Praveen chintu

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here . As January is coming to a close, the TechCrunch team is firing on all cylinders (do we still say that, in a time of electric cars? What is a better expression these days?), with a wall of amazing content for you to download straight into your brain. We’ve picked the cream of the crop, even as we are further confused as to why there was cream on the crops in the first place. In summary, idiomatic English continues to confound even the biggest language nerds among us. — Christine and Haje The TechCrunch Top 3 Who’s calling? : T-Mobile’s data breach last week seems to have spilled over into Google Fi, which now says hackers accessed customers’ information. Carly has more. Home sweet HomePod : Brian plugged in the 2023 Apple HomePod and shares what he likes and doesn’t like about it. More layoffs : Cloud data management giant NetApp will lay off 8...

The U.S. Department of Justice has asked Tesla for documents related to its branded Full Self-Driving and Autopilot advanced driver-assistance systems, the automaker disclosed in a securities filing. Tesla said  in the filing it “has received requests from the DOJ for documents related to Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD features. . . . To our knowledge no government agency in any ongoing investigation has concluded that any wrongdoing occurred,” Tesla noted in the 10-K filing that was posted Monday. Tesla has been under investigation by the DOJ for at least a year, Reuters reported last fall, citing three people familiar with the matter. It’s unclear if the DOJ’s request for documents is connected to that investigation, which was launched in late 2021 following more than a dozen accidents involving the active use of Tesla’s Autopilot system. Tesla vehicles come standard with a driver-assistance system branded as Autopilot. For an additional $15,000 , owners can buy “full self-drivin...

Spotify’s success with its year-end review known as Wrapped , designed for social sharing, may be pushing the company toward building more social experiences directly into its mobile app. The company for many months has been testing different iterations of a “friends activity” tab on its mobile app, and investors have now taken notice. During the streamer’s Q4 earnings call earlier today, the company was asked to clarify some details about its social plans. Though Spotify CEO Daniel Ek declined to comment on the specific feature the investor asked about, he didn’t shoot down the idea of Spotify becoming a more social platform. Instead, he replied that social could become “a meaningful driver of creating an even stickier and more engaging experience” for the company. The exec was answering an investor question about Spotify’s recent tests of a “Friends tab” which appears in the app’s bottom navigation bar for some subset of Spotify’s users. Though only an experiment at present, the te...

Meta is starting to test closed spaces called “members-only worlds” in Horizon Worlds, its social VR experience. The company has begun a limited alpha test to give creators the ability to grow and moderate their own communities. Meta has selected a small group of creators to build and obtain feedback about members-only worlds. In a blog post , Meta explained that creators can hand-select members and offer them exclusive experiences. During the alpha test, each members-only world can have up to 150 world members and 25 concurrent visitors at any given time. With members-only worlds, creators can launch a dedicated space to do things like host a book club, gather a gaming group, organize a support group or just hang out with friends and family without having to worry about uninvited guests. Image Credits: Meta “Every community develops its own norms, etiquette, and social rules over time as it fosters a unique culture,” Meta explained in its blog post. “To enable that, we’ll provid...

General Motors said Tuesday it will invest $650 million into Lithium Americas as part of an agreement to develop a mine in Nevada, the latest effort by the automaker to lock down a supply chain of key components needed to produce millions of EVs. The investment in raw materials for batteries is the biggest to date, according to GM. And it’s no wonder. General Motors has a litany of all-electric sedans, SUVs, crossovers and trucks that are coming to market in the next two years, including the GMC Sierra EV , Cadillac Lyriq, Chevrolet Silverado EV, Chevrolet Blazer EV and Chevrolet Equinox . GM said in November it expects to generate more than $50 billion in revenue from sales of its 30 EV models in 2025, with profit margins in the low to mid-single digits. But that can’t happen if supply chain constraints prevent GM from producing the vehicles. The semiconductor chip shortage that kicked off in 2020 is an experience that every automaker is keen to avoid, especially as the industry tr...

Thrive Capital has reportedly committed $1 billion in fresh capital to payments giant Stripe as part of a new investment in the works that would value the fintech company at between $55 billion and $60 billion. TechCrunch reported last week that Stripe was seeking to raise $2 billion but the number could actually be closer to $2.5 billion to $3 billion, according to reports from the New York Times and The Information . In an unusual twist, Stripe is believed to be raising new funds to, as The Information reported, “address the issue of expiring restricted stock units for some of its veteran employees—and a massive employee tax bill that will likely come with it.” Neither Stripe nor Thrive Capital commented on the rumors when contacted by TechCrunch. Thrive Capital is believed to be leading the new investment in Stripe. The New York-based firm, started by Joshua Kushner, also led the company’s $70 million Series C in 2014 when it was valued at $3.5 billion. By 2021, Stripe wou...

It’s hard to develop a personal note taking habit. Many folks just resort to using a default app like Apple’s Notes app or sending something to themselves on Slack. It’s fine if you just need to jot down a note or two, but it becomes hard to organize and search for them later. Stashpad is working on a solution for that issue — especially for developers and product managers. Stashpad is an app that runs on all desktop platforms (Intel and M1 Mac, Windows and Linux). When you first launch the application, it has a minimal learning curve for getting started — you can just start typing in notes. You can put these notes under one Stack for a project  — think of this as creating a folder. There is also an option of creating a sub-stack (no, not that one) under a folder. All stacks open up as tabs on top of the app, and there is an option of pinning tabs for easy access. The app also has a “Sticky” mode, which makes it easier to take notes during a video call. Image Credits: Stashpa...

French startup Sorare has signed a four-year licensing partnership with the Premier League. This is an important move for the company as the English football league is one of the most-watched sports league in the world. Sorare is a fantasy sports gaming experience based on NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. In particular, Sorare has partnered with many football leagues so that it can create trading cards representing football players. Each card is registered as a unique token on the Ethereum blockchain. Sorare players can buy and sell cards from other players. They can then put together a lineup of five players and earn points based on real-life performances. Sorare frequently issues new cards on the platforms that users can buy to add to their personal collections — that’s how the company generates revenue. And the startup has been quite successful so far. It raised a gigantic $680 million Series B round and signed partnerships with many clubs and football organizations including Spai...

The Startup20 Engagement Group, initiated under India's G20 Presidency in 2023, held its inception meeting in Hyderabad. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/31sO5EY

According to a report by TimesPost, this was likely the first use of the new Apple Emergency SOS via satellite in British Columbia (BC), Canada. The report claims that two women got lost on their trip back to Alberta on December 23. One of them had the iPhone 14 and they used the Emergency SOS via satellite feature to get themselves out of the pickle. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/gW6a0kE

PhonePe clocked a revenue of $234.3 million in the first nine months of 2022, the most valuable Indian fintech startup has disclosed in a filing. The nine-month financials marks a jump from the $201.6 million revenue that the Bengaluru-headquartered generated in the 12-month financial year period ending in March last year. PhonePe, which is valued at $12 billion , has projected a revenue of $325 million for the calendar year 2022 and $504 million for 2023, according to a valuation report prepared by the auditing firm KPMG and filed by PhonePe. The auditing firm’s estimates relied on information provided by the PhonePe management, the document said. The startup, backed by Walmart, doesn’t expect to turn EBIDTA positive, a key profitability metric, until the calendar year 2025, KMPG wrote in its valuation report. PhonePe’s financials and metrics from the valuation report have not been previously reported. Image credits: PhonePe regulatory filing At a $12 billion valuation, PhonePe...

After a decade of frantic growth, China’s smartphone market is hitting a speed bump as COVID-19 roils the world’s second-largest economy. The country’s smartphone shipments dropped 14% year-over-year in 2022, reaching a ten-year low, according to research firm Counterpoint. It was also the first time that China’s handset sales had slid below 300 million units in ten years, according to Canalys. Even in December, which has historically seen seasonal jumps in sales, China recorded a 5% quarter-to-quarter decline in smartphone shipments. The three-year-long stringent “zero-COVID” policy that disrupted businesses and dampened consumer confidence, coupled with macroeconomic headwinds, spelled an end to China’s years of double-digit growth. Troubles mounted when the abrupt relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions in early December resulted in a surge in cases, further adding pressure to the waning economy. Last year, China’s GDP grew 3%, its lowest in decades other than 2020. Alibaba’s annua...

Founded by two insurance industry veterans, Eazy Digital wants to give small insurance companies in Southeast Asia the same advantage as their larger competitors. Its SaaS platform lets insurers digitize many parts of their operations, enabling them to scale up more efficiently. The Bangkok-based startup announced today it has raised $850,000 in an oversubscribed seed round led by Wavemaker Partners, with participation from Seedstars International Ventures, Wing Vasiksiri and Sasin Bangkok Venture Club. Eazy Digital was founded last year by Haprem Doowa and Maethavee Sukul. Doowa was previously co-founder and CEO of Frank Insurance, an online digital broker in Thailand that was acquired by Bolttech in 2021. Sukul was head of operations at Frank, Bolttech Insurance Broker and digital health insurance broker Benix. Eazy Digital co-founder Haprem Doowa Doowa told TechCrunch that while working together at Frank, he and Sukul “both realized that the insurance industry was plagued wi...

Welcome to  The Interchange ! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up  here  so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. This will include everything from funding rounds to trends to an analysis of a particular space to hot takes on a particular company or phenomenon. There’s a lot of fintech news out there and it’s my job to stay on top of it — and make sense of it — so you can stay in the know. —  Mary Ann Stripe eyes exit, reportedly tried raising at a lower valuation The big news in fintech this week revolved around payments giant Stripe . On January 26, my Equity Podcast co-host and overall amazingly talented reporter Natasha Mascarenhas and I teamed up to write about how Stripe had set a 12-month deadline for itself to go public, either through a direct listing or by pursuin...