Don't miss these $6M for mushroom pop: Florida-based Odyssey is brewing up mushroom-based "functional energy beverages," TechCrunch reports. With a new $6 million infusion, the company has now raised $14 million in total. It uses Lion's Mane and Cordyceps mushrooms to help craft drinks that, we presume, are rather popular. Put this round under the non-alcoholic drinks boom that we've seen around the world. Africa's venture resilience: A question that I've been working to answer for over a year now is what will happen to startup markets that had less-developed venture capital scenes but still received historically outsized investment during the last boom. We know part of the answer: Contracts. But as Annie Njanja writes for TechCrunch, in Africa, local funds are making waves and with more activity expected, the continent's startup market could be in for better days than recent venture numbers might indicate. Pinterest hearts Google: After announcing revenue of $981 million in Q4 2023, shares of Pinterest plummeted more than 25%. However, news of a new ad deal with Google sent them back up (the company is also working with Amazon). As of this morning, Pinterest's stock is now down only 8%. The Pinterest-Google tie-up "started rolling out the new ad integration a few weeks ago, and it is already seeing positive results," TechCrunch reports. Look for Pinterest's international monetization changes in its Q1 2024 results for more. Danged if you do, danged if you don't: An Indian parliamentary panel is worried about the outsized market share that PhonePe (backed by Walmart) and Google Pay currently control. It's about 83%, TechCrunch reports. With Paytm currently undergoing a regulatory reformation of sorts, the country's various governmental arms are not working in complete concert. Not that they should, of course, but if the current leaders are going to see their market share chipped away, they will need more, stronger competition. Not less, weaker companies to fight with. Getaround to cut staff: Former startup and recent SPAC debut Getaround is cutting staff to work towards profitability more quickly. The company's worth has plummeted to near zero since it merged with a blank-check company, which isn't an uncommon fate for SPAC-led transactions in recent years. However, with stronger-than-expected Q3 2023 results, and more capital secured in January, the company's cost-cutting plan could be what it needs to get back on its feet and regain some of its value. Getaround won TechCrunch Disrupt back in 2012. |
