Daily Crunch: Mason raises $7.5 million to scale its no-code commerce engine

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Good morning! And it’s Thursday! We’re all eagerly awaiting the final episode of “Will Elon Really Buy Twitter or Will He Squirrel Out of It” – the indefinite miniseries and too many twists and turns to list. Supposedly we’ll learn more tomorrow, but who knows. Also, what is time? And if we’re all leaving Twitter in droves, where will we discuss all this drama?

Our favorite little story today was Roman‘s, covering these adorable indoor plants that can be used as air purifiers.

Haje is out tomorrow, so have a great weekend from him, and Christine will take care of all your crucial needs tomorrow. Farewell! — Christina and It came

TechCrunch’s top 3

• Self-driving Ixnay: Darrell has to see her with all the speculation and calls it, “Truly autonomous vehicles just won’t happen. The evidence for this has been accumulating for years, even decades, but it has now tipped the scales where it is hard for a reasoned observer to ignore – even an observer like me who was previously very optimistic about the prospects. autonomous driving,” he writes. Darrell, we love you and we hope you’ve never been so wrong.
• Closing the barn after the horse bolts: We also have the latest on Elon Musk after his now famous Twitter video: Amanda reports on his open letter to Twitter advertisers that people have it all wrong about why he is buying the social media giant, but also that Twitter cannot become “a free-for-all hellish landscape”. Rebecca writes that Musk now says he won’t fire 75% of Twitter staff.
• Avoid seller’s tax: Jagmeet writes that sellers on Amazon must meet certain requirements to sell on the platform, but a startup called Mason is set to change that. The India and California-based startup has secured $7.5 million in new funding, led by Accel and Ideaspring Capital, to deliver an Amazon-like retail experience, but without that “Amazon tax.”

Startups and VCs

There’s a ton of new bottoms happening at the same time, apparently. Christina reports that Streamlined Ventures, led by Ullas Naik, has secured $140 million in new capital commitments for its two new funds. It came reports that Human Impact Capital is a new $50 million fund that invests in social impact startups, and Mike notes that Paris-based VC Satgana is finalizing the first close of its €30m fund to support climate tech startups.

Meanwhile, there have been a bunch of mega-rounds that have put actual investment funds to shame; it’s a strange world when you can’t skim the headlines to determine if it’s a company raising a round or a new fund closing. We round up a handful below.

5 Tips for Getting Started in a Crowded Web3 Game Market

Picture credits: chelsea sampson (Opens in a new window) /Getty Pictures

Every online product requires a certain network effect, but the game is unique: without large, loyal and enthusiastic customers, there is no way to create products that can be monetized.

Play-to-Earn (P2E) games are particularly susceptible to this issue, which is why “building a game that succeeds over the long term means developing monetization strategies that can withstand the ebbs and flows of the market,” says Corey Wilton. , co-founder and CEO of Mirai Labs, the game studio behind Pegaxy.

In this primer for the founders of P2E, Wilton shares suggestions on how to approach investors, explains why tokens aren’t a reliable fundraising vehicle, and discusses the recent “shift to web 2.0 monetization.”

Three others from the TC+ team:

Tech Crunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get a head start. You can register here. Use code “DC” to get 15% off an annual subscription!

Big Tech inc.

The New York Post had to make deletions today after discovering that someone had hacked into both the newspaper’s website and its Twitter account, Zack reports. The headlines of the articles in question were racist and sexually violent in nature, and the newspaper told TechCrunch that an employee was to blame for the incident, but did not elaborate on how it came to be. this conclusion.

Plus, our team paid attention to revenue so you don’t have to. Rebecca looks at Ford’s third-quarter earnings, which it says suffered a $2.7 billion hit related to Argo AI, which we announced yesterday was shutting down. Meanwhile, in Meta, Amanda writes that Meta experienced another drop in revenue in the third quarter.

And now we have three more for you:

• Googling: Google Cloud has entered Web3 territory with a managed blockchain node service taking over the heavy lifting so developers can do their jobs, Ron reports. Meanwhile, pot holder has details on a $100 million acquisition the search engine giant made of Alter, an AI avatar startup.
• On an acquisition roll: Ron also reported on another Thoma Bravo acquisition. This time, she and Sunstone Partners announced plans to acquire UserTesting for $1.3 billion. The company plans to combine it with its UserZoom, another company acquired by Thoma Bravo in 2021.
• Get your health tips here: YouTube says it will start certifying channels for licensed healthcare professionals, like doctors, nurses or therapists, who produce health-related content, Ivan writing.