Ukrainians turn to encrypted apps, volunteer hackers join the fight, and crypto exchanges refuse ban request

Ukrainians have turned to offline mapping and encrypted communication apps in the wake of the Russian invasion of their country, which is displacing millions who have left their homes to either fight back or flee to neighboring countries. According to data from app store intelligence firm Apptopia, over the past several days Ukrainians have been downloading various communication apps, offline maps, and others where they can keep up with the latest news and information, like Twitter and streaming radio apps. TechCrunch has more here.

Volunteer hackers have been joining Ukraine's fight against Russia and appeared today to take down websites for the Russian Foreign Ministry as well as the country’s largest stock exchange and a key state-owned bank.

Binance said today it will block the accounts of Russian individuals who have been sanctioned, but will not unilaterally freeze the accounts of all Russian users. The comments come after Ukraine’s vice prime minister called on major cryptocurrency exchanges to block all Russian user accounts. Said a spokesman for Binance to CNBC, “Crypto is meant to provide greater financial freedom for people across the globe. To unilaterally decide to ban people’s access to their crypto would fly in the face of the reason why crypto exists.” A spokesperson for U.S.-based exchange Coinbase similarly told Motherboard that Coinbase willnot comply with the request to ban all Russian users, citing “economic freedom” and the harm that a ban would bring to average Russians. Coinbase says, however, that it is complying with existing sanctions.

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One of just five general partners at the storied early-stage venture firm Benchmark, Sarah Tavel may be leaning the most into crypto, but that hardly means she’s actively writing related checks. On the contrary, Tavel has led one of the only crypto-related bets that Benchmark has made in recent years, making an early investment in the blockchain analysis outfit Chainalysis after it helped crack the famous Mt. Gox case.

The only other web3-type investment that Benchmark has announced in recent years is Sorare, a Paris-based outfit whose fantasy soccer game using non-fungible tokens (NFTs) attracted a whopping $730 million in funding last year across two rounds, the first of them led by Benchmark. (Tavel says Benchmark has also made a yet-unannounced investment in a startup in the “gaming space with some crypto or web3 flair.”)

Tavel says she has long been fascinated with the idea of blockchain-based smart contracts, used to hold “white paper reading parties,” and credits Katie Haun, the federal prosecutor-turned-investor, for pointing her to Chainalysis. (Years ago, Haun mentioned to Tavel that she used the company’s technology in her government role; Tavel promptly cold-emailed the company’s founder, Michael Gronager.)

Indeed, while Benchmark's pacing seems aggressively slow compared with other top-tier firms -- some of which have completely restructured in order to shift their crypto investments into overdrive -- Tavel says the firm simply prefers its age-old practice of making highly concentrated bets in all areas, with each general partner leading just one to two new deals each year. She might even argue that Benchmark's deliberate approach gives the team more time to ruminate on the changing landscape. Tavel obviously thinks about it quite a bit, as we learned during a conversation with her last week about crypto, web3, and so-called decentralized autonomous organization or DAOs. (We trotted out all the buzzwords.) 

Here’s part of that chat, edited for length.

Biomason, a 10-year-old, Durham, N.C.-based building materials startup that's using microorganisms to produce cement tiles, has raised $65 million in Series C funding led by 2150. Other investors include Celesta Capital and earlier investors Novo Holdings and Martin Marietta Materials. Fast Company has more here.

FPL Technologies, a three-year-old, Pune, India-based credit card startup doing business as OneCard, is in talks to raise $100 million in funding led by Temasek at a $1.5 billion valuation, just months after closing its last round. TechCrunch has the story here

Qventus, a 10-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based maker of hospital management software, has raised $50 million co-led by Thomas H. Lee Partners and  Premier, a healthcare improvement company. Other backers in the round include Thedacare and earlier investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, and Norwest Venture Partners. Axios has more here.

Weee, a seven-year-old, Fremont, Ca.-based online grocer featuring foods from on a variety of countries, from Latin America to Japan, China, and Vietnam, has raised $425 million in Series E funding at a $4.1 billion valuation. SoftBank led the round, joined by Greyhound Capital. Earlier backers include DST Global, Blackstone, Arena Holdings and Tiger Global. TechCrunch has more here.

ArDrive, a two-year-old, Clifton, N.J.-based blockchain-based storage app, has raised $17.2 million in seed funding led by Arweave, Blockchain Capital, and Sino Global Capital. Decrypt has more here.

Flashfood, a six-year-old, Toronto-based mobile grocery marketplace for expiring food, has raised $12.3 million in Series A funding led by S2G Ventures. Other backers in the round included ArcTern Ventures, General Catalyst, Food Retail Ventures, and individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Radian Aerospace, a six-year-old, Renton, Wa.-based company that's working to develop an orbital space plane, has raised $27.5 million in seed funding led by Fine Structure Ventures. Other participants in the round include Ultratech Capital Partners, Helios Capital, and Evolution VC Partners, among many others. GeekWire has more here.

Soona, a four-year-old, Denver, Co.-based startup focused on enabling merchants to participate in remote photo shoots for their products, has raised $35 million in Series B funding. Bain Capital Ventures led the round, joined by earlier backers Union Square Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, Starting Line Ventures, 2048 Ventures, and Range Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Stämm Biotech, an eight-year-old, Buenos Aires-based company that's developing a desktop-sized bioreactor, has raised $17 million in Series A funding from a long list of new and earlier backers, including Varana, Trillian, Serenity Traders, Teramips, Decarbonization Consortium, Draper Associates, and SOSV. TechCrunch has more here.

Volopay, a three-year-old, Singapore-based fintech startup that provides startups and enterprises flexibility by issuing digital and physical prepaid multicurrency corporate cards in their local currency, has raised $29 million Series A in debt and equity funding. Earlier backer JAM Fund led the round, joined by Winklevoss Capital, Rapyd Ventures, and Accial Capital, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Ex Parte, a five-year-old, Bethesda, Md.-based legal tech SaaS startup that says it's using AI to predict and litigation outcomes, just raised $7.5 million in Series A funding led by R8 Capital. More here.

HearHere, a five-year-old, Santa Barbara, Ca.-based road-trip storytelling app cofounded by actor Kevin Costner (who is also an investor in the company), has raised $3.2 million in seed funding led by Camping World. TechCrunch has more here.

KYX World, a 21-month-old, L.A.-based sneaker rental platform, has raised $3 million led by SeventySix Capital. ("Sneakers you rent? That's literally just weird." -- 12-year old intern.) The WSJ's sources are less skeptical.

Nebula Compute, a nearly three-year-old, Newport Beach, Ca.-based space-based data management and processing company, has raised $1.25 million in seed funding co-led by Ultratech Capital Partners and SpaceFund. More here.

Nosso, a 22-month-old, London-based fintech that aims to help parents invest and plan for their children's financial futures, raised $2.8 million in funding led by Octopus Ventures and Anthemis. More here.

Orkes, a two-year-old, Cupertino, Ca.-based company founded by the founders of Conductor, a tool built to handle Netflix's extensive, multi-channel on-demand video traffic (Orkes is a cloud-hosted version of the tool), has raised $9.3 million in seed funding. Battery Ventures and Vertex Ventures co-led the round, joined by angel investors Mahendra Ramsinghani, Gokul Rajaram, and unnamed executives from Amazon, Facebook, and elsewhere. TechCrunch has more here.

Yoshi, a seven-year-old, Nashville, Tn.-based on-site gas delivery and car-care startup that's expanding into other types of at-home deliveries, has raised $10 million in funding led by Bridgestone Americas. More here.

Affinity, the relationship intelligence platform for dealmakers, recently launched a report analyzing 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. Check out the report here.

Blueprint Equity, a four-year-old, Solana Beach, Ca.-based growth equity firm, has garnered $175 million in capital commitments for its second fund, according to an SEC filing. More here.

Charge VC, a seven-year-old, New York-based early-stage venture firm, is looking to raise $30 million for its third fund, shows an SEC filing flagged earlier by Axios. More here.

Cyberstarts, an Israeli venture capital firm, said today that it has closed a new opportunity-style fund for follow-on with $200 million in capital commitments to invest in its own portfolio companies that are raising Series A and B rounds. Calcalist has more here.

Spark Capital, the 17-year-old, Boston-, New York- and San Francisco-based venture capital firm, quietly announced that it has a set of fundings totaling $2.1 billion in commitments, capital it will use to fund both early- and growth-stage startups. More here.

Hiro Capital, a three-year-old, Luxembourg-based venture capital firm, says it has raised $340 million in capital commitments for a second fund focused on games, esports, creator platforms, and gamified fitness. VentureBeat has more here.

Microsoft-owned LinkedIn is acquiring a six-year-old, Israel-based marketing analytics platform, Oribi, for $80 million. Oribi develops technology to collect data on users’ online behavior, helping companies to optimize their marketing campaigns. As part of the agreement, LinkedIn will open a new center in Tel Aviv that will initially feature 50 employees from Oribi, which had raised $27 million from investors over the years. Calcalist has more here.

Fifth Wall Acquisition II, the second blank check company formed by Fifth Wall targeting real estate technology, withdrew its plans for an IPO on Friday, notes Renaissance Capital. It had filed in March 2021 to raise $150 million by offering 15 million shares at a price of $10. The company was set to be led by CEO and Chairman Brendan Wallace, who cofounded Fifth Wall in 2016 (and who we talked with the week before last).

Ashneer Grover, a founder and the public face of BharatPe, has resigned from the board and left the managing director position he held at the Tiger Global-backed startup as it undertakes what it says is an an all-encompassing review of business practices and fraud allegations. The 39-year-old Grover, a “shark” in the Indian version of Shark Tank, said late last month that he was going on a two-month leave of absence after an alleged audio clip surfaced on Twitter of a man hurling abusive and life threatening statements over a phone call to a Kotak Bank representative over not getting financing to buy shares in fashion e-commerce Nykaa’s IPO. TechCrunch has more here.

SpaceX delivered to Ukraine terminals that connect to the company's Starlink satellite-based internet service. Over the weekend, SpaceX said the service would be available in Ukraine, and Elon Musk promised to deliver more terminals. Today, Ukraine's minister of digital transformation said in a tweet that Starlink terminals had arrived and thanked Musk, who responded: "You are most welcome."

Kyle Vogt, who co-founded Cruise and ran the startup for years following GM’s acquisition in 2016, is back in charge, he announced today via tweet. Voygt has served as interim CEO in the more than three months since Cruise CEO Dan Ammann, a longtime executive at GM who had been tapped as CEO in 2018, suddenly left the company. GM and Cruise have never provided details about why Ammann left. TechCrunch has more here.

Thirty L.A.-based investors say these are the regional peers they admire the most.

AngelList is hiring a venture associate. The ideal candidate will have experience in a sophisticated client-facing role. Applicants can choose to work remotely or from one of AngelList's offices in San Francisco, Seattle, and New York City. More here.

DCVC his hiring an associate. Ideally, the candidate will have a degree in a deep tech-relevant field of science or technology. The two-year, pre-MBA role is in Palo Alto. Please email flo.chialtas@dcvc.com with the subject "Associate Role."

Climate change is harming the planet faster than we can adapt, warns the U.N.

People using buy-now-pay-later services will soon see their purchases—and payment records— show up on their credit reports. Timely payments will help shoppers build their credit scores, note analysts, but for casual users of these services, a reality check could come in the form of a credit-report ding. 

Like many other companies, Uber is trying to speed its exit from Russia in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. ride hailing firm said today that it is “actively looking for opportunities to accelerate the sale” of its 29% stake in the Yandex.Taxi ride-hailing joint venture in Russia. 

After years of enticing employees with large stock awards and surging share prices, some technology companies are deploying a time-tested tool: cash.

The best sport for a longer life.:)

Your credit score can predict when you die, research shows.:(

I'd like to call out which parts of the group project were mine.

Have you ever seen a more miserable dog? We would have demanded a reshoot.

Be your own bank using XRP and DAOs? DAOs are the web.3 version of a company, whilst XRP is transforming cross border payments. The ability to create liquidity by leveraging both is a total game-changer; a whole new concept of freedom is on the horizon. But how do we get there? What do we need to know? What are the blindspots? Join Linqto Learn on March 3rd at 9am PT to discuss why all roads lead to DAOs with Jennifer Arcuri and Victoria Smith. Register here.