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Friday! We don't have a podcast for you BUT we do have some great guests coming up, including the cofounder of one of the world's biggest private equity firms and a founder whose "low-code" software you definitely use if you have a big corporate job or even if you work for a smaller startup.
Also, quick reminders that Disrupt is next week; we're talking with famed VC Chris Sacca the week after that at SOSV's big climate event (it's free to register); and our own StrictlyVC event is taking place the second Thursday of January. If you'd like to join us as a partner sponsor, we'd love to hear from you.
We're also looking forward to seeing some of you at that sit-down with Ron Conway and David Talbot in less than two weeks. Sorry not to have more tix to give out. If you have (legitimate!) questions for either of them about the past or future of San Francisco, let us know and we'll see if we can work some of these into the conversation.
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Elon Musk said today that SpaceX cannot continue funding the Starlink satellite service that has kept Ukraine and its military online during the war, adding that the effort is costing the company roughly $20 million a month, including to safeguard the the equipment from Russian attacks on it.
The obvious danger is that a Starlink cutoff could "cripple the Ukrainian military’s main mode of communication and potentially hamstring its defenses by giving a major advantage to Russia, which has sought to jam signals and phone service in the eastern and southern combat zones," observes the Washington Post.
Must tweeted earlier that it's a pragmatic, not a political, decision. He said that SpaceX doesn't want reimbursement for its past expenses in helping Ukraine. But it “also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely and send several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than typical households. This is unreasonable.”
Still, as the Post notes, Musk appeared to taunt Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, who put his thumb in Musk's eye last week after Musk tweeted out a controversial peace proposal between Ukraine and Russia. At the time, Melnyk tweeted, “F#ck off is my very diplomatic reply to you." Today, tweeted Musk of Melnyk, “We’re just following his recommendation."
A Pentagon deputy press secretary meanwhile downplayed the situation earlier this afternoon, telling reporters that the agency is reviewing its options.
“There’s not just SpaceX, there are other entities that we can certainly partner with when it comes to providing Ukraine with what they need on the battlefield,” she said.
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Isn’t it time your fund administrator actually helped you raise your next fund? Juniper Square builds best-in-class tools that link your fund administration data with customizable digital subscriptions, data rooms, and more. More than 1,400 firms including Haun Ventures, GSV Ventures, and more trust Juniper Square to give LPs a unified experience and give GPs real-time access to their fund data. Learn how you can raise more money faster with Juniper Square.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Astra, a six-year-old San Francisco startup whose APIs help to speed up bank transfers, raised a $10 million Series A round led by FPV Ventures, with additional investment from Slow Ventures and Allegis Capital. The company has raised a total of $56.2 million. PYMNTS has more here.
Ayoconnect, a six-year-old Jakarta startup whose APIs make it faster for Southeast Asian businesses to launch new financial services, raised a $13 million Series B extension led by SIG VC, with CE Innovation Capital and PayU also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $43 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Brave Health, a three-year-old, Miami-based virtual mental health company, has raised $40 million in Series C funding led by Town Hall Ventures. Earlier investors, including Union Square Ventures and City Light Capital, also joined the round, which brings the company's total funding to $60 million. MobiHealth News has more here.
SecuriThings, a six-year-old Tel Aviv startup that provides a cloud platform that helps companies manage their surveillance cameras, smart locks, and other products used to secure their facilities, raised a $21 million Series B round led by USVP; additional backers included Swisscom Ventures and previous investors Aleph, Firsttime VC, and Cresson Management. The company has raised a total of $39 million. SiliconAngle has more here.
Vita Therapeutics, a four-year-old Baltimore startup that aims to use cell engineering to develop treatments for neuromuscular diseases and cancers, raised a $31 million Series B round co-led by Cambrian BioPharma and Solve FSHD, with additional participation from Riptide Ventures, Cedars Sinai, and TEDCO. The company has raised a total of $63 million. Technical.ly has more here.
XCJ, a four-year-old startup based in Bellevue, Wa., that has built a frozen soup dumplings brand in large part due to viral videos on TikTok, raised a $10 million Series A round led by Imaginary Ventures, with Goldhouse Ventures and Hyphen Capital also pitching in. Forbes has more here.
