Stripe cuts its valuation again, another FTX exec turns on SBF, and Chinese state media warns Musk to back off ☠️

The Commerce Department today kicked off the application process for semiconductor manufacturing subsidies under the $53 billion Chips Act -- along with conditions. Reports the WSJ: "Companies receiving incentives will be required to share part of their profits with the government and limit stock buybacks and dividends. Companies are also expected to use union workers, as well as U.S.-made iron and steel for the construction of facilities, while providing affordable child care for workers. In a move that could limit their business potential for one of the world’s largest chip markets, the government puts tough limits on the expansion of companies’ operations in China for a decade."

Chinese state-run media warned Tesla CEO Elon Musk this morning that he was risking his relationship with China after he retweeted about the U.S. government’s “low-confidence” assessment that the Covid pandemic originated in a Wuhan laboratory. The Global Times warned Musk that he could be “breaking the pot of China." CNBC has more here.

Per the WSJ: FTX co-founder and former director of engineering Nishad Singh pleaded guilty to fraud charges and agreed to cooperate against his former boss, Sam Bankman-Fried, making him the third person in the FTX founder’s orbit to do so. Singh, 27 years old, pleaded guilty to six criminal counts, including conspiring to commit securities and commodities fraud, during a hearing today in federal court in Manhattan. “I’m unbelievably sorry for my role in all of this and the harm that it has caused,” he told the U.S. District Judge presiding over the hearing. More here.

Payments giant Stripe has cut the valuation for its multi-billion-dollar fundraising by about 10% to around $50 billion, according to The Information, which ties the move to the company's fundraising challenges. It says that while Stripe is still expected to complete the funding round, it is now setting its per-share price at about $20, down from about $23 a share. The earlier per-share price translated to a valuation of $55 billion, which was already a huge discount to the valuation of $95 billion at which Stripe last raised money, in early 2021.

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Bitwise Industries, a ten-year-old company based in Fresno, Ca., that trains software developers and provides software development and implementation services, raised an $80 million round. Investors included Kapor Center, Motley Fool, Goldman Sachs, and Citibank. The company has raised over $200 million. TechCrunch has more here.

CodaMetrix, a five-year-old Boston startup that says it provides an AI-powered platform to facilitate healthcare revenue cycle management and medical coding, raised a $55 million Series A round led by SignalFire, with Frist Cressey Ventures, Martin Ventures, Yale Medicine, University of Colorado Healthcare Innovation Fund, and Mass General Brigham also participating. MedCity News has more here.

Paratus Sciences, a new, New York-based drug discovery startup that's hoping to study the unique characteristics that have evolved in bats to solve afflictions such as inflammation, viral infection and more, has launched with $100 million in Series A funding. Investors include Polaris Partners, Arch Venture Partners, ClavystBio, EcoR1 Capital, Leaps by Bayer and Alexandria Venture Investments. FierceBiotech has more here.

ProsperOps, a five-year-old Austin startup that claims it provides software that automatically optimizes cloud resources in order to deliver savings, raised a $72 million round. H.I.G. Growth Partners was the deal lead, while Active Capital also participated. The company has raised a total of $72.8 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Temporal, a nearly four-year-old Seattle startup that helps companies write and run cloud applications, has raised $75 million from a syndicate of investors. Greenoaks is a new backer, but earlier investors also participated in the round, including Amplify Partners, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Madrona, and Addition Ventures. The company has now raised more than $200 million altogether. GeekWire has more here.

Bonusly, an 11-year-old company based in Boulder, Co., that has created a corporate rewards platform aimed at recognizing top-performing employees, raised an $18.9 million Series B round led by Ankona Capital; additional investors included FirstMark Capital, Access Venture Partners, and Next Frontier Capital. The company has raised a total of $31.4 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Entitle, a two-year-old Tel Aviv startup that helps businesses automate how their developers access cloud resources, raised a $15 million seed round led by Glilot Capital Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Gable, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that helps businesses manage the use of remote workspaces, raised a $12 million Series A round co-led by SemperVirens and Foundation Capital, with Tishman Speyer Ventures, Ulu Ventures, and January Ventures also contributing. The company has raised a total of $12.3 million. TechCrunch has more here.

StudentFinance, a nearly four-year-old, Madrid-based Europe-focused fintech that funds educational programs for individuals through so-called income share agreements, has raised €39 million in a mix of debt and equity funding (a split it isn't breaking out publicly). Iberis Capital led the equity piece, joined by Armilar Venture Partners, Mustard Seed Maze, Giant Ventures, Seedcamp, Monzo founder Tom Blomfield, and former U.K. MP Ed Vaizey. The debt was provided by French asset manager SmartLenders Asset Management. TechCrunch has more here.

Una Brands, a 1.5-year-old Singapore-based e-commerce aggregator, has raised $30 million in pre-Series C financing just five months after announcing a $30 million Series B round. Northstar Group, a regional private equity firm, is the sole investor in Una Brands’ latest round, which involves a mix of equity and debt, though Una Brands declined to break out how much equity versus debt the newest round involves. The company has now raised more than $100 million in total funding. TechCrunch has more here.

Varo, an eight-year-old San Francisco neobank, is reportedly in the market to raise $50 million at a $1.9 billion valuation (a 24% markdown from its previous 2021 financing), says Fintech Business Weekly, which also reports that the deal will be led by Warburg Pincus. The terms include penny warrants and plenty of "structure." Fintech Business Weekly has more here.

