Elon Musk reveals a three-pronged strategy to fund his $43 billion purchase on Twitter – TechCrunch

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On the beautiful day of April 21, 2022, we celebrate an innovative new podcast from our crypto team: Chain Reaction. Q: Why are podcasts so big? A: Because it’s immutable.

This is why we don’t write crypto puns on the site.

Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be; it’s event season at TechCrunch! Waymo boss Dmitri Dolgov is about to join Mobilityand is hold a pitching contest also. Get your app! Our flagship event, TechCrunch Disrupt, coming back in Octoberand you can get your ticket now!

May your day be as smooth as slightly aggressive elevator jazz – Christine and Haje

TechCrunch’s Top 3

• Now is the ‘Time of Elon Musk’: Captain’s Log, Day 421: The crew is getting restless with nothing to do but talk about the latest things Elon Musk plans for Twitter. Today, Alex read the new SEC filings so you don’t have to. It outlines Musk’s proposal to buy all of the social media giant’s outstanding shares and where he gets the money to do so. At the same time, we get to know how much of his private stock Musk has — at least how much he’s willing to part with. In non-Twitter news, it seems Musk has no shortage of money-making opportunities: Rebecca reports The Boring Company raised $675 million for the Loop project, which is a project to build an underground highway to ease traffic congestion, his prediction that The Optimus robot that Tesla is building will one day be worth more than the company’s all self-driving car business and that Tesla aims to mass produce robotaxis. Rub!
• No need to go to work. Change house instead: Andreessen Horowitz led a round of funding into Kindred, a startup founded by some old people in Opendoor who wanted to travel while working remotely but didn’t want anyone to use their home. theirs while they are away. What’s interesting about Kindred’s approach is that it’s a “give and take policy,” in which members pay a $300 annual fee to let someone stay in their home while they’re in another.
• Now we know what William Hockey was and is doing: Plaid co-founder stepped down in 2019 and founded Column bank. Surprising for a fintech founder, where many banking services have diverged for years, and unsurprising that many are now refunding them. In the case of Column, Hockey said the bank’s direct connection to the Fed means that “developers can use Column to build apps that pull and push money into any bank account.” , for example, or maintain FDIC-insured savings and checking accounts” without having to go through another institution to access federal deposit insurance.

Start-ups and VC

I’m a huge fan of VCs with unusual investment arguments, and Tofino Capital has a really rare example of that: The company just closed the first $10 million of a fund aimed at investing in markets where investment dollars are less than $5 per capita. Can’t say I’ve heard anyone approach it that way, and it’s definitely focused attention – it’s great, and I hope they make a remarkable comeback. Of course, that will probably wake up other VC shops and raise their investment above that dollar, but that’s half of what makes this so fun!

Carta is an ownership management platform for startups that simplifies and makes transparent the sometimes complex ownership structures of startups. Quite curious to see how Liquifi will evolve – it aims to do the same for web3 and blockchain token issuers.

Let’s learn about some golden breaking news – today, in rhyme!

• Aim to tame shame: Sexual health, mental health, weight management and fertility are all taboo topics for some – and Singapore-based Ordinary Folk is adding a layer of telehealth to remove taboos. It also raise 5 million dollars to go harderbetter, faster, more powerful.
• Injury to the mystery of credit history: People who are rich in cash but poor in credit history, immigrants often show modesty in the countries of their adoption. Fintech Pillar raises $17 million to fix that.
• This drone picks up a bone when an unknown goes into the wrong area: By sacrificing its own propeller and catching its enemies in the net, this is super fun kamikaze drones take down other drones.
• A clever investigator found the truth about the problem with Bluetooth: Turn out to be Cue Health’s COVID-19 tester has a security hole that means it is possible to turn a negative result into a positive or vice versa. Mind you, it’s hard to see what a great dealeo is; easy enough to cheat pretty much all home tests from positive to negative with a codeless attack: Don’t poke around at your schnoz.
• A majestic good title wins a temple in this newsletter of mine: Sometimes all it takes to land a prominent spot in the Daily Crunch is to make me laugh – and Lauren win a place with title for her story about Netflix subscribers.

How to pitch me: 6 investors discuss what they’re looking for in April 2022

Image credits: David Arky (Opens in a new window) / Beautiful pictures

The VC market is slowing down.

Teams that successfully close the funding round will find themselves a shorter way than they planned. And partnering with an investor who knows the business well to add value is more important than it was a year ago.

A founder pitch is the first step on that journey, so we’re running a series of interviews with active investors to learn more about what they’re looking for and how. they want access to:

• Christine Tsai, CEO and founding partner, 500 Global
• Marjorie Radlo-Zandi, angel, Launchpad Venture Group, Branch Venture Group
• Clelia Warburg Peters, Managing Partner, Era Ventures
• Anarghya Vardhana, partner, Maveron LLC
• Frederic Huynen, Associate and Wijnand Bekker, Associate, HPE Growth

(TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams rise to the top. You can register here.)

Big Tech Inc.

• Amazon disrupts serverless services: Among the product launches at the ongoing AWS Summit is the expansion of Amazon’s serverless offerings, including the ability to scale up or down more quickly. This means customers don’t have to worry about managing data volumes or the associated high costs – the company says “this new system can save users up to 90% on database costs.” their data when compared to the cost of pre-capacity provisioning. “When was the last time you saved 90% on anything?
• HBO’s streaming service gives us some good news: Sorry Netflix, HBO Max and HBO saw subscriber numbers increase in the first quarter. Although it is not mentioned, I think it is LA Lakers Program that helped. While, CNN didn’t have a good day.
• Russia sanctions Vice President Kamala Harris, Mark Zuckerberg, others: I enjoyed IngridThe introduction to this story, “From Tit’s Department to Tat,” Harris, Zuckerberg, and a list of other high-profile U.S. figures have now been barred from entering Russia, seemingly indefinitely. Such a shame, I heard there is a lovely youth there.