Hi, happy Friday, readers. StrictlyVC was working on some stories for next week so no column this morning, but see you back here on Monday. Hope you have a stellar weekend!

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Top News in the A.M.

The Mac turns 30 today.

 

New Fundings

The Cambridge Satchel Company, a five-year-old, Leicestershire, England-based luxury leather bag company, has raised $21 million from Index Ventures to hone its digital platform and expand overseas across the U.S. and China. It appears to be the company’s first institutional capital.

Fitmob, a seven-month-old, San Francisco-based fitness startup whose classes are based around trainers rather than around gyms, has raised $9.75 million in equity and debt from Mayfield Fund, Silicon Valley Bank, and individual investors, reports GigaOm. The company was cofounded byPaul Twohey, who previously cofounded Ness Computing and worked as an early engineer at Palantir Technologies, and Raj Kapoor, who cofounded Snapfish and worked until 2012 as a managing director at Mayfield Fund.

iProf Learning Solutions India, a four-year-old, Noida, India-based maker of an education tablet that stores reading material, video, and audio lectures, has raised $9 million in Series B funding from DMGI and earlier investors Norwest Venture Partners and IDG Ventures. The company has raised about $15 million altogether, including from the test prep giant company Kaplan.

Jelly, a months-old, San Francisco-based question-and-answer service that’s driven by images, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series B funding led by Greylock Partners, with Spark Capital participating. The round comes less than a year after Jelly — founded by Twitter co-founderBiz Stone — raised its Series A round from Spark, Greylock, and Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey. (That amount was also kept under wraps, though TechCrunch sources suggest it was in the single-digit millions.)

Luxexcel, a four-year-old, Goes, Netherlands-based company that uses 3D printing to produce optics and lenses, has secured “several million Euros’ worth” of funding from three international venture capital funds, says the company. Its backers include Munich Venture Partners,ChrysalixSET and Filsa Capital.

QFPay, a three-year-old, Beijing-based maker of a Square-like device for facilitating e-payments via smartphones, has raised $16.5 million in Series B funding from an undisclosed source. As Tech in Asia hints, Sequoia Capial — which led QFPay’s undisclosed amount of Series A funding last year — seems like one likely candidate.

Quantum Health, 13-year-old, Columbus, Oh-based service and care management platform for employer health plans, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding, including from GE Ventures and Altaris Capital Partners.

VisibleBrands, a five-year-old, Kirkland, Wa.-based company behind an in-store digital couponing platform, has raised $2.3 million in Series B funding from previous investors, says the company. The company has raised $11.2 million altogether, according to Crunchbase, all from undisclosed sources.

New Funds

Founders Fund, the 8.5-year-old, San Francisco-based venture firm started by early Facebook investor Peter Thiel, is raising about $750 million for its fifth fund, reports Bloomberg, which obtained materials meant for prospective investors. At that size, the fund would be 20 percent larger than the firm’s last pool of capital. Privately held Palantir Technologies, now valued at $9 billion, and Yammer, sold to Microsoft in 2012, are just two of Founders Fund’s high-profile investments.

IDG Ventures India is reportedly looking to raise $162 million for its second fund. Whether it’s as easy to raise as its first fund is an open question. Unlike that first fund, a 2007 vehicle that attracted most of its capital from global investors, including the media company International Data Group — the venture firm intends to target wealthy Indians this time around, reports the Economic Times. More here.

Kaszek Ventures, a 2.5-year-old, Montevideo, Uruguay-based venture firm focused on Latin American startups, has raised $135 million for a second fund, shows a series of filings first flagged by peHUB. The firm’s first, $56.4 million, fund was raised in 2011.

The Toronto-based fund of funds manager Northleaf Capital Partnerssuddenly has a lot more money to invest in venture funds that support early- and mid-stage Canadian businesses. More here.

Singularity University, the Silicon Valley think tank, has unveiled plans to raise a $50 million fund. (StrictlyVC first told you about this effort in early October.) According to GigaOm, fundraising for the vehicle will get underway during the second quarter of this year; the money will be used to back startups launched by Singularity University students, alumni, and teachers. Here are more details.

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IPOs

Care.com, the 7.5-year-old, Boston-based, venture-backed online caregiver marketplace, is raising about $91 million in its IPO, topping its previously projected price. Xconomy has much more about it.

Just Eat, a 13-year-old, London-based company that manages an online food ordering platform, is eyeing an IPO this spring that would value the company at up to $1.5 billion, reports the International Business Times. The company’s valuation is 70 to 90 times Just Eat’s projected pre-tax earnings for 2013, according to the Financial Times. The has raised roughly $130 million from investors, including Index Ventures, Greylock Partners, Redpoint Ventures, SM Trust, Venrex Investment Management, and Vitruvian Partners. It boasts 5.5 million active users.

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Exits

Userfox, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that helps companies retain their users via email, including through newsletter management, has been acquired by AdRoll, the online ad retargeting company. The acquisition is AdRoll’s second after Bitdeli, acquired in June of last year. Userfox had raised a modest amount of angel funding from Y Combinator, 500 Startups, and Point Nine Capital.

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People

Marc Andreessen took to Twitter yesterday to dash any hopes that PayPal might be spun off from eBay, a move that activist investor Carl Icahn had proposed. Andreessen, an eBay director, wrote: “Entire eBay board, including me, fully aligned that eBay + PayPal are best together.”

Thorsten Claus has joined Next World Capital as a principal based in San Francisco. Claus joins the firm from T-Venture, the venture arm of Deutsche Telekom Group, where he was a senior investment manager. Some of his past investments include (now public) Demandware, Ubiquisys (acquired by Cisco), and Jawbone, the privately held wearable technology and audio device company.

Eric Wolford, who recently served as the president of the products group of software optimization company Riverbed Technology, has joined Accel Partners as a venture partner. Wolford currently sits on the board of directors for BitTorrent and Jut, both Accel companies.

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Happenings

If you’re in New York early next week, you might want to check out a Bitcoin discussion taking place at the offices of venture firm Union Square Ventures. The event — which is open to the public but limited in size due to space constraints — will feature five speakers, including: Seetha Ramachandran, the deputy chief of the asset forfeiture and money laundering section at the U.S. Department of Justice; Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam; Jeremy Allaire, founder of the digital currency company Circle; Albert Wenger, a managing director at Union Square Ventures; and Margo Tank, a partner at Bucky Sandler, a law firm that specialises in anti-money laundering and information security cases.

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Job Listings

The D.E. Shaw Group is looking for a corporate development associate in New York. The job entails proposing, researching, and executing new business ideas; applicants should have at least two years of experience in management consulting, venture capital, i-banking, PE, or at a startup.

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Data

A rising tide lifts all boats: CB Insights publishes its chart of the day, showing that corporate VCs are benefiting from a wave of tech IPOs, right alongside their traditional, independent peers.

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Essential Reads

How celebrated Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down 100,000 tech engineers’ wages.

The U.S. prison system is already packed with minor drug offenders; let’s not make the same mistake with hackers, argues former public defender Hani Fakhoury in an excellent essay in Wired.

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Detours

These 25 high schools boast the highest standardized test scores in the the U.S.

Former CIA spy Valerie Plame thinks “Homeland” “jumped the shark this season.”

We can all laugh about the “Super Doobie Bowl,” but there’s nothing funny about pot’s effect on teenagers, say Northwestern University professors.

A photo series you’ll want to get behind. (We had to lighten things up after that last item.)

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Retail Therapy

We love these fashionable eyeglasses for kids. (Is anyone doing this in the U.S.?)

A Polaroid to help you cut the cheese. (No, really.)

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Good morning, happy Thursday, everyone! Our column didn’t come together as expected today (sick kid), but we hope you find today’s discussion thought-provoking.

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Top News in the A.M.

Whoa, the most crowdfunded project in history just hit $37 million, and it’s still climbing.

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Albert Wenger Takes the Long View

Earlier this week, Albert Wenger, a managing partner at Union Square Ventures, departed from the standard VC script of promoting his own startups to discourse about the future of mankind. He shared his views on stage at the DLD (for Digital Life Design) conference in Munich. More specifically, he talked about where we are in the Information Age and what the past can tell us about the future.

It’s a 15-minute long chat that you can watch for yourself, but here were some of Wenger’s most interesting observations:

Innovations often come in disruptive, complementary pairs, though it isn’t always obvious at the time. As examples, Wenger pointed to agriculture and the domestication of animals, including horses. The two are seemingly nonlinear, but horses “become more valuable to you if you’ve got agriculture, and vice versa,” he noted. Wenger also pointed to power and manufacturing (steam and electric power enabled the latter); chemistry and deep mining (“We didn’t find out what the air was made of until the late 1700s; we didn’t figure out how to isolate a lot of elements until the early 1800s”); and computers and networks.

Recent examples include machine learning and robotics, imaging and 3D printing, and big data and cell biology.

These disruptions have had significant social implications. In the Stone Age, he noted, “there was no property or communal property.” Then, we “moved to the Agrarian Age, and people who had property had power, and those who didn’t, [didn’t].” It was only in the Industrial Age that people began to have “this really strong notion of personal, individual property that’s truly yours,” including intellectual property, he said.

Indeed, “a lot of what we take for granted are relatively new” developments, and what may seem immutable today is, in fact, highly variable. Take government. “We’ve gone from tribes to fiefdoms to kingdoms to empires to nation states. What do we want the [next] unit of governance to be?” It’s “up for grabs,” said Wenger, and “we should be thinking about what it should be.”

Privacy is “another very modern construct,” observed Wenger. “Foragers didn’t have privacy; they were living in caves. Early agrarian societies lived in very tiny villages. I think we need to question … exactly what we mean when we [say] we want to protect data.”

How we make a living has also changed time and again. In the Stone Age, it was “a communal thing.” In the Agrarian Age, “people sold what they made.” It was “only in the Industrial Age where we switched to a model where we’re paid for our time — and that turned out not to be a very good model for a lot of people,” making “that, too, up for grabs again.”

Ultimately, argued Wenger, “Because we’ve come from long periods where scarcity was the dominant paradigm, it’s led to a lot of things we may be able to replace.”

The question, he concluded, is “what we want it to look like. And I don’t think we know yet,” he said.

New Fundings

Chartio, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based business intelligence startup, has raised $2.2 million in additional funding from previous investor Avalon Ventures, which led the company’s $4.4 million Series A round in 2011. The company has raised around $6.6 million altogether, including from Bullpen Capital and Y Combinator.

Cohera Medical, an eight-year-old, Pittsburgh, Pa.-based company that makes absorbable surgical adhesives and sealants, has raised an additional $9.3 million to close its Series D financing with $26.3 million. The company did not disclose its investors in a release, but Crunchbase shows the company has raised $66 million to date, including fromBradford Capital Partners and Kern Whelan Capital.

Drizly, a three-year-old, Boston-based app that enables consumers to order and have delivered to their doorsteps beer, wine, and liquor, has raised $2.25 million through an AngelList syndicate anchored by Atlas Venture. Among the other participants: Abundance Partners, Breakaway Ventures, Continental Advisors, Fairhaven Capital and Reynolds & Company Venture Partners. Individuals also participated in the round, including Tom Crotty, a longtime managing general partner at Battery who is now a senior advisor.

Kensho, a year-old, New York-based company that’s developing intelligent computer systems that can answer complex financial and market research questions posed in natural language, has raised $10 million in seed funding. Investors from General Catalyst, New Enterprise Associates, Accel Partners, Google Ventures, Devonshire Investorsand other, unnamed, VCs participated. The company’s virtual market research assistant, “Warren,” is currently being tested by asset managers and research teams.

Lyst, a 3.5-year-old, London-based fashion ecommerce platform, has raised $14 million in Series B funding led by Balderton Capital. Previous investors DFJ Esprit and Accel Partners also invested in the round. Lyst has now raised around $20 million altogether.

MDLIVE, a seven-year-old, Sunrise, Fla.-based telehealth services and software company, has raised $23.6 million in funding from Heritage Group, Sutter Health and Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors. The company has previously raised funds from Sentara Healthcare and serial CEO John Sculley, who serves of MDLIVE’s board.

MemSQL, a three-year-old, San Francisco company that’s focused on distributed in-memory database technology, has raised $35 million in Series B funding led by Accel Partners. The round included participation from Khosla Ventures and existing investors First Round Capital andData Collective, as well as from several individuals, and brings the company’s total funding to $45 million.

Mendix, an eight-year-old, Rotterdam, Netherlands-based app platform company, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Battery Ventures, with participation from Prime Ventures, its Series A investor. Mendix has raised $38 million altogether.

MySmartPrice.com, a three-year-old, Hyderabad, India-based online comparison shopping site, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from previous investors Accel Partners and Helion Venture Partners, [reports VCCircle]. The company had raised roughly $7 million previously, says the outlet.

NewsCred, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based content marketing platform, has raised $25 million in Series C funding led by InterWest Partners. Existing investors Mayfield Fund, FirstMark Capital and IA Ventures also participated in the round. The company has raised $45 million to date.

Sharethrough, a 5.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup focused on native advertising, has raised $7 million in equity and $10 million in debt from new investors Elevation Partners, Silver Creek, and Sharethrough’s president, Patrick Keane. Earlier investors North Bridge Venture Partners and Floodgate also participated in the round.

Stripe, the four-year-old, San Francisco-based company that makes payment processing easier for developers, has closed on $80 million in new funding from investors that include Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Founders Fund, says the WSJ. The round values the company at $1.75 billion. Stripe has raised $120 million to date, including from Redpoint Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, and Andreessen Horowitz.

StyleSeat, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based online marketplace for beauty and wellness services, has raised $10.2 million in Series A financing led by Lightspeed Ventures with participation from other contributors, including earlier investor Lowercase Capital. StyleSeat has raised $14 million altogether.

Victor, a three-year-old, London-based online marketplace for private jet charters and per seat bookings, has raised over $8 million in Series A funding. Investors include the company’s founder and CEO, Clive Jackson; Tim Richards, the CEO and founder of Vue Entertainment;Andrew Pisker, co-founder of Richmond Park Partners; and other individual investors.

Zenefits, a year-old, San Francisco-based startup that automates basic HR tasks like new enrollment for small and mid-size businesses, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. Earlier investors Maverick Venture Partners and Venrock also participated in the round. To date, Zenefits has raised $17.1 million.

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New Funds

Contour Venture Partners, a New York-based venture firm focused on financial services, digital media and other Internet investments, is looking to raise up to $50 million for its third fund, shows an SEC filing. Contour has two managing partners: Matt Gorin and Bob Greene. Greene was formerly a managing partner of Flatiron Partners (the former firm of Union Square’s Fred Wilson). Gorin previously worked at a merchant bank called Promontory Financial Group. Among the firm’s newest investments are the startups Contently and Simpli.fi.

Yesterday, StrictlyVC spotted a filing for a new firm called Corazon Capital that listed Match.com CEO Sam Yagan, among others. For more information, we’ve reached out to Yagan — a serial entrepreneur who sold the dating service OkCupid to Match, and his earlier company, Spark Notes, to Barnes & Noble. We haven’t heard back yet, but Corazon has posted a bare-bones site that lists Yagan as the sole GP. It also lists five founding venture partners, including: Chris Coyne and Max Krohn, who cofounded Spark Notes and OkCupid with Yagan; Christian Rudder, an early employee of both Spark Notes and OkCupid; Zach Kaplan, founder and CEO of Inventables and a TechStars Chicago mentor; and Steve Farsht, an operator and investor who serves on the board of TechStars Chicago. Reached by Crain’s Chicago yesterday, Kaplan didn’t shed much more light on the effort, though he offered of the new fund that, “We’re looking for great entrepreneurs,” and that “Sam’s a brilliant guy.”

Lightspeed Venture Partners, the 14-year-old, Menlo Park, Calif.-based venture firm, is talking to limited partners about raising an early-stage fund and a growth-stage fund that could total roughly $800 million, reports peHUB. The firm raised $675 million for its ninth fund in 2012 and $800 million for its eighth fund in 2008.

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Exits

UberVu, a five-year-old, London-based social analytics platform, has been acquired by HootSuite, a five-year-old platform for enterprises to manage their presence on social media sites. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. UberVu had raised $586,000 from Seedcamp and Eden Ventures. HootSuite has raised $190 million, including from Blumberg Capital,Insight Venture Partners, Accel Partners, and OMERS Ventures.

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People

Napster cofounder Shawn Fanning receives the worst coverage imaginable from Valleywag, which alleges he may be a “deadbeat dad.” Everyone comes out looking lousy in this strange tale.

Yesterday, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg became one of the world’s youngest U.S. billionaires when Facebook closed at a record high, reports Bloomberg. Sandberg, 44, owns 12.3 million shares of the company, which were valued yesterday at around $750 million; meanwhile, she has already sold more than $300 million in shares since the company’s IPO and has 4.7 million stock options that began vesting in May of last year, says Bloomberg.

After 15 years, Lisa Suennen is leaving the healthcare-focused venture fund Psilos Group, according to my former colleague, Mark Boslet. Suennen told Boslet that she’ll continue to serve as a consultant to venture firms, startups and corporations as she evaluates new opportunities; she described the split as amicable.

Founders Yin Yin Wu and Xuwen Cao tell Fortune why the startup they dreamed up at Y Combinator is out of business seven months later.

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Happenings

Looking for hardware engineers? Next week’s DesignCon conference at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Silicon Valley could be a great place to chat up some of the hundreds of chip, board and systems designers expected to attend. From January 28th through the 31st. Details are here.

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Jobs

Eventbrite, the online ticketing platform is looking for a corporate development manager in San Francisco. Eventbrite has raised $140 million over the last seven years, including from pre-IPO investors Tiger Global Management and T.Rowe Price.

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Data

Pitchbook published a comprehensive study yesterday on venture capital and private equity fundraising. One takeaway from the report is that the venture “barbell,” as we all call it, may be growing less pronounced.

According to the firm, more than half of the funds closed in both 2012 and 2013 had less than $50 million in commitments. That’s pretty notable; it’s the only time so many small funds have been closed in the last decade.

But last year also saw a big uptick in mid-size funds. Twenty-five funds in the range of $100 million to $250 million garnered $4 billion in commitments — the highest total since 2009. The number of funds in the $250 million to $500 million range also grew meaningfully. In fact, 18 funds garnered a combined $6.1 billion in 2013, a 61 percent increase from 2012. Meanwhile, just seven funds raised more than $500 million or more in 2013, the lowest number since 2004. (Of course, some megafunds are coming this year, so we’ll see how that impacts the data next year.)

It’s worth taking a look at the report, which you can download here.

451 Research also has some excellent data out today on M&A. According to its findings, tech buyers spent $245 billion on targets last year, roughly 20 percent more than in 2012, 2011, or 2010. One company that wasn’t among them, surprisingly: Hewlett Packard. Though the company spent roughly $50 billion across 65 transactions between 2002 and 2011, 451 Research notes that it didn’t announce a single purchase in 2013. You can learn much more here.

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Essential Reads

A computer vision expert has taken a look at Snapchat’s revamped security technology and doesn’t see much of an improvement.

A good old-fashioned shareholder battle is brewing in the Pacific Northwest over an acquired startup that might have fetched a higher valuation. Geekwire has the story.

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Detours

We were floored by this remarkable series called “Reflections” by Dallas photographer John Hussey.

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Retail Therapy

If you own a gun, this would be a smart investment.

These shirts really are as nice as shirts that cost three times the price.

Russian nesting dolls that are each painted like one of Twitter’s many founding players, from poor Noah Glass up to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo. Very funny, though not a joke, interestingly.

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Good Wednesday morning, everyone!

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Top News in the A.M.

Is Asia’s most successful businessman, the billionaire Li Ka-shing, getting, well, rusty?

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Zepp Labs Gets Into the Swing of Things With Fresh $15 Million

Sports tech startup Zepp Labs, a three-year-old, 35-person startup in Los Gatos, Calif., is capitalizing on athletes’ desire to ace the competition. Specifically, the company is tracking athletes’ batting, golf, and tennis swings via its one-inch-square, 3D motion sensors, units that can capture 1,000 data points per second and transmit the visualized information to users’ iOS or Android devices in real time.

It’s a big market, says cofounder and CEO Jason Fass, who sees athletes of all skill levels – and interests — as potential customers for the lightweight sensing units, which are mounted directly on bats, clubs, and rackets. Zepp is really “building a platform that we can take into other sports,” he says.

Retailers see the possibility. Apple and Verizon are among others that sell Zepp’s $150 sports sensors. VCs are biting, too. This morning, the company is announcing a $15 million Series B round led by GGV Capital, financing that brings Zepp’s total funding to $20 million.

Yesterday, I chatted with cofounder Jason Fass – formerly a director of product management at both Jawbone and Apple – about how he’ll use the new funding, as well as who his earliest adopters are.

Where did this idea come from?

Originally, we had the idea to build a game controller like a Nintendo Wii, but we looked at what was happening in wearables and we realized no one was really doing this for sports and athletes and that the technology we were building could be insanely accurate.

The company has said some pro athletes, like Giants infielder Pablo Sandoval, use the sensor. Where are you seeing the most pick-up, in professional sports leagues, youth leagues?

Golf and baseball are among the most mature in customers’ desire for data. Golf is growing rapidly, especially with a lot of early adopter tech folks. We’re also now seeing a lot of interest in the baseball community because there’s just nothing like this. We get emails every day from Little League coaches and batting camps; we’ve also been approached by a number of Major League Baseball teams. People are excited because the technology gives them a perspective on their swing that they couldn’t get before.

Interesting about kids’ baseball; I’d wonder about making kids overthink their swing.

There’s definitely an element of analysis by paralysis, but it’s hard to go from a Little Leaguer to the Major League, so players and coaches and parents are really looking for ways to help kids improve. We see parents all the time who are like, “He’s the best on the team but we want to keep him moving forward.” They used to describe his swing to him; now he can see it for himself on his iPod or Android Touch.

What did you learn at Apple and Jawbone that you’re applying to this startup?

One of the biggest things I learned at Apple [were the benefits of focusing] so intently on product. So we focus a lot on product. From a sales and go-to-market and channel perspective, Jawbone has just done a fantastic job. I’m applying those lessons here, too.

What are you planning to do with your new funding?

Ultimately, we think every ball, bat, racket, and shoe will be digitally connected and that there’s an opportunity for a company to own that sports technology space in a way that no one owns right now. It sounds lofty, but that’s our goal.

New Fundings

4C Insights, a three-year-old, New York-based data analytics and marketing intelligence startup, has raised $5 million in Series B funding from Jump Capital, a private investment firm launched by the founders of Jump Trading, a trading firm in Chicago.

Adallom, a two-year-old, Tel Aviv-based SaaS security startup, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Index Ventures, with participation from existing investor Sequoia Capital. The company — founded by alumni of the Israeli Intelligence Corps — had previously raised a $4.5 million round led by Sequoia.

Ahalogy, a 2.5-year-old, Cincinnati, Oh.-based Pinterest marketing platform, has raised $3.1 million in Series A funding, co-led by Hyde Park Venture Partners and Origin Ventures. Other investors in the round included CincyTech, North Coast Angel Fund, and Vine Street Ventures.

Aorato, a two-year-old, Herzliya, Israel-based cybersecurity startup, has raised $10 million in Series B funding in a round that included Accel Partners, Glilot Capital Partners, and Innovation Endeavors, along with individual investors.

Docker, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose open-source technology helps developers move code to the cloud quickly, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Greylock Partners. Other participants included Insight Venture Partners and previous investorsBenchmark Capital, Trinity Ventures, and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.

Gainspeed, a two-year-old, Sunnyvale, Calif., company that migrates the networks of cable operators to a software-driven, all-IP architecture, has raised $10 million in Series B funding, according to an SEC filing. The company’s investors include Juniper Networks, New Enterprise Associates, and Shasta Ventures. It has raised roughly $33 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Intercom, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based messaging service that businesses use to create personalized customer responses online, has raised $23 million in Series B funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Other participants included Social+Capital Partnership. Intercom was incubated at 500 Startups; it has raised $30 million altogether.

Nexmo, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that links the cloud applications of customers like Airbnb directly to carriers, has raised $18 million in Series C funding led by Sorenson Capital. Intel and NHN Investment also participated in the round, which brings Nexmo’s total funding to $22 million.

StormWind, a four-year-old, Phoenix, Az.-based online training and e-learning company, has raised $5 million in Series C funding from existing investor GSV Capital. The company has raised $9 million to date, according to Crunchbase.

Synthelis, a three-year-old, La Tronche, France-based biotech company that’s developing therapeutic targets and antigens for use in new drugs and vaccines, has raised €610,000 from French investors, includingRhone-Alpes Creation, Alpes Developpement Durable Investissement (A2D-Invest), Sud Rhone-Alpes Capital, Viaduc and the Savoy andGrenoble Business Angels networks.

YOHO!, a 8.5-year-old, Nanjing, China-based media and e-commerce company focused on fashion, has raised $30 million in Series C financing from SAIF Partners. It has raised its previous (undisclosed) rounds of funding from CDHfund, Bertelsmann Asia Investments, and Vertex Venture Capital.

ZipLine Medical, a seven-year-old, Campbell, Calif.-based medical device company that’s developing noninvasive surgical skin closure devices (to replace, for example, staples), has raised $4.3 million in Series C funding. New investor RA Capital Management led the round, which included participation from existing investors XSeed Capital and Claremont Creek Ventures.

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New Funds

Earlybird Venture Capital, the 17-year-old, Berlin-based early-stage venture firm, has raised $110 million for its new Digital East Fund, the company announced yesterday morning. The fund is targeting $130 million and will focus on tech companies in Turkey and Central and Eastern Europe. LPs include the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Fund, the International Finance Corp. and Istanbul Venture Capital Initiative. The funds bring the amount of capital that Earlybird has raised over the years to more than $900 million.

Chicago entrepreneurs Sam Yagan and Steven Farsht are raising a new investment fund, shows an SEC filing. Called Corazon Capital, it has so far garnered $6.6 million; the total offering amount is marked as “indefinite.” Yagan cofounded the dating site OkCupid, acquired by Match, Inc., in 2011 for $90 million; Yagan is currently the CEO of Match. Farsht is a director and board member at TechStars Chicago and is a member of the FireStarter Fund. Previously, he was COO of Tap.Me, a company that sold to MediaMath in 2012 for undisclosed terms; he was also a general partner with Norwest Equity Partners.

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IPOs

Sabre Corp., the owner of online travel agency Travelocity, has filed to raise up to $100 million in an IPO as it attempts to become a publicly traded company again. Its principal shareholders include TPG, which owns 45.3 percent of the company’s shares; Silver Lake, which owns 27.9 percent; and Sovereign Co-Invest, which owns a 23.4 percent stake. Reuters has more here.

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Exits

Airwatch, a 10-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based mobile device management company, is being acquired by cloud software maker VMWare for $1.5 billion in mostly cash, with $365 million in installment payments and unvested stock options. Airwatch had raised $225 million as a standalone company, and all of it came last year: the company closed on $200 million from Insight Venture Partners last February; last May, Accel Partnersinvested another $25 million in the company. “With mobile device usage becoming more prevalent in the workplace, we believe this acquisition will prove strategic in complementing and enhancing VMWare’s end-user computing business,” ISI Group analyst Brian Marshall told Reuters.

Drawing app DrawQuest is being shut down by Chris Poole, its creator and the founder of 4chan founder, Poole announced yesterday. Canvas Networks, an online community that Poole created in 2011, will also be closing. “No soft landing, no happy ending — we simply failed,” Poole wrote on his Tumblr page. “Although we arguably found product/market fit, we couldn’t quite crack the business side of things.” In 2011, Poole raised $3 million for Canvas from Union Square Ventures, SV Angel, Lerer Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Founder Collective and Joshua Schachter.

Intel Media‘s OnCue, an Internet television startup, has been acquired by Verizon for reportedly less than $200 million. The deal will see 350 Intel employees move over to Verizon. With the acquisition, “We will have the opportunity to enhance, expand, accelerate and integrate our delivery of video products and services to better serve audiences on a wide array of devices,” said Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam in a statement.

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People

Investor-turned-tweeting maestro Marc Andreessen gives the world aBitcoin primer in Dealbook. (It’s worth saving for future reference, whether or not you agree with all of his conclusions.)

Benedict Evans, a London-based mobile analyst, is joining Andreessen Horowitz in Menlo Park, Calif., where he’ll be “part of the deal and research team and will work across the organization to bring his insight and analysis to the firm and our portfolio,” says a spokeswoman. Evans has spent the last 15 years working as a strategist for tech and media organizations, including NBC Universal and Orange, the French telecommunications company.

Donald Fischer has joined the General Catalyst Partners as a venture partner in Boston after five years at Greylock Partners, where as a principal, he focused on big data, open source, cloud, and other enterprise tech startups. According to his LinkedIn profile, Fischer incubated the startup Typesafe at Greylock, then “led the Series A investment, launched the company, and served as CEO for the first year of operations leading up to a $14M Series B financing.” Before Greylock, Fischer was VP of online services at Red Hat.

Adam Nash is replacing Andy Rachleff as CEO of the financial advisory startup Wealthfront, making Nash, previously Wealthfront’s COO, its third CEO in five years. Of the transition, Rachleff, a legendary venture capitalist who’d never run a company before, tells reporter Sarah Lacy: “If I’d known how hard this was going to be, I probably wouldn’t have done it.”

Luis Robles, who joined Sequoia Capital as a partner in 2010, has left the firm, reports Dan Primack. (Sequoia doesn’t comment on personnel changes but a source says Robles is pursuing entrepreneurial endeavors.) Robles led a handful of enterprise deals for Sequoia, including ThousandEyes, a four-year-old company that provides IT performance management for its customers. Before joining Sequoia, Robles was a senior product manager at VMWare.

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Happenings

Y Combinator, the popular accelerator, is hosting its first female founders conference on Saturday, March 1, says cofounder Jessica Livingston. In a blog post, Livingston says the the event aims to “gather together female founders at all stages to share stories, give advice, and make connections.” The conference will feature talks by female alumni of Y Combinator, as well as Eventbrite co-founder Julia Hartz and VMware co-founder Diane Greene.

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Job Listings

Microsoft is looking for a director of business development in its wearables division. You’ll need at least eight years of relevant experience in high-tech; the job is at the company’s Redmond, Wa.-headquarters.

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Data

CB Insights points us to 20 venture-backed companies that nobody calls “clean tech” but probably should.

Pitchbook looks at the 8 venture funds that raised between $250 million and $500 million in 2009, finding their median IRR is currently 16.5 percent. The best performers of the lot right now: Highland Capital Partners VIII, Scale Venture Partners III, and Trinity Ventures X.

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Essential Reads

Columbus, Ohio man who went to the movies with his wife, was subjected to a “terrifying” hour-long interrogation by the FBI and local police because he was wearing Google Glass and was thought to be illegally taping the movie. (Not a satire.)

According to Cisco’s annual security report, 99 percent of all malware in 2013 targeted Android devices.

According to a provocative new study by researchers from Princeton University who compared the life cycles of ideas with the life cycles of diseases, Facebook users will lose interest in the social network as their peers do, with the bulk of this activity occurring between 2015 and 2017.

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Detours

Artisanal toast: San Francisco’s newest obsession.

A Q&A with neuroscientist James Fallon, who discovered that he has, gulp, the brain of a psychopath.

Where the real Sochi Olympics will be taking place.

Berkshire Hathaway and Quicken Loans are partnering to award anyone who fills out a perfect 2014 Men’s NCAA Tournament bracket with $1 billion. The contest starts March 3.

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Retail Therapy

From the accessories-gone-mad files: A tray for your Apple TV. Lined with merino wool. In sustainably sourced walnut or maple wood, naturally.

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Sports tech startup Zepp Labs, a three-year-old, 35-person startup in Los Gatos, Calif., is capitalizing on athletes’ desire to ace the competition. Specifically, the company is tracking athletes’ batting, golf, and tennis swings via its one-inch-square, 3D motion sensors, units that can capture 1,000 data points per second and transmit the visualized information to users’ iOS or Android devices in real time.

It’s a big market, says cofounder and CEO Jason Fass, who sees athletes of all skill levels – and interests — as potential customers for the lightweight sensing units, which are mounted directly on bats, clubs, and rackets. Zepp is really “building a platform that we can take into other sports,” he says.

Retailers see the possibility. Apple and Verizon are among others that sell Zepp’s $150 sports sensors. VCs are biting, too. This morning, the company is announcing a $15 million Series B round led by GGV Capital, financing that brings Zepp’s total funding to $20 million.

Yesterday, I chatted with cofounder Jason Fass – formerly a director of product manager at both Jawbone and Apple – about how he’ll use the new funding, as well as who his earliest adopters are.

Where did this idea come from?

Originally, we had the idea to build a game controller like a Nintendo Wii, but we looked at what was happening in wearables and we realized no one was really doing this for sports and athletes and that the technology we were building could be insanely accurate.

The company has said some pro athletes, like Giants infielder Pablo Sandoval, use the sensor. Where are you seeing the most pick-up, in professional sports leagues, youth leagues?

Golf and baseball are among the most mature in customers’ desire for data. Golf is growing rapidly, especially with a lot of early adopter tech folks. We’re also now seeing a lot of interest in the baseball community because there’s just nothing like this. We get emails every day from Little League coaches and batting camps; we’ve also been approached by a number of Major League Baseball teams. People are excited because the technology gives them a perspective on their swing that they couldn’t get before.

Interesting about kids’ baseball; I’d wonder about making kids overthink their swing.

There’s definitely an element of analysis by paralysis, but it’s hard to go from a Little Leaguer to the Major League, so players and coaches and parents are really looking for ways to help kids improve. We see parents all the time who are like, “He’s the best on the team but we want to keep him moving forward.” They used to describe his swing to him; now he can see it for himself on his iPod or Android Touch.

What did you learn at Apple and Jawbone that you’re applying to this startup?

One of the biggest things I learned at Apple [were the benefits of focusing] so intently on product. So we focus a lot on product. From a sales and go-to-market and channel perspective, Jawbone has just done a fantastic job. I’m applying those lessons here, too.

What are you planning to do with your new funding?

Ultimately, we think every ball, bat, racket, and shoe will be digitally connected and that there’s an opportunity for a company to own that sports technology space in a way that no one owns right now. It sounds lofty, but that’s our goal.

Sign up for our morning missive, StrictlyVC, featuring all the venture-related news you need to start you day.

Good morning!

Readers, I’m very sorry that some of you aren’t receiving StrictlyVC consistently, particularly those of you with Gmail accounts. Here’s a link that shows you how to get the newsletter out of your spam folder. You might also sign up with your work or other account. (I’m loath to propose it, but given how often Gmail changes its algorithms…)

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Top News in the A.M.

The World Economic Forum in Davos, which begins tomorrow, is as notable for its attendees as for its absentees, observes Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Google employees were reportedly given talking points to use during a hearing being held today by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency; the hearing will feature discussion about the search giant’s commuter buses, which have illegally been using the city’s bus stops.

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Polaris Co-founder Terry McGuire on the Faddish Nature of Healthcare Investing

Terry McGuire, the cofounder of the venerable venture firm Polaris Partners, was recently in San Francisco from Boston. As we caught up over coffee at a bustling cafe, the longtime healthcare investor — whose firm divides its resources between healthcare and IT deals and writes checks from $50,000 to $60 million — shared where he’s finding the best deals right now and why he doubts VCs’ sudden interest in healthcare will last long. Our chat has been edited for length.

Healthcare is hot again, with even consumer VCs like Bill Gurley taking an interest. How do you feel about that?

It’s wonderful that healthcare is hot again, and as consumers of healthcare, we should be thrilled. Technology is going to allow us to live longer, happier lives. The opportunities are changing and at a speed that’s accelerating, which has an impact on drugs and devices; bringing them to market is improving.

I sense a “but” coming.

On the life sciences side, billion-dollar exits aren’t as common as on the tech side, where speed to market is fast, things are more capital efficient, and the virality of markets are much more interesting. So you go through these wonderful moments as now, when everyone is again a healthcare investor, but in three years, they won’t be.

To me, the biggest question mark is how does pressure on health care spend impact healthcare investing. I think in some cases it’s going to be a liability and in some cases an opportunity. There’s only so much money to go around.

So where do you see the best opportunities right now?

I’m following the whole biologics space — antibodies, peptides, the genetics space more broadly. It’s become exciting. We just funded a company in the business of editing the genome, so finding ways to knock down something that the body is producing too much of, for example.

We’re also interested in the delivery of biologics. Most drugs are taken orally, and if a pill is chemical-based, it can probably withstand your stomach acids. With biologics, our stomachs do a good job of chomping up everything that [passes through them]. If you can improve delivery – most [biologics today, like insulin] are delivered intravenously or through injections – that’s interesting.

What about medical devices?

They’re out of favor, so I personally think the next five or six years will be marked by interesting medical device plays. When a sector is out of favor, entrepreneurs tend to be incredibly disciplined and efficient and clever. They know capital isn’t free and that if they need to go out for capital, it’s going to be expensive because the prices are low.

And medical devices will always be a part of our healthcare system, and they’re only going to become more intelligent and more functional. In five years, people will be saying, “I wish I had been in this and that device deal.”

Four of Polaris’s life sciences companies were acquired last year and another four went public. But the market cooled toward biotechs toward year end. Do you have any concerns about 2014?

I’m delighted that public buyers had a reawakening when it came to biotechnology. People clearly thought there was a lot of good stuff going on last year. I’d just want people to pace themselves. If things went wrong, it would be because expectations were high.

Mood is a strange thing. People get negative, then something breaks open – a drug gets approved or earnings come out that are better than expected – and people say, “Why was I sitting on the sidelines?” and they race over. That kind of funny dynamic concerns me more than the companies themselves.

New Fundings

BuildDirect, a 14-year-old, Vancouver-based manufacturer and wholesaler of building materials that it sells online to everyone from building professionals to amateurs, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Mohr Davidow Ventures. Other investors to participate in the round included earlier backer BDC Venture Capital. The company has raised about $63 million to date, including from OMERS Ventures and Difference Capital.

CommonFloor, a six-year-old, Bangalore-based online service that combines property search, apartment management and vendor management, has raised $10.4 million in Series D funding from existing investors Accel India and Tiger Global. The two firms have twice invested in CommonFloor before, providing the company with an undisclosed amount of funding in 2012 and with $7.5 million in funding last year.

Fon, a eight-year-old, Madrid-based crowdsourced Wi-Fi network, has raised $14 million, including from Qualcomm, which reportedly plans to integrate Fon functionality into its Atheros wireless chipsets. Other investors in the round included Deutsche Telekom, Google, Index Partners, Coral, and Atomico. Fon has raised north of $70 million to date.

Hailo, a three-year-old, London-based company behind a popular cab-hailing app that brings taxis to customers, has raised $28.8 million in new funding, according to the company. It didn’t disclose who invested in the round, but the company, which reportedly has 13,000 cab drivers using the service in 13 cities, has now raised $77 million, shows Crunchbase. Earlier investors include Atomico, Wellington Partners, Felicis Ventures, Accel and Red Swan.

LineKong, a six-year-old, Beijing-based mobile game developer, has raised $80 million in Series C funding from Orchid Asia, SAIF Partners,Starwish Global, and Profitable Century International. LineKong has now raised $115 million altogether, including earlier funding from IDG,New Enterprise Associates, and Northern Light Venture Capital.

Resource Guru, a London-based company that produces a team scheduling app, has raised $870,000 in funding led by Index Ventures. Resource Guru has now raised a total of $1.14 million.

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People

Michael Brosse, a partner at Kirkland & Ellis since 2000, has left the firm to focus on the private equity and M&A practice at Lowenstein Sandler, a firm with about 300 attorneys in New York, New Jersey and California.

Tim Draper‘s Draper University has restored some luster to a dingy block in downtown San Mateo, Calif., but despite an outlay of $20 million, some city officials are complaining that he hasn’t gone far enough.

The Canadian venture firm iNovia Capital has promoted two principals to partner roles. Karam Nijjar joined the firm in 2010; directly prior, he’d worked as a technical systems analyst at the Royal Bank of Canada.Kevin Swan, who also joined iNovia in 2010, was previously a managing director at Cardinal Venture Partners, a seed-stage fund.

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Job Listings

Frost Venture Partners, a venture firm and incubator based in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., is looking for a “director of incubation.” Learn more here.

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Data

India-based venture investment fell 18 percent last year from 2012, according to new analysis by Venture Intelligence. Investors poured $805 million into 206 deals in 2013, down from $898 million invested in 252 deals the previous year.

Nordic VC firm Creandum says it has built the world’s largest database of businesses dealing in Bitcoins — more than 300 of them — in an effort to shed light on the currency and give entrepreneurs and investors an overview of companies with a significant role in the Bitcoin system. Reuters has more here.

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Essential Reads

As the number of electric cars begins to far outnumber the number of chargers available in Silicon Valley, drivers are developing — wait for it — charge rage.

Last Thursday night, Congress passed a budget that will make about half of taxpayer-funded research available to the public. The rule will apply to certain federal agencies with research budgets of $100 million or more; they’ll have to provide the public with online access within 12 months of publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The Washington Post has much more on the story here.

From American Lawyer: “Doug Van Gessel, a [land use attorney] who has represented Google, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft in the leasing of office space, said city officials in Silicon Valley have become more sophisticated. ‘I think the city government used to be ecstatic to have a Google or a Facebook come to town, and now they’re looking at the cases more carefully,’ he said.” Said another land use attorney to the outlet: “When you’re talking about how you’re going to play in a community, that’s not an issue that’s going to open and shut with one building. These companies are growing.”

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Detours

Could this 43-year-old Russian émigré who “looks like a geeked-out Gen Xer,” hold the key to human regeneration?

Detroit is erecting a 10-foot bronze Robocop statue. Just what the city needs.

Car porn: 15 vintage Porsches.

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Retail Therapy

Neat, a panoramic camera that films 360 degrees around you.

Talk or tweet from the bathroom without compunction, thanks to this clamshell charger that sanitizes a variety of phones in just four minutes. (We were sold at “UV-C lamps,” though we also like that you can charge your phone while it’s being zapped.)

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Happy Monday! Hope you can find time today to celebrate the great Martin Luther King, Jr., and his mission. As former President Bill Clinton tweeted this morning, “Dr. King reminded us that we are all part of ‘an inescapable network of mutuality.’ We cannot go forward if we don’t do it together.”

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Top News in the A.M.

Wowsa. The world’s 85 richest individuals now own as much as the poorest half of the 7 billion global population, according to a report released by Oxfam this morning.

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The Case for the $250 Million Fund

As you may have noticed, there aren’t a lot of independent, active venture funds in the neighborhood of $250 million these days. Many of them, raised in the late ‘90s, failed to produce the returns needed to raise another pool of capital. Meanwhile, most of the successful firms that once operated in that range – think Kleiner Perkins, Institutional Venture Partners, Greylock Partners — went on to raise far larger funds as LPs emerged from all corners, their checkbooks in hand.

You might not think it matters, particularly given today’s booming private markets. But a dearth of mid-range venture funds could have fairly serious repercussions, according to Jim Feuille, a longtime venture capitalist with Crosslink Capital. I met with him recently at the firm’s 22nd-floor Embarcadero Center office in San Francisco, where we discussed the incredible shrinking venture market.

Here’s Feuille’s thinking: Years ago, Crosslink, which is in the process of raising its seventh venture fund – in the $250 million range – used to have a number of syndication partners. That’s no longer the case, he told me. “In [the year] 2000, there were 1,000 firms in business,” he said. “Today, 350 have a shingle out, but probably closer to 80 firms are doing more than two deals a year. Now, let’s say half of those 80 firms are doing more than five deals a year, and of those 40, some have to put $30 million, or $40 million, or $50 million to work [in each deal] because they have a $2 billion fund to invest.

“Five years ago, and in the 20 years before that, you could syndicate a pretty capital-intensive deal, like a hardware or a semiconductor deal that would require $50 million to get a product to market,” says Feuille. Because the number of partners available to do such deals has “really shrunk,” the “only people who can get these deals done are the megafunds,” he adds.

Crosslink has adjusted its investing strategies to deal with this shortage of syndicate partners, preferring to back companies that are generating revenue rather than those that are still in the product development stage. It’s far from alone; according to Ernst & Young, the share of investment going to revenue-stage companies jumped from 56 percent in 2006 to roughly 70 percent by 2012.

Still, it could be bad for the U.S., says Feuille, noting that with rare exceptions, you “can’t start a semiconductor company here anymore; no one wants to buy a partially developed semiconductor product” by a company that has run out of capital. “I don’t follow biotech and medical devices, but you can imagine a similar kind of problem,” he adds. And when it comes to developing any hardware device that’s relying on a custom semiconductor chip, good luck. “It’s going to cost you $100 million bucks” to develop the product.

“We [as an industry] are funding a lot of innovation in terms of the Internet, and media software and so forth,” notes Feuille. “But we’re no longer funding innovation that’s manufacturing-driven and more capital intensive and could potentially employ more people or a different kind of people.”

Such innovation now has to happen in big companies – the Intels and Broadcoms and Googles of the world. That might not bother a lot of people. But maybe, suggests Feuille, it should.

New Fundings

AdQuota, a 3.5-year-old, Copenhagen, Denmark-based mobile advertisement platform, has raised $3.2 million from Northcap, a venture firm in Denmark that backs Northern European startups.

Angel Group Holding Company, a Chengdu, China-based company that operates women’s hospitals, has raised an undisclosed amount of capital from Sequoia Capital, reports China-based outlets. The Series B round comes on the heels of a $16.7 million Series A that the outfit raised in 2010 from CDH Venture and Zero2IPO Ventures.

Bluebox Security, a two-year-old, San Francisco, California-based mobile security startup, has raised $18 million in Series B funding round, including from Tenaya Capital, says Security Week. Earlier investors who also participated include Andreessen Horowitz, Sun Microsystems co-founder Andreas Bechtolsheim, and SV Angel. The company has raised $27.5 million altogether.

Business Insider, the 6.5-year-old, New York-based news outlet, is likely raising a new round from existing investors, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, reports Re/code. The company turned down an informal offer of $100 million from AOL last year. Business Insider has raised $18 million to date, including from Allen & Co., RRE Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners, Pilot Group and Marc Andreessen.

DrivingSales, an 11-year-old, Sandy, Utah-based social network for car dealers, has raised about $3 million in equity, shows an SEC filing. No investors are listed.

Dropbox, the 6.5-year-old, San Francisco-based online storage company, has closed on about $250 million in a funding round that values the company at $10 billion, according to WSJ sources. A BlackRock fund led the deal, which included previous investors. Dropbox’s backers — Goldman Sachs, Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures and Accel Partners, among them — have now invested slightly more than $500 million in the company.

FieldEz, a three-year-old, Bangalore-based company that makes on-demand software for field sales, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from IDG Ventures India and IvyCap Ventures, reports The Economic Times.

Firstcry, a three-year-old Pune, India-based online store that sells baby and children’s products, has raised $15 million in Series C funding led byVertex Venture Holdings, a subsidiary of the Singapore-based investment firm Temasek Holdings. The company has now raised roughly $33 million altogether, including from IDG Ventures and SAIF Partners.

Med Fusion, a three-year-old, Lewisville, Tex-based company, has raised $61.2 million, according to an SEC filing. The company was formed by Baylor Health Care System, Texas Oncology PA, Pathologists Biomedical Laboratories, and US Oncology to integrate advanced laboratory services and clinical trials services. You can learn more about it here.

OTI Greentech, a seven-year-old, Zug, Switzerland-based company that focuses on cleaning, recovering and disposing of oil in a range of applications, has raised $1.9 million from Green Gateway Fund, an outfit that had provided the startup with funding about a year ago, alongside Wermuth Asset Management.

Promentis Pharmaceuticals, a six-year-old, Milwaukee, Wi.-based pharmaceutical company whose compounds aim to treat central nervous system disorders, has raised $2.9 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Black Horse Investments, based in Düsseldorf, Germany. Other participants included the Milwaukee-based angel group Golden Angels Investors.

QuanDX, a three-year-old, Menlo Park, Calif.-based molecular diagnostics startup has raised $950,000 in funding from undisclosed investors, reports VentureBeat. The company is hoping to add another $550,000 to the offering. Last year, it raised $300,000.

Surewaves, a seven-year-old, Bangalore-based company, has raised $5.7 million led by Canaan Partners, which was joined by earlier investors, including Accel Partners and India Innovation Fund. Surewaves has created an advertising platform that serves hundreds of media outlets, including cable TV networks.

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New Funds

We told you in mid-December that Andreessen Horowitz‘s fourth fund was right around the corner. On Friday, Dan Primack of Fortune confirmed that account, reporting that the fund is raising “around” $1.5 billion that will structured in ways similar to its last pool of money, raised in 2012. That third fund included a $900 million slug for early-stage investments and a $600 million parallel fund for later-stage opportunities.

Inventus Capital Partners, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based early-stage venture firm, has raised $106 million for its second vehicle. The firm backs digital services startups primarily and expects to invest in 20 to 25 companies with its new fund. Inventus was founded by Kanwal Rekhi, who founded a computer networking company called Excelan in the early ’80s; he went on to become a prolific angel investor before founding Inventus in 2008. The fund was conceived to back entrepreneurs who leverage Indian talent in Indian markets, including entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. (One of the firm’s first investments, for example, was a scalable data storage company that was based in the Bay Area but whose employees were largely based in Bangalore.)

WestSummit Capital, a 3.5-year-old venture capital firm with offices in Menlo Park, Calif.; Beijing; and Hong Kong, has raised $325 million for two new venture funds, reports VentureWire. WestSummit will use a $225 million pool called Fund II to invest in U.S.-based companies that have the potential to expand into China. A separate, $100 million fund called Summit Bridge Capital Fund will be co-managed with Atlantic Bridge Capital, a growth-stage firm that has offices in Dublin and London and invests in Irish, European, and U.S. tech companies.

World Innovation Lab, or WiL, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based venture investing outfit, has raised a $300 million venture fund, reports the Nikkei Asian Review. WiL is a seven-month-old platform that 10 large Japanese corporations have joined as a way to invest in startups — and to get a better look at what’s happening inside them. Among other things, reports Asian Review, WiL will provide its investors — including Sony, Nissan, and Daiwa Securities Group – with R&D status reports so that they can influence the startups’ development plans or otherwise collaborate with them. WiL was cofounded by Gen Isayama, who spent nearly a decade with DCM. It will write checks of up to $50 million and back six to eight companies a year, both in the U.S. and in Japan.

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People

Suranga Chandratillake, who founded the San Francisco-based Internet media platform Blinx in 2004, has joined Balderton Capital as a general partner. Suranga is returning to his native London for the job. Before founding Blinx, Chandratillake was the U.S.-based CTO of Autonomy and before that, he held a variety of roles at Morgan Stanley.

Michael Sippey, Twitter’s VP of Product, is moving on, posting his goodbye letter to his colleagues on his blog on Friday. “Over the past few weeks I’ve talked with [CEO] Dick [Costolo] and [COO] Ali [Rowghani] about what I want next in my career, and what Twitter needs at this stage of its life. And I’ve decided that it’s time for me to move on. Sippey joined the company in 2012. More here.

Last week, before an audience at the Churchill Club, investor-entrepreneur Peter Thiel interviewed the highest-rated chess player of all time, Magnus Carlsen (video). Carlsen told Thiel he took an interest in chess at age eight, when his father began teaching the game to his older sister. “One of my main interests at that time was to beat my sister at everything she did,” said Carlsen, eliciting laughter from the crowd. During his visit to Silicon Valley, Carlsen also took time out to play chess with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

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Job Listings

AdKnowledge, a digital marketing company that has raised $250 million over the last 10 years, including a $200 million slug from JMI Equity and Bank of America in 2011, is looking for a director of corporate development and strategy.

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Data

CB Insights has begun tracking startup “death trends.” Among its findings so far: In each year since 2010, 70 percent of all failed tech companies have been Internet startups. Roughly 55 percent of failed startups raised $1 million or less, and 71 percent of the now-shuttered companies lasted less than two years after their last funding round. CB Insights also notes that the average company has fizzled out around 20 months after its last funding round, and that acquihires tend to happen up to four months earlier in a startup’s lifecycle, adding that “if you haven’t seen either more capital or an interested acquirer by the 15-month mark, things are not looking good.”

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Essential Reads

Andreessen Horowitz partner Scott Weiss on succeeding at work — and failing at home.

New York’s magazine’s Kevin Roose writes about Whisper, a platform that’s quickly and quietly becoming one of the most “interesting” social networks around, with more than 3 billion page views per month. (We missed this piece last week; if you did, too, it’s worth a read.)

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Detours

Sam Polk, a former hedge fund trader, writes incisively on Wall Street’s addiction to money. “It’s staggering to think that in the course of five years, I’d gone from being thrilled at my first bonus — $40,000 — to being disappointed when, my second year at the hedge fund, I was paid ‘only’ $1.5 million.”

Taken aback by Richard Sherman’s adrenaline level last night? You weren’t alone. (H/T: Josh Felser)

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Retail Therapy

After 9,000 hours of testing across 2,000 prototypes at an expense of roughly $12.3 million, the new Dyson Cinetic vacuum, can reportedly run for 10 years without having to have its dust collector replaced. Totally worth all the trouble.

This camera bag is made of bison leather, which both looks better and is more durable than cowhide — and that’s no bull. (Thank you! We’ll be here for two more nights…)

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Happy Friday, everyone. Hope you have a great weekend; see you back here on Monday!

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Top News in the A.M.

Google is now building a so-called smart contact lens, one designed to help diabetes patients keep track of their glucose levels by measuring the glucose levels of the wearer’s tears.

Speaking of Google, remember that Southern California woman who was ticketed for wearing Google Glass for driving? That ticket was dismissed yesterday. The court says it was impossible to prove that Google Glass was turned on while she was behind the wheel.

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As Chinese Internet Giants Look to the U.S., GGV Makes Introductions

GGV Capital knows China. The 13-year-old, expansion-stage venture firm, with offices on Sand Hill Road and in Shanghai, prides itself on a U.S.-China strategy that sees its partners spending healthy amounts of time in both countries. With China now the world’s second largest economy and, as of last year, the world’s largest trading nation, that puts GGV in an enviable position.

Already, 16 of GGV’s portfolio companies have gone public since 2010, several of them China-based, including the Chinese online travel booking service Qunar, which went out in November, and the entertainment site YY.com, which held its IPO in November 2012. Meanwhile, e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba — which GGV backed in both its A and B rounds, in 2003 and 2004, respectively — is expected to go public this year at a valuation of up to $150 billion. (Asked if it still holds its stake in the company, GGV says only that it “continues to work actively” with Alibaba.)

Now, GGV is looking to invest alongside China’s Internet giants as they endeavor to expand their presence in the U.S. market. In October, for example, Alibaba led a $50 million financing round in Quixey, a Mountain View-based search engine for apps, and GGV participated in the round.

Last week, I spoke with GGV managing partner Glenn Solomon about Chinese companies looking to invest here. Our conversation has been edited for length.

What’s the biggest trend you’re seeing?

We’re living in a truly cross-border world, so we’re seeing more China companies that want to access the U.S. capital markets and more U.S. entrepreneurs, particularly in mobile, recognizing that China is a really important part of market.

Why are Alibaba and Tencent and others so keen on backing and acquiring U.S. companies?

First, the big players are very cash rich. And while they’ve been peacefully coexisting in China for the last couple of years — Tencent [Holdings] is really a social and entertainment gaming company; Baidu is search; and Alibaba has largely been e-commerce — the intensity of the competition amongst them is increasing as the China market matures. Particularly around mobile, where they’ve all been pretty aggressive about finding ways to increase their business, they’re bumping into each other more and more.

So they see the U.S. as the next frontier.

