A change-up at Tribe Capital, General Atlantic preps a public offering, and Connecticut tries to rebrand

Guilty! The jury in Epic v. Google has ruled against Google in a case alleging that the search giant used its control of its Google Play app store to pressure Epic Games into relying on Google for distribution and using Google Play Billing for in-app payments.

The Chinese military is using hacking groups to infiltrate key American infrastructure such as a water utility in Hawaii, a major West Coast port, and at least one oil and gas pipeline, according to a report in The Washington Post. 

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Mistral AI, a Paris startup founded this year that makes open-source software and is aiming to compete with OpenAI, officially closed a $415 million round at approximately a $2 billion, according to Bloomberg. Andreessen Horowitz led the transaction, with additional investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Salesforce, BNP Paribas, CMA-CGM, General Catalyst, Elad Gil, and Conviction. TechCrunch has more here.

Rokid, a nine-year-old Chinese startup based in Redwood City, Ca., that makes headsets for AR applications, raised a $112 million Series C round at a $1 billion valuation. NetDragon was a strategic investor in the deal. NFTgators has more here.

SumUp, a 12-year-old London company that provides payment processing and other financial services to small businesses, raised a $307 million round at a valuation in excess of $8.5 billion. The deal was led by Sixth Street Growth, with Bain Capital Tech Opportunities, Fin Capital, and Liquidity Group also participating. The company has raised a total of $1.5 billion. TechCrunch has more here.

Actility, a 13-year-old Paris company that provides networking software to connect IoT devices, raised a $17.2 million round. Investors included Bpifrance, BNP Paribas, Bosch, Cisco, and Swisscom. More here.

Armada, a San Francisco startup that offers edge computing to SpaceX as well as oil rigs, mines, and distant battlefields, raised a $40 million Series A round at a valuation approaching $250 million, a 5x increase over the valuation of a $15 million round it closed in January, according to Forbes. 8090 Industries was the deal lead, with Felicis, Contrary Capital, Marlinspike Partners, Valor, and Koch Industries as well as previous investors Founders Fund, Lux Capital, and Shield Capital also taking part. The company has raised a total of $55 million. Forbes has more here.

Vammo, a one-year-old São Paolo-based startup whose subscription-based service allows users in Latin America to swap electric batteries at its battery swapping stations, raised a $30 million Series A round in equity and debt. Monashees led on the equity side, with participation from 2150 and Maniv Mobility. TechCrunch has more here.

Zafrens, a two-year-old San Diego startup that claims its platform can test many different drugs at once, raised a $23 million round led by Prime Movers Lab, with additional participation from BlueYard Capital, KOFA Healthcare, and Global Brains. More here.

CitrusX, a two-year-old Tel Aviv startup that helps companies better understand their machine learning and AI models, raised a $4.5 million seed round led by Awz. CTech has more here.

Helicity Space, a Pasadena, Ca., outfit that says it has discovered a way to use plasma jets for fusion reaction, raised $5 million in seed funding to accelerate the development of its technology. Backers in the round include Airbus Ventures, the VC arm of the major European aerospace giant; TRE Advisors; Voyager Space Holdings, which is behind the Starlab commercial space station; space firm E2MC Space; Urania Ventures; and Gaingels. TechCrunch has more here.

Invert Robotics, a 12-year-old New Zealand company based in Dublin, Ireland, that makes industrial robots that can perform inspections in hazardous and toxic industrial environments, raised a $13.9 million round co-led by Business Venture Partners and TechNexus Venture Collaborative. The company has raised a total of $26.9 million. Silicon Republic has more here.

Relevance AI, a three-year-old Sydney startup whose low-code platform lets companies build and deploy custom AI agents to automate repetitive tasks, raised a $10 million Series A round led by King River Capital, with Surge, Galileo Venture, and previous investor Insight Partners also contributing. The company has raised a total of $13.2 million. TechCrunch has more here.

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Joining the ranks of other beauty conglomerates, Shiseido is rolling out a new venture arm -- Shiseido Long Term Investments for the Future (LIFT) Ventures -- to make early-stage investments in beauty wellness innovation. LIFT Ventures is reportedly focused on investing in "novel technologies, innovative platforms, high-growth brands, and new business models," among other things. Business of Fashion has more here.

Docker, a 15-year-old company that has built a platform that allows developers and system administrators to build, ship, and run distributed applications, has acquired AtomicJar, a two-year-old startup based in Newark, NJ, that is also building a commercial container testing platform. AtomicJar had raised a total of $29.1 million from investors such as boldstart ventures, according to CrunchBase.

Omidyar Network, backed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, plans to shut down its India operations, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch, in a stunning development for the venture firm that has backed nearly 75 startups in the South Asian market. More here.

Cable provider Altice USA is reportedly in talks to sell the financial news streaming service Cheddar News to L.A.-based private equity firm Regent LP. Cheddar was founded in 2016 as a business news streaming service aimed at millennials. Altice USA acquired Cheddar for $200 million in 2019.

General Atlantic, the investment firm whose bets have included Facebook and Airbnb, has confidentially filed for an initial public offering, says Bloomberg. The outlet reports that the firm is considering listing as soon as next year depending on market conditions. If it moves forward, the New York-based outfit would join peers Blackstone and KKR as a public company.

Carro, an eight-year-old Singapore startup that operates a car marketplace, is in the market to raise $100 million in advance of an IPO, according to DealStreetAsia. AsiaTechDaily has more here.

Lucid CFO Sherry House is seeking greener pastures on the heels of a tough stretch for the car company, including Nasdaq's recent decision to remove the company from its Nasdaq-100 index. TechCrunch has more here. 

Sports Illustrated publisher The Arena Group has fired the magazine's CEO, Ross Levinsohn, after the publication was caught publishing stories by nonexistent writers with AI-generated profile pictures.

Elon Musk and Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones co-hosted a livestream chat on X on Sunday that included alleged rapist Andrew Tate and disgraced Trump appointee Michael Flynn, among others. Musk recently reinstated Alex Jones on X, which banned him more than five years ago for posting harassing messages. 

Tribe Capital’s Arjun Sethi has relinquished the role of CEO to Boris Revsin, and assumed the role of chairman and chief investment officer. Sethi made the change in order to focus on investments and products, he said in a memo to investors seen by Bloomberg News.

Shoppers are reportedly spending almost twice as long on Temu, the online shopping juggernaut backed by Chinese heavyweight PDD Holdings, than they are on the apps of major rivals like Amazon.

Nearly 1 in 5 teens say they’re on YouTube and TikTok "almost constantly."

TechCrunch digs into 23andMe's decision to amend its terms of service shortly before it disclosed that hackers had accessed the personal and genetic data of almost 7 million customers. “It screams a desperate attempt to dissuade and deter people from suing them, which, if you’ve done nothing wrong, why do you have to do that?” observed Doug McNamara, a partner at the Cohen Milsten law firm.

According to Dealroom, Nvidia invested $872 million in AI deals in 2023, making it the most active large-scale investor in AI, beating out firms like Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia.The company's bets include Inflection AI, Cohere, Hugging Face,  CoreWeave, and Mistral AI.

OpenView Ventures’ sudden decision last week to lay off most of its staff and halt investments in new startups left one major question unanswered: what to do with the $570 million that endowments and other institutions recently committed to its latest fund.

OpenAI's investors don't own it (but will regulators care?).

Why it's time to drink merlot again, "Sideways" be damned.

Connecticut is trying to change its image. As one influencer put it, "I can’t think of a personality in Connecticut, at all.”

Some people go to Vegas to gamble. Others go to watch the World Excel Championships.

Battery heated apparel.

Watches fit for James Bond.