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Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for July 9th, 2021. We made it to Friday, be proud. But we can’t relax yet – there is a lot to do today. From fraudulent auto companies now posing as tech companies to the current venture capital craze, we have it all. Let’s go! – Alex
The TechCrunch top 3
- Startups have never had it so good: This is how we read the venture capital market in the second quarter of 2021. World records have been broken, a record number of unicorns have been born and valuations have soared. If you are considering raising capital as a founder, now is probably a good time to do so.
- Biden takes on Megacorps: We jokingly call the publicly traded section of this newsletter Big Tech because the most famous tech companies are damn massive. And that worried a lot of people that some firms have gotten so big that they should be liquidated in order to create more competition. Tech companies, of course, disagree. Regardless, the US government noise regarding Goliath companies is starting to lead to action.
- What is in store for European startups? We usually reserve these three spots for the biggest news of the day, but I wanted to share an essay by a German venture capitalist on his country. The investor is optimistic, but has two ideas where the country could do better: employee stock options and regulations on spin-offs. It’s worth reading if you want to consider why some countries have more active startup communities than others.
Startups / VC
First the most important startup news:
- Korean food startup Kurly raises $ 200 million: The online grocer is now worth more than $ 2 billion. Moreover, their plans to go public in the United States are failing. Instead, the company will try to list locally in the future. Hacking out of the Didi chaos or something else? Either way, the company should be kept an eye on.
- Today’s Tiger Round? Brazilian HR startup Flash: The company just put together a $ 22 million Series B that led the hypercaffeinated venture capital group. The São Paulo-based startup offers a new way to offer benefits in the country.
- $ 500 million more for Ola: The ride-hailing market’s insatiable thirst for capital was fueled by another half a billion today, according to TechCrunch, with news that Indian Ola has raised new funds from “Temasek and a subsidiary of Warburg Pincus”. Perhaps the Didi fiasco will be viewed as a one-off by investors, at least when it comes to the world of on-demand rides.
Second, from the venture capital side of the market:
- TechCrunch’s Ron Miller wrote a profile on The Artemis Fundwhat is worth reading. The investment group, which was founded by women and often invests in women, “has invested in 11 companies and plans to invest in 4-5 more [before raising its] the next fund. “
- DN Capital has raised a $ 350 million fund after several of the startups she supported went public. The company invests primarily in Europe as opposed to the UK, a market where more US-based venture capitalists are emerging, according to its partners.
- Three venture capitalists have teamed up to write tips for robot-centric startups. So if you’re building hardware that moves, This is for you.
3 analysts weigh up: What are Andy Jassy’s priorities as the new CEO of Amazon?
Now that he’s stepping down from AWS and taking over Jeff Bezos, what are the biggest challenges facing upcoming Amazon CEO Andy Jassy?
Company reporter Ron Miller reached out to three analysts for their opinion:
- Robin Ody, Canalys
- Sucharita Kodali, Forrester
- Ed Anderson, Gartner
Amazon ranks second in the Fortune 500, but it’s not all sunshine and roses – growth, union formation, and the potential for antitrust regulation domestically and internationally are just a few of its roles.
“I think the biggest challenge is just continuing the momentum the company has had over the past few years,” said Kodali. “He has to make sure they don’t lose this. If he does that, I mean, he’ll win. “
(Extra Crunch is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams move forward. You can sign up here.)
Big Tech Inc.
To summarize the news portion of today’s letter, two final entries. First of all, let’s take a look at why the EU has just fined a number of automakers. Rebecca reports:
As environmental issues really grew up in the 1990s, some German automakers met in secret groups to make sure their cars continued to diligently contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. According to the European Union, Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, BMW and the Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler have made illegal agreements to restrict competition in the emission control for new diesel cars, which essentially slows down the use of cleaner emission technologies.
Yes, you can be very angry about that.
Finally, from the world of Facebook, good news for all WhatsApp users out there. You can select an option to send higher quality images and videos to bypass the service’s “image compression”, which TechCrunch calls “dubious image compression.” See, not all news is bad news!
TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing
Credit: SEAN GLADWELL (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
We reach out to startup founders to let us know who to turn to for the latest growth marketing practices. Fill out the survey here.
Read one of the recommendations we received below!
Marketer’s Name: Nikita Vorobyev
Name of the recommender: Ruby Club
Recommendation: “Nikita and his company, Buildrbrand, worked tirelessly to bring my idea to life and did everything in their power to bring it to today’s level. He and his team created a top notch visual quiz experience that I think would be really cool to share with the industry. He doesn’t know I nominated him, but I definitely wanted to give him back in every possible way as I believe his agency is creating some of the best brands that are going viral online right now. “