I spent the better half of last week in Orlando, across the street from SeaWorld (Hi, Shamu!). About 1,300 journalists, including myself, got together at the Renaissance Orlando for the annual Investigative Reporters and Editors Conference to learn from some of the best reporters in the business on how to better investigate the companies, governments, and people we write about—and make sure we’re going after the stories that most need to be told.
Peers from other newsrooms laid out how they’re digging into stories we’ve been covering in Term Sheet, such as the regional banking crisis. Others shared how they’ve uncovered the Romanian gang behind a slew of compromised ATMs around the globe. In the world of the ever-elusive private markets, where information is often kept closely guarded by non-disclosure agreements, this kind of work is really important, even if it’s hard and takes more time.
I put together a list of some of the most influential stories from the last two years. But before we get to that—the stakes feel pretty high right now. There is ever-growing animosity across the globe toward journalists. And, even with a handful of media startups (some venture-backed) popping up here and there, newsrooms are laying off reporters, and local newsrooms and award-winning national outlets are shutting down. Yesterday, while I was writing this column, one of my friends texted me that a slew of his colleagues had just been let go.
We work in a world where journalists are outnumbered 6:1 by public relations professionals hired to promote people and companies, but not always facts. Even in the U.S., which is ranked relatively high in terms of press freedom, the climate is polarizing and can be dangerous. Three days into the conference, the late investigative reporter Jeff German, who was murdered outside of his home in September, was honored at an awards luncheon. The subject of German’s reporting was former Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles, who’s been charged with his murder. German’s colleagues at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, including Briana Erickson, went on to finish reporting his investigation. “When you kill a reporter, you don’t kill the story,” she said.
Coming off this last week, I started putting together a list of some of the stories that have helped keep technology companies and investors honest over the years—or, perhaps I should say, exposed their dishonesty—as well as the hard-hitting exposés that have preceded corporate collapse and federal indictments, from the now-infamous investigation into Theranos to CoinDesk’s story on Alameda Research’s balance sheet that wound up unraveling Sam Bankman-Fried’s entire crypto empire. Looking back even further, Bethany McLean’s legendary 2001 story “How exactly does Enron make its money?” was the first to poke a hole in the company’s opaque accounting.
It’s hard to keep up with all of the reporting, but here’s a sampling of recent stories that have made a big impact:
“Revolt of the Delivery Workers” — New York Magazine and The Verge
“Divisions in Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto Empire Blur on His Trading Titan Alameda’s Balance Sheet”— CoinDesk
“The Facebook Files” — The Wall Street Journal
“Profit, Pain, and Private Equity” — BuzzFeed News
“How Pennsylvania’s Biggest Pension Fund Squandered Billions, Hurt Taxpayers and Triggered an FBI Investigation”— The Philadelphia Inquirer and Spotlight PA
“Amazon’s Advantage” — The Markup
“Inside TikTok’s Dangerously Addictive Algorithm” — The Wall Street Journal
“Patients for Profit: How Private Equity Hijacked Health Care” — Kaiser Health News
“The dirty road to clean energy: How China’s electric vehicle boom is ravaging the environment” — Rest of World
“Larry Ellison’s Lanai Isn’t for You—or the People Who Live There” — Bloomberg
See you tomorrow,
Jessica Mathews
Twitter:@jessicakmathews
Email: jessica.mathews@fortune.com
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Jackson Fordyce curated the deals section of today’s newsletter.
VENTURE DEALS
- Cyera, a San Mateo, Calif.-based data security company, raised $100 million in Series B funding. Accel led the round and was joined by Sequoia, Cyberstarts, and Redpoint Ventures.
-Redpanda Data, a San Francisco-based streaming data platform for developers, raised $100 million in Series C funding. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round and was joined by GV and Haystack VC.
- Flywheel, a Minneapolis-based medical imaging data and A.I. platform, raised $54 million in Series D funding. Novalis LifeSciences and NVentures co-led the round and were joined by Microsoft, Invenshure, 8VC, Beringea, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and others.
- Astrix Security, a Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity platform, raised $25 million in Series A funding. CRV led the round and was joined by Bessemer Venture Partners and F2 Venture Capital.
- CalypsoAI, a Washington, D.C.-based A.I. security development and delivery company, raised $23 million in a Series A-1 funding. Paladin Capital Group led the round and was joined by Lockheed Martin Ventures, Hakluyt Capital, Expeditions Fund, and other angels.
- Algorithmiq, a Helsinki-based quantum computing startup, raised $15 million in Series A funding. Inventure VC led the round and was joined by Tesi, Presidio Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation, and Thames Trust.
- Zenarate, a Palo Alto-based natural language A.I. simulation training solution for customer and prospect-facing agents, raised $15 million in funding led by Volition Capital.
-Realtime Robotics, a Boston-based autonomous motion planning company for industrial robots, raised an additional $9.5 million in funding from Shinhan GIB and Kyobo Life Insurance.
- Colonia Technologies, a Berlin- and Cologne-based sharing platform for commercial vehicles, has raised €6 million ($6.58 million) in seed funding led by Octopus Ventures.
- Clearstory, formerly Extracker, a San Francisco-based change order tool for the construction industry, raised $5.5 million in funding. GS Futures led the round and was joined by JacksonSquare Ventures, Building Ventures, and Cloud App Capital Partners.
- SuperScale, a Bratislava, Slovakia-based mobile game growth services company, raised $5.4 million in Series A funding. Venture to Future Fund led the round and was joined by AcrossPrivate Investments and Zero One Hundred.
- Sixty AI, a Portland, Ore.-based personal relationship management platform, raised $3.5 million in seed funding from 468 Capital.
- iMotorbike, a Kuala Lumpur-based e-commerce platform for buying and selling pre-owned motorcycles, raised $2.6 million in Series A funding. Gobi Partners and Ondine Capital led the round and were joined by Penjana Kapital, The Hive Southeast Asia, 500 Global, and others.
- Upfront Diagnostics, a Cambridge, U.K.-based novel biomarker discovery health care company, raised £1.6 million ($2.04 million) in seed funding led by APEX Ventures’ Medical Fund.
- Invary, a Lawrence, Kansas-based cybersecurity company, raised $1.85 million in pre-seed funding. Flyover Capital led the round and was joined by NetWork Kansas GROWKS Equity program and the KU Innovation Park.
- Rubber Ducky Labs, a San Francisco-based operational analytics platform for recommender systems, raised $1.5 million in seed funding. Bain Capital Ventures led the round and was joined by Cadenza and Y Combinator.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- NewSpring Holdings acquired underdog venture team, a New York-based marketing services firm. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Trinity Hunt Partners acquired REQ, a Washington, D.C.-based digital marketing and advertising company. Financial terms were not disclosed.
OTHER
- Thomson Reuters Corporation agreed to acquire Casetext, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company in the legal sector. The deal is valued at $650 million.
- Socure acquired Berbix, a San Francisco-based document verification solution provider. The deal is valued at approximately $70 million.
- Monument Group, a Boston-based independent placement agent and capital advisory firm, and Mozaic Capital Advisors, a Boston-based independent secondary advisor, have merged.
- Ramp acquired Cohere.io, a New York-based customer support platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- RTP Global, a London-, New York-, and Paris-based venture capital firm, raised $1 billion across two funds: $660 million will be used to invest in early-stage companies and $340 million will be used to support its portfolio companies.
- Kindred Ventures, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, raised $312 million across two funds: $200 million will be used to invest in early-stage companies and $112 million will be used to invest in its opportunities fund.
PEOPLE
- H.I.G. Capital, a Miami-based alternative investment firm, hired John Bruen as managing director. Formerly, he was with Macquarie Asset Management.
- Investcorp, a New York-based alternative investment firm, hired Timotheus Osnabrug and Weston Wilkinson as investment partners. Formerly, Osnabrug was with Bridgepoint and Wilkinson was with Azimut Alternative Capital Partners.
- Madrona, a Seattle-based venture capital firm, hired Loren Alhadeff and Ted Kummert as venture partners and appointed Mark Nelson as venture partner. Formerly, Alhadeff was with DocuSign and Kummert was with UiPath.
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