Equity Monday: TikTok loves ecommerce and VCs think Mistral AI will be fine (potential EU regulatory overhang or not)
Dec 11, 2023
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In this episode, the hosts discuss the end of earnings season, the spike in crypto trading activity, TikTok's joint venture with Tokopedia, the EU's regulatory plan for AI, Mistral AI's new funding, and other tech news including the chip war and fintech unicorns.
TikTok forms a joint venture with Tokopedia to enter the Indonesian ecommerce market, indicating their strategic investment in Southeast Asia's largest e-commerce market.
Mistral AI's successful series A funding round shows that investors still see opportunities in AI despite regulatory challenges in the EU.
Deep dives
Stocks and Crypto
Despite concerns of deflation in China, stocks are mostly higher in Asia, mixed in Europe, and largely flat in pre-market trading in the US. In the crypto world, major cryptocurrencies have remained relatively flat in price, with Solana's token being the exception, surging 11.5% in the last week. The surge in trading volume, which has reached its second highest peak of the year, is driving up trading activity. This may result in increased investment for early-stage crypto startups.
TikTok Expands in Indonesia
TikTok is putting up $1.5 billion in a joint venture with go-to and TikTok shop Indonesia to tap into the Southeast Asia's largest e-commerce market. With a control and stake of approximately 75% in the new entity, TikTok is strategically investing in the Indonesian economy, which is worth about $1.42 trillion each year.
AI Regulation and Funding
The EU has implemented a risk-based framework for regulating AI. The regulations include bans on biometric categorization systems, untargeted scraping of facial images, emotion recognition in certain settings, social scoring, and AI systems that exploit vulnerabilities. While the EU hails its accomplishment, some critics express negative opinions on the restrictiveness of the regulations. In other news, French startup Mistral AI closed its series A funding round, raising $415 million at a valuation of $2 billion, indicating that investors still see opportunities in AI despite regulatory challenges.
Our Monday show covers the latest in tech news from the weekend and what’s making headlines early in the week. Here's what Alex got into:
The end of earnings: With just Adobe and Oracle from the tech world reporting this week, we have finally (mostly) wrapped up earnings season for Q4 2023, and thus the year.
Crypto’s doing things again: Recent price appreciation is driving another massive spike in trading activity.
TikTok forms joint venture: Teaming up with Tokopedia, the Bytedance company has its eyes on the Indonesian ecommerce market. But the tie-up comes at a stiff price.
Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.
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