Elon Musk wins in court, a look at how OpenAI kicked off an arms race, and Google is Anthropic's mystery investor

Friday! Hoping you're in for a fine weekend, all. We're thinking of you in particular, friends and relatives on the East Coast. "Artic" and "blast" are not words you really want to see together.

Elon Musk was found not liable in a class-action securities fraud trial that centered on the Tesla CEO’s now infamous “funding secured” tweet. After less than 90 minutes of deliberation, a jury announced the verdict in the trial that began three weeks ago in San Francisco. The outcome of the trial sent Tesla shares up about 1.5% in after-hours trading to $189.98. Musk tweeted following the jury’s verdict: “Thank goodness, the wisdom of the people has prevailed! I am deeply appreciative of the jury’s unanimous finding of innocence in the Tesla 420 take-private case.” TechCrunch has more here.

Surprise! It was Google that has invested about $300 million in the AI start-up Anthropic, says the FT, making it the "latest tech giant to throw its money and computing power behind a new generation of companies trying to claim a place in the booming field of  generative AI.” Per the FT, the deal involves Google taking a stake of about 10% in the start-up, money that Anthropic will be using in part to cover the cost of the computing resources it uses from Google's cloud computing division. (Google has confirmed it has a large cloud contract with Anthropic.) Anthropic -- with an implied valuation now of $3 billion -- was formed in 2021 when a group of researchers led by Dario Amodei left OpenAI following a disagreement over the company’s direction. More here.

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Five years ago, Google backed away from a Pentagon government contract because thousands of employees protested that its tech might be used for lethal drone targeting. Today, however, Silicon Valley has far fewer qualms about developing tech for the U.S. Department of Defense.

So said four investors -- Trae Stephens of Founders Fund, Bilal Zuberi of Lux Capital, Raj Shah of Shield Capital and longtime In-Q-Tel president Steve Bowsher -- speaking at a startup event for military veterans today in San Francisco. Said Shah of the shift in attitude that he has observed personally: "The number of companies, founders, and entrepreneurs interested in national security broadly -- I've never seen it at this level." 

Bowsher argued that the "reluctance of Silicon Valley to work with the [Defense Department] and intel community" was always "overblown," adding that across his 16 year with In-Q-Tel, which is the CIA's venture fund, his team has met with roughly 1,000 companies each year and just "five to 10 have turned us down, saying they weren't interested in working with the customers we represent."

We'll have more from the panel next week, but wanted to share parts of our conversation that centered on Things to Consider when selling to the U.S. government, given that founders with commercial customers may be thinking increasingly trying to sell their products and applications to the U.S. military. (This is particularly true of AI and cybersecurity and automation startups.)

We talked with the investors, for example, about mission creep, meaning how a startup that begins to work with the government can ensure it doesn't wind up spending the bulk of its time catering to the government owing to new requests -- and ignoring earlier, commercial customers in the process.

Here Trae Stephens -- who also cofounded Anduril, a maker of autonomous weapons systems that has aggressively courted business from government agencies from its outset -- said that this kind of gradual shift in objectives is "exactly what makes it hard to do both [cater to civilian enterprises and the government] at an early stage." 

He said that a "lot of the programs that [enable founders to] do early business with the Department of Defense requires some, like, DoD-ization of your product for that use case."

More here.

Fever, a New York startup that markets live entertainment events, raised a $110 million round at a $1.8 billion valuation. Previous investor Goldman Sachs was the deal lead, while Convivialité Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Alignment Growth, Vitruvian Partners, and Smash Capital also participated. Tech.eu has more here.

Jeff, a seven-year-old, Valencia, Spain-based startup that helps entrepreneurs launch and run their own business, has raised €90 million in Series C funding led by DX Ventures. Sifted has more here.

Leaflink, a six-year-old, New York-based wholesale cannabis platform, has raised $100 million in Series D funding co-led by CPMG, L2 Ventures and Nosara Capital. Axios has more here.

PowerField, a 6.5-year-old North Holland, Netherlands-based company that develops, builds, and manages solar parks, charging stations, and energy storage systems, has raised €500 million in structured equity and portfolio financing from EIG and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW). Silicon Canals has more here.

JOKR, a two-year-old Luxembourg startup that provides instant grocery delivery services in markets such as Brazil, raised a $50 million Series C round at a $1.3 billion valuation. Previous investor G Squared was the deal lead; other backers included previous investors GGV Capital, Tiger Global Management, and HV Capital. The company has raised a total of $480 million in equity and debt. TechCrunch has more here.

Minu, a Mexican startup that helps enterprises provide benefits to their employees, raised a $10 million bridge round from Coppel Capital, Besant Capital, Enea Capital, and earlier investors FinTech Collective, QED, and Salkantay; as well as a $20 million in debt from Accial Capital. The company has raised a total of $50 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Pow.re, a Canadian crypto mining firm, announced that it has raised a $9.2 million Series A round, as well as an $18 million strategic investment. The Series A valued the company at $150 million. Haru Invest led both transactions, with Trinito and RFD Capital contributing to the Series A round. CoinDesk has more here.

MindTension, a 2.5-year-old, Israel-based startup that says its tools help diagnose and treat optimization of ADHD and related mental health comorbidities, has raised a total of $2 million in seed funding from startup advisor Galia Kut Arazim and the Israeli Innovation Authority. Calcalist has more here.

SunFi, a two-year-old startup based in Lagos, Nigeria, that helps consumers and businesses finance purchases of solar power equipment, raised a $2.3 million seed round. Factor[e] and SCM Capital Asset Management co-led the deal, with additional participation from Voltron Capital, Norrsken Impact Accelerator, Ventures Platform, and Sovereign Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Superlayer, a two-year-old London startup that has built a no-code predictive sales forecast platform that helps sales teams improve their deal pipeline and forecast the value of potential deals, raised a $1.3 million pre-seed round co-led by Triple Point Ventures and Concept Ventures, with Notion Capital, Accel Starters, and Exor Seeds also contributing. Sifted has more here.

Toggle, a four-year-old New York startup that makes robots that bend rebar, raised a $3 million Series A expansion round, increasing the total size of the round to $11 million. Tokyu Construction led the expansion financing. The company has raised a total of $15 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Tusk Logistics, a Chicago startup that aims to give shippers more options than FEDEX or UPS by connecting them to a national network of regional parcel carriers, raised a $1.6 million pre-seed round led by Forum Ventures; TitletownTech and Fulfillment IQ also joined the round. Fox 11 News has more here.

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March Capital, an eight-year-old, Los Angeles-based venture firm focused on early- to growth-stage deals, says it has closed its fourth fund with $650 million in capital commitments, money it plans to invest in the cloud software, cybersecurity and cloud/data infrastructure sectors. The outfit now has $1.65 billion in assets under management. More here.

QED Investors, an Alexandria, Va.-based venture capital firm, hired Melissa Ho has joined QED Investors, an Alexandria, Va.-based venture capital firm, as a principal from her last gig with Wavemaker Partners. Ho will be focused on Southeast Asia is based in Singapore.

Satvik Sethi, the head of Mastercard's NFT-related efforts, has left the company, citing alleged harassment and mismanagement. He minted his resignation letter as an NFT, too, and is now hoping to sell copies of it. AdAge has more here.

Stripe CFO Dhivya Suryadevara is stepping down from the company as she tends to family matters, according to Bloomberg. Also, Will Gaybrick, the company’s chief product officer, was appointed president of product and business, it reported yesterday.

As LeBron James nears the NBA all-time scoring record -- he's just 63 points away from the title held by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar since 1984 --  Lakers tickets have skyrocketed to nearly $100,000. 

A high-altitude research balloon from the U.S. is now among the world’s most-tracked aircraft, after thousands of internet users mistook it for the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon floating over the western state of Montana.

How ChatGPT kicked off an arms race.

The publisher of Sports Illustrated and other outlets is using AI to help produce articles and pitch journalists potential topics to follow, the latest example of a media company investing in the emerging technology.

The Federal Trade Commission is preparing a potential antitrust lawsuit against Amazon that could challenge an array of its business practices as anticompetitive.

The retreat of the amateur investors.

How to be mindful if you hate meditating.

Rules to follow when dating a friend's ex.

Inside the world's quietest room.

Gen Z's favorite brands (2022 edition).

A mirrored 289-foot concept that hopes to be the world's first 3D printed superyacht.

RIP, Paco Rabanne, the "second genius of Spain."

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