Tata Group releases ‘super app’ that bundles 11 consumer services – TechCrunch

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Welcome to the Daily Crunch for Thursday April 7th, 2022! We’d like to start with a quick congratulations to FabuLinga for winning the pitch-off at the TechCrunch City Spotlight (Austin Edition). Check out all of our City Spotlight content for a fast-paced tour of Austin’s startup scene.

Get some air first; you have that. Christine and hey

The TechCrunch Top 3

  • Tata Group focuses on e-commerce with super app: The Indian conglomerate known for its myriad businesses, including software and telecoms, has bundled all of its properties under a big embrace, er, “super app” called Tata New, which launched today to bring the company some e- Commerce booklet lend deals like groceries, electronics and hotels. We report that this has been in the works for at least three years and will also include a payment service for loans and insurance.
  • Better.com’s layoff saga doesn’t get any better: TechCrunch received leaked video of a 12-minute meeting held with remaining employees after 900 of their colleagues were fired in December. In it, CEO Vishal Garg admits his lack of discipline could have caused the company to lose about $200 million, saying: “Today we recognize that we hired too many people and hired the wrong people. And we failed at that. I failed. … We could probably have made more money last year and been leaner, meaner and hungrier.”
  • When you learn it’s time to go public… Cloud, that is: Organizations have been migrating to the cloud for some time. However, when public travel systems provider Amadeus saw the writing on the wall seven years ago, the company decided to embark on what would prove to be an arduous journey, but set it on the path to more efficient operations.

Startups and VCs

Ladies, gentlemen and people who don’t fit any of these descriptions, today it takes every ounce of self-control. I would like to point out that I wasn’t making a terrible joke about the multiple meanings of “seed” in relation to raising seed funding from Conceive. The company is building a community and services to support people trying to increase our world’s population, one tiny person at a time. As soon as Conceive succeeds, Singapore-based Parentinc steps in; It just raised $22 million for its parent community and the D2C brand.

“The Folklore highlights the best design talent from around the world [Africa], and the demand for these products that reflect the culture is exploding,” says the Folklore CEO of the $1.7 million fundraiser and launch of a B2B fashion e-commerce platform. In Africa, too, we’re seeing strong growth in gig workers and the sharing economy – and ImaliPay just raised $3 million to offer financial services to gig workers across the continent.

I have to admit, the only thing that scares me more than self-driving trucks (like the Kodiak Robotics big rigs that drove non-stop for 131 hours) are autonomous heavy construction equipment. I’ve seen The Terminator and I know how that ends.

Tasty bites of freshly baked news from across TechCrunch:

3 Ways Deep Tech Founders Can Climb Out of Pilot Purgatory

Photo credit: Yinwei Liu (opens in a new window) /Getty Images

With so many deep tech startups on the cutting edge, founders in this space have a harder time raising funds, acquiring customers, and achieving product-to-market fit.

Many of these companies will falter early because they never progress from pilot to full-scale adoption. “It’s a big, widespread, industry-specific problem,” said Champ Suthipongchai, co-founder and general partner at Creative Ventures.

“While I don’t suppose I have a one-size-fits-all solution, I do know three ways deep tech founders can ensure their time in pilot purgatory ends with a rollout.”

(TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead. Sign up here.)

BigTech Inc.

It’s Major League Baseball’s Opening Day, and while we ate our peanuts and Cracker Jack (which also has peanuts in them, but we digress), we watched some big tech companies smack out of the park today. General Motors chose opening day to announce the Bolt was back after a huge recall, while streaming services are lining up their bats to bring live sporting events to their platforms.

Speaking of streaming services, HBO Max’s Apple TV app is getting an upgrade to fix some of the performance issues users have been seeing and to introduce some new features, including a “binge mode” that lets you see the end credits skip and start the next episode of a TV show. Spotify has introduced new features and functionalities for its in-car entertainment system “Car Thing”, such as managing calls and playing music from other media. Meanwhile, TikTok has again postponed the opening of its first UK data center, which will be located in Dublin, citing a delayed schedule due to the global pandemic.

We’re almost full from all this food, but here are a few more crumbs you might like:

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