Hi everyone,
We hope you are doing well! Welcome to your Weekly News Digest, with the latest news and trends in Tech and Entrepreneurship.
Later this week, you will receive our first Deep Dive edition on Instant gaming, written by Dominique.
📅 Now let’s check out today’s program:
Content creators and the passion economy
Buy Now, Pay Later - a real game-changer?
Exciting exits in India
Fundraisings: a marketplace for farmers, a new 🦄 and a neo bank!
Content creators and the passion economy
Across the globe, the passion economy has been booming in the past few years. Thanks to the development of new platforms that allow creators to monetize their audience, the Creator Economy market size is estimated at around $100 billion.
💸 In an attempt to generate a new revenue stream, Facebook is incentivizing content creators to issue ads on Facebook and Instagram (which is the favorite platform for content creators, followed by TikTok). In total, Facebook will dedicate $1 billion to these content creators by the end of 2022.
🗃 If you are interested in learning more about the Passion economy, this report from Influencer Marketing Hub will help you better understand the sector. For example, from the report, here is a breakdown, of the creator’s preferred platform, where more than 70% of them favor Instagram.
Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) - a real game-changer?
You have certainly used or at least heard of Buy Now Pay Later services. New BNPL providers, like Klarna or Affirm, allow shoppers to pay for their online goods by installments. BNPL is now gaining momentum and could replace the traditional credit card in the future…
🍎 It’s so hot, even Apple has recently announced it will be offering a BNPL service for its users. Following the statement, the major BNPL provider’s stocks suddenly fell by up to 10%.
📈 The Ascent issued a report last year on BNPL, highlighting Americans’ BNPL habits. A follow-up survey produced in March showed a 50% growth in BNPL use in less than a year. Interestingly, more than 60% of BNPL users think this solution could replace credit cards.
Exciting Exits in India
Recently, the Indian startup ecosystem has gained interest from many VCs, as major exits are happening. Could India, which has been recognized as one of the best innovation hubs globally, beat China and the US in a near future?
🍅 Zomato, a restaurant aggregator and a food delivery company created in 2008 in India, was oversubscribed over 40 times for its IPO last week. It is expected that the company’s valuation will be boosted to $9 billion. Zomato’s exponential growth (the number of orders placed on the platform has been multiplied by 13 in 3 years!) helps explain this fantastic interest for the company.
📰 This recent article by Business Standard explains how and why India’s startup ecosystem is gaining traction over China - from the increasing control exerted by the Chinese government on tech companies to the rapid growth of India’s population.
Latest Unicorns, IPOs, and exits
🚜 Farmitoo, a French marketplace for European farmers, has just raised $12 million for its Series A.
🦄 Amperity, a Seattle-based Customer Data Platform, is now a unicorn following its $100 million Series D round. They provide companies with their customers’ data management and unification, as well as analytics and insights.
💳 Revolut, a digital banking startup (or neo bank), is now valued at more than $33 billion with its latest $800 million funding round. It is the biggest private tech group in the UK.
That's it for the Weekly News Digest! Hope you enjoyed it 🙌
See you on Friday for our first Deep Dive edition, which will go into further details on a specific topic to allow you to become an expert on the subject and satisfy your curiosity!
This week, Dominique will guide you in this dive into the fascinating world of instant games, the underdogs that might win the race toward the next 100 million players video game!