Latest and Hotest Technology Updates

Happy Friday! We don't know about you, but we are both ready for some R&R after ploughing through a wall of deep-cringe texts from the Musk/Twitter trial. We hope you get some, too, this weekend.

This afternoon, Tesla is running its second AI day. Last year's was a hoot, and we have some predictions for what's coming down the pipe today, too. — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Under attack: Microsoft confirmed that it "is aware" of some attacks to its Exchange server. Carly is staying on top of the story and reports that there is "no immediate fix."
• Eyeing that sweet capital: Manish has a scoop that Uniswap Labs, a decentralized exchange, is going after over $100 million in new funding.
• Stream on: YouTube TV is offering a new à la carte option that enables subscribers to purchase stand-alone networks without subscribing to the full channel lineup in its Base plan, Lauren reports.

Startups and VC

When insurtech company Metromile went public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in February last year, it was valued at over $1 billion. A year and five months later, Lemonade acquired the company for less than $145 million. And yet, things aren't as bleak as they might seem, Anna reports.

This year, 40% of the world's population will play games, with total spending nearing $200 billion. The purveyors of web3 want a slice of this gargantuan market, Rita reports. She writes that criticisms of the first generation of crypto games have been well documented, so the question for developers now is what decentralized games should look like.

Let's do a few more, shall we? Go on, then:

• Yeah, that didn't work: Catherine reports that TestGrid is a "one-stop shop" for testing apps at scale.
• There's a bit of a whiff about this: GV aims to help build a company that can sniff out disease, literally, reports Connie.
• A bitter pill: Natasha M reports that Truepill, a digital health unicorn, conducted its fourth round of layoffs in 2022.
• To da moon: Natasha M and Kyle give us the biggest moonshots from 500 Global's latest Demo Day .
• Ever so surprised: Ingrid reports that Everstores, an OpenStore-style D2C Shopify aggregator out of Europe, emerges from stealth with €18 million in funding.

8 investors weigh in on the state of insurtech in Q3 2022

Some services are in such demand, it can insulate their providers against the vagaries of the market. During an economic downturn, consumers don’t cut back on pet food or toilet paper. Similarly, everyone needs some form of insurance.

Between 2016 and 2022, insurtech startups received around $43 billion in funding, and despite the downturn, most of the investors that reporter Anna Heim recently surveyed are still positive about the sector’s prospects:

• Martha Notaras, general partner, Brewer Lane Ventures
• David Wechsler, principal, OMERS Ventures
• Stephen Brittain and Rob Lumley, directors and co-founders, Insurtech Gateway
• Florian Graillot, founding partner, Astorya.vc
• Clarisse Lam, associate, NewAlpha Asset Management
• Hélène Falchier, partner, Portage Ventures
• Adam Blumencranz, partner, Distributed Ventures

“We are simply seeing a reality check happen,” said Wechsler. “Unfortunately, there are many companies that should not have raised as much as they did, or perhaps don’t have sustainable business models. These companies will struggle to survive.”

Three more from the TC+ team:

• Raising growth funding for robotics startups: Show, don't tell: Tips for robotics startups raising a Series B during a downturn, by Jason Schoettler.
• Q3 was rough; here's what Q4 holds in store (maybe): After a series of misfires in Q3, here's what we expect for startups in Q4, by Anna and Alex.
• Bridging the gap: Tokenization is key to linking TradFi to the blockchain, by Jacquelyn.

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

Big Tech Inc.

SoftBank has been doing some readjusting to company valuations lately, but the latest adjusting is happening with its own company. Kate reports that SoftBank's Vision Fund is reportedly laying off 30% of its workforce even as it considers a third fund.

Here are five more for you:

• Inside Elon's texts: Amanda and Taylor dig into a document that surfaced that provides a look into the innermost workings of Elon Musk's mind as he texts back and forth with "friends." We put that in quotes because, well, you'll see.
• Slimming down: At a Meta all-hands meeting, Mark Zuckerberg broke the news that it will freeze hiring and cut costs, Taylor reports.
• Taking on QVC: Amazon launched a livestream shopping site in India, Manish and Jagmeet write. The delivery giant said Amazon Live will run 15 livestreams a day.
• We on a mission: SpaceX and NASA are partnering to send a commercial crew to "boost the orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope." If it is successful, it will extend the telescope's life span by as much as 20 years, Aria reports.
• What did we just watch?: Meta has a new feature called Make-A-Video that enables you to make videos out of text prompts. To quote Devin, "I just think it's fascinating that however realistic these videos are in one sense, they're all so bizarre and off-putting in others." 

• Senior Data Engineer at Rural Innovation Strategies, Inc. (RISI) (Baltimore, Maryland, USA)
• Mobile Developer at AcreTrader Inc (Anywhere)
• Lead Developer (Full Stack Rails) at Kaido (United Kingdom)
• Software Engineer at Accra (Minnesota, USA)
• Applications Programmer for DBS at University of California Merced (Merced, CA, USA)

See more jobs on CrunchBoard

Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

Happy Friday! We don't know about you, but we are both ready for some R&R after ploughing through a wall of deep-cringe texts from the Musk/Twitter trial. We hope you get some, too, this weekend.

This afternoon, Tesla is running its second AI day. Last year's was a hoot, and we have some predictions for what's coming down the pipe today, too. — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Under attack: Microsoft confirmed that it "is aware" of some attacks to its Exchange server. Carly is staying on top of the story and reports that there is "no immediate fix."
• Eyeing that sweet capital: Manish has a scoop that Uniswap Labs, a decentralized exchange, is going after over $100 million in new funding.
• Stream on: YouTube TV is offering a new à la carte option that enables subscribers to purchase stand-alone networks without subscribing to the full channel lineup in its Base plan, Lauren reports.

Startups and VC

When insurtech company Metromile went public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in February last year, it was valued at over $1 billion. A year and five months later, Lemonade acquired the company for less than $145 million. And yet, things aren't as bleak as they might seem, Anna reports.

This year, 40% of the world's population will play games, with total spending nearing $200 billion. The purveyors of web3 want a slice of this gargantuan market, Rita reports. She writes that criticisms of the first generation of crypto games have been well documented, so the question for developers now is what decentralized games should look like.

Let's do a few more, shall we? Go on, then:

• Yeah, that didn't work: Catherine reports that TestGrid is a "one-stop shop" for testing apps at scale.
• There's a bit of a whiff about this: GV aims to help build a company that can sniff out disease, literally, reports Connie.
• A bitter pill: Natasha M reports that Truepill, a digital health unicorn, conducted its fourth round of layoffs in 2022.
• To da moon: Natasha M and Kyle give us the biggest moonshots from 500 Global's latest Demo Day .
• Ever so surprised: Ingrid reports that Everstores, an OpenStore-style D2C Shopify aggregator out of Europe, emerges from stealth with €18 million in funding.

8 investors weigh in on the state of insurtech in Q3 2022

Some services are in such demand, it can insulate their providers against the vagaries of the market. During an economic downturn, consumers don’t cut back on pet food or toilet paper. Similarly, everyone needs some form of insurance.

Between 2016 and 2022, insurtech startups received around $43 billion in funding, and despite the downturn, most of the investors that reporter Anna Heim recently surveyed are still positive about the sector’s prospects:

• Martha Notaras, general partner, Brewer Lane Ventures
• David Wechsler, principal, OMERS Ventures
• Stephen Brittain and Rob Lumley, directors and co-founders, Insurtech Gateway
• Florian Graillot, founding partner, Astorya.vc
• Clarisse Lam, associate, NewAlpha Asset Management
• Hélène Falchier, partner, Portage Ventures
• Adam Blumencranz, partner, Distributed Ventures

“We are simply seeing a reality check happen,” said Wechsler. “Unfortunately, there are many companies that should not have raised as much as they did, or perhaps don’t have sustainable business models. These companies will struggle to survive.”

Three more from the TC+ team:

• Raising growth funding for robotics startups: Show, don't tell: Tips for robotics startups raising a Series B during a downturn, by Jason Schoettler.
• Q3 was rough; here's what Q4 holds in store (maybe): After a series of misfires in Q3, here's what we expect for startups in Q4, by Anna and Alex.
• Bridging the gap: Tokenization is key to linking TradFi to the blockchain, by Jacquelyn.

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

Big Tech Inc.

SoftBank has been doing some readjusting to company valuations lately, but the latest adjusting is happening with its own company. Kate reports that SoftBank's Vision Fund is reportedly laying off 30% of its workforce even as it considers a third fund.

Here are five more for you:

• Inside Elon's texts: Amanda and Taylor dig into a document that surfaced that provides a look into the innermost workings of Elon Musk's mind as he texts back and forth with "friends." We put that in quotes because, well, you'll see.
• Slimming down: At a Meta all-hands meeting, Mark Zuckerberg broke the news that it will freeze hiring and cut costs, Taylor reports.
• Taking on QVC: Amazon launched a livestream shopping site in India, Manish and Jagmeet write. The delivery giant said Amazon Live will run 15 livestreams a day.
• We on a mission: SpaceX and NASA are partnering to send a commercial crew to "boost the orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope." If it is successful, it will extend the telescope's life span by as much as 20 years, Aria reports.
• What did we just watch?: Meta has a new feature called Make-A-Video that enables you to make videos out of text prompts. To quote Devin, "I just think it's fascinating that however realistic these videos are in one sense, they're all so bizarre and off-putting in others." 

• Senior Data Engineer at Rural Innovation Strategies, Inc. (RISI) (Baltimore, Maryland, USA)
• Mobile Developer at AcreTrader Inc (Anywhere)
• Lead Developer (Full Stack Rails) at Kaido (United Kingdom)
• Software Engineer at Accra (Minnesota, USA)
• Applications Programmer for DBS at University of California Merced (Merced, CA, USA)

See more jobs on CrunchBoard

Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

Today we are mostly listening to acoustic covers of songs we love (a surprise Iron and Wine cover, perhaps?), and mentally preparing ourselves for TechCrunch Disrupt. Which reminds us — did you know you can get 15% off passes with the DC discount code for being a Daily Crunch reader? Don't say we never did anything for you, dear reader!  — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Simple crypto: Cryptocurrencies are still complex, or that's the viewpoint of Solvo, a new app that is making crypto investment simpler, Romain reports. What's different is that instead of being offered dozens of currencies to choose from, Solvo has curated a list of 10 so you don't get lost in all the names.
• Well that didn’t last long: On Monday we brought you news that "the OG app is out to bring Instagram back to its glory days." Today, Ivan has an update that the app was removed from the Apple App Store after Meta said the OG was Instagram in "an unauthorized manner."
• Long live IPOs!: Travel is back and with it news that TripActions was making a possible play for an initial public offering, which would value the company at $12 billion, Mary Ann reports. Catch Alex's take on the matter down in the TC+ section.

Startups and VC

Eviation's Alice electric aircraft took off for the first time yesterday, teasing a future in which regional flights of hundreds of miles will be done with zero emissions and a lot less noise. It's still a ways off, but today's demonstration shows it's at least just a matter of time and money, Devin reports.

Apropos electric vehicles, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn has (finally!) begun production of Lordstown Motors' electric pickup truck. The news is a milestone for both companies, Rebecca reports. Foxconn as it diversifies from manufacturing consumer electronics like iPhones to electric vehicles, and Lordstown as it finally gets its much-anticipated Endurance truck off production lines and, hopefully, into customers' hands.

We have more, of course. Because that's what we do:

• Hustlin' up an additional $46.1 million: Hustle Fund's just closed a third fund, Natasha M reports.
• This one is ripe for the plucking: Anna reports that Stockholm-based Ripe helps product-led B2B companies find the ripest leads in their customer base.
• The whitest of white hats: Kyle reports that Detectify secures an additional $10 million more to expand its ethical hacking platform.
• It's all clicking into place: Lunio raises $15 million to combat click fraud with its algorithms, Kyle reports.
• Are we humans, or are we dancers?: Better.com has seen wave after wave of layoffs. In "Inside the human cost of Better.com's brutal layoffs," Christine and Mary Ann explore how that impacted the employees who were ejected.

How to make coaching work for your sales team

A strong sales organization is the tip of the spear for every SaaS startup, but because so few founders have meaningful experience in this arena, they don’t know how to set their teams up for success.

In this TC+ article, contributor Kevin Varadian explains how to chart a sales coaching journey that boosts retention and increases revenue.

“It's important to recognize that today's sales teams are more problem-solvers than deal-closers — soft skills are more important here than technical capabilities,” he says.

Three more from the TC+ team:

• Roller-coaster stocks, but potential galore: UiPath co-CEO Rob Enslin still sees plenty of potential despite stock turbulence by Ron.
• MoCap money tap: Haje is back with another Pitch Deck Teardown, this time of Rokoko's $3 million strategic extension deck.
• An IPO at last!: Alex explains why he's excited about the upcoming TripActions IPO.

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

Big Tech Inc.

Google's Stadia is donezo, Brian reports. Stadia, the company's game streaming service, was young, just under three years old, but just wasn't getting the expected traction. However, based on Stadia's remarks, there may be something new brewing.

We had a rather long Big Tech section for you yesterday, so enjoy these five shorter snippets:

• Make amends: Amnesty International's new report is calling for Meta to pay reparations for Facebook's role in promoting content that led to the Rohingya genocide in 2017, Natasha L reports.
• Pick up and go: Amazon quietly acquired India-based Just Walk Out as the company aims to expand its Amazon Go play in the country, Jagmeet writes.
• Tap tap: Square users can now use their iPhones to collect payments with the "tap to pay" feature, Ivan reports.
• Making a static waterfall dynamic: Wait until you see what Adobe will enable you to do with your photos, Kyle writes.
• Poppin' bottles: TikTok broke records for all the dough it brought in during the third quarter as App Store revenue declined overall, Sarah reports.

• Software Engineer at Accra (Minnesota, USA)
• Applications Programmer for DBS at University of California Merced (Merced, CA, USA)
• Senior Business Intelligence Developer at AAOS (Rosemont, IL, USA)
• Senior Software Engineer - Java at Veeva (Columbus, OH, USA)
• IT Data Architect at Veeva (Columbus, OH, USA)

See more jobs on CrunchBoard

Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.