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Patreon raises $90 million Series E, is now valued $1.2 billion

The membership services company has raised around $256 million to date. New investors include New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Wellington Management and Lone Pine, and existing investors Glade Brook Capital, Thrive Capital, DFJ Growth and Index Ventures also participated in the round.

Patreon has paid out more than $2 billion to creators since its founding in 2013, and CEO Jack Conte promised Tuesday that the company would pay out more than $1 billion per year going forward.

The company wants to use the new cash infusion to grow its international presence and opened new offices in Berlin and Dublin earlier this year to do just that. It also plans to improve the experience for patrons and make it easier to discover support-worthy projects among the more than 200,000 creators on the platform.

Janko Roettgers

Janko Roettgers (@jank0) is a senior reporter at Protocol, reporting on the shifting power dynamics between tech, media, and entertainment, including the impact of new technologies. Previously, Janko was Variety's first-ever technology writer in San Francisco, where he covered big tech and emerging technologies. He has reported for Gigaom, Frankfurter Rundschau, Berliner Zeitung, and ORF, among others. He has written three books on consumer cord-cutting and online music and co-edited an anthology on internet subcultures. He lives with his family in Oakland.

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Big Tech just took its Texas fight to SCOTUS

Tech industry groups NetChoice and CCIA have filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court, asking the court to stay the Fifth Circuit's ruling this week which enabled Texas’s so-called social media “censorship” law to go into effect.

Protocol first reported Thursday that NetChoice and CCIA, the plaintiffs in the case, would file their application on Friday. The two groups had warned other advocates of their intention to file and asked for their support in the form of amicus briefs.

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California investors say Coinbase cost them 'untold millions'

On Nov. 17, the price of gyen, a crypto stablecoin, briefly spiked to $0.0234. The next day, the price fell back down to about $0.0087, approximately the worth of one Japanese yen — the fiat currency the stablecoin was supposed to be pegged to. Then, on Nov. 19, Coinbase froze trading, citing a “technical glitch.”

Some Coinbase users are still up in arms six months later, saying the marketplace misled them about the coin’s stability by listing it on the exchange. A group of California investors filed a lawsuit Thursday against Coinbase and gyen issuer GMO-Z Trust, saying they cost the plaintiffs “untold millions,” and are seeking to have it certified as a class action.

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Peloton will finally release a rowing machine

Peloton needs more people to buy its hardware and subscribe to its All-Access membership to turn its business around. Its next grand idea? Make a machine that people have been clamoring for for years.

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Robinhood's shares jumped. It can thank FTX's CEO.

Finally, Wall Street’s excited about Robinhood — thanks to Sam Bankman-Fried.

Robinhood shares rallied Friday after the FTX CEO disclosed in an SEC filing that he has acquired a 7.6% stake in the online brokerage. Robinhood’s stock was up about 20% in early trades, pushing the stock back up above $10.

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Google will use AI to make you look pretty on video

It's been a busy week of updates for workplace productivity tools: Calendly will let you screen meeting invites, Figma has dark mode, Superhuman is on Outlook now. Google also announced a slate of forthcoming Workspace updates at its I/O developer conference, some powered by AI. Many of the new features are aimed at making you look a lot less exhausted than you really are in Google Meet.

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Musk paused his Twitter takeover until he gets details on spam bots

Elon Musk paused his $44 billion Twitter takeover until he gets more information on the number of spam and fake accounts on the platform, he tweeted Friday.

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Affirm is bouncing back as its pay-later partnerships pay off

Affirm's stock took a beating this week after shares of small-business lender Upstart crashed, spooking investors generally about the fintech sector as markets dove and rising interest rates hung over the business. The "buy now, pay later" company turned things around with stronger-than-expected quarterly results. Its share price soared 33% after markets closed on Thursday to nearly $24.

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Tech groups to ask SCOTUS to toss Texas social media ruling

Tech groups fighting Texas’s social media “censorship” law may file an emergency application with the Supreme Court as early as Friday, according to two sources familiar with the case. The groups, NetChoice and CCIA, have said they plan to ask the justices to vacate the Fifth Circuit's Wednesday ruling, which lifted an injunction on the Texas law, allowing it to go into effect and prompting panic throughout the tech industry.

NetChoice and CCIA are now soliciting amicus briefs in their application to be filed by next week. NetChoice did not respond to Protocol's request for comment. CCIA wouldn't confirm its plans, but President Matt Schruers said in a statement, "We will take whatever steps are necessary to defend our constituents' First Amendment rights. These include the right not to be compelled by the government to carry dangerous content on their platforms."

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The crypto crash, explained in 1 chart

Bitcoin peaked in November above $60,000. Then came the Super Bowl ads, Crypto.com Arena and a flood of TikTok influencers promoting the latest altcoin. It wasn’t going to end well, was it?

The crypto crash has hit nearly every token and knocked even some stablecoins off their peg. But the carnage hasn’t been even. The luna token associated with the Terra blockchain lost almost all its value amid a run on its paired UST stablecoin. Bitcoin, ether and even dogecoin proved hardier than newer coins. The question now is when the market will find its bottom.

Unstablecoin: Terra halted its blockchain as UST tumbles toward $0

New activity on the Terra blockchain was halted Thursday as the luna cryptocurrency tumbled sharply and its sister stablecoin, known as UST, sank nearly to zero.

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David Marcus' Lightspark is a big bet on bitcoin

David Marcus, until recently a top-ranking Meta executive, is back with a new crypto startup that will remind many of his recent work — but has some crucial differences.

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Renewable energy is surging despite supply chain breakdown

Energy markets have been a mess due to the supply chain and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But in a weird twist, the chaos may actually be benefiting renewables.

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SoftBank is cutting its startup investments 50-75%

Japanese conglomerate SoftBank is severely cutting its planned startup investments through next March, Chief Executive Masayoshi Son said in a Thursday earnings call. With the announcement, Son joins a chorus of VCs who have been vocal about an economic downturn forcing them to tighten their belts.

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Twitter ousts two key leaders in wake of the Musk deal

In the wake of Elon Musk's deal to acquire Twitter, two pivotal company leaders are leaving and Twitter is hitting the brakes on hiring and some spending, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times.

Kayvon Beykpour, who oversees Twitter's consumer division, was fired from the company. Jay Sullivan, the company's current head of consumer product, will replace him. Bruce Falck, Twitter’s general manager for revenue, is also leaving. Twitter confirmed the departures to Protocol.

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Rivian says WAGMI despite supply chain issues

The supply chain is still hurting Rivian. But the electric vehicle maker thinks things can only go up from here. (Thanks for jinxing it, Rivian.)

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Instacart is resuming its IPO quest even as the markets struggle

Instacart confidentially filed documents for an IPO, the company announced Wednesday.

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The SEC is investigating Elon Musk's Twitter purchases

The SEC is investigating Elon Musk for the late disclosure of his stake in Twitter which allowed him to accumulate a large amount of shares at a lower price than he might otherwise have paid, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

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An oil company beats Apple as world's most valuable company

Apple, move over. Saudi Aramco has overtaken the erstwhile consumer electronics company as the most valuable company on Earth on Wednesday. It's a reflection of both the vagaries of the market and the weird state of the world.

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Microsoft considers pay raises to stay competitive

Microsoft is reportedly thinking about bumping many employees' pay, following similar moves from other tech giants, in a bid to stay competitive with its rivals.

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Disney+ is doing just fine

After Netflix fell from grace and CNN+ died on the vine, all eyes were on Disney+ as an indicator of whether streaming services were in big trouble. The answer, at least for Disney, is no. The company reported subscriber growth in its earnings call on Wednesday that beat Wall Street's expectations.

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Facebook Pay's making way for Meta Pay

It's not exactly a beloved gadget like the iPod, but a workhorse of social commerce is also getting put out to pasture. Stephane Kasriel, the leader of Meta's financial services operation, announced that the company's retiring the Facebook Pay name in favor of Meta Pay.

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Appeals court rules Texas social media law can proceed

A three-person panel of federal appeals court judges is letting a Texas law aimed at punishing social media companies for alleged anti-conservative bias go into effect for now.

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Coinbase’s disturbing disclosure: 'If we go bankrupt …'

Coinbase caused a stir with a regulatory filing that contained a troubling message: Users could lose their crypto assets if the company goes bankrupt.

In a filing with the SEC, Coinbase said that “in the event of a bankruptcy” the crypto assets that the company holds in custody for its customers “could be subject to bankruptcy proceedings and such customers could be treated as our general unsecured creditors.”

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With Bedoya confirmed, tech needs to look out for the FTC

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Alvaro Bedoya to serve in the remaining open seat on the Federal Trade Commission, teeing up tech's de facto federal regulator to begin work on the many big swings it has planned to take at the industry.

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A decade after the Nexus 7, Google is making a tablet again

Google used its annual Google I/O developer conference Wednesday to tease a product that’s not scheduled to arrive for another year: a Pixel-branded Android tablet to complete Google's first-party hardware ecosystem and better compete with the iPad.

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