🏫 Live & E-Learn
EdTech goes global. Plus: Earnings out for Big Tech, meme stocks soar, SPAC bubble + climate tech's hot
Wrapped Up Newsletter #11
Today’s Menu
Quick Bits: Big Tech’s earnings week + Softbank reshuffles
Done Deals: Calendars, More AV/EV + Indonesia’s massive SWF
Deep Dive: EdTech 2019 vs. EdTech 2020
What Else We're Following: 6 articles, from importance of giving to WTF happened this week
Jobs - Internships/Full-Time: 18 full-time jobs and internship postings
Quick Bits 🌎
Recap in the West: What Else is Happening Beyond GameStop
Earnings jump with Microsoft, Apple and Facebook. Tesla disappoints. Uber lays off Postmates team. WhatsApp loses millions of users. Musk donates $100m prize for carbon capture. Twitter fights misinformation with community notes. Musk and Bezos fight over satellites. Apple criticizes Facebook. Taboola gets SPAC'd. WeTransfer and Squarespace readies IPO. Coinbase seeks direct listing. PepsiCo & Beyond Meat wants to save the PLANeT. SAP acquires Signavio. Snap buys British AR lab Ariel AI. Shell buys EV charging startup ubitricity. Twitter buys newsletter platform Revue. Workday acquires employee feedback platform Peakon.
Recap in the East: A Softbank Shake-Up
Masa Son steps down and steps up his take on AV. Softbank won't give up on robotics ambitions. China takes global lead in foreign direct investment. The GameStop of Malaysian glove makers. Grab seeks U.S. IPO. Meme stock Blackberry meets Baidu to build AV. ByteDance grew like gangbusters but continues to wrestle with India and Kuaishou. Ant Group divests a prized US asset and succumbs to Chinese pressure; the rest of Chinese fintech suffers too. A SPAC-tacular future for Faraday Future. Shopee brings online stores to Brazil. Chengdu goes digital.
Done Deals ✍🏼
Funding Rounds
Sequoia-backed Chinese EV startup Leapmotor secures $665.4m (Series B)
Finnish online ordering and delivery company Wolt bags $530m (Series E)
Brazilian neobank Nubank raises $400m (Series G) at $25bn valuation
US scheduling platform Calendly raises $350m (Series B) at a $3bn valuation
Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing raises $300m for its AV unit and $1.5bn for its on-demand trucking unit
Hong Kong-based travel startup Klook gets $200m (Series E) amid the pandemic
Chinese AV startup Uisee raises $150m
Tel Aviv-based fintech Melio picks up $110m (Series D) on a $1.3bn valuation
US online checkout startup Fast gets $102m (Series B)
San Francisco-based Clubhouse raises $100m (Series B) at a $1bn valuation
US rental deposit alternative startup Rhino raises $95m at $500m valuation in pre-IPO round
Polish wellness appointment app Booksy raises $70m (Series C)
French Klarna-like fintech Alma snags $59m (Series B)
Italian buy-now-pay-later startup Scalapay raises $48m (Seed)
US book club startup Literati raises $40m (Series B)
Israeli AI compute platform Run:AI bags $30m (Series B)
Berlin's Reimagine, a financing platform for high-growth companies, secures $24m (Seed)
New Funds
Indonesia's new sovereign wealth fund receives $10bn commitment
Storied US VC firm TCV raises record $4bn fund
US GGV Capital announces $2.52bn across new funds
Chinese-based Qiming Venture Partners closes yuan-denominated fund at $433m
Singapore-based Circulate Capital dedicates $53m of its ocean fund to India
Paris-based SaaS startup studio eFounders launches a fintech startup studio
Deep Dive 🤿
(3 min read)
Zoom fatigue is real. Especially when you spend 20+ hours per week on classes, meetings and social get-togethers.
In last week's issue, we discussed interactive networking platforms that serve as extensions beyond the basic features of Zoom. We guess the poor, unpredictable audio and video quality wasn't cutting it for everyone.
In this week's issue, we see a similar trend stirring within the education sector. With the infusion of private capital hitting new records and the increasing need to combat Zoom fatigue, it's safe to say that "back to school" will have a different ring to it in a post-COVID world.
The EdTech boom is truly global.
Call it a blessing or a curse, but the pandemic has provided legacy players and innovators an opportune moment to rethink education on a systematic level. And it shows in the figures.
🇺🇸 In 2020, U.S. EdTech startups raised over $2.2bn in venture and private equity capital across 130 deals, a 30% increase from $1.7bn invested in 2019, according to EdSurge.
Key players include Roblox (a leading consumer online gaming platform for children that also teaches kids to code and design their own games), Udemy (an online course provider for professional adults and students) and Duolingo (a language-learning platform).
7 of the 10 largest investments went to US edtech companies selling their services directly to consumers.
There's a tremendous focus on up(re-)skilling workers with job-specific skills and offering interactive online content; the K-12 market continues to be overlooked.
Fun Fact: Ryan's World, a children YouTube channel created by Ryan Kaji, is launching its own virtual world inside Roblox. Yes, Kaji's earnings hit $29.5m in 2020. Yes, he is 9-years-old.
🇨🇳 China accounts for almost two-thirds of global VC funding in EdTech in 2020 at merely $10bn, a cool 250% increase from $2.85bn in 2019, according to JMDedu.
Key players include Yuanfudao (the world's most valuable EdTech platform) and Zuoyebang (an online learning platform providing quality educational products to K-12).
Funding was highly concentrated in just these two companies, accumulating roughly half of all funding going to Chinese EdTech developers in 2020.
Asia-based K-12 B2C investments represent a majority of the dollars invested in the global sector.
Fun Fact: If you're hoping to make a quick buck as an English tutor, just know that Chinese parents spend, on average, $17,400 a year on extracurricular tutoring for their kids - with some dishing out as much as $43,500!
🇮🇳 Indian EdTech startups saw a total investment of $2.22bn in 2020, a mere 316% increase from $533m in 2019, according to Indian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association and PGA Labs data. In the last 5 years,
Key players include Byju (a leading EdTech company that produces personalized learning programs for K-12) and Unacademy (an e-learning platform providing educational content including video lectures and exams).
2020 saw a sharp spike in investments made to K-12 EdTech providers in India, with Byju raking in 38% of all funding going to the sector.
Fun Fact: Byju's WhiteHat Jr produces ads that encourage kids to learn to code. No need to look further than Wolf Gupta for inspiration, a 12-year-old kid who allegedly works for Google as an AI researcher. Whether it's true or a marketing gimmick, the craze to code is real.
🌎 $16.1 billion. According to HolonIQ, that's how much capital was being poured into EdTech around the world. Asia makes up for ~80% of all global VC dollars invested, dominated by big ticket deals. However, what the U.S. lacks in size, it makes up in quantity (of deals).
From integrating gamification features into online learning content to getting smart with classroom tech, different verticals are still ripe for the taking. Over time, we'll start to see how behemoths with many product offerings (Byju) and specialists (Duolingo, Quizlet) battle for the wallets of the online consumer.
What Else We're Following 👀
"Whether it is crypto or day trading, the retail investor now has the tools to get into the game and win the game." Fred Wilson on the social aspect of recent market events
"Some believe that tech investors could shift what kind of companies get built, if they chose to." MIT Technology Review on how VCs have a longer-term impact on shaping the world
Are you a camel, a lion, or a child? Brad Feld and Dave Jilk on the philosophical parallels between Nietzsche's Zarathurstra and today's entrepreneurs
"A tent city in SOMA. Hundreds of people dying of infectious disease. Out-of-control crime on the streets and corruption in City Hall." How 2020 tech leaders can learn from 1850s San Francisco
"We hear the word “innovation” a lot in business, and it has cheapened with overuse." Scott Galloway gets sentimental with Scott Harrison's charity: water
Interview: Where to invest in Asia with Oliver Heinrich (Partner @ Picus Capital) and how to save the world with Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man)
Jobs - Internships/Full-Time 👩🏽💼
We will pilot a Notion page dedicated to aggregating job opportunities (internships & full-time). You can find this week’s job postings here.
Last Week’s Issue
January 24: You In Da Club? (Clubhouse Goes Viral)
Feedback
Hey there! We are Jeff, Dom and Vas, coming to you live from INSEAD. Thanks for reading Wrapped Up. We'd love to get your feedback - feel free to email us at jeffrey.dong@insead.edu! It will help us to improve the newsletter and deliver the content you want right into your inbox. Thanks!