A record first half for IPO markets, startup CEO gender pay gap, and big tech battles
Welcome to Nº 31 of In The Money, your weekly newsletter on keeping up with all things finance, tech, and startups. As always, this week’s newsletter is filled with all the financy things. As we entered the second half of the year (crazy how time flies) we learned that the first half of the year was a monster for the IPO market, which saw 213 IPOs raise over $70 billion. We also got proof of continued IPO frenzy as Duolingo and Robinhood filed to go public later this year. We also learned that during the pandemic female startup CEOs took a 30% pay cut, while their male counterparts saw a pay increase. And in Sweden, only 0.93% of venture capital went to female founders in 2020. Facebook hit a $1 trillion milestone after a favorable legal ruling that dismissed an antitrust complaint. This and much more. I hope you enjoy this edition.
Startup CEO gender pay gap 🤦♀️
We already know that the pandemic made the gender pay gap worse. Now a new analysis of 250 seed- and venture-funded startups by accounting firm Kruze Consulting shows that among startup CEOs, the issue was especially noticeable. The study found that female CEOs took a 30% pay cut during the peak of the pandemic in the US, while their male counterparts received a 2% pay increase. And women still haven’t recovered those reductions in pay. This year, women are earning $132,000 on average, up from last year but still $6,000 less than in 2019. Meanwhile, the salaries of male startup CEOs have continued to climb. However, it is likely some male CEOs took pay cuts to help the pandemic’s blow to their businesses, but those reductions were offset by the pay increases other male CEOs received. In general, pay increases for startup CEOs usually coincide with new funding rounds. And keeping in mind that 2020 was a record year for VC funding in 2020, but the share that went to female-founded startups (which are more likely to have female CEOs) actually decreased. Female founders received 2.2% of the total investments, compared to 2.6% the prior year. The pandemic-era pay cuts for female startup CEOs may be another place where that disparity is showing up. Via The Broadsheet
Cathie Wood’s Bitcoin ETF 🤑
Cathie Wood’s (read more about Cathie Wood in Woman of the week feature in a previous edition of ITM) Ark Invest is creating a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF, see definition below), according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Wood, a longtime Bitcoin optimist has been buying up proxies for the digital asset in stocks such as Coinbase and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. Now, she is seeking to own the actual asset itself. According to the SEC filing, the new ETF’s investment objective is to track the performance of Bitcoin. If approved, the fund would trade under the ticker symbol “ARKB.” For the past couple of weeks, Bitcoin has hovered around $34,000 as the cryptocurrency struggles to reclaim its May highs. It has nearly been cut in half since its all-time high of about $63,000 in April. China’s bitcoin crackdown, Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s decision to stop accepting Bitcoin for its electric vehicles, and excessive risk-taking by crypto traders have all contributed to recent price swings. In its filing, Ark Invest acknowledged the volatility associated with the digital asset in the “risk factors”. “The market value of bitcoin is not related to any specific company, government, or asset. The valuation of bitcoin depends on future expectations for the value of the Bitcoin network, the number of bitcoin transactions, and the overall usage of bitcoin as an asset. This means that a significant amount of the value of bitcoin is speculative, which could lead to increased volatility. Investors could experience significant gains, losses, and/or volatility in the Trust’s holdings, depending on the valuation of bitcoin,” the S1 filing stated. Last week, the SEC again postponed a decision to approve the first bitcoin ETF. The latest action comes as SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has called for more regulation of cryptocurrency exchanges and greater investor protections. So far, there have been eight other Bitcoin ETFs filed with the SEC.
