For those of you who have been following me on Twitter, you may know about my deep interest in personal tokenization. While I don’t yet have a concrete plan or timeline, I am exploring this with Synthesis. More to come over the following months—stay tuned!
Top News of the Week:
China says it won’t approve TikTok deal—calls it ‘extortion’ (link)
Social Capital is raising $2B for 3 new SPACs (link)
Illumina re-acquires its own spinout Grail for $8B (link)
Microsoft acquires Bethesda Studios for $7.5B to boost Xbox (link)
U.S. OCC allows banks to bank stablecoin issuers (link)
Weekly Synthesis:
This week, acquisitions (Illumina, Microsoft, Apple, Iliad) and SPACs as a means to go public continued to gain steam. After last week’s SPAC merger with Opendoor, Chamath filed for another three SPACs, Peter Thiel for one focused on Southeast Asia, and United Wholesale Mortgage merged with a SPAC for a $16B IPO. Also this week, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a letter permitting banks to custody the reserves of stablecoin issuers (e.g., Circle), marking another major regulatory milestone opening up the doors for mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies—starting with stablecoins.
Latest Blog and Startups:
This week, I published a piece titled “NFTs Should Be Designed As Experiences, Not Products” in The Defiant—outlining how crypto’s recent obsession with non-fungible tokens (i.e., crypto tokens that can represent unique products or things) needs to be reframed for NFTs to reach mainstream adoption (image from the post below). Also, this week was a big week for a number of startups in our network: Braintrust, Fairmint, Optimism, NEAR, and Blocknative. (News is below.)
Covid-19 Related News:
Apple CEO sees permanent change in work due to Covid (link)
Zoom for schools raises $16M from GSV, Emergence (link)
New startup recruits gig workers to evict people from homes (link)
Pandemic accelerated cord cutting—worst year for pay TV (link)
Artificial Intelligence:
Two-thirds believe chip implants will mainstream by 2035 (link)
Papa raises $18M to connect elderly with virtual companions (link)
Autonomous & Mobility:
Uber investors pressure CEO to revamp self-driving unit (link)
China’s Didi partners with BYD on electric vehicles (link)
China EV maker WM Motor raises $1.5B Series D (link)
Locomation’s autonomous tech to be installed in 1,000 trucks (link)
Fintech:
Credit card disruptor Petal raises $55M from Valar (link)
Revenue-based financing startup Uncapped raises $26M (link)
Singapore robo-advisor Syfe raises $19M from Valar (link)
Kard raises $3.5M for challenger bank for teens (link)
Blockchain & Crypto:
Coinbase poaches execs from Venmo, Adobe, Google (link)
Venezuela legalizes crypto mining—if part of national pool (link)
CIA’s new R&D lab to study blockchain technology (link)
Morgan Beller, co-creator of Libra, leaves and joins NFX (link)
Consumer Tech:
Ring launches security cam that can fly around house (link)
Spotify, Match launch coalition against Apple App Store (link)
Stitch Fix’s revenue growth is slowing (link)
Cuban, Benioff invest in bamboo toilet paper startup (link)
AR / VR and Gaming:
Amazon launches cloud gaming service Luna (link)
Why Magic Leap failed: hype and overspending (link)
Playco raises $100M Series A @ $1B valuation (link)
Blizzard co-founder launches new gaming startup Dreamhaven (link)
Enterprise Tech:
Google launches Tables, an Airtable competitor (link)
Microsoft launches Twilio competitor (link)
Mozilla spins out WebThings IoT project (link)
Supply chain digitizer Silo raises $9M from a16z (link)
Venture Capital:
DiCaprio invests in VC to build out LA tech scene (link)
Peter Thiel files for $575M SPAC focused on Southeast Asia (link)
Spotify CEO to invest $1.2B of wealth into European moonshots (link)
Mergers and Acquisitions:
Apple acquires podcasting startup Scout FM (link)
Iliad acquires Play telecom for 2.2B euros (link)
WeWork sells majority stake in China business (link)
Amazon-backed fitness startup Aaptiv exploring sale (link)
IPOs:
Deliveroo is planning to IPO amid delivery spike (link)
United Wholesale Mortgage to go public at $16B via SPAC (link)
Tech vs. Government:
Chevron asks employees to delete WeChat after U.S. ban (link)
New ruling forces Uber, Lyft to offer full-time benefits (link)
Nikola founder resigns as chairman amid fraud allegations (link)
IDEO CoLab Ventures Startup News:
Braintrust: tech must radically rethink gig economy (link)
Fairmint launches “Continuous SAFE” model (link)
Optimism announces testnet rollout plan (link)
NEAR mainnet is now community operated (link)
Blocknative launches mempool explorer (link)
About Synthesis
Synthesis is a weekly newsletter of the top tech and innovation news for busy executives. Stay up to date, and save time. Delivered every Friday.
About the Author
I’m Ian. I’ve been in the venture and corporate innovation space for the last 10 years and helped build and operate investing, venturing, and innovation units at IDEO, Citigroup, and Deloitte. You can find me on Twitter here, mostly rambling about the latest in decentralization and crypto.
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