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As well as running a crypto exchange that didn’t exchange crypto and owning a hedge fund that didn’t hedge, Sam Bankman-Fried had a venture capital fund that didn’t venture its own capital, observes the Financial Times. Indeed, today, it offered readers a glimpse into a grab bag of 500 illiquid investments whose total value was assigned (by FTX, on a spreadsheet about them) in excess of $5.4 billion. Note: the FT says it makes no claim as to the data's accuracy or completeness. More here.
San Francisco building inspectors are launching an investigation into reports that Twitter has converted several office rooms at its headquarters into sleeping quarters for employees. "We need to make sure the building is being used as intended," a representative for the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection told a KQED reporter. Sources told Forbes that overnight, owner Elon Musk had converted sections of Twitter's headquarters into bedrooms and that there were anywhere between four to eight bedrooms per floor that looked "comfortable." Business Insider has more here.
Meanwhile, Musk’s medical device company Neuralink is reportedly under federal investigation related to accusations from employees that pressure to produce results led to barbaric and botched surgeries on monkeys, sheep and pigs involved in scientific tests. Neuralink, which is attempting to produce a brain implant to allow paralyzed people to regain limb function and treat neurological ailments, has killed roughly 1,500 animals involved in tests since 2018, according to records reviewed by Reuters and "sources with
direct knowledge of the company’s animal-testing operations," it says. More here.
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Affinity, the relationship intelligence platform for dealmakers, recently launched a report analyzing investment trends that point toward future unicorn status. While the impact of an economic downturn can’t easily be predicted, deal activity trends can help us better understand current conditions and future outlooks. In this U.S. vs. European Unicorn report, Affinity takes a comparative look at global investment data to understand how the landscape for investors and hopeful unicorns has evolved against economic
challenges and the role relationship intelligence plays in these transactions. Read the report.
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| A Data-Driven Duo Just Raised Roughly $350M to Fund Nascent Startups *with Metrics |
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Nnamdi Okike and Aaron Holiday trust data over the kind of pattern matching that most VCs swear by. It’s not surprising, given their backgrounds. Before launching their venture firm, 645 Ventures, in 2014, Okike was a principal with the data-driven investment giant Insight Partners. Meanwhile, Holiday, who came directly from DFJ Gotham Ventures, was previously a software engineer at Goldman Sachs.
Of course, data is hard to come by when a startup is just getting off the ground. But last week, in an exchange with TechCrunch, Okike and Holiday said that their proprietary software and “resource-intensive model to early-stage investing” is working so well that 645 just secured $347 million in capital commitments from a range of traditional venture investors (foundations, family offices, endowments) across two new funds. One is a $195 million early-stage fund; the other is a $153 million fund to back its breakout winners as they mature.
These are notable amounts in a market where LPs are feeling a lot less flush than they did a year ago. The funds are a far cry, too, from the duo’s $7.6 million proof-of-concept fund. (They went on to raise $40 million from LPs in 2018 and $160.6 million in 2020, so they now manage around $555 million altogether.)
More here.
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Oda, a nine-year-old, Oslo-based grocery delivery startup, has raised a $151 million round at a $353 million valuation, a step down from the $900 million valuation the company secured in April, 2021. Investors included Kinnevik, Verdane, and Summa Equity, with additional participation from Rasmussen Group, and Prosus. Previous backer SoftBank is not listed as an investor in this new round. TechCrunch has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Archive, a year-old San Francisco startup that is developing a warehouse management system that brands can use to sell inventory that has been either returned, damaged, or exchanged online, raised a $15 million Series A round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with Bain Capital Ventures also chipping in. TechCrunch has more here.
Carputty, a two-year-old Atlanta startup that has built an online auto financing site where consumers can apply for lines of credit up to $250,000 to purchase a new or used vehicle, refinance an existing loan, or buy out a lease, raised a $12.3 million Series A round. The deal was co-led by Fontinalis Partners and TTV Capital. The company has raised a total of $19.5 million. Forbes has more here.
Evaneos, a 13-year-old Paris startup that claims to connect travelers with local travel agents in order to provide a more authentic travel experience, raised a $21 million round. Backers included Partech, Level Equity, Quadrille Capital, XAnge, Serena Capital, and Bpifrance. Tech.eu has more here.
Expeto, a seven-year-old Canadian startup that is developing a platform that allows corporate customers to extend their private networks via cell networks, raised a $13 million Series B round led by Sorenson Capita, with 5G Open Innovation Lab, Samsung Next, and Mistral Venture Partners also contributing. The company has raised a total of $25.9 million. TechCrunch has more here.
NeuReality, a four-year-old Israeli startup that is developing AI inferencing chips that can speed up the generation of text, images, and audio based on what they learn while training on a specific set of data, raised a $35 million Series A round. Investors included Samsung Ventures, Cardumen Capital, Varana Capital, OurCrowd, XT Hi-Tech, SK Hynix, Cleveland Avenue, Korean Investment Partners, StoneBridge, and Glory Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Osome, a five-year-old Singapore startup whose platform helps business owners with administrative tasks like payroll, accounting and tax reporting, raised a $25 million Series B round. Illuminate Financial, AFG Partners, and Winter Capital led the deal. The company has raised a total of $49.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Slingshot Aerospace, a five-year-old startup based ion El Segundo, Ca., and Austin that makes a a space traffic control software tool that satellite operators use to coordinate satellite maneuvers and communicate with other operators to avert collisions, raised a $40.8 million Series A2 round. Sway Ventures was the deal lead; other investors included C16 Ventures, ATX Venture Partners, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, and Draper Associates. The company has raised a total of $110.5 million. SpaceNews has more here.
Vaxxas, an 11-year-old Sydney startup that is developing a needle-free COVID-19 vaccine, raised a $22.8 million round. Previous investors OneVentures and UniQuest co-led the deal. The company has raised a total of $99.9 million. FiercePharma has more here.
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Amplio, a supply chain startup that is building a system to help track parts shortages, raised a $6 million seed round. Construct Capital was the deal lead, with participation from Slow Ventures, High Alpha Capital, Flexport Ventures, and Alpaca Venture Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Apromore, a three-year-old Melbourne startup that claims its platform can help companies improve the efficiency of their business operations by analyzing their day-to-day activities and workflow, raised a $10.3 million Series B round led by Salesforce and GBTEC Software Consulting. The company has raised a total of $15.1 million. SiliconAngle has more here.
Axiom, an Israeli startup that focuses on automating identity and access management for developer platforms, raised a $7 million seed round led by S Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Balance Theory, a startup founded this year based in Columbia, Md., that is developing data leakage prevention tools to help with data redaction, classification, rights management, and controls for information sharing, raised a $3 million seed round. DataTribe was the deal lead, with TEDCO also chipping in. SecurityWeek has more here.
Cacheflow, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that maps out the last-mile tasks of closing a software deal with a customer, raised a $10 million "seed+" round led by GV, with participation from previous investor GGV Capital. The company has raised a total of $16 million. TechCrunch has more here.
ImVitro, a three-year-old, Paris-based company whose B2B SaaS platform "Embryoly" applies computer vision and AI to the IVF fertility imaging process, raised $2.5 million in seed funding. LDV Capital led the round, joined by MMC Ventures, Tiny VC, Fly Ventures, and Compound VC. Tech.eu has more here.
Malk Organics, an eight-year-old, Austin-based alternative milk brand ("made with six ingredients or less and an abundance of organic nuts or oats in every bottle"), has closed it Series B round with $9 million in funding led by Benvolio Group and Rotor Capital. More here.
Operative Intelligence, a three-year-old Los Angeles startup that aims to help contact centers figure out what customers want more quickly, improving automated inquiries and cutting down on wait times, raised a $3.5 million seed round led by Bonfire Ventures, with additional funds provided by Wonder Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Protopia AI, an Austin startup that says its software enables its customers to use AI and machine learning to extract insights from their data without exposing sensitive information in identifiable form, has raised $6 million in seed funding led by ATX Venture Partners. Additional investors in the round included Galaxy Interactive, Silverton Partners and DNX Ventures. Protopia has raised a total of $8 million. VentureBeat has more here.
Rezonate, a Boston and Tel Aviv startup founded this year whose agent-less cloud identity protection platform aims to help DevOps teams minimize attackers’ opportunities to breach cloud identity and access, raised a $8.7 million round from State of Mind Ventures, Flybridge, toDay Ventures, and Merlin Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Speiz, a two-year-old Oslo startup that aims to build a marketplace for commercial warehouse real estate in Europe, raised $1.4 million seed round led by F-LOG Ventures, with additional participation from Iron Wolf Capital and Angel Fund. More here.
Tea, a 14-month-old, San Juan, Puerto Rico-based open source unified package manager for software developers, says it has added another $8.9 million in seed funding to its coffers. Acuitas Group Holdings led the round, joined by Betaworks Ventures, Percival VC, Round 13 Digital Assets Fund, StrongBlock and Wax Blockchain. The outfit has now raised $16.9 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Treble, a three-year-old Reykjavík startup that has developed proprietary technology for sound simulation and spatial audio specifically for use in virtual environments, raised a $5.8 million seed round led by Frumtak Ventures, with NOVA also contributing. Tech.eu has more here.
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The 12-year-old Indian venture firm Blume has garnered more than $250 million in capital commitments for a new fund, its fourth and largest. TechCrunch has more here.
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Contagion from the implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire is spilling into the world of decentralized finance, after hedge fund Orthogonal Trading was declared in default on almost $36 million of loans. Bloomberg has the story here.
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Five-year-old, Vietnamese electric vehicle maker VinFast has filed for an IPO in the United States, the company said today. Shares will be listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker “VFS.” VinFast will convert to a Singapore public limited company for the IPO. The number of shares to be offered and the price range of the offering haven’t been disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.
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Sam Bankman-Fried has hired Mark Cohen, the same lawyer who represented convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
The creator of the iPod, Tony Fadell, says he has designed a new hardware wallet for people to store their cryptocurrency.
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark says he's giving away virtually all of his assets. More here.
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Morgan Stanley cut about 2% of its staff today, according to CNBC, which says the moves impacted about 1,600 of the company’s 81,567 employees and touched nearly every corner of the global investment bank.
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Startups across Europe are on track to raise $85 billion in funding this year — a drop of $15 billion on 2021 levels when funding passed $100 billion, according to a report on the state of European tech. The figures come from London VC firm Atomico’s annual State of European Tech report. TechCrunch has more here.
Norwest Venture Partners has shared its annual "talent and people practices benchmark survey," which it compiled with feedback from 121 of its North America-based portfolio companies in late summer. The survey measures data around people operations, talent acquisition, team structure, total rewards, systems and tools, and post-pandemic impacts (including return-to-work expectations). You can check it out here.
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Apple has scaled back self-driving plans for its future electric vehicle and postponed the car’s target launch date by about a year to 2026, reports Bloomberg.
Disgruntled former Twitter employees allege they were not given the severance packages they were promised. The mountain of litigation could cost Twitter millions. More in Wired.
Meta employees were told today that they should not discuss sensitive issues like abortion, gun control, pending legislation and vaccine efficacy at work. Fortune reported on these changes, citing a leaked internal memo from Lori Goler, head of people at Meta. TechCrunch confirmed the report with a Meta spokesperson. More here.
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