Strictly VC - Too much good stuff

Friday! No podcast; we've been reporting this week from sunny Idaho, where we spent the morning snowshoeing with the interns for their mid-winter break. There was some cursing on the inclines, but they admitted in the last five minutes of the adventure that they enjoyed it. Pretty wild that the scene is not so different right now in Southern California, Los Gatos, south of San Francisco, or on Mount Tamalpais, just north of it.

Much thanks to one of our most loyal readers for house sitting. 💖

More Monday -- hope you have a great weekend.

Shocking news: Private-equity pioneer Thomas H. Lee died unexpectedly at 78, his colleagues and family said late yesterday. New York Police Department officials said first responders to an emergency call Thursday morning from Lee’s office assistant found him inside a bathroom in his office at 767 Fifth Ave. with what officers believe was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. A gun found with Lee was registered to him, the officials said. There was no note found, and police are continuing to investigate the incident. The WSJ has more here.

Meta has trained and will release a new large language model to researchers, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced today as the AI race heats up. The model, called LLaMA, is reportedly intended to help scientists and engineers explore applications for AI such as answering questions and summarizing documents.

Sequoia Capital is consulting independent U.S. national-security experts to vet some of its China arm’s potential investments, reports the WSJ, as Washington steps up efforts to stop American money from funding Beijing’s development of sensitive technologies. The outlet adds that  "[b]etween 2021 and 2022, Sequoia China made at least 20 investments in Chinese semiconductor and related companies. Since [a new] screening process was implemented in the autumn of 2022, the firm hasn’t made any investments in Chinese semiconductor or quantum-computing startups from its new funds, which were raised in July 2022."

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BlueCargo, a 4.5-year-old, Covina, Ca.-based SaaS platform that aims to optimize logistics in port terminals and reduce late fees for drayage trucking companies and shippers, has raised $11 million in funding co-led by Soma Capital and Left Lane Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Here Not There Labs, a 2.5-year-old developer of a blockchain group messaging app called Towns that was founded by Ben Rubin (he previously founded Houseparty and Meerkat, among other startups), has raised $25.5 million in funding. Andreessen Horowitz led the round, joined by earlier backers Benchmark and Framework Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Nosto, a 12-year-old, Helsinki-based commerce experience platform, has raised $16 million in funding from Mandatum Asset Management. Tech.eu has more here.

Rebuy, a Minneapolis-based e-commerce company, raised $17 million in Series A funding in a round led by M13, with participation from Dynamism Capital, R-Squared Ventures and earlier investors Peterson Ventures and Sidekick Partners. The outfit previously raised a $4.4 million seed round in 2021 led by Peterson Ventures. TechCrunch has more here. 

Transcend Therapeutics, a two-year-old, New York-based neuropsychiatric diseases drug development company that was incubated by serial entrepreneur Kevin Ryan at his AlleyCorp outfit, has raised $40 million in Series A funding. Alpha Wave Global and Integrated Investment Partners co-led the round and were joined by Global Founders Capital, Emerald Development Managers, and others. The company has now raised $42 million altogether. CityBiz has more here.

Unyoked, a nearly seven-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based startup selling vacation rentals of modern off-grid cabins, has raised $19 million in funding from lead investors Surplus Equity Partners and Realside Financial Group. Skift has more here.

Earthly Technologies, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup helping software teams deploy code to production faster and with less work, has raised $6.5 million in seed+ funding. Innovation Endeavors led the round, joined by 468 Capital and Uncorrelated Ventures. SiliconAngle has more here.

Finway, a 20-month-old, Munich, Germany-based startup that aims to be the finance operating system for a growing number of small and mid-size businesses, has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Capital 49, an early stage venture fund led by founders Airwallex. Other new investors include ForceOverMass, a fintech specialized fund from the UK, and numerous individual investors. More here.

Green Check Verified, a nearly six-year-old Bonita Springs, Fla.-based startup focused around banking services for the cannabis industry, raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Mendon Venture Partners. More here.

Worldwide Webb, a 16-month-old, London-based metaverse gaming platform, raised $10 million in Series A funding from Pantera Capital. GQ wrote about the company and founder Thomas Webb in October; more here.

Svix, a two-year-old Israeli startup that helps companies trigger API notifications via its webhooks-as-a-service offering, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Andreessen Horowitz. The outfit previously raised $2.6 million in pre-seed funding in November 2021, including from Y Combinator, Aleph, and angel investors. More here.

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Impossible Foods CEO Peter McGuinness says an IPO will happen but "probably not this year."

U.S. Venture Partners has brought aboard Matt Garratt as a general partner. Garratt was previously senior vice president and managing partner of Salesforce Ventures. More here.

Stephen Schwarzman, the founder of Blackstone Group, received record income of nearly $1.3 billion in 2022, as assets under management and profits rose at the world’s largest private equity firm. The FT has more here.

As many as half of today’s five year olds in the U.S. will live to 100 and that won't mean more years in pain, either. ”For the majority of today’s five year olds, 82 will be like 60 today,” gerontologist Sarah Harper tells National Geographic.

Twitter has now been sued by six companies for not paying its bills.

Private equity and venture capital rank as the most popular asset classes for college endowments, according to a new report from NACUBO, which stands for the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Colleges on average allocated 30% of their portfolios to PE and VC, according to NACUBO's 2022 study of endowments. Unsurprisingly, there's a big divide in strategies depending on the size of the school's endowment, per the report. Colleges with more than $1 billion allocated 18% of their portfolios to PE and 14.5% to VC last year; smaller endowments allocated a combined 18% to PE and VC. Buyouts has the story here.

Using a remarkably low-tech trick, thieves watch iPhone owners tap their passcodes, then steal their targets’ phones—and their digital lives. Stories are piling up in police stations around the country, reports the WSJ.

Signal, the messenger app, says it's prepared to exit the UK if the country requires providers of encrypted communications to alter their products to ensure user messages are free of material that's harmful to children. Ars Technica has more here.

Wall Street is clamping down on ChatGPT, as a slew of global investment banks impose restrictions on the fast-growing technology that generates text in response to a short prompt.

Sam Altman of OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT) is "planning for AGI and beyond."

TikTok's teenage filter has users in tears.

Why Japanese denim is so expensive.

A brief history of why, yes, it does occasionally snow in Los Angeles.

Vintage and vintage-inspired snowsuits.

Italy's historic hotels.

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