Thrasio's bill comes due, a black market for ChatGPT Plus subscriptions, and an app to add a "touch of Dutch"

Elon Musk endorsed an anti-Semitic conspiracy on X last night. In response, Facebook cofounder Dustin Moscovitz has called on Musk to resign "from everything." 

In related news, a new report has found that advertisements from major companies are being placed next to pro-Nazi content on X. In response, IBM announced tonight that it is pulling its ads from the platform. (How long is Linda Yaccarino going to stay at this company, given what's going on?)

Jewish celebrities and TikTok creators confronted TikTok executives last night on a video call, accusing the platform of condoning anti-Semitism. "What is happening at TikTok is it is creating the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis,” comic actor Sacha Baron-Cohen said on the call.

The founders of the defunct social calendar app IRL are suing their investors (Chi-Hua Chien of Goodwater Capital, Serena Dayal of SoftBank, and Mike Maples of Floodgate) for allegedly disparaging the company in order to return capital to shareholders.

Amazon will start selling cars on its platform, too.

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This year will be remembered for a lot of things. Among them could be the growing number of stars in the startup world who were later convicted for defrauding investors.

Roughly six months after Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes headed to jail for four counts of wire fraud, and just two weeks after Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy for his role in the collapse of his crypto exchange, another former high-flier in the startup world, Mike Rothenberg, was today convicted on 21 counts, including bank fraud, false statements, four counts of money laundering, and 15 counts of wire fraud.

The verdict, delivered by a jury in Northern California, bookends a 10-year-long journey for Rothenberg, who burst onto the Bay Area scene in 2013 at age 27 with a $5 million fund and enough charm to persuade TechCrunch that his one-man firm was special enough to merit coverage.

The Austin native was a compelling subject. A self-described former math Olympian who attended Stanford before getting an MBA from Harvard Business School, Rothenberg reportedly started both a tutoring business and a real estate fund while still an undergrad. He also logged time at Bain & Co., seemingly setting himself up for a traditional career in finance or venture capital. Instead of trodding that well-worn path — he was reportedly offered at least one role at a hedge fund — Rothenberg earned kudos for striking out on his own instead, and he leaned heavily into a narrative about himself as a relentless hustler who could relate to the founders he wanted to fund.

Rothenberg also found increasingly inventive ways to attract widespread attention to his relatively small shop, many of them centered on organizing expensive parties for founders. Indeed, one of these gatherings – an “annual” event held two years in a row at the ballpark where the San Francisco Giants play – inspired an episode of the HBO show “Silicon Valley.”

It also raised questions, including in a story by Bloomberg that dubbed him “the Valley’s party animal” while also observing that it wasn’t “entirely clear” how Rothenberg was funding it all. (TechCrunch was later told by sources that after the Bloomberg piece was published, Rothenberg sent two employees to SFO, purchasing them airline tickets so they could buy up its newsstand copies and keep them out of view.)

He never recovered. 

More here.

Cytovale, a ten-year-old San Francisco company that has designed a test to catch early cases of sepsis, raised an $84 million Series C round led by Norwest Venture Partners, with additional participation from Sands Capital and Global Health Investment Corporation. FierceBiotech has more here.

Element Energy, a four-year-old startup based in Menlo Park, Ca., that has developed technology to monitor the performance of first- and second-life batteries used in commercial and industrial settings, raised a $73 million Series B. Investors included Cohort Ventures, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Drive Catalyst, and FM Capital. It also lined up a $38 million debt facility provided by previous investor Keyframe Capital Partners. Energy Storage News has more here.

Forward Health, a seven-year-old startup that's building self-contained, standalone medical stations called CarePods that will be stationed in office buildings and malls and allow subscribers to have their blood drawn and go through a battery of tests, raised a $100 million Series E round. Investors included Khosla Ventures, SoftBank, and Founders Fund. The company has raised a total of $657 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Cumulus Coffee, a startup that is selling a $599 countertop cold coffee brewing machine that the company claims can produce a still cold coffee, nitro cold coffee, or an espresso-like cold coffee within seconds, raised a $20.3 million seed round co-led by Valor Siren Ventures and Valor Equity Partners, with additional funds provided by Maveron, Linden Ventures, and former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. Daily Coffee News has more here.

Gravity, a New York startup that is making suitcase-sized chargers that can be placed in garages and (it says) charge an EV with 200 miles of range in five minutes while also sharing power with the rest of the building, raised a $13 million seed round led by GV. Fast Company has more here.

NTx, an eight-year-old startup based in Rio Rancho, N.M., that is developing biomanufacturing technologies for the production of vaccines, mRNA therapeutics, and other therapeutics, raised a $47.5 million Series B round led by RA Capital Management, with previous investor Anzu Partners also participating. Fierce Pharma has more here.

Revolv, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that aims to help commercial fleets transition from internal combustion engines to electric through providing assistance with incentive regimes, charging infrastructure, and financing, raised a $25 million round. Greenbacker Capital Management was the deal lead. Tech Funding News has more here.

VaultSpeed, a five-year-old startup based in Leuven, Belgium, that helps companies move their data to the cloud, raised a $15.9 million Series A round led by Octopus Ventures, with Fortino Capital, PMV, and BNP Paribas Fortis Private Equity also taking part. EU-Startups has more here.

Bezi, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that is creating 3D design tools that it hopes will be more accessible and collaborative than existing engines like Unity or Unreal, raised a $13 million Series A round led by Benchmark, with Uncork Capital and Designer Fund also contributing. VentureBeat has more here.

Canopy, a one-year-old Seattle startup that aims to give developers an easier and more efficient way to integrate and manage data with front-end applications, raised a $4 million seed round led by Kindred Ventures, with Village Global also joining in. GeekWire has more here.

CFX Labs, a two-year-old Chicago startup that operates a payment network for app publishers, brands, marketplaces, and retailers, raised a $9.5 million seed round from Shima Capital, Decasonic, Antalpha, CMT Digital, Corazon Capital, Hard Yaka, Kraken Ventures, New Form Capital, and Metropolitan Capital Bank & Trust. FinTech Global has more here.

Handraise, an Austin startup founded this year that uses AI to help brands analyze and amplify their news coverage, raised a $6.4 million round led by Silverton Partners, with additional participation from Floodgate, Bill Wood Ventures, Firebrand VC, Aperiam Ventures, Active Capital, Sputnik ATX VC, and Capital Factory. PR Week has more here.

Mocean Energy, an eight-year-old startup based in Edinburgh, Scotland, that is building a machine to harness wave energy for power generation, raised $2.6 million round. The deal syndicate was made up of Katapult Ocean and MOL Plus as well as previous investors Equity Gap, Scottish Enterprise, and Old College Capital. Hydro Review has more here.

OCOchem, a seven-year-old startup based in Richland, Wa., that is working on technology to turn carbon dioxide into chemicals that can be used to manufacture clean hydrogen, fertilizer, animal feed, and other products, raised a $5 million seed round led by TO VC, with Inpex, LCY Lee Family Office, and MIH Capital Management as well as previous investor Halliburton Labs also pitching in. GeekWire has more here.

Qevlar AI, a Paris startup that is designing software to automate the analysis of potential security incidents, raised a $4.9 million seed round. EQT Ventures was the deal lead. Tech.eu has more here.

Rho Labs, a London startup that claims to be creating a platform that allows people in the cryptocurrency space to trade and manage interest rates in a secure and efficient way, raised a $2.2 million pre-seed round led by Speedinvest, with Keyrock and Re7 Capital also chipping in. Finextra Research has more here.

Tenet, a two-year-old New York startup that claims its platform can lower charging expenses on the utility bills of EV owners by up to $40 per month, raised a $10 million Series A round led by Nyca Partners, with Assurant Ventures and Giant Ventures also contributing. The company also secured a $20 million warehouse debt facility from Silicon Valley Bank. FinTech Global has more here.

This painting sold for $8 million, and everyday investors profited. When the painting by master Claude Monet was bought for $6.8 million and sold for $8 million just 631 days later, investors the offering got a return, all thanks to Masterworks, the award-winning platform for investing in blue-chip art. Masterworks does all of the heavy lifting like buying the painting, storing it, and eventually selling it. All 16 sales out of its portfolio have returned a profit to investors. Now, StrictlyVC readers can skip the waitlist to join. 

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Menlo Ventures has closed a new $1.35 billion fund that will target investments in AI startups.The firm's current AI investment include Anthropic as well as Abnormal, Cleanlab, Pinecone, and Typeface.

Ballistic Ventures, which focuses on investments in early-stage cybersecurity startups, is in the market to raise a second $300 million fund only 18 months after it raised its first fund, reports TechCrunch, which found the SEC filing.

Thrasio, a startup that raised billions of dollars to buy up consumer brands sold on Amazon, is, surprise, preparing to file for bankruptcy.

Michael Kearney was just promoted from partner to GP at Engine Ventures, the Cambridge-based early stage venture firm focused on climate, advanced computing and human health startups. Before joining the firm in 2018, Kearney was the executive director of the MIT Roosevelt Project, an interdisciplinary study on energy transition pathways.

In his continuing attempt to prolong his life by attracting media coverage, former BrainTree founder and CEO Bryan Johnson shared recently that he had reduced his father's biological age by giving his dad a liter of his blood. "I am my dad’s blood boy," he tweeted.

DeepMind and YouTube announced today the launch of a new generative AI model that can create rich musical compositions out of nothing more than a hummed tune.

And speaking of DeepMind, researchers at the Google org are proposing six criteria for measuring AGI. 

Meta's announcement of a new generative AI video generation tool put us us a step closer to AI-generated movies, argues TechCrunch's Kyle Wiggers. 

When OpenAI blocked new ChatGPT Plus subscriptions earlier this week, it created a black market for selling existing accounts. 

Hipsters say Brooklyn is going to the dogs.

A new web app allows you to imagine what it would be like to live in a bike-friendly environment by adding "a touch of Dutch" to your street.

How to select a superior baby name. 

Are pandas coming back to the U.S.?  

Balenciaga Crocs.

Quirky purses.

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