FTX is reportedly sizing up Robinhood, Europe's SPACs are now in trouble, too, and posh pet clothes by Gucci

Developers of period trackers and fertility apps are working on ways to anonymize user data in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling that struck down the constitutional right to an abortion. The court’s decision brought more attention to the services, which hold sensitive data that could be used against people in states where abortion may be criminalized, reports the WSJ. Indeed, TechCrunch reports that an app that promised to encrypt its users’ private data to keep it out of the hands of the government is far from airtight.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto exchange is exploring whether it might be able to acquire Robinhood, Bloomberg reported today in a report that will surprise no one who has been following Sam Bankman-Fried's moves in recent weeks. According to the outlet, Robinhood hasn’t received a formal takeover approach from FTX. Meanwhile, Bankman-Fried offered a kind of non-denial in an emailed statement to Bloomberg, writing: “We are excited about Robinhood’s business prospects and potential ways we could partner with them. That being said, there are no active M&A conversations with Robinhood.” In May, Bankman-Fried disclosed that a company he controls, Emergent Fidelity Technologies, bought a 7.6% stake in Robinhood. 

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Customer service is a huge industry. Meanwhile, across many sectors, employees remain hard to find, so it’s no surprise that a lot of startups have emerged to help companies offer a better experience for their customers through advanced tech; there’s money in them thar hills.

Many have begun to turn to chatbots, but these rely on a so-called manual flow, in which case a kind of decision tree is created by populating conversational blocks that help the bots fulfill customers’ requests based on certain triggers. The bots typically buy the company time while allowing it to gather information that can, in some cases, lead to a human interaction if the issue (assuming it can’t be solved at some point along the way). But it can require a heavy lift in the form of costly professional services.

Now, a startup called Got It AI is emerging from stealth mode with claims that it has a whole new way of helping its customers centered on dialogue. Silicon Valley investor Peter Relan, who helped incubate the company in 2018 (he also helped get Discord off the ground and served on its board until 2020), likens it to a “fully autonomous” call service center.

Led by David Chu, who worked previously with Relan and Discord founder Jason Citron at Citron’s first company, Open Feint, the startup is targeting small and mid-size companies that don’t have the time or people or financial resources to design the manual processes that fuel their chatbots. Relan says that they simply port both voice and chat log conversations into the platform and it immediately, based on that data and the magic of natural language processing and machine learning, can begin communicating with customers.

He compares it to the GPT-3 bot that was used a couple of years ago to emulate someone’s dead fiancée based on old texts and Facebook messages she had written and he fed into the platform.

More here.

Nomad Health, a seven-year-old, New York-based digital marketplace that connects nurses to short-term medical jobs, has raised $105 million in equity and debt funding funding co-led by Icon Ventures and earlier investor Adams Street Partners. Other participants in the round included HealthQuest Capital (which committed the largest sum) and earlier backers Polaris Partners, .406 Ventures, AlleyCorp, and RRE Ventures, along with new debt providers J.P. Morgan and Trinity Capital. This brings Nomad’s total funding to over $200 million. Forbes has more here.

ShopBack, an eight-year-old, Singapore-based cash-back-focused e-commerce company, raised $80 million in Series F funding. Asia Partners led the round, joined by January Capital. The company has now raised $230 million altogether. Bloomberg has more here.

WorkMotion, a two-year-old, Hamburg, Germany-based HR platform enabling companies to hire and onboard their employees internationally, raised $50 million in Series B funding. Canaan led the round and was joined by Activant Capital, XAnge, and Picus Capital. Silicon Canals has more here.

Euclid, a six-year-old, Boston-based startup whose AI-powered software aims to diagnose cardiovascular issues and catch heart disease in its earliest stages, raised $27 million in Series B funding led by Biovision Ventures. Other backers in the round include MedTex Ventures, IAG Capital, Bold Brain Ventures and BlueStone Venture Partners. FierceBiotech has more here.

HappyVore, a three-year-old, France-based vegan meat production facility, has raised $36.8 million in funding led by Invus, with participation from Artal, Adrien de Schompré, BPI France and Philippe Cantet. Green Queen has more here.

Hokodo, a four-year-old, London buy-now-pay-later startup focused on business-to-business purchases, has raised $40 million in Series B funding. Notion Capital led the round, joined by Korelya Capital, Mundi Ventures, Opera Tech Ventures, Anthemis and Mosaic Ventures. Crunchbase News has more here.

Incredibuild, a 20-year-old, Tel Aviv-based distributed games and software development platform, has raised $35 million in Series B funding led by Hiro Capital. Earlier investor Insight Partners also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Kangarootime, a seven-year-old, Buffalo, N.Y.-based childcare management software program that helps administrators, teachers and parents with billing, payment processing, parent communication and more, has raised $26 million in Series B funding. Education Growth Partners led the round, joined by earlier investors Cultivation Capital and Rise of the Rest. More here.

Keyi Technology, a nine-year-old, China-based outfit known for its modular, cycloptic robot, ClicBot, says it has raised “tens of millions of dollars” in a new funding round. Anker, the China- and U.S.-based battery pack and charging giant, led the round; other investors included Xiaomi, Xiaomi founder Lei Jun’s Shunwei Capital and BlueRun Ventures China. TechCrunch has more here.

