Daily Crunch: Zoom will pay $85M to settle lawsuit over ‘Zoombombing,’ user privacy

And now, some venture capital news:

• Element Ventures raises $130M: It’s a sign of the times that I am not at all surprised that a B2B-focused fintech venture capital firm just raised nine figures. Of course that’s a big enough problem space to deploy that amount of capital. And of course there are enough startups that fit its parameters to fill its book with deals. Element will invest in 15 companies each year, focusing on deals in Europe, the U.S. and Asia.
• More money for LatAm: Newtopia is a new fund focused on Latin America that just put together a fresh $50 million fund. It will invest in pre-seed companies ($100,000 checks) and larger rounds ($250,000 to $1 million) in startups scaling toward their Series A. Early-stage investing is its own beast, so it’s nice that the burgeoning Latin American market is getting its own dedicated vehicles to tackle the task.
• From the podcast today, if you are into edtech, boy do we have the show for you.

Demand Curve: Questions you need to answer in your paid search ads

At some point, almost every early-stage startup will use paid search ads to connect with customers and throw down the gauntlet with their competitors.

Most of these initial attempts at paid search are unsuccessful. There’s a steep learning curve when it comes to transforming passive searchers into paying customers, and almost no one gets it right the first time.

In a comprehensive guest post, growth marketing expert Stewart Hillhouse identified “14 questions your paid search should answer to ensure you’re only paying for the highest-intent shoppers.”

Question 1? “What’s in it for me?”

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

Big Tech Inc.

• Zoombombing costs Zoom $85M:Today’s immaterial technology fine comes via Zoom, the video product that became ubiquitous during the pandemic. It was sued by users claiming that it was “violating users’ privacy by sharing their data with third parties without permission and enabling ‘Zoombombing’ incidents,” per TechCrunch. The settlement is worth a total of 0.07% of the company’s $112 billion market cap. Oh no.
• Amazon will pay you $10 for your palm print:Speaking of sums of money so small that they should not induce any sort of behavioral changes, Amazon wants to give people $10 in credit if they give the company their palm print so that they can better check out at the e-commerce giant’s physical stores. Hard pass on this one.
• Salesforce buys Mulesoft an RPA firm: CRM giant Salesforce is investing in Mulesoft, a company that it bought a ways back, in the form of German RPA company Servicetrace. Servicetrace will link up with Mulesoft, not Salesforce proper.
• I asked TechCrunch reporter and genial human Ron Miller why the deal matters. He said that the deal, “while not on par with the Slack megadeal, is probably the kind of smaller deals the company will make in the next year.” He explained that the Servicetrace acquisition gives SFDC an “entry into the growing RPA market without spending a ton of money.” Ron’s also bullish on the planned Mulesoft integration.

TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing

Image Credits:SEAN GLADWELL (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Are you all caught up on last week’s coverage of growth marketing? If not, read it here.

Growth roundup: Investing in community, targeting developers, new marketer recs

TechCrunch wants you to recommend growth marketers who have expertise in SEO, social, content writing and more! If you’re a growth marketer, pass this survey along to your clients; we’d like to hear about why they loved working with you.