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Meta confirmed today that it is limiting the spread of content shaped by the Russian government across its platforms. The company will suppress the algorithmic spread of content shared by Russian state-linked Facebook pages and Instagram accounts and downrank posts containing links to those outlets. TechCrunch has more here.
Apple today suspended all product sales in Russia.
"Some Russian units have put down their arms and refused to fight." 🙏
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| Ali Partovi Has a New Accelerator Whose Focus Isn't Fundraising -- It's Access to Star Engineers |
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Ali Partovi prides himself on the many relationships he has built throughout Silicon Valley as a highly successful entrepreneur and investor. For example, two years ago, Partovi launched a program through his nearly five-year-old networking organization and associated venture firm, Neo, wherein he connects computer engineering students he helps to vet to fast-growing companies like the design software Figma.
Partovi does it to build goodwill. He knows students sometimes become founders and that company executives might more inclined to make room for Neo in future funding rounds if Neo has helped them win the war for talent.
But Partovi is now putting some of those company relationships to the test. How? Through a three-month-long accelerator program taking place this summer for just 20 teams that will end not with an investor demo day but with a presentation to top engineers who might be willing to throw in their lot with a promising brand-new outfit.
It’s an accelerator that’s focused on hiring and not fundraising and could, in some cases, put Neo in the category of foe and not friend.
Partovi acknowledges it’s a “valid issue and it’s one that we need to put more thought into solving.” He also says that “each person is their own individual with their own journey” and that “if somebody is at a company where they’re unhappy, it’s not doing anyone a service to try to prevent them from seeing their options.”
More here.
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Aurora Solar, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based solar design software company, has raised $200 million in Series D funding. Energize Ventures and Coatue led the round, joined by Fifth Wall, ICONIQ Capital, Lux Capital, and Emerson Collective. The company has now raised $523 million altogether and is valued by its backers at $4 billion, it says. Bloomberg has more here.
GridPoint, a 19-year-old, Reston, Va.-based company focused on energy management and optimization for buildings, just raised $75 million in funding led by the Sustainable Investing Group, with participation from Shell Ventures, among others. Commercial Observer has more here.
Kin Insurance, a six-year-old, Chicago-based direct-to-consumer home insurance company that says it can more accurately predict risk, raised $82 million in Series D funding led by QED Growth. Other participants in the round included Commerce Ventures, Flourish Ventures, and Hudson Structured Capital Management, among half a dozen other backers. TechCrunch has more here.
M-KOPA, a 10-year-old, Nairobi, Kenya-based provider of "pay-as-you-go" energy services, smart phones, TVs, refrigerators and even cash loans and health insurance, has raised $75 million in new funding. Previous backers such as the CDC Group and LGT Lightrock took part in the round, along with LocalGlobe, HEPCO Capital Management, Generation Investment Management and Broadscale Group. TechCrunch has more here.
Nayya Health, a nearly three-year-old, New York-based benefits experience and healthcare management platform, just raised $55 million in Series C funding led by earlier investor ICONIQ Growth, with participation from Transformation Capital, Felicis Ventures, and SemperVirens. TechCrunch has more here.
Payhawk, a nearly four-year-old, London-based spend management company, has raised $100 million in new Series B funding. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round, joined by Sprints Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, HubSpot Ventures and Jigsaw VC. TechCrunch has more here.
Veev, a 13-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based pre-fab home builder, has raised $400 million in Series D round led by Bond, with participation from LenX (formerly Lennar Ventures), Zeev Ventures, Fifth Wall and JLL Spark Global Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Counterpart, a three-year-old, L.A..-based management liability insurance provider, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Vy Capital, Valor Equity Partners, and Felicis Ventures. Dot.LA has more here.
Rebel Girls, a six-year-old, L.A.-based girl empowerment brand that began with a book series and mobile app and is expanding into products, audio, video, and events, just raised $13 million in seed funding. Owl Ventures and Base10 Partners led the round, joined by MindShift Capital, Emmeline Ventures and numerous individual investors, including operators Sukhinder Singh Cassidy and Brit Morin. More here.
Starship Technologies, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based company that, among others, makes small, boxy delivery vehicles designed to deliver goods around cities and closed campuses, has raised $42 million in Series B funding. NordicNinja, a Japanese-Nordic venture firm, and Taavet+Sten, the investment firm run by the Wise (fka TransferWise) founders, co-led the round. TechCrunch has more here.
Subspace Labs, a four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca-based infrastructure platform to help build decentralized platforms, raised $32.9 million in funding led by Pantera Capital. Other backers in the round include Coinbase Ventures, Crypto.com, and Alameda Research, along with half a dozen other investors. TechCrunch has more here.
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Common Paper, a two-year-old, Beaverton, Ore.-based structured contract platform, has raised $4.5 million in seed funding co-led by Boldstart Ventures and Uncork Capital. Technical.ly has more here.
Testsigma, a three-year-old, Bangalore, India-based automated testing platform for web and app development, raised $4.6 million in seed funding co-led by Accel and STRIVE. Business Standard has more here.
Visionary.ai, a year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup that says it's using AI to make cameras operate better, just raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by Ibex Investors, with participation from Spring Ventures and Capital Point. The company has now raised $7 million in seed funding altogether. Calcalist has more here.
XRHealth, a six-year-old, Brookline, Ma-based startup that operates therapeutic care clinics, has raised $10 million in funding from HTC, Bridges Israel, AARP, a crowdfunding campaign on StartEngine.com, and earlier investors. Calcalist has more here.
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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.
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Whoah. Electric Capital, a four-year-old, Bay Area-based early-stage venture firm that invests in Layer 1 cryptocurrency protocols, along with the apps built atop them, has just closed on $1 billion(!) in capital commitments, making a huge leap from 2020, when the firm closed its debut vehicle with $110 million. Committed across two funds, investors have signed up for a $400 million early-stage fund and a $600 million pool for investing directly in crypto tokens. Electric was cofounded by Avichal Garg and Curtis Spencer. The two cofounded a company called Spool that sold to Facebook in 2012; Garg stayed on with FB as a director of product development for more than four years; Spencer stayed on at FB for more than five years as a software engineer. TechCrunch has more here.
Not a new fund but a new structure: Homebrew, the nine-year-old, San Francisco-based seed-stage venture firm, has structured, it announced publicly today. After making the last of its new investments out of its third fund, the firm is operating as an evergreen entity, one backed solely by firm founders Hunter Walk and Stay Patel. TechCrunch has more here.
Tennis great Serena Williams raised $111 million for her new early stage venture capital firm Serena Ventures, the fund announced today. The firm already manages a portfolio of more than 60 angel investments, thirteen of which are unicorns, it says. Alison Rapaport, who has previously worked at J.P. Morgan, Wasserman and Melo7Tech Ventures, leads Serena Ventures along with Williams. Reuters has more here.
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According to the Detroit Free Press, General Motors quietly sold its shares in Lordstown Motors, an electric vehicle startup that has struggled to get its first vehicle, the Endurance pick-up truck, into production. GM reportedly unloaded its 7.5 million shares of common stock, less than 5% of the company (and initially valued at $75 million), in the fourth quarter of last year, following an undisclosed lock-up period. More here.
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Jung-ju Jay Kim, founder of South Korean gaming company Nexon and a pioneer in the free-to-play PC and video gaming space, has passed away at age 54, sadly. The company has not disclosed a cause of death, but according to local media reports, Kim had been undergoing treatment for depression. TechCrunch has more here.
Microsoft today said that Zain Nadella, son of CEO Satya, died yesterday morning. He was 26 years old and had been born with cerebral palsy. đź’” Bloomberg has more here.
Yoni Rechtman has joined the San Francisco-based venture firm Slow Ventures as a principal; he was previously an investor with Tusk Ventures.
Jack Sweeney, the 19-year-old who tracked Elon Musk’s Jet is now tracking the jets of Russian tycoons.
A crypto "power list," compiled by The Information.
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Crypto.com, the cryptocurrency exchange, is hiring an associate to join its strategy and new ventures team in Hong Kong.
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Rivian has raised the price of its all-electric R1T pickup by 17% and R1S SUV by about 20% as the newly public automaker tries to adjust to inflationary pressure, increases in the cost of raw materials and parts, and a prolonged chip shortage. TechCrunch has more here.
Most Bitcoin buyers who bought at the currency's all-time high have sold, according to a new report.
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U.S. President Joe Biden tonight called on Congress to pass new rules to enhance child safety on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram in his first State of the Union address. It’s the first time Biden has called for these rules, and the White House plans to make specific funding requests to study and improve children’s online safety. The Verge has more here.
Parler is trying to attract crypto users to its new marketplace, using Trump NFTs.
"Would you like to sign in with your palm?"
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Sacrilege.
Well, guess that bookends that saga.
The story of the Golden State Warriors' short-lived mascot, Berserker.
Some states in the U.S. have begun calling for bans on vodka. This is dumb for many reasons, including because less than 1% of vodka comes from Russia. That said, all marshmallow-flavored vodka should be banned (everywhere) and thrown in the garbage.
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Be your own bank using XRP and DAOs? DAOs are the web3 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.
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