Technical

Earlier this year, Immutable, a web3 gaming firm with its own layer-2 chain, Immutable X, launched a whopping $500 million fund to boost gaming on its platform. Fast forward a few months and the company says things are going according to plan. “It has been super busy,” Robbie Ferguson, co-founder of Immutable, said to TechCrunch. “In the last quarter, we’ve onboarded more games than the rest of the company’s lifetime combined. As far as we know, it’s been more than any other layer-1 or layer-2 [blockchains] in the world and nearly half of those games came from competitors in migrations.” In Q3, Immutable onboarded about 50 games and has over 1,000 games being built in a “testing environment,” Ferguson said. “These are ones we’ve actively gone after.” Some games, like Delysium and Ember Sword, were initially developed for the layer-2 blockchain Polygon but switched to Immutable X, the company’s NFT platform and layer-2 scaling solution for the Ethereum blockchain. Other games, like ...

Usually being a board chair is a job that involves running some meetings and pushing through routine company business, but when Bret Taylor became Twitter board chair last year, he was getting a lot more than he bargained for. Taylor was promoted to the job in November 2021, the same day Jack Dorsey resigned as CEO . That in itself was an inauspicious start, and it would only get rockier. As though that weren’t enough for one person to take on, he was also promoted to co-CEO at Salesforce in the same week . It seemed like a good thing at the time, helping run two of the most influential tech companies out there, but the situation with Twitter quickly devolved. By April, Elon Musk bought a 9.2% stake and demanded a board seat before backing off that and making a $43 million offer to buy the company outright . It’s been a roller-coaster ride ever since, with the board accepting the offer, then Musk trying to back out, the board initiating a court case to force him to go through with ...

Elon Musk is now lord of the manor over at Twitter after the board of directors was dissolved as part of the merger agreement. While the state of affairs likely isn’t permanent, it does mean that as owner, director, and “Chief Twit,” he has what amounts to ultimate power to hire, fire, and change the social media platform. In an SEC filing , the company detailed some of the many changes having to do with the controversial purchase of the platform by Musk: [A]s a result of the consummation of the Merger, Mr. Musk became the sole director of Twitter. In accordance with the terms of the Merger Agreement, effective as of the effective time of the Merger, the following persons, who were directors of Twitter prior to the effective time of the Merger, are no longer directors of Twitter: Bret Taylor, Parag Agrawal, Omid Kordestani, David Rosenblatt, Martha Lane Fox, Patrick Pichette, Egon Durban, Fei-Fei Li and Mimi Alemayehou. You may recognize some or all of those names, and certainly t...

TuSimple co-founder Xiaodi Hou was fired from his CEO, president and CTO posts by the autonomous trucking company’s board, according to a securities filing Monday. Hou, who co-founded TuSimple in 2015 with Mo Chen, was also removed from his position as chairman of the board and member of the board’s government security committee. The firing came a day after The Wall Street Journal published a report citing unnamed sources that TuSimple was facing concurrent probes by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Securities and Exchange Commission and Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS). The investigation is apparently focused on TuSimple’s relationship with Hydron, a hydrogen-powered trucking company led by TuSimple co-founder Chen and backed by Chinese investors. Hydron’s website lists its headquarters as Canada. It is incorporated in China, Hong Kong and Delaware. Shares of TuSimple plummeted more than 45% in trading Monday. The board said in the filing that based on ...

If you want to take a break from work or the never-ending news cycle, Google is here to give you an escape. The search giant has launched a new Halloween-themed playable Doodle that opens up to a Snake-like game that you can play with your friends or random players from around the world. The goal of the game is to collect as many wandering spirit flames as you can in two minutes and return them to their homebase. After time’s up, the team that has collected the most spirit flames wins. Here’s the catch: opponents can intercept spirits from one another as they bring them back to homebase. Ghosts that collect the most spirit flames will also unlock special powers, such as speed boosts and night vision. You can host a game and invite up to seven friends to play with you via a custom invitation link or choose to play with randomized players. Google says the team that developed the Doodle build several systems to enable this multiplayer gaming, all running on the Google Cloud Platfor...

Alex Fedorov Contributor Alex Fedorov is CEO and founder at OBRIO , an IT company with Ukrainian roots that develops products in mobile applications, web products and SaaS. Business owners always say that each company has to live through a real crisis before it becomes a real business. All big companies we know have experienced a few big crises during their lifetimes, and they are still in the game. There are a lot of studies about crisis management on the web, but none of them tell us how to manage a company during times of war. Our company had never seen a real crisis before February 2022. However, even before we did, I always told my team: “Every company has its time in the sun and a time of crisis.” When the Russo-Ukrainian War began on February 24, all Ukrainian businesses faced a crisis. I’ll use our example to explain how we dealt with it. Here are six tips for effectively managing a team during a war. Establish an emergency communication channel In such times of ...

