Facebook is planning a rebrand, the NBA is partnering with Coinbase, and how a Beatles song came to be

Facebook is planning to change its company name next week to reflect its focus on building the metaverse, according to The Verge.  Of course, the Twittersphere has suggestions (one favorite is "Booky McBookFace). In the meantime, some are drawing comparisons to Philip Morris rebranding to Altria Group back in 2003 to emphasize that it produces a wide range of products other than cigarettes, like, um, cigars and nicotine pouches and pipe tobacco.

Pilot, a San Francisco-based startup, which raised a $60 million Series C from Sequoia Capital (followed by $100 million Series D led by Bezos Expeditions), helps founders get their finances right. Get the financial expertise to grow with Pilot bookkeeping, tax, and CFO services. StrictlyVC readers get 20% off their first 6 months of bookkeeping.

There’s plenty of frustration in the world of startups over when a digital asset does and does not constitute a security in the eyes of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Where many see regulatory murkiness, the five-year-old, New York-based investing platform Republic sees opportunity. Indeed, while many outfits grapple with whether to distance themselves from certain digital assets, Republic — whose CEO, Kendrick Nguyen, started his career in securities litigation with Goodwin Procter — has focused from the start on establishing itself as a go-to brand for what Nguyen calls “compliant tokenization.”

Now, the company is hinting at big ambitions to expand on what it has already built to create, potentially, a compliance-focused marketplace for digital securities -- emphasis on "securities" -- to be bought and resold.

As Nguyen told us during a call late last week, “Within the United States, none of these major exchanges deal with digital security tokens,” meaning tokens that derive their value from an external, tradable asset like real estate, versus utility tokens that offer a right to use a product or service.

For example, it’s because the SEC has made it very plain that it sees XRP, the cryptocurrency developed by Ripple Labs, as a security, that exchanges like Coinbase don’t list it for sale.

Nguyen said Republic would be willing to “partner right now” with an exchange “that is capable, that delivers good customer service, and that can facilitate secondary active trading of securities and digital securities” in the U.S. But it doesn’t exist, he maintains, so “if in another year, we do not see a solution out there, Republic will look to invest or build directly through an affiliate, a secondary exchange for digital securities.”

More here.

* Aura, a 4.5-year-old, Burlington, Mass.-based maker of digital security software for consumers (it has antivirus and identity-protection offerings, among others), has raised $200 million in Series F funding at a $2.5 billion valuation. That's up from $1 billion in June, by the way, when the company raised a $150 million round. Madrone Capital Partners led the round. Bloomberg has more here.

* Electric, a five-year-old, New York-based automated IT support platform for small and mid-size businesses, has raised $90 million in Series D funding. GGV led the round, joined by Bessemer Venture Partners, Primary Venture Partners, Greenspring Associates, 01 Advisors, Atreides Management, Vintage Investment Partners, and Slack. TechCrunch has more here.

* Embed, a 1.5-year-old, Vancouver, Washington-based custodian-and-clearing firm for equities and options whose founder sold his last company to Square, has raised $20 million in Series A funding roughly six months after announcing the company had raised $20 million in seed funding across several tranches. Embed has also secured a $40 million debt facility from TriplePoint Capital. Participating investors in the round include The Treasury, GFC, Torch Capital, TI Platform Management, PruVen Capital, Fin VC, Bain Capital Ventures, SWS Ventures among others. More here.

* Gorillas, a 1.5-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based startup that promises consumers fast access to essential grocery products, partly by operating its own network of so-called dark stores, has raised close to $1 billion in Series C funding led by Delivery Hero. TechCrunch has more here.

* Hofy, a 1.5-year-old, London-based platform enabling larger companies to more quickly deploy and manage physical equipment for remote employees, has raised $15.2 million in funding from Stride.VC, Kindred Capital, Activum SG Ventures, TrueSight Ventures, 20 VC, and Day One Ventures. Tech.eu has more here.

* JumpCloud, a nine-year-old, Louisville, Co.-based directory platform that says it enables a company's IT organization to securely manage all users, devices, and IT resources, has raised $66 million in extended Series F funding that brings the total round to $225 million and the company's overall funding to roughly $400 million. Sapphire Ventures led the round, joined by Atlassian Ventures, CrowdStrike Falcon Fund, NTT Docomo Ventures, STEADFAST Capital Ventures, Waterman Ventures, and OurCrowd. The company is now valued at $2.6 billion. More here.

* Pismo, a six-year-old, São Paulo, Brazil-based startup that provides infrastructure software to financial institutions so they can launch cards and payments and the like, has raised $108 million million in Series B funding. SoftBank, Amazon, and Accel led the round, joined by B3, Falabella Ventures, PruVen, Headline, and Redpoint eventures. TechCrunch has more here.

* Wonolo, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based gig-worker staffing company, has raised $138 million in growth funding led by Leeds Illuminate. Other investors in the round include 137 Ventures, G2 Venture Partner, and Franklin Templeton. Crunchbase News has more here.

* CoLab Software, a four-year-old, Newfoundland-based collaboration software maker for mechanical engineering teams, has raised $17 million in Series A funding led by Insight Partners.

* Cometeer, a nine-year-old, Gloucester, Ma.-based frozen coffee company (it flash freezes the coffee at its peak flavor, is its claim, then sends the coffee to customers in aluminum capsules), raised $35 million in Series B funding . Investors include D1 Capital, Elephant, Tao Capital, Addition Ventures, Avenir, Greycroft Partners, and TQ Ventures. TechCrunch has more here. 

* Credo AI, a 1.5-year-old, Bay Area-based SaaS startup focused on helping enterprises manage their own AI to ensure it aligns with their values, has raised $5.5 million in seed funding from Decibel, Village Global, and AI Fund. We talked with the company here.

* Element Finance, a year-old, San Francisco-based open-source protocol for fixed and variable yield markets, has raised $32 million in Series A funding. Polychain Capital led the round, joined by Andreessen Horowitz, Placeholder, A_Capital, and Scalar Capital. Coindesk has more here.

* GO, a year-old, Philadelphia, Pa.-based car subscription startup, has raised $41 million in funding led by Synterra Capital Management. More here.

* Skyflow, a nearly three-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based startup that promises customers the ability to store sensitive data in a zero-trust repository or vault that's accessible via an API, just raised $45 million in Series B funding. Insight Partners led the round. It follows a $17.5 million Series A round that closed last December. TechCrunch has more here.

* vFunction, a four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca-based cloud migration startup, has raised $26 million in Series A funding. Zeev Ventures and Hewlett Packard Enterprise co-led the round, joined by Engineering Capital, Primera Capital, and Shasta Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

* BondAval, a 1.5-year-old, London-based insurtech startup that's focused on helping retailers access better credit terms while providing assurance to their suppliers that they will be paid on time, has raised $7 million in seed funding led by Octopus Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

* Dellfer, a five-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based automotive cybersecurity software company, raised $8 million from DENSO and Option3, which is apparently a specialist cybersecurity private equity firm. More here.

* RodRadar, a 9.5-year-old, Mazor, Israel-based company whose sensor technology is used to avoiding damages to underground utility lines, has raised $6 Million in Series A funding led by Brick & Mortar Ventures. Commercial Observer has more here. 

* Wakeo, a nearly five-year-old, Paris-based overseas transport tracking company, just raised $11 million in Series A funding from 360 Capital and Promus Ventures. More here.

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* Patron, a new, L.A.-based venture fund from former Riot Games colleagues, has locked down $90 million in capital commitments from Invesco, Horsley Bridge Partners, and a wide number of venture capitalists (including from Andreessen Horowitz, FirstMark Capital and Union Square Ventures), to fund "Web 3" era startups and projects. We were in touch with the founders here.

* Spin Master Corp. -- the company behind the Paw Patrol franchise -- says it is investing $100 million to create Spin Master Ventures to help fund early-stage companies. The outfit says the fund will make strategic minority investments in toys, entertainment and digital games. The Canadian Press has more here.

Instacart says it's not competing with its grocery store clients, but the company is attracting more attention as it builds up a tech stack that makes it less reliant on workers to deliver the goods and maybe, ultimately, grocery stores, too. The newest development: Instacart just acquired Caper AI, a maker of smart carts and checkout systems for which Instacart is is paying $350 million in cash and stock. It looks like a good deal for Caper AI backers, who had provided the five-year-old company with just $13 million in funding, per Crunchbase data. It also looks another piece of a larger puzzle that's being assembled by Instacart, which separately enlisted robotics provider Fabric to build automated warehouses this past summer in order to fulfill delivery orders faster. Earlier this month, Instacart also acquired FoodStorm, a SaaS order management system that has historically powered order-ahead and catering experiences for grocery retailers. More on that Caper AI buy in TechCrunch.

Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos today told Deadline that his stance on Dave Chappelle's special hasn't changed but that he "screwed up the internal communication" about it. Tomorrow, Netflix's transgender employees, along with LGBTQ+ Netflix talent, including standup comic Hannah Gadsby, are organizing a company walkout in protest over statements made in latest Netflix special "The Closer."

Tesla sold 66% of all registered EVs this year.

* Facebook is beginning to roll out a “small pilot” of its Novi digital wallet today in the U.S. and Guatemala more than two years after it was first announced. The program will let users send and receive money “instantly, securely, and with no fees” using the Paxos stablecoin, in partnership with Coinbase, which will be serving as the custody partner. The Verge has more here.

* Prepare to see a lot more of Coinbase this basketball season. The NBA just agreed to its first sponsorship tie-up with the crypto trading platform, wherein Coinbase will reportedly leverage nearly all the NBA’s platforms, including the WNBA, NBA G League, NBA 2K League and USA Basketball. Terms of the deal were not provided, but the news comes on the heels of Coinbase's announcement last week that its own NFT marketplace is coming. CNBC has more here.

* In a first, surgeons attached a pig kidney to a human — and it worked.

* Working from homes moves into the garden.

* Talking with the world's fastest backwards runner.

* Writing "Eleanor Rigby."

Giant tarantula pillows.

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