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Hello and welcome to the Daily Crunch for Tuesday February 1st, 2022! I celebrated the first day of the month by turning off my internet as I began preparing this newsletter for you. Do I panic if I have to produce 1,000 words in the next 38 minutes? Yes! But it’s busy, so let’s get to work. – Alex
The TechCrunch Top 3.5
- WTF is a DAO: When a new technical term is created, it often has a narrow scope. And just as often, the term is quickly watered down to the point of meaninglessness. AI big data. Social. You can add to this list. DAOs, or Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, have a similar problem in terms of precision. Luckily, we have Lucas Matney on hand to explore how DAOs are defined by the people who support them.
- Crypto investments are increasing: After a record 2021, money continued to flow into the world of blockchain-based companies in January. We’ve also seen mega rounds in space boosting companies like FTX. And one fund — a foretaste — has just announced that it will invest a large portion of its new capital in space. Buckle up.
- Alexis raises new funds: The Reddit co-founder’s venture company Seven Seven Six has just assembled its second fund, this time valued at $500 million. And as you guessed from the previous blurb, it’s going to invest a lot of that money in crypto.
- But not just crypto: Seven Seven Six also participated in the non-crypto focused Metafy Series A that we covered today. Tiger was in the mix too.
Startups/VC
On the subject of new funds, AirTree has raised A$700 million across three investment vehicles, or around $493 million. As we wrote in our post analyzing the news, “money is flowing into the startup ecosystems of Australia and New Zealand”. Yes, that’s true in many places, but you might not have expected the Aussies and Kiwis to be so deep in the action. You are! (You may have heard of Atlassian, for example.)
Changing gears, our own Ron Miller has a neat article on the website covering it Docker has reached the $50 million ARR mark after restructuring his business. Docker had kind of faded from my memory in the past few years, but this sales figure suggests we should probably be paying attention again. There’s no better signal that there’s a product on the market that people need than the fact that they’re paying you for it.
From the checkout:
- WYL increases for LandlordObs: WYL, or Whose Your Landlord, raised seed money from BlackOps Ventures when it grew its rental appraisal service into a software product that it sells to people who own buildings. It’s a nice addition for a company that’s made it through seven years with very little outside funding.
- Metronome wants you to introduce on-demand pricing: The subscription compared. The on-demand pricing debate has been going on quietly in the tech world for a number of years. TechCrunch has covered it in some detail, but Metronome shows how far things have come. The startup has developed a service to help software companies iterate with on-demand pricing without changing code. That should help more companies to at least test the revenue model.
- Today in good startup names: Pesto! Everyone loves the green sauce, which goes well with everything but ice cream and peanut butter. It’s also the name of a startup that’s building a “digitally native human workspace where employees can customize a workplace avatar.” As a fan of RPG character creators, this comes to mind.
- Evidence of the tech talent wars: With $10 million in the bank, Free Agency is working to support more seasoned talent to bag their next job. Negotiations usually pit an individual worker against a company, which is a bit one-sided and silly and often leads to misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Why not get help for expensive jobs? Free Agency is betting that this is the future. Let’s see.
- Ecommerce lending is big business: Working capital is a major concern for companies in any industry, as cash outflows are often compared to cash inflows at the wrong time. Answers vary depending on the question, but Wayflyer, an Irish start-up, is developing its own way of providing funds to e-commerce businesses, in a way that both attracts customers and generates nine-figure interest.
- Tiger leads a $142M round in RenoRun: Tiger is so quick to deploy capital that I haven’t even heard of some of the companies it’s investing nine figures in. Today it’s RenoRun, which isn’t a walk into a casino, it’s Reno like renovation. The Canadian construction tech startup has “built an e-commerce platform for construction and building materials,” we report.
And much more, including a new corporate browser that just came out of stealth; clean Mozilla privacy features, which I think still counts as a startup; and Natasha Lomas has A great piece looking at the startups working in the carbon credit space and how they manage—or fail—to clean up a business that’s shadier than you’d like.
How to build and maintain momentum in your fundraising process
Photo credit: ozgurcankaya (opens in a new window) /Getty Images
It’s not enough to get investors’ attention when raising money – often you need to convince them that your funding process is efficient and that you’re talking to other investors.
Momentum is key to building that interest, writes Nathan Beckord, CEO of Foundersuite.com, and that energy will drive your entire fundraising process.
After opening with a “great hack to ask for email launches,” Beckord shares five hustle tips for maintaining and capitalizing on the momentum that maximizes investor interest and appeal.
(TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead. Here you can sign up.)
BigTech Inc.
- Apple’s first local newsletter is launched: I didn’t know, but Apple uses human editors to put together a daily newsletter for the Bay Area. In particular, the project collects local news from the Apple News service. As TechCrunch points out, Apple News already has “local coverage in 11 markets,” meaning the new product could spread before long. A replacement for local newspapers? No, it just seems like a way to help them get more readers.
- Cruise raises another $1.35 billion and opens robotaxi business more broadly: I suppose Cruise could still be called a startup, but considering how much of it is owned by public companies, it’s not really a burgeoning private company, let’s be honest. Anyway, with another billion under its belt, the driverless taxi company is “opening its driverless Robotaxi service to the public in San Francisco,” according to TechCrunch. I repeat, I hate driving and can’t wait for this revolution to really peak.
TechCrunch Experts
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TechCrunch wants you to recommend growth marketers with experience in SEO, social media, content writing, and more! If you’re a growth marketer, pass this opinion poll together with your customers; we’d love to know why they enjoyed working with you.
If you’re curious how these polls influence our reporting, read this article on TechCrunch+ by Elise King: “3 experiments for early-stage founders looking for product-market fit.”
