Musk's "super bad feeling," a layoff at Clubhouse, and the beautiful mess effect

Ah, glorious Friday! This was a long short week for us, since you asked (we've been getting over la Covid). 🦠

If you can get past our raspy questions, we think we'll enjoy this week's StrictlyVC Download podcast, especially if you've been wondering what's happening in the secondary market and more specifically whether founders, employees and VCs are holding on to their shares right now or else looking to unload them to secondary buyers before prices fall even further. Thanks to CEO Kelly Rodriques of Forge Global and to Justin Fishner-Wolfson, cofounder and CEO of 137 Ventures for hopping on with us to share some of what they're seeing right now. (You can find excerpts from that conversation below.)

Major thanks, too, to this week's podcast sponsor: SeedInvest, a crowdfunding platform with an enormous base of investors in search of innovative startups to fund. Founders, take note when you're looking to raise that first or second or even third round of funding. You can learn more and apply here. 

The legal status of Bitcoin mining in the state of New York now rests in Governor Kathy Hochul’s hands. Earlier today, state senators in New York voted to approve a bill that would create a 2-year moratorium on crypto mining operations that use carbon-based power. The bill is now headed to Hochul’s desk, starting a 10-day clock for her to sign it into law or veto it. Decrypt has more here.

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There's a lot of confusion in the private market right now. On the one hand, venture firms are still announcing new funds on a daily basis. They're hosting catered sushi brunches. On the other, layoffs abound, and titans of industry sound worried. JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon sees an economic hurricane ahead. For his part, Elon Musk reportedly told Tesla executives this week he has a "super bad feeling" about the economy. He's also laying off 10% of Tesla's salaried employees, he told them in a brief email this morning.

You could hardly blame people looking to sell their startup shares, or those looking to buy them, for feeling unsure about where to meet on price, and that's exactly what's happening right now, says secondary market experts like CEO Kelly Rodriques of Forge Global. In fact, Rodriques says, on Forge, a trading platform for private firms' shares that went public earlier this year via a SPAC, the "supply of private shares right now is higher than it's ever been in history -- by a lot."

Rodriques calls it "price disequilibrium. There's a ton of seller interest, but the range between seller and buyer expectations is too wide for a lot of trading to happen."

He's not alone in seeing this pattern. Justin Fishner-Wolfson separately says the most remarkable thing about the secondary market right now is how stagnant it is. Fishner-Wolfson cofounded and oversees 137 Ventures, a San Francisco-based firm that offers loans to founders, executives, early employees and other large shareholders of private, high-growth tech companies in exchange for the option to convert their debt into equity, and he notes that valuations in the private markets are "slow to change" because "people are waiting to see what things are actually worth."

You can hardly blame them, he suggests; the signals all around appear haywire.

More here.

Devo, an eleven-year-old startup based in Cambridge, Ma., that provides enterprises with  logging and security analytics, raised a $100 million Series F round at a $2 billion valuation. The deal lead was Eurazeo, with additional participation from ISAI Cap Venture and previous investors Insight Partners, Georgian, TCV, General Atlantic, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Kibo Ventures. The company has raised a total of $481 million. VentureBeat has more here.

Diabeloop, a seven-year-old startup based in Grenoble, France, that develops machine learning software for diabetes treatment, raised a $70 million Series C round led by LBO France, with Terumo Corp. also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $128.6 million. Drug Delivery Business News has more here.

EnsoData, a seven-year-old startup based in Madison, Wi., that automates the work of sleep clinicians, raised a $20 million Series A extension round led by Inspire Medical Systems, with Zetta Venture Partners, Venture Investors, Supermoon Capital, Colle Capital, HealthX Ventures, and M25 Ventures also chipping in. More here.

Incognia, a two-year-old Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that focuses on user authentication and fraud prevention on mobile applications in fintech, cryptocurrency, gaming, delivery, and social media, raised a $15.5 million Series A. The lead was Point72 Ventures. PYMNTS.com has more here.

Journera, a six-year-old Chicago startup that provides real-time data to help marketers and travel agencies identify potential travelers, raised a $10 million Series B-1 round led by B Capital, with Andreessen Horowitz, BCG, and PAR Capital also participating. The company has raised a total of $30.6 million. Built In Chicago has more here.

Kolors, a 2.5-year-old, Houston, Tex.-based smart bus platform that connects riders in Mexico City with bus drivers, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by UP.Partners, with participation from Toyota Ventures, Maniv Mobility, K5 Global, and Mazapil, alongside earlier investors like Tuesday Capital, Expa, Lowercase Capital, and Bling Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Laminar, a two-year-old Tel Aviv startup that helps companies secure the business records they keep in the cloud, raised a $30 million round from Tiger Global Management and Salesforce Ventures. The company has raised a total of $67 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

LatchBio, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that helps lab scientists parse through bioinformatics data without hiring a computer scientist, raised a $28 million Series A co-led by Coatue and previous investor Lux Capital; Hummingbird Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, Haystack, and Fifty Years also contributed. The company has raised a total of $33.2 million. VentureBeat has more here.

LaunchNotes, a three-year-old startup based in Walnut, Ca., whose platform connects teams and users to the product development lifecycle, raised a $15 million Series A round led by Insight Partners; Atlassian Ventures, The New Normal Fund, Essence VC, Cowboy Ventures, and Bull City Venture Partners also participated. The company has raised a total of $16.8 million. More here.

Brevel, a six-year-old Tel Aviv startup that is developing an affordable color and flavor-neutral microalgae-based protein, raised an $8.4 million seed round. Participants in the financing included FoodHack, Good Startup VC, Tet Ventures, and Nevateam Ventures. The company has raised a total of $10.2 million. Vegconomist has more here.

Culina Health, a two-year-old startup based in Madison, Wi., that offers virtual appointments with dieticians who can help users build nutrition plans, raised $4.75 million in seed funding co-led by Healthworx and Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. Other participants in the round included Rethink Impact, Tensility Ventures, Alpine Meridian Ventures, Knightsgate Ventures, Graham & Walker, Arkitekt Ventures, and Redo Ventures. MobiHealthNews has more here.

Edge, a nine-month-old, L.A.-based startup that is building a payments platform to service businesses previously regarded as high risk, raised a $2.4 million pre-seed round led by Long Journey Ventures. More here.

Gigasheet, a two-year-old startup based in Leesburg, Va., whose no-code analytics platform helps organizations query massive data sets without the need for a database, IT team, or knowledge of a query language like SQL, raised a $7 million Series A round. Investors included Accomplice, Argon, Founder Collective, REV, Dmitri Alperovitch, and Rich Miner. The company has raised a total of $8.8 million. More here.

Salient Predictions, a three-year-old startup based in Cambridge, Ma., that provides weather intelligence for the energy, agriculture and insurance industries, raised a $5.4 million seed round led by Wireframe Ventures, with additional investment from Munich Re Ventures, Powerhouse Ventures, Endeavor8, First Star Ventures, and Blindspot Ventures. The company has raised a total of $5.6 million. Axios has more here.

Size, a New York startup that organizes sealed bid auctions for vested or unvested tokens, raised a $6 million seed round led by Three Arrows Capital, Wintermute, and mngr and joined by Alameda Research, D1 Ventures, and Genblock Capital. The Block has more here.

Souq G-Commerce, a two-year-old New York startup that manages players’ web3 game assets, has raised a $3.3 million pre-seed round. Investors in the deal included Kickstart, IVC, Operate, Moon Holdings, Ellipti Ventures, Perpetual Value Partners, Himanshu Sahay & Partners, Sterling VC, Evernew Capital, and BBQ Capital. VentureBeat has more here.

Vital, a 14-month-old San Francisco startup that is building an API and infrastructure to track information from wearable devices, raised a $2.9 million seed round. Point Nine led the deal, joined by 20VC, Amino Collective, Adventure Fund, and Inflect Health. More here.

Worried about VCs pulling back? Don't be. Raise your next round with SeedInvest and plug into a network of over 600,000 accredited and retail investors. A few could become your next big brand evangelists. More than 250 founders across SaaS, healthtech, CPG, and more have found fundraising success on SeedInvest. Find out if your company has what it takes to raise a community round. Submit your deck and connect with our team.

Amazon today announced that Dave Clark, CEO of the company’s worldwide consumer division, will step down after 23 years in the position. In a note to leadership, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that Clark’s last day in the office will be July. Clark intends to "pursue other opportunities," added Jassy (without elaborating) TechCrunch has more here.

Clubhouse, the social audio app that became a big hit during the early days of the pandemic, laid off multiple employees this week, according to Bloomberg. The layoffs are reportedly part of a broader restructuring and rethinking of the audio app’s strategy, which includes cuts to some programming areas like sports and news that it had focused on before. More here.

Joshua Schachter, a longtime entrepreneur, operator, and angel investor who was a consultant on HBO's "Silicon Valley," has joined UP.Partners, a Santa Monica, Ca.-based venture firm, as a venture partner. The firm has also promoted Ally Warson to partner. Warson joined the outfit two years ago as a principal following a two-year stint with Acme Capital. More here.

Email startup Superhuman has laid off 23 employees, representing about 22% of its workforce, CEO Rahul Vohra announced on Twitter today. "We are doing all we can to support them, including generous severance, mental health support, health insurance throughout the year, and job search assistance," Vohra added in a follow-up tweet. Vohra also offered to help those laid off to find a new job. Business Insider has more here.

A new study finds that on average, recurring subscription services for which people forget they are still paying -- from streaming outfits like Netflix to magazines -- cost them about $133 each month. More here.

Adam Neumann and the future of crypto.

The electric-truck startup Rivian, which ranked among the world’s most valuable auto makers several months ago, is struggling to master the nuts and bolts of production.

Recruiters at major companies like Amazon are going after Tesla employees angered by Elon Musk's return-to-office demand: "If the Emperor of Mars doesn't want you, I'll be happy to bring you over."

Does a comedian really need an audience?

How to make a kamikaze.

The perks of being a hot mess.

Ugh. Harsh.

Nova House.

General Purpose shoe.

SeedInvest takes the pain out of the fundraising process, so founders can spend less time pitching investors and more time building. SeedInvest has a community of more than 600,000 individual investors, who combined have played a role in successful raises for more than 250 startups. Whether you’re raising Seed to Series B, SeedInvest is ready to help you get there. Learn more and apply to raise.