Contrary Research Rundown #120
Launching the Contrary Tech Trends report, plus new memos on Optimizely, Carta, and more
Research Rundown
Contrary Research exists as a way to explore the most important ideas that are shaping technology companies today. But at Contrary, we often say that ideas aren’t worth very much if there aren’t people willing to put them into action.
That’s why, this week, Contrary announced the launch of our annual Tech Trends Report. This is a 300+ page report on 14 of the most important trends that are shaping the world around us. When people look to build businesses, they typically canvas at the cutting edges of technological or societal shifts (or sometimes both).
After writing hundreds of company memos, dozens of industry reports, and 43 essays across important areas of technology we started to realize these important trends were coming up over and over again.
The rate of GPU performance getting on par with Moore’s Law, the electrification of the world’s energy consumption (and China’s dominance in producing it), the 5x explosion in battery capacity, the plateauing of nuclear power generation, and plane speed stagnation.
The same is true around societal shifts that are happening. Regardless of age, race, or gender, people are lonelier than ever, AI dating is sparking interest while fertility rates plummet, and gastrointestinal cancers among 15-39 year olds has increased dramatically while 40% of cancers are preventable.
Generational opportunities arise amidst dramatic change. When change happens, it can lead to indecision and confusion, but out of that turmoil is where you typically uncover the forces that can reshape the world as we know it.
The trends highlighted in our report represent those types of opportunities. Whether its the cutting edge of advancement, or a cutting edge that has been left behind, it creates opportunities to push forward progress.
Hopefully digging in can be just the spark you need to figure out where you’re going to contribute.
Optimizely, branded as an “all-in-one operating system for marketing”, is a platform that includes a suite of AI-powered tools to help teams manage their digital content and optimize digital experiences. To learn more, read our full memo here and check out some open roles below:
Site Reliability Engineer I - Nashua, NH, Minneapolis, MN or Austin, TX
Senior Product Manager - Nashua, NH, Minneapolis, MN or Austin, TX
Carta was built as a platform to manage a company’s cap table and has expanded to address the broader suite of needs in managing an organization’s financial and operational complexity. To learn more, read our full memo here and check out some open roles below:
Senior Data Scientist I - San Francisco, CA, Seattle, WA or New York, NY
Senior Full Stack Software Engineer (Financial Products & Infrastructure) - Seattle, WA
Check out some standout roles from this week.
Armada | Bellevue, WA - AI Engineer, Engineering Manager, Go Developer, Software Engineer (Azure Stack & Azure ARC)
Pave | San Francisco, CA - Engineering Manager (Developer Platform), Senior Security Engineer, Senior Software Engineer (Developer Platform), Senior Technical Product Manager
Hadrian | Los Angeles, CA - Backend Software Engineer (CMM Team), Frontend Fullstack Software Engineer (CAM Team), Founding Engineer (Special Projects Division)
Clay recently raised a new $40 million investment that values the company at $1.25 billion, more than doubling its valuation in just six months.
Neko Health, founded by Spotify's Daniel Ek, has raised $260 million in Series B funding, bringing its valuation to $1.7 billion as it expands its preventative healthcare services globally.
Deepseek emerged as a side project from one of China's top quantitative hedge funds. Deepseek’s model matches or exceeds OpenAI's latest model, but charges only 3% of the price.
Alpha School claims its students consistently score in the 90th+ percentile on national standardized tests, despite only spending 2 hours per day in traditional classroom instruction.
Divvy Homes, a rent-to-own startup, is being acquired by Brookfield Properties for around $1 billion, less than its previous $2.3 billion valuation.
Ramp is expanding into digital banking territory with a new treasury product that allows businesses to earn 2.5% interest on their cash deposits, encroaching on the territory of traditional banks.
Meta is joining as a "strategic investor" in Databricks' $15.3 billion financing round valuing the company at $62 billion.
Some investors are skeptical that the current boom in AI-driven startup revenue will last, despite the rapid growth in this area.
Attentive, an SMS messaging marketing startup, has reached $500 million in annual recurring revenue.
The Stargate Project will invest $500 billion over the next four years to build new AI infrastructure in the U.S., securing American leadership in AI and creating hundreds of thousands of American jobs.
Big tech companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon can afford to make massive AI investments without immediate pressure for ROI, as long as their overall financial performance remains strong.
Stoke Space has raised $260 million in new Series C funding, more than doubling their total funding to $480 million.
Despite laying off 300 employees, Stripe plans to grow its headcount by 17% to reach around 10,000 employees by the end of 2025.
Mistral AI’s CEO stated the company is not for sale and is instead working towards an initial public offering.
In our latest episode of Research Radio, we sat down with Base Power Co-Founders Zach Dell (CEO) & Justin Lopas (COO). You can check out the full episode here.
At Contrary Research, we’ve built the best starting place to understand private tech companies. We can't do it alone, nor would we want to. We focus on bringing together a variety of different perspectives.
That's why applications are open for our Research Fellowship. In the past, we've worked with software engineers, product managers, investors, and more. If you're interested in researching and writing about tech companies, apply here!