Blocking VLC player downloads violates Indian law, claims VideoLAN in legal challenge

Tuesday, October 04, 2022

Good to have you with us again, as the TechCrunch train continues to rumble along the tracks. It’s gonna be a fun and busy week, so let’s dive straight in with the news! — Christine and Haje

Image Credits: Getty Images

The TechCrunch Top 3

Last to know: VideoLAN, maker of the popular media player VLC, sent a legal notice to some of India’s ministries alleging that they banned its website without informing the company it was going to do so. Manish has more.
“The next Mark Zuckerberg?”: Two Stanford dropouts created Fizz, which Amanda describes as “the anonymous, college-only, Reddit-like social app” that helps you stay connected should your alternative pandemic communication options fail you.
It’s here, it’s here!: The Google iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets are starting to roll out, enabling users to put widgets on the Lock Screen of their iPhone, Sarah writes.

Announcing Jotform Sign: E-signatures meet automation!

Startups and VC

John Curtius, the prolific Tiger Global senior partner who has been at the center of some of the firm’s biggest deals in the last several years, is leaving the firm, Ingrid writes. He will be leaving to start his own firm, which will concentrate investments from Series A to Series C. Curtius will stay with Tiger until June.

In the broadest of strokes, the circular economy represents a colossal shift in how humanity makes and uses stuff. Instead of primarily harvesting raw materials to produce goods that wind up incinerated, or in oceans or landfills, the circular economy offers an alternative where stuff is deliberately reused, repaired and recycled over and over again. Harri reports that Google is spinning up a new, online-only startup accelerator centered around the elusive circular economy. The effort is Google’s latest to help environmentally focused startups grow while potentially hooking them on its cloud products in the process.

In other news:

That’ll be eight arms and five legs, please: Mary Ann reports that a new startup is attempting to answer the question of how much to pay your engineering resources.
Drone reprieve for Crohn’s relief: Rebecca reports that Zipline’s drones are set to start delivering medicine in the Salt Lake City area.
The fabled land of shares and options: Romain reports how Easop helps you grant equity to international employees.
Solve for X, where: Tage reports that Egyptian venture capital firm Algebra Ventures hits its first close of a second, $100 million fund.
That’s a “no” from us, Kim: And finally, we loved Anita and Dominic-Madori‘s plea for us to hold Kim Kardashian to task for shilling crypto.

Edtech’s honeymoon might be over, but expect a second boom

After the pandemic drove students at every level into remote learning, the edtech sector saw record levels of investment — until the public markets began to cool off several months ago.

“That said, it’s important to remember that publicly traded value represents a fraction of the overall edtech sector,” found Dealroom edtech analyst Carla Napoleão and Rhys Spence, head of research at Brighteye Ventures.

In a detailed report that studies both the public and private markets, the duo looked at global deal flow, trends in subsectors like K–12 and corporate learning, and recent M&A activity.

“Edtech still has deep and untapped opportunities. The markets may have slowed, but it won’t be long until the momentum returns.”

But wait, there’s more!

Space, the final wireless frontier: Tim reports on wireless power company Emrod beaming 550 watts across an Airbus warehouse to demonstrate space-based solar power.
More value, more fast: Four ways cybersecurity startups can boost adoption and shorten time-to-value, by Ross Haleliuk.
Well something is bubbling up: I will defend the $700 million fizzy water, by Alex.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

Aren’t you glad you came here? It’s an Elon Musk day. The big story was Connie’s report on Mr. Musk and how his opinion on a peace plan for the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war was not taken probably the way he thought it would. Then in a strange turn of events today, Amanda writes that Musk will now go through with the deal to buy Twitter at his initial offer of $54.20 per share. Representatives filed a notice with the SEC. That news sent shares of the company skyrocketing to over $47 from the open at nearly $43.

Meanwhile, we enjoyed Brian’s Q&A with new Kickstarter CEO Everette Taylor, who has been in the role for less than a week and is already hitting the ground running.

Here’s five more for ya:

Just when you wanted the ads to go away: Meta made the decision to increase the number of ad slots on Instagram, Sarah reports. It’s also testing what it calls “image carousel” ads.
When I dip, you dip, we dip: Apple’s App Store just announced the biggest revenue drop since it began tracking that kind of data, Ivan writes.
Going to court: The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to evaluate Section 230 of the Communications Act, which basically shields tech platforms from liability when it comes to content posted by its users. Devin has more.
Meanwhile, in Europe…: European Union lawmakers gave a thumbs-up to rebooted e-commerce regulations, Natasha L reports.
Sold!: South Korean search giant Naver plans to acquire fashion marketplace Poshmark for $1.2 billion, Kyle writes. Meanwhile, Alex puts his TC+ spin in it with 3 takeaways from the deal.