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Hello and welcome to the Daily Crunch on Friday March 4, 2022! It’s Friday, y’all, which means this newsletter is full of good vibes and imminent relaxation. Of course before the weekend, there’s a lot to do, so take a look at the latest from Early Stage (go to rock) and TC Sessions: Mobility (go to roll), and we can get on with it. ! – alexander

TechCrunch’s top 3

Startups and VCs

The venture capital world is not the only place where we are seeing more funds appear. The influencer space is another. It’s no surprise, then, that the D’Amelio family set up their own fund with $25 million to invest. Who is the D’Amelio family? Well, it’s Charli and Dixie, two super famous social media personalities. If this confuses you, ask your children.

• Rotate Pivot: Turtle has another new idea. The company started out as a company serving the electric scooter rental market. Then he built delivery robots. Now he’s turning those robots into mobile stores. I love when a startup shakes up the vision and tries something new, so if I see a Turtle bot/store, I’ll try to buy something from it.
• The flying taxis are finally coming? Volocopter thinks so, and its investors agree. The southern German company has just raised $170 million for a valuation of $1.87 billion. Which means there is a parcel on the concept of vertical take-off taxis.
• Self-service truck rentals can be funded by venture capital! TechCrunch has previously covered Fetch, a company that wants to make it easier for consumers to rent a truck or van without having to drive to the airport to do so. Now the company has raised $3.5 million for its business, which should help Fetch nab and return (buy and deploy?) a lot more wheels.
• AssemblyAI raises $28 million: There is a lot of work going on in the audio space when it comes to computational intelligence. There is Deepgram, for example, among other players like Otter.ai. AssemblyAI, now with new capital, offers an API for what we describe as “transcribing, summarizing, and otherwise determining what is happening in thousands of audio streams at once.”
• Blocknom Brings Crypto Tools to Southeast Asia: OK so Coinbase. You know. It is a place where you can buy and sell crypto tokens. This is also a place where you can “stake” your tokens and get paid to do so. Blocknom – I presume a portmanteau of “blockchain om nom nom”, right? – wants to bring this service to Southeast Asia. And he just raised half a million for his efforts.
• Popchew helps creators cook: Back to the world of social networks/influencers: Popchew. The company “has compiled a list of infrastructure and restaurant partnership ingredients so creators can create, launch and grow their own local and digital-native food brands,” reports TechCrunch. This included, note, a bitcoin pizza. It’s a joke that we either understand or don’t understand. Either way, the company just raised $3.6 million for its efforts. So he had to find a tasty market niche.

TechCrunch’s Equity podcast turns five this month and said goodbye to one of its founding members last week. Here’s the episode noting the two.

4 basic elements necessary for the proper functioning of the production OSS

Picture credits: Kevin Balluff (Opens in a new window) /Getty Pictures

Open source software gives companies a lot of leeway when it comes to building a technology stack that meets their requirements, but it also means dealing with software created by multiple entities and individuals.

In a detailed tutorial, Shaun O’Meara, Global CTO at Mirantis, walks readers through the four basics of using OSS in production:

• Audit
• Stay up to date
• Prepare your team to interact with source code
• Accept that it is impossible to do everything by yourself

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

Big Tech inc.

• The box strikes back: After a tumultuous year, Box capped something of a comeback with results that exceeded expectations and gave investors something to buy. It is trading near a record high after going through a deadly proxy battle.
• Sony and Honda will build electric vehicles together: What is a memorandum of understanding or memorandum of understanding? It’s like the diet version of a Letter of Intent or Letter of Intent. And what is a letter of intent? It’s like the diet version of a contract. Anyway, Sony now has a memorandum of understanding with Honda to explore the possibility of making cars together. Let’s see if they end up hitting the market.
• Disney plans ad-fueled Disney+ tier: Disney+ grew very, very quickly when it launched. Now, its parent company seems to have prepared a second push to expand its user base, this time with an ad-supported option.
• Twitter launches into podcasts: Everyone’s favorite social media hell is creating a podcasts tab. So if you don’t want to listen to podcasts where you currently do, you’ll have more options? Precisely how this will relate to Twitter spaces should prove interesting.
• Leaked Nvidia passwords: TechCrunch has been on Nvidia’s hack and ransom story for some time, and the latest in the saga comes in the form of leaked passwords. There’s a lot more data at risk, so keep an eye on how Nvidia is handling the situation.

TechCrunch experts

Picture credits: SEAN GLADWELL/Getty Images

TechCrunch is recruiting recruiters for TechCrunch Experts, an ongoing project where we interview top professionals about common issues and challenges in early-stage startups. If it’s you or someone you know, you can let us know here before the investigation ends today at 11 p.m. ET.