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Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for October 5, 2021. We warned you that a bunch of tech startups were going to go public in the fourth quarter. It is happening. But we also have video game news, crypto news, and all kinds of goodies below. Let’s do it! – Alexis
The Top 3 TechCrunch
- Facebook down, Telegram up: During the rather embarrassing Facebook outage yesterday, rival messaging service Telegram said it had gained some 70 million new users. Remind that all Facebook services were down which meant WhatsApp was blocked for a while as well. In other Facebook news, a whistleblower from the ranks of former company employees testified before the US Senate today.
- IPO SZN: Put on your boots, everyone, we’ve got a few S-1 explorations to do. Yes, today TechCrunch dug in Udemy’s IPO repositories (an edtech unicorn) and rent the track (a DTC fashion rental unicorn). Udemy should help set the tone for the early days of edtech ahead of Byju, while Rent the Runway will represent the direct-to-consumer market to a lesser extent.
- The final fighter of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is: Sora? Apparently? If you haven’t played the Kingdom Hearts franchise, it won’t mean anything to you. But according to TechCrunch’s analysis, that was one hell of a big deal. So, let’s go, by popular demand!
And from the TechCrunch team of experts, “we are looking to profile great software development stores that work with startups. “So if that’s you, click the link!
Startups / VC
Kicking off our kickoff coverage today, two crash courses for you to read. TechCrunch has listed the 23 companies that are part of Alchemist’s latest batch and the 14 companies launched by the Entrepreneurs Roundtable group. We love the crash courses here on the blog, mainly because they often offer an interesting perspective on where founders find business-worthy problems to solve.
- Throwing obsolete forms of government into space: This is what I take away from the news that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) wants to launch a probe into the asteroid belt. I am in favor of all space launches, except maybe those of countries with official religions and, finally, monarchs.
- Appsmith Raises $ 8 Million for Its OSS-Focused Internal Application Service: The market for building software that helps businesses build in-house applications is large and competitive. And a new player made waves this morning by announcing that it had raised new capital for its open source approach. Appsmith has yet to commercialize their project, but with fresh funds and notable fundraising from the open source community, it’s a business to watch.
- Podcastle Raises $ 7 Million For All-Inclusive Podcast Service: Although it is very easy to create a Wrong podcast, it’s actually quite complicated and difficult to create a Well Podcast. Luckily for those who have yet to launch their own episodic audio streaming, Podcastle has just raised a lot of new capital for its all-in-one podcasting service (“recording, producing and publishing,” according to TechCrunch). So, now you have no excuse for poor sound quality and lackluster editing.
- Contrary Capital raises $ 20 million for the second fund: Our own Natasha Mascarenhas wrote today about a new venture capital fund, the second from Contrary Capital. She writes that founder Eric Tarczynski “noticed that there was an absence of entrepreneur-focused venture capital firms within universities.” So Tarczynski went fishing in this particular pond. This must have gone pretty well, as Contrary is now back with a second installment of LP money to invest.
- Duality raises $ 30 million to help businesses share their data securely: Cyber security isn’t just a big deal these days as VCs are investing in space. This is a big deal because the digital world is still full of holes, and the attack vectors are more innumerable than the stars in the sky. Duality – the startup, not the great song – wants to use homomorphic encryption to create tools that “make it easier for businesses to share data and collaborate with each other without compromising sensitive information,” we reported.
Find the product-market fit, from early stages to growth
There is no magic moment when a startup achieves product-market fit: no flashing lights, no sirens, no balloons falling from the ceiling.
“Especially for new founders, assessing product-to-market fit at a stage where it is primarily anticipation can be as much an art as it is science,” writes editor Darrell Etherington, who interviewed three VCs on the topic for TechCrunch Disrupt:
- Heather Hartnett, Human Ventures
- David Thacker, Greylock
- Victoria Treyger, Félicis
(TechCrunch + is our membership program, which helps startup founders and teams get ahead. You can register here.)
Big Tech Inc.
- Facebook is rolling out co-streaming for all creators: While Facebook is largely in the news for, um, other reasons, the company continues to build stuff. Including setting up the bases to allow more streamers to cast in pairs.
- TechCrunch loves the new Surface hardware: Story time! Back on my first stint at TechCrunch, I flew to Redmond to get a first look at Surface hardware. I brought a TechCrunch camera to take some pictures. And, in my infinite genius, took a million pictures of which I swear only two or three weren’t entirely fuzzy. I almost passed out in panic when I got home and found out. The good news today is that my colleague Matthew Burns can take pictures. The best news is that he’s taken plenty of photos of the new Surface Pro 8. And the best news of all? He liked it, so there is new competition for your computing needs.
- Apple wants to teach kids to code: 1-800-kode-for-kids is what I would have titled this play. Aisha Malik actually has some common sense, so she went for something a little more sober. Either way, Apple’s “Anyone Can Code Early Learners” program means even toddlers can learn to forget where they put the semicolons.
- In other news, please welcome Aisha to the TechCrunch team in follow her on Twitter!
- And, to close us off, Robinhood has finally launched a 24/7 phone support: Which is great news for the equity and crypto trading company that has caught the attention of retail traders and regulators during its short, high-flying life.
TechCrunch Experts Overview: Software Consulting
Image credits: SEAN GLADWELL / Getty Images
TechCrunch Experts extends to another vertical! Just like with growth marketing, many startups outsource their software development. You can read more about these reasons here. We want to know which software consultants you’ve worked with for everything from UI / UX to cloud architecture. Let us know here.
To begin our editorial coverage on this new topic, Miranda Halpern interviewed Joshua Davidson of Chop Dawg: “The Chop Dawg apps agency helps startups build for the long haul.
As we expand into software consulting (and potentially other startup service verticals), we will continue to profile growth marketers through the existing survey, which you can fill out. here.
As always, as the recommendations arrive, we’ll share them publicly so startups can find the right expert for what they need.
