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The TC crew are a bunch of bookworms. Alex collected the best read books of 2022. Haje’s favorite was “A Deadly Education” (Naomi Novik’s first book in the Scholomance trilogy), which incidentally was recommended by both Alex and Amanda, which is how he discovered the books in the first place. Meanwhile, Christine couldn’t put down Sophie Mackintosh’s “Blue Ticket.” Head to your local independent bookstore and sniff out some freshly pressed wood pulp!

In non-book news, there’s a plethora of stories from australiabusinessblog.com for you! — Christine and Hey

The australiabusinessblog.com Top 3

• Is anyone still missing paper maps?: A host of companies, including Meta, Microsoft, AWS and TomTom, have partnered with the Linux Foundation to form the Overture Maps Foundation to do a few things: develop interoperable open map data and knock down Google’s map dominance a few pegs . Paul has more.
• Another tool to decipher Salesforce: Too much data, too little time. Fortunately, there’s Sweep, a new no-code configuration tool that can make the data in Salesforce more usable. The company raised $28 million to help companies regain control over their own data. Kyle writes.
• Go behind the scenes: Paul also has a story about how Spotify plans to monetize its open source Backstage project through premium plugins.

Startups and VC

Dakotah Rice, founder of Poolit, explains Mary Ann, “2023 is likely to be a great year for venture and private equity. It’s a bit like starting from a new base.” The company raised millions to convert accredited investors into LPs in VC and private equity funds.

Ventures Platform, an early-stage Pan-African venture capital firm, has closed its fund at $46 million as it looks to double down on “leading” companies across the continent, Tage writes. Most of his limited partners on the first close were mainly based in Africa, which was a deliberate effort.

And we have five more for you:

Which Instagram ad placement is more cost-effective: Reels, Feed Posts or Stories?

Image Credits: Jonathan Knowles (Opens in a new window) /Getty Images

Consumer-focused startups are spending more on platforms like TikTok and Instagram to reach customers, but which ad products offer the best returns?

In a case study based on Instagram campaigns for a site that facilitates bookings for freelance beauty professionals, digital marketer Angelina Liparteliani looked at Instagram Reels, Feed Posts and Stories.

Her very detailed breakdown includes examples of the ads used in different campaigns, the process she used to optimize creatives, and a cost-per-click analysis that shows how she lowered CPC from $1.51 to 17 cents.

“Don’t go chasing trends,” advises Liparteliani. “Diverse your advertising strategy, test different ideas and don’t give up if your ad doesn’t show results right away.”

Three more from the TC+ team:

australiabusinessblog.com+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams lead the way. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

Jaquelyn got a first that Coinbase has created an asset recovery tool for unsupported Ethereum-based tokens. If you just say “Huh?” we let her explain: “In the past, if you sent assets not backed by Coinbase to a user’s address on the exchange, you got a message that the assets were successfully delivered on-chain, but that didn’t actually happen go to the recipients’ wallets.” Coinbase supports hundreds of cryptocurrencies, but there are thousands that do not. ERC-20 tokens are one of them, and the crypto exchange found about 4,000 of them being sent to the ledger. Fortunately, it now has a way to help customers recover them.

And we have five more for you: