Woot! It’s Friday. Hope you have a stellar summer weekend, everyone!
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Top News in the A.M.
The New York Department of Financial Services has released a long-anticipated list of proposed rules and regulations for New York-based bitcoin businesses.
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TubeMogul Investor Knows When to Get Out of the Way
When in 2004, college friends of Michael Berolzheimer asked him to invest in their prepared foods company, the former investment banker wrote them a $200,000 check. When that company was acquired for $122 million in 2007, Berolzheimer plowed his roughly $2 million in proceeds into seed-stage investments. By 2011, he’d decided to formalize his process, raising a $7 million fund from friends and family and naming his San Francisco-based firm Bee Ventures.
Today, Berolzheimer has invested in 32 startups, including the video advertising software company TubeMogul, which goes public today. In fact, Berolzheimer was the company’s first investor. He says he was sold on the team after meeting them in 2007 at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, where he was getting his MBA.
Whether TubeMogul is another home run for Berolzheimer remains to be seen. While he believes the eight-year-old startup “has a long way to go in terms of its growth cycle,” institutional investors seem to think otherwise. At least, yesterday morning, TubeMogul revealed that it was dropping its price range from $11 to $13 per share to between $7 and $8 per share. And Scott Sweet, the founder of IPO Boutique, says that “even with that haircut, I’m not sure we have an ‘up’ deal.”
Sweet doesn’t think the company should be going public right now at all, given that the public market performance of ad tech companies has been poor of late. “If this IPO breaks,” Sweet says, “it’ll further tarnish a niche that needs good news. It would be a lose-lose.”
Berolzheimer acknowledges that today — and the coming months — may prove an uphill battle for TubeMogul. “There’s a chance that it gets misunderstood by investors,” he says.
He’s also quick to note that Bee Partners holds stakes in numerous other promising startups. Tradesy, a consignment site, is among them. Bee Partners wrote the company its first check in 2012; in May, it raised a $13 million Series A round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Bee Partners was also the first investor in the aerial robotics platform Skycatch, which raised a $13.2 million Series A round in May that was led by Avalon Ventures and included Google Ventures, ff Ventures, and renowned investor Ram Shriram.
Indiegogo, the global crowdfunding platform, is another of its investments. Bee participated in both the company’s seed and Series A fundings.
I ask Berolzheimer to characterize his firm’s style. “We find opportunities to support the company in any way we can, and if we can’t, we get the heck out of the way.”
He adds, “We’ve had some small wins and a few losses but we’re generally happy with how the portfolio is maturing.” It’s a “starter fund,” he says. “Just like founders, you have to start somewhere.”
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New Fundings
Amcure, a three-year-old, Baden-Württemberg, Germany-based spinoff from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology that develops treatments for metasizing tumors, has raised $6.7 million in Series A funding from a consortium headed by LBBV Venture Capital, reports VentureWire.
Dicom Grid, an eight-year-old, Phoenix, Az.-based healthcare IT company whose platform makes digital medical imaging accessible to medical facilities and physicians, has raised $6 million in funding from earlier investors Canaan Partners, CHL Medical Partners, Mayo Clinic, and numerous individuals. The company has now raised $30.9 million to date, shows Crunchbase.
Dough, a Chicago-based company that encompasses two properties — Tastytrade, which produces online broadcasts aimed at teaching individuals how to trade options, and Dough.com, a mobile platform for options trading and education aimed at millennials — has raised $25 million in new funding from Technology Crossover Ventures. The company had received earlier backing from Lightbank. Crain’s Chicago Business has much more here.
Edico Genome, a 1.5-year-old, San Diego-based genome sequencing analysis company, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Qualcomm, with Axon Ventures and Life Technologies CEO Greg Lucier participating.
Expect Labs, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose MindMeld app app called MindMeld listens to users’ conversations and produces relevant data based on its analysis of those calls, has raised an undisclosed amount of financing from In-Q-Tel. Last year, the company raised another round of funding whose sum it didn’t disclose, from IDG Ventures, Liberty Global Ventures, Samsung Ventures, Intel Capital,Telefonica Ventures, and Google Ventures. The company raised its first, $2.4 million, round in the fall of 2012, including from Greylock Partners, KPG Ventures, and Quest Venture Partners.
FullStory, a months-old, Atlanta-based Web analytics founded by ex-Googlers, has raised $1.2 million in funding from Google Ventures and Tom Noonan, a former CEO of Internet Security Systems. GigaOm has more details.
Health Warrior, a three-year-old, Richmond, Va.-based health food company that sells chia seeds and chia-based snacks, has raised $3.3 million in Series B funding led by New Richmond Ventures, along with a group of professional athletes from the MLB and NFL.
InflaRx, a 6.5-year-old, Jena, Germany-based developer of therapeutics to treat acute and chronic inflammation, has raised a “double digit million Euro” Series B round led by bm|t. FinSMEs has more here.
Jobr, a six-month-old, San Francisco-based mobile job-discovery and matching platform, has raised $2 million in seed funding investors, including Lerer Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Eniac Ventures, Lowercase Capital, The Hive, Tekton Ventures, Structure Capital, Tim Draper, and Fabrice Grinda. As part of the funding, TJ Nahigian, who has worked as an investor at Coatue Management, Accel Partners, and Summit Partners, is joining the company as its new CEO. TechCrunch has more here.
Manzama, a four-year-old, Bend, Or.-based provider of social media listening and monitoring platforms for legal professionals, has raised $1.3 million to expand into new markets. Gold Bench Capital led the Series A round, joined by Seven Peaks Ventures and Cascade Angels.
Sensoria, a four-year-old, Redmond, Wa.-based wearable technology developer, says it has signed a term sheet with the publicly traded consulting company Reply SpA for a Series A investment round of undisclosed size. The company’s products include socks with embedded sensors, as well as sports bras and shirts.
Speaktoit, a nearly four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company that makes a virtual assistant technology, has raised $2.6 million in Series B funding led by Motorola Solutions Venture Capital, with participation from Plug and Play Ventures and earlier investors Intel Capital andAlpine Technology Fund. The company has raised $5.8 million to date, shows Crunchbase.
Trice Medical, a three-year-old, King of Prussia, Pa.-based company whose camera-enabled technologies offer an alternative to X-rays and MRIs, has raised $11.6 million in Series B funding from Safeguard Scientifics and earlier investor BioStar Ventures. The company looks to have raised roughly $15 million to date.
Vision Critical, a 14-year-old, Vancouver-based customer intelligence platform company, has raised $16 million in growth funding from Georgian Partners, Northleaf Venture Catalyst Fund and Kensington Global Private Equity Fund. According to Crunchbase, the firm has raised $42.5 million to date, including from OMERS Ventures and Wellington Financial.
Workspot, a two-year-old, Cupertino, Ca.-based company that provides easy access to enterprise apps and data through a single sign-in, has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding led by Helion Ventures. Translink Capital and Qualcomm Ventures also participated in the round.
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New Funds
Multiplier Capital, a three-year-old venture debt firm with offices in L.A., New York, and Washington, D.C. has raised $227 million for its debut fund, led by anchor investor Liberty Peak Capital. According to the firm, other investors include a college endowment, a publicly traded bank, family offices, and high net worth individuals in the U.S. and Canada.
New Science Ventures, a 10-year-old, New York-based venture fund that backs both early and late-stage companies, has raised $23.8 million as part of a third fund that’s targeting up to $100 million, shows its latest SEC filing. (We first told you about this fund last month.) Svelte Medical Systems, a 6.5-year-old, New Providence, N.J.-based maker of expandable coronary stents, is among its portfolio companies
NextView Ventures, a four-year-old, Boston-based seed-stage investment firm that focuses primarily on East Coast companies, has raised $40 million for its second fund — almost double its $21 million debut fund, closed in 2011. One of firm’s newest portfolio companies is Farmeron, a Columbus, Oh.-based company whose software allows dairy and cattle farmers to update and manage their data online. Boston Business Journal has more here.
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IPOs
Alibaba has reportedly pushed its IPO out to September.
And more on that Line IPO: Japan’s most popular mobile messaging service has reportedly filed confidentially for an IPO in the U.S., taking a step closer to a dual-listing in New York and Tokyo.
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Exits
CardSpring, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based platform that helps developers write applications for credit cards and other types of payments, has been acquired by Twitter for undisclosed terms. The company had raised $10 million, shows Crunchbase. Its investors include Greylock Partners, Accel Partners, Morado Venture Partners, SV Angel, Data Collective, John Hering, Felicis Ventures, and Webb Investment Network.
Citrus Lane, a 3.5-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based e-commerce subscription service that sells products to families with kids, has been acquired by the childcare marketplace company Care.com, which is paying $31 million in cash and stock, with an additional $17.6 million up for grabs dependent on certain milestones being met over the next two years. According to Crunchbase, Citrus Lane had raised $6.6 million from Greylock Partners and GGV Capital. For more on the deal, check outRecode.
Open Scan Technologies, a 16-year-old, Denver-based company that helps companies process complex payments, has been acquired by BillTrust for an undisclosed amount. Open Scan doesn’t appear to have raised venture backing; BillTrust has raised roughly $30 million from Bain Capital Ventures and Edison Partners.
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People
After 17 years, Bill Campbell has stepped off the board of Apple. The one-time Apple executive will be replaced by BlackRock co-founder Sue Wagner. Fortune has much more here.
Google attorney Jack Halprin bought a century-old, seven-unit Victorian in San Francisco last year, then began evicting residents. Now those moves are attracting national attention.
Google announced yesterday that its chief business officer, Nikesh Arora, is leaving the company to become CEO of Softbank Internet and Media. Omid Kordestani, who was Google’s 12th employee and led the sales team for many years before becoming a senior advisor at the company, will take over.
HP has named its CEO, Meg Whitman, as board chairman. She replaces Ralph Whitworth, who stepped down on Tuesday for health reasons.
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Job Postings
Weebly, a New York-based company that lets people create a site, blog or online store (and that raised $35 million from Sequoia Capital and Tencent in April) is looking for a business development manager in New York.
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Data
Why Google is killing it, in two charts.
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Essential Reads
Dear Mr. Murdoch, save yourself 80 billion bucks.
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Detours
What happens if your child has a condition that’s new to science?
Dutch artist Telmo Pieper revives his childhood drawings.
Marvin Gaye singing “I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ a capella.
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Retail Therapy
Go pro with the McLaren 650S.
GoTenna. (You might not need it but you’ll want it.)
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