Hi, everyone! We’re very much thinking about our readers in the U.K. right now; strange days.
We’re not quite done with today’s column, but we’ll have it up on TechCrunch a little later today.
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Top News in the A.M.
In a development that has shocked the world, 51 percent of U.K voters just voted to leave the European Union. Here are other telling numbers you might be interested to read relating to Brexit.
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New Fundings
Annexon Biosciences, a five-year-old, South San Francisco-based company that’s developing pathway inhibitors to treat neurodegenerative disorders, has raised $44 million in Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates.Correlation Ventures also joined the round, along with earlier investors Novartis Venture Fund and Satter Investment Management. More here.
CRISPR Therapeutics, a three-year-old, Basel, Switzerland, and Cambridge, Ma.-based developer of gene-editing technology, has added $38 million to a Series B round that is now $140 million in size. The collective funding comes from Franklin Templeton Investments, New Leaf Venture Partners, Clough Capital Partners, Wellington Capital Management, Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Bayer Global Investments, with participation from earlier backers SR One, Celgene Corp., New Enterprise Associates and Abingworth. FierceBiotech has more here.
FarEye, a three-year-old, New Delhi, India-based workforce management platform that helps e-commerce companies run their logistics more efficiently, has raised $3.5 million in funding from SAIF Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
italki, a nine-year-old, Shanghai, China-based marketplace for online, one-on-one language lessons, has raised $3 million in Series A funding from Hujiang, China’s largest e-learning platform. More here.
iZotope, a 15-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that develops audio software for audio recording, mixing, broadcasting and sound designing, has raised $7.5 million in new funding, with $2.5 million coming from ABS Capital and individual investors, and a $5 million debt facility from Comerica. TechCrunch has more here.
Reflexion Health, a four-year-old, San Diego-based company that makes pescription software for medical professionals, as well as a rehab measurement tool to track patient adherence to their prescribed rehab plans, has raised $18 million in Series B funding from undisclosed backers. More here.
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IPOs
Twilio‘s shares soared more than 90 percent yesterday, its first day of trading on the NYSE. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news: there’ve now been 40 IPOs priced so far this year, a -60 percent change from last year. Here’s who is on deck for next week.
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People
Investor Chamath Palihapitiya thinks Jeff Weiner just became the presumptive successor to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “In five to 10 years, when Satya’s done, Jeff will be in his early 50s and in a perfect position to run [Microsoft] for the next 10 to 15 years,” he told Bloomberg’s Emily Chang yesterday. More here.
According to Fortune’s Dan Primack, Expansive Ventures, the early-stage VC shop co-founded in 2014 by Adeo Ressi (head of The Founder Institute and TheFunded.com) and Jon Soberg (ex-Blumberg Capital), are right now “locked in protracted negotiations” about how to break up their partnership.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg covers his laptop camera. You probably should, too.
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Jobs
Samsung is hiring a corporate development manager. The job is in the Bay Area (though we aren’t sure where, exactly).
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Essential Reads
No more pop-ups asking you to agree to those murky “2.1x” surge fares on the Uber app. Soon, Uber will just tell you the price of your ride up front.
The British are frantically Googling what the E.U. is.
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Detours
The world’s longest tunnel slide has opened in London. (Not a metaphor.)
The nightmare robot dog you never asked for.
Goldman Sachs’s in-person screening has historically taken place with students from elite colleges. Now, with video interviews, it hopes to find more applicants with “grit.”
Inside the Hollywood frenzy around Jennifer Lawrence’s Theranos movie.
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Retail Therapy
A house plainly built for a supervillain.