Vijay Pande, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz who founded the firm’s a16z Bio+ Health strategy, announced that he is stepping down from his role.
Since its founding in 2014, a16z Bio+ Health has raised four funds of nearly $3 billion each, including a $1.5 billion fund that closed in 2022. However, it’s now seeking a much smaller $750 million fifth fund, The Wall Street Journal reported. In January, a16z Bio+ Health announced that it will manage a $500 million biotech fund funded by pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly.
a16z Bio + Health backs digital health startups and companies at the intersection of AI, computation, and biology.
Pande’s investments include Devoted Health, an individualized medical plan provider; Function Health, a personalized lab testing startup; and Freenome, a company aiming to detect cancer through blood draws. Before joining Andreessen Horowitz, Pande was a professor of chemistry, structural biology, and computer science at Stanford University.
The remaining partners on the a16z Bio + Health team are Jorge Conde, Julie Yoo, and Vineeta Agarwala.
Semafor reported Sunday that Canadian holding company Tiny, which owns some 60% of Letterboxd, has been courting various potential buyers, including Versant, the parent company of CNBC and MS NOW (formerly MSNBC). Another potential buyer is The Ankler, a popular Hollywood newsletter, according to Semafor. Tiny bought the platform in 2023, valuing it at over $50 million. It’s unclear whether the company has neared any sort of deal.
Representatives for Letterboxd and Tiny did not immediately provide comment when reached by TechCrunch.
Founded in 2011, Letterboxd saw a jump in users in the past few years, climbing to about 26 million users this year, up from 1.7 million in 2020, according to The New York Times. In recent years, the site has seen interest from movie studios, which see it both as a vehicle for marketing films and a source of information about moviegoer trends, as well as from the Oscars, which teamed up with the social platform in a digital content partnership several years ago.
Semafor reported Sunday that Canadian holding company Tiny, which owns some 60% of Letterboxd, has been courting various potential buyers, including Versant, the parent company of CNBC and MS NOW (formerly MSNBC). Another potential buyer is The Ankler, a popular Hollywood newsletter, according to Semafor. Tiny bought the platform in 2023, valuing it at over $50 million. It’s unclear whether the company has neared any sort of deal.
Representatives for Letterboxd and Tiny did not immediately provide comment when reached by TechCrunch.
Founded in 2011, Letterboxd saw a jump in users in the past few years, climbing to about 26 million users this year, up from 1.7 million in 2020, according to The New York Times. In recent years, the site has seen interest from movie studios, which see it both as a vehicle for marketing films and a source of information about moviegoer trends, as well as from the Oscars, which teamed up with the social platform in a digital content partnership several years ago.
#Letterboxd #social #platform #film #buffs #reportedly #owner #TechCrunchHollywood,In Brief,Letterboxd,media,movies">Letterboxd, the social platform for film buffs, reportedly looking for new owner | TechCrunch
Letterboxd has surged in popularity in recent years. Once a niche site for only the most fervent of film nerds, the site — which allows users to rate, review, and recommend movies to one another — has continued to add accounts by the tens of millions, thanks largely to interest from millennials and Gen Z. Now, the company’s controlling investor has apparently made it known that they are looking to cash out.
Semafor reported Sunday that Canadian holding company Tiny, which owns some 60% of Letterboxd, has been courting various potential buyers, including Versant, the parent company of CNBC and MS NOW (formerly MSNBC). Another potential buyer is The Ankler, a popular Hollywood newsletter, according to Semafor. Tiny bought the platform in 2023, valuing it at over $50 million. It’s unclear whether the company has neared any sort of deal.
Representatives for Letterboxd and Tiny did not immediately provide comment when reached by TechCrunch.
Founded in 2011, Letterboxd saw a jump in users in the past few years, climbing to about 26 million users this year, up from 1.7 million in 2020, according to The New York Times. In recent years, the site has seen interest from movie studios, which see it both as a vehicle for marketing films and a source of information about moviegoer trends, as well as from the Oscars, which teamed up with the social platform in a digital content partnership several years ago.
Star Wars games love giving us the ultimate power fantasies of the galaxy far, far away: wielding lightsabers and the Force as Jedi, being ace pilots or wry smugglers, and stepping into the combat boots of front-line soldiers in galactic conflict. Its latest collaboration instead asks you to consider another, persistent element of the galaxy ticking away far, far beneath that: the life of a subservient droid.
This morning FuturLab announced a surprise new collaboration DLC for its beloved Powerwash Simulator sequel, letting you step into the galaxy far, far away to… well, powerwash things. The DLC casts you as a P0-W2 labor droid, tasked with cleaning up across the galaxy, from the Lars Homestead on Tatooine to Echo Base on Hoth and even inside the hangar bay of a Star Destroyer. You’ll be able to team up with friends, as with other Powerwash Simulator DLCs, because no droid should have to clean all the carbon scoring in the galaxy off of ships and surfaces alone.
FuturLab describes the Star Wars pack as seeing your poor droid taking menial assignments until that “quickly spirals into being commandeered to carry out the Empire’s dirty work, before clearing the way for the Rebel Alliance,” although it remains to be seen if there’ll actually be a narrative arc across its cleaning scenarios or if that’s just some flavorful setup.
But still, there is some potential for intriguing Star Wars commentary here, in that FuturLab makes your perspective that of a droid instead of just some lowly human on the bottom rung of these different factions’ pecking orders. Star Wars has always had an up and down history with how it treats droids as an underserved group. Droids’ quest for personhood and rights is regularly framed through the idea of what kind of labor is considered base enough to be below organic beings and instead consigned to an indentured droid class, who often almost solely exist, in some regards, to do this kind of work, rather than being allowed to exist as sentient beings in their own rights.
Even putting aside that this is perhaps the kind of video game fantasy we’ve never really seen play out in Star Wars before, perhaps it simply being a fantasy that we assign to a droid is commentary enough. You’ll be able to think about the plight of droid rights and also clean gunk off of an X-Wing when the Star Wars pack for Powerwash Simulator 2 launches this summer for $10.
Star Wars games love giving us the ultimate power fantasies of the galaxy far, far away: wielding lightsabers and the Force as Jedi, being ace pilots or wry smugglers, and stepping into the combat boots of front-line soldiers in galactic conflict. Its latest collaboration instead asks you to consider another, persistent element of the galaxy ticking away far, far beneath that: the life of a subservient droid.
This morning FuturLab announced a surprise new collaboration DLC for its beloved Powerwash Simulator sequel, letting you step into the galaxy far, far away to… well, powerwash things. The DLC casts you as a P0-W2 labor droid, tasked with cleaning up across the galaxy, from the Lars Homestead on Tatooine to Echo Base on Hoth and even inside the hangar bay of a Star Destroyer. You’ll be able to team up with friends, as with other Powerwash Simulator DLCs, because no droid should have to clean all the carbon scoring in the galaxy off of ships and surfaces alone.
FuturLab describes the Star Wars pack as seeing your poor droid taking menial assignments until that “quickly spirals into being commandeered to carry out the Empire’s dirty work, before clearing the way for the Rebel Alliance,” although it remains to be seen if there’ll actually be a narrative arc across its cleaning scenarios or if that’s just some flavorful setup.
But still, there is some potential for intriguing Star Wars commentary here, in that FuturLab makes your perspective that of a droid instead of just some lowly human on the bottom rung of these different factions’ pecking orders. Star Wars has always had an up and down history with how it treats droids as an underserved group. Droids’ quest for personhood and rights is regularly framed through the idea of what kind of labor is considered base enough to be below organic beings and instead consigned to an indentured droid class, who often almost solely exist, in some regards, to do this kind of work, rather than being allowed to exist as sentient beings in their own rights.
Even putting aside that this is perhaps the kind of video game fantasy we’ve never really seen play out in Star Wars before, perhaps it simply being a fantasy that we assign to a droid is commentary enough. You’ll be able to think about the plight of droid rights and also clean gunk off of an X-Wing when the Star Wars pack for Powerwash Simulator 2 launches this summer for $10.
#Star #Wars #Game #Crossover #Fantasy #Menial #LaborDroids,Powerwash Simulator 2,Star Wars">The Next ‘Star Wars’ Game Crossover Gives You the Fantasy of Menial Labor
Star Wars games love giving us the ultimate power fantasies of the galaxy far, far away: wielding lightsabers and the Force as Jedi, being ace pilots or wry smugglers, and stepping into the combat boots of front-line soldiers in galactic conflict. Its latest collaboration instead asks you to consider another, persistent element of the galaxy ticking away far, far beneath that: the life of a subservient droid.
This morning FuturLab announced a surprise new collaboration DLC for its beloved Powerwash Simulator sequel, letting you step into the galaxy far, far away to… well, powerwash things. The DLC casts you as a P0-W2 labor droid, tasked with cleaning up across the galaxy, from the Lars Homestead on Tatooine to Echo Base on Hoth and even inside the hangar bay of a Star Destroyer. You’ll be able to team up with friends, as with other Powerwash Simulator DLCs, because no droid should have to clean all the carbon scoring in the galaxy off of ships and surfaces alone.
FuturLab describes the Star Wars pack as seeing your poor droid taking menial assignments until that “quickly spirals into being commandeered to carry out the Empire’s dirty work, before clearing the way for the Rebel Alliance,” although it remains to be seen if there’ll actually be a narrative arc across its cleaning scenarios or if that’s just some flavorful setup.
But still, there is some potential for intriguing Star Wars commentary here, in that FuturLab makes your perspective that of a droid instead of just some lowly human on the bottom rung of these different factions’ pecking orders. Star Wars has always had an up and down history with how it treats droids as an underserved group. Droids’ quest for personhood and rights is regularly framed through the idea of what kind of labor is considered base enough to be below organic beings and instead consigned to an indentured droid class, who often almost solely exist, in some regards, to do this kind of work, rather than being allowed to exist as sentient beings in their own rights.
Even putting aside that this is perhaps the kind of video game fantasy we’ve never really seen play out in Star Wars before, perhaps it simply being a fantasy that we assign to a droid is commentary enough. You’ll be able to think about the plight of droid rights and also clean gunk off of an X-Wing when the Star Wars pack for Powerwash Simulator 2 launches this summer for $10.
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