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Bloomberg.com •

Shopify Nips at Amazon With Hassle-Free Shipping for Small Firm

Same-day shipping is becoming the norm for online shoppers but for smaller merchants it can be a logistical nightmare. That’s where Shopify Inc. can step in, says Ric Kostick, chief executive officer of 100% PURE.

The natural skincare company ships up to 5,000 orders a day from its own warehouse in San Jose, California. That works fine for customers on the West Coast but it can take up to a week to get its bamboo blur powder and coconut shower gel to the rest of the U.S. The company contemplated setting up an East Coast warehouse but the prospect was technically daunting.
Bloomberg.com •

Shopify Is Setting Up Fulfillment Network in U.S., Just Like Amazon

Shopify Inc. plans to spend $1 billion to set up a network of fulfillment centers in the U.S. to help merchants using its e-commerce platform deliver products more quickly and cheaply, much the way Amazon.com Inc. does.

“A large number of orders are lost in the final stages due to complex shipping costs,” Craig Miller, Shopify’s chief product officer, said at the company’s annual developer conference in Toronto. The service will use machine learning to predict demand and suggest closest fulfill
The Dales Report •

The Event That Changed Esports Globally

As a former venture capitalist, Adam Adamou likes to stay ahead of the curve, with eyes on the next big investment opportunity before it becomes an obvious one. It is not surprising then that he chose professional competitive gaming, or esports, for his next move.

Adamou, co-founder and head of strategy for esports and gaming company, OverActive Media Group Inc, says he had been tracking esports since the mid-1990s. But he did not see any substantial opportunities in the field for anyone other
Bloomberg.com •

Sidewalk Labs Plans $980 Million Investment In Toronto Hub

Sidewalk Labs LLC., the urban innovation unit of Alphabet Inc., is proposing to team up with local partners to invest C$1.3 billion ($980 million) to get its vision for a high-tech city in Toronto off the ground.

Part of that would be a C$900 million equity investment to finance the C$3.9 billion development of a five-hectare neighborhood on Lake Ontario that will include tall-timber housing, adjustable curbs and heated bike lanes. It will also include the Canadian headquarters for sister compa
Bloomberg.com •

Shopify Is Now More Valuable Than Two of Canada’s Oldest Companies

Canada’s Shopify Inc., an e-commerce company that went public four years ago, is now more valuable than Manulife Financial Corp. and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce -- two financial institutions that have been around for more than a century.

Shopify eclipsed the financial heavyweights in market value on Wednesday after announcing plans to spend $1 billion setting up a network of fulfillment centers in the U.S. and upgrades to its tools merchants use to sell products.

Shopify traded at C$438
Bloomberg •

Prop-Tech Unicorn VTS Expands into Toronto With Engineering Hub

VTS Inc, a U.S. property-tech unicorn, is expanding its Canadian operations with an engineering hub in Toronto.

The New York-based company plans to hire at least 50 staff by the end of 2020, taking advantage of the city’s deep pool of engineering talent and strong commercial real-estate customer base, according to Nick Romito, founder and chief executive officer of VTS. The company may also expand to Vancouver and Montreal.
Bloomberg.com •

Shopify’s Success Puts Spotlight on Next Canadian Tech Stars

Shopify Inc.’s scorching rally and Lightspeed POS Inc.’s successful trading debut this year are throwing the spotlight on who might be the next Canadian tech star to go public.

A total of C$1 billion ($751 million) was invested in 142 venture capital deals in the first quarter, up 48% from a year earlier, according to the Canadian Venture & Private Equity Association. More than half of that was in tech and increasingly from U.S. investors.
Bloomberg.com •

Shopify Boosts Outlook on New Online Offerings

Shopify Inc. shares notched another record after the Canadian e-commerce company reported second-quarter sales that beat analysts’ average estimate and gave a more optimistic full-year outlook.

Revenue grew 48% to $362 million, according to a company statement Thursday. Analysts were projecting $350.5 million. Shopify raised its 2019 revenue guidance to a range of $1.51 billion to $1.53 billion but kept its outlook for adjusted operating income of $20 million to $30 million unchanged.
Business-Standard •

Troubles galore for Housing.com

Troubles for real-estate start-up Housing.com do not seem to come to an end. Having been embroiled in controversy for the past one month, after then Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Rahul Yadav’s particularly bitter and unprofessional e-mail to Sequoia Capital India Managing Director Shailendra Singh became public on question and answer website, Quora, it is in news again, this time for a much publicised resignation.

Rahul Yadav has quit the company as CEO. He questioned the intellectual capabilit
Business-Standard •

What's with Apple and China?

While Tim Cook woos Chinese users by joining Sina Weibo, we look at the interesting relationship between the tech giant and China.

Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook is latest to feature on the list of people joining the Chinese social media network, Sina Weibo.

On a visit to the land of the red dragon for the sixth time since he took over as CEO of the luxury smartphone maker, he managed garnering 300,000 followers within 3.5 hours of joining, reported TIME.
Business-Standard •

Now, Google will 'find my phone' if I lose it

It’s a common habit among people to keep their phone somewhere and forget where they did; all of us do that and kick ourselves for being forgetful, till we get our phones back. And that is understandable, considering how important smartphones have become for us — think of the surge in average time we now spend glued to our handsets every day.

In what looks like a very useful tool for such ‘forgetful’ people, and another addition to its ways of making life easier for users, Google has launched a