Dear Inside Community, Meet Our Fund 3 goes live this week, Tuesday, May 24, and Wednesday, May 25. If you don’t already know, this is our most popular event series, where VCs pitch their funds directly to startup founders. Just look at this week’s guest list. Registration is free, and if you’re a founder who might be raising soon, we know you’ll want to make MOF3 a priority. See you there! —The Inside Team | |  Vanessa |  |
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 Chinese ride-hailing company Didi Global will delist from the New York Stock Exchange less than a year after listing on June 30, 2021. About 96% of Didi shareholders voted in favor of the company delisting to resolve a cybersecurity probe by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). According to an SEC filing, the company does not plan to list its shares on another exchange until the cybersecurity review and any corrective measures are completed. More: - Didi plans to file its delisting notification with the SEC on or after June 2; its shares will stop trading on the NYSE 10 days later.
- Last June, Didi raised $4.4B in its highly anticipated U.S. IPO, selling 316.8 million ADS at about $14 each.
- The company ended its debut with a market cap of about $68B, becoming the biggest IPO of a U.S.-listed Chinese company since Alibaba Group in 2014.
- Days following its IPO, the CAC launched an investigation into Didi, citing data security risks and national security concerns.
- The CAC ordered app-store operators like Apple and Google to remove Didi from their app stores and prohibited Didi from adding new users to its platform.
- At its IPO, Didi had about 493 million annual active users and 41 million average daily transactions on its platform.
- Didi shares are down over 90% since its IPO; it closed at $1.44, down 4% for the day.
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Starbucks announced on Monday it will completely exit the Russian market and close its 130 locations in the country. Starbucks suspended all its business activity in Russia on March 8 following the country's invasion of Ukraine at the end of February. Russia accounts for less than 1% of Starbucks' total annual revenue. More: - All 130 locations in Russia were licensed, meaning Starbucks didn't operate them.
- Starbucks said it would pay its roughly 2,000 Russian employees for six months and help them find other employment.
- The coffee chain also plans to help its partners transition to new opportunities outside of Starbucks.
- Earlier this month, at its earnings call, Starbucks promised to donate royalties from its Russian business to Ukraine's humanitarian efforts.
- Starbucks had operated in Russia for 15 years.
Zoom out: - Starbucks' decision to leave Russia follows those of other big-name brands like McDonald's and Exxon Mobil, which have completely exited their Russian businesses.
- Last Thursday, McDonald's announced it was selling its Russian business to its Siberian licensee, Alexander Govor.
- Govor will operate the restaurants under a different name.
- McDonald's had about 850 locations in Russia, owning about 84% of the restaurants.
- In 2021, Russia accounted for about 9% of McDonald's global total revenue.
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- It might be more attainable for employees to exercise their shares
- Having the company transparently share this with employees garners trust and means employees can make more informed decisions regarding their employee stock options
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 Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin, has lost about $10B of its supply in the last couple of weeks. According to data from CoinGecko, Tether had a record circulating supply of $84.2B on May 11 and is down to about $73B on Monday. Investors pulled about $1B from the stablecoin late Friday evening. More: - Tether (USDT), meant to be pegged to the U.S. dollar, temporarily dropped to 95 cents on May 12 following the collapse of another stablecoin, terraUSD (UST).
- In a statement on Monday, Tether said its USDT coin is fully backed by collateral, adding that the coin has maintained its peg because every USDT is redeemable for dollars.
- In Feb. 2021, Tether and Bitfinex reached an $18.5M settlement with the New York attorney general’s office over claims of the digital coin’s dollar reserves.
- Last week, Tether said it has increased its holdings of U.S. treasury bills to $39.2B and reduced the amount of commercial paper, short-term loans to companies, to $20.1B.
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District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine is suing Meta (Facebook) CEO Mark Zuckerberg over his alleged role in the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal. In the lawsuit filed on Monday, Racine alleges Zuckerberg was closely involved in envisioning and carrying out the framework on Facebook that allowed Cambridge Analytica to collect user data without consent. More: - In a press release on Monday, Racine said Zuckerberg’s policies enabled a multi-year effort to mislead users about the extent of Facebook’s wrongful conduct.
- Racine added that the lawsuit is necessary and sends a message to corporate leaders, including CEOs, that they will be held accountable for their actions.
- The lawsuit comes after a judge rejected Racine’s attempt to add Zuckerberg as a defendant in his original consumer protection complaint against Meta over the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
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Semiconductor giant Broadcom is in advanced talks to buy cloud computing company VMware for $60B. According to people familiar with the matter, Broadcom will pay around $140 a share for VMware, a ~46% premium on the company’s close price on Friday. Both companies are expected to announce a cash and stock deal on Thursday, assuming talks do not fall apart. More: - Shares of VMware rose almost 25% on Monday, closing at $119.43 a share.
- Broadcom shares were down ~3% on Monday, closing at $526.26.
- Broadcom has a market cap of ~$215B.
- VMware operates in the hybrid cloud space, helping companies manage their various cloud computing services.
- Dell Computers completed the spinoff of its 81% stake in VMware last November.
- The equity stake was valued at $52B.
- VMware paid a special cash dividend of $11.5B related to the deal.
- Dell’s founder and CEO, Michael Dell, serves as VMware’s chairman.
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Airbnb plans to close down all its mainland China listings, including homes and experiences, this summer. According to people familiar with the matter, the company will maintain its office in Beijing, focusing on outbound travel. Airbnb plans to notify its employees in China as early as Tuesday morning Beijing time. More: - Airbnb launched its mainland China business in 2016; stays in the country accounted for about 1% of Airbnb's total global revenue.
- The company has struggled with its mainland Chinese business for years due to fierce competition from domestic operators.
- The COVID-19 pandemic worsened the issues the company was facing in the country.
- Airbnb plans to double down on its Chinese outbound travel, providing listings for Chinese travelers going abroad.
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Quick Hits - Bubbles, with users from around the world, encourages teams to decline meetings-that-should-have-been-emails.*
- Buy now, pay later firm Klarna announced on Monday that it will lay off about 10% of its global workforce. The Sweden-based company is looking to raise new funding at about two-thirds of its current valuation.
- SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell defended CEO Elon Musk in an email to employees, noting she personally believes the sexual misconduct allegations against him to be false because she has worked closely with musk for 20 years and has never seen nor heard anything resembling the allegations.
- U.S. President Joe Biden, in a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, said the U.S. is prepared to use force to defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression.
- The 2022 World Cup hosted by Qatar starting in November is expected to be watched by about 5 billion people globally. It is expected to break the TV audience record of 3.5 billion people for the 2018 World Cup, which was hosted in Russia.
- If your site is struggling, it may be time for a more powerful commerce platform. Read our eBook and find out if your business is ready.*
*This is a sponsored post.
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Upcoming Events - May 24 - Meet Our Fund 3 (Register Here)
- May 31 - Ethereum Merge with Anthony Donofrio (Ethereum) (Register Here)
- June 01 - Selling Consumer Goods in Web3 (Register Here)
- June 06, June 07, June 08 - June 09 - In-Person RSA Conference 2022: Control IT, security, and SaaS complexity with Axonius (Register Here) *
- June 09 - Empowering Content Creators with No Code (Register Here)
- June 15 - Need To Know NoCoder - Artem Harutyunyan (bardeen.ai) (Register Here)
- June 16 - Future of the Art Market (Register Here)
- June 30 - HR Strategies to Retain Remote Employees (Register Here)
Check out https://inside.com/events to learn more! *This is a sponsored listing.
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 |  | Vanessa Omeokachie is a Researcher at Inside. Her interests include finance, tech, and startups. In her free time, she enjoys reading, hiking, attending music festivals, and traveling. Connect with her on Twitter @VanessaOmeo or through email at vanessa@inside.com | | | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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