Apple takes a stand against spyware, Elizabeth Holmes passes the buck, and last-minute holiday escapes

Happy Tuesday! Also, please forgive any and all typos (including in yesterday's newsletter). We're balancing work with extended family this week, which is great for us but less great for the newsletter.:)

Apple announced today that it has sued Israel-based NSO Group over the use of its Pegasus spyware to attack Apple devices, the latest move in an escalating global campaign to curb surveillance abuses against smartphone users. The Washington Post has more here.

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If you’ve ever visited the site of the six-year-old, London-based direct-to-consumer clothing company Vollebak, you’ve likely marveled at the exaggerated descriptions of clothing it sells, including a jacket “designed for a world of megastorms, where ‘waterproof’ is not enough,” a hoodie that promises to repel rain, wind, snow and fire; and and an “ice age” fleece “designed to recreate the feeling and performance of the soft hides worn by prehistoric man.”

That marketing genius comes directly from CEO Steve Tidball, who cofounded the outfit with his twin, Nick Tidball — both of whom worked in advertising previously and both of whom are active outdoorsmen, though their families and the growth of Vollebak have kept them closer to home in recent years. Indeed, Steve Tidball writes the copy himself, he revealed last week in an interview about Vollebak, a brand that prides itself on making “clothes for the future.” 

During that chat, he also answered our questions about how much tech is actually involved in the clothing's production. And he let us know that Vollebak has so far raised around $10 million in outside funding, including through a Series A round that is about to close, led by the London-based venture firm Venrex, with participation from Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia, and Headspace CFO Sean Brecker, among others. Our chat has been edited for length and clarity.

You started this company with your twin, Nick. So much of its genius seems to be in how your clothing is marketed. Tell us a bit about how it came together.

We launched the company five years ago. Before that, we’d been working together in advertising for 15 years, so I think one of the reasons the marketing is more fun than it might otherwise be is that was our job.

We’ve operated by an incredibly simple rule from a marketing perspective, which is basically: spend as little money as humanly possible. So, for instance, a couple years ago, we created our first piece of clothing for space, which was a deep sleep cocoon. And in marketing, you’re always [asking] who’s your audience, and really, our audience was one person here, which was Elon [Musk], so we found was a billboard [space] opposite SpaceX, and we just took out a poster there, and it said, “Our jackets are ready. How’s your rocket going?” It doesn’t cost much money, but it was really great fun, and NASA called the next week, and then we got [to] chatting to them.

Your clothing is a reflection of the stuff that you think is going to happen to people over the next century, from space travel to sustainability. You have a solar charge jacket that you say can glow like a firefly in the dark, for example. You have a “black squid” jacket that you say recreates one of nature’s most brilliant solutions to high visibility, the adaptive camouflage of the squid. How much tech is really involved here?

Over the last five years, the angle of tech we focused on is material science. That’s the one thing that, as a startup, we’ve had access to, because if you’re going to look at much [complex] technologies like AI or exoskeletons, you need a really huge amount of funding to go tackle those, whereas any startup can really go and look at material science.

More here.

* Bitrise, a seven-year-old, remote-first mobile DevOps company, has raised it has secured $60 million in Series C funding. Insight Partners led the round, joined by earlier backers Partech, Open Ocean, Zobito, Fiedler Capital and Y Combinator. TechCrunch has more here.

* Ieso, a 10-year-old, U.K.-based digital therapy company that is increasingly focused on so-called intuitive autonomous text therapy -- meaning from AI trained on thousands of hours of real-life therapy that can provide personalized sessions, over chat -- has raised $53 million in Series B funding. Morningside led the round, joined by Sony Innovation Fund. It also included earlier investors IP Group, Molten Ventures and Ananda Impact Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

* Luma Health, a six-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based online patient engagement platform, has raised $130 million in Series C funding led by FTV Capital, with participation from earlier investors. The company has now raised $160 million altogether. FierceHealthcare has more here.

* NoBroker, a seven-year-old, Bangalore, India-based company whose platform invites customers to carry out all manner of real estate transactions digitally, from renting to buying to home loans and lining up moving services, has raised $210 million in Series E funding. Backers include General Atlantic, Tiger Global Management and Moore Strategic Ventures; the round brings the company's total funding to date to $361 million. Business Standard has more here. 

* Payhawk, a 3.5-year-old, London-based corporate spend management platform, has raised $112 million in Series B funding led by Greenoaks. All earlier investors, including QED Investors, Earlybird Digital East and Eleven Ventures, also participated in the round. TechCrunch has more here.

* Peek, a nine-year-old, San Francisco-based travel experiences marketplace that also sells its booking software to tourism companies, has raised $80 million in Series C funding led by WestCap, with participation from Goldman Sachs Asset Management. TechCrunch has more here.

* simPRO, a 19-year-old, Brisbane, Australia-based maker of field service management software, has raised $350 million from K1 Investment Management, with participation from existing investor Level Equity. The round brings the company's total funding to roughly $400 million. VentureBeat has more here. 

* Verbit, a four-year-old, New York-based AI powered transcription and captioning platform, has raised $250 million in Series E funding that values the company at $2 billion. The latest round brings the company's total funding to more than $550 million. Third Point Ventures led the round, joined by earlier backers Sapphire Ventures, More Capital, Disruptive AI, Vertex Growth, 40North, Samsung Next and TCP. TechCrunch has more here. 

* WatchBox, a nearly five-year-old, Bala Cynwyd, Pa.-based company that sells pre-owned luxury watches, has raised $165 million in its latest financing round. Michael Jordan took part, along with Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bucks owner Marc Lasry, Phoenix Suns stars Chris Paul and Devin Booker, and Wall Street investor Bill Ackman, among others. The company has now raised $260 million altogether. CNBC has more here.

* Arc Boat Company, a months-old, L.A.-based company working to develop high-performance electric boats, has raised $30 million in Series funding led by Greg Reichow of Eclipse Ventures (who was part of Tesla's early manufacturing, supply chain, and automation efforts). The company's seed backers, including Andreessen Horowitz, Lowercarbon Capital, and Abstract Ventures, also joined the round. The Verge has more here.

* CoreStack, a five-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based startup that aims to help its customers quickly achieve continuous and autonomous cloud governance at scale, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Avatar Growth Capital. Other investors in the round include earlier backer Iron Pillar and numerous angel investors. The round brings the company's total funding to $45 million. GeekWire has more here.

* Yababa, a months-old, Berlin-based same-day grocery delivery business, has raised $15.5 million in seed funding co-led by Creandum and Project A, with participation from earlier backer FoodLabs and a number of business angels. TechCrunch has more here.

* Yay Lunch, a three-year-old, New York-based startup that supplies food and beverages to schools, has raised $12 million in funding led by Valor Siren Ventures. Other backers in the round include Animo Ventures, Reach Capital, Alpaca Ventures, Pritzker Group and TMV. The company has now raised $15.5 million in funding altogether. More here.

* AutoCloud, a two-year-old, Chicago-based startup that says it offers instant visibility into one's public cloud with infrastructure visualizations, change management, and a GraphQL API, has raised $4 million in seed funding. Animo Ventures led the round, joined by Uncorrelated Ventures, B Capital Group and Moxxie Ventures. TechCrunch has more here. 

* Column Tax, a 10-month-old, New York-based maker of personal income tax software, has announced $5.1 million in seed funding led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from South Park Commons, Core Innovation Capital, and Operator Partners. Column Tax provides an API that enables mobile banking and fintech companies to offer tax products to their account holders. More here.

* Dent Reality, a three-year-old, London-based startup that's taking augmented reality tech into real world stores, starting with grocers, has raised $3.4 million in seed funding led by Pi Labs, with participation from Sugar Capital and 7Percent Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

* Mosaic Foods, a two-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based plant-based meal company that delivers food to its customers' doors, has raised $6 million in seed round led by Gather Ventures, with participation from Greycroft and Alleycorp. TechCrunch has more here.

* Spectralics, a four-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based optics and imaging startup developing technology that can be integrated into a car’s windshield or windows to deliver images to drivers and passengers, has raised $2 million in funding from the Volvo Cars Tech Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

* Streetlogic, a year-old, San Francisco-based startup that has developed a computer vision-based e-bike collision warning system, just raised $2.1 million in pre-seed funding from LDV Capital, Trucks Venture Capital and angel investors, including Luc Vincent, Lyft’s former EVP of autonomous driving. TechCrunch has more here.

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Pantera Capital, one of the first investment firms to focus exclusively on blockchain and cryptocurrencies, has raised $600 million for its fourth venture fund, according to The Information. Roughly 75% of the capital for the new fund is reportedly institutional sources, in contrast with a $175 million vehicle that Pantera raised in 2018, which was funded mainly by individuals, including newly wealthy crypto investors. Pantera was founded in 2013 in San Francisco but roughly one-quarter of its team has since located to the San Juan area of Puerto Rico, including founder Dan Morehead. More here

* Reddit will shut down its short-form video platform, Dubsmash, on February 22nd. A competitor to TikTok, Dubsmash was acquired by Reddit late last year with the purpose of embedding its video creation tools into the larger platform. Now that the integration is nearing completion, Reddit is reportedly introducing a slew of new video creation tools to its own TikTok-like video feed, developed by the Dubsmash team that came over with the buyout. More here courtesy of The Verge.

* Ad tech’s spate of public listings over the last 12 months has helped spur a further round of mergers and acquisitions in the space as the newly minted public companies attempt to prove differentiation. In a sign of this trend, Outbrain today announced its intended $55 million purchase of Video Intelligence — its first acquisition following its July IPO — as it seeks to make inroads to the connected TV space. DigiDay has more here.

Venture capital firms are piling into India, many for the first time. Nikkei takes a look here.

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes said today she did not have some of the training to know whether her company's blood-testing technology worked and tried to pass blame to Theranos's lab employees such as Adam Rosendorff, a former lab director at Theranos who spent six days on the stand. The New York Times has much more here.

Several hundred Google employees have signed and circulated a manifesto opposing the company’s Covid vaccine mandate, posing the latest challenge for leadership as it approaches key deadlines for returning workers to offices in person. CNBC has more here.

* The McDonald's ice cream machine hacking saga has a new twist.

* NASA is about to launch an unprecedented mission to shove an asteroid off course.

* Why $19 is Apple's favorite price for accessories.

Last-minute holiday vacations to consider.

Join the Global Investor Conference on December 7, 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.