Daily Crunch: Spotify adds support for paid podcasts

Spotify launches paid podcast support, Amazon announces new tablets and we unveil the agenda for TC Sessions: Mobility. This is your Daily Crunch for April 27, 2021.

The big story: Spotify adds support for paid podcasts

As first announced in February, Spotify is now allowing podcasters to offer subscriber-only content, published through its Anchor podcasting software. Creators choose from three subscription tiers — $2.99, $4.99 or $7.99 per month.

This comes one week after Apple announced support for paid podcast subscriptions. But where Apple said it would take 30% of first-year subscriptions and 15% after that, Spotify says it will pass 100% of revenue on to podcasters for the first two years, only charging a 5% fee starting in 2023.

The tech giants

Amazon announces new Fire tablets and kids editions — The Fire HD 10 is thinner and lighter than its predecessor, with pricing starting at $150.

Tesla wants to make every home a distributed power plant — CEO Elon Musk said he wants to turn every home into a distributed power plant that would generate, store and even deliver energy back into the electricity grid, all using the company’s products.

Red Hat CEO looks to maintain double-digit growth in second year at helm — Red Hat CEO Paul Cormier runs the centerpiece of IBM’s transformation hopes.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Kids-focused fintech Greenlight raises $260M in a16z-led Series D, nearly doubles valuation to $2.3B — Since it launched its debit cards for kids in 2017, the company has set up accounts for more than 3 million parents and children.

Kry closes $312M Series D after use of its telehealth tools grows 100% yoy — During the pandemic, Kry quickly stepped in to offer a free service for doctors to conduct web-based consultations.

Banana Capital’s debut fund is for internet-first founders — You might know him for his viral tweets, but Turner Novak wasn’t always a master meme-maker.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Internal rates of return in emerging US tech hubs are starting to overtake Silicon Valley — AngelList analyzed IRR for almost 2,500 deals dating back to 2013.

Fifth Wall’s Brendan Wallace and Hippo’s Assaf Wand discuss proptech’s biggest opportunities — The pair joined us to discuss questions like: How should proptech founders think about competition, strategic investment versus top-tier VC firms and how to build their board?

SaaS subscriptions may be short-serving your customers — Adam Riggs argues that software as a service may have become a bit too interchangeable with subscription models.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

Announcing the Agenda for TC Sessions: Mobility 2021 — Our guests will include Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang, Zoox co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson, Amy Jones Satrom of Nuro and famed investor Reid Hoffman.

Taking stock of the VC industry’s progress on diversity, equity and inclusion — A look at the VC Human Capital Survey from the National Venture Capital Association, Venture Forward and Deloitte.

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