StrictlyVC: August 21, 2014

Hi, happy Thursday, everyone. No column today. StrictlyVC — who is still recovering from vacation — was buried under an avalanche of new funding announcements!

By the way, if you missed yesterday’s issue, it’s right here. (Also, web visitors, for an easier-to-read version email version of today’s newsletter, click here.)

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Top News in the A.M.

AT&T has announced the first city in Silicon Valley that will get its new ultra-high-speed fiber service. The big winner: Cupertino.

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New Fundings

Alfresco Software, a nine-year-old, Maidenhead, U.K.-based open source enterprise content management platform, has raised $45 million in new funding led by Sageview Capital. Earlier investors Accel PartnersMayfield Fund and SAP Ventures also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $64.5 million, shows Crunchbase.

Cardiva Medical, a 12-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based that develops and commercializes vascular closure technology, has raised the first of two tranches of a $16.5 million financing from new investor Canepa U.SAmKey VenturesPTV Healthcare Capital and TriVentures also participated in the funding.

Chain, a six-month-old, San Francisco-based company that aims to make it easier for developers to build Bitcoin applications, has raised $9.5 million in funding led by Khosla VenturesRRE VenturesThrive CapitalSV AngelPantera Capital and SecondMarket founder Barry Silbert also joined the round, which brings Chain’s total funding to $13.7 million. Dealbook has more here.

DoubleDutch, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile event app company, has raised $19 million in Series D funding led by Mithril Capital Management. Previous investors Bessemer Venture Partners,Index Ventures and Bullpen Capital also participated, along with Singapore-based Enspire Capital. DoubleDutch has raised $37.5 million in funding to date.

FeeX, a two-year-old, New York-based company that helps users find and reduce hidden fees in their IRA savings accounts, has raised $6.5 million in Series B funding from Blumberg Capital and Horizons Ventures. The company has now raised $9.5 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Flybits, a two-year-old, Toronto-based software start-up that has created a development platform for mobile environments, has raised $3.75 million in Series A financing led by Robert Bosch Venture Capital and Trellis Capital Corp., with participation from MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund and Ryerson Futures.

GoGoVan, a 1.5-year-old, Hong Kong-based on-demand delivery service serving Asia, has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding led by Centurion Private Equity, along with a number of unnamed Singapore-based angel investors.

Health Gorilla, a three-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based electronic requisition network that connects doctors to service providers, has raised $1.2 million in seed funding from True Ventures. The company has now raised $1.7 million altogether, including from numerous angel investors.

Hightower, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based software platform that allows commercial landlords and their brokers to collaborate on deals in real time, has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Thrive Capital. Earlier investors, including RRE Ventures and Red Swan Ventures, also participated in the round, which brings Hightower’s total funding to $8.6 million.

Imoji, a months-old, San Francisco-based app that allows users to turn any picture into a shareable emoji, has raised $2 million from Goodwater Capital and Joe Lacob, a longtime VC who is now majority owner and CEO of the Golden State Warriors NBA team.

Laurel & Wolf, a year-old, L.A.-based online interior design marketplace, has raised a $1.1 million seed round led by venture capitalist Tim Draperreports VentureWire. Other investors include Upside PartnershipSiemer VenturesStructure Capital, and investors Paige Craig and Jeff Lo.

Lavante, a three-year-old, San Jose-based maker of cloud-based business software used to manage transactions with suppliers, has raised $3.5 million in funding led by PointGuard Ventures. Earlier investors SAP Ventures and ATA Ventures also participated. The company has raised $8.5 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Meedoc, a two-year-old, Helsinki, Finland-based app and service connects patients and their doctors over online video, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from unnamed investors.

Nervana Systems, a new, San Diego-based company whose software architecture promises to enable computers to more quickly analyze and learn from massive amounts of data, has raised $3.3 million in Series A financing led by DFJ. Earlier investor Allen & Co., Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures, and Fuel Capital also participated in the round. The company has now raised $3.9 million, shows Crunchbase.

OnBeep, a year-old, San Francisco-based maker of wearable communication devices, has raised $6.25 million in Series A funding led by Rich Levandov of Avalon Ventures. Fuel Capital and numerous angel investors also participated, according to the company, which has now raised $6.8 million altogether.

Shipbeat, an eight-month-old, Copenhagen, Denmark-based company whose API aggregates the services of parcel delivery companies like UPS and Fedex to give customers a wider range of delivery options, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding led by Sunstone CapitalSEED Capital and former JustEat CEO Klaus Nyengaard. TechCrunch has more here.

Siluria Technologies, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based materials company that’s developing processes for transforming natural gas into chemicals and fuel, has raised $30 million in Series D funding led by Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures. The company has now raised $99.5 million altogether, including from ARCH Venture PartnersKleiner Perkins Caufield & ByersPresidio VenturesAlloy VenturesAltitude Life Science VenturesLux Capital, and Vulcan Capital.

SimPrints, a two-year-old, Cambridge, England-based company that’s working on a rugged, low-cost biometric fingerprint scanner can sync wirelessly with mobile phones to help medical personnel access health records in developing regions, has raised $830,000 in funding. The money comes via a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundationand the microprocessor company ARM.

Stitch Labs, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose software aims to simplify life for retailers and wholesalers, has raised $3.5 million from earlier investors True Ventures and Costanoa Ventures. The company has now raised $8 million altogether. VentureBeat has more here.

StudioNow, a seven-year-old, Nashville, Tn.-based startup that helps brands create, manage and syndicate online videos, has raised $5 million in funding led by FCA Venture Partners, with Claritas Capital participating. The company spun out of AOL roughly a year ago after being acquired in 2010 for $36.5 million.

