Daily Crunch: Buick unveils Wildcat concept car as company shifts to EV-only lineup

Christine Hall, Haje Jan Kamps / 6:05 PM EDT•June 1, 2022

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This afternoon, we were surprised by the news that Sheryl Sandberg was stepping down as Meta COO. We are still figuring out the details, so we will keep you updated. And oh! More specifically, Columbus, Ohio. We're doing a City Spotlight today, and we've been looking at how Columbus became the tech hub of the Midwest. Intel chose the city to build its $20 billion manufacturing facilities.

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Buick going full EV: If you are into electric vehicles, you will love today’s Daily Crunch. First up is Buick, which is full of surprises today — not only did the company say it is transitioning to electric vehicles only, but after a few years of focusing on SUVs, Buick is going back to its coupe and sedan roots. The Wildcat looks like a sweet ride. If it wasn’t already evident, the U.S. is getting more serious about EVs, per Tim. Speaking of a sweet ride, the 1980s are indeed back in style. Jaclyn also wrote about the new DeLorean, which is being reimagined as an electric vehicle. Sorry, no flux capacitor on this one, but thankfully you won’t need the plutonium or the 1.21 gigawatts.
• Tiger gets its claws into Slice: Getting a bank account can be easy; getting credit, not so much. Slice is an Indian fintech company working to change that and is now buoyed by a new Tiger Global–led $50 million round that Manish reports has the company in unicorn territory. Slice is bringing credit to the masses in that country by bringing technology to the underwriting process and is issuing hundreds of thousands of cards per month, putting it at the top of its game in the South Asian market.
• A “Netflix for education”: Spain-based Odilo has a catalog of nearly 4 million educational items and today brought in $64 million to keep hidden. No, really, as Ingrid writes, the “white-labelness” of the company means businesses can build their own customized e-learning offerings, but customers may only see the education portal it’s powering as the front-facing brand, like, ahem, Google, which we talk about a lot today in the Big Tech Inc. section.

Startups and VC

It seems like some people in government agree with what I am saying, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren planning a new bill to tame the wild. The interest in the law waned when the SEC warned in March last year that SPACs weren't accounting correctly for investor incentives called warrants.

We want to celebrate irreverence and joy. After getting a little excited about a new photo-forward book about electronics, Haje needed to go out with palm fronds.

There are other things to be excited about.

• Getting rid of plastic, very fantastic, not even being sarcastic: Kate reports how plastic upcycling startup Novoloop raises $10 million to accelerate commercialization.
• Singing a song of chaos: Frederic reports that application security testing platform Code Intelligence raises $12 million to inject a load of garbage inputs into your apps. Also, this was the day we learned about fuzzing. Fascinating!
• Internet of downswings: IoT has become one of the top vectors of hacker attacks, and Ordr just raised $40 million to monitor the 35 billion devices online, Kyle reports.
• The office doors were left unlocked: China-backed hackers are exploiting an unpatched zero-day vulnerability to execute malicious code remotely on Windows systems, Carly reports.
• I want to re-ride my e-bicycle: French startup Upway raised a $25 million round. Romain reports the company sells secondhand refurbished electric bikes.
• If you fund it, they will build: Constrafor is a SaaS construction procurement platform with embedded financing. It just raised $106 million, Christine reports.
• Strike an expose: Freelance photographers can use Smiler to roam around events, selling event photography, enabling customers to buy photos on the spot or later online, Mike reports.

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Thank you, dear Sophie.

My co-founders and I will be getting O-1A visas.

How do we get into the O-1A?

An extraordinaryentrepreneur.

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Big Tech Inc.

We are delivering all of the goodness we promised. Let's start with some news that will make you smile, and that's that Google is expanding its program aimed at providing job readiness and digital skills for formerly incarcerated people. The company will invest $4 million to make it easier for these individuals to become gainfully employed. A report shows that Apple should still celebrate reaching 1 billion users, despite the fact that Chrome still edges out Safari for users. Not to be undone.

Not much of a surprise with this next report, but it seems the U.K.'s new social media watchdog group Ofcom has found that social media giants are not taking women's safety seriously. Even though women spend more time online, they still don't feel like they can express their opinions as freely as men. Ofcom wants social media companies to make their platforms more welcoming.

The sector is taking a hit as one of its own is arrested, and it's not the only one. Formal charges were made against the former OpenSea head of product, who was fired last year, in connection with a scheme to commit insider trading.

Please enjoy these other things.

Loom, an enterprise collaboration video messaging service, has laid off 34 employees, or 14% of its total staff, sources say. Employees across product and people operations were impacted. The ventu...Poparazzi, the anti-Instagram social app that hit the top of the App Store last year, is today, for the first time, detailing the growth stats for its business, its future plans and its previously ...I’m excited to announce SureImpact won today’s City Spotlight: Columbus pitch-off! Winning a free exhibition space at TechCrunch Disrupt 2022 and a spot in TechCrunch Startup Battlefiel...The enterprise wants to store everything they can in the hopes of being able to deliver improved customer experiences and new market capabilities. Google has banned the training of AI systems that can be used to generate deepfakes on its Google Colaboratory platform. The updated terms of use, spotted over the weekend by BleepingComputer, incl...Garmin just brought solar power to its Forerunner line, a cult-favorite among runners. Along with some other devices, the company took the wraps off its new Forerunner 995 Solar today. The $600 run...Sheryl Sandberg announced today on Facebook that she is leaving Meta after more than a decade as the company’s chief operating officer. Sandberg joined Meta, then Facebook, as COO in 2008. Ov...The year-over-year trend line for crypto funding remains “very positive.” Boldstart Ventures, a seed- and early-stage venture firm that markets itself as a “day one partner for developer-first, crypto-infrastructure and SaaS founders,” has closed on two new f...Not everyone is on board with the idea of remote work. But for those who are, Slack’s new profile features released today should make some workday tasks, particularly onboarding, a bit easier...LA-born startup TRIPP doesn’t want the metaverse to be a mere “shopping mall for virtual consumers,” its founder Nanea Reeves told TechCrunch. Instead, Reeves’ company is en...A top former executive at the highly valued NFT startup OpenSea was arrested Wednesday and charged “with wire fraud and money laundering in connection with a scheme to commit insider trading,...Last April, Google launched Grow with Google Career Readiness for Reentry, a program created in partnership with nonprofits to offer job readiness and digital skills training for formerly incarcera...If you’ve ever spent time writing beat poetry about container ships chugging their way into and out of harbors, “nimble” or “fast” will be unlikely to make it into you...The US market for electric vehicles is at an inflection point. Get ready for mass adoption. Calling all climate-change warriors! If you’re determined to join the new wave of entrepreneurs fighting the climate crisis, don’t miss TC Sessions: Climate on June 14 in Berkeley, California with ...Our startup will be sponsoring my co-founders and me for O-1A visas. How do we qualify for each of the O-1A criteria? Based on a recent report, Apple’s Safari finally hit one billion users, becoming the second browser to hit the milestone, next to Google Chrome, which still shines brighter in popularity. According...