iPhone Transformation, Elon Musk's Subscription Model, and More!

Top News

📱 Apple could be about to make the biggest change to the iPhone in 11 years.

💸 Elon Musk says X will charge users a "small monthly payment" to use its service.

💼 A lawsuit from real estate landlord Divco could drive WeWork all the way into bankruptcy.

🔐 Microsoft accidentally exposed tens of terabytes of sensitive information on a GitHub repository.

Massive Fundings

🛡️ Dragos, a startup creating software to secure industrial control systems, raised a $74 million Series D extension round at a $1.7 billion valuation.

🗺️ Mapbox, a location-mapping company, is reportedly raising $280 million in funding led by SoftBank.

✍️ Writer, a startup using LLMs to improve corporate content creation, raised a $100 million Series B round at a $500+ million valuation.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

🪙 Animoca Brands raised $20 million for its NFT collection.

🔐 Bastion, a seed fund round worth $25 million for a cybersecurity startup.

📦 Boxbot, a startup reducing space and manpower for box movement in warehouses, raised a $12 million Series A round.

🧐 Betterleap, using generative AI to help recruiters, raised a $13 million seed round.

🔬 Broken String Biosciences, developing safer cell and gene therapies, raised a $15 million Series A round.

💱 Fipto, enabling corporate treasury management and international payments in fiat and digital currencies using blockchain, raised a $15.9 million seed round.

📦 Levelpath, providing "mobile-first" procurement software for large enterprises, raised a $30 million Series A round.

♻️ Metaloop, connecting scrap metal sellers with buyers, raised €16 million ($17 million) in a Series A round.

🏍️ Mottu, a startup renting motorcycles for delivery couriers, raised a $50 million Series C round.

🌿 Plan A, a carbon accounting and ESG reporting platform for corporations, raised $27 million in a Series A round.

Smaller Fundings

💼 Stoïk, offering cyber insurance to small and medium companies, raised $10.7 million.

🔐 Tamnoon, helping teams remediate cloud risks, raised a $5.1 million seed round.

Prefer-Not-To-Say Fundings

🛩️ ZeroAvia, developing hydrogen-electric propulsion systems for aircraft, raised an undisclosed round co-led by Airbus and others.

New Funds

💰 Blockchain Capital raised two new crypto funds totaling over $580 million.

🌍 Lowercarbon Capital, focused on climate tech startups, raised over $550 million.

🎯 Unfold Ventures, backed by Fidelity Investments, launched with $300 million.

Going Public

🛒 Instacart priced its shares at $30, giving it a $10 billion valuation.

People

🧢 Jack Dorsey will soon be not only a Block Head but a Square Head too.

📱 Yoel Roth, the former head of trust and safety at Twitter, reflects on what it was like to have both Twitter and Elon Musk attack him.

👨‍💼 Panos Panay, Microsoft's Chief Product Officer, is leaving to run Amazon’s division for its Alexa and Echo speakers.

🤖 Softbank Vision fund veteran Ervin Tu has been appointed the new interim CEO of Prosus and Naspers.

Layoffs

🎮 Probably Monsters, a game studio, has laid off an undisclosed number of employees.

Essential Reads

💰 Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has sued founder Sam Bankman-Fried's parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, to "recover millions of dollars in fraudulently transferred and misappropriated funds."

🧠 OpenAI is reportedly hustling to beat Google to launch "multimodal" AI.

🔒 Clorox revealed it was the victim of a cyberattack and is suffering from ongoing production disruptions.

🤖 How to tell whether your favorite AI is "conscious."

Detours

🤖 Steel yourselves. A company in Oregon is getting ready to roll out 10,000 humanoid robots per year.

📽️ TikTok's Tube Girl takes off.

Retail Therapy

🎓 A college counseling service in New York is charging $750,000 to get your kid into Harvard (discounts available for Yale).

🎨 Bob Ross' first on-air painting is for sale for $9.85 million.

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