Cannabis ads on Twitter, millennials at midlife, and Tesla agrees to play nice, for better or worse

How much longer before Microsoft walks it back? 

The Justice Department has ramped up work in recent months on drafting a potential antitrust complaint against Apple, reports the WSJ. It says the investigation into whether Apple has monopoly power that it abuses began in 2019 but that enforcers have escalated their efforts in recent months, with more litigators now assigned to the case and new requests for documents and consultations with companies involved, per its sources.

Twitter today updated its advertising policies to allow cannabis ads to run on its service in states where cannabis is legal, in accordance with federal guidelines. The policy represents the biggest step forward that any major tech company has made toward allowing cannabis advertising where it’s legal in the U.S. Axios has more here.

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It was only a matter of time before frustrated customers of the fallen crypto exchange FTX went after its deep-pocketed venture backers. Indeed, the most surprising thing about a class-action lawsuit flagged earlier by Bloomberg — one that accuses Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, and Thoma Bravo of promoting FTX to the detriment of its users — is that it was filed yesterday and not sooner.

Still, VCs at every firm had better hope that nothing comes of it or the entire venture industry is in big trouble. A trial — even a settlement — could have widespread ramifications.

Here’s the potential problem: the new complaint specifically accuses the three firms of bestowing FTX with the “air of legitimacy” through their various actions, including a glowing piece about FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried that Sequoia Capital commissioned (and later took down from its website), a Startup Grind event last year where Sequoia partner Michelle Bailhe interviewed Bankman-Fried for a session titled “The Unstoppable Rise of FTX,” and boosterish tweets by Paradigm cofounder Matt Huang and Thoma Bravo founder Orlando Bravo. (In response to a tweet by MicroStrategy Michael Saylor, warning people to “Only trade #bitcoin on a legitimate exchange you trust,” Bravo tweeted to his Twitter followers: “Only trade #bitcoin with @FTX_Official.”)

The legal complaint also refers to several media outlets where these investors were quoted singing Bankman-Fried’s praises, including a MarketWatch piece where Bravo was quoted as saying that Bankman-Fried “combines being visionary with being a phenomenal operator . . . That is rare.”

None of what is cited in the complaint is new information. All of it makes the investors look foolish in retrospect. None of it suggests the investors did anything out of the ordinary in terms of their public comments. They actively promoted an investment, and is there a single investor who doesn’t do the same? Take a look at Twitter or TechCrunch or Bloomberg TV at nearly any time of day and you’ll see or read investors blathering on about how wonderful their portfolio companies are.

Is such promotion crime? If it is, the entire industry is guilty of it.

More here.

Descope, a startup based in Los Altos, Ca., that claims its platform helps developers add authentication, user management, and authorization capabilities to their apps with just a few lines of code, raised a $53 million seed round co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and GGV Capital, with Unusual Ventures, Dell Technologies Capital, Cerca, Tech Aviv, J Ventures, and Silicon Valley CISO Investments also taking part. TechCrunch has more here.

Hexagon Bio, a seven-year-old Menlo Park, Ca., startup whose drug discovery platform targets oncology and infectious diseases, raised a $77.3 million Series B round. Investors included The Column Group, Two Sigma Ventures, 8VC, Nextech Invest, and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. More here.

NanoGraf, an 11-year-old Chicago company that claims its patented silicon-anode technology enables it to produce long-lasting, high-energy, and high-power lithium-ion batteries, raised a $65 million Series B round co-led by Volta Energy Technologies and CC Industries, with GIC, Emerald Technology Ventures, Material Impact, Arosa Capital, Nabtesco Technology Ventures, TechNexus, Hyde Park Angels, Evergreen Climate Innovations, and GooseCapital also piling on. The company has raised a total of $89.5 million. More here.

Alongside, a crypto startup whose market index product was designed to give investors broad exposure to the entire crypto asset market through a single token, raised an $11 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with additional capital supplied by Coinbase Ventures, Franklin Templeton Investments, Village Global, and Not Boring Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Apkudo, a Baltimore-based startup developing a platform to help manage, sell and test connected devices like smartphones and laptops, today announced that it raised $37.5 million in a Series C funding round co-led by Closed Loop Partners and Piper Sandler Merchant Banking, with participation from MissionOG, Harbert Growth, Grotech Ventures, Lavrock Ventures and Point Field Partners. The round brings Apkudo’s total raised to $75 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Brigad, a French startup operating a marketplace for restaurants, caterers, private clinics, retirement homes and hospitals so that they can find freelancers for short-term missions, has raised $30 million in equity funding, along with $5 million in debt. Balderton Capital is leading the round, with Wendel Group, Serena Capital and Square Capital also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Cylib, a one-year-old German startup that is building a battery recycling factory, raised an $8.5 million seed extension, increasing the total size of the seed round to $12.6 million. World Fund was the deal lead, with additional participation from 10X Founders as well as previous investors Vsquared Ventures and Speedinvest. TechCrunch has more here.

Loam Bio, a four-year-old Australian startup whose seed coating technology removes carbon from the environment, raised a $28.6 million Series B round. Lowercarbon Capital and Wollemi Capital co-led the deal. The company has raised a total of $110.1 million. AgFunder News has more here.

Oligo Security, an Israeli startup that focuses on runtime application security and observability to detect and prevent open source vulnerabilities, raised $28 million in seed and Series A funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Ballistic Ventures, and TLV Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

OpenEyes, a three-year-old New York startup that offers commercial automotive insurance to fleets, raised an $18 million Series A round co-led by Insight Partners and Pitango First, with additional capital provided by MoreVC. The company has raised a total of $23 million. More here.

Quantum Brilliance, a four-year-old startup based in Canberra, Australia, that is building miniaturized quantum computers that can operate at normal room temperatures, raised an $18 million round. Investors included Breakthrough Victoria, Main Sequence, Investible, Ultratech Capital Partners, MA Growth Ventures, Jelix Ventures, Rampersand, and CM Equity Partners. The company has raised a total of $29.4 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Skin + Me, a five-year-old London startup whose teledermatology service aims to provide personalized skin care, raised a $12.2 million Series B round from Octopus Ventures. TFN has more here.

Smile Identity, a Nigerian startup focused on the African market that helps businesses confirm the true identity of their users in real-time using any smartphone or computer, raised a $20 million Series B round. Costanoa Ventures and Norrsken22 were the co-leads. The company has raised a total of $35.1 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Spiffy, a nine-year-old startup based in Durham, NC, that provides online and mobile car care services, raised a $30 million Series C round led by Edison Partners, with Tribeca Venture Partners, Bull City Venture Partners, IDEA Fund Partners, Trog Hawley Capital, Attinger, and Private Access Network also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $90.1 million. CityBiz has more here.

Superplastic, a startup that creates "synthetic" characters that are popular on social platforms like TikTok and Instagram, raised a $20 million Series A-4 round led by Amazon’s Alexa Fund and including Craft Ventures, Google Ventures, Galaxy Digital, Kering, Sony Japan, Scribble Ventures, Kakao, Animoca Brands, Day One Ventures, and Betaworks. The company has raised a total of $58 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Capsule, a three-year-old Miami startup whose video editor uses AI to summarize text and generate images, raised a $4.75 million seed round. Investors included Human Ventures, Swift Ventures, Tiferes Ventures, Behind Genius Ventures, Array Ventures, and Bloomberg Beta. TechCrunch has more here.

Comun, a two-year-old New York startup that aims to provide Latino immigrants with access to traditional financial services, raised a $4.5 million seed round led by Costanoa Ventures, with South Park Commons and FJ Labs also participating. More here.

Ironblocks, a one-year-old crypto startup based in Tel Aviv that is creating a smart contract-based security solution providing on-chain automated threat detection, raised a $7 million round co-led by Collider Ventures and Disruptive AI, with Samsung Next, Quantstamp, ParaFi, and Balaji Srinivasan also contributing. CoinDesk has more here.

Kanarys, a five-year-old Dallas startup that claims its platform provides the framework, benchmarking, and data companies need to incorporate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) into every area of their organizations, raised a $5 million Series A round led by Seven Capital, with Portfolia, Revolution Rise of the Rest, StartFast Ventures, Rackhouse VC, Tech Square Ventures, and TechNxus Venture Collaborative also pitching in. More here.

ModernFi, a one-year-old New York startup that is providing a marketplace for banks to exchange deposits on demand, raised a $4.5 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz. TechCrunch has more here.

Rivet, a three-year-old Detroit startup that provides a labor management platform for contractors, raised a $5.6 million seed round led by Defy.vc and joined by Augment Ventures, Detroit Venture Partners, Michigan Rise, and IDEAL Industries. Axios has more here.

Smartrr, a three-year-old New York startup that helps brands manage customer subscriptions and memberships on Shopify,
raised a $10 million Series A round led by Canvas Ventures, with additional funds provided by Expa and Nyca. The company has raised a total of $17.3 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Suite Studios, a two-year-old startup based in Boulder, Co., whose platform aims to help creative teams manage their post-production workflows, raised a $3.5 million seed round led by Bonfire Ventures and including Range Ventures. The company has raised a total of $8 million. More here.

Vaas, a San Francisco startup whose debt management platform automates the process of managing structured debt, raised a $5 million seed round co-led by led by Andreessen Horowitz, Nazca, Maya Capital, and Latitud and including Marathon Ventures. LatamList has more here.

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SignalFire, the now 10-year-old, San Francisco-based pre-seed and seed-stage (mostly) venture firm that prides itself on its data-driven approach, has closed four funds that total $900 million in capital commitments. The vehicles bring the firm's total assets under management to $1.8 billion. We talked earlier today with firm founder Chris Farmer; more from that chat tomorrow.

WallStreetBets’ founder is suing the site where it all began. Jaime Rogozinski, creator of the community that sent untold numbers of individual investors piling into meme stocks two years ago, filed a lawsuit against Reddit, accusing the social-media platform of breaching contract by ousting him from his role as a WallStreetBets moderator in 2020 and infringing on his right to trademark the WallStreetBets brand, among other complaints. He talked with the WSJ here.

How Twitter alternatives have fared since Elon Musk’s acquisition.

Midlifing millennials are poorer than their precursors: The Emerging Millennial Wealth Gap, a 2019 report from the nonpartisan think tank New America, shows that those born from 1981 to 1996 earn 20% less than baby boomers did at their age. And data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis say their assets average $162,000, versus $198,000 for Gen X at the same age. Bloomberg has the story here.

Tesla has agreed to open up a portion of its Supercharger and destination charger network to non-Tesla EVs, as part of a $7.5 billion federal program to expand the use of EVs and cut carbon emissions. The move could help turn Tesla into the universal "filling station" of the EV era but also, notes Reuters, erode a competitive edge for vehicles made by the company, which has exclusive access to the biggest network of high-speed Superchargers in the United States. TechCrunch has more here.

Banksy unveiled Valentine’s Day street art. A local council dismantled it.

Why car companies still use clay models that cost up to $650,000.

Five hours at the unofficial Starbucks of New York Fashion Week.

Why straight guys love "Magic Mike." 

A travel bag for neatniks. 

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