🍟 Football fever
Crypto.com partners with Coca-Cola to celebrate the World Cup, Beyond Meat continues to have mounting problems, and we found the most-searched term in 2022 so far!
Happy Saturday everyone! It’s World Cup season and everyone’s going crazy over it. Well, we sure are!
This week had some exciting news apart from the World Cup, so what exactly happened this week in the finance, tech, and startup world? 🌎
What Happened This Week?
10 finance, tech, and startup stories in 271 super short seconds.
🪙 Crypto.com collaborates with Coca-Cola to launch NFTs celebrating the FIFA World Cup - Crypto.com said it would be hosting on its blockchain 10,000 NFTs created by Coca-Cola and digital artist GMUNK. The NFTs were produced by tracking via so-called “heatmaps” the in-game movements of players during matches at the Qatar World Cup. Fans can buy the NFTs after they sign up for a Crypto.com NFT platform account.
🔎 What was the most-searched term on Google was in 2022? No hints! - Admit it: You’ve probably either Googled the answer for Wordle, or at the very least searched to play it. Turns out, you’re not alone. Google has revealed that “Wordle” is its most-searched term this year in the United States and globally, beating perhaps more newsier topics, such as “election results” and “Betty White” in the United States, and “Queen Elizabeth” and “Ukraine” globally.
🛒 Amazon launches Inspire, a TikTok-like shopping feed that supports both photos and videos - Amazon is bringing a TikTok-like shopping experience to its app. The company today announced the launch of Inspire, a new short-form video and photo feed that allows consumers to explore products and ideas and shop from content created by influencers, brands and other customers. The feature is designed to draw consumers’ attention away from apps like TikTok, where brands can directly market to consumers, in order to drive sales on Amazon.com instead.
🎮 Microsoft says it has reached a 10-year deal to bring ‘Call of Duty’ to Nintendo - Fans of the popular first-person shooter game “Call of Duty” may soon have more options for where they can play it. Microsoft said late Tuesday it has reached a 10-year deal to bring the 19-year-old game franchise to Nintendo after its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which makes the game, is completed. “Call of Duty” is arguably the most popular game title today, so the impact to consumers is notable. As of 2020, the game had topped 250 million downloads worldwide.
🎒 India’s Uolo raises $22.5M to bring edtech to the masses - Uolo, an Indian edtech platform that works with private K-12 schools to offer online learning programs to middle and low-income families, has raised $22.5 million in a funding round led by UAE-headquartered VC fund Winter Capital. Uolo operates in a B2B2C model, working with private schools to let them offer online learning programs to their students and levy the charges as part of the school fees.
📱Telegram Premium crosses 1 million subscribers within 6 months of launch - Telegram Premium has amassed more than 1 million subscribers, less than 6 months after the popular instant messaging app launched the paid offering and began a serious effort to monetize the business. Telegram founder Pavel Durov called the milestone “one of the most successful examples of a social media subscription plan ever launched.”
🐼 foodpanda partners Huawei to pre-install its app on new Huawei mobile devices, to engage new customers - The partnership means that the foodpanda app will come pre-installed on millions of new Huawei mobile devices across Southeast Asia. Since 1 November 2022, the foodpanda app has been available to Huawei smartphone users in foodpanda’s 11 markets. As part of the joint marketing efforts, Huawei will also run promotional campaigns in collaboration with foodpanda.
🍷 MarginEdge lands $45M to give restaurants real-time spend data - The global restaurant management software market is forecasted to reach $14.7 billion by 2030. MarginEdge, a restaurant management and bill payment platform, is the latest to secure some fresh capital, $45 million in Series C funding, bringing its funding to date to over $71 million. In the past year, MarginEdge grew its revenue 100% and is now working with 4,000 customers and processing 80,000 invoices per week.
🚀 Japanese billionaire Maezawa picks K-pop star TOP, DJ Steve Aoki to join SpaceX moon trip - Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa revealed on Friday that K-pop star TOP and DJ Steve Aoki will be among the eight crew members he plans to take on a trip around the moon as soon as next year, hitching a ride on one of Elon Musk's SpaceX rockets. Maezawa bought every seat on the maiden lunar voyage, which has been in the works since 2018 and would follow his trip on a Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) for a 12-day stint last year.
🥩 Beyond Meat's very real problems: slumping sausages, mounting losses - A slew of problems have stalled the growth of Beyond Meat that include declining sales, a reduction in global workforce by over 20% since August, and a drop in its stock by about 77% so far this year. Interest in plant-based meats has waned as consumers focus on shopping for affordable basics, while cash-strapped customers are also pulling back on dining out, making Beyond more vulnerable.
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