Day in SaaS: 07.15.21: Robinhood's Secrets; SF Bay Area is Back; Microsoft Pokes Apple in the Eye
Why Robinhood makes far more per customer than Schwab. "Robinhood earned an average of $0.0023 per equity share traded in the fourth quarter of 2020. That's two-tenths of a penny for every share you buy or sell." But they trade so, so much more than Schwab.
What impact will Apple's buy now, pay later push have on startups?. Everyone seems to be coming after the Affirm / Klarna model. Even Shopify charged Affirm a very steep price to be its partner for Buy Now, Pay Later. Perhaps it’s just too lucrative to not own yourself.
Tech Workers Swore Off the Bay Area. Now They’re Coming Back. SF remains a huge mess. But for tech companies, it’s still coming back. Just different. More data here.
Scoop: OpenStore raises $30 million in Series A funding. Aggregating Shopify stores can be a big business. OpenStore snags a $250m valuation before it really has any revenue to do so.
Digital bank Revolut valued at $33 billion in funding round led by SoftBank and Tiger Global. A stunning growth in valuation for this neobank. Getting many of the profits but bearing less of the costs of a bank can generate massive revenues.
The Seattle startup scene is sizzling with record funding, hiring surge, 12 unicorns. Unicorns are on fire everywhere.
Google Meet for Glass Enterprise Edition enters open beta for Workspace customers. Glass isn’t dead. It’s just a niche enterprise product. And it’s still alive in 2021. In fact, it has its own kind of crazy version of Google Meet. It’s straight from the future and sci-fi.
Georgia startups land more venture capital in first half of 2021 than all of last year - Atlanta Business Chronicle. Most unicorns and SaaS companies on fire in Atlanta and Georgia.
Microsoft to drop commercial marketplace fees to 3% (from 20%) in latest dig at platform rivals. A poke in Apple’s eye (and to a lesser extent, Google), Microsoft drops its marketplace fees to 3%. Since it’s immaterial to them though, it’s more a gesture than a real give.
Dear SaaStr: As a Co-Founder, How Do I Tell the Team I’m Leaving? If it’s time to move on — do it the right way.