Thursday! We have another streamlined version for you today as we race around after our out-of-school kids.:) Just a reminder in case you missed it Monday that StrictlyVC will not be publishing next week.

No column today.

Top News in the A.M.

In a new twist, Beijing and Shanghai have announced that China-based ride-sharing services can only hire local residents as drivers. The New York Times explains why the new rules could deal a significant blow to Didi Chuxing.

Meanwhile, California’s DMV yesterday revoked the registrations of Uber‘s 16 autonomous cars following reports of continual traffic violations in San Francisco.

New Fundings

Aihuishou, a five-year-old, Shanghai, China-based smartphone and consumer electronics recycle start-up, has raised $58 million in Series D funding co-led by Cathay Capital and Fortune Venture Capital Co., with participation from Tiantu Capital, JD.com, Morningside Ventures and other earlier investors. China Money Network has more here.
ApoGen Biotechnologies, a new Seattle-based startup launched out of the regional biotech investment firm Accelerator Corp., has raised $7 million in Series A funding. The company will be trying to create new drugs to slow or stop cancer cells’ ability to develop drug resistance. Other investors in the round include Alexandria Venture Investments, Arch Venture Partners, WRF Capital and Watson Fund. The Puget Sound Business Journal has more here.
aXiomatic, a months-old, Washington, D.C.-based e-sports ownership and management group led by professional sports team owners and entrepreneurs Peter Guber and Ted Leonsis, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Puji Capital, a China-based investment firm that funds digital media and entertainment companies. Variety has more here.
Backtrace I/O, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based debugging startup, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Amplify Partners, with participation from Work­-Bench and previous investors Rally Ventures and Tribeca Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Huochebang, a two-year-old, Guiyang, China-based truck logistics startup that helps drivers find commodities to transport and provides other related services to trucking businesses in China, has raised $115 million in fresh funding led by International Finance Corp. and All-Stars Investments, with participation from earlier backers Tencent Holdings, DCM, and Genesis Capital. A similar start-up, Yunmanman, reportedly raised $160 million in new venture funding earlier this month. China Money Network has more here.

Neurable, a year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based developer of brain-computer interface technology that it says can interpret intent based on users’ brain activity (then enable control of software and connected devices using only the power of the brain), has raised $2 million in seed funding. The round was led by Brian Shin of BOSS Syndicate, a Boston-based alliance of angel investors. Other investors include PJC, Loup Ventures and NXT Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Xplenty, a four-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based data integration platform, has raised $4 million in new funding from Bain Capital Ventures, Rembrandt Venture Partners and True Ventures. The company has now raised just more than $7 million altogether. GeekTime has more here.

New Funds

Exfinity Venture Partners, a 2.5-year-old, Bangalore, India-based venture capital firm that’s interested in a range of mostly enterprise-y sectors (cloud, analytics, cyber security), has closed its second fund with roughly $48 million, according to India’s Business Standard. More here.

IPOs

The Chinese internet giant Baidu is planning an IPO of its video-streaming site iQiyi.com that could value the unit at up to $5 billion, according to the WSJ. Its sources say the listing could take place in either Hong Kong or the U.S. next year.

People

A Google product manager is suing the company over its internal confidentiality policies, saying they breach California labor laws. Among other things, the lawsuit alleges Google runs an internal “spying program” which relies on employees voluntarily reporting other employees who might have leaked information. The Information has the scoop here.

Carl Icahn, the activist investor who has been laying siege to corporate boards for decades — in 2014, he famously tussled with then eBay board Marc Andreessen as Icahn advocated for eBay to spin off PayPal (it later did) — just joined Trump’s circle. His role: special advisor on overhauling regulations. The WSJ has more here.

Jobs

Allstate Strategic Ventures, the venture arm of the insurance giant of the same name, is looking to hire a venture analyst. The job is in Northbrook, Il.

Essential Reads

Waymo, Google’s recently spun-out autonomous vehicle business, may be integrating its technology into Honda cars.

