Joe Rogan apologizes, Justin Bieber joins the Bored Ape Club, and Wordle's word of the day is MONEY

Hello! Welcome back from the weekend.:)

U.S. stocks closed higher today, bookmarking a volatile month for Wall Street where the tech-heavy Nasdaq narrowly avoided its worst ever start to the year, and the S&P 500 recorded its weakest January performance since 2009.

You're going to have to pay to Wordle (in all likelihood). Smart move on the part of The New York Times and a nice return on investment for Josh Wardle, the Brooklyn-based software engineer who created Wordle a few months ago and was paid “in the low seven figures" to hand over control of it.

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Ryan Breslow, who founded the “one-click” checkout tech company Bolt as a Stanford student and dropped out of college to build it, is stepping away as the company’s CEO seven years into his reign. Breslow, who says the decision is his own, is being replaced as CEO by Maju Kuruvilla, who joined the company as its chief product and technology officer in 2019 and became its COO in August of last year. Breslow is assuming the role of executive chairman.

On its face, the decision would seem to make sense for the 600-person company, which is currently raising a round of funding that is expected to value the outfit at $14 billion, up from the $11 billion valuation it was assigned just earlier this month when it closed on $355 million in Series E funding.

Bolt — which earlier this month decided to give employees a four-day work week permanently — has raised nearly $1 billion altogether to date.

In Kuruvilla, Bolt gets some serious operational chops. He previously spent seven years at Amazon, the last three of them as a vice president and general manager, helping to scale Amazon’s worldwide Prime logistics and fulfillment business. Kuruvilla also worked previously on products at Microsoft, Honeywell, and Milliman. Put another way, he may be viewed as a safe bet by potential business partners, private investors, and, ultimately, if the company later attempts to go public, investment bankers.

Of course, it’s easy to wonder how closely the move is also tied to the attention that Breslow, 27, attracted after publishing a series of tweets last Monday afternoon and who was back at it this past weekend.

More here.

FTX Trading, a not-quite-three-year-old, Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange, has raised $400 million in its newest round of funding, at a post-money valuation of $32 billion. The announcement comes less than four months after FTX raised funding at a $25 billion valuation, and just days after its U.S. affiliate, FTX.US, announced funding of its own at an $8 billion valuation. Participants in the newest round include SoftBank, Paradigm, Tiger Global and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board. The Block has more here.

Gupy, a seven-year-old, São Paulo, Brazil-based recruitment platform, has raised $90 million in funding co-led by SoftBank and Riverwood, with participation from Endeavor Catalyst and earlier backers Oria Capital and MAYA Capital. Reuters has more here.

Phantom, an 11-month-old(!), San Francisco-based company that makes one of the most popular wallet apps for the Solana ecosystem, has raised $109 million in funding led by by Paradigm at a $1.2 billion valuation. The round comes six months after the startup raised $9 million in Series A funding Andreessen Horowitz. At the time, the startup had 40,000 active users; now, CEO Brandon Milan tells TechCrunch, it has 2.1 million. More here.

Scaler, a nearly three-year-old, Bangalore, India-based edtech startup that offers upskilling courses to working professionals in India, has raised $55 million in Series B funding led by Lightrock India at a post-money valuation of $710 million, up from about $110 million two years ago. Earlier investors Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global also participated in the round, which brings Scaler’s total funding to date to $76.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Alva Labs, a nearly five-year-old, Stockholm-based recruitment startup, has raised $13.1 million in Series A funding led by VNV Global. More here.

Bamboo, a two-year-old, Nigeria-based Robinhood-esque stock-trading platform, has raised $15 million in Series A funding co-led by Greycroft and Tiger Global, with participation from Motley Fool Ventures, Saison Capital, Chrysalis Capital and Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel. TechCrunch has more here.

Brimore, a nearly five-year-old, Cairo, Egypt-based social commerce startup built around local manufacturers, has raised $25 million in Series A funding. IFC and Endure Capital co-led the round, joined by Fawry, Flourish, Endeavor Catalyst Fund, Algebra Ventures, Disruptech and Vision Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Deepnote, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that's building a data science platform on top of Jupyter-compatible notebooks, has raised $20 million in Series A funding co-led by earlier backers Index Ventures and Accel, Two other earlier backers -- Y Combinator and Credo Ventures -- also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Gandeeva Therapeutics, a nine-month-old, Vancouver, British Columbia-based biotech that's hoping to leverages cryogenic electron microscopy to speed along the drug discovery process, just raised $40 million in Series A funding. Lux Capital and Leaps by Bayer co-led the round, joined by Obvious Ventures, Amgen Ventures, Amplitude Ventures and Air Street Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Operations1, a five-year-old, Frankfurt, Germany-based maker of adaptive process execution software, has raised $12.5 million in Series A funding led by OpenOcean. EU Startups has more here.

