Peloton has suitors, why some people never catch Covid, and the secretive founders behind Bored Ape Yacht Club

Friday! Hope you have a terrific weekend, everyone.:)

Before we turn this thing off, we leave you with the newest StrictlyVC Download, featuring special guests Scott Stanford and Hany Nada of ACME Capital, a venture firm that evolved out of Sherpa Capital (which we quickly touch on) but that has a different vibe these days and some interesting bets. We talk a bit about where ACME is shopping; we also talk about the $1 billion the firm has deployed via SPVs to date, why retail investors shouldn't give up on SPACs (though they should probably not buy at the IPO) and space! 🚀 Hope you enjoy it.

Giant thanks to this week's podcast sponsor, Findem. Findem helps companies "10x their talent pipeline with diverse, top talent and shrink time to hire. Search like never before and make amazing hires with Findem's AI-driven platform." Visit the company at www.findem.ai/strictlyvc.

Stationary bike star Peloton is drawing interest from potential suitors including Amazon, according to the WSJ, as the stationary-bike maker’s stock slumps and an activist urges it to explore a sale. More here.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite jumped today to finish their best week of the year, as continued strength in earnings reports extended the tech-led rebound from the January rout. (We can't take it anymore; wake us up when this is all over.)

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Certain VCs who tweet a lot have grown a little vituperative of late, with some of the most powerful people in the industry lashing out in unprecedented ways. The two who spring to mind are Chris Dixon and Marc Andreessen, who've lately shown little patience for influential people who question whether the promise of crypto, blockchain-based collectibles, or decentralisation is overblown.

The most prominent battle began in late December with billionaire entrepreneur and Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, who tweeted to the six million accounts that follow him, "You don’t own 'web3.' The VCs and their LPs do. It will never escape their incentives. It’s ultimately a centralized entity with a different label."

Sure, Dorsey was dissing VCs, but there is some truth to the observation, of course. Andreessen and other crypto-forward firms like Paradigm and Pantera do have a financial stake in some of the biggest platforms out there, and that's fine. Very possibly those platforms wouldn't exist without the firms' support, and very possibly, these platforms will become more decentralized over time.

Nevertheless, Dorsey's tweet launched a war. Dixon lobbed the first grenade by subtweeting to his nearly 800,000 followers, "[F]irst they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

There was some reason for Dixon to gloat. For years, Andreessen Horowitz was thought to be on a fool's errand because of all of the money and resources it poured into crypto projects. Now, the joke is on everyone who didn't dedicate a bigger slug of their time and money into those same endeavors. As a reminder, Andreessen Horowitz's investment in Coinbase alone was valued at $11 billion the day the crypto exchange began trading publicly last year.

But the war didn't stop there. Dorsey wrote back to Dixon, Andreessen himself waded into the conversation to insult Dorsey numerous times, and things have continued to roll downhill.

Lately, the miasma has expanded even further.

More here.

Cart, an 18-month-old, Houston, Tex.-based e-commerce-as-a-service startup, has raised $24 million in equity and debt funding led by Legacy Knight Capital Partners. Bloomberg has more here.

Celestial AI, a two-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based developer of hardware and software for machine learning chipsets, just raised $56 million in Series A funding led by Koch Disruptive Technologies. Other backers in the round include Temasek, The Engine, Tyche Partners, M-Ventures, Imec.xpand and Fitz Gate. More here.

ICEYE, a seven-year-old, Espoo, Finland-base satellite imagery specialist, has raised $136 million in new funds led by Seraphim Space. The company has now raised $304 million altogether. CNBC has more here.

PalmPay, a 2.5-year-old, Africa-focused payments company, has raised $100 million in Series A funding from Chuangshi Capital, Yunshi Equity Investment Management, Trust Capital, Chengyu Capital and AfricaInvest. TechCrunch has more here.

Tribal, a two-year-old. San Francisco-based B2B payments and financing startup focused on emerging markets, has raised $60 million in Series B funding led by SoftBank Latin American Fund. with participation from Coinbase Ventures. The outfit has now raised $140 million altogether. CoinDesk has more here.

Codoxo, a six-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based AI startup focused on healthcare fraud, has raised $20 million in Series B funding. QED Investors led the round, joined by Sands Capital Management, 111 West and earlier backers Brewer Lane Ventures, Spider Capital and GRA Venture Fund. Hypepotamus has more here.

Digibee, a four-year-old, Fort Lauderdale, Fl.-based low-code integration platform, has raised $25 million in Series A funding led by SoftBank Latin America Fund, with participation from Kinea and G2D Investments. TechCrunch has more here.

Doing Things Media, a four-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based digital media firm helping to develop shareable short-form video for Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, among others, has raised $21.5 million in Series A funding led by Volition Capital. Forbes has more here.

Nfinite, a 4.5-year-old, Paris-based visualization and e-commerce merchandizing startup, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by USVP. More here.

Regent, a two-year-old, Boston-based startup making electric seagliders, has raised $18 million in fresh venture funding from Thiel Capital, JAM Fund, Mesa Air Group and others. Its seagliders are designed to motor out of a harbor on a hydrofoil. CNBC has more here.

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ACME Capital, an early-stage venture firm that’s run by industry insiders Scott Stanford, who is based in L.A., and Hany Nada, whois based in Menlo Park, has just closed two funds totalling $300 million in capital commitments, including a $240 million early-stage fund and a $60 million vehicle for later-stage bets. We talked with the two here.

Arch Venture Partners, the 36-year-old, Chicago-based life sciences-focused venture firm, is raising $2.5 billion for its 12th fund, per an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. The outfit closed its most recent fund with $1.85 billion just a year ago. More here.

Artisanal Ventures, a San Francisco-based VC firm focused on B2B cloud startups, says it has raised $62 million for its debut fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Operator Josh Buckley is looking to raise up to $500 million in capital commitments for his third fund, according to an SEC filing first flagged by Axios.

Seattle-based audience insights startup Wicket Labs has been acquired by Brightcove, a publicly traded video platform company headquartered in Boston. According to a Brightcove spokesperson, Wicket Labs has 13 employees, all of whom will be joining Brightcove. The Wicket Labs team is expected to join Brightcove's product and engineering departments, but the spokesperson added that employees will not have to relocate. The Wicket Labs brand will eventually be absorbed by Brightcove. Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed. Seattle Inno has more here.

Looks like Elon Musk could soon find himself in the SEC's crosshairs once again. This time it could be over whether Neuralink, his neurotechnology company misled the SEC over Musk’s involvement in running the operation. Fortune has more here.

Who’s behind Bored Ape Yacht Club, the secretive NFT brand? These guys, for starters.

Following reports of groping and harassment in its virtual environments, Meta says it's implementing new boundaries, including two-foot radius of virtual personal space to create the equivalent of four virtual feet between avatars. The Verge has more here.

How to boost the price of your Tesla. 

Delta Air Lines wants the U.S. government to place passengers convicted of on-board disruptions on a national "no-fly" list. Forever.

Why some people never catch Covid.

Chuck Klosterman brings back the '90s.

Yes, technically you could do this with a vest and a jacket, but.

Out of the ordinary Valentine's Day gifts.

Want to know about using DAOs to develop therapeutic drugs? Drug discovery and development is a very slow and unpredictable process. Sign up to Linqto Learn on Feb 15th to hear from Founder and CEO Dr. Gennaro D'Urso and co-founder and Nobel Prize Laureate Dr. Leland Hartwell of Genetic Networks about how blockchain can reduce time to market in the pharmaceutical industry. Register now. Learn more about Linqto here.