The TechCrunch Exchange is back with a weekly newsletter about startups and markets. This newsletter is inspired by the weekday Exchange column, but it's free and can be read on weekends. You want it delivered to your inbox every Saturday? Register hereThis week's work began in China. We looked into African startup activity and then returned to China. Finally, we did a deep dive into Latin American startup ecosystem. And finally, we wrapped up with a second glance at the Robinhood IPO. So, it was not really happening!It may have surprised you to see Amazon's stock tumble off a cliff on Friday. The company saw huge revenue increases to just above $113 billion in the third quarter. AWS, the company's public cloud business seemed to be doing well.Investors had expected greater growth and had accordingly priced the Seattle-based ecommerce company. Investors let go of Amazon stock after it failed to meet revenue expectations. It projected that Q3 2021 would see a 10%-16% increase in revenue compared to the third quarter 2020.Nevertheless, some financial journalists are pointing out that it's not only Amazon who is taking the heat from investors. This week, Etsy and eBay both fell. Investors are predicting that the COVID-19 pandemic, which has fueled e-commerce's explosive growth, will soon end. This means that valuations will be reset at many companies, including startups.Duolingo, despite its slow growth, managed to have a strong first week as a publicly traded company. Regardless of whether they are using the delta variant, investors are changing how they view markets. It would be wise to remember this.It's not the products that are stupid.Robinhood's impact on consumer investing is something that has stayed with me this week. This week was mainly about the company's IPO and its relatively relaxed early trading performance. New evidence of Robinhood's cultural impact is hidden in the final S-1/A filings.A pair of statistics is at the top of U.S. consumer investment unicorns filings. These look like this:You are probably thinking that this is a lot of active monthly users and funded accounts. These numbers are from March 31, 2021. These numbers are outdated. Robinhood also indicated in the same filing that its June 30th quarter saw its funds tally rise to 22.5million. This is a 25% increase in one quarter!Although there were some things that didn't happen again in the second quarter, it was still an amazing result.Jan Hammer, an early Robinhood investor, sent a comment to the Index in the wake his investments public offering. He argued that the company is part the work of tech companies to shake-up financial services. Robinhood companies, he said, are more than just new paint for the old financial products.That is my opinion. It is quite shocking that incumbent players are still on the market with outdated websites and low-quality mobile experiences. Imagine a Gen Zer swapping Robinhood, eToro, or M1 Finance to get, I don't know, John Hancock. According to them, toothpaste is not going back in the tube.What could Vanguard and Fidelity do to convince Robinhood users that they are better than their competitors? Is it possible? Or has a whole generation of investors eschewed traditional financial players altogether? Robinhood bulls believe so and I don't think it is possible to argue against this perspective.Although I don't know what Robinhood will do in the next quarters, it feels like, based on Robinhood's MAU figures, M1 AUM figures, and other such data, that fintech startups have taken several marches on your 401(k). This is a market that the fintechs will be able to dig deeper into.Learn more about AfricaLet's go back to Africa. How about some July data? Let's add data to our June exploration of Africa's strong H1 2021 performance. According to Africa-watching publication The Big Deal, African startups have raised $308 million through 71 deals during the quarter. This is a total of $3.7 billion. In simpler terms, African startups are on track for their best year in terms of raising venture capital.Huge, get vaccinated.Your friendAlex
