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Friday, April 28, 2023

First Republic Bank stock reaches record low as feds discuss rescue plan

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By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps

Friday, April 28, 2023

On today's episode of our Equity podcast, the team dives in to ponder whether First Republic's share tumble is a victim of SVB’s collapse, or whether there's something else in the water. It's well worth a listen — as ever!

Another not-to-miss today is Jacquelyn's Chain Reaction newsletter, where she picks apart what's coming down the pike now that Binance.US sailed away from its $1.3 billion deal with Voyager.

Happy weekend, kids. Don't do anything we wouldn't do. Although we're pretty weird, so that leaves you with quite a few options, to be fair. And actually, you should do tons of things we wouldn't do. Like, er, go parasailing, listen to the world’s most annoying sound, or spend all day baking a cake. Or maybe create a new bluegrass/funk/j-pop fusion band, written by ChatGPT.

Christine and Haje

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The TechCrunch Top 3

  • The beginning of the end?: Alex caught wind of First Republic Bank’s share woes earlier today, writing that shares were down 40% on reports that the government may step in. He writes, "That's not so good for the bank, or its customers. While during SVB's time in the barrel the U.S. government ensured that all of its deposits would be secure and accessible, there is no clear indication yet that that is new de facto policy, or that First Republic customers will enjoy similar protections."
  • Missing: Manish took a look at Amazon's earnings and saw a glaring omission: the absence of its India business, which he notes is a first in years.
  • All grown up: Brave Search doesn't use Bing's index for its search engine anymore, reports Ivan.

Startups and VC

Dramaaaaaaaa. It isn't often that startup rivals battle in plain view of others, but such is the case with the mobile messaging services provider Postscript, which took to the Twitterverse earlier this month after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from competitor Attentive, Christine reports. Attentive's letter was in response to a client case study that Postscript had authored and posted on its website about nutrition company BUBS Naturals, which said BUBS Naturals left Attentive for Postscript after finding its list actually shrinking instead of growing, then battling with the company to move its list off its platform.

To make services shariah-compliant, a new wave of fintechs doesn’t charge interest, embraces profit sharing and avoids alcohol and tobacco transactions, Catherine reports.

And here's a nice little tail wind to take you into the weekend:

How we used data-driven personas to radically improve the customer experience

Instead of drawing information from user interactions to create avatars representing actual customers, many teams will substitute their own judgment and guesses about what people like and dislike.

Impartner VP of product Gary Sabin says his company "dove into the numbers" and "looked at 250 data points" to develop "persona-based services in implementation, customer support and customer success."

After a year, the company generated higher customer satisfaction ratings and NPS scores. "These personas work for us," says Sabin. "Your customer data can lead you to create the personas that matter most in your customer base.”

Three more from the TC+ team:

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!

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Big Tech Inc.

Tired of just reading through endless posts on Reddit? Ready to get more involved? You're in luck: Reddit is testing Discord-like channels for community chat. And no, these will not be the same kind of community chat rooms that Reddit discontinued in 2020. Ivan writes that these new channels will "give more control to moderators and will have a dedicated channel for moderators to chat about managing the subreddit. Plus, they will be able to decide if they want to enable this feature for the community in the first place."

Before you head off for the weekend, have five more:

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Thursday, April 27, 2023

Citing slow growth and desire to be 'at the forefront of the AI era,' Dropbox CEO lays off 500

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By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps

Thursday, April 27, 2023

Thursday is here — how in the world did that happen? Those days, they just keep on coming. If you're still on the fence about whether you want to come along to Disrupt, we've got you covered: There's a Disrupt pass for every role and budget.

It also seems like Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes isn't headed to jail today after all. She was scheduled to start her 11-year sentence, but then Things Happened. Connie has the full story.

Christine and Haje

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The TechCrunch Top 3

  • More layoffs: Dropbox CEO Drew Houston broke the news today that the company will be laying off 500 employees, or 16% of its staff. Ingrid reports Houston said the cuts are due to slowing growth and "the era of AI."
  • Get the popcorn ready: Warner Bros. is partnering with Viacom18 to bring "Succession" and other HBO content to India. Manish has more.
  • Legacy learns to embrace AI: Jagmeet takes a deep dive into how legacy financial software giant Intuit decided to put out the welcome mat for artificial intelligence instead of closing the door and turning the deadbolt.

Startups and VC

Posh is an event management and ticketing platform for all users to host events large or small, regardless of whether you're an event organizer, promoter, or just want to charge your friends a cover for drinking all the expensive alcohol at your birthday party. Lauren reports that Posh announced its public launch today after being in beta since October 2020. Alongside the launch, the company also announced its $5 million seed round.

The concept of SaaS as a business model changed the game in tech by moving users away from buying software outright and toward paying for service availability based on time-based subscriptions, typically with per-month or annual pricing, Ingrid reports. Today, a startup out of London called M3ter that is building tools to take the next step in that evolution — more granular usage-based pricing — is announcing funding on the back of strong demand. The company has raised $14 million.

More? Okay, fine, here's another handful for you:

Capital efficiency is the new VC filter for startups

For some B2B SaaS startups, focusing solely on the LTV:CAC ratio is a great way to obscure weak customer metrics. Dividing Customer Lifetime Value by Customer Acquisition Cost can offer useful insights, but only if you have accurate retention data — and a lot of it.

"Today, investors zoom in on other efficiency metrics that paint a more reliable and comprehensive picture of the startup's capital efficiency, and so should you," says Igor Shaverskyi, a partner at VC firm Waveup.

In this TC+ column, he offers a formula and benchmarks for calculating CAC payback, which reveals to founders (and potential investors) "how long it will take for your customer acquisition costs to pay off."

Three more from the TC+ team:

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!

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Big Tech Inc.

Let's talk about Meta today, shall we? Yesterday, the company reported that its earnings beat revenue expectations, as covered by Amanda. But that's not all: Our colleagues grabbed on to a few tidbits, including that the company said 10% of its global ad revenue was at risk from European Union data flows order. Natasha L has more on that. Also, time spent on Instagram grew 24%, thanks to TikTok-style AI Reel recommendations, reports Darrell.

Meanwhile, Meta also had a win in court, with an appeal court ruling in the tech giant's favor regarding an antitrust case brought by state attorneys general. Sarah writes that "the States alleged Meta had illegally maintained monopoly power in the social networking market through its acquisitions of photo-sharing app Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, and that it gained further power through data policies that harmed app developers."

Now here's five more for you:

Read more stories on TechCrunch.com

Newest Jobs from Crunchboard

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Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Lookout sells consumer security segment for $223M to become 'pure-play enterprise company' 

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By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps

Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Hi, folks! It’s Wednesday, and we’re running around like crazy, so let’s get to it! Wooooo!

Christine and Haje

 image

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The TechCrunch Top 3

  • Can you see it?: Enterprise security company Lookout is selling its consumer cybersecurity business to F-Secure in a $223 million deal that Paul writes will "now evolve [Lookout] into a pure-play enterprise company" that will focus on mobile endpoint security and cloud security.
  • Hello?: Christmas comes early for iPhone and Windows users — iMessage finally comes to Windows 11 with the global rollout of Phone Link for iOS, reports Sarah.
  • You'll definitely notice this car go by: China's MG Motor debuted what looks like a green highlighter on wheels in India. But seriously, it is a cute compact hatchback electric vehicle meant to navigate the country's tight mobility needs. Jagmeet has more.

Startups and VC

Greycroft, the self-styled "seed-to-growth" venture capital firm, today announced the closing of over $1 billion in capital commitments across new funds, Kyle reports. The firm's two flagship vehicles, Greycroft Partners VII and Greycroft Growth IV, closed on more than $980 million, according to co-founder and managing partner Dana Settle — cash that'll be put toward investing in both early- and growth-stage enterprise and consumer businesses.

In light of the micromobility industry’s growing popularity, the Japanese government has been proactive in loosening e-scooter regulations to further stimulate this sector, Kate reports. Starting this July, amendments to the country's Road Traffic Act will permit e-scooter users to ride without driver licenses or helmets, as long as they maintain a maximum speed of 20 kilometers per hour. Luup has now amassed a total of $68 million in equity, debt and asset financing to date, at what sources said valued the firm at more than $100 million.

Let's take a look at the best of the rest:

Ask Sophie: My STEM OPT expires in 30 days, what are my options?

Dear Sophie,

My STEM OPT expires in a month, and my company did not register me in this year's H-1B lottery.

I'm not sure what options I have now. Help!

— Sleepless in Silicon Valley

Three more from the TC+ team:

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!

Read More

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Big Tech Inc.

There must be a large number of cat fans among our readership who also need help finding their cats around the house, because this story really went viral today. Tile launches a new cat tracking tag with three-year battery life, Ivan reports. Or maybe you are just impressed by a long battery life. No judgment.

Speaking of fans, there must also be a lot of "Black Mirror" fans excited for the new sixth season that will premiere in June. For those of you who have not seen this show yet, Lauren reports that "each episode of the satirical anthology series comments on society in some shape or form, such as the issues centered around webcam hackers, identity theft, weird robotic dogs and the toxicity of social media."

And we have five more for you:

Read more stories on TechCrunch.com

Newest Jobs from Crunchboard

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Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

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