It is Friday! Can I get a “Hallelujah?”

Quick notes: This kid (Connie) is dialing back for a few weeks starting Monday, while talented writer-investor Semil Shah takes over the column. He has a lot of terrific content lined up for you, so stay tuned.

Also, for those of you who don’t read every day, our September 16 event in San Francisco is fast approaching and we now have less than 50 tickets left. (We’d let all of you in, but the Autodesk Gallery can only accommodate so many people.) If you’ve missed details about the evening, they’re here. Tickets can bepurchased here. Huge thanks to the many friends who are helping us put the evening together, including the venture firms Bolt and Ludlow Ventures.

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Top News in the A.M.

Yesterday, Amazon bypassed Walmart in market value.

Nest’s thermostat was just booted from the Apple store.

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Dear Unicorn, Exit Please

In the last couple of years, it’s become the conventional wisdom that the hottest, fastest-growing tech companies benefit from steering clear of public market investors as long as possible.

The trend toward staying private is a pretty lousy development for employees looking to move on with their lives, though. They have to exercise their options within 90 days of leaving or else lose them. And with valuations of billion-dollar companies up a stunning 59.7 percent over last year, according to Crunchbase, the amount of capital needed to buy one’s options has escalated too fast for anyone who isn’t already exceedingly wealthy to afford them.

Put another way, amid a sea of headlines about billion-dollar valuations are many thousands of employees who stand to lose countless millions of dollars unless companies start to go public, or else sell to an acquirer.

The issue is growing more extreme with every new “unicorn.”

More here.

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New Fundings

MyEye, a months-old, Leicester, U.K.-based video livestreaming startup whose clips expire after 72 hours, has raised roughly $2 million from investors, including soccer star David Beckham. TechCrunch has more here.

JetSmarter, a 2.5-year-old, Boca Raton, Fla.-based company whose users pay for a yearly subscription to book an unlimited number of flights on private jets, has raised $20 million in Series B funding from investors, including members of the Saudi Royal Family, executives from Goldman Sachs and Twitter, and artist-entrepreneur Jay Z. Business Insider has more here.

Palantir Technologies, the 11-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that focuses on data mining, has raised $450 million in a new fundraising round, shows a new SEC filing first spied by the WSJ. The company, says its report, is now valued at $20 billion. Palantir has raised roughly $1 billion from investors to date, including In-Q-Tel, Founders Fund and Tiger Global Management. More here.

Peloton Technology, a four-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based developer of vehicle safety systems for trucking fleets, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Nokia Growth Partners. The company previously raised $17 million in Series A funding from Magna International, Castrol innoVentures,Volvo Group Venture Capital, UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, Birchmere Ventures, Sand Hill Angels, and Band of Angels. VentureBeat has more here.

Popular Pays, a two-year-old, Chicago-based Y Combinator-backed startup connecting Instagram users with marketers, has raised $2 million in funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Soma Capital, Social Starts, Mike Shinoda of the band Linkin Park and Romar Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

UXPin, a five-year-old, Gdynia, Poland and Mountain View, Ca.-based startup that makes a wireframing and prototyping tool, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by True Ventures. The company had previously raised two rounds of funding: a $700,000 round of funding that included Andreessen Horowitz, IDG Ventures, and a long line of individuals, and a $1.6 million round, led last year by Freestyle Capital. More here.

Voxel8, a year-old, Somerville, Ma.-based maker of a multi-material 3D electronics printer, has raised $12 million in funding co-led by ARCH Venture Partners and Braemar Energy Ventures, with participation from In-Q-Tel and Autodesk, through its Spark Investment Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

ZVerse, a two-year-old, Columbia, Md.-based 3D printing technology company, has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding from Mosley Ventures, Capital A Partners and strategic investors. More here.

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New Funds

DCM Ventures, the 19-year-old venture firm, with offices in Menlo Park, Ca., Beijing and Tokyo, has closed its second Android-focused investment fund with $100 million. Much more here.

Talent manager and investor Troy Carter has launched SMASHD LABS, a new, L.A.-based startup accelerator that will invest $50,000 in five to seven startups in exchange for a 3 percent stake in the companies. TechCrunch has more here.

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Exits

Centro, a venture-backed, 14-year-old, Chicago-based ad tech company, has acquired a social ad startup called GraphScience that advertisers use to create and optimize personalized Facebook ads. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. GraphScience had raised $3.2 million in funding from investors, including Grace Beauty Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

IBM has acquired Compose, a four-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based database-as-a-service startup originally known as MongoHQ. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. According to Crunchbase, Compose had raised $6.4 million from investors, including Trinity Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Data Collective, and Webb Investment Network. TechCrunch has more here.

Pearson has sold the Financial Times Group to Japan’s Nikkei for £844 million ($1.3 billion) in cash. The group includes the newspaper, the FT.com website and roughly a dozen other properties. The BBC News has more here.

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People

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky recently revealed seven rejection letters he received seven years ago. Now, seed-stage investor Paige Craig — who says that he was willing to write Airbnb its first check in 2008 — says Airbnb rejected him.

Zenefits, the HR software startup, has hired Rita Garg to run its business development operations. Garg joins the company from Twitter. TechCrunch has more here.

The insane life of former fugitive and eccentric cybersecurity legend John McAfee.

Philanthropy life lessons from KKR cofounder George Roberts.

Laurence Tosi, who has served as the CFO of Blackstone Group since 2008, is reportedly close to becoming CFO at Airbnb, which hasn’t had someone in the position since Andrew Swain left the company last year. The move, notes Bloomberg, could be a precursor to an IPO. (Swain, if you’re curious, is now CFO of the venture-backed San Francisco-based company LendingHome.)

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Jobs

VMWare is looking for a corporate development manager. The job is in Palo Alto, Ca.

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Data

Current global tech M&A trends, brought to you by Woodside Capital.

New YouTube stats, via a keynote speech by YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki.

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Essential Reads

Drug testing is coming to e-gaming.

China wants Silicon Valleys everywhere.

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Detours

A fifth(!) of all residents in Ottawa use Ashley Madison.

Cool at 13, adrift at 23.

How to speak cat.

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Retail Therapy

The “Swiss army knife of jackets.”

“Modest” bathing suits. Spring break will never be the same.

Happy Thursday, everyone!

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Top News in the A.M.

Veteran Apple blogger Jim Dalrymple has just written a scathing review of Apple Music. It’s a “nightmare” and “I’m done with it,” he writes.

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Y Combinator Reveals Its Approach to Late-Stage Investments

A couple of weeks ago, we published a post that pondered what investing pro rata would mean for Y Combinator. Just one month earlier, the popular accelerator program had filed for what it’s calling its Y Combinator Continuity Fund, which appears to be a growth-stage vehicle that’s rumored to be raising at least $1 billion.

We speculated that if Y Combinator used the money to cherry-pick deals from its portfolio of graduates — even if it were to skip a few stages to invest in a limited number of very late-stage deals — it could create a signaling risk for many other startups it funds. We added as a caveat that, “It’s possible that Y Combinator could follow on in every one of the venture-backed rounds of its portfolio companies, but the moment it doesn’t . . .”

Turns out, Y Combinator is doing exactly that — and it’s not a new decision. More here.

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New Fundings

Bulletproof, the controversial, nearly five-year-old, San Francisco-based startup behind Bulletproof coffee — featuring butter and oil — has raised $9 million in venture funding led by Trinity Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

Cazena, a year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based company that aims to quickly and securely optimize big data processing in the cloud, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Formation 8, with participation from earlier investors Andreessen Horowitz and North Bridge Venture Partners. The company had raised $8 million in Series A funding last October.

Clover, a year-old, Toronto-based dating app, has raised $2 million in led by Social Starts, with participation from unnamed angel investors. The company has now raised $4 million altogether, it says.

Continuum Analytics, a 3.5-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based company that develops Anaconda, an open source analytics platform powered by Python, has raised $24 million in Series A funding led by General Catalyst Partners and BuildGroup. The company has now raised $34 million altogether. VentureBeat has more here.

Events.com, a two-year-old, La Jolla, Ca.-based event management platform, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Arctaris, with participation from La Jolla Holding and Moore Venture Partners. The company has now raised $17 million, it says. More here.

Fishbrain, a five-year-old, Göteborg, Sweden-based social network for sport fishers, has raised $8 million in venture funding from Northzone, with participation from Industrifonden, Active Venture Partners, GP Bullhound, Edastra Venture Capital, Recruit Strategic Partners, and Novel TMT Ventures. The company has now raised $10.6 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. The Telegraph has more here.

Ginkgo Bioworks, a seven-year-old, Boston-based organism design company, has raised $45 million in Series B funding led by Viking Global, with participation from earlier backers OS Fund, Y Combinator and Felicis Ventures. The company has now raised $54 million in total funding. More here.

Giosis, the five-year-old, Singapore-based company behind the popular e-commerce platform Qoo10, has raised $82.1 million in Series A funding led by Singapore Press Holdings, with participation from earlier investor eBay. TechCrunch has more here.

Gynesonics, a 10-year-old, Redwood, Ca.-based medical device company that makes an ablation tool for treating uterine fibroids, has raised $43 million in funding co-led by Endeavour Vision and Abingworth, with participation fromHealthCrest, InterWest Partners, Advanced Technology Ventures, HBM Partners, Correlation Ventures and Hercules Technology Growth Capital. More here.

Leadspace, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based marketing analytics company that helps its customers determine how to prioritize leads, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led by Battery Ventures. The company, led by former Salesforce CMO Doug Bewsher, has now raised $35 million to date. Fortune has more here.

Outpost Games, a year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based maker of PC games, has raised $6 million from Benchmark. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Remedy Partners, a four-year-old, Darien, Ct.-based developer and manager of bundled payment programs for government and private health insurers, has raised $50 million from Bain Capital Ventures. The company has now raised $86.2 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. More here.

SGN, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile game developer, has raised $130 million in new funding from the South Korean mobile gaming company Netmarble Games. SGN had previously $28 million in funding, including from Columbia Capital, Felicis Ventures, Founders Fund, and Greylock Partners. Fast Company has more here.

SmarterHQ, a five-year-old,  Indianapolis, In.-based customer intelligence marketing platform, has raised $8 million in funding led by Simon Venture Group, with participation from Battery Ventures and angel investors. The company has now raised $23.5 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

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New Funds

Notion Capital, a seven-year-old, London-based venture firm focused on enterprise startups, has held a first close of $120 million on its third fund, which is expected to close with $150 million. The firm, founded by entrepreneurs and brothers Ben and Jos White (they sold their company MessageLabs to Symantec for $695 million in 2008), has invested in 33 companies across its first two funds, including NewVoiceMedia and Tradeshift. TechCrunch has more here.

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Exits

Consulting giant Accenture has acquired Chaotic Moon, a five-year-old, Austin Tex.-based studio that comes up with design technology for major brands. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

Dropbox has acquired Clementine, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based enterprise communication service that focuses on conference calls and chat services that aren’t connected to a personal phone number. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

Online real estate service Zillow has acquired DotLoop, a seven-year-old, Cincinnati-based real-estate service that moves much of the document sharing and signing process online. The financial details of the transaction aren’t being disclosed. DotLoop had raised $14 million, incuding from Trinity Ventures. More here.

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People

Jonathon Triest and Brett deMarrais of Detroit-based Ludlow Ventures carpool to work every day. In a Jerry Seinfeld-esque twist, they’ve decided to start recording their in-car conversations, including with other entrepreneurs and VCs. (Upcoming editions include conversations with Eric Reis and Mark Suster, among others.)  You can catch their first, introductory episode here. (Spoiler alert: there’s some singing.)

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Jobs

Twitter is looking for a corporate development manager. The job is in San Francisco.

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Data

Silk has put together the latest on Google’s self-driving car accidents.

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Essential Reads

After days of a political battle, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has temporarily relented on plans to cap the number of Ubers on NYC streets.

For ADP and Zenefits, the bickering goes on.

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Detours

Thirteen months of working, eating, and sleeping at the Googleplex.

From Harvard Innovation Lab: a startup to help take tiny houses mainstream.

How Berlin’s airport became a $6 billion embarrassment.

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Retail Therapy

A new GoPro video stabilizer is coming (from a company called Aetho).

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

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Top News in the A.M.

Google is rolling out Your Timeline, a private way for users to visualize their real-world routines. More here.

Yesterday was chockful of quarterly earnings reports. Apple beat expectations but its investors are pretty hard to please. Yahoo also beat expectations by a tiny bit, but its shares also slipped in after-hours trading. And GoPro outpaced expectations, but it, too, traded down on its news. (Geez, people.)

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DataFox Hunts Down Another $5 Million

DataFox, a 2.5-year-old subscription-based deal intelligence platform, has just raised $5 million in funding co-led by Goldman Sachs and earlier investor Green Visor Capital, with participation from another previous backer, Stanford’s StartX fund.

The funding follows an earlier, $2 million seed round completed via convertible note. It also follows a slight pivot for the 15-person, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company, which was earlier considered a competitor to other deal intelligence platforms like Mattermark but has since begun emphasizing its ability to help accelerate sales. Its informal new tagline: It helps corporations use data science to find their next customers.

We talked with cofounder and CEO Bastiaan Janmaat to learn more. We picked up some interesting details about the financing along the way. More here.

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New Fundings

500px a six-year-old, Toronto-based online platform for discovering and selling photography, has raised $13 million in Series B funding led by strategic investor Visual China Group, with participation from earlier backers Andreessen Horowitz, Harrison Metal, and ff Venture Capital. The company has now raised $23 million altogether. TechVibes has more here.

Baixing, a 10-year-old, Shanghai, China-based online classified ads company, has reportedly raised a whopping $354 million in Series E funding from CITIC, Suzhou High-tech Venture Capital Group, Shenzhen Capital Group, and other investors in preparation for going public. More here.

Beacon, a year-old, New York-based subscription flight service that will lease other airlines’ planes and launch its first route between New York and Boston, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding led by Romulus Capital, with participation from MiVentures, Western Technologies Investment, and other early stage investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Bima, a five-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based provider of mobile-delivered insurance in emerging markets, has raised $38.4 million in Series C funding from Investment AB Kinnevik, LeapFrog Investments and Millicom. More here.

BrightBytes, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based data analytics platform that measures and links the use of technology to learning outcomes, has raised $33 million in Series C funding led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Rethink Education, and Learn Capital. The company has now raised $51.5 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Darktrace, a two-year-old, London-based cyber-security firm backed by former Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch, has raised $22.5 million from  Summit Partners in a funding round that values the company at more than $100 million, reports Business Insider. The company has now raised $40.5 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. Others of its investors include Hoxton Ventures, Invoke Capital Partners, and Talis Capital.

Flipboard, the 4.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based news and content aggregation app, has quietly raised $50 million in what may be a flat round, says TechCrunch, which uncovered new documents filed late last month in Delaware. According to Crunchbase, Flipboard has previously raised roughly $160 from investors, including Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Insight Venture Partners, Goldman Sachs and others. More here.

Grana, a 10-month-old, Hong Kong-based fashion brand focused on affordable, high-quality wardrobe staples from T-shirts to men’s jeans, has raised $1.5 million from investors, including Golden Gate Ventures. Along with an earlier seed round from luxury retailer Bluebell Group, the company has so far raised $2.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Granular, a year-old, San Francisco-based maker of software and analytics for farm management, has raised $18.7 million in Series B funding led by Tao Capital Partners, with participation from Emory Investment Management, Fall Line Capital, and H. Barton Asset Management, as well as previous backers Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures and Khosla Ventures. More here.

Mallzee, a two-year-old, Edinburgh, Scotland-based personalized shopping app that invites users to swipe right or left depending on whether they like the items they see, has raised £2.5 million ($3.9 million) in funding led by the Royal Mail Group, with participation from Scottish Investment Bank, Par Equity, and individual investors. The company has raised a total of $4.8 million to date. More here.

Mirakl, a three-year-old, Paris-based company that brings online marketplaces to retailers like Best Buy, has raised $20 million in Series B  funding led by 83North, with participation from Felix Capital, and Dave Strohm, a partner at Greylock and a founding investor and advisor to 83North. Forbes has more here.

Mswipe Technologies, a four-year-old, Mumbai, India-based company whose hardware and software enables smart phones to be used as a mobile point of sale, has raised $25 million in Series C funding from Falcon Edge Capital, Ola Cabs and Meru Capital, as well as earlier backers Matrix Partners India, Axis Bank, and DSG Consumer Partners. More here.

Simplus, a year-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based SaaS consulting and development firm, has raised $4.2 million in a seed round led by EPIC Ventures, with participation from Simplus employees, Silicon Valley Bank, Infinite Investments, Prelude, Service Provider Capital, Workfront CEO Eric Morgan, and SteelBrick CEO Godard Abel.

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Exits

Altimeter Group, a seven-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based research and advisory firm, has been acquired by the 23-year-old, San Francisco-based brand and marketing consultancy Prophet for undisclosed terms. Asked how this will affect Altimeter’s current customers, Altimeter Charline Li tells TechCrunch, “Nothing changes.”

Blackberry is acquiring AtHoc, a 10-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based maker of mass notification systems for the military, government and other organizations, for undisclosed terms. AtHoc had raised $8.2 milion from investors shows Crunchbase. Its backers include Intel Capital, i-Hatch Ventures, and Greylock Partners. VentureBeat has more here.

Sysomos, an eight-year-old, Toronto-based social analytics company, has acquired Expion, a five-year-old, Raleigh, N.C.-based enterprise social marketing platform that counts the likes of CocaCola, Heineken, Volvo and other major brands among its customers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. More here.

The Singapore-based private lender United Overseas Bank is buying a 50 percent stake in the India-based venture debt firm InnoVen Capital (formerly SVB India Finance) as part of a larger plan to expand its focus to the rest of Asia. VCCircle has the story here.

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People

While Uber has been waging a war against New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio this week, CEO Travis Kalanick’s girlfriend Gabi Holzwarth tried a more personal appeal yesterday. Fusion has more here.

Twitter hosted a fraternity-themed party. Which was maybe not such a good idea, given that it’s in the middle of a gender discrimination lawsuit. More here.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is launching a new charitable social network called TPO.com. More here.

Hollywood’s newest attempt to portray the “real” Silicon Valley, starring Dave McClure of 500 Startups and Brady Forrest of Highway1, debuts in September. If you’re eager to check it out, you can see the trailer here.

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Jobs

Arbor Ventures, a venture firm focused primarily on financial tech in Asia, is hiring an associate. The job can be in Hong Kong or Singapore.

Peter Thiel’s Breakout Labs is still in the market for the right portfolio manager. The job is in San Francisco.

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Data

Virtual Reality devices, visualized by Silk.

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Essential Reads

Customers who hired Lifelock to monitor their identities after their data was stolen in a breach were in for a surprise. It turns out Lifelock failed to properly secure their data.

Suddenly Huawei is hot, and Xiaomi is not.

