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Thursday, December 24, 2020

Daily Crunch - Alibaba faces antitrust probe

Thursday, December 24, 2020 • By Anthony Ha

Chinese authorities investigate an e-commerce giant, Google may be tightening its grip on research and VCs weigh in on the year’s biggest surprises. This is your (briefer than usual) Daily Crunch for December 24, 2020.

By the way, The Daily Crunch is off tomorrow, but we’ll be back Monday. Hope you’re having a holiday season that’s at least marginally better than the rest of 2020!

The big story: Alibaba faces antitrust probe

China’s State Administration for Market Regulation said that it’s investigating the e-commerce giant over a policy that forces merchants to sell exclusively with Alibaba and skip rival platforms JD.com and Pinduoduo.

“Alibaba will actively cooperate with the regulators on the investigation," the company said in a statement. "Company business operations remain normal."

Meanwhile, Chinese authorities have already called off the initial public offering of Alibaba affiliate Ant Group, and the company has now received another “meeting notice” from regulators.

The big story: Alibaba faces antitrust probe image

Image Credits: Getty Images

Holiday grab bag

Google reportedly tightens grip on research into 'sensitive topics' — Reuters, citing researchers at the company and internal documents, reports that Google has implemented new controls in the last year, including an extra round of inspection for papers on certain topics.

Five VCs discuss what surprised them the most in 2020 — The latest episode of Equity reflects on a year that no one could have predicted.

Gift Guide: Last-minute subscriptions to keep the gifts going all year — They're easy to order at the very last minute, easy to give from afar and they'll spread the gifting fun out over weeks and months.

Image Credits: Alex Tai/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

The built environment will be one of tech's next big platforms — An in-depth look at Sidewalk Labs’ abandoned Toronto waterfront project.

US seed-stage investing flourished during pandemic — According to a TechCrunch analysis of PitchBook data and a survey of venture capitalists, a few trends became clear.

Use Git data to optimize your developers' annual reviews — Three metrics can help you understand true performance quality.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch image

Image Credits: Andrew Bret Wallis / Getty Images

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Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Daily Crunch - Telegram prepares to monetize

Wednesday, December 23, 2020 • By Anthony Ha

Telegram will introduce ads, TikTok’s parent company is moving into drug discovery and President Trump continues his battle against Section 230. This is your Daily Crunch for December 23, 2020.

The big story: Telegram prepares to monetize

Telegram founder Pavel Durov said the messaging app will introduce advertising next year on public one-to-many channels. Durov wrote on his Telegram channel the ad platform will be “one that is user-friendly, respects privacy and allows us to cover the costs of server and traffic.”

He also pointed to premium stickers as another way that Telegram could monetize, while emphasizing that existing features will remain free and that he does not support showing ads in private chats.

In addition to discussing the company’s monetization plans, Durov said that Telegram is “approaching” 500 million users.

The big story: Telegram prepares to monetize image

Image Credits: Carl Court / Getty Images

The tech giants

Nikola's stock crashes after announcing cancelation of contract with Republic Services for 2,500 garbage trucks — This is the latest deal to unravel for Nikola as it tries to patch up following recent devastating reports.

TikTok parent ByteDance hiring for AI drug discovery team — “We are looking for candidates to join our team and conduct cutting-edge research in drug discovery and manufacturing powered by AI algorithms,” the company said in a job posting.

Image Credits: Nikola Motor Company

Startups, funding and venture capital

Chinese autonomous driving startup WeRide bags $200M in funding — The new funding will see WeRide joining hands with Yutong, a 57-year-old company, to make autonomous-driving minibuses and city buses.

Voyager Space Holdings to acquire majority stake in commercial space leader Nanoracks — Nanoracks provided the Bishop Airlock that was installed on the International Space Station.

Honk introduces a real-time, ephemeral messaging app aimed at Gen Z — Instead of sending texts off into the void and hoping for a response, friends on Honk communicate via messages that are shown live as you type.

Startups, funding and venture capital image

Image Credits: WeRide

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Dear Sophie: What's ahead for US immigration in 2021? — Sophie Alcorn weighs in on what’s next for U.S. visas and green cards.

Looking ahead after 2020's epic M&A spree — This year, four deals involving chip companies totaled over $100 billion on their own.

Heading into 2021: Venture fundraising, liquidity and the everything bubble — Alex Wilhelm’s final column of the year.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Image Credits: Sophie Alcorn

Everything else

Trump vetoes major defense bill, citing Section 230 — President Trump has vetoed the $740 million National Defense Authorization Act, a major bill that allocates military funds each year.

XRP cryptocurrency crashes following announcement of SEC suit against Ripple — The XRP token's value has declined more than 42% in the past 24 hours.

TaskRabbit is resetting customer passwords after finding 'suspicious activity' on its network — The company later confirmed the activity was a credential stuffing attack, where existing sets of exposed or breached usernames and passwords are matched against different websites to access accounts.

Image Credits: MANDEL NGAN/AFP / Getty Images

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Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Daily Crunch - Stimulus bill increases penalties for illegal streaming services

Tuesday, December 22, 2020 • By Anthony Ha

The stimulus bill includes significant changes to copyright law and enforcement, the Biden administration may have to build a presidential Twitter following from scratch and we round up the startups that shut down this year. This is your Daily Crunch for December 22, 2020.

The big story: Stimulus bill increases penalties for illegal streaming services

While we wrote several stories yesterday about the tech implications of the new stimulus bill (and highlighted it in yesterday’s Daily Crunch), more details are emerging — like the fact that it will make illegal streaming for profit a felony, punishable by fines or up to 10 years of imprisonment.

The language of the bill seems to focus on commercial piracy services, rather than individuals or Twitch streamers — a point that one of its sponsors, Senator Thom Tillis, emphasized in a statement, claiming that “no individual streamer has to worry about the fear of prosecution.”

On the copyright front, the bill also creates a new Copyright Claims Board to handle copyright infringement claims of up to $30,000.

The big story: Stimulus bill increases penalties for illegal streaming services image

Image Credits: Bill Dickinson / Getty Images

Flatfile researched how 100+ companies address data migrations

The tech giants

Google, Cisco and VMware join Microsoft to oppose NSO Group in WhatsApp spyware case — A coalition of companies have filed an amicus brief in support of a legal case brought by WhatsApp accusing NSO Group of using an undisclosed vulnerability to hack into at least 1,400 devices.

Twitter's POTUS account will reportedly be reset to zero followers when Biden takes over — Twitter, meanwhile, says it has “been in ongoing discussions with the Biden transition team on a number of aspects related to White House account transfers.”

Image Credits: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg / Getty Images

Startups, funding and venture capital

Remembering the startups we lost in 2020 — A look back at startups large and small that didn’t make it through hell year.

Horizon Robotics, a Chinese rival to Nvidia, seeks to raise over $700M — Horizon Robotics is a five-year-old unicorn specializing in AI chips for robots and autonomous vehicles.

Austin-based ReturnSafe raises $3.25M for its employee health management tools — Management toolkits that track employee health are piling into the market.

Image Credits: Jay Castor / Unsplash

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

To win post-pandemic, edtech needs to start thinking big — After a noisy 2020, can the sector maintain momentum?

One final $100M ARR company and the startups we want to meet in 2021 — Let’s talk about Nexthink.

With a $50B run rate in reach, can anyone stop AWS? — AWS has taken advantage of first-to-market status to become the most successful player in the space.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Image Credits: Dual Dual / Getty Images

Everything else

Gift Guide: TechCrunch's Favorite Things of 2020 — Many of the podcasts, songs, movies, people and more that got us through this year.

NASA opens new launchpad at Kennedy Space Center meant to serve multiple commercial launch customers — The purpose of LC-48 is very explicitly to fill "a need for new, low-cost launch systems with very fast turnaround cycles.”

Newest Jobs from Crunchboard

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Monday, December 28, 2020

Thursday, December 24, 2020

Holiday grab bag

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Newest Jobs from Crunchboard

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

The tech giants

Startups, funding and venture capital

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Everything else

Newest Jobs from Crunchboard

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Sponsored by Flatfile

The tech giants

Startups, funding and venture capital

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Everything else

Newest Jobs from Crunchboard