Techcrunch blog!: Dropouts at Byju's: auditor Deloitte and 3 board members bail on edtech startup

Thursday, June 22, 2023

Today, in another round of bad luck for Indian edtech giant Byju, Deloitte and three board members said "bye, bye, bye" to involvement with the company. Over at Reddit, find out how moderators continue to rage against the machine. And Robinhood gets into credit cards with the acquisition of this fintech. This is your Daily Crunch for Thursday.

Venture capital firm Sequoia debuted Atlas, its interactive guide to the European tech talent landscape, to the public.

Let's get that plastic out of the oceans, shall we? Kubik, a plastic upcycling startup operating in Kenya and Ethiopia, closed on a $3.34 million seed round to do just that.

After five years with TikTok, COO V Pappas is leaving. Find out what they're doing next.

Does it seem like funding has picked up again? Because all these funds are getting capital commitments. Today we saw Amazon pour $100 million into a new fund for generative AI initiatives, Andreessen Horowitz creates a "Perennial" evergreen fund and Fearless Fund gets a follow-on for its second fund.

Image Credits: Getty Images

More top stories

Permission wasn't granted: Adtech giant Criteo was hit with a $44 million fine in France for not getting user consent for targeted ads.

One isn't always the loneliest number: Robin Haak launches Robin Capital, becoming the latest to join the solo GP movement going on in Europe.

Ya Heard?: Heard Technologies, which develops therapist accounting tools, raised another $15 million.

Get connected: Limble is now valued at $450 million after raising $58 million to continue helping organizations keep track of all their unconnected physical assets.

Now streaming: YouTube TV's multiview feature now offers non-sports content.

Car talk: Buckle up! Kodiak Robotics is partnering with Loadsmith to get 800 autonomous trucks on the road. And if you'd like to see how Iron Man fawns over cars, check out "Downey's Dream Cars" on Max. Here's a preview. Meanwhile, Rivian acquired a route-planning app to better plan for those charging breaks.

Mixing some polka dots in with that Plaid: Plaid, the company most known for connecting consumer bank accounts to financial applications, is going in a whole new direction with a collaboration network aimed at sharing fraud intelligence.

Computer vision: Kibsi grabs $9.3 million to help businesses build and deploy computer vision applications. But wait, there's more: Unlike some of its competitors, Kibsi lets businesses reuse their existing cameras to create insights into virtually anything they want to track.

Do you know what DB stands for?: MongoDB's Atlas database service is poised for new workloads, while MotherDuck launches its DuckDB-based cloud analytics platform.

Don't forget about these:

Avatar startup Genies launches $1M fund for developers building AR experiences

Omeat emerges from stealth with beefy tech approach to cultivated meat growth media

DuckDuckGo's Windows browser is now available in open beta

Robots learn to perform chores by watching YouTube

Bridge 2 Technologies is making it easier for companies to find diverse vendors

SoulCycle to offer trainer-guided virtual work sessions with the FLOWN startup

Inflection debuts its own foundation AI model to rival Google and OpenAI LLMs

Image Credits: Overearth / Getty Images

With $10T on the line, 6 fusion investors explain why they're all in

Until December 2022, no one had achieved fusion ignition, the point at which the reaction produces more energy than is required to produce it.

“There's still a long way to go, but net-positive controlled fusion is no longer just theoretical,” writes Tim De Chant.

To get an investor’s perspective on this nascent technology with a multi-trillion-dollar TAM, he spoke to:

Katie Rae, CEO and managing partner, The Engine
Phil Larochelle, partner, Breakthrough Energy Ventures
Joshua Posamentier, managing partner, Congruent Ventures
Alice Brooks, principal, Khosla Ventures
Wal Van Lierop, founding partner, Chrysalix Venture Capital, and board member, General Fusion
Thai Nguyen, partner, MCJ Collective

Three more from the TC+ team:

Falling into these 3 traps means you will never raise VC funding

Warming public markets are boosting the secondary market for startup shares

Insight cutting its fundraising target isn't reason to panic

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code "DC" for a 15% discount on an annual subscription.