Daily Crunch: Citing ‘uncertain mortgage market,’ Better.com rolls out employee buyout plan

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 Wednesday, April 6, 2022, the Daily Crunch will be here. Can we just say that it's about time that we ban all climate change misinformation? All other platforms should follow.

The earth is not flat, and vaccines have little impact on your 5G reception. We can't get more than a couple of bars in the supermarket.

Christine and Haje wish you a pleasant day and excellent cell reception.

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Sources say Better.com losing ‘$50M a month’: We think reporter Mary Ann Azevedo has done a bang-up job keeping her eye on the Better.com drama. In the latest episode, sources revealed to her some internal meeting details that the digital mortgage lender is losing “around $50 million a month.” Unsurprisingly, the company is now offering a severance package to employees it didn’t already lay off. There’s a town hall meeting today, so Mary Ann will most likely have more to share in the coming days.
• Navigating the choppy e-commerce seas: As reporter Ingrid Lunden writes, “e-commerce is synonymous with shopping on Amazon, but the reality is that a retailer has the option to use a bundle of different channels to sell and market products.” Productsup wants to help retailers decipher this complex and fragmented world with some marketing and sales tools you can manage from one place.
• Yes, Twitter is looking at an edit button: We’ve already played out this edit button thing, but even after joking about it last week, Twitter now says that it’s been working on an edit button for the past year, and it wasn’t because Elon Musk took a poll. To edit or not to edit has been TC Slack fodder this week, and it seems it people anticipate one of two scenarios: Typos will be fixed or misinformation will run rampant.

Startups and VC

We are going Texas-sized with our first City Spotlight for 2022, where we do what we can to help keep Austin wired. Brian took a look at how global politics and finance might bring more manufacturing to central Texas, and Laura Lorek did a profile on Austin tech eccentric Whurley.

It was a big day for EV news outside of the Lone Star State. Rivian celebrated the production milestones that put it on track to hit its goals, which is great news for me, because it may mean that I will be able to take delivery of one of the off-road pickup trucks at some point in the future. The recall of 141,000 Bolts and the discovery of its supply chain troubles finally led to the firing up of its assembly line. The U.S. government has 99,000 problems if it wants to go fully electric, because it has a shortage of charging stations.

Moar News is fresh from the firehose of tasty tidbits of news and commentary.

• I’m too sexy for Milan, New York, and Hangzhou: Zhiyi Tech raises $100 million to help fashion brands predict bestsellers.
• You spin me right round, baby, right round, like a rocket, baby: SpinLaunch scores NASA test mission to demonstrate its unique launch method.
• Know when to walk away, know when to run: The only failure is failing to learn, and on the newest episode of TC’s Equity podcast, the team discusses how failure is a choose-your-own-adventure for startups.
• A dollar is what I need (hey, hey): Docyt raises $11.5 million Series A for its AI-powered accounting automation service.
• Non, je ne internete rien: Stackblitz raises $7.9 million to bring a better IDE to your browser.
• Bleep–bloop, that’s the sound of the police: Prepared wants to drag the US 911 system into the modern era.
• Draw me like one of your French grills: OpenAI’s new DALL-E model draws anything — but bigger, better, and faster than before.
• Printing me softly with his song: Mostly known for its battery packs, Anker launches a Kickstarter campaign for its first 3D printer.

6 questions investors should ask when evaluating psychedelic biotech companies

Small talk in Silicon Valley used to be about taking small quantities of psychedelics to improve one's mood or productivity.

A variety of mental health issues are being treated with drugs. As more regions decriminalize the use of plant-based substances, investors are taking notice.

With plans to raise a $25 million fund and more than 15 million dollars already invested, PsyMed is focused on early-stage companies developing drugs.

In a guest post, partners Matias Serebrinsky and Greg Kubin discuss their investment thesis, which is that of a future where psychedelic therapy will be as common as going to the dentist.

Techcrunch+ helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.

6 questions investors should ask when evaluating psychedelic biotech companies

Big Tech Inc.

Apple, Adobe, and General Electric are some of the Big Tech companies that have suspended business operations in Russia. It stopped shipments to customers in Russia and Belarus. The war is having an impact on Russia's tech workers, and a new feature by reporter Vadim Smyslov is available on the website.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation was able to take down a massive botnet that was controlled by Russian intelligence. Security researchers say the botnet is capable of collecting information and conducting espionage, launching distributed denial-of-service attacks that overload websites and server with junk traffic, as well as destructive attacks.

There are two other news items for you to sink your teeth into.

• CNN+ downloads are more like a minus: CNN+ launched last week and is now seeing around half of the downloads from its opening day. We may be seeing one or two things play out: People are tired of having an app for each channel, and/or the channel needs to up its content game.
• Visa opens first innovation hub in Africa: The Kenya studio gives the global digital payments giant a deeper connection to the country’s developers and partners aiming to create payment and commerce tools.