The government finally reopens. “”Good morning folks, thank you for your service,’ called out Agriculture Secretary Tom Volsack, as no-longer-furloughed civil servants streamed from the nearby Smithsonian Metro station through the doors of