Daily Crunch: Google backs India’s Reliance Jio

Reliance Jio continues to add billions of dollars to its bank account, Apple scores a tax victory in Europe and researchers test a system for undersea Wi-Fi (with lasers!). Here’s your Daily Crunch for July 15, 2020.

Google invests $4.5 billion in India’s Reliance Jio Platforms

Another giant tech company has invested in India’s largest telecom, following Facebook’s investment a couple of months ago. Reliance Jio has raised about $20.2 billion in the past four months — more than the entire Indian startup ecosystem raised last year. Google and Reliance Jio will also be working together to develop low-cost Android smartphones.

“Getting technology into the hands of more people is a big part of Google’s mission,” said Google CEO Sundar Pichai. “Together we are excited to rethink, from the ground up, how millions of users in India can become owners of smartphones.”

The tech giants

Apple and Ireland win appeal against the European Commission’s $15 billion tax ruling — Four years ago, the European Commission said that Ireland had failed to collect around $15 billion in taxes from Apple, but the European Court of Justice has annulled that decision.

Zoom introduces all-in-one home communications appliance for $599 — The new Zoom for Home – DTEN ME includes a large tablet with three wide-angle cameras and eight microphones.

Snap debuts a 13-week remote program to help developers create deeper Snap Kit integrations — Yellow Collabs is an expansion of Snap’s Yellow division, which previously consisted only of a startup accelerator.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Fraud detection startup Ravelin secures $20M Series C — The startup’s goal is to use machine learning to improve the fraud detection process, giving merchants more confidence in accepting customers and transactions.

Lemonade launches pet insurance — This is Lemonade’s first new vertical since it launched renters and homeowners insurance in 2016.

Substack launches Defender, a program offering legal support to independent writers — The newsletter platform said it will determine who to support on a case-by-case basis, covering up to $1 million in legal fees (or even more in “exceptional cases”).

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

How to do remote work right, from the teams that know it best — Tips from Zapier CEO Wade Foster, FlexJobs CEO Sara Sutton, Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson and others.

Emergence’s Jason Green thinks some of the tech backlash is justified, but the B2B opportunities still outweigh the challenges — The VC also described the death of George Floyd as “a profound moment and shift for me personally.”

Generative algorithms are redefining the intersection of software and music — Generative algorithms and growing amounts of computing power are increasingly changing what computers can do with music today.

(Reminder: Extra Crunch is our subscription membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

Researchers develop laser-based underwater Wi-Fi system for sub-sea data networks — The researchers from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology managed to use their system to do Skype calls and move files back and forth, but they also burned out the Raspberry Pi using lasers that overwhelmed its capabilities.

Nissan stakes its EV future on the 300-mile-range Ariya crossover — The Ariya is an all-electric SUV with a starting price of $40,000.

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