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Airbnb Files for IPO and Omio Raises 100 Million Dollars

Between Airbnb’s IPO and Omio’s new $100 million funding, August was full of surprises. Let’s take a look at a fast recap on everything that happened in the startup and tech universe during the last month of summer!

Airbnb’s IPO is finally real! The company submitted a draft registration statement for IPO, according to a press release. The vacation unicorn was valued at $31 billion in 2017, but only at $18 billion this year and still plans to go public by the end of the year, in spite of its 40 percent decrease in valuation in three years.

Meanwhile, giant Just Eat Takeaway.com recorded losses of 158 million euros in the first six months of the year,  largely attributed to integration costs of its merger, as well as the acquisition of Grubhub. The company’s Ebitda grew 133%, to 177 million euros in the first semester with a 44.2% increase in revenue in comparable terms, to 1,031 million euros.

☠️No market need, running out of cash, user-unfriendly products, competition, and disharmony on teams are among the most common reasons why startups fail. CB Insights broke down the top 20 reasons for startup failure by analyzing 101 startup failure post-mortems.

In other news, Berlin-based travel startup Omio has raised a new $100m funding round. It has also maintained its unicorn status, despite seeing revenues drop to almost zero in March. Travel restrictions, border closures, and safety concerns are here to stay for the next months and business is not exactly rocketing forwards. So how did Omio convinced new investors? 

Speaking of funding,  Crowdcube launched a new secondary product: the Direct Community Offer (DCO), which gives later-stage businesses a way of offering early investors a return on their investment while simultaneously giving new investors a chance. The product represents an exciting next step in the evolution of investment crowdfunding.

Startup Inside Stories Podcast

This month, we had very interesting guests and topics on Itnig’s weekly podcast.

  • 151: Creating The Travel Sector with eDreams and Mauricio Prieto

Bernat interviews Mauricio Prieto, co-founder of eDreams ✈️ to explore the history of one of the largest and most successful travel agencies in Europe: the difficulties of starting, the experiences of the first online purchases, the evolution of the travel sector, and the crises that they managed to overcome when other players couldn’t.

  • 152: The Journey of Juan Rodríguez (Part l)

Bernat interviewed Juan Rodríguez, CEO of Camaloon, one of the key figures within the Itnig ecosystem, both for his high level of knowledge and experience in the business and entrepreneurship world and for being one of the investors at the Itnig Fund.

  • 153: The Journey of Juan Rodríguez (Part ll)

In this second part of the episode, Juan talks about his experience with his second unicorn: OtterBox. Juan explains how he transformed everything they had been building and drove the business to a greater growth through an aggressive distribution strategy. His most recent adventure is taking over the e-commerce world with Camaloon.

  • 154: Digital Marketing with Sergi Sans

Sergi Sans talks about his career in the world of Digital Marketing and SEO. In this episode, Sergi highlights the evolution of SEO, keys to good SEO, and at a general level, the knowledge necessary to sell online.

  • 155: The Shareholders’ Agreement with Josep Navajo

Bernat Farrero and Jordi Romero talk with Josep Navajo about one of the most important documents when developing a business: the Shareholders’ Agreement. Josep, being a lawyer and the CEO of Delvy, shares all his knowledge about what establishes, regulates, and orders this pact, as well as the usefulness of clauses.

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Startup News & Updates of the Month

Airbnb’s IPO wasn’t the only big announcement this month, lots of acquisitions, funding, initiatives and cool reports and insights are worth mentioning:

Jean-Eric Paquet, the EU’s urbane director-general for research and innovation, has a €10bn war chest to turn the European Innovation Council into “the biggest deeptech equity fund in Europe.” Could it be the next “unicorn factory”?

Ironhack and Landing.Jobs scholarship program has been launched to help people shift into a career in tech and fight unemployment with a €300,000 scholarship fund. Also, Ironhack has recently launched Ironhack Remote, which allows any student to join their tech bootcamps regardless of their nationality or location.

A new ‘Facebook Accelerator: Commerce’ welcomes startups from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa focused on e-commerce solutions that help “bridge the gap between online and in-store experiences.” The program will adopt an entirely virtual format, providing startups with training, mentorship, and support.

The Latin American fintech industry is booming, and women have been an integral part of the region’s success stepping up as fintech leaders, with five times as many female-founded fintechs as the global average. 

🚴‍♂️ Glovo, Deliveroo, and Delivery Hero share millions of users have raised funding rounds worth billions and reached unicorn status. Here’s a short table to see them side-by-side.

Jeff, Declarando, and GrowPro Experience will be part of the Scale-Up phase of the Lanzadera program next September. This Scale-Up phase expands Lanzadera’s scope of action by targeting those startups that have grown a lot and have a proven and profitable business model. Through the program, the accelerator will support them in addressing new goals and new markets.

In other news, Delivery Hero acquired InstaShop, an online grocery marketplace valued at $360 million. The initial purchase price was about $270 million. Based in Dubai, the grocery platform launched five years ago and has hit up to 330 percent year-on-year growth. With Delivery Hero’s support, the plan is to continue expanding into new markets.

Pagantis has been acquired by Afterpay for at least €50 million! Pagantis’ existing technology will be re-configured to provide the Afterpay core product, and the business will be rebranded to Clearpay.

Valencia-based Jeff opens its first fitness center in Valencia and begins its expansion. The new business line adds to its already consolidated laundry and dry cleaning franchise that has already expanded in more than 30 countries. You can check out our past episode with Eloi Gomez, CEO, and founder. 

New Funding for Startups 

💸Europe recorded $17 billion in funding in the first half of 2020, down 20 percent from 2019. However, the continent experienced an increase in funding dollars to seed, angel, and early-stage rounds. You can check Crunchbase’s “The State Of Global Venture Funding During COVID-19” report. 

Random Tech Stuff

Besides Airbnb’s IPO, the tech scene had a lot happening!

This is a compilation of all the weekly newsletters we sent during the month. We keep our community updated on everything related to startups, tech news, fundings, and we share our weekly podcast!

Subscribe and keep up with the startup universe, or feel free to come back for more startup news of the month here.

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How to Master Startup Lingo Like a Pro

We know startup and entrepreneurship conversations can get a bit overwhelming with all the business and tech terms in between sentences. It’s happened to all of us as we start to enter this crazy startup world. More importantly, if you’re an entrepreneur talking to investors, for example, they’ll expect you to use and understand the industry’s acronyms or lingo.

Continue reading “How to Master Startup Lingo Like a Pro”