Definition
ETF or an exchange-traded fund is a type of security that tracks an index, sector, commodity, or another asset, but which can be purchased or sold on a stock exchange the same as a regular stock. ETFs can also be structured to track specific investment strategies. So, essentially an ETF is a type of fund that holds multiple underlying assets, rather than only one like a stock. And because there are multiple assets within an ETF, they can be a popular choice for diversification. An ETF can own hundreds or thousands of stocks across various industries, or it could be isolated to one particular industry or sector. For example, some ETFs focus on only US offerings, while others have a global outlook, or another example is a banking-focused ETFs that would only contain stocks of various banks across the industry. That is, an ETF is called an exchange-traded fund since it's traded on an exchange just like stocks. The price of an ETF’s shares will change throughout the trading day as the shares are bought and sold on the market. This is unlike mutual funds, which are not traded on an exchange, and trade only once per day after the markets close. Additionally, ETFs tend to be more cost-effective and more liquid when compared to mutual funds.
Please note if you are a UK/EU citizen, as of 2018 you are no longer able to invest in US-based ETFs.MiFID II, or Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II, was enacted by the European Union to create more protections for European investors. One of those protections is the regulation of PRIIPs, or Packaged Retail Investment and Insurance Products. PRIIPs require fund providers (including ETFs) to produce a Key Information Document (KID) that enables investors to compare the risks, rewards, and costs of different investment products. European-domiciled ETFs were ready with their new KIDs when PRIIPs came into force alongside the MiFID II rules at the beginning of 2018. However, US-domiciled ETFs did not comply and, as they mostly serve the US market, producing EU-approved information at their own cost is not a priority. Thus, the vast majority of European retail investors are locked out of investing in US funds. However, some European brokers allow a “sophisticated investor” exemption to this rule if the client works in the financial services industry, has a high account balance, or has experience buying and selling ETFs.
Generation equality 🔝
On Wednesday, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $2.1 billion in spending on gender equality over five years, as one of its largest single commitments in two decades of work. The pledge comes amid an economic crisis that has driven women out of work in record numbers. The foundation announced its commitment at the Generation Equality Forum in Paris, convened by UN Women, a United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality, where more than $40 billion has been pledged from governments, firms, and other philanthropies. For Melinda French Gates, gender equality has been a longtime priority. In 2019 she announced that she would invest $1 billion over a decade toward advancing the issue through her firm, Pivotal Ventures, noting that gender-focused work has been long underfunded. The Gates Foundation’s funding will go toward increasing access to contraceptives and reproductive health, expanding job training, and promoting women’s leadership in various fields including health, law, and economics. The foundation noted that the need was heightened as men worldwide regained jobs lost during the pandemic and women continued to lose theirs and two million more women expected to leave the workforce this year. “Women face structural barriers that have made them more vulnerable to the pandemic’s impacts. Eliminating these barriers will jump-start the recovery,” Gates wrote in a report released Wednesday.
Wizard way of solving the world’s plastic crisis 🧙♀️
Emma Watson, the Harry Potter star-turned-campaigner, is backing a company that is working on a novel way to solve the world’s plastic crisis. FabricNano is a 2-year-old company that has so far been operating in stealth mode (a startup working to bring a new product or service to market under a temporary state of secrecy) and it’s making biodegradable plastics at the same price as fossil fuel-based materials. Watson, who is also UN Sustainability ambassador, is part of a high-powered group of investors, including Twitter founder Biz Stone as well as the VC Atomico, putting £12.5m into the startup which first products could be on the market in 18 months. FabricNano has developed a cell-free way of manufacturing alternatives to fossil fuel-based plastic and chemicals much more cheaply and at a greater scale than has previously been possible.
Record first half for the IPO market 🔔
The IPO (initial public offering) business, which has taken a back seat to SPACs for a good part of 2020 and early 2021, has now returned big-time. This week alone, 18 companies are seeking to go public in the US, including Chinese ride-hailing company Didi Global in what will be the biggest IPO of the year (it went public on Wednesday and popped 20% in its debut), along with doughnut chain Krispy Kreme, cybersecurity company SentinelOne, travel security firm Clear Secure, and online legal platform LegalZoom. That’s the most companies in a single week since 2004. And the IPO rush will likely start the second half like it is ending the first half, with a bang. The first half of the year was a monster for the IPO market, which saw 213 IPOs raise over $70 billion. That is above the full-year average for the last 10 years. After slowing somewhat in May, June was also the busiest single month since August 2000. The numbers are even more remarkable, considering that SPACs continue to compete with IPOs for listings. The SPAC business, however, has slowed considerably. Fifty SPACs raised $9.3 billion in the second quarter, an 89% decline from the prior quarter. In the second quarter, IPO investors have been rewarded. Excluding two high-flying micro-caps, the average IPO returned 26% in the quarter. However, the vast majority of that return (24%) was earned on the first day of trading. Currently, the IPO pipeline has 87 companies on file looking to raise a total of more than $20 billion. There’s also plenty of private companies that have not filed that are expected to do so in the coming months, or who have filed confidentially, including Robinhood (stock trading app, which did file to go public this week, read more below), Warby Parker (prescription eyeglasses), Chobani (Greek yougurt), Flipkart (India’s largest online retailer being spun out of Walmart), Instacart (grocery delivery platform), GlobalFoundries (semiconductor designer), and Dole Food Company (global fruit and vegetable company).
Private equity firms have also had their busiest six months since records began four decades ago, striking deals worth more than $500 billion and helping to propel global mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and IPO activity to an all-time high. Since the beginning of January buyout firms have announced 6,298 deals, worth $513 billion even before counting a $34 billion megadeal for the medical supply company Medline, the strongest half-year result since at least 1980. Wider corporate dealmaking continued at a high pace, with overall transaction volumes hitting an all-time high of $1.5 trillion this quarter. It was the fourth consecutive quarter in which it has topped $1tn in a remarkable rebound in activity since the early days of the pandemic. Furthermore, companies have struck $2.8 trillion of deals since the start of January, up a record 129% from the same period last year.
What’s IPO in Spanish, or French? 📚
Duolingo, the language learning business has filed to go public. The now 400-person company was co-founded by Luis von Ahn and Severin Hacker. The company has had a somewhat circuitous journey of trial and error on finding the perfect business model eventually landing on subscriptions, despite an original distaste for it thanks to its mission to provide free education. The S-1 reveals that this decision led to sharp revenue growth at the company. The vast majority of Duolingo’s revenue comes from subscriptions. In the most recent calendar year, for example, the edtech generated 73% of its total top line from subscription incomes. The company’s revenue grew from $70.8 million in 2019 to $161.7 million in 2020, a 129% increase. Duolingo also reported $55.4 million in revenue during the first quarter of 2021, representing a 97% growth from the year-ago period. The company recently turned profitable on an adjusted basis. In accounting terms, net losses have grown for Duolingo. In the three months ended March 31, 2021, the company had net losses of $13.5 million, a sharp increase compared to the same period last year when it had net losses of $2.2 million. It should be noted that the company’s net margin improved in 2020, as its revenue more than doubled and its losses barely crept higher. The company’s profitability or lack thereof should not be a problem during its impending listing. Duolingo has raised $183.3 million in venture capital to date. Investors that have meaningful stakes in the company include NewView Capital, Union Square Ventures, CapitalG, Kleiner Perkins, and General Atlantic. It was last valued at $2.4 billion.
The answer to the question: an initial public offering is oferta pública inicial in Spanish and introduction en bourse in French
UK stops Binance ✋
The UK’s financial watchdog has ordered Binance to stop all regulated activities in the UK and imposed stringent requirements in a rebuke of one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges. The intervention by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is one of the most significant moves any global regulator has made against Binance. The intervention is a sign of how regulators are cracking down on the cryptocurrency industry over concerns relating to its potential role in prohibited activities such as money laundering and fraud, and often weak consumer protection. Also, last weekend the FCA issued a consumer warning against both the Cayman Islands-registered Binance holdings company and Binance Markets Limited, a London-based affiliate that is controlled by chief executive Changpeng Zhao and is overseen by the UK regulator.
