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Theranos's former president, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, was found guilty today on all 12 charges that he helped perpetuate a years-long fraud scheme at the blood-testing startup. Founder and former CEO Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty of fraud six months ago. More here and here.
Rajeev Misra will no longer oversee new venture capital investments for SoftBank, with plans to launch his own outside investment firm, according to an internal SoftBank memo. Misra led the Vision Fund (where he reportedly smeared colleagues in order to hobble them) even as managing directors began to steadily quit the organization. According to SoftBank, Misra, who will maintain some ties to SoftBank, is now planning to build an external multi-asset investment fund, even while it's not clear he knows what he's doing. CNBC has more here.
Elon Musk is still doing what he can to get out of this Twitter deal (or force a better price). His "camp" talks with the Washington Post here about its continued concerns that Twitter's figures regarding spam accounts are not verifiable.
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| Sequoia Capital Wants to Invest $1M in Your Idea -- Then Teach You How to Really Sell It |
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The investment firm Sequoia Capital has no shortage of internal programs for the founders it backs. The idea is to help its startups not merely by sheer dint of their affiliation with Sequoia but by helping them at the outset with everything from storytelling to recruiting strategies in order to give them an edge over rivals.
Now, Sequoia is using some of that know-how for a longer, seven-week-long program called Arc that it’s using to bring even more promising founders into the fold. The idea, broadly speaking, is to invest $1 million in each company that fits the firm’s criteria, after which Sequoia hosts the startups for one week, brings then together virtually for five more weeks of programming, then pulls them together in person again for a final week in which they present what they’ve learned to the partnership — along with potential
customers.
Right now, 17 startups are finishing the program in Europe and roughly the same number will be welcome into a U.S. program this September. (Startups can apply here through July 22.) To learn more, we talked today with Sequoia partner Jess Lee, who is leading the charge in the U.S. We also talked with Lee about whether Y Combinator might see Arc as a competitor, the deal terms that startups should never accept, and more. Our chat has been edited lightly for length.
More here.
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Cognito Therapeutics, a six-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based developer of a headset for neurological therapy, has raised $50 million from FoundersX. STAT News has more here.
Tebra, a seven-month-old, Newport Beach, Ca.-based maker of practice management software that was formed by the merger of two outfits -- Kareo and PatientPop -- has raised $72 million in equity and debt funding led by Golub Capital. MobiHealth News has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Griffin, a five-year-old, London-based banking-as-a-service startup, has raised £12.5 million in funding led by Notion Capital, which was joined by EQT Ventures. Griffin has now raised $27 million altogether. Pymnts has more here.
Happeo, a five-year-old, Helsinki, Finland-based outfit offering a central intranet portal for employees, has raised $26 million in Series B funding from Endeit Capital, Smartfin, Evli Growth Partners, Inkef Capital, Maki.vc and Vendep Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Oasys, a gaming blockchain developer with offices in Japan and Singapore, has raised $20 million via a token sale led by Republic Capital. Jump Crypto, Crypto.com, Huobi, Kucoin, Gate.io, Bitbank and Mirana Venturesk also participated in the sale. TechCrunch has more here.
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Adaptive, an 11-month-old, New York-based startup that has set out to give construction teams better tools to manage their back offices, has raised $6.5 million in a seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz. This adds to the $750,000 the company raised in pre-seed funding last August. TechCrunch has more here.
Finli, a three-year-old, San Marino, Ca.-based mobile payments management system that aims to help small business owners get paid faster and more easily, has raised $6 million in seed funding. Urban Innovation Fund led the round, joined by Motley Fool Ventures, M13, Alumni Ventures, Mac VC, Slauson and Co., Core Innovation Capital, Techstars and Muse Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Octopus, a year-old waste reduction and recycling startup based in Jakarta, has raised $5 million in funding co-led by Openspace and SOSV. TechCrunch has more here.
Qiibee, a 10-year-old, Zug, Switzerland-based blockchain-based B2B rewards marketplace, raised $4.8 million in seed funding led by Z5 Capital. More here.
Ranger, a new insurance startup cofounded by Casper cofounder and former CEO Philip Krim, has raised $5.25 million in seed funding. Lerer Hippeau Ventures led the round, joined by Alex Rodriguez, Firstminute Capital, Slow Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Raven1 Ventures and Montauk Ventures, which is Krim's own venture firm. TechCrunch has more here.
Supy, a 1.5-year-old, UAE-based restaurant payments startup, raised $8 million in seed funding led by BECO Capital. Other backers in the round include Valia Ventures, Cotu Ventures, Global Ventures and AMK Investment Office. Pymnts has more here.
WagerWire, a three-year-old, Los Angeles-based online marketplace where bettors can buy and sell previously placed sports bets (interesting), just raised $3 million in seed funding. Longtime VC Roger Ehrenberg led the round, joined by Cardinal Sports Capital, 305 Ventures, Full Moon Sports Solutions, Sports Meta, George Rover and Cooley. More here.
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Headline, the 25-year-old, early-stage venture firm previously known as e.ventures, has just announced three new funds that total more than $950 million in capital commitments. One is focused in North America, a second will focus on Latin America and the last will be invested in European startups. TechCrunch has more here.
Good God! Insight Partners, the New York-based tech focused investment firm, is in talks to raise a new $20 billion flagship fund just months after collecting that amount for a predecessor vehicle, according to Bloomberg. More here.
Konvoy Ventures, a five-year-old, Denver, Co.-based gaming focused venture firm, tells Bloomberg it has raised $150 million in capital commitments for a new fund, 20% to 30% of which will be invested in blockchain and crypto-related games. More here.
Silverton Partners, the 17-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based venture firm, says it has closed two new funds with $248 million in total capital commitments. It has closed its seventh, early-stage fund with $177 million; it closed a second opportunity-style fund to back its breakout portfolio companies with $71 million. Pitchbook has more here.
Tenacity, a San Francisco-based venture firm founded by veteran investor Ben Narasin, has closed its debut fund with $50 million in capital commitments. The outfit says it plans to write checks of between $1 million and $3 million into pre-Series A rounds of companies both in the U.S. and in the U.K. You can pitch Narasin here.
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Tom Ford, the luxury brand founded by the former longtime creative director for Gucci, is exploring a potential sale and working with Goldman Sachs on the effort, according to Bloomberg.
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Comedian Lewis Black is suing streaming giant Pandora for copyright infringement, claiming it has aired 68 of his works without permission. He's seeking more than $10 million in damages, and more comics could be lining up behind him. Bloomberg has more here.
"Big Short" investor Michael Burry today took a shot at Elon Musk, after Musk tweeted of yesterday's report that he has fathered twins with a Neuralink executive, "Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis." Wrote Burry in apparent response: "Babies born in the U.S. are at 1950 levels, but that doesn't mean that bosses should sleep with subordinates to try to remedy the situation." (More below.)
James Murray, the head of the U.S. Secret Service, is retiring to take a top security post at Snap, the parent of Snapchat, officials said today.
Spotify host Joe Rogan interviews VC Marc Andreessen about whether Google has created sentient AI. You can hear it here.
Former President Donald Trump left the board of his social media company just weeks before it was issued subpoenas by the SEC and a federal grand jury in Manhattan, records show. Trump, who had served as the chair of Trump Media and Technology Group, was one of six board members removed, according to a June 8 filing with the Florida Department of State’s Division of Corporations. His son Donald Trump Jr. also departed the board, along with Wes Moss, Kashyap Patel, Andrew Northwall and Scott Glabe. CNBC has more here.
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San Francisco, one of the most-expensive U.S. cities for housing, is starting to see prices fall for the first time since the depths of the pandemic. The median house price in the city dropped 3% from a year earlier to $1.89 million in June, according to a new report by the brokerage Compass. More here.
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