Egyptian fintech Money Fellows has raised $31 million in what it describes as the first close of its Series B investment. The round, which the startup expects to top up in the coming months, was led by CommerzVentures, Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP) and Arzan Venture Capital. Other participating investors include Partech, Sawari Ventures, Invenfin, National Investment Company (NIC), 4DX Ventures and P1Ventures. Money Fellows has raised $37 million in total funding since its inception. Money Fellows’ premise is the digitization of money circles or what’s commonly known as the Rotating Savings and Credit Association (ROSCAs), a system where a group of people agree to contribute money for a specific period, thereby saving and borrowing together. ROSCAs, which Money Fellows CEO Ahmed Wadi says is a $700 billion opportunity globally, are quite popular in over 90 emerging and developing markets with several names: Esusu or ajo in Nigeria, Kameti or chit fund in India and Gameya in E...

In June, Chinese pop-punk singer Wowkie Zhang released a music video where he encounters a virtual character in a hyper-colored, animated world that is reminiscent of Pixar films. The avatar, sporting Gen-Z-styled silver hair, a yellow and black oversize sweat, and baggy pants, makes hip-hop moves to Zhang’s catchy, light-hearted tune. The virtual character isn’t a one-off creation; instead, Zebra Labs, which produced the video, is turning him into a piece of reusable intellectual property that can be bought as NFTs on marketplaces and appear in other virtual occasions like video games. The startup is waiting for the bull market to return to launch the NFT project, Scarlett Li, founder and CEO of Zebra Labs, tells TechCrunch. The aim of Zebra Labs is to “create intellectual property that’s deeply integrated with content” and “run virtual idols like celebrities,” says Li. Some of the avatars it creates are based on real-life stars, while others are original characters. To generate rev...

Elon Musk, Chief Twit, has refuted claims from a New York Times report this weekend that states he plans to lay off employees before Tuesday, November 1, thus cutting staff off from receiving stock grants as part of their compensation. In response to a tweet from Eric Umansky, deputy managing editor of ProPublica, that said Musk was “making sure to fire people at Twitter before part of their year-end compensation kicks in on Tuesday,” Musk said: “This is false.” He didn’t provide any clarification about what, specifically, was false. This is false — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 30, 2022 Umansky’s tweet included a screenshot of a highlighted portion of the NYT story that also noted stock grants make up a significant portion of an employee’s pay, and by laying off workers before that date, Musk may avoid paying the grants. Musk did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for clarification on whether the layoffs will affect stock compensation. He may very well have been refuting ...

Over the last two and a half years, remote and hybrid working has become the norm — a majority of employed Americans have the option of working from home for all or part of the week, and 87% of workers who were offered remote work embraced the opportunity heartily. While some companies are pushing for a return to the office, today’s strapped labor market is giving employees more power to push back for remote, or at least flexible, jobs. This isn’t just a pandemic response anymore — it’s a way of life, and it has the potential to make some businesses better. People who work from home have been reporting an uptick in their productivity levels without the distractions that come with an office — Oh, it’s Beth’s birthday. Cupcakes in the kitchen!  But both employers and employees have reported some downsides to remote work. Isolation can make people feel lonely and disconnected, leading to mental health issues. Learning and collaboration have taken a hit without the human element of ...

Fundraising isn’t a monolithic event but rather a series of meetings and pleasantries, each with their own vibe and nuance. Yet many pieces of fundraising advice to founders paint the process with a broad brush. We heard from three founders at TechCrunch Disrupt last week: Amanda DoAmaral, co-founder and CEO of Fiveable; Arman Hezarkhani, founder of Parthean; and Sarah Du, co-founder of Alloy Automation, each of whom has raised in the extreme highs and lows of last 18 months. They spoke about navigating the process, what worked (and what didn’t) and how to customize your pitch to navigate the many subtleties of fundraising. For DoAmaral, it was important to spend time researching which investors may actually back her company. She said she’s had investors take meetings with her due to a warm intro despite having no actual intention to invest. “My co-founder and I got in a car and drove down to Tennessee thinking we’re gonna get this check. And this guy didn’t even trust me to like, b...

Welcome to Startups Weekly, a nuanced take on this week’s startup news and trends by Senior Reporter and Equity co-host Natasha Mascarenhas. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. “There’s more dry powder powder than ever before.” “There’s never been a better time to start a startup.” “Discipline is the new scale.” (OK, OK, I made that last one up, but didn’t you kind of believe it?). The tech industry loves generalizations — and don’t worry, I enjoy my fair share too — but as the downturn continues to play out, it’s increasingly important to think about the structural changes that may be forming in the venture capital landscape. Venture firms, unlike unicorns, often don’t have hundreds of employees to cut. Instead, venture firms cut costs in quieter ways. At TechCrunch Disrupt last week, General Catalyst’s Niko Bonatsos said that venture firms have to go through natural selection cycles and that it will be “survival of the fittest.” “It’s a very painful activity for any...

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. Global app spending reached $65 billion in the first half of 2022, up only slightly from the $64.4 billion during the same period in 2021, as hypergrowth fueled by the pandemic has slowed down. But overall, the app economy is continuing to grow, having produced a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports . Global spending across iOS and Google Play last year was $133 billion, and consumers downloaded 143.6 billion apps. This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more. Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsle...