January 11, 2022, 6:14 PM.
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January 11, 2022, is the day of Daily Crunch! There are new venture funds, Brex raising, and more. We are back to the same pace as last year, so we hope you are rested up. It is going to be a busy year.
The top 3 tech companies.
According to Citizen Lab, the NSO Group built software that was used to spy on three Polish critics of the government. There are questions regarding Poland's parliamentary elections after the allegations. This is not the last time we will see this type of story.
Turo has filed to go public in 2021, so TechCrunch dug into the numbers. Turo posted strong growth and improved revenue quality during the first three quarters of the year. We should get more updated numbers soon. Justworks, an HR software firm, will debut later this week.
The race to control the corporate spend market was a key theme last year, and Brex confirmed that it raised $300 million in a Series D-2 round. We expect Ramp to announce more capital by the time you read this brief.
The companies are startups/VC.
Before we get into the individual bulletins, there are a few notes. The public market has become littered with formerly private companies that combined with blank check entities and lost half their value. SPACs failed to get enough private companies public last year, and the lackluster post-combination results add up to a general failure.
Kleiner Perkins has joined a16z and Norwerst in announcing new capital. The venture capital firm has been in business for 50 years. The sound you just heard was the gun.
Sarah Perez added me to a new social service, leading to us trading selfies and dog pics. The app? Locket is tearing up the charts. It is popular because of what it does and why.
The story is cool. Darrell Etherington, our in-house space expert, writes that Orbital Fab and Astroscale have formed a partnership to provide on-orbit refueling services to the latter company's geostationary servicing spacecraft. Most people don't think about a problem like this. If we want low-flying satellites to stay afloat, they will need more fuel. It looks like the tech is close to maturity.
Back Market is helping the country's upstart tech scene start this year on a good note, and French startups had a pretty good footing in the first half of the year. The company just closed a $510 million Series E that values it at $5.7 billion and operates a marketplace of refurbished electronics devices. For reference, it raised $335 million last year.
If you haven't been to the shores of infertility, you might not be aware of how complicated in-vitro fertilization is. It is complex. Fertilis, an Australian company, is raising capital to make the process more likely to result in a live birth.
There is still capital in the market for neobanks, even though Chime has yet to go public, and a lack of exits in the neobanking space is not slowing investors down. The bank just closed $90 million at a $700 million valuation.
StoreDot raises capital for fast battery charging. Gas-powered cars are not great for the air we breathe, but they are good at fuel. StoreDot is closing a round that could be worth up to $80 million.
Outside of China, online tutoring is a big business, but that doesn't mean it's dead. Evidence of that? Less than a year after it closed a $244 million Series C, GoStudent closed a $340 million Series D.
We are low on time, but there is more than we know: This African e-commerce company just closed a Series A, Mostly AI landed $25 million, and Qonto raised more than half a billion. It is busy out there.
Ron Miller has a great story about a group that is helping women in tech thrive through mentorship.
How to assess and strengthen the health of your business is not dependent on averages.
It can be difficult to keep track of what is working when you are building a startup.
Karen Peacock, the CEO of Intercom, warns that average numbers can be misleading when looking at the big picture.
If Jeff Bezos walks into a bar with 100 people, the net worth of each individual in that bar is over a billion dollars. Is that useful? Would that lead you to do the right thing? Averages don't hide true insights.
Peacock shows how founders can assess their business' strengths and weaknesses, and how to find leaks in the bucket.
Techcrunch+ is a membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.
How to assess and strengthen the health of your business is not dependent on averages.
Big Tech is a company.
Apple is considering allowing third-party payment options in South Korea. Maybe. News that Apple will change its in-app payment rules in South Korea could lead to similar rulings in other countries. It is bad news for Apple, which is focused on preserving a large slice of the economy.
The EU sanctions itself over privacy errors, and here is a fun one: insert the Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man meme. They are consistent.
The Indian government will own just under 36% of the company to save it from collapsing. It was wild!
The experts of tech.
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We reached out to several active investors in order to get a better idea of where opportunities exist today and what they think about the future.
The global shave market is expected to reach $22.5 billion by the year 2030.
Tony Xu, co-founder and CEO of Doordash, has joined the board of directors of Meta. Doordash has had a CEO since 2013.
If you drive past a cattle feedlot in Coalinga, CA, the smell travels for miles, you don't need to be a scientist to understand the impacts of factory farming.
For weeks, Tumblr hid search results on the App Store to comply with guidelines. Today, Tumblr is trying to solve the issue by rolling out sensitive content.
It is important for leaders to understand and articulate how equity is determined.
Back Market has raised a lot of money. The company raised $335 million in a Series D round. The company is announcing a Series E round.
Monica has more than 15 years of experience working at tech companies. She didn't have a mentor to help her navigate her way.
Locket, a new social app, was at the top of the App Store charts in recent days, thanks to its clever premise to put live photos from friends in a widget on your homescreen. In other words, I...
A London-based fintech targeting Gen Z and younger consumers with an e-money account that gives them instant cash-outs on fashion and electronics they want to sell has closed.
Water has been found on the surface of the Moon, marking the first time scientists have found evidence of the substance on Earth.
The National Labor Relations Board has announced plans for a second vote among Amazon warehouse employees. The follow-up would be conducted via email.
IBM announced this morning that it has acquired Australian startup Envizi to add to its package of environmental, social and governance offerings.
Today, the company introduced a new Live TV Zone that will roll out to the main, left-side navigation on its devices. T...
The technology, intellectual property and assets of a Boston startup that was trying to develop electric shuttles have been acquired by a Canadian company. The deal was announced Tuesday.
In a new partnership that should break new ground for sustainable orbital operations, a startup called Orbit Fab has formed a partnership with Astroscale to provide on-orbit refueling.
Based on regulatory filings, Doctolib is expected to close the acquisition of Tanker today. Doctolib is a French company that develops a software-as-a-service product.
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