Social media goes down, fade to black

Good afternoon, and welcome to TechCrunch PM! Some of our favorite streaming and social media companies found themselves in a jam today. Meanwhile, Target is taking on Amazon Prime, there was a fire at Tesla’s Berlin factory and plenty of venture news.

— Christine

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TechCrunch PM Top 3

Social media and streaming outages: Meta had its hands full this morning when Facebook, Instagram and Threads went down for a few hours due to a “technical” glitch. The fun didn’t stop there, though. YouTube confirmed it went down, as did Discord for some users. Both issues seem to be resolved now.

Target wants to be a contender: Target already has its Circle customer loyalty program, but today, the retail giant is going a step further with a paid membership program, Target Circle 360. This takes aim at Amazon and Walmart and offers customers goodies like unlimited free same-day delivery for orders of a certain size, two-day free shipping and other perks.

AWS says it’s okay to leave: Amazon’s AWS is following Google’s lead in allowing customers to transfer their data out of its ecosystem without having to pay certain fees.

More top reads

Dodge flexes its muscle cars: We have not one, but two all-electric versions of the Dodge Charger. It even has a system that mimics the rumble of a Hemi V-8 engine. Purrrrrrr.

Google takes out the search junk: Google is taking on the SEO industry with a search quality update focused on improving the search quality ranking of websites. As such, the search giant will update its spam policies.

Coachella gets some NFTs: OpenSea and the Coachella music festival are partnering to create three NFT collections that offer VIP experiences. The first includes festival passes and access to a new lounge area.

Fire will cost Tesla $100 million in lost production: Officials suspect a fire at a Tesla factory outside of Berlin was the result of arson. Here’s our take, and here’s Reuters’.

Intellexa founder gets on the wrong side of the U.S. government: The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Tal Dilian, the founder of Intellexa, and Sara Aleksandra Fayssal Hamou for targeting Americans. Apparently, this is the first time the U.S. government has targeted specific people, in addition to companies, with sanctions related to the misuse of commercial spyware. I guess someone has to be first.

New venture rounds: Three companies unveiled what they were working on today. San Francisco–based Ema, creating a “universal AI employee,” raised $25 million. Meanwhile, two DeepMind alums developed Haiper, a video generation tool that just grabbed $13.8 million in seed funding. And Fused has $1 million in pre-seed funding and an approach to streamlining satellite imagery.

In larger dollars, the U.K.’s challenger bank Monzo put some serious capital in its pocket with a $430 million raise. This shows that massive rounds in fintech can happen and that it can happen to a company that’s had its fair share of challenges.

Boomerang Miles: Venture capitalist Miles Grimshaw is going back to Thrive Capital after three years at Benchmark.

On the pods

Applying for government benefits is a slow, tedious process that often leaves applicants in limbo for several months. Advocate looks to help.

Today on Found, Becca and Dom talk with Advocate’s founder Emilie Poteat, the company that helps Americans engage with federal benefits programs through its technology-enabled services platform.

In this episode, they discuss how the Advocate team is using AI to automate advocacy and reduce the wait time for people seeking aid to nearly nothing. Listen here.

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