A ban on Russian oil, a crypto fund by Bain, and Barry Diller is reportedly under investigation for insider trading

One million children have fled Ukraine in less than two weeks of war, James Elder, a spokesman for UNICEF, said today, calling it “a dark historical first.” Since the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, two million people have fled Ukraine, according to the U.N. — more than those who left Syria in the first three years of the civil war there.

U.S. President Joe Biden today banned imported oil and other energy sources from Russia to punish the country as it intensifies its military campaign in Ukraine.

After years of cultivating the Russian market, McDonald’s, Starbucks, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola said today they will temporarily close locations or stop selling products there.

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China has emerged as one of the most powerful countries in the world. Now, its close ties with Russia, against which the rest of the world has swiftly united since its invasion last week of Ukraine, has put the world’s most populous country in a precarious position.

It’s not so comfortable for foreign proponents of China, either.

While many investors with longstanding relationships in the country, such as the private equity firm Carlyle and the venture firm Sequoia Capital, have demonstrated their ongoing commitment to the region — even in the face of the Chinese government’s year-long private-sector crackdown in pursuit of “common prosperity” — China’s ongoing support of the most reviled leader on the globe could potentially prove a step too far for even the country’s most passionate supporters.

In conversation earlier today with Jim Breyer, the famed billionaire VC who has been happily investing in China for the last 17 years — including through numerous funds he has jointly raised with the Chinese venture firm IDG Capital Partners and across bets that have included Baidu, Tencent, Xiaomi, and, more recently, Binance — he sounded concerned about the changing landscape, even as he spoke in characteristically measured tones about what is unfolding in Europe.

We’ll have more from that wide-ranging conversation soon, but some quick notes from our chat as it pertains to China follow, edited lightly for length.

In 2018, I sat down with Doug Leone of Sequoia Capital, to talk about the firm’s China strategy. Numerous venture firms headed there around 2005, then turned around and left. Sequoia stayed and did well. At the time of our sit-down, the market wasn’t fully opened. American companies were being asked to make a lot of concessions, including censoring the content. But at least you could still make a lot of money on China’s founders and startups. Then came last year’s changes, which made even betting on Chinese startups more challenging. What do you make of the changing landscape?

Doug and I talk about it often. For sure, the last 18 to 24 months in China has been challenging in a number of ways. Cross-border investments and partnerships, about two years ago, completely stopped [whereas for many years] there was strong cross-border investing. My partners and I were the Series A investors in Baidu and Tencent — we were very fortunate — and the Tencent network and the Baidu network in China is extraordinary, with a number of entrepreneurs who have come out of those companies. But now they’re focused on the Chinese domestic market. If you look at what the change has been, it is largely a focus on the Chinese market.

There are certain areas like sustainability and health care and medicine that I am personally passionate about, and I’m hopeful that in the future, we can get back to cooperating — at the United States and China level — in areas like sustainability, and healthcare and medicine. But for sure, it has become a far more complex environment. The investments that the IDG team is making are in areas like sustainability, health care, medicine — and focused on domestic markets. By and large, that’s been a very significant change.

More here.

AngelList, the 12-year-old, San Francisco-based startup funding platform and community, has raised $100 million in Series C funding for its investing arm (AngelList Venture) co-led by Tiger Global Management and Accomplice.  AngelList Venture is also opening up a community round -- capital that will be raised on the platform itself -- for GPs who have made an investment on the platform over the past year. As TechCrunch notes, the Series C follows numerous product launches from the company, which in recent years has beefed up its founder-focused services through rolling funds, roll-up vehicles, AngelList Stack and a $25 million fund to back startups solely based on hiring velocity. More here.

AutoFi, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based auto financing outfit, has raised $85 million in funding, including from Santander USA, SVB Financial Group and Crosslink Capital. Forbes has more here.

Axonius, a nearly five-year-old, New York-based cybersecurity asset management platform that helps companies analyze their tech assets, just raised $200 million in Series E funding led by Accel. Other backers in the round include Silver Lake Waterman, Alta Park Capital, Owl Rock and earlier backers, including Bessemer Venture Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Reuters has more here.

DNAnexus, a 12-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company that makes biomedical data analysis software, has raised $200 million in funding led by Blackstone. Earlier backers also joined the round, including Northpond Ventures, GV, Perceptive Advisors, Innovatus Capital Partners and Foresite Capital. FierceBiotech has more here.

Forto, a five-year-old, Berlin-based digital freight forwarder, has raised $250 million in Series D funding led by Disruptive, with participation from earlier backers SoftBank, G Squared, Northzone, Unbound and A.P. Moeller. Reuters has more here.

Health Gorilla, a 7.5-year-old, San Francisco-based data-sharing platform that allows healthcare organizations -- payers, providers, labs --  to exchange clinical data with one another, has raised $50 million in Series C funding. SignalFire led the round, joined by Epsilon, IA Capital and Nationwide Ventures. The company has now raised $80 million altogether. MobiHealth News has more here.

Stax, an eight-year-old, Orlando, Fla.-based SaaS company focused on payment processing for small businesses, has raised $245 million in funding from Greater Sum Ventures, HarbourVest and Blue Star Innovation Partners. Bloomberg has more here.

Yoco, a nine-year-old, Cape Town, South Africa-based fintech that helps small businesses take card and mobile payments, is in talks to raise $150 million in new funding, says Axios. More here.

Blockmetrix, an 11-month-old, Dallas, Tex.-based Bitcoin miner (its cofounder previously cofounded a midstream water infrastructure platform), says it raised $43 million in Series B funding from undisclosed investors. Coindesk has more here.

CancerIQ, a nine-year-old, Chicago-based precision medicine startup, raised $14 million in funding co-led by Merck and Amgen. Other investors in the round included McKesson Ventures, OSF Ventures and HealthX Ventures. HIT Consultant has more here.

Dianthus, a year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based outfit that aims to acquire direct-to-consumer brands and grow them through its 'proprietary AI platform,' has raised $11.5 million in seed funding led by PJC, Underscore VC, and investor Jason Calacanis. More here.

Disco, a 20-month-old, Bay Areas-based post-purchase cross-promotional network, has raised $20 million in Series A funding. Felicis Ventures led the round, joined by Shopify, Sugar Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Indicator Ventures, RiverPark Ventures, Vibe Capital and Not Boring Fund. Pitchbook has more here.

Glorify, a two-year-old, London-based subscription-based “well-being” app that offers users guided meditation, along with audio bible passages and Christian music, has raised $40 million in Series B funding led by SoftBank Latin American Fund just months after closing on $40 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz (we'd told you about this earlier round). It seems like a lot of money in not a lot of time, but as co-founder and co-CEO, Ed Beccle, told us a few months ago, Glorify is taking off especially fast in Latin America. Bloomberg has more here.

Mighty Jaxx, a 10-year-old, Singapore-based digital and physical collectibles startup, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by East Ventures. Other investors in the round included Mirana Ventures, Easternwind International, and Korea Investment Partners, among others. Vulcan Post has more here.

ParkourSC, a nearly eight-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based supply chain operations platform, just raised $26 million in funding led by Coda Capital, with participation from famed operator John Chambers. VentureBeat has more here.

Selfbook, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based hotel payment software company (that pivoted from a consumer travel app to a B2B company in the fall of 2020), has raised $15 million in extended Series A funding led by Tiger Global Management, which also led the company's $25 million Series A in October. New strategic investor JAWS Estates Capital — hotelier Barry Sternlicht’s family office — also put money in the extension. TechCrunch has more here.

Zeta, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based outfit that says it provides the backbone cloud tech for processing credit transactions, core banking operations, mobile banking, and personal finance management on behalf of its bank customers, has raised $30 million in funding, including from MasterCard. The company has now raised roughly $280 million altogether from investors. Bloomberg has more here.

24 Exchange, a four-year-old, Hamilton, Bermuda-based multi-asset trading platform, has raised $7 million from Morgan Creek Digital, Aspire Financial and Blackwells Capital. (Here's a bit about the founder, if you're curious.)  More here.

Acasa, a year-old, Bogota, Colombia-based startup that invites homeowners in Latin America to buy before they sell, has raised $4.7 million in in seed funding led by Quona Capital. Other investors in the round include Metaprop, earlier backer Wollef, Y Combinator (the company is an alum of its accelerator program) and numerous individual investors. Acasa also secured $33 million in debt funding. More here.

Calico, an 18-month-old, Toronto, Ontario-based supply chain management platform for fashion brands, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Serena Ventures. Other backers in the round include Maple VC, Inovia Capital, and others. TechCrunch has more here.

Cay Skin, a year-old, New York-based sunscreen startup cofounded by model Winnie Harlow, has raised $4.1 million in seed funding from Female Founders Fund, True Beauty Ventures, New Money Ventures, Air Venture Partners and Silas Venture Partners. Fortune has more here.

Cega, a two-year-old startup whose new protocol aims to create a new category within DeFi — exotic derivatives -- has $4.3 million in seed funding led by Dragonfly Capital Partners, with participation from Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research, Solana Ventures and others. TechCrunch has more here.

Gumball, a two-year-old, L.A.-based podcast ad marketplace founded by the podcast company Headgum, just raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures and Good Friends. Other backers in the round include Craft Ventures, Vertical Venture Partners, Animal Capital, Calm Ventures, Gaingels, and Riverside Ventures. Dot.LA has more here.

Loyal Guru, a six-year-old, Barcelona, Spain-based e-commerce loyalty startup, just raised €8 million in Series A funding led by Nauta Capital, with participation from earlier backer Greycroft. Silicon Canals has more here. 

Noh, a year-old, São Paulo, Brazil-based fintech startup focused on shared finances, has raised $3 million in seed funding, including from Kindred Ventures, Twitter cofounder Biz Stone, Monzo co-founder Tom Blomfield, and investor-podcaster Harry Stebbings. More here.

Serve Robotics, a Bay Area-based outfit that makes sidewalk delivery robots and was spun out of Uber in March of last year (it was originally part of Postmates), has raised $10 million in funding from chipmaking giant Nvidia as part of a long-term collaboration. TechCrunch has more here.

Talage, a seven-year-old, Reno, Nev.-based outfit whose software aims to help brokers sell and service property and casualty insurance policies more efficiently, has raised $9 million in funding led by Merus Capital. Other backers in the round include Calibrate Ventures, Hallador Financial, Advantage Capital, and Reno Seed Fund. More here.

Where Experts Would Invest $1,000,000 Right Now. Volatility is ripping through the stock market so Bloomberg asked the leading financial experts where they’d invest $1,000,000 today; they overwhelmingly advocated for alternatives, like art. In fact, Contemporary Art prices have returned 13.6% annualized, outpacing the S&P by 164% from ‘95-’21. Now, a revolutionary fintech unicorn has finally securitized this untapped asset class. With Masterworks.io, all you need is a solid internet connection to invest in a Picasso. *See important Reg A disclosures.

Bain Capital Ventures has officially launched a $560 million fund focused exclusively on crypto-related efforts, Bloomberg reported earlier today. The fund apparently closed in December, and the firm has already invested $100 million into a dozen efforts (that it says it isn't talking about yet). Bain isn't new to such bets. Past investments by the team include the crypto lender BlockFi, the decentralized-finance lender Compound, and Digital Currency Group, which runs numerous crypto-related businesses. It also invested in Basis, a stablecoin startup that later shut down and returned some of its funding.

Contrary Capital, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based venture capital firm that claims to have a community of hundreds of entrepreneurial students at colleges across the country that help it with deal flow, has raised $75 million for a third fund focused on finding talented individuals and connecting them with founders and companies, says Fortune. More here.

Kuma Partners, a Paris-based health and biotech venture firm, says it has held a first close with €160 million in capital commitments for a growth fund that it expects to close with €250 millio altogether. More here.

Tola Capital, a 12-year-old, Seattle-based venture firm, is raising $400 million for its third fund, per an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. The outfit currently manages $440 million in assets. More here.  

And it's official: Google announced early today it will pay $5.4 billion to acquire security intelligence company Mandiant, giving it access to security data gathering capabilities, as well as a team of hundreds of security consultants. The company will become part of Google Cloud upon closing. TechCrunch has more here.

A company that counts WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann as one of its biggest backers is getting into the property management business. Alfred Club, which created an app that connects high-end apartment renters with services such as personal shoppers and home cleaners, is buying RKW Residential, a Charlotte, N.C.-based property management firm. The WSJ has more here.

Indian food delivery giant Swiggy has hired bankers as it gears up for an IPO next year, reports TechCrunch. The startup, which was valued at $10.7 billion in its Series K(!) financing in January, is reportedly looking to raise as much as $1 billion in the IPO, which it plans to file as early as first half of next year. More here.

Bolt cofounder and executive chairman Ryan Breslow, who stepped down as CEO from software startup last month, has helped found and fund a startup that plans to develop drugs initially based on nutraceuticals, food-derived substances that have health benefits. Breslow is chairman of the outfit, called Love Health. The Information has more here.

Oops? Federal prosecutors and securities regulators are reportedly investigating large bets that Barry Diller, his stepson Alexander von Furstenberg and David Geffen made on Activision Blizzard shares in January, days before the videogame maker agreed to be acquired by Microsoft. The three men have an unrealized profit of about $60 million on the options trade based on the recent Activision share price of around $80, according to WSJ sources.

LinkedIn billionaire Reid Hoffman has co-founded a new artificial intelligence start-up called Inflection AI with DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman and former DeepMind researcher Karén Simonyan. It's the first time Hoffman has co-founded a company since he sold LinkedIn to Microsoft for $26.2 billion in 2016. It's also the first company Suleyman has co-founded since he sold DeepMind to Google in 2014 for around $600 million. CNBC has the story here.

Matt Klein has been promoted to partner at Arrowroot Capital, an L.A.-based growth equity firm. Klein joined the outfit as a vice president in 2018 and was promoted to principal in 2019. He was previously an investor at the student-led venture firm Dorm Room Fund.  

Lolita Taub, an investor who has worked with Backstage Capital and cofounded a fund with Flybridge in 2020 called The Community Fund, is striking out on her own with a new firm called Ganas Ventures and she plans to raise $10 million for its debut fund. Toward that end, she has already lined up commitments from several individual investors, including Backstage founder Arlan Hamilton and Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Here's everything that Apple announced today at its "Peek Performance" event.

The SEC today slapped “modern-day snake-oil salesmen” siblings with charges for allegedly defrauding investors out of $124 million with a phoney cryptocurrency. 

For more than a decade, American and European tech companies have turned freelancers and the underemployed into gig workers focused on everything from to payment processing. Now, tens of thousands of Russian have all lost their livelihoods, at least temporarily, as those companies have abruptly pulled out of the country.

Social media, boys, and 'bigorexia.' 

How airdrops work.

Yves Saint Laurent’s New York pied-à-terre hits the market.

The Parkit chair, complete with cooler.