Don't miss these Founders Fund sheds another partner: After Keith Rabois left Founders Fund to return to Khosla Ventures, the firm has lost another investor: Sam Blond, former chief revenue officer at Brex. Blond is not only leaving Founders Fund, however; he's leaving the investing game altogether. Signal's Meredith Whittaker scorns anti-encryption efforts: One of the most annoying sagas to raise its ugly head every few years is the effort to weaken (read: destroy) encryption so that governments can better see what we're all saying and doing online. The effort is usually disguised as calls to better protect children, bolster national security, or some such sugarcoated excuse. Signal's Whittaker, a leading voice on privacy and security, obviously disagreed, saying the latest wave of attacks on encryption are "parochial and very politically motivated pieces of legislation often indexed on the idea of protecting children." Deezer hails Apple fine, blasts Cupertino's DMA response: Apple's list of fans isn't very long in the online music streaming world. After the company was hit by a massive fine in the EU, Deezer joined Spotify in praising the penalty. But the smaller music service went further, arguing that the "EU Commission [should] reexamine Apple's DMA terms in light of this new fine to make it clear that what Apple has proposed is not enough to comply with the new regulation," TechCrunch's Sarah Perez reports. The Big Tech vs. EU battle is heating up, according to the FT, as a key deadline hangs over the heads of many leading tech companies. And in better news from Europe, TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher reports that despite a somewhat lackluster 2023, venture dealmaking and M&A activity on the continent are showing signs of life. Today in AI: I have three key AI stories for you this morning. First, Anthropic launched a suite of new AI models under its Claude brand. The Claude 3 group of models, the well-funded startup says, are better than some well-known competing models like OpenAI's GPT-4. Second, the Verge reports that ChatGPT can now read its answers out loud for readers. And finally, CNBC covered Google co-founder Sergey Brin's comments concerning his company's recent mishaps with its Gemini AI model. A massive run of new venture rounds: Colombian payment orchestration startup Yuno has closed a $25 million round at a $150 million valuation, putting points on the board not only for the beleaguered fintech technology secretary, but also for Latin America itself. And French commerce platform Catalog has raised a €3 million funding round, another tidbit of data indicating that things are warming up technology companies in France. In larger dollar terms, Axonius's enterprise asset management business (it's focused on digital assets and infrastructure, mind), just raised $200 million at a flat $2.6 billion valuation. The company is racing towards $100 million in ARR, TechCrunch's Ingrid Lunden reports, putting it on the IPO-trajectory. And there were so many more! Stockholm-based Cellcolabs has raised $8.7 million to revolutionize stem cell harvesting. RemotePass raised $5.5 million for its remote worker management service (perhaps Deel will buy it next?). Spanish startup Multiverse Computing raised €25 million to help run AI models more cheaply. And, finally, Whistleblower Software has rebranded to Formalize and raised $16 million. Here's how to get rid of all your duplicate photos (as long as you are on iOS). Developer MacPaw has a new app called CleanMyPhone, which "helps users free up storage by removing duplicate photos and other unwanted images." As someone who takes a gazillion pictures of his toddler, I need this. Speaking of phones: Nothing's new budget-friendly Nothing Phone (2a) is now up for pre-order for $349. | 
