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The global pandemic threw a wrench in the plans of restaurants all over the world two years ago when diners stayed home, causing many eateries to shift their business to pickup or delivery. Roberto Cebrián and David Villarreal both had experience working with restaurants in Mexico and recognized that many restaurants were not prepared to change their operations quickly, so they jumped on the opportunity to help them. “There are a bunch of food tech solutions in Latin American and U.S., but it ended up turning the operations in both the front and back of the house into a mess,” Cebrián said. “The pandemic was a crazy experience. Not a lot of people knew what would happen, but the downside was that restaurants closed.” Roberto Cebrián, co-founder of Parrot. Image Credits: Parrot With an eye on reversing that trend, they created Monterrey-based Parrot in April 2020, and in 2021 launched with ParrotConnect, its point-of-sale software for restaurants enabling them to digitize and t
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Instant purchase and delivery of food and other essentials was one of the big bubbles of opportunity in the world of e-commerce in the last year, with dozens of startups big and small emerging and scooping up funding to build out businesses to bring items like groceries, toilet paper and Tylenol to people’s doors in 30 minutes or less. Now a startup called Arive that’s applying this concept to the wider world of consumer goods in a Prime Now-style service — partnering with premium stores and brands to sell and deliver items like Apple electronics and Bose headphones, Lululemon active wear, furniture and beauty and bath products and Van Moof electric bikes, and then delivering items via its own courier service —  is announcing a Series A of $20 million to see if the idea finds traction beyond essentials. The funding is being led by Balderton Capital, with Global Founders Capital (the firm connected to Rocket Internet’s Samwer family), Burda Principal Investments, La Famiglia and 468 C
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Shares of Paytm dropped to ₹1,155 ($15.6), the lowest since its market debut in November following the nation’s biggest-ever initial offering after a key brokerage house further cut its price on the payments stock. The stock , which opened Monday at ₹1,226, dropped 6% at 2.40 pm India standard time. Paytm, which has been struggling to improve its stock price ever since its debut, has slid by over 46% from its issue price of ₹2,150 ($28.9). The firm’s market cap, at the time of publishing, was $10.15 billion, nearly half of what it had sought during the debut and below the $16 billion valuation at which it raised a financing round in late 2019. The plunge in price follows brokerage house Macquarie’s report on Monday in which it retained its lowest rating on One97 Communications, the parent firm of Paytm, and cut its target price to ₹900 ($12.14), down from ₹1,200 that it had assigned ahead of the market debut on November 18. Paytm, which says it has amassed over 300 million users, o
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Loyalty, deals and rewards services are a rarity in most African markets. The unit economics and other factors such as currency instability make such businesses hard to pull off in the region . Yet, ThankUCash , a platform launched in 2018 by Connected Analytics , has managed to thrive, proving that not all is gloom in the deals, coupon and rewards business . And to that end, the startup, which announced an undisclosed seven-figure seed last year, has finally closed the round at $5.3 million . VC firms 500 Global and Unicorn Growth Capital co-led the Lagos-based company’s seed round . It saw participation from U.S.-based accelerator Expert Dojo, Predictive VC, SaaS Growth Ventures, Betatron Venture Group, Accelerex Holdings. Individual investors like Andrew Dell, former CEO of HSBC and Craig Fenton of Google UK also took part. The company plans to use the investment to expand within its home market Nigeria — where it operates in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja — and outside to Gha
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French startup Ankorstore has raised a $283 million Series C funding round (€250 million). Founded in November 2019, it took Ankorstore around two years to reach a post-money valuation of $2 billion (€1.75 billion). The company operates a wholesale marketplace for independent retailers across Europe. Ankorstore lets independent brands sell their products to independent retailers. Those retailers can then sell those products to their own customers. It’s a B2B2C play with a focus on offline sales at the end of the chain. You can find a bit of everything on Ankorstore, from household supplies to maple syrup, candles, headbands, bath salts and stationery items. Some verticals have been working quite well in particular, such as non-perishable groceries, beauty products and items for your home. And it’s been working extremely well given the company’s trajectory. There are currently 200,000 retailers using the marketplace and sourcing items from 15,000 brands. In May 2021, when Ankorstor
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Here we go with the last show of 2021, recorded in mid-December. It was Frank Radice’s last show from New York before he returned to London. It was nice to bid the year goodbye, but we were careful not to say good riddance like we did in 2020. It was nice to feel good about the Zoom-connected friendships we nurtured, and nice to appreciate the flow of working from anywhere and yet still being productive. For me, the heartbeat of tech and its impact on so many things we struggle with — politics, streaming, and the media business — was and remains palpable. It may be that crypto will find its moment, but I wouldn’t gamble on it. The midterms loom, and social networks are turning topsy-TicTok and live audio, but I wouldn’t bet on the kind of numbers that will turn Wall Street on quite yet if at all. Newsletters are looking more and more like publishers, and publishers are going startup to head it off at the pass, but it will take talent not venture money to make it stick. Not since Bi
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Kay Khemani Contributor Share on Twitter Kay Khemani is the managing director of Spectre.ai From turkeys to gasoline, clothes to dollar stores, nearly every avenue of human activity has been hit by the specter of inflation. Across the globe, rising inflation rates are disrupting purchasing plans and spending. In the face of this inflationary inferno, consumers and institutions holding devaluing fiat currency have sought out alternatives to hedge against. Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies are the current weapons of choice, driving the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to embrace crypto as an investable asset class . Bitcoin has witnessed strong year-to-date returns , outshining traditional hedges by rallying over 130% compared to gold’s meager 4%. In addition, increased institutional adoption , sustained appetite for digital assets based on weekly inflows  and growing exposure in the media strengthened bitcoin’s case among weary investors. If these are the
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