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Brakes! We meant brakes yesterday, not breaks. 🛑 ❤️
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The facial recognition company Clearview AI is telling investors it is on track to have 100 billion facial photos in its database within a year, enough to ensure “almost everyone in the world will be identifiable,” according to a financial presentation from December obtained by The Washington Post. Those images — equivalent to 14 photos for each of the 7 billion people on Earth, notes WaPo — would help power a surveillance system that has already been used for arrests and criminal investigations by thousands of law
enforcement and government agencies around the world.
Google today announced it’s adopting new privacy restrictions that will cut tracking across apps on its Android devices, following a similar move made by Apple last year that upended several firms’ advertising practices. The changes could particularly affect big companies that have relied on tracking users across apps, like Facebook parent Meta. CNBC has more here.
The New York Stock Exchange has filed a trademark application for an NFT marketplace. As Fast Company notes, such a platform would pit the centuries-old institution against the likes of crypto unicorn OpenSea and other popular NFT marketplaces, like Rarible and the Winklevoss-owned Nifty Gateway.
DoorDash soared as much as 39% today in extended trading after the company reported a record number of people ordered from the food-delivery app in the fourth quarter. Customers placed 369 million orders in the period, representing a 35% increase from a year earlier. People were also ordering more often and the value of those orders increased 36% to $11.2 billion. Wall Street expected $10.6 billion. Bloomberg has more here.
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Antora Energy, a four-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based thermal battery developer, has raised $50 million in funding. Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital co-led the round, joined by Shell Ventures, BHP Ventures, Grok Ventures, Trust Ventures, Overture VC, Impact Science Ventures, and Fifty Years. CNBC has more here.
CelLink, a 10-year-old, San Carlos, Ca.-based outfit with a product that replaces traditional wiring harnesses inside of cars, has raised $250 million in Series D funding led by Whale Rock Capital. Other backers in the round include D1 Capital Partners, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Park West, Standard Investments, Atreides, and earlier backers, including Fontinalis Partners, Franklin Templeton, and Lear Corporation, among others. Reuters has more here.
Companion Spine, a nearly two-year-old, New York- and Bordeaux, France-based spine condition diagnosis and surgical treatment company, raised $55 million in Series A funding led by Viscogliosi Brothers. FierceBiotech has more here.
Employment Hero, an eight-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based HR platform, has raised the equivalent of $129 million in funding led by earlier investor Seek Investments, with participation from OneVentures and AirTree Ventures, among others. The company is using some of the capital to acquire KeyPay, a 12-year-old, workforce management and payroll platform that will remain as an independent brand. TechCrunch has more here.
Epirus, a four-year-old, Torrance, Ca.-based outfit that's developing “directed-energy” weapons that can take down drones, has raised $200 million in Series C funding led by T. Rowe Price Associates. Other backers in the round include 8VC, Bedrock, Broom Ventures, EPIQ Capital Group, and Gaingels, among others. Dot.LA has more here.
Flutterwave, a six-year-old, San Francisco and Lagos, Nigeria-based payments startup that has said it facilitates cross-border transactions across Africa for companies including Facebook, Uber and Booking.com, just raised $250 million in Series D funding led by B Capital Group. Alta Park Capital, Whale Rock Capital, and Lux Capital also joined the round, which brings the company's total funding to $475 million altogether and its valuation to $3 billion, making it the most highly valued private company in Africa at the moment, says TechCrunch. More here.
Genesis, an eight-year-old, New York-based low-code software platform for capital markets, has raised $200 million in Series C funding led by Tiger Global. Other backers in the round included Insight Partners, Accel, GV, Illuminate Financial, Tribeca Early Stage Partners, and Salesforce Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Sharegain, a nearly seven-year-old, London-based securities-lending-as-a-service company, has raised $64 million in funding led by WestCap. Other backers in the round included Citi, EJF Capital, Optiver PSI and earlier investors Maverick Ventures Israel, Blumberg Capital, SixThirty, Rhodium, and the Kessler family office. More here.
Spotter, a nearly three-year-old, L.A.-based company that acquires rights to the video catalogs of YouTubers, has raised $200 million in Series D financing at a valuation of $1.7 billion, led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The company, founded by Aaron DeBevoise, who formerly co-founded Machinima and StyleHaul, says it previous raised $555 million across three rounds, including from Access Industries, CoVenture, Crossbeam Venture Partners, GPS Investment Partners, and HighPost Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Temporal, a three-year-old, Seattle-based startup that helps companies write and run cloud applications, has raised $103 million in Series B funding at a post-money valuation of $1.5 billion led by Index Ventures. Earlier backers also joined the round, including Sequoia Capital, Amplify Partners, Madrona Venture Group and Addition. The company has now raised $120 million altogether. GeekWire has more here.
Terray Therapeutics, a four-year-old, Pasadena, Ca.-based drug discovery platform, has raised $60 million in Series A funding led by Madrona Venture Group and was joined by investors including Two Sigma Ventures, Digitalis Ventures, KdT Ventures, Goldcrest Capital, XTX Ventures, Sahsen Ventures, Greentrail Capital, and Alexandria Venture Investments. GeekWire has more here.
Uniphore, a 13-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.- and Chennai, India-based conversational automation company, has raised $400 million in Series E funding at a valuation north of $2.5 billion. NEA led the round, joined by earlier backers, including March Capital. The company has now raised $610 million altogether. SiliconAngle has more here.
Walking Fish Therapeutics, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based cell therapy developer, has raised $73 million in Series A funding. Northpond Ventures and First Spark Ventures co-led the round, joined by Terra Magnum Capital Partners. More here.
WSC Sports, an 11-year-old, Givatayim, Israel-based AI sports video tech company, raised $100 million in Series D funding led by ION Crossover Partners. Earlier backers Intel Capital, O.G. Tech, and Detroit Venture Partners also joined the round. NoCamels has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Blueland, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based company that makes a line of cleaning products in tablet form to solve for the problem of single-use plastics, has raised $20 million in funding led by consumer brands-focused venture firm Prelude Growth Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
Eyrus, a nearly seven-year-old, Washington, DC based job site intelligence platform for the construction and oil and gas industries, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Spring Mountain Capital. Other backers in the round included Autodesk, Motley Fool Ventures, and Fuel Venture Capital. More here.
Heygo, a 17-month-old, London-based live-streaming platform for guided tours, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Northzone, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Point 9 Capital, TQ Ventures, and Ascension. TechCrunch has more here.
Hyphen, a 3.5-year-old, San Jose, Ca-based food tech developer that uses software and robotics to improve efficiency and consistency in commercial kitchens (it's basically looking to replace the kitchen assembly line), has raised $24 million in Series A funding led by Tiger Global. Other backers in the round include Toast co-founder Steve Fredette, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan, and the former chief culinary officer of The Cheesecake Factory, Donald Moore. AgFunder News has more here.
Mundi, a two-year-old, New York-based financial services platform for cross-border trade, raised $16 million in Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures. Other backers in the round included Upper90, FJ Labs, Base10 Partners, Exor, AndBank, Alleycorp, Operator Partners, Gilgamesh Ventures, and Monex. The round comes on the heels of the company securing a $100 million warehouse line from Silicon Valley Bank. TechCrunch has more here.
Nomad, a two-year-old, Denver, Co.-based startup whose flagship product is guaranteed rent, where it guarantees to pay landlords market rent for up to 3 years in exchange for a “small premium," has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round led by Silicon Valley Bank Capital, with participation from Kickstart Fund, Peterson Ventures and Range Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
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Appboxo, a nearly three-year-old, Singapore-based startup that wants to make mini-apps more accessible by allowing any developer to turn their app into a “super app," has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by RTP Global. Other participants included its first investors, Antler and 500 Southeast Asia, plus new backers like SciFi VC, Gradient Ventures and angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Encore, a 20-month-old, Hermosa Beach, Ca.-based interactive live performance app that invites musicians to create live augmented reality shows where fans can pay as little as 10 cents per “clap," just raised $9 million in funding led by Battery Ventures. Other investors in the round include 468 Capital, Parade Ventures, Nomad Ventures, Moving Capital, Kayak Ventures, and Gaingels. VentureBeat has more here.
Fluence Labs, a four-year-old, Hong Kong-based startup that's building a decentralized server network, has raised $9 million in a Series A round led by Multicoin Capital. Alameda Ventures, Arweave, and Protocol Labs also joined the round, along with several founders. Decrypt has more here.
Haul, a 2.5-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based on-demand job platform for truck driving, has raised $10 million led by B Capital Group. Other investors in the round include Hack VC, Next Coast Ventures, Pipeline Capital Partners, RPM Ventures, and Value Chain Ventures. Forbes has more here.
Housecat, a months-old, Helsinki, Finland-based startup that allows customers to mirror the trading strategies of asset managers, says it has raised $3.4 million in funding from investors it didn't name. Coindesk has more here.
KSOC, a six-month-old, San Francisco-based cloud security platform, raised $6 million in seed funding led by .406 Ventures. Vertex Ventures US and Gula Tech Adventures also joined the round, along with a handful of individual investors. More here.
Passthrough, a two-year-old, Middletown, Del.-based SaaS startup that automates, distributes, executes and manages the subscription process for fund managers and their investors, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Positive Sum. Okta Ventures, Great Oaks VC and Company Ventures, also joined the round, among others. Technical.ly has more here.
SiteKick, a six-year-old, Minneapolis, Mn.-based AI-powered commercial real estate construction site-monitoring platform, just raised $1.2 million in seed funding led by Great North Ventures, with participation from Rice Park Capital Management. The Star Tribune has more here.
Zavvy, a year-old, Munich, Germany-based startup that provides employees tools for onboarding, training and setting up performance reviews, has raised $4 million in funding round led by La Famiglia VC. Other investors in this round include Emerge Education, Picus Capital and a number of angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.
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Fifth Wall, the four-year-old, Marina Del Rey, Ca.-based proptech-focused venture capital firm, has raised $149 million for a new fund focused on European real estate technology. Fifth Wall said it now manages approximately $3 billion in capital altogether. (We'll have more on this later this week.)
HV Capital, the 22-year-old, Munich, Germany-based venture capital firm, has raised $489 million for a new fund that will enable it to back its portfolio companies longer, it tells Bloomberg. More here.
Stronghold, a nearly five-year-old, San Francisco-based payments infrastructure company, says it has launched a venture capital arm to deploy $100 million of its balance sheet capital into startups and funds in three core strategies — underrepresented founders, fintech and web3. TechCrunch has more here.
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Meta Platforms has completed its acquisition of Kustomer, the New York-based CRM platform developer, after more than a year of antitrust scrutiny. Bloomberg has more here.
Spotify this afternoon announced two more acquisitions in the podcasts market, this time on both the measurement and analytics side of the business. The company is acquiring the podcast measurement service Podsights and the analytics platform Chartable for undisclosed sums. TechCrunch has more here.
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SoftBank Group is asking banks jostling for roles on a potential listing of Arm to underwrite a margin loan of about $8 billion, according to Bloomberg's sources. The margin loan financing -- linked to Arm’s IPO stock -- is one option under consideration as SoftBank lines up an advisory roster for what could be the year’s biggest IPO, says the outlet. Son, it notes, has been pitching the potential of an Arm IPO since news broke that Nvidia was walking away from the company, which licenses the chip technology used in most smartphones. “This is a return to our original plan,” he told investors and analysts last week. “We will aim for the biggest IPO ever in semiconductor history.”
Medical device maker Meihua International Medical Technologies Co. priced its IPO at the mid-point of a marketed range, the first China-based company to list in the U.S. since July after Didi's IPO sparked a regulatory backlash. Meihua sold 3.6 million shares, fewer than it had originally proposed, for $10 each today to raise $36 million, according to a statement. Bloomberg has more here.
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Alex Kaufman has joined Verizon Ventures as a principal. Formerly, he was with general partner and cofounder of APA Venture Partners.
Navid Oreizy has joined Bessemer Venture Partners as a founding partner on its growth buyout platform, BVP Forge. He was formerly a a principal of Serent Capital.
Parag Agrawal, 37, who was named Twitter's CEO less than three months ago amid pressure from investors to grow rapidly, is about to take “a few weeks” of parental leave, Twitter confirmed to The Washington Post. That’s less than the 20 weeks the company affords its employees — regardless of gender — yet still noteworthy for a CEO of a major tech firm, notes the outlet. More here.
Mark Zuckerberg has promoted his top policy executive, Nick Clegg, to an even greater role inside Meta -- a move that will mean less involvement in future policy decisions for himself and COO Sheryl Sandberg, observes Bloomberg. It notes that Clegg was already running Meta’s global policy organization; now, according to a post authored today by Zuckerberg, Clegg will “lead our company on all our policy matters,” including interactions with governments and how Meta will “make the case publicly for our products and our
work.” Clegg, who was reporting to Sandberg, is now also reporting to Zuckerberg with the new title of president for global affairs.
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Microsoft’s social VR platform AltspaceVR is getting rid of social hubs to crack down on online harassment, the company announced today. Altspace is also instituting additional safeguards by default, and it will require people to use Microsoft accounts in the coming weeks — a measure that is meant to help parents keep their young children out of Altspace. Protocol has more here.
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