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The SEC said in a notice late yesterday that its five-member panel will vote next week on a rules package governing PE, VC, and hedge funds that could significantly alter the relationship between such funds and their clients. The SEC’s proposed overhaul would require private funds to provide their investors (their limited partners) with quarterly statements and annual audits, increase their liability for mismanagement or negligence, and prohibit them from giving some limited partners more-favorable terms than others. Already, some managers have threatened to sue the SEC if it follows through with the changes outlined in the proposal.
It does make sense, though, no? Most limited partners -- from pension funds to university endowments to private individuals -- are terrified of losing their allocation in particular funds if they make demands, so they often accept whatever informational scraps they're given. Earlier this year, I wrote that if ever there was a time for LPs to flex their muscles and demand more from the fund managers who they back, it's now, given we're in a comparatively sluggish market. Still, most who spoke me said, in essence, fat chance. If passed, these SEC rules would ensure these same LPs are provided with more visibility into what they are funding, at least. The WSJ has more on the proposed rules here.
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Abcuro, an eight-year-old startup based in Newton, Ma., that is developing a drug to treat inclusion body myositis, raised a $155 million Series B round co-led by Redmile Group and Bain Capital Life Sciences, with RA Capital Management, Samsara BioCapital, Sanofi Ventures, New Leaf Ventures, Pontifax, Tekla Capital Management BlackRock, Mass General Brigham Ventures, Eurofarma, and Soleus Capital also piling on. The company has raised a total of $214.8 million. PharmaPhorum has more here.
David Ferrucci, a prominent AI researcher who led the team that created IBM Watson, has raised nearly $60 million for his AI startup called Elemental Cognition, according to a new SEC filing first flagged by CNBC. The filing says the New York-based outfit has sold $59.95 million worth of equity to 17 investors and plans to raise another $5.75 million. More here.
Rondo Energy, a three-year-old Oakland startup that makes energy storage systems that serve as a drop-in replacement for fossil-fired boilers, raised a $60 million. Investors included Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Energy Impact Partners, SCG, Titan, Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund, Rio Tinto, SABIC, Aramco Ventures, SDCL Energy Efficiency Income Trust, and John Doerr. The company has raised a total of $82 million. Renewables Now has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Advanced Ionics, a six-year-old Milwaukee startup that has created an electrolyzer that allows industrial hydrogen users to produce green hydrogen for less than $1/kg, raised a $12.5 million Series A round led by bp ventures, with additional funding from Clean Energy Ventures, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and GVP Climate. The company has raised a total of $19.6 million. BusinessGreen has more here.
Mendaera, a San Mateo, Ca.-based healthcare robotics startup making precise and consistent intervention more accessible, has raised $24 million in Series A funding led by Lux Capital. Other backers in the round included Founders Fund, Operator Partners, Allen & Company, Intuitive Surgical and Auris Health founder Fred Moll, and former U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey. MobiHealth News has more here.
Lightcast Discovery, a four-year-old startup based in Cambridge, UK, that is focusing on single-cell functional analysis via a flexible droplet-based platform, raised a $48.4 million Series B round led by M Ventures, with ARCH Venture Partners, Illumina Ventures, OMX Ventures, +ND Capital, and Longwall Ventures also contributing. More here.
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The Contract Network, an Atlanta startup founded this year whose platform parses and analyzes contracts using generative AI, raised an $8 million seed round. Tusk Venture Partners was the deal lead. Legal IT Insider has more here.
D'Amelio Brands, a one-year-old Los Angeles startup that is leveraging the social media superstardom of Charli and Dixie D'Amelio to promote different brands, raised a $5 million round to launch a snack brand ("Be Happy Snacks"). Fifth Growth Fund led the deal. Axios has more here.
Dinari, a two-year-old Palo Alto startup that “tokenizes” securities and shares in recognizable companies such as Google, Apple. and Nvidia, raised a $7.5 million seed round. Investors included SPEILLLP, 500 Global, Third Kind Venture Capital, Sancus Ventures, Version One VC, and Balaji Srinivasan. SiliconANGLE has more here.
ElectroTempo, a three-year-old startup based in Arlington, Va., whose software predicts the demand for EV charging at sites and makes recommendations for equipment and infrastructure investments, raised a $4 million seed round led by Buoyant Ventures, with Schematic Ventures and Zebox Ventures also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $5 million. Technical.ly has more here.
Linera, a San Francisco startup that says it is developing a layer-1 blockchain attempting to tackle scalability issues using "microchains," raised a $6 million seed round led by Borderless Capital, with Andreessen Horowitz, Laser Digital, and Flow Traders. The company has raised a total of $12 million. CoinDesk has more here.
Metabase Q, a San Francisco-based cybersecurity startup that says it focuses on protecting multi-national corporations in Latin America, announced $3 million in Series A funding today, led by existing investor SYN Ventures, with participation from existing investors, including former President and COO of Mandiant, John Watters. More here.
Venteur, a two-year-old startup based in Berkeley, Ca., whose platform enables employers to provide pre-tax dollars to their employees in order to buy health insurance, raised a $7.6 million seed round led by GSR, with participation from Headwater VC, Revelry Venture Partners, Houghton Street Ventures, Plug and Play, Techstars, and CRCM Ventures. More here.
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Unlimited Funds, a year-old investment firm, is aiming to offer eight new exchange traded funds, according to a filing with the SEC flagged by FN. The New York-based outfit, which raised $8 million in venture funding earlier this year from FirstMark and Citi Ventures, seeks to create ETFs that provide access to returns replicated from alternative strategies within the hedge fund industry and beyond. Unlimited was founded by Bob Elliott, a former exec at the world’s largest hedge fund firm, Bridgewater Associates. More here.
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InMobi, a 16-year-old adtech and digital marketing firm, has announced the acquisition of Quantcast Choice, a 17-year-old platform for digital privacy. Quantcast Choice is a consent management platform designed to assist mobile game and app publishers in complying with the rapidly evolving global privacy regulations. The price of the acquisition wasn’t disclosed. VentureBeat has more here.
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Instacart is planning an IPO as soon as September, according to Bloomberg, whose sources say the online grocery-delivery company could publicly file its plans for an IPO with the SEC as soon as next week. Instacart has raised $2.74 billion from investors and was valued by them in frothy 2021 at $39 billion; last year, the company slashed its internal valuation to about $13 billion after reducing it earlier in the year to $24 billion. More here.
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Fortune looks at how Silicon Valley billionaires who've bought huge swaths of land in Hawaii are reacting to the devastation in Maui. From the story: "When we reached out to [Salesforce CEO Marc] Benioff, he told us that Salesforce donated $1 million to World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit entity dedicated to offering meals in the aftermath of natural disasters. Benioff cited the company’s 'ongoing relationship' with chef-owner José Andrés, and added that Salesforce has also 'made small donations to other Hawaiian NGOs.' An internal message seen by Fortune showed Benioff rallying Salesforce staff to join in the donation effort as well. According to several insiders, Benioff kicked off a company-wide meeting last week with 'a Hawaiian prayer, lei laying, and hula dancing.' Though the San Francisco company’s staff is well-versed in Benioff’s 'Ohana' ethos, some found the pageantry awkward amid the backdrop of Maui’s raging inferno."
Today, Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, now Block CEO, announced he has deleted his Instagram account, @jack. In a post on the decentralized social media platform Nostr, Dorsey shared he deleted the account after years of non-use. “Don’t know why it took me so long,” he wrote. “I think I was in the first 10 accounts on the platform, and one of the first angel investors. [Instagram co-founder] Kevin [Systrom] was our intern at Odeo,” noted Dorsey in his post. TechCrunch has more here.
Philip Fleischman has joined Norwest in the Bay Area as a VP on the healthcare team focusing on growth equity investments. Prior to Norwest, he worked in investment banking and private equity at Credit Suisse and TA Associates. It's the latest in a series of recent additions to Norwest's healthcare team, including two principals who were brought on -- Irem Rami and Brian Matesic -- and two general partners: Zack Scott and Tiba Aynechi.
A former Google researcher who co-authored a paper that kick-started the generative AI revolution has joined forces with an ex-colleague to found a Tokyo-based artificial intelligence start-up. Welshman Llion Jones, who left the tech giant this month, has since set up Sakana AI alongside David Ha, the former head of Google’s AI research arm in Japan. Ha, who is the chief executive, most recently led the research at image AI company Stability AI. The FT has the story.
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Last week, a group of art investors announced they were suing Sotheby’s for allegedly colluding with a blockchain firm to inflate the price of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) during a 2021 auction. The class action lawsuit -- filed by a group of anonymous NFT buyers -- was originally filed against a wide range of celebrities and influencers in December, accusing big names like Steph Curry and Madonna of being paid to raise the profile of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs. Quartz has more here.
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Metaprop, the eight-year-old, New York-based early-stage venture firm focused on real estate tech startups, is hiring a venture analyst. Apply here.
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Microsoft is planning an AI service with Databricks that could hurt OpenAI, reports The Information. It says that Microsoft plans to start selling a new version of Databricks’ software that helps customers make AI apps for their businesses; Databricks' software helps companies make AI models from scratch or repurpose open-source models as an alternative to licensing OpenAI’s proprietary ones. More here.
In another challenge to OpenAI, along with Google and other developers of proprietary large language models, Meta Platforms is preparing to launch software to help developers automatically generate programming code, reports The Information. Dubbed Code Llama, the intelligence model will ostensibly it easier for companies to develop AI assistants that automatically suggest code to developers as they type. More here.
God, we're exhausted just following this story, but, per the WSJ: "A new battlefront has opened up in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s nearly three-year-old lawsuit against cryptocurrency firm Ripple Labs following a federal judge’s ruling last month. U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres said [today] she would allow the SEC to move forward with a request for “interlocutory appeal,” which could eventually lead to a higher court overturning parts of her July 13 decision that Ripple’s sales of the cryptocurrency XRP only violated investor-protection laws some of the time." More here.
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If you can stand the heat, this Four Seasons is a steal. (In July.)
High-end villa rentals for Americans seeking out a "White Lotus" experience.
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