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Greetings from the australiabusinessblog.com office! Yes, it turns out we have an office, even though we haven’t seen the inside in a long time. We’re doing some stretching here before Disrupt kicks off tomorrow. Some of us got to sneak a peek inside and it looks amazing. “Squeeeeee!” as (some of) the kids say these days. — Christine and hi

The australiabusinessblog.com Top 3

• “That, that, that doesn’t kill me, can only make me stronger”: Two of our top stories for today were on the same subject: Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, surprises us all by announcing that he’s buying conservative social media site Parler. manish has the basis of the deal.
• More about Ye: In the meantime, darrell looks at how similar Ye’s deal to buy Parler is to Elon Musk’s deal to buy Twitter. Hint: Billionaire tantrums.
• Reversing the Metavers: manish had another hit today. Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart has unveiled Flipverse, the metaverse shopping experience that has even been gamified so that users can capture loyalty points called Supercoins.

Startups and VC

Can we just have a moment and celebrate? Mary Ann and her fantastic fintech newsletter, The Interchange? She puts the Daily Crunch team to shame with her in-depth analysis and summary of what’s moving and shaking in the financial world, and it’s always an incredible read. This week’s edition (“Even decacorns have their challenge”) was particularly brilliant. Check it out, and if you want to see the whole backlog, there’s a clicky link for that too.

We know we have a whole section for TC+ below, but we especially wanted to draw attention to Natasha M‘s piece on a slew of CFOs at high profile companies quitting, and what that says about the overall ecosystem. In Are CFOs OK? (Answer: Yes, but CEOs? That’s complicated), she explains in classic Natasha style.

Ugh, we love our colleagues. Can you tell?

Let’s dig through the pile of news and see what else is out there:

2023 VC Predictions: Finding an Exit From the ‘Messy Middle’

Image Credits: Arthur Debate (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Eric Tarczynskicmanaging partner and founder of Contrary Capital, says we are entering a “messy middle” era for venture capital:

“Companies can no longer raise $5 million to $10 million seed rounds with nothing but a stack and the assumption that revenue multiples will exceed historical standards,” he writes in a TC+ guest post.

Looking ahead to 2023, Tarczynski envisions an environment where “the VC landscape is beginning to split” as “slow M&A and no IPOs” and “good companies in ‘safe’ sectors” dampen investor expectations.

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.

If you love shopping and love shopping with discounts, PayPal has news for you. The payment giant is replacing its Honey Gold rewards program with PayPal Rewards, which: Sarah writes “enabling customers to redeem their points for cash, gift cards or PayPal store credits. The new PayPal rewards allow consumers to track and redeem their points directly in the PayPal app and have new ways to earn.”

And we have five more for you: