Netflix makes a move, Tile gets acquired, and a $40 million mess for a community of crypto investors

Hello! Happy Thanksgiving week. Just a quick mention that we will not be publishing the newsletter on Thursday or Friday. 🦃🦃🦃

President Joe Biden will nominate Fed Chairman Jerome Powell for a second term, opting for policy continuity despite resistance from some progressives. More here.

The latest U.S. Covid-19 wave is taking its toll on some states’ intensive-care units, with several parts of the country seeing outbreaks that are as bad as ever. (See how your state is doing here.)

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Led by sales of cheddar and mozzarella, the U.S. cheese market alone was valued at $34.3 billion in 2019, and is projected to reach $45.5 billion by 2027, growing at a compound annual growth rate of of 5.25%, according to Allied Research.

By comparison, the vegan cheese industry is tiny, measuring around $1.2 billion in size in 2019 and projected to reach $4.4 billion by 2027, per Allied’s findings.

That massive gap hasn’t stopped a syndicate of investors from plowing $25 million in seed funding into New Culture, a company that sells is selling “cow cheese, without the cow.” On the contrary, its investors think the three-year-old, Bay Area-based startup can grow the market meaningfully through an animal-free mozzarella that, according to investor Steve Jurvetson, tastes, smells and stretches like milk cheese, unlike most vegan cheese, which he describes as “quite disgusting to date.”

The missing ingredient, says Jurvetson, has been the casein protein of milk, which, until now, could only be had from milk. Meanwhile, New Culture says through a precision fermentation process, it is producing large amounts of casein protein. 

More here.

* Deliverr, a 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based e-commerce fulfillment company that relies on predictive analytics, just raised $250 million in new funding led by Tiger Global, with participation from earlier backers Coatue, 8VC, Activant Capital, Brookfield Technology Partners and GLP. Bloomberg has more here.

* LTK, a 10-year-old, Dallas, Tex.-based platform that helps social media influencers monetize their content (its platform includes apps, blogs, social media, and customized storefronts where users can market their products), has raised $300 million from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 at a $2 billion valuation. TechCrunch has more here.

* MoonPay, a three-year-old, Miami-based company whose software invites users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies using conventional payment methods like credit cards, bank transfers or mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay, has raised $555 million in first ever round of funding, co-led by Tiger Global and Coatue. The deal values the company at $3.4 billion, says CNBC. More here.

* Niantic, the 11-year-old, San Francisco-based augmented reality platform that’s developing games like Pokémon GO (and was originally formed inside of Google), just raised $300 million from Coatue in a round that values the company at $9 billion. The company's previous round, a $245 million Series C led by IVP in early 2019, had valued the business at $4 billion. TechCrunch has more here.

* Royal, a seven-month-old, Las Vegas-based venture that's looking to wed music rights with NFTs, allowing users to buy shares of songs through the company’s marketplace, earning royalties as the music they’ve invested in gains popularity, has raised $55 million in Series A funding led by the crypto arm of Andreessen Horowitz. The Chainsmokers, Logic, artists Nas and Kygo, and CAA also joined the round, which comes hot on the heels of a $16 million seed round that closed in August led by Founders Fund and Paradigm. TechCrunch has more here.

* Sword Health, a 6.5-year-old, New York-based musculoskeletal virtual therapy platform that pairs expert physical therapists with FDA-listed wearable technology to deliver personalized treatments, has raised $163 million in Series D funding. Sapphire Ventures led the round, joined by earlier investors General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, Bond, Transformation Capital and Green Innovations. The company also oversaw $26 million in secondary share sales. More here.

* Helaina, a two-year-old, New York company that, like New Culture (above), says it uses precision fermentation -- in this case to recreate immune-equivalent proteins previously only available in breast milk -- has raised $20 million in Series A investment. The round was co-led by Spark Capital and Siam Capital, and included participation from Plum Alley Investments and Primary Venture Partners. Food Business News has more here.

* Jina.ai, a nearly two-year-old, Berlin-based open source startup that uses neural search to help its users find information in their unstructured data (including videos and images), has raised $30 million in Series A funding. Canaan Partners led the round, joined by Mango Capital and earlier investors GGV Capital, SAP.iO and Yunqi Partners. The company, whose cofounder and CEO was formerly an engineering lead at Tencent AI Lab, has now raised $39 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

* Fonoa, a two-year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based startup focused on tax automation for online businesses, has raised $20.5 million in a Series A funding led by OMERS Ventures, with participation from Index Ventures, FJ Labs, and Moving Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

* Fuzzy, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based telemedicine company centered around pet care, has raised $44 million in Series C (we think?) funding led by Icon Ventures. Other participants in the round include Greycroft, Matrix, and Crosscut. The company has closed on $18 million in Series B funding back in March. TechCrunch has more here.

* Pace, a 15-month-old, Singapore-based buy-now-pay-later company, has raised $40 million in Series A funding. UOB Venture Management, Marubeni Ventures, Atinum Partners, AppWorks, and several family offices from Japan and Indonesia participated in the round, along with earlier backers. ZDNet has more here.

* Render, a nearly four-year-old, San Francisco-based DevOps cloud platform, has raised $20 million Series A funding led by Addition, with participation from earlier backers General Catalyst and South Park Commons. TechCrunch has more here.

* Fractional, a year-old, San Francisco-based startup that invites friends and strangers to co-own real estate properties (it calls itself a social platform), has raised $5.5 million in funding led by CRV, with participation from Y Combinator, Will Smith, Kevin Durant, Goodwater Capital, Unusual Ventures, Global Founders Capital, On Deck, Contrary Capital and Soma Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

* Shield-IoT, a four-year-old, Kefar Sava, Israel-based security startup focused on mass-scale IoT deployments, has raised $7.4 million in Series A funding from Akamai, NextLeap Ventures, Janvest Capital Partners, E.ON Future Energy Ventures, Bloc Ventures, Atlas Asset Management, SpringTide Ventures and DiveDigital. VentureBeat has more here. 

* Svix, a 4.5-year-old, Herzliya, Israel-based whose software-as-a-service helps companies trigger API notifications, has raised $2.6 million from Y Combinator and Aleph. Calcalist has more here.

* Z1, a two-year-old, Sao Paulo, Brazil-based fintech startup whose financial offerings, like prepaid cards, are targeted at teenagers, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Kaszek Ventures, with participation from Maya Capital, Homebrew, Clocktower, and The Chainsmokers. TechCrunch has more here.

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* Eclipse Ventures, the six-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based venture firm focused on digitizing legacy industries, with a team that comes from Flex, Tesla, Microsoft and Coatue, among other places, has closed raised $510 million in capital commitments for its first growth fund, says firm founder Lior Susan. The outfit had closed its fourth early-stage fund with $500 million in capital commitments earlier this year. More here.

* Edge Investments, a 16-year-old, London-based VC firm focused on a range of sectors, including edtech, virtual and augmented reality, adtech, and content creation, has held an £85 million first close for its second fund, which the outfit expects to close with £100 million, says Tech.eu. More here.

VentureSouq, an eight-year-old, Dubai-based venture capital firm, has launched a $50 million fund focused on fintech across the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region and Pakistan. The fund will reportedly invest in early-stage fintech and SaaS companies focused on areas such as payments infrastructure, alternative credit, digital banking, proptech, insurtech and personal financial management. Finextra has more here.

* Swedish telecom-equipment maker Ericsson today agreed to buy the Holmdel, N.J.-based cloud-communications company Vonage for $6.2 billion, its biggest deal ever. Ericsson agreed to pay $21 a share in cash for Vonage, representing a 28% premium to Friday’s closing share price. The purchase will be financed through Ericsson’s existing cash resources and aims to expand Ericsson's wireless enterprise business and broaden its global offerings. The move is the latest in a flurry of acquisitions in the cloud-communications software market, notes the WSJ. More here.

* Netflix said today that it is acquiring the special-effects company Scanline VFX, a 32-year-old, Canada-based firm that has worked on several shows for Netflix, including “Stranger Things” and “Blood Red Sky.” The company says it will invest in Scanline’s infrastructure and workforce -- particularly in virtual production -- to “push the boundaries of what is visibly possible.” Terms of the deal weren’t released. The WSJ has more here.

* Tile, known for its range of Bluetooth-based tracking accessories that compete with the AirTag, is being acquired by location tracking service Life360, Tile announced today. The deal is valued at $205 million. The Verge has more here.

* Shares in the owner of Indian fintech giant Paytm tumbled for a second day, inflicting about $900 million in losses on investors that bought into the much-hyped IPO. The stock of its parent company, One97 Communications, closed today nearly 37% below its IPO price. “It was clearly mispriced,” Prashant Gokhale, the Hong Kong-based co-founder of Aletheia Capital, tells the WSJ.

* Paytm could also have a chilling effect on some of the IPO prospects in India that have been “on the periphery” and looking to benefit from the flood of transactions; they might now rethink the timing and pricing of their issues, according to Edelweiss Financial Services. Bloomberg has more here.

* How billionaire Jack Dorsey is doling out his fortune.

* Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has reportedly told senior managers he would consider leaving the company if he can’t quickly fix the culture problems at the videogame giant, following a WSJ investigation into his handling of sexual-misconduct allegations and multiple regulatory probes into the company’s culture. 

* SoftBank Vision Fund just promoted four investing partners to managing partners: Lydia Jett, Sumer Juneja,  Dennis Chang, and Vikas Parekh. Jett, based in Palo Alto, becomes the first woman to hold the title. Juneja is meanwhile based in India, Chang is in China, and Parekh, like Jett, is based in the U.S.. Bloomberg has more here.

* The community of crypto investors who tried and failed to buy a copy of the U.S. Constitution last week has descended into chaos as people are realize that roughly half the donors will have the majority of their investment wiped out by onerous cryptocurrency fees.

* Desperate parents are turning to a new kind of Santa’s helper: the consumer-friendly shopping bot.

* Twitter introduces aliases for contributors to its Birdwatch moderation program.

* 100 notable books of 2021.

* The tragedy of Tom and Shiv.

* Get ready to discuss NFTs and Dogecoin at the Thanksgiving table.

* SUPER73 R Series.

* The actual house from "House of Gucci" is now available on Airbnb.

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, Ethereum, Gaming, DAOs and so much more. Previous speakers include Tim Draper, Greg Kidd, JP Thieriot. This event handpicks the brightest entrepreneurs and investors to help identify world-changing companies and make informed decisions on pre-IPO companies. Sign up HERE to enter a raffle for a week-long learning experience in Lisbon in Spring, 2022.