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Image Credits: Nigel Sussman
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I’ve always used cash infrequently, but since the COVID-19 era began, I have withdrawn money from an ATM just a few times. For more than a year, nearly all of my transactions have been cloud-based.
More consumers are going cashless, which is good news for payments platforms: Marqeta is one of several companies that’s seeing rapid growth recently; late last week, it filed an S-1 that will take its “modern card issuing and transaction processing” platform public.
In today’s edition of The Exchange, Alex Wilhelm explains the inner workings of Marqeta’s business before diving into its operating results.
“The company’s two key revenue sources are both growing like a weed, adjusted profits have arrived, and GAAP losses are falling,” writes Alex. “It’s a solid package,” but he also notes several caveats to consider.
For starters, Marqeta’s growth is “highly dependent” on Square’s fortunes, he concludes. In a subsequent post, he’ll look at Flywire, a global payments company that also filed to go public recently.
Thanks very much for reading Extra Crunch; have a great week!
Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch
@yourprotagonist
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Image Credits: Andrii Yalanskyi / Getty Images
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The ability to effectively communicate can make or break your launch. It will play a role in determining who wins a new space — you or a competitor.
So how do you make a splash? How do you stay relevant?
For one, you have to stop thinking that what you are up to is interesting.
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Image Credits: Bryce Durbin
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Until recently, integrating affordable voice-recognition software into an automobile was something from science fiction.
But last year, the percentage of vehicles offering in-car connected services reached 45%. By 2024, analysts predict cars with voice recognition will comprise 60% of the market.
Considering how much time many of us spend behind the wheel, there’s an infinite number of applications for the technology.
For our latest Extra Crunch market map, we sized up the general market opportunity before creating a roster of major players and reaching out to investors to see where they’re placing bets.
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Image Credits: Nigel Sussman
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After years in the backwaters of venture capital, edtech had a booming 2020. Not only did its products become must-haves after schools around the globe went remote, but investors also poured capital into leading projects. There was even some exit activity, with well-known edtech players like Coursera going public earlier this year.
But despite a rush of private capital — which has continued into this year, as we’ll demonstrate — edtech stocks have taken a hammering in recent weeks. So while venture capitalists and other startup investors are pumping more capital into the space in hopes of future outsize returns, the stock market is signaling that things might be heading in the other direction.
Who’s right?
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Image Credits: Eoneren / Getty Images
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Whether you’re building a company or thinking about investing, it’s important to understand your strategic advantage.
In order to determine one, you should ask fundamental questions: What’s the long-term, sustainable reason that the company will stay in business?
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Image Credits: Fanatic Studio / Getty Images
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The global pandemic has changed the way we work, including how and where we work. For those involved in the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) industry, a notoriously relationship-driven business, this has meant in-person boardroom handshakes have been replaced by video conference calls, remote collaboration and potentially less travel in the future.
The pandemic has also accelerated digital transformation, and deal-makers have embraced digital tools to help them execute effectively.
The quickening pace of digital transformation is no longer about ensuring a competitive edge. Today, it’s also about business resilience. But what’s on the horizon, and how else will technology evolve to meet the needs of companies and deal-makers?
There are still many inefficiencies in managing M&A, but technologies such as artificial intelligence, especially machine learning, are helping to make the process faster and easier.
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Image Credits: Malte Mueller / Getty Images
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Lew Cirne, New Relic’s founder and CEO, is stepping into the executive chairman role. He will be replaced by Bill Staples on July 1.
Cirne spent the last several years rebuilding the company’s platform and changing its revenue model, aiming for what he hopes is long-term success.
TechCrunch decided to dig into the company’s financials to see just what challenges Staples may face as he moves into the corner office.
The resulting picture is one that shows a company doing hard work for a more future-aligned product map and business model, albeit one that may not generate the sort of near-term growth that gives Staples ample breathing room with public investors.
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Image Credits: Nigel Sussman
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At long last, the Monday.com crew dropped an F-1 filing to go public in the United States. TechCrunch has long known that the company, which sells corporate productivity and communications software, has scaled north of $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR).
The countdown to its IPO filing — an F-1, because the company is based in Israel, rather than the S-1s filed by domestic companies — has been ticking for several quarters.
The Exchange has been riffling through the document since it came out, and we’ve picked up on a few things to explore.
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Image Credits: Teera Konakan / Getty Images
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Bright Machines is going public via a SPAC-led combination, a transaction that will see the 3-year-old company merge with SCVX, raising gross cash proceeds of $435 million in the process.
After the transaction is consummated, the startup will sport an anticipated equity valuation of $1.6 billion.
The Bright Machines news indicates that the great SPAC chill was not a deep freeze. And the transaction itself, in conjunction with the previously announced Desktop Metal blank-check deal, implies that there is space in the market for hardware startup liquidity via SPACs.
Perhaps that will unlock more late-stage capital for hardware-focused upstarts.
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Image Credits: Sujin Jetkasettakorn / EyeEm / Getty Images
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Does it really take an average of seven to eight years for a successful startup to exit? What can early-stage founders do to accelerate outcomes?
Venture engine M13 looked at years of data from hundreds of successful startups to find out.
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Image Credits: Georgijevic / Getty Images
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Digital health in the U.S. got a huge boost from COVID-19 as more people started consulting physicians and urgent care providers remotely. So much so, McKinsey estimates that up to $250 billion of the current healthcare expenditure in the U.S. has the potential to be spent virtually.
The prominence of digital health is undoubtedly here to stay, but how it looks and feels from provider to provider is still a debate among sector startups.
But for providers who want to deliver care virtually across the country, it’s not as simple as adding a Zoom invite to an annual check-up. The process requires intention every step of the way — right from the clinicians delivering remote care to the choice of payment processor.
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Image Credits: Getty Images under a MirageC license.
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Email marketing has been with us for decades, but today it has been refined to a science and an art form.
If you’re an early-stage founder, it is one of the best ways to build and grow your direct relationship with your customer. You know how fickle the platforms can be. You can’t afford to mess this up.
So when and how should you think about doing email marketing, versus all of your other frantic priorities?
Here at Extra Crunch, we’re helping you find the answers. Today, we’re launching a survey of founders who want to recommend a great email marketer or agency they have worked with to the rest of the startup world.
Fill out the survey here.
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