StrictlyVC: April 22, 2016

Is it Friday already? Have fun at Coachella, half of SVC readers! Also, happy Earth Day!

Our column isn’t quite done and it’s getting late so we’re skipping it today, but we’ll have more for you on Monday.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Alphabet‘s first-quarter numbers came in a little short yesterday and shareholders noticed, knocking down its stock 6 percent in after-hours trading.

Volkswagen agreed yesterday to fix or buy back nearly 500,000 diesel cars in the U.S. that are equipped with illegal emissions software.

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New Fundings

Anomali, a three-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based threat intelligence platform, has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by Institutional Venture Partners, with participation from General Catalyst Partners, GV and Paladin Capital Group. More here.

Baidu Video, a new, Beijing, China-based spin-off from the web giant Baidu, has raised $155 million in capital from Baidu, Shanghai New Culture Media Group, Tianshen Yule, Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund and Redpoint Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

BioBeats, a three-year-old, Berkeley, Ca.-based company whose wearables monitor the health of employees and patients, has raised $2.28 million in funding led by White Cloud Capital, with participation from AXA Strategic Ventures and IQ Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Bridgit, a four-year-old, Kitchener, Ontario-based maker of construction project management software, has raised C$2.2 million ($1.73 million) in seed funding led by Hyde Park Venture Partners, with participation from Vanedge Capital. Forbes has more here.

Chameleon, a year-old, San Francisco-based startup that wants to help other startups and online businesses do a better job of explaining their products to users, has raised $1.9 million in seed funding led by True Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

CareerFoundry, a nearly three-year-old, Berlin-based online learning platform for aspiring developers, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from Tengelmann Ventures, Bauer Venture Partners and IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft. TechCrunch has more here.

Forter, a three-year-old, Tel Aviv-based company that makes fraud prevention software for online retailers, has raised $32 million in Series C funding led by Scale Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backers New Enterprise Associates and Sequoia Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Hua Medicine, a Shanghai-based biotech company at work on therapeutics for diabetes and CNS disorders, has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by Harvest Investments, with participation from earlier backers Frontline BioVentures, Arch Venture Partners, Venrock, F-Prime Capital, WuXi Ventures, SAIL, Ally Bridge Group and TF Capital. More here.

Kueski, a four-year-old, Guadalajara, Mexico-based online lender, has raised $10 million in venture funding and $25 million in debt funding, including from Richmond Global Ventures, Rise Capital, CrunchFund, Variv Capital,Victory Park Capital, Angel Ventures Mexico, Core Ventures Group and Auria Capital. More here.

Medium, the nearly five-year-old, San Francisco-based social publishing platform, has raised a fresh $50 million from investors, just months after raising $57 million. Investors valued the company at $600 million, says Recode. Spark Capital has led the company’s newest round; earlier backers Andreessen Horowitz and GV also participated. More here.

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New Funds

Jamie Goldstein, who spent 18 years with North Bridge Venture Partners, is looking to raise up to $100 million for a new fund called Pillar, per a new SEC filing first flagged by Fortune. The filing states the first sale has yet to occur.

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IPOs

SecureWorks, an Atlanta-based cybersecurity unit of Dell Inc, has become the first IPO of the tech industry in 2016, though it’s not clear yet there’s much to cheer about. The company last night priced 8 million shares at $14 per share, below initial plans to offer 9 million shares at between $15.50 and $17.50 per share. The shares are still trading around $14 this morning. Dealbook has more here.

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People

FBI Director James Comey said yesterday that the agency paid $1.3 million to break into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters, more than he’ll make in his remaining seven-plus years in his job.

Julia Hartz, who cofounded the online event planning platform Eventbrite with husband Kevin Hartz, has just taken over for him as CEO while he stays on as executive chairman.

Now hyper-entrepreneur Elon Musk wants to solve traffic congestion with self-driving buses.

Investor-entrepreneur Sean Parker has relaunched Airtime, a video chat room for watching, together.

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Jobs

Microsoft is looking to hire a director of business development. The job is in Palo Alto, Ca.

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Essential Reads

Uber has reached a settlement in two class-action lawsuits in California and Massachusetts that contested that Uber should be classifying its drivers as employees instead of independent contractors. In exchange for up to $100 million to the 385,000 drivers represented in the cases, both sides have now agreed that drivers will remain independent contractors and not employees. More here.

Topless dancers, champagne, and David Bowie: inside the crash of London’s $2.7 billion unicorn Powa.

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Detours

The secret history of Tiger Woods.

A dating app for burrito-lovers (that’s working!).

Remembering Prince.

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Retail Therapy

Now you can kiss your cherished guitar teacher good-bye. (Just hope this thing doesn’t break.)


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