el producto #305 🚀
FTX crash, Generative tech, Meta layoffs, API business models, How Notion grows, Q3 financials, Airbnb "no hidden fees", Twitter...madness, New Zoom tools, Netflix live sports, & more
Hey team,
Happy weekend & welcome to a new edition of el producto!
🎰 The week in figures
$509M: Indonesian e-commerce company Blibli raised $509.2M during its IPO on the country's stock market; Blibli's platform features products from various categories, including electronics, fashion, and furniture
$150M: Algeria-based super app Yassir has secured North Africa's largest funding round to date, raising $150M; the startup offers services like ride-hailing, food delivery, and payments
$100M: Odergroove, a platform that enables online retailers to create subscription services like Amazon Prime, has raised a $100M+ funding round; Odergroove has almost 500 customers, including Walmart, Nestle, L'Oréal, and others
$100M: Amagi raises a $100M Series F at a $1.4B valuation; the media technology company headquartered in New York and Bengaluru, India, offers cloud solutions through its platform for companies to monetize and distribute their content
$80M: Ramp, a UK-based crypto payments on- and off-ramp provider, raised $70M Series B
11k: Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta let go ~11K staff (13% of its workforce) while cutting discretionary spending and extending its hiring freeze through Q1
1k: Salesforce laid off <1000 employees on Tuesday; it was reported that the company could terminate up to ~2500 workers; as of January, Salesforce had ~73.5K employees and the company reported in August that its headcount had grown ~36% y/y
98%: A study by the University of Pompeu Fabra and the University of Barcelona revealed that 98% of projects listed on Uniswap from 2018 to 2021 were scams; the study claims that the majority of the projects that were listed on the protocol were rug pulls
💸 Q3 financials
Disney: revenue: $20.1B (+9% y/y, missed expectations), net income: $162M (+1% y/y), FCF: $1.37B (-10% y/y), parks revenue grew ~36% y/y while media/entertainment fell ~3%; total Disney+ subs: 164.2M (up 39% y/y), Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ combined have a total of 235.7M subs (up 24% y/y)
Lyft: Q3 revenue: $1.05B (+22% y/y), revenue per ride: $51.88 (+13.7% y/y), active riders: 20.3M (+7% y/y), net loss: -$442.2M (+443% y/y), Q4 projected revenue: $1.15B-$1.17B
📰 What’s going on
Airbnb will soon allow guests to filter bookings by total price after complaints about extra fees being held until checkout circulated throughout 2022; Airbnb also plans to make checkout requirements more transparent, with CEO Brian Chesky tweeting that guests should not have to do unreasonable checkout tasks
Twitter has paused its revamped, $8 version of Twitter Blue to "help address impersonation issues" after an influx of verified accounts impersonating notable figures and brands, including politicians, celebrities, and companies, flooded the platform
Twitter is working on a payments product that will accept crypto, likely including dogecoin; last week, the company filed paperwork with the US Treasury Dept to enable money transfer and currency exchanges
Elon Musk requires all Twitter employees to return to the office for a minimum of 40 hours/week; Musk also warned employees of "difficult times ahead" regarding the economic outlook and how it may affect Twitter's ad business
Zoom launched Mail and Calendar products in beta as part of its Zoom One interface; the new tools will live alongside Team Chat, Whiteboard, Phone, and Meetings; Zoom is planning to launch a remote co-working video tool and a customer-facing AI-powered chatbot in 2023
Amazon unveiled its new robot Sparrow, capable of sorting items of various sizes; as of now, Sparrow can identify ~65% of Amazon's inventory and helps free employees from repetitive tasks; the robot arm uses suction cups to pick up items of various shapes and sizes
Amazon plans to test its new MK30 Prime Air Drone in College Station, Texas, with a plan to go into service in 2024; the drone is expected to be quieter, travel further, and will undergo "rigorous evaluation" by the FAA
Amazon is undergoing a cost-cutting review and cutting back on unprofitable units at the company; according to sources, Amazon's leadership is evaluating its Alexa business as part of its cost-cutting review
