Latest and Hotest Technology Updates

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— Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• The biggest ticket in streaming: If you're a football fan, we know where you'll be on Sunday night. YouTube started presales of its NFL Sunday Ticket subscription, which will set you back $249, Ivan writes.
• It's nice when an idea comes together: You use Venmo and your friend uses PayPal. In the past, we might have said you weren't compatible, but not today. Paul reports that Visa has partnered with peer-to-peer payment offerings, including PayPal and Venmo, to make digital payments interoperable so no one has to change providers.
• Crystal clear: Fintech startup Clear Street, a company building "modern infrastructure" for capital markets, snagged $270 million at a $2 billion valuation. This is the company's second round of funding in a year, and before that it was bootstrapped by its co-founders. Mary Ann has more.

Startups and VC

When DBeaver creator Serge Rider began building an open source database admin tool in 2013, he probably had no idea that 10 years later, it would boast more than 8 million users. The open source product proved so popular that he launched a company to support it in 2017 and began building a commercial product for users with enterprise requirements. Ron has more.

There are many ways for startups to get ahead. It just turns out that not all of them are quite, er, legal. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has approved a final consent order in its first-ever enforcement action over a case involving "review hijacking," or when a marketer steals consumer reviews of another product to boost the sales of its own. In this case, the FTC has ordered supplements retailer the Bountiful Company, the maker of Nature's Bounty vitamins and other brands, to pay $600,000 for deceiving customers on Amazon, Sarah reports.

And we have another handful for you, in which horizontal buildings just don't get the love they deserve. If only they would (high-)rise to the occasion.

• Why, that's a fly office you've got here: Lightspeed fuels Indian workspace interiors platform Officebanao with $6 million funding, reports Jagmeet.
• Pew pew pew: Brian reports that Carbon's laser weeding robots score another $30 million.
• A bold claym: “Drink to dust”: Startup says to just smash its clay alternative to plastic cups, reports Harri.
• Vertical buildings deserve vertical SaaS: Graneet raises $8.7 million for its vertical SaaS for construction companies, Romain writes.
• Vertical buildings also deserve AI monitoring: Infogrid raises $90 million for its AI-driven building monitoring tech, reports Kyle.

RevOps unleashed: 4 tips that help teams filter out the noise and focus on the big picture

No single person could manage a B2B SaaS sales operation today, which is probably why head of revenue operations is No. 1 on LinkedIn’s 2023 Jobs on the Rise list.

To claw back time from mundane tasks so RevOps teams can tackle “the larger, meatier projects,” Rattle COO Apoorva Verma wrote a TC+ article with recommended tactics for training sales reps, finding places to automate, and ideas for codifying “every single one of your business-critical processes.”

Three more from the TC+ team:

• Where'd they go?: Hey look, unicorns are rare again, notes Alex.
• Because nothing else mattress: Tim reports that Casper co-founders want to sell you another box. This time, it's a battery.
• A semi-controlled descent: Jacquelyn writes that as crypto startup valuations come back to Earth, big investors are bargain hunting.

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!

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Big Tech Inc.

Don't you hate when you're shopping and have to go over to another app to make the final purchase? WhatsApp heard you loud and clear. Users in Brazil can now pay merchants through the app, which means they can now have an end-to-end experience in the app, reports Ivan.

Now over to Google. The company has some big news regarding its Google TV, which expanded its free streaming lineup to include over 800 live TV channels, Sarah reports. If your favorite channels include Tubi, Plex, Haystack and others, you're in luck.

Today you get a reward for good behavior. Six — count 'em six — more for you:

• It's electric: Ford has plans to spend $1.3 billion to transform its Canada factory into an EV manufacturing hub, Kirsten reports.
• Migration participation: Fitbit wants users to start logging in via Google accounts, Aisha reports.
• Alibaba is my Copilot: Chinese tech giant Alibaba is integrating its largest language model, Tongyi Qianwen, across the firm's businesses to improve user experience, which Rita writes is the company's "latest effort in generative AI that in a way is reminiscent of Microsoft's Copilot."
• Plenty of blame to go around: 3CX confirms that North Korea was behind a supply chain attack, reports Carly.
• Avengers assemble: MCU's female superhero trio, Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel and Captain Rambeau, team up in "The Marvels" movie, Lauren writes.
• Where are the factories?: Over 300 gigafactories will make tomorrow's EVs. Two of our TC+ team, Tim and Miranda, mapped them all.

• Information Technology Director at HACLA (Los Angeles, CA, USA)
• Senior Software Engineer at Brivo Systems LLC (Bethesda, MD, USA)
• Information Technology Manager at Alameda County Water District (Fremont, CA, USA)
• Information Services Support Specialist at Administration South (Toppenish, WA 98948, USA)
• Lead Software Developer at AWE Learning (Chester, PA, USA)

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