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"One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind"
Billionaire Richard Branson’s space travel company Virgin Galactic received authorization to fly paying customers to space. 🚀
Program of the day :
📰 Extra! Extra! Weekly news
🚀 Fundraisings, acquisitions and IPOs of the week
💡 Topic of the week: Competition and “change” in the video game industry
🔎 Internship and job offers
😍 VC of the week: Salomon Aiach
👋 High Five!
📰 Extra! Extra! Weekly news
💻 Instagram may soon let you post from desktop.
After more than a decade of solely focusing on its mobile product, Instagram is thinking of allowing users to post their feed from their desktop computers. A number of Twitter users noticed that the test feature had gone live on Thursday, and Instagram confirmed the test.
🍪 Google postpones its ban on cookie trackers until 2023, a year or so later than originally planned.
Other browsers like Safari and Firefox have already implemented some blocking against third-party tracking cookies, but Chrome is the most-used desktop browser, and so its shift will be more consequential for the ad industry.
📺 Netflix, Amazon, etc. : the British government wants to regulate platforms like TV channels.
Television channels in Britain must follow a broadcasting code set by regulator the Office of Communications (Ofcom) covering areas such as harmful content and requiring impartiality in news programmes. But online streaming platforms face lighter regulation, primarily limited to protecting children and preventing content that incites hatred. Netflix and Apple TV are not regulated at all in Britain. The reforms also aim to increase public service broadcasters' online prominence to ensure their programmes can be found and accessed easily on smart TVs and other devices.
👋 After Instagram, Facebook bets on WhatsApp to fulfill its ambitions in e-commerce.
It should soon be easier to spend money via Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announcing four new shopping features Tuesday. Coming soon to the social media platforms: Shops on WhatsApp and Marketplace, Instagram Visual Search and Shop Ads.
Shops on WhatsApp will allow users to chat with businesses before buying something from them. Shops on Marketplace will let sellers set up an online store right on Facebook with on-site checkout.
Instagram Visual Search will help you find products based on images you like, while Shop Ads will personalize the shopping experience and point you to a Shop's curated collection.
🐤 Twitter allows its stars to offer paid content to diversify its revenue sources.
Twitter announced Tuesday that a small number of users with a large audience on the platform in the United States will be able to test new features allowing them to offer paid formats and subscriptions.
On “Ticketed Spaces”, Twitter stars will be able to sell virtual tickets to audio events, for prices ranging from $ 1 to $ 999.
The “super” subscribers can, for their part, pay monthly packages of $ 3, $ 5 or $ 10 to access exclusive content.
Twitter will touch 3% of total revenue from “Ticketed Spaces” or “Super Follows” below $ 50,000. Beyond this amount, the social network will take a 20% commission.
These revenues could allow the company to diversify its sources of revenue, which currently rely heavily on advertising.
🎙️ Facebook launches live audio chat Greenroom tool, a direct competitor to Clubhouse.
Facebook, which has said it wants to make audio a "first-class medium" on its platforms, joins Twitter and messaging platform Discord which have already launched their own live audio offerings. Spotify debuted its own version, "Greenroom," 10 days ago. Slack, LinkedIn and Reddit are also working on similar products.
🚀 Fundraisings, acquisitions and IPOs of the week
💳 Mollie (Series C): Dutch fintech, founded in 2004 by Adriaan Mol and specializing in online payment tools for e-merchants, becomes the third largest FinTech in Europe after raising €665M. Mollie has developed a secure solution for all classic and recurring payments. It emphasizes simple and transparent pricing and non-binding contracts since e-merchants only pay for successful transactions. More details
📞 Aircall (Series D): The cloud-based enterprise telephony startup, created in 2014 within the startup-studio e-founder, becomes the 16th French unicorn on the occasion of a raise of $120M and aims for an IPO on the Nasdaq. More details
🎓 GoStudent (Series C): The Vienna-based online tutoring start-up, raises €205M and becomes Europe’s first education technology — or edtech — unicorn. More details
💸 Bling (Unknown Series): The cash-on-demand service, which makes it possible to troubleshoot up to 100 euros for its users, raises €10M to expand in Europe and surround itself with a hundred additional employees. More details (in french)
🏛️ Tink (Acquisition): Visa buys Swedish FinTech Tink for €1.8B. Tink is developing an open banking platform allowing connection to more than 2,500 European institutions, and obtaining financial data via a single API. More details
🎙️ Podz (Acquisition): While Apple launched paid podcasts on its dedicated platform last Tuesday, Spotify also recently launched a paid podcast subscription trial and has just acquired the startup Podz to strengthen its dedicated podcast offering. Amount unknown. More details
👠 Spartoo (IPO): The e-commerce specialist (shoes and fashion), originally from Grenoble in the French Alps, goes public in Paris on July 7 and wants to raise €25M via a capital increase to accelerate its development in shoes, small decoration, interior decoration, but also to develop its brand acquisition strategy, its notoriety and continue to open stores. More details (in french)
💡 Topic of the week: Competition and “change” in the video game industry
Microsoft just announced during its conference Thursday, June 24, that it will strengthen the role of gaming in the next version of its Windows 11 operating system. Among the most important new features is the native integration of Xbox Game Pass into the Xbox app.
As a reminder, Xbox Game Pass is a Cloud Gaming subscription service giving access to a very large catalog of constantly evolving games in exchange for monthly billing.
What is cloud gaming ?
Cloud Gaming, or GaaS for Game as a Service, allows users to enjoy a video game experience on all types of devices using an Internet connection, without using a traditional console. In practice, players can play thanks to the Internet and the Cloud in which the games and equipment are hosted. The idea is revolutionary as it breaks down the usual barriers of hardware constraints and could further democratize video games. This market is in full development, it already weighs 180 billion dollars and is expected to grow by 5% each year until 2025. It is therefore gradually attracting the initiatives of the biggest players in the entertainment and cloud sectors, and not only historical players in video games.
Despite the potential brought by the cloud in the field of video games, certain significant barriers persist. The need to have a good connection to use the service, the number of games available and the absence of the biggest players waiting for the service to be much more mature and developed are evidence showing that the Cloud Gaming market is far from being ready. If this revolution will only be a real success in a few years, but entertainment and cloud players decide to take the risk of launching today despite the many limitations of the market that don't always depend on them, it is logical that we ask ourselves the following question:
Is it necessary for entertainment players today to embark on the Cloud Gaming revolution to become industry leaders tomorrow?
To answer this problem, we will first look at the level of maturity and development of the Cloud Gaming market. Then, we will try to understand why the entertainment and cloud players are choosing to get started today.
I. Level of maturity and development of the Cloud Gaming market
Cloud Gaming is not that new. Indeed, at the beginning of the 2000s, when internet connections were still weak, G-Cluster launched a box which would allow, via the internet, to launch a game on your TV without having to download it. In 2002, the Xbox connected its home console to the Internet and propelled video games into the new era of online gaming. Finally, in 2010, the American OnLive Game System added the use of a controller via a box connected to a PC, Mac, Android tablet or connected TV. Here again, the low power of internet connections was the thorn in the side of the project. At the same time, SFR offered a similar service on its Neufbox equipment which, with the addition of internet to the box, made it possible to play without a game console. Bouygues Télécom and Orange soon followed with similar services. Orange, via Orange Games, has been offering a gaming service since 2013 which has gradually been transformed into a cloud gaming offer, with more than 250 games in its catalog and an all-inclusive service.
Some more recent services then offered players an innovative gaming experience through digital games. On the pure player side, Sony via its Playstation Store and Microsoft via Microsoft's Xbox Play Anywhere offered, for every purchase, cloud access to all library games on several devices. Electronic Arts for its part, offered EA access, a video game cloud service available on Microsoft's Xbox One since August 2014, which was extended in July 2019 to Sony's Playstation 4.
In 2014, we saw the launch of the “Netflix for Gaming” offer with the arrival of Playstation Now. Sony, with the acquisition of Gaikai in 2012, a pioneer in the Cloud Gaming industry, lauched its Playstation Now service in 2014 in US, then in 2017 in France for a monthly subscription of 14.99 euros. The service, with a catalog of more than 700 PS3 and PS4 games in the cloud then offered streaming quality depending on the strength of the user's Internet connection. The service is still very popular and enjoys exceptional profitability thanks to the popularity of the PS4 and of the PS5 now.
In May 2017, Xbox launched a similar service with the Xbox Pass, a monthly subscription to Microsoft's service allowing access to unlimited games with a monthly subscription.
Bolstered by growing investments from major players in the video game industry, but also from players such as telecom operators, the Cloud Gaming market has undergone remarkable development in 10 years and promises to shake up the future of gaming.
While the prospects are numerous, especially with the gradual deployment of 5G around the world which will increase network performance and equipment capacities tenfold thanks to significant reductions in latencies, the Cloud Gaming market awaits the deployment of these technologies and the efforts of creators to adapt games to online platforms in order to succeed in attracting the biggest players and thus reverse the balance in their favor. These changes risk to delay the real success of cloud gaming for at least a few years. The abandonment of CEO of Amazon Luna (Amazon's cloud gaming service) and the uncertain future of Google Stadia support the doubts of this market.
II. Enter the Cloud Gaming market
But if the current state of the Cloud Gaming market seems so uncertain, why are so many players getting started or thinking about it?
