Apple details new App Store payment rules, still demands a 27% cut

Good morning and welcome to TechCrunch AM for January 17, 2024. This morning, we’re talking about Apple’s changes to its app store rules; how one startup wants to use AI to help other companies reduce their software spend; what’s going on with fintech; and even fake beef! Let’s have some fun!

– Alex

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• India doesn’t like deepfakes: New Delhi has issued a warning that digital platforms could get banned from the country if they don’t take steps to monitor for and quickly take down unauthorized deepfaked videos. The precipitating factor in this case was a deepfaked video of a cricket player that was used to endorse a gambling app. India has sharpened its regulation of its technology industry and market in recent years as it continues to grow.
• Apple is willing to bend a tiny amount: Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal of Epic’s case against Apple over allowing developers to link out from its App Store and use alternative payment methods, the iPhone maker will require companies that do link out to still pay a 27% fee. Down from 30%. And apps that do link out still have to allow for normal Apple payments and fees. Call it a corporate middle finger.
• AI vs. SaaS: Vertice, a startup that wants to use AI to help its customers save on their overall software spend, just raised $25 million. It’s growing very quickly, scaling to revenues in the double-digit millions, with ARR growing seven-fold in 2023, writes Ingrid Lunden. Using new technology to save money on older tech? Very meta, very cool.

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Fullcast raises $34M to track revenue teams: Do you have a bunch of products, revenue lines and sales teams? Tracking the milieu can be a big, complicated, messy task. That’s something the founders of Fullcast learned at Microsoft and Salesforce. So they came up with software that allows companies to manage and track the performance of each of their revenue-generating teams by connecting to existing software. Fullcast currently has revenue of $6.5 million, meaning that revenue operations (RevOps?) is a category with legs.

Build a Rocket Boy snags $110M: Founded by a former developer of the Grand Theft Auto games, Build a Rocket Boy has raised a massive round to help fund the development and launch of several titles, one of which could compete with Roblox. Given the layoffs we’ve seen this year in the gaming industry, this round stood out to me for being nearly counter to the wider narrative. Also, who doesn’t love seeing some capital flow towards art?

N26 says ‘hallo’ to stock trading: Berlin-based neobank N26 is getting into the equities and ETF game. The move is not surprising, as adding new investing features could help the company expand its revenue per user, which all fintech startups seek to do as they scale.

Samsung is coming with new hardware: Today at 1 p.m. E.S.T., Samsung will unveil its newest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S24. We expect new hardware, but also some AI elements that may be worth paying some attention to.

Sierra Space lands part of a big satellite deal: Space-focused startups are having a good start to the year. Sierra Space has been picked, along with Lockheed Martin and L3Harris, to build 54 satellites in deals collectively worth $2.5 billion. The development comes in the wake of Rocket Lab snagging a similar contract worth $515 million last week. Space is a massive market, and it’s good to see startups getting a piece of the action.

Fake beef: No, I am not discussing synthetic arguments; I’m talking about artificial beef, the kind you can eat. Aleph Farms has gotten the green light in Israel to produce and sell its cultivated beef product in the country. This is not a plant-based replacement; it’s actual meat grown in a lab. Perhaps it will prove tasty. Anything to improve our factory farming food chain is good by me.

And in the United States, regulators are turning up the pressure on companies that experienced data breaches. “It might seem like it’s never been a riskier time to work in cybersecurity,” writes Zack Whittaker.

How much would you pay to shop?

If retail therapy is the kind of mental health management you prefer, how would you feel about a service that you have to apply to join and then costs $1,000 per month before you actually get to buy anything? That’s the bet behind Long Story Short.

I am completely uncertain how popular the product will be, but it certainly has a bold business model. I just hope Amazon isn’t taking notes.

Read More

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• Network Administrator at Washington State Department of Natural Resources (Olympia, WA, USA)
• 2024–25 Technologist-in-Residence Fellow at Council on Foreign Relations (New York, NY, USA)

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