Daily Crunch: Japanese marketing technology company Geniee acquires Zelto for $70 million

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Hello, Crunchy Crunchers! If you’re slacking off and haven’t bought a Disrupt ticket yet, that’s cool, we still love you. But here’s a hot tip: this is your last chance for super-early-bird tickets, so you might have to get on that sooner rather than later! — Christine And Hey

The businessroundups.org Top 3

• All roads lead to acquisition: Manic writes that after Japan’s Geniee acquired AdPushup operator Zelto for $70 million. He called the deal “a remarkable turnaround” for Zelto, a company that has faced a few near-death experiences during its 10-year life, including cash flow and product market adjustment issues.
• Sweet (South) Carolina, bup, bup, bup: VW-backed Scout Motors has plans to build a $2 billion plant in South Carolina to produce its all-electric vehicles. Tim Stevens has more.
• fined: Manic also writes about India’s central bank, which fined Amazon’s payment unit more than $370,000 for alleging the company failed to meet certain know-your-customer guidelines.

Startups and VC

While most established car players call the shots from sprawling corporate palaces, Scout is basing much of its operations — at least for now — out of a WeWork near Washington, D.C., Tim Stevens reports. Scout Motors’ base will eventually “anchor” near the $2 billion South Carolina plant announced Friday, and the company plans to bring rugged, retro reputation to the EV era.

And we have five more for you:

To improve the climate, these 10 investors put their house on the ocean

Tapping the ocean for energy led to disasters like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which spilled nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Today, wind power and wave power are just two technologies that are driving investors to take a closer look at ocean conservation technology, Tim De Chant reports. To learn more about the opportunities they are chasing and how climate change is shaping their investment thesis, he researched:

• Daniela V. Fernandez, founder and CEO of Sustainable Ocean Alliance, managing partner at Seabird Ventures
• Tim Agnew, Managing Partner, Bold Ocean Ventures
• Peter Bryant, Program Director (Oceans), Builders Initiative
• Kate Danaher, General Manager (Oceans & Seafood), S2G Ventures
• Francis O’Sullivan, General Manager (Oceans and Seafood), S2G Ventures
• Stephan Feilhauer, General Manager (Clean Energy), S2G Ventures
• Sanjeev Krishnan, senior director and chief investment officer, S2G Ventures
• Rita Sousa, Partner, Faber Ventures
• Christian Lim, Managing Director, SWEN Blue Ocean Partners
• Reece Pacheco, Partner Propeller

Three more from the TC+ team:

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Big Tech Inc.

It was only a matter of time before another company tried to emulate what Instacart has to offer. Today it’s Uber. Rebekah writes that Uber is coming to Instacart with some updates to its year-old Shop and Pay feature that allows delivery drivers to choose to receive rides to run groceries or other retail errands for customers before delivering orders to customers. “Basically, it’s Uber’s attempt to follow the Instacart model that works well for the established grocery delivery company,” she reports.

Autonomous trucking company Embark Trucks, which went public in 2021, is now laying off about 230 employees as it explores liquidating its self-driving truck assets. Kirsten reports.

And now there are six more for your Friday: