Good day. A new venture fund is looking to capitalize on Africa’s young and increasingly urban population, the continent’s fast growth in smartphone use and the lack of access to financial services.

Constant Ventures, an arm of pan-African investment banking firm Constant Capital, is targeting $100 million for a venture fund to invest in tech-enabled companies focused on fintech, health and education. The fund will focus on West Africa, primarily Nigeria and Ghana.

It plans to attract capital from family offices and institutional investors.

The firm, based in Lagos, Nigeria, expects the check sizes written from the fund to range from $500,000 to $1 million, said Ike Echeruo, managing partner for Constant Ventures. Mr. Echeruo co-founded the company alongside his brother Chinedu Echeruo, a serial entrepreneur.

Ike Echeruo said fintech startups can help Nigerians access consumer credit to make it easier to rent an apartment or buy a washing machine. “The opportunity is immense,” he added. “It’s an opportunity that is sometimes difficult for people who live in developed markets to appreciate.”

Five years ago, African startups pulled in about $420 million in investment from venture capitalists, according to PitchBook data. That number increased to more than $2.2 billion in 2021, a record-setting year for deal value and deal count for the continent.

And now on to the news...

Tips to stay afloat. After years of funneling cash into startups’ grand ambitions, Silicon Valley’s investors are engaging in the grim ritual of delivering survival advice to their portfolio companies, The Wall Street Journal reports.

• In recent online slide presentations, blog posts and social-media threads, venture-capital doyens including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Craft Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Y Combinator are telling the founders that they need to take emergency action for what could be the sharpest turn in more than a decade.
   
• Their advice includes cutting costs, preserving cash and jettisoning hopes that hedge funds or other investors will swoop in with big checks.
   
• The investors’ admonitions are a departure from the growth-above-all mantra for startups in recent years, and come as the venture market is showing signs of sputtering.

Chattanooga, Tenn., has benefited from a rebalancing in the tech industry from major coastal metros to cities across the country, WSJ's CIO Journal reports. A recent report from the Brookings Institution shows tech hiring in the first year of the pandemic slowed in places like San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles and grew in markets like St. Louis, Philadelphia, San Antonio and Nashville. Chattanooga has caught some of the overflow, said Cameron Doody, a co-founder of Brickyard, an early-stage venture fund based in Chattanooga. As workers from established tech hubs flooded places like Atlanta and Austin, residents of those cities moved to places like Chattanooga, he suggested.

TerraUSD was touted as a blue-chip cryptocurrency. Now its investors are reeling from painful losses and asking if it was all a get-rich-quick scheme, WSJ reports. A surgeon in Massachusetts can’t stop thinking about how he lost his family’s nest egg. A young Ukrainian considered suicide after losing 90% of his savings. Other investors have given up dreams of starting new businesses or quitting their day jobs. All of them were swept up in the mania for TerraUSD, whose total value swelled to $18 billion before collapsing earlier this month. The coin’s sudden downfall is a reminder that crypto—which enjoyed a huge bull market last year—is often little more than a casino, with weak regulation and few means of recourse for the losers.

Funds

Blockchain investor Old Fashion Research launched a $100 million fund backed by lead investor Wemix. To date, the vehicle has invested in WOO Network, Genopets, Metaverse Magna, MetaDerby and ZetaChain.

Dallas Venture Capital closed an $80 million fund at $5 million above its original target to invest in business-to-business software-as-a-service startups. Investors include Gupta Capital Group, NewcrestImage Ventures, Eternal Lotus Capital Partners and Bioworld Merchandising. DVC is also raising a separate fund in India, which has a $50 million target.

People

GT Medical Technologies Inc., a developer of radiation therapy for patients with brain tumors, named Shane Brown as chief commercial officer. He was previously president and general manager of North America for Itamar Medical. Tempe, Ariz.-based GT Medical is backed by investors including MVM Partners, Medical Technology Venture Partners and BlueStone Venture Partners.

Stablix Inc., a startup leveraging its protein-stabilization platform to develop programs to treat rare diseases, cancer and immunological disorders, hired Eddine Saiah as chief scientific officer. He was most recently CSO at Navitor Pharmaceuticals. Stablix also promoted Kevin Sprott to chief operating officer from senior vice president, drug discovery.

Stable, a provider of price risk-management services for the agricultural-commodity industry, fetched $60 million in Series B funding. Acrew Capital led the round, which included support from Anthemis, Notion, Greycroft, Continental Grain Co., Alumni Ventures, Syngenta Group, Gaingels and others. Stable has offices in New York, Chicago, London and Bermuda.

Assembled, a workforce management provider for support teams, closed a $51 million Series B round. Lead investor New Enterprise Associates was joined by Emergence Capital and Basis Set Ventures in the funding. NEA’s Vanessa Larco and Hilarie Koplow-McAdams will join the company’s board.

Full-Life Technologies, a Shanghai-based radiotherapeutics startup, completed a $37 million Series A round led by Sequoia Capital China.

Jadu AR, a Los Angeles-based Web3 augmented-reality gaming startup, raised $36 million in Series A funding. Bain Capital Crypto led the investment, which included contributions from General Catalyst, Alumni Ventures and others. 

Manta, a data lineage and observability platform, landed $35 million in Series B funding. Forestay Capital led the round, which included additional support from Bessemer Venture Partners, SAP.io, Senovo and Credo Ventures.

Gametime, a San Francisco-based platform for last-minute game, concert and show tickets, snagged $30 million in funding. Led by Nimble Partners, the round included support from Maven Ventures, Accel, GV, Bolt Ventures, Tenere Capital, Blitzscaling Ventures, Next Play Capital, Alumni Ventures, University Growth Fund, Palapa Ventures and others.

Seemplicity, a Tel Aviv-based risk-reduction and productivity platform for security teams, raised $26 million in Series A funding led by Glilot Capital Partners. New investors NTTVC and Atlantic Bridge also participated in the round, along with previous backers S Capital VC and Rain Capital.

Indigov, a constituent-service platform for public officials, closed a $25 million Series B round from Tusk Venture Partners, 8VC, Wicklow Capital, Align Ventures and Valor Equity Partners.

Joywell Foods, a Davis, Calif.-based startup that utilizes a proprietary microbial fermentation process to produce nature-identical sweet proteins that mimic the taste of sugar, fetched $25 million in Series B financing. Piva Capital led the round, with co-founder and Partner Adzmel Adznan joining the company’s board. Additional investors in the round included B37 Ventures, Global Brain Corp., Khosla Ventures, Evolv Ventures, SOSV's IndieBio and Alumni Ventures.

Air Doctor, which connects travelers who fall ill abroad with local private doctors through a mobile and web app, picked up a $20 million investment. Led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, the round included participation from Vintage Investment Partners, Munich Re Ventures and Kamet Ventures.

Vibenomics Inc., a Fishers, Ind.-based provider of audio advertising technology for retailers, secured $12.3 million in Series B financing led by Panoramic Ventures.

• Uber and Lyft’s new road: fewer drivers, thrifty riders and jittery investors
   
• Broadcom deal for VMware highlights the rise of virtualization
   
• In India’s mobile-payments boom, even beggars get QR codes
   
• While electric vehicles proliferate, charging stations lag behind
   
• The tech crash could be a talent bonanza for big tech
   
• Tech billionaire brings down Aussie polluter's breakup plan

• Bicycles have evolved. Have we? (The New Yorker)
   
• How remote work visas can boost local economies (Harvard Business Review)

This newsletter was compiled by Vipal Monga and Zachary Cole.

WSJ Pro Venture Capital is a premium service of The Wall Street Journal. We cover venture capital and the global startup ecosystem. Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The Team: Matthew Strozier, Yuliya Chernova, Brian Gormley and Marc Vartabedian.

Follow us on Twitter: @wsjvc, @ychernova, @BrianPGormley, @marcvarta.