To get a summary of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3pm PDT, subscribe here.
Is it Friday again? We’ve been longing for this day all week, and when it comes, you remember all the things you didn’t get done while you were busy dreaming about Friday. Oh well, hopefully that bag of goodies makes its way to you after you’ve cleared your to-do list and are ready for happy hour. If you will TTID next week, safety third, but try to stay alive. Failing that, make sure you die in a more interesting way from dehydration so your camp mates can at least get a good story out of it. — Christine and Hadje
TechCrunch’s Top 3
- Virtual reality, meta style: Meta’s new virtual reality headset technology will focus on face and eye tracking, features the company calls “social presence,” Ivan write. It doesn’t come out until October, so you have roughly two months to raise the $400 we think it will cost.
- Mo’ Twilio, mo’ problems: The hits of Twilio data breach earlier this month keep coming. Carly says that this time the breach affected users of two-factor app Authy. Authy is a company In 2015, Twilio acquired. Oh, and the number of affected customers is now over 160. More on that below in Big Tech.
- Predatory lending is taking a turn: Although the nature of the article is not happy, in our opinion Jagmeet did a great job detailing the length of time some lending apps will take to get disbursed from users in India.
Startups and VCs
Asian crypto gaming and web3 investment company Animoca Brands is entering Japan as its local unit raises $45 million in funding at a $500 million pre-money valuation. The investment comes at a time when the country is tightening regulations around the crypto industry, it said Rita.
To stay in Asia, Anna and Alex measure the pulse China’s venture capital scene. From almost zero growth in the second quarter and abandoned economic targets to continued lockdowns due to COVID-19, power crisis, housing crisis, concerns about the strength of the national currency, water scarcity, high youth unemployment and more, it’s a tough mix for the second largest economy in the world – without even mentioning a backdrop laden with geopolitical tension. This is a TechCrunch+ story, but if you don’t have a subscription, use the Daily Crunch discount code “DC” for 15% off.
Let’s do a few more, shall we?
- Draw me a picture of a gang: Creator of a mobile photo editing app Lightricks jumps on AI generated art trend with its new Text to Image generator in its apps, Lauren reports.
- Fly high, fly fast: Starting the supply chain FourKites recently laid off a bunch of workers, but today announced that it has raised $30 million to feel the wind beneath his wings again, Kyle reports.
- Going from Bad.com to Worse.com: You know it’s hard for them in Better.com as the company confirms its fourth round of layoffs in less than nine months, Mary Ann reports.
- Real estate is getting really awkward: A real estate technology startup Reali is going to closeafter the startup raised $100 million just a year or so ago, Mary Ann reports.
- Flexible apartments? Are they made of Jell-O?: We can’t help but giggle at the thought of moving buildings, but “flexible apartments” are having their day in the sun. The landing provided $125 million in debt and equity financingreports Horses.
Learning from my failures: Lessons from a 2-time founder
Image Credits: Sergey Chuiko (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
All gloating aside: learning from our own mistakes is useful, but learning from someone else’s mistakes is optimal.
Squadhelp CEO and founder Darpan Munjal has shut down his previous company, a fashion e-commerce venture, after four years of “solid growth.” In retrospect, he says the early-stage funding created a false sense of security.
“It wasn’t easy to close the shutters on a business I really believed in. But I knew I could start over if I was willing to learn from my mistakes and apply those lessons wisely.”
(TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can register here.)
Big Tech Inc.
Google’s Waze seems to have lost its way a bit. The search engine giant said it was closing your Waze Carpoolservice that connected drivers with commuters, citing “shifting commuting patterns as a result of the pandemic,” Aisha write. Going forward, the app will focus on a post-Covid world of errands and travel.
Meanwhile, Indian Railways is reversing course on a plan to monetize customer data after an advocacy group, the Internet Freedom Foundation, took to Twitter opposed the strategy, writing, “The profit maximization objective will lead to greater incentives for data collection, violating the principles of data minimization and objective limitation.” Manish there is more.
In case you missed some stories from late yesterday, we’ve got some good ones:
- Starlink paging: SpaceX and T-Mobile we’re partnering to connect T-Mobile phones to Starlink for free starting in 2023, Devin write.
- First spaces, not podcasts: It’s official – Twitter integrates podcasts in its platform. The feature will exist in the Spaces tab, Aisha reports.
- Hackers at the door: DoorDash is among the organizations affected by the Twilio hackers, Carly write. The delivery company says customers’ “names, email addresses, shipping addresses and phone numbers” were taken, and for a smaller group, partial payment card information.
- Trade Twitter for Meta: Sandeep Pandey, Twitter’s VP of Engineering, has been confirmed leaving this social media giant for Meta, Andrew write. Pandey is the latest executive to leave the company since Elon Musk offered to take over Twitter earlier this year.