Friday, we meet again! Hope you have a wonderful weekend, everyone! See you soon.

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Top News in the A.M.

Tesla just raised $1.46 billion in fresh capital, money it will use toward the high volume production of its Model 3.

Bids for Yahoo‘s core business are expected to come in at between $2 billion and $3 billion, says the WSJ.

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New Fundings

ConceptDrop, a three-year-old, Chicago, Il.-based startup that connects enterprises with freelancers for design and marketing projects, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding led by Network Ventures, a new Chicago-based seed stage firm created by former Pritzker Group venture capitalist Jeff Maters, with participation from 500 Startups, M25 Group, G2T3V, Fulcrum Investing, and angel investors. Crain’s Chicago Business has more here.

Hi, happy Thursday, everyone!

Know this is arriving at an odd hour; we had to rush off to a school production this a.m. before SVC was ready to ship(!).

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Top News in the A.M.

Uber is testing its fleet of self-driving Ford Fusion cars on the streets, bridges and hills of Pittsburgh, the ride-sharing company confirmed for the first time yesterday.

The truth about due diligence

There’s an expression in venture capital. It’s called the “Oh, shit” board meeting. “That’s when you learn all sorts of things that you wish you’d known after writing a company that first check,” says general partner David Hornik of August Capital.

It’s easy to imagine that they’ve been happening regularly across the startup industry. The pace of funding in recent years has been feverish, giving investors less time than ever to assess the startups they’re funding. That once-celebrated companies like the blood testing outfit Theranos, and the wireless charging company uBeam, are seemingly fighting for their lives raises plenty of questions, too.

A recent Vanity Fair piece blamed Silicon Valley media for the rise of certain companies. Meanwhile, a story published earlier this week in Fast Company suggested a culture of spin is at the root of the problem. As one founder told the outlet, “Being honest in Silicon Valley is like being the one member of an Olympic team that isn’t on steroids.”

Of course, none of us would likely have heard of Theranos or uBeam if not for investors, who’ve given the companies $686 million and $25 million, respectively. Were these backers overly optimistic? Did they get duped? Were they even paying attention? It’s easy to wag our fingers as we wait to see how these narratives unfold, but here’s the truth: due diligence only goes so far. While some may think it a scientific process that insulates venture firms from bad investments, due diligence is a surprisingly imperfect process with plenty of limitations.

“If you’re looking for a black or white answer in doing diligence, it’ll be a fail,” says Matt Murphy, a former Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner who joined Menlo Ventures a year ago as a managing director. “You’re usually dealing with shades of gray.”

More here.

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New Fundings

6SensorLabs, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that was formerly known as Nima and makes a tiny gluten tester, has raised $9.2 million in Series A funding from investors to create products that also detect peanuts, milk, and other hidden ingredients to which a user could be allergic. Foundry Group led the round, with participation from Upfront Ventures, SoftTech VC, SK Ventures, Lemnos Labs, Mitch Kapor and Nest Labs cofounder Matt Rogers. TechCrunch has more here.

Afero, a two-year-old, Los Altos, Ca.-based cloud company that secures connected devices — from toys and arcade games to medical equipment — has raised $20.3 million in Series A funding led by Samsung Catalyst Fund, with participation from Presidio Ventures, Sanshin Electronics, SoftBank, Fenox Venture Capital, Assembly Fund, and Linear Technology co-founder Robert Dobkin. TechCrunch has more here.

BeMyEye, a five-year-old, London-based mobile crowdsourcing app that companies use to enlist people to carry out mobile tasks, like photographing in-store promotions, has raised €6.5 million ($7.3 million) in Series B funding fromNauta Capital, P101, and previous backer 360 Capital Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Decisio Health, a three-year-old, Houston, Tex.-based startup that aims to help acute-care provider organizations improve their clinical processes, has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding led by Declatex, with participation from the University of Texas Horizon Fund. More here.

Dojo Madness, a two-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based e-sports startup whose mobile app offers tips to gamers to help them improve their gameplay, has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding led by March Capital Partners, with Investment Bank of Berlin and earlier backers London Venture Partners and DN Capital also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

DriveScale, a three-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company at work on flexible, scale-out computing using standard servers and commodity storage, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Pelion Venture Partners, with participation from Nautilus Venture Partners and the Foxconn subsidiary Ingrasys. More here.

Personal Capital, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based digital wealth management firm founded by former PayPal CEO Bill Harris, has raised $50 million from IGM Financial, a Canadian financial services company that has  agreed to invest another $25 million in the next year. More here.

Showpad, a five-year-old, Belgium-based company that has built a platform designed to improve other businesses’ sales productivity, has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backers Dawn Capital and Hummingbird Ventures. TechCrunch hasmore here.

Tally Technologies, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based app that promises to help people maintain good credit scores while avoiding unnecessary fees, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Shasta Ventures, with participation from earlier investors Cowboy Ventures and AITV. Silicon Valley Bank also invested. TechCrunch has more here.

ThoughtSpot, a four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company whose business intelligence technology uses a search interface similar to what you might find in a consumer Internet search engine, has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by General Catalyst Partners. The company has now raised just less than $91 million altogether. Fortune has more here.

Tink, a four-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based mobile banking app, has raised $10 million in Series B funding co-led by the Swedish investment firm Creades and SEB Venture Capital, the venture arm of Swedish bank SEB. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

B Capital, a new India and Southeast Asia-focused venture fund cofounded by Eduardo Saverin of Facebook fame, has raised $143.6 million for its debut fund, according to SEC filings. In a letter to “friends of B Capital” that were obtained by TechCrunch, Saverin and his cofounder, Raj Ganguly (a prominent investor who worked with Saverin on past deals), the new fund has so far pulled in just 60 percent of its target amount, meaning it’s likely to close with around $250 million. More here.

e.ventures, a 19-year-old, early-stage venture firm that has offices in Berlin, San Francisco, Beijing, Tokyo, Moscow and São Paulo, has closed a new, $150 million fund to invest in European startups. The company has also brought aboard Bernardo Hernández as its newest general partner. Hernández has founded multiple companies, including the real estate listing site idealista. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

People

Carol Bartz, the former CEO of Autodesk and Yahoo!, has joined the board of the field productivity software company PlanGrid.

Apple CEO Tim Cook‘s India visit in pictures.

—–

Data

The average age at which children now receive their first smartphone is 10.3 years old.

—–

Essential Reads

Hi, all, happy Wednesday!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

It’s Google I/O Keynote day, the day when Google takes the wraps off everything it’s been working on in secret for the past few months, and you can view it right here starting at 10 PST. As you may already know, part of the plan is to introduce Google’s much-anticipated entry into the voice-activated home device market.

Eek. LinkedIn announced this morning that another data set from a 2012 hack — which contains more than 100 million LinkedIn members’ emails and passwords — has now been released. More here.

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For Online Lenders, It’s Suddenly Touch and Go

A year ago, privately held online lenders like Prosper, SoFi and Avant looked all but certain to go public at the same unicorn valuations their venture investors had assigned them — if not higher. They were seemingly reshaping the student, consumer and small business lending business. The market they’re chasing is enormous: The U.S. consumer lending market is a $3.5 trillion industry, and 22 of  the largest online marketplace platforms originated just more than $5 billion of unsecured consumer credit in 2014 and more than $10 billion in 2015.

They also talked a big game. When SoFi raised a whopping $1 billion from Softbank last year, CEO Michael Cagney told Bloomberg: “I’m looking at over $1 trillion of market cap from the banks, and I think it’s all vulnerable.”

Fast forward to today, and it’s online lenders that suddenly look like sitting ducks.

In an SEC filing Monday, Lending Club, which announced the surprise departure of its founder and CEO last Monday, revealed that investors who “contributed a significant amount of funding” for loans are now examining that performance “or are otherwise reluctant to invest.”

That’s a huge problem. Lending Club can’t originate a loan until it has sold it to another party.

It’s not just Lending Club that’s grown overly reliant on institutional sources of capital to keep its business afloat, though the problem is just becoming widely understood now.

For many casual observers in Silicon Valley, the first signs of trouble in the online lending category emerged in late April, when the WSJ reported that Avant made $514 million worth of new loans in the U.S. in the first quarter, a 27 percent drop from the fourth quarter of 2015. Then, two weeks ago, Prosper confirmed that it planned to cut roughly 28 percent of its staff in response to falling loan volume. And Prosper’s news came just a day after OnDeck Capital said its own first-quarter losses had more than doubled as demand for its loans began to nosedive.

Of course, the kicker came last week, when Lending Club CEO Renaud LaPlanche resigned following an internal audit that turned up $22 million in loans that were sold to Jefferies yet didn’t meet the investment bank’s criteria.

Fast growth, big risks

If the shift in the companies’ fortunes seemed abrupt to Silicon Valley, it wasn’t a surprise to many in the financial industry. They’ll tell you they’ve seen this movie before.

Online lending “grew incredibly quickly from loan volumes of almost nothing eight years ago to many billions of dollars a year,” says Max Wolff, chief economist at Manhattan Venture Partners, a merchant banking firm in New York. “But what started out as a disruptive movement known as peer-to-peer was far more novel than what it became, which, in many cases, is a front for whoever is providing [some of these startups with] capital to lend.”

Think banks like Goldman Sachs and Jefferies. Think hedge funds and insurance companies.

The obvious benefit of taking capital from larger institutions is that they allow online lending companies to grow, and quickly. While companies operating in this space come with inherent advantages — they use automated loan applications; they have no retail branches; they use electronic data sources and tech-enabled underwriting models that help them to quickly identify a borrower’s credit risk — having deep-pocketed friends has made other things easier. Among them is being able to provide funding decisions within 48 to 72 hours, and to offer small loans with short-term maturities.

Until recently, Wall Street has happily obliged. And why wouldn’t it? With interest rates so low for so long, these new lending products have been an attractive place to generate revenue. Some online lenders — whose customers include small businesses, consumers, and students — have charged more than 60 percent in annual interest on their loans, including origination fees.

More here.

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New Fundings

Dedrone, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based multi-sensor system designed to detect when drones enter into a client’s airspace, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Menlo Ventures. The company has now raised $12.9 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

Goodlord, a two-year-old, London-based rental platform that brings together tenants, landlords, and real estate agents, has raised £2 million ($2.9 million) in seed funding from LocalGlobe Capital and Global Founders Capital. More here.

KEEP, a year-old, China-based workout mobile app, has raised up to $32 million in Series C funding co-led by Morningside Ventures and GGV Capital. DealStreetAsia has more here.

RedPoint Global, a 10-year-old, Wellesley, Ma.-based company that develops marketing software for business-to-consumer companies, has raised $12 million in Series C funding from Grotech Ventures and WP Global Partners. More here.

Stayzilla, a 10-year-old, Chennai, India-based online booking platform for accommodations from hostels to hotels, has raised $16 million in Series C funding from earlier backers Matrix Partners and Nexus Ventures. More here.

Tantan, a two-year-old, China-based social networking mobile app, has reportedly raised $32 million in Series C funding led by DST Global, with participation from Vision Plus Capital and LB Investment. China Money Network has more here.

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New Funds

Apple is increasing its focus on India after announcing plans to open its first developer center in the country. Its new iOS App Design and Development Accelerator will be located in Bangalore and is scheduled to open early next year. TechCrunch has more here.

Geodesic Capital, a new, growth-stage venture capital firm investing in U.S.-based consumer and enterprise tech companies, has closed its first fund with $335 million. Geodesic Capital was founded by former U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos (who was also previously CEO of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati), and Ashvin Bachireddy, previously a growth stage partner at Andreessen Horowitz. More here.

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Exits

Fitbit, the maker of wearable fitness trackers that went public a year ago, has just acquired the assets from mobile payment solution Coin. TechCrunch has more here.

Microsoft is selling the feature phone business it acquired from Nokia back in 2013 to a subsidiary of Chinese manufacturer Foxconn for $350 million, it announced. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

John Lindfors, managing partner at DST Global, discusses the growing concern of a bubble in China‘s venture capital market with Bloomberg.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has apologized for those workers who were paid just $5 an hour by a subcontractor.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump yesterday warned that a dangerous financial bubble has formed in the technology industry – and Silicon Valley responded with a collective eye roll.

—–

Jobs

Romulus Capital is looking to bring aboard a venture capital associate. The job is in Boston.

—–

Essential Reads

More Amazon retail stores are coming.

Uber just announced a new tool that will allow family members and others totrack each others’ trips using its service.

