Happy Friday! For those of you excited to see us in your inbox for your daily dose of tech news, unfortunately, you will have to wait until Tuesday to hear from us again because Monday is Labor Day in the U.S. We will be out grilling, wearing white for the last time this year and snoozing in hammocks. We wish you a safe and enjoyable weekend wherever you are.  — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• No chips for you: Nvidia is caught up in the new sanctions the U.S. is imposing on China. Rita reports the company said it will not be able to export two of its AI chips to China, its second-largest market. That will likely cost Nvidia some $400 million in lost sales for this third quarter and interrupt some production that happens in China.
• Just got paid: Google is expanding its alternative payment systems, like third-party, for in-app purchases to more countries, Ivan writes. This includes some of Android’s largest markets, including India and Indonesia.
• More cuts: Tage wrote about Nigerian digital bank Kuda, which is the latest African startup to lay off some employees. He notes that Kuda’s 5% reduction affected about two dozen people as the company decided to remove redundant positions and low-performing staff in efforts to cut costs.

Startups and VC

“A red-headed woman stands on the moon, her face obscured. Her naked body looks like it belongs on a poster you’d find on a hormonal teenager’s bedroom wall — that is, until you reach her torso, where three arms spit out of her shoulders,” Kyle and Amanda write in a story that has more twists and turns than a mountain pass.  AI is getting better at generating porn. We might not be prepared for the consequences, they ponder.

The rest of our top stories have less nudity, but also less arms growing where they shouldn’t. We’ll call it a draw, shall we:

• This just doesn’t make cents: This Gen Z founder is pitching hundreds of investors…via Venmo writes Haje.
• BRB, we’re huffing fixing fluid: Later Cam brings the nostalgia of analog photography to your smartphone, without the health hazards, Ivan reports.
• The highs and lows of cybersecurity: Anna and Alex take a closer look at cybersecurity investment during the venture downturn.
• Some LPs are getting shy: It seems as if a small number of institutional LPs have started pulling back from VC, reports Becca. She reports most of them are still going strong, though.
• Hard tech is hard, but brings a special suite of opportunities: Cantos launches its third fund, ploughing $50 million into near-frontier startups, writes Haje.

Stop sensationalizing the 'collapse' of VC: Look at the data

For founders who are looking to raise, this is a terrible time: It’s taking much longer than it used to, and valuations are so much lower than just a few months ago.

For investors, however, things are settling back to earth, says Brian Walsh of WIND Ventures.

“The reality is that there was an unprecedented hype cycle in 2021, and what we have seen since the beginning of 2022, objectively, is a ‘reversion to the mean’ in line with long-term trends.”

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

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Big Tech Inc.

To start your weekend off right, Zack has the 411 on a data breach over at Samsung, which apparently is the second such incident this year. The company told Zack the breach happened in late July and that customer data was compromised in early August, though would not get specific on how many customers were affected or why customers are now just being told.

• Going north: Tesla is looking for a few good recruiters in Quebec, which Jaclyn writes is a signal that the electric car maker is planning to increase its footprint in Canada.
• Full steam ahead: Cybersecurity giants NortonLifeLock and Avast were given the green light by the U.K.’s antitrust entity to move forward with an $8.1 billion merger, Paul reports.
• Get off my lawn: Sarah reports that Facebook is moving away from local content and confirms it is shutting down its Neighborhoods app, dubbed a “Nextdoor clone,” in the U.S. and Canada.
• Content moderation: Sarah paired up with Taylor to talk about Google’s decision to block Truth Social, aka former president Trump’s social media app, from the Play Store. Will Apple be next?
• Procrastinate in style: School is back in session, just in time for Switch to unveil some new games. Don’t worry, Devin has all you need to know. Now get back to work.

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