Greetings! It’s Daily Crunch on Black Friday, and since we have time to sit back and relax, I thought I’d direct your attention to some fun things coming your way before we get to the news.

TechCrunch Sessions: Space is December 14-15. That is right around the corner, folks. In this virtual event, speakers from NASA, Astra, Rocket Lab and more will discuss manned space travel and colonization, communications, Earth observation data, manufacturing in space, and even war in space. Cool, huh? Get your tickets now.

Speaking of cool, our very own Brian Heater is mere days away from launching Actuator, a newsletter all about robotics. Be sure to sign up for his weekly takes on the industry, including investing and what founders are cooking up.

And if it’s founder stories you want, it’s founder stories we have on Found, our newest podcast hosted by Jordan Crook and Darrell Etherington. Each week, they interview founders about how they took the plunge to begin with, how they navigate everything from building product roadmaps to raising funding from some of the world’s top investors, and how they manage failure. Check out past episodes, subscribe on Apple Podcasts Spotify, or your podcast app of choice, and follow the show on Twitter.

And with that, I bring the intro to a close. A hopefully well-rested Alex will be back with you on Monday. Good weekends to you all! — Henry

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Italy fines Apple and Google for ‘aggressive’ data practices: Apple and Google have been fined €10 million apiece by Italy’s competition and market authority (AGCM) which has found they did not provide their users with clear enough information on commercial uses of their data — in violation of the country’s consumer code.
• Google agrees with UK’s CMA to deeper oversight of Privacy Sandbox: As part of an ongoing antitrust investigation into Google’s Privacy Sandbox by the UK’s competition regulator, the adtech giant has agreed to an expanded set of commitments related to oversight of its planned migration away from tracking cookies, the regulator announced today.
• IoT data collector Samsara’s IPO will be fun to watch: You may have heard of Samsara. Founded in 2015, it’s raised more than $900 million during its life as a private company, per Crunchbase data, including a simply massive $700 million round in 2020 that valued Samsara at $5.4 billion. Big bucks for a young company, yes, but does it have the results to back them up? (TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

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Startups/VC

• Jefa raises $2 million to offer digital accounts for women in LATAM: Fintech startup Jefa has raised a $2 million seed round to build a fintech startup offering digital accounts with a product specifically designed for women living in Latin America and the Caribbean. The company has managed to attract 115,000 women on its waitlist and participated in TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield last year.
• Flowrite is an AI writing productivity tool that wants to help you hit inbox zero: The quest for ‘Inbox zero’ — via lightning speed email composition — could be rather easier with this AI-powered sidekick. It turns a few instructions into a fully fledged, nice to read email. Where Grammarly helps improve a piece of (existing) writing, Flowrite helps you write the thing in the first place, so long as the thing is email or some other professional messaging type comms.
• Rensource-spinoff Sabi closes $6M bridge round, expands B2B retail platform outside Nigeria: Sabi caters to the needs of manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers and retailers and classifies all of them as merchants. The company operates an asset-light model and doesn’t own vehicles, warehouses or goods, but it provides visibility into these assets across the entire value chain from the demand and supply side and controls on a single platform.

Pitch decks and job titles

• Crafting a pitch deck that can’t be ignored: Thousands of pitch decks and only a handful of winners. Such is the math of the VC industry right now, what with an explosion of startups and dreams of glory launching every year. VCs are overwhelmed with pitches, which means that crafting the perfect deck and connecting with a reader in the few seconds you have their attention is critical.
• 5 critical pitch deck slides most founders get wrong: Even though a small group of founders has started exploring Notion memos to replace pitch decks, the reality is that most investors will still expect a good old slide presentation. Here are slides that we constantly see founders struggle to solve.
• Choose your job title before you name your startup: A whimsical origin story won’t matter if the business ends in lawsuits.

(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Gift Guide Goodness

It’s that time of year again when TechCrunchers let you know about their favorite things in areas that interest them: The 2021 TechCrunch Gift Guide. We’ve already got a few out in the wild, and stay tuned for more as the holiday season heats up:

• Black Friday tech deals that really are worth looking at
• Give the gift of cannabis with these 9 high-tech smoking devices
• The best tech gifts for plant geeks
• The smart home starter kit
• 11 gift ideas for the friend who is on way, way too many video calls
• 20+ STEM toy gift ideas for aspiring young builders
• 8 Great gifts for anyone working from home

• HCD Application Systems Programmer Analyst Trainee (C20025) at MD Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) (Lanham, MD, USA)
• Responsable De Produit at Bell Canada (Montreal, QC, Canada)
• Développeur principal, logiciel full stack at Bell Canada (Montreal, QC, Canada)
• Développeur logiciel, full stack at Bell Canada (Montreal, QC, Canada)
• Développeur, Logiciel Full Stack at Bell Canada (Québec, QC, Canada)

See more jobs on CrunchBoard

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