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Hello, and welcome to the start of a new week. As mentioned last Friday, hi isn’t diving and leaving the rest of us to pick up the Twitter and FTX pieces. No problem, we are here for you. Mary Ann begins us by reporting on SoftBank having written off a nearly $100 million investment in FTX. And that’s where we get started! — Christine

The australiabusinessblog.com Top 3

• This FTX company has a wide reach: Tage reports on what is happening to a fledgling company that had assets in FTX and now can’t access them because of, well, you know. In this case, African web3 startup Nestcoin said it had to fire employees for not having that access.
• A real comparison: Now people in Europe can know the joy and wonder that is Klarna’s price comparison tool, which Paul might just write a “credible alternative to Google and Amazon.”
• oops: Bird, a micromobility company, told the Securities and Exchange Commission that it included unpaid customer rides in its revenue, overestimating that specific number for two years. Jaclyn has more.

Startups and VC

Right now, we’re all expecting our data to go pretty fast, but there’s so much of it that it’s still a headache. This is where Quix comes in, Mike writes. The real-time data startup got $12.9 million in Series A funding, not for doing this with ksqlDB, Java-based solutions, or one of those fancy schmancy SQL-based analytics solutions. Oh no, Quix develops event-driven applications with Python.

And we have five more for you:

• The show must go on: Just because FTX has problems doesn’t mean other companies shy away from association. Jacquelyn reports on the Joepegs NFT marketplace, which raised $5 million in a round co-led by FTX and Avalanche.
• “Adult friendships are fickle beasts”: Indeed, but have no fear, 222 will help you find that perfect friend who doesn’t care that you earn more than she or who “tends to be lazy”, if that’s what you like, Kylea writes.
• Singapore, prepare your exotic taste buds: Vow, an Australia-based cultured meat company, has gobbled up $49.2 million in Series A funding to get its first cell-based meat product in Singapore restaurants, Christine writes.
• Take action: Electric vehicle start-up Faraday Future signed a $350 million financing deal to hopefully get out of its past monetary challenges and launch its first vehicle, Jaclyn reports.
• “The sun is a ball of buttah”: Butter, which now has $9 million in funding, led by Gradient Ventures, helps smaller food distribution companies comply with food safety regulations, Catherine writes.

Preparing for the second decade of fintech: 4 steps your company needs to take now

Image Credits: Emilija Manevska (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images

According to consultant Grant Easterbrook, fintech startups hoping to succeed in the coming years should be prepared to take on:

• Major banks and financial service providers with loyalty programs and ‘super apps’.
• Emerging DeFi protocols “that can provide financial products involving real-world assets.”
• Banking, invoicing, lending, paying, accounting packaged as ’embedded financial products’.
• Several countries are issuing their own Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

“Your company needs a very strong value proposition to compete with all four types of competitors,” Easterbrook writes, sharing his ideas for navigating fintech’s next decade in a TC+ guest post.

Two more from the TC+ team:

• See, Mom? Dismissals can teach us something: The big tech layoffs weren’t great, but Natasha M writes that while we could see more, entrepreneur Nolan Church, who as Chief People Officer helped lead Carta’s 2020 layoffs, has some perspective on Twitter’s recent layoffs.
• If VCs don’t invest in you, who are they investing in?: That is what Becca discusses in her latest piece looking at all the dry powder in the VC world and why it’s not being deployed yet.

australiabusinessblog.com+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams stay ahead of the curve. You can register here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

And just like that, VLC’s download ban in India was lifted, manish reports. Nine months ago, the country’s electronics and IT ministry banned the popular media playback software, something VLC tried to roll back, stating that the ban was “imposed without notice” and VLC would not allow a chance of rebuttal.

Natasha L has more on our favorite social media channel, writing this time that “Twitter is no longer fulfilling the key obligations required to claim Ireland as its “so-called main establishment under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation”. Can’t wait to to see where this is going.

And we have five more for you: