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| Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for December 3, 2021! I don't know about you, but after watching stocks get hammered all day, I mostly want to snag a nap and breathe. But things were worse for DocuSign and Didi than they were for us, so we can take solace in that. What did Didi do? Well, let's talk about it. —Alex | |  Image Credits: Brian Heater | | |
The TechCrunch Top 3 - Didi to delist: The latest detail from the dada-esque Didi disaster came today, with the Chinese ride-hailing giant announcing that it will delist from U.S. markets. It will, instead, list in Hong Kong. The Didi IPO, akin to the failed Ant debut, may become timeline markers of further decoupling of the Chinese market with the larger world.
- Read this Amanda Silberling piece on the creator economy: The worldwide success of Netflix's “Squid Game” has spawned a cottage industry of me-toos. None, perhaps, more notable than an entry from YouTuber MrBeast. I once saw a clip of him burying himself alive for laughs. Regardless, Silberling digs into the YouTube economy and how stunts can leverage already-created content. It's worth reading.
- SPACs challenge Amazon, Microsoft: The blank-check company circus continued this week with news that Rumble — the video hosting platform that has ridden right-wing personalities to prominence — will go public via a SPAC. And like the Trump Technology deal, it has a long-term vision to take on the internet's major platform companies. To which we say, good luck.
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Startups/VC - How to think about the Oura Ring: Our own Brian Heater has a great dig into the Oura Ring 3, which he argues is not an Apple Watch replacement. Instead, he says, it's a replacement for a fitness band. Given that I have turned my Apple Watch into a fitness band by nuking all of its notifications aside from those prompting me to move my lard about, I do not mind Heater's view.
- Vinehealth raises pre-Series A money: A $5.5 million round was once Series A scale. Now it's seed, or something a little later. No matter how Vinehealth wants to describe its latest round, the London-based digital health startup that's built an app offering personalized support for cancer patients while also making it easier to gather patient-reported outcome data now has the capital it needs to reach its next round. Let's see how it scales.
- Umamicart has a great name: What does Umamicart do, if you had to guess? Would you reckon, say, the delivery of Asian ingredients? Bingo! That's what it does, and the company just raised $6 million to keep the growth coming.
- Zindi is using community solve data questions: What happens if you blend community and AI and deploy the result to tricky data problems? You get Zindi, it turns out. TechCrunch has a toothsome look at the South African concern that you should read.
- If you need a weekend listen, there's new Equity (here) out for your audio enjoyment.
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| This week, LinkedIn rolled out support for Hindi users, allowing it to reach approximately 500 million people in India and 100 million more around the globe. Talented developers abound in emerging markets, but few of them use the same social network that so many startup recruiters rely upon. Additionally, many devs simply don’t like social media — so what’s your plan for reaching them? We’re in the midst of a talent drought, so it’s a good idea to draw water from more than one well. To bring in a broader mix of candidates, use the three ideas laid out here to elevate your startup’s hiring game. (TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.) Read More | |  Image Credits: the_burtons / Getty Images | | |
Big Tech Inc. - Facebook Messenger tests payment splitting: When you reach Facebook's scale, every product in the market is a potential add-on to your core service. So, that Big Blue is adding payment splitting to its Messenger service is not a huge surprise. What can users do with the ability to "share the cost of bills and expenses through the app"? Well, most of what you can do with Venmo or Splitwise, we reckon.
- Tech stocks get hammered (again): Leading the downward charge, DocuSign was the first horseman of the tech valuation unravelling this Friday. Shares of tech stocks took a number of blows this week, pushing software stocks into bear market territory. Sure, valuations are still high, but the hype could be evaporating atop the market's warm climate.
- Why is Pinduoduo growing food? This was a surprise to my eyes. Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo unveiled a huge agricultural effort in August, where it is seemingly putting both capital and focus. "The program won't be profit-driven, the company promised, and all profit from the second quarter and 'any potential profits in future quarters would be allocated to the initiative,'" TechCrunch reported. My first take is that this is how tech companies in China can keep being tech shops while also fitting into the top-down demand for “common prosperity.”
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