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Will the TikTok ban affect startups operating in the creator economy industry? Not exactly, say the founders

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President Joe Biden signed a bill on Wednesday that might ban TikTok — for real this time. After so many false starts and stops, some creator economy founders and their clients are rolling their eyes. They’ve been through this before.

“I think two years ago it would have been devastating,” Karat Financial co-founder and CEO Eric Wei told TechCrunch. “Now… Eh.”

When creators succeed, startups operating in the creator economy generally succeed as well. Still, Wei is not particularly concerned that the friction of the TikTok ban will impact his company, a Series B startup that gives financial services to creators.

“In startups, if you create products that help creators make money, then in terms of the market you can address, that’s good for you,” Wei said. “You might be thinking, ‘TikTok is gone, as a creator you need to think about diversification and ways to make a living, so here are the things you can do in XYZ.'”

The threat of a TikTok ban is a bit like The Boy Who Cried Wolf, although this time it’s different. This just isn’t just political theater in the type of ongoing Senate hearings. The bill, which might force ByteDance to sell TikTok if it doesn’t discover a U.S. buyer inside nine months, passed the House and Senate to Biden’s desk, where he signed it.

But the creative landscape looks different now than it did in 2020, under President Donald Trump tried to ban an application owned by the Chinese (and while running for president again, he claims that he’s against a ban because it might give Meta an excessive amount of power). Established creators have had about three years of legal wrangling and two different presidencies to organize their corporations for a world without TikTok.

As Wei looks through the large group chat he’s in with other creators, he notices that nobody has panicked.

“I’m scrolling through and there are a few jokes in there – one guy jokes, ‘My Snapchat shares are about to go up,’ and another guy said, ‘Let’s do a skit: when TikTokers protest the TikTok ban – who’s in on it?'” he said. “A third said, ‘TikTok is going to sue, I’ve talked to their employees,’ and a fourth replied, ‘Where’s my popcorn?'”

This doesn’t apply to all creators. Wei notes that broadcasters and TikTok creators who generate income through TikTok Shop may feel the effects the most because platforms like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels don’t invest in these features as much as TikTok. The ban may be harmful to politically-minded creators, as Instagram Reels just isn’t a viable alternative for them – the Meta-owned platform has began limiting the reach of political content. And while the more established creators in Wei’s group chat have been preparing for this for years, the move away from TikTok may very well be an enormous blow to newer creators who don’t yet have followers across multiple platforms.

“To be clear, no one is going to say, ‘It’s good for us’!” Wei said. However, the period of time the creators had to organize for this moment made them higher prepared to weather the storm.

“It’s been talked about for a very long time, so creators are aware of it – it’s not new,” Harry Gestetner, co-founder and CEO of creator monetization platform Fanfix, told TechCrunch. “Secondly, this is not an overnight ban. The creators still have about a year to move their fans, so I’m optimistic.”

James Jones – CEO Hitone other company providing financial services for creators – is the situation in parallel.

“TikTok’s absence will undoubtedly have a ripple effect among the creative community,” Jones told TechCrunch. “But creators are getting better at differentiating how they monetize across multiple platforms. We have already seen this video with Vine, and it paved the way for TikTok to fill the void it left.”

TikTok’s secret is its power to assist creators get discovered – greater than another platform, anyone can get noticed on For You. Although Instagram videos and YouTube Shorts may be in comparison with “Mark Kirkland TikTok” in 2021, these platforms have matured.

In the initial TikTok Creator Fund, a static pool of cash distributed amongst a growing variety of eligible creators, few people lived solely on TikTok views. This only recently modified when TikTok moved creators to its Creativity Program, which offers eligible creators a greater deal – but not all creators create videos that meet the program’s requirements. So for content creation to supply them with a stable profession, they might have to modify to other platforms anyway. YouTube Shorts has began sharing ad revenue on short videos, much like its long-running associates program, while Instagram Reels only offers occasional and unreliable bonus programs.

Gestetner told TechCrunch that a few of the creators he works with were dissatisfied with TikTok anyway.

“The problems with TikTok go beyond the ban itself,” he said. “Creators often have their TikTok accounts deleted, shadowbanned, or reported, making it very difficult to get a response from TikTok. That’s why we’ve been dealing with problems for years.”

It’s not that other platforms don’t share these transparency concerns. However, these threats have made it difficult for developers to place all their energy into one platform.

“Five years ago, creators typically used one platform,” he said. “Now every creator has at least three, and at most five, six or seven platforms that they use.”

The must diversify goes beyond the platforms creators use. Creators also must generate income from quite a lot of sources, whether through fan memberships, product sales, live performances, or courses.

“I think there will be no impact on our business or potentially a positive impact,” Gestetner said. “This helps in our case because all creators are skeptical of large platforms and don’t want all of their monetization to be tied to a specific platform.”

In theory, a ban on TikTok could create space in the market for an additional short-video app — perhaps one that may not owned by an enormous corporation like Meta or Google. But it probably won’t be one other situation like what happened when Elon Musk bought Twitter and several other microblogging apps appeared seemingly overnight.

“I think a really good example is: Remember Triller?” Wei said. “For a moment all of us got enthusiastic about it and thought, ‘Oh my God, TikTok is pulling out, let’s donate to Triller!’ But then everyone realized that TikTok wasn’t going away. And now, years later, is anyone talking about Triller anymore?”

Well, they won’t be talking about Triller either because the company is a walking business red flag. In any case, creators won’t have the patience to take a position in a nascent platform that will not survive, so they’ll should play catch-up on Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat. But that doesn’t suggest TikTok won’t be missed.

“I think overall the fans will feel it the most,” Gestetner said. “But I think the Short and Reels experience is getting better and better.”

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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The company is currently developing washing machines for humans

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Forget about cold baths. Washing machines for people may soon be a brand new solution.

According to at least one Japanese the oldest newspapersOsaka-based shower head maker Science has developed a cockpit-shaped device that fills with water when a bather sits on a seat in the center and measures an individual’s heart rate and other biological data using sensors to make sure the temperature is good. “It also projects images onto the inside of the transparent cover to make the person feel refreshed,” the power says.

The device, dubbed “Mirai Ningen Sentakuki” (the human washing machine of the longer term), may never go on sale. Indeed, for now the company’s plans are limited to the Osaka trade fair in April, where as much as eight people will have the option to experience a 15-minute “wash and dry” every day after first booking.

Apparently a version for home use is within the works.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Zepto raises another $350 million amid retail upheaval in India

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Zepto, snagging $1 billion in 90 days, projects 150% annual growth

Zepto has secured $350 million in latest financing, its third round of financing in six months, because the Indian high-speed trading startup strengthens its position against competitors ahead of a planned public offering next yr.

Indian family offices, high-net-worth individuals and asset manager Motilal Oswal invested in the round, maintaining Zepto’s $5 billion valuation. Motilal co-founder Raamdeo Agrawal, family offices Mankind Pharma, RP-Sanjiv Goenka, Cello, Haldiram’s, Sekhsaria and Kalyan, in addition to stars Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar are amongst those backing the brand new enterprise, which is India’s largest fully national primary round.

The funding push comes as Zepto rushes so as to add Indian investors to its capitalization table, with foreign ownership now exceeding two-thirds. TechCrunch first reported on the brand new round’s deliberations last month. The Mumbai-based startup has raised over $1.35 billion since June.

Fast commerce sales – delivering groceries and other items to customers’ doors in 10 minutes – will exceed $6 billion this yr in India. Morgan Stanley predicts that this market shall be value $42 billion by 2030, accounting for 18.4% of total e-commerce and a pair of.5% of retail sales. These strong growth prospects have forced established players including Flipkart, Myntra and Nykaa to cut back delivery times as they lose touch with specialized delivery apps.

While high-speed commerce has not taken off in many of the world, the model seems to work particularly well in India, where unorganized retail stores are ever-present.

High-speed trading platforms are creating “parallel trading for consumers seeking convenience” in India, Morgan Stanley wrote in a note this month.

Zepto and its rivals – Zomato-owned Blinkit, Swiggy-owned Instamart and Tata-owned BigBasket – currently operate on lower margins than traditional retail, and Morgan Stanley expects market leaders to realize contribution margins of 7-8% and adjusted EBITDA margins to greater than 5% by 2030. (Zepto currently spends about 35 million dollars monthly).

An investor presentation reviewed by TechCrunch shows that Zepto, which handles greater than 7 million total orders every day in greater than 17 cities, is heading in the right direction to realize annual sales of $2 billion. It anticipates 150% growth over the following 12 months, CEO Aadit Palicha told investors in August. The startup plans to go public in India next yr.

However, the rapid growth of high-speed trading has had a devastating impact on the mom-and-pop stores that dot hundreds of Indian cities, towns and villages.

According to the All India Federation of Consumer Products Distributors, about 200,000 local stores closed last yr, with 90,000 in major cities where high-speed trading is more prevalent.

The federation has warned that without regulatory intervention, more local shops shall be vulnerable to closure as fast trading platforms prioritize growth over sustainable practices.

Zepto said it has created job opportunities for tons of of hundreds of gig employees. “From day one, our vision has been to play a small role in nation building, create millions of jobs and offer better services to Indian consumers,” Palicha said in an announcement.

Regulatory challenges arise. Unless an e-commerce company is a majority shareholder of an Indian company or person, current regulations prevent it from operating on a listing model. Fast trading corporations don’t currently follow these rules.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Wiz acquires Dazz for $450 million to expand cybersecurity platform

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Wizardone of the talked about names within the cybersecurity world, is making a major acquisition to expand its reach of cloud security products, especially amongst developers. This is buying Dazzlespecialist in solving security problems and risk management. Sources say the deal is valued at $450 million, which incorporates money and stock.

This is a leap within the startup’s latest round of funding. In July, we reported that Dazz had raised $50 million at a post-money valuation of just below $400 million.

Remediation and posture management – two areas of focus for Dazz – are key services within the cybersecurity market that Wiz hasn’t sorted in addition to it wanted.

“Dazz is a leader in this market, with the best talent and the best customers, which fits perfectly into the company culture,” Assaf Rappaport, CEO of Wiz, said in an interview.

Remediation, which refers to helping you understand and resolve vulnerabilities, shapes how an enterprise actually handles the various vulnerability alerts it could receive from the network. Posture management is a more preventive product: it allows a company to higher understand the scale, shape and performance of its network from a perspective, allowing it to construct higher security services around it.

Dazz will proceed to operate as a separate entity while it’s integrated into the larger Wiz stack. Wiz has made a reputation for itself as a “one-stop shop,” and Rappaport said the integrated offering will proceed to be a core a part of it.

He believes this contrasts with what number of other SaaS corporations are built. In the safety industry, there are, Rappaport said, “a lot of Frankenstein mashups where companies prioritize revenue over building a single technology stack that actually works as a platform.” It could be assumed that integration is much more necessary in cybersecurity than in other areas of enterprise IT.

Wiz and Dazz already had an in depth relationship before this deal. Merat Bahat — the CEO who co-founded Dazz with Tomer Schwartz and Yuval Ofir (CTO and VP of R&D, respectively) — worked closely with Assaf Rappaport at Microsoft, which acquired his previous startup Adallom.

After Rappaport left to found Wiz together with his former Adallom co-founders, CTO Ami Luttwak, VP of Product Yinon Costica and VP of R&D Roy Reznik, Bahat was one in all the primary investors. Similarly, when Bahat founded Dazz, Assaf was a small investor in it.

The connection goes deeper than work colleagues. Bahat and Rappaport are also close friends, and she or he was the second family of Mickey, Rappaport’s beloved dog, referred to as Chief Dog Officer Wiz (together with LinkedIn profile). Once the deal was done, the 2 faced two very sad events: each Bahat and Mika’s mother died.

“We hope for a new chapter of positivity,” Bahat said. The cycle of life does indeed proceed.

Rumors of this takeover began to appear earlier this month; Rappaport confirmed that they then began talking seriously.

But that is not the one M&A conversation Wiz has gotten involved in. Earlier this 12 months, Google tried to buy Wiz itself for $23 billion to construct a major cybersecurity business. Wiz walked away from the deal, which might have been the biggest in Google’s history, partly because Rappaport believed Wiz could turn into a fair larger company by itself terms. And that is what this agreement goals to do.

This acquisition is a test for Wiz, which earlier this 12 months filled its coffers with $1 billion solely for M&A purposes (it has raised almost $2 billion in total, and we hear the subsequent round will close in just a few weeks). . Other offers included purchasing Gem security for $350 million, but Dazz is its largest acquisition ever.

More mergers and acquisitions could also be coming. “We believe next year will be an acquisition year for us,” Rappaport said.

In an interview with TC, Luttwak said that one in all Wiz’s priorities now’s to create more tools for developers that have in mind what they need to do their jobs.

Enterprises have made significant investments in cloud services to speed up operations and make their IT more agile, but this shift has include a significantly modified security profile for these organizations: network and data architectures are more complex and attack surfaces are larger, creating opportunities for malicious hackers to find ways to to hack into these systems. Artificial intelligence makes all of this far more difficult when it comes to malicious attackers. (It’s also a chance: the brand new generation of tools for our defense relies on artificial intelligence.)

Wiz’s unique selling point is its all-in-one approach. Drawing data from AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and other cloud environments, Wiz scans applications, data and network processes for security risk aspects and provides its users with a series of detailed views to understand where these threats occur, offering over a dozen products covering the areas, corresponding to code security, container environment security, and provide chain security, in addition to quite a few partner integrations for those working with other vendors (or to enable features that Wiz doesn’t offer directly).

Indeed, Wiz offered some extent of repair to help prioritize and fix problems, but as Luttwak said, the Dazz product is solely higher.

“We now have a platform that actually provides a 360-degree view of risk across infrastructure and applications,” he said. “Dazz is a leader in attack surface management, the ability to collect vulnerability signals from the application layer across the entire stack and build the most incredible context that allows you to trace the situation back to engineers to help with remediation.”

For Dazz’s part, once I interviewed Bahat in July 2024, when Dazz raised $50 million at a $350 million valuation, she extolled the virtues of constructing strong solutions and this week said the third quarter was “amazing.”

“But market dynamics are what trigger these types of transactions,” she said. She confirmed that Dazz had also received takeover offers from other corporations. “If you think about the customers and joint customers that we have with Wiz, it makes sense for them to have it on one platform.”

And a few of Dazz’s competitors are still going it alone: ​​Cyera, like Dazz, an authority in attack surface management, just yesterday announced a rise of $300 million at a valuation of $5 billion (which confirms our information). But what’s going to he do with this money? Make acquisitions, after all.

Wiz says it currently has annual recurring revenue of $500 million (it has a goal of $1 billion ARR next 12 months) and has greater than 45% of its Fortune 100 customers. Dazz said ARR is within the tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars and currently growing 500% on a customer base of roughly 100 organizations.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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