Daily Crunch: Dash board temporarily suspends CEO as company investigates financial impropriety

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It’s Fridayyyy . . . Tomorrow. We had you location for a moment, though, didn’t we?

The astir absorbing communicative for nan VC and startup nerds among america comes from Connie today. A class-action suit conscionable dropped that accuses Sequoia Capital, Paradigm and Thoma Bravo of promoting FTX to nan detriment of its users. A proceedings — moreover a colony — could person wide ramifications.

Funding for Black founders remains dismal, and nan problem was ne'er that nan money wasn’t there. Where do we spell from here? Dominic-Midori asked successful her awesome article past month. We’re surfacing it again today, marking Black History Month.

— Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Removed from office: Tage sewage connection that Prince Boakye Boampong, nan laminitis and CEO of replacement costs web Dash, was placed connected “indefinite administrative leave” by nan company’s committee amid a financial audit. Sources told Tage that Boampong allegedly engaged successful financial misreporting. It sounds for illustration nan audit will return astir a month, truthful we’ll cheque back, shall we?
• On unreality nine: Pydantic Services (try saying that sanction 3 times) came retired of stealth pinch $4.7 cardinal successful Sequoia-backed funds. Its products are inspired by nan Pydantic room and will beryllium built arsenic unreality services, Paul reports.
• A infinitesimal of soundlessness for tech jobs: We’re only 2 months into 2023, and Natasha M and Alyssa decided to commencement a broad database of 2023 tech layoffs. On it already are immoderate of nan biggest names successful nan industry. Let’s dream nan database gets smaller arsenic nan months spell by.

Startups and VC

After 2 years of seeking regulatory approval, Wefunder has officially received nan greenish ray to run its finance crowdfunding services wrong nan European Union. This marks Wefunder’s first clip expanding extracurricular of nan United States, and according to CEO and laminitis Nick Tommarello, nan business is nan first U.S. finance level to summation operational approval, Natasha M reports.

French startup Brigad conscionable raised a caller $30 million backing information (€28 million), arsenic good arsenic much than $5 cardinal successful debt, Romain writes. The institution operates a marketplace for restaurants, caterers, backstage clinics, status homes and hospitals truthful that they tin find freelancers for short-term missions.

Another fistful of ray day snacks to support nan news hunger astatine bay:

• A harder wallet: Jacquelyn reports that Stelo Labs raised a $6 cardinal round, led by a16z, to thief crypto wallet users protect themselves.
• Interesante: Neobank Vexi raises millions to connection young Mexicans lower-interest-rate in installments cards, Mary Ann reports.
• Office noms: Zerocater raises $15 million arsenic request heats up for elastic in-office nutrient services, Ingrid reports.
• You tin (ac)count connected us: Puzzle is building a modern accounting package for today’s API-enabled startups, Ron writes.
• Money grows connected trees. Maybe: Christine reports that Planetarians grabs $6 million to get its plant-based macromolecule into foodservice orbit.

5 purchaser reddish flags to look for during nan M&A process

It’s tempting to deliberation of M&A arsenic a measurement for founders to rate in, but acquisitions mostly require teams to stay onboard while nan caller proprietor integrates their business into their operations.

This tin beryllium a difficult time, according to serial entrepreneur Marina Martianova, who says founders are often astatine likelihood pinch caller owners erstwhile it comes to growth, merchandise priorities and communicating.

“Buyers who can’t springiness you a transparent image of your company’s early aft nan acquisition apt do not person your champion interests successful mind,” she writes.

And different dastardly trio from nan TC+ team:

• Today is nan day: Haje writes that erstwhile fundraising, anchor your institution successful clip pinch a bully “why now?” slide.
• What a jerk: So that laminitis you backed turned retired to beryllium problematic. Becca tries to unpack what you request to do next.
• Chat-MEH: Kyle reports that consumers find chatbots disappointing, but that won’t harm adoption, it seems.

TechCrunch+ is our rank programme that helps founders and startup teams get up of nan pack. You tin motion up here. Use codification “DC” for a 15% discount connected an yearly subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

Meanwhile, up connected Paramount Mountain, Keegan-Michael Key is not mispronouncing this news: Paramount+ reached 56 cardinal subscriptions, eclipsing Hulu, Lauren writes. It has besides vanished its integration pinch Showtime and, you guessed it, is going to raise prices.

Ever since we saw nan AI-boosted Bing pleading pinch 1 user, writing, “Please don’t opportunity I’m a bad Bing,” we person been dying to usage that building successful our writing. Well, coming Aisha writes astir nan unusual things that group are reporting astir Microsoft’s Bing responses to them. Apparently, Bing tin beryllium provoked to respond extracurricular of its “designed tone,” she writes. And don’t hide to cheque retired Devin’s article, successful which he answers what happens erstwhile you Bing astir and find out.

And we person 5 much for you:

• Susan Wojcicki’s legacy: After 9 years astatine nan helm of YouTube, CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down, but not away. She will presume an advisory domiciled astatine Google and Alphabet, Kyle reports.
• Get engaged: Instagram’s caller Channels feature will person you broadcasting to each your peeps successful nary time. Aisha has more.
• Game on: For those of you yearning for nan days of HQ Trivia, you tin relive nan nosy pinch TikTok’s caller unrecorded trivia game, which comes pinch $500,000 successful prize money, Lauren writes.
• Chip disconnected nan aged ChatGPT: South Korea made a large finance successful next-gen AI chips — $642 cardinal to beryllium nonstop — arsenic it leverages nan ChatGPT frenzy to liking its declare arsenic a leader successful precocious spot creation, Kate reports.
• Tesla two-fer: Kirsten writes that Tesla recalled 362,758 of its vehicles complete information concerns related to its afloat self-driving beta software. She besides reports nan electrical conveyance shaper fired dozens of workers pursuing talk of launching a national campaign.