And the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield Winner is...

Thursday, October 20, 2022

It’s Day 3 of Disrupt and we are so tired we’re flopped in the green room giggling maniacally at the dumbest jokes you can imagine. To be fair, that’s our baseline anyway. Enjoooooy! — Christine and Haje

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

Startup Battlefield 2022 Winner!

It began with 20: As seasoned TechCrunch readers will know, startups participating in the Startup Battlefield were handpicked to compete in the event. During the first two days of Disrupt, the companies pitched before judges for a chance to win $100,000 and the coveted Battlefield Cup.

After much deliberation, the TechCrunch editors pored over the judges’ notes and narrowed the list down to five finalists: Advanced Ionics, AppMap, Intropic Materials, Minerva Lithium and Swap Robotics. They pitched in front of the final panel of judges today, which included Mar Hershenson (Pear VC), Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone, Aileen Lee (Cowboy Ventures), TechCrunch editor in chief Matthew Panzarino, David Tisch (BoxGroup) and Richard Wong (Accel). One startup emerged victorious.

Okay without further ado, the winner of Startup Battlefield 2022 is Minerva Lithium!

Minerva Lithium has produced Nano Mosaic, a coordinated polymer framework that looks a bit like black gravel and extracts critical materials from brine in just three days. Minerva says that it can extract one metric ton of lithium using just 30,000 gallons of water, and it can do it in three days. Evaporative brine processing needs to evaporate 500,000 gallons of water to get to the same amount of lithium. Just one gram of this absorbent material has a surface area equal to that of a soccer pitch, which should give you an idea of just how little you’d need to extract a large amount of minerals. Read our coverage on Minerva Lithium here.

Intropic Materials is the runner-up, with its set of enzymes that can be added to plastics at the very beginning of their life cycle, before it is even turned into products. Plastics are great for so many things, but they stay around for an awfully long time. The additives the company makes have been proof-of-concept tested and it wants to upend how plastics are made and disposed of.

Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

Framing Innovation: Explore how AT&T’s network powers innovation

The TechCrunch Top 3

Quiet launch: Manish again had two of our top stories this week. The first one is on Reliance, which launched the JioBook, its first laptop, of which he writes, “The company appears to have ambitious plans.”
So fine: Manish’s other story involves India fining Google $162 million for what the country said was anti-competitive practices on Android mobile devices. Manish reports that India is Google’s largest market in terms of users, and Google powers 97% of the country’s 600 million smartphones. So…yeah.
Spend management: Banyan, a platform for customers, such as banks, fintechs, hotels and merchants to automate expense management, bagged $43 million in a mix of equity and debt funding that Kyle writes “positions Banyan well with ample runway to grow.”

Startups and VC

Advanced Ionics, a climate tech startup that hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is striving to drive down the price of green hydrogen, reports Harri. They are changing the game by slashing how much electricity is needed for electrolysis by as much as 50%.

There’s an abundance of dating apps on the market, but there aren’t many apps that aim to keep the spark alive after you enter a relationship. Enter Sparks, an app catering to existing couples looking to introduce new and fun experiences to their lives, Aisha reports. The Barcelona-based startup, which exhibited as part of the Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt, debuted as an MVP in May 2021 and officially launched this week.

Hey, I have a cool idea — let’s do a few more:

You turn me right round, baby, right round: Christine suggests that if you want to know how a dress looks on you, AIMIRR has your back…and front.
I like the cut of your jib: RIF Robotics powers robots that inspect and organize surgical equipment, Kyle reports.
Collision imminent, power to shields: Kayhan Space is making orbit safer with timely, automatic collision warnings for satellites, by Devin.
Time for a break maybe: Paul reports that Ambr wants to solve the billion-dollar burnout problem by tracking employees’ working habits.
Like data, but different: Lucas writes that BetterData taps the blockchain to help create better synthetic data.

Read this before you reprice your SaaS product because of the downturn

Many startups are lowering prices right now in an attempt to retain customers and reduce churn during the downturn. “But is that actually helpful advice for SaaS founders?” asks Torben Friehe, CEO and co-founder of Wingback. “As far as I can see, it isn’t for most.”

Instead of being reactive, Friehe says SaaS startups need to instead revisit their ideal customer profile and revise their messaging. “This adverse economic climate may actually be a time when you have more leverage and can demand higher prices for your product.”

Three more from the TC+ team:

Ploughing resources into carbon removal: Farmers are key to Lithos Carbon’s quest to remove gigatons of carbon, by Tim.
Stable and steady: Stablecoin demand maintains pace as other cryptocurrencies tumble, by Jacquelyn.
2021 was, like, last year: Netflix results confirm we’re not in 2021 anymore, by Anna.

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.

Tesla reported its third-quarter revenue issued analyst expectations, causing shares to fall slightly yesterday by 3.5%, Kirsten reports. However, net income for the third quarter was $3.3 billion, or nearly double the $1.62 billion it earned in the same period last year. The company cited raw material costs and issues ramping up production at its Germany and Texas factories.

And we have more for you:

No stones unturned: Ivan reports on the reaction support for iPhone texts and in-app reminders for Google Messages.
Wave to the camera: Seems as though there is a bug in Abode’s home security system that can let hackers remotely switch off cameras. Carly has more.
Boxed in: UK’s antitrust group is filing litigation that targets Amazon Buy Box with over $1 billion in damages, Natasha L reports.