Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
CIP raises £250m to refinance UK straw biomass plants
 Fund manager Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners K/S (CIP) announced on Thursday it has concluded a GBP-250-million (USD330m/EUR 279m) refinancing of its interest in two straw-fired biomass power plants in the UK.

Royal Bank of Scotland, Investec, Aviva Investors and “one other major institutional investor” have provided senior debt to refinance the initial investment made by the fund Copenhagen Infrastructure I K/S (CI I) for the development and construction of the Briggs and Snetterton facilities. The fund has kept its ownership interest in the two plants with a combined capacity of 84 MW, which are now operational.

The 40-MW Briggs facility was built in Lincolnshire and started operations in January 2016, receiving 1.5 Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs). On the other hand, Snetterton has a capacity of 44 MW and has been operating at a site in Norfolk, East Anglia since April 2017. It is accredited for 1.4 ROCs.

Both facilities are capable of running on variable fuel mixes, co-firing straw with rape, miscanthus and woodchips. They are owned by a joint venture between Burmeister & Wain Scandinavian Contractor A/S (BWSC), CIP and PensionDanmark.

(GBP 1.0 = USD 1.318/EUR 1.116)

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Output: Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners has secured £250m ($330m) in debt refinancing from investors including Investec, Aviva Investors and Royal Bank of Scotland, for its Briggs and Snetterton variable fuel biomass facilities. The operational sites have a combined capacity of 84 MW, and have gained 1.5 and 1.4 Renewable Obligation Certificates respectively.


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Dutch electric scooter start-up Bolt Mobility raises €3m
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Dutch electric scooter startup, Bolt Mobility, has secured €3m (£2.2m) in a fundraising campaign led by more than 2,000 investors from the UK and the Netherlands.

Bolt Mobility plans to use the funds to bring the AppScooter, an electric scooter with 4G internet connection and smartphone connectivity, to the market in 2018.

The startup, which was founded in 2014, says the AppScooter can travel up to 245 miles (400km) on a single charge and is able to accelerate from 0 to 25 miles per hour in just over three seconds.

The AppScooter can also send automated text responses and answer phone calls from its handlebars and touchscreen.

“It’s exciting to see so much support from the UK market,” said co-founder and chief executive Bart Jacobsz Rosier.

“We aim to have delivered more than a quarter million scooters to customers by 2020. We are truly excited to be at the forefront of a lucrative market worth over £30bn a year”.

Edwin Berkhout, a Dutch venture capitalist and investor in Bolt, said: “Bolt Mobility’s approach is revolutionary, as our scooters will be powered by clean, renewable [electricity] and therefore potentially game changing on a global scale”.

As interest in electric cars grows, a number of European cities and countries have introduced legislation to tackle pollution from smaller-sized vehicles.

From January 2018, Amsterdam will ban scooters made before 2011, while the Mayor of Rome has banned drivers from using scooters on Sundays.

The UK Government announced in September that it will ban new diesel and petrol cars by 2040.

It is not yet clear whether they will expand the legislation to scooters and motorbikes, which emit a thousand times more toxic chemicals than larger vehicles, according to a study from the University of Cambridge.

Output: Three-year-old Dutch start-up Bolt Mobility has moved a step closer to launching its connected scooter next year, after it raised €3m ($3.5m). The fundraising campaign took in more than 2,000 investors across the UK and Netherlands, and positions the firm at the forefront of a market set to be worth £30bn ($39.5bn) annually. Bolt Mobility's AppScooter, which comes with 4G internet and smartphone connectivity, has a single-charge range of 245 miles, and CEO Bart Jacobsz Rosier aims to deliver more than 250,000 by 2020.


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Egypt embraces renewable-energy auctions
 Minister of Electricity Mohamed Shaker giving a presentation during BEBA event- Egypt Today photo

CAIRO – 17 October 2017: The Egyptian government will auction renewable energy plants after the end of the second phase of the feed-in-tariff (FiT) scheme, Minister of Electricity Mohamed Shaker said during an event organized by the British Egyptian Business Association (BEBA).

Power plants will be built with the help of private sectors. "We have many proposals to build plants under the BOO (build, own, operate) system... but we prefer to use auctions later on," Shaker said.

Reviewing progress made so far in the FiT scheme, Shaker said: "The first round wasn't successful, but the second one is more successful as we signed a number of 25 power purchase agreements (PPA) so far."

By 2025, around 37.2 percent of Egypt's power will be generated from renewable energy resources, Shaker noted.

The 14,400MW of capacity expected from three Siemens-led power plants in the New Administrative Capital, Beni Suef and Burullus, prompted the Ministry to delay implementation of projects.

"BOO projects in Ayoun Mousa, Luxor and Qena were shifted to 2022-2027 plan for example," the minister said.

As for the Dabaa nuclear plant, Shaker said contracts will be signed by the end of 2017, adding that the contracts will be followed by several studies.

"The first reactor of Dabaa is expected to be ready after eight years, the second reactor a year after that and the third and fourth reactors to be completed a year later," Shaker said.

The agreement with the Russian developer of the project, state-owned Rosatom, includes a 13-year grace period. "This means that the project will start operations and sell power before the end of the grace period," he said.

Shaker stressed that the electricity sector has seen improvements over the past three years. "In 2014, Egypt was suffering from severe power outages as there was a deficit of 25 percent of the peak load, and around 6,000MW of deficit," he said; highlighting that the country didn't suffer from power blackouts since June 2015 until now.

To reach that, Shaker said the ministry conducted maintenance operations for 70 percent of power plants, which resulted in generating 1,961MW of electricity.

Output: The Egyptian government will begin using auctions to attract investment into its renewable-energy sector, once the second phase of its feed-in-tariff scheme ends, according to the country's Minister of Electricity, Mohamed Shaker. After suffering from a peak-load energy deficit of 25% in 2014, the country hasn't suffered from a blackout since June 2015, he said. By 2025, more than 37% of Egypt's power will come from renewable resources, he said.


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Indian wind power installations slumped 68% in H1
 Installations of new wind power capacity in the first half worked out to 421 MW, compared with 1,305 MW in the corresponding period of last year, a trend that indicates that wind power capacity addition in the current year is likely to be far less than the record 5,400 MW achieved in 2016-17.

Wind industry insiders say they would consider themselves lucky if fresh installations this year would cross 1,200 MW.

With this, India has wind power machines of a total capacity of 32,700 MW.

Fresh capacity additions are falling because earlier this year, the central government brought in capacity auctions through a bidding process, where the power producer who quotes the least price would get to sign long term power purchase agreements.

Earlier, wind energy companies (developers) used to sell power to the various electricity distribution companies (discoms) at fixed tariffs determined by the respective state electricity regulatory commissions.

The competitive bidding had the effect of hammering down the tariffs, and in the first auctions that were concluded in February, threw up a surprise tariff of Rs 3.46 a kWhr. Comparatively, the least fixed tariff was Rs 4.16 in Tamil Nadu.

State governments, seeing that competitive bidding brings down the tariffs, have stopped signing power purchase agreements at fixed tariffs (aka ‘feed-in tariff’). But they are also not ready to follow the example of the central government and bring in their own competitive bidding programmes. With the buyers of the power not being ready to sign purchase agreements, the market for wind power has completely disappeared. Hence 421 MW in the first six months of the current year.

Meanwhile, the central government also came out with its second round of bidding, which was concluded earlier this month. The tariff discovered was yet another record low—Rs 2.64 a kWhr. And, the government has been dropping hints that there would be more capacity put on the auction block, perhaps as much as 4,500 MW in the next four months.

Not the benchmark

In this context, industry experts have cautioned against regarding the Rs 2.64 tariff as any benchmark. Such a low tariff happened due to notably two exceptional factors. One, the wind turbine manufacturers dropped prices by as much as 20 per cent, doing a distress sale of their inventories. “The manufacturers were stuck with huge stocks of machines that were in various stages of manufacture,” notes Ramesh Kymal, Chairman and Managing Director of Gamesa India, the Indian subsidiary of Siemens Gamesa, a wind power multinational. In supporting the developers to go as low as Rs 2.64, turbine manufacturers have agreed to take a loss, reckoning that such loss is cheaper than the carrying cost of inventory.

The second factor is, developers who are all private equity funded, have been sitting with funds that they need to deploy and were rather desperate to bag some projects. They have also agreed for much lower returns.

Neither of these two factors is likely to obtain in future.

The industry fears that the tariff of Rs 2.64 might become a psychological benchmark, driving state-owned discoms to refuse power purchase agreements at previously agreed tariffs. There have even been instances of states wanting to re-negotiate signed agreements – a move that is unlikely to stand in a court of law, but would nevertheless arm-twist developers to come to the negotiating table and accept a lower tariff than the one signed.

Kymal, who is also the Chairman of the National Committee on Wind and Biomass of the Confederation of Indian Industry, feels that tariffs will go up in the subsequent rounds of bidding, even if not to the levels of the feed-in tariffs. Many in the industry feel that wind tariffs would settle down at around Rs 3.70.

Output: Indian wind power installations fell to 421 MW in the first half of 2017 from 1,305 MW in the year earlier period. Industry insiders predicted full-year installations of no more than 1,200 MW, well short of the record 5,400 MW achieved in 2016/17. The decline is due to a shift from fixed tariffs set by state governments to competitive auctions carried out by the central government, which have pushed prices down to as low as INR2.64/kWh, compared with the lowest feed-in tariff of INR4.16/kWh in Tamil Nadu. State governments are yet to run their own auctions.


