Hello and welcome back to Daily Crunch for September 13, 2021. This is Alex, and I am back! A big thanks to Greg for taking over last week while I was on staycation. It is lovely to be back with you all.
Before we dive into the news, a reminder that Disrupts is next week. So, make sure you have a ticket and get the hype. More here. It’s going to be a heck of a show.
Article Summary
show
The TechCrunch Top 3+
- The Apple-Epic war far from over: While the internet digests the recent, controversial ruling between Apple and gaming giant Epic, the latter party is not letting the decision sit. Epic is appealing. What’s at stake is the monetization of mobile applications for years to come. Given how much money is in the mix, it’s not a massive surprise that the legal wrangling takes time.
- Welcome back to IPO season: Toast, a software-and-hardware startup that is the, well, toast of Boston, is targeting a vast valuation gain in its IPO. So is Freshworks. We’re tracking both companies and will have more notes as they get closer to trading. Expect many, many more offerings in the coming weeks.
- China’s regulatory crackdown could harm its cloud market: That’s the recent summary of a report that TechCrunch covered, discussing the larger Chinese software market. News also broke earlier today that the Chinese government may break up Ant, the Alibaba financial affiliate. The country wants to reduce the number of EV companies its market currently supports.
- BREAKING NEWS TODAY: Apple has released a patch to a zero-day flaw “that affects every iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch,” TechCrunch reports. Update your devices, folks.
Startups/VC
- GrubMarket lands $120M to connect food growers, consumers: Sure, you’ve ordered food delivery. That’s one plank of the food game. But for distributors, wholesalers, and supermarkets, there are far greater needs to be served than just what you and I can consume for dinner. That’s the market that GrubMarket plays in, and it just raised a massive bloc of cash to keep its growth rates up.
- BitSight raises from Moody’s, buys VisibleRisk: BitSight, a startup that “assesses the likelihood that an organization will be breached,” per TechCrunch, has purchased an Israeli cyber-risk-assessment startup VisibleRisk for an undisclosed price. The Moody’s round put $250 million into BitSight, funds that we presume it used to snag VisibleRisk. What’s the connection? Moody’s wants to use cyber risks in its credit ratings, we reckon.
- SpotOn also raises, buys smaller company: Unicorn SpotOn, which provides financial software and technology to small businesses, has raised a $300 million round that values the company at $3.15 billion. It’s also buying Appetize, “a digital and mobile commerce payments platform for enterprises such as sports and entertainment venues, theme parks and zoos.” The round is notable for its size and because SpotOn raised at a $1.875 billion valuation in May and a $625 million valuation last year.
- JumpCloud raises $159M: JumpCloud sells cloud directory services and a host of other cloud-based identity services. It’s now worth $2.56 billion, a tidy sum. Sapphire Ventures’ Jai Das led the round. He’s a nice dude in my experience. The company grew its customer base by around 40% since last November. I asked the story’s author Ron Miller why JumpCloud was cool enough for him to cover. He said that the company’s effort to “provide a range of identity services, such as single sign-on and multifactor authentication” is essential.
- I suppose it’s time to learn what DevSevOps is: Every technology wants its neologism. DevOps. Adtech. Find services. Hell, even Databricks’ Lakehouse. Add DevSecOps to your lexicon. Per our own Ingrid Lunden, DevSecOps is “the area of IT that addresses the needs of security teams and the technical work they need to do in their jobs.” Startup Rezilion just raised $30 million for its efforts to serve that particular market.
- Everyone loves an e-commerce platform play: Shopify is big. BigCommerce is growing nicely. And investors want to put capital into the next similar effort. Enter Egyptian startup Capital, which just snagged a $33 million round to “help manufacturers and sellers distribute products and [ … ] access them on a single platform” in Africa.
- To close out our startup coverage, GM just invested in radar software startup Oculi. The move fits neatly into the trend of self-driving cars getting better and better over time, even if they are not yet there if you will.
