Meta says WhatsApp Business went from 50M to 200M monthly active users in 3 years

TechCrunch Newsletter [TechCrunch logo]( [The Daily Crunch logo]( By [Christine Hall]( Tuesday, June 27, 2023 Welcome to your Daily Crunch for Tuesday. I waded through over 60 stories to bring you the best of the best, so please enjoy. Today was a big day for WhatsApp Business. [It crossed 200 million monthly active users](. Do you think it was the [television commercial]( with the carrier pigeon that made the difference? Or perhaps it’s the features — WhatsApp also introduced a personalized messages feature. Sometimes it’s the one who spies that gets spied on. That’s what happened to LetMeSpy, a phone tracking app known for parental controls and employee monitoring, which now [says it was hacked](. Speaking of parental controls, [Meta is rolling out new parental control tools]( for Instagram and Messenger that will preemptively block unwanted DMs and tell teens when it’s time to put down the phone. Now meet Dust. It’s not a startup helping you to clean better; it [uses large language models on internal data]( to improve team productivity. We promised you more on what’s going on with Indian edtech giant Byju’s, and today it was reported that one of the company’s largest shareholders [decided to slash Byju’s valuation](. [ image] Image Credits: SOPA Images / Contributor More top stories [Reduce, reuse, recycle](: DePoly attracts $13.8 million in new funding to keep hard-to-recycle plastic from ending up in landfills. [Threat initiated](: We reported earlier this month that [Lordstown Motors was threatening to sue Foxconn](. Now get the scoop on the actual lawsuit. Lordstown also filed for bankruptcy. [How to handle data](: Data security startup Cyera lands a $100 million investment to help enterprises manage all of that proprietary data. [Shopper’s delight](: E-commerce enablement company Cart.com’s valuation was boosted into unicorn territory after raising $60 million. [No “honey do” list for you](: Khosla Ventures just doubled down on its investment into Honey Homes, a company that provides handyman-on-demand services for homeowners. [Red light, green light](: NoTraffic raises $50 million to tackle congestion and enhance road safety. We’re hoping traffic lights change for the better with this one. [Double the funding, double the fun](: After raising capital 16 months ago, Redpanda is back with an even bigger round of funding as its streaming service experiences significant growth. Let’s stream: [Roku and CBS Sports]( became besties and announced their first live sports deal. Meanwhile, you can now get[Paramount+ with Showtime](. [Cover girl](: Kenyan fashion marketplace Shop Zetu grabs a round of pre-seed funding to add beauty and home decor items to its shopping list along with growth beyond Kenya. [Now you’re speaking my language](: Loora raises $9.25 million to continue developing a generative AI app that uses an audio interface to help users learn English. Add these to your reading list: [Dexory nabs $19M to bring visibility to warehouses through analytics and autonomous robots]( [Snowflake-Nvidia partnership could make it easier to build generative AI applications]( [Twitter now allows subscribers to post 25,000-character-long tweets]( [CalypsoAI raises $23M to add guardrails to generative AI models]( [Supply chain startup Baskit supports Indonesia’s middlemen]( [More top stories image] Image Credits: Juj Winn / Getty Images [See How Neon One increased revenue 500% with Payrix Pro]( Sponsored by [Payrix]( [Watch this on-demand webinar where Veronica Iles, Senior Consultant at Forrester interviews Nolan Martin, VP Product Management at Neon One as he highlights his experience with Payrix. Learn how to enable frictionless payments with Payrix.]( [Watch Now]( [4 VCs illustrate why there’s good reason to be optimistic about the machine learning startup market]( Training the expansive models that power AI applications is thirsty work: Machine learning startups can charge their clients for anything from optimizing ad campaigns to generating gargantuan datasets. Kyle Wiggers surveyed four investors to get their thoughts on whether “the hype cycle in ML is dying down or going strong,” as well as to discuss technical roadblocks holding the industry back and get their advice for founders who are building in the sector: - [Lonne Jaffe](, managing director, [Insight Partners]( - [Jerry Chen](, partner, [Greylock]( - [Ashish Kakran](, principal, [Thomvest]( - [Janelle Teng](, VP, [Bessemer Venture Partners]( Five more from the TC+ team: [The quest for better AI recommendation engines]( [As Lordstown immolates, SPAC deals that didn’t go to zero feel like the exception]( [Gusto reaches $500M in trailing revenue, teams up with Remote to support international hires]( [How Greenlyte is going from zero to 1,000 metric tons of captured CO2 in a year]( [SignalFire’s State of Talent report 2023]( [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. [Read More]( [4 VCs illustrate why there’s good reason to be optimistic about the machine learning startup market image] Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch [Read more stories on TechCrunch.com]( Newest Jobs from Crunchboard - [Data Architect at AAOS (Rosemont, IL, USA)]( - [Infrastructure Engineer at AAOS (Rosemont, IL, USA)]( - [Senior Data Engineer at UpClear (New York, NY, USA)]( - [Cloud Infrastructure and Security Lead at UpClear (New York, NY, USA)]( - [IT Specialist (INFOSEC/APPSW at Bonneville Power Administration (Portland, OR, USA)]( [See more jobs on CrunchBoard]( [Post your tech jobs]( and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month. [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Youtube]( [Instagram]( [Flipboard]( [View this email online in your browser]( [Privacy Policy]( | [Terms of Service]( | [Unsubscribe]( © 2023 Yahoo. All rights reserved. 110 5th St, San Francisco, CA 94103