In recent days, founders and founders-turned-investors took to X to share horror stories about being mistreated by VCs. Their complaints ranged from VCs falling asleep during pitch meetings to investors suggesting a founder fire a co-founder. 'The 'sequoia scam' is worse than a single horror story,' Foody wrote on X. 'in the last 6 [months] ive seen a half dozen rounds where sequoia invests in 2 tranches. everyone pretends they only did the higher valuation. founders misrepresent this to their employees & then shop it to angels too.' TechCrunch has previously reported on VCs investing in the same round at different valuations. Under this mechanism, the lead VC firm invests a significant chunk of its capital at a lower, preferential valuation, while putting a much smaller portion of capital in at a drastically higher price. The massive 'headline' valuation that gets announced manufactures the perception of a dominant market winner, masking the fact that the lead investor's actual average entry price was significantly lower....

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We are what we eat. And in the ocean, most life-forms source their food from phytoplankton. These microscopic, plant-like algae are the primary food source for krill, sea snails, some small fish, and jellyfish, which in turn feed larger marine animals that are prey for the ocean's top predators, including humans. In an open-access study appearing today in the journal Nature Climate Change, the team reports that as sea surface temperatures rise over the next century, phytoplankton in polar regions will adapt to be less rich in proteins, heavier in carbohydrates, and lower in nutrients overall. The conclusions are based on results from the team's new model, which simulates the composition of phytoplankton in response to changes in ocean temperature, circulation, and sea ice coverage. In a scenario in which humans continue to emit greenhouse gases through the year 2100, the team found that changing ocean conditions, particularly in the polar regions, will shift phytoplankton's balance of proteins to carbohydrates and lipids by approximately 20 percent. The researchers analyzed observations from the past several decades, and already have found a signature of this change in the real world....

Swish, a Bengaluru-based food delivery startup, has raised $38 million in a new funding round, as the 18-month-old company continues to draw investor interest for its 10-minute fresh food delivery service. The Series B round, led by Hara Global and Bain Capital Ventures, also saw participation from Accel, Stride Ventures, and Alteria Capital. It values Swish at $139 million post-money, more than double its valuation a year ago, and brings total funding to $54 million. The funding comes as ultra-fast food delivery remains a challenging business to sustain in India. Larger platforms such as Swiggy, Zepto, and Zomato have in recent months scaled back or shut down their rapid-delivery experiments, citing operational complexity and cost pressures. Founded in 2024, Swish operates a full-stack business model, owning its kitchens, supply chain, and delivery network, and focusing on dense, hyperlocal clusters with delivery radii of around 1 kilometer. This gives Swish better economics, it says, compared to marketplace platforms that must rely on third-party restaurant commissions....