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Hello Crunchy Crunchers! If you’ve been slacking off and haven’t bought yourself a Disrupt ticket yet, that’s great, we still love you. But here’s an important tip: this is your last chance to get Super Early Bird tickets, so maybe you’ll get it sooner rather than later! — christina and The wine
TechCrunch Top 3
- All roads lead to acquisition.: manish writes that after Japan’s Geniee acquired operator AdPushup Zelto for $70 million. He called the deal “a remarkable turnaround” for Zelto, a company that has faced some near-death experiences, including cash flow and product market adjustment problems, during its 10-year life.
- Sweet South Carolina, bup, bup, bup: VW-backed Scout Motors has plans to build a $2 billion factory in South Carolina to produce its all-electric vehicles. Tim Stevens has more.
- fined: manish He also writes about India’s central bank, which fined Amazon’s payments unit more than $370,000, alleging that the company failed to meet certain know-your-customer guidelines.
Startups and VCs
While most established auto players call their shots from sprawling corporate palaces, Scout bases much of its operations, at least for now, out of a WeWork near Washington, DC, Tim Stevens reports. Scout Motors’ home base will eventually be “anchored” near the $2 billion factory in South Carolina that was announced Friday, and the company plans to bring rugged, retro credibility to the age of electric vehicles.
And we have five more for you:
To fix the weather, these 10 investors are betting the house on the ocean
Image Credits: Liang Wendong/VCG (Opens in a new window) / Fake Images
Harnessing the ocean for energy led to disasters like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which released nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Today, wind power and wave action are just two technologies leading investors to take a closer look at ocean conservation technology, reports Tim De Chant. To learn more about the opportunities they are pursuing and to find out how climate change is shaping his investment thesis, he surveyed:
- Daniela V. Fernandez, Founder and CEO of Sustainable Ocean Alliance, Managing Partner of Seabird Ventures
- Tim Agnew, General Partner, Bold Ocean Ventures
- Peter Bryant, Program Director (Oceans), Builders Initiative
- Kate Danaher, Managing Director (Oceans & Seafood), S2G Ventures
- Francis O’Sullivan, Managing Director (Oceans & Seafood), S2G Ventures
- Stephan Feilhauer, Managing Director (Clean Energy), S2G Ventures
- Sanjeev Krishnan, Senior Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer, S2G Ventures
- Rita Sousa, Partner, Faber Ventures
- Christian Lim, Managing Director, SWEN Blue Ocean Partners
- Reece Pacheco, Partner, Propeller
Three more from the TC+ team:
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big tech inc
It was only a matter of time before another company tried to imitate what Instacart has going for it. Today that is Uber. Rebeca writes that Uber is coming to Instacart with some updates to its year-old Shop & Pay feature that allows delivery workers to opt-in for rides to make groceries or other retail purchases for customers before dropping orders at the customer’s door. “Basically, it’s Uber’s attempt to follow the Instacart model, which is working well for the established grocery delivery company,” he reports.
Autonomous trucking company Embark Trucks, which went public in 2021, is now laying off about 230 workers as it explores liquidating its autonomous trucking assets. kirsten reports.
And now here are six more for your Friday:
