The end of the American prep

The Daily Stack
May 6, 2020

J. Crew, once a venerated purveyor of all things American prep, filed for bankruptcy this week. The coronavirus shut-in certainly put a big strain on its retail viability. However, the company’s problems started long before Covid-19. According to PrivCo, a private company financial data startup, J. Crew has not seen a positive net income margin in five years.

Part of J. Crew’s fall is the result of a cultural and design shift, while the second part touches on a vast business miscalculation. Read more on all of the factors contributing to J. Crew’s demise .

Newly-released median home prices surprised many, given that demand has decreased in many markets nationwide. The March 2020 medium home price points to an 8% increase YoY. The reason: supply has decreased even further than demand. Moreover, Covid-19 made supplies even scarcer. Read more.

IBM kicks off its two-day virtual event, Think Digital, unveiling its plans for AI and cloud computing. Despite current revenue challenges, IBM says that the pandemic will accelerate its initiatives (and revenues) on the AI and cloud fronts, coming off of its 2019 acquisition of Red Hat. But AWS and Microsoft are more established competitors in the space. Read more.

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PrivCo is the premier financial data & services company that tracks US private companies with $1M+ in annual revenues.

Since last week, PrivCo has added/updated:

767 Profiles updated

113 M&A added

117 Fundings added

Funding & Deal Highlights:
Indian education startup Byju’s is fundraising at a $10B valuation
Sensor Tower raises $45M for mobile app market intelligence
NEAR Protocol raises $21.6M from A16Z
Alume Biosciences closes $5.5M Series A financing round
Intel to buy smart urban transit startup Moovit for $1B
Aspen Surgical acquires Precept Medical Products
IHS Markit acquires Catena Technologies
Nvidia to acquire Sequoia-backed networking startup Cumulus Networks

Airbnb to lay off 25% of its workforce

Company cuts 1,900 employees. How deep is Airbnb's problem?
[Read More]

Another blow to Uber, Lyft: getting sued

Alleged labor law violations in such a trying time is another blow to the already struggling companies.
[Read More]

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