el producto #322 ๐
ChatGPT on Slack, How Duolingo and Atlassian grow, Aligning GTM+Product efforts, Spotify's video feed, Uber's airport navigation, Amazon's NFT marketplace, Decentralized social media & more
Hey team,
Welcome to a new edition ofย el producto
๐ฐ The week in figures
$18B: in February 2023,ย $18Bย of venture funding was deployed in global startups, marking the first time since February 2020 when the totals dipped below the $20B mark
$2B: Shein isย raising $2Bย in preparation for an IPO; the Chinese online fashion giant is aiming for a listing in the U.S.
$675M: AI startup Inflection, founded by DeepMind's co-founder Mustafa Suleyman and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, is planning to raise betweenย $500M and $675Mย in fresh funding; the firm is building an AI-powered personal chatbot for the web
$591M: Abound, a UK-based personal lending fintech startup, which uses AI and Open Banking to assess a borrower's risk, has raised ยฃ500 million ($591 million) in the firm's largest funding round to date
$300M: Anthropic, an AI startup and OpenAI competitor that's known for its chatbotย Claude, has raised anotherย $300M in fundingย at a pre-investment valuation of $4.1B
$175M: New York-based Amelia has raisedย $175Mย to offer conversational AI features for enterprises;ย the platform currently has over 9M users
$110M: startup Consensus raisedย $110Mย series C; the platform helps sales teams create automated interactive video demos to share with prospective customers
$100M: Humane, a stealth startup founded by two former Apple execs that plans to launch a consumer wearable device this spring, raised $100M led by Kindred Ventures and announced partnerships with Microsoft and OpenAI
100M DAUs: Bolstered by new AI offerings, Microsoft's Bing search engine has surpassedย 100M daily active usersย for the first time;ย Bing still trails the more thanย 1Bย daily active users that use Google's search engine
1M: Meta warned 1M Facebook users that 400+ apps may have stolen their account information after using a "Login with Facebook" button on App Store and Google Play; many of the apps that Meta identified were barely functional after users logged in
๐ฐ Whatโs going on
Spotifyย launched a new video feedย feature that helps users discover new music, podcasts, and audiobooks;ย the feature, called โPreviews,โ prompts users to swipe through to browse new content recommendations; the short videos are similar to TikTok or YouTube Shorts
Uber is addingย airport navigationย to its app;ย the companyย saidย it's launching walking instructions within its app that will guide riders from airport landing gates to their ride pick-up locations
Amazon is scaling back Scout, its delivery robot program, but has not yet announced layoffs; the Scout team has ~400 people working on it, and the company will keep a โskeleton crewโ working on an autonomous delivery robot
Amazon is gearing up toย launchย its NFT marketplace as soon as April; the marketplace will allow customers to acquire nonfungible tokens (NFTs) linked to physical productsย delivered to their doors
Apple is expected to release aย third-generation HomePodย with a 7-inch screen in the first half of 2024, predicts Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo;ย it would be theย firstย HomePod smart speaker to feature a full display, potentially appearing as aย dual speaker and iPad
Apple is launching aย new music appย dedicated to classical music called Apple Music Classical;ย the app will be available to existing Apple Music subscribers starting March 28 at no additional cost
Wing, the drone delivery unit of Google parent Alphabet, unveiled plans to offerย decentralized networks of dronesย that would distribute packages across metro areas
Google announced that its I/O 2023 software and hardware event will take placeย starting on May 10; Sundar Pichai's live-streamed address is expected to include the typical announcements for new Google hardware and new product features; after that is a developer keynote and more than 100 "on-demand technical sessions," which can be accessed for free by registering on Google'sย I/O site
Meta reportedly plans to lay off thousands of employees in the coming weeks as the tech giantย restructures to focusย on artificial intelligence;ย theย layoffsย will primarily affect teams working on non-core initiatives, including VR hardware and other experimental projects
Meta will be halting their Reels Bonus Program, which compensated creators if their content achieved certain metrics; creators could earn as much as $35K per month using the program
TikTok said it's adding aย new featureย for creators to charge for access to premium video collections;ย calledย Series, the program lets select creators post collections of up to 80 videos behind a paywall; the videos are allowed to be up to 20 minutes long each, higher than the 10-minute limit allowed for most other videos
TikTok started blockingย links to outside app storesย within creator bios; the move also extends to third-party link-in-bio services, like Linktree
ChatGPT4,ย the latest version of OpenAI's text generative service, will launch next week and may include multimodal functions like video
Salesforce is bringingย ChatGPT to Slack, its workplace messaging and productivity platform;ย theย AI chatbot appย will be able to summarize conversation threads and respond to questions
Salesforce also announcedย Einstein GPT, an offering that incorporates generative AI tools to assist marketers, customer service agents, and salespeople;ย the technology, which integrates with Salesforce'sย customer relationship management (CRM), uses AI to automatically generate personalized emails, marketing copy, responses to customer questions, and computer code for developers
Microsoft is making ChatGPT available in its own Azure OpenAI service; the tech giant said that Azure customers can start accessing the service for as little as 1000 tokens for $0.002
Microsoft has made its email product Outlook free for Mac users without needing a Microsoft 365 subscription or Office license to access the clientย
Discord is adding moreย experimental AI featuresย to its platform;ย the community messaging platform isย upgrading its existing Clyde botย with OpenAI ChatGPT technology, allowing the bot to answer questions and hold conversations
DuckDuckGoโs ChatGPT-powered search bot, called DuckAssist, is now available for free in beta; the search bot gathers information from sources like Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica
Grammar and spell checker Grammarly is the latest to launch aย generative AI tool; called GrammarlyGo, the tool generates text and messages based on a user's unique writing style; it's expected to open up to most Grammarly usersย in April
Osaka University scientists used AI models toย turn human brain scans into imagesย that resemble what the person viewed;ย the researchers used theย Stable Diffusionย image generator from startupย Stability AIย to help reconstruct the images; the AI method could re-create what test subjects saw by reading their brain scans
Regulators from the government of California have shut down Silicon Valley Bank; SVB had a total of $209B in assets and $175.4B in total deposits; the FDIC has stated that insured depositors will have access to their funds by Monday, and uninsured depositors will be paid an advanced dividend within the next week; in a suspicious move, Silicon Valley Bank's CEO, CFO, and CMO sold +$4.4MM in stock over the last 2 weeks
UK fintech company Railsr, which operated in the world of embedded finance, has filed for bankruptcy; the once unicorn had raised a total of $185M, including a down round in October 2022, valuing it at $250M
Coinbase has launched aย wallet-as-a-service (WaaS)ย solution for businesses to allow them to offer Web3 wallets to their clients
๐ Good reads
How Duolingo reignited user growth. A great write-up by Jorge Mazal (former CPO of Duolingo) for Lennyโs newsletter in which he explains Duolingoโs growth engine. Complement with How Duolingo drives subscription conversion - a review of Duoโs post-purchase UX, by Rosie Hoggmascall.
Aligning Product and GTM efforts with better segmentation. Interesting thoughts on a16z' blog on enhancing collaboration between product and GTM teams with regards to prioritizing feature development tactically, to ensure youโre going to get a new happy customer
How Atlassian grows, by Jaryd Hermann. A great in-depth analysis, including lessons on kickstarting and scaling a B2B/enterprise business from one of the greatest go-to-market machines of all time. A great success story, but unfortunately Atlassian laid off 5% of their workforce this week
๐ฎ Emerging trends
Decentralized social media
Meta Platforms announced that it's working on aย decentralized social media platformย where users will be able to share text updates.ย The standalone network, codenamed P92, would compete withย Twitter and Mastodon
P92 would use Instagram's branding. Users would log in using their Instagram credentials
The separate app would support the decentralized social networking protocol known as ActivityPub, which also powers Mastodon
It would enable users to set up or join different servers, though a feature would let users โbroadcast posts to people on other servers,โ according to Moneycontrol
A Meta spokesperson said the company sees "an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests"
Meta hasn't announced a launch date yet
Thatโs all for today! Let me know what you think by replying back to this email or commenting on Substack
Angel
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