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Uolo, an Indian edtech platform that works with private K-12 schools to offer online learning programs to middle and low-income families, has raised $22.5 million in a funding round led by UAE-headquartered VC fund Winter Capital.

The vast majority of edtech startups operate in a business-to-consumer model and spend on ads to reach the parents and guardians of the students.

Uolo says it is reducing that cost by operating in a business-to-business-to-consumer model, working with private schools to let them offer online learning programs to their students and levy the charges as part of the school fees. The startup’s programs are also designed in tandem with the curricula of the partnered schools, making it easier for students to double down on learning the same lessons.

The Gurugram-based startup develops and provides tailor-made learning programs in coding and English speaking. Students can access these programs on their parents’ smartphones.

“We take edtech to the masses of India. And when we do that, the idea is that you make it cheap enough, affordable enough for people to be able to take it for their children,” said Pallav Pandey, chief executive of Uolo, in an interview with TechCrunch.

He said that the startup is able to provide its offerings to students at much more affordable prices.

Schools tying up with Uolo get an ERP platform called the Uolo School Platform for free. It works as a unified platform where schools can access fee management, report card management and attendance management on a single dashboard.

The ERP platform functions as an entry gate for Uolo as it allows the startup to create an ecosystem once schools start using it. This encourages parents or guardians to use the app to receive communications directly from schools — instead of using typical communication channels such as WhatsApp groups.

“What we have been able to do is get schools and students on one end of the platform, so now we need to get digital learning to flow through us,” Pandey said.

Founded in September 2020 by Pandey and his brother Ankur, Uolo has partnered with more than 8,500 schools across India and currently reaches 3.7 million students.

The $22.5 million funding has come through an equity-debt mix Series A round, seeing participation from Uolo’s existing investors Blume Ventures and new Dubai-based fund Morphosis Venture Capital — alongside Winter Capital. Although exact details of the equity and debt percentage involved were not disclosed, Pandey told TechCrunch that the debt element was in the form of optionally convertible debentures that would convert into equity over time.

The startup, which employs about 350 individuals,plans to utilize the investment to widen its reach to 50,000 schools across India over the next four years and expand its learning programs with courses across STEAM subjects in the coming months. For the latter part, it is looking to partner with education companies as well as people and entities developing high-quality content.

“The first wave of edtech companies in India have proven consumer interest in online education. However, they lacked a cost-effective distribution. We believe that there will be a new generation of edtech companies capable of building organic, low-cost distribution, allowing students to study at $10 per year rather than $10 per hour. Our investment in Uolo is based on our confidence in this type of company,” said Anton Farlenkov, Managing Director of Winter Capital, in a prepared statement.

India’s Uolo raises $22.5M to bring edtech to the masses by Jagmeet Singh originally published on TechCrunch

There’s an ever-growing list of wearables that track people’s health, but what about a vehicle that monitors one’s blood pressure and heart rate with smart sensors and algorithms? That’s the vision of BeyonCa, a young super-premium electric vehicle startup founded by Weiming Soh, the Singaporean auto veteran who’s the current CEO of Renault China and helped bring Mercedes-Benz to China back in the 1990s.

The idea of tracking one’s health conditions inside a car perhaps sounds less wild if one considers how much time they spend driving. “Take Americans for example. They spend 70 billion hours a year driving cars, which makes 1 hour per day. That’s an enormous amount of time people spend in a car because of the spacious environment,” Shaoshan Liu, BeyonCa’s chief scientist and autonomous driving lead, who also founded the self-driving startup PerceptIn, said in an interview.

“We think it’s the best time to deliver this kind of [healthcare] services in the car,” he added. Still, I can’t help but question how many people want their luxury car to play the role of a family doctor.

But maybe there’s a market for BeyonCa’s targeted demographic of health-conscious, affluent consumers. While the startup won’t disclose its price range until its first model is ready to ship in a few years, Soh puts the company’s product in the same category as the Mercedes Benz S Class and BMW 7 Series, which generally have a starting price of around $100,000.

The startup finished its Series pre-A funding round in Q3 this year from investors including Dongfeng Motor, a Chinese state-owned automaker. When seeking investment, the firm was “at the same time open to both financial and investment partners that would provide more support,” said Soh.

EV as a service platform

Soh’s ambitions for smart vehicles extend beyond merely having AI voice assistants and autonomous driving capabilities. Software is “an important tool” for vehicles, but what eventually differentiates BeyonCa will be its “services”, said the founder.

Liu elaborated on the vision, explaining that the industry is entering the “third” stage of EV development.

“The first stage is electrification, such that you convert the car to be powered by electricity. Tesla is a pioneer in that. Then we enter the second stage of intelligence. Again Tesla is a pioneer, and then Chinese firms are catching up. Now we are entering the third stage, which I think is called the ecosystem, in which we provide different vertical services, very deep services. Health is one of these services.”

The chief scientist further compared the future of vehicles to smartphones today, arguing that smart cars will be able to offer a lot more than driving in the same way smartphones can now accomplish much more than their original purpose for calling.

BeyonCa’s super premium cars, which will be equipped with medical-grade sensors and radars, will detect the health conditions of the driver and passengers at all times using BeyonCa’s proprietary AI model. If the algorithms determine that the driver can no longer control the vehicle, smart driving will kick in. The well of data gleaned by the vehicle will then go to a team of in-house medical experts, who will be available through video calls and be able to refer physicians for further treatment if necessary.

Timeline

BeyonCa is unveiling the design of its first production car next spring while mass production is expected to take place in 2024. Unlike the “traditional” carmakers, “as a startup, we need to introduce the car to the market much earlier. We need to keep the market excited,” Soh said.

The firm plans to ship in both its home market China — one of the world’s largest premium auto markets — and abroad. It intends to have two factories. “We are a super premium car company, so we will most likely just have two factories in the world — one in China, and one outside. It can be in the Middle East, Europe, or Southeast Asia,” said Soh.

Soh is building BeyonCa against economic headwinds brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has significantly dampened the confidence of consumers and investors around the world. But he isn’t too worried, saying that when the economy is doing well, the startup can hasten development, but in times of an economic downturn, the company will simply need to “pace” itself.

Renault China boss is making super-premium EVs that monitor your health by Rita Liao originally published on TechCrunch

According to Atomico’s new State of European Tech 2022 report, France has taken the UK’s title as the third largest listed tech nation, with Britain moving down to fourth. Nothing to do with Brexit, of course… Meanwhile, Sista, the Paris-based organisation which campaigns for more finds for female founders recently closed €30m of an intended €100m fund to power its aims. It would appear France is definitely on the rise in startup and VC terms.

Further evidence of this thesis has emerged this week with the news that France-based IRIS Capital has reach the €110m first close for its new €150m venture fund (IRIS Venture IV), and is planning to hold a second close in 3Q 2023.

The new fund will be Seed and Series A investment focused, looking at France, Germany and across Europe. This is the fourth early-stage fund raised by IRIS. The fund will invest in Seed and Series A rounds, from €1m to €8m.

LPs include French conglomerates such as Orange, Publicis and Bpifrance, as well as newcomers including Fred Potter, founder of Netatmo, Yannis Yahiaoui, cofounder of Adot, Amirhossein Malekzadeh, cofounder of Logmatic, Grégoire Delpit, cofounder of ProcessOut, Patrick Asdaghi, founder of FoodCheri or Adrien Nussenbaum, cofounder of Mirakl.

Commenting, Julien-David Nitlech, Managing Partners at IRIS, said in a statement: “With this new Seed and Early-stage fund we intend to pursue our successful journey of selecting, backing, and scaling differentiated tech platforms developed by out of the ordinary founders who know their market well. To do so, we have structured a new team of investors bearing our selective DNA and methods.”

