Andreessen Horowitz is "all in" on Saudi Arabia, it made clear today

Andreessen Horowitz is "all in" on Saudi Arabia, it suggested at a Miami event today. According to Bloomberg, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz appeared on stage with WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann to talk (for at least the second time since November) about their firm's $350 million investment in Flow, which is Neumann's new residential real estate company. Their choice of venue was highly intentional: the conference was organized by a nonprofit backed by one of Saudi Arabia’s largest sovereign funds, and Flow may launch in the kingdom, says Bloomberg. Meanwhile, the three reportedly laid it on thick, with Horowitz praising Saudi Arabia as a “startup country" and saying that "Saudi has a founder; you don’t call him a founder, you call him his royal highness.” Said Neumann separately: “It’s leaders like his royal highness that are actually going to lead us where we want to go.” ⚰️ ☠️

In one of the first nationwide measures restricting the use of ChatGPT since its popularity exploded globally in recent months, Italy’s privacy regulator temporarily banned OpenAI’s chatbot, saying it has improperly collected and stored information. OpenAI said late today that it disabled ChatGPT in Italy in response to the regulator’s order, which had said the company must suspend processing data of Italian users. The WSJ has more here.

Venture capital firms and their investors have realized that a fund administrator without best-in-class technology is no longer acceptable. But experienced firms also know that when it’s crunch time and that capital call needs to go out now, no technology can replace the need for an expert, highly responsive fund accountant working with you. Meet Juniper Square: the first technology-driven fund admin built for sophisticated venture capital firms.

Agreena, a five-year-old Copenhagen startup that helps farmers in Europe generate new revenue streams by selling verified soil carbon credits, raised a $50 million Series B round. HV Capital was the deal lead. The company has raised a total of $77.3 million. Reuters has more here.

Fetch.ai, a six-year-old startup based in Cambridge, UK, whose goal is to enable communication and actions between AI applications, making the work they produce more actionable, raised a $40 million in round from DWF Labs. The company has raised a total of $66 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Glopal, a three-year-old Paris startup that helps e-commerce companies increase sales by optimizing translation, international marketing initiatives, international payments, logistics, and tax and duty calculations, raised a $21.7 million Series A round. Investors in the deal included Hi Inov, Dentressangle, Crédit Mutuel Innovation, and Motier Ventures as well as existing investors Seventure and Axeleo Capital. Tech.eu has more here.

Horizon Quantum Computing, a five-year-old Singapore startup founded in Ireland that provides software development and deployment tools for quantum computing applications based on a programming language it created, raised an $18.1 million Series A round. Investors included Tencent, Sequoia Capital India, SGInnovate, Pappas Capital, and Expeditions Fund. The company has raised a total of $21.3 million. The Business Post has more here.

P97, an 11-year-old Houston company that enables consumers to pay for gas or an electric charge through either an app or a connected car, raised a $40 million round. Portage Capital Solutions led the transaction with additional participation from Accenture, FleetCor, and Emerald. TechCrunch has more here.

TROOP, a six-year-old Madrid startup whose platform manages the booking, expenses, and logistics for in-person meetings, raised an $11 million Series B round co-led by Durable Capital Partners and Madrona Venture Group, with All Iron Ventures and Conexo Ventures also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $19.9 million. Tech.eu has more here.

Votiro, a 13-year-old New York company that claims its platform eliminates file-borne attacks from email, web downloads, portal uploads, and file sharing platforms, raised an $11.5 million Series A round. Harvest Lane Asset Management was the deal lead. The company has raised a total of $25.5 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Anvil, a five-year-old San Francisco startup that provides an e-signature platform for its customers, raised a $5 million Series A extension from Craft Ventures and Gradient Ventures. The company has raised a total of $15 million. Axios has more here.

BioCorteX, a two-year-old London startup that has developed a computer simulation to understand drug-bacteria interactions, raised a $5 million seed round. Sofinnova Partners and Hoxton Ventures were the co-leads. Tech.eu has more here.

Finverity, a six-year-old London startup whose platform connects companies in need of working capital with institutional investors seeking access to mid-sized supply chain finance deals, raised a $5 million round. Investors in the deal included Outward VC, Acrobator Ventures, s16vc, and B&Y Venture Partners. The company has raised a total of $8.4 million. Tech.eu has more here.

Presta, a one-year-old New York startup that provides the infrastructure for managing interactions between lenders and borrowers, raised a $3.3 million pre-seed round led by Distributed Ventures, with Zeal Capital Partners, Matchstick Ventures, The Fund, Tech Stars, and Jumpstart Ventures also taking part. More here.

Among top VC firms, deal flow and network growth went down last year—and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Discover the story behind the data when you download Affinity’s new investment benchmark report: Global unicorn edition.

American cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex today announced that it would wind down its U.S. operations. The statement added that it would continue operating its Bittrex Global platform—which caters to traders outside of the States. Bittrex co-founder and CEO Richie Lai said on Twitter that it was not "economically viable" to continue to run the exchange in the "current U.S. regulatory and economic environment." Decrypt has more here.

Sam Altman tells the New York Times he's taking a salary of just $65,000 a year as the CEO of OpenAI and that he separately owns a tiny slice of an old investment in OpenAI by Y Combinator. Asked why Altman wouldn't want to be paid more, Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham tells reporter Cade Metz, “Why is he working on something that won’t make him richer? One answer is that lots of people do that once they have enough money, which Sam probably does. The other is that he likes power.” (Graham similarly told Tad Friend of the New Yorker in 2016, “Sam is extremely good at becoming powerful.”)

Google is also telling its side of the AI story to the New York Times this weekend, with Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai offering on the Times's "Hardfork" podcast: "In some ways, I feel like we took a souped-up Civic [and] kind of put it in a race with more powerful cars." More here.

Meanwhile, in TechCrunch: "Twitter initially launched its verification system in 2009 to protect celebrities from impersonation. Someone made an account pretending to be former St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, but instead of just asking for the account to be taken down, La Russa sued Twitter. And so, the three-year-old company introduced its iconic blue check badge. Now, we’ve come full circle."

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