make the data meaningful.
As far as longer term career planning, Douzet said TheLadders doesn’t try to tell you what kind of job you might have a decade from now, because careers don’t always follow an obvious, linear path: “There’s no product you can build that can predict in 5, 10 years where they should go.” However, the job profiles link to profiles for related jobs, so if you’re writer looking to become an editor, you can get a sense of how much additional experiences and what new skills you need.
来源：TC
TC
2014年11月25日
TC
大学毕业生招聘平台Tyba 再获3100万美元融资
Tyba是一家致力于让科技创业公司这样的企业更加有效地招聘大学毕业生的“新人招聘市场”，该公司去年曾完成了由Sunstone Capital 领投的总额为1300万美元的一轮融资。如今他们再次融资3100万美元，投资的还是Sunstone Capital，还有一家新投资方加入——风险投资基金Impulse，隶属于全球第七大主权财富基金科威特投资局（Kuwaiti Investment Authority）。
Tyba 的理念在于用户在该平台上提供的大量职业信息可以让招聘者和求职者之间实现更加精确的匹配。目前，欧洲14个城市的500多家创业公司使用这一平台寻找大学毕业生候选员工，Tyba 希望这一数字能够增加到1000。
年轻一代的新求职者可以通过这个平台以普通的网络资料或简历之外的方式展示自我。接着招聘者可以根据“软技能”以及毕业生的兴趣进行信息的过滤。
其竞争对手包括Collegefeed，一家将众包和社交相结合的服务，在学生和其他学生以及潜在雇主之间建立联系。Collegefeed已获180万美元融资，投资者包括Accel Partners。另一家竞争对手Graduateland 则试图打造一个基于全球各大院校的大型招聘网络。
Tyba 的三位创始人埃索·康德（Eiso Kant），佐治·施努拉（Jorge Schnura）以及菲利普·冯（Philip von）于2011年在马德里创办了这家公司，目前已有28名员工。
Tyba– a “junior recruitment market” aimed at allowing companies like tech startups to more efficiently hire university and college graduates – last year raised $1.3 million in an investment round led by Sunstone Capital. It’s now raised another $3.1 million, once again from Sunstone Capital and a new investor, the VC fund Impulse, which is part of the Kuwaiti Investment Authority (KIA), the world’s seventh largest sovereign wealth fund.
Tyba’s idea is that the large amounts of professional information that users provide on the platform allows for a more accurate matching of hirers and prospects. Currently, over 500 startups in 14 different European cities use its platform to target graduate candidates and it hopes to increase that to 1,000.
New young recruits are offered the ability to showcase themselves beyond ordinary web profiles or their CV. Then recruiters filter the information around ‘soft-skills’ and the interests of the graduates.
Its competitors include Collegefeed, a service that combines crowdsourcing with social networking to connect students with each other and potential employers. Collegefeed has raised $1.8 million from investors including Accel Partners. Another, Graduateland, is trying to create a large recruitment network based on international universities.
Tyba founders Eiso Kant, Jorge Schnura and Philip von created the company in Madrid in 2011 and it now has 28 staff.
来源：TC
TC
2014年11月24日
TC
Salesforce第三财季营收与利润均超分析师预期，但当前财季业绩预期疲软
Salesforce今天发布了2015财年第三财季财报。财报显示，Salesforce当季实现营收13.83亿美元，不按照美国通用会计准则（non-GAAP）计算，合每股收益0.14美元；按照美国通用会计准则（GAAP）计算，Salesforce第三财季净亏损3892万美元，合每股亏损0.06美元。华尔街分析师此前预计Salesforce第三财季营收为13.71亿美元，合每股收益0.13美元。
第三财季，来自重复性订阅产品的收入在Salesforce总营收的占比达到了93%，与去年同期持平。对于任何一家SaaS（软件即服务）公司而言，订阅收入都是一项重要指标。
按照美国通用会计准则计算，Salesforce的亏损与去年同期相比大幅减少。2014财年第三财季，Salesforce亏损达到了1.24434亿美元，合每股亏损0.21美元。2015财年第三财季，Salesforce的总营收同比增长29%。
对于当前的第四财季，Salesforce预计公司营收在14.36亿美元到14.41亿美元之间，同比增长25%到26%。
此外，Salesforce预计公司营收增长速度在即将到来的2016财年会继续下滑。该公司预计，2016年财年营收介于64.5亿美元到65亿美元之间，比2015财年增长约20%到21%。
Salesforce的营收增长速度开始放缓并不足为奇。按照规律，每次营收数字太大，都会对同比带来更大的拖累。Salesforce预计全年20%到21%的营收增长速度好像也不能激起投资商的热情——毕竟，该公司股价在盘后交易中出现下跌——但是我认为这个数字并不太疲软。分析师此前预计2016财年Salesforce的营收增长幅度只有数百万美元。
截至2015财年第三财季末，Salesforce持有的现金及现金等价物为18.3亿美元。
这个季度，由于Dreamforce用户大会的举行，Salesforce一直忙着推出各种各样的新产品。其中一个重磅产品就是外界期待已久的分析产品“Wave”。除此之外，Salesforce还宣布他们正在扩大与微软的合作范围（双方合作始于今年春天），同时对移动应用开发项目（现称作Salesforce 1 Lightning）进行重大调整。Salesforce还对旗下核心CRM（客户关系管理）工具做了更新，增加了交互式实时客户服务功能。
Salesforce Slips On Weak Guidance, Despite Beating On Both Revenue And Profit In Its FQ3
In its fiscal 2015 third quarter, Salesforce reported revenue of $1.383 billion, non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.14, a GAAP net loss of $38.92 million, and a GAAP loss per share of $0.06. Analysts had expected $0.13 in adjusted profit on revenue of $1.371 billion.
The percentage of its revenue that came from recurring, subscription sources — a key metric for any SaaS business — totaled 93 percent for the firm, unchanged from the year-ago quarter.
The company’s GAAP losses were down steeply year-over-year, when the company lost $124.434 million, or $0.21 per share. For the period, Salesforce’s total revenue rose 29 percent compared to its year-ago quarter.
For its current fiscal fourth quarter, Salesforce expects revenue of $1.436 billion to $1.441 billion. Those figures would push the company’s revenue up between 25 and 26 percent on a year-over-year basis.
Salesforce expects its revenue growth to slip further in its rapidly-approaching fiscal 2016, during which it expects to generate top line of $6.45 billion to $6.50 billion, which according to the firm will represent growth of around 20 to 21 percent compared to the preceding fiscal year.
That Salesforce is seeing slowing percentage growth is not surprising. The law of large numbers drags harder every time you increase your revenue compared to a prior-year quarter. Salesforce’s predicted full-year 20 to 21 percent growth doesn’t appear to have greatly enthused investors — its shares are off after-hours, after all — but I don’t think that the number is too soft either. Analysts had expected a few hundred million more for its fiscal 2016.
The company had cash and equivalents of $1.83 billion at the end of its fiscal third quarter.
Salesforce has been extremely busy this quarter making a flurry of announcements around their mega Dreamforce user conference. The big news was the long awaited analytics product called Wave. In addition, Salesforce announced that they were extending the partnership with Microsoft announced last Spring and there was a major overhaul and rebranding of the mobile app development program, which is now called Salesforce 1 Lightning. They also gave their core CRM tool a refresh and added an interactive live customer service feature.
来源：TC
TC
2014年11月21日
TC
帮助小型企业组团采购的创业公司OrderWithMe 获2800万美元投资
位于拉斯维加斯的创业公司OrderWithMe为小型企业搭建了一个组团合作、像大公司一样寻找物资和元件，然后并完成订购、付款的平台——该公司又获得了2800万美元的融资。
该公司表示将会利用这笔资金把业务推广到新的垂直领域中——据称已经“有多家行业合作伙伴排队等候”——并在该公司提供的服务链中增加一项新产品。首席执行官乔纳森·詹金斯（Jonathan Jenkins）称，OrderWithMe 正在计划“帮助OrderWithMe 的零售商在实体商店中实现全新的消费体验。”
最近一轮融资由Vegas Tech Fund，SOSVentures，BaseVC 以及谢家华（Tony Hsieh，Zappos创始人）领投；Silicon Valley Bank，Pentland Group，Advantage Capital以及其他一些投资者也参与了投资。
OrderWithMe 目前专注于聚合中小企业，帮助他们在八个垂直领域寻找供应商——包括自行车车行、面包店、儿童商店、图文照片印刷、管道施工等等。该公司没有透露加入其网络的企业数量，不过他们指出这些企业每年采购量总计超过32亿美元。新的垂直领域将会在未来几个月内公布。
其中的思路在于，假如说亚马逊、PayPal、eBay 及阿里巴巴这样的电子商务公司，以及百思买这样的大型连锁零售店已经在大规模经济的基础上打下了一片天地，相同原理的大规模采购也能够帮助小型企业在供应商那里争取到更好的采购合同。对于供应商来说，尤其是不在中国的供应商——OrderWithMe 最初就是在中国成立——想要和其中一些小型企业建立关系并不容易。
该公司于2011年（当时还在中国）获得了TC Disrupt Battlefield 北京站的冠军。2013年，也许是为了更接近小型企业零售商的所在地，该公司搬到了美国——具体说来，是内华达州的拉斯维加斯。随后该公司宣布从拉斯维加斯改造计划的倡导者谢家华、Vegas Tech Fund 等几家投资方那里获得了600万美元的投资。
软件及云服务的大范围发展为中小企业带来了能与大型企业匹配的业务运作方式。OrderWithMe 正是把这一点带到了供应链管理及相关领域中。
“OrderWithMe 在成立的头三年里调研了整个库存采购及管理流程中的痛点，建立了有助于简化这一流程的技术，”詹金斯在声明中这样说道，“现在我们有了一套完整的解决方案，能够帮助小型企业管理库存采购的整个流程，从电子采购订单一直到发票以及付款。”
“OrderWithMe 面临着绝佳的机会，以其供应商和采购商的大规模网络成为B2B 支付领域的真正搅局者，”他在声明中说道，“独树一帜的商业模式可以让我们快速扩大规模，因为我们支持独立零售商组团通过统一账户与供应商洽谈。这样零售商就能通过我们完成所有的库存采购工作，并且降低成本，改善自身的现金流。”
原文：OrderWithMe Raises Another $28M To Help Small Businesses Procure Like Big Ones
OrderWithMe, a startup based out of Las Vegas that has built a platform for small businesses to come together to effectively act like big ones to source, order and pay for supplies and components – has raised another $28 million in funding.
The company says the money will be used to build out its operations to new verticals — it has “multiple industry partners lined up” for this already, it says — as well as a new product to add to the chain of services already provided by the startup. OrderWithMe, says CEO Jonathan Jenkins, is planning “to help OrderWithMe’s retailers bring a new consumer experience into brick-and-mortar stores.”
We are reaching out to the company to get more details on the new product.
This latest round of funding was led by the Vegas Tech Fund, SOSVentures, BaseVC and Tony Hsieh; Silicon Valley Bank, Pentland Group, Advantage Capital and several others also participated. To date the company has raised $37 million.
OrderWithMe currently focuses on bringing together businesses with suppliers for eight different verticals that include bike shops, bakeries, children’s stores, photo & printing and plumbing. It doesn’t say how many businesses are a part of its network, but notes that collectively they total more than $3.2 billion in annual purchasing volume. The new verticals will be made public in the next few months.
The thinking here is that if e-commerce companies like Amazon, PayPal, eBay and Alibaba, as well as large brick and mortar chains like Best Buy, have built their businesses out on economies of scale, the same principles of sourcing could help smaller businesses get better deals with suppliers, too. And for the suppliers, especially those based out of China, where OrderWithMe was first founded, trying to connect with some of those smaller businesses is not always that easy.
The company, when still based out of China, was the winner of the TC Disrupt Battlefield in Beijing in 2011. In 2013, perhaps to be closer to the market where its small business retailers are located, it relocated to the U.S. — specifically, Las Vegas, NV. It subsequently announced a $6 million round from Las Vegas regeneration cheerleader Hsieh and the Vegas Tech Fund, among several others.
The company taps into a bigger trend of using the Internet and technology in general to help start and build small businesses (a spirit that is played out in the tech world of startups, which are all, effectively, SMBs in their early days). This has seen the development of a whole range of software, and cloud-based services that bring SMBs on par with how large enterprises do business. OrderWithMe is bringing that to the area of supply chain management and related services.
“OrderWithMe’s first three years were spent identifying the pain points across the entire inventory purchasing and management process and building the technology to help streamline this process,” said Jenkins in a statement. “Now we have a full solution that helps small businesses manage their inventory purchases all the way from electronic purchase orders to invoices and payments.”
Part of that effort has also been helped by way of a key hire, William Reid, who had previously been director of innovation for PayPal. He now runs the startup’s payments business.
“OrderWithMe has a huge opportunity to truly disrupt B2B payments with its vast network of suppliers and buyers,” he said in a statement. “The unique business model allows us to scale quickly as we support groups of independent retailers to act as one big account to our suppliers. This provides retailers the ability to make all of their inventory purchases through us while lowering their costs and improving their cash flow.”
英文文章来源：TC
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