Calamity at Twitch, Bitcoin's bounce back, and Forbes now counts half a dozen crypto billionaires in its rankings

Oof. The entire code base of Twitch was leaked online. To begin to understand how such a massive hack was possible, the Platformer talked with two former Twitch engineers, one of whom still had extra administrative privileges more than a year after leaving the company.

Bitcoin is bouncing back.

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* CoinSwitch Kuber, a four-year-old, India-based crypto exchange, has raised $260 million in funding a $1.9 billion valuation co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Coinbase Ventures. Other investors in the round include Sequoia Capital India, Paradigm, Tiger Global and Ribbit Capital. TechCrunch notes that the deal, which is a16z's first in India, was made possible by the decision two years ago by India’s Supreme Court to overturn the nation’s central bank’s ban on cryptocurrency. More here.

* CRM Bônus, a three-year-old, Brazil-based developer of a cash-back CRM platform (so retailers, for example, can reward their customers) has raised $50 million from SoftBank, Riverwood Capital, Igah Ventures and Volpe Capital. More here. 

* GetSafe, a six-year-old, Heidelberg, Germany-based digital insurance company that offers liability, contents and car insurance in Germany and is expanding into other European countries, is tacking on $63 million in Series B funding to a round that originally closed last December with $30 million. The newest tranche has come from unnamed family offices, as well as from Earlybird and Abacon Capital, says TechCrunch. More here.

* Gretel, a two-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based startup that wants to make it faster and easier to anonymize data sets, has raised roughly $52 million in new funding, per a new SEC filing. The company, cofounded by former Google executive Lazlo Block and run by a former Amazon GM named Alex Watson, had raised $12 million in Series A funding back in November led by Greylock. More here.

* Huboo, a four-year-old, Bristol, England-based e-commerce warehousing and fulfillment system, has raised £60 million ($81.4 million) in Series B funding led by Mubadala Capital. The round also included investors Stride, Ada Ventures, Hearst, Episode 1 and Maersk Growth. TechCrunch has more here.

* The Mom Project, a 5.5-year-old, Chicago-based recruitment firm focused on mothers, has raised $60 million in equity funding led by Leeds Illuminate, a women-led growth equity firm. The company has also secured $20 million in debt funding from Silicon Valley Bank, reports the WSJ. More here.

* NeuroBlade, a five-year-old, Israel-based developer of in-memory inference chip for data centers and edge devices, has raised $83 million in funding co-led by Corner Ventures and Intel Capital. Other backers in the round include StageOne Ventures, Grove Ventures, Check Point Software cofounder Marius Nacht, MediaTek, Pegatron, PSMC, UMC and Marubeni Ventures. VentureBeat has more here. 

* Pattern, an eight-year-old, Lehi, Utah-based e-commerce accelerator that helps brands optimize sales on marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, Target, eBay and Google, has raised $225 million in growth funding led by Knox Lane. The round brings the company's pre-money valuation to $2 billion, says the company, which has now raised $275 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

* Twin Health, a three-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based precision medicine company focused on chronic metabolic diseases, has raised $140 million in Series C funding from Iconiq, Sequoia Capital India, Perceptive Advisors, Corner Ventures, LTS Investments, Helena and Sofina. More here.

* BeeHero, a five-year-old, Santa Cruz, Ca.-based precision pollination platform, has raised $15 million in Series A funding from ADM Capital, Rabo Food and Agri Innovation Fund, iAngels, FirstTime, J-Ventures, UpWest, Entrée Capital, Good Company, the Arison Group, and Gaingels. TechCrunch has more here.

* Clarisights, a three-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based self-serve reporting platform for marketing teams, has raised $14 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital India, with participation from OMERS Ventures, Techstars, and Cavalry Ventures, among others. Business Insider has more here.

* Favo, a two-year-old, São Paulo, Brazil-based online shopping community that is starting with supermarket items, has raised $26.5 million in Series A funding. Tiger Global led the round, joined by GFC, Elevar Equity, former Accel investor Kevin Efrusy, Nubank founder David Velez, FJ Labs and H2O. TechCrunch has more here.

* Mindee, a three-year-old, San Francisco- and Paris, France-based API-first platform designed for developers to eliminate manual data entry, has raised $14 million in Series A funding led by GGV Capital, with participation from Alven and earlier investors Serena Capital and Bpifrance. More here.

* Slope, a five-year-old, Richmond, Va.-based maker of supply chain software for clinical trials, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by NEA. More here.

Voom, a nearly six-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based pay-per-mile insurer targeting what it sees as underserved mobility segments, has raised $15 million. JAL Ventures and UP.Partners co-led the round, joined by F2 Capital, Arbor Ventures, Verizon Ventures and ICON Continuity Fund. Calcalist has more here.

* Wayve, a four-year-old, U.K.-based self-driving startup that is notable for its use of deep learning and cameras rather than lidar and other sensors to guide vehicles, has raised  £10 million ($13.6 million) in strategic funding from Ocado, an online grocer that powers online grocery systems for other retailers like Kroger in the U.S. TechCrunch has more here.

* Bisu, a six-year-old, Tokyo, Japan-headquartered healthcare startup that has built what it describes as a lab-grade testing device that can be used at home for diagnostics, has raised $3.2 million in seed funding led by QUAD, with participation from ASICS Ventures (the venture arm of the shoe giant), 15th Rock Ventures, Pacifico Investments and SOSV. TechCrunch has more here.

* CostCertified, a four-year-old, Calgary, Alberta-based price configurator tool for constructionCanadian startup that provides real-time, interactive residential construction estimates, raised $8.45 million in seed funding led by the Pacific Northwest firm FUSE. Other investors in the outfit include Y Combinator, I2BF Global Ventures, Soma Capital and a number of tech founders. TechCrunch has more here.

* Olea Edge Analytics, a seven-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based intelligent edge computing platform for the water utility industry, has raised $35 million in Series C funding led by Insight Partners. More here.

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* Google plans to invest up to $50 million in African early- and growth-stage startups via its Africa Investment Fund, ramping up efforts to support more businesses on the continent. The corporate behemoth announced its plans today in a virtual event where CEO Sundar Pichai said the company intends to commit $1 billion over the next five years in tech-led initiatives in Africa, ranging from improved connectivity via Google’s subsea cable Equiano to investments in small businesses and startups. TechCrunch has more here.

* RA Capital Management, the 17-year-old, Boston-based healthcare investment outfit, is back with another fund to shepherd the next wave of life sciences innovations. RA closed its third “Nexus” fund at $880 million, the firm announced this morning. Endpoints News has more here.

* Databricks today announced that it has acquired German startup 8080 Labs, the company behind bamboolib, a popular GUI for the Python-based Pandas data analysis and manipulation tool. Bamboolib allows data scientists to quickly and easily explore their data and transform it without having to write any code. For Databricks, this acquisition also marks a renewed emphasis on bringing its platform to citizen data scientists who may not have the expertise to use its tools otherwise. 8080 Labs has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from four angel investors; terms of the acquisition aren't being disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

* Twitter says it is offloading MoPub, the mobile ad platform it bought back in 2013, by selling it to mobile game and marketing software maker AppLovin. Twitter paid around $350 million for MoPub and will sell the company for $1.05 billion in cash. MoPub helped Twitter bring in around $188 million in revenue last year, according to the company. Twitter previously set a goal of doubling its annual revenue by 2023. TechCrunch has more here.

Rigetti, the eight-year-old, Berkeley, Ca.-based venture-backed quantum computer maker, said today it will go public through a merger with a blank-check firm headed by Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff called Supernova Partners Acquisition Company in a deal that potentially values the combined company at $1.5 billion. It's the second quantum computer hardware maker to announce going public this year using a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Maryland-based IonQ listed on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday. Reuters has more here.

* Chamaeleon, a months-old, San Francisco- and Portugal-based "tech-augmented" early-stage venture firm, has hired two associate partners: Armindo Costa, who was previously with Goldman Sachs, to lead its quant and tech team, and Ashish Aggarwal, who was previously a principal at Grishin Robotics and at Opera Software, who joins its deal team. More here.

* One of Rivian’s big-name investors, Soros Fund Management, hopes the EV startup will list at a valuation lower than the $80 billion target reported by Bloomberg in August. “Candidly,” Dawn Fitzpatrick, Soros’s CEO and investment chief, said yesterday at the Bloomberg Invest Global Summit in New York, “we hope they come public a little bit cheaper than that because we want there to be a long-term value play there.” Auto News has more here. 

* KKR just named Snap CEO Evan Spiegel as an independent director on its 15-member board. The PE firm, with $429 billion of assets, now has 11 independent directors, it said in a related statement.

* A comeback marred by exits? All told, 13 of the 23 investment partners listed on SoftBank Vision Fund’s website as of mid-2019 have since departed or recently announced they would leave, says The Information, adding that only a handful of those individuals have been replaced.

* This year’s Forbes list of the 400 richest people -- it includes Americans with net worths of at least $2.5 billion -- counts six new billionaires from the crypto world, up from just one last year.

* According to a new report in the WSJ, Facebook has "delayed the rollout of new products in recent days . . .amid media reports and congressional hearings related to a trove of internal documents showing harms from its platforms. Executives at the social-media company also have put a hold on some work on new and existing products while more than a dozen people are involved in conducting “reputational reviews” to examine how Facebook may be criticized and to ensure products don’t adversely impact children," according to its sources. More here. 

* Sure, it's cheeky, but then again, given the way things are trending . . .

*The standing 7-minute workout.

* Five minutes that will make you love Maria Callas.

* The gender researcher's to an equal marriage.

Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel want $35 million to say ‘Bye, bye, bye’ to their L.A. mansion.

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