THE NEWS WRAP: Leaked documents suggest Uber is a “money loser” – StartupSmart
Gawker seems to have gotten its hands on Uber’s financial documents, showing that despite recently becoming the most highly valued private startup in the world, it’s still losing a lot of money.
While the usually secretive startup’s revenue is growing steadily quarter-on-quarter, so too are the net losses. The documents show the company lost more than US$56 million in 2013 and $160 million last year.
It shouldn’t come as much of a shock, and as Business Insider reports, it’s not at all uncommon for a startup that is rapidly expanding across the world, with money going towards marketing, research and development and admin services.
An Uber spokesperson’s response touched on that point.
“Shock, horror, Uber makes a loss,” they told Business Insider.
“This is hardly news and old news at that. It’s the case of business 101: you raise money, you invest money, you grow (hopefully), you make a profit and that generates a return for investors.
Facebook lets pages private message angry customers
A viral post on a page’s wall from an irate customer is always very enjoyable, and now Facebook is giving pages a better option to respond to these criticisms.
As TechCrunch reports, Facebook has launched a new feature allowing pages to privately message customers who have written on their wall or posted a comment. Previously, a page could only respond through the same channel the message was delivered.
A new ‘very responsive to messages’ badge is also on offer to pages, but the criteria seems pretty steep. It’ll only go to pages that reply to 90% of messages and have an average reply time of within five minutes.
Adidas buys Runtastic for $239 million
Adidas has acquired European mobile fitness startup Runtastic for US$239 million, Venture Beat reports.
Runtastic was founded in 2009 and has staked a claim in the mobile fitness realm, primarily with GPS fitness-tracking.
It has 70 million registered users with 140 million downloads, and CEO and co-founder Florian Gschwandtner says the product will stay the same for the time being.
“Both companies firmly believe that together we can build a unique product portfolio and unparalleled customer journey for our existing community members and future users,” he says.
Overnight
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 10.22, falling 0.06% overnight to 17,540.47. The Australian dollar is currently trading at US74 cents.
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