Magical Mushroom Company, a three-year-old London sustainable packaging startup that's hoping to replace polystyrene, has raised £3 million led by Ecovative Design. TechCrunch has more here.

Medallion, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based software platform that automates credentialing, licensing and compliance for healthcare provider networks, has raised $35 million in Series C funding, bringing the company's total funding to $85 million. Spark Capital and GV co-led the round,  joined by Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Optum Ventures, BoxGroup and Elad Gil. Forbes has more here.

Progcap, a five-year-old Indian startup that provides working capital to small and medium-sized businesses, has raised $40 million in funding co-led by Creation Investments and Tiger Global, with participation from Google. TechCrunch has more here.

AI Squared, a 1.5-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based startup that aims to help companies adopt artificial intelligence by using a low-code platform to integrate it into their existing applications, has raised $6 million in seed funding led by NEA, with participation from Ridgeline Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Omi, a  two-year-old, Paris outfit selling software that renders 3D photos and video for brands and marketers, has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Dawn Capital, which was joined by several notable angel investors. Business Insider has more here.

Populix, a four-year-old, Jakarta, Indonesia-based consumer insights platform, has raised $7.7 million in Series A funding. Intudo Ventures and Acrew Capital co-led the round, joined by Altos Ventures and Quest Ventures. Tech in Asia has more here.

Could stagflation actually be a “tail-wind” for this asset class? What do Ray Dalio and 80% of chief economists have in common? They believe stagflation is about to rear its ugly head. A natural hedge to this economic “one-two punch”? Fine art. Why? In the last stagflationary period from 1973 to 1981, art saw average annual appreciation of 33.2%. And even better, recent performance shows this model is holding true. In fact, Masterworks has returned more than 30% to investors in each of its last 4 exits. Implementing your own “stagflation hedge” starts by clicking this unique link. See important Reg A disclosures.

Breega, a nine-year-old, Paris-based venture firm that's largely focused on fintech and insurance companies, has closed its newest fund with €250 million in capital commitments. The outfit, which already had offices in London and Paris, has also opened a Barcelona office. TechCrunch has more here.

Los Angeles-based MaC Venture Capital, a majority Black-owned venture capital firm, has raised $203 million in its second fund, the fund said today. According to MaC Venture Capital, its Fund II nearly doubled its original seed-stage fund, which was worth $110 million. MaC Venture Capital was founded by Marlon Nichols; former Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty; former William Morris Agency talent agent and operator, advisor and investor Michael Palank; and MACRO founder and CEO Charles D. King, former agent/partner at William Morris Endeavor. Dot.LA has more here.

N+1 Capital, a nearly two-year-old, Mumbai, India -based revenue-based growth capital fund, aims to close its maiden fund with around $100 million in capital commitments, reports VCCircle. More here.

Four European entrepreneurs have launched a €250 million fund to back tech start-ups across the region. Called Plural, the new fund’s co-founders are Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of the international payments company Wise; Ian Hogarth, the co-founder of Songkick; Sten Tamkivi, the co-founder of Teleport; and Khaled Helioui, the former chief executive of Bigpoint. As the Financial Times reports, the group aims to invest in more than 25 start-ups over the next 18 months, taking early-stage stakes of between €1 million and €10 million and, if successful, to enlist dozens more entrepreneurs as investors and raise bigger funds to boost the European start-up sector.

Siemens AG will buy the Cary, N.C. firm Brightly Software for $1.58 billion to add digital services for buildings and infrastructure as the German company continues its transformation into a software provider. Brightly has been owned by private equity firm Clearlake Capital Group since 2019. Bloomberg has more here.

Tencent Holdings's largest shareholder scrapped a promise not to sell more stock in the Chinese internet giant until 2024, saying it would pare its stake to fund a share-buyback program. The move by internet conglomerate Prosus and its parent company, Naspers, represents a renewed effort to narrow the gap between how the two investment companies are valued by the market and the value of their holdings in Tencent and other assets. The WSJ has more here.

You've got to hand it to JetBlue Airways. It's . . .persistent.

They were late to the party, but now, Europe's SPACs are also scrambling for targets before the clock runs out.

Kristo Kaarmann, the CEO of £3.9 billion fintech firm Wise, is being investigated by U.K. regulators after tax authorities found he failed to pay a tax bill worth over £720,000. CNBC has more here.

A call for all hands on deck—has created logistical challenges and confusion at Tesla’s Fremont, Ca., complex, reports The Information, whose sources cite a shortage of parking and desks, limited written internal communication from HR, and WiFi too weak for employees to do their jobs.

Goldman Sachs Group analysts downgraded Coinbase to a sell rating as the crypto winter continues to take its toll on the struggling digital currency exchange. Coinbase had fallen 75% this year prior of the downgrade. Bloomberg has more here.

Fintech valuations have collapsed even faster than they climbed, making fresh funding hard to come by. The Financial Times has more here.

Why air travel is a disaster right now.

How rosé became a lifestyle.

Old tech as fashion accessories.

Text tones as dance moves.

A massive Maui ranch next door to Oprah hits the market.

Gucci's pet collection.

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