Techmeme
February 8, 2022, 6:50 AM

Top News

New York Times:
Meta announces that Peter Thiel, one of Facebook's first institutional investors and longest-serving directors, will step down from Meta's board this year  —  The tech billionaire, who has been on the board of the company formerly known as Facebook since 2005, is backing numerous politicians in the midterm elections.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Nvidia and SoftBank call off Nvidia's Arm acquisition; Arm CEO Simon Segars resigns and Arm's IP group president Rene Haas takes over; Arm is exploring an IPO  —  Nvidia's deal to acquire Arm is off, the two companies and Arm's owner SoftBank announced (PDF) tonight.
Alan Rappeport / New York Times:
The IRS says it will transition away from using facial recognition for identity verification, after a bipartisan backlash regarding its use of ID.me services  —  The tax collection agency will transition away from using a service from the authentication service ID.me amid bipartisan backlash.
Cara Lombardo / Wall Street Journal:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Source: Apple acquires London-based AI Music, which uses AI and royalty-free music to create dynamic soundtracks that change based on user interactions or moods  —  Apple Inc. acquired a startup called AI Music that uses artificial intelligence to generate tailor-made music …
Chris Duckett / ZDNet:
Signal now lets users change the phone number associated with their account while retaining their messages, profile information, and groups  —  Users will still need to be able to send and receive Signal messages on their old number in order to port.  —  Signal has announced it will allow …
Nikhil Subramaniam / Inc42 Media:
BharatPe, an Indian fintech unicorn backed by VCs such as Sequoia and Coatue, is facing allegations of embezzlement, impropriety in merchant dealings, and more  —  Calling CEO Suhail Sameer “a puppet of investors”, Grover has alleged a conspiracy behind sending him away and instituting a probe
Bloomberg:
Livspace, an online home interiors marketplace that connects customers with designers and vendors, raises a $180M Series F led by KKR at a $1B+ valuation  —  Livspace raised $180 million in a funding round led by KKR & Co. at a valuation of more than $1 billion as the online home interiors …
Karl Freund / Forbes:
Intel announces efforts to accelerate RISC-V development and adoption, including licensing plans, chip manufacturing partners, and a $1B IFS Innovation Fund  —  This announcement will have a long-lasting impact on the entire semiconductor industry:  —  Intel must fabricate chips …
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
Sources: ahead of its IPO, Reddit has approached WPP and other big ad agencies to secure marketing deals, a delicate tightrope given its outspoken user base  —  Anarchic social network in discussion with WPP as it seeks to make profit without angering 330mn outspoken users
Ivan Levingston / Bloomberg:
UK-based GoCardless, which processes direct debit payments for Klarna, DocuSign, and others, raises $312M led by Permira at a $2.1B valuation  —  U.K. financial technology startup GoCardless raised $312 million in new funding to speed up its expansion in open banking across products and geographies.
Jay Graber / Bluesky:
Bluesky, the decentralized social media initiative announced by Twitter in 2019, becomes a Public Benefit LLC with Jack Dorsey as one of the board members  —  In 2019, Twitter announced bluesky, a project it would fund to create an open and decentralized standard for social media.
Mario Gabriele / The Generalist:
A deep dive into the rise of “solo capitalists”, who are increasingly competing to lead seed, Series A, and later stage rounds against traditional VC firms  —  Solitary general partners now manage more than many multi-person venture funds.  What are the limits of a one-man band?
Pandaily:
Taichi Graphics, an open-source cloud platform for creating 3D graphics, raises a $50M Series A co-led by Source Code Capital, GGV Capital, and BAI Capital  —  Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio  —  Taichi Graphics, an open-source graphics infrastructure and digital content creation cloud platform …
More: TechCrunch

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