Latest and Hotest Technology Updates

Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for June 30, 2021. It's the last day of the quarter. It's the last day of the first half of the year. It's the halfway mark for your New Year's resolutions. The kickoff of Q3 means that we are heading into yet another earnings season. To close the second quarter, a number of companies went public including Didi and SentinelOne. The TechCrunch take is that we're seeing some interesting pricing differentials between companies from the United States compared to China. — Alex

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Robinhood fined ahead of IPO: While we count down to Robinhood's IPO filing, long expected after a strong first quarter, the company was hit with $70 million in fines and penalties today for what the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) described as "widespread and significant harm suffered by customers."
• Venture capital drama: TechCrunch's Natasha Mascarenhas scooped that SF-based Hinge Health booted a board member after they invested in what the company considered to be a competitor. The news is notable by itself, but also underscores how founder-friendly the market truly is today; this might not have happened back when venture capitalists held more power.
• Byju's leaks student data: Today's breach involves a startup called Salesken.ai, an exposed server, and Byju's user data. Byju's is an Indian edtech company, and a very highly valued one at that. Salesken provides what TechCrunch describes as "customer relationship technology," which helps explain why it might have had the other company's data. No excuse, however.

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Startups/VC

Let's start our startup coverage today with three space-related stories:

• Virgin Orbit completes first commercial launch: Sure, SpaceX exists, but competition is a good thing and thus it's nice to hear that another company is able to put important bits of tech into orbit.
• Gilmour Space wants in on the same action: And the launch company has just raised a $46 million Series C to get to space next year. Gilmour's rocket is smaller than others that you might be familiar with. But, again, more competition is good. It means lower prices and better service.
• Remember that 3D rocket-printing company that raised $650 million Series E earlier this year? It's building out a 1,000,000 square foot factory for production. Bring on the cheap rockets. I want to go to space.

Next up, the creator economy:

• Pietra raises $15M to help creators build product lines: Wagers are still being placed on creators making and selling their own goods, it appears. Which makes sense if you consider the creator economy as still in its nascency and thus has lots of room to grow.
• But while that's a popular perspective, the passion economy — call it what you will — is not all big checks and instant success. We explored the sector today on the Equity podcast with Alexis Gay joining us for the ride.

But that wasn't all. Here's more from today's critical startup coverage:

• $5M for a LGBTQ+ neobank: While many neobanks are targeting the population at large, others are taking a more targeted approach. Such is the case with Daylight, which wants to provide banking services to the queer community. It joins startups like Fair and others in taking a slightly more niche approach to the popular fintech model.
• $250M for drone logistics: Remember that startup that was using drones to deliver medical supplies in Africa? It was called Zipline. And it has since expanded its goals, technology, and, today, capital base.
• And then there was news from Gusto that the HR-tech unicorn is breaking out pieces of its core technology so that other companies can embed payroll services and the like. While this is cool, what we really want is a Gusto S-1.

Demand Curve: 7 ad types that increase click-through rates

One perennial problem inside startups: Because no one on the founding team has significant marketing experience, growth-related efforts are pro forma and generally unlikely to move the needle.

Everyone wants higher click-through rates, but creating ads that “stand out” is a risky strategy, especially when you don’t know what you’re doing. This guest post by Demand Curve offers seven strategies for boosting CTR that you can clone and deploy today inside your own startup.

Here’s one: If customers are talking about you online, reach out to ask if you can add a screenshot of their reviews to your advertising. Testimonials are a form of social proof that boost conversions, and they’re particularly effective when used in retargeting ads.

Earlier this week, we ran another post about optimizing email marketing for early-stage startups. We’ll have more expert growth advice coming soon, so stay tuned.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

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Big Tech Inc.

From tech's biggest companies, we have three stories for you today. Let's proceed in descending order of market cap, shall we?

• Amazon doesn't want to be regulated: And it may be worried to boot. That's our takeaway from news that the company is trying to sideline the current FTC chair. Tough, is our first read of the company's complaints and demands.
• Instagram wants in on paid following: Following in Big Tweet's footsteps, Instagram is "building its own version of Twitter's Super Follow with a feature that would allow online creators to publish ‘exclusive’ content to their Instagram Stories that's only available to their fans." So it would be stuff, only available for fans? How interesting. There's another service that has a similar effort. And Twitter allows for adult content. Instagram does not. Hmm.
• Twitter makes NFTs, because why not: Want to know when something jumps the shark? When a major social network buys in, right? Major social networks are the boomers of the technology world — extending the analogy, Oracle is a ghost that haunts your attic — meaning that they are inherently uncool. And now Twitter has NFTs. Yay, or something.

TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing

TechCrunch wants you to recommend growth marketers who have expertise in SEO, social, content writing and more! If you're a growth marketer, pass this survey along to your clients; we'd like to hear about why they loved working with you.

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If you’re curious about how these surveys are shaping our coverage, check out this interview Miranda Halpern did with Kathleen Estreich and Emily Kramer, co-founders of MKT1, "MKT1: Developer marketing is what startup marketing should look like."

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• Advertising Technology Director at M+R (Washington D.C., DC, USA)
• Data Analyst at M+R (Oakland, CA, USA)
• Java Consultant at Intellibus (New York, NY, USA)
• Web Developer/Technical Analyst at Air Line Pilots Association (Tysons, VA, USA)
• Senior Software Engineer-Backend at Kohls (Anywhere)

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Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for June 29, 2021. Have you ever wanted to ditch civilization and move to the woods, but still be able to work? We have good news if that's you. Below you'll find lots more, including Facebook's latest product offering and how one startup wants to save bees. Enjoy! — Alex

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Duolingo is going public! Well-known edtech unicorn Duolingo is going public. TechCrunch has an overview of the IPO and a deeper dive into the company's business health. Based on traffic to our coverage on the matter since last night, ya'll are really into learning languages. Also make sure to check out the Duolingo EC-1.
• Facebook launches newsletters: Say hello to Bulletin, Facebook's new newsletter service. Competing with Substack, Twitter's Revu and other services, Facebook signed up a Boomer-friendly list of initial authors including Malcolm Gladwell. The social giant has a history of testing in-house versions of products that are successful externally. We'll have to wait and see if Bulletin manages to survive on its own merit.
• SpaceX plans to spend billions on Starlink: According to Elon Musk, SpaceX is losing money on early Starlink connector kits. Starlink is the space company's low-orbit satellite network that could bring about global internet connectivity. Per TechCrunch reporting of Musk's comments, "SpaceX's overall investment in the project could be between $5 billion-$10 billion initially and as much as $30 billion over time." For the sake of freelancers everywhere, let's hope the tech shakes out to match the investment.

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Startups/VC

Up top today in our roundup of recent startup news is Beeflow. We're putting it at the top of the list because (1) It's about bees and (2) It's called Beeflow. What's not to love? Per Jordan Crook, the startup may have an answer to the decimation of the global bee population. And it might make money to boot.

Now, the rest of the news:

• Europe's early-stage market is on fire: That's the takeaway from a recent TechCrunch dig into the continent's venture capital trade. So is Latin America's and the United States'. In brief, the regional startup zones of the world are becoming increasingly blurred thanks to Zoom deal-making; what was once true in one place may now be the case in every hub.
• Zomato to drop $100M on Grofer: The Indian tech scene is busy these days, with Manish Singh reporting that IPO-headed food-delivery giant Zomato intends to invest $100 million in online grocer Grofer. Grofer would become a unicorn in the transaction.
• SentinelOne could be worth $10 billion in its IPO: That's the latest on the SentinelOne public debut, which we've looked at here and dug into the pricing of here. The cybersecurity company's IPO could help kick off a hot third quarter for IPOs more generally, especially at the prices at which it is set to debut.
• $10M to teach soft skills with VR: That's the latest on Virti, which wants to turn "a lot of subjectively assessed skills into more objective and measurable" outputs. VR is cool, and soft skills matter. Let's see what their union can bring. Please, no “Black Mirror” jokes.
• Givingli raises $3M for greeting card tech: Not every venture capital round is large. Some are small enough to fit into an envelope. That's the case with Givingli's latest round, which should give the digital card and gifting app more room to build out its service.

