🤔 What is Musk Up To?
Circle Raises $400m, Bieber and Snoop Dog Invest in MoonPay, & Techies Leave Russia
So, what happened this week in the Tech & Startup world? 🌍
The Grapevine Newsflash 🔥
10 tech & startup stories in 148 super short seconds.
💰Bieber, Bruce Willis & Brie Larson. MoonPay has raised $87m from a list of investors including Justin Bieber, Snoop Dog, Matthew McConaughey, Paris Hilton, Kate Hudson, Maria Sharapova, and many more. Get the full story here.
💸 Stable Stablecoins! Circle has raised $400m in funding from BlackRock, Fidelity, and Fin Capital amongst others. Circle is the issuer of USDC stablecoin, a digital equivalent of the US Dollar. Hear the Circle CEO talk about the raise on video here.
🤔 What’s Musk Up To? Having bought a big chunk of Twitter last week, then announcing he was joining the Board…then announcing he wasn’t joining the Board, Elon Musk has made an offer to buy Twitter for $43bn. This is crazy. You can read the full story here.
🤐 Google’s Sneaky New iOS App. Are you thinking about taking the leap from Apple to Android? Google has launched a secret app allowing users to easily carry over data from iPhone to Android. The app is hard to find but luckily we’ve linked it here for you. Read more here.
👎 TikTok Tests a ‘Dislike’ Button for Comments. Currently you’re able to dislike videos to help curate the ‘For You’ page. However, TikTok has also confirmed they’re trialing a dislike button for individual comments in a bid to flag negative engagement. Have you noticed a new dislike button yet? Read more here.
₿ Wikimedia’s distain for Cryptocurrency donations. Wikimedia, which hosts Wikipedia, voted this week to stop accepting cryptocurrency donations due to environmental and sustainability concerns around certain tokens. 97% of the community supported the proposal. Hear more from Wikipedia here.
📌 Has the Bubble Popped? Last year, crypto entrepreneur Sina Estavi bought an NFT of Jack Dorsey’s first ever tweet for $2.9m. Now, it could go for as little as $277. He put the tweet back up for auction (and in the process pledging 50% of the proceeds to charity) hoping to exceed $25m but received a distinct lack of interest. Times haven’t been great to Estavi, who was also arrested last year in Iran.
🥊 Media vs. Media Substack, the very newsletter platform we write The Grapevine on, is experiencing “growing pains” according to the New York Times. The article has met with a mixed reception, especially considering the NYT is considered a Substack competitor. The most important thing? Paid subscribers went from 50k in 2019 to more than 1 million in 2021.
🚪 Russian Exodus Tech workers in Russia are voting with their feet by leaving the country in their droves. By March 22, an estimated 50-70k had left with an additional 70-100k expected to join soon. This’ll change the Russian tech industry for a long time to come.
🚗 The Future has Arrived. In a comical video, San Francisco police officers faced up to a new menace - a ‘Cruise’ driverless car. After pulling it over when they spotted a lack of active headlights, the officers were puzzled when there was no-one in the car. As they investigated, the car then sped off down the road. Watch it here.
🇺🇦 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.
Want to have a chat?
Shoot us an email at founders@onthegrapevine.co
Don’t follow us on LinkedIn?
Over & Out,
Nick & Louis