Mystery woman spotted near Kim Jong-un in recent months sparks speculation
A mystery woman spotted in Kim Jong-un’s inner circle in recent months is sparking speculation about her identity. The woman was first noticed in February and has since been photographed near Kim. She is typically seen wearing a suit dress with glasses and carrying a black handbag. In some photos she stands next to him while in others she lingers in the background. She was seen by Kim’s side on Friday during an outdoor concert and was photographed on Thursday carrying folders during Kim’s spe...
Mystery woman spotted near Kim Jong-un in recent months sparks speculation
A mystery woman spotted in Kim Jong-un’s inner circle in recent months is sparking speculation about her identity. The woman was first noticed in February and has since been photographed near Kim. She is typically seen wearing a suit dress with glasses and carrying a black handbag. In some photos she stands next to him while in others she lingers in the background. She was seen by Kim’s side on Friday during an outdoor concert and was photographed on Thursday carrying folders during Kim’s spe...
SaaS → Freemium OS: A new wedge for financial services (February 2022 Fintech Newsletter)
An operating system is a mission critical piece of software used daily to manage a business. Toast is the OS for restaurants, Mindbody for gyms, ServiceTitan for field services, and so on. As we noted in our post on Fintech Scales Vertical SaaS, many of these businesses start by selling software as a service, and layer on financial services once customer captivity is achieved. Operating systems can be extraordinarily sticky, in many cases are across the flow of funds, and possess a wide array...
SaaS → Freemium OS: A new wedge for financial services (February 2022 Fintech Newsletter)
An operating system is a mission critical piece of software used daily to manage a business. Toast is the OS for restaurants, Mindbody for gyms, ServiceTitan for field services, and so on. As we noted in our post on Fintech Scales Vertical SaaS, many of these businesses start by selling software as a service, and layer on financial services once customer captivity is achieved. Operating systems can be extraordinarily sticky, in many cases are across the flow of funds, and possess a wide array...
Privacy-Protecting Crypto Airdrops with Zero Knowledge Proofs
The Ethereum blockchain is a public ledger that anyone can inspect. Generally, all anyone needs to view the entire holdings and financial history associated with a given account is its public address. This makes the technology poorly suited for criminal enterprises, despite a common misconception to the contrary. This also means that crypto airdrops – the distribution of tokens to people’s wallets (that is, public addresses) – commonly expose lots of unnecessary information about the tokens’ ...
Privacy-Protecting Crypto Airdrops with Zero Knowledge Proofs
The Ethereum blockchain is a public ledger that anyone can inspect. Generally, all anyone needs to view the entire holdings and financial history associated with a given account is its public address. This makes the technology poorly suited for criminal enterprises, despite a common misconception to the contrary. This also means that crypto airdrops – the distribution of tokens to people’s wallets (that is, public addresses) – commonly expose lots of unnecessary information about the tokens’ ...
The Marketplace 100: 2022
2022 marks our third year releasing the Marketplace 100, a ranking of the largest consumer-facing marketplace startups and private companies. When we started this series in early 2020 (based on data from 2019), we had no way of knowing how volatile the next few years would be. Many businesses were temporarily shuttered by covid, especially in categories like travel and childcare. Other categories, like online education and grocery delivery, experienced unprecedented spikes in activity. Throug...
The Marketplace 100: 2022
2022 marks our third year releasing the Marketplace 100, a ranking of the largest consumer-facing marketplace startups and private companies. When we started this series in early 2020 (based on data from 2019), we had no way of knowing how volatile the next few years would be. Many businesses were temporarily shuttered by covid, especially in categories like travel and childcare. Other categories, like online education and grocery delivery, experienced unprecedented spikes in activity. Throug...
16 Things to Know About Raising Debt for Startups
Raising debt is an important financial tool for startups, and in particular, as more and more companies become fintech companies, debt, and in particular asset-backed debt, can provide a critical vehicle for embedding financial products that can be financed – most commonly loans, but also insurance, credit cards, factoring (i.e. selling accounts receivables), banking. However, for founders who have not secured debt financing before, the sheer number of debt options can be daunting. While foun...
16 Things to Know About Raising Debt for Startups
Raising debt is an important financial tool for startups, and in particular, as more and more companies become fintech companies, debt, and in particular asset-backed debt, can provide a critical vehicle for embedding financial products that can be financed – most commonly loans, but also insurance, credit cards, factoring (i.e. selling accounts receivables), banking. However, for founders who have not secured debt financing before, the sheer number of debt options can be daunting. While foun...
