Twitter promises Musk its full "firehose," Flexport gets a notable new CEO, and proverbs for introverts

If you value your safety and your sanity, do not agree to chaperone an eighth-grade dance on the heels of a pandemic. (You are welcome for this critical insight.) We're not sure when things went so wrong at the event where we spent our evening, though a decision to give out oversize glow sticks was probably ill-advised, as the DJ -- who was hit by at least three -- might attest. We will also be haunted for some time by the specter and sound of roughly 100 13-year-olds -- eager to get outside for air in between Rihanna's "We Found Love" and "Dancing on My Own" by Robyn -- shouting in unison: "Let! Us! Out! Let! Us! Out!" as if they were Pelican Bay prisoners. We're just relieved they failed to organize as seamlessly when they pushed their way back into the gymnasium 10 minutes later.

Twitter’s board plans to comply after all with Elon Musk’s demands for internal data by offering access to its full “firehose,” the massive stream of data comprising more than 500 million tweets posted each day, according to a report in the Washington Post. ("Have at it!" seems to be the thinking.) When he signed his initial deal to buy the company in April, notes the outlet, he waived a right to look deeply at Twitter’s finances and internal workings. Its purchase agreement with Musk requires that he go through with the deal unless he can show the company misled him or a major event has changed its value.

Big tech stocks are in the midst of their biggest rout in more than a decade, and some investors, haunted by the 2000 dot-com bust, are bracing for bigger losses ahead. More in the WSJ.

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Bicycle Health, a five-year-old San Francisco startup that provides virtual opioid addiction treatments, raised a $50 million Series B round led by InterAlpen Partners, with additional participation from Questa Capital, Frist Cressey Ventures, and City Light Capital. The company has raised a total of $82.3 million. MobiHealthNews has more here.

Branch, an eight-year-old startup based in Columbus, Oh., that claims to be the only insurance company that can bind insurance through an API and bundle auto and home insurance in a single transaction, raised a $147 million Series C round at a $1.05 billion valuation. The deal lead was led by Weatherford Capital, with Acrew, AmFam Ventures, Anthemis, Gaingels, Greycroft, HSCM Ventures, Narya, SignalFire, and Tower IV also participating. The company has raised a total of $667.1 million. TechCrunch has more here.

BUD, a three-year-old London startup whose AI-based platform is used by large banks and others to help power lending and other personalized financial products, raised an $80 million Series B led by Bellis Phantom Holdco, an affiliate of TDR Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Cambly, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based one-on-one video chat app that connects English learners to native English tutors, says it quietly raised $60 million in funding over the years, including a $40 million Series B round led by Sarah Tavel at Benchmark, a $15 million Series A round led by Jeremy Levine of Bessemer Venture Partners, and a seed round from some notable individual investors. Among them: Stitch Fix founder Katrina Lake; Airbnb cofounder Nathan Blecharczyk; Y Combinator managing director Michael Siebel; Flexport founder Ryan Petersen; and Pinterest cofounder and CEO Ben Silbermann. Forbes has more here.

Codat, a five-year-old, London- and New York-based fintech startup that says it wants to build the universal API for small business data, has raised $100 million in Series C led by JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s growth-equity arm. The round also included investors Canapi and Shopify and earlier backers Paypal and Index Ventures. Bloomberg has more here.

Code Bio, a two-year-old startup based in Hatfield, Pa., that is developing therapies for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and Type 1 diabetes, raised a $75 million in Series A led by Northpond Ventures, with additional funds provided by Amgen Ventures, Hatteras Venture Partners, UCB Ventures, NEA, 4BIO Capital, CureDuchenne Ventures, JDRF T1D Fund, UPMC Enterprises, and Takeda Ventures. The company has raised a total of $85 million. FierceBiotech has more here.

Delphia, a four-year-old Toronto-based stock-picking startup with algorithmic and crypto features that plans to reward users for access to their data, raised a $60 million Series A. Multicoin Capital led the transaction, while Ribbit Capital, FTX Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, FJ Labs, Lattice Ventures, Cumberland, and M13 also participated. TechCrunch has more here.

ImmunOs Therapeutics, an eight-year-old Zurich startup that is using the naturally occurring human leukocyte antigen to develop new cancer drugs and therapies, raised a $74 million Series B round co-led by Samsara BioCapital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Gimv, with additional participation from Mission BioCapital, GL Capital, PEAK6 Strategic Capital, Fiscus Financial, and previous investors Pfizer Ventures, BioMed Partners, and Schroder Adveq. The company has raised a total of $90.6 million. FierceBiotech has more here.

Immuta, a seven-year-old Boston startup that helps enterprises govern access to their data, raised a $100 million Series E round at a $1 billion valuation. The lead was NightDragon, while Snowflake Ventures and previous investors Dell Technologies Capital, DFJ Growth, IAG, Intel Capital, March Capital, StepStone, Ten Eleven Ventures, and Wipro Ventures also participated. The company has raised a total of $258.2 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Juni, a two-year-old, Gothenburg, Sweden-based startup trying to build out an e-commerce focused neobank that caters to retailers and features tools to help them run their business, has raised $100 million in Series B funding led by Mubadala Capital. Earlier backers EQT Ventures, Felix Capital, Cherry Ventures and partners of DST Global also participated. Juni also locked down $106 million in debt for its credit products from TriplePoint Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Multiverse, a six-year-old London- and New York-based startup that sources and trains apprentices for corporate clients such as Cisco, Verizon, and Box, raised a $220 million Series D at a $1.7 billion valuation. The deal lead was StepStone Group, with previous investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and General Catalyst also chipping in. (Perhaps worth noting: Euan Blair, son of the former prime minister Tony Blair, founded the outfit.) TechCrunch has more here.

Vanta, a six-year-old startup based in San Francisco that helps organizations comply with cybersecurity standards such as SOC 2, raised a $100 million Series B at a $1.6 billion valuation. The lead investor was Craft Ventures; previous investors Sequoia Capital and Y Combinator also chipped in. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Anagenex, a three-year-old, Boston-based drug discovery company that says it's pairing large-scale data generation with machine learning to discover the next generation of small molecule medicines, just closed on $30 million in Series A funding led by Catalio Capital Management. Earlier backers Lux Capital, Khosla Ventures, Obvious Ventures, Air Street Capital, and Menlo Ventures also joined the round. MedCity News has more here.

Calaxy, a two-year-old startup based in Katy, Tex., that is building Web3 marketplace infrastructure for social media influencers and celebrities interested in owning more of their creations, raised a $26 million round co-led by Animoca Brands and HBAR Foundation, with Polygon also contributing. The company has raised a total of $33.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

CareAcademy, a nine-year-old startup based in Cambridge, Ma., whose platform trains and upskills health care workers, raised $20 million led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, with additional participation from MM Catalyst Fund, Impact America Fund, Rethink Education, Unseen Capital, and First Trust Capital Partners. More here.

Defacto, a one-year-old Paris startup that helps small businesses obtain working capital, raised a $16 million Series A led by Northzone, with GFC and Headline also ponying up. The company has raised a total of $22.9 million. Business Insider has more here.

Encamp, a five-year-old Indianapolis startup whose platform helps companies understand, manage, and report their environmental data to regulators, raised $30 million in Series C funding. Investors included Drive Capital, OpenView, High Alpha Capital, and Allos Ventures. Inside Indiana Business has more here.

Entropy, a year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based decentralized crypto custodian, says it has raised $25 million for its seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Coinbase Ventures, Robot Ventures, Dragonfly Capital, Ethereal Ventures, Variant and Inflection also invested in the round, along with prominent angel investors from the tech community, including Naval Ravikant, Sabrina Hahn and James Prestwich. The company had previously raised $1.95 million in pre-seed funding in January. TechCrunch has more here.

Ergeon, a four-year-old Palo Alto, Ca. startup that enables anyone to order construction projects like fences, driveways and more in the same way they order other products and services online, raised a $40 million Series B round led by Prysm; GGV, DST, Basis Set, and Metaprop also participated. TechCrunch has more here.

Ethena, a three-year-old New York startup that provides bite-sized compliance trainings delivered via Slack or email on subjects such as diversity, equity, and inclusion, raised a $30 million Series B round led by Lachy Groom, with additional funds provided by Felicis Ventures, Homebrew, and Neo. The company has raised a total of $50.4 million. More here.

Fruitful, a year-old, pre-launch financial wellness membership platform based in New York, has raised $33 million in pre-launch capital with back-to-back seed and Series A rounds led by Emigrant Bank and 8VC, respectively, with participation from Lux Capital, Founders Fund, and Elad Gil. The founders of Brex, Gemini, Tagomi and others are also investors in the company. TechCrunch has more here.

Ledgible, a six-year-old Atlanta startup that integrates major blockchains, exchanges, wallets, and professional accounting tools in order to determine tax liabilities for both consumers and enterprises, raised a $20 million Series A round led by EJF Capital, with additional participation from Thomson Reuters Ventures, Fenbushi US, and TTV Capital. The company has raised a total of $21 million. The Block has more here.

LibLab, a startup founded this year and based in Austin, Tex., whose platform helps clients easily create software development kits (SDKs) that enable developers to use their API-based services, raised a $42 million Series A funding led by Insight Partners; Zeev Ventures, Stepstone Group, Sheva, and Rainfall also contributed. TechCrunch has more here.

Moxe, a ten-year-old startup based in Madison, Wi., that aims to foster secure clinical data exchange between healthcare stakeholders by leveraging digitized medical charts and bidirectional data exchange, raised a $30 million Series B round co-led by Piper Sandler Merchant Capital and Vensana Capital. Previous investors Safeguard Scientifics, UPMC Enterprises, and 3M Ventures also participated. The company has raised a total of $36.2 million. Fierce Healthcare has more here.

Nava Benefits, a three-year-old, New York-based health benefits brokerage, has raised $40 million in Series B funding led by Thrive Capital. Other investors in the round include GV, K5 Global, and Homebrew, along with earlier backers Avid Ventures, Quiet Capital, and Sound Ventures, among others. More here.

Onfleet, a seven-year-old San Francisco startup that focuses on logistics for last-mile deliveries, raised a $23 million Series B round led by Kayne Partners, with additional funding from Savant Growth. The company has raised a total of $41.9 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Pepper Content, a five-year-old, Mumbai-based content marketplace that says it connects global brands like Google, Meta, Amazon and Adobe with more than 100,000 creators, has raised $14.3 million in Series A financing as it looks to expand to the U.S. Bessemer Venture Partners led the round. Tanglin Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Titan Capital, and angel investors, including Gokul Rajaram, participated. TechCrunch has more here.

Teleo, a 2.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based construction robotics company that retrofits construction and mining heavy equipment to turn them into semi-autonomous robots, has raised $12 million in Series A funding. UP.Partners led the round, joined by F-Prime Capital, K9 Ventures and earlier investor Trucks Venture Capital. Founder and CEO Vinay Shet previously spent a couple of years as director of product management at Lyft's self-driving cars group. More here.

Trovata, a six-year-old San Diego startup that provides a platform for businesses to automate cash reporting, forecasting, analysis, and money movement, raised a $27 million Series B led by Fin Capital, with JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Capital One Ventures, Pivot Investment Partners, and NAB Ventures also participating. The company has raised a total of $57.6 million. More here.

Vybe Network, a Vancouver startup whose software and infrastructure aims to allow users to access both real-time and historical data from the Solana blockchain, raised a $10.5 million Series A round from lead investor FTX as well as Staking Facilities, Serum, Panony, Tess Ventures, Contango, Canonical Crypto Fund, EBT Group, and previous investor Sino Global. The company has raised a total of $12.5 million. BetaKit has more here.

Whistic, a seven-year-old startup based in Pleasant Grove, Ut., that assesses vendor security for its clients, raised a $35 million Series B round led by JMI Equity, with additional funds provided by Forgepoint Capital, Emergence Capital, Album VC, and FJ Labs. The company has raised a total of $51 million. SecurityWeek has more here.

443ID, a year-old security startup based in Austin, Tex., that says it uses open source data to verify authorized users while keeping unauthorized users at bay, raised an $8 million seed round. Bill Wood Ventures and Silverton Partners co-led the deal. VentureBeat has more here.

Adelaide, a three-year-old New York startup that helps advertisers measure and evaluate media based on attention rather than metrics like views or video completion rate, raised a $7 million seed round. Human Ventures led the deal. The company has raised a total of $9 million. AdExchanger has more here.

Canix, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that makes inventory management software, raised a $10 million round. Investors included Altair VC, Canthexis Ventures, and Emles Ventures. The company has raised a total of $14 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Datia, a three-year-old Stockholm startup that helps investment managers track ESG compliance in their portfolios, raised a $3.4 million seed round led by Nauta Capital. The company has raised a total of $4.1 million. Tech.EU has more here.

Decimal, a two-year old accounting automation platform based in Indianapolis, raised $9 million in a seed round led by Arthur Ventures, with participation from Service Providers Capital and a handful of individual angel investors. Business Insider has more here.

