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Thursday is here, how did that happen? Those days, they keep coming. If you’re still on the fence about whether to come to Disrupt, we’ve got you covered—there’s a Disrupt pass for every feature and budget.
It also looks like Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes won’t be going to jail today after all. He was scheduled to begin his 11-year sentence, but then things happened. connie has the full story.
The TechCrunch Top 3
- More layoffs: Dropbox CEO Drew Houston announced today that the company will lay off 500 employees, or 16% of its workforce. Ingrid Houston said the cuts are due to slowing growth and “the age of AI.”
- Prepare the popcorn: Warner Bros. has partnered with Viacom18 to bring ‘Succession’ and other HBO content to India. Manish themes.
- Legacy learns to embrace AI: Jagmeet takes a deep dive into how legacy financial software giant Intuit decided to turn off the welcome mat for artificial intelligence rather than close the door and turn the bolt.
Startups and VCs
Posh is a ticketing and management platform for all users to organize events big or small, whether you’re an event organizer, promoter or just want to charge your friends a cover to drink all the alcohol dear to your birthday party. Lauren reports that Posh announced its public launch today after being in beta since October 2020. Alongside the launch, the company also announced its $5 million seed round.
The concept of SaaS as a business model changed the technology game as it moved users away from purchasing software and paying for service availability based on time-based subscriptions, typically with monthly or annual pricing . Ingrid reports Today, a London startup called M3ter that’s building tools to take the next step in this evolution—more granular usage-based pricing—announces funding based on strong demand. The company has raised $14 million.
Month? OK, well, here’s another handful for you:
Capital efficiency is the new VC filter for startups
Image credits: PM images (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
For some B2B SaaS startups, focusing solely on the LTV:CAC ratio is a good way to obscure poor customer metrics. Dividing customer lifetime value by customer acquisition cost can provide useful information, but only if you have accurate retention data, and lots of it.
“Today, investors approach other efficiency metrics that paint a more reliable and complete picture of startup capital efficiency, and so should you,” says Igor Shaverskyi, a partner at the venture capital firm Waveup.
In this TC+ column, he provides a formula and benchmarks for calculating CAC recovery, which reveals to founders (and potential investors) “how long it will take to pay off customer acquisition costs.”
Three more from the TC+ team:
TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps startup founders and teams get ahead. You can register here. Use code “DC” to get 15% off an annual subscription!
Big Tech Inc.
Let’s talk about Meta today, shall we? Yesterday, the company reported that its earnings beat revenue expectations, as reported Amanda. But that’s not all: our colleagues picked up some details, including that the company said 10% of its global ad revenue was at risk from the European Union data flow order. Natasha L has more on that. Also, time spent on Instagram grew by 24%, thanks to TikTok-style AI Reel recommendations, reports darrell.
Meanwhile, Meta also won in court, with an appeals court ruling in favor of the tech giant in an antitrust case brought by state attorneys general. sarah writes that “the States alleged that Meta had illegally maintained monopoly power in the social media market through its acquisitions of the photo-sharing app Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, and that it obtained more power through data policies that hurt app developers.”
Now you have five more:
Source link
Dropbox, a cloud storage giant that has been a leader in the digital space for more than a decade, is leaving 500 of its employees without work. Citing slow growth and a desire to “position ourselves at the forefront of the AI era,” the company’s CEO announced the layoffs this week. The job cuts will primarily come from the sales, operations and customer success teams.
Ikaroa, a full stack tech company, understands the value of constantly looking ahead to make sure companies remain competitive in today’s ever-changing marketplace. We believe that making the tough decisions today can help set up better success in the future, and as such, we can sympathize with Dropbox’s difficult present-day situation. While it’s always a sad day to see employees lose their jobs, we recognize that for some companies, taking home a smaller paycheck today might result in greater opportunities tomorrow—something we help our clients make happen on a daily basis.
