Proton releases end-to-end encrypted password manager for desktop and mobile

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TechCrunch Master Template TechCrunch Newsletter

Thursday, April 20, 2023

Hello, and Happy Thursday. Just one more day to go for the workweek. Haje is in Boston taking fabulous photos of the activities going on at TechCrunch Early Stage today, so Iâm holding down the fort. And Iâm also mourning my blue Twitter check mark, which left me today. Enough about that. Letâs get on with the news! â Christine

Image Credits: Chainarong Prasertthai / Getty Images

The TechCrunch Top 3

Passwords are hard to remember: The company behind the encrypted email service Proton Mail has now unveiled the Proton Pass password manager so you donât have to do any remembering. Romain has more. Donât worry, this is a Primo tool: Also by Romain, French startup Primo raised $3.4 million to continue developing an IT tool for companies that are too small for an IT manager. Blue skies, smiling at me: Bluesky, the Jack Dorseyâbacked Twitter alternative, is now available on Android, writes Sarah.

Startups and VC

Three former managing directors at Amex Ventures went out on their own to start Vesey Ventures, and now they have closed on their debut fund with $78 million in capital commitments to back early-stage fintech startups. Mary Ann has more on their journey.

Now over to CoreWeave, which landed a mega-round of $221 million in Series B investment, of which half came from lead investor Magnetar Capital. Kyle writes that this values the general-purpose cloud computing company at $2 billion pre-money.

Hereâs SIX more for you:

Game on: Rita peels back the layers of Bitkraft Venturesâ vision to invest in Asian gaming startups. A Robust view of robotics: Robust.AI raised $20 million to scale robot deliveries for pilot customers, reports Brian. From hospitality to fleet management: Two brothers in Senegal are putting their hospitality management skills to work helping trucking companies with their logistics. Their company, Chargel, has now raised $2.5 million in seed funding, Annie writes. Focus on mental health: Tage spoke with investors who say that if founder mental wellness is tied to innovation and success, then there needs to be a light shown on it, especially during this difficult capital crunch environment. Itâs like Barbieâs Jeep, but in human size: French microcar startup Kate raised another $7.6 million in its quest to produce more tiny electric vehicles, like its K1, reports Romain. We assure you, theyâre real: Singapore-based document verifier Accredify is now flush with $7 million to continue to tell you if your documents are real. Catherine has more.

4 problems venture capital canât solve

Fundraising is a key aspect of every founder’s journey, but Techstars managing director Collin Wallace says it can also hasten a company’s demise.

For example, raising funds to scale up sales and marketing efforts might sound great, but what if the business itself has negative unit economics?

“Most of the time, what stands between a company and its ability to achieve scale is not a lack of money,” says Wallace.

“Itâs better to ask: Do we have hustle problems? Product problems? Process problems? People problems? Is my business model fundamentally flawed?”

Two more from the TC+ team:

Ooey gooey pitch deck goodness: In the latest installment of Pitch Deck Teardown, Haje looks at the pitch deck that got Honeycomb a $50 million Series D. Threading the needle: Dominic-Madori spoke with Lisa Lambert, the head of National Gridâs CVC National Grid Partners, who discussed that âenvironmental and social concerns should be top of mind right now for any smart investor.âÂ

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

Image Credits: Oleksandr Shchus / Getty Images

Big Tech Inc.

SpaceX finally had liftoff of its Starship rocket, which went to orbit for the first time. Darrell writes that âall told, this should definitely be considered a success: SpaceX founder Elon Musk had said previously that there was essentially a significant chance Starship wouldnât even make it off the pad on this first try.â

Tricks are for kids, but in Discordâs case, tricks are for its new chatbot. Lorenzo reports that some users performed a trick called âjailbreakingâ on Discordâs Clyde chatbot, getting it to share napalm and meth instructions.

And now hereâs five more for you: