Layoffs at Bird, another notable VC strikes out on her own, and PayPal is finally letting users move their crypto

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the U.S. is likely facing a prolonged period of elevated inflation. Speaking today on Capitol Hill, Yellen said the White House will likely revise upward its U.S. inflation forecast—which already showed prices rising this year at nearly twice the prepandemic rate. The WSJ has more here.

Maybe you'll feel better after you see this dog delighting in a bath(?).

Understanding customer perspectives, competitive landscapes, and drivers behind company data shouldn’t be so time consuming. That’s why leading VCs rely on Tegus to get up to speed and find answers to critical questions about companies. Tegus offers the largest database of proprietary content on private companies, including access to early stage startups, undiscovered competitors, and more. Sign up for your free trial today.

Aledade, an eight-year-old startup based in Bethesda, Md., that uses data analytics to help independent doctors’ offices transition to value-based care models, raised a $123 million Series E round led by OMERS Growth Equity with additional funds provided by Fidelity. The company has raised a total of $417.9 million. Fierce Healthcare has more here.

Envision Digital, an eight-year-old Singapore startup whose operating system helps enterprises manage their smart devices and energy infrastructure in order to reduce carbon emissions, raised a $210 million Series A round led by Sequoia Capital China, with GIC also chipping in. The Business Times has more here.

Guild, a seven-year-old Denver startup that upskills workers for partners such as Walmart, Chipotle, and Disney, raised a $175 million Series F round at a $4.4 billion valuation. The deal was led by Wellington; Citi Impact Fund, Bon Secours Mercy Health, Oprah Winfrey; previous investors Bessemer Venture Partners, D1, Felicis, FPV, General Catalyst, Iconiq Capital, Redpoint, and Silicon Valley Bank also participated. The company has now raised a total of $553.5 million. Forbes has more here.

Kushki, a five-year-old, Ecuadorian payments infrastructure company, has raised $100 million in an extension to its Series B round, more than doubling its valuation to $1.5 billion. The startup has now raised nearly $200 million altogether, according to Crunchbase. It says the new funds come from earlier backers, and for what it's worth, some of its earlier backers include Kaszek Ventures, Clocktower Ventures, SoftBank Latin America Fund and DILA Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Nfinite, a five-year-old Paris startup that has developed a SaaS-based visual e-merchandising platform with tools for creating 3D images for e-commerce, raised a $100 million Series B led by Insight Partners; previous investor USVP also participated. TechCrunch has more here.

PhysicsWallah, a six-year-old Indian online education startup, raised a $100 million Series A round at a $1.1 billion post-money valuation. Westbridge and GSV Ventures co-led the deal. TechCrunch has more here.

Take Blip, a 23-year-old, Brazil-based online messaging platform for businesses, says it has raised $70 million in a Series B round led by Warburg Pincus. CEO Roberto Oliveira tells TechCrunch that the round brings Take Blip’s total funding to $170 million. More here.

Castor, a ten-year-old startup based in Amsterdam that builds data catalogs designed to help users find the data that they need within an organization, raised a $23.5 million Series A round. Blossom Capital led the deal, and Frst chipped in. TechCrunch has more here.

CreativeX, a seven-year-old New York startup that measures the effectiveness of advertising content on social media platforms and in visually oriented campaigns, raised a $25 million round led by Guggenheim Investments, with additional participation from Beringea, Brandtech, and Conviction. AdExchanger has more here.

Euler, a two-year-old London blockchain-backed lending platform that allows users to borrow and lend in multiple crypto assets at one time and to use multiple crypto assets as collateral, raised $32 million in a token sale led by Haun Ventures. CoinDesk has more here.

Fergus, a ten-year-old startup based in Auckland, New Zealand, that helps mid-sized businesses such as plumbers, electricians, and roofers with tools for communications, quoting, scheduling, and resource planning, raised a $15 million Series B round. Octopus Ventures was the deal lead; previous investor EVP also contributed. Digital Nation has more here.

Gantry, a two-year-old San Francisco-based startup that helps machine learning teams improve their ML products with analytics, alerting, and human feedback, has emerged from stealth with $28.3 million in seed and Series A funding. The company's backers include Amplify Partners, Coatue, Index Ventures, South Park Commons, and a host of angels, including Greg Brockman and Pieter Abbeel. TechCrunch has more here.

Kami Vision, a one-year-old startup based in Santa Monica, Ca., that provides computer vision technology for businesses and consumers in areas such as elder care, raised $10 million from East West Bank. More here.

Kinside, a five-year-old startup based in San Jose, Ca., that provides parents with a marketplace of verified caregivers and helps them tap into their flexible spending accounts and other benefits to pay for childcare, raised a $12 million Series A led by Wellington Access Ventures, with additional participation from Magnify Ventures, Initialized Capital, and Maven Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

MachineFi Lab, a four-year-old San Francisco blockchain startup that incentivizes the collection of real-world Internet of Things (IoT) device data through decentralized applications, raised a $10 million seed round led by Samsung Next; Draper Dragon Fund and Jump Capital also pitched in. CoinDesk has more here.

Rheaply, a seven-year-old Chicago startup that lets organizations list unwanted material such as furniture or computers for other companies to use or rent, raised a $20 million round led by Revolution; John Doerr, PSP Partners, and Emerson Collective also participated. Built in Chicago has more here.

Adim, a startup co-founded by actor Rob McElhenney that encourages creators and fans to collaborate to develop (and co-own) content, raised a $5 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Deadline has more here.

Findable, a two-year-old startup based in Oslo, Norway, that says it uses AI to automate the collection and organization of documents for commercial building projects, raised a €2 million seed round led by Kompas, with Construct Ventures and Malling & Co. Venture also chipping in. Tech.EU has more here.

IndieFlow, a two-year-old startup based in Santa Monica, Ca., that develops tools to help independent musicians manage their businesses, raised a $4 million round led by State of Mind Ventures; Oryzn Capital and TechStars also participated. The company has raised a total of $4.6 million. Music Ally has more here.

Ivella, a five-year-old startup based in Menlo Park, Ca., that develops banking products for couples, raised a $3.5 million round from Anthemis, Financial Venture Studio, Soma Capital, and Y Combinator. TechCrunch has more here.

Klasha, a four-year-old Lagos, Nigeria-based startup whose payment gateway allows merchants outside Africa to collect payments from Nigeria, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, and Kenya and receive payment in G20 currencies like dollars, pounds, or euros, raised a $2.1 million seed round. AMEX Ventures and Global Ventures co-led the deal, with additional funds provided by previous investors Greycroft Seedcamp, Plug and Play, Berrywood Capital, and Breega. TechCrunch has more here.

Prokeep, a six-year-old New Orleans startup that has created a communications platform for contractors and their distributors, raised a $9 million seed round led by Ironspring Ventures with additional capital provided by S3 Ventures and Benson Capital Partners. More here.

Visana, a three-year-old Minneapolis startup that that aims to provide expert virtual gynecology care for any women's health condition, raised a $2.6 million seed round. Participants in the deal included Flare Capital Partners, Pixel Perfect Ventures, InHealth Ventures, and SWL Healthcare Ventures. The company has raised a total of $3.5 million. Femtech Insider has more here.

SeedInvest takes some of the pain out of the fundraising process, allowing founders to spend less time pitching investors and more time building. SeedInvest has a community of more than 600,000 individual and accredited investors, who combined have played a role in successful raises for 250+ startups. Whether you’re raising Pre-Seed to Series C, SeedInvest is ready to help you get there.

The General Partnership, a venture firm cofounded last year by Phin Barnes (he previously spent nearly a decade with First Round Capital) and Dan Portillo (formerly the talent partner at Greylock) have closed their debut fund with $240 million in capital commitments, they announced today. Investors include investor-entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, himself a partner at Greylock, along with unnamed institutional investors, nonprofits, educational institutions, and healthcare research centers, says the firm. More here.

Pitango, one of Israel's oldest venture capital firms, has launched a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) to invest in web3 projects. The Block has more here. The announcement comes on the heels of news last week that the San Francisco-based pre-seed and seed-stage firm Resolute Ventures has organized its own DAO. We're also recalling that Slow Ventures assembled a DAO to buy land in Montana. Who's next and wants to be part of our trends piece? 😎

Solana, the a16z-backed blockchain platform that claims to operate at a far faster speed than Ethereum, said today that its Solana Ventures unit and Solana Foundation have set up a $100 million investment and grant fund to deploy capital into South Korean web3 startups. The fund will focus on gaming studios, GameFi, NFTs and DeFi in South Korea. TechCrunch has more here.

At the very end of last year, Oracle made a big move when it announced it was acquiring electronic health records company Cerner for $28 billion, thrusting it quickly into the top enterprise deal for 2021 just under the wire. Today, the company announced it has closed the deal, effective tomorrow. TechCrunch has more here.

ByteDance is in talks to sell a small minority stake in Poizon, an online sneaker marketplace, says Bloomberg. According to its report, the "TikTok owner has engaged in talks about a sale of a low single-digit percentage-point stake, and would prefer to sell to an existing investor." Its sources also whisper that the company, formally known as Shanghai Shizhuang Information Technology, is valued at more than $10 billion. More here.

Elon Musk says an IPO of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet business is still three or four years away. CNBC has more here.

Shared micromobility company Bird plans to layoff 23% of its staff, it confirmed earlier today to TechCrunch, saying that units across the organization, and across regions, will be impacted. Bird managed to go public via a SPAC late last year; its market cap now sits at $800 million. More here.

Food-delivery magnates like the three cofounders of DoorDash and its European rival Just Eat Takeaway racked up massive fortunes during the pandemic; now they're seeing massive wealth reversals, notes Bloomberg. More here.

A handful of prominent American CEOs, including BlackRock’s Larry Fink and the bosses at Delta Air Lines, Netflix and Universal Pictures, have landed on a fresh list of sanctions Russia has imposed in retaliation for economic restrictions the West has rolled out against Moscow. The Kremlin said the named individuals would be included on its “stop list,” which means a ban on their travel to Russia for an indefinite period. (Sorry, Reed Hastings?) The WSJ has more here.

Sarah Guo is the latest woman to leave a top venture firm with plans to launch one of their own. Today, Guo announced on Twitter and LinkedIn that she is stepping down from her position as a general partner at enterprise-focused Greylock Partners to continue investing in startups as she works to build something new. Sources confirmed to Axios that Guo -- just the second female general partner in Greylock's 50 years --  is planning to launch her own fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Alex Kipman, one of Microsoft's most powerful executives and the leader of its mixed-reality business, is out following a Business Insider report about failed efforts inside the company to clean up a toxic culture. GeekWire has more here.

The 11-year-old, Bay Area-based luxury consignor The RealReal said today that its founder and CEO, Julie Wainwright, is stepping down, as well as resigning as board chair and a member of The RealReal’s board. The changes are effective immediately. The WSJ hints that the company's performance is the culprit, noting its shares have fallen 80% over the past year, pushing its market capitalization to below $300 million. 

Republican-leaning counties in the U.S. experienced higher rates of premature death even before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, researchers at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston said in a study today; they fear politically polarized responses to the virus could widen the gap. Democratic-voting counties had an overall 15% lower death rate than Republican counties in 2019, up from a 3% difference in 2001. More here.

Canvas Ventures, an early stage VC fund focused on marketplaces, fintech, and digital health is hiring an associate in the San Francisco Bay Area.

PayPal announced today that its users will now be able to transfer cryptocurrency from their accounts to other wallets and exchanges. The new functionality will allow PayPal customers to transfer supported coins into PayPal, move crypto from its app to external crypto addresses including exchanges and hardware wallets and send crypto to other PayPal users “in seconds." TechCrunch has the story here.

Long bitter rivals, Waymo and Uber are teaming up on autonomous trucking because if you can't beat 'em . . . 

Crypto lending platform BlockFi is looking to raise new funding that would value the company at about $1 billion, according to Bloomberg, which says the outfit could raise around $100 million. BlockFi previously raised $350 million at a $3 billion valuation in March of last year. More here.

Western Digital Corp reached a settlement with activist investor Elliott Management that calls for the $19 billion company to consider splitting into two. The company said in a statement today that it will consider strategic alternatives, including a separation into businesses focused on traditional hard drives for computers and flash memory, respectively. Elliott in May revealed a 6% stake in Western Digital and sent a letter calling on the company to explore a breakup. The WSJ has more here.

The 20 most expensive cities for expats.

Bill Gates's summer reading list.

Next year, these singles will turn 10.

A one-of-a-kind LeBron James card could be the most expensive ever sold at auction.

Start raising your round is as little as three weeks with SeedInvest, the equity crowdfunding platform where high-growth startups like Winc, NowRX, and Heliogen fund their future. Apply in minutes, get hands-on support from terms to legal filings, activate your audience as you raise, and engage with 600k+ platform investors.