SmileDirectClub's bankruptcy filing, Vuori's designs on an IPO, and the baby-faced racer winning over Formula 1 fans

It's National Coffee Day, everybody! (You never know, it could be a trivia question or crossword answer this weekend.)

Speaking of the weekend, we're fast sinking into ours, but before we flip the switch over here, we have a new StrictlyVC Download for you featuring Hans Swildens, the founder of Industry Ventures, the now 23-year-old, San Francisco-based investment firm that this week closed on $1.7 billion across two new funds. We talked with him about the funds' different strategies, including funding small tech buyouts, which is one of the biggest unexploited opportunities for tech investors right now, as Swildens sees it. The reason? Most mid-market private equity firms aren't paying attention to smaller software companies with nowhere to go on their own. "We saw the same thing in the venture space," Swildens said earlier this week. "We saw all the venture funds move upmarket, and then all these seed funds got created. It's the same exact thing in the tech buyout market." 

Special thanks to Tegus for sponsoring this week's podcast. On November 8th, they are hosting Tegus Converge, billed as the first virtual event centered on the world of investor research. Find out more here.

The Supreme Court has agreed to rule on whether Florida and Texas can ban social media companies from removing posts about issues like the coronavirus pandemic and claims of election fraud.

California would become the first state to require venture capital firms to disclose the race and gender of the founders of the companies they fund under a bill currently awaiting Governor Gavin Newsom’s signature.

Elon Musk's attempt to livestream his visit to the U.S.-Mexico border on X last night was interrupted after only four minutes when the video froze. "Please fix this," he wrote in a company-wide email.

Are you asking the right questions of your fund administrator? More than just delivering a list of financial reports, the right fund administrator creates enterprise-building value at the intersection of your finance and investor relations teams, leveraging innovative technology to strengthen partnerships between you and your LPs. Juniper Square’s latest guide includes the four things you need to consider to ensure you find the right administrator from the start, as well as probing questions to ask during the vetting process. Download it here now.

Perenna, a five-year-old London startup that sells long-term fixed-rate mortgages, raised a $52 million round led by Silverstripe Investment Management. The company has raised a total of $92.2 million. Tech.eu has more here.

Albo, a seven-year-old Mexico City neobank with over two million customers, raised a $40 million Series C round led by Morpheus Ventures, with additional participation from Nazca Ventures and Valar Ventures. FinTech Futures has more here.

Collective Liquidity, a three-year-old startup based in San Luis Obispo, Ca., that enables employees to reduce their risk from over-concentration in a single company by exchanging shares tax free for an interest in a diversified portfolio of leading unicorns, raised a $12 million Series A round. Aliya Capital Partners led the transaction. More here.

Farther, a four-year-old New York startup that has built a wealth management portal that offers clients a single, unified view of all of their financial products and holdings via one login, raised a $31 million Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with Bessemer Venture Partners, Cota Capital, Khosla Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, and Moneta Venture Capital also taking part. The company has raised a total of $53 million. Wealth Management has more here.

Infravision, a six-year-old Sydney startup that uses drones to upgrade electrical power lines, raised a $23 million Series A round led by Energy Impact Partners, with Equinor Ventures and Edison International also participating. More here.

IYK, a two-year-old New York startup that helps brands like Adidas and Johnnie Walker link digital collectibles to real-life products, raised a $16.8 million seed round. Andreessen Horowitz was the deal lead, with 1kx, Collab Currency, Lattice Capital, and Gmoney also contributing. NFTgators has more here.

Laverock Therapeutics, a two-year-old UK startup that is developing a gene silencing platform for the creation of programmable advanced human therapeutic applications, raised a $16.5 million seed round led by Calculus Capital, with Eli Lilly and Company, Mercia Ventures, Maven Capital Partners, Eos, UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund, and Tekfen Ventures also investing. More here.

Neara, a seven-year-old Sydney startup that uses AI to create 3D models for engineering-grade simulations and analytics, raised a $24 million Series B round. Investors included Prosus Ventures as well as existing investors Skip Capital and Square Peg Capital. More here.

Nextdata, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that says it is building a data mesh operating system, raised a $12 million seed round. Greycroft and Acrew Capital were the co-leads. TechCrunch has more here.

Nexusflow, a startup based in Palo Alto, Ca., that is using generative AI to help companies make sense of cybersecurity data, raised a $10.6 million seed round led by Point72 Ventures and including Fusion Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Rated Labs, a one-year-old London startup that helps users understand the current and historical health of Ethereum's validator set, raised a $12.9 million Series A round. Archetype was the deal lead, with Placeholder, 1confirmation, Cherry, Semantic, Robot Ventures, Chorus One, Factor, and Maelstrom also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $15.3 million. NFTgators has more here.

Atinary Technologies, a four-year-old startup based in Lausanne, Switzerland, that is using machine learning to speed up the R&D process for discovering breakthrough materials and molecules, raised a $5 million seed round led by AgFunder led and joined by Cherubic Ventures. AgFunder News has more here.

Axial Shift, an Austin startup that creates gamified incentives for restaurant workers through real-time data from POS systems, raised a $4 million. Silverton Partners was the deal lead. More here.

The Grand, a New York startup that has built an executive coaching platform, raised a $4.7 million round. Seven Seven Six was the deal lead. Fortune has more here.

Grow Credit, a five-year-old startup based in Santa Monica, Ca., that helps people build credit by managing their subscription payments, raised a $10 million Series A round from USAA. More here.

Partum Health, a three-year-old Chicago startup that specializes in interdisciplinary pregnancy and postpartum support, raised a $3.1 million seed round led by True Wealth Ventures, with Magic Fund, The Fund Midwest, Tawani Ventures, Bridge Ventures, and Pioneer Healthcare Partners also chipping in. FemTech Insider has more here.

Revio, a two-year-old startup based in Cape Town, South Africa, that helps businesses collect digital payments from their customers, raised a $5.2 million seed round led by QED Investors, with Partech and previous investors Speedinvest, RaliCap, and Everywhere VC also contributing. TechCrunch has more here.

Verisoul, a one-year-old Austin startup that has developed a SaaS platform for detecting and blocking fake users, raised a $3.25 million seed round led by BITKRAFT Ventures, with King River, Third Prime, Haskey, and Mike Monovoukas also anteing up. The company has raised a total of $3.8 million. SecurityWeek has more here.

Treble is a B2B tech PR agency that specializes in working with venture-backed startups, enterprises, and venture capital firms. Our 30-day Funding Accelerator Program to publicly launch funding rounds and new funds closed by VC firms has opened up availability in Cohort 4. With over 100 funding launches executed, we’ve secured feature articles for clients in media outlets including TechCrunch, CNBC, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, and VentureBeat, as well as regional and vertical earned media coverage. The results? 24 portfolio exits and counting, with a value prop of increasing investor awareness, driving revenue generation, and transforming challenger brands into market leaders. To talk about how we can amplify your brand, learn more here.

Letterboxd, a 12-year-old bootstrapped company based in Auckland, New Zealand, that operates a social network for recommending and reviewing movies, sold a majority stake to a Canadian public company called Tiny at a $50+ million valuation. The New York Times has more here.

SmileDirectClub, the at-home teeth straightening startup, just filed for bankruptcy, four years after its inauspicious debut as a publicly traded company. The outfit, whose original backers included Kleiner Perkins and Spark Capital, was once valued at $3.2 billion by its optimistic venture investors.

Activewear brand Vuori is reportedly talking to investment banks about an IPO as soon as the middle of next year. According to Bloomberg, the apparel company would seek in an IPO to top its $4 billion valuation in a 2021 funding round led by SoftBank Group Vision Fund 2. (That's more than The Gap's current market cap.) More here.

General Catalyst has launched a wealth advisory business led by a former private wealth executive at now-defunct First Republic Bank and has hired four advisors to seed it. David Breslin, formerly a senior vice president at First Republic, today announced the launch of Catalytic Wealth, a registered investment advisory firm owned by General Catalyst.

Su Zhu, a founder of the crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, has been arrested by Singaporean authorities. 

According to data compiled by the research firm Similarweb, the once buzzy social app BeReal has been losing traction in the U.S. BeReal is pushing back on the report, however, saying it now has 25 million daily users.

China's decision to force Apple to register foreign apps could have big consequences for social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and X.

Can FTX be revived without Sam Bankman-Fried? Wired takes a look.

Palantir is worming its way into England's National Health Service.

Living to 120 is becoming an imaginable prospect.

Group chat culture is out of control.

The potty-mouthed, baby-faced Japanese racer who became a cult star.

Nepo baby.

The Plaza Hotel is offering you your very own Home Alone experience.

A Greenwich mega-manse that just feels so right.

From sourcing the best deals, to providing top portfolio company support, to securing LPs for your next fund, relationships are critical to getting you into the right conversations. Affinity is the relationship intelligence expert and in this new guide, the team explains how to get the most out of your network to drive firmwide success. Download your copy today.