Kim Kardashian Settles SEC Charges Over Crypto Promotion ⚖
Kim Kardashian Settles SEC Charges Over Crypto Promotion ⚖
Scott D. Clary | Daily Business, Tech & Finance Newsletter
Hi there 👋. This is a daily newsletter that covers the top business, tech and finance stories for today.
Here’s whats happening:
Wisk Aero reveals autonomous four-seat electric air taxi
Naver to Acquire US E-commerce Site Poshmark
Kim Kardashian settles SEC charges over crypto promotion
Prosus terminates $4.7 billion deal to acquire BillDesk
German-based Immerok Raises $17 Million
Kim Kardashian Settles SEC Charges Over Crypto Promotion ⚖
Kim Kardashian has agreed to pay $1.26 million in penalties to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that she promoted a cryptocurrency scheme called EthereumMax (EMAX) on Instagram.
Quick Take:
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Kardashian with promoting a crypto asset security offered & sold by EthereumMax on Instagram without disclosing she was paid for the promotion.
The SEC said Kardashian was paid $250,000 to post on her Instagram account about EMAX tokens.
Kardashian didn’t admit or deny the regulator’s allegations in settling the case.
Besides paying the penalty, Kardashian has also agreed not to promote any crypto asset securities for three years.
The SEC order finds that Kardashian violated the anti-touting provision of federal securities laws.
The regulator has often warned that celebrities touting crypto that it deems securities need to make clear to investors if they’re paid for the backing.
Wisk Aero Reveals Autonomous 🚁 Four-Seat Electric Air Taxi
Air mobility startup Wisk Aero has unveiled a four-passenger autonomous air taxi that can fly without a human pilot.
Key Points:
Wisk’s go-to-market aircraft is designed to provide an intercity flying taxi service that can be summoned with an app.
The Boeing-backed startup’s 6th Generation air taxi represents the first-ever candidate for FAA certification of an autonomous, passenger-carrying Electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxi.
Thanks to its multifaceted approach, including autonomous flight with human oversight, and other features, the company has designed this aircraft to exceed today’s rigorous aviation safety standards of a one-in-a-billion chance of an accident. Yes, you read that right!
What’s next? 👀
To bring its 6th-gen autonomous electric city hopper to market, Wisk is seeking FAA-type certification.
In addition, to launch its air taxis as a service, the company will also need to get a production certification, which is the approval to begin manufacturing its eVTOL, and an air carrier certification.
Naver to Acquire US E-commerce Site Poshmark 🛍
South Korean internet giant Naver is acquiring Poshmark Inc., a US apparel resale platform firm, as a strategic investment to enter the US e-commerce market.
The Deal:
Naver will buy Poshmark for $17.90 per share in an all-cash deal, making this its largest acquisition to date.
The deal will value the online retailer at roughly $1.2 billion.
The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of next year.
Why does this matter? 🤔
Poshmark is the largest fashion consumer-to-consumer platform in North America, with 80 million registered users, which mostly consists of Millenials and Gen Z.
The transaction will combine Poshmark’s shopping platform with Naver’s technology, including image recognition, artificial intelligence, and live streaming.
With this deal, the companies expect to deliver substantial revenue and benefits, including a re-acceleration of annual revenue growth of more than 20% in the short term as ad investments expand worldwide and live commerce gains traction.
Prosus Terminates $4.7 Billion Deal to Acquire Billdesk 💰
Naspers-owned Prosus has canceled the $4.7-billion deal to acquire Indian payment aggregator platform BillDesk.
The Timeline:
The deal between PayU, the India business of Prosus, and BillDesk was announced in August 2021.
The deal received approval from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on September 5, 2022. The deal required approval from the Reserve Bank of India, which takes at least 45 days.
However, Prosus terminated the deal, saying that certain conditions were not met by the deadline.
Statement from Prosus:
“Certain conditions precedent were not fulfilled by the 30 September 2022 long stop date, and the agreement has terminated automatically in accordance with its terms and, accordingly, the proposed transaction will not be implemented,” Prosus said in a statement without identifying those conditions.
The all-cash acquisition was slated to be the second largest M&A deal in the South Asian market’s consumer internet space and would have allowed Prosus, which already owns fast-growing PayU, to dominate the market of payments processing in India.
German-based Immerok Raises $17 Million
Immerok, a serverless Apache Flink startup, has raised $17 million in its seed funding round.
The funding was led by Cusp Capital, 468 Capital, Cortical Ventures, and Essence VC, along with participation from several angel investors.
The startup will use the capital to continue to build and launch its fully-managed cloud service for Apache Flink and to hire additional employees.
That’s a wrap for today, ladies & gents. See ya tomorrow!
Podcast
If you like the content in this newsletter, I host a Top 10 Business podcast, (with over 20m downloads) “Success Story”, where I unpack the playbooks of entrepreneurs, executives and other high performing individuals.
Get our free, 5 minute daily newsletter. Used by 100,000+ people to stay up to date on business, tech, finance and cryptocurrency. 💪