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Max Q: We’ll Catch Up in the New Year

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Hello and welcome back to Max Q! This demonstration mission may prove to be a case study in the difficulties of putting hardware on orbit for the first time. In the blog post, the company dives into the problems it encountered — some even before the mission launched. Max Q is brought to you by me, Aria Alamalhodaei. If you enjoy reading Max Q, consider forwarding it to a friend.

Adobe Faces Major Challenge as Figma’s $20B Deal Falls Through

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Adobe and Figma ended their $20 billion acquisition dream this morning after regulators signaled it would continue to be rough going. Figma still gets a $1 billion consolation prize as part of the deal, and as the leader in collaborative design, should land on its feet just fine. Adobe put on a brave face in their public statement, but it has to be deeply disappointed with this outcome. Figma, for its part, has not stood still since the deal was announced, proceeding and planning as the independent company it is. If he is right, that’s precisely why Adobe wanted to buy the company because it saw that too.

“Nikola CEO Trevor Milton Receives 4-Year Sentence for Securities Fraud”

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Trevor Milton, the disgraced founder and former CEO of electric truck startup Nikola, was sentenced Monday to four years in prison for securities fraud. The sentencing hearing comes after four separate delays, during which Milton has remained free under a $100 million bond. Milton sobbed as he pled with Judge Ramos for leniency in a long and often confusing statement ahead of the sentencing. At one point, Milton said he stepped down from the CEO post at Nikola not because of fraud allegations, but to support his wife. That video sparked investigations from third parties, and after a report by Hindenburg Research called the company a fraud, Milton stepped down in September 2020.

14 Million Customers’ Personal Data Stolen by Hackers Under the Watch of Mr. Cooper

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Hackers stole the sensitive personal information of more than 14.6 million Mr. Cooper customers, the mortgage and loan giant has confirmed. In a filing with Maine’s attorney general’s office, Mr. Cooper said the hackers stole customer names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, as well as customer Social Security numbers and bank account numbers. Mr. Cooper previously said that customer banking information was stored by a third-party company and believed to be unaffected. Mr. Cooper said in its data breach notification letter to affected victims that the stolen data includes personal information on those whose mortgage was previously acquired or serviced by the company when it was known as Nationstar Mortgage, prior to its rebranding as Mr. Cooper. Do you work at Mr. Cooper and know more about the cyberattack?

“Cracking the Code: LPs in a Downturn Economy”

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Emerging fund managers have had a tough time these past few years, and there is no telling when it will get better. Her firm just closed a $23.4 million Fund II after two years of fundraising. Wilkinson has no plans to raise a third fund anytime soon but has some advice for those who are, given the looming uncertainty in the venture market. After 300 conversations with institutional LPs, I had an aha moment in which I realized that I did not want to primarily work with institutions in the future. Individual investors are very different from institutional investors in all the right ways, in my opinion.

Verdane Invests $65M in Meltwater: The Rising Media Monitoring Startup

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The investment is coming by way of Verdane taking a substantial stake Fountain Venture, the investment vehicle controlled by the founder and current chairman of Meltwater, Jørn Lyseggen. Joakim Kjemperud, a principal at Verdane, said the deal also gives his firm a stake in an HR firm, Jobylon, although Meltwater is by far the bigger asset. In that context, it’s notable that Verdane opted to invest in Fountain Venture rather than directly in Meltwater. That will give Verdane not only the stake in Meltwater, but also a stake in Jobylon and whatever else Fountain and Lyseggen find interesting. Meltwater built AI in-house and has acquired a stream of businesses in an analytics consolidation play.

Tamara, Saudi Arabia’s Shopping and BNPL Platform, Achieves $1B Valuation in $340M Series C Funding Round

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Tamara, a buy now pay later platform for consumers in Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC region, has raised $340 million in a financing C round that values the fintech at $1 billion. Both startups, albeit competitors, highlight the surging growth in BNPL usage, particularly in Saudi Arabia, the market that makes up more than 80% of Tamara and Tabby’s customer base. “Saudi Arabia and the GCC deserves its place on the world stage for financial technology. Before launching Tamara, Alsukhan co-founded Nana, a digital grocery shopping platform where he was the chief financial officer for three years. Tamara is also allocating part of the investment to introduce new products and services beyond BNPL and capitalizing on opportunities in shopping and financial services across Saudi Arabia and the GCC.

Apple to Pay $25 Million in Settlement for Family Sharing Lawsuit

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Apple has agreed to pay out $25 million to settle a class action lawsuit over its Family Sharing feature, which lets users and up to five of their family members share access to apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books that they purchase. The lawsuit, which was first filed in 2019, alleged that “Apple misrepresented the ability to use its Family Sharing feature to share subscriptions to apps.”The news was first reported by MacRumors. Court documents from the lawsuit allege that Apple advertised Family Sharing on as an option on apps that did not support Family Sharing. “The vast majority of subscription-based Apps, which is a growing percentage of Apple Apps, cannot be shared with designated family members,” the court document reads. All or virtually all of these Apps, however, included the statement that they support Family Sharing on their landing pages through January 30, 2019.”The lawsuit alleges that Apple was aware that the subscription-based apps did not support Family Sharing, but still placed an ad for Family Sharing on them.

“Analyzing Metafuels’ $8M Climate Tech Seed Pitch Deck”

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There are some minor redactions, but the bulk of this slide deck is intact. In 2022, around 300 million liters of sustainable aviation fuel was produced, and that doubled this year to more than 600 million liters, per the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Let yourself nerd out about the techWhen you’re building a deep tech company, the tallest pole in the tent is always going to be the tech itself. Make it work, then make it work at small scale, then scale to production scale. In the rest of this teardown, we’ll take a look at three things Metafuels could have improved or done differently, along with its full pitch deck!

“Valuable Valley Investors Take Aim at Unconventional Target: Reducing Methane Emissions from Cow Burps”

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In the fight against Methane, a key GHG, Valley investors have hit upon an unusual target: Cow burpsWhat do iconic Valley investors Zachary Bogue and Chris Sacca have in common? And one of the bigger issues at the most recent COP meeting was a pledge to reduce methane emissions, which are growing rapidly. And a major UN report said “urgent steps” are necessary to reduce methane if global warming is to be kept within a manageable limit. Mootral says its current Ruminant supplement can reduce methane emissions from dairy cows by up to 38 percent on commercial farms. CH4 Global — which is backed by the aforementiioned Zachary Bogue of DCVC — employs seaweed in cow feed to reduce their methane emissions.