And I would be remiss to not mention that I covered venture capital rounds this morning from co-op and Arrows, along with news regarding Acceleprise's rebrand.

How VCs can get the most out of co-investing alongside LPs

In a recent private equity survey, 80% of respondents said their co-investments with people outside traditional VC firms outperformed their PE fund investments.

Alternative investors are highly motivated, and because they’re seeking higher returns than are generally available in public markets, they are less daunted by risk. In return, they benefit from less expensive fee structures and develop close ties with VCs, enlarging the talent pool as they build investment skills.

These relationships have direct benefits for VCs as well, such as more flexibility with diversification and consolidated decision-making power.

“With the right deal structure, deal selection and deal investigation, co-investors can significantly increase their returns,” says C5 Capital Managing Partner William Kilmer, who wrote an Extra Crunch post for VCs considering an alternative path.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

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Big Tech Inc.

Turning from the smaller upstarts to the megagiants, it's been a good week to be a Big Tech company. Facebook crossed the $1 trillion market cap threshold, though it dipped back under the magic number this afternoon. Here's what else is going on from the Bigs:

• Shopify cuts its cut to 0%: Shopify will charge zero for developers' first million in revenue that they make on its application marketplace. The move fits into a larger trend of app stores lowering their cuts as Apple fights tooth and nail to avoid doing the same with its own application emporium. The Shopify news is probably more aimed at e-commerce rival Amazon than Apple, but the move still gently undercuts Cupertino's argument that it deserves around a third of all commerce that happens on iOS.
• AI developers are coming: News out today from Microsoft's GitHub product is notable, with the sub-org announcing an AI-powered tool that "suggests code as you type." GitHub teamed up with OpenAI to build the tool. For beginners, the coding service could prove to be super freaking neat.

TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing

TechCrunch wants you to recommend growth marketers who have expertise in SEO, social, content writing and more! If you're a growth marketer, pass this survey along to your clients; we'd like to hear about why they loved working with you.

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If you’re curious about how these surveys are shaping our coverage, check out this interview Extra Crunch Managing Editor Eric Eldon did with Scott Tong, "The pandemic showed why product and brand design need to sit together."

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• Senior Software Engineer-Backend at Kohls (Anywhere)
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Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Monday, June 28. How much time did you spend on your phone this weekend? Too much? Not a lot? According to recent data on consumer app spending, you probably spent a pretty fair amount. Consumer spending on apps hit a new record in the first half of the year, though the pace of growth is slowing.

Before we begin, Extra Crunch is on sale this week. Check it out here and support The Good Ship TechCrunch. — Alex

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Surgical robots are big business: News broke today that U.K.-based surgical robotics startup CMR has put together a $600 million round led by SoftBank's second Vision Fund and Ally Bridge Group. CMR is now worth $3 billion.
• Etsy acquires Brazilian rival: Also out today was news that Etsy, the consumer crafts marketplace popular in the United States, purchased its Brazilian cognate for $217 million. The deal for Elo7 follows Etsy's recent purchase of Depop. It appears that Etsy views at least a good portion of its growth through an inorganic lens.
• SpaceX wants to send Starship to (near) space: SpaceX's Starship is nearly going to space next month, the company reported. Yep, Starship, the thing you probably most remember for blowing up during trials, could be headed to orbit in July. Don't think that we're knocking SpaceX for having some failed trials. The company used to crash rocket stages in reentry all the time. Now it lands them on drone ships with regularity. In space tech, perhaps you have to blow up before you can properly take flight.

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Startups/VC

To kick off today, we're talking about Pittsburgh, a fascinating startup market that TechCrunch is visiting in short order:

• Pittsburgh's mayor on the city's startup community and the difficulty of attracting venture capital: How do you reinvent a city that was left behind by deindustrialization and wants to shake off its old reputation? TechCrunch got in the weeds with Bill Peduto, the mayor of Pittsburgh since 2014.
• VCs discuss the opportunities — and challenges — in Pittsburgh's startup ecosystem: Of course, city government is only one piece of the larger puzzle of building a startup hub. The monied classes also have a part to play when it comes to creating a flywheel for startup creation, investment and re-investment.
• How Carnegie Mellon is helping build its own startups and keeping them in Pittsburgh: And speaking of flywheels, another key component of any startup market that wants to be self-sustaining is helping keep its newly educated minds local, where they can build, scale, exit, and then put their capital and knowledge back to work.

