Friday! We are SO excited to see a bunch of you this coming Wednesday night at our last StrictlyVC event of the year. Giant thanks again to the early-stage hardware-focused venture firm Bolt; to Ballou PR, which has helped dozens of startups and VCs figure out media in Europe; and to Rosebud Communications, which prides itself on getting press for nascent startups, at fees that won’t break the bank.

If you weren’t able to get a ticket this time, don’t sweat it; we’ll have plenty of coverage for you afterward.

Hope you have a terrific weekend, everyone!

Top News in the A.M.

Uber just lost its license to operate in London. Regulators say they were fed up with the company’s failure to report serious criminal offenses, among other things. Uber, which counts more than 40,000 drivers in London, is appealing.

Facebook is turning over more than 3,000 Russia-linked ads to congressional committees investigating the Kremlin’s influence operation during the 2016 presidential campaign. The debacle underscores the unintended consequences of the tools it uses.

Benchmark is reportedly the lone holdout in a proposed deal for Softbank to buy between 17 percent and 22 percent of existing shareholders’ stake in Uber. Among Benchmark’s concerns, says the Information: that if early common shareholders sell shares, they’ll lose their 10-to-1 voting power, strengthening the voting power of ousted CEO Travis Kalanick.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Future Labs AI Summit, a two-day conference comprising trainings, talks, and discussions with leading AI technologists, investors, academics, and entrepreneurs in New York City on October 30 – 31.

From deep dives into key areas animating AI conversations from leading technical experts to introductory courses in machine learning and game theory for AI, the Future Labs AI Summit features offerings for scholars, technologists, and investors alike. Attendees will also get a first look at demos from the second cohort of startups in the AI NexusLab, the accelerator program run by Future Labs, NYU Tandon, and ff Venture Capital. Get tickets here.

Despite Its Odds, Hyperloop One Just Raised Another $85 Million

Hyperloop One, a three-year-old, L.A.-based company working to create near-supersonic trains that can whisk both passengers and cargo in giant pneumatic tubes at speeds of many hundreds of miles per hour, has raised $85 million in fresh funding, as first reported in Recode.

The round, which comes from DP World, Caspian VC Partners, WTI and OurCrowd.com, brings the company’s total funding to $245 million.

It’s a lot of money for what still seems like a pipe dream, no pun intended. As the Verge noted in its own report on the new round, Hyperloop One still has “no commercial product, no revenue stream, no government approval, and no proof that its ultrafast transit system would even be safe for human passengers.”

Though the company has proudly touted its proof of concept — in late July, in the Nevada desert, it shot a 28-foot-long pod made of aluminum and carbon fiber down a 1,600-foot-long concrete tube at 192 miles per hour in five seconds, then immediately sent footage of the feat to numerous media outlets — its challenges are numerous and well-documented.

Among them: any route would need to be straight and level. Meanwhile land is expensive; presumably not all landowners would welcome hosting a hyperloop in their backyard. It could take tens of billions of dollars and decades to build. (You get the idea.) Hyperloop has also talked up its partnerships with governments around the world, though these are, for now, merely feasibility studies.

Apparently, such obstacles haven’t diminished the enthusiasm of the company’s newest investors, whose new round of funding reportedly values Hyperloop One at $700 million.

Still, it may grow harder for people to maintain their enthusiasm in its expensive approach, given that the idea’s earliest advocate, Elon Musk, has himself moved onto a project that he thinks will be less costly, more practical, and will require less time: tunneling underground.

More here.

New Fundings

Bellen, a 1.5-year-old, China-based medical contract research organization, has raised $38 million in Series B funding co-led by Legend Capital and China International Capital, with participation from investment firms Gefeiyueren and Dachen Chuanglian and games developer Dianjing Shijie. China Money Network has more here.

Flexport, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based customs brokerage and freight forwarding service, has raised $110 million in Series C funding at an $800 million pre-money valuation from “mostly existing investors, says TechCrunch, including DST Global. More here.

Inside Jeff Bezos’s $5 billion bet that Amazon can win India.

Detours

Instagram’s most beloved cookie dough confectioner is making people sick, says a new lawsuit.

Twelve fall TV shows to watch right now.

A peek into New York’s eclectic living rooms.

Retail Therapy

Body armor by McLaren. Hmm, which “prepper” is Client X, we wonder. (Or do we think it’s Musk?)

Hi, happy Thursday, all, and L’Shana Tova.

We’re back from Disrupt but now running out the door — please forgive any and all typos. More tomorrow.:)

Top News in the A.M.

Google announced late last night that it is spending $1.1 billion to hire a team of engineers from the smartphone business of the struggling Taiwanese manufacturer HTC in a bid to bring more hardware expertise to its own mobile technology operations. Outsiders are undecided whether the move is a need-to-have or nice-to-have.

Whoa. The SEC said yesterday that hackers penetrated its electronic system for storing public-company filings last year and may have traded on the information.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Future Labs AI Summit, a two-day conference comprising trainings, talks, and discussions with leading AI technologists, investors, academics, and entrepreneurs in New York City on October 30 – 31.

From deep dives into key areas animating AI conversations from leading technical experts to introductory courses in machine learning and game theory for AI, the Future Labs AI Summit features offerings for scholars, technologists, and investors alike. Attendees will also get a first look at demos from the second cohort of startups in the AI NexusLab, the accelerator program run by Future Labs, NYU Tandon, and ff Venture Capital. Get tickets here.

Kirsten Green Talks Offline Retail, Catalogs, Celebrity Endorsements and More

Yesterday at Disrupt, Kirsten Green, founder of the early-stage, San Francisco-based venture firm Forerunner Ventures, sat down with us for a quick conversation about her work. Green has become one of the most sought-after e-commerce investors in the country, thanks to bets on companies like Jet.com and Bonobos (both sold to Walmart), Dollar Shave Club (sold to Unilever), as well as numerous popular, standalone brands like Warby Parker and Glossier.

Certainly, her job — funding and helping to grow new, compelling new brands — isn’t as easy as it looks from the outside, despite ongoing disruption to traditional retailers. She noted, for example, that Forerunner is approached by 175 to 200 e-commerce outfits every month, yet last year it made six investments and just nine this year. (There’s “a lot of editing down,” she noted.)

Hey there, happy Wednesday, all! No column today; not long ago, we finished our fourth and final Hinterview at TechCrunch Disrupt with one of the country’s most sought-after e-commerce investors, Kirsten Green. (More to come on that.)

We separately had an interesting conversation yesterday with YC President Sam Altman, who — and we know this is both good and bad news for VCs — plans to grow YC even bigger. We did ask if he’s stressing YC’s existing alumni network by continuing to pour new startups into the mix; he doesn’t think he is.

Altman also revealed plans to launch a kind of kingmaking experiment next year wherein people who want to make politics their calling yet don’t have enough resources will get a boost from Altman and company. He likened it to the way that YC identifies “talent that the rest of the world is missing” and provides that talent as much help as possible. “We think it’s really important to develop a bench,” he said.

You can check out our on-stage chat here.

Top News of the A.M.

Google is close to acquiring assets from Taiwan’s HTC Corp. in a bid to bolster its nascent hardware business, says Bloomberg.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Future Labs AI Summit, a two-day conference comprising trainings, talks, and discussions with leading AI technologists, investors, academics, and entrepreneurs in New York City on October 30 – 31.

From deep dives into key areas animating AI conversations from leading technical experts to introductory courses in machine learning and game theory for AI, the Future Labs AI Summit features offerings for scholars, technologists, and investors alike. Attendees will also get a first look at demos from the second cohort of startups in the AI NexusLab, the accelerator program run by Future Labs, NYU Tandon, and ff Venture Capital. Get tickets here.

New Fundings

Citizen, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based controversial crime tracking app, has raised $12 million in Series A round led by Sequoia Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

ClearMetal, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based predictive logistics company, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Prelude Venturesand Innovation Endeavors, with participation from New Enterprise Associates, SAP.io, PSA Unboxed, and DCLI, among others. The company has now raised $12 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

EquitySim, a year-old, San Francisco-based online simulation-based recruiting platform, has raised $3.1 million in Series A funding led by University Ventures, with participation from Peak Ventures and 500 FinTech. More here.

Gogoro, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based electric scooter maker, has raised $300 million in Series C funding from new backers that include Temasek, the Singaporean sovereign fund, London-based Generation Investment Management, Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation, and energy firm ENGIE from France. TechCrunch has more here.

Hyliion, a two-year-old, Pittsburgh, Pa.-based company focused on adding an intelligent electric drive axle to Class 8 vehicles (the idea is to capture energy when the vehicle brakes), has raised $21 million in Series A funding led by Axioma Ventures. More here.

Mira AR, a two-year-old, L.A.-based mobile augmented reality company that had raised $1.5 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital earlier this year, just added another $1 million in funding from Greylock Partners, Founders Fundand Macro Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

System1, a four-year-old, Venice, Ca.-based marketplace for keyword pay-per-click advertising, has raised $270 million in funding led by Court Square Capital Partners. L.A. Biz has more here.

ThinkCERCA, a five-year-old, Chicago-based software company that aims to teach critical thinking through argumentative writing, has raised $10.1 million in Series B funding from a wide number of investors, including LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, former Match CEO Sam Yagan, and investor Deborah Quazzo. More here.

Tia, a year-old, San Francisco-based startup developing an app that helps serve as a personal, private, women’s health advisor, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from Combine, Homebrew and Compound. More here.

TrustRadius, a five-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based review platform for business technology, has raised $5.5 million in Series B financing led by LiveOak Venture Partners, with participation from Mayfield. More here.

IPOs

Alibaba-backed, China-based Best went public this morning on the NYSE, rising nearly 14 percent straightaway, despite a launching a pared-down $450 million IPO. CNBC has more here.

Optinose, a Yardley, Pa.-based company that just received FDA approval for its intranasal delivery treatment for nasal polyps, has filed to raise $100 million in an IPO. Its backers include Fidelity Management & Research Co. FierceBiotech has more here.

Exits

India’s online payments platform Paytm is reportedly in talks to acquire online travel portal Via.com. This move hints that the company is now looking to boost its travel business. The Indian Wire has more here.

People

A principal at Benchmark, Kris Fredrickson, has joined the hedge fund Coatue Management. We suspect this move is less dramatic than has been painted. (For one thing, principals don’t become general partners at Benchmark.)

Lordy. California’s coastal regulator is threatening to fine billionaire VC Vinod Khosla millions of dollars for ignoring a month-old court order to open a popular beach to the public that abuts his property. NBC Bay Area has more here.

Holly Maloney McConnell has joined the venture firm General Catalyst Partners as a managing director, operating out of its Boston office. McConnell, the firm’s first female MD, joins from North Bridge Growth Equity, which rebranded as Guidepost Growth Equity last month. McConnell, who’d spent seven years with the firm, will be focusing on later-stage companies across sectors and geographies for GC. More here.

Data

According to a poll from Deloitte, only 8 percent of companies that are considering going public have completed the move to the new revenue recognition requirements that are needed for public companies beginning in January 2018. MarketWatch has more here.

Essential Reads

Alphabet’s Nest just introduced a new, $499 alarm system.

Airbnb keeps drumming up new ways to generate revenue ahead of an expected IPO; the latest: restaurant reservations.

Alphabet thinks Uber should pay $2.6 billion for allegedly stealing a single trade secret.

Detours

The Jimmy Kimmel test.

If Bostonians loved other local institutions the way they love their local sports franchises.

Retail Therapy

A vast chunk of Hawaiian paradise, for $260 million.

Hello! We’re at TechCrunch’s Disrupt event in San Francisco again today; we just wrapped up a lively discussion with Elizabeth Iorns of Science Exchange, Jen Rubio of Away, and Rachel Carlson of Guild Education — three acutely interesting founders in different phases of their companies’ lifecycles. More on that this week.

We’ll also looking forward to talking a little later today with Sam Altman of Y Combinator. More on that soon, too. In the meantime, happy Tuesday.:)

Top News in the A.M.

The National Venture Capital Association has launched a lawsuit against the Trump administration, claiming it took illegal steps to prevent an immigration policy that would have helped foreign-born founders stay in the U.S. to build startups. The WSJ has the story here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Future Labs AI Summit, a two-day conference comprising trainings, talks, and discussions with leading AI technologists, investors, academics, and entrepreneurs in New York City on October 30 – 31.

From deep dives into key areas animating AI conversations from leading technical experts to introductory courses in machine learning and game theory for AI, the Future Labs AI Summit features offerings for scholars, technologists, and investors alike. Attendees will also get a first look at demos from the second cohort of startups in the AI NexusLab, the accelerator program run by Future Labs, NYU Tandon, and ff Venture Capital. Get tickets here.

Steve Jurvetson on Why He Couldn’t Join the Board of Secretive Zoox

On stage yesterday in San Francisco, we had the chance to catch up with investor Steve Jurvetson about a wide number of things that are sweeping across the startup landscape (and might fundamentally change it), from ICOs to Softbank’s giant Vision Fund to AI to Elon Musk’s new Boring Company.

Jurvetson had plenty of interesting insights about all, unsurprisingly. He somewhat famously graduated from Stanford in 2.5 years, at the top of his class, and has led early investments in many pioneering companies, from Hotmail to SpaceX and Tesla. (He sits on the boards of the last two, alongside Musk.)

Another board seat Jurvetson planned to take but didn’t, he said today, was with Zoox, the three-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based startup that’s building self-driving cars from the ground up with an eye toward picking up passengers as a service.

A year ago, Zoox raised what Jurvetson characterized as the biggest round of Series A funding ever when it closed on $240 million, including from DFJ, Lux Capital, Blackbird Ventures and others.

Happy Monday, all! We’re at TechCrunch’s Disrupt event in San Francisco today through Wednesday, so these newsletters might be a little on the skimpier side over the next few days. (We’re not so great at multitasking.) We expect to have plenty of interesting coverage for you coming out of the show, though.

More soon.:)

Top News in the A.M.

Slack yesterday closed on $250 million in funding led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund. The round values the workplace chat company at $5.1 billion, up from the $3.8 billion its investors assigned it during its last round. Bloomberg has more here.

The U.S. Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into whether top officials at Equifax violated insider trading laws when they sold stock before the company disclosed that it had been hacked, according to Bloomberg. More here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Future Labs AI Summit, a two-day conference comprising trainings, talks, and discussions with leading AI technologists, investors, academics, and entrepreneurs in New York City on October 30 – 31.

From deep dives into key areas animating AI conversations from leading technical experts to introductory courses in machine learning and game theory for AI, the Future Labs AI Summit features offerings for scholars, technologists, and investors alike. Attendees will also get a first look at demos from the second cohort of startups in the AI NexusLab, the accelerator program run by Future Labs, NYU Tandon, and ff Venture Capital. Get tickets here.

Sallie Krawcheck’s Ellevest Just Landed a Big New Round of Funding

Ellevest, a nearly three-year-old, New York-based digital investment platform built for women and led by former Wall Street titan Sallie Krawcheck, has raised $34.6 million in fresh funding.

The round — which was led by Rethink Impact, and includes participation from PSP Growth, Salesforce Ventures, CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund, LH Holdings, SK Impact Fund, Morningstar, Khosla Ventures, Mellody Hobson, Ulu Ventures, Contour Venture Partners and Astia Angels — brings the company’s total funding to $53.6 million.

Ellevest has plenty of competition from other, earlier digital wealth management platforms, including Betterment and Wealthfront, but it caters to women and thinks it can win marketshare by attracting female clients. Indeed, its tagline,”Invest like a woman,” is a nod to the often different financial reality for women, who tend to live longer then men, as well as have different salary arcs.

More here.

New Fundings

Brandfolder, a nearly five-year-old, Denver, Co.-based digital asset management platform for brands, has raised $5 million in funding led byTelescope Partners, a new Bay Area firm led by Mickey Arabelovic, a former partner at Sequoia. Brandfolder is the firm’s first investment. More here.

Cofactor Genomics, a nine-year-old, Saint Louis, Mo.-based company that’s trying to turn machine learning-based encoding of RNA data into a new searchable and indexable format, has raised $18 million in Series A funding. Menlo Ventures led the round; other participants include DCVC, Ascension Ventures, iSelect, Y Combinator, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, and Stanford. TechCrunch has more here.

ComparaOnline, an eight-year-old, Santiago, Chile-based startup that pitches financial educational tools to consumers in Brazil, Chile, and Colombia, has raised $14 million in funding from the private equity firm Bamboo Capital Partners and the International Finance Corp., the investment arm of the World Bank Group. TechCrunch has more here.

LifeMine Therapeutics, a 1.5-year-old, Boston, Ma.-based drug discovery company, has raised $55 million in Series A funding led by WuXi Healthcare Ventures. Other investors in the round include Foresite Capital, GV, Arch Ventures, Boyu Capital, Blue Pool Capital, Merck Ventures, and Alexandria Venture Investments. More here.

LimeBike, a nine-month-old, San Francisco-based dockless bike sharing company, has closed a new round of funding in the “tens of millions,” according to Forbes, whose sources say the deal values that company at roughly $200 million. Forbes is also reporting that DST Global, an early backer, is not a part of this Series B. More here.

Matroid, a 1.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based computer vision company that uses machine learning to help its customers monitor video streams in real time, has raised $10 million in Series A co-led by New Enterprise Associates and Intel Capital. The company has now raised $13.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Panoply, a 2.5-year-old. San Francisco and Tel Aviv, Israel-based send to end data management platform for analytics on the cloud, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by C5 Capital, with participation from earlier backers Intel Capital, Blumberg Capital and 500 Startups. More here.

Rodin Therapeutics, a three-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based biotechnology company that’s developing therapeutics to boost synaptic resilience, has raised $27 million in funding from GV, Hatteras Venture Partners, Remeditex Ventures, Third Point Ventures, and earlier backer Atlas Venture. FierceBiotech has more here.

Sonendo, an 11-year-old, Laguna Hills, Ca.-based dental company that’s developing what it calls a multisonic ultracleaning technology, has raised $50 million in growth funding. Investors include General Atlantic, along with earlier backers Fjord Ventures, OrbiMed Advisors, Meritech Capital Partners, CVF LLC, and NeoMed. More here.

IPOs

ZhongAn, a four-year-old, Shanghai, China-based company that became China’s first online-only insurer, said yesterday that plans to raise up to $1.5 billion in an IPO that could value the company at around $10 billion. Softbank Group will be a cornerstorne investor in the offering.

Restoration Robotics, a 15-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based company that’s developing a robotic device that assists doctors during a part of a hair restoration procedure, is planning to go public, offering 3.125 million share priced at between $7 and $9 a share. The company’s biggest outside investors include Sutter Hill Ventures, Clarus Lifesciences, Alloy Ventures, and InterWest Partners. MarketWatch has slightly more here.

Roku just more than doubled its IPO target.

Sponsored By . . .

Founder Shield is a fully digital insurance brokerage that provides the most intuitive process for venture-backed startups to get insurance. We work with companies of all sizes, from pre-seed to unicorn, public and private. Create an account and get some free quotes today…you’ll fit right in.

People

How Satya Nadella rewrote Microsoft’s code.

Sanjay Sharma, who has led Russell Simmons’ All Def Digital hip-hop and urban-youth-culture media startup for the last three years as CEO, is leaving to start his own digital media venture, says Variety. More here.

“Every so often I get like the odd sort of flashback where it jolts me a little bit, but it’s only ever a snippet, that fraction of a second before I actually hit the car. I don’t really remember much about the actual accident”. Hiroki Takeuchi, the cofounder and CEO of the London-based finch company GoCardless, gives his first interview since a serious road accident left him paralyzed last year. (Great, inspiring read.)

Data

Video was the fastest-growing ad format in recent months, according to a new report from mobile ad company Smaato. More here.

Essential Reads

Netflix and HBO cleaned up at last night’s Primetime Emmys.

With Uber reportedly nearing a deal with SoftBank and Lyft having held discussions with Alphabet, alliances are shifting quickly in the industry.

This is interesting. In a blow to China’s cash-burning, richly funded dockless bike sharing companies like Mobike and Ofo, the city of Beijing just banned commercial advertising on the bikes. China Money Network has more here.

Detours

Government bodies are increasingly turning the tables on citizens who seek public records.

A new study will make you feel better about those bad Tinder dates.

This hotel will send an orchestra to wake you up.

Retail Therapy

Mission E. Oh!

Happy Friday! Chirp!

Top New in the A.M.

Following its falling out with Uber, Alphabet is reportedly holding talks with Lyft about a potential investment of about $1 billion, says Bloomberg, which adds that the capital could come from Google or CapitalG, Alphabet’s private-equity arm. More here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is brought to you this week by the Future Labs AI Summit, a two-day conference comprising trainings, talks, and discussions with leading AI technologists, investors, academics, and entrepreneurs in New York City on October 30 – 31.”

From deep dives into key areas animating AI conversations from leading technical experts to introductory courses in machine learning and game theory for AI, the Future Labs AI Summit features offerings for scholars, technologists, and investors alike. Attendees will also get a first look at demos from the second cohort of startups in the AI NexusLab, the accelerator program run by Future Labs, NYU Tandon, and ff Venture Capital. Get tickets here.

Tim O’Reilly Thinks Focusing Less on Shareholders Might Just Save the World

There’s no shortage of angst in Silicon Valley. Tech leaders are still reeling from the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. Their increasingly rich companies are coming to be viewed as more and more sinister, thanks in part to the jobs they look to automate. Calls to break up some of the biggest companies are starting to take on some urgency for the first time in nearly 20 years.

Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media and author of a new book, “WTF: What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us,” thinks a lot of these problems could be solved if only big tech would focus a little less on profits and more on enabling other companies to be built atop of, or in partnership, with their platforms. In fact, his book, which is part memoir and part case study, is largely an entreaty to do things differently before it’s too late.

We talked with O’Reilly this morning. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

In your new book, you talk at some length about what makes today’s multibillion-dollar companies so powerful, including, centrally, their growing use of algorithms. Google is managing for relevance; Facebook is managing for engagement, you say. Do you think their power should be curtailed, and, if so, do you think that’s the government’s job?

I think that would require radical rethinking. It’s like, when we talk about tax reform — that’s minor tweaks. That’s the screen in the back of a taxi cab. Periodically, things do get bad enough to [compel] major changes. If you think about what happened during the New Deal, that was radical thinking. I think the assumption right now is that things are always going to be the way they are today, and that’s stupid. It’s possible to disrupt it.

Where to start, in your view?

In some ways, the financial markets are the first rogue AI. People are worrying about strawberry-picking robots that wind up getting rid of all obstacles, including humans. But we’re already inside of a vast economic machine that says, “Get rid of people. You’re supposed to be optimizing for stock price.”

Companies should be focused instead on their employees, greater society . . .

They should be focused on society as a whole. Just like Facebook is struggling because engagement with the platform was subverted by bad actors and it didn’t work like the company thought it would, if [these other companies] aren’t producing the results that are [beneficial to more people], that needs to change.

What’s your preferred solution?

My preferred solution is for both government to encourage companies to go after solving real problems, and for startups to do the same. I’d like to see more Elon Musks and fewer startups that are chasing money. To me, a lot of startups look and act like the Wall Street investors who brought us the financial crisis. They’re just trying to create a product the market will buy. It doesn’t matter if it’s toxic to the ecosystem as long as they can convince someone to invest in their business. It feels a lot like a horse race to me where a lot of founders are being paid to be a horse and a lot of investors feel like actors in a Hollywood movie.

Are you saying that entrepreneurship doesn’t or shouldn’t scale as fast as some people would like?

I feel like we’re in a kind of “big short” period in tech.

More here.

New Fundings

AppGuard, a Chantilly, Va.-based maker of intelligent prevention endpoint protection software, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Japan’s JTB Corporation. According to ZDNet, it’s using some of the money to complete its acquisition of KeepTree, a secure video communication technology company. More here.

Augment, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile app that lets businesses visualize their 3D models in augmented reality, has raised $5 million in Series A funding, including from Silicon Valley Data Capital and JAZZ Venture Partners. VentureBeat has more here.

Clinch, a four-year-old, New York City-based video ad personalization firm,  has raised $3 million in Series A funding, including from Richard Gati, a member of the investment advisory firm BXR Partners. More here.

Fauna, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that’s selling what it describes as an “adaptive operational database” that can support a wide range of use cases, has raised $25 million in Series A funding. Point72 Ventures led the round, and was joined by GV, Costanoa Ventures, Afore Capital, CRV, Data Collective, Quest Venture Partners, the Webb Investment Networkand Ulu Ventures. SiliconAngle has more here.

Federated Wireless, a five-year-old, Arlington, Va.-based company that aims to provide access to high-quality, low-cost licensed spectrum, raised $42 million in Series B funding, including from Charter Communications, American Tower Corp., ARRIS International and GIC. FierceWireless has more here.

Green Dot Labs, a three-year-old, Boulder, Co-based company that produces cannabis extracts in the form of oils, has raised $3.3 million in Series A funding from Tuatara Capital, an alternative investment  manager. More here.

Grid Therapeutics, a three-year-old, Durham, N.C.-based biotech company focused on cancer therapeutics, has raised an undiclosed amount of Series A funding led by Longview International, with participation from Duke University. More here.’

KeyMe, a five-year-old,  New York City-based company with an unusual twist on how people might  access and manage their keys, has raised $25 million in Series D funding led by Comcast Ventures. Other investors include Battery Ventures, Benefit Street Partners, Michael Polsky, Questmark Partners, Ravin Gandhi, RiverPark Ventures, 7-Eleven and White Star Capital. More here.

Patreon, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based funding and fan platform for artists, has raised an undislcosed amount of Series C funding at a roughly $450 million valuation, including from Index Ventures, says TechCrunch. More here.

Piper, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based STEM education company that makes a DIY computer kit for kids, has raised $7.6 million in Series A funding led by Owl Ventures led the round, with participation from Reach Capital, Stanford’s StartX fund, and Guitar Hero founder Charles Huang. Newscenter.io has more here.

RealtyShares, a four-old, San Francisco-based online marketplace for real estate investing, has raised $28 million in Series C funding from Cross Creek Advisors, Danhua Capital, Barry Sternlicht and Bow Capital, along with earlier backers Union Square Ventures, General Catalyst Partners and Menlo Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare, a six-year-old, China-based company that specializes in developing imaging devices covering computerized tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and digital radiography, has raised a whopping $500 million in Series A funding. SDIC Fund Management and China Life Insurance Co. co-led the round, with participation from Capital Venture Investment Fund, China International Capital Co., CITIC Securities, CDB Capital and CMB International. China Money Network has more here.

Sixgill, a three-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based company that’s trying to unify sensor intelligence for all of user’s sensor-enabled applications, is raising $27.9 million in funding, led by DRW Venture Capital. Mobile Financial Partners is also investing in the round. More here.

Swirlds, a two-year-old, Dallas, Tex.-based developer of a software platform that’s aimed at replacing Blockchain, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by New Enterprise Associates. More here.

>Swrve, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based company behind an in-app direct marketing platform, has raised $25 million in Series D funding led by Summit Bridge Capital. More here.

Virtuo, a two-year-old, Paris-based startup whose mobile app makes it easier to lease a car from airports and train stations, has raised €7.5 million ($8.9 million) from investors that include Balderton Capital. Tech.eu has more here.

YayPay, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose software automates payment workflows, has raised $5.3 million in funding from QED Investors, Birchmere, Fifth Third Capital, 500 Fintech Fund, Aspect Ventures, Gaingels, Techstars and Zelkova. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Costanoa Ventures, a five-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca-based firm focused on early-stage enterprise tech startups, has closed its third fund with $175 million in capital commitments. The company had closed its previous fund with $135 million in 2015. TechCrunch has more here.

IPOs

Nightstar Therapeutics, a London-based gene therapy company focused on retinal diseases, has revealed plans to raise $75 million in an IPO, pricing 5.4 million shares at between $13 to $15 a piece. The company’s investors include Syncona Partners and New Enterprise Associates. More here.

Rovio has set its IPO terms to between €10.25 and €11.50 per share, which could give it a market value of roughly $1.1 billion. That’s well below values in earlier media reports, notes Reuters. More here.

Exits

Another traditional retail brand is struggling. Women’s shoe seller Aerosoles filed for bankruptcy this morning, saying it will close up to 74 stores and focus on e-commerce. Fox Business has more here.

The 10-year-old, San Diego-based online radio service Slacker Radio has been acquired by LiveXLive, a music streaming service focused on live music streaming, the companies announced today. Terms weren’t disclosed. Slacker Radio had raised more than $70 million in funding over the years, including from Centennial Ventures, Rho Capital Partners, Austin Ventures, and Sevin Rosen Funds. The Verge has more here.

Also Sponsored By . . .

“South of Market, The Musical” is back for v2! The annual tech parody is running Oct 12-22nd in San Francisco and features an entirely new script, cast and score! This year’s show follows an aspiring tech journalist as she attempts to get the scoop on the too-good-to-be-true hottest startup of the year – ai.ai.  With songs likes “Self Driving,” “Boulder Moves, Bolder You,” and “Tech Issues,” this year’s show highlights the perks and perils of startup scene hype machine.

The show will also feature a host of cameo appearances (including by yours truly, Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover, and Rolfe Winkler of the WSJ). Tickets are on sale now, so come see our musical debut!

People

Remember, earlier this week, when SoFi said its cofounder and CEO Mike Cagney was stepping down at the end of this year? So there was a change of plans and he’s out the door today.

Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, answers some burning questions about Face ID.

Cyber security “unicorn” Tanium is planning another secondary sale, says cofounder and CEO Orion Hindawi, citing recent volatility in tech floats.

Condiments maker Hampton Creek has restocked its board (after its former directors left). Among those newly at the table: Saudi Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed bin Talal.

Jobs

Jackson Square Ventures is hiring a principal. The job is in San Francisco.

Essential Reads

Oof. Buzzfeed is reporting that, until this morning, Google was allowing advertisers to specifically target ads to people typing racist and bigoted terms into its search bar. More, it says, Google would suggest additional racist and bigoted terms once a user typed others into its ad-buying tool. (Twitter is just as bad, reports The Daily Beast.)

Detours

“South Park” messes with Alexa users.

Elon Musk’s has posted an Instagram video of all his Space X rocket explosions and disasters.

The strange world of sorority rush consultants.

Retail Therapy

A Roomba for your windows. Looks like it isn’t quite there yet, but we love the idea.

Thursday! Hello! We’re just off some calls relating to Disrupt, TechCrunch’s big SF event kicking off next week. We’re excited to see some of you there.:)

Also! Our last StrictlyVC event of the year is suddenly coming up in less than two weeks. A few of you have reached out about volunteering (thank you, awesome people). We could use a couple more of you if you’re game.

Top News in the A.M.

According to the Financial Times, Nestlé is paying $500 million for a 68 percent in the California-based cafe and roastery chain Blue Bottle, in a deal that values the company at more than $700 million. Blue Bottle has been rumored for months to be raising fresh capital; the deal directly pits Nestle against Starbucks and other big coffee brands in the U.S.

E-commerce company Wish is raising around $250 million in new funding at a valuation north of $8 billion, says Axios, which adds that several mutual funds are expected to participate, including Wellington Management. You can learn a lot about the company by revisiting this piece about it, which we wrote after its personable but reclusive CEO, Peter Szulczewski, spoke at a StrictlyVC event last year.

Meanwhile, mysterious Magic Leap, the Dania Beach, Florida-based wearable tech company that has yet to release a product (though it keeps invitingreporters to its headquarters to dazzle them), is reportedly raising $500 million in fresh funding, at a post-money valuation of $6 billion. Bloomberg says that Temasek Holdings, an investment company owned by Singapore, may take part in the round.

Sponsored By  . . .

StrictlyVC is brought to you this week by the Future Labs AI Summit, a two-day conference comprising trainings, talks, and discussions with leading AI technologists, investors, academics, and entrepreneurs in New York City on October 30 – 31.

From deep dives into key areas animating AI conversations from leading technical experts to introductory courses in machine learning and game theory for AI, the Future Labs AI Summit features offerings for scholars, technologists, and investors alike. Attendees will also get a first look at demos from the second cohort of startups in the AI NexusLab, the accelerator program run by Future Labs, NYU Tandon, and ff Venture Capital. Get tickets here.

NFX Guild Just Showed 14 Startups to Investors at Its Demo Day

Yesterday, three-year-old, NFX Guild, a Silicon Valley-based, invite-only accelerator program that has now worked with 80 companies, hosted its newest demo day before 200 venture investors at the Computer History Museum in unfailingly sunny Mountain View, Ca.

The outfit — which is backed financially by the venture firms CRV, Shasta Ventures, Greylock Partners, and Mayfield, and that works only with startups that’ve been referred to it through a network of scouts — dialed back on the number of presenting companies. (Its previous three batches featured 16, then 13, then 21 companies, respectively. Yesterday, it featured 14.)

A more concentrated effort seemed to pay off, with a number of intriguing teams pitching their work, from a company promising to wring more revenue out of attorneys’ mobile phone use, to a new open source platform for data scientists, to a startup trying to modernize moving companies.

Breakout Ventures, a new, San Francisco-based venture group that spun out of Peter Thiel’s Breakout Labs, has closed its debut fund with $60 million in capital commitments, shows an SEC filing. The firm’s managing partner is Lindy Fishburne, who remains executive director of Breakout Labs, a philanthropic program that supports early-stage science startups and is funding by Thiel. TechCrunch has more here.

Firstminute Capital, the startup investment fund from Lastminute.com founder Brent Hoberman and former Goldman Sachs analyst Spencer Crawley, has added another $25 million in capital commitments to its debut fund, first announced in June with a close of $65 million. New investors include Chinese tech giant Tencent, BlaBlaCar cofounder Frederic Mazella, Sir Paul Ruddock, and other high net worth individuals. Business Insider has more here.

Smartphone giant Samsung has just set up a $300 million fund to invest in automotive startups and autonomous driving technology. TechCrunch has much more here.

IPOs

Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings, a Palo Alto, Ca.-based “blank check” company formed by Social Capital and the London-based venture firm Hedosophia, announced yesterday that it had raised $600 million in its IPO, up from the $500 million the company originally filed for at the beginning of September. Business Insider has more here.

Also Sponsored By . . .

“South of Market, The Musical” is back for v2! The annual tech parody is running Oct 12-22nd in San Francisco and features an entirely new script, cast and score! This year’s show follows an aspiring tech journalist as she attempts to get the scoop on the too-good-to-be-true hottest startup of the year – ai.ai.  With songs likes “Self Driving,” “Boulder Moves, Bolder You,” and “Tech Issues,” this year’s show highlights the perks and perils of startup scene hype machine.

The show will also feature a host of cameo appearances (including by yours truly and Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover). Tickets are on sale now, so come see our musical debut!

People

Canvas Ventures has promoted Sarah Catanzaro to data partner and Jennifer Kaehms to associate. More here.

New York Times reporter Mike Isaac is writing a book about Uber.

Jobs

Lift Ventures, an outfit that incubates, acquires, and invests in data-driven online businesses, is looking to hire a senior associate. The job is in San Francisco.

Essential Reads

Google systematically pays women less than men doing similar work, according to a new class action-lawsuit accusing the technology company of denying promotions and career opportunities to qualified women who are “segregated” into lower-paying jobs.

Rule-breaking at an early age may point to the success of company founders like Martin Shkreli, researchers say. It may also foretell their undoing.

Facebook just launched a “Snooze” button that lets users temporarily blockcertain “friends” (the hope being people will use this rather than permanently block or unfriend people on the platform).

Bitcoin has fallen again for a fifth day, its longest losing streak in more than a year, after one of China’s largest online exchanges said it would stop handling trades by the end of the month amid a government crackdown on cryptocurrencies.

Detours

Martin Shrekli is now in jail for a most unlikely reason. Meanwhile, remember that $2 Million Wu-Tang album he was going to sell? It might not be a Wu-Tang album.

Retail Therapy

An inflatable travel bag.

Hi, all, happy Wednesday!

Top News in the A.M.

Here are all the videos from Apple‘s event yesterday, courtesy of TechCrunch.

Uber‘s attempt to move its high-profile trade secrets dispute with Waymo to private arbitration was denied again this morning by a U.S. federal appeals court. Reuters has more here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is brought to you this week by the Future Labs AI Summit, a two-day conference comprising trainings, talks, and discussions with leading AI technologists, investors, academics, and entrepreneurs in New York City on October 30 – 31.

From deep dives into key areas animating AI conversations from leading technical experts to introductory courses in machine learning and game theory for AI, the Future Labs AI Summit features offerings for scholars, technologists, and investors alike. Attendees will also get a first look at demos from the second cohort of startups in the AI NexusLab, the accelerator program run by Future Labs, NYU Tandon, and ff Venture Capital. Get tickets here.

The Organic Baby Food Wars Heat Up

It’s a good time to be a baby. It’s also a great time to be a parent who wants to ensure that his or her baby is consuming healthy foods but doesn’t necessarily have the wherewithal to prepare homemade baby food or delicately seasoned purées.

While some established names in the business have increasingly focused on improving their prepared baby foods — including by using pouches, employing more attractive packaging, and listing the specific percentage of each ingredient in its products — a spate of new startups is now aggressively competing for their pint-size end users.

On Monday, John Foraker, the former CEO of organic food brand Annie’s Homegrown, officially joined one of them as its CEO: two-year-old Once Upon a Farm, a maker of cold-pressed baby food that’s headquartered in San Diego.

The company — which reportedly generates less than $1 million in annual sales right now — is also teaming up with actress Jennifer Garner to help market its pouches, which are currently sold through its site, as well as at some Wegmans, Kroger’s, and Whole Foods Market stores.

Foraker has said he expects Once Upon a Farm to grow “big and fast into a highly disruptive force in the organic food space.”

Still, not only is the outfit going up against a number of bigger brands like Plum Organics, Beech-Nut, Earth’s Best, and Ella’s Kitchen, but all are facing competition from startups that are making organic baby food and delivering it to users’ doorsteps.

We know of at least a dozen subscription-based companies to emerge in recent years with an eye toward taking a bite out of baby food market, which is sizable. According to recent statistics out of the research consultancy Zion Market Research, the global baby food market could reach as much as $76 billion by 2021.

Just some of the upstarts include Nurture Life, a two-year-old, Chicago-based, food delivery service that prepares organic meals for kids ages six months to 18 years; Yumi, a two-year-old, L.A.-based “science-based” early childhood meal delivery program that launched recently; Raised Real, a year-old, San Francisco-based subscription service that says its meals are similarly “optimized to support developmental functions”; Pure Spoon, a four-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based company that says it pasteurizes its organic fruits and veggies without the use of chemicals or nutrient-depleting heat; and Little Spoon, a three-year-old, New York-based baby food delivery startup that launched earlier this year and touts as unique its high-pressure processing technique.

New Fundings

Apttus, an 11-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based lifecycle management tech company, has raised a fresh $55 million in funding led by Premji, the private equity arm of Wipro, the Indian systems integrator. Earlier backers Salesforce, K1 and Iconiq also joined the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $329 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Cybrary, a 2.5-year-old, Greenbelt, Md.-based open-source IT learning and certification prep platform for those looking to start or advance a cyber security career, has raised $3.5 million in funding.  Arthur Ventures led the round, with participation from Ron Gula, the founder of Tenable Network Security, among other earlier investors. More here.

Ennovabio, a 10-month-old, Shanghai, China-based drug developer at work on a treatment for certain brain tumors, has raised $10 million in “pre-A” funding from HighLight Capital and a second investment firm called Zhangkelingyi. China Money Network has more here.

FreshMarket, a five-year-old, Shanghai-based company that operates a food online-to-offline platform, allowing customers to buy vegetables, meat, milk and fruit via its mobile app — food that’s then delivered to freezers near their residential buildings — has raised $44 million in new funding led by Tiantu Capital. China Money Network has more here.

Heptio, a 1.5-year-old, Seattle-based startup that offers training and support for enterprises that want to adopt Kubernetes, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by earlier investor Madrona Venture partners, with participation from Accel Partners (another earlier backer) and Lightspeed Venture Partners, which is new to the deal. TechCrunch has more here.

Ieso Digital Health, a 17-year-old, Cambridge, U.K.-based startup that provides mental health care services via a secure, digital, written conversation platform for private individuals, health providers and companies, has raised $24 million in funding, including from Draper Esprit and Touchstone Innovations. More here.

Paragon Genomics, a 2.5-year-old, South San Francisco, Ca.-based life science company that says its technology enables its customers to develop targeted sequencing assays that are five to ten times faster than existing methods, has raised $8 million in Series A funding. Cowin Venture Capital and Fosun Industrial Co. led the round, with participation from Cloudstone Venture, HEDA Ventures, and Wisemont Capital. More here.

Signet Accel, a three-year-old, Columbus, Oh.-based software company that connects disparate databases across healthcare verticals, ostensibly allowing researchers to identify patterns and trends across large patient populations, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Edison Partners. More here.

Sophia Genetics, a six-year-old, Paris-based big data analytics platform that aims to enhance genomic diagnostics via AI algorithms, has raised $30 million in Series D funding from Balderton Capital and 360 Capital Partners, along with earlier investors Invoke Capital and Alychlo. TechCrunch has more here.

SPR Therapeutics, an eight-year-old, Cleveland, Oh.-based medical device startup whose tech for chronic and acute pain includes a threadlike wire that’s placed through the skin, then connected to a wearable stimulator to target active nerve fibers and relieve pain, has raised $25 million in Series C funding. A unnamed family office co-led the round with Frontcourt Ventures. The company has now raised $23 million altogether. More here.

The Stable, a two-year-old, Minneapolis, Mn.-based consumer brand agency, has raised $4 million in funding from Gen7 Investments. More here.

Skywire Networks, a four-year-old, New York-based fixed wireless business broadband provider, has raised $23 million in funding from Metropolitan Partners Group. More here.

New Funds

500 Startups has filed updated Form D documents for several funds without ousted founder Dave McClure‘s name attached, including one focused on the Middle East, one focused on Vietnam and one focused on the financial technology sector. Axios has more here.

Asus, the Taiwanese hardware firm known for its ZenBooks, ZenFones and Zenbo the cute, humanoid robot, is stepping into the VC game with the launch of a $50 million venture capital fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Former Sequoia venture partner Yinglan Tan has closed on $25 million in capital commitments for the debut fund of his new firm, Insignia Venture Partners, shows a new SEC filing. Tan previously spent five years at Sequoia’s Singapore office. Insignia plans to focus on opportunities in Southeast Asia, reports TechCrunch. More here.

Exits

Zomato, the nine-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based  restaurant guide and food on-demand service, has completedly a long-rumored deal to acquire the logistics startup Runnr. The companies aren’t disclosing the price but India media had previously pegged the all-stock deal at $40 million, notes TechCrunch. Runnr is the product of a merger between delivery service Roadrunnr and food delivery company TinyOwl, two startups raised $28 million and $27 million from investors, respectively. More here.

Also Sponsored By . . .

“South of Market, The Musical” is back for v2! The annual tech parody is running Oct 12-22nd in San Francisco and features an entirely new script, cast and score! This year’s show follows an aspiring tech journalist as she attempts to get the scoop on the too-good-to-be-true hottest startup of the year – ai.ai.  With songs likes “Self Driving,” “Boulder Moves, Bolder You,” and “Tech Issues,” this year’s show highlights the perks and perils of startup scene hype machine.

The show will also feature a host of cameo appearances (including by yours truly). Tickets are on sale now, so come see our musical debut if you dare!

People

WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton is leaving the company to start his own non-profit.

Adam Coates, director of Baidu’s Silicon Valley AI Lab, has left the company, reports TechCrunch. Coates hasn’t said where he’s headed, but TC notes that he previously worked alongside Andrew Ng, who left Baidu as its chief scientist earlier this year and more recently launched a new, $150 million AI fund.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said at investors conference in New York yesterday that he’d fire any employee trading bitcoin for being “stupid.” For good measure, he called the cryptocurrency a “fraud.” (He’s not as down on blockchain.)

Dave Parker, a longtime leader in Seattle’s startup and investment community, has joined  Bend, Ore.-based venture firm Seven Peaks Ventures and will open a new Seattle office for the firm. GeekWire has more here.

Tony Scars is back . . . with an internet venture.

Uber’s chief legal officer, Salle Yoo, is expected to leave the company in the near future, says The Information. Her expected departure comes as Uber faces several criminal probes in past practices and an upcoming trial over trade-theft allegations made against the company by Waymo. More here.

Jobs

The Weill Cornell Medical Center is looking to hire a venture associate to help make venture investments, manage tech transfers and more. The job is in New York.

Data

Stanford is the best college in the U.S., according to a new school ranking by Niche, a 15-year-old, Pittsburgh-based data company that says M.I.T is the second best school. More here.

Essential Reads

Two ex-Googlers want to make mom-and-pop-owned bodega stores obsolete, and the internet hates the idea.

SoFi employees tell all to the New York Times. It was a “frat house,” says one former employee. “You would find people having sex in their cars and in the parking lot. It was a free-for-all.”’

Facebook has been quietly testing a new standalone group video chat app called Bonfire that allows up to eight friends to engage in conversation as well as use special effects, similar to those in apps like Instagram and Snapchat. TechCrunch has more here.

ICOs have barely touched mainstream tech companies. But that all changes this week as Kik begins selling its Kin token in an ICO targeted at raising $125 million. The sale bucks ICO trends, and it could prove to be a seminal event for the tech industry at large. More here.

Detours

John Cleese, in conversation.

The women who changed Hollywood.

How the food industry uses “science” to push soda.

Retail Therapy

Allbirds, maker of tech’s favorite shoes for now, is opening its first real world store in New York tomorrow.

Hello!

Top News in the A.M.

Expect to be inundated with headlines about Apple products very shortly. Here’s how to watch the live stream of the company’s iPhone keynote, which kicks off at 10 a.m. PST.

Social Finance, or SoFi, the online lender known for its unconventional marketing tactics, said late yesterday that cofounder and CEO Mike Cagney will resign by the end of the year. He’s also stepping off the company’s board. His departure follows recently filed lawsuits over claims of sexual harassment and unfair wage practices at the San Francisco-based start-up. Several former employees have said that Cagney had inappropriate relationships with SoFi employees, and that those fueled the company’s toxic workplace culture. More here.

Genetics testing company 23andMe has confirmed a giant round that TechCrunch broke the news of last week; the final tally, led by Sequoia Capital: $250 million. The financing brings the company’s funding to date to $491 million. More here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is brought to you this week by the Future Labs AI Summit, a two-day conference comprising trainings, talks, and discussions with leading AI technologists, investors, academics, and entrepreneurs in New York City on October 30 – 31.

From deep dives into key areas animating AI conversations from leading technical experts to introductory courses in machine learning and game theory for AI, the Future Labs AI Summit features offerings for scholars, technologists, and investors alike. Attendees will also get a first look at demos from the second cohort of startups in the AI NexusLab, the accelerator program run by Future Labs, NYU Tandon, and ff Venture Capital. Get tickets here.

Unity CEO John Riccitiello on the AR Apps We’ll See Within the Year

Presumably, it would be good for business to speak onstage at an Apple event — essentially the tech world’s equivalent of a U2 concert. But John Riccitiello, the CEO of San Francisco-based Unity Technologies, says you won’t see him presenting at tomorrow’s Apple event or that of any other platform company, for that matter.

The reason: Unity, which makes software at the heart of Pokémon GO and other interactive entertainment, sees itself becoming the de facto content creation engine for a wide number of companies and their applications. While Apple is expected tomorrow to release iOS 11, which includes support for ARKit, a tool kit for developers to easily create AR apps, and Unity supports ARKit, the 13-year-old company doesn’t want to be perceived as playing favorites. Says Riccitiello, “Our philosophy is to put powerful tools in hands of developers, but also to support every meaningful platform so they can have success” — whether that’s Apple or Google or even Amazon.

We talked with Riccitiello earlier today about the company’s approach, along with the short-term future of AR and VR, where Unity is positioned to play a starring role for some time to come. Our chat has been edited for length.

Apple is obviously well-positioned to usher in the AR age with its coming iPhone 8 and iOS 11. How important are these releases to Unity, and will you factor into the show? Are you introducing some news at its event?

We’re probably under 12 NDAs [with Apple]. But we’re by definition cross-platform, so we never build platform-specific demonstrations. We support more than 30 platforms and I can’t think of a time when we’ve produced a platform-specific demo.

I can talk about a lot of other things, though. The future of AR and VR, my family…

Okay then, let’s talk about the future of VR, which is seemingly further out than people had earlier imagined.

Commercial applications are taking off like crazy, but sure, generally speaking, the consumer side of VR is off to a slow start. The hardware is too expensive; it’s not that functional. Those problems will solve themselves by the 2018-2019 time frame, which is what I’ve been saying since 2015.

Now, if you take this new thing, using your phone for AR — [including via] ARKit and [Google’s recently introduced challenger to ARKit] ARCore, the future is coming fast. The biggest app in history was Niantic’s Pokémon GO, powered by Unity. Tens of millions of people played Pokémon GO. That was just the start.

What will we be doing with our phones a year from now?

You’ll point a camera at a friend’s shoes and be told where to get them and at what price. In a year, a friend will be able to use an app that scans your body and comes up with a millimeter accurate picture, so you’ll know what you’d look like inside that particular shirt or dress, based on the dimensions of the garment. You’ll also be able to point your phone at an acquaintance and pull up their LinkedIn profile, or point at a restaurant and a menu will pop up, along with information perhaps about which friends have been there and who the architect is of the building.

More here.

New Fundings

Airburg, a three-year-old, China-based company that makes air purifiers for the home, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding “worth tens of millions” of dollars led by Lightspeed China Partners, with participation from Zhen Fund. China Money Network has more here.

Aunt Fannie’s, a four-year-old, Portland, Or.-based company that makes food-based cleaning and pest products, has raised raised $2.5 million in funding, including from RCV Partners, CircleUp, and Monica Nassif. (She previously founded Caldrea, a specialty brands that catered to environmentally conscious consumers and was sold in 2008 to SC Johnson.) More here.

Basecare, a seven-year-old, China-based medical device maker that makes devices for embryonic pre-implantation genetic screening, has raised $14 million in Series B funding from unnamed investors. The company had raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding in 2015 from Oriza Seed Venture Capital and Genesis Capital. China Money Network has more here.

Camera IQ, a four-year-old, L.A.-based startup that helps companies build marketing and advertising experiences for smartphone cameras, has raised $2.3 million in seed funding led by Shasta Ventures, with participation from Presence Capital, Greycroft Partners, Brilliant Ventures and Act One. TechCrunch has more here.

DNA Script, a three-year-old, Paris-based synthetic DNA manufacturer, has raised $13 million in Series A funding led by Illumina Ventures, with participation from Merck Ventures BV and earlier investors Sofinnova Partners, Kurma Partners, and Idinvest Partners. More here.

Eevo, a three-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based app that offers virtual reality experiences tied to publishers’ and other creators’ content (including the  BBC show “Planet Earth II”), has raised $1.3 million in seed funding from Eagle Advisors, FundersClub, and 37 Angels, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Genvid Technologies, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based company that provides an SDK for game developers to integrate into their games and make broadcasts across multiple streaming platforms, has raised $2.5 million in funding led by March Capital Partners, with participation from OCA Ventures. More here.

Lenda, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based platform that enables homeowners to refinance or originate mortgages completely online, has raised $5.25 million in Series A funding led by SF Capital Group, with participation from CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund and earlier investor Rubicon Venture Capital. More here.

Lesara, a four-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based online fashion and lifestyle retailer, has raised $40 million in funding from previous investors in a round that brings its total funding to $60 million. Earlier backers in the company include Mangrove Capital Partners, Northzone, and Partech Ventures, among others. More here.

ManoMano, a four-year-old, Paris-based online marketplace for DIY and gardening products, has raised €60 million ($72 million) in Series C funding led by General Atlantic. Other investors in the round include Piton Capital, Partech Ventures, and Bpifrance. More here.

Petal, a two-year-old, New York-based company that’s applying machine learning to make credit accessible to people with little or no credit history, has raised $3.6 million in seed funding from Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, Afore Capital, Rosecliff Ventures, Guild Capital, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Story Ventures and Silicon Badia. CityBizList has more here.

Red Dot Payment, a six-year-old, Singapore-based company that enables merchants and financial institutions to provide end-to-end payment options for their customers worldwide, has raised $5.2 million in Series B funding from DORR Group, along with earlier backers GMO Venture Partnersfrom Japan, Wavemaker Partners, Skype co-founder Toivo Annus and MDI Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

SendInBlue, a seven-year-old, Seattle- and Paris-based maker of cloud-based digital marketing tools, has raised $36 million in Series A funding from Partech Ventures. More here.

Tonbo Imaging, a five-year-old, Bangalore- and Palo Alto-based developer of advanced imaging and sensor systems, raised $17 million in Series B funding led by WRV Capital, with participation from Artiman Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and Edelweiss Private Equity. Livemint has more here.

Wellem, a three-year-old, Shanghai, China-based pediatric clinic chain, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by the private equity firm GTJA Investment Group. China Money Network has more here.

Zilingo, a two-year-old, Singapore-based fashion marketplace that works with independent sellers and boutiques to expand their businesses online, has raised $18 million in Series B funding. Sequoia Capital India and Burma Principal Investments led the round, with participation from earlier backers Venturra Capital, SIG, Beenext, Wavemaker, renowned investor Tim Draper, and the former head of IDG Ventures India, Manik Arora. More here.

New Funds

Point Judith Capital, a 16-year-old, Boston-based, early-stage venture capital firm, is raising $100 for its fourth fund, according to an SEC filing that shows the firm has already closed on at least $61 million in capital commitments. More here.

IPOs

Switch, a Las Vegas, Nev.-based data center provider, filed for an IPO to raise up to $100 million Friday.  Terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed. More here.

Blackstone is mapping out an IPO or sale of smart-home technology company Vivint, reports Fox Business, which says Blackstone recently invited banks to pitch a dual-track process. The outlet further reports that any deal could value Vivint at more than $3 billion. Vivint sells smart locks, security cameras, burglary-detection systems and other such items and services. Blackstone paid $2 billion for the company in 2012. More here.

Also Sponsored By . . .

“South of Market, The Musical” is back for v2!  The annual tech parody is running Oct 12-22nd in San Francisco and features an entirely new script, cast and score! This year’s show follows an aspiring tech journalist as she attempts to get the scoop on the too-good-to-be-true hottest startup of the year – ai.ai.  With songs likes “Self Driving,” “Boulder Moves, Bolder You,” and “Tech Issues,” this year’s show highlights the perks and perils of startup scene hype machine.

Tickets go on sale tomorrow, but StrictlyVC readers can access a limited pre-sale here. Use “strictlyvc” as both the access code and the promo code for a 10 percent discount.

People

Britain’s markets watchdog has become the latest regulator to crack down on the booming “initial coin offering” sector, warning investors today that “ICOs are very high-risk, speculative investments” and that they should be “prepared to lose your entire stake.”

YouTube star PewDewPie tells viewers of the racist remark he uttered during a livestream on Sunday, “It’s not that I think I can say or do what I want and get away with it. That’s not it at all. I’m just an idiot.”

Tim Sullivan is stepping down as the longtime CEO of geneology site Ancestry.com, which is gearing up to go public.

Jobs

NBCUNiversal Media is looking to hire a VP of Drama Development to help develop new broadcast, cable and streaming series for the studio. The job is in L.A.

This is maybe not the best day to mention this, but SoFi is looking for a VP of biz dev and strategic partnerships. The job is in San Francisco.

Data

Fintech trends worth watching in the EU.

Trademark Showdowns

WeWork, the co-work company valued at $20 billion, has filed a complaint with New York’s Southern District Court, alleging that China-based UrWork is guilty of trademark infringement. It’s arguing UrWork is far too similar to WeWork given that both companies operate in the co-working industry. TechCrunch has more here.

And Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is brought to you by Parachute. This bedding startup makes sheets so comfortable, you’ll think they’re made out of unicorn hair.

Essential Reads

Lawsuits against Equifax are fast piling up.

New gene-therapy treatments are coming . . . along with whopping price tags.

Detours

Move it, people, because sitting too long can kill you, even if you exercise.

What Americans will, and won’t, pay for avocados.

Watching hurricanes from 22,000 miles above earth.

Retail Therapy

Castle Bed. $18,000 up front, plus a lifetime of paying for it.

Hi, happy Monday, all!

We’re so sorry for those of you who suffered through Irma this past weekend (and whose friends and family did). For those of you wanting to help, GlobalGiving’s Irma Relief Fund is accepting donations here. It vets the local organizations it helps fund and is reportedly well-regarded by charity watchdogs.

Top News in the A.M.

Chinese authorities are ordering domestic bitcoin exchanges to shut down, delivering a heavy blow to once-thriving trading hubs that helped popularize the virtual currency pushing it to recent record highs. The currency went into a freefall on Friday on reports that this move was coming.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is brought to you this week by the Future Labs AI Summit, a two-day conference comprising trainings, talks, and discussions with leading AI technologists, investors, academics, and entrepreneurs in New York City on October 30 – 31.

Rackspace today announced its intention to acquire Datapipe, one of its largest competitors in the managed public and private cloud services business. Rackspace expects the acquisition, which is its largest one yet, to close in the next quarter. The two privately held companies aren’t disclosing terms of the deal, but Datapipe has raised roughly $310 million in funding since its 1998 founding. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Gary Cohn, the former Goldman president turned White House advisor, is on the thinnest of ice, reportedly. “The calculus has shifted for Gary. He’s gone, essentially, from untouchable to possibly being bounced out,” one source tells Reuters.

Dara Khosrowshahi, the recently named CEO of Uber, is leaving the New York Times Company’s board of directors to focus on his new gig (and presumably owing to potential or perceived conflicts of interest, too). Khosrowshahi had joined the board in 2015.

Waymo CEO John Krafcik sat down with The Information and talked, among other things, about why Wall Street doesn’t value car companies more highly. The full transcript is here.

YouTube’s biggest star, PewDiePie, used a racial slur again during one of his popular livestreams. What YouTube will do about it isn’t yet clear.

Uber’s Advanced Technology Group has hired Jon Thomason, who most recently acted as Head of Mobile and Product at Facebook’s Oculus. Thomason will lead ATG software teams across Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto, working on autonomous driving and trucking, among other advanced software projects. More here.

HPE exec Meg Whitman is joining Dropbox’s board.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify on the witness stand later this month — a rare and high-profile courtroom appearance as his company defends a controversial plan to give shareholders non-voting stock.

Jobs

Dropbox is looking to hire a business strategy associate. The job is in San Francisco.

Stripe is looking to add someone to its business operations team. The job is in San Francisco.

Data

Investors and founders take note: The U.S. Asian population is growing faster than any other U.S. racial or ethnic group, climbing 72 percent between 2000 and 2015, says new Pew Research data. Asians Americans are projected to become the largest immigrant group in the country by 2055. More here.

And Sponsored By  . . .

Two MIT grads walked into a bar . . .and they created a wine club. Bright Cellars is the personalized subscription service founded by two MIT grads with a passion for wine. Their custom algorithm matches you to wines you’ll love based on your specific tastes. Take the quiz today to see your results and receive 50 percent off your first box.

Essential Reads

What to expect from the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X, all of which are being unveiled tomorrow.

For good or bad, Twitter has built but not-yet-launched feature for easily composing “tweetstorms.”

Forget Equifax. Facebook and Google have the data that should really worry you.

Detours

How it feels to drop a kid off at college.

Friends are genetically similar.

Retail Therapy

A chair that only a golf fanatic could love.