You’re on vacation already? (We’re right behind you.)

Hope you have a wonderful long weekend, U.S. readers. For those of you elsewhere in the world, here’s wishing you a wonderful weekend, too. We’ll see everyone back here on Tuesday.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Yikes. Samsung says it’s recalling its new Galaxy Note 7 smartphone worldwide after reports of the device catching fire while charging. CNN has more here.

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Chris Moore of Redpoint Ventures on a Market in “Flux”

Chris Moore is an increasingly rare breed. At the founding of Redpoint Ventures 17 years ago, Moore joined as an associate and — unlike today’s associates who often are cycled in and out of venture firms — he was made a partner. Since then, Moore has led deals in numerous companies that have gone on to sell for sizable amounts, including Auditude, acquired by Adobe; Right Media,acquired (and later shut down) by Yahoo; Efficient Frontier, acquired by Adobe; and Blue Kai, acquired by Oracle.

He also led Redpoint into Refresh, acquired earlier this year by LinkedIn for undisclosed terms.

Earlier today, before leaving Redpoint’s Sand Hill Road office for the long weekend, Moore talked with us about what he’s seeing in the market right now and why it “feels like it’s in flux.” More from that chat, edited for length:

We’re sort of confused about what’s happening out there these days. 

I know, it isn’t really clear right now which way the market will go. We had a real run-up last year and the year before, with lots of money coming into the system and momentum investing and all the unicorn hoopla. Then, late last year, it started to feel a little more discriminate, I think in part because the funding ecosystem was just getting exhausted.

The beginning of the year felt particularly grim, but it appears things are moving full speed ahead again.

In January and February, we had that public market hiccup, and we all said, “Ooh, this is it. It feels like the start of the correction.” And it didn’t really happen. Interest rates are still low and tech is still the one place where there’s growth in the world and investors are still looking for growth.

I do think there’s more focus on the fundamentals, and that translates from the later stage growth market all the way down to the Series A market. I think we’re even starting to see it a bit in the seed market.

It seems like there are still an awful lot of companies getting funded.

The pace has slowed a bit over last year, but not a lot. Still, I know we’re more focused on the “show me” rather than the “tell me.” We’re looking for market validation and proof points in the form of customer momentum and evidence that the business model can work.

Are terms changing?

No, not at the Series A stage. If you start asking for [onerous] terms, it’s hurts the company and it hurts us, because your next set of investors are going to say, “Hey, they got those terms at the Series A; we want them, too.”

Are Series A valuations down?

More here.

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New Fundings

Boku, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based direct carrier billing mobile payments company, has raised $13.75 million in funding from earlier backers Khosla Ventures, Benchmark, New Enterprise Associates, Index Ventures and DAG Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Beyond Verbal, a four-year-old, Tel Aviv-based “emotional analytics” company whose technology aims to extract a person’s full set of emotions and character traits using their voice as they speak, has raised $3 million in Series A funding led by KuangChi Science, with participation from Winnovation and Singulariteam. Tech.eu has more here.

Bitmovin, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based HTTP video streaming solutions and cloud server encoding systems developer company has raised $10.3 million in Series A funding led by Atomico. TechCrunch has more here.

C3 IoT, a seven-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company whose Internet of Things analytics platform rides on top of Amazon Web Services, has raised $70 million in Series D funding led by TPG, with participation from previous investors Sutter Hill, Interwest Partners, and founder and CEO Thomas Siebel. ZDNet has more here.

Criquet Shirts, a 5.5-yar-old, Austin, Tex.-based men’s clothing startup focused around old school golf shirts and more, has raised $1.4 million in Series A funding led by CircleUp. CrowdFund Insider has more here.

Molotov, a year-old, Paris-based, feature-rich TV streaming service has raised $4.5 million in funding from the British media company Sky. The funding is part of what will be a larger round, says Sky. More here.

