GigaOM » Frankfurt Motor Show

Ustream Eyes Asia With Major Funding Round

Ryan Lawler — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:00:31 +0000

Ustream has nabbed a major strategic investment by Japan’s Softbank that could be worth $75 million over the next 18 months. With the new funding, Ustream will look to expand in Japan, China, Korea, and India, opening offices and hiring employees to tap dramatic mobile phone usage in those countries.

Japanese mobile phone and Internet operator Softbank made an initial investment of $20 million in Ustream, with the option to acquire additional shares by July 2011 that could bring its total investment in the live and mobile streaming startup to $75 million. With its initial investment, Softbank currently owns 13.7 percent of Ustream, valuing the company at around $150 million. If Softbank chooses to exercise its warrants, the additional $55 million investment would make it the company’s top shareholder.

Ustream specializes in live and mobile video streaming, so an investment by a mobile operator makes sense. And expanding into Asia presents a huge opportunity for Ustream. Although the startup had 50 million unique users in January, China alone has more than 700 million mobile subscribers, according to Bloomberg.

Ustream has built live streaming applications for a number of mobile devices, including Apple’s iPhone and Google Android mobile phones. The startup also has built a fairly lucrative live streaming business that’s been used for a number of live events, including the red carpet premieres of Avatar and The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Ustream also recently introduced a pay-per-view service that will allow its customers to begin charging users to view streams of live events.

Ustream had previously raised about $13 million, including $11.1 million in Series A funding from Doll Capital Management and Band of Angels, as well as an additional $2 million it picked up last summer.

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PHOTOS: The Best Electric & Hybrid Cars From the Frankfurt Motor Show

Josie Garthwaite — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:00:10 +0000

For a cross section of the electric and hybrid vehicles that automakers have either in the pipeline for production or on deck for conceptual development in the next few years, you can’t beat Frankfurt, Germany this week. From Hyundai’s first ever plug-in hybrid concept (a potential Chevy Volt challenger) to the Department of Energy-backed Model S sedan in the works from Tesla Motors, the Frankfurt Motor Show has brought us images of a future electric and hybrid auto industry like never before. Here are some of our favorites from the event.

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Message from Frankfurt: Hydrogen's Out, EVs Are In & Software Is Key

Josie Garthwaite — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:00:56 +0000

One day down, a dozen more to go: At the end of the biennial Frankfurt Motor Show’s opening day, we have a snapshot of how much the auto industry has changed in recent years (to start, only 753 companies showed up this year, compared with more than 1,050 in 2007), and a glimpse of where it’s heading. The last few international auto shows (notably in Detroit and Geneva) have displayed automakers competing to flaunt the greenest, fastest and most futuristic vehicles in their lineups while also trying to appear frugal in a way befitting the gloomy state of their industry and the economy.

The Frankfurt show, however, suggests some larger trends: The time has come to get practical and urgent about reducing vehicle emissions, and deep pockets and software smarts will be crucial in determining which companies emerge as leaders in the next generation of smarter vehicles with lower emissions.

Perhaps the biggest sign that there’s new urgency and seriousness about reducing vehicle emissions is the relatively low profile of hydrogen cars. As Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said earlier this year, “We asked ourselves, ‘Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, or 20 years that we will convert to a hydrogen car economy?’ The answer, we felt, was ‘no.’” Automakers have been touting the technology pretty heavily this month. But while Mercedes-Benz plans to lease 100 hydrogen fuel cell cars in the U.S. next year, at Frankfurt this week the emphasis for larger-scale deployments is on hybrids and electric vehicles.

In July, Ford stressed the importance of hybrids and fuel sippers in its lineup for a full financial turnaround. And at Frankfurt on Tuesday, Ford’s approach to practicality (in the face of tighter fuel-efficiency standards coming quickly down the pike from Washington), centered on giving the ole internal combustion engine vehicle an MPG makeover. The company’s big announcements included the launch of the C-Max minivan (which, as the LA Times Up to Speed blog puts it, is a supermini “in the plus-sized, butter-not-margarine North American market…To Europeans, such cars are average-sized”) and a new, smaller version of its EcoBoost engine, which the company claims cuts fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions by up to 20 percent.

