Glu Mobile To Invest Up To $7.5 Million In QuizUp, With Option To Acquire

QuizUp, the Icelandic company that put trivia in an app, has announced that it is receiving up to $7.5 million in funding from Glu Mobile, with an option to call to acquire.

This comes in the wake of a partnership forged between NBC and QuizUp, announced in October, with the network looking to turn QuizUp content into a proper TV show played both in studio and at home through the app.

The extra work calls for some extra cash, and Glu Mobile’s CEO and Chairman Niccolo de Masi explained that the option to acquire makes sense given QuizUp’s current monetization strategy.

“Glu is looking to consolidate once our partnership proves out the monetization capability of the QuizUp audience and app,” said de Masi. “At the moment the company has yet to begin monetizing significantly and as such would not be accretive to acquire outright.”

Though QuizUp has more than 31 million registered users, who have played more than 5 billion games on the platform, the company has yet to take off on the revenue front. Currently, QuizUp makes money through branded partnerships with movies, books, and TV shows.

For example, QuizUp’s big break came in the form of a deal with the Twilight film saga to develop trivia content around the movie series.

Glu and QuizUp will be working on the NBC programming together, with the hope that it will significantly increase QuizUp app downloads, according to the release.

In May of last year, QuizUp changed its platform significantly from being a true game to more of a social network, complete with people search, user profiles, threaded comments, forums, and it’s own private chat system. Of course, the QuizUp trivia game was laid over the social network as a way for people to make new friends, connect with current friends, etc.

Though the valuation of QuizUp is still unknown, the company has received a total of $27 million, excluding this new round from Glu. The previous round closed in December of 2013.

Comments

Square’s New Apple Pay And Chip Card Reader Available To Pre-Order

Shortly after going public, Square announced that its new card reader is now available to pre-order on its website for $49. The new reader will ship in early 2016. It’s been a slow roll-out for the company’s new reader as Square first teased it at Apple’s WWDC in June. Compared to the good old Square reader that you put in your headphone jack, this one packs a few new features. First, it supports Apple Pay, and potentially other contactless payment systems. It has an NFC chip and a tokenization system for secure contactless payments. Second, the new bigger design comes with a new slot for chip cards in case you can’t pay with your phone. Finally, it’s a wireless reader that connects to your phone or tablet using Bluetooth. It has a small built-in battery and you can recharge it with a standard microUSB port. According to Square’s website , 100 retailers are already using the new reader. But the company has yet to ship the new rea...

Report: Amazon Is Building An App To Let Normal People Deliver Packages For Pay

Amazon is apparently enlisting everyday humans in its network of endless online shopping delivery. The WSJ reports that the ecommerce giant is working on an app internally that would allow the average consumer to make a little cash by picking up Amazon packages at various retail locations and dropping them off at their final destination. WSJ’s sources did not have a timeline for the release of this product, internally called ‘On My Way,’ and were unsure whether it would launch at all. Amazon has spent years not only iterating the way it tailors your online shopping experience — the mega retailer has one of the best suggestion engines in the business — but also the way that it gets you your products with speed and convenience. Besides the standard shipping (or two-day for Prime members), Amazon has fiddled with the idea of letting Uber drivers and yellow cabs deliver products same-day, as well as using bike messengers and third-party delivery services for Prime N...

The data center of the (near) future

Tight budgets and explosive data growth call for creative thinking on how and where to build data centers: http://dell.to/1tv4FsL #datacenter #modulardatacenter #floatingdatacenter http://techpageone.dell.com/technology/the-data-center-of-the-near-future/?dgc=SM&cid=75909&lid=5342172#.U_6lTvldXfJ

The EHang 184 Is A Human-Sized Drone Taking Off At CES

We’ve seen some pretty cool stuff on day 1 of CES 2016, but probably nothing more eye-catching than the EHang 184, a human-sized drone built by the Chinese UAV company EHang . Yes you heard right — a giant autonomous drone that fits a human. It’s basically what you would expect to see if someone shrunk you down to the size of a LEGO and stuck you next to a DJI Inspire. Except no one was shrunk, and the giant flying machine was sitting smack in the middle of the CES drone section. EHang, which was founded in 2014 and has raised about $50M in venture fundingto date, was pretty gung-ho about telling everyone at CES that the 184 was the future of personal transport. And for the most part, people were too in awe to question them. But the reality is that the company probably was using the 184 as more of a marketing tool for their standard-sized drones like the Ghost . Not that we’re saying that the 184 will never be a real thing, just that it probably isn’t co...

Windows 10 build 10136 screenshots posted by Windows Insider chief

We are used to seeing leaked screenshots of unreleased Windows 10 builds coming from third parties. However, it’s rare when a member of the Windows team does it himself. Today, Gabriel Aul, the head of the Windows Insider program, did just that on his Twitter account with two screenshots showing Windows 10 build 10136. Currently, Microsoft has build 10130 available for the over 4 million Windows Insider members to check out. There’s not a lot that’s new in these two new images, although the system tray arrow and File Explorer icons have both been updated. One of the images also shows that Word 95 can indeed run inside Windows 10. Microsoft has already announced that Windows 10 will officially launch, or more accurately come out of its preview stage, on July 29. Earlier today at Computex 2015, the company announced there will be about 300 products running the operating system by the time it debuts. Via: Windows Central , Gabriel Aul

Exciting Technology

Search This Blog