Coinbase will reduce its workforce by 18% to “stay healthy during this downturn”

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It’s June 14, 2022, and while casually preparing for the Daily Crunch news bulletin, Bill Gates relaxes at the next table at the TC Sessions: Climate event in Berkeley, California. Oh and we just released new tickets for our annual summer party! We’ll see each other there? Go on and Christina

TechCrunch’s top 3

• More layoffs: We tried to think of something smarter than that, but on to the bad news. Coinbase, Redfin and Compass are the latest companies to announce that large chunks of their employees will soon be unemployed. Ivan writes that Coinbase laid off 18% of its workforce, or about 1,100 people, which allowed everyone to calculate the number of employees they really had. And while Coinbase was well within its rights to cut off access to its systems before notifying affected employees, we can’t help but wonder if there were any early risers wondering what’s going on. passed. Meanwhile, Mary Ann reports a double of higher mortgage rates and a drop in home sales that led both Redfin and Compass will lay off a total of 920 employees today.

• I’ll take time to do the things we never had: Launch Africa, a venture capital firm that has already supported more than 100 startups, closed its first fund with $36.3 million in commitments, take reports. The fund has an impressive roster of over 230 retail and institutional investors across 40 countries, many of whom have already been put to work in startups.

• SPACs can be found here: We may now report tech layoffs every day, but not too long ago we were doing the same for special purpose acquisition companies, affectionately known as SPAC. alexander and Anna examine the fruits of that labor, but we warn you that some of it is rotten.

Startups and VCs

On the one hand, we write a lot about recessions. On the other hand, there seems to be a flurry of new backgrounds appearing left, right, and center.

The story continues

kate reports that The World Innovation Lab has raised $1 billion to bridge the innovation gap between companies and startups in the United States and Asia.

From our Asia-focused VC office: Sequoia India and Southeast Asia raise $2.8 billion funds, pot holder reports.

Continuing the theme of connecting startups to other entities, Dcode Capital closes $50 million fund focusing on startups interested in working with the federal government, Rebecca writing.

Some other highlights

• Some things click, you know: Frederic sharing on Nerdy Keychrons Q3 mechanical keyboard it makes our credit card a bit shiny in our wallets.

• Zzzzzzz Sorry, what was that?: The founder of Simple Habit launches a new application, Sleep Reset, which aims to help you sleep better, Ivan writing.

• Call me on my sales phone: Proving that contact center technology remains desirable, Invoca raises $83 millionreports Kyle.

• Undermine their own business: Meanwhile, there is more than 600 crypto or blockchain companies now based in Southeast Asia, Rita reports.

• Auto-AI-mune: Meta Pharmaceuticals lands $15 million to develop new autoimmune drugs with AIwriting Rita.

A decade after the bubble burst, 5 climate tech investors explain why they’re all in

Picture credits: Tunvarat Pruksachat (Opens in a new window) /Getty Pictures

Twenty years ago, there were high hopes for companies aiming to mitigate environmental impacts, but a prolonged recession, China’s dominance of solar power manufacturing and low natural gas prices were not. the only factors hindering the industry.

A 2016 working paper from the MIT Energy Initiative found that VC is “the wrong model for clean energy innovation”. It takes years to create economies of scale, and not all investors are willing to foot the bill for a decade of R&D.

“If a new, more diverse set of players avoids the mistakes of the rise and fall of cleantech venture capital, they may be able to support a new breed of cleantech companies,” the paper concludes. .

This hypothetical cohort is now a reality: a McKinsey report found that climate technology “could attract $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in annual capital investment” by 2025.

Senior climate writer Tim De Chant spoke to five investors to get their thoughts on the state of the industry in Q3 2022. Their responses shed light on how VCs are responding to the downturn , which technology can have the greatest potential for impact and what they’re looking for right now:

Pae Wu, General Partner, SOSV; CTO, IndieBio

Christian Garcia, Partner, Breakthrough Energy Ventures

Rajesh Swaminathan, Venture Capital Partner, Khosla Ventures

Andrew Beebe, Managing Director, Obvious Ventures

Amy Burr, President, JetBlue Technology Ventures

(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams grow. You can register here.)

Big Tech inc.

Indian officials have made it clear that if VPN companies want to conceal who is using their services, they will have to leave the country before certain stricter guidelines. Now companies require. The latest to announce that it is phasing out its services is NordVPN, pot holder reports. As advocates of digital privacy and security, we are concerned about the possible effect this regulation could have on people’s data, Laura Tyrylyte, public relations manager at NordVPN, told TechCrunch.

Two years after leaving Amazon Robotics, Brad Porter revealed his new passion, Collaborative roboticswhich will study human-robot interaction, brian writing. It was too early for Porter to talk about what he was working on, but he definitely said it wouldn’t be like Teslas Optimus robot. Maybe it would look more like a Megatron robot?

Meanwhile, Natasha looks at why another European country is inquiry into Apple’s app privacy framework. This time, Germany’s antitrust watchdog wants to see if the tech giant is unfairly tipping the scales in its direction.

There are also some cybersecurity flaws to talk about. Someone gained access to the emails of a Kaiser Permanente employee in April, resulting in the breach of approximately 70,000 patient records. Carly notes that this may be the result of phishing and that steps have been taken to educate employees; however, it’s not yet clear why it took the company months to let patients know what happened. Back in India, Zack reports that millions of farmers nationwide are exposed to the new Aadhaar data leakmeaning their confidential 12-digit ID numbers, essentially how they get paid, weren’t so private anymore.

Here are some other highlights from the day: