New York legalizes daily fantasy sports
The Story
The New York Assembly passed legislation this week that legalizes daily fantasy sports throughout the state of New York.
Why this is important
The bill does not guarantee, but makes it very likely, that FanDuel and DraftKings, the market leaders in daily fantasy sports, will be able to resume operations in New York in time for the new NFL season, the most crucial time of year for new signups and big revenue from entry fees. [Yahoo Tech]
WeWork arrives in China
The Story
WeWork is slated to open its first hub in Shanghai in the beginning of July.
A little background
This is the first outpost of the New York-based coworking company in China – and marks the beginning of its expansion plans into Asia. The company is planning on opening two more Shanghai spaces and a Hong Kong branch in the second half of the year, followed by Seoul and Sidney. [Forbes]
New York leads in The Dell Women Entrepreneur Cities Index
The Story
The Dell Women Entrepreneur Cities Index (WE Cities) is the only global gender-specific index that looks at a city’s ability to attract and foster growth of women-owned firms. New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, London, Stockholm and Singapore are the top five cities for high potential women entrepreneurs.
How the index works
Building on the past four years of Dell’s research on high potential women entrepreneurs, five important categories of city characteristics were identified: capital, technology, talent, culture and markets. These pillars were organized into two groups – operating environment and enabling environment. The overall rating has 70 indicators, and, of these, 44 have a gender-based component. Individual indicators were weighted based on four criteria: relevance, quality of underlying data, uniqueness in the index and gender component. Within this criteria, New York emerged as the number one place to attract and support high potential women entrepreneurs. [Business Wire]
Tumblr launches live video
The Story
This week Tumblr announced that the company will adopt video capabilities into its blogging platform, allowing users to broadcast directly to their follower’s dashboards.
But there’s a twist
Tumblr is partnering with YouNow, Kanvas, Upclose and YouTube to help users upload or reblog videos as they would with any other post. Instead of building its own video apps, the company is tapping external partners for video creation, meaning users won’t be able to natively make videos within Tumblr’s apps. The aim is for Tumblr to become a home for live video, versus just another live-streaming platform. [Built In NYC]
New York Tops Silicon Valley in Fintech Venture Financing for the First Time
The Story
New York received more fintech venture financing than Silicon Valley for the first time during the first three months of this year, according to a new report by Accenture and the Partnership Fund for New York City.
Details?
The report showed that $690 million flowed to New York and $511 million flowed to Silicon Valley, highlighting the city’s rapid rise as a fintech hub. Last year, fintech investment in New York tripled to $2.3 billion, accounting for nearly 10 percent of all fintech investment globally. BFD. [Business Wire]
Fundings of the week
Invision, $55 million
Investors: ICONIQ Capital, Accel Partners and FirstMark Capital
While InVision has no specific plans for the new funding, the company aims to continue to make strategic acquisitions. To date, the company has acquired five companies, including Macaw, Waybury, Easee, Napkin and Silver Flows. [Built In NYC]
The Muse, $16 million
Investors: Icon Ventures, Aspect Ventures, DBL Partners and QED.
The Muse is planning on using the new funding to double the size of its data science and business intelligence teams, aiming to personalize each user’s experience using the platform. [Forbes]
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