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 🔥
10 tech & startup stories in 128 super short seconds.
🗣️ The End of the Jack Ma Era? Jack Ma, the founder of Ant Group (the powerhouse behind Alibaba) is stepping down. Two years back China blocked the company’s $35bn IPO, so this is a pretty complex picture. Read more here.
🐶 AI Puppy. MIT just wrote an article about a robot dog that taught itself to walk. Pretty cool. You can see the robot dog in action here.
📺 Netflix Ads? Netflix & Microsoft have teamed up to create a lower priced subscription tier that would rely on ad revenue. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of targeting data Netflix can pull from your viewing habits. Read more here.
⛵ Cathie Wood Dumps Coinbase! ARK, the hedge fund run by the legendary Cathie Wood has sold $75m of Coinbase stock following news that the SEC may be investigating Coinbase for improperly letting Americans trade crypto. Coinbase stock is down 75% since IPO. Read more here.
📰 TikTok News. OfCom has found that TikTok is the fastest growing way to get news for UK adults, with 7% of adults using the site for news. Surprising? Not really. Interesting? 100%. Will this prompt TikTok to segment their app in some way to make news a bigger part? Read the full story here.
💰 Starling = Profitable? Starling, the UK digital challenge bank has turned a £32m profit this year (with the help of a £100m grant as part of an effort to increase competition in the banking sector). This is still huge news is, as it represents the first UK challenger bank to properly turn a profit. Read Anne Boden’s letter on the topic here.
👩⚕️ Amazon’s Latest Acquisition. The e-commerce giant has agreed to purchase One Medical, a US-based primary care provider, for $3.9bn. It represents a further push into healthcare from Amazon, but also brings up some questions around data privacy.
💜 Tech is great Our favourite video of the week involves two kids who crash a computer science teacher conference to show everyone a business they’ve built (whilst teaching themselves to code).
🚫 Less Like Tiktok! Instagram has announced that they will roll back several features that many considered to be overly similar to more recent competitors like TikTok. Should Instagram adapt and copy-cat or stay to what its good at. Let us know your thoughts.
🏦 Fintech, Fraud, and Flutterwave Two of Africa’s most well funded Fintechs, Flutterwave & Chipper Cash, have been told they’re not licensed to operate as payment service providers in Kenya, a key market for them. This comes weeks after the former was accused of fraud and money laundering when a total of $52.5m in 62 accounts was flagged as suspicious. Let’s see how this one plays out.
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Over & Out,
Nick & Louis