A disruption affecting Amazon Web Services is having a broad impact, Salesforce is reportedly considering an acquisition of Slack, and Pinterest is evaluating new functionality for virtual events. This is your Daily Crunch for November 25, 2020.

To those observing Thanksgiving: We wish you a pleasant holiday! There will be no newsletter tomorrow, with Darrell Etherington resuming coverage on Friday.

Leading the headlines: Amazon Web Services disruption

Amazon Web Services began to encounter difficulties earlier today, leading to problems for numerous websites and services dependent on its cloud infrastructure – a situation experienced firsthand by writer Zack Whittaker when attempting to operate his Roomba.

Amazon communicated that the problem was primarily affecting North America and that efforts to resolve it were underway. Simultaneously, several other organizations, including Adobe and Roku, attributed their own service interruptions to the AWS outage.

Major technology companies

Slack’s share price increases on potential Salesforce acquisition – Reports indicating Salesforce’s interest in acquiring Slack resulted in a significant rise in the smaller company’s stock value today.

Pinterest explores online events with dedicated ‘class communities’ – The platform has been observed testing a new feature enabling users to register for Zoom classes directly through Pinterest.

France initiates collection of tax from major tech companies – This levy applies to businesses with global revenues exceeding €750 million and French revenues surpassing €25 million, specifically those operating either a marketplace or an advertising-based business.

Startups, funding, and venture capital

Tiger Global invests in India’s Unacademy with a $2B valuation – Unacademy assists students in preparing for competitive examinations for college admission.

WeGift, the ‘incentive marketing’ platform, secures $8M in new funding – Established in 2016, WeGift aims to modernize the $700 billion rewards and incentives sector.

Cast.ai obtains $7.7M in seed funding to bridge the gap between public clouds – The company was founded on the principle that developers should benefit from the strengths of each public cloud without vendor lock-in.

Insights and analysis from Extra Crunch

Insurtech’s strong year continues as Metromile prepares for public offering – Metromile, a startup in the auto insurance market, is going public through a SPAC.

Attend a live Q&A session with Sapphire’s Jai Das on Tuesday at 2 pm EST/11 am PST – Das has made investments in companies such as MuleSoft, Alteryx, Square and Sumo Logic.

(Extra Crunch is our subscription service, designed to provide accessible information about startups. You can register here.)

Other news

Gift Guide: Intelligent fitness equipment for staying active at home – The latest smart exercise and health devices offer enhanced capabilities.

Consider watching this interactive dumpster fire instead of a traditional yule log, fitting for 2020 – Why not, indeed.

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