Techmeme
December 16, 2021, 10:20 AM

Top News

Reddit:
Reddit confidentially files its S-1 with the SEC for an IPO; the number of shares to be offered and the price range have yet to be determined  —  Reddit, Inc. today announced that it has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission …
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Reddit, home to 100K+ active communities visited by 50M+ people every day, has raised $1B+ over its lifetime and was most recently valued at $10B+ in August  —  Reddit announced on Wednesday that it had confidentially filed paperwork for an eventual public offering of its stock …
More: CNET and Waivly
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Memo: Apple delays its return to corporate offices to a “date yet to be determined”, after previously setting a February 1 return date  —  - Company had planned to bring corporate workers back by Feb. 1  — Delay comes in response to rising Covid-19 cases, new variant
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple closes three retail stores in Miami, Annapolis, and Ottawa, Canada after a rise in employee COVID-19 cases and exposures  —  - Company is closing locations in Miami, Maryland and Ottawa  — Cases and exposure among Apple's employees spurred the move
Project Zero:
A deep dive into an NSO zero-click iMessage exploit, captured in the wild by Citizen Lab and one of the most sophisticated Google's Project Zero has seen  —  We want to thank Citizen Lab for sharing a sample of the FORCEDENTRY exploit with us, and Apple's Security Engineering and Architecture …
Reuters:
Henry Mance / Financial Times:
Interview with Nick Clegg, Meta's VP of global affairs, on moving from politics to Meta, the impact of Haugen's leaks, and the decision to ban Trump  —  Nick Clegg may be available in Berlin.  He has a slot in Paris.  He'll make time for lunch in Brussels.
Tanya Basu / MIT Technology Review:
Meta says a woman was groped on its Horizon Worlds platform on November 26; an internal review says she should have used its “Safe Zone” tool  —  Last week, Meta (the umbrella company formerly known as Facebook) opened up access to its virtual-reality social media platform, Horizon Worlds.
Liza Lin / Wall Street Journal:
TikTok says it will adjust its recommendation algorithm to avoid negative reinforcement and protect mental well-being  —  The app says it is working to diversify the content it pushes to individual users in order to protect their mental well-being  —  Popular video-sharing app TikTok …
More: TikTok, TechCrunch, and Axios
Dan Primack / Axios:
Katie Haun is leaving Andreessen Horowitz to start a new firm focusing on crypto and Web3 startups; Haun's deals at a16z included OpenSea and Coinbase  —  Katie Haun, one of the world's most influential crypto venture capitalists, is leaving Andreessen Horowitz to form her own firm.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Indian edtech company Byju's is in advanced talks to go public via SPAC on the NYSE, raising around $4B and valuing it at about $48B  —  - Education startup is discussing deal with Churchill Capital  — SPAC merger could value Byju's at more than $40 billion
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Dialpad, an enterprise voice, video, and contact-center service, raises $170M led by Iconiq at a $2.2B valuation, up from $1.2B last year  —  Cloud communications platform Dialpad has raised $170 million in a round of funding led by Iconiq Capital, valuing the company at $2.2 billion — roughly double its valuation on last year.
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
TikTok is testing TikTok Live Studio, a Windows app that lets users stream directly to TikTok Live from their computer  —  What if instead of watching your favorite TikTok star stream on Twitch, you could watch them play video games live on TikTok?  For the last few days, according to the platform …
Christine Hall / TechCrunch:
Brazilian e-commerce startup Olist, which connects small sellers to large marketplaces, raises $186M Series E at a $1.5B valuation, after $80M Series D in April  —  Olist, a Brazilian e-commerce marketplace integrator, confirmed it is now valued at $1.5 billion after securing $186 million …
More: Reuters
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Weight care management app Found raises a $100M Series B led by WestCap at a $600M valuation  —  Just two and a half months after emerging from stealth, weight care management startup Found announced today that it has raised $100 million in a Series B funding round that values the company at $600 million.
Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
Denver-based Gtmhub, which helps companies track objectives and results, raises a $120M Series C led by Index Ventures, bringing its total raised to ~$160M  —  Denver-based software startup Gtmhub announced this morning that it has closed a $120 million Series C. Index Ventures led the round …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Amazon says it will reduce its Alexa skills commission from 30% to 20% for developers who earn less than $1M per year, starting in Q2 2022  —  Amazon is joining other tech giants by lowering its cut of developer revenue generated by voice apps, known as Alexa skills, which run on Amazon's smart speakers and other Alexa-powered devices.
Willem Marx / Bloomberg:
Malta's status as Europe's online gambling capital is under threat after it was added to the global money laundering watchdog FATF's “gray list” in June  —  One spring night in 2007, Joseph Borg and several colleagues from Malta's tiny gaming commission stayed late at their office to listen to the news from London.
Washington Post:
An in-depth look at the events surrounding the deadly tornado that hit an Amazon warehouse in Illinois, leaving six dead, as workers sheltered in restrooms  —  A woman told 911 that one of the people sheltering with her had been ‘bent in half’ by rubble.  A driver detailed his frantic flight to safety.
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Sources: the EU is set to approve Meta's acquisition of Kustomer after assurances rivals will still be able to work with Kustomer  —  Facebook is set to gain EU antitrust approval for its acquisition of Kustomer after offering remedies that allow rival products to function …

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Earlier Picks

Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Wall Street Journal: