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Hello and welcome to the Daily Crunch on January 13, 2022! It’s kind of Thursday night already, which is strange since it was Monday morning minutes ago. That’s the pace of 2022! There is some hope in the market that things will slow down (and become cheaper), but that doesn’t seem very likely at the moment. More on that in a bit, along with news that Facebook’s dating app is broken? We can answer that warmly: Facebook is still building dating apps? – Alex
The TechCrunch Top 3
- How the new terms of Y Combinator are changing startup investing: News that Y is Combinator Increase in capital employed in his accelerator batch company drives a little comment. While Y Combinator is investing more money, it’s generally good news for startup founders, but other investors have concerns.
- Instacart becomes Blue Apron, why not: Instacart introduces pre-packaged meals to its platform, expanding its product offering as the grocery delivery game becomes increasingly competitive. Remember that Instacart had a just insanely good 2020, but this growth at the well-funded former startup 2021 slows down.
- Databricks does something other than submitting an S-1: Databricks, a giant private data analytics company, has released a verticalized version of its Lakehouse product. What is a lake house? The thing that sits on top of a data lake, get it? Anyhow, we’re marking this moment for you as the point where we really, really knew Databricks was a big kid company and that it should go public. Come on Databricks, We want the damn numbers.
Startups/VC
We have a lot to talk about today, so let’s dive right in:
- Turnip wants to power gaming communities: I joke about startup names from time to time, but I really adore the nickname “Turnip”. It’s memorable, it’s fun to say, and the company even has a .gg domain name. Why the weird TLD? Because Turnip is in the gaming community space and a .gg file for gamers is like an .eth file for a person with a Middlingly Messy Minx profile picture on Twitter.
- Arc shows that there is more room in the market for alternative financing games: Fresh from cover, Arc is developing a product that will both give software companies access to capital and perhaps help them manage other elements of their financial lives. Our own Mary Ann Azevedo dug into the company’s plans.
- Gr4vy raises $15M for orchestrating payments: While I’m trying to avoid buzzwords in this newsletter whenever possible, I took a moment today to better understand what “payment orchestration” is, as Gr4vy just set up a Series A expansion to work on it. In practice, it seems to be a meta software layer that bundles all types of payment options together and works in a single product. So it’s more of a bundle than a conductor, but I have to admit that ‘orchestration’ sounds better than, say, coordination.
- Also give kudos to Gr4vy for using Leetspeak on his behalf. Very retro.
- GoFundMe buys Classy: GoFundMe is perhaps best known as the US Public Health and Disaster Relief Network. Classy is a similar product but aimed at helping nonprofits raise funds. The former says it bought the latter in an equity deal Amanda Silberling.
- What happens when you combine no-code, metaverse, games, user-generated content, $50 million and Espoo?? You get Yahaha Studios based in Espoo, Finland. It just announced that it has raised $50 million in three rounds and is building a no-code service it calls a “metaverse for games.” Not only am I curious about the huge success of Roblox, but I like games, so I think this is perfect.
- PUBG publisher is suing a market cap of around $5 trillion over game clones: Publisher of the mobile version of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Krafton, is suing Apple (worth $3 trillion), Alphabet (worth just under $2 trillion), and Garena Online (rating unknown) over what TechCrunch as copying the “opening, its game structure and gameplay, the combination and selection of weapons, armor and unique objects, locations and the general color schemes, materials and textures.”
- UBITS raises $25 million to upskill workers in LatAm: The big edtech explosion of 2020 has moderated somewhat in 2021, but now in 2022 we’re still seeing laps being made in space. UBITS develops technology to help workers in Latin America develop their skills, or essentially train them for new, more complex jobs.
And so much more. This startup thinks so can offer a savings rate of 4%, that’s wild. This startup is Build super cute sidewalk robots. Shield Raised $15 million for communications compliance software, while Fintech Farm wants to set up neobanks for various emerging markets.
Building high-converting lead magnets that deliver value
Magnet drawing people
It’s one thing to get a prospect to visit your website, but convincing them to reach for their wallet or share their phone number is a challenge.
GetResponse CMO Aleksandra Korczynska says that marketers who align lead generation with prospects’ goals gain a significant advantage when consumers gain greater control over their privacy.
“The key is building a ‘foot-in-the-door’ technique for continued engagement — lead magnets,” she says.
(TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead. Here you can sign up.)
BigTech Inc.
- Meta Shutter’s speed dating service: Eventually, Meta will try every digital product idea. I wouldn’t be shocked if deep in HQ there were a few developers frantically working on an alpha version a FriendFeed clone, even though Bret Taylor has already left the company Become a pseudo-CEO at Salesforce. On the subject, Facebook is shutting down a speed dating service it seems to have invented. will you miss it
- Venmo launches e-gift wrap? If you hate gift wrapping and give money away, fret twice over thanks to Venmo’s new feature that allows users to “wrap” their money transfers. Now your parents can’t pretend that giving money instead of a gift isn’t festive!
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