Companies keep quiet, NFTs flatline, and Musk's take-private plan for Twitter reportedly includes an exit in three years

As protesters gathered and politicians scrambled to speak out, the country’s largest corporations remained largely silent today after a leaked draft of a Supreme Court decision indicated that conservative justices are poised to overturn a landmark ruling that guarantees access to legal abortions.

Twitter will always remain free for “casual users,” but government and commercial users may see a “slight cost” to stay on the social media platform, the company’s would-be owner Elon Musk said in a tweet today.

Musk has also told potential investors he could return the social-media company to public ownership after just a few years.

The SEC said today that it plans to add 20 investigators and litigators to its Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit, which was created in September 2017 when regulators noticed a surge of new digital coins sold to the public. The commission has positioned itself as the chief government bulwark against fraud in the $1.7 trillion market.

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AccelByte, a six-year-old startup based in Redmond, Wa, that builds tools to enable clients to quickly launch online games, raised $60 million in Series B funding. The round was led by SoftBank; Sony Interactive Entertainment and earlier investors Galaxy Interactive and NetEase also participated. The total amount that the company has raised is approximately $70 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Dianthus Therapeutics, a three-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based startup that develops monoclonal antibodies to treat autoimmune diseases, has raised $100 million in Series A funding led by 5AM Ventures, Avidity Partners, and Fidelity. Wedbush Healthcare Partners, Fairmount, Tellus BioVentures, and Venrock also participated. The company has raised approximately $121 million to date. FierceBiotech has more here.

Edge Delta, a four-year-old Seattle startup that helps clients mine their data for security insights, just raised a $63 million round. Quiet Capital led the syndicate, which consisted of BAM Elevate, Earlybird Digital East, Geodesic Capital, Kin Ventures, ServiceNow, Cisco Investments, and previous investors Menlo Ventures, MaC Venture Capital, and Amity Ventures. Edge Delta has raised a total of $81 million to date. GeekWire has more here.

Kevin, a four-year-old Lithuania-based startup that designs payment software for online and offline businesses, raised a $65 million Series A round. Accel was the lead; other investors included Eurazeo, OTB Ventures, Speedinvest, OpenOcean, Global Paytech Ventures, 20VC founder Harry Stebbings, CEO & co-founder of Supercell Ilkka Paananen, former CEO of Venmo Amitabh Jhawar, and other angels. Total capital raised is approximately $79 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Point, an eight-year-old startup based in Palo Alto, Ca., that helps homeowners tap into home equity loans, has raised $115 million in Series C funding. The round was led by WestCap. Deer Park Road Management, The Palisades Group, and Alpaca VC also participated, as did previous investors Andreessen Horowitz, Ribbit Capital, Redwood Trust, Atalaya Capital Management, and DAG Ventures. Point has raised approximately $169 million in total. TechCrunch has more here.

Teleport, a seven-year-old startup based in Oakland, Ca., that says it  develops secure communication protocols for its customers, raised $110 million in Series C funding at a $1.1 billion valuation. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, accompanied by new investor Insight Partners. Previous investors Kleiner Perkins and S28 Capital also chipped in. Teleport's total capital raised is approximately $169 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Tubulis, a ten-year-old Munich, Germany-based startup that develops antibody drug conjugates, has raised €60 million in Series B funding led by Andera Partners, with additional participation from Bayern Kapital, BioMedPartners, coparion, High-Tech Gründerfonds, Occident, and Seventure Partners. The company has raised approximately $75 million in total. More here.

Accern, an eight-year-old, New York-based startup that uses AI to accelerate software development for financial institutions, raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Mighty Capital, joined by Tribe Capital, Shasta Ventures, Gaingels, and Fusion Fund. The company has raised a total of $34.8 million. TechCrunch has more here.

AutoRABIT, an eight-year-old, San Francisco startup focused on developing secure Salesforce tools for developers, raised $26 million in funding from Full In Partners. Total capital raised to date is $53 million. VentureBeat has more here.

Druid, a four-year-old Romanian startup that automates the creation of chatbots, raised a $15 million Series A round. Karma Ventures and Hoxton Ventures co-led the round. VentureBeat has more here.

Graphite, a two-year-old, New York-based maker of code review tools, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. TechCrunch has more here.

Healthmap Solutions, a six-year-old Tampa startup that helps providers manage patients with kidney disease, raised $35 million. The round was co-led by GuideWell and Highmark Ventures, with additional participation from Windrose, DCHP, and Shulman Ventures. More here.

