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Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Snap lays off one-fifth of its workforce after missing revenue and growth targets

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By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Midweek? More like mid-weak! Okay, terrible pun, but we're a little low energy in this heat wave today, so it kinda made sense.

Oh! And good news, btw, we're offering 15% off Disrupt tickets (excluding online or expo tickets) for you, our trusty Daily Crunch readers. Use promo code “DC” to claim your discount!

See you tomorrow!  — Christine and Haje

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Image Credits: TechCrunch

The TechCrunch Top 3

  • Slumdog $5-illonnaire: Landa is the latest startup to attract venture capital, in this case $33 million, to democratize real estate ownership, Mary Ann writes. Its approach enables people to invest in the real estate sector, which is known for providing generational wealth, but in a less expensive, more fractional way, and in some cases, for as little as $5 initially.
  • Snap, crackle and . . . fizzle: Despite the myriad of news and new revenue streams we've reported about Snap right here in this newsletter, Evan Spiegel said the words no tech employee wants to hear right now: "restructuring our business." Amanda reports that this unfortunately means cutting 20% of staff.
  • Obstacles abroad: Amazon faces some tough competition in India, and Manish reports that has presented some challenges in the e-commerce giant's ability to gain a more prominent foothold in the country.

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Startups and VC

This week, Haje went deep with a founder who's building digital license plates. He mused that building an easy-to-copy hardware product in an incredibly tightly regulated industry where winner-takes-all would be an utter nightmare, but when it works, it works, and it's fascinating to see Reviver build a company, one license plate at the time.

Populus, the San Francisco–based transportation data startup, got its start as shared scooter mania took hold and cities tried to make sense of how infrastructure was being used by fleets of tiny vehicles. Now, Populus co-founder and CEO Regina Clewlow is repositioning the company to take advantage of another hot opportunity: curbs and congestion, Rebecca writes. It's a really good read from the TechCrunch transportation desk with an undertone of “the power of great pivots.”

Raisin' money, raisin' hell:

Crafting a XaaS customer success strategy that drives growth

Giving users better service than they expected could literally save a software startup. In one study, companies that spent 10% of yearly revenue on customer success attained peak net recurring revenue.

“Companies mostly deploy two or more customer success archetypes,” according to TC+ contributors Rachel Parrinello and John Stamos. “They usually vary by customer segment, business versus technical focus and sales motion focus: adopt, renew, upsell and cross-sell.”

If you’re interested in optimizing revenue through CS, read the rest for a full overview of job design methodology, because “companies should not design their customer success roles in a vacuum.”

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

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Big Tech Inc.

Social media and privacy don't often go hand in hand, especially when children can see a lot on the internet already. Twitter got caught up in this when it reportedly tried to monetize adult content in an effort to compete with OnlyFans. It later scrapped the program when it was found that its system couldn't "detect child sexual abuse material and non-consensual nudity at scale," Amanda writes. Meanwhile, California lawmakers wasted no time moving ahead to put in place statewide online privacy protections for children where there are none at the federal level, Taylor reports.

  • Stepping on the gas, er, EV pedal: Toyota is accelerating its investment in U.S. electric vehicles, and will park some $3.8 billion into that initiative, up from an initial $1.3 billion, Jaclyn writes.
  • Cashing in on NFTs: Event organizers working with Ticketmaster can now issue NFTs tied to tickets on Flow, Ivan reports.
  • It's almost fall and that means another Apple event: Brian has the skinny on all the things you should know about Apple's iPhone 14 event on September 7.
  • New satellite on the block: Royal Caribbean is going "all-in on satellite service," and will outfit its fleet of ships with Starlink internet, Devin writes.

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Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Embedded finance fintech Pezesha raises $11M pre-Series A equity-debt round

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By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Hey, hey, hey! Good to have you back with us again. Today, we're mostly amazed at how quiet Twitter gets during Burning Man, and excited that we're doing a Labor Day sale for TechCrunch Plus, if you've been wanting to read our subscription site but you've been holding off for whatever reason. — Christine and Haje

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Image Credits: Pezesha

The TechCrunch Top 3

  • Embed that finance: Pezesha, a Kenyan-based fintech startup, is flush with $11 million in new capital as it seeks to bridge the gap between access to financial products and what is a "$330 billion financing deficit for the small enterprises that make up 90% of Africa's businesses," Annie reports.
  • We’re all connected: If you haven't yet seen yourself in one of your Twitter connection's Circles, you may soon. The social media giant is launching the "Close Friends" features globally, Ivan reports. Add a bunch of people to your Circle and get tweeting.
  • No delivery for you: Delivery platform Gopuff has only been in Europe since November 2021, but Natasha L writes it made the decision to discontinue its service in Spain. She cites that perhaps this is to focus more on the United Kingdom market where revenue there is increasing 30% month over month.

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Startups and VC

Initialized Capital was VC Garry Tan's answer to a need first highlighted by Y Combinator. As a partner at the accelerator from 2010 to 2015, Tan spent time working with companies to better understand what they needed from investors after they graduated. This week, he announced he's back at the helm at YC, and Natasha M interviewed him about what's next for Y Combinator.

The company behind last summer's hot social app, Poparazzi, appears to be readying a round two following its $15 million Series A announced in June. A new listing in the App Store under the developer's account, TTYL, is teasing a pre-release app called Made with Friends, Sarah reports.

When the news hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that's a-more-news:

How to communicate to your crypto community when things aren't going well

Because it’s a nascent industry that’s largely unregulated, crypto companies are not generally skilled at crisis communications. (We're being generous here.)

When a bank or financial services company experiences a massive security failure or a volatility shock, federal laws dictate how it must communicate with its customers. Crypto startups, however, must rely on their own best judgment.

“There's little benefit in declaring that the sky is falling and begging your community for investment, but an overly rosy outlook won't fool anyone either,” says Tahem Verma, co-founder and CEO of Mesha.

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

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Big Tech Inc.

Last chance to get your game on in the Facebook Gaming app. The social media giant said it is shutting down its stand-alone app at the end of October, Aisha reports. Don't worry, you can still find your games in Gaming on actual Facebook. When launching the separate app two years ago, it seemed to be more difficult than Facebook bargained for, so it decided to join 'em instead of beating 'em.

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Monday, August 29, 2022

Meta partnership allows Indian WhatsApp users to browse and buy groceries via JioMart

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By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps

Monday, August 29, 2022

Good morning, you crunchy ol’ pirates. Good to see you again, and hope you had a swell weekend. On Wednesday, we're hosting a healthcare-focused TechCrunch Live. It'll be fun! Tune in here, and if you want to be part of the 2-minute pitch practice, Haje will be on the lookout for your applications.

Now, grab yourself a glass of water, and settle in with some tech-newsy goodness from the TC team! —Christine and Haje

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The TechCrunch Top 3

  • Order up: Meta joined forces with Reliance Retail and Jio Platforms two years ago to test grocery shopping on WhatsApp in India, and Manish and Jagmeet write that customers can now "browse JioMart's entire grocery catalog on WhatsApp, add items to a cart and make the payments via local payments rail UPI without ever leaving the instant messaging service."
  • Welcome back: Former Amplify co-founder and CEO Segun Adeyemi is back with Anchor, a banking-as-a-service startup that is helping businesses offer financial products in Nigeria and across Africa. It also caught the eye of Y Combinator and other investors, who put in over $1 million, Tage reports.
  • Hail to the chief: Speaking of YC, Mary Ann and Natasha M paired up to report on today's surprise news that Initialized Capital founder Garry Tan is going to be the accelerator giant's next president and CEO.

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Startups and VC

As we all know, the housing market goes through cycles. Low interest rates mean more purchases and refinances. Higher interest rates mean far fewer purchases and refinances — and lots of business for fintechs operating in the real estate industry, Mary Ann writes in this week's issue of the Interchange, our fintech newsletter.

Kli Capital was your average family office headed up by a former tech entrepreneur looking to opportunistically back a new fleet of founders. Becca reports that the firm changed gears in the firm's third fund, as it evolved into a multi-LP fund.

A Gen Z VC speaks up: Why Gen Z VCs are trash

Tech investors born after 1996 “have raised funds, garnered social media followings and profited from the Gen Z mentality,” says Andrew Chan, a senior associate at Builders VC.

However, “Gen Z, no matter how you slice it, are still a bunch of kids. Myself included,” he notes in a TC+ guest post. “Good for them. I don't want to be any part of it.”

Chan says too many investors in his age cohort rely on “youth, group-think identification and confidence as a substitute for hard work and experience.”

“It might work for now, but if that's success for my generation of venture capitalists, then I would have rather stayed in my happy little bubble writing geochemistry code at NASA JPL.”

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

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Big Tech Inc.

If you like earbuds that glow, you will enjoy Haje's review of Angry Miao's Cyberblade gaming earbuds. We think "these are some of the best-manufactured in-ear headphones I've ever seen" pretty much sums it up.

Remember the vintage Apple iMac Blueberry? That's what the back of the new Aston Martin Valhalla reminds us of. For true car connoisseurs, Jaclyn writes this high-performance vehicle is being used to "develop a playbook for its future EVs."

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