Daily Crunch

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. The discussion is on in the newsroom as to whether folks are eager to pay between $8 and $20 per month for their blue checks on Twitter. Alex’s take was particularly sharp… “Not in the mood to finance your vanity project,” indeed. — Christine and Haje The ZebethMedia Top 3 Startups and VC TouchBistro, an iPad-based restaurant management platform, secured $110 million in growth financing from Francisco Partners to accelerate its growth, expand its product pipeline and make some strategic acquisitions, Christine reports. How’s this for some dodgy rhymes: Prepare to amortize: Inflation may spell doom for R&D tax expensing Image Credits: Fancy/Veer/Corbis (opens in a new window) / Getty Images The U.S. federal government has made R&D tax credits available for decades, but a major change set to take place this year will impact startups across the board. Previously, R&D expenditures could be expensed up front, but now “those expenses will need to be amortized over 5 years in the case of domestic research, and 15 years for foreign research,” according to tax attorney Andrew Leahey. Because so many startups “incur the bulk of their R&D costs in their first year of operation,” many could wait “the equivalent of a lifetime” to recover those expenses. High inflation has stalled efforts to repeal the amortization requirement, so Leahey shares several tactics companies can use “to prepare for the possibility of the rule coming into effect.” Three more from the TC+ team: ZebethMedia+ 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! Big Tech Inc. As always, we have all the Twitter news that’s fit to post. We promise to keep it to a minimum today because there is other fantastic news to share. However, we do want to point out that Elon Musk likes to work out his thought process in tweet form now, so news is changing as the wind blows. Here’s what you need to know today: Musk continues to talk up his plans for Twitter Blue and ad-free news articles (both by Ivan), while Amanda reports on the company’s chief customer officer Sarah Personette, who resigned today. The move is quite surprising, given that she tweeted positively about a conversation with Musk last week. Meanwhile, over at Mastodon, things are happening, Sarah writes. And we have five more for you:

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. 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 The ZebethMedia 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. Startups and VC Politician turned venture capitalist Bradley Tusk recently spoke at a ZebethMedia 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. 6 reasons why you shouldn’t join an accelerator Image Credits: Richard Drury (opens in a new window) / Getty Images 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: ZebethMedia+ 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! 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.

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. 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 The ZebethMedia 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. 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   Image Credits: jayk7 (opens in a new window) / Getty Images 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: ZebethMedia+ 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! 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: Catching you up on more earnings reports: And we have four more for you:

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Hello! And it’s Thursday! We are all waiting with bated breath for the latest installment of “Will Elon Actually Buy Twitter or Will He Squirrel Out of It” — the miniseries of indeterminate length and too many twists and turns to enumerate. Supposedly we’ll learn more tomorrow, but who knows. Also, what is time? And if we all leave Twitter in droves, where will we discuss all of this drama? Our fave little story today was Romain’s, covering these adorable houseplants that can be used as air purifiers. Haje is out tomorrow, so a very happy weekend from him, and Christine will look after all your crunchy needs tomorrow. Adios! — Christine and Haje The ZebethMedia Top 3 Ixnay on the self-drivay: Darrell has had it with all the speculation and calls it: “Truly autonomous vehicles just aren’t going to happen. The evidence pointing to this has been mounting for years now, if not decades, but it’s now tipped the balance to where it’s hard to ignore for a reasoned observer — even one like myself who has previously been very optimistic about self-driving prospects,” he writes. Darrell, we love you, and we hope you’ve never been more wrong. Closing the barn after the horse has bolted: We also have the latest on Elon Musk after his now-famous Twitter office sink video: Amanda reports on his open letter to Twitter advertisers that people have it all wrong about why he is buying the social media giant, but also that Twitter cannot become “a free-for-all hellscape.” Rebecca writes that Musk now says he won’t fire 75% of Twitter’s staff. Avoiding that seller’s tax: Jagmeet writes that sellers on Amazon have to meet certain requirements to sell on the platform, but a startup called Mason is out to change that. The India- and California-based startup secured $7.5 million in fresh funding, led by Accel and Ideaspring Capital, to offer an Amazon-like selling experience but without requiring that “Amazon tax.” Startups and VC There’s a ton of new funds happening all at once, seemingly. Christine reports that Streamlined Ventures, led by Ullas Naik, secured $140 million in new capital commitments for its two newest funds. Haje reports that Human Impact Capital is a new $50 million fund investing in social impact startups, and Mike notes that Paris-based VC Satgana completes the first close of its €30 million fund to back climate tech startups. Meanwhile, there were a bunch of mega-rounds that put the actual investment funds to shame; it’s a weird world when you can’t skim the headline numbers to figure out whether it’s a company raising a round or a new fund closing. We’re collecting a handful of ’em below. 5 tips for launching in a crowded web3 gaming market Image Credits: Chelsea Sampson (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Every online product requires some network effect, but gaming is unique: Without large, loyal and enthusiastic customers, there’s no way to build products that can be monetized. Play-to-earn games (P2E) are particularly susceptible to this problem, which is why “building a game that succeeds in the long term means developing monetization strategies that can weather market ebbs and flows,” says Corey Wilton, co-founder and CEO of Mirai Labs, the gaming studio behind Pegaxy. In this primer for P2E founders, Wilton shares suggestions for how to approach investors, explains why tokens are not a reliable fundraising vehicle and discusses the recent “shift toward Web 2.0 monetization.” Three more from the TC+ team: ZebethMedia+ 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! Big Tech Inc. The New York Post had to do some deleting today after it was discovered that someone hacked into both the newspaper’s website and its Twitter account, Zack reports. The article headlines in question were racist and sexually violent in nature, and the newspaper told ZebethMedia that an employee was to blame for the incident but did not go into further details on how it came to that conclusion. Also, our team paid attention to earnings so you didn’t have to. Rebecca has a look into Ford’s third-quarter earnings, which she reports took a $2.7 billion hit related to Argo AI, which we reported yesterday was being shut down. Meanwhile, over at Meta, Amanda writes that Meta had yet another decline in its third-quarter revenue. And now we have three more for you: Googling: Google Cloud has entered web3 territory with a managed blockchain node service by taking on the heavy lifting there so that developers can do their thing, Ron reports. Meanwhile, Manish has details on a $100 million acquisition the search engine giant made in Alter, an AI avatar startup. On an acquisition roll: Ron also reported on yet another Thoma Bravo acquisition. This time, it and Sunstone Partners announced the proposed acquisition of UserTesting for $1.3 billion. The company plans to combine it with its UserZoom, another company Thoma Bravo acquired in 2021. Get your health advice here: YouTube says it will begin certifying channels for licensed health professionals, like doctors, nurses or therapists, who produce health-related content, Ivan writes.

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Wednesday, and we’re excited to bring you another round of our esteemed Daily Crunch newsletter. There’s a wide variety of morsels, nuggets, and other bite-sized delights, so let’s go! — Christine and Haje The ZebethMedia Top 3 Startups and VC Asset management firm Stone Ridge has launched a startup accelerator, Wolf, that will be dedicated to growing Bitcoin-focused applications. The program will bring four cohorts per year, each consisting of about eight to 12 teams, or about 30 to 50 founders, to New York City from around the world for eight weeks at a time to focus on building on the Bitcoin-centric Lightning Network and Taro protocol, Kelly Brewster, CEO of Wolf, told Jacquelyn. Today, for a series of climate-related conversations organized by the global venture firm SOSV, Connie interviewed famed investor Chris Sacca. In their chat, Sacca dismissed questions around whether efforts like carbon capture can work at scale. (“The naysayers kind of fuel me, actually.”) He also said — naturally — that he has “no doubt we will have multiple companies worth trillions of dollars that emerge from our portfolio.” It wound up being a fairly wide-ranging conversation. Moar? Moar! Investors are sitting on mountains of cash: Where will it be deployed? Image Credits: H-Gall (opens in a new window) / Getty Images No matter what’s happening in the public markets, bees make honey and venture capitalists raise money: It’s just what they do. But since the “extreme valuation recalibration” in the public markets, VCs are amassing more and more dry powder, write Jeremy Abelson and Jacob Sonnenberg of Irving Investors. More frustrating news for founders: Investor fundraising “is on pace to finish the year at $172 billion,” but capital deployment is way down. “Dollars are flowing and will continue to flow, but it will be more capital to fewer companies,” they write. Now that “traditional SaaS has become too expensive and secondarily saturated,” sectors like web3, life sciences and agtech will attract more investors, they predict. Three more from the TC+ team: ZebethMedia+ 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! Big Tech Inc. Kirsten has some late-breaking news that Ford’s and VW’s autonomous vehicle startup Argo AI will be shut down and parts of it will be absorbed by the two companies. This story is still developing, so keep going back to it for more, particularly a comment from the companies in question. Who doesn’t like a good fraction yelled at them? Duolingo certainly does not. Natasha M writes that Duolingo’s owl will now shout all the fractions you want at you as part of its new math app that is now public after spending some months in beta. And we have five more for you:

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Overheard at a VC/startup conference recently: Product market fit is like a product going around from weirdly shaped customer group to weirdly shaped customer group, like that old kid’s book “Are you my mommy?” Startups can be a little bit like that; sometimes the users can surprise you, and the product needs to ask a few different potential customer groups whether it is a good fit. Oh, and Dominic-Madori wants to hear Black founders’ stories of VC fundraising — If you are a Black founder with war stories (or if you know someone who does), get involved! — Christine and Haje The ZebethMedia Top 3 Startups and VC Bilt Rewards, which works with some of the country’s largest multifamily owners and operators to create loyalty programs and a co-branded credit card for property renters, entered unicorn status after securing $150 million in a growth round at a $1.5 billion valuation led by Left Lane Capital, Christine reports. Emergency response services have had a big boost of data thanks to advances in connected technology, with watches that can detect when their wearers are falling down and are experiencing trauma, cars that can pinpoint where their drivers are located and home systems that can transmit important data about fires when you cannot. These are just a few of the innovations we’ve seen in recent years, and today, a startup called RapidSOS is announcing some funding as it continues to connect the dots for emergency first responders, Ingrid reports. And we have five more for you: 8 questions to answer before your startup faces technical due diligence Image Credits: kutaytanir (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Outsiders study multiple facets of a startup to determine its value and quality, and codebase health is one of them. A pitch deck is just part of the story, writes Matt Van Itallie, founder and CEO of codebase analytics company Sema. After technical due diligence (TDD) begins, no amount of storytelling can cover the secrets buried in GitHub and Jira. To help companies prepare for TDD, Van Itallie has written a primer with eight questions founding teams must be able to answer confidently. Tomorrow, we’ll run his detailed TDD checklist. Three more from the TC+ team: ZebethMedia+ 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! Big Tech Inc. In the midst of trying out the new Google Pixel 7 Pro’s camera, Haje found “a really dumb, totally avoidable flaw” that detracts from what is otherwise “the best camera phone out there,”and he is telling the world. Speaking of product reviews, Brian has a closer look at macOS Ventura. Also, it’s probably not wise to have your law firm on the opposing side of the same issue. Natasha M brought this to Launch House’s attention when news of a harassment investigation surfaced and now reports that the venture-backed founder’s club split with its law firm. And we have five more for you:

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Good afternoon, and welcome to the final week of October! We’re confused how that happened. Haje is considering dressing up as “supply chain disruptions” for Halloween, whereas Christine is contemplating dressing up as a down round. What’s your spookiest startup-themed costume? Let us know on The Twitters! — Christine and Haje The ZebethMedia Top 3 On cloud 9: Romain chronicles how pairing up the Logitech G Cloud with cloud computing service Shadow not only made for a better gaming experience, but was also “a match made in cloud gaming heaven.” If you like your locks virtual…: Then Level has something you will want to see. Its new Level Lock+ with Apple Home Key support replaces your current lock and enables you to unlock your door and provides you with some exclusivity for now, Darrell writes. Helping hand: Pre-seed startups just got another investor friend in Africa. Annie reports that venture capital firm Flourish launched Madica, an investment program providing “funding, technology support and mentorship to underrepresented founders across the continent.” Startups and VC Haje was mildly surprised and pretty excited after reading Paul’s story about his favorite podcasting app Pocket Casts going open source. Paul points out that it shouldn’t have been that big of a surprise — WordPress makers Automattic bought the platform a while back, and Automattic founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg is a huge proponent of open source. To wit: WordPress is among the top open source projects on the planet. While the overall crypto markets have been in a rough spot lately, web3 venture capitalists have never had more conviction — or more funding at their disposal — to back startups and teams building in the space, Anita writes. She’s stoked that Chris Ahn, partner at Haun Ventures; Michelle Bailhe, partner at Sequoia; and Tom Schmidt, general partner at Dragonfly will join us onstage at TC Sessions: Crypto on November 17 in Miami. And we have five more for you: To better thwart ransomware attacks, startups must get cybersecurity basics right Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / ZebethMedia Creating systems that are resilient against ransomware isn’t top of mind for early-stage startups, but many companies don’t even follow basic best practices, much to their detriment. “Enable multifactor authentication (MFA) on everything you have,” said Katie Moussouris, founder of Luta Security. “Enable it on every account that you have.” Last week at ZebethMedia Disrupt, Moussouris and Brett Callow, threat analyst at Emsisoft, spoke about the need to invest early in locking down their systems, starting with MFA. “It’s a matter of stacking security layer upon security layer,” said Callow. “MFA in conjunction with staff training — in conjunction with other things — all serve to reduce risk.” Two more from the TC+ team: ZebethMedia+ 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! Big Tech Inc. Make like a lobster and get your pinchers ready — YouTube rolls out a new design that features pinch-to-zoom on iOS and Android. Premium users got first dibs on this, and now all users will start to see it, Lauren writes. There’s also some new things, including “ambient mode” and new buttons under videos, so head on over there and see for yourself. And we have five more for you:

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. The newsletter is a little later than usual today and for the next three days. Don’t worry, it’s for fun reasons: We want to be the first to tell you about the awesomeness that is our ZebethMedia Disrupt Battlefield companies. Find ’em in our special Battlefield section belooooow! And, this is the first time EVER, that we are writing Daily Crunch, sitting next to each other, IRL. — Christine and Haje The ZebethMedia Top 3 Someone’s having a good day: Jasper, which calls itself an “AI content” developer, raised its first round of funding ever — and a big one at that, at $125 million, to give it a $1.5 billion valuation, Kyle reports. It also comes as the company is in the process of acquiring a grammar- and style-checking platform, Outwrite. Turning renters into owners: Christine provides an update on Landis, which raised $40 million in Series B funding. The company buys homes on behalf of clients while also providing a patch for them to build up their credit and eventually get a mortgage on the home they rent. So, Apple had an event: Romain gives you a look at the new entry-level iPad that he says looks just like the iPad Pro. Alas, it’s also more expensive, but you get a larger screen. Priorities, amirite? Startups and VC Venture capital funds focusing on niche sectors are “in,” according to Connie, and Will Ventures is here for it. Christine reports that the low-flying, Boston-based venture outfit just tripled the size of its second fund to $150 million thanks to its approach of investing in sports technologies with the help of its community of athlete backers who help promote and grow the portfolio companies. Turo, the peer-to-peer car-sharing platform that’s been described as the Airbnb for cars, will expand to Australia before the end of the year, Rebecca reports. Local car owners in all major cities, including Sydney, Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane, can join the waitlist on Turo’s website. Okay, fine, have a few more: News Drops from Disrupt Crypto accelerator: Andreessen Horowitz’s Chris Dixon dishes to Anita about a “Crypto Startup School,” an inaugural accelerator program that will kick off next year in Los Angeles. He also provided more info on the firm’s recent giant investment in our favorite controversial founder, Adam Neumann.Stealthy startup: Both Harri and Tim sat in on Ingrid‘s interview with Marc Lore, who disclosed a new sports ticketing startup that he is working on called Jump Platforms and provided some insight on the Diapers.com sale to Amazon, calling it a “forced transaction.”On cloud nine: Netflix VP of Gaming Mike Verdu spoke to Amanda about opening a new gaming studio in SoCal and getting into cloud gaming. Startup Battlefield It’s Disruuuuuupt! We are so excited we can barely sit still. Here’s the first batch of Battlefield companies that pitched onstage on this fine California Tuesday — and if you’re curious, Neesha revealed the 20 companies that are presenting on the Disrupt Stage earlier today. Here’s the first batch that pitched today: NXgenPort: A Saint Paul, Minnesota–based startup that’s looking to remotely monitor cancer patients in between doctor visits using a port catheter. Omneky: Leverages OpenAI’s DALLE-2 and GPT-3 models to generate visuals and text that can be used in ads for social platforms. Circular Genomics: Claims its new form of genetic testing can identify which medications will work for a patient in a fraction of that time. Anthill: Connects frontline workers to company resources through text messaging. AppMap: Was built on the simple idea that developers should be able to see the behavior of software as they write it so they can prevent problems when the software runs. Mother Honestly: New commerce offering aims to give employees more freedom when it comes to caregiving spending. Digest.ai: Beyond flash cards to create an AI dialogue assistant that we can all carry around on our phones. Swap Robotics: Paving the way for electric solar vegetation cuts and sidewalk snow plowing. Hormona: Hopes to encourage people with periods to do just that — add hormone-monitoring to their quantified health mix. Staax: Thinks peer-to-peer payments can onboard a new generation of stock investors. How to combine PLG and enterprise sales to improve the funnel and drive bottom-line growth Image Credits: Richard Drury (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Products and services that sell themselves sound great, but product-led growth (PLG) startups still launch marketing campaigns and hire sales teams. Combining PLG with traditional sales-led growth efforts can raise retention and acquisition to the next level, says Kate Ahlering, chief revenue officer at Calendly. In this TC+ guest post, Ahlering lays out multiple strategies that will help teams implement a “hybrid GTM strategy,” which includes suggestions for leveraging PLG data and optimizing success metrics. Three more from the TC+ team: ZebethMedia+ 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! Big Tech Inc. We have even more for you from Apple’s surprise October event. Brian takes a look at the company’s new M2 iPad Pro, which got a refresh and arrives October 26. He talks about chips and inches, and a pencil…you get the picture. Even more Apple for you to bite into: Since we have all the Battlefield companies for your reading pleasure, here are just a few more: