Street Fight Daily: Square Raises $100M, GoDaddy’s Turnaround
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…
Square Raises More Money to Make Small Business Loans (Fortune)
Square, the Silicon Valley payments company, is expanding its lending efforts to small businesses. The company announced on Tuesday that Square Capital, its loan-making division, has raised an additional investment from previous backer, Chicago-based Victory Park Capital and new investor Colchis Capital.
GoDaddy Is Changing Its Business — But Investors Worry the Change Isn’t Fast Enough (Street Fight)
Five weeks after going public, and Blake Irving’s strategy at GoDaddy appears to be working. But investors remain worried that the transitions are not happening fast enough. Revenues grew and guidance for the next quarter was stronger than expected, but investors sold off shares in after-hours trading.
Liquor Distributors Invest in Tech Firm to Boost E-Commerce in Alcohol (Wall Street Journal)
The largest liquor distributors in the U.S. are investing in a startup technology company, hoping it can accelerate e-commerce in the alcohol industry. Wine & Spirits Wholesalers will encourage retailers nationwide to use Drizly as it tries to increase the number of cities in which its app provides door-to-door delivery.
Centro Launches Programmatic DSP to Put Mobile and Desktop Inventory in One Place (Street Fight)
The veteran media management firm has rolled out a new demand-side platform that brings together its core media management platform with SiteScout, the mobile DSP that the company acquired in 2013. The move suggests a bigger bet on the state of the mobile advertising ecosystem.
Deal Talks for Here Mapping Service Expose Reliance on Location Data (New York Times)
Companies are grappling to stay relevant in a world where smartphones — and people’s geographical information — are at the heart of nearly every tech leader’s plans. That is why companies have submitted rival bids of up to $3 billion to acquire the Nokia division.
Facebook Starts Publishing the New York Times, BuzzFeed and More With Its ‘Instant Articles’ Program (Recode)
The social giant has finally unveiled the terms of its “give us your content and let us run it on our app” plan, which starts tomorrow. It’s hard to imagine any publisher passing on the chance, if they get it, to collect eyeballs and dollars on Facebook’s mobile platform, which boasts 1.25 billion users.
Will It Be a Summer of Consolidation in Ad Tech? (AdWeek)
Yahoo has reportedly considered making Foursquare a big offer in recent weeks. The Google-purchasing-Twitter chatter has gone on for months and won’t die. Yelp is reportedly entertaining suitors from Yahoo to Google and Amazon, with some analysts speculating that foreign companies are in the mix.
37% of Large Retailers to Deploy Beacons This Year (MediaPost)
Many large and small retailers plan to deploy beacons this year but those in the middle, not so much. We know beacon deployment at retail last year was hardly a blockbuster, although there were countless experiments and trials going on, some relatively large in scope.
Yelp’s Hardest Sell Yet (Wall Street Journal)
The acquisition of AOL may sharpen the pitch for Yelp. But as the online-review company knows, making the final sale isn’t always easy. Tuesday’s reaction stems from the fact that, like Yelp, AOL is a midcap Internet company with a well-known brand that makes most of its money through online advertising.
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