Amazon's sizable stake in Rivian, Apple's most back-ordered product, and Marc Andreessen makes his mark on Malibu

Happy Halloween, you lovable ghouls!

Before we turn this thing off for the weekend, we leave you with this week's StrictlyVC Download, with featured guest Kevin Chou, a successful serial entrepreneur who, like a growing number of founders, has transitioned to the world of Web3 and isn't looking back. On the contrary, we talked a bit about why more venture firms should get with the program, given the most talented crypto founders have lost patience with investors who aren't up to speed. (Three years ago, they were more willing to do some hand-holding, says Chou.) 

You will see that we were also trying to get up to speed during this one, but we got there! (Kind of!) 

Giant thanks to TechCrunch for sponsoring this week's episode. If you aren't already a subscriber to TechCrunch +, you're missing out. Discover how successful startups operate through deep-dive interviews with founders and investors. Spot trends and opportunities with market analysis, investor surveys and topical newsletters. And get expert advice on fundraising, growth and management from experienced entrepreneurs -- plus much more.

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There’s a new venture studio in the world that looks rather different from earlier venture studios from a structural standpoint. Unlike renowned outfits like Atomic or Science or Expa that create companies that then sell equity to VCs who expect that equity to rise in value, this new studio, SuperLayer, plans to spin up consumer projects then instead of sell equity to VCs, it will invite the communities that use these products that invest in them by acquiring tokens, which can then be bought or sold or used to participate in other projects.

Indeed, in the case of SuperLayer, the tokens might all look a bit different, but they will all be tied to a blockchain network called Rally that SuperLayer’s founders created earlier and want to help popularize by creating more interesting apps atop it.

It’s part of what early crypto adherents have labeled Web3 and describe as the internet owned by the builders and users and orchestrated with tokens. It’s also a world that many venture firms continue to approach warily. But they may well miss the boat as more outfits like SuperLayer begin to emerge, many of them created by battle-tested founders.

In the case of Superlayer, that founder is Kevin Chou, who sold his gaming company, Kabam, for $800 million back in 2018 and almost immediately jumped headlong into the world of blockchain technologies, which he believes can unlock new economic opportunities, including for gamers and or creators.

In fact, before spinning up SuperLayer, Chou cofounded the blockchain gaming startup called Forte; he is also the cofounder of Rally, a launchpad for creators to build and distribute their own digital currencies that are essentially white-labeled versions of the RLY coin, as it’s called.

Chou has had the support along the way of investors like Coinbase Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, and they’ve already seen meaningful upside. Those RLY coins, worth five cents when all 15 billion of them were minted, are now trading on Coinbase and several other exchanges for roughly $.052.

More here.

* Deliverr, a 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based e-commerce fulfillment company, is reportedly in talks to raise $250 million in a Tiger Global-led round at a $2 billion valuation, says Bloomberg. The company had closed its most recent round -- $135 million in Series D funding and a $35 million convertible note -- in March, led by Coatue and Brookfield Technology Partners. More here.

* Impossible Foods, the 10-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company making "meat" from plants,  is reportedly in talks to raise around $500 million at a $7 billion valuation, says Bloomberg. As the outlet notes, the round -- should it come together --  would value Impossible Foods higher than its chief rival: Beyond Meat’s market value was roughly $6.2 billion as of midday yesterday. More here.

* ProLogium Technology, a 15-year-old, Taipei, Taiwan-based lithium battery cell maker, has raised $326 million from dGav Capital, Primavera Capital and SB China Venture Capital, among others. Bloomberg has more here.

* Purplle, a nine-year-old, Indian online beauty products retailer, is raising funds at a valuation of $630 million just as rival Nykaa is executing its IPO, notes Bloomberg. Kedaara Capital led the fresh $75 million funding round, according to the company. Earlier investors Sequoia Capital and Blume Ventures also joined the round. More here.

* T3 Chuxing, a two-year-old, Nanjing, China-based ride-hailing company that competes with Didi Global, says it has raised $1.2 billion in Series A funding from a group of investors led by the state-backed conglomerate Citic Group. The Series A is among the biggest in China this year; Didi, meanwhile, "continues to feel the sting of a regulatory crackdown," notes Nikkei Asia. More here.

* UnitedMasters, a four-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based music distribution app for independent musicians, has raised $50 million in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz at a post-money valuation of $550 million. Says The Information, which reported the news yesterday: The company is "part of a wave of music startups capitalizing on the popularity of TikTok and other short-video features, such as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. The shared videos, which often feature music, have allowed musicians to find audiences without the help of record companies, which typically own the rights to their music." More here.

* Rallyware, a nine-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based performance enablement platform, has raised $22 million from PeakSpan Capital. More here.

* SlashNext, a four-year-old, Pleasanton, Ca-based phishing defense startup, has raised $26 million in Series B funding from Tom and Matt Gallo, Telia Group, Ayala and earlier backers Norwest Venture Partners, Wing VC and Alter Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

* Able, a three-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based startup behind an income management app for creators, has raised $3.2 million in seed funding led by Elefund, which was joined by Moonshots Capital, Next Coast Ventures, Signal Peak Ventures, and LocalGlobe. More here. 

* Arc, a 10-month-old, L.A.-based startup with ambitions to electrify everything on the water, starting with a limited-edition $300,000 boat, raised an undisclosed amount of capital from several new investors, including funds from Will Smith’s Dreamers VC, Kevin Durant and Rich Kleiman’s Thirty Five Ventures and Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Combs Enterprises. The round pushes Arc's total funding past $7 million, some of which it raised earlier this year, led by Andreessen Horowitz. TechCrunch has more here.

* Atlys, a year-old, San Francisco-based travel visa application startup, raised $4.3 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. The company, whose CEO was previously a Pinterest engineer for more than three years, also drew funding from Pinterest cofounders Ben Silbermann and Evan Sharp. among others. TechCrunch has more here. 

* Beta Finance, a nine-month-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based permission-less money market for lending, borrowing, and short selling crypto assets, has raised $5.8 million. Sequoia Capital India led the round, joined by ParaFi Capital, DeFiance Capital, Spartan Group, GSR, Delphi Digital and Multicoin Capital. TechCrunch has more here.  

* Fleksy, a six-year-old, Barcelona, Spain-based mobile keyboard software maker, has raised $1.6 million in Series A funding led by Inveready, with participation from SOSV and Simile Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

* Ladder, a year-old, San Francisco-based next generation professional community platform, has raised $3.7 million in seed funding led by Forerunner Ventures. Other participants in the round include Seven Seven Six, Pear VC, Scribble Ventures, Script Capital, and a whole lot of notable individual investors, including DoorDash CEO Tony Xu. More here. 

* Luma, a four-month-old, Bay Area-based startup focused on photorealistic 3D capture (its two founders previously spent time at Apple working on computer vision systems and AR/VR, respectively), has raised $4.3 million in seed funding. Matrix Partners led the round, joined by South Park Commons, Amplify Partners, RFC’s Andreas Klinger, Context Ventures, and numerous angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

* NeuraLight, a months-old, Austin, Tex.- and Tel Aviv, Israel-based developer of neurology drug development software, has raised $5.5 million in seed funding from MSAD, Kli, Tuesday, Operator Partners and VSC Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

* Social Chat, a months-old, San Francisco-based social commerce startup founded by the former head of growth at the shopping app Wish, has raised $6 million co-led by Race Capital and Gradient Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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Multiple Capital, a Frankfurt, Germany-based fund of funds that has invested in 30 "micro" VC funds across Europe -- including Angular Ventures, Icebreaker, Air Street, and Lunar Ventures --  just closed its second fund with €20 million in capital commitments. Tech.eu has more here.

* Faceb--, er, Meta has announced that the studio behind VR workout game Supernatural will be joining the company, adding to the roster of studios owned by what used to be known as Facebook’s Oculus division. The company says that Within, the company behind Supernatural, will continue to work on the popular fitness app and will also help Meta’s Reality Labs “enhance future hardware to support VR fitness apps." Within is but one of many popular VR studios to be acquired by the company over the last few years, notes The Verge.

* Microsoft has acquired Two Hat, a content moderation provider that’s helped keep harmful content off Xbox. Microsoft has been working with Two Hat for the past few years to improve its Xbox communities; the terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Verge has more here.

Kurly, a six-year-old, South Korea-based online grocery startup that provides next-day delivery services across the country and is backed in part by DST Global, Sequoia Capital China and Hillhouse Capital, will go public by June of next year, it says. It's reportedly aiming for a valuation of $5.9 billion in the offering. The company last raised $200 million in Series F funding at a $2.2 billion valuation in July. TechCrunch has more here.

Amazon owns 20% of electric carmaker Rivian. The disclosure, which popped up in a regulatory filing, provides fresh insight into how closely Rivian’s future is tied to Amazon. TechCrunch has more here.

* Marc Andreessen and his wife, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, are doubling down on California, having bought a Malibu compound with seven oceanfront acres that sold for $177 million, according to the WSJ. The deal, which closed this week, set a sales record for the state. Previously, the record for the highest-priced deal in California was set by Jeff Bezos, who purchased a home from media mogul David Geffen for $165 million last year. More here.

* Larry Ellison has meanwhile bought the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort, Spa and Casino through his Lawrence Investments firm, according to the Tahoe Daily Tribune. The property will continue to operate as a Hyatt. It is one of multiple other properties in the region that Ellison owns, according to Forbes.

* Megan Kelly has joined the venture firm Threshold as a principal in New York. Kelly previously worked at First Round Capital. Threshold, which has a handful of healthcare investments in New York, has also relocated partner Chirag Chotalia from the firm's Bay Area office to New York as its beefs up its presence on the East Coast. More here.

* If Mark Zuckerberg's new strategy works, it could help address several of Facebook’s biggest problems, argues Kevin Roose of the New York Times.

* Andreessen Horowitz, whose founders played big roles in the development of the internet, aims to own a huge part of the digital currency world — and set the rules for it, too.

* How to avoid "smartphone pinkie."

* How Ryan Reynolds built a business empire.

* Well, this costume beats our costumes.

Apple's most back-ordered product (is not what you think).

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