Kraken's CEO steps down, Bird's founder loses another title, and Mark Zuckerberg unveils his next big thing

Ba-dee-ya, dee-ya, dee-ya . . .

Europe is stuck in an energy crisis, and cold weather is coming. The situation is now so bad that E.U. officials have called on member states to voluntarily ration energy, noting that the cuts could become mandatory. Fortune has more here.

As expected, the Federal Reserve today raised benchmark interest rates by another three-quarters of a percentage point and indicated it will keep hiking well above the current level. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell also conceded a recession is possible, particularly if the Fed has to keep tightening aggressively. “No one knows whether this process will lead to a recession or, if so, how significant that recession will be,” he said.

Meta Platforms is planning to cut expenses by at least 10% in the coming months, in part through staff reductions, as the social-media giant confronts stalling growth and increased competition, according to the WSJ. It reports that some affected employees will be given a limited window to apply for other roles within the company, though internally the option, the "30 Day List," is viewed as a human-resources purgatory, adds the outlet.

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DotPe, a three-year-old Indian startup that helps small Indian businesses with in-store and remote ordering, online payments, online marketing, and delivery, raised a $58 million Series B round led by Temasek, with additional funds provided by PayU, InfoEdge Ventures, Mitsubishi, and Naya Capital. The company has raised a total of $90 million. PYMNTS has more here.

Pie Insurance, a five-year-old Washington, D.C., startup that provides workers’ compensation insurance to small businesses, raised a $315 million Series D round co-led by Centerbridge Partners and Allianz X, with additional participation from White Mountains Insurance Group and previous investors Gallatin Point Capital, Greycroft, and Acrew Capital. The company has raised a total of $621 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Therabody, a fourteen-year-old Dallas startup that makes a popular handheld massage device, raised a $165 million round led by North Castle Partners, with Hartbeat Ventures (comedian Kevin Hart), Rx3 Ventures (football star Aaron Rogers), and model Karlie Kloss also chipping in. The New York Times has more here.

Alitheon, a five-year-old Bellevue, Wa., startup that identifies and authenticates products for its clients through pictures, raised a $10 million Series A round. BMW i Ventures and Imagine Ventures co-led the deal. The company has raised a total of $30.7 million. SeattleInno has more here.

Aura Bora, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that has created a sparkling water brand, raised a $10 million Series A round led by Siddhi Capital; Consumer Ventures, Gaingels, Seaside Ventures, and Simple Food Ventures also invested. Bevnet has more here.

Benivo, a 12-year-old London startup that helps HR departments manage their global mobility and relocation programs, raised a $12 million round led by Updata Partners. The company has raised a total of $27 million. More here.

Classiq, a two-year-old Tel Aviv startup that says it enables developers to build quantum algorithms and applications more easily, raised a $13 million Series B extension, increasing the total round size to $49 million. Awz Ventures was the investor. SiliconANGLE has more here.

CURE Group, a one-year-old Berlin startup whose app allows customers to select and order prescriptions and medical devices, raised a $14.9 million Series A round led by Breega, with Abstract Ventures, J12 Ventures, and PiLabs also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $19.6 million. Startbase has more here.

DoorLoop, a three-year-old Miami startup that says it helps landlords, property managers, and management companies in more than 100 countries to manage tens of thousands of units, raised a $20 million Series A round. Alpine Software Group was the deal lead. The company has raised a total of $30 million. More here.

ENACT Systems, an eight-year-old startup based in Pleasanton, Ca., that helps salespeople remotely design, price, and sell solar systems while also enabling end customers to track their energy and financial outcomes, raised an $11.5 million Series A round. Investors included Energy Growth Momentum, NB Ventures, ARKA Venture Labs, Olympus Capital, and Alumni Venture Funds. The company has raised a total of $16 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Gigs, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that wants to make it easier for any company to sell phone and data plans as part of their own branded mobile network subscriptions, raised a $20 million Series A round from Gradient Ventures and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. The company has raised a total of $24 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Higlobe, a two-year-old Palo Alto, Ca. startup that uses asset-backed stablecoins to provide a means of making cross-border payments between bank accounts, raised a $14 million in round led by Battery Ventures. Business Insider has more here.

Jacobi, an eight-year-old San Francisco startup whose platform helps clients design and manage multi-asset portfolios, raised a $10 million Series A round. The round was led by Queensland Investment Corporation, which joined previous investors Illuminate Venture Partners, 8VC, and Western Technology Investment. The company has raised a total of $20.2 million. More here.

Knoetic, a two-year-old New York startup that has built an HR platform designed to provide insights on metrics like attrition, diversity, and headcount growth, raised a $36 million Series B round led by EQT Ventures; additional investors included Menlo Ventures and Accel. The company has raised a total of $54 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Ledgy, a five-year-old Zurich startup that builds cap table management software specifically for companies and their employees working across multiple countries, raised a $22 million Series B round led by NEA, with additional capital provided by Sequoia Capital, Speedinvest, btov, and Visionaries Club. The company has raised a total of $33.4 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Loctax, a two-year-old London startup that helps divisions of companies standardize their tax planning operations on one platform, raised a $12 million Series A round led by Index Ventures, with Cavalry Ventures, and Seedcamp also taking part. The company has raised a total of $15.6 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Messari, a four-year-old New York startup that provides cryptocurrency data and analytics services, raised a $35 million Series B round led by Brevan Howard Digital, with Morgan Creek Digital, Samsung Next, FTX Ventures and previous investors Point72 Ventures, Kraken Ventures, Uncork Capital, Underscore VC, Galaxy, and Coinbase Ventures also piling on. CoinDesk has more here.

Monese, a nine-year-old London startup that provides digital banking and remittance services to consumers and businesses across Europe, raised a $35 million from HSBC. The company has raised a total of $205.4 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Murf AI, a two-year-old Salt Lake City startup that sells AI-powered voiceovers for use in films, commercials, and animation, raised a $10 million Series A round led by Matrix Partners, with previous investor Elevation Partners also participating. The company has raised a total of $11.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Noble, a 35-year-old Israeli startup that allows businesses to build credit-based products like credit cards and buy now, pay later services with no-code tools, raised a $15 million Series A round led by Insight Partners; additional investors included Cross River Digital Ventures, Plug & Play Ventures, Y Combinator, Flexport Fund, TLV Partners, Operator Partners, Verissimo Ventures, Interplay Ventures, and the George Kaiser Family Foundation. TechCrunch has more here.

Block Party, a four-year-old startup based in Walnut, Ca., that lets users automate the process of blocking bad actors and creating block lists on Twitter, raised a $4.8 million seed round led by Stellation Capital, with additional investment from Impellent Ventures, Fuel Capital, Goodwater Capital, and Hyphen Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Dame Products, an eight-year-old Brooklyn startup that sells a host of sexual wellness products, raised a $7 million Series A round led by Amboy Street Ventures, with additional participation from Listen Ventures, Flybridge, Echo, and Forest Road Co. The company has raised a total of $11 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Immortal Game, a startup that aims to to turn chess into a web3 game with NFTs, play-to-earn rewards, a marketplace, and more, raised a $12 million Series A round. The deal lead was TCG; additional participants included Cassius, Greenfield One, Sparkle Ventures, 35Ventures, Blockwall, Kraken Ventures, and Spice Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Julaya, a four-year-old Ivory Coast startup that facilitates B2B payments for businesses in Francophone West Africa, mainly via mobile money channels, extended its pre-Series A round by $5 million, increasing the total round size to $7 million. The lead was Speedinvest; EQ2 Ventures, Kibo Ventures, angel syndicates Unpopular Ventures and Jedar Capital as well as previous investors Orange Ventures, Saviu, and 50 Partners also chipped in. The company has raised a total of $7.7 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Kaiko Systems, a two-year-old Berlin startup that is trying to digitize operations on commercial vessels, raised a $2 million seed round. Investors included Schoeller Holdings, Vineta Ventures, A-Round Capital, and Flagship Founders. TechCrunch has more here.

Lyfegen, a four-year-old startup based in Basel, Switzerland, that helps aims to help pharma companies, payers, providers, and medical technology companies draw up value-based contracts, raised an $8 million Series A round led by aMoon, with Apex Ventures also taking part. The company has raised a total of $10.9 million. MobiHealthNews has more here.

The Muse, an eleven-year-old New York startup that operates a job search and career development platform used by 75 million people annually, raised an $8 million round led by MBM Capital. The company has raised a total of $31.7 million. More here.

Neem, a three-year-old Karachi startup that has built a lending platform that its partners can use to provide tailored lending products to consumers and small businesses, raised a $2.5 million seed round led by SparkLabs Financial. TechCrunch has more here.

Random Games, a startup based in Boulder, Co., that claims to be "advancing an entirely new concept in videogames and franchise entertainment through a combination of community empowerment and blockchain technology," raised a $7.6 million seed round. Resolute Ventures and Asymmetric co-led the deal. More here.

RenewCO2, a four-year-old startup based in Cranford, N.J., that is developing catalyst technology to convert carbon into feedstock, raised a $2 million led by Energy Transition Ventures. The company has raised a total of $3.4 million. More here.

RKVST, a four-year-old Santa Clara, Ca., startup that helps supply chain partners track their physical and digital assets, raised a $7.5 million Series A round from Ridgeline, Acadia Woods, Cyber Mentor Fund, and Long Run Capital. More here.

Sloomoo, a three-year-old New York startup that operates a "a slime-focused experiential destination that combines science and fun play," raised a $5.8 million Series A round led by attorney and entrepreneur (and estranged wife of Sergey Brin) Nicole Shanahan, with Raptor Group also taking part. AlleyWatch has more here.

Sparrow, a four-year-old New York startup that allows students to shop for and compare alternative loans - or refinance existing federal and nonfederal loans - using one application, raised a $5.8 million seed round led by Sozo Ventures; additional investors included Good Friends VC, SHAKTI, and Dash Fund. Forbes has more here.

Spot, a two-year-old, Seattle-based startup that says it can create customized virtual floor plans of workspaces that feature collaboration and communication functionality (think voice and video, screen-sharing, white-boarding, and asynchronous team chat), has raised $5.5 million in combined seed funding led by Freestyle. Other backers include Liquid 2 Ventures, Community Access Fund, and Founder’s Co-Op. GeekWire has more here.

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Arbor Ventures, funder of fintech and shopping startups like installment loan company Tabby and Amazon brand factory Heyday, has locked down $193 million towards its largest fund to date, TechCrunch has learned. The Singapore-based outfit focuses on early-stage financial tech startups, but it operates with a pretty expansive view of what constitutes fintech; its portfolio includes startups working on AI, healthcare, crypto and (of course) several buy now, pay later schemes. Arbor aims to raise nearly $107 million more for its third core fund, which could reach a total of $300 million, per an SEC filing.

Human Ventures, a six-year-old, New York-based venture firm and studio that looks to invest in underrepresented founders and is in the process of raising roughly $50 million for its newest fund, tells Axios that Bank of America has signed on as its anchor investor. More here.

Kitty Hawk, the 12-year-old electric aviation startup founded and led by the ‘godfather of self-driving cars’ Sebastian Thrun and backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, is shutting down, it announced in a tweet and a LinkedIn post earlier today. TechCrunch has more here.

Today marked 238 days without a tech IPO worth more than $50 million, surpassing the previous records set in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the early 2000s dotcom crash, according to research by Morgan Stanley’s technology equity capital markets team. The Financial Times has more here.

"I can't see any reason why Elon should not have more children," his father Errol Musk tells Business Insider, which apparently keeps calling him. "The monarchies of the past thought nothing of having children — and they were all illegitimate, . . .About 80% of them were illegitimate in Europe, you know — 20 or 30 children. You've got the money and you're a king or something, why shouldn't you?"

Jesse Powell, a founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, is stepping down as CEO and being replaced by the outfit's COO. An early Bitcoin entrepreneur (who we first interviewed years ago), Powell has been embroiled in conflict with Kraken employees after he posted inflammatory messages this year about race and gender on the company’s Slack. He urged those who disagreed with his values to leave the company. Some did, notes the New York Times. The outlet further notes that Kraken also faces an investigation by the Treasury Department over potential violations of U.S. sanctions.

Micromobility company Bird is boosting its president, Shane Torchiana, to CEO status in a “long-planned” shakeup that sees founding chief executive Travis VanderZanden further stripped of power.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan are expecting their third daughter next year, the couple announced today on Meta's Instagram platform.

Leading chipmaking nations including the United States, South Korea and Japan are forming alliances, in part to secure their semiconductor supply chain and to stop China from reaching the cutting-edge of the industry, analysts tell CNBC.

Getty Images has banned the upload and sale of illustrations generated using AI art tools like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion. It’s the largest user-generated content platform to introduce such a ban reports The Verge.

Investors are looking for the next big crypto software provider.

Instagram is working on a way to protect users from receiving unsolicited nude photos in their DMs.

SoftBank's Masayoshi Son reportedly plans to visit Seoul for the first time in three years and discuss a potential partnership between chip designer Arm and Samsung Electronics. Son has repeatedly said his primary focus is to take Arm public in the U.S, after its planned $40 billion sale to Nvidia fell apart. Bloomberg has more here.

Ethan Hawke on Smartless.

Celebrity sexts, an analysis.

The middle school teachers' lounge: a restaurant review.

It's a terrible beer, Coors Light, but we'd prefer it to Alfredo sauce.

My God, This Thing is $65,000.

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