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Apple can keep its App Store payment rules for now

Plus: AI supercharges drug discoveries

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Cash Nut
August 10, 2023

In Today’s Edition

  • YouTube Expects AI Tools, Creators To Drive Next Phase Of Growth

  • Moove takes in $76M equity, debt from Mubadala and BlackRock at a $550M valuation

  • Coach owner Tapestry to acquire Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo parent Capri Holdings for $8.5 billion

  • Slack’s biggest redesign ever tries to tame the chaos of your workday

  • AI supercharges drug discoveries, potentially changing medicine

  • Liquid-Metal Battery Will Be on the Grid Next Year \

Check out - Mode Mobile

Beyond iPhone: Dawn of a New $martphone Era 🤳

Flip the script: Turn your phone from a cost to an income source. Intriguing idea, isn't it? Which is why, this week, we have our eyes on the launch of Mode Mobile’s Public Equity Offering. It’s the latest in a series of impressive raises among smartphone innovators, likely spurred by Apple’s recent $3+ trillion valuation.

Mode saw 150x revenue growth from 2019 to 2022, a leap that has made them one of America’s fastest growing companies. Mode is on a mission to disrupt the entire industry with their "EarnPhone," a budget smartphone that’s helped consumers earn and save $150M+ for activities like listening to music, playing games, and ... even charging their devices?!

Early backers are getting up to 60% bonus stock, and in the first month alone, 9,900+ investors acquired shares — leaving only ~10% of the bonus allocation up for grabs.

Disclosure: Please read the offering circular at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile’s Regulation CF Offering.

🚀Startups Nuts

Going forward, the video-sharing giant expects mobile-first creators and content being consumed from living rooms to drive the growth of the platform in India. In a survey conducted in May 2023, YouTube found that 69% of respondents expressed their openness to consuming content created by virtual or animated influencers. As per a Statista report, India was the biggest market, in terms of users, for YouTube across the globe, with 46.7 Cr users.

African mobility fintech Moove has raised $78 million in funding, bringing its valuation to $550 million. Moove provides vehicle financing to drivers of ride-hailing platforms and has experienced 17x revenue growth since its Series A in 2021. The company plans to use the investment to expand and consolidate its position in markets where it remains Uber's largest vehicle supply partner across EMEA. Despite reports of unfair working arrangements in Nigeria, Moove's investors are optimistic about the company's profitability and global growth potential.

Read Here - Link

🏭Business Nuts

The Supreme Court has rejected Epic's request to make Apple loosen its App Store rules that limit how iOS app developers direct their users to alternate payment methods. There was no explanation for the decision. Moving payments outside of the App Store system will let developers avoid the 'Apple tax'. Apple has reserved the right to charge a commission separately if the practice is widely adopted.

Tapestry will acquire Capri Holdings for $8.5 billion, the companies announced. The deal would create an American fashion giant that brings Coach, Kate Spade, Stuart Weitzman, Versace, Jimmy Choo and Michael Kors under one house.Tapestry has pushed to elevate its brands and appeal to a new generation of shoppers.

📱Tech Nuts

Slack is about to roll out a redesign that will change both the look and layout of the app to make things easier to find and manage. There is a new sidebar that shows Slack's features in a few new ways: the DMs section manages all chats no matter what channel or workspace they come from, and the Activity window shows all messages, mentions, and reactions across all Slack workspaces. The top right corner of every chat window will have a button for Huddles video chats and creating new canvases. Screenshots of the redesign are available in the article.

Biotech company Recursion used artificial intelligence and supercomputers to predict possible chemical interactions that might lead to new drugs. The company says it now conducts about 2.2 million experiments per week and has generated 25 petabytes of data using AI models. If any of these compounds turn out to be useful, it will take years for any of these compounds to make it into US FDA clinical trials. The FDA is still trying to figure out how to handle drugs developed by AI. It is soliciting feedback and plans to develop and adopt a risk-based regulatory framework that promotes innovation and protects patient safety.

🔥Newsletter Spotlight

  • Check out Morning Brew - Get smarter in 5 minutes with Morning Brew (it's free) - Link

  • See Bay Area Times - The Bay Area Times is an awesome daily digest of what's happening in the world of tech. - Link

🎁Miscellaneous

Researchers estimate that energy storage needs to cost $20 per kilowatt-hour for the grid to be completely powered by wind and solar. It currently costs significantly more than that. A new liquid-metal battery scheduled for real-world deployment next year could lower energy storage costs considerably. The new battery currently costs $180 to $250 per kilowatt hour, depending on its size and duration, but the company manufacturing it projects that it will cost about $21 per kilowatt hour by 2030. The battery's lower cost comes from simpler materials, chemistry, system design, and its longer lifetime. It is resistant to capacity fade and is not flammable.

💡What else are we reading and seeing?

  • What is 'AI drift' and why is it making ChatGPT dumber?

  • Graceful behavior at capacity

  • Reimagining the Bioreactor

  • The Two Bets

  • Barstool’s Dave Portnoy beat the house

  • IPO investors are putting money to work

  • It’s been a great earnings season

  • A Lehman lesson for bankers being laid off

  • How marathon running can show you how to start a business

  • How to stop a loop of worrying thoughts

  • Everything is cyclical 

😎Fun Fact

Sloths can swim three times faster than they can move on land

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