Adidas says no to Ye, Twitter struggles to keep its power users, and VC Chris Sacca on his "unfair" advantage

I have a shortie for you today as I spent part of the evening moderating a discussion about the future of San Francisco with two titans of San Francisco who had somehow never before met  -- investor and philanthropist Ron Conway, and author and Salon.com founder David Talbot. Things got unexpectedly heated at times for an ostensible book club meeting(!), but both were gracious; the audience contributed more than I was anticipating (it turned into a town hall-style discussion); and given the endless vitriol aimed at the city, there was something magical about being in a roomful of people who genuinely love San Francisco and hope to help restore it to its former glory. Thanks to Jackson Square Ventures for asking me to lead the discussion. Some of you locals were there, I know -- hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Adidas, the German sneaker giant, said today that it is immediately ending its partnership with Kanye West, making it one of the last businesses to distance itself from the rapper and designer. West's recent antisemitic remarks have already prompted CAA, the talent agency to drop him as a client, while the studio MRC said it was shelving a documentary on him. West said last week that he plans to purchase Parler, a four-year-old social media service that is known for its right-wing audience and has struggled to grow its user base. The New York Times has more here.

Separately, in earnings news: Google reported its fifth consecutive quarter of slowing sales growth as weakness in the economy continued to damp online advertising spending. Meanwhile, a sharp decline in personal computer sales eroded demand for Microsoft's Windows software, counteracting some of the demand for its cloud and other businesses serving companies. More here and here.

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Today, for a series of climate-related conversations organized by the global venture firm SOSV, we interviewed famed investor Chris Sacca, whose investment firm Lowercarbon Capital is managing $2 billion in capital across one fund that's focused on nuclear fusion, another fund focused expressly on carbon removal, and the rest across a wide spectrum of bets.

In our chat, Sacca dismissed questions around whether efforts like carbon capture can work at scale. ("The naysayers kind of fuel me, actually.") He also said -- naturally -- that he has "no doubt we will have multiple companies worth trillions of dollars that emerge from our portfolio." It wound up being a fairly wide-ranging conversation, and you can watch it in its entirety over at TechCrunch. Meanwhile, below are excerpts from our chat, edited lightly for length.

The big news of the moment is the inflation Reduction Act. It allocates more than $300 billion to energy and climate reform, $60 billion for boosting renewable energy infrastructure, and manufacturing like wind turbines and solar panels. At the same time, it fell short of what climate activists really wanted to see. What do you make of it?

Look, the President himself called it a big fucking deal. And it is. It's a huge step forward for our industry, for our country, and the planet-- no doubt about it. Bless the activists. I love where their hearts are, but we have to be pragmatic about this, and we don't have time for purity tests. . . It was better than we could have expected, frankly, and we're glad everyone got to the table and hammered on a solution.

Were you consulted by anyone in Washington?

We weren't. Actually, I have an allergy to Washington. One of the reasons we started Lowercarbon was after years of basically rebuilding the democratic tech stack, I got a little burned out by a process that's so many degrees removed from the ultimate solution. So we built Lowercarbon to say, look, we can build climate solutions now, where it's up to us to deliver something that consumers and businesses want to buy from us. If we have any relationship with government, it's government as a buyer. If free money falls out of the sky, we'll take it, but everything we've done now makes sense because the unit economics are there to go ahead and compete head to toe with products that are predicated on petroleum. It was actually just a bonus that the IRA got passed, but we weren't counting on it.

Your timing is remarkable, considering that even if we were to enter into recession at this point, this money is now going to be flowing into the economy, making climate investing relatively bulletproof.

[Climate investing] is recession proof, even without the IRA. Everything we're doing is providing a substitute good. That's what almost feels unfair. You spend years building Twitter and you put it up in the app store and you hope somebody gives a damn. It could be a really well-designed product, but maybe no one cares, whereas everything we're building right now, we actually know the demand for it. And if we deliver a better, cheaper, faster, cooler, easier-to-use, sexier products, then we'll even grow the market. So I actually think this is some of the easiest investing we've done.

What's happened in the war in Ukraine, the shortages of energy facing Europe, overall climate disasters around the planet, the commitments that companies have made to decarbonize, and the reality that clean energy and clean products are reaching price parity are just massive tailwinds that we're trying to keep up with, frankly.

More here.

Bilt Rewards, a year-old, New York-based startup that operates a loyalty program and credit card that converts rent payments into points, said its valuation has more than quadrupled to $1.5 billion following a round of $150 million equity funding led by Left Lane Capital. Other backers in the round include Wells Fargo, Greystar, Invitation Homes, Camber Creek, Fifth Wall, Smash Capital, Prosus and the venture fund Kairos (which was also founded by Bilt CEO Ankur Jain, who is the son of another serial entrepreneur, Naveen Jain). Bloomberg has the story here.

Celestia, a three-year-old Liechtenstein startup that is building “modular” blockchain networks, raised a $55 million round co-led by Bain Capital Crypto and Polychain Capital; additional investors included Spartan Group, FTX Ventures, and Jump Crypto. CoinDesk has more here.

ConnexPay, a five-year-old startup based in St. Paul, Mn., that bills its technology as the only service to connect both sides of the payment ecosystem - making and receiving payments - into one platform, raised a $110 million round. FTV Capital led the transaction. The company has raised a total of $145 million. PYMNTS has more here.

K12 Techno Services, a 12-year-old Indian startup that offers a range of services to education institutions and also runs its own chain of schools, is reportedly negotiating with Sequoia Capital India to raise over $50 million, reports TechCrunch. The company has raised a total of $83.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

MrBeast, the YouTube star turned entrepreneur, is looking to raise around $150 million for his business at a roughly $1.5 billion valuation, reports Axios. It notes the funding would help MrBeast — whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson — expand his video empire further across restaurants, consumer goods and merchandise. With 107 million YouTube channel subscribers, MrBeast's main channel is the fifth most-subscribed YouTube channel globally. More here. 

Normunity, a Boston and West Haven, Ct., startup that claims to be creating a new class of immuno-oncology medicines to target novel mechanisms that free the body’s normal immunity against cancer, raised a $65 million Series A round led by Canaan Partners; Sanofi Ventures, Taiho Ventures, and Osage University Partners also participated. STAT News has more here.

PhonePe, a seven-year-old Indian startup that processes digital payments and is backed by Walmart, is reportedly in the market to raise $450 million to $500 million at a $12 billion valuation. The deal lead is General Atlantic, according to MoneyControl. Reuters has more here.

RapidSOS, a ten-year-old New York startup that provides critical information for emergency response centers, raised a $75 million Series D round led by NightDragon, with BAM Elevate, Insight Partners, Honeywell, M12, Axon, Citi, Highland Capital Partners, Playground Global, Forte Ventures, C5 Capital, and Avanta Venture also pitching in. TechCrunch has more here.

Resolve Biosciences, a two-year-old startup based in Dusseldorf, Germany, whose spatial biology tech enables researchers to understand not only the genetic structure of a tumor cell but also a stronger understanding of what’s happening in that cell’s environment, raised a $71 million Series B round led by Patient Square Capital, with additional capital provided by EDBI, PS Capital, Alafi Capital, and NRW.BANK. The company has raised over $100 million. Forbes has more here.

Axelera AI, a one-year-old startup based in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, that is working to develop AI acceleration cards and systems for use cases like security, retail, and robotics, raised a $27 million Series A round. Imec.expand and Federal Holding & Investment Co. led the deal. The company has raised a total of $45.7 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Finexio, a seven-year-old startup based in Orlando, Fl., that has built an accounts payable and procure-to-pay software platform, raised a $35 million Series B round at a $100 million pre-money valuation. Investors included JPMorgan, National Bank Holdings, and previous investor Mendon Venture Partners. PYMNTS has more here.

Limber Health, a Washington, D.C. startup that provides musculoskeletal care services online and in clinics, raised an $11 million Series A round led by Blue Venture Fund, with Glenview Capital also chipping in. More here.

Limit, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that claims to be "the first digital wholesale broker for the cyber market," raised a $14.5 million Series A round led by IA Capital Group, with American Family Ventures, Indicator Fund, and Material V also participating. The company has raised a total of $21 million. The Insurer has more here.

Nitricity, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that produces nitrogen fertilizer using only air, water, and renewable energy, raised a $20 million Series A round co-led by Khosla Ventures and Fine Structure Ventures, with additional participation from Energy Impact Partners, Lowercarbon Capital, and MCJ Collective. California Ag Today has more here.

PreVeil, a seven-year-old Boston startup that provides a Zero Trust cloud-based end-to-end encrypted email and file collaboration service, raised a $20 million Series C round led by PSG. More here.

Seqera Labs, a four-year-old Barcelona startup that develops data orchestration and workflow software for life sciences clients, raised a $21.7 million Series A round led by Addition, with Talis Capital, Speedinvest, BoxOne Ventures, and Amino Collective also pitching in. The company previously raised funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. TFN has more here.

Arnica, a 10-year-old Atlanta startup whose software supply chain security platform uses machine learning algorithms to learn about the behavior of developers as they go about their daily business of coding and communicating with colleagues, raised a $7 million seed round. Joule Ventures and First Rays Venture Partners were the co-leads. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Ask-AI, an Israeli startup whose AI-based platform provides managers and employees with answers and insights from all internal knowledge and customer communication sources, not just links, raised a $9 million seed round. Vertex Ventures and State of Mind Ventures co-led the deal. Calcalist has more here.

Elion, a startup based in Menlo Park, Ca., that aims to develop a digital health marketplace for health care providers, raised a $3.3 million seed round. NEA and Max Ventures co-led the deal. More here.

Grafbase, a two-year-old Stockholm startup whose platform is intended to speed up the deployment of GraphQL backends, raised a $5 million seed round led by Next47, with Alven and Uncorrelated Ventures also taking part. The company has raised a total of $7.3 million. Tech.eu has more here.

Vara, a four-year-old Berlin startup that is developing an AI system to screen for breast cancer, raised a $4.5 million Series A extension round, increasing the total size of the Series A to $11 million. The deal lead was VI Partners, with additional participation from EQT Foundation, Med360, Merantix, and Think Health. The company has raised a total of $15.2 million. Silicon Canals has more here.

Wispr, a one-year-old San Francisco startup at work on a wearable device that uses neural signals to interact with smartphones and other consumer devices, raised a second seed round of $5 million from Neo, Triple Point Capital, MVP Ventures, NEA, and 8VC. The company has raised a total of $14.6 million. The WSJ has more here.

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Female Founders, a six-year-old investment outfit, has announced the launch of its F Fund, developed to support pre-seed and seed start-ups with at least one woman on the founding team. The fund has already held a first close on €12 million in capital commitments from two anchor investors: Austria Wirtschaftsservice and the Austrian bank Raiffeisen Landesbank Steiermark. One third of the fund was backed by female investors, adds Tech.eu. More here.

Propeller, a new, Boston-based climate-tech investment firm with a focus on the ocean, tells TechCrunch that it has hooked $100 million for its first seed fund. Co-founded by former HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan, the venture firm said in a statement that it backs and incubates startups in areas like ocean carbon removal, algae packaging, offshore wind, desalination and shipping decarbonization. More here.

Drive Capital cofounder Mark Kvamme has transitioned to "partner emeritus" at the Columbus, Oh.-based firm, it announced on LinkedIn today. We can't help but wonder how the firm's LPs feel about this, considering Drive just announced a new, $1 billion fund in June. (If you are one of them and want to talk, let us know!)

Madrona, the Seattle-based venture firm, has two new members: Wei Gao, who spent 16 years at Amazon, including as VP of Grocery, has joined the outfit as a venture partner. She comes directly from the virtual events startup Hopin, where she spent 11 months as COO. Vivek Ramaswami has meanwhile joined the firm's Palo Alto office as a partner. He comes from Steadfast, where he worked for two years with Karan Mehandru (hired recently to spearhead the Palo Alto office).

Twitter is struggling to keep its most active users - what it calls "heavy tweeters" - engaged on the platform, according to internal docs. It's a major issue. They represent fewer than 10% of all users but account for 50% of revenue. Reuters has the story.

Will AI image generators kill the stock image industry? Not if it can start selling AI-generated content first. So goes the apparent thinking of stock image giant Shutterstock, which just partnered with OpenAI to incorporate the AI lab’s text-to-image model DALL-E 2 directly integrated into Shutterstock “in the coming months.” The Verge has more here.

Bloomberg's  Matt Levine just wrote an entire issue of Bloomberg Businessweek that's centered on everything you could want to know and better understand about crypto. (This is on our to-do list, but if we're are going to read 40,000 words about crypto, it's going to be Levine's 40,000 words.)

Slow News Day: Eli Manning on quarter-zip sweaters.

The script of every movie set in Boston.

"Told you, I am not interested in that food."

Baffle Wax Jacket.

Fluffy Converse.

A private collection of Andy Warhol pieces hits the auction block on Thursday.

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