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An Amazon Web Services outage that started this morning was even impactful than it first seemed. As the Verge notes, not only did the outage reportedly cut off some streams from Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, and Netflix, but because the apps that keep warehouse, delivery, and Amazon Flex workers connected were also stuck, the company's deliveries ground to a halt in some areas, too. 

At the WSJ CEO Council Summit, Tesla CEO Elon Musk today criticized federal efforts meant to spur electric-vehicle adoption, including a bill that would boost incentives for buying battery-powered cars (which notably would benefit carmakers that are not Tesla) and expand the nation’s network of electric-vehicle charging stations. (“Do we need support for gas stations? We don’t,” said Musk. “Delete it. Delete.”) Musk went on to add: "I'm literally saying get rid of all subsidies." Of course, Musk's companies have benefitted from many different federal and state subsidies over the years, but, said Musk, Tesla “did not anticipate any subsidies” when the company was in its early years.

Masterworks.io just raised $110 million in Series A funding to help people invest in the booming art market. How hot is it? The WSJ calls art among the hottest markets on Earth. Consider that Contemporary Art prices appreciated 14% annually from 1995 to 2020, with almost no correlation to equities. The ultra-wealthy have invested in art for centuries. Now you can, too, without spending millions. StrictlyVC readers subscribers receive priority access today.* (See important disclosures.)

Jin Stedge studied aerospace engineering at MIT, but after she found herself at Scotty Labs, an SRI International spin-out focused on autonomous driving, she says she came to appreciate how far away the tech is from large-scale adoption.

Indeed, when Scotty was acquired by DoorDash in the summer of 2019, she teamed up with Sanjaya Wijeratnebut, a colleague and senior software engineer at Scotty Labs, and they got to work on a more ruthlessly practical challenge: empowering truck drivers to run their current businesses more efficiently.

For Stedge, it was largely personal. Her grandparents were owner operators who acquired up to six trucks in the 1980s; her uncles and cousins later entered the business, too, she says. Armed with their insights, she knew the daily difficulties that independent truckers endure. 

She also knew that predictions by AI experts who said truck drivers would be out of work by 2027 were flat wrong. "If you think about what long-haul truckers do," says Stedge, "they go over the Rockies, they have to tarp freight to the back of their trucks, they're often without cell service for hours at a time -- that kind of environment is just really hard to automate."

It helped, of course, that the market they'd be chasing is enormous.

More here.

* AgentSync, a three-year-old, Bay Area-based insurtech startup focused on agent compliance management, has raised $75 million in Series B funding. Valor Equity Partners led the round, joined by a mix of new and earlier backers, including Tiger Global, Craft Ventures, Atreides Management and Anthemis. TechCrunch has more here.

* Anyscale, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup application development platform for developers to build distributed applications, has raised $100 million in Series C funding. The round was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Addition, with participation from NEA, Intel Capital and Foundation Capital. SiliconAngle has more here.

* The EVERY Company, a seven-year-old, South San Francisco-based startup that has developed a precision fermentation technology to make animal-free proteins like eggs, has raised $175 million in Series C funding. The investment firm McWin co-led the round with earlier backer, Rage Capital. They were joined by other new and existing investors, including Temasek, Wheatsheaf Group, SOSV, TO Ventures, and Prosus Ventures. The company has now raised $233 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

* Heap, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based digital insights platform, has raised $110 million in Series D funding. Sixth Street Growth led the round, joined by Goldman Sachs and a long list of earlier investors. VentureBeat has more here.

* Liqid, an eight-year-old, Broomfield, Co.-based company that says it enables IT admins to dynamically configure, manage and deploy physical, bare-metal datacenter resources, has raised $100 million in Series C funding. Lightrock and earlier backer DH Capital co-led the round, joined by other earlier investors, Panorama Point Partners and Iron Gate Capital. SiliconAngle has more here.

* Torq, a 1.5-year-old, Portland, Ore.-based no-code security automation startup, says it just raised $50 million in Series B funding led by Insight Partners. SentinelOne, the publicly traded endpoint security platform, also participated in this round, as well as earlier investors GGV Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners. This brings Torq’s total funding to date to $78 million. TechCrunch has more here.

* Ursa Major, a six-year-old, Denver, Co.-based manufacturer of turnkey propulsion systems for a wide range of vehicles servicing the microsatellite launch community, has closed its largest funding to date: an $85 million Series C led by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock. Other participants in the round included XN, Alsop Louie, Alpha Edison, Dolby Family Ventures, KCK, Space Capital, Explorer 1, and Harpoon Ventures,. TechCrunch has more here.

* Circle, a two-year-old, New York-based startup that's building a community platform to which it wants creators and brands to bring their discussions, members and content together in one place, has raised $24.7 million in Series A funding. Tiger Global led the round, joined by Box Group, Notation Capital and a group of individual investors, including Codecademy founder and CEO, Zach Sims. TechCrunch has more here.

* Connect the Dots, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based business intelligence software company that tries to find useful connections and uncover opportunities in employee contact data, has $15 million in Series A funding.  Norwest Venture Partners led the round, joined by earlier backers Cloud Apps Capital Partners and Velvet Sea Ventures. The company has now raised $20 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

* Dragonboat, a 3.5-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based product portfolio management platform, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Insight Partners. Earlier backers that had contributed to the company's $3 million seed round also participated, including Act One Ventures, Roble Ventures and GingerBread Capital. VentureBeat has more here.

* GitGuardian, a four-year-old, Paris, France-based company focused on code security, has raised $44 million in Series B funding led by Eurazeo, with participation from Sapphire and earlier backers that include Balderton, BPI and Fly Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

* Hummingbird RegTech, a 5.4-year-old, San Francisco-based company that sells risk and compliance software to combat money-laundering, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Battery Ventures, with participation from Flourish, Homebrew, FinVC, and Plaid cofounder William Hockey. The company has now raised $41.8 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

* Majority, a 2.5-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based mobile banking service for migrants to the United States, has raised $27 million in Series A funding led by Valar Ventures. Earlier investors, including Avid Ventures, Heartcore Capital and a group of Nordic fintech founders, also participated in the raise. TechCrunch has more here.

* MoEngage, a 7.5-year-old, San Francisco and Bangalore-based company that makes customer engagement software that helps marketers segment customers and improve app engagement, has raised $30 million just four months after closing its previous funding round. Steadview Capital led the Series D round, which brings the company's total funding to roughly $100 million. TechCrunch has more here.

* Receeve, a two-year-old, Hamburg, Germany-based SaaS startup that makes it easier for companies to collect and recover debts like overdue claims, has raised $13.5 million in seed funding from Seaya Ventures, 14W and earlier backers Mangrove, Speedinvest and Seedcamp. The outfit has now raised $16 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

* Clubbi, a 1.5-year-old, Brazil-based business-to-business resource for small food retailers, has raised $4.5 million in seed funding co-led by Valor Capital Group and ONEVC. Other participants in the round include Better Tomorrow Ventures, Latitud and Canary. TechCrunch has more here.

* Dispatch Goods, a nearly three-year-old, Bay Area-based reusable container marketplace that partners with restaurants, businesses, and consumers to obtain, clean, and re-distribute containers, has raised $3.7 million in seed funding. The round was led by Congruent Ventures and included Bread and Butter Ventures, Precursor Ventures, Incite Ventures, MCJ and Berkeley SkyDeck. TechCrunch has more here.

* SendOwl, an 11-year-old, London-based platform for selling digital goods (think e-books, podcasts, online courses, memberships, coaching services, live remote events), has raised $4.5 million in seed funding from Defy.vc, with participation from Stripe and other investors. TechCrunch has more here.

* Therify, a year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based mental health benefit for companies that says through its platform, employees can access culturally responsive therapists, live community sessions, and self-guided content, just raised $1.3 million in seed funding. SoftBank’s SB Opportunity Fund led the round, joined by Looking Glass Capital, Y Combinator, Flexport, True Culture Fund and K5 Global, plus individual investors, including former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao. TechCrunch has more here.

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* Haystack, the nine-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based seed-stage venture firm founded by Semil Shah, has closed its sixth fund with $50 million in capital commitments, the same amount that the outfit raised for its fifth fund, which it closed in 2019. More here.

* The software-focused buyout firm Thoma Bravo plans to raise up to $35 billion for its next fund, according to the Financial Times.

* Mimecast is going the private equity route. Today the security company announced that Permira will be taking it private in a $5.8 billion all-cash deal. Mimecast has been public since 2015, and this deal is being struck at a price of $80 per share, the parties said. TechCrunch has more here.

* Twitter's newest acquisition suggests it's continuing to look for ways to cut its dependence on ad revenue. It has acquired Quill, a business-focused messaging service meant to compete against the likes of Slack. Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed. Quill had raised around $16 million from backers, including Sam Altman and Index Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

* Intel is planning to publicly list shares in its Mobileye self-driving-car unit, the latest move by Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger to revive the semiconductor giant’s fortunes. Intel said it would take the unit public in the U.S. in mid-2022 in a move that could value Mobileye at north of $50 billion, according to WSJ sources. Intel had acquired the Israeli company in 2017 for around $15 billion. More here.

* Volkswagen Group is still exploring a possible IPO of its luxury brand Porsche as a way to fund its costly shift towards software and electric vehicles, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. More here.

* The longtime chief of the Messenger division at Facebook, Stan Chudnovsky, says he's leaving parent company Meta in the second quarter of next year. “I’ve been working nonstop since I was 16, with about two-week breaks between my projects – always either starting companies, starting a venture fund (NFX), or running companies, merging companies, investing in companies, or working at companies,” Chudnovsky wrote in a related Facebook post. “I have no plans to retire, but I am looking forward to taking a good, many months long break…” More here.

* Courtney Love says she has Elon Musk’s private emails, though also, who knows.

* The NYSE is shaking up its leadership.

* Inside Tim Cook’s secret $275 billion deal with Chinese authorities.

* A day before Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s chief, is set to testify before the Senate about whether social media harms children and teens, Instagram has announced that that parent controls are coming for the first time in March. 

* The parent company of Instagram, Meta, says it will fully reopen its U.S. offices at the end of January but will give workers a chance to delay their scheduled return as late as June.

* The digital mortgage lender Better has lost its top marketing, PR, and communications execs following a mass layoff conducted over Zoom last week. (More here.) According to Bloomberg, a merger between Better and a blank-check company that was expected to be completed in the fourth quarter has now been pushed out.

* Confusing photos.

* Will I have diarrhea? A flow chart.

* John Wilson is making the least predictable show on TV.

* A cooling fan for phones.

* A Patek Philippe and Tiffany & Co. collab with a $52,635 price tag.

* Doggie blueprints.

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