Facebook wants the youths, Palmer Luckey's frustration, and SEC is poised to win in its battle with crypto execs

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* Mark Zuckerberg says he’s redirected teams within Facebook to “make serving young adults their north star.” The comment, made on a call with investors this afternoon, speaks to Facebooks’ concerns about declining usage among teens and young adults. The Verge has more here.

* The Treasury Department and other agencies will specify in a report -- expected this week that the SEC has significant authority over tokens like Tether, Bloomberg reported earlier today. The report will also urge Congress to pass legislation specifying coins should be regulated similarly to bank deposits, said Bloomberg.

* Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is planning to raise roughly $6.5 billion to fuel the firm’s aggressive deal-making pace, according to the WSJ, which says a16z is talking with its limited partners about a $2 billion early-stage fund (its eighth) and a $4.5 billion growth-stage fund that would be its third. As we noted when we talked with the firm about its $400 million seed-stage fund in August, it has been on a fundraising tear since early 2020.

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Marcy Venture Partners, the venture firm cofounded in 2018 by Shawn Carter (Jay-Z), former Roc Nation CEO Jay Brown, and former Walden VC general partner Larry Marcus, says it has closed its second fund with $325 million in capital commitments. The team, which closed its debut fund with $85 million, is now managing $600 million in assets altogether, says cofounder Marcus.

The firm describes itself as having a “consumer, culture and positive impact” investment strategy, and it says the majority of its existing portfolio companies are founded or run by people who identify as women or people of color.

To date, the trio has written checks to at least 21 companies, including in fashion, skin care, and food companies. Among those many bets includes Rihanna’s lingerie company Savage X Fenty; the sneaker marketplace StockX; Therabody, which makes percussion therapy tools; Simulate, which makes plant-based, chicken-flavored nuggets; and an allergen-free cookie maker called Partake Foods.

Carter and company have also begun investing in crypto projects, supporting Bitski, a San Francisco-based startup NFT marketplace, earlier this year, and investing more recently in spatial LABS (sLABS), a tech incubator that focuses on the metaverse and blockchain-based products.

The San Francisco- and L.A.-based firm, named after the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn where Carter grew up, was initially targeting $200 million for the newest fund, per an SEC filing from April.

The firm is just one of many business interests for Carter. For example, he owns half of the champagne brand Armand de Brignac, known familiarly as Ace of Spades. He acquired the label for an undisclosed sum in 2014; in February of this year, Moet Hennessy bought half the company for terms that were not disclosed.

Carter also owned Tidal, a streaming music service that he'd bought in 2015 and renamed (and reshaped), before selling a "significant majority" of the company to the financial services giant Square for $297 million in cash and stock back in March. He launched Monogram, a cannabis brand, last December. And, of course, he most famously founded Roc Nation, now a 13-year-old, sprawling entertainment company that has its tentacles in everything from artist and athlete management, to labels, publishing, touring, film, and television, among other ventures.

Image credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Roc Nation

* Billie, a five-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based buy-not-pay-later platform for B2B transactions, has raised $100 million in Series C funding at a $640 million post-money valuation. Dawn Capital led the round, joined by Tencent, Klarna and earlier backers Creandum, Speedinvest, Picus and GFC. TechCrunch has more here.

* ClearTax, a nine-year-old, Bengaluru, India-based tax return filing SaaS, has raised $75 million in Series C funding. Kora Capital led the round, joined by Stripe, Alua Capital and Think Investments. TechCrunch has more here. 

* Groww, a nearly four-year-old, Bengaluru, India-based savings and investment platform targeting millennials in the country (its founders are four former Flipkart employees), just raised $251 million in Series E funding at a $3 billion valuation from Alkeon, Lone Pine Capital, Steadfast and earlier backers Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, YC Continuity, Tiger Global and Propel Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

* Teachmint, a 16-month-old, India-based startup that's helping teachers and institutes create their own virtual classrooms, has raised $78 million in Series B funding co-led by
Rocketship.vc and Vulcan Capital at a post-money valuation of $500 million. Other participants in the round include Goodwater Capital, Epiq Capital and earlier backers Learn Capital, CM Ventures, Lightspeed India and Better Capital. The company has now raised a little more than $115 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

* Thrasio, a 3,5-year-old, Boston-based outfit that acquires and aggregates third-party merchants selling on Amazon and other marketplace platforms, has raised $1 billion in Series D funding at a $10 billion valuation. Silver Lake and Advent International co-led the round, joined by earlier backers Oaktree Capital Management, PEAK6 Investments and Corner Capital. The company, which says it's currently buying 1.5 businesses per week and has some 200 brands in its portfolio, has now raised $3.4 billion altogether, including $650 million in debt that it secured earlier this year. TechCrunch has more here.

* Workit Health, a 6.5-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based company that treats substance abuse virtually through online individual, group therapy, and medication-assisted treatment, has raised $90 million in Series C equity funding, plus another $28 million in debt funding. Insight Partners led the equity round, joined by CVS Health Ventures, FirstMark Capital, BCBS Venture Fund and 3L Capital. According to Forbes, the company -- which has raised $140 million in equity to date -- is  now valued at $500 million. More here.

* Cedilla Therapeutics, a three-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based oncology biotech that was originally launched by Third Rock Ventures, just raised raised $25 million in extended Series B funding that brings the round total to $83 million. RA Capital and Janus Henderson were among the participants in the round. FierceBiotech has more here. 

* Selfbook, a year-old, New York-based hotel payment software startup, has raised $25 million in Series A funding led by Tiger Global Management. Valia Ventures, Fin Venture Capital, investor Lachy Groom and angel investors also joined the round, which brings the company's total funding to $30 million. TechCrunch has more here.

* Ando, a two-year-old, San Diego-based banking startup that says it invests its customer deposits in carbon-reducing projects like solar initiatives, has raised $6 million. TTV Capital led the round,  joined by HOF Capital, Kinetic Ventures and NNS Group. More here.

* Cryptosys, a blockchain-based digital entertainment platform, has reportedly raised $7.5 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. More here.

* Justos, a months-old, Brazil-based startup focused on selling automotive insurance, has raised a $35.8 million Series A round of funding led by Ribbit Capital. SoftBank’s Latin American Fund and GGV also participated as new investors, alongside earlier backers Kaszek, BigBets, Nubank CEO David Velez and Kavak CEO Carlos Garcia Ottati. (They'd provided the company with $2.8 million in seed funding in May.) TechCrunch has more here.

* Poladrone, a five-year-old, Malaysia-based startup that's using a combination of drones and analytics software to change the way farms use pesticides, has raised $4.29 million in seed funding led by Wavemaker Partners. Other participants include the Malaysian Technology Development Corporation, ZB Capital Limited, and angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

* Vendease, a nearly two-year-old, Nigeria-based online marketplace that matches regional restaurants and other food businesses to manufacturers and farms based on pricing, has raised $3.2 million led by Global Founders Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

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* Asymmetric Capital Partners, a five-month-old, Boston-based venture firm that's focused on B2B startups, has raised $105 million for its debut fund. TechCrunch has more here.

* Promus Ventures, a nine-year-old, Chicago-based venture firm, has closed a €120 million ($139 million) venture fund that will focus on early-stage space-related investments and has been dubbed Orbital Ventures. The new fund, which will be based in Luxembourg, grew out of a mix of public and private investment, reports TechCrunch. The European Investment Fund, the financing arm of the European Union’s European Investment Bank Group, committed €40 million; other participants include Luxembourg’s Ministry of the Economy and the National Credit and Investment Institution. More here.

* JLL, the global commercial real estate services company, has agreed to buy Building Engines, a 21-year-old, Boston-based maker of property management software, for around $300 million in cash. Building Engines, long bootstrapped, had raised more than $60 million beginning in 2016, including from Wavecrest Growth Partners, River Cities Capital Funds, MassMutual Ventures and Camber Creek Ventures. Business Insider has more here.

* New Relic, the publicly traded software analytics company, quietly  acquired CodeStream, a four-year-old, developer collaboration platform, three months ago. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Register has more here.

* Allbirds, the seven-year-old, San Francisco-based shoe brand, has revealed through a new SEC filing that it's targeting a valuation of more than $2 billion in its upcoming IPO (that's slightly more the valuation it was last assigned by its private investors). CNBC has more here.

* Faze Clan is on track to become a publicly traded company. The competitive esports group is merging with B. Riley Principal 150 Merger Corp. in a deal that reportedly values the combined companies at $1 billion. As a part of the deal, Faze Clan estimates it can obtain up to $291 million to help fund its growth, according to a post on Faze Clan’s website. More here and here.

Entrepreneur Palmer Luckey last week won a years-old lawsuit that alleged he committed constructive fraud in creating the Rift and founding Oculus -- and he wishes a bigger deal had been made about the verdict. Tweeted Luckey today: "Hundreds of stories were written when the lawsuit was filed, dozens more covered minutia of the case as it progressed. The verdict got a single paywalled legal newswire entry."

Tesla’s market valuation reached -- and then surpassed -- the $1 trillion mark today, a milestone reached by the company 11 years after it became publicly traded. Its shares rose partly in response to news that rental giant Hertz, which recently emerged from bankruptcy, has agreed to buy 100,000 EVs from the automaker. 

* U.S. retail giants Home Depot and Best Buy have pulled the Chinese video surveillance technology makers Lorex and Ezviz from their stores over links to human rights abuses. TechCrunch has more here.

* The newest AirPods: a review.

* The 10 best global universities of 2022, according to U.S. News and World Report.

* Wes Anderson's "most free-wheeling film."

* The Polo Bar reopens in Manhattan.

We want to go here.

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