Funny they didn’t mention UI Path and some others like Darktrace, Deliveroo, Getir, Trendyol etc… :
How perceptions of this company has changed. Prices are ridiculous, both from the Deliveroo mark up and what the restaurants charge extra to make up for that markup (4EUR bottled water seriously?)
More than half the riders here in Belgium are illegal immigrants using fake rider accounts that don't speak the local language. There's a squat near my house where they all hang out waiting for a call.
Seriously, look in side the window and you see a bunch of guys sitting around on broken chairs and crates surrounded by their Deliveroo backpacks (which are all filthy and worn out). They're so destitute and sorry looking that when one comes in to a restaurant to pick up a delivery you think omg.
I'm not someone who usually takes the side of "those poor workers" but in this case Deliveroo really runs on paying the poorest, more vulnerable people in society pennies to deliver over priced meals that a restaurant sold them for something like 30% less than they usually would.
Meanwhile the industry's gravitating toward ghost kitchens, putting even more unfair pressure on local restaurants.
Seriously I'd love drag whatever MBA is behind this company and show them what their "high valued startup" looks like here. I don't understand how these people sleep at night.
And then there's Lendable: "Loans at 28.6% Representative APR" and we're supposed to be amazed they turn a profit?!
Have you considered reporting them? Through the app or to the local authorities?
> Meanwhile the industry's gravitating toward ghost kitchens, putting even more unfair pressure on local restaurants.
That's actually great... and not new. Delivery-only restaurants means better margins for restaurant owners and a different business model.
A newspaper reported this after conducting their own investigation (basically asking the riders) so it's public knowledge now. "Deliveroo disputes those figures" https://www.msn.com/nl-be/financien/nieuws/meerderheid-maalt...
It's not my business to report them to the authorities, there's tons of "refugees" here and I don't necessarily think they should leave. My point was just that a "unicorn" running on the labor of these people is a pretty ugly way to conduct business.
European startups that are remotely successful literally have to move to NYC(or any other US city i guess, but NYC is the preferred choice, though it may be expensive) to not die off.It's not even a joke, and it's the sad reality of living in the grandious European Union that suffocates you with bureaucracy.There have been places that became lax towards tech startups (see cz for example), but even with laws being slowly changed/ignored, the money either isn't there compared to US, and even if there is (see france, uk especially post brexit), the investing entities lean on the fact that there's more talent/square meter, so they're not really that quick to pull the trigger if they can save on some bucks.
Is that really the case? Their main R&D center is in Romania and it's huge.
If anything, it's probably the other way around since management is the top of the pyramid, which kind of by definition, is not a lot of people.
More details here: https://craft.co/uipath
On top of that, they have offices around the world, so it's very unlikely that all the other 2000 are only in the US.
Furthermore, as per above link, Employees (est.) (Jan 2021) 2,863. Romanian employees are not 800 as claimed in that article, and closer to 600. 20% of 2863 is 572.
Even 800 out of 2863 is 28%, and the actual number is less than 800. It seems we are much on the same page.
Which takes me to:
https://sec.report/Document/0001193125-21-094920/#rom98556_2
> As of January 31, 2021, we had a total of 2,863 full-time employees. Of our employees, 714 were engaged in research and development. 122 full-time employees were based at our headquarters in New York, New York, and 727 full-time employees were based in Bucharest, Romania
And that's from January. What are your sources? You're very confident for someone contradicting their IPO documents ;-)
Plus you're moving the goalposts. I proved that more than 20% are in Romania alone (your own math says 28%), UIPath has other European offices. So it's entirely possible that around 50% of UIPath employees are in Europe. I'm too lazy to check.
My point is that UIPath was started in Europe and has a strong presence in Europe. The main development center is in Europe. The top management is European. It can't be considered a purely American startup.
But for how long?
The Romanian R&D center is obviously competitive, otherwise we wouldn't have so many offices from purely American companies in Romania.
So the direct answer is: for long enough, I hope :-)
lol what a bold and wrong statement
US Affirm is publicly valued at 34.55B.
AUS Afterpay is publicly valued at 31.19.
I don’t think it is a bold statement. All the major competitors are pretty close.
The fee from merchants is interesting because the claim is: the fee from merchants is going to be larger than the losses from making bad loans (and the costs of servicing). I am very sceptical of this. Management describe their underwriting model as largely using stuff like the product bought, the retailer used, the value of the order...it just sounds very suspect. And that is before you consider the valuation, the legislative risks, the interest rate risk (doing 0% loans stops making sense if interest rates rise), etc. I am in the UK and these kind of businesses usually trade at very low multiples because the regulation in the space is so high.
I would regard $10bn market cap as a pretty jazzy valuation for Affirm, the stock is at $35bn.
But I don't think most banks issuing credit cards are in this business yet. And of course making normal purchases on credit cards is a terrible way to "buy now pay later" because the interest rates are so ridiculously high.
It will be interesting to see if more banks get into this market seeing how successful Klarna, Affirm, etc. seem to be, because it does eat into their existing high interest rate profits on credit cards.
We'll see how things shake out. Calling them 'the winner' of the market is just odd.
Calling them the winner right now is fine. They are winning.
They have not won though. The game is still on.