el producto #259 🎄
Startups that could go public in 2022, Adidas and Instagram NFTs, TikTok+GrubHub food delivery, Product coaching done right, Web3 and employee compensation & more
Happy holidays from el producto!
🎰 The week in figures
$1.12B: Map data firm MapmyIndia closes up 35% in its debut on India's National Stock Exchange; the New Delhi-based firm maps India and sells the data to Apple, Google, and others; the company's platform features maps for 200+ countries; the IPO valued MapmyIndia at $1.12B
$525M: Codeacdemy will be bought by Skillsoft Corp. for $525M in a move that will see the latter synergize its efforts in the online learning sector. Codecademy recently raised $40M to expand into emerging markets like India. Skillsoft offers 180,000 courses, books, and videos in 29 languages
$400M: Bolt, which provides a one-click checkout solution, is raising ~$400M at a $14B valuation; the startup closed a $393M round at a reported $11B valuation in October; the consumer-centric product offers rapid checkouts for numerous merchants in the Bolt network, using a buyer's profile across stores
$375M: Payments platform Razorpay raises $375M Series F at a $7.5B valuation; investors last valued the firm at $3B in April; the Bangalore-based company handles payments for small businesses and enterprises, and also offers a neo-banking platform; Razorpay processes $60B in transactions per year
$325M: OfBusiness, which targets small businesses with materials procurement and lines of credit, raises $325M at a $5B valuation; investors valued the New Delhi firm at ~$800M in April
$400M: Used vehicle marketplace Cars24 raises $300M Series G + $100M in debt; the round values the Indian company at $3.3B, up from $1.84B 3 months ago; Cars24 claims a 90% share of the country's used car market; the platform claims 13M monthly visitors and 400k total vehicles sold
$210M: Next-day grocery delivery firm Kurly raises $210M at a $3.3B valuation; the Seoul-based startup recently shifted its IPO plans from the NYSE to Korea Exchange and expects to debut in the first half of next year; the company claims 10M accounts and 2.4M MAU
$145M: Rec Room, which enables users to create games and experience them with friends, raises $145M at a $3.5B valuation; investors valued the startup at $1.25B in March; the free platform supports PC, console, mobile, and VR, and all titles are cross-platform
$130M: Asian food delivery firm HungryPanda raised $130M at an undisclosed valuation. HungryPanda is operational in 60 cities across 10 countries, including the U.S., U.K., and Singapore. The company recently expanded into grocery delivery. HungryPanda has raised $220M since its inception in 2017
$125M: Next-day delivery startup Veho raises $125M Series A for a $1B post-money valuation; the company targets e-commerce deliveries and promises an improved last-mile customer experience, with real-time location tracking, customer updates, and adherence to customer requests
$115M: Electric scooter-share firm Voi raises $115M Series D led; the company currently offers scooters for rent in 70 cities across the UK and Europe; Voi said the funding would facilitate launches in new markets and preparations for an IPO
$110M: Crypto-staking firm Figment, which also offers a Web3 application layer, raises $110M Series C for a $1.4B post-money valuation; Figment takes a cut from staking revenue and currently sees $10M in revenue each month; the company also runs an investment arm called Figment Capital, which focuses on the crypto space
$100M: On-demand grocery delivery company Zepto raises $100M Series C at a $570M valuation led by Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund; investors valued the startup at $225M ~two months ago; Zepto operates micro-warehouses, each capable of filling 2.5k orders per day, and runs 100+ dark stores across five cities
$100M: Tackle, which helps SaaS companies sell through cloud providers' marketplaces, raises $100M Series C at a $1.25B valuation; the Boise startup claims 350 customers, including Dell, GitLab, and McAfee; Tackle grew its team from 56 to 160 in 2021 and plans to double its size next year
2000: Amazon will hire 2,000 new employees in Austin, Texas, for corporate and tech positions over the next few years
📰 What’s going on
Instagram looking to introduce NFTs. As Meta accelerates the metaverse ecosystem, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said that the company is working on building features that incorporate NFTs. NFTs play a vital role in the metaverse as they offer ownership rights over digital assets within the virtual world. The company hopes that NFTs will help creators boost their content and engage with their audience on the platform. This year alone, NFTs surged to $12B in revenue as brands like Nike, Adidas, and others embraced their potential and entered the metaverse ecosystem
Adidas cashed in on its NFT sale, selling around 30,000 of its "Into the Metaverse" collection. Many users were left on the hook for high gas fees. Adidas offered an apology to those affected during the minting process and promised to refund the transaction fees. The company cashed in $23M during the event
TikTok will partner with Virtual Dining Concepts and GrubHub to launch delivery-only "TikTok Kitchens" across the U.S. They will open 300 in March 2022 and plan on launching over 1,000 by the end of next year. The restaurants will be run out of national chains such as Buca di Beppo, which are owned by Virtual Dining Concepts co-founder Robert Earl. The restaurants will sell products that went viral on TikTok, including baked feta pasta (the most-googled dish of 2021). TikTok has over 130M MAU in the U.S.
German firm Delivery Hero will shut down its domestic food delivery unit four months after it was relaunched. The move is due to driver shortages and increased competition from firms like Just Eat Takeaway. Delivery Hero is also focusing on other verticals such as on-demand delivery from convenience stores. It will also sell its Japanese unit next year, which was first launched in Sept. 2020
All DoorDash employees, including top execs, will have to deliver a minimum of 1 order every month in 2022 as part of a new initiative called WeDash. Employees unable to deliver orders can work alongside the customer and merchant support teams. The program is designed to help employees empathize with couriers, merchants, and customers, and to better understand DoorDash's products and logistics infrastructure
Patreon CPO Julian Gutman says the company will more than double its workforce with aggressive hiring in product and engineering. As more creator monetization platforms continue to try and steal market share, Patreon views rapid growth as its best way of staying on top. The firm tripled its valuation to $4B following its $155M financing round in April 2021. Patreon has 400 employees, but Gutman expects to end 2022 with around 1000. Patreon's main focus will be community
thirdweb, a platform for building web3 apps and games without code, launches on Product Hunt. It launched last week alongside its announcement of closing a $5M funding round from high profile investors like Mark Cuban and Gary Vee, and Ryan Hoover from Product Hunt
Privacy-centric search engine firm DuckDuckGo is developing a desktop browser with the same focus on privacy and speed as the company's mobile app; CEO Gabriel Weinberg says the new browser is faster and more privacy-protected than Chrome; launch timeline undisclosed
Baidu will hold its annual developers’ event fully in virtual reality world on Monday. The conference which the company calls the 'first metaverse conference' will be held through Baidu's XiRang app. The functionality of the XiRang app, the development of which commenced last December, is expected to be fully complete after six years. The company aims to build an open-source platform for metaverse developers to speed up its performance and capabilities
📚 Good reads
Product coaching and “show, don’t tell”, by Rich Mironov. Product management isn’t a rote exercise with standard steps. We don’t learn the interesting (hard) parts from process diagrams or PowerPoint. The best approach is internal coaching/mentoring from real veterans who guide us through product thinking and show us how to tackle the next task. If your team doesn’t have one, you may have to rent one
London-based VC firm Atomico Ventures has released its State of European Tech 2021 report. Some highlights:
European tech's market cap surpassed $3T in 2021, growing from $1T in 2018.
European tech is set to reach $100B in capital invested for the first time in one year
2021 brought 98 new European unicorns
Europe is now on par with the U.S. in terms of its early-stage pipeline
Europe's startups account for 33% of all capital invested globally in rounds of up to $5M — the U.S accounts for 35%.
The five largest startup hubs in Europe still see the lion's share of available venture capital
London, Berlin, Stockholm, Munich, and Paris-based startups captured 54% of total investment into the European tech ecosystem in 2021
The U.K.-based startup ecosystem topped all of Europe in 2021, raising a combined ~$27B compared to ~$12.4B raised by Germany and $8.5B raised by France
Funding and talent remain the biggest challenges facing European tech, while minority investing is still lacking
1.3% of total capital raised went to ethnic minority founding teams
1.1% of total capital raised went to all-women founding teams
Companies started in 2021 captured only 0.9% of the total capital raised in 2021
The new “Get-rich-fast” jobs in Silicon Valley: cypto startups. The New York times looks at why talent is leaving Google, Meta and Amazon for new crypto startups. Some highlights:
Employees at crypto startups tend to have compensation packages that include the company’s tokens
So, while the base salary at a crypto startup is lower, total compensation can be on par offerings from larger companies
Startups also tend to offer stock to supplement wages, but the liquidity opportunities are much more delayed. Tokens, on the other hand, can be cashed in quite quickly
The ethos of web3 protocols also provides a big draw by offering an alternative capitalization method
Facebook and Google came to dominate the internet by sucking up user data, which many startups employees now take issue with. Blockchain is decidedly not dependent on user data
While previous startup waves advertised social missions, they had no alternative to data/ad-based monetization. Moreover, their employees often relied on acquisitions by big tech companies to cash in stock
The advent of mainstream NFTs this past year has boosted the idea of putting decentralization front and center for real-world products, expanding the promise of crypto beyond its previous purview of digital currency
According to PitchBook, $3B was pumped into the fledgling sector this year alone
Some legacy tech companies have embraced crypto, while others have been more reluctant
Jack Dorsey changed the name of his fintech company Square to Block to reflect his intent to pivot the company to crypto efforts
Meta famously attempted to introduce its own cryptocurrency. The former head of its crypto division David Marcus left to found his own crypto company
Alphabet has reportedly begun offering stock grants to the employees most likely to be poached by up-and-coming crypto companies
Network bonding theory - understanding your startup and the Web3 ecosystem. NfX explains a new way of seeing and building network effects businesses. The tokens which have made network bonding curves more easily visible have the potential to change the nature of ownership in the Web3 era and beyond, especially when it comes to employee compensation
The Web3 renaissance: a golden age for content creators, by Li Jin. For the last decade, we’ve lived in a period in which ownership has been concentrated among a few centralized technology platforms, which owned the data, end-user relationships, and the means of distributing and monetizing content. While user-generated content creation exploded during this period, it also caused reliance on a handful of new gatekeepers, widespread burnout, and economic unsustainability for the vast majority of creators. Fortunately, there are new developments on the horizon that represent a shift in the balance of power towards creators. With key new capabilities enabled by web3—digital scarcity, patronage that doubles as investment, programmable business models, and community ownership—we are on the cusp of a new creative renaissance on the internet
A conversation wtih Matt Mullenweg - CEO of Automattic (Wordpress). Mullenweg plans to spend the rest of his career building the web’s one true platform, the open system the internet deserves. What exactly does that look like? Who knows. Mullenweg is increasingly fascinated by all things Web3 and crypto, and sees in that space much of the collaboration and community he loves about WordPress and open source in general
How working with competitors made Jio a tech giant, by HBR. Jio Platforms’ unique experiment of co-opetition with global tech giants combined with its local prowess allows it to address an enormous market of price-sensitive customers. Thanks to its sheer scale, innovation, and unique collaborations, it can offer integrated solutions for retail, grocery, fintech, medical, agricultural, e-commerce, and e-payment needs, in addition to telecom services and home entertainment — at affordable prices. The resulting knowledge, access, business possibilities, and even entertainment opportunities could transform the lives of over 1B people
30 startups that could go public in 2022, by Crunchbase
Have a great holidays
Angel
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