Secondary shops scramble, Harvard visits the Bay Area, and a look at how AI is decoding the animal kingdom 🐘🐘🐘

Epic Games' battle with Apple continues. Epic is now contesting Apple's move to charge commissions on purchases made outside of apps despite a court's ruling that app developers should be able to collect payment outside of Apple's ecosystem.

In more Apple news, the tech colossus will have to stop selling watches that can monitor blood oxygen levels after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit lifted an injunction on the ban. 

Google has updated its Incognito browser to warn Incognito users that it does track them. 

According to the WSJ, top brass from Harvard University’s $51 billion endowment made an unusual tour of Silicon Valley last week to assuage top VCs, some have been upset at the university’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.

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Aira, a two-year-old Stockholm startup whose mission is to help consumers transition to heat pumps, raised a $63 million Series B extension round. Investors included Temasek, Altor, and Kinnevik. ArcticStartup has more here.

Build A Rocket Boy, a seven-year-old Scottish game development startup that was founded by one of the former lead developers of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, raised a $110 million Series D round. RedBird Capital Partners was the deal lead, with Galaxy Interactive, NetEase Games, Endeavor, Alignment Growth, Woodline Partners, and GTAM Partners also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Forta, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that provides families and local caregivers with AI-assisted therapies, particularly for autism, raised a $55 million Series A round led by Insight Partners, with Exor Ventures and Alumni Ventures also taking part. Tech Funding News has more here.

INERATEC, a nine-year-old German startup that is producing electrofuels (synthetic fuels produced using electricity) to replace fossil fuels in industries such as aviation and shipping, raised a $129 million Series B round led by Piva Capital, with additional participation from Copec WIND Ventures, RockCreekHG Ventures, TDK Ventures, Emerald, and Samsung Ventures. Sifted has more here.

10x Banking, a seven-year-old London startup that provides core banking software for retail banks and small business banking providers, raised a $44.3 million round from previous investors BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase. FinTech Futures has more here.

Digital Infrastructure, a three-year-old Brooklyn startup that has created a decentralized car data protocol with a companion app that allows users to view their car data and earn token rewards, raised an $11.5 million Series A round led by CoinFund and including Slow Ventures and Consensys Mesh. The company has raised a total of $22 million. The Block has more here.

Fullcast, a three-year-old startup based in Redmond, Wa., that allows companies to monitor the performance of their sales teams by integrating with existing CRM systems, raised a $34 million seed round led by Epic Ventures, with Companyon Ventures, Firsthand Alliance, True Blue Partners, and Sepio Capital also pitching in. TechCrunch has more here.

Granata Bio, a five-year-old Boston startup that is developing fertility medications, raised a $14 million Series A round led by GV, with CooperSurgical, Gedeon Richter, Alumni Ventures, Amboy Street Ventures, and Vibe Bio also piling on. Femtech Insider has more here.

International Battery Company, a startup developing lithium-ion battery cells for electric vehicles, has raised $35 million as it plans to bridge the demand-supply gap in the growing EV market in India. Led by RTP Global, the pre-Series A round saw participation from Beenext, Veda VC and various strategic Korean and U.S. investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Panacea Financial, a three-year-old startup based in Little Rock, Ak., that offers financial products for physicians, dentists, and veterinarians such as personal and practice loans, student loan refinancing, mortgages, and checking and savings accounts, raised a $24.5 million Series B round. Valar Ventures led the transaction. The Paypers has more here.

Prismatic, a four-year-old startup based in Sioux Falls, S.D., whose platform enables software developers to build reusable and configurable integrations between their products and other applications used by their customers, raised a $22 million Series B. Five Elms Capital led the investment. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Soly, a 10-year-old Dutch company that sells and leases solar energy systems, batteries, and charging stations to consumers and businesses, raised a $32.6 million round led by ArcTern Ventures, with Fifth Wall and previous investors Shell Ventures and ABP also anteing up. Silicon Canals has more here.

Vertice, a one-year-old London startup that offers AI-based tools to help companies manage and optimize their SaaS and cloud software spend, raised a $25 million Series B round. Previous investors 83North and Bessemer Venture Partners were the co-leads. TechCrunch has more here.

Vicarius, a seven-year-old New York startup that says it uses AI to identify and fix software vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by hackers, raised a $30 million Series B round led by Bright Pixel, with AllegisCyber Capital, AlleyCorp, and Strait also joining in. The company has raised a total of $56 million. VentureBeat has more here.

Weavix, a two-year-old startup based in Wichita, Ks., that is developing "smart" radios for frontline workers, raised a $23.6 million Series B round led by Insight Partners, with Four More Capital, The Friedkin Group, and Perkins Coie also investing. TechCrunch has more here.

Care Continuity, a 10-year-old company based in Irving, Tex., whose software helps to coordinate patient care across different healthcare settings, raised a $10 million Series A-3 round. Empactful Capital and Viewside Capital Partners were the co-leads, with additional participation from Flat Creek Capital and Loop 289 Limited Partners. More here.

Delfos, a Barcelona startup whose platform provides owners and managers of renewable energy assets with the means to identify potential maintenance issues before they happen, raised a $6.8 million seed round co-led by Contrarian Ventures and Headline, with Domo.vc and EDP Ventures also investing. Tech.eu has more here.

Infield, a one-year-old New York startup that helps developers manage open source dependencies, raised a $3 million seed round led by Foundation Capital, with Y Combinator and Firsthand Alliance also joining in. TechCrunch has more here.

Land Moto, a Cleveland startup that builds electric motorbikes, raised a $3 million round from Nunc Coepi Ventures. The company has raised a total of $10 million. TechCrunch has more here. 

Membion, a German startup that develops and produces membrane bioreactor modules for wastewater treatment, raised a $5.4 million round. TechVision Fonds and DeepTech & Climate Fonds were the co-leads. Tech.eu has more here.

Nasekomo, a six-year-old startup based in Sofia, Bulgaria, that produces animal feed and fertilizer from insects, raised an $8.7 million Series A round. Invenio Partners was the deal lead. Tech Funding News has more here.

NEXT Life Sciences, a startup based in San Luis Obispo, Ca., that is developing a male contraceptive, raised a $2.5 million seed round led by The Family, with Transform VC also taking part. Business Insider has more here.

QphoX, a two-year-old Dutch startup that is developing a quantum modem that will allow quantum computers to connect over long distances using room-temperature connections, raised an $8.7 million round led by QDNL Participations, with The EIC Fund and previous investors Quantonation, Speedinvest, High-Tech Gründerfonds, and Delft Enterprises also opting in. Tech Funding News has more here.

The Realest, a Los Angeles startup founded this year that operates a marketplace for sports memorabilia, raised a $4.6 million seed round led by KB Partners and including BAM Ventures, NFX, Slow Ventures, and FLÜS Investment Group. Fortune has more here.

Renzo, a crypto startup that has developed an Ethereum restaking protocol, raised a $3.2 million seed round at a $25 million post-money valuation. The deal was led by Maven11 Capital, with Figment Capital, SevenX Ventures, and IOSG Ventures also stepping up. The Block has more here.

Tandem PV, a seven-year-old startup based in San Jose, Ca., that is developing perovskite-silicon tandem solar panels, raised a $6 million round led by previous investor Planetary Technologies, with Uncorrelated Ventures also chipping in. Renewables Now has more here.

XRHealth, a Boston startup that provides teletherapy via a virtual reality headset to patients suffering from stress and anxiety, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, and neurological conditions, raised a $6 million round led by Asabys Partners and joined by Nova Prime Fund. MobiHealthNews has more here.

Saudi Aramco, owned more than 90% by Saudi Arabia's government, is beefing up its global venture capital arm with a $4 billion cash injection as part of a wider push to diversify the kingdom’s oil-dependent economy.

Act One Ventures, which focuses on investments in early stage companies involved in vertical SaaS, fintech, compliance, and ecommerce infrastructure, has raised a third fund of $73 million. The firm now has $148 million under management. 

Sheryl Sandberg is leaving Meta's board of directors.

YouTube is laying off 100 employees on its creator management and operations teams. The move comes hard on the heels of Google's decision last week to cut 1,000 workers across several divisions. (Google says more are coming, too.)

Apple has quietly tightened its reporting of how many people listen to podcasts. “Nearly every podcast that regularly publishes got an enormous haircut,” one podcast industry insider tells Semafor.

A Consumer Reports study found that Facebook profiled one user with data from 48,000(!) companies.

Funding for Black founders declined for the third year in a row. 

Now that interest rates appear to have peaked, secondary firms are raising billions to buy VC startup stakes.

Could generative AI bring down our entire copyright system?

Amazon is reportedly planning on rolling out a new AI-powered version of Alexa that would require a subscription. (Meanwhile, we would pay good money to never hear from Alexa again.)

TechCrunch's Brian Heater does a deep dive demo of the Apple Vision Pro. 

How AI is decoding the animal kingdom. 🐘

AI-controlled F1 cars are about to compete for millions.

The 13 most anticipated albums of 2024.

Five Irish-American whiskies.

Classic Atari games in the palm of your hand.