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I wonder if it is Friday again. When it's here, you remember all the things you didn't do, even though you're thinking about Friday. We hope this bag of goodies gets to you after you have finished clearing out your to-do list. Try to stay alive if you are going to TTITD. If you fail at that, make sure you die in a more interesting way than dehydration so your camp mates at leaast know about it.
The TechCrunch Top 3
- Virtual reality, Meta style: Meta’s new virtual reality headset technology is going to focus on face-tracking and eye-tracking, features the company calls “social presence,” Ivan writes. It doesn’t come out until October, so you have roughly two months to pull together the $400 we think it is going to cost.
- Mo’ Twilio, mo’ problems: The hits from Twilio’s data breach earlier this month keep coming. Carly writes that this time the breach affected Authy two-factor app users. Authy is a company Twilio acquired in 2015. Oh, and the number of customers affected is now over 160. More about this below in Big Tech.
- Predatory lending takes a turn: Though the nature of the article is not a happy one, we think Jagmeet did a great job describing the lengths that some lending apps will take to get repayment from users in India.
Startups and VC
Animoca Brands has a $500 million pre-money valuation and is making inroads into Japan with its local unit. At a time when the country is tightening regulations, the investment comes at a good time.
Anna and Alex are in Asia and look at China's venture capital scene. It's a tough mix for the world, from near-zero growth in the second quarter and abandoned economic targets to continued COVID-19 lockdowns, a power crunch, a housing crisis, concerns about the strength of its domestic currency, and more. If you don't have a subscription, you can use the DailyCrunch discount code "DC" to get 15% off.
We should do a few more.
- Draw me a picture of a bandwagon: Mobile photo editing app creator Lightricks is hopping on the AI-generated art trend with its new “Text to Image” generator within its apps, Lauren reports.
- Flying high, flying fast: Supply chain startup FourKites recently laid off a bunch of workers, but today announced it raised $30 million to feel the wind under its wings again, Kyle reports.
- Going from Bad.com to Worse.com: You know they’re having a rough time over at Better.com, as the company confirms its fourth round of layoffs in less than nine months, Mary Ann reports.
- Real estate gets real gnarly: Real estate tech startup Reali is moving toward shutdown, after the startup raised $100 million just a year or so ago, Mary Ann reports.
- Flexible apartments? Are they built out of Jell-O?: We can’t not giggle at the thought of wiggling buildings, but “flexible apartments” are having their day in the sun. Landing lands $125 million in debt and equity funding, reports Connie.
Learning from my failures: Lessons from a 2-time founder
Learning from others is better than learning from our own mistakes.
After four years of steady growth, Darpan Munjal shut down his previous company. Early-stage funding created a false sense of security according to him.
It wasn't easy to close the shutters. I knew I could start again if I learned from my mistakes and applied them correctly.
Learning from my failures: Lessons from a 2-time founder
Techcrunch+ is a membership program that helps startup teams. You can join here.
Big Tech Inc.
It seems like it lost some of its appeal. The search engine giant said it was shutting down its carpool service due to changing commute patterns caused by the swine flu. In the future, the app will focus on a post-COVID world of things to do and places to go.
The Internet Freedom Foundation objected to the plan to monetize customer data after India's railway firm reversed course. The man has more.
We have some good stories if you missed them yesterday.
- Paging Starlink: SpaceX and T-Mobile are partnering to connect T-Mobile phones to Starlink for free starting in 2023, Devin writes.
- First Spaces, not podcasts: It’s official — Twitter is integrating podcasts into its platform. The feature will live under the Spaces tab, Aisha reports.
- Hackers at the door: DoorDash is among the organizations affected by the Twilio hackers, Carly writes. The delivery company says “names, email addresses, delivery addresses and phone numbers” of customers were taken, and for a smaller group, partial payment card information.
- Trading Twitter for Meta: Sandeep Pandey, Twitter’s vice president of engineering, is confirmed to be leaving that social media giant for Meta, Andrew writes. Pandey is the latest executive to leave the company since Elon Musk proposed taking over Twitter earlier this year.