Tesla Motors has increased its borrowing capacity under two credit agreements by about $500 million — two months after CEO Elon Musk tweeted that raising debt wouldn’t “be necessary” before the end of the year.

The world’s largest hedge fund — Bridgewater Associates — is building an algorithmic model from its employees’ brains; here’s how.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative yesterday placed Alibaba back on its Notorious Markets List, which “highlights prominent online and physical marketplaces that reportedly engage in and facilitate substantial copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting.” More here.
We told you about Zappos‘s embrace of holacracy a couple of years ago; the experiment continues not to go very well, says Quartz.

Detours

Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr draws from the assassination of his father to make sense of a complicated world. (Great piece.)

At home with Neil Patrick Harris.

2016 in pictures.

Retail Therapy

The bite-size banana slicer, because every second counts.

Hi, guys, happy Wednesday! We’re going to trying to keep things short and sweet today so we can do, you know, holiday stuff. We’re guessing you’re with us on this. More tomorrow.:)

Top News in the A.M.

The House Judiciary Committee’s Encryption Working Group has released its year-end report, and it concludes that law enforcement backdoors pose a threat to security.

Things Get Down and Dirty in the World of Cloud Security

Symantec, one of the world’s largest cybersecurity companies, closed its giant acquisition of Blue Coat Systems in August, ushering in a new regime under incoming CEO Greg Clark.

Clark hasn’t wasted much time in disparaging upstarts in the market, either, including the well-funded, venture-backed companies Cylance, Tanium and Carbon Black.

Now, lawsuits may be next. To wit, Symantec last week filed a lawsuit against one of its partners, Zscaler, saying the cloud security vendor has infringed on seven of its patents, including around web security and threat prevention.

Symantec didn’t inform Zscaler about the suit in advance of going public with it, evidently. In a statement last week to the outlet CRN, Zscaler’s chief legal officer said Zscaler “learned of Symantec’s lawsuit from their press release issued earlier this afternoon and [we] are in the very early stages of assessing their claims. While we are unable to comment on the merits of their claims at this time, we defend ourselves vigorously against lawsuits of this nature.”

Zscaler has since begun reaching out individually to customers to tell them the suit is little more than a bullying tactic that won’t impact its business, shows a letter authored by Zcaler CEO Jay Chaudhry and obtained by this editor earlier today. The nine-year-old company declined to comment on the letter or when, exactly, it was authored, but it reads:

Dear Robert,

You may have heard about the lawsuit recently filed by Symantec against Zscaler. Zscaler will defend itself vigorously against these claims.

Zscaler was founded to transform the old world of IT to a cloud-enabled enterprise, from the world of on-premise security appliances to cloud-based multi-tenant Internet gateways. When our customers and partners think of Zscaler, the first thing that comes to their mind is technology innovation. Our innovations are protected by a large growing portfolio of 98 issued and pending patents focused on cloud security.

It is unfortunate that many large incumbent companies will resort to litigation when they can no longer innovate. They attempt to use it to hinder rapid growth and customer adoption of unique technologies offered by younger, vibrant companies like Zscaler. In certain situations, as is the case here, the incumbent companies make such claims without any advance notice.

More here.

New Fundings

Azur Drones, a four-year-old, Paris-based company that offers drone inspection and surveying services, has raised €3.5 million ($3.6 million) from an undisclosed investor. Tech.eu has more here.

Ditto Labs, a four-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that’s developing image recognition technology, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series C funding led by Red Fort Capital. More here.
FlatFrog, a nine-year-old, Lund, Sweden-based multi-touch screen provider, has raised €6.1 million ($6.3 million) funding from Finvus Invest and Sunstone Capital. Tech.eu has more here.
HelloFresh, a four-year-old, Berlin-based meal delivery company that was created by Rocket Internet, has raised €85 million ($88.7 million) from a new, unnamed investor, along with previous investor Baillie Gifford, in a deal that reportedly values the company at $2 billion. Tech.eu has more here.

