U.S. to Monitor Air Quality in India and Other Countries

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <img src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/02/20/world/20poillution1/20poillution1-articleLarge.jpg" /><br /> <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem;"><br /></span> <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem;">HONG KONG — The United States says it will expand air-quality monitoring at some overseas diplomatic missions, following several years of reporting pollution data in China.</span><br /> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="191" data-total-count="365" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> The goal is to increase awareness of the health risks of outdoor air pollution, which easily spreads across borders, Secretary of State <span style="color: #326891;">John Kerry</span> said in announcing the program on Wednesday.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="228" data-total-count="593" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> The program is intended to help United States citizens abroad reduce their exposure to pollution and to help other countries develop their own air-quality monitoring through training and exchanges with American experts, he said.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="133" data-total-count="726" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> “We’re hoping that this tool can also expand international cooperation when it comes to curbing air pollution,” Mr. Kerry <span style="color: #326891;">said</span>.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="253" data-total-count="979" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> The program, run in conjunction with the <span style="color: #326891;">Environmental Protection Agency</span>, will begin to operate in India in a few months. New Delhi has some of the world’s worst air pollution, and residents there are becoming <span style="color: #326891;">increasingly concerned</span> about the dangers.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="110" data-total-count="1089" id="story-continues-2" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> American diplomatic missions will also monitor air quality in<span style="color: #326891;">Vietnam</span>, <span style="color: #326891;">Mongolia</span> and elsewhere, Mr. Kerry said.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="200" data-total-count="1289" id="story-continues-3" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> <span style="line-height: 1.4375rem;"><br />The move angered the Chinese government, which said the information could threaten social stability. But the step also helped pressure Chinese environmental officials to expand their monitoring of air pollution and begin publishing their own air-quality reports.</span> </div> </div>

U.S. to Monitor Air Quality in India and Other Countries

HONG KONG — The United States says it will expand air-quality monitoring at some overseas diplomatic missions, following several years of...

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Tech Investors Create a Billion-Dollar-Baby Boom

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="lede-container" style="background-color: white; clear: none; float: none;"> <figure aria-label="media" class="media photo lede layout-large-horizontal" data-media-action="modal" id="media-100000003523571" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/02/20/business/20VENTURE/20VENTURE-articleLarge.jpg" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" role="group" style="clear: left; color: #333333; float: left; font-family: nyt-cheltenham, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 15px 45px 0px; position: relative; width: 615px;"><div class="image" style="cursor: pointer; margin-bottom: 7px; position: relative; width: auto;"> <img alt="" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="Snapchat, the messaging app popular with teenagers, is in the market for more money." data-mediaviewer-credit="Kc Alfred/Reuters" data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/02/20/business/20VENTURE/20VENTURE-superJumbo.jpg" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/02/20/business/20VENTURE/20VENTURE-articleLarge.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/02/20/business/20VENTURE/20VENTURE-articleLarge.jpg" style="display: block; height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: 615px;" /></div> </figure><div class="lede-container-ads" style="clear: right; float: right;"> <div class="ad middle-right-ad marginalia-anchor-ad nocontent robots-nocontent" id="MiddleRight" style="clear: right; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 40px 7px; min-height: 250px; min-width: 300px; position: relative;"> <span style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; clip: rect(0px 0px 0px 0px); color: #666666; font-family: nyt-cheltenham-sh, georgia, times new roman, times, serif; height: 1px; margin: -1px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; text-decoration: none; width: 1px;"><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"> </span></span><span style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; clip: rect(0px 0px 0px 0px); color: #326891; font-family: nyt-cheltenham, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; height: 1px; margin: -1px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; text-decoration: none; width: 1px;">Continue reading the main story</span><iframe class="ad-frame frame-for-article" frameborder="0" style="border-style: none; height: 250px; width: 300px;"></iframe></div> </div> </div> <br /><div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="31" data-total-count="31" id="story-continues-1" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> What a difference a year makes.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="195" data-total-count="226" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> Less than 12 months after investors valued Snapchat, the red-hot messaging app, at about $10 billion, the start-up is again in the market for money — and poised to nearly double that valuation.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="334" data-total-count="560" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> A range of other popular start-ups are also poised to propel their net worths to similar multibillion-dollar heights, including the virtual scrapbooking service Pinterest and the ride-hailing app Lyft. Uber, Lyft’s top competitor, has raised more than $3 billion in the last year and now has an eye-popping valuation of $40 billion.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="448" data-total-count="1008" id="story-continues-2" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> Giant sums of money and sky-high valuations are nothing new in the technology industry. But the latest burst of activity has put on clear display the frenzied pace of investors, who are eager to catch the next blockbuster company like Facebook. The action is also again spurring talk that overeager investors are poised to relive the dot-com boom and bust at the turn of the century, when overinflated start-ups led to a quick and painful downturn.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="126" data-total-count="1134" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> For investors, the hunt is for the next so-called unicorn, a nascent business worth $1 billion or more — on paper, at least.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="373" data-total-count="1507" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> Just last year, 38 privately held companies backed by venture capital joined the billion-dollar club, putting the membership of that group at 54, according to the data firm CB Insights. Digi-Capital, a mobile Internet advisory firm, estimates that the total value of mobile Internet start-ups worth $1 billion or more increased $28 billion in just the last quarter of 2014.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="311" data-total-count="1818" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> “The grand experiment that we are running right now is, Can you cram hundreds of millions of dollars into 80 or 90 different private companies and have it end up well?” said Bill Gurley, a partner at the venture capital firm Benchmark who is also an investor in and one of the most vocal proponents of Uber.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="52" data-total-count="1870" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> He added: “For some, I think it will end badly.”</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="398" data-total-count="2268" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> Billion-dollar companies were once considered rare. But they are quickly becoming more commonplace. Case in point: Slack, the workplace collaboration start-up, hit the billion-dollar valuation mark just eight months after introducing its service. And at $46 billion, Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone giant that started just five years ago, is the most richly valued private tech company in the world.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="187" data-total-count="2455" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> Even in recent years, some of the highfliers have landed hard. Fab, an online retailer once valued at close to $1 billion, is now reportedly close to being sold for less than $20 million.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="283" data-total-count="2738" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> Yet the stories of failure have not dented investor appetite for the brightest stars in the start-up firmament. Pinterest, the social bookmarking site, is in talks to raise $500 million at a valuation of more than $10 billion, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="364" data-total-count="3102" id="story-continues-3" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> Snapchat, too, is considering raising $500 million at a valuation of up to $19 billion, according to a person briefed on those talks. Though the company, best known for teenagers flocking to its disappearing messages, has been collecting revenue from advertising for less than a month, the promise of its business has excited many in the tech and media industries.</div> <div class="ad ad-placeholder nocontent robots-nocontent" style="background-color: white; clear: right; color: #333333; float: right; font-family: nyt-cheltenham, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 40px 7px;"> <span style="color: #326891;"><span style="clip: rect(0px 0px 0px 0px); height: 1px; margin: -1px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; width: 1px;">Continue reading the main story</span></span></div> <div class="ad text-ad middle-right-ad nocontent robots-nocontent" id="MiddleRightN" style="background-color: white; clear: right; color: #333333; float: right; font-family: nyt-cheltenham, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 40px 7px; min-height: 250px; min-width: 300px; position: relative;"> <span style="color: #326891;"><span style="clip: rect(0px 0px 0px 0px); height: 1px; margin: -1px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; width: 1px;">Continue reading the main story</span></span></div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="197" data-total-count="3299" id="story-continues-4" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> “I know it’s an ephemeral platform, but my 14-year-old spends half her life there,” Jeremy Zimmer, the head of the United Talent Agency, said at an industry conference, Code Media, this week.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="375" data-total-count="3674" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> The size of investments has clearly picked up. About $48.3 billion was invested in 2014, up 61 percent from the same time the previous year, according to a report by the National Venture Capital Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers. But that money went into 4,356 deals, up only 4 percent, suggesting that more of that capital is going into fewer — and bigger — rounds.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="203" data-total-count="3877" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> Investors have been eager to raise even more money to pour into start-ups. Dedicated venture capital firms raised nearly $30 billion last year, a level untouched since 2007, according to Thomson Reuters.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="341" data-total-count="4218" id="story-continues-5" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> Much of the money that has helped inflate the latest rounds of financing has come from <span style="color: #326891;">mutual fund</span> giants like BlackRock, Fidelity and <span style="color: #326891;">T. Rowe Price</span>, known for years for buying shares in start-ups once they go public. But lately the mutual fund companies have been big investors in start-ups like Uber, looking to tap into phenomenal growth.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="305" data-total-count="4523" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> Executives at these mutual funds say that they had long sought to move into the world of venture capital. But they really gained access in recent years as the size of the investments in start-ups grew into the tens of millions of dollars or more — enough to meaningfully affect their investment returns.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="322" data-total-count="4845" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> Part of what drives the bigger investments, investors say, is the advent of today’s technology — high-speed Internet connections, the ubiquity of smartphones, modern social networks — that has made it possible for start-ups to become nearly overnight sensations, moving much faster than they would have 15 years ago.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="177" data-total-count="5022" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> Now, with millions of people using their products and a fertile investment environment, these start-ups are willing to stay private for much longer than they may have years ago.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="359" data-total-count="5381" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> “It used to be if you wanted to raise the ultimate round of capital, it was only available on the public markets,” said Mark Suster, a partner at Upfront Ventures. “But because these companies are becoming so big, they don’t need to go public quickly, and they’re raising capital in the private markets that they would have in the public markets.”</div> <button class="button comments-button theme-speech-bubble" data-skip-to-para-id="story-continues-6" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.3s; background-color: white; border-radius: 3px; border: none; color: white; cursor: pointer; float: left; font-family: nyt-franklin, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.6875rem; line-height: 0.8125rem; margin: 0px; padding: 3px 15px 22px 0px; position: relative; text-transform: uppercase; transition: background-color 0.3s; vertical-align: middle;"></button><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="193" data-total-count="5574" id="story-continues-6" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> Many of these investors, according to those on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, are willing to invest at huge valuations because they plan to sell their shares soon after start-ups go public.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="149" data-total-count="5723" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> But not all participants in the latest mega-rounds want to cash out quickly. Some, like Henry Ellenbogen, are into these companies for the long haul.</div> <div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="264" data-total-count="5987" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 135px; max-width: 540px; width: 495px;"> Mr. Ellenbogen, the head of the New Horizons fund at T. Rowe Price and an investor in Twitter before it went public, put it best in his letter to investors late last year: “We prefer private companies that we would want to own more of on the I.P.O., not less.”</div> </div> </div>

Tech Investors Create a Billion-Dollar-Baby Boom

  Continue reading the main story What a difference a year makes. Less than 12 months after investors valued Snapchat, the red-...

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