Guilty on all counts, questions about Starlink, and Jeff Bezos ditches Seattle for Miami

Thursday! We've back from an annual media mixer in San Francisco that was last held on November 9, 2022 -- the very same day Binance walked away from a possible deal to acquire and save its onetime rival FTX. (The decision reportedly followed just a few hours of due diligence.) That is how you bookend a chapter in Silicon Valley.

As were saying, this one didn't take long. FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has been found guilty of fraud and money laundering on all seven counts. The jury took only four hours to reach a verdict on six of the counts. SBF faces a total possible sentence of 115 years.  

Could Starlink go public soon? Elon Musk previously said that he would spin Starlink out of Space X and take it public once its revenues were more predictable, and today, he tweeted that Starlink is now at cash flow breakeven. 

In newly unredacted portions of its lawsuit against Amazon, the Federal Trade Commission accuses Amazon executives of deliberately deleting Signal messages about improperly manipulating prices on its platform in order to rake in $1.4 billion in extra cash.

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Animoca Brands, the nine-year-old Hong Kong startup that has developed Web3 games such as The Sandbox and invested in blockchain gaming and NFT companies such as Dapper Labs and OpenSea, raised a $50 million round from Saudi Arabia’s NEOM Company. The investment will be divided equally between the purchase of convertible notes and secondary shares. The company has raised a total of $500+ million. VentureBeat has more here. 

Atom Bank, a nine-year-old startup based in Durham, UK, that operates an app-based bank, raised a $121.8 million round at a $412 million valuation, a 17% decrease in valuation from last year's previous round, per the Financial Times. The round was led by previous investors BBVA, Toscafund, and Infinity Investment Partners. AltFi has more here.

Infinitum, an Austin startup that develops high-efficiency, sustainable industrial motors, raised a $185 million Series E round led by Just Climate, with additional participation from Galvanize Climate Solutions and NGP as well as previous investors Alliance Resource Partners, Rockwell Automation, Riverstone Holdings, Chevron Technology Ventures, Cottonwood Technology Fund, and Ajax Strategies. The company has raised a total of $350 million. Reuters has more here.

Cowbell, a four-year-old Palo Alto startup that provides cyber threat monitoring and insurance against breaches or ransomware attacks, raised a $25 million round. Aramco Ventures' growth fund, Prosperity7 Ventures, was the deal lead. VentureBeat has more here.

Genome Insight, a three-year-old San Diego startup that has developed a genomic test to help doctors and patients make better decisions about cancer care, raised a $23 million Series B-2 round led by Samsung Ventures, Asan Foundation, SCL Group, and Ignite Innovation. More here.

Kuva Space, a seven-year-old startup based in Espoo, Finland, that builds and deploys nanosatellites in order to perform hyperspectral Earth studies of crops, minerals, and gas, raised a $17.6 million Series A round co-led by previous investors Voima Ventures and Nordic Foodtech VC, with Earth VC and Springvest also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Matic, a six-year-old startup based in Mountain View, Ca., that makes a robot vacuum that does not send information to the cloud, raised a $24 million Series A round. Investors included GitHub co-founder Nat Friedman, Stripe co-founders John and Patrick Collison, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, and Twitter co-founder and Block CEO Jack Dorsey. The company has raised a total of $29.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Payroll Integrations, a seven-year-old San Diego startup that enables companies to help their employees plan their financial futures by connecting payroll data with retirement, health savings accounts, and other benefit plans, raised a $20 million led by Arthur Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Xage Security, a seven-year-old Palo Alto startup whose software helps clients stop network attacks, raised a $20 million Series B2 round. Piva Capital, March Capital, SCF Partners, Overture Climate Fund, Valor Equity Partners, Chevron Technology Ventures, and Science Applications International invested in the deal. The company has raised a total of $80 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Agentio, a New York startup founded this year that operates a programmatic platform for buying and selling sponsored creator-read ads integrated with YouTube content, raised a $4.3 million seed round co-led by Craft Ventures and AlleyCorp, with Antler, Protagonist, and Permanent Capital also joining in. AdExchanger has more here.

Bikmo, a 12-year-old company based in Chester, UK, that sells cycle and e-mobility insurance policies, raised a $4.1 million Series A extension led by Puma Private Equity. The company has raised a total of $6.5 million. Silicon Canals has more here.

Dashtoon, a one-year-old startup based in San Francisco and London that uses generative AI tools to help writers turn their stories into comics, raised a $5 million seed round co-led by Matrix Partners India and Stellaris Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

EarlyBird, a four-year-old Chicago startup whose app lets families and friends gift investments to children, raised a $4.5 million seed round led by Ideo Ventures, with additional capital provided by ResilienceVC, Sweater Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Wintrust Bank, Lightspeed Scout Program, and Parallel as well as previous investors 776 Ventures, Fiat Ventures, and RareBreed Ventures. The company has raised a total of $10.9 million. TechCrunch has more here.

FERO Payment Science, a one-year-old Amsterdam startup that gives ecommerce retailers the ability to offer their customers customized checkout experiences, raised a $3 million round. Investors included Coatue, Volta Ventures, and Antler. Tech Funding News has more here.

Govly, a two-year-old Denver startup whose software makes it easier for companies to spot federal contract opportunities, raised a $9.5 million Series A round at a $41 million post-money valuation. Insight Partners was the deal lead. TechCrunch has more here.

Jona, a startup based in Stamford, CT, that makes an at-home microbiome profiling kit that uses AI to analyze an individual's microbiome, raised a $5 million round. Breyer Capital and Meridian Street Capital were the co-leads. More here.

Modulus Labs, a Palo Alto startup that uses zero knowledge proofs to establish that an AI model was executed correctly, raised a $6.3 million seed round co-led by Variant and 1kx, with Floodgate, Inflection, Alliance, Bankless, Stanford Blockchain Builders, and Global Coin Research also taking part. CoinDesk has more here.

Nu Quantum, a five-year-old startup based in Cambridge, UK that is focused on creating networks of quantum computers, raised an $8.5 million pre-Series A round co-led by previous investors Amadeus Capital Partners and IQ Capital as well as new investor Expeditions Fund, with Presidio Ventures backed by Sumitomo Corporation, the National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF), and Deeptech Labs as well as prior backers Ahren Capital, Seraphim Capital, The University of Cambridge, and Martlet also piling on. Tech.eu has more here.

P0 Security, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that helps security teams manage access to cloud assets, raised a $5 million seed round co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and SV Angel. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Stockpress, a five-year-old Boston startup that has developed a file management system encompassing disparate cloud hosting services  and media types, raised a $1.8 million seed round led by Argon Ventures and including York IE, Two Lanterns VC, and The Fund XX/Everywhere Ventures as well as previous investors Stage 2 Capital and deftly.vc. More here.

Treads, a four-year-old startup based in Park City, Ut., that offers a car maintenance subscription service, raised a $4.6 million seed round led by Mucker Capital, with Kickstart Seed Fund, Peak Ventures, Royal Street Ventures, and Convoi Ventures also pitching in. More here.

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ex/ante, new, New York-based outfit, has garnered $33 million into capital commitments to focus on “agentic tech” — or tech that relates to human agency and rights in the digital age. Spun out of Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic venture arm of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, ex/ante tells Forbes it will invest in pre-seed and seed stage startups.

Norrsken22 has raised a debut fund of $205 million to invest in Series A and B startups in Africa that are focused on  fintech, edtech, medtech/health tech, and market-enabling technologies. More here. 

Pagerduty, a company that centralizes alerts and notifications from different monitoring tools and systems and routs them to the right people, is acquiring Jeli.io, a four-year-old San Francisco startup whose incident response bots are used by customers like Slack, Zendesk, SentinelOne, F and LastPass. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Jeli.io has raised a total of $19 million, and this past September, it raised a $15 million Series A round led by Addition, with Boldstart Ventures, Heavybit, and Harrison Metal also taking part. Pagerduty went public in 2019.

HBO Chairman Casey Bloys is eating crow after encouraging his staff to create fake Twitter accounts to attack TV critics who panned HBO's shows. It was “a very, very dumb idea to vent my frustration,” he admitted at a news conference today.

Jeff Bezos is leaving Seattle for Miami.

Why Sam Bankman-Fried's defense was so bad. Plus, eight unforgettable moments from his trial, and the sad situation his parents find themselves in.

The judge sided with the defense in a pretrial hearing today surrounding charges that Charlie Javice, founder of Frank, a business purporting to help students secure college loans, defrauded JP Morgan Chase when she sold Frank to the bank for $175 million. (From the It's A Small World department: Javice is represented by Alex Spiro, Elon Musk's former consigliere.) 

Elon Musk told told UK prime minister Rishi Sunak there “will come a time where no job is needed” as the he described AI as the “most disruptive force in history” in a wide-ranging conversation.

His  job was to make Instagram safe for teens. Then his 14-year-old showed him what the app was really like.

The directorial debut of the year, according to The New Yorker. 

The 20 most expensive places to live in the U.S., per U.S. News & World Report.

Sweden (not Switzerland).

The Fall Guy is back. 

HiDock H1 ChatGPT audio dock. (We're wondering if they can use "ChatGPT" in this product name, and yet, there it is.)

An '89 Lamborghini that a drug-addled Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) wrecked during the filming of The Wolf of Wall Street is expected to sell for $1.5 to $2 million at auction.

If you own an F-150 Lightning but miss the sound of a big stinking engine, this $1,600 speaker system will make your EV growl.

Dealmakers are feeling optimistic about the year ahead, but do you have the right strategies in place to maintain your competitive edge? Download Affinity's new deal sourcing guide and get insights from firms like Fifty Years, 01 Advisors, and 8VC about how they're thinking about sourcing deals in 2024. Get your copy of the guide today.