Twitter sues Musk, Apple and Jony break up, and the case of the missing crypto hedge fund managers

The question of whether Elon Musk must buy Twitter, as he agreed to do in April, is headed to a court in Delaware. In a lawsuit filed today by Twitter against Musk, the company's lawyers write that: “Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests. Musk apparently believes that he — unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away.” 

It may be the most meme-driven lawsuit in history, notes TechCrunch. 

Meanwhile, Wired reports that it's a "shitshow" inside Twitter, with employees kept in the dark and no one, staffers say, in charge.

Inflation + Rate Hike + Volatility = Profit? With tech darlings tumbling more than 21%, and inflation rising, the Financial Times has declared one investment potentially “bulletproof”– fine art. In 2022, the art market is up 25% compared to 20% losses for the S&P. With this investing platform, you can access this market in a few clicks. They handed a +30% net IRR to their investors THREE years in a row. StrictlyVC readers get instant access with this private link. See important Reg A disclosures.

Another CEO is stepping back from the company he launched. This time, it's famed serial entrepreneur Ev Williams, who said today that he is relinquishing his full-time role with Medium, an online platform that hoped to transform publishing on the internet by giving anyone with an interest in writing a space to do it in far longer form than is possible on Twitter. “A beautiful space for reading and writing — and little else,” Williams called Medium when it debuted in 2012. “The words are central.”

The company, founded in 2011, has never taken off in the way that Williams imagined, even while other newer publishing platforms like Substack began to gain traction in recent years. Williams nevertheless writes in a post about his transition to chairman of the board that outsiders shouldn't interpret the move as a negative signal.

"To be clear," he writes, "Medium’s story is far from over. The team today is probably the most capable I’ve seen at this company. I’m excited to see what they do."

Williams is replacing himself with Tony Stubblebine, the chief executive of the online coaching company Coach.me.

Medium has aimed from the start to attract thoughtful writing, the sort of which can be overlooked in a world where social platforms traffic in buzzy, and often fake, news. But it has struggled to find a sustainable business model for itself and writers on the platform.

Writers are compensated based on how much time users spend reading their content, but Medium has needed other sweeteners to boost their pay and has launched numerous experiments toward that end, including, at one point, charging users $50 a year for access to an unlimited amount of articles from individual authors and poets and, more newly, a referral program that Medium launched in August 2021 that gives writers half of the new subscriber revenue that their content generates, after payment processing fees.

The company first launched a subscription model in 2017; the vast majority of content remains outside of a paywall.

Williams -- a pioneer in both blogging and podcasting and very famously a co-founder of Twitter who remained on the company's board until 2019 -- isn't making himself available for interviews today. But he said in his post that his next steps involve "lots of time with friends and family" as well as spending the "next few months (or years) learning as much as I can about things I don’t know a lot about."

Williams, who is also a venture partner with the venture firm Obvious Ventures, said he further plans to launch a new "holding company/research lab" that can be helpful to Medium and other companies.

Williams is just the latest high-profile CEO to step down in the last year following a very long run in the saddle.

More here.

AI21 Labs, a five-year-old startup based in Tel Aviv that has built an “AI-as-a-service” platform that lets customers create tools such as virtual assistants, chatbots, and content moderation tools, raised a $64 million Series B round led by Ahren Innovation Capital Fund, with additional participation from Amnon Shashua, Walden Catalyst, Pitango, TPY Capital, and Mark Leslie. The company has raised a total of $118.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Epic Bio, a South San Francisco startup led by the co-inventor of the CRISPR patent that aims to develop a new class of genetic medicines that act on the epigenome, has raised a $55 million Series A round. Horizons Ventures led the transaction. FierceBiotech has more here.

Hidden Road Partners, a traditional and crypto brokerage based in New York, raised a $50 million Series A led by Castle Island Ventures; additional investors include Citadel Securities, FTX Ventures, Uncorrelated Ventures, Greycroft, XBTO Humla Ventures, Wintermute, SLN Capital, Profluent Trading, and Coinbase Ventures. Finance Magnates has more here.

Inspirna, a twelve-year-old clinical stage biopharmaceutical startup based in New York that is developing small molecule therapeutics, raised a $50 million Series D round co-led by Sands Capital and Vivo Capital; additional investors included Dreavent 6, Novo Holdings, Sofinnova Capital, Sixty Degree Capital Fund, New York City Investment Fund, and Lepu Holdings. The company has raised a total of $139.5 million. The Pharma Letter has more here.

Scale Computing, a 15-year-old computer backup and disaster recovery startup based in Indianapolis, IN, raised a $55 million round led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital. The company has raised a total of $202.8 million. TechCrunch has more here.

SingleOps, a nine-year-old startup based in Atlanta that provides a mobile and cloud-based platform to manage sales, back office, and field service workers, operations, and analytics, raised a $74 million round led by FTV Capital, with additional participation from existing investor Five Elms Capital. More here.

Wefox, a seven-year-old, Berlin-based startup that sells various insurance products through a combination of in-house and external brokers, has raised $400 million in Series D equity and debt funding led by earlier backer Mubadala at a $4.5 billion valuation (an "up round," for what it's worth, though we don't know the terms of the deal). Other investors include Eurazeo, LGT, Horizons Ventures, OMERS Ventures and Target Global. TechCrunch has more here.

Xpeng Robotics, an affiliate company of Chinese electric carmaker Xpeng, says it has raised $100 million as it aims to commercialize household robotics. The financing was led by IDG Capital, with XPeng also participating. CNBC has more here.

Circ, an eleven-year-old startup based in Danville, Va., that recycles fashion waste (cotton, polyester and cotton-poly blends) back into textiles, raised a $30 million Series B round. Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Inditex (Zara's parent company) were the co-leads. GreenBiz has more here.

Continuum, a two-year-old startup based in Salt Lake City that is building a marketplace for executives interested in consulting assignments with VC-backed startups, raised a $12 million Series A round led by Pelion Ventures, with Uncork Capital and Day One Ventures also chipping in. Forbes has more here.

Edge, a one-year-old Israeli startup whose content platform enables gamers to capture clips of their most exciting game highlights and turn them into standalone videos, raised a $30 million Series A round led by Corner Ventures; Playtika, Stardom Ventures, and AnD Ventures also participated. CTech has more here.

EVCS, a four-year-old startup based in Arcadia, Ca., that claims to operate one of the larger electric vehicle charging networks on the West Coast, with all of its chargers fully powered by renewable energy, raised an $18.8 million Series A funding; investors in the deal included Abdo Partners, Spring Lane Capital, and the Copulos Group. The company has raised a total of $68.8 million. Elektrek has more here.

Particle Health, a four-year-old New York startup whose platform aggregates and normalizes patients' health care records for use by various providers, raised a $25 million Series B round led by Canvas Ventures, with Menlo Ventures, Story Ventures, and Pruven Capital also contributing. The company has raised a total of $39.3 million. More here.

Pattern Brands, a three-year-old startup based in New York that is building a portfolio of home brands, raised a $25 million Series B round. Toba Capital, Verlinves, and BAM Elevate invested in the deal. Retail Dive has more here.

SingleStore, an eleven-year-old San Francisco startup that provides databases for cloud and on-premises apps and analytical systems, giving customers more flexibility to perform "big data" analyses, raised a $40 million Series F extension led by Goldman Sachs; Sanabil, Dell Technologies Capital, Google Ventures, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Rev IV, IBM, and Insight Partners also participated. TechCrunch has more here.

Wheelocity, a supply chain startup based in Chennai, India, that handles fresh food supplies for quick commerce platforms in India, raised a $12 million Series A debt and equity and debt round led by Lightspeed India Partners, with Anicut Capital also chipping in. TechCrunch has more here.

APDS, a ten-year-old New York startup that provides a career readiness platform for current and former prisoners, raised a $7 million Series C round. ETS Strategic Capital and New Markets Venture Partners co-led the deal. More here.

CleanO2 Carbon Capture Technologies, a nine-year-old Calgary startup that converts CO2 captured from natural gas heating system exhaust and uses the resulting stable carbonates to produce soaps, shampoos, detergents, and fertilizers, raised a $2.1 million seed round. Regeneration.VC was the deal lead; additional investors included Export Development Canada, Duke Street Investments, TIRI Group, and Local Investment YYC Cooperative. More here.

Gemini Sports Analytics, a Miami startup that helps sports teams generate actionable insights from athlete data, raised a $1.5 million seed round led by leAD Sports & Health Tech Partners, with Florida Funders and Ocean Azul Partners also chipping in. Refresh Miami has more here.

Hors Normes, a French startup that helps organic farmers and producers sell their products directly to consumers when their products are rejected by traditional retail channels, raised a €7 million seed round led by Project A; previous investor Stride VC also participated. Tech.EU has more here.

ID-Pal, a six-year-old startup based in Dublin that helps customers comply with regulatory identity requirements through real-time document verification, facial matching, and address e-verification, raised a €7 million Series A round led by Inspire Investments, with additional funds provided by Act VC. The company has raised a total of $8.3 million. The Irish Times has more here.

Posterity Health, a one-year-old startup based in Parker, Co., that offers personalized advice, educational resources, and treatments to help address male fertility needs, raised a $6 million seed round. Distributed Ventures was the deal lead. The company has raised a total of $6.2 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Project Eaden, a Berlin startup founded this year that aims to develop "alt beef" products beginning with steak, raised an €8 million seed round led by Creandum, with Magnetic, Atlantic Food Labs, Shio Capital, and Trellis Road also participating. Vegconomist has more here.

Spearhead, a startup based in Cambridge, England, that is developing spirits for the African market, raised a $3 million round from Pendulum. FoodBev Media has more here.

LUUM Precision Lash, a nearly six-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based company that we wrote about early last year (it's a robotics startup focused on the application of lash extensions), has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Ulta Beauty, Foundation Capital, Artifact Ventures, Ascendant Venture, Handshake Ventures, SaxeCap, and XSeed Capital. More here.

Is your fund administrator holding you back? Give your CFO a break by working with a truly partnership-focused administrator. Juniper Square’s clients gave us an NPS score of 78.9 last quarter - higher than that of Apple, Amazon, and Starbucks. Pair that with the best investor portal and a suite of technology-driven workflow tools and you’ve got a totally unique fund administrator. Meet Juniper Square: the technology-driven fund admin who does service right.

C2 Ventures, an eight-year-old, New York-based venture firm that says it focuses on startups that are disrupting "dull, dirty, and dangerous" legacy industries, has captured $20 million in capital commitments for its second fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Cathay Innovation, a global venture capital group backed by the French energy and petroleum company TotalEnergies, has launched a 1 billion euro ($1 billion) fund to invest in start-ups with an eye on sustainability, it said today. Cathay Innovation's third venture fund, backed by multinationals including French drugmaker Sanofi, will focus on sectors such as artificial intelligence, digital health, new mobility and financial technology, it said. Reuters has more here.

Contrarian Ventures, a five-year-old, Vilnius, Lithuania-based venture firm that's focused on climate tech, is reportedly in talks to raise up to €100 million for its second fund. The firm is led by managing partner Rokas Peciulaitis, who founded Contrarian at age 26, after previously working as a trader at Bank of America, and general partner Tomas Kemtys who was previously an investment banking associate at Centerview Partners. Bloomberg has the story here.

Conscience VC, a two-year-old, Miami-based outfit that say it's focused on startups at the intersection of consumer and deep tech, has raised $10 million for its debut fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Lightspeed Venture Partners today announced that it has collected a whopping $7 billion in capital commitments across a range of new funds. Partner Bejul Somaia, who has been with the firm's India practice for nearly 14 years, talks about it here.

Multicoin Capital, a five-year-old, Austin-based venture firm that invests in cryptocurrencies, tokens, and blockchain companies, says it has closed its third and newest fund with $430 million in capital commitments. Some of its bets include the layer-1 blockchains Ethereum and Solana and the second-largest crypto exchange globally, FTX. TechCrunch has more here.

Metal and carbon fiber company Markforged announced today that it acquired Digital Metal to further increase its lineup of machines that can produce metal parts. Digital Metal was previously owned by Swedish metal powder manufacturer Höganäs AB. The acquisition highlights Markforged’s push into additive manufacturing for industrial customers. Markforged went public last year through a merger with a blank-check company started by Eventbrite co-founder Kevin Hartz that valued the company at $2.1 billion. Its market cap is now $363 million. 👀 TechCrunch has more here.

Match Group, the parent company of several popular dating apps, including Tinder and Hinge, has acquired dating app The League, a spokesperson from the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in 2014, The League is a dating app designed to match ambitious and career-focused people looking for a long-term relationship. More here.

Spotify has agreed to acquire Heardle, a months-old daily music trivia game for undisclosed terms. The move sees the music streaming service and podcast producer move into interactive gaming for the first time. Heardle, which launched in March, is similar to Wordle but instead of trying to guess a word, contestants must try and guess a song within a few opening bars. Deadline has more here.

The estate of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has sold two apartments on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for $101 million, according to property records filed today. The sale includes a penthouse apartment as well as a second unit on a lower floor in the building, records show. The identity of the buyer could "not immediately be determined," reports the WSJ.

Three years after promising to work “long into the future” with the man behind its candy-colored computers, Apple and its former design leader, Jony Ive, are through.

Morgan Stanley has appointed Eli Gross and Simon Smith as global co-heads of investment banking, with current co-heads Mark Eichorn and Susie Huang becoming executive chairs of the unit. Reuters has more on the management shakeout here.

The global venture outfit SOSV just announced three new promotions: Mohan Iyer and Stephen Chambers, both of SOSV’s IndieBio, and Oscar Ramos, who works on SOSV’s Orbit Startups, have been appointed as new general partners at the firm. Iyer is based in San Francisco, Chambers in New York, and Ramos in Shanghai. (In March this year, SOSV separately announced that Pae Wu, CTO at IndieBio, in San Francisco, had also been promoted to general partner.) More here.

Tesla laid off hundreds of workers on its Autopilot team as the electric-vehicle maker shuttered a California facility, according to Bloomberg. Most of the roughly 200 people let go were reportedly hourly workers, even while Tesla previously disclosed headcount reductions targeted at salaried positions. As recently as last week, CEO Elon Musk outlined a plan to boost hourly jobs. More here.

Um. The co-founders of failed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital appear to be on the run from creditors. Lawyers representing the creditors say the physical whereabouts of Zhu Su and Kyle Davies, who started Three Arrows in 2012 and who were traders at Credit Suisse previously, are “currently unknown." CNBC has more here.

Sequoia Capital’s vaunted strategy has cost the firm and its backers an estimated $7.7 billion in market value, reports Bloomberg, picking up on this earlier report by reporter Eric Newcomer about the pitfalls of the firm's strategy to hang on to shares, even after a portfolio company has gone public.

Netflix is looking to amend its programming deals with major entertainment studios to allow the streaming giant to put content on an advertising-supported version of the service, the WSJ reported today.

Gmail users “hard pass” on the potential launch of a program that would let political emails bypass spam filters.

A peek at the 'Facebookification of Instagram.'

Prenups aren't just for rich people anymore.

Couture on the streets of Paris.

The airports in Europe experiencing the worst delays right now.

"Stranger Things" (if Kate Bush hadn't agreed to let them use "Running Up That Hill").

"Eat the Rich" popsicles.

Congratulations! You have a buyer interested in your business. Within your term sheet, you may find that the proceeds are primarily in stock of mix of stock and cash, which leaves you wondering if the offer is “market” and how you should evaluate the term sheet. In Allied Advisers’ analysis of 7K+ deals done in the last 5 years globally, stock has been a consideration in ~30% of transactions. This article will help you navigate the nuances to consider.