Moscow's new censorship extremes, a sit-down with MBS, and the D’Amelio family is taking over VC now, too

Hope you have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

Russia’s communications agency Roskomnadzor announced today that it is blocking access to Facebook in Russia. It cited 26 cases of “discrimination against Russian media and information resources by Facebook” since October 2020, in addition to the more-recent restrictions Facebook has placed on Russian state media outlets. In response, Meta president of global affairs Nick Clegg tweeted: “Soon millions of ordinary Russians will find themselves cut off from reliable information, deprived of their everyday ways of connecting with family and friends and silenced from speaking out. We will continue to do everything we can to restore our services so they remain available to people to safely and securely express themselves and organize for action.”

Several Western media organizations, including Bloomberg News and the BBC, are suspending their editorial operations in Russia because of a new censorship law signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin today that criminalizes independent journalism on the invasion of Ukraine. Under the legislation, which could take effect as early as Saturday, journalists who simply describe the war as a “war” could be sentenced to prison.

Meanwhile, Microsoft banned sales to Russians, following a similar move by Apple. And a leading American conduit of Internet data, Cogent Communications, has severed ties with its Russian clients to prevent its networks from being used for propaganda or cyberattacks aimed at beleaguered Ukrainians.

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Founders Fund has garnered a lot of money from investors; it has also returned quite a bit of capital.

A lot of the action on both fronts has happened very recently. Yesterday, the 17-year-old outfit took the wraps off more than $5 billion in fresh capital commitments across two new funds -- a $1.9 billion early-stage and a $3.4 billion growth-stage vehicle -- that brings its total assets under management to roughly $11 billion. That's a lot of moolah. But the San Francisco-based outfit, which more recently opened a second office in Miami, says that it has returned $10 billion worth of shares to investors over the last two years alone as its portfolio companies have hit the public markets

To learn more about how its new funds are likely to be invested, we talked earlier today with both Lauren Gross and Brian Singerman, longtime partners of the 35-person outfit. They also answered questions about how the firm is structured these days; how often investing decisions involve the firm's famous co-founder, Peter Thiel; and whether Founders Fund plans to incubate more companies (it's how Anduril and Palantir got their start). Our chat follows, edited lightly for length.

More here.

Abnormal Security, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based cybersecurity company focused around socially engineered email attacks, is reportedly in talks to raise between $250 million and $300 million in funding led by Insight Partners. Reporter Eric Newcomer has more here.

Volocopter, a 13-year-old, Bruchsal, Germany-based eVTOL developer that says it will launch its first commercial fleet in 2024,  just raised $170 million in Series E funding led by WP Investment, with participation from Honeywell and earlier backers Atlantia, Whysol and btov Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Better Dairy, a three-year-old, U.K.-based food tech company that's developing animal-free cheeses using precision fermentation, has raised $22 million in Series A funding. RedAlpine and Vorwerk Ventures co-led the round, joined by Manta Ray, Acequia Capital, Stray Dog Capital and earlier backer Happiness Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

VISO Trust, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based cybersecurity due diligence platform, has raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from Work-Bench, Sierra Ventures and Lytical Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

Exeest, a three-year-old, L.A.-based digital B2B marketplace for entertainment content, has raised $3.1 million in seed funding from individual investors, including Bob Sauerberg, a former CEO of Condé Nast and Reddit board member; Jeff Gaspin, a former chairman of NBCUniversal Television); and Dean Backer, who is a managing director at Goldman Sachs. More here.

Juli, a two-year-old, Hull, Ma.-based digital health platform for managing chronic conditions, has raised $3.8 million in seed funding co-led by Speedinvest and Norrsken VC. Coverager has more here.

Mi Terro, a nearly four-year-old, City of Industry, Ca.-based company that says it takes agricultural waste and processes it into proteins that can be used as a plastic replacement, animal feed and much more, just raised $1.5 million in funding led by Astanor. TechCrunch has more here.

OwnIt, a year-old, San Francisco-based connected checkout startup, has raised $8 million from Caffeinated Capital, SciFi VC, GGV Capital and Abstract Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Rarify, a year-old, API platform that says it can easily create, manage and verify NFT digital assets, raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Eniac Ventures, Greycroft, Hyper and Slow Ventures. The outfit had separately raised $2 million in seed funding in September. Coindesk has more here. 

SteadyPay, a five-year-old, London-based lending company targeting gig workers and freelancers (it tops up users' bank accounts when their earnings fall below their monthly average in exchange for a weekly or monthly service fee), has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Digital Horizon. TechCrunch has 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.

The D’Amelio family, including TikTok stars and digital creators Charli D’Amelio and sister Dixie, are formalizing their investments in startups with the launch of a new VC fund, 444 Capital. The family is teaming up with Doug Renert of Tandem Capital and producer Jeff Beacher of Beacher Media Group on the fund, which aims to back high-growth companies with strong end-user brands, including those in the direct-to-consumer space, fintech, edtech, healthcare, insurtech and other B2B2C platforms. The fund has a target of up to $25 million, some of which has already been raised and deployed, says TechCrunch.

M13, a six-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based venture firm founded by brothers Carter and Courtney Reum, has closed its third fund with $400 million in capital commitments, more than twice what it raised for its predecessor fund, which had closed with $188 million, and far more than the firm's $92 million debut fund. Per Forbes, M13 invests in seed through Series B-stage startups that "provide the technical layer behind consumer trends" in categories including work, health and money. Portfolio companies include meditation app Headspace, homemade food delivery service Shef, and the direct-to-consumer company Daily Harvest, among others. More here.

Grab's stock plunge underscores the perils of SPAC mergers. Valued at $40 billion about three months ago, the Southeast Asian ride-hailing and delivery company is now worth less than one-third that amount following the release of its 2021 results.

Italian police today seized a yacht owned by Alexey Mordashov, the richest man in Russia before being blacklisted this week by the European Union following Moscow's attack on Ukraine. The 65.5-meter (215-foot) yacht has been moored in the Ligurian city since the beginning of the month, according to maritime data collected by Bloomberg.

It might surprise Tesla customers, but Elon Musk is in favor of increasing oil and gas production right now. "Hate to say it," he tweeted earlier today, "but we need to increase oil & gas output immediately. Extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures. Obviously, this would negatively affect Tesla, but sustainable energy solutions simply cannot react instantaneously to make up for Russian oil & gas exports." (Musk also tweeted: to "hold strong, Ukraine" and offered his "sympathies to the great people of Russia, who do not want this.")

How much more expensive used and new cars are in 2022.

Absolute power.

The war that Russians do not see.

It's back to work at Apple, which said today it expects employees to head into the office twice weeks beginning April 11 and to begin coming Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays as of May 23. 

Teeny tiny watches.

This time, Beeple is trying his hand at artwork for walls.

How to overcome imposter syndrome in academia when you're six raccoons living in a Fjällräven parka.

Wolverine that pork shoulder with these shredder claws.

An "off-the-grid" raincoat, with pockets deep enough for your quarry. ☠️

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