Friday! [Pours Scotch atop ridiculous ice cubes.] No column today but we’ve had a series of interesting calls today so should have some good stuff for you next week. See you Monday.:)  Oh, and if you’re looking for a podcast to listen to this weekend, we had fun making this yesterday over at TechCrunch.

Top News

Donald Trump has been personally pushing U.S. Postmaster General Megan Brennan to double the rate the Postal Service charges Amazon.com and other firms, reports the Washington Post.

New Fundings

Adzuna, a seven-year-old, U.K.-based meta-search engine for jobs, has raised £8 million in Series C funding from Smedvig Capital. The company has now raised £12 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.  AtYourGate, a three-year-old, Newport Beach, Ca.-based mobile e-commerce and airport gate delivery service, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Triton Funds. More here.  CipherHealth, a nine-year-old, New York-based maker of healthcare coordination software, has raised $37.5 million in new funding led by JMI Equity. More here.  CowaRobot, a four-year-old, Shanghai, China-based developer of robotics for low-speed autonomous driving, has raised $21 million in Series B funding co-led bySoftBank China Venture Capital and China Creation Ventures. China Money Network has more here.  Cuebiq, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based location intelligence and consumer insights company, has secured $27 million in Series B financing. The investors included Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments, Nasdaq Ventures, DRW Venture Capital, Tribeca Venture Partners, Tribeca Angels and TLcom Capital. More here.  DigiLens, a 15-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based augmented reality display maker, has raised $25 million in Series C funding from automotive parts manufacturing giant Continental. TechCrunch has more here.  EIP Pharma, a four-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based biotech at work on treatments for central nervous system diseases like Alzheimer’s, has raised $20.5 million in Series B funding led by Access Industries. FierceBiotech has more here.  Eyellusion, a four-year-old, L.A.-based hologram concert company that features deceased stars, has raised $2 million in seed funding from Thomas Dolan. Dolan part of a family that owns a number of New York entertainment properties and venues, including Madison Square Garden. Billboard has more here.  FogPharma, a three-year-old, Boston-based drug development company, has raised $66 million Series B financing led by 6 Dimensions Capital, with participation from GV, Blue Pool Capital, Horizons Ventures, Nan Fung Group,Leerink Partners and all of the company’s earlier backers. Xconomy has more here.  HiFiBiO Therapeutics, a five-year-old, Paris-based antibody developer focused on cancer and inflammation, has raised $37.5 million in Series B funding co-led by Sequoia China and LYFE Capital, with participation from Legend Star Capital, Proxima Ventures and return backers VI Ventures and Nest Bio Ventures. FierceBiotech has more here.   Jirnexu, a six-year-old, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based financial comparison services startup, has raised $11 million in Series B funding from SIG Asia Investments and earlier investor SBI Group. TechCrunch has more here.  Maisonette, a two-year-old, New York-based online baby and children’s fashion e-commerce site, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from Pritzker Group Venture Capital, DFJ and Thrive Capital. Business of Fashion has more here. Mynd, a two-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based property management tech startup, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Canaan Partners and Jackson Square Ventures. BW Disrupt has more here.  OpenClassrooms, a five-year-old, Paris-based online higher ed platform, has raised $60 million in Series B funding led by General Atlantic. TechCrunch has more here.  OwlTing, an eight-year-old, Taipei, Taiwan-based maker of blockchain-powered applications for hotel bookings, food safety, and other verticals, has raised at least $10 million from SBI Crypto Investment, part of Japan-based SBI Holdings. The company had previously raised $5.1 million across its seed and Series A rounds. Bloomberg has more here.  Workframe, a two-year-old, New York-based collaboration and communication platform for commercial real estate professionals, has raised $9.5 million in Series B funding led by Newmark Knight Frank, with participation from MetaPropr and earlier investor Venrock. More here.

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New Funds

Biomatics Capital is raising a second venture fund targeting $300 million, according to an SEC filing. The Seattle-based firm is led by Julie Sunderland, who previously served as the director of program related investments for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Boris Nikolic, previously the chief advisor for science and technology to Bill Gates. We wrote a bit about the firm when it launched last year with its $200 million debut fund.  Lightspeed Venture Partners is considering setting up a new cryptocurrency project that would be the first of its kind for a top-tier venture firm: An earmarked pool of cash within a bigger fund to be spent solely on crypto investments. Recode has the skinny here.  Reinventure Group, a four-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based venture capital group, has closed its third $50 million fund backed by Westpac. The capital will be used to accommodate Reinventure’s expanding focus on the wider Asia-Pacific region. Startup Daily has more here.

Exits

EAT Club, a corporate lunch service whose customers include Flipboard, Mastercard and TaskRabbit, has acquired Farm Hill, a lunch box delivery service, to solidify and expand its presence in the San Francisco Bay Area. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Farm Hill had previously raised $4 million in capital; EAT Club has raised more than $46 million. TechCrunch has more here.  Rackspace today announced that it has acquired RelationEdge, a five-year-old, San Diego-based Salesforce implementation partner and digital agency. The companies did not disclose the financial details of the acquisition. TechCrunch has more here.

IPOs

Adaptive Insights, a Palo Alto, Ca.-based maker of cloud-based financial management software, just filed for a $100 million IPO. The company had raised $175 million from investors, including Onset Ventures (which owns 17.9 percent of the company as of this writing), Norwest Venture Partners (16.5%), Bessemer Venture Partners (11.7%), and a whole bunch of others. Crunchbase News has more here.

People

Goldman Sachs’s CEO Lloyd Blankfein will likely step down in December.   Bill Gates‘s unvarnished perspective on Donald Trump.   Uber’s chief product officer, Jeff Holden, has stepped down, though details about his next moves remain scarce, says Recode.  Kevin Lee, co-founder of the New York-based digital marketing agency Didit, has made a bid for the remaining assets of Gawker Media. Reuters has more here.  Chinese search engine giant Baidu facing more turmoil in its top ranks, with President Qi Lu planning to step down from his operational roles after about 18 months on the job. A former top executive with Microsoft, Lu was hired with much fanfare but says now that, “Due to personal and family reasons, I am no longer able to work in China on a full-time basis.” The WSJ has more here.

Essential Reads

Last night, Boring Company executives Elon Musk and Steve Davis offered a few more details about their plans to revolutionize L.A. urban transit. TechCrunch has more here.  A leaked look at Facebook‘s search engine for influencer marketing. Publishers with video ambitions see YouTube as a safer bet than Facebook.  Finally, phew, a white-glove shopping service for affluent city moms, courtesy of Walmart.

Detours

A “chief of disguise” at the CIA says “The Americans” got a lot right. A link where you can watch the royal wedding tomorrow (if you’re on the move and not in front of your elephantine TV screen). “What, are you going to go home and have a warm beer and talk to your parrot?” (We just love Barry.)

Retail Therapy

How to make your apartment look like a “Westworld” set.

Wow! Thanks so much to the many of you who offered to volunteer for our June 20th event, which we’re hosting courtesy of Lightspeed Venture Partners. We have far more interest than we can accommodate but we’re happy to find ways to involve you in SVC events, so stay tuned.  We’re so crazed today it’s almost(?) funny. Our point: we don’t have time to include many new fundings, but we’ll have more tomorrow. Happy Thursday.:)

Top News

Hundreds of technology firms raising money in the fevered market for cryptocurrencies are using deceptive or even fraudulent tactics to lure investors. In a newly posted review of documents produced for 1,450 digital coin offerings, The Wall Street Journal has found 271 with red flags that include plagiarized investor documents, promises of guaranteed returns and missing or fake executive teams. No wonder the SEC is just outright trolling ICO scammers now.

Spend Time this Spring with These VCs, and It Will All Go to Charity

Five years ago, TechCrunch wrote about a venture capital auction wherein dozens of VCs donated their time toward a greater good — helping fund research at the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, one of the world’s largest voluntary health organizations dedicated to funding research and access to treatments for blood cancer patients. The auction was centered around then five-year-old Rhett Krawitt, a pink-cheeked, bright-spirited boy who’d been diagnosed with leukemia in 2010 and “fought a really hard battle,” recalls his father, Carl Krawitt, who works in the Bay Area for Tata, the enterprise information management consultancy.  “For three-and-a-half years, he was undergoing chemotherapy, and his doctors would say, ‘Here are the 20 complications you can have, though most kids have three or four.’ But Rhett had all 20 of them. He was between a rock and a hard place. I had to tell my daughter that her little brother was probably going to die.”  Rhett was still actively battling his blood disease back in 2013, when longtime VC David Lee — who himself fought Stage IV lymphoma when he was just 24 years old — helped organize what was then the annual “Venture Capital Master’s Lunch Series,” an auction program that benefits the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Keith Rabois,  Megan Quinn and Tim Draper were among many who donated their time, helping raise more than $200,000 for LLS in the process.  Today, Rhett is nearing his fifth year of remission, thanks largely to treatments funded in part by LLS, says his father. To show thanks for all of the organization’s support, and to help it continue on its mission, Rhett and Lee banded together again this year with founder Pete Quinzio of the drug testing service Notable Labs to sign up a host of new VCs who are donating their time.  More here.

New Fundings

Arevo, a five-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based maker of software-controlled additive manufacturing technology, has raised $12.5 million in Series B funding led by Asahi Glass, and was joined by Sumitomo, Leslie Ventures and Khosla Ventures. More here.  Skip, a six-month-old, Bay Area-based electric scooter rental startup (another!), just raised $6 million in seed funding led by Initialized Capital and A Capital, with participation from SV Angel. The company’s founders previously founded the electric skateboard company Boosted Boards. TechCrunch has more here.  Tracking First, a six-year-old, Sandy, Utah-based enterprise data governance platform, has raised $4 million in new funding led by Silverton Partners, with participation from Kickstart Seed Fund. More here.

Sponsored By . . .

How does access to 80 mobile app specialized developers sound to you? That’s what you get with CodigoDelSur, a digital development boutique that has designed and developed digital products for a wide range of companies, from Avon to Office Depot to Shutterfly to Founder Institute graduates like Kindara, and in your timezone! Contact us and access a free 30-minute consultation to find out more about how we can help with your next big idea and learn more about our services and pricing.

New Funds

Underscore VC, a three-year-old, Boston-based early-stage firm, is today taking the wraps off a second fund that it just closed with $115 million in capital commitments. Among its investors: Boston Children’s Hospital, the fund of funds Greenspring Associates and family offices, including that of Henry McCance, chairman emeritus of Greylock Partners. Underscore’s cofounders include Michael Skok, who spent the previous 12 years with Boston-based firm North Bridge Venture Partners, and, John Pearce, a former CEO of Demandware. We’ve written up much more here.

Exits

PayPal is taking its biggest bet yet on point-of-sale transactions, small businesses, and markets outside of the US, as it looks to raise its game against Square, Stripe and others in the world of payments: the company has confirmed that it is buying iZettle — the Stockholm-based payments provider commonly referred to as the “Square of Europe” — for $2.2 billion in an all-cash deal. TechCrunch has more here.  Maybe people like their stupid suitcases after all. Two weeks after Bluesmart called it quits, another smart luggage maker is pulling the plug. New York-based travel startup Raden just posted a note on its site announcing that the company is “no longer in operation.” More here.

People

The founders of Centra Tech, a company that raised a $32 million ICO, have been indicted for wire fraud and securities fraud, charges that could lead to a minimum of five years in jail. This one is notable because Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khaled posted support for Centra Tech on Instagram during the run-up to the token sale. More here.

Essential Reads

It looks like Apple could build its new campus not in Washington, D.C. but in Blue Devils’ territory. More here.  You can now re-share someone’s Instagram post with your friends.

Detours

Mom jokes.

Retail Therapy

A card game based on a CIA training game.  Anthony Scaramucci is selling his house in the Hamptons.  The french swimwear brand you need to know (if you are a dude).

Hi, happy Wednesday, all. We’re heading over to the 1 to [100] event in SF to interview some CEOs about leadership, as well as sit down with Zoom cofounder and CEO Eric Yuan to learn more about his fast-growing web conferencing company.  In the meantime, we have some volunteers for our June 20th event, but we could use a few more. Let us know if you’re willing to work for an hour and we’ll fill you in.  More tomorrow.

Top News

Microsoft is reportedly working on a cheap tablet to rival the iPad.

New Fundings

Aircall, a four-year-old, Paris-based maker of advanced call center software, has raised $29 million in Series B funding led by Draper Esprit, with participation from Balderton Capital, NextWorld Capital, eFounders and Newfund. TechCrunch has more here.  Beam Dental, a six-year-old, Columbus, Oh.-based company that sells Bluetooth-connected toothbrushes, has raised $22.5 million in funding led by Kleiner Perkins. The round puts the company’s total funding at more than $30 million. CNBC has more here.  Circle, a five-year-old, Boston-based crytpocurrency startup, has raised a $110 million in new funding that values the company at nearly $3 billion. The cryptocurrency mining company Bitmain is leading the round. Other participants include Blockchain Capital, Tusk Ventures, and earlier investors IDG Capital, Breyer Capital, General Catalyst, Accel, Digital Currency Group and Pantera Capital. TechCrunch has more here.  Dashdash, a two-year-old, Berlin, Germany- and Porto, Portugal-based startup that wants to democratize web app creation through the use of basic spreadsheet skills, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Accel, with participation from Cherry Ventures, Atlantic Labs, and various angel investors. More here.  Genoox, a four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based platform for managing and storing genomic data in the cloud, has raised $6 million in new venture funding led by Triventures, with participation from Inimiti Capital and Glilot Capital Partners. More here.  Lime, a year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based mobility startup that’s among others filling city sidewalks with electric scooters, is raising up to $500 million in new funding, says Axios, possibly via a combination of equity and debt. More here.  Lulus, a 10-year-old, Chico, Ca.-based fast-fashion brand for women, has raised $120 million in new funding from IVP and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Forbes has more here.  Parsable, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile collaboration and workflow platform, has raised $40 million in Series C funding led by Future Fund, with participation from B37 and earlier investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Airbus Ventures and Aramco Ventures. The company has now raised nearly $70 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.  Quip, a four-year-old, New York-based electric toothbrush company, has raised $10 million in funding from Silicon Valley Bank. It has also acquired for undisclosed terms a dental insurance startup called Afora that’s based in New York and offers $25-per-month dental insurance plans. Quip has now raised $20 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.  Simplesurance, a six-year-old, Berlin-based online platform promising easy access to insurers, has raised $24 million in Series C funding led by Allianz,  with participation from Rheingau Founders and Rakuten. More here.  Tanium, an 11-year-old, Emeryville, Ca.-based endpoint cybersecurity company, has raised $175 million in new funding at a $5 billion valuation from earlier backer TPG Growth. Reuters has more here.  Teatime Games, a new Icelandic “social games” startup from the same team behind the hugely popular QuizUp (acquired in by Glu Mobile), has raised $9 million in funding across its seed and Series A rounds. Index Ventures led both; Atomico, the European venture fund founded by Skype’s Niklas Zennström, participated in the company’s $7.5 million Series A round. TechCrunch notes that this is the first time the two venture firms have done a Series A deal together in over a decade, which is kind of wild, considering the size of Europe’s venture scene. More here.  Vesper, a nine-year-old Boston-based developer of piezoelectric sensors, has raised $23 million in Series B funding led by American Family Ventures, with participation from Accomplice, Amazon Alexa Fund, Baidu, Bose Ventures,Hyperplane, Sands Capital, Shure, Synaptics and ZZ Capital. Xconomy has more here.

Sponsored By . . .

How does access to 80 mobile app specialized developers sound to you? That’s what you get with CodigoDelSur, a digital development boutique that has designed and developed digital products for a wide range of companies, from Avon to Office Depot to Shutterfly to Founder Institute graduates like Kindara, and in your timezone!Contact us and access a free 30-minute consultation to find out more about how we can help with your next big idea and learn more about our services and pricing

New Funds

Cisco Systems is starting up a new, early-stage venture fund that will run independently from the parent company, though Cisco will be the anchor limited-partner investor, says the Wall Street Journal. The fund will be led by Jon Sakoda, a former founder and popular venture capitalist, who has spent the last 12 years at the venture giant, New Enterprise Associates. More here.  In a move to further spur Middle East’s startup ecosystem, Bahrain Development Bank has launched a $100 million venture capital fund of funds to support startups in Bahrain and across the Middle East. Announced at the Gateway Gulf Forum, the Al Waha fund will invest in venture firms with a presence in Bahrain, as well as occasionally make direct investments in startups in Bahrain and the Middle East. Entrepreneur has more here.  Lerer Hippeau, the early-stage venture fund, has raised two new funds — $122 million for a sixth fund devoted to seed stage investments, as well as $60 million for a “Select Fund” focused on later-stage deals. Managing Partner Eric Hippeau says both funds will be used to continue the firm’s existing strategy: “We continue to be seed-first investors and New York-first investors. We’re big believers in New York.” TechCrunch has more here.  Next 10 Ventures, an L.A.- and Singapore-based “operating fund for the creator economy”, has raised $50 million in funding from undisclosed sources. The firm’s founder and CEO is Benjamin Grubbs, who was formerly the global director of top creator partnerships at YouTube and worked on content and marketing partnerships for Google before that. The company says it plans to develop new businesses and tech services centered around the creator economy that has emerged in the past decade from the mass adoption of digital video and social media platforms. More here.

IPOs

Flea market app operator Mercari has received approval for an initial public offering in Tokyo that will raise up to $1.1 billion, a regulatory filing showed on Monday, giving investors a rare chance to buy into a Japanese unicorn. Reuters has more here.

People

Hemant Mohapatra, who was a business development lead for Google for four years before joining Andreessen Horowitz as a partner for a year, has joined Lightspeed India Partners as a partner.   Sarah Smith has joined Bain Capital Ventures as its fifth investing partner in the Bay Area. Smith comes from Graph Ventures; she was also previously a VP at Quora, leading advertising sales, and an early employee at Facebook, where she was the director of online operations.  Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is heading to Europe soon to answer questions — in private — from EU regulators.

Jobs

Aspect Ventures is looking to hire an associate in the Bay Area to help evaluate and screen companies. Send resumes to Elisia (emonroy@aspectventures) with the subject, “AV Associate Role — [First Name, Last Name]”

Essential Reads

After Uber’s announcement yesterday that it will no longer require mandatory arbitration for sexual assault and harassment claims from riders, drivers, and employees,  Lyft is following suit with the same changes. It also plans to eventually release a report wth data about safety incidents. Both companies’ policy change applies only to individual claims, not class action lawsuits.  Turns out fears that Tencent, Asia’s highest-valued tech company, might suffer a rare poor quarter of business were unwarranted; the company just trounced analyst expectations for its latest earnings, thanks to its fast-growing mobile games business.  Thirty minutes and a little bitcoin can buy you an army of believable Facebook users (still).  In Silicon Valley, it’s hard to find jurors for the Apple versus Samsung patent trial. One electrical engineer who works at Google was excused after he pulled out his Android phone and said his job is working on them.

Detours

Why Washington insiders leak. Literary pet names unworthy of their namesakes.

Retail Therapy

The things you can do with an old propeller factory(!).

Happy Tuesday, all.:)

Top News

Uber is getting rid of forced arbitration for riders, drivers and other employees who want to file a legal complaint against the company over claims of sexual assault.

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Sarah Guo Breaks Through at Greylock, Becoming One of the First Female GPs in the Firm’s 53-Year History

Sarah Guo  didn’t necessarily set out to become a venture capitalist. She certainly didn’t imagine she would become one of the first general partners at one of the oldest venture firms in the country. Yet Guo is both of these things today. Indeed, the venture firm Greylock Partners, which Guo joined five years ago as a principal, is announcing her promotion this morning. Greylock, which closed its current, 15th, fund with $1 billion in October 2016, now has 12 general partners altogether.  For Guo, the appointment caps a lifetime spent in the world of startups. Before joining Greylock, she worked as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, where she led much of the bank’s coverage of business-to-business tech companies and advised public clients, including Twitter, Netflix, Zynga, and Nvidia.  A graduate (for both her undergraduate degree and MBA) of the University of Pennsylvania, Guo also worked previously at Casa Systems, a 15-year-old tech company that develops a software-centric networking platform for cable and mobile service providers and that — in a twist that we think is pretty neat — was founded by her parents. (Her father, CEO Jerry Guo, took the company public earlier this year.)  In a conversation earlier this week, Guo said that growing up around entrepreneurship gave her an “understanding of how difficult” starting a company truly is. It also occurred to her early on that “something related to company building was what I wanted to do in the future.”  Guo also said that not much will change with her promotion. Broadly speaking, she focuses on B2B applications and infrastructure, cybersecurity, AI, AR, and healthcare. She already sits on the boards of several companies, including the security startup Obsidian, which was founded by ex-Cylance and Carbon Black execs last year and quickly raised $9.5 million led by Greylock. She said she does hope to mentor more up-and-coming investors like herself, however.  Guo first became acquainted with Greylock through Aneel Bhusri, a partner at Greylock and the cofounder and CEO of the software giant Workday. The two talked occasionally when Guo was covering internet and software startups at Goldman, and he’d encouraged her to meet some of his venture partners, she said. “I came in, not necessarily ready to venture forever. But I’m now very excited about it obviously,” she added with a laugh.  More here.

New Fundings

AnyDesk, a five-year-old, Stuttgart, Germany-based remote desktop offering, has raised $7.7 million in Series A funding led by EQT Ventures. More here.  Auth0, a five-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based startup that helps developers with a set of APIs to build authentication into their applications, has raised $55 million in Series D funding led by Sapphire Ventures, with help from World Innovation Lab and earlier backers Bessemer Venture Partners, Trinity Ventures, Meritech Capital and K9 Ventures. The company has now raised $110 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.  Beautiful.ai, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based software company that automates the visual design process, has raised $11 million in Series B funding led by Trinity Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Shasta Ventures and First Round Capital. More here.  BrainQ, a two-year-old, Israel-based startup that aims to treat stroke victims and those with spinal cord injuries with the help of a personalized electromagnetic treatment protocol, has raised $5.3 million atop the $3.5 million the company previously raised. The company’s investors include Qure Ventures, crowdfunding platform OurCrowd, Norma Investments, IT-Farm and a number of angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.  Celsius Therapeutics, a new, Cambridge, Mass.-based company translating single-cell genomic insights into precision therapeutics for autoimmune diseases and cancer, has raised $65 million in Series A funding led by Third Rock Ventures, with participation from GV, Heritage Provider Network, Casdin Capital, andAlexandria Venture Investments. Forbes has more here. Choosy, a six-month-old, New York-based on-demand social shopping platform, has raised $5.4 million in seed funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from Forerunner Ventures, Innovation Global Capital,Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, XFactor Ventures, Supernode Ventures, and Bryan Rosenblatt. More here. Good Eggs, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based online market that delivers fresh groceries, has raised $50 million in funding led by Benchmark, with participation from Index Ventures, Obvious Ventures, S2G Ventures, DNS Capital, Uprising and Collaborative Fund. TechCrunch has more here.  MemSQL, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based scalable database for enterprises, has raised $30 million in Series D funding co-led by GV and Glynn Capital, with participation from earlier backers Accel, Caffeinated Capital, Data Collective, and IA Ventures. The company has now raised $110 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.  Metawave Corporation, a year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup at work on high-performance radar capable of 3D imaging and vehicle-to-vehicle communications, has raised $10 million in funding. Investors include DENSO, Toyota AI Ventures,Hyundai Motor Company, Asahi Glass, Motus Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Autotech Ventures, Bold Capital, SAIC Capital, Western Technology Investment and Alrai Capital. More here.  PegEx, a six-year-old, Fitchburg, Wi.-based hazardous waste removal online platform, has raised $8 million in Series B funding led by Plymouth Growth Partners, with participation from Capital Midwest Fund and WISC Partners. More here.  Prisma, a two-year-old Berlin- and San Francisco-based startup focused on GraphQL, has raised $4.5 million in seed funding led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from numerous angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.  Rael, a two-year-old, Buena Park, Ca.-based maker of organic feminine care products, just raised $2.1 million in pre-Series A funding co-led by SoftBank Ventures Korea and Thrive Market Ventures. More here.  Saildrone, a four-year-old, Alameda, Ca.-based company that sells high-resolution ocean data that it collects via unmanned surface vehicles, has raised $60 million in Series B funding. Horizons Ventures led the round, and was joined byCapricorn’s Technology Impact Fund, Lux Capital, Social Capital, and The Schmidt Family Foundation. More here.  Welcome to the Jungle, a four-year-old, Paris, France-based recruiting startup, has raised $8.4 million in fresh funding from XAnge, Bpifrance and Kima Ventures, along with earlier backers Jean-Paul Guisset and Michael Benabou. TechCrunch has more here.

Sponsored By . . .

How does access to 80 mobile app specialized developers sound to you? That’s what you get with CodigoDelSur, a digital development boutique that has designed and developed digital products for a wide range of companies, from Avon to Office Depot to Shutterfly to Founder Institute graduates like Kindara. Find out more about how we can help with your next big idea by contacting us here to learn more about our services and pricing.

New Funds

New Enterprise Associates is reportedly trying to sell $1 billion in aging stakes by selling them to another firm it is looking to create. The WSJ has more here.  OpenView, a Boston-based expansion-stage investor, has closed its fifth fund with just less than $300 million, shows a new SEC filing. Crunchbase News has a bit more here.  AppDynamics cofounder Jyoti Bansal, and John Vrionis, a former VC with Lightspeed Venture Partners, have taken the wraps off their new seed-stage venture firm, Unusual Ventures, and its $160 million debut fund. As industry observers will remember, AppDynamics sold early last year for $3.7 billion to Cisco just as it was preparing to go public. TechCrunch has more here.

IPOs

PluralSight, a 14-year-old, Farmington, Ut.-based cloud-based learning platform, says it plans to raise $269.1 million in an IPO of 20.7 million shares priced between $12 to $14, up from a previously stated range of $10 to $12. The firm’s biggest outside shareholders include Insight Ventures Partners, which owns a whopping 53 percent of the company, followed by ICONIQ Capital, which owns 9.3 percent. Reuters has more here.

Exits

Eli Lilly is pulling out its checkbook again to acquire another cancer drug developer, this time inking a deal for early-stage company AurKa Pharma. Under the agreement announced yesterday, two-year-old, Montreal-based AurKa will sell for $110 million upfront and up to another $465 million more in milestone payments. Xconomy has more here.

People

Chad Boeding, a cofounder of ICONIQ Capital (best known for managing the money for numerous prominent Silicon Valley families), has left the 6.5-year-old outfit to launch a rival firm called EPIQ Capital Group. Both firms are based in San Francisco. More here.  Ted Eliopoulos is stepping down as chief investment officer at CalPERS, the nation’s largest public pension, with more than $300 billon under management. Eliopoulous was named CIO of CalPERS four years ago but has spent the last 11 years with the organization. He says he’s now moving to New York to be closer to family.  Beth Seidenberg joined Kleiner Perkins 13 years ago to focus on life sciences for the storied venture firm. Now, she’s heading off to start her own life sciences venture fund in L.A. where she lives.

Data

Since 2008, less than half of all-female founding teams have secured follow-on capital for their startups, compared more than half of all-male founding teams, according to PitchBook. Axios has more here.  While women still represent only about 15 percent of decision makers at Silicon Valley’s major venture capital firms, another subset of the industry, corporate venture capital, has a higher proportion of women calling the shots, reports The Information.

Jobs

Greenspring Associates, a venture capital platform that invests in established and emerging venture capital fund managers, is looking to hire multiple analysts to help it analyze and make investments. The firm is based in Owings Mill, Md.

Essential Reads

A look at the “black hole” that’s sucking up Silicon Valley’s money.  Act like a jerk, and Twitter will start limiting your tweets’ visibility.  Snapchat just rolled out ads that viewers can’t skip.

Detours

So this time, a family realizes their pet dog might be a bear.  RIP, Tom Wolfe.

Retail Therapy

Four cameras for following your furry friends.

Hi, happy Monday, everyone!  Quicklike: we have more great news on the event front. As many of you know, we are hosting drinks in San Francisco with investor Semil Shah next month, thanks to the very generous support of Lightspeed Venture Partners. Now, we can also announce the date of our next StrictlyVC event, which is happening (also in San Francisco) at the stylish South Park offices of Norwest Venture Partners, which very nicely offered to host all of us after our last event in February. Date is September 25th, a Tuesday night.  You can nab a seat here if you know you’ll be in town. If you’re interested in partnering with us as a sponsor, we’re happy to tell you more.

Top News

In a victory for the state of New Jersey and a setback for professional sports leagues, the Supreme Court today struck down a law that bars states from allowing wagers on games.

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Walmart’s Deal to Buy Flipkart Featured an Interesting Caveat

Retail giant Walmart, which earlier this week announced that it’s paying $16 billion for a 77 percent stake in the Indian e-commerce company, Flipkart Group, could have to take Flipkart public within four years, shows a public filing that was reported on earlier by Reuters.  Specifically, the filing states that, “acting together,” holders of 60 percent of the Flipkart shares held by the company’s minority shareholders, may require Flipkart to stage an IPO following the fourth anniversary of the deal’s official close — and at a valuation that’s “no less” than that paid by Walmart under its current agreement, which is $20.8 billion.  The caveat is a highly unusual one as far as we can tell — an apparent insurance policy for earlier investors who were concerned about giving away too much upside by selling so many of their shares now to Walmart.  Some of the company’s minority shareholders following Flipkart’s tie-up with Walmart include Tencent Holdings, Tiger Global Management, Microsoft, and company cofounder Binny Bansal, who, according to the Economic Times, sold $104 million in shares but held on to a 4.2 percent stake. (Bansal is staying on with the company as a group CEO while his cofounder, Sachin Bansal, is leaving with at least$1 billion, according to regional outlets. Some are more newly suggesting he didn’t have much choice in the matter.)  Another of Walmart’s minority shareholders, very notably, is SoftBank, whose CEO, Masayoshi Son, preempted Walmart itself by announcing the deal to reporters and analysts last Monday while discussing SoftBank’s quarterly results.  At the time, Son suggested that SoftBank, which invested through its Vision Fund, would see a sizable return on its initial investment of $2.5 billion. (Told while still discussing SoftBank’s earnings that no announcement had been made by Walmart, he uttered the equivalent of: “Oops. I already said it.”)  Now the Economic Times is reporting that SoftBank might not be selling those shares.  More here.

New Fundings

Acousia Therapeutics, an 18-month-old. Tübingen, Germany-based drug startup focused on inner ear-related diseases and pathologies, has raised €10 million in Series B funding led by LBBW Venture Capital, with participation from Creathor Ventures, Bregua Corp. and return backers BIVF and KfW. More here. Beam Therapeutics, a year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based developer of precision genetic medicines, has launched with $87 million in Series A funding co-led by F-Prime Capital Partners and ARCH Venture Partners. The company was cofounded by CRISPR trailblazers Feng Zhang and David Liu. FierceBiotech has more here.  Carousell, a nearly six-year-old, Singapore-based company behind a mobile classifieds app, has raised $85 million in Series C funding co-led by earlier backers Rakuten Ventures and EDBI. TechCrunch has more here.  Carro, a three-year-old, Singapore-based automotive classifieds service and car financing startup, has raised $60 million in Series B funding to scale its business in Southeast Asia. The deal was co-led by SoftBank Ventures Korea, Insignia Ventures, and B Capital Group. Other participants include IDG Ventures India founder Manik Arora and earlier investors Venturra, Singtel Innov8, Golden Gate Ventures and Alpha JWC. TechCrunch has more here.  Cellulant, a 14-year-old, Kenya, Nairobi-based digital payments company that operates in 11 African markets, just raised $47.5 million in new funding led by TPG’s The Rise Fund, with participation from Endeavour Catalyst and Satya Capital. Reuters has more here.  Rubicon Global, a 10-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based technology platform for waste and recycling, has raised $65 million in fresh funding from NZ Super Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of New Zealand. Recode has more here.  Qventus, a six-year-old, Los Altos, Ca.-based real-time decision-making platform for hospital operations, has raised $30 million in Series B funding, including from Bessemer Venture Partners, New York Presbyterian Ventures, Mayfield Fund and Norwest Venture Partners. More here.  SeqOnce Biosciences, a four-year-old, Pasadena, Ca.-based company that describes itself as a next-gen sequencing sample preparation startup has raised $1 million in seed funding led by Mount Wilson Ventures. More here.  TruValue Labs, a 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based data analytics company, has raised $13.6 million in Series A funding led by Katalyst Ventures, with participation from Hearst Financial Venture Fund, The Entrepreneurs’ Fund, and Sun Hung Kai Strategic Capital Limited. More here.  VidMob, a three-year-old, New York-based online platform that connects marketers with a global network of video editors, animators, and motion graphics designers, has raised an additional $6.4 million extension to a previously announced $7.5 million Series A round. Investors include Manifest Growth, Interlock Partners, Acadia Woods, Macanta Investments, and You & Mr Jones. More here.

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New Funds

Silverton Partners, a 12-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based venture firm, has closed its fifth fund with $108 million in commitments. Apparently, the firm is having a pretty amazing year; it says it has realized “five exits representing an aggregate of more than $1.1 billion in market capitalization” since the beginning of 2018 alone. More here.  Trail Post Ventures, a new venture capital firm focused on consumer brands, has been cofounded by Nick Mendel, a former banker with Piper Jaffray, and Will Schmitt, formerly a principal with Beechwood Capital, a Boston-based investment group that invests in low-middle market growth and venture-stage companies. Mendel is based in San Francisco; Schmitt is based in Chicago. Axios first noted the firm’s existence; it isn’t clear how much the firm has to invest. (No SEC forms yet.) More here.

IPOs

GreenSky, a 12-year-old, fintech firm that facilitates loans for businesses and other customers, expects its shares to price between $21 and $23 in its initial public offering. Based on the midpoint of that range, the Atlanta company expects to raise about $701.4 million, it said today in a securities filing. GreenSky is offering about 34.1 million shares, or 39.2 million if underwriters fully exercise options. The WSJ has more here.

Exits

Farewell, Favstar.

People

Yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook delivered the commencement address at his alma mater, Duke University, and he didn’t resist the opportunity to take a shot at Facebook, even while he didn’t name the company.  About a dozen Google employees are resigning in protest over the company’s continued involvement in a controversial military pilot program.

Lawsuit

A little more than three years ago, Apple announced a new MacBook with a “butterfly” keyboard that was 40 percent thinner and ostensibly four times more stable than the previous “scissor” mechanism that MacBooks employed. The promise was to more evenly distribute pressure on each key. Not everyone loved this “reinvention,” however, and now, Apple is facing a class action lawsuit over it.

Jobs

Visa is looking for a director of corporate development in San Francisco.  Intuit is also looking for a director of corporate development. This one is in Mountain View, Ca.

Essential Reads

Tencent‘s bitterly expensive rivalry with Alibaba could be hampering the company’s health. Specifically, notes Bloomberg, it has shed $78 billion in value since January, and it’s facing its worst margins ever.  Crypto company Ripple is going after startups to build an ecosystem around the XRP cryptocurrency. TechCrunch has much more here.  Google just rolled out a new, cheaper tier of storage for consumers and their family members.  Long before the fatal crash of a Tesla car in March, some developers of the vehicle’s Autopilot system expressed concern there aren’t enough safeguards to ensure drivers remain attentive.  Let’s see how long it takes Tinder to roll back this fresh and also terrible idea.

Detours

United passengers will put up with a lot, but this is one step too far.  Ryan Reynolds went on a South Korean singing show disguised as a unicorn.  One very deep lotus.

Retail Therapy

A classic returns. Again.

Friday! We’re at UC Berkeley at the moment, where we just talked  robotics investing with Renata Quintini of Lux Capital, Rob Coneybeer of Shasta Ventures and Chris Evdemon of Sinovation Ventures. We’re super short on time but more Monday.:)

Top News

Snapchat has starting rolling out its redesigned redesign.

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New Fundings

Forever Labs, a three-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based startup that extracts and stores stem cells, just raised $2 million in funding from Northwestern Mutual, Silicon Badia Ventures, Babel Ventures, and Aaron Hirschhorn, founder and CEO of DogVacay. Fast Company has more here.  Luminary Media, a new, New York- and Chicago-based podcasting company, has raised $40 million in funding led by New Enterprise Associates and unnamed other investors. The WSJ has more here.   NewTV, a months-old, L.A.-based company that was co-created by Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and plans to produce short-form, high-end content for mobile devices, has reportedly raised roughly $800 million from numerous media giants, including 21st Century Fox and Warner Bros. Bloomberg has the story here.

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New Funds

CRV, the now 48-year-old venture firm formerly known as Charles River Ventures, has closed its  17th fund with $600 million in commitments, capital it intends to use to fund enterprise, consumer and bioengineering startups. More here.

IPOs

Avalara, a 14-year-old, Seattle-based cloud-based maker of sales tax and compliance software, filed today with the SEC to raise up to $150 million in an IPO. GeekWire has more here.  Dropbox‘s reported its first quarter’s performance as a public company and it was . . . fine. The company beat analysts’ expectations. The stock dipped a tiny bit. We talked about this and more yesterday if you’re looking for a podcast about the week’s biggest tech news.  Shares of Huya, a China-based company that’s reminiscent of Twitch here in the U.S., saw its shares jump 34 percent today, its first day of trading. Investors Business Daily has more here.

People

Scout Ventures, a New York City based early-stage venture capital firm, has added a new partner, Wes Blackwell. TechCrunch has more here.  Robinhood’s founders, Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, are now “worth” $1 billion a piece on paper (though their families would say they are priceless, of course).

Essential Reads

Facebook is reportedly planning to launch its own cryptocurrency.  Sounds like the electric scooter company Bird just pulled a fast one on its competitors.  A look at who pays the most, and the least, in Silicon Valley.

Detours

Woman discovers her dog is a fox.  Man allegedly uses a change of address form to move a UPS headquarters to his apartment.   They’re coming to get us.  Nope.

Retail Therapy

Shoebox safe.

Thursday! We’re about to race over to TechCrunch HQ for its podcast “Equity.” On today’s show: Villi Iltchev of August Capital, who we’re looking forward to meeting for the first time.  Also, tomorrow, StrictlyVC could be either short or late or possibly both, as we’re heading to UC Berkeley to help out with TechCrunch’s annual robotics event. (Believe you can still buy tickets for this, by the way.) More soon.

Top News

Democrats from the House Intelligence Committee have released thousands of ads that were run on Facebook by the Russia-based Internet Research Agency. More here.  Dropbox‘s investors will dissect its latest efforts to convert free users into paying subscribers today, when the file-sharing service reports quarterly results today for the first time as a public company.  Google has fixed its burger emoji. (Important.)

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Introducing: Investor CRM for iOS. When Foundersuite launched in 2016, it was the first CRM specifically tailored for the needs of startups raising capital. Every element… from the funnel design, to the “kanban board” UI, to the investor database… was built to help CEOs raise capital more efficiently. And it’s worked — since launch, customers have raised over $750M in Seed and VC. Now this same power fits in the palm of your hand with the all-new Investor CRM iPhone App, available for free in the App Store.

Tiger Global is Killing It Right Now

It took some time, but Tiger Global Management is starting to wring some serious paydays out of its tech investments.  In one of its biggest wins to date, the secretive, 16-year-old, New York-based hedge fund is reportedly set to make roughly $3 billion off Flipkart, the India-based e-commerce juggernaut that’s selling a majority stake in its business to Walmart for a whopping $16 billion. Part of that stake includes three-quarters of the roughly 20 percent of Flipkart that Tiger had come to own since writing its first ($9 million) check to the company back in 2009.  In a lesser but apparent win, Tiger should also see a return on its investment in Glassdoor,  the jobs and salary website that announced Monday that it’s being acquired by the Japanese human resources company Recruit Holdings for $1.2 billion in cash.  Tiger had led the company’s $50 million Series E back in late 2013 when Glassdoor was still very much expected to go public. Earlier venture backers like Sutter Hill Ventures and Benchmark will see bigger returns, as they bought in at the A round when Glassdoor’s valuation was just beginning to ramp up. Still, it’s probably safe to assume that Tiger made a little something, too. One clue is that in 2016, during its Series H round, Glassdoor was assigned a post-money valuation of $1 billion, presumably more than the company was worth when Tiger bought in more than two years earlier.  It’s a lot of good news, and that’s saying nothing of Spotify’s  direct listing on the stock market last month, another deal that involves Tiger Global. In fact, Tiger had become one of the streaming company’s biggest shareholders in recent years, and like Flipkart and Glassdoor, that position is also poised to pay off. Consider that Tiger owned 7.2 percent of Spotify as of its first day of trading in April, and the value of that stake was $1.9 billion. It may still be. Spotify’s shares are trading roughly where they started, and if Tiger has sold any of its stake, it hasn’t revealed as much. (Some of Spotify’s major record label shareholders have sold theirs and reported as much on their earnings calls.)  Either way, you can bet these wins will go a long way with investors, who are probably in the process of committing to Tiger Global’s newest mega fund as we type.  More here.

New Fundings

ClickFox, an 18-year-old, Denver-based data analytics company focused around customer interactions, has raised more than $38 million in growth equity funding led by Arrowroot Capital. More here.  Escient, new, San Diego, Ca.-based company that hopes to develop a pipeline of drugs around a novel family of G-protein coupled receptors, has raised $40 million Series A Series A funding from The Column Group, 5AM Ventures, and Osage University Partners. Endpoints News has more here.  LyGenesis, a year-old, Pittsburgh Pa.-based biotech company focused around organ regeneration, has raised $3 million in Series A funding from Juvenescence. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette has more here.  The Mom Project, a three-year-old, Chicago-based careers marketplace for professional women seeking part time roles, has raised $2.6 million in seed funding led by Atlanta Seed Company, with participation from OCA Ventures, BBG Ventures, IrishAngels, Wintrust Ventures and Engage VC. More here.  NomNomNow, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of fresh meals for dogs, has raised $13 million in funding with participation from Bullish, CircleUp, e.ventures, Tandem Capital and Greycroft among others. The funding includes a $10 million Series A round, and a previously unannounced $3 million seed round. More here.  OpenSea, a year-old, San Francisco-based marketplace for crypto assets, has raised $2 million in seed funding. Blockchain Capital and 1confirmation co-led, and were joined by Founders Fund, Foundation Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Chernin Group, Stable Fund and Blockstack. More here. Perch, a nine-month-old, New York-based online marketplace for buying and selling homes, has raised $30 million in Series A funding led by FirstMark Capital, with participation from Juxtapose and Accomplice. More here.  Robinhood, the five-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based no-fee investment app, has raised $363 million in Series D funding at a $5.6 billion post-money valuation. DST Group led the round, and was joined by Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, CapitalG and earlier investors, including New Enterprise Associates and Thrive Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Entrée Capital, a nine-year-old venture outfit, has closed its second early stage fund with $80 million in capital commitments. The idea is to support Israeli founders no matter where they’re located. Among its LPS is the fund of funds Cendana Capital. The company was founded by Aviad Eyal and Martin Moshal. Globes has more here.  Fifth Wall Ventures, a real estate-focused venture capital firm, is raising a new, $200 million fund, shows an SEC filing. We’d written about the firm’s debut fund last May. This new vehicle looks like it has a special purpose, if it’s not basically a giant SPV; it’s called the Fifth Wall Ventures Retail Fund. More here.

IPOs

The Palo Alto, Ca.-based online survey company SurveyMonkey has hired investment bank JPMorgan Chase to help lead preparations for an IPO that could come later this year, according to Reuters. More here.

Exits

Klout, the company everyone loved to hate, is officially kaput.

People

Founder-investor Naval Ravikant says a single test — one that enabled him to attend Stuyvesant High School in New York — forever changed the trajectory of his life. The New York Post has more here.

Essential Reads

Apple and Goldman Sachs are preparing to launch a new joint credit card, a move that would deepen the technology giant’s push into its customers’ wallets and mark the Wall Street firm’s first foray into plastic. Its record in consumer finance is scarcely two years old, notes the WSJ.  Carnegie Mellon just launched an undergraduate degree in artificial intelligence.

Detours

A day in the life of British model David Gandy.  Big wave surfing for crazy people.  Okay, fine! We read this entire story about the Katy Perry/Taylor Swift saga and how it has come to an end for now. In our defense, we did not click on any of the videos.

Retail Therapy

Rolls-Royce today unveiled Cullinan, its first “high bodied” vehicle— known better to the hoi polloi as an SUV.

Geez, that was fast. Late in the day yesterday, we announced a drinks event for next month, and tickets are already gone. We’ll have to do a much bigger drinks thing next summer(!). In the meantime, we’ll see if there’s any way we can open this up to a few more readers in coming weeks. (We have a fixed cap, per the restaurant, but the flake factor is always higher in summer, so we’ll keep you posted, especially those of you who’ve already written us about this.)  We’ll also be announcing the date of our fall event soon, so stay tuned. Giant thanks again to Lightspeed Venture Partners for supporting us as our partner in this gathering and to investor and friend-willing-to-play-guest-editor-on-occasion Semil Shah for co-hosting it with us. We’re excited to see everyone who signed up.:)

Top News

Retailing behemoth Walmart has finally confirmed that it is making a $16 billion investment into India’s biggest online retailer, Flipkart, for a 77 percent share of its business. Tencent, Tiger Global, Microsoft, Accel and Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal will continue to be investors in the company. The deal, expected to close later this year,  will value Flipkart, which has 54 million active customers, at $20.8 billion. TechCrunch has more here.  The White House tomorrow plans to convene executives from Amazon, Facebook,Google, Intel and 34 other major U.S. companies to discuss the development of artificial intelligence.The administration intends to ask academics, government officials and AI developers about ways to adapt regulations to advance AI in such fields as agriculture, health care and transportation, according to a draft schedule of the event reviewed by the Washington Post. More here.

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This Modcloth Cofounder Just Launched an Invite-Only Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency is cool, but you know what’d be even cooler? If people used it to buy things.  That they don’t, because it’s either not secure or simply too hard to use, is a problem that a growing number of founders is trying to tackle. Among them is Merit, a new digital currency and wallet startup that aims to be as simple to use as traditional payment apps like PayPal and Venmo and that officially launches today.  The idea is to make it easy enough for to use to split a bill or shop for clothing online — even for the crypto illiterate — by building a layer atop the blockchain that requires a lot less processing power by the humans who use it.  Naturally, Merit is facing a daunting uphill battle in a world suddenly chock-full of cryptocurrencies competing for mindshare. But that isn’t dissuading its founder and CEO, Adil Wali, who previously cofounded and served as the CTO of indie womenswear brand ModCloth. (To the chagrin of some of its customers, ModCloth  sold to Walmart last year after several rounds of layoffs.) Wali has since started two more companies, and he’s clearly not afraid to see where an idea takes him.  This particular idea, which Wali and nine other full time employees are working on from Seattle, involves a few interesting facets that could potentially help the currency gain traction. First and foremost, Merit says it’s removing barriers to entry to blockchain investments and payments by making the Merit cryptocurrency as easy to send as a tweet. Users can also send the Merit cyptocurrency via different communication channels, whether SMS, WhatsApp, or email. (Wali insists this is possible today, not at some theoretical date in time.) More here.

New Fundings

AI.Reverie, a year-old, New York-based startup that offers a suite of synthetic data and vision APIs to help different types of businesses train their machine learning algorithms, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding. Investors include Vulcan Capital, Compound and Locke Mountain Ventures. More here.  Akili Interactive Labs, a seven-year-old, Boston-based cognitive therapeutics startup that develops prescription digital treatments that are delivered through video game experiences, has just raised $55 million Series C funding. Temasek led the round, with participation from Baillie Gifford, Amgen Ventures, M Ventures,JAZZ Venture Partners, Canepa Advanced Healthcare Fund, and Brooklands Capital Strategies. Mobihealth News has more here. Ample Foods, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company that makes ostensibly nutritious “meal in a bottle” products, has raised $2 million in new funding led by Slow Ventures. The Spoon has more here.  At-Bay, a two-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based cyber insurance company, has raised $13 million in Series A funding. Investors include Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Check Point cofounder Shlomo Kramer. More here.  Axiom Energy, a 4.5-year-old, Berkeley, Ca.-based thermal storage startup, has raised $7.6 million in Series A funding co-led by GXP Investments and Shell Ventures co-led, with participation from WorldQuant Ventures, SV Tech Ventures and Meson Capital. Greentech Media has more here.  CStone Pharmaceuticals, a two-year-old, Shanghai, China-based maker of immune-oncology drugs, has raised $260 million in Series B funding led by GIC, with participation from Sequoia China, Yunfeng Capital, 6 Dimensions Capital, Hillhouse Capital, and more than half a dozen other investors. China Money Network has more here.  Drishti, an eight-month-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that describes its technology as a commercial application of so-called action recognition to digitize human activities on the assembly line, has raised $10 million in Series A funding.Emergence Capital led the round; other participants in the funding include Andreessen Horowitz and Benhamou Global Ventures. More here. Fuse Universal, a 10-year-old, London-based corporate learning management platform, has raised $20 million from Eight Roads Ventures. Reuters has more here.  Gamalon, a five-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based AI company that’s focused on understanding customer communications, just raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Intel Capital. Other participants in the round include .406 Ventures, Omidyar Technology Ventures and earlier investors Boston Seed Capital, Felicis Ventures and Rivas Capital. TechCrunch has more here.  KeyedIn, a seven-year-old, Minneapolis-based provider of cloud-based enterprise resource planning and project management software, has raised $15 million in Series C funding led by Arrowroot Capital. More here. Life House, a year-old, New York-based hospitality management company, has raised $10 million in new funding from Global Founders Capital and Trinity Ventures. It separately raised $30 million in private equity and debt funding led by Henley, a private equity real estate investor. Skift has the skinny here.  Murj, a three-year-old, Santa Cruz, Ca.-based digital health company that helps clinicians streamline care for patients with implantable cardiac devices, has raised $8.5 million in new funding led by Longitude Capital, with participation from True Ventures. More here.  Rootility, a 12-year-old, Ashkelon, Israel-based developer of root-focused plant breeding methods, has raised $10 million in Series C funding co-led by an ADM Capital affiliate, Middleland Capital and GreenSoil Investments. Calcalist has more here. SHOP, a year-old, Seattle-based startup that’s trying to create a retail operating system for apps and storefronts built on top of Ethereum’s blockchain, has raised $2 million in funding from Reflective Venture Partners. More here.  Tailor Brands, a four-year-old, Tel Aviv- and New York-based company that uses artificial intelligence to create new company brands, has raised $15.5 million in Series B funding led by Pitango Venture Capital and the U.K.’s Armat Group. Other participants in the round include Mangrove Capital Partners and Disruptive Technologies. VentureBeat has more here.  Targetprocess, a 14-year-old, Minsk, Belarus-based company that makes it simpler to manage agile-driven programming projects, has raised its first major round of outside funding — a $5 million Series A round led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Zubr Capital, which is a private equity firm in Minsk. TechCrunch has more here.  ThoughtSpot, a six-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based AI-driven data analytics company, has raised $145 million in Series D funding from Sapphire Ventures, as well as earlier backers Lightspeed Venture Partners, Future Fund, Khosla Ventures, and General Catalyst. The WSJ has more here.  Trussle, a two-year-old,  U.K.-based online mortgage broker, has raised £13.6 million ($18.4 million) in Series B funding led by Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments and Propel Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backers Finch Capital and Seedcamp. TechCrunch has more here.  WeDoctor, an eight-year-old, Shanghai, China-based mobile medical scheduling and information company, has raised $500 million in fresh funding at a whopping $5.5 billion valuation co-led by AIA Company, which is part of Hong Kong-listed insurer AIA Group, and infrastructure and services group NWS Holdings. Reuters has more here.  XNOR, a two-year-old, Seattle-based artificial intelligence startup, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Madrona Venture Group. Other participants include NGP Capital, Autotech Ventures and Catapult Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Roughly five years after the launch of its first fund in 2013, the New York-based seed-stage venture firm, Female Founders Fund (F3), has closed on $27 million for its latest seed fund — backed by some of the startup world’s top women entrepreneurs and investors. TechCrunch has more here.

IPOs

Evelo Biosciences now has $85 million to spend on its pipeline of drugs that target the human microbiome. The Cambridge, Ma.-based biotech priced its IPO of 5.3 million shares at $16, right at the midpoint of the $15 to $17 range that it had previously set. Evelo’s shares began trading on Nasdaq this morning, where they’re trading flat as of this writing. Xconomy has more here.

Exits

The 11-year-old, Mill Valley, Ca.-based jobs site Glassdoor,  which is best known for providing insight into company working cultures, has been acquired for $1.2 billion in cash by Recruit, a $39 billion Japanese corporate that specializes in HR and recruitment services. The all-cash acquisition will see Glassdoor continue to maintain its brand, CEO Robert Hohman explained in a blog post. Glassdoor had raised more than $200 million from investors, including Benchmark and Battery Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.  The augmented reality startup Blippar is abandoning Silicon Valley after losing two key execs and a board member. Business Insider has more here.

People

Chris Cox is becoming Facebook’s most important executive not named Mark Zuckerberg. Here’s a helpful look at its re-organization.  Super entrepreneur Elon Musk says he’s now getting into the brick-making business, with an eye toward improving low-income housing. He is also reportedly dating musician Grimes. We know, we know, you don’t care (liars).  And for his next act, Twitter and Medium cofounder Ev Williams will fix the internet.

Essential Reads

Essential Reads Apple is cracking down on applications that send location data to third-parties.

Detours

The best collections from the Pratt Institute’s 2018 graduate fashion show.

Retail Therapy

Now this is how you convert a barn.

Hi, happy Tuesday, all!   We know this is arriving a bit late (okay, insanely late). Before you start zooming through the newsletter: we recently mentioned that we have a couple of things coming up. We’re excited to announce the first, and that’s summer drinks with StrictlyVC, which we’re co-hosting with our longtime friend Semil Shah at the beautiful restaurant/ bar Trou Normand in San Francisco, on June 20th, a Wednesday night. We’ll be there from 4 pm. to 7 p.m. and we’d love to see your mugs.:)  Lightspeed Venture Partners has very generously offered to host all of us. (Thank you, Lightspeed!) We’re also asking those of you who come to chip in $35 that we’ll donate to the nonprofit organization Girls Who Code because we all of us appreciate its mission of getting more women into computer science.  We can’t be super flexible with our head count, so if you can come — and we hope you will! — register soon.

Top News

Facebook just named new leaders, including in its core social network, WhatsApp, and Messenger divisions, in the biggest management reshuffling since the company’s founding.  One of those execs, Messenger’s longtime head David Marcus, will now lead a small group of Facebook employees to explore what blockchain technologies can do for the social media giant.  Google‘s annual developer conference, Google I/O, kicked off today in Mountain View, Ca., and a whole lot was announced, including better recommendations by Google Maps, the renaming of its research division, and new features that are coming to Google Assistant. If you’re still curious, here’s everything else that happened.

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$10 Million Later, Elon Musk’s Ownership Stake in Tesla is Reportedly Approaching 20 Percent

Last Thursday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk  managed to freak out investors by acting dismissively toward analysts during an earnings call, calling a question about the company’s capital requirements “boring” and “bone-headed” and “not cool,” a strange performance that seemed tied to a slide in the shares’ performance afterward.  More bravura was on display the following day, with Musk warning the growing number of short sellers who are betting against the automaker. Specifically, he tweeted that a “short burn of the century” is “coming soon.” He also retweeted a Barron’s article that highlighted that there’s now more demand for short positions than supply. (Barron’s compared the conundrum to the same one facing Tesla’s customers.)   Perhaps to make certain that Tesla bears feel some pain, Musk himself shelled out roughly $10 million to acquire more Tesla stock yesterday, a purchase that pushes his stake in the company to nearly 20 percent, according to Bloomberg’s analysis.  Whether or not directly correlated, Tesla’s shares rose 3 percent yesterday, boosting Tesla’s market cap to $51.4 billion. It has slipped again slightly, as of this writing, to $49.7 billion.  Tesla’s shares seem to recover almost no matter what Musk does or says, but it’s worth asking why Musk still talks with analysts at all. More here.

New Fundings

BorderX Lab, a four-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based cross-border e-commerce company that connects global brands with Chinese customers, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Hillhouse Capital Group, CBC, Welight Capital and iFly Venture Capital. More here.  HousingAnywhere.com, a nine-year-old, Rotterdam, Netherlands-based accommodation marketplace for international students, has raised $7.1 million in Series B funding led by Vostok New Ventures, with participation from earlier investors Real Web and henQ. More here.  Miovision, a 12-year-old, Kitchener, Ontario-based maker of smart traffic intersection technology, has raised $15 million from MacKinnon, Bennett & Co.,McRock Capital, BDC Capital and HarbourVest Partners. The Globe and Mail has more here.  mPulse Mobile, a four-year-old, Encino, Ca.-based mobile health engagement platform, has raised $11 million in Series B funding led by SJF Ventures, with participation from HLM Venture Partners, EchoHealth Ventures, OCA Ventures and Bonfire Ventures. MobiHealth News has more here.   Owlet Baby Care, a five-year-old, Lehi, Ut.-based maker of health tracking devices for babies, has raised $24 million in Series B funding led by Trilogy Equity Partners, with participation from Eclipse Ventures, Broadway Angels, Enfield Ventures, and Pelion Venture Partners. Silicon Slopes has more here.  Peltarion, a 12-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based deep learning AI startup, has raised raised $13 million from FAM — a holding company owned by Sweden’s most powerful industrial family — and EQT Ventures. Bloomberg has more here.  SafeBreach, a four-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based startup whose platform simulates hacker breach methods, has raised $15 million in fresh funding led by Draper Nexus, with participation from PayPal and earlier backers Sequoia Capital, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners and HPE Pathfinder. More here.  Solv, a 2.5-year-old, Bay Area-based startup that wants its app to become the go-to way for people to book same-day health appointments and pay their medical bills, has raised $16.8 million in fresh funding led by Greylock Partners, with participation from Aspect Ventures. Forbes has more here.  VenueNext, a four-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based venue management startup, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Intel Capital. Roughly a dozen other companies recently raised money from Intel, too, it announced today. Here’s the full rundown.  Yobe, a four-year-old, Boston-based AI-powered signal processing startup, has raised $1.8 million in seed funding from Clique Capital Partners. More here.

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New Funds

The French space agency CNES is creating an investment fund of 80 to 100 million euros ($95 to $119 million) to spur innovation in the space sector. CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall announced the fund during an interview with French publication Les Echos that was posted yesterday, though few details were released about the fund. Space News has more here.

IPOs

iZettle, the Sweden-based “Square of Europe,” says it’s going public this year and listing on Nasdaq’s Stockholm exchange. The company plans to raise 2 billion Swedish kronor ($227 million at current rates), giving it an estimated valuation of about SEK10 billion ($1.1 billion). TechCrunch has more here.  Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker that’s gearing up for an IPO, just cut its IPO valuation target from $100 billion to between $70 billion and $80 billion, says the WSJ. More here.

