Dropbox cuts off freeloaders, the Donald returns to X, and why electric vehicles are piling up on dealership lots

U.S. stocks fell today after a Federal Reserve official warned that the central bank could raise interest rates again and remain higher for longer, offsetting enthusiasm about Nvidia's jaw-dropping earnings yesterday. The FT has more here.

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Teamshares is a low-flying, Brooklyn-based startup with big ambitions to capitalize on an opportunity in plain sight: that of small businesses without a succession plan.

It's not a small market. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses represent 99.7% of U.S. employer firms and 64% of private-sector jobs. Meanwhile, just 15% or so of small business owners pass along their company to a family member, with many others simply closing up shop at some point.

With an aging population in the U.S., Teamshares is betting this market will grow even bigger, which is why since 2018, it has snapped up 84 small businesses from retiring owners. These owners like its pitch. Though Teamshares says that it sometimes pays below market price for a company, it installs a new president that it trains, and grants 10% of the business’s stock to its employees. 

Moreover, it promises to increase those employees' ownership to 80% within 20 years. It sounds almost valiant, like when KKR bought out a door company in 2015 and promised every employee a payout of at least $15,000 if the company met its targets when sold. When in 2022, KKR sold the company for 10 times what it paid, its 800 employees saw a payout of $360 million.

But Teamshares isn't in the private equity business. It's a fintech company that has raised $245 million in venture capital to date, including from QED Investors, Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures, Inspired Capital, Khosla Ventures and Slow Ventures. It has also secured another $150 million in debt.

Those backers aren't funding Teamshares so that it can grow and re-sell the businesses it acquires. In fact, according to co-founder and CEO Michael Brown, Teamshares doesn't want to sell the companies it is buying -- ever. The plan instead is to generate revenue from a growing array of fintech products that it sells to the businesses it buys. Think insurance, think credit cards. If everything goes as planned, Teamshares will eventually replace the majority of vendors these companies use -- and become a brand known to many others outside of its immediate sphere. Certainly, it's among the more unique fintech models this reporter can recall. 

More here, edited for length.

Fore Biotherapeutics, a Philadelphia startup that is developing a drug targeting BRAF-altered tumors, including primary central nervous system tumors, raised a $75 million Series D round co-led by SR One and Medicxi, with previous investors OrbiMed, HBM Healthcare Investments, Novartis Venture Fund, 3B Future Health Fund, Cormorant Asset Management, Wellington Management, and Samsung Securities also piling on. Technical.ly has more here.

Modular, a year-old startup that's looking to provide a cheaper alternative to AI development for enterprises through its software, bypassing the need for expensive and in-demand chips from tech companies like Nvidia, says it just raised $100 million in new funding. General Catalyst led the round, joined by earlier backers Google Ventures, SV Angel, Greylock and Factory. It had raised $30 million in June last year. TechCrunch has more here.

Nomad, a four-year-old São Paulo startup that provides Brazilian consumers with access to financial services in the U.S., raised a $61 million Series B extension round at a $364 million post-money valuation. The deal lead was led by Tiger Global, while previous investors Stripes, Monashees, Spark Capital, Propel, Globo Ventures, and Abstract Ventures also took part. The company has raised a total of $117.8 million. FinTech Futures has more here.

Nursa, a five-year-old Salt Lake City startup that helps hospitals and other health organizations recruit nurses, raised an $80 million Series B round led by Drive Capital, with previous investors Pelion and Kickstart also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $103.2 million. More here.

Advanced Ionics, a Milwaukee, Wi., hydrogen company focused on heavy industry, has raised $12.5 million in Series A funding. BP Ventures led the round, with Clean Energy Ventures, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and GVP Climate also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Anytype, a five-year-old Berlin startup that allows users to create peer-to-peer networks to share, access, and distribute information, raised a $13.4 million in round led by Balderton Capital, with additional participation from Inflection and Square One. The company has raised a total of $14.6 million. Tech.eu has more here.

Cypago, a three-year-old Tel Aviv startup whose goal is to automate cybersecurity processes and workflows around cyber governance, risk, and compliance, raised a $13 million. Entrée Capital, Axon Ventures, and Jump Capital were the co-leads. The company has raised a total of $15 million. TechCrunch has more here.

FranklinWH, a four-year-old startup based in San Jose, Ca., that develops residential solar battery systems, raised a $25 million Series B round. Particle Future was the deal lead. More here.

Ikagai Labs, a four-year-old San Francisco startup whose platform is designed to enable companies to create and deploy graphical models to uncover relationships within tabular data, raised a $25 million Series A round led by Premji Invest, with Foundation Capital and E& Capital VC also contributing. The company has raised a total of $38 million. TechCrunch has more here.

LemFi, a three-year-old Oakland startup whose mission is to simplify remittance payments for immigrants, raised a $33 million Series A round led by Left Lane Capital, with additional funds provided by Y Combinator, Zrosk, Global Founders Capital, and Olive Tree. TechCabal has more here.

Cascade Biocatalysts, a three-year-old Denver startup whose technology is designed to help expensive enzymes last longer, raised a $2.6 million pre-seed round led by Ten VC, with Amplify.LA, Boost VC, Range Ventures, Spacecadet, and the Cool Climate Collective also pitching in. More here.

Crate, a startup based in Redwood City, Ca., that has built a scrapbooking site that uses AI to give users personalized content recommendations, raised a $5 million seed round. Investors included MaC Venture Capital, Bessemer, and Collide. The Information has more here.

HOLY, a three-year-old, Berlin-based direct-to-consumer brand that says it offers a healthier alternative to regular soft drinks, has raised a €10.5 million ($11.5 million) Series A round to scale its offering across Europe. The round was led by Left Lane Capital. Silicon Canals has more here.

Hungri Games, a four-year-old Istanbul startup that creates both mobile and web3 RPGs, raised a $1.9 million seed round. Bogazici Ventures led the transaction, with Roko Finance, Preston Labs, and Triple Dragon also investing. The company has raised a total of $3 million. More here.

Modyfi, a two-year-old Los Angeles startup that is developing an "AI-native" image editor, raised a $7 million seed round. New Enterprise Associates led the transaction, with General Catalyst, Craft, Habitat Partners (Red Antler), and Cursor Capital also joining in. More here.

Neurowyzr, a four-year-old Singapore startup that has developed a digital neuroscience assessment tool to identify potential brain decline, raised a $2.1 million seed round. Jungle Ventures and Peak XV co-led the deal. The company has raised a total of $3.3 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Panobi, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that is building a growth platform for product and marketing teams, raised a $5 million seed round. Index Ventures was the deal lead, with participation from Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield and other individual investors. More here.

Translucent, a one-year-old London startup that says it can simplify accounting for multinational and multi-entity businesses by allowing them to unify financial data and workflows on top of existing accounting software, raised a $6.3 million seed round. Chalfen Ventures and LocalGlobe co-led the deal. The company has raised a total of $9.7 million. Tech.eu has more here.

Weekday, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that provides recruiters with access to a database of more than 800,000 engineers, raised a $2.2 million seed round led by Venture Highway. Forbes has more here.

Irreverent Labs, a two-year-old startup that says its AI technology enables anyone to create a video, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Samsung Next. Last year, the Bellevue, Wa.-based outfit raised $45 million in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. At the time, Irreverent was known as a blockchain company, one that had developed a robot cockfighting game called MechaFightClub that used non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The company insists now that the game was a way to showcase what is essentially a large machine learning model that will allow users to make videos using various inputs, from images to text to audio, later this year. TechCrunch has more here.

Nervous about raising your next fund? Brian Cashin, Vice President at Teamworthy Ventures has some advice! He’s sitting down with Affinity to talk about best practices for creating fund value—covering how to develop and execute a successful firmwide strategy and the metrics that matter for retaining your best LPs. Whether you’re raising now or just thinking about your next fund, these are invaluable insights on life post-investment! Register for the webinar on September 6.

Healthcare venture capital fund Questa Capital, a seven-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based later-stage healthcare-focused venture outfit, says it has closed its third fund with $397 million in capital commitments. to invest in healthcare companies. The fund plans to invest in 10 to 14 growth-stage healthcare companies over the next three to four years. Since Questa launched -- it was cofounded by a veteran of NEA and of Parthenon Capital -- it has now raised more than $1 billion, it says. More here.

Walmart is planning its longest drone deliveries yet by teaming up with Alphabet's Wing unit at two Dallas-area stores. The Wing drones will be able to drop off food and household essentials as far as six miles from the stores, says a Walmart exec. Bloomberg has more here.

Shares of Better.com were hammered today after the digital mortgage company completed its long-delayed SPAC merger and began to trade as a public company for the first time. TechCrunch has more here.

Donald Trump returned to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, tonight after a hiatus of more than two years. Trump posted a link to his website and a photo of his mug shot in his first new post on X since Twitter banned his account after the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

More electric vehicles are being pumped out of car factories than ever before — but some dealers don't want them as EV inventory piles up on dealership lots. Business Insider has more here.

Dropbox, a provider of online data storage, is ending its unlimited option, saying a small handful of customers were using massive amounts of resources that had the potential to degrade the cloud service for the rest of its clients. (Thanks, dummies.) Bloomberg has more here.

Apple’s Beats by Dre just made its largest investment in name, image and likeness deals with college athletes to date, signing 15 college players and expanding an effort that began with a few individual deals. Terms of the athletes' deals weren't disclosed. Bloomberg has more here.

The inheritance case that could unravel an art dynasty.

A $4 million Costa Rica estate owned by Toms Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie has hit the market.

A Gateway Bronco Luxe-GT made of Aviator Nation hoodies.

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