• StrictlyVC: December 1, 2016

    Hi, everyone, we’re on a plane tonight and not exactly sure when we’ll be able to publish SVC tomorrow, so, er, we’ll surprise you(?).

    Hope you have a very happy Thursday!

    Top News in the A.M.

    AngelList, the matchmaking platform for investors and startups, has just bought Product Hunt, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based platform where people vote on startup products. Terms aren’t being disclosed. Product Hunt had raised roughly $7 million from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz. Product Hunt had been rumored to be seeking new funding in recent months, though “this was just the better option,” founder Ryan Hoover tells TechCrunch. More here.

    Apple is releasing its AirPods in the “next few weeks,” says CEO Tim Cook.

    Entrepeneurs Sense Power Shifting Back to VCs, Says First Round Survey

    The early-stage venture firm First Round Capital just published its second-ever State of Startups report, and it’s chock full of interesting sentiments from a survey of more than 700 founders — some of whom have ties to the early-stage venture firm and some who operate outside it.

    Taken altogether, it suggests that founders remain highly optimistic about their chances of success, but they also sense that some of their leverage has slipped away when it comes to dealing with investors and raising subsequent rounds of follow-on funding.

    Here’s a link to the complete survey.

    Among what we think are its most interesting findings:

    * Nearly one in five(!) founders think their company will eventually be worth a billion dollars or more.

    * First Round asked founders to write in the name of the one company they’d want to acquire their startup. Out of 150 companies named, Alphabet rose to the top as the most sought-after acquirer.

    *For the second year running, founders pointed to investors as having negotiating power, with two-thirds (67 percent) of all respondents saying investors will hold more sway. Last year, 54 percent of respondents felt similarly.

    More here.

    New Fundings

    Dashbot, a months-old, San Francisco-based startup that offers bot-specific analytics and tools to enable brands and developers to increase user acquisition, engagement, and monetization, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by ff Venture Capital, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Samsung Accelerator, Scrum Ventures, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, and Rembrandt Ventures. More here.

    Geenee, a two-year-old, Berlin-based startup that employs image recognition to software to enable Instagram users to purchase items by clicking on them, has raised $4.4 million in Series A funding from Highlight Communications, Constantin Media, Stephen Cohen and Steve Titus, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

    Glossier, a two-year-old, New-York based online beauty brand known for its brow gels and serums, has raised a $24 million in Series B funding led by Institutional Venture Partners, with participation from Index Ventures. The company has now raised just more than $35 million altogether. WWD has more here.

    Opendoor, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based startup on a mission to make residential real estate liquid, has raised a whopping $210 million in Series D funding led by Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from New Enterprise Associates, Khosla Ventures, GGV Capital, Access Industries, FifthWall, Lakestar, SVB Capital, Caffeinated Capital and Felicis Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

    Osterhout Design Group, a 17-year-old, San Francisco-based augmented reality company that’s been quietly shipping smart glasses for years, has raised $58 million in Series A led by 21st Century Fox, with participation from Shenzhen O-film Tech Co., Vanfund Urban Investment & Development Co. and some individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.
    Qstream, an eight-year-old, Burlington, Ma.-based maker of sales acceleration software, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Polaris Partners, with participation by existing investors Frontline Ventures, Launchpad Venture Group, and Excel Venture Management. The company has now raised $23 million altogether. More here.
    SQZ Biotech, a three-year-old, Watertown, Ma.-based biotech startup that’s developing a new generation of cell therapies that harness the body’s natural immune system, has tacked on $8 million in fresh funding to a previously closed Series B financing round. The new capital comes from GV and Quark Venturesand adds to $16 million that was previously led by NanoDimension and Polaris Partners in September. More here.

    WorkRamp, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based employee training platform company, has raised $1.8 million in seed funding led by Susa Ventures, with participation from Initialized Capital, Joe Montana, Y Combinator, and Haystack. TechCrunch has more here.

    New Funds

    Founder Collective, a seven-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based seed-stage venture fund, has closed its third fund with $75 million in capital from a small group of limited partners whose anchor investors are the the firm’s three partners: David Frankel, Micah Rosenbloom and Eric Paley. “Unlike most funds, the partners are, in fact, the single-largest investor in [our new fund]. So when entrepreneurs take our money, it’s really our money,” says Rosenbloom, who earlier in his career co-founded a 3D imaging startup that sold to 3M. Given Founder Collective’s success to date, we’re guessing that’s very much by choice. More here.
    Three members of the senior investing team at Genesis Partners, a major Israeli venture firm, are launching their own, new, early-stage fund called F2 Capital. According to TechCrunch, the partners are in the midst of closing a $50 million debut fund that will back seed-stage companies. More here.

