Amazon will sunset Cloud Cam service in December, offers customers free Blink Mini

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Haje Jan Kamps and Christine Hall Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Oh hey and happy Tuesday, the very last day of May 2022! Tomorrow, for our City Spotlight series, we're putting the limelight on Columbus, Ohio. We're also doing a pitch-off with Columbus-area startups. If you want to register for the event, here's the handy linky-link that will give you all the info you need! — Haje and Christine Image Credits: TechCrunch

The TechCrunch Top 3 Amazon retires Cloud Cam to the big electronic home in the sky: It was a Big Tech kind of day today, and first up is Amazon, which informed Cloud Cam users that it will no longer support the device. You might remember that Cloud Cam was one of Amazon's first home security devices in 2017 — that is until it acquired both Ring and Blink within a year later. Amazon is winding down the service this year, and "Cloud Cammers" will get a complimentary Blink mini and a one-year subscription for their troubles. Apple's iOS 16 leak: Our other Big Tech story involves some Apple news ahead of its WWDC event on June 6. Not sure how much people think about their iPhone's lockscreen, but Apple does, and a report says the tech giant is about to unleash a significant upgrade that may involve widgets. And Sarah hopes Apple also does something about Focus Mode. Crypto may have a remittance payment problem: Could there be a disconnect between Andreessen Horowitz's views about cryptocurrency's current usefulness and the low-tech way people still get paid in emerging countries? Anna lays out her argument for why a16z's crypto bullishness may be a bit premature in these regions.

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Startups and VC Two new funds got announced this morning; Haje covered Hannah Grey's $52 million debut fund, focusing on customer-centric founders, and Christine took a look at Bonfire Ventures, which raised a pair of funds, totaling $230 million, targeting B2B software startups.  Apart from a couple of new funds, it's been a lively few days on the site over the long weekend, so let's make like a truffle-hunting pig and dig our snouts in:  Hello, world (it says Hello World): I'm pretty intrigued by the startup Kyle covered this morning; Mintlify uses AI to auto-generate documentation based on source code, raising $2.8 million to do so.   Go, go, go: Also from Kyle, Railway raised $20 million to make software deployment for apps and services smoother.  (data) sharing is (data) caring: Vendia, a blockchain-based platform that makes it easier for businesses to share their code and data, today announced that it has raised a $30 million Series B, Frederic reports.  Didn't see that one coming: Seemplicity is emerging from stealth with $32 million in funding for a platform that it believes will help security teams assess and respond to security threats, Ingrid reports.  They totally bought it: Onramp Funds, an Austin-based company providing financing to e-commerce sellers, secured $42 million in equity and credit to expand its working capital offering, Christine reports.  So fast it'll make your head swvl: Swvl went public a couple of months ago, and today announced it's laying off almost a third of its workforce, Tage writes.  You need your can of Coke how fast?!: Seems like Indonesia is enjoying life in the fast lane, with Rita reporting that 15-minute grocery delivery startup Astro just closed a $60 million round.

8 IT spending trends for the post-pandemic enterprise in 2022 Market research firm ETR contacted 1,200 IT leaders who oversee a yearly collective IT budget of approximately $570 billion to learn more about their planned spending over the coming year. Although year-over-year spending is projected to rise just 6.7%, “the need for experienced IT personnel has accelerated, and hiring demand in the space has reached the highest level we have ever seen,” writes Erik Bradley, ETR’s chief analyst. (TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.) Read More Image Credits: TARIK KIZILKAYA / Getty Images

Big Tech Inc. Payment installments are ‘in’: If you didn't already know, and thanks to a new partnership between Affirm and Stripe, consumers will see more "buy now, pay later" options when they check out. Though no specific number was written, Mary Ann reports the new offering applies to "businesses that use Stripe's payments tech" — meaning, millions. And, with the BNPL space as competitive as it is, that certainly gives Affirm a new revenue stream to work with. Netflix’s password woes or 'whoas,' both apply: There seems to be some confusion in Peru around Netflix's new policy on account sharing. For Netflix, that meant anyone using someone's account in the same building. However, a recent survey brought to light two things: one, some subscribers in Peru weren't notified of the extra charges before being charged them, and two, Netflix's own customer service agents reported not quite understanding the new policy and helped subscribers get around it. Netflix hopes to roll out the policy this year, but maybe it needs to clarify some things first. TikTok secretly created a new feature; let's see what happens: For those of you who dislike all of the words on top of your TikTok videos, relief is coming in the way of a new feature being tested called "clear mode." When engaged, it eliminates those pesky usernames, captions and audio information, and in some cases the like, comments and share buttons, too, for what Aisha noted would be "a completely distraction-free viewing experience."

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Watch Live Stream of Boston Celtics vs Miami Heat - Game 7

Welcome to NBA Regular Season 2021-2022! It's Game Time! 

*** STREAM #1 *** STREAM #2 *** 

(Please scroll down below and double click the play button to watch the game and skip the ads.) 

With Bungie under its wing, Sony plans to invest half of its PlayStation Studios development budget on live service games this year

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps Friday, May 27, 2022

Happy Friday, Crunchers! It's 27 May 2022, and we are slinking into a long weekend because it's Memorial Day weekend here in the U.S. There's no newsletter on Monday — Haje is going 🍷 wine tasting in Sonoma, and Christine is planning to spend Monday 🛋️ sitting on the sofa doing absolutely nothing, which we celebrate wholeheartedly. We'll see you back here on Tuesday! Not sure what to do this weekend? Check out this roundup of all the amazing podcasts we published this week. It'll keep you busy for a few hours at least.  — Haje and Christine Image Credits: Bungie

The TechCrunch Top 3 Golden goose: Manish was on fire today, writing not one, but two of our top stories of the day. The first is about Jar, an Indian fintech company that is looking at a $50 million Series B round. The country's citizens have bank accounts to save money, but Jar helps them do something they may not be as familiar with — invest. And the company has chosen to start with something Indians are known to love, gold. Revolving door: Manish's second story has to do with another Manish — Manish Maheshwari, the former head of Twitter India, who left a startup he co-founded after just 6 months. Our Manish reported in December that Maheshwari left his post at Twitter to start edtech company Invact Metaversity with Tanay Pratap. The arrangement didn't seem to work out as planned, with some company hiccups involving getting product out the door and some leadership disagreements. Sometimes it's not meant to be: In Substack's case, a fresh round of capital. Connie went over the details yesterday of them attempting to raise a Series C, but then calling it off when favorable terms with investors didn't transpire. Today, Alex peels away some of the onion layers to explain why Substack's goals, based on its Series B raise in 2021, didn't translate well in 2022's investment environment.

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Startups and VC Earlier this week, Anita reported that Adam “WeWork” Neumann is back with a new startup, and raised backing from a16z. In today's Chain Reaction podcast, Anita and Lucas discuss whether Neumann truly deserves $70 million and another chance. We're comprehensively confused why anyone would place another bet on him, and we'll no doubt be following his new startup closely. A few more gems for ya: Hot germ summer: Harri covers the story of Colorfix's $23 million Series B round, and its mission to dye fabrics with bacteria. Sweet protein: Joywell uses a proprietary microbial fermentation process to produce sweet proteins that taste like sugars, but with none of the downsides. It just raised $25 million, Christine reports. Mystery startup o’clock: Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley is on the co-founding team of a new startup called LivingCities. The founding team doesn't have an awful lot to say about what exactly they're building, Lucas writes. Be pear, or be square: Connie takes a look at the 9 teams that just presented at Pear's demo day.

Ride or die-sel Diesel prices alone are driving about 17% of the inflation we're seeing today, and Tim writes a rousing piece about how gasoline and diesel are perhaps not the greatest, especially given that the economy is peeking over the cliff into an abyss whose depth equals our general optimism around climate at the moment. Perhaps that's exactly what's needed: Maybe when economic and climate interests align, we find the pot of “yay we can live on this planet for a few more years” at the end of the rainbow. (TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.) Read More Image Credits: Bloomberg Creative / Getty Images

Big Tech Inc. Sony's live service plans: Sony is going all in on its live service offerings. This follows the company's acquisition of Bungie earlier this year. Sony laid out plans this week for its company life after the acquisition, which includes investing heavily into the live service gaming sector, though it did not go into specifics on which of its franchises would get the treatment. Snap to it: We thought Snapchat was just individuals pushing out small "snaps" to other individuals, but the social media giant has bigger plans than that. Its snappy new feature, "Shared Stories," is a riff on its "Custom Stories" feature to enable users to, well, you can see where we are going with this. Here's how it works: Users added to a group can add their friends, too, to make it easier to share their stories. Don't worry, if someone in the friend group is not your cup of tea, your stories won't be shared with them. Database debacle: Voto Consulting, a New Jersey talent-acquisition firm, learned the hard way what happens when you don't password-protect a database and leave it on the internet. The résumés and personal information from some 30,000 workers was exposed. As Zack reports, the story gets way more interesting — something that you really need to check out for yourself. Drive time: In today's transportation news, Rivian opened up its hood and rearranged some things with the company's engine (yes, we know it’s an electric vehicle) in the way of hiring new COO Frank Klein. This comes amid some other leadership changes as its head of manufacturing said goodbye. Meanwhile, Tesla says it won't open a manufacturing plant in India until it can first sell and service vehicles in the country. Manish lays out the back-and-forth going on between country and company: Country officials want cars to be built locally and for Tesla to follow its high import duties. Tesla doesn't want to pay higher fees yet if the market doesn't test well. Thus a superfun standstill.

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Watch Live Stream of Boston Celtics vs Miami Heat - Game 6

Welcome to NBA Regular Season 2021-2022! It's Game Time! 

*** STREAM #1 *** STREAM #2 *** 

(Please scroll down below and double click the play button to watch the game and skip the ads.) 

Watch: Kai Sotto TOP-3 New York Knicks Prospect With The 42nd Pick! | NY Knicks 2022 NBA Draft Rumor

Marcus Smart is just the 6th player in NBA playoff history to log at least 24 points, 12 assists, 9 rebounds, and 3 steals in a game. The others: Larry Bird, LeBron James, Rod Strickland, Isiah Thomas, Russell Westbrook

In one of the largest tech deals ever struck, Broadcom will buy VMware for $61B

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps Thursday, May 26, 2022

It's Thursday, May 26, 2022, and we have a busy day of news on the site today. Here are the gems sparkling in the spotlight of our journalistic gaze. For later in the year, we're pretty excited about this panel at TechCrunch Disrupt, where VCs will discuss how you can raise money when you're not at one of the major tech hubs. We're running a Memorial Day 2-for-1 deal, so you can get your ticket and bring a friend this weekend!  — Haje and Christine Image Credits: Justin Sullivan / Staff / Getty Images

The TechCrunch Top 3 Confirmed: Broadcom made its proposed merging with VMware official, and with it comes a few kids in the way of some acquisitions VMware made along the way. As we noted earlier in the week, we are still not sure the two companies are a match made in heaven. However, while both are still getting the agreements signed, sealed and delivered, we raise our collective glasses in a toast that regulators will bless this union. Gucci, Gucci goo: How do you feed a need for fancier things? Look no further than Oura's new collaboration with Gucci. The Gucci x Oura Ring is indeed a pretty thing and its charging station is one you'll want to leave out in view so people can see how fabulous you are, or see that you're $950 poorer — take your pick. Perhaps it paid to be slower: The quest to have the fastest delivery may have been the stone in some quick-commerce companies' tires. Alex discusses how the race to create business models, like dark stores, to get closer to the customer worked for some, but not everyone, prompting even investors to call the industry "overhyped" in some regards.

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Startups and VC What is a reporter to do when they get a pitch from a company that had its name "stolen" by Apple, but it turns out the company failed to register a trademark because they thought it would be pointless? Well, if that reporter is Haje, he grabs it by its cautionary tail and holds it up to the light to see what other startups can learn from the experience. Spoiler: It boils down to "just get a damn trademark, you fools." We keep being surprised whenever another company raises money to do asteroid mining, but Aria reports that Y Combinator alum AstroForge thinks it has a fresh take on the trope, raising $13 million to zip up to a floating rock and bring back some sweet, sweet zero-G space minerals. And a smattering of other goodies for you to snack on this afternoon. Buen provecho! Making you 'appier, one swipe at the time: Friendly Apps raises $3 million to build apps that make you more connected and happier, Sarah reports. One carbon, two carbon, three carbon: Consumer products have long been challenged to measure its actual carbon impact, but Planet FWD counted $10 million to help track — and eventually reduce — their carbon footprints, Christine reports. Just pollen the room on this real quick: Humble Bee Bio is on a mission to create a biodegradable alternative to plastics by synthesizing the biology of bees, raising $3.2 million to fulfill its mission, Rebecca writes. Building building startup startups: Early-stage proptech startups have a potential new source of capital in 1Sharpe Ventures, which recently closed its $90 million inaugural fund, Mary Ann writes. Up, up, and a tray: Vertical farming startup Bowery says its newest facility, built on a former brownfield lot in Pennsylvania, is its most technologically advanced to date, Brian reports Buy-nance? More like buy-crypto: A group of former executives from Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges globally, has created a $100 million venture fund, the team told Jacquelyn.

To fully embrace product-led growth, build a strong product ops team Product managers transform customer needs and business requirements into services and features that make money, but it's a limited role. Even though PMs interact with customers and internal stakeholders from sales, marketing and engineering, they're rarely empowered to implement best practices, select tools or manage operational aspects of the product pipeline. That's changing as more companies carve out roles for product operations, writes Todd Olson, co-founder and CEO of software platform Pendo. "It's similar to how sales and marketing ops help their departments," he says, and "it's a critical function for any company that wants to make its product the 'center of the wheel.'" (TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.) Read More Image Credits: Henrik Sorensen / Getty Images

Big Tech Inc. There was a lot of "big tech news" today, so let's jump in and start with a little regulatory and government intervention. Meta is doing us all a favor and rewriting and redesigning its privacy policy so, dare we say, we can understand it. Over at Google, U.K. officials are taking a look under the hood to determine Google's role in some potential antitrust abuses around adtech. Meanwhile, Twitter agreed to pay a $150 million settlement with U.S. regulators over "allegations that the social media company misrepresented the 'security and privacy' of user data over several years." Continuing with the Twitter train for a moment, yesterday we brought you the news that former CEO Jack Dorsey left the board, AND news that the company's stock jumped when Elon Musk said he still has plans to buy Twitter and finance more of the deal himself. Today, investors are not thrilled with Musk and are suing him over what they perceive as manipulation of the stock price in his favor. We'll keep on this one. In vroom, vroom news, Luminar nabbed itself a couple of executives from the likes of Apple, Nvidia and Tesla to continue developing its autonomous technology. Joby Aviation is one step closer to its goal of becoming a commercial aerial ridesharing service after receiving certification from the FAA to operate a commercial air-taxi operation. Do you give up, or are you thirsty for more? Epic battle: Epic Games filed a new suit against Apple, challenging the tech giant's use of third-party apps, saying it could compromise the iPhone's security. That's what friends are for: TikTok is making friends left and right with the likes of Sprout Social, Hootsuite and Sprinklr as part of an extension to its Marketing Partner Program that will enable marketers to manage their TikTok accounts without having to leave third-party content marketing platforms. Box-y earnings: Document-sharing platform Box reported its fifth straight quarter of increased growth, and Ron was there with CEO Aaron Levie to get all the details

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Newest Jobs from Crunchboard Software Engineer II at Schellman (Anywhere) Digital Service Director at City of San Rafael (San Rafael, CA, USA) IT Director at Wisconsin Public Media (Madison, WI, USA) Chief Financial Officer CFO at Established FinTech company Manhattan (New York, NY, USA) Chief Information Officer LAFD at la city (Los Angeles, CA, USA) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

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