A16z's accelerator, SoftBank's shrinking Latin America team, and Apollo is reportedly kicking Twitter's tires, too

Apollo Global Management is reportedly also considering participating in a bid for Twitter. According to the WSJ, the private equity giant has held discussions about backing a possible deal for Twitter and could provide Elon Musk or another bidder like Apollo's frenemy Thoma Bravo with equity or debt to support an offer. Either way, it's starting to feel like Twitter's days are numbered as a publicly traded company, even as taking it private again is counterintuitive for a lot of reasons, including, as notes the WSJ, that the company doesn’t have the attributes of a typical buyout target, like strong, stable cash flow. (We should also maybe note here that Apollo owns Yahoo, which owns TechCrunch, where we also work.)

Two more investors are leaving the SoftBank Latin America operation put together by former SoftBank exec Marcelo Claure. Paulo Passoni and Shu Nyatta, two managing investment partners in the endeavor, are leaving the Japanese conglomerate to start their own venture practice. According to Passoni’s LinkedIn post, the two “now move towards achieving our own dreams. In our own way. With our own culture.” (Take that, Masa Son.) The duo’s departure comes just a week after SoftBank announced that it would spin out its Latin American early-stage practice into an independent firm called Upload Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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CoinDCX, a four-year-old, Mumbai, India-based cryptocurrency exchange, has raised $135 million in fresh funding co-led Steadview and earlier backer Pantera Capital. Coinbase Ventures, Kingsway, DraperDragon, Republic and Kindred also participated in the new round, which brings the outfit's funding to date to more than $245 million. CoinDCX competes with CoinSwitch Kuber, an Indian crypto exchange that raised $260 million last October co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and (CoinDCX investor) Coinbase Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Fi, a nearly three-year-old, Bangalore, India-based startup with a banking app that ties to a Visa debit card, is in advanced talks to raise about $100 million at a $700 million valuation, says TechCrunch. Alpha Wave Global, formerly known as Falcon Edge Capital, is reportedly leading the round. More here.

Laiye, a seven-year-old, Beijing, China-based platform for automating office tasks of varying degrees of complexity, has raised $160 million in Series C funding across three tranches, the last of which was led by the Chinese private equity firm Hopu Magnolia. Other investors include VMS Group from Hong Kong, Chinese private equity firm Youshan Capital, and earlier backers Lightspeed China and U.S.-based Lightspeed Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Seon, a five-year-old, London-based start-up that helps fintech firms like Revolut tackle online fraud by analyzing a customer's email address, phone number and other data to build up a “digital footprint,” then using machine learning to determine whether the individual is genuine or suspicious, has raised $94 million in funding. IVP led the round, joined by earlier backer Creandum, PortfoLion, and numerous angel investors, including Coinbase COO Emilie Choi and UiPath CEO Daniel Dines. CNBC has more here.

Cal.com, a year-old, San Francisco-based startup that has developed  open scheduling infrastructure, has raised $25 million in Series A funding. Seven Seven Six led the round, joined by OSS Capital, Obvious Ventures and Daily.co. VentureBeat has more here.

Clipboard Health, a nearly six-year-old, Walnut, Ca-based, app-based marketplace that matches nurses with open shifts at nearby healthcare facilities, has raised $30 million in Series C funding. Sequoia Capital led the round, joined by IVP, Y Combinator, Caffeinated Capital, Initialized Capital and SciFi VC. TechCrunch has more here.

Fasset, a three-year-old, London-based digital asset exchange that's aiming to become a full-service crypto exchange in Indonesia next month and to soon offer digital asset services in Pakistan, has raised $22 million in Series A funding. Liberty City Ventures and Fatima Gobi Ventures co-led the round, joined by Soma Capital and MyAsiaVC. among others. Bloomberg has more here.  

Ohmium, a three-year-old, Lake Tahoe-based outfit that makes standardized interlocking modular Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) electrolyzers to produce pressurized high-purity hydrogen, has raised $45 million in Series B financing. Fenice Investment Group led the round, joined by Energy Transition Ventures. The Economic Times has more here.

Stem, a seven-year-old, L.A.-based distribution and payments platform for musicians and labels, has raised $20 million in funding led by QED Investors, with participation from the payments company Block (formerly Square), Slow Ventures and Quality Control. The outfit has now raised $40 million altogether. Dot.LA has more here. 

Union54, a year-old, Zambia-based startup whose API allows African software companies to issue and manage their debit cards without needing a bank or third-party processor, has raised $12 million in extended seed funding. Tiger Global -- which led an earlier $3 million round for the company six months ago -- led the new tranche, joined by Vibe VC, Earl Grey Capital and Not Boring Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

UrbanPiper, a seven-year-old, Bangalore, India-based restaurant management platform, raised $24 million in Series B funding. Earlier investors Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global co-led the round, joined by Swiggy and Zomato. The Economic Times has more here.

VueReal, a six-year-old, Waterloo, Ontario-based outfit that says it's building millions of micro/nano devices and printing them efficiently into a large surface area, has raised $14.4 million in Series B funding led by Cycle Capital. More here.

Ellis, a year-old, New York-based platform that aims to be an all-in-one platform for international students arriving in the U.S., by funneling them into bank and debit products, mobile phone plans, student personal loans, around insurance (among other things), has raised a $5.6 million in seed funding. Kindred Ventures led the round, joined by Castle Island Ventures, 20VC, Dreamers VC and V1.VC. TechCrunch has more here.

EPNS, a two-year-old, decentralized communication layer for crypto, has raised $10.1 million in Series A funding. Jump Crypto led the round, joined by Tiger Global, ParaFi, Polygon Studios, Wintermute, Sino Global Capital, Harmony Foundation and Zebpay, among others. The Block has more here. 

The Food Lab, a two-year-old, Egypt-based cloud kitchen platform, has raised $4.5 million in pre-seed financing co-led by the Africa-focused fund 4DX Ventures and the UAE-based venture capital firms Nuwa Capital and Shorooq Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Mytaverse, a two-year-old, Miami-based cloud-based platform that develops 3D multiplayer virtual and augmented meetings and workspaces, has raised $7.6 million in seed funding led by Blumberg Capital, with participation from Correlation Ventures and Accelerator Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

Nowadays, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup making plant-based "meats," starting with nugget made of pea protein and wheat flower among other things, has raised $7 million in a seed round led by Stray Dog Capital, with additional strategic support from Standard Meat Co., a privately-owned meat processing and packaging company. TechCrunch has more here.

Venture capitalist and political strategist Bradley Tusk hosts Firewall, a twice-weekly podcast covering the intersection of tech and politics. Check out our recent episode with Miguel Fernandez, co-founder and CEO of Capchase, an alternative finance platform for SaaS businesses. Miguel and Bradley discuss the startup ecosystem in Spain, and how Capchase works alongside venture capital dollars for startups.

Andreessen Horowitz is jumping into the startup accelerator game, after launching a test run last fall. It isn't sharing a lot of details, however. TechCrunch has more here. 

The founder of Argentine fintech Ualá, Pierpaolo Barbieri, is launching a LatAm-focused venture firm that has raised US$30 million from a roster of investors, including General Catalyst, former SoftBank executives Marcelo Claure and Paulo Passoni, Adam Neumann’s 166 2nd, MongoDB founder Kevin Ryan, and Rappi co-founder Sebastián Mejia, among others.  Barbieri will reportedly be the lead investor of his new firm, 17Sigma, but it will be run by managing partner Bianca Sassoon, formerly at venture capital firm Kaszek Ventures, making it the first fund in Spanish-speaking Latin America to be led by a woman, Barbieri tells the Buenos Aires Times. More here.

Axios takes a look at what precipitated the failure of venture firm Formation Group, headed by Brian Koo, a scion of the family that founded publicly traded South Korean conglomerate LS Group. The outfit filed bankruptcy over creditor claims a week ago.

Zendesk, a software company that became a takeover target during a failed purchase of SurveyMonkey’s parent, is exploring a potential sale, according to Bloomberg. It says the 15-year-old, San Francisco-based company has brought on a new adviser, Qatalyst Partners, and reached out to potential buyers, including software companies and private equity firms.

Cryptocurrency exchange Blockchain.com is interviewing banks for an IPO that could take place as soon as this year, according to Bloomberg. The company, a rival to Coinbase, said last month it was valued at about $14 billion in a funding round. More here.

Didi, the Chinese ride-hail giant, says that it plans to delist its shares in the U.S. before applying to list on an alternate exchange. That's a terrible outcome for investors, who have already seen the value of the company almost entirely wiped out since it went public in June, days after which regulators launched a cybersecurity probe and forced its services off domestic app stores (it has plunged 86% since going public, losing $58 billion in market value). The widely held belief -- hope? -- was that the company would re-list in Hong Kong at the same time and enable shareholders to swap their U.S. shares for Hong Kong-listed shares; instead, it's delisting with no apparent plan for what it's going to do with anyone. 

French music streaming service Deezer is merging with a special-purpose acquisition company and aiming to go public at a €1.05 billion, or about $1.13 billion, valuation, the companies said today.
The 15-year-old, Paris-based competitor to Spotify says it has 9.6 million subscribers and generated revenue of €400 million last year. The SPAC with which it's merging --  I2PO SA -- is backed by France’s Pinault family. Deezer previously abandoned plans for an IPO back in 2015. The WSJ has more here.

Foresite Life Sciences, a biotech SPAC formed by Foresite Capital, withdrew registration for a $250 million IPO. The firm previously previously formed two other SPACs that successfully combined with other companies. Renaissance Capital has more here.

A fund that invests in Latin American cannabis companies is planning to use a novel way of raising cash to expand, with the sale of blockchain-based security tokens to private investors. Global Cannabis Capital is pursuing a security token offering in Luxembourg, where regulations are favorable to both cannabis and the issuance of securities using blockchain. Bloomberg has more here.

Meera Clark is joining the early-stage investing team at Redpoint as a principal. Clark was most recently an investor with Obvious Ventures, which she joined as a senior associate in 2019 after spending more than four years with Morgan Stanley. More here.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet today that Twitter's board of directors won't be paid if he manages to acquire the company. "Board salary will be $0 if my bid succeeds, so that’s ~$3M/year saved right there," Musk tweeted.

Musk separately said that he doesn't own a home and crashes on friends' couches. "I don't even own a place right now, I'm literally staying at friends' places," he said in a video interview with TED head Chris Anderson that was published today. "If I travel to the Bay Area, which is where most of Tesla's engineering is, I basically rotate through friends' spare bedrooms," Musk added.

A very suspect study suggests you should keep your camera on doing Zoom calls if you want to keep your job.

What? A quarter of college graduates over the age of 25 make less than $35,000 a year, with many close to the poverty level.

Elon Musk wants Twitter’s algorithm to be public. It’s not that simple.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has an ongoing investigation into Tesla, it disclosed in a filing today. Bloomberg spied it first.

Rivian Automotive CEO RJ Scaringe is warning that the auto industry could soon face a shortage of battery supplies for electric vehicles—a challenge that he says could surpass the current computer-chip shortage.

Scenes from Coachella.

How to add pizazz to a dull room.

Jury awards $450,000 to man fired over unwanted birthday party.

Some of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s cherished possessions, including four works by Picasso, are about to auctioned off, with proceeds from the sale going to the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center. Her personal library sold at auction in January --  fetching $2.4 million, instead of an expected $60,000, notes Robb Report.

Electric Batmobile.

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