Tag: Tech

A CBInsights Report: The Most Well-Funded Tech Startups In Europe

Read the original report here.

  • The top-funded startup in Europe is global communications company OneWeb in the UK, with almost $3.5B in total disclosed equity funding.
  • Rounding out the top 3 most well-funded startups in the region are online payments service provider Klarna in Sweden ($1.1B in disclosed equity funding) and mobile banking platform N26 in Germany ($683M).
  • Eight of the 37 companies featured in our map are unicorns, with disclosed valuations of $1B+ (all tracked in real time on the CB Insights global unicorn club tracker). These unicorns are: Klarna ($5.5B valuation, Sweden), N26 ($3.5B, Germany), BlaBlaCar ($1.6B, France), Vinted ($1.1B, Lithuania), Acronis ($1B, Switzerland), Glovo ($1B, Spain), OutSystems ($1B, Portugal), and Bolt ($1B, Estonia).
  • The region is home to 16 countries whose most well-funded tech startup has raised over $100M in equity funding. Only OneWeb and Klarna have raised more than $1B+ in equity funding.
  • The least well-funded startup on the map is Serbia-based data analysis tool Content Insights, which has raised $3.6M.
  • Since our last update of this map in April, only 1 featured startup has exited: Switzerland-based Veeam Software, which was acquired by VC firm Insight Partners in January 2020 at a valuation of $5B+.
Source: CBInsights
STARTUP CONTINENT: THE MOST WELL-FUNDED TECH STARTUPS IN EUROPE
Company Country  Total Equity Funding ($M)
OneWeb United Kingdom 3469
Klarna Sweden 1122
N26 Germany 683
Glovo Spain 513
BlaBlaCar France 449
OutSystems Portugal 422
Picnic Netherlands 329
Vinted Lithuania 260
RELEX Solutions Finland 222
AMCS Group Ireland 202
Trustpilot Denmark 179
Acronis Switzerland 178
Bolt Estonia 177
Tricentis Austria 174
DocPlanner Group Poland 137
Odoo Belgium 104
Job Today Luxembourg 81
ivi Russian Federation 81
Kolonial.no Norway 61
AImotive Hungary 51
Satispay Italy 50
Mews Systems Czech Republic 42
PDFfiler Ukraine 30
Lidyana Turkey 25.17
Capital.com Cyprus 25
Netdata Greece 21
Software Group Bulgaria 17
FintechOS Romania 16
Gambling.com Group Malta 16
Banuba Belarus 12
Minit Slovakia 11
TripCreator Iceland 10
Gjirafa Albania 8.7
Mintos Latvia 7.8
Gideon Brothers Croatia 5.7
Eligma Slovenia 4.4
Content Insights Serbia 3.6

Youtube’s First Official Financial Result

It has been more than 13 years since Youtube was acquired for $1.65 billion by Google back in October 2006.

Founded in February 2005, with $11.5 million total venture funding and 65 employees at that time, Youtube commanded 46% of visits to U.S. online-video sites in September. That compared with a 21% share for the video activities of News Corp.’s MySpace site and 11% for Google Video. Youtube had close to 20 million monthly visitors in August 2006.

A year and half before Youtube’s acquisition, MySpace’s parent company Intermix Media Inc. was acquired by News Corp. for $580 million.

Back then, Google reported total revenues of $6.14 billion in 2005 and $10.60 billion in 2006, and had a market value of $132 billion. Its net income was $3 billion in 2006 with $3.6 billion cash flow from operations and more than $11 billion cash balance.

On Monday Feb 3, 2020, Alphabet first provided the breakdown for some of its non-Google-search businesses, including Youtube.

Year Ended December 31,
2017
2018
2019
Google Search & other
$
69,811
$
85,296
$
98,115
YouTube ads(1)
8,150
11,155
15,149

(1) YouTube non-advertising revenues are included in Google other revenues.

Youtube ads generated $4,717 million revenue in 2019 Q4 – a ~$19 billion run rate.

Using a multiple of 5.0x, Youtube could be valued at ~$100 billion – a 60 times return for google acquisition or an IRR of 37% for 13 years.

I guess the success formula is: with the right synergies, acquire early & provide support to grow it.

Alphabet 2019 10-K

2019 Q4 Earnings Call Transcript

CB Insights: Everything You Need To Know About What Amazon Is Doing In Financial Services

A 2018 report by CB Insights.

A good reading as I was thinking about future payment industry (also you can find a previous post on How Card Networks May Fail: Top Merchants With Gift Cards + Mobile Wallet)

Full report here; table of contents below

  1. Amazon’s product strategy
    Payments
    Cash
    Lending
    Amazon’s Next Financial Pillar
  2. Market strategy outside the US
    India
    Mexico
  3. Rumors: What will Amazon do next?
  4. Closing thoughts

Master Innovation And Development Plan By Sidewalk Toronto

Earlier this year, I shared 「Video of the Week」Future Cities by Sidewalk Labs.

Now we have many more documents from Sidewalk Toronto. Google is trying to build cities.

The plan will begin with Quayside in Phase I.

Map shows the proposed IDEA District and the Eastern Waterfront. The Quayside neighbourhood, on the northwest perimeter of the district, is blue, representing phase 1 of development.
Source: sidewalktoronto
Source: sidewalktoronto

There will be several focuses

  • Mobility. A transportation system that reduces the need to own a car by providing safe, convenient, connected, and affordable options for every trip.
  • Common & social areas. A system of streets, parks, plazas, and open spaces that encourages people to spend more time outdoors, together; health, civic life, learning, and workforce initiatives and facilities that enable people to thrive.
  • Buildings & Housing. Sustainable and adaptable buildings with mixed uses; affordable residences.
  • Environmental friendly as a climate-positive community.
  • Digitalize every possible part of the city.

Read more here.

Waterfront Toronto’s Digital Strategy Advisory Panel Preliminary
Commentary and Questions

Digital Innovation Appendix (DIA) for Master Innovation and Development Plan (MIDP)

「What’s News In China」

Gree Electric Appliances (格力电器) finalized the 15% stake sale for RMB41.7 billionIt is one of the most watched private equity deal in China. The deal, part of China’s efforts to reduce government ownership, will reduce the state-owned Zhuhai Gree Group’s stake to 3.2 percent. Hillhouse’s Zhuhai Mingjun with the newly acquired 15% stake becomes the largest single shareholder. Hillhouse through Zhuhai Mingjun can nominate 3 seats in the 9-member board (in addition to two board seats from Hillhouse’ Zhuhai Gaoling and alliance Pearl Brilliance) and agreed to an equity incentive plan of no more than 4 percent. // 36Kr

Baidu’s smart speaker leads in China in 2019 Q3. According to Strategy Analytics, Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) shipped 4.3 million smart speakers in 2019 Q3, growing 130% yoy, surpassing Alibaba and Xiaomi, whose product shipments follow closely. Before Baidu launched its smart speaker with proprietary DuerOS voice AI, Alibaba and Xiaomi were dividing up the market share in China. // StrategyAnalytics

Tencent is officially launching Nintendo Switch in China. Tencent held a press conference on Dec 4 in Shanghai, announcing that the official Chinese version of the Nintendo Switch will launch in mainland China next week (Dec 10). Tencent and Nintendo first announced the partnership in April this year. The Switch will include a copy of New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, selling for 2,099 yuan (~$297). // Tencent

Source: TechCrunch

SoftBank Has An Easy Strategy – Mobile Payment In Every Emerging Economy

SoftBank might be the investment firm outside of China that understands mobile payments the best.

Tapping Ant Financial and Tencent’s interests in overseas markets, SoftBank has investments in every major emerging economy.

Southeast Asia: Grab

SoftBank inject another $2 billion earlier this year into Grab. It first invested in GrabTaxi back in 2014 with $250 million Series D, making itself the largest shareholder. GrabTaxi then rebranded into Grab in 2016, entering into payment service with GrabPay and other businesses. It also acquired Kudo based in  Indonesia in 2017 to beef up its payment platform.

[Also, in July, Softbank’s Vision Fund and GIC invested $300 million in e-wallet VNPAY’s parent company for Vietnam]

India: Paytm

This week, SoftBank and Ant Financial injected $1 billion into Paytm. The competition intensifies with Google Pay, payments from e-commerce and Facebook’s payment especially on WhatsApp.

Argentina: Ualá

On November 25, Ualá raised a $150 million Series C led by Tencent and SoftBank. Ualá is a mobile banking tech platform and allows users to transfer money, invest in mutual funds, request loans, pay bills and top-up prepaid services.

Mexico: Clip

SoftBank invested $20 million in Clip, leading a $100 million round in May. Clip offers Square-like products for merchant payments, as the country is more relying on cards.

Updates – Mexico: Konfio

On December 3, SoftBank invested $100 million into Konfio, which provides credit underwriting, or SMB loans.

Combining Konfio and Clip will create the Square or Clover in Mexico.

An easy model and bet on those economies.

「News of the Week」Japan’s New Internet Giant

WSJ – Yahoo Japan and Chat App Line Agree to Merge

SoftBank’s announcement

As part of the deal, SoftBank Group subsidiary SoftBank Corp. and Naver said they would buy all the shares in Line not already owned by Naver at ¥5,200 ($47.78) a share. Naver owns 72.6% of Line as of Monday. SoftBank Corp. and Naver will pay ¥170 billion ($1.56 billion) each to buy those Line shares, SoftBank said.

Line Pay has 37 million users and PayPay, operated jointly by SoftBank and Yahoo Japan, has 19 million. (Nikkei)

Source: WSJ, Bloomberg

Dots to connect: competitions in ads, e-commerce, payment in Japan, monetization on 82 million Line MAU, Japan moving to cash-less, SoftBank’s consolidated financial performance, new superapp, etc.