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[The Daily Crunch logo]( Monday, September 13, 2021 ⢠By [Alex Wilhelm]( Hello and welcome back to Daily Crunch for September 13, 2021. This is [Alex]( and I am back! A big thanks to [Greg]( for taking over last week while I was on staycation. It is lovely to be back with you all. Before we dive into the news, a reminder [that Disrupt is next week](. So, make sure you have a ticket and get hype. [More here](. Itâs going to be a heck of a show. [Read More]( [ image] [The TechCrunch Top 3+]( - [The Apple-Epic war far from over:]( While the internet digests the recent, controversial ruling between Apple and gaming giant Epic, the latter party is not letting the decision sit. Epic is appealing. Whatâs at stake is the monetization of mobile applications for years to come. Given how much money is in the mix, itâs not a huge surprise that the legal wrangling is taking time.
- Welcome back to IPO season: Toast, a software-and-hardware startup that is the, well, toast of Boston, is [targeting a huge valuation gain]( in its IPO. [So is Freshworks](. Weâre tracking both companies and will have more notes as they get closer to trading. Expect many, many more offerings in the coming weeks.
- [Chinaâs regulatory crackdown could harm its cloud market:](Â Thatâs the recent summary of a report that TechCrunch covered, discussing the larger Chinese software market. News also broke earlier today that the Chinese government may break up Ant, the Alibaba financial affiliate, and that the country wants to reduce the number of EV companies its market currently supports.
- BREAKING NEWS TODAY: Apple has released a patch to a zero-day flaw âthat affects every iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch,â [TechCrunch reports](. Update your devices, folks. [Read More]( [The TechCrunch Top 3+ image] Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch [Scaling your CRM solution with better data onboarding]( Sponsored by [Flatfile]( [CRMs can't run without customer data. However, getting this data from customers is a nightmare. CSV templates are rarely formatted correctly, the importer you built can't handle certain validation, resulting in handholding customers when importing data.]( [Read More]( Startups/VC - [GrubMarket lands $120M to connect food growers, consumers:](Â Sure, youâve ordered food delivery. Thatâs one plank of the food game. But for distributors, wholesalers and supermarkets, there are far greater needs to be served than just what you and I can consume for dinner. Thatâs the market that GrubMarket plays in, and it just raised a huge bloc of cash to keep its growth rates up.
- [BitSight raises from Moodyâs, buys VisibleRisk:]( BitSight, a startup that âassesses the likelihood that an organization will be breached,â per TechCrunch, has purchased an Israeli cyber-risk-assessment startup VisibleRisk for an undisclosed price. The Moodyâs round put $250 million into BitSight, funds that we presume it used to snag VisibleRisk. Whatâs the connection? Moodyâs wants to use cyber risks in its credit ratings, we reckon.
- [SpotOn also raises, buys smaller company:]( Unicorn SpotOn, which provides financial software and technology to small businesses, has raised a $300 million round that values the company at $3.15 billion. Itâs also buying Appetize, âa digital and mobile commerce payments platform for enterprises such as sports and entertainment venues, theme parks and zoos.â The round is notable not only for its size, but also because SpotOn raised at a $1.875 billion valuation in May and a $625 million valuation last year.
- [JumpCloud raises $159M:]( JumpCloud sells cloud directory services and a host of other cloud-based identity services. Itâs now worth $2.56 billion, a tidy sum. Sapphire Venturesâ Jai Das led the round. Heâs a nice dude in my experience. The company grew its customer base by around 40% since last November. I asked the storyâs author Ron Miller why JumpCloud was cool enough for him to cover. He said that the companyâs effort to âprovide a range of identity services, such as single sign-on and multifactor authentication” is important.
- [I suppose itâs time to learn what DevSevOps is:]( Every technology wants its own neologism. DevOps. Adtech. Finservices. Hell, even Databricksâ Lakehouse. Add DevSecOps to your personal lexicon. Per our own Ingrid Lunden, DevSecOps is âthe area of IT that addresses the needs of security teams and the technical work that they need to do in their jobs.â Startup Rezilion just raised $30 million for its efforts to serve that particular market. - [Everyone loves an e-commerce platform play:]( Shopify is big. BigCommerce is growing nicely. And investors want to put capital into the next, similar effort. Enter Egyptian startup Capiter, which just snagged a $33 million round to âhelp manufacturers and sellers distribute products and [ ⦠] access them on a single platformâ in Africa.
- To close out our startup coverage, [GM just invested into radar software startup Oculi.](Â The move fits neatly into the trend of self-driving cars getting better and better over time, even if they are not yet there, if you will. [3 keys to pricing early-stage SaaS products]( Every founder who launches an enterprise software startup has to figure out the “right” pricing model for their products. It’s a consequential decision: Per-seat licenses are easy to manage, but what if customers prefer a concurrent licensing model? “Early pricing discussions should center around the buyerâs perspective and the value the product creates for them,” says Ridge Ventures partner Yousuf Khan, who previously worked as a CIO. “Of course,” he notes, “self-evaluation is hard, especially when youâre asking someone else to pay you for something youâve created.” (Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead.[You can sign up here](.) [Read More]( [3 keys to pricing early-stage SaaS products image] Image Credits: Peter Dazeley / Getty Images Big Tech Inc. Kicking off our short big technology section today, letâs pick back up with the automotive theme from GMâs news we discussed above. Ford also [made headlines today]( by hiring Mike Amend to be its chief of digital and information. That it is not surprising that Ford would make such a hire is good indication of where the automotive market is heading. - [Instagram thinks you follow too many people:](Â Thatâs my read of the social serviceâs effort to build a product in its service that will allow users to favorite accounts and thus not miss their updates. Algorithmic timeline problems, I suppose.
- [Dutch judge makes Uber sad:](Â Sure, thatâs a slightly subjective summary, but news that a Dutch judge has ruled that Uber drivers are actually employees is antithetical to the ride-hailing companyâs position. So it canât be happy. And whatâs the opposite of happy? [TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing]( Are you all caught up on last weekâs coverage of growth marketing? If not, read it [here](. TechCrunch wants you to recommend growth marketers who have expertise in SEO, social, content writing and more! If youâre a growth marketer, pass this [survey]( along to your clients; weâd like to hear about why they loved working with you. [Read More]( [TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing image] Image Credits: Tanner Boriack / Unsplash [Community]( Join Danny Crichton on [Twitter Spaces]( tomorrow, Tuesday, September 14, at 2 p.m. PDT/5 p.m. EDT as he discusses whether remote work will make H-1B visas redundant with [Sophie Alcorn](, a lawyer at Alcorn Immigration Law and guest columnist for [âDear Sophieâ]( on Extra Crunch. [Read More]( [Community image] Image Credits: Joanna Buniak / Sophie Alcorn [Read more stories on TechCrunch.com]( Newest Jobs from Crunchboard - [Senior Full Stack Engineer at Payload (United States)](
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