Hey — It's Nico.

This newsletter contains the following:

• 1 failed startup.
• 5 resources for founders.
• 5 startup news.
• 1 hot startup.

+ infinite congratulations to my country, Argentina 🇦🇷, for winning the World Cup ;)

This issue is brought to you by On Deck Founders:

On Deck Founders (ODF) is an invite-only community for early-stage founders who want to find a co-founder, validate an idea, or build traction towards a fundraise.

Here's what Vance Roush, co-founder of Overflow had to say👇:

"On Deck was catalytic in the earliest introductions to angel investors, giving us the momentum needed for later rounds of fundraising. Being around world-class people that are the best in the industry, and to be able to share knowledge was huge."

Overflow raised a $10M Series A from R7 Partners.

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Failed startup of the week: YourGrocer

​YourGrocer, a nine-year-old Melbourne-based grocery delivery startup, shut its doors on Friday last week.

YourGrocer allowed customers to order straight from independent retailers and fresh produce producers. The company had a loyal following across the city and generated $9.2M in sales this year.

However, the startup was unable to meet its $1M crowdfunding campaign and ceased operations right after.

In an email to customers, the company claimed: “It is with a heavy heart that we must announce that YourGrocer is closing down for good as a company this Friday Dec 16th.” Also: “As hard as we’ve tried, we cannot keep the company going any longer so have been forced to cease operating.”

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What to check this week?

💡 a16z has compiled 40+ big ideas for 2023 in consumer tech, bio & health, fintech, games, enterprise, crypto, and American Dynamism.

💵 Shaan Puri has sold Milk Road, his daily crypto newsletter. In this thread, he shares the acquisition story and his main lessons.

📈 5-step process to drive traffic and signups to your SaaS through SEO.

❌ Gumroad has recently announced an increase in its prices. This thread analyzes 9 mistakes they committed.

🔥 Nikhil Basu asked 50 of technology's top thinkers what's the next big thing in 2023.

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What happened this week?

🐦 Twitter votes for Musk to step down as CEO after he put his leadership on the line in an online poll.

💼 Goldman Sachs plans to lay off several thousand employees as the bank preps for an uncertain economic environment in 2023.

💰 Binance.US agrees to buy Voyager's assets for $1.02B, looking to return crypto to Voyager Digital’s customers.

🚀 OpenAI releases Point-E, an AI that generates 3D models given a text prompt.

🤖 Uber Eats launches robot delivery service in Miami as part of a partnership with robotics firm Cartken.

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Hot startup of the week: ImagenAI

​ImagenAI, which uses artificial intelligence to assist professional photographers in editing photos, has secured $30M in an all-equity growth investment from Summit Partners. This brings the company's total funding to $34M.

Yotam Gil, Ron Oren, and Yoav Chai founded ImagenAI in 2020 after identifying a significant issue in the photography industry: post-production is frequently repetitive and time-consuming, and existing tools do not always easily accommodate each photographer's style.

ImagenAI utilizes machine learning to attempt to capture the photographer's editing techniques and forecast dozens of various editing parameters, taking roughly a half-second to complete an edit.

ImagenAI's co-founder and CEO, Yotam Gil, stated that the new capital will be used to expand the company's software-as-a-service offerings through mergers and acquisitions and product research and development.

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What do you think of today's newsletter?

• ​🔥 Great​
• ​😒 Meh​
• ​👎 Not interesting​

This was my last email in 2022. I really hope you enjoyed it and found it useful.

I'll keep working on sending you the latest startup resources and news in 2023. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Cheers,

Nico