Reels goes global, the most and least diverse VC firms, and a breakup leads to a shakeup

(It was this kind of Tuesday.)

The outcome of Russia’s incursion into two breakaway regions of Ukraine is uncertain, but it has already caused commodities prices to shoot higher. What happens to oil in particular could also determine whether the Fed continues a brisk pace of hiking after it raises interest rates in March or ultimately slows the pace due to growth concern, says CNBC. More here.

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Wildtype, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based outfit that’s developing cultured salmon from cells outside the animal, just raised $100 million in Series B funding to make its product ubiquitous, from top restaurants to grocery stores.

Whether it can pull of this plan is a question mark, but it’s easy to see what has its new investors – L Catterton, Cargill, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bezos Expeditions, Temasek, and Robert Downey Jr.’s FootPrint Coalition (among others) – excited.

The broad argument for cell-cultivated seafood is that it can protect wild species and counter overfishing. Ostensibly, it also provides the same nutritional benefits as wild-caught fish, without the mercury, micro plastics, and other contaminants that sometimes appear in wild and farmed fish.

Even better, say Wildtype cofounders Justin Kolbeck and Aryé Elfenbein: Wildtype has figured out how to make “sushi-grade” salmon by cultivate growing the cells of a Pacific salmon, also known as a Coho salmon, in steel tanks that look like brewery tanks, then putting the cells in so-called scaffolds, which are structures made of plant-derived ingredients, to guide to cells to shape each cut of fish. (Wildtype isn’t growing fins or heads here, say the founders — only the kind of cut of salmon you might see behind the sushi bar.)

The two friends – a former business consultant and a trained cardiologist, respectively – are so confident in their end product that last year they opened a tasting room just beyond the tanks so that chefs could try the salmon and learn more about its production.

If all goes as planned, those chefs will soon feature Wildtype’s salmon along with their other offerings. So will grocery stores.

It’s within sight. In December, Wildtype announced distribution agreements with Snowfox, which operates sushi bars at 1,230 grocery locations nationwide, and Pokéworks, which operates 65 fast casual restaurants, and the deals “pave the way for consumers to experience Wildtype’s cultivated salmon once the company’s manufacturing capabilities achieve the required scale,” per the announcement.

It’s getting from A to B that’s the trick.

More here.

Automata, a seven-year-old, London-based lab robotics startup, raised $50 million in Series B funding led by Octopus Ventures, with participation from Hummingbird, Latitude Ventures, ABB Technology Ventures, Isomer Capital, In-Q-Tel and others. TechCrunch has more here.

CHEQ, a six-year-old, Tel-Aviv, Israel-based cybersecurity service that uses AI and natural language processing to protect companies from various forms of ad fraud, just raised $150 million in Series C funding led by Tiger Global. Battery Ventures, Hanaco, Phoenix Insurance, and Key1 Capital also joined the round. Calcalist has more here.

Beauty for All Industries, an 11-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based beauty company whose stable of brands includes IPSY and BoxyCharm, has raised $96 million in new funding led by TPG Growth. Forbes has more here. 

Beyond Identity, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based startup that's developing passwordless identity management software and was founded by early internet pioneers Jim Clark and Tom Jermoluk, as raised $100 million in Series C funding led by Evolution Equity Partners. A mix of new and earlier backers joined the round, including New Enterprise Associates, Clark himself, Potentum Partners, Expanding Capital, and HBAM. The outfit had closed its Series B with $75 million in December 2020. VentureBeat has more here.

Federated Wireless, a 10-year-old, Arlington, Va.-based wireless internet company, has raised $58 million in Series D funding led by an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management, with Allied Minds and GIC also participating. More here.

Hasura, a five-year-old, Bangalore, India-based startup whose platform creates GraphQL APIs from existing databases, ostensibly making it easier to build new apps or add features to existing ones, has raised $100 million in new funding led by Greenoaks, with participation from earlier investors Nexus Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Vertex Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

TVG Hospitality, a seven-year-old, U.K.-based operator of music and hospitality venues founded by Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons, has raised $50 million in new funding led by former KKR exec Nat Zilkha and Gibson Brands (which Zilkha led out of bankruptcy in 2018 on behalf of KKR and whose board he still chairs). Investors from the music and tech industries also participated. Music Business Worldwide has more here.

ViaBill, a 12-year-old, Denmark-based buy-now-pay-later company, has raised $120 million in equity and debt led by Fasanara Capital. More here.

Zenjob, a seven-year-old, Berlin-based marketplace platform that targets students looking for side jobs in sectors like retail, logistics and hospitality and promises to connect them with employers in need of temporary labor, has raised $50 million in Series D funding. Aragon led the round, joined by all of Zenjob’s earlier investors, including Acton Capital, Atlantic Labs, Forestay and Axa Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Alloy Automation, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that aims to help e-commerce players link services in order to automate their shipping, marketing, analytics and other tasks, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. TechCrunch has more here.

LEKO Labs, an eight-year-old, Luxembourg-based carbon negative construction company that has developed wood-based building materials as an alternative to steel and concrete, just raised $21 million in Series A funding. The outfit 2150 led the round, joined by the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, Tencent, AMAVI, Rise PropTech Fund, Extantia and Freigeist. TechCrunch has more here.

MarketForce, a four-year-old, Kenya-based retail B2B and end-to-end distribution platform, has raised $40 million in Series A funding led by V8 Capital Partners, with Ten13 VC, SOSV Select Fund, Vu Ventures, Vastly Valuable Ventures, Uncovered Fund, and earlier investors also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Minded, a year-old, New York-based psychiatry-focused tele-health company specializing in managing mental health medication for consumers, has raised $25 million in seed funding, including from Streamlined Ventures, Link Ventures, Unicorn Ventures, and Trousdale Ventures, among many others. TechCrunch has more here.

Neosapience, a 4.5-year-old, South Korea-based synthetic voice and video startup, has raised $21.5 million in Series B funding led by BRV Capital Management. More here.

RIOS Intelligent Machines, a four-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based developer of dexterous AI-powered robots for automating assembly lines, just raised $28 million in Series A equity funding and debt financing (it isn't breaking out how much of each it just raised). Main Sequence led the round, joined by Yamaha Motor Ventures, Orbit Venture Partners, Hypertherm Ventures, and earlier backers. Robotics & Automation News has more here.

SeMI Technologies, a three-year-old, Netherlands-based developer of open source software, raised $16 million in Series A funding led by NEA and Cortical Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Urent, a four-year-old, Moscow, Russia-based e-scooter and bike sharing service, has raised $27.8 million in funding led by Russia’s largest telecom firm, MTS, with participation from VPE Capital and VEN Ventures. Forbes has more here.

Zoomo, a five-year-old, New York-based maker of electric bikes for last-mile delivery workers, has raised $20 million in additional Series B funding led by Collaborative Fund, with Mitsubishi UFJ, SG Fleet, WIND Ventures, COPEC, and Akuna Capital also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Monite, a two-year-old, Berlin-based startup whose software aims to enable B2B platforms, marketplaces, neobanks, and vertical SaaS to integrate high-end finance automation features, just raised $5 million in funding led by Point72 Ventures. Tech.eu has more here.

Nous, a year-old, U.K.-based household finance startup (Nous apparently rhymes with "house" in this case), just raised $9 million in seed funding led by Mosaic Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

PerchPeek, a nearly five-year-old, U.K.-based maker of employee relocation software tools, raised £8 million in Series A funding led by Stage 2 Capital and AlbionVC. TechCrunch has more here.

SkyFi, a nearly five-year-old, Miami, Fl.-based startup developing a satellite imagery app, has raised a $7.15 million round with participation from J2 Ventures, Moving Capital, and Capital Factory, among others. The startup aims to lower the barrier to entry for procuring custom satellite imagery. Payload has more here.

Semarion, a nearly four-year-old, Cambridge, England-based materials engineering and cell biology company that spunout of Cambridge University, has raised £2.14 million in seed funding led by Parkwalk Advisors, with the University of Cambridge Seed Funds, Martlet Capital, and angel investors also participating. More here.

Join Affinity’s webinar, Using Relationship Intelligence to Catch More Unicorns, on February 24th at 10am PT/1pm ET, featuring industry leaders like Ian Taylor from Pear VC and Harry Stebbings from The Twenty Minute VC podcast, in discussion about the evolving venture capital market landscape, including funding trends impacting dealmakers and role of relationship intelligence in finding the investments that could turn into unicorns. Register here.

Israeli venture capital fund Amiti Ventures is in the advanced stages of closing on $130 million in capital commitments for its fourth fund, says Calcalist, which says the vehicle will be managed by firm founder Ben Rabinowitz and partner Maya Pizov. Another managing partner, Modi Rosen, who partnered with Amiti three years ago for its third fund, will not be part of the fourth fund. Rosen, who co-founded Tel Aviv-based Magma Venture Partners, left Magma to join Amiti after falling out with Magma co-founder Yahal Zilka. (Drama!) More here.

Backed VC, a seven-year-old, London-based venture firm, has raised €150 million in capital commitments from its limited partners, half of which it will invest through a seed fund and the other half of which it will invest through a separate new follow-on fund. Tech.eu has more here.

To give a boost to the German venture scene, the Munich-based early-stage and growth investor HV Capital has unveiled a "continuation" fund with over €430 million in capital commitments. HarbourVest is the anchor investor; other limited partners in the vehicle include LGT Capital Partners, Pathway Capital, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and a number of family offices and financial institutions. Tech.eu has more here.

Swedish venture capital firm Wellstreet has launched a new fintech fund that's targeted a final raise of roughly $40 million, says Tech.eu. The fund will be Wellstreet's second fund. Founded in 2016, the team invests in early-stage B2B and infrastructure tech startups. More here.

Nintex, a 16-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based privately held company, is acquiring Israeli tech startup Kryon to further extend the intelligent process automation capabilities of its own process platform. The terms of the deal weren’t revealed, but Calcalist reports Ninety paid around $100 million for the Israeli company. Kryon was founded in 2011 and raised $78 million over the years, including from Oak HC/FT Partners LLC, Aquiline Technology Growth and Vertex Venture Holdings. Kryon’s 150 employees will join Nintex, says the outlet. More here.

SoFi has agreed to acquire Technisys, a Latin America-based banking software company, for $1.1 billion in an all-stock transaction. The deal gives SoFi control of its own core-banking platform, the back-end technology that banks use to power mobile-banking apps, open accounts and keep track of customer deposits and is CEO Anthony Noto’s latest move to turn the onetime student lender into a full-service bank, notes the WSJ.

Volkswagen says it's considering hiving off its profitable Porsche division into a separate company with its own stock listing. The transaction would help the automaker raise money to invest in electric vehicles while also potentially returning more control of the high-performance carmaker to descendants of its founder. The New York Times has the story here.

At the lending firm ClearCo, a break-up leads to a shakeup. 

Meta has launched its short-video product Reels for all global Facebook users and introduced many new features for advertisers in a bid to unseat the current short-form-video champ, TikTok.

The most and least diverse venture firms. ("'We’re getting to a place where it’s kind of embarrassing if you look at a partnership: ‘You don’t have any women? None?' said Charles Hudson, the sole partner at Precursor Ventures, a seed-stage fund founded in 2015 whose four-person investment team includes three women.")

To expunge his daughter’s murder from the Internet, a father has created an NFT of the grisly video. The complex and potentially futile bid is aimed at claiming ownership over the video, which has been viewed millions of times over the last six years on Facebook.

Olympic images.

What creative type are you?

That 60,000-ton merchant ship loaded with luxury cars is still on fire(!). 

Another members-only spot in New York that will require an NFT for entry.

We're very (ridiculously?) late to this book, but it is so good.

Want to hear from the man behind the third-biggest breakthrough in distributed systems? Avalanche blockchain has a market cap of $23 billion, with $245 million in tokens circulating tokens, and Linqto’s CSO, Karim Nurani, will be sitting down with Emin Gün Sirer, the CEO of Avalabs, the company behind Avalanche, to talk about the state of the crypto markets, the future of decentralization, and why Avalanche is the best blockchain out there. Register here.