Anduril's fresh firepower, Twitter's financial straights, and Elizabeth Holmes just appealed her conviction

Friday! We're three episodes deep into the last season of "Breaking Bad," which we'd never before seen and now never want to end. BUT, before we began our binge, we whipped up a podcast for you featuring a discussion about the state of the secondary market with a cofounder Phil Haslett of EquityZen, as well as a chat with Dina Radenkovic, the cofounder of Gameto, a venture-backed company that has snagged $40 million from Insight Partners and others to produce biologics around the female reproductive system. 

Radenkovic, who is a physician with a medical degree from the University College of London, is primarily focused right now on using cell engineering to make IVF cycles shorter, but she has a big company in mind, one that enables young women to more easily and affordably freeze their eggs, helps them to use those eggs for IVF if they so choose later on, and -- again, using cell engineering -- eventually extend the life of these same customers' ovaries. Radenkovic's thinking: women are living longer; their ovaries could and should be functioning longer, too. It's early days, but she paints a compelling picture; we hope you enjoy both of these fast chats.

Giant thanks to the sponsor of this week's StrictlyVC Download: Vauban from Carta. Vauban, acquired from Carta to introduce "fast, low-cost" SPVs in the U.S and bring international funds and SPVs to the Carta platform, says it's currently accepting SPV migrations from Assure if you were caught in that mess. Learn about this self-described "VC super app" here.

Have a great weekend.

Twitter keeps missing its advertising targets; it sounds bad.

Apple is making plans to move more of its production out of China.

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Anduril, the five-year-old defense startup that was founded by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and which builds autonomous drone systems and border surveillance technology, raised a $1.48 billion Series E round at a $7 billion pre-money valuation. Valor Equity Partners was the deal lead, with Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, 8VC, Lux Capital, Thrive Capital, DFJ Growth, Elad Gil, Lachy Groom, Human Capital, Marlinspike, WCM Investment Management, MVP Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures, and US Innovative Technology Fund also piling on. Anduril is based in Irvine, Ca. Axios has more here.

KreditBee, a four-year-old Bangalore startup that provides instant personal loans to consumers with limited credit history, raised an $80 million Series D round. Investors in the deal included Premji Invest, Motilal Oswal Alternates, NewQuest Capital Partners, Mirae Asset Ventures, and MUFG Bank. TechCrunch has more here.

Le Collectionist, a nine-year-old Paris startup that offers vacation rentals of luxury properties, raised a $63.1 million round led by Highland Europe. The company has raised a total of $75.4 million. Forbes has more here.

UpStream Healthcare, a startup based in Greensboro, N.C., that provides integrated services for primary care physicians centered on providing more cost-efficient care for Medicare patients, raised a $140 million Series B round co-led by Coatue and Dragoneer, with additional participation from Avidity Partners, Define Ventures, and Mubadala. The company has raised a total of $185 million. Forbes has more here.

BeeHero, a five-year-old Fresno, Ca., startup that uses advanced data analytics, AI, and low-cost IoT sensors to bring more efficiency to the complex logistics of commercial crop pollination, raised a $42 million Series B round. Convent Capital was the deal lead; additional investors included General Mills, Cibus Capital, Rabobank, MS&AD, Firstime, J-Ventures, Plug & Play, iAngels, Gaingels, and UpWest. The company has raised a total of $66 million. Calcalist has more here.

Buckzy, a four-year-old Toronto startup whose embedded finance platform offers real-time, cross-border payments for banks, neobanks and FinTechs, disbursing funds to more than 80 countries, raised a $14.5 million Series A round. Mistral Venture Partners and Uncorrelated Ventures co-led the deal, with participation from new investors Luge Capital and Blue 9 Capital and existing investors Revel Partners. The company has raised a total of $23.5 million. PYMNTS has more here.

PictorLabs, a three-year-old Los Angeles startup that claims it is developing an AI-powered platform to revolutionize histopathology and accelerate clinical research, raised a $15.2 million round from M Ventures, SCC Soft Computer, and Koç Holding. The company has raised a total of $18.8 million. More here.

Plant Prefab, a six-year-old, Rialto, Ca.-based maker of modular townhomes, has raised $30 million in equity led by Brazilian steelmaker Gerdau, with participation from Tokyo-based chemical company Asahi Kasei; a Brown University alumni group; Unreasonable Collective, an entrepreneurship club; and earlier backers Amazon and Obvious Ventures. The outfit also secured $12 million in debt from Western Technology Investments and ATEL Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

X1 Card, a five-year-old San Francisco startup that recently launched an income-based credit card to the public, raised a $15 million round at a 50% higher valuation than its last financing, which was completed in July. The deal was led by Soma Capital. The company has raised a total of $62 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Zylo, a six-year-old Indianapolis startup that aims to help companies receive a greater return on their SaaS subscriptions, raised a $31.5 million Series C round led by Baird Capital, with Spring Lake Equity Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, High Alpha, and Coupa Ventures also contributing. The company has raised a total of $66.7 million. More here.

CleanFiber, a nine-year-old startup based in Buffalo, N.Y., that takes used cardboard boxes and turns them into cellulose insulation that can be blown into the walls and attics of new and existing homes, raised a $10 million round from AXA IM Alts. The company has raised a total of $57.1 million. TechCrunch has more here.

CyVers, a Tel Aviv startup that has developed a web3 security platform for centralized, decentralized finance, and smart contract applications, raised an $8 million round led by Elron Ventures, with Crescendo Venture Partners, Differential Ventures, HDI, Cyber Club London, and Cyber Future also chipping in. Calcalist has more here.

Intelligent Traffic Control, a three-year-old Tel Aviv startup that has developed computer vision and AI/machine learning algorithms that can leverage existing cameras and traffic light infrastructure to predict traffic patterns and prevent traffic congestion, raised a $5 million Series A round. Champel Capital and Mobilitech Capital co-led the deal. More here.

Netail, a Palo Alto startup founded this year that says its tech platform enables retailers to see their market from a customer's perspective, raised a $5 million seed round led by Magarac Venture Partners. More here.

Loft, a four-year-old, São Paulo, Brazil-based outfit that operates digital platforms for buying selling real estate and financial services for real estate transactions, has reportedly raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Andreessen Horowitz at a $1 billion valuation, down from the $2.9 billion valuation that the company's investors had assigned it during its last fundraising round. The company calls the reports "pure speculation." Bloomberg has more here.

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Boulder Ventures, a 27-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based early-stage venture firm that funds IT and healthcare startups in Colorado and the Mid-Atlantic region, says it has just closed its eighth fund with $58 million in capital commitments. More here.

New Fare Partners, a year-old, early-stage venture firm focused on food and beverage businesses, has closed its inaugural fund with $20 million in capital commitments. The firm's cofounders are Elly Truesdell and Hallie Bonnar. Truesdell was previously Whole Foods Market’s global director of local brands and product innovation before operating a food private label and co-packing business called Canopy Foods, then joining the venture firm Almanac. She also co-founded Made by Nacho, a crafted cat food brand with restaurateur Bobby Flay. Bonnar, who started her career in the fintech industry, has worked with Truesdell for the last five years in marketing roles, including at Canopy, Almanac, and Made by Nacho. TechCrunch has more here.

LedgerX, one of the few solvent pieces of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crumbled FTX empire, is for sale and attracting interest from would-be buyers including crypto giants Blockchain.com and Gemini, reports Bloomberg. It notes that the unit, "which is registered with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a derivatives exchange, was a cornerstone of Bankman-Fried’s efforts in Washington. It’s also considered one of the most valuable assets associated with FTX after more than 100 other entities filed for bankruptcy." More here.

Lora DiCarlo, a sex tech startup that made headlines in 2019 after being blacklisted from the Consumer Electronics Show, seems to have shut down. The company’s website is offline and reportedly orders have gone unfulfilled for months, says TechCrunch. More here.

Veteran Amazon executive Jeff Blackburn, who played a key role in the tech giant’s push into entertainment, is leaving the company. In a memo to staff, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the departure of Blackburn, who had returned to Amazon about 18 months ago from a sabbatical, will result in restructuring and leadership changes at the global media and entertainment division that Blackburn oversaw.

Elizabeth Holmes appealed her criminal fraud conviction, two weeks after she was ordered to serve more than 11 years in prison for deceiving investors in her blood-testing startup Theranos. Lawyers for Holmes, 38, filed a single-page notice of appeal late today in federal court in San Jose, Ca., without disclosing on what grounds she will ask the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the verdict. Bloomberg has the story here.

Opendoor co-founder Eric Wu announced today that he is stepping down from his role as CEO of the real estate technology company and that Carrie Wheeler -- a longtime private equity executive who stepped down from TPG in 2017 after a 21-year career with the firm -- will be taking over as chief executive. TechCrunch has more here.

Sam Bankman-Fried knew plenty about his Alameda Research trading desk, says Forbes; he was sending the outfit all kinds of details dating back to January 2021, when for its "world's billionaires" list, he started (and kept updating) a spreadsheet about his holdings and wealth.

Also: a crypto trade that blew up last year, has not been previously reported, and came more than a year before FTX collapsed into bankruptcy, shows how when one pillar of Bankman-Fried’s crypto conglomerate came under stress, he would shift the weight to another, treating the businesses that were portrayed publicly as separate as if they were one group. The Financial times has more here.

Meanwhile, some notes on the latest inside Twitter from Alex Heath of The Verge: "The company lost too many employees too fast. There are still people with 'critical' knowledge who haven’t been fully cut off from Twitter’s systems, even though they did not opt into Musk’s 'hardcore' cultural reset over 2 weeks ago..." More here.

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It's not too bad," says man as hot sauce begins disintegrating jaw.

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