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Daily Crunch: Uber adds vaccine booking
Uber unveils half a dozen new features, Samsung announces a new flagship laptop and Zomato files to go public. This is your Daily Crunch for April 28, 2021.
The big story: Uber adds vaccine booking
Uber announced a half dozen new features today, including the ability to make a vaccine appointment at Walgreens and then reserve a ride to get there.
Other additions include a valet service to drop off rental cars, reserved rides at airports and the ability to pick up food during a ride. In an interview, CPO Sundeep Jain suggested that these features are part of the company’s key focus for the past year, namely “helping users ‘go’ and helping users ‘get.’”
The tech giants
Here’s Samsung’s new flagship laptop series, the Galaxy Book Pro — These Windows machines continue the company’s push to blur some of the productivity lines between its Galaxy PC and mobile offerings.
Facebook hides posts calling for PM Modi’s resignation in India — Facebook temporarily hid all posts with the hashtag “ResignModi” in India, although a spokesperson said those posts have now been restored.
Netflix launches its shuffle feature, now called ‘Play Something,’ to users worldwide — This should make it easier to find something to watch when you can’t make a decision on your own.
Startups, funding and venture capital
Alchemy raises $80M at a $505M valuation to be the ‘AWS for blockchain’ — The company describes itself as the backend technology behind the blockchain industry.
MessageBird acquires SparkPost for $600M using $800M Series C extension — The acquisition enables MessageBird to get a stronger foothold in the U.S. market.
Splitwise raises $20M Series A to help everyone in the world divvy expenses — Splitwise aims to reduce the stress and awkwardness that money puts on relationships of all sorts.
Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch
Zomato juice: Indian unicorn’s proposed IPO could drive regional startup liquidity — Zomato’s debut could lead to a liquidity rush in India.
Dear Sophie: What’s the latest on DACA? — The latest edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.
Fund managers can leverage ESG-related data to generate insights — Apex Group’s Georges Archibald argues that environmental, social and governance insights can yield treasure in the form of alternative data.
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)
Everything else
CES will return to Las Vegas in 2022 — Per a press release, roughly 1,000 companies have committed to returning.
India’s entrepreneurs and investors are mobilizing to help the nation fight COVID-19, and you can too — For a week straight, India has reported more than 300,000 daily new infections, about half of all the cases across the globe.
Porsche makes its case for an all-electric Taycan wagon — The Porsche Taycan 4 Cross Turismo offers a blend of practicality with a whole lot of power and speed for under $100,000.
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.
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Daily Crunch: iOS 14.5 brings privacy changes and more
Apple’s latest software upgrade brings a big change, Roku accuses Google of anti-competitive behavior and Brex raises a big funding round. This is your Daily Crunch for April 26, 2021.
The big story: iOS 14.5 brings privacy changes and more
Apple released the latest version of its mobile operating system today, which includes the much-discussed App Tracking Transparency feature, allowing users to control which apps are sharing their data with third parties for ad-targeting purposes.
Other new features include Watch unlocking (which could help users avoid the annoying “I can’t unlock my phone with my masked face!” phenomenon), new emojis and more.
The tech giants
Roku alleges Google is using its monopoly power in YouTube TV carriage negotiations — Roku is alerting its customers that they may lose access to the YouTube TV channel on its platform after negotiations with Google went south.
Lyft sells self-driving unit to Toyota’s Woven Planet for $550M — Under the acquisition agreement, Lyft’s so-called Level 5 division will be folded into Woven Planet Holdings.
Apple commits to 20,000 US jobs, new North Carolina campus — Apple this morning announced a sweeping plan to invest north of $430 billion over the next five years.
Startups, funding and venture capital
Brex raises $425M at a $7.4B valuation, as the corporate spend war rages on — The company has also put together a new service called Brex Premium that costs $49 per month.
Founded by Australia’s national science agency, Main Sequence launches $250M AUD deep tech fund — Main Sequence’s second fund will look at issues including healthcare accessibility, increasing the world’s food supply, industrial productivity and space.
Mighty Networks raises $50M to build a creator economy for the masses — The company is led by Gina Bianchini, the co-founder and former CEO of Ning.
Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch
Founders who don’t properly vet VCs set up both parties for failure — Due diligence isn’t a one-way street, and founders must do their homework to make sure they’re not jumping into deals with VCs who are only paying lip service to their value-add.
How Brex more than doubled its valuation in a year — An interview with CEO Henrique Dubugras about that giant funding round.
There is no cybersecurity skills gap, but CISOs must think creatively — Netskope’s Lamont Orange doesn’t buy the idea that millions of cybersecurity jobs are going unfilled because there aren’t enough qualified candidates.
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)
Everything else
How one founder partnered with NASA to make tires puncture-proof and more sustainable — This week’s episode of Found features The SMART Tire Company co-founder and CEO Earl Cole.
What the MasterClass effect means for edtech — MasterClass copycats are raising plenty of funding.
Hear about building AVs under Amazon from Zoox CTO Jesse Levinson at TC Sessions: Mobility 2021 — We’ll hear more about Zoox’s mission to develop and deploy autonomous passenger vehicles.
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.
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Daily Crunch: Facebook announces new audio products
Facebook reveals its Clubhouse competitor, Parler will return to Apple’s App Store and a helicopter flies on Mars. This is your Daily Crunch for April 19, 2021.
The big story: Facebook announces new audio products
Yes, these products include new Clubhouse-style Live Audio Rooms, as well as the ability for podcasters to share long-form audio, some new Spotify integration and a shorter format called Soundbites. Facebook is starting off by testing Live Audio Rooms in Facebook Groups.
“When we launched video rooms earlier last year, groups and communities were one of the bigger areas where that took off,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview with Platformer. “So, I think around audio, just given how much more accessible it is, that’ll be a pretty exciting area as well.”
The tech giants
Apple confirms it will allow Parler to return to App Store — Apple says that after Parler’s proposed updates, it should be approved for reinstatement to the App Store.
Consumer agency warns against Peloton Tread+ use, as company pushes back — The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is warning consumers to stop using the Tread+.
Xbox Cloud Gaming beta starts rolling out on iOS and PC this week — The service has been available in beta for Android users since last year, but it has been slow to expand to other platforms.
Startups, funding and venture capital
Clubhouse closes an undisclosed $4B valuation Series C round, as tech giants’ clones circle — We don’t know how much it raised, but it looks like Clubhouse has tripled the valuation it attained in January.
Alan raises $220M for its health insurance and healthcare super app — The company now covers 160,000 people.
General Motors leads $139M investment into lithium-metal battery developer, SES — GM is the latest big automaker to pick a horse in the race to develop better batteries for electric vehicles.
Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch
The Klaviyo EC-1 — Klaviyo may not be a household name yet, but in many ways, this startup has become the standard by which email marketers are judged.
European VC soars in Q1 — The blockbuster first quarter was not just an American affair.
Outdoor startups see supercharged growth during COVID-19 era — Startups that provide services like camper vans, private campsites and trail-finding apps became relevant to millions of new users when COVID-19 shut down indoor recreation.
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)
Everything else
NASA makes history by flying a helicopter on Mars for the first time — This is a major achievement, in no small part because the atmosphere is so thin on Mars that creating a rotor-powered craft like Ingenuity that can actually produce lift is a huge challenge.
An interview with Andrew Yang — The New York mayoral candidate talks Amazon, cryptocurrency and automation.
Geico admits fraudsters stole customers’ driver’s license numbers for months — The second-largest auto insurer in the U.S. has fixed a security bug that allowed fraudsters to steal customers’ driver’s license numbers from its website.
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.
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Daily Crunch: KKR invests $500M into Box
Box gets some financial ammunition against an activist investor, Samsung launches the Galaxy SmartTag+ and we look at the history of CryptoPunks. This is your Daily Crunch for April 8, 2021.
The big story: KKR invests $500M into Box
Private equity firm KKR is making an investment into Box that should help the cloud content management company buy back shares from activist investor Starboard Value, which might otherwise have claimed a majority of board seats and forced a sale.
After the investment, Aaron Levie will remain with Box as its CEO, but independent board member Bethany Mayer will become the chair, while KKR’s John Park is joining the board as well.
“The KKR move is probably the most important strategic move Box has made since it IPO’d,” said Alan Pelz-Sharpe of Deep Analysis. “KKR doesn’t just bring a lot of money to the deal, it gives Box the ability to shake off some naysayers and invest in further acquisitions.”
The tech giants
Samsung’s AirTags rival, the Galaxy SmartTag+, arrives to help you find lost items via AR — This is a version of Samsung’s lost-item finder that supports Bluetooth Low Energy and ultra-wideband technology.
Spotify stays quiet about launch of its voice command ‘Hey Spotify’ on mobile — Access to the “Hey Spotify” voice feature is rolling out more broadly, but Spotify isn’t saying anything officially.
Verizon and Honda want to use 5G and edge computing to make driving safer — The two companies are piloting different safety scenarios at the University of Michigan’s Mcity, a test bed for connected and autonomous vehicles.
Startups, funding and venture capital
Norway’s Kolonial rebrands as Oda, bags $265M on a $900M valuation to grow its online grocery delivery business in Europe — Oda’s aim is to provide “a weekly shop” for prices that compete against those of traditional supermarkets.
Tines raises $26M Series B for its no-code security automation platform — Tines co-founders Eoin Hinchy and Thomas Kinsella were both in senior security roles at DocuSign before they left to start their own company in 2018.
Yext co-founder unveils Dynascore, which dynamically synchronizes music and video — This is the first product from Howard Lerman’s new startup Wonder Inventions.
Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch
Four strategies for getting attention from investors — MaC Venture Capital founder Marlon Nichols joined us at TechCrunch Early Stage to discuss his strategies for early-stage investing, and how those lessons can translate into a successful launch for budding entrepreneurs.
How to get into a startup accelerator — Neal Sáles-Griffin, managing director of Techstars Chicago, explains when and how to apply to a startup accelerator.
Understanding how fundraising terms can affect early-stage startups — Fenwick & West partner Dawn Belt breaks down some of the terms that trip up first-time entrepreneurs.
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)
Everything else
The Cult of CryptoPunks — Ethereum’s “oldest NFT project” may not actually be the first, but it’s the wildest.
Biden proposes gun control reforms to go after ‘ghost guns’ and close loopholes — President Joe Biden has announced a new set of initiatives by which he hopes to curb the gun violence he described as “an epidemic” and “an international embarrassment.”
Apply to Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 — All you need is a killer pitch, an MVP, nerves of steel and the drive and determination to take on all comers to claim the coveted Disrupt Cup.
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Daily Crunch: Apple Arcade expands with classic games
Apple adds classic titles to Apple Arcade, Microsoft experiences an outage and Coinbase is going public. This is your Daily Crunch for April 2, 2021.
The big story: Apple Arcade expands with classic games
Until now, Apple’s game subscription service was limited to exclusive new titles, but today it’s introducing two new categories: App Store Greats (popular iPhone games like Monument Valley+, Fruit Ninja Classic+, Cut the Rope Remastered and Badland+) and Timeless Classics (board games and puzzle games, such as Backgammon+ and Chess Play and Learn+).
This is a major expansion to the Apple Arcade back catalog, but it’s not simply a matter of putting previously free games behind a paywall. The Arcade versions of these titles will be ad-free and without in-app purchases — you’re never paying anything beyond the $4.99 monthly subscription fee. Also, some of these games had become unavailable in their original forms due to iOS and hardware updates.
The tech giants
Microsoft outage knocks sites and services offline — Microsoft stumbled back online Thursday after an hours-long outage in the middle of the U.S. west coast working afternoon.
Startups, funding and venture capital
Coinbase to direct list on April 14th, provide financial update on April 6th — The company will trade under the ticker symbol “COIN.”
Uruguayan payments startup dLocal quadruples valuation to $5B with $150M raise — This means that the five-year-old Uruguayan company has effectively quadrupled its valuation in a matter of months.
Backflip offers an easier way to turn used electronics into cold, hard cash — The company offers customers cash on delivery for their used electronics, which could be anything from iPhones to Game Boys.
Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch
How is edtech spending its extra capital? — Edtech M&A activity has continued to swell.
Tech in Mexico: A confluence of Latin America, the US and Asia — LatAm entrepreneurs seem to be looking to Asian tech giants for product inspiration and growth strategies.
RPA market surges as investors, vendors capitalize on pandemic-driven tech shift — Robotic process automation came to the fore during the pandemic as companies took steps to digitally transform.
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)
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Daily Crunch: OnePlus announces its first smartwatch
OnePlus unveils new hardware, Apple updates its educational offerings and Facebook reveals plans for its next developer conference. This is your Daily Crunch for March 23, 2021.
The big story: OnePlus announces its first smartwatch
The Chinese smartphone maker announced the OnePlus Watch today, a $159 smartwatch with a minimalist design and a new operating system. It also comes with a number of different sensors to measure things like heart rate and blood oxygen level.
In addition, the company also announced its OnePlus 9 series of phones, its first phone built in partnership with legendary camera company Hasselblad, with a primary camera that includes a 48-megapixel Sony sensor. Pricing starts at $729, with pricing for the Pro starting at $969.
The tech giants
Apple launches the Apple Teacher Portfolio recognition, updates Schoolwork and Classroom apps — Teachers who complete a total of nine lessons will be able to submit their portfolio of lesson examples to earn the Apple Teacher Portfolio designation.
Facebook will bring back F8 on June 2 as a pared-back, single-day, virtual-only conference for developers — There will be no Mark Zuckerberg keynote this year.
New York’s Department of Financial Services says Apple Card program didn’t violate fair lending laws — This follows an investigation triggered by online complaints back in November 2019.
Startups, funding and venture capital
Robinhood files confidentially to go public — The company may be closer to a public debut than we anticipated.
‘Instant needs’ delivery startup goPuff raises $1.15B at an $8.9B valuation — Last fall, delivery startup goPuff made a big splash by raising $380 million in funding and acquiring West Coast beverage retailer BevMo shortly afterwards.
Roll still doesn’t know how its hot wallet was hacked — Move fast, break things, get hacked.
Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch
Discord’s reported $10B exit; Compass and Intermedia Cloud Communications set IPO price ranges — Discord is a well-financed unicorn that has raised significant capital and reportedly sports rapidly expanding revenues.
Pre-seed round funding is under scrutiny: Is VC pandemic posturing here to stay? — New data from the DocSend Startup Index show that for early-stage fundraising, particularly in the pre-seed round, founders need to approach VCs with much more than a great idea to secure funding.
Clubhouse UX teardown: A closer look at homepage curation, follow hooks and other features — Most startups would kill for hockey-stick growth, but it also means that UX problems can only be addressed while in “full flight.”
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)
Everything else
Top tech CEOs will testify about social media’s role in the Capitol attack this week — Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Google’s Sundar Pichai will all appear virtually before a joint House committee Thursday at 12 p.m. Eastern Time.
‘Black Widow’ and ‘Cruella’ will get Premier Access releases on Disney+ — That means Disney+ subscribers will have the option to pay an additional, one-time $29.99 fee to watch the live action remake of “Cruella” at home on May 28, or to do the same for “Black Widow” on July 9.
Extra Crunch Live’s April slate features speakers from Forerunner, Accel, Fifth Wall and more — April showers bring May flowers, and by “flowers” I mean actionable insights and advice from some of the top minds in tech.
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Daily Crunch: Investors back away from Dispo
Dispo is in the midst of a sexual assault controversy, Zoom introduces an SDK and Android owners will have to continue waiting for Clubhouse access. This is your Daily Crunch for March 22, 2021.
The big story: Investors back away from Dispo
After a recent story in Business Insider brought allegations to light that a member of David Dobrik’s vlog squad had sexually assaulted an extra during a shoot, Spark Capital announced that it would “sever all ties” with Dobrik’s photo-sharing startup Dispo, as did fellow investors Unshackled Ventures and Seven Seven Six.
“We have stepped down from our position on the board and we are in the process of making arrangements to ensure we do not profit from our recent investment in Dispo,” said Spark, which led a $20 million Series A in Dispo less than a month ago. That means any potential profits will be donated to organizations supporting survivors of sexual assault.
Dobrik, meanwhile, has stepped down from the Dispo board and left the company.
The tech giants
Zoom introduces new SDK to help developers tap into video services — The company envisions application developers embedding video in social, gaming or retail applications.
Next Billion Users head Caesar Sengupta is leaving Google — Sengupta, who also led the company’s payments business, is leaving the firm after nearly 15 years.
Tim Cook and Tim Sweeney among potential witnesses for Apple/Epic trial — A proposed witness list filed by Apple for its upcoming trial against game-maker Epic reads like a who’s who of executives from the two companies.
Startups, funding and venture capital
Side raises $150M at $1B valuation to help real estate agents go it alone — Side works to turn agents and independent brokerages into boutique brands and businesses.
Indonesian savings and investment app Pluang gets $20M in pre-Series B funding — The company offers proprietary savings and investment products that allow users to make contributions starting from 50 cents USD.
Clubhouse says its Android launch will take ‘a couple of months’ — Clubhouse co-founder Paul Davison said the company is working “really hard” to come to Android, but said it’s going to take a “couple of months” to make that happen.
Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch
NFTs could bridge video games and the fashion industry — Real-life fashion brands use NFTs for marketing in virtual worlds like Minecraft, as well as in several Atari and Microsoft video games.
ironSource is going public via a SPAC and its numbers are pretty good — Before you tune out to avoid reading about yet another blank-check company taking a private company public, you’ll want to pay attention to this one.
Where is the e-commerce app ecosystem headed in 2021? — Superapps are likely to emerge, according to PipeCandy’s Ashwin Ramasamy.
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)
Everything else
US privacy, consumer, competition and civil rights groups urge ban on ‘surveillance advertising’ — Nearly 40 organizations expressed their concern in an open letter.
Five reasons you should attend TC Early Stage 2021 in April — We’re just days away from kicking off TC Early Stage 2021: Operations & Fundraising on April 1-2.
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.
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Daily Crunch: YouTube’s TikTok rival launches in the US
YouTube Shorts comes to the U.S., Amazon starts testing electric delivery vans in San Francisco and new data suggests the impact of Google Play’s recent changes. This is your Daily Crunch for March 18, 2021.
The big story: YouTube’s TikTok rival launches in the US
The YouTube Shorts product allows users to record, edit and share videos of 60 seconds or less, which can be accompanied by licensed music from a variety of industry partners. The company has been testing the feature in India while making Shorts viewable internationally — but until today, U.S. viewers couldn’t actually create short videos of their own.
Sarah Perez took an in-depth look at the Shorts experience, noting that it’s pretty similar to TikTok while lacking some key features, such as intelligent sound syncing.
The tech giants
Amazon begins testing its Rivian electric delivery vans in San Francisco — This makes SF the second of 16 total cities that Amazon expects to bring its Rivian-sourced EVs to in 2021.
Data shows how few Google Play developers will pay the higher 30% commission after policy change — As regular Daily Crunch readers will remember, Google recently announced that it’s cutting the commissions it charges developers on Google Play.
Twitter begins testing a way to watch YouTube videos from the home timeline on iOS — Shortly after Twitter announced it would begin testing a better way to display images on its app, it’s now doing the same for YouTube videos.
Startups, funding and venture capital
Substack faces backlash over the writers it supports with big advances — The startup has lured some of its most high-profile (and controversial) writers with sizable payments.
Homebrew backs Higo’s effort to become the ‘Venmo for B2B payments’ in LatAm — Rodolfo Corcuera, Juan José Fernández and Daniel Tamayo founded the company in January 2020, recognizing that the process of paying vendors for business owners is largely “manual and cumbersome.”
NFT marketplace OpenSea raises $23M from a16z — OpenSea has been one of a handful of NFT marketplaces to explode in popularity in recent weeks.
Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch
MaaS transit: The business of mobility as a service — Amid declining ridership, transportation agencies find new software partners.
Three steps to ease the transition to a no-code company — Despite the many benefits, adopting a no-code platform won’t suddenly turn you into a no-code company.
Snowflake gave up its dual-class shares. Should you? — The mechanism can enable founders to maintain control despite later dilution and may sometimes even grant ironclad control in perpetuity.
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)
Everything else
Tech companies should oppose the new wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation — TechNet’s David Edmondson puts the spotlight on a number of states that are currently considering anti-LGBT legislation.
Talking robots with Ford — We interview Ford’s Technical Expert Mario Santillo about its new robotics initiatives.
Startups, get your bug bounty crash course at Early Stage 2021 — Katie Moussouris, founder and chief executive at Luta Security, will give a crash course in bug bounty and vulnerability disclosure programs at TC Early Stage 2021.
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.
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Daily Crunch: Google Play halves commission on developers’ first $1M
Google is letting developers keep more of their Play revenue, Instagram adds teen safety features and we examine the global distribution of venture funding. This is your Daily Crunch for March 16, 2021.
The big story: Google Play halves commission on first $1M
Following a similar move by Apple last year, Google said that it will be reducing its fee from 30% to 15% for the first $1 million that developers earn through Google Play annually.
This is slightly different from Apple’s approach, in that it applies to all developers — although the fee goes back to 30% for any money earned beyond that first million dollars.
“We’ve heard from our partners making $2 million, $5 million and even $10 million a year that their services are still on a path to self-sustaining orbit,” wrote Google’s Sameer Samat. “This is why we are making this reduced fee on the first $1 million of total revenue earned each year available to every Play developer that uses the Play billing system, regardless of size.”
The tech giants
Instagram adds new teen safety tools as competition with TikTok heats up — Instagram says it’s rolling out new safety features that will restrict adult users from being able to contact teens who didn’t already follow them.
Google’s Soli radar returns to track sleep on the new Nest Hub — We haven’t heard a peep from Project Soli since the technology was introduced with the Pixel in late-2019.
China wants to dismantle Alibaba’s media empire: reports — Over the years, Jack Ma has accumulated a media portfolio in China that rivals that of Jeff Bezos in the United States.
Startups, funding and venture capital
Socure raises $100M at $1.3B valuation, proving identity verification is hotter than ever — Socure uses AI and machine learning to verify identities.
Overwolf raises $52.5M for its platform to build, distribute and monetize in-game, user-generated content — The company’s platform has some 30,000 creators, 90,000 mods and add-ons, and 18 million monthly users across thousands of games.
Aiming to become the definitive source for location data, SafeGraph raises $45M — While there are plenty of companies selling data about physical locations, SafeGraph CEO Auren Hoffman said his startup is “one of the few companies to sell this data to data science teams.”
Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch
The global inequity in venture financing is staggering — There’s been a boom in Latin American and European fintechs, as well as a general rise in VC activity in a host of Asian countries, but the landscape remains imbalanced.
The NFT market is just getting started, but where is it headed? — Part one in a three-part series.
Farmland could be the next big asset class modernized by marketplace startups — Startups like AcreTrader and others including Tillable, FarmTogether and Harvest Returns are bringing marketplace models to the farming world.
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)
Everything else
Ford expands robotics research into $75 million University of Michigan facility — Ford Motor Company will be embedding 100 of its researchers and engineers in a new robotics and mobility facility on the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus.
Talking product-market fit with Sean Lane, whose company tore through 28 products to become a unicorn — Occasionally, it’s easy for startups to achieve so-called product-market fit, but more often, it’s a struggle.
Get feedback on your pitch deck from tech leaders on Extra Crunch Live — The importance of the pitch deck can’t be underestimated.
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Daily Crunch: Facebook launches rap app
Facebook unveils another experimental app, Atlassian acquires a data visualization startup and Newsela becomes a unicorn. This is your Daily Crunch for February 26, 2021.
The big story: Facebook launches rap app
The new BARS app was created by NPE Team (Facebook’s internal R&D group), allowing rappers to select from professionally created beats, and then create and share their own raps and videos. It includes autotune and will even suggest rhymes as you’re writing the lyrics.
This marks NPE Team’s second musical effort — the first was the music video app Collab. (It could also be seen as another attempt by Facebook to launch a TikTok competitor.) BARS is available in the iOS App Store in the U.S., with Facebook gradually admitting users off a waitlist.
The tech giants
Atlassian is acquiring Chartio to bring data visualization to the platform — Atlassian sees Chartio as a way to really take advantage of the data locked inside its products.
Yelp puts trust and safety in the spotlight — Yelp released its very first trust and safety report this week, with the goal of explaining the work that it does to crack down on fraudulent and otherwise inaccurate or unhelpful content.
Startups, funding and venture capital
Newsela, the replacement for textbooks, raises $100M and becomes a unicorn — If Newsela is doing its job right, its third-party content can replace textbooks within a classroom altogether, while helping teachers provide fresh, personalized material.
Tim Hortons marks two years in China with Tencent investment — The Canadian coffee and doughnut giant has raised a new round of funding for its Chinese venture.
Sources: Lightspeed is close to hiring a new London-based partner to put down further roots in Europe — According to multiple sources, Paul Murphy is being hired away from Northzone.
Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch
In freemium marketing, product analytics are the difference between conversion and confusion — Considering that most freemium providers see fewer than 5% of free users move to paid plans, even a slight improvement in conversion can translate to significant revenue gains.
As BNPL startups raise, a look at Klarna, Affirm and Afterpay earnings — With buy-now-pay-later options, consumers turn a one-time purchase into a limited string of regular payments.
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)
Everything else
Jamaica’s JamCOVID pulled offline after third security lapse exposed travelers’ data — JamCOVID was set up last year to help the government process travelers arriving on the island.
AT&T is turning DirecTV into a standalone company — AT&T says it will own 70% of the new company, while private equity firm TPG will own 30%.
How to ace the 1-hour, and ever-elusive, pitch presentation at TC Early Stage — Norwest’s Lisa Wu has a message for founders: Think like a VC during your pitch presentation.
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.
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