🔥The 9th Round of Easy Loan, Earn $40 Reward is in progress❗️ ⏰ Promotion Period: January 15th - Feburary 15th, 2025 👉 Register now and check more details at gate.io/campaigns/358

🏇 NEW 🏇 Andreessen Horowitz is riding to the defense of Deel, steering the startup's combat plans. The venture capital firm has about $3 billion at stake in the company whose executives are accused of carrying out corporate espionage. Read on 👇👇👇 theinformation.com/articles/andre…

New from me & Michael Roddan: The career-defining first investment for a new a16z partner is at risk in Deel's escalating corporate spy scandal. Deel has fired back at Rippling, saying its CEO Parker Conrad wants "petty revenge" on a16z, the VC firm now helping Deel's defense.

ICYMI

Cory Weinberg slaying the stage per usual

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Brex chairman Henrique Dubugras posted a podcast interview (?) with @Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz this morning, but quickly deleted it :( If anyone downloaded it, please send to me! deleted tweet link: x.com/hdubugras/stat… deleted linkedin link: linkedin.com/posts/henrique…

If anyone has "Deel's Secret to $800m in ARR" would love to know!

🤖 new 🤖 Robotics startup founded by former CEO of failed fintech firm Synapse aiming to finalize $100mn fundraising at $1 billion valuation, from the family office of a member of the Saudi Arabia royal family among other investors theinformation.com/articles/ex-sy…

🕵️ NEW 🕵️ We all know (and love) Deel and Rippling. We've also found spy tales involving fintech firms: 🏇 Brex and Ramp 🏇 Middesk and Baselayer 🏇 Toku and LiquiFi 👇 Read on

Scoop w/ Michael Roddan: Ex-Synapse CEO’s Robot Startup Targets $1 Billion Valuation theinformation.com/articles/ex-sy…

The Series G financing boosted Rippling’s valuation from $13.5 billion achieved in a financing last year, increasing its lead by this measure over archrival Deel, which announced a $12.6 billion valuation tied to a secondary sale earlier this year. theinformation.com/briefings/ripp…

Scoop: TikTok is working on allowing U.S. users to send photos over DMs in the app—something that's currently restricted. But some employees have raised concerns about the risk of sextortion and other abuses. w/ Kaya Yurieff theinformation.com/articles/tikto…

🚨 Reporting job alert: Join Stephanie Palazzolo & our incredible team The Information to lead coverage of OpenAI (w/ lots of support).

SCOOP: JPMorgan has agreed to lend more than $7 billion to the firms building OpenAI’s giant artificial intelligence data center campus in Abilene, Texas theinformation.com/articles/jpmor… The Information

"Sachin Dev Duggal, the technology start-up’s founder ... stepped down as chief executive earlier this year ... However, Duggal retained a board seat and the honorific title of 'chief wizard'."

New: Incredible story of Apple vs Musk in satellite internet. Aaron Tilley Wayne Ma theinformation.com/articles/apple…

Interesting tidbit in Jason Mikula's newsletter about a curious Russian company called Flipper Devices Inc, who had ~$2.8 million processed by payroll service Deel (Flipper's account was previously suspended by PayPal) fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com/p/mercurys-hig…

Deel has accused Rippling of directing an employee to set up fake entities to pose as a Deel customer and scour the rival payroll startup’s systems for contracts, policies and pricing information theinformation.com/briefings/deel…

Scoop: Amazon is testing robots to deliver your mail. Years from now your robot dog can bark at them!

❗️news❗️ The Trumps want the world's largest Bitcoin mining operation - run by crypto outfit Hut 8 One problem: Hut 8 has been accused of shoddy work, exploding transformers, voltage problems and issues compounded by young and inexperienced managers theinformation.com/articles/trump…