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Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for July 2. We are heading into a vacation weekend right here within the United States, so you may think that tech information slowed down. It didn’t, as we’ll see shortly. Looking forward, TC Early Stage 2021: Marketing & Fundraising is subsequent week and Disrupt is across the nook. Get hype! — Alex
The TechCrunch Top 3
- When SPACs assault: The United States Department of Justice is investigating Lordstown Motors, the embattled EV firm that went public through a SPAC. Detractors of the corporate have punched holes within the story it advised earlier than going public, and the corporate’s SPAC deck has confirmed to be considerably, nicely, disconnected from actuality. The firm wants more cash, it seems, regardless of having advised buyers that it will not. Whoops.
- China v. Didi v. American buyers: Sticking to the theme of corporations in hassle, Chinese ride-hailing large Didi is in sizzling water with its personal home regulators. The firm has been advised to halt new person registration, pending a cybersecurity assessment. Just days after it went public within the United States. Oof.
- IBM’s President steps down: Jim Whitehurst, who made his approach to IBM through its Red Hat deal, is out. His tenure as president on the agency lasted 14 months. Details had been gentle on his exit, per Ron Miller Yeesh.
Startups/VC
Today’s startup information has a powerful non-American bias. That’s as a result of practically everybody within the United States took most of at the moment off, no matter what their boss thought was happening. The remainder of the world was nonetheless busy, nevertheless:
- Licious raises tasty $192M spherical: The Bangalore-based meat and seafood e-commerce participant has now raised by a Series F. A number of years again we’d have joked that the F in Series F stood for “failed to go public,” however that’s now not the case. Why not elevate a Series F when cash is so low-cost? The firm is now price greater than $650 million, TechCrunch reviews.
- MTG buys PlaySimple for $360M: Why are buyers betting a lot cash on the Indian startup ecosystem? Rising exit values, maybe. TechCrunch famous that the sale of India’s PlaySimple to Swedish gaming large was “one of the largest exits in the Indian startup ecosystem.”
- Tiger invests $40M into Nigerian neobank: It’s an enormous day for FairMoney, a Nigerian startup that has its genesis in providing shoppers credit score. It’s additionally yet one more spherical for African fintech, a sector that has felt fairly energetic currently.
Three guiding ideas for CEOs who submit on Twitter
Did you hear in regards to the CEO who made deceptive claims a few funding spherical and bought sued by the SEC? How about that pharmaceutical government whose taunts to a former secretary of state led to a 4.4% decline within the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index?
In case it isn’t clear: Startup executives are held to a better normal with regards to what they submit on social media.
“Reputation and goodwill take a long time to build and are difficult to maintain, but it only takes one tweet to destroy it all,” says Lisa W. Liu, a senior companion at The Mitzel Group, a San Francisco-based regulation follow that serves many startups.
To assist her purchasers (and Extra Crunch readers) keep out of hassle, Liu has six fundamental questions for tech execs with itchy Twitter fingers.
And if the reply to any of them is “I don’t know,” don’t submit.
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup groups get forward. You can join right here.)
Big Tech Inc.
Today’s Big Tech information is a combined bag, however a enjoyable one. And every story has a powerful California hook. Let’s start:
- GM is investing in a California lithium extraction challenge: Why? Batteries. Gotta have lithium to make batteries. No batteries, no electrical automobiles. In this case the challenge is definitely fairly neat, having a powerful hook to Salton Sea Geothermal Field close to Los Angeles within the southern…
