The regulatory environment surrounding crypto is shifting stateside as the SEC takes aim at major players in the web3 world, promising to shake up business as usual with aggressive action.
This week on Chain Reaction, we sat down with David Nage. Nage is a Principal at Arca overseeing their early stage fund with a primary focus on blockchain and digital assets. On the podcast this week, we dug into a multitude of crypto topics impacting the web3 venture capital world, including struggles with the blockchain gaming sector and a renewed regulatory fervor from the SEC following this week’s report of an investigation into Coinbase.
You can listen to the full interview below.
In our conversation, Nage noted that the recent downturn has already provided plenty of learnings for players in the space, but notes that some of the biggest blowups have disproportionally impacted retail investors. “I wish that we as a society didn’t have to learn through failure, but it appears that we really learn via failure and that’s the way that we grow and prosper,” Nage says.
Nage says that while the regulatory agencies are pushing for investigations, plenty of venture investors are just hoping that they can provide more guidelines and pathways for startup players to operate within legal boundaries while embracing opportunities native to crypto. It’s a lack of guidance that has pushed plenty of venture-backed startups to wait and see before dropping their own token, Nage tells us.
“A lot of these founders understand that a token could provide obvious utility for distributing and and decentralizing the authority of the company and could provide a lot of positive economic incentives for those that are participating, but without regulatory clarity they are pushing that off in a warrant for an indefinite period of time,” Nage says. “So I think that actually having that clarity could be really useful for the thousands of founders out there that are looking to innovate in the space.”
While Nage has some complaints about how the regulatory landscape has developed, he also notes that things have still moved more quickly than he expected. “To think [back] in crypto winter of 2018 that senators would be architecting certain policies regarding digital assets [today] is just a leap and bound and your mind just blows, it’s amazing.”
You can hear more of Nage’s interview by listening to our latest episode. Subscribe to Chain Reaction on Apple, Spotify or your alternative podcast platform of choice to keep up with us every week.
Blue America endorsed Lucas Kunce last week to be the Democratic nominee for the Senate in MO, and I have to say he is an impressive candidate.
Kunce is also an ex-Marine who has battled the effects of toxic burn pit chemicals from his time in the Middle East and like Jon Stewart, was appalled when Republicans turned their backs on the much-needed legislation to help veterans suffering the effects of toxic burn pits.
I’m a Marine who was exposed to toxic burn pits in Iraq. Republicans have turned their backs on veterans like me.
--
Many struggle with chronic respiratory issues. Migraines. Cancer. So imagine how we all felt on Thursday, watching all these Republicans, most of whom have never even worn the uniform, throw us a giant middle finger?
Kunce gave a detailed account of his time overseas in the military as well as dealing with the issues after being exposed. He argued it's time to do away with the filibuster if that's the only solution to pass real legislation to help the American people and veterans alike.
A group opposing Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has exploded in size in recent days after he attacked the appearance of women who seek abortions.
At a rally in Niceville, Florida on Saturday, members of "Women Against Matt Gaetz" spoke out against the lawmaker.
"Women have had enough of him and had enough of his mouth speaking derogatory to women who are simply expressing their rights," group founder Samantha Hope Herring said, according to WEAR-TV.
Herring told the station that the group had grown by 1,300 people in its first two days.
"By speaking up, we can organize together to vote him out. That's the number one thing we want to see happen. And we also are going to be asking Congress to censure Matt Gaetz," she explained.
"Women all feel strongly about their rights being trampled on and having no respect even Matt has a mother. Can you imagine how embarrassed she is? All people have mothers and all mothers are women," activist Kathy White said at Saturday's rally.
Gaetz responded by telling WEAR-TV that he "is pro-life and wouldn’t have it any other way."
Bolt Mobility, the Miami-based micromobility startup co-founded by Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt, appears to have vanished without a trace from several of its U.S. markets.
In some cases, the departure has been abrupt, leaving cities with abandoned equipment, unanswered calls and emails and lots of questions.
Bolt has stopped operating in at least five U.S. cities, including Portland, Oregon, Burlington, South Burlington and Winooski in Vermont and Richmond, California, according to city officials. City representatives also said they were unable to reach anyone at Bolt, including its CEO Ignacio Tzoumas.
TechCrunch has made multiple attempts to reach Bolt and those who have backed the company. Emails to Bolt’s communications department, several employees and investors went unanswered. Even the customer service line doesn’t appear to be staffed. The PR agency that wasrepresenting Bolt in Marchof this year told TechCrunch it is no longer working with the company.
Bolt halted its service in Portland on July 1. The company’s failure to provide the city with updated insurance and pay some outstanding fees, Portland subsequently suspended Bolt’s permit to operate there, according to a city spokesperson.
Bolt zooms than stalls
Bolt Mobility (not to be confused with the European transportation super app also namedBolt) was on what appeared to be a growth streak about 18 months ago. The company acquired in January 2021 the assets of Last Mile Holdings, which owned micromobility companies Gotcha and OjO Electric. The purchaser opened up 48 new markets to Bolt Mobility, most of which were smaller cities such as Raleigh, North Carolina, St. Augustine, Florida and Mobile, Alabama.
After purchasing Last Mile’s assets, Bolt agreed to continue as the bike share vendor in Chittenden County, Vermont, including cities Burlington, South Burlington and Winooski.
