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Welcome to the middle of the week. The Consumer Electronics Show is going to start tomorrow, so be sure to check out the dedicated CES page at TechCrunch. Christine is now on the news.
The TechCrunch Top 3
Another round of layoffs: Paul has the latest on what’s happening over at Salesforce. The company said it had to cut its workforce by 10% — approximately 7,000 people — and will close offices in several markets. He checked out Salesforce’s SEC filing related to the matter and reported that CEO Marc Benioff stated the layoffs were a result of hiring “too many people leading into this economic downturn we’re now facing.”
Not so happy new year: More privacy fines and corrective measures greeted Meta as the calendar flipped to a new year. The company was hit with over $410 million in new fines from the European Union due to the number of “General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) complaints over the legal basis [Meta] claims [it has] to run behavioral ads,” Natasha L writes.
Get food, mail your packages: Now you can have your food and your packages too. DoorDash is launching a new service that will pick up prepaid packages and drop them off at a UPS, FedEx or USPS location, Aisha reports.
Startups and VC
A competitor wants to be a competitor. Jagmeet wrote that the startup took on the design giant in the building design space. Interoperability and cloud-based collaboration are areas where others are lagging.
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App-solutely too slow: If your mobile app can’t keep up, customers may keep away. Product Science, which develops mobile app performance monitoring tools, landed $18 million to find flaws in execution to minimize app freezes and errors, Kyle writes.
It’s all so surreal: Also by Kyle, SurrealDB joins a crowded managed database service industry, raising $6 million for its database-as-a-service approach.
IP oh no: The market uncertainty that has plagued the online grocery delivery industry has caught up with South Korean grocery startup Kurly, which scrapped its IPO, Kate reports.
“There’s a great future in plastics”: Singapore-based AlterPacks took in $1 million in pre-seed funding to turn food waste into food containers, Catherine writes.
5 failure points between $5M and $100M in ARR
Prior to co-founding and CEO of TigerEye, Tracy Young was the same person at PlanGrid.
Even though she led the company to $100 million in ARR before it was acquired, she has had years to think about the mistakes she made.
Young shares tactical advice for addressing internal conflict, losing product-market fit, and other stumbles, after looking at five key failure points.
I would consider this effort worthwhile if it helped one founder make less mistakes.
5 failure points between $5M and $100M in ARR
There are two more people from the team.
The membership program helps startup teams get ahead of the game. This is where you can sign up. You can get a 15% discount on an annual subscription.
Big Tech Inc.
The company says it designed and built the 11 smart TVs with its own services in mind. You will be able to get them in the spring.
There were 16 stories filed by the team at the Consumer Electronics Show. You can find all of them here, but I want to point out a few that I enjoy reading.
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Something going down Down Under: In Twitter news, Manish reports that a lot of users in Australia are experiencing service issues. Meanwhile, the social network is said to be reversing a political ad ban to bolster up its revenue, Ivan reports.
Up up and away: Stellantis is set to mass produce Archer’s electric aircraft in an expanded deal that will give the company access to up to $150 million over the next two years, Kirsten reports.
Time is on your side: Musical tastes change, so to document it, Spotify’s new time capsule feature will let you revisit your musical taste a year from now, Aisha writes.
And yet some more layoffs: The new year was also not good for Vimeo, which had another round of layoffs said to impact 11% of employees, Lauren writes.
Settlement reached: New York financial regulators settled with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase for a $100 million fine after finding it violated anti–money laundering laws by failing to conduct adequate background checks, Amanda reports.
Unless you live in a natural fibers-only household, your laundry is likely exacerbating an environmental crisis with each wash. The terrible microplastics mess we’re making — thanks in great ...I’ve written a fair bit about exoskeletons on these pages. They’re a fascinating subset of the robotics industry designed to improve mobility and assist with manual labor that can be taxing on the ...When Apple’s AirTag came onto the scene in 2021, competitors like Tile were quick to bash the tech giant for antitrust issues, saying smaller companies had no chance of competing with Applee&#...Canon has a long and deep history of being a hardware manufacturer. Most consumers know it best as a camera manufacturer, but the company has a long, deep and illustrious history in medical, office...As lidar company Luminar pushed ahead to meet its goals for 2022 — milestones that included locking in new commercial contracts with unnamed automakers and shipping production-ready sensors to SAIC...In-space transportation startup Impulse Space will head to orbit aboard a SpaceX rideshare mission later this year, as it seeks to prove out its orbital maneuvering and servicing technology for the...A federal bankruptcy judge ruled cryptocurrencies deposited into interest-bearing accounts at Celsius Network, a now-bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platform, actually belong to the firm – thanks t...Twitter is finally making a feature update that people actually want. According to social media analyst Matt Navarra, Twitter’s advanced search filters for mobile are coming soon. Here’...Or maybe it’s a smart home hub with wireless charging built in. Either way, this is the SmartThings Station, which debuted on stage at CES this afternoon. The hub is a bit of an unsung lynchpin in ...The robots are slowly but surely conquering this year’s CES. During today’s press preview, Ottonomy debuted a new model being added to the New York firm’s army of delivery robots. Yeti stands out f...Depending on whether you spend most of your time in hospitals, offices or in the great outdoors, when you hear “Canon,” your mind will likely go to medical scanning equipment, high-end ...A picture is worth 1,000 words, as the saying goes, and now a startup called Nuralogix is taking this idea to the next level: Soon, a selfie will be able give you 1,000 diagnostics about the state ...Read, the app that lets meeting organizers read the virtual room and see how engaged (or not) participants are, is now one of Zoom’s Essential Apps. This means Zoom customers, Zoom One Pro Business...Spotify is introducing a new in-app experience called “Playlist in a Bottle” that is designed to let you capture your current music tastes and revisit them one year later. The streaming...Harman, a Samsung subsidiary that specializes in connected car technology and other IoT solutions, revealed at CES a suite of automotive features geared toward enhancing the health and safety of dr...It would be a massive understatement to suggest that robot toys are a mixed bag. They largely get the looks right, but brains are another thing altogether. Look at the time and money that went into...Vimeo rings in the new year with another round of layoffs, affecting 11% of its workforce. In an email to staff today, CEO Anjali Sud cited an “uncertain economic environment” as the reason for the...