Yum China, a spinout of 19-year-old, Kentucky-based Yum Brands, has raised $460 million from the Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial, along with Alibaba investor Primavera Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

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IPOs

There are eight tech IPOs in the pipeline, and Renaissance Capital expects between 35 and 45 companies altogether to go out by the end of the year. More here.

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People

Argh. Another Uber driver has assaulted a passenger.

RelateIQ cofounder Steve Loughlin has joined Accel Partners as a partner. (That solves that mystery.)

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Data

Smartphone applications now account for half the time that U.S. users spend online, up from 41 percent back in July 2014, according to a new report from comScore. More here.

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Essential Reads

Rocket Internet is gearing up for its upcoming results day on September 22 and it’s already warning that its financials aren’t going to be pretty.

Uber will have to confront a lawsuit accusing it of creating fake Lyft accounts to lure its smaller rival’s drivers to phony ride requests the old-fashioned way — in a public courthouse.

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Detours

The complete encyclopedia of Drake memes.

When a commercial rocket blows up, who pays? (Asking for a friend.)

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Retail Therapy

Picco calfskin sneakers, from venture-backed M. Gemi.

Thursday! Happy birthday to one of our most beloved part-time employees.:)

Also, apologies to those of you who’ve been receiving StrictlyVC many hours after it’s been sent out to readers. We were in touch with our email service provider earlier, and the issue centers on some data center outages that are resolved or will be soon.

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Top News in the A.M.

Oops? A major explosion during a SpaceX prelaunch test this morning destroyed Facebook’s first satellite. Understandably, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he’s “deeply disappointed.”

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At Pear Demo Day in Palo Alto, 13 Companies to Watch

As  dozens of Teslas baked in the sprawling Palo Alto parking lot of a local law firm yesterday, 100 top investors packed into a high-ceilinged meeting room. There, they listened as 13 startups deliver four-minute presentations about why they’re worth watching.

The companies — all of them roughly six months old or younger, and all led by current college students or recent graduates — were part of the Launchpad program of three-year-old Pear, an early-stage venture firm that annually invites computer science students from top schools to build companies in their office with a $50,000 uncapped note and no strings attached. (Until recently, the firm was known as Pejman Mar Ventures.)

So far, Pear seems to be choosing these student teams wisely. Out of the eight groups that presented a year ago, one startup sold to Google and four others have raised seed funding. Pear’s inaugural class, in 2014, also saw one startup, FancyThat, sell to Palantir.

Certainly, the venture capitalists gathered yesterday seemed enthusiastic. Ross Fubini, a partner at Canaan Partners, tweeted partway through the presentations that it was “looking like the best demo event of the year.” Another investor, Lux Capital partner Shahin Farshchi, told us afterward that he also thought it was “fantastic, with something for everybody, including consumer companies, analytics and AI companies, and deep tech for investors like me.”

For those who weren’t there and may be curious, here’s what you missed:

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Allocate.ai: This company makes AI-powered time sheets to enable companies to better understand how and where their teams are spending time. According to the founders (who come from Stanford and UC Santa Barbara), 45 million people fill out time sheets in the U.S., and they estimate that this adds up to $11 billion in lost time. (Think of lawyers whose time is valuable and may spend upwards of 15 minutes a day tracking their billable hours.) They argue that made more efficient, the market could be a whole lot bigger, too. If you agree and want to reach out to them, you can do that at founders@allocate.ai.

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BlackSMS: Its tech allows users to send encrypted, password-protected, self-destructing iMessages that can even be disguised and masked inside of fake replacement texts. This struck us as useful for a variety of cases, and we hope we’re right about that. Its 20-year-old founder, Tyler Weitzman — who says he has built 30 apps since his middle school days — is now dropping out of Stanford to “go all in on BlackSMS.”

To learn more, you can check out a longer piece that TC wrote here earlier this year. To contact Weitzman, you can email him at founders@black-sms.com.

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Capella Space: This data company says it can provide persistent and reliable information from space through a constellation of shoebox-size satellites that it’s building. How do they differ from the satellites of other startups? Its tech relies on synthetic aperture radar, meaning it sends radio waves down to the earth’s surface that — based on the reflection of the radio waves that go through the clouds and don’t require illumination from the sun — can capture images at night and despite heavy cloud cover. (Many other new constellations rely on optical technologies instead.)

Capella does have competitors, including Ursa Space Systems. Ursa currently sells information to customers based on traditional (read big, bulky) satellites that employ synthetic aperture radar, and it’s planning to develop its own constellation of satellites. But it’s pretty much an open race at this point. You can reach the founders at founders@cappellaspace.com.

More here.

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New Fundings

DefinedCrowd, a year-old, Kirkland, Wa.-based data science company, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from Sony Innovation Fund, Amazon Alexa Fund, and Portugal Ventures. More here.

DraftKings, the five-year-old, Boston-based fantasy sports site, has raised $153 million in fresh funding from new investors, including Revolution Growth. Fortune reports that backers funded the company at a steep discount to the roughly $2 billion post-money valuation it was assigned during its last funding round a year ago. More here.

Hey, hey, happy Wednesday!

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Top News in the A.M.

It’s a happenin’: Google is taking on Uber with a new ride-sharing service that’s opening to all San Francisco Waze users this fall.

Twitter jumped as much as 5.8 percent this morning, the biggest gain in two weeks, after co-founder Ev Williams said in an interview with Bloomberg TV that the company has to weigh all options amid ongoing speculation that it’s a takeover target. More here.

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Underwhelmed By Your CEO? Good Luck with That

Every day, some tech startups are surpassing their numbers while others are struggling to keep going. Washio, an on-demand laundry service that abruptly shut down yesterday, is just the latest startup to lose its momentum.

There’s no shortage of ways things go wrong. Markets change. Companies underestimate the cost of doing business. Sometimes, too, the CEO isn’t getting the job done. In fact, you might feel very certain that your CEO is one of these people, and you may be tempted to complain to your company’s board members about it.

You might be disappointed if you do. However well-intentioned they may be, most board members won’t push a CEO out the door unless they have no other choice. Though VCs in particular talk up the help they provide to startups, when it comes to trouble within a company’s executive ranks, it’s, well, complicated.

“I think broadly the default is to back the CEO,” admits one investor who asked not to be named. “The CEO has far more access to the board than anyone else, and like it or not, his or her point of view tends to influence how you as a board member perceive the company’s situation. It’s sort of like, ‘Do I want to take a one-off comment, even a thoughtful one, and [give it more credence than] the interactions I’ve had with this [executive] over their tenure as CEO?’”

“Startups are hard,” says SoftTech VC founder Jeff Clavier. “The thing that no one talks about are the personal aspects of running a startup and the relationships between investors and entrepreneurs. We’re coaches and mentors, but sometimes, we’re psychiatrists, too.”

Slow down

If it’s any consolation, frustration at startups – anecdotally, at least – is playing out across the landscape as a growing number of aging startups confront an uncertain future. According to the company Mattermark, which collects and analyzes data on private market funding, late-stage deal volume in the first quarter was down substantially, with 23 deals accounting for $4.2 billion in capital, compared with 32 deals totaling $6.1 billion in the first quarter of 2015.

Venky Ganesan, a managing director at the early-stage firm Menlo Ventures, says that over the last 18 months he has received “five or six calls” from high-level startup employees who’ve grown unhappy with their CEOs.

The precise issue typically dictates what happens next. Strange as it may seem, the easy things are financial fraud or gross mismanagement, says Ganesan. Harassment is a deal breaker, too. “If someone is calling me about personal harassment or integrity around accounting, it’s immediate. You ring the alarm and get out the fire trucks.”

More here.

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New Funding

Compass, a four-year-old, New York-based real estate startup, has raised $75 million in fresh funding at a valuation “above $1 billion,” says TechCrunch.Wellington Management Capital led the round, with participation from earlier backers Institutional Venture Partners, Thrive Capital and Founders Fund. Compass has now raised $210 million altogether. More here.

Cozy, a 4.5-year-old, Portland, Ore.-based platform to streamline interactions between property managers and renters, has raised $8.5 million in Series B funding led by American Family Ventures, with participation from Social Capital, General Catalyst Partners and numerous others. TechCrunch hasmore here.

Pusher, a five-year-old, London-based cloud-based service that allows developers to quickly and easily add realtime functionality to their web apps, has raised $2.5 million from SaaS Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Steel Wool Studios, a four-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based gaming studio made up of Pixar veterans, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from HTC, the manufacturer of the Vive virtual reality headset. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Hyde Park Venture Partners, the five-year-old, Chicago-based early-stage venture firm, has closed its second fund with $65 million — capital it plans to invest in Midwestern tech startups. The firm closed its debut fund with $25 million. The Chicago Tribune has more here.

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Exits

Private equity firm KKR is buying the nine-year-old, Minneapolis, Mn.-based, mostly bootstrapped call-center software maker Calabrio for what the WSJ says is a $200 million all-equity transaction. More here.

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People

Nest Labs, the maker of smart thermostats and smoke detectors, is parting ways with a few dozen employees who work on its Internet of Things platform. Their destination: Google. More here.

Every day, some tech startups are surpassing their numbers while others are struggling to keep going. Washio, an on-demand laundry service that abruptly shut down yesterday, is just the latest startup to lose its momentum.

There’s no shortage of ways things go wrong. Markets change. Companies underestimate the cost of doing business. Sometimes, too, the CEO isn’t getting the job done. In fact, you might feel very certain that your CEO is one of these people, and you may be tempted to complain to your company’s board members about it.

You might be disappointed if you do. However well-intentioned they may be, most board members won’t push a CEO out the door unless they have no other choice. Though VCs in particular talk up the help they provide to startups, when it comes to trouble within a company’s executive ranks, it’s, well, complicated.

“I think broadly the default is to back the CEO,” admits one investor who asked not to be named. “The CEO has far more access to the board than anyone else, and like it or not, his or her point of view tends to influence how you as a board member perceive the company’s situation. It’s sort of like, ‘Do I want to take a one-off comment, even a thoughtful one, and [give it more credence than] the interactions I’ve had with this [executive] over their tenure as CEO?’”

“Startups are hard,” says SoftTech VC founder Jeff Clavier. “The thing that no one talks about are the personal aspects of running a startup and the relationships between investors and entrepreneurs. We’re coaches and mentors, but sometimes, we’re psychiatrists, too.”

Slow down

If it’s any consolation, frustration at startups – anecdotally, at least – is playing out across the landscape as a growing number of aging startups confront an uncertain future. According to the company Mattermark, which collects and analyzes data on private market funding, late-stage deal volume in the first quarter was down substantially, with 23 deals accounting for $4.2 billion in capital, compared with 32 deals totaling $6.1 billion in the first quarter of 2015.

Venky Ganesan, a managing director at the early-stage firm Menlo Ventures, says that over the last 18 months he has received “five or six calls” from high-level startup employees who’ve grown unhappy with their CEOs.

The precise issue typically dictates what happens next. Strange as it may seem, the easy things are financial fraud or gross mismanagement, says Ganesan. Harassment is a deal breaker, too. “If someone is calling me about personal harassment or integrity around accounting, it’s immediate. You ring the alarm and get out the fire trucks.”

More here.

(Image: Bryce Durbin)

Okay, if you are not at Burning Man, raise your hand.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Earlier today, EU antitrust regulators ordered Apple to pay up to $14.5 billion in taxes (plus interest) to the Irish government after ruling that a scheme to route profits through Ireland is illegal state aid. Ireland doesn’t want Apple’s billions in back taxes —  the country wants to remain attractive to the likes of other giants, including Facebook and Google — and has vowed to fight the ruling.

