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2022-02-14 10:00:02 𝚅𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝙲𝚊𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚕 𝙵𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙳𝚘𝚞𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝙻𝚊𝚜𝚝 𝚈𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝙵𝚘𝚛 𝚄𝚂 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚎𝚜

Venture capital poured $330 billion dollars into US start-ups last year, almost doubling the total from 2020, according to the latest data from Pitchbook.

That means the VC landscape has grown more than 7x in the last decade.

Much of that funding went to later-stage start-ups, who have demonstrated some kind of traction or product-market fit. That has meant a host of new "unicorns" (start-ups valued at more than $1bn), which has taken the total number of unicorns to more than 900+.

The market has been so hot that some lucky start-ups don't even need to spend much time fundraising... because they are the ones being pitched to. That has meant company valuations of 100x annual revenue in the extreme cases (or more)... which would probably sound like a joke to a time traveling investor from 2010.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-02-13 10:00:01 𝚃𝚒𝚔𝚃𝚘𝚔 𝚄𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝙰𝚛𝚎 𝚂𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙼𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝙼𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚃𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝙸𝚗 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙰𝚙𝚙

When it was first getting popular social media app TikTok was good at getting your attention for 5 or 10 minutes with its addictive viral videos, but initially at least, users weren't sticking around for that long.

According to a new report from App Annie, global TikTok users are now spending almost 20 hours a month on the app — more than the average for Instagram and the same as on Facebook.

In the US TikTok is already ahead of both platforms, grabbing an average of 25.6 hours of time from its users every month — equivalent to about 50 minutes of TikTok scrolling, or posting, every single day. For a completely fair comparison we'd need to add time spent from Facebook / Instagram users on the web, but even with that caveat TikTok's trajectory is impressive.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-02-12 10:00:01 𝙰𝚒𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝙴𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚌𝚜: 𝚂𝚝𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝙽𝚘𝚝 𝙴𝚊𝚜𝚢

It's still no fun to be an airline operator.

That was the short version of the update that American Airlines gave investors as the company reported a $780m operating loss for the last quarter of 2021, which is visualized above. That is the 8th quarterly operating loss that American Airlines has reported in a row.

The impact of the pandemic can't be overstated. Passenger numbers are still down 20-30% relative to 2019, and although some costs (like aircraft fuel, landing fees and maintenance) have come down, it's been nowhere near enough to compensate. Salaries and wages or the depreciation of assets that are getting older, are a lot harder to quickly reduce.

The latest thorn in the airline's side has been crew cancellations and bad weather. Over the 2 weeks starting Dec 25th, American Airlines had to cancel almost 1,500 flights.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-02-11 10:00:01 𝙼𝙾𝚁𝙴 𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙰

1) Tonga, reeling from the enormous volcano blast on Jan 15th, has been cut off from the internet. The country relies on a single subsea cable to connect to the internet that runs 514 miles between Tonga and Fiji.

2) A historically significant villa in Rome that is at the center of an inheritance battle went up for auction yesterday with a starting price of $534 million. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the auction attracted no bids.

3) More than 41,000 Americans underwent surgery for an organ transplant in 2021, setting a new record and a 6% increase on 2020.

4) SpaceX's Starlink has launched its 2,000th satellite into orbit in its bid to provide satellite internet access to the entire planet.

5) Investment bank Goldman Sachs made a record profit last year, but the final quarter of the year showed something of a slowdown, alongside higher wages for employees, sending shares down more than 7% in trading.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-02-10 10:00:01 𝙽𝚎𝚝𝚏𝚕𝚒𝚡 𝙿𝚛𝚒𝚌𝚎 𝚁𝚒𝚜𝚎𝚜: 𝙰 𝙱𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚏 𝙷𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢

Netflix and chill is not immune to inflation. This week the streaming giant announced that the cost of its monthly plans are set to rise. Netflix's premium package, which gives you 4K quality and more screens, is now set to cost almost $20 a month.

Thanks to some great historical research from our friends at The Verge, we can see that the premium package price is now up 66% since 2013, when it was just ~$12 / month.

We've charted before about how Netflix is running out of places to grow its subscriber base. In the US & Canada growth has slowed down to a trickle — meaning that Netflix has to find other ways to boost its revenue there. Price rises are the easiest.

A 10% price rise might cause a few cancellations, but it's unlikely to be anywhere near the same proportion of their customers which means this won't be the last Netflix price hike.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-02-10 09:00:05 The most incredible photos from space Open / Comment

2022-02-09 10:00:01 𝙲𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚊'𝚜 𝙱𝚒𝚛𝚝𝚑-𝚁𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝙵𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚜 𝚃𝚘 𝙰 𝙽𝚎𝚠 𝙰𝚕𝚕-𝚃𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝙻𝚘𝚠

For years, China had a population problem; too many people. That problem has now reversed as China's birth rate has collapsed in a fashion that few would have been bold enough to predict 20 or 30 years ago.

Data shows that across China 10.62 million babies were born in 2021, a rate of 7.5 for every 1,000 people. In the 1980s, even during the early years of the controversial one-child policy, that number was 23 babies per 1,000 people — meaning that birth rates have fallen almost 70% in just a generation or two.

China's slowing population growth might be good for the planet and resource-consumption, but it will mean China has to deal with an ageing and a "top-heavy" population. Even the relaxation of the one-child policy in 2015 has done nothing to re-invigorate a baby boom. India will soon become the world's most populous nation, likely in the next few years.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-02-08 19:27:46 Inflation is global! Your savings are vanishing every day. Do you know what's rising the most? Open / Comment

2022-02-08 10:00:02 𝙼𝚒𝚌𝚛𝚘𝚜𝚘𝚏𝚝 𝙸𝚜 𝚂𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙿𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝙾𝚏 𝙸𝚝𝚜 𝙱𝚒𝚐 𝙲𝚊𝚜𝚑 𝙱𝚊𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝙾𝚗 𝙰𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗

Recently Microsoft announced a deal to acquire gaming giant Activision Blizzard, the studio behind games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, for $68.7bn.

For most people it would be unusual to have a big pile of cash... and a big pile of debts, but in the corporate world that's quite common — and Microsoft is no exception. Microsoft has long term borrowings of more than $80bn, but over the last decade it's also accrued an enormous $130bn pile of cash.

So the fact that Microsoft is finally breaking its piggy bank and spending a big chunk of that cash for its largest-ever-acquisition is testament to just how badly it wants to get further into the gaming sector, strengthening its portfolio which already includes Xbox and Minecraft.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-02-07 10:00:01 𝙼𝙾𝚁𝙴 𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙰

1) Loan servicing giant Navient has agreed to cancel $1.7 billion in student loan debts owed by roughly 66,000 borrowers after agreeing to a settlement with 39 attorney generals.

2) Tesla has delayed production of its Cybertruck to 2023 according to a new report, at least 15 months behind the original schedule. Separately, Elon Musk kept up the Dogecoin joke, announcing that some Tesla merchandise would be purchasable with Dogecoin.

3) More than 1 million fewer students are enrolled in college now, relative to 2019, according to new data released.

4) Alternative meat company Beyond Meat has become the most-shorted company in the US, with bets against the company piling up after a softening growth outlook and mounting losses.

5) A rancher in Turkey has begun putting virtual reality headsets on his cattle in an effort to lower their stress levels, in the hope they produce more milk — and so far they seem to be.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment