Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Android lock screen platform Glance will roll out to US consumers in coming weeks

Tuesday, July 05, 2022

Guess who's back? Back again? Well, me after a long weekend, but also Elon Musk is tweeting again, and he has lots of thoughts about socks. My partner in crime, Haje, remains in an undesirable newsletter time zone but will be back later this week. I want to call out some things going on with TechCrunch. One is that TechCrunch Live's weekly event series is new and improved, so learn more and register. Most of us here at TechCrunch spend our days on WordPress, and the Found team spoke to Matt Mullenweg, CEO of its parent company Automattic, for the latest podcast. — Christine

Image Credits: Glance

The TechCrunch Top 3

Just a Glance: Manish wrote two of our top stories. The first is a scoop he got related to Glance, which is reportedly launching its lock screen content platform for Android in the U.S. in the next couple of months. He also dug into Twitter's lawsuit against the Indian government that was prompted by content takedown orders. This is just another in a long line of troubles the company has had in this country.
No slowdown in climate tech: Paul reports on Climentum Capital's philosophy behind its new $157 million fund that will go into European startups helping reduce CO2 emissions.
We gotta figure out our 'exit scratgety': You'll have to go way back into the SNL archives to find that reference, but this is the first of two Haje public announcements for our founder friends. He says you really don't need that “exit plan” slide in your pitch deck — there are a lot of assumptions and predictions on a founder's part, and it is hard to know who wants to buy your company, so just get rid of it.

Startups and VC

There are a number of very good TechCrunch+ stories today. I recommend starting with Alex's item on raising sweet capital in a sour market, where essentially he says venture capital firms should put their money to use when they can get more out of it. Then follow with his story from yesterday that does a bit more diving into 2021 company valuations.

Speaking of putting capital to use in easier ways, some VC firms continue to raise funds, and Sequoia Capital has been very busy. Rita reports that Sequoia's China unit took in $9 billion, coming at a time when, she writes, "global investors are reevaluating risks in China amid a COVID-hit economy and an ongoing regulatory crackdown on the country's internet upstarts." This complements a quick hit I did last week about Sequoia raising two funds stateside.

Meanwhile, Haje's other public service announcement for today is a reminder that not all of us comprehend at the same level, so startup founders should work to attract more bees with simple honey sentences rather than big, complicated fly ones.

Here's what else you might like today:

Show me the money: Kyle reports on Tesorio, which closed on a $17 million Series B to continue developing tools to help businesses automate their payment collection process.
The opposite of McHard is McEasy: In this case, McEasy is digitizing Indonesia's logistics, transportation and supply chain industries, and Catherine writes about the company's plans now that it has $6.5 million in new funding.
Drink up: I reported on Maolac, an Israeli food tech company that is putting $3.2 million of new capital to work in its protein technology that is taking bovine colostrum and making a superfood for adults.
If you like it, then you should have put a ring on it: Natasha takes us on a delightful journey looking at Ultrahuman's new smart ring aimed at "decoding metabolic health."
A "Quantum Leap" indeed: Ingrid writes about the U.K.'s Oxford Quantum Circuits, which raised $47 million for its quantum-computing-as-a-service that runs a 3D processor architecture called Coaxmon.
Drive time: Rebecca interviews Veo's Candice Xie about the e-scooter company's steady journey toward profitability.

Without a clear ask, your pitch deck is useless

Fundraising is difficult because most people don't have any experience asking strangers for money.

The "ask" slide where founders explain how they'll spend investors' money is particularly challenging. To break through the mental barrier, Haje recommends starting out with metrics and milestones.

How much will you increase MAU or lower CAC? What are your target dates for expanding in new markets?

"The more specific your goals are, the easier it is to know whether you're trending toward them," writes Haje.

(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Without a clear ask, your pitch deck is useless image

Image Credits: Haje Jan Kamps

Big Tech Inc.

Some big news from yesterday was that Meta decided not to move forward with its crypto payments wallet, Novi, Natasha writes. The company isn't getting rid of it completely, so stay tuned as to how it might be repurposed.

Meanwhile, Google is doing a little postponing of its own — with KakaoTalk updates on its Play Store. Kate reports this has something to do with the messaging app refusing to remove its own payment links. You might remember, but Google doesn't like that.

Over in Europe, we have a trio of regulation stories. First is Natasha's about the European Parliament giving its approval to a set of regulations regarding digital businesses. Then Paul writes about the U.K. pushing to make "foreign interference," particularly Russian information, an offense under its proposed Online Safety Bill. Finally, Ingrid reports on the U.K. signing its first data-sharing deal since Brexit with South Korea.

Take a peek at some others:

Those are some big lenses you have: If you like smartphones with giant camera lenses, then you will love Haje's report on Xiaomi's new phone.
A marriage made in drone heaven: Brian writes about American Robotics' owner acquiring Airobotics and why it's a good fit.
Talk about your front desk fail: WeWork India was found to have exposed the personal information and selfies of visitors, Zack writes.
Fire up those engines: Rebecca listened in on Tata Motors' shareholder meeting and found that the Indian automaker aims to sell 50,000 electric vehicles by March 31, 2023.
Live commerce no more: TikTok is reportedly pulling the plug on plans to expand its live e-commerce unit, TikTok Shop, in the U.S. and some parts of Europe, Aisha writes. It will be interesting to see if live commerce ever does become a thing over in this part of the world.

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Friday, July 1, 2022

Organization urges open source developers to dump GitHub following Copilot launch

By Christine Hall

Friday, July 01, 2022

Happy Friday, everyone! If you are sitting around this weekend, catch up on your TechCrunch podcasts and check out what went on this week at TechCrunch+. Just a reminder that there will not be a newsletter on Monday for the Fourth of July. I hope you have a safe holiday weekend. See you on Tuesday! — Christine

P.S. We've got a couple of deals for you we don't want you to miss out on! First, save 50% on an annual subscription to TC+. And the two-for-one ticket to TechCrunch Disrupt sale will expire on July 5.

The TechCrunch Top 3

Some developers are not happy: If you haven't had a chance to meet our new Europe reporter, Paul Sawers, you are in for a treat because he knocked it out of the park today. He wrote about the Software Freedom Conservancy urging open source developers to ditch GitHub following the company’s commercial launch of Copilot. Their beef, among other things, is that there is now a fee associated with using Copilot.
It's going down: Buy now, pay later fintech company Klarna is reportedly raising a fresh round of funding at a valuation far below some of its previous rounds. Mary Ann has more.
Valuation waits for no market: Alex digs into OpenSea's $13 billion valuation and why that is not in line with what he is seeing with NFT trading volumes.

Image Credits: Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images

Startups and VC

A bit of a slow day for startup news, but let's dive in:

Another wave: Natasha and Amanda are back with the saddest list we put together — all the tech layoffs.
No head in the clouds here: Snowflake made a name for itself in all things cloud data warehousing, and Ron writes today that Hydra is here to take an open source approach. The company, which raised $3.1 million after graduating from Y Combinator's winter 2022 class, is building its cloud data warehouse on top of the popular open source Postgres database.
Extra efficiency: I highlighted Promoted.ai's new $6 million seed extension that will go toward the company's long-term vision of helping e-commerce marketplaces achieve profitability. Their technology brings all that gooey marketplace goodness, the search, feed, ads and promotions, together under one platform.
A shot in the arm: Medical testing has never been so important now, and Haje got word that Visby Medical brought in another $35 million, an extension to a $100 million Series E round raised earlier this year. The company is working on "the world's first instrument-free handheld PCR platform to accurately and rapidly test for a variety of serious infections to anyone who needs it.”

Pitch Deck Teardown: Wilco's $7 million seed deck

Founders with a technical background would do well to heed one of the biggest takeaways from Wilco’s $7 million seed pitch deck: Avoid the trap of focusing too much on the features of a product, rather than its benefits, Haje writes.

“The ‘how’ will be important, but risks the temptation of getting into more detail than what's important for a pitch deck. The ‘what’ is too tactical; for this part of the story, it doesn't really matter what users need to do to gain these benefits. Focusing on the ‘why’ is why this slide is so powerful; it opens the door to more in-depth conversations if needed, but the groundwork is there. I wish more startups got this right!”

(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Pitch Deck Teardown: Wilco's $7 million seed deck image

Image Credits: Wilco

Big Tech Inc.

Yes, the Apple Store was down for 2 hours yesterday, but all is right now with the world. Haje reported that it came back on with the removal of Enjoy — the company that was in charge of delivery and setup of Apple devices — following Enjoy's bankruptcy announcement, and that a $50 gift card will ship out with the purchase of either the Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD.

Annie digs into a story about the U.S. commodities regulator, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, pursuing a civil charge filing against Mirror Trading International Proprietary Limited, a South African bitcoin pool operator, and its CEO Cornelius Johannes Steynberg, for allegedly running a fraudulent commodity pool worth more than $1.7 billion in bitcoin.

Across the pond, Natasha delivered a pair of European Union–related stories today. One was that Amazon has agreed to make it easier for people to cancel their Prime membership, while lawmakers gave their stamp of approval on some new regulations pertaining to cryptocurrency.

Google is settling: Ivan writes that the search engine giant agreed to pay $90 million to settle a lawsuit with U.S. developers who accused Google of abusing its power of app distribution and charging an unfair fee of 30% for app purchases and in-app purchases made through the Play Store.
Crypto chaos: One firm, whose application for a bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund was rejected by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, is now suing the federal entity. Jacquie reports on why one expert says that approach isn't likely to work.
FTX is at it again: First, it was rumored that FTX was looking to acquire Robinhood, which was debunked, but now another deal for BlockFi looks to be sticking. Lucas has more.
No EPA, no cry: Tim dives into why the Supreme Court's recent Environmental Protection Agency ruling "all but ensures the U.S. won't be competitive with China or Europe."

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Is your company ready for Startup Battlefield at Disrupt?

TC Startup Battlefield 200 - Disrupt 2022 - October 18-20

Get your applications in
for the Startup Battlefield 200

The tech ecosystem has grown exponentially in size and possibility since the early days of Startup Battlefield and we're growing along with it. That's why we're proud to announce TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200, a new era of our exciting startup community competition.

The Startup Battlefield 200 is a curated cohort of 200 startups that will exhibit at TechCrunch Disrupt this October. The competition will be fierce. If selected out of the thousands of applications, startups will receive full access to the show, exclusive workshops, training, perks and free exhibition space on the show floor for all three days. All selected founders will also get the opportunity to flash-pitch in front of investors and TechCrunch editors in the expo.

Out of the Startup Battlefield 200, 20 companies will be selected as Startup Battlefield Finalists. As always, the Finalists will pitch on the Disrupt Stage in front of the entire TechCrunch audience, receive private pitch coaching and be featured on TechCrunch.com. The winner snags the $100,000 prize and all the glory.

So how can you get to be part of the Startup Battlefield 200? Simply fill out this application to get started! The earlier you complete your application, the sooner you'll find out if you made the cut! We're looking for startups that fill these requirements:

Be an early-stage startup
Have a minimally viable product
Represent any vertical
Represent any geography
Have step-function innovation in your vertical
Be bootstrapped or have pre-scale funding (variable by industry)

TechCrunch Disrupt is back in person to re-engage the startup ecosystem on October 18-20 in San Francisco with a special online day on October 21 featuring video replays and special networking sessions! Apply today for your chance to pitch on the Disrupt stage or if you're looking to see which startups make the cut, register to attend Disrupt before July 5 and bring a coworker for free.

Apply To The Startup Battlefield 200