Layoffs at SoftBank, a sh*tstorm at Reddit, and two big venture firms drastically dial back their fundraising

Apple shares ended at their first all-time high in more than a year today in the latest sign of how big tech has reclaimed its leadership mantle. Bloomberg has more here. The S&P 500 also hit its highest level in more than a year today.

Calpers, the biggest public pension scheme in the U.S., is planning a multibillion-dollar push into international venture capital as the $442 billion fund hunts for higher returns. Calpers could put as much as $5 billion in new money into venture capital, officials tell the FT.

The Federal Trade Commission today filed for an injunction to block Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, CNBC reported earlier. By filing for an injunction, the FTC is seeking to stop the transaction from going through before the deal’s July 18 deadline. The FTC had already sued to block the $68.7 billion acquisition, choosing to bring the case before its internal administrative law judge. Through that trial-like process, the judge would make an initial decision that could be appealed to the full commission for a vote. More here.

Research: the state of venture capital in 2023. While the slowdown began in 2022, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in early March shook the venture industry and shined a brighter-than-ever light on the space. To go beyond the headlines, Juniper Square surveyed nearly 100 venture capital investors about their concerns, plans, and focus areas for the rest of the year. See what they had to say about the state of the industry. Download The State of Venture Capital: 2023 Benchmark Survey now.

Percepto, a nine-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based maker of autonomous inspection and monitoring drones, raised $50 million in Series C equity funding and $17 million in debt funding. Earlier backer Koch Disruptive Technologies led the equity piece, joined by Zimmer Partners, an undisclosed energy company, and earlier backers USVP, Delek US Holdings, Atento Capital, Spider Capital and Arkin Holdings. TechCrunch has more here.

CloudZero, a seven-year-old, Boston-based cloud cost management startup, raised $32 million in Series B funding co-led by Innovius Capital and Threshold Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Djust, a three-year-old, Paris-based B2B e-commerce platform that connects distributors, retailers and manufacturers, has raised €12 million in funding led by NEA, with participation from earlier backer Elaia Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Gensyn, a three-year-old U.K.-based startup that provides decentralized computing resources for AI systems and applications, has raised $43 million in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. The round brings Gensyn's total funding to $50 million, says CoinDesk. More here.

Hyper, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that says it's building a "metaverse social network," has raised $3.6 million in seed funding led by Two Sigma Ventures, with participation also from Makers Fund, Twitch owner Amazon’s Alexa Fund, and individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Mnemonic, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based web3 data and analytics platform, has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from Polygon Ventures, Orange DAO, FIN Capital and FJ Labs. More here.

Oova, a nearly six-year-old, New York-based fertility tracking startup centered around an in-home urine test, has raised $10.3 million in Series A funding. Spero Ventures led the round, oined by US Fertility, Virgin Group, Jefferson Health, Connecticut Innovations, Hannah Bronfman and Sara Blakely. TechCrunch has more here.

Range Biotechnologies, a 14-months-old, San Carlos, Ca.-based proteomics-focused biotech startup at work on a translational platform to enable better diagnostics and faster drug development, has received $5.2 million in seed funding led by ARTIS Ventures, with additional participation from Pear VC, Page One Ventures, Civilization Ventures, Pillar, Four Cities Capital, Hawktail, and others. More here.

Termii, a nine-year-old, Lago, Nigeria-based mobile communications platform-as-a-service startup, has raised $3.65 million in funding led by Ventures Platform, with participation from FinTech Collective and Launch Africa Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

The number of new unicorns is down across the board—but that's not the full story. In this short video, Affinity uncovers unicorn trends across geographies and industries. Find out what is really in retreat, and where opportunities still lie.

Black Seed, a British early-stage venture firm has raised £5 million ($6.2 million) as part of its inaugural fund to solely support Black founders in the region.ry. The round was led by asset manager M&G Investments, with additional support from Atomico and Molten Ventures. The firm is reportedly hoping to raise an additional £5 million to close the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Firstminute Capital, a now six-year-old, early-stage venture outfit co-founded by Brent Hoberman and Spencer Crawley, has held a close on $100 million for a third fund that will invest in early-stage startups in the UK and Europe. New investors in the latest fund include Slack co-founder Cal Henderson and Sir Richard Branson from Virgin Group. The outfit says a final close will come later this year. TechCrunch has more here.

Insight Partners has slashed the $20 billion target for its latest fund and said it would slow down its pace of dealmaking, reports the FT. The New York-based firm, which is among the largest technology growth investors in the U.S. with $90 billion of assets, has raised only about $2 billion for its 13th fund, which was first marketed to investors a year ago. In a letter to institutional investors today, reports the FT, Insight Partners told investors that it was witnessing a “great reset in tech” as a result of a steep decline in public company valuations that had impacted the value, number and quality of startups in which it could invest. More here.

Kyber Knight Capital, a new venture firm cofounded by Sunny Dhillon and Linus Liang -- the two previously spent a collective 17 years with Signia Venture Partners -- has closed its debut fund with $120 million in capital commitments. The San Francisco-based outfit is focused in pre-seed and seed-stage investments, and it has a very long list of notable limited partners in the fund. A sampling includes Alphabet Chairman John Hennessy, Bain Consulting’s global head Manny Maceda, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, former Walt Disney CEO Michael Eisner, Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia of Airbnb, and entrepreneur-investor David Sacks. More here.

Salesforce today announced that it’s growing its Generative AI Fund, the part of the company’s Salesforce Ventures offshoot that's backing startups developing “responsible generative AI,” from $250 million in size to $500 million. In a press statement, Salesforce Ventures managing partner Paul Drews said that the expansion would enable Salesforce to “work with even more entrepreneurs … accelerating the development of transformative AI solutions for the enterprise." TechCrunch has more here.

Per an SEC filing, TCV has raised $1.4 billion for its 12th flagship fund. The firm had closed its 11th fund with $4 billion. It isn't clear whether the 28-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca., firm was unable to raise a bigger fund -- it was reportedly targeting $5.5 billion --  or downsized the fund for the current market, or a mixture of both things. The Information, which reported on the new fund and several side vehicles for which there are separately new SEC filings, was unable to get a comment out of the firm. More here.

Nasdaq today said it’s doling out $10.5 billion to acquire Adenza, a company that develops risk-management and related regulatory software for the financial services market. The cash-and-stock deal will extend Nasdaq’s serviceable addressable market (SAM) to $34 billion, the company said in a press release today, $10 billion more than what it is today. The deal, notes TechCrunch, also sits among the biggest acquisitions of the year so far, second only to Qualtrics’ $12.5 billion acquisition announced a few months back. More here.

ABB, the Zurich-based electrification and automation company, says it has acquired Eve Systems, a German firm best known for a broad range of smart home accessories, including smart lights, plugs, air monitors and security cameras. TechCrunch has more here.

Francis deSouza said yesterday that he is resigning as the CEO of Illumina, the gene-sequencing giant. CNBC has more here. 

SpaceX has hired a young prodigy to join its Starlink division as a software engineer. Kairan Quazi, 14, is set to graduate this month from Santa Clara University in California. Business Insider has more here.

As cofounder and CEO of Mountain View, Ca.-based Health IQ, Munjal Shah presided over a company with mounting cash flow issues and debt obligations resulting in hundreds of layoffs and millions in unpaid invoices at the end of last year, according to lawsuits, interviews and documents obtained by Forbes. Andreessen Horowitz backed his newest company again anyway.

Yesterday, Andreessen Horowitz announced that it is opening an office in London. It also plans to locate its next Crypto Startup School accelerator program in London next spring and will "work closely with UK universities to support the development of blockchain technologies and startups," per a statement sent to us. The move follows an escalating crackdown on the crypto sector that is spurring a lot of moves across the board. For example, Robinhood just said it is delisting three popular crypto tokens -- Solana, Cardano, and Polygon -- which the SEC believes to be unregistered securities.

SoftBank Group is planning a fresh round of layoffs at its Vision Fund investment arm, sources tell CNBC. The layoffs, which could be announced in the next two weeks, may reportedly impact up to 30% of its staff at the unit, including employees in U.S.. SoftBank’s Vision Fund unit, which has booked heavy investment losses, had headcount of 349 at the end of March, according to a company report.

Grubhub is laying off around 15% of its workforce as the Chicago-based food delivery company seeks to reduce costs to stay competitive, according to the WSJ. CEO Howard Migdal says the move will impact 400 positions. More here.

Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Investment has signed a $5.6 billion deal with Chinese electric car maker Human Horizons to collaborate on the development, manufacture and sale of vehicles, reports Reuters. Part of the Saudi plan is to develop a domestic electric vehicle manufacturing industry. Human Horizons manufactures electric vehicles under the HiPhi brand in China. More here.

The recent departures of WeWork's CEO, who left in May, and its CFO, who left earlier this month, raise fresh questions about the viability of the company, whose shares are currently priced at 20 cents a piece. While longtime critics of the company might cheer its demise, a collapse could be a “systematic shock” to the weak commercial real estate sector in New York, San Francisco and other cities, a Columbia Business School professor who specializes in real estate tells the New York Times.

A sh*tstorm at Reddit.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is proposing a rule that would make it far harder to kill bad patents. TechDirt has the story here.

Also (H/T: The Verge)↓:

A new study finds that people are more likely to be deceptive for their own gain when performing tasks on a laptop rather than a cellphone. 🤔

Netflix is jumping into the business of live-streaming sporting events.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is kaput.

The best spots in America to belly up to the bar.

OceanSky air cruises. 

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