Worldcoin offers crypto by scanning your eyeballs 👁
In other crypto news. Worldcoin, a startup founded by former Y Combinator head Sam Altman, wants to distribute crypto to everyone on the planet by scanning their eyeballs. On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that the company has designed an orb-shaped unit that can produce a unique personal identifier from an iris scan. In 2019, Altman, devised the concept around experimentation on universal basic income and how money could be distributed to people in a way that circumvents the role of government. "I've been interested in things like universal basic income and what's going to happen to global wealth distribution and how we can do that better, is there a way we can use technology to do that at a global scale," Altman said to Bloomberg. Aspirations of financial inclusion are nothing new in crypto, though the concept of scanning eyeballs may be seen as a controversial way of achieving it. Worldcoin backers include Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures, and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and it recently raised around $25 million from investors.
Crypto and fast cars 🏎
Continuing with some crypto things but combined with fast cars. On Tuesday Formula 1 landed a new sponsor in a deal with Crypto com, a platform that allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. People familiar with the deal told CNBC it’s a five-year deal that totals over $100 million. In this agreement, Crypto com will get a brand presence around F1 events, including the new Sprint series. In addition, Crypto com will also receive trackside slots at F1 races for the remainder of the season. The company will also introduce a new award at F1′s Belgian Grand Prix in August and become its NFT partner. The Crypto com agreement goes activate on July 17, a day before the 2021 British Grand Prix at the Silverstone Circuit in England. Crypto com says it has over 10 million users on its platform and has an app available for Apple devices and Android phones. The company makes revenue from transaction fees and has other sports partnerships, including F1 team Aston Martin and National Hockey League franchise, the Montreal Canadiens. F1 is owned by Liberty Media Corporation, which purchased the global racing entity in 2016 for $4.4 billion.
A system that recommends code as you write it 👩💻
On Tuesday, Microsoft announced an artificial intelligence system that can recommend code for software developers to use as they write code. Microsoft is looking to simplify the process of programming, the area where the company got its start in 1975. The new system could keep programmers who already use the company’s tools satisfied and also attract new ones. The system, called GitHub Copilot, draws on source code uploaded to code-sharing service GitHub, which Microsoft acquired in 2018, as well as other websites. Microsoft and GitHub developed it with help from OpenAI, an AI research start-up that Microsoft invested in in 2019. For decades, researchers at Microsoft and other institutions have been trying to teach computers to write code. The concept has yet to go mainstream, at times because programs to write programs have not been versatile enough. The GitHub Copilot effort is a notable attempt in the field. The tool looks at existing code and comments in the current file and the location of the cursor, and it offers up one or more lines to add. As programmers accept or reject suggestions, the model learns and becomes more sophisticated over time.
Facebook’s $1 trillion win 🥇
On Monday a federal court dismissed the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) antitrust complaint against Facebook, as well as a parallel case brought by 48 state attorneys general, dealing a major setback to the agency’s complaint, which could have resulted in Facebook divesting Instagram and WhatsApp. Following the ruling, shares of Facebook rose more than 4%, sending the social media company’s market capitalization above $1 trillion for the first time (see next section). However, the court ruled Monday that the FTC failed to prove its main contention and the cornerstone of the case: that Facebook holds monopoly power in the US personal social networking market. The court found the FTC did not provide enough detailed data to prove Facebook has market power in the loosely defined market for personal social networking services. However, the ruling is not necessarily the end of the case. The court acknowledged that the FTC may be able to cure the weaknesses in its argument, so it left open the possibility that it could file an amended complaint and continue the litigation. The court also disagreed with Facebook’s argument that the FTC does not have the power to attack the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, which took place in 2012 and 2014. On the contrary, the court ruled that the FTC can still seek divestiture of these acquisitions, but only if it succeeds in its legal arguments about Facebook’s monopoly power.
On Monday Facebook closed above $1 trillion in market capitalization for the first time. The social media giant is the fifth US company to hit the milestone, joining Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google-parent company Alphabet. As mentioned above, the company’s shares closed up 4.2% at $355.64 after a favorable legal ruling that dismissed an antitrust complaint brought by the US Federal Trade Commission and a coalition of state attorneys general. Facebook derives nearly all of its revenue from personalized advertisements that are shown to users of the Facebook and Instagram social networks. In addition, the company has a burgeoning hardware business where it is building products like the Portal video-calling device, Oculus virtual-reality headsets, and smart glasses, which are set to be released sometime in 2021. Facebook held its initial public offering in May 2012, debuting with a market cap of $104 billion. In 2018, the company suffered a colossal 19% drop after posting disappointing revenue and user figures for the second quarter of that year. That drop came amid a number of scandals that year, including data leaks, fake news, and, most notably, the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which a data firm improperly accessed the data of 87 million Facebook users and used it to target ads for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Despite the scandals, Facebook has been able to bounce back and has continued to grow its user base and steadily increase its average revenue per user. The stock price is now up more than 90% since July 27, 2018.
Another big tech battle🥊
This week, Microsoft and Google ended an almost six-year truce to prevent open warfare between the rival Big Tech companies. The move clears the way for direct conflict as regulators take aim at barriers to competition among the leading US technology groups. In 2015, the tech giants reached an unusual pact to end a running battle that had been fought out in courtrooms and in front of regulators around the world. It was forged soon after Sundar Pichai became chief executive of Google and Satya Nadella took the reins at Microsoft. But the pact expired in the middle of April when the two sides decided not to renew it. Under the agreement, the companies had settled outstanding lawsuits and agreed not to litigate or complain about each other to regulators without first trying to resolve disagreements at the highest level internally.
This week DI Digital released a report that in Sweden, only 0.93% of venture capital went to female founders in 2020. Yes, you read it right, 0.93%. In Sweden, which is perceived to be one of the most gender-equal countries in the world. And in 2020, which was a record year for venture funding. We have lots of work to do to make the funding field equal.
Robinhood’s $70 million fine and S-1 💹
A Wall Street regulator has ordered Robinhood to pay more than $70 million in penalties for causing what it described as “widespread and significant” harm to its customers. On Wednesday the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) announced that it was fining Robinhood $57 million and ordering it to pay $12.6 million-plus interest in restitution to its customers, the largest penalty ever ordered by the regulator. Among a litany of failures alleged by Finra, widespread technical problems on the platform during periods of high volatility cost some traders tens of thousands of dollars. Robinhood also allowed thousands of customers to trade risky derivative products when it was “not appropriate” for them and gave customers false or misleading information about how much cash was in their accounts, their ability to trade on margin, and the risk of losses on derivatives trades. Furthermore, Finra cited the death by suicide of a young Robinhood customer last year, who mistakenly believed he had incurred $730,165 in losses on a margin trade. In fact, his account had a balance of $16,000. In a note found after his death, he indicated he did not believe that he had turned on margin trading on his account (margin trading is using borrowed funds to trade a financial asset). Finra said that for more than five years, Robinhood had “failed to establish and maintain” a system for complying with securities regulations. The penalties come as Robinhood plans a stock market listing to capitalize on a period of explosive growth. And on Thursday the company released its filing.
As one of the most anticipated initial public offerings of the year Robinhood filed to go public on Thursday, revealing rapid growth during the pandemic and big customer numbers. According to Robinhood’s S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Robinhood lost $1.4 billion in the first quarter of 2021. However, the company made $522 million in revenue in Q1, up 309% from the $128 million earned in the first quarter of 2020. The company plans to trade under the symbol “HOOD” on the Nasdaq. In its prospectus, it said it has grown its funded accounts, those which have bank accounts linked to them, to 18 million in March of this year from 7.2 million in 2020. Assets under management have ballooned to roughly $80 billion from $19.2 billion last March. Monthly active users are about 17.7 million. Robinhood plans to allocate between 20% and 35% of its IPO shares to its retail customers (which is much more than the typical IPO). Typically, it takes about one to two months for companies to make their debut once they file with the SEC. Robinhood was founded in 2013 by now CEO Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt. The Menlo Park, California-based start-up pioneered free stock trading, forcing the entire industry to drop commissions in 2019. Robinhood offers equity, cryptocurrency, and options trading, as well as cash management accounts. Users can make most trades for free. The app makes money from customer order flow and a premium paid service. You can deep dive into the S-1 here.
Everything is here store 🛒
On Thursday, Hepsiburada, Turkey’s giant online shopping platform considered the Amazon of its country floated on the Nasdaq, for a valuation likely to exceed $3.9 billion on current projections, shares being marked up to $14 apiece. For long-time founder and chairwoman Hanzade Doğan Boyner, who started the business in 1998 and still has overall control of the company considers the listing closer to a growth round of funding, which enables her ambitious plans to mine Turkey’s fast-developing market even further, as well as expand into Central and Eastern Europe. Doğan Boyner, a scion of the powerful Doğan family in Turkey, continues to hold three-quarters of the voting power in the company, according to the prospectus filed to the SEC. Hepsiburada’s IPO comes after it more than doubled its revenue during the pandemic, as Turkey’s largely offline population was forced to switch to online shopping. Hepsiburada (which translates into “everything is here”) is also making history as the first-ever Turkish Nasdaq IPO.
The global corporate tax rate 🌐
Following intense negotiations in Paris at the OECD, the world’s leading economies have signed up to a plan to force multinational companies to pay a global minimum corporate tax rate of at least 15%. The historic agreement among 130 countries will ensure that the largest companies (including big tech), pay at least $100 billion a year more in taxes. The money is going to go to the countries where they do most of their business. The rules should be put in place next year and implemented in 2023. Only nine of the 139 countries involved in the talks refused to sign up, including Ireland, Estonia, and Hungary. All of the G20 leading nations backed the plan following lobbying by the US.
Etsy’s acquisition streak 🤝
It was not long ago that ITM reported Etsy’s acquisition of Depop in an effort to open the door to more social selling, target younger users and deeply expand in Europe. Now the crafty marketplace has announced another significant deal to build out its reach, this time in Latin America. Etsy announced that it will acquire Elo7, commonly referred to as the “Etsy of Brazil” for its popular marketplace for crafty creators for $217 million. Before the acquisition, Etsy was already active in Brazil. But Elo7, one of the 10 biggest e-commerce sites in the region with 1.9 million active buyers, 56,000 active sellers and some 8 million items for sale, will give Etsy a significantly bigger presence in the market. As with Depop (which was a $1.6 billion acquisition for Etsy) and Reverb (a musical instruments market Etsy acquired in 2019), Elo7 will remain a standalone brand and continue to be operated by its current management team out of its headquarters in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Shopify lowers its commissions ⬇️
Shopify announced that it is lowering its cut of developer revenue across its app marketplace, the Shopify App Store, as well as the new Shopify Theme Store. It follows similar moves by Apple, Google, and more recently Amazon. The news was announced alongside a host of other developer-related news and updates for the Shopify platform at the company’s Unite 2021 Conference, including updates to Checkout, APIs, developer tooling, and frameworks. Shopify says its app developer partners earned $233 million in 2020 alone, more than 2018 and 2019 combined. An increase that can likely be attributed, in part, to the pandemic and the rapid shift to e-commerce that resulted. Today, there are over 6,000 publicly available apps across the Shopify App Store, and a merchant will use on average around six apps to run their business. Now Shopify will drop its commissions on app developer revenue to 0%, down from 20%, for developers who make less than $1 million annually on its platform. This benchmark will also reset annually, giving developers more earning potential. And when Shopify’s revenue share kicks in, it will be 15% of “marginal” revenue. That is, developers will pay 15% only on revenue they make that’s over the $1 million mark. The same business model will apply to Shopify’s Theme Store, which opens to developer submissions on July 15. As the two stores are separate entities, the $1 million revenue share metric applies to each store individually. The company says the more developer-friendly business model will lead to a drop in company revenue but says it doesn’t expect this impact “to be material” because it will encourage greater innovation and development. The changes to Shopify’s App Store follow a shift in the broader app store market around developer commissions. Last year, amid increased regulatory scrutiny over how it runs its App Store, Apple announced it would reduce the App Store commissions for smaller businesses under a new program where developers earning up to $1 million per year would only have to pay a 15% commission on in-app purchases. Google and Amazon have since followed suit, each with their own particular spin.
Plus ➕
Bulletin: Facebook unveiled Bulletin, a newsletter subscription service, but is not yet accepting signups and says it won't take a cut of creators' revenue “at launch”
Updated: Microsoft released its first test build of Windows 11 on Monday. It plans to start rolling out the upgrade more widely later this year (hinting at an October release date)
Banking: In its third fintech acquisition since December, JPMorgan Chase acquired sustainable investing platform Openinvest
Edtech: 2U, a SaaS platform that helps non-profits and colleges run online universities, is acquiring all the assets of Harvard and MIT-founded edX for $800 million, in an all-cash deal
NFTs: Twitter is making NFTs with the catch that nobody can buy them. Instead, Twitter users can reply to the Tweet for the chance to get one of 7 NFTs, which were minted on Rarible, an NFT marketplace, in editions of 20, which makes 140 NFTs total
Huddles: Slack released Slack Huddles, an audio chat tool, and details new features, including video messages and an enhanced company directory
IPO pop: Didi Chuxing opened at $16.65 per share in its public debut on NYSE on Wednesday, up 20% from its $14 offering price, valuing the company at over $77 billion
Finland: Amazon announced that it plans to develop new technology for its autonomous delivery vehicles in Helsinki, Finland
Dating cafe: Bumble will open its first Bumble Brew in New York. The dating cafe and wine bar was first announced two years ago, and the opening was scheduled for fall 2019 in SoHo, but permitting issues and then the pandemic delayed the launch
3 minutes: TikTok is rolling out longer videos of up to three minutes, up from one minute, to all users over the coming weeks, after testing them since December
Woman of the week
Hayley Barna
Hayley Barna is a Partner at First Round, a seed-stage venture firm. Prior to joining First Round she co-founded Birchbox.
Barna graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and has an MBA at Harvard Business School. She began her career shortly after she graduated from Harvard University joining Bain & Company in New York. She then moved to Christie's Hong Kong where she worked in strategy and later in product management for Amazon. While working towards her MBA at Harvard Business School, Barna met Katia Beauchamp and a friendship was born. As was the idea of Birchbox which Barna co-founded with Beauchamp in 2010. What began as a business plan during B-School turned into a website where they began to acquire customers interested in "an e-commerce experience focused on new product discovery." Birchbox then grew into a monthly subscription service that sends its subscribers a box of four to five selected samples of makeup, or other beauty-related products. In 2014, Barna and Beauchamp opened the first Birchbox store. As of 2015, Birchbox had received over $70 million in venture funding and had one million subscribers. In 2013, she and Beauchamp won the Leadership Award at Forbes Women's Summit. In August 2015, Barna ceased co-leading the company as co-CEO. Although she stepped down from her role as co-CEO of Birchbox she remained a member of the board. She spent the subsequent six months as an angel investor. Her seed-stage angel investments include AYR, Bombas, Dia&Co, Fin, Knowsy, Love Stories TV, MakerSights, and The Wing.
In 2016 she joined First Round Capital as a venture partner. On February 16, 2016, Barna shared a post on Medium about her first day at First Round stating, "I can’t think of a better place to do this than First Round, which led the seed round in my company Birchbox, and has always put founders first through good times and bad." Barna became First Round’s first female partner. One of her first initial First Round investments was the travel startup Collective Hotels & Retreats, with her also joining the board. By 2017, she largely focused on e-commerce startups. She was on the boards of Madison Reed and RAB Lighting. She was also organizing a working group of women in technology in New York with monthly meetings. Also, in late 2017, she was promoted to general partner at First Round.
Thank you so much for reading In The Money. I would love to hear your feedback and please share this with a few friends you think would find this interesting. Have a lovely weekend 💜
I’m Marianne, an early-stage VC based in Stockholm. You can reach me by replying to this email, or find me on Twitter or LinkedIn.