🇸🇪 Klarna's boss says he's nervous to IPO, and he has all the reasons to. 

 

In the States, Siemiatkowski is a nobody and it would take one hell of a road show to do a decent sale - that involves a lot of time and preparation and the window may be shutting down as the bear market may be closer than we think. Otoh, he is right to be wary about listing in London given that Deliveroo was screwed over by the local establishment just 6 months ago. Why would you do business with those guys?

 

Add to that the fact that BNPL is becoming a commoditized feature sold by any financial provider, meaning that a superior long-held market position in Europe is under disruptive pressure. Fundamentals are fundamentals, and impeccable execution against a great strategy is more important than ever.

 

The situation is not dramatic though, the IPO is just a liquidity event for early investors and employees and there's always a secondary market should they have an urge to cash out now. The company is flushed with money (it raised two mega rounds this year) and, should they need more, the private market has never been more accessible than today.

 

🇪🇺 In the past three years, 164 major complaints of Europe-wide GDPR infractions have been reported to the Irish DPC. As of today, 98% of these cross-border cases are unresolved. In three years the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has acted on exactly four cases.

Why does this matter? Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft have their European headquarters in Ireland, for tax reasons, and Irish DPC is their compliance with GDPR.

 

There's a whole report about this.

 

🇫🇷 The French were excited about 4 deals announced this week totalling a little more than 1.5 billion, which is about a third from the value of the total minority equity deals reported last year in the country:
- a series A closed at $100 million for a restaurant SAAS
- a series B closed at $680 million for a gaming company
- a series E closed at $555 million for an ecommerce SAAS
- a series G closed at $209 million for an ecommerce marketplace

This is just a little part of the monopoly race that happens nowadays in Europe. And you have to understand the French ego, France is not exactly a top of mind, go-to place for equity investors in Europe. 

 

Is this a sign of strength for the ecosystem though? That's one way to put it. Another would be that those companies have huge bets they have to deliver upon - it's rather an indication showing some of the best in class founders picked by buyers building a diversified portfolio.

And boy they do have to deliver. At least two out of the four deals (Sorare and Sunday) are heavily including an North American expansion, and French are not really famous for conquering the world - as a coincidence, they just got screwed by BJ and Biden in a different ballgame the other week.

Also notable, the series E and G are made at lower levels than the series B. Softbank is in 2 out of 4 of those deals, Coatue in another and PE (Silver Lake) in the other.

 

🇪🇸 Kibo Ventures sold its Fund I portfolio to HarborVest, which is now the largest LP in the company.

🇬🇧 The Draper Esprit story.

 

🇳🇴 Norwegian publisher Schibsted announced reaching 1 million subscribers to its online publishing assets across Sweden and Norway.

 

🇬🇧 Atomico put out the survey for doing their annual report about the Euro VC ecosystem.

 

🇬🇧 In the UK, a group of companies set up by an obscure entrepreneur received as much as £40 million in furlough cash in a single month this year, despite little public evidence that the businesses have any staff. UK Treasury says it has opened 23,000 inquiries for similar reasons.

 

🇬🇧 Also in the UK, it looks like the Brexit-induced protectionism that led to lack of labour in the hospitality sector will be compensated by legislation for staff to get 100% of the tips charged on card. Pills for tumors.

 

👺 Turns out that getting screwed over when buying stuff online from established retailers is quite common these days. Supply chain problems, major ones.

 

 

🇸🇪 Ikea’s lineup of gaming-themed furniture and accessories will officially be made available in October. 30 Ikea gaming products in total, arranged across six product families, one of them done in a co-op with Asus. They have already made a similar back-to-back with Sonos resulting in the Symfonisk speakers.

 

In other news, Ikea continues its pre-covid strategy to launch concept stores in urban areas, as it just paid £385 million for a leasehold on a building from London's Oxford Street.

 

🤡 Latest McKinsey marketing spiel is McKinsey for Kids:

 

 

Somebody recently told me that many consultants have an insecurity which forces them to take high pedigree jobs and they've just trained themselves to look good in front of others. Not wrong.

 

Somewhat related, from a 2008 interview of Bear Stearns' legendary Chairman Ace Greenberg with PBS's Charlie Rose about hiring kids for investment banking positions: 

 

 

🇨🇳 Great decomposition of Shein's business model. Chances are that if you're over 30 you may have not heard of Shein at all. :-)

 

🇫🇷 The life as a Michelin-guide inspector.

🦚 US vs. UK television shows:

 

 

 

🌪️ By 2100, Africa will have the three largest cities in the world:
• Lagos, in Nigeria
• Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania
• Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo

80 years is a short time in history, a generation or two maybe, but... it's likely that most of the readers of this email will not live to see if the above prophecy is right. 

 

Otoh, 80 years ago my grandfather was fighting in a world war, as Europe's racism was at its nazi peak level, post fighting a great depression. And, you know, history tends to repeat itself.

 

🤔 Bloomberg reports the claim of the first child born following polygenic screening as an embryo, via a company called Genomic Prediction

 

🕶️ Rayban did Facebook a solid with their glasses, I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, and people seem to like them. 

 

That's FB's long established pattern - the work seems nice and useful initially and then they screw you over. If you trust any of Facebook's products, it's on you. Latest textbook material on this - WSJ’s Facebook series.

 

 

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