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Good morning, you crunchy ol’ pirates. Good to see you again, and hope you had a swell weekend. On Wednesday, we’re hosting a healthcare-focused TechCrunch Live. It’ll be fun! Tune in here, and if you want to be part of the 2-minute pitch practice, Haje will be on the lookout for your applications.
Now, grab yourself a glass of water, and settle in with some tech-newsy goodness from the TC team! —Christine and Haje
The TechCrunch Top 3
- Order up: Meta joined forces with Reliance Retail and Jio Platforms two years ago to test grocery shopping on WhatsApp in India, and Manish and Jagmeet write that customers can now “browse JioMart’s entire grocery catalog on WhatsApp, add items to a cart and make the payments via local payments rail UPI without ever leaving the instant messaging service.”
- Welcome back: Former Amplify co-founder and CEO Segun Adeyemi is back with Anchor, a banking-as-a-service startup that is helping businesses offer financial products in Nigeria and across Africa. It also caught the eye of Y Combinator and other investors, who put in over $1 million, Tage reports.
- Hail to the chief: Speaking of YC, Mary Ann and Natasha M paired up to report on today’s surprise news that Initialized Capital founder Garry Tan is going to be the accelerator giant’s next president and CEO.
Startups and VC
As we all know, the housing market goes through cycles. Low interest rates mean more purchases and refinances. Higher interest rates mean far fewer purchases and refinances — and lots of business for fintechs operating in the real estate industry, Mary Ann writes in this week’s issue of the Interchange, our fintech newsletter.
Kli Capital was your average family office headed up by a former tech entrepreneur looking to opportunistically back a new fleet of founders. Becca reports that the firm changed gears in the firm’s third fund, as it evolved into a multi-LP fund.
- From chillcore to core chill: Ivan reports that music streaming service Deezer is testing a meditation app.
- A stroke of genius: Health tech startup Neurofenix puts a new spin on home stroke rehabilitation with the NeuroBall, Devin reports.
- Soaring highs, cutting lows: Just five months after fintech Argyle raised a $55 million round, the startup cuts a bunch of jobs, Natasha M reports.
- Into the sea, you and me: Mermade Seafoods swims in cell agriculture waters to make cultivated scallops, Christine reports.
- A test of the times: African genomics startup 54gene lays off 95 employees as its COVID testing business struggles, Tage reports.
A Gen Z VC speaks up: Why Gen Z VCs are trash
Tech investors born after 1996 “have raised funds, garnered social media followings and profited from the Gen Z mentality,” says Andrew Chan, a senior associate at Builders VC.
However, “Gen Z, no matter how you slice it, are still a bunch of kids. Myself included,” he notes in a TC+ guest post. “Good for them. I don’t want to be any part of it.”
Chan says too many investors in his age cohort rely on “youth, group-think identification and confidence as a substitute for hard work and experience.”
“It might work for now, but if that’s success for my generation of venture capitalists, then I would have rather stayed in my happy little bubble writing geochemistry code at NASA JPL.”
(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)
Big Tech Inc.
If you like earbuds that glow, you will enjoy Haje’s review of Angry Miao’s Cyberblade gaming earbuds. We think “these are some of the best-manufactured in-ear headphones I’ve ever seen” pretty much sums it up.
Remember the vintage Apple iMac Blueberry? That’s what the back of the new Aston Martin Valhalla reminds us of. For true car connoisseurs, Jaclyn writes this high-performance vehicle is being used to “develop a playbook for its future EVs.”
- Can’t buy me love: Four years later, Facebook seems ready to settle the Cambridge Analytica lawsuit, Natasha L reports. For those of you who don’t recall, that was related to user data that was allegedly shared illegally.
- Biting into Apple: Meanwhile, Apple may need to get its lawyers ready. Sarah reports that the U.S. Justice Department is preparing to file an antitrust lawsuit against Apple.
- The ads are here: It looks like Netflix’s ad-supported plan will run you a cool $7 per month, Ivan writes. Get ready for four minutes of commercials in an hour-long show.
- Light ’em up: Honda and LG Energy have plans to build a $4.4 billion lithium-ion plant somewhere in the U.S., Jaclyn reports.
- No copycat here: There’s been a number of apps trying to replicate BeReal’s experience, but Amanda writes that Snapchat’s Dual camera feature doesn’t really fall into that category.
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