Meta stops hiring, Stripe and Plaid break up, and Bill Gates questions Musk's motives in buying Twitter

Wednesday! (Also, a special happy birthday shout out to John L. x)

The Federal Reserve today approved a rare half-percentage-point interest rate increase—the largest since 2000, notes the WSJ—and a plan to shrink its $9 trillion asset portfolio as officials kicked into higher gear a campaign to slow inflation, which is running at a 40-year high. e.

California Governor Gavin Newsom today signed an executive order to “create a transparent regulatory and business environment for web3 companies.” The order signals California’s intention to become more deeply involved in the debates over how to regulate the fast-growing crypto industry amid worries about its impact on the financial system. Protocol has more here.

Facebook parent company Meta said today in an internal memo that it is pausing hiring for the rest of the year. The rare move comes as the company attempts to trim costs and refocus its energies, notes Business Insider. More here.

The leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion proposing to overturn Roe v. Wade raises a data privacy flash point: If abortion becomes criminal in some states, might a person’s data trail be treated as evidence? There is precedent for it, notes the Washington Post.

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Bull City Venture Partners is the opposite of flashy. The 20-year-old, generalist venture outfit only invests in two to four companies each year. It mostly invests in founders who’ve been around the block at least once, catching them as early in their new adventure as possible. And from its headquarters in Durham, North Carolina, it largely invests in East Coast startups located between Philadelphia and Atlanta.

Investors seem to approve of its deliberate approach. According to firm founder Jason Caplain, the outfit just closed on $50 million in capital commitments for its fourth fund, roughly doubling the size of its previous fund, which was itself a big step up from the firm’s first two funds ($15 million and $5 million, respectively).

It’s not the kind of fast rise that industry watchers have grown accustomed to seeing in recent years. Caplain insists that’s kind of the point. “We’re driven by carry,” he says, referring to the profits a venture firm makes off its successful bets. “We’re not asset gatherers” who make a living off management fees.

Seemingly, Bull City is holding its own, having filled a bit of a vacuum in the market when it launched. 

More here.

Brimstone, a three-year-old startup based in Oakland, Ca. that is developing carbon-free cement, raised a $55 million Series A round co-led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and DCVC. Additional investors in the round included Collaborative Fund, AccelR8, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Fifth Wall Climate Tech, Impact Science Ventures, S2G Ventures, Gatemore Capital Management, Osage University Partners, and SystemIQ. CNBC has more here.

Group14 Technologies, a seven-year-old, Woodinville, Wa.-based lithium-silicon battery developer has raised $400 million in Series C funding, including $100 million from Porsche. Other investors that chipped in include Canadian pension fund OMERS, Decarbonization Partners, private equity firm Riverstone, Vsquared Ventures and Moore Strategic Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Mosyle, a ten-year-old startup based in Winter Park, FL, that creates device management and security software for Apple devices, raised a $196 million Series B round led by Insight Partners; StepStone Group, Elephant, and Album VC also contributed to the round. The company has raised a total of $248.1 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Sentry, a ten-year-old startup based in San Francisco that provides app performance monitoring services, raised $90 million in Series E funding at a $3 billion valuation. Bond and Accel co-led the round; K5 Global and previous investor NEA also chipped in. The company has raised a total of $217 million. VentureBeat has more here.

Stake, a five-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based startup that has built an online trading platform, raised $50 million AUD ($36.3 million USD) in a Series A extension co-led by Tiger Global and DST Global Partners. The company originally closed on $40 million AUD ($29 million USD) last May for its Series A. Australia's Financial Review has more here.

Tailscale, a three-year-old startup based in Toronto that provides VPN services to its customers, raised $100 million in Series B funding at a valuation of more than $1 billion. CRV and Insight Partners co-led the round, joined by Accel, Heavybit, and Uncork Capital. The company has raised a total of $115 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Allocate, a one-year-old startup based in San Francisco that wants to make it easy for individuals to invest in VC funds by aggregating their capital and vetting them for fund managers, has raised $15.3 million in Series A funds. The round was led by M13; Bedrock, SignalFire, Intera Capital, and previous investors Tusk Venture Partners, Urban Innovation Fund, Fika Ventures, Anthemis, Basis Set Ventures, and Broadhaven Ventures also chipped in. The company has raised a total of $20.3 million. Business Insider has more here.