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Input:
Canadian Solar works with Israeli asset manager on solar projects
 GUELPH, Ontario, Oct. 17, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Canadian Solar Inc. (the "Company" or "Canadian Solar") (NASDAQ: CSIQ), one of the world's largest solar power companies, today announced that a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company and a few subsidiaries of Menora Mivtachim Holdings Ltd. ("Menora Mivtachim"), one of Israel's five largest insurance and finance groups, entered into a joint venture agreement with the aim to invest in the development, financing, construction and ownership of solar power projects in Israel.

A total of US$60 million is expected to be raised from Menora Mivtachim and Canadian Solar, with each party contributing an equal investment amount. The joint venture will finance the solar projects awarded by Israeli Electricity Authority under the solar power tenders and other solar projects to be developed under the partnership.

"Our partnership with Menora Mivtachim is a milestone achieved by Canadian Solar in this emerging market where the adoption of solar is growing rapidly. This partnership will leverage Canadian Solar's proven track record in developing and building solar power projects, with Menora Mivtachim's financial strength and credibility to create an industry leader in the local market," said Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Solar.

About Menora Mivtachim

Menora Mivtachim Holdings Ltd. is one of Israel's five largest insurance & finance groups. The group specializes in asset management, manages the largest pension fund in Israel - 'New Mivtachim', and is the No.1 General Insurer in Israel and the market leader in Motor Insurance sector. The group operates through its subsidiaries, in all sectors of Life Insurance, Long/Mid/Short -Term Savings, General Insurance and Health Insurance. In addition, the group is active in the capital markets and finance sectors, including Mutual Funds Management, Financial Portfolio Management, Underwriting and worldwide real estate investments.

About Canadian Solar Inc.

Founded in 2001 in Canada, Canadian Solar is one of the world's largest and foremost solar power companies. As a leading manufacturer of solar photovoltaic modules and provider of solar energy solutions, Canadian Solar also has a geographically diversified pipeline of utility-scale power projects in various stages of development. In the past 16 years, Canadian Solar has successfully delivered over 22 GW of premium quality modules to over 100 countries around the world. Furthermore, Canadian Solar is one of the most bankable companies in the solar industry, having been publicly listed on NASDAQ since 2006. For additional information about the company, follow Canadian Solar on LinkedIn or visit www.canadiansolar.com.

Safe Harbor/Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release regarding the Company's expected future shipment volumes, gross margins, business prospects and future results, are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These statements are made under the "Safe Harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by such terms as "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "estimates," the negative of these terms, or other comparable terminology. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include general business and economic conditions and the state of the solar industry; governmental support for the deployment of solar power; future available supplies of high-purity silicon; demand for end-use products by consumers and inventory levels of such products in the supply chain; changes in demand from significant customers; changes in demand from major markets such as Japan, the U.S., India and China; changes in customer order patterns; changes in product mix; capacity utilization; level of competition; pricing pressure and declines in average selling prices; delays in new product introduction; delays in utility-scale project approval process; delays in utility-scale project construction; cancelation of utility-scale feed-in-tariff contracts in Japan; continued success in technological innovations and delivery of products with the features customers demand; shortage in supply of materials or capacity requirements; availability of financing; exchange rate fluctuations; litigation and other risks as described in the Company's SEC filings, including its annual report on Form 20-F filed on April 27, 2017. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot guarantee future results, level of activity, performance, or achievements. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. All information provided in this press release is as of today's date, unless otherwise stated, and Canadian Solar undertakes no duty to update such information, except as required under applicable law.

SOURCE Canadian Solar Inc.

Related Links

http://www.canadiansolar.com

Output: Canadian Solar is forming a $60m joint venture with Israeli insurance and finance firm Menora Mivtachim to invest in the "development, financing, construction and ownership" of solar power projects, tendered out by the Israeli Electricity Authority.


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Powerhouse Ventures seeks fresh deals after HydroWorks failure
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Powerhouse Ventures is pitching itself as a turn-around story following a disastrous year.

Chief executive Paul Viney says the Kiwi venture capital firm is tightening up its business model and looking to expand its investments into Australia.

Powerhouse will start putting pressure on its investments to turn exciting intellectual property into products, says Chairman Russell Yardley.

This year, several crises have put pressure on Powerhouse (ASX:PVL) — arguably none more so than the $7 million liquidation of key investment turbine maker HydroWorks.

In an interview with Stockhead, Mr Viney and Mr Yardley were careful how they described the collapse.

Mr Viney said this was because a lawsuit could be on its way.

Path to collapse

HydroWorks began as a consultancy in 2001 before moving into designing its own hydropower turbine technology.

By 2013, after investment from Powerhouse and New Zealand government support through Callahan Innovation, it had won its first export orders in Australia and was eyeing the Solomons, the Philippines and New Caledonia.

The crunch point came in 2015 when it began winning big contracts in Australia.

There was an $8.5 million contract to refurbish a hydroelectric plant at Somerset dam in Queensland, and a $5 million contract with Melbourne Water to build a “mini-hydro” network generating electricity in suburban Melbourne — a project the Australian entity was still promoting in June.

Mr Viney, who joined the HydroWorks board in February, said the Melbourne Water contract was the most damaging as it transferred all risk to the New Zealand company.

Management had little understanding of the risks they had taken on and there was no clear idea how the business would get to the end of the contract, he said

Mr Viney would not go into further details, saying what goes on in boardrooms should stay in boardrooms.

Dominating the share register

Powerhouse usually operated by “dominating the share register” and installing their own board and CEO, Mr Viney said.

But HydroWorks was an anomaly. Powerhouse agreed to buy a minority stake of 23 per cent and work with the founder, Rik Hothersall, who by the end still owned 30 per cent of the business.

Ultimately Powerhouse ended up giving HydroWorks $1.3 million in emergency loans in November and December last year to help fund its projects. Interest and late fees added up to a 48 per cent tariff on top of that, but was never paid.

HydroWorks was supposed to pay these back from money raised during a listing in Australia this year, but that IPO was pulled as board members began to quit from February this year.

Stockhead has tried to contact former HydroWorks managing director Andrew Rodwell several times, without success.

Powerhouse put the company into interim liquidation in August. Deloitte was appointed as the permanent liquidator this month.

No ASIC involvement

Rumours have recently circulated in New Zealand media that Powerhouse might face an ASIC investigation over the valuation it placed on HydroWorks in its own IPO prospectus last year.

But an ASIC spokesman told Stockhead the corporate watchdog was not aware of any investigations.

If an investigation was underway the company’s shares would be suspended, he said.

Powerhouse shares closed up 3 per cent at 34c on Thursday after releasing its annual report.

The listed incubator gave HydroWorks a valuation of $NZ19.3 million ($17.3 million) in its August IPO prospectus last year — a value based on 2015 numbers.

HydroWorks was already in trouble by the time Powerhouse listed. Its value had fallen to $NZ7.7 million by August.

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Output: New Zealand-based investor Powerhouse Ventures is hoping new investments in Australia can help draw a line under a troubled period, following the HydroWorks liquidation crisis, the biggest of several to plague the company. Powerhouse CEO Paul Viney said the company would "tighten up its business model", while chairman Russell Yardley said the focus would be on turning "exciting intellectual property into products".


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Lithium-ion gigafactories crowd out new battery technologies
 Massive investments in lithium-ion battery production could thwart the search for other battery options based on lower-cost ingredients, despite the efforts of numerous lithium-ion contenders.

Already, “There are cheaper alternatives in terms of raw materials," said Benchmark Mineral Intelligence analyst Caspar Rawles. "But what we have had happen over the last three years is a huge investment in manufacturing infrastructure for lithium-ion.”

Worldwide, the number of lithium-ion ‘megafactories,’ which Benchmark Mineral Intelligence defines as cell-producing facilities with more than 1 gigawatt-hour of production capacity per year, has gone from just a couple three years ago to around 20 today.

About half of those are in China, Rawles said. At the end of 2016, global lithium-ion battery production capacity stood at 28 gigawatt-hours, with 16.4 gigawatt-hours in China.

Globally, this is set to increase 521 percent, to 174 gigawatt-hours, by 2020, according to BMI forecasts.

China will account for 62 percent of production, with almost 108 gigawatt-hours a year, followed by the U.S. with 22 percent (38 gigawatt-hours), South Korea with 13 percent (23 gigawatt-hours) and Poland with 3 percent (5 gigawatt-hours).

One Chinese company, Contemporary Amperex Technology, is expected to be producing 50 gigawatt-hours of lithium-ion battery storage capacity by 2020, overtaking Tesla’s projected 35 gigawatt-hours.

Even today, the infrastructure “represents billions of dollars in investment [and] huge growth in manufacturing capacity for lithium-ion,” said Rawles.

“You might have cell technology that would be cheaper in terms of raw materials theoretically, but to get to the cost that lithium-ion is at now would take huge investment and isn’t likely to happen," he said.

This may help explain the sluggish progress being made by a host of lithium-ion contenders banking on lower material costs to gain a competitive edge.

Eos Energy Storage, which claims it can provide utility-scale battery storage for $160 per kilowatt-hour thanks to a chemistry based on a zinc hybrid cathode design, has managed to win orders from utilities such as Engie and Con Ed, but is hardly shipping massive quantities.

It is doing better than most, though. Ambri, with a liquid metal battery made from inexpensive, earth-abundant materials, is still in the early stages of commercialization despite raising $50 million in venture capital.

Ecoult, which is touting an advanced lead-acid battery design, earlier this year announced its first steps in creating a global manufacturing network, but does not expect to have licensing deals in place in most energy storage markets until 2019.

And the saltwater battery maker Aquion ran into well-publicized problems earlier this year. In July, it seemed to be back in business after its brush with death. Only time will tell whether the company can grow under its new ownership, however.

Even established non-lithium-ion battery technologies, such as the sodium-sulfur chemistries sold by NGK and others, are having a hard time competing with lithium-ion’s vast market dominance.

Based on U.S. Department of Energy figures cited by the International Renewable Energy Agency, only 4.8 megawatts of sodium-based battery power capacity was announced, contracted or under construction as of this year, against more than 333 megawatts of lithium-ion storage.

Flow batteries face a similar problem. Only one chemistry, vanadium redox, has become established. But International Renewable Energy Agency data shows the chemistry accounted for less than 1 percent of global electrochemical storage power capacity by mid-2017.

Furthermore, some observers believe that if used widely the flow battery chemistry would run into similar supply chain problems as those being flagged for lithium-ion. “There are limits to vanadium,” commented Hugh Sharman, principal at energy consultancy Incoteco.

“The ores are already getting thinner, and if vanadium becomes a major component of energy storage systems, then the price would skyrocket," he said.

Because of this, some flow battery makers have swerved toward chemistries based on more common elements. Energy Storage Systems, for instance, makes a flow battery in which iron is the main component.

The concept looks great on paper but, yet again, is struggling against lithium-ion.

The only categories of energy storage that seem capable of holding their own in the face of lithium-ion’s electrochemical dominance are those that can deliver truly massive levels of capacity, such as pumped hydro, compressed air, molten salt or flywheels.

These rely on storage media that are so cheap they are practically free in some cases. And that might be the only thing that keeps them in the game as lithium-ion scales toward multi-gigawatt-hour levels.

After all, said Sharman: “Unless a cost-effective way is found to recycle the components, the practical limit for a lithium-ion battery will be materials-related. It won’t be related to economies of scale.”

--

Join GTM for a deep dive into the budding domestic energy storage market at the U.S. Energy Storage Summit 2017. Utilities, financiers, regulators, technology innovators, and storage practitioners will all come together for two full days of data-intensive presentations, analyst-led panel sessions with industry leaders, and extensive, high-level networking. Learn more here.

Output: Batteries using alternative technologies are struggling to get a toehold in the energy marketplace, because of the dominance of lithium-ion. Products such as those from Eos Energy Storage, which uses a zinc hybrid cathode design, Ecoult, with its advanced lead-acid battery design and Ambri's liquid metal battery, are being squeezed out by around 20 lithium-ion factories producing more than 1 GWh of batteries per year. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence says that global lithium-ion battery production stood at 28 GWh in 2016, and it predicts it will grow 521% to 174 GWh by 2020, with China and the US accounting for around 84% of the market.


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Input:
Peer-to-peer solar equipment marketplace raises $1.6m
 U.S.-based peer-to-peer solar equipment leasing marketplace Sun Exchange announced it has raised around $1.6 million in financing from a group of investors comprising Network Society Ventures (New York City), Kalon Venture Partners (Johannesburg, South Africa) and three of the world's leading technology accelerators, BoostVC (San Francisco Bay Area), Techstars (Boulder, Colorado) and Powerhouse (Oakland, California).

The company said the funds will be used to meet the demand for “its pipeline of commercial-scale solar power projects, located in the sunniest regions of the planet”, without providing further details.

The company, which is mainly active in the African energy market and has now expanded with headquarters in the U.S. in California, and a regional operating office in Dubai, which gives retail customers around the world the opportunity to lease solar cells bought on their own platform to medium to larger scale solar installation in developing countries. “Solar panels are sold by the single solar cell, reducing the cost of solar plant ownership to below $10,” the company said in its press release.

Popular content

To reduce the costs of cross border transaction and to increase transparency, Sun Exchange leverages blockchain and bitcoin. The company claims that by presenting simple and accessible opportunity for anyone to join the solar economy, it can unlock the potential for the construction of environmentally sound and socially responsible projects that would otherwise not exist.

Output: Californian peer-to-peer solar equipment leasing platform Sun Exchange has raised $1.6m in funding from investors including Techstars, Network Society Ventures and South African outfit Kalon Venture Partners. Sun Exchange uses blockchain and digital currency bitcoin to enable customers to purchase solar cells from its platform and lease them to installations in developing countries. The firm said the funding would be used for the "pipeline of commercial-scale solar power projects, located in the sunniest regions of the planet".


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Input:
LevelTen Energy raises $6.8m to help companies buy clean power
 After years of work and billions of dollars of investment, Google recently announced that this year, 100 percent of its offices and data centers will be powered by buying wind and solar electricity. It’s a major feat for the search engine giant, which has led the way in buying renewable power.

But what about all of the other companies out there that don’t have anywhere near Google’s balance sheet, environmental commitment or energy bills?

For many corporations trying to buy clean energy, the process can be “brutal,” said Bryce Smith, founder and CEO of LevelTen Energy. “Only the largest corporate buyer can often participate and get a good deal,” he said.

Why? The projects that big companies like Google buy power from are generally large, 100-megawatt-sized wind or solar projects that aren’t yet built. Google and its ilk make a commitment to buy all of the power from the farm, the wind developer gets a guaranteed customer, and the company gets a good deal on the price of electricity.

Smaller companies can’t commit to buying such large amounts of power because they don’t need it. As a result, they can get boxed into buying electricity from smaller farms with higher prices.

In addition, corporate buyers need to be well versed in how wholesale power markets work in order to determine if a clean energy deal is economically viable or not. If a company buys energy from a wind farm in a region where, for example, many new wind farms are getting built, the electricity price dynamics -- and value proposition -- could change dramatically.

Rocky Mountain Institute calls this problem the “winner’s curse” -- where the price and the value of a renewable energy project don’t match, and the customer’s asset doesn’t deliver the expected return.

To find a solution for these problems, Smith, a 20-year clean energy veteran, created LevelTen Energy last year. The company, which completed the Techstars accelerator, has built software and data tools that aggregate clean energy projects and sell them in a manner similar to how mutual funds are created and sold.

“In the same way that mutual funds changed equity investing for individuals, for companies and clean energy it makes sense to have a more diversified portfolio and spread the risk over eight to 10 projects,” said Smith. LevelTen Energy uses analytics and wholesale market expertise to try to get corporate buyers the best deals possible.

On Monday, LevelTen Energy announced its first clean energy portfolio totaling 410 megawatts, which represents two wind and two solar projects in the Eastern U.S. territory of regional transmission organization PJM. Smith said the portfolio already has customers but declined to name who those customers are.

In addition to the first deal, LevelTen Energy announced that it's closed a Series A round of funding of $6.8 million to expand its outreach to new customers. Investors include Prelude Ventures, Techstars Venture Capital Fund, Founders’ Co-Op, Wireframe Ventures, Element 8 Fund and Avista Development, a subsidiary of Avista Corp.

Smith, who previously co-founded utility clean power developer OneEnergy Renewables, said when he first joined Techstars he “felt like a fish out of water,” given his long history in the energy industry. However, the tech focus quickly emerged as a crucial part of building the product, attracting customers and bringing in employees.

LevelTen Energy is riding the growing wave of clean energy procurements. There was 1.24 gigawatts' worth of corporate renewable energy procurements in the first half of this year, according to Rocky Mountain Institute, which has also built a service to help corporate buyers.

Close to 100 companies have committed to go 100 percent renewable as part of the RE100 campaign. But it is readily apparent that the bulk of those ambitious companies are some of the largest tech firms and industrial giants in corporate America, with small and medium-sized companies tending to be more hesitant about making such a pledge.

The proof of whether LevelTen Energy can help solve the growing pains of corporate clean energy buying will come down to if, and which, corporate customers sign up.

Output: Seattle-based utility LevelTen Energy has raised $6.8m in series A funding, with investors including Techstars Venture Capital Fund and Prelude Ventures. LevelTen, a graduate of Techstars' accelerator, has developed machine learning and artificial intelligence software that aggregates clean energy products. It then allows them to be sold in a similar way to mutual funds, spreading risk and offering small and medium-sized US businesses access to affordable renewable energy. LevelTen recently announced its first clean energy portfolio, amounting to 410 MW.


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Corporate funding for solar projects fell 20% YoY in Q3
 Solar sector attracted corporate funding worth USD 2.4 billion in the third quarter of 2017, lower than the fund flows registered in the year-ago period, says a report.

Clean energy consulting firm Mercom Capital Group has said that the funding amount stood at USD 3 billion in the three months ended September 2016.

However, in comparison with the second quarter of this year, the amount rose in the latest third quarter.

"During Q3 2017, corporate funding in the solar sector grew 74 per cent compared to Q2 2017, with USD 2.4 billion raised in 45 deals. In Q2 2017, USD 1.4 billion was raised in 37 deals," Mercom Capital said in a release.

The figures include venture capital funding, public market and debt financing.

In the first nine months of this year, the total corporate funding in the solar sector reached USD 7.1 billion compared to USD 7.5 billion recorded in the same period a year ago. RAM SBT

Output: Corporate investment in solar projects totalled $2.4bn in Q3 2017, 20% less than the $3bn spent during the same period last year, according to Mercom Capital Group. It found corporate funding, which included venture capital funding, debt financing and public markets, during Q3 2017 was higher compared to the preceding three-month period.


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Input:
Unilever to refocus on media planning, produce less content
 In an earnings call with investors, Unilever chief financial officer Graeme Pitkethly revealed that brand health measure remains “very strong”. However, there is a change in approach for the company which is spending more competitively than it was the year before. This is done in a more effective manner because zero-based budgeting (ZBB) allows it to put more of its investment back and cut waste out.“We have much more consumer media and promotional point of sale investment as part of that mix and less on non working media," he said, adding:Less money is being spent creating advertising and more money is being spent showing advertising in a more effective way to our consumers.Meanwhile, in July this year following its Q2 results, Unilever said its analysis found that it was producing too many “new” pieces of advertising, with more than 95% of its advertising films being replaced before it had reached maximum effectiveness. Pitkethly added that a result of this was the creation of “a lot of wasted work”, both internally and for Unilever’s agencies.Unilever had then revealed that it was able to reduce its media spend in Southeast Asia by 12%. This was through its new zero-based budgeting (ZBB) strategy and follows the company’s move to tighten its disciplines around media planning. Using the Southeast Asia market as an example, Pitkethly had then explained there was a tendency for Unilever to expose consumers to its advertising “beyond the point of diminishing returns”. Through ZBB, Unilever was able to focus on the quality of its advertising reach.This time around, Pitkethly explained that overall Unilever is making the right changes within its businesses through the various organisational changes and reshaping of its portfolio. He said this is the "more strategic response to the changes taking place within the consumer communications landscape"."I don't need to tell you that there is a lot of change and influx [in the new consumer landscape]. If you get it right, you get it very right, if you get it wrong, you get it very wrong,” Pitkethly added.Some initiatives the company is continuing to undertake include its Unilever Studios which builds its in-house digital and content capabilities which is now available in over 20 marketers.Another is Unilever’s people data centres which allows it to secure consumer insights from social and scraping data from around the digital landscape. These centres are now in 20 markets, covering 40 languages. Pitkethly said:All we can do is continue investing heavily in building capabilities in the new marketing space. As such, around a third of our investment, which may be the wrong distinction here, is on 'digital'.Addressing other capabilities such as programmatic, Pitkethly acknowledged ongoing efforts by CMO Keith Weed, along with the rest of the industry, in creating proper stewardships and leadership roles and basics such as viewability, verification, combating ad fraud and brand safety.Read also:Unilever buys Carver Korea for US$2.7 bn to strengthen Asia footholdUnilever accidentally uses North Korea leader’s initials KJU as shower gel name

Output: Consumer goods brand Unilever has revealed it will focus on media planning, using its zero-based budgeting (ZBB) policy, to get the most out of its advertising without creating more content. CFO Graeme Pitkethly said in an earnings call with investors that Unilever customers were exposed to content "beyond the point of diminishing returns". The ZBB initiative, which had reduced the company's Southeast Asia media spend by 12%, would help maximise advertisement reach.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
India's Azure Power raises $30m in debt from Dutch institution
 Mumbai: Renewable energy firm Azure Power Global Ltd has raised close to Rs200 crore (approximately $30.5 million) in debt from Dutch development finance institution FMO, two people aware of the development said.

“Azure has recently raised debt financing from FMO to the tune of Rs200 crore. The funds will be used by Azure to invest in the development of its ongoing projects and those in the pipeline," said one of the two people cited above, requesting anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to reporters. “The company has close to 300 megawatts (MW) of projects under development as of today."

FMO has a committed portfolio of €9.8 billion across emerging markets, making it one of the larger bilateral private sector development banks globally.

FMO, which invests in sectors such as agribusiness, infrastructure, manufacturing and services, energy, financial institutions and in multi-sector private investment funds, has a total Asia exposure of €2.7 billion.

Azure Power has a diversified portfolio of 1,069MW in 18 states, of which 771MW is operational and 298MW is committed and under construction, according to details available on the company’s website.

Majority of its portfolio has as counter-party government of India agencies such as NTPC Ltd and Solar Energy Corp. of India Ltd.

Emails sent last week to Azure Power and FMO did not elicit any response.

Azure Power became the first Indian renewable energy company to get listed on the New York Stock Exchange in October 2016. It sold 3.41 million shares in an initial public offering, including 2.24 million new shares and 1.16 million shares from existing shareholders. Azure raised $61.36 million through the IPO.

Ahead of Azure’s IPO, Canadian pension fund CDPQ picked up a stake worth $75 million as part of a private placement. CDPQ owns 20% in Azure.

For the year ended 31 March, Azure Power reported a revenue of Rs418.30 crore, as compared to a revenue of Rs262.62 crore in the previous financial year.

Loss narrowed to Rs148.3 crore in 2016-17 from Rs303.8 crore a year ago.

In August, Azure Power raised $500 million by selling green bonds for repayment of existing debt and for capital expenditure for under construction projects and future growth.

Azure Power is backed by World Bank arm International Finance Corp., venture capital fund Helion Venture Partners, German development finance institution DEG and a French development financial institution Proparco.

Founded by Inderpreet Wadhwa in 2008, Azure Power developed India’s first utility scale solar project in 2009.

In its other efforts in the energy sector in India, FMO along with development finance institutions DEG and Proparco signed an agreement with private lender Yes Bank Ltd to promote green finance in India in June.

FMO has also invested in other sectors such as financial services.

In 2013, it participated in a $53 million funding round of erstwhile microfinance firm Equitas Holding.

Output: Dutch development finance institution FMO has invested INR200 crore ($30.5m) in debt issued by Indian solar energy developer Azure Power, according to two people with knowledge of the deal. Azure has a portfolio of 1,069 MW of solar power facilities across 18 Indian states, of which 771 MW is in operation and 298 MW is under construction. In October 2016, Azure became the first Indian renewable company to get listed on the New York Stock Exchange.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Facebook Messenger enables payments via PayPal in US
 Messenger started making it easier to pay your friends for dinner back in 2015 when it introduced the option to transfer money in-app with a credit or debit card. If PayPal has always been more convenient, though, you'll love this collaboration: Facebook and the payment service have teamed up to give you a new way to split the bill. You can access the feature the same way you'd pay with a card. Simply tap the blue plus icon and then tap the green Payments button to bring up the two existing options.

If you'd previously set up the feature to pay using your card, just tap the Change button and choose Paypal to connect your account with Messenger. The feature is now live on iOS and will soon be available on Android. Unfortunately, you can only use it if you're in the US -- everyone else will just have to find other ways to spend their PayPal balance.

Output: Messenger, Facebook's instant messaging service, has enabled payments with PayPal for in-app money transfers. The platform introduced the transfers service for credit and debit cards in 2015, advertising it as a handy way for friends to split their bills after a meal. PayPal has now been added as a payment method for transactions in the US, with the feature live on iOS, and soon to be available on Android.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
TalkTalk Executive chairman named one of London's most influential people
 Tina Fordham

Chief Global Political Analyst at Citi

When the stock market wants to know what to make of the latest bust-up in Washington or sabre-rattling in Korea, it turns to Fordham, the political-pundit-in-chief at US banking giant Citi. A single mother of two, the Columbia grad has sharpened her pencil at top-tier organisations like the Aspen Institute and the United Nations. She appears frequently on TV for broadcasters like CNN and the BBC.

Andrew Bailey

FCA Chief Executive

When Bailey assumed the chief executive role at the Financial Conduct Authority in July last year, he was regarded as a safe pair of hands having worked at the Bank of England for 30 years. At the helm of the City watchdog, which is the UK’s most prominent financial consumer protection body, he will be a powerful voice at a time when the City is making preparations for how business will cope in the aftermath of Brexit.

James Bardrick

Head of UK, Citigroup

He sometimes spends his weekends at sea level, racing a 100-year-old fishing boat with his friends, but for most of the year Bardrick is an extremely busy man. Not only is he heading Citi’s huge UK operations, but he also sits on the Banking Standards Board, which was set up in 2015 to improve banks’ behaviour. In addition, Bardrick is a trustee and deputy chairman of Career Ready, which helps young people enter the world of work.

Matthew Barnes

Chief Executive, Aldi UK and Ireland

Barnes is not daunted by the economic wobbles sweeping through Brexit Britain. Far from it: this year he increased his plans to open new stores to take the chain from 1,000 to 1,300 by 2022. That’s a huge expansion from its current position of around 700. Analysts question whether he’ll be able to find enough sites in London to hit his targets as rents here make its cut-price model hard to sustain. This year Aldi’s critics have accused it of losing sales growth. That is a claim he vehemently denies, declaring he doesn’t “lose a millisecond of sleep” over such talk, which he reckons comes from those with vested interests in Britain’s Big Four supermarket chains.

Inga Beale

Chief Executive at Lloyd’s of London

While best known as one of the biggest champions of boardroom diversity in the City, Beale added another string to her bow by banging the drum for the City to get a good deal from Brexit. Though the insurance market faces growing pressure, Beale has been busy stitching up fresh deals to face the growing storm. With new Lloyd’s chairman Bruce Carnegie-Brown in place, she opened new offices in Brussels to cope with Brexit and Mumbai to help Lloyd’s chart a fresh course for the 21st century.

Colette Bowe

Chairman, Banking Standards Board

Latterly charged with clearing out the Augean stables of the banking industry, Dame Colette recently admitted that the sector was a “very, very long way” from being fully reformed. Through a lengthy career, the trained economist has had feet in public and private life as both civil servant and chairman of telecoms and broadcasting regulator Ofcom, as well as holding board seats at Thames Water and Morgan Stanley.

Alison Brittain

Chief Executive, Whitbread

One of British business’s livewires, Alison Brittain runs Whitbread, the Costa Coffee to Premier Inn empire. A banker for most of her career, she took over the helm at Whitbread early last year. It’s proved a tough gig for the Derbyshire-raised Cambridge graduate; she joined just as Costa’s sales growth was coming off the boil. However, investors have praised her stewardship so far and fellow business bosses made her Veuve Clicquot businesswoman of the year.

Matt Brittin

President of EMEA Business and Operations, Google

As Google’s European boss, Brittin is arguably the most important person in UK tech. He faced criticism this year for ads appearing on extremist content on YouTube, its video channel, but has vowed to do more to ensure big brands are not funding hate speech. Before joining Google, initially as UK boss, Brittin was in charge of commercial operations at Trinity Mirror, the owner of the Daily Mirror newspaper.

Claire Calmejane

Director of Innovation at Lloyds Banking Group

The French-born tech guru joined the 250-year-old British institution with a brief to shake-up old ways of doing business. A former visiting scientist at MIT, Calmejane had been studying how to disrupt traditional lending when Lloyds poached her to come in-house in 2012 and show them how it was done. Though she grew up in Paris, the 34-year-old says she enjoys nothing more than sitting down for a Sunday roast with her partner after a long week.

Mark Carne

Chief Executive, Network Rail

Running the country’s train network is never a simple task, but Mark Carne will be the first to admit it has been a tougher year than most. The Network Rail chief executive has endured lengthy strikes (and the wrath of commuters) this year, but has done his best to ease their pain with an ambitious £133 million upgrade plan to create an extra 170,000 seats.

Mark Carney

Governor of the Bank of England

The Canadian Governor of the Bank of England has committed to stay on in the job until 2019 and is now gently easing the UK towards its first interest rate rise in a decade. His considered interventions – particularly in defence of the City of London – have meanwhile reminded the politicians of what is at stake as the Brexit negotiations begin, particularly his urging that we should not cast ourselves adrift from Europe.

Stacey Cartwright

Deputy Chairman of Harvey Nichols

The glamorous former Burberry finance boss has tried to stay one step ahead of the consumer game this year in a bid to revive the flagging chain. An overhaul of womenswear, new in-store concepts and a push overseas are certain to keep the chain’s billionaire owner Dickson Poon happy and has earned her a promotion from chief executive to deputy chairman. When the Liverpool FC fan is not on the shop floor, she’s down at Richmond Park cycling with her ex-rugby-pro husband.

Vittorio Colao

Vodafone Chief Executive

Colao has been boss of the telecommunications giant since 2008. Earlier this year his company launched a crackdown on fake news and hate speech, saying that it will prevent its adverts from appearing alongside objectionable content. It is understood to have been the first policy of its kind anywhere in the world.

Iain Conn

Chief Executive at Centrica

In a year when energy prices have topped the political agenda, the straight-talking Scot has become one of the most articulate opponents of the energy price cap plan. Despite facing fire for a 40 per cent pay rise and the ire of British Gas customers, the veteran oil engineer has impressed shareholders by steering Centrica in the right direction. When not grappling with politicians and customers, Conn can be found fly-fishing or listening to his favourite rhythm and blues records.

Mike Coupe

Chief Executive, J Sainsbury

A year on from the merger of Sainsbury’s and catalogue-store Argos, chief executive Mike Coupe’s skills as a retailer are in no doubt. He has managed the merger adeptly, while showing he can respond creatively to the changing nature of the retail landscape. The jury may still be out on whether the combination will deliver long term value to shareholders, but the early signs are that it will work — both for the business and for shoppers.

Jim Cowles

Chief Executive Europe, Middle East and Africa, Citi

The smooth-talking senior banker has championed diversity at the US bank, which has signed up to the Women in Finance charter. The American is planning for a “hard Brexit” although Cowles is confident that he’ll be able to look after his clients come what may. “We have to plan for the worst case from a business point of view,” he says.

Bruce Daisley

European Vice-President, Twitter

Daisley, who has a lengthy tech and media CV spanning Google and Emap, was boss of Twitter’s UK arm before taking on his current role two years ago. Despite a difficult 2016, the profile of Twitter has arguably never been higher, with US President Donald Trump boosting users as well as the influential microblogging site’s push into live video-streaming attracting younger users.

Howard Davies

Chairman, Royal Bank of Scotland

Fresh from dealing with the thorny issue of expanding the UK’s airport capacity, the 66-year-old City grandee is now chairing the UK’s perennial problem bank salvaged by the taxpayer almost a decade ago. RBS could — fingers crossed — turn a profit next year but the firm’s recent $5.5 billion US fine for past misdemeanours merely underlines how big a job Sir Howard has clearing up past messes.

Pierre Denis

Chief Executive, Jimmy Choo

The well-heeled chief executive of Jimmy Choo is currently walking the luxury shoe-maker down the catwalk — as it looks for a buyer. The Frenchman has got the business in shape for a sale and the City has responded by sending the share price up over 70 per cent in a year. Before leading Jimmy Choo’s stock market float, Denis worked his way up through French luxury goods giant LVMH.

Michèle Dix

Managing Director, Crossrail 2

Dix is in charge of one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the UK. Crossrail 2 will run between Hertfordshire and Surrey, alleviating the overcrowding on commuter trains as more and more people commute into London. Her job is to get the funding to complete the £30 billion scheme. Before that, she was responsible for Transport for London’s strategic plans, future projects and policies.

Gillian Drakeford

UK and Ireland Manager, Ikea

Drakeford started her career at Ikea 30 years ago on the shop floor in Warrington. Now she runs the Swedish group in the UK and has probably done more than most retailers to shape the look of homes across the land. Ikea is adapting to new retail trends and wants to open more smaller, easily accessible stores as well as providing click-and-collect, creating 1,800 UK jobs by 2018. Typical of its evolution is a new virtual-reality kitchen store that opened in Shoreditch this summer. Drakeford is a retailer that wants to connect with her shoppers, as anxious to serve the home-owning middle-aged as the renting millennials.

Charles Dunstone

Executive Chairman, TalkTalk

It’s been a year of change for TalkTalk, the low-cost broadband and telecom provider, which in February lost its chief executive Dido Harding. Charles Dunstone, founder of the business and still its largest shareholder, has been parachuted in as executive chairman. Dunstone, one of the UK’s most-respected entrepreneurs, wasted no time in axing the dividend and refocusing the business back to its low-cost roots. But there is still a lot of work to make up the hit the business took from 2016’s massive hack. If anyone can put this telecom company back on track, it’s Dunstone.

Luke Ellis

Chief Executive of Man Group

The hedge fund exec has done more than anyone to overhaul the image of a misunderstood industry. As chief executive of Man, Europe’s largest listed hedge fund, Ellis has managed to juggle the twin demands of keeping clients and markets happy while also attracting new money into a sector often criticised for high fees. The former farmer — he took a break from the City in 2008 — emerged from the shadows of Man’s old boss Manny Roman this year as one of hedge-funding’s most articulate and passionate advocates.

Carolyn Fairbairn

Director-General, CBI

The former BBC executive and adviser to Sir John Major is an influential voice for the UK’s biggest companies as Brexit negotiations get under way, irking Brexiteers by calling for a “bridge” rather than a “cliff edge” for businesses when the country pulls out of the EU in 2019. As a leading female industry figurehead, she’s also been an advocate for more women in the boardroom.

Stephanie Flanders

Head of Bloomberg Economics

Stephanie Flanders / Daniel Hambury: Stella Pictures

Flanders has made a blockbuster return to media this year, in a job surely made for her — the first head of Bloomberg Economics. She comes from a sojourn in finance, where she was as a market strategist at J P Morgan for four years. Before that she was the well-respected BBC economics editor. Her father was Michael Flanders, of Flanders and Swann fame, but she has no need to sing for her gigs: Flanders has real economics and media chops.

Jayne-Anne Gadhia

CEO, Virgin Money

As the boss of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Money, Gadhia is one of the financial services industry’s most senior women. She was named Personality of the Year at the Evening Standard Business Awards 2017, thanks to growing the company to be one of the UK’s main challenger banks. This year, she lived up to her straight-talking reputation with her memoir The Virgin Banker, in which she wrote about her own mental health problems and the old boys’ network at Royal Bank of Scotland under her former boss Fred Goodwin.

Martin Gilbert

Co-Chief Executive, Standard Life Aberdeen

As if managing one £11 billion deal wasn’t enough, Martin Gilbert is juggling two.

As well as merging Aberdeen with Scottish asset management rival Standard Life, he is also helping to steer the takeover of Sky, where he is deputy chairman, by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox. Some question how he will cope with sharing the chief executive role with Keith Skeoch at Standard Life Aberdeen, but most in the City have been won round by the deal.

Richard Gnodde

Chief Executive of Goldman Sachs International

The South African-born banking guru has come a long way since joining the investment bank in London in 1987 in the merger department. He rose through the ranks to become co-chief executive of Goldman Sachs International in 2006, and the firm put more faith in him last year when it was revealed that Michael Sherwood — the other co-chief — would be departing the business, leaving Gnodde in sole charge. He is now responsible for the mammoth task of getting the company ready for Brexit.

Gerard Grech

Chief Executive, TechCityUK

Grech has emerged as a key lobbyist for the UK’s tech scene amid worries that Brexit could stem the flow of talent heading to these shores. Grech, who has also worked for Orange, Nokia and BlackBerry before becoming Silicon Roundabout’s champion, has called for more tech visas and recently warned that with rivals such as Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam and Stockholm on the rise “the UK cannot take its position for granted”.

Doug Gurr

UK Country Manager, Amazon

The boss of Amazon in the UK has had a good year, with the online retailer continuing its voracious growth in the UK market. Since its parent company has snapped up Whole Foods, which already has a small presence in London, Gurr’s experience in the grocery market is going to be useful. Under Gurr, Amazon has added 5,000 people to the UK workforce this year, taking its total UK employees to 24,000 by the end of 2017. It moves into its new offices in Shoreditch this summer, underlining the retailer’s commitment to the capital.

Christian Hartnagel

Chief Executive, Lidl UK

The shock departure of Lidl UK boss Ronny Gottschlich after six years in the post last autumn meant Christian Hartnagel’s time had come. Although only 34 at the time, he had distinguished himself through a 13-year career at the discount retailer, including running the Irish operation. He started in a store in his native Germany after leaving school with no idea what he wanted to do. He lives in Raynes Park with his partner and three-year-old son.

Stephen Hester

Chief Executive at RSA Insurance

The former Royal Bank of Scotland chief has come into his own helming insurer RSA, slimming down its bloated operations. The 56-year-old Yorkshireman’s turnaround plan has propelled RSA to become one of the best performing insurers in the world this year. With the recovery sealed, the green-fingered Oxford alumnus — he has been a Royal Botanic Gardens trustee — is likely be drawing up plans for his next big target.

Michael Hintze

Founder, CQS

Visitors to see Hope the whale at the National History Museum will have noticed its grand new home is called the Hintze hall. Michael Hintze’s surname will be familiar to London culture vultures, as the hedge funder and philanthropist’s bequests are as numerous as they are generous. The Clapham resident’s hedge fund CQS is one of the world’s best known, investing a cool $12.7 billion of your and my pensions and other savings.

John Holland-Kaye

Chief Executive, Heathrow

At the head of the European hub that saw a record 77 million passengers in the year to September, Holland-Kaye is doing his bit to show that the UK remains open for business. The formal parliamentary vote on the controversial third runway is likely to take place in the first half of next year. Holland-Kaye, who was born in the Lake District, worked in the building industry before joining Heathrow in 2009.

Antonio Horta-Osorio

Chief Executive, Lloyds Banking Group

2017 was a landmark year for the Lloyds chief executive and for the taxpayer as the Government finally sold down its remaining stake, almost a decade after its £20.3 billion bailout of the bank. With Lloyds’ turnaround largely complete, Horta-Osorio has been linked with other big jobs, but Lloyds is adamant he’s staying put. There are still issues to sort out, but the Portuguese tennis-playing banker has got the bank back to a place where future earnings look secure and has gradually won back customer confidence too.

Jonathan “Jony” Ive

Chief Design Officer, Apple

The iPhone turned 10 this year but the sleekly iconic smartphone is still likely to remain the Chingford-born designer’s biggest contribution to consumer culture. Sir Jonathan, whom Apple founder Steve Jobs considered his “spiritual partner” at the US company, has a list of accolades as long as your arm but he made it longer still in July when he became chancellor of the Royal College of Art for a five-year term. Legend is not an understatement.

Tope Lawani and Babatunde Soyoye

Helios Investment Partners

Soyoye and Lawani left successful careers in investment banking and management to pursue their dream of being the catalysts of promoting Africa as a destination for investment. Based in London, perfect for connectivity, Tope and Baba are driven to see the investment money used on projects that improve the lives of fellow Africans. So far their efforts have seen more than £2 billion invested in breakthrough business that’s spreading access to communications and banking services to a wider African population.

Dave Lewis

Chief Executive, Tesco

Lewis arrived at Tesco after a 2014 accounting scandal that shocked the City. Wiry and athletic, he worked tirelessly to simplify the dizzying varieties and ranges Tesco stocked, making it a simpler business with cheaper prices. Although the turnaround is nowhere near finished, this year he embarked on a mega takeover of Booker, the cash-and-carry giant. Tesco director Richard Cousins resigned over the deal, believing it to be too soon into the recovery programme, but recently remarried Lewis sees it as a way to prepare Tesco for a future where shoppers are ditching out-of-town superstores for Booker’s corner shop clients.

Alexander Mamut

Chairman, Waterstones

The billionaire Russian investor bought Waterstones for £53 million back in 2011 and brought in James Daunt to help turn around the struggling high-street book-seller. The turnaround of the 270-store retailer has been steady, but stores have enjoyed a revival in physical book sales as well as offering stationery and traditional games. A float may yet be on the horizon but Mamut has certainly helped the British high-street stalwart claw its way back to life, at a time when the Amazon giant seemed destined to destroy even the biggest book stores.

Charlie Mayfield

Chairman, John Lewis Partnership

Moving from the senior ranks of the army to the cut-throat battlefield of the City is not so uncommon, but Mayfield’s career has taken him from Northern Ireland during the Troubles to the touchy-feely world of the John Lewis Partnership. After stints selling Horlicks and Lucozade for SmithKline Beecham, followed by McKinsey, he started at JLP in 2000, becoming only the fifth-ever chairman in 2007.

Ross McEwan

Chief Executive, RBS

The Kiwi with the most difficult job in the City has finally cleared one huge hurdle — settling a $5.5 billion (£4.2 billion) claim over trading toxic mortgage-backed debt in the US in the run up to the financial crisis. The settlement is likely to be followed by a further $2.5 billion claim from the Department of Justice. 2017 has also seen some progress in cutting staff and settling with shareholders. It has taken some time to haul the taxpayer-owned bank out of its “lost decade”, and it’s not quite there yet, but McEwan finally seems to be making headway.

John McFarlane

Chairman, Barclays

The no-nonsense McFarlane — who lost no time in dispensing of the services of former chief executive Antony Jenkins in 2015 — is also keen to stick up for the Square Mile’s interests after Brexit as chair of TheCityUK lobby group. The 70-year-old banking veteran has been vocal in calling for a multi-year transition deal with the EU but remains confident that London will remain a key financial centre.

Nicola Mendelsohn

Vice-President EMEA, Facebook

Frequently referred to as the most powerful woman in UK tech, Lady Mendelsohn CBE has been leading Facebook’s unstoppable rise in Europe. Like Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, she is a champion of diversity in the workplace. One of Sadiq Khan’s business advisers, Lady Mendelsohn is also a director at spirits giant Diageo and co-chairs the Creative Industries Council, a joint venture between creative industries and the Government.

Peter Miller

Chief Operating Officer UK/ Europe Westfield

The place where 75 million Londoners shop a year, Westfield dictates to a great extent what the capital spends its money on and also how it spends its leisure time. Miller has been in charge since Westfield arrived in 2008 and its latest £1 billion development in Croydon and a new £600 million extension of Westfield London demonstrate how it is turning up the heat on rivals. A Knight Bachelor honour for company founder Frank Lowy in the Queen’s recent birthday honours list shows how significant Westfield has been in rebuilding the capital’s economy since the financial crisis.

Lakshmi Mittal

Chairman and Chief Executive, ArcelorMittal

The 67-year-old steel magnate who was born in India has reason to celebrate: he and his family were ranked number four in the Sunday Times Rich List 2017’s UK richest 1000. They added more than £6 billion to their £13.2 billion fortune. Mittal settled in London in 1995 and he is a shareholder in Queens Park Rangers FC, along with his son-in-law Amit Bhatia, who is its vice-chairman.

Dambisa Moyo

Economist

The Zambian-born international economist is a veteran of the World Bank and Goldman Sachs who currently sits on the board of Barclays. The Oxford and Harvard-educated academic is author of three New York Times international bestsellers including Dead Aid — on the folly of aid to Africa — and is a regular at Davos, arguing this year that workers need to “re-skill” to adapt to globalisation and the jobs of the future.

Marc Nachmann

Goldman Sachs Investment Banking Co-Head

The high-flying new head of investment banking in London originally joined Goldman Sachs in its corporate finance department in 1994 and had struck gold within 10 years by being promoted to partner. He is now seen as one of the “next generation” of leaders at the bank. The married father-of-two was educated at Wesleyan University in Connecticut after joining as an exchange student from Germany. He graduated in 1991 with a degree in physics and mathematics-economics.

Paula Nickolds

Managing Director, John Lewis

The first female boss of John Lewis is a lifer at the department store group beloved by Britain’s middle-classes. She joined 22 years ago in the haberdashery department in Oxford Street and enjoyed a stellar career but reaches the top in tough times for retail, with Brexit and rising inflation sapping consumer confidence. Retail is in her DNA, as some of her earliest memories are of accompanying father Clive Nickolds on store tours at Marks & Spencer where he was a senior director.

Gavin Patterson

Chief Executive, BT

Gavin Patterson / Daniel Hambury / Evening Standard

As the head of one of the UK’s biggest telecoms firms, Patterson has led a bold push into Sky’s backyard, snapping up a host of sports broadcasting rights including Premier League football. But 2017 has been an “annus horribilis” for the FTSE 100 chief executive so far; the lowlight was a shocking profit warning driven by an accounting scandal in Italy and slowing public sector contracts.

Franck Petitgas

Global Co-Head of Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley

The French-born City whizz gave £12,000 to the Remain side in the run-up to the referendum last year. But, with the Leave side winning, he now finds himself helping the Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley prepare for Brexit. Every chairman and chief executive will take his calls, which should help him.

Vis Raghavan

JPMorgan Head of Banking EMEA

Cricket devotee Raghavan grew up in India and studied physics at the University of Bombay before he came to the UK to do a postgraduate degree in electronic engineering and computer science at Aston University. He had fully intended to go into a technology role. But luckily for JPMorgan, he ended up in the financial sector. With that brainpower, it’s no surprise he is the top City bank’s most senior banker in Europe, having just been promoted from deputy to CEO of its Europe, Middle East and Africa division.

Jim Ratcliffe

Chief Executive, Ineos

Ratcliffe grew up in Greater Manchester and now runs one of the world’s biggest chemical companies, which employs around 4,000 people in Britain. He is a fan of adventure sports who has made expeditions to the North and South Poles, but Ratcliffe can also be found in Knightsbridge, where Ineos opened a new headquarters in December. His firm has now transferred a number of the functions from the group’s corporate headquarters in Switzerland to London.

Simon Robey

Co-Founder, Robey Warshaw

The City’s been quiet this year for the megadeals Sir Simon specialises in advising on. But where they have happened, he’s usually been somewhere in the background. This consigliore of the City, like his sidekick Simon Warshaw, is on the speed-dial of every chairman and chief executive in town. Their Robey Warshaw boutique advisory firm saw their profits double to £37 million in figures released at the start of the year. Not bad for a business only four years old. Robey, chairman of the Royal Opera House, became Sir Simon last year for services to music.

Xavier Rolet

Chief Executive at the London Stock Exchange

The French-born stock exchange chief played a pivotal role in one of London's most fraught takeover sagas last year, steadying the ship as the company's merger with Deutsche Borse collapsed. Rolet, who owns an award-winning winery in Provence with his wife Nicole, bounced back by boosting LSE sales and clinching a £500m US takeover. Retirement beckons for this busy bee however after he announced would step down in 2018.

