TechTaffy

tech:

taffy

Amazon Buys Goodreads

By TechTaffy Desk

goodreadsAmazon has reached an agreement to acquire book recommendations site Goodreads. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Amazon is expected to keep the site as an independent entity, under the Goodreads brand. Following the acquisition, Goodreads’s headquarters will remain in San Francisco, CA. 

Goodreads currently has more than 16 million members and there are more than 30,000 book clubs on the Goodreads site.  The site was launched in January 2007 by Otis Chandler with his friend Elizabeth, who later became his wife. The company currently has a team of 35, and “We’ve got a lot of hires to make!” says Mr. Chandler. 

Subject to various closing conditions, the acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of 2013.  

 

Just in

Series A

Tembo raises $14M

Cincinnati, Ohio-based Tembo, a Postgres managed service provider, has raised $14 million in a Series A funding round.
Around the web

Raspberry Pi is now a public company — TC

Raspberry Pi priced its IPO on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning at £2.80 per share, valuing it at £542 million, or $690 million at today’s exchange rate, writes Romain Dillet. 
Fundings

AlphaSense raises $650M

AlphaSense, a market intelligence and search platform, has raised $650 million in funding, co-led by Viking Global Investors and BDT & MSD Partners.
Around the web

Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6B to take on OpenAI — VentureBeat

Confirming reports from April, the series B investment comes from the participation of multiple known venture capital firms and investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (A16z), Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Kingdom Holding, writes Shubham Sharma. 
IT

Capgemini partners with DARPA to explore quantum computing for carbon capture

Capgemini Government Solutions has launched a new initiative with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to investigate quantum computing's potential in carbon capture.