TaxiForSure, a three-year-old, Bangalore-based online taxi services aggregator, has raised around $30 million in fresh capital led by earlier investor Accel Partnersreports the Times of India. Previous backers Bessemer Venture Partners and Helion Venture Partners also reportedly participated in the round, which follows a $10 million round that the company closed in April. The company has now raised $44 million altogether.

Thumbtack, a 6.5-year-old, San Francisco-based online marketplace for hiring workers for particular tasks, has raised $100 million in new funding led by Google Capital. Other investors in the round include earlier investors Tiger Global ManagementSequoia Capital and Javelin Venture Partners. Thumbtack has now raised $150 million altogether. Dealbook has more here.

Transactis, a 13-year-old, New York-based maker of electronic billing and payment software, has raised $11 million in Series D funding led by Safeguard Scientifics. Earlier investors StarVest Partners, along with senior management, also participated in the round. Transactis has now raised $40 million from investors, including Metamorphic Ventures,Vermont Information Processing, and Harland Clarke.

vArmour Networks, a three-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based cybersecurity company that’s operating in stealth but say that it’s built for the mobile, virtual and cloud-dominated world, has raised $21 million in Series C funding led by Columbus Nova Technology Partners, with Citi Ventures and Work-Bench participating. The company had previously raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Menlo Ventures, and $6 million in Series A funding led by Highland Capital.

Wearable Intelligence, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that’s dreaming up Google Glass apps for enterprise markets, has raised $8 million in new venture capital funding, according to an SEC filing first flagged by Fortune. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round. Earlier investors in the company include Andreessen HorowitzFirst Round CapitalGoogle VenturesKleiner Perkins Caufield & ByersInitialized Capital and Subtraction Capital.

Xamarin, the three-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile app development platform used to build cross-platform native applications, has raised $54 million in Series C funding led by Insight Venture Partners. Earlier investors including Lead EdgeFloodgateCRV, and Ignition Partners also participated in the round. TechCrunch has much more here.

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New Funds

JMI Equity, a 22-year-old growth equity firm with offices in Baltimore and San Diego, has closed its eighth and largest fund to date with $1 billion, it disclosed yesterday. The firm, which has raised roughy $3.1 billion over its entire history, will invest its new capital in software and services firms. JMI Equity’s last fund closed with $875 million in 2010.

Wells Fargo is jumping into the startup business. Yesterday, the banking giant took the wraps off its new Wells Fargo Startup Accelerator, a twice yearly, six-month-long boot camp for 10 to 20 startups startups that will receive between $50,000 and $500,000 from Wells Fargo. On-site occupation of Wells Fargo office space isn’t required. VentureBeat has much more here.

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Exits

CloudVolumes, a three-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based developer of a real-time application delivery technology, has been acquired by virtualization powerhouse VMware for undisclosed financial terms. CloudVolumes had raised $4.4 million from a long list of angel investors. ZDNet has more here.

MadMimi, a seven-year-old, Brooklyn-based, bootstrapped email service provider (that StrictlyVC uses to send you this newsletter), has been acquired by GoDaddy for undisclosed terms.

WillCall, a four-year-old, music discovery and ticketing application that allows users to reserve and book tickets for music events, has been acquired by Ticketfly, one of the nation’s biggest concert ticket sellers. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. WillCall had raised $2.1 million from investors, including Slow Ventures, Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia, and SV Angel.

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People

Dropbox’s head designer, Soleio Cuervo, has left Dropbox in a full-time capacity, he announced in a Facebook post last night. As reports Recode, Cuervo was hired as Facebook’s second designer, creating its renowned “Like” button before being lured away by Dropbox in 2012. Cuervo — who says he has decided to focus his attention on design education reform — will still work with Dropbox as an advisor, he said in his announcement.

NFL Hall of Famer Joe Montana on becoming a startup investor: “I grew up with [Sequoia Capital’s] Doug Leone coaching my kids in baseball. I only knew Doug as a baseball coach and went to my first meeting and he was there and I was like, ‘There’s no way!’ [Laughs] We’ve known a lot of the people in this space for a long period of time since I played here, so that transition is a little bit easier.”

Tim Riitters, who spent a decade at Google, overseeing its annual planning and budgeting processes, has been appointed CFO of Pure Storage, the flash-storage company. He has a lot of money to manage. In April, Pure Storage raised $225 million in Series F funding that reportedly values the company at $3 billion.

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Job Listings

Northern Trust, whose private equity fund of funds team raises capital primarily from Northern Trust clients (wealthy families and institutions) and invests in buyout and venture capital funds in the U.S., Europe and Asia, is looking for a vice president. The job is in Chicago.

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Happenings

Burning Man, man — although with more billionaire and millionaire entrepreneurs and investors showing up each year, it’s “no longer a counterculture revolution,” says one longtime festival goer to the New York Times. “It’s now become a mirror of society.” Says another who attends Burning Many with a group of Bay Area founders: “We used to have R.V.s and precooked meals. Now, we have the craziest chefs in the world and people who build yurts for us that have beds and air-conditioning.” Happening August 25 through September 1.

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Essential Reads

Big VCs are getting greedier and hogging the hottest deals for themselves, say angel investors.

Amazon looks poised to being testing its delivery drones in India this fall.

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Detours

A graphic demonstration of what happens when you apply sunscreen.

Why smart people fall for fake news.

Chairless chairs.

four-year-old reviews French Laundry.

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Retail Therapy

Ignore No More. Soon to be: Every Teenager’s Worst Nightmare. “Your phone is locked. Call Mom.”

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