With Y Combinator Demo Day right around the corner, today’s top story might come as a surprise. We learned that YC booted one India-based startup over some “irregularities.” Find out what happened. Speaking of YC, are you an investor with a strong opinion about YC Demo Day? We want to hear from you: Take our short survey.

Meanwhile, Garena is relaunching the Free Fire mobile game in India. This comes after the popular mobile title was banned in the South Asian market over national security concerns nearly two years ago. See what’s new.

And we give you the scoop on how telehealth startup Babylon’s run ended in bankruptcy. This startup was once valued at nearly $2 billion.

More top reads

For the traveler who has everything: Anker introduces some clever new travel chargers. Time to pack.

Starfield review: Guns and ships and stars, oh my! Also a vacuum of wonder. Game on.

If you “like” it, you should probably own it: However, if you think people might judge you, X, formerly Twitter, is now letting paid users hide their likes. Smash that button.

As if you needed another reason to shop: In a surprise tie-up, Shopify merchants will be able to offer Amazon’s “Buy with Prime” option. Pop the champagne.

What did you say?: OpenAI-backed language learning app Speak raises $16 million to expand to the U.S. You heard right.

Network of networks: Meet Ivy, a company that just raised $20 million to take open-banking payments international. Bank on it.

Crypto could be making a comeback: Grayscale’s legal head says bitcoin spot ETF approval is a “matter of when, not if.” (TC+) Check out more in this week’s Chain Reaction.

More layoffs: Malwarebytes is splitting its business in two. Ahead of that, the company laid off 100 employees. Reportedly some higher-ups were involved.

Sometimes you have to split: Microsoft unbundled Teams from Microsoft Office in Europe to appease regulators. See who complained.

It got physical: Fitbit was targeted with a trio of data transfer complaints in Europe. Find out why.

Now we can truly be ourselves: AI-powered BeFake is a real app, not a BeReal parody, and it now has $3 million in funding. Finally an app that will just let us Be. Oh, and if you’re wondering how all that AI-generated data will affect startups, we looked into that. (TC+)

More for your Thursday:

Veterinary software company TeleVet rebrands as Otto amid $43M in fresh funding

iPhone camera app Obscura releases a new version with iPad support

Martian Lawyers Club raises $2.2M for AI-based game personalization tech

VanMoof makes a move: Lavoie acquires the e-bike startup out of bankruptcy for ‘tens of millions’ of euros

LogicMonitor customers hit by hackers, because of default passwords

From today’s “pod” files

For this week’s new episode of Chain Reaction, Jacquelyn interviewed Craig Salm, chief legal officer at Grayscale Investments. Grayscale is a digital asset investment firm that aims to provide products and services, like its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), to institutional and individual investors.

The company was founded in 2014 and is one of the world’s largest digital asset currency managers. It currently owns 3.4% of outstanding bitcoin, “worth tens of billions of dollars,” according to a recent legal filing.

The firm was making headlines this week after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Grayscale in a lawsuit against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the matter of a bitcoin ETF. This ruling is in response to the SEC denying Grayscale’s application to convert its GBTC product into a bitcoin spot ETF in June 2022.

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That 30-slide deck won’t cut it anymore

Despite the downturn, a recent report from DocSend shows a 16% year-over-year increase in the number of pitch decks founders are sharing with investors.

“Pre-seed founders have responded to the investor pullback by creating shorter decks,” says Justin Izzo, the company’s research lead. “They are rearranging the opening slides in ways I hadn’t seen before.”

The average length of a pitch deck has shrunk by nearly 16% over the last year, which “means you have to be very intentional about what to include,” writes Haje Jan Kamps.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription.

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