Hip hop billionaire Jay-Z is investing in a Kelowna company.
Pela, maker of world’s first compostable phone case, today announced it has closed a $5M round of funding. Marcy Venture Partners, the consumer focused VC fund co-founded by JAY-Z, Jay Brown, and Larry Marcus led the round with Toronto-based Kensington Capital.
Photo: Beyonce and Jay Z / Shutterstock
The capital is being used to fuel rapid expansion of the company’s leading products in phone protection and drive towards a more sustainable future.
“Pela has incredible values and offers incredible value in its products,” said Larry Marcus, Co-Founder and Managing Director of MVP, “Matt Bertulli and the team are tapped into the tuned-in, conscious and discerning consumer that cares about what they buy. Their products offer a powerful combination of utility, design and sustainability.”
“Part of what excited us about partnering with Marcy Venture Partners is their experience in identifying and amplifying cultural trends,” said CEO of Pela, Matt Bertulli. “To us, there’s nothing more important than continuing to be a leader in a large global movement toward sustainable consumerism and we’re very excited to have the support of MVP.”
Global consumer trends are showing that sustainability is no longer a niche market. According to a recent survey conducted by Nielsen, 81 per cent of global consumers say it’s extremely important that companies implement programs to help improve the environment.
“The mobile phone industry is a great example of where quite a bit can be done to create better, more environmentally friendly products,” said Bertulli. “Put simply, as a consumer you can protect your phone and the planet. There doesn’t need to be a compromise.”
Pela says it is excited to be part of the change to see consumers making smart choices when it comes to choosing which products to support.
Pela was founded in 2011 by environmental consultant, Jeremy Lang after a family vacation to Hawaii. Lang says, “I was shocked to see the level of plastic pollution that was washed up on the shores and decided to come up with a solution.” After much research, trial and error, Lang created a material called Flaxstic™, a unique blend of plant-based biopolymer mixed with flax shive, an annually renewable waste byproduct of the flax oilseed harvest in Canada.
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October 12, 2019 at 08:30PM
Facebook’s plan to introduce its own cryptocurrency, Libra, next year has faced another serious setback, after Visa, Mastercard, eBay and Stripe became the latest companies to pull out from the project.
In statements following their decision, the companies said that they were still interested in the cryptocurrency as a secure digital payment method, but have chosen to focus their resources on other projects for the time being.
Facebook declined to comment about the companies’ exit, while the Libra Association said that it was focused on “moving forward and continuing to build a strong association” of businesses that will accept the currency.
The move comes just a week after PayPal announced its withdrawal from the Geneva-based Libra Association, which is charged with managing the Facebook-led global currency. Mercadopago and PayU are now the only two payments companies continuing to back Facebook’s digital cash.
The social media giant unveiled plans last summer to launch Libra by June 2020. However, the project faces serious regulatory hurdles. France and Germany both stated last month that they would attempt to block Libra from operating in Europe, saying it posed risks to EU states’ sovereignty.
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October 12, 2019 at 06:41PM
The U.S. and China agreed on the outlines of a partial trade accord Friday that President Donald Trump said he and China’s Xi Jinping could sign as soon as next month.
As part of the deal, China would significantly step up purchases of U.S. agricultural commodities, agree to certain intellectual-property measures and concessions related to financial services and currency, Trump said Friday at the White House. In exchange, the U.S. will delay a tariff increase due next week as the deal is finalized, though new levies scheduled for December haven’t yet been called off.
The agreement marks the largest breakthrough in the 18-month trade war that has hurt the economies of both nations. Importantly, Trump said the deal was the first phase of a broader agreement. The president indicated he could sign a deal with Xi at an upcoming November summit in Chile.
While the limited agreement may resolve some short-term issues, several of the thorniest disputes remain outstanding. U.S. goals in the trade war center around accusations of intellectual-property theft, forced technology transfer and complaints about Chinese industrial subsidies.
The Trump administration also said issues related to Huawei Technologies Co. aren’t part of Friday’s deal and will be a separate process.
Equities advanced globally Friday amid growing conviction that the world’s two biggest economies would negotiate a trade truce, though U.S. stocks pared gains after Trump’s announcement near the close of trading. Trump tweeted earlier Friday that if the countries did reach an agreement, he would be able to sign it without a lengthy congressional approval process.
