Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly roundup of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to receive it in your inbox every Friday.
Garry Tan heads Y Combinator, the most powerful startup program in the world. At the end of last week, he tweeted – I mean, X-ed – some really nasty shit, telling politicians to “die slow”. She has since deleted the tweet, but the drama was the talk of the town this week.
However, Tan’s alleged drunken tyranny served as a welcome distraction from another flurry of tech layoffs last week (you’re not imagining things – it’s real). The layoffs hit very close to home this week, as some of our colleagues at TechCrunch were let go, including some close friends of mine that I’ve known and worked with for a decade. Our paths will meet again friends!
Okay, so what elsewhere go to the world of startups? Let’s dive in.
The most interesting startup stories this week
Image Credits: Plex
In a move that screams, “We’re almost there, promise!” Media streaming underdog Plex has raised $40 million in what looks like their largest ever funding round, in a round confusingly named Series C-3. The company is still chasing the profitability milestone, and with a strategy that seems to throw everything at the wall to see what sticks — from ad-supported content to social sharing features — Plex is betting big on becoming a major player in the game flow. Whether they cross the finish line of profitability or simply add more features, it remains a cliffhanger worthy of its own drama series. Maybe Plex will outsource it next.
In a masterclass in how to win no friends and influence regulators, Apple takes the crown with its dramatic response to regulatory compliance demands. With the grace of a sullen teenager, the company has reluctantly introduced changes required by laws like Europe’s Digital Markets Act, while fretting over the potential risks those changes could pose to users. Despite its vast resources, Apple chooses to play the victim, warning that these regulatory adjustments are detrimental to its user base, whom it apparently sees as incapable of making informed decisions. This approach not only risks burning bridges with developers, who are increasingly frustrated with Apple’s antics, but also threatens to tarnish its political goodwill.
Hold the Fitbit, define a disease: In a world obsessed with fitness tracking, Visible is saying, “Hold my wearable” and introducing disease tracking, because what we really need is a daily reminder of our chronic conditions. It’s like having a pocket-sized friend whispering, “Maybe not today,” every morning.
The most interesting fundraisers this week
Image Credits: Robotics Chef
“The fundraising cycle, once you start it, takes twice as long and requires three times the conversations,” Jesse Randall, the founder of the Sweater Ventures platform, tells Dominic-Madori in an interview. Here’s what you need to know to raise a Series A right now. (TC+)
Metronome, a startup that loves turning complicated billing into not-so-complicated, especially for AI companies, just closed $43 million in Series B funding. With roots in Dropbox and a client list that reads like a who’s who of technology (think OpenAI and Nvidia), make the transition from subscription to usage-based billing much less complicated. Their secret sauce? Metronome is riding high with 6x revenue growth while keeping its valuation a mystery.
Get the salsa, we already have the chips: In the world of AI chips, where the norm is throwing money at problems hoping something will stick, Rebellions just won a whopping $124 million to join the fray. Be that as it may, it’s an underdog story for the ages.
Can you figure out what the ‘bot is cooking?: In a world where flipping burgers by hand is 2023, Chef Robotics just raised $15 million to convince commercial kitchens that the future lies in assembling food by robots, not humans. Why chop onions when you can have a robot do it for you?
Manipulation in robots: Throwing money at AI security is the new black.
This week’s big trend: Layoffs. Again.
Aerial view of Silicon Valley from 30,000 feet. Image Credits: Getty Images / Charles O’Rear
I know, I know. We thought everything was behind us, but . . . Alas.
In the latest twist in layoff history, giants like Microsoft and Alphabet are flaunting their profits while at the same time shrinking their ranks. Meanwhile, in the scrappy underdog corner of startup land, venture capital is playing hardball to get them, leaving many startups stranded in a financial land. It’s a classic case of corporate “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” proving once again that in the tech world, the more things change, the more layoff announcements stay eerily similar.
You need to check the expense: In an ironic twist on corporate austerity, Brex, the expense management startup, went from swelling its employee roster to cutting it by nearly 20 percent in a desperate bid to stop eating up $17 million a month.
Raising cash during downsizing: Flexport, having already rained down $2.7 billion in funding, is eyeing another round of layoffs, proving that even with deep pockets, they don’t outshine the workforce. . . again, a few weeks after acquiring an additional $260 million from Shopify.
I have to pay the piper: PayPal has decided to cut its workforce again, this time cutting 9% of its workforce — or about 2,500 people. We can only assume that the strategy is based on the little-known fact that the best way to innovate is to ensure that there are fewer innovators around.
Other TechCrunch stories you shouldn’t miss. . .
Each week, there are always a few stories I want to share with you that somehow don’t fit into the above categories. It would be a shame if you missed them, so here’s a random goodie bag for you:
Back to work, toothy: In a world where even artificial intelligence can catch the ‘lazy bug’, OpenAI has decided to lower the prices and revamp the work ethic of the GPT-4 model, ensuring that it no longer avoids completing tasks. It looks like AI is quietly embodying a digital form of silent disruption, but fear not, the latest update promises a more diligent and cost-effective virtual colleague.
India’s First AI Unicorn: Ola founder Krutrim’s AI venture grabs headlines in record time with a cool $50 million funding round at a valuation north of a billion clams, claiming to be India’s first AI heavyweight without even breaking a sweat .
You creep, stop looking for it: X’s handling of Taylor Swift’s Deepfake Saga proved just how low the bar has been set for content moderation. This incident highlighted the comical inadequacy of current safeguards, essentially making the Wild West of the Internet look like a playground for the digitally inept.
More like departure: Arrival, the commercial EV startup once celebrated for its innovative micro-factory philosophy, has gone from a $13 billion valuation to potentially worth a spin, proving that all that glitters in the SPAC world isn’t gold. Now its shares are about to disappear from the Nasdaq.
I give up: Amazon’s grand plan to take over the world with robotic vacuums has hit a snag, and its $1.4 billion deal with iRobot is now just a pile of dust. Meanwhile, iRobot, facing a future without Amazon’s wallet, is starting to cut jobs and dream up the next big thing in home automation.
