Daily Crunch - Language-learning app Duolingo translates strong revenues into IPO filing

TechCrunch Newsletter

Tuesday, June 29, 2021 • By Alex Wilhelm

Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for June 29, 2021. Have you ever wanted to ditch civilization and move to the woods, but still be able to work? We have good news if that's you. Below you'll find lots more, including Facebook's latest product offering and how one startup wants to save bees. Enjoy! — Alex Image Credits: Duolingo

The TechCrunch Top 3 Duolingo is going public! Well-known edtech unicorn Duolingo is going public. TechCrunch has an overview of the IPO and a deeper dive into the company's business health. Based on traffic to our coverage on the matter since last night, ya'll are really into learning languages. Also make sure to check out the Duolingo EC-1. Facebook launches newsletters: Say hello to Bulletin, Facebook's new newsletter service. Competing with Substack, Twitter's Revu and other services, Facebook signed up a Boomer-friendly list of initial authors including Malcolm Gladwell. The social giant has a history of testing in-house versions of products that are successful externally. We'll have to wait and see if Bulletin manages to survive on its own merit. SpaceX plans to spend billions on Starlink: According to Elon Musk, SpaceX is losing money on early Starlink connector kits. Starlink is the space company's low-orbit satellite network that could bring about global internet connectivity. Per TechCrunch reporting of Musk's comments, "SpaceX's overall investment in the project could be between $5 billion-$10 billion initially and as much as $30 billion over time." For the sake of freelancers everywhere, let's hope the tech shakes out to match the investment.

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Startups/VC Up top today in our roundup of recent startup news is Beeflow. We're putting it at the top of the list because (1) It's about bees and (2) It's called Beeflow. What's not to love? Per Jordan Crook, the startup may have an answer to the decimation of the global bee population. And it might make money to boot. Now, the rest of the news: Europe's early-stage market is on fire: That's the takeaway from a recent TechCrunch dig into the continent's venture capital trade. So is Latin America's and the United States'. In brief, the regional startup zones of the world are becoming increasingly blurred thanks to Zoom deal-making; what was once true in one place may now be the case in every hub. Zomato to drop $100M on Grofer: The Indian tech scene is busy these days, with Manish Singh reporting that IPO-headed food-delivery giant Zomato intends to invest $100 million in online grocer Grofer. Grofer would become a unicorn in the transaction. SentinelOne could be worth $10 billion in its IPO: That's the latest on the SentinelOne public debut, which we've looked at here and dug into the pricing of here. The cybersecurity company's IPO could help kick off a hot third quarter for IPOs more generally, especially at the prices at which it is set to debut. $10M to teach soft skills with VR: That's the latest on Virti, which wants to turn "a lot of subjectively assessed skills into more objective and measurable" outputs. VR is cool, and soft skills matter. Let's see what their union can bring. Please, no “Black Mirror” jokes. Givingli raises $3M for greeting card tech: Not every venture capital round is large. Some are small enough to fit into an envelope. That's the case with Givingli's latest round, which should give the digital card and gifting app more room to build out its service. And I would be remiss to not mention that I covered venture capital rounds this morning from co-op and Arrows, along with news regarding Acceleprise's rebrand.

How VCs can get the most out of co-investing alongside LPs In a recent private equity survey, 80% of respondents said their co-investments with people outside traditional VC firms outperformed their PE fund investments. Alternative investors are highly motivated, and because they’re seeking higher returns than are generally available in public markets, they are less daunted by risk. In return, they benefit from less expensive fee structures and develop close ties with VCs, enlarging the talent pool as they build investment skills. These relationships have direct benefits for VCs as well, such as more flexibility with diversification and consolidated decision-making power. “With the right deal structure, deal selection and deal investigation, co-investors can significantly increase their returns,” says C5 Capital Managing Partner William Kilmer, who wrote an Extra Crunch post for VCs considering an alternative path. (Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.) Read More Image Credits: Diana Ilieva / Getty Images

Big Tech Inc. Turning from the smaller upstarts to the megagiants, it's been a good week to be a Big Tech company. Facebook crossed the $1 trillion market cap threshold, though it dipped back under the magic number this afternoon. Here's what else is going on from the Bigs: Shopify cuts its cut to 0%: Shopify will charge zero for developers' first million in revenue that they make on its application marketplace. The move fits into a larger trend of app stores lowering their cuts as Apple fights tooth and nail to avoid doing the same with its own application emporium. The Shopify news is probably more aimed at e-commerce rival Amazon than Apple, but the move still gently undercuts Cupertino's argument that it deserves around a third of all commerce that happens on iOS. AI developers are coming: News out today from Microsoft's GitHub product is notable, with the sub-org announcing an AI-powered tool that "suggests code as you type." GitHub teamed up with OpenAI to build the tool. For beginners, the coding service could prove to be super freaking neat.

TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing TechCrunch wants you to recommend growth marketers who have expertise in SEO, social, content writing and more! If you're a growth marketer, pass this survey along to your clients; we'd like to hear about why they loved working with you. Read More Image Credits: SEAN GLADWELL / Getty Images

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Daily Crunch - SpaceX announces tentative plans to launch first orbital flight next month

TechCrunch Newsletter

Monday, June 28, 2021 • By Alex Wilhelm

Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Monday, June 28. How much time did you spend on your phone this weekend? Too much? Not a lot? According to recent data on consumer app spending, you probably spent a pretty fair amount. Consumer spending on apps hit a new record in the first half of the year, though the pace of growth is slowing. Before we begin, Extra Crunch is on sale this week. Check it out here and support The Good Ship TechCrunch. — Alex Image Credits: SpaceX

The TechCrunch Top 3 Surgical robots are big business: News broke today that U.K.-based surgical robotics startup CMR has put together a $600 million round led by SoftBank's second Vision Fund and Ally Bridge Group. CMR is now worth $3 billion. Etsy acquires Brazilian rival: Also out today was news that Etsy, the consumer crafts marketplace popular in the United States, purchased its Brazilian cognate for $217 million. The deal for Elo7 follows Etsy's recent purchase of Depop. It appears that Etsy views at least a good portion of its growth through an inorganic lens. SpaceX wants to send Starship to (near) space: SpaceX's Starship is nearly going to space next month, the company reported. Yep, Starship, the thing you probably most remember for blowing up during trials, could be headed to orbit in July. Don't think that we're knocking SpaceX for having some failed trials. The company used to crash rocket stages in reentry all the time. Now it lands them on drone ships with regularity. In space tech, perhaps you have to blow up before you can properly take flight.

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Startups/VC To kick off today, we're talking about Pittsburgh, a fascinating startup market that TechCrunch is visiting in short order: Pittsburgh's mayor on the city's startup community and the difficulty of attracting venture capital: How do you reinvent a city that was left behind by deindustrialization and wants to shake off its old reputation? TechCrunch got in the weeds with Bill Peduto, the mayor of Pittsburgh since 2014. VCs discuss the opportunities — and challenges — in Pittsburgh's startup ecosystem: Of course, city government is only one piece of the larger puzzle of building a startup hub. The monied classes also have a part to play when it comes to creating a flywheel for startup creation, investment and re-investment. How Carnegie Mellon is helping build its own startups and keeping them in Pittsburgh: And speaking of flywheels, another key component of any startup market that wants to be self-sustaining is helping keep its newly educated minds local, where they can build, scale, exit, and then put their capital and knowledge back to work. Read More

