GM Grapeviners,
So, what happened this week in the Tech & Startup world? 🌍
P.S. Don’t forget to support the humanitarian efforts in Ukraine here.
The Grapevine Newsflash 🔥
12 tech & startup stories in 159 super short seconds.
📉 BOE Crypto Regs? The Bank of England has called for ‘enhanced regulation’ of the crypto asset market following the collapse of Terra’s stablecoin. Our thoughts? It’s pretty inevitable they’ll be more regs in the space, especially around stablecoins. Read the full story here.
🏦 More Fintech Funding Griffin, the UK banking as a service platform has raised £12.5m in fresh funding to enable banks to launch financial products quicker. Check Griffin out here.
📉 Balderton’s Gloomy Email Sifted obtained a copy of an email sent by Balderton Capital (a prestigious VC fund) to its portfolio companies. Although it’s a pretty gloomy email it’s full of great advice, stats and graphs to help founders navigate the downturn. Take a read here.
🔽 Plunging Valuations European Fintech darling and leader within the ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ space, Klarna, is reportedly raising at a $6.5bn valuation (about 1/7th of it’s last valuation in June 2021). It could be worse though, there are rumours that crypto lender BlockFi could be sold for as little as $25m to FTX (a 99% drop in valuation).
🎮 Crypto Gaming Cauldron, a London based crypto gaming firm just closed a $6.6m seed round to become the “Pixar of web3”. Gaming will be huge for web3 as it’ll give everyday folks an awesome reason to interact with crypto and blockchains. Read the full story here.
🧠 Two Meerkats Watching Balloons Google recently released its ‘image-making AI’ that can create images based off of short descriptions. The images are awesome, but MIT has written an interesting article on the sinister impact of these types of platforms. Take a read here.
🔒 Privacy vs. Functionality Apple has launched a new ‘Lockdown Mode’ to protect you against targeted hacking attempts. The setting will block attachments and link previews, unknown FaceTime calls, and more. They’re so confident in its quality that they’re offering $2m for anyone who can bypass the software.
📍 Big Tech & Abortion Google has announced some changes to its privacy policy after the US Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade. Google has pledged to delete location data when users visit abortion clinics, but has not committed to deleting search records about abortion - which could become sought after by local authorities. Several big tech cos also said they’ll help employees cover abortion travel costs for some, but not all, employees.
🔙 Zuck is Back The CEO of Meta (Facebook) has told employees that in the face of a macroeconomic downturn, if they want to leave that’s “ok” with him and that “there are probably a bunch of people…who shouldn’t be here”. Meta has struggled recently and its stock has plunged 49% year-to-date.
🦹🏽♂️ 🦹🏽♀️Fraud Comes in Pairs The President and COO of Theranos, the fraudulent biotech startup once worth $9bn, has been found guilty of all 12 charges against him. This compares to Elizabeth Holmes’ 4 counts of fraud, showing that it’s not always the boss that holds the bag when it all goes wrong. Not familiar with the Theranos story? Watch an overview here.
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Over & Out,
Nick & Louis