Exits

Alibaba has expanded its e-commerce empire into South Asia, acquiring the five-year-old, online retail unit of Rocket Internet, Daraz, for undisclosed terms. The deal is the second time Alibaba has bought a Rocket company, the first being Lazada in Southeast Asia two years ago. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Eric Friedman, formerly the head of Expa Labs in New York, has joined BlockTower Capital, a cryptocurrency hedge fund, according to Axios. He’s now a partner with the year-old outfit. More here.  Early bitcoin investor Tyler Winklevoss tweeted at Bill Gates yesterday to explain how to bet against the cryptocurrency, after the Microsoft co-founder said he would short it if he could.  Sally Yates has launched an investigations practice at the Atlanta, Ga.-based  law firm King & Spalding, where she started her legal career almost 30 years ago. The former DOJ official and hero to Trump critics said she’s ready to return to practicing law. “I know other people sort of have political ambitions for me—but for me, I’m a lawyer,” Yates tells the National Law Journal. More here.

Essential Reads

Inside the ecosystem that fuels Amazon‘s fake review problem.  Speaking of Amazon, employees are upset over its reported opposition to adding more diversity to its board.  Apple may be assembling its own editorial machine.

Detours

The best, worst, and most sacrilegious looks at this year’s Met Gala.  Navigating the complicated world of credit card points.  These aren’t your regular-season Cavs.

Retail Therapy

Channel your inner Picasso.

Hello! Welcome back.:)

Top News

For Apple, a trillion-dollar market cap is coming up, fast.  The five biggest announcements from Microsoft’s Build event, which wrapped up a bit ago.

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A Life Sciences Firm Run by a Top VC and a Cofounder of Alphabet’s Life Sciences Arm, Just Closed a Huge Fund

There’s no end to the number of fascinating devices and therapies being created right now in the fields of health and life sciences. The investors behind them are often pretty interesting, too, given the expertise needed to make informed bets on what are often completely unproven projects.  Such is the case with Foresite Capital, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based outfit that just closed on $668 million for its fourth venture fund, its biggest pool of capital so far. (Its first funds closed with $100 million, $300 million, and $450 million, respectively.)  The firm was founded by Jim Tananbaum, who has started and sold healthcare companies and who earned the dubious distinction — courtesy of Bloomberg — of symbolizing the extremely wealthy who’ve begun descending on the Burning Man festival in recent years. (Months after Bloomberg described an elaborate camp he had built, Tananbaum, who in 2014 was elected to the board of the nonprofit that oversees the event, resigned.)  No doubt Tananbaum — who has both an MD and an MBA from Harvard — would prefer to be known for being named to Forbes’ Midas List of top venture capitalists for the last four years, thanks to a wide array of bets in Foresite’s portfolio. Some of these include Aimmune Therapeutics, whose treatment to protect children with food allergies is seeking FDA approval; Puma Biotech and Juno Therapeutics, both of which have gone recent public in recent years; and Intarcia Therapeutics, which makes a matchstick-size, diabetes-treating pump and was flying high two years ago, though it has more recently taken its lumps.  Foresite’s approach has impressed more than Forbes. More here.

New Fundings

iPrice, a three-year-old, Malaysia-based service that aggregates Southeast Asia’s e-commerce websites in a single destination, has reportedly raised roughly $4 million in funding led by messaging app Line’s VC arm, Line Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Cento Ventures and Venturra Capital. TechCrunch has more here.  Kexin Health, a Changsha, China-based cancer hospital operator, has raised $38 million in Series C funding led by HG Capital. China Money Network has more here.  Learning Machine, a year-old, New York-based blockchain-based records like digital transcripts, diplomas, and resumes, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by PTB Ventures, with participation from Omidyar Network and Learn Capital. TechCrunch has more here.  Lyra Health, a three-year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based developer of a data-driven platform to identify people at risk of behavioral and mental health conditions, has raised $45 million in funding. The capital came from Tenaya Capital, Glynn Capital Partners, Crown Ventures, and Casdin Capital, as well as earlier backers Greylock Partners, Venrock, and Providence Ventures. (You might recall that longtime Facebook CFO David Ebersman cofounded and leads this company as CEO.) TechCrunch has more here.  Mesosphere, a five-year-old. San Francisco-based cloud platform company that’s creating an operating system of sorts for the modern datacenter, has raised $125 million in funding led by T. Rowe Price and Koch Disruptive Technologies, with participation from ZWC Ventures, Qatar Investment Authority, Disruptive Technology Advisers, Andreessen Horowitz, Two Sigma Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, SV Angel, Fuel Capital, and Triangle Peak Partners. TechCrunch has more here.  Printify, a three-year-old, Riga, Latvia-based customer printing marketplace, has raised $1 million in seed funding led by Google AdSense pioneer Gokul Rajaram. TechCrunch has more here. Purple Carrot, a four-year-old, Needham, Ma.-based meal kit company, just raised $4 million from Fresh Del Monte Produce. TechCrunch has more here.  Shenma Finance, a three-year-old, Shanghai, China-based fintech startup that’s providing financing for vehicles like motorcycles and two- and three-wheel scooters for rural consumers, has raised $47 million in Series C funding. Investors include China Growth Capital, Hina Group, Tongbanjie Group and earlier investors Credit Ease Financial Industry Investment Fund and ChinaEquity Group. China Money Network has more here.

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New Funds

China is reportedly close to finalizing a $47 billion investment fund that would finance semiconductor research and chip startup development. The fund, formally the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Co., appears to be underwritten predominantly by government capital sources. TechCrunch has more here.  Backstage Capital, a venture firm that invests in underrepresented founders, has raised $36 million for its new seed fund. The new fund will invest exclusively in black female founders. Arlan Hamilton, the founder of Backstage Capital, tweeted on Sunday: “They’re calling it a ‘diversity fund.’ I’m calling it an IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME fund.”  Recode has more here.  Golden Ventures, a seven-year-old, seed-stage outfit with offices in Toronto and Waterloo, has closed it third and newest fund with $57.5 million ($72 million in Canadian dollars), up from the roughly $38 million ($50 million Canadian) that it raised for its second fund in 2014. The capital will be used primarily to back Canada-based startups. TechCrunch has more here.  Oxx, a 15-month-old, London- and Stockholm-based growth capital firm, has closed on $100 million in capital commitments to invest in business-to-business software companies in the U.K., Israel and the Nordic countries. The outfit was founded by Richard Anton and Mikael Johnsson, both formerly of Amadeus Capital. UKTN has more here.  Yes VC, a new, San Francisco-based seed-stage venture firm created by entrepreneurs and angel investors Caterina Fake and Jyri Engeström, has filed SEC paperwork for a debut fund that’s targeting up to $50 million. We’d talked with Fake about the new effort in late January.

Exits

Okay, so not an exit exactly, but we’re not sure where else to slide this one: Nestlé says it’s paying $7.15 billion in cash to Starbucks in exchange for the right to sell its products in non-Starbucks shops around the world. Reuters has more here.  Nokia has acquired SpaceTime Insight, a San Mateo, Calif.-based maker of visual analytics software that raised upwards of $65 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. Its backers included Zouk Capital, Opus Capital Ventures,EnerTech Capital, Novus Energy Partners, E.ON Strategic Co-Investmentsand NEC. TechCrunch has more here.

People

On Saturday, legendary investor Warren Buffett told a CNBC reporter that in his humble opinion, Bitcoin is “probably rat poison squared.”  Daniel Jones, a London-based general partner with Global Founders Capital — the venture capital arm of Rocket Internet — has reportedly left to raise his own fund. He’s not exactly the first member to leave the outfit, reports TechCrunch.  TV writer Nell Scovell, who co-wrote the book “Lean In” with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, had convinced a studio to produce a similarly themed movie that she wrote. Then notes from producers starting coming in.

Essential Reads

Walmart wins this round.  Instagram is preparing to let you add music to your Stories, judging by code found inside its Android app. TechCrunch has more here.  The likely cause of a fatal collision involving one of Uber‘s self-driving cars in Arizona in March centers on software that decides how the cars should react to objects they detect, according to The Information. The software is designed to ignore “false positives” like a bag floating across the street but was reportedly tuned incorrectly. Uber won’t confirm the accuracy of this report, but it just announced that it has hired former NTSB Chair Christopher Hart to advise it on its overall safety culture. Reuters has more here.

Detours

The man who cracked the lottery.  The vaping epidemic in America’s schools.  A look at the newly rediscovered and also dangerous Congressional Review Act.

Retail Therapy

A child tracker that works. (These things only sounds creepy until you lose your kid for what may in reality be tens of seconds but feels agonizingly like an eternity. Not that this has ever happened to us.