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Hi friends!
Gregory again for this edition of the Daily Crunch on Thursday, September 9, 2021. Alex wilhelm is still on vacation for a few more days… even though he still tweets a lot, which leads me to think he’s either bad on vacation, or he hates Twitter less than I do. Either way, I’ll be saving this daily recap to give you a rundown of the biggest stories to cross our front page.
The Top 3 TechCrunch
- Facebook’s Smart Ray-Bans: Five years after Snap shipped its Spectacle sunglasses, Facebook is embarking on the concept. But you won’t find the Facebook logo anywhere on these things (probably because no one on the planet wants the Facebook logo on their face). Built in partnership with Ray-Ban’s parent company, they look like a pair of classic Wayfarers with a little more heft… and cameras. A white LED lights up when you take photos or videos, and near-ear speakers play your tunes and phone calls. You can’t get them wet, which is great because no one wears sunglasses in places with water, like swimming pools or beaches. Lucas Matney reviewed them here.
- Roomba is getting smarter: Arrival of the new Roomba! The big news? It will try to detect and avoid any droppings your pets may have left in its path. Earlier models would simply blow up this mess and drag it around, leaving the owners quite the horror show to come home.
- Notion acquires Automate.io: Notion buys Automate.io, an Indian startup that lets you easily connect to services like Mailchimp, Gmail, or Salesforce (or Notion!) And create complex automated workflows. “This is a significant acquisition,” the Notion COO said without revealing exactly how much he spent.
Startups / VC
- Skydweller Aero raises $ 8 million for solar planes: “Today’s planes and drones, regardless of size or fuel type, all face the same limitation: they eventually have to land. Writes Aria Alamalhodaei. “Skydweller Aero, the American-Spanish aerospace startup, wants to free itself from this constraint …”
- The $ 510 million Series E: Bank Varo does not stop fundraising. In June 2020, he raised $ 241 million, then another $ 63 million in February 2021 because why not. Now he’s raised $ 510 million in a Series E round that values the company at $ 2.5 billion. “We didn’t intend to raise so much money. It was coming fast and furious and we were about $ 510 [million] and I finally said, ‘OK, that’s enough,’ ”Varo CEO Colin Walsh said in a statement we can all relate to. Law? Anybody?
- Affinity raises $ 80 million to use machine learning to close business: Who in your organization is best placed to close this deal? Can machine learning algorithms analyze your business data (past email interactions, calendar availability, etc.) and recommend the right person? It’s part of what Affinity is working on, and they’ve raised an additional $ 80 million to get the ball rolling and grow the business. Affinity currently has 125 employees and plans to grow to over 200 next year.
Anatomy of a PSPC: Inside Better.com’s Ambitious Plans
Online mortgage company Better.com doesn’t wait to complete its SPAC merger before making big strides: today Ryan Lawler announced that he has bought Property Partners, a UK-based startup that offers the fractional ownership.
It’s the second company Better has bought in recent months: in July, it bought out digital mortgage brokerage firm Trussle.
“We’re not that easy to categorize,” said Better CEO Vishal Garg, who told Ryan the company plans to expand into traditional financial services like auto loans and insurance soon.
CFO Kevin Ryan said: “A lot of people have their own niches in how they tackle this, but we feel like we’re on our way to becoming a full stack where everything is integrated into the same flow. . “
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams move forward. You can register here.)
Big Tech Inc.
- Twitter Communities: Twitter keeps trying new things to make Twitter more accessible to people who don’t already have 10,000 followers. The latest experiment: communities, or moderate social hubs, where you can tweet with others around a common interest. Twitter is limiting the categories, for now, to topics like dogs, weather, sneakers, skin care, and astrology, and is probably hoping to stay very far from politics for as long as possible.
- Microsoft acquires Clipchamp: Have you ever wished that Microsoft’s 365 tool suite included a video editor? Looks like it’s on its way. Microsoft has announced the acquisition of Clipchamp, a web video creation / editing tool. As for when it could be integrated into 365? To be determined.
- Quicken is sold again: Well, it was quick (en). Only a few years after being acquired by a private equity firm, Quicken was sold to a different private equity firm. Quicken CEO Eric Dunn shared his thoughts on the deal (as well as some information on the company’s growth lately) with TC’s Mary Ann Azevedo.
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