Historic layoffs at Amazon, a $100 million fine for Coinbase, and DoorDash drives into package delivery

Guess we picked the wrong time to buy a house halfway down a hill. (Fellow Californians, good luck tonight! 😬)

Amazon's layoffs will affect more than 18,000 employees, according to the WSJ, which notes it's the "highest reduction tally revealed in the past year at a major technology company." It's also the biggest layoff in Amazon's nearly 30-year history.

Coinbase will pay $100 million in fees because of "significant failures in its compliance program" that violated New York state laws. The settlement between the cryptocurrency exchange and the New York State Department on Financial Services comes on the heels of other actions by other regulatory agencies to monitor cryptocurrency companies. NPR has more here.

The Federal Trade Commission today said it has taken legal action against three companies and two individuals, forcing them to drop noncompete restrictions that they imposed on thousands of workers. The actions mark the first time that the FTC has sued to halt unlawful noncompete restrictions, the agency itself notes. More here.

Answering RFPs and security questionnaires is critical to closing deals and growing revenue. But the manual process can delay deals or stop them cold. Secureframe helps you respond to both fast with AI so you can accelerate speed to revenue. Schedule a demo today at secureframe.com.

Advanced Navigation, a 12-year-old Sydney startup that develops AI robotics and navigation technology, raised a $68 million Series B round led by KKR, with AI Capital, Main Sequence, Malcolm Turnbull AC, In-Q-Tel, and Our Innovation Fund also taking part. The company has raised a total of $85.2 million. Verdict has more here.

Apnimed, a nearly six-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based clinical-stage pharmaceutical startup focused on developing oral pharmacologic therapies for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea and related disorders, has raised $79.75 million in extended Series C funding that brings the round total to $142.25 million. Earlier investor Alpha Wave Ventures led the round, joined by other earlier backers Sectoral Asset Management, Columbia-Seligman Investments and Tao Capital Partners, among others. More here.

Arcadia, an eight-year-old Washington, D.C., startup that helps clients better understand their carbon footprint, raised a $125 million round led by Magnetar Capital, with Keyframe Capital and Macquarie Asset Management’s Green Investment Group also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $495.5 million. More here.

Belharra Therapeutics, a San Mateo, Ca.-based outfit, emerged from stealth mode today with a photoaffinity-based chemoproteomics platform that it claims is capable of identifying non-covalent, small molecule drug candidates for any protein. The company also announced it has raised $50 million in Series A financing from founding investor Versant Ventures, and that it has secured a multi-year collaboration with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, that will provide $80 million in upfront capital. More here.

Cirba Solutions, a 31-one-year-old Charlotte startup that is building battery recycling facilities, raised a $245 million round from EQT. Mergers & Acquisitions has more here.

Money View, an eight-year-old Bangalore startup that offers personalized credit products to the unbanked, raised a $75 million Series E round at a $900 million valuation, an almost 50% markup from its last round in March. The deal was led by Apis Partners, with Tiger Global, Winter Capital, and Evolence also participating. The company has raised a total of $183.7 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Razor Group, a two-year-old Berlin startup that buys profitable e-commerce businesses and attempts to launch them across international markets, raised a $70 million round from L Catterton, with additional participation from 468 Capital and Presight Capital. Tech.eu has more here.

Tredence, a nine-year-old startup based in San Jose, Ca., that provides enterprises with advisory services and custom software to analyze data using AI, raised a $175 million Series B round from Advent International. The company has raised a total of $205 million. SiliconAngle has more here.

Citrine Informatics, a nearly 10-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based materials informatics platform, has raised $16 million in Series C funding led by Prelude Ventures and Innovation Endeavors, with participation from Drive Catalyst (Far Eastern Group), Alumni Ventures, ISAI Cap Venture, Presidio Ventures, and others. More here.

Mangomint, a five-year-old Los Angeles startup that has developed a SaaS-based tool for booking beauty appointments, raised a $13 million Series A round led by OpenView, with startup300 also taking part. The company has raised a total of $14.8 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Nectar, a New York startup that offers in-home allergy testing kits, raised a $16.5 million Series A round. Harmony Partners led the financing, with Juxtapose and Obvious Ventures also pitching in. MobiHealthNews has more here.

Product Science, a one-year-old Los Angeles startup that develops mobile app performance monitoring tools, raised an $18 million round. Investors included Slow Ventures, Coatue, K5 Global, Mantis Ventures, Peter Fenton, and Jerry Murdock. TechCrunch has more here.

SirionLabs, a 10-year-old New York startup that uses natural language processing and AI to track contract details, score clauses in the documents, and provide suggestions based on existing legal data about how to improve the contract, raised an additional $25 million in Series D funding, increasing the size of the round to $110 million. Brookfield Growth led this extension. SirionLabs has raised a total of $171 million. GeekWire has more here.

VMRay, a nine-year-old startup based in Bochum, Germany, that offers advanced threat detection and analysis services, raised a $34 million Series B round. Tikehau Capital was the deal lead; eCapital, NRW.BANK, Gründerfonds Ruhr, and High-Tech Gründerfonds also participated. The company has raised a total of $63 million. Tech.eu has more here.

Altitude Angel, an eight-year-old startup based in Reading, UK, whose software enables commercial drones to safely share airspace with other aircraft, raised a $6 million Series B round from BT Group. TFN has more here.

Automotus, a four-year-old Los Angeles startup whose software helps to manage curb space for buses, taxis, deliveries and parking, raised a $9 million seed round. Investors included CityRock Ventures, Quake Capital, Bridge Investments, Unbridled Ventures, Keiki Capital, NY Angels, Irish Angles, SUM Ventures, and LA’s Cleantech Incubator Impact Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Fiscozen, a four-year-old Milan startup whose platform allows sole proprietors to file tax returns and electronic invoices, raised an $8.4 million Series A round led by Keen Venture Partners, with United Ventures also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $12.2 million. More here.

HD, a Bangkok startup that allows surgeons to book empty operating rooms ("Southeast Asia’s medical system is built on very different patient-hospital dynamics," notes TechCrunch), has raised a $6 million round. Investors included Partech Partners, M Venture Partners, AC Ventures, iSeed, and Orvel Ventures. More here.

Poly, a year-old, Austin-based generative AI company for design assets, late last month raised $4 million in seed funding led by Felicis, Bloomberg Beta, and NextView Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, Figma Ventures, AI Grant, and other strategic angels. More here.

Prescribe FIT, a five-year-old startup based in Columbus, Oh., that has developed a telehealth platform for orthopedic providers, raised a $4 million seed round. Tamarind Hill was the deal lead. Columbus Inno has more here.

Quris, a three-year-old Tel Aviv startup whose platform aims to simulate a human body’s reaction to drugs without relying on animal testing, raised a $9 million seed round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2; GlenRock Capital, iAngels, Welltech Ventures, and Richter Group also contributed. The company has raised a total of $37 million. Calcalist has more here.

SingleFile, a 3.5-year-old, Seattle-based legal tech startup that acts as a registered agent and helps companies file their annual reports with states, has raised $3.2 million led by its existing investors Foundry and PSL Ventures. The company has now raised $8.6 million altogether, says GeekWire.

Snaptrude, a five-year-old New York startup that is attempting to disrupt Autodesk in the building design space, raised a $6.6 million seed round. Accel and Foundamental VC co-led the deal. The company has raised a total of $7.8 million. TechCrunch has more here.

SurrealDB, a one-year-old London startup that provides cloud-based database services, raised a $6 million seed round led by FirstMark Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

How do you know you’re choosing the right fund administrator? To help you make this critical decision, Juniper Square created a guide you can use to evaluate fund administrators and find the partner that will give you the support you need to administer your investments, impress your investors, and optimize your operations in a time of rapid change. Get the guide here now.

10D, a Tel Aviv-based venture capital firm, announced last month that it has garnered $245 million in capital commitments across two funds. $185 million will invest in seed and Series A startups and $60 million in some of the firm’s early-stage portfolio companies.

Animoca Brands, the nine-year-old, Hong Kong-based web3 power player, is looking to raise about $1 billion this quarter for its new web3 and metaverse investment fund, it tells Bloomberg; the outlet notes the amount is half what Animoca said it was planning to raise in November in a Nikkei interview. More here.

India's Nexus Venture Partners is in advanced talks to raise a $700 million fund, the second-biggest such pool to be garnered in the country in the past year, to invest in domestic and U.S.-based technology firms, Reuters reported this morning. More here.

While we were off drinking eggnog, General Atlantic closed its first climate-focused fund with about $3.5 billion in capital commitments, roughly 12.5% less than it had reportedly sought when fundraising began for the vehicle last year, per a late-December WSJ report. It says the firm had hoped to have $4 billion available for the strategy. More here.

Michael Rubin’s sports platform company Fanatics is divesting its 60% stake in the sports NFT company Candy Digital, according to an internal email obtained by CNBC. Fanatics, which previously held the majority share of Candy Digital, will be selling its interest to an investor group led by Galaxy Digital, which was the other original founding shareholder. Candy Digital emerged in 2021 amid the sports NFT boom but sports NFTs have seen a decline amid the "crypto winter." More here.

Veteran VC Theresia Gouw thinks this recession will resemble 2000, not 2008.

Elon Musk can still poke fun at himself.

Vista Equity Partners, the Austin-based private equity giant with a penchant for software outfits (and more than $95 billion in assets under management as of September), says it has promoted five staffers -- Cheryl Leahy, Jessi Marshall, Amy Mathews, Drew Tate, and Steven White -- to managing director. More here.

Cameron Winklevoss, co-founder and president of digital currency exchange Gemini, accused Barry Silbert, the head of crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group of engaging in “bad faith” tactics today in an open later. The two are tangled in a complex lending dispute that emerged in the wake of FTX’s collapse. CNBC explains here.

Former Twitter security chief Peiter Zatko, whose whistleblower claim against the company triggered multiple ongoing investigations, has joined security company Rapid7, where he will advise a range of consulting clients, the Boston-based company tells The Washington Post.

Crypto asset funds, including Grayscale, clocked the worst year since 2018, with inflows reportedly plummeting 95%. Funds tracked by CoinShares netted a total of just $433 million in 2022 compared to a massive $9.1 billion in the previous year, a decline of 95%. The Block has more here.

Shares of Rivian Automotive notched a new 52-week low today after the company narrowly missed its 25,000-unit production target for last year. The EV startup late yesterday said it produced 24,337 vehicles in 2022, including 10,020 in the fourth quarter. Rivian said during its IPO roadshow in 2021 that it expected to build 50,000 vehicles in 2022. But it cut that guidance by half in March due to production and global supply chain issues. CNBC has the story here.

The Chinese online gaming firm Tencent entered the club of the world’s 10 most-valuable companies for the first time in six months; the rise reflects "investor optimism on Chinese shares as the nation dismantled its stringent Covid Zero policies and refocused on growth," observes Bloomberg.

Salesforce is laying off 10% of its workforce and reducing its office space in certain markets, amid a growing spate of tech job cuts that are affecting employees at all levels of their companies. More than 7,000 employees will be impacted at Salesforce. “There is some comfort in the fact that we’re still in a position to be relatively generous to the people who are being notified today," wrote Stewart Butterfield, who sold his company Slack to Salesforce in 2021.

Vimeo, the video-sharing platform, also said today that it is laying off 11% of its employees, after cutting 6% of its staff in July. More here.

DoorDash, in a search for new revenue, will now return your packages for you.

The dirt on "clean beauty."

The funniest WASP mom on TikTok.

Why a "Flying V" could replace jumbo jets.

Are these dudes the future of news?

Electragrams.

Join hundreds of military veteran entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and early-stage operators at the Military Veteran Startup Conference hosted by Context Ventures on Feb 2nd & 3rd in San Francisco. Build your network and get invaluable insight from panels including the Dual Use Entrepreneurs panel, New Veteran Fund Managers panel, and VIP speakers including Henry Ward of Carta. The event is open to everyone: military veterans, veteran spouses, and civilians. Learn more and register here.