A new year often means cutting back after the indulgences of the holiday season, and for many people that includes cutting back on their meat intake. But what if you could experience the joy of a perfectly-cooked steak with the confidence of knowing that no animal was harmed in its creation?
California-based Memphis Meats has raised $161 million in a Series B funding round to help consumers do that. The financing will reportedly go toward a new cell-cultured meat plant the company plans to build in the Bay Area. Memphis Meats’ products will be grown from animal cells, meaning that no animals will be slaughtered as part of its production.
Currently only one other company in the world has announced similar plans for a cell-cultured meat plant, so Memphis Meats’ news is generating a lot of buzz in San Francisco and beyond. High-profile investors include Bill Gates and Richard Branson and food giants like Tyson and Cargill. [Quartz]
Getting around: General Motors’ Cruise unveiled its driverless, electric shuttle, Origin, at an SF event. In an effort to offer passengers extra leg room, the vehicle features no pedals or a steering wheel. The company has raised $7.25 billion to date to develop its autonomous vehicles. [CNBC]
Also on the transportation front, Uber just began testing a new feature allowing some California drivers -- specifically those picking up or dropping off passengers at the Santa Barbara, Sacramento and Palm Springs airports — to set their own rates. The test is the popular app’s latest attempt to comply with the new California law (AB5) aimed at making it harder for employers like Uber to classify its workers as independent contractors instead of employees. [CNN]
Another new California law that went into effect Jan. 1, with implications for local tech companies, is the California Consumer Privacy Act. We talked to the chief product officer and a product manager at San Francisco-based infrastructure platform Segment, who told Built In how they anticipated the issue of consumer data visibility years ago, and how they are now navigating this new era of privacy regulation. [Built In]
The funding front: Email startup Front just closed on $59 million in Series C financing raised primarily through the participation of other software entrepreneurs. Forbes estimated that the company’s valuation has now reached $800 million. As Built In previously reported, Front once took the unusual step (for a tech company) of encouraging its employees to delete all their “non-essential” phone apps and use technology more mindfully.
Alright, alright, alright: Sports digital media company The Athletic has closed on $50 million in Series D financing led by Bedrock Capital and featuring the participation of actor Matthew McConaughey via Plus Capital. This brings the company’s valuation to some $500 million and will fund its expanded overseas operations. [Axios]
In more funding news, DevOps company Sysdig just announced a $70 million Series E round it will use to spark its ambitious growth plan. The funding round included participation from Bain Capital Ventures and Accel. Finally, Flutterwave, a San Francisco and Lagos-based fintech firm, just closed on a $35 million Series B round and announced a new partnership with Worldpay covering African payments.
P(retty) d(arn) f(ancy): From PDFs to Photoshop and beyond, software giant Adobe is responsible for some of the most widely-used communication and design tools of the internet age, so it makes sense that their physical workspace would have a resort-like vibe. Built In recently toured the San Francisco office where 2,000 of the company’s employees are based and you’ll definitely want to click through to learn what a somadome is. [Built In]
