Get ready for some serious cloud wars.

The “real” battle for the cloud will be fought in 2016, at least according to Box’s Aaron Levie. Over the past decade, Amazon has led the way and cropped prices 44x to pre-empt competition, but it won’t be a winner takes all situation: The battle on price will ramp up to one in services between Microsoft, Amazon, Google, IBM, Oracle and possibly even Facebook.

“All human systems are gamed…”

Says Ryan Shmeizer of Spark Capital, who attempts to sort out the logic behind the “infuriating” H-1B Visa Program (the system designed to bring foreign professionals to fill jobs for which qualified Americans cannot be found). Presumably, Shmeizer says, the well-intentioned folks who drafted the H-1B visa legislation did not envision it being abused by crafty outsourcing firms – but it’s clear legislatures now need to devise a better solution.

What does it take to on-board your board?

As venture has moved into servicing startups with talent, marketing and operations, so too have boards gotten much more involved with the day-to-day experience of their startups. Fred Wilson has a few pieces of advice for companies as they bring on new board members.

Interactive data visualizations on the Unicorn Leaderboard

This quarter has already seen 8 new unicorn companies. In 2015, CrunchBase recorded 77 new unicorns, an average of 19 per quarter. Check out the latest investors and companies on our interactive timeline visualization.

Recent Activity on CrunchBase

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Funding Rounds Added

123

Acquisitions Recorded

$6.5B

Fundings
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Recent Investments

ApniCure

$16M / Venture

ApniCure is a medical device company that makes the Winx sleep therapy system. The company previously raised funding from KPCB, Capricorn Investment Group, and U.S. Venture Partners.

Categories:

Redwood City

Founders:

Matt Vaska, Chris Daniel, Jonathan Podmore, Jed Crowe

Elliptic

$5.0M / Series A

Elliptic uses graph analysis and machine learning to identify illicit activity in blockchain transactions. The company’s technology has been used to provide law enforcement with evidence on crimes involving international arms trafficking, drug sales, and money laundering.

Categories:

London GBR · Virtual Currency · Finance · Bitcoin

Founders:

Tom Robinson, James Smith, Adam Joyce

Investors:

Digital Currency Group, Octopus Ventures, Bank of England, + 3 more

ServisHero

$2.7M / Seed

ServisHero provides local services on-demand via a mobile app that include fitness, home cleaning, and driving services. The Malaysia-based company has reportedly received over 50K downloads to date with 3K service providers on its platform.

Categories:

Kuala Lumpor MYS · Apps · Software · Mobile

Founders:

Karl Loo, Paul Copplestone, Adam Burmister

Investors:

Golden Gate Ventures (Lead), Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd

More Investments
Company Amount / Round Lead Investor
Mattermark $7.3M / Series B Foundry Group
Qumram 2.4M CHF / Venture
Tinkergarten $1.6M / Seed Omidyar Network
oneEvent Technologies $700K / Debt Financing
Blurrt 500K GBP / Venture
Ensygnia 500K EUR / Series A Gate Ventures Plc
Molbase unknown / Series C Sequoia Capital China, TBP Capital
All Recent Funding Activity

Recent Acquisitions

DRIP

Acquired by Kickstarter

Delivery.com Hong Kong

Acquired by Foodpanda

More Acquisitions
Company Acquired by Amount
Welkio WeWork
StageBloc Fullscreen
The Valspar Corporation Sherwin-Williams $11B
All Recent Acquisition Activity
 

Upcoming Tech Events

Boston Startup Job Fair Spring 2016

April 5, 2016 12:30pm in Cambridge

The Boston Startup Job Fair connects talented job seekers with the region's hottest startups.
More Events
Start Date Event Location
Apr 5, 2016 University Startups & Global 1000 Conference Washington
Apr 5, 2016 Digital Summit Los Angeles 2016 Los Angeles
Apr 7, 2016 Deep Learning in Healthcare Summit, London 2016 London
More Upcoming Events
Accelerator Deadlines
Date Accelerator Location
Mar 18, 2016 Blue Startups Honolulu
Mar 29, 2016 Summer@Highland Boston
Apr 1, 2016 Cleantech Open Northeast Boston
More Upcoming Deadlines

Don’t see your event? Reach out to us at events@crunchbase.com.

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