VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Philips is seeking to invest in healthcare technology start-ups in India, following other Fortune 500 firms in the world in empowering India's steadily growing start-up economy.

BMW becomes the first car to integrate a unique free feature into its vehicles, the IFTTT (If This Then That) services. This feature provides its customers with a host of personalized services through a newly built platform called BMW Labs. The customers are now able to automatically open garage doors while pulling into the driveway. They can send auto-alerts to spouse upon picking up kids from school, and even get the exact location of the parking spot in a Google Maps link.

Dutch electronics and healthcare company Philips announced that its proposed sale of Lumileds to Go Scale Capital had run into unexpected opposition from US government.

Germany's Osram (OSRn.DE) plans to transfer its 2 billion euro ($2.5 billion) general lamps business into an independent legal structure, paving the way for a possible spin-off or sale and allowing it to focus on automotive lighting and components.

World stock indexes fell on Tuesday following disappointing company earnings, while the dollar retreated after an unexpected decline in U.S. durable goods orders.

In the heart of western Europe, the Belgian-Dutch-German rust belt has been dealt another blow. Two car plants closed this month as companies sought cheaper labor elsewhere, the final chapter of a manufacturing boom that began when coal mines fuelling Europe's industrialization shut in the 1960s.

Philips (PHG.AS) will acquire Volcano Corp (VOLC.O), a U.S.-based medical device maker, for $1.2 billion including debt, to expand in the image-guided therapy market.

Salesforce Inc is betting big on healthcare, hiring key personnel and ramping up investment in hopes of replacing outmoded medical industry infrastructure and carving out a $1 billion annual business.

European Union antitrust regulators fined Philips, Samsung Electronics and Infineon Technologies a total of 138 million euros ($181.28 million) on Wednesday for fixing prices of chips used in mobile SIM cards.

Philips announced plans to return EUR 1.5 billion back to its shareholders.