🛰 The Starlink project, debt funding for startups… The Seed #26
Welcome to your Weekly News Digest!
Hi everyone,
We hope you are doing well!
We at "The Seed" are delighted to be back with you after a short summer break, and we'll be preparing a new special edition for you in the coming days!
But for now, welcome to your Weekly News Digest, with the latest news and trends in Tech and Entrepreneurship.
📅 Now let’s check out today’s program:
💸 The debt funding raise in Europe
☕️ The Elon café
🇫🇷 The latest fundraisings and unicorns
Debt funding raise in Europe: is debt no longer the "dirty way" to raise money?
Funding its company with debt used to be considered the "dirty way" of proceeding in the startup world. Not anymore. As VC funding is not always the best deal for startups, many have turned to alternatives, including debt.
💸 Europe raised a historically high amount of debt, a staggering €8.3 billion in the first 9 months of 2021 compared to €1.6 billion in 2015. A prosperous market for startups and the raising amount of experienced entrepreneurs are driving this shift in European fundraising.
💦 Some entrepreneurs may not need (nor want!) to dilute their equity in order to raise funds, and their cash-flow can easily bear a debt. Let’s dive deeper into the reason to choose a form of funding or another with this article from Techcrunch!
The Elon café…
Here is your weekly dose of Elon Musk’s news! Today we will cover his iconic company Tesla, and Starlink, a new satellite internet service!
🚙 Bad news first… The NTSB, for National Transportation Safety Board, warned Tesla that it needed to address some safety issues before releasing its Full-self driving mode. Though the agency has no legal authorities, it is highly influential as the majority of its recommendations are implemented by regulators in the US.
🛰 Will SpaceX be your next Internet service provider? In a recent tweet, Elon Musk announced that the Starlink program, a network of 12,000 satellites that beam continuous broadband internet service, will come out of Beta in October! It will provide service even in the most remote and rural places, but will not come cheap - it is expected to cost $99 per month, in addition to a $499 terminal.
Latest Fundraisings and Unicorns
This week set a new record for French Tech, with over 1 billion euros raised in less than 24 hours by 2 startups: Mirakl and Sorare.
🃏 NFT + Cards + Soccer = … Sorare! The French startup has raised an unprecedented $680 million (for a French startup) in a round led by SoftBank. So far in 2021, more than $150 million worth of NFTs were traded on the platform. The most expensive card, of Cristiano Ronaldo, was sold for almost $290,000 in March!
🏟 Mirakl, a startup that offers online marketplace software to retailers, wholesalers, & manufacturers, has just raised $555 as part of their Series E funding round. The company based in Paris & Boston has now reached a $3.5 billion valuation.
Elsewhere in the World…
🧳 Tradesy, a marketplace for luxury second-hand products, has just raised $67 million to continue its fight against fast fashion. To learn more about the topic, you can read our previous newsletter!
🌏 Rec Room, closer than ever to reach the metaverse? With their latest $100 million funding round, the startup is now a unicorn. Its founder explains his exciting vision of metaverses in this great interview by VentureBeat. According to him, the metaverse could have the same impact as the creation of the Internet… Stay tuned.