More trouble for SPACs, Fidelity cuts private company valuations, and a wristwatch to set you free 🪁

The Supreme Court today blocked Texas from immediately enforcing a new state law that aims to prohibit large social-media platforms from suppressing users’ posts based on the content of their speech. The court granted an emergency request by a pair of tech-industry trade groups to put the law on hold for now while they challenge it in court. The groups warned the law would unleash a torrent of hate speech and misinformation on their platforms. The WSJ has the story here.

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It's was a tough day for special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, which had already fallen out of favor after roughly 18 months in the limelight.

First, Senator Elizabeth Warren announced today that she's planning a bill that targets the SPAC industry. Called the "SPAC Accountability Act of 2022," the bill would expand the legal liability of parties involved in SPAC transactions, close loopholes that SPACs have "long exploited to make overblown projections," and lock in longer the investors sponsoring a deal.

Even if the bill never passes, SPACs look to be starting a new chapter, given that the SEC is today concluding a 60-day public comment period on a number of its own proposed guidelines for SPACs, specifically around disclosures, marketing practices and third-party oversight.

As TechCrunch noted in a weekend look at numerous electric vehicle SPACs to flounder, if the SEC's rules are approved, the barrier of entry to going public via a SPAC will rise to the same level as companies choosing the more traditional IPO listing process, including to hold liable banks associated with SPACs for misstatements related to the merger. (To protect itself, Goldman Sachs has already said it's no longer working with most SPACs that it took public and pausing work with new SPAC issuance.)

It's not as if either initiative will abruptly stop SPACs in their tracks. They began losing momentum when the SEC warned in March 2021 that SPACs weren’t accounting correctly for investor incentives called warrants. Indeed, while 247 SPACs were closed in 2020, the majority of the SPACs closed in 2021 (a stunning 613 of them) came together in the first half of the year, before the SEC made it quite so plain that it planned to do more on the regulatory front.

Now those many blank-check companies need to find suitable targets in a market turned bearish, and the clock is ticking. Given that blank-check companies are typically expected to merge with a target company within 24 months of investors funding the SPAC, if those hundreds of SPACs can't complete mergers with candidate companies within the first half of next year, they'll either have to wind down (which can means millions of lost dollars for SPAC sponsors) or else seek out shareholder approval for extensions.

It's even worse than it sounds. More here.

Menlo Microsystems, an Irvine, Ca.-based outfit that was spun out of GE Ventures in 2016 and makes microelectromechanical systems switches, has raised $150 million in funding. Investors in the round include Vertical Venture Partners, Tony Fadell’s Future Shape, Fidelity Management & Research Company, DBL Partners and Adage Capital Management. Earlier investors also participated. All told, the company has raised $225 million. VentureBeat has more here.

Rimac Group, the 12-year-old Croatian company best known for its 1,900 horsepower Nevera electric sports car, says it has raised 500 million euros (about $537 million) from investors including Goldman Sachs, Porsche and a technology fund advised by SoftBank. The new funding round values Rimac at over 2 billion euros. CNBC has more here.

Ultima Genomics, a five-year-old, Newark, Ca.-based company that says its technology can sequence a whole human genome for $100,  just emerged from stealth mode with $600 million in funding. The company's backers include General Atlantic, Andreessen Horowitz, D1 Capital and Khosla Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Vestaron, a 17-year-old startup based in Durham, NC, that is developing biological alternatives to chemical-based crop controls using peptides, raised an $82 million Series C round. The co-leads were Ordway Selections and Cavallo Ventures, while iSelect, Northpond Ventures, Novo Holdings, Sygnenta Group Ventures, and CGC Ventures also participated. The company has raised a total of $254.9 million. AFN has more here.

Felt, a 16-month-old, Oakland, Ca.-based startup that says it has come up with a better way to make and share maps on the internet, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Footwork. Other investors in the round include Bain Capital Ventures, Moxxie Ventures and Designer Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Florence, a 5.5-year-old, London-based marketplace that connects vacant care home shifts to local nurses and carers looking for extra work, has raised $35 million in a Series B round led by Axa Venture Partners, with participation from Roo Capital and earlier backer Seek Investments. The startup has now raised close to $50 million altogether. Tech.eu has more here.

Jetty, a seven-year-old New York startup that is a credit building service rooting in the reporting of rent payments to credit bureaus, raised a $23 million round from Wilshire Lane Capital, PayPal Ventures, Experian Ventures, and Morgan Properties, per Crunchbase. The company has raised a total of $63.5 million. PYMNTS has more here.

Mondu, a one-year-old Berlin startup that offers a "buy now, pay later" option for small businesses in Germany, raised a $43 million Series A led by Valar Ventures, with additional funds provided by Cherry Ventures and FinTech Collective. The company has raised a total of $56.9 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Onramp Funds, a two-year-old startup based in Austin, Tex., that provides working capital to small businesses to resolve the shipping, fulfillment, advertising, and inventory cost of goods, raised $42 million in equity and debt funding led by Luther King Capital Headwater Investments. TechCrunch has more here.

Railway, a two-year-old, San Francisco startup that allows users to build and manage apps assembled via different services through natural language processing, raised a $20 million Series A round. Redpoint Ventures led the financing. TechCrunch has more here.

