Jio and Google set November 4 rollout for India's $87 JioPhone Next

Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for October 29, 2021. If you feel a little snowed-under after all the news from the week, we understand. This week saw Facebook change its name, new hardware from Google and Samsung, Apple laptops reviews, Sequoia revamping its entire structure, Big Tech earnings, issues at Ro, and eighty-eleven startup funding rounds and product launches.

But we made it through, so let’s go back over today’s biggest news and then get right into this weekend! —Alex

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Public cloud revenues reach $45B: In the third quarter, the value of public cloud revenues from Google, Microsoft and Amazon hit $45 billion, a figure good for a $180 billion run rate. That figure underscores how far the cloud has come in recent years and represents spend from a host of companies big and small, tech and otherwise. TechCrunch dug into what impact the chip shortage is, and isn’t, having on growth amongst the public cloud lords, in case you were curious about that particular dynamic.
• Trump’s social network already in trouble: Sure, it was mocked when it was announced. And, yes, pranksters got busy in a hurry. But the biggest threat to former U.S. President Trump’s Truth Social product is an open source project that you’ve not heard from in some time, namely Mastodon. Per TechCrunch, the social project “alleges that Truth Social is passing open source software off as its own and has given them 30 days to fix this.”
• The American heartland is startup-central: After our look into the larger Midwest startup market in the United States, TechCrunch took the time today to parse results from the city of Denver. Along with regional siblings, startups in the Mile High City are raising huge amounts of capital. But what we learned is that Denver’s startup boom came after a long period of investments in its local technology scene from the industry’s biggest players.
• And, for something lighter, Google’s partnership with Jio to create and sell a budget smartphone in India is bearing hardware fruit.

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Startups/VC

• Kurly targets $5.9B IPO: Grocery delivery comes in a few forms. There’s the “instant” players, the two-hour delivery crew and then what Kurly is up to in Korea, namely delivering foodstuffs the next day. The slower model hasn’t harmed the unicorn, which intends to list next year at a valuation that could reach nearly six billion dollars.
• Celebrities back electric boat venture: A bit like how venture capitalists will keep backing email startups in hopes of eventually solving their personal communications crisis, a number of celebrities are backing Arc, which makes a very snazzy, if expensive electric boat. With a price tag around $300,000, it’s not a surprise that well-known celebrities-cum-investors Will Smith, Kevin Durant and Diddy are backing the company given that its product is inside their price range. You and I will have to get by with a Matchbox version.
• Patreon wants to say yes to crypto: Creator payments and content platform Patreon may get in on the crypto boom. TechCrunch repots that the company is looking into how crypto might intersect with its creator-heavy user base.
• Social Chat bets consumers want higher-touch digital shopping experiences: Personally one of the best things about online shopping is not having to talk to other humans. However, many consumers disagree, Social Chat appears to be arguing. The company just raised $6 million to help make online shopping more like buying stuff IRL.
• And in case you want to know which three funding rounds the Equity crew thought were the hottest of the week, well, we have your back.

Predicting the next wave of Southeast Asia tech giants

Is Southeast Asia about to hit an inflection point for tech startups?

Four hundred million people in the region already use the internet, but by year’s end, one estimate suggests that 80% of the population over the age of 15 in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam will be digital consumers.

“As per Jungle Ventures’ calculations, the total value of the region’s digital companies is around $340 billion today and is estimated to grow to $1 trillion by 2025,” says founding partner Amit Anand.

E-commerce, fintechs and the rapid digitization of the region’s SME workforce are a few of the factors reshaping the landscape for Southeast Asia’s startups, but supply chain technology is also a major opportunity, Anand says.

“With new deals and intentions to list in the U.S. being announced more frequently, the region shows no sign of slowing down and the birth of many more unicorns is on the horizon.”

(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

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Big Tech Inc.

• If you are on iOS, you now have access to Super Follows: Twitter’s product barrage has generated hits (Spaces) and flops (Fleets). But Twitter is forging ahead with more product work on its Super Follow product, regardless of early momentum or a lack thereof. Now all iOS users – globally! – can pay to “Super” follow creators.
• German company to invest more in chip production: In the future, chip independence will replace food independence in terms of national security precedence. And Germany might sit pretty when it does, as domestic concern Robert Bosch GmbH is dropping nearly a half-billion into boosting chip output. More of this, please.

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