After dealing with a scandalous trading conflict that pitied it against GameStop earlier in the year, Robinhood Markets Inc. is targeting a valuation of up to $35 billion in its initial public offering in the United States. The company disclosed this in a filing on Monday, in a listing that will become one of the biggest in the year.

In January, the online brokerage was caught at the center of a confrontation between a new generation of retail investors and Wall Street hedge funds. Last month, the trading platform was fined $70 million by the financial industry regulatory authority (FINRA) over allegations that it caused customers “widespread and significant harm” on multiple different fronts over the past few years.

Reuters reported earlier that Robinhood was aiming for an IPO valuation of up to $40 billion. The filing reveals price and expected ownership of shares from individuals and companies including Salesforce.

About 55 million shares are being offered in the IPO to raise over $2.3 billion. Nearly 2.63 million of those shares are being offered by the company’s founders and chief financial officer, the filing showed. Proceeds from those will not go to Robinhood.

Shares are expected to be priced between $38 and $42, the company said.

Salesforce Ventures, the investment arm of software provider Saleforce.com Inc, is looking to purchase up to $150 million worth of Class A common stock at the IPO price, the filing showed.

Robinhood was founded in 2013 by Stanford University roommates Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt. They will hold a majority of the voting power after the offering, the filing showed, with Bhatt having around 39% of the voting power of outstanding stock while Tenev will hold about 26.2%.

The company’s platform allows users to make unlimited commission-free trades in stocks, exchange-traded funds, options and cryptocurrencies. Its easy-to-use interface made it a go-to for young investors trading from home during coronavirus-induced restrictions and its popularity has soared over the past 18 months.

The trading mania in the so-called meme stocks helped fuel a four-fold jump in its revenue over January to March, Robinhood’s IPO filing earlier this month detailed, but the quick expansion came at a cost as Reuters report reveals.

The company faced criticism after it was forced to curb trading in the middle of the surge this year in GameStop and other previously beaten-down stocks.

At the time, Robinhood was forced to raise $3.4 billion in emergency funds after its finances were strained by the massive jump in retail trading and a resulting jump in capital demands from clearing houses.

That round valued the company at around $30 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

Robinhood’s stock market flotation comes amid a record 15-month run for the U.S. IPO market, as investors rushed to buy shares of high-growth tech companies.

The company plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol “HOOD”. Goldman Sachs and J.P.Morgan are the lead underwriters for the offering.

YouTube said on Tuesday it has acquired social commerce startup Simsim. The Google-owned firm said the acquisition is to help viewers discover new products and find expert advice they trust.

The firms did not give details of the deal, but two people with knowledge of the matter told TechCrunch the Indian startup was valued at over $70 million.

Two-year-old Simsim had raised about $17 million prior to today’s announcement and was valued at $50.1 million in its 2020 Series B financing round.

The Gurgaon-headquartered startup helps small businesses in India transition to e-commerce by using the power of video and creators. The startup’s eponymous app acts as a platform to connect local businesses, influencers and customers.

The thesis, according to Rohan Malhotra of Good Capital, an early backer of Simsim, is: “micro-influencers are more effective at building a targeted audience (growth), creating entertaining experiences (retention), building trust (higher value) and personalizing messaging (conversion). Consumer social platforms (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc.) cannot meaningfully monetize via advertising-financed models in India; this unlocks the opportunity for more deeply integrated transactional platforms. New internet users in India need an interactive seller-led experience to replicate the offline e-commerce experience this market is used to.”

He, like everyone else, declined to comment on the size of the deal. The Simsim chief executive didn’t respond to a query about the acquisition Monday evening (IST).

“We started Simsim with the mission of helping users across India shop online with ease, enabled through small sellers and brands showcasing and selling their products using the power of content by trusted influencers. Being a part of the YouTube and Google ecosystem furthers simsim in its mission,” Simsim cofounders Amit Bagaria, Kunal Suri and Saurabh Vashishtha said in a joint statement. Bagaria and Vashishtha previously worked together at Paytm.

“We cannot think of a better ecosystem in which to build simsim, in terms of technology, reach, creator networks and culture. We can’t wait to be part of YouTube and are excited to build simsim within the most admired tech company in the world.”

For YouTube, the acquisition will enable the video streaming giant help small businesses and retailers in India reach new customers in even more powerful ways, wrote Gautam Anand, VP of YouTube APAC, in a blog post.

The video streaming service, which reaches over 450 million monthly active users in India, doesn’t plan to make any immediate changes to Simsim and the startup’s app will continue to operate independently “while we work on ways to showcase Simsim offers to YouTube viewers,” he added.

Tuesday’s announcement is Google’s latest push in India, where it has committed to invest $10 billion in the next couple of years. The internet giant has also backed Indian startups Glance and DailyHunt, both of which operate short-video apps.

“With over 2500 YouTube creators with over one million subscribers, and the success of YouTube Shorts, which we launched in India first, we’re committed to bringing the best of YouTube to India and growing the creator community by making it even easier for the new generation of mobile-first creators to get started,” he added.

Simsi has been helping small businesses in India transition to e-commerce by using the power of video and creators. The Simsim app is an intermediary app where local businesses, influencers and customers meet.

Creators post video reviews about products from local businesses, and viewers can buy those products directly through the app. The app uses three languages, Hindi, Tamil and Bengali to post videos, which helps retailers to see items in their preferred language.

Google said it is committed to expanding the experience of YouTube Shorts, by bringing the best of YouTube to India to grow the creator community by making it even easier for the new generation of mobile-first creators to get started.

We are happy to announce that Tekedia Capital portfolio company which recently sealed a deal with Mastercard has  fully integrated ultrasound scanner to its Cloud Hospital. The “hospital” which can be positioned in churches, village squares (hello Ovim), schools, offices, mosques, INEC voting stations, etc now come equipped with satellite connectivity via Beeptool, solar charging station, sensors and diagnostic equipment (typical in hospitals), and so on.

Once you work into the “hospital”, you can dial a doctor via the mobile app and as the doctor speaks with you, he/she can ask you to take your temperature reading (we have a thermometer there) or other things.  This is Telehealth at the best; we have unified atoms and bytes, unbounding the constraints on the geography of doctors (the scientific miracle people).

Our vision is this: doctors should not be tethered to any specific location. Yes, we hate brain drain but if that happens, even in UK, Canada, etc, African doctors can still support.

In the next coming weeks, you will be seeing these solutions in your neighbourhood. A state government is partnering to grow micro-health entrepreneurs who can be trained to “operate” the equipment and improve the lives of people in urban and rural communities. And who knows: you may like to order one.

Have access to American doctors. Have access to Nigerian doctors. Have access to British doctors. etc. LaFiya TeleHealth is amazing; EHR powered by Medcera (email contacts on these websites for inquiries).

We loaded this device with the following, among others:

• 12 lead ECG, URT (Urine Routine) & GLU (Glucose).
•  UA (Uric Acid) & Blood Lipid (TG, LDL-C, HDL-C, TCHO).
•  Non-invasive Blood Pressure (NIBP) & Infrared Forehead TEMP.
•  Pulse Oximeter/SPO2, Heart Rate (HR) & Pulse Rate (PR).
•  GLU (Blood Glucose) & UA (Uric Acid).
•  GLU Strip 50pcs/bottle & UA Strip – 50pcs/bottle.
•  Urine Analyzer & 11 items urine test strip 100pcs/bottle.
•  Dry Biochemical Analyzer & Blood lipid strip 15pcs/bottle & Adapter.
•  Hemoglobin Analyzer & HB strip 50pcs/bottle.
•  WBC Analyzer & WBC strip 100pcs/bottle for 100 persons..
•  ETC

We #Move

We are actually more than a telehealth company. We are a medical equipment manufacturer with all systems engineered for IP connectivity-based world where we connect them via cloud. If you live in Zamfara and have a health app, you can speak with a doctor. But with our solution, our sensors/tools will make it possible for you to take temperature reading, do ultrasound, etc right in your home or village square or church We go beyond talking to a doctor at bytes, we deal with atoms, capturing patient data with our devices.

Families are buying the tools and right in Lagos, they call American doctors and have conversations based on data acquired via our many diagnostics tools.

We are excited for the promise of the future. Engineers save nations and we are engineering for Africa’s healthcare future.

Lafiya card

Zoom has got into the acquisition market with a cloud deal that has stoked curiosity about its future business plans. Per TechCrunch, Zoom is taking advantage of the impressive rise in its stock price in the past year to make its first major acquisition.

The popular video conferencing firm, which was valued at about $9 billion at its IPO two years ago, said Sunday evening it has agreed a deal to buy cloud call centre service provider Five9 for about $14.7 billion in an all-stock transaction.

20-year-old Five9 will become an operating unit of Zoom after the deal, which is expected to close in the first half of 2022, the two firms said.

The proposed acquisition is Zoom’s latest attempt to expand its offerings. In the past year, the video conferencing software has added several office collaboration products, a cloud phone system, and an all-in-one home communications appliance.

The acquisition of Five9 — which has amassed over 2,000 customers worldwide including Citrix and Under Armour and processes over 7 billion minutes of calls annually — will help Zoom enter the “$24 billion” market for contact centers, the company said.

“We are continuously looking for ways to enhance our platform, and the addition of Five9 is a natural fit that will deliver even more happiness and value to our customers,” said Eric S. Yuan, founder and chief executive of Zoom, in a statement.

Joining forces will offer both firms “significant” cross-selling opportunities in each other’s respective customer bases, the two firms said.

“Businesses spend significant resources annually on their contact centers, but still struggle to deliver a seamless experience for their customers,” said Rowan Trollope, chief executive of Five9.

“It has always been Five9’s mission to make it easy for businesses to fix that problem and engage with their customers in a more meaningful and efficient way. Joining forces with Zoom will provide Five9’s business customers access to best-of-breed solutions, particularly Zoom Phone, which will enable them to realize more value and deliver real results for their business. This, combined with Zoom’s ‘ease-of use’ philosophy and broad communication portfolio, will truly enable customers to engage via their preferred channel of choice.”

The two firms will do a joint Zoom call Monday to share more about the transaction.

However, the deal has opened speculations that Zoom may be diversifying in view of post-pandemic when office activities fully resumes, potentially reducing use of teleconferencing and curtailing its revenue.

Zoom’s capitalization has skyrocketed to as much as $48.8 billion, as the pandemic forced a shift to work from home that has seen millions embrace the teleconferencing technology. But it is gradually declining as more people get vaccinated, and many firms such as Google and Apple encourage employees to get back to office.

A diversification to other businesses will help Zoom to keep its revenue from spiraling post-pandemic.

It is a special company – and we admire it a lot at Tekedia Institute. Truly honoured to be invited to speak at AXA Mansard’s Out of the Box event. With Soulmate Industries Limited (dozens and dozens), Lily Hospitals Limited (which sent 40 medical doctors and nurses), Reliance Infosystems (42 team members), and a dozen others, AXA Mansard validated the Tekedia Mini-MBA business model when they sent dozens of team members to us. A new program with NO history but extremely brilliant people trusted us; nothing can be better. THANK YOU for even repeating.

When your community supports you, you #move. I want to thank AXA Mansard and all our corporate members for believing in our mission. We recommend their services – they are community-driven and they are amazing.

The event is private – and that means I cannot share links. I am sure that a public one will come soon from the category-king insurer. #OutoftheBox to more success ahead.

To experience Tekedia Mini-MBA quality, register here.