Amberdata, a five-year-old startup based in Palo Alto, Ca., that provides crypto-based research and insights to financial institutions, raised a $30 million Series B led by Knollwood Investment Advisory. Additional investors included Susquehanna International Group, Nasdaq, NAB Ventures, Chicago Trading Company, Nexo, Coinbase, Innovius and previous investors Citi, Franklin Templeton, Aspenwood Ventures, Rovida Kruptos Assets, and Boldstart Ventures. The company has raised a total of $47 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Kintent, a three-year-old startup based in Boston that automates compliance with data security standards, raised an $18 million Series A. OpenView led the round, joined by earlier backer Tola Capital participated. The company has raised a total of $22 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Line, a three-year-old San Francisco startup charges a monthly subscription fee in exchange for providing customers “an emergency line of funds without interest or credit checks, or the need to establish either credit history or a steady income,"has raised $7 million in equity and secured $18 million in debt. The round was led by Massive, with additional participation from TASC Ventures, Goodwater Capital, SustainVC, Avesta Fund, Strada Education Network, The Josephine Collective, Overtime VC, and Techstars. The company has raised a total of $25.2 million. TechCrunch has more here.

RobinFood, a four-year-old cloud kitchen startup based in Bogotá, Colombia, has raised a $32 million round led by Blue Like an Orange Sustainable Capital, Palm Drive Capital, and Minerva Capital. The company has raised a total of $68.3 million. More here.

Sensible Weather, a three-year-old startup based in Santa Monica, Ca., that reimburses consumers for weather-related events, raised a $12 million Series A round led by Infinity Ventures. Certares Ventures, Wonder Ventures, Group1001, and assorted angels also participated. The company has raised a total of $16.3 million. Axios has more here.

Valence, a five-year-old startup based in New York that builds teamwork platforms for its customers, raised a $25 million Series A. Insight Partners led the round. The company has raised a total of $25 million. TechCrunch has more here.

VitroLabs, a six-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based company that's developing "slaughter-free" lab-grown leather, has raised $46 million in Series A funding, including from Kering, the luxury conglomerate that owns some of fashion's hottest brands, Leonardo DiCaprio and the Danish fashion company Bestseller. The Business of Fashion has more here.

Ava, an eight-year-old startup based in San Francisco that uses AI to create live captions for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, raised a $10 million Series A. Khosla Ventures was the lead investor; additional participants included Initialized Capital, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, LeFonds VC, Ring Capital, and Sorenson’s Enable Ventures. The company has raised a total of $16.3 million. Axios has more here.

BarRaiser, a 16-month-old startup based in Delhi, India-based startup that has built a platform for online interviews and recruiting, raised $4.2 million in seed funding from 021 Capital and Global Founders Capital, with assorted angels also chipping in. TechNode has more here.

Fundid, a one-year-old startup based in Missoula, Mt., that helps small businesses find new sources of capital, raised seed financing of $3.25 million. The lead was Nevcaut Ventures led; The Artemis Fund and Builders and Backers also joined the deal. TechCrunch has more here.

Galileo, a one-year-old, San Francisco-based startup aiming to optimize AI training sets, has raised a $5.1 million seed round. The Factory led the deal; angel investors including Kaggle co-founder and CEO Anthony Goldbloom also participated. TechCrunch has more here.

Henry, a two-year-old, Buenos Aires-based online computer science school that trains software developers from low-income backgrounds to understand technical skills and gain employment, announced a $10 million round. Cathay Innovation, Seeya Ventures, and Kayyak Ventures co-led the financing, with additional participation from Accion Venture Lab, Tim Draper, DILA Capital, and other angels. The company has raised a total of $11.8 million. More here.

Hubble Technology, a nearly two-year-old, Reston, Va.-based analytics platform that promises unique insights on the relationships between an organization’s assets in an easy-to-understand visual dashboard, has raised $9 million in funding led by Paladin Capital Group. Accel and CrowdStrike’s Falcon Fund also invested. SecurityWeek has more here.

RideTandem, a three-year-old London startup that helps companies provide taxi services to employees who cannot afford to commute, raised a £1.75 million seed round. The financing was led by 1818 Venture Capital; Conduit Capital, Low Carbon Innovation Fund, Ascension, and Seedrs also invested. More here.

Scoot Science, a five-year-old startup based in Santa Cruz, Ca., that provides ocean data for fish farms, has raised $4.1 million in seed funding led by Third Kind Venture Capital; Rackhouse, Climate Capital, My Climate Journey, Hawktail, Liquid 2 Ventures, Impact Assets, Box Group, and other angels also invested. More here.

StimScience, a five-year-old, Berkeley, Ca.-based neuroscience startup whose first product is an electronic sleep aid headband that uses non-invasive brain stimulation to improve the wearer's sleep quality, has raised seed funding of $8.3 million. Khosla Ventures led the round, joined by Monozukuri Ventures and Great Eagle Holding. The company has raised a total of $14.3 million. Benzinga has more here.

Tengiva, a four-year-old startup based in Montreal that helps textile companies source materials, raised a CAD $4.95 million seed round led by Fonds Ecofuel, with additional participation from Inovia, Anges Québec, Active Impact Investments, and N49P. The Financial Post has more here.

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Afore Capital, a nearly six-year-old, Bay Area-based venture firm that invests at the "pre-seed" stage, has closed its second fund with $150 million in capital commitments. The outfit now has roughly $300 million in assets under management. TechCrunch has more here.

A couple of up-and-coming crypto market participants are starting a hedge fund that will focus on a “long-only” strategy after receiving $85 million in funding from some of the sector’s most prominent proponents, reports Bloomberg. Ryan Watkins, a 25-year-old former analyst at Messari, and 26-year-old Daniel Cheung, who worked at Jennison Associates, have formed Pangea Fund Management and received backing from Bain Capital and ParaFi. Other participants in the funding round include Brad Burnham, co-founder of Union Square Ventures, Apollo Global Management co-founder Josh Harris, and Alameda Research. More here.

Coinbase ended talks to buy the parent company of Mercado Bitcoin, a Brazilian crypto exchange backed by SoftBank and Tribe Capital. The negotiations, which Mercado's parent hired JPMorgan Chase to help with, could have resulted in a controlling acquisition or a minority stake sale, says Bloomberg. More here.

SoundCloud, the Berlin, Germany-based music streamer, has acquired Musiio, a Singapore-based startup that says its AI can “listen” to music faster than any human, tag the audio, and curate playlists. Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed. Muslio had raised $10 million from investors, including SGInnovate, Aletra Capital Partners and Wavemaker Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

B Capital Technology Opportunities, a blank check company formed by B Capital Group, withdrew its plans for an IPO yesterday. It had filed in February 2021 and most recently planned to raise $200 million by offering 20 million shares at $10. Renaissance Capital has more here.

Bitkraft Ventures, an investment platform focused on gaming and interactive media, said today that Dennis Fong and Ryan Wyatt are joining as venture partners. The two are "OGs in gaming and esports," gushes the firm's founder. VentureBeat has more here.

Cameo, an app that became a pandemic darling by letting people pay celebrities to send them customized video greetings, told its employees that it was laying off more than 80 employees, about a quarter of its workforce. The Information has the story here.

Famed VC John Doerr is giving $1.1 billion to Stanford University to fund a school focused on climate change and sustainability. The gift, which Doerr is making with his wife Ann, is the largest ever to a university for the establishment of a new school, and is the second largest gift to an academic institution, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. The New York Times has more here.

Bill Gates said that he isn’t sure of Elon Musk’s motives in buying Twitter and that social media must play a role in curbing the spread of misinformation. “How does [Musk] feel about something that says vaccines kill people or that Bill Gates is tracking people?” Gates said at a WSJ event today, adding, “It’s not totally clear what he is going to do.” More here.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick rushed to secure a takeover bid from Microsoft to escape liability for misconduct at the company, a new lawsuit from New York City officials alleges. The suit was filed in Delaware last week by New York City Employees’ Retirement System and pension funds for the city’s teachers, police and firefighters. The groups own Activision stock and believe actions by the gaming giant's management hurt the company’s value. Axios has more here.

California's population fell last year, according to the state's finance department. Triggered by a slump in births and immigration, a rise in deaths and an ongoing exodus from California, San Jose no longer has 1 million residents, having lost 1.5% of its population in the last year. Meanwhile, the Bay Area, which represents 19% of California’s total population, accounted for 43% of the statewide decline.

Roughly three months after Wordle’s sale to The New York Times, the paper is announcing that the game has brought “an unprecedented tens of millions of new users to The Times.”

From partners to rivals: Stripe vs. Plaid.

Coinbase’s new marketplace for NFTs is now officially open to all -- and it’s off to a very slow start.

The billionaire club's run on cobalt says everything about our battery-powered future. In Vanity Fair.

A wine expert that has never tasted wine.

Even Chinese government officials want to see the new "Top Gun" movie.

"All the unwanted children should be allowed to live at the Supreme Court building with those Justices and they should raise every one of those babies."

Apple Watch cases.

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