The Apple Car is coming, that DAO got outbid, and an Amazon customer gets much more than he ordered

Today, a decentralized autonomous organization announced it lost its bid to buy one of 13 surviving copies of the original print of the U.S. Constitution from Sotheby’s after a high-stakes bidding war that captured the internet’s attention. The printing sold for $43.2 million, setting a record for a historic document. Sotheby's hasn't disclosed the name of the winner. 

Apple is reportedly pushing to accelerate development of its electric car and is refocusing the project around full self-driving capabilities. So said Bloomberg today in a report that saw Apple's shares gain as much as 2.4% afterward. More here.

A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general said today that it is investigating how Instagram attracts and affects young people, "amping up the pressure on parent company Meta over potential harms to its users," notes the WSJ.

Pilot, a San Francisco-based startup, recently raised $100 million in funding led by Bezos Expeditions, Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures and Whale Rock to help 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.

Roughly one month ago, we reported that Rippling, a SaaS company that makes employee data the focal point of a sprawling, multi-pronged offering, had raised $250 million in its latest round, led by Sequoia Capital. Last week, we learned more about what, exactly, persuaded investors to assign the five-year-old a whopping $6.5 billion valuation.

On the same day of that announcement, we had an unexpected opportunity to sit down with Conrad in person at an event we were hosting in the city. We didn’t plan to interview him (a friend slated to do this fractured her arm ahead of their sit-down), but we thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, where we talked more about Rippling but also asked Conrad for his advice to entrepreneurs who have enjoyed extreme highs and lows, as he famously has.

Founders whose companies have floundered or who otherwise have lost control of what they were building might benefit from watching the interview. In the meantime, we’ve pulled out some highlights from the conversation, edited for clarity.

Rippling is building what you call an employee system. In fact, the last time we spoke, you mentioned that unlike Salesforce, which ties a lot of business systems together around a common customer identify, Rippling makes employees the centerpiece of this unified schema. Where do you find the confidence to compare your company to a $300 billion outfit like Salesforce?

More here.

* Benchling, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based company that develops software tools for scientists and pharmaceutical research organizations, is valued at $6.1 billion after $100 million in Series F funding round led by Altimeter Capital Management and new investor Franklin Templeton, along with Tiger Global Management and Lone Pine Capital, Benchling was last valued at $4 billion in an April fundraising led by Sequoia, notes Bloomberg. Meanwhile, according to Reuters, Benchling has also confidentially submitted paperwork with regulators for a stock market listing in New York. More here.

* Expel, a 5.5-year-old, Herndon, Va.-based maker of managed detection and response software, has raised $140.3 million in Series E funding co-led by CapitalG and Paladin Capital Group. The round brings the company's total funding to $257.9 million and its valuation to over $1 billion. VentureBeat has more here.

* Formstack, a 15-year-old, Fishers, In.-based company that provides a wide range of templates and integrations to let people create their own workflow automations, has raised $425 million co-led by Silversmith Capital Partners and returning investor PSG. TechCrunch has more here. 

* Generate Biomedicines, a year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based spin-out of Flagship Pioneering that's aiming to use machine learning advances to change the game in the development of protein therapeutics, has raised $370 million Series B funding. Flagship participated, of course, along with the Alaska Permanent Fund, Altitude Life Science Ventures, ARCH Venture Partners, and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates. Endpoints News has more here.

* Stytch, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based that's building APIs that companies can use to identify and verify users through passwordless "magic links," has raised $90 million in Series B funding, just months after closing a $30 million Series A round led by Thrive Capital. Coatue led the new round, joined by Thrive and other earlier backers Benchmark and Index Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

* Aloft, a year-old, Seattle-based real estate appraisal startup, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Fifth Wall, with participation from earlier backer Andreessen Horowitz. The company has now raised $25 million altogether. GeekWire has more here.

* Anyword, an eight-year-old, New York-based AI-based language optimization platform that aims to transform how marketers tailor their messages to their customers across all channels, has raised $21 million in new funding, bringing its total funding to more than $30 million. The round was led by Innovation Endeavors, with participation from Lead Capital, Gandyr Ventures, and roughly a dozen individual investors. Calcalist has more here.

* Doorvest, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based real estate investing platform that helps people invest in passive income rental homes, has raised $14 million in equity funding led by M13, with participation from Mucker Capital and numerous angels. The company separately secured a $25 million debt facility. TechCrunch has more here.

* Eatron, a three-year-old, Warwick, England-based startup at work on intelligent automotive software, has raised $11 million in Series A funding led by MMC Ventures, with participation from Aster Capital and Vietnamese carmaker VinFast. TechCrunch has more here.

* MedArrive, a year-old, New York-based healthcare platform that helps payers and providers shift more care into the home by coordinating with emergency medical services (EMS) professionals, nurses and community health workers, has raised $25 million in Series A funding. Section 32 led the round, joined by 7wireVentures, Leaps by Bayer, and earlier investors Define Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, and Redesign Health. Home Health Care News has more here.

* Nym Technologies, a three-year-old, Neuchâtel, Switzerland-based company with a privacy-enhanced authentication token built with what it describes as privacy-enhancing technologies resistant to global surveillance, has raised $13 million in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz Crypto. More here.

* PayZen, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based "care-now-pay-later" startup that says it uses AI to underwrite patients’ medical debt and allow them to pay for their care over time in installments, has raised $15 million in Series A funding. SignalFire led the round, joined by Link Ventures, 7WireVentures and earlier backers Viola Ventures and Picus Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

* Party Round, an eight-month-old, remote company whose product help founders automate their fundraising process, has raised $7 million in funding, it revealed today. Gradient Ventures led the company's pre-seed round, and Andreessen Horowitz led the seed, joined by Seven Seven Six, Abstract Ventures, and Shrug Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

* QuickHire, a months-old, Wichita, Ka.-based career discovery platform working with service workers to find job and advancement opportunities, has raised $1.41 million in seed funding led by MATH Venture Partners. More here.

Eddi — this veteran and female founding team is innovating the way we clean. Leading with beautiful design, Eddi’s approach of combining style and sustainability to minimize waste has been celebrated in Forbes, Domino, FastCo, and Architectural Digest. Try their hand soap starter set, complete with a premium metal dispenser and three natural liquid soaps in plastic-free bottles.

* Olympus, a Tokyo-based manufacturer of optical and digital precision technology, says it's allocating $50 million for a venture arm, Olympus Innovation Ventures, to invest in medtech startups. The fund will be managed with the help of Touchdown Ventures, which helps oversea the venture funds of numerous corporations. Mass Device has more here.

* Primer Sazze Partners, a San Jose-based venture capital firm, says it has closed its second fund with $127 million in capital commitments to invest in startups founded by Korean entrepreneurs in Asia and North America. South Korea-based conglomerate LG Corporation and Hana Financial are the fund's anchor LPs, with participation from a number of Korean tech entrepreneurs. The outfit closed its second fund with  $42.9 million (50 billion won) in capital commitments in 2018. TechCrunch has more here.

* Workday announced this afternoon that it intends spent $510 million, primarily in cash, to acquire VNDLY, a Mason, OH startup that helps companies manage external workforce personnel. Workday helps companies manage finance and human resources tasks, and VNDLY fitsinto the latter category, providing them with software to manage contractors. TechCrunch has more here.

* Fieldwire, a nearly eight-year-old, venture-backed company that makes task management software for construction teams on commercial projects, has just been acquired by Hilti Corporation, a Schaan, Liechtenstein-based outfit that provides of tools, tech, software and services to the commercial construction industry. The purchase price is approximately $300 million; according to Crunchbase, Fieldwire had raised roughly $40 million from investors, including AngelPad, Trinity Ventures, Formation 8 and Menlo Ventures, among others. More here.

Shares of salad chain Sweetgreen closed up 76% today afternoon, surging in the company’s public market debut. The stock opened at $52 a share, giving the company a market value of more than $5.5 billion. The company priced its initial public offering at $28 a share Wednesday evening, above its marketed range of $23 to $25 per share. Sweetgreen sold 13 million shares, raising $364 million for the company. CNBC has more here.

* Audio platforms like Clubhouse already pay creators to host shows, but deep-pocketed Facebook may be paying the most, reports The Information. According to one of its sources, Facebook is offering to pay musicians and other creators $10,000 to $50,000 per session on its five-month-old live audio product, plus a fee for guests of $10,000 or more. More here.

* Apple wants staff to return to offices on Feb. 1 to begin a “hybrid work pilot”, under which employees will work out of the office for one or two days each week and, beginning in March, three days a week.

* He helped build Tesla. Now he's gunning for it.

* Wildlife photography award winners.

* One man's standoff with an abandoned Amazon truck.

* Inside the eye surgery chain LasikPlus: "Dr. Alban said she was comfortable operating on 28 patients a day but was pushed to do 40 to 50. She would agree to boost her volume, she said, only to sometimes find an extra four or five patients added to her schedule without her permission. Some days, she operated from early morning until 9 p.m., she said."

* "The as-yet unidentified new owner appears to be an obviously wildly rich Silicon Valley power player."

* A Patek Philippe NFT.

Join the Global Investor Conference on the 7th of December - a bumper day of virtual panels with industry experts covering NFTs, the Metaverse, Crypto, DeFi, Gaming and much more. Previous speakers include Tim Draper, Greg Kidd, and JP Thieriot. This event handpicks the brightest entrepreneurs and investors to help you identify world-changing companies and make informed investment decisions on pre-IPO unicorn companies. We’re also throwing in a $500 credit to your first pre-IPO unicorn purchase. Start your investor journey here.