Top Stories
​

Faraday Future Completes Bridge Financing to Push Forward Production of Its All-electric FF 91 Luxury Vehicle

On By [email protected]_84

  • Amended Bridge Financing Includes up to $45 Million in New Senior Secured Financing

  • Birch Lake Fund Management LP, Which Led Senior Bridge Financing Facility in 2019, Returns to Support Faraday Future

 

Faraday Future (FF), a California-based global shared intelligent mobility ecosystem company, today announced that it has completed the expansion and extension of the senior bridge financing facility put in place in 2019 to support the completion and launch of its flagship FF 91 EV and continue development of the mass-market FF 81. The amended bridge facility includes new senior secured financing of up to $45 million, which matures in October 2021.

As part of the expanded and extended financing agreement, Birch Lake, a Chicago-based merchant bank, has returned to support FF as the majority purchaser of the new senior secured financing. The principals of Birch Lake and co-investor, ATW Partners, a New York-based private equity firm, bring extensive experience with tailored investment structure solutions.

“Birch Lake is one of FF’s strongest advocates, mentors and financial partners,” said Carsten Breitfeld, Global CEO of Faraday Future. “We are excited that Birch Lake will be joined by ATW Partners to support our company as we move forward to complete our funding solutions and continue our plans to launch our FF 91 production.”

“Birch Lake is excited to renew and expand our partnership with FF alongside ATW Partners,” said Birch Lake Chief Executive Officer Jack Butler. “FF’s technology, product strategy and unwavering commitment to its product suite launch — including its commitment with getting the FF 91 into consumers’ hands next year — are impressive.”

According to FF’s production launch plan, FF 91 will kick off production approximately nine months following the closing of a successful round of funding, which is expected in the near term. The newly announced FF 81 EV and

…

Emerging iDER Platforms Remain Key To Our Energy Future

On By [email protected]_84

By: Peter Asmus

Due to climate change, organizations and governments are navigating the energy transformation that is already underway. Technology advances and evolving market rules such as the recent US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order No. 2222 require new approaches to integrating distributed energy resources (DER) with the grid. The key to value creation lies in the ways these DER assets are integrated into onsite energy networks to bolster resiliency and foster sustainability. It also requires innovative business models that recognize previously hidden value for end users and stakeholders across the broader energy system.

A fundamental rethink of strategy and planning as well as organization and system operations that embrace DER networks will be needed for a successful transformation. The result should be an energy system better attuned to evolving demand and customer needs and more compatible with a rapidly changing policy and regulatory environment.

That’s the big picture and the fundamental premises underlying Guidehouse Insights’ overarching concept of the Energy Cloud. But what do these generalizations mean when getting down to the details as rapid change sweeps through our energy, mobility, and urban infrastructure? The value of DER assets can only be realized fully if they are integrated into markets, customer sites, and the grid in a way that creates shared value. Most use cases for DER support electrification goals and focus on behind-the-meter applications such as onsite power generation, but they do not support the larger grid network or incumbent utility suppliers.

Taking Steps to Build a More Sustainable and Shared Energy Future

A new Guidehouse Insights white paper, Integrated DER: Orchestrating the Grid’s Last

…

Google’s vision for the future of analytics

On By [email protected]_84

Meet Google Analytics 4: Google’s vision for the future of analytics






// Load the SDK

(function(d, s, id){ var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));

Source Article

…

Festivals of the future ‘won’t be limited by time and space’: CEO

On By [email protected]_84

Post-pandemic music and theater performances are likely to use a hybrid model, according to the chief executive of one of Singapore’s largest arts centers.

Yvonne Tham, CEO of Esplanade, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” that a mixture of in-person and streamed performances are set to be common in the future.

“Many artists are really open now to what’s known as hybrid, which (means they) may be performing in a particular space in a particular time, but how does that performance have an afterlife? And that’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves even as we’ve been producing lots of digital programs,” Tham said on Monday.

“We’re going to see festivals in future that are not just limited by time and space, therefore what goes on to complement that live experience in the digital space becomes quite important,” she added.

Pre-pandemic, around 3,000 performances took place annually at the Esplanade and it had to close its doors on March 26 due to coronavirus restrictions placed on venues. Since then it created its Esplanade Offstage website so people could continue to watch concerts and other performances and is now gradually reopening some of its venues — its Pip’s Playbox children’s space reopened on October 9, while its Jendela visual arts venue is set to reopen on October 16.

While some performances have continued outdoors, Tham said others work better inside. “We are looking at all ways of reaching audiences, be that in the open air, out in the garden, we are looking at our concert hall venues. Some (performances) they work far better in the concert hall and some in the theater space,” she said.

More from Our New Future:

Companies will have to ‘seduce’ staff to go back to the office, real estate CEO says

Lego CEO says toymaker’s digital future is

…

Tech Tenants Envision a Largely Remote Future

On By [email protected]_84

Now that many corporations have gone largely remote, and found that their workforce remains productive, the technology sector appears to be embracing the concept for the long-term. 

In a new survey by Savills North America of several hundred technology office tenants, a staggering majority of firms, 94%, said they expect remote work, at least a few days a week, to be normalized at their company in a post-vaccine environment.

The survey comes amid daily news of tech companies making announcements of future, office-light plans. Microsoft last week announced that employees could permanently work from home, and this past July, Google extended its allowance of employees to work remotely until at least next summer.

These shifts are prompting changed expectations on the office footprints of tech firms, according to the Savills technology practice group’s survey. Covid-19 has impacted 64% of firms’ headcount growth projections. The good news is that just 8% of survey respondents said their headcount would likely decrease, while 36% said it would grow as projected and another 6% said it’d grow even faster than projected.

Also of note: while 59% of those surveyed said that, pre-Coronavirus, zero to 10% of their employees worked from home full-time, just 16% of respondents said that same amount of workers would do full-time remote work.

Still, companies are getting ready for a shift, with 55% of companies saying they expect to dispose of some portion of their office space in the next 12 to 18 months.

That dovetails with recent trends. Technology was one of the two top sectors to contribute sublease space to the Los Angeles market, which has increased by 20% in recent months, according to JLL.  The sector has been responsible for 26% of the approximately 80 new or expanded subleases that were available as of last month, the

…