Musk's margin loan, Twitter's code freeze, and the lawsuit facing checkout startup Bolt by a prominent customer

Elon Musk can't afford too many more days like today, observes Bloomberg. His stake in Tesla tumbled by more than $32 billion, with the carmaker's shares falling 12% to close today at $876.42 -- their biggest plunge since September 2020. He still has more than enough to secure the margin loan he needs to acquire Twitter, says the outlet, but at the current price, he would have just $11.4 billion left over in unpledged shares. If the stock fell below $740, which it briefly did on Feb. 24, Musk reportedly wouldn’t have enough to cover the full $12.5 billion collateral loan that's part of his deal with Twitter's board. 

Speaking of Twitter, it has locked down changes to its social networking platform through Friday, making it harder for employees to make unauthorized changes, according to Bloomberg. It says that for now, Twitter won’t allow product updates unless they’re business-critical to prevent employees who may be miffed about Musk's deal from “going rogue.”

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Slow Ventures, a 12-year-old, generalist venture firm that's headed up by former Facebook execs Kevin Colleran and Sam Lessin, along with Will Quist, formerly of Industry Ventures, says it just closed its fifth flagship seed-stage fund with $195 million in capital commitments and its second opportunity-type fund with $130 million.

The announcement comes almost three years to the date from when the outfit last announced two new funds totaling $220 million, suggesting a pace that's reminiscent of days gone by -- before the pace of venture capital sped up to almost dizzying speeds.

That doesn't mean Slow is antiquated. Seemingly the opposite is true. In 2018, for example, Slow received approval from its limited partners to invest in crypto. One of the firm's first investments was a seed investment in the first financing round of what became the Solana coin. It wound up paying $.05 per coin; today, the coins trade at around $100 each.

The firm has also rolled out Slow DAOs, or decentralized autonomous organizations that use smart contracts and provide participants with governance tokens to vote on fund allocation, among other things.

Slow -- which has an office in San Francisco, with outposts in Boston and New York -- formed its first DAO to purchase land in Montana. The firm says it was part of an effort to establish a repeatable DAO creation process that it could use again for other purposes. But also, the DAO enabled Slow to acquire some gorgeous property -- which is something its venture fund could not have invested in -- and to bring along some of its funds' investors if they wanted in on the deal.

Slow has meanwhile also begun dabbling with a third strategy that it's figuring out in real time. The idea is to invest directly in people in exchange for a slice of all of their future income or else a piece of their equity.  Last November, it spent $1.7 million to invest in the career of Marina Mogilko, a thirtysomething YouTube personality with numerous channels who agreed to give Slow 5% of her creator earnings for 30 years in return.

Critics likened the contract to slavery -- it sounds more payday loan than venture investment to us -- but Slow also quickly established a kind of "enterprise version" of the offering.

More here.

Adept, a four-month-old, San Francisco-based research and product AI lab cofounded by David Luan, who recently led Google’s large model program and before that was head of engineering at OpenAI, has raised $65 million in Series A funding co-led by Greylock and Addition. Root Ventures also joined the round, along with numerous notable angel investors, including Behance founder Scott Belsky and Airtable cofounder Howie Liu. TechCrunch has more here.

BandLab, a seven-year-old, Singapore-based app that lets users create and share music (it's part of the digital division of Caldecott Music Group, or CMG), has raised $65 million in Series B funding. The investment round was led by Vulcan Capital, with participation from Prosus, CMG and K3 Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Harness, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that says it uses machine learning to allow developers to release applications into production faster by detecting the quality of deployments and automatically identifying failed ones, has raised $175 million in Series D funding led by Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from a long (long) line of other backers. Harness was co-founded by Jyoti Bansal, who sold his previous company, AppDynamics, for $3.7 billion to Cisco Systems right before it was to go public in 2017. VentureBeat has more here.

HartBeat, a new, L.A.-based venture that combines two existing companies founded by actor and comedian Kevin Hart -- a film and production company HartBeat Productions and Laugh Out Loud, which focuses on marketing, sales and branded content and has a distribution network -- has sold a 15% stake in the business to Abry Partners for $100 million, reports the WSJ. More here.

Kinexon, a 10-year-old, Munich, Germany-based real-time location data and analytics platform used by industries such as manufacturing, logistics, and sports, has raised $130 million in a series A round of funding. Private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners led the funding round. The venture capital arm of BMW and Deutsche Telekom participated, too SiliconAngle has more here.

OnTime, the ride-hailing app of GAC, which is China’s fifth largest carmaker, has raised one billion yuan ($153 million) in Series A funding from its robotaxi-rivals-turned-partners-out-of-collective-necessity WeRide.ai and Pony.ai, which both operate out of China’s southern metropolis Guangzhou and in California. TechCrunch has more here.

Pollen, an eight-year-old, London and L.A.-based travel and entertainment technology company, has raised $150 million in Series C funding from investors including Kindred Ventures, Lansdowne Partners, Northzone, Sienna Capital, Backed, and Molten Ventures. More here.

Qualified, a nearly four-year-old, San Francisco-based lead generation platform designed specifically for users of Salesforce, has raised $95 million in Series C funding led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from Tiger Global, Norwest Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and Salesforce Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

RelationalAI, a 4.5-year-old, Berkeley, Ca.-based intelligence data apps developer, has raised $75 million in Series B funding led by Tiger Global. Other backers in the round include Madrona Venture Group, Addition, and Menlo Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Replicant, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based contact center automation company, has raised $78 million in Series B funding led by Stripes. Other backers in the round include Salesforce Ventures, IronGrey, Omega Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Atomic (which incubated the company). TechCrunch has more here.

SonarSource, a 14-year-old, Geneva, Switzerland-based startup that says its products help developers create code that's free of bugs and security vulnerabilities and which embeds this code directly into the development process, has raised $412 million in funding. Advent International and General Catalyst led the round, joined by Insight Partners and Permira, among others. Crunchbase News has more here.

Upside, a six-year-old, Washington D.C.-based retail technology company, raised $165 million in funding from investors including General Catalyst and earlier backers Bessemer Ventures and Builders VC. SiliconAngle has more here.

BaseTen, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based startup whose tech aims to make it easier to incorporate machine learning into a business’ operations, production and processes without specialized engineering knowledge, has $20 million in funding over two tranches, both led by Greylock. TechCrunch has much more here.

Conjura, a 5.5-year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based e-commerce data analytics platform, has raised €15 million ($16 million) in Series A funding co-led by Act Venture Capital and MiddleGame Ventures. The Irish Times has more here.

Copper, a three-year-old, Seattle-based banking account and debit card company for teens, just raised $29 million in Series A funding led by Fiat Ventures. Other backers in the round included Panoramic Ventures, Insight Partners, Invesco Private Capital, and others. TechCrunch has more here.

Food Rocket, a year-old, San Francisco-based rapid-delivery grocery startup, has raised $25 million in Series A funding led by Alimentation Couche-Tard, a Canadian convenience store chain with many thousands of locations. TechCrunch has more here.

Intigriti, a five-year-old, Antwerp, Belgium-based hacking and bug bounty platform, has raised €21.1 million ($22.6 million) in Series B funding led by Octopus Ventures, with participation from EnBW New Ventures and ETF Partners. Silicon Canals has more here.

Loris, a four-year-old, New York-based maker of call center analytics software, has raised $12 million in Series A funding co-led by Bow Capital and ServiceNow, with participation from earlier backers Floodgate and Vertex Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

QuotaPath, a four-year-old, Philadelphia, Pa.-based commissions tracking and automation solution for sales and revenue teams, has raised $41 million in Series B funding led by Tribe Capital. Other investors in the round included Insight Partners, ATX Venture Partners, Stage 2 Capital, and Integr8d Capital. Technical.ly has more here.

Riverside, a three-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based podcast recording service, has raised $35 million in Series B funding led by Zeev Ventures, with participation from investor Lachy Groom and Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six. The startup has now raised $47 million altogether. More here.

Source Defense, a 7.5-year-old, Rosh Haayin, Israel-based web application protection company, has raised $27 million in Series B funding led by Springtide Ventures. Other backers in the round included Jerusalem Venture Partners, AllegisCyber Capital, Global Brain, Connecticut Innovations, NightDragon, and Capital One Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

Zippedi, a five-year-old Bay Area-based firm whose inventory robots keep tabs of what’s on shelves, has raised $12.5 million in Series A funding led by Transpose Platform. The funding follows a $6.9 million seed round announced in September of last year, led by early-stage robotics investor Grep VC. TechCrunch has more here.