Extracker, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based change order communication platform for the construction industry (it says it digitizes manual workflows and creates financial transparency between construction stakeholders), has raised $7 million in a Series A funding. Cloud Apps Capital Partners led the round, joined by Building Ventures and earlier backer Jackson Square Ventures, which had led the company's seed round last year. Pymnts has more here.

Geode Finance, a twelve-year-old London startup that says it enables any DAO to offer its members the ability to use staked digital assets as collateral, raised a $3 million seed round led by Multicoin Capital, with additional capital supplied by GSR, C2 Ventures, Yield Yak, and Eden Network. Tech Startups has more here.

Kira Learning, a one-year-old Palo Alto, Ca., startup that is producing standards-aligned computer science courses for K-12 schools, raised a $6 million seed round co-led by NEA and AI Fund. The company has raised a total of $7.5 million. More here.

Klearly, a five-year-old startup based in Raleigh, N.C., whose software uses machine learning and predictive analytics to help guide sales and marketing departments on how to manage client relationships, raised a $4 million round led by York IE, with IDEA Fund Partners, Studio VC, Front Porch Ventures, and the Triangle Tweener Fund also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $7.7 million. Axios has more here.

Mash, a one-year-old Toronto payment platform that uses the Lightning Network to allow creators, builders and developers to make money from the content they publish online, raised a $6 million seed round co-led by Castle Island Ventures and Whitecap Venture Partners. Other investors in the round included Maple VC, Strategic Cyber Ventures, Aquanow, and Spacecadet Ventures. CoinDesk has more here.

Massive Bio, a seven-year-old New York startup that uses AI to recruit patients for clinical trials, raised a $9 million round. The deal was co-led by Revo Capital and PaigeAI chair Kenan Turnacioğlu. The company has raised a total of $15.8 million. More here.

Navigate, a Singapore startup that issues crypto rewards to users who share information about air pollution, carbon emissions, water pressure, noise levels, utility efficiency, airspace activity, and network signal strength, raised a $7.6 million seed round led by Distributed Global; Kraken Ventures, Outlier Ventures, and Alan Howard also contributed. The Block has more here.

Nextiles, a three-year-old New York startup that is developing sports clothing embedded with sensors to track performance and protect athletes from injury, raised $5 million seed funding led by Drive by DraftKings, with additional funds provided by the NBA, Madison Square Garden Sports, Alumni Ventures, and SmartSports. SportTechie has more here.

PayShepherd, a four-year-old startup based in Calgary, Canada, whose software helps heavy industrial and manufacturing facilities manage contractor billing, raised a $3 million seed round led by Nashville Capital Network; Thin Air Labs and the Accelerate Fund also contributed. BetaKit has more here.

Proper, a San Francisco fintech startup that has built a ledger for other fintech startups that displays and reconciles transaction data based on core accounting principles, raised a $4.3 million seed round led by Redpoint. BoxGroup, Mischief, and Y Combinator also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Reflex, a seven-year-old startup based in Austin, Tex., that helps retailers find the labor they need to meet in-store demand, raised a $4.5 million seed round from lead investor Indicator Ventures as well as Sugar Capital and Red Swan Ventures. More here.

Samudai, a one-year-old Singapore startup that gives DAO teams and contributors a view of how contributors are interacting, raised a $2.5 million round. Investors included FTX Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, and Lunar Ventures. Financial Express has more here.

Securesave, a two-year-old emergency savings platform based in Seattle that is co-led by Suze Orman, has raised $11 million in funding led by Truist Ventures, the venture capital division of Truist Financial Corporation Bank. Other backers in the round include Stearns Financial Services and the crypto platform FTX. The new funding brings the total amount raised by the company to $14.7 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Showplace, a Denver startup that is creating a network for purchasing supplies for operators of short-term rentals on Airbnb, VRBO, and other platforms, raised a $2 million seed round led by Matchstick Ventures, with participation from Boost VC and Taurus Ventures. Short Term Rentalz has more here.

Strella Biotechnologies, a four-year-old Philadelphia startup that has developed sensor technology designed to reduce food waste and improve quality, raised an $8 million Series A round led by Millennium New Horizons, with additional funds provided by GV, Rich Products Ventures, Mark Cuban, Yamaha Motor Ventures, Catapult Ventures, and Union Labs. The company has raised a total of $11.8 million. Bloomberg has more here.

Teal, a three-year-old startup based in Coral Gables, Fl., whose digital platform aims to help professionals manage their job searches, raised a $6.3 million seed round led by City Light Capital; Rethink Education, Human Ventures, Gaingels, Pareto Ventures, Basecamp Fund, Zelkova Ventures, Flybridge, Lerer Hippeau, and Oceans also participated. The company has raised a total of $11.3 million. Refresh Miami has more here.

Verse, a seven-year-old London startup that allows collectors to discover and acquire NFT artworks that have been hand-selected by trusted curators, including world-famous galleries, institutional curators, and experienced NFT collectors, raised a $2.4 million seed round from Indeed co-founder Paul Forster, Impala founder and CEO Ben Stephenson, Galaxy Digital chairman Michael Daffey, Integrity founder Jeremy Hindle, the Venture Collective’s founding partner Nick Shekerdemian, and Venrex VC. Tech.EU has more here.

Virridy, a 10-year-old, startup based in Boulder, Co., that makes sensors that monitor and manage water, energy, and agricultural resources for issues such as e coli contamination, raised a $5.5 million Series A round led by Accord Capital, with additional funds provided by FHI 360, Cleo Capital, Reverent Rock, Save Earth, and VertueLab. TechCrunch has more here.

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Biospring Partners, a New York-based growth equity firm exclusively focused on B2B life sciences technology companies, just closed its debut fund with north of $245 million in capital commitments it says. Limited partners include from pension plans, some fund of funds, endowments and foundations, and family offices. The firm's founders are Michelle Dipp and Jennifer Lum. Dipp was formerly a managing director at General Atlantic, where she launched and led the firm's life sciences investment platform. Lum cofounded several companies previously, including Forge.AI (acquired by FiscalNote). Stat News has more here. 

Felix Capital — the London-based firm founded and headed by longtime VC Frederic Court — has raised $600 million for its fourth and newest fund. It plans to use the money to continue investing mainly in commerce-driven startups, along with by businesses building the future of work and tools to help run commerce companies (including new spins on finance around cryptocurrency and web3). TechCrunch has more here.

Crypto security platform Ledger has teamed up with the venture firm Cathay Innovation to launch a $110 million early-stage fund focused on Web3, DeFi, NFTs and DAOs. The France-based partnership, Ledger Cathay Capital, is backed by French public investment bank Bpifrance. Sifted has more here.

Vale, which says it is the second-largest mining company in the world and the largest producer of iron ore, pellets, and nickel, has launched a venture unit called Vale Ventures and given the team overseeing it $100 million in capital to "fund mining innovations." More here.

A TikTok executive at the center of a culture clash with employees at the company’s U.K. operation has been replaced in his role after making comments that he “didn’t believe” in maternity leave. Joshua Ma, a senior executive at China’s ByteDance — owner of the viral video app — will “take some time off” and “step back” from his role leading the U.K. ecommerce team, according to an email seen by the Financial Times. More here.

Ryan Peterson, the founder of Flexport, is stepping aside and becoming executive chairman of the nine-year-old supply chain software start-up that he has run from the start. He has a heavy-hitting replacement: Dave Clark, Amazon’s worldwide consumer chief, is becoming the company's new CEO in September. CNBC has more here.

The CEOs of EV startups Lucid Group and Rivian Automotive each received pay packages last year valued at over $400 million, as both companies raced to public markets and increased production in the growing EV market. Lucid's CEO already has access to some of his stock-based base; Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe can't access much of his mostly equity award until 2027. The WSJ has more here.

Eight lawsuits filed in the U.S. over the last week allege that excessive exposure to platforms including Facebook and Instagram has led to attempted or actual suicides, eating disorders and sleeplessness, among other issues. Bloomberg has more here.

Cerebral -- an outfit that's backed by Silver Lake, hedge-funder Bill Ackman, and SoftBank -- soared on easy Adderall prescriptions. That was its undoing, reports the WSJ.

A cancer trial's unexpected result: remission in every patient. "“I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer.”

Facebook parent company Meta Platforms has halted development of a smartwatch two years after beginning to develop the device, reports Bloomberg. It was designed to include several features common in other smartwatches, including activity tracking, music playback and messaging. A prototype of the now-halted device also includes dual-cameras, a key differentiator from Apple Watch.

How animals perceive the world.

Proverbs for introverts.

The schools scoring the highest on a widely used SAT-style test for software engineers. (Surprise: neither Stanford nor UC Berkeley crack the top 10.)

Rock Edge redefines the meaning of "private estate."

The Twilight World, by Werner Herzog. “I think none of my characters are extreme nor strange. They are dignified human beings, and they take the struggle of life as it’s thrown at them.”

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