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Elon Musk suggested delaying his $44 billion takeover of Twitter on the grounds that it “wouldn’t make sense to buy Twitter if we’re heading into world war three," according to texts between the billionaire entrepreneur and star Morgan Stanley banker Michael Grimes that were aired today in a court hearing. During a three-hour session in a Delaware Chancery court today, the social media company shared a message exchange between Musk and Grimes to argue that Musk's continued attempts to back out of the deal because of bots were “all pretext." The FT has more here.
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who was convicted of fraud in January, has asked a federal judge for a new trial after she said one of the prosecution’s star witnesses visited her house to express regret for his role in her trial, according to a new court filing. The WSJ has more here.
California narrowly avoided blackouts for a second day today, even as temperatures pushed electricity demand to a record and stretched the state’s power grid close to its limits. 🥵 (It's nothing compared to what's been happening in Pakistan and India.)
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Most major research teams like Goldman Sachs are forecasting equity returns of 3-4% over the next decade – not even breaking inflation at its current levels. In other words, investors could be facing negative real returns for years. But one often-overlooked market has actually appreciated by 33% on average during periods of inflation and sluggish economic growth. With Masterworks, this formerly-exclusive asset class has now been opened to all investors. Just follow today’s special link to skip the waitlist. See important Regulation A disclosures.
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| Juul Agrees to Record $438.5M Settlement, While a Newer Vape Maker Gains Steam |
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Juul has long argued that it’s trying to save lives; meanwhile, its own existence seems precarious at times.
Right now is one of those times. As reported earlier today by numerous outlets, the once high-flying e-cigarette company just agreed to a $438.5 million settlement with 33 states that alleged the company marketed its product to underage users.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong announced the deal, noting that in addition to the financial terms, the settlement will force Juul to adhere to specific marketing and sales practices, including refraining from depicting anyone younger than age 35 in its marketing in film, on billboards or in social media, or to sell Juul-branded merchandise.
The company also agreed to never again fund education programs in schools, even while it spiked this short-lived practice years ago under pressure from regulators. (In 2018, Juul sponsored a summer camp in Baltimore, among half a dozen other initiatives that came to a halt that same year.)
The new settlement — to be paid out over six to 10 years — is by far the biggest to which Juul has agreed, though it’s one in a growing string. Since last year, as noted by the WSJ, Juul agreed to pay a total of $87 million in settlements with four other states that brought lawsuits against the company. Meanwhile, Juul is still facing thousands of other lawsuits, including cases brought by nine other attorneys general.
That the company has not dissolved into a poof of smoke itself is something of a miracle.
More here.
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ArsenalBio, a three-year-old, South San Francisco-based programmable cell therapy company, has raised $220 million in Series B funding, bringing the startup's total funding to date to more than $300 million. New investors Softbank Vision Fund 2, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Byers Capital, Emerson Collective Investments, Green Sands, Hitachi Ventures, Sixth Street, and others joined earlier investors in the round, including the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, Westlake Village BioPartners, the University of California, San Francisco Foundation Investment Company, Euclidean Capital, Waycross Ventures, and
Kleiner Perkins. FierceBiotech has more here.
Bitwarden, a seven-year-old startup based in Santa Barbara, Ca., that has developed an open source password manager for enterprises and consumers, raised a $100 million round led by PSG, with Battery Ventures also participating. TechCrunch has more here.
Cymulate, a six-year-old Tel Aviv startup that uses simulations to help companies stress test their networks against potential attacks, raised a $70 million Series D round led by One Peak, with Susquehanna Growth Equity, Vertex Ventures Israel, Vertex Growth, and Dell Technologies Capital also joining in. The company has raised a total of $141 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Lightyear, a six-year-old startup based in the Netherlands that is developing a long-range hybrid solar-powered car, raised an $80.2 million round. Investors included Invest-NL, SHV, and DELA. The company has raised a total of $184.4 million. TechCrunch has more here.
VTS, a 10-year-old, New York-based company whose online tools help landlords manage leases and tenant data and also helps them market space digitally, has raised $125 million in fresh funding led by a $100 million check from CBRE Group. The WSJ has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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21.co, the four-year-old, Zurich-based parent company of crypto investment firm 21Shares, has raised $25 million in fresh funding led by the hedge fund Marshall Wace. Other investors in the round include Collab+Currency, Quiet Ventures, ETFS Capital and Valor Equity Partners. Decrypt has more here.
Josys, an India-based SaaS platform that streamlines and automates corporate IT operations and was launched this year (it was spun out of parent company Raksul, has raised roughly $32 million in Series A funding led by Global Brain. Other participants in the round include ANRI, Digital Holdings, Yamauchi No 10 Family Office and World Innovation Lab. TechCrunch has more here.
Localyze, a four-year-old, Hamburg-based startup that offers admin automation and digital case management tools to aid in the hiring of international talent or managing cross-border staff moves, has raised $35 million in Series B funding. General Catalyst led the round; other investors include Visionaries Club, Web Summit Fund and Frontline Ventures, along with several individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Uiflow, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based no-code platform for enterprises wanting to build custom applications faster and (it says) more securely, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Addition and Transpose Platform, with additional support from Together Fund and angel investors. More here.
Varjo, a six-year-old Helsinki, Finland-based maker of what it describes as industrial-grade virtual and mixed reality hardware and software, has raised $40 million in Series D funding. Backers in the round include EQT Ventures, Atomico, strategic backer Volvo Car Tech Fund, Lifeline Ventures and Tesi, an investment fund sponsored by the Finnish government . New backers Mirabaud and Foxconn also participated. TechCrunch has more here.
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Ceezer, a one-year-old Berlin startup whose platform aims to simplify the planning, purchasing, and monitoring of complex carbon market portfolios, raised a $4.2 million round from Carbon Removal Partners and Norrsken VC. The company has raised a total of $5.2 million. TechFundingNews has more here.
Delli, a two-year-old London startup that aims to use the “drop” model seen in fashion (where a limited amount of a new product is released at a set time) to sell food products from small producers, raised a $7.2 million round co-led by Balderton and HV Capital. The company has raised a total of $10.5 million. Tech.eu has more here.
EarlyDay, a two-year-old Miami startup that aims to be a LinkedIn for early childhood teachers, raised a $3.25 million seed round co-led by Alpaca VC and Struck Capital, with Precursor Ventures, Bright Horizons, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, and FJ Labs also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $4.3 million. Business Insider has more here.
Edda, a startup based in Wilmington, De., that claims to provide limited partners with real-time insights into a fund's performance, raised $5.8 million, per Axios. Investors included Mucker Capital, Plug & Play, FJ Labs, and Future Shape. More here.
Gig and Take, a one-year-old startup based in Mechanicsburg, Pa., that develops scheduling software for manufacturers that can incorporate "flex labor," raised a $1.5 million pre-seed round led by Schematic Ventures, with additional participation from Motivate and SHRM. More here.
JusticeText, a three-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based software company that stores, catalogs, analyzes and then shares video evidence in order to increase transparency around criminal matters, has raised $2.2 million in seed funding. Participants in the round include Bloomberg Beta, True Ventures, Reid Hoffman, singer-songwriter John Legend and former Stockton, Ca., mayor Michael Tubbs. TechCrunch has more here.
Raftt, a one-year-old, Tel Aviv-based cloud platform for creating and sharing development environments, raised $5 million in seed round. Aleph VC and Cardumen Capital co-led the deal. TechFundingNews has more here.
Tailor, a five-year-old startup based in Valencia, Spain, whose platform delivers data from back-office systems like finance and procurement to other applications via API, raised a $4.3 million seed round. Investors included Y Combinator and Global Brain. TechCrunch has more here.
Userpilot, a 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that helps SaaS companies personalize in-app onboarding experiences for users, has raised $4.6 million in seed funding led by Silicon Badia, with participation from ScOp Ventures and 500 Global. The startup’s new funding follows $1.2 million it secured in a pre-seed round last year. TechCrunch has more here.
