Palantir's growth slows, Elon Musk's atonement tour, and the ritziest zip code in the U.S. (is not in California)

Today was long.:)

The WSJ is reporting that growth at Palantir is slowing due to government agencies doing more comparison shopping.

LoanDepot has revealed that hackers stole sensitive records from 16.6 million customers. 

The New Hampshire Attorney General is investigating a robocall campaign in which a deepfaked Joe Biden urged Democrats not to vote in Tuesday's presidential primary.

In related news, OpenAI has banned a developer who created a ChatGPT-powered bot imitating Rep. Dean Phillips, who news reports say is running against Biden for the Democratic nomination. 

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Captain Fresh, a four-year-old Bengaluru startup that helps fishermen and farmers sell their catch and livestock to businesses, is reportedly in the market to raise up to $50 million, according to TechCrunch. Investors included Nekkanti Sea Foods, SBI Investment, Evolvence, Tiger Global, and Prosus Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

DailyPay, an eight-year-old New York startup that provides a service allowing employees to access their earned wages before their scheduled payday, raised a $75 million equity round from Carrick Capital Partners at a $1.75 billion valuation as well as $100 million in debt from Citi. PYMNTS has more here.

ElevenLabs, a two-year-old Brooklyn startup whose software can generate voices in different languages, accents, and emotions, raised an $80 million Series B round at a $1+ billion valuation. The deal was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, Nat Friedman, and Daniel Gross, with additional participation from Sequoia Capital, Smash Capital, SV Angel, BroadLight Capital, and Credo Ventures. The company has raised a total of $101 million. TechCrunch has more here.

TravelPerk, an eight-year-old, Barcelona-based business travel management platform targeted at SMEs, has raised $105 million in a fresh funding led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. Earlier investors including Kinnevik and Felix Capital also participated in the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Captura, a two-year-old Los Angeles startup whose technology employs renewable energy to extract CO2 from seawater, raised a $21.5 million Series A expansion round led by previous investor Future Planet Capital, with Maersk, Eni, and EDP and well as prior backers Equinor Ventures, Freeflow Ventures, Hitachi Ventures, Aramco Ventures, mTerra Ventures, and EIC Rose Rock Venture Fund also participating. More here.

Sano Genetics, a six-year-old startup based in Cambridge, England, that specializes in supporting clinical trials, particularly in the area of precision medicine, raised an $11.4 million round led by Plural, with previous investors including MMC Ventures, Episode 1, and Seedcamp also taking part. Tech.eu has more here.

Alphathena, a three-year-old Chicago startup whose platform enables financial advisors to create personalized investment portfolios for their clients, raised a $4 million round led by ETFS Capital, with Hyde Park Angels also pitching in. WealthManagement.com has more here.

AquaExchange, a three-year-old Indian startup that says it uses uses technology to help farmers increase crop yields, mitigate crop risks, and combat rising input costs, raised a $6 million round led by Ocean 14 Capital, with previous investors Endiya Partners and Accion Venture Labs also contributing. The Economic Times has more here.

Shamba Pride, a seven-year-old Nairobi startup that provides smallholder farmers in Kenya with data about pricing, inventory management, and supply chains, raised a $3.7 million round in equity and debt. The deal was led by EDFI AgriFI and Seedstars Africa. TechCrunch has more here.

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European VC firm Plural has closed a second $432 million fund to invest in AI, frontier tech, climate, and energy deals. Check out TechCrunch for more here. 

AC Ventures, which focuses on technology investments in Indonesia, has raised a fifth fund of $210 million. The firm now boasts $500 million under management. TechCrunch has more here. 

Terraform Labs has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy two years after its cryptocurrencies went kaput. The company's cofounder, Do Kwon, who is currently in custody in Montenegro for falsifying travel documents, faces a $40 billion civil trial for fraud in the U.S.

Cloud native observability platform Chronosphere has acquired Calyptia, a startup that is working on open source observability projects. TechCrunch has more here.

The SEC has linked a SIM swapping attack to its account breach on X earlier this month.

In an apparent effort to rehabilitate his reputation after making remarks on X widely perceived to be antisemitic, Elon Musk toured Auschwitz today and proclaimed that he is "aspirationally Jewish."

MrBeast (aka Jimmy Donaldson) made approximately $263,000 from the first video he posted on X. That may sound like some serious ad revenue, but Donaldson has his doubts. "It’s a bit of a facade,” he tweeted.

Alphabet's X Labs, which conducts research into bleeding edge technologies, is laying off dozens of staff members and soliciting outside investment from VCs.

Riot Games, which is owned by Tencent, is laying off 530 people or 11% of its staff because management believes the videogame company is too unfocused. 

Good news for humans: an MIT study has found that it's still too expensive to automate most jobs with AI.

AI is destabilizing the "concept of truth itself" in the 2024 election.

When America first dropped acid.

The perfect ramen.

02115 is the most expensive ZIP Code in the U.S. (If you have to ask ...)

The art director of HBO's True Detective created a poster for a scene using AI, and everybody's freaking out about it. According to showrunner Issa López, the "story behind that poster is so long, it would require its own season."

Menswear vacations. Because buying and wearing a designer's clothes just isn't enough.

Maxim's is back. Bon retour, mon amour.