It's Elon Musk's simulation, and we're all living in it

More Elon Musk world-domination news (unrelated, this time, to Twitter, phew):

1.) His car company, Tesla, crushed first-quarter earnings expectations, though it also warned of continued supply constraints that could hamper future production.

2.) Tesla plans to bring a dedicated robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedals to market by 2024, Musk said during the earnings call.

3.) Musk also told analysts -- as he'd told TED's Chris Anderson in an interview last week -- that Tesla's robot, named Optimus, will eventually be “worth more than the car business, worth more than [full-self driving].”

4.) Musk’s tunneling startup Boring Co. [raises hand] just garnered $675 million in funding led by Vy Capital and Sequoia Capital at a $5.675 billion valuation, according to the company. Boring Co. last raised $120 million at a valuation of $920 million three years ago.

In very separate news: For the first time ever, the U.S. Department of the Treasury is taking aim at bitcoin miners operating in Russia, as Putin's war on Ukraine approaches its third month. CNBC has more here.

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Beta Technologies, a 4.5-year-old, Burlington, Vt.-based maker of eVTOL aircraft and recharging pad systems, has raised $375 million in Series B funding co-led by TPG Rise Climate and Fidelity. Fidelity also led the company's $368 million Series A round last May, joined by Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund. The Air Current has more here.

Foodics, an eight-year-old, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based payment platform for restaurants, has raised $170 million in Series C funding co-led by Prosus and the Saudi sovereign wealth fund Sanabil Investments, with participation from Sequoia Capital India and earlier backers STV and Endeavor Catalyst. Reuters has more here.

Mutiny, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based no-cade AI platform that promises to help its customers better engage with their site visitors via a "tailored experience made just for them," has raised $50 million in Series B funding round co-led by Tiger Global and Insight Partners, with participation from earlier investors Sequoia Capital, Cowboy Ventures, and Uncork Capital, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Oyster, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based remote workforce management platform, has raised $150 million in Series C funding. Georgian led the round, joined by Salesforce Ventures Impact Fund, the Base10 Partners Advancement Initiative, Okta, and Endeavor Catalyst, along with earlier investors Stripes, Emergence Capital, Avid Ventures, People Tech Partners, and Indeed’s HR Tech Investments. Fortune has more here.

Rapyuta Robotics, an eight-year-old, Tokyo, Japan-based developer of collaborative pick-assist robots commonly used in warehouses, has raised $51 million in Series C funding led by Goldman Sachs. More here.

D-Matrix, a three-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based company focused on building accelerators for complex matrix math supporting machine learning, raised $44 million led by Playground Global, with support from Microsoft’s M12 and SK Hynix. VentureBeat has more here.

Enso, a 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based self-service enterprise data analytics and visualization platform, has raised $16.5 million from SignalFire, Khosla Ventures, and others, says VentureBeat. More here.

Everstage, a two-year-old, Wilmington, Del.-based no-code sales commissions automation tool that lets reps see how much they have earned, just raised $13 million in funding led by Elevation Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Free Market Health, a three-year-old, Pittsburgh, Pa.-based maker of specialty pharmacy routing technology, raised $13.5 million in Series A funding led by Alta Partners. Axios has more here.

Fundguard, a four-year-old, New York-base platform that helps asset and fund managers administer investments across mutual funds, ETFs, hedge funds, insurance, and pension funds, has raised $40 million in Series B funding. Blumberg Capital led the round, joined by Citigroup and State Street. More here.

Levels, a three-year-old, New York-based developer of metabolic biosensors that help users understand how food is impacting them, has raised $38 million in Series A funding from individual operator investors, a $5 million crowdfunding campaign, and from earlier backer Andreessen Horowitz. FierceBiotech has more here.

Loop Health, a four-year-old, Pune, India-based health insurance startup, has raised $40 million in Series B funding co-led by General Catalyst and Elevation Capital, with participation from Optum Ventures and earlier backer Vinod Khosla. Your Story has more here.

Neptune Robotics, a four-year-old, Shenzhen, China-based maker of robots for cleaning the gunk off ship hulls, has raised $17.25 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital China, with participation from Matrix Partners China and SOSV. TechCrunch has more here.

One More Game, a three-year-old, Seattle-based gaming studio, has raised $22 million in Series A funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Griffin Gaming Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Animal Capital and Cleo Capital. VentureBeat has more here.

Prezent.ai, a year-old, Los Altos, Ca.-based presentation deck gamification startup, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Greycroft, with participation from WestWave Capital and Emergent Ventures. TechCrunch has more here more here.

Statsig, a 15-month-old, Seattle-based startup whose cloud platform reduces the amount of effort required to carry out A/B tests (it was founded by eight former Facebook colleagues), has raised $43 million in Series B funding led by earlier backer Sequoia Capital, with participation from Madrona Venture Group, which is also an earlier backer. SiliconAngle has more here.

Strivr, a five-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based startup whose enterprise-focused virtual reality training platform used by big names such as Walmart, Verizon, and Bank of America, has raised $35 million in extended Series B funding. Georgian led the round, joined by Elsewhere, Accenture Ventures, Workday Ventures and Gaingels. VentureBeat has more here.

Treinta, an 19-month-old, Bogota, Colombia-based financial superapp for small businesses, has raised $46 million in funding led by PayU, with participation from LionTree Partners, Ethos VC and TEN13. TechCrunch has more here. more here.

Vitruvian, a 3.5-year-old, Perth, Australia-based connected fitness startup, has raised $15 million in Series A funding from Larsen Ventures and Ten13. TechCrunch has more here.

BioFlyte, a two-year-old, Albuquerque, N.M.-based biological threat detection startup that says its tech detects airborne threats such as viruses and bacteria, has raised $6.1 million led by Cottonwood Technology Fund, with participation from earlier backer Anzu Partners. New Mexico Inno has more here.

CellMeat, a three-year-old, South Korea-based startup developing lab-grown shrimp, has raised $8.1 million in Series A funding from NauIB, BNK VC, Strong Ventures and Ryukyung PSG. TechCrunch has more here.

Cruz Foam, a five-year-old, Santa Cruz, Ca.-based startup that makes compostable packing foam out of shrimp shells produced (and discarded) by the seafood industry, has raised a little less than $1 million in extended seed funding from celebrity investors Leonardo DiCaprio and Ashton Kutcher. The outfit has now raised around $5 million in capital and another $2 million in SBIR grants. TechCrunch has more here.

Etap, a 20-month-old, Ontario-based, Nigeria-focused auto insurance startup, has raised $1.5 million in funding co-led by Mobility 54, the venture arm of Toyota Tsusho Corp. and CFAO Group. TechCrunch has more here.

Ink, an 11-month-old, L.A.-based startup for creators to sign or draw on digital content with their finger and turn it into a non-fungible token, has raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding from investors including entrepreneur Mark Cuban and Sound Ventures. Founder Max Brody previously cofounded Cent, which says it's the first service to mint Tweets as NFTs and allow creators to sell them, including the first tweet ever, by Twitter's Jack Dorsey. More here.

Morado, a two-month-old Colombian startup aiming to digitize beauty salons in Latin America (founder Angela Maria Acosta was an early Rappi employee), has raised $5 million in a pre-seed funding. Tiger Global Management and H20 Capital Innovation co-led the round, which also included participation from Andreessen Horowitz, QED, Latitud and Village Global. TechCrunch has more here.

Soundful, a three-year-old, San Diego-based AI startup for artists and producers to create music, has raised $3.8 million in seed funding from Microsoft, Universal Music Group, Disney, Accenture. Beatport and Squeak E Clean Studios, among others. More here.