IguanaFix, a three-year-old, Buenos Aires-based home-services start-up, has raised $16 million from Temasek Holdings and Qualcomm Ventures. Dealbook has more here.

Lefit, a year-old, Hangzhou, China-based fitness startup that, like ClassPass in the U.S., invites users to pay one membership fee to access 130 fitness centers across five major cities, has raised $14 million in Series B funding. Toutoushidao Capital and Huasheng Capital co-led the round. Other participants included IDG Capital and Puhua Capital. DealStreetAsia has more here.

Optoro, a Lanham, Md.-based logistics company that helps retailers and manufacturers recover and resell returned merchandise, has raised $30 million in Series D funding from UPS, Revolution Growth, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Generation Investment Management, Tenfore Holdings, SWaN and Legend Venture Partners and the Maryland Venture Fund. DCInno has more here.

Price f(x), a five-year-old, Munich, Germany-based startup offering pricing optimization software-as-a-service, has raised €4 million ($4.1 million) in Series A funding led by Credo Ventures, with participation from Talis Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Revolution Medicines, a year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based developer of cancer drugs, has raised $25 million in Series A extension funding from The Column Group and earlier backer Third Rock Ventures, which funded the company last year with $45 million. BioSpace has more here.

Ygrene Energy Fund, a seven-year-old, Santa Rosa, Ca.-based company that finances projects like energy efficiency, renewables, water conservation, and, in certain areas, hurricane protection, electric vehicle charging stations and seismic upgrades, has raised $95 million in new funding from the private equity firm Lightyear Capital. The company also announced yesterday that it has changed its CEO. Rocco Fabiano, who joined Ygrene as president in October, will assume the position, while current CEO Stacey Lawson becomes executive vice chairman. More here.

Zipari, a New York City-based tech healthcare insurance startup that’s focused on the payer customer experience, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by earlier backer Vertical Venture Partners. MedCity News has more here.

New Funds

Greenspring Associates, a 14-year-old, Owings Mills, Md.-based outfit that funds secondary investments in venture capital funds and expansion stage venture-backed companies, raised $325 million for Greenspring Opportunities IV, according to an SEC filing. More here.

Exits

A startup called Plumgrid has sold its technology and intellectual property to VMware and is shutting down, co-founder Pere Monclus announced in a blog post yesterday. The five-year-old company had raised roughly $45 million from investors, including HWVP, USVP, and Qualcomm Ventures. Business Insider has the story here.

People

Twitter CTO of the last three years, Adam Messinger, announced yesterday that he’s leaving the company; the departure comes just weeks after COO Adam Bain resigned. Bloomberg has more here.

Josh McFarland, who sold is adtech company, TellApart, to Twitter, then stayed on as VP of Product, is also leaving Twitter. He’s joining Greylock Partners as a partner next year. TechCrunch has more here.

Jobs

The state of Alaska is looking to hire a senior associate to help it identify investment managers and teams it should be funding. The job is in Juneau. (Whether you see this as good news or bad, you’d be the first person to apply as of this writing.)

Essential Reads

Why Verizon can’t quit Yahoo.

Detours

How one huge American retailer ignored the internet and won.

Saunas help your brain, says a new and deeply Finnish study.

For actor Alec Baldwin, it’s personal.

Retail Therapy

“Inception” dish drain/desk organizer. (Hah.)

Hi, everyone! We’re on the move this a.m.; if there are loads of typos, that’s why.:)

Happy Tuesday…

Top News in the A.M.

Good news for the Honest Company: the Los Angeles Superior Court has dismissed a six-month-old suit filed against the company by the industry nonprofit Organic Consumers Association, which alleged that Honest’s infant formula was falsely labeled as organic. The judgement determined that if anyone is to blame, it’s the federal government, which certified that the product could be labeled as organic. Forbes has more here.

