• StrictlyVC: November 15, 2016

    Hi, all, hope you’re having a happy Tuesday.:)

    Top News in the A.M.

    Mary Jo White, the head of the SEC, announced yesterday that she’ll step down two years before the end of her term, clearing the way for Donald Trump to reshape the way Wall Street is regulated. What will that mean? Basically, the opposite of the coming crackdown on Silicon Valley startups that we’d foreseen last month. Now, the only thing stopping errant startups will be their investors — and we know how that usually goes.

    The FBI has reportedly signed a contract with Dataminr, a company that sifts through the Twitter newsfeed to identify issues and trends in real time. The Stack, which has the story here, reports that only an estimated 1 percent of tweets are made available to the public through Twitter’s API, but using Dataminr,the FBI will now have access to all messages written on Twitter. (If you aren’t familiar with Dataminr, we talked with CEO Ted Bailey earlier this year about his business.)

    Spark Capital just closed on $1 billion for the first time

    Spark Capital, whose investments have included Twitter and Cruise Automation, has closed on $1 billion in commitments, it revealed yesterday. The 11-year-old firm, which has offices in Boston, San Francisco, and New York, closed its fifth early-stage fund with $400 million, down slightly from the $450 million it had raised for its fourth-early stage fund, which closed in 2013.

    Spark also garnered $600 million in commitments for its second growth fund, just two years after launching its debut growth fund with $375 million in capital. Like a lot of early-stage funds that have raised so-called opportunity funds in recent years, Spark uses the capital to invest in its breakout portfolio companies. Among the startups it has funded are the Brazilian real estate portal VivaReal and the automated investing platform Wealthfront.

    Spark has enjoyed a string of hits in its relatively short existence. Among its exits: headset maker Oculus was sold to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014; Twitter went public in 2013; Wayfair, an online home furnishings company went public in 2014; and the autonomous driving tech startup Cruise Automation sold earlier this year to General Motors for a reported $1 billion.

    The firm also holds stakes in the highly valued messaging service Slack and the still-private eyeglasses retailer Warby Parker.

    Spark is among a growing spate of early-stage venture funds that are suddenly managing far more money than they ever had previously. Other firms that have raised significantly higher amounts than in past years include Forerunner Ventures, a young, San Francisco-based firm that focuses primarily on e-commerce opportunities and has raised at least $122 million this year, up from its last, $75 million fund; and decades-old Accel Partners, which closed on $2 billion across two new funds earlier this year, up from two funds that totaled $1.45 billion just three years earlier.

    New Fundings

    Ava, a two-year-old, Zurich-based startup that makes fertility-tracking wearable devices, has raised $9.7 million in Series A funding led by Polytech Ventures, with participation from Blue Ocean Ventures, Global Sources, Swisscom, and ZKB. TechCrunch has more here.

    CareCloud, a nearly eight-year-old, Miami, Fl.-based company that makes cloud-based healthcare software for physicians, has raised $31.5 million in Series C funding led by Blue Cloud Ventures, with participation from PNC Financial Services Group and First Data Corporation. Earlier backers Norwest Venture Partners, Intel Capital, Tenaya Capital and Adams Street Partners also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

    eOriginal, a 20-year-old, Baltimore-based software firm whose digital transaction management tools are used in the post-execution of financial asset documents, has raised $26.5 million from the Philadelphia-based private equity firm LLR Partners. More here.

    Genetesis, a three-year-old, Cincinnati, Oh.-based medical device startup that helps physicians detect and characterize cardiac rhythm disorders, has raised $1.2 million in seed financing co-led by CincyTech and Radical Investments. The Cincinnati Enquirer has more here.

    Gluru, a three-year-old, London-based task management platform, has raised $2 million in seed funding from British Sussex Place Ventures, SaatchInvest, Gecad, and Playfair Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

    Kit, a year-old, New York-based company created inside the startup studio Expa, has raised $2.5 million from Social CapitalPrecursor VenturesApril UnderwoodEllen PaoAuthentic VenturesBlack Angel Tech Fund, and Expa. Kit is a site where users can discuss and purchase interesting products that are grouped into kits for all sorts of activities, like, say, vlogging. Users who create “kits” for the benefit of others can also make money through affiliate links (a la Wirecutter). TechCrunch has more here.

    Logz.io, a two-year-old Israel-based startup that aims to simplify log analysis by using machine-learning algorithms to predict critical events, has raised $16 million in Series B funding led by OpenView, with participation from 83Northand Giza Venture Capital. SiliconAngle has more here.

    MacroPoint, a seven-year-old, Cleveland, Oh.-based company that makes automated location tracking software, just raised $44 million in funding from Susquehanna Growth Equity. More here.

    Midaxo, a five-year-old, Helsinki, Finland-based company that makes mergers and acquisitions software, has raised $4 million in Series A funding co-led by EOC Capital and Finnish Industry Investments. FinSMEs has more here.

    Musement, a four-year-old, Milan, Italy-based company that provides information and ticketing services pertaining to museums, archaeological sites, and opera theaters around the world, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by the family fund Micheli Associati, with participation from P101, and 360 Capital Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

    Orbital Shift, a seven-year-old, Missoula, Mt.-based workforce management software company, has raised $1.25 million in funding led by Next Frontier Capital, with participation from unnamed angel investors. More here.

    PlaySimple Games, a two-year-old, Bangalore, India-based mobile social gaming startup, has raised $4 million in Series A funding co-led by SAIF Partners and earlier backer IDG Ventures India. LiveMint has more here.

    Procurify, a four-year-old Vancouver, Canada-based maker of cloud-based procurement software, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Runa Capital, with participation from Point Nine Capital, Nexus Venture Partnersand the Business Development Bank of Canada. TechCrunch has more here.

    Prynt, a 2.5.-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that builds printers for smartphone cases, raised $7 million in Series A funding led by GGV Capital. More here.

    Sauce Labs, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based company that makes cloud-based testing software for mobile and web applications, has raised $70 million in funding from Centerview Capital Technology, Institutional Venture Partners, and Adams Street Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

    Siemplify, a year-old, New York-based online information security platform, has raised $10 million in funding led by 83North and G20 Ventures, with participation from a couple of investors. More here.

    xAd, a seven-year-old, New York City-based location marketing and advertising platform, raised $42.5 million in Series E funding. Eminence Capital led the round, with participation from W Capital, Institutional Venture Partners, and Emergence Capital. Part of the new capital is being used to buy WeatherBug, a weather app. TechCrunch explains why here.

    Zefo, a year-old, Bangalore, India-based refurbished furniture marketplace, has raised roughly $5.9 million in funding led by Sequoia India, with participation from Beenext and Helion Ventures. The Tech Portal has more here.

    New Funds

    Boldstart Ventures started off with $1 million in 2010 as a kind of experiment. Could a New York-based outfit find enough seed-stage, enterprise-focused, East Coast opportunities to rationalize a bigger fund? The answer, seemingly, is yes. Boldstart, founded by longtime VC Ed Sim (who’d spent the previous decade-plus an investor with Dawntreader Ventures), just closed its third fund with $47 million. That’s $30 million more than the $17 million Boldstart had raised for its second fund in 2013, says Sim, who now works alongside general partner Eliot Durbin. The two have also more recently brought in Work Market cofounder Jeff Leventhal as a venture partner. More here.

    IPOs

    Trivago, an 11-year-old, Düsseldorf, Germany-based online hotel search aggregator, has revealed plans to raise up to  $400 million in an public offering on Nasdaq. Skift has more here.

    Exits

    Estee Lauder is buying Too Faced, an Irvine, Ca.-based makeup brand that’s backed by General Atlantic, for about $1.45 billion. Bloomberg has more here.

    GE Digital has acquired Wise.io, a machine-learning powered service that helps businesses find patterns and trends in their vast data stores. The companies aren’t disclosing terms of the deal. Wise.io had raised $3.6 million. It also participated in the Alchemist Accelerator and Citrix Startup Accelerator programs. TechCrunch has more here.

    Hulu has bought the assets The Video Genome Project (The VGP), a three-year-old, Santa Monica-based company that maintains one of the largest structured databases of video content. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, and Hulu says only a small team from The VGP will join the company. The VGP was backed by Segal Group Limited. TechCrunch has the story here.

    People

    America’s biggest pension fund just revealed what it pays its PE managers.

    Data

    The law firm Fenwick & West quietly released its third-quarter venture capital survey this past Friday, and its findings aren’t exactly shocking. At the same time, they hint at problems to come for some startups. More here.

    The gender pay gap by tech job, courtesy of Glassdoor.

    Essential Reads

    Apple is reportedly exploring Google Glass-like augmented reality digital glasses that connect wirelessly to iPhones, as it comes under pressure to deliver new products. Bloomberg has the scoop here.

    BuzzFeed’s sources say that a group of Facebook engineers has formed an unofficial task force to review company’s role in promoting fake news, despite CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s public stance that the concern is vastly overblown. More here.

    Uber might have the last laugh over China. Here’s why.

    Detours

    The spy who added me on LinkedIn.

    Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wows in opera debut.

    Retail Therapy

    French Toast Double Brown Ale. It’s what’s for breakfast if you’re still trying to get over this election. (We’re kidding! Okay, not really. We promise we’ll stop soon.)

  • StrictlyVC: November 14, 2016

    Hi, everyone, hope you had a great weekend. We’re still depressed, but Dave Chapelle’s monologue on SNL this past weekend helped a little bit.:)

    Top News in the A.M.

    Samsung is increasing its focus on the connected car after the Korean firm announced plans to acquire auto and audio product maker Harman in an all cash deal worth $8 billion. TechCrunch has more here.

    Siemens is buying Mentor Graphics for $4.5 billion in cash — its second acquisition focusing on software for semiconductor design this year. Fortune has more here.

    Noodling the Future of Urbanization

    For roughly a year, Niko Bonatsos, a managing director at the venture firm General Catalyst Partners, didn’t make a single investment. He was meeting with startups daily, as it’s his job to do. But Bonatsos, who steered General Catalyst to Snapchat in 2012, was finding it hard to be inspired by what he was saw.

    That changed in September, says Bonatsos, who has spent recent months spending half his time focused on the question of what urban centers are going to look like in the coming decades. On a recent afternoon in San Francisco, we sat down with Bonatsos to talk about it. Our chat has been edited for length.

    You see a lot of space being freed up, or repurposed, thanks to companies like Uber, which may make parking structures redundant, and Airbnb, which is beginning to put two- and three-star hotels out of business. As an investor, where do you see the opportunities as this shift takes place?

    There are two buckets. The first is in helping cities to run more efficiently, and this is anything that’s happening in the background that you don’t notice until it breaks down – water management, parking, safety, energy stuff.

    The second bucket is more consumer-facing, meaning products and services that make life better, easier, and more convenient for inhabitants of dense cites. Think of marketplaces to find roommates, or startups that can help you find physical storage, or hyper-local news that helps you understand what’s happening in the world around you.

    How long do you think the transition will take? And do you think the buildings will be the same as today or new?

    I think it will take ten to twenty years. And it feels to me that in the Western World, if you and I were to find ourselves in downtown San Francisco 30 years from now, most the buildings would be the same. I don’t see a lot of new inventory coming in. But buildings will need to be repurposed. [In addition to Uber and Airbnb], if Amazon continues to eat up [more of our discretionary spending], what’s going to happen to all the department stores? If self-driving happens, what does that mean for streets and parking lots?

    What do you think the implications of self-driving will be for city centers?

    I don’t know if whether self-driving cars, when they happen 10 or 25 years down the road, will mean that cities will be more dense or not. You could argue it either way. The cost of transportation will go to zero, and it will be become either entertaining or productive for you to commute.

    There may also be a consumer preference component, where the introverts are going to find themselves living in the suburbs, and the extroverts will be hanging out in downtown areas.

    More here.

    New Fundings

    Active AI, a year-old, Singapore-based startup whose chatbot helps banks interact with their customers, has raised $3 million in funding from IDG Ventures India and Kalaari Capital. Tech in Asia has more here.

    ElasticRun, a 1.5-year-old, Pune, India-based startup building a “next generation technology that will empower the e-commerce and distribution industry of India,” has raised $2 million in seed funding from Kalaari Capitaland Norwest Venture Partners. Tech in Asia has more here.

    Intent Solutions, a two-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based creator of a medication dispenser, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from undisclosed investors. More here.

    Nutmeg, a six-year-old, London-based online investment management service, has raised £30 million ($37.5 million) in new funding led by the Hong Kong-based independent financial advisory firm Convoy, with participation from earlier backers Schroders, Balderton Capital, Pentech, Armada Investment Group, and Nigel Wray. TechCrunch has more here.

    PERQ, a 15-year-old, Indianapolis, Ia.-based marketing and ad tech company, has raised $1.7 million in funding from 4G Ventures. Xconomy has more here.

    Quantopian, a five-year-old, Boston-based online platform that strives to turn anyone into a successful quantitative analyst, has raised $25 million in Series C funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Point72 Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and Spark Capital. VentureBeat has more here.

    Roofstock, a year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based online marketplace for single family rentals, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Khosla Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Nyca Partners, QED Investors, and SV Angel. More here.

    Talent Garden, a five-year-old, Milan, Italy-based co-working space company, has raised €12 million ($13 million) in funding from investors including Endeavor Catalyst, 500 Startups and Italy’s largest investment bank, Tamburi Investment Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

    Vacasa, a seven-year-old, Portland, Ore. tech-enabled vacation rental platform, has raised $5 million in funding from Assurant, a risk management provider. The capital brings the company’s Series A round to $40 million. More here.

    Zugata, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup whose software automatically figures out who employees work with most, then helps them gather feedback from each other without involving managers or HR departments, has raised $7 million in Series A from Canaan Partners, General Catalyst and Redpoint Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

    New Funds

    Homestead Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm that’s focused on acquiring diversified farmland assets in the U.S, has raised $400 million for its new fund, just 15 months after closing its debut fund with $173 million. The firm currently owns a portfolio of farms across 11 states that produce 16 different crops. The WSJ has more here.

    Long Hill Capital Management, a Shanghai, China-based venture capital firm, has closed its inaugural fund with $125 million in commitments. Long Hill is managed by Xiaodong Jiang and Bo Jiang, who previously led the China investing practice for New Enterprise Associates. Their firm invests in early-stage healthcare and consumer services companies based in China. More here.

    People

    Bob Grady, a well-regarded longtime venture capitalist and private equity investor who has been splitting his time in recent years between homes in Wyoming and San Francisco, is reportedly on Trump’s short list for either Energy Secretary or Interior Secretary.

    Wall Street veteran and former Citigroup CFO Sallie Krawcheck — currently the CEO and cofounder of Ellevest — tries arguing why Donald Trump’s presidency may ultimately be one of the best thing for feminism.

    Geoff Lewis, a partner at Peter Thiel’s venture firm Founders Fund, broke with Thiel yesterday, writing in a blog post that he’s fearful of Donald Trump’s presidency and that he thinks the technology industry bears some of the blame for Trump’s rise. Bloomberg has more here.

    On Saturday, “Silicon Valley” stars Kumail Nanjiani and Thomas Middleditchreported on Twitter that they’d been harassed and invited “outside” by two twentysomethings over their public opposition to Trump. The Washington Post has more here.

    Essential Reads

    In a dramatic about-face, Airbnb says it is ready to police its San Francisco hosts, taking actions it has long resisted as invasive, unrealistic or unwieldy.

    The reviews of Apple‘s new MacBook Pro are in. The verdict? Meh.

    Gizmodo claims Facebook chose not to take steps to suppress fake news earlier this year because it would have “disproportionately impacted right-wing news sites by downgrading or removing that content from people’s feeds.” More here.

    Donald Trump “will be condemned for his recklessness, ignorance and incompetence” if he imposes tariffs, says a Communist party-controlled newspaper. The Guardian has more here.

    Detours

    Centuries of preserved shipwrecks, found in the Black Sea. (H/T: FiveThirtyEight.)

    New photos of the house where the Obamas plan to spend the next several years.

    Rest in peace, Gwen Ifill. You will be missed.

    Retail Therapy

    Artist Residence, for when you’re finally ready to write that novel.

  • StrictlyVC: November 11, 2016

    Hi! Happy Friday, everyone, and a giant thank you to those of you who are veterans or who count veterans in your family. We so greatly appreciate your service.

    Top News in the A.M.

    Alibaba says its Singles Day promotion yesterday smashed its previous sales record, and that it recorded a stunning $15 billion 20 hours into the event.

    Yep, 2016 Will See the Fewest IPOs since 2009

    While September might have been a good month for IPOs, things have slowed down considerably again, and don’t expect that to change before the first quarter of 2017. The last six weeks of the year are typically slow. There’s also the black swan outcome of the U.S. presidential election to factor into the picture.

    What that means: 2016 will likely see as few IPOs as 2009 — there’s just too much ground to make up at this point.

    New Pitchbook numbers underscore the point. In the first three quarters of this year, just $7.24 billion was raised across 49 public offerings — declines of 49 percent and 48 percent, respectively, over the first three quarters of 2015. And that’s taking both PE-backed and VC-backed companies into account. Breaking things down further, just $2 billion was raised across 31 venture-backed IPOs.

    Also, the first time since 2008, not a single IPO raised more than $250 million for the issuer, notes Pitchbook. That largely owes to smaller floats. As IPO pro Lise Buyer noted when we chatted with her last month, it “used to be that you sold 10 to 20 percent of your shares in an IPO, but . . . valuations are low, so companies are smart to take advantage of the [demand created from] limited supply.”

    As for so-called unicorns — of which there ostensibly remain roughly 200 — just two made it out the door this year: Nutanix and Twilio.

