Together with

Gm. We have our first official Homescreen partner today! Shout out to Stytch for kicking things off. 

If you also want to get your company in front of 14,000+ of the best founders and investors in the game, let us know here. 

FRESH POWDER

Looking at three funds that recently topped up their coffers. 

Startup to watch: AI21 Labs, an “AI-as-a-service” company, provides developers with virtual AI assistants, chatbots, and content moderation tools. The five-year-old startup just snagged a $64 million Series B with the intent of developing more advanced language models. (More here)

SCIENCE

A glimmer into the past

There exists a world outside of our tiny tech bubbles, and now there’s proof—on Monday President Joe Biden unveiled photos from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope that captured the deepest infrared image of the universe yet.

• The picture above features thousands of distant galaxies, including some that existed when the universe was just a baby (less than a billion years old).

Other than being incredibly cool, the powerful images have also put the space industry back into the spotlight as it struggles to keep up the momentum from a fundraising bonanza last summer.  

The slowdown

Space startups raised a paltry $7.2 billion in Q1 of this year, less than half of the $14.5 billion they attracted in the previous quarter. 

• Even worse, $1.7 billion of Q1’s haul went to SpaceX alone meaning the rest of the industry has been feeding on scraps. 

• Moonshot projects like asteroid mining and new rocket companies, which are still lightyears away from profitability, have been hit the hardest according to Axios Space's Miriam Kramer. 

The space industry is unique in that there are only so many big players (Lockheed, NASA, SpaceX, etc.) that can acquire up-and-coming companies. With the economic environment forcing them to conserve cash, the exit avenues for a lot of space startups are narrowing. That clogs up the whole ecosystem from top to bottom. 

Factor in Virgin Galactic’s poor performance in the public market and its no surprise that investor enthusiasm in the sector has dampened. 

Bottom line: The new James Webb images could be just what the industry needs to spark it back to life.

TOGETHER WITH STYTCH

Passwords are annoying AF

If your computer forgets it…You’ve got no chance.

Stytch is solving this problem. Instead of losing customers to the depths of password resets, Stytch gives you flexible, passwordless authentication solutions. 

That means snazzy one-tap social logins, biometrics, and magic links. It even supports crypto wallet logins for all Solana and Ethereum wallets. 

The best part: Stytch makes it smooth and easy to embed their solutions straight into your website or app. 

Improve your security and conversion rates with Stytch. Try it here.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Twitter is done with Elon’s chicanery

The Twitter vs. Elon battle has taken a left turn straight to the courthouse. Everyone's favorite bird app officially filed a lawsuit against the world’s richest man yesterday, arguing that Elon is refusing to “honor his obligations” laid out by the agreement. 

Twitter’s case

The lawsuit seeks to advance the claim that Musk has done a complete 180 on the idea of buying Twitter because the market tanked as soon as the ink was dry.

• Buyer's remorse? Twitter’s stock has lost about 33% of its value since the board accepted his offer and is currently trading 37% lower than the price Musk is supposed to pay. 

But Elon has stuck to his guns saying that his hesitancy about completing the deal stems from the number of bots and fake accounts on the platform (that Musk is adamant Twitter is underreporting).

Bottom line: Twitter's merger agreement with Musk has a deadline of expiration on October 24, so it wants its case heard before then. 

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: PSA to all BMW drivers: bundle up your bum or get ready to fork over some cash. The luxury car maker is now charging customers $18-a-month for heated seats. Each car still comes with the feature, but it's only accessible to those who pony up. It’s the latest example of BMW throwing perks behind a paywall, following similar arrangements for safety cameras and map updates. Up next: SaaS (seatbelts as a service). 

Story we’re watching: It’s probably nothing...literally: Nothing, a company famous for its minimalist approach to hardware, announced its debut smartphone, the Nothing Phone 1, yesterday. It comes with a next-to-nothing price tag of $475 (Apple’s latest model is $999) and some eye-catching aesthetics—the back of the phone is see-through exposing light strips that show battery charge, notifications, and indicate when the phone is recording video. 

Rabbit hole: A look at why SAFEs may not be the best fundraising tool for founders (Twitter).

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• Spotify is acquiring Heardle, a Wordle-spinoff music guessing game.

• Linktree, the popular “link in bio” platform, is launching a mobile app on both iOS and Android.

• Lofi Girl is back online after being taken down over “false” copyright notices.

• Airlift, Pakistan’s previously most-valuable startup ($275 million valuation last August), is shutting down.

THREE LIES AND A HEADLINE

The news cycle is so weird these days that it's almost impossible to separate fact from fiction. But that’s exactly what you must do with the headlines below—three are fake stories from the satirical news outlet The Onion, but one is actually real. Can you spot the true story? 

A. “Elon Musk tries to back out of Twitter deal by deleting app from phone.”

B. “God Bless America ETF’ may be coming soon with the ticker YALL"

C. “Uber Eats adds feature letting users purposely order wrong items so they can scream at drivers.”

D. “Amazon supervisor delivers rousing speech to employees about honorably laying down lives for Prime Day.” 

LAYOFFS TRACKER

Notable layoffs this week:

Microsoft: 1,800 people (1%)

Gopuff: 1,500 people (10%)

Hopin: 242 people (29%)

FOUNDERS CORNER

The best resources we came across that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

🎲 Why publishing your work online increases your surface area for luck.

💡How 50 of the biggest consumer companies came up with their startup idea

❓How to raise $30 million from angels without an “in” with investors.

B. But the real question is: will YALL clasify as ESG?