Christine Hall, Haje Jan Kamps /
3 men on a couch

Every day at 3 p.m., you'll get a rundown of the biggest and most important stories from the site. Don't forget to subscribe here.

You are welcome, crunchers! That is sort of a weird nickname, as if you are eating a snack. What should we say to y'all?

Don't even think about that. We are going to have a conversation with Ryan Selkis about what's new in the world of digital currency. At 1:00 p.m., it is at that time. You can easily remind yourself here.

Have a great week.

The TechCrunch Top 3

  • It’s getting hot in here: Software aimed at helping small businesses take online orders is on fire right now, and Meta is fanning the flames with a new investment in Take App — the Singapore-based startup that is providing simple tools for merchants to create a website and begin taking orders via WhatsApp, Paul reports.
  • Picturing Jared Leto’s next move: WeWork founder Adam Neumann didn’t have to look too far for his next investment check. Andreessen Horowitz just handed him $350 million for his new company, Flow, a residential real estate company, Anita writes. This amount, we are told, is the largest individual check a16z has ever written…and it went to Neumann, who the firm backed in May for another of his companies, Flowcarbon. If you’re shocked, you are not alone.
  • A little .bit country, a little .bit rock ‘n’ roll: Four Tencent veterans started .bit to become the universal identification system in web3. After registering over 110,000 accounts in the past year, the startup is now armed with $13 million in new funding and a goal of promoting .bit for decentralized autonomous organizations, Rita writes.

Startups and VC

Perhaps a surprise story on a tech site, but we closed out the week with some humor, as a group of our writers discussed what the best Taylor Swift song is. Ourcooler discussion spills onto the site from time to time.

There are a lot of people in Manhattan and Brooklyn. After years spent relatively locked down, it is exciting to be there, but does it make sense for companies in San Francisco to call employees bluff?

You can get more news and analysis from your neighborhood tech reporters.

The subscription pie is getting bigger: How to leverage usage-based billing

According to Chargeable's chief marketing officer, usage-based billing will be rolled out by next year.

Some of the ways companies are evolving as they try to copy the success of firms like Twilio are outlined in a guest post written by him.

Manchanda saysSubscriptions are not going away. Since at least the 17th century, they have been around.

The subscription pie is getting bigger: How to leverage usage-based billing

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

Big Tech Inc.

Even though the U.S. government changed its tax credit rules for electric vehicles, VinFast is still giving those who pre-order a vehicle a $7,500 tax credit.

The car talk goes on all the way to the end. The car maker is now signing solar energy deals. Just days after Ford announced its deal for solar energy, the luxury car maker signed a 25-year deal with a Georgia-based energy company.

Thanks to cross-border e-commerce platforms, China continues to be a major exporter of consumer goods for the world in the online shopping age. It’s not just marketplaces like Amazon and AliE...Helbiz started out as a shared micromobility company but has since expanded to include ghost kitchens, media streaming and, most recently, a taxi service. The company reported its second-quarter ea...Mycel, a South Korean startup making fungal-based biomaterials that can replace leather and meat, said it has raised $10 million (13 billion WON) in a pre-Series A round of funding. Co-founder and ...WeWork co-founder and former chief executive Adam Neumann’s career arc has felt synonymous with the rise and eventual fall of unicorn dreams. The entrepreneur, whose fall from grace has attracted g...In this issue: Northrop Grumman and Firefly Aerospace want to make the Antares rocket all-American; how Muon Space is locking in customers; news from SpaceX, OneWeb and more Shared micromobility company Bird has had a tumultuous second quarter. The company announced plans to dismantle its retail business, shut down operations in unprofitable markets, had a corporate sh...DoorDash has confirmed that it has teamed up with Facebook Marketplace to make that awkward exchange of items with a stranger a bit easier. The company said DoorDash Drive, its business-to-business...YouTube may be looking to launch an online channel store for streaming services through the YouTube app, positioning itself in direct competition with Amazon, Roku, and Apple, three tech giants tha...Walmart is partnering with Paramount Global to offer its streaming service, Paramount+, to members of Walmart’s own free shipping program and Amazon Prime rival, Walmart+. The deal was first ...When Serena Williams steps from away tennis, she’ll be walking into an arena as white as the one she just left. The rumored layoffs are coming true: Warner Bros. Discovery, the newly merged parent company to HBO, is cutting personnel costs. Fourteen percent of staff under HBO and HBO Max chief content office...Dating app maker Bumble revealed more of its plans to strengthen its social networking features during last week’s Q2 earnings, which saw the company’s shares slump over its lowered fin...This week on the TechCrunch Podcast Natasha Mascarenhas is back to talk about VC-backed aperitif company Haus being forced to sell. Then we’re joined by Carly page to talk about a recent phishing c...End-to-end encrypted messaging app Signal says attackers accessed the phone numbers and SMS verification codes for almost 2,000 users as part of the breach at communications giant Twilio last week....Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Natasha took over Equity Monday this week alongside Grace, a...For oil and gas companies, steady rates of investment should be a worrying trend. The crypto sector’s first $1 billion deal, announced at the height of record surge in token prices last year, is disbanding as the market reverses much of the gains — and not everyone i...In a blog post, Google today confirmed that the latest version of Android is starting to roll out to Pixel devices, following the release of the final beta almost exactly a month ago. Users with no...