FACEBOOK ACQUIRES KUSTOMER Spotlight on Innovation Head lines E arly last month, Facebook announced the acquisition of Kustomer, a customer relationship management start-up that is based in New York and was founded in
ZOOM’S CEO BECAME ONE OF THE WORLD’S RICHEST PEOPLE IN 2020 N early one year after the World Health Orga- nization discovered the coronavirus, many people are still staying home from offices, schools, movie theaters, stadiums, churches and restaurants. A lot of the socialization that would be happening in those places in 2020 is happening over video calls. And you can’t talk about that aspect of life without talking about Zoom. Zoom seemed to come from nowhere. It wasn’t backed by Facebook, Google or Microsoft, although those companies all sought to catch up with Zoom. A small company that was geared toward adoption in large companies suddenly found itself slammed with people trying the service for free, as well as thou- sands of new paying customers. As a result, revenue quadrupled and profit increased 90-fold, catching analysts by surprise. The stock went higher and higher, easily standing out as one of the top stocks of the year — alongside the likes of vaccine maker Moderna and Chinese Tesla challeng- er Nio — with a gain of more than 450%. APPLE TEMPORARILY CLOSES CALIFORNIA STORES AS VIRUS CASES MOUNT That’s been helpful for the founder and CEO of Zoom, as he’s one of the world’s 100 richest people. His Zoom shares are worth almost $17 billion, accord- ing to FactSet. A pple has temporarily closed all 53 of its retail stores in California after the number of coro- navirus cases reached new daily records in its home state this week. A listing of stores on the phone maker’s website reflects the change, which does not affect bordering states Arizona and Nevada. The move shows how a major technology company is trying to reduce spread of the virus for employees and consumers, despite potential business impact.
START-UP PAYING CUSTOMERS TO CUT ENERGY USE By bringing Kustomer into the fold, Facebook will be pro- viding small businesses that use its service to advertise and sell goods more features to close sales through the social network’s services. This should seemingly lead these busi- nesses to spend more on Facebook advertisements. That’s key for the company, which makes nearly 99% of its revenue from advertising. A s rolling blackouts continue to plague California, one company is hoping that a new $100 million investment from Alphabet will help it keep the lights on — by paying customers to turn the lights off. OhmConnect recently reported that it received $100 million from Alphabet-backed Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners to build the largest distributed clean power plant in North America. SIP invested $20 million in OhmConnect directly, with the additional $80 million going towards building a virtual power plant, known as “Resi-Station.” Founded in 2014, California-based OhmConnect acts as a power supplier during times of peak demand by taking energy offline. When the grid is overwhelmed, the company sends alerts to customers asking them to reduce usage by turning off the appliances like air condi- tioners and dryers. 2015 in a deal that was valued at a little more than $1 billion. CRM tools help clients manage their communications with customers via phone, email, text or direct messages in specific apps, such as WhatsApp or Messenger. The acquisition of a business-software company such as Kustomer is unusual for Facebook. Even though OhmConnect isn’t generating power, it’s designated as a power plant, which means that it is paid for the energy it supplies by users cutting back. The company then passes on some of the savings to its cus- tomers, tracking usage through in-home smart devices. CEO, Cisco DeVries said the amount paid to each customer depends on a host of factors including the current price of electricity.
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JANUARY 2021 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • JANUARY 2021
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