A dopey DraftKings promotion, the kickoff of Google's antitrust trial, and how to watch the iPhone 15 reveal tomorrow

Welcome back from the weekend. If you happened to wonder why Friday's email arrived Saturday morning, our typically reliable email service provider was wrestling with some issues that are hopefully resolved by now. (If you are again receiving this about 12 hours later than usual, then we have our answer.)

The Google anti-trust trial is kicking off tomorrow, and the government's case against the search giant is looking very similar to the DOJ's case against Microsoft almost 25 years ago.

MGM Resorts is experiencing a "cybersecurity issue" that has shut down ATMs and slot machines and prevented guests from using their digital room keys.

DraftKings backs away from an ill-advised 9/11 promotion.

How to watch the iPhone 15 reveal tomorrow.

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Ascend Elements, an eight-year-old company that recycles lithium batteries into black mass and produces cathode active materials (CAM) and precursor cathode active materials (PCAM), just announced a massive $542 million Series D round. BlackRock-linked Decarbonization Partners led the funding. Some other big names also chipped in, including funds managed by Singapore and Qatar, as well as climate-tech investor Fifth Wall. TechCrunch has more here.

Getir, the Istanbul startup that operates an online grocery delivery service similar to Instacart, is reportedly in the market to raise a $500 million round at a $2.5 billion valuation, a $9.3 billion valuation haircut from its previous 2022 round, according to the Financial Times. The deal is being led by previous investors Mubadala Investment Company, G Squared, and Michael Moritz. The company has raised a total of $1.8 billion. The FT has more here.

Perfios, a 15-year-old Bangalore company whose service aims to allow fintechs to automate loan decisions and gain insights into their customers' financial worthiness, raised a $229 million Series D round led by Kedaara Capital. More than 75% of the raise came via secondary sales; the resulting valuation was $900+ million. The company has raised a total of $384 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Kale Logistics Solutions, a 14-year-old Indian company that sells a suite of cloud-based software tools that aim to improve cargo management, has raised $30 million in fresh funding round as it eyes expansion in the U.S. and Europe. The Bengaluru-based private equity fund Creaegis Advisors led the Series B round; the startup raised its Series A round, of $5 million, in 2020. TechCrunch has more here.

Open Cosmos, an eight-year-old U.K. startup that is building “sustainable” low-earth orbit satellites and an end-to-end system for managing the data gathered through them, raised a $50 million co-led by ETF Partners, Trill Impact, and A&G, with Accenture Ventures, Banco Santander/InnoEnergy Climate Tech Fund, In-Q-Tel, Ireon, Wille Finance, and Claret Capital Partners also participating. The company has raised a total of $63 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Spiritus, a San Francisco startup that has developed a sorbent material to remove CO2 from the air, raised an $11 million round led by Khosla Ventures, with Page One Ventures also investing. More here.

Gem Health, a one-year-old Minneapolis startup that provides provides virtual specialty care for patients with sleep apnea, raised a $5 million seed round led by HealthTrend Capital, with Mairs & Power Venture Capital and previous investor Base10 Partners also pitching in. More here.

Inari, a Barcelona startup whose software is designed to automate and streamline insurance processes for insurance and reinsurance companies, raised a $5.2 million seed round. Caixa Capital Risc was the deal lead, while CDTI and an unnamed "industry partner" also took part. More here.

Mindtrip, a San Francisco startup founded this year that says it is building a generative AI travel platform to simplify the way travelers discover, plan, and book travel, raised a $7 million seed round. Costanoa Ventures was the deal lead. More here.

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Haystack, a 10-year-old, Bay Area-based seed stage outfit, has closed its seventh fund with $75 million in capital commitments, firm founder Semil Shah wrote in a letter posted to Twitter and elsewhere yesterday. Shah is also a venture partner with Lightspeed Venture Partners. Haystack now has roughly $210 million in assets under management. More here.

Moderna has agreed to pay German biotechnology company Immatics NV as much as $1.8 billion in a broad-ranging, multiyear collaboration on developing cancer therapies using messenger RNA and other technologies. Moderna has been seeking new ways to deploy its mRNA technology that quickly generated effective vaccines against the coronavirus, observes Bloomberg. As the outlet reports, cancer is one of the most promising potential applications, and Moderna is already working with Merck & Co. on a personalized cancer vaccine for melanoma and other tumors, but testing could take years to complete. More here.

According to Bloomberg, Arm's IPO is already oversubscribed ten times over. 

Instacart is targeting a valuation of roughly $8.6 billion to $9.3 billion in its imminent IPO, a fraction of what the grocery-delivery company was previously worth, the WSJ reported over the weekend. TechCrunch has more here. 

The marketing outfit Klaviyo is seeking a fully-diluted valuation of up to $8.4 billion in its IPO, it said today, as it becomes the latest company to tap a growing wave of stock market listings. The number is a climb-down from the $9.15 billion pre-money valuation at which Klaviyo last raised capital in 2021, observes Reuters. 

Neumora Therapeutics, backed by Amgen and SoftBank, is seeking a valuation of up to $2.74 billion in its U.S. initial public offering. The four-year-old outfit, which is developing drugs for brain disease, is offering 14.7 million shares at $16 to $18 apiece, its filing showed, potentially raising $264.8 million at the top end of the range. In addition to Amgen and SoftBank, other major shareholders include Arch Venture Partners and  Biomatics Capital Partners. Reuters has more here.

Car-sharing business Turo, which filed paperwork for an initial public offering last year, has restarted its plans to go public and could list shares as early as this fall, according to Bloomberg. Turo was founded 13 years ago in San Francisco. More here.

The biotech company Acelyrin, which raised more than $500 million in an IPO this year, ran into its first major setback today as its investigational anti-inflammatory drug missed the primary goal in a pivotal clinical trial. Acelyrin’s medicine, a subcutaneous treatment called izokibep, is meant to clear up lesions for patients with the common skin disease hidradenitis suppurativa, an inflammatory disorder that leads to abscesses and scars. But after 16 weeks of treatment, patients who received izokibep did not show significant improvements compared to those taking a placebo, failing the study’s primary endpoint, reports STAT. More here.

Key takeaways from Walter Isaacson's new book on Elon Musk. 

Haystack, the seed-stage firm that announced just announced its newest fund (see above), has also announced two promotions: Divya Dhulipala has been promoted to principal. Dhulipala joined Haystack in 2021 after working first for both March Capital and TrueBridge Capital Partners. Aashay Sanghvi has meanwhile been promoted to partner. Sanghvi joined the firm in 2019 after working first for the furniture startup Branch and before this on special projects for the seed-stage Brooklyn-based outfit Notation Capital.

Natalie Sportelli has joined the New York-based consumer venture capital firm Bullish as a director. Sportelli was most recently the head of content at a Forerunner Ventures-backed startup called Thingtesting. More here.

Divvy Homes, the rent-to-own startup that gained attention and investment from Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global and other high-profile investors, is laying off 94 employees. The layoffs — its third round in the past year — represents the latest blow to the real estate tech company. TechCrunch has more here.

Chargebee, a 12-year-old, venture-backed, Chennai, India-based  revenue management platform that allows SaaS businesses to automate revenue operations, has laid off about 10% of its global workforce, affecting between 100 to 120 employees. The move comes 10 months after an initial round of layoffs that also impacted (at the time) roughly 10% of its employees. Inc42 has more here.

Nvidia is leveraging its dominance in AI hardware to generate cloud software revenue. The move puts Nvidia in competition with traditional cloud providers that buy its chips. The Information has more here.

Speaking of Nvidia, Reliance Industries’ Jio Platforms has partnered with the GPU giant to work on building a large language model that is trained on India’s diverse languages, the two firms said Friday, as the largest Indian corporate firm expands into the fast-growing but locally uncontested space. TechCrunch has the story.

Speaking of giant beneficiaries of the AI boom, the FTC is reportedly setting its sights on generative AI companies.

How Barstool built an empire by swiping sports highlights.

If you're baffled by the social media stars your kid follows, you're not alone. 

Private banker to the stars.

New York haunted house advises visitors to "bring a change of underwear."

Why Surfline's haters call it "Surflies."

Herman Miller Vintage.

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