Techmeme: Sources: Didi bans current and former employees from selling shares indefinitely; Didi has lost ~60% of its market value, or ~$38B, since its NYSE IPO in June (Financial Times)

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December 27, 2021, 5:00 PM

Top News

Khadeeja Safdar / Wall Street Journal:

Profile of Gloo, which has ~245M profiles on Americans and is used by 30K+ churches, or 10% of US churches, to target ad campaigns at people facing a crisis — A small company called Gloo mines online data for people who might be receptive to evangelizing and church outreach — Struggling with grief?

Tweets: @hypervisible, @anthony, @amywebb, @patiencehaggin, @antoniogm, @dannydougherty, @tonyajoriley, @bethblackshire, @evilgalprods, @tpcarney, @zoebritton, @ryanburge, and @verambergen

Leah Nylen / Politico:

An overview of the efforts by Google, Apple, and Amazon to offer their technology and services for connected cars — When Ford announced that starting in 2023 its cars and trucks would come with Google Maps, Assistant and Play Store preinstalled, CEO Jim Farley called the partnership between …

More: 9to5Mac, iPhone in Canada Blog, and Slashdot

Tweets: @aaronbuley, @hypervisible, @chelseycolbert, @aricohn, and @tombamonte

Joanna Glasner / Crunchbase News:

Most VC-backed startups that went public via a SPAC in 2021 have seen their stock drop; Metromile, View, Owlet, and Clover Health are among the worst performers — The overwhelming majority of venture-backed companies that went public via special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs …

Tweets: @bigblackjacobin and @martinsfp

Eric Ravenscraft / Wired:

A critique of much-hyped crypto-based virtual real estate projects, such as Decentraland, which are often buggy, empty, and lack moderation tools — The “real estate of the future” is plagued by buggy software, empty servers, and huge opportunities for abuse.

Tweets: @dlberes, @matt_on_tech, and @agraylin

David McCabe / New York Times:

A look at OneTrust, BigID, TrustArc, and other startups helping companies navigate the internet's increasingly fragmented rules and privacy regulations — Companies have sprouted up to help others navigate the varied laws around the world governing websites.

Tweets: @paulnemitz, @dmccabe, @nytimesbusiness, @jeffjarvis, and @jkosseff

Robert Stevens / Decrypt:

OpenDAO airdrops SOS token for users of OpenSea's NFT marketplace; the token, unaffiliated with OpenSea, is up ~10x in two days as watchers debate its prospects — In brief — SOS is an airdrop from OpenDAO, distributed to people who have spent money on OpenSea transactions.

Wall Street Journal:

PitchBook: nearly 340 startups have privately raised money at $1B+ valuations in 2021, more than triple the total from 2020 — SPACs and venture capitalists are plowing money into startups at record rates, looking past worries about lofty valuations — Investors are defying a share-price slump …

Tweets: @julianklymochko, @amrithramkumar, @maxjacobsedison, @eliotwb, and @kushkatakia

Joe Williams / Bloomberg:

A look at the growing competition in the call center tools market between Genesys, AWS, Salesforce, Microsoft, and others, often focused on AI-driven automation — Customer support has become a crowded battlefield in enterprise technology as software vendors from Microsoft Corp …

Tweets: @joepwilliams31

Kalyeena Makortoff / The Guardian:

Gibraltar mulls letting blockchain firm Valereum acquire its stock exchange to add cryptocurrency trading, risking reputational damage and diplomatic sanctions — Territory's financial sector risks reputational damage and diplomatic sanctions if complex regulations of crypto hub fail

More: CNET

Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times:

Meta acquired synthetic data startup AI.Reverie in August, consolidating it into Reality Labs and terminating its US Air Force contract worth up to $950M — Synthetic data company AI. Reverie will work within group's Reality Labs division — An artificial intelligence company contracted …

Tweets: @adamhrv, @shashj, @aandgshow, and @aandgshow

Financial Times:

Sources: Didi bans current and former employees from selling shares indefinitely; Didi has lost ~60% of its market value, or ~$38B, since its NYSE IPO in June — Chinese ride-hailing group extends lock-up period after moving to delist from New York — Didi Chuxing has barred current …

More: Reuters and Bloomberg

Yang Jie / Wall Street Journal:

While unable to meet analog chip demand, Texas Instruments hesitates to expand production capacity because of the industry's history of boom and bust cycles — Even in digital age, analog chips such as those made in Texas are essential, and they are in short supply

Tweets: @aparanjape, @pastynome, @jbathgate, and @scottlincicome

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:00 PM ET, December 27, 2021.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Source: Bari Weiss is planning to create a masthead for CBS News as part of a broader overhaul of standards and procedures

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Trump says Stephen Colbert is a “pathetic trainwreck” and “CBS should, ‘put him to sleep,’ NOW”; earlier CBS aired the Kennedy Center Honors, hosted by Trump

Lorcan Lovett / Nieman Reports:

A look at the state of independent media in Myanmar, which lost US and Swedish funding this year and where subscriptions aren't a dependable source of revenue

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More News

John D. McKinnon / Wall Street Journal:

Democrats, eager to rein in social media and other internet platforms, urge Biden to focus on tech regulation, before Republicans can retake the House or Senate

More: PYMNTS.com. Tweets: @wsj and @wsjpolitics

Bloomberg:

China imposes new restrictions on offshore IPOs that use variable interest entities (VIEs), aiming to close a loophole used by tech and other industries

More: CNN, Reuters, and Financial Times

Daniel Michaels / Wall Street Journal:

Inside China's Logink, an expansive digital network for tracking global sea cargo that experts fear could give Beijing a commercial or strategic advantage

Kyle Stock / Bloomberg:

A look at sidewalk delivery robots serving students across US college campuses, an ideal proving ground with pedestrian-friendly designs and eager consumer base

Tweets: @humanprogress, @citylab, and @citylab

Silicon Canals:

Proxymity, a UK-based digital investor communications service for real-time virtual proxy voting and automated shareholder disclosure, raises a €27.5M Series B

More: GlobeNewswire News Room, BusinessCloud, and Finextra

Earlier Picks

Sneha Shah / The Economic Times:

Research: Indian startups raised a record ~$36B in 2021, up from ~$11B in 2020; SoftBank invested $3B+ and Tiger Global was among the most active investors

Tweets: @gagan_arora1, @ettech, @ettech, and @omkar_raii

Dan Taylor / Tech.eu:

Berlin-based Pliant, which offers digital corporate credit card management and accounting software, raises an €18M seed led by Alstin Capital

More: EU-Startups

Jane Zhang / South China Morning Post:

Chinese app stores had 2.78M apps in October 2021, down from 4.52M in December 2018, a 38.5% drop amid the government's new data laws and clean-up campaigns

Financial Times:

Q&A with Clubhouse CEO Paul Davison: copycat features from big rivals have not impacted the company “in any real way” and making money is not a pressing concern

Tweets: @carnage4life, @chrismatyszczyk, @edzitron, and @psb_dc

Ari Paparo Dot Eth / @aripap:

[Thread] For media and advertising, Web3's focus on decentralization and tokenization solves few, if any, problems and is the last thing ad tech needs

Tweets: @antoniogm, @antoniogm, @randfish, @adamsinger, @film_girl, @jubiweb, @mandestin, @livepaola, @craw, @dustinwstout, @davlgd, @levie, @zachweinberg, @bznotes, @tkawaja, @dhruvapandey, @ghadjia, and @averyj