Meta returns to China, Snap restructures, and a look at Humane's highly hyped AI pin

Mark Zuckerberg's Mandarin lessons really paid off. According to the WSJ, Meta has struck a preliminary deal to sell a new, lower-priced version of its virtual-reality headset in China, regaining a foothold among consumers in the country 14 years after Facebook was shut out.

Google, the Mountain VIew colossus, definitely does not want to talk about its secret app store deal with Spotify.

Everything you need to know about the Humane Ai Pin, which was announced today. ("Could it be the device that comes after the smartphone?" the New York Times wonders.)

The building of a venture fund. After 12 years as an entrepreneur and operator (Bonobos, TellApart, Floored), Dave Eisenberg founded Zigg Capital, a tech venture capital fund focused on accelerating the combination of real property and technology. On The Distribution by Juniper Square, Dave shares what it’s like to transition from entrepreneur to investor, how Zigg Capital sources deals and handles portfolio construction, and which sections of real estate have been the fastest (and slowest) to adopt the latest technology. Check it out here now.

Elucid, a ten-year-old Boston company whose software uses machine learning to analyze tissue types and predict the the risk of a heart attack or stroke, raised an $80 million Series C round. Elevage Medical Technologies was the deal lead. The company has raised a total of $121 million. MassDevice has more here.

OrsoBio, a two-year-old startup based in Menlo Park, Ca., that is developing treatments for metabolic conditions like obesity and diabetes, raised a $60 million Series A round co-led by Longitude Capital and Enavate Sciences, with additional participation from Eli Lily and Company as well as previous investors Samsara BioCapital and NuevaBio. The company has raised a total of $97 million. BioPharma Dive has more here.

Arch, a seven-year-old New York startup that aims to automate the operations and reporting for private investments, raised a $20 million Series A round led by Menlo Ventures, with Carta, Citi Ventures, GPS Investment Partners, and Focus Financial Partners as well as previous investors Craft Ventures and Quiet Capital also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $25.5 million. Wealth Management has more here.

Eleos Health, a three-year-old startup based in Cambridge, Ma., whose technology analyzes behavioral health sessions and pulls out key data points for clinicians to analyze, raised a $40 million Series B round led by Menlo Ventures, with F-Prime Capital, Eight Roads, Arkin Digital Health, SamsungNext, and Ion also taking part. The company has raised a total of $68 million. CTech has more here.

Noice, a three-year-old Helsinki startup that aims to combine livestreaming and multiplayer gaming into one platform, raised a $21 million round from Sedona Holdings, Team Builder Ventures, Bitkraft, and F4 Fund as well as numerous angels such as Miki Kuusi and Riku Mäkelä, the cofounders of Supercell. The company has raised a total of $27 million. VentureBeat has more here. 

Snaptrude, a six-year-old New York startup whose software allows architects, designers, developers, and contractors to collaborate on the design of a building, raised a $14 million Series A round. Foundamental and Accel co-led the deal. The company has raised a total of $21.8 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Stability AI, a reportedly beleaguered three-year-old London startup that creates large language models and diffusion models, such as Stable Diffusion, which converts text into images, raised a convertible note just under $50 million from  Intel. Bloomberg has more here. 

Tabnine, an 11-year-old Tel Aviv company that uses generative AI to generate code and help developers write code faster and more accurately, raised a $25 million Series B round led by Telstra Ventures, with Atlassian Ventures, Elaia, Headline, Hetz Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and TPY Capital also contributing. The company has raised a total of $55 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Betterleave, a one-year-old Austin startup that helps companies build and launch bereavement care programs, raised a $2.4 million round led by Chingona Ventures, with Bread and Butter Ventures, Vitalize VC, Wisdom Ventures Fund, and AARP also stepping up. More here.

Cercle, a startup that says it will use AI to improve women’s health, particularly with regard to infertility issues, raised a $4.2 million round. Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners was the deal lead. CNBC has more here.

Eilla AI, a startup that provides automation tools that assist investment firms with deal flow, raised a $1.5 million seed round led by Eleven Ventures, with Fuel Ventures also participating. UKTN has more here.

Flip AI, a San Francisco startup that uses a large language model to troubleshoot data observability incidents, raised a $6.5 million seed round led by Factory, with additional investors including Morgan Stanley Next Level Fund and GTM Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Forum, a one-year-old New York startup that has built a marketplace that connects people with peer support groups, raised a $5.3 million seed round led by NextView Ventures and including MBX Capital, Cue Ball Capital, and City Light Capital. More here.

Ghost Autonomy, a six-year-old startup based in Mountain View, Ca., that develops multi-modal large language models to help cars understand the world around them, raised a $5 million round from the OpenAI Startup Fund. The company has raised a total of $212 million. More here.

Greenlite, a San Francisco startup founded this year that provides AI staff for bank and fintech compliance teams that are able to use large language models to investigate potential compliance risks, raised a $4.8 million seed round. Greylock led the investment, with Y Combinator also anteing up. More here.

Lunar, a Tel Aviv and San Francisco startup that helps developers manage their API bills, raised a $6 million seed round led by Uncork Capital, with previous investor Angular Ventures also chipping in. TechCrunch has more here.

Ozone, a two-year-old San Francisco startup whose collaborative video editor uses AI to helps content creators speed up repetitive editing tasks, raised a $7.1 million seed round from Y Combinator, NEA, General Catalyst, LGVP, Bluewatch Ventures, Polymath Capital Partners, Pioneer Fund, SOMA Capital, and Olive Tree Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Pioneer, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that uses AI to help climate tech companies track down government funding options, raised a $2.9 million seed round led by Blue Bear Capital, with Collaborative Fund, Soma Capital, Cool Climate Collective, and Kayan Ventures also opting in. More here.

Ridepanda, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that helps enterprise customers like Amazon offer e-bikes and e-scooters to their employees, raised a $7.5 million round consisting of equity and debt. The co-leads were Blackhorn Ventures and Yamaha Motor Ventures, with Proeza Ventures, Porsche Ventures, Oyster Ventures, Somersault Ventures, General Catalyst, and Urban Us Capital also piling on. TechCrunch has more here.

Tidal Cyber, a one-year-old startup based in Baltimore, Md., that has developed a cyberthreat analysis platform, raised a $5 million seed round led by Squadra Ventures. SiliconANGLE has more here.

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New pre-seed funds are popping up everywhere.

Tumblr's death throes may finally be nearing an end: parent company Auttomatic is absorbing the staff of the social network site, which Auttomatic CEO Matt Mullenweg admitted is losing over $30 million a year. 

Slimy social site Omegle is shutting down thanks to a lawsuit from a sexual abuse survivor. 

Zeekr, a Chinese luxury EV offshoot of Geely Automobile Holdings, is apparently gearing up to go public. 

Comedian Sarah Silverman has a problem with ChatGPT.

X CEO Linda Yaccarino tweeted that she wished Elon Musk's new ChatGPT competitor, Grok, had been around to explain how babies are made to her kids.

Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman takes a dig at Musk's new AI company and its "rebellious" Grok chatbot.

Snap is laying off 20 folks in product management.

It looks like dating site Match may have netted more than $300 million in settling with Google over an app store antitrust lawsuit.

Google's antitrust trial is laying bare its renewed animosity with Microsoft.

MicroStrategy's stock price has soared 250% this year thanks in large part to the many billions of dollars it holds in Bitcoin, which itself has risen 122% in the same period.

OpenAI wants to partner with third parties to build public and private data sets for AI model training sounds, and also, presumably, improve its own performance in the process.

A new study finds that large language models can encode their reasoning in a way that is undecipherable to human readers. 

An inside look at the "empire" of an OnlyFans creator.

The proper way to eat peas.

A new trailer for Inside Out 2.

A temporary tattoo device. 

A dinner menu from the Titanic.

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