TPG is Raising $2 Billion for a Social Impact Fund Called Rise

Bill McGlashan, who oversees TPG Growth — the growth investing platform of the global firm TPG — is reportedly fundraising right now for a $2 billion vehicle called Rise that will seek both financial and social returns.

He tells Dealbook the fund was inspired by bets TPG Growth has already made, including in a cellphone tower company in Myanmar called Apollo Towers that helped the country progress from zero cellphone penetration to roughly 70 percent, which has translated into 5 percent G.D.P. growth — as well as doubled the value of TPG’s investment.

McGlashan has enlisted some high-wattage names as board members in order to help sway investors. Among them, says Dealbook: Bono; eBay founder Pierre Omidyar; Jeff Skoll, who served as the first president of eBay; Laurene Powell Jobs; Richard Branson; Reid Hoffman; Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments; philanthropist Lynne Benioff; and investor Mo Ibrahim.

According to the report, so far, “at least two large pension funds and one sovereign wealth fund have committed nine figure sums.”

McGlashan has led TPG Growth since 2003. The unit, within 23-year-old TPG Capital, had begun life with a $500 million venture fund in 1999. (At the time, it was one of the largest-ever first time funds.) Then the market famously crashed, and McGlashan was brought in to head up a new, growth-fund strategy.

In a chat with StrictlyVC last year, McGlashan noted that TPG Growth now invests typically in between 10 and 15 companies each year where it can accelerate the business.

More here.

New Fundings

Appetize, a five-year-old, Play Vista, Ca.-based point-of-sale platform company, has raised more than $20 million in funding led by Shamrock Capital Advisors, with participation from individual investors. More here.
Dynamic Yield, a five-year-old, New York-based company offering tools to help online businesses deliver personalized experiences, has raised $22 million in Series C funding ed by Vertex and ClalTech, with participation from new investors Baidu and Global Founders Capital, as well as previous backers Bessemer Venture Partners, Marker LLP and Innovation Endeavors. TechCrunch has more here.

eSUB Construction Software, an eight-year-old, San Diego-based startup whose cloud-based project management apps help subcontractors track and get compensated for all the work they do on construction jobs, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Revolution Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

iPrice, an 18-month-old, Malayia-based e-commerce aggregation service that’s active in seven countries in Southeast Asia, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by earlier backers Asia Venture Group and Venturra Capital, with participation from Gobi Partners, DMP, Econa and Starstrike Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

LaunchDarkly, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based online platform that controls when people see new features and who gets to see them, has raised $8.7 million in fresh funding led by DFJ, with Softech VC and Bloomberg Beta following on. TechCrunch has more here.

LeanData, a 4.5-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based TKTKTK, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from previous backers Shasta Ventures and Correlation Ventures. More here.

Preservica, a four-year-old, Oxfordshire, England-based digital preservation technology company that helps its clients safeguard and share their digital content, has raised roughly $3.8 million in funding from Mobeus Equity Partners. More here.
SuperFlex, a year-old, Bay Area-based company developing what it calls powered clothing (think custom garments embedded with flexible electric motors that help wearers with tasks like lifting heavy leads to even just walking around), has raised $9.6 million in Series A funding from Global Brain, Horizons Ventures, Root Ventures, Sinovation Ventures, and SRI. TechCrunch has the story here.

Yeahmobi, a five-year-old, Hunan, China-based mobile performance marketing network, has raised roughly $100 million in funding, according to a blog post on the company’s site. Investors include Beijing Bohai Tongxin Private Equity Fund, Nanjing Huawen Hongsheng Startup Investment Fund and Shenzhen Qianhai Bochuang Private Equity Fund. More here.

Zoomcar, a nearly four-year-old, Bangalore, India-based car rental company allowing individuals to rent by the hour or day, has raised an undisclosed amount of investment from the Chinese venture capital firm Cyber Carrier, expanding its Series B round. VCCircle has more here.

IPOs

The venture-backed online lender SoFi, which specializes in refinancing student loans, is pushing back plans for an IPO in order to focus on developing other business lines, says CEO Mike Cagney. Meanwhile, the company hasn’t yet closed a $500 million funding round, an effort that has SoFi courting international investors to purchase loans and potentially take an equity stake at the same time. Bloomberg has the story here.

People

Yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook took to the company’s internal messaging system to tell employees why he met with Trump last week at that lil’ tech summit. Writes Cook: “Personally, I’ve never found being on the sideline a successful place to be. The way that you influence these issues is to be in the arena. So whether it’s in this country, or the European Union, or in China or South America, we engage. And we engage when we agree and we engage when we disagree. I think it’s very important to do that because you don’t change things by just yelling. You change things by showing everyone why your way is the best.” TechCrunch has much more here.

George Polisner, who has spent roughly 16 years of his life at Oracle over two separate stints, said he is resigning from the company because of Oracle CEO Safra Catz’s recent decision to join Trump’s transition team. Says Polisner about his very public resignation, “I am not with President-elect Trump and I am not here to help him in any way. In fact, when his policies border on the unconstitutional, the criminal and the morally unjust, I am here to oppose him in every possible and legal way.” More here.

Jobs

The $100 million Samsung Catalyst Fund is looking to bring aboard an investment director. The job is in Menlo Park, Ca.

For founder readers: We understand that Expa, the startup studio founded by Uber and StumbleUpon cofounder Garrett Camp (and quickly joined by Foursquare cofounder Naveen Selvaduraj and others), is quietly opening up its application pool at the end of January. As part of the program, companies trade 20 percent of their equity for $500,000 in funding and inclusion in Expa Labs’s six-month residential program (and, presumably, ongoing access to Camp and the others). If you’re interested, you might want to bookmark this link.

Data

According to new Pew Research about shopping online, it’s not necessarily the convenience of being able to click a few buttons to have products shipped to your door that consumers said was most appealing: it’s cost and the ability to research those costs and other matters more efficiently across the web ahead of their purchase. TechCrunch has more here.

Someone leaked Uber‘s financials for the first nine months this year to Bloomberg. You can check out its revenue and its losses here.

Essential Reads

Despite warnings about a “right hook” turning problem can cause collisions with cyclists, Uber put its self-driving vehicles in circulation anyway. The company says it is aware of the “problem,” and as a stop-gap measure, has instructed human drivers to take over when they approach a right turn on a street with a bike lane.
How Apple alienated Mac loyalists.

Detours

A teardown of Apple’s AirPods. (It isn’t pretty.)

Thirty-one, pretty solid last-minute gifts on Amazon for the people you almost forgot.

Retail Therapy

Six special-edition spirits for the serious collector, priced $23,000 and up.

Hi, everyone! Happy Monday from cold-but-lovely Washington, D.C., where we’re camping out for a bit.

Two quick housekeeping notes: We will not be publishing StrictlyVC next week when we enter full-blown holiday mode. (We’ll send out another reminder about this later in the week.)

Also, we’re so happy that a growing number of you are coming on February 8 to our upcoming INSIDER event at the Autodesk Gallery, including from Javelin and Mayfield and IVP and Stripe and SanDisk and Redpoint and GGV and Bessemer and General Catalyst and Scale and IDEO and Andreessen Howoritz and Lightspeed and DFJ and Sapphire and TCV and the Thiel Foundation and Wing and Relay Ventures and Adams Street and the WSJ and Bloomberg (among others).

If you want to come, too, and we hope you will, maybe don’t wait until the last minute to grab a seat. For insurance reasons, Autodesk can’t be super flexible when it comes to headcount.

Top News in the A.M.

Apple is going to war with the European Union over its record-breaking $14 billion tax bill — with senior executives claiming that the regulators ignored tax experts and corporate law to maximize the penalty. Business Insider has more here.

New Fundings

Airbnb, the nine-year-old San Francisco-based home-sharing company, has authorized the sale of an additional $153 million in equity that looks to be an extension to to its $555 million round of a few months ago. Earlier backers in that round reportedly included CapitalG and Technology Crossover Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Careem, a 4.5-year-old, Dubai-based ride-hailing company, has raised $350 million in new funding led by Rakuten and Saudi Telecom. The round reportedly values the company at more than $1 billion. TechCrunch has more here.

Dragonera, a months-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based AI-powered software development platform, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Singulariteam. Globes has more here.

Lumus, a 16-year-old, Rehovot, Israel-based maker of augmented reality wearable displays, has raised $30 million in additional Series C funding, including from HTC and the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Quanta Computer. The round now stands at $45 million. TechCrunch has more here.

NoBroker, a two-year-old, Bangalore-based real estate marketplace, has raised $7 million in additional Series B funding led by KTB Ventures, with participation from earlier backers SAIF Partners, Beenext, and Digital Garage. The round now stands at $17 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Marketing Evolution, a 16-year-old, El Dorado Hills, Ca.-based company that makes marketing software, has secured a $4 million credit line from SaaS Capital, an outfit that provides credit facilities expressly to SaaS companies. More here.

OneWeb, a four-year-old, Arlington, Va.-based company that’s developing a network of satellites to provide affordable internet access, has raised $1.2 billion, including a whopping $1 billion of it from SoftBank. (The remaining $200 million came from earlier investors.) TechCrunch has more here.

Starry Internet, a two-year-old, Boston and New York-based startup that’s building what it describes as a radical wireless internet service, along with easy-to-use WiFi products (it was cofounded by Chet Kanojia, whose last startup, Aereo, famously lost a Supreme Court case), has raised an additional $30 million in funding. The company isn’t revealing who its backers are, but it says the new capital brings its total funding to $63 million. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Gomif Partners, an early stage investment advisory network co-led by Malaysian investor Tey Por Yee (Larry), is launching a startup fund called Socialpreneur Growth Fund that aims to close with roughly $200 million in commitments and to invest in startups in Europe, as well as within the Asia Pacific region. More here.

Exits

Thundersoft, a company out of China that designs operating systems for drones and other connected devices, is paying roughly $68 million for Rightware, a Helsinki-based company that develops graphical user interfaces for connected devices, with a special focus on automotive. Rightware looks to have raised roughly $9.5 million altogether, including from Nexit Ventures and Inventure. TechCrunch has more here.

People

More bad news for Stanford: Michelle Karnes says Stanford professor and former dean Stephen Hinton refused to leave her alone while she was working at the university as an untenured professor. When she complained of sexual harrassment, the school protected him and pushed her out, she says. More here.
Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was found guilty today of criminal charges linked to the misuse of public funds during her time as France’s finance minister, a verdict that could force her out of her post. The verdict is likely to destabilize the fund, says Dealbook.
Elon Musk says he’s getting into the business of boring tunnels now, too. (Maybe after spending the last couple of years on the sidelines, he decided it’s time to build his own underground hyperloop?)

“I will apply for Indian citizenship” if necessary in order to compete in India, says Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.

Jobs

Cambridge Associates is looking to hire a research investment associate. The job is in San Francisco.

Essential Reads

DraftKings and FanDuel popularized daily-fantasy sports contests but they’re starting to lose customers who’ve grown wary of longshot odds and a regulatory crackdown on the young industry. The WSJ has the story here.

California’s top cop is threatening legal action against Uber over its self-driving vehicle program in San Francisco. CBS News has more here.

Facebook just added group video chat to Facebook Messenger, says TechCrunch. (So did the increasingly popular chat app Kik, says TechCrunch.)

Airbnb is developing a service for booking air travel as the home-rental startup looks to compete with Priceline and Expedia for more of people’s online travel spending. Bloomberg has the story here.

Detours

Yipes. A sixth mass extinction event be closer than you think.

The first official trailer for “Blade Runner 2049.” That’s right, babies; thirty years later, it’s back.

You can’t filter him out entirely, but this Google Chrome extension will change every picture of Donald Trump to kittens.

Retail Therapy

The Mercedes-Benz S-Class dreamy Night Edition. (Its somewhat hilarious tagline: “Even more exclusive.”

Hey, Friday! How you doin’?

Hope you have wonderful weekend, dear readers. Thanks very much to those of you who’ve already picked up a ticket for our next StrictlyVC INSIDER evening on February 8, featuring, to our great delight: Foundry Group cofounder Brad Feld, Cowboy Ventures founder Aileen Lee, Stitch Fix founder Katrina Lake, Tusk Ventures founder Bradley Tusk, Haystack founder Semil Shah and yours truly. More than half the tickets are now gone, so don’t wait too long to grab yours.

We also want to say a giant thank you to our sponsors, Bolt, the hardware-focused venture firm that always has our back, CrunchBase, the data and analytics platform that a lot of us rely on to get our jobs done every day, and Rosebud, a new, L.A.-based public relations outfit that caters to startups up and down the coast of California.
If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor as well, let us know, and we’ll see the rest of you next week!

Top News in the A.M.

Eek. Turns out the government body that oversees the security of voting systems was itself hacked. TechCrunch has more here.

NextView Looks to Fund Three

NextView Ventures, one of few seed-stage venture firms in Boston, is looking to raise at least $50 million for a third fund, shows an SEC filing that was processed Wednesday. The firm closed its second fund with $40 million in 2014 and its debut fund with $21 million in 2012.

NextView was founded in 2010 by three former veterans of other venture firms: Dave Beisel, who’d previously worked for Venrock; Rob Go, who was formerly with Spark Capital; and Lee Hower, a former investor with Judith Capital.

They’ve seemingly worked hard to raise the profile of the firm over that period, too. Go, for example, posts two or three pieces of analysis or advice each month to his widely read blog. (One of his most recent posts compares the process of sourcing venture deals to the process of drumming up customers for a software company, including nurturing leads over an extended period.)

The firm typically writes checks of between $100,000 and $1 million. Some of its newest investments include GetHuman, a four-year-old, Boston-based startup that fights people’s customer service battles for them (NextView led a $3 million seed round in the company last month), and Optimus Ride, an MIT spinoff at work on self-driving technologies. NextView led a $5.25 million seed round in the company in October.

At least 13 of NextView’s portfolio companies have been acquired, shows Crunchbase data.

More here.

New Fundings

Cota, a two-year-old, New York-based data tracking company that uses a digital classification system to assess cancer patient results on specific treatment protocols, has raised $18 million in funding from Boston Millennia Partners, Novartis, Celgene, Foundation Medicine and Horizon Healthcare. More here.
Femasys, a 12-year-old, Atlanta, Ga-based company that has developed an implantable contraceptive device, has raised $40 million in Series C funding from “multiple institutional investors, family offices and a global medical device company,” none of which were named in a release. The company has now raised roughly $60 milion altogether, shows CrunchBase. More here.
Memebox, a 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based beauty brand focused on the latest in Asian beauty products and trends, has raised an additional $60 million in a Series C extension round. Investors include Goodwater Capital, Altos Ventures, Cowboy Ventures, Mousse Partners, Formation Group, Funders Club, Pear Ventures, Cota Capital and Janet Gurwitch. The new funding brings the company’s Series C round to $66 million, and the company’s overall funding to $160 million. Forbes has more here.

OB1, a year-old, bitcoin-based, decentralized, peer-to-peer trade community, has raised $3 million in funding from BlueYard and earlier backers Union Square Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. Founder Brian Hoffman also founded OpenBazaar, a bitcoin-based open-source, peer-to-peer marketplace that’s operated as a nonprofit. (OB1 is building services on top of OpenBazaar). More here and here.

One, a 10.5-year-old, Folsom, Ca.-based company that makes cloud-based software for insurance companies, has raised $20 million in Series B funding. AXA Strategic Ventures led the round, with participation from MassMutual Ventures and earlier backer H&Q Asia Pacific. GeekTime has more here.

Pocket Aces, a 2.5-year-old, Mumbai, india-based digital content creator, has raised $3 million from a clutch of global investors, including Sequoia Capital India, North Base Media, Aarin Capital, and FreeCharge. Business Insider has more here.

Springbot, a four-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based e-commerce marketing platform, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Harbert Growth Partners, with participation from TTV Capital and Tech Operators. More here.
VictorOps, a four-year-old Boulder, Co.-based real-time incident management company, has added $2.8 million to its Series B round, which now stands at $15 million. Investors in the company include Shea Ventures, Foundry Group and Costanoa Ventures. More here.

Wyre, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based money transfer company, has raised $5.8 million in Series A funding led by Amphora Capital, with participation from the Chinese payments firms Baofoo.com and 9fBank, Draper Associates, and Digital Currency Group. The company has now raised $7.5 million altogether. CoinDesk has more here.

(Other) New Funds

Cayman Islands-based Genbridge Capital, founded by two former members of JD.com’s M&A team, is looking to raise a $500 million debut fund, according to a new SEC filing. An Asian Venture Capital Journal report says the fund will focus on China-based companies. DealStreetAsia has slightly more here.
The Holt family — owners of the heavy caterpillar equipment, engines, machines, and caterpillar equipment product company — has launched Holt Ventures as an investment arm. The unit will look to back new tech and startups that are focused on the industrial and manufacturing industries. More here.
SJF Ventures, a 17-year-old, Durham, N.C.-based venture capital firm, has closed on $125 million in commitments for its fourth fund — nearly 40 percent more than it raised for its third fund. The News & Observer has more here.

IPOs

Trivago, the Düsseldorf, Germany-based global hotel search aggregator being spun out of Expedia, priced its IPO offering of 26.1 million American depositary shares at $11 apiece this morning, below its expected range. The WSJ has more here.

Bigger picture: 2016 will not go down in the books as a particularly good year for IPOs. The Renaissance IPO Index has returned a measly 1.7 percent so far this year, compared to 10.5 percent for the S&P 500. Meanwhile, there have been 102 IPOs priced so far this year, a -46 percent change from last year.

Exits

Unilever has gone shopping yet again in the world of venture-backed startups. This time, it has agreed to acquire Living Proof, a 12-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based maker of volumizing hair care products. Living Proof raised $53 million from investors including Polaris Partners, Leerink Partners, Piper Jaffray, and actress Jennifer Aniston. Terms of its deal with Unilever aren’t being disclosed. Women’s Wear Daily has more here.

People

Oracle’s chief executive Safra Catz will join Trump’s transition team, an Oracle spokesperson told TechCrunch yesterday. Catz was one of several top tech executives that attended a meeting with Trump, his children and his advisors Wednesday at Trump Tower in New York. More here.

We weren’t alone in thinking it a little unsettling that Palantir’s Alex Karp was at that meeting with Trump this week. BuzzFeed has more here.

Keith McCarty, founder of the well-funded pot delivery startup Eaze, is stepping down from his position as CEO, and the startup’s chief product and technology officer Jim Patterson will take on the role. TechCrunch has more here.

Jobs

VMWare is looking to hire a director of corporate development. The job is in Palo Alto.

Essential Reads

Coders love VC-backed unicorn Github, but it’s losing a lot of money through profligate spending, says Bloomberg.

Inside Apple‘s $14 billion tax bill.

The biggest tech failures and successes of 2016.

Detours

A snapshot of the swanky private club where Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, and Justin Timberlake go to ski.

This developer says he thought he was designing for Space X when it was actually the notorious online marketplace Silk Road.

We’re just going to stop reading the news for a bit before our head explodes.

Retail Therapy

Soylent powder — it’s back! Try it if you dare.