    So what happens next? It’s hard to know. Most companies take advantage of the ability to file confidentially, which allows them to get the process started without alerting their competitors to their numbers. We may see a healthy number of offerings in the first quarter; we might not.

    Of course, even those that may have been prepping public offerings could push them off for now while the markets adjust to the new U.S. president. As you might have noticed, while most of the market rose yesterday, tech stocks have been crumbling over apparent concerns about the impact the incoming administration will have on trade overseas.

    You can find Pitchbook’s newest numbers here, if you’d like to read more.

    New Fundings

    CureVac, a 16-year-old, Germany-based biopharmaceutical company that’s developing immunotherapies for the treatment of prostate cancer and non-small cell lung cancer, has raised $29.5 million in funding led by new investorsBaden-Württembergische Versorgungsanstalt für Ärzte, Zahnärzte und Tierärzte and Landeskreditbank Baden-Württemberg. More here.

    CurrencyFair, a seven-year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based peer-to-peer currency exchange marketplace, has raised €8 million ($8.8 million) in funding led by earlier backers Octopus Ventures and Frontline Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

    Heureka Software, a two-year-old, Cleveland, Oh.-based analytics company that gives organizations the ability to extract intelligence from dark data, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from the venture development organization JumpStart and local angel investors. More here.

    Intuity Medical, a 14-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company that makes blood glucose monitoring systems for diabetes management, has raised $40 million led by PTV Healthcare Capital, with participation from Luther King Capital Management, Accuitive Medical Ventures, Investor Growth Capital, U.S. Venture Partners, Venrock, and Versant Ventures. MobiHealthNews has more here.

    PillDrill, a three-year-old, Las Vegas-based startup behind a medication tracking system, has raised $3 million in seed funding from unnamed angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

    ReVision Optics, a 20-year-old, Lake Forest, Ca.-based company behind an implantable presbyopia-correcting corneal inlay technology, has raised $32 million in funding led by JJDC, with participation from earlier backers Canaan Partners, Domain Associates, InterWest Partners and ProQuest Investments. More here.

    Singular, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based marketing analytics company, has raised $15 million in Series A funding from KDWC, Translink Capital, Telstra Ventures, and earlier backer General Catalyst Partners. Globes has more here.

    Exits

    Authorea, a 4.5-year-old, New York-based online collaborative platform for researchers, has acquired The Winnower, a two-year-old, bootstrapped research publisher that offers advanced publishing tools to individual authors. No financial terms were disclosed. According to CrunchBase, Authorea has raised $2.25 million from Lux Capital, the Knight Foundation, ff Venture Capital and New York Angels. More here.

    Facebook has purchased CrowdTangle, a four-year-old, Baltimore, Md.-based tool that publishers use to track how content spreads around the web. Terms aren’t being disclosed. According to CrunchBase, CrowdTangle had raised $2.2 million from a host of investors, including Advancit Capital, Betaworks, and BoxGroup. More here.

    People

    Brendan Hannigan has joined Polaris Partners as a New York-based venture partner focusing on security, cloud and SaaS companies. Hannigan spent more than four years as a general manager at IBM previously.

    Last night, Fox News reported that Grubhub CEO Matt Maloney had asked employees who had voted for Trump to resign, but there’s no evidence to support that claim.

    Rob May has joined Pillar Companies, a Boston-based venture firm, as a partner. May previously cofounded Backupify, where he was CEO until it was acquired in late 2014.

    Peter Thiel is reportedly joining Donald Trump’s transition team, and according to a tidbit just leaked to reporter Dan Primack, Thiel is already suggesting that Trump consider Rex TibbensCOO of Lyft, as U.S. Transportation Secretary. We will admit that our first reaction to this possibility was: Gross. Barf. More cronyism. (Lyft is backed by Thiel’s Founder Fund.) But the general idea is an interesting one. Tibbens was previously a VP at Amazon where, according to his LinkedIn bio, he led the technical and product development of Prime Now, Amazon’s one-hour delivery service. He also spent some time in logistics at Dell.

    A 21-year-old Thiel Fellow is dropping out of the program and returning the $100,000 grant he was given, citing Thiel’s help in Trump’s election win. Says Cosmo Scharf, the young founder, ” . . . the free money is not worth having that on my conscience every few months when a wire transfer comes through my bank account.”

    Amid reports that Facebook greatly impacted the U.S. election outcome owing to the filters it uses and the fake news that users discovered on the platform, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is saying that “the idea that fake news on Facebook, which is a very small amount of the content, influenced the election in any way… is a pretty crazy idea.” More here.

    Essential Reads

    Amazon has to refund parents for their kids’ “accidental” in-app purchases, a federal judge decided yesterday.

    Yikes. Carnegie Mellon researchers just showed how commercial-grade facial recognition software can be tricked into identifying the wrong person 100 percent of the time.

    Detours

    Seattle Seahawks linebacker Cassius Marsh may not look like a nerd, but “I’m a nerd,” he told the Washington Post while searching for his stolen “Magic: The Gathering” cards.

    Rats are ticklish, too.

    “This is what it feels like when America’s made great again.” (Funny, poignant stuff from Stephen Colbert.)

    Retail Therapy

    We’re putting this one on our Christmas list. (It’s legal here now in California, and given this week, we think Santa will understand.)

  • StrictlyVC: November 10, 2016

    Hi, all, happy Thursday.:)

    Top News in the A.M.

    Why a Trump administration is expected to dismantle net neutrality.

    And expand government surveillance.

    Here are numerous other tech policies that Trump promised to implement as president.

    Peter Thiel’s Big Gamble

    Peter Thiel should rightly be admired for sometimes seeing what many others cannot. He understood the power of online money transfers well before most traditional financial institutions. He wrote Facebook a check when it was little more than an interesting startup from another Harvard dropout. Most recently, he anticipated what few of his peers predicted could possibly come to fruition: a Trump presidency.

    Of course, Thiel more than recognized that Trump’s ascendancy was unstoppable. He spoke out publicly on Trump’s behalf, including in a keynote speech at the Republican National Conventional. He also donated to Trump’s campaign.

    If Trump retreated back to the world of reality television and his real estate dealings after this year’s election, as was widely expected to happen, Silicon Valley and the rest of the business world would eventually forget about Thiel’s ringing endorsement of Trump. As distance grew between Trump’s political aspirations and his ability to initiate global annihilation, the tech community would have been increasingly willing to forgive and forget.

    Instead, Trump is now President-elect of the United States of America. And no matter what your position on that outcome – whether you consider him a genius for acknowledging an angry republic and for cutting his way to the most powerful office in the world virtually single-handedly, or you deem him a shallow narcissist who has repeatedly displayed contempt for for women, minorities, civility, and critical thinking — he is wholly inexperienced as a politician. Things will be said that can’t be unsaid. Mistakes will be made. They will also serve as a persistent reminder of Thiel’s support for Trump.

    More here.

    New Fundings

    Blackmoon Financial Group, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based online lending platform that connects balance sheet lenders with institutional investors looking to purchase new loans, has raised $2.5 million in funding from Target Global, A&NN Group, Flint Capital, and angels. More here.

    Cape Analytics, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company that sells geospatial structured data to the real estate industry, has raised $14 million in funding led by Formation 8, with participation from Data Collective, XL Innovate, Lux Capital, Khosla Ventures, Promus Ventures, and Montage Ventures. More here.

    Crayon, a two-year-old, Boston-based marketing intelligence startup, has raised $3.35 million in seed funding co-led by Founder Collective and Baseline Ventures, with participation from BoxGroup, Converge Venture Partners, and angel investors, including Behance founder Scott Belsky and ex-HubSpot executives Mike Volpe and Yoav Shapira. More here.

    Job Today, a 1.5-year-old, Luxembourg-based app for finding local jobs, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Flint Capital, with participation from earlier backers investors Accel Partners, Mangrove Capital, and Felix Capital, and with the participation of three European media companies: Astremedia, Channel 4, and German Media Pool VC. More here.

    Neo Technology, a nine-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based company whose open source-based “graph database”  can be used to map and discover relationships across various industries and use cases, has raised $36 million in Series D funding from new investor, London-based Greenbridge Partners. The company’s earlier backers also joined the round, including Creandum, Sunstone and Fidelity’s Eight Roads Ventures. More here.

    Rappi, a year-old, Columbia-based on-demand delivery service, has raised $9 million in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Foundation Capital and Redpoint Ventures. More here.

    RiskIQ, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based cyber security company, has raised $30.5 million in Series C funding led by Georgian Partners, with participation from Summit Partners, Battery Ventures, and MassMutual Ventures. More here.

    SentiOne, a five-year-old, Warsaw, Poland-based startup that helps brands track online mentions about their products and services and engage in conversations with customers across the social web, has raised $3.5 million in funding from Venture TFI and Trigon TFI Group. More here.

    Teamleader, a four-year-old, Belgium-based software company that helps companies manage data in their cloud, has raised €10 million ($10.8 million) in Series B funding led by previous backer Fortino Capital. More here.

    Toast, a year-old, Singapore-based startup that helps make cross-border payments easier and cheaper for migrant workers living overseas, has raised $1.5 million in funding led by Aetius Capital, with participation from 1776 and the Australian financial services company Pepper Group. More here.

    Zipline International, a five-year-old, Half Moon Bay, Ca.-based startup that builds drones that drop crucial medical supplies to clinics or hospitals in areas that aren’t accessible by land, has raised $25 million in Series B funding. Visionnaire Ventures led the financing, joined by Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Subtraction Capital and Jerry Yang. More here.

    New Funds

    Material Impact, a 1.5-year-old, Lexington, Ma.-bsed venture firm that aims to invest in small and mid-size “material technologies” in the healthcare and energy sectors, is targeting $100 million for its debut fund, shows an SEC filing. Material Impact was founded by Adam Sharkawy. He was most recently an SVP at The Medicines Co., a publicly traded pharmaceutical company that’s best known for an anti-clotting drug.

    Exits

    Adobe is acquiring the 10-year-old, Emeryville, Ca.-based ad tech company TubeMogul for roughly $540 million net of debt and cash. It’s buying TubeMogul’s outstanding common stock for $14 per share. TubeMogul had gone public in July 2014, surging in its debut before getting walloped by public market investors (alongside shares of other publicly traded ad tech companies). More here.

    Yesterday, Nasty Gal, the retailer founded 10 years ago when founder Sophia Amorusa began by selling vintage fashion items on eBay, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Central District of California. The L.A.-based company has raised $65 million over the years, including from Index Venturesand renowned retail executive Ron Johnson. More here.

    People

    Adam Bain, Twitter’s chief operating officer, plans to leave the company. Anthony Noto, the company’s CFO, will replace him.

    On Twitter this morning, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos congratulated Donald Trump on his win, saying he wishes him “great success in his service to the country.” Smart move. Bezos also owns the Washington Post and the space company Blue Origin. After Trump had attacked the Washington Post as a tax shelter for Bezos during his election campaign, Bezos offered to send Trump into space on one of his rockets.

    Billionaire investor Mark Cuban apparently also feels compelled to change his public stance. Though he called Trump a “superstar liar” during the election, he urged his many Twitter followers yesterday to give Trump a chance.

    One more: Asked his thoughts about the election results, Alphabet chairman and Hillary Clinton supporter Eric Schmidt said at a Dealbook conference today, “I think we should congratulate the next president of the United States. It’s a significant achievement . . . and it’s a pretty amazing story.”

    As for 500 Startups founder Dave McClure, he’s not graciously accepting the outcome of the election. Instead, he had an impassioned “meltdown” over Trump’s win at a tech conference in Lisbon.

    Essential Reads

    The future of big mergers under Trump? Like much else, it’s unclear.

    It’s “Singles Day” in China, and the annual event, pioneered by Alibaba in 2009 to encourage spending, just landed the company $1 billion in sales in the first five minutes in what looks to become a record-breaking sales day.

    Detours

    Regarding your reaction to my gluten-free diet.

    Still feeling lousy? You’ll get over the election in about a week, says one out-of-touch study.

    Retail Therapy

    The best new luxury cars coming to next week’s L.A. auto show.

    Hundreds of pieces from David Bowie’s art collection, which you can buy today.

  • StrictlyVC: November 9, 2016

    Hi, everyone. We know you don’t open StrictlyVC for our political opinion. We’ll just say that we’re stunned like so many others by what happened last night; like a lot of you, we’re still processing it all. (We’ve spent much of the day watching CNN for the first time since this country’s last election.)

    As Hillary Clinton suggested in a concession speech a little earlier today, let’s all of us hope that Donald Trump will be a successful president for all Americans. Forward we go into the great unknown.

    Top News in the A.M.

    Silicon Valley reacts to Trump’s win with disbelief, outrage, fear and . . . a secession plan?

    “He’s a Startup That Disrupted the Establishment”

    Fabrice Grinda, a longtime New Yorker, has helped create hundreds of jobs for Americans and others. Among the companies he has started is OLX, one of the largest free classifieds sites in the world — one that was acquired over time by the African conglomerate Naspers for $250 million.

    Grinda more recently cofounded Beepi, the peer-to-peer used car marketplace based in California; Rebagg, a New York-based platform that buys high-end luxury bags from their owners for cash; and InstaCarro, a Sao Paulo, Brazil-based car-buying service that will buy individuals’ cars for cash in an hour’s time.

    Grinda and longtime business partner, Jose Marin, also plug between $15 million and $20 million of their own capital into startups each year through their joint vehicle, FJ Labs.

    But though he sounds it, Grinda isn’t American. He doesn’t have dual citizenship. He’s “pure French.” He just happened to head to Princeton at age 17, and he hasn’t much wanted to leave the East Coast since.

    So what does this European make of a new U.S. president who has Silicon Valley on edge? Because he’s a global operator and because he doesn’t live in the Bay Area, we talked with Grinda earlier today about President-elect Trump and whether he’s concerned about what comes next.

    How did the U.S. election just change the picture?

    Public market investors, limited partners in venture funds and private equity firms — they don’t like uncertainty. What they don’t know is the actual set of policies coming down the line that could impact them going forward. What will be his tax policy? What will his administration regulate and deregulate? It’s not like [Trump’s team] came forward with a well-thought-out set of policy proposals. It was all kind of vacuous. So I think investors will be more cautious until they understand what a Trump presidency means.

    Do you think it could impact you personally?

    I don’t spend much time thinking about politics. I’m not sure it has a real impact on day-to-day life. It’s a large part of the reason I’m on the Internet. I like its deregulated, fast-moving nature.

    Yet there could easily be consequences. People worry, for example, that for the sake of creating more American jobs, Trump might somehow slow tech, including self-driving technologies.

    There’s no hard data regarding what is going to be done. My only concerns are around the uncertainty.

    What do you make of Trump, the candidate, and soon, the president?

    I dislike the guy. I dislike populism and most of the things he said and much of what he stands for. I’m pro immigration and probably more socially liberally than anyone I know. But look, he’s a startup who has disrupted the establishment. He used a lot of the same tactics that a startup would use to get free press, frankly. He created a story that was compelling enough that he garnered press all the time and so had much lower acquisition costs than the other candidates. Jeb Bush was paying something like $5,000 per voter in the GOP primaries, where Trump was paying about $300.

    In startup terms, he had an effective distribution and a marketing strategy and messaging that people found compelling. I think he proved the adage that any press is good press. And the establishment only realized this was dangerous once it was too late.

    More here.

    New Fundings

    Buster, a four-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based consumer charter bus, limo andd van reservation platform, has raised $1.1 million in funding led by individal investors and earlier backers General Catalyst Partners, Allen & Company, and Priceline veterans Jeff Boyd and Bob Mylod. The company has now raised $3.8 million altogether. More here.
    Castle, a two-year-old, San Francisco company that provides account takeover protection, raised $2 million in seed financing led by First Round Capital, with participation from F-Prime Capital, FundersClub, and numerous angel investors. More here.

    Hired, a four-year-old San Francisco-based career marketplace for tech talent, has raised an additional $30 million in Series C funding that brings the round’s total to $70 million. Investors include The Glenmede Trust and the Ontario Pension Fund. More here.
    Motionsoft, a Rockville, Md.-based maker of gym management and billing software, has raised $6 million in Series C investment from its existing investors, including Route 66 Ventures, Edison Partners, and company co-founders Al Noshirvani and Hossein Noshirvani. More here.

    Square Yards, a three-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based real estate consulting company, has raised $12 million in funding from Reliance Group. More here.

    RetireUp, a four-year-old, Chicago-based company that makes software for retirement income planning, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Annexus Ventures. FinSMES has more here.
    The Wing, a year-old, New York-based multi-purpose space and women’s club, has raised $2.4 million in funding, including from SoulCycle founders Julie Riceand Elizabeth Cutler, Birchbox cofounder Hayley Barna, BBG Ventures, Equinox CEO Harvey Spevak, and investor Steve Case. Forbes has more here.

    Wurk, a year-old, Denver-based startup that helps cannabis businesses comply with regulators, raised $1 million in seed funding from Arcview Group, CanopyBoulder, and Poseidon Asset Management. TechCrunch has more here.

    Exits

    OneLogin, a company that provides identity management in the cloud, is acquiring Sphere Secure Workspace to add mobile device management to its identity-driven security model. Sphere Secure Workspace appears to have raised a nominal amount of seed funding from the cyber security accelerator CyLon. TechCrunch has more here.

    People

    A Baidu vice president who was considered one of the company’s rising stars has resigned after claims by the company he had improper conflicts of interest. Li Mingyuan, who is in his early 30s, led the company’s mobile and cloud business. The WSJ has the story here.

    Two executives have quietly left the chat app company Slack, reports Business Insider. Anne Toth, the company’s head of HR who was also the company’s head of policy, left at the end of September, though her LinkedIn profile has not yet been changed to show her departure or her next gig. Creative Director Mark Lawson has also left after about eight months on the job. More here.

    Silicon Valley’s best-known Donald Trump supporter — Peter Thiel — issued a statement earlier on Trump’s historic win. Business Insider has more here.

    Jobs

    NatureBox, the online delivery service that delivers natural snacks to consumers’ doors, is looking to hire an analyst/chief of staff. The job is in Redwood City, Ca. You can reach out directly to CEO Guatam Gupta, at guatam@naturebox.com.
    Touchdown Ventures, a two-year-old firm that partners with leading corporations to help establish and manage their venture capital programs, is looking to hire a venture capital analyst. The job is in San Francisco.

    Essential Reads

    SoftBank has cut the value of two of its largest startup investments in India – Ola and Snapdeal, writing off a total of $550 million in the value of its shares in the companies. As a result, the valuation of the companies in the domestic market will fall, too. Tech in Asia has more here.

    Walgreens invested about $140 million in Theranos; now it wants that much back in damages.

    Did Donald Trump win because of Facebook?

    Detours

    Clinton’s data-driven campaign relied heavily on an algorithm named Ada. What didn’t it see?

    Retail Therapy

    We are trying all of these as soon as we hit “publish.”

  • StrictlyVC: November 8, 2016

    Election day! We’re excited, we’re optimistic, we’re distracted, we’re nervous. We’ll see what happens! Hope you’re having a happy Tuesday, everyone.:)

    Top News in the A.M.

    What the election could mean for the markets.

    Donald Trump is already suing one county registrar.

    Meet the Famous Guru Helping Startups Battle Bad Press

    To land a press interview with Brogan Bambrogan, the former CTO of the transportation company Hyperloop, who is currently suing the company over breach of fiduciary duty and more, you must first receive the blessing of Sitrick & Company, a 28-year-old, L.A.-based public relations firm whose other clients have included the wearable tech company Jawbone, the board of vegan food startup Hampton Creek, the HR software company Zenefits and, yes, the diagnostics company Theranos.

    It’s easy to appreciate why Bambrogan hired the firm to filter media inquiries. When it comes to handling crisis situations in particular, Sitrick is as well-regarded as they come. Its approach, neatly captured by its tagline, is: “If you don’t tell your story, someone else will tell it for you.”

    “We’ve been in a tricky position a number of times and the thinking [in Silicon Valley] has historically been to ignore [reporters],” says one Bay Area tech founder who has hired the firm but who asked not to be named in this story. “Sitrick takes a very opposite approach. You’re made to get into the trenches and engage. It can be a pain because it takes longer and you’re busy, but in many cases, the story is better and more balanced because of it.”

    At the center of it all is Mike Sitrick, Sitrick & Co.’s 69-year-old founder and chairman, who flies a Gulfstream to far-flung meetings and runs the firm with the help of 14 partners, numerous associates, and what seems like a boundless amount of energy. (Though he suffered from a collapsed lung last year, his office subsequently sent a picture of Sitrick to a concerned New York Post reporter, assuring her that he still starts his morning with 150 push-ups and 150 sit-ups.)

    “He’s usually one of the first people into the office and one of the last out,” says an employee who spent more than a decade with the firm and has since joined another communications outfit so asked not to be named. “It’s such an impulse to say, ‘No comment, I don’t want to be part of a story,’” says this person. “Mike is all about providing context so reporters understand the point of view of the company that Sitrick is advocating for.”

    To make those connections easier, Sitrick & Co. — which employs 50 employees and signs up roughly 250 clients each year — recruits top journalists from esteemed outlets. Among the firm’s current employees are Sallie Hofmeister, a former assistant managing editor at the L.A. Times; Seth Lubove, a former Bloomberg bureau chief in L.A.; and Wendy Tanaka, who was once the Bay Area bureau chief for Forbes.

    Says Sitrick, “I keep hiring journalists because it’s easier to teach them what PR does than teach PR what journalism does.”

    Spinning a yarn

    Some might call what these employees do – putting the best face of hostile takeovers, plant explosions, sexual harassment claims, and earnings disasters, among other things – straight-up spin. In fact, Sitrick authored a book by that title in 1998.

    Yet well-heeled clients — who pay $1,000 an hour, plus a retainer — insist that it works.

    Much more here.

    New Fundings

    Baidu, the 16-year-old, Beijing-based search engine giant, is reportedly looking to raise between $300 million and $500 in new funding for Waimai, its food delivery unit, amid a costly battle with other Chinese internet giants for customers. Bloomberg reports here.

    Beijing Byte Dance Telecommunications, the parent company of the hugely popular, 4.5-year-old news aggregator app Toutiao, is considering raising $1 billion in a new funding round that would value the company at $10 billion, according to the WSJ. More here.
    Electric Jukebox, a two-year-old, London-based music streaming service, has raised £1.5 million (roughly $1.9 million) in Series A funding from a long list of investors, including Yolo Leisure. TechCrunch has more here.

    Feelter, a three-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based retail review company, has raised $2 million in Series A funding led by Will Graylin, the founder of LoopPay. BostInno has more here.
    Fillr, a 1.5-year-old, Melbourne, Australia-based machine learning service that automatically fills out online forms for consumers, has raised roughly $3.9 million (in U.S. dollars) in Series A funding from SoftBank China Capital, Southern Cross Venture Partners and Reinventure. Australia’s Financial Review has more here.

    GuavaPass, a 1.5-year-old, Singapore-based service for finding gyms and fitness classes in Asia and the Middle East, has raised $5 million in new funding led by Vickers Venture Partners, with participation from other, undisclosed participants. TechCrunch has more here.

    Indeni, a six-year-old, Tel Aviv- and Bay Area-based computer networking company that allows network operations teams to conduct preemptive maintenance, has raised $10 million from Sequoia CapitaliAngels, and CIRtech. Globes has more here.

    Joy, a three-year-old, Seattle-based startup whose app aims to make wedding and honeymoon planning easier, has raised $4.5 million in seed capital co-led by Sierra Ventures and Matrix Partners, with participation from Fuel Capital, Liquid 2 Ventures and numerous individuals, including Joe Montana, Zynga founder Mark Pincus, and former TechCrunch editor Alexia Tsotsis.

    Periscope Data, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based company that lets data scientists quickly build customized, detailed visualizations of their data, is raising $25 million in Series B funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Yesterday, TechCrunch mistakenly reported the round’s lead investor was earlier backer DFJ. More here.

    Quantified Care, a three-year-old, Baltimore, Md.-based mobile platform that helps health care providers remotely monitor their patients, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from KiwiVenture Partners. More here.

    Simple Contacts, a year-old, on-demand contact lens prescription app, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Autonomous Venture, with participation from Twitch founder Justin Kan, Cruise Automation cofounder Kyle Vogt, and numerous physicians. The WSJ has more here.

    SmartStudy.com, a two-year-old, Beijing, China-based online education startup that helps students pass language exams, has reportedly raised $30 million in Series B funding from unnamed investors, after securing $10 million in Series A funding from Baidu. China Money Network has more here.
    Tend.ai, a months-old, Bend, Or.-based company whose robotic technology manages 3D printers, has raised $2 million in funding from True Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

    Zafin, a 14-year-old, Vancouver-based maker of relationship banking software, has raised $10 million in funding from Vistara Capital Partners and Beedie Capital Partners. More here.

    New Funds

    To keep promising companies from leaving Europe, the European Commissionannounced plans to day to commit up to 400 million euros ($441 million) to a new venture capital fund-of-fund. The fund will look to support a variety of venture funds that back small businesses and entrepreneurs across Europe. The Financial Times has more here.

    Fresh off the $17.7 billion sale of the cable company their family founded — Cablevision — married couple James and Kristin Dolan have announced the formation of a venture capital firm. Dolan Family Ventures will focus on investments in data, analytics and technology-related business. FierceCable has more here.

    Exits

    Online jeweler Blue Nile is being taken private after trading on Nasdaq for the last dozen years. The Seattle-based retailer, which was originally venture backed, is being acquired by Bain Capital Private Equity and Bow Street for about $500 million in cash. ValueWalk has more here.

    Karhoo, a two-year-old, New York-based startup that aimed to take on Uber by pulling together prices and offerings from competing car services into a single app, is shutting down after running out of money. The company had reportedly raised a whopping $250 million in funding last fall, including from former Sony Music Entertainment CEO Nick Gatfield, and from David Kowitz, the co-founder of hedge fund Indus Capital Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
    Tesla is acquiring Germany’s Grohmann Engineering, which develops automated manufacturing systems for batteries and fuel cells, as Tesla seeks to expand its production more than sixfold by 2018. Tesla is buying a 74.9 percent stake in the company from founder and majority owner Klaus Grohmann, and a further 25.1 percent stake that belongs to the private equity firm Deutsche Beteiligungs. Reuters has more here.

    People

    Docusign cofounder and former CTO Tom Gonser has joined Seven Peaks Ventures, an early-stage Bend, Ore.-based venture capital fund. Gonser left DocuSign in February. GeekWire has more here.

    VC Ben Horowitz is joining Lyft’s board of directors, replacing his fellow partner, Scott Weiss. Horowitz’s venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, first invested in Lyft in 2013 as part of its Series C round, and it participated in Lyft’s following round. It has since sold some of its shares to Prince Al-Waleed and his Kingdom Holding Co. Fortune has more here.
    Denver-based ad tech company Altitude Digital has replaced its CEO and founder Jeremy Ostermiller as it looks to shift from an ad network model to focus more on its tech offering. Business Insider has more here.

    Jobs

    Salesforce is looking for a summer MBA intern for 2017. The role is with the company’s corporate development unit in San Francisco.

    Essential Reads

    Facebook might muscle in on LinkedIn’s recruiting business with ways for business Pages to promote job listings. TechCrunch has more here.

    Snapchat‘s ambition is to be much more than just the app you use to send goofy selfies. It wants to be a leader in augmented reality. Business Insider has more here.

    Twitter might still sell Vine.

    Silicon Valley is putting lipstick on Tesla‘s proposed bid for SolarCity, argues Dealbook.

    Detours

    It’s election night! Here’s how to fix yourself an old-fashioned while you settle in for some poll results.

    Retail Therapy

    Golf ball chillers (for your old-fashioned).

  • StrictlyVC: November 7, 2016

    Hi, everyone, happy Monday!

    The U.S. presidential is finally upon us, after this most surreal election season. (Pheeew.) Here’s the latest from FiveThirtyEight on tomorrow’s election forecast, which shows far higher odds of Hillary Clinton winning. Even still, this is the most wagered-on presidential election ever, according to Reuters. More important, there are 868 fewer voting places than in 2012; if you happen to live in one of these counties and haven’t voted, carve out extra time tomorrow if possible. You may be stuck standing in a very long line.

    Top News in the A.M.

    Soylent just found what it thinks was making people sick: algae.

    Scottish Equity Partners Just Raised One of Europe’s Biggest Funds of 2016

    Scottish Equity Partners (SEP), a 25-year-old, growth-stage venture capital firm, has closed on £260 million ($322 million) in commitments for its fifth fund, in one of the largest capital raises for a European venture firm this year.
    The firm plans to invest the capital mainly in the U.K. and Ireland, but it says investments in companies in other European countries will also be considered. The 45-person firm is now managing more £1 billion in assets across its London, Glasgow and Edinburgh offices.
    Managing director Calum Paterson suggests fundraising wasn’t much changed from past years, despite a challenging economic and political backdrop. Asked about the ripple effects Brexit might have on SEP’s business, he notes they “won’t be known until after negotiations have concluded and, in particular, there’s clarity with regard to access to the single market and the free movement of people.” He adds that SEP is “working closely with our portfolio companies to understand the possible implications and ensure that they have plans in place to mitigate against the risks.”

    SEP hasn’t had a big exit anytime lately, though one of its most valuable bets is reportedly on the cusp of one. According to an October report in Bloomberg, the global travel search business Skyscanner, which was valued at $1.2 billion back in January, is beginning to explore a possible sale or IPO.  The 13-year-old company, based in Edinburgh, is one of few “unicorns” in Scotland; SEP led its Series A round back in 2007.

    More here.

    New Fundings

    Anuvia Plant Nutrients, a 1.5-year-old, Zellwood, Fl.-based plant nutrient company, has raised $23 million in fresh funding led by TPG Alternative & Renewable Technologies, with participation from AIS-JV, Osceola Capital Management, Pontifax AgTech, Florida Opportunity Fund, and Evans Properties. The Orlando Business Journal has more here.

    Bizongo, a two-year-old, Mumbai-based online business-to-business marketplace for packaging products, has raised $3 million in Series A funding led by IDG Ventures, with participation from earlier backer Accel Partners. YourStory has more here.

    Bonobos, the nine-year-old, New York-based e-commerce-driven clothing brand for men, is reportedly looking to raise $100 million in fresh funding at a post-money valuation of $500 million. The company has raised about $127 million to date, including from Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partnersand Nordstrom. VentureBeat has the story here.

    Cohero Health, a four-year-old, New York-based digital health company that helps respiratory patients to engage in their care through through a connected health platform, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Three Leaf Ventures, with participation from Zaffre InvestmentsBioAdvance, GIS Strategic Ventures, Heitkamp & Thumann Group and P5 Health Ventures. More here.

    PetCoach, a two-year-old, Plymouth, Pa.-based startup that connects pet owners with veterinarians, trainers, groomers, and nutritionists, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Comcast Ventures, with participation from Maveron. GeekWire has more here.Periscope Data, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based company that lets data scientists quickly build customized, detailed visualizations of their data, is raising $25 million in Series B funding, according to TechCrunch, whose sources say the company’s pre-funding valuation was $100 million. Earlier backer DFJ is leading the round, says the report. More here.

    Rivigo Services, a two-year-old, New Delhi, India-based surface transport logistics provider, has raised $75 million in funding from the private equity firm Warburg Pincus in exchange for a minority stake in its business. The Economic Times has more here.

    Tailor Brands, a two-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based startup that provides quick and easy logo design and branding, has raised $4 million in Series A funding from Mangrove Capital Partners and Disruptive Technologies. TechCrunch has more here.

    Urban Volt, a two-year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based LED lighting company, has raised €30 million ($33.2 million) in funding from the Swiss private equity firm Susi Partners, according to the The Irish Times. More here.

    Zoox, a two-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based company at work on fully autonomous vehicles, has raised an undisclosed amount of new funding at a $1.55 billion valuation, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Composite Capital, a Hong Kong-based hedge fund that was recently launched by David Ma (previously a partner at Chinese fund manager Hillhouse Capital Group), is among the company’s new backers. More here.

    Exits

    IT security and data-protection firm Sophos has acquired the two-year-old, Cork, Ireland-based cybersecurity start-up Barricade for undisclosed terms. The startup had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from several investors, including Flight VenturesMarc Bell Ventures, and Tribal.vc. The Irish Times has more here.

    People

    Luke Iseman, the head of Y Combinator’s push into hardware has quit, and the famous tech incubator isn’t replacing him. Iseman says not to read too much into his departure, that he’s leaving to focus on being a founder instead. In fact, he tells Bloomberg, he has already been accepted into the winter 2017 YC cohort with his new housing startup.

    Snap cofounders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy will control close to 74 percent of the voting rights after the company’s IPO. Which is a lot.  Bloomberg has more here.

    Magic Leap has yet to release a product, and it quietly lost its top marketing exec, Brian Wallace, last month. Still, it managed to secure yet another glowing profile, this time in Forbes.

    Jobs

    Launch Angels, a group that oversees alumni funds at Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, and MIT, is looking for a managing partner for its University of Pennsylvania alumni venture fund. The job is in Philadelphia.

    Essential Reads

    The billionaire chairman of China’s LeEco says his technology empire is running out of cash. Bloomberg has more here.

    Here’s who Goldman Sachs thinks you should pay attention to this year.

    Alphabet’s investment arm, Google Capital, quietly made an investment in Snapchat parent company, Snap Inc.  The investment was only revealed after Google Capital rebranded itself to CapitalG on Friday and added the Snapchat logo to its portfolio page.

    Uber is doubling down on its second business, UberEats. But UberEats has run into conflict with another new business, UberRush, and both programs have themselves run into resistance from the people running Uber’s core ride-sharing business, especially during peak ride-sharing times at night. The Information reports here.

    Speaking of Uber, at least two investment banks  — JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank — passed on selling shares of Uber to their high-net worth clients — shares eventually sold by other banks in January — because the ride-share company wasn’t willing to provide financial details about its business. Bloomberg has the story here.

    Tesla’s network of Superchargers have so far offered free, unlimited use to drivers of Tesla vehicles, but that was never going to last forever.

    Why is Benedict Cumberbatch so hot?

    Tweaking Kendall Jenner’s Instagram.

    Retail Therapy

    Bomber jackets galore. (Note: not an endorsement.)

  • StrictlyVC: November 4, 2016

    Friday! Hope you have a terrific weekend, everyone!

    —–

    Top News in the A.M

    Google yesterday formally rejected European Union antitrust charges of unfairly promoting its shopping service and blocking rivals in online search advertising. Reuters has more here.

    GoPro‘s stock took a 22 percent nosedive after the company reported dismal earnings. TechCrunch has more here.

    —–

    Cannabis Investor Privateer Holdings Adds Another $40M in Funding

    In just five days, nine states will vote on marijuana legalization measures, so it’s perhaps not a surprise that the five-year-old, Seattle-based marijuana private equity investor Privateer Holdings just raised $40 million in convertible debt from undisclosed investors.

    Cowen and Co. is predicting that within 10 years, legal pot sales will hit $50 billion in the U.S., up from $6 billion today.

    In an interview yesterday with Reuters, Privateer CEO Brendan Kennedy said he’s hoping his firm’s newest round of funding will reach $100 million but that many interested investors are waiting to see what happens this Tuesday. Those who provided the company with that $40 million will receive a 15 percent discount when they get equity in Privateer, he added.

    Privateer has so far raised $122 million altogether. Earlier investors include Founders Fund, which led the company’s $75 million Series B round in March 2015, and Subversive Capital.

    The company, which primarily invests in U.S. companies, owns or has stakes in at least three companies, including Leafly, a cannabis website and mobile application centered around user-generated reviews of cannabis strains, products and dispensaries. Another bet is Tilray, a startup that provides pharmaceutical-grade cannabis products to patients, researchers, pharmacies and governments around the world from a $25 million, federally licensed facility in British Columbia. The company is also a major stakeholder in Marley Natural, a cannabis lifestyle brand that makes, among other things, body oil infused with cold-pressed hemp seed oil and Jamaican botanicals. (In 2014, Privateer signed a 30-year licensing deal with the late musician Bob Marley’s family to launch the brand.)

    Privateer Holdings isn’t the only cannabis-focused fund, but it’s among few (so far).

    More here.

    —–

    New Fundings

    Apartment List, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based apartment rental marketplace that claims to feature five percent of listings in the U.S. on its site, is raising $30 million in new funding led by Canaan Partners, with participation from Matrix Partners, Tenaya Capital, Glynn Capital and Thumbtack co-founder Jonathan Swanson. TechCrunch has more here.

    Arex, a two-year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based startup that’s taking a marketplace approach to invoice financing for small and mid-size businesses, has raised €3 million ($3.3 million) in funding led by Finland’s Lifeline Ventures, alongside London’s LocalGlobe and unnamed angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

    Borrowed & Blue, a five-year-old, Charlottesville, Va.-based wedding vendor marketplace, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Foundry Group, with participation from Foxhaven Asset Management, Accomplice, Galvanize Ventures and Service Provider Capital. More here.

    Droit Financial Technologies, a four-year-old, New York-based fintech company whose real-time decision-making engine provides point-of-execution compliance for sales and trading systems at financial institutions, has raised $16 million in Series A funding led by Goldman Sachs, Pivot Investment Partners and Wells Fargo, with participation from DRW. More here.

    Gfresh, a two-year-old, Shanghai-based mobile marketplace and logistics service that helps industry players buy, sell and transport live seafood as efficiently as possible throughout and beyond China, has raised $20 million in Series A funding from Alibaba affiliated Riverhill Fund and Legend Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

    iOmx Therapeutics, an eight-month-old, Martinsried, Germany-based biopharmaceutical company that’s developing cancer therapeutics, has raised €40 million ($44.5 million) in Series A financing funding co-led by MPM Capital and Sofinnova Partners, with participation from Wellington Partners and Merck Ventures. More here.

    Planetary Resources, a six-year-old, Seattle-based asteroid mining startup, has “struck pay dirt” in Luxembourg, reports TechCrunch. The tiny European country is directly investing €12 million in the company, with another €13 million coming from public investment bank SNCI. That comes to $27.7 million, American readers. TechCrunch has more here

    StyleTribute, a three-year-old, Singapore-based consumer-to-consumer marketplace focused on luxury clothing and accessories, has raised $1.1 million in Series A funding from an unnamed European family office and private individuals. Tech in Asia has more here.

    Sunflower Labs, a seven-month-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that wants to build a “home awareness” system that monitors homes beyond the doorway through smart lights and a camera-equipped quadcopter that flies to where the action is(!), has raised $2.1 million led by General Catalyst Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

    Wish, the five-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile shopping app that’s become wildly popular by selling goods for next to nothing, is raising $500 million in new funding, including from Temasek, reports Recode. The company should be valued at more than $3.5 billion but less than $5 billion at the end of this process, the report adds.  More here.

    —-

    New Funds

    KEEN Venture Partners, a new venture capital firm co-founded by former Alcatel-Lucent CEO Ben Verwaayen, has closed a €90 million ($100 million) debut fund to focus on companies with “breakaway momentum” in Europe, with a particular focus on the U.K., the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany. The firm, which will operate from London and Amsterdam, looks to make fairly concentrated bets despite its size. It says it’ll be investing between €5 million to €10 million per company. More here.

    —-

    People

    Steve Ballmer says smartphones strained his relationship with Bill Gates.

    Hedge fund manager Stevie Cohen is rehabilitating his tarnished image by focusing on aiding veterans.

    Elon Musk: It’s only a matter of time before AI takes down the internet.

    Chamath Palihapitiya on the opportunity in India.

    —–

    Jobs

    Route 66 Ventures is looking to add an analyst to its venture capital team. The job is in Old Town Alexandria, just outside of Washington.

    —–

    Essential Reads

    Instacart workers are earning a lot less money after changes to the company’s pay structure — changes CEO Apoorva Mehta told BuzzFeed News are necessary for the company’s continued growth, but that hundreds of vocal Instacart shoppers say are threatening their livelihoods. More here.

    Good news for WeWorkMicrosoft is moving 30 percent of its workforce in New York to co-working spaces to help it better connect with startups, and its doing it through WeWork memberships.

    And ICYMI: Confessions of a tech entrepreneur who lied to his investors.

    —–

    Detours

    2 Trainspotting(!).

    Interview scenarios at famous companies.

    The unlikely new refuge of the megarich.

    Oh, Buzzfeed.

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    Put that in your vaporizer pipe and smoke it.

  • StrictlyVC: November 3, 2016

    Well, our team couldn’t pull off a win last night, but we wholeheartedly agree with Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant, who told an interviewer yesterday that last night’s game was “one of the best games anybody is ever going to watch.” It truly was. And now we return to staring blankly out a window. [Sigh.]

    Hope you’re having a happy Thursday, everyone.:)

    —–

    Top News in the A.M.

    In an earnings call yesterday, Facebook showed Wall Street that even with more than 1 billion users, it can still post blockbuster growth. But one of the main drivers of its expansion will taper off next year, an executive said.

    Yesterday, the Fed signaled plans to hike interest rates next month for the first time this year.

    A court ruled today that any Brexit plan will have to be approved by all U.K. lawmakers, which has potentially changed the outlook for the country’s split with Europe.

    —–

    In Labdoor, Floodgate Sees an E-Commerce Giant in Disguise

    Fish oil. Protein shakes. Vitamin D pills. The packages look alike. Does it matter which you buy? It certainly does, according to Labdoor, a four-year-old, South San Francisco-based startup that tests about 50 supplements and energy drinks each month that it buys off retail shelves, then ranks for consumers.

    What it finds might intrigue you. Vitamin C degrades in water, for example, so any water-based Vitamin C tablets are basically worthless. More than a quarter of fish oil products are rancid on the shelves, even when their expiration date may be two years out. Many protein powders don’t live up to their claims, either. Some are largely composed of amino acids rather than the 100 percent whey protein isolate advertised on the label. Others  contain so much sodium that consumers confuse bloating for muscle mass.

    Why are these things allowed? FDA loopholes, says Labdoor founder and CEO Neil Thanedar, who says that in the case of protein powders, for example, manufacturers need only test the nitrogen content of their product. And to a nitrogen test, amino acids and why protein isolate look the same.

    Thanedar, who studied chemistry and molecular biology at the University of Michigan, seems almost destined to be taking on the $36 billion-dollar-per-year supplements industry. He says his father, Shri, ran testing labs his entire life, and he was intrigued from a young age in the science behind the labs. In fact, though his father had retired by the time Thanedar was graduating from college, he pulled him back into the business. “I decided I wanted to start a lab instead of get a job, so I kind of wrangled him in and we ran it together for three years and now he runs that lab independently” in Michigan, says Thanedar.

    The reason he left to start Labdoor, he says, centers on the work the lab did for supplement companies, many of which looked to sabotage their competitors by sending competing products for testing. “They’d ship stuff and ask what’s wrong with it. We’d see energy drinks with caffeine levels that featured well over 200 milligrams per each two-once shot, or protein products with lead, or fish oil with half as much omega-3 [fatty acids] as companies were claiming.”

    While lucrative, Thanedar saw an opportunity to cater to customers and let them know what, exactly, it is that they’re ingesting.

    Investors are gobbling it up, too. Labdoor just closed on $3.4 million in Series A funding led by Floodgate, with participation from Correlation Ventures, Fyrfly, Zeno Ventures, Heroic VC, and Seabed VC. The company has now raised $6.6 million altogether, including from seed investors Mark Cuban, Rock Health, and Y Combinator. (Labdoor passed through Rock Health and Y Combinator’s accelerator programs in 2012 and 2015, respectively.)

