Rivian roars, the DOJ is suing Uber, and avoidable Thanksgiving decor catastrophes

Hello! Just a quick mention that we hosting an evening for readers in SF tomorrow night (as many of you already know), with the much-appreciated support of Eclipse Ventures. Note that only registered attendees will be allowed entry (sorry, no exceptions). If you are coming, a.) don't forget to bring proof of vaccination, which is required by Stable Cafe. Also b.) remember to bring a jacket (it's looking like it will be a nice night, which, phew). And finally c.) the newsletter is going to be *very* short tomorrow; we'll make it up to you, including with photos, video and other coverage from the event.:) We're excited to see everyone.:)

Rivian, founded in 2009 by MIT graduate R.J. Scaringe, closed at $100.73 a share today in its public market debut, well above the $78 initial offering price set Tuesday night. The closing price gave Rivian a valuation of roughly $86 billion, based on the expected number of shares outstanding. On a fully diluted basis, the company’s valuation is now more than $100 billion. As it happens, Scaringe has a relatively small ownership stake in the company, at 2%; Amazon meanwhile owns 20% of the business, making it the really big winner here.

* In a surprise announcement, the government said today that it will likely rest its case next week against former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes in her criminal fraud trial. CNBC has more here.

* The Department of Justice is suing Uber over claims that the ride-hailing giant discriminates against passengers with disabilities, in violation of the U.S. Americans with Disabilities Act. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California today, alleged that Uber’s practice of imposing “wait time” fees on passengers with disabilities constituted discrimination. TechCrunch has more here.

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* Color, a six-year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based medical diagnostics company, raised $100 million in Series E funding at a $4.6 billion valuation. (The company has now raised $378 million altogether.) Kindred Ventures led the round, joined by T. Rowe Price and earlier backers General Catalyst, Viking Global Investors and Emerson Collective. TechCrunch has more here.

* Density, a 7.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that's developing people-counting, AI-powered sensors, has raised $125 million in Series D funding. Kleiner Perkins led the round, joined by Altimeter Capital, investor Lachy Groom and earlier backers 01 Advisors, Upfront Ventures and Founders Fund. VentureBeat has more here. 

*Kodiak Robotics, a 3.5-year-old, Silicon Valley-based autonomous truck outfit, has raised $125 million in Series B funding. TechCrunch says an unnamed freight and logistics company set up a special interest financial vehicle as the strategic lead investor spot in the round. Other backers in the round include SIP Global Partners, Muirwoods Ventures, Harpoon Ventures, StepStone Group, Gopher Asset Management, Walleye Capital, Aliya Capital Partners and others. Numerous earlier backers and strategic investors also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

* MFS Africa, a 12-year-old, Johannesburg, South Africa-based digital payments network, has raised $70 million in Series C equity funding, and an additional $30 million in debt. AfricInvest Five, Goodwell Investments and LUN Partners Group co-led the round, joined by ShoreCap, CommerzVentures, Allan Gray Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst and Endeavor Harvest. TechCrunch has more here.

* MyGlamm, a six-year-old, Mumbai, India-based DTC beauty brand, has raised $150 million in Series D funding at a $1.2 billion post-money valuation led by Prosus Ventures and Warburg Pincus, with participation from Alteria Capital and earlier investors L'Occitane, Bessemer Venture Partners, Amazon, Ascent Capital and the Mankekar Family Office. TechCrunch has more here.

* Neo4j, a 14-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based graph database company, has raised $66 million in extended Series F funding that brings the round to a total of $391 million). Inovia Capital led the newest tranche,  joined by Alanda Capital Management and One Peak. Former Google CFO Patrick Pichette joined the board as part of the arrangement (he's a partner these days with Inovia). Business Insider has more here. 

* Viome Life Sciences, a nearly six-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based gut health company that says it now wants to develop cancer diagnostics and to sell microbiome kits (its founder is Naveen Jain), has raised $54 million. Backers in the round include Ocgrow Ventures and earlier investors Khosla Ventures, West River Group, Glico, Physician Partners and Bold Capital Group. GeekWire has more here. 

* Wrapbook, a 3.5-year-old, Toronto, Ontario-based outfit that makes payroll software for the entertainment industry, has raised $100 million in funding led by Tiger Global. Other participating investors include Andreessen Horowitz, WndrCo, Uncork Capital, Equal Ventures and Eventbrite cofounder Kevin Hartz’s A-Star Partners. Bloomberg has more here.

* ZenBusiness, a 6.5-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based startup that helps other companies register their businesses, manage state and federal regulatory filings, and stay up-to-date with tax filings, just raised $200 million in Series C funding. Oak HC/FT led the round, joined by SoftBank and earlier investors Cathay Innovation and Greycroft. Austin American-Statesman has more here.

* Ample, a five-year-old, Bay Area-based startup developing battery swapping technology for electric vehicles, has scored another $30 million from The Blackstone Group and Spanish multinational financial services company Banco Santander. TechCrunch has more here. 

* Blackshark.ai, a two-year-old, Graz, Austria and San Francisco-based startup that says it's creating a digital twin of planet earth, powered by satellite data & artificial intelligence, has raised $20 million in Series A funding co-led by M12 and Point72 Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

* Blink, a six-year-old, London-based startup whose app provides a platform for frontline workers to engage with the various IT services offered by their organizations and with each other, has raised $20 million in Series A funding. Next47 led the round, joined by Partech and Techstars. TechCrunch has more here.

*  Calixa, a nearly year-old, San Francisco-based sales management platform, raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Salesforce Ventures and Twilio. TechCrunch has more here.  

* Darrow, a year-old, Israel-based startup that says its machine-learning-based platform discovers legal violations that have caused damage to millions of people by corporations -- violations that can be used to inform potential class action lawsuits -- just raised $24 million from F2 VC, Entrée Capital, NFX and Y Combinator. Globes has more here. 

* Mekonos, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based cell engineering company whose “system-on-a-chip” platform uses arrays of hundreds of silicon nanoneedles for ex vivo delivery of cell and gene therapies into any type of cell, has raised $25 million in Series A funding. Reimagined Ventures, Fiscus Ventures and PEAK6 Strategic Capital co-led the round. Others to join the round included Section 32, Sands Capital, TDK Ventures, Elementum Ventures, Debiopharm and Novartis. FierceBiotech has more here. 

* Moov, a nearly four-year-old, Tempe, Az.-based data-fueled marketplace for used manufacturing equipment, has raised $41 million in Series A funding round led by Tiger Global. Other investors in the round include Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners, Avenir Growth Fund and earlier investors. TechCrunch has more here.

* Novata, a Tk-year-old, New York-based provider of ESG reporting metrics for PE firms and private companies, raised $21 million in Series A funding from Ford Foundation, S&P Global, Hamilton Lane and Omidyar Network. The outfit tells Bloomberg the investment ranks among the largest-ever initial rounds for a public-benefit corporation. More here.

* Sandbox VR, a five-year-old, San Francisco- and Hong Kong-based startup that's creating VR entertainment locations that combine VR headsets with full-body motion capture, has raised $37 million in Series B funding. Andreessen Horowitz led the round, joined by Alibaba and Craft Ventures. The company has now raised roughly $120 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here. 

* Talent Hack, a two-year-old, New York-based platform for fitness creators (it offers them a range of business tools to grow their businesses), has raised $17 million in Series A funding. Emergence Capital Partners led, and was joined by Global Founders Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

* TreeDots, a four-year-old, Singapore-based startup that says it is the first food surplus marketplace in Asia, has raised $11 million in funding to continue building a vertically integrated supply chain with a B2B marketplace and a social commerce feature for group buying. Amasia and East Ventures co-led the round, joined by Active Fund, Seeds Capital, author Nir Eyal and actress Fiona Xie. The company has now raised $15 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

* Cacheflow, an 11-month-old, Bay Area-based startup that says it helps SaaS companies offer an easy digital-first checkout experience with flexible payments to their customers, has raised $6 million in seed funding. Longtime VC Glenn Solomon led the company’s seed round, joined by Pelion Ventures and Neythri Futures Fund, a collective of South Asian women looking to change the ratio in venture capital investing. TechCrunch has more here.

* Cradlewise, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based smart crib maker that monitors a baby's sleep, has raised $7 million in seed funding. The months-old venture firm Footwork led the round, joined by CRV and earlier backers SOSV and Better Capital, among others. TechCrunch has more here. 

* Evergrow, a months-old, San Francisco-based fintech startup that aims to be the world’s first dedicated carbon offtake company — funding climate developer projects and initiating long-term offtake agreements for these projects -- has raised a little more than $7 million in seed funding. XYZ Venture Capital and Congruent Ventures co-led the round, joined by First Round Capital, Garuda Ventures, MCJ Collective, Skyview Ventures and numerous other individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

* Ladder, a nearly two-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based strength training app, has raised $6.5 million in seed funding led by LivWell Ventures. Crunchbase News has more here. 

* Momentum, a 19-month-old, San Francisco-based sales platform that aims to help teams collaborate on deals, manage Salesforce, and track opportunities right from from Slack, has raised $5 million in seed funding. Basis Set Ventures led the round, joined by Inovia Capital, Leadout Capital, South Park Commons and a group of industry angels. TechCrunch has more here.

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* Data Community Fund, a nearly two-year-old, San Francisco-based spinout of the Data Council event, says it has garnered $15 million in capital commitments for its debut fund. More here.

* Indian food delivery firm Zomato, which went public earlier this year, is making a series of investments in startups as it looks for ways to inorganically expand its business in the world’s second largest internet market. In fact, it tells TechCrunch, it plans to deploy another $1 billion per the next one to two years, "with a large chunk of it likely going into the quick-commerce space." More here.

Zillow reportedly reached a deal to sell about 2,000 homes from its ill-fated house-flipping program. According to the WSJ, Pretium Partners, a New York-based investment firm, has agreed to buy Zillow homes across 20 U.S. markets and plans to rent them out. Zillow says it intends to sell roughly 9,800 homes it owns, plus an additional 8,200 it had been in the process of buying. The company expects to lose between 5% and 7% on these sales to Pretium, which paid market price for the properties, says the WSJ.

London-based, 11-year-old Gett is merging with a special-purpose acquisition company in a deal that would take the corporate-transportation platform public with a roughly $1.1 billion valuation. Started as a competitor to Uber and Lyft, Gett now focuses on streamlining a company’s ride-hailing, taxi and limousine booking options around the world into one platform. It's combining with Rosecliff Acquisition Corp. I, RCLF +0.61% a SPAC backed by the investment firm Rosecliff Venture Management, says the WSJ. More here.

* Amy Cheetham has been promoted to partner at Costanoa Ventures, two years after joining the outfit. Cheetham was previously the chief of staff at Zuora and, before that, spent several years as an investment associate with Summit Partners. More here. 

* Elon Musk has sold about $5 billion worth of Tesla shares, shortly after holding a poll on Twitter over whether he should sell 10% of his massive stake in the company. The world’s richest person so far has disposed of more than 4.5 million shares this week.

* Carlotta “Lotti” Siniscalco has been promoted from principal to partner at Emergence Capital. Siniscalco becomes the firm's first female partner.

* Netflix is launching a TikTok-like feature for kids.

* YouTube is removing the dislike count on all videos across its platform.

* Twitter is building a crypto team.

* Twitter "Watch Parties" are coming (possibly to the consternation of these venture-backed startups).

* What it's like to fight a megafire.

* Thanksgiving table atrocities.

* Reddit’s latest money-making obsession is an obscure Fed facility.

* Rich millennials say sayonara to wealth management firms.

* A rock-stacking simulator to sooth your nerves.

 * 100 gifts for less than $100.

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