Spotify 2021 Wrapped is out and - besides the fact that it’s fun - it's a very nice piece of data-driven software. Just imagine having it back in 2003... Hats up!
A few days ago I published a piece about Jack Dorsey leaving Twitter to focus on Square - his second company. I wrote back that Dorsey will for sure put all his effort to the close to his heart topic: bitcoin. Call me a clairvoyant: Square' changing its name to Block. Not surprised at all.
The holiday season is just around the corner, so remember to cross off everything from your 2021 to-do list, and buckle up for 2022!
Disrupting Retail
- Walmart, Hollister, Under Armour, Verizon, Amazon Prime Video and Coca-Cola will each have a dedicated virtual store where users can browse products and deals. In addition, fashion and beauty brands including American Eagle, Fendi, Dior, Kaja Beauty, NYX Cosmetics, Shein and Tory Burch will be running AR shopping Lenses.
- As e-commerce companies vet more products sold on their platforms, eBay has bought Sneaker Con Digital's sneaker authentication arm for an undisclosed sum, according to a Monday press release. The deal closed on Nov. 24. "We partnered with Sneaker Con to launch sneaker authentication on eBay last year because the team shared our passion for the category – with best-in-class capabilities to deliver what our customers want most," Jordan Sweetnam, senior vice president and general manager of eBay North America, said in a statement.
Finance & Tech
- StartupPill has prepared a showcase of 101 Best London Fintech . These startups and companies are taking a variety of approaches to innovating the FinTech industry, but are all exceptional companies well worth a follow. Nice to see Monzo, Zilch, Railsbank, Freetrade! Big congrats.?
- Fonoa, which helps companies like Lime, Uber, Teachable and Zoom stay tax compliant, has raised $20.5 million in a Series A round as more goods and services are sold online — especially across international markets. Its customers primarily come from the ride-hailing, mobility, food delivery, SaaS and e-commerce industries, and also include subscription businesses.
- London-listed money transfer group Wise is eyeing North American expansion in the new year, setting out plans to open an Austin office and add 150 people to its team on the continent. Harsh Sinha, CTO, Wise, says: "North America is a critical region for us as we continue to see demand and interest from people and businesses looking to move money instantly, conveniently, transparently and without hidden fees. Our expansion plan demonstrates our commitment to addressing those needs, and represents a significant step forward in our regional growth strategy.”
- Westpac is replacing tens of thousands of POS terminals with Android-based devices that use colour contrasts, magnification and audio to assist blind and low vision customers. Westpac technical product manager Rachel Thewlis says that the workshops provided valuable insight and that she was shocked to learn that some retailers ask low vision or blind customers what their PIN is.
- Money management app Plum has raised $24 million in a Series A funding round. $16 million came from investors with the rest via a crowdfunding campaign with Crowdcube. The fintech is developing a payment card that it says will, through an automated savings service, help customers’ everyday spending and budgeting. Access to EU and UK stocks and crypto assets will follow later in 2022.
- During the AWS re:Invent, Goldman Sachs? announced the launch of Goldman Sachs Financial Cloud for Data with Amazon Web Services, Inc. ,a new suite of cloud-based data and analytics solutions for financial institutions. This unique collaboration redefines how clients can discover, organize, and analyze data in the cloud, thereby gaining rapid insights and driving informed investment decisions. Institutional clients will benefit from decades of Goldman Sachs experience to address data management and analytics challenges
All Things- Innovation?
- Facebook on Wednesday announced its decision to reverse long-standing policy that prevented most cryptocurrency companies from running ads on its services. The move comes after the company, which is now called Meta, tried and failed to launch a cryptocurrency that could be used to send money online to anyone in the world via Facebook products. The head of Facebook’s cryptocurrency efforts, David Marcus, announced on Tuesday that he will be leaving the company at the end of the year.
- UK equity crowdfunding business Seedrs – who’s merger with rival Crowdcube was earlier blocked by competition regulators – has been acquired by start-up investing platform Republic in a $100m deal.The move comes after Seedrs criticised the the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority earlier this year as stifling the UK’s potential to boost startups. Seedrs CEO Jeff Kelisky will join Republic’s leadership team and continue as Seedrs chief executive. He commented: “Seedrs’ ambition has always been to build a global private equity marketplace. This transaction is a natural development of our partnership with Republic to achieve and go beyond that ambition. We share a similar culture, a common goal, and a commitment to the strategic opportunities that lie ahead.”
- Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky prides himself on thinking very differently than other CEOs, and his answers to the Decoder questions about how he structures and manages his company were almost always the opposite. Listen to this insightful podcast by the Verge. Great job Nilay Patel!?
- When BlackRock chairman and CEO Laurence Fink sits down to pen his annual letter to chief executives, investors are all ears, given that the world’s largest asset management company manages $9 trillion in assets. This year, climate change was at the top of Fink’s list. He said: ““I think the next 50 unicorns are going to be technologies that create something related to sustainability. The world does not need another unicorn food delivery service.”
- Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging is still in its early days, but electrified fleets could soon provide the first opportunities to prove its significance. “That’s where a lot of vehicle-to-grid has strong application—in fleet environments,” Brendan Jones, president of Blink Charging, told Emerging Tech Brew. The lower total cost of ownership over the lifetime of EVs could be enough to convince many fleet operators—from public transit to logistics companies—to make the switch from internal combustion engines. Very few of these buses, trucks, and vans have made it to the roads so far, but that could change rapidly in the next few years.
- The fintech giant Square is changing its name to Block, effective December 10. The name change, which has been in the works for over a year, is intended to house the company’s various products — including music streaming service Tidal, Cash App, TBD, and of course, Square — under one brand. This announcement comes just days after Square founder and CEO Jack Dorsey stepped down from his CEO role at Twitter, which he also co-founded.
- TikTok has added a Stripe-powered service that allows viewers to directly pay creators. The video-sharing site's new Creator Next program includes a Tips feature, which creators use to collect and manage earnings via a payment portal and dashboard. TikTok creators previously could collect virtual gifts from viewers only during live videos; the addition allows them to collect payments at any time.
A Number to Remember
- Klue raised $62M in Series B financing, led by Tiger Global and including Salesforce Ventures. According to the press release, this funds will allow Klue to further their goal of product innovation and support the massive growth in competitive enablement.?
Reader’s Corner
- As digital transformation moves from buzzword to business priority, understanding three critical concepts – and the subtle differences among them – will help you adjust strategies and mindsets. According to a recent report by Gartner, the number of business leaders who are now focused on digital change as a priority for their organizations has increased exponentially. Respondents to the analyst firm’s 2021 CEO Survey said that digital capabilities would receive more investment this year, with 20% of people citing digitization as a strategic path that they wanted to follow – for context, the same survey in 2012 recorded a response rate of 2% for the same question.
- It’s common for organizations to have gender parity or close to it in entry-level roles, only to see the percentage of women employees decrease as you get closer to the top. A deeper dive into the data reveals that the drop-off of women is primarily driven by gender disparities in promotion rates, not gender differences in hiring or retention. To address this challenge, the authors have identified a simple and straightforward concept: the gender proportionality principle (GPP), which stipulates that a given level in an organization should aim to reflect the gender composition of the level immediately below it. They have worked with several organizations that report that the GPP has helped achieve sustainable and predictable improvement in gender equity across ranks
CEO @ Klue | Competitive Enablement + Win-Loss
3 年Love this Radek Zaleski.