Can this bank be saved (by 11 other banks)?

Looks like we unwittingly ran a scammy funding item yesterday, as did numerous other outlets. Thanks to our eagle-eyed readers for letting us know. 

The WSJ reports that last year, Tiger Global marked down the value of its startup portfolio by approximately 33% in 2022, erasing $23 billion in value from its venture capital holdings.

Silicon Valley darling First Republic Bank has been saved . . . again. Today, after First Republic plunged over 30% at the open, 11 U.S. banks agreed to lend it $30 billion in order to provide some much-needed liquidity. JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. are each making a $5 billion uninsured deposit into First Republic. The arrangement is without precedent in decades, and an indication of how dire the banking sector’s predicament had become within a week, observes the New York Times.

Bitcoin just hit its highest level since June in a broad crypto rally.

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Nimble, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that makes robots for e-commerce fulfillment centers (it has also begun operating its own centers, too, more recently), raised a $65 million Series B round. Cedar Pine led the deal, joined by previous investors DNS Capital, GSR Ventures, and Breyer Capital. The company has raised a total of $115 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Blinto, a five-year-old Swedish startup that has created an auction platform to sell used construction machines, utility vehicles, and tools, raised an $11.2 million round. Verdane was the deal lead. Tech.eu has more here.

FIRE1, a 10-year-old Dublin, Ireland company that is developing a remote monitoring solution for heart failure patients, raised a $25 million round co-led by Andera Partners and Novo Holdings and joined by Gilde Healthcare, Gimv, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, Lightstone Ventures, Medtronic, New Enterprise Associates, and Seventure Partners. The company has raised a total of $82.1 million. The Irish Times has more here.

Maribel Health, a New Hampshire startup that helps healthcare companies design, build, and operate tech-enabled home and community clinical care services, raised a $25 million Series A round. General Catalyst was the deal lead. MobiHealthNews has more here.

Protai, a two-year-old Tel Aviv startup that claims to have developed a proteomics and AI-powered drug discovery platform, raised a $12 million seed round. Previous investors Grove Ventures and Pitango HealthTech as well as newcomer Maj Invest Equity Fund contributed to the round. The company has raised a total of $20 million. Calcalist has more here.

Seldon, a nine-year-old London startup whose tools are designed to enable companies to deploy and maintain machine learning models in production, raised a $20 million Series B round led by Bright Pixel and including previous investors AlbionVC, Cambridge Innovation Capital, and Amadeus Capital Partners. The company has raised a total of $33.7 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Wingspan, a four-year-old New York startup that has built a payroll platform aimed at firms employing mainly freelancers, raised a $14 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with previous investors Distributed Ventures, Long Journey Ventures, Ludlow Ventures, and 186 Ventures also participating. The company has raised a total of $23.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Almentor, a seven-year-old online education startup based in Dubai that claims it has 950 mentors who have made over 1,000 online courses for corporates, government bodies, and individuals, raised a $10 million "pre-Series C" round led by e&capital, with existing investors Sawari Ventures, Egypt Ventures, Partech, Endure Capital, and Sango Capital also participating in the round. The company has raised a total of $14.5 million. Your Story has more here.

Captain Experiences, a four-year-old Austin startup whose platform helps people book chartered fishing trips, raised a $2 million round led by Bullish, with TechNexus Venture Collaborative, Cartograph Ventures, Carnrite Ventures, Victorum Capital, Riverside Ventures, and Mana Ventures also piling on. The company has raised a total of $4 million. Built in Austin has more here.

CNHC, a two-year-old Hong Kong crypto startup that is issuing a Chinese yuan-backed stablecoin, raised a $10 million round led by KuCoin Ventures, with IDG Capital and Circle Ventures also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Deeploi, a German startup that is building an IT-as-a-service platform, raised a $3.2 million seed round. Cherry Ventures was the deal lead. TechCrunch has more here.

Droplet Biosciences, a two-year-old startup based in Cambridge, Ma., that uses lymphatic fluid to provide cancer diagnostics, raised an $8 million seed round. The Engine was the deal lead. More here.

Genpop, a Los Angeles game-development studio, has raised a $6.5 million seed round led by Makers Fund, with participation from 1Up Ventures, Good Smile Company, and Studio TRIGGER. More here.

Prescient AI, a three-year-old Miami startup that aims to help e-commerce and direct-to-consumer companies more accurately forecast demand and target their most valuable customers, raised a $4.5 million seed round. Blumberg Capital led the transaction, with additional capital provided by CEAS Investments and Darling Ventures. The company has raised a total of $6.7 million. Refresh Miami has more here.

QuadSAT, a six-year-old Danish startup that uses drones as stand-ins for satellites to test and calibrate antennas on the ground, raised a $9.6 million round led by IQ Capital, with additional investment from previous investors Seraphim Space and Vækstfonden. The company has raised a total of $12.9 million. SpaceNews has more here.

Smooth Labs, a Singapore startup founded last July that is building blockchain infrastructure focused on the parallel execution of transactions, raised a $2 million seed round led by NGC Ventures, with additional investors including Cogitent Ventures, ArkStream Capital, and Token Metrics. The Block has more here.

Staging Labs, a one-year-old Miami startup that automatically responds to a malicious attack by transferring a user's digital assets from a vulnerable wallet to a backup safe, raised a $1.1 million pre-seed round. Investors included The General Partnership, Flourish Ventures, NGC Ventures, AlphaGrep, Gaingels, and scouts from a16z, Kleiner Perkins, and Greylock. TechCrunch has more here.

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Tomasz Tunguz, a cloud-software investor who left Redpoint Ventures seven months ago to launch is own venture-capital firm -- Portola Valley, Ca.-based Theory Ventures -- has closed its debut fund with $225 million in capital commitments, per a source familiar with the fundraising effort. Tunguz is a well-known cloud software investor (and co-inventor of many patented technologies) who has long authored a data-driven blog. According to a January report in the WSJ that reported Tunguz was fundraising, Theory Ventures is focused on seed and Series A investments. (We've reached out to Tunguz for more info; hopefully we'll have more for you soon.)

Karat, a technical interview platform used in the recruiting process that was last valued (in 2021) at over $1 billion, is acquiring Triplebyte, a smaller, but well-connected, player in the same space that built and ran adaptable technical skills quizzes for engineers, and then helped get them on the radar for jobs that matched their skills. Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

MindGeek, one of the world’s largest and most controversial porn companies and the parent company of Pornhub, has been acquired by Ethical Capital Partners, a newly set-up Canadian private equity firm. The FT has more here.

Rajesh Gopinathan resigned his post as the CEO of Tata Consultancy Services, a surprise move that followed a six-year tenure during which shares of Asia’s largest IT services firm almost tripled.

Twitch CEO Emmett Shear said today he is resigning, effective immediately. Shear led the company for 12 years as top banana. He said he decided to step down after the birth of his first child.

Peter Thiel said he had $50 million in Silicon Valley Bank when it went under, even after his venture fund warned portfolio companies that the tech-focused lender was at risk. Talking with the Financial Times, he said he not draw down from his account because he believed the bank would not fail.

A curated list of U.S. startup exits — IPOs, SPACS, mergers and acquisitions, and other deals — valued at $1 billion or more, powered by Crunchbase‘s data.

Bain Capital Ventures is looking to bring aboard an associate to focus specifically on early- and growth-stage infrastructure software investing. The job is in San Francisco.

Researchers at Google say Chinese hackers have discovered new ways to hack government and business networks and remain undetected for years. The WSJ has more here.

Microsoft today unveiled Microsoft 365 Copilot, which embeds AI into apps like Word, Outlook, Teams and Excel. The AI assistant combines natural language processing, based on OpenAI’s ChatGPT, with Microsoft Office tools and capabilities to help workers automate or accelerate some of their work. Copilot is currently debuting with 20 enterprise customers; Microsoft said it expects to make it available to its larger user base in the coming months.

Easy loans, great service: why Silicon Valley loved Silicon Valley Bank.

Why children can be better than adults at spotting misinformation.

The "Stop Making Sense" suit is back.

Rewatching Girls? Join the club.

A  Patek Philippe fit for an emperor (of China . . . the last emperor of China to be specific).

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