Meta is acquiring the Cambridge-based startup Audio Analytic for an undisclosed amount; Audio Analytic trained AI to recognize everyday sounds like a dog barking or glass breaking; the startup will join Meta's Reality Labs division
PayPal announced it would soon support Apple’s Tap to Pay on iPhones; merchants will be able to accept contactless card payments as well as payments via Apple Pay and other digital wallets (Google Pay)
GitHub's Copilot software is testing out a new voice-to-code feature that would allow developers to code without typing; the new feature will be bundled with Copilot's $10/month subscription
Netflix has been bidding on streaming rights for live sports; the company lost out on rights to stream ATP tennis and F1; sources suggest that Netflix may turn to less popular sports such as surfing in hopes of making them mainstream; the amount paid for US sports rights has increased 25% since 2019 to $21.3B
Netflix is rolling out an interactive trivia experience as it seeks to grow and retain subscribers; in the “Triviaverse” game, players must answer knowledge questions as quickly as possible within a time limit (individually or multi-player)
TikTok launched its livestreaming e-commerce platform, called TikTok Shop, in the US this week, with select US-based businesses participating; TikTok Shop is currently available in the UK and seven countries in Southeast Asia
Sam Bankman-Fried has stepped down as CEO, and FTX has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy; ~130 companies are part of the proceedings, including FTX.us and Alameda Research
PayPal and Block add installment pay plans to weather inflation
Design app Canva released a beta version of its own text-to-image generator; the platform's 100M users can now access the feature directly in the app's editor for free
📚 Good reads
How Notion grows. A great (and looong) piece on what we can learn about product-led and community-led growth strategies from a $10bn SaaS startup
Visualizing financials of the world biggest orgs, from IPO until today. Insightful infographics on Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Tesa
Defining API business models. A brief but useful guide on what to keep in mind when building (and aiming to monetize) API-centric products, by Henrique Maltez
🔮 Emerging trends
Generative Tech
James Currier (NfX) on Generative Tech (AI): "The biggest change to the Internet since crypto just happened. A whole new world of applications opened up to Founders in the last 6 months. We now have high-quality, cheap, fast AI models for generating text, images, videos, software code, music, voice, 3D models and more – none of which is copyrighted, and is not plagiarized."
This is the feeling in the last six months: of a technology that is now mature and generating an avalanche of innovations. Let’s just wait until we master applications: the impact on literally any industry can be mind-blowing.
Complement with this article on how AI can enhance our creativity, by Anne-Laure Le Cunff
Startups are investigating new ways to produce hydrogen
Companies believe they can cheaply create hydrogen to help decarbonize the economy and make it a viable alternative energy. Currently, hydrogen is expensive to produce and costs between $3 to $26/kilo. For hydrogen to become a practical alternative energy, it must cost ~$1/kilo:
Startups like Sunfire GmbH and Hysata use electrolyzers to produce hydrogen. Unfortunately, electrolyzers often require a lot of water and electricity
Jefferies estimates that $100B worth of electrolyzers will be sold this decade
Sunfire GmbH recently raised ~$192M with investment from Amazon.com Inc.'s Climate Pledge Fund
Hysata believes its electrolyzer requires 20% less energy while producing 20% more hydrogen than its competitors
Cemvita Factory Inc. does not use electrolyzers but adds microbes to abandoned oil wells to produce carbon and hydrogen. The carbon remains underground while the so-called "gold hydrogen" is captured. The company has opened a hydrogen-focused arm called Gold H2 LLC, which claims it can produce hydrogen for ~$1/kilo
Monolith uses methane pyrolysis to produce hydrogen. This method relies on low electrical currents to dissolve methane into carbon black and hydrogen.
The early-stage startup Molten Industries uses a similar technique and was recently awarded funds from Bill Gates's Breakthrough Energy
That’s all for today! Let me know what you think by replying back to this email
Angel
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