Hello and welcome to the January 28, 2022 edition of Daily Crunch! Please enjoy the following message as my final missive before hunkering down because it’s nearly blizzard o’clock where I am. In further upbeat news, TechCrunch Early Stage is coming up in a few months, and not only is I excited about it, but I will also be there in person. We will talk again shortly! – Alexandra. Airtel receives a $1 billion investment from Google: Google has made its second large bet on Indian infrastructure, with a $700 million investment and $300 million in “multi-year commercial agreements” with Airtel, an Indian telecom. Recall that Google also invested in another Indian carrier, Jio. The agreement emphasizes the country’s relevance in the future of technological income.
What Europe’s Future Holds: Following the revelation that European startups enjoyed a record-breaking year in terms of funding in 2021, TechCrunch looked ahead to see what the region had in store. Some predict a slowdown after peak activity, while others predict even faster growth. Regardless of your point of view, European venture capital investment projected to remain high for some years. Zapp raises $200 million: Speaking of European businesses, Zapp, a quick-delivery startup based in the United Kingdom, recently raised a huge Series B round. The company had already raised $100 million, so this round was significant both in absolute and relative terms. This purchase drew our attention since we are seeing a lot of consolidation in the fast-delivery industry.
The future of African tech growth charter cities, Tage Kene-Okafor of TechCrunch has a wonderful story up on the site about how “African cities have the fastest worldwide urban growth rate,” which is causing overpopulation. Some people believe that “charter cities are the answer.” Special economic zones of various varieties have tried in the past; would they provide a speedier path forward for African technology? Personalized learning is all the rage these days: Natasah Mascarenhas, our in-house edtech specialist, has a terrific piece out today about personalized learning firms like Learnfully, Wayfinder, Empowerly, and others that are taking the lessons of remote schooling to heart and working to develop better solutions for our kids. It is a heartwarming and entertaining story.
Rise seeks to overhaul team scheduling: There a plethora of apps available to assist individuals and teams in collaborating. However, we may not require as many as we already have. That is why Rise has me thinking. The team-calendaring app recently received a few million dollars, and it has the potential to replace a few programs that my friends and I use. I am wondering if the solution to 2022’s Tool Overload will be tools that do less, on purpose. Canvas wants non-technical people to be able to extract information from data:
Because developers are in limited supply, no-code technologies that allow those who do not know how to code to do their own building are becoming increasingly popular. Similarly, according to TechCrunch, a general shortage of data science skills in the market is making room for products like Canvas, which “is going all in with a spreadsheet-like interface allowing non-technical teams to get the information they need without upsetting data teams.” Zigbang acquires Samsung’s IoT division:
Some of the IoT promises of the past are coming true, while others are not. On the strength of its IoT business, Samsara recently went public. The category was victorious. The fact that Zigbang, a South Korean proptech firm, is buying Samsung’s IoT unit makes me a little less optimistic. What is the F-tw series? Once upon a time, I would have laughed at a Series F as a sign that a company had failed to go public. However, that was back in the day. Series Fs are as common as they formerly were. Moglix, an Indian B2B marketplace, just raised one, bringing its total worth to $2.6 billion. The $250 million round was co-led by Tiger.
