Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Spotify is on a subscriber tear to rival Apple. It's The Daily Crunch.

THE DAILY CRUNCH
TUESDAY, AUGUST 1 2017 By Darrell Etherington

Streaming isn't proving an easy win for Apple in music, Shopify is running away with the indie ecommerce market and the rich and famous continue to found tech ventures. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for August 1, 2017.

1. Spotify gets ready to go public

Spotify has managed to keep Apple Music in its rear view mirror, despite the immense power of the latter. That's a big point to its credit, and it's adding subscribers faster than its rival. Spotify has 60 million subscribers currently.

That's good news for its upcoming public listing, which will be the "direct" kind instead of an IPO. It's an interesting way for the company to go public, but its key performance indicators are doing well, at least.

2. Shopify crosses 500 million merchants

Shopify continues to be a recently public tech company that's doing very well, bucking the trend. The ecommerce platform operator now has over half a million stores on its product, and it beat analyst expectations in terms of revenue and gross profit. It's a tech bull if there ever was one.

3. Sofia Vergara has a new subscription underwear startup

Celebrities continue to also be founders: Latest is Modern Family's Sofia Vergara, who co-founded a subscription underwear startup with Renata Black. Celebs make perfect co-founders since they bring with them valuable capital – the ability to attract attention.

4. Didi invests in Uber rival for Europe and Africa

The battle of the ridesharing giants isn't between Lyft and Uber – it's between China's Didi and the U.S. leaders. And it's shaping up to be a global fight, which is why it makes sense for Didi to invest in Taxify, an Uber rival with pick-up in Europe and Africa.

5. RAND creates a Silicon Valley office

One of the monoliths of the American military industrial complex now has a Silicon Valley research office. It's overdue, if anything, and will help RAND continue the work it's been doing since long before many big tech companies joined the field.

6. DJI and 3DR play nice

Rival drone co's 3D Robotics and DJI are playing nice, since 3DR's consumer business doesn't really exist anymore and it's better off trying to focus on being a solutions provider, leaving hardware to others like DJI who are having a better time.

7. Lyft is going to Disney World

Lyft and new partner Disney are fielding a fleet of Minnie-themed vans that will ferry passengers around Disney's Florida resorts. Very smart for both, and potentially game changing for Lyft as it seeks new ways to drive business.

Get more stories at techcrunch.com 

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