Hi, all, happy Tuesday! We have been a’swamped today, so this is going to be short (in addition to very, very late!). We will say that here at TechCrunch Disrupt, there has been be a string of amazing speakers throughout the day. This morning, we watched Sebastian Thrun reveal that his online education startup will build its own self-driving car as part of the program, as well as watched Marc Benioff announce Salesforce’s first-ever chief equality officer. (Benioff also asked — not for the first time — for more San Francisco-based CEOs to adopt their neighborhood public schools and invest their time and resources in them.)

In fact, we just hopped off the stage not long ago with David Sacks of Zenefits, who sat through our questions about the past eight months and argued (fairly persuasively) that the company is now well-positioned for the future.

If you happen to open today’s SVC *right now* (5:40ish PST), you can catch NBA player Steph Curry on stage, too.

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Top News in the A.M.

Warren Buffett saw $1.4 billion wiped from his fortune today after Wells Fargo fell 3.3 percent as fallout continues from revelations that bank employees opened more than 2 million accounts without clients’ approval.

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New Fundings

Claroty, a months-old, New York-based network protection startup, has raised $32 million in funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Innovation Endeavors, Marker LLC, ICV, Red Dot Capital Partners and Mitsui & Co. More here.

Digg, an early and popular mover in social media-based, online content aggregation, is raising a round totaling “single digit millions” of dollars from strategic investor Gannett, the longtime local news publisher and owner of USA Today. TechCrunch has more here.

Industrious, a three-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based WeWork competitor that offers workspace to entrepreneurs, has raised $37 million in Series B funding led by Riverwood Capital, with participation from Outlook Ventures andMaplewood. The Real Deal has more here.

Point, a year-old, Palo Alto-based startup that buys home equity, has raised $8.4 million led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Bloomberg Beta and Ribbit Capital. The company has raised $15.4 million altogether, including venture debt financing. Forbes explains how the operation works here.

Sourcery Technologies, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose software helps restaurateurs and corporate kitchens order from vendors, keep track of their inventory, and figure out the appropriate prices for different ingredients, has raised $5 million in funding led by Marker LLC, with participation from Steadfast Venture Capital and the company’s earlier backers, including Palantir and others. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Razer, an 18-year-old, San Diego-based maker of high-end gaming products, has announced zVentures, a new, $30 million fund that the company plans to invest across a wide range of startups in areas like IoT, big data analytics, virtual and augmented reality, robotics and Android games TechCrunch has more here.

TPG Growth is planning to raise a new social impact fund called Rise Fund that it hopes will eventually use to invest more than $1 billion in companies. The New York Times has more here.
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Exits

Avocarrot, a four-year-old, Bay Area-based native mobile ad startup, has been acquired for $20 million by the adtech company Glispa Global Group. TechCrunch has more here.

Concur, the corporate travel giant, is acquiring the six-year-old, consumer flight- and hotel-metasearch site Hipmunk. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Hipmunk had raised roughly $55 million from investors, including Oak Investment Partners, IVP, and Ignition Partners. Skift has the story here.

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People

GGV Capital, the nearly 20-year-old cross-border venture firm, has brought aboard Jason Costa as an entrepreneur-in-residence, and Denise Peng, as a venture partner. Costa spent the last three years as a product manager at Pinterest and the two previous years working on Twitter’s platform. Peng spent nearly a dozen years with the Chinese online travel company Qunar, including as its COO. More here.

Whistleblower Edward Snowden makes his case to the Guardian why President Obama should pardon him.

In the year since rap mogul Jay Z took control of Tidal, the music-streaming service has more than doubled its losses, burning cash at a rapid rate and testing the depth of its owner’s pockets, says the WSJ.

YC just named new leadership as it reinvents itself again.

How Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg might attack the affordable housing crisis.
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Data

Two years after graduation, men generally earn more than women who have been in the workforce for six years, shows new analysis from the think tank Center for American Progress. Fortune has more here.

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Essential Reads

Airbnb has been working on a new program that will let building owners sign up to work with Airbnb and tenants on allowing home-sharing on their properties per whatever rules make them comfortable. Fortune has more here.

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Detours

If you’ve been ending your texts with periods, everyone you know probably thinks you’re a jerk.

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Retail Therapy

By year end, your car could be driving itself, too.

Hi, all, happy Monday! We’re here at TechCrunch Disrupt, watching a panel with U.S. CTO Megan Smith and U.S. Deputy Chief CTO Alexander Macgillivray. There’s lots of great content coming out of the show; you can catch the live stream here.

(No column today; we aren’t so great with the multitasking.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Facebook‘s head of Messenger, David Marcus, said this morning that out of Messenger’s billion users, 300 million are active users of its audio and video calling features. He also suggested the bots are overhyped and underpowered.

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New Fundings

AcuFocus, a 15-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based company that makes corneal inlays to improve the visiion of presbyopic patients, has raised $66 million in new financing led by KKR. The Orange County Business Journal has more here.

Business Talent Group, an 11-year-old, New York-based platform for independent consultants and executives doing project-based work, has raised $8 million in Series B funding led by NextEquity Partners, with participation from the Bradley Family Trust; Ted Meisel, the former CEO of Overture and co-founder of AVIA Health Innovation; and numerous earlier investors. More here.

Datorama, a four-year-old, New York-based marketing analytics software-as-as-service company, has raised $32 million in Series C funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Marker LLC and Innovation Endeavors. The company has now raised $50 million altogether. Geektime has more here.

Fusebill, an Ottawa, Ontario-based software platform that automates manual accounting processes for small businesses, has raised $4.6 million funding from ScaleUp Ventures and Langdell Investments. Betakit has more here.

GenieBelt, a four-year-old, Copenhagen, Denmark-based project management platform for the construction industry, has raised €2 million ($2.2 million) in funding from the European services company Danish Solar A/S and company cofounder and chairman Klaus Nyengaard.

Inflazome, a months-old, Dublin, Ireland-based developer of orally available drugs, has raised $17 million in Series A funding co-led by Novartis Venture Funds and Fountain Healthcare Partners. FierceBiotech has more here.

Nuxeo, a 15-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based enterprise content management platform, has raised $20 million in new funding from Goldman Sachs. Reuters has more here.

Phononic, an eight-year-old, Durham, N.C.-based company whose patented solid-state cooling and refrigeration technology aims to replace older refrigeration systems, has raised $30 million in new funding from GGV Capital, Lookout Capital, Eastwood Capital Corp., Venrock, Oak Investment Partners, Tsing Capital, Huaneng Invesco WLRoss, the Wellcome Trust and Rex Healthcare Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Portfolium, a two-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based company that showcases digital work samples of millions of students, helping match their skills to the requirements of employers, has raised $6.6 million in funding led by SJF Ventures, with participation from University Ventures and USA Funds, a large guarantor of student loans. TechCrunch has more here.

Project44, a two-year-old, Chicago-based enterprise SaaS integration platform, has raised $10.5 million in Series A funding led by Emergence Capital, with participation from Chicago Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank. ChicagoInno has more here.

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New Funds

AirTree Ventures, a two-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based venture firm, has closed its newest fund with $250 million, which it’s calling the largest fund in Australia’s history to date. (Until now, Blackbird Ventures, which raised a $200 million fund in September 2015, held that honor.) AirTree is run by two of the country’s best-known tech investors: former Microsoft exec Daniel Petre and Craig Blair, formerly of Expedia. This is AirTree’s second vehicle, following a debut $60 million fund that it closed in July 2014. The Australian Financial Review has more here.

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IPOs

Cambridge, Ma.-based CRISPR Therapeutics filed with the SEC on Friday, indicating that it plans a $90 million IPO. As yet, the date of the IPO hasn’t been announced. Biospace has more here.

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Exits

Ford has agreed to acquire Chariot, a two-year-old San Francisco-based private bus service. Chariot had raised roughly $3 million in seed funding, including from SoftTech VC, Haystack, Winklevoss Capital and Maven Ventures. Read more.

HP said this morning that it has agreed to acquire Samsung Electronics’s printer business in a deal valued at $1.05 billion. Dealbook has more here.

Teads, an 11-year-old, New York-based video ad company that last month raised $47 million in debt financing to fuel an acquisition spree of other adtech startups, has acquired six-year-old, U.K.-based Brainient, an interactive video ad startup. Terms of the deal aren’t being shared. Brainient had raised roughly $4 million in total funding, including a $1.8 million Series A round in 2012 led by Prague-based Credo Ventures.

Verizon is paying an undisclosed amount to acquire Sensity Systems, a six-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based startup whose software helps businesses and others convert older lighting systems to connected LED systems, making them controllable remotely. Sensity had raised roughly $74 million from investors, shows CrunchBase. As TechCrunch reports, the move enhances Verizon’s wider Internet of Things “smart city” business, ThingSpace. More here.

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People

In a retrenchment of one of its most ambitious initiatives, Apple has shuttered parts of its self-driving car project and laid off dozens of employees, according to the New York Times. More here.

There’s too much money in the startup ecosystem, and “there will be consequences of that,” says venture capitalist Bill Gurley.

Veteran media exec George Kliavkoff is leaving Hearst to run Jaunt, a virtual reality startup. Recode has more here.

Friday! (Time to bust out some Super Disco Breakin‘.) Hope you have a most excellent weekend, everyone. We’ll be writing you on Monday from Disrupt; hope to see some of you there.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Why this bubble has legs.

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New Fundings

Away, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based company that’s trying to sell high-quality luggage an at an affordable price point, has raised $8.5 million in Series A funding led by Global Founders Capital, with participation from Comcast Ventures, Accel Partners, and and Forerunner Ventures. More here.

Beeswax, a two-year-old, New York-based startup that offers what it calls a bidder-as-a-service — a set of customizable technologies that allows customers to participate in real-time bidding for ad inventory — has raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Foundry Group and RRE Ventures. TechCrunch hasmore here.

BYJU’S, a nearly five-year-old, Bangalore, India-based edtech company that calls itself the largest in India (its learning app caters to children in grades 6 through 12), has raised $50 million in new funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, along with Sequoia Capital, Sofina, Lightspeed Ventures, and Times Internet. The Business Standard has more here.

Celeno, an 11-year-old, Ra’anana, Israel-based company that’s making chips for high-speed WiFi, has raised $38 million in Series F funding led by Temasek-backed Red Dot Capital Partners. Other participants include Poalim Capital Markets, OurCrowd, and earlier backers Liberty Global, Cisco, Pitango, 83North, Miven and Vintage. The company has now raised $106.2 million altogether. GeekTime has more here.

Chrono Therapeutics, a 12-year-old, Hayward, Ca.-based company behind a digital smoking-cessation system, has raised $47.6 million in Series B funding led by Kaiser Permanente Ventures. Other new backers who participated in the round include Asahi Kasei, Cota Capital, Emergent Medical Partners, Endeavour Vision, Hikma Ventures, Mission Bay Capital and Xeraya Capital Labuan. Earlier backers 5AM Ventures, Canaan Partners, Fountain Healthcare Partners, GE Ventures and Mayo Clinic also participated. Chrono has raised about $80 million altogether. The WSJ has more here.

Didi Chuxing, the four-year-old, Beijing, China-based ride-hailing giant, has raised roughly $120 million in new funding from Taiwan’s Foxconn. Reuters has more here.

IPOs

Coupa, a 10-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based company that sells expense management systems and competes with the likes of Oracle and SAP, is looking to raise up to $75 million in an IPO, shows a new SEC filing. The company’s most recent financing, an $80 million round that closed in June of last year, valued the company at north of $1 billion.

Meanwhile, Airbnb‘s public debut won’t happen anytime soon as the company is still focused on growth and overcoming regulatory challenges, says Jeff Jordan, the Andreessen Horowitz partner on the board of the company.

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People

Dell plans to eliminate between 2,000 and 3,000 redundant positions, mainly in administrative functions and across its supply chain operations. More here.

Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton just received her second largest donation of the election season, a $20 million infusion from Asana and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna. More here.

Brainiac Elon Musk is asking the Twittersphere for help in solving the “complex” riddle of SpaceX’s rocket explosion on Sept. 1. More here.

The U.S. government just appointed its first-ever cyber chief: retired Air Force Brigadier Gen. Gregory Touhill. More here.

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Jobs

WestSummit Capital in Menlo Park, Ca., is looking to bring aboard a VP or principal.

Fidelity Investments, via one of its affiliates, is hiring an investment associate in Boston.

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Essential Reads

Iconic Capital, the wealth manager to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and other tech entrepreneurs, is starting a unit to invest in data centers to profit from growing demand for cloud-based services.

Honest Company, the personal care product company co-founded by the actress Jessica Alba, is in talks to sell the company, several sources tell Recode, saying likely buyers are big consumer products companies like Procter & Gamble or Unilever.

Snapchat has reportedly hired Morgan Stanley to raise debt financing.

Inside iPhone 7: Why Apple killed the iPhone jack.

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Detours

Wells Fargo opened more than 2 million fake accounts (and was fined $185 million for it yesterday). Bloomberg’s Matt Levine has a smart take on the dumbness that took place.

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Retail Therapy

The world’s first folding electric bicycle, coming next year.

Satechi Bluetooth RGB LED IQ Strip. Probably not for the office (but maybe?).

All-electric go-karts!

Happy Thursday, everyone!

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Top News in the A.M.

Here’s everything you need to know about Apple‘s iPhone 7 event yesterday.

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NFX Guild Just Introduced 13 Buzzy Young Startups to Investors

The young Bay Area accelerator NFX Guildhosted its third “demo day” yesterday at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, and the attendees were a veritable who’s who of venture and angel investing.

It wasn’t necessarily a surprise that roughly 200 top investors were sitting elbow to elbow to see the presenting companies. NFX Guild prides itself on being different that most accelerators in numerous ways, including that there’s no publicly available application process; startups are instead referred to NFX “scouts,” who happen to mostly be VCs. The last class, which passed through the program earlier this year, saw referrals from 42 people; this class involved 68 scouts.

NFX was also founded by a trio of well-regarded entrepreneur-operators, including James Currier, Stan Chudnovsky and Gigi Levy Weiss, who provide NFX companies with $120,000, along with 30 hours of programming, mentoring and investor introductions. NFX in turn gets 7 percent of their company. (If the company has already raised more than $750,000, NFX asks for 5 percent.)

Investors also seem drawn to NFX because its startups and teachings center around a narrow idea with very broad implications: the importance of network effects, a phenomenon when a product or service becomes more valuable to its users as more people use it.

As far as NFX is concerned, any company, at any stage, can “add” network effects to multiply the value of their company. And Brian O’Malley of Accel Partners, who was in the audience yesterday, suggested afterward that he agrees. “Network effects aren’t just for social applications. We’re seeing this across our portfolio, but it was highlighted in today’s demo day that blockchain, SaaS, labor markets and more can benefit from core network effects embedded in product.”

NFX-backed companies like the home remodeling and design platform Houzz and the event planning platform Honeybook are “nailing this model,” added another attendee, Jeff Richards of GGV Capital, saying, “We as a firm are betting big on this trend as well.”

Click here to check out the companies that presented yesterday.

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New Fundings

Armune BioScience, an 11-year-old,  Kalamazoo, Mi.-based company that makes a blood test for prostate cancer, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from Grand Angeles Venture Fund, among others. More here.

Dizzion, a nearly five-year-old, Denver, Co.-based provider of cloud-delivered desktops that enable users to access their data and applications from any device, has raised $6.4 million in new funding co-led by Grotech Ventures and Access Venture Partners. Other participants include Correlation Ventures and Point B Capital. The Denver Post has more here.

HashiCorp, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based datacenter management tools company, has raised $24 million in Series B funding led by GGV Capital, with participation from Redpoint Ventures, Mayfield and True Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

IDbyDNA, a nearly two-year-old, San Francisco-based precision medicine company focused on metagenomic approaches for infectious disease identification, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by ARTIS Ventures, with participation from ARUP Laboratories and other private investors. More here.

Nextail, a two-year-old, Madrid, Spain-based company whose technology helps retailers better manage inventory levels and (it says) sell at higher margins, has raised $1.6 million in funding from Nauta Capital, with participation from Realiza. TechCrunch has more here.

Octiv, a six-year-old Indianapolis, In.-based maker of sales productivity software, has raised $4.75 million in funding from GE Ventures, Greycroft Partners, High Alpha Capital and Allos Partners. More here.

OfferUp, a five-year-old, Seattle-based mobile used-goods marketplace for U.S. buyers and sellers (it’s among a growing number of companies trying to kill Craigslist), has raised $119 million in Series C funding. Warburg Pincus led the round. Other participants include GGV Capital, Altimeter Capital and earlier investors Andreessen Horowitz, T. Rowe Price, Vy Capital and Coatue Management. TechCrunch has more here.

WSC Sports Technologies, an eight-year-old, Ramat Gan, Israel-based developer of a real-time, customized video creation platform for sports broadcasts, has raised $12 million in Series B funding led by Intel Capital, with participation from existing and new investors including the Wilf family (owners of the Minnesota Vikings), the ownership of the LA Dodgers, and entrepreneur and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert. VentureBeat has more here.

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Exits

Glassdoor, the still-private employee review and job-search platform, has acquired Love Mondays, a startup based out of Sao Paulo that also lets workers post reviews of their workplaces. TechCrunch has more here.

Google announced today that it’s purchasing Apigee, an API management platform that went public last year. The price: $625 million or $17.40 a share. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Scott Belsky is no longer a general partner at the elite venture capital firmBenchmark, just seven months after taking the job. More here.

Eventbrite cofounder Kevin Hartz has joined Founders Fund as its newest partner. More here.

Longtime venture capitalist and First Round Capital cofounder Howard Morgan is stepping down as a partner with the firm at year end when First Round begins investing a new $175 million fund. Fortune has more here.

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Essential Reads

Airbnb just instituted new rules to fight discrimination by its hosts.

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Detours

Bank robbery suspect: I’d rather be in jail than home with my wife.

Trying to pick the fastest line? Get behind the people with the most items.

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Retail Therapy

Apple Airpods. You’ll have to buy them at some point, right?

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

We’re getting so excited to see a bunch of you September 29th at our next INSIDER event in Palo Alto. There are many more readers on the waitlist than we can accommodate *but* we may be able to host one more evening before year end, on Thursday, December 1 in San Francisco. (We’ll keep you posted.) In the meantime, thanks again to our fab sponsors Ballou PR, Mattermark, and Bolt for their generous help in making the night possible.

Also, next week is Disrupt SF, part of TechCrunch’s signature conference series. We’re going to be on hand to interview David Sacks of Zenefits and Shervin Pishevar of Hyperloop One. A lot of other big wheels and interesting startups will also be joining TC on stage, so stay tuned (or, better yet, come). On a related note: as longtime readers already know, these events are a blast but also very time consuming, so don’t be surprised if StrictlyVC is a shorter read than usual next week.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Apple Apple Apple Apple. Track what’s happening at its big event in San Francisco today right here starting at 10 a.m. PST.

Online lender Social Finance (SoFi) is trying to raise $500 million from investors as it looks to buck a recent slump in the industry. The WSJ has the story here.

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New Fundings

Callstats.io, a two-year-old, Helsinki-based startup that specializes in video call performance analytics, has raised $3 million in Series A funding led by True Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Cheddar, a months-old, New York-based live news and entertainment startup founded by former BuzzFeed executive Jon Steinberg, has raised $10 million in funding led by earlier investor Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from new backers Comcast Ventures and Ribbit Capital. More here.

DailyPay, a 10-month-old, New York-based fintech startup that provides next day payments for employees and contractors, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by RPM Ventures, with participation from Draper Frontier and Inspiration Ventures.

DriveTribe, a nine-month-old, London-based online community for automotive fans that’s being launched by former “Top Gear” presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, has raised $6.5 million from 21st Century Fox. The move comes less than three weeks after the company announced it had raised $5.5 million Series A funding led by Breyer Capital and Atomico. TechCrunch has more here.

GoSpotCheck, a five-year-old, Denver, Co.-based web and mobile app platform that help employees gather real-time retail intelligence from the field, has raised $16.5 million in Series B funding led by Insight Venture Partners. The Denver Post has more here.

Intensity Analytics, a six-year-old, Warrenton, Va.-based data security startup, has raised $5 million in funding from undisclosed investors. More here.

kWh Analytics, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based risk management platform for the solar industry, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Anthemis Group, with participation from Engie New Ventures. GreenTechMedia has more here.

MP Objects, a 16-year-old, Rotterdam-based company whose software is used by brands and logistics service providers to create and manage their dynamic supply chain configurations, has raised $10 million in growth equity funding from Updata Partners. More here.

PillPack, a 3.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based online pharmacy, is raising up to $40 million in new funding at a pre-money valuation of $330 million, says Fortune. More here.

Postmates, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based company operating a on-demand delivery fleet in dozens of cities across the U.S., is reportedly raising at least $100 million in a new found being led by Founders Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

A stealthy startup from Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei has raised around $10 million in funding from Lerer Hippeau Ventures and NBC Universal, with participation from earlier backer Point Nine Capital. The WSJ has more here.

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IPOs

The San Francisco Chronicle takes a look at the widening tech IPO window that’s expected, and what it takes to make it out right now.

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Exits

Oracle is acquiring LogFire, a nine-year-old Atlanta, Ga.-based company that provides cloud-based warehouse management applications to boost supply chain efficiency. Terms aren’t being disclosed. CrunchBase data shows just $10 million, roughly, in funding for the company, including from Edison Partners and Fulcrum Equity Partners. ZDNet has more here.

The European on-demand delivery fall out continues. This time it’s France’s Tok Tok Tok, a Postmates-style same-hour delivery company, which just alerted users that it is shutting down. According to TechCrunch, part of its tech platform is being acquired by the online takeout giant Just Eat. More here.

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People

Pinterest said it has hired Li Fan, the former head of image search at Google, as the company’s new head of engineering. Much of Pinterest’s most promising technology involves searching for objects within photos and then using that technology to rank and display the most relevant content to users. TechCrunch has more here.

How Arianna Huffington lost her newsroom, in Vanity Fair.

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Essential Reads

Microsoft is working on its own Slack competitor.

The ultimate guide to Facebook‘s News Feed.

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Detours

The SEC says its five-year-old, whistle-blowing program has been a “game changer.”

When will New York sink?

How much more can we learn about the universe?

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Retail Therapy

Ka-Bar Tactical Spork. Bear Grylls uses his bare hands out there, but let’s face it; you could use a little help.

Hi, everyone! Welcome back from what we hope was a restful Labor Day weekend.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Apple is announcing a slew of things tomorrow at its iPhone launch event in San Francisco. Here’s some of what’s expected to happen.

Twitter‘s board is meeting Thursday. On the agenda, reportedly: talk about whether it soldiers on as a standalone company.

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A Former Rothenberg Ventures Employee is Suing Over Breach of Contract and More

David Haase, a former employee of the beleaguered San Francisco-based firm Rothenberg Ventures Management Co. (RVM), is suing the firm and its founder, Mike Rothenberg, saying he was asked to run up more than $100,000 in business expenses on an American Express account at the direction of Rothenberg and never repaid.

In his lawsuit, filed last week in San Francisco, Haase says he joined Rothenberg Ventures in April of this year and tasked with “providing various services of a Chief Financial Office for RVM” while also doing work on behalf of the company’s affiliated businesses, including its four-year-old venture arm, Rothenberg Ventures, and its small but growing virtual reality production house, River Studios, founded in May 2015.

Haase says in his suit that in May, he opened the account with Rothenberg’s approval “for the purpose of acting as a credit line for the day-to-day expenses incurred by RVM.” These included business expenses charged by Rothenberg’s “numerous administrative assistants at his direct request.” Part of those expenses included payroll, according to our sources.

As of the suit’s filing, Haase’s account was overdue in the amount of $109,352.20 and, according to his suit, Rothenberg has “wrongfully and capriciously refused to pay” that debt, leaving Haase to deal with the charge, as well as the accruing interest on the amount. The suit says that Rothenberg “disavowed any responsibility on the part of RVM” despite having previously paid expenses charged to the card to the tune of $140,000.

Haase’s charges don’t end there. In a claim that may be of even greater interest to those following the case, Haase also says that Rothenberg co-mingled the accounts of Rothenberg Ventures and River Studios.

Whether this could prove problematic for Rothenberg isn’t yet clear; even LPs seem confused about how much of River Studios they own and how distinctly it was managed from Rothenberg Ventures. But Haase’s suit goes so far as to allege Rothenberg of treating “such accounts as personal accounts, to such an extent that such business entities were in fact his alter ego.”

More here.

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New Fundings

Cheyipai, a seven-year-old, Beijing-based used-car trading platform, has raised $45 million in new funding led by a unit of the Chinese state-owned car maker BAIC Group. The company, reportedly struggling, has raised money in the past from Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners and Morningside Ventures. China Money Network has more here.

Divido, a 2.5-year-old, London-based financing company that lets invites customers to spread the cost of their purchases over time while retailers get paid in full straightaway, has raised £2.5 million ($3.3 million) in seed funding led by Mangrove Capital and DN Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Garena, a seven-year-old, Singapore-based mobile entertainment giant in Southeast Asia, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from SeaTown Holdings International, an affiliate of Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek; Indonesia’s GDP Venture; and Mistletoe, a Japan-based fund from Taizo Son, the younger brother of SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. TechCrunch has more here.

Saildrone, a four-year-old, Alameda, Ca.-based maker of unmanned, autonomous sailing drones that collect ocean data, has raised $14 million in Series A funding led by Social Capital, with participation from Capricorn Investment Group and Lux Capital. VentureBeat has more here.

VizEat, a two-year-old, Paris-based startup that operates a “social dining platform” to enable travellers throughout Europe to dine in a local’s home, has raised €3.8 million ($4.2 million) in funding led by various, mostly unnamed, investors, as well as earlier backer Eurovestech. More here.

Zilingo, a year-old, Singapore-based fashion-focused online marketplace, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia India, Venturra Capital and Susquehanna International Group, with participation from Wavemaker Partners, Beenext, Beenos and Digital Garage. TechCrunch has an interesting write-up about the company here.

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New Funds

Entrepreneur First, a five-year-old, London-based startup accelerator that invests in technical talent from universities and companies before that talent has a team or an idea, has raised a new £40 million ($53.7 million) fund to co-invest in graduating companies. The fund comes roughly a year after the outfit closed its previous fund with £8.5 million (then $13.3 million). TechCrunch has more here.

Northzone, a 20-year-veteran of the European venture industry, has closed its eighth fund with €300 million ($337 million). TechCrunch has more here.

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IPOs

Everbridge, a 14-year-old, Burlington, Ma.-based company that sells mass messaging and critical communications services to enterprises, announced terms for its IPO this morning, revealing plans to raise $90 million by offering 7.5 million shares at a price range of $11 to $13. ABS Ventures is the company’s largest outside shareholder, with a 31 percent stake.

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Exits

GE is spending roughly $1.4 billion on 3D printing technology, acquiring Sweden’s Arcam and Germany’s SLM Solutions. Reuters has more here.

Intel is acquiring the computer vision startup behind Google’s Project Tango 3D-sensor tech, Movidius, for undisclosed terms. The 10-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based company had raised $86.5 million from investors, says CrunchBase. Its backers include Summit Bridge Capital, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, and Celtic House Venture Partners, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Volkswagen is spending $256 million for a 16.6 percent stake in publicly traded Navistar International to gain a foothold in the U.S. heavy-truck market. Bloomberg has more here.

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People

In a detailed investigation, Vanity Fair looks at how Elizabeth Holmes‘s house of cards came tumbling down.

In June, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative announced an investment in Andela, a New York-based startup that trains software developers in Lagos, Nigeria and Nairobi, Kenya. Mark Zuckerberg visited Andela in Lagos last week, a visit captured here.

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Data

Goldman Sachs surveyed its interns around the world, asking everything from how they keep up with the news to how they monitor their spending habits. Here’s what they had to say.

Snapchat’s ad revenue is reportedly set to reach $1 billion in 2017.

New data shows one-third of bitcoin trading platforms have been hacked and nearly half have closed in the six years since they burst on the scene.

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Essential Reads

Palantir, the secretive firm that supplies data analytics to companies and governments, has filed a dramatic lawsuit against one of its early investors, claiming the investor stole confidential information for his own use. Fortune has more here.

Uber and Lyft are expanding their push into rides for senior citizens, says Mashable.

Money.net, run by former Bloomberg exec Morgan Downey, has struck a deal with more than 100 colleges and universities throughout the U.S. in a bid to get finance students hooked on its data software — and to try to unseat the former mayor’s hardware business. The New York Post has more here.

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Detours

Thanks to one of the most lavish offers in film history, the person taking over for Daniel Craig as James Bond may very well be. . . Daniel Craig.

Giant pandas are no longer endangered.

The Trump campaign tweeted out a picture of Donald Trump Jr. and his siblings this weekend, and Twitter went to town.

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Retail Therapy

Beer holster. For better or worse, the next step is one of these.

You’re on vacation already? (We’re right behind you.)

Hope you have a wonderful long weekend, U.S. readers. For those of you elsewhere in the world, here’s wishing you a wonderful weekend, too. We’ll see everyone back here on Tuesday.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Yikes. Samsung says it’s recalling its new Galaxy Note 7 smartphone worldwide after reports of the device catching fire while charging. CNN has more here.

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Chris Moore of Redpoint Ventures on a Market in “Flux”

Chris Moore is an increasingly rare breed. At the founding of Redpoint Ventures 17 years ago, Moore joined as an associate and — unlike today’s associates who often are cycled in and out of venture firms — he was made a partner. Since then, Moore has led deals in numerous companies that have gone on to sell for sizable amounts, including Auditude, acquired by Adobe; Right Media,acquired (and later shut down) by Yahoo; Efficient Frontier, acquired by Adobe; and Blue Kai, acquired by Oracle.

He also led Redpoint into Refresh, acquired earlier this year by LinkedIn for undisclosed terms.

Earlier today, before leaving Redpoint’s Sand Hill Road office for the long weekend, Moore talked with us about what he’s seeing in the market right now and why it “feels like it’s in flux.” More from that chat, edited for length:

We’re sort of confused about what’s happening out there these days. 

I know, it isn’t really clear right now which way the market will go. We had a real run-up last year and the year before, with lots of money coming into the system and momentum investing and all the unicorn hoopla. Then, late last year, it started to feel a little more discriminate, I think in part because the funding ecosystem was just getting exhausted.

The beginning of the year felt particularly grim, but it appears things are moving full speed ahead again.

In January and February, we had that public market hiccup, and we all said, “Ooh, this is it. It feels like the start of the correction.” And it didn’t really happen. Interest rates are still low and tech is still the one place where there’s growth in the world and investors are still looking for growth.

I do think there’s more focus on the fundamentals, and that translates from the later stage growth market all the way down to the Series A market. I think we’re even starting to see it a bit in the seed market.

It seems like there are still an awful lot of companies getting funded.

The pace has slowed a bit over last year, but not a lot. Still, I know we’re more focused on the “show me” rather than the “tell me.” We’re looking for market validation and proof points in the form of customer momentum and evidence that the business model can work.

Are terms changing?

No, not at the Series A stage. If you start asking for [onerous] terms, it’s hurts the company and it hurts us, because your next set of investors are going to say, “Hey, they got those terms at the Series A; we want them, too.”

Are Series A valuations down?

More here.

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New Fundings

Boku, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based direct carrier billing mobile payments company, has raised $13.75 million in funding from earlier backers Khosla Ventures, Benchmark, New Enterprise Associates, Index Ventures and DAG Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Beyond Verbal, a four-year-old, Tel Aviv-based “emotional analytics” company whose technology aims to extract a person’s full set of emotions and character traits using their voice as they speak, has raised $3 million in Series A funding led by KuangChi Science, with participation from Winnovation and Singulariteam. Tech.eu has more here.

Bitmovin, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based HTTP video streaming solutions and cloud server encoding systems developer company has raised $10.3 million in Series A funding led by Atomico. TechCrunch has more here.

C3 IoT, a seven-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company whose Internet of Things analytics platform rides on top of Amazon Web Services, has raised $70 million in Series D funding led by TPG, with participation from previous investors Sutter Hill, Interwest Partners, and founder and CEO Thomas Siebel. ZDNet has more here.

Criquet Shirts, a 5.5-yar-old, Austin, Tex.-based men’s clothing startup focused around old school golf shirts and more, has raised $1.4 million in Series A funding led by CircleUp. CrowdFund Insider has more here.

Molotov, a year-old, Paris-based, feature-rich TV streaming service has raised $4.5 million in funding from the British media company Sky. The funding is part of what will be a larger round, says Sky. More here.

Yum China, a spinout of 19-year-old, Kentucky-based Yum Brands, has raised $460 million from the Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial, along with Alibaba investor Primavera Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

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IPOs

There are eight tech IPOs in the pipeline, and Renaissance Capital expects between 35 and 45 companies altogether to go out by the end of the year. More here.

—–

People

Argh. Another Uber driver has assaulted a passenger.

RelateIQ cofounder Steve Loughlin has joined Accel Partners as a partner. (That solves that mystery.)

—–

Data

Smartphone applications now account for half the time that U.S. users spend online, up from 41 percent back in July 2014, according to a new report from comScore. More here.

—–

Essential Reads

Rocket Internet is gearing up for its upcoming results day on September 22 and it’s already warning that its financials aren’t going to be pretty.

Uber will have to confront a lawsuit accusing it of creating fake Lyft accounts to lure its smaller rival’s drivers to phony ride requests the old-fashioned way — in a public courthouse.

—–

Detours

The complete encyclopedia of Drake memes.

When a commercial rocket blows up, who pays? (Asking for a friend.)

—–

Retail Therapy

Picco calfskin sneakers, from venture-backed M. Gemi.

Thursday! Happy birthday to one of our most beloved part-time employees.:)

Also, apologies to those of you who’ve been receiving StrictlyVC many hours after it’s been sent out to readers. We were in touch with our email service provider earlier, and the issue centers on some data center outages that are resolved or will be soon.

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Oops? A major explosion during a SpaceX prelaunch test this morning destroyed Facebook’s first satellite. Understandably, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he’s “deeply disappointed.”

—–

At Pear Demo Day in Palo Alto, 13 Companies to Watch

As  dozens of Teslas baked in the sprawling Palo Alto parking lot of a local law firm yesterday, 100 top investors packed into a high-ceilinged meeting room. There, they listened as 13 startups deliver four-minute presentations about why they’re worth watching.

The companies — all of them roughly six months old or younger, and all led by current college students or recent graduates — were part of the Launchpad program of three-year-old Pear, an early-stage venture firm that annually invites computer science students from top schools to build companies in their office with a $50,000 uncapped note and no strings attached. (Until recently, the firm was known as Pejman Mar Ventures.)

So far, Pear seems to be choosing these student teams wisely. Out of the eight groups that presented a year ago, one startup sold to Google and four others have raised seed funding. Pear’s inaugural class, in 2014, also saw one startup, FancyThat, sell to Palantir.

Certainly, the venture capitalists gathered yesterday seemed enthusiastic. Ross Fubini, a partner at Canaan Partners, tweeted partway through the presentations that it was “looking like the best demo event of the year.” Another investor, Lux Capital partner Shahin Farshchi, told us afterward that he also thought it was “fantastic, with something for everybody, including consumer companies, analytics and AI companies, and deep tech for investors like me.”

For those who weren’t there and may be curious, here’s what you missed:

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Allocate.ai: This company makes AI-powered time sheets to enable companies to better understand how and where their teams are spending time. According to the founders (who come from Stanford and UC Santa Barbara), 45 million people fill out time sheets in the U.S., and they estimate that this adds up to $11 billion in lost time. (Think of lawyers whose time is valuable and may spend upwards of 15 minutes a day tracking their billable hours.) They argue that made more efficient, the market could be a whole lot bigger, too. If you agree and want to reach out to them, you can do that at founders@allocate.ai.

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BlackSMS: Its tech allows users to send encrypted, password-protected, self-destructing iMessages that can even be disguised and masked inside of fake replacement texts. This struck us as useful for a variety of cases, and we hope we’re right about that. Its 20-year-old founder, Tyler Weitzman — who says he has built 30 apps since his middle school days — is now dropping out of Stanford to “go all in on BlackSMS.”

To learn more, you can check out a longer piece that TC wrote here earlier this year. To contact Weitzman, you can email him at founders@black-sms.com.

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Capella Space: This data company says it can provide persistent and reliable information from space through a constellation of shoebox-size satellites that it’s building. How do they differ from the satellites of other startups? Its tech relies on synthetic aperture radar, meaning it sends radio waves down to the earth’s surface that — based on the reflection of the radio waves that go through the clouds and don’t require illumination from the sun — can capture images at night and despite heavy cloud cover. (Many other new constellations rely on optical technologies instead.)

Capella does have competitors, including Ursa Space Systems. Ursa currently sells information to customers based on traditional (read big, bulky) satellites that employ synthetic aperture radar, and it’s planning to develop its own constellation of satellites. But it’s pretty much an open race at this point. You can reach the founders at founders@cappellaspace.com.

More here.

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New Fundings

DefinedCrowd, a year-old, Kirkland, Wa.-based data science company, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from Sony Innovation Fund, Amazon Alexa Fund, and Portugal Ventures. More here.

DraftKings, the five-year-old, Boston-based fantasy sports site, has raised $153 million in fresh funding from new investors, including Revolution Growth. Fortune reports that backers funded the company at a steep discount to the roughly $2 billion post-money valuation it was assigned during its last funding round a year ago. More here.

Hey, hey, happy Wednesday!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

It’s a happenin’: Google is taking on Uber with a new ride-sharing service that’s opening to all San Francisco Waze users this fall.

Twitter jumped as much as 5.8 percent this morning, the biggest gain in two weeks, after co-founder Ev Williams said in an interview with Bloomberg TV that the company has to weigh all options amid ongoing speculation that it’s a takeover target. More here.

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Underwhelmed By Your CEO? Good Luck with That

Every day, some tech startups are surpassing their numbers while others are struggling to keep going. Washio, an on-demand laundry service that abruptly shut down yesterday, is just the latest startup to lose its momentum.

There’s no shortage of ways things go wrong. Markets change. Companies underestimate the cost of doing business. Sometimes, too, the CEO isn’t getting the job done. In fact, you might feel very certain that your CEO is one of these people, and you may be tempted to complain to your company’s board members about it.

You might be disappointed if you do. However well-intentioned they may be, most board members won’t push a CEO out the door unless they have no other choice. Though VCs in particular talk up the help they provide to startups, when it comes to trouble within a company’s executive ranks, it’s, well, complicated.

“I think broadly the default is to back the CEO,” admits one investor who asked not to be named. “The CEO has far more access to the board than anyone else, and like it or not, his or her point of view tends to influence how you as a board member perceive the company’s situation. It’s sort of like, ‘Do I want to take a one-off comment, even a thoughtful one, and [give it more credence than] the interactions I’ve had with this [executive] over their tenure as CEO?’”

“Startups are hard,” says SoftTech VC founder Jeff Clavier. “The thing that no one talks about are the personal aspects of running a startup and the relationships between investors and entrepreneurs. We’re coaches and mentors, but sometimes, we’re psychiatrists, too.”

Slow down

If it’s any consolation, frustration at startups – anecdotally, at least – is playing out across the landscape as a growing number of aging startups confront an uncertain future. According to the company Mattermark, which collects and analyzes data on private market funding, late-stage deal volume in the first quarter was down substantially, with 23 deals accounting for $4.2 billion in capital, compared with 32 deals totaling $6.1 billion in the first quarter of 2015.

Venky Ganesan, a managing director at the early-stage firm Menlo Ventures, says that over the last 18 months he has received “five or six calls” from high-level startup employees who’ve grown unhappy with their CEOs.

The precise issue typically dictates what happens next. Strange as it may seem, the easy things are financial fraud or gross mismanagement, says Ganesan. Harassment is a deal breaker, too. “If someone is calling me about personal harassment or integrity around accounting, it’s immediate. You ring the alarm and get out the fire trucks.”

More here.

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New Funding

Compass, a four-year-old, New York-based real estate startup, has raised $75 million in fresh funding at a valuation “above $1 billion,” says TechCrunch.Wellington Management Capital led the round, with participation from earlier backers Institutional Venture Partners, Thrive Capital and Founders Fund. Compass has now raised $210 million altogether. More here.

Cozy, a 4.5-year-old, Portland, Ore.-based platform to streamline interactions between property managers and renters, has raised $8.5 million in Series B funding led by American Family Ventures, with participation from Social Capital, General Catalyst Partners and numerous others. TechCrunch hasmore here.

Pusher, a five-year-old, London-based cloud-based service that allows developers to quickly and easily add realtime functionality to their web apps, has raised $2.5 million from SaaS Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Steel Wool Studios, a four-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based gaming studio made up of Pixar veterans, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from HTC, the manufacturer of the Vive virtual reality headset. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

New Funds

Hyde Park Venture Partners, the five-year-old, Chicago-based early-stage venture firm, has closed its second fund with $65 million — capital it plans to invest in Midwestern tech startups. The firm closed its debut fund with $25 million. The Chicago Tribune has more here.

—–

Exits

Private equity firm KKR is buying the nine-year-old, Minneapolis, Mn.-based, mostly bootstrapped call-center software maker Calabrio for what the WSJ says is a $200 million all-equity transaction. More here.

—–

People

Nest Labs, the maker of smart thermostats and smoke detectors, is parting ways with a few dozen employees who work on its Internet of Things platform. Their destination: Google. More here.

Every day, some tech startups are surpassing their numbers while others are struggling to keep going. Washio, an on-demand laundry service that abruptly shut down yesterday, is just the latest startup to lose its momentum.

There’s no shortage of ways things go wrong. Markets change. Companies underestimate the cost of doing business. Sometimes, too, the CEO isn’t getting the job done. In fact, you might feel very certain that your CEO is one of these people, and you may be tempted to complain to your company’s board members about it.

You might be disappointed if you do. However well-intentioned they may be, most board members won’t push a CEO out the door unless they have no other choice. Though VCs in particular talk up the help they provide to startups, when it comes to trouble within a company’s executive ranks, it’s, well, complicated.

“I think broadly the default is to back the CEO,” admits one investor who asked not to be named. “The CEO has far more access to the board than anyone else, and like it or not, his or her point of view tends to influence how you as a board member perceive the company’s situation. It’s sort of like, ‘Do I want to take a one-off comment, even a thoughtful one, and [give it more credence than] the interactions I’ve had with this [executive] over their tenure as CEO?’”

“Startups are hard,” says SoftTech VC founder Jeff Clavier. “The thing that no one talks about are the personal aspects of running a startup and the relationships between investors and entrepreneurs. We’re coaches and mentors, but sometimes, we’re psychiatrists, too.”

Slow down

If it’s any consolation, frustration at startups – anecdotally, at least – is playing out across the landscape as a growing number of aging startups confront an uncertain future. According to the company Mattermark, which collects and analyzes data on private market funding, late-stage deal volume in the first quarter was down substantially, with 23 deals accounting for $4.2 billion in capital, compared with 32 deals totaling $6.1 billion in the first quarter of 2015.

Venky Ganesan, a managing director at the early-stage firm Menlo Ventures, says that over the last 18 months he has received “five or six calls” from high-level startup employees who’ve grown unhappy with their CEOs.

The precise issue typically dictates what happens next. Strange as it may seem, the easy things are financial fraud or gross mismanagement, says Ganesan. Harassment is a deal breaker, too. “If someone is calling me about personal harassment or integrity around accounting, it’s immediate. You ring the alarm and get out the fire trucks.”

More here.

(Image: Bryce Durbin)