The entry into the non-mature Cloud Gaming market of many entertainment and cloud players may pay off in several years. Because if we notice that Stadia now has an underdeveloped game catalog, one of the reasons for its low success, the company could enjoy a pioneering advantage in a few years. Despite an often higher entry cost (R&D, establishment, communication, consumer education, uncertainty of the market response, rapid technological change, etc.), the first mover generally benefits from consumer preference and is more likely to retain loyalty. The players can for example rely on the barriers to exit (switching costs) developed by consumers, once the learning relationship has been developed. But the first mover also has the possibility of identifying and positioning itself in the most profitable segment(s). The first to be able to fully understand the market is often, in the Cloud Gaming industry in particular, the one who will benefit first from an experience effect, use the most efficient distribution channel, choose the most efficient positioning and benefit from stronger brand recognition. And thanks to that, he might well be the one who wins.
This is also the case with Uber in a totally different industry. The transport company is known to never have been profitable, but it invests heavily in the development of self-driving car technology. Despite its colossal losses, its pioneering advantage and status as a market leader could secure it incredible profits once it reaches its goal: remove drivers from Uber cars.
In the case of Cloud Gaming, the announcement of various partnerships, both between Nintendo and Microsoft, and Sony and Microsoft, suggests that the youngest of the gang, Stadia, will have to fight hard to have its share of the pie.
The first attempts at Cloud Gaming (OnLive, Gaika) failed mainly because of a fundamental problem of cloud gaming: providers had to create a global network of servers or attract a partner in the country that already had such a network of servers. The server's hardware and connectivity requirements are also much higher than, for example, a server that provides music or videos for on-demand services. We are facing a new world that will surely revolutionize video games. The platforms of Microsoft, Google and perhaps also Amazon have the best conditions to win in the long term. Hopefully, the mobile data connection will only keep pace with the development of cloud gaming, because without fast data connections with short latency times, gaming on the go will not be fun. However, if the Cloud Gaming market seemed to be suffering some setbacks, especially at the beginning of the year, the pioneering advantage of some could prove to be a winning strategy in the long term.
by Loup Audouy
🔎 Internship and job offers
🇺🇸 Chainlink Labs - Principal, Venture Investments (Austin)
🇫🇮 Elisa - Startup Analyst (Helsinki)
🇳🇱 Kubota Holdings Europe - VC and M&A Analyst (Amsterdam)
🇦🇺 AirTree - Investment Associate (Sydney)
🇩🇪 Cherry Ventures - Investment & Investor Relations Internship (Berlin)
🇩🇪 Superlyst Ventures - VC Analyst Working Student (Munich)
🇰🇪 Quona Capital - Investment Analyst (Nairobi)
🇸🇦 Plug and Play Tech Center - Program & Ventures Manager (Riyadh)
🇨🇭 TX Group AG - Investment Manager (Zurich)
🇧🇪🇬🇧🇱🇺 DLF Venture - VC Investment Associate (Brussels, London, Luxembourg)
🇩🇪 Curious Capital - VC Analyst / Entrepreneur in Residence (Cologne)
🇩🇪 Gimv - Analyst, Health & Care (Munich)
🇨🇭 CV VC - VC Investment Manager (Zug)
😍 VC of the week: Salomon Aiach @ Facebook France
The VC of the week is Salomon Aiach !
Salomon Aiach is a French entrepreneur who joined Goldman Sachs in 2015 and spent 4 years at the New York office. In 2019 he was recruited by Facebook France as Head of Startup and Venture Capital.
When we talk about Facebook, it is either a social media firm or a business partner. Plot twist: with 39 million active users per month in France, companies needed a presence on Facebook.
The "helping" thesis is simple: support 10 to 15 French startups that have raised at least €3 million and already have an acquisition team in place, every 6 months.
The goal is even simpler: to help startups create products related to Facebook, make them levers of their development and optimize their creations on the platform.
So he isn't really a VC, more a Head of Startups, but processes have similarities: on startups analysis, on selection choices as well as the KPIs taken into account and analyzed over the support period.
He was trained in the US with solid experiences at Capgemini and Goldman Sachs that give him 3 key skills:
A forward-looking vision of the startup ecosystem
Increased skills in analysis but also mergers and acquisitions of startups
The way an American company works
Today, he intends to further develop the French ecosystem as a whole, both on the startup side and on the investment fund side (thanks to close relations between VC funds and FB), so as not to lose the great momentum France has achieved for several years in entrepreneurial success.
Thank you Salomon.
👋 High Five!
5 ressources that WILL help your business, make you smarter or just showing off during a meal with friends or partners.
Do you want to know how to learn anything FASTER? Ali Abdaal has the solution here
Fact: Half of the world's population has a smartphone, according to Strategy Analytics
Andreessen Horowitz raised $ 2.2 billion crypto fund.
Microsoft hits $ 2 trillion market cap for 1st time in 40 years and announces Windows 11
Africrypt's founders pack up with 3.6 billion in their pocket and disappear
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