It might be odd for someone in Silicon Valley to think of the U.S. as a second frontier. But the Chinese market, as it relates to mobile, is bigger than the U.S. And while there is still room for [these companies] to grow in China, they’re thinking about international expansion and the U.S. makes sense. They also want access to companies in the U.S. that they can learn from to re-import opportunities to China.

How directly are they looking to copy U.S. companies?

Many companies look something like U.S. companies, but they have a very unique flavor. Qunar, for example, has elements of its business that are extremely local, and the entrepreneur who started it is very Chinese. He’s very worldly, but he grew up in Beijing; he went to a Chinese university.

Another example is the video chat service YY.com. It’s a social network, but its primary form of communication is voice, so it’s synchronous, rather than asynchronous, and it’s thriving. People are increasingly using it to play “World of Warcraft”; you have performers performing to large audiences on the platform; and the economic model is virtual items, which most people in the U.S. didn’t quite understand when the company went public. [YY.com debuted on Nasdaq at roughly $10 per share; it’s now trading at $71 per share.]

Would you say Chinese companies are ahead of U.S. companies when it comes to revenue?

In many ways, yes, entrepreneurs are importing techniques from China, including free-to-play, with calls to action within applications that produce virtual item revenue. That’s much more developed in China and that model came out of Asia, but you’re seeing more and more of it in the U.S. In fact, if you go to [Apple’s] App Store on your phone, you’ll see that the 20 top-grossing apps are free; it’s because they do a very good job of monetizing that small segment of the base who play the game or use the app, whatever it might be.

Where is China on the enterprise side of things?

It’s early days in enterprise. I’d say China is three to five years behind the U.S., but we expect it to emerge as a big opportunity, so we’ve been investing in some younger software-as-a-service companies and the like.

Other trends to watch?

The M&A market is more active than in the past. An example would be Baidu, which has a large strategic interest in Qunar; we expect we’ll see more M&A and strategic investing in China.

There’s also a more active angel community, which is good for our business, as we primarily invest in B and C rounds. It’s not quite as fashionable as it is here [to be an angel investor], but things are changing.

New Fundings

Adapteva, a five-year-old, Lexington, Ma.-based semiconductor manufacturer, has raised $3.6 million in Series B funding from Carmel Ventures and Ericsson. The company claims to have developed a highly energy efficient and scalable multicore processor chip, designed for parallel computing.

Alcyone Lifesciences, a 3.5-year-old, Concord, Ma.-based medical device company focused on treating neuropathological conditions, has raised $4 million in Series B financing led by earlier investor Edgar Jannotta (long the chairman of investment bank William Blair & Co.), with Harbor Light Capital Partners, also a previous investor.

AqueSys, a seven-year-old, Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based medical device company focused on treating glaucoma, has raised $43.6 million in Series D funding. The investors included Accuitive Medical Ventures, The Carlyle Group, Longitude Capital, Rho Ventures, and SV Life Sciences.

Evocalize, a two-year-old, Seattle-based company that has developed a customer-service SaaS platform, has raised $3 million in Series A financing from Madrona Venture Group.

ProNAi Therapeutics, a 10-year-old, Plymouth, Mich.-based life sciences company at work on a new cancer drug, has raised $12 million in new funding led by Capital Midwest Fund, a venture capital firm based out of Milwaukee. Other VCs involved in the deal include Apjohn Ventures, based in Kalamazoo, and Grand Angels, an angel investor group based in Holland, Mich. The company has raised roughly $33 million to date.

Salesfusion, a six-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based maker of marketing automation software, has raised $8.25 million in Series B financing. Noro-Moseley Partners, BLH Venture Partners and Hallett Capital led the round.

Teespring, a two-year-old, Providence, R.I.-based crowdfunding platform for custom-made apparel, has raised $20 million in funding led byAndreessen Horowitz. The company has raised $21.9 million to date, including from Y Combinator and FundersClub.

Twice, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based online consignment shop for women’s clothing, has raised $18.5 million led by Andreessen Horowitz. Previous investors also participated in the round — including IA Ventures,Felicis Ventures, Lerer Ventures and WTI — along with angel investorsMike Lazerow, Joe Greenstein and Maria Thomas. Twice has raised $23 million altogether.

X-Bolt Orthopaedics, a six-year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based company whose medical device — an expandable bolt — is used to repair hip fractures, has raised €1.8 million in funding led by AIB Seed Capital Fund. Other, unnamed individual investors, also participated in the round.

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New Funds

OMERS Ventures, the venture capital arm of one of Canada’s largest pension funds, is raising a second, larger round of funding to invest in Canadian technology startups, its CEO John Ruffolo told Reuters yesterday at a tech conference. Ruffolo said his group has already secured some funding from the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System; he also said it’s looking to outside funding sources, as well. The new fund will be “very large fund,” he told Reuters. “It will be larger than our first fund, which was [$183 million].”

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People

Accel Partners just announced a host of promotions in its London office, including that of Philippe Botteri and Michiel Kotting to partner. The firm has also hired three new VPs, two associates and an executive-in-residence. Accel says the team is now the largest it has been since it entered the European market in 2000.

Marc Andreessen, who has handily mastered Twitter, defends the NSA in a series of tweets: “If I worked for the NSA, I’d be so confused right now. #1, catch the bad guys. #2, don’t spy. OK, now you go figure it out.”

According to Bloomberg, an invite-only Power Breakfast returned to the renovated Loews Regency Hotel New York yesterday morning, with politicians and financiers returning “after a year of making do with lesser venues.” Among those in attendance: Greycroft Partners founder Alan Patricof with colleague Zander Farkas, who talked football. (Apparently, Patricof is taking his grandson to the Super Bowl next month in New Jersey.)

Kleiner Perkins partner Trae Vassallo didn’t receive much notice in news accounts about Google’s $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest, the maker of smart thermostats and smoke detectors. But Fortune’s Jessi Hempl says Vassallodeserves plenty of credit for Kleiner’s involvement in the company. “Vassallo had been obsessed with thermostats well before she and and Komisar met former Apple executive Tony Fadell,” she writes. Hempl adds that “Vassallo knew Fadell from Apple networks, so when he and cofounder Matt Rogers came in to pitch the idea to her and Komisar, she knew it made sense.” Not last: “Vassallo negotiated the Series A round on behalf of Kleiner Perkins, and then supported the management team through introductions to utilities, particularly in the competitive Texas market.”

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Exits

CloudUp Networks, a nine-month-old, San Francisco-based application security startup, has been acquired by CipherCloud, a San Jose, Ca.-based security company. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. CloudUp never publicly disclosed any funding; three-year-old CiperCloud has raised $30 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures andT-Venture, the venture capital arm of Deutsche Telekom.

Impermium, a 3.5-year-old, Redwood City, Calif.-based cyber security startup, has been acquired by Google for undisclosed financial terms. Impermium had raised roughly $9 million in funding from Accel Partners,AOL Ventures, Charles River Ventures, Data Collective, Freestyle Capital, Greylock Partners, Highland Capital Partners, Morado Ventures and the Social+Capital Partnership.

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Job Listings

Rasmussen Reports, an Asbury Park, N.J.- based national public opinion survey company, has a new position open for a senior data scientist / statistician. (This could be a dream job for a numbers-crunching political junkie.)

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Data

Investments in software companies hit $11 billion in 2013, the highest level since 2000, according to MoneyTree’s annual report. The software sector attracted 37 percent of total venture capital for the year — the highest percent since MoneyTree’s inception in 1995 — and was up 27 percent from 2012. More here.

Uh oh. Nearly 44 percent of 137 LP respondents in a recent survey by placement agency Probitas Partners reported they were avoiding venture capital entirely. In 2007, just 17 percent said they were eschewing venture. More here.

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Essential Reads

Henrique De Castro may be walking away from Yahoo with $109 million. (What, who, how the..?)

The average value of a tech company is decreasing.

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Detours

Why sugar makes us feel so good, in a smart, short, video.

Special effects you had no idea you were witnessing in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

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Retail Therapy

Made a fortune? Kind of a jerk? Feeling paranoid for other reasons? This Audi with VR 7 ballistic protection and explosion resistance, an armor-plated communication box in the trunk, optional emergency exit, and fire extinguisher could be just the number for you.

A one-wheeled, self-balancing electric skateboard? Sign us up!

Oh sweet sassy molassy.

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