 Rockstar and 2K Games owner Take-Two Interactive said it will acquire mobile social game developer Zynga in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $12.7B. Take-Two, the publisher of the Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, BioShock, and other video-game series, said it will buy Zynga for $9.86 a share, representing a 64% premium over Zynga’s closing share price on Friday. More: - The acquisition, expected to close by June 30, would be one of the largest in video-game history.
- It would represent Take-Two's entrance into the mobile social games market, partially dominated by Zynga's offerings including Words With Friends, Empires & Puzzles, and Zynga Poker.
- Under the deal terms, Zynga stockholders will receive $3.50 in cash and $6.36 in Take-Two stock when the transaction closes, totaling $9.86 per Zynga share.
- Strauss Zelnick, CEO and chairman of Take-Two, will remain CEO of the combined company.
- Zynga, developer and publisher of the FarmVille series, has shifted from social media to the fast-growing mobile gaming segment in recent years. It now has 183 million monthly active users.
POLYGON 
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 Facebook parent Meta has leased nearly 600,000 square feet of office space in what is set to be the tallest skyscraper in downtown Austin, Texas. The news comes after Tesla officially relocated its HQ to Austin from Palo Alto, California last month. More: - Meta has leased the entire commercial half of a 66-story tower that's under construction and slated to open in 2023.
- The lease, which spans 33 floors, represents the "largest ever in downtown Austin." The building will stand at 840 feet tall and have 349 residential units on floors 34 and above.
- Meta, under its former name Facebook, came to Austin 10+ years ago with seven employees and now has 2,000 in the city. It's seeking to hire another 400 employees in the region.
- Oracle Corp. moved from Silicon Valley to Austin in 2020. In November, Samsung announced that its planned chip-making factory in Taylor near Austin is expected to start production in 2024.
AUSTIN BUSINESS JOURNAL
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Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, a Bill Gates-backed private-public fund, plans to invest up to $15B in clean technology projects in the U.S., the U.K., and the European Union. The fund, part of the Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy Group, has raised $1.5B+ so far and plans to invest 10x that amount overall, managing director Jonah Goldman told the FT. More: - Goldman said the fund will mobilize the $15B by using "innovative financial structures and partnership agreements."
- The investments will target energy storage technology, aviation fuels, green hydrogen, and carbon removal, according to the FT.
- It will provide three types of capital — charitable donations, submarket equity investments, and product off-take contracts — to bankroll large projects that otherwise wouldn't be financially feasible.
- In September, Catalyst announced new participants including American Airlines, General Motors, Bank of America, and the BlackRock Foundation, as well as support from the U.S. Energy Department and European Commission.
CNBC
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 Microsoft HoloLens 2 Microsoft lost at least 100 employees who were working on its HoloLens augmented-reality headset in the past year, the WSJ reports. More than 40 of those employees defected to Meta, formerly Facebook, which has become a leader in virtual reality technology with its standalone Quest headset. More: - In some cases, Meta and other competitors have offered to double the salaries of employees.
- Those who have left Microsoft in recent months include former HoloLens PM manager Charlie Han, who is now a Facebook product manager, and ex-engineering director Josh Miller, who became a director of display design at Meta.
- Microsoft first shipped its HoloLens for business applications in 2016. It released the upgraded HoloLens 2 for enterprise customers in 2019.
- However, co-creator Alex Kipman has said the company is pursuing a consumer HoloLens headset in the form of lightweight "socially acceptable" smart glasses, which are likely years away from a release.
- In March, the U.S. Army awarded a contract to Microsoft to supply 120,000+ headsets based on its HoloLens AR tech, supplying a mixed reality training environment for soldiers. That contract is expected to be worth up to $21.88B over 10 years.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Alphabet plans to spin out its quantum-computing group, Sandbox, which exists at the Google X moonshot incubator. Sandbox, which develops enterprise solutions at the intersection of quantum physics and AI, will become an independent company. More: - Google co-founder Sergei Brin started Sandbox, a largely secretive division that's focused on experimental and software quantum projects.
- The group is not technically a unit within Google X lab though its employees work at the X building.
- Sandbox director Jack Hidary will continue to lead the separate company. He recently submitted a filing to form a new company, SB Technologies, that's based in San Francisco.
- That firm has a website, sandboxquantum.com, but hasn't shared more information yet.
- Spinning out Sandbox could facilitate and streamline hiring, fundraising, and other operations for the company, according to TechRadar.
BUSINESS INSIDER
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Tesla will raise the price of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) package for U.S. customers from $10,000 to $12,000 on Jan. 17, according to Elon Musk. The CEO confirmed the news in a tweet, noting that the price will increase as Tesla gets closer to the FSD production code release. More: - Tesla last raised the FSD price from $8,000 to $10,000 in October.
- Musk specified that the $199 monthly subscription for FSD would increase when the option goes to a wide release.
- The 10.9 update for FSD Beta should be ready this week, followed by a bigger update in February, he noted.
- On Monday, a Wedbush Securities analysis predicted that Tesla will begin production of its Model Y at its Giga Austin factory within 10 days.
THE VERGE
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- Apple's upcoming VR/AR headset won't access the virtual world of the metaverse but will focus instead on "bursts of gaming, communication, and content consumption," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
- Chipmaker TSMC reported a record monthly revenue of ~$5.6B in December as global demand continues to rise for semiconductors.
- IBM is again looking to sell its IBM Watson Health AI business for an estimated $1B.
- Honor's first folding smartphone, the Magic V, is set to go on sale in China on Jan. 18. It's unclear if the former Huawei sub-brand will launch the device outside of China.
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 |  | Beth is an Inside Analyst and a former public policy/investigative reporter. She has covered AI, VR, technology, and e-commerce for Inside. When she's not busy writing, she's hiking in Arizona's desert, playing pickleball, or trying out new Mexican food recipes. |   | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is writing an illustrated book about climate change that will be published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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