Daily Crunch: US dangles reward up to $10M for info on 6 elite Russian military hackers

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We didn't see May coming. This year, what happened to this month? As the summer equinox draws closer, the weather warms up and the days get longer, we long drinks with tiny rainbow umbrellas in them. Sorry for our summery optimism, if you're reading this in the Southern Hemisphere. We are going to take a dip in the pool, so please enjoy some hot chocolate and fuzzy socks.

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Gov wants to make the worm squirm: In what reads like a plot Jack Bauer would be proud of, the U.S. government has stepped up its hunt for six Russian intelligence officers, best known as the state-backed hacking group dubbed “Sandworm.” It’s offering a $10 million bounty for information that identifies or locates its members. If you’ve got 1337 doxxing skillz, here’s your chance to actually do some good. Go on. Удачи.
• Nervous as a service: After a lengthy period of experimentation, investors have decided that consumer fintech trading businesses are not SaaS companies. Alex explains why that matters: In a nutshell, those fintech revenues should not be valued as if they were annual recurring revenue (ARR), the main product of software-as-a-service concerns.
• OK, fine, we’ll let you open the phone you bought and own: Apple, which historically has taken a “keep your filthy mitts off our precious products” approach, is starting self-service repair for the most common iPhone fixes: battery replacements, screen restorations, and the like. The right-to-repair hackers that live somewhere deep within us are mighty pleased.

Startups and VC

It is fundraising season for venture funds. The $300 million fund was closed by MassMutual. Lightspeed India Partners announced a half billion dollar fund. The third fund of Dragonfly Capital is $650 million.

A little less aspiration, a little more traction, please.

• Show me the money: In a world where $90 million can go missing for a few weeks because of a bug, Streamlined raised $4 million to take on B2B payments.
• Muéstrame el dinero: Minka raised $24 million to facilitate faster payment services across Latin America.
• A shine is a terrible thing to waste: One of the largest solar companies in Africa and Asia, Sun King, raised $260 million in Series D funding to deliver off-grid energy technologies to more people across the two continents.
• Dig deeper with oligochaeta for your data: Mozart data just orchestrated a $15 million round to help startups build a sensible data stack.
• He’s a real straight scooter: Singapore’s Neuron raised a $43.5 million Series B round, bringing its total capital investment to $77.7 million, to deepen its micromobility presence in Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, the U.K. and Canada.
• All around the watch-power: Home energy monitoring firm Sense just raised $105 million to fuel a spark of further growth.
• Cut my life into pieces, this is my last transport: Two of China’s biggest robotaxi rivals, Pony and WeRide, are joining forces to plow $135 million into Chinese ride-hailing service OnTime.

How to get into Y Combinator, according to YC’s Dalton Caldwell

In a conversation with Editor Greg Kumparak at TechCrunch Early Stage, YC managing director and group partner Dalton Caldwell spoke about the application process founders must navigate before they are accepted to one of the world's top accelerators.

The first thing I look at when reading an application is the team. Technical excellence on the team is what I'm looking for.

People with a technical founder tend to move quicker than teams that rely on outsourcing engineers or consultants.

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

How to get into Y Combinator, according to YC’s Dalton Caldwell

Big Tech Inc.

The investing and trading service planned to lay off 9% of its staff before its earnings were announced. We will have to see what happens on Thursday and see if that sheds light on the situation.

We already assumed that the controversy around having a Joe Rogan show did not affect subscriber numbers, as they grew 15%. Today, we are able to share that GM has some big ambitions and some serious cash to put behind it, and we prepared you for that yesterday. Stay aware of Ford. The number of channels making $10,000 in revenue grew 40%, despite the mixed results of Alphabet's earnings. Not bad.

Ron described the updated tool as a bold attempt to pull together all of the pieces in the arsenal in a more coherent fashion, using a popular tool that has been around since 2019.

There was an all-hands meeting at the company, as well as an opinion piece on how much Musk and the company will have to pay each other. The follower counts on high-profile accounts fluctuated all over the place. Alex and Amanda talked about all things Musk for the Equity show. We have the skinny on Musk's attempt to end the SEC settlement.

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