🍟 Chips and brains
Elon's Neuralink to begin human trials, SBF says he "had a bad month", and GoPizza raises $45m!
Happy Saturday everyone! Can you believe that it’s already December? Time to get started on those New Year Resolutions!
Anyway, what happened this week in the finance, tech, and startup world? 🌎
What Happened This Week?
10 finance, tech, and startup stories in 171 super short seconds.
🧠 Elon Musk’s firm to implant chips in human brains within six months - Elon Musk expects a wireless brain chip developed by his company Neuralink to begin human clinical trials in six months, after the company missed earlier timelines set by him. The company is developing brain chip interfaces that it says could enable disabled patients to move and communicate again, with Musk adding on Wednesday that it will also target restoring vision.
🧨 Sam Bankman-Fried says he ‘never tried to commit fraud’ at FTX - Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said he “never tried to commit fraud” while admitting he made “a lot of mistakes” in the abrupt collapse of the cryptocurrency firm. Bankman-Fried said he “had a bad month” and was shocked by many of the details that surfaced amid FTX’s collapse, depicting the problems as having stemmed from lax oversight and corporate controls, emphasising that he should have no personal criminal liability in the collapse.
🏦 Jay Powell signals Fed will slow pace of rate rises next month - Jay Powell sent a strong signal that the Federal Reserve will slow the pace of interest rate rises next month in an otherwise hawkish speech warning the US central bank has a long way to go in its fight against inflation. The remarks from Powell suggest the Fed is preparing to “downshift” to a 0.5 percentage point increase when it gathers in two weeks, after it raised rates by 0.75 percentage points at each of its past four meetings.
👟 JD.com set to pull out from Indonesia and Thailand - JD.com is pondering a retreat from major markets in Southeast Asia, as the Chinese e-commerce giant sharpens its focus on cutting losses in the region and bolstering operations in its home market. Sources said that the company’s expansion in the two markets had cost it more than 10 billion yuan (US$1.39 billion) over the past eight years, with the company’s decision reflecting slowing e-commerce growth in Indonesia and Thailand, partially caused by the increased cost of living.
💵 TikTok looks to tech startups to jump-start e-commerce business - TikTok has called on a number of tech start ups including ChannelEngine, TalkShopLive and YunExpress to help improve its struggling ecommerce division. The doubling down on its ecommerce unit comes after the Chinese firm slashed its global revenue targets for the year by at least 20% in September as digital advertising slows.
🎮 Animoca Brands to launch $2b metaverse fund - Hong Kong-based VC and software company Animoca Brands is planning to launch a US$2 billion fund to finance metaverse businesses. The firm has made a staggering 66 investments in the first half of 2022, making the record for the most done in the cryptocurrency space. Animoca Brands was valued at US$5.9 billion last July, and raised $358 million at the beginning of 2022 to grow the open metaverse and support product development and licenses.
🪙 Binance re-enters Japanese crypto market with deal for Sakura - Binance is set to return to the Japanese market with a deal to buy Japanese crypto company Sakura Exchange BitCoin. The deal follows a trail of controversies for Binance in Japan, where regulators have repeatedly warned consumers that the exchange is conducting unauthorised transactions, and amid heightened scrutiny of the sector following the rapid collapse of rival exchange FTX.
🛎 Salesforce Co-CEO Bret Taylor steps down - Salesforce co-CEO and Vice Chair Bret Taylor will step down from his roles, with the move coming at a rocky time for Salesforce, whose shares have fallen around 40% since the start of this year. The announcement coincided with Salesforce’s Q3 earnings report, in which the company said it expected fourth quarter revenue at the low-end of analysts’ expectations. Salesforce’s stock fell more than 6% in after-hours trading following the announcements.
🍕South Korea-based pizza brand rounds up $45m in series C - South Korea-based pizza chain GoPizza has bagged US$25 million in a series C funding round to fuel its expansion plan in India, accumulating a total of $45m raised so far. The brand currently has 15 stores in the country and plans to increase its store number to 25 by the end of the year. The pizza chain also aims to expand into new markets, including Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and the US.
🎬 AMC and Zoom want you to take your next work meeting on the big screen - Zoom, along with AMC Theatres announced this week that they are partnering in an effort to bring conference calls to the big screen. The partnership with the nation’s largest theater chain, dubbed “Zoom Rooms at AMC,” will see AMC turn its movie screens into videoconferencing displays for audiences ranging in size from 75 to 150, AMC said in an announcement. Read more about it here.
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