Crypto enthusiasts meet their match, Elon Musk's Cooley tantrum, and Chamath Palihapitiya's comments draw ire

Hi, hope your week is off to a fine start. This was the biggest general news story, given the day; meanwhile, industry-related news begins below.

Chamath Palihapiitya really stepped in it during a recent episode of "All In," the podcast he records with fellow investors David Sacks and Jason Calacanis, and now the mea culpas are flying. The Golden State Warriors, a franchise that counts Palihaptiya among its many owners, separately issued a statement, distancing itself from the renowned VC, whose comments centered on how much attention Uyghur Muslims in China receive and how much they merit.

Activision Blizzard has fired or pushed out more than three dozen employees and disciplined about 40 others since July as part of efforts to address allegations of sexual harassment and other misconduct at the video game giant, according to the WSJ. Activision, whose game franchises include "Candy Crush" and "World of Warcraft" has been under intensified scrutiny since a Journal report in November showed longtime CEO Bobby Kotick did not inform the board of sexual misconduct allegations that he was aware of, including rape, against managers across the company.

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Ather Energy, a nine-year-old, Bangalore, India-based maker of electric scooters, has raised $56.7 million in funding from the Indian two-wheeler vehicle maker Hero Motocorp as the latter looks to expand its presence in the green mobility space, says Reuters. More here.

Curefoods, a 1.5-year-old, Bangalore, India-based cloud kitchen startup, has raised $52 million in funding from Iron Pillar, Chiratae Ventures, Sixteenth Street Capital and Accel Partners, along with some notable individuals, including Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal. The company also secured $10 million in debt funding from Alteria Capital, BlackSoil Capital and Trifecta Capital. Founded by former Flipkart employee Ankit Nagori, the startup already owns multiple brands and runs more than 100 cloud kitchens nationwide, reports Inc42.

Exotec, a 6.5-year-old, Lille, France-based warehouse robotics company, has raised $335 million in Series D funding led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, with participation from 83North and Dell Technologies Capital. EU Startups has more here.

Rain Financial, a 4.5-year-old, Bahrain-based cryptocurrency exchange, has raised $110 million in Series B funding co-led by Paradigm and Kleiner Perkins. Coindesk has more here.

Spendesk, a nearly six-year-old, Paris-based software-as-a-service company focused on helping small businesses with their accounting jobs, has raised $114 million in fresh funding. Tiger Global led the latest financing, with previous investors General Atlantic, Eight Roads Ventures, Index Ventures and eFounders participating. Bloomberg has more here.

Spyke Games, a 15-month-old, Istanbul, Turkey-based maker of casual mobile games with an emphasis on social elements, has raised $55 million in funding entirely from Griffin Gaming Partners. (It's a notable bet for a firm that announced its debut fund with $235 million in late 2020; we're guessing there's another fund in the works.) More here.

Wayve, a 4.5-year-old, London-based autonomous driving startup, has raised $200 million in fresh funding from investors, including Microsoft, Virgin, and Baillie Gifford. The round brings the company's total funding to $258 million. CNBC has more here.

Arya, an eight-year-old, Noida-based startup that helps hundreds of thousands of farmers in the South Asian market to store and sell their produce and secure credit, has raised $46 million in new funding co-led by Asia Impact SA, Lightrock India and Quona Capital. The company also secured $14 million in debut funding from US International Development Finance Corporation and others. TechCrunch has more here.

Burnt Finance, a year-old, New York-based NFT auction protocol built on Solana's blockchain, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Animoca Brands. Other participants in the round include Multicoin Capital, Alameda Research, DeFiance, Valor Capital Group, Figment, Spartan Capital, Tribe Capital, Play Ventures, HashKey, Mechanism Capital, DeFi Alliance, Terra, and others. TechCrunch has more here.

Giddy, a months-old, Draper, Utah-based startup that's promising its users will be able to buy, stake, and earn interest on their crypto by using its app, has raised $8 million in seed funding led by Pelion Venture Partners. More here.

Mio, a 1.5-year-old, Vietnam-based group buying platform that focuses on selling fresh produce and groceries in select Vietnamese cities, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Jungle Ventures, Patamar Capital and German entrepreneur Oliver Jung. TechCrunch has more here.

Payflow, a nearly two-year-old, Barcelona, Spain-based startup that allows employees to immediately access their earned wages through a mobile app and which has ambitions to evolve into a so-called neobank, has raised $9.1 million in Series A funding. Seaya Ventures and Cathay Innovation co-led the round, joined by Force Over Mass Capital, Y Combinator and Rebel Fund. Payflow has now raised $13.6 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Rebundle, a 2.5-year-old, St. Louis, Mo.-based hair-focused startup that creates and sells hair extensions made from plant-based materials, has raised $1.4 million in pre-seed funding led by M25, a venture firm with a geographic focus on the Midwest. TechCrunch has more here.

Wyvern, a nearly four-year-old, Edmonton, Alberta-based startup at work on hyperspectral imaging, meaning it captures light across many different wavelengths, including non-visible ones, says it has raised $2.25 million in seed funding and $2.25 million in combined pre-seed and government funding. MaC Venture Capital led the seed round for the startup, which is also joining Y Combinator's winter 2022 cohort. TechCrunch has more here.

Zowie, a nearly three-year-old, New York-based maker of no-code customer service software for e-commerce companies, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Gradient Ventures and 10x of Germany, with participation from Jack Altman (CEO at Lattice), Markus Giesswein (CEO at Giesswein), and earlier investor Inovo Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Remi, a San Francisco-based startup, recently raised an undisclosed funding round by Foundation Capital, G-Squared, and founders/execs from Thrasio, Henry The Dentist, Unilever, and Marcy Venture Partners (Jay-Z's fund). Grind your teeth or clench your jaw at night? Remi is the leading company in custom night guards and recently launched overnight sensitivity-free teeth whitening. Remi applied the Warby Parker approach of cutting out the middleman to make a better night's sleep 80% less than the dentist and without the office visit. StrictlyVC readers get 20% off with code remi20.

Crypto.com, a cryptocurrency exchange, has extended its venture arm’s fund size to $500 million as it looks to more aggressively back early-stage startups, following similar moves by rivals Binance, Coinbase and FTX (see next item). The move comes less than a year after the Singapore-headquartered firm unveiled its maiden fund of $200 million. The fund, unlike those of many of its rivals, has no LPs and is fully financed instead off the firm’s balance sheet. TechCrunch has more here.

Crypto exchange FTX Trading announced on Friday that it has launched a $2 billion venture fund, one of the largest vehicles to date aiming to tap into the crypto market’s startups. It plans to issue ranging in size from as little as $100,000 to hundreds of millions of dollars, Amy Wu, the fund’s chief, tells the WSJ. “We could possibly deploy it all [by] next year, but it depends on the opportunities we see in the market,” adds Wu, who joined FTX this month from Lightspeed Venture Partners, which she had joined in 2019 to focus on gaming, crypto and other startups. (The WSJ credits her with leading the firm's investment in FTX itself.) She will reportedly head FTX’s mergers and acquisitions, partnerships and gaming initiatives, in addition to leading FTX Ventures.

A United Arab Emirates sovereign-wealth fund has invested roughly $100 million in Israeli venture firms, a "fresh sign of deepening business and investment ties between the countries," reports the WSJ.  Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co., which manages $250 billion in assets, invested up to $20 million in six Israeli-based or focused venture capital firms, including Mangrove Capital Partners, Entrée Capital, Aleph Capital, Viola Ventures, Pitango and MizMaa, according to a spokeswoman. More here.

Sir Martin Sorrell has joined forces with Stanhope Capital and former WPP executive Sanja Partalo to launch a new venture capital company, S4S Ventures. Sorrell, executive chairman of S4 Capital, Daniel Pinto, chief executive at Stanhope Capital, and former WPP executive vice-president Partalo plan to invest in early stage startups in martech, adtech, data technology, creative technology and digital media. The Drum has more here.

Tiger Woods has filed to raise $150 million through a special purpose acquisition company, a blank check venture that seeks to bring another company public. Tennis star Caroline Wozniacki, retired NBA player David Lee and execs from the sports technology investment fund Lead are among those joining Woods in the venture. The SPAC, Sports & Health Tech Acquisition, is Woods’s first SPAC endeavor and per its prospectus, it's looking to merge with a company in fan engagement, consumer-facing health and fitness technologies, and health and well-being. Sportico has more here.

Wow. Late last year, Elon Musk, through a Tesla attorney, told the law firm Cooley that it must fire one of its attorneys or it would lose the company's business, according to the WSJ. The individual is a former SEC lawyer whom Cooley had hired for its securities litigation and enforcement practice and who had no involvement in the firm’s work for Tesla. Cooley hasn't bowed to the pressure, though it has to be pretty awful inside the firm for that attorney; now Tesla is reportedly replacing Cooley in particular areas and in others, adding additional counsel. 

Crypto.com Capital, the investment arm of Crypto.com, has brought aboard longtime journalist Jon Russell as its newest partner. Russell, who is based in Thailand, has spent the last 11 years writing about tech, many of them covering crypto more expressly, including five years at TechCrunch (where, full disclosure, we loved working with him), and for the subscription media startup The Ken. More here.

Crypto enthusiasts meet their match: angry gamers. “People are being sold buzzwords,” Mutahar Anas, a gamer and YouTuber with three million subscribers, tells the New York Times. Those pushing NFTs in games are “trying to sell you snake oil.”

Bitcoin’s dominance of crypto payments is starting to erode. According to BitPay, one of the biggest crypto payments processors in the world, Bitcoin’s use at merchants that use BitPay dropped to about 65% of processed payments last year, down from 92% in 2020. Meanwhile, Ether purchases accounted for 15% of the total, stablecoins were 13% and new coins added to BitPay in 2021 -- Dogecoin, Shiba Inu and Litecoin -- accounted for 3%. Bloomberg has the skinny here.

Boom Supersonic just landed a three-year, $60 million investment by the US Air Force that will aid in the development of its commercial Overture jet, if only to pay for its cupholders. (We're kidding. Half-kidding. Certainly, it seems like a notable vote of confidence.) Robb Report has more here.

How the refrigerator became an agent of climate catastrophe.

Why people are showering in their Arc’teryx jackets.

Here at Time, we have made a number of changes over the last couple years. Now that 2022 is here, we’re announcing several major updates.

A new hotel in Tulum has just opened its doors.

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