So, what happened this week in the Tech & Startup world? 🌍
The Grapevine Newsflash 🔥
9 tech & startup stories in 117 super short seconds.
💰 Acquire From The Rich! Robinhood has acquired Ziglu, a UK fintech that lets users trade 11 cryptocurrencies and earn interest on their crypto holdings. Why is this interesting? It gives Robinhood an FCA regulated UK arm, meaning Robinhood could leverage this to compete in the UK. Read the full story here.
🤔 Musks Musings. Checkout this 60 minute interview with Elon Musk where he discusses his attempted Twitter acquisition, his plans to go to Mars and his latest progress on self-driving cars. This interview is pure class. Watch it on Youtube here, or listen to via podcast here.
💰 Musk is on a roll. This week, Tesla announced soaring profits (up to $3.3bn in Q1) whilst the The Boring Company raised a further $675m and is now valued at nearly $5.7bn. Both likely contributed to the news that Elon has secured $46.5bn for the potential acquisition of Twitter.
👇 Netflix Stock Crashes! Netflix stock dropped 35%, wiping $50bn off its market cap and making it the worst performing stock in the S&P 500 in 2022. What happened? Netflix lost 200k customers in this quarter and estimated about 100m users are sharing passwords. Additional competition from Disney+, HBO Max and Amazon Prime can’t be helping either. Read more here.
🏦 Apples Fintech Play? Last month, Apple acquired Credit Kudos, a UK Open Banking startup for £150m. Forbes have written a great opinion piece on why Apple did this which you can read here.
🏠 Could be … Better, the US Digital Mortgage startup, has just announced its third round of layoffs in the last five months. The last two were absolute disasters (video here), so lets hope this one is handled more professionally. Read more here.
🎨 Coinbase Launches NFT Beta! Coinbase has launched its long awaited NFT marketplace in beta. Coinbase’s core advantage here is its 90m users who it could introduce to NFTs over the coming year. Read more here, or look at the marketplace yourself here.
🦄 Trump Ventures. Jared Kushner, former Senior Advisor to President Trump & husband of Ivanka, has raised $2bn from the Saudi investment fund for a venture fund. The deck has been leaked online showing a largely White House-centric team. It’s bold.
🐺 Wolfie. Jordan “The Wolf of Wall Street” Belfort is undergoing a second coming - crypto. He is an investor in several crypto startups and holds crypto workshops (priced at 1 Bitcoin, around $40,000). He seems calmer now but in many ways still his usual self.
🇺🇦 Supporting Ukraine 🇺🇦
We’re incredibly saddened at the current situation unfolding in Ukraine. We want to actively state that we stand by the people of Ukraine and are encouraging all our readers to donate via RedCross here.
£10 could provide a hygiene kit to a family of five, giving them supplies to stay healthy for a month
£20 could provide five blankets to families taking shelter
£33 could provide 40 chlorine tablets to ensure that families have access to clean, safe water
£72 could provide a thermometer to help treat those who have fallen ill
£210 could provide a fully equipped first aid kit, including supplies, to a first aider treating those wounded
If you also want to help in other ways (e.g. joining a protest, hosting Ukrainians or support the cyber defence) then check this link.
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Over & Out,
Nick & Louis & Me, Myself & I