Seemplicity, a two-year-old, Tel Aviv startup that helps security professionals understand which alerts are important by doing such things as connecting them to other alerts and classifying them in order of importance, raised $26 million in Series A funding. The deal lead was Glilot Capital Partners, with additional participation from NTTVC, Atlantic Bridge, and previous investors S Capital and Rain Capital. The company has raised a total of $32 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Upway, a year-old, Paris-based startup that sells secondhand electric bikes that have been refurbished, just raised $25 million in Series A funding co-led by Exor Seeds and Sequoia Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Vendia, a two-year-old San Francisco startup whose blockchain-based platform makes it easier for businesses to share their code and data with partners across applications, platforms and clouds, raised a $30 million Series B round led by NewView Capital, with additional capital supplied by Neotribe Ventures, Canvas Ventures, Sorenson Capital, Aspenwood Ventures, and BMW iVentures. The company has raised a total of $50.6 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Ayoken, a London-based NFT marketplace for creatives that says it will feature digital collectibles from musicians, sports brands and influencers from all over the world, has raised $1.4 million in pre-seed funding. Investors in the round include Founders Factory Africa, Kon Ventures, Crypto League, R9C Ventures and Maximus Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Checkstep, a two-year-old London startup that is providing tools powered by artificial intelligence to help social media clients moderate content on their platforms, raised a $5 million seed round. Dawn Ventures and Form Ventures co-led the deal. The company has raised a total of $6.8 million. More here.

Debbie, a one-year-old Miami startup whose app offers users rewards for paying off their debts, raised a $1.2 million round from One Way Ventures, BDMI, TA Ventures, Village Global, Green Egg Ventures, Liquid2 Ventures, and If Then Ventures. Forbes has more here.

iFarmer, a four-year-old startup based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, that has created a platform allowing farmers to not only raise institutional financing but distribute their goods, raised a $2.1 million round led by IDLC Ventures. Additional investors included Millville Opportunities and Startup Bangladesh Limited. The company has raised a total of $2.8 million. The Business Post has more here.

Mintlify, a two-year-old startup based in Ithaca, NY, whose platform leverages technologies natural language processing and web scraping to read code and creates docs to explain it to developers, raised a $2.8 million seed round led by Bain Capital Ventures; TwentyTwo Ventures; Sourcegraph co-founder Quinn Slack also participated. TechCrunch has more here.

Strong Compute, a one-year-old Sydney startup that helps developers remove the bottlenecks in their machine learning training pipelines, raised a $7.8 million seed round from Sequoia Capital India, Blackbird, Folklore, Skip Capital, Y Combinator, and Starburst Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Two Front, a three-year-old startup based in Venice, CA, whose platform allows dentists to incorporate a modern orthodontic practice within their existing businesses for an additional revenue stream, raised a $3.5 million seed round. Craft Ventures was the deal lead. More here.

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Bonfire Ventures, a five-year-old, Los Angeles-based, seed-stage venture firm focused on business software startups, has closed its third flagship fund with $168 million in capital commitments; it has also closed its second opportunity fund, garnering $63 million for the effort. TechCrunch has more here.

Hannah Grey, a two-year-old, Denver-based, seed-stage venture firm investing in "customer-centric founders redefining everyday experiences" (its bets include a  New York startup creating biodegradable period care products, and a Boston-area startup that helps early child care workers open their own in-home daycares), has closed its debut fund with $52 million. The firm was cofounded by Kate Beardsley and Jessica Peltz-Zatulove. Beardsley was a founding member of Lerer Hippeau and Upslope Ventures; Peltz-Zatulove formerly ran the corporate venture arm of Stagwell Group. TechCrunch has more here.

Don Hoang has joined the venture firm Atomico as a partner, where he will largely focus on fintech and mobility. Hoang was previously VP of Global Business at Revolut and a director of business at Uber. Tech.eu has more here.

Meet Dan O'Dowd, the reclusive software billionaire attacking Elon Musk.

Oliver Pabst has joined the Zurich-based venture firm Redalpine as a general partner. Pabst earlier founded Mammut Sports Group and has worked with both EQT Group and btov Partners previously. More here. 

Unilever said today would add activist investor Nelson Peltz to its board and disclosed his fund now holds a 1.5% stake, moves that ratchet up pressure on the maker of Dove soap and Hellmann’s mayonnaise to reinvigorate growth across its sprawling portfolio. The WSJ has more here.

A new company filing shows SoftBank Group’s top executives saw steep cuts in their paychecks as the Japanese conglomerate marked a historic loss for its Vision Fund unit, though CEO Masayoshi Son's pay remained unchanged. Bloomberg has the story here.

Anderson Thees and Manoel Lemos, who spent 10 and 8 years, respectively, as managing partners of Redpoint eVentures Brazil, have joined the Brazilian banking giant Banco Itaú to make venture investments on its behalf. More here.

How much the biggest U.S. companies pay workers.

At least 25 companies that merged with special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) between 2020 and 2021 have issued so-called going-concern warnings in recent months, according to research firm Audit Analytics.

Fidelity Investments cut valuations for several closely held technology companies, including social media platform Reddit (by more than a third from the preceding month) and payment software provider Stripe (by 13%). Fidelity also cut valuations for TikTok owner ByteDance and for Instacart, reports Bloomberg. More here.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is considering a proposal by FTX to bring the automated risk management systems it uses in 24/7 crypto trade to the leveraged futures markets where participants take positions on everything from the direction of stocks to the price of corn. But powerful farmer groups wonder how their members could sleep in such a world. The Financial Times explains here.

With Elon Musk’s Twitter bid in flux, some Tesla fans say enough already.

The reason porcelain is so expensive.

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Why fangirls scream.

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A perfectly useless wristwatch.

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