Hi there,
Welcome to the 59th edition of Heartcore Consumer Insights.
Curated with 🖤 every week by the Heartcore Team. If you missed the past newsletters, you can catch up here.
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Now, let’s dive in!
Why Clubhouse early go-to-market strategy couldn’t have been better - Johary Randria (Growth Analyst @Germinal)
2021 has seen the launch of the extremely hyped social app Clubhouse. Its early go-to-market strategy is brilliant for several reasons:
FOMO: (a) Exclusivity: joining Clubhouse is based on an invite-only system. The immediate consequence is that it creates in people’s minds an important FOMO effect and a sense of exclusivity and elitism. (b) Live Talks: Clubhouse discussions are live. There is no possible recording (you can get banned for doing so). If you are not available, you are missing out, again.
Viral Loop: (a) Engineered virality: when you get invited on the platform, you immediately receive an invite to give out. The more active you are (speaking, hosting rooms), the more invites you get. This assuredly increases engagement and helps to create a viral acquisition loop.
Product-led Growth: (a) Turnkey Creation Tool: everyone on Clubhouse can become a creator overnight. You do not need any preparation beforehand or technical setup, just an iPhone. (b) Accountability: one of the main challenges of social platforms is moderation. When you invite someone on Clubhouse, your name will be displayed on their profile. The consequence is that if the person you have invited is doing wrong on the platform, you are implicitly responsible. This helps maintain a standard of well-behaved people and reduces the moderation burden.
Timing: (a) The need for personal interactions: Clubhouse has launched in the midst of the pandemic when most of us had a strong natural will to reconnect to other people. (b) A booming podcast market: Today, you are listening to podcasts while commuting or cooking but tomorrow you might listen to talks on Clubhouse instead.
How Technology and Covid-19 Are Reinventing Education - Rex Woodbury (Principal @Index Ventures)
Four of the most interesting trends in education that cut across direct-to-learner & lifelong learning:
Tutoring Marketplaces: of the world’s five most-valuable education startups, four are tutoring businesses. To be fair, each of these companies now offers additional learning products. But each has its roots in tutoring, and the scale of these businesses underscores the beauty of the tutor marketplace model.
2. Edutainment: People like to be entertained, typically more than they like to learn. YouTube is already a global destination for learning: 51% of YouTube’s 2bn monthly viewers are using the platform for education. An example worth highlighting is Moonbug ($265M raised), which creates media content for kids. Moonbug is behind Cocomelon, the 3rd-most-subscribed YouTube channel in the world with 97M subscribers. Edutainment isn’t only a kids phenomenon: Duolingo - the world’s 7th-most-valuable ed-tech startup - gamifies language learning for adults.
3. Business-in-a-Box Platforms: The average teacher in the U.S. makes $60K/year. With the Internet, teachers are able to quickly apply their skills to learners around the world. Outschool ($55M raised) targets K-12 students for interest-driven learning. Built on Zoom, classes are often quirky: learn Spanish with Taylor Swift songs, learn astronomy with Harry Potter. Primer ($4M raised) is a platform that helps parents easily set up and manage homeschools (homeschooling has grown steadily over the past 30 years)
4. Reskilling Workers: Startups like Lambda ($122M raised), Flockjay ($14M raised), and Microverse ($3M raised) aim to close the gap between skills taught in schools and skills demanded by the job marketplace by training workers directly. More companies are open-minded to new paths into the workforce: the president of Infosys, emphasizes this shift: “If you know stuff and can demonstrate that you have been upskilling yourself with online training to do the task that we need, you’re hired.”
InsurTech: benchmarks and breakouts
Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat
Are sports cards the future of retail investing?
Uber & its ghost ad spending
How Noom grew to a 9-figure revenue
The Paradoxes of Coinbase
5 Essential Engineering Leadership Lessons from Plaid and Dropbox
First Round <> Roblox investment story
🇪🇺 Notable European early-stage Consumer rounds
FomoGames, a Turkey-based developer of mobile games, raises $2.3M with Voodoo - link
ResilienceCare, a France-based software solution for cancer treatment providers and patients, raises €5M with Singular - link
Supplant, a UK-based natural sugar replacement company, raises $15M with Manta Ray/Coatue/Khosla/EQT - link
🇺🇸 Notable US early-stage Consumer rounds
FridgeNoMore, an N.Y.C-based on-demande grocery startup, raises $15.4M with Insight/Altair - link
Gather, an S.F-based virtual platform where people gather online, raises $26M with Sequoia/Index - link
Alt, an S.F-based sports trading card platform, raises $31M with Seven Seven Six - link
TheorycraftGames, an L.A-based game studio, raises $37.5M with NetEase/NEA/BITKRAFT - link
FalconX, an S.F-based cryptocurrency trading platform, raises $50M with Tiger Global/Accel/Lightspeed - link
🔭 Notable later stage Consumer rounds
Bitpanda, an Austria-based cryptocurrency trading platform, raises $170M with Valar/DST - link
Dutchie, an Oregon-based online cannabis ordering platform, raises $200M with Tiger Global/Dragoneer/DFJ - link
DispatchHealth, a Denver-based provider of in-home and virtual healthcare, raises $200M with Tiger Global - link
ForwardHealth, an S.F-based company that provides a membership-based health care system, raises $225M with Founders Fund/SoftBank/Khosla - link
Squarespace, an N.Y.C-based building and hosting website company, raises $300M with Dragoneer/Tiger Global/D1/Fidelity - link
Weee!, an S.F-based online grocery delivery service offering Hispanic and Asian foods products, raises $300M with DST - link
🍭 Notable Consumer Exits
Hippo Insurance goes public via SPAC. Hippo is an S.F-based neo home insurer, with backers including Felicis/Comcast/Fifth Wall - link
eToro to go public via SPAC. eToro is an Israel-based trading app, with backers including Spark/Social Leverage/Future Fifty - link
Super happy and proud to have Roadsurfer join the Heartcore Family 🖤
Congrats to Weezy for their fabulous re-branding 🤩
Heartcore Consumer Insights is a weekly newsletter, covering notable consumer rounds and exits, as well as top content in the B2C space.