    More here.

    New Fundings

    Atomized, a three-year-old Atlanta, Ga.-based visual content marketing calendar for brands and creative agencies, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding, including from Paul Ollinger, a former West Coast sales VP at Facebook. More here.

    Catchpoint, an eight-year-old, New York-based digital performance analytics platform, has raised $22.5 million in Series C funding led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from earlier backer Battery Ventures. More here.

    Convertr Media, a five-year-old, London-based customer acquisition management company, has raised £3 million ($3.7 million) in Series A funding from Albion Ventures. More here.

    DJiT, the 7.5-year-old, Paris-based startup behind a popular DJ app and, more recently, a hardware device called Mixfader, has raised $2.6 million co-led by XLR Capital and Bpifrance, with participation from individuals who include David Guetta’s manager Jean-Charles Carré and DJ Martin Solveig. TechCrunch has more here.

    The Future Group, a three-year-old, Oslo, Norway-based social entertainment platform that blends virtual interactivity with TV, has raised $20 million in Series C funding from Ferd and Aker ASA, along with dozens of angel investors. Tech.eu has more here.

    German Autolabs, a seven-month-old, Berlin-based startup that’s using AI to develop speech and gesture recognition software to keep drivers safe on the road, has raised €2 million ($2.2 million) in seed funding from Target Partnersand business angels. Tech.eu has more here.

    Gousto, a four-year-old, London-based startup that delivers recipe ingredients to allow users to create meals at home, has raised £10 million ($12.5 million) in new funding from BGF Ventures, Unilever Ventures, MMC Ventures, Angel CoFund, and Barclays. More here.

    Hollar, a year-old, Santa Monica Ca.-based startup offering dollar store-like finds in the form of a mobile app, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, with participation by Comcast VenturesGreycroft Partners, and earlier backers Lightspeed Venture Partners, Index Ventures, Forerunner Ventures, and Pritzker Group. The company has now raised $47.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

    Indio, a five-month-old, San Francisco-based commercial insurance platform for brokers, has raised $2 million in seed funding from New Enterprise Associates, Compound, Merus Capital, 500 Startups, and insurance carrier Hiscox. Insurance Journal has more here.

    ObEN, a 2.5-year-old, Pasadena, Ca.-based developer of artificial intelligence technology to combine a person’s image and voice to create virtual reality and augmented reality experiences, has raised $7.7 million in Series A funding led by CrestValue Capital, with participation from Cybernaut Westlake Partners, Leaguer Venture Investment, Third Wave Digital, Dream Maker Entertainment, CEO Gordon Cheng, Cameron Pace Group China and Idealab. More here.

    Owlet Baby Care, a 3.5-year-old, Lehi, Ut.-based maker of a baby monitor that includes heart rate and oxygen level measurements, has raised $15 million from the National Institutes of Health, Trilogy Equity Partners, the Amazon Alexa Fund, RTP-HC, Capital Integral, Broadway Angels, and earlier backers Eclipse and Eniac. The company has now raised $25 million altogether. More here.

    pi-top, a two-year-old, London-based learn-to-code startup, has raised  £3.5 million ($4.3 million) in Series A funding led by Hambro Perks, with participation from Committed Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

    PlushCare, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based telehealth company that invites patients to be diagnosed, treated, and prescribed medication by U.S. doctors via phone, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by GGV Capital, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Exponent. Vator has more here.

    Recondo, a 10-year-old, Greenwood Village, Co.-based company that makes revenue cycle management software, has raised $16 million in debt and equity. The round was led by Lemhi Ventures, with Bridge Capital serving as the debt partner. More here.

    SatixFy, a four-year-old, Israel-based satellite communications startup that’s designing its own silicon chips, has raised $25 million led by Catalyst CEL Fund. Reuters has more here.

    Silvair, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based smart lighting platform, has raised $12 million in Series A funding from Trigon TFI, Digital GarageCyberAgent Ventures, and New Europe Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

    Zarget, a 1.5-year-old, Walnut, Ca.-based marketing automation platform, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia India, with participation from earlier backers Accel Partners and Matrix Partners. VentureBeat has more here.

    Zipongo, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based personalized digital nutrition platform, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led by Mayfield, with participation from Excel Venture Management.The company has now raised $28 million altogether. More here.

    —–

    New Fundings

    Jubilee Capital Management, a year-old, Singapore-based cross-border venture firm that looks for deals in the U.S., China, and Asia Pacific, has held a first close of $30 million on a fund that is targeting $100 million. DealStreetAsia has more here.

    Relay Ventures, a 10-year-old, Toronto- and Menlo Park, Ca.-based early-stage venture firm, has closed its third fund with $150 million in commitments. It had closed its previous fund with the same amount in 2012. We have more here for you over at TechCrunch.

    —-

    Exits

    Rocket Internet-backed food delivery business Foodpanda is divesting yet more of its international holdings. Today the company announced that it would sell Russian Delivery Club, its operations in Russia, to Mail.Ru Group for $100 million. TechCrunch has more here.

    Intel has made another acquisition to build out its virtual reality strategy and business: the chip giant has acquired a startup called VOKE, which specializes in immersive sports video experiences and counts both Intel and the Sacramento Kings among its investors. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

    —–

    People

    Marvell Technology Group, a Santa Clara-based fabless chip company, plans to cut 900 jobs, from 5,300, and sell off non-core assets in an effort to bring its costs down. The Silicon Valley Business Journal has more here.

    Alphabet chair Eric Schmidt helped early development of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, according to newly released emails from WikiLeaks, suggesting the company could retain close ties to a Clinton White House. The WSJ has more here.

    —–

    Jobs

    SeedInvest, a three-year-old equity crowdfunding platform, is looking to hire a director to lead its venture capital sourcing team in New York. More here.

    —–

    Data

    Amazon’s investment in its own private label products has been paying off, according to new data out today.

    Wing VC digs into the state of the IoT industry, taking a look at the 2335 deals that took place between early 2103 and August to suss out where we are and what’s coming.

    —–

    Essential Reads

    Google‘s “Home” is here, and it wants to kick Amazon’s Echo to the street.

    Stealing a page from Apple, Slack took out a full-page ad in the New York Times to welcome its new competitor, Microsoft.

    Why light bulbs may be the next hacker target.

    —–

    Detours

    Honest diversity in tech report.

    Oh, baby pandas are such little rascals.

    Top designers’ favorite notebooks.

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    Quadsaw. (Can someone explain to us how this thing works?)

  • In Labdoor, Floodgate Sees an E-Commerce Giant in Disguise

    neil_a_01Fish oil. Protein shakes. Vitamin D pills. The packages look alike. Does it matter which you buy? It certainly does, according to Labdoor, a four-year-old, South San Francisco-based startup that tests about 50 supplements and energy drinks each month that it buys off retail shelves, then ranks for consumers.

    What it finds might intrigue you. Vitamin C degrades in water, for example, so any water-based Vitamin C tablets are basically worthless. More than a quarter of fish oil products are rancid on the shelves, even when their expiration date may be two years out. Many protein powders don’t live up to their claims, either. Some are largely composed of amino acids rather than the 100 percent whey protein isolate advertised on the label. Others  contain so much sodium that consumers confuse bloating for muscle mass.

    Why are these things allowed? FDA loopholes, says Labdoor founder and CEO Neil Thanedar, who says that in the case of protein powders, for example, manufacturers need only test the nitrogen content of their product. And to a nitrogen test, amino acids and why protein isolate look the same.

    Thanedar, who studied chemistry and molecular biology at the University of Michigan, seems almost destined to be taking on the $36 billion-dollar-per-year supplements industry. He says his father, Shri, ran testing labs his entire life, and he was intrigued from a young age in the science behind the labs. In fact, though his father had retired by the time Thanedar was graduating from college, he pulled him back into the business. “I decided I wanted to start a lab instead of get a job, so I kind of wrangled him in and we ran it together for three years and now he runs that lab independently” in Michigan, says Thanedar.

    The reason he left to start Labdoor, he says, centers on the work the lab did for supplement companies, many of which looked to sabotage their competitors by sending competing products for testing. “They’d ship stuff and ask what’s wrong with it. We’d see energy drinks with caffeine levels that featured well over 200 milligrams per each two-once shot, or protein products with lead, or fish oil with half as much omega-3 [fatty acids] as companies were claiming.”

    While lucrative, Thanedar saw an opportunity to cater to customers and let them know what, exactly, it is that they’re ingesting.

    Investors are gobbling it up, too. Labdoor just closed on $3.4 million in Series A funding led by Floodgate, with participation from Correlation Ventures, Fyrfly, Zeno Ventures, Heroic VC, and Seabed VC. The company has now raised $6.6 million altogether, including from seed investors Mark Cuban, Rock Health, and Y Combinator. (Labdoor passed through Rock Health and Y Combinator’s accelerator programs in 2012 and 2015, respectively.)

    More here.


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