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Good morning, you great specimens of humanity! It’s Friday, and I’m penning this from the hammock in my sunny North Oakland backyard, so life ain’t all that unhealthy. (I can solely assume that WFH stands for Work From Hammock).
This weekend, earmark a little bit of time to use to our Startup Battlefield 200. It provides you the prospect to exhibit your startup without cost at TechCrunch Disrupt in October and win the $100,000 prize. Functions shut August 5, so get cracking!
Have a superb one, and see you subsequent week! — Haje
The TechCrunch Prime 3
Startups and VC
It’s all go, go, go on the earth of insurance coverage. Mary Ann stories that Lemonade acquired Metromile and promptly laid off about 20% of its workers. Is smart, in fact, in a world the place there’s most likely a good quantity of administrative and operational overlap between the 2 corporations, however it’s at all times unhappy to say goodbye to beloved colleagues.
And don’t miss Aria’s piece about how the Exploration Firm is creating a brand-new reusable orbital spacecraft. “The [space] exploration ecosystem goes to vary dramatically within the most likely subsequent 10 to fifteen years,” co-founder and CEO Hélène Huby defined. “For those who make it occur, you’ve an enormous benefit of being one of many first out there.”
A couple of extra nuggets to take you into the weekend:
- Taking the enjoyable out of all the pieces: A startup is charging $1.99 to write down strings to feed into platforms like DALL-E, and I despair for humanity. Come on, that’s half the enjoyable! No thanks in any respect to Kyle for making me seethe with confused anger this afternoon. Jerk.
- Making it rain down in Africa: Zedcrest Capital, a agency identified for its debt and fairness capital markets investments however who lately began dabbling in enterprise investments, has launched a $10 million “emergency fund” for African startups, aimed toward pre-Sequence A stage corporations, Tage stories.
- Driving classes for industrial autos: Polymath Robotics launches to deliver plug-and-play autonomy software program to any industrial car, Kirsten stories.
- The extra you study: You realize what, I’ve by no means learn considered one of Devin’s articles that didn’t make me go, “Huh! I didn’t know that!” As we speak, Shinkei Programs’ AI-guided fish harvesting robotic gave me that second of enjoyment.
All my apes gone: Authorized disputes on the intersection of IP and NFTs
Picture Credit: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch
When Andy Warhol appropriated pictures of Campbell’s Soup in 1962, he was fortunate: For a number of causes, the corporate determined to not sue him for infringing its trademark.
One wonders how the state of affairs would have performed out 60 years later if Warhol had minted a sequence of NFTs with the long-lasting soup labels, nevertheless.
In her newest TC+ put up, CORPlaw founder Kristen Corpion examined “probably the most attention-grabbing and essential IP authorized points which are at the moment impacting the creation, switch and use of NFTs,” together with trademark infringement, the primary sale doctrine and why Seth Inexperienced ended up paying a $100,000 premium to purchase again his stolen Bored Ape.
(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup groups get forward. You may enroll right here.)
Massive Tech Inc.
It’s by no means gonna offer you up. It’ll make an effort to by no means allow you to down. It most likely gained’t run round and desert you. However TikTok could also be contemplating a music service, report Aisha and Ivan in an article that sadly falls in need of the necessary quota of musical puns. Don’t fear, people, I’ll speak to her about it.
In the meantime, Annie stories that Kenya is considering giving Fb a smack with the ban-hammer, after the nation’s Nationwide Cohesion and Integration Fee finds that the social media platform isn’t doing sufficient to filter hate speech.
- Is multimedia coming to Twitter?: Seems just like the social media platform is testing letting you put up pictures, movies, and GIFs all in the identical tweet, Ivan stories.
- We don’t need your steeenking adverts: Roku misses the mark on its quarterly outcomes, and blames promoting slowdown for arising quick, Lauren stories.
- Financial institution stability goes down, shares go up: Amazon reported its earnings and ran at a $2 billion loss. Looks as if stonks love that form of factor, as a result of the share worth went up, stories Lauren.
- For you, particular worth. For you, it’s double: Twitter Blue will get a worth hike from $2.99 to $4.99 per thirty days, stories Ivan.
- The place do you are taking somebody after a “peekaboo” accident? To ICU: Instagram just about copied BeReal for its Twin digital camera characteristic, however kinda missed the purpose alongside the way in which, Amanda explains.
- Is there something they’ll’t do?: Video memes, possibly music quickly (see above) and now TikTok begins testing HTML5 minigames with a handful of companions, Sarah stories.
