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Hello and welcome to the Daily Crunch on January 21, 2022! I usually try to spice up my little intros in this writing. But today I’m going to avoid falsifying my own sentiment to simply say, hey, what’s up with the stock market? After a period of only going up, did we toss the coin? I won’t say I love it, but hey, at least it’s the weekend. – Alex
The TechCrunch Top 3
- Does Microsoft buy a union? Raven Software’s Quality Assurance department forms a union at Activision Blizzard. TechCrunch called the move the “first union formed at a major US gaming company.” With Microsoft set to buy Raven Software’s parent company, the union situation has an even more interesting flavor than most tech union news we’ve seen lately.
- VCs wanted to spin off Facebook’s Slack competitor: Facebook’s internal working tool that made it a product will not leave the confines of the meta corporation. TechCrunch learned that VCs wanted the social giant to spin it off, valued at over $1 billion, but Team Zuck didn’t bite.
- Netflix’s poor results prove the pandemic trade is over: To registration figures That left Wall Street less than enthusiastic as Netflix stock dropped today. The result and resulting investor response underscores our overall belief that pandemic trading is behind us. Remember that late December asked TechCrunch if the era of super-rich tech valuations were behind us. The answer? Yes, it looks like this.
Startups/VC
- If you are working on corporate expenses, please collect your check: As Ramp, Brex and Airbase go head-to-head in the United States, Moss’ work to build a corporate spending giant attracts allies in Europe. Rich, it turns out, because the company just raised $86 million. Thanks to the recent stock sale, the company is now worth nearly $600 million.
- Please print me one (1) mocktail: One of the funniest parts of a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy novel series is the goofy spaceship that can’t make tea. It can, to paraphrase, do something similar to tea, but not quite. That’s an awkward way of saying that beverage printing isn’t a new concept. But it’s a new reality, at least for my brain. Cana Technology has just introduced the “world’s first molecular beverage printer”. To which we ask: Can it make tea? Either way, that sounds stupid.
- Europe -> Africa: The African tech startup market is accelerating. That is known. But what if you want to set up a business in Europe, for example, and penetrate the African market? Venture firm Partech’s new accelerator Chapter54 is working on exactly this problem, reports TechCrunch.
- Another Israeli VC is assembling a new fund: 2022 is shaping up to be a hot year for the Israeli tech scene as Entrée Capital announces a $300m fund. This is the second new fund we can name from Israel this year so far. So much for slowing down, yes?
Inside Secfi’s State of Stock Options Equity Report 2021
Photo credit: Andriy Onufriyenko (opens in a new window) /Getty Images
It’s great to have an interest in the company you’re helping to build, but if employees don’t know how to best exercise their stock options, they usually end up with a bad deal.
According to Secfi data, startup employees paid an estimated $11 billion in avoidable taxes last year by exercising their options after exit rather than before exit.
In a post for TechCrunch+, CEO Frederik Mijnhardt shared his analysis of the biggest trends surrounding stock options in 2021, including why most employees, despite stellar IPOs, were unable to exercise their options until after exit, dramatically increasing their tax liability.
“Looking ahead to 2022, the current industry trend towards mega-sized funding rounds and longer exit periods seems to mean that the overall cost of exercising stock options will continue to rise for the average startup employee,” says Mijnhardt.
(TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead. Here you can sign up.)
BigTech Inc.
- Peloton (sort of) answers production stories: Yes, the company is “resetting our production levels to sustainable growth,” its CEO admitted in a note that sort of, sort of, addressed a wave of consumer demand stories from Peloton. More when the company reports results, as this story is far from over.
- Intel could build a huge factory in Ohio: Building chips is expensive and difficult to develop. So it’s good news that Intel intends to “establish two chip manufacturing facilities outside of Columbus, Ohio.” The total work could cost $20 billion. Earn a point for domestic production I suppose.
- IBM manages to sell its Watson Health division: Francisco Partners is buying the asset, although we don’t know for how much. The Watson push appears to be coming to an end, and is being sold at a price that is expected to be a fraction of what IBM paid to assemble the corporate values behind its health-focused AI push.
TechCrunch Experts
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TechCrunch wants to know which software consultants you’ve worked with on everything from UI/UX to cloud architecture. let us know here.
If you’re curious how these polls influence our reporting, check out this interview Miranda Halpern conducted with Georgina Lupu-Florian, CEO of Wolfpack Digital. “How should non-technical founders work together with software developers?”
