🦉Duolingo’s IPO, the Bitcoin killer, and Metaverses… The Seed #22
Welcome to your Weekly News Digest!
Hi everyone,
We hope you are doing well! Welcome to your Weekly News Digest, with the latest news and trends in Tech and Entrepreneurship.
📅 Now let’s check today’s program:
A Metaverse is coming…
EdTech companies are thriving… outside of China
Crypto: Promises and Threats
Latest Unicorns, fundraisings, and a FinTech race!
A Metaverse is coming…
In one of our first newsletters, we mentioned the quest for the first Metaverse - “a virtual-reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users”. The last moves by Epic Games and Facebook make the Metaverse dream closer than ever…
🧑🎨 Facebook is becoming a “Metaverse company” according to its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. His vision for the company is quite ambitious, as Facebook would be able to gather individuals’ social and professional lives while including entertainment - for instance, with Facebook Horizon, a VR social universe, still in beta.
🦾 Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, has announced the acquisition of Sketchfab, for an undisclosed amount. Sketchfab is basically a platform where users can publish, buy and sell 3D, VR, and AR content. With this move, Epic Games wants to create the first Metaverse… Will it succeed before Facebook?
Meanwhile, you can check this fantastic robotic arm made by a Sketchfab user.
EdTech companies are thriving… outside of China
In most countries, EdTech companies experience unprecedented growth. However, a new set of regulations is threatening the whole Chinese ecosystem.
🦉 In the US, Duolingo is going towards a historic IPO for EdTech startups. Duolingo was first to be valued between $3.4bn & $4.2bn, depending on outstanding shares taken into account. However, an announcement earlier today suggested that it could be valued at around $4.6bn.
🇨🇳 However, in China, new regulations passed this Saturday portends the worst. Companies offering tutoring on the school curriculum will basically have to go… non-profit! This would, for instance, prevent many EdTech companies from going public and will likely suspend further investments in the sector.
Cryptocurrencies: Promises and Threats
While we discussed cryptocurrencies and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) upsides in a previous newsletter, a new technology is threatening the major current blockchains: Quantum Computing.
🔚 The end of Bitcoin and Ethereum? Quantum computing, which was presented in one of our previous newsletters, is threatening blockchain technology as it exists today. With their enormous potential calculation power, Quantum Computers could be able to break digital signatures of transactions - meaning that they would be able to exchange your money!
🇩🇪 Can a city in Germany become the next place-to-be for crypto companies? Discover Bielefeld, a city that has recently experienced a tech boom thanks to accelerators such as Founders Foundation.
For those interested in crypto trading, you can look up margin (based in Bielefeld, naturally!) which proposes an innovative trading terminal!
Latest Unicorns, IPOs, and exits
📝 Dover, a kind of an Airtable made for recruiting, has raised $20 million in its Series A to help HR to source automatically the most suitable candidates.
💳 FinTechs are on 🔥. Last week, Spendesk (🇫🇷) and Soldo (🇬🇧), two competitors that provide virtual and physical company cards to employees, have respectively raised $118 and $180 million. Which one will win the race? 🥇
💎 Turning your loved ones’ or your pet’s ashes into diamonds… is now possible with Eterneva, which recently raised $10 million to continue its growth.
That's it for the Weekly News Digest! We hope you enjoyed it 🙌
See you next week for another Weekly News Digest, as well as a new Deep Dive!