Moving to our regular fare, here's more from today's digest of startup happenings: $50M to build the Shopify of mobile commerce: Tapcart wants to bring Shopify's desktop shopping magic to the mobile world, and today it announced an eight-figure round led by Left Lane Capital. (To a degree, it reminds us of recent YC grad Bikayi.) $10M for chilled robotic drinks: No, not drinks for robots. Robot-prepared drinks. We've seen startups building auto-baristas before, but Botrista's machine could be something special. It looks slick, and we'd frankly drink most of its offered combinations. Let's see how far 10 million bucks can take it. Yet another hot software IPO: SentinelOne's IPO is looking spicy after raising its price range. The company's valuation is creeping higher ahead of its debut, and should value the cybersecurity unicorn at a multiple of its final private price. $167M for a leading Philippines-based fintech: PayMaya's parent company is a lot richer today after closing $121 million in new capital along with $46 million from prior investments this week. Per TechCrunch, the funds will be used to "launch more financial services, including a digital bank." Today's episode of the Equity Podcast features a new spin on dating apps. Closing, two from the personnel department: First, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is coming to TechCrunch Disrupt 2021. And Foursquare's Dennis Crowley is stepping back from the company.

3 data strategies for selling to developers Many consumers are open to a slick sales pitch, but software developers generally know better. Successful dev-focused marketing efforts steer these users toward free tools, but unless you know exactly what data to look for and how to measure it, your efforts will have limited impact. Software companies hoping to connect with developers should treat end users like the “go-to-market side of the team,” advises Sam Richard, senior director of growth at OpenView, which has invested in companies like Datadog, Expensify and Calendly. For example: Instead of simply pulling analytics from your production database, what if your GTM team polled stakeholders who touch revenue about the data points they use to make decisions? If you assigned a product manager to address their needs, draft a roadmap and develop an MVP, how much could you learn? “Don’t overthink it,” says Richard. “Selling to developers isn't impossible — it's just difficult.” (Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.) Read More Image Credits: Ong-ad Nuseewor / Getty Images

Big Tech Inc. Did you know that both Microsoft and Apple are worth $2 trillion apiece? It was just a few years ago that the five largest American tech firms were worth a mere $3 trillion, though at the time that number felt huge. Today, however, Microsoft started to help chart its path to the $3 trillion mark on its own with the release of the first official Windows 11 preview. Sure, there have been some builds floating around, but this time the source code is from the code's source. Facebook has a new product out in Nigeria — where it has an office — called Sabee. TechCrunch reports that it "aims to connect learners and educators in online communities to make educational opportunities more accessible." Facebook wants to reach all internet users, and Africa is a growth market for internet penetration, so the move makes sense. For those of you out there invested in the Android wearable ecosystem, good news: Samsung and Google have a lot of new stuff that you are probably going to like.

TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing TechCrunch is building a shortlist of the top growth marketers in tech. We'd love to hear who you've worked with, so fill out the survey here! Here's one of the many great recommendations we've received: Name of marketer: Dipti Parmar Name of recommender: Brody Dorland, co-founder, DivvyHQ Recommendation: "She gave me an easy-to-implement plan to start with clear outcomes and timeline. She delivered it within one month and I was able to see the results in a couple of months. This encouraged me to hand over bigger parts of our content strategy and publishing to her." Read More Image Credits: SEAN GLADWELL / Getty Images

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Daily Crunch - With Wickr purchase, AWS enters the encrypted messaging business

TechCrunch Newsletter

Friday, June 25, 2021 • By Alex Wilhelm

Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for June 25, 2021. We have a great block of startup news and Amazon coverage for you today. But before we get into all of that, a note that there are only two weeks left before our TechCrunch Early Stage 2021: Marketing & Fundraising event. It's going to rock, so check it out and get prepped. — Alex Read More

The TechCrunch Top 3 Amazon buys encrypted messaging service Wickr: If you thought it was strange that an e-commerce company runs the world's biggest public cloud service, it may feel even stranger that that same public cloud service just bought an encrypted messaging service. But in the platform era, tech companies want to do everything, so we should not be shocked. Amazon's cloud team intends to "continue operating Wickr as is and offer its services to AWS customers" starting now. In related news, Amazon and Google are taking whacks in the U.K. over fake reviews. Virgin is a go: The American government has cleared Virgin Galactic for commercial spaceflight. The result of the news? Shares of the SPAC'd company rose by nearly 39% today. So, it's a liftoff moment for the company and its market cap. Didi's confusing value: Closing out our Top 3 today, TechCrunch took a look at the Chinese ride-hailing giant's first IPO price range. We're curious why it looks and feels so cheap compared to its erstwhile rival, Uber. Image Credits: Pedro Fiúza/NurPhoto / AP

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Startups/VC TechCrunch stretched its legs today, giving us a lot to discuss past the usual funding round roll call. Here's what you should read: What's new in Deep Science: Behind the scenes of startup glitz and venture capital glamor is a bunch of scientific work, the stuff that powers the next generation of tech and the startups of tomorrow. Devin Coldewey has a digest of science work ranging from predicting liquid flow based on still images to AI systems faking confidence. The rapidly evolving early-stage market: If you care about how and when and why early-stage startups raise capital, TechCrunch has lots for you this week. Here's a look at today's early-stage venture capital market in the U.S., and here's another focused on Latin America. More coming next week looking at what's afoot in Europe. And, of course, a host of startups raised more money. Here are a few highlights to keep you up to date: Mercuryo raises $7.5M for crypto-powered, cross-border payments: One key use of blockchain tech that was touted years ago was sending money around the world. Traditional banking is famously bad at this, leading to high fees and other issues. Mercuryo could be cracking the model and has crossed the $50 million ARR mark. Impressive. Edge Delta raises $15M to take on data analysis giants: The startup's new Series A puts it into closer competition with Splunk, Datadog and other huge companies that sell cloud-based data monitoring services. The real story is somewhat technical, but happy we had Frederic Lardinois on hand to explain it to us. Fintual raises $15M for Latin American retail investing: The Robinhood-led boom in retail investing that the United States has seen in recent years is increasingly becoming a global phenomenon. And Fintual wants to take a bite out of the trend in the Latin American market. The Chilean startup now has a Series A under its belt to power its fight against both regulation and incumbent players.

Musculoskeletal medical startups race to enter personalized health tech market With more than 50 million Americans suffering from chronic pain and musculoskeletal (MSK) medical problems, a number of startups are offering patients new products “that don't resemble the cookie-cutter status quo,” reports Natasha Mascarenhas. Startups hoping to enter this space have an uphill climb. Setting aside regulations that cover aspects like product packaging and marketing, they must compete with well-entrenched competition from Big Pharma as they try to partner with health insurance companies. Natasha profiles three companies that are each taking a different approach to personalized health: Clear, Hinge Health and PeerWell. (Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.) Read More Image Credits: ChrisChrisW / Getty Images

Big Tech Inc. From the world of Big Tech today we just have one more entry, as we covered Amazon's big news up above. Natasha Lomas reported today that "Microsoft-owned LinkedIn has committed to doing more to quickly purge illegal hate speech from its platform in the European Union by formally signing up to a self-regulatory initiative that seeks to tackle the issue through a voluntary Code of Conduct." I wanted to raise this particular story because it somewhat underscores how internet regulation is shaping up around the world. You wouldn't see this story, say, in the United States, or at least not in the same format. And in China, for example, another key internet market, it would also have a very different flavor. To some degree it feels like we're dealing with three different — and increasingly distant — internets. Something for startups to chew on. Read More Image Credits: Ali Balikci / Getty Images

TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing TechCrunch wants you to recommend growth marketers who have expertise in SEO, social, content writing and more! If you're a growth marketer, pass this survey along to your clients; we'd like to hear about why they loved working with you. The results from this survey will help influence our editorial coverage of growth marketing. Today, we have a guest column on Extra Crunch from Mark Spera, "5 companies doing growth marketing right." Read More Image Credits: SEAN GLADWELL / Getty Images

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