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Have a terrific weekend, everyone.:) See you in a few days.
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Eek. BlockFi is poised to pay $100 million to settle allegations from the Securities and Exchange Commission and state regulators that it illegally offered a product that pays customers high interest rates to lend out their digital tokens, according to Bloomberg. The penalties, which could be announced as soon as next week, are among the toughest levied on a cryptocurrency firm amid a U.S. clampdown on the industry. BlockFi's lending product is similar to the one Coinbase grudgingly backed away from last fall after receiving a warning from the SEC.
Internet platforms could be liable for child-sexual-abuse content on their sites under a bill passed unanimously by the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. The measure, known as the Earn It Act, would scale back the broad immunity that internet platforms were granted for content on their sites under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The bipartisan approval of the measure provides momentum for this legislation and other bills aimed at overhauling Section 230, notes the WSJ.
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Get smarter in 5 minutes by reading Morning Brew - the free daily email covering the latest business, finance, and tech news from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. Unlike traditional news, Morning Brew knows how to keep you informed and entertained for free. Check it out.
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Branch, a nearly eight-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based deep linking ad-tech company, has raised $300 million in new funding led by earlier investor NEA at a $4 billion. No other investors in the round were disclosed. More here.
Curevo, a nearly four-year-old, Seattle-based shingles vaccine developer looking to take market share away from heavyweight GlaxoSmithKline, has raised $60 million in Series A funding. RA Capital Management led the round, joined by Adjuvant Capital, Janus Henderson, EN Investment and founding investor GC Pharma. GeekWire has more here.
Philippine Digital Asset Exchange, a four-year-old crypto exchange also known as PDAX, has raised $50 million in Series B funding led by Tiger Global. Kingsway Capital, Jump Capital, Draper Dragon, Oak Drive Ventures, DG Daiwa Ventures, Ripple and UBX Ventures also participated in the round, among others. CoinDesk has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Atommerce, a nearly seven-year-old, South Korea-based mental health services startup, has raised $16.7 million in Series B funding led by Hashed. Other backers in the round include E&Investment, K2 Investment, Samsung Next and earlier backers Insight Partners and Korean GC Green Cross Holdings. TechCrunch has more here.
Day Zero Diagnostics, a nearly six-year-old, Boston-based biotech focused on antibiotic-resistant infections, has raised $21 million in funding led by Sands Capital, with participation from Becton Dickinson, Panacea Ventures, Hongkou Capital, Triventures and Golden Seeds. FierceBiotech has more here.
FlyCoin, a year-old, L.A.-based cryptocurrency-based travel rewards startup, has raised $33 million in seed funding led by local entrepreneur Josh James, who becomes FlyCoin's board chairman. Other backers in the round include TenOneTen Ventures, 8VC, Liquid 2 Ventures, and Gaingels, along with individual investors. More here.
Occupier, a four-year-old, New York-based startup that makes software for commercial real estate tenants and brokers (it automates the process of lease administration), just raised $10.5 million in Series A funding. OMERS Ventures and Stage 2 Capital led the round, joined by earlier backers Alate Partners and Metaprop. The company has now raised $15.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Superconductive, a nearly five-year-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based startup best known for creating and maintaining the Great Expectations open source data quality tool, has raised $40 million in Series B funding led by Tiger Global. Earlier backers Index Ventures, CRV, and Root Ventures also joined the round, which brings the company's total funding to $64.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Vitesse, six-year-old, London-based cross-border payments company, has raised $26 million in Series B funding led by Prime Ventures, with participation from Octopus Ventures and Hannover Digital Investments. Pymnts has more here.
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Better Booch, an 11-year-old, L.A.-based maker of small craft kombucha, has raised $2.5 million in a funding round led by Crush Ventures. Food Dive has more here.
Elo, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based nutrition company that sets its customers up with supplements that it says are formulated for each member’s needs, then delivers them via a subscription plan, has raised $5 million in seed funding from Will Ventures and Re:food. More here.
LandscapeHub, a nearly five-year-old, Chicago-based plant and landscaping materials marketplace for wholesale buyers and sellers, has raised $9 million in Series A funding. Klaff Realty and Hyde Park Venture Partners co-led the round, joined by Open Prairie Rural Opportunities Fund, Concentric Equity Partners and Great Oaks VC. More here.
Neo.tx, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based startup that provides automated R&D tax credits to other startups, has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Infinity Ventures, with participation from GV, Acrew Capital and Fin Venture Capital, along with earlier backers. The company has now raised $13 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
RedRoute, a nearly five-year-old, New York-based, voice-based customer service experiences and conversational artificial intelligence startup, has raised $6.5 million in seed funding. ScOp Venture Capital and Bullpen Capital co-led the round, joined by numerous angel investors. RedRoute previously raised a $2 million pre-seed round. TechCrunch has more here.
Spacejoy, a three-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based home decor and furniture e-commerce platform (it uses 3D tech and AI to help users visualise how products will look in a room, then to buy them if they like), has raised $4 million in pre-Series A funding led by Accel Partners. The Economic Times has more here.
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Affinity, the relationship intelligence platform that helps teams manage and grow their networks by unlocking introductions to decision makers, has a new report featuring numerous investment trends that point toward future unicorn status. Affinity used its proprietary data to analyze over 925 unicorns from the last five years. Learn how top venture capital firms use relationship intelligence to spot more unicorns. Read the report.
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Morpheus Ventures, a six-year-old, Sherman Oaks, Ca.-based venture firm, announced the close of its second fund this week with $200 million in capital commitments to invest in fintech, insurtech, proptech and robotics startups. Dot.LA reports that the firm began its fundraising journey in late 2019. Morpheus was founded by Mark Dyne, an early Skype investor and co-founder of OziSoft, the Australian software distributor that was later bought and sold by Sega. More here.
ZhenFund, an 11-year-old, Beijing, China-based venture firm, is raising up to $400 million in capital commitments, suggests a new SEC filing first spied by Axios. More here.
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Zendesk is under new pressure over its proposal to buy the parent of web-survey company SurveyMonkey, with Zendesk disclosing after the market closed yesterday that it has received -- and rejected -- a roughly $17 billion bid of its own (from Hellman & Friedman, Advent International, and Permira, say WSJ sources), and that a shareholder activist is preparing to launch a proxy fight. More here.
Cisco has made a takeover offer worth more than $20 billion for the publicly traded software maker Splunk in what would be the networking giant’s biggest acquisition ever, says the WSJ. It adds that the offer was made recently and the companies aren’t currently in active talks. More here.
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Coffee reserves haven't been this low since February 2000 due to soaring shipping costs and unfavorable weather that clipped production in Brazil, the world’s largest grower and exporter. ☕ 😭
Five charts that highlight the record valuations that startups were assigned last year.
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The platform which sold an NFT of Jack Dorsey's first tweet for $2.9 million has halted transactions because people were selling tokens of content that did not belong to them, its founder said, calling this a "fundamental problem" in the fast-growing digital assets market.
The rabbit hole beneath the crypto couple is endless. Of course, Netflix has already ordered a movie about the whole thing.
CryptoPunks: what they are and how you can buy these so-called collectibles, which are now among the most desirable and expensive NFTs out there, says Decrypt.
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Julia Koch, widow of industrialist David Koch, is looking to sell their 18-room duplex at 740 Park Avenue, one of New York’s most exclusive addresses, for $60 million or more, says the WSJ. Koch paid about $17 million for the property in 2004, beating out billionaire Leonard Blavatnik, who reportedly had a contract on the property. "I took it out from under his nose," Koch once told the author of a book about the building.
We did not see this collab coming.
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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.
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