Hi, everyone. It is Tuesday!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

According to a new New York Times report, Chinese authorities are “quietly scrutinizing technology products sold in China by Apple and other big foreign companies, focusing on whether they pose potential security threats to the country and its consumers and opening up a new front in an already tense relationship with Washington over digital security.” More here.

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Debra Lee, Chairman and CEO of BET, Joins Twitter’s Board

Debra Lee, who has been CEO of Viacom’s Black Entertainment Television (BET) since 2005 and its chairman since 2006, has joined the board of Twitter. She tweeted out the news yesterday afternoon, writing, “Thrilled to be joining the @twitter board. It’s transformed the media and the world like few other things in history (and continues to)!!”

Lee has been with BET for most of her career, joining in 1986 as a VP and the company’s general counsel. She has also been the company’s chief operating officer and served as its president in the ensuing years. Prior to joining BET, she spent five years as an attorney with the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Steptoe & Johnson.

She joins two other women on the board of Twitter. British businesswoman Martha Lane Fox was appointed to the board last month, along with Hugh Johnston, vice chairman and CFO of PepsiCo.

In late 2013, the company also appointed former publishing executive Marjorie Scardino to its board. Indeed, following the company’s annual shareholder meeting on May 25, Scardino will preside over meetings of Twitter’s independent directors, approve proposed meeting agendas and schedules, and call meetings of the board or independent directors.

More here.

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New Fundings

Allurion, a six-year-old, Wellesley, Ma.-based startup that makes a non-invasive gastric balloon that can be swallowed and expands in the stomach, has raised $6 million in new funding from Romulus Capital, bringing its total funding to date to $11 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Agenovir Corporation, a year-old, South San Francisco, Ca.-based company that’s using computationally engineered nuclease technology to develop antiviral therapeutics, has raised $10.6 million in Series A funding led by Data Collective, with participation from Celgene Corporation, Lightspeed Venture Partners and individual investors. More here.

Avanan, a two-year-old, New York City-based cloud security platform company, has raised $14.9 million in Series A funding led by Greenfield Cities Holdings, with participation from earlier backers Magma VC and StageOne Ventures. The company has now raised $16.4 million altogether. More here.

Bark & Co, a four-year-old, New York-based e-commerce startup focused around dog products, has raised a whopping $60 million in funding led byAugust Capital, with participation from earlier backers RRE Ventures and Resolute Ventures. The company has now raised $77 million to date. The WSJ has more here.

BigPanda, a four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based data science platform, has raised an additional $5 million in Series B financing, bringing its newest round to $21 million. Pelion Venture Partners is the newest investor of the group; earlier backers include Sequoia Capital, Battery Ventures, and Mayfield. The company has now raised $30 million altogether. More here.

Embroker, a year-old, San Francisco-based risk and insurance management platform that helps businesses select and purchase commercial insurance, has raised $12.2 million in Series A funding led by Canaan Partners, with participation from Nyca Partners and XL Innovate, as well as a new debt facility from Silicon Valley Bank. Earlier backers Bee Partners, FinTech Collective, Vertical Venture Partners, and 500 Startups also joined the round. More here.

Hundredrooms, a two-year-old, Palma, Mallorca-based vacation rental search engine, has raised €4.1 million ($4.7 million) in Series A funding led by Seaya Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Inveready, Bankinter, and Media Digital Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Mitochon Pharmaceuticals, a two-year-old, Blue Bell, Pa.-based biotech company that focuses on developing drugs which target the mitochondria for a host of serious diseases, has raised $1.6 million in funding from Ben Franklin Technology Partners and private investors. More here.

Nift, a year-old, Boston-based invitation-only network for neighborhood businesses, has raised $3 million in funding co-led by Spark Capital and Accomplice. More here.

PerfectlySoft, a year-old, Ontario, Canada-based creator of a server-side Swift development framework, has raised $1.2 million in seed funding led by Impression Ventures. More here.

Purigen Biosystems, a four-year-old, Pleasanton, Ca.-based company that’s developing a platform for the extraction and purification of nucleic acids from biological samples, has raised $18.2 million in Series A funding from 5AM Ventures, Roche Venture Fund and earlier backers Stanford-Startx Fund and Western Investments Capital. More here.

Q4, a nine-year-old, Toronto, Canada-based market intelligence and investor engagement platform (it manages investor websites and earnings webcasting, among other things), has raised $22 million in Series B funding from OpenText Enterprise Apps Fund, Information Venture Partners, HarbourVest Partners, Emerillon Capital, Kensington Capital Partners, Plaza Ventures and Accomplice. More here.

Teckst, a 1.5-year-pld, New York-based service that enables two-way text messaging for customer service teams, has raised $2.5 million in new funding from Composite Capital, Gaingels, Kernel Capital and Zelkova Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

True Anthem, an 8.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that makes real-time analytics and social publishing software for the media industry, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from WorldQuant Ventures, an angel investment firm. More here.

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New Funds

Breakout Ventures, which looks to be a new venture firm associated with Peter Thiel’s Breakout Labs (which provides grants to nascent science companies) is raising a debut fund, shows an SEC filing. No target is listed, but the form lists as the managing partner Lindy Fishburne, the executive director of Breakout Labs.

—–

People

In the latest sign of Facebook’s prestige and influence, the social network has lured tech-savvy U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal away from the bench and into the company as an in-house lawyer. Fortune has more here.

Hi, welcome back, everyone! Hope your Monday is off to a fine start.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

A new report from the San Jose Mercury News claims that Tesla used cheap foreign labor to build its newest facilities, paying workers as little as $5 an hour, according to one electrician who talked with the outlet.

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New Fundings

AtScale, a three-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based startup that aims to make business intelligence work easily on Hadoop, has raised $11 million in Series B funding led by Comcast Ventures, with participation from UMC, AME Ventures, Storm Ventures and XSeed Capital. NetworkWorld has more here.

CircleCI, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based software platform that aims to help developers rapidly release code for web and mobile apps, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led by Scale Venture Partners. Earlier investors DFJ, Baseline Ventures, and Harrison Metal also joined the round. The company has now raised $28 million altogether. More here.

DalCor Pharmaceuticals, a year-old, Montreal-based developer of cardiovascular disease treatments that genetically targets patients, has raised $100 million in Series B funding from Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the Fonds de solidarité FTQ and CTI Life Sciences, along with earlier backers Sanderling Ventures and André Desmarais. The company had previously raised $50 million late last year. More here.

Irras, a four-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based commercial-stage med tech company whose devices aim to address a broad range of brain pathology therapeutic applications and procedures, has raised $11.3 million in funding from Serendipity/Ixora, The Vandel Group, and unnamed, individual healthcare investors in Sweden. More here.

PebblePost, a two-year-old, New York-based programmatic direct mail platform, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Greycroft Partners and Tribeca Venture Partners, with full participation from earlier individual investors. The company has now raised $8 million to date. New York Business Journal has more here.

Properati, a 3.5-year-old, Buenos Aires, Argentina-based online real estate platform, has raised $2 million in funding from Neveq II, NXTP Labs, and Telor International Limited. FinSMEs has more here.

Renovo Financial, a five-year-old, Chicago, Il.-based private lender that assists real estate investors who acquire, renovate and manage residential properties, has raised $25 million from earlier investor Victory Park Capital, which has now committed $75 million to the company altogether. More here.

Taobao Mobile, the two-year-old, Hangzhou, China-based online movie ticketing platform unit of Alibaba Group’s film and TV subsidiary, Alibaba Pictures, has raised $260 million in Series A funding led by Ant Financial (also an Alibaba affiliate), CDH Investments, and Sina.com, with participation fromHehe Pictures, BONA Film and Huace Media. TechCrunch has more here.

Zeality, a two-year-old, Pleasanton, Ca.-based startup that’s creating an ecosystem for creators and brands that want to create virtual reality content for end-users, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Rothenberg Ventures; Paraag Marathe, chief strategy officer of the San Francisco 49ers; and Jason Khalipa, owner of NC Fit. More here.

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New Funds

WI Harper Group, a 20-year-old, San Francisco-based venture firm focused on expansion-stage, cross-border investing between the U.S. and greater China, has raised $174.3 million for its eight fund, shows a new SEC filing. The firm last closed on two funds in 2011. Its seventh fund closed with $110 million; a fund that it co-manages with Innovation Works (called Innovation Works Development Fund), separately closed with $180 million in 2011.

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IPOs

Oncobiologics, a 5.5-year-old, Cranbury, N.J.-based developer of biosimilar therapeutics, raised $35 million in its IPO late last week. The company priced 5.8 million shares at $6 per share, down from the $11 to $13 per share where the company originally planned to price its shares. (The shares fell another 20 percent by the end of the day Friday.) The outlet 24/7 Wall St. has more here.

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Exits

AT&T is acquiring Quickplay Media, a 13-year-old, Toronto-based provider of Internet-video streaming services, which it will use to launch three over-the-top DirecTV services later in 2016. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Quickplay was acquired in 2012 for $100 million by the private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners. (QuickPay had raised roughly $43 million from VCs before that sale.) Variety has more here.

Pfizer is acquiring 14-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based Anacor Pharmaceuticals in a deal valued at $5.2 billion net of cash. Anacor’s most important product is a non-steroidal gel used to treat eczema that’s currently under review by the FDA. Under the terms of the agreement, a subsidiary of Pfizer will acquire Anacor for $99.25 a share in cash. That represents a 55 percent premium over Anacor’s closing stock price from Friday. Dealbook has more here.

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People

Legendary investor Warren Buffett is putting his money behind a consortium of investors that’s bidding on Yahoo, reports Reuters. The group is led by Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert, who’s being advised for former Yahoos Dan Rosensweig and Tim Cadogan, says Recode.

Watch: Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg‘s powerful and emotional commencement speech on building resilience.

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel has purchased a Brentwood, Ca., home with model Miranda Kerr for $12 million (down from its listing price of $12.5 million). Business Insider has more here.

Jason Spinell, former head of venture investing at the now defunct consulting firm Undercurrent, has joined Slack to help manage and invest the fund, per Spinell’s LinkedIn account. (H/T: Dan Primack of Fortune.)

Robby Stein, who has led mobile and video strategy in New York for Yahoo for the last several years, has accepted a role with Instagram’s product leadership team, reports Recode. More here.

—–

Essential Reads

Amazon is preparing to launch more products — from food to detergent — under its own brand names, says the WSJ.

Google is facing record-breaking fine for monopoly abuse, as officials in Brussels finish a seven-year investigation of the company’s dominant search engine. The Telegraph has more here.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway took a new $1 billion position in Apple in the first quarter, according to a new regulatory filing.

A company that’s running itself without executives or managers or a board of directors has just raked in more than $107 million through a crowdfunding effort.

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Detours

Why movie theaters smell like people’s feelings.

How long will a museum visitor typically stand before a masterpiece? About 28 seconds, according to a recent study.

—–

Retail Therapy

A 1974 VW Bug with just 56 miles on its odometer.

Aaaand we’re back in SF! Happy Friday, everyone! Hope you have a stellar weekend.

(We were offline most of yesterday, so no column today.)

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Big deal. Didi Chuxing (formerly called Didi Kuaidi), China’s top-ride hailing app, has raised $1 billion in strategic funding from a little company called Apple. CEO Tim Cook says Apple is making the investment for a “number of strategic reasons, including a chance to learn more about certain segments of the China market. Of course, we believe it will deliver a strong return for our invested capital as well.” More here.

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New Fundings

Accion Systems, a three-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that’s developing miniature space propulsion systems using penny-size ion engines, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding led by Shasta Ventures. RRE Ventures, Founder Collective, and Slow Ventures also participated in the round. The company had previously raised $2 million from seed funding and $6.5 million from partnerships with the Department of Defense. TechCrunch has more here.

Astrobotic Technology, a nine-year-old, Pittsburgh, Pa.-based company that plans to deliver payloads to the moon (it originally spun out of Carnegie Mellon University), has raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by Space Angels Network. TechCrunch has more here.

Bigcommerce, a seven-year-old, Austin- and Australia-based start-up whose software-as-a-service helps more than 55,000 companies create and manage their online stores has raised $30 million financing round led by GGV Capital. DealStreetAsia has more here.

Capital Float, a three-year-old, Bangalore, India-based online lending platform for small businesses, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Creation Investments, with participation from returning investors SAIF Partners, Sequoia Capital and Aspada. TechCrunch has more here.

EnBiotix, a four-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based bioengineering startup focused on combatting drug-resistant and drug-tolerant bacterial infections, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from  Wired Holdings Investment Corp. and Apeiron Holdings. More here.

