Daily Crunch: VW Group changes drivers — CEO Scott Keogh shifts to launch Scout EV brand

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Welcome to the daily crunch for wednesday. The office is a hive of activity with the use of technology. If we do have an office, we don't know who is there. We might be abuzz in the chat room.

Tomorrow is the biggest day of the year. TheRobotics is here to stay! There is still time to get a free ticket. The companies that are pitching at the event are listed here. We may make an appearance on the virtual stage from time to time if you join us.

With a title like OK, don't worry, the long shots are still getting venture funding, you just know you're in for a treat with today's episode.

The TechCrunch Top 3

• ‘Scout’ing out new endeavors: Scott Keough, Volkswagen’s U.S. CEO, is stepping down from his post at the automaker to take a similar role over at Scout, which makes electric pickup trucks and SUVs, Jaclyn writes.
• That’s not cold brew: Trust Haje to get on his somewhat-caffeinated soapbox in his short review of Spinn, “the $1,000 coffee maker for people who are too lazy to learn about coffee.”
• Puff, puff, pay: Over in TechCrunch+ land, Anna lights up a market analysis into cannabis commerce company Dutchie’s new Dutchie Pay product that enables you to digitally pay for cannabis when purchasing at one of the dispensaries the company works with.

Startups and VC

Michael Redd is an ex-NBA and Team USA player. He suggests 3 ways to support your portfolio in his new column.

Haje is questioning the wisdom of changing a startup's name to something that can't easily be patented.

Parcel out some more good news.

• I’ll try a bite, at least: Meatable is a cultivated meat company, and it just showed off its first product — synthetic sausages, reports Paul.
• I’ll have one of those: Anita reports that crypto startup Blockdaemon is continuing its acquisition spree, this time picking up Sepior.
• I’ll have a thousand of those: Tedooo is designed to help boost and create global trade communities via partnerships between sellers and buyers, Aisha reports. It just raised $3 million to scale its social network for buyers and sellers.
• I’ll have 50 million of those: Our long-estranged sibling Crunchbase raised $50 million to further develop its startup ecosystem database, Kyle reports.
• I’ll take 3 billion of those: Christine and Natasha M worked together to cover So. Many. New. Venture. Funds, which, across all the new funds, total around $3 million of new capital ready to deploy into the ecosystem.
• I’ll take a virtual one of those: The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) hijinks was one of the notable success stories of the early days of the NFT craze. The founders are back, sharing their ‘Otherside’ metaverse plans with Lucas.

Fundraising tips for early and midstage startups in 2022

Current conditions make best practices for raising money less relevant. The promise of early growth made it possible to close seed and Series A rounds.

If a startup has long sales cycles that aren't cash-flow positive, they won't be considered for follow on investments.

If you want to know which kinds of startup investors are willing to look at, Kami Vision CEO Yamin Durrani has written a post about the changes he is going to make in the next two years.

He says that VCs are interested in investing in a few areas.

Fundraising tips for early and midstage startups in 2022

Techcrunch+ is a membership program that helps startup teams. You can join here.

Big Tech Inc.

The Indian government claims that Chinese companies are avoiding taxes. Over 200 million phones were shipped in India by the Chinese company, according to the report.

There are other companies that deal with the Indian government. Future Retail, Amazon's partner in India, was sent into bankruptcy by an indian court. Ivan wrote about Amazon's new partnership with Skullcandy to offer dual smart assistants, while Kyle reported on the debut of the company's new developer tools.

Lauren dropped three stories about the company. One story touches on the company's not-so- good news about losing subscribers, and the other two stories give an update on its ad-supported tier and acquisition of Animal Logic.

After it was found that Russian hackers are using the software to hide the fact that they're making money off of it, it's in the spotlight as well.

We think you will like some of them.