🕶️ This Gen Z's App is No.1 in the App Store

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Paula Echeverria & Arturo Pardo
July 06, 2024

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If there's something we can learn from today, it's not to keep important announcements to ourselves. ⏰ 

In today's newsletter, we see Elon Musk regretting delaying the news of his significant stake in Twitter in 2022. (We know it's not called that now, but this news is from a previous era of the social network.)

On the other hand, there's an app making waves with Generation Z. It's called Noplace, and its rapid rise on the App Store deserves attention. 🥤

Additionally, ITER, the world's largest experimental fusion reactor, underscores the need to integrate startups with governments to advance fusion technology.

Enjoy your weekend!
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Six bullets of updates

  1. 🗾 Integrating customer feedback into product roadmaps can turn guesswork into precise innovation, boosting growth.

  2. 😶 Fizz, the anonymous Gen Z social app, adds a marketplace for college students to boost user engagement.

  3. 🔐 Driving Forces, a deep tech VC, is shutting down, citing challenges for smaller funds in a competitive market.

  4. 🌯 From burritos to biotech: how robotics startup Cartken found its AV niche, expanding into new industries.

  5. 🛑 Indian social network Koo is shutting down after struggling to compete, affecting its 45 million users.

  6. 🔗 ITER troubles expose the need for fusion between startups and governments.

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Gen Z's Noplace tops app store

Business Insider

Noplace, a trendy app blending Twitter's brevity with Myspace's customization of profile colors, has skyrocketed to No. 1 on the App Store. This success underscores a growing trend: younger users seek platforms that offer creative freedom and unique expression, sparking virality ahead of its public launch. 

This success emphasizes the market's craving for personalized social experiences. Observing Noplace's trajectory may offer valuable insights into leveraging customization and community engagement for startup growth. With Noplace's rise, the stakes are high for social media giants. Could this shake up the status quo?  For those interested in the mechanics of viral app launches, this could be a case study worth following. 

Backed by investors like 776 (Alexis Ohanian) and Forerunner Ventures, the startup raised $15 million in a Series A1 round, valuing it at $75 million pre-money. According to PitchBook, its total funding now exceeds $19 million.

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Startup Events and Deadlines

  1. Crash Course in Financial Modeling | July 16 | Webinar

  2. Financial Modeling Bootcamp | July 22 | Bootcamp

  3. How to close a Funding Round | July 24 | Webinar

  4. SaaStock: Dublin | August 14 | Conference

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These companies just raised money

  1. 🫰 Industry Ventures raises a $900M fund targeting small early-stage VCs and their breakout startups.

  2. 🎯 CRMBonus raises $10M in a Series B extension round with Vivo Ventures and Industry Ventures investing a total of $10M.

  3. 🌽 Granza Bio grabs $7M seed from Felicis and YC to advance the delivery of cancer treatments.

  4. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Fluently’s AI-powered English coach secures $2M seed round to enhance language learning.

  5. 🚀 Brazilian startup OmniK secures $1.2M to boost product dev, tech, and expand operations; 2023 revenue up 200%  

  6. 💳 BioCredit secures $200K from Google to boost AI in credit processing.

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Musk calls Twitter disclosure a mistake, fights to end lawsuit

Financial Times

Elon Musk is trying to dismiss a lawsuit from former Twitter shareholders who claim he delayed disclosing his significant ownership stake in the company in early 2022. Musk argues that any delay was a mistake, not an attempt to defraud shareholders unaware of his 9.2% stake and missed out on potential gains. The investors allege that Musk and his wealth manager, Jared Birchall, knew they had to disclose his 5% stake by March 24, 2022, but waited an extra 11 days.

In October 2022, Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion. The Securities and Exchange Commission has also investigated his Twitter stock purchases. In September, U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter refused to dismiss an earlier version of the lawsuit, finding evidence that Musk understood the SEC disclosure requirement and testified about it under oath.

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Slidebean Revenue Data

Built on top of our financial model template, we hope this is a helpful resource to compare against your progress and study how a company manages cash at the early stages.

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