šØ The Fastest Growing Startup Ever
MIT's Top Tech Trends, Microsoft's Holoportation Launch & SpaceX's Rocket Fail
So, what happened this week in the Tech & Startup world? š Hopin raises $400m, the UK Gov publishes the Kalifa report, Square buys into Jay-Zās Tidal, and more.
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The Grapevine Newsflash š„
11Ā tech & startup stories inĀ 149Ā super short seconds.
š The Fastest Growing Startup Ever? Hopin, the virtual events platform, has raised 400m in Series C funding at a $5.65bn valuation. The craziest thing is that Hopin only launched in February 2020. Hear more about Hoppinās lead investor (a16z) here or read more about the companies meteoric rise here
šø Klarna Raises $1bn at a $31bn valuation. Klarna is active in more than 17 countries and works with 250k retailers like Ikea, Nike, and Peleton. Klarna also pledged 1% of this new funding to focus on sustainability challenges around the world. Read more here.
šµ Empire State of Square Payments company, Square, is set to purchase a majority stake in Jay-Zās music streaming service, Tidal. It is paying $297m for the pleasureā¦ and Jay-Z will be joining Squareās board in return. It signals Squareās intention to manage the financial lives of creators like musicians. In related news, āaudio creatorsā have burst onto the scene - read more about the new phenomenon here.
š How Airbnb Scaled Watch this incredible lecture with Brian Chesky (Airbnbās CEO) on how he started, funded, and scaled Airbnb. Brian gives detailed anecdotes and examples that will be useful for anyone working at a startup or fast-growing company. Watch the full lecture here.
šµ Zuckerberg Spitting Bars. Facebook has released Bars, an app that lets rappers rap over a series of pre-made beats and posts them onto a TikTok-style feed. Could this be Facebookās TikTok killer? Perhaps FB will launch a suite of challenger apps to carve out small niches or customer segments away from TikTok? Read more about the app here.
š¬Ā Breakthrough Technologies of 2021. MIT Technology Review has published its list of the top 10 breakthrough technologies of 2021. We love this, as itās not the typical list of ātrendingā technologies. Check it out here.
š Holoportation Microsoft has announced a new āmixed-reality platformā - Microsoft Mesh. Itāll enable people to engage with one another within shared holographic experiences. At first, people will be able to appear as virtual avatars but in the future, youāll be able to appear as yourself in a virtual space. The use cases are endless. See their edgy announcement video here.
š¤ The Kalifa Fintech Report. The UK gov has published its much-awaited report on UK fintech. The government makes five key recommendations which you can read here.
š False Landing SpaceXās latest Starship prototype successfully landed after a high-altitude test flightā¦ to then go on and explode 8 minutes after landing. It exploded with such force that it was hurled into the air. Watch it here.
š Fresh Comes to London Itās taken some time but Amazonās checkout-less stores have finally arrived in the UK. Customers only need to take an item off the shelf and, using a system of cameras and sensors, Amazon will automatically bill them.
š¤ Best Pitch Ever? Alibaba has grow into one of the worldās largest companies with a $623bn market cap. Want to see how it started? Check out Jack Maās original sales pitch from 1999 he gave to a few of his friends in his apartment here.
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