To date IRIS has invested in companies such as Shift Technology (insurtech), Talend (software), Kyriba (fintech), Lumapps (HR), Jedox (software), industry 4.0 and logistics experts such Exotec (logistics), Braincube (manufacturing software), Forto (freight management), Spinergie (offshore), platforms such as Virtuo (mobility), Yubo (social) and data specialists like Talon.one (marketing), Red Points (brand protection) or Scality (cloud). Newer investments include Spinergie in France, Helu in Austria and 2 more to be announced early next year.

France’s IRIS Capital reaches €110M first close for its new €150M venture fund by Mike Butcher originally published on TechCrunch

OpenAI’s ChatGPT bot is the hot new sensation in the tech town, garnering over a million users just days after the launch. The chatbot is delivering answers to a wide-range of questions, impressing many with its ability and speed while also sometimes leaving people amused and baffled with its take. You’ve likely seen scores of such screenshots on your Twitter timeline, and may have also captured and shared some answers and gotten in on the fun yourself. Now two developers — Steven Tey and Dom Eccelston — have made a Chrome extension called ShareGPT to make it easier to capture and share the AI’s answers with the world.

ShareGPT captures the full conversation with ChatGPT and generates a URL to share it with others. So instead of taking multiple screenshots of the conversation with the AI chatbot, you can directly share the URL (like this one).

Once you have installed the Chrome extension, head to the ChatGPT website and kickstart the conversation with the bot. After you have received the answer, you will see a Share button at the bottom. You can continue the chat or click on the Share button to generate a URL for the specific conversation.

The neat thing is that when you share the URL on Twitter, you will see a preview of the conversation with ChatGPT, so the visual element is not lost and people don’t necessarily need to head to the website to read short conversations.

ChatGPT, currently in research preview, is free to use. And while it has linguistic and factual limitations, it’s still a fun tool to use. It’s one of those tools that lets anyone try out AI’s prowess (or weaknesses) without having a lot of technical know-how.

ShareGPT lets you easily share your ChatGPT conversations by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

India just started rolling out 5G networks after much anticipation and years-long delay. Service operators expect to bring next-generation cellular connectivity to every town in the world’s second-largest wireless market by as early as the end of 2023. But while the rollout is currently at its initial phase, New Delhi last week directed telecom operators to not set up 5G infrastructure around areas close to airports to avoid interference with flight operations.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT), the government body that handles telecom operations in the South Asian nation, in its recent order to telecom operators Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, directed them to restrict their infrastructure enabling C-Band 5G networks (between 3.3-3.67GHz) from over 1.3 miles (2.1 kilometers) away from runway endpoints at all airports in the country. It also ordered all three operators to limit the power emission of their equipment installed after the given range.

The restrictions were enforced in response to concerns raised by the Indian Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). In September, the aviation department suspected that 5G networks operating on the C-Band spectrum would interfere with flight altimeters — the instrument that helps pilots maintain the required altitude during flight.

The airline industry in the U.S. raised similar concerns in January when AT&T and Verizon activated their C-Band 5G networks. In June, the Federal Aviation Administration said that stakeholders in aviation and wireless industries identified steps to protect commercial flights from disruption by 5G interference and permitted AT&T and Verizon to continue to enhance their service at certain airports with the least risk of disrupting flight schedules.

Shortly after the network disruption concerns arose in the U.S., the Indian telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in February assured the industry that the South Asian country would not face any such issues.

“In the U.S., especially in older airplanes, the altimeter frequency is close to the one being used to render 5G services,” he said in a press conference, adding that the frequency used by flight altimeters in India was far away from the frequencies designated for 5G services.

P D Vaghela, chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, made a similar statement in an interview with the English daily Times of India in January.

“India will have no problems. Prima facie, there are no problems for the aviation industry within India over 5G spectrum rollout,” he had said.

C-Band frequencies — a part of the mid-band spectrum — range between 4-8GHz. Telecom operators in the U.S. have the C-Band comprising a 3.7-3.98GHz frequency range, which is possible to intercept the altimeter range between 4.2-4.4GHz in some cases. However, the Indian government auctioned the mid-band spectrum in the 3.3-3.6GHz range.

Peeyush Vaish, a partner and telecom sector leader at Deloitte, said that Indian operators have a distinct separation of 530MHz from the international altimeter band. There has been no reported interference between 5G and aircraft frequencies in Europe, South Korea and Japan — all of which have launched 5G services based on 5G bands similar to those assigned in India, he said.

Nonetheless, due to the direction from the telecom department, telcos in the country are evaluating a series of steps, multiple sources aware of the development told TechCrunch.

Airtel so far deployed its infrastructure to enable 5G connectivity at four airports in the country, while Jio also planned to make a similar move in the coming days.

Due to the restrictions, Airtel and Jio need to re-evaluate their plans. The former also needs to switch off its radios for the time being.

The DoT director general and the independent body for Indian telcos, the Cellular Operators Association of India, did not respond to requests for comment.

Experts believe that consumers in the proximity of airports are not likely to get 5G on their compatible devices.

The directive indicates that a user in Aerocity in New Delhi or one in Mumbai’s Santacruz may not get 5G for now, a source working at a telecom operator who requested not to be named told TechCrunch. The impact would, however, be less in cities including Bengaluru, where airports are miles away from local residencies, they said.

Vaish of Deloitte stated that while the current network infrastructure is not likely to be affected due to the restrictions, new tower construction near urban airports might be delayed for the time being.

Even though the directions are limited to the specific C-Band network frequencies, the impact seems significant as telcos consider the particular band for widespread 5G connectivity across various devices.

Amitoj Arya, a partner at EY, said that since the interference issue does not impact all airlines and is limited to a specific type of aircrafts, 5G can be rolled out in a phased manner while retrofitting affected aircrafts with interference-resistant altimeters. He also suggested that telcos could be directed to run 5G services around airports with reduced power levels and technology interventions on 5G antennas.

“5G has the potential to alleviate several of airports’ and airlines’ pain points, such as aircraft data analytics and predictive maintenance, autonomous apron operations, automated baggage handling, AI-based passenger monitoring and screening, etc. Hence, it is critical to identify ways to allow 5G technology near the airports while not compromising the safety and security of the passengers,” he said.

The DGCA is exploring the replacement of aircraft radio altimeter filters to overcome the roadblock for telcos. However, it would take months for all flights to get the upgraded systems.

India’s nationwide 5G rollout plan could hit turbulence due to aircraft interference concerns by Jagmeet Singh originally published on TechCrunch

Startups across Europe are on track to raise $85 billion in funding this year — a drop of $15 billion on 2021 levels when funding passed $100 billion, according to a report on the state of European tech. The figures come from London VC firm Atomico’s annual State of European Tech report, which has become a bellwether for the industry, and they underscore the pressure bearing down on the tech industry as the region grapples with an ongoing war in Ukraine, a sagging economy, and a population wobbling to get back on its feet and productive again after two years of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The report — which encompasses a survey of VCs and founders, as well as research from third party firms like Dealroom — also notes that tech layoffs in the region will shape up to be about 14,000 for the year, a giant figure, but still only a 7% of the total number of layoffs globally, which number about 200,000, it said.

The total raised figure also is not entirely a grim message when put into context. Atomico noted that funding for the year was actually on track to exceed 2021 levels until the middle of year, when activity dropped off a cliff — not a great sign going into 2023. But 2021’s $100 billion raised was also an outlier year. Figures from 2020 were just $39 billion, a year when all kinds of activity grounded to a halt with the start of the pandemic.

Atomico’s other big conclusions confirm what many of us have been seeing play out. IPO markets, Atomico says, are totally shut down. There were just three this year, compared to a startling 86 the year prior, a drop of 30%.

And the number of “unicorns” being produced — that is, companies reaching a valuation of more than $1 billion — also dropped. There were 31 of these this year, versus 105 in 2021. But again, as with funding, this appears to be indicating last year was an outlier: 2020 had 25, and 2019 had 35 companies with $1 billion or higher valuations.

Similarly, it found that funding rounds themselves were came down in size as the year progressed. Again, as with overall funding, the first half of the year broke records, with 133 rounds of equity funding at $100 million or more (not including debt rounds or secondaries), which was more than 2019 and 2020 combined. It may have been however founders looking to make hay while the sun was still shining: by the second half of the year, that total dropped to a “mere” 37 rounds of that size. U.S. investors are also making less moves into the region: their participation was down by 22% on 2021.

Notably, it’s not just those on the growth end of the spectrum that are feeling the pinch: “82% of founder respondents to the survey believe it is now harder to raise venture capital than it was 12 months ago,” the report notes.

One silver lining of the trickle-down effect on tech — where the biggest companies (those that are publicly traded, or very mature and privately held) might be feeling the biggest pinch — is that early stage still is doing very well overall in Europe, relatively speaking. Younger startups in the region account for a whopping 51% of investment going into “purpose-driven” tech companies. (Note: these are startups that either are mixing science with tech, or bringing tech to bear to fix bigger issues in the world such as climate change — not the same as investment going into allearly-stage startups.)

And just as we have been charting a number of venture funds in the region raising in excess of $1 billion this year, Atomico connects the dots on this to note that there is indeed a lot of “dry powder” out there — funds ready to be invested when the right opportunities arise.

At the end of 2021 (the last full period available), InvestEurope estimated that there was some $84 billion of uninvested funds across Europe — coincidentally not far off from the total amount startups will have raised this year. That $84 billion includes both VC and Given the amount of fundraising collectively across the industry this year, and the subsequent drop-off in investing, especially in the latter half of this year, Atomico believes dry powder reserves could be even higher when all is tallied, although right now it appears to be half as much:

“The technology ecosystem as we know it is barely twenty years old and in that time we’ve matured at an incredible rate. Real success for the sector is about talent, innovation and long-term company building,” writes Tom Wehmeier, Atomico’s partner and head of insights, and co-author of the report. “The crucial pieces of this puzzle remain in place, with $44 billion in European venture capital funds ready to be invested in the right opportunities. In terms of the underlying strength of our ecosystem, far less has changed than we think.”

Atomico report: European startups on track to raise $85B this year, down from $100B+ in 2021 by Ingrid Lunden originally published on TechCrunch

Shein, the world’s largest fashion ecommerce site, has taken significant steps to ramp up its environmental, social, and governance — or ESG — efforts. But responsible fast fashion sounds like an oxymoron. How can clothes be so cheap, if their designers don’t copy luxury brands and if the factories behind aren’t squeezed out of their margins?

Nonetheless, Shein is trying to elevate its business practice to global standards by hiring a clutch of industry veterans. One of the major allegations against the fashion giant is labor exploitation, according to numerous reports including one saying workers are made to toil 75 hours a week. Earlier this week, the fashion ecommerce site said it had committed $15 million to improve the standards of 300 of its partnered factories over the next four years. The fund will focus on making physical enhancements to its suppliers’ factories.

That amounts to $50,000 per factory, which doesn’t seem like a lot. But put to good use, the money is doing to China’s clothing industry what Apple has brought to the country’s hardware manufacturing — improving worker conditions over the years in response to ongoing pressure from watchdogs in the West.

Shein’s relationship with its suppliers is love-hate. Instead of running its own factories, it relies on a large network of contract manufacturers in southern China. Thanks to its sheer sales volume — the platform is expected to generate $30 billion in GMV this year — Shein’s procurement orders are large and stable, making it a coveted client for factories.

The company also has a reputation for paying suppliers on time, which is important to manufacturers that live on healthy cash flow. Despite its notoriously thin margins and demanding production timeline, factories scramble to secure Shein orders and keep their people sewing for long hours to meet deadlines.

Shein knows investors around the world are increasingly focusing on ESG, so to prepare for a public listing down the road, it needs an ethical makeover.

As part of its responsible sourcing initiative, Shein promised that “all contracted manufacturing suppliers agree to comply with the Shein Code of Conduct, which is aligned to International Labour Organization core conventions, and local laws and regulations.”

Furthermore, Shein said it has set up a feedback system through which workers can “anonymously submit complaints, feedback and suggestions via email, phone or WeChat, to support the company’s efforts in monitoring and managing compliance to its Code of Conduct and upholding the labour rights of workers.”

These are encouraging signs, of course, but the question is how will Shein balance incredible affordability and fast product cycle with responsible manufacturing, which will likely raise its costs. Its effort to reduce its impact on the planet through a new recycling platform is already raising skepticism — how can the consumerist nature of fast fashion ever be compatible with sustainability?

Consumers claim to care about the environmental impact and the workers who make their garments, but Shein’s breakout success shows that at the end of the day, speed and price are the utmost determinants for many people’s consumption.

As its fashion empire booms, Shein wants an ESG makeover by Rita Liao originally published on TechCrunch

Indian venture firm Blume has raised over $250 million for a new fund, its fourth and largest, as it looks to get more aggressive in courting early-stage startups and go deeper into supporting its portfolio firms at a time when the deal flow activity in the South Asian market has taken a hit from the broader global reversal in the public markets.

The 12-year-old firm, which employs about three dozen people, said it originally sought to raise $200 million but broadened its goals following in-bound requests. Some of India’s finest family offices, global family offices, sovereign wealth funds of India and overseas and emerging market funds of funds have backed the new fund, it said without disclosing any specific names. (VCs rarely disclose the names of their LPs.)

Blume Ventures – which manages over $600 million in assets under management– will deploy the larger fund to back about 35 startups, up from 25 in the previous fund.

The broader focus is to write larger checks and participate in multiple rounds of portfolio firms, Karthik Reddy, founder and general partner of Blume Ventures, told TechCrunch in an interview. It’s something that the firm couldn’t afford to do because of its size, he said. “The founders now know that we can support them for longer. We didn’t have the firepower before, but we do now.”

The fund will also look to back select pricier startups, usually those from second- or third-time founders, he said. “Now I have the money power to do such deals, go 50-50 with somebody. We could have never done it before. We neither had the courage nor the risk-modelling,” he said.

The Indian fund, whose partners are widely respected and considered among the most founder-friendly in the ecosystem, has grown in stature in the past half decade as many of its earlier picks gained broader adoption and raised larger follow on rounds. Its portfolio includes Unacademy, Slice, Spinny, Dunzo, Classplus, Servify, Exotel, Lambdatest, Smallcase, Euler and Pixxel.

As the global public markets jumped last year, thanks to low interest rates and infusion of stimulus checks into the system, Indian startups were beneficiary of the euphoria, raising a record $39 billion in the year. Tiger Global, SoftBank and Alpha Wave Global aggressively wrote checks and minted dozens of unicorns in the country.

But as the markets reverse much of the gains from the 13-year bull run, deal activity has just as dramatically slowed in the country. In a remarkable exchange, Flipkart chief executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy warned the ecosystem last month that the so-called funding winter is likely to continue for another 12 to 18 months and the industry may have to grapple with a “lot of turmoil and volatility.”

Reddy, slightly uncomfortable talking about larger funds, said many of the firms that aggressively deployed capital in the country are arguably not venture players.

“It’s not venture capital, it’s classic growth investing. They can wake up one day and move all the allocation to public markets, move into PE assets, move into commodities. They can do whatever they want. Some of them tried venture. Some will stick around, others might retreat,” he said.

Despite the market slump, Reddy said Blume has written several checks in recent months and continues to see the quality improve in the teams and the problems new age startups are attempting to tackle. But he agreed that many startups that raised capital at unrealistic valuations last or early this year will have to either prove their worth with fast and sustainable growth or take a haircut in pricing in the following rounds.

“We are grateful to our anchor supporters and new believers who have emphatically backed Blume IV,” said Sanjay Nath, co-founder and general partner of Blume Ventures, in a statement.

“Whether building domestically or for global markets, the best founders and LPs would like to work with a Fund that can be considered world-class, which has spurred us to keep institutionalizing and bolstering our platform, team and capabilities. Thanks to an increasing reality of IPO and M&A exits, there is a resurgence of 2x founders and operators, as well as higher quality first-time founders. We’re excited for Blume to become the preferred seed partner of choice for both categories.”

As the Indian startup ecosystem grows and shows signs of maturing, another trend at play in the country has been the rise of homegrown funds and just how fast their own fund sizes have scaled in recent years. Chiratae Ventures, Arkham Ventures and 3One4 Capital have raised larger funds, sometimes going above the $300 million mark. (Blume itself has grown from $20 million in 2011, to $60 million in 2015, and $102 million in 2018.)

Reddy said homegrown firms in India, many of which are focused on specific sectors, raising larger capital shows that they have gained the underlying believes that they can go deeper into their sectors and have the mark-ups from existing portfolio startups to show signs of path to prosperity for LPs. Many firms have returned funds, he said.

India’s Blume Ventures more than doubles in size, raises over $250 million for new fund by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

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Why, hello there, and welcome to your Tuesday Daily Crunch. I’ll be your host this week while Haje works from an undisclosed location where day is night and night is day. If you aren’t enjoying today’s Found podcast about tampons, we hope you at least saw stars at the TC Sessions: Space event. Let’s dig into some news! — Christine

The TechCrunch Top 3

First AI, now soft porn: We’ve written recently about artificial intelligence and porn, but as everyone has run to the App Store to try out Lensa AI’s avatars, Haje finds out that, as he put it, “it’s way too easy to trick Lensa AI into making NSFW images.” Can’t say we didn’t see that coming. In fact, Taylor is over here raising red flags.
Robinhood is getting into retirement: Mary Ann reports that Robinhood is moving into the individual retirement account game, offering a 1% match on every dollar contributed — the company says this is an industry first. And it’s not going after the typical saver. Instead, it is targeting gig workers and contractors who often don’t have that ability outside of traditional workplaces.
Email is life: To some people, no access to email might be relaxing, but for those whose email was affected by the recent Rackspace outage, we hope Carly’s story sheds some light on what has been happening. It was indeed a ransomware attack.

Startups and VC

The venture market has been a tough one for many startups trying to get a better hold on their runway. So when a scrappy young company is able to raise in this environment, Alex’s ears perk up. He spoke to Cacheflow, which builds tools for the software sales closing process, about the $10 million raise that doubled its valuation.

And speaking of industries hit hard by the market, Ingrid reports on some good news for the beleaguered quick commerce sector, where Norwegian grocery delivery company Oda grabbed $151 million, but at a lower valuation of $353 million.

And we have five more for you:

Thrift shop: If you’re gonna pop some tags, Archive is helping your favorite brands create a new revenue stream in the world of secondhand stores. Christine has more.
Protecting that identity: Rezonate comes out of stealth with $8.7 million in new capital to launch its approach to cloud identity protection, Frederic writes.
Move over Minecraft: There’s a new cube in town. Flush with $3 million, Cubzh is a new free video game that Romain writes “is all about user-generated content through a cube system.”
Get paid: Paul reports that Homebrew creator Max Howell and Timothy Lewis have teamed up to create Tea, an open source protocol that helps developers authenticate their software packages and get paid to do it. Oh, and they have $8.9 million in new capital.
Pay the tax man: Making sure your company is doing payroll and taxes right is important. It’s also quite cumbersome, which is why Singapore-based corporate services super app Osome wants to do it for you. Catherine has more on the company and its $25 million Series B.

