Enjoy this weekly feed of inspiring, interesting and intellectual articles and news, with a focus on disruption!
King is almost a decacorn
Activision, producer of World of Warcraft, has announced they are buying Swedish game developer King for $5,9 billion. King has an active user base of almost half a billion, that’s more than Twitter! For reference, Facebook “only” paid 1 billion for Instagram … worth it? For one, King makes money (heeps of it) Instagram did not!
Watchmaker threatens Tesla
The battery race continues as Belos Clean Power announces a possible IPO. The company controlled by Swatch Group has developed a battery intended for use in electric vehicles such as cars, drones and e-bikes. The company claims that they can produce a battery with higher energy density and half the charging time as the one Tesla uses in their cars. And because it doesn’t contain rare earth minerals it will be much cheaper to produce in large volumes. With cheaper and better batteries together with a focus on environmentally friendly transport solutions a paradigm shift in the auto industry might be here sooner than expected!
When is the next energy source disruption coming?
German scientists are, with an experimental reactor, bringing us closer to fusion power reactors. When being turned on in November the test reactor will however only run for (hopefully) 30 minutes. While that isn’t very impressive we basically know that technological advancements like this will eventually enable fusion reactors. That will surely be disruptive!
Esports keeps growing
Esport, competing in computer and video gaming, has become a multimillion dollar international market. A team within the most popular online game, League of Legends, was recently sold for a fee close to $1 million. Not at all surprising considering that statistics suggest that about 27 million people play the game each day. The deal involved the European squad from Team Dignitas which has been sold to the Follow Esports group. It’s time to conclude that the market is way past its tipping point.