Half of Twitter is reportedly being laid off, Netflix with ads launches this week, and a love story in Philly?

Busy day here at Web Summit. We also managed to lose our computer(!) and as we hit "send," the fire alarm at our hotel has been sounding for more than 20 minutes. There is no fire. At least there could be a fire!

But there is some very good news (aside from there not being a fire in the hotel): Sam, Jack, and Max Altman are coming to our January 12th event in San Francisco.

Industry watchers know that Sam Altman runs one of the buzziest companies on the planet right now: OpenAI. Jack Altman heads up Lattice, a workforce people management startup valued by its investors at $3 billion back in January. Max Altman meanwhile co-runs the venture fund Apollo, an outfit focused on "moonshot" projects and more. 

It's . . . a lot, and there's a lot to talk about with each brother, as well as collectively. We can't wait. 

Giant thanks again to the global venture firm Felicis for its ongoing support of these events. We couldn't put the night together without its help this time around as our exclusive partner. 

Major thanks, too, to CBRE, the commercial real estate services giant, for generously offering to host all of us at its space inside Salesforce Tower.

More tomorrow, when we've figured out our new computer and its Portuguese keyboard. 

We know, we know, but: 

Elon Musk does plan to eliminate about 3,700 jobs at Twitter, or half of the social media company’s workforce, in a bid to drive down costs following his $44 billion acquisition, according to Bloomberg. It says that Musk aims to inform affected staffers Friday, and that he also intends to reverse the company’s existing work-from-anywhere policy, asking remaining employees to report to offices -- though some exceptions could be made.

In other developments, Musk tweeted early today that Twitter will not allow anyone who was de-platformed for violating Twitter rules back on platform until it has a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks. He added that "Twitter's content moderation council will include representatives with widely divergent views, which will certainly include the civil rights community and groups who face hate-fueled violence."

Twitter is also reportedly working on an OnlyFans-style feature that would allow creators to charge for video content, though some employees say it's high risk, particularly given that, according to the Washington Post, the company "appears to be aiming to rush out the feature, referred to as Paywalled Video, with a target of one to two weeks before launch."

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Alation, a ten-year-old startup based in Redwood City, Ca., whose software crawls a company’s databases in order to build data search catalogs, raised a $123 million Series E round at a $1.7+ billion valuation. The co-leads were Thoma Bravo, Sanabil Investments, and Costanoa Ventures, while Databricks Ventures, Dell Technologies Capital, HPE, Icon Ventures, Queensland Investment Corp., Riverwood Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, and Union Grove also participated. TechCrunch has more here.

Arta Finance, a year-old, Singapore-based "digital family office for the world" that was cofounded by former Google product lead Caesar Sengupta, has raised over $90 million across seed and Series A funding rounds from investors, it tells TechCrunch. Among those backers is Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, Coatue and more than 140 entrepreneurs, including Eric Schmidt, Betsy Cohen and Ram Shriram. More here.

Attain, a three-year-old Chicago startup whose app offers consumers discounts and financial services in exchange for user data, raised a $25 million Series B round led by Mercato Partners. The company, formerly called Klover, has raised a total of $93 million. AdExchanger has more here.

Carta Healthcare, a five-year-old San Francisco startup that attempts to automate the abstraction of patient health data, raised a $20 million Series B round. Investors included Paramark Ventures, Frist Cressey Ventures, American College of Cardiology, Asset Management Ventures, CU Healthcare Innovation Fund, Mass General Brigham, Maverick Ventures Investment Fund, and Storm Ventures. The company has raised a total of $37.3 million. More here.

Galen Robotics, a six-year-old Baltimore startup that has developed a robot that can assist surgeons with ear, nose, and throat surgeries, raised a $15 million Series A round from Ambix Healthcare Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Galileo, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that has built a platform for the development of AI models, raised an $18 million Series A round led by Battery Ventures, with The Factory, Walden Catalyst, and FPV Ventures also joining in. The company has raised a total of $23.1 million. TechCrunch has more here.

GoCo.io, a seven-year-old Houston startup that develops GoCo.io HR, benefits, and payroll management software for SMBs, raised a $15 million round led by ATX Venture Partners. The company has raised a total of $27.6 million. More here.

Momento, a 17-month-old, Seattle-based startup aiming to help developers build highly performant and reliable applications via serverless distributed systems, has raised $15 million in seed funding led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from The General Partnership and numerous individual investors, including Marianna Tessel (CTO at Intuit), and Neha Narkhede (co-founder and former CTO at Confluent). Momento cofounder and CEO Khawaja Shams previously led engineering and product management for AWS Elemental's product lines and seven AWS Services. TechCrunch has more here.

Orum, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that helps sales reps connect with prospects while automating some of the more tedious parts of the sales development process, raised a $22 million Series B round led by Tribe Capital, with additional investment provided by Craft Ventures and Unusual Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Protein Evolution, a one-year-old startup based in New Haven, Ct., that claims it can transform textile and mixed-plastic waste into an infinitely reusable resource, raised a $20 million from Collab US (an offshoot of Collaborative Fund that has partnered with designer Stella McCartney), New Climate Ventures, Eldridge, Nextrans, and Good Friends (which is backed by the founders of Warby Parker, Allbirds, and Harry’s). Forbes has more here.

Roam, a one-year-old Brooklyn startup that wants to build a virtual HQ for distributed teams, raised a $30 million Series A round led by IVP at a $90.5 post-money valuation. The company has raised a total of $40.6 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Starfire Energy, a 15-year-old Denver startup that develops modular chemical plants for the production of carbon-free ammonia, raised a $24 million Series B round led by Samsung Ventures, with AP Ventures, Çalık Enerji, Chevron Technology Ventures, Fund for Sustainability and Energy, IHI Corporation, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Osaka Gas USA, Pavilion Capital, and Rockies Venture Club also piling on. More here.

Tharsis Labs, a crypto startup that developed Evmos, a blockchain that allows for cross-chain transactions between Ethereum and Cosmos, raised $27 million in a token sale led by Polychain Capital and including Galaxy Digital, Huobi, HashKey Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, and Asymmetric CoinDesk has more here.

Vaxess, an 11-year-old startup based in Cambridge, Ma., that is developing technology to deliver vaccines via skin patches, raised a $27 million Series B round led by RA Capital Management, with participation from The Engine (MIT's investment vehicle), Mission BioCapital, and Global Health Investment Corporation. The company has raised a total of $81.2 million. The Boston Globe has more here.

Way, a two-year-old Austin startup whose software manages brand activations (or campaign or events that build brand awareness), raised a $20 million Series A round led by Tiger Global, with MSD Capital also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $20 million. More here.

Floreo, a six-year-old Washington, D.C., startup that uses virtual reality to teach individuals with autism, ADHD, anxiety, and other conditions independent living skills as well as communication, social, and emotional regulation, raised a $10 million Series A round led by Tenfore Holdings, with additional funds provided by Felton Group, the Autism Impact Fund, and the Disability Opportunity Fund. MobiHealthNews has more here.

Flowers Software, a three-year-old startup based in Baden-Baden, Germany, that helps SMBs automate manual processes such as invoice approvals and general approvals, raised a $3.2 million seed round led by La Famiglia, with LEA Partners and Collective Ventures also pitching in. TechCrunch has more here.

Heylo, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that helps people start social groups, including handling issues such as payment, raised a $1.5 million seed round co-led by Worklife Ventures, with additional funds provided by Precursor Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Howbout, a three-year-old London startup whose app aims to simplify friend and family get-togethers by helping plan social events, raised a $2.2 million round from ACF Investors and assorted angels. Tech.eu has more here.

Metrist, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that helps IT teams stay on top of outages among the many cloud services they use to run their own applications, raised a $5.5 million seed round. Investors included Heavybit and Morado Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

NiftyApes, a crypto startup that has created an NFT lending protocol that allows users to take loans on any NFT collection, raised a $4.2 million seed round co-led by Variant and FinTech Collective, with Robot Ventures, Polygon, Coinbase Ventures, The LAO, and FlamingoDAO also taking part. NFT Gators has more here.

TAGS Commerce, a four-year-old startup based in Calabasas, Ca., that has created QR tags that can be used to purchase good at online or offline locations, raised a $3.5 million round. Investors included XRC Labs, Gaingels, Not Boring, and Tiny Capital. More here.

Tiny Health, a two-year-old Austin startup that has developed an at-home gut health test for babies, raised a $4.5 million in round led by TheVentureCity. The company has raised a total of $4.5 million. Femtech Insider has more here.

Travtus, a nine-year-old London startup that claims to streamline multifamily property management through machine learning, raised a $4 million round led by RET Ventures. More here.

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Mozilla, the company behind the privacy-minded browser Firefox, today announced a new $35 million VC fund targeted at early-stage startups. Formally revealed at Web Summit in Portugal today, Mozilla Ventures builds on other recent investments the company has made as part of its Mozilla Builders startup incubator program, though, as TechCrunch notes, Mozilla has sporadically invested in nearly 20 companies over the past decade. More here.

Neo, the venture firm led by serial entrepreneur and longtime angel investor Ali Partovi, is raising $140 million for its third flagship fund and $60 million for an opportunities fund, per SEC filings first flagged by Axios. More here.

OpenAI, the San Francisco-based lab behind AI systems like GPT-3 and DALL-E 2, today launched a new program to provide early-stage AI startups with capital and access to OpenAI tech and resources. Called Converge, the cohort will be financed by the OpenAI Startup Fund, OpenAI says. The $100 million entrepreneurial tranche was announced last May and was backed by Microsoft and other partners. The 10 or so founders chosen for Converge will receive $1 million each and admission to five weeks of office hours, workshops and events with OpenAI staff, as well as early access to OpenAI models and “programming tailored to AI companies.” As for the express agreement it is making with the startups, it didn't disclose the full terms to TechCrunch today; TC has the story here.

The online banking startup Chime, which before this year’s market meltdown had been widely seen as a candidate for a blockbuster initial public offering, is slashing 12% of its 1,300 person workforce, or around 150 people, a spokesperson tells The Information. More here.

Meanwhile, the online home buying platform Opendoor is letting go of about 550 people, or 18% of the company, across all functions, its co-founder and CEO Eric Wu announced in a blog post today. That's around 18% of its workforce, reports TechCrunch.

Ted Ullyot, the former head of policy and regulatory operation at Andreessen Horowitz, is launching a boutique law and consulting firm with former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, reports Axios. More here.

Tesla aims to start mass production of its Cybertruck at the end of 2023, reports Reuters. More here.

Netflix with ads is launching this week.

As Google ad executives take over, YouTube has developed a new "rigid" culture.

As people fret about the future of Twitter, Substack thinks it sees an opening.

A leg-lengthening surgeon on how it all works.

AI is reshaping how we shop.

She put a stranger on her shoulders at a Phillies rally. Now fans want them to marry. 

Never-let-go mittens.

A high-fashion toaster.

Dubai's newest eye-catching resort is taking reservations.

This $45 million French-inspired estate could become the most expensive ever sold in San Francisco. (The owners bought the home under an LLC to protect their privacy and declined to provide any further details to the SF Chronicle, but the real-estate news outlet The Real Deal identified the owners as Vlocity co-founders Mark Armenante and Young Sohn, saying they renovated the property "down to the studs." University of Phoenix founder John Sperling and his son Peter owned the property before that, according to the San Francisco Business Times.)