Our first StrictlyVC evening of the year is coming up fast and the program just keeps getting [chef's kiss]. In addition to cocktails, networking, and general hoopla, the night will feature conversations with star VC Kirsten Green of Forerunner Ventures, defense tech entrepreneur Ethan Thornton of Mach Industries, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour, whose buzzy prediction market helped Americans wager on the presidential election and is newly powering betting on Robinhood, and Flexport co-founder and CEO Ryan Peterson, who is currently in the position of having to grow the freight forwarding unicorn amid unpredictable tariffs. (He has some thoughts.)

Don't miss it -- and also don't wait; on top of everything else, we may have one more surprise. It all takes place Thursday evening, April 3, at the Premier Theater at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco's Presidio. Giant thanks to the generous team at Forerunner for letting us take over its backyard; thanks, too, to our other partners in the evening, including the accounting and CFO services outfit FinStrat Management and to the wealth management business Citizen's Private Bank. We're excited to see everyone.:)

Alphabet is reportedly making another run at Wiz, the hot cybersecurity startup that reportedly turned down an earlier bid from Alphabet for $23 billion. Alphabet is now offering $30 billion to close the deal, reports The Wall Street Journal. Thomas Kurian, head of Google's cloud division, is again leading the effort, reports TechCrunch. 

Speaking of Flexport, a 12-year-old San Francisco company that specializes in freight forwarding and supply chain management, is suing two former employees that it claims have stolen source code and documents from the company in order to create a rival business. TechCrunch has more here.

And on the topic of lawsuits, Rippling, a nine-year-old San Francisco startup that integrates HR, IT, and finance functions into a single system, is suing Deel, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that helps businesses hire and pay employees and contractors in different countries, accusing Deel of planting a spy at Rippling to steal trade secrets and more. TechCrunch has more here.

What does the future hold for early-stage investing? Vanessa Larco, a former Partner at NEA, will share her perspective with Affinity on April 3. As she launches a new fund, Larco is rethinking how investors assess the deals in their pipeline—combining first principles with new technologies. Learn how her due diligence process has evolved, its impact on the new fund, and recommendations to strengthen your firm’s diligence. Register now for April 3.

By Connie Loizos

Last week, at the Abundance Summit in Los Angeles, billionaire entrepreneur Travis Kalanick gave attendees a rare glimpse into his vision for the future of his newest company, CloudKitchens. While today the eight-year-old L.A.-based outfit is known for a growing real estate portfolio that it uses to it host – and set up – restaurants that use its kitchens to fulfill food deliveries, Kalanick hinted at a full-stack future. In fact, he appears to be aiming to eventually deliver AI-perfected meals directly to customers.

Kalanick brought up the topic twice, in different contexts. First, during his informal sit-down with conference organizer Peter Diamandis, he drew parallels between CloudKitchens and earlier disruptions in other industries. He noted that taxi apps existed before Uber, but said their mistake was trying to take a “slice” of the existing market. That market, he explained, was both small and unreliable, as taxis could easily bypass the apps. Kalanick similarly referenced the gaming company Zynga, which initially built its business on Facebook’s platform, only to be later undermined by the social media giant.

Turning to CloudKitchens, he pointed out that restaurants relying on Uber Eats or DoorDash face a similar challenge. “You’re getting yield optimization on a thing that’s built for something else,” he said. If you’re “on somebody else’s platform,” he warned, “they can squeeze you.”

Later, when an audience member asked Kalanick about the future of CloudKitchens and its use of AI, Kalanick again hinted that CloudKitchens isn’t content to forever provide turn-key restaurant spaces. He talked, for example, about cooking-as-a-service — much like driving has become a service instead of something we all do for ourselves — and insisted that healthy meals will be made available to all and “not just the wealthy.”

He also talked at a high level about AI’s role in transforming the physical world, distinguishing between ‘AI for bits’ (such as AI chatbots like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, and Grok) and what Kalanick called ‘atoms AI’, meaning AI that interacts with the physical world. Here, he referenced autonomous cars and humanoid robots, noting the “ball game” is changing.

More here.

Latigo Biotherapeutics, a seven-year-old startup based in Thousand Oaks, CA, that develops non-opioid medications to treat pain without the risk of addiction, raised a $150 million Series B round led by Blue Owl Capital, with Deep Track Capital, Access Biotechnology, Qatar Investment Authority, Cormorant Asset Management, Sanofi Ventures, Rock Springs Capital, UPMC Enterprises, and Kern Capital as well as previous investors Westlake Village BioPartners, Foresite Capital, 5AM Ventures, and Alexandria Venture Investments also piling on. BioPharma Dive has more here.

