Lululemon is paying $500 million to acquire a home fitness startup, India bans TikTok and Amazon Prime Video is the latest streaming service to add a co-viewing experience.
Here’s your Daily Crunch for June 30, 2020.
1. Lululemon set to acquire home fitness startup Mirror for $500M
The deal comes at a time when home workout solutions are in high demand thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even when gyms begin to reopen in different locales, many will likely be wary of returning to a potentially high-risk enclosed space, at least for as long as the virus continues to spread.
Although there’s stiff competition in the category of connected fitness slabs, including Tonal and Tempo, Mirror continues to be the biggest name of the bunch. And the two companies have a relationship dating back to late last year, when Lululemon become an investor in Mirror.
2. TikTok goes down in India, its biggest overseas market
A growing number of internet service providers in India have started to block their subscribers from accessing TikTok a day after the Indian government banned the popular short-video app and 58 other services over security and privacy concerns.
3. Amazon Prime Video introduces ‘Watch Party,’ a social co-viewing experience included with Prime
Amazon is the latest streaming service to roll out built-in support for co-viewing. While the U.S. was sheltering in place under coronavirus lockdowns, a browser extension called Netflix Party went viral. So HBO partnered with the browser extension maker Scener to offer a “virtual theater” experience for co-watching, while Hulu launched its own native Watch Party feature for its “No Ads” subscribers on Hulu.com.
4. After losing Grubhub, Uber reportedly hails Postmates
Uber has reportedly made an offer to buy food delivery service Postmates, according to The New York Times. (The talks are still ongoing and the deal could fall through.)
5. 13 Boston-focused venture capitalists talk green shoots and startup recovery
This is the second half of our Boston investor survey. Looking to the future, we asked: Are investors seeing green shoots? When is a recovery likely to begin? What’s making them feel hopeful in this tenuous era? (Extra Crunch membership required.)
6. Facebook says it will prioritize original reporting and ‘transparent authorship’ in the News Feed
The change comes as a number of high-profile companies have said that they will pull their advertising from Facebook as part of the #StopHateforProfit campaign, organized by civil rights groups as a way to pressure the social network to take stronger steps against hate speech and misinformation.
7. In a significant expansion, Spotify to launch real-time lyrics in 26 markets
Last November, Spotify confirmed it was testing real-time lyrics synced to music in select markets. Today, the company is announcing the launch of its new lyrics feature in 26 worldwide markets across Southeast Asia, India and Latin America.
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