Contrary Research Rundown #9
The Crypto Meltdown & Beyond
Research Rundown
The biggest news this week, that you probably can't stop hearing about, is the collapse of FTX. From a $32B valuation to a complete write down to $0 in the space of a few days. The collapse raises an essential question around the lack of regulatory oversight within the crypto world; particularly for offshore crypto companies. In September, we published a memo on Kraken, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges. This week, we shared a thread highlighting how exchanges like Kraken and Coinbase have taken measured steps to build their platforms on regulatory foundations, which will likely be an advantage for them, even as regulatory scrutiny increases within the crypto industry. In the future, we're excited to dive deeper into a conversation on the way crypto, built around the concept of decentralization, has sometimes become too centralized for its own good.
As people continue to question the use cases and viability of different technology in crypto, others start to turn their attention to other categories. While the metaverse and web3 have garnered billions in funding, another group of founders and investors have focused on tackling the challenges coming from climate change. Fighting it represents a massive market opportunity spanning 16 sectors, 60 kinds of technology, and 77 different markets. The cumulative market size will reach $7.8 trillion. After publishing 5 new memos across aspects of sustainability last week, we published a thread breaking down those pieces; things like food, waste management, and energy production.
This week, we dig into e-commerce penetration within B2B marketplaces, the world of data integrations, and fintech for the rising generation! Take a look!
Greenlight: While 83% of US adults believe that its a parents’ job to teach their children about financial literacy, only 44% of parents talk to their kids about finances. Greenlight is tackling this problem by providing debit cards for children. Read our memo here.
Faire: One of the largest online B2B marketplaces for multi-category products for retailers. Their two-sided marketplace and wholesale platform helps retailers find unique wholesale merchandise. Read our memo here.
Fivetran: The rapid adoption of the cloud has led to a proliferation of data-rich applications. Traditionally, enterprises overcame data silos by tasking data engineering teams to manually create custom data connectors for each data source. Read our memo here.
OpenView published a report on benchmarks and current trends within the software market, diving into what they refer to as "the whiplash era." Things have changed very quickly during 2022, and the benchmarks companies had in their minds are getting updated every day.
Lenny Rachitsky published an interview with Snyk's VP of Product, Benjamin Williams, on how they built a product-led growth machine, and the mistakes they made along the way. Last week, we shared a thread on Snyk breaking down their business.
Speaking of product-led growth, Anoushka Vaswani at Lightspeed published a blog outlining the five crucial startup lessons around what it takes to build a successful product-led company.
As the world of AI continues to evolve rapidly, Mario Gabriele published a guide around “What To Watch In AI” after speaking to top investors at major funds and breaking down their takeaways.
On a similar note, Aidan Gomez, founder of Cohere, spoke to Radical Ventures on the lessons from building a company to make cutting edge AI accessible to everyone.
Gergely Orosz published a report on the State of Frontend in 2022, based on survey results from the developer community, digging into what engineering practices and technologies are gaining momentum in the field. In the past, we’ve published reports on companies that are disrupting frontend development, such as Vercel.
Scale AI released a new version of their large language models. This version enables engineers to use LLMs in production.
As the economy continues to reel during this correction, we dug into one thread covering some trends on how bad a recession could get for businesses. After analyzing revenue data from over 27K companies, the thread dug into five actionable tips for companies to use to navigate the crisis.
Contrary Research Fellowship
At Contrary Research our vision is to cover hundreds of 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 we're opening applications for our Research Fellowship. In the past we've worked with software engineers, product managers, consultants, and more. If you're interested in researching and writing about tech companies, apply here!