Showing the way for Climate Change 🏔
Weekly press review in Tech & Web3 - 16th May 2022 - Issue #47
I’m Sebastien co-founder and CEO of Early Metrics. TechWatchbySeb is a weekly newsletter to provide Tech Investors, Entrepreneurs & Innovators with my selection of news on the Tech and Web3 ecosystems.
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Summary for this week: Showing the way for Climate Change 🏔
Before starting ☕️
Section 1 - Tech main news:
Showing the way for Climate Change 🏔
International Fintechs are on fire
Time for Private Equity to join the danse
Section 2 - Web3 main news:
Algorithmic Stablecoin = danger
$170M To democratise Web3
Nomura to launch new financial crypto products
Total of articles reviewed this week: 21
Before starting ☕️,
Difficult not to start this week without talking about the big drop on the financial markets, especially for Tech Listed companies and Crypto.
And last week, during a Journalist chat, I have been asked if I think, it will have an impact on the development of the Tech scene? Especially on valuation?
Obviously it is very difficult to know the long term impact but it is essential to be attentive when investing in such volatile assets. Nevertheless I’m still bullish on a long term prospective!
Also, during this last week episode we’ve seen the big failure of $Terra the Algorithmic Stablecoin which totally failed. I am happy that last week I shared with you the definition and alerted on its potential danger. But do remind that Algorithmic Stablecoin are not “Normal” Stablecoin.
On another note, before starting the press review, I want to share with you a very interesting article we’ve released with my Early Metrics team.
Unicorn startups: how can we predict their success?
We took a selection of 4 companies we have rated in the last past years which became Unicorn. And we tried to share with you some elements that makes us evaluate their strong potential.
Last but not least, herebelow the result of last week survey:
Which place has the best Artificial Intelligence regulator ? 😎😎
Thanks for your answers and I am quite aligned with the answers. I think Europe is pushing a lot of efforts on building a sustainable tech environment but might be impacted by US decisions. While China is moving forward in the direction they want and that might make them to go faster in testing new technologies.
Next question for this week at the bottom
🥇Showing the way for Climate Change 🏔
After all the bad news last week, it was very refreshing to see those tech companies fighting the climate change, raising those nice rounds:
Arcadia 🇺🇸 a climate software and data company that specialises in decarbonising the electric grid. The company founded in 2014 just raised $200 Million and back by JP Morgan and Tiger Capital
Summit Carbon Solutions 🇺🇸 a new business platform that will address the global challenge of decarbonisation by developing the carbon capture and storage project. Just company just announced to have completed a $1 billion equity raise.
Carbon Clean 🇬🇧 develops CO2 separation technology designed for industrial and gas treating applications. The company founded in 2009 gets £121m boost from US oil giant, Chevron.
Sources:
Arcadia: wsj
Summit Carbon Solutions: ethanolproducer
Carbon Clean: Uktech.news
🥈International Fintechs are on fire
Last week, Fintech world were on fire despite market plunge:
TIFIN🇺🇸 platform that creates and operates fintech companies in wealth management, investments, and personal finance. The company founded in 2018 raised $109 Million Series D.
Dock 🇧🇷 provider of a financial technology company that integrates card issuing and core banking services. The company was founded in 2018 closes on $110M in funding, now valued at over $1.5B.
Interswitch 🇳🇬 an integrated digital payments and commerce company designed to make payments an easy and enjoyable experience. The company founded in 2002 receives $110M investment from LeapFrog and Tana Africa Capital;
Nexi 🇮🇹, the Italian payments giant, buys Orderbird 🇩🇪 for $140-150M to expand its SMB strategy
Checkout.com 🇬🇧 is a global payments solution provider on a mission to enable businesses and their communities to thrive in the digital economy. The company announced its plans to acquire identity verification startup Ubble 🇫🇷
Source:
TIFIN: crowdfundinsider
Dock: techcrunch
Interswitch: techcrunch
Nexi: techcrunch
Checkout: techcrunch
🥉Time for Private Equity to join the danse
In order to build a sustainable Tech ecosystem, it is essential to have a structured exit environment for entrepreneurs and VCs. M&A and IPOs being essentials, I’m convinced that Private Equity are strategic player to pursue the growth and success of Tech companies when they reach the profitability. And last week 2 interesting operations came up:
Ideagen 🇬🇧 provides software and services to organisations operating within highly regulated industries such as aviation, banking and finance and life science, healthcare and manufacturing with its main operational premises
spread throughout the UK, EU, US, Middle East and SE Asia. The company has agreed to a £1.09bn takeover by London-based private equity firm Hg Capital 🇬🇧.
Reby 🇪🇸 manufactures its own vehicles, eschewing Chinese-made scooters. The company has been acquired by PE player House of Lithium 🇨🇦 for $100M
Source:
Ideagen: uktech.news
Reby: Techcrunch
🥇Algorithmic Stablecoin = danger
Unstable Stablecoin: How Crypto’s Crash Broke The Buck For TerraUSD
TerraUSD (UST), a digital token with a $16 billion market capitalisation that is designed to maintain a 1:1 peg with the dollar, known as a Stablecoin, nosedived over the past 24 hours. Its price fell below $.65, before somewhat recovering to $0.93 as of this writing. In other words, UST failed spectacularly at the one thing that it was supposed to do - maintain parity with the dollar.
Source: forbes
🥈$170M To democratise Web3
Chainalysis announces $170M funding round, platform now valued at $8.6 billion
Chainalysis, a blockchain analytics provider, has announced its $170 million Series F funding round. The fresh funding succeeded its $100 million raise back in June 2021 and more than doubly exceeded its valuation of $4.2 billion at the same time.
The raise was led by Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC and further participated in by investors Accel — who previously led Chainalysis' $30 million Series B round in 2019, as well as Blackstone, Dragoneer and FundersClub. Bank of New York Mellon and Emergence Capital also participated in the round as first entries.
According to the announcement, the funds will be utilized to enhance product innovation and scale global operations — developing upon the existing customer base of 750 corporations across 70 countries.
Source: cointelegraph
🥉Nomura to launch new financial crypto products
Nomura offers its first bitcoin derivatives, just as crypto markets tumble
Nomura has begun offering bitcoin over-the-counter derivatives to clients, it said Friday, the latest move by a traditional financial institution into the cryptocurrency industry, even as markets are in turmoil.
The trades, executed on the CME by crypto asset trading firm Cumberland DRW this week, were the Japanese investment bank's first digital asset trades, said Nomura's head of markets, Asia ex-Japan, Rig Karkhanis in a statement.
Source: reuters
First of all thanks for your help to expand the #TechWatchbySeb community.
Question of the week 🥸
How do you think the impact of the last week market plunge on Tech companies 📉?
Comment and share 🔥👾🔥👾
Feel free to comment on what you think about those news, what you liked, what you disliked.
And last but not least, feel free to share the newsletter to keep growing the community 🚀
👍 That’s it for this week, wishing you a great week ahead, and feel free to share if you like 😁