    (Other) Exits

    Comcast‘s Fandango is acquiring the Latin American ticketing serviceCinepapaya for undisclosed terms. According to CrunchBase, Cinepapaya had raised at least $3 milion from investors, which include 500 Startups, Wayra, and SP Global Capital. The WSJ notes that the deal is expected to give Fandango another foothold in the growing Latin American market, where there are few screens relative to the population — and a major appetite for moviegoing. More here.

    Fitbit, the leader in the fitness band market, is near a deal to acquire smartwatch maker Pebble, according to The Information. The price isn’t being disclosed, but it’s thought to be for a small amount, given that Pebble had been looking to sell. Pebble had raised roughly $15 million from CRV, along with angel investors Paul Buchheit and Tim Draper. (It also famously raised many millions through crowdsourcing campaigns.) More here.

    People

    David “Big Papi” Ortiz, along with a star-studded group of other former baseball players, are launching Dugout Ventures, a private-equity fund that will focus on companies manufacturing the next generation of baseball equipment. Other investors in the fund include Hall of Famers Nolan Ryan and Barry Larkin, as well as retired players Vernon Wells and Torii Hunter. The WSJ has more here.

    Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian ever, is looking to join the long list of successful athletes turned investors. At the Intuit software conference in San Jose, Phelps told the the Associated Press, “I would love to get involved . . . Whether it’s in a couple little startups here and there, take a little risk, have some fun and see where it goes.” USA Today has more here.

    Peter Thiel makes a (ceremonial) move.

    Jobs

    Capital One Growth Ventures is in the market for a venture associate. The job is in San Francisco.

    Eastlink Capital, an early-stage venture firm, is looking to bring aboard a partner-track senior associate or principal. The job is in Menlo Park, Ca. Send queries to steven@eastlinkcap.com.

    Essential Reads

    Russia is building its own Silicon Valley in beautiful . . . Siberia.

    Nationalist trolls are destroying Reddit.

    Apple plans to use drones and new indoor navigation features to improve its Maps service and catch longtime leader Google, says Bloomberg.

    Owing to Donald Trump’s decision to appoint former Brietbart chairman Steve Bannon to his administration, a growing number of ad-tech companies are pulling the plug on the site’s access to advertising dollars via their systems, says AdWeek.

    More bad news for Zenefits; it was just ruled illegal in the state of Washington.

    Detours

    Candian police have a cruel new punishment for suspected drunk drivers:Listening to Nickelback.

    Napolean Dynamite and Pedro reunite over cheesy tots.

    Wait long enough, homeowner, and you can hit the jackpot.

    Retail Therapy

    Louis Gray quilts. So we will take them all and also the pillows.

  • StrictlyVC: November 30, 2016

    Wednesday! Busy day over here; hope yours is going well.:)

    Top News in the A.M.

    Now Germany’s spy chief is warning that Russian hackers who are pelting his country with disinformation could undermine their democratic process, too. Reuters has more here.

    More companies are getting in to the auto lending biz, but regulators warned this morning about an “increased level of distress” among millions of Americans who are falling behind on their loan payments.

    Is Europe is Poised to Give the U.S. a Run for Its Money?

    You might think Europe is treading water these days, with one of its biggest financial centers, London, hamstrung by Brexit and the uncertainty it has fostered.

    You’d be wrong. So suggests a new survey by the venture firm Atomico that persuasively argues that Europe’s tech scene is instead being fast propelled forward by three new trends:  a well of so-called “deep tech;” a growing number of tech hubs across the continent; and expanding interest by corporate investors, non-tech companies, and foreign giants in European tech startups.

    The numbers Atomico cites are eye-opening. With the help of companies like LinkedIn, Meetup, Stack Overflow, Dealroom.co, and the London Stock Exchange, as well as survey responses from roughly 1,500 founders, investors and tech employees, Atomico says that deep tech companies have attracted $2.3 billion in investment over the last 22 months, and that nearly 1,000 related startups have been founded over the same period.

    Deep tech, per Atomico’s definition, means startups that employ artificial intelligence; are focused around virtual reality or augmented reality; fall into the “frontier tech” bucket, meaning they make drones or robots or nanosatellites or similar; or have sprung up around the Internet of things, from wearables to smart home startups.

    Some of these companies are in Zurich, including Teralytics, a big data company backed by Horizons Ventures and Lakestar; Climeworks, which has figured out how to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and aims to remove 1,000 metric tons a year of the greenhouse gas with its first commercial plant just outside of Zurich; and the computer vision company Dacuda.

    But a growing number are spread across a number of other hubs, as well. Over the last five years, there’ve been 582 investments in deep tech companies in France alone, for example. In Germany, that number is 480. In Finland, it’s 137. In the Netherlands, it’s 332, by Atomic’s accounting.

    Indeed, there have been been 282 related deals in such companies in 2016 alone, up from five years ago, when that number was 55. Are those Silicon Valley-type numbers? No, but there’s reason to think that gap in funding — there’s a fivefold difference between the U.S. and Europe — will start to narrow.

    For one thing, as Atomico notes, a growing number of U.S. tech companies have set up shop in Europe, and those European employees are just as likely as their U.S. counterparts to start their own companies eventually. Alphabet is now in Zurich and London. Facebook is in Paris; London; and Somerset, England. Apple is in Cambridge; Berlin; Lund, Sweden, and Grenoble, France. Conglomerates headquartered in Asia are also planting flags in Europe, including Japan’s Rakuten, which now has an artificial intelligence center in Paris.

    More here.

    New Fundings

    Civis Analytics, a three-year-old, Chicago-based data intelligence company founded by the chief analytics officer of Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, has raised $22 million in Series A funding. Drive Capital led the round, with participation from Alphabet’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt, Verizon Ventures,  and the ad holding company WPP. TechCrunch has more here.

    Clue, a three-year-old, Berlin-based app built on machine learning to track a woman’s monthly menstrual cycle, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Nokia Growth Partners. Other participants in the round include Giving Wings, Fabrice Grinda, and earlier backers Union Square Ventures, Mosaic Ventures, and Brigitte Mohn and Christophe Maire. TechCrunch has more here.

    Dubsmash, a two-year-old, Berlin-based lip-syncing video app, has raised €9 million ($9.6 million) in Series B funding from earlier investors. The deal was led by Sunstone Capital; other participants include Index Ventures, Balderton Capital, Eniac Venture, and Lowercase Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

    Gett, a six-year-old,  New York-based on-demand ride service, has secured a $100 million, seven-year loan facility from Russia’s Sberbank. Gett has now raised $622 million to date and was reportedly looking for funding at a valuation of at least $2 billion earlier this year. TechCrunch has more here.

    Grokker, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based expert-led on-demand fitness, yoga, meditation, and cooking video service, has closed its Series B round with $22.5 million in funding. Investors include SV Angel, First Round Capital, Khosla Ventures, Aspect Ventures, Interwest Partners, Comcast, and Correlation Ventures. More here.

    Hyphenate, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based cloud platform that helps mobile app developers acquire and retain users by enabling them to connect and chat, has raised $13.5 million round of funding, led by Matrix Partners China. More here.

    Inagora, a two-year-old, Tokyo-based e-commerce mobile platform that sells high-quality Japanese products to consumers, particularly those in China, has raised $26 million in Series B funding led by the cross-border venture firm World Innovation Lab. Other participants in the round include Japan’s ITOCHU Corporation and Ventech China. China Money Network has more here.
    LovePop, a 2.5-year-old, Boston-based greeting card company, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Accomplice Ventures, with participation from Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, Wayfair co-founder Niraj Shah, Wayne Chang of Crashlytics and Twitter, and Bob White of Bain Capital. More here.

    Nohla Therapeutics, a 1.5-year-old, Seattle-based biotechnology company that’s developing universal donor cellular therapies for patients with blood disorders and cancers, has raised $43.5 million in Series A funding led by ARCH Venture Partners, with participation from 5AM Ventures and the Jagen Group. MedCity News has more here.

    Novogene Technology, a five-year-old, Beijing-based next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics company, has raised $75 million in Series B funding from China Merchants Bank Co., CMB International, SDIC Innovation, and Sigma Square Capital. More here.
    Ōura Ring, a three-year-old, Finnish company that makes smart, health-monitoring jewelry, has raised €5 million ($5.3 million) in Series A funding, including from MIT Media Lab Director Joi Ito and Jaan Tallinn, who was Skype’s founding engineer and a cofounder of Kazaa. TechCrunch has more here.
    Phil, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based prescription medication delivery service, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding, according to Fortune. Crosslink led the round and was joined by Eniac Ventures. More here.

    ServiceAide, a six-month-old, San Jose, Ca.-based provider of IT and cloud services for small and medium businesses, has raised $12 million in new funding led by Arrowroot Capital. More here.

    SonarSource, an eight-year-old, Geneva, Switzerland-based maker of quality assurance tools for software code, has raised $45 million in funding from Insight Venture Partners. Tech.eu has more here.

    Sudden Coffee, a year-old, San Francisco-based maker of instant coffee vials, has raised  $2.7 million in seed funding led by CRV, with participation from Founder Collective, Lifeline Ventures, and several angel investors. More here.

    TicketSauce, a three-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based company that makes event management software, has raised $2.5 million in Series A funding led by Draper Frontier Opp & Tech Fund. More here.

    TraceLink, a seven-year-old, North Reading, Ma.-based  SaaS platform for tracking and tracing pharmaceuticals, has raised $51.5 million in Series C funding led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity. Earlier backers FirstMark Capital, Volition Capital, and F-Prime Capital also participated in the round. TechCrunch has more here.

    New Funds

    Accel India has closed its fifth fund with $450 million, roughly two years after closing its fourth fund with $325 million. Whether it’s another sign of froth in the country or underscores a very real opportunity remains open to argument. In the meantime, Shekhar Kirani, a Bangalore-based partner who joined Accel in 2011, answered some of our related questions via email last night. More here.

    Singapore’s Jungle Ventures today confirmed the final close of its newest $100 million fund for investments in Southeast Asia. The firm announced plans for the fund — its second — in September 2015, when it completed a first close. More here.

    Exits

    Another non-tech company picking up a tech startup: this time it’s Dick’s Sporting Goods, which is expanding its digital tools with the acquisition of GameChanger Media, maker of a mobile scorekeeping app. According to CrunchBase, GameChanger had raised roughly $10 million from investors, including BoxGroup, Trilogy Equity Partners, and Costanoa Venture Capital. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

    GetInsured, an 11-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based platform that helps users find health coverage, has acquired Array Health, a 10-year-old, Seattle-based provider of group health insurance e-commerce technolog. Terms aren’t being disclosed. CrunchBase doesn’t turn up any funding data for GetInsured, but it shows that Array Health had raised roughly $13 millionfrom investors, including Founders Co-opNoro-Moseley Partners, and Vocap Investment Partners. GeekWire has more here.

    People

    Politico founders Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei kind of, partly reveal their new plan for media domination.

    GoPro is cutting 200 jobs, about 15 percent of its global workforce.

    Famed hacker George Hotz is resurrecting the DIY autonomous car project he canceled in October, but this time, he’s giving the code away.

    Power VC Vinod Khosla has refused to sell a six-acre public right of way to a California beach alongside one of his properties, the State Lands Commission disclosed today. The agency will now have to vote on whether to pursue eminent domain against him. More here.

    Five young CEOs who had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad 2016.

    Jobs

    Hewlett Packard Enterprise Ventures is looking to hire an associate. The job is in Palo Alto, Ca.

    Essential Reads

    And it taketh away: Facebook has cut off live video access to Prisma, an increasingly popular company whose apps turn photos and videos into “artworks” using the styles of famous artists.

    How Google is challenging AWS.

    The hack that scared Apple straight.

    Confessions of an Instagram influencer.

    Detours

    Build instant rapport in an interview.

    How to hide $400 million.

    Retail Therapy

    The “Elder Statesman.” (Never actually buy this, please.)

  • StrictlyVC: November 29, 2016

    Hi, everyone, happy Tuesday! We’re running off to another field trip. If we missed anything, we’ll catch you up tomorrow.:)

    Top News in the A.M.

    Amazon is reportedly developing a premium Echo-like speaker with a screen. Bloomberg has the lowdown here.

    A Former I-Banking Star Among Two New Investors to Sue Theranos

    Theranos, the 13-year-old, Palo Alto-based health technology company, is being sued by two more investors who say they were lied to about Theranos’s health and its prospects by founder Elizabeth Holmes and former president and COO, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who was reportedly long one of the Holmes’s closest confidants.

    The suit is the third that Theranos has been slapped with in recent months, following a $140 million lawsuit filed earlier this month by Walgreens, a former lab testing partner that’s now seeking the amount of money it invested in Theranos; and a separate suit filed by the San Francisco-based hedge fund Partner Fund Management, which told its backers that Theranos had fraudulently induced it to invest through a web of “lies, material misstatements, and omissions.”

    One of the plaintiffs in the newest lawsuit, Hilary Taubman-Dye, is a longtime technical recruiter who now works in investor relations for a TV production company, shows LinkedIn. According to the lawsuit, she purchased Theranos shares on the secondary shares platform SharesPost at $19 per share in August 2015. The suit also describes Taubman-Dye’s failed efforts — along with those of others who’d used SharesPost to buy stock in the company —  to cancel the transaction after the WSJ began publicly questioning its many claims.

    The second plaintiff — Robert Colman — is known in some Silicon Valley circles for having cofounded the once-powerful Silicon Valley boutique investment bank Robertson Stephens.

    In the suit, Colman says he invested in Theranos in 2013 through Lucas Venture Group, a venture firm founded by a second-generation VC named Donald Lucas whose other bets include the data analytics company Palantir. Indeed, according to the suit, Lucas “directly solicited” Colman’s investment in Theranos’s Series G round “at the invitation of Theranos and Holmes,” an invitation that was “purportedly a favor to Lucas,” whose father, also Donald Lucas, “originally funded Theranos and ‘mentored’ Holmes.”

    The younger Lucas, it says, had represented himself to Colman as a strategic advisor to Theranos. His father, Donald Lucas, has been a self-employed venture capitalist since 1960. Now 86 years old, he was at one point the chairman of the board at Theranos. He was also a director on the boards of Oracle and Cadence Design Systems until 2013.

    More here.

    New Fundings

    AudioCure Pharma, a six-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based pharmaceutical R&D company focused on hearing loss, has raised €9 million ($9.6 million) in Series A funding from MED-EL, a provider of hearing implant systems; earlier backer High-Tech Gruenderfonds; and other private investors. More here.

    BioMensio, a young, Tampere, Finland-based company whose smart, handheld bio-screening sensor and associated cloud services help determine the presence of specific biomolecules, has raised €2.5 million ($2.66 million) in funding, including from VTT Ventures, Siemens Technology Accelerator and Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation. More here.

    Devialet, a nine-year-old, Paris, France-based developer of high-end speakers, has raised €100 million ($106 million) in Series C funding in one of the biggest rounds to date for a French startup. The financing was led by Ginko Ventures, which is Foxconn’s European investment arm, and also included participation from Foxconn itself, carmaker Groupe Renault, Sharp Corporation (now owned by Foxconn), Playground Global, Jay Z’s Roc Nation, and Korelya Capital. More here.

    Fluidic Energy, an eight-year-old Scottsdale, Az.-based spin-out of the University of Arizona whose rechargeable metal-air battery could potentially be used for back-up power, diesel generator replacement, and to optimize electric grids, has raised $20 million in funding from Asia Climate Partners. More here.

    HawkEye 360, a year-old Boston, Ma.-based developer of a space-based radio frequency mapping and analytics system, has raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Razor’s Edge Ventures. Also participating: Allied Minds, which licenses cutting-edge technology from government and academic labs, then creates companies to commercialize that technology. HawkEye 360 is one of its subsidiaries. Boston Business Journal has more here.

    Innovent Biologics, a five-year-old, Shanghai, China-based biopharmaceutical company that’s making and commercializing biologics, has raised $260 million in Series D funding led by Future Industry Investment Fund, a private equity fund. Other backers include China Life Private Equity Limited, Milestone, Ping An and Taikang Insurance Group, as well as earlier backers Legend Capital, Temasek and Hillhouse Capital. China Money Network has more here.
    OxThera, an 11-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based biopharmaceutical company, has raised €32 million (roughly $34 million) in funding co-led by Life Sciences Partners, Ysios Capital, Sunstone Capital, and Flerie Invest, with participation from earlier investors Kurma Partners, Idinvest Partners, Stiftelsen Industrifonden, and Brohuvudet. More here.
    QuantGroup, a two-year-old, China-based online financial services company, has raised $73 million in Series C funding led by China’s Sunshine Insurance Group, with participation from Fosun Capital, Guosen Hongsheng Investment Co.,and other undisclosed investors. China Money Network has more here.
    Tetra Discovery Partners, a six-year-old, Grand Rapids, Mi.-based clinical stage biotechnology company whose therapeutic products aim to bring clarity of thought to people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and other brain disorders, has raised $5 million in Series A funding co-led by the Apjohn Group and Grand Angels, with participation from Dolby Family Ventures, theAlzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, and other private investors. The company also just announced the receipt of two new grants totaling $5 million from the National Institutes of Health. More here.
    Vaadin, a 16-year-old, Turku, Finland-based developer of open source web application development tools, has raised €5 million ($5.3 million) in funding from Verdane Capital, which partly bought secondary shares from another shareholder. More here.

    TransPod, a 1.5-year-old, Toronto, Canada–based developer of its own hyperloop system (it competes with Hyperloop One and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies), has raised $15 million in seed funding led by the Italian high tech holding group Angelo Investments. More here.

    New Funds

    WI Harper Group, a cross-border early-stage venture capital firm, has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Luxin Venture Capital Group and Shandong Leader Equity Investment Fund to launch a cross-border fund that will back startups across a range of industries in both the U.S. and greater China. DealStreetAsia has more here.

    Another day, another space-focused venture fund. This time, it’s San Francisco-based Starburst Ventures, which says it has raised a $200 million debut fund to invest in early-stage aerospace startups over the next three years. The fund is an extension of the Starburst Accelerator, which was founded in 2012 to help aviation and aerospace tech startups raise seed funding. TechCrunch has more here.

    Exits

    Edwards Lifesciences, a publicly traded medical equipment company in California, is buying Valtech Cardio, an Israeli medical device company, in a deal valued at $990 million. According to the terms of the deal, Valtech will receive an initial $340 million in cash and stock, with Edwards agreeing to pay out up to $350 million as the team reaches a series of milestones. GeekTime has more here.

    People

    Goldman Sachs’s longtime president and CEO, Gary Cohn, is meeting with The Donald today, though it isn’t clear if he’s offering up advice or talking about a possible position in the incoming administration.

    Even Alphabet’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt just struggled to answer one of Google’s famously tricky interview questions.

    The cofounders of Stripe joined the ranks of the world’s youngest billionaires(on paper) after the online payments company announced a new round of funding last week that valued the company at $9.2 billion.

    The White House has partnered up with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Stanford to host an invite-only event today that’s focused on the ways that technology can tackle issues like poverty, inequality, and economic immobility. It runs through tomorrow.

    Data

    This Cyber Monday was the biggest online shopping day, ever. ZDNet has the stats here.

    Essential Reads

    Rupert Murdoch, owner of the WSJ — which essentially stopped Theranos in its tracks with its reporting — had quietly poured $100 million into Theranos before the WSJ launched its series of investigative pieces. (You cannot make this stuff up.)

    Uber is defending its business model as a digital platform, not a transportation service, in landmark case in EU’s highest court. The New York Times has more here.

    The California Department of Insurance has fined human resources and health benefits company Zenefits $7 million for “multiple license violations,” the department announced yesterday. We sat down with CEO David Sacks to talk about this investigation and much more in September. TechCrunch has more on its outcome here.

    Detours

    Come Together,” a new commercial directed by Wes Anderson, and starring Adrien Brody.

    Capitalism camp for kindergartners.

    A gorgeous Porsche 718 Cayman (that happens to be racing a pack of drones).

    Retail Therapy

    Micro Luggage Scooter. Ideal for when the airport is nearly devoid of other people. Oh. Wait.

  • StrictlyVC: November 28, 2016

    Hi, everyone, and welcome back! Hope you had terrific break. We’re still a little zonked from ours.

    Quick mention: we head to London a little later this week for TechCrunch Disrupt. We’re excited; among our on-stage interviews is a sit-down with Skype and Atomico founder Niklas Zennström. (The rest of the line-up is great, too.)  As longtime readers know, when we travel, SVC grows a little more abbreviated, but we’ll still be publishing.:)

    Top News in the A.M.

    Samsung Electronics‘ board will reportedly consider splitting the conglomerate into two tomorrow, as proposed by activist hedge fund Elliott Management. More here.

    A Longtime VC on the Merits of Not Swinging for the Fences

    There’s a winner-take-all mentality in Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, it has seemingly distorted the thinking of countless entrepreneurs who’d likely be better off running smaller companies — and giving up less ownership to investors in the process. While funding announcements are widely celebrated as milestones, the reality is that founders often wind up with far less than their investors, and in plenty of cases, they can sell a company and make almost no money at all.

    It’s a point that longtime VC Jodi Sherman Jahic was eager to make recently when we met up for coffee in San Francisco. In fact, Jahic — who cofounded the venture firm Aligned Partners with Susan Mason (who previously spent 15 years with Onset Ventures) — focuses exclusively on enterprise companies that are ruthlessly focused on capital efficiency and whose founders will turn away  bigger checks, knowing they could be shooting themselves in the foot otherwise.

    More from our chat follows, edited for length.

    You were a Kauffman Fellow, then spent something like seven years as a principal at Voyager Capital. Why start your own firm?

    At the time, we were managing a $200 million fund, and [by 2007, 2008] I started to think that even that might be too much for some companies. With $200 million, you’re probably investing in 20 companies, committing up to $10 million in each, and at that level of risk, you’re likely to syndicate each deal. So, if every company can’t take at least $20 million and usually quite a bit more, then it’s probably not that interesting [to the $200 million fund]. And the problem gets larger as the fund gets larger.

    Did you see that a lot?

    Absolutely. When a company is doing just fine, everyone wants to put their money into it, which is ironic because it only generates less cash-on-cash returns for everyone. Also, the venture world tells us this story that one-third of venture-backed companies will become an abject loss and one-third will go sideways and one-third will be hits. So founders reason that two-thirds of the time, they’ll be fine. But that’s not what happens. The majority of the time — something like 75 percent of the time, according to [the benchmarking company] Sand Hill Econometrics — founders who take venture money get not a dime. And the venture industry has made it worse by taking some opportunities that could be more efficient and generate returns for everybody and turning them into lets-swing-for-the-fences types of things. And not every company is going to grow up to be that.

    People don’t realize this, but there is zero correlation between how much money goes into a company and its exit value.

    You struck out on your own years ago, when it was even harder for a woman to form a venture fund than today. How did you get things rolling?

    I started with a pledge fund.

    More here.

    New Fundings

    8i, a 2.5-year-old, Wellington, New Zealand-based virtual reality startup, has raised $20.4 million in Series B funding, shows an SEC filing first flagged by Fortune. Looks like the capital is coming at least in part from from Time Warner Investments and earlier backer Founders Fund.

    Agricool, a year-old, Paris, France-based argiculture startup that grows and produces fruits and vegetables inside shipping containers, has raised €4 million ($4.3 million) in funding from the newly launched venture firm Daphni, as well as entrepreneurs Henri Seydoux and Jean-Daniel Guyot. TechCrunch has more here.

    Cashboard, a two-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based wealth management startup, has raised €3 million ($3.1 million) in Series A funding led by Digital Space Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Redalpine Capital, Earlybird Ventures, and 500 Startups. Crowdfund Insider has more here.

    Galera Therapeutics, a seven-year-old, Malvern, Pa.-based clinical-stage biotechnology company developing new treatments for cancer patients, has raised $15 million in new funding funding led by Sofinnova Ventures. Earlier backers also joined the round, including New Enterprise Associates, Novartis Venture Fund, Novo Ventures, Correlation Ventures, Enso Ventures and Galera Angels. More here.

    Hornet, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based gay social network, has raised $8 million in funding led by the Shanghai-based venture firm Ventech China. VentureBeat has more here.

    ItemMaster, a seven-year-old, Chicago-based company that creates product information tools for food brands and retailers, has raised $7.5 million in Series A financing led by Edison Partners, with participation from Chicago Ventures. More here.

    Knowlarity Communications, a seven-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based telephony company, has raised roughly $20 million in Series C funding led by the Dubai-based private equity firm Delta Partners Capital, with participation from earlier backers Mayfield Fund and Sequoia India. LiveMint has more here.

    Kymab, a seven-year-old, Cambridge, U.K.-based company that’s developing human monoclonal antibody therapeutics, has raised $100 million in Series C funding led by ORI Fund. Other participants in the round include Wellcome Trust, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Shenzhen Hepalink Pharmaceutical, Malin Corporation, CF Woodford Equity Income Fundand Woodford Patient Capital. More here.

    Proficio, a six-year-old, Carlsbad, Ca.-based cybersecurity company, has raised $12 million in funding led by the private equity firm Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors. The San Diego Business Journal has more here.

    SafeDK, a two-year-old, Herzelia, Israel-based provider of a mobile SDKs management platform, has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding led by StageOne Ventures, with participation from Samsung Next Tel Aviv, Marius Nacht, Kaedan Capital, and angel investor Leon Waisbein. NoCamels has more here.

    Shockwave Medical, a seven-year-old, Freemont, Ca.-based startup focused on treating calcified cardiovascular disease, has raised $45 million in Series C funding led by Sectoral Asset Management, with participation from T. Rowe Price Associates and earlier backers Sofinnova Partners, Venrock, RA Capital, Deerfield, and Ally Bridge Group, among others. More here.

    Sightbox, a two-year-old, Portland, Or.-based on-demand contact lens startup, has raised $1.8 million in funding led by Rogue Venture Partners, with participation from Jumpstart Foundry, Portland Seed Fund and VistaRiver Healthcare Solutions. More here.

    Silexica, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup whose software development tools make it easier for electronic device manufactures to deploy multicore processors, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Merus Capital, with participation from Paua Ventures and earlier backers Seed Fonds Aachen and DSA Invest.

    Soul Machines, a months-old,  Auckland, N.Z.-based developer of human-like avatars, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding led by Horizons Ventures, with participation from Iconiq Capital. The New Zealand Herald has more here.

    Stripe, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based company that lets websites and apps incorporate payments services by way of an API and a few lines of code, has raised $150 million in Series D funding at a whopping $9.2 billion post-money valuation. (It was valued at $5 billion roughly a year ago.) The round was led by CapitalG (formerly known as Google Capital) and earlier backer General Catalyst Partners. Other participants in the round include earlier investors such as Sequoia Capital. Stripe has now raised $460 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

    Wynd, three-year-old, Nova Scotia, Canada-based startup whose software aims to replace existing point-of-sale services in use at restaurants and stores, has raised a $31.7 million Series B round (€30 million) from Sodexo Ventures and earlier backer Orange Digital Ventures, with Bpifrance also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

    Zola, a three-year-old, New York-based wedding registry site co-founded by serial entrepreneur Kevin Ryan, has raised $25 million in Series C funding at a $200 million valuation, says TechCrunch. It says Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round. More here.

    New Funds

    BMW  is increasing the size of its five-year-old venture capital fund, BMW i Ventures, to 500 million euros (roughly $533 million) from 100 million euros, the German business daily Handelsblatt reported yesterday, citing an interview with one of the carmaker’s board members. The fund is also relocating from New York to Silicon Valley. Reuters has more here.
    Draper Nexus, a five-year-old, early-stage venture firm based in San Mateo, Ca., and Tokyo, Japan, has raised $175 million for its second fund. TechCrunch has more here.

    Playground Ventures, a Palo Alto-based venture firm run by Android co-founder Andy Rubin, is looking to raise up to $500 million for its second fund, shows an SEC filing. Rubin’s name is listed alongside fellow Playground founders Peter Barrett, Matt Hershenson and Bruce Leak. This follows a $300 million funding round that closed just about this time last year. TechCrunch has more here.

    Seraphim Capital, a 10-year-old, U.K.-based venture fund, is looking to raise up to £80 million ($100 million) for an early-stage venture fund focused on outer space-related software and hardware opportunities. The firm has already garnered a £30 million ($37.5 million) commitment from the British Business Bank (made under its Enterprise Capital Funds program), along with commitments from unnamed “international space companies, family offices and individual investors.” More here.

    SV Angel, a seven-year-old, seed-stage fund known for making a wide number of small bets (including on Pinterest and Airbnb) has closed its sixth fund with just over $53 million, says partner Topher Conway. The firm closed its predecessor fund with $75 million in 2014. More here.

    IPOs

    AppDynamics — an eight-year-old,  San Francisco-based company that makes performance management tools for app makers and has raised more than $300 million from investors, including Goldman Sachs, Greylock Partners, and Lightspeed Venture Partners  has postponed its planned IPO, bumping it from next month into next year. The WSJ has more here.

    Exits

    Airbnb is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire a Chinese home rental startup called  Xiaozhu.com that has raised more than $150 million from investors, including Morningside Ventures. Bloomberg has more here.
    Beme, the social media app startup cofounded by famed vlogger Casey Neistat, has been acquired for an undisclosed amount by CNN, which is bringing Neistat in-house along with Beme’s 11 other employees. The New York Times has more here.
    SkyScanner, a 13-year-old, Edinburgh, Scotland-based global travel search site that had raised $200 million from investors, including Sequoia Capital and Scottish Equity Partners, has been acquired by Chinese online travel giant Ctrip for £1.4 billion in predominately cash, or approximately $1.74 billion. TechCrunch has more here.

    People

    Grab, the company rivaling Uber in Southeast Asia, is losing its first CFO just seven months after her appointment, the company confirmed. TechCrunch has more here.

    Peter Thiel is reportedly pulling a principal at Founders Fund — Trae Stephens — into President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team, which Thiel himself officially joined two weeks ago. More here.

    Tomorrow is  #GivingTuesday, and leaders across nonprofit and for-profit industries will be using social media to promote the end-of-year giving season. Recode has more here.

    Essential Reads

    India’s largest ride-hailing app Ola, which is reportedy raising a new round of funding led by Japan’s SoftBank, will take a hit on its valuation in the process, reports the Economic Times. It says the new round will value Ola at anywhere between $3 billion and $4 billion. The company, which reportedly still dominates the ride-hailing industry in India with about 60 percent market share, was last valued at $5 billion when it raised $500 million in November 2015.

    The untold story of Vergence Labs, a once-struggling startup whose technology now powers Snap‘s “Spectacles.”

    How China’s lightning-fast copycats are ruining Kickstarter campaigns.

    The rapid ascent Otto, the self-driving truck startup, involved a high-stakes gamble that could have landed the startup in legal hot water rather than the arms of Uber. BackChannel looks at what happened.

    Detours

    The best five Cyber Monday flight deals.

    Watch a helicopter pilot nail a ship landing in a ridiculous storm.

    Retail Therapy

    Adjustable heels!

    DroneGun, for when it’s time for that drone to go.


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