A movement in Silicon Valley to make sharing salary information less taboo.

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Detours

New York City’s most opulent private pools.

The man who flies around the world for free.

Truly incroyable.

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Retail Therapy

A wireless battery case that charges itself and your phone. Noice.

Hi, everyone! If you missed yesterday’s newsletter, we had a little news about a.) going on vacation and b.) our upcoming event in September. (You can read about both here.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Chip maker Qualcomm is reportedly considering a breakup after an activist investor pushed for change, says the WSJ. It’s also preparing to lay off 10 percent of its 30,000-person workforce, reports The Information. (Subscription required.)

Some of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies, including Facebook, Google, Dell, and eBay, have joined the patent war between Apple and Samsung. More here.

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Y Combinator Unveils Its Newest Program

For better or worse, Y Combinator is putting the pedal to the metal.

It is Friday, thank goodness. Hope you have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

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Top News in the A.M.

U.S. presidential candidates Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton are already duking it out over the so-called on-demand economy and what it means to Americans’ financial security.

Google’s stock soared yesterday after it reported that revenue had jumped 11 percent to $17.7 billion in the second quarter, and that it saw a 17 percent jump in net income to $3.93 billion. Here are the three reasons why it did so well.

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Employees Wise Up

This week, a Bay Area founder was taken aback when an engineer being recruited by his startup asked for both its cap table and information regarding the liquidation preferences of its venture backers. The candidate presumably “worked somewhere where he discovered that these things matter,” says the founder, who asked not to be named in this story.

Though the startup is still debating how much information to give to the candidate, it will likely need to come up with a policy around such requests soon. The amount of information that privately-held companies share with employees is becoming a bigger issue, largely owing to the rise of so many billion-dollar valuations.

Just yesterday, CB Insights, the research firm, published an attention-grabbing report about “unicorn” valuations, reporting that 2015 has already seen growth of $143 billion in combined unicorn valuations year-to-date, a 47 percent increase over their aggregate valuation at the end of 2013. It also reported that the number of still-private companies now valued at $1 billion or more has grow by around 50 percent in 2015. (That jump represents a stunning 39 companies that have been assigned billion-dollar valuations by their investors this year.)

More here.

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New Fundings

Chrono24, a 12-year-old, Karlsruhe, Germany-based online marketplace for high-end watch collectors, has raised $22.8 million in Series A funding from Insight Venture Partners. More here.

Common, a months-old, Brooklyn-based startup that offers shared housing in major cities, has raised $7.35 million in Series A funding led by Maveron, with participation from Lowercase Capital and Slow Ventures. Individual investors, including 500 Startups founder Dave McClure, also joined the round. More here.

CredSimple, a two-year-old, Boston-based startup building a medical credentialing database, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding to help healthcare and insurance companies manage their doctor networks. Bowery Capital led the round, with participation from Primary Venture Partners and a handful of angels. TechCrunch has more here.

Immunocore, a seven-year-old, Abingdon, England-based developer of T-cell receptor-based biological drugs to treat cancer, has raised a stunning $320 million in funding, including from Woodford Investment Management, Malin Corporation, Eli Lilly and Company, and RTW Investments. FierceBiotech has the story here.

LogDog, a two-year-old, Israel-based company focused on personal cybersecurity (it alerts you if there’s suspicious activity in your Gmail, Dropbox, or other accounts), has raised $3.5 million in funding led by BRM Group, with participation from earlier backers Curious Minds Investments, FirstTime Ventures, Maxfield Capital and TheTime VC.

When I Work, a five-year-old, St. Paul, Mn.-based employee scheduling and time clock app, has raised $5 million in fresh funding from earlier investors Greycroft Partners, e.ventures and Arthur Ventures. The company has also acquired for undisclosed terms Shifthub, a Toronto-based company that operates in the same space. When I Work has now raised at least $9 million in funding. The Minnesota Star-Tribune has more here.

Upstart, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based online lending platform that uses unconventional data to rate borrowers, has raised $35 million in Series C funding led by Third Point Ventures. The company has now raised $56 million altogether, including from Khosla Ventures and First Round Capital.

Workspot, a three-year-old, Cupertino, Ca.-based company whose techology promises to securely deliver business applications and data to any device, has raised $5 million in funding led by Helion Ventures, with participation from Translink Capital and Qualcomm Ventures. The company has now raised $14.6 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

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New Funds

Maven Ventures, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based seed-stage venture fund, is looking to raise up to $35 million for it second fund, according to Fortune. (We’d heard this, too, for forgotten to report it.) Maven  was founded by Jim Scheinman, a entrepreneur and attorney who became the third employee at Bebo.com, a social network that AOL acquired for $850 million in cash in 2008. The sale, which made Bebo’s founders wealthy, also gave Scheinman the freedom to become an angel investor and advisor, then a micro VC. “I’m happy to make people money and get a dinner or a thank you,” he told StrictlyVC last year. “But I thought, ‘Why not pool some of that money and take 20 percent?’” Among Maven’s newest bets is Eden, a new, on-demand, in-home tech support startup that announced its funding earlier this week.

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People

ABS Capital Partners, the San Francisco-bsaed late-stage growth company investor, has brought aboard Michael Avon as a venture partner. Avon was formerly CFO and EVP of Millennial Media.

Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, the Vancouver-based venture firm, has promoted two associates to vice president: Joe Blair and Alfred Lam. Blair, once an associate at Cue Ball Capital in Boston, joined Chrysalix roughly two years ago. Lam has been with the firm for roughly three years. He was previously an analyst and researcher at the UBC-Clean Energy Research Centre, a multi-disciplinary research organization in Vancouver.

Eric Friedman, Foursquare’s longtime Global Senior Director of Sales and Revenue Operations, has left the company to join the startup studio Expa as an executive-in-residence. (Expa was cofounded by Foursquare cofounder Naveen Selvadurai, so there are natural ties.) Business Insider has more here.

Whisper, the anonymous social networking app, has hired a head of product for the first time: Jaime Mendez, who recently led the FarmVille 2 studio at Zynga. Recode has the story here.

Former Treasury secretary Larry Summers has joined the board of Premise, a San Francisco-based company. Dealbook has more here.

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Jobs

Fenox Venture Capital is looking for an intern. The job is in San Jose, Ca.

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Data

Venture capitalists invested $17.5 billion in 1,189 deals in the second quarter of 2015, according to the newest MoneyTree report from PwC and the NVCA. That’s up 30 percent in dollars and 13 percent in the number of deals over the first quarter, when $13.5 billion was invested in 1,048 deals. This past quarter also marks the sixth consecutive quarter to see more than $10 billion in venture funding invested in a single quarter. The last time quite so much money was put to work was the third quarter of 2000. (Gulp.) You can find the full report right here.

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Essential Reads

After months of built-up expectations, video artist Casey Neistat revealed his new app this morning, Beam. Check it out.

Fresh from raising $2 billion in new funding, Didi Kuaidi — China’s most popular taxi hailing service — has expanded into a new form of transportation: buses.

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has taken on Uber with a proposed law designed to limit its growth in the city. Unsurprisingly, Uber has found a creative way to fight back.

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Detours

A $40,000 film — to sell a house(!).

The magic of Shin Lim.

You have to love this guy.

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Retail Therapy

Seaweed that tastes like bacon and is twice as healthy as kale. (You’re welcome.)

Happy Thursday, everyone! We are back! Well, in your inbox, but we mean in San Francisco, too. Thank you, United Airlines, for getting the job done last night. (Note: never try flying out of Denver on a summer’s evening. Lots of these.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Netflix released its latest subscriber figures late yesterday during an earnings call, and the most up-to-date tally blew expectations out of the water, reports the Washington Post.

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