Strike Security, a 1.5-year-old, Oxford, England-based continuous penetration testing startup, has raised $5.4 million in seed funding. Greyhound Capital led the round, joined by FJ Labs, Canary, NXTP, VentureFriends, Magma Partners, Latitud and Orok Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Superjoi, a 1.5-year-old, L.A.-based fan-funding platform for creators, has raised $2.5 million from Ascension, QED Investors, Systema VC, Tomahawk and Modern Venture Partners. Dot.LA has more here.

Themis, a two-year-old, New York-based collaborative governance, risk and compliance platform, has raised $9 million in seed funding led by TTV Capital, with participation from Felicis Ventures and Walkabout Ventures. 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.

Amazon Web Services has launched a new program, AWS Impact Accelerator, that will give up to $30 million to early-stage startups led by Black, Latino, LGBTQIA+ and women founders. TechCrunch has more here.

Evok Innovations, a five-year-old, Vancouver, B.C.-based partnership between Suncor, Cenovus and the BC Cleantech CEO Alliance, has raised roughly $150 million for an industrial decarbonization venture fund that is targeting $300 million in capital commitments altogether. TechCrunch has more here. 

KuCoin, a five-year-old, Seychelles-based crypto exchange, says it has launched a $100 million "creators fund"  aimed at early-stage web3 projects. Coindesk has more here.

Lyft has signed an agreement to acquire PBSC Urban Solutions, a Canadian supplier for bike-share equipment and technology, in a move that the company says will double its scale in micromobility. Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed. PBSC, a 14-year-old, Quebec-based outfit, doesn't appear to have raised outside capital previously (at last, we can't find any at the moment). TechCrunch has more here.

Shopify is reportedly in talks to buy the five-year-old, Bay Area-based e-commerce fulfillment startup Deliverr. Bloomberg, which has the scoop, says the deal could value San Francisco-based Deliverr at more than $2 billion, which is the valuation the company was assigned during its last funding round in November. Altogether, according to Crunchbase data, Delivery has raised $490 million from investors, including Activant Capital, Coatue, 8VC and Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen.

Tim Brady is stepping down as a partner with Y Combinator, says YC President Geoff Ralston, a longtime business partner of Brady.

“I get the sense that he’s rooting in a way for Musk,” a former Twitter director tells the WSJ of Jack Dorsey, who cofounded the company, left as its CEO in November, and is expected to leave the board next month when his term expires.

YouTuber Trevor Jacob purposely crashed his plane in California, says the FAA.

Origin Ventures promoted Jacquie Marshall Siegmund to principal. Siegmund joined the outfit in New York two years ago after some brief stints elsewhere, including Goldman Sachs, where she worked as an analyst. More here.

According to a new Linktree report, more than 200 million people could be classified as a creator, defined in this case as anyone who uses their influence and creativity to monetize their audience, regardless of platform. The study also found that 39% of creators — regardless of their income level —  must consistently take measures to reduce stress, with 13% of full-time creators describing themselves as extremely stressed, and just 12% of full-time creators making more than $50,000 per year. TechCrunch has more here.

Why BeReal is attracting GenZ.

Amazon will let other online merchants piggyback on its Prime service to deliver goods quickly to their customers.

Instagram is going to tweak its ranking algorithm to highlight original content more (and reshares less) on its platform.

The plant-based food battle is heating up between Impossible Foods and its newer rival Motif, with Impossible reportedly at risk of losing a key patent as part of an ongoing legal dispute between the two.

Coinbase says its NFT marketplace is now in beta and accessible to “a small set of beta testers who’ll be invited based on their position” on its waitlist. Bloomberg wonders if it's a bit late, however, with sales on OpenSea, the world’s biggest NFT marketplace, down 67% over the past 30 days, per tracker DappRadar. Coinbase could use a fresh win, too, with sentiment toward its stock "greatly changed from when the company made its debut almost exactly a year ago," notes Bloomberg.

A drone tour through the new Tesla factory in Berlin (while we're on the subject). 

The enormous market in Japan for life-size food models.

How the cocktail cart regained its cool.

Mark Rothko’s 1960 Untitled and Gerhard Richter’s 1975 Seestück (Seascape) come up from auction next month.

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