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Hello, and welcome to your Thursday — aka, the day the TikTok CEO went in front of Congress. Our team has been working hard all day to keep up with everything going on there, and you can read the fruits of their labor in the Big Tech section. Now, on with the news! — Christine and Haje
The TechCrunch Top 3
- More layoffs: The layoffs affecting the technology industry are now making their way to the companies that service them. Accenture announced today that it will cut 19,000 jobs, Manish reports. That represents about 2.5% of its global workforce, but an eye-opening figure nonetheless.
- Do Kwon in custody: It looks like law enforcement caught up with Terra creator Do Kwon, who was reportedly arrested at the Montenegro airport, Jacquelyn writes. You might recall that Kwon has been under investigation in South Korea following the Terra/LUNA collapse, which wiped out about $40 billion from the cryptocurrency market. Despite saying he was cooperating with law enforcement, Kwon’s whereabouts have been unknown since September.
- An excuse not to go to the mall: DoorDash users can now order from Lush Cosmetics, Victoria’s Secret and Party City. The delivery giant also added some new shopping features, like search optimization. Aisha has more.
Startups and VC
At first glance, Boston Dynamics is a strange fit for a show like ProMat, Brian writes. For decades, the firm has presented a flashy image to the world — a company well known for robotic highlight reels, from the snow-traversing Big Dog to parkour-performing Atlas. But a recent approach has found it facing one of its biggest challenges to date: putting its robots to work in the form of commercialization.
Lun, a climate tech startup out of Denmark, is on a mission to help heat-pump installers decarbonize homes and fast, Natasha L reports, starting with heating systems and swapping out boilers for electric heat pumps.
Robots, heat pumps and five more tech news stories, oh my:
4 Indian investors explain how their investment strategy has changed since 2021
Image Credits: mtreasure (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
For our latest survey, TechCrunch reporter Jagmeet Singh asked four Indian investors about how their work has changed since the global tech downturn began.
Venture capital funding in the region “dried up in the second half of 2022,” so he inquired about their current pace of dealmaking, which investment trends they’re watching and how founders can reach them:
- GV Ravishankar, managing director, Sequoia India
- Ashutosh Sharma, head of India investments, Prosus Ventures
- Vaibhav Domkundwar, CEO and founder, Better Capital
- Roopan Aulakh, managing director, Pi Ventures
Aaaand of course there’s three more from the TC+ team today as well:
TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!
Big Tech Inc.
The big news for today was obviously TikTok, and our colleagues were plugging away at everything from the Congressional hearing to who benefits if a U.S. ban happens. Find out any new developments here.
And now here’s six non-TikTok stories for you: