Elon Musk steps in it, Poshmark finds a buyer, and Elizabeth Holmes moves one step closer to a possible retrial

The Supreme Court today said it will hear a case that tests the limits of Section 230, the U.S. legal provision that protects social media companies from liability for what third parties post to their sites. The high court’s decision in the case -- which involves Google’s alleged responsibility for terrorist propaganda on its subsidiary YouTube -- could have long-lasting ramifications for how internet sites treat users’ posts. The Washington Post has more here.

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is due back in court this month to make the case that she deserves a new trial based on her allegations that the government manipulated testimony from a key witness who testified against her. The hearing was granted today by the judge who presided over Holmes’s monthslong criminal-fraud trial. The WSJ has more here.

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Elon Musk today waded into the Ukraine-Russia war with a peace plan that was . . . not very well-received. It may have been a tactic to distract industry watchers from Tesla's third-quarter vehicle production and delivery numbers for 2022, which fell short of analysts’ expectations. But it was a knuckle-headed tactic if so, and one of a growing series of missteps that must have many in Musk's sphere wondering what to do. 

The problem most immediately was a four-part proposal that Musk tweeted out to his 107 million followers on the platform, one that involved recognizing Russia's claims to the Crimean peninsula -- which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014 -- and a commitment from Ukraine to remain neutral and not join NATO. (Ukraine applied for accelerated accession to NATO late last week.)

Musk also suggested redoing the sham referendums on the annexation of occupied territories of Ukraine by Russia, referendums held last month by Russian-installed officials in Ukraine (he proposed letting "the people" decide); and ensuring Crimea's access to water. (Ukraine had built a dam to cut off Crimea's primary water supply in retaliation to Russia seizing the Crimean Peninsula eight years ago; that dam was blown up back in February, two days into Russia's invasion of Ukraine.)

Musk included a poll in this proposal, asking if people agreed or disagreed with his peace plan.

Reader, they did not. Citing "Russia vibes," followers accused Musk of fundamentally misunderstanding what is at stake in the war and of pushing Russia propaganda. Ukrainian diplomat Andrij Melnyk summed up widespread sentiment when he tweeted to Musk, "F*ck off is my very diplomatic reply to you @elonmusk."

Even Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy weighed in, publishing his own poll, asking his far fewer 6.6 million followers which @elonmusk they like more, the one who is pro-Ukraine or the one who is pro-Russia.

More here.

ShopBack, an eight-year-old Singapore startup that allows users to get cash back from their online and offline transactions, raised an $80 million Series F extension led by 65 Equity Partners, which is affiliated with previous investor Temasek. The company has raised over $300 million. TechinAsia has more here.

Tally, a seven-year-old San Francisco startup whose app helps users more easily pay off credit card debt, raised an $80 million Series D round at an $855 million valuation. The deal lead was Sway Ventures; Menora Mivtachim (an Israeli insurance company) and previous investors Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz, Shasta Ventures, and Cowboy Ventures also participated. SIliconANGLE has more here.

Alloy Therapeutics, a five-year-old startup based in Waltham, Ma., that is developing antibody drug discovery technologies, raised a $42 million Series D round co-led by 8VC and Mubadala Capital, with participation from previous investors Thiel Capital, Presight Capital, and Founders Fund. More here.

Cortex, a 19-year-old Rio De Janeiro startup whose platform is designed to improve marketing and sales productivity, raised a $48 million Series C round led by Lightrock, with SoftBank Latin America Funds and Riverwood Capital also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $78.4 million. Contxto has more here.

Equi, a two-year-old Austin startup that describes itself as a digital family office that uses data and technology to identify and provide access to the "top 0.1% of hedge fund and private credit strategies," raised a $15 million Series A round led by Smash Capital, with additional investment from Company Capital and Montage Ventures. More here.

Exponential, a 21-year-old startup based in Emeryville, Ca., that analyzes a user’s current investments for potential risks in the underlying protocols, assets, and blockchains and compares yield opportunities across the major chains and protocols, raised a $14 million seed round led by Paradigm; additional investors included Haun Ventures, FTX Ventures, Solana Ventures, Polygon, and Circle Ventures. CoinDesk has more here.

Golden, a crypto firm building a data protocol with web3 tools, raised $40 million in a Series B funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, bringing the total amount raised to date to $60 million. Other participants in the round include Solana co-founder Raj Gokal, Dropbox co-founder Arash Ferdowsi and Postmates founder Bastian Lehmann. The Block has more here.

Immerok, a six-month-old Berlin startup that has developed a platform based on Apache Flink that enables developers to abstract away the server management tasks needed to process streaming data, raised a $17 million seed round. Investors included Cusp Capital, 468 Capital, Cortical VC, and Essence VC. TechCrunch has more here.

Juno, a three-year-old Bengaluru startup that provides checking accounts to crypto enthusiasts and allows them to accept their paychecks in digital tokens, raised an $18 million Series A round led by ParaFi Capital, with Greycroft, Antler Global, Hashed, Jump Crypto, Mithril, 6th Man Ventures, Abstract Ventures, and Uncorrelated Fund also piling on. The company has raised a total of $21 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Loop, a two-year-old Washington, D.C. startup that is building a network of electric vehicle charging stations, raised a $40 million Series A round co-led by Fifth Wall and Agility Ventures. The company also raised $20 million in debt. TechCrunch has more here.

Stellar Pizza, a three-year-old, L.A.-based soon-to-launch mobile pizza restaurant powered by robots (that were designed by three founders who come out of SpaceX), has raised $16.5 million in Series A funding led by Jay-Z’s venture capital firm, Marcy Venture Partners. Hypebeast has more here.

Anthro Energy, a Palo Alto startup that is developing polymer electrolyte batteries that it claims can easily integrate into existing battery manufacturing facilities, raised a $7.2 million seed round co-led by Union Square Ventures and Energy Revolution Ventures, with Ultratech Capital Partners, Voyager Ventures, Nor’Easter Ventures, and Stanford University also contributing. Fortune has more here.

Arcascope, a five-year-old startup based in Chantilly, Va., that aims to help improve people lives by helping them better manage their circadian rhythms, raised a $2.85 million seed round led by Supermoon Capital, with additional capital provided by Inception Health, New Dominion Angels, AIoT Health, Inflect Health, the Accelerate Blue Fund, the Monroe Brown Seed Fund, and HealthX Ventures. The company has raised a total of $4.7 million. CityBiz has more here.

Fabric, a seven-year-old Los Angeles startup that says its no-code platform enables sports teams to easily engage fans with cutting-edge AR technology, raised a $4 million round from Sapir Venture Partners. SportsPro has more here.

The Lip Bar, an 11-year-old Detroit startup that has developed a new cosmetics brand, raised a $6.7 million seed round led by Pendulum, with Fearless Fund and Endeavor also pitching in. Essence has more here.

Onyxia, a New York startup founded this year that has built a security platform leveraging AI, raised a $5 million seed round led by World Trade Ventures, with Silvertech Ventures also participating. Calcalist has more here.

Talk360, a six-year-old Amsterdam startup that has built a VoIP e-commerce platform, raised a $3 million extension to its seed round. Investors included AGEV, Kalon Venture Partners, E4E Africa, Endeavor, and previous investor HAVAÍC. The company has raised a total of $7 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Zenskar, an eight-month-old, New York-based startup that is aiming to help SaaS companies automate their billing workflows, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by Bessemer Ventures Partners, with participation from Shine Capital, Basecamp Fund and Converge. TechCrunch has more here. 

Affinity, the relationship intelligence platform for dealmakers, just launched a report analyzing investment trends that point toward future unicorn status. While the impact of an economic downturn can’t easily be predicted, deal activity trends can help us better understand current conditions and future outlooks. In this U.S. vs. European Unicorn report, Affinity takes a comparative look at global investment data to understand how the landscape for investors and hopeful unicorns has evolved against economic challenges and the role relationship intelligence plays in these transactions. Read the report.

Ada Ventures, a four-year-old, London-based early-stage venture capital firm that closed its debut fund with $50 million in late 2020, says it has held a £36 million first close of its second fund. As with its first vehicle, the firm says it will invest the capital in entrepreneurs who are "solving some of society’s biggest problems," with a special focus on the climate, healthcare and aging. The firm's anchor LP is British Business Bank, through its Enterprise Capital Funds program. Others of the firm's backers include Plexo Capital, the University of Edinburgh, and numerous entrepreneurs and investors, including Supercell's cofounders. More here.

Naver, the South Korean search giant, today announced it plans to acquire secondhand apparel marketplace Poshmark for $1.2 billion in cash. The deal values publicly traded Poshmark’s shares at $17.90 — a 15% premium over today’s closing price — and the companies expect the deal to close by Q1 2023, subject to approval by Poshmark stockholders and “the satisfaction of certain other customary closing conditions.” Assuming the transaction goes through, Poshmark will become a standalone subsidiary of Naver. TechCrunch has more here.

Prosus has scrapped the $4.7 billion acquisition of BillDesk it announced last year, saying “certain conditions” were unfulfilled just one month after the proposed acquisition received approval to proceed from the local antitrust watchdog. “Certain conditions precedent were not fulfilled by the 30 September 2022 long stop date, and the agreement has terminated automatically in accordance with its terms and, accordingly, the proposed transaction will not be implemented,” Amsterdam-listed Prosus said in a statement today without identifying those conditions. TechCrunch has more here.

Shares in sports car brand Porsche fell below their listing price today, the third day of trading since the company's $72 billion listing by parent company Volkswagen. The closely watched IPO was the largest listing in Germany in more than 25 years despite a backdrop of volatile global markets. Reuters has more here.

John Curtius, a Tiger Global senior partner who joined the outfit in 2017 after spending 4.5 years with the activist hedge fund Elliott Management, is leaving the firm, says TechCrunch; Curtius is reportedly starting his own early-stage firm, though staying on with Tiger Global until June. More here.

Disney has named veteran tech executive Carolyn Everson to its board of directors. Everson was most recently president of Instacart, and before that was a senior executive at Facebook, where she led its advertising business. She also worked as COO of Viacom, and as an ad sales executive at Microsoft. The Hollywood Reporter has more here.

The SEC is charging Kim Kardashian for “unlawfully touting” a “crypto security,” the agency announced this morning. The agency says Kardashian was in violation of its rules when she promoted a “crypto asset security offered and sold by EthereumMax” without the necessary disclosure that she was paid to promote it. Kardashian has already agreed to settle the case, with a $1.26 million penalty payment, and to help the SEC with its ongoing investigation. TechCrunch has more here.

Richard Liu, the founder of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, has reached a settlement with Liu Jingyao, a former University of Minnesota student who alleged that the billionaire raped her in her apartment in 2018.. The announcement came in a joint statement from the two parties on Saturday, just two days before Liu was scheduled to face a civil trial in Minneapolis, during which the press would have been allowed to live tweet from the courtroom. The amount for the settlement wasn’t disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

Matt Mazzeo, a general partner at New York-based investment firm Coatue Management since 2018, has left to start his own investment fund, reports The Information. Before joining Coatue, Mazzeo was a managing director at Lowercase Capital, the investment firm founded by Chris Sacca. (Mazzeo and Curtius, see above, are not joining forces, notes TechCrunch.) More here.

Ganesh Srinivasan has joined Venrock as a partner on its tech team, based in the firm's Palo Alto office. Srinivasan, who will be focused on cloud computing infrastructure, developer tools and open source software, was most recently the chief product officer at Confluent, a commercial open source data infrastructure company that went public last year. More here.

Twitter is rolling out the ability to edit tweets to Twitter Blue subscribers in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the social network announced today. The company says the edit button will roll out to Blue subscribers in the U.S. soon. TechCrunch has more here.

Ina Garten’s no. 1 secret to a great dinner party. 

A jet set getaway makes a comeback.

LEGO Haunted House.

"Minecraft" clothes, courtesy of the Spanish luxury brand LOEWE.