Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly newsletter for startups and markets. It is largely based on The daily column that is displayed for Extra Crunchbut free and made for your weekend reading.
Ready? Let’s talk about money, startups and hot IPO rumors.
The startup world could be on a busy summer.
Today the economy is improving. unemployment fallswhile the interest rates are stay low. There are a lot of new capital on offer and some expectations that we will return to the IPO wave of the first quarter in the third quarter. If you roll out widespread vaccination and go back to something resembling our old life, the business world could be ready to accelerate further in a short time.
There are, of course, reservations. Many people are left behind in recovery. And vaccine hesitation is deadly stupid as it is surprisingly common. However, the expected economic conditions in the summer, the strong markets and the general belief that the digital transformation will continue to accelerate, point to an imminent (ter) phase for the technology.
This is Good news for startups.
We are already seeing forward-looking coverage on this issue. Wired’s current piece It’s worth reading how venture capitalists tell startups to invest fast. I’ll back it up by saying that it seems like most of the startups I chat with every week had a solid first quarter and aren’t worried about the second. Unless I accidentally just talk to founders who are doing well and somehow miss the Legion startups that are having problems, it seems like a hell of a time to start a tech company.
Plaids round from earlier this week underscores what I’m talking about. The CEO of the API-based consumer fintech company, Zach Perret, told TechCrunch how much the digitization of the world of financial services had accelerated in the last year. Yes. Startups that would have done well in more normal times often see their market moving in their direction. Often quickly. Because of this, plaid is now valued at more than $ 13 billion, nearly three times what it was in early 2020.
There is plenty of cash for the startups that are doing well. The final round of Ramp, a two-in-one, makes this point clear. So if the overall economy and its tech sector accelerate, expect the wallets to open even further. As the temperature rises, so could the business climate.
I mean, how else can you explain that the clubhouse news? Or the topps news? TechCrunch had to strike the middle ground between baseball cards, NFTs, and candy out of the love of all that is sacred.
Next week, The Exchange is looking at venture capital numbers from around the world for the first quarter of 2021. We’ll see how great the start of the year was soon enough, but we have a guess.
Kudo, Coinbase and Canva
We’re sticking to our theme of growth and a hot and warming climate for tech startups, a few more data points from last week.
I met with the CEO of Kudo this week, a few days after his company announced a $ 21 million Series A funding round. I wrote about the translation company last year when it raised a seed round. According to its CEO, Fardad Zabetian, the company had 14 employees in March last year. It now has 150 and more than 50 open positions. That’s not the kind of growth you see with just a few capital increases. That is growth.
Coinbase’s Monster district highlights how some technologies from the past decade are maturing in lucrative ways. The company’s epic sales growth and almost comical profitability will make the upcoming direct listing an even bigger event than I expected. Get ready for it on the 14th. (More from the original Coinbase list Here.)
And then there’s Canva, who’s just now repeated through a $ 71 million secondary transaction. The cloud design firm is now valued at $ 15 billion, up from $ 6 billion last June per Crunchbase data. Additionally, the company announced some growth metrics worth sharing:
- That Canva exceeded the annual sales mark of $ 500 million
- This Canva has grown 130% in the last year and is profitable (although we don’t know what type it is)
- The Canva now has 55 million monthly active users
And it doesn’t go public. Yes you can laugh I asked the company to ask their CEO Melanie Perkins why that is, and here’s what we got back:
There is no rush for us. We are profitable and we are very fortunate that we can still find investors who are aligned with our vision and values. I often say that with Canva we are only one percent of the way there. We have a big vision to enable every team to achieve their goals through visual communication. We have much more to do and therefore no immediate plans for a public listing – there is simply no rush for us right now.
Let me just say that you don’t have to go public only when in a rush to do so! You can only do this to get us, the reporting class, excited about the work, as there are new numbers to read!
Different and different
I was out and about for a bit this week to recharge so may be missing some news and notes that you might have expected in the letter above. Rest assured that The Exchange will get bigger and better and more numerous and full of jokes when I get back. Someone’s joining the small team so we have big plans.
Hugs,
Alex