How companies can slash ballooning SaaS costs

A study conducted recently by purchasing management platform Vertice found that one out of every eight dollars spent by enterprises goes to SaaS products.

“It’s not surprising when you consider the average organization now uses around 110 SaaS solutions,” reports Kyle Wiggers. As a result, customers are spending 53% more on software licensing today than in 2017.

“Most organizations have grown their portfolio of software vendors dramatically over the past 10 years,” said Stephen White, senior director analyst at Gartner. “It’s not uncommon to have more than doubled that vendor portfolio.”

Four more from the TC+ team:

What’s on Marc Benioff’s mind?: Ron has another look at what’s going on at Salesforce after a few of its executives walked away.
Will we miss SPACs?: Probably. For some sectors, it was good until it wasn’t. Anna and Alex discuss how Circle’s and Footprint’s aborted debuts just might be “the final nail in the SPAC coffin.”
I’m not panicking, you’re panicking: Becca has a look at January Ventures’ recent survey of early-stage startups, and the findings suggest that not having a runway will not keep companies from thriving in 2023.
Ding, ding: Ron and Alex team up to talk about possible sales to private equity firms and why anyone would want to sell when prices are low.

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!

Big Tech Inc.

We are now looking at an age where human journalists just might become obsolete (probably not, but yikes anyway). Natasha L had a conversation with OpenAI’s ChatGPT about its functions and limitations. We won’t spoil it for you.

And we have five more for you:

You’ve got a message: Six months after monetizing its instant messaging app, Telegram Premium tops 1 million subscribers, Manish writes.
Deep dive: Devin writes about SpaceX’s commitment to being a defense contractor as it takes on work for the national security–focused Starshield.
Searching for our inner Googliness…: Just got a little easier. Google introduced some new features for its Search. First, Ivan has your look at “Continuous Scrolling” on desktop, while Aisha reports on new topic filters for better results.
Bite into this: Sarah, Amanda and Paul tackled some Apple news today, including the company’s first car, App Store pricing, interference with union organizing in Atlanta, a new karaoke-like feature called Apple Sing and some additions to the Self Service Repair for users in Europe.
Who needs privacy anyway?: Amanda saw some abnormalities with privacy settings on Twitter and set off to find out what’s going on.

Daily Crunch: Lensa AI can transform Photoshopped fakes into nonconsensual pornography by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

American Battery Factory’s big plan to build a bunch of, erm, American battery factories got a jolt Tuesday when Tucson, Arizona gave the company the go-ahead to locate its first plant near the city’s airport.

Over the course of a decade, ABF says it will pump around $1.2 billion into the facility, claiming it will be the “country’s largest gigafactory” for lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells when it’s completed, with a footprint of about 2 million square feet. ABF estimates it’ll eventually bring 1,000 additional jobs to the city.

The company says its batteries will be used for both commercial and home energy storage, as well as to power electric vehicles. Its plans come amid a crunch for battery materials as electric vehicles gain ground in the U.S. (Cars and SUVs currently make up 57% of transportation-related emissions in the country, according to the EPA.)

ABF is a spinoff of Lion Energy, an eight-year-old energy storage company based in American Fork, Utah. The company’s effort to launch a “network” of LFP factories in the U.S. is one among many to seek government funding via the Inflation Reduction Act. The law provides billions in tax credits to boost domestic production of batteries and electric vehicles, incentivizing firms like Toyota, Honda and Chinese battery producer Gotion to build in the United States.

ABF chief executive Paul Charles called the Inflation Reduction Act “a true game changer,” in a statement to TechCrunch, saying the law would initially translate “into about $100,000,000 a year in such tax credits for our first module or pod of manufacturing output.”

The firm added that it has inked strategic supply deals with Japanese chemical giant Asahi Kasei and synthetic graphite company Anovion.

American Battery Factory’s first ‘gigafactory’ inches toward reality by Harri Weber originally published on TechCrunch