Is Your Startup In The Right Industry? 🏬

• 60% of entrepreneurs agree that AI is currently the most promising innovation technology.
• The highest-valued private startup in the world is Bytedance (Toutiao), from China, worth around $75 billion.
• 58% of startups have less than $25,000 at their disposal during the startup phase.

The efficient hackers are at it again. This time, they’ve chosen LinkedIn as the victim. Data of over 500 million users has been acquired by hackers. Of these, about 2 million profiles have already been leaked on public forums and are available for sale. You read that right; your personal information is up for sale!

What information was leaked? 

• LinkedIn IDs
• Full names
• Email addresses
• Phone numbers
• Genders
• Links to LinkedIn profiles
• Links to other social media profiles
• Professional titles and other work-related data

LinkedIn has already responded, noting that while the data does match their records, the leak isn’t the result of a breach of LinkedIn's own security, but is rather information that was already available online, either publicly or due to prior, “unrelated” breaches.

Nonetheless, you can check if your email is among those 2 million unfortunate ones by visiting this site.

• The global sexual wellness market - aka Sextech - a new industry for start-ups to explore - is expected to grow to $125 billion by 2026 (~90% YoY). 
• France plans to offer citizens $3000 to trade in their old emission spewing cars for an electric bicycle - becomes first nation in the world to do so. 
• Instagram’s new experiment lets you choose if you want to hide likes from posts - aims to reduce bandwagon effect on popular posts. 
• VC funding in the U.S. in Q1 of 2021 almost doubled compared to the same quarter of 2020. 
• Epic Games - creator of Fortnite - raised $1 billion to build a fast-paced ‘Metaverse’ 
• Bernie Madoff - architect of the world’s largest ponzi scheme (worth $65 billion) - died in prison on Wednesday at age 82. He was serving a 150-year term. 
• Jeff Bezos pens a goodbye letter to Amazon
• Southeast Asia’s biggest ride-hailing and food delivery firm, Grab Holdings makes a $40 billion merger with Altimeter Growth Corp - paving the way for a U.S. IPO.