The venture capital industry remains stuck in the doldrums

When the weekend is this close. . .

Elon Musk has found a new CEO for Twitter and announced on the platform earlier today that she will be starting in about six weeks, without specifying who the person is. Musk also wrote in his tweet that his own role will “transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & [systems operations]." The WSJ subsequently reported that NBCUniversal’s head of advertising, Linda Yaccarino, is the person to whom Musk was referring, though it noted the negotiations with Yaccarino are ongoing. More here.

SoftBank Vision Fund lost $32 billion in the financial year ending March as the Japanese investment giant, the most prolific global investor in tech startups, continues to suffer from valuation corrections across its portfolio of private and public tech companies amid a weakening global economy. The loss surged about 70% from the same period a year prior, when SoftBank had reported $19 billion in losses at the Vision Fund unit. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son is now personally on the hook for about $5.2 billion on side deals he set up at SoftBank Group to boost his compensation. More here.

Peloton is recalling 2.2 million exercise bikes due to faulty seat posts that could break and may cause injuries, the company said today.

Has venture capital finally hit rock bottom? After the woes of 2022 put an end to the decade-long bull market and the unexpected banking crisis shook the industry back in March, the venture community has been wondering—has the free-fall finally stopped? Juniper Square’s latest market update looks back on Q1 and explains why—even though VC hit a new low with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank—the worst-case scenarios seem to have been avoided. Read Q2 2023: The State of Venture Capital.

Everseen, a 16-year-old company based in Cork, Ireland, that uses computer vision to stop retail "shrinkage" (meaning it has less in stock than its recorded inventory), raised a $71.3 million Series A round. Previous investor Crosspoint Capital Partners was the deal lead. The company has raised a total of $88.6 million. TechCrunch has more here.

AccelerComm, a seven-year-old startup based in Southampton, UK, whose software is used to improve the performance of 5G radio access networks, raised a $26.9 million Series B round. Investors included Parkwalk, Swisscom, and Hostplus as well as previous investors Bloc Ventures, IP Group, and IQ Capital. The company has raised a total of $37.4 million. Tech.eu has more here.

Luup, a Tokyo-based startup that offers electric bicycles, scooters and other vehicles for commuters to rent and ride for roughly $7 per hour (for now, at least), recently raised $33.5 million in funding from earlier backers ANRI, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial’s SMBC Venture Capital and Spiral Capital, which is a venture firm led by former McKinsey Japan head Masao Hirano. New investors including GMO Internet Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation, the trust banking arm of Japan’s largest bank by total assets, also participated in the funding round. The company has now raised $68 million altogether. Forbes has more here.

Rewind.ai, a three-year-old startup cofounded by the co-founder and former CEO of Optimizely whose tech runs in the background, recording everything a user does, clicks on, or views, compressing it so the user can later search through their own history, has raised $12 million in fresh funding led by NEA. The company had earlier separately secured $10 million in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from First Round Capital and others, back in November. The Information has more here.

Wingcopter, a six-year-old German startup that develops drones used primarily to deliver medicine and other goods to remote areas, raised a $43.7 million round in equity and debt from the European Investment Bank. The company has raised a total of $110 million. TechCrunch has more here.

AMP Robotics, a Denver startup that builds robotic systems that can automatically sort recyclable material, raised an $8 million Series C extension led by Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund and Wellington Management, with Congruent Ventures, Blue Earth Capital, Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners, Tao Capital Partners, XN, Sequoia Capital, GV, Range Ventures, and Valor Equity Partners also piling on. The company has raised a total of approximately $178 million. TechCrunch has more here.

AudiencePlus, a one-year-old, Scottsdale, Az.-based new media platform from a long-time marketing executive, raised a $5.4 million seed round led by Emergence Capital, with Forum Ventures, Worklife Ventures, and GTMfund also contributing. TechCrunch has more here.

AvantGuard, a New York startup that is developing molecular compounds to provide long-term protection against viruses, bacteria, and fungi/mold, raised a $2.85 million round. Investors included Blue Ledge Capital and previous investors SOSV, LaunchNY, and Red Bear Angels. More here.

Obeo Biogas, a startup that specializes in the design, construction, and operation of biogas systems specifically tailored for dairy farms, raised $3 million seed round. Diagram Ventures led the transaction. More here.

Orby AI, a startup based in Sunnyvale, Ca., that seeks to help businesses identify repetitive work steps and automatically generate code that automates these tasks, raised a $4.5 million seed round. The syndicate included Pear VC, New Enterprise Associates, and Wing VC. More here.

Overplay, a three-year-old New York startup that has built a a user-generated gaming platform, has raised $1.2 million from retail investors on Wefunder. This amount is in addition to the $1.8 million it already raised from Village Global, Sound Media Ventures, Plus Eight Equity Partners, Gaingels, Red & Blue Ventures, Band of Angels, Stampede Ventures, and Outlander Capital. More here.

Zamp, a New York startup whose software helps online sellers calculate and aggregate sales tax across multiple sales channels, raised a $4 million round from Valor Equity Partners, Soma Capital, and Day One Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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NYBC Ventures, a year-old Boston-based outfit has launched a venture fund that's focused solely on advancing new blood and cell-based therapies with $50 million in hand from the New York Blood Center. FierceBiotech has more here.

Peer-to-peer car sharing company Getaround said today that it will acquire the assets of HyreCar, another car sharing marketplace, for $9.45 million. Getaround expects to realize up to $75 million of run rate annualized gross booking value from the deal, which the company says will contribute to positive adjusted EBITDA profitability. TechCrunch has more here.

Josh Harris, the Apollo Global Management co-founder who left the company last year, has sold more than $100 million of shares in the private equity firm over the past three weeks as the deal he’s leading to buy the NFL’s Washington Commanders takes shape. More in Bloomberg.

Charles Hudson, founder and managing partner at Precursor Ventures, was just named the 2023-2024 chair of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) board of directors. More here.

Former Olympic snowboarder turned YouTube personality Trevor Jacob agreed today to plead guilty to a felony charge of “obstructing a federal investigation by deliberately destroying the wreckage of an airplane that he intentionally crashed in Santa Barbara County to gain online views,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of California. The L.A. Times has more here.

Hollywood executive and startup investor Jeffrey Katzenberg has vowed to deliver “all the resources” Joe Biden needs for his 2024 re-election campaign. In an interview with the FT, the co-chair of Biden’s campaign said he was “confident” of pulling in more than the $1 billion of contributions received during the 2020 race.

Tesla CFO Zach Kirkhorn hasn’t done much to raise his profile since joining the company four years ago, but he's done much to turn the electric carmaker into a profit machine, says the WSJ.

Elon Musk is asking a panel of judges if he can ditch his court-ordered "Twitter Sitter" for Tesla-related posts saying it "chills" his free speech.

Binance.US and Changpeng Zhao, the crypto exchange’s founder, majority owner and chair, have been exploring ways to reduce his stake in the company, according to The Information. Its sources say that Zhao has been trying to sell at least some of his stake since last summer. Since the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Zhao’s international crypto firm Binance for allegedly violating U.S. derivatives laws, Binance.US leaders have reportedly discussed how such a move might help improve the company's standing in the eyes of U.S. regulators. More here.

Momentis, an 11-year-old, Israeli surgical robotics company formerly Memic, is laying off 60% of its employees, taking its headcount to 50 from 120 employee. Momentis announced in August 2021 that it would merge with MedTech Acquisition Corporation, a publicly-traded special purpose acquisition company focused on medical technology, but the SPAC was canceled in March of last year; a few months later the company rebranded as Momentis. Calcalist has more here.

Uber subsidiary Cornershop, an online grocer, is eliminating 11% of its workforce, according to an internal memo from CEO Oskar Hjertonsson. Bloomberg has more here.

The top 10 consumer-focused venture firms, per Pitchbook.

Notwithstanding a $300 million round for OpenAI, the venture capital industry remains stuck in the doldrums, observes S&P Global. It says that global venture capital investment activity for every month of 2023 has fallen year over year so far, and that the $15.74 billion raised in 959 funding rounds in April represented a greater than 61% decline from the global total of venture capital investments during the same month in 2022. More here.

Meta today announced an AI Sandbox for advertisers to help them create alternative copies, background generation through text prompts and image cropping for Facebook or Instagram ads. Per TechCrunch, the first feature lets brands generate different variations of the same copy for different audiences while trying to keep the core message of the ad similar. The background generation feature makes it easier to create different assets for a campaign.

Advances in AI will threaten white-collar workers and create “a serious number of losers” over the next decade, according to Mustafa Suleyman, one of the co-founders of AI lab DeepMind. Speaking at an event in San Francisco, Suleyman added that governments need to think about how they support those whose jobs will be destroyed, with universal basic income as one potential solution: “That needs material compensation . . . This is a political and economic measure we have to start talking about in a serious way.” The FT has more here.

Lyft is officially discontinuing shared rides. Bloomberg has more here.

Generation Connie.

Night at the Vatican.

Villa St. Pierre.

A trip to Hokkaido.

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