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Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch on December 22nd, 2021! Gregor here again. I’m taking over the newsletter for Alex for this last part of the year while taking a well-deserved break.
In the last few weeks of the year, tech news tends to be a little quieter because … well, holidays. But if something big happens, we’ll make sure you know! –Gregor
The TechCrunch Top 3
- The spiritual successor to Essential: Over the years, the smartphone arena has reduced to the iPhone compared to any Android phone that’s cool right now. Is there room for another competitor? A bunch of former employees at Essential – a company that shipped a phone before it closed and sold the brand to OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei – think so and are working on a privacy-conscious Android phone under the OSOM brand (pronounced “awesome “Because why not.)
- The Bluetooth COVID-19 test shows errors: A home COVID-19 test that uses a bluetooth enabled analyzer to provide certified results? That sounds practical. Unfortunately, the researcher Ken Gannon found out that it can seemingly be manipulated.
- Fisher-Price’s Chatter phone also has bugs: Speaking of Bluetooth bugs, it looks like this nostalgic-tastic novelty speaker might have some problems of its own. If you have one, you may want to make sure it’s hung properly when not in use.
Startups / VC
- Veho is valued at $ 1 billion: Veho, a New York-based startup trying to simplify next-day package delivery, has just raised $ 125 million in one round and valued the company at $ 1 billion. Her thing, writes Christine Hall, is “to create transparency in deliveries that begins with the choice of when, where and how customers want their packages to be delivered.”
- Dealroom collects 6 million euros: A European competitor of products like PitchBook / CB Insights / Crunchbase has raised 6 million euros in a Serie A. Alex Wilhelm has the breakdown of what the company is focusing on, what it’s doing differently, and where it’s going from here.
- Triller goes public via merger: It may not have the same name, but TikTok rival Triller is still taking steps. Triller announced this week that it will go public in a reverse merger with Massachusetts-based video technology company SeaChange, the new combo company being called TrillerVerz Corp.
Start building your brand book with a visioning workshop
Credit: Marco Bottigelli (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Before startup teams spend a six-figure sum on developing a brand ethos in the early stages, they must first lay a solid foundation that reflects their shared vision.
In the first of a series of startup branding articles, Fuel Capital CMO Jamie Viggiano guides readers through the process to set up a workshop in which your founding team can “dive deep into your collective motivations, inspirations and ambitions”.
This exercise is a critical investment: if you hire a branding agency or consultant, they will do the job without you and the result will inevitably be less authentic.
“Skipping Ethos work is a costly mistake that creates a disjointed and rudimentary brand that has a direct and negative impact on the company’s growth potential,” writes Viggiano.
(TechCrunch + is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams move forward. Here you can sign up.)
Big Tech Inc.
- Zillow turns apartment hunting into a co-op game: The pandemic has accustomed people to doing more things together remotely – working, watching movies, playing games, etc. It has also increased the popularity of browsing Zillow as a pastime. Zillow brings these two trends together and taps Apple’s SharePlay so users can remotely search for houses together.
TechCrunch experts
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