StrictlyVC: June 13, 2017

Hi, happy Tuesday, all! We’re still smarting from last night; we were really hoping for another game this week. (Well, okay, fine, we were hoping the Cavs would win the Finals again.) Happy for the many Warriors fans in our lives, though, and what an amazing series to watch.

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Top News in the A.M.

Travis Kalanick is maybe not going to follow all of the recommendations coming out of Eric Holder’s investigation into the company. According to Recode, Kalanick is still deciding whether or not to step aside from some period or ride out the storm. (For what it’s worth, members of our own household are divided on the issue.)

The ‘Instagram for Doctors’ Just Raised $10 Million More

Figure 1 isn’t for the squeamish, but investors apparently love it. The company, a kind of social network where more than a million healthcare professionals can view rare conditions, learn about novel treatments and even teach cases, has just raised $10 million in Series B funding.

Kensington Capital Partners led the round in Figure 1, which has also been called the Instagram for doctors. Other participants include Samsung NEXT, insurance conglomerate John Hancock/Manulife, the venture debt firm WTI, the Canadian investment firm Hedgewood, and earlier backers Union Square Ventures, Rho Canada Ventures, and Version One Ventures.

Last week, we caught up with Figure 1 founder and CEO Gregory Levey to learn the latest about the operations (ahem) of his four-year-old, 50-person, Toronto-based startup, which has now raised more than $20 million altogether. Our chat has been edited for length.

People are under the impression that only medical professionals can sign up to Figure 1, but that’s not so.

Anyone can join. In fact, we kid that it’s all journalists and VCs — people who are curious. But only medical professionals can post photos and make comments. Otherwise, you get a modified experience where you can see see stuff but you can’t post or comment. If we verify you as a healthcare professional, you get access to different stuff, as well.

When you say healthcare professional, that’s doctors and nurses. What about students?

We don’t want pre-med, but we make an exception for nursing students, and about 70 percent of med students around the country are members.

So your members are mostly in the U.S.?

About two-thirds are the in U.S. The second most engaged user base we have is in Latin America. We inadvertently [hired a lot of Brazilians] and have a whole Portuguese-speaking side of the office [laughs], so we make the app in both Spanish and Portuguese. We also have a lot of members in the U.K., and Australia is big. People also like us in emerging markets, but you get into bandwidth issues; the phones aren’t really at the level where you can keep [the Figure 1 app] on your phone because of storage issues.

How many registered and active users do you have?

We’re tracking toward a big user milestone now, but we’ve disclosed in the past that we have more than 2 million registered users and have hundreds of thousands of monthly active users. There are 800,000 doctors in the U.S.

In terms of engagement, what do you see? Is it like other social networks, where a small subset of visitors is active and everyone else is sort of playing the part of voyeur?

More here.

New Fundings

Clutter, a four-year-old, on-demand storage company, has raised $64 million in Series C funding led by Atomico, with participation from earlier backers Sequoia Capital, GV, and Fifth Wall. TechCrunch has more here.

Mrs. Wordsmith, a one-year-old, London-based edtech startup focused on high-quality visual content, has raised £2 million ($2.5 million) in seed funding. London-based Kindred Capital led the round, with participation from Reach Capital, SaatchiNvest and Ropart Asset Management. TechCrunch has more here.

Notion, a four-year-old, Denver-based maker of an all-in-one IoT smart home sensor, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Draper Nexus and TransLink Capital. Earler investors also joined the round, including XL Innovate, and Mesh VC. The company has now raised $15 million altogether. More here.

ShipBob, a three-year-old, Chicago-based company that helps ecommerce businesses with shipping and logistics, has raised $17.5 million led by Bain Capital Ventures. Earlier backers also joined the round, including Hyde Park Venture Partners, FundersClub, Hyde Park Angels and FJ Labs. VentureBeat has more here.

Snapsheet, a seven-year-old, Chicago-based maker of virtual claims software for the personal and commercial insurance industry, has raised $12 million in Series D funding led by Tola Capital. More here.

Submittable, a seven-year-old, Missoula, Montana-based startup that’s used by more than 9,000 companies to manage submissions, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from True Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Yofumo Technologies, a two-year-old, Denver-based cannabis storage and processing startup, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by MedScience Ventures, with participation from other, unnamed angel investors. More here.

Yumi, a 1.5-year-old, L.A.-based organic baby food delivery service, has raised $4.1 million in seed funding from Brand Foundry, August Capital and New Enterprise Associates. Several angel investors, including Ali Partovi, Automatic founder Matt Mullenweg, and Philip Krim, co-founder of mattress company Casper, also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Indonesia has a new venture fund; Intudo Ventures has raised $10 million for a debut fund that it intends to invest across 12 to 16 companies. TechCrunch has more here.

Exits

Hello, a sleep monitor maker that raised over $40 million in venture capital, including from Temasek, Facebook executives David Marcus and Dan Rose, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, and hardware executive Hugo Barra, is likely shutting down. More here and here.

Magazine giant Condé Nast has closed its experiment with e-commerce, Style.com, months after its launch. Now it’s joining forces with Farfetched — a venture-backed marketplace for high-end boutiques in which Condé is an investor.

Also Sponsored By . . .

This week’s StrictlyVC is also being brought to you by the same people who say crazy things like, “The internet would be better if we paid for things,” “Let’s bring fintech to the other 111 million,” and “Closing the women’s wealth gap is a billion-dollar opportunity.” (So not so crazy at all.) If you’re interested in everything from patents to fintech regulations to product marketing to nonprofit partnerships, you’re in luck: The Financial Solutions Lab has a blog.

People

Venture capitalist Jeremy Liew has read the criticisms of “Planet of the Apps” but he says it’s still worth watching for the pitch meetings in the latter half of each episode. “Anyone wanting to know what a real pitch process is like could do a lot worse then watch them to see what works.”

Marissa Mayer has officially resigned from Yahoo, following Verizon’s announcement that it has finally closed its acquisition of the company.

Jobs

BlueYard Capital, a young, primarily Europe-focused, early-stage venture firm, tells us it’s looking to hire a new analyst into a two-year-role. The job is in Berlin.

Data

These 50 companies are holding the biggest piles of overseas cash.

Essential Reads

Apple CEO Tim Cook has for the first time laid out exactly what the company is up to in the automotive market: It’s concentrating on self-driving technology. Bloomberg has more here.

Interesting stuff: When employees sell a small percentage of stock back to Uber, CEO Travis Kalanick gets 100 percent of the employees’ voting rights. The New York Times has the scoop here.

Detours

Sometimes, you’ve got to fly some cows to Qatar.

The man who stands in line for a living.

The seventh season of “Game of Thrones” will feature a couple of verrrry long episodes (which we be sitting through, one hand ready, always, to shield our eyes).

Retail Therapy

Sixty-six gifts for the stylish men in your life, just in time for Father’s Day.


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