Updated on Dec 15, 2023
1. Cycle Platform closes €500,000 funding round 🧥🔁
Cycle Platform, the luxury fashion startup with a circular approach, closes a €500,000 pre-seed investment round. At this point, achieving this milestone is not only a financial boost, but also a clear signal of confidence in their proposal by investors.
The platform, focused on high-end fashion, operates on two levels:
☝🏼 On one hand, it markets the garments of the brands selling through cycle's e-commerce to end consumers. The most powerful aspect here is the new buy-back purchasing model. That is, when the user purchases a garment, the platform itself ensures repurchase once the season is over🍂, a sort of secondary market for the same products sold👌🏼.
✌🏼 On the other hand, Cycle offers unique product traceability, implementing the DPP or Digital Product Passport 🪪 , the European regulation that allows tracing the identity, manufacturing, and authenticity of the product. This investment will serve to continue boosting this business route 🆙.
Why is Cycle interesting?
📍 Traceability: offering a service of unitary product identification finally provides a tool to strongly fight against imitations, as well as the ability to measure the environmental impact and the lifespan of products.
🛍️ Enjoy vs. Own: in line with the preferences of the Millennial and especially the Z generation, by offering the option to buy, use for a season, and then resell it to the platform, we move towards a solution akin to rent with option to buy. Buy it, enjoy it, and then decide whether it goes to the closet or resell it to the platform.
👱🏼♀️ Access to luxury: the circularity of high-end fashion also provides access to this type of products to profiles with lower purchasing power. Thanks to the reconditioning service of products, high-quality garments and accessories can have a second, third, or fourth life, minimizing and reducing impact and manufacturing.
⚫️ This round comes the same week that Zara launches its Pre-owned platform, a sales space with a circular model where to resell, repair, or donate garments that we no longer use.
👉🏻 Read more here about Cycle Platform's funding round and its impact on the sector👏🏼.
👉🏻 Discover how Cycle Platform is changing the game with its innovation and what we can expect from its future. 🚀🔍
👉🏻 Here all the details about Zara Pre-Owned, operation, and mobile app 🧵.
👉🏻 If you are looking to start an online business 🚀 we can help you define your business model with a top-notch market fit 🔝 and develop it with the best User Experience and Technology. [Schedule a meeting with our experts] 📅 and one of our advisors 📲 will contact you to discuss your project.
2. Twitch Relaxes Restrictions on Sexual Content Policy 🎥🔥
Twitch, the reigning platform for video game streaming, has decided to relax its policy on sexually suggestive content 🌶️. This decision, which breaks with the previous rigidity, opens a new chapter in the world of streaming. But, what does this exactly mean?
Before, Twitch had a strict policy against any content considered sexually suggestive 😳🙅🏻♂️. However, now it will allow certain types of content that were previously on the edge. This change, which aims to balance freedom of expression with community standards, has sparked debate due to the reach and penetration of the medium, especially among younger profiles 😱.
Twitch ensures that the update is not an "open door" 🚪🙏🏻 to explicit content, but an adaptation to modern times🤘🏼. The platform wants to be more inclusive and flexible, recognizing the diversity of its community and the different types of content that it wishes to explore 🤦🏻♀️.
Now, will this be the start of a new era on Twitch? Is Twitch growing with its audience and seeking to prevent them from going to other more explicit spaces? Certainly, it seems like a step forward to have options against TikTok and its Lives, where the format coincides (streaming) and the restrictions fail to block explicit content when not directly pornographic 🧯.
👉🏻 Read here the full story on the changes in Twitch's policy and discover how the platform is redefining the rules of the game 🎮.
👉🏻 Here to read the article on how content creators sneak suggestive content deceiving the algorithm (and of course, users manage to find it🤓).
3. TikTok for Information and Shopping: Will the Z Generation End the Traditional Media Model? 📲🗞️
In line with the above, who would have thought that a short video app would become the morning newspaper for the Z Generation? According to a Business Insider report, TikTok is surpassing traditional media as the main news source for those born between 1997 and 2012. A cocktail of highly varied content 🍸 and at lightning speed ⚡️.
🧑🏻🏫 Figures and Spending:
A recent study shows that over 60% of Gen Z users on TikTok use the platform for information, surpassing other social networks and traditional media 📻.
The average duration of a video on TikTok is only 15 to 60 seconds, implying a focus on quick and digestible news, and almost never deep. The margin for reflection and critical thinking is nil 😵💫.
For the first time, an app that is not a game, gets users to spend over $10 billion. Mostly spent on TikTok's virtual currency, Coins. This is a super relevant milestone as until now, all those who had reached these figures in an app were games like Candy Crush Saga or Clash of Clans.
📺 Impact on Traditional Media:
Mainstream media, such as newspapers and television news, are experiencing a decline in their young audience, with a 20% drop in the last five years 👋🏼.
This shift has led to an adaptation crisis, where media must find ways to integrate digital and brief content to capture this audience 😎.
Meanwhile, TikTok users are spending those Coins on rewarding content creators. That is, they understand the information business in a very different way from the traditional advertiser-consumer model. When they like a piece of content, they buy coins and reward the creator with money🏅🫰🏼. Of course, TikTok keeps 50% along the way🙋🏻.
🛸 Reliability and Quality of Information:
The main concern revolves around the accuracy and depth of the news on TikTok. Influencers do not always have journalistic training, which can lead to biased or superficial information 💁🏻♂️.
However, the platform has initiated collaborations with news agencies to offer verified and quality content ✅ ✅ ✅.
In summary, TikTok is not only changing the way the Z Generation consumes news, but is also challenging the very foundations of the media industry. The question is: are traditional media ready for this digital revolution? 🤔
👉🏻 Explore more about TikTok's impact on news consumption by the Z Generation here.
👉🏻 Here the article about the incredible spending record of over $10 billion in 2023 in a non-gaming mobile app (and the excellent 2024 to come 😉).
4. Deale: the platform revolutionizing the mergers and acquisitions market 🤝🏼🌐
👓 What is Deale?: Deale is a platform launched in 2021, created to connect SMEs, investors, and advisors in search of ideal partners and inorganic growth opportunities, specifically with mergers and acquisitions (M&A) processes 🗃️.
⭐️ Deale's Value Proposition: What Deale does is efficiently and directly connect sellers and buyers in the SME ecosystem, while offering expert advice in operations👨🏻💼. Its most direct benefit is to significantly shorten (and a lot) the formalization times 📆 of operations, from the initial contact to the signing, managing to reduce these deadlines to an average of 100 days.
🧮 Alright, but in figures?: Since its inception, they have reached over 5,120 users, including 2,360 sellers and 2,260 buyers, along with 500 advisors. The platform has exceeded €1 million in revenue, multiplying its results by 10 compared to the previous year 📊.
🔮 How they see their Future: The implementation of automation tools on their platform, including an AI-based search engine 🤖 to generate opportunities and a space for advisors to add services and generate new online business operations ➕.
The speed, seriousness, and confidentiality place Deale as a comprehensive solution that accelerates and responds to the changing environment of SMEs and the M&A market 📈🤝. We'll keep a close eye on them 🔎.
👉🏻 Here to read the interview with their CEO, Gerard García in Forbes Spain 📰.
👉🏻 Here to get to know Deale and register if you are open to buying or selling 💰.
5. Applivery secures €1 million to revolutionize enterprise device and app management 👨🏻💻🖥️
Applivery, a company offering enterprise device management and mobile application management, has closed a €1 million Seed round, marking a step forward in its ambitious expansion plan for Spain 🇪🇸 and internationally 🌏.
🪄 Innovation and Expansion:
Applivery is a SaaS that offers companies the ability to improve device management, updates, and data security, crucial in the context of the growing remote work 🏠💼.
The funding will be used to accelerate growth and strengthen their position in the national and international market ✈️.
The investment, supported by Pedro Tortosa and Lead Angels by Intelectium, reflects confidence in Applivery's mission and its growth potential 🌱.
A Streamlined Solution:
They are clear about wanting to keep their product as simple as possible and that it is as easy to deploy as to replace the complex and tedious IT processes ⏳ for device maintenance, setup, and updates 🌅.
👉🏻 Discover here Applivery's plans to expand its device and application management solution ⌨️🤝🏼.
👉🏻 Get to know here Applivery's vision, value proposition, and products 🧑🏼💻.