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Continue AI, a one-year-old New York startup that says it synthesizes millions of data points to enable corporations to build roadmaps to meet their ESG goals, raised a $5.7 million seed round co-led by Grove Ventures and Maple Capital, with Ride Ventures, Liquid2, and Kindergarten Ventures also anteing up. Cacalist has more here.
Gritti, a Singapore startup that has built a social fitness app, raised a $1.7 million seed round led by Lingfent Innovation Fund. Fintech Finance News has more here.
Laylo, a five-year-old Los Angeles startup that is developing CRM tools for musicians, helping them ping fans with direct messages, emails, or texts to promote merchandise, tickets, content, and livestreams and then track the conversions, raised a $3 million seed round led by Eldridge, with additional capital provided by Third Prime Ventures and LVRN Management. The company has raised a total of $7.5 million. Music Ally has more here.
Parity, a six-year-old Toronto startup that claims to use AI to eliminate energy waste in multi-residential buildings, raised a $5.8 million round from Wyse, RET Ventures, and ArcTern Ventures. The company has raised a total of $10.5 million. BetaKit has more here.
StandardC, a five-year-old San Francisco startup that is launching a platform to automate Know Your Customer and vendor intelligence functions for financial institutions and customers interacting with highly regulated, compliance-intensive customers or vendors, raised a $4.75 million seed round from Hard Yaka. Fintech Futures has more here.
Synonym, a 10-month-old, New York-based startup that's building a financing and implementation platform to more quickly bring new biomanufacturing facilities online, has raised $6.3 million in pre-seed funding. Andreessen Horowitz, Giant Ventures, Blue Horizon, Thia Ventures and other venture funds active in decarbonization were part of the round. TechCrunch has more here.
Waste4Change, an eight-year-old Indonesian startup whose aim is to help companies by increase rates of recycling and enable better waste management, raised a $5 million Series A round. AC Ventures and PT Barito Mitra Investama were the deal co-leads. TechCrunch has more here.
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BlockTower, a Miami-based investment firm, has launched a $150 million venture fund to focus on DeFi and blockchain infrastructure projects, reports The Block. General partner Thomas Klocanas, a principal with White Star Capital previously, will lead the effort. More here.
Clearview Capital, a 23-year-old, Stamford, Ct.-based investment firm that specializing in control and non-control investments of North American companies with operating profits of $4 million to $20 million, has raised $850 million for its fifth flagship fund. It previously raised $550 million for its fourth fund in 2019. Alt Assets has more here.
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Rupert Murdoch reportedly wants to merge Fox with News Corp in a proposed all-stock deal that would reunite the group behind the Fox News cable channel with the owner of newspapers including The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s. The move comes a decade after Murdoch decided to split his empire, saying at the time that his newspaper holdings and television assets would be “better managed” as separate entities. Now, he's looking to build scale to stay competitive with Amazon, Apple and other corporate giants, reports the FT.
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A federal jury in New York today convicted Nikola founder Trevor Milton of securities fraud for what prosecutors said were his repeated lies about the development of the company’s zero-emissions trucks and technology. Milton founded Nikola in his basement in 2015 and took it public in 2020 at a valuation of $3.3 billion, when the company hadn’t sold a single truck. Jurors convicted him of one count of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud. Each count carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, though under federal sentencing guidelines, Milton -- scheduled to be sentenced in late January -- will likely face a much shorter prison term, notes the WSJ. It has the story here.
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Beyond Meat plans to lay off about 200 employees, or 19% of its workforce, according to a regulatory filing disclosed today. The company cited declining sales.
Momentive Global, the parent of the web-survey portal SurveyMonkey, laid off 11% of its workforce this week. It isn't clear how many people were impacted.
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The fight for the soul of pilates.
The new menace stalking suburbia.
Man plays saxophone through nine-hour "very complex" brain surgery. More surprising, he'd never played it before. (Kidding.)
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Cytonics develops novel therapies to help those living with inflammatory diseases. The biopharma pioneer has raised over $18M to date. In its current round with SeedInvest, Cytonics pursues FDA approval on a leading therapeutic drug for osteoarthritis. This round closes soon. View important disclosures and risks associated with Equity Crowdfunding Investing by clicking here.
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