el producto #291 đ
Google's simplicity sprint, Big tech Q2 results, Building community, AI government stack, US superapps, TikTok Music, Figma updates, Helium crypto success, & more
Hey team,
Happy weekend & welcome to a new edition of el producto
đ° The week in figures
$4B: Global Payments, a point-of-sale and digital payments provider, acquired global-focused payments company EVO for $4B; EVO would expand Global Payments into new markets like Poland, Germany, Chile and Greece; Global Payments has a ~$36B market cap
$2B: Chainalysis estimates that $2B in crypto has been stolen from cross-chain bridges across 13 hacks this year; attacks on cross-chain bridges account for 69% of funds stolen so far this year; bridges are a top target for North Korean-linked hackers who have stolen ~$1B work of crypto this year from bridges and other Defi protocols
$1.7B: Amazon announced plans to acquire Roomba-maker iRobot in a deal valued at $1.7B; as of 2020, the brand sold more than 30M Roomba robotic vacuums; Amazon also recently launched a home monitoring robot called Astro
$150M: Dubai-based buy now, pay later (BNPL) startup Tabby raised $150M in debt; the move comes after Tabby raised $54M as part of an extended Series B at an undisclosed valuation; Tabby lets users divide their payments into four monthly installments, and besides in the United Arab Emirates, it also operates in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt; Tabby's revenue and active customer base increased by 10x y/y and 8x y/y respectively in H1 2022
$115M: San Francisco-based food tech startup Afresh secured $115M Series B; the company provides an AI-powered platform to grocery stores, which helps them maintain fresh stock and reduce food waste
$100M: Chiliz, which owns blockchain-based sports fan rewards platform Socios, has invested ~$100M to acquire a 24.5% stake in FC Barcelonaâs NFT arm, Barça Studios
$100M: Shopify has invested $100M in Klaviyo in a strategic funding round; Klaviyo is now the recommended email automation platform in Shopify's premium plan; Klaviyo enables users to send automated emails, text messages, and follow-up emails on events such as cart abandonment and also offers predictive analytics
1M: Nubank, the Brazillian fintech giant, reached 1M crypto users in one month; the company launched crypto trading to its 46.5M users in late May and early June, and had low expectations due to the current crypto downturn
4-5: Data released by intelligence firm data.ai showed consumers markets globally are spending 4-5 hours a day on apps; 13 of the markets show users spending 4+ hours a day, including the US, UK, and Canada; 3 markets are spending 5+ a day in apps, including Indonesia, Singapore, and Brazil
-23%: Robinhood cut 23% of employees as trading slows; RH laid off 9% back in April; in total, it let go 1,000+ employees in 2022
-34%: Global venture funding declined by 34% m/m and 56% y/y in July to $27.7B; the $27.7B startups raised last month was the lowest since Nov. 2020
đ¸ Q2 results
Airbnb: reported its most profitable quarter to date;Â $2.1B in revenue, up 58% y/y; net income $379M, up from a loss of $68M last year; largest Nights and Experiences Booked in a quarter at 103.7M, up 25% y/y, but fell short of analystsâ estimates of 106.4 million; the company said it saw some elevated booking cancellations towards the end of the quarter, pointing to global flight cancellations during that period; long-term stays, 28 days or more, remains Airbnbâs fastest-growing segment, up 25% y/y and up 90% from Q2 2019
Alibaba: $30.7B in revenue; revenue growth remained flat y/y, while beating analystsâ forecasts of $30.09B; the companyâs growth has flatlined for the first time in its history; revenue from the Chinese commerce segment dropped 1% y/y to $21.1B (141.9B yuan) due to COVID-19 lockdowns there; revenue from the cloud computing division totaled $2.6B, up 10% y/y; net income was $3.37B, down 50% y/y
Block: $4.4B in total revenue, a 6.6% decrease y/y; excluding Bitcoin, net revenue was $2.6B; $1.47B in gross profit, up 29% y/y; net loss of $208M, compared to an income of $204M reported last year; CashApp, Blockâs p2p payments service, generated a gross profit of $705M, up 29% y/y; Square reported $755M in gross profit, up 29% y/y
DoorDash: revenue rose by 30% y/y to $1.6B; net loss increased from $102M in Q2 2021 to $263M; order volume increased by 23% y/y to 426M; DoorDash has 25M MAU, of which 10M are members of its DashPass subscription service; as of May, DoorDash controlled 59% of the U.S. food delivery market compared to 24% for Uber Eats
Ebay: revenue fell by 9% in Q2 to $2.4B; net loss of $531M, compared to the $10.7M net income it recorded in Q2 2021; EBay's GMV declined by 18% y/y to $18.5B; the company's active buyer base fell by 12% y/y to 138M
Match Group: $795M (up 12% y/y, missed estimates); Q3 forecasting: $790 - $800M (below estimates); FCF: -$7M, net loss: $32M
MercadoLibre:Â posted record revenues of $2.6B in Q2, +56% y/y, surpassing expectations of $2.5B; The regional e-commerce giant beat forecasts for all key metrics; the company posted a 49% gross margin
PayPal: revenue rose by 9%Â y/y to $6.8B; net loss of $341M; 429 million active accounts, a 6% increase y/y
Pinterest: $666M (up 9% y/y, missed slightly), net loss: $43M (-$112M y/y), MAUs: 433M (-5M y/y, but beat estimates)
Uber: revenue: $8.1B (up 105% y/y, beat estimates), gross bookings: $29.1B (up 33% y/y), net loss: -$2.6B (includes $1.7B loss from equity investments and $470M in stock-based comp), free cash flow: $382M, cash and equivalents: $4.4B
đ° Whatâs going on
Figma announced more than 20 little big updates to improve design and collaboration on the platform; improvements to Figma include:
smoother annotations with pencil strokes
a faster way to add gradients to the color palette
a more efficient selection process, and retaining formatting when pasting between text nodes
Figma now allows users to group objects by holding the Shift button while pressing the alignment buttons
FigJam's auto-create prompts enable users to create shapes and stickies faster, new guidelines to match height and width allow users to size shapes to the same dimensions easily, and connectors now automatically straighten when objects look center aligned
Facebook will be shutting down its live shopping feature in October to shift its focus to Reels; users will not be able to host any new or scheduled live shopping events on the platform but will still be able to use Facebook Live to broadcast live events
Metaâs AI research lab has created an AI-based chatbot called BlenderBot 3 and is letting the public talk to it in order to train its language models; the chatbot is able to engage in conversation and answer questions intended for digital assistants; Meta says it worked hard to âminimize the botsâ use of vulgar language, slurs, and culturally insensitive comments.â
Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri is moving to London in part to grow Instagramâs global presence, attract cheaper engineering talent, and potentially take advantage of R&D tax credits, Metaâs London office has ~4000 employees
Instagram will roll out its NFT functionality to over 100 countries in the Middle East, the Americas, Africa, and Asia-Pacific; the functionality enables users to sync their digital wallets to Instagram and share their NFTs across the platform; Instagram first started testing the functionality in May with a limited number of creators in the U.S.Â
YouTube is letting Premium subscribers access and test experimental features and tools before a wider release, starting with a pinch-to-zoom beta, available for Premium subscribers until September 1
Apple is planning to delay the launch of the iPadOS 16 updates for about one month; the tech giant plans to stagger iPhone and iPad system overhauls; Apple Watch software is planning to launch in September with Mac updates to follow
Google CEO Sundar Pichai launched a âSimplicity Sprintâ to further the company's efficiency after telling employees Google's productivity isnât âwhere it needs to beâ; the goal of the sprint is to crowdsource ideas for quicker product development; last week, Google reported its second consecutive quarter of weaker-than-expected earnings and revenue
The upcoming iOS 16 update will enable users to connect their Nintendo Switch controllers to their iPhone or iPad; the update is available now in beta for the public; users can currently pair PlayStation and Xbox controllers to their iPhonesÂ
ByteDance filed a trademark application for a service called âTikTok Musicâ, describing an app that would enable users to buy, play, share, and download music; last year TikTok claimed that 175 songs that trended on their platform ended up on the Billboard 100 chart
đ Good reads
Craving community, by Cansu Tetik. âBusinesses that invest in building communities are lucky to be able to share the responsibility of creating value for their consumers with their consumers.â A great write up on what it takes to build a healthy community, leading to a growing and sticky user base
The results of Spotifyâs âwork from anywhereâ policy. In 2021, Spotify enabled its 6,500 employees to work from anywhere. Just 1 year later, they saw an increase in retention, diversity, and headcount growth in offices across the world
Labor perception bias. Another great visual case study by the folks at growth.design, showing us practical examples of why faster isnât always better
A crypto success story: Helium. Even if youâve never heard of it, thereâs a chance youâve interacted with Helium before. Helium is the counter-argument to the criticism that crypto serves no real purpose. The company has leveraged token incentives to deploy and operate the largest IoT network in the world
US consumers donât need superapps. An interesting perspective on the push approach by some US fintechs to rebundle services into âsuperapps,â and what makes them different from success cases in China. Not the right market? Not the right approach? Not the right time? Or will someone actually make it work?
A note on marketplaces and unit economics, by Guilherme Lima. Insightful note touching network effects and exploring adjacent markets / segments as ways to scale marketplaces
Not a âgood readâ, but an ultracool interactive map that combines Wikipedia and Wikidata notability rankings to show the most notable person from any area
đŽ Emerging trends
Estonia is building an AI government stack that it plans to share worldwide. The country has tasked its data scientists to create this AI software in the near future:
Estonia is a leader in government tech, being a pioneer in fields such as e-voting and e-residence
The software, which will be named BĂźrokratt, will be built using open source technology that can be used by other countries
BĂźrokratt is currently being used by a few government agencies, while Estonia's plan is to deploy it to ten by the end of 2022
The country has already released 26 AI building blocks that can be used by all interested parties
Government officials stated that Estonia is cooperating with Microsoft in certain aspects of this new initiative
The World Economic Forum (WEF) entertained the idea of implementing DAOs for the future of work. The WEF report states that the metaverse and DAO framework will enable DAO-ready firms to gain more agility and change traditional organizational roles:
A DAO framework will enable a "flat" workplace structure that gives communities more power over conventional executives
Traditional roles like manager, leader, contractor, and employee will alter to create efficiency and delivery of work
Firms can reach out to talent within the metaverse or DAO platforms to offer HR, finance, accounting, and customer service
First, the WEF advises firms looking to enter the metaverse first to create and adopt a DAO platform that enables a broader communityÂ
Second, outsource environmental, social, and governance goals to DAO members and enhance the brand's audience-based promotion, funding, and innovation
Lastly, establish a list of corporate objectives that will be enhanced by integrating DAO and metaverse
Thatâs all for today! Let me know what you think by replying back to this email
Angel
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