LottieFiles, a five-year-old, Malaysian startup that creates tools allowing enterprises to develop animated content, raised a $37 million Series B round led by Square Peg Capital. XYZ VC, GreatPoint Ventures. Previous investors 500 Startups and M12 also contributed to the round, which brings the company's total funding to approximately $46 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Lumos, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based startup that wants to build a kind of App Store equivalent for enterprises to manage all of the SaaS apps their employees use, has raised more than $30 million from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Neo, investor Lachy Groom, Google Cloud CISO Phil Venables, OpenAI CTO Greg Brockman and others. TechCrunch has more here.

Phylum, a two-year-old startup based in Evergreen, Co., that analyzes software for malicious code, raised a $15 million Series A round led by ClearSky. Atlassian Ventures and earlier backer FirstIn also invested. The company has raised a total of $19.5 million. VentureBeat has more here.

Prisma, a six-year-old Berlin-based startup that helps developers work faster through providing an open-source database toolkit, raised $40 million. The round was led by Altimeter, with additional participation from previous investors Amplify Partners and Kleiner Perkins. The company has raised $56.5 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

Rise Up, an eight-year-old Paris startup that helps employees learn essential skills through online training, has raised €30 million in financing. Connected Capital led, and was joined by MAIF Avenir and Impact Partners. Tech.eu has more here.

SLAMcore, a six-year-old startup based in London that improves mapping for robots as well as consumer products, raised a $16 million Series A round. Robo Global Ventures and Presidio Ventures co-led the round; Samsung Ventures, Amadeus Capital, Global Brain, IP Group, MMC, Yamato Holdings, and Octopus Ventures also participated. The company has raised $26.4 million in total. VentureBeat has more here.

Sleuth, a 2.5-year-old, Bay Area-based startup whose tool integrates with existing software development toolchains to provide insights that measure efficiency, has raised $22 million in Series A funding led by Felicis Ventures. Menlo Ventures joined the round with participation from CRV, which led Sleuth’s seed round. TechCrunch has more here.

Smallstep Labs, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based certificate management startup, has raised $26 million in funding across two previously unannounced rounds, including a $7 million seed round led by Boldstart Ventures, and a $19 million Series A round led by StepStone Group. Accel, Upside Partnership, and Bain Capital Ventures are also investors in the company. SecurityWeek has more here.

Toplyne, a one-year-old startup based in India, raised $15 million Series A round. Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India co-led the round. The company has raised $17.5 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

Unifly, a seven-year-old, Antwerp, Belgium-based unmanned traffic management platform for drones, has raised €10 million from Terra Drone and Japan’s JOIN. The company has now raised $36.3 million altogether. Silicon Canals has more here.

Bounce Imaging, a ten-year-old Boston startup that develops 360- degree cameras for safety and rescue professionals, raised a $4.2 million Series A led by R42 Group; Good Growth Capital and Tanis Ventures also chipped in. The company has raised $9.5 million to date. Buffalo Inno has more here.

Capable Health, a two-year-old New York-based startup that says it speeds up the development of health care apps, raised a $6 million seed round led by M13, with additional participation from AlleyCorp and Able Partners. Axios has more here.

Contactile, a three-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based robotics startup developing what it says is a new tactile sensor technology that should allow grippers to better judge and grab objects and apply the proper amount of force for the task, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by True Ventures. Other backers in the round included Flying Fox Ventures, Radar Ventures, and UNSW Founders. Robotics World has more here.

Decrypt, a four-year-old online publication focused on the crypto market, has spun out from blockchain incubator ConsenSys Mesh and raised $10 million at a $50 million valuation, according to Axios. Hack.VC, Hashkey Capital, Canvas Ventures, Protocol Labs, SK Group, and four DAOs participated in the deal. Axios has more here.

RideTandem, a three-year-old London startup that helps companies provide taxi services to employees who would otherwise be unable to commute to work, raised a £1.75 million seed round. The financing was led by 1818 Venture Capital; additional investors included Conduit Connect, Low Carbon Innovation Fund, Ascension, Seedrs, and angel investors. EU Startups has more here.

Stakes, a three-year-old, New York-based startup that rewards consumers with NFTs when they correctly predict sports outcomes, raised a $5.3 million seed round. Digital Currency Group, FBG Capital, CMS Holdings, LD Capital, Cadenza Ventures, Matrixport Ventures, and Sterling Select Group invested in the round. VentureBeat has more here.

Upgrade, a three-year-old startup based in Houston, Tex., that develops customized wigs in partnership with hair stylists, has raised $1 million in seed extension funding. ANIM, Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell, The Artemis Fund, and Mercury Fund joined in the funding. Fast Company has more here.

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Catalio Capital Management, a two-year-old, New York-based life sciences investment firm founded by two former investors from Camden Partners, a 27-year-old, Baltimore, Md.-based growth equity firm, says it has raised $381 million for its third fund. The WSJ has more here.

Fohlio, a seven-year-old, New York-based SaaS business that aims to streamline the creation of construction project schedules, product documents, and presentation materials, and integrate them into users' projects more efficiently, has raised $3.15 million in seed funding. Brick & Mortar Ventures led the round, joined by Ocean Azul, Dreamit Ventures, and GZ Real Estate. Commercial Observer has more here.

The Home Depot has launched a $150 million venture capital arm to focus on customer experience and home improvement startups. It's interesting timing, given that the market is tightening (which is usually exactly when corporate venture arms start to pull back), that Home Depot's shares specifically are down 25% year to date and that, with rising interest rates, even fewer Americans will be focused on home improvements right now (is our guess). But maybe better late than never?  More here.

Hetz Ventures, a five-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based seed-stage firm that focuses on DevOps and dev tools, open source software, enterprise/data software, fintech and cybersecurity, has raised $123 million for its third fund. TechCrunch has more here.

HOF Capital, a seven-year-old, New York-based venture firm launched by three Egyptian entrepreneurs has raised $300 million for its second fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Rising interest rates are cooling off the housing market -- except in California, apparently. The median price of an existing California single-family home soared 12% in March from a year earlier to a record $849,000, according to the Realtors group. As Bloomberg notes, that’s more than twice the U.S. median of $382,000. Meanwhile, almost a third of all homes in the state sold for more than $1 million. “People say they want to wait for the crash to buy,” Anthony Salazar, a Burbank-based real estate agent, tells the outlet. “It’s never going to crash.”

Maria Buitron has been promoted to principal at Piva Capital, a San Francisco-based venture firm. Buitron joined the firm at its outset in the summer of 2019 after working as a process engineer and then a management consultant, including at Accenture, in Mexico. More here.

Match Group CEO Shar Dubey is stepping down as chief of the dating app giant, effective May 31. Bernard Kim, president of Zynga since 2016, will take over the helm, the company said today.

Turnaround specialist Cerberus Capital Management has hired an ex-Google exec and semiconductor expert to lead venture capital investments. Amir Salek joined the firm as a senior managing director and partner to scout out opportunities in machine learning, semiconductors, edge computing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and web3. Cerberus earlier this year formed a stage-agnostic venture capital platform called Tracker Ventures. More here.

Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg today criticized the Supreme Court’s written draft decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade abortion-rights ruling, posting to her Instagram and Facebook pages that doing so would mean taking away “one of our most fundamental rights." It's a scary day for women all across our country," she wrote. “Every woman, no matter where she lives, must be free to choose whether and when she becomes a mother. Few things are more important to women’s health and equality.”

A luxury guest lodge that Peter Thiel is hoping to build in New Zealand, where he has citizenship, is reportedly facing pushback by a local senior planner.

Apple has hired Ford Motor veteran Desi Ujkashevic, a "sign the iPhone maker is again ramping up development of an electric car," reports Bloomberg.

Author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance, who last month earned former President Donald Trump's late endorsement in Ohio's Republican Senate primary, has won the GOP contest, according to numerous media outlets.

Victoria Zuo has joined QED Investors, an Alexandria, Va.-based venture firm, as a principal. Formerly, she was with Gradient Ventures. Zuo, who was born and raised in Nanjing, China, is based in San Francisco. More here.

The NFT market is collapsing.

Russia is losing on the electronic battlefield.

"I don't really have a business plan." How Elon Musk wings it.

Inside Politico's historic scoop.

Why video calls are bad for brainstorming.

The world's longest-serving employee.

A newly opened glass-bottomed bridge that may be the longest in the world. 

A $100 million Lake Tahoe home with a 12-slip dock and a sandy beach (and also a little bit of Trump Hotel vibes).

Weekender bags for your great escape(s).

As a founder, you know the headaches of securing startup capital better than anybody. But what if there was an easier way? SeedInvest enables founders to find their next investors and biggest evangelists through equity crowdfunding, unleashing the force of nature that is its community of over 600,000 everyday angel investors. Read some of SeedInvest’s portfolio success stories or apply for a raise today at go.seedinvest.com/vc.