SBF's Twitter stake, Sequoia's apology, and Genesis on the edge of a precipice

James Bromley of Sullivan & Cromwell, a lawyer who is working on the bankruptcy of the failed crypto exchange FTX, told a U.S. court today that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried ran the outfit as his “personal fiefdom," spending “substantial amounts of money” on expenses unrelated to FTX, including vacation homes in the Bahamas. (Reuters reported that Bankman-Fried, his parents and senior executives bought at least 19 properties worth nearly $121 million in the Bahamas over the past two years.)

Bromley also said that a “substantial amount” of FTX’s assets is missing and may have been stolen as a run on customer deposits and a liquidity crunch precipitated a crisis of leadership and led the firm to collapse. The WSJ has more here.

Meanwhile, Sequoia Capital offered a rare apology to its investors today for its involvement with FTX and promised greater due diligence in the future. More in the WSJ.

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Aura, a ten-year-old startup that makes digital frames and photo sharing apps that can also be used to update those frames. raised $26 million in a mix of debt and equity led by Lago Innovation Fund. The company has raised a total of $40.9 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Care.ai, a four-year-old startup based in Orlando, Fl., that uses AI to monitor clinical and operational workflows in order to optimize patient outcomes, raised a $27 million led by Crescent Cove Advisors. MobiHealth News has more here.

CatalYm, a six-year-old Munich startup that is developing a drug to combat cancer tumors, raised a $51.5 million Series C round co-led by Brandon Capital and Jeito Capital, with previous investors Forbion, Novartis Venture Fund, Vesalius Biocapital III, Bayern Kapital, BioGeneration Ventures, and Coparion also taking part. The company has raised a total of $110.7 million. Endpoints has more here.

Freight Farms, a ten-year-old Boston startup that manufactures vertical hydroponic farms in shipping containers, raised a $17.5 million Series B3 round co-led by Aliaxis SA and Ospraie Ag Science, with Spark Capital, Stage 1 Ventures, and Alkaline Partners also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $55.9 million. More here.

Novo, a Miami startup that has developed a small business banking platform, raised a $35 million Series B extension from GGV Capital at a pre-money valuation of $720 million, up from $610 million in January. The company has raised a total of $170 million, Forbes has more here.

Taktile, a two-year-old German startup whose no-code interface allows nontechnical employees to build, adjust, and evaluate decision flows in verticals such as banking, raised a $20 million Series A round. Index Ventures and Tiger Global were the co-leads. The company has raised a total of $24.7 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Turbine, a seven-year-old London startup that uses AI to run simulations of potential therapies, raised a $20.6 million Series A round co-led by Mercia and MSD Global Health Innovation Fund, with Day One Capital and previous investors Accel, Delin Ventures, and XTX Ventures also participating. The company has raised a total of $30.9 million. Endpoints News has more here.

Ukio, a two-year-old, Barcelona-based short-term furnished apartment rental platform aimed at the “flexible workforce,” has raised €27 million ($28 million) in a Series A round of funding. Felix Capital led the round, joined by Kreos Capital, Breega, Partech, Heartcore, Bynd and a host of angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

WorkJam, an eight-year-old Montreal startup whose mobile platform helps employers manage frontline workforces, raised a $50 million Series D round co-led by Fonds de solidarité FTQ and previous investor Inovia Capital, with Blumberg Capital and Demopolis Equity Partners also anteing up. According to the WSJ, the deal values WorkJam at more than $500 million. The company has raised a total of $155 million. BetaKit has more here.

AMFG, a nine-year-old Austin startup that develops manufacturing software for 3D printing, raised a $8.5 million round led by Intel Capital. More here.

Carv, a Los Angeles startup that aggregates gamer data from both web2 and web3 and combines that information into unique user IDs, raised a $4 million at a $40 million valuation. Vertex (part of Temasek) was the deal lead. TechCrunch has more here.

Clerk, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that develops authentication and user management software, raised a $6.2 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with additional investment from S28 Capital, Fathom Capital, and South Park Commons. More here.

Efficient Capital Labs, a New York startup founded this year that connects India-based B2B SaaS startups to U.S. lenders, raised a $3.5 million seed round led by 645 Ventures, with additional participation from Singh Cap, The Fund, and Operator Partners. Business Insider has more here.

Leta, a one-year-old Kenyan startup that provides supply chain logistics information to delivery businesses, raised a $3 million pre-seed round from The 4Di Capital, Chandaria Capital, Chui Ventures, PANI, Samurai Incubate, and Verdant Frontiers Fintech. TechCrunch has more here.

Popup, a one-year-old startup that is building a no-code platform for the creation, management, and hosting of online stores, raised a $3.5 million pre-seed round led by Accel; it was joined by Seedcamp and 20VC. TechCrunch has more here.

RedBrick AI, a year-old, Pune, India-based health tech startup that offers specialized annotation tools that can be accessed through a web browser and integrated within customers’ existing data storage system, has raised $4.6 million in a funding round led by Sequoia India and Southeast Asia’s Surge. TechCrunch has more here.

SocialClimb, a six-year-old startup based in Lehi, UT, that helps healthcare providers market themselves, raised a $8.5 million round. Spring Capital Partners and Resolve Growth co-led the deal. The company has raised a total of $22.5 million. More here.

Wesper, a five-year-old New York startup whose sensors and algorithms provide at-home medical diagnosis and ongoing measurement of patients' sleep cycles, raised a $7.5 million Series A round led by Ceros Capital Markets. The company has raised a total of $11.8 million. More here.

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HC9 Ventures, a New York-based venture capital firm led by healthcare industry veterans Richard Lungen, Jon Gordon and Charlie Falcone, says it has raised $83 million for a fund focused on health care software and services startups at seed and Series A stages. MedCity News has more here.

Penguin Random House’s $2.2 billion bid to buy Simon Schuster collapsed yesterday in a victory for the Justice Department, which had sued to stop it on the grounds that it would harm competition and be bad for authors. The outcome of the trial came as a shock to many in publishing, who have watched the number of big firms dwindle to five, even as those five — Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Hachette and Simon & Schuster — got larger by buying small and midsize publishing houses. The New York Times has more here.

Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia cofounded a new company, Samara, that aims to add small homes to people’s backyards. He cofounded the company with Mike McNamara, the former chief executive of electronics manufacturer Flex (and, for a couple of years, a VC with Eclipse Ventures). Airbnb has a minority stake in the company; the WSJ has more here.

Investor buying of homes tumbled 30% in the third quarter, a sign that the rise in borrowing rates and high home prices that pushed traditional buyers to the sidelines are causing these firms to pull back, too. The WSJ has more here.

U.S. regulators have approved CSL Behring’s hemophilia B gene therapy, a one-off infusion that frees patients from regular treatments but costs $3.5 million a dose, making it the most expensive medicine in the world. Bloomberg takes a look here.

Elon Musk has skewered Sam Bankman-Fried on Twitter since his company evaporated. But it turns out that after clinching a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion, Musk texted the FTX founder just after midnight and invited him to roll the $100 million stake he'd owned for a few months into a privately held Twitter. Semafor, which notes that Bankman-Fried started accumulating the stake early this year with an eye toward acquiring Twitter himself (lol), says Bankman-Fried did exactly what he was asked. Indeed, it notes that an FTX balance sheet prepared after the takeover closed on Oct. 28, listed those Twitter shares as an “illiquid” asset. More here.

TechCrunch reported today that three co-founders of alternative financing startup Pipe are stepping down from their roles as executives of the company as it launches a search for a "veteran" CEO with "significant operational experience." It's a little strange, the way the announcement is being rolled out. (Typically, a search is done a little less publicly.) We're candidly not sure what it means for the company, which was valued by its investors at $2 billion during its last funding round in 2021. In the meantime, TechCrunch asked the cofounders -- and they declined to answer -- how much investors allowed them to take off the table already. (Extrapolating from other pandemic-era companies, we'd guess a fair amount.) Pipe's founding CEO Harry Hurst also declined to discuss how many Pipe employees have borrowed money from the startup to exercise their stock options, a practice that was roundly criticized when Bolt's founder, Ryan Breslow, announced on Twitter that his one-click checkout company was doing the same. (Before veteran VCs began chiming in to say what a terrible practice this is, Hurst wrote on Twitter: “Yep, no brainer! We did this back in 2020 and it’s been incredible. It’s the right thing to do." He later deleted the tweet.) More here.

Genesis Global Capital, the troubled crypto lender, has hired the investment bank Moelis & Company to explore options including a potential bankruptcy, the New York Times reported earlier today. Its sources stressed that no final decisions had been made, and that it was still possible for the company to avert a bankruptcy filing. More here.

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