On Thursday and earlier Friday, Liu and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer held the first senior-level discussions between Washington and Beijing since a previous agreement fell apart in May and tariffs were raised in the months after.
The U.S. was threatening to increase tariffs next Tuesday on about US$250 billion of Chinese imports to 30 per cent from 25 per cent. More duties on US$160 billion of Chinese products were targeted for Dec. 15.
The threat of those import taxes on U.S. consumers, falling around the holiday season, raised the prospect that the U.S. economy would slide toward a recession heading into Trump’s 2020 reelection bid. The American manufacturing industry, which Trump vowed in 2016 to revitalize, is already contracting in part because of the trade war.
The Trump administration said that as part of the deal, China would scale its purchases of U.S. farm goods over two years to an annual total of US$40 billion to US$50 billion. Trump encouraged U.S. farmers to buy more land and Deere & Co. tractors in response.
China in recent weeks had already discussed buying more U.S. products such as soybeans, pork and wheat. Some traders remained skeptical that buying soybeans from the U.S. represented a significant breakthrough in the overall trade talks, Bloomberg reported Friday.
Earlier Friday, Trump indicated in a Twitter post that if the countries did reach an agreement, he would be able to sign it quickly.
One of the great things about the China Deal is the fact that, for various reasons, we do not have to go through the very long and politically complex Congressional Approval Process. When the deal is fully negotiated, I sign it myself on behalf of our Country. Fast and Clean!
Senator Ronald Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee that has jurisdiction over trade policy, pushed back on Trump’s tweet in a statement Friday to Bloomberg News: “Donald Trump should know that any meaningful trade deal is only legitimate because of the authority granted to him by Congress, and that authority can be taken away,” he said.
Under the U.S. Constitution, Congress holds power over international trade. For decades, it has legally delegated trade-negotiating authority to the executive branch. Lawmakers in recent months have grown increasingly wary of what they see as Trump’s abuse of that authority and discussed ways to claw it back, citing the president’s many unilateral tariff measures and a lack of transparency in negotiations.
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October 12, 2019 at 01:28AM
Statistics Canada’s monthly Labour Force Survey estimated that employment rose by 53,700 in the month, led by big gains in health care and in the hotels-and-restaurants sector.
Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Canada’s unshakable labour market added another 53,700 jobs in September, building on August’s big gains as full-time jobs surged and wages accelerated.
But the hiring binge left economists perplexed, as job growth continues to far outpace the underlying economy. Some worry that the employment gains may actually be a sign of an increasingly nervous business community, as companies bulk up on staff instead of making needed capital investments, amid deep uncertainties about trade deals and the global economy.
“Jobs have been running too hot relative to growth trends – it is likely the replacement of capital for labour is occurring,” Ian Pollick, head of North American rates strategy at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, said in a research note Friday.
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The strong numbers decrease the odds the Bank of Canada will cut interest rates soon. The central bank has been holding its key rate steady at 1.75 per cent, despite cuts at many other central banks over the past few months amid the deteriorating and increasingly risky global outlook.
“Between the rock-solid job market and the bounce-back in housing, it’s hard to see a rate cut in October,” said Douglas Porter, chief economist at Bank of Montreal. “Any cut at all is fading.”
Statistics Canada’s monthly Labour Force Survey, released Friday, said the employment growth was led by big gains in health care and in the hotels-and-restaurants sector. Economists had anticipated a much more modest increase, perhaps in the 10,000 range, after the economy had added 81,100 jobs in August. It marks the biggest two-month growth in the Canadian job market in more than seven years.
The unemployment rate fell to 5.5 per cent, just one-tenth above the four-decade low hit earlier this year, and down from 5.7 per cent in August.
Growth in average hourly wages rose to 4.3 per cent year over year, up from 3.7 per cent in August. That returned wage growth to close to July’s 4.5 per cent, the fastest pace since the Great Recession.
September’s job gains were driven by full-time employment, which jumped 70,000. Part-time jobs slipped 16,300. Economists noted, however, that private-sector jobs – a key component of the labour market – fell 21,000, while the growth came from the public sector (up 32,600) and self-employment (up 42,100).
Employment has increased by more than 450,000 jobs, or 2.4 per cent, over the past 12 months. But the most recent gross domestic product figures, for July, show that the overall economy has grown by just 1.3 per cent year over year. Economists don’t expect growth in the second half of the year to be much better, with forecasts of about 1.5 per cent annualized.
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“Job growth has been chugging along at quite a pace, but it’s not really reflected in the other economic data,” said Doug Porter, chief economist at Bank of Montreal. “It’s not a reflection of economic strength.”
He suggested that the employment boom may be more related to Canada’s population growth, fuelled primarily by relatively high levels of immigration. Growth in employment is only slightly ahead of the increase in the size of the labour force over the past 12 months, at 2.1 per cent.
“I think it’s as much a supply story as a demand story,” he said.
Many economists believe that businesses have hired heavily to make up for their reluctance to invest in machinery, equipment and facility expansions, as the global climate remains decidedly risky for long-term business investments, with growth slowing, the global manufacturing sector slumping, and the U.S.-China trade war casting uncertainty over the future.
CIBC’s Mr. Pollick noted that many of the sectors with the biggest job gains have also had the lowest capital spending relative to their historical norms – including the professional, scientific and technical services segment, which alone accounts for one-quarter of the job growth in the past year.
Regardless, economists said the strong job numbers decrease the likelihood that the Bank of Canada will cut interest rates in the near term. The central bank has been holding its key rate steady at 1.75 per cent, despite cuts at many other central banks over the past few months amid the deteriorating and increasingly risky global outlook. The bond market is now pricing in almost no chance of a cut by the bank at its next rate decision in late October, and sees a cut as unlikely well into next spring.
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“Between the rock-solid job market and the bounceback in housing, it’s hard to see a rate cut in October,” Mr. Porter said. “Any cut at all is fading.”
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October 12, 2019 at 03:20AM
Visa and MasterCard on Friday announced their departure from Facebook's Libra project, a potentially fatal blow to the social network's plan for a worldwide digital currency.
Along with the two payment giants, several other large companies have said they're exiting Libra. Payment processing company Stripe said it is stepping back, as well as online auction company eBay.
PayPal was the first of Libra's big partners to leave, announcing last week it would no longer be involved.
Facebook faced substantial criticism over its plans to create a separate, private currency system to allow cross-border payments. The Libra Association, based in Switzerland, was supposed to give the currency project a comfortable arm's length distance from Facebook, which wouldn't own Libra.
Despite those efforts, financial regulators, as well as members of Congress on both sides of the political divide, noted the privacy issues raised with the social networking company controlling a currency, while also expressing concern about money laundering. Even U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted that Facebook should be subject to U.S. banking laws if the Libra project were to move forward.
The impact of Libra's loss of Visa and MasterCard cannot be overstated. The two hold an effective duopoly over credit and debit cards in the U.S. and Europe, and are making substantial inroads into developing countries' payment systems. Their initial agreement to join the Libra Association instantly gave Facebook's project legitimacy.
But both companies made it clear from the onset that their interest in Libra was at least partly out of curiosity. It now appears that the political pressure on Facebook to drop the project was enough to convince a chunk of the original members to cut ties.
The Libra Association said in a statement that it is "focused on moving forward."
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October 12, 2019 at 04:20AM
Hip hop billionaire, Jay-Z is investing in a Kelowna company.
Pela, maker of world's first compostable phone case, today announced it has closed a $5M round of funding. Marcy Venture Partners, the consumer focused VC fund co-founded by JAY-Z, Jay Brown, and Larry Marcus led the round with Toronto-based Kensington Capital.
The capital is being used to fuel rapid expansion of the company's leading products in phone protection and drive towards a more sustainable future.
"Pela has incredible values and offers incredible value in its products," said Larry Marcus, Co-Founder and Managing Director of MVP, "Matt Bertulli and the team are tapped into the tuned-in, conscious and discerning consumer that cares about what they buy. Their products offer a powerful combination of utility, design and sustainability."
"Part of what excited us about partnering with Marcy Venture Partners is their experience in identifying and amplifying cultural trends," said CEO of Pela, Matt Bertulli. "To us, there's nothing more important than continuing to be a leader in a large global movement toward sustainable consumerism and we're very excited to have the support of MVP."
Global consumer trends are showing that sustainability is no longer a niche market. According to a recent survey conducted by Nielsen, 81 per cent of global consumers say it's extremely important that companies implement programs to help improve the environment.
"The mobile phone industry is a great example of where quite a bit can be done to create better, more environmentally friendly products," said Bertulli. "Put simply, as a consumer you can protect your phone and the planet. There doesn't need to be a compromise."
Pela says it is excited to be part of the change to see consumers making smart choices when it comes to choosing which products to support.
Pela was founded in 2011 by environmental consultant, Jeremy Lang after a family vacation to Hawaii. Lang says, "I was shocked to see the level of plastic pollution that was washed up on the shores and decided to come up with a solution." After much research, trial and error, Lang created a material called Flaxstic™, a unique blend of plant-based biopolymer mixed with flax shive, an annually renewable waste byproduct of the flax oilseed harvest in Canada.
Rob Gibson
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October 11, 2019 at 10:57PM
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The ebb and flow of trade tensions between the United States and China has roiled financial markets for months, and with the December deadline for higher U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods approaching fast no asset class is immune to trade-related risks.
FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., October 3, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Markets’ sensitivity to trade headlines was on stark display this week.
The S&P 500 index .SPX fell 2% over the first two days of the week as the trade outlook darkened following a U.S. move to impose visa restrictions on Chinese government and Communist Party officials it believes responsible for the detention or abuse of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang province.
The benchmark stock index, however, reclaimed most of the lost ground over Wednesday and Thursday as Beijing and Washington’s continued willingness to talk supported hopes that the latest talks would yield at least a partial deal.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 was up 0.7%.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he will meet with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He at the White House on Friday, the second of two-days of high-level U.S. China trade talks aimed at averting scheduled increases in U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.
Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said China is willing to reach agreement with the United States on matters that both sides care about so as to prevent friction from leading to any further escalation, the state news agency Xinhua reported.
Despite assurances that both Washington and Beijing want a trade deal investors are acutely sensitive to the very real risk that the latest round of trade talks could end without a deal.
Equity investors in particular have been hyper-sensitive to every trade-related headline, boosting stocks on any sign of news that bodes well for a trade deal while pulling the market down on the first sign of bad news.
Any significant escalations of trade tensions have been followed by sharp pull-backs in U.S. stocks, as seen in May, when President said he would raise tariffs to 25 percent from 10 percent on $200 billion of Chinese imports.
Currency markets have also been swayed by trade headlines. Increased trade tensions between Washington and Beijing have generally been supportive of the dollar as investors view the United States to be in better shape than its rivals to weather a trade war.
The dollar index .DXY which measures the greenback against six major currencies, is up nearly 3% for the year. It recently hit a 28-month high.
International Monetary Market speculators in the Japanese yen, euro, British pound, Swiss franc, Mexican peso, Brazilian real, Russian ruble, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand dollars, have boosted their bullish bets against the dollar to a 14-week high, according to CFTC data.
“That’s a safe-haven play,” said Alfonso Esparza, senior currency analyst at OANDA in Toronto.
“It’s not that they are totally confident in the U.S. economy, it’s just that the U.S. dollar being a reserve currency gives them a bit of a safety advantage,” he said.
Traders in the equity options market are equally anxious and on the lookout for safety.
For S&P 500 options contracts expiring in December, put options, which are typically used for bearish bets, make up 14 of the top 20 largest blocks of open contracts, according to options analytics firm Trade Alert.
The put-to-call ratio, a measure of positioning sentiment is the most bearish in at been in at least 5 years, according to Trade Alert data.
“Big institutions use this contract primarily for hedging and they’re very hedged, heavily hedged,” said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin.
“Even though we had a little bit of a pullback last week, they didn’t really take any of those hedges off, and so now they’re still ready and prepared for another big downturn if we get one,” he said.
“I think ultimately, a lot of this has to do with the trade talks with China.”
Graphic: S&P 500 options Dec open contracts - here
Reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed and Stephen Culp; Additional reporting by April Joyner; Editing by Alden Bentley and Nick Zieminski
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