VENTURE CAPITAL POST

South Africa’s currency has dropped to its four-year low after the news of the country’s finance minister threats of resignation was reported. Finance minister Pravin Gordhan threatens to resign over a spat with Tom Moyane, as the minister demanded the tax commissioner to be dismissed, or he himself would leave.

Property investors would face tough economic condition in South Africa due to the economic resession the country is facing. Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan is attempting to overcome this by increasing tax, that could slow down property sales in the country.

Bikes maker Palo Alto Bicycles, which Silicon Valley startups have often contacted to purchase high-end custom bikes for their employees, have confirmed a decline in sales. The declining sales are likely to be an indicator that startups are being more careful in spending money as investors got tighter in demanding profitability.

The London City Airport has now new owners as a group of investors led by Canadian pension plan acquire the facility for £2 billion. Some expressed a concern over the airport’s plan to expand the service, also over the high price that could cause the new owners to increase airport charges.

The San Francisco startup and smartphone maker Revl has been seed funded of $2 million by venture capitalist Bill Tai along with other investors like Frog Ventures, Y Combinator, Lars Rasmussen and James Lindenbaum.

It was confirmed on Monday that Israeli company Ravello was acquired by Oracle for $500 million. Ravello joins Oracle's cloud business with high hopes to take on giant tech companies like IBM, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.

San Fransisco-based biotech accelerator IndieBio is determined to help biotech startups the way other accelerators have done for IT startups. The firm believes that biotech is a highly important sector to boost the quality of humanity and economy, and is convincing other investors to have the same vision.

Soundcloud's financial report revealed that the company is experiencing significant loss in 2014, and the losses had started from several years before. The 2014 loss was due to large expenses, even though Soundcloud's revenue actually experienced a growth. The company expects to face losses for the next three years, but they are striving to plan strategies to increase income.

A startup focusing in the student accommodation markets just received $60 million from high-profile firms and individuals, led by VY Capital. Student.com will use the funds to expand its presence and service in the promising markets of international students accommodation. For now, most of Student.com's bookings came from Asia-based students.

Palestinian-American entrepreneur Zahi Khouri teamed up with Palestinian investors to build a Coca-Cola manufacturing plant in the Gaza Strip. This new factory would provide direct jobs for 250 people and indirectly support 1,000 local families. This move is one of the first and most significant economic development in Gaza after the end of the war in 2014.

The Five app was first released in 2015 as a playful app to communicate with custom hand signs. Mach, an 18-year-old high school student, didn't realize that the app could be very useful to facilitate communications between people with loss of hearing until they contacted them to thank him. Then he reached out to raise money to improve the app for a better use.

Philippine's fourth quarter gross domestic product increased by 6.3% driven mainly by higher private consumption, government expenditure as well as an increase in economic activity.

The Drone Racing League already announce its first season that would take place in Miami this year. The league will involve only skilled pilots to compete in its six courses of races. The league hopes that they could be as big as NASCAR, Formula 1, or MotoGP.

The major factors such as oil price fall, economy growth concerns and uncertainty in stock markets are keeping more pressure on mortgage rates in the US market. The average US rate on long-term mortgage dropped for three weeks in a row to 3.81 percent. The average rate on 15-year mortgages dropped to 3.10 percent from 3.19 percent.

Short interest on the Nasdaq fell 3.3 percent in the second half of November, the exchange said on Tuesday. As of Nov. 28, short interest fell to about 8.508 billion shares, compared with 8.798 billion shares as of Nov. 14.