| |
| Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for August 11, 2021. If you are a Twitter user, today has proven to be a divisive day, thanks to some design changes. We also have hardware news, mobility news, a few very neat funding rounds and even some startup media news. Itâs a great day for a roundup. Also, if you are in the United States, you may have noticed a missive from FEMA today. FEMA is the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, and it just ran a test of its emergency alert system, or EAS. Given that the world appears to be constantly on fire, sick or underwater, itâs a good time for such an endeavor. Before we go on, Disrupt is hosting some of the most interesting founders in health tech, and weâll have some pretty darn cool breakout sessions to boot. Disrupt is going to rock. — Alex |
| | Image Credits: Getty Images |
|
|
The TechCrunch Top 3 Twitterâs redesign turns heads: That Twitter is in the midst of something akin to a product renaissance is well known, with the social media provider working on a host of projects at once. Hell, Twitter is even working on TweetDeck. Today, however, Twitter stirred the pot with a web and mobile redesign that included a new font. Quelle horreurâ¯! No, but really, people are mad. Hereâs everything that Samsung announced today: As expected, Samsung held a hardware event today. What did the hardware giant show off? The Galaxy Watch 4, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 (the folding smartphone affair), the Galaxy Z Flip 2 (a smaller folding smartphone) and new headphones. If you are not into the iOS ecosystem, this is for you. Chinaâs regulatory shakeup not harming venture investment. Yet. After the Chinese government started a wide-ranging crackdown on a host of domestic industries that it either found too powerful, too unregulated or too monopolistic, what impact the changes would have on startups and venture capital have been open questions. Early Q3 data indicates that things havenât changed too much, yet. But with SoftBank potentially pausing Chinese deals, larger startup investment could suffer. |
|
|
|
| |
Startups/VC Before we get into our usual digest of the latest and greatest funding rounds from the worlds of venture capital and high-growth startups, two product-related notes. First, Airtable just bought something! Yes, Airtable, the roughly $5.8 billion spreadsheet of the future is making deals. Well, one. The company bought Bayes, what TechCrunch called an âearly-stage visualization startupâ that also features a no-code focus. If you love Airtable, this could be good news. Second, Medium is shaking up its business model yet again. Again. Yes, one more time. This time, the company is changing its partner program. Now writers on Medium can drive their own subscriptions, snagging half the long-term revenue net of fees. This feels a little Substack-y, but not in a bad way. Despite Mediumâs inability to decide what it is, I remain modestly hopeful for the company thanks to my profession of getting paid to make words appear on the internet. Now, some funding rounds for your enjoyment! $40M for construction-focused computer vision:Â Thatâs the headline from Doxelâs latest round, led by Insight Partners. The Series B brings the companyâs total raised capital to just over $56 million. Doxel uses computer vision to track the progress of construction sites. Itâs a neat model, and, per the company, it still has its full Series A in the bank thanks to âgrowth and bookings tractionâ of sufficient size that it has been âcash flow neutralâ since its last raise. Why would Doxel raise if it didnât need money? Because it could pad its accounts at a new, higher price implying minimal dilution. And you always want to raise when you donât need to. Itâs far cheaper than waiting for a cash crunch. Cart.com raises $98 million:Â Does the name Cart.com sound familiar? It might. Why? Because the Houston-based e-commerce tooling company has now raised three times this year. So you may recall it from the other two times it put capital onto its balance sheet in 2021. The company has now raised $143 million in total. Everstage raises $1.7M for sales commissions software:Â The old startup adage of build software to replace manual spreadsheet processes is alive and well, it turns out. Everstage wants to take sales commissions, today âcalculated on spreadsheets by finance teamsâ that provide limited visibility to salespeople, and turn them into highly limpid software. Salespeople will dig this, given how complex commissions can be and how critical they are to sales comp totals. Finally, Pave raises $16M to help companies âbenchmark, plan and communicate compensation to their employees.â Akin to how sales commissions can be Gordian in their heft, employee comp is a knotty issue. Pave wants to provide more data to companies so that they can make better — and, we hope, more equitable — compensation decisions and generally improve employee lives. We dig this. |
|
|
|
| Although older adults are one of the fastest-growing demographics, they’re quite underserved when it comes to consumer tech. The global population of people older than 65 will reach 1.5 billion by 2050, and members of this cohort â who are leading longer, active lives â have money to spend. Still, most startups persist in releasing products aimed at serving younger users, says Lawrence Kosick, co-founder of GetSetUp, an edtech company that targets 50+ learners. “If you can provide a valuable, scalable service for the older adult market, thereâs a lot of opportunity to drive growth through partnerships.” (Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.) Read More |
| | Image Credits: Cavan Images / Getty Images |
|
|
| |
| TechCrunch wants you to recommend growth marketers who have expertise in SEO, social, content writing and more! If youâre a growth marketer, pass this survey along to your clients; weâd like to hear about why they loved working with you. If you’re curious about how these surveys are shaping our coverage, check out this interview Eric Eldon did with Julian Shapiro, âThe art of startup storytelling with Julian Shapiro.â Read More |
| | Image Credits: Sean Gladwell / Getty Images |
|
|
| |
Newest Jobs from Crunchboard | | |
|
|
| |
| |