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Moving to our regular fare, here's more from today's digest of startup happenings:

• $50M to build the Shopify of mobile commerce: Tapcart wants to bring Shopify's desktop shopping magic to the mobile world, and today it announced an eight-figure round led by Left Lane Capital. (To a degree, it reminds us of recent YC grad Bikayi.)
• $10M for chilled robotic drinks: No, not drinks for robots. Robot-prepared drinks. We've seen startups building auto-baristas before, but Botrista's machine could be something special. It looks slick, and we'd frankly drink most of its offered combinations. Let's see how far 10 million bucks can take it.
• Yet another hot software IPO: SentinelOne's IPO is looking spicy after raising its price range. The company's valuation is creeping higher ahead of its debut, and should value the cybersecurity unicorn at a multiple of its final private price.
• $167M for a leading Philippines-based fintech: PayMaya's parent company is a lot richer today after closing $121 million in new capital along with $46 million from prior investments this week. Per TechCrunch, the funds will be used to "launch more financial services, including a digital bank."
• Today's episode of the Equity Podcast features a new spin on dating apps.
• Closing, two from the personnel department: First, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is coming to TechCrunch Disrupt 2021. And Foursquare's Dennis Crowley is stepping back from the company.

3 data strategies for selling to developers

Many consumers are open to a slick sales pitch, but software developers generally know better.

Successful dev-focused marketing efforts steer these users toward free tools, but unless you know exactly what data to look for and how to measure it, your efforts will have limited impact.

Software companies hoping to connect with developers should treat end users like the “go-to-market side of the team,” advises Sam Richard, senior director of growth at OpenView, which has invested in companies like Datadog, Expensify and Calendly.

For example: Instead of simply pulling analytics from your production database, what if your GTM team polled stakeholders who touch revenue about the data points they use to make decisions? If you assigned a product manager to address their needs, draft a roadmap and develop an MVP, how much could you learn?

“Don’t overthink it,” says Richard. “Selling to developers isn't impossible — it's just difficult.”

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

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Big Tech Inc.

• Did you know that both Microsoft and Apple are worth $2 trillion apiece? It was just a few years ago that the five largest American tech firms were worth a mere $3 trillion, though at the time that number felt huge. Today, however, Microsoft started to help chart its path to the $3 trillion mark on its own with the release of the first official Windows 11 preview. Sure, there have been some builds floating around, but this time the source code is from the code's source.
• Facebook has a new product out in Nigeria — where it has an office — called Sabee. TechCrunch reports that it "aims to connect learners and educators in online communities to make educational opportunities more accessible." Facebook wants to reach all internet users, and Africa is a growth market for internet penetration, so the move makes sense.
• For those of you out there invested in the Android wearable ecosystem, good news: Samsung and Google have a lot of new stuff that you are probably going to like.

TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing

TechCrunch is building a shortlist of the top growth marketers in tech. We'd love to hear who you've worked with, so fill out the survey here! Here's one of the many great recommendations we've received:

Name of marketer: Dipti Parmar

Name of recommender: Brody Dorland, co-founder, DivvyHQ

Recommendation: "She gave me an easy-to-implement plan to start with clear outcomes and timeline. She delivered it within one month and I was able to see the results in a couple of months. This encouraged me to hand over bigger parts of our content strategy and publishing to her."

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• Technical Program/Product Managers at D. E. Shaw Research (New York, New York, USA)
• Software Engineer at Xceleration Partners LLC (Charlotte, NC, USA)
• Marketing Copy and Content Writer at People's Trust Insurance (Deerfield Beach, FL, USA)
• Paid Media Marketing Manager - Remote within the US or In office (UT, PA, CA) at Nav Technologies (Anywhere)
• Staff Frontend Software Engineer - Remote within the US or In Office (UT, PA, CA) at Nav Technologies (Anywhere)

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