In latest round, Meta laid off approximately 6,000 more employees today

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall Wednesday, May 24, 2023

To get a roundup of TechCrunch's biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Today brings news of more layoffs at Meta, a bold initiative from Ebanx and more humanoid robots. Don't forget to apply for Startup Battlefield 200 by May 31. It comes with a chance to win $100,000 in equity-free $$ and "cool kid creds." This is your Daily Crunch for Wednesday. — Christine Meta continued with its so-called Year of Efficiency with another round of layoffs. These were not a surprise — employees knew this would happen back in March — but I imagine it doesn't lessen the sting any. See how many people were impacted. If you are one of the many sufferers of obstructive sleep apnea, you know that wearing a CPAP at night is necessary, but not always comfortable. Enter U.K.-based Acurable, which received FDA clearance to bring its tiny, wireless sleep apnea diagnostic wearable to the U.S. Find out just how tiny it is. Remember when Figure's humanoid robot took its first steps? The company now has $70 million in new capital, so I'm thinking by the end of the year, it should be running. Anyone wanna take that bet? Going over the big ocean: Ebanx, a Brazilian fintech unicorn, has its sights set on Africa. Read more about its expansion plans. In demand: Snowflake and others backed DataOps.live's $17.5 million round for DevOps-style tools aimed at data experts. Get the scoop. Size matters: Well, small size when you're talking about climate. Find out how Volvo's EX30 measures up. This fund is on fire: U.K.'s Moonfire VC says it is reviewing 50,000 startups every week. It's a good thing it now has $115 million in a second fund. Read more on how startups can make the cut. Here's a few more: Microsoft's AI reaches Indian villages DouxMatok takes sweet journey to become Incredo after securing $30M The Backbone One: PlayStation Edition mobile controller is now available for Android Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

Now let's take a look at the streaming sector where there was a lot of noise. Xfinity customers are in luck because Comcast now has a $20 streaming service called NOW TV. Find out more about what it includes. Paramount+ now has a launch date for its combo with Showtime. Guess what? It comes with a price hike. Read more. Meanwhile, music streaming platform SoundCloud reportedly has laid off a portion of its staff. Find out what happened. Out in space, read about how Astranis' approach to internet satellites is starting to pay off, and what Gitai plans to do with robots and Mars. Can't be a fly on the wall?: We've got you covered. Elon Musk headlined The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council this week. We have excerpts from that conversation. "Skor" one for knowing your credit score: It's an important number, and Skorlife wants to help Indonesians know what theirs is. See what it does. Don't mock me: WireMock lands $6.5 million to help developers build and test on mock APIs. Learn more. Lookin' good: Indian kids fashion brand Hopscotch now has $20 million. Find out which Big Tech backed it. Not playing around: The U.S. government targets North Korea with new sanctions after reports say a group of IT workers fraudulently gained employment. Read what they planned to use their earnings for. You won't want to miss these five: Opera launches new integrated AI sidebar powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT Google to work with Europe on stop-gap 'AI Pact' Laced, a UK-based resale marketplace for authenticated premium sneakers, raises $12M Jumia reaches lowest losses in four years under new management The surgeon general's advisory on risks of youth social media use could shift the conversation Image Credits: Comcast

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Early-stage board decks are dead: How to run a meeting in 60 minutes After sales software startup TigerEye closed its Series A and established a board of directors, its co-founders put them on notice: One thing we'd like to never do is the three-hour, too-in-the-weeds, non-strategic board meeting. "Every board deck I've made and seen is more than 80 pages long," says Tracy Young, co-founder and CEO of TigerEye. "I am not exaggerating." In this TC+ article, she explains how to structure a one-hour board meeting that creates more value for founders and investors. Step one: Replace your enormous deck with a three-page memo! Five more from the team: Ask Sophie: What are my options if a company rescinds my OPT job offer? Why aren't venture capitalists flocking to fund cybersecurity startups? Mastercard sees 'a lot of promise' in blockchain tech if safety and simplicity are prioritized Ten months after promotion, Red Hat CEO Matt Hicks navigates layoffs and AI's rise What's getting funded in climate tech 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: Angkana Kittayachaweng / Getty Images

Calling all early-stage startups! Apply to join the Startup Battlefield 200 cohort at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023. All finalists get expert training, VC networking, a booth at Disrupt, and the chance to compete for $100,000 in equity-free funds. Applications close May 31. Apply today! Read More

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Meta sells Giphy to Shutterstock at a loss to comply with UK antitrust rules

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall Tuesday, May 23, 2023

To get a roundup of TechCrunch's biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Today was a big day for news, so buckle up, folks. We've got Giphy being sold for pittance, lots of Microsoft news and some venture capital funds cleaning up. Enjoy learning who the Disrupt Audience Choice breakout winners are because this is your Daily Crunch for Tuesday.  — Christine Meta is either poppin' bottles right now or nursing a hangover after finding a buyer for Giphy. Find out who bought them and what kind of deal the buyer got. MS Build 2023 is going on this week, and the team has already filed 10 Microsoft-licious stories. The top read was about Fabric, a new end-to-end data and analytics platform that centers around OneLake. We've set you up with all the ooey, gooey Microsoft goodness. If size matters to you, Amazon launched the Fire Max 11, its biggest tablet. Get the scoop. Some big changes are happening over at Reliance JioMart. The online shopping platform is reportedly laying off 1,100 employees, and this is just the start of it. Find out how many more jobs are being cut. Generative AI is now going into Photoshop with some Firefly-based features. See what those are. Builder.ai is on a roll right now, securing $250 million in Series D capital a few weeks after signing a strategic collaboration with Microsoft. Read more on where all that capital is going. Driving ourselves is so overrated. If you're headed to Phoenix, you can be among the first to order a Waymo self-driving car from Uber. Find out how. Brian ponders if you need the sports car equivalent of a home appliance. Well, if you do, then Dyson has some upgrades to its vacuums that might get your engine purring. Learn more. If you didn't get enough generative AI talk with that Photoshop story, then read about Anthropic raising $450 million to build next-gen AI assistants. HBO Max is no more. Warner Bros. Discovery debuted the Max app to U.S. subscribers with 35,000 hours of content. And let's hope there are also some good '80s movies. But if you want all that content to come free of ads, it's going to cost you. Read more. Image Credits: Food Photographer / Getty Images

Let's head over to Google land, where more generative AI is at play. During the search engine giant's Google Marketing Live event today, one of the top stories there was the introduction of Product Studio, a tool that lets merchants create product imagery using generative AI. Find out more. Now that Shein is partnering with Reliance to reenter India, this strategy reportedly could set an example for startups grappling with the China backlash amid rising geopolitical tensions. How, you ask? Read more. Members of the European Parliament have some words for TikTok's lead privacy regulator in Europe. Get the scoop. After two long years in testing, the Mimestream app, a Gmail client for Mac, is now out of beta. See what it does. Meanwhile, who's got the money? This handful of venture capital firms do: VC firm Neo looks to up the ante with $235M across two new funds. QED closes on $925M to back fintech startups Dispersion Capital launches $40M fund focused on decentralized infrastructure E3 Capital and Lion's Head climate fund hits first close at $48M to back African startups Matrix Partners expands new India fund to $525M These startups are also flush with cash: Plenty's new wealth-building app targets couples blending finances Singapore-based BandLab Technologies raises $25M at $415M valuation Datasembly grabs $16M to give brick-and-mortar retail pricing a big data intel boost Ballerine brings open source to banks' risk and identity decision-making Sequoia India's Surge backs AI-powered video creation platform Gan.ai in $5.2M funding South African challenger bank TymeBank raises $77.8M from Norrsken22 and Blue Earth Capital Image Credits: Google

TechCrunch (virtually) in Atlanta On June 7, TechCrunch will host City Spotlight: Atlanta. We have a slate of amazing programming planned, including a fireside chat with Ryan Glover, the co-founder of the fintech Greenwood, as well as a panel that examines the venture ecosystem within the Atlanta region and identifies the best ways to raise and meet with local venture capitalists. But that's not all. If you are an early-stage Atlanta-based founder, apply to pitch to our panel of guest investors/judges for our live pitching competition; the winner gets a free booth at TechCrunch Disrupt this year to exhibit their company in our startup alley. Register here. Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

Threading the needle: A peek at Paul Judge's plans for Softbank's Open Opportunity Fund Dominic Madori-Davis interviewed Paul Judge, the incoming chairman of SoftBank's recently rebranded Open Opportunity Fund. With plans for a new $150 million fund that will support founders from communities that are traditionally marginalized, Judge is taking on the relationship-based model that defines venture capital. "It's been about getting a 'warm intro,' and people brag about that — 'Oh, you need to know somebody in order to get a meeting with me,'" he said. "My view is, that has led to the system being closed." Three more from the TC+ team: Cava's listing won't bring back IPOs, but it could deliver welcome investor liquidity Solana launches ChatGPT plugin to help users interact with its network. Many startups fail in the 'valley of death,' so Collaborative Fund and Wyss Institute partnered to bridge it 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: Paul Judge

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