Silvergate melts down, Anthropic is raising money again, and the privacy loophole staring everyone in the face

You bet your sweet ass it is. Happy International Women's Day.:)

In a news release today, California lender Silvergate Capital, one of the crypto market’s top banks, said it would wind down and return all deposits following a run that forced it to sell off assets at a steep loss to cover billions of dollars of withdrawals. Silvergate “is also considering how best to resolve claims and preserve the residual value of its assets,” it said. In 2013, the bank was a commercial real-estate lender with a handful of branches in the San Diego area in search of deposits, reports the WSJ. It adds that Silvergate opened up to crypto companies the next year, and that its deposits grew dramatically from there . . . until it all collapsed in recent months. Now, a number of contrarian investors who bet that Silvergate could weather the crypto storm will instead be appraising some losses, including billionaire Peter Thiel.

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Anthropic, a two-year-old rival to OpenAI that is led by team of former OpenAI executives, including CEO Dario Amodei and president Daniela Amodei, who are siblings, is raising $300 million more in funding at a $4.1 billion valuation, reports The Information. The round comes hot on the heels of a $400 million investment into the company by Google that was announced early last month.

Cars & Bids, a two-year-old, San Diego-based online auction marketplace to buy and sell "modern enthusiast cars," has raised $55.5 million in equity funding from nine investors, including TCG (The Chernin Group), per an SEC filing. More here.

Consensus, a 10-year-old Utah company that allows users to build demo videos and then email those demos to sales prospects, raised a $110 million round. Sumeru Equity Partners was the deal lead. The company has raised a total of $138.9 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Humane, a four-year-old, Bay Area-based startup founded by the former Apple design and engineering team Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, has raised $100 million in Series C funding to build what it calls an “integrated device and cloud services platform” for AI. TechCrunch says the outfit's work is shrouded in mystery but that its latest round featured a long of backers, including Kindred Ventures, which led the round, SK Networks, LG Technology Ventures, Microsoft, Volvo Cars Tech Fund, Tiger Global, Qualcomm Ventures and OpenAI CEO and co-founder Sam Altman. The company has now raised $230 million altogether. More here.

Threecolts, a two-year-old London startup that builds software for brands and retailers to manage their Amazon sales channels, announced that it had raised $90 million consisting of a seed round, a Series A round, and debt. Investors included Crossbeam Venture Partners, General Global Capital, Stratos, and CoVenture. TechCrunch has more here.

Volta Trucks, a four-year-old Stockholm startup that manufactures electric trucks, is raising up to €250 million, according to Reuters, which has more here.

Cognosos, an eight-year-old Atlanta startup that helps companies track equipment assets in real time, raised a $25 million round from Riverwood Capital. More here.

Fynn, a one-year-old startup whose platform provides financing options for students interested in a vocational education, raised an $11 million seed round from Y Combinator, Susa Ventures, Village Global, Tenacity VC, and Watchfire Ventures and lined up $25 million in debt. TechCrunch has more here.

Geothermal Engineering Limited, a 15-year-old London company that develops and operates geothermal plants, raised a $17.8 million round from Kerogen Capital and Thrive Renewables. The company has raised a total of $18.7 million. Renewable Energy Magazine has more here.

Kresus, a San Francisco blockchain startup whose web3 app offers a variety of services for travelers, including a wallet, a digital assets exchange platform, and a travel guide, raised a $25 million Series A round. Liberty City Ventures was the deal lead, while JetBlue Ventures, Franklin Templeton, Craft Ventures, Marc Benioff, and the Winklevii also participated. NFT Gators has more here.

Paragonix Technologies, a 13-year-old company based in Cambridge, Ma., that has developed organ transplant devices that incorporate digital tracking and communication technologies for organ tracking, reporting, and monitoring, raised a $24 million Series B round. Signet Healthcare Partners led the transaction. The company has raised a total of $25.8 million. MobiHealthNews has more here.

Starfish Space, a four-year-old startup that is developing a satellite servicing vehicle that will be able to perform a variety of maintenance and repair tasks, including de-orbiting obsolete satellites, raised a $14 million round co-led by Munich Re Ventures and Toyota Ventures, with participation from previous investors PSL Ventures, NFX, and MaC VC. TechCrunch has more here.

Vantage, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based startup that helps businesses better understand their cloud infrastructure spend and automate their savings, has raised a $21 million Series A funding round led by Scale Venture Partners, with participation from by Andreessen Horowitz, which led its seed round, as well as Harpoon Ventures, CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince and VC Glenn Solomon (who is a managing partner at GGV but is investing personally here). The company has now raised $25 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Barley, a Toronto startup whose software helps companies structure, analyze, and manage compensation, including monitoring changing pay trends in the market, raised a $4 million seed round led by Golden Ventures, with Union Capital also contributing. More here.

Daily Blends, a three-year-old Toronto startup that operates a network of AI-powered smart vending machines, raised a $2 million seed round. Hustle Fund and 2048 Ventures were the co-leads. More here.

DexMat, an eight-year-old startup that claims it can transform hydrocarbons, renewable fuels, and captured carbon into a material that "vastly outperforms traditional alternatives like steel, aluminum, and copper," raised a seed round of approximately $3 million led by Shell Ventures, with additional financing from Overture Ventures and Climate Avengers. More here.

Elyn, a French startup that wants to offer e-commerce customers flexibility in paying for goods and services (for example, trying on a piece of clothing before purchasing it), raised $2.7 million pre-seed round. Headline and Sequoia Arc co-led the deal. TechCrunch has more here.

Itselectric, a two-year-old Brooklyn startup that is rolling out curbside charging stations for EVs, raised a $2.2 million pre-seed round led by Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, with added participation from Clean Energy Venture Group, The Helm, Graham & Walker, Pericles, and XFactor. The EV Report has more here.

MEplace, a three-year-old London startup that plans to open a chain of nursery schools informed by scientific research into pediatric neuroscience, child development psychology, learning sciences, and language development, raised a $1.4 million seed round. Active Partners was the deal lead. Startups Magazine has more here.

Rebel Girls, an 11-year-old San Francisco company that is building a girl-centered media brand through female-focused content including podcasts and books, raised an $8 million Series A round led by Penguin Random House, with Common Sense Growth also chipping in. Fast Company has more here.

ViridiCO2, a UK startup that says it has developed technology that can convert waste carbon dioxide into valuable chemical products such as surfactants, small molecules, and polymer feedstocks, raised a $3.8 seed round. EQT Ventures was the deal lead. TFN has more here.

This International Women's Day, discover what four top VCs have to share about kickstarting deal sourcing with strategic planning. Head to the Affinity blog to hear from Link Ventures, Bee Partners, Sageview Capital, and SignalFire.

EY has "paused" its plan to split in two amid a fierce dispute over how much of its tax business should stay with the audit side of the firm. The FT has the story here.

John Deere has acquired SparkAI, a New York-based startup that develops human-in-the-loop technology to help robots resolve edge cases in real-time. John Deere, which has developed autonomous tractors, was a SparkAI customer for a few years prior to the acquisition. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. SparkAI was founded in 2020 and raised $7.3 million, according to Crunchbase. The Robot Report has more here.

U.S. banking giant JPMorgan is ending its banking relationship with Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange owned by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, according to both CoinDesk and Reuters. Gemini is refuting the reports.

Uber is exploring whether to spin off its Uber Freight logistics arm in a sale or as a separate publicly traded company to streamline its focus on ride hailing and food delivery, according to Bloomberg. It reports that Uber Freight faces a more challenging outlook than other divisions of the company, explaining the division pairs trucking companies with those seeking to transport loads and operates as an independent unit. More here.

Formerly high-flying fintech startups looking to go public could have a hard time attracting investor attention even as the market for new listings starts to thaw. "We're still in the early innings of the IPO market's pick-up. And when IPO activity does resume, we expect fintechs will likely be among the last to rejoin the party," Matthew Kennedy, senior strategist at IPO research firm Renaissance Capital, tells Reuters. "I don't think it would surprise anyone if they all sat out the 2023 IPO market," Kennedy added.

When a startup called Retro Biosciences eased out of stealth mode last year, it announced it had secured $180 million to bankroll its ambition to add 10 years to the average human life span. MIT Tech Review now says the entire sum came from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The bet is Altman's second biggest after the nuclear fusion company Helion Energy, into which Altman poured $375 million in 2021. “It’s a lot," he tells Tech Review. "I basically just took all my liquid net worth and put it into these two companies.” As with Worldcoin, which we featured in last night's newsletter, Retro Biosciences came about after Altman identified someone to run a company he thought should exist. In this case, that someone is Joe Betts-LaCroix, who was previously a part-time biotech partner at Y Combinator, where Altman was president at the time.

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