Hey Snackers,
45 million. That's how many times All I Want For Christmas Is You was streamed last week.
While Mariah Carey's hit turned 25, stocks rose on a Hanukkah gift from China: Lower tariffs on 850 US-made goods, from frozen pork to microchips. It's a positive step towards the "complete-phase-1-of-the-trade-deal" New Year's resolution.
Rivian's massive 4th fundraise of 2019 could make electric trucks mainstream (with help from Amazon)
“Cute Tesla”... (new bumper sticker for Rivian drivers). The electric pickup truck startup snagged $1.3B in fresh money from T. Rowe Price and existing investors like Ford and Amazon. That cash will facelift an old Mitsubishi plant in Normal, Illinois (great name) to start mass-ish producing e-pickups in 2021. Here's America's State of the Car (and their value by market capitalization):
- Detroit's Big 3: GM ($53B), Ford ($37B), Fiat-Chrysler ($29B — FYI, Chrysler merged with Fiat in 2009... and is mega-merging with Peugeot right now).
- Electric's Big 2: Tesla ($72B) and Rivian (somewhere between $5B-$7B — it's still private, so we don't know its valuation for sure).
Cars cost more than coders... App-based tech startups raise tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to hire programers and install kombucha taps. But Rivian raises money in the billions to build factories, fill them with high-tech robots, and hire engineers. All those costs are why fundraising for hardware cars is bigger than for software tech.
You want traction? I’ll show you truction... Venture capitalists, Ford, and Amazon had invested a huge $2.2B in Rivian already. To get this extra $1.3B, Rivian probably had to show them some traction — evidence that it's worth investing more into. How about this truction:
Sports betting goes public as DraftKing heads to the big leagues
Who ya got?... Sports betting phenom DraftKings announced it's dropping out of college to join a publicly-traded company that will be worth $3.3B total. The daily fantasy sports app lets you bet real money — and claims it dominates 60% of the fantasy market.
The Flying V, the Hail Mary... Now add Triple Reverse Merger to the list of all-time great plays. Instead of IPO'ing like most private companies do to bring their stocks to public markets, DraftKings will take a different route to the pros: Merge with an already-public company. Here's the new team:
- DraftKings is the QB: Provides the core product — an app for new-school fantasy (bet $$$ on individual players) and old-school sports betting (wager that teams will win or beat-the-spread).
- SBTech is the lineman: Provides the fundamental technology for bookmakers to set the bets.
- Diamond Eagle is the coach: This is the already publicly-traded big shot with plenty of cash to spend on merging all 3 companies for (what it hopes will be) a game-winning lineup.
2 critical moments shaped DraftKings into the player it is today... and both were focused on American consumers:
- 2016: DraftKings tried to merge with rival FanDuel to dominate the fantasy sports market — but US regulators blocked the plan that would've created a sports betting monopoly as powerful as the '98 Yankees.
- 2018: The Supreme Court ends a federal ban on sports betting — since then, 13 states have legalized the industry and 6 more have legislation to join them.
- The future: The sports betting industry is expected to hit $13B in annual revenue by 2023.
What else we’re Snackin’
- Departing: Boeing's CEO steps down after a disastrous year
- TikToking: TikTok is looking for a global HQ outside China to shake off that whole controlled-by-the-Chinese-government perception
- Spy Chat: Popular Emirati messaging app ToTok (not TikTok) was just removed from Google and Apple's app stores because it's actually a government spying tool, not a charming dance app
- Paid: 20 states will raise their minimum wage rates on January 1 (hourly pay bumps range from 10 cents to $1.50)
- Big Block: Blockchain startup Ripple is now valued at $10B after its latest funding round as it tries to become the crypto for cross-border payments
- Record: Saturday was the single biggest day of sales in US history, with a record $34.4B splurged by procrastinating shoppers (us. Basically us).
Tuesday
- Earnings from Pivotal Software
- Markets close early at 1pm ET for Christmas Eve
Disclosure: Authors of this Snacks own shares of Tesla, Amazon, Google, and Apple
ID: 1044377