Purely Elizabeth, a 12-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based natural foods company that makes granola, oatmeal and baking mixes, among other things, has raised $50 million in Series B co-led by the growth impacting investing outfit SEMCAP, Swander Pace Capital, and Fresh Del Monte. The company had raised its first and only other funding, $3 million in seed backing, in 2016. TechCrunch has more here.

Qlub, a three-month-old, Dubai-based maker of payment software for restaurant customers (it gives them a dine-in check-out option), raised $17 million in seed funding. Cherry Ventures and Point Nine Capital co-led the round, joined by STV, Raed Ventures, Heartcore, Shorooq Partners and FinTech Collective. TechCrunch has more here.

Retailo, a 20-month-old, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based e-commerce platform trying to digitize mom-and-pop stores in Pakistan, U.A.E. and its own home country, has raised $29 million in Series A funding led by Graphene Ventures. Other backers in the round include 500 Global, Agility Ventures, Aujan Group, Tech Invest Com and Mentor’s Fund. The startup has also secured $7 million in debt financing, reports Bloomberg. More here.

Ribbon Biolabs, a nearly four-year-old, Vienna, Austria-based synthetic DNA startup, has raised €18 million in Series A funding. Hadean Partners led the round,   joined by Lansdowne Partners, Helicase Venture, IST cube and Tecnet equity. More here.

Vynca, an 8.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company that works with provider and payer partners to help manage seriously ill populations through a mix of virtual palliative care, advance care planning, care coordination, and symptom management services, has raised $30 million in growth capital. Questa Capital led the round, joined by earlier backers Generator Ventures, First Trust Capital Partners, 4100 Group and OCA Ventures. Hospice News has more here.

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AirTree Ventures, the eight-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based venture firm, just announced that it has garnered $700 million AUD ($500 million U.S.) in capital commitments across three new vehicles: AirTree Seed, a $200 million (AUD) vehicle that's pretty self-explanatory; AirTree Web3, a $50 million (AUD) fund focused on DeFi, NFTs and DAOs (this is the first web3 specific fund for the firm); and AirTree Growth, a $450 million (AUD) growth capital fund that aims to help AirTree invest in its companies as they mature and go public. Australia's Financial Review has more here.

Greycroft, the 16-year-old, New York- and L.A.-based venture firm, is raising $600 million for its seventh flagship VC fund and $1 billion for its fourth growth fund. Prior to these new vehicles, the firm had closed on $678 million across two funds in October 2020. More here.

Hustle Fund, a 4.5-year-old, San Carlos, Ca.-based seed-stage venture firm,  is raising a $50 million third fund, per an SEC filing flagged by TechCrunch. The outfit closed its second fund with $33.6 million in February of last year. More here.

Obvious Ventures, the nearly eight-year-old, San Francisco-based venture firm that was cofounded by serial entrepreneur Ev Williams and longtime VCs Vishal Vasishth and James Joaquin, is raising $400 million for its fourth flagship fund and $125 million for its second "prime" fund, per SEC filings first flagged by Axios. The outfit closed its third flagship fund with roughly $272 million in January 2020. More here.

Technology Crossover Ventures, which closed a $4 billion fund in January of last year (and is reportedly raising a new, $5.5 billion flagship fund), just raised a separate, $460 million fund that will focus exclusively on Series A-, B- and C-stage companies. Called its Velocity fund, the idea is to “help founders of innovative companies as they shift from product-market fit to scaling up,” says the now 27-year-old firm. We talked with the partners leading the effort here.

Threshold Ventures, known as DFJ until 2019,  is raising $450 million for its newest flagship fund, per an SEC filing flagged by Axios. The firm didn't (pretty sure?) disclose the size of its last and current fund, but filings show a more conservative target of $250 million. More here.

