Facebook's worst nightmare (is named Frances), the SEC is investigating Circle Financial, and contemplating Party Shirt

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testified before a Senate panel today telling lawmakers they must intervene to solve the “crisis” created by her former employer’s products. The former Facebook product manager for civic misinformation -- who provided a clear and detailed glimpse inside the tech giant -- is basically Facebook's worst nightmare, and by early evening, Mark Zuckerberg "shared a note" that he wrote earlier to the company, in which he states that "many" of Haugen's claims "don't make any sense." At the "heart of these accusations is this idea that we prioritize profit over safety and well-being," he wrote. "That's just not true."

In related news: a "sweeping new plan to restrain the algorithms that power tech platforms has thrust China to the forefront of a growing movement to curb the influence of giant internet companies," notes the WSJ. Launched last week by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the campaign aims to create a comprehensive system to regulate the use of algorithms within three years. More here.

Where experts recommend investing $100,000 right now. The pandemic completely disrupted markets. So Bloomberg asked the leading financial experts where they’d invest $100,000 today; they overwhelmingly recommended alternatives like art. In fact, contemporary art prices have returned 14% annually, outperforming the S&P by 174% from ‘95-’20, with only a 0.01 correlation to equities. Now, a revolutionary technology platform has finally democratized the remaining untapped asset class. Masterworks makes investing in art as easy as trading stocks online.

A year ago, we told you about the opportunity that former Tesla CIO Jay Vijayan was chasing. His plan? To pull car dealers into the 21st century with a snazzy end-to-end automotive SaaS platform like the one he helped develop inside Tesla. Customers could use it to order a car to their precise specifications; dealers could use it to see in real time to understand their inventory and seamlessly check in customers for service appointments; OEMs could use it to see exactly which of their parts were where, relative to said dealerships.

The list of ways the software would produce savings and improve efficiencies for both dealers and OEMs went on and on, as Vijayan explained it. 

His Pleasanton, California, company, Tekion, has gained meaningful traction since, too. According to Vijayan, the company’s revenue has grown threefold over the last year; the number of states where dealers are using Tekion’s software has grown to 39 from 28; and the company just began working with its first dealership in Canada as part of a plan to become an international outfit.

Perhaps accordingly, the company is today announcing $250 million in Series D financing that bumps its valuation a year ago from $1 billion to $3.5 billion today, and its total funding from $185 million to $435 million. Alkeon Capital and Durable Capital co-led the round. Other investors include Hyundai Motor Company, several dealer groups across the U.S., and earlier backers Advent International, Index Ventures and FM Capital.

Interestingly, the global chip shortage and other parts-supply disruptions that drove new vehicle sales down a whopping 26% last month, is only having a positive impact on Tekion, and a recent piece in Morning Brew suggests why.

More here.

* Buk, a five-year-old, Santiago, Chile-based human resources management platform, has raised $50 million in Series A funding co-led by Greenoaks and SoftBank. TechCrunch has more here.

* Honor,  the seven-year-old, San Francisco-based senior care network and tech platform, has raised $70 million in Series E funding and $300 million in debt financing. Baillie Gifford led the equity financing with participation from earlier investors. including funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price, Home Instead founders Paul and Lori Hogan (whose company Honor bought back in August), Prosus Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital, FMZ Ventures, Rock Springs Capital, Lighthouse Capital Markets, and TriplePoint Capital. Perceptive Advisors meanwhile led the debt financing with a "significant commitment" from Ares Management funds. Honor has now raised $325 million in equity funding altogether and is valued at more than $1.25 billion. TechCrunch has more here.

* Masterworks, a four-year-old, New York-based company that sells fractional shares of fine art to retail investors (it also invites them to trade those shares on a secondary platform that it manages), has raised $110 million in Series A funding at a valuation north of $1 billion, it says. The round, which represents the outfit's first outside investment, was led by Left Lane Capital, with participation from Galaxy Interactive and Tru Arrow Partners, among others. TechCrunch has more here. 

* Orca Security, a three-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based cloud security company, has raised $550 million in extended Series C funding that brings the round total to $760 million. Temasek led the financing, joined by SAIC, Splunk Ventures, and a long list of earlier backers. TechCrunch has more here. 

* Sure, a six-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based insurance infrastructure startup, has raised $100 million in Series C funding co-led by Declaration Partners and Kinnevik, with participation from WndrCo and earlier backers W. R. Berkley and Menlo Ventures. The round brings the company's total funding to $123.1 million and its valuation to $550 million. TechCrunch has more here.

*Adaptive Shield, a two-year-old, Tel Aviv-based security startup that helps businesses protect their SaaS applications by regularly scanning their various setting for security issues, has raised $30 million in Series A funding led by Insight Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

* Chalo, a seven-year-old, Mumbai, India-based company that helps bus operators accept digital payments and enables commute tracking, has raised $40 million in Series C funding. The round was co-led by Lightrock India and Filter Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

* Commonstock, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based social investing platform for talking about trades and financial markets, has raised $25 million in Series A funding led by Coatue, with participation from QED, Floodgate, Upside Ventures, Resolute Ventures, and Abstract Ventures, among others. Founder and CEO David McDonough previously spent more than six year working at Google on product strategy. CNBC has more here.

* Pandion, a 14-month-old, Seattle-based e-commerce parcel delivery company, has raised $30 million in Series A funding from Bow Capital, Telstra Ventures, Playground Global, Schematic Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures and Innovation Endeavors. Company founder and CEO Scott Ruffin most recently spent two years as a VP and head of e-commerce transportation at Walmart eCommerce. More here.

* Appsmith, a two-year-old, Bangalore, India-based startup whose open source software helps companies quickly build internal applications, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Canaan, with participation from Accel and Bessemer Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

* Autify, a five-year-old, San Francisco- and Tokyo-based software testing automation platform, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. World Innovation Lab led the round, joined by Uncorrelated Ventures and individual investor Jonathan Siegel. Earlier backers Archetype Ventures, Salesforce Ventures and Tably also participated. TechCrunch has more here.

Hotglue, a 2.5-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based startup that wants to make it easier for developers to connect to business applications like Salesforce, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Uncommon Capital and a group of angels. TechCrunch has more here.

* Made of Air, a five-year-old, Berlin-based maker of "carbon negative" thermoplastics, has raised $5.8 million led by a Norwegian sustainability-focused family fund called TD Veen. Other participants in the round include Tuesday Capital, EQT Group, and numerous individual investors, including former Google CFO Patrick Pichette. TechCrunch has more here.

* Memgraph, a 5.5-year-old, London-based platform for real-time streaming graph applications, has raised $9.34 million in seed funding led by M12. Heavybit Industries, In-Q-Tel, Counterview Capital, ID4 Ventures and Mundi Ventures also participated in the round. VentureBeat has more here.

* Podcastle, a 17-month-old, Bay Area-based podcast creation platform that aims to help podcasters easily create, edit and distribute production-quality podcasts, has raised $7 million in funding co-led by RTP Global and Point Nine Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

* Rendered.ai, a two-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based synthetic data company, has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Space Capital, with participation from Congruent Ventures, Tectonic Ventures, Union Labs and Uncorrelated Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

* SmartRyde, a four-year-old, Japan-based online marketplace that connects travelers to local transportation operators and online travel agencies, has raised $1.6 million in Series A funding. Angel Bridge led the round, joined by SG Incubate, Yamaguchi Capital, SMBC Venture Capital, Hiroshima Venture Capital, Iyogin Capital, Inventum Ventures and Optima Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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* Contrary Capital, a 5.5-year-old, Bay Area-based seed-stage venture outfit, just closed its second fund with $20 million in capital commitments. TechCrunch has more here.

* NFX, the now six-year-old, San Francisco-based venture firm created by founder-investors James Currier, Pete Flint, Gigi Levy-Weiss and Stan Chudnovsky (though the team has since grown), just closed its third fund with $450 million in capital commitments to invest in pre-seed and seed-stage startups. Forbes has more here on the firm, which is now managing $875 million in assets altogether.

Udemy, the 11-year-old, San Francisco-based massive open online course platform, filed paperwork for an IPO today, revealing a surge in revenue last year driven by the shift toward remote learning. Reuters has more here.

Circle Financial is under investigation by the SEC, the payments company disclosed yesterday. Circle, which is planning to go public via a SPAC, said in a regulatory filing that it received an “investigative subpoena” from the SEC’s Enforcement Division in July. That subpoena requests “documents and information regarding certain of our holdings, customer programs and operations." Coindesk has more here.

Crackdown schmackdown. The $84.8 billion invested in Chinese startups in the first nine months of this year is nearly equal to the $86.1 billion invested in all of 2020, according to research firm Preqin. The Information has the story here.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said today the company could do more to treat employees better and acknowledged one of its approaches to worker safety during the coronavirus pandemic fell short. “I think if you have a large group of people like we do — we have 1.2 million employees — it’s almost like a small country,” Jassy said on stage at the GeekWire Summit in Seattle. “There are lots of things you could do better.” CNBC has more here.

Lo Toney, the founder of Plexo Capital, has spearheaded a new platform to get emerging managers up to speed on numerous fronts, with no strings attached, he tells us.

Lightspeed Capital Partners is looking to add an investor to its consumer team. It's a full-time position in Menlo Park, Ca.

Instagram is taking another step toward its larger goal of making video a more central part of the Instagram experience, announcing today it will now combine IGTV’s long-form video and Instagram Feed videos into a new format called simply “Instagram Video.” TechCrunch has more here.

JPMorgan said it's banning business travel for unvaccinated employees and that it will deduct extra pay from unvaccinated staff to cover COVID-19 tests.

A beginner’s guide to the NFT fantasy soccer game Sorare.

DJ duo "Party Hack" has found fame on TikTok by mixing music, food reviews, and debunking life hacks.

Fatty Arbuckle and the birth of celebrity scandals.

Hello, We Used to Know Each Other and Now I'm a Toxic Presence on Your Social Media Feeds.

The Gulfstream G800 takes flight. 

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