Other automakers are being more ambitious. France-based Renault plowed ahead with its quest for domination of the global electric vehicle market, unveiling four new or revised models. One of those models, the Fluence, highlights the important role that software and technology partners will play for the companies competing in a growing field of EV makers in the coming decade. The Fluence comes as the first vehicle slated for production (in 2011) that has been designed to work with infrastructure startup Better Place’s battery swap system, and it’s loaded with Better Place’s new AutOS computing platform.

Whether or not other automakers decide to join Better Place’s network, they will have to solve many of the problems the startup is tackling with the new system — enabling the cars to crunch energy calculations, deliver an “energy plan” for each driver, and find the closest charging and battery swap stations, for example — if the electric concepts shown this week at Frankfurt really roll out at mass scale. The system brings together technology from Continental, Microsoft, Intel and Flextronics. We wouldn’t be surprised if next year, we see even more tech companies hitting the auto show circuit.

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PHOTOS: Renault's New Electric Cars, Meet Twizy, Zoe, & Fluence

Josie Garthwaite — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:20:27 +0000

Meet the Renault EVs, a family of electric concept cars unveiled by the French automaker today at the Frankfurt Motor Show. The four models, which include the Twizy city car, Zoe, Fluence sedan and the latest iteration of the Kangoo “people carrier,” combined with Nissan’s upcoming LEAF sedan, amount to the starting lineup in the Renault-Nissan Alliance’s quest for domination of the global electric vehicle market.

Renault has designed the Fluence five-seater (the least cutesy of the four models shown in Frankfurt today and pictured after the jump) to be compatible with electric vehicle infrastructure startup Better Place’s “Quickdrop” battery swap system. Today the two companies announced plans to roll out at least 100,000 of the cars in Denmark and Israel by 2016, with buyers having the option to subscribe to Better Place’s services when sales begin in the first half of 2011.

Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn told Bloomberg today, “When the history is written of how the market switched from gasoline to electric, the Fluence will be its Model T.” But it’s the compact Zoe, set to launch in mid-2012, that Renault expects to be the biggest seller.

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Tesla Motors Raises $82.5M Series F, Charges Up for Global Buildout

Josie Garthwaite — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:28:34 +0000

Electric car startup Tesla Motors, which just snagged a $465 million loan from the Department of Energy, has done it again — raised capital, that is. The San Carlos, Calif.-based company has pulled in $82.5 million in a sixth round of private equity financing, according to a Bloomberg report from the Frankfurt Motor Show this morning.

London-based Fjord Capital Management led the round, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk said “was an opportunistic investment.” This time around, the startup was “not looking for money,” but the funds will be used to support international buildout of Tesla retail stores, which the company has previously said will be expanding to several European countries.

Rather than following the more common dealership franchise model, Tesla uses showrooms modeled after Apple stores to show off its vehicles, bring in deposits, make sales and eventually service the cars. The stores don’t come cheap, since Tesla targets high-income customers in upscale real estate markets like Manhattan, Los Angeles and London.

As of November 2008, Tesla had raised some $145 million, including $55 million from Musk himself, and burned through most of it. After being unable to raise another $100 million on the terms it wanted (partly due to the credit crunch), Tesla raised $40 million in convertible debt financing from existing investors. But 2009 has been more favorable for Tesla’s financial situation.

In addition to the DOE funds, this latest round of investment comes just four months after Germany’s Daimler AG bought a 10 percent stake in Tesla for $50 million as part of a new strategic partnership (Daimler later sold part of that stake to Abu Dhabi-based investment group Aabar Investments), and it’s on the heels of Tesla’s first reported month in the black. Tesla recently announced it achieved “overall corporate profitability” for the first time ever in July, with $1 million profit on $20 million in revenue, including, according to Tesla spokesperson Rachel Konrad, “a small percentage of revenue from technology sales,” as in the Daimler deal.

