el producto #257 🚀
The anatomy of great Products, Nubank IPO, Monzo funding, WhatsApp crypto payments, App Store listings A/B tests, Design leadership playbook, & more
🎰 The week in figures
$2.6B: Nubank closed up 15% in its NYSE debut on Thursday, finishing the day with a $50B market cap; the Brazilian digital banking firm priced shares at $9 each, at the top of its marketed range; trading opened at $11.25 per share and closed at $10.33; the firm raised $2.6B at a $41.4B implied valuation with the offering
$1.22B: HashiCorp closed up 6.5% in its Nasdaq debut on Thursday; the company priced shares at $80 each for a $14B valuation and a $1.22B raise; the company marketed shares at $68 to $72 apiece at the end of November; trading opened at $81.16 per share and closed at $85.19
$775M: BuzzFeed shares fell 23.57% on Thursday to close at $5.87; the stock is down 31% from its close on Monday when the firm debuted on the Nasdaq through a SPAC merger; some SPAC investors backed out of the deal, leaving BuzzFeed with a smaller raise than expected; the company's market value is ~$775M
$750M: Flink, which offers instant delivery of grocery essentials, raises $750M Series B for a $2.85B most-money valuation led by DoorDash; the Berlin startup serves 10M customers across 60 cities in four countries; Amazon and GoPuff reportedly approached Flink for sale talks this year
$500M: SellerX, which acquires and optimizes Amazon merchant businesses, raises $500M at a $1B pre-money valuation; the firm also announced its acquisition of KW-Commerce, which sells private-label brands on Amazon; SellerX now claims 750 employees and 40 brands representing 25k products
$475M: Monzo raised $475M to reach a $4.5B valuation in its latest round
$475M: Market research firm YipitData is raising as much as $475M at a $1B+ valuation; the company collects and analyzes data from alternative sources for corporate and Wall Street customers; YipitData sells its research to 400+ clients, including investment funds
$400M: Blockchain scalability platform Polygon acquires Mir Protocol, a platform for building scalable, decentralized apps, for $400M; Mir uses zero-knowledge proofs to create ZK-rollups, which enable transaction processing without publishing data to the Ethereum blockchain; the tech reduces transaction fees and improves scalability
$385M: Weibo closed down 7% in its Hong Kong debut on Wednesday, raising approx. $385M; the float was the Chinese social media firm's secondary listing, and the company's Nasdaq-listed shares rose 4.69% overnight; Weibo offered shares at $34.98 each for the Hong Kong IPO, and trading closed at $32.47
$350M: Pleo, an expense management company serving SMBs, raises $200M Series C (extension) at a $4.7B valuation, bringing the round total to $350M; investors valued the firm at $1.7B six months ago; the startup claims 20k businesses as customers and 1k new customers each month
$340M: Vacation rental management platform Vacasa has raised $340M on a $4.4B valuation following the close of its SPAC merger. The proceeds will go toward enhancing its technology and adding more homes to its platform
$300M: Cerebral, which provides remote mental health services and prescription delivery, raises $300M at a $4.8B valuation; the startup offers virtual counseling and medication to treat depression, anxiety, insomnia, and more; Cerebral works with 2.3k clinicians and has served 200k+ patients
$270M: Tipalti, a cloud-based automation platform for accounts payable, procurement, and payments, raises $270M Series F at an $8.3B valuation; investors valued the firm at $2B for a $150M Series E in October of last year; Tipalti claims 2k customers, including Amazon, GoDaddy, and Twitch; the company processes $30B in payments each year
$266M: Fintech Mambu raises $266M at a $5.5B valuation to double down on embedded financial service and banking APIs
$228M: Robotics and autonomous driving firm Robotic Research raises $228M Series A; the company has spent ~20 years developing on- and off-road autonomous tech for the Department of Defense, and now plans to grow its commercial business, RR.AI; that unit as worked with Canadian sawmills
$226M: Embedded finance firm Mambu raises $266M Series E at a $5.5B valuation; the company offers APIs for banking services, including deposits and lending; Mambu also provides analytics and tools for building other services; the Berlin-based business claims 200 customers representing 53M end-users
$220M: Identity verification and authentication firm Incode Technologies raises $220M Series B at a $1.25B valuation; the company claims 140M identity verifications this year and 175M in total; its customers include American Express and Citigroup
$200M: Everphone, which rents mobile devices to businesses, raises $200M Series C; the company acquires phones and tablets, rents them out, refurbishes them, and rents them out again; Founder and CEO Jan Dzulko hopes to take the firm public in 3-4 years
$139M: Mobility firm Ola raises $139M Series J at a $7.3B valuation led; Ola also revealed its acquisition of geo-analytics company GeoSpoc; the raise was part of a larger pre-IPO round
$100M: Anyscale, a development platform for distributed AI apps, raises $100M Series C; the company offers a fully-managed version of the Ray open-source framework; clients include LinkedIn, OpenAI, and Uber
$100M: Ed-tech firm Byju's acquires mathematics education platform GeoGebra for a reported $100M; Austria-baed GeoGebra claims 100M students across ~195 countries use its software; India-based Byju's has spent ~$2B in cash and equity on acquisitions this year
$80M: Browser-based IDE Replit raises $80M Series B at an $800M valuation led by Coatue; the software integrates with GitHub, supports real-time collaboration for teams, and features a developer community where users can ask questions and more
70 European startups have reached a $1B valuation since January, that's more than the previous four years combined. The average pre-money valuation is just over $393M, versus $110M last year. The UK has produced the most unicorns in Europe during 2021, with 44, followed by Germany and France, which have 29 and 16, respectively
