Facebook goes down again, Apple tries to buy time, and a new Danish law with immediate consequences

Friday! We hope as always that you have an amazing weekend. Before we go, we leave you with a piping-hot episode of StrictlyVC Download, featuring the political strategist, lobbyist, and venture capitalist Bradley Tusk, whose highest-profile bet of the year -- on Andrew Yang for mayor of New York -- didn't pan out but whose venture investments seem to be doing pretty nicely. We talked with Tusk about Yang, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, and why he's incubating a new social network (and an esports gaming company). Tusk always has interesting takeaways; you can tune in here to hear more, with special appearances by entrepreneur Jonatham Abrams and investor Lo Toney. 

The episode is being brought to you courtesy of Tegus, which offers instant access to 20,000+ investor-led expert calls on public and private companies. Used by many top venture firms, check out www.tegus.co/strictlyvc to quickly scale up your own research.

* P.S. We have yet to put together a site for our November 11 event, but note that in addition to Jack Abraham, whose startup machine Atomic is having a very big year, we're also very excited to welcome as a guest speaker Mateo Jaramillo, the founder and CEO of Form Energy, whose battery storage technology company is the talk of Silicon Valley. More on what's coming together soon. Giant thanks again to Eclipse Ventures for its support.

* Facebook and its family of apps were inaccessible for about two hours this afternoon, the second time in a week that the social network experienced widespread problems with its services. Facebook said afterward that the outage was caused by a “configuration” change. The New York Times has more here.

* Apple today asked for a stay on the injunction that says developers can add in-app links to non-Apple payment websites. If Apple wins the stay, which will be decided by a judge in November, the change to Apple’s policies may not take effect until appeals in the case have finished -- a process that could take years, says CNBC.

* Elon Musk is pulling away from the rest of the world when it comes to personal wealth, even from Jeff Bezos.

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Kevin Ryan has become very wealthy by being at the right place at the right time -- including at online ad network DoubleClick, which he joined as its 12th employee and eventually ran as CEO (it was later acquired, twice) -- as well as cofounding numerous companies, including the software company MongoDB, which is currently valued at roughly $30 billion as a publicly traded company. (Ryan still owns "at least half my shares" in the company, he says.)

We recently talked with Ryan about his biggest, newest bet, which is on healthcare tech. As we reported earlier, his investment firm Alleycorp is plugging $100 million of largely Ryan's own capital into starting and funding outfits in the space -- and that's atop the roughly 20 related bets the outfit has made already. We wondered how he became so involved when his earlier projects were almost entirely unrelated. You can hear that conversation here or check out excerpts below.

For someone not paying attention, your extreme focus on healthcare tech is surprising. What spurred your initial interest?

One of the things that I always do from an Alleycorp point of view is think about, what are the 5- to 10-year trends that we want to bet on. Some areas can be overcrowded, and you think there's no opportunity there, everything's already been done. And sometimes you think there's a big opportunity. And so starting two or three years ago, I just felt like both in New York and in healthcare in general, there were huge opportunities because there are so many aspects of the healthcare system that just don't work well. It's incredibly expensive, the electronic records are not great, it's super inefficient. Most of us are very frustrated by this whole healthcare system, which means opportunities.

You're overseeing mostly your own capital here. Why not take on loads of outside capital to invest, which, in this current market, as a proven entrepreneur and investor, you could presumably do?

More here.

* Modern Treasury, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of payments operations software, has raised $85 million in Series C funding. Altimeter Capital led the round, joined by earlier backers Benchmark and Quiet Capital. Bloomberg has more here.

* Notion, a nine-year-old, San Francisco-based note-taking app, has raised $275 million in new funding led by Coatue Management and Sequoia Capital. The round values the company at $10.3 billion, says Forbes. More here.

* Twin Health, a three-year-old, Los Gatos, Ca.-based digital metabolic care startup, has raised $140 million in Series C funding. Backers in the round include ICONIQ Growth, Sequoia Capital India, Perceptive Advisors, Corner Ventures, LTS Investments, Helena and Sofina. MobiHealth News has more here.

* Brave Care, a two-year-old, Portland, Ore.-based pediatric healthcare provider that operates in-person clinics and provides remote care, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by the physician services provider Mednax. MedCity News has more here.

* BrightHire, a two-year-old, Montclair, N.J.-based, Zoom-based job interview platform, has raised $20.5 million in Series B funding. 01 Advisors led the round, joined by Index Ventures and Zoom Apps Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

* Productfy, a three-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based banking-as-a-service platform that aims to build “DeFi for traditional finance,” has raised $16 million in Series A funding led by CM Ventures. Earlier backers Point72 Ventures, 500 Startups and Envestnet | Yodlee also participated in the round. TechCrunch has more here.

* Alpha Paw, an Austin, Tex.-based pet wellness company (its products include supplements and ramps, among other things), has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Nordic Eye. TechCrunch has more here.

* Otto, a 1.5-year-old, Dallas, Tex.-based startup that invites users to leverage their car equity for loans, has raised $4.5 million in seed funding. Uncommon Capital led the round, joined by Pelion Venture Partners, 1930 Capital, Bloom VP, Spacecadet Ventures and Mark Cuban. TechCrunch has more here.

* Stader Labs, a months-old, India-based cryptocurrency staking management platform, has raised $4 million in seed funding. Pantera Capital led the round, joined by Coinbase Ventures, True Ventures, Jump Capital and Ledgerprime. The Economic Times has more here.

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* The 24-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based biotech investment and incubator MPM Capital has amassed an $850 million pool of capital it's calling its Oncology Impact Fund. It's the firm's second such fund and one it plans to channel mostly into its own startups. Boston Business Journal has more here.

* RedBall Acquisition Corp., a blank-check firm led by Billy Beane of "Moneyball" fame and RedBird Capital Partners’ Gerry Cardinale, said it is in talks to merge with SeatGeek, confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg News. More here.

* Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, will bring 7-Eleven stores to India, adding to his burgeoning retail empire. Bloomberg has more here.

* A pair of new studies say Uber and Lyft offload soft costs on drivers and communities.

* The Biden administration is weighing an executive order on cryptocurrencies as part of an effort to set up a government-wide approach to the white-hot asset class, according to Bloomberg. Its sources say it would aim to coordinate agencies’ work on digital currencies throughout the executive branch and push departments that have given scant attention to crypto to focus on it.

* Robinhood says that regulatory intervention in cryptocurrency trading, and in a payment arrangement between brokerages and trading firms, could pose risks to its business. The brokerage cited the risks today in an amended filing, seeking to speed up approval for a previously announced shareholder stock sale.

* Deep-pocketed twentysomethings are joining the SPAC rush, but are they too late? “The most important thing on Wall Street is timing. If you come at the wrong time for a product that’s lost its luster, it’s going to hurt."

* The myth of Asian-American identity.

* The best of late-night shows this week.

* A typical Friday in Oregon, as imagined by people on the East Coast.

* This driver's loss could be your gain (poor guy).

* What the, who the, how the . . .

Today’s the last day for LPs to request an invite for the sixth annual RAISE Global Summit, happening October 19-20. The RAISE Global Summit helps LPs identify and invest in emerging venture funds. 30 funds will present, 200+ fund decks are available in the RAISE Portal. Two half-day virtual sessions + in-person gatherings in SF, LA, NYC. Click here to request an invite.