Every day at 3 p.m., you'll get a rundown of the biggest and most important stories from TechCrunch. You can subscribe here.
On Monday, March 7, 2022. We have a packed newsletter today and you should get hype for it. The excitement-o-meter here in Providence is off the charts because I have plane tickets next month. We just announced that Slava Rubin and Sahil Lavingia are going to speak at the event.
The TechCrunch Top 3
Twitter tries to restore service in Russia: While some tech companies are working to cut ties with Russia after the country’s government invaded Ukraine, others are trying to keep their services up in the country. Communications tools, for example, are not something that should shutter. So, amid reports that Twitter is increasingly hard to access in Russia, the company said that it’s working on it. Given rising levels of censorship in Russia, having Twitter back would be a boon.
Despite rising costs, VCs continue to invest in BNPL startups: TechCrunch recently reported on Tabby raising a $54 million extension round, with Sequoia Capital India and STV leading the round. And we took a look at Klarna earnings, which showed the price of growing a large BNPL provider. There’s some tension between the two stories, as you can imagine.
Samsung confirms breach: Separate from other recent high-profile hacks, Korean electronics giant Samsung has confirmed a breach. TechCrunch writes that “hackers obtained and leaked almost 200 gigabytes of confidential data, including source code for various technologies and algorithms for biometric unlock operations,” which is pretty freaking bad.
Startups and VC
Before we get into our usual rundown of startup news, let's talk about self-driving cars. Pony.ai, a company with roots in both the U.S. and China, just saw its valuation climb to $8.5 billion with the first close of its Series D.
More signs of Africa’s startup market maturing: It wasn’t too long ago that a startup in Africa raising a $30 million round would have been big news. However, in the last few years, the continent’s startup activity and venture results have been accelerating. So much so that today TechCrunch wrote that Dash, a Ghanian startup that wants to “build connected wallets for Africans” just raised a $32.8 million seed round. Not bad!
Faster blockchain transactions + privacy = Espresso? That’s the gist of the Espresso Systems project and its eponymous new ‘chain. Built by a “team of researchers from Stanford University’s applied cryptography research group,” Espresso is not the first crypto project to tackle similar tasks. But as the group is building a layer-one chain, instead of a layer-two chain atop Ethereum, we perked up at its announcement.
ESGgo wants to measure ESG performance: Environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals are hot these days, as corporations want to at least appear to be giving a crap about more than just their near-term cash flows. However, once ESG goals are outlined, how can we tell if or when they are met? ESGgo wants to build software for just that niche.
Circular.io wants to alleviate the tech talent crunch: Now flush with eight figures of capital, Circular.io has a neat model to help folks hire tech talent. Essentially, the company uses a “platform approach which encourages companies to recommend tech talent they were unable to hire to Circular’s recruitment network,” we write. Will that work at scale? Who knows! But given that every company is having a hard time hiring, we don’t think that the company will lack for TAM if its model does, in fact, scale.
Cayena wants to digitize food prep procurement in LatAm: This is a fun one. Apparently, the procurement market for food preppers (bars, hotels, restaurants, etc.) in Latin America is fragmented and often done over the phone. Cayena wants to whack those inefficiencies with a generous dollop of technology. The startup launched in 2020, and has seen rapid growth since, we report.
The war on gas (fees): If Espresso doesn’t upend the blockchain market, the issue of high gas (transaction) fees on popular blockchains will persist. Argent thinks it has a way around them, namely an updated crypto wallet. It is using zkSync to help it batch transactions for the Ethereum blockchain, hopefully lowering gas costs for its users. Crypto is still too hard to use, but this might make it cheaper, at least.
Captain Fresh salutes new $500M valuation: The market for using tech to improve long-standing industries is no joke. Captain Fresh is a good example of the point. It’s doing “farm-to-retail” work in the seafood world, and just raised $100 million more for its efforts. Prosus Ventures and Tiger Global co-led the round, after previously investing in the company.
Robotics founders: Focus your pitch deck on problem-solving, not technology
The image is from TechCrunch.
Those who have seen Boston Dynamics pull off a parkour performance can attest to the advancement of the robotics industry.
The benefits of their technology should not be the sole focus of the discussion.
In a recent episode of TechCrunch Live with Agility Robotics co-founder and CTO Jonathan Hurst and Playground Global founding partner Bruce Leak, they looked back at how Agility's early pitch deck related its impressive tech to the needs and wants of its prospective customers.
From the customer's point of view, you can see how this will solve my problem. That is the transition right there.
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Robotics founders: Build your pitch deck around problem-solving, not technology
Big Tech Inc.
AppleTV+ comes to Xfinity: Look, this applies to the folks that it applies to. But it is good to see streaming services generally broaden their platform footprint. Why? Because that’s the direction we want things to move in as consumers.
Chrome is fast on Mac and Android now, Google says: Hey look, browser competition! Chrome version 99 – yeah, not a typo – is setting new records on certain speed tests. Which means that Google can claim that it has the fastest browser out there, by some metrics. Though I have to say that it isn’t Chrome’s speed that I have worried about in recent years, having been more focused on how the Google browser eats RAM like a hungry hungry hippo after a marble.
Instagram removes apps: Are you still using Instagram’s Hyperlapse or Boomerang products? Well, too bad; they are getting yoinked from app stores. This after Instagram said that it was going to remove its IGTV app to focus more on its main experience. Focus is good; shoving 2,348,238 things into a single app is not. Let’s see how this works out for the service.
Una Brands, a Singapore-based e-commerce aggregator, has partnered with South Korean peer KlickBrands to expand its footprint in South Korea. The strategic partnership will help South Korean e-com...While working her way through grad school, Opaper founder Joan McIntosh ran an online bakery. “I would wake up at 3AM, 4AM, go to a commercial kitchen and go door to door, delivering food or puttin...Amazon-owned robotaxi firm Zoox this week announced that it has acquired Strio.AI. The Boston-based robotics startup was founded in 2020 by MIT alumns to bring autonomous picking and pruning to str...After last week’s announcement that it would halt its product sales in Russia, Apple has now informed its developer community that it’s suspending its Apple Search Ads service on the Ap...Money laundering has been a hot topic of late in the UK, which is facing pressure to not just make tighter rules to track down the origins of money that’s spent on large assets in the country...Oren Netzer and his co-founder Alex Liverant started DoubleVerify in the heady Web 2.0 days of 2008. Blumberg Capital was the company’s first institutional investor. TechCrunch Live is thrilled to ...Online mortgage lender Better.com is poised to lay off roughly 50% of its staff of about 8,000 this week, according to sources familiar with internal happenings at the company. TechCrunch first rep...Here at TC we keep tabs on the stock market. And the stock market has turned into an awful vomit-machine lately, puking up last year’s gains onto its own shirt.
On Found Live Darrell and Jordan got to chat with Cityblock co-founder and president, Toyin Ajayi. Cityblock provides primary care, behavioral health and social care to folks who have been historic...Google’s tenth Pixel feature drop is launching today with several new updates, including a feature that lets you type to talk during phone calls. The updates are rolling out to Pixel 3a throu...Google in October announced a preview of Android 12L, a version of the Android operating system designed specifically for large-screened devices. Today, Android 12L is officially becoming available...U.S. ride-hailing and food delivery giant Uber raised its guidance for adjusted profitability in the first quarter, a rosier-than-anticipated outlook triggered by a spike in demand. In a fresh 8-k ...In a recent episode of TechCrunch Live, Agility’s Jonathan Hurst and Playground Global’s Bruce Leak joined us to discuss the robotic company’s journey from the lab to the commerci...Apple TV+ is now available across Comcast’s Xfinity platforms, Comcast announced on Monday. The company said Apple TV+ is beginning to roll out on the Xfinity X1, Xfinity Flex and XClass TV t...Twitter’s service continues to be partially accessible in Russia, although the social networking platform confirmed today that it is aware of reports of users in the country having “inc...Version 100 of Google Chrome will launch within the next few weeks, but even after all of this time, there’s still some room for speeding up the browser. As Google announced today, version 99...A week after Instagram confirmed its plan to shut down its standalone IGTV app in order to better focus on initiatives, like Reels, the company confirmed it’s pulled two more of its older app...The BNPL market appears more expensive and less valuable than it did in mid-2021.
