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Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch on January 7th, 2021! It’s Friday and the snow is falling like thick ones in my forest neck. But it wasn’t a snow day in the tech world. Not at all. In fact, a venture firm raised 10 jobs in capital today. Can you guess who?
Before we get in, today’s TechCrunch employee highlight is Grace Mendenhall, a member of the equity team who is also a documentary editor. And to be honest, she’s just the best. Now the news! –Alex
The TechCrunch Top 3
- a16z is charging $ 9 billion in new capital: The arms race for venture capital continued this week with news that Andreessen Horowitz has allocated $ 9 billion to invest in risk contracts, growth contracts, and especially biotechnology. As TechCrunch notes, the resulting dollar number is a boost for the group’s final trio of similar funds. There seems to be an endless hunger for capital in today’s startup market.
- Roblox pulls Chinese app: Five months after starting with Tencent in China, LuoBuLeSi was taken down by Roblox. What happened? It may be that Roblox is doing something on the data page of its service that it alluded to in a statement. Regardless, the move is another example of how difficult it is for non-Chinese companies to build and sell digital products in the country.
- India investigates Google: Following industry complaints from news groups, the Indian Competition Commission said Friday that Google is dominating certain online services and initially believes Google has violated local antitrust laws, TechCrunch reports. Given the size and lucrative Indian market, this isn’t good news for Mountain View.
Startups / VC
Before we dive into all of the startup news for the day, TechCrunch has a little tidbit for you. We got veteran venture capitalist Matt Murphy on the phone when 2021 came to an end to talk about previous tech booms, previous tech busts, and the strengths and weaknesses he sees of today’s venture game. It’s great weekend read.
And now the news:
- Pendulum raises $ 5.9 million for narrative tracking: It’s fun because the company’s target market is completely new to me. According to our coverage, Pendulum “helps businesses, governments and other organizations track harmful narratives on social media platforms and elsewhere on the Internet”. I think you and I are doing this right now by reading a lot of tweets, but it makes sense to see one company develop software for this.
- Peter Reinhardt leaves Twilio: Do you remember when Twilio bought Segment for $ 3.2 billion? As part of the transaction, it also bought Segment CEO Peter Reinhardt. Now, however, the manager is leaving the company to “become full-time CEO of Charm Industrial, a start-up for carbon reduction that he co-founded in 2018,” reports Ron Miller. I can’t quite associate charm and carbon, but we’ll keep an eye on what the startup does next.
- Avataar Raises US $ 45 Million for “Life-Size 3D Product Assessment”: No, it’s not “Avatar” like in the movie. It is Avataar, a US and India based startup helping consumers “visualize real-size products and feel in their living room” by using their phones. Given that we all want to buy more things online, but it’s not always easy to imagine a new stool on site, I like what the company is up to. Unsurprisingly, Avataar works with ecommerce brands in categories like furniture.
- Bfree wants to bring the pesky debt collection business up to date: If you’ve ever received a call from someone who thinks you owe their money, or that they represent money, you may have thought how much more fun it was to get a root canal treatment. Bfree, a “Nigerian credit management fintech,” as TechCrunch puts it, is working to build what it sees as a more ethical debt collection. The company has just raised $ 1.7 million and is busy recruiting in 16 markets, we report.
- From the CES beat: TechCrunch’s coverage of the great consumer electronics conference continued with contributions today the promises of older technology and … well, everything metaverse, good and bad.
If you need even more startup news and notes and analysis this weekend, the equity team has you covered.
After talking to marketing directors for a year, here’s my advice for CEOs
Credit: Carol Yepes (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
This is a fantastic time to start a startup, but if you’re trying to build one – well, winter is coming.
We’ve already noticed the impact of new data regulations and growing consumer demand for more privacy, but here’s another protocol to delve into the fire of bad news: As a percentage of business revenue, marketing budgets are down from 11% in 2020 to 6 .4% down. last year.
“This is the lowest percentage assigned to marketing in the history of Gartner’s annual CMO Spend Survey,” the research firm reported.
Rebecca Lynn, Co-Founder and General Partner at Canvas Ventures, has had dozens of early stage conversations with founders over the past few months.
In a TechCrunch + guest post She deals with “downward pressure on marketing dollar efficiency” and shares several strategies that produce results – as well as some “crazy” ideas “that seemed ridiculous at the time”.
(TechCrunch + is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams move forward. Here you can sign up.)
Big Tech Inc.
- Apple continues to work on its fitness product: TechCrunch today has news on Apple’s fitness product, the somewhat lame named Fitness +. What’s new Collections that we write are “curated training and meditation series” that are focused on a specific goal. The so-called “Time to Run”, an “audio running experience” as we call it, is also new. Why doesn’t Apple just buy Peloton? I do not know.
- When does a Twitter space become a podcast? We will find out. Twitter is working on the inclusion of its live audio product Spaces. And the social network says it will include replay analytics. What is super cool? Twitter’s product team seems to be bringing its really solid 2021 product cadence into the new year.
- And finally from CES, a Summary of electric mobility two-wheelers for everyone out there who live in a city that hasn’t given up its soul to provide more parking spaces for the lazy.
TechCrunch experts
Credit: SEAN GLADWELL / Getty Images
If you have a software consultant that you think other startup founders should know, fill out the survey here.
Read one of the testimonials we received below!
Marketer: Ridhi Singh, Founder, 91Ninjas
Recommended by: Anish Khadiya, Utility
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