Hi, everyone. After a very fun Disrupt event (kudos to our colleagues over at TechCrunch), we’re jumping on a plane this morning, so please excuse the hyper-abbreviated newsletter.

Also! If you’re an AngelList junkie and you’d like to learn more about its plans to create venture funds on its platform; what it’s planning for its acquired property Product Hunt; as well as how the company plans to exit, maybe, some day, you can check out our sit-down yesterday with AngelList cofounder Naval Ravikant.

See you back here tomorrow:)

Top News in the A.M.

European Union antitrust regulators fined Facebook $122 million this mornign for providing misleading information during a vetting of its deal to acquire messaging service WhatsApp in 2014. Reuters has more here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Dash: When Norway’s leading value retailer was launching an innovative new insurance portfolio, they partnered with Dash to develop a first-in-market usage-based insurance (UBI) product for drivers. Building on our connected car platform, Chassis, Dash was able to go from concept to launch in six months. Dash’s data allowed the underwriter to model risk algorithms, while our capabilities provided seamless integration between hardware, software and automotive architectures. To learn more about Dash’s enterprise offerings and data marketplace, read “Data is the new nitro” on Techonomy.

A Simple Argument for Co-Living: People Need People

People, people who need people, are the luckiest people in the world.

So go the lyrics of the famous Barbra Streisand song. It was also a theme at a future of cities panel at Disrupt today, where the discussion came back and time again to community as a competitive advantage — particularly when it comes to startups that are trying to shake up the long-staid but quickly evolving $200 trillion real estate industry.

Featuring  Brad Hargreaves, the CEO of the co-living startup called Common; Shruti Merchant, the CEO of a the co-living startup HubHaus that more recently launched in Mountain View, Ca.; and Stonly Baptiste, an investor with a New York-based seed-stage venture firm Urban Us that’s focused on addressing climate change through smarter cities, all three argued the business case for renting rooms at a premium in exchange for amenities that were once found only at hotels. (Think furnishings, weekly cleanings, and commercial-grade WiFi among them.)

Common and HubHaus, for example, are part of a growing spate of companies that don’t acquire buildings but instead act as property managers — Common in New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.; and HubHaus in a dozen California cities.

Merchant said her startup was born of her own experience, living in a seven-bedroom house that had so much energy, an eighth tenant asked to live in the garage.

Hargreaves, who’d earlier cofounded the adult education school General Assembly, said he started Common because he knew that from students and instructors that the housing supply in urban centers is a problem poised to grow even more extreme.

Baptiste, meanwhile, said he has backed another different community home startup, Starcity, in keeping with his interest in backing founders looking to disrupt transportation, built environments, utilities, and other massive industries that are ripe for tech-driven changes.

The three painted a rosy picture of the benefits of co-living — community being first and foremost, given that it’s become a scarce commodity in today’s day and age. Yet moderator Jon Shieber pushed back several times, asking if the lifestyle being sold is really for everyone. How much does the average tenant make in salary, he asked, and do the companies worry that they’re burnishing the already obnoxious stereotype of the wealthy techie?

More here.

New Fundings

Brit + Co, a 5.5-year-old, San Francisco-based digital content business that caters to women, has raised a fresh $15 million in funding led by Verizon Ventures. The company had previously raised $27 million in funding from Intel Capital, Lerer Hippeau, Marissa Mayer and others. More here.

Cheddar, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based live-streamed financial and tech video news site aimed at millennials, has raised $19 million at an $85 million post-money valuation, says Axios. Raine Ventures led the round and was joined by AT&T, Amazon, Altice USA, the New York Stock Exchange, Broadway Video Ventures and earlier investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Comcast Ventures and Ribbit Capital. More here.

The Farmer’s Dog, a two-year-old, Brooklyn, NY-based pet food startup, has raised $8.1 million in Series A fundin led by Shasta Ventures, with participation from earlier investors Forerunner Ventures, Collaborative Fund and SV Angel. More here.

Qupital, a one-year-old Hong Kong-based startup that addresses cash flow issues for SMEs, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by the Hong Kong-London firm MindWorks Ventures and the $130 million Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Slice, a seven-year-old, New York-based pizza-ordering app(?), has raised $15 million in Series B funding. The round was led by GGV Capital, with participation from existing investor Primary Ventures and brings the company’s total funding to $20 million. More here.

Hi, everyone! It’s our last full day in New York, and we’re gearing up to interview AngelList cofounder Naval Ravikant on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt. We’ll be making our way back to San Francisco beginning fairly early tomorrow, but we’ll get something out to you — condensed as it might be. More soon.

Top News in the A.M.

Google is kicking off its annual I/O conference today. You can check out its live stream here.

The market isn’t liking the Trump-Comey turmoil.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Dash: Dash is the world’s leading open connected car platform. When the City of New York wanted to roll out a safe driver initiative, Drive Smart, they partnered with Dash, in conjunction with AllState and the Department of Transportation. By leveraging Dash’s fleet of users, award-winning software, and driver behavior algorithms, the city was able to deliver on its bold vision. The program rewarded safe drivers with insurance discounts, while providing the city with a real-time telematics for the Mayor’s Vision Zero agenda. Read more at Techonomy: “Data is the new nitro.”

Brava Health Braves the Fickle Kitchen Device Market, Bolstered by Fresh Funding

Customers are notoriously fickle when it comes to sophisticated kitchen devices. On the one hand, there’s undoubtedly a market for items that are deemed useful and priced appropriately. Consider, for example, the Anova Precision Cooker, a $145 WiFi- and Bluetooth-enabled device that managed to get its parent company sold to the appliance giant Electrolux in February for $250 million.

On the other, make your device too complicated and expensive, and you get mocked. Yes, Juicero, we’re talking to you.

Brava, a stealth-mode IoT company with plans to create a suite of domestic hardware and software products, would seem to face the same risk. But investors clearly like what it’s cooking up. Indeed, the company — which last year raised $12 million in Series A funding led by the venture firm True Ventures — just raised an undisclosed amount of additional funding that more than doubles that amount.

TPG Growth led the round. Additional investors in the financing include The Rise Fund (which is TPG’s social impact fund), Lightspeed Venture Partners, Next Coast Ventures, Lead Edge Capital, DGNL Ventures, and earlier investors. Some of these include Chris Anderson, who runs the TED conference; Rob Reid, founder of the Rhapsody music service; and Cowboy Ventures’s founder Aileen Lee.

Brava, which now employs 46 people in Redwood City, Ca., is headed by CEO John Pleasants, who has led a number of digital media companies over the last couple of decades, including as co-president of Disney Interactive Media Group, COO of Electronic Arts, CEO of Ticketmaster, and most recently as an EVP at Samsung.

More here.

New Fundings

Appear Here, a four-year-old, London-based marketplace for short-term retail space, has raised $12 million in Series B funding. Octopus Ventures led the round, with participation from Simon Venture Group and earlier backers Balderton, MMC, Meyer Bergman and Playfair Capital. It brings total funding for the company to $21.4 million, according to CrunchBase. TechCrunch has more here.

Converus, a 3.6-year-old, Lehi, Utah, based company whose EyeDetect technology claims to detect deception by scanning the human eye in a non-invasive manner, has raised $4.4 million from 21 investors, shows a new SEC filing. Motherboard wrote an interesting piece about the company last year.

CrowdStrike, a six-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based digital security specialist that aided the D.N.C. in its response to perceived interference by Russia, has raised $100 million in Series D funding funding led by earlier backer Accel Partners. Other participants in the round include CapitalG, Warburg Pincus, March Capital Partners and Telstra. The round, which pegs the company’s valuation at north of $1 billion, brings its total funding to $256 million. The New York Times has more here.

Cue, a seven-year-old, San Diego-based developer of molecular-level, self-tracking health devices, has raised $15.5 million in debt funding, shows a new SEC filing. Earlier investors in the company include Dentsu Ventures, Sherpa Ventures, Leonardo DiCaprio and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, among others. More here.

Fetchr, a five-year-old, Dubai-based delivery business and consumer tech app that means to disrupt shipping by eliminating the need for a traditional address, has raised $41 million in Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates. Other investors in the round include Nokia Growth Partners, Raed Ventures, Iliad Partners, BECO Capital, YBA Kanoo, Venture Souq and Swicorp. More here.

JobTeaser, a nine-year-old, Paris, France-based recruitment platform that’s integrated into more than 200 European universities, has raised €15 million ($16.7 million) in funding led by Alven Capital, with participation from IDinvest and Korelya Capital. More here.

MoBerries, a 1.5-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based AI-driven HR network, has raised €1.8 million (roughly $2 million) in funding. Investors included 42CAP, High-Tech Gründerfonds, Littlerock and several angel investors. More here.

Mode Analytics, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based collaborative analytics platform that aims to help companies improve their ability to use data effectively across the organization, has raised $13 million in Series B funding led by REV Venture Partners. More here.

Neighborly, a two-year old marketplace that connects cities with investors to fund civic projects like schools, parks, and bridges, has raised $25 million in additional funding co-led by 8VC and Emerson Collective. Existing investors including Sound Ventures, Maven Ventures, Bee Partners, and Stanford University also participated in the funding. The company has now raised $35 million altogether. Fortune has more here.

Social Native, a 2.5-year-old, Beverly Hills, Ca.-based marketing and ad tech company, has raised $6.9 million in funding, shows an SEC filing that lists an $8.3 million target. The filing lists 19 investors. The company had previously raised seed funding, including from serial entrepreneur Richard Wolpert and TenOneTen Ventures, shows Crunchbase. More here.

Telr, a four-year-old, Singapore-based payment gateway startup, has raised $3 million in Series B funding from Innovations East. Inc42 has more here.

Tiqets, a three-year-old, Amsterdam-based smartphone app for buying event and museum tickets, has raised $17 million in Series B funding led by HPE Growth Capital. Tech.eu has more here.

New Funds

Honeywell has launched a $100 million corporate venture fund focused on early-stage companies that are a strategic fit for the tech and manufacturing giant. More here.

Exits

Addepar, an eight-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based fintech platform for the investment management market, has acquired AltX, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based intelligence platform that caters to hedge funds. No financial terms were disclosed. Addepar has raised over $60 million in VC funding from firms like Valor Equity Partners and Formation8. AltX had raised at least $20 million from investors, including from Wells Fargo. Financial Planning has more here.

Synlogic, a three-year-old, venture-backed Cambridge, Ma.-based biotech company that’s developing modified bacteria to use as medicine, has sewn up a reverse merger with the shell of a former biotech company called Mirna Therapeutics, that was founded ten years ago in Austin, Tex., and taken public in 2015.  Synlogic had raised just more than $116 million, shows Crunchbase. Xconomy  has more here.

People

Facebook‘s most powerful employees, as seen through a birthday photo.

Elon Musk with the puns on Twitter last night: “What I love about The Boring Company are the low expectations. Nowhere to go but down.”

Twitter cofounder Biz Stone is back at the company after a six-year hiatus.

Jobs

FundersClub, the equity crowdfunding platform, is looking to bring aboard a venture intern from mid-June through August. The job is in San Francisco.

The venture firm Seven Peaks Ventures is also looking for a summer intern. The job is in Bend, Ore.

The Nike Digital Innovation team is looking to hire an innovation director. The job is in Beaverton, Ore.

RingCentral, the publicly traded cloud communications company, is looking to hire a VP of corporate development. The job is in Belmont, Ca.

Essential Reads

Amazon is hiring people to help it break into the multi-billion dollar pharmacy market.

The not-so-secret code that powers robots around the globe.

Bloop. San Francisco is considering legislation that would ban those sidewalk delivery robots.

Detours

The 15 films everyone will be talking about at Cannes.

Behind-the-scenes video of Spicey (is better than the actual SNL sketch).

Chris Rock insists that he can still bomb.

Retail Therapy

Juicero, but for tap water.

Hi, everyone! Hope your Tuesday is off to a great start.

We’re still here at Disrupt in New York, where yesterday we interviewed WeWork CEO Adam Neumann about the company’s funding and valuation (along with its reported plans to stage a big and somewhat controversial secondary sale). You can check it out here.

There’s also a lot worth watching today; you can find the live stream here.

Top News in the A.M.

Snap is snapping back from the nosedive its share price took last week. One big factor: the revelation, made yesterday in an SEC filing, that  Fidelity Management & Research, Coatue Management, and Temasek Holdings are among its newer shareholders. Bloomberg has more here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Dash: According to a recent McKinsey study, the market for automotive data will be worth $750 billion by 2030. As the world’s leading open connected car platform, Dash has a front row seat to driving data from over 150 countries. This data gave Dash early insight into potential issues with Volkswagen’s reported fuel efficiency, leading Ford to reach out to Dash to validate its EPA ratings for the real-world performance of its fleet, as well as competitive benchmarking. To learn more about Dash’s enterprise automotive data marketplace, read “Data is the new nitro” on Techonomy.

AngelList Just Launched Full-Fledged Venture Funds

According to AngelList, the startup funding and recruiting platform, the number of companies being minted continues to far exceed the number of funds that can support them at the Series A and even the seed stage. Meanwhile, angel investors don’t necessarily have enough capital, particularly those who may be respected operators but haven’t yet enjoyed a major liquidity event yet, meaning their wealth continues to be tied up in their companies.

That’s the argument for a new twist on AngelList: Angel Funds, or venture funds for angel investors who will be wholly supported by AngelList on the backend, as well as provided $35 million in funding from AngelList for the initiative, via a second Maiden Lane fund. (The firm’s first Maiden Lane fund was a $25 million vehicle that was similarly created to provide some money to active angels on the platform.)

Not just anyone can create a fund on AngelList — yet. The firm has for a couple of years been quietly testing the idea with investors who AngelList has already tracked and supported and it remains focused on them, seemingly. Indeed, a new spate of so-called deal leads includes serial entrepreneur Rick Marini; social entrepreneur Shiza Shahid; and Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover. (AngelList acquired Product Hunt last year for a reported $20 million and continues to operate it independently for now.)

Either way, creating full-fledged funds is seemingly a natural development for AngelList, which in late 2013 introduced its now-popular Syndicates program that allows angel investors to gather capital from fellow investors and plug it into companies on a deal-by-deal basis.

More here.

New Fundings

Airy3D, a two-year-old, Montreal, Quebec-based 3D computer vision company, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding co-led by CRCM Ventures and R7 Partners. Other participants in the round include WI Harper Group, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, Nautilus Venture Partners and angel investors affiliates of TandemLaunch, a Montreal-based incubator that spun out Airy3D. FinSMEs has more here.

Atavium, year-old, Minnetonka, Mn.-based data management company, has raised $8.65 million in Series A funding co-led by Rally Ventures and Grotech Ventures, with participation from Origin Ventures, Correlation Ventures, Brightstone Venture Capital and G-Bar Ventures.

Genoa Pharmaceuticals, a six-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based biopharmaceutical company, has raised $62 million in Series A funding co-led by F-Prime Capital Partners and Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, with participation from Novo AS, RiverVest Venture Partners, and TPG Biotech. More here.

GrandCanals, a three-year-old, Los Gatos, Ca.-based fulfillment analytics platform, has raised $4.8 million in Series A funding co-led by Cloud Apps Capital Partners and AllMobile Fund. SiliconAngle has more here.

Karamba Security, a two-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based autonomous vehicles cybersecurity provider, has raised $12 million in Series B funding from earlier backers YL Ventures and Fontinalis Partners, with participation from GlenRock Israel, Paladin Capital Group, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, Presidio Ventures, and Asgent. TechCrunch has more here.

LevelUp, a nine-year-old Boston-based open mobile payments network, raised $50 million in funding, including from JPMorgan Chase, US Boston and CentroCredit Bank. CNBC has more here.

Nexla, a year-old, Millbrae, Ca.-based startup that aims to monitor, adapt, and securely move data between companies, has raised $3.5 million in funding led by Blumberg Capital, with participation from Storm Ventures, Engineering Capital and Correlation Ventures. More here.

Nymi, a six-year-old, Toronto, Ontario-based company whose wearable wrist band uses a wearer’s cardiac rhythm as a biometric identifier, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by GII Tech, with participation from earlier backers Relay Ventures and Ignition Partners. We’d talked with company’s president a couple of years ago to better understand what it’s doing. More on the new round here.

Oddup, a two-year-old, Hong Kong-based startup research platform, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by The Times Group, with participation from Moneta Ventures, White Capital, and previous investors 500 Startups and Click Ventures. DealStreetAsia has more here.

OpenGov, a five-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based maker of government performance management technology, has raised $30 million in Series C funding by the Emerson Collective, a social impact organization established by Laurene Powell Jobs. OpenGov has now raised more than $75 million altogether. We talked a couple of weeks ago with CEO Zac Bookman about the lift the company has seen since President Trump was elected to office. More here.

OpenInvest, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based social impact investing platform, raised $3.25 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Abstract Ventures, Wireframe Ventures and SV2. More here.

Razer, a 12-year-old, San Francisco-based gaming company, has raised between $50 million and $100 million from Horizons Ventures in a deal that values the company at close to $2 billion, says TechCrunch. More here.

Symphony, a 2.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based secure messaging app that counts 15 of the world’s biggest banks among its investors and 200,000 paying customers, has raised $63 million in new funding and according to TechCrunch sources, is now valued at more than $1 billion. French bank BNP Paribas led the round, with a majority of earlier shareholders participating, says the company. It has raised $229 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Talent.io, a two-year-old, Paris-based tech hire recruitment platform, has raised $8.8 million from earlier backers Alven Capital and Ventech. TechCrunch has more here.

Happy Monday, everyone! Hope you had a terrific weekend.

We’re just off the stage at TechCrunch’s Disrupt event in New York, where we chatted with investors Stuart Ellman of RRE Ventures, Maha Ibrahim of Canaan Partners, and Amish Jani of FirstMark Capital. (Thank you, each of you.) We touched on a lot of things — from how the Trump administration impacts their work, to sexism in the startup industry, to what happens if Uber fails or falls short of expectations. You can check out our sit-down here.

For a live-stream of the conference, click here.

More tomorrow!:)

Top News in the A.M.

The components of the global cyberattack that seized hundreds of thousands of computer systems last week may be more complex than originally believed, a Trump administration official said yesterday, and experts warn that the effects of the malicious software could linger for some time. In the New York Times.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Dash: Dash is pioneering a data-driven approach to mobility and telematics, optimizing transportation industry operations. Its partners include companies like Ford, Johnson Controls and the Department of Transportation, as well as some of the world’s leading insurance companies. Its consumer products lead the industry, installed by nearly 400,000 drivers in 150 countries and winning awards from the White House and the Department of Energy. Read more: “Data is the new nitro.”

New Fundings

Akonni Biosystems, a 14-year-old, Frederick, Md.-based molecular diagnostics company that develops and manufactures advanced MDx systems, has raised $4 million in bridge financing from earlier investors, which includes the Maryland Venture Fund. More here.

BiomX, a two-year-old, Ness Ziona, Israel-based microbiome therapeutics company, has raised $24 million in Series A funding led by OrbiMed, Johnson & Johnson Innovation and Takeda Ventures, with participation from Seventure Partners, MiraeAsset, SBI Japan-Israel Innovation Fund and other European investors. More here.

Invenia, an 11-year-old, Winnipeg, Manitoba-based machine learning platform that optimizes power grids and reduces harmful emissions, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Zetta Venture Partners. More here.

Mintigo, an eight-year-old San Mateo, Ca.-based enterprise AI platform for marketing and sales, has raised $10 million in funding from Glilot Capital Partners, Sequoia Capital IL, Adams Street Partners, Giza Venture Capital, Maverick Ventures and Vintage Investment Partners. More here.

Protect My Car, a 12-year-old, Clearwater, Fla.-based provider of extended warranty service contracts for vehicles, has raised $7 million in Series C funding from Great White Shark Opportunity Fund. More here.

Scientist.com, a 10-year-od, San Diego, Ca.-based marketplace for outsourced research, has raised $24 million in funding co-led by Boston-based Leerink Transformation Partners and 5AM Ventures. Other participants include Heritage Provider Network, Bootstrap Ventures and Jack Giarraputo. More here.

Terminus, a 2.5-year-old Atlanta, Ga.-based account-based marketing platform, has raised $10.3 million in Series B funding co-led by Atlanta Ventures and Edison Partners, with participation from earlier backers Hyde Park Venture Partners, Arthur Ventures, and Knoll Ventures, and new strategic investors HubSpot, High Alpha, Vine St. Ventures, and individual investors. More here.

WinView, a three-year-old, San Francisco and New York based second-screen live TV sports prediction platform, has raised $12 million in Series B funding. Backers include Graham Holdings Company, Discovery Communications, Ted Leonsis’ Monumental Sports & Entertainment, and LionTree Partners. More here.

New Funds

We told you roughly a year ago that Trae Vassallo, a longtime partner at Kleiner Perkins, who left the firm in 2014, was teaming up with Neil Sequeria, a longtime partner at General Catalyst Partners who left the firm in the fall of 2015. Now, it looks they’re about to take the wraps off their new, early-stage, Palo Alto, Ca.-based venture firm, Defy.vc. While my old colleague Dan Primack had reported long ago that the duo was targeting $150 million, an SEC filing finally surfaced late last week, showing a $125 million target. You can get in touch with them here to learn more.

Silk Ventures, a 1.5-year-old, London-based venture firm that began life as a digital accelerator, has closed its debut fund with $500 million, thanks in part to financial backing from the Chinese government. The firm, which also has offices in Menlo Park, Ca., and Shenzhen, China, is reportedly focused on Series A stage startups, as well as more mature companies, and will center much of its attention on robotics and medtech companies. TechCrunch has more here.

IPOs

QuantGroup, a financial technology company backed by Chinese movie stars, is planning a U.S. IPO that could raise about $200 million, according to Bloomberg, which notes that deal would add to the $1.9 billion in U.S. IPOs from Chinese companies in the past 12 months. QuantGroup operates xyqb.com, which generates and estimates credit ratings using user-provided information, internet and traditional data. More here.

Exits

Apple has paid $200 million for Lattice Data, a company that applies an AI enabled inference engine to take unstructured, “dark” data and turn it into structured (and more usable) information, reports TechCrunch. The deal was closed a couple of weeks ago, says its source, and about 20 engineers have joined the larger company. More here.

People

A judge has ruled that Uber can continue working on its autonomous vehicle technology, but also that former Google employee and Otto founder Anthony Levandowski can no longer work on any projects that involve LiDAR technology. TechCrunch has more here.

Eighteen months after joining General Catalyst as a general partner, Phil Libin, who was previously CEO of Evernote, is no longer with the firm. Instead, Libin is heading up a new “studio” called All Turtles that will back entrepreneurs working in artificial intelligence, reports the Financial Times.

Retired MLB great Derek Jeter on why he started The Player’s Tribune.

Data

On the heels of a disappointing first earnings report for Snap, a new report indicates the company’s trouble attracting new users deepened at the start of the second quarter. According to Sensor Tower’s Store Intelligence data, downloads of Snapchat in April 2017 fell about 16 percent year-over-year on the App Store and Google Play combined. VentureBeat has the story here.

Essential Reads

Why Microsoft may be to blame for the largest ransomeware attacks in internet history.

Seattleites don’t want their city to become like San Francisco, says The Economist.

Detours

How to calculate how fast a plane is flying — while you’re on it.

The ridiculous Not Hotdog app from “Silicon Valley” is real.

Everything we know so far about how Facebook impacts your happiness.

Retail Therapy

New types of pink to drink this summer. Yummers.

Greetings from New York! We love it here. Why have we never lived here?

Short newsletter today. We’re running off to a meeting. Have a great weekend, everyone — see you Monday.:)

Top News in the A.M.

Spotify is expected to go public as a direct listing on the NYSE, possibly in the fourth quarter of this year, says CNBC.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week courtesy of Grand Central Tech. Its message to readers (and founders of budding startups, particularly):

Apply today for the Grand Central Tech Accelerator Program! Join the ranks of some of NYC’s premier startups in the single most comprehensive, entrepreneur-friendly program of its kind. GCT attracts top-tier startups, acquaints them with one another and with industry experts to the mutual benefit of all involved; offers relevant, programming tailored to each company’s specific needs; and then more or less gets out of the way. We do not take equity, we do not charge rent, and we aren’t needlessly disruptive. We only take 20 companies so we can concentrate on adding value as/where it’s needed. Applications are due THIS FRIDAY May 12th; we look forward to seeing yours.

New Fundings

CBien, a four-year-old, French insurtech startup whose digital asset management platform helps users secure and manage personal belongings such heir laptops and smartphones, has raised €8 million ($8.7 million) in second-round funding from earlier backers MAIF, MACIF and 5M Ventures. More here.

Claranet, a 21-year-old, London-based managed hosting group, has raised £80 million ($87.3 million) in funding led by Paris-based Tikehau Capital. More here.

Guardant Health, a four-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based biotech company that sells blood tests to track and potentially detect cancer, has raised a whopping $360 million from investors, bringing its total funding to $550 million. SoftBank led the round, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, OrbiMed, 8VC, “certain funds and accounts” managed by T. Rowe Price, and Temasek, among others. VentureBeat has more here.

Improbable, a five-year-old, London-based startup that has developed a platform for third parties to build vast virtual and simulated worlds, has landed a stratospheric $502 million in funding led by SoftBank, with previous investors Andreessen Horowitz and Horizons Ventures also participating. The company tells TechCrunch the capital is not coming from the $100 million Vision Fund that Softbank is working on closing. More here.

Jinn, a four-year-old, London-based on-demand delivery platform, has raised $10 million in new funding led by the family investment office STE Capital, with participation from Samaipata Ventures and a number of other previous investors. The company has now raised $20 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Pocket Gems, am eight-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of hit mobile games “Episode” and “War Dragons,” has raised $90 million in new funding from earlier investor Tencent Holdings. China’s Tencent previously bought a roughly 20 percent stake in Pocket Gems when it funded the company’s entire $60 million Series B in 2015. The new investment values Pocket Gems at about $500 million, and it brings Tencent’s stake to about 38 percent. The WSJ has more here.

Spring, a three-year-old, New York-based e-commerce startup that sells clothes from 2,000 clothing brands through its mobile app and website, has raised $65 million in new funding led by Fidelity Investments in a round that brings the company’s total funding to $100 million in total. Earlier investors also joined the round, including  Groupe Arnault, Thrive Capital, and Box Group. Recode has more here.

Truepic, a year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based online image and video authenticity platform, has raised $1.75 million in seed funding from numerous individual investors, including former Thomson Financial CEO Jeffrey Partner, and Flip Filipowksi, the cofounder and CEO of Platinum Technology. More here.

Wealthsimple, a three-year-old, Toronto-based robo-advisory firm, has raised  $37 million ($50 million Canadian) in funding from Power Financial, a large financial institution in Canada. Techcrunch has more here.

IPOs

Appian, an 18-year-old, Reston, Va.-based provider of a software development platform, has set its IPO terms, revealing plans to offer 6.25 million at between $11 and $13 per share. In the middle of that range, it would enjoy a market cap o $878 million. The company’s biggest outside shareholders include Novak Biddle Venture Partners (which has a 21.5 percent pre-IPO stake) and New Enterprise Associates (which owns 11.7 percent). More here.

Exits

Subscription-platform Zuora has agreed to buy Leeyo, an eight-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca., company that makes revenue recognition and management software. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Hillary Clinton will be speaking at Recode’s upcoming Code conference.

Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey seems to suggest he left Facebook in part because it didn’t allow him time to cosplay, the practice of dressing up as a character from a movie, book, or video game.

Data

After stunning the world with a record $246 billion of announced outbound takeovers in 2016, Chinese dealmakers are now struggling to cope with tighter capital controls and increasingly wary counterparties, says Bloomberg. Cross-border purchases plunged 67 percent during the first four months of this year, the biggest drop for a comparable period since the depths of the global financial crisis in 2009, according to data compiled by the outlet.

Essential Reads

At Microsoft’s developer conference in Washington this week, gone was the Microsoft whose former CEO, Steve Ballmer, once predicted the iPhone had “no chance; no chance at all.” Instead, Microsoft is embracing a world where the iPhone and Android dominate personal computing. Fast Company has more here.

A judge has denied Uber‘s request to force Waymo‘s case against it into arbitration.The decision hints that the judge’s pending decision on a preliminary injunction that would effectively halt Uber’s self-driving development plans, might not be favorable to Uber. Potentially even worse for Uber, the judge in the civil case has referred the theft claims to the U.S. Attorney for a possible criminal investigation. TechCrunch has more here and here.

Detours

Stephen Colbert on Donald Trump: “The president the United States has come after me and my show . . . I won!”

The Giro d’Italia through the (last 100) years.

These are the cars that people keep the longest.

Retail Therapy

The suddenly ubiquitous fidget spinner (and its real origin story).

Hi, all! Quick mention: we’re racing off the airport this morning, as we gear up for TechCrunch Disrupt NY, taking place this coming Monday through Wednesday.

Note that the newsletter might be a little skimpier than usual for the next week as these shows are very fun and also insanely hectic.

For what it’s worth, TC has an amazing line-up, and it’s live-streaming all interviews (on Facebook, too). Among its many speakers: baseball legend Derek Jeter, singer Pharrell Williams, SoFi’s Michael Cagney, and Tyler Haney of the fast-growing lifestyle brand Outdoor Voices. We’ll also be on stage for a few interviews that we’ll either link to or write about next week, assuming we don’t trip on stage or some other horribleness befalls us. (Heh, ahem.)

More soon — happy Thursday, everyone.:)

Top News in the A.M.

Snap missed analysts’ forecasts by a wide margin in the first three months of this year, it revealed yesterday. Shareholders weren’t happy. CEO Evan Spiegel sounded unconcerned, however.

It’s beginning to look like Uber is facing a very steep uphill battle in the Europe.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week courtesy of Grand Central Tech. Its message to readers (and founders of budding startups, particularly):

Apply today for the Grand Central Tech Accelerator Program! Join the ranks of some of NYC’s premier startups in the single most comprehensive, entrepreneur-friendly program of its kind. GCT attracts top-tier startups, acquaints them with one another and with industry experts to the mutual benefit of all involved; offers relevant, programming tailored to each company’s specific needs; and then more or less gets out of the way. We do not take equity, we do not charge rent, and we aren’t needlessly disruptive. We only take 20 companies so we can concentrate on adding value as/where it’s needed. Applications are due THIS FRIDAY May 12th; we look forward to seeing yours.

Lightspeed’s Co-founders on Their 17-Year-Long ‘Overnight’ Success Story

Lightspeed Venture Partners is having quite a year, between the sale of AppDynamics to Cisco for $3.7 billion on the eve of its IPO (Lightspeed wrote its first check); to the March sale of publicly traded Nimble Storage to Hewlett Packard Enterprise for just north of $1 billion in cash; to the IPO of the enterprise software company MuleSoft in March (the company is now valued at $2.8 billion); to the March IPO of the consumer tech company Snap, which is is valued at more than $20 billion, despite a terrible earnings call earlier today that drove its shares into a nosedive. (Lightspeed famously wrote the company its first check and remains its second largest outside shareholder.)

Other exits look to be coming up fast, too. According to Bloomberg, for example, men’s retailer Bonobos is in talks with Walmart. Meanwhile, the personal styling service Stitch Fix is reportedly weighing an IPO.

Success is nothing new for Lightspeed, though its recent string of hits has certainly helped cement its status as one of Silicon Valley’s most elite firms. To learn a little more about the firm’s earliest days, how exactly it helps startups, and whether it thinks the pace of innovation right now can keep up with the amount of capital flooding the market, investor Semil Shah of the seed-stage firm Haystack sat down with Lightspeed co-founders Ravi Mhatre and Barry Eggers at a StrictlyVC event late last week. You can check out a bit of video from that sit-down below. Here are other outtakes from the conversation that you might find interesting. Their chat has been edited for length and clarity.

SS: When you started Lightspeed, what was the mood like in the Valley?

BE: The year was 1856. [Audience laughs.] It was the early 2000s. We were sort of in the middle of the venture desert, for those of you who were there. We’d gotten out of the bubble, and we were all waiting to see what was next, and it was a long wait. And that’s where we sort of looked around and realized most of the people we’d known who were doing Series A deals had either closed shop or gone through a generational transition or just weren’t around any more and there was a big vacuum for Series A deals. That’s when we said, hey, we need to go and stake out that real estate, so that’s what we did.

SS: You were raising a first-time fund, though you had some venture experience. Presumably that helped?

RM: Barry and I and Peter [Nieh] and Chris [Schaepe] — we’d all known each other to some degree before. We’d all gone to school [at Stanford] around the same time. When we went to fundraise, I remember it was a little scary. We didn’t have a salary. We’d all done a little venture but not a lot. And there wasn’t as much venture capital firm formation as there is now, so we spent a lot of time meeting with LPs and they spent a lot of time looking at the four of us. [They wanted to know that we were] likely to stick together because it takes a long time to build a platform and a brand.

People spent a lot of time trying to figure that out about the four of us. Retrospectively, I’d say, almost 20 years later, [we were a good bet]. All four of us, we’re still working with each other. When we get mad, we might go and wrestle each other. But by and large, we’re working together and [are very much a team].

More here.

New Fundings

Clover Health, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based insurance startup that uses data science for preventative health care, has raised $130 million in new funding from GV and other investors, according to Bloomberg The new round reportedly values the company at $1.2 billion. More here.

Ontruck, a year-old, Madrid-based startup that has built an “on-demand logistics platform” to connect businesses directly with road freight carriers, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Atomico and Idinvest, with participation from earlier investors Point Nine Capital, La Famiglia, and Samaipata Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Sun Basket, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based meal kit startup with a focus on healthful recipes and organic ingredients, has raised $9 million in Series C-2 funding led by Unilever Ventures, with Baseline Ventures and Founders Circle Capital participating. The investment brings the startup’s total funding to $52 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Twiggle, a three-year-old, Tel Aviv-headquartered startup focused on simplifying product searches online, has raised $15 million led by MizMaa Ventures and Korea Investment Partners. The round brings the company’s funding to $33 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Vivid Vision, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based medical technology company applying virtual reality to the field of vision care, has raised $2.2 million dollars in seed funding led by SoftTech VC, with particiipation from The Venture Reality Fund, CRCM Ventures, SOS Ventures, Anorak Ventures, and Liquid 2 Ventures, a seed-stage venture capital firm co-founded by former NFL quarterback Joe Montana. More here.

New Funds

SignalFire, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based investment firm that touts data-focused investing as its competitive edge, has closed on $330 million in commitments across two funds, one of which focuses on seed and early-stage deals, and another that does growth investing. The firm had closed its debut fund with $53 million. The WSJ has more here.

Exits

Verizon is acquiring Straight Path Communications, a publicly traded wireless spectrum holder, for about $3.1 billion, after beating rival AT&T in an intense bidding. Why all the fuss? Because Straight Path holds licenses to use high-frequency radio waves that some engineers think could form the backbone of next-generation networks, explains the WSJ.

Cisco is paying $125 million to acquire MindMeld, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that helps businesses to build conversational interfaces with cloud-based services, the companies announced this morning. MindMeld had raised $15.4 million in financing from GV, Greylock Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Intel Capital, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Craftsy, a seven-year-old, Denver-based online destination for crafting enthusiasts, has sold to Comcast NBCUniversal for undisclosed terms. According to Crunchbase, the company had raised $106 million from investors, including Stripes Group and Adams Street Partners. The Hollywood Reporter has more here.

Google has acquired a 6.5-year-old VR game studio called Owlchemy for undisclosed terms. The company had raised $5 million in seed funding from Capital Factory, Qualcomm Ventures, Colopl VR Fund, HTC and The Venture Reality Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Josh Mandel-Brehm is joining the venture firm Polaris Partners as an entrepreneur-in-residence, Mandel-Brehm previously held various business development and strategy positions at the publicly traded biotech company Biogen.

Data

Good news for VCs: So-called tourist investors — hedge funds, mutual funds, private equity investors — put just $12 billion to work in startups in the first quarter of this year, a decline of 42 percent from the year prior, according to PitchBook Data. More here.

Essential Reads

Uber, already dealing with a litany of crises, could also be facing an exodus of key talent, according to Recode, whose sources say some of the company’s engineers are looking to get out, owing in part to a lawsuit brought by rival Alphabet. More here.

Watch out Nest Labs. Andy Rubin is backing a new, smart camera startup that’s poised to give the Nest Cam a run for its money.

Amazon has apparently been blocking the price-crawling bots of competitors like Wal-Mart, making it difficult, if not impossible, to match the company’s ever-changing prices.

Detours

The Economist interviews Donald Trump, and the transcript is really something else.

According to the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 42 percent of patients seek cosmetic procedures “to look better in selfies.” (!!)

Eek. Borrower fraud in U.S. auto loans is approaching levels seen in mortgages during last decade’s housing bubble, and it could potentially could ripple through the economy.

Retail Therapy

In Toronto, one of the city’s most expensive properties is up for sale. Here’s what $36 million gets you.

Hi, happy Wednesday, readers! What completely surreal times we’re living in suddenly, crickey.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week courtesy of Grand Central Tech. Its message to readers (and founders of budding startups, particularly):

Apply today for the Grand Central Tech Accelerator Program! Join the ranks of some of NYC’s premier startups in the single most comprehensive, entrepreneur-friendly program of its kind. GCT attracts top-tier startups, acquaints them with one another and with industry experts to the mutual benefit of all involved; offers relevant, programming tailored to each company’s specific needs; and then more or less gets out of the way. We do not take equity, we do not charge rent, and we aren’t needlessly disruptive. We only take 20 companies so we can concentrate on adding value as/where it’s needed. Applications are due THIS FRIDAY May 12th; we look forward to seeing yours.

The Three Things One Silicon Valley VC Wants to Hear on Snap’s First Earnings Call Tomorrow

Goodwater Capital, a two-year-old, San Mateo, Calif.-based early-stage venture firm, has been trying to stake out new territory for itself by publishing a steady stream of research and tools that help inform both competing firms and startup founders. One of those pieces of research was a detailed snapshot of the tech company Snap, which Goodwater published in early February, shortly before the company went public. (We wrote about it here.)

Three months later, armed with fresh survey data of 3,000 Americans across the country who Goodwater recently polled using a third-party service, firm co-founder Eric Kim — who isn’t a shareholder — says he’ll be listening for three things on Snap’s very first earnings call tomorrow:

1) Snapchat’s competitive response to Facebook’s steady stream of attacks on its core platform.

“Snapchat’s stories platform has maintained market share over the last six months, but during that same period, Facebook has converted a whole lot of non users into users of its own [stories] platform,” notes Kim. “While Snapchat had and still has 12 percent market share of the story user base, Facebook has now grabbed 14 percent market share,” with Instagram Stories now claiming 200 million daily active users versus Snapchat’s 158 million users.

It matters how Snap plans to respond, of course, because Facebook’s success and Snapchat’s future are more directly correlated than Snap might like. Which raises the second issue that Kim will be focused on, and that is:

2) Snap’s daily active user outlook. 

“The expectation for this quarter is that Snap will add anywhere from seven to nine million users from the previous quarter,” says Kim. What Goodwater sees in its survey data might concern shareholders, however.

“Fifty-nine percent of respondents under age 30 said they use Snapchat, and 81 percent said they use Facebook, so the [two platforms] aren’t mutually exclusive,” he notes. That’s the good news. Here comes the problem:

More here.

New Fundings

Ceres Imaging, a three-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based startup that uses cameras, sensors, and software to pinpoint crop stress in the field for farmers, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Romulus Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Cockroach Labs, a two-year-old, New York-based open-source database service that’s optimized to reduce downtime, has raised $27 million in Series B funding led by Redpoint Ventures, with participation from Benchmark (which led the company’s Series A in 2015), GV, Index Ventures, and FirstMark Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Dropoff, a three-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based on-demand, same-day delivery service for businesses, has raised $8.5 million in Series B funding led by Fulcrum Equity Partners in Atlanta. Other participants in the round include earlier backers Greycroft Partners and Correlation Ventures. The Austin American Statesman has more here.

eRelevance, a nearly four-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based maker of customer marketing automation software, has raised $5.1 million in funding led by Rally Ventures, with participation from Chicago Ventures, Miramar Venture Partners, Martin Investment Holdings, and Capital Factory. Silicon Hills has more here.

G-Banker, a four-year-old, Beijing-based online-to-offline gold-trading platform, has raised $29 million in Series C funding. BOC International led the round and was joined by Guangkong Zhongying Capital, SBCVC, and Radiant Venture Capital. Asian Venture Capital Journal has more here. (Subscription required.)

Gainsight, a 5.5-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based maker of so-called customer success software, has raised $52 million in Series E funding led by earlier backer Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Cisco, along with all of the company’s previous backers. Gainsight has now raised more than $150 million altogether. Forbes has more here.

Hesai, a four-year-old, Shanghai-based developer of LiDAR sensors, has raised $16 million in Series A funding led by Pagoda Investment, with participation from Grains Valley Venture Capital, Jiangmen Venture Capital and LightHouse Capital Management. China Money Network has more here.

Kreditech, a five-year-old, Hamburg, Germany-based company that creates credit ratings and provides finance to people without credit histories, has raised $120 million from PayU, a payments company that’s owned by Naspers and known by some as the “PayPal of emerging markets.” TechCrunch has much more here.

Latch, a three-year-old, New York-based smart lock maker, has added $10 million in addition funding to a previous closed Series A round. The new capital comes from RRE Ventures, with earlier backers participating. The company has now raised $26 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Hi, all happy Tuesday! Is it too early to get excited about another showdown between the Cavs and the Warriors? Because it looks like it’s a’ comin’. [Biceps flex.]

Top News in the A.M.

Benchmark, the storied early-stage venture firm, has added a new general partner, Sarah Tavel, it announced this morning, saying that Tavel’s “career-long desire and commitment to be one of the world’s great venture capitalists” makes her an “ideal addition” to the Benchmark team. Tavel is the first female general partner in the firm’s 22-year history. Much more here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week courtesy of Grand Central Tech. Its message to readers (and founders of budding startups, particularly):

Apply today for the Grand Central Tech Accelerator Program! Join the ranks of some of NYC’s premier startups in the single most comprehensive, entrepreneur-friendly program of its kind. GCT attracts top-tier startups, acquaints them with one another and with industry experts to the mutual benefit of all involved; offers relevant, programming tailored to each company’s specific needs; and then more or less gets out of the way. We do not take equity, we do not charge rent, and we aren’t needlessly disruptive. We only take 20 companies so we can concentrate on adding value as/where it’s needed. Applications are due THIS FRIDAY May 12th; we look forward to seeing yours.

This Venture-Backed Company Just Filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy — to Resolve a Patent Dispute

In the world of venture-funded companies, not much surprises industry observers. Yet a new strategy employed by one privately held company might have founders and venture investors wondering if it’s a maneuver worth replicating.

What happened: The U.S. subsidiary of a venture-backed Berlin-based search optimization company called Searchmetrics just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware.

Why it’s interesting: Sources close to Searchmetrics say the company was forced to file to escape a longstanding battle with venture-backed competitor BrightEdge, based in Menlo Park. Specifically, Searchmetrics alleges that BrightEdge stole its intellectual property, then filed for patents around it. (Searchmetrics says it had patents on its technology in Europe but failed to secure similar patents in the U.S., which created an opening for BrightEdge to exploit.)

Here’s how Searchmetrics’s chief restructuring officer, Wayne Weitz, describes the companies’ rivalry in a letter he submitted to the court today: “One of the [Searchmetrics’s] primary competitors in the U.S. market is BrightEdge Technologies [which] sought to acquire or merge with Searchmetrics in or about October of 2013. During acquisition discussions, BrightEdge became privy to Searchmetrics’ confidential, proprietary, competitive information and business practices, including its business model and growth plans. Ultimately, Searchmetrics and BrightEdge could not agree on terms and the acquisition discussions fell apart.

“Unbeknownst to Searchmetrics, whilst in the midst of the acquisition discussions, BrightEdge developed a campaign to eliminate [Searchmetrics’s] presence in the U.S. market. BrightEdge started by engaging in a smear campaign designed to lure the Debtor’s customers and prospective customers to BrightEdge by making false and disparaging statements about Searchmetrics’s products, and then initiated vexatious, baseless, and prolonged litigation against [Searchmetrics] on two fronts. This Chapter 11 Case was initiated to bring [this litigation] to an expeditious and cost-effective end to permit the Debtor to reorganize, failing which, [Searchmetrics] will be liquidated.”

More here.

New Fundings

Cabify, a 5.5-year-old, Madrid, Spain-based company that’s among the biggest ride-sharing companies in Latin America, Spain and Portugal, has raised $100 million in new funding, according to a Form D SEC filing for Maxi Mobility, as the company is officially called. The money is reportedly part of a total of $500 million that the company hopes to raise in a Series D round.TechCrunch has more here.

Cover, a year-old, L.A.-based technology company that designs and manufactures custom backyard studios, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding from General Catalyst and Khosla Ventures, with participation from Fifty Years, Hyperspeed Ventures, and angel investors (We didn’t realize backyard studios were a thing. Did you know this?) More here.

Donut Media, a two-year-old, L.A.-based digital media company that aims to create viral automotive video content for car enthusiasts, has raised $800,000 in seed funding from Techstars Ventures, 3311 Ventures, Fontinalis Partners and professional driver Ryan Tuerck. More here.

Empower, a year-old, San Francisco-based startup whose app aims to help millennials better manage their finances, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding led by Sequoia Capital. More here.

Finxact, a year-old, Jacksonville, Fla.-based company behind a completely open banking API, has raised $12 million in seed funding, including from Live Oak Ventures. More here.

Freska, a two-year-old, Helsinki, Finland-based on-demand home cleaning service, has raised €2 million in new funding led by Sweden’s Spintop Ventures, with participation from Norway’s Momentum Partners.  TechCrunch has more here.

Grammarly, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that underlines awkward words and phrases in users’ writing and makes suggestions, similar to a feature in Microsoft, has raised a stunning $110 million in funding. General Catalyst led the round, with participation from Breyer Capital, IVP, SignalFire and Spark Capital. Bloomberg has more here.

Podium, a 3.5-year-old, Utah-based enterprise software company specializing in customer review management, has raised $32 million in Series A funding, led by Accel Partners, with participation from GV, Summit Partners, and Y Combinator.(Podium was in YC’s winter 2016 batch). TechCrunch has more here.

Redlock, a two-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based company that works with cloud infrastructure vendors to warn users or fix user errors that could expose their data, has raised $12 million in funding across two previously undisclosed Series A and seed rounds that included participation from Sierra Ventures, Storm Ventures, and Dell Technologies Capital, among others. More here.

Signal Sciences, a three-year-old, Venice Beach, Ca.-based startup that wants to help companies secure their web apps in a modern DevOps context, has raised $15 million in funding led by CRV, with participation from Harrison Medal, Index Ventures and OATV. TechCrunch has more here.

StarLeaf, a nine-year-old, U.K.-based startup that sells cloud-based video and conferencing services to businesses, has raised $40 million in a round that represents its first institutional capital. The financing was co-led by Highland Europe and Grafton Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Tubi TV, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based free streaming TV and movie network, has raised $20 million in funding led by Jump Capital, with participation from Danhua Capital, Cota Capital, and earlier backer Foundation Capital, which had led the company’s Series A round. More here.

Updox, a nine-year-old, Dublin, Oh.-based company that sells communication and document management software to medical practices, physicians, and providers in North America, has raised $12.7M in Series B funding led by TT Capital Partners. Other investors include Tamarind Hill and earlier backer, Rev1 Ventures. More here.

New Funds

Dell said yesterday that it has combined the venture capital operations from its two predecessor companies, computer maker Dell and data storage firm EMC, and that the new unit intends to invest $100 million a year in startups. Reuters has more here.

Peak Ventures, a 2.5-year-old, Utah-based seed-stage venture firm, has closed on $50 million in capital commitments for its second fund, more than double the $23 million it had raised for its debut effort. Investments include local startups Owlet and Homie, as well as the New York-based Nigerian education startup Andela. TechCrunch has more here.

Exits

Coach is buying rival Kate Spade & Co. for $2.4 billion, reports the WSJ. Coach is looking to tap younger consumers amid slowing growth in the handbag market, as women snap up smaller, less expensive purses, as well as seek out aggressively discounted bag in stores and online. More here.

Maple, a prepared food delivery startup that had raised more than $25 million from investors, is ending its operations in New York, the only city it served. TechCrunch has more here.

Media Prima, a Malaysia-listed firm with its hand in print, radio and TV media, announced a deal to acquire new media startup Rev Asia for approximately $24.2 million. Rev Asia was found 17 years ago in Kuala Lumpur and went public on a the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange in 2011. TechCrunch has more here.

The publicly traded streaming music service Pandora is set to sell a big chunk of its business to private equity’s KKR, but it would rather find a buyer, sounds like. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Francisco Riordan, once a lead developer at the San Francisco venture firm Rothenberg Ventures, says he’s the one who exposed the firm’s alleged self-dealing to the SEC. He talks with Bloomberg about a story that TechCrunch first broke last summer. (Our colleague over at TC, Sarah Buhr, wrote more recently on founder Mike Rothenberg’s attempt to keep his firm up and running here.)

Essential Reads

Amazon just unveiled the Echo Show, a WiFi-enabled home device with a seven-inch screen that plays media and responds to voice commands. TechCrunch has more here.

The intense deal making in Silicon Valley in recent years has attracted hordes of investment banks. Now Rothchild and Company is setting up shop in San Francisco, too, says Dealbook.

And this is interesting: According to Bloomberg, China’s contract manufacturers are cutting out the middle man — venture capitalists — and instead seeking out entrepreneurs themselves and building the founders’ designs in hopes of finding the next must-have device.

Detours

Fancy prisons for billionaires (are reshaping New York’s skyline).

Tiffany Trump is heading to Washington.

You will *never* see a better ad for a used car.

Retail Therapy

For the teenage monster in your life.

Hi, welcome back, everyone! Hope you had a lovely weekend.

Huge thanks again to everyone who came to our event last week; you make these really enjoyable for us.:) We finally have pictures posted. You can check them out here.

You can read about our interview with Confide CEO Jon Brod, who kicked off the evening, below. And if you missed it, here’s our interview with The RealReal’s Julie Wainwright, who shared some interesting industry trends, as well as announced that her company is trying to open its first brick-and-mortar store in New York.

Top News in the A.M.

Amazon will completely dominate the voice-controlled speaker market in 2017, according to a new forecast from eMarketer that predicts Amazon will own 70.6 percent of all voice-enabled speaker users in the U.S. this year. In stark contrast, Google Home’s market share will reach just 23.8 percent, suggests eMarketer. TechCrunch has the story here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week courtesy of Grand Central Tech, which asks that readers: Apply today for the Grand Central Tech Accelerator Program! Join the ranks of some of NYC’s premier startups in the single most comprehensive, entrepreneur-friendly program of its kind. GCT attracts top-tier startups, acquaints them with one another and with industry experts to the mutual benefit of all involved; offers relevant, programming tailored to each company’s specific needs; and then more or less gets out of the way. We do not take equity, we do not charge rent, and we aren’t needlessly disruptive. We only take 20 companies so we can concentrate on adding value as/where it’s needed. Applications are due THIS FRIDAY May 12th; we look forward to seeing yours.

Confide CEO Jon Brod on the White House, Bad Press, and What’s Next for His Secure Messaging App

At a recent StrictlyVC event in San Francisco, I sat down with Confide co-founder and president Jon Brod to talk with him about his decidedly topsy-turvy 2017. Though his three-year-old messaging app was the belle of the ball at the start of the year — Wired, The Washington Post and Axios were among others to note it was a hit with frustrated White House staffers — its positive momentum was abruptly thwarted by security researchers who published a report saying the app wasn’t living up to its claims.

It was subsequently reported that Confide had quickly addressed those vulnerabilities. Yet roughly one month later, a separate lawsuit followed, claiming that another of its features isn’t foolproof.

Brod and I discussed that ongoing case. He also talked about the app’s future, which will likely include video (assuming Confide can shake off that suit first). More from our chat below, edited for length.

You worked for the NBA, for Ask Jeeves, for IAC, then you spent four years at AOL, including as the co-founder of AOL Ventures. How did you wind up running a secure messaging app company?

I’d spent four years at AOL in various executive positions. I was going to leave and, serendipitously, Howard Lerman, who’s also the founder and CEO of [the newly public company] Yext, emailed me about wanting to hire someone who used to work with me at AOL. It took many missed phone calls and traded emails before we connected six days later [because we didn’t want to discuss anything sensitive online], and that was sort of the “aha” moment for Confide. So we gathered up some engineers, prototyped Confide, and started the company.

How much funding have you raised?

We initially raised just less than $2 million, including from SV Angel, [investor] David Tisch, GV, [Yelp CEO] Jeremy Stoppelman, WTI and First Round Capital, among others. A year ago, we closed a $1.5 million seed extension round, so [it’s] $3.4 million all in.

How many people use Confide?

You know I’m not going to tell you that. [Laughs.] We don’t give out user numbers, but also, as a confidential messenger service, we actually can’t track a ton of stuff. Almost everything we track is in aggregate and anonymous.

I love Confide, but I turn to it for very specific use cases. On average, how often do people open the app?

There’s this cohort for whom [Confide] is what they use as their everyday [messaging service] and the [daily and monthly active users] on that is fantastic. Then there are people, I guess like you, that, when there are confidential sensitive things, you use Confide, and you use other messenger platforms and email [for other communications]. I use iMessenger all the time, but when it comes to sensitive material, I mean, you’re insane if you’re still using regular text and email.

Speaking of leaks, you had some amazing press earlier this year, with a number of accounts about all the unhappy White House staffers who use Confide. Were you aware that it had taken off in Washington or did you see it in the news?

Here’s how that went down: I got a Confide message in December from a former high school classmate, and he said, “Did you know a lot of Trump’s transition team is using Confide?” And I said, “No, how do you know?” And he said, “They’re contacting me on Confide.”

Not long after, Axios reached out to me and said, “We’re on Confide and we’re noticing a stream of GOP political operatives coming on to the system and we’d love to talk with you about it.” So I do that interview, [Axios co-founder] Mike Allen runs it in his daily newsletter, and everyone starts calling us.

More here.

New Fundings

Cornershop, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based grocery-delivery app tailored for the Latin American market, has raised $21 million in funding led by Accel Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Flex Logix, a 2.5-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based supplier of embedded FPGA IP and software, has raised $5 million in Series B funding led by earlier backers Lux Capital and Eclipse Ventures, with participation from the Tate Family Trust. More here.

Fortem Technologies, a year-old, Provo, Utah-based startup whose technology is designed to hunt and take down unwanted drones, has $5.5 million in fresh seed funding co-led by Signia Venture Partners and Data Collective. TechCrunch has more here.

Garena, an eight-year-old, Singapore-based online games and shopping company, has rebranded as Sea Ltd. after raising $550 million in fresh funds to compete with e-commerce giant Alibaba and others. Some of the region’s wealthiest families participated in the new round, including GDP Venture, led by Martin Hartono, the son of Indonesia’s richest man, and JG Summit Holdings, founded by Philippine billionaire John Gokongwei. Bloomberg has the story here.

Hadean, a 2.5-year-old, London-based startup that claims to enable a single developer to write and run code at any scale using their existing tool chain and without the need for any ops or tuning, has raised $2.6 million in seed funding. White Cloud Capital led the round, with participation from Entrepreneur First. TechCrunch has more here.

Kobalt, a 17-year-old, New York-based company whose technology and platform collects music royalties by tracking when even a sample of a song is played across multiple platforms, has raised $75 million in Series D funding at a post-money valuation of $775 million. Hearst Entertainment led the round, with participation from earlier investors Balderton Capital and MSD, the investment firm for Michael Dell and his family. Kobalt has now raised 275 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

MariaDB Corporation, the eight-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based company behind MariaDB, a fast-growing relational database, has raised $27 million from the European Investment Bank, in a round that’s effectively a long-term loan, combined with some equity. TechCrunch explains here.

Plume, which makes a “router-killer” that intelligently balances home bandwidth between devices and offers plug-in pods that extend Wi-Fi throughout the home, has raised a new round of funding led Comcast. The company isn’t disclosing the exact amount of funding, but last month, Axios spied an SEC funding that disclosed Plume had already raised $27.5 million in new financing and was targeting up to $37.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Smule, a nine-year-old, San Francisco-based social media music company, has raised $54 million in new funding led by Tencent Holdings, with participation from earlier backers Adams Street Partners and Bessemer Ventures. The round gives  Smule a valuation of $604 million, according to a Reuters source. More here.

New Funds

Blue Run Ventures, a nearly 19-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based venture firm that began life as the corporate venture unit of Nokia (but has been an independent firm with mostly other outside LPs for the last 12 years), is raising up to $200 million for its sixth fund, shows an SEC filing. The firm closed its previous fund with $200 million in 2015. More here.

Exits

Mail.ru has acquired Russian food delivery startup ZakaZaka in an all-cash deal that values the company at $20 million. The Russia internet giant had previously invested in the startup, owning 9.91%. Tech.eu has more here.

People

David Buttress, who joined the takeout marketplace Just Eat in 2006 and served as its CEO until February, is joining 83North as a general partner, reports TechCrunch. He’ll be based in London. More here.

Harry Stebbings, the young host of the “20 MInute VC” podcast, has concluded his stint as an EIR with Atomico, reports Business Insider. More here.

Uber has hired leading AI researcher and University of Toronto associate professor Raquel Urtasun to head up its self-driving efforts in Canada. Recode has more here.

Data

According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, Chinese consumers spent $750 billion online in 2016 — more than the U.S and the U.K. combined. Boston Consulting Group has now published a paper on how differently China’s digital marketplaces, platforms, and online behaviors have evolved compared with Western markets. More here.

Essential Reads

Harvard Management Company is looking to sell more than $2.5 billion of private equity, venture capital and real estate investments, Axios is reporting this morning. Apparently, its new leadership wants to start from scratch.

According to Bloomberg, WeWork has been “beset by a growing number of allegations over unfair pay, miscategorization of workers and other forms of employee mistreatment. Some of these have resulted in legal disputes, and now the company is under scrutiny by state and federal authorities.” (We’re sitting down with CEO Adam Neumann in New York one week from today at TechCrunch Disrupt; we’ll ask about this and much more.)

Is the gig economy working? The New Yorker takes a look.

Detours

We’re suckers for a great love story.

This glass-enclosed bedroom is pretty neat, too.

Good news for misunderstood roommates everywhere: People who spend an hour at a time daydreaming, who swear, who meditate, who compost food scraps, and/or who lounge around the house buck naked tend to be associated with higher intellect, suggests this new paper.

Retail Therapy

Kassa Liquid Chalk Markers. You’ll want these at some point.

Thank you, thank you to everyone who came out to our event in San Francisco last night. We had so much fun!

These things are always a little nerve-racking to put together but well worth the effort, and last night was no exception, owing to our wonderful speakers, our sponsors, and our hosts. We’ll have much more on the discussions — with Confide’s Jon Brod, Impossible Foods’s Patrick Brown, and Lightspeed’s Ravi Mhatre and Barry Eggers — very soon, along with pictures and video. (You can catch our interview with The RealReal’s Julie Wainwright below.)

We also want to thank one last time our partners in the event: Square 1 Bank, Rosebud Communications, Bullish, and Haystack. Your support made it much easier for us to do our job last night.

One final note to the generous team at NextWorld Capital: Thank you so much for hosting all of us, and for the second time, no less. We can’t tell you how much we appreciated it.

It’s a long ways off, but if you want to mark it on your calendars, we’ll be hosting our next party on September 27, a Thursday night, in San Francisco. More details to come this summer.:)

(P.S. Sorry for the very short newsletter. Crazed morning. Running out the door. More Monday.)

Top News in the A.M.

The Justice Department has reportedly opened a criminal probe into Uber’s use of Greyball software to evade regulators. Reuters has more here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC has been sponsored this week by the Bay Area firm Greenbrier. Scandal; injury; breach; litigation; presidential tweet. Crises can damage your corporate brand, personal reputation, employee morale and have lasting financial impacts. That’s why you need Greenbrier. We provide crisis planning, strategic advice and tactical execution to clients facing complex image, marketing, branding, media, legal and political challenges. With more than 30 years experience predicting, mitigating, managing and building resilience against reputational risks, Greenbrier can help.

The RealReal is Opening a Real Store in New York (and Other News from CEO Julie Wainwright)

At an event in San Francisco last night I sat down with The RealReal founder and CEO Julie Wainwright, who is renowned in startup circles for a variety of things, including her role in winding down the e-commerce company Pets.com during the dot.com era; being one of the bigger personalities in the industry; and launching what’s become one of the fastest-growing consignment startups among a handful that received funding roughly six years ago.

Some no longer exist. The RealReal has meanwhile garnered $123 million in venture funding and says it’s on track to see $500 million in gross merchandise value this year — nearly half of it through the company’s mobile app.

She attributed that success so far to zeroing in on the luxury market, taking possession of consigners’ products and focusing on trust above all else, by ensuring that every item that The RealReal sells to a customer has been inspected and authenticated before it gets shipped out the door. She also said the company is weighing a strategy of opening a series of brick-and-mortar stores, starting first with one New York location that’s currently in the works.

Excerpts from our sit-down, edited for length and clarity, follow:

You’ve raised a lot of money, including a $40 million Series E round last year, but you’re also very much in growth mode. For the VCs in the audience: might you raise another round anytime soon?

No. We’re good for a while.

You started with apparel, but you sold $100 million in watches and fine jewelry last year. Is that now your best-selling category?

The reason we went into jewelry was we were trying to cater to our consigner base, who was saying, “Can you sell this for me? Can you sell that?” And we said, “You can bring in your jewelry and watches; we have a gemology and a watch expert on site.” And it just exploded our business.

You’re talking about valuation offices, which you’ve been launching across the U.S. over the last 18 months. You and I talked about these recently, but they seem to be underreported.

It’s true. We did a little test in Midtown [in New York] around 18 months ago. We now have six offices across the U.S. and soon to be seven. We wanted people to comparison shop because we know you make two-and-a-half to three times more money if you sell your fine jewelry to us. We also wanted to remove any friction. [Jewelry consignment] is sort of weird space. If you’ve ever tried to sell jewelry to anyone else, it’s a pawn shop environment; it’s a little gross. So we wanted to bring the whole process up front, have a discussion with people, and have it be transparent and respectful.

Back to your best-selling items . . .

For men, it’s Rolex. For women, there are three across all age groups: Chanel, Hermes and Louis Vuitton.

Meaning clothing or jewelry or both?

Apparel is our number-one product in unit and dollars.

Are men buying or selling on The RealReal? What’s the gender breakdown?

We actually don’t get enough men’s consignment, so it sells through faster. Twenty percent of our shoppers are men who are shopping for themselves. They’re buying watches, primarily, and leather goods, but also apparel. Their average order size is smaller, but you men [in the audience] don’t like to return things, despite that we have a return policy. So that’s good; it all evens out. [Laughs.]

What percentage of shoppers are also consigning items?

More here.

New Fundings

Devicare, a four-year-old, Barcelona, Spain-based maker of remote patient monitoring software, has raised €3 million ($3.3 million) in seed funding from EMESA Corporación Empresarial and numerous family offices. More here.

Outset Medical, a 14-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based medical device company that makes dialysis machines, has raised $76.5 million in Series C funding led by T. Rowe Price Associates, with participation from Fidelity Management & Research Company, Partner Fund Management LP, Warburg Pincus, Perceptive Advisors and The Vertical Group. FierceBiotech has more here.

Essential Reads

It looks like Amazon’s Video app is finally coming to Apple TV this summer.

Detours

The world’s cheapest cities for a date . . .according to Deutsche Bank(?).

Retail Therapy

The BumpBoxx boom box. (Scientifically proven to win back lost love.)