Uber is having a bad day in Belgium today, having to shut most of its ride-hailing service due to a recent court ruling. The company - which has been calling for the government to update the regulations since its temporary suspension in Brussels in September - points out to the fact that up to 2,000 drivers will “lose their ability to generate earnings” starting today.?
While Uber tries to increase its contribution to the EU’s new urban mobility framework, its struggles in Brussels - the centre of the EU - don’t help for sure.?
Protocol’s Aisha Counts describes the new model of consulting, underlining that “years ago, no one would have believed it if you told them consulting firms were hiring software engineers and beating out tech companies to win development projects.” That’s what we’ve been observing for a few years now, developing a more “consulting approach” within the Netguru delivery teams. Today’s clients, aiming for achieving market leadership through digital acceleration, expect hands-on experience and readiness for taking responsibility - and innovation consultancies, with a broad market perspective and rich project portfolios - are well-suited to take the ownership here.
You’ll find the full piece in the Reader’s Corner.
Enjoy the read & have a great weekend
Disrupting Retail
- European beauty platform Douglas kicks off a pilot project today with rapid delivery startup Gorillas. “Gorillas will bring our products to your home within a few minutes,” Vanessa Stützle, Group CDO Douglas and Member of the Management Board, says in a LinkedIn post.
- Uber will halt its ride-hailing service in most of Belgium today following a court ruling Wednesday that extends a 2015 order banning its p2p UberPop service to also cover professional drivers providing its ride-hailing service.
- 28 per cent of the adult population made at least one buy now, pay later purchase in October this year, compared to 23 per cent in December last year. It’s obvious that Buy Now Pay Later has become the most wanted trend of the years.?
Finance & Tech
- Monzo's buy now, pay later product, Flex, will come with a virtual card that lets users make contactless Apple Pay or Google Pay payments in-store. After feedback from customers with early access, the digital bank is giving users a virtual Flex card for contactless in store payments.?
- Global tax automation platform provider Fonoa has raised $25 million. Investors in the funding round include Index Ventures, Omers Ventures, FJ Labs and Moving Capital.
- Payments app Lydia has signed to white-label Bitpanda’s digital finance infrastructure. The partnership means Lydia users will shortly have access to a wide range of digital assets. France-based Lydia claims more than 5 million users. The Bitpanda platform will underpin investment services, under the Lydia brand, across commission-free fractional stocks, cryptocurrencies and precious metals. Users will be able to invest from as little as €1.
All Things- Innovation?
- Freetrade raised ￡5m in private mode from previous investors and those who had signed up for early access. And after less than four hours in public mode, the firm hit ￡8m with investors from 63 countries taking part in the round.
- Bank of Montreal has pre-purchased the permanent removal of 1000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology. The purchase was facilitated via London-based outfit BeZero Carbon, with the carbon removal to be delivered by a large-scale facility using Canadian company Carbon Engineering's DAC technology.
- Dent Reality, the UK-based augmented reality startup, announced it’s secured ￡2.5m (~$3.4m) in funding, something the company plans to use to further its efforts to bring phone-based AR navigation into the retail sector.
A Number to Remember
- Zip’s announcement of $653m loss in August ‘shocked many’, as the sector lost $1bn overall in 2021. Shares in Australian-listed buy-now-pay-later companies have plunged by an average of about 80% compared to peak prices within the past year, driven down by swelling losses and lower-than-expected consumer interest in the product.?
Reader’s Corner
- Years ago, no one would have believed it if you told them consulting firms were hiring software engineers and beating out tech companies to win development projects. Instead, consulting firms focused mostly on recommending software vendors, or advising clients on technology implementations. But the traditional model of management consulting is being flipped upside down as every company tries to figure out how to become a software company. Gone are the old days of consulting firms selling people, time and resources; now, consulting firms are selling actual software and products.
