Texas is suing Facebook, Microsoft is heading back to the office, and the Bitcoin rapper is released on bail

Hello, happy Valentine's Day. 💖 

Intel is reportedly close to a deal to buy Israeli chip company Tower Semiconductor for nearly $6 billion, bolstering a plan to make more chips for other companies. The WSJ has the story.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton just filed a suit against Facebook parent Meta Platforms, charging that the social-media giant’s longstanding and now discontinued use of facial-recognition technology violated that state’s privacy protections for personal biometric data. The lawsuit, filed in state district court in Marshall, Tex., reportedly seeks civil penalties in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Nearly two years after asking its employees to work from home in what was hoped might be a temporary precaution, Microsoft is fully reopening its Washington state facilities — including its Redmond headquarters — effective Feb. 28, the company told employees this morning.

A judge in Washington D.C. has denied bail to Ilya Lichtenstein, one half of the couple charged with trying to launder billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin stolen in a 2016 hack, while his wife, Heather Morgan is expected to remain free pending trial. Said the judge, “The evidence strongly suggests that Mr. Lichtenstein has more facility and skill” at this heist business.

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Databook, a six-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based AI-powered consultative sales intelligence company, has raised $50 million in Series B funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from M12, DFJ Growth and earlier investors Threshold Ventures, Salesforce Ventures and Haystack. TechCrunch has more here.

Glance, a three-year-old, Bangalore, India-based startup that serves media content, news and casual games on Android handsets' lockscreens, has raised $200 million in funding from strategic backer Jio Platforms, owned by Reliance Industries. TechCrunch has more here.

Harmay, a nine-year-old, Beijing, China-based cosmetics company that originally sold its own products exclusively online but today manages brick-and-mortar locations in Shanghai and elsewhere and sells a variety of beauty brands, has raised $200 million in combined Series C and D funding, it just disclosed. Its Series C round was led by General Atlantic and its Series D round was led by QY Capital. Other participants in the rounds included Eastern Bell Capital, N5 Capital, Ocean Link, Hillhouse Venture, and BA Capital. More here.

Papier, a seven-year-old, London-based online stationary company that plans to begin selling non-paper products like desk storage, pens, and other items to support one's writing, has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by Singular, a new French venture firm. Other investors in the round include dmg ventures, Lansdowne Partners and Kathaka and previous backers Felix Capital and Beringea. The startup has now raised $65 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Securonix, a 15-year-old, Addison, Tex.-based cloud-based security software company, told Reuters today that it has raised more than $1 billion in a private fundraising round led by private equity firm Vista Equity Partners. More here.

Soul Machines, a nearly six-year-old, Auckland, New Zealand-based company making digital humans to serve the so-called metaverse (beginning with visual customer service chatbots), has raised $70 million in Series B1 funding led by new investor SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Additional participation in this round comes from Cleveland Avenue, Liberty City Ventures and Solasta Ventures, along with earlier backers Temasek, Salesforce Ventures and Horizons Ventures. The company (which is kind of wild) has now raised $135 million altogether. TechCrunch has much more here.

Tripledot Studios, a nearly five-year-old, London-based mobile games company that publishes "casual" games like Woodoku and Solitaire, has raised $116 million in Series B financing at a post-money valuation of more than $1.4 billion led by 20VC. Earlier backers also joined the round, including Access Industries, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Eldridge. The company has now raised $202 million altogether, according to Crunchbase data. TechCrunch has more here.

Banked, a four-year-old, London-based payments startup that allows people to pay online directly from their bank accounts, rather than via a credit or debit card or third party like PayPal or Klarna (the promise is lower fees and instant refunds), has raised $20 million in Series A funding. BofA and Edenred Capital Partners co-led the round, joined by Sidekick, 9yards and earlier investors Acrew Capital, Force Over Mass, Firestartr, OM2, Love Ventures and Kuvi Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Bramble Energy, a nearly six-year-old, Crawley, England-based fuel cell company, has raised £35 million ($47.3 million) in funding led by HydrogenOne Capital Growth. Other participants in the round included BGF, IP Group, Parkwalk Advisors, and the UCL Technology Fund. EU Startups has more here.

BUD, a three-year-old, Singapore-based app that allows users to create their customizable 3D experiences and interact with others (its founders are former Snap engineers), has raised $15 million in Series A funding. Qiming Ventures Partners led the round, joined by Source Code Capital, GGV Capital and Sky9 Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Gaia, a 20-month-old, U.K.-based platform to finance IVF treatments, has raised $20 million in Series A funding round led by Atomico. The company has now raised $23 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Mindstate Design Labs, a year-old, Pittsburgh, Pa.-based preclinical biotech company focused on developing the "next generation of psychedelic-inspired therapeutics," just raised $11.5 million in seed funding led by Initialized Capital. Other investors in the round included Metaplanet Holdings, Negev Capital, and Day One Ventures. Business Insider has more here.

Reebelo, a 2.5-year-old, Singapore-based startup that wants to make buying pre-owned tech as desirable as a brand-new device, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Cathay Innovation and June Fund. Other participants include FJ Labs, Naver affiliate KREAM, and Moore Strategic Ventures, among other new and earlier backers. TechCrunch has more here.

Salad Ventures, a nine-month-old, Singapore-based outfit that aims to help anyone start, manage and scale a play-to-earn guild in any blockchain game, has raised $13.5 million in a private sale to investors, including Alameda Research, BH Digital, C2 Ventures, Foundation Capital, Gemini Frontier Fund, Winklevoss Capital, Crossbeam Venture Partners, and Polygon Studios. VentureBeat has more here.

Sardine, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based financial fraud prevention and compliance platform, has raised $19.5 million in Series A funding from Andreessen Horowitz, NYCA and Experian Ventures. SecurityWeek has more here.

Stitch, a 2.5-year-old, Cape Town, South Africa-based embedded finance startup, has raised $21 million in Series A funding led by Spruce House. Other participants include PayPal Ventures, TrueLayer, Firstminute Capital, Raba Partnership, CRE VC and Village Global. TechCrunch has more here. 

TruKKer, a six-year-old, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based digital freight forwarding outfit, has raised $46 million in Series B funding led by ADQ and the Riyadh-based venture capital fund STV. Other participants in the round included Mubadala and earlier investors Riyad Taqnia Fund and Shorooq Partners. The business also secured $50 million in venture debt from Mars Growth and Silicon Valley Bank. Gulf News has more here.

Barcode, a year-old, L.A.-based sports drink startup launched by former New York Knicks performance director Mubarak Malik and former L.A. Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma, has raised $2.2 million in funding from Trousdale Ventures,  Destiny’s Child singer Kelly Rowland and NBA player Maurice Harkless, among others. Dot.LA has more here.

MindFi, a 20-month-old, Singapore-based mental wellness startup that sells through corporations as an employee benefit, has raised $2 million in seed funding, including from earlier backers M Venture Partners and Global Founders Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Proxi, a 17-month-old, Seattle-based no-code platform that says it allows users to create, customize and embed highly interactive maps into social media accounts, websites, and apps, has raised $1.2 million in pre-seed funding led by Graham & Walker. Other participants in the round included Techstars, Madrona Pioneer Fund, Pack VC, Tacoma Venture Fund, FAM Fund, KIG and a group of angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Schoolytics, a two-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based classroom analytics and AI platform to measure, monitor, and manage student engagement, has raised $2.8 million in seed funding from Haystack, Audacious Ventures and Accelerated Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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Lauxera Capital Partners, a two-year-old, Paris- and San Francisco-based growth equity firm, says it has closed its debut fund with more than €260 million (approximately $300 million) in capital commitments, money it plans to plug into health tech companies. Among the firm's many limited partners are Covea, Candriam, Bpifrance, Caisse des Dépôts and European family offices, including Tethys, Compagnie Nationale à Portefeuille, Financière Dassault, and Italmobiliare. Tech.eu has the story here.

Popular non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea announced last week that it's launching an investment arm after raising $300 million at a $13.3 billion valuation last month. OpenSea Ventures is dedicated to growing the Web 3 ecosystem “through NFTs, decentralized systems and other novel blockchain uses,” said the company in a blog post. The fund led by OpenSea co-founder Alex Attalah. Coindesk has more here.

More than one-third of top European venture firms still don't have a single senior female partner. 👀

Grace Isford has joined Lux Capital as a principal in its New York office. Isford -- who will be focusing on data infrastructure, ML & AI, health tech, and web3 -- joins from Canvas Ventures.

Norwest Venture Partners, which recently closed its newest fund with $3 billion in capital commitments, has promoted Scott Mitchell to principal of growth equity and Laura Boyd to principal and head of M&A and corporate development. Mitchell spent three years as a growth equity associate with the firm before rejoining it in 2020 as a vice president. Boyd joined Norwest nearly three years ago after working for herself for several years.

Sorenson Ventures, a Palo Alto, Ca., and Salt Lake City, Ut.-based venture firm, has promoted Vidya Raman to partner and Eric Hilton to principal. Raman joined from Cloudera three years ago (she led its machine learning platform); Hilton joined the firm in 2015 from L.E.K. Consulting.

Peter Thiel's political donations are expected to make up just a small fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars that are likely to flow through campaigns this cycle. But the amounts he is pouring into individual races and the early nature of his primary donations have put him on the radar of Republican hopefuls, says the New York Times. More here.

When it it comes to ugly divorces, warring spouses to use to hide their stash "under the mattress, and then it was the bank account in the Caymans. Now, it’s crypto" in online wallets that can be difficult to get into, says one New York divorce lawyer.

A hot course at Harvard Business School promises to teach future leaders an elusive skill—managing happiness. One of the toughest parts is just getting a spot in the class.

A Florida home was auctioned off as an NFT — a potential first for both real estate and cryptocurrency.

A "rare" CryptoPunk sold for 8,000 ETH ($23.7 million USD) this past Saturday, making it the highest-selling CryptoPunk to date.  The Block reports that it's "not only one of nine aliens in the collection of 10,000 NFTs but it’s also one of 333 to wear a bandana." 

The best and worst 2022 Super Bowl tech ads (with deep dive here of how that FTX ad with Larry David came together).

Bob Odenkirk's long road to serious success.

Dr. Ruth's Valentine's Day advice.

The Picasso of Strava outdoes himself.

A tattoo that lasts one year.

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