Silicon Valley Funding News - Week of August 8, 2022. Afresh Raised $115M Series B led by Spark Capital

Hello from Seoul!  My very first trip back to Asia after 2 1/2 years!  I am super excited to speak at Korean Blockchain Week this morning. 

Here's 5 great reads for this week:

• 📜 Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act of 2022 - This bill will empower the CFTC with jurisdiction over the digital commodities spot market.  Digital assets and blockchain technology have already, and will continue, to change the way global markets function. Yet, this fast-growing industry is currently governed largely by a patchwork of regulations at the state level. Hopefully this clear federal oversight to digital asset commodity markets. 
• 💰 2022 is the Year of Unicorn Acquisitions Amazon, Microsoft and Google are spending big bucks on acquisitions this year. 
  • Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard and Nuance for almost $85 billion
  • Amazon acquired One Medical and iRobot for $5.2 billion
  • Google bought Mandiant, Raxium and Siemplify for almost $7B
• 👇 YC Downsize by reducing its summer 2022 cohort size by nearly 40% compared to winter 2022. Still 250 companies are a lot of companies to accelerate!
• 🎧 Remote Work is Hurting Society - Malcolm Gladwell thinks that remote work is hurting society and that a recession will likely drive employees who are “sitting in their pajamas” back into the office. Watch my favorite author. 
• 👛 Slope Blamed for Wallet Attack - As the dust settles from this week's Solana ecosystem mayhem, data is surfacing that Slope wallet is responsible for the security exploit that stole crypto. Lessons learned?  Never ever disclose your seed phrase to anyone.

This week a total of 13 startups raised $516M in funding, 6 M&As:

• $132M goes to 3 Enterprise startups
• $60M goes to 1 FinTech startup
• $18M goes to 1 HR Tech startup
• $15M goes to 1 eCommerce startup
• $125M goes to 2 Supply Chain Management startups
• $64M goes to 2 Healthcare startups
• $33M goes to 1 BioTech startup
• $25M goes to 1 Manufacturing startup
• $44M goes to 1 Renewable Energy startup