Dropbox acquires a secure document-sharing startup, Sonos announces a new speaker and Google makes hotel listings free. This is your Daily Crunch for March 9, 2021.
The big story: Dropbox acquires DocSend for $165M
Dropbox already acquired electronic signature company HelloSign in 2019. By acquiring DocSend — which allows customers to share and track documents using a secure link — it’s giving its platform an end-to-end, secure document-sharing workflow.
“We’re announcing that we’re acquiring DocSend to help us deliver an even broader set of tools for remote work, and DocSend helps customers securely manage and share their business-critical documents, backed by powerful engagement analytics,” said Dropbox CEO Drew Houston.
One thing the two companies have in common: Both of them launched, years apart, at TechCrunch events.
The tech giants
Sonos goes full portable Bluetooth speaker with the $169 Roam — The smaller, lighter, more ruggedized and waterproof design puts it more in line with popular offerings from companies like JBL.
After similar moves for Shopping and Flights, Google makes hotel listings free — This change should give users a more comprehensive look into hotel room availability.
French startup lobby targets Apple with ‘privacy hypocrisy’ complaint — Apple is facing another privacy complaint in Europe.
Startups, funding and venture capital
Wefarm adds $11M to expand its network for independent farmers, now at 2.5M users — The startup has built a social networking platform to help independent farmers meet each other, exchange ideas and sell or trade equipment and supplies.
Entertainment payroll startup Wrapbook raises $27M round led by a16z — The money comes from noteworthy names in both the tech and entertainment worlds.
Eye surgery robotics startup ForSight raises $10M — ForSight looks to bring its offerings to international markets, pending the sorts of regulatory approvals that go into launching a robotic surgery platform.
Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch
Four ways startups will drive GPT-3 adoption in 2021 — The introduction of GPT-3 in 2020 was a tipping point for artificial intelligence.
Global-e files to go public as e-commerce startups enjoy a renaissance — The company’s business exploded in 2020.
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)
Everything else
Memes for sale — We talk to Chris Torres, the Nyan Cat creator who has organized an informal collection of meme originators into a two-week-long auction of their works.
Backstage Capital’s Arlan Hamilton discusses how to find the next unicorn — Hamilton joined us at TC: Sessions Justice to chat about how she vets founders, the changing role of venture capital and how raising money from the community versus institutional LPs can impact Backstage strategy.
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