el producto #310 đ
Google Product strategy, Shein marketplace, Revolut becomes Europe's most valuable startup, Apple to allow 3rd party app stores, Free AI tools, Twitter payments (what if)& more
Hey team,
Happy weekend & welcome to a new edition of el producto!
đ° The week in figures
$1B: London-based fintech app Curve has raised $1B in debt to enable users to split transactions across all cards into monthly payments; Curve is a digital wallet that combines all of the cards that users have into one app with one card
$394M: VC-backed crypto startups raised only $394M total in November, that is the lowest total since November 2020, when crypto startups raised less than $200M
$300M: Crypto trading firm Amber has raised a $300M Series C round to provide liquidity to companies in Asia; the funding round comes as the company rebalances after the FTX collapse; Amber provides digital asset trading, investing, infrastructure, and financing services for its clients
$200M: OpenAI projects to make $200M in revenue in 2023 and $1B by 2024, sources tell Reuters; the AI research lab and company expects a surge in business following the release of its popular ChatGPT chatbot, image maker DALL-E 2, and other models
$200M: Dataiku has raised a $200M Series F funding round to help companies design, deploy, and manage AI apps; the company is now valued at $3.7B; Dataiku markets itself as an AI toolbox for technical and non-technical professionals and teams who want to extract data, deploy it and then have a user-friendly interface where they can manage the process of launching an AI app
$196.5M: Snyk, a Boston-based cybersecurity startup, has raised a $196.5M Series G valued at $7.6B; this valuation is a 15% decrease from its last raise, which valued the company at $8.5B
$185M: Mews, a cloud-based hotel management platform, raised a $185M Series C valued at $865M; the company's products include reservation tools, payments, guest services, plus a marketplace of over 500 apps
$170M: Zappi raised $170M to fuel its business expansion; the company is developing an AI-powered automated market research software that speeds up the process and lowers the cost of market research
$117M: Nerdio, a startup that lets customers deploy, manage and optimize virtual desktops on Microsoft Azure, raised a $117M Series B
$100M: Aztec Network has raised a $100M Series B funding round from a16z to develop end-to-end encrypted blockchains; Aztec's founding team believes that if its technology proves successful, it could disrupt banks in a meaningful way within the next five years
12.6M: Lensa AI, the viral app that creates AI portraits, holds the number one spot on the US App Store; Lensa AI was installed 12.6M times in December, up ~600% m/mÂ
-20%: Airtable informed its employees via email that it is laying off 20% or around 254 of its employees; the layoff will affect business development, engineering, and other teams
đ° Whatâs going on
in 2024, Apple plans to allow third-party app stores across its devices; this comes as EU authorities have expressed concerns about Apple and Google's duopoly on the mobile app market
Twitter relaunched its Blue subscription: $11/month on iOS and $8/month on the web; immediate features include a checkmark (pending account review), 1080p uploads, and an edit button, with longer video uploads and 50% fewer ads coming soon
Twitter will shut down Revue on January 12, 2023, and delete all user data; Twitter acquired the newsletter platform in January 2021Â
Twitter has started rolling out its crowdsourced fact-checking feature Community Notes (fka Birdwatch) worldwide; previously, only US users were able to view the notes
TikTok is testing a new feature that allows users to watch videos horizontally; select users around the world will be able to tap the "full screen" button on their screen to shift into landscape mode
TikTok is attempting to distance itself from its parent company ByteDance by transitioning workers away from China; key execs have been moved to Singapore and the US, hiring outside of China has increased, and internal teams have been re-organized
Instagram launched a new short messaging feature that has similarities to Twitter; the "Notes" feature allows users on the platform to communicate with friends and followers using only text and emojis
Meta will shut down Super, its Cameo-style app that enables viewers to pay creators to interact with them on live streams, in February 2023; Super was introduced in February 2021
Fast-fashion brand Shein is considering turning its business into a marketplace platform for other retailers to sell directly to customers; according to a memo sent to investors, the planned marketplace would open additional merchandise and shipping options to customers, resulting in increased engagement and satisfaction
Revolut passes Checkout.com as Europeâs most valuable startup; after Klarnaâs massive valuation-drop in July this year, and this weekâs Checkout.com cut on its internal valuation (to about $11bn), Revolut has taken the lead with a $33B valuation
Eligible members can now use Buy Now Pay Later in Sofi; the personal finance company says it is the first bank to launch this financing option in the Mastercard Installments program
Next year, Brazil will trial a digital currency amongst its financial institutions; if successful, the country plans on rolling it out to the public in 2024
Starbucks launched its NFT rewards platform, Odyssey, on polygon for select beta testers
MetaMask will enable users to purchase Ether via a PayPal account; this feature will be available to a small subset of users to start before rolling out to all of the U.S.
đ Good reads
Tinder conversion case study, by Growth.Design. Tinder's revenues are booming.
If you're looking for better ways to convert users, here's an excellent playbook
What if Twitter did payments? Elon Musk included "payments" as a critical part of their strategy as a blank page. Simon Taylor took on the challenge to elaborate this âwhat if,â and the result is a great case study elaborating on infrastructure, monetization and user experience. âMy hope is that we can do for consumers what Stripe and others have now done for businesses. Make payments just work.â
On Googleâs (lack of) Product strategy. An interesting insider view on how Googleâs entrepreneurial bets could pay off at the cost of many of its products
From big org to startup. First Round Review spent the past few weeks reaching out to operators, founders, investors and advisors from the their community for their take on this timely question:Â How can job-seekers evaluate the prospects of an early-stage company?
đ Resources
7 useful (and free) AI tools. Everybody is talking about ChatGPT, but there many other free AI tools out there that can help you writing copy, creating / editing pictures, editing audio, creating videos, and even creating ML models
Thatâs all for today! Let me know what you think by replying back to this email or commenting on Substack
Angel
el producto is free, but if you enjoy reading it, you can support my work and buy me a coffee đ