Accel announces $4 bln ‘later-stage’ fund; UK probing polio virus find; EV raw material costs double

Accel, one of the top global venture capital firms, best known in India for backing Flipkart and Freshworks, has raised a $4 billion fund to invest in what it calls later-stage ventures. Britain has declared a ‘national incident’ after a rare discovery of a ‘vaccine-derived’ polio virus in sewage samples in London. And the cost of raw materials needed for EVs has doubled during the pandemic, according to AlixPartners, a consultancy. Notes: Accel, one of the top global venture capital firms, has raised a $4 billion fund to invest in what it calls later-stage ventures. The firm expects to provide “expansion capital” to promising companies within its portfolio worldwide, as well as companies that are new to the firm, it said in a blogpost yesterday. “Our decades-long experience has also taught us the importance of patience and discipline — especially during periods of volatility and change like we are experiencing today,” the VC firm said in the blog post. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, software giant Microsoft, Japan’s Sony, and IKEA are among some 37 global companies that have come together to form the Metaverse Standards Forum to develop common standards for the online world of avatars and 3D experiences. Open to any organisation at no cost, the Forum will focus on pragmatic, action-based projects such as implementation prototyping, hackathons, plugfests, and open-source tooling to accelerate the testing and adoption of metaverse standards, while also developing consistent terminology and deployment guidelines, it said in the post. Notably, Google and Apple aren’t participating yet. British health authorities are urgently investigating a rare polio virus discovery in sewage samples in London, potentially putting Britain’s polio-free status at risk for the first time in almost two decades, CNBC reports. Several waste samples from the Beckton sewage treatment work in Newham, east London tested positive for vaccine-derived polio virus between February and May, the UK Health Security Agency said in a statement. The agency has declared a national incident and informed the World Health Organisation of the situation. Leap Finance, which gives student loans to those aspiring to higher education abroad, has raised $75 million in a round led by Owl Ventures, with participation from new investors Steadview Capital and Paramark Ventures, as well as existing investors Jungle Ventures and Sequoia Capital India, Economic Times. Raw material costs for electric vehicles more than doubled during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report by AlixPartners, a consultancy, CNBC reports. EV-specific costs have increased to $4,500 from roughly $2,000 in the past two years, according to the report. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds