Greetings, readers. As Haje and Christine told you last week, this week’s Daily Crunch will look a bit different, given they are both taking some time off. But you’ll still get some TC tidbits during this typically slow news week. I’ll also be sharing some of our favorite stories of the year from TC and TC+, so let’s get going! — Neither Christine nor Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• 2023 will be the year electric vehicles really start to take shape: “Driven by policy initiatives from governments and billions of dollars in investment from automakers, we can safely say the EV industry has begun to take shape,” Rebecca writes.
• No “Next Twitter,” he says: Devin writes that it’s perfectly okay for there not to be a replacement for the Twitter that some of us have come to know and struggle with: “The illusory choice of rushing to The Next Twitter must be rejected. Twitter was more than a product: it was a moment in time, an unrefined manifestation of digital capability that, like any such raw element, destroyed as often as it created. It was necessary and interesting, but these messy delights have messy ends. To recreate it now, with only superficial lessons learned, would be like rebuilding a fallen castle on the same shifting sands. Watch it sink!”
• “It’s all in the (lack of) details”: Zack and Carly, our friendly neighborhood cybersecurity reporters, took a look back at the most badly handled data breaches of the year.

Startups and VC

• In the wind turbine: Harri writes that robotics startup Aerones, which scrubs and inspects wind turbines, raised $39 million in funding from undisclosed investors.
• Multifaceted fintech: Jakarta-based Akulaku raised $200 million. The fintech, which operates in the Philippines and Malaysia as well, offers a virtual credit card and installment shopping platform, as well as an investment platform and neobank, Catherine writes.
• A view of money: Indian fintech Money View raised $75 million in a new round to scale its credit business and build more products, Manish writes.

High-growth startups should start de-risking their path to IPO now

It sounds counterintuitive, but in this chilly fundraising environment, late-stage startups need to consider going public.

“While some companies delay their IPOs, others can play catch-up and prepare for the time when the open market itches to invest again,” writes Carl Niedbala, COO and co-founder of commercial insurance broker Founder Shield.

In a detailed TC+ article, he looks at why “sensible companies are de-risking their public path,” which sectors are best positioned, and perhaps most notable, which benchmarks indicate “that an IPO is in their future.”

Two more and a look back:

• Six climate tech trends: More investors are looking to get into the climate tech space, and we have some ideas about where they’ll put their money, Tim reports.
• FOMO over due diligence: A few investors talk about how due diligence and investing practices suffered a bit this year and how we can learn from the biggest mistakes. Dominic-Madori and Ron have more.
• Take a look back: Karan Bhasin covers what 10 investors thought about no-code/low-code startups in the first quarter of this year. We’ll be running a fresh no-code/low-code survey in Q1 2023, so if you’re an investor with an interest in the space and want to participate, reach out to us here.

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

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Big Tech, Inc.

• Struggling in India: Amazon and Uber were among a number of companies cited by research firm Fairwork India that create unfair working conditions for gig workers. Manish has more.
• Balance out: If what you’re looking for is a report about how you interact with your computer, Balance has your back and might even help you work on some healthy computing habits if that’s what you’re after in the New Year, Ivan writes.
• What’s coming for AI: Kyle also put on his prediction hat over the weekend to let us all know what we can expect on the AI front in 2023.

• IT Technology Analyst I at Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (Middletown, PA, United States)
• Information Security Officer at Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association (Pasadena, CA, USA)
• Chief, Information Technology at Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association (Pasadena, CA, USA)
• IT Support Specialist at Human Rights Watch (New York, NY, USA)
• OpenDP Open-Source Community Manager at Harvard University John A. Pauslon School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (Allston, MA 02134, USA)

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