Amazon workers unite, Tiger Global hits a rougher patch, and how to steal a very particular car -- a manual

Amazon workers in New York have voted to form the company's first U.S. union. It’s a huge win for labor organizers at the retail giant, which had managed to stave off union efforts for its entire 27-year history. TechCrunch has more here.

It isn't just SoftBank that's having a rough go of it. Things have gone from bad to worse at Tiger Global Management’s flagship hedge fund, too, reports Bloomberg. The vehicle fell nearly 34% in the first quarter, due to poor-performing stocks and markdowns of private holdings, according to an investor letter seen by the outlet. “In hindsight, we should have sold more shares across our portfolio in 2021 than we did,” the firm wrote in the letter. “We are reassessing and refining our models using all the inputs available to us.”

The Russia-Ukraine war: what happened today. 🇺🇦 🇺🇦 🇺🇦

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When I first met Garrett Camp in March 2007 on a reporting assignment, it was at the San Francisco-based offices of StumbleUpon, a web-discovery tool that had registered more than 2 million users and drawn attention to Camp, the startup’s twenty-something-year-old founder. Seed funded with $1.5 million by storied angel Ram Shriram among others, StumbleUpon would go on to be acquired several months later by eBay for $75 million.

Then Camp’s career really took off.

Within two years, Camp had bought back StumbleUpon with a syndicate of investors (he later folded the outfit into a newer discovery app called Mix). Around that same time, in 2009, Camp began tinkering in earnest with his idea for an on-demand car service -- one that famously became Uber and which made Camp, who still owned 4% of it when Uber went public in 2019, a multibillionaire.

Nearly all the while, Camp, a Calgary native who now lives primarily in Los Angeles, has churned out fresh company ideas. He can’t help himself, he suggests in a Zoom chat. Saying he recently realized he had “like, 3,500 notes” relating to company building in his iCloud account, he adds that “10% of those are ideas for new things — not all of them [that could be big companies] — but a solid 10” that could.

Thankfully for him, he has a venture studio to turn those ideas into a reality, and it seems to be ticking along quite nicely.

Expa, established in 2013, has already worked with founders to launch companies like the challenger banking service Current (valued last year at $2.2 billion); a back-office platform for the self-employed called Collective (it closed a $20 million Series A round last year); and an open source business intelligence tool called Metabase (it raised $30 million in Series B funding last year).

Several startups with ties to Expa have also been acquired, including Cmd (to Elastic), Kit (to Ro) and Reserve (to Resy, which was itself acquired by Amex).

Now Camp is doubling down. More here.

Athennian, a five-year-old, Calgary, Alberta-based legal-tech startup, has raised $33 million in Series B funding. Centana Growth Partners led the round, joined by earlier backers Arthur Ventures and Touchdown Ventures. BetaKit has more here.

Everli, an eight-year-old, Milan, Italy-based online grocery marketplace, raised €22 million in extended Series C funding from United Ventures. Everli had closed its Series C originally a year ago with $100 million led by Verlinvest. Silicon Canals has more here.

Fractal, a five-month-old, Bay Area-based startup that sells nonfungible tokens like virtual pets, weapons and avatars that are used in games based on the Solana blockchain (and which was founded, notably, by serial entrepreneur Justin Kan), has raised $35 million in seed funding led by Paradigm and Multicoin Capital. Bloomberg has more here.

PocketHealth, a six-year-old, Toronto, Ontario-based "patient-centric" medical image-sharing startup, has raised $16 million in Series A funding led by Questa Capital. Axios has more here.

Prizeout, a three-year-old, New York-based ad tech focused on digital gift cards, has raised $25 million in Series B funding from Precept Capital, Mark Cuban, and Continental Investment Partners, among others. Pymnts explains how the company's offering works here.

Yonder, a two-year-old, London-based credit card startup, has raised £20 million co-led by Northzone and LocalGlobe. Sifted has more here. 

Anyday, a two-year-old, Aarhus, Denmark-based buy-now-pay-later startup, has raised €4 million in seed funding from Inventure. Tech.eu has more here.

Battlebound, a year-old, L.A.-based play-to-earn blockchain gaming startup, has raised $4.8 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Play Ventures and Dapper Labs. Coindesk has more here.

Emitwise, a three-year-old, London-based AI-powered carbon management platform, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. Xplorer Capital led the round, joined by Outsized Ventures, True Ventures and ArcTern Ventures. More here.

Jia Finance, a four-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based online lender that provides mortgages for foreigners investing in residential real estate in the U.S., has raised $5 million in seed funding led by TTV Capital. FinLedger has more here.

Nivati, a two-year-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based mental health platform for employees, has raised $4 million in funding led by Firebrand Ventures, with participation from Peak Capital Partners and Access Venture Partners. More here.

tru.ID, a two-year-old, San Francisco and London-based passwordless authentication platform that leverages SIM card cryptography, has raised $9 million in funding from Sorenson Ventures, Episode 1, MMC Ventures and NHN Ventures. Tech.eu has more here.

Affinity, the relationship intelligence platform for dealmakers, launched a report analyzing investment trends that point toward future unicorn status. Affinity used their 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. Read the report.

Artis Ventures, the 21-year-old, San Francisco-based venture firm, is targeting $300 million in capital for its fourth fund, according to an SEC filing. Artis is run by Stuart Peterson, who left the hedge fund Cypress Funds in L.A. to open his own firm in Silicon Valley back in 2001. Some of the firm's best-known (most lucrative bets) include Stemcentrix and Palantir. More here.

Bond, the growth-stage firm that spun out of the Kleiner Perkins Digital Growth Fund in late 2018, led away by Mary Meeker, has closed its third fund with $2.5 billion roughly one year after closing its second fund with $2 billion in capital commitments. Axios has the story here.

Glilot Capital Partners, an 11-year-old, Israel-based venture outfit, says it has raised $220 million for its fourth seed fund. The fund will invest in young companies in the fields of cybersecurity, enterprise software and developer tools. In addition, Glilot has another $180 million fund, Glilot+, which invests in growth stage companies. Calcalist has more here.

Uncork Capital, the 17-year-old, San Francisco-based early-stage VC firm formerly known as SoftTech VC, is raising $200 million for its seventh flagship fund and $200 million for its third opportunities fund, per SEC filings first flagged by Axios. More here.

It pays to run one of the most highly valued companies in the planet. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy received compensation valued at $212.7 million in 2021, his first year as head of the tech and e-commerce giant.

At least four prominent members of Meta AI have departed in recent months, reports CNBC. Between them, these prominent artificial intelligence scientists have published dozens of academic papers in world-renowned journals and made multiple breakthroughs that Meta has used to enhance Facebook and Instagram, it adds.

From Russia with money: Silicon Valley distances itself from oligarchs, reports the Washington Post. "Interviews in Silicon Valley show that in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian connections are getting more scrutiny from U.S. investigators, who are examining whether any of the deals pose national security risks. Some entrepreneurs and investors are worried their sources of capital may be tainted. Others are afraid that any involvement with wealthy Russians might unfairly stigmatize their firms or start-ups, in the same way that Chinese Americans faced discrimination and suspicions as tensions grew between China and the United States." More here.

Netflix is reigning in its spending in a sign that the company is grappling with slowing subscriber growth. The Information says the company's executives have warned employees over two separate meetings in recent weeks to be mindful of spending and hiring.

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Porsche has made 911 pairs of these sunglasses as an ode to the 911 and they retail for . . .$1,800 a pop!? Maybe they should make 1,800 pairs for $911(?).