SpaceX set to launch two spacecraft tomorrow aboard Falcon Heavy rocket

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps Monday, October 31, 2022

Last week was a hell of a week in startup news, and Henry wrote a particularly good summary of everything that went down, including Elon Musk's Twitter purchase, Meta's troubles, and a minute of silence for self-driving cars. — Christine and Haje Image Credits: SpaceX

The TechCrunch Top 3 Flying chonk goes wheeeeeee: While we were all distracted by Elon Musk's other pet project, SpaceX launched a Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time in three years. Aria has more. Swipe right for utter chaos: Glitch or not, Instagram has some ‘splaining to do. A number of users woke up this morning to suspended accounts. We adore Aisha's headline, "Instagram is giving Twitter a run for its money as the most chaotic social network today." We concur. Circle of friends: Egyptian fintech Money Fellows banked $31 million in new funding to, what Tage describes as, "digitizing money circles," which is where people essentially save and borrow together as a group.

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Startups and VC Politician turned venture capitalist Bradley Tusk recently spoke at a TechCrunch Live event on how startups should approach regulation, in a session called "How to launch a startup into a regulated market." Dibbs CEO and co-founder Evan Vandenberg joined Tusk in the conversation. The event is embedded here and is both free and very worth watching. Invygo, a startup operating in UAE and Saudi Arabia, has raised $10 million in its Series A funding as it works to scale its car rental service in the region. The Middle East–based startup has raised $14.3 million to date, Ivan reports. And, as ever, there's a handful of additional stories. Just 4 this time — there were 5, but then a PR person decided to move the embargo for a story that was already published, and Haje got all salty and grumpy about it. Ai ai ai: Connie explores why "generative AI" is suddenly on everyone's lips, concluding that it's an "open field." For celebrities of all stripes: Zebra Labs raises $5 million to help Chinese celebrities enter the metaverse, Rita reports. Doing the admin vs. “doing the work”: Topline Pro grabs $5 million to help home service businesses scale online, Christine reports. Patience, young Padawan: On November 2, Matt asks Natalie Gordon of Babylist and Jesse Draper at Halogen Ventures, What if your startup doesn't take off overnight? Get that in your calendar.

6 reasons why you shouldn't join an accelerator As director of Techstars’ startup pipeline, Saba Karim devotes much of his time touting the many ways entrepreneurs can benefit by joining an accelerator. But is it the right choice for every founder? “Keep in mind that funding will solve your money problems, but it won't solve everything else,” he says. “You'll still need to figure out how to acquire customers, find the best talent, build an incredible product, assemble a great advisory board and get to product-market fit.” Three more from the TC+ team: Who will end the standoff: It will take a 'bulletproof' startup to break the IPO logjam, says Alex. BRB, AFK, rockets: Alex Fedorov shares How to effectively manage a remote team during wartime. Working remotely, or not remotely working: Remote work is here to stay. Here's how to manage your staff from afar, by Rebecca. 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 Image Credits: Richard Drury / Getty Images

Big Tech Inc. Darrell writing that Mark Zuckerberg should drop all that metaverse nonsense and "make a new Twitter" makes us want to respond with "bite your tongue!" But really, as he puts it, "Cloning the features of its rivals" is something Meta is good at, plus it has the best chance at also replicating user base and monetary worth. It's unlikely Zuck will take the bait, but never say never. It's indeed a Twitter world, and we just live in it. First, Devin writes that Elon Musk just dissolved Twitter's board of directors, making him now the sole owner; then Ron followed up with what Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor can do now that he isn't on the board. Sarah reports on Twitter Blue's troubles, namely that the subscription service is feeling blue that it is not bringing in more green. Meanwhile, Amanda writes about what happens if Twitter starts charging for that little blue checkmark, and Natasha L reports that Musk might be trying to bring back Vine. Over the weekend, Rebecca wrote about layoffs at the company. Don't worry, there was plenty of other news: Mind cleanse: To get all that Twitter out of your mind, try your hand at Google's new doodle game. Have you ever watched your child play Snake.io and wondered, "Will I like that?" Well, Google got into the Halloween spirit with today's doodle, where you get to be a ghost and collect spirit flames while playing with friends or random people, Aisha writes. The heat is on: Amazon to delist top seller Appario on India marketplace after some retailers allege that sellers got preferential treatment, Manish reports. We've got a ticket to ride: WhatsApp users in Bengaluru can now buy train tickets via QR code, Jagmeet reports. Bed, Bath & Breach: Bed, Bath & Beyond confirms a data breach that happened when a hacker gained access to an employee's hard drive, Carly writes. Query that data: Ron reports on Pinecone's new vector database that can handle hybrid keyword-semantic searches.

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With Musk's purchase completed, NYSE will delist Twitter stock on Election Day

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall Friday, October 28, 2022

Happy Friday! Haje is enjoying some down time on the East Coast, so I am running solo. As you can see from the not-so-surprising move by Elon Musk last night and the sheer number of Twitter stories from our fabulous consumer tech team today, it has been all Twitter, all day. We promise to give you a little bit of that, of course, and a little of what else we've been working on. Let's dive in, shall we?  — Christine Image Credits: Lars Niki/Corbis / Getty Images

The TechCrunch Top 3 Flying the public coop: Now that Elon Musk owns Twitter, its days are numbered as a public company. In fact, Ivan writes, Twitter will be delisted on November 8 — voting day for the U.S. midterm elections. Caging the bird: Over to Europe, where just a few hours into actually owning Twitter, Musk already found himself on the wrong end of European Union officials, who corrected him after he tweeted about how free he thinks Twitter is now. Natasha L has more. Big Tweet Chief: Reports now say that Musk will take the CEO role for himself, Ivan writes, after he ousted Twitter's four top executives, as reported by Amanda.  For more news on the blue bird, head down to the Big Tech Inc. section, where we have you covered.

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Startups and VC Unfortunately, the hits keep coming for 54gene, an African genomics startup focused on providing more African genetic material to pharmaceutical research — there is just 3% now, Tage reports. After some months of layoffs and a CEO exit, the company confirmed that it not only made yet another round of layoffs — this time of 100 people — but it also slashed its valuation by over $100 million. And we have three more for you: Robot riot: Galen Robotics has a new robot that will assist with ear, nose and throat surgeries. Oh, and it secured $15 million in new funding, Andrew reports. Follow the yellow brick road: Game studio Hidden Door is using narrative AI to turn fiction into immersive role-playing experiences, and Rebecca writes it is testing out "The Wizard of Oz." Does anyone else use this word?: I was delighted to see that there is a company named Skidattl. The company is using augmented reality to show users what people are doing around them, in what Rebecca writes is "like a Bat-Signal for fun."

5 ways biotech startups can mitigate risk to grow sustainably in the long run Thanks to R&D and clinical trials, life science startups have long lead times before they can bring their capital-intensive products to market. “But,” asks Omar Khalil, a partner at Santé Ventures, “what happens when the funding suddenly dries up?” In a guest post for TC+, he shares five strategies for biotech startups that are trying to stay warm through the winter ahead. “It's still too early to know whether this is a short-term correction, or if it's a new normal that will be maintained for the foreseeable future.” Three more from the TC+ team: At least someone is soaring: Ron and Alex team up to write about one SaaS company, in this case, ServiceNow, whose stock soared this week while some of big tech's earnings took a dive. Speaking of diving: Dominic-Madori took a look at third-quarter venture capital funding into Latin American companies, which was down. She speaks with some folks on what needs to happen next. Grab on to that bear market: Jacquelyn spoke with some cryptocurrency executives who said that, despite appearances, bear markets are a "great time" to launch crypto startups. 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 Image Credits: jayk7 / Getty Images

Big Tech Inc. As promised, we have even more Twitter news for you to enjoy. As I write this, several of my colleagues hopped on Twitter Spaces to talk about all this. One of the latest bits of news from Taylor was that Elon Musk was forming a content moderation "council" to make certain decisions — for example, about account reinstatements for, cough, Donald Trump. Here's two more: Darrell pulled together the story so far on Elon Musk owning Twitter. We moved a TC+ story down here, because Twitter! Alex breaks down what the new value of social media companies might be thanks to Twitter's $44 billion price tag. Catching you up on more earnings reports: Meta shares took a tumble yesterday following third-quarter earnings that were less than impressive, Taylor and Amanda report, respectively. Even Apple's earnings fell short, Brian reports. And that was with iPhone revenues up. And over to Amazon, which also saw its Q3 income dip, Kyle writes. The company said "the economy took its toll." And we have four more for you: Not on cloud 9: AWS reports a slowdown as overall cloud infrastructure market growth dips to 24%, Ron reports. Second hack: Carly writes about yet another Twilio hack following an investigation that revealed the number of affected customers is growing. On the down low: Three years after building up a payment and lending app in India, Xiaomi quietly winds it down, Manish and Ivan report. When the chips are down…: The Biden administration imposed chip sanctions on China, and now reports say that those sanctions could extend to biotech. Rita has more.

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