Good day. Last week we asked how pervasive the practice is of startups revaluing shares internally, what are known as 409A valuations, and what are the advantages or disadvantages of rethinking valuations in this way.

• Sakib Jamal, a senior investment associate at Crossbeam Venture Partners, said: “Normally, we see companies completing a new 409A in conjunction with an equity financing, or once per year if a round has not occurred recently. While markets have revalued, 409A valuations don't rely entirely on comps—that's just one of the inputs. So it's unclear how effective the ‘devaluing’ might be. Proactively pursuing a 409A in this market makes the most sense for companies who have not raised capital recently, have had to let go of some portion of their team, and want to provide additional units to the remaining employees being asked to do more with less. These employees may be issued more options as a cash-efficient way to provide extra compensation, and undergoing a new 409A in conjunction with that event may make sense.” 

This week’s question: What signs are venture investors watching for that might indicate that the venture market is poised to heat back up?

And now on to the news...

Sink-or-swim approach. The downfall of Celsius Network LLC last week may be a harbinger of things to come for other troubled cryptocurrency startups, whose backers appear reluctant to prop them up with emergency funds, investors and analysts say, Angus Loten and Vipal Monga report for WSJ Pro.

• Celsius, a London-based crypto lender, filed for bankruptcy protection roughly a month after halting withdrawals to stem losses from sharp declines in digital currency prices. Last month, Celsius investors told The Wall Street Journal they had no plans to put up more capital to save the company.
   
• Across the market, other investors appear to be taking a similar sink-or-swim approach to their crypto startups, as virtual currencies continue their downward vortex. Sarah Guo, a board partner at Greylock Partners, said investors generally aren’t racing to bail out every troubled startup in their portfolio, “and that’s even more true in crypto.”

Cryptocurrency exchange Blockchain.com is laying off one-quarter of its workforce, the latest business in the digital-assets sector to scale back following a sharp decline in cryptocurrencies, WSJ reports. The trading platform is a creditor to the collapsed crypto hedge-fund manager Three Arrows Capital, which it lent more than $300 million. A spokeswoman Thursday confirmed the staff reduction, which was first reported by CoinDesk. The crypto news site said Blockchain.com will close its offices in Argentina, cut head count in the U.S. and U.K. and cancel team expansion plans in several countries. CoinDesk said the cuts would affect about 150 people.

• Seven Crypto Companies That Laid Off Employees This Summer

China’s Baidu Inc. unveiled a new autonomous car with a detachable steering wheel that it wants to use for its robotaxi service in 2023—up to a year before Tesla Inc. plans to start mass producing a similar vehicle, WSJ reports. Baidu, China’s long-dominant search-engine giant, priced the new model at about $37,000, nearly half of the $71,000 for the previous version of the car that was released in June 2021 with an ordinary steering wheel, the company said in a statement Thursday. “We’re moving towards a future where taking a robotaxi will be half the cost of taking a taxi today,” Robin Li, co-founder and chief executive of Baidu, said at the company’s annual technology conference. He said cost cuts would enable Baidu to deploy tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles in China.

People

Ryan You, a partner with Galaxy Interactive, has joined the Nekcom board. Nekcom, a  video-game developer, said it is in advanced development for Showa American Story, a post-apocalyptic RPG game with a story and characters that melds 1980s American and Japanese pop culture, music and style.

Funds

Portage Ventures has closed a $655 million fund, the Toronto-based firm’s third venture fund, targeting fintech startups in the U.S, Europe and Canada. With the new fund, Portage now has $3 billion in aggregate assets under management and has made over 65 investments to date across 13 countries, the firm said.

TomoCredit, a Generation Z-focused credit-card startup, secured $122 million in equity and debt funding. Investors included Morgan Stanley’s Next Level Fund and MasterCard. The debt portion came from Silicon Valley Bank.

Halborn, a blockchain cybersecurity startup, closed a $90 million growth equity investment. Led by Summit Partners, the round included participation from Castle Island Ventures, Digital Currency Group, Brevan Howard, Third Prime and SkyVision Capital.

15Five, a San Francisco-based performance-management startup, raised $52 million in Series C funding. Quad Partners led the round, which included additional support from Next47, Origin Ventures, Matrix Partners, Point Nine Capital and New Ground Ventures.

Zededa, a San Jose, Calif.-based edge-computing startup, closed $26 million in Series B funding, which included investments by Coast Range Capital, Lux Capital, Energize Ventures and Almaz Capital, among others.

Nekcom, a video-game developer, completed an $8 million Series A round led by Galaxy Interactive. The funds will be used to accelerate game development, research and development, and international expansion, the company said.

Electrified Thermal Solutions, a Medford, Mass.-based startup that converts surplus electricity into on-demand, zero-carbon heat for cement and chemicals production, landed a $4.5 million investment co-led by Clean Energy Ventures and Starlight Ventures.

Senzo, a company that says it is developing high-accuracy, low-cost point-of-care diagnostic technologies, raised a $2 million round led by BioAdvance.

• Amazon to buy One Medical network of health clinics in healthcare expansion
   
• Data-privacy bill advances in Congress, but states throw up objections
   
• Coinbase blasts SEC enforcement efforts, urging friendlier crypto rules
   
• Former Coinbase employee is charged in alleged insider-trading scheme
   
• Snapchat parent Snap Inc. posts weakest-ever quarterly sales growth as a public company, citing ad spending slump 

• Venture investing firm NFX adds $62.6 million in follow-on investments to a fund that includes crypto startups (CoinDesk)

This newsletter was compiled by Angus Loten and Matthew Strozier.

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.