VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Following the news that auto giants Daimler AG and the BMW Group have signed a deal to develop next-generation automated driving technology together, the Ford Motor Company and Volkswagen AG have announced that they are partnering on autonomous vehicle technology too.

Toyota Motor Corp. and Denso Corp. announced plans on Wednesday to form a joint venture to develop the next-generation semiconductors for future connected and self-driving vehicles. Denso, one of the world's largest auto suppliers, will own 51% of the new business with Toyota to own the remaining portion.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure to speak with Amy Francetic, founder and managing director of a Chicago-based clean energy investing venture capital firm called Energize Ventures, and the co-founder of the Clean Energy Trust, a Midwestern-focused non-profit clean energy accelerator.

Cigna joined the parade of health insurance companies and biotech giants backing GNS Healthcare, a technology firm applying machine learning to healthcare through precision medicine.

There are 2,208 billionaires on earth, according to Forbes. But only three are rich enough to qualify as "centi-billionaires"-worth $100 billion or more. Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos is number one. Microsoft founder (MSFT) Bill Gates is number two. Number three will probably surprise you.

Symantec Corp. signage is displayed outside of the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California, U.S., on Wednesday, July 3, 2019. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Robotic Process Automation (or RPA) is one of the hottest areas in the enterprise technology sector these days, reaching $1.3 billion this year, says Gartner.According to the market research firm, RPA software revenue grew 63.1% in 2018 to $846 million, making it the fastest-growing segment of the global enterprise software market, with the top-five RPA vendors (UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, NICE, Pegasystems) controlling 47% of the market.

Individual investors' expectations about the short-term direction of the stock market are nearly unchanged from a week ago. The latest AAII Sentiment Survey only shows fractional changes in optimism and pessimism.

Centene has increased its investment in Ribera Salud Group in Spain as the U.S. health insurer expands its international healthcare business. Centene said it now owns 90% of Ribera Salud, which provides "private management of government-sponsored healthcare in Spain and Slovakia," the company's website says.

Bitcoin prices fell to less than $10,000 today, down close to 30% from their recent high of nearly $14,000 reached on Wednesday, June 26th. The digital currency dropped to $9,986.26 at roughly 11:40 a.m. EDT, CoinDesk data shows.

Zunum Aero won millions in funding from Boeing and JetBlue and glowing press coverage for its plans to build a 12-seat hybrid-electric airplane that it said would enable affordable short-haul passenger service between smaller cities.

Investing in currencies may sound like a lucrative, exotic venture – and it can be – but it takes knowledge, skill, and experience to succeed. At one time, the forex market was largely dominated by institutional investors and banks, but now, there are online brokerages and margin trading accounts that have made this form of investing accessible to everyone.

Kristo Käärmann is the co-founder and CEO of TransferWise. A fintech startup that has gone from bootstrapping to saving users over $1 billion a year when transferring money.

Venture capital firm Vice Ventures has launched a $25 million fund that will focus on early-stage startups from non-traditional verticals including, cannabis, alcohol, CBD, e-sports, addiction recovery, sex tech, and others. The fund does not invest in products that are intended to hurt people, though, Founding Partner Catharine Dockery told Bloomberg TV, bringing up the example of guns.

Looking at the underlying holdings of the ETFs in our coverage universe at ETF Channel, we have compared the trading price of each holding against the average analyst 12-month forward target price and computed the weighted average implied analyst target price for the ETF itself.