YC's tough love, a high-profile spat poised to get uglier, and e-commerce rollups melt down

The Friday before a long weekend? That's our jam.

Hope you thoroughly enjoy the next few days, everyone. If you're looking for a 'Labor Day listen,' we have a fresh StrictlyVC Download for you with featured guest Heidi Roizen of Threshold Ventures who has her own podcast about make-or-break challenges that founders face. 

We talked with Roizen about some of the biggest issues founders are struggling with at this very moment; we also ran some headlines by her to get her take on what they really mean. (Spoiler alert: unlike a lot of VCs, she doesn't think ARM's "blockbuster IPO" is going to blow open the IPO window.) We always enjoy talking with her; hope you enjoy listening. 

See you back here on Tuesday.

Meta may allow Instagram and Facebook users in Europe to pay to avoid ads, reports the New York Times. The subscription plan is a response to European Union policies and court rulings to restrict Meta’s data-collection practices.

The X social media platform formerly known as Twitter will start collecting the biometric and employment information of its users, according to an update yesterday to its privacy policy. X said the changes have not currently been implemented and will come into effect on Sept. 29. It is not clear how X plans to use the biometric information of users or how it will collect it, observes CNBC. Meanwhile, according to an update to another section of the policy, the company additionally plans to use the information it collects and other publicly available information to help train its machine learning and AI models. TechCrunch has more here.

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Beta Bionics, an eight-year-old Boston startup that has built an automated insulin delivery system that automatically adjusts insulin doses based on real-time glucose levels, raised a $100 million Series D round co-led by Sands Capital and Omega Funds, with Marshall Wace as well as previous investors Soleus Capital, Eventide Asset Management, Farallon Capital, Perceptive Advisors, RTW Investments, ArrowMark Partners, and Pura Vida Investments also piling on. The company has raised a total of $293.5 million. More here.

nT-Tao, a four-year-old Israeli startup that aims to develop a compact and scalable nuclear fusion energy reactor, announced that Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital contributed an undisclosed sum to a $22 million round that the company closed this past February. More here.

Trellis, a six-year-old Los Angeles startup that has built an AI-powered research assistant that can help lawyers find relevant legal documents and information within state trial court data, raised a $15 million Series B round led by Top Tier Capital Partners, with additional participation from Headline, Okapi Venture Capital, Calibrate Ventures, Craft Ventures, Revel Partners, and Earthlink founder Sky Dayton. The company has raised a total of $35.6 million. Legaltech News has more here.

Frontier Risk Group, a one-year-old startup based in Westport, Ct., that offers a variety of insurance products to cannabis businesses, including property, liability, and crop insurance, raised a $3.1 million seed round led by Snoop Dogg's Casa Verde, with Euclid VC and Inter-Atlantic Capital Group also anteing up. FinTech Global has more here.

Parallel, a startup founded this year based in Lehi, Ut., that is developing a tool to help businesses with headcount forecasting, raised a $1.85 million pre-seed round led by Penny Jar Capital, with Convoi Ventures, Peak Capital, and Frazier Group also investing. TechBuzz News has more here.

OneID, a three-year-old London startup that provides bank-verified digital identification services, raised a $1.3 million round. ACF Investors was the deal lead. Tech Funding News has more here.

Teamworthy Ventures places fund value creation at the heart of their strategic focus—both to maximize returns and lay the foundation for their next fundraising round. Learn more when you join Affinity’s upcoming webinar with Brian Cashin, Vice President at Teamworthy Ventures. He’ll discuss why the approach works, how you can replicate it, and what technology you need to power it. Join him on September 6.

Apollo Global Management is trying to salvage an ill-timed bet it made two years ago on Amazon aggregators, says Bloomberg. Apollo in 2021 pledged as much as $500 million in debt to Victory Park Capital, a leading investor in multiple aggregators. Victory Park has been trying to sell one of those aggregators, named Perch, in a deal that would involve offloading about $400 million in debt. Apollo reportedly doesn't want to write down what could be hundreds of millions of dollars so has gotten more involved in trying to sell it, since Victory Park has been unsuccessful. More here.

In related news: Investment management firm CoVenture said it was preparing to discuss restructuring options for Benitago, a struggling e-commerce startup it funded, when it was surprised to learn the business which rolls up popular brands sold on Amazon instead filed bankruptcy. Also in Bloomberg.

British chip designer Arm is eyeing a target valuation between $50 billion and $55 billion for what is shaping up to be the year’s largest IPO, reports the WSJ. SoftBank acquired Arm, whose chips are used in most smartphones and mobile devices, for roughly $32 billion in 2016, later selling 25% of the business for $8 billion to its Vision Fund unit. But Arm’s targeted price range is below the $64 billion value implied by SoftBank Group’s recent deal to buy that stake back from the Vision Fund. More here.

Andrew Bialecki built Klaviyo into an email titan by breaking all the norms. Now he's taking it public as its largest shareholder. (His 38.1% Klaviyo stake is "as high as I have seen," Peter Walker, head of insights at Carta, tells Insider.)

A little over a year after Amazon bought concierge primary health-care start-up One Medical for $3.9 billion, CEO Amir Dan Rubin is leaving the company. The Washington Post has more here.

The already high-profile spat between Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Digital Currency Group founder Barry Silbert is reportedly poised to get even uglier. Gemini is trying to rally other creditors behind a plan to wring more money out of DCG to help pay back the more than $3.5 billion owed by its bankrupt lending subsidiary, Genesis, according to The Information. More here.

Famed accelerator Y Combinator has removed an Indian startup from its batch after discovering “irregularities” at the firm, reports TechCrunch. Medobed, an Indian startup that promises medicine delivery in 10 minutes, was initially selected in Y Combinator’s S23 batch; in recent weeks, Y Combinator severed its ties with the startup, and a YC partner suggested that prospective investors not engage with its team. In an email, a YC group partner said that YC had “discovered irregularities” at the startup that broke the firm’s ethics policy, but did not elaborate. More here.

Parents spend about $19 billion a year on youth sports programs, travel teams and specialized coaches, a sociologist at Villanova University who has studied youth sports in America, tells the WSJ. More here.

A dive into the "testosterone crisis" that's worrying Silicon Valley denizens.

Buying the best EV under $60,000.

Getting an MBA closes the gender pay gap -- for a little while.

Jimmy Kimmel, live in Los Angeles.

The new Ressence Type 3 EE in "Eucalyptus" green.

Disrupt — the original startup conference — stays fresh, relevant and focused on founders, investors, and the future of tech year after year. Don't miss this year's show, with Kevin Systrom, Dario Amodei, Katie Haun, Shaquille O'Neal, Meredith Whittaker, and Reed Jobs, among others. It's coming up fast. Grab your ticket here!