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Building Ventures, a four-year-old, Boston-based early-stage venture firm that invests in seed- and Series A-stage construction and real estate tech startups, has closed its second round with $95 million in capital commitments, money the firm will use to invest in up to 20 companies it says. It also promoted Heather Widman to partner. Widman joined the firm as a principal in 2019. More here.
Dorm Room Fund, first launched as an experiment in 2012 to back startups started on college campuses, is spinning out from First Round Capital with a $12.5 million fund. Founding partner Molly Fowler is heading up the new firm. Limited partners in the effort include Marc Andreessen, Underscore VC, and Insight Partners, among others. Fortune has more here.
Heavybit, a nine-year-old, San Francisco-based venture firm that says it focuses on "developer-first startups," has closed its fourth flagship fund with $80 million in capital commitments. More here.
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| Exits (and Blocked Exits) |
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ADT has secured investments totaling $1.5 billion from State Farm and a partnership aimed at expanding its customer base and improving risk-mitigation for insured homeowners, the companies said today. Under the deal, State Farm will spend $1.2 billion to buy 133.3 million ADT shares, or about 15% of the company, reported the WSJ. More here.
European regulators blocked Illumina’s $8 billion acquisition of Grail today, just days after Illumina won a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit seeking to unwind its $7 billion acquisition of the cancer startup. While an administrative judge here in the U.S. ruled that the tie-up didn’t violate antitrust law, the European Commission put out a statement earlier, saying the deal would have “stifled innovation, and reduced choice” in the growing blood-based cancer screening test market.
Specifically, the EC noted that because other companies rely on Illumina’s NGS systems technology for their own products, a merger would have granted Illumina an unfair advantage over its rivals. EndPoints News has more here.
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| Going Public (and Not Going Public After All) |
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Candela Medical, a 12-year-old, Marlborough, Ma.-based maker of energy-based medical devices for aesthetic procedures that's owned by the private equity firm Apax, withdrew registration for a $250 milliom IPO that had previously been postponed. Renaissance Capital has more here.
Chobani, the 17-year-old, Berlin, N.Y.-based Greek yogurt maker, formally withdrew registration for an IPO that had been expected to raise up to $1.5 billion. Renaissance Capital has more here.
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Former SEC Commission Chairman Jay Clayton recently joined venture firm Electric Capital as an advisor, part of a growing wave of ex-regulators flocking to the crypto space as the industry faces increasing scrutiny. Bloomberg has more here.
Bruce Nsereko-Lule has joined Seedstars Africa Ventures as a general partner from Chandaria Capital, where he worked previously. TechCrunch has more here.
Paola Retes has joined Austin-based LiveOak Venture Partners as a vice president. A recent graduate of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, she was also an early employee at Ironspring Ventures. More here.
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A new report examining the impact of Apple’s privacy feature, App Tracking Transparency, indicates Apple’s own ads business appears to have financially benefitted as a result of the feature’s launch. TechCrunch has more here.
Instagram is planning to drastically scale back its shopping features, the company told Instagram staffers today. The Information has more here.
Travis Kalanick has rapidly expanded his U.S.-based CloudKitchens start-up by buying and building local “dark kitchens” in Latin America as part of an attempt to build a worldwide network of food delivery centers, reports the FT. It adds that alongside buying properties to use as space to prepare delivery or pick up takeaway food, the Uber cofounder has launched Pik N’ Pak, which houses convenience-store items like pet foods in nearly 50 CloudKitchens locations across 11 cities in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia. As with the kitchen operations, Pik N’ Pak goods are sent to customers by local delivery app companies. More here.
How YouTube broke up with PewDiePie -- then got back together again. (Courtesy of The Verge.)
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Ella: An American Miracle, a musical about music legend Ella Fitzgerald, has its sights set on Broadway. As written by two-time Tony nominee and MacArthur Fellowship award-winner Anna Deavere Smith, we follow the spirit of Ella (portrayed by four-time Grammy and Tony award winner Dee Dee Bridgewater) as she becomes a worldwide phenomenon despite having to fight Jim Crow laws every step of the way. This is not an offer to invest. To learn more, please reach out to ella@evamere.com.
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