Instagram's founders are back, an Apple vet raises big bucks, and the abrupt end of the used-car boom

Snap today warned its revenues could drop as much as 10% in the first quarter, as the social media platform continues to be dogged by changes to Apple’s privacy policies that have upended its ability to tailor advertising to users. Revenues at the L.A.-based company remained roughly flat year on year at $1.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022, in line with analysts’ expectations. The FT has more here.

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman believes AI can help usher in “unbelievable abundance,” but he says he wants to ensure that such abundance is shared. Toward that end, Altman has embraced a theory of 19th century political economist Henry George, who in his own lifetime worried about wealth amassing in the hands of the few following the Industrial Revolution. George posited that greater equality could be enjoyed if the economic value of land belonged equally to all members of society.

Altman similarly believes that in a world where jobs may create less economic value, a land tax could make up for income tax and guarantee that all individuals’ assets rise as land — a fixed asset — grows in value. He’s putting his money where his mouth is, too, leading a seed round in a six-month-old startup that represents a step in that same direction.

On its face, the outfit, called ValueBase, sounds fairly banal. It plans to use land-first models to create mass appraisal modeling and property valuations. Feeding data from weather balloons and aerial photography vendors among other sources into its algorithm, ValueBase says it can automate much of the appraisal of both land and buildings for municipal property tax assessors, many of whom still rely on pen and paper and who focus primarily on the characteristics of buildings and less on the land where those buildings sit.

More here.

Colossal Biosciences, a two-year-old Austin startup that is using genetic engineering, software, brain chemistry, and hardware to address de-extinction, conservation, and human healthcare, raised a $150 million Series B round led by United States Innovative Technology Fund, with participation from Breyer Capital, WestRiver Group, Bob Nelsen, Animal Capital, Victor Vescovo, In-Q-Tel, Animoca Brands, Peak 6, BOLD Capital, and Jazz Ventures. The company has raised a total of $225 million. More here.

Fairphone, a 13-year-old Amsterdam company that claims to make modular and more sustainable and ethical consumer electronics such as phones, raised a $53 million round. Investors included Invest-NL, ABM AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund, and previous investor Quadia. TechCrunch has more here.

Lithium Americas, a 15-year-old, Vancouver-based mining company that mines lithium-bearing spodumene and pegmatite ores, has struck a deal to collect $650 million from GM to develop a mine in Nevada. The investment in raw materials for batteries is the biggest to date, according to GM, which aims to "lock down a supply chain of key components needed to produce millions of EVs," notes TechCrunch.

Our Next Energy, a two-year-old, Michigan battery startup founded by Apple veteran Mujeeb Ijaz, has raised $300 million to help fund the first phase of a battery cell plant it’s building in the state. The fundraising values the company at $1.2 billion and was led by two new investors, real estate-focused venture firm Fifth Wall and Franklin Templeton. Temasek, Riverstone Holdings and Coatue also joined the round, as did existing investors BMW i Ventures, Volta Energy Technologies and Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The funding round includes a $62.5 million convertible note, which closed last year. Bloomberg has the story here.

Saviynt, a 13-year-old company based in El Segundo, Ca., that operates a cloud-based identity management platform, raised $205 million in debt from AB Private Credit Investors’ Tech Capital Solutions group. TechCrunch has more here.

BridgeWise, a four-year-old Israeli startup that deploys AI algorithms to analyze more than 44,000 public companies worldwide, generating research reports and detailed buy/sell/hold recommendations, raised a $13 million round led by Group11, witth L4VB and Mangrove VC also pitching in. Calcalist has more here.

Cars & Bids, a two-year-old auction site launched by car enthusiast-turned-YouTube star Doug DeMuro that focuses on sub-$100,000 collectible vehicles from between 1980 and 2010, though it also features a lot of new electric vehicles, has raised $37 million from The Chernin Group. Forbes has more here.

Finley, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that helps clients manage their private credit loans by pulling out key terms and storing important dates, raised a $17 million Series A round led by CRV, with Upper90 and previous investors Bain Capital Ventures, Haystack, Y Combinator, and Nine Four Ventures also taking part. TechCrunch has more here.

Fuergy, a five-year-old startup based in Bratislava, Slovakia, that uses AI to gauge real electricity demand and adjust solar energy storage automatically, raised a $17.4 million round from Pro Partners Holding. Tech.eu has more here.

Luxwall, a three-year-old startup based in Ypsilanti, Mi., that claims its vacuum insulation technology significantly reduces conduction, convection, and radiative heat gain and energy loss in windows, raised a $33 million Series A round led by 2150, with Khosla Ventures and previous investors Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Prelude Ventures also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $39 million. More here.

Nobl9, a four-year-old Waltham, Ma., startup that offers a software reliability platform designed to assist software developers, DevOps teams, and reliability engineers in delivering reliable software features, raised a $15.8 million round. Investors included ServiceNow, Cisco Investments and previous investors Battery Ventures and CRV. SiliconANGLE has more here.

PortPro, a four-year-old startup based in Jersey City, N.J., whose software allows dispatchers to view a trucker's itinerary and availability and dispatch load assignments directly to drivers, raised a $12 million Series A round led by Avenue Growth Partners. FreightWaves has more here.

Profit.co, a four-year-old New York startup that helps companies stick to their OKRs ("objectives and key results"), raised an $11 million round led by Elevation Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Sentra, a two-year-old Tel Aviv startup that finds data in the cloud, classifies it according to sensitivity, and then offers remediation plans for data security teams, raised a $30 million Series A round co-led by Munich Re Ventures and Standard Investments; INT3, Moore Capital, Xerox Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Zeev Ventures also took part. The company has raised a total of $53 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Spark Advisors, a three-year-old New York startup whose platform helps insurance agencies and agents market their services to Medicare beneficiaries in a HIPAA-compliant manner, raised a $15 million Series A round led by American Family Ventures and joined by Primary Ventures, Torch Capital, and Vine Ventures. More here.

Baobab, an 18-year-old company that insures small- to medium-size businesses against business interruptions, liabilities, and service costs related to cyberattacks, raised a $3.3 million round from Augmentum. PYMNTS has more here.

BibeCoffee, a five-year-old Athens, Greece-based startup that has developed an IoT real-time monitoring solution to help coffee shop owners, coffee chains, and coffee machine makers monitor coffee machines, raised a $2.3 million round led by Eleven Ventures, with Venture Friends and Uni.Fund also participating. The company has raised a total of $3 million. EU-Startups has more here.

Dalia, a 10-year-old startup that helps employers reach and convert their job seeker traffic via smart forms and personalized job alerts, raised a $5 million Series A round led by Lewis & Clark Ventures, with additional participation from SaaS Ventures, FJ Labs, and Remarkable Ventures. More here.

Dasseti, a five-year-old New York startup that sells digital due diligence software, raised a $6 million Series A round led by Nasdaq Ventures. More here.

Entocycle, a nine-year-old London startup that is developing hardware that can improve the productivity of insect farms, raised a $5.4 million Series A round led by Climentum Capital, with Lowercarbon Capital, Teampact Venturesm, and Ace & Company also anteing up. The company has raised a total of $16.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Guardz, a one-year-old Tel Aviv startup that offers security tools and insurance to protect SMBs against cyberattacks, raised a $10 million seed round led by Hanaco Ventures and including iAngels, GKFF Ventures, and Cyverse Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Orbital Sidekick, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based space-based hyperspectral intelligence company, says it just raised $10 million in new funding led by earlier backer Energy Innovation Capital. Other backers in the round included the University of Minnesota Foundation and other existing investors, including 11.2 Capital, Syndicate 708 and In-Q-Tel, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Pigmentum, a five-year-old Israeli startup that can create dairy proteins from plants, raised a $6 million seed round co-led by Kibbutz Yotvata and Arkin Holdings and joined by previous investors OurCrowd, Israeli beverage company Tempo, and Israeli food company Tnuva. The company has raised a total of $7 million. Calcalist has more here.

Plantd, a two-year-old startup based in Durham, N.C., that is developing carbon-negative building materials, raised a $10 million Series A. American Family Ventures was the deal lead. Forbes has more here.

TBD Health, a New York startup that offers consumers at-home sexual health tests, raised a $4.4 million seed round led by Tusk Venture Partners, with additional capital provided by Springdale Ventures, Human Ventures, Expansion VC, Starbloom Capital, Hyphen Capital, and The Community Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Teal Health, a five-year-old San Francisco startup that is building a female-focused tele-health platform focused initially on cervical cancer screening, raised an $8.8 million seed round from (Serena Williams’s) Serena Ventures, (Chelsea Clinton’s) Metrodora Ventures, (Laurene Powell Jobs’s) Emerson Collective, and Felicis Ventures. The company has raised a total of $9.8 million. TechCrunch has more here.

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Intel chief Pat Gelsinger is taking a 25% cut to his base salary, the chipmaker said today. His executive leadership team will see their pay packets decreased by 15%. Senior managers will take a 10% reduction, and the compensation for mid-level managers will be cut by 5%. Intel is one of few tech companies (so far) to forgo major layoffs; Bloomberg has more here.

CRV, the early-stage venture firm with, these days, just two Bay Area offices (it began life in Boston 52 years ago), has promoted Caitlin Bolnick Rellas to general partner. Rellas joined the outfit two years ago after most  spending two years as an investor with another firm, OpenView. More here.

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are back, reports Platformer. It says that the Instagram co-founders, who departed Facebook in 2018, have formed a new venture to explore ideas for next-generation social apps and that their first product is Artifact, a personalized news feed that uses machine learning to understand your interests and will soon let you discuss those articles with friends. More here.

PayPal today announced plans to lay off 2,000 employees, or around 7% of its workforce. CNBC has more here.

The American wine industry has an old people problem.

The AI outfit OpenAI today introduced a tool that’s designed to figure out if text is human-generated or written by a computer. TechCrunch calls it far from useless but adds that it "certainly won’t stop committed fraudsters (or students, for that matter) in its current state." At our event earlier this month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman volunteered that the tech is "impossible to make it perfect. People will figure out how much of the text they have to change. There'll be other things that modify the outputted text. I think it's good to pursue and we will," he'd added. "But I think what's important to realize is the playing field has shifted."

Google is testing new AI-powered chat products that are likely to influence a future public product launch. They include a new chatbot and a potential way to integrate it into a search engine. CNBC has more here.

Like FTX, the bankrupt crypto lender Celsius used Quickbooks(!) to keep track of its finances, a court-appointed examiner wrote in a report released today. Decrypt has the story here.

Phil Mickelson, now the scourge of the PGA, thinks its players shouldn't be wearing jogger pants if they aren't allowed to wear shorts.

The link between our food, gut microbiome and depression.

Movies to stream before they leave Netflix.

The used-car boom is kaput.

French interior designer Jacques Garcia (he renovated Hotel Costes in Paris) is auctioning off a collection of his fine art and furniture, including porcelain, sculptures and elaborate furnishings from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries that famously belonged to Kings Louis XV and Louis XVI, Queen Mary II of England. Robb Report has more here.

Definitely just a normal coffee cup, nothing to see here.

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