A new social media law in Calif., a crypto framework from the White House, and leg-lengthening gains traction 🦴

Friday! Hope you have a terrific weekend.:) Before you go, we just cooked up a new StrictlyVC Download, with guest Ann Miura-Ko, co-founding partner at Floodgate, a well-known seed-stage venture firm that makes relatively few investments but has enjoyed some very big wins over the years. Miuro-Ko was an early investor in Lyft, for example, where she remains a board member. Another of her more recent investments is the blockchain company StarkWare, assigned an $8 billion valuation in May.

This summer, Miura-Ko and her colleagues welcomed students from around the country to a new program designed to help them establish whether they really want to be founders and, if so, how to gauge the potential of their ideas. We talked with her about that initiative; we also talked about Y Combinator, one dangerous founder habit, and the silver lining for emerging fund managers caught in the downturn. (You can also read excerpts of that conversation below.)

Sincere thanks to Morgan Stanley at Work for its support of this week's podcast. Morgan Stanley at Work says it's helping more than 3,000 companies build a culture of ownership (and drive performance), largely through improving employees' financial wellness. To learn how it all works, visit morganstanley.com/strictlyvc.

A federal appeals court today upheld a Texas law that seeks to prohibit social-media platforms from blocking or removing posts based on the speaker’s viewpoint, a decision that could set the stage for the Supreme Court to resolve a case with broad ramifications for online discourse, observes the WSJ.

Meanwhile, social-media companies that operate in California will have to consider the health and well-being of children under a first-of-its-kind bill signed into law yesterday by Governor Gavin Newsom. Called the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, the law will require makers of social-media apps to study products and features that are likely to be accessed by minors and mitigate any potential harm before releasing them to the public. The WSJ has more here.

Uber says there is “no evidence” that any of its users’ private information was compromised in a breach of its internal computer systems discovered yesterday. All of the company’s products, including its ride-hail and Uber Eats food delivery services, are currently “operational,” and law enforcement has been notified, Uber said this afternoon.

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One could probably argue that Floodgate, the Bay Area-based seed-stage venture firm, punches above its weight. The roughly 15-year-old firm has just around $500 million in assets under management — including a $150 million fund that it quietly closed in January — and it makes just a handful of new investments each year. Yet with investments in Okta, Lyft and Starkware, which was valued at $8 billion in May, among others, its concentrated approach appears to be paying off.

Writing so few checks, particular in a booming market, might prove frustrating to some investors. But over the years, it has forced Floodgate’s small team to sort through many thousands of pitches and identify those it thinks have the most potential. Now, co-founding partner Ann Miura-Ko and Tyler Whittle, a senior associate with the firm, have developed a new program to help student teams similarly develop an understanding of what big ideas look like — and why most concepts are not big ideas.

Called Reactor, the program combines curriculum from classes Miura-Ko teaches at the Stanford School of Engineering and consists of two components – a pre-summer lecture series and a summer accelerator. Indeed, this past summer, 10 teams showed up at Floodgate’s offices for 10 weeks to built and test startups and, in some cases, ditch it all.

To get more details about the program — and also to hear Miura-Ko’s current perspective on the seed-stage startup scene — we talked with her earlier this week. Our chat has been lightly edited for length.

More here.

Atlas, a two-year-old Chicago startup that helps clients comply with employment rules and regulations across 160 countries, raised a Series B of up to $200 million from Sixth Street Growth. More here.

Fortanix, a six-year-old startup based in Mountain View, Ca., that aims to decouple security from network infrastructure to keep data secure even when the infrastructure has been compromised, raised a $90 million Series C round led by Goldman Sachs' GS Growth. Other participants in the round included GiantLeap Capital, Foundation Capital, Intel Capital, Neotribe Ventures, and In-Q-Tel. The company has raised a total of $135.3 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Federato, a two-year-old San Francisco startup whose platform allows insurers to visually monitor risk and manage their policy portfolios, raised a $15 million Series A round led by Emergence Capital, with Caffeinated Capital and Pear also chipping in. TechCrunch has more here.

Ownera, a four-year-old London startup that aims to connect the tokenized platforms and trading interfaces being launched by traditional finance companies, raised a $20 million Series A round. Investors included J.P. Morgan and LRC Group. CoinDesk has more here.

Parler, the four-year-old Nashville startup that operates a social network popular with conservatives, raised a $16 million Series B round from unidentified institutional and individuals, formed a new parent company called Parlement, and acquired Dynascale, a private cloud company based in Irvine, Ca. The company has raised a total of $56 million. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Reku, an Indonesian startup that operates a crypto exchange and marketplace, raised an $11 million Series A round led by AC Ventures, with Coinbase Ventures and Skystar Capital also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Rephrase.ai, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that creates avatars of human actors for use in ads and other sales collateral, raised a $10.6 million Series A round. The transaction was led by Red Ventures; Silverlake and 8VC also pitched in. The company has raised a total of $12.2 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Shyft, a four-year-old, Miami-based marketplace for corporate relocation and consumer moves, has raised $16 million in Series B funding. Backers included new investors Munich RE Ventures and OurCrowd, and earlier investors Inovia Capital and Blumberg Capital. Coverager has more here.

Arbonics, a startup based in Tallinn, Estonia, that is launching a tool it easier for European landowners to calculate the potential carbon income of land and forests, raised a $1.8 million pre-seed round. Plural Platform and Wise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus participated in the round. More here.

Enzee Health, a startup based in Columbus, Oh., that digitizes required quality assurance checks for hospitals, raised a $1.5 million seed round led by Rev1 Ventures, with Tamarind Hill, Harbor Street Ventures, M7 NEO, Redgrave Investments, and Service Provider Capital also taking part. Columbus Inno has more here.

HeyData, a three-year-old Berlin startup that helps businesses comply with data protection regulations, raised a $3.3 million seed round. Ten VC was the deal lead. TFN has more here.

Insly, a 22-year-old London startup whose low-code software platform helps insurance professionals automate their back-office operations, raised a $1.1 million bridge round from Concentric, Uniqa Ventures, and Fund Fellow Founders. The company has raised a total of $6.8 million. More here.

MVP Match, a two-year-old Berlin startup whose recruiting platform is an "employer of record" for companies wishing to hire workers from around the world, raised a $5 million seed round led by Stage 2 Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Myna Swap, a Los Angeles startup that has built an online trading and vault platform for sports cards and other collectible hard goods, raised a $6 million seed round. Investors included Blizzard the Avalanche Fund, Citizen X, Polygon Studios, Madison Paige Ventures, AAF Management, Spartan Capital, Wave Financial, BluePointe Capital, Eileses Capital, and NFL players Odell Beckham Jr., and Kyler Murray. Sports Collectors Daily has more here.

Nomono, a three-year-old startup based in Trondheim, Norway, that has developed a highly specialized microphone array aimed at podcasters and broadcasters, raised a $3.6 million seed round. Schibsted Ventures led the transaction. The company has raised a total of $16 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Transaera, a 32-year-old Boston air conditioner startup that uses a sponge-like material to grab moisture from the atmosphere, enabling air conditioners to cool the air more efficiently, raised a $4.5 million seed round led by Energy Impact Partners, with Carrier Ventures, Saint Gobain, and MassCEC also chipping in. More here.

Xtype, a two-year-old Tel Aviv startup whose platform accelerates the development of low-code applications built using ServiceNow, raised a $5.8 million seed round led by Columbia Capital; additional investors included Inner Loop Capital and SaaS Ventures. SiliconANGLE has more here.

VCs with capital to deploy in 2022 are appreciating increasingly reasonable entry point valuations. But you have to have capital to deploy to take advantage of it, and more LPs are saying no now than anytime in the last 10 years! Learn how firms like Haun, GSV, and Sway are using Juniper Square to upgrade their investor relations and fundraising process.

First Star, a nearly nine-year-old backer of deep tech startups like Plus One and Fyto, aims to raise as much as $40 million for its third venture fund, TechCrunch reports. Based in Cambridge, Ma., First Star typically backs robotics, blockchain, AI and machine learning-focused startups at the early stage. More here.

Gautam Adani, the Indian tycoon who has climbed the wealth rankings at breakneck speed this year, surpassed Jeff Bezos to become the world’s second-richest person earlier today. Bloomberg has more here.

Meta has lost 61% of its value over the past 12 months, by far the biggest slide among Big Tech stocks and more than double the drop in the Nasdaq Composite.

Covid knocked 500,000 workers out of the labor force, a new study says.

The Biden White House has just released its first-ever framework on what crypto regulation in the U.S. should look like.

TikTok's CEO navigates the limits of his power.

Broadway’s longest-running show announces its final curtain call.

Riding Hermes to record revenue.

Inside the booming world of leg lengthening. 🤢

Are you . . . seeing another farmers' market vendor?

Mars hoodie.

A penthouse in the world’s tallest condo lists for $250 million. (Hey, if you don't ask . . .)

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