Digital Hub Development Agency welcomes eight new companies to The Digital Hub
A digest of the top business technology news stories from the past week, beginning with the news that eight new companies have joined the Digital Hub enterprise cluster in Dublin.
Digital Hub Development Agency welcomes eight new companies to The Digital Hub
Eight new companies have joined the Digital Hub enterprise cluster in Dublin and are expected to create 30 new jobs by the end of 2014.
The eight companies have been part of the Digital Hub since the beginning of this year and join more than 70 digital companies already operating at the hub.
The eight new companies joining The Digital Hub include online ticketing service Eventbrite; registry business Starting Dot; taxi application e-Cab; event collaboration solutions provider Scaboodle; school administration platform VSWare; cloud firm KeyedIn Solutions; software company SoftPotential; and multimedia group Telic Studios Limited.
LinkedIn seeks larger Dublin office space for international HQ – report
Business social network LinkedIn is said to be seeking larger office space to accommodate its expanding international headquarters in Dublin.
Investment agency IDA Ireland is working with LinkedIn on a plan to lease up to 15,000 sq m (160,000 sq ft) in the Irish capital, The Irish Examiner reported, citing two people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified as the matter is private.
The company currently employs more than 450 people at offices on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay in Dublin. That number is more than LinkedIn had been targeting for this stage in its business in the city.
Stripe’s Patrick Collison named partner at Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator
Limerick native Patrick Collison, CEO of e-payments company Stripe, has been selected to join prestigious accelerator Y Combinator as a partner.
Y Combinator, named by Forbes magazine as the world’s top accelerator and incubator, has funded more than 500 companies in 30 markets.
This past week, Sam Altman, Y Combinator’s president, named four new partners to the company, including Collison, Elizabeth Iorns, CEO of Science Exchange; Yuri Sagalov, CEO of AeroFS; and Kat Manalac, outreach director of Y Combinator.
Google beats Facebook’s offer to acquire drone-maker Titan Aerospace
Internet search giant Google has acquired US company Titan Aerospace for an undisclosed sum, despite reports social network Facebook was close to a deal with the solar-powered drone-maker.
Google plans to use these aircraft to transmit internet signals to areas with no pylons or telephone lines. In this endeavour, Titan’s unmanned aerial vehicles could link up with Project Loon, Google’s scheme involving solar-powered internet-transmitting balloons.
Facebook was also interested in buying Titan Aerospace to bring internet connectivity to remote areas of the world and was in talks with the company earlier this year. The Wall Street Journal claims Google offered to top any offer from Facebook, which reportedly put US$60m on the table.
Twitter buys social data provider Gnip
Social network Twitter has acquired social data provider and longtime partner Gnip for an undisclosed sum to provide businesses and developers with “more sophisticated data sets and better data enrichments”.
Gnip has been a Twitter partner for four years. Gnip collects tweets (messages posted on Twitter), compiles them into data sets, and provides them to companies and organisations that use the data for research or to tailor advertising, for example.
Jana Messerschmidt, Twitter VP, Global Business Development & Platform, wrote on Twitter’s blog that Twitter will continue making its data available to Gnip’s growing customer base. “With the help of Gnip’s Boulder-based team, we will be extending our data platform – through Gnip and our existing public APIs – even further.”
Mozilla appoints CMO Chris Beard as interim CEO
Mozilla’s chief marketing officer Chris Beard has been named interim CEO of the company after previous CEO Brendan Eich resigned over criticism from equal rights groups over anti-gay marriage bill donations.
In a company blog post, Mitchell Baker, Mozilla’s executive chairwoman, wrote that Beard “has one of the clearest visions of how to take the Mozilla mission and turn it into programs and activities and product ideas that I have ever seen.”
Some of Mozilla’s own employees refused to work under Eich as CEO after it became apparent he had donated US$1,000 towards an anti-gay marriage bill in California in 2008.
Financial results this week
Five high-profile tech companies are among those scheduled to release their financial results this week. Streaming service Netflix is to reveal its results on 21 April, consumer tech giant Apple and social network Facebook are to release their results on 23 April, and software company Microsoft and e-commerce giant Amazon are to unveil their results on 24 April.
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