BintanGO, a year-old, Jakarta-based app focused on helping Indonesian creators monetize their content, including helping them to manage brand collaborations, measure engagement, and send invoices, has raised $2.1 million in seed funding led by Investible, eWTP Technology and Innovation Fund, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Crafty, a seven-year-old, Chicago-based platform for workplaces to manage food, beverage and supplies for their in-office, remote, and hybrid teams, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Tribeca Venture Partners. Other backers in the round included Greycroft, OCA Ventures, Gaingels, 7BC, and Bluestein Ventures. More here.

InZiv, a four-year-old, Jerusalem, Israel-based inspection and repairer of microLED, QLED, and OLED displays, has raised $10 million in a Series A1 funding led by BlueRed Partners, with participation from OurCrowd and others. More here.

Juno, a three-year-old, London-based employee benefits platform, has raised $4 million in funding led by Hoxton Ventures, with participation from numerous individual investors. Tech.eu has more here.

Mad Realities, a year-old, Brooklyn-based crypto media company, has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Paradigm, with participation from Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media and others. The Block has more here.

Mirai Flights, a year-old, London-based private jet booking platform, has raised $3 million in funding from Xploration Capital. More here.

OneVest, a 16-month-old, Calgary and Toronto-based embedded wealth management platform serving  fintechs, digital banks, and financial institutions, has raised CAD $5 million ($3.91 million) in seed funding led by Luge Capital. Other participants in the round included OMERS Ventures, AAF Management, FJ Labs, NAventures, Panache Ventures, and other angels. More here.

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Ansa Capital, a new, New York-based venture firm founded by Marco DeMeireles, formerly TCG, and Allan Jean-Baptiste, formerly KKR Growth, has closed its debut fund with $100 million in capital commitments. Henry Kravis and George Roberts are among investors in the debut fund, along with Princeton University and TCG Capital Management founder Peter Chernin. Bloomberg has more here.

A new crypto fund founded by Joe McCann is looking to raise $1 billion in capital, joining the likes of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Paradigm, and Katie Haun's new set of funds to unveil a new billion-dollar-plus fund over the last year. McCann — whose career has ranged from systematic trading at Passport Capital to strategy at Microsoft —  has named his new firm Asymmetric and has already received commitments from Marc Andreessen and Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko, among others. The Block has more here.

Left Lane Capital, a three-year-old, New York- and London-based venture capital and growth equity firm founded by four veterans of Insight Venture Partners, has closed its second fund with a notable $1.4 billion in capital commitments, less than two years after closing its debut fund with $630 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Affirm, the online financial services firm, is hiring a VP of corporate development. 

More than half of people in the U.S. have likely had Covid, says a new CDC report.

Indiegogo this morning announced that it has appointed Becky Center as CEO. Center joins the crowdfunding platform following a stint as VP at healthcare app Healthjoy and eight years in various roles at Groupon. She’ll take over for Andy Yang, who moved over to Meta late last year after two years in the position.

Jump Capital, a Chicago-based venture capital firm, recently announced the appointment of two new members to its investment team: Austin Chung has joined as a vice president from Touchdown Ventures; Robb Hutchins has joined the firm as its VP of growth from Amazon. More here.

The Twitter account of electric-vehicle designer and Fisker CEO Henrik Fisker vanished -- seemingly not on accident --  shortly after Twitter announced it was accepting the buyout offer of his rival, Elon Musk. Fisker said in a tweet Monday that his 86,000 followers should look for him on Instagram for future updates.

Robinhood announced today that the company is laying off 9% of its full-time employees. TechCrunch has more here.

Oh, boy. Bolt, the payments startup known for founder Ryan Breslow's Twitter threads claiming Silicon Valley is run by “mob bosses,” is being sued by its most prominent customer. As Bloomberg reports, the complaint by Forever 21 parent Authentic Brands Group alleges that Bolt not only failed to deliver promised technology but that during Bolt’s integration with Forever 21, the clothing company lost out on more than $150 million in online sales. The complaint also states that Bolt raised funding at increasingly high valuations by “consistently overstating” the nature of its integration with ABG’s brands to suggest it had more customers than it did and to convince investors to bankroll additional growth for the startup. Bolt, a "one-click checkout" startup, competes with much bigger companies, like PayPal. It also competed with Fast, a startup abruptly imploded when it couldn't secure more funding. 

Google tells shareholders that YouTube Shorts is doing great, don’t worry about TikTok!

Teen who's tracking Elon Musk's jet now making contingency plans for his Twitter account.

Cultivating morel mushrooms.

Puppy love.

The $6,000 espresso machine that goes everywhere with Jimmy Butler.

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