Maxion Therapeutics, a five-year-old startup based in Cambridge, UK, that develops antibody-based drugs targeting diseases driven by ion channels and G protein-coupled receptors, such as autoimmune disorders, chronic pain, and cardiovascular diseases, raised a $72 million Series A round led by General Catalyst, with additional participation from British Patient Capital, British Business Bank, Solasta Ventures, and Eli Lilly as well as previous investors LifeArc Ventures, Monograph Capital, and BGF. Tech Funding News has more here.

MicroTransponder, an eighteen-year-old Austin company that develops implantable devices to improve motor function in stroke survivors, raised a $65 million Series F round led by USVP, with Gilde Healthcare and Longitude Capital as well as previous investors Osage University Partners, Action Potential Venture Capital, GPG Ventures, The Vertical Group, and Exceller Hunt Ventures also joining in. Fierce Biotech has more here.

Dalma, a four-year-old Paris startup that provides health insurance for dogs and cats in France and Germany, raised a $21.8 million Series B round led by Breega, with Bpifrance Digital Venture 3 as well as previous investors Northzone and Anterra Capital also taking part. EU-Startups has more here.

AidKit, a four-year-old Denver startup that provides a cloud-based platform to help government agencies and nonprofits efficiently manage aid programs, raised an $8.5 million Series A round led by Blueprint Equity. More here.

Nimblemind.ai, a one-year-old Chicago startup that helps healthcare providers transform unstructured clinical data into organized, AI-ready formats, raised a $2.5 million round led by Bread & Butter Ventures, with Great Oaks Venture Capital, SpringTime Ventures, Stone Mountain Ventures, Victorum Capital, and Techstars also pitching in. More here.

ORO Labs, a one-year-old Dubai startup that allows individuals and institutions to buy, sell, and integrate tokenized gold into both decentralized and traditional financial systems, raised a $1.5 million pre-seed round led by 468 Capital, with Fasset also opting in. Wamda has more here.

ResiQuant, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that provides an AI-powered platform to help property insurers assess and manage risks from natural disasters like earthquakes and severe storms, raised a $4 million seed round led by LDV Capital, with Foothill Ventures, Pear VC, and Alumni Ventures also investing. More here.

How Speedinvest Raised €350 million + & Optimized Portfolio Management with Affinity: Join us for an exclusive webinar with Lukas Huber from Speedinvest on March 20, where he’ll share how the firm has leveraged Affinity to streamline fundraising and portfolio workflows. Learn how they tracked LP engagement to raise their €350 million fund, and hear about their approach to managing portfolio relationships seamlessly with the key integrations that have enhanced efficiency across their tech stack. Learn more on Thursday, March 20.

Pillar VC, a nine-year-old Boston venture firm that invest in early-stage deep tech and biotech startups, has raised $175 million for its fourth fund. The firm has $500 million under management. Fortune has more here. 

xAI, Elon Musk's answer to OpenAI, is acquiring Hotshot, an eight-year-old San Francisco startup that uses AI to create videos à la OpenAI's Sora. Terms were not disclosed. TechCrunch has more here. 

Klarna, the 19-year-old Stockholm-based payments company that filed to go public on Friday, announced today that it had secured the exclusive right to provide buy now, pay later loans for Walmart, a relationship that Klarna competitor Affirm previously owned. TechCrunch has more here. 

Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who was required to stay in France after French authorities charged him with fraud and more, is free to leave the country while the court continues its investigation of his case. TechCrunch has more here. 

Liam Fedus, OpenAI’s VP of research for post-training, is leaving OpenAI to launch a materials science AI startup. Fedus reports that OpenAI will be an investor. The Information has the scoop here. 

A survey by Adobe of 5,000 U.S. consumers found that 39% used generative AI for online shopping during the 2024 holiday season and 53% planned to do in 2025. Search Engine Land has more here. 

SEO firms and the internet advertising industry are using AI slop to game search and social media rankings. 404 Media has more here. 

It turns out that Google's new AI model is aces at removing watermarks from images, a feature the company probably is not trumpeting. TechCrunch has more here. 

The Financial Times details how Alibaba founder Jack Ma has quietly made his company a leading player in AI. More here. 

Users are cheering Microsoft's accidental erasure of its widely derided Copilot assistant app. Futurism has more here. 

A new app limits your screen time by forcing you to touch grass. TechCrunch has more here. 

The Snow White drama, explained. 

If you saw actor Sam Rockwell's monologue last night on The White Lotus, you'll never forget it, especially because it has now become a meme.

The Madrid boutique where Jeff Bezos buys his capes.