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It’s May 24, 2022 and today Amanda made us laugh with her “Welcome to hell, we all drive Teslas,” the subtitle to her story about Everything you wanted to know about Elon Musk and Twitter (but didn’t want to ask). Masterfully. — Hadje and Christine
TechCrunch Top 3
- Another quit story: In the past few weeks, we’ve been talking a lot about layoffs, most of which have come from the most high-tech tech companies – we have something from the recent PayPal cohort — and we’re also moving into food delivery, which hasn’t been without a number of challenges as companies have grown rapidly during the pandemic. Gorillas, which are one of the biggest players here, are among the recent victims. He said he would lay off 300 workers as funding dried up and debt piled up, just some of the problems we might see in similar companies. ingrid reports.
- A horse is a horse, of course, of course, unless it’s a unicorn.: Data Watch Company Monte Carlo got a shiny golden horn today following the $153 million Series D funding announcement. Alex explains why this company has been able to be so successful in this less-than-stellar funding environment.
- Hey look who’s back: One guy we didn’t expect to hear from again for a while is Adam “WeWork” Neumann, but it looks like we were wrong. He launched a startup that will sell carbon credits on the blockchain. The company claims to have raised $70 million in funding.including from a16z and token sale, Anita reports.
Startups and VK
It’s a bit absurd to alternate between covering $150 million rounds and layoff stories, but that’s life for startups. Firework just raised $150 million from Softbank and co. turn the streaming experience into an e-commerce opportunity, Christine reports.
In other climate news Tim reports that Singularity Energy Raises $4.5M Round for a SaaS platform that reports carbon emissions to the network.
Come on, a couple more:
- SpecEd enters cyberspace: Virtual assessment and special education delivery has proven excruciatingly difficult during the pandemic, but Parallel learning thinks it has a solution. He also has $20 million in cash to carry out.courtesy of Tiger Global and a cabal of other venture capitalists.
- Bad robot, no donut: Warehouse operators can’t wait for fewer people to mess things up on production lines, presumably and Nomagic caught a $22 million bag of cash from the VC assembly line so that the robots can do their job in more warehouses, ingrid reports.
- Buy 海外sell akvi: Access to global supply chains can be difficult for small businesses in Latin America, but Pandas connects to foreign relations and technology to facilitate the import of goods from Asia. Christine reports that the company raised $6.3 million.
- And breathe…: French startup moka.care raised a new round of $16M Series A funding. The company is focused on mental wellness in the workplace, offering a complete service that sits between employees and HR departments, Novel reports.
- Excel disabled. Except for what looks more like a plug. It’s a confusing metaphorA: After years of humble spreadsheets doing the trick, we’re seeing a lot of innovation in this area. Today Actiondesk caught Noveleye with a solution that makes spreadsheets more compatible with the SaaS era.
Naveen Chadda of Mayfield: now I’m looking at the clouds from both sides
Image credits: Muhammad Ridha/500px (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images
As Mayfield’s managing partner and three-time founder, Naveen Chadda has experienced two downturns.
“I’ve invested in over 60 companies, and while many have gone public or been acquired, the journey has included U-turns, near-death experiences, and getting through the 2008-2009 economic downturn.” he writes in a guest post on TC+.
“Every era is different, but here are some tips for our new normality.”
(TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can register here.)
Big Tech Inc.
Your Walmart delivery may soon come from the sky if you live in certain states. The retail giant is set to expand its drone coverage to six states this year after expanding its partnership with DroneUp. Interestingly, the $4 shipping fee doesn’t deter people from choosing this delivery method, even if they just order the Hamburger Helper.
Among the countless Microsoft news today, we wanted to highlight this material about one of the newly updated Power Pages, which previously existed in Power Apps as a feature called Power Apps Portals. We know web design tools are a dime a dozen, but Microsoft is banking on integrating the product with other existing services like Visual Studio Code and GitHub.
Meanwhile…
- An image of an animal is worth a thousand words: If you need a little cheer on a Tuesday, go to Devin’s OpenAi story that made us smile.
- Bae-free for China: Airbnb said it would close its domestic business in China, where it has been since 2016, but alas, it only accounted for 1% of the company’s total business.
- When hail, in Aaaafrikaaa: Uber drinks champagne after hitting 1 billion rides in Africa.
- Sorry, Elon: A California judge has ruled that the sexual harassment lawsuit against Tesla will go to court, not the arbitration process the company requested.
Credit: techcrunch.com /