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Damn, it’s happening: A bunch of the australiabusinessblog.com team are on planes, planes, and other flying ship spellings to join us in San Francisco for Disrupt. To say we’re excited would be using too few syllables in total. Lauren S made us a australiabusinessblog.com Disrupt user guide along with a guide to all the receptions, parties, and other cool extracurricular activities. Bye! — Christine and hi

The australiabusinessblog.com Top 3

• What is another word for synonym?: Ever heard of a “fermentation farm”? Well, you have now. Christine covered the pre-seed round of Synonym Biotechnologies, with major backer Andreessen Horowitz, in which the company plans to build giant fermentation farms so that non-pharmaceutical companies can mass-produce bioproducts such as dairy proteins.
• A rose with a different name: “Advertising”, “Sponsored”, whatever you want to call it, Google makes sure that when you do a mobile search, you know for sure whether it’s sponsored content or an organic search result. Ivan has more.
• Legless for a while: We were promised legs, but now Ivan writes that it could be another year before avatars with Meta legs appear in Horizon Worlds.

Startups and VC

Even the largest landfills in Indonesia are reaching (or approaching) capacity, and the government has set an ambitious target of 30% waste reduction by 2025, reports Catherine. Waste4Change is one of the companies that wants to help by increasing the recycling rate and enabling better waste management. The startup, which currently manages more than 8,000 tons of waste per year, announced today that it has raised $5 million in Series A funding co-led by AC Ventures and PT Barito Mitra Investama.

And we have five more for you:

DIY: 5 Ways Startups With Disruptive Components Can Convince OEMs

Image Credits: Alan Rubio (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Ori Moro writes that hardware startup founders are having a hard time. Only a small fraction of tech investors will even meet with them, and building product pipelines is often an erratic, even chaotic process.

Rather than relying on sales and marketing teams to build a customer base for the startup of his hardware components, Mor’s company began building devices that used his company’s technology.

“There’s no point in rushing into building a hardware startup,” Mor says. “Instead, start by making just one prototype that you can use to show OEMs.”

Three more from the TC+ team:

australiabusinessblog.com+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams stay ahead of the curve. You can register here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

Rebecca got the scoop on Sono Motors’ new Sion solar electric vehicle and some facetime with Whoopi Goldberg (photos to prove it). Although the family-friendly vehicle costs $25,000, Rebecca points out that the interior is more spacious than it appears from the outside, but also that there are no cup holders in the back that may not suit some American families.

And we have five more for you:

• More layoffs: Jagmeet has more about Momentive Global’s announcement of layoffs of 11% of its workforce. If you think, “Who?” that would be SurveyMonkey’s parent company. Real estate valuation tech firm Clear Capital also cuts its workforce by 27%, reports Andrew.
• Get the popcorn ready: Peacock is making the “Real Housewives” franchise its guinea pig as it tests some new interactive features that will give viewers extended clips and interviews, Lauren reports.
• not @me: Meanwhile, on Twitter, the company is developing a way for users to control who can name them, writes Aisha.
• It applies the lotion to his robot skin: Brian reports that Touchlab, that the TC Sessions: Robotics pitch-off event a few months ago, began testing its robotic skin sensors in a hospital setting.
• Time, time, time, look what’s become of me: The owner of the Shein fashion e-commerce site was fined $1.9 million for failing to properly handle a 2018 data breach that compromised millions of user information, Rita writes.