investment

Michael Zhang

Sony is Now the Largest Shareholder in Olympus

Sony has agreed to pour $645 million into Olympus in exchange for 11.5 percent of the embattled company, becoming the single largest shareholder. While the companies announced that they are considering cooperating in the digital camera industry, the main motivation for Sony wasn't photographic imaging but body imaging. Olympus is one of the major players in the medical endoscope market, holding about 70% of sales, and Sony's investment allows it to dip its toes into this lucrative industry.

Jessica Lum

Getty Images Auction Draw Bids of $4 Billion

Photo agency Getty Images is on the auction block, in a second round of bids that are climbing towards $4 billion for a potential sale. Investment firm KKR & Co. and private equity investment firm TPG are on the list of at least five interested bidders, the Wall Street Journal reports.

DL Cade

Olympus in Final Stages of $623M Sony Investment Deal

Ever since their financial scandal, Olympus has been looking to bring on a big name investor to help get them out of trouble. Earlier this month that investor seemed to be Panasonic, but when that fell through everybody looked to the remaining three possible investors -- Sony, Fujifilm and Terumo -- to see if anybody was going to make the leap. According to Japanese business daily Nikkei, that investor is Sony.

Michael Zhang

New Photo Sharing App Color Raises a Whopping $41 Million in Funding

The mobile photo sharing space is hot right now, with services like Instagram, Picplz, and Path growing like weeds. A new contender called Color is causing some buzz after successfully raising a whopping $41 million... before even launching. The company has seven notable founders who have either started successful companies in the past (e.g. Lala and BillShrink) or have held executive positions at them (LinkedIn). Among the investors is Sequoia Capital, one of the most influential and successful firms in Silicon Valley and the firm that funded Google. They gave Color more than they gave Google.