🔫 Fornite Declares War

Aug 14, 2020

What’s happened this week in the Tech & Startup world? 🌍 AirBnB finally gets ready to go public, deepfakes emerge as the top threat & Google sets its sights on banking.

Hold up! 👇

The Grapevine Newsflash 🔥

14 tech & startup stories in 182 seconds.

🌴 Will Airbnb IPO? The Wall Street Journal has reported that AirBnb could secretly file for IPO this month. The travel giant was recently valued at $18bn, down from a pre-virus valuation of $31bn. Get the full scoop here.

🍏 Apple’s AI Strategy. Have a read of this brilliant interview with Apple’s head of Artificial Intelligence. You’ll learn more about Apple’s AI strategy, and you’ll get a good understanding of how machine learning is used to improve everyday features on Apple products.

Jay Z-Chain ⛓️ Alchemy is the crypto-startup you’ve never heard of. Their platform supports the growth & development of many blockchain applications and has now announced its public launch. Investors include Charles Schwab, Jay-Z and Will Smith.

🚨 Google Alarms? Google has invested $450m for a 6.6% stake in ADT, the popular home alarm system. Why? Google is doubling down on the ‘smart home’ and there is plenty of synergy between ADT and Google’s Nest products

🏠 Habito Raises Series C! Habito, the London based digital mortgage startup has raised £35m in funding. Habito began its life as a ‘mortgage broker’ but has now started to sell its own mortgage products. This is super clever as it means Habito now owns the platform, and some of the products on it.

I’m Feeling Rich 🏦 Google is teaming up with an additional 6 banks to roll out its checking & savings accounts to users in 2021. It represents an ambitious move into finance which could have strong repercussions for the fintech industry.

😢No(Morale)-26? Morale at German challenger bank N26 has sunk to an all time low, with the staff issuing a ‘open letter’ to challenge existing leadership. This is yet another bad headline for the fintech, who pulled blamed Brexit when they pulled out of the UK earlier this year.

💸The Sound of Sales! Gong has raised $200m in funding at a $2.2bn valuation. What’s Gong? It’s an ‘intelligent revenue’ startup that gives sales teams better data on what’s working and what’s not. For example, Gong may tell its customers what key phrases result in more sales. Check our their explainer video here

🎧 Some Irish Charm. Have a listen to this podcast with Marc Murphy, CEO of Finergo, an Irish Fintech in the KYC & AML Space. What’s discussed? Building great teams, empowering employees and the relationship between ego and emotion.

Fornite Declares War 🔫 Both Apple & Google have removed best selling game, Fortnite, from their app stores. This was triggered by Fortnite allowing players to buy in-game currency directly at a discount instead of via the gatekeepers who charge 30%. This is the latest in several high-profile rows between developers & the app store ‘monopolies’. Epic Games even went as far as creating a short film titled ‘Nighteen Eighty-Fortnite’ - a play on George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘1984’.

💸 From Bad to Worse The largest fraud of the decade has led to a manhunt of a former executive. German officials are currently looking for Jan Marsalek, who they suspect played a central role in the $2bn fraud. Not familiar with the story? Check out a summary here.

Corona Couture 👜 Ever wondered what fashion shows will look like after Covid? Neither have we, but ‘virtual fashion’ is worth a look. Check out this video of it here.

Our DeepTake 📷 In an analysis of the top AI threats we should be worried about, deep fakes came out as the top one. Check out here what other threats they thought of including ‘snake oil’, ‘military robots’ & ‘market bombing’.

BallerHood 📈Free stock-brokerage app, Robinhood, has been a big winner of 2020. They just announced that in June, they had an average of 4.31m daily average revenue trades (DARTs) which is about 4x the number of trades from competitor E*Trade. Nevertheless, we still have questions about the effects it is having on young people.

A Positive Spin

We don’t need to tell you about what’s going on in the world this week; but we do want to highlight companies, startups and technology that’s being used to positive effect people and movements across the globe today.

👮 Crime-alert app, Citizen, has launched a new feature called ‘SafePass’ which allows users to upload their health status regularly, ping users who may have been in contact with infected persons & even send them an at-home test for no charge.

Why need a favour! 🙏🙏🙏

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