News Headline: X is bringing even longer posts to your feed

Friday, March 08, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! Today we're dipping into good news for a mega-unicorn, X's new, even longer posting option, and solar drones that want to beam Internet to the masses. Let's go!

– Alex

TechCrunch Top 3

Swiggy snags $12.2B valuation ahead of expected IPO: Indian food delivery giant Swiggy has picked up a new, higher valuation after its backer Baron Capital, a New York-based investor, marked up the value of its stake in the company. The news is welcome for Swiggy after a different investor halved the value of its stake in the company to $5.5 billion last year. A key portion of the company's business reached profitability last year, and it is expected to go public later this year.
AI's "evaluation crisis": TechCrunch's Kyle Wiggers argues that while many common AI model benchmarks do test for interesting and complicated skills, most folks want to use AI for far more pedestrian tasks. This can lead to a disconnect between what AI companies tout when they roll out a new model, and what day-to-day users feel when they use the new tech. The solution could lie in bringing more humans into the evaluation loop. AI testing really does matter, as Bloomberg reminds us.
Astra crashes back to Earth: What goes up must come down, per Sir Issac Newton, and you'll find everyone agrees with him. Space launch companies disagree, of course, as what they send up is mostly expected to stay in orbit or go even further out into space. But some space launch companies are finding that gravity wells are more irresistible than they expected. Astra is one of these: After a 2021 SPAC deal that saw the company go public at a $2.1 billion valuation, it is now being taken private for a mere $0.50 per share. The company's quick-launch cadence model failed to get off the ground, leading to its underperformance.

Image Credits: Indranil Aditya / NurPhoto / Getty Images

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X rolls out articles for Premium+ subscribers: If you are a subscriber of X's most expensive subscription tier, you can now post longer, richer articles directly to the platform. The new feature feels like the inevitable conclusion of X's dilution of its original character limit. The initial limit was expanded a few years ago from 140 to 280, and now comes the ability to post full articles to the platform. I suppose with the value of online advertising for most sites in shambles, posting your words to X is no less reasonable than putting them anywhere else. Engadget joked that the feature would give "long-winded VCs" a "new way to be exhausting on main."

Getmobil raises $4M for Turkey's weird smartphone market: TechCrunch's Haje Jan Kamps has a fascinating look at a Turkish startup that repairs, refurbishes and sells smartphones. Why is that helping a startup raise millions in external capital? Because the smartphone market in Turkey is weird, due to tariffs and other local rules designed to keep capital inside of its borders. The oddly-distorted market means that new smartphones are prohibitively expensive, making refurbishing a far more important — and attractive — business opportunity.

AALTO wants to use solar-powered drones to offer Internet access: RIP Google X's Loon project, which wanted to use balloons to bring the Internet access to places where it was missing or weak. That project failed, partly because balloons tend to move about and are so hard to depend on for coverage at any single point on the ground. Enter AALTO, which uses fixed-wing drones that self-power with solar cells. Each one can beam sweet, sweet Internet access to an area of 7,500-square-kilometers.

Is AI + blockchain going to be a thing? TechCrunch's Jacquie Melinek sat down with the team at Zora (not Sora, mind), which has built an NFT marketplace and platform that lets you use AI to create art that can then be owned and traded on the blockchain. Apparently it's seeing material traction, with its mission to "make creating on the internet free and valuable" resonating with users. For fun, our conversation with Zora is also available to mint here, if that's your jam. AI and blockchain is a regular topic of conversation in tech today, for context.

Worldcoin fights to stay in Spain: The eyeball-scanning, get-tokens-for-your-biometrics startup Worldcoin is pushing back against Spain's move to block its operations. The company argues that it is "fully compliant with all laws and regulations governing biometric data collection and data transfer." This doesn't seem like the last time Worldcoin runs into criticism, though, so the case could help set a precedent.

Free Fire's slow return to India raises eyebrows: Popular Android game Free Fire, developed by Chinese company Sea, has built up a material e-sports scene over the years. The game was banned in India back in 2022, and its planned return to the Indian market has yet to materialize. Understandably, gamers are less than enthused about the matter.

Image Credits: Matt Cardy / Contributor / Getty Images

Before you go

India's smartwatch market is fascinating: Want an Apple Watch? It won't be cheap. Want a knock-off Apple smartwatch? You can get one for as less as $12 in some markets? Previously unknown smartwatch brands in India are flooding the market with inexpensive hardware that, while boasting attractive price points, are often a bit less than they purport to be. With companies popping up and disappearing rapidly, consumers might get stuck with unsupported hardware.