That license was even renewed in 2022, said Bryan Davis, senior transportation planner of the county.
“We learned a couple of weeks ago (from them) that Bolt is ceasing operations,” Davis told TechCrunch via email, noting that Bolt ceased operations July 1, but actually informed the county a week later. “They’ve vanished, leaving equipment behind and emails and calls unanswered. We’re unable to reach anyone, but it seems they’ve closed shop in other markets as well.”
Sandy Thibault, executive director of Chittenden Area Transportation Management Association, told theBurlington Free Pressthat Bolt communicated that employees were being let go and the company’s board of directors was discussing next steps.
A spokesperson at Burlington relayed similar information.
“All of our contacts at Bolt, including their CEO, have gone radio silent and have not replied to our emails,” Robert Goulding, public information manager at Burlington’s Department of Public Works, told TechCrunch.
Davis went on to say that about 100 bikes have been left on the ground completely inoperable and with dead batteries. Chittenden County has given Bolt a time frame in which to claim or remove the company’s vehicles otherwise the county will take ownership of them.
Bolt also appears to have stopped operating in Richmond, California, according to Richmond Mayor Tom Butt’s e-forum.
“Unfortunately, Bolt apparently went out of business without prior notification or removal of their capital equipment from city property,”wrote Butt. “They recently missed the city’s monthly meeting check-in and have been unresponsive to all their clients throughout all their markets.”
Butt went on to say that the city is coming up with a plan to remove all the abandoned equipment – about 250 e-bikes that were available at hub locations like BART stations and the ferry terminal – and asked people to refrain from vandalizing the bikes until the city could come up with a solution.
TechCrunch has reached out to several other cities in which Bolt operates and has not been able to confirm that the company has stopped operating entirely. In fact, a spokesperson from St. Augustine told TechCrunch Bolt’s bike share was running as usual.
Bolt’s social media has also been rather inactive in recent weeks. The company hasn’t posted on Instagram since June 11 or on Twitter since June 2.
The last time TechCrunch heard from Bolt was nine months ago when the company was peddling itsin-app navigation system that it dubbed “MobilityOS.”At the time, the startup promised that its next generation of scooters would include a smartphone mount that would double as a phone charger, but it’s unclear if those scooters ever hit the streets.
Former President Donald Trump's ties to the LIV golf tournament -- which seeks to rival the near century-old PGA Tour -- are packed full of controversy. It's as if Trump dropped his trousers and took a giant sh*t all over the 9/11 families. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is financing LIV. And the Saudis were, of course, behind the 9/11 terror attacks.
And then there's the whole cutting up of a Washington Post journalist with bone saws that just seems distance-worthy. Like, get out of my face, you Saudi pieces of sh*t worthy. The LIV tournament isn't drawing a considerable crowd at least; tickets start from $1.00. That's not a typo. ONE DOLLAR.
The golf itself, meanwhile, wasn't exactly supercharged—light crowds were spread across much of the vast grounds here on the first day of the tournament. Tickets for the Saturday session were available on stubhub.com for as little as $1.
And Mr. Trump, well, acted like he owned the place.
The high-profile group for Thursday's pro-am round produced an unusual scene: at least a dozen golf carts, including Mr. Trump's with the presidential seal, were on the same hole. It was also a rare glimpse into Mr. Trump on the course after rounds during his presidency were typically out of view from the press.
Trump was interviewed by Clay Travis and Buck Sexton and claimed that the United States should not negotiate a trade with Russia to release a US Marine and WNBA star Brittney Griner because in his words she was "loaded up with drugs."
Was Griner carrying five kilos of heroin? No.
Was Griner carrying a hundred and forty-nine illegal Oxycontin pills? No.
A couple of grams of coke, maybe? No.
The "loaded up with drugs" crime was vape cartridges.
Griner plays in the off-season for a team in Russia and she flew there before the Russian invasion against Ukraine had begun. She has testified that she didn't realize she had the vape cannabis cartridges with her.
As usual Trump has to lie just to try and score political points against President Biden even if two Americans trapped in Russia's lives are at stake.
Most of whatever Trump says says is either a complete lie or a fabrication of the truth during any interview or rally and that is the case when he spoke about Griner's case to Buck and Clay.
"She went in there loaded up with drugs into a hostile territory where they’re very vigilant about drugs. They don’t like drugs. And she got caught. And now we’re supposed to get her out — and she makes, you know, a lot of money, I guess."
"But we’re supposed to get her out for an absolute killer and one of the biggest arms dealers in the world. Killed many Americans. Killed many people. And he’s gonna get a free card and we’re gonna get her," Trump said.
When Mandela Barnes became the presumptive Democratic nominee for the US Senate to take on Ron Johnson, everyone in the state was in a state of shock.
When the Democrats has absorbed the news, there was a statewide celebration. But as the Republicans absorbed the news - or tried to - their instincts were very much different.
Case in point is Scott Walker. When the news first broke, Walker went on Twitter and tweeted on the behalf of most Republicans, but tweeting the quiet part out loud:
He has since deleted this tweet and started using the word "radical." But we all know what he really means.
Last Word's Ayman Mohyeldin brought on former Arlen Specter staffer Craig Snyder to talk about Republicans for Shapiro, who are opposing Doug Mastriano for Pennsylvania governor.
"If election denier Mastriano is elected governor of Pennsylvania, he could appoint a secretary of state that could overturn the election in the state of Pennsylvania if a Democrat wins the state.
"It's good to have you with us, Craig. What is at stake here with Doug Mastriano on the ballot in Pennsylvania, is his platform so dangerous in your opinion?"
"Thanks, Ayman. Lawrence (O'Donnell) on the show has been absolutely right, it's not hyperbole to say that this is the most important governor's race in the country this year, and maybe ever," Snyder said.
"The question on the ballot, as I see, it is whether the American republican form of government, created in Pennsylvania in 1787, is going to be mortally wounded here in Pennsylvania and 2022. Mastriano is not a traditional Pennsylvania Republican, like my old boss, Arlen Specter, and some past governors, Scranton, Thornberg, Ridge -- it's that, right, he's a radical, as you have described, he is practically Trump's vice president for the Big Lie.
Hello hello! Welcome back to Week in Review, the newsletter where we do a quick rundown of the most-read TechCrunch stories from the past week. The idea: When you’ve had a busy few days, you should be able to skim Week in Review and still have a good idea of what’s up lately in tech. Want it in your inbox? Sign up here.
The most read story this week was about Battlegrounds Mobile India, a popular battle royale title that has found an audience of tens of millions in India. Players woke up to find the game suddenly blocked from both Google Play and Apple’s App Store by order of the Indian government. Why? That’s…not exactly clear yet, but Manish has the breakdown of everything we know so far.
other stuff
New Gmail for all: Use Gmail? Don’t be surprised if it looks different soon. The company announced this week that the “Material You” interface overhaul it has been testing will roll out to all users in the coming weeks. Don’t like the new styling? For now, at least, you can find a toggle hidden in the settings menu to switch it back.
Instagram’s bad move(s): As best anyone can tell, TikTok seems to be eating Instagram’s lunch. Is the answer for Instagram to become more like TikTok? Recent updates — like a focus on full-screen video and more content from people you don’t follow — have made the Insta interface feel more and more TikTok-y…and, well, the complaints have been loud. Instagram is at least pretending to listen, though, and says it’ll be walking back many of said changes. Maybe.
Rivian layoffs: Rumors earlier this month suggested layoffs were looming at Rivian; sure enough, the company confirmed this week that it’s laying off around 6% of its workforce as part of a “restructuring plan.”
A penny for your prompts?: OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 can generate incredible art seemingly out of thin air, but sometimes getting the exact results you want can require some…finesse. This startup wants to “sell strings of words that net predictable results” on DALL-E 2 and other such systems. An interesting story made all the better by its oh-so-Seussian opening image, which I’ll note was created by an actual human (and a lovely one at that).
Meta shutters Tuned: Did you know Meta had a social app for couples? Probably not! Called Tuned, it was part of Meta’s New Product Experimentation efforts, and it seems this particular experiment is over. Meta announced this week that Tuned will go away on September 19. The app was meant to help couples communicate and “create a shared scrapbook” of photos/videos/etc. It doesn’t help that it was launched right at the beginning of the pandemic, when many couples probably had no trouble keeping in touch because they probably weren’t going anywhere anyway.
audio stuff
Is cutting your company’s internal valuation ever a good thing? Natasha and Anita focused on that question on Wednesday’s episode of Equity. Meanwhile, on Chain Reaction, Lucas and Anita chatted about Minecraft, saying, “No friggin’ thanks” to NFTs, and Lauren hopped on The TechCrunch Podcast to fill us in on why (as we learned last week) Netflix is bleeding customers.
additional stuff
If you’re a TechCrunch+ subscriber, (a) thanks! and (b) we’ve got good stuff for you this week. Such as:
3 views on Amazon’s acquisition of One Medical: Love it or hate it, Amazon is buying One Medical. Good thing? Bad thing? Alex Wilhelm, Walter Thompson and Miranda Halpern weigh in with their perspectives.
8 fintech VCs on how to pitch them: What are fintech investors looking for right now? Mary Ann Azevedo checked in with eight of the top investors in the space.
Could the CHIPS Act spark another U.S. startup renaissance?: The U.S. Senate clearly wants more semiconductor production happening stateside — but chip manufacturing is wildly expensive. Is this “potential cash injection” an opportunity for new startups to change the way it’s done? As Haje puts it: “Those weird theories you were studying as part of your PhD thesis? Now’s the time to dust ’em off.”
Trump appointee Joseph Cuffari knew texts from key people were missing, he hid that information from Congress and now we know he blocked efforts to recover them.
The Washington Post broke the latest news of Cuffari’s obstruction and stonewalling last night:
In early February, after learning that the Secret Service’s text messages had been erased as part of a migration to new devices, staff at Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari’s office planned to contact all DHS agencies offering to have data specialists help retrieve messages from their phones, according to two government whistleblowers who provided reports to Congress
But later that month, Cuffari’s office decided it would not collect or review any agency phones, according to three people briefed on the decision.
A weekly dispatch from the desk of TechCrunch crypto editor Lucas Matney:
The reality is that the dreams of web3 investors and founders are facing a bit of a jam — a crypto downturn generally means less hype, fewer conversations between friends and generally less organic consumer onboarding to consumer experiences. This is far from ideal for VCs who saw a consumer web dream within grasp, but fortunately they’ve got some deep pockets thanks to recently raised mega funds with crypto bets as their sole focus.
Still, it’s a rough time for consumer crypto’s core audience though, with recently minted acolytes down bad and many likely discouraged from sinking more time, money or effort into new web3 projects. The question becomes how to put this VC money to work in a bear cycle; plenty will take the period of reduced attention to dump into infrastructure and the “picks and shovels” toolsets. Others might go insular, backing consumer projects that are further disconnected from the broader worlds of crypto but expose users to synthetic economies, wallets and digital goods, an arena served particularly well by crypto-infused games.
Gaming does seem like a great consumer beachhead for crypto and I’d expect plenty of these dedicated crypto funds to dump a significant quantity of their funds into studios and platforms pursuing this. There are a lot of substantial challenges, including generally negative user sentiment and getting platform buy-in — given that NFTs are still treated with a high-degree of hostility by app stores and gaming platforms.
The self-contained worlds of gaming titles with dedicated tokens disconnected from the more self-referential corners of crypto may be the easiest place to find new eyeballs. And as customer acquisition costs across the board climb, VCs may be more willing to subsidize customers directly as part of user acquisition, returning to the gig economy days of VCs bribing new users to sign-up.
It’s been a weird bull cycle for crypto gaming. While plenty of money flowed into play-to-earn titles and pixelated SNES-quality DeFi-infused games, it’s fair to say that there wasn’t anything that emerged that was actually good. Most games over-indexed on profit and clearcut ponzinomics that juiced growth to the most extreme ends without a concern for stability. Great games take time to build, and fun games take a level of user concern that’s hard to optimize for when you’re trying to maximize near-term profit on both ends of the deal.
We thought winter was already here for crypto, but U.S. regulators just made it seem a lot colder. First, the U.S. Department of Justicearrested three people, including a former Coinbase employee, for alleged insider tradingon the exchange. Then, the Securities and Exchange commissioncharged them with securities fraud, arguing that several of the coins they had traded were, in fact, securities – a designation that comes with a whole host of rules that Coinbase and other exchanges haven’t necessarily followed. We shared our unofficial thoughts on how the laws might be interpreted and what this could mean for major crypto exchanges (more on this in my “this week in web3” section below, too).
We also talked about the situation involving bitcoin that might finally be enough to turn Elon Musk stans into skeptics and beloved video gameMinecraft cancelling NFTs, at least for the time being. Our guest was David Nage, a portfolio manager at digital asset management firm Arca,who helped us make sense of the ongoing mayhemin the markets.
Subscribe to Chain Reaction onApple,Spotifyor your alternative podcast platform of choice to keep up with us every week.
follow the money
Where startup money is moving in the crypto world:
Decentralized social media (DeSo) platformDSCVR, built on Dfinity’s Internet Computer ecosystem, snagged $9 million in seed funding led by Polychain Capital.
Unstoppable Domains, a popular blockchain naming system provider and identity platform, raised $65 million in its Series A funding round at a $1 billion valuation led by Pantera Capital.
Aptos Labs, a blockchain project from ex-Meta employees, raised $150 million in an FTX-led Series A round.
Blockchain ecosystemToplhas raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by Mercury, Republic Asia and Cryptology Asset Group to help companies track and monetize social impact initiatives.
Crypto lenderCLSTnabbed $5.3 million for its seed round from investors including Coinbase and Kraken.
Solana-based NFT ownership platformCardinalannounced its $4.4 million seed raise led by Protagonist and Solana Ventures.
Web3 gaming firmMighty Beargot $10 million in a Framework Ventures-led funding round for its Mighty Action Heroes game.
FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried led a seed round forTrustless Media, a startup that is building community-owned web3 shows.
Cybersecurity blockchain protocolNaorisraised $11.5 million in an equity and token-based financing round from investors including Draper Associates.
South Korean metaverse company Anipensecured investment of ~$12 million in its ongoing series B funding round from Medici Investment and others.
A weekly window into the thoughts of web3 reporterAnita Ramaswamy:
After a former Coinbase employee and his two associates were arrested this week at the behest of the U.S. Department of Justice for alleged front-running on the crypto exchange, they were hit with securities fraud charges by the SEC. Shortly thereafter, Bloomberg revealed that the SEC had already been investigating Coinbase already for potentially allowing securities to trade on its platform without the adequate filings and disclosures.
Interestingly, the SEC’s charges, at least in the securities fraud case, hinged on several pretty niche coins. The token they chose to go after say just as much, in some ways, as the ones they didn’t. Regardless, Coinbase is pretty upset and says it vetted all the tokens on its platform before listing them to make sure they aren’t securities.
If Coinbase gets nailed in this suit, it’ll have ripple effects throughout the industry. Already, other major crypto companies are facing similar charges, including Binance, Ripple Labs and Yuga Labs, either in the form of disgruntled investors filing lawsuits against them hoping to get them in trouble for illegally selling securities or in the form of investigation by U.S. regulators, as is the case with Coinbase.
Until we know more about how regulators and legal experts are likely to treat each individual token, it’s worth examining what the current securities laws even are and how they might apply to Coinbase. That’s exactly what I did in my latest piece with Alex Wilhelm for TechCrunch+, in which we took a deep dive into the four-part “Howey Test” to try and determine whether the SEC or Coinbase has a stronger argument here.
Here’s some of this week’s crypto analysis available on our subscription service TC+ from senior reporter Jacquelyn Melinek:
Crypto valuations may sink until September as VCs play a waiting game
“Tons of capital has been raised across the crypto industry in recent months, but there has been a noticeable pause in deployment. That might change in the coming months. As it’s taken longer to close crypto VC deals, valuations across the industry have dropped, according to David Nage, venture capital portfolio manager at Arca.”
Investors focus on DeFi as it remains resilient to crypto market volatility
“As many subsectors in the crypto market continue to take heavy hits from recent volatility, some market players see decentralized finance (DeFi) as resilient and gaining interest despite the negative macroeconomic environment. Centralized financial institutions are similar to traditional firms, with people running their operations and managing their funds. In contrast, DeFi protocols use technology — not people — to execute services through things like smart contracts.”
Thanks for reading! And, again, to get this in your inbox every Thursday, you can subscribe on TechCrunch’s newsletter page.
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
Global app spending reached $65 billion in the first half of 2022, up only slightly from the $64.4 billion during the same period in 2021, as hypergrowth fueled by the pandemic has slowed down. But overall, the app economy is continuing to grow, having produced a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS and Google Play last year was $133 billion, and consumers downloaded 143.6 billion apps.
This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.
Users demand the TikTok-ification of Instagram must stop
How do you modernize an app like Instagram, whose roots are in iconic iPhone photography, to support users’ growing engagement with short-form video? If you’re one of the many increasingly frustrated Instagram users, you simply wish it would not attempt this pivot at all. You’re sick of the app’s constant changes, its clutter, its ads, its force-fed recommendations, and you’re not a fan of its TikTok ambitions. You just want to see your friends’ posts.
This issue finally came to a head this week when celeb sisters and Instagram top creators Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian shared a petition that demanded Instagram to “stop trying to be tiktok.” The day after, Instagram head Adam Mosseri posted a video addressing the concerns and said the app would temporarily roll back some of its recent changes, including the test of a full-screen TikTok-like experience and the increase in “recommended” posts.
The company has brought this user backlash on itself, of course, with its continual “tests” of new UIs and its desperate admissions about how TikTok is eating its lunch, forcing it to adapt or die. Plus, Instagram claims video is what people want even when they’re saying otherwise. It insists its own data supports that video has been growing faster as mobile networks got faster and data became cheaper.
While that may be true, Instagram has been throwing out the baby with the bathwater as it attempts to prioritize elements of TikTok in its own app. People want different experiences from their social platforms — and Instagram is trying to do it all, without acknowledging that the real threat from TikTok is not the video content itself, necessarily, but rather TikTok’s addictive algorithm that increases users’ time spent in the app. TikTok has figured out how to recommend posts that users welcome, while Instagram’s attempt to do the same has fallen flat. Combined with TikTok’s ability to attract a younger demographic in terms of both creators and viewers alike, the app has become a massive force in social media.
Instagram will need to find a way to balance the demands of a user base that wants to still celebrate social connection (including through static media), with creator demands for increased discovery and the rise of video. This is not an easy task, but perhaps step one should be to allow users to engage with Instagram as they like. Just as how users can opt to scroll the main Feed instead of viewing Stories and vice versa, Instagram’s TikTok-ishness should rather be an optional entry point, not the entirety of the Instagram experience.
Snapchat+ outpaces Twitter Blue after just a month
The new Snapchat+ paid subscription launched on June 29, 2022 offering users access to various premium features, while also importantly giving the company a means of diversifying its revenue streams beyond advertising. This is critical for the social app given that the ad market is currently impacted by broader macroeconomic forces that have slowed demand. In addition, Snapchat continues to feel the effects of Apple’s 2021 privacy changes that allowed users to opt-out of tracking and is facing increased competition from rival TikTok.
For $3.99 per month, the Snapchat+ subscription allows devoted app users to see who has rewatched their Stories, change their app icon, pin another user as a “#1 Best Friend,” try out pre-release features and more. Earlier this month, the company also made web access a part of the Snapchat+ subscription.
Since the subscription’s arrival, Snapchat’s mobile app has generated approximately $7.3 million in worldwide consumer spending across iOS and Android according to Sensor Tower. This represents the first 30 days of Snapchat+’s availability, June 29, 2022–July 26, 2022. The figure is also around 116 times higher than the $63,000 the app pulled in via in-app purchases in the 30 days prior from May 30, 2022–June 28, 2022, indicating the bulk of the new revenue was driven by Snapchat+.
Notably, the number is already larger than Twitter’s in-app revenue, which totals nearly $4 million since Twitter Blue’s June 2021 launch — over a year’s time. Snapchat+ could be succeeding because it has more power users than Twitter, Sensor Tower data shows, as 34% of its active installs open the app every single day compared with just 19% for Twitter.
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
TikTok gets into mobile games
Here’s a scoop: TikTok is getting into gaming.
The company confirmed the launch of a pilot test of “mini-games” that can be played inside the social video app and discovered through creators’ videos. The gaming pilot quietly launched just weeks ago with a variety of new partners, including game developers Vodoo, Nitro Games, FRVR, Aim Lab and Lotem.
The launch follows reports earlier this year that the social video app maker was looking to expand into HTML5 gaming after first testing the waters with gaming giant Zynga last November. The two companies had then teamed up to launch a TikTok exclusive title, Disco Loco 3D, which was similar to Zynga’s successful game (by way of acquisition) High Heels.
TikTok’s mobile games today don’t monetize through ads or in-app purchases of any kind, but if they find traction with users, things could change as TikTok further developed its games platform. In that case, the app would not only recall the social gaming era of early Facebook (which incidentally drove Zynga’s success), it would also allow TikTok to route around the app stores’ commissions.
Image Credits: TikTok
Weekly News
Platforms: Apple
Apple released the fourth beta of iOS 16. The update offers a variety of new features, like the ability to edit and delete iMessages — a feature that now includes an edit history log in response to user concerns that the editing feature could be used maliciously. Other new features include the ability for developers to test Live Activities, improved integrations with Continuity Camera, a new interface when updating the Home Screen’s design, more options for the “unsend” time in Mail, and a few new wallpapers, among other smaller tweaks.
Apple announced Live Activities and Activity Kit won’t launch with the initial release of iOS 16 but will rather become available later in the year.
Apple is also hosting summer programs that allow developers to attend live presentations and Q&A sessions with App Store experts.
Google announced new Play Store policies around intrusive ads, VPNs, alarms, health misinformation, impersonation and more. The policies will roll out at different intervals and will, among other things, restrict apps’ usage of full-screen ads that aren’t closeable after 15 seconds and full-screen interstitials that appear before the app’s loading screen. Apps that use icons that trick users into thinking they’re affiliated with another brand will also be restricted along with VPNs that track user data or reroute traffic to make money through ads.
At the Think with Google Gaming Day in China, Google shared ways to help developers earn more revenue and attract high-value players with a variety of new features and ad tools.
Google updated its Google Maps app with location-sharing notifications, immersive views and better bike navigation in several markets.
Augmented Reality
Snapchat launched its own spooky AR game called “Ghost Phone,” which sees players working to discover the secrets of an abandoned phone and hunting ghosts using AR. The game was built using the Lens Studio and web-first game engine PlayCanvas. It also uses Snap’s World Mesh technology and surface recognition to place game objects around the user. The company launched a Bitmoji dance game last month.
Fintech/Crypto
A U.S. Senator sent a letter to both Apple and Google asking for details as to how they’re preventing cryptocurrency apps from engaging in fraud on their respective app stores.
Messaging app Viber debuted a new digital wallet called Payments, offering bill pay, money transfers and support for buying goods.
The new Google Wallet rolled out to all users with Android 5.2+. The wallet app is available as a separate app in the U.S. and Singapore and as a Google Pay update for other markets.
Social
Snap missed in Q2 with revenue of $1.11 billion — a figure up 13% from the same period a year earlier but below its previous guidance of 20% to 25%. The company cited macroeconomic conditions for lower advertiser demand and continues to be impacted by Apple’s privacy changes. DAUs grew 18% YoY to 347 million. The company said it will reduce hiring, repurchase up to $500M in stock, and it locked in CEO and CTO roles until at least Jan. 1, 2027. Its stock tanked after earnings.
Snap announced a new creator fund that will award independent musicians posting their music on Snapchat up to $100,000 per month. The company will distribute payments for up to 20 songs per month at $5,000/song starting in August for musicians distributing to Snapchat via DistroKid.
Meta reported its first-ever decline in quarterly revenue year over year in its Q2 earnings. The company’s revenue was $28.82 billion, a 1% decrease from $29.07 billion in the second quarter of 2021. It also swapped its CFO.
Meta is killing Tuned, its social app for couples which will cease operations on Sept. 19, 2022. The app was a project from Meta’s New Product Experimentation Team (NPE) — one of many now shuttered attempts designed to test if Meta could create new social experiences in-house.
BeReal got ripped off. Because Instagram didn’t have enough drama this week, it also quietly rolled out a copycat of BeReal inside its app — which misses the point about why the new social network grew popular in the first place: It’s about your friends.
Instagram said it will begin to survey its U.S. users about race to assess if it is “fair and equitable.” The optional survey will be hosted by research group YouGov.
Twitter Blue is getting more expensive. Twitter announced it’s increasing the price of its premium subscription from $2.99 to $4.99 per month effective immediately for new subscribers and starting in October for existing subscribers. The hike is also rolling out to other Twitter Blue markets, including Australia, Canada and New Zealand at 6.99 AUD (previously 4.49 AUD), 6.49 CAD (previously 3.49 CAD) and 6.49 NZD (previously 4.49 NZD).
WhatsApp rolled out chat migration from Android to iOS and iOS to Android for all users. The feature requires Android 5 or higher, iOS 15.5 or above, and the Move to iOS app.
WhatsApp also appears to be working on a chatbot that will alert you to what’s new when the app is updated.
Streaming & Entertainment
Image Credits: YouTube
YouTube’s mobile app added a new feature that allows creators to select any segment up to 60 seconds from an existing long-form video and turn it into a YouTube Shorts video that links back to the original.
Baidu’s video streaming service iQiyi signed a content deal with TikTok’s Chinese sister app Douyin, which allows Douyin users to use iQiyi content to make short videos. The deal ends a dispute over alleged copyright infringement.
Comcast’s streaming app Peacock’s paid subscribers stayed flat at 13 million, as losses widen to $467 million in the company’s first quarter.
YouTube’s ad revenue grew just 4.8% YoY to $7.34 billion in Q2, below expectations of a 7% YoY increase to $7.49 billion. This YouTube’s slowest ad growth in over two years.
Twitter for iOS updated the Spaces bar for live audio streams to make it easier to see who’s hosting, what topics are being discussed and more.
Spotify rolled out a new Friends Mix playlist that gives users a way to discover new tracks based on the “Blends” they’ve created with their friends.
Roblox rolled out an update that makes its materials appear more lifelike and overhauled aspects of its developer toolkit to support this change. The move is a part of the company’s mission to improve its visual fidelity, but game developers will be able to choose if they want to keep creating using the more blocky, traditional style.
Backbone, the maker of a popular gaming controller for iPhone, expanded with the launch of the Backbone One PlayStation Edition. The new device allows compatible mobile games to use proper PlayStation glyphs (Triangle, Circle, etc.) instead of ABXY. It will cost the same as the original Backbone One at $100.
K-pop stars Blackpink collaborated with PUBG Mobile, which just hosted its first in-game concert. The band released a new video featuring virtual avatars inside the game, which was earlier teased during the concert.
Government & Policy
The popular mobile game Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) was pulled by Apple and Google from their respective app stores in India to comply with a government order. Krafton had said it cut ties with publishing partner Tencent, so it’s unclear why the game was pulled. The game had over 16.5M MAUs.
Google will be allowed to relaunch Street View in India in 10 cities initially, 10 years after the government shut down the service for security reasons.
China’s government asked TikTok for a stealth social account to target Western audiences with propaganda,Bloomberg reported, but TikTok execs pushed back and denied the request.
Security & Privacy
Messaging app JusTalk, popular in Asia, has been leaking users’ unencrypted private messages. The app, which has 20 million global users, had claimed to offer end-to-end encryption across its flagship apps and its child-friendly JusTalk Kids.
Funding and M&A
Livestream shopping app for collectibles Whatnot raised $260 millionin Series D funding at a $3.7 billion valuation, up from $1.5 billion in September 2021. The livestream shopping market has only grown to $11 billion in the U.S. versus the $600 billion industry in China.
School communications app ClassDojo raised $125 millionin Series D funding in September 2022, valuing the business at $1.25 billion. The company plans to launch a kids virtual space in August 2022.
Paris-based Contentsquare raised $400 million in Series F funding and $200 million in debt for its web and app analytics business. The round doubled the startup’s May 2021 valuation to $5.6 billion.
Conversational commerce startup Charles raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Salesforce Ventures to bring its service to WhatsApp in Europe. The company so far has seen the most traction in its domestic German market, but has received inbound interest from Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and the U.K.
Blockchain infrastructure company Chain acquired Measurable Data Token for $100 million. The deal sees it acquiring a cash-back mobile app, RewardMe, and the financial data protocol MeFi.
Banking and networking platform Guava, targeting Black entrepreneurs, raised $2.4 million in a pre-seed round led by Heron Rock. The company aims to narrow the racial wealth gap by providing financial services to Black small businesses and creators.
Text-to-speech app Peech raised $550,000 in funding led by Flyer One Ventures. The app offers natural-sounding text-to-speech in 50 languages, allowing users to listen to Word docs, web articles or PDFs for $3/week.
South African startup Qwili raised $1.2 million in seed funding to scale its app and low-cost NFC-enabled smartphone. Qwili software can be downloaded to any phone in addition to being pre-installed on Qwili’s phones, which are used as point-of-sale devices for merchants selling data, pay-TV subscriptions, groceries or clothing to customers.
Brooklyn-based fantasy sports app Underdog raised $35 million in Series B funding, valuing the business at $485 million. The company plans to launch licensed sports betting in Ohio and Colorado in 2023.
Spotify’s latest SEC filing revealed it paid €291 million ($295 million) for its four recent acquisitions, Findaway, Podsights, Chartable, and Sonantic. Findaway, specifically, cost the company €117 million (around $123 million).
U.K. investing app Shares raised $40 million led by Peter Thiel-backed Valar Ventures, bringing its total raised to $90 million. The app has over 150,000 users.
U.S.-based digital bank Umba, which focuses on emerging markets, acquired a majority share of Kenyan microfinance bank Daraja for an undisclosed amount.
Downloads
Lock Screen widget TestFlights
A new type of app to download? We’re in!
If you’re running the iOS 16 public beta and looking to dig into Lock Screen widgets, there are a number of interesting apps now being tested that offer a look into how iOS developers are thinking about use cases for this prominent iPhone real estate. (If you ask nicely, the developers might add you to the TestFlight!)
A few apps we’ve found useful include:
Lock Screen Contacts: This allows you to put a favorite contact directly on your Lock Screen, without having to give the app access to your iPhone Contacts thanks to Apple’s more secure Contacts API. Users can toggle and choose to remove the text, image and background. The app will sell for $3.99 at launch. The same developer is also working on a Lock Screen Icon widget that will allow you to place any of some 4,000 icons on your Lock Screen to personalize your device.
The past month I've been making an iOS 16 Lock Screen widget app to quickly call contacts – much like speed dial.
Day Ticker: This simple icon widget lets you quickly view how many more days until an important event — like a birthday, vacation, anniversary or anything else. Days until the kid goes to camp? Just two, my widget told me. We’d better start packing!
Can’t wait to use these!
Parcel’s Package Tracker: This widget keeps track of your expected deliveries and lets you see their status right on your Lock Screen.
Like a groundhog and its shadow, many venture capitalists see a shrinking economy and burrow away, resting their check-signing hand for better days.
But climate-focused VCs are on a tear lately, pumping well over a billion dollars per quarter into startups that strive to mitigate emissions as the Earthbakes.
Buoyant Ventures is one such firm building momentum for the sector. Based in Chicago, the investor told regulators this week via an SEC filing that it has locked down just over $50 million for a new fund. Buoyant declined to comment when emailed by TechCrunch, but the filing shows the firm has been raising cash for the fund since at least May 2021. So far, 75 (unnamed) limited partners have chipped in, and Buoyant is fishing for just shy of $50 million more.
Led by Electronic Arts and Energize Ventures alum Amy Francetic and former Accenture executive Allison Myers, Buoyant’s first deal dates back to the summer of 2020. That’s when it backed Raptor Maps, which aims to help solar farms squeeze more juice from the sun by spotting issues — like panel damage and shading — with drones and sensors.
Buoyant said in 2021 that it’s focused on “solutions for the industries contributing the most to carbon emissions,” including power, transportation, agriculture and buildings. Since then, it has funded at least four other early-ish stage startups, including FloodFlash, StormSensor and others seeking to cash in on emissions mitigation or climate adaptation.
Several other noteworthy climate (and climate-adjacent) VC fundraises have crossed our desks in recent weeks, including Fifth Wall‘s $500 million fund, Climentum Capital ($157 million), Equal Ventures ($94.8 million) and Systemiq Capital ($70 million).
How healthy is the market for technology products today?
The question is too broad. Large markets can have varying internal results that contrast with top-line numbers. An example of this from recent history is disparate results in venture capital activity we’ve noted around the world. While the aggregate venture market is slowing, we’ve also seen pockets of strength in certain regions. Are tech sales similar?
Some secular trends are powering technology growth. The movement off of on-prem solutions to public cloud providers, for example, among enterprise customers. As we learned when COVID-19 was driving lockdowns around the world a few years back, economic downturns don’t necessarily impact most of the tech world as much as they do other parts of the global economy. (This is perhaps why software valuations have stopped losing ground, despite a worsening global macroeconomic profile.)
The Exchange explores startups, markets and money.
But that’s the business perspective. What about consumers? How are the folks out there doing? Today we’re taking a look inside Big Tech results from the week to try to answer that particular question, which relates directly to startups hoping to serve the same consumer demands.
Equal Ventures, a venture firm that debuted in 2020 with a $56 million first fund, has raised a pair of new investment vehicles, SEC filings show. The New York City-based firm has closed a $94.8 million second fund and its first opportunity fund, worth $75 million.
The investment firm is led by two investors, Richard Kerby and Rick Zullo, equal partners in the firm. Kerby declined to comment about the funds over email.
Equal Ventures looks to be the first institutional investor in a startup, a level of conviction that means that it is more focused on a concentrated portfolio than small checks in a widespread group of startups. The firm’s portfolio includes Ghost, a marketplace that connects brands with extra inventory to retailers; Block Renovation, a platform that productizes the home renovation experience for consumers; and Smarthop, which helps truckers optimize their work.
Zullo formerly invested on behalf of Lightbank, a Chicago-based venture operation, while Kerby spent years investing with Venrock. He also spent years independently researching inequality in venture.
The firm backs founders and businesses that it believes are “overlooked and misunderstood by the old guard,” according to its website. “As the world of venture changes, so does the viewpoint required to succeed.”
Equal invests in five key sectors: climate, retail, supply chain and logistics, insurance and benefits and what it describes as the care economies, which encompasses childcare and eldercare. The team has grown since Equal’s first fund, with it hiring Liz Hart and Simran Suri as associates and Chelsea Zhang as a senior associate. The firm is hiring an insurance and fintech-focused associate, as well, according to a Medium post.
Jon Stewart joined Fox News' America's Newsroom to blasted Republican Senator Pat Toomey for spewing erroneous objections over the Honoring our Pact Act, a bill for veterans' health care.
Stewart passionately defended the Act and said he wanted to "dispel all the misinformation being put out there" by Republicans.
“Hunter Biden didn’t sneak in and add in unrelated spending in the middle of the night," Stewart said.
Hemmer relayed Toomey's lies about the legislation.
"It was not added to by Democrats. It is not a gimmick that was put in there," Stewart protested.
Hemmer then said Toomey believed the bill was going to pass eventually anyway.
“Eventually is not okay. Tell someone with cancer that has been fighting this for years that eventually they will get the help that they’ve earned. That’s not an acceptable answer,” Stewart replied. "It is despicable to continue to use American men and women who are fighting for this country as political pawns for anger you have it separate issues."
It's even more despicable when Republicans then lie about new-founded objections when it puts the health of our military veterans at risk.
Livestream shopping app for collectibles Whatnot 
Blockchain infrastructure company Chain 
