To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s greatest and most essential tales delivered to your inbox every single day at 3 p.m. PT, subscribe here.
It’s Earth Day, also called April 22, 2022, and we’re past grateful that the solar units on one other week.
We love our TechCrunch Stay occasions, however we notice we don’t at all times match into everybody’s calendars. Excellent news: They’re now available as a podcast, too, so you’ll be able to hear alongside at your leisure.
Might your weekend be as energetic as you want, and stuffed with all the suitable varieties of surprises. Oh, and ice cream. – Christine and Haje
The TechCrunch Prime 3
- Zenly doesn’t want you to miss another event: Keep in mind the large map that used to take a seat within the passenger aspect again pocket of your dad and mom’ automotive? I beloved plotting completely different routes and trying out the graphic on the high that confirmed what number of miles have been between cities. Oh, that was simply me? Nicely, anyway, as Romain put it in the present day, Zenly is “making social maps cool once more.” The type the place you determine what’s going on close by and which of your mates are going to be there. The Snap-owned app is present process its greatest redesign, adopting a sleeker look with a black background and options to make the app simpler to navigate.
- Amazon has its sights set on social: At the very least that’s what we predict with its newest transfer to accumulate India-based social commerce firm GlowRoad. The deal comes as different massive retail names, like Walmart and YouTube, spend money on the social commerce house. Amazon additionally introduced the primary 5 startups which can be a part of its $1 billion industrial innovation fund targeted on logistics, the provision chain and buyer success, all issues dealing with a bottleneck proper now.
- Unicorns can check out anytime they like, but they can never leave: That appears to be the sentiment behind world corporations reaching $1 billion in worth however not going public. Nonetheless, over in Asia, Anna discovered that was not an issue — 9 of the ten greatest IPOs within the first quarter got here from the area — and with practically 100 offers made throughout that point, dare we are saying it’s turning into “a haven for public exits”?
Startups and VC
One of many issues typically described because the benefit of web3 startups can also be its downfall, Connie suggests: Sure, it’s neat that the whole lot is decentralized, however when something goes sideways, there’s no safety net.
What the heck, take a look at the remainder of the startup tech on deck*:
- And so they huff they usually puff they usually activate noise-canceling: I took a better take a look at Sennheiser’s newest earbuds that cancel out the train noises whilst you get your sweat on. In audio information, I additionally reviewed the curious DJI Mic product – a wi-fi mic set for creators that falls a bit wanting the mark for the worth, IMO.
- They’ve 99 issues, however the kitch’ ain’t one: Catherine explores how MadEats is a full-stack delivery startup, not only a ghost kitchen play.
- Make range, not battle: Luke Hutchinson went from 5 years as an infantry officer to launching a restaurant booking platform, elevating $3.6 million to take action.
- It will get knocked down, but it surely will get again up once more: Bipedal robots are a bit creepy when you ask me, however Amazon, DCVC and Playground just plunged $150 million into Agility to bring them to a warehouse near you. To not diminish Brian’s eloquent phrases, but it surely’s value trying out the article only for the video.
- YC or a16z … Who would win in a karaoke battle? I’d completely pay cash to not should hearken to both of their funding groups sing, not gonna lie – however fortunately that isn’t the subject of the most recent episode of Fairness. As an alternative, Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann wonder who runs the best accelerator as a16z joins the fray, taking over YC on its residence turf.
4 questions each CISO must be asking concerning the metaverse

Picture Credit: Adrian+Los/EyeEm (opens in a new window) / Getty Pictures
The metaverse continues to be taking form, but it surely’s already creating complications for cybersecurity professionals.
Expertise that locations customers inside digital, immersive environments the place they will transact might unlock untold advantages, however it can undoubtedly create a risk assault floor of titanic proportions. To organize, CSO/CISO David Fairman says organizations should be capable to reply these questions:
- Can we defend PII (and different delicate information) within the metaverse?
- How can I authenticate customers?
- Can we defend customers from bullying, harassment and exploitation?
- Can we handle this sort of fast-growing assault floor?
(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup groups get forward. You can sign up here.)
Huge Tech Inc.
- Brian Armstrong is waging a bit of a war with Apple, saying that the tech big’s App Retailer guidelines imply that a few of Coinbase’s options are being banned. Total, Armstrong is making the declare that Apple will not be being very good to the crypto world. In the meantime, Stripe is having no problems with crypto, including payouts to Join, with Twitter being the primary platform to make use of it.
- We gleefully realized that former President Barack Obama reads TechCrunch and is taking on disinformation.
- We hope you haven’t uninterested in social media information as a result of there was quite a lot of it in the present day. Right here’s what we gathered: Shoppers are finicky creatures and we demand new options on a regular basis, so Instagram is testing something called “Templates,” which is able to enable Reels creators to make use of the identical format as different movies. Subsequent, Twitter wants to win back developers with some new instruments and is testing status updates. Then TikTok rolled out an in-feed ad feature for interactive add-ons. And at last, Snapchat is testing ads on Spotlight.
- In the meantime, in case you are additionally making an attempt to recollect if Snapchat was still a thing, its first-quarter earnings present that it very a lot is. And if there have been any doubts, Snap and Disney are pairing up to create an augmented reality Cinderella castle mural at Disney World. Bibbidi-bobbidi boo!