YouTube TV settles contract dispute with Disney, credits customers with $ 15 – TechCrunch

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Hello and welcome to the Daily Crunch on Monday December 20! Now, deep into the second half of December, you’d think we’d be sparing the news picks. Not even a little! We had a 10-figure deal today, an IPO filing, and lots of startup news. So buckle up – no breaks yet! To work! –Alexis

The Top 3 TechCrunch

• Oracle buys Cerner for $ 28 billion: It’s a hell of a deal. Oracle everyone knows, but what is Cerner? By our own Ron miller, Cerner is an electronic medical records company. Understandably, a big tech company buying something in the health data space might bug you, but the analysts TechCrunch spoke with generally liked the deal, so what is it worried about?
• In Justworks IPO filing: At the end of last week, Justworks, a provider of HR software focused on SMEs, filed for an IPO. Today TechCrunch took a closer look at its case, curious about its economy and overall business performance. The company has raised significant capital during its life as a private enterprise, so this is a big venture-funded exit to watch in early 2022. (With Reddit!)
• Rocket buys TrueBill for $ 1.275 billion: And because a deal worth over $ 1 billion wasn’t enough to keep us busy today, Rocket Companies announced their huge purchase of consumer fintech TrueBill in an all-cash deal. TechCrunch noted that with TrueBill expected to reach around ARR $ 100 million this year, per its acquirer, the deal seemed somewhat cheap. For investors who quickly doubled their most recent investment, this is a big win.

Startups / VC

There was a number of huge startup news today, and a plethora of smaller, but still critical updates. So the biggest ones first, and then as many small notes as we can fit in this newsletter!

• Rec Room raises $ 145 million for a valuation of $ 3.5 billion: Why does a social gaming platform collect this kind of money? Well, Roblox. This is the answer. How? ‘Or’ What? Because Roblox has shown that user-created games on a centralized platform can generate simply huge revenue, and investors are betting Rec Room’s turn on the concept is going to be a cash cow on time. The company was worth $ 1.25 billion earlier this year, so its new valuation may be frothy, but investors are willing to pay in part thanks to the fact that Roblox was worth north of $ 58 billion this afternoon, without no doubt.
• ZeroFox becomes public via a SPAC: It’s funny. According to TechCrunch, ZeroFox is an “enterprise threat intelligence cybersecurity startup that helps businesses spot risks detected on social media.” So it’s a software company that goes public through a blank check company. The deal values ​​ZeroFox at around $ 1.4 billion. You can read the game here, if that’s your jam. But the deal shows that the PSPC boom is not over yet.
• $ 100 million for fast food in India: Zepto is a fast grocery delivery service, the kind of business that wants to get items to you in 10 minutes or less. The model is proving popular in Europe and North America, with companies like Zapp and Gopuff posting big numbers. Zepto is a notable turn because the deal is important, and because it more than doubles the company’s valuation “to $ 570 million from $ 225 million less than two months ago when [the company] expands into new cities.
• Remote recruiting is big business: This is what the new Turing cycle tells us. The company has just raised $ 87 million from Series D for its “talent cloud,” a service that “uses AI to find, assess, hire, onboard and then manage engineers remotely,” reports TechCrunch. The new capital brings Turing’s valuation to $ 1.1 billion.
• Kneron raises $ 25 million for AI chips: Given the global chip shortage / fiasco, I am in favor of an influx of capital into chip companies, including startups. What Kneron builds won’t help Ford build more trucks, but its AI chips are “semiconductors designed to accelerate machine learning,” we wrote, which still seems pretty important.
• A nonprofit startup is working to reduce price gouging from inmates: Not all startups created are designed to save a pension fund or allow a venture capitalist to finally stop flying in business class. In Ameelio’s case, the company is building free calls for inmates. If you are unfamiliar with the US prison state, please know that my nation has found it acceptable, in one way or another, to profit inmates in private prisons; and exorbitant costs for inmates to access phone calls and other services. Ameelio could change that with free video calling services. Hopefully.
• Adventr rminds m de th Wb 2.0 glry dys: Remember when startups would just drop letters in a word and call it a name? It was a good time. Adventr is bringing the trend back with his name and the fact that he strives to make video more interactive. Very Web 2.0, again in a way that doesn’t bother me. The company has just raised $ 5 million.
• The AI ​​dentist will now see you: Overjet is a company I’ve talked about before, so it’s nice to see it reappear on our pages. The company is now worth more than $ 400 million thanks to a new Series B of $ 42.5 million. Overjet uses AI to help dentists make decisions about teeth, which I dig thanks to the fact that I ate too much candy as a kid and didn’t floss. for much of my twenties.
• Stenon is working on the dirt data: Agtech is a fun part of the tech world because it involves applying new methods to what is pretty much the oldest human endeavor there is – trying to get food out of the ground. Stenon is directly involved in this work, providing farmers with what TechCrunch has described as a “real-time soil sensing solution”. It means dirt data. Why is this important? Well, the moisture content of the soil can have a huge impact on when to harvest, for example. Stenon just closed a $ 20 million Series A.

The rise of digital health: 6 trends to watch in 2022

Image credits: INA FASSBENDER (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images

The pandemic has ushered in “the digital revolution in healthcare”, and patients and providers are unlikely to turn back the clock.

“Healthcare deals have been hot in the first nine months of 2021,” GHI Fund Chairman Bill Taranto wrote in a guest post. “They brought in a total of $ 21.3 billion in venture capital through 541 deals, eclipsing the previous record of $ 14.6 billion set in 2020, according to Rock Health.”

Taranto summarizes six trends to watch for the new year:

• Telemedicine is changing the way chronic diseases are treated.
• Digital therapeutics are rewriting the future of healthcare.
• Social determinants of health leading to greater equity in health.
• Remote health monitoring improves results and reduces costs.
• Real-world data delivering real-world results.
• Health care is becoming truly patient-centered.

(TechCrunch + is our membership program, which helps startup founders and teams get ahead. You can register here.)

Big Tech Inc.

• YouTube TV and Disney are doing good: There is an interesting and recurring chicken game that content providers and content providers play when it comes to your cable bill. And even Alphabet’s YouTube TV is not immune. After a row with Disney over the money – what else, with the Mouse Company – a deal has been made that will see Disney channels stay on YouTube TV. Customers of the latter service will receive a $ 15 credit for the disruption.
• Meta pursues phishers: The company formerly known as Facebook is suing a phishing group that preyed on its users’ account credentials. Good. Of course on Facebook to do that. And, second, why don’t we hear about this kind of work more often?
• Line to continue more NFT work in 2022: You can’t shake a stick in tech today and not end up accidentally touching an NFT game, so here’s today’s one. Line, the popular courier in Japan, will launch an NFT service in markets outside of Japan next year. But don’t worry if you’re in Line’s main market – the company “separately operates its beta of the NFT market through the appropriate Line Bitmax wallet” in Japan, writes TechCrunch.

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