U-Turns, Exits, and Entrances

Did you catch the Oscar’s? Quite the hit, if you know what we mean. Kudos to the winners, particularly Apple’s Coda - a milestone for its streaming product.

This week we have the latest updates on Uber’s Taxi U-Turn; Sea’s India exit; HubSpot’s podcast entry; Netflix’s gaming drive; and pain in private markets and in the Metaverse.

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Analytics, Digital, Design In Action

Uber’s U-Turn

Uber has reached an agreement to list New York City taxis on its app. Two taxi-hailing apps, operated by Curb and Creative Mobile Technologies, will integrate their software with Uber, allowing users to book taxi rides in the Uber app, the companies announced Thursday. Uber said it expects to launch the feature later this spring.

The deal is a sizable shift for Uber, which has faced opposition from traditional taxi services since its founding in 2009. However, it is a timely move, as Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing companies grapple with a shortage of drivers. After a dramatic decline in traveling due to the coronavirus pandemic, ride-hailing companies have struggled to bring drivers back to full speed, which has made rides more expensive.

Taxis are already available in the Uber app in other countries, including Spain, Germany, and South Korea.

Sea’s Exit

E-commerce and gaming firm Sea Limited is withdrawing from India's retail market just months after starting operations there, the second pullback this month in an overseas expansion drive. This likely shows the ban on Free Fire cannot be lifted, and the Indian market will no longer be addressable by Sea.

The withdrawal, effective beginning March 29, comes weeks after its e-commerce arm Shopee said it was pulling out of France and after India banned Sea's popular gaming app "Free Fire".

HubSpot’s Podcast Entry

HubSpot announced a program to give creators some money and a platform to produce podcasts and deliver them on the HubSpot website. HubSpot hopes to take advantage of having access to a wider variety of content while giving the creators a way to reach a broader audience.

Podcast themes relate to HubSpot’s mission as a sales and marketing platform, offering content that will drive interest in its products and services.

Creators also get a monthly payment that increases as the audience grows, echoing moves by Spotify and Snap, as well as LinkedIn and Mailchimp. HubSpot has created four growth stages that correspond to venture funding notions: seed and Series A, B, and C.

Netflix’s Gaming Drive Accelerates

Netflix has acquired Texas-based independent game developer Boss Fight Entertainment. This marks Netflix’s third acquisition of a gaming company and is part of the streaming service’s ongoing push toward gaming.

This follows the acquisition of Next Games, a developer of mobile games with titles related to some of Netflix’s biggest draws, such as “Stranger Things” and “The Walking Dead”, and Night School Studio, the independent game developer known for narrative-driven titles like “Oxenfree.”

Netflix may prove to be a dark horse in the increasingly strategic video games market.

Pain in Private Markets and the Metaverse

If you own some stocks then it likely hasn’t been going well for you. The tech private market is the latest arena of pain, with Instacart slashing its valuation by 40% to $24B. After DoorDash’s blockbuster stock market debut in late 2020 and a rally in emerging tech stocks through most of last year, Instacart was viewed as a prime IPO candidate for 2022. Then came the twin concerns of accelerating inflation and projections for higher interest rates, which sent risky assets into a tailspin starting in November.

Meanwhile, you could feel real-life pain in the Metaverse thanks to a Japanese start-up. A Sony-backed Japanese start-up company called H2L Technologies is working on creating real-life pain experiences for the metaverse. The wristband aims to allow users to move around in the virtual world but feel sensations like pain and the weight of objects. It works by electrically stimulating a wearer’s arm muscles. A user is said to be able to feel sensations like their skin being pinched or weight in their hands.

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