Wednesday, August 28, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we've got notes on India's instant delivery startup scene; a moon landing that never happened; and yet more tech layoffs. We've also got a potential Spotify and Instagram tie-up; another AI pin; how Venezuelan journalists are using AI avatars to befuddle the government; and more federal dollars for EV charging. Let's get to work! — Rebecca

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Zepto

1. Quick-commerce keeps ramping up in India: Zepto, the Indian instant delivery startup, has raised a whopping $1 billion in the past 90 days, TC has learned. That's a substantial war chest that the company will need to meet its expected 150% growth rate in the next 12 months. Read More

2. More tech layoffs: TechCrunch got the scoop that web browser and search startup Brave has let 27 employees go across different departments. This is Brave's second round of layoffs within a year as the startup leans more heavily into AI product integration. Read More

3. Once in a blue moon: All it took for Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander to fail to reach the moon was one busted valve in the propulsion system. NASA had awarded Astrobotic $108 million to complete the mission. Read More

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Morning must-reads

Image Credits: Instagram

🎵 Time to flex your music taste: Looks like Meta and Spotify are working together to let users share what they're listening to through Instagram's Notes. Reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi spotted the feature under development, which would allow someone to "continuously share" their music from Spotify. Read More

💪 Take that, Google: VerSe Innovation, an Indian media technology unicorn, is adding digital marketing to its belt after acquiring Valueleaf Group. VerSe, which owns a host of news and video platforms, is aiming to compete with Google and InMobi in the ad space. Read More

🔫 Serving the growing defense tech ecosystem: Palantir and Anduril have spawned a new generation of VC-backed defense tech startups, but government contracts can be hard to get. Przym wants to help such startups with a dashboard that shows everything from contract details, the money available and even who's responsible for allocating that money. Read More

😡 In an unsurprising turn of events, CoinSwitch, an Indian crypto exchange, is suing rival WazirX to recover trapped funds after the latter was hit with a cyberattack that led to $230 million worth of assets being stolen. WazirX had proposed a "socialized loss" strategy to distribute the loss across its entire user base. I guess CoinSwitch isn't having any of that. Read More

✍️ Another crack at an AI pin: Even though Humane and Friend's AI pins didn't exactly take off, Plaud.AI is hoping it'll be able to pull it off. Its NotePin is a simpler offer: It does one thing and that's taking notes. Read More

💰 There's always money in the neobank: Comun has raised $21.5 million to expand its digital bank aimed at serving immigrants in the U.S. The round comes just nine months after the startup raised $4.5 million, a sign that it has been seeing good traction. Read More

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Around the Web

📚 Apple changes up its strategy: The tech giant has cut about 100 jobs in its digital services group, according to Bloomberg. The cuts will affect people working on the Books and News apps — indicating a shift in priorities as it focuses on AI products and features. Read More

👊 A good use case for AI avatars: Persecuted Venezuelan journalists who are holding up a mirror to the country's lurch towards full-blown dictatorship under President Nicolás Maduro have been using AI avatars to report news Maduro's government wants censored, according to The Guardian. Read More

⚡ Fed sets aside millions for EV infra: Biden's administration is racing to throw federal dollars at the EV transition. The government just awarded another $521 million out of its $7.5 billion program to build out fast chargers along interstate highways and in underserved communities, reports Ars Technica. Read More

Before You Go

Image Credits: Calm

🧘 Stay Calm, Meditate On: Calm has launched a bunch of new features to help you replace doom scrolling with mindfulness. One of them, "Taptivities," will feature interactive text-based stories that offer bite-sized mindfulness sessions people can tap through, like Stories on IG. Read More