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New Fundings

Arcus Biosciences, a year-old, Hayward, Ca.-based cancer immunotherapy startup, has raised $70 million in Series B funding from Google Ventures, Invus Group, Stanford University and DROIA Oncology Ventures, among others. FierceBiotech has more here.

BBOXX, a six-year-old, London-based off-grid solar company, has raised $20 million in Series C funding from MacKinnon, Bennett & Co., ENGIE Rassembleurs d’Energies and KawiSafi Ventures, along with earlier backers Khosla Impact Fund, Bamboo Finance and DOEN Foundation. PV Magazine has more here.

Behalf, a five-year-old, New York-based commercial payment platform for small businesses, has raised $27 million in Series C funding led by Viola Growth, with participation from earlier backers Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital, MissionOG, and Vintage. More here.

Glint, a three-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based employee engagement platform, has raised $27 million in Series C funding led by Meritech Capital Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backers Norwest Venture Partners and Shasta Ventures. The company has now raised $50 million altogether. More here.

Health2Sync, a three-year-old, Tapei, Taiwan-based startup that makes a diabetes management app and related “smart cable” accessory, has raised $3 million in Series A funding led by WI Harper Group, with participation from Cherubic Ventures, iSeed Ventures and SparkLabs Global Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

IntSights, a year-old, Herzliya, Israel-based leading intelligence driven security provider for cyber threats from the dark, deep and open web, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding led by Blumberg Capital, with participation from Glilot Capital Partners as well as Blackstone, Wipro Ventures, and other investors. More here.

LogRhythm, a 13-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based cybersecurity company, has raised $40 million in new funding led by earlier investor Riverwood Capital Management, with participation from Adams Street Partners, Siemens Venture Capital, Delta-v Capital, Exclusive Ventures, and Silver Lake Waterman (Silver Lake’s late-stage growth fund). More here.

LYKE, a year-old, Jakarta, Indonesia -based fashion and beauty commerce app, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by Holtzbrinck Ventures, with participation from the Singapore-­based firm APACIG. The outlet e27 has more here.

Mediamorph, a nine-year-old, New York-based company whose software helps media and entertainment companies better measure, manage and optimize their reach, has raised $21.2 million in Series C funding led by Advance Vixeid Partners, with participation from earlier backers Liberty Global Ventures, Smedvig Capital, and individual investors. Variety has more here.

Mitra Biotech, a seven-year-old, Woburn, Ma.-based developer of personalized cancer treatments, has raised $27.4 million in Series B funding co-led by Sequoia India and Sands Capital Ventures, with participation from RA Capital Management and earlier backers Accel Partners and Tata Capital Innovations Fund. The Economic Times has more here.

Petnet, a 3.5-year-old, L.A.-based pet tech company that makes a “smart” pet feeder, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by strategic investor and partner Petco. TechCrunch has more here.

Revelator, a three-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based data management platform for distributing, selling and licensing music online, has raised $2.5 million in Series A funding led by Exigent Capital, with participation from Digital Currency Group and the Israeli early-stage fund Reinvent. TechCrunch hasmore here.

Runnr, a Mumbai, India-based food delivery platform that was formed by the merger of startups Roadrunnr and TinyOwl, has raised around $7 million from investors, co-led by Nexus Venture Partners and Blume Venture Partners. Times of India has more here.

Shyft Analytics, a 10-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based cloud data and analytics company that’s focused on the life sciences industry, has raised $12.5 million in Series B funding from McKesson Ventures, Medidata Solutions, and earlier investors Health Enterprise Partners and Milestone Venture Partners. More here.

Space Market, a two-year-old, Tokyo, Japan-based marketplace of unused venues for on-demand rental use, has raised roughly $4 million in a round led by Opt Ventures, with participation from Recruit Strategic Partners, Mizuho Capital, SBI Investment and Orix. The Bridge has more here.

Velocity, a two-year-old, London-based restaurant booking app for those needing help with short notice, has raised $22.5 million in a Series B round led by DIG Investments, with participation from Starwood Hotels founder Barry Sternlicht and concierge giant John Paul. VentureBeat has more here.

Zillion, a 5.5-year-old, Norwalk, Cn.-based health care tech company, has raised $28 million in Series C funding led by TwinFocus Capital Partners. More here.

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New Funds

Rev1 Ventures, a seed-stage firm focused on Columbus, Oh., has closed on a $22 million fund. Fortune has more here.

Sofinnova Ventures, the 42-year-old, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical venture capital firm, has announced a new, $595 million fund. FierceBiotech has more here.

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Exits

Cisco is acquiring ContainerX, a year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based startup that helps companies manage and integrate containers across data centers. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. ContainerX raised $2.7 million in seed funding from General Catalyst Partners, Greylock Partners and Caffeinated Capital. You can read more about the company here.

Washio, a three-year-old, on-demand laundry service, has shut down after raising roughly $17 million from investors.

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People

Apple CEO Tim Cook has rejected the EU’s demand for the company to return $14.5 billion in “unpaid” taxes in Ireland as having “no basis in fact or law.” TechCrunch has more here.

Alphabet executive David Drummond has left Uber’s boad amid increasing competition between two tech companies. The WSJ has more here.

Tech’s favorite bad boy, Sean Parker, has reportedly shelled out $58 million to create a palace on 10th Street in Manhattan.

Techies are getting priced out of Palo Alto, where even a 790-square-foot studio now costs $1.3 million.

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Essential Reads

Twitter will start paying its best users to create videos.

When is an endorsement an ad on Instagram?

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Detours

The mystery at the heart of great photographs.

An M.I.T. scientist claims that this pill is the fountain of youth.

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Retail Therapy

A hotel, inspired by prisons everywhere.

Monday! (That came fast.) Hope yours is off to a great start.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

As of today, it’s finally legal to fly drones commercially.

Snapchat is planning to introduce behavioral targeting for advertisers.

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AngelList Deals Will Soon Be Private (and Other Updates You’ll Want to Know)

Earlier this week, we sat down with Naval Ravikant, cofounder of five-year-old AngelList, a popular platform that matches startups with early-stage investors. Three million people, including 50,000 accredited investors, have created profiles on AngelList since its founding, and AngelList now uses that information to pair startups with capital, pair startup employees with employers and, more newly, pair startups with customers.

It’s become a big business, as well as a confusing one, Ravikant readily admits. And while we can’t report on one interesting new, performance-related wrinkle that’s coming soon, he walked us through many other stats and initiatives. Our chat has been edited for length and clarity.

TC: A few years ago, AngelList introduced Syndicates, essentially pop-up funds that allow angel investors to syndicate their investments in exchange for some upside. It was fairly transparent at the outset, but that’s been changing. Why?

NR: Seventy-five percent of the deals are now private, up from 45 percent a year ago. It’ll be default private soon because a lot of the hot deals tend to be private. Also, that public-private dichotomy is always really hard for entrepreneurs [in fundraising mode] to figure out, so they start associating our brand [with a place to share information publicly to accredited investors], which is a negative, so they don’t want to go on here. We might take a hit on liquidity by making the default private, but at the end of the day, it’s all about getting the high-quality companies.

TC: An investor, Gil Penchina, has built a big business on the platform. Are more leads starting to see a kind of of network effect?

NR: Gil is a unique case. He’s the one who’s always breaking the system. We’re more catering to operator-angels, meaning people who have operating jobs, or VPs at big companies or who’ve started their own startups. It’s people who aren’t professional VCs but who do four to six deals a year, investing in alumni and people they know.

TC: How many of them close a deal each month? And are the investors on the platform mostly based in Silicon Valley?

NR: We had 55 deals led by 41 leads close in June; we had 44 deals led by 38 leads close in July. The average for most leads on the platform is a couple of deals per year. As for demographics, I’d say over half [the people who lead deals on the platform] are in Silicon Valley.

TC: You’d said publicly somewhere that you were getting into special purpose vehicles, which come together quickly to invest in a single, later-stage company. Why would someone create an SPV on the platform?

More here.

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New Fundings

BlueTalon, a three-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company that aims to help companies enforce consistent data access controls on increasingly complex data infrastructures, has raised $16 million in Series A financing led byMaverick Ventures, with participation from Arsenal Venture Partners and earlier investors Signia Venture Partners, Data Collective, Divergent Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, and Stanford-StartX Fund. More here.

DogHero, a two-year-old, Brazil-based pet-sitting service a la American companies Rover.com and DogVacay, has raised $3.1 million in funding led by Monashees Capital, with participation from earlier backer Kaszek Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Eight Days, a Suzhou, China-based online grocery delivery company that targets university students, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series C funding led by the Chinese retailer Suning. TechNode has more here.

GOAT, a six-year-old, Culver City, Ca.-based mobile-only marketplace for used and collectible sneakers, has raised $5 million in funding led by Matrix Partners, with participation from earlier backers Upfront Ventures and Webb Investment Network. TechCrunch has more here.

HappyFresh, an 18-month-old, on-demand grocery service that operates in Southeast Asia, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series B funding led by Samena Capital, a Dubai-based private equity firm, along with previous backers Vertex Ventures and Sinar Mas Digital Ventures. TechCrunch hasmore here.

Helix Sleep, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based company that sells made-to-order mattresses, has raised $7.4 million in Series A funding, including from Double J Capital, Simon Venture Group, Western Technology Investments, Great Oaks VC and individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

LivSpace, a four-year-old, Bangalore, India-based site where people can design interiors and buy furniture, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Jungle Ventures and Helion Ventures. Tech in Asia has more here.

Notonthehighstreet.com, an 11-year-old, U.K.-based curated online marketplace where users can browse a variety of individual sellers and purchase items, has raised £21 million ($27.5 million) in Series E funding led by the media company Hubert Burda Media, with participation from earlier backers Index Ventures, Industry Ventures, and Eight Roads Ventures. More here.

Paytm, a six-year-old, Noida, India-based digital payments and e-commerce startup, is raising $300 million led by Taiwan’s MediaTek and other investors, in a round that will more than double its valuation to $5 billion, says Bloomberg.More here.

Plowz & Mowz, a two-year-old, Syracuse, New York-based marketplace for landscaping, snow plowing, and other home care and repair services, has raised $1.5 million from the startup studio Science, along with undisclosed angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Rheo, a year-old, San Francisco-based personal video channel for Apple TV, has raised $2.3 million in seed funding led by Accomplice, with participation from Pathbreaker Ventures, Social Capital, SocialStarts, and Google Maps creator Lars Rasmussen. TechCrunch has more here.

StudySoup, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based marketplace that works as an online study group for students looking to sell or purchase class notes and study guides, has raised $1.7 million in seed funding from 1776, Canyon Creek Capital, 500 Startups and numerous angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Testin, a five-year-old, Hong Kong-based cloud testing service for mobile app developers, has raised $30 million in Series C funding from undisclosed sources. DealStreet Asia has more here.

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Exits

Nutanix, a San Jose, Ca.-based company that combines server, storage, and virtualization into a single “converged” piece of data center gear (and which is expected to go public soon), said it is in the process of buying PernixData and has completed an acquisition of Calm.io. PernixData, also based in San Jose, makes software that aggregates all the flash-based storage that comes with servers into one sharable pool. Calm.io, based in India, offers online “devops” software that automates software deployment. Fortune has more here. According to CrunchBase, PernixData had raised $62 million from investors, and Calm.io raised just $4 million.

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People

“I got scammed…” A story of things gone pretty wrong in Silicon Valley.

Former HP employees say Meg Whitman encouraged ageist hiring. More here.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met Pope Francis at the Vatican this morning and presented him with . . . a drone.

Apple, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft just promised to pay women as much as men.

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Essential Reads

Silicon Valley start-ups were set to face a great reckoning in 2016. Yet the crash hasn’t happened, notes the New York Times.

Wall Street is redoubling its fight to manage $100 billion at endowments, says Bloomberg.

Recode looks at why the Google X moonshot factory is struggling to get products out the door.

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Detours

What just happened at the Video Music Awards?

In a new book on white collar crime, Bernie Madoff, Andrew Fastow, and Dennis Koslowski address the giant frauds they perpetrated, and why.

The weird connection between smiling and racism.

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Retail Therapy

Shipboard Girl (1965) by Roy Lichtenstein. Price: $59,000

Woot! Happy Friday, everyone — see you Monday.:)

No column today.

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Top News in the A.M.

Uber just told investors that it has lost $1.2 billion in the first half of this year. Bloomberg notes that dot.com disasters Webvan and Kozmo.com “lost just over $1 billion combined in their short lifetimes.” (Oof.)

If you haven’t already, update your iPhone.

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New Fundings

Denali Therapeutics, a year-old, South San Francisco-based company that’s developing a portfolio of therapeutics based on insights into the genetic causes and biological processes underlying neurodegenerative disease, has raised $130 million in Series B funding led by Baillie Gifford, along with several new and large institutional investors (all unnamed). More here.

Dice, a two-year-old, London-based ticketing startup that sells mobile tickets without booking fees and primarily focuses on millennials wanting to discover new bands, has raised $6 million Series A funding led by Evolution Equity Partners, with participation from Lumia Capital and earlier backers White Star Capital, Designer Fund and Kima Ventures, along with several angel investors from the music industry. TechCrunch has more here.

MobiKwik, a seven-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based mobile wallet startup service, has raised $40 million in strategic funding from Net1, a mobile payment firm that caters to the unbanked. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Afore Capital, a new, San Francisco-based early-stage firm, is targeting $40 million for a debut fund, shows an SEC filing. Founders includ former Foundation Capital partner Anamitra Banerji and former Founders Collective principal Guarav Jain. (H/T: Fortune.)

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IPOs

Apptio, a Bellevue, Wa.-based company whose software helps CIOs better manage their IT departments, filed today to go public. GeekWire has much more here.

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Exits

Enterprise software company SAP is acquiring Altiscale, a four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that offers a cloud-based version of the Hadoop open source software for storing, processing, and analyzing lots of different kinds of data. VentureBeat says the deal could fetch more than $125 million. Altiscale had raised $42 million from investors, including Accel Partners, General Catalyst Partners, and Sequoia Capital, shows CrunchBase.

Apollo Global Management, the private equity firm, is taking private the publicly traded cloud company Rackspace for $4.3 billion in cash. CNBC has more here.

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People

A former in-house attorney at Apple has sued the company for alleged age and gender discrimination. Defending Apple is Orrick partner Lynne Hermle, the employment lawyer who defeated Ellen Pao’s gender discrimination claims against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The Recorder has more here.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been trying to get a date with actress Amber Heard for three years, says Hollywood Reporter. (We don’t care; we’re just reporting the news!)

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Essential Reads

It’s going from bad to worse for Hampton Creek, which is now reportedly facing a criminal probe into its mayo buyback scheme. Bloomberg has the story here.

In the latest example of how the restructuring of Google into Alphabet hasn’t gone smoothly, Google Fiber is on shaky ground, with orders to halve its workforce, reports The Information.

Theranos is appealing the government sanctions that have barred CEO Elizabeth Holmes from running its blood-testing lab for two years. Business Insider has more here.

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Detours

Nine non-threatening leadership strategies for women.

KFC’s top-secret recipe revealed (maybe).

Nick Kyrgios might be the most entertaining tennis player since John McEnroe. Too bad he’d rather be playing basketball.

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Retail Therapy

Given the trend lines, you probably are not, but in case you’re still trying to catch Pokemon. . .