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Friday, Chacha Cha! Friday! Cha Cha Cha! To celebrate the arrival of the first weekend in February, we’re doing a little, fun, two-person conga line around a virtual daily crunch-boost session. Yes, it sounds funny. No, we couldn’t care less if we took every ounce we had and put in a little care.
A quick couple for startups: If you’re going to MWC, we want to hear from you, and we want your voice for TechCrunch Early Stage fireside chats, breakout sessions, and roundtable discussions!
And for today’s Black History Month tip, we suggest Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. It is an unusual read that revived interest in criminal justice reform when it was published ten years ago and is still interesting and relevant today. – Christine And came
TechCrunch’s Top 3
- Subscribers Big AppleApple may have missed its revenue target (see Big Tech section) for its fiscal first quarter, however, after the consumer tech giant announced that the poppin’ bottles and totin’ horns now have 935 million paid subscriptions across all its offerings. Ivan It has more.
- Who’s at the door?: Christine He did well in the latest round of Joker funding. The grocery delivery company has raised around $50 million at a valuation that is now up to $1.3 billion. Joker plans to double that funding in Brazil.
- Long order for some shorts: YouTube’s persistence in getting everyone to watch shorts has paid off: Google says YouTube shorts get 50 billion views every day. Ivan Reports.
Startups and VCs
TechCrunch Live is back, and Matt I am pleased to host this discussion with Sameer Sharif, CEO and Founder of Cambly, and Sara Tavel, Partner at Benchmark. During this hour, you’ll hear how Cambi used a failed Series A fundraising to force the company into a cash-positive position. Of course, once the company did not Desire Out of capital, it was suddenly found, and the company raised the next two rounds of funding.
And we have five more for you:
Pitch Deck Teardown: Laoshi’s $570K Angel Deck
Image Credits: Laoshi (Opens in a new window)
Laoshi’s founders have raised $570,000 in angel funding to grow their app, which helps users learn to read and write in Chinese.
He shared 15 slides from his deck to help other early stage founders:
- Cover slide
- Problem slide
- Market slide
- The solution slider
- Competition slide
- Road map slide
- Group slide
- Teacher development slide
- Teacher retention slide
- Summary slide
- “Contact Us” slide
- Appendices cover slide
- Appendix I: Virus Impact Slide
- Appendix II: Business Model Slide
- Appendix III: “The Question” Slide
Three more from the TC+ team:
TechCrunch+ Our membership program helps founders and startup teams stay ahead of the pack. You can register here.. Use code “DC” for 15% off annual subscription!
Big Tech Inc.
To all you “Seinfeld” fans out there, Amanda She came across this gem on Twitch, the “Nothing, Forever” AI ‘Seinfeld’ spoof, and she notes, “We’ve all seen so many AI-generated gimmicks, but AI isn’t the most fun thing about “Nothing, Forever. It’s the community that has gathered around the stream that has made the project the “Twitch Plays Pokémon” feel of this generation. Enjoy!
Our team has been on the revenue side, and now we have a good collection of insights from Ford, Apple, and Amazon.
Now here’s some non-profit stuff for your Friday fun:
