Extra Crunch roundup: Influencer marketing, China’s tech clampdown, drafting growth teams

Before you hire a marketing consultant who doesn’t understand your products or commit to a CMO who has several years of experience — but none in your sector — consider influencer marketing. If the phrase evokes images of celebrities hawking hard seltzer, think again: An influencer can be

Starship Technologies is bringing food delivery robots to four more US college campuses this year

Starship Technologies, an autonomous delivery services company, announced that it will begin delivery service on four additional college campuses this fall, adding to the 20 campuses on which it already operates. The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), the University of Kentucky (UK), the Univers

Coinbase crushes Q2 expectations, notes Q3 trading volume is trending lower

After the bell today, Coinbase reported another period of impressive results in its second quarter earnings report. During the quarter, Coinbase’s total revenue reached $2.23 billion, which helped the company generate net income of $1.61 billion in the three-month period. The company benefite

Perform a quality of earnings analysis to make the most of M&A

As a startup founder, there will be three scenarios in which you'll need to understand how to properly do a quality of earnings (QofE) if you want to maximize value. The first scenario will be when you decide to raise a Series A and subsequent VC rounds, followed by when you do a strategic acqu

Signal now lets you choose disappearing messages by default for new chats

The encrypted chat app Signal is adding a few new options for users looking to lock down their messages. The app will now allow anyone to turn on a default timer for disappearing messages, automatically applying the settings to any newly initiated conversations. Signal’s disappearing messages

Feds dismantle Blue Origin and Dynetics protests of NASA’s SpaceX lunar lander award

Blue Origin and Dynetics are still steaming over NASA’s decision to award only one contract — to SpaceX — to build a Human Landing System for the Artemis program. Their protest of the decision was recently rejected, and now the Government Accountability Office’s arguments, which Blu

Unity to acquire Parsec in its biggest acquisition to date

Unity, the company behind the super popular 2D/3D engine of the same name, is today announcing plans to make its biggest acquisition to date. Unity says it will acquire Parsec, a remote desktop tool for developers and creatives, for $320 million in cash. Parsec’s pitch has long been remote de

What’s driving the global surge in retail media spending?

Most businesses by now are well versed with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic: Faltering offline sales, flexible work-from-anywhere options, fluctuating foot traffic with lockdown mandates and e-commerce becoming a channel many brands wished they had built infrastructure for earlier. As a r

Product School raises $25M in growth equity to scale its product training platform

Traditional MBA programs can be costly, lengthy and often lack the application of real-world skills. Meanwhile, big global brands and companies who need product managers to grow their businesses can't sit around waiting for people to graduate. And the edtech space hasn't traditionally cater

Zomato’s losses widen in first quarterly earnings since IPO

Zomato's losses more than tripled in its first quarterly earnings report since its listing last month as the company’s expenses grew and the pandemic hit the firm’s dining-out business. The Gurgaon-headquartered firm reported (PDF) a net loss of $48 million in the quarter that ende

VCs are betting big on Kubernetes: Here are 5 reasons why

I worked at Google for six years. Internally, you have no choice — you must use Kubernetes if you are deploying microservices and containers (it's actually not called Kubernetes inside of Google; it's called Borg). But what was once solely an internal project at Google has since been open

Twitter suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene temporarily for spreading vaccine misinformation

Twitter temporarily suspended Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Tuesday after the Georgia Republican posted a tweet that claimed vaccines don’t reduce the spread of COVID-19. “These vaccines are failing & do not reduce the spread of the virus & neither do masks,” Greene tweet

OpenAI upgrades its natural language AI coder Codex and kicks off private beta

OpenAI has already made some big changes to Codex, the AI-powered coding assistant the company announced last month. The system now accepts commands in plain English and outputs live, working code, letting someone build a game or web app without so much as naming a variable. A few lucky coders (and

44.01 secures $5M to turn billions of tons of carbon dioxide to stone

Reducing global greenhouse gas emissions is an important goal, but another challenge awaits: lowering the levels of CO2 and other substances already in the atmosphere. One promising approach turns the gas into an ordinary mineral through entirely natural processes; 44.01 hopes to perform this proce