Hello, climate tech readers! Even without a milestone fusion announcement this week, plenty happened in the climate tech world that’s worth catching up on. From massive solar investments to plant-based steaks and small, modular batteries to back up your home, there’s something for everyone. Let’s dive in.

US solar manufacturing gets boost with $2.5B Georgia deal

Last year was chock full of battery manufacturers and automakers announcing one gigafactory after another. If this week’s announcement is anything to go by, 2023 might be the year the U.S. solar industry ramps up in a serious way.

On Wednesday, Hanwha Qcells, a major Korean manufacturer, announced that it would spend $2.5 billion in Georgia to expand an existing factory and build an entirely new campus that would handle nearly everything in the solar panel supply chain, from silicon ingots to finished panels. The move was spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act, which offers investment and production tax credits that should help cover about half the cost of a finished panel, helping to erase some of China’s cost advantage.

This isn’t the first time the U.S. has attempted to bolster homegrown solar. But unlike a decade ago, when dozens of companies went bust because of slack demand, cheap Chinese panels and the Great Recession, this time might be different.

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How companies at CES are taking on climate change (or pretending to)

TechCrunch’s Harri Weber made the trek to CES this year, and she saw plenty of climate tech at the massive trade show, which has expanded well beyond VR headsets and home automation (though that’s still there, too.) From smart hoses and sprinklers to minimize water use to home energy systems, there was plenty to be optimistic about — though there was still some AstroTurf, too, both on the show floor and in what was being hawked in the booths.

Project Eaden’s fiber technology poised to spin threads into whole cuts of ‘meat’

Plant-based meat has had a rough few months, with industry leaders getting hammered in the markets. But not everyone is bearish on the sector. Project Eaden showed why this week, adding €2.1 million in funding to an existing seed round.

The Berlin-based startup uses plant-based protein fibers to spin cuts of alternative meat that have a texture that’s much closer to the real thing. Project Eaden has just over €10 million in funding to refine its technology, and it’s planning on future rounds to build a production-scale plant.

Climate benefits of killing gas stoves aren’t what you think, but the health benefits are

It’s no secret that gas stoves are terrible for your health — asthma rates in households that have gas stoves are significantly higher than those without. They’re also not great for the climate. Even though their emissions footprint is small, they let aging gas utilities keep their feet in the door, making it easier for homeowners to keep their fossil fuel systems running long after they should.

But why are we talking about gas stoves this week? U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Rich Trumka Jr. made a comment about how they’re a “hidden hazard” and that “any option is on the table” if the industry couldn’t figure out how to clean up its act. Well, that brought the wolves out. Right-wing politicians latched onto Trumka’s statement, hoping to create a new flashpoint in the ongoing culture wars. That might backfire, though, as gas-owning, induction-curious consumers start looking into the matter themselves.

John Deere will let farmers repair their own equipment

The right-to-repair movement got a shot in the arm this week when John Deere signed a memorandum of understanding with the American Farm Bureau Federation that would grant access to tools and repair information needed by farmers and other operators to fix the company’s increasingly complex equipment without going through the manufacturer.

For farmers and independent repair shops, it’s not a perfect deal, however, because Deere said it would still withhold “trade secrets, proprietary or confidential information.” But given that Deere has long pushed back against right-to-repair requests, this is likely welcome news for farmers, operators and independent shops. And it’ll likely help keep well-functioning equipment in the fields longer.

A big CES 2023 trend: All battery power, everywhere, all the time

It’s happening: Batteries are taking over. I’ve long anticipated that the sheer amount of R&D and manufacturing capacity wrought by the shift to electric vehicles would spill over to transform myriad other sectors. If this year’s CES is anything to go by, we’ve reached an inflection point.

TechCrunch’s Haje Jan Kamps was bowled over by the number and diversity of battery-based home power solutions at the show this year. Many were stackable. One could be wheeled around your house like a 100-pound wagon. Another carried like a milk crate. And yet another ties into a whole-home system that includes a solar inverter, smart circuit panel, EV chargers and more. If you don’t have a battery in your home yet, you might in the next five years if this CES was anything to go by.

Climate tech roundup: From solar to CES, this week had something for everyone by Tim De Chant originally published on TechCrunch

Welcome toThe Interchange! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign uphereso you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. This will include everything from funding rounds to trends to an analysis of a particular space to hot takes on a particular company or phenomenon. There’s a lot of fintech news out there and it’s my job to stay on top of it — and make sense of it — so you can stay in the know. —Mary Ann

Consolidation everywhere

On Friday, January 13, investment giant BlackRock announced it was acquiring a minority stake in SMB 401(k) provider startup Human Interest. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but it definitely caught my attention for a few reasons. For one, as one source told me, BlackRock’s investment is a show of faith in the SMB 401(k) market — one where the firm hasn’t historically played. That same source, who preferred not to be named, pointed out that “SECURE 2.0’s auto-enrollment provisions (among others), will make 401k plans more impactful at the lower end of the market, and Human Interest is well-positioned to execute.”

I’ve been writing about Human Interest since March 2020, covering each of its funding rounds since then (here, here and here), and following its impressive growth. It achieved unicorn status in August 2021 and at the time was eyeing an IPO. A lot has changed in the markets since then, so this feels like a good outcome for the startup, which was founded by Paul Sawaya and Roger Lee in 2015. Lee (a very nice guy, incidentally) moved on years ago, recently founding another startup, Comprehensive.io and launching layoff tracker Layoffs.FYI soon after the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

The deal was just one of many M&A deals in the fintech space that occurred last week. Here’s a rundown of some others:

Remote payroll startup Deel acquired fintech Capbase for an undisclosed amount in a cash and stock deal, the companies shared with me exclusively. Last valued at $12 billion, Deel is one of the buzziest fintechs around, and its decision to pick up Capbase reflects its intent to enter the equity management space.
Investment giant Fidelity acquired Shoobx, marking its first buy in 7 years (!). Jason Furtado and Stephan Richter founded Boston-based Shoobx in 2013, according to Crunchbase. The pair went on to raise a known $10 million in funding for the company. Fidelity said its purchase of Shoobx is a sign of its commitment to the private market “and will help to satisfy an increasing demand Fidelity sees from private companies to support them as they scale and grow.”
Vouch, an insurtech focused on startups, acquired lending startup Level for an undisclosed amount. As reported by Life Insurance International: “Level has created a tech-driven underwriting process for early-stage fintech startups that is claimed to have brought new efficiency and speed to the debt-raising process. Vouch hopes to leverage Level’s expertise in developing underwriting technologies to underwrite and support complex insurance products. Level was founded by Vladimir Korshin, Asa Schachar and Molly Hogan in 2021.” In September 2021, I covered Vouch’s announcement of $90 million in new funding. Both Vouch and Level are Y Combinator alums.
American Express announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Nipendo, a company that aims to automate and streamline business-to-business (B2B) payments processes for global businesses that has raised a known $12 million in funding. I talked with Dean Henry, EVP of global commercial services for Amex, and Colleen Taylor, president of merchant services, US at Amex, and they gave me some insight into the strategy behind the buy. For starters, Henry said the credit card giant has been on “a multiyear journey…to really grow and expand capabilities in B2B payments.” He added: “What we’ve really tried to evolve in the last few years is into a one-stop-shop for businesses to pay anybody anywhere, using any kind of payment rails that they want to use in order to facilitate the payments….What we’re trying to do with Nipendo is add to that capability set and provide more value to suppliers who are trying to send invoices, interact with buyers and transact with data around B2B payments.” Notably, Taylor told me that American Express concluded that it would take a big company like American Express “a long time to replicate what they’ve built.” And this line was the classic motivation for all incumbents buying fintechs: “Why not just bring it in to our platform and get it to customers as quickly as possible?”

To bring some context around all this M&A, I conducted an email interview with Jonah Crane, partner at Klaros Group. Crane predicts we will continue to see a lot of fintech M&A.

He told me: “The question I have is who will capitalize on this bear market to scoop up valuable technology or talent. In particular, I’m interested in whether banks can be opportunistic. Some of the large banks have already been active, and the others need to ask themselves whether they are serious about innovation and digital transformation. If they are, they can’t afford to miss this moment.”

Of course, he added, much will depend on the macro picture. “If we have a soft landing, and markets head back up, the true bargains may already have passed. And if we are in for a very hard landing, buyers are at risk of catching falling knives—especially in the credit sector,” Crane said. “Getting deals done in these markets is no sure thing. We’ve already seen a number of announced deals fail to close: UBS/Wealthfront, Bolt/Wyre, and now JPMC/Frank (more on that later). Ultimately, the big challenge will be whether buyers and sellers can cross the massive valuation chasm created by the bursting of the fintech bubble.”

No doubt the venture slowdown and practically dead IPO and SPAC markets have contributed to the surge in M&A activity.

“VCs are telling their portfolio companies they should be prepared to shelter in place for 18 to 24 months, and many have laid off a lot of staff. But what’s the end game? What are you aiming to achieve that will allow you to raise at a reasonable valuation when markets are fully reopened?” Crane asks. “Those who don’t have a clear bridge to the other side of that chasm will be looking for buyers (if they’re smart).”

All I know is if we have more weeks like this one, you’re going to have one exhausted fintech journalist on your hands!

Weekly News

Layoffs

Reports Jagmeet Singh: “Greenlight, a fintech startup offering debit cards to kids, has laid off 104 employees — or over 21% of its total headcount of 485 employees — to “better align with ongoing operating expenses” amid the economic slowdown. TechCrunch learned about the layoff that was announced to its employees earlier this week. The startup later confirmed the development over an email.” More here.

Digital mortgage platform Blend said last week its slashing its U.S. workforce by 28%, or 340 jobs, in its fourth layoff in less than a year. The company also said that presidentTim Mayopoulos will step down from his role in the first quarter and remain as a board member. Clearly, the rise in mortgage interest rates has taken its toll. More here.

Publicly-traded online lending platform Lending Club is cutting 14% of its workforce, a move that will impact 225 employees, reports MarketWatch, “as higher interest rates discourage demand for loans, and the company forecast fourth-quarter revenue that was below expectations.”

In other news

Public.com, an investing platform with more than 3 million members, announced last week that it has begun rolling out Treasury accounts through a partnership with fintech startup Jiko. According to the two companies, the accounts allow members to invest their cash in U.S. Treasury bills that “are automatically reinvested at maturity and can be sold at any time.” A spokesperson told me that Public’s Treasury accounts “offer members similar flexibility to a high-yield savings account, but are currently offering even higher yields.”

Equity management platform Carta had a rough week. As TC’s Connie Loizos reported on January 11: “The 11-year-old, San Francisco-based outfit whose core business is selling software to investors to track their portfolios, has sued its former CTO, Jerry Talton, who the company says was fired ‘for cause’ almost three weeks ago, on Friday, December 23.” The case is a bit of a sordid one, considering that “toward the end of Carta’s long list of accusations against Talton, Carta says that Talton both sent and received ‘sexually explicit, offensive, discriminatory and harassing messages with at least nine women including during work hours and on Carta’s systems.’” For his part, Connie also wrote that Talton was put on administrative leave in October of last year after submitting a letter to Carta’s board of directors, flagging various “problems” with the company’s culture. Then, Natasha reported later that day that the company, which was last privately valued at $7.4 billion, had cut 10% of its staff.

It looks like incumbent banks and institutions are still struggling when it comes to offering tech-enabled financial services.

For one, Goldman Sachs Group reported last Thursday that it lost $3.03 billion on its platform solutions business that houses transaction banking and credit card and financial technology businesses since 2020. Reuters reports: “The disclosure did not provide separate numbers for its direct-to-consumer business, Marcus, which was moved into its asset and wealth management arm. Marcus has also lost money and failed to introduce a checking account. Swati Bhatia, who led the group, stepped down earlier this month, according to an internal announcement seen by Reuters.”

Meanwhile, Wells Fargo is taking a step back from mortgages. CNBC reported: “Instead of its previous goal of reaching as many Americans as possible, the company will now focus on home loans for existing bank and wealth management customers and borrowers in minority communities.” Interestingly, in an interview with CNBC, CEO Charlie Scharf acknowledged that the bank “will need to adapt to evolving conditions” while remaining confident about its competitive advantage. Specifically, he said: “Given the quality of the five major businesses across the franchise, we think we’re positioned to compete against the very best out there and win, whether it’s banks, nonbanks or fintechs.” To me, it feels like the move to shrink back from the housing market might open up more opportunities for fintechs.

Lastly, as referenced above, Forbes reported on an absolutely crazy account of JPMorgan basically getting duped by the founders of a startup, Frank, that it acquired for $175 million. Here’s an excerpt from the Forbes piece detailing a lawsuit filed by the banking giant, which claims that founder and former CEO Charlie Javice “pitched JP Morgan in 2021 on the ‘lie’ that more than 4 million users had signed up to use Frank’s tools to apply for federal aid. When JP Morgan asked for proof during due diligence, Javice allegedly created an enormous roster of ‘fake customers’ — a list of names, addresses, dates of birth, and other personal information for 4.265 million ‘students’ who did not actually exist.” In reality, according to the suit, Frank had fewer than 300,000 customer accounts at that time.” Oof. What happened to due diligence here???

More news

According to research from Utility Bidder, there are said to currently be over 700 active unicorn companies in the U.S., 132 of which are in the fintech industry. The firm’s new study has revealed the global fintech companies achieving the $1 billion valuation mark the fastest. Proptech Pacaso tops the list, taking just under six months to achieve unicorn status. Other companies on the list include Magic Eden, Clara, Brex and Pipe. The firm also ranked the most valuable fintech companies. Leading the way is Stripe, which actually just got another internal valuation cut and laid off over 1,100 workers last November. Ironically, a number of other startups that made the top 10 also happened to conduct layoffs over the past few months, including Plaid, Brex and Chime. Wondering why Utility Bidder cares about fintech? I did, too. Here’s what a spokesperson told me: “Utility Bidder [is] a price comparison site for energy and utility rates, so they have a focus on business finances as well as energy as a whole.”

Identity decisioning platform and fintech unicorn Alloy recently released its annual State of Fraud Benchmark Report. The report found that 70% of financial institutions surveyed lost over half a million to fraud last year and that 27% of respondents lost over $1 million to fraud in the last 12 months. Further, 37% of fintech companies and 31% of regional banks estimated losing between $1 and $10 million to fraud.

A Morgan Stanley spokesperson reached out to me last week after seeing our coverage of Fidelity’s acquisition of Shoobx to let me know that “Morgan Stanley at Work has invested a lot of time and resources” in its Private Markets business, “and continues to see it as an area of growth — especially as we recently just saw an astounding uptick in liquidity events during Q4 2022, which further supports the idea that private companies/startups need an effective software solution to handle these complex transactions.” The firm acquired Solium, a cap table management solution platform now called Shareworks, in 2019.

Oracle Retail announced last week its new Oracle Retail Payment Cloud Service. Via email, a spokesperson told me: “This new service equips retailers with a fixed rate model and the ability to accept all major contactless payment options including credit/debit cards and mobile wallets — all without hidden fees, long-term contracts or minimum monthly requirements. These benefits enable increased flexibility, agility and greater transparency for retailers of all sizes and industries…”

Mesh Payments has brought on Daniel Ochoa as its first SVP of global sales. Based in Austin, Ochoa most recently served as VP of sales and customer success at TripActions. Mesh co-founder and CEO Oded Zehavi told TechCrunch via email that Ochoa was brought on “to leverage a surge in customer demand” as the company builds out “new services to meet the needs of larger companies who are more than ready to move off of legacy spend management solutions.” Sounds like Mesh, like competitor Brex last year, is going after more enterprise customers.

Speaking of Brex, here’s a fun tweet thread from former CRO and current Founders Fund partner Sam Blond about “the best outbound campaign” Brex ever ran.

Funding and M&A

Seen on TechCrunch

From cloud computing to proptech: DigitalOcean co-founders raise $29M for Welcome Homes

Backed by Tiger Global, Mayfair emerges from stealth to offer businesses a higher yield on their cash

Vista Equity Partners to acquire insurance software company Duck Creek for $2.6B

And elsewhere

Dubai-based social investing startup InvestSky picks up $3.4M pre-seed

Proptech that offers fractional home ownership to wealthy individuals raises $30M in debt and equity

Pagaya Technologies announces acquisition of Darwin Homes

Canadian fintech Nuvei will acquire Atlanta-based payments firm Paya for $1.3B

40Seas secures $11M in equity, $100M in credit to grow cross-border trade financing platform

Butter raises $22M led by Norwest Venture Partners to end accidental payment churn

Other stories I wrote this week:

These 5 companies bootstrapped their way to big businesses while VCs came knocking

Sam Bankman-Fried launches Substack: ‘I didn’t steal funds, and I certainly didn’t stash billions away’

And, I recorded Equity Pod with my incredible co-hosts Natasha Mascarenhas and Rebecca Szkutak: Frank-ly, the Kardashian method won’t work for SBF

Whew. This was one of the busiest weeks we’ve seen in a while. Hope those of you in the U.S. have a good and restful long weekend, and if you’re outside of the U.S., I hope you have a good and restful weekend as well. Until next time, take good care. xoxoxo — Mary Ann

So much fintech M&A by Mary Ann Azevedo originally published on TechCrunch

Historically, environmental health and safety software hasn’t been a massive market — at least compared to others in the software-as-a-service segment — and it’s admittedly not the most enthralling startup category. But that’s changing, according to a new survey released by research firm Verdantix.

EHS software acts as a data management system for capturing and analyzing information related to occupational health and safety, waste management and sustainability. Companies use EHS software to track emissions and investigate workplace incidents, for example, as well as conduct health and safety training and grant entry to restricted spaces.

Verdantix’s Green Quadrant: EHS Software 2023 survey shows that the EHS software market had more than 50 transactions in the past two years and predicts that it’ll grow from $1.6 billion in 2022 to around $2.7 billion by 2027. Verdantix predicts it’ll buck the global economic downturn, furthermore, due to differentiators like the use of AI and automation.

“Over the past two years, the market landscape for EHS software has undergone a paradigm shift, as EHS providers have expanded their product offerings to meet the ravenous appetite for robust environmental management solutions brought on by the ESG megatrend,” Verdantix industry analyst Chris Sayers said in a statement. “As EHS functions seek to interlink with other business operations, providers are turning to emerging technologies as a point of differentiation and redefining the functional possibilities of EHS software.”

Per the Verdantix report, since ETF Partners invested around €10 million (roughly $11 million) in EHS vendor Enablon in 2011, private equity firms and strategic investors like Wolters Kluwer and Fortive have spent more than $4 billion to buy into the EHS software market. The absence of the world’s largest enterprise software vendors — including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce and SAP — has left a lot of oxygen in the market for midsize businesses to grow.

Environmental health and safety software is now a hot commodity by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

CircleCi, a software company whose products are popular with developers and software engineers, confirmed that some customers’ data was stolen in a data breach last month.

The company said in a detailed blog post on Friday that it identified the intruder’s initial point of access as an employee’s laptop that was compromised with malware, allowing the theft of session tokens used to keep the employee logged in to certain applications, even though their access was protected with two-factor authentication.

The company took the blame for the compromise, calling it a “systems failure,” adding that its antivirus software failed to detect the token-stealing malware on the employee’s laptop.

Session tokens allow a user to stay logged in without having to keep re-entering their password or re-authorizing using two-factor authentication each time. But a stolen session token allows an intruder to gain the same access as the account holder without needing their password or two-factor code. As such, it can be difficult to differentiate between a session token of the account owner, or a hacker who stole the token.

CircleCi said the theft of the session token allowed the cybercriminals to impersonate the employee and gain access to some of the company’s production systems, which store customer data.

“Because the targeted employee had privileges to generate production access tokens as part of the employee’s regular duties, the unauthorized third party was able to access and exfiltrate data from a subset of databases and stores, including customer environment variables, tokens, and keys,” said Rob Zuber, the company’s chief technology officer. Zuber said the intruders had access from December 16 through January 4.

Zuber said that while customer data was encrypted, the cybercriminals also obtained the encryption keys able to decrypt customer data. “We encourage customers who have yet to take action to do so in order to prevent unauthorized access to third-party systems and stores,” Zuber added.

Several customers have already informed CircleCi of unauthorized access to their systems, Zuber said.

The post-mortem comes days after the company warned customers to rotate “any and all secrets” stored in its platform, fearing that hackers had stolen its customers’ source code and other sensitive secrets used for access to other applications and services.

Zuber said that CircleCi employees who retain access to production systems “have added additional step-up authentication steps and controls,” which should prevent a repeat-incident, likely by way of using hardware security keys.

The initial point of access — the token-stealing on an employee’s laptop — bears some resemblance to how the password manager giant LastPass was hacked, which also involved an intruder targeting an employee’s device, though it’s not known if the two incidents are linked. LastPass confirmed in December that its customers’ encrypted password vaults were stolen in an earlier breach. LastPass said the intruders had initially compromised an employee’s device and account access, allowing them to break into LastPass’ internal developer environment.

CircleCI says hackers stole encryption keys and customers’ source code by Zack Whittaker originally published on TechCrunch

Welcome, welcome, folks, to Week in Review, TechCrunch’s regular column that recaps the last week in news. If you’d like it in your inbox every Saturday, sign up here. Hope you’re sitting comfortably with a warm beverage on this wintery Saturday afternoon. Expecting Greg’s byline? Not to worry — he’s still enjoying parental leave, as I mentioned in the January 7 edition. All’s well.

Before we get into it, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note, once again, that TC Early Stage in Boston is on the horizon. With tickets starting at $99, it’ll be a worthwhile stop along the Eastern conference circuit, packed with expert-led workshops, case studies and deep dives with technical founders. Some members of the TechCrunch editorial staff will be in attendance — don’t be a stranger if you spot us on the show floor.

most read

ChatGPT goes pro: OpenAI this week signaled it’ll soon begin charging forChatGPT, its viral AI-powered chatbot that can write essays, emails, poems and even computer code. A “pro” version of the tool called ChatGPT Professional will throw in no unavailability windows, no throttling and an unlimited number of messages with ChatGPT — “at least 2x the regular daily limit.” Pricing remains up in the air.

Microsoft 365 goes Basic: Microsoft will introduce a lower-cost tier of Microsoft 365, its family of productivity software and cloud-based document editing services, starting on January 30, the company announced Wednesday. Called Microsoft 365 Basic and priced at $1.99 per month or $19.99 per year, the plan will initially include 100 GB of storage, Outlook email and access to support experts for help with Microsoft 365 and Windows 11.

Layoffs hit a news aggregator: SmartNews, the Tokyo-based news aggregation website and app, let go of 40% of its U.S. and China workforce, or around 120 people, my colleagues Sarah and Kirsten report. The company was impacted by the same macroeconomic factors that have led to a number of tech industry layoffs in recent months, in addition to complications that arose from Apple’s implementation of App Tracking Transparency, or ATT.

Robotics, too: Brian reports that this week, Alphabet joined the growing list of tech giants making staff cuts amid ongoing economic struggles. The company’s robot software firm, Intrinsic, laid off 40 employees, a move that comes less than a year after Intrinsic acquired both Vicarious and Open Robotics — the latter having been announced less than a month ago.

Licensed fun: Dungeons & Dragons content creators are fighting to protect their livelihoods, Amanda writes in a sobering deep dive. Wizards of the Coast (WotC), the Hasbro-owned publisher of the game, plans to update the game’s license for the first time in over 22 years, releasing a new licensing system that would require any D&D content creator who makes over $750,000 in revenue to pay a 25% royalty to the company on every dollar above that threshold. In a sliver of good news, WotC has delayed the rollout of the licensing scheme, following a widespread backlash.

Colors, but E Ink:One of the cooler gizmos to emerge from the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show is E Ink’s color displays, Harri writes. They can spit out 50,000 colors at 300 DPI — way, way up from the last-gen model’s max of 4,000 colors. E Ink says it aims to use them to build a magazine reading experience that’s good enough to win over even the most demanding publishers.

Keys for days:My colleague (and boss!) Frederic reviewed the Keychron Q10 this week, a keyboard akin to Keychron’s other — but smaller — Alice-style board. He approved of the gasket mount and silicon gaskets, which provide a bit of flex while reducing ping and other noise. As for the Alice layout (the keys aren’t in a straight line, but the left and right half are slightly angled), it was easy to get used to, he said — and he appreciated that the five macro buttons under the knob could be mapped to anything you’d like. Read the full review for more.

Welcome home, Welcome Homes: In a profile, Mary Ann peels back the curtains on Welcome Homes, a proptech startup launched by the co-founders of cloud service provider DigitalOcean. The New York City–based firm — which recently raised $29 million — offers people a way to design and build new homes online, similar to other venture-backed companies (e.g., Atmos, Homebound) attempting to address the housing shortage.

I hear deepfaked voices: Microsoft’s new VALL-E AI model can replicate a voice using just three seconds of audio from the target speaker. But as my colleague Devin writes, it’s not necessarily cause for alarm — or rather, cause for more alarm than was already warranted by voice-duplicating tech. Voice replication has been a subject of intense research for years, and the results have been good enough to power plenty of startups, like WellSaid, Papercup and Respeecher. VALL-E is simply the latest illustration of its potential — and dangers.

Medium joins Mastodon: Online publishing startup Medium, originally created by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, is embracing the open source social platform Mastodon. Sarah reports that Medium has created its own instance — me.dm — to support authors and their publications with reliable infrastructure, moderation and a short domain name to make it easier for authors to share their usernames, among other things.

audio roundup

As always, TechCrunch had a winning lineup of audio content this week for your listening pleasure — although I might be a little biased. On startup-focused Found, TechCrunch startup battlefield editor Neesha Tambe spoke with Sheeba Dawood, the co-founder of clean energy tech provider Minerva Lithium, about the struggles she’s faced as a woman of color trying to innovate in the mineral manufacturing industry and what’s next for the company. TC’s dedicated crypto show, Chain Reaction, featured an interview with Polygon Labs, one of the biggest market shakers and layer-2 blockchains in the crypto space that’s building on top of the Ethereum ecosystem. Meanwhile, over at Equity, Natasha, Mary Ann, and Becca chatted about incoming deals from Inflow, Deel and Fidelity; layoffs and lawsuits at Carta; Microsoft’s much-rumored investment in ChatGPT and OpenAI; and SBF’s Substack debut.

TechCrunch+

Here’s your regular reminder to subscribe to TC+ if you haven’t yet. It’s where TC takes exhaustive, exclusive looks at trends, industries and emerging technologies. Here’s some of the most popular content on TC+ this week:

Crypto rollercoaster: While some crypto-focused venture capitalists are bullish for 2023, others see it as a hazardous time, Jacquelyn reports. Internal sentiment among VCs is a “wait and see” game, according to one source quoted in the piece; competition in the market is likely to heat up as investors write fewer checks and become more selective.

ChatGPT, meet VC: Some investors are (cautiously) incorporating ChatGPT into their workflows, as it turns out. ChatGPT being a specifically text-based support tool, automation could be making its way to rejection letters, market maps or even bits of due diligence, TC found — all in order to stay afloat in a changing venture landscape. Natasha M, Christine, and I have more.

Pivot when ready: Pivots aren’t necessarily bad news. Brian Casey writes about how he pivoted his deep tech startup to become a software-as-a-service company — albeit not without major challenges. In his words: “Pivoting from hardware to SaaS was the right move for our electric motor design startup, but the process wasn’t precisely linear.”

ChatGPT goes pro, layoffs at Alphabet, and Dungeons & Dragons flirts with restrictive new licensing by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

YouTube’s gaming community pushed back against the company this week after some creators saw their old videos demonetized out of the blue.

The culprit is a new policy that the company introduced back in November in order to make certain kinds of content more advertiser friendly. That change, made to YouTubes’s advertiser-friendly content guidelines, overhauled the platform’s approach to profanity and violence.

The good news is that while we don’t quite know what the company will do yet, YouTube is apparently listening to creators’ concerns.

“In recent weeks we’ve heard from many creators regarding this update,” YouTube spokesperson Michael Aciman told TechCrunch. “That feedback is important to us and we are in the process of making some adjustments to this policy to address their concerns. We will follow up shortly with our creator community as soon as we have more to share.”

In November, YouTube expanded its definition of violence beyond real-world depictions, including in-game violent content “directed at a real named person or acts that are manufactured to create shocking experiences (such as brutal mass killing).” The company said that gore in “standard game play” was fine, but only after the first 8 seconds of a video. The whole section left plenty of room for interpretation, for better or worse.

The changes to its profanity policy were more drastic. YouTube announced that it would no longer count “hell” and “damn” as profane words, but all other profanity would be lumped together instead of differentiated based on severity (e.g. words like “shit” and “fuck” would now be treated the same way). Further, “profanity used in the title, thumbnails, or in the video’s first 7 seconds or used consistently throughout the video may not receive ad revenue,” according to the new policy.

If the swearing kicks in after the first 8 seconds of a video, it’s still eligible, but some of the changes stood to affect a massive swath of videos —many of which were made well before the changes were announced. Creators started noticing the new policies in effect around the end of December, watching some videos be slapped with new restrictions that limit their reach and ad eligibility.

YouTube creator Daniel Condren, who runs RTGame, explored the impact of the policy change on his own channel in a video that racked up more than a million views this week. Condren has been grappling with the enforcement changes in recent weeks after seeing roughly a dozen videos demonetized and his request for appeals rejected.

“I genuinely feel like my entire livelihood is at risk if this continues,” Condren wrote on Twitter. “I’m so upset this is even happening and that there seems to be nothing I can do to resolve it.”

YouTube didn’t respond to our follow-up questions about how it plans to tweak the policy, but we’re certainly curious if the platform will roll back enforcement for old, previously published videos that creators might rely on for income.

In the face of emerging regulation targeting social media’s relationship with underage users, the company is clearly trying to make its massive trove of videos more age-appropriate (and advertiser friendly). But retrofitting age restrictions and new monetization rules onto a platform like YouTube is a delicate balance — and in this case the changes had a swift, sweeping impact that gave creators little time to adapt.

YouTube plans to modify profanity rules that prompted creator backlash by Taylor Hatmaker originally published on TechCrunch

Welcome to Startups Weekly, a nuanced take on this week’s startup news and trends by Senior Reporter and Equity co-host Natasha Mascarenhas. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here.

It took me a while, but I’m realizing that my startup love language is discussing any attempts to standardize the opaque and often informal world of venture capital. The clear tension is what entices me: How do you automate a process such as writing checks, which requires human buy-in and the art of trust in a way that leaves both parties happy.

There are funds that invest entirely based on data. Or tools that help startups see all their financing options at the drop of a profile. Or, as I covered this week, a tool for startups that lets companies simultaneously blast out the same application — or pitch — to multiple angel and pre-seed investors.

The tool, started by pre-seed firm Afore Capital, is based on Common App, which sends one application to multiple colleges and universities. Afore’s take on the idea is to help founders rapidly pitch expert investors while also helping those investors get differentiated deal flow on a consistent basis. While it appears to be a low-stakes instrument — free for both parties to use — ease can sometimes come with a side of questions. Is Afore being too altruistic and sharing its intel? Does a blast offer the same signal as a warm intro?

Afore general partner Anamitra Banerji thinks that a funding-focused version of Common App will solve a classic conundrum: What happens when a startup isn’t a fit for your firm but is still a smart company that may make sense for your climate-focused emerging fund manager friend? Sometimes, those smart companies get lost in the cracks — think about the number of companies that don’t get into Y Combinator by a razor-thin margin — instead of being passed on to another firm.

Originally, Afore was thinking about sending companies that didn’t make it to its accelerator program to its network of outside investors. But Banerji said that now Afore sends startup applications to the network as soon as they submit, meaning that Afore sees it at the same time as other pre-seed investors.

“We’re taking the risk of exposing it to everyone else in the group and maybe losing the deal and allocation and things like that … but that kind of demonstrates to them, to us, that we’re not only sending them things we have passed on,” Banerji said.

You can read my whole piece on TechCrunch+: “Is it time for a Common App for startup founders?” DM me on Twitter or Instagram if you want a discount code for TC+.

In the rest of this newsletter, we’ll talk about Carta, investor’s secret workflows and when the Kardashian strategy doesn’t quite work.

Lawsuit and layoffs at Carta

Carta is suing Jerry Talton, its former CTO, alleging that he sent and received “sexually explicit, offensive, discriminatory and harassing messages with at least nine women including during work hours and on Carta’s systems.”

Here’s why this is important: The lawsuit isn’t the only sign that Carta may be dealing with internal strife. The company confirmed that it had to lay off 10% of its staff in its second known workforce reduction over the pandemic.

It doesn’t help that several users of Carta’s services, which range from cap table management to fund administration, have been less than impressed by the platform in the recent months. TechCrunch spoke to a fund manager who was transitioning away from the platform and who claims that his team had four different account managers in a less than two years, which “certainly didn’t help with continuity and understanding of our fund and needs.”

Current and former Carta employees can reach out to me on Signal, a secure encrypted messaging app, at 925 271 0912. You can also DM me on Twitter @nmasc_.
Crime-reporting app Citizen lays off 33 employees
Career Karma’s latest layoff underscores edtech’s new challenge
News aggregator SmartNews lays off 40% of US and China staff, with further reductions planned in Japan
Alphabet robotics division Intrinsic hit with layoffs

SBFstack

FTX’s infamous founder and former chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried started a Substack this week. As my colleague Mary Ann Azevedo noted, it’s “a very unusual move for someone who was recently arrested and is facing eight counts of U.S. criminal charges.”

Here’s why it’s important: As we discussed on Equity, the Kardashian method of distraction is not going to work for this former billionaire. There’s a weird sentiment around SBF’s actions lately, whether it’s calling him smart for pleading not guilty or laughing at his Substack. that adds levity to a situation that ultimately should be taken quite seriously.

Him starting a Substack is no different; we’re all talking about it, thinking about him sidestepping his lawyer. But what if this isn’t as radical as we think? What if SBF sees that his noisy, outward conversation gets noticed, covered and amplified every time he speaks up, just because no one else has before? It’s a distraction; one that we may see more of until his expected trial in October.

Image Credits: Fatih Aktas/Anadolu Agency / Getty Images

The follow up

You’ve probably been reading a lot about ChatGPT, OpenAI’s artificial intelligence tool that achieved virality with its savvy messaging ability. The tool, recently made available to the general public, is smart enough to answer serious and silly questions about profound topics, which has landed it in debates led by writers, educators, artists and more.

But beyond the initial excitement around the tool, I wanted to follow up on if it is actually making its way into people’s workflows. So, I dug into how investors are using ChatGPT in a piece for TC+ with Kyle Wiggers and Christine Hall.

Here’s why it’s important: Some investors expressed that ChatGPT could be used for fact-checking purposes around market-size claims or growth potential; at the same time, so could Google. The argument for AI, of course, would be that the content would be original and perhaps more targeted toward someone’s exact questions, while a general Google search may require extra digging and piecing different articles together.

As a nod toward the beginning of this newsletter, ChatGPT could be looked at as yet another way that venture tries to automate itself. It just depends on if investors think it is smart enough to reject startups, or if feedback is valued as the key currency of network building.

OpenAI begins piloting ChatGPT Professional, a premium version of its viral chatbot
Is ChatGPT a cybersecurity threat?
ChatGPT is the new Clubhouse (question mark)

Talking points

A non-exhaustive list of other news to note this week:

Packy McCormick closed Not Boring Capital Fund III, a $30 million investment vehicle seeking to invest in hard tech startups.
Microsoft announced a controversial unlimited PTO policy.
Monique Woodard has closed $17 million for her debut fund at Cake Ventures.
Per Forbes, JP Morgan says that a startup that it recently acquired lied about millions of followers.
RRR won a Golden Globe. That is all.
If you missed my most recent Startups Weekly, read it here: “Labor trends in 2023: Over-employment, fatigue and hope.”
TechCrunch is coming to Boston on April 20. I’ll be there with my favorite colleagues to interview top experts at a one-day founder summit. Book your pass ASAP!

Seen on TechCrunch

Dungeons & Dragons content creators are fighting to protect their livelihoods

Tesla keeps slashing prices, this time by as much as 20%

Will what happened at CES, stay at CES?

Our obsession with pets means startups aimed at vets are booming, as Digitail shows

Third-party Twitter apps are facing issues, users say

Seen on TechCrunch+

You’re not going to grow into your 2021 valuation

Pitch Deck Teardown: Mint House’s $35M Series B deck

Why Africa had no unicorns last year despite record fundraising haul

Web3 could help fashion become more sustainable

Pittsburgh’s AI expertise may give rise to an already growing startup market

With that, I’m off to enjoy a weekend in Providence with some old friends. New England, how I missed you, your indulgently cozy weather and nostalgic streets.

Chat soon,

N

The slow-burn standardization of venture capital by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.

The app economy in 2023 hit a few snags, as consumer spending last year dropped for the first time by 2% to $167 billion, according to the latest “State of Mobile” report by data.ai (previously App Annie). However, downloads are continuing to grow, up 11% year-over-year in 2022 to reach 255 billion. Consumers are also spending more time using mobile apps than ever before. On Android devices alone, hours spent in 2022 grew 9%, reaching 4.1 trillion.

This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.

Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters

Top Stories

State of Mobile 2023 arrives, consumer spending slows

Data.ai’s anticipated review of the app ecosystem, “State of Mobile 2023,” arrived this week, finding that consumer spending on apps has been hit by the same macroeconomic forces impacting the broader economy. That led to a first-time drop in consumer spending after years of record growth. However, there are some bright spots in the report’s findings. For starters, it seems that non-game apps are more resilient than games in a down economy. Though consumer spend on mobile games dropped 5% to $110 billion, spending on non-game apps increased 6% to $58 billion — driven by streaming subscriptions, dating apps and short-form video apps.

The data also indicated that despite the tightening of wallets, consumer engagement on mobile continues to grow. Across top mobile markets, consumers were spending 5 hours, 2 minutes per day in 2022 using their apps, up 9% from 2020. That’s remarkable, given that 2020 was the onset of the COVID pandemic, which tied everyone to their phone and rapidly changed consumer behavior. However, there is a caveat to this news: Much of mobile users’ time is monopolized by three app categories, which accounted for half the time spent on mobile: Social Media/Communication (19.5% of total time); Entertainment/Short Video (17% of total time); and Entertainment/Video Sharing (12.7% of total time).

In addition, while mobile ad spend growth will also slow alongside the economy, it will not decline. Data.ai is forecasting that mobile ad spend in 2023 will hit $262 billion, up from $336 billion this year as short video apps drive growth. TikTok, for example, became the second-ever non-game app to top $6 billion in all-time consumer spending, the report noted.

The first category — Social Media/Communication — includes WeChat, WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger, Telegram, LINE and Discord, while the Entertainment and Short Video category is where you’ll find TikTok as well as Kwai, Vido Video, Baidu Haokan and Snack Video. The last category of Entertainment and Video Sharing includes long-form video like YouTube, YouTube Kids and bilibili.

One finding that jumped out at me is that TikTok this year lost its No. 1 position on the Top Charts by Downloads to Instagram, the Meta-owned social app that has been desperately trying to clone TikTok’s feature set with Reels. Data.ai’s report indicated that Meta had a bit of a comeback this year, with Instagram bumping TikTok on downloads, though TikTok remained No. 1 by consumer spending. However, in terms of real-world use, TikTok is much further down the charts.

In 2022, the top four non-game apps by monthly active users were all owned by Facebook. In order, they were Facebook, WhatsApp Messenger, Instagram, then Facebook Messenger. TikTok was No. 5. Amazon, which was No. 5 last year, slipped to No. 7 while Telegram moved up to No. 6 from No. 7 in 2021. Twitter, Spotify and Netflix rounded out the charts.

The report delves into other interesting trends related to specific categories of apps (some of which we may get into later), but one particular area of interest to us involved the detailed habits of Gen Z consumers. Unlike the top apps used by older generations, which tend to be more utilitarian and practical (think Amazon, eBay, Walmart, The Weather Channel, Waze, Ring, PayPal and others), Gen Z is still devoted to video apps, user-generated content and mindfulness apps, data.ai said. (Ah, youth!) They also have a preference for Meta’s Instagram over Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Netflix and Spotify.

Another trend driven by younger users was the rise of BeReal, a more authentic photo-sharing app that prompts users once a day to take candid photos of themselves and what they’re doing. Data.ai found that no other social app added more new users in the U.S. over the past five years than the 5.3 million users BeReal gained in August 2022. But the firm suggested BeReal may struggle to grow engagement since the app only asks people to use it for brief periods. However, in speaking with those close to the company, we understand BeReal is purposefully trying to build a non-addictive social app — it just doesn’t know how to monetize that sort of creation.

Another app category driven by Gen Z trends is friend-finding, which includes apps like Yubo, Hoop, Bumble (for its BFF feature), Live Talk and others.

Meanwhile, in terms of gaming, the Gen Z demographic showed a preference for party, simulation and shooters, and counted Roblox as their No. 1 app. If there’s any wonder why Meta is spending billions trying to develop a virtual gaming landscape with Horizon Worlds, just look at Roblox’s growth and traction among the younger demographic. “Creative Sandbox” games like Roblox as well as Minecraft saw a global increase in time spent last year, up 25% from 2021 to 2022.

A few other interesting highlights:

The most-searched iOS App Store keywords in the U.S. for entertainment apps were, in order: netflix, disney+, hulu, HBO max, paramount, paramount+, amazon prime, peacock tv, prime video and tubi. Maybe Netflix will be okay after all.
Genshin Impact reached $3 billion in in-app purchases in Q2 2022.
Game publishers in China drove a third of consumer game spending.
Crypto apps’ downloads fell in 2022, even as other fintechs grew.
Average MAUs among the top five neobanks in the U.S. climbed from 1.4 million in 2020 to 2.2 million in 2022. Chime is the market leader in both active users and user engagement.

Consumers spent nearly 110 billion hours in shopping apps in 2022, up 9% globally. Cost-conscious shoppers drove growth.
Total time spent in social apps climbed 17% year-over-year to over 2 trillion hours on Android phones in 2022. The U.S. accounted for more than one-fourth of social app consumer spending.
Sports betting app downloads hit 4.3 million at the start of the 2022-2023 NFL season, up 8% year-over-year from 2021.
Language learning apps saw 31% year-over-year growth as travel returned post-pandemic.
Consumer spend in dating apps grew 12% year-over-year in 2022, and 91% year-over-year compared to pre-pandemic spend.

Apple let scammy “ChatGPT” apps flood the App Store

What, no I mean, what is going on with App Review? For years, Apple has been caught off guard at times, allowing violative apps to slip through its review process to be published on the App Store until users or the media called out the mistake.

But in the case of the scam “ChatGPT” apps that flooded the App Store over the past couple of weeks, one has to wonder if Apple is even paying attention at all. ChatGPT’s maker OpenAI doesn’t offer a public API, so that should have been a red flag to reviewers about any app claiming a ChatGPT or OpenAI connection in its name or description, then charging money for access. One app, called “ChatGPT Chat GPT AI With GPT-3,” even managed to reach the Top Charts in the productivity category in multiple countries as a result of consumer demand for ChatGPT and Apple’s inattention. (The app was removed shortly after reporters, including ourselves, reached out to Apple for comment. Apple never answered our emails.)

Google Play had the same problem, but frankly, consumers expect more from Apple’s App Store. In fact, Apple’s argument against antitrust concerns, like its ban on sideloading and third-party app stores, has to do with the safety and security of its users. Apple says only it should be trusted to keep consumers safe. But surely that means Apple should also be protecting consumers from scam apps and subscription scams. But it is not.

And while no system is perfect, it seems like the apps that are at the top of the App Store’s charts — or those that quickly moved up the charts for unknown reasons — should go under an additional review by Apple, just to make sure they’re playing by the rules. Developers have long argued that Apple should be cracking down on apps with high-priced subscriptions or those that are charging users for basic utilities or otherwise free features — in other words, the apps that are profiting from scamming users. If it did so, a subscription-based app that appeared to be charging for access to a free service with a non-public API wouldn’t have made the cut.

These things aren’t hard to spot either — third-party app intelligence services can parse customer reviews for negative sentiments and keywords, so surely Apple could implement a system of its own, if it wanted to. In the case of the scammy ChatGPT apps, customer reviews called the apps fake and non-functional, warning others not to get scammed. Where was Apple on this issue? Until the media coverage, it was quietly collecting its cut of the scammers’ subscription revenues.

In other App Store news, activist investors have pressured Apple for more insight into app removals, the FT reported, but their interest lies in wanting a better understanding of when Apple acquiesces to foreign governments’ requests. The company will begin including additional information in its Transparency Report about whether removals are related to local laws and how many apps were pulled in each country.

Goodbye, Instagram Shop. Move over, Reels.

Instagram announced this week it will simplify its in-app navigation after years of confusing changes designed to push various products like Instagram Shop and Reels. The company said, starting in February, it will return the Compose button (the plus sign “+”) to the front and center of the navigation bar at the bottom of the app and it will remove the Shop tab entirely.

As a result, the Reels button will now move over to the right of Compose, losing its prime spot.

The earlier changes that had pushed Reels over Compose had been fairly controversial as Instagram users felt as if the company was forcing them to use the app’s new products at the expense of the overall user experience. Instagram defended the changes in prior years as a way to introduce users to its new products. But in more recent months, there’s been increased backlash over how far Instagram has deviated from its original mission. Even the Kardashians criticized the app for “trying to be TikTok.”

Instagram said shopping on Instagram will continue to be supported despite the removal of the tab. We’ll see.

Weekly News

Android Updates

Google is working to fix a Google Play issue impacting missing app changelogs, according to an Android Police report.
The latest stable release of the official IDE for building Android applications, Android Studio Electric Eel (2022.1.1), arrived. The release includes updates and new features that cover design, build & dependencies, emulators & devices, and IntelliJ, Google said.
Google released the Extension SDK to developers, bringing features like the Android 13 Photo Picker API and AdServices APIs to Android 11 and up.

Apple News

Second developer betas for iOS 16.3, iPadOS 16.3, watchOS 9.3, macOS Ventura 13.2 and tvOS 16.3 have arrived. One notable change impacts the new Emergency SOS feature. The “Call with Hold” option is renamed to “Call with Hold and Release,” as now the call to emergency services won’t go through until users let go of the buttons they press down to start the SOS call. More here. The change may be an attempt to address issues over mistakenly triggered calls.
Seems like Apple pushed Flickr to update its SafeSearch filtering. The company said it updated the feature so it won’t return results for “bad words” when it’s enabled in order “to act in compliance with Apple’s policies.”
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that iOS 17 is going to be a smaller release with fewer changes as Apple focuses on its mixed-reality headset.
Apple Maps now lets businesses update their listings and tout promotions via a new Apple Business Connect portal. No plans yet for any sort of Maps ads offering, however.
In a year-end review, Apple announced it has now paid out a record $320 billion to app developers since 2008 — a number that reflects the revenue apps have generated, minus Apple’s commission. The company now has more than 900 million paid subscriptions across Apple services, with subscriptions on the App Store driving a “significant” part of that figure, it said.

Gaming

Google and Nvidia shared concerns with the FTC as to how Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal would give it an unfair advantage in cloud, subscription and mobile gaming.
JioGames, part of Reliance Industries’ telecom platform Jio, announced a 10-year strategic partnership with France’s Gamestream.The latter will assist JioGames in bringing cloud gaming to “1.4 billion” Indians by helping scale the JioGamesCloud platform. JioGames’ titles can be played on Android, web (PC, Mac and iPhone), and Jio’s set-top boxes.
Roblox could be coming to a new platform: Meta Quest. Sources told The Verge that Roblox will be expanding its VR footprint — it already works on Rift and HTC’s Vive — by releasing to Meta’s Quest, which doesn’t require a PC to play.
Stardew Valley’s big update,patch 1.5, finally reached iOS and Android users. The update, which arrived on consoles in 2021, includes a number of new features and changes, including a new beach farm layout, new NPCs and enemies, ostriches (!!) and a new location called Ginger Island.

Twitter Drama

Twitter’s API began experiencing issues that are impacting third-party Twitter apps like Tweetbot, Echofon and Twitterrific. The app makers confirmed the problems have been causing log-in issues for users and their apps no longer work.
Online publishing platformMedium, originally created by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams,announced that it’s embracing the open source Mastodon platform by creating its own instance to support its authors and their publications. Access to the instance will be offered through a Medium membership, which means in a way, it’s the first paid instance to come to Mastodon.
Twitter’s Blue subscription,which is the new way to be verified and get your checkmark — degrading the value of checks in the process! — rolled out to Japan. Users can subscribe for ¥980 (around $7.40) per month on the web and ¥1,380 ($10.42) per month on iOS, a bit lower than U.S. prices of $8 per month on the web and $11 per month on iOS.
Twitter made the algorithmic timeline the default and renamed it the “For You” feed.(Eye roll). You can now swipe between the For You feed and a chronological timeline, as well as lists.

Entertainment

TikTok is alpha testing a Talent Manager Portal with select talent agencies. The service would allow creators’ agents and reps to oversee, execute and analyze brand deals their clients are being offered.
Apple Music and the Apple TV apps quietly launched on the Microsoft Store— a few months after Microsoft said the apps would be coming to Windows 11.
YouTube will begin sharing ad revenue with Shorts creators on February 1, and will update its YPP terms to reflect this. (Take that, TikTok!)

Etc.

Failed discount movie tickets service MoviePass is trying for a comeback with funding from crypto backers, Animoca Brands.
Google added emoji reactions to Meet video calls, starting on iOS and web, with Android to follow. The feature was announced last year.
Not so super. Tata Group’s super app Tata Neu is expected to meet only half its sales target in its first year — $4 billion versus an $8 billion target. The app had been modeled on successful apps like Alipay and WeChat.
Tinder and other Match dating apps will introduce tips on how to avoid romance scams. Someone watched “The Tinder Swindler,” apparently!

Government & Policy

TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, met with senior European Union lawmakers to answer a number of questions including privacy, data protection, DSA compliance, child safety, Russian disinformation and the transparency of paid political content. The inquiry follows what’s expected to be increased regulatory scrutiny of the app, including possible oversight by the European Commission.
After being fined $400 million by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission over how Instagram handled minors’ accounts and data, Meta announced it would remove the ability for advertisers to target teen users by gender. The company will also end personalized ad targeting to users under 18 based on in-app activity, like who they follow on Instagram and what Facebook pages they like.
New Jersey and Ohio have now joined 20 other U.S. states in banning TikTok on government-owned devices over security concerns.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to block a lawsuit filed by WhatsApp that challenged the alleged mass phone hacking by Israeli spyware maker NSO Group.The spyware maker had argued the suit should be dropped because it was acting on behalf of a foreign government, but the Supreme Court rejected this claim.

Funding

A Twitter rival called ‘T2’ raised its first outside funding, with $1.1 million from a group of high-profile angels including Bradley Horowitz, Rich Miner and the former CEO of Wikipedia, Katherine Maher. T2 founder Gabor Cselle has sold startups to Twitter and Google previously.
Payments technology platform Butter Payments raised $21.5 million in Series A funding led by Norwest at a ~$100 million valuation. The company leverages AI to help end accidental churn.
Kakao Entertainment, which publishes apps for popular animated shows and novels, raised $930 million from Saudi Arabia’s PIF and Singapore’s GIC.
A company developing a cognitive behavioral therapy platform for ADHD, Inflow, raised $11 million in Series A funding. Inflow’s self-help app offers daily exercises and challenges focused on habit development, mindfulness techniques, community support and more.
Social crypto wallet app The Easy Company raised $14.2 million in seed funding. The iOS and Android app offers an Instagram-like experience for showcasing NFTs.

Layoffs

Tokyo-based news aggregator SmartNews laid off 120 people in the U.S. and China, with plans to implement a voluntary workforce reduction in Japan.
Fintech for kids Greenlight, which lets kids use a debit card and app with parental monitoring, laid off 104 employees — or more than 21% of its total headcount of 485 employees.
Crime-reporting app Citizen laid off 33 employees, including at least 10 engineers. The app uses public police blotters to notify users about verified incidents in their area, but also allows users in select markets to upload their own reports and livestream.
Right-leaning Twitter alternative Parler’s parent company laid off 75% of staff and chief execs, leaving Parler with just 20 employees. Kanye, as many expected, didn’t actually buy it.

This Week in Apps: ChatGPT app scammers, Instagram revamp and a consumer spending slowdown by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

W

elcome to the TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here.

Are VCs really sitting on record amounts of cash waiting to be deployed into new startups? I wish. But if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. — Anna

Record levels, but…

A recent guest post on TechCrunch+ wondered whether “record levels of dry powder [will] trigger a delayed explosion of startup investment.” The question relied on a postulate: That venture capitalists have raised plenty of funding that remains to be deployed.

The idea that dry powder has reached record levels is commonly shared, and it is backed by data.

The mirage of dry powder by Anna Heim originally published on TechCrunch

Venture capitalists may control capital, but one currency that they’re always in search of is an elusive, evolving one: deal flow. Betting early on the next big startup is enough to cement the entire return of a fund (and then some) — and help that plucky investor make a name for themselves.

This reality makes Afore Capital’s latest product launch appear all the more benevolent. The venture firm, which just closed a $150 million fund in May 2022, is launching what it describes as a common application for pre-seed startup founders. Similar to the well-known undergraduate college admission application, a startup Common App would allow founders to seamlessly pitch multiple investors using the same basic form and pitch deck — all at once.

Here’s how it works: Afore Capital has an accelerator-like program, Afore Alpha, that offers a standard pre-seed deal to founders. The application includes questions about the founding team, pitch deck, recent wins, inspiration and, interestingly, whether the startup has applied to or interviewed at Y Combinator for the firm’s internal benchmarking process.

Those accepted land a $1 million lead investment via a $10 million post-money SAFE, a deal that Afore notes is five times more capital and five times the valuation that accelerators like YC and Techstars offer.

Now, the same founding teams that apply to Afore’s program will automatically have their application blasted to 30-some investors in the venture firm’s network. The cohort, which Afore dubs as pre-seed experts, includes Trail Run Capital’s Allison Barr Allen, The New Normal Fund’s Allison Pickens, Night Ventures’ Em Herrera and Cambrian Ventures’ Rex Salisbury.

Is it time for a Common App for startup founders? by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch