Good morning!
This edition features:
A #MiamiTech company raises funds
VR is now mainstream according to IDC
We are still out of chips
Facebook says why it experienced a six-hour outage yesterday
And Apple is the hottest player in gaming
It’s Tuesday, October 5, 2021.
1. #MiamiTech
This LatAm-to-Miami startup is already seeing explosive growth in its cross-border ‘future of work’ solution (Refresh Miami)
Ontop announced that it raised a $20 million Series A round, led by Tiger Global and Point72 Ventures, with participation from SoftBank’s $100 million SB Opportunity Fund. In total, the one-year-old company has raised $26 million.
The startup helps enterprises streamline their international hiring and payment processes by managing contracts, documents, taxes, regulatory compliance, and payments with an easy, automated platform.
Ontop started out by connecting US companies with LatAm talent, and its customers were mainly tech startups. But very quickly companies in Europe and other places around the world were reaching out, wanting to hire people everywhere because talent is everywhere.
Ontop’s founders, now in Miami, will use the funding to keep growing their team, hiring “the best minds” in FinTech, traditional banking, and legal to grow and strengthen its global payment network, which the startup has built. The company also plans to eventually launch a whole suite of FinTech products.
2. VR
VR, AR, wearables, and smart home tech are now mainstream, research says (Ars Technica)
VR, AR, wearables, and smart home tech have passed the early adoption phase and are all firmly part of the “mass market,” according to research that IDC just shared. The research firm predicted that the combined market will hit $369.6 billion by the end of 2021 and grow to $524.9 billion in 2025.
IDC expects AR and VR combined to show the most growth out of the three categories, thanks to both businesses and individual consumers. The latter is particularly interested in “robust gaming solutions,” IDC said. Businesses represent the bulk of AR spending today, but IDC thinks the market for AR headsets targeting the general public will grow.
It predicted a 67.9% compound annual growth rate from 2020 to 2025 for AR and VR combined, which is more than 10 times the next competitor, smart home tech (10.1%). Smart home tech will represent the most valuable market, however, with a predicted 2025 value of over $400.3 billion.
Earwear and smartwatches, meanwhile, are expected to be drivers of the wearables market during this five-year time period. IDC thinks the wearables space will see the slowest growth rate among the three categories, despite being valued higher than the AR and VR market in both 2021 and 2025.
3. We’re Out Of Chips
Semiconductor chip shortage could extend through 2022, Marvell CEO says (CNBC)
The semiconductor chip shortage that is hamstringing the production of products ranging from cars and computers to appliances and toothbrushes will extend into 2022 and potentially beyond that, the CEO of semiconductor company Marvell Technology said.
“Right now, every single end market for semiconductors is up simultaneously; I’ve been in this industry 27 years, I’ve never seen that happen,” said Marvell CEO Matt Murphy on Thursday. “If it stays business as usual, and everything’s up and to the right, this is going to be a very painful period, including in 2022 for the duration of the year.”
While several chip producers have announced plans to expand factory capacity, Murphy, who noted his firm is fabless and works with contract manufacturers on its designs, said “that’s not going to kick in until 2023 and 2024 — so there’s this painful period.”
That is a more pessimistic view than some of Murphy’s chip industry peers, who have recently said they expect the shortage to wane next year as new factories open. Murphy also said the shortage may be addressed as the demand for certain chip-using products finally falls.
4. Big Tech
Facebook has finally given a reason for the six-hour outage Monday (The Verge)
Facebook said in a blog post Monday night that the six-hour outage that took it offline along with Instagram, Messenger, Whatsapp, and OculusVR was the result of a configuration change to its routers — not of a hack or attempt to get at user data.
The explanation doesn’t give much in the way of detail, but it seems like Facebook’s machines weren’t able to talk to one another — Facebook says that “this disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt.”
CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted an apology Monday evening, saying the platforms were coming back online. “Sorry for the disruption today — I know how much you rely on our services to stay connected with the people you care about. The outage began around 11:40 AM ET Monday and led to widespread problems for the company.
The problems appeared to begin with a routine BGP update that went wrong, wiping out the DNS routing information that Facebook needs to allow other networks to find its sites. Facebook’s outage came before whistleblower Frances Haugen is set to testify before Congress about her experiences at the company, later today.
5. Gaming
Apple doesn’t make video games. But it’s the hottest player in gaming (The Wall Street Journal)
Apple doesn’t make hot videogames or consoles. But with little fanfare, CEO Tim Cook has turned the maker of the iPhone into one of the world’s largest videogame companies. The key is the App Store.
Apple raked in more profits from games than Xbox maker Microsoft, gaming giants Nintendo and Activision Blizzard, and PlayStation maker Sony—combined—in its fiscal year 2019. Apple’s operating profits from games that year totaled $8.5 billion, exceeding the other four companies’ combined gaming operating incomes in the same period.
Apple’s dominance, however, is under threat. The risk for Apple is that its role as the gatekeeper between the gaming world and its more than 1 billion iPhone users as well as the fee it collects as the middleman could be disrupted. Another threat to Apple’s profit engine comes from China. New rules in that country aim to decrease the number of hours young people can play games.
6. Funding, IPOs, M&As
📦 Noon To Bring In $2 Billion: The Middle Easter rival to Amazon will bring in financing from investors such as the Saudi Wealth Fund.
🖥 GitLab Aims For $9 Billion Valuation In IPO: The coding platform is looking to raise up to $624 million through a U.S. IPO.
📦 Rent The Runway Files For IPO: The digital clothing rental platform plans to list on the Nasdaq under “RENT.”
🔒 One Identity Acquires OneLogin: Terms for the deal were not disclosed. OneLogin last raised $100 Million in 2019.
📈 Ajaib Raises $153 Million: The Indonesian online stock trading platform is now valued at $1 billion. DST Global led the round.
🕹 Sky Mavis To Nab $150 MIllion Series B: Led by a16z, the NFT game maker of Axie Infinity is valued at $3 billion.
☁️ Cover Genius Boost Valuation With $100 Million: The Aussie insurance startup is now valued at just over $729 million.
📦 Ula Receives $87 Million Series B: The Indonesian e-commerce startup has raised funds with participation from Jeff Bezos.
🛵 All Day Kitchens Raises $65 Million Series C: The startup wants to expand every independent restaurant’s delivery network.
🏗 Schüttflix Gets $50 Million: German consutrution site builk materials markplace Schüttflix has raised new funds.
🚚 Beacon Announces $50 Million: Beacon is a U.K.-based digital supply chain freight platform maker.
📱 1NCE Lands $50 Million: The German IoT connectivity specialist has raised new funds led by SoftBank and Deutsche Telekom.
🚘 AutoLeap Brings In $18 Million Series A: Toronto-based AutoLeap drives technology for car repair shops.
🖥 Orchest Secures $3.5 Million: Orchest is working to provide a simpler way to build data pipelines.
As always, please feel free to share questions, feedback, or requests for future newsletters.
Cheers!
Eric
#BeAmbitious