Norrsken, a nearly six-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based impact investor, has held a first close of $110 million on a new fund that is targeting $200 million altogether and that will be used specifically to support growth-stage startups hailing from Africa. SEB Pension Foundation is backing the fund, along with a long list of founders and investors, including Flutterwave cofounder Olugbenga Agboola, Atomico founder Niklas Zennström, and Delivery Hero cofounder Niklas Östberg, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Bungie, the studio responsible for the creation of Halo and Destiny, two of the gaming world’s biggest franchises, has been acquired by Sony. As TechCrunch notes, it's part of a consolidation and turf war being waged as the next generation of gaming gains momentum. The news was announced by both companies this morning and is valued at $3.6 billion. More here.

Citrix Systems will be taken private in an all-cash acquisition valued at $16.5 billion, including debt. Stockholders will receive $104 a share from the two buyers: Vista Equity Partners and Evergreen Coast Capital Corp., the private-equity arm of Elliott Management Corp. Citrix makes software that gives users remote access to their computers and provides other cloud services. Vista and Evergreen plan to combine Citrix with Tibco Software, a Vista portfolio company that provides data-management software for businesses. The move is expected to create a business with 400,000 customers and 100 million users in 100 countries, say the companies. More here.

India’s most valuable startup, the online education provider Byju’s, is in negotiations with at least three special-purpose acquisition companies and is aiming to unveil plans to go public via a merger with one of them in three to four weeks, according to Bloomberg. The SPACs include Michael Klein’s Churchill Capital; Michael Dell’s MSD Acquisition Corp.; and Harry Sloan, a long-time Hollywood executive who has since become a prolific SPAC investor. A fourth, Altimeter Capital Management, is conducting due diligence ahead of any potential offer, according to Bloomberg's sources. More here.

Cybereason, a security software vendor backed by SoftBank and Alphabet’s Google cloud unit, has confidentially filed for a stock market listing in the U.S. at a reported $5 billion valuation, according to Reuters. Co-founder and CEO Lior Div started Cybereason in Israel in 2012 before moving the company to Boston two years later. It has become one of the fastest-growing players in the burgeoning market of so-called endpoint protection, says CNBC. More here.

Justin Bieber is now the proud owner of Bored Ape #3001, which he purchased for 500 ETH ($1.3 million). HighSnobiety has more here.

Saalim Chowdhury, formerly a partner at 500 Startups, has joined Techstars London as managing director. Finsmes has more here.

Jenny Kaehms, who reportedly scored a job as an investment analyst at Canvas Ventures in 2016 after sending a cold email to partner Rebecca Lynn, has  joined Foundation Capital as an Austin-focused investor. More here.

Tobias Lütke, CEO and founder of the e-commerce site Shopify, will join Coinbase’s board of directors, subject to formal board approval later this week. Lütke will help Coinbase with its expansion plans as it targets newer products, Coinbase says of the appointment.

Karan Mohla, who spent roughly a dozen years as an investor with Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures India), has joined B Capital Group as a partner based in New Delhi. The firm also promoted Adam Seabrook -- who joined its team six years ago as a senior associate -- to partner. Seabrook is based in the Bay Area. More here. 

Joe Rogan has issued a response to the ongoing controversy that has seen artists removing their music from Spotify to avoid sharing a platform with his popular podcast. In a nearly ten-minute video uploaded to Instagram, Rogan defended his decision to book contentious guests, apologized to Spotify for the backlash, and detailed how the podcast may change in the future. The Verge has more here.

Jack Sweeney, the 19-year-old who demanded $50,000 from Elon Musk, is now targeting more billionaire jets.

Investors are plowing money into hedge funds that don’t rely on the next macro genius or star stockpicker, but instead offer an army of traders who invest in an array of strategies.

This is kind of heartbreaking. 

The ticking clock for Miami's condo empire.

Meet São Tomé e Príncipe, West Africa’s secret vacation destination.

Which crypto billionaire will buy this one?

Can XRP wipe away half of US debt? What is the utility of XRP, why is it relevant and how might it affect global economics? How does XRP compete with a system as large as SWIFT? The market is ripe for disruption when it comes to cross border payments, is XRP the solution? Join Linqto Learn on February 3rd at 9am PT to hear from the experts regarding all things XRP: advantages, disadvantages and future what-if scenarios. Sign up HERE.