el producto #255 🚀
el producto #255 🚀
Growth frameworks, Web3, Experimentation at Monzo, Fintech world's top players, Spotify vertical video, Getir acquisitions, Oculus sales & more
🎰 The week in figures
$840M: Dream Sports, which operates sports-centric e-commerce and other platforms, raises $840M at an $8B valuation; investors last valued the Indian firm at $5B in March; the company owns fantasy platform Dream11, game publisher Dream Game Studios, and other brands
$400M: Cryptocurrency platform Gemini has raised $400M at a $7.1B valuation
$555M: MoonPay, which provides payments infrastructure for crypto, raises $555M for a $3.4B post-money valuation; the previously bootstrapped firm is profitable, and has generated $150M in net revenue this year; the company enables consumers to buy crypto using Apple Pay, open banking, etc
$366M: Social commerce marketplace Facily reveals it has raised $366M across four rounds over the past year, the most recent valuing the firm at $850M; the São Paulo-based startup enables gamified group purchases for low-income populations; sources said Facily was looking to raise a new round and push its valuation over $1B
$300M: Pokémon Go creator Niantic has raised $300M at a $9B valuation. The company is the developer of an augmented reality platform. The funding will be used in part to expand the San Francisco-based company's new AR developer kit
$250M: Deliverr, a provider of ecommerce fulfillment services, has raised a $250M Series E. In January, the San Francisco-based company raised $170M at a $900M valuation
$250M: Verbit has raised a $250M Series. Founded in 2017, provides AI-powered speech recognition technology for use in transcription and captioning. The funding values Verbit at $2B, double the valuation it garnered after a $157M Series D in May
$210M: Peer-to-peer real estate platform NoBroker raises $210M Series E at a $1B valuation; investors last valued the Bangalore-based company at $350M in April of last year; the platform features houses, apartments, and other properties for rent and sale
$205M: Family safety app Life360 acquires item-tracking firm Tile for $205M; Tile CEO CJ Prober will continue to lead the business under the same brand; Life360 enables its 33M users to track family members' locations, send SOS alerts during emergencies, and more; the app will integrate Tile support to extend its tracking features to pets, objects, etc
$150M: Vercel has raised $150M at a $2.5B valuation. The company is the creator of a front-end web development platform. In May, Vercel raised $102M at a $1.1B valuation
$130M: Luma Health has raised a $130M Series C. Based in the San Francisco area, the company is the developer of a patient engagement platform for healthcare providers
$112M: Payhawk, which offers cards (virtual and physical) and spend management tools for businesses, raises $112M Series B at a $570M valuation; the system also handles invoice collection, reconciliation, more
$80M: Peek.com has raised $80M. The company offers a travel booking platform to help hotels and restaurants manage reservations
10M: Qualcomm's CEO says Meta has shipped 10 million Oculus Quest 2 headsets. Facebook has never revealed any exact shipment figures for its VR headsets
35%: Zoom ($72B market cap) FQ3 beats: $1.05B revenue, up 35% YoY ($1.02B expected); $1.11 EPS (adjusted, $1.09 expected); $340.4M net income, up 71%; the firm canceled its $14.7B acquisition of Five9 during the quarter; the company forecasts 1.051B revenue for the fourth quarter, indicating 19% growth
📰 What’s going on
Reddit announces it will shut down short-form video platform Dubsmash on Feb 22; Reddit acquired the startup late last year and is now rolling out features based on Dubsmash tech, such as camera speed controls, a new video editing screen, more
Facebook and Instagram encryption plans delayed by Meta until 2023. The new process will mean only the sender and receiver can read messages, but law enforcement or Meta cannot
Spotify says it’s ‘retiring’ Car View without an immediate replacement. The company says it's being done to make room for "new innovations", and some users say the change promotes unsafe driving
Spotify tests TikTok-like vertical video feature. A new feature in an early test build for iPhone reveals a new Discover tab being added to the app's front page. It has vertical music video clips that users can swipe through rapidly, similar to TikTok's interface
Getir acquires fellow on-demand grocery delivery firm Weezy; terms undisclosed; Turkey-based Getir previously committed ~$134M to UK expansion, and said it would establish dark stores and 10k new jobs; London-based Weezy previously raised ~$26M
Chinese regulators have asked Didi to de-list from the NYSE. The request is unprecedented and will reignite fears about further regulatory action by Beijing
[For readers in Spain] The good folks at La Product Conf Spain are running their annual study on the state of Product Management in Spain. If you are a Product professional based in Spain, you can give them a hand here
📚 Good reads
Eigenquestions: the art of framing problems. The best way to solve a problem is to ask the right questions. In this article you will learn, from the example of YouTube, how using a methodical approach to framing questions can be a huge help
Not everyone needs OKRS. Christina Wodtke, author of Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results, explains why and when it may be counterproductive to set OKRs in place, and gives some advice on how to start them
A founder’s step-by-step guide to getting your first 1,000 community members. Inspiring article by Knoetic founder & CEO Joseph Quan for First Round Review, in which he delves into how he took a critical pivot,and developed a framework for community growth and success
Growth frameworks for marketplaces, by Pete Flint for NfX. Marketplaces are some of the most valuable businesses on the Internet. Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, Zillow, DoorDash, Booking.com — there’s much to learn by studying them. But every marketplace is different, and so are their growth frameworks
Experimentation as a company strategy at Monzo. Mikkel Dengsøe (who leads Data Science at Monzo) shares how a “speedboat” culture of rapid and continuous experimentation has been key to Monzo’s success
Mapping the fintech world's top players and their most successful imitators. Many fintech companies have steered clear, for now, from significant international expansion—in large part due to regulatory differences between regions. This has allowed a plethora of startups to replicate the most successful fintech models and adapt them to their local markets. Pitchbook has mapped fintech's leaders in 5 categories and the most prominent companies seeking to emulate their success in different parts of the world
What the hell is Web3? You may have heard about Web3 already, and you will hear lots more in the months to come. The most simplistic analogy I’ve seen for it is the following:
web1: read
web2: read / write
web3: read / write / own
If that triggers some curiosity, check out the article for a deeper, yet still simple explanation of Web3 and its key pieces: NFTs, blockchain, crypto and DAOs. Complement with this explanation of the different NFT marketplace types by HBR
Have a great weekend
Angel
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