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PREVIEW: Green Cars in the Works for Frankfurt Motor Show

Josie Garthwaite — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:00:47 +0000

The international auto show in Frankfurt, Germany, which kicks off next Thursday, is one of the biggest events of the year for car companies to make an impression with high-tech concepts and upcoming models. Car shows earlier this year in Detroit and Geneva proved to be exercises in restraint for automakers: Flaunt the shiniest, greenest, fastest and most futuristic vehicles in their lineups, all while appearing frugal in a way befitting the gloomy state of both the industry and the global economy. Frankfurt is likely to hit a similar note — but with continuing pressure for automakers to beef up their green lineups, a number of hybrid and all-electric vehicles are set to roll out on the showroom floor. Here are 13 models to watch.

Model	Type	Status	Details
BMW ActiveHybrid X6	Hybrid	Production (2010)	The X6, which uses a NiMH battery, is reportedly the most powerful hybrid in history.
BMW Vision EfficientDynamics	Plug-in diesel hybrid	Concept	Body shell and suspension built with aluminum, seat frames made with Kevlar to keep weight down while carrying lithium-ion battery pack and 2 electric motors.
Fisker Karma	Plug-in hybrid	German debut	Startup Fisker Automotive’s inaugural vehicle, a luxury sports car said to get 67.2 MPG.
Hyundai i10	All-electric	Fleet leasing 2010, global production 2012	Based on i10 mini-car platform. 5-seat hatchback. Lithium-ion battery pack with cells by LG Chem will be leased separately from the car.
Lexus LF-Ch	Hybrid	Concept	Luxury compact hatchback can operate in all-electric mode.
Mercedes-Benz BlueZero E-Cell Plus	Extended-range electric	Revised concept	Originally debuted at Detroit Auto Show. 3-cylinder engine adapted from Smart ForTwo. Lithium-ion battery pack.
Peugeot iOn	Plug-in diesel hybrid	Model for late 2010 launch	Based on Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric minicar.
Renault Fluence	All-electric	Model for 2011 EU launch	Reported to be the vehicle designed for compatibility with Better Place battery swapping. Electric drive and battery pack is shared with alliance partner Nissan in its upcoming LEAF.
Reva NXR	All-electric	Production slated for 2010, orders to be accepted after unveiling	Four-seat hatchback with a phone-controlled charging system.
Tesla Roadster Sport	All-electric	Production	A higher-performance, higher-luxury version of the Roadster.
Toyota Auris HSD Hybrid	Hybrid	Production (2010)	Hatchback version of the Toyota Corolla. Meant to make full hybrids “more accessible to a wider range of customers.“
Toyota Prius Plug-in	Plug-in hybrid	Production	Final version of the model Toyota plans to roll out in small numbers (a few hundred vehicles) starting at the end of this year
Volkswagen EV	All-electric or plug-in hybrid	Concept	VW’s new hype campaign at ElectricityUntamed.com suggests the possibility of an all-electric version of the Audi R8 sports car, but it could also be a plug-in hybrid instead.

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Where In The World Is Innovation

Om Malik — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 06:15:48 +0000

This Innovation Heat Map crafted by McKinsey and the World Economic Forum maps innovation across the planet. Clearly Silicon Valley is in a class of its own and perhaps that is why others want to imitate its success. Paul Graham recently offered up a recipe to replicate Silicon Valley, but even with that I am not sure anyone can pull it off. Why? Because, there are so many intangibles that cannot be quantified and replicated outside of Silicon Valley.

Nowhere else on the planet you will find a grown man who is crazy enough to fund a web site that essentially shows cat videos and expects his investment to pay off big time. YouTube, anyone!? Nowhere but in Silicon Valley is it OK to fail. More importantly, nowhere on the planet can you actually find a place to think as “freely” as Silicon Valley. I speak from personal experience, and you might disagree. I think Silicon Valley is un-replicable.

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