Voicemod, a nine-year-old startup based in Valencia, Spain, that uses generative AI to create "voice avatars" as well as enhance a user's regular voice, raised a $14.5 million round led by Kfund’s growth fund Leadwind and including Minifund and BITKRAFT Ventures. The company has raised a total of $15 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Crstl, a San Francisco startup that enables businesses to transact with large retailers and distributors via EDI workflow automations, raised a $4.4 million seed round led by Mastry Ventures, with additional funding from Village Global, Alumni Ventures, SuperAngel VC, On Deck, Mensch Capital Partners, and Harizury. More here.

Cycle, a French startup that is building a collaboration tool for product managers, announced that it has raised $6 million across two rounds, the most recent round led by Boldstart late last year. TechCrunch has more here.

EvolutionIQ, a three-year-old, New York-based claims guidance platform for disability, workers’ compensation, and property and casualty insurance, has raised $7 million in Series B funding. Brewer Lane Ventures led the round, joined by First Round Capital, FirstMark Capital, Foundation Capital, and Principal Financial Group. The Insurer has more here.

Inarix, a five-year-old Paris startup that says it uses AI to perform crop analysis on barley and soft wheat, raised a $3.29 million seed round from Ankaa Ventures, Label Investment, Newfund, Alliance for Impact, and Resiliance. EU-Startups has more here.

Marco, a four-year-old Miami startup that uses its risk management platform to provide financing to Latin American exporters, raised an $8.2 million round led by Arcadia Funds. Meanwhile, the company also closed on a $200 million credit facility provided by MidCap Financial and Castlelake. Refresh Miami has more here.

Portal, a San Francisco crypto startup that offers wallet infrastructure and a decentralized application store that enables projects to become web3-enabled apps, raised a $5.3 million round from Slow Ventures and Haun Ventures. CoinDesk has more here.

Robin AI, a four-year-old London startup that claims to use generative AI to help SMEs process contracts faster and at significantly lower cost, raised a $10.5 million round led by Plural, with Episode 1 also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $16.9 million. Tech.eu has more here.

Term Labs, a five-month-old San Diego crypto startup, raised a $2.5 million seed round led by Electric Capital, with Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, Robot Ventures, and MEXC Ventures also participating. Decrypt has more here.

Trackd, a year-old startup based in Reston, Va., that is developing software to allow companies to apply security patches without disrupting their core services, raised a $3.35 million seed round led by Flybridge, with Lerer Hippeau, SaaS Ventures, and Expa also investing. SecurityWeek has more here.

Sapeon, a South Korean artificial intelligence chip startup headquartered in California (it's competing in a market currently dominated by Nvidia), is raising a funding round that puts its valuation above $400 million, its CEO told CNBC. The startup is backed by massive South Korean firms SK Telecom, memory-chip maker SK Hynix and SK Square, an investment company spun off of SK Telecom. More here.

Buoyant Ventures is a Chicago-based venture fund that invests in digital climate solutions -- and Managing General Partner, Amy Francetic has more than 25 years of experience in the energy and high technology spaces. Affinity spoke to her in its latest webinar. Watch the conversation for tips on portfolio management and keeping LPs engaged for your next fundraising round.

Bain Capital Ventures, one of Bain’s 11 financial divisions, has raised $1.9 billion across two new funds: one for seed to growth-stage startups that hovers around $1.4 billion, and one for later-stage opportunities that closed around a third of that, at $493 million. TechCrunch has more here.

The Houston-based venture firm Mercury Fund recently brought aboard Eddie Lou as a venture partner in Chicago. Lou is an active angel investor who previously cofounded Shiftgig, a workforce tech company. He was also previously a general partner with OCA Ventures. More here.

As Americans work from home, Europeans and Asians head back to the office.

Twitter's outages, bugs and other glitches are increasingly piling up. In February alone, Twitter experienced at least four widespread outages, compared with nine in all of 2022. 

Bleeding Edge.

Amazon employees will soon be able to use their company shares as collateral when buying homes, under an arrangement with online mortgage lender Better.com. To protect itself from a continued slide in Amazon’s stock price, explains the WSJ, Better.com will charge a higher rate on the mortgages of employees pledging stock—between 0.25 and 2.5 percentage points above the market rate, depending on how the down payment is structured, the company said. However, unlike in stock-based loans that carry the risk of margin calls, requiring borrowers to put up more collateral or sell assets to reduce debts, Amazon employees’ loan arrangements would be protected if the stock price slides, Better.com Chief Executive Vishal Garg tells the outlet. (The embattled digital lender is an interesting choice for Amazon. As a reminder, Garg reportedly once called an investor in his company "sewage" and said during a deposition that he was "going to staple" his former partner "against a fucking wall and burn him alive.")

Rivian's rough ride continues. As reported in the WSJ, the electric vehicle maker said today that it is recalling 12,716 vehicles to fix a faulty sensor in the front passenger seat. The recall covers nearly 89% of the vehicles it produced through September, after which it fixed the problem on subsequently built sport-utility vehicles and trucks. Rivian also released its latest financial results today, and they were "suboptimal," notes TechCrunch.

Sequoia Capital is heating up its early-stage startup investing in India and Southeast Asia; TechCrunch has more here.

The end of the English major.

The return of Bobby Axelrod.

Baby-blue tubs and pink sinks have designers divided.

Big hats.

Tupac's M.O.B. pinky ring hits the auction block.

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