Sacha Romanovitch

Chief Executive, Grant Thornton

Romanovitch has made waves since becoming the boss of the accountancy giant in 2015, with a focus on social responsibility. It is paying off: this year the firm came number one in the Government’s first-ever list of the top 50 employers to have promoted social mobility at work. Changes the company has made in recent years to its school leaver and graduate trainee selection include removing academic barriers to entry.

Peter Ruis

Chief Executive, Jigsaw

His first job was buying shell suits, but dashing 49-year-old Ruis’s latest accomplishment has been putting the pieces back together at Jigsaw. Sales leapt to £105 million in the last financial year, as the former John Lewis buyer steered the intelligent fashion brand off the rocks. Brexit means big challenges, but Ruis is spearheading Jigsaw’s ♥ Immigration campaign, because “none of us are the product of staying put”. That’s what we call fashion forward.

Keith Skeoch

Co-Chief Executive, Standard Life Aberdeen

Although he’s based in Scotland for much of the time, Keith Skeoch’s stewardship of Standard Life makes him one of the City’s biggest noises. And he’s only getting more powerful as he bashes the business together with Aberdeen Asset Management and his opposite number there, Martin Gilbert. Quieter and more contemplative than clubbable Gilbert, Skeoch is more of the details guy in the partnership. A keen fell walker and fly fisherman, he’s as comfortable in the Highlands as he is on Cheapside.

Martin Sorrell

Chief Executive, WPP

The advertising mogul, aka the Sage of Soho, has run WPP for more than three decades. Despite his pay packet plunging last year and his industry facing tough economic times, with relentless cost-cutting by large corporations that are scaling back on advertising, Sir Martin has given no hints that retirement is on his mind. He is more than a mere adman. Clients and the media rate, indeed rely on, his ability to see what’s coming next.

Michael Spencer

Chief Executive of NEX

City trading legend Spencer is prominent as ever in the capital, concentrating on NEX, the electronic division of the Icap empire. Earlier this year, the former Tory Party treasurer split off Icap’s traditional telephone broking arm and sold it to Tullett Prebon in a £1.3 billion deal. The fine wine-loving bigwig is famed for hosting star-studded charity days.

Jes Staley

Chief Executive, Barclays

The American banker who broke company rules trying to unmask a whistle-blower at Barclays and who fell victim to a flattering email prankster has had his reputation dented this year, but he still remains one of the most influential voices in the City. At least Staley will have some fans among the Government, where he has helped by playing down the implications of Brexit and also pledging that only a few hundred or so of the bank’s UK employees will transfer to Dublin to help build an HQ within the European Union.

Tim Steiner

Chief Executive, Ocado

The former bond trader for Goldman Sachs started Ocado 17 years ago with fellow Goldman colleagues and the online supermarket has been delivering Waitrose goods across the capital ever since. The business has finally started to turn profitable, delivers for Morrisons as well, and has even announced its long-awaited international supply deal with an as-yet unnamed overseas retailer. Ocado now pitches itself as a tech company and Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods has helped stimulate interest in it. The former banker looks set to hit a sweet spot.

Ian Taylor

Chief Executive, Vitol

The head of the world’s largest independent oil trader may be facing difficult market conditions, but in March he revealed that the behemoth, run from his millionaire factory in Buckingham Palace Road, had a “solid” performance in 2016. The Royal Opera House chairman said crude and product volumes increased by 16 per cent.

Francesco Vanni D’Archirafi

CEO Citi Holdings

The German-born head of Citi’s “bad bank” did such a good job managing zombie assets dating back to the financial crisis that it now makes a profit. The son of an Italian diplomat spent a peripatetic childhood in Rome, Madrid, Brussels and Buenos Aires. He has worked almost all his career at Citibank, joining in 1983 in New York and transferring to Lima in Peru the following year before taking on a series of more senior roles.

Nick Varney

Chief Executive, Merlin Entertainments

Britain’s biggest tourist operator, Varney is the chief executive of Merlin Entertainments which operates some of the world’s most-famous attractions including Madame Tussauds and the London Eye. Varney is a considered and thoughtful voice over the Brexit challenge to tourism and has also won fans for this humble and swift action in the wake of the Smiler accident at Alton Towers, which exposed terrible health and safety failings.

Willie Walsh

Chief Executive at International Airlines Group

The boss of British Airways owner IAG has faced down a cocktail of problems this year, from cabin crew strikes and IT meltdowns to Brexit threats and low-cost rivals. The 56-year-old Irishman — who once said he would retire at 55 — has come through it all intact, opening a new airline class, Level, to compete with budget rivals and bolstering his statesmanlike role in the industry by holding the chair at global airline body IATA.

Mike Wells

Chief Executive, Prudential

The man from the Pru is no longer an ageing English gent in a bowler hat knocking on your front door. Wells is a tall Canadian, now a US citizen, with Superman good looks. Now two years into the job, he rocked up to London from his beloved Nashville, where he’d built up an enviable collection of rare guitars. Little wonder his son Jackson is now enjoying success as a singer-songwriter in China, where he sings the blues in Mandarin. If country and blues is not your thing, Wells can wax lyrical about everything from cattle (he still owns a ranch outside Nashville), to US politics (he’s a conservative with a gun licence), or world travel.

Alannah Weston

Deputy Chairman at Selfridges

The Progress 1000, in partnership with Citi, and supported by Invisalign, is the Evening Standard’s celebration of the people who make a difference to London life. #progress1000

As the guiding light behind Selfridges’ Oxford Street flagship store, Weston has turned the building into a must-see for tourists and Londoners alike since she was named deputy chairman in 2014. The former Burberry press director was appointed as creative director of the Weston family department store in 2004, adding to her long-running connection with the brand. She is married to architect Alexander Cochrane. The couple have two daughters.

Mark Wilson

Chief Executive, Aviva

The rugby-loving New Zealand-born boss won high praise when Aviva was named Business of The Year at The Evening Standard Business Awards 2017. This firm is almost unrecognisable from the bedraggled insurer it was when he took over in January 2013. A textbook turnaround has been accomplished, with underperforming businesses sold, the structure simplified and core businesses strengthened. He is now looking to the firm’s future, investing heavily in all things digital.

Stewart Wingate

Chief Executive, Gatwick Airport

Stewart Wingate has spent most of the last year making the case to give Gatwick a second runway. The chief executive of the UK’s second-busiest airport is the public face of the airport’s vocal campaign and backed up his argument after increasing the number of long-haul flights from the airport — beyond what Sir Howard Davies predicted it would have. Before running Gatwick, he was managing director of Stansted.

Bill Winters

Group Chief Executive, Standard Chartered

The Wall Street banker has spent much of the past two years trying to straighten out the pan-Asian bank and tighten up compliance and the job is certainly not over. There have been some small signs of progress following a restructuring of the bank’s business model, but there’s also lots of scepticism. Winters, who is something of a showman and is on the board of the Young Vic, favours a low-risk path to recovery but has made one significant decision. The bank’s EU headquarters will locate in Frankfurt, post-Brexit, a move which will probably influence other chief executives facing a similar dilemma.

Simon Wolfson

Chief Executive, Next

The Brexit-supporting chief executive of Next has had a tricky year in his retail empire as the company braces itself for rising prices, wage pressures and a slowdown in consumer spending. Online sales are faring better and rapidly becoming a big deal for the company and the closure of more physical stores seems inevitable. Next has not rediscovered its mojo in 2017 but Wolfson has laser-like scrutiny of the business and will not hesitate to make difficult decisions to win back the fickle British shopper.

Output: Charles Dunstone, founder and executive chairman of TalkTalk, has been listed as one of the Evening Standard's Progress 1000 most influential people in London. Dunstone took the role of executive chairman after CEO Dido Harding left in February 2017. The businessman refocused the company's image and worked towards the low-cost style of sales the business was founded on, whilst also removing the dividend. However, the telecoms company is still reeling from the large-scale cyber attack it suffered in 2016.


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Halo Top ‘healthy’ ice cream outsells Ben & Jerry’s in US
 “Everyone you love is gone. There is only ice-cream” is the darkly humorous sign off used in a recent ad for fast-growing American ice-cream brand Halo Top.

The Black Mirror-style commercial, which ran in US cinemas before films including the horror flick It, features an elderly woman being force-fed ice-cream by a robot in some dystopian future.

It was directed by Mike Diva, who has built a YouTube following with his advertising parodies, and who typifies the offbeat digital marketing aimed at millennials that has helped turn Halo Top into serious competition for bestselling brands such as Magnum, Ben & Jerry’s and Häagen-Dazs.

The somewhat noir US TV ad for Halo Top ice-cream.

The Los Angeles-based company was founded at the start of the decade by Justin Woolverton, a former lawyer who had a sweet tooth but was worried about sugar. So he bought a $20 ice-cream maker on Amazon and began trying to create healthier alternatives. “It was just something that I was making in my kitchen because I didn’t like sugar,” he told one interviewer about his Eureka moment.

Halo Top ice-cream. Photograph: Halo Top

While most ice-creams are a sugar and fat-laden treat, Halo Top bills itself as a “low-calorie, high-protein and low-sugar” alternative to mainstream brands, with flavours such as mochi green tea and rainbow swirls. Its recipe uses sugar substitute Stevia, which means a scoop of its Vanilla Ice contains 60 calories versus 250 in a similar sized dollop of Häagen-Dazs.

Reports in the US media have begun to question whether Halo Top is really as healthy as the marketing makes out, with some dieticians raising concerns about the use of artificial sweeteners.

Halo Top is now stocked in supermarkets across America, with the company shifting nearly $50m (£38m) worth of ice-cream in the US last year. Its sales accelerated in 2016 after GQ writer Shane Snow lived on Halo Top ice-cream for 10 days and the resulting article went viral.

The brand’s rise has been propelled by social media: it has 590,000 followers on Instagram and more than 700,000 on Facebook.

The social media buzz helped Halo Top chalk up another milestone in the summer when industry data showed its pint pots were outselling Unilever’s Ben & Jerry’s and Nestlé’s Häagen-Dazs in US grocery stores for the first time. Halo Top’s parent company, LA-based Eden Creamery, is seizing the day with one recent report suggesting it is exploring a sale that could value the company at up to $2bn.

Output: Halo Top, a Los Angeles-based ice cream company founded in 2011 which makes “low-calorie, high-protein and low-sugar” products, is providing serious competition to mainstream brands. A scoop of Halo Top’s Vanilla Ice contains just 60 calories, compared to 250 in an equivalent scoop of Häagen-Dazs. The company sold almost $50m of ice cream in the US last year, with pint pots now outselling those by Ben & Jerry’s and Häagen-Dazs. Parent company Eden Creamery is reputedly considering a sale, valuing the firm at up to $2bn. However, some dieticians have expressed concerns about the brand’s use of artificial sweeteners.


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Think tank NEF envisages driver-owned Uber rival for London
 Blog

A driver-owned alternative to Uber is not wishful thinking – we’re building it right now

Last weekend, Jeremy Corbyn raised an intriguing possibility. “Imagine an Uber,” he said, “run co-operatively by their drivers, collectively controlling their futures, agreeing their own pay and conditions, with profits shared or re-invested.”

Many have since dismissed this idea as wishful thinking. First, there is Uber’s undoubted popularity among its users – hundreds of thousands of people signed a petition protesting against Transport for London’s decision not to renew Uber’s licence. Then there is its market dominance, which only ever seems to intensify. How can any rival hope to compete in the increasingly monopolistic world of private hire?

Finally there is the factor which underpins both its popularity and its dominance. And that’s its price point. When Uber came on the scene, it undercut other taxi services by a huge margin. And it appeared to do so by spending vast amounts of venture capital in a bid to achieve global dominance of the market. Any co-operative, driver-owned alternative to Uber has to be competitive on price or it will never break through Uber’s grip on the market. How can they do that without spending vast amounts of capital? Where would that money come from?

We believe a driver-owned alternative could genuinely compete with Uber on price and convenience, especially if supported by the Mayor of London.

None of these arguments holds water. At the New Economics Foundation we recently called for ‘Khan’s Cars’, a mutually owned taxi platform for London which would give drivers real control over their working lives while still providing people with the cheap and convenient transport they need. We believe a driver-owned alternative could genuinely compete with Uber on price and convenience, especially if supported by the Mayor of London.

In fact, Uber isn’t as cheap as it seems. The company’s use of surge pricing, which inflates prices during periods of high demand, allows it to present cheaper prices at other times. Partly as a result of this, Uber makes a profit in the UK – suggesting the basic pricing model is financially viable without vast capital resources. So the gap to close isn’t as wide as it may look at first glance.

Furthermore, Uber takes between 20 – 25% of the fares it charges. Khan’s Cars could reduce that percentage since it will not have shareholders looking to extract profit.

If an alternative to Uber can compete on price and convenience, the prize is a taxi service which puts drivers in control of their working lives, with decent working conditions. And because it would not be motivated by the need to cut regulatory corners, it could offer improved safety for passengers.

It’s an idea which is attracting more and more support. We are already working with drivers in Bradford and Leeds to set up their own taxi service platform. Now we want to bring that effort to London. We’re working with drivers, tech companies, unions and civil society organisations to build the support and resources for a real alternative.

Uber is facing reputational problems not just in London, but all over the world. A co-operatively owned alternative would avoid that trap. As Uber struggles to stay on the right side of the law, perhaps the fanciful idea is not so much creating an alternative, but carrying on with the status quo.

Output: A co-operatively owned taxi company, offering drivers better working conditions and operating in compliance with existing regulations could beat Uber at its own game, said Stefan Baskerville, a director at think tank New Economic Foundation's (NEF). NEF is working with taxi drivers in Leeds and Bradford to develop such a model that offers a secure and affordable service, and is taking the idea to London, where it aims to gain the backing of Mayor Sadiq Khan. Uber, which faces opposition in several global locations, recently lost its licence to operate in the UK capital.


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Publisher Bleacher Report increases UK profile through instagram
 Bleacher Report is growing its U.K. presence on the back of its popular Bleacher Report Football Instagram account.

Bleacher Report Football, which has 667,000 followers, published 894 photos and videos on Instagram in April, according to NewsWhip data. In total, these generated 10.4 million engagements, a catch-all term NewsWhip uses for likes and comments. In September, the account posted just 39 more posts than in April, including a dozen carousels, but the engagements across these posts more than doubled to 26 million in total.

“Instagram we’re the most excited about,” said Lee Walker, global managing editor at Bleacher Report. “Across the board, it’s the platform where we get the most engagement. It sums up our mantra of elevated storytelling through great visuals and design. We are seeing increased interest in Instagram for branded content from clients right now.” The publisher was unwilling to share how much revenue this brings in, however.

For Nike in September, Bleacher Report Football created animated Instagram videos highlighting key moments from players like Cristiano Ronaldo, Leroy Sané and Robert Lewandowski. One post featuring Ronaldo had 23,000 engagements, according to NewsWhip; for comparison, its most popular editorial post on Instagram in September received 62,000 engagements. Bleacher Report Football has also run campaigns for Adidas, offering brands guaranteed views on Instagram.

“We see Instagram as a perfect way for some of our brand partners to connect with our fans,” said Walker. “There is a lot of potential here on both the revenue and audience side.”

This month, Bleacher Report appointed Gideon Reeves, formerly at 90min and Eurosport, to the newly created role of international commercial director in the U.K. to accelerate commercial opportunities in the U.K. and Europe. In total, the U.K. outfit is 32 people, with three in sales roles; the rest are editors, mobile and video specialists, social media editors and designers.

Bleacher Report Football’s content falls outside the commodity of scores and highlights, tapping into culture beyond sports, like film, TV, music and fashion. This makes the content more relevant and shareable, said Walker. Bleacher Report takes a distributed approach to content rather than using platforms to drive users back to its site. Its social team of 14 people, who work across platforms, publishes 30 pieces of content on Instagram a day. Instagram content is often video or animations with graphics and stop motion, like one putting football players into scenes from “Game of Thrones”.

The publisher said its engagement rate on Instagram — the number of likes and comments divided by follower count — is 4.3 percent in 2017, nearly five times that of competitors. Bleacher Report Football has 670,000 followers; in comparison, BBC Sport, whose coverage is broader, has under 1 million followers, and football site Goal’s global account has 1.8 million followers.

Bleacher Report is not alone in its Instagram high: NewsWhip analysts said they have seen engagement grow significantly across the board for publishers. It’s hard to pinpoint why, but the platform’s increase in users — it doubled monthly active users to 800 million in two years — plays a role. Publishers like millennial women-focused site Bustle is doing four times as many branded-content deals a month on Instagram versus a year ago, but in general, making money from platforms like Instagram outside of branded content is a struggle.

“What’s clear is that [Bleacher Report] is investing heavily in content specifically for social platforms, which is different to other sports networks,” said Katie Manor, head of paid social at MediaCom. She added that the publisher’s decision to rename its social media handles to “Bleacher Report Football” in March to reflect a focus on the sport, plus expand football beyond the U.K. in the vast category of sports publishing was a shrewd move. “This gives them a lot more opportunity to own the space and have an authoritative voice on their subject matter,” she said.

Walker will outline how Bleacher Report engages its audience in Berlin next week at Digiday’s Publishing Summit Europe.

Images courtesy of Bleacher Report U.K. via Instagram

Output: Sports publisher the Bleacher Report has increased its profile in the UK through its Bleacher Report Football Instagram account, which generated 10.4m likes and comments from its 667,000 followers in April. Interest in branded content from advertisers has grown significantly, driven by visual campaigns such as Nike’s animated highlights reel from footballers. The publisher has said its 2017 engagement rate is 4.3%, almost five times that of competitors BBC Sport and Goal. Bleacher Report has appointed Gideon Reeves in the new role of international commercial director in the U.K to continue driving growth.


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Lyft receives $1bn investment from Google-led consortium
 Last month, we reported on rumors that Alphabet, Google's parent company, was considering investing in Lyft. Now, Lyft has announced that CapitalG, which is Alphabet's growth investment fund, is leading a $1 billion financing round in the car-sharing company. This brings Lyft's total valuation to $11 billion.

Alphabet's interest in Lyft isn't that surprising, if you think about it. It's already clear that Alphabet is interested in self-driving cars, as the company owns Waymo. And back in May, Waymo and Lyft announced the two companies would work together on self-driving cars. Following that, Lyft announced it would develop its own autonomous driving technology, stating that it was "core" to its business. Of course, Alphabet could be hedging another bet, since its sister company Google Ventures is a large early investor in Uber to the tune of $258 million in 2013, as well as the failed rival service Sidecar.

As Uber has been plagued by woe after woe of its own making, Lyft has been quietly rising as an increasingly used alternative. This round of funding may help put the company on equal footing as Uber's rival, rather than constantly being thought of as a second-place finisher.

Output: Ride-hailing service Lyft has secured $1bn in funding, in a round led by CapitalG, the growth investment fund of Google parent Alphabet. Earlier this year, Lyft announced a collaboration with Alphabet's self-driving outfit Waymo. This latest cash injection could put Lyft on a par with beleaguered rival Uber, which enjoyed early backing from Google Ventures, according to insiders.