Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund reportedly dumped its crypto bets just before the markets nose-dived last March

Stocks fell today after a fresh batch of economic data offered worrying signs of how the economy is weathering the Federal Reserve’s tightening campaign. The WSJ has more here.

Founders Fund, the venture capital firm co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, reportedly closed almost all of its eight-year bet on cryptocurrencies shortly before the market began to crash last year, generating about $1.8 billion in returns. The fund made its first investment in bitcoin in early 2014; about two-thirds of its overall investment was used to buy bitcoin, sources tell the Financial Times. More here.

Shein is reportedly talks to raise up to $3 billion in a move that would lead to the Chinese fast-fashion group accepting a valuation of $64 billion, down more than a third from its peak less than a year ago. The internet retailer is trying to close a new fundraising round from earlier investors including Mubadala, Sequoia China and General Atlantic, reports the Financial Times, which notes that all three were also involved in Shein’s last fundraising round in April, which valued the outfit at just more than $100 billion. More here.

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In recent years, working for, or banking with, a traditional financial institution was decidedly uncool. Far cooler was working for or banking with one of the many fintech startups that seemed to thumb their nose at stodgy bank brands. 

Then the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates, stocks tanked, and a lot of fintech outfits that appeared to be doing well began looking far less hardy and hale. The question begged now is whether fintech as a theme has lost its mojo.

According to VCs Mercedes Bent of Lightspeed Venture Partners, Victoria Treyger of Felicis, and Jillian Williams of Cowboy Ventures, the answer is resoundingly “no.” In a panel discussion hosted by this editor late last week in San Francisco, however, the investors didn’t sugarcoat things. Led by moderator Reed Albergotti — technology editor of the news platform Semafor — all three acknowledged a variety of challenges in the industry right now, even as they outlined opportunities.

More here.

Impel, a 12-year-old outfit based in Syracuse, N.Y., that develops conversational AI applications in order to facilitate purchases from automotive manufacturers, marketplaces, and dealers, raised a $104 million round led by Silversmith Capital Partners, with Wavecrest Growth Partners also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $130 million. More here.

Pathalys Pharma, a two-year-old startup based in Raleigh, N.C., that is developing a drug designed to treat a parathyroid condition for hemodialysis patients, raised $150 million in secured product financing and equity. Abingworth led the round, while Carlyle and OrbiMed joined in, along with Catalys Pacific and DaVita Venture Group. EndPoints News has more here.

PhonePe, a Bengaluru-based fintech giant that is spinning out of parent company Flipkart (which is itself majority owned by Walmart), says it has raised $350 million in fresh funding at a post-money valuation of $12 billion led by General Atlantic. The outfit says that it anticipates raising up to another $650 million as part of the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Beaconstac, a four-year-old Bengaluru startup that works with companies including United Airlines and Amazon to create end-customer QR code experiences, raised a $25 million Series A round led by Telescope Partners and including Accel. TechCrunch has more here.

Carry1st, a five-year-old South African startup that publishes social games and interactive content in Africa, raised a $27 million round led by Bitkraft Ventures, with Andreessen Horowitz, Konvoy Ventures, TTV Capital, Alumni Ventures, Lateral Capital, and Kepple Ventures also taking part. The company has raised a total of $57 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Chord, a two-year-old, New York-based commerce tech startup, has raised $15 million in extended Series A funding co-led by Bright Pixel Capital and Eclipse. Other backers in the round include GC1 Ventures, TechNexus Venture Collaborative, Anti Fund VC, Imaginary Ventures, Foundation Capital and White Star Capital. More here.

CloseFactor, a four-year-old Palo Alto startup whose platform aims to harvest actionable information about companies from disparate sources, raised a $15.2 million Series A round co-led by Vertex Ventures and Sequoia Capital, with GTMFund and Neythri Futures Fund also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $20.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Oro, an 11-year-old, L.A.-based open source e-commerce platform co-created by Magento’s cofounder and former CTO, says it has raised $13 million in a strategic growth round of funding led by Zubr Capital, with participation from earlier investor Highland Europe. TechCrunch has more here.

Parfin, a four-year-old London startup that is building a modular web3 platform for secure digital asset custody, trading, and management, raised a $15 million seed round led by Framework Ventures, with additional participation from Alexia Ventures, Valor Capital Group, and L4 Venture Builder. CoinDesk has more here.

Photoneo Brightpick Group, a startup that develops robotic vision sensors and intelligence software, raised a $19 million Series B extension, increasing the total size of the round to $40 million. Taiwania Capital was the deal lead; IPM Group, Alpha Intelligence Capital, H&D Asset Management, Venture to Future Fund, and Kolowrat Group also participated. Silicon Canals has more here.

Sublime Systems, a three-year-old startup based in Somerville, Ma., that is developing technology to produce decarbonized cement, raised a $40 million Series A round led by Lowercarbon Capital, with The Engine, Energy Impact Partners, and Siam Cement Group also pitching in. More here.

ThriveCart, a seven-year-old Austin startup that has produced a toolkit that small- and medium-size businesses can use to build e-commerce carts and funnels, raised a $35 million round from LTV SaaS Growth Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Scrintal, a Sweden-based visual note-taking and collaboration tool, has closed on €1 million in funding led by Spintop Ventures, with participation from Icebreaker VC. TechCrunch has more here.

accSenSe, a Tel Aviv startup that provides Okta customers with a single platform for access management, raised a $5 million seed round led by Joule Ventures, with Fusion and Genfen Capital also chipping in. More here.

Arch, a one-year-old New York startup that allows users to take out a single loan collateralized across combined alternative assets, starting with cryptocurrencies, raised a $2.75 million round from Tribe Capital, Castle Island Ventures, Picus Capital, and Global Founders Capital. CoinDesk has more here.

Axiom Cloud, a three-year-old startup based in San Jose, Ca., that provides software-enabled services and cooling systems to major grocery chains and cold storage companies in hundreds of facilities across North America, raised a $7.4 million Series A round led by Blue Bear Capital, with participation from Leadout Capital, Momenta Ventures, Ulu Ventures, Powerhouse Ventures, Vela Partners, Frontier VC, and Artifact Capital. The company has raised a total of $11.6 million. More here.

Diva, a startup that allows owners of Ethereum to stake any amount of the currency with no minimum amount required and no need to run any nodes, raised a $3.5 million seed round led by A&T Capital, with additional investment from Gnosis, Bankless, OKX Ventures, Metaweb, DCV Capital, Alphemy Capital, Very Early Ventures, and Stake.vc. The Block has more here.

Goldenset Collective, a Los Angeles startup that deploys equity investments in social media creators in exchange for a percentage of their revenue, raised a $10 million seed round co-led by A.Capital and Lerer Hippeau, with additional funds provided by Thirty Five Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Hypori, an 11-year-old out based in Reston, Va., that provides secure access to data from the edge, raised a $10 million Series B round led by Hale Capital Partners, with GreatPoint Ventures and former CIA director David Petraeus also participating. More here.

Liberate Innovations, a Palo Alto startup that says it enables insurers to fully automate claims and underwriting for their customers, raised a $7 million seed round led by Eclipse. More here.

Membrion, a seven-year-old Seattle startup that manufactures ceramic desalination membranes that can recover water in harsh conditions, raised a $7 million Series B round led by PureTerra Ventures; Safar Partners, GiantLeap Capital, and Freeflow also participated. More here.

PeopleFund, an eight-year-old Seoul startup that uses an AI-powered risk management and credit scoring system to assess borrowers and lenders for its P2P lending marketplace, raised a $20 million Series C extension round, increasing the total size of the round to $83.4 million. Bain Capital was the deal lead; additional investors included previous investors Access Ventures, CLSA Capital Partners Lending Ark Asia, D3 Jubilee Partners, 500 Global, Kakao Investment, TBT Partners, and IBX Partners. The company has raised a total of $100 million in equity and approximately $240 million in debt. TechCrunch has more here.

Rive, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that has developed a cloud collaboration platform to help designers and developers create animated graphics that run anywhere, raised a $10 million Series A round. Two Sigma Ventures was the deal lead. The company has raised a total of $14 million. BuiltinSF has more here.

Sprinque, a Dutch startup that has built a payments platform that automates the pay-by-invoice process, raised $6.5 million seed round led by Connect Ventures, with Kraken Ventures, Inference Partners, SeedX, Antler, Volta Ventures, and Force Over Mass also joining in. PYMNTS has more here.

Waabi, a two-year-old Toronto startup that is developing autonomous driving technology for trucks, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Volvo Group Venture Capital AB. TechCrunch has more here.

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Sequoia Capital has launched a new $195 million seed-stage venture fund, its fifth. TechCrunch has more here.

CoinDesk, the cryptocurrency-focused media company, has retained investment bankers at Lazard to help it explore options including a partial or full sale, owing to "numerous inbound indications of interest," its CEO tells the WSJ. CoinDesk’s parent company, Digital Currency Group, has received multiple unsolicited offers north of $200 million in the past few months, sources tell the outlet. More here.

Probably completely unrelated: Crypto broker Genesis is preparing to file for bankruptcy as soon as this week, according to the Financial Times, as the company works towards a deal with creditors after months of wrangling. A filing would make Genesis the latest crypto casualty to follow the implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange. Genesis, like CoinDesk, is owned by Digital Currency Group (which is backed by SoftBank). More here.

Open source password management platform Bitwarden has made its first known acquisition, snapping up a fledgling Sweden-based startup called Passwordless.dev that specializes in helping developers integrate passwordless authentication technology into their software. Last fall, seven-year-old Bitwarden announced it had secured $100 million from PSG and Battery Ventures in one of its first rounds of outside funding. Terms of deal aren't being disclosed; Passwordless.dev was founded in 2020. TechCrunch has more here.

Black Sesame Technologies, a developer of artificial intelligence chips and systems for cars, is reportedly considering a Hong Kong IPO that could raise about $200 million, according to Bloomberg. The Xiaomi-backed firm is working with China International Capital and Huatai International on preparations for the share sale, says the outlet.

Moritz Baier-Lentz has joined the consumer team of Lightspeed Venture Partners a partner to lead its gaming practice and expand the firm’s presence in Los Angeles, where he is currently based. Baier-Lentz most recently spent three years as a partner with Bitkraft Ventures and was earlier the global head of the gaming practice at Goldman Sachs. VentureBeat has more here.

It's official: Microsoft will lay off 10,000 workers as it looks to trim costs amid economic uncertainty and to refocus on priorities such as artificial intelligence, CEO Satya Nadella announced from Davos. The layoffs represents less than 5% of the company's workforce. The New York Times has more here.

Amazon has started its biggest-ever round of jobs cuts — a culling that will ultimately affect 18,000 workers around the globe. Amazon began notifying employees by email early Wednesday, Doug Herrington, the company’s worldwide retail chief, said in a memo. More here.

The cybersecurity firm Sophos is laying off about 10% of its global workforce, TechCrunch learned earlier today; the move impacts roughly 450 people, says the company, which was acquired for $3.9 billion in 2020 by the private equity firm Thoma Bravo. More here.

Apple is working on a slate of devices aimed at challenging Amazon and Google in the smart-home market, including new displays and a faster TV set-top box. Bloomberg has the story here.

What happens when AI has read everything? "A team of researchers led by Pablo Villalobos at Epoch AI recently predicted that programs such as the eerily impressive ChatGPT will run out of high-quality reading material by 2027. Without new text to train on, AI’s recent hot streak could come to a premature end." More here.

How "Battle Royale" took over video games.

A rosier view of Roald Dahl.

Experts warn gas stoves may slowly ingratiate selves in family to kill and take place of matriarch.

Kegerators, pizza ovens and office supplies, oh my.

You can now stay at the Noto villa from the second season of "The White Lotus." 🧳

Restive (formerly Financial Venture Studio) is looking for early-stage fintech founders! Our application is open until January 23rd, and takes just 15-30 minutes to complete. As part of our 6 month program, Restive provides selected founders with investment capital and access to our team of fintech founders & industry experts. Since launching in late 2018, Restive companies -- including Dave, Copilot and FarmRaise -- have raised over $500M in follow-on capital and grown to create over $2B in enterprise value. Share our application, or learn more and get in touch on our website.