📰 What’s going on
WhatsApp launches crypto payments pilot in the U.S. with the Novi wallet and Pax Dollar stablecoin
Google announces it will launch a Google Play Games app for Windows 10-plus next year; the app will enable Windows users to play Android titles locally, no streaming involved; Windows already supports Android app installations from Amazon, but the built-in tech does not enable native installations from Google Play
Apple introduced two new features for App Store product pages to help developers improve their listings. Product page optimization will allow developers to try out alternate versions of their product pages with different icons, screenshots and app previews to see which one gets the best results. These A/B tests will show the different pages to a randomly selected percentage of App Store users and the results will appear in App Analytics. Also new are custom product pages, which let developers create additional versions of their product page to highlight specific features or content, each with their own, unique URLs. This could allow developers to create pages that they link to from ads that highlight a particular character, gameplay, activity/sport or other in-app features
Apple plans to begin production of its first AR headset near the end of next year and to launch a second-generation headset during the second half of 2024; the first headset reportedly will target developers and offer seamless transitions between AR and VR
eBay introduced a new feature that lets sellers scan the shoes and sneakers they’re selling to create an interactive “3D” view which buyers can view when shopping from the eBay app on iOS and Android. The company worked with Unity on the new feature that will begin to roll out this month to select sellers before a broader launch next year
TikTok has rolled out a new app called TikTok Seller in Indonesia, which lets sellers manage their TikTok Shops via their smartphone. The country is often a testing ground for new e-commerce features, noted TikTok
Intel plans to spin out autonomous and assisted driving business Mobileye as a public company next year; the IPO could value Mobileye at $50B; Intel acquired the Israeli firm for $15B in 2017; Mobileye's revenues have tripled since that deal: the unit generated $326M in revenue during the third quarter, up 39% YoY
Kickstarter announces Kickstarter PBC, a new organization developing an open-source protocol to establish a decentralized version of the crowdfunding platform; Kickstarter will make the platform available to the public, including competitors; the company ultimately plans to transition Kickstarter.com to the protocol
Twitter is the latest to test a TikTok-like vertical video feed in its app. The company is trying out a video feed on its “Explore” page in the app, which even has its own For You tab, like TikTok. The feature is being tested in English with select users on iOS and Android
Twitter’s live audio rooms, Twitter Spaces, can now be recorded for later listening. The feature works on iOS, Android and now the web, too
Twitter acquires team communications tool Quill; terms undisclosed; the Slack-like app launched early this year promising a more organized and focused experience; it will shut down, and the company will wipe its servers on Dec 11; users can export messages until then
Pinterest acquires photo and video editing app Vochi; terms undisclosed; the deal includes Vochi's IP and 40-member team; Pinterest launched a video-centric feature called Ideas Pins in the spring, enabling users to share recipes, crafts tutorials, etc
DoorDash hires 60 full-time employees to serve as couriers for an ultra-fast delivery pilot in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan; the company is offering 10-15-minute deliveries for a $1 to $2 fee; DoorDash has relied on gig workers to date; the new hires, which work for subsidiary DashCorp, earn $15 per hour and have access to standard benefits
📚 Good reads
The anatomy of great products. Product success doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, sleepless nights, careful research, consistent innovation, and determination to achieve success. In this essay, Rafayel Mkrtchyan, shares the “Essentials of Great Products”
A week where a product team doesn’t make a good decision is a wasted week, by Gousto’s Head of Product Dominic Sando. “Think critically, but don’t boil the ocean as you sail through it. Hold your product teams accountable for making at least one great decision a week that ladder up to creating powerful product outcomes for your customers.“
The design leadership playbook: how to hire, onboard and manage a top design org. In this interview, Hareem Mannan (Senior Director of Product at Twilio) ties all the threads together from her previous roles at Segment and delivers tailored advice, from IC to manager to director. From the high-level perspective of what makes for a great design leader, to the tactical suggestions around the slide that needs to be in your portfolio presentation, Mannan shares useful advice for every stage of a designer's career
Three steps to the future, by Ben Evans. The most exciting themes in technology today are transformative visions for 2025 or 2030: crypto, web3, VR, metaverse… and then everything else. Meanwhile, hundreds of start-ups take ideas from the last decade and deploy them over and over in one industry after another. And trying to keep up, the old economy faces waves of disruption from ideas we first talked about in the 1990s, that are finally reaching them
The psychology of Design: 15 principles every UI/UX designer (and PM) should know. A UX designer’s guide to user psychology: Get a list of the most relevant design principles & cognitive biases that will help you build more habit-forming products
Have a great weekend
Angel
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