Virgin Orbit runs low on cash, ByteDance pushes a TikTok replacement, and Canoo settles with the SEC

It’s the weekend, enactment people, and you cognize what that means: It’s Week successful Review (WiR) time. For the uninitiated, WiR is wherever TechCrunch recaps each the tech quality that took spot for the week. It’s similar the greeting paper, but successful integer form, and without each the extraneous worldly unrelated to tech. So…not overmuch similar the paper, really, but precise overmuch worthy a work (in this reporter’s humble opinion).

To get WiR successful your inbox each Saturday, click here. And for this edition’s roundup, scroll down. But earlier you bash that, don’t hide to cheque retired TechCrunch’s upcoming events lineup, including the startup-focused Early Stage successful Boston connected April 20 and our mega-conference, Disrupt, successful San Francisco connected September 19–21.

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Crash and burn: Virgin Orbit is laying disconnected astir 85% of its workforce successful bid to further trim expenses aft the troubled abstraction institution said it was incapable to unafraid further backing to support it afloat. The news, which Virgin Orbit filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission connected Thursday, comes conscionable 2 weeks aft the institution furloughed each employees and entered an “operational pause” successful bid to find much cash.

Date portion filing taxes: There’s a caller anime dating sim that does your taxes — and it really works. Amanda played Tax Heaven 3000, a crippled produced by MSCHF, the venture-funded originative workplace down projects like Push Party and the Lil Nas X humor shoes. What’s the verdict? If you don’t caput risking sharing your idiosyncratic accusation with an anime miss obsessing implicit the taxation process, it’s not the slightest pleasant mode to record your return.

The replacement TikTok: As U.S. lawmakers move forward with their plans for a TikTok ban oregon forced sale, the app’s Chinese genitor company, ByteDance, is driving different of its societal platforms into the apical charts of the U.S. App Store. ByteDance-owned app Lemon8, an Instagram rival that describes itself arsenic a “lifestyle community,” jumped into 1 of the U.S. App Store’s top-downloaded slots connected Monday, becoming the fig 10 wide app crossed some apps and games.

Groupon has a caller CEO: Groupon, which changeable to fame popularizing the online radical buying format, has appointed Dusan Senkypl arsenic interim CEO. As Ingrid writes, Groupon has 14 cardinal progressive users, but astir consistently for the past decade, the company’s fiscal presumption has been successful a dilatory diminution — with stagnation successful its halfway concern model, small occurrence successful efforts to diversify, declining revenues and ongoing losses.

Get your ain Lyft: Lyft mightiness erstwhile again driblet its shared rides offering, conscionable 1 of respective changes the company’s recently appointed CEO, David Risher, could marque successful a bid to absorption connected Lyft’s halfway ride-hailing concern and go profitable. Risher told Rebecca successful a wide-ranging interrogation that different features whitethorn besides beryllium axed, similar the Wait & Save enactment that allows riders successful definite regions to wage a little fare if they hold for the best-located driver.

Twitter’s APIs spell paid: After weeks of stalling, Twitter yet announced its caller API pricing structures connected Wednesday. The 3 tiers see a bare-bones escaped level mostly meant for content-posting bots, a $100 per period basal level and a costly endeavor level. Subscribing astatine immoderate level affords entree to Twitter’s ads API astatine nary further cost.

Hard times, slashed valuations: Manish reports immoderate of the biggest Indian startups are taking a haircut successful their valuations — astatine slightest successful the eyes of their investors, arsenic immoderate backers set their estimates amid the weakening planetary economy. BlackRock has chopped the valuation of Byju’s, which is India’s astir invaluable startup astatine $22 billion, by astir fractional to $11.5 billion, portion Swiggy, India’s astir invaluable nutrient transportation startup astatine $10.7 billion, has been marked down to a valuation of astir $8 cardinal by Invesco.

Ledger wins big: French startup Ledger has added much wealth — astir €100 cardinal ($108 million) — to its Series C backing round, Romain writes. The company’s main products are hardware crypto wallets that connection a precocious level of security, shaped similar USB keys and featuring a tiny surface to corroborate transactions connected the device.

Supply concatenation attack: Multiple information firms person sounded the alarm astir an progressive proviso concatenation onslaught that’s utilizing a Trojanized mentation of 3CX’s wide utilized dependable and video-calling lawsuit to people downstream customers, Carly writes. The malware is simply a peculiarly unsafe sort, susceptible of harvesting strategy accusation and stealing information and stored credentials from Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave and Firefox idiosyncratic profiles.

Canoo settles with the SEC: Electric conveyance startup Canoo has agreed to a $1.5 cardinal colony with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a regulatory filing. The SEC began investigating Canoo successful May 2021, focusing connected the startup’s operations, concern model, revenues, gross strategy, lawsuit agreements, net and the departures of definite institution officers, including co-founder and CEO Ulrich Kranz.

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TechCrunch’s podcasting output was arsenic robust arsenic ever this week, successful lawsuit you had doubts. The Equity unit talked about AI, crypto, equity crowdfunding and — successful a communicative retired of complete left tract — erstwhile startup founders trying to bribe China. Meanwhile, Found interviewed Angela Hoover, CEO and co-founder of Andi, an ambitious generative AI hunt chatbox company. And connected TechCrunch Live, AtoB co-founder Harshita Arora and Contrary Capital laminitis and spouse Eric Tarczynski discussed reddish flags investors support an oculus retired for, however the VC and startup satellite reacts to the “girl genius” versus “boy genius,” and the symptom points of the trucking industry.

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TC+ subscribers get entree to in-depth commentary, investigation and surveys — which you cognize if you’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, consider signing up. Here are a fewer highlights from this week:

Crypto connected the upswing: “Crypto-focused task superior investors are trucking on successful their work,” Jacquelyn writes. Many stay assured successful their investing strategies contempt an enervated first-quarter marketplace for crypto startup fundraising, portion others are noticing a sharper diminution successful investing pace.

AI is the caller oil: Being an AI institution has go the crockery du jour of startup land. Companies are scrambling to either incorporated AI into their existing concern exemplary oregon alteration up their selling truthful immoderate they were already softly utilizing AI to bash is beforehand and center. And Y Combinator’s latest people is nary different, Rebecca reports.

Substack turns to its writers: Alex writes astir Substack’s effort to crowdfund a venture-sized hold round. The platform, fashionable with writers and known for its email service, has collected much than $5 cardinal successful pledges for an hold to its Series B from its assemblage and the net astatine large.

A look astatine Sweden’s startup scene: In the aftermath of Techstars’ determination to discontinue its Swedish accelerator program, Alex and Anna decided to excavation into the country’s startup country to recognize however 1 smaller task marketplace is adapting to a changed investing climate.