Contrary Research Rundown #27
Fintech startups stepped up amidst SVB collapse, and new memos on Superhuman, Airtable and more
Research Rundown
For decades, Silicon Valley Bank has been a critical financing partner to the startup and venture capital ecosystem. In the past two weeks, fintech startups have stepped up and tried to fill in the void left by the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
San Francisco-based banking startup Mercury said it has added more than $2 billion in deposits and thousands of new customers. It is offering customers expanded FDIC insurance of up to $6 million via a new product in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse. New York-based treasury management startup Meow, which helps companies invest their cash in Treasuries, has seen hundreds of millions of inbound demand and has now crossed $1 billion in assets.
San Francisco-based corporate card startup Brex, which offers a business banking account, added over 3,000 new customers and reportedly took in billions in new deposits. It also extended loans to former Silicon Valley Bank customers to help them meet payroll. Like Mercury, it also offers FDIC insurance up to $6 million. San Francisco-based Arc, which lets software companies sell their future revenue streams in exchange for upfront cash, had seen 500 startups apply for more than $150 million in payroll financing in the wake of the SVB collapse. It launched Arc Gold, automated treasury management for startups to diversify and strengthen their financial position.
New York-based banking startup Rho has also seen a surge of new customers. Its Treasury Management Account is built on a network of over 400 FDIC-insured banks, allowing customers to access up to $75 million in FDIC deposits. Payroll provider Rippling raised $500 million in emergency financing following the collapse of its primary banking partner SVB and extended $130 million of its own capital to fund customer payments to their employees.
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the continued troubles at other banks has sparked discussions around banking regulations, treasury management, and monetary policies. While that happens, we should not overlook the significant role SVB played in building relationships throughout the innovation ecosystem, understanding startups, and supporting entrepreneurs. While the fintech startups have quickly adapted and helped companies, a void in the financing stack now needs to be filled.
Finix is a payment infrastructure platform that gives businesses an alternative way to own, manage, and monetize their entire payments experience. To learn more, read our full memo here.
Gopuff is a quick commerce company that delivers convenience items such as snacks, beverages, and alcohol to customers in 30 minutes on average. To learn more, read our full memo here.
Superhuman is an email client that powers up user inboxes to help them be more productive and quickly access important emails. To learn more, read our full memo here.
Cameo is a marketplace where fans can book personalized video messages from their favorite influencers across pop culture, sports, and entertainment. To learn more, read our full memo here.
Airtable is a no-code platform for creating and sharing relational databases. It connects data, people, and workflows across the organization. To learn more, read our full memo here.
Microsoft plans to launch a mobile app store for games. Check out our memos on gaming companies like Sorare, Epic Games, Discord, and Niantic.
Adobe announced Firefly, a family of generative AI models. Check out our memos on AI companies like OpenAI, Hugging Face, Jasper, Scale AI, DeepL & Cohere.
Roblox rolled out Code Assist to let creators use simple text prompts to create usable code and Material Generator for in-game 2D surfaces.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said AI will reshape society, acknowledges risks: ‘A little bit scared of this.’
Microsoft began rolling out Bing Image Creator to Edge, powered by OpenAI’s DALL-E and accessible via Bing Chat.
Google opened early access to its ChatGPT rival Bard.
GitHub announced Copilot X, adding chat and voice features to help coders with certain tasks, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4.
Expedia, Instacart, Kayak, Klarna, OpenTable, Shopify, Slack, Wolfram, Zapier, and others released the first third-party ChatGPT plugins
Runway, which helped make Stable Diffusion, unveiled its Gen 2 system for creating video snippets from text-based prompts. Check out our memo on Runway.
ByteDance’s video editing app CapCut, launched in 2020, has over 200 million MAUs and 400 million downloads in 2022, up 43% YoY.
Netflix plans to launch 40 games in 2023 and has 70 in development with its partners after releasing 55 titles.
SpaceX launched three missions in three days, breaking the record for the shortest duration between two launches. Check out our memo on SpaceX.
Steve Case, the co-founder of AOL, wrote an op-ed to make a case for how American startups still need a bank after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
Duolingo, a language learning app with over 500 million users, is working on a music app. Check out our memo on ed-tech startup Guild Education.
Bill Gates’ latest essay on how he considers AI to be as fundamental as the creation of the PC, the Internet, and the mobile phone.
Here’s Intel Hub, a repository for cybersecurity research reports, including our deep dive on cloud security. You can also check out our deep dive on cybersecurity and memos on Lacework, Netskope, and Panther Labs.
Checkout.com launched virtual and physical card issuing. For more on the payments space, check out our deep dive on Stripe and memos on fintech startups Sardine, Chargebee & Flutterware.
Brex takes a swipe at Concur with an expansion into travel. Check out our memos on Brex and Ramp.
OpenStore announced Drive, a new, managed service that turns your Shopify store into passive income.
Microsoft is now letting anyone preview Loop, a collaborative hub for managing tasks & projects that competes with Notion. You can learn more about Notion in our memo.
Stablecoin company Circle is planning to locate its European HQ in Paris. For more on the crypto ecosystem, check out our memos on companies like Kraken, MoonPay, OpenSea & Sorare.
a16z published its report on the top 100 marketplaces. We've written a number of memos on marketplaces, many of which made this list, including companies like Instacart, Faire, Slice, Snackpass, WhatNot, Zocdoc, Instawork, & Patch
Hindenburg Research disclosed a short position on Block and alleges the company overstated user counts and understated customer acquisition costs of Cash App.
Coinbase received an SEC notice warning the exchange of potential US securities law violations that could lead to enforcement actions.
Canva announced a range of new AI features. Check out our memo on Canva.