Highlights of the Week (Feb 5, 2021)

February marked the start of Black History Month as well as Groundhog Day and presumably a longer winter. The news of the week heavily revolved around the billionaires of the world. Jeff Bezos said good-bye to his role as Amazon CEO, Elon Musk drove hype on Clubhouse, and Jack Ma’s company finally got approval by the Chinese government to restructure. 

• In Daily Stack news, even though Gamestop stock has plummeted significantly, it is never too late to look into the latest stock trading apps. Here’s our list of some top startups offering trading alternatives to the big players. Read more. 
• To honor Black History Month, we’re putting together a report on diversity in the private market and diving deeply into the realities of the lack of diversity in terms of funding activity. But first, take a look at some of our preliminary findings. Read more.
• Blank check companies or SPACs are unstoppable and the ones that have IPOed have raised one-third of the global IPO funds. See which have successfully acquired businesses and which haven’t worked out. Read more. 
• The advantages of SPACs are creeping into the digital media space as more companies are bouncing back with the acceleration of cord-cutting and finding new streams of revenue as well as a push to even more lean operations with the pandemic. Here’s a highlight of some top-performing digital-first media organizations. Read more.