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This week's news in context

Hyperloop And The Battle Of The Billionaires

Elon Musk, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur behind Paypal, Tesla Motors and SpaceX is not the only billionaire competing to create a hyperloop, a magnetically-propelled high-speed intercity transport system that can achieve speeds of up to 1200 km/h. On October 12 British billionaire Sir Richard Branson announced that his company will be investing in what will now be called Virgin Hyperloop One, a project he described as "an incredibly innovative and exciting new way to move people and things at airline speeds on the ground." But Musk and Branson don't have the field to themselves: competitor Hyperloop Transportation Systems, which was cofounded by German entrepreneur Dick Ahlborn, announced Oct. 17 that global insurer Munich Re have carried out a comprehensive risk analysis of its technology and declared it feasible and insurable. That company sais it plans to begin construction of its own high speed hyperloop in Toulouse in February, with trials envisioned within six months.

Spain's Largest Companies Embrace Blockchain

Alastria, a consortium composed of some of Spain's largest companies, is developing a national blockchain-based ledger with help from the nation's government and universities. The plan is to start by establishing a digital ID for Spanish citizens and then use the blockchain as a system of record for data exchange among large corporations. Founding members include energy companies Repsol and Gas Natural Fenosa as well as Banco Santander, Banco Sabadelli, BBVA and BME, the organization that oversees the Spanish stock exchanges.

Toronto: The First City Built From The Internet Up?

Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google's parent company, has won a bid to transform a huge and prime stretch of land in Toronto that amounts to one of the best opportunities in North America for an Internet company to showcase how it would rethink at scale how housing, streets and infrastructure are built. The proposal includes a thermal energy grid that would be carbon neutral, sensors that separate waste from recycling, modular buildings that convert from retail to housing, monitors that track noise and pollution, self-driving transit shuttles, shared-ride taxibots, adaptive traffic lights, delivery robots, heated bike paths and sidewalks that melt snow on their own.

Quote of the week

"It wouldn't surprise me if the sun is setting on the golden age of Silicon Valley. The companies used to be fun and interesting and benevolent and were largely viewed that way but now we are concerned that they are disrupting our elections and hoarding our personal information and using it for profit. I think the tide, the populism that helped get Trump elected, may be turning against the concentration of wealth that is happening in Silicon Valley."

Bill Maris, who founded the venture-capital arm of Alphabet, Google's parent company, and now runs venture fund Section 32, speaking at a Wall Street Journal conference.

Up To $1 billion

By the numbers

Amount reportedly raised by Fair.com, an all-digital flexible lease car marketplace co-founded by auto industry veterans.

The company said October 20 that it has raised a strategic round of funding from BMW's iVentures, Penske Automotive Group and Mercedes Benz, among other investors as well as debt funding of up to $1 billion from a group of investment banks. The startup is addressing changing demand requirements for car ownership by offering a leasing program with unfixed terms.

STARTUP OF THE WEEK

Make My Day, a B2B Israeli startup that won a 2016 Ford Challenge Berlin startup competition, seeks to make accomplishing daily errands more efficient and cost-effective. Its personal assistant determines the optimal route for multiple errands based on each business's distance from the user and other businesses, queue length, working hours, parking, and traffic conditions. It also generates estimates on how long each task should take and the total time required for all of the errands.
Make My Day's offering is an example of the type of hassle-free, time-saving mobility-as-a-service offerings experts say consumers will increasingly expect to access from their vehicles, whether they are owned or rented or driven by humans or are autonomous.

The Interview

Dominik Schiener

Who: Italian entrepreneur Dominik Schiener, a co-founder of the IOTA Foundation, a Germany-based organization that is developing and standardizing new distributed ledger protocols to make it easy for anyone to build production-ready applications.

Topic: How the IOTA Foundation aims to help big corporates use blockchain technology to create new business models and new revenue streams.

Quote: "We have to look beyond the hype and understand the potential and most importantly, the limitations of the technology. Many of the use cases that are being proposed today don't need a blockchain and are better off without it. There is tremendous potential, but the only way to start benefiting from this technology is by co-creating and co-learning."

Read full interview

DLD Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 26-27 October, 2017
Web Summit, Lisbon, Portugal, 6-9 November, 2017
Slush, Helsinki, Finland, 30 November - 1 December, 2017

What to read this week

The World's First Floating Wind Farm | Quartz

Why We Still Can't Rely On Genomic Medicine | Techonomy

Europe's Fintech Boom | CB Insights

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