Ubisense down 13%

Ubisense (LON:UBI) fell 13.12% this morning after a trading update announced that revenue for the first half of 2015 will be below that of 2014. The company cite the previously announced loss of two major contracts, and further delays in the completion of other contracts due to be signed this year. Ubisense is a market leader in enterprise location intelligence solutions, helping manufacturing, communications and utility companies improve operational efficiency and boost profitability.

Phorm Corp up 23% after showing strong growth

Technology company Phorm Corp (AIM:PHRM) is one of the biggest movers on the AIM this morning after announcing an unaudited operational and financial update showing further strong growth in the group’s revenues and key performance indicators. The company was up 23.54% in early hours of trading. Their average daily unique users have risen over 50%, from 12.5m in 2014 to 35.5m this year. Similarly, their revenue has increased exponentially, from £2m in 2014 to £29m this year. Phorm is a global personalisation technology company that makes content and advertising more relevant to the consumer. Phorm’s innovative platform preserves user privacy and delivers a more interesting online experience.

Markets subdued before Greek referendum

European equity markets remained subdued ahead of this weekend’s Greek referendum. Investors will be glued to polls in the run up to the vote, the results of which have been mixed and too close to call. A poll conducted by Bloomberg had 42.5% voting yes against 43% voting no. Many see the referendum as a vote on Greece’s Eurozone membership despite comments by Greek PM Tsipras who says a no vote would only better Greece’s position in talks with the Troika. Markets are suffering Greek crisis fatigue and are dead flat in early trading. However, the tranquil movements of today’s trade do not reflect the uncertainty surrounding Sunday’s vote and a no vote could kick-start a period of severe volatility. Given the backdrop of Eurozone QE some see any weakness as a buying opportunity. “We would see any Greek related crash as a buying opportunity” said Dafydd Davies, partner at Charles Hanover Investments. Not only are the stakes high for financial markets, the key political players have also put themselves on the line. Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis said he will resign if there is a yes vote. Tsipras and his government are campaigning for a no vote and an end to austerity imposed on the Greek people

Fertility product latest to crowdfund on SyndicateRoom

A fertility product that claims to be 99% accurate is the latest project to seek investment via crowd-funding platform SyndicateRoom. Fertility Focus are aiming to raise £275,000 in return for 6.32% equity in the business. Their product, Ovusense, is a real-time ovulation monitor that is able to predict the onset of ovulation a day in advance, and confirm the exact date of ovulation; th eonly product on the market able to do this. The Company has a small but extremely rounded team with expertise in consumer digital marketing, high volume medical devices, women’s health and intellectual property development. The CEO Robert Milnes has a sales and marketing background, as well as years in the industry financing and developing healthcare products. Chairman Steve Godber was the lead investor in last round of funding, and has 25 years of healthcare experience; others in the team include a dedicated commercial manager and nurse consultant, ensuring that all areas of the company are covered. CEO Robert Milnes said: “We’re delighted to be helping couples that have sometimes struggled with infertility for years to become pregnant. Our next generation product will open that opportunity to an even wider audience.”  

Got Bitcoin to spare? Try Assassination Market

Despite recent attempts to change its image, Bitcoin has long been associated with the black market; think drugs, sex and Silk Road, the now defunct online illegal marketplace. However, it seems the dark side of web has got even darker; Bitcoin can now be used to put a price on the head of your enemies. Enter Assassination Market, an online platform that allows anyone to anonymously contribute bitcoins towards a bounty on the head of any government official. If crowdfunding an arts project seems a little tame, this might be the sort of thing you’re looking for. Created in 2013, the website was first publicised when its creator anonymously contacted a journalist at Forbes magazine, using the pseudonym Kuwabatake Sanjuro. The concept is simple; people contribute money to a name on the list – which currently includes Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke and the Prime Minister of Finland – and predict when they will die. The person with the correct prediction presumably committed the act, so can then claim the money. Whilst the site is innovative – and alarming – enough, the idea behind it is even more disturbing. Its creator hopes that, eventually, so many government officials will be assassinated through this service that no one will want to step up to the job – and voi la! The abolishment of the establishment is complete. In an interview with Forbes, he admitted that he intends Assassination Market to destroy “all governments, everywhere.” “I believe it will change the world for the better,” wrote Sanjuro. ”Thanks to this system, a world without wars, dragnet panopticon-style surveillance, nuclear weapons, armies, repression, money manipulation, and limits to trade is firmly within our grasp for but a few bitcoins per person. I also believe that as soon as a few politicians gets offed and they realize they’ve lost the war on privacy, the killings can stop and we can transition to a phase of peace, privacy and laissez-faire.” Bitcoin is the first well-known cryptocurrency, a type of decentralised digital currency that can be sent and received anonymously – making it perfect for the black market. Sanjuro chose to accept only Bitcoins to protect not only himself from being identified by the financial transactions, but his users and any potential assassins as well. However, it appears that Sanjuro’s project may have started at the wrong time; the government have begun cracking down on online black markets, seizing Silk Road just months before Assassination Market went live. Forbes contacted the FBI and Secret Service for the piece, but both declined to comment. Miranda Wadham      

Mobile payments app Cake nears overfunding on Crowdcube

Cake is a free mobile payment app that taps into restaurants and bars electronic Point of Sale (ePOS) system allowing customers to pay without leaving their seats. Cake’s founder have set about alleviating the hassle of paying the bill at the end of dinner or waiting to settle up a tab by enabling patrons to pay via a few taps on their smartphones. The app will also allow users to easily split bills and view changes to the bill in real time. The venture is backed by senior executives of successful eating-out apps toptable.com and Opentable. Founder of toptable.com Karen Hanton MBE, is both an investor and key advisor. Cake has enjoyed early successes by bringing 20 venues, including the Rum Kitchen and Goat, on board. Cake aims to recruit a total of 500 venues within two years. This is an ambitious target and one would look towards the struggles payment service Monitise (LON:MONI) have endured as a reason to be cautious. However, Cake has said that it is maintaining 20% week-on-week revenue growth and will use funds to increase marketing and improve the app. Cake entered the round of crowdfunding with no existing debt or equity investment and hopes that overfunding on Crowdcube will suffice through 2016, by which time revenues should be enough to support development. Cake are offering 7.06% equity for the £800,000 target, valuing the company at £11.33 million. If financial forecasts are achieved, Cake will have a Price/Earnings Ratio of 5.12 in 2018, if there is no further dilution. Such a valuation will leave plenty of upside for investors in a trade sale or IPO. The deal struck by Paypal and Xoom today highlights the potential.

BP up 2.8% after reaching agreement over oil spill

BP have reached an agreement with states and the U.S. in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill case, five years after the accident. BP has agreed to pay $18.7 billion over 18 years to settle all federal and state claims arising from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The states sued BP under a federal law, known as the Oil Pollution Act, that holds polluters liable for municipal losses caused by oil spills “Five years ago we committed to restore the Gulf economy and environment and we have worked ever since to deliver on that promise,” said BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg. “We have made significant progress, and with this agreement we provide a path to closure for BP and the Gulf. It resolves the company’s largest remaining legal exposures, provides clarity on costs and creates certainty of payment for all parties involved,” he added. BP shares rose 2.8% in early afternoon trading.

Paypal to acquire Xoom

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Paypal is in the process of acquiring money transfer company Xoom for $890 million, it was announced yesterday. PayPal is paying $25 per share for Xoom, representing a 32% premium above its average price over the past three months. San Francisco-based Xoom, founded in 2001, allows people send money, pay bills and reload mobile phones from the United States to 37 countries. It is used widely by immigrants who send some of their earnings to family members back home. “Today, this primarily cash-based system of sending money abroad can be time-consuming, insecure and expensive,” wrote in-coming PayPal CEO Dan Schulman in a blog post. “There is no more personal payment experience than sending your hard-earned money home to help the people you love. Making international remittances simpler, safer and more affordable is something PayPal is excited to do for our customers.” The move comes less than three weeks before its scheduled split with parent company, eBay. Paypal’s revenue is growing at 19% a year, which is twice as quickly as eBay’s. It will start trading as an independent company on the 20th July.  

Nonfarm payrolls increase to 223,000

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Nonfarm payrolls increased 223,000, according to data released by the US Labor Department today. This was a lower number than the 233,000 expected by analysts. Unemployment rate fell two-tenths of a percentage point to 5.3 percent, the lowest since April 2008, due to 432,000 people dropping out of the labour force. The participation rate fell to 62.2%, after reaching a four month high of 62.9% in May. The markets have remained relatively steady, and in the light of the new figures the Fed are unlikely to hike rates any sooner than before the release.

De Correspondent shows value of crowdfunding

Early crowdfunding success story, De Correspondent, shows the incredible power that crowdfunding has to turn dreams into long-term reality – based purely on trust. In 2013, De Correspondent asked for over £1 million to fund an online news publication. The project was something of a journalistic surprise – the site didn’t even exist yet -and even the founder, Rob Wijnberg, thought his chances of success were 50/50. However, the project smashed expectations and reached a new journalistic world record; within 24 hours it had raised half its goal, and after eight days, Wijnberg got an earlier than expected go-ahead. 15,000 had subscribed, and many had added donations on top of their subscription fee of 60 euros. In just over a week, in a small country, the Dutch crowdfunding project De Correspondent had raised over €1 million (about $1.3 million). Wijnberg, the project’s leader, had just quit his job at Dutch media giant NRC; he was more focused on an investigative, behind-the-news approach than the paper was going for, and was forced to leave. However, this became something of a blessing in disguise when the idea for De Correspondent was born. In short, it is a Dutch-based, ad free, online journalism platform. The main articles are translated into both English and French, and are not based on the news; they are the kinds of stories that tend to escape the radar of mainstream media and delve more in investigative journalism. They are author, rather than beat centered. The paper’s website decribes it as: “Daily, but beyond the issues of the day. From news to new. No political ideology, but journalistic ideals. Themes and interconnections. Journalism over revenues. From readers to participants. No advertisers, but partners. No target groups, but kindred spirits. Ambitious in ideals, modest about wisdom. Fully digital.” “De Correspondent will publish fresh stories on a daily basis, but it aims to uncover, explain and highlight deep-lying structures and long-term developments that powerfully shape our world, rather than reporting on the latest hype, scare, or breaking news story.” Wijnberg himself explained: “I want the correspondents to make their choices explicit — what do they think is important, and why should readers care about it? You do that by making clear that you’re not following an objective news agenda, but a subjective journey through the world.” Famous journalists on board with the project include a former leader of the Dutch GreenLeft party, a well-known novelist, a Guardian journalist and several journalists who make regular TV appearances. The project sparked a few spoofs; including several online websites that mimicked De Correspondent and said that the site was an April Fool’s Day joke. One even said it was a social experiment, to see how much money could be raised on a promise. However, the Dutch are an idealistic bunch – it appears that a million euros is the figure that can be raised on trust alone. Not such a joke, as it turns out. We are now around two years on, and De Correspondent an editorial staff of fourteen full-time contributing, assistant, and photo/graphic editors; a network of twenty-two contributing correspondents; a subscriber base of 31,000 and counting; and a physical home in a former galery in the east of Amsterdam. Two years ago, this project was nothing but a dream – just a few ideas written down on a crowdfunding page, and sent out into the etha. But, such is the surprising power of the internet, thousands of surprisingly generous people helped make the dream a reality; making crowdfunding one of the most powerful business tools around.   Miranda Wadham