The new round was led by , with participation from existing investors , and . Music group Swedish House Mafia also participated.

Nothing, founded in 2020, launched its Phone (1) product last year. Even amid declining cell phone sales, the product sold out and never made the U.S. Its new Phone (2) — set for a July 11 launch — will make the U.S. market and is highly anticipated.

“In just over two years, we’ve assembled one of the strongest teams in the industry and sold over 1.5 million devices worldwide,” co-founder and CEO said in a release. “It’s clear that there’s real demand for an innovative challenger in the consumer tech industry, and with this new round of financing, we’ve never been better positioned to realize our vision to make tech fun again.”

Growing fast

The London-based startup is not small by any means, with more than 450 people across seven offices worldwide. The company made $200 million in revenues in 2022 and is on pace to exceed that this year, .

Aside from its phones, the company also has released earbuds and a sound stick. The company has sold more than 1.5 million devices, per the report.

Part of the company’s fast success is undoubtedly due to its engagements with its customers. It has raised nearly $14 million in crowdfunding and attracted more than 8,000 investors in those rounds.

Nothing also has ongoing sustainability initiatives and promises its new phone will have a lower carbon footprint than the first iteration.

Founded in 2020, the company has raised more than $250 million to date, per the company.

Illustration:

This morning the with stories concerning Essential, the company founded by Andy Rubin of both Danger (, which went poorly) and Android (, which went well) fame. With that particular pedigree, Essential is in the smartphone game.

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And in a big way. Today’s morning crop of headlines includes the following:

The news that Amazon and Tencent back Essential is huge, but the funding news is somewhat old. CrunchBase, for example, has in question tied to June 7th. So what’s going on? Did Essential raise $300 million then, and now?

Of course not, as that would flirt with bike-sharing territory. But what’s notable here is that Essential is snacking two bites on the same KitKat. Let’s rewind to June:

What we actually learned this morning is which companies were behind the $300 million round, not that an additional $300 million has been raised—despite what some people will think.

We might not care much, normally, about this sort of unveil. However, given that potential distribution partners — and sometimes rivals — are the source of the lucre in question, we do care.

Now, to your question concerning when the damn smartphone is coming out? Sadly, though we now know where the money came from, ship dates remain occluded. Take :

But the company stopped short of the big reveal: When exactly its $699 titanium-encased smartphone will be available.

“We’re a few weeks away,” said Niccolo De Masi, Essential’s president, repeating what company founder Andy Rubin said a few weeks ago. “I will give you an exact date in a week.”

Alright then. We’ll be back in a week.

From the :

Disney spends $1.58B on BAMTech

• Disney said it is spending $1.58 billion to acquire majority ownership of streaming technology provider  and plans to end its new releases distribution agreement with Netflix in 2019. The entertainment giant also said it will also launch an ESPN-branded sports service early next year, followed by a direct-to-consumer streaming service in 2019.

Roivant raises $1.1B for drug development

• , a Basel- and London-based startup that operates a network of drug development subsidiaries, has raised $1.1 billion in a funding round led by SoftBank and joined by existing shareholders. (Around the same time, reports surfaced that SoftBank made another giant investment in a completely different sector, putting $1 billion into sports apparel retailer .)

Putting SoftBank’s buying spree in perspective

• So far this year, SoftBank has led or joined in over $15 billion worth of disclosed private funding rounds as it puts its massive $100 billion Vision Fund to work. To put this in perspective, Crunchbase News calculates that over five years, the average SoftBank-backed investment has grown from the low seven figures to the mid-to-upper nine figures. Today, the firm runs the very real risk of overwhelming markets for late-stage venture capital, which already have a lot of cash chasing relatively few opportunities.

Find your startup match at Disrupt

• Keep your deals flowing at TechCrunch Disrupt SF with CrunchMatch, a service that takes the guess work out of finding the right startup for your portfolio. Your ticket to Disrupt SF is the key to get started. Early bird savings ends next Friday plus .