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Good Friday, Crunchers! It’s May 27, 2022, and we’re on a long weekend because it’s Memorial Day weekend here in the US. No newsletter on Monday: Haje goes 🍷 wine tasting at Sonoma, and Christine plans to spend Monday 🛋️ sitting on the couch doing absolutely nothing, which we celebrate wholeheartedly. See you here on Tuesday!
You do not know what to do this weekend? Check out this summary of all the amazing podcasts we’ve released this week. It will keep you busy for at least a few hours. – Haje and Christine
The TechCrunch Top 3
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Golden goose: Manish was on fire today, writing not one, but two of our main stories of the day. The first is about Jar, an Indian fintech company looking for a $ 50 million B-series round. Citizens of the country have bank accounts to save money, but Jar helps them do something they may not be so familiar with: investing. And the company has chosen to start with something that Indians are known to love, gold.
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Turntable: Manish’s second story has to do with another Manish: Manish Maheshwari, the former head of Twitter India, who left a startup he co-founded after just 6 months. Our Manish reported in December that Maheshwari left his post on Twitter to start the edtech company Invact Metaversity with Tanay Pratap. The deal did not appear to be working as planned, with some company hiccups involving taking the product out the door and some leadership disagreements.
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Sometimes it doesn’t have to be: in the case of Substack, a new round of capital. Connie reviewed the details yesterday of trying to raise a C-Series, but later canceled it when favorable conditions were not met with investors. Today, Alex removes some of the onion layers to explain why Substack’s goals, based on the B-Series increase in 2021, didn’t translate well into the 2022 investment environment.
The story goes on
Startups and VCs
Earlier this week, Anita reported that Adam “WeWork” Neumann has returned with a new startup and increased support for a16z. In today’s Chain Reaction podcast, Anita and Lucas discuss whether Neumann really deserves $ 70 million and another chance. We’re completely confused why anyone would bet on him, and we’ll definitely be following his new startup closely.
Some more gems for you:
Ride or die-sel
Image of fuel supply to a tanker truck in Illinois.
Image credits: Bloomberg Creative (opens in new window) / Getty Images
Diesel prices alone are driving around 17% of the inflation we are seeing today, and Tim writes a heartwarming article about how gasoline and diesel may not be the best, especially considering the economy is looking up. of the cliff into an abyss whose depth is equal. our general optimism about the weather right now.
Perhaps this is exactly what is needed: perhaps when economic and climate interests align, we find the pot of “now, we can live on this planet a few more years” at the end of the rainbow.
(TechCrunch + is our membership program, which helps founders and start-ups get ahead. You can sign up here.)
Big Tech Inc.
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Sony Live Service Plans: Sony is getting closer to its live service offerings. This follows the acquisition of Bungie by the company earlier this year. Sony unveiled plans this week for its business life after the acquisition, which includes investing heavily in the live gaming gaming industry, though it did not go into details about which of its franchises would receive treatment.
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Look at it: We thought Snapchat was just guys posting little “photos” to other people, but the social media giant has bigger plans than that. Its new quick feature, “Shared Stories”, is a riff of its “Custom Stories” feature to allow users, well, you can see where we’re going with this. Here’s how it works: Users added to a group can also add their friends to make it easier to share their stories. Don’t worry, if someone in the group of friends isn’t your cup of tea, your stories won’t be shared with them.
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Database Debacle: Voto Consulting, a talented New Jersey acquisition company, learned the hardest part about what happens when you don’t password protect a database and leave it on the Internet. The resumes and personal information of some 30,000 workers were displayed. As Zack reports, the story becomes much more interesting, which you really need to check for yourself.
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Driving Time: In today’s transportation news, Rivian opened the hood and rearranged some things with the company’s engine (yes, we know it’s an electric vehicle) to hire new COO Frank Klein. This comes amid other leadership changes when its head of manufacturing resigned. Tesla, meanwhile, says it will not open a manufacturing plant in India until it can sell and repair vehicles in the country. Manish outlines the back-and-forth between the country and the company: Country officials want cars to be built locally and Tesla to continue its high import duties. Tesla still doesn’t want to pay higher fares if the market doesn’t test well. So, a super fun stop.