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What is a five-letter word? After The New York Times acquired Wordle, tens of millions of people joined the paper. Christine and Haje are loyal players.
The TechCrunch Top 3
Backing Elon: Like sands through the hourglass, we are learning more every day about who is stepping up to invest in Elon Musk’s bid to purchase Twitter. A Thursday filing revealed that nearly two dozen investors have contributed money, including Sequoia Capital, Binance, and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who had $1 billion he wasn’t doing anything with at the moment.
CVC may lead to M&A: Over the past year, we saw a number of corporations start their own venture capital arms, and now it looks like all of that venture activity could churn up some M&A activity. Why? Alex and Anna dig into a couple of reasons, including lowered public valuations and a stock market environment that has some companies hitting the pause button on an IPO. They expect CVCs to begin eyeing early-stage companies for potential deals, perhaps starting with those in their cap table.
Shopify signals its next move with Deliverr acquisition: Shopify pulled the trigger on an acquisition of Deliverr for $2.1 billion, which has us wondering if this was Shopify trying to elbow in on Amazon’s Fulfillment By Amazon territory, one of the reasons some small businesses may have chosen the e-commerce company over other marketplaces. We also looked into whether that was a fair acquisition price.
Startups and VC
Kevin raised $65 million a few days ago, and now it's Alan's turn, with a $193 million round for a medical one-stop shop. I'm not sure what's happening in the world of startup naming, but we're here for it. We are looking forward to hearing from Wendy, Talesha and Fred.
You will see a world of pure appreciation when you come with me.
A B2B company that makes sales process automation software accidentally convinced an early investor to lead its seed round before the founders had even created a pitch deck.
We showed up at the board meeting. On Monday, they asked, "Do you have five minutes?" "We want to sit down with you." said CEO and co-founder Santiago Suarez Ordo.
They put a term sheet on the table with the exact terms we wanted.
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Apple, Google and Microsoft, oh my!: These three are coming together in support of passwordless logins across mobile, desktop and browsers. Yes, there are password managers and other technology out there to help us choose “v6Yp8eR43wQ!” instead of “openuporelse1,” but the goal is to make logging into a website as easy as unlocking your phone. Speaking of privacy, as we wait on the fate of Roe v. Wade, Carly looked into whether it was time to delete that period-tracking app you’ve been using.
More sanctions for Hikvision: The surveillance camera company saw its shares take a tumble following a report that said the Biden administration would impose further sanctions on the China-based company, accusing it of enabling human rights abuses.
Some shutdowns: YouTube Go is coming to a stop in August, while Facebook is shuttering its podcast service on June 3, barely a year after its launch. However, Meta had some better news for Facebook Reels creators.
Starlink adds on some more fees: If you like taking your Starlink internet everywhere you go, it might be less advantageous now that the company has added a $25-a-month fee.
Metals and fossil fuels behemoth Glencore is pumping $200 million into battery recycler Li-Cycle as part of a larger, symbiotic supply deal inked by the two firms. Under the new agreement, the Swis...Lucid Group is the latest automaker to up the price of its electric vehicles. The company announced Thursday alongside its first-quarter earnings report that it was raising prices of the variants o...In February, Peloton CEO John Foley stepped down as the connected fitness pioneer cut 2,800 jobs. No one could say the news was unexpected. The firm was experiencing dramatic turmoil after flying h...Microsoft is throwing its weight behind Epic Games in the fight against Apple — and bringing Fortnite back to iOS in the process. The company announced Thursday that it had partnered with Epic to m...Back in February, Amazon tried to arrest labor organizer Christian Smalls for bringing food to warehouse employees during a union drive. One unfathomably monumental labor victory later, and today, ...Walker Drewett founded NuBrakes in May 2019. According to Mike Ghaffary, GP at Canvas Ventures, Drewett is building a high-growth business powered by a marketplace model, which is why Ghaffary led ...Twitter is rolling out a number of new features for its live audio Spaces product this week. The social media giant is giving hosts and co-hosts on iOS and Android access to analytics about their S...Enduring Planet, a new fintech firm that exclusively funds climate entrepreneurs, is taking the wraps of its first product after securing $5 million in debt and equity financing. The company aims t...Unusual Ventures, a now 30-person outfit founded nearly five years ago by former Lightspeed Ventures investor John Vrionis and serial entrepreneur Jyoti Bansal, has closed its third fund with $485 ...Hello and welcome back to the Chain Reaction podcast, where we unpack and explain the latest crypto news, drama and trends, breaking it down block by block for the crypto curious. On this week̵...Some crypto games are considering the free-to-play model as a way to help new gamers enter the often gated crypto gaming market, which is known for having a play-to-earn model.
On Deck, a tech company that connects founders to each other, capital and advice, has laid off 25% off its staff, per sources familiar with the company. The layoffs were announced today during an i...Five years ago, battery startups attracted important but not transformative investments. But money began pouring in toward the end of 2020. What changed?
GPS networks are already a crucial part of everyday life around the world, but an international team of scientists has found a new, potentially life-saving use for them: tsunami warnings. Researche...An Apple Music bug is perplexing some iPhone owners. According to various reports, the Apple Music iOS app is installing itself directly to the iPhone’s dock when downloaded, instead of to th...
