venture capital

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. Today, we’ve been learning about what the hell a Mastodon even is, so the timing of Amanda’s piece ‘A beginner’s guide to Mastodon’ is all sorts of perfect. Give it a read, and come find us on Mastodon after. If you can — that’s another challenge. We have faith in your cyberstalking skills, but here’s a hint: Both of us are on Mastodon.Social. — Christine and Haje. The ZebethMedia Top 3 This surprise was off the chain!: In a surprise twist today, Binance announced its intent to acquire FTX in a move that will clear out some of the “liquidity crunches” that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried tweeted about, Manish reports. This comes after the two companies’ founders had a very public spat recently. (More on that in Big Tech Inc. below). Roll out: Over in ZebethMedia+ land, Becca writes about what Peloton co-founder John Foley has been doing. Apparently, he “is a rug guy now.” Also, as Becca points out, his new company, Ernesta, is another example of VCs investing in people they knew, even if their last company flailed some. A list that changes every day: Hey, fellow Twitter users, are you on Team Verify or Team Leave My Stuff Alone? Either way, Ivan has a list of features Elon Musk has promised to bring to Twitter. Startups and VC Though finance technology startups are having a moment when it comes to decreased venture capital deals and layoffs, Quona Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in emerging markets that accelerate financial inclusion, has found the appetite is still there for fintechs, Christine reports. The firm had its final close on $332 million in capital commitments for its Fund III, which focuses on financial inclusion. Also from Christine today (in addition to our resident Daily Crunch newsletter wrangler, she’s a post-writing machine!) is a piece about Doola, a company helping global founders start a limited liability company in the United States, even without a Social Security number. The company raised an $8 million round of funding, less than a year after it raised $3 million worth of seed funding. A handful more, because we love ya: Here’s the rundown on the Binance and FTX fiasco Image Credits: wenjin chen (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Today we learned that the world’s largest crypto exchange is bailing out the world’s third-largest crypto exchange. But why? In a detailed explainer, Jacquelyn Melinek wrote about how a CoinDesk report last Thursday on crypto trading firm Alameda Research led Binance to liquidate a mountain of tokens that backed many of Alameda’s loans. 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 from above, Jacquelyn dives deeper into some of the things going on at FTX, including that the crypto exchanges withdrawals seemed to be sluggish. And that its potential new owner, Binance, was going to “slowly withdraw billions of its holdings in FTX’s native token, FTT.” Oh, you two! And we have five more for you: Who’s got a new trivia game?: It’s Netflix! The streaming service is trying its hand at a new trivia game — remember its venture into “Trivia Quest”? The new one is an interactive trivia experience called “Triviaverse.” Lauren has more. Video, email, calendar: Zoom is adding email and calendar to its features lineup, a move Ron reports is its chosen avenue, for now, as the company looks to expand its offerings. Stepping down: Grab Financial leader Reuben Lai is planning to leave the company at the end of the year, Catherine writes. It’s a party, a third-party, that is: Third-party merchants in India can now have Amazon-like logistics power thanks to the delivery giant opening it up to them, Manish writes. Don’t ever say you’re left out: European Union investigators now plan to take an even deeper dive into Microsoft’s $68.7 billion bid to acquire Activision and what it could mean for competition, Natasha L reports.

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, dear crunchers! We hope you’ve had a peaceful weekend and that you were able to stay clear of social media for a few days. LOL Who are we kidding? We’ve all been glued to the slow-moving, painful, Elon-catalyzed bird crash over at Twitter. Now, if only Mastodon would call its posts something other than “toots,” we might be able to get behind those. In the meantime, come say hello to us on Mastodon! Much love from Christine (@ChristineHall@mastodon.social) and Haje (@Haje@mastodon.social). And, given that those social handles don’t exactly roll off the tongue, we’ll probably go back to linking to our Twitter accounts tomorrow. We are nothing if not creatures of habit, after all. The ZebethMedia Top 3 Get ready for your close-up: PhotoRoom, a photo-editing app for e-commerce sellers that enables users to remove the background behind objects, has attracted 40 million app downloads and now raised $19 million, Romain reports. Twitter wants you back: If you were recently laid off from Twitter, would you return? Ivan writes that after laying off half of its staff, the social media giant is reportedly compiling a list of people who could be asked to come back. Better read the fine print on that rehiring contract. Putting the “super” in super app: Organizing all the facets of your life in one app seems to be quite popular, and Yassir is proof of that. The Africa-based super app, offering ride-hailing, food and grocery delivery and payments, grabbed $150 million. Tage has more. Startups and VC Evidently, the downturn hasn’t soured investors on the travel industry. Travel booking startup Hopper today announced that it closed a $96 million follow-on investment from Capital One, bringing the company’s total raised to close to $730 million, Kyle reports. The fresh cash will be put toward several efforts, CEO and co-founder Frederic Lalonde said in a press release, including supporting Hopper’s new social commerce initiatives. Want to start a DAO? It’s not that hard. Want to join a DAO? It’s even easier, but there are several steps to get connected. Some of those steps are daunting. Matt is here to help, and he’s invited Alex Taub and one of his investors to learn more about how starting and onboarding for a DAO is about to become a lot easier, at least if they have something to do with it. Tune in to our next episode of ZebethMedia Live on Wednesday to hear from Alex and investor Karin Klein from Bloomberg Beta. A smattering more: Dear Sophie: How can I stay in the US if I’ve been laid off? Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/ZebethMedia Dear Sophie, I was laid off and I’m on an H-1B. I have enough savings to survive for a while. What should I do if I have been let go from my job? I am on an H-1B, have an approved I-140, and an I-797 that expires in March 2024. If I have to leave the U.S., can my current I-797 be transferred to my next employer? Are there any issues I should be aware of? — Upended & Unemployed 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. Romain has your look at the Devialet Mania, a $790 high-end portable speaker. And he actually uses the term “portable” lightly because it weighs five pounds, so more like a speaker you can pick up and change rooms with, not one you carry around in a backpack. Business marriage is in the air, with Ouster and Velodyne agreeing to merge. Rebecca writes that this move “signals consolidation in the lidar industry” and also describes the background and what led up to this. Ready for five more? That’s a lot of cryptocurrency: The U.S. Department of Justice said it seized $3.36 billion in cryptocurrency from James Zhong, who Jacquelyn reports is accused of unlawfully obtaining that large chunk from the dark web. Game on: Paul updates us on the completion of the $4.4 billion merger of Unity and ironSource. Together, the companies are building a platform for the development and monetization of games. Flocking to something new: Boosted by all the Twitter drama over the past week, people have been on the lookout for another place to enjoy social media. Mastodon has been one of the benefactors, reaching 1 million active monthly users, Kyle reports. All the prices that are fit to post: Airbnb is tweaking its search so that it will soon show prices inclusive of all fees in search results, Ivan writes. Say farewell: Over the weekend, Lauren had a story about HBO canceling “Westworld.”

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. Oh heeeey! How are you doing today? We’ve had a pretty busy day on the site today, with a veritable cornucopia of news spilling all over the internet. We’ve selected some of the most interesting slices for you below. Enjoy (as far as you can enjoy another day of news about cutbacks and whispered advice to try and panic as little as possible). — Christine and Haje The ZebethMedia Top 3 WhatsUp over at WhatsApp: The messaging giant has been preparing us for this moment since August, and it is finally here: Communities! The new discussion group enables more people to be included and features voice and video calls for up to 32 people, as well as emojis galore, polls and large file sharing, Sarah reports. Might want to switch to polka dots: Stripe cuts 14% of its workforce, and Paul writes that its CEO points to “overhiring for the world we’re in” as having caused the reduction. Unfortunately, it is a layoffs kind of day, so head down to Big Tech Inc. if you can stomach reading more. Where in the world is Ajit Mohan?: Well, the former head of Meta India is now over there at Snap and will serve as the president of the company’s APAC business, Manish and Jagmeet write. Startups and VC “Most designers don’t have real-life manufacturing experience and they are drawing things that aren’t useable by the factory,” Xianfeng Wang, founder and CEO of Pacdora, tells ZebethMedia. To bridge the gap between designers and manufacturers. Wang’s team developed Pacdora, which is like Canva plus Figma for packaging, Rita reports. The platform offers thousands of packaging templates for all kinds of products, from shipping boxes and coffee bags to lotion bottles and yogurt pouches. “I was always looking for that piece of software that could help us do this internally,” Juan Meisel told Christine. He is building a logistics solution with his new startup, Grip.  “I started advising some companies on the side. They got their ButcherBox in the mail and were trying to ship anything from frozen milk to chocolate, flowers and pharmaceuticals.” Okay, fine, have another handful of startup news stories: Proptech in Review: 3 investors explain how finance-focused proptech startups can survive the downturn Image Credits: Kuzma (opens in a new window) / Getty Images How are finance-oriented property tech investors reacting to the ongoing downturn in public markets? Senior reporter Mary Ann Azevedo interviewed three VCs to learn more about how they’re counseling the companies in their portfolios, which types of startups are best positioned to weather the downturn, and how they’re managing risk: Pete Flint, general partner, NFX Zach Aarons, co-founder and general partner, MetaProp Nima Wedlake, principal, Thomvest Ventures 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. Step right up, folks! We know you don’t like carrying around a paper grocery list — heck, we know scrolling on that small phone screen is a nuisance, too. Well, Amazon and Mojo Vision have a treat for you, or rather, your eyeballs. Today, they introduced a proof of concept feature that Brian says is “the first major third-party consumer application on a smart contact lens.” That’s right, an Alexa Shopping List integration for a contact lens that has a computing interface. Layoffs, layoffs as far as the eye can see today. While we already shared the Stripe news with you, and as you’ve likely been hearing for the past week, Elon Musk is also doing some workforce reduction at Twitter. Natasha L reports that he now plans to slash Twitter’s headcount by half. Meanwhile, Kirsten writes that Lyft is laying off 13% of its workforce in an effort to cut operating expenses. 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. Hellooooo, guess what? It’s November! We guess it was actually November yesterday, too, but we failed to notice, because LOL what even is time, amirite. Anyway, put away your Halloween costumes and start the game of How Long Can You Avoid “Little Drummer Boy”? If you do want to play that game, you’d be well advised to not click this link, although that’s a particularly tolerable version of the song, to be fair. Onward! — Christine and Haje The ZebethMedia Top 3 And for his next act…: Manish was on a roll again today, covering some cool stories. The first is on some former Googlers rallying around their peer Caesar Sengupta, who raised $90 million to scale Arta Finance, a company that will provide individuals similar access to alternative assets that are usually reserved for the ultrawealthy. Betting on web3: Manish’s second story is on Microsoft, which is backing South Korea–based web3 game developer Wemade. Come together, right now, in the cloud: Though many companies are asking employees to come back into the office, they and others are still figuring out how to keep distributed teams working as one. Former Yext CEO Howard Lerman thinks he has created the best option with Roam, a company that came out of stealth today with $30 million in new funding, Kyle reports. Startups and VC New data from more than 200 startups show that CTOs earn higher salaries than their CEO counterparts. Mostly, co-founders make the same, but where there is a difference, the balance typically tips in the favor of the technical co-founder, Haje reports. Also, we’ve got an eclectic mix of additional news for ya: Dear Sophie: How can students work or launch a startup while maintaining their immigration status? Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/ZebethMedia Dear Sophie, I’m studying bioinformatics at a university in the U.S. What options do I have to work before and after graduation on my student visa? Do any of these options allow me to launch my own startup? — Wanting to Work 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. Elon Musk met with civil rights leaders, and Amanda has all the details on what went down. Many of the leaders were concerned with content moderation, particularly dealing with increases in hate speech and undue influence on the midterm elections. Meanwhile, Natasha M writes that another Twitter executive is reportedly flying the coop. Meanwhile, Manish continues to follow the Byju’s saga. The latest is that India’s edtech giant is looking at a $1 billion IPO for Aakash, its physical tutor chain. 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 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.