Nike's dive into crypto, Brian Armstrong's newest production, and a Miami architect plans ahead

Monday! Hello! We're running off into a crazy rainstorm and so sending this one off a little early just in case we have trouble with the internets later (it's happened a couple of times this year during extreme weather events). More tomorrow.:)

Facebook is facing more calls from shareholders to address harm on its platforms and overall governance as the company responds to pressure from lawmakers and others. Shareholders, including the New York State Common Retirement Fund and Illinois State Treasurer, are among an investor group that collectively filed eight shareholder proposals for consideration at the company’s annual meeting. The WSJ has the story here.

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In recent years, enterprise software companies have grown faster, and more valuable, than ever. Still, most startups never reach that kind of escape velocity, with many of plodding along while their venture backers — who are returning to market more quickly and raising bigger funds — move on to newer, shinier objects.

The end result is many thousands of stranded companies with a limited number of options. One of these is to simply shut down. Another option for some companies is buy back their shares. A third option for some is sell to a private equity firm that is interested in potentially rolling up sub-scale properties or bolting a startup onto another asset. There is so much opportunity for PE firms, in fact, that according to the Financial Times, the software-focused buyout firm Thoma Bravo plans to raise up to $35 billion for its next fund.

Unsurprisingly, newer players are also getting in on the action. Among them is Camber Partners, a San Francisco-based growth equity firm founded last year by investor Scott Irwin, long of the venture firm Rembrandt Venture Partners.

Camber is today taking the wraps off a $100 million debut fund that promises to either buy — or buy a majority stake in — stranded SaaS companies, reinvigorate them with its own in-house data science technology, then sell them within what would ideally be around five years or less.

Irwin says he founded Camber Partners largely out of aggravation with the current venture environment, which requires that startups scale up unnaturally fast in order for VCs to return the massive amounts of capital they’ve been raising in recent years.

He says he grew tired of “some of those adverse incentives” involved. As he puts it, “100% growth isn’t interesting; it’s gotta be 200%. Earning $100,000 a month isn’t interesting; it has to be a million. A good solid management team that’s going to learn over time and grow the business isn’t interesting. It’s instead, ‘How do we jump ahead faster and hire more experienced people?'”

VCs have seen some “awesome successes because of the model but “the failure rate also way higher.”

More here.

* Ironscales, a 7.5-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based company that develops AI-powered email security software, has raised $64 million in Series C funding led by the growth equity firm PSG, with participation from earlier backers K1 Investment Management and Jump Capital. Calcalist has more here.

* SnapLogic, a 12-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based integration platform that aims to make it fast and easy for users to connect, manage, and analyze enterprise data, just announced $165 million in new funding at a $1 billion valuation. Sixth Street Growth led the round, joined by earlier backers Arrowroot Capital, Golub Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Vitruvian, Capital One, Ignition Partners and Microsoft. The company has raised $373 million to date. TechCrunch has more here. 

* Bumper, a six-year-old, London-based car repair financing platform, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Autotech Ventures, with participation from Jaguar Land Rover. Tech.eu has more here.

* FileCloud, a five-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based enterprise-focused content collaboration that says it features compliance, data governance, data leak protection, data retention and digital rights management capabilities, has raised $30 million in Series A funding led by Savant Growth Fund I LP, with participation from Kennet Partners. In addition, the company has secured $10 million in debt funding with Avidbank. More here.

* Fuse, a four-year-old, Indonesia-base business-to-agent insure-tech startup, has raised $25 million in extended Series B funding from earlier backers East Ventures, GGV Capital, eWTP and Emtek. The company has now raised more than $70 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

* Grip, a nine-month-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based cybersecurity startup, has raised $19 million in Series A funding led by Intel Capital, with participation from earlier investor YL Ventures, which led Grip’s $6 million seed round in April this year. Calcalist has more here.

* Lynx MD, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.- and Tel Aviv, Israel-based AI platform for clinical and operational data collaboration, has raised $12 million in seed financing. MizMaa Ventures led the round, joined by New York Life Ventures, Amdocs,  iAngels, and earlier backers, including Triventures and UpWest. More here.

* Nuvocargo, a nearly five-year-old, New York-based logistics platform for cross-border trade between the U.S and Mexico, has raised $20.5 million in fresh funding led by Tiger Global. The company had raised $12 million in Series A funding back in April. TechCrunch has more here.

* Authoritive, a three-year-old, New York-based startup that builds branded audio, video, and text-based learning experiences that enable creators and experts to build courses or coaching tools, has raised $5 million in seed funding. Owl Ventures led the round, joined by Guardian Media Ventures. More here.

* Excerp, a year-old, London-based startup building a new blogging platform for creators to share and earn money from their writing, has raised $5 million in a friends-and-family round led by hedge fund manager Edward Eisler and other employees of Eisler Capital. More here.

* Flowbo, a months-old, L.A.-based startup providing upfront financing to creators, raised a $3.4 million seed round led by Global Founders Capital. Other investors included Soma Capital and BAM Ventures. That figure includes a pre-seed round of $800,000 from Unshackled Ventures and HOF Capital, according to The Information. The company passed through Y Combinator's accelerator program this summer. More here.

* HURR, a four-year-old, London-based fashion marketplace that invites customers to rent or purchase pre-owned clothing, has raised $5.4 million in seed funding. Octopus Ventures led the round, joined by Ascension and D4 Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

* Maev, a three-year-old, Austin, Tex-based startup selling what it describes as human-grade (raw) dog food, has raised $9 million led by Springdale Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

* Solvento, a four-year-old, Mexico City, Mexico-based platform that automates payment processing for trucking companies in Latin America, has raised $4.5 million in equity funding led by Dynamo Ventures, with participation from Wollef Ventures, and Zenda Capital. The company also secured a $3 million debt facility from Marco Financial. FreightWaves has more here.

* StudyFree, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based startup focused on helping students around the world to gain admittance to study abroad programs, along with financing through scholarships and grants, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by I2BF Global Ventures, TMT Investments and Techstars. TechCrunch has more here.

* Tarfin, a four-year-old, Istanbul, Turkey-based digital agriculture platform, has raised $8 million in a Pre-Series B bridge round. Quona Capital, Elevator Ventures, Syngenta Group Ventures, Collective Spark Fund and Wamda were joined by new investor Yara Growth Ventures (the venture arm of one of the world's largest fertilizer manufacturers). More here.

* Whym, a four-year-old, L.A.-based conversational commerce startup founded by former Snap employees, has raised $4.3 million in seed funding led by Deciens Capital. Other participants include DNX Ventures, Reciprocal Ventures, Unusual Ventures, Chaos Ventures, Magic Fund, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Canaan Partners, and numerous individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Join hundreds of military veteran entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who are building the future at the Military Veteran Startup Conference hosted by Context Ventures on Friday, Feb 4, in San Francisco. Conference panels will cover: 1) Women veteran entrepreneurs; 2) Veteran entrepreneurs who survived Shark Tank; 3) Veterans in venture capital; 4) Veteran entrepreneurs building consumer brands; 5) Dual-use startups. The event is free for military veteran (spouses &) entrepreneurs. Enlist here.

* Brown Venture Group, a three-year-old, Minneapolis-based outfit that one of the few Black-led venture firms in the U.S., is nearing its goal of securing $50 million in capital commitments for its inaugural fund, which is being distributed to tech entrepreneurs of color across the country. Twin Cities Business has more here.

* LAUNCHub Ventures, a nearly 10-year-old, Sofia, Bulgaria-based early-stage venture firm focused on startups that hail from the southeast region of Europe, has closed a second fund with €74 million in capital commitments. The firm says it plans to invest in roughly 20 investments altogether. Tech.eu has more here.

* TSVC, an 11-year-old, Los Altos, Ca.-based deep tech venture firm, has garnered $35 million in capital commitments for a fifth fund that is targeting up to $75 million, according to an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. More here.

* TTV, a 21-year-old, Atlanta Ga.-based venture firm that's focused on fintech businesses, has garnered $113 million in capital commitments for a sixth fund that is targeting up to $200 million, according to an SEC filing. More here. 

Nike is plunging deeper into the world of crypto collectibles, announcing today that that it's acquiring the NFT studio RTFKT (pronounced “artifact”) for undisclosed terms. The deal comes at an opportune time for the studio, notes TechCrunch. RTFKT is currently behind one of the most talked-about NFT project drops of the month — a sweeping avatar partnership with artist Takashi Murakami called CloneX. Since its initial drop less than three weeks ago, the project has already seen nearly $65 million in transaction volume according to crypto tracker CryptoSlam. RTFKT previously raised $8 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz.

Chinese artificial-intelligence company SenseTime Group said today that it will postpone its Hong Kong IPO. On Friday, the company was added to an investment blacklist of companies that the U.S. government says are supporting Chinese military development. In a statement, the company said earlier today that halt aims to help investors consider the potential impact of the U.S. blacklisting and that it remains committed to completing the listing soon, SenseTime counts SoftBank, Qualcomm and Alibaba Group Holding among its shareholders and is one of the world’s most valuable artificial intelligence startups. The WSJ has more here.

* Coinbase cofounder Brian Armstrong announced over the weekend that he has cofounded another startup, this one focused on longevity (via "epigenetic reprogramming"). It's called NewLimit. More here.

* Wesley Chan is transitioning from a managing director at Felicis Ventures to a venture partner. Chan joined Felicis seven years ago after spending five years as a general partner with GV, beginning with the venture unit's launch in 2009. Chan, who currently lives in Jackson, Wyoming, says he wrote the first institutional checks into such runaway successes as Plaid (while at GV), Dialpad (while at GV) and Robinhood (while at GV). On behalf of Felicis, Chan also led an early investment into Canva (currently valued at $40 billion) and Flexport. No word on Chan's next steps yet, but the firm tells us he is keeping his board seats. More here.

* Since 2013, Ross Ulbricht has been serving two life sentences for creating the Silk Road, an online marketplace where users could buy drugs and other illegal goods using cryptocurrency and the dark web. But that reportedly didn’t stop him from selling an NFT for $6 million from prison.

* Amazon has plans to more aggressively expand an Instacart-like grocery-delivery service that it launched in the U.K. last year, according to The Information. It says the company plans to roll out the program throughout the U.S. and Europe next year.

* Reef, a Miami-based ghost-kitchen startup that operates out of trailers in parking lots around the country and is backed by $1.5 billion in venture money, is racking up customers complaints over undercooked meat. Insider has separately reported that its food trailers have frequently face health-department violations. The company prepares food on behalf of brands MrBeast and Fuku, which is David Chang's fried chicken restaurant. More here.

* How former BuzzFeed employees missed their big payday.

* Her Instagram handle was "Metaverse." Last month, it vanished.

* The new do's and don'ts of holiday entertaining.

* How well your state is battling Covid 19 right now.

* How race-car drivers survive 1,800-degree fires.

A Miami mansion designed to "float" above rising sea levels (because if you're going to spend all that money. . .).

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