EndoStim, a seven-year-old, St. Louis, Mo.-based company that makes a neurostimulation therapy device for gastroesophageal reflux disease, has raised $25 million in Series D funding led by Endeavour Vision, with participation from Wellington Partners, GIMV and return backer Santé Ventures. Mass Device has more here.

Evaneos, a seven-year-old, Paris-based European travel marketplace, has raised $21 million in its third round of funding, from Serena Capital, Fonds Ambition Numérique (managed by Bpifrance), ISAI and XAnge. The company has now raised around $28 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Medal, a year-old, San Francisco-based online platform for unifying medical records, has raised $3.78 million in new funding, shows an SEC filing first flagged by Fortune. Investors aren’t disclosed on the form. According to CrunchBase, the company had raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding roughly a year ago, including from Lee Linden, who heads up Facebook’s emerging initiatives in commerce. More here.

Viridity Energy, a seven-year-old, Philadelphia, Pa.-based company that makes battery storage and demand response products, has raised $8.5 million in new funding from AltEnergy. More here.

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New Funds

In a bid to make South Korea’s tech industry more diverse, the government has created an accelerator for startups from around the world. Called the K-Startup Grand Challenge, the program is being organized by South Korea’s Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP), in partnership with Seoul-based accelerators SparkLabs, DEV Korea, ActnerLab, and Shift. It will accept applications through June 14. More here.

VSL Partners, a two-year-old, San Fransisco-based investment firm that make loans to stockholders of pre-IPO companies, has raised $17.7 million for its second fund, according to an SEC filing that shows a $50 million target. The firm began its fundraising last fall. VSL was cofounded by David Crowder, a co-founder and longtime general partner Thomas Weisel Venture Partners, which was a $250 million early-stage venture fund.

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IPOs

Acacia Communications, a Maynard, Ma.-based fiber optics component maker, went public this morning and its shares are soaring. The biggest shareholders heading into the IPO included Matrix Partners, which owned 39.2 percent of the company, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, which owned 19.7 percent, and Summit Partners, which owned 9.4 percent. Barron’s has more here.

China Online Education Group filed an F-1 form with the SEC for an IPO. No pricing details were given in the filing, but the offering was valued up to $100 million. The company has yet to decide on which exchange to list its American depositary shares. The outlet 24/7 Wall St. has the story here.

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People

Sunny Balwani, the president and chief operating officer of Theranos, the beleaguered medical diagnostics startup, is stepping down as the company reorganizes its structure. More here.

In an interview yesterday, billionaire investor Mark Cuban likened Trump to a drunk and a womanizer and said his campaign is “like a Seinfeld episode,” meaning that it’s about nothing. Apparently, despite these views, he’s supporting Trump for president.

Magic Johnson, the Hall of Fame basketball player and businessman, has left Square’s board, saying he decided to resign owing to time constraints with other projects on which he is working.

Evan Spiegel wants everyone to use his messaging app, Snapchat. He meanwhile “tries to stay off the grid,” reports Recode, which says Spiegel “shares very little with very few, a practice that has come to define his role at Snapchat and the company’s underlying culture.”

Elizabeth Weil, who started Twitter’s corporate development team in 2009 and spent the last three years at Andreessen Horowitz, introducing its portfolio companies to key contacts at Fortune 500 companies, has joined 137 Ventures as a managing partner. Fortune has the story here.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he wants to invite “leading conservatives and people from across the political spectrum” to discuss recent reports that its “Trending Topics” feature is biased against conservatives.

How the 1 percent parties, in pictures.

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Essential Reads

New crowdfunding rules taking effect Monday will allow anyone to invest in startups—not just wealthy people.

Google is moving beyond Cardboard and introducing a standalone Android VR headset next week.

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Detours

The amazing pancakes of Dr. Dancakes.

Where in the U.S. the middle class is shrinking and the upper class is growing.

Living in the fast lane apparently will kill you.

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Retail Therapy

Fender — now owned by TPG Growth and Servco Pacific — just released headphones that double as in-ear monitors for performers. More here.

Bad Affleck is coming back, this November.

It is Wednesday and we are done interviewing people on stage! (Phew. It’s always a little nerve-wracking.)

If of interest, can check out our sit-down here with legendary Wall Street exec Sallie Krawcheck, who just took the wraps off her new financial advisory firm Ellevest. You can also check out our interview with Honest Company cofounder Jessica Alba and her chief marketing officer, Chris Thorne, right here. We covered a lot of ground, from the lawsuits facing the company, to the company’s IPO plans, to a new line of products coming this fall that are centered around hair products.

Note: We’ll be on a flight back to SF early tomorrow so won’t be able to write SVC, but we’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming on Friday.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Google announced today that it will no longer allow payday lenders to advertise on its systems because the loans often come with high interest rates and quick repayment requirements that push borrowers into debt. More here.

Instagram has a new look today.

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Naspers Plants a Flag in the U.S. with New Venture Group

Naspers, the 101-year-old, internet and entertainment group, is finally planting a flag in the U.S., establishing a Naspers Ventures unit that will operate largely out of San Francisco.

The 30,000-person company, which is based in Cape Town, South Africa and tends to focus on less developed markets, including Latin America, Africa, India and even Russia, said its decision to come to the U.S., owes to a few factors.

The first is organizational. Though Naspers is one of the most active investors in the world – it committed $1.5 billion to companies last year, including Avito, an online classified ads company in Moscow — the company has created smaller operating companies around certain sectors where it has a wealth of bets. Some of those sectors and bets include e-commerce (Flipkart), online retail (Allegro), online classifieds (including Mail.ru and OLX), social networking (Tencent), and payments (PayU).

“We’ve gotten well-represented in those areas,” says Naspers CEO Bob van Dijk. “But we also realized that to prepare for our next phase of growth, we want to be focused on other, new consumer needs that are being transformed by tech.” And to do it via a dedicated ventures unit.

Indeed, this morning, Naspers Ventures is announcing it has led a $15 million Series B investment in the social learning network Brainly — a deal that represents the first ed tech investment for Naspers. (Seven-year-old Brainly was founded in Kraków, Poland and now has a second office in New York.)

More here.

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New Fundings

ConnXus, a six-year-old, Cincinnati, Oh.-based company whose tech platform helps connect large corporations with minority- and women-owned suppliers, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from Techstars Ventures, Serious Change and Impact America Fund. Cincinnati.com has more here.

Drayson Technologies, a nine-year-old, London-based startup whose technology harvests energy from radio frequency signals to potentially power a range of low-consumption devices, has raised £8 million ($11.6 million) in Series B funding led by earlier backers Lansdowne Partners and Woodford Investment Management, with participation from new, unnamed investors and the company’s staff. TechCrunch has more here.

Orderbird, a five-year-old, Berlin-based company that claims to be the leading iPad point-of-sale solution in German-speaking markets, has raised €20 million ($22.8 million) in Series C funding co-led by Digital+ Partners and Metro Group. The European payment-provider Concardis, an earlier backer, also participated again but via a secondary listing. TechCrunch has more here.

Soracom, a 1.5-year-old, Tokyo-based startup that provides a communication platform for developers of connected devices, announced today that it has raised a 2.4 billion yen (about $22 million) Series B from World Innovation Lab, Infinity Venture Partners, and other investors. The money will be used to enter the United States and other markets. TechCrunch has more here.

Weaveworks, a 1.5-year-old, London-based startup that’s creating open source tools for managing, monitoring and securing containers, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by GV, with participation from earlier backer Accel Partners. The company has now raised $20 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Cherry Ventures, a Berlin-based venture firm, has raised a new €150 million early-stage fund, its second. Cherry focuses on seed and early-stage startups, with a particular focus on Berlin’s tech hub and companies in the consumer space. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Elon Musk‘s Hyperloop dream is about to have its first public demo.

This Peter Thiel business is more serious than we thought.

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Essential Reads

Venture-backed uBeam could be vaporware, according to a blogger claiming to be uBeam’s former VP of Engineering.

Uber’s latest attempt to ease concerns about its labor model establishes benefits for drivers but stops short of unionization.

The most audacious part of Alphabet? Google Fiber, says Recode. Here’s why.

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Detours

Why the world’s richest airlines can’t get enough hand-me-down jets.

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Retail Therapy

Hotel Jerome. (H/T: Uncrate.)