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Greetings, there’s a lot of news to cover today, and my head is a little shaken by some of today’s January 6 testimony, so let’s get to it. Oh, and TechCrunch+ is having an Independence Day sale! Save 50% on an annual subscription here. (More on TechCrunch+ here if you need it!) Now that you said subscription, head over to hajeYour pitch deck story needs an operating plan. — Christina
TechCrunch’s top 3
- Kid ‘n Play wouldn’t be amused: Airbnb has spoken and is ending party houses with a permanent ban, Ivan reports. This is something the company started 2 years ago, and it seems to have worked – the company reports 44% fewer complaints from parties year over year.
- on target: Although the CEO of crypto exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, denied that he was interested in buying Robinhood, alexander explains why FTX would be interested.
- The title speaks for itself: Mike scored a home run with its headline for a story about four European founders-turned-angel investors who are giving some of their venture capital firm competition – many of whom say they’ve never run a business before – a race for their money.
Startups and VCs
We liked IngridThe story of Speechmatics, a company that raised $62 million for its approach to speech-to-text artificial intelligence. One of the neat things it does is remove some biases so that if you have an accent or speak a certain way it will still be picked up and translated accurately.
Ecommerce is hot, hot, hot, but it can be daunting to sift through something like 7,500 apps, which Shopify has, to find the ones that will work best for your business. I wrote about Shop Circle, which came out of stealth mode today with $65 million. The company has sifted through all of these apps and is acquiring them so you don’t have to.
We know electric vehicles are expensive, so wouldn’t it be great to defer part of the monthly payment? Meet Tenet, which raised $18 million for its loan offer that could cut an average of $200 off the bill, Harris writing.
Here is the short and short version of other stories:
- Feed job boards: As the tech sector sees layoffs, Kyle reports that Gloat is raising $90 million to build better internal job boards.
- Rising tides and all: Sustainable Ocean Alliance, an ocean-focused early-stage startup incubator, secured $18 million in new funding from sources including Marc and Lynne Benioff, Devin writes.
- You have a friend in me: Finding friends is difficult, and as Katherine points out, it gets even harder as you get older. That’s why it’s heartwarming to read about apps like Hank, which has scooped up $7 million in seed funding and connects seniors to something fun they love to do.
- The vice is no more?: It wasn’t that long ago that venture capitalists were skittish about investing in any of the “vices”, you know, like alcohol and cannabis. haje reports that JourneyOne has a new $10 million fund ready to get to work in cannabis technology.
Use Time-Based Scenario Planning to Help Your Startup Through a Potential Recession
Picture credits: Andriy Onufriyenko (Opens in a new window) /Getty Pictures
People who burn wood for warmth all winter know how to calculate the number of cords they will need to cut and stack. However, creating a winterization strategy for a startup is a less straightforward process.
In this environment, entrepreneurs should build decision trees that can help them manage 36 months of lead, recommends Gaetano Crupi, a partner at venture capital firm Prime Movers Lab.
A 3-year outlook” is a more appropriate time horizon to gather more information so you can slow down even more (with cash to pivot) if things get worse in 12 months, or speed up if things improve. in 18 months,” he advises.
(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams grow. You can register here.)
Big Tech inc.
Starting our Big Tech news today is the handover of one of India’s largest telecommunications companies and the start of a new generation. pot holder reports that Akash Ambani has taken the reins of Reliance Jio from his father, Mukesh Ambani, in what has been seen by analysts as “a clear illustration of a leadership transition in one of India’s wealthiest families. Asia”.
Carly writes that cybercrime operation RansomHouse (why does this sound like book publishers?) is believed to be behind the extortion of some data from US chipmaker AMD. The company is investigating the incident.
Ron attended part of Google’s Sustainability Summit this week and posted about Google Cloud’s new sustainability platform to provide businesses with data to help them achieve their climate goals.
More for your viewing pleasure:
- Oh, yes, we have problems, problems, problems: When you buy an electric vehicle, you want it to operate with the same reliability as your old thermal car, but also Jaclyn reports, a JD Power investigation found that was not the case.
- Gather the group: The new feature built into Spotify’s Supergrouper app will create a kind of mixed band for up to five of your favorite artists, Aisha writing.
- Convoy: Rebecca reported on an open letter sent to California Governor Gavin Newsom by a group of self-driving truck developers urging the state to reconsider an earlier decision banning such vehicles in the state.
- Listen: If you are looking for new headphones, brian provides a review of the Nura prototype.
- Developer’s Delight: Frederic writes about Hasura’s new GraphQL Data Connector which “allows developers to bring virtually any data source into Hasura to expose as a GraphQL API”.
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