Raphael Stevens

In this articleETSYA DJ performs at the launch of social shopping app Depop’s 3-month pop-up at Selfridges on August 01, 2019 in London, England.David M. Benett | Getty ImagesE-commerce firm Etsy announced Wednesday that it is buying the secondhand fashion app Depop for $1.62 billion.Founded in the U.K. in 2011, Depop lets people buy and sell used clothes through its online marketplace. The company has attracted a predominantly younger audience thanks to its social media savvy and messaging on environmental and ethical shopping.Depop boasts approximately 30 million registered users across 150 countries. Etsy CEO Josh Silverman said the company was “thrilled” to be adding what it believes to be the “resale home for Gen Z consumers” to Etsy.”Depop is a vibrant, two-sided marketplace with a passionate community, a highly-differentiated offering of unique items, and we believe significant potential to further scale,” Silverman said in a statement Wednesday.”We see significant opportunities for shared expertise and growth synergies across what will now be a tremendous ‘house of brands’ portfolio of individually distinct, and very special, ecommerce brands.”Depop’s CEO Maria Raga said in a statement that Depop is “where the next generation comes to explore unique fashion and be part of a community that’s changing the way we shop.”She added:” Our community is made up of people who are creating a new fashion system by establishing new trends and making new from old. They come to Depop for the clothes, but stay for the culture.”Etsy said the transaction consisted primarily of cash and was “subject to certain adjustments for Depop’s working capital, transaction expenses, cash and indebtedness, and certain deferred and unvested equity for Depop management and employees.”Etsy expects to finalize the deal by the third quarter of 2021. Depop will remain headquartered in London, Etsy said, operating as a standalone business run by current management.The deal marks the biggest acquisition yet for Etsy, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2015.Shares of Etsy have roughly doubled in the last 12 months thanks to an e-commerce boom resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. The stock is down 5% year-to-date, however. Etsy shares were down marginally in U.S. premarket trading.Prior to agreeing a sale to Etsy, Depop had raised a total of $105.6 million from investors including General Atlantic, Creandum, Balderton Capital, Octopus Ventures and Klarna CEO and co-founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski, according to data from Crunchbase. More

Guild Education’s Headquarters in Denver, ColoradoGuild EducationGuild Education has raised a $150 million Series E funding round, bringing the company’s valuation to $3.75 billion — more than triple its previous valuation of $1 billion.The Denver-based edtech company, ranked No. 49 on this year’s CNBC Disruptor 50 list, helps companies including Disney, Chipotle, Walmart, Taco Bell and Lowe’s offer debt-free degrees to their employees. “If you talk to CEOs at nearly any large company, they’re focused on issues that hinge on getting the return to work right: safety protocols, culture, support for women and parents, and above all — recruitment and retention,” co-founder and CEO Rachel Carlson told CNBC.On Guild’s platform, users can enroll in programs from high school to trades, associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees. The courses are usually flexible, and don’t require a student to leave during the workday to complete a lesson or take an exam.More coverage of the 2021 CNBC Disruptor 50Meet the 2021 CNBC Disruptor 50 companiesWhy Robinhood is the No. 1 companyA look back at the CNBC Disruptor 50: 9 years, 233 companiesWhen disruption becomes a force for good — and badCybereason CEO told world about DarkSide from a bomb shelterThe new tech taking on trillions of pounds of trash How Relativity Space is reinventing the rocketIs audio the future of social?It’s not a vaccine passport, but more people travel ‘CLEAR’Patreon CEO on the ‘incredible leverage” creators now possessHow we choose Disruptor companiesChipotle has seen a 3.5 times higher retention rate among students enrolled in Guild programs, according to Carlson, and frontline employees who participate in the Guild programs are 7.5x more likely to move into a management role than peers not enrolled.”For workers, education unlocks economic mobility, giving them a debt-free way to acquire new skills and credentials that are aligned with the future of work,” she said. Guild sees opportunity to grow among the 88 million working Americans that need to learn new professional skills to compete for jobs, and to supplant the traditional notion that first obtaining a college degree is the way to a good job. It currently offers three million workers at major employers access to its platform, which helps the companies retain workers and “upskill” them into new roles and responsibilities. Workers receive access to education benefits, including tuition reimbursement and tuition assistance. Over the past year, nearly three quarters of U.S. companies reported major talent shortages — the highest number in a decade. A significant portion of the domestic workforce also faces a major threat of being displaced by automation. According to Carlson, workers with no postsecondary education — nearly 90 million Americans — will account for almost 80 percent of all displaced workers by 2030. “Employers are facing a rapidly changing workforce, with major shortages today in fields like engineering, cybersecurity and data analytics that are only accelerating,” she said. “As both employees and employers look to be competitive for the future of work, upskilling has quickly become the logical answer.”Guild says its new capital will be used to fuel the company’s growth, doubling the size of its product and engineering team, while also investing in its payments and technology platform. Investors in the new financing include Bessemer Venture Partners, General Catalyst, Salesforce Ventures, and GV, the venture capital arm of Alphabet.SIGN UP for our weekly, original newsletter that goes beyond the list, offering a closer look at CNBC Disruptor 50 companies, and the founders who continue to innovate across every sector of the economy. More

In this articleAMZNAn Amazon fulfillment center in Frankenthal, Germany.Thorsten Wagner | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesAmazon is bringing its Prime Day megasale back to its normal summertime schedule after the company last year postponed the annual event due to the coronavirus pandemic.The company announced Wednesday that this year’s Prime Day will take place on June 21 and 22. Members of Amazon’s Prime subscription program will get access to “more than 2 million deals” across every category, said Jamil Ghani, vice president of Prime, during a press event Tuesday.Prime Day, which started in 2015, is typically held in July. The discount celebration is partially designed to attract new Prime subscribers, to promote Amazon’s products and services, and to provide a sales boost during a normally slower shopping period.Last year, the company was forced to delay Prime Day until mid-October due to pandemic-related uncertainty and strains on its fulfillment and logistics capacity. Amazon is postponing this year’s Prime Day in India and Canada due to the worsening spread of Covid-19 in those countries.Amazon previously confirmed that Prime Day would be held in June, but it stopped short of sharing a kickoff date. Bloomberg reported last month that Amazon would select June 21 and 22 as the dates for this year’s Prime Day, citing notifications sent to employees.CFO Brian Olsavsky said during Amazon’s most recent earnings conference call that the company would hold Prime Day one month earlier this year because July is typically a busy vacation period. Analysts told CNBC that a June Prime Day could potentially help soften year-over-year comparisons to its business during lockdowns last spring.Amazon has forecast second-quarter revenue will be between $110 billion and $116 billion, which surpassed Wall Street’s projected $108.6 billion and implies a bump from Prime Day. More

In this articleTXRHSHAKTASTCBRLDRITSNA worker walks past a mural outside the JBS SA pork processing plant in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S., on Friday, June 5, 2020.Luke Sharrett | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesThe cyberattack on JBS, the world’s largest meatpacking company, could cause pain for restaurants if the situation isn’t resolved quickly, analysts say.On Tuesday, the Brazilian company said in a statement that it has made “significant progress” in the resolving the ransomware attack that impacted operations in North America and Australia. JBS expects that the vast majority of its plants will be back on Wednesday. It initially disclosed the attack on Monday.In the meantime, beef prices rose. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that prices for choice cuts of beef ticked up 1.1% to $334.56 per hundred pounds on Tuesday. JBS accounts for roughly 23% of the total cattle capacity in the United States, according to the Steiner Consulting Group.BMO Capital Markets analyst Andrew Strelzik wrote in a note on Tuesday that he expects the pricing environment to return to normal once plants fully return to production. Most large restaurant chains have contracts with their major suppliers to insulate them from near-term blips, like the JBS attack, according to Strelzik.”We do not anticipate meaningful margin implications for restaurants assuming a relatively quick resolution,” he said.A prolonged impact to JBS’s operations could mean bigger consequences for the restaurants that serve beef, including shortages or longer lasting inflation.Truist analyst Jake Bartlett compared the situation with a fire at a Tyson Foods plant in 2019, which impacted 5% to 6% of U.S. supply and led beef prices to spike in the month following.”JBS plant shutdown impacts a greater portion of supply, but the supply disruption is likely for a much shorter time period (the Holcomb plant re-opened in ~5 months),” Bartlett wrote. “That said, this is a bad time for a supply disruption as spiking demand is already stressing the supply chain.”The summer months are already a time of higher demand for beef as grilling season kicks off. Bartlett said that he was unclear of what restaurant chains depended on JBS for their beef supply, but he pointed out Texas Roadhouse, Shake Shack, Burger King franchisee Carrols Restaurant Group, Cracker Barrel and Darden Restaurants as the companies he covers with the highest beef exposure. More

In this articleAMCAMC multiplex movie theater.NicolasMcComberShares of AMC Entertainment continued to surge Wednesday, rising as much as 30% in premarket trading, as investors shrugged off a report that a hedge fund had sold its AMC stake.At its current premarket price of around $38 per share, AMC is poised to open at an all-time high.On Tuesday, AMC reported it had sold 8.5 million newly issued shares to Mudrick Capital, the latest in a series of capital raises for the meme stock. The hedge fund later turned around and sold all of its AMC stock for a profit, according to a report from Bloomberg News.AMC said in a securities filing that it raised $230.5 million through a stock sale to the investment firm. The movie theater operator said it would use the funds for potential acquisitions, upgrading its theaters and deleveraging its balance sheet.AMC’s business was effectively halted during the pandemic, as cinemas were shuttered in most of the country for months. With no money coming in from ticket sales and concessions, AMC fell behind on its rent. On the brink of bankruptcy, short sellers swarmed the stock.Retail investors have used their growing numbers fight back. Last week, investors shorting the stock were estimated to have lost $1.23 billion as the shares rallied more than 116%, according to data from S3 Partners. The stock is up more than 1,400% year to date.The company has been making special efforts to communicate with this new investor base. On Wednesday, it said said it launched a new portal on its website for its retail investors. The site includes special offers including a tub of free popcorn. More

In this articleAMCThe AMC Burbank 16 and the Batman bronze statue in Downtown Burbank.AaronP/Bauer-Griffin | GC Images | Getty ImagesAs AMC Entertainment shares popped another 20% Wednesday, the company announced new perks for its retail investors, including a free tub of popcorn.At its current premarket price of around $38 per share, AMC is poised to open at an all-time high.The movie theater chain said it launched a portal on its website for individual investors. The site, which requires stockholders to self-identify and sign-up for the chain’s loyalty program, contains special offers and company updates.AMC’s retail investors have propped up company since January, sending the stock up more than 1,400% in the last five months. The company said it had 3.2 million individual shareholders as of March 11, who own about 80% of the 450 million shares outstanding. Many of them were inspired by the r/wallstreetbets Reddit page to purchase the stock. The forum selected several companies that were being shorted by large hedge fund groups and decided to take action.CEO Adam Aron has praised these investors for their support. The company delayed its annual shareholders meeting by more than a month in order to give these investors an opportunity to attend the event and “make their important voices heard.”Aron and AMC both plan to donate $50,000 to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund — a clear nod to these new investors, who call themselves apes and refer to Aron as “Silverback.” AMC also has shifted its communication style to speak directly with shareholders via social media, including YouTube. Aron has even taken a renewed interest in Twitter, “following” hundreds of accounts tied to the “ape army.”AMC Investor Connect is the next step in the company’s strategy of connecting with these investors. The platform provides shareholders with exclusive promotions, like free or discounted items and invitations to special screenings, as well as direct communications with Aron.”During my five-plus year tenure as CEO at AMC, I’ve taken great pride in the relationships I have forged with AMC’s owners,” Aron said in a statement Wednesday. “With AMC Investor Connect, that effort in relationship building will continue apace even if our shareholders now number in the millions. After all, these people are the owners of AMC, and I work for them.” More