Voodoo, a French mobile apps and games publisher, has acquired BeReal for €500 million.
As part of the acquisition, BeReal co-founder and CEO Alexis Barreyat will leave the company after a transition period.
Aymeric Roffé, the CEO of Wizz, one of Voodoo’s social media apps, will take over as CEO of BeReal.
On BeReal, users receive a push notification each day prompting them to post they’re up within a two-minute window.
“Voodoo has a proven track record of driving significant growth in mobile apps,” said BeReal founder Alexis Barreyat, in the press release.
When Slack CEO Denise Dresser was handed the reins last November, she was the third CEO in less than a year at the enterprise communications company.
The SaaS Stage lineup, including our discussion with Denise Dresser, is taking place on Oct 29th – learn more about the event here.
About TechCrunch Disrupt 2024TechCrunch Disrupt is where you’ll find innovation for every stage of your startup journey.
Over 10,000 startup leaders will be attending this year’s event on October 28-30 in San Francisco.
We can’t wait to hear from Denise Dresser and more SaaS leaders at this year’s show.
Hoop, a productivity startup founded by a group of early Trello employees, wants to use AI to help you automatically generate and track your to-do list.
Image Credits: HoopThe core idea behind Hoop is that it will use AI to automatically capture potential tasks from Google Meet and Slack meetings and Slack messages (with other platforms coming later, starting with email) and pull those into the Hoop to-do list.
Currently, Hoop is a bit of a single-player experience, but Garber tells me that the company plans to add more team features in the future.
“We are really, really focused on making [Hoop] as useful for the individual as possible before we expand to teams, but it’s a very natural thing for us to do,” Garber said.
And while Hoop right now mostly looks like a standard to-do list, the company plans to add different views over time as well.
Now, we’re headed to Washington, D.C., for another night of top-notch interviews and unparalleled networking, all at the cozy Woolly Mammoth Theatre on Tuesday, June 11.
Lina Khan – Chair, Federal Trade CommissionAs Chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the table.
With a background in business reporting and antitrust research, Khan has dedicated her career to addressing consolidation across various markets.
Steve Case – Chairman & CEO, RevolutionSteve Case is known for his pioneering efforts, such as founding AOL, and integrating the internet into everyday life.
Secure Your Spot:Tickets for StrictlyVC Washington, D.C., are priced at $159, offering exceptional value for an evening packed with exclusive content and networking opportunities.
We’re excited to reveal the complete agenda, packed with keynote stage speakers and interactive roundtable sessions.
From fundraising insights to growth strategies, join us as we navigate the startup landscape together at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024 on April 25 in Boston.
Don’t miss out — secure your spot now for an unforgettable experience of learning, connection, and inspiration.
Prices go up at the door!
The VC Pitch Blueprint: Strategies for SuccessSara Choi, Partner, Wing Venture CapitalRacing the Clock to $1M In ARR: Best Practices for Learning Fast from Launch PartnersRudina Seseri, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Glasswing VenturesFinance Fundamentals Before Your First Finance Hire: A Founder’s Guide to Navigating Early Financial DecisionsDan Kang, VP of Finance, MercurySo You Think You Can Pitch?
True Anomaly‘s first mission didn’t go as planned by any stretch of the imagination, but the space and defense startup’s CEO, Even Rogers, said he doesn’t consider it a failure.
The aim of this first mission, Mission X, was to demonstrate these capabilities on orbit for the first time.
True Anomaly closed a $100 million Series B round last year to accelerate those plans.
By all accounts, the outcome of Mission X has not slowed the company down whatsoever: True Anomaly is planning on flying at least twice more in the next twelve months.
“The success story of Jackal Mission X is twofold,” Rogers said.
Paddy Cosgrave, the co-founder of the Web Summit tech conference, is returning to his role as CEO after resigning in October over controversial statements he made about the Israel/Gaza war last year on social media.
“As Web Summit becomes bigger, our aim should be to make it smaller for our attendees.
More opportunistically, as with Facebook, the emphasis on community is a counterweight to Web Summit’s bigger business aim: scale, in Web Summit’s case growing its conference empire by getting as many people and companies as possible paying to attend its events.
Web Summit runs a number of global tech conferences, the best known and biggest of which is in Lisbon, which in recent years attracted upwards of 70,000 attendees.
Scrambling in the lead-up to the Lisbon event, Web Summit quickly appointed Wikimedia CEO Catherine Maher as Cosgrave’s CEO replacement, even as Cosgrave retained an 80% ownership of the business.
Hours later, Musk posted on X that a “Tesla Robotaxi” will be unveiled August 8.
Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2024Reports have swirled for years that Tesla was working on these two vehicles.
Musk has been promising autonomous capabilities in Tesla vehicles for years.
Tesla vehicles come standard with a driver-assistance system branded as Autopilot.
Tesla vehicles are not self-driving.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has transferred formal control of the eponymously firm’s named corporate venture fund to Ian Cathaway, OpenAI confirmed to TechCrunch.
The Open AI Startup Fund, launched in 2021, was initially set up with Altman as its named controller.
Cathaway joined OpenAI in 2021 and played a key role managing the Startup Fund, leading investments in Ambience Healthcare, Cursor, Harvey, and Speak.
Last year, the fund had $175 million in commitments, and now holds $325 million in gross net asset value, according to an SEC filing.
The Startup Fund has backed at least 16 other startups, according to PitchBook data.
This week, we’re looking at Robinhood’s new Gold Card, challenges in the BaaS space and how a tiny startup caught Stripe’s eye.
BaaS startup Synctera recently conducted a restructuring that affects about 15% of employees.
The startup is not the only VC-backed BaaS company to have resorted to layoffs to preserve cash over the past year.
MassMutual Ventures also participated in Qoala’s new $47 million round of funding.
It has more primary customers than ChaseInside a CEO’s bold claims about her hot fintech startup, which TC previously covered here.
