el producto #262 🚀
TravelPerk and Checkout.com funding, Web3 challenges and tips, Learning roadmaps, Experimentation at Netflix, The state of mobile in 2022, & more
Welcome to a new edition of el producto
🎰 The week in figures
$12.7B: Take-Two Interactive ($18.98B market cap) to merge with Zynga ($6.72B market cap); Take-Two will acquire all outstanding Zynga shares for $9.86 each, a 64% premium on Zynga's Jan 7 closing price; the cash-and-stock deal gives Zynga an implied enterprise value of $12.7B
$1B: Checkout.com, the London-based payments platform geared toward large corporations, raised $1B at a $40B valuation; Checkout became the UK’s most valuable tech company; TikTok, Klarna, Qonto, Revolut, WorldRemit, MoneyGram, Netflix, Farfetch, Grab, NetEase, Pizza Hut, and Shein are all counted among its clients
$1B: Google to acquire Central Saint Giles, a London development where the company already rents space, for $1B; the complex features 408k square feet of office space, 100+ residential apartments, as well as restaurants and cafes; the buy will give Google the capacity for a total of 10k workers in the UK; it currently has 6.4k
$709M: Bolt, the micro-mobility startup based in Tallinn, Estonia, raised $709M (€628M) at a valuation of $8.4B (€7.4B); the round comes just four months after it raised $680M Series E at a valuation of over $4.5B; Bolt now has over 100M customers in 45 countries and more than 400 cities using its services, which include on-demand ride-hailing, shared cars and scooters, and restaurant and grocery delivery
$552M: French challenger bank Qonto raised $552M (€485M) Series D, to a valuation up to $5B (€4.4B); the firm emphasizes business bank accounts due to their prevalence as a way for companies to move money around - that is different from enterprise-focused fintechs in the U.S., such as Brex and Ramp, which focus on providing corporate cards; Qonto has 220k clients and plans to reach 1M SMEs by 2025
$340M: Viennese edtech platform GoStudent raised $340M (€300M) at a valuation of $3.4B; the firm will use the funds to bring educational content producers onto its team; with the new funding, the company became Austria’s most-valuable startup
$335M: Bolt (a different one), the e-commerce checkout software firm, raised $355M in Series E funding at an $11B valuation; the incoming funds have increased the total funding received by the company to ~$1B; the new funding comes on the heels of a Series D funding of $393M received in Oct. 2021; the incoming funds will be used to accelerate product development, partner with new clients, increase the product and engineering workforce, and expand to more international markets
$300M: Fintech firm Brex secured $300M in a Series D-2 round that brings its valuation to $12.3B; the San Francisco-based decacorn, which offers high credit lines and software to businesses, has also appointed former Meta executive Karandeep Anand as its new CPO; the company plans to use the capital to expand its product portfolio, an effort to be led by Anand; before Brex, Anand was head of Meta’s business products group; he also worked at Microsoft leading its product management strategy for Azure cloud and developer platform efforts
$290M: Carsome, a Malaysian marketplace for used cars and the country's most valuable tech startup, raised $290M. The Series E round valued the company at $1.7B
$283M: Ankorstore, a wholesale marketplace connecting neighborhood retailers with specialist brands, raises $283M Series C for a $2B post-money valuation; the Parisian company employs 400 and serves 23 European markets
$248M: Sales enablement platform Highspot closed a $248M Series F round, reaching a post-funding valuation of $3.5B; the startup's cloud-hosted tools use AI to analyze company data and recommend ways to optimize the selling process; its algorithms can generate personalized content recommendations
$190M: AIOps and IT insights platform BigPanda raises $190M Series D at a $1.2B valuation; the software automates incident management and reduces response times; the startup currently focuses on North American markets but has an office in London and plans to increase investment there
$181M: Colombian e-commerce platform Tul raised $181M at an undisclosed valuation; Tul's marketplace enables small hardware stores to acquire construction materials, obtain financing, and monitor inventor; it also operates a delivery network that allows it to fulfill orders within one day; Tul has raised $235.1M since its inception in 2020, and its platform is available in Colombia, Mexico, and Ecuador (Brazil soon)
$115M: Barcelona-based corporate travel and expense management firm TravelPerk raises $115M at a $1.3B valuation; CEO Avi Meir said the company didn't lay off workers during the pandemic and has therefore recovered quickly, noting that smaller clients were resuming travel more rapidly than larger businesses
$110M: Lukka, a startup providing analytics software and blockchain data solutions for institutional clients, has closed a $110M Series E round that will push its valuation to ~$1.3B; the new capital will allow Lukka to expand its presence globally
$110M: NFT Marketplace LooksRare saw $110M in transactions on its first day; OpenSea’s trading volume sank to $170M on the same day, down $91M from the day before. LooksRare is an NFT marketplace that utilizes its native LOOKS token as a reward mechanism for traders and collectors; the marketplace airdropped LOOKS to OpenSea users who spent at least 3 ETH on OpenSea between June 16 and Dec. 16 ahead of its launch; LooksRare is shaping up to be a legitimate rival against OpenSea, which has maintained a supermajority over the NFT marketplace market share for the past year
$105M: ZeroHash raised a $105M Series D funding round; the company provides B2B customers the ability to embed NFT and crypto products and services into their own platforms
$100M: Foot traffic analytics company Placer.ai raises $100M at a $1B valuation led by Product Hunt CEO Josh Buckley; the startup enables clients to see, for example, a map indicating where customers at a given location came from; the company serves hospitality businesses, municipalities, retailers and others, and claims ~1k customers including Grocery Outlet, Planet Fitness, and Wegmans
$100M: Payment solutions firm Global Processing Services raises $100M; the tranche brings the round total to $400M; the company offers embedded and API-based solutions for virtual cards, direct debits, crypto and expense management, more
$96M: Ireland-headquartered food ordering app Flipdish received $96M funding led by Tencent at a valuation of $1.25B; the current valuation is 10x higher than its valuation at the previous funding round; Flipdish provides food delivery service through its app rivaling established outlets such as Deliveroo and UberEats; the incoming funds will be used to fund expansion into the U.K., Ireland, U.S. and France, and to increase its workforce to 700
100: Microsoft’s HoloLens team has seen ~100 people depart over the past year, and ~40 join Meta; some competitors reportedly offered to double workers' salaries; the HoloLens team has ~1k members
+68%: Strava’s fitness app saw its revenue spike 68% over 2021, aided by the ongoing pandemic; the app has revenue of around $170M and a paid subscriber base of 2-3M (around 100M users in total)
+43%: Usage of NFT and GameFi related dapps has increased into 2022 despite a general crypto market dip:
Unique active wallets (UAW) connected to Ethereum NFT dapps grew 43% since Q3 2021 despite a general crypto market downturn
DeFi daily UAW exceeded 1.25M during all-time highs for ETH, SOL, AVAX, and LUNA, while lows of 800,000 UAW have been recorded during the recent bearish trend
GameFi UAW has consistently increased over the past year, with GameFi’s UAW dominance growing 6% from 2021 to 52.4%
China surpassed the US in UAW in November; however, both saw monthly UAW growth of 166% and 38%
📰 What’s going on
Twitter is testing a search bar at the top of the Home tab, making it easier to search for tweets instead of having to change tabs
Microsoft Teams rolled out its Walkie-Talkie feature to all users (2 years after being announced); the feature lets users reach any contact through a push-to-talk function and is now arriving on iOS
Uber quietly dropped support for the Apple Watch, as its watchOS app now directs users to switch to the app on their iPhone; the app likely didn’t have much adoption, as it’s easier to order an Uber from a bigger screen
Alphabet plans to spin out its quantum-computing group, Sandbox, which exists at the Google X moonshot incubator. Sandbox, which develops enterprise solutions at the intersection of quantum physics and AI, will become an independent company
Apple will have to allow third-party payments in South Korea; a decision by the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) will require Apple to support third-party payment options in iOS apps for the first time in any market
Apple released iOS 15.2.1, which patches iPhones and iPads against a HomeKit flaw that could be exploited to launch DoS attacks. The update also addresses an issue where CarPlay apps may lose touch sensitivity and a bug where Messages may not load photos sent using an iCloud link
Instagram continues to benefit from TikTok’s ban in India; the app has now reclaimed the top spot in terms of total downloads as of Q4 2021 — its best position since 2014; the only other time TikTok lost its No. 1 spot in the past two years was when Zoom become No. 1 in Q2 2020
Snapchat added new messaging tools; the app added new features that allow users to chat, react and survey friends across Android and iOS; chat Replies let you respond to individual messages in a thread within an ongoing chat, similar to iMessage
Block, formerly Square, has launched efforts to build an open bitcoin mining system, CEO Jack Dorsey confirmed; the fintech company is seeking to make mining more efficient and distributed; Block views mining as "a long-term need for a future that is fully decentralized and permissionless," and is now hiring engineers and software designers to work on the effort
Coinbase acquires derivatives exchange FairX, which aims to make futures more accessible for retail investors; terms undisclosed; Coinbase said the buy would enable it to bring regulated crypto derivatives to market
GoFundMe acquires Classy, which enables nonprofit organizations to raise funds for social causes; terms undisclosed; Classy, a certified B Corp, will operate separately as a GoFundMe subsidiary and retain its 200 employees; the two companies collectively facilitated $5B in fundraising last year
Meditation and mindfulness firm Headspace acquires AI-powered mental wellness app Sayana (YC W20); terms undisclosed; Sayana will eventually shut down as a standalone service; Headspace said Sayana's tech would enable the firm to offer personalized self-care; Headspace merged with Ginger last year to create the $3B Headspace Health
Associated Press announces a marketplace for photojournalism-centric NFTs; the marketplace, built on the Polygon blockchain, will feature historic and culturally significant images with metadata detailing the locations and times of creation, more; AP plans to drop the first collection, with content related to space, war, and more, on Jan 31
Instacart launched a new "Ready Meals" hub to let customers order meals from 4,100 stores, including Kroger and Publix, in 35 US states. While Instacart has been delivering ready-made meals since Jan. 2020, this hub is designed to make the service more visible to customers. The company says orders will be delivered within 30 minutes. Instacart controls 52.8% of the U.S. grocery delivery market, compared to 25.5% for Walmart and 14.6% for Amazon
📚 Good reads
Innovating for an uncertain future, by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. Video + transcript covering: transforming today’s volatility into opportunities for innovation, the importance of talent as a differentiator, the importance of social impact linked to a business’s mission
Creating a Learning roadmap for Product Managers. Roman Pichler evolves his product roadmap framework and applies it to individuals as a learning tool. Roman explains what a learning roadmap is, how you can create one, and how you can effectively put the plan into action to keep growing as a professional
The best managers don’t fix, they coach - 4 tools to add to your toolkit, by First Round Review
Blinkist - user onboarding case study. The folks at growh.design have done an amazing job analyzing the onboarding journey of one my favourite products: Blinkist. Fun and insightful!
Experimentation is a major focus of Data Science across Netflix, by Netflix Tech blog. Diving into how different teams use experimentation at Netflix, and the platform investments that support running tests at scale while enabling innovation
App Annie released The State of Mobile in 2022 report; smartphone users spent around 3.8T hours on their devices, and app downloads grew to 230B, seeing a 5% YoY growth:
Download growth of mobile apps was driven by India, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Egypt.
~$170B was spent on iOS, Google Play Store, and third-party Android platforms in China, and more than $320k was spent every minute.
Americans, on average, spent 3.1h watching TV and 4.1h on their devices
🔮 Emerging trends
Designing for web3, by Angela Ching. What does it mean to design for web 3? What practices can be brought over from web 2.0? What are the new challenges and key considerations to consider? How does the evolving space of web 3 impact on the role of design? In other words, how does one prepare themselves for this new revolution if it was here to stay?
Experiences and challenges in web3. Once a distributed ecosystem centralizes around a platform for convenience, it becomes the worst of both worlds: centralized control, but still distributed enough to become mired in time. An insightful read by Moxie that got reactions by Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum creator). Complement with Vitalik’s reply
AR, VR, AI + Blockchain are revolutionizing the metaverse, by Analytics Insight. The metaverse will likely be a combination of augmented reality, virtual reality, and AI technology that is powered by the blockchain to create new virtual worlds:
Users can access a virtual reality world by using their VR headsets and experience a new immersive reality
Multiple sectors will benefit from this technology, from fashion and social platforms to work and collaboration, and it will consist of augmented reality, virtual reality, AI, machine learning, and NFTs
To get an idea of what a metaverse may look like then, visit platforms such as The Sandbox and Decentraland
Have a great weekend
Angel
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