'Luxury' phones, teary CEOs, and SoftBank's plan to unload more its long-prized Alibaba stake

SoftBank is unloading Alibaba shares valued at $22 billion, "accelerating a separation between two companies that once were tied at the hip and symbolized Asia’s technology boom," notes the WSJ.

Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, just ran a final dress rehearsal ahead of a years-awaited upgrade.

United Airlines places a bet on flying taxis.

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Nikhil Patel is the kind of founder who investors adore. He's a brainiac who, before studying computer science at Yale, spent three years in high school working as a research associate at the University of Central Florida. "I started working there before I could drive, and it was the most embarrassing thing to get dropped off by my mom at the office," he says with a laugh.

Patel also has a personal connection to the problem he is trying to solve, that of trying to diagnose and address Alzheimer's disease as early as possible. Watching his grandmother lose ground to Alzheimer's, and understanding, from a young age, that an early diagnosis and intervention can delay the onset of dementia, he centered his research on building Alzheimer's-related computerized diagnostics -- which wasn't easy to pull off as a teenager. (He says he finally found one professor who was willing to publish his findings under the auspices of the lab after more than 100 others turned him down.)

Patel did get a wee bit distracted. After graduating from college, he logged time at a "couple of different hedge funds" and at Goldman Sachs where he worked on trading algorithms. But by early last year, as another relative was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, he returned to his earlier work, founding Craniometrix, which is today a three-person operation with sizable ambitions.

So far, the team has raised $6 million in seed funding for a HIPAA-compliant app that, according to Patel, can help identify Alzheimer's disease -- even years before symptoms appear -- after just 10 minutes of gameplay on a cellphone. It's not purely a tech offering. Patel says the results are given to an "actual physician" affiliated with Craniometrix who "reviews, verifies, and signs that diagnostic" and returns it back to a patient.

But the company's backers -- including Quiet Capital, Defy.vc, Olive Tree Capital, Rebel Fund, J Ventures, Cathexis Ventures and Y Combinator -- and really betting on Patel and his bigger vision to create a one-stop, direct-to-consumer tele-medicine platform that not only helps with early Alzheimer's detection but that also provides ongoing support to patients and their caregivers.

It's a concept that Neil Sequeira of Defy says he rallied around easily, given his firm's interest in startups that use tech to improve upon legacy healthcare businesses. (Others of Defy's bets include a cloud-based lab management startup called Genemod and Apploi, a healthcare hiring platform.)

But Sequeira suggests that he might back anything Patel worked on. In fact, he says he met Patel through another CEO whose stealth startup Defy has funded and who, when asked about the smartest person he has ever met, pointed to Patel.

More here.

Dana, a five-year-old company that has become among Indonesia’s biggest digital wallet providers, just raised $250 million from local conglomerate Sinar Mas and Alibaba Group Holding’s Lazada Group to expand in its home country. Bloomberg has more here.

TeamApt, a Nigerian fintech that operates one of the country's largest business payments and banking platforms, has reportedly raised more than $50 million in fresh funding led by QED Investors. TechCrunch has more here.

​​Biofourmis, a seven-year-old startup based in Boston that uses artificial intelligence coupled with hardware sensors to predict disease via continually analyzing biomarkers, like heart rate, temperature and respiration rate, raised a $20 million Series D extension from Intel Capital. The company previously reported that the valuation for the Series D is $1.3 billion. Biofourmis has raised a total of $463.6 million. Healthcare Innovation has more here.

Expedock, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based software company that uses AI to digitize freight paperwork and categorize it into existing logistics management tools, has raised $13.5 million in Series A funding led by Insight Partners, with participation from VMG Catalyst; earlier backers Pear and Neo; and individual investors. The company has now raised $18 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Finix, a San Francisco-based payments tech company for software platforms, says it has raised $30 million in new venture capital, bringing its total known raised to $133 million. New and earlier backers participated in the round, including The General Partnership, Franklin Templeton, Acrew Capital, American Express Ventures, and Inspired Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Injective, a New York-based, 40-person blockchain that says it's built for finance, has announced a $40 million funding round led by Jump Crypto, with participation from BH Digital, the crypto arm of hedge fund manager Alan Howard. Blockworks has more here.

Maximus, a three-year-old consumer telemedicine startup based in Santa Monica that targets men's sexual health, raised a $15 million Series A round led by Keith Rabois, with additional participation from 8VC, Abstract Ventures, 10X Capital, Unshackled Ventures, OneVC, Gaingels, Correlation Ventures, Chamaeleon VC, Rational Ventures, WhatIf Ventures, Shrug Capital, and Electric Ant. The company has raised a total of $20 million. More here.

Nanopath, a startup based in Cambridge, Ma., that aims to be the go-to system for routine women’s screening of viral and bacterial infections, raised a $10 million Series A round co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and the Medtech Convergence Fund, with Gingerbread Capital and Green D Ventures also chipping in. VatorNews has more here.

Prellis Biologics, a six-year-old startup based in San Francisco that uses its proprietary, high-resolution bioprinting tech to recreate and engineer human tissues in vitro, raised a $35 million Series C co-led by Celesta Capital and Avidity Partners; Khosla Ventures, SOSV, True Ventures, and Lucas Venture Group also participated. The company has raised a total of $64.9 million. More here.

Heirloom, a one-year-old Los Angeles startup that claims to allow organizations to tokenize digital assets and NFTs at scale with no coding required, raised an $8 million seed round. Ripple Labs and Forte Labs were the co-leads. CryptoShrypto has more here.

Nanopath, a 2.5-year-old, Hanover, N.H.-based molecular diagnostics company focused on women's health, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Norwest Venture Partners and the Medtech Convergence Fund led the round and were joined by investors including Gingerbread Capital and Green D Ventures. Mass Device has more here.

Nightfall AI, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based cloud data loss prevention platform, says it just raised $40 million Series B funding. WestBridge Capital led the round, joined by Next Play Capital and earlier investors Bain Capital Ventures, Venrock, Pear VC, and several professional athletes and influencers, including actor Paul Rudd. TechCrunch has more here.

OpenSpace, a five-year-old San Francisco startup that uses artificial intelligence to stitch together images, creating a Google Street View-like digital twin of a job site and a record of its status over the course of a project, raised an additional $9 million in Series D funding from Taronga Ventures and GreenPoint Partners. The company has raised a total of $200.4 million. Commercial Observer has more here.

Privya, a one-year-old Tel Aviv startup that aims to ensure that privacy is protected at the code level before the code goes into production, raised a $6 million seed round led by Hyperwise Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

ReturnLogic, an eight-year-old startup based in Camp Hill, Pa., that provides returns management software for e-commerce brands and retailers, raised $8.5 million Series A round led by Mercury, with Rise of the Rest Fund, White Rose Ventures, and Ben Franklin Technology Partners also contributing. The company has raised a total of $11.6 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Sella, a startup based in Portland, Or., that uses gig workers to market, list, and sell items from users on its platform, raised a $3 million seed round led by Flying Fish Ventures. GeekWire has more here.

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The chief executive officer of a Columbus, Oh.-based marketing agency wrote a post yesterday about laying off employees, including a teary-eyed selfie. Then Twitter (and LinkedIn) users did their thing.

Mark Cuban thinks buying virtual real estate is "the dumbest s--- ever."

CRV, the early-stage venture firm, has hired Chiraag Deora and Veronica Orellana as investors. Deora joins from Battery Ventures and Orellana from a calendar-based social platform called Saturn.

Ralph Nader is urging regulators to recall Tesla’s "manslaughtering" Full Self-Driving driver-assist feature, calling its deployment “one of the most dangerous and irresponsible actions by a car company in decades.”

Elon Musk confirmed that his massive new stock sale ties to his Twitter bid, hinting that some of his syndicate partners are, er, less solid now. Tweeted Musk late yesterday about the sale: “In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close and some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock.”

Facebook, once the go-to social media platform for many, has plummeted in popularity among younger users, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. The share of 13- to 17-year-olds who said they use Facebook dropped from 71% in the 2015 study to 32% today, Pew found. NBC News has more here.

Silicon Valley founders rode their unicorns to fame and fortune. In a rocky market, it got a little less fun.

Spotify has started selling live music tickets to fans directly, though a (not unbiased) product manager at SeatGeek warns it's not as easy as it looks to do well.

Meta's AI chatbot throws the boss under the bus.

Musk's romantic partners keep putting him into their art.

The secrets of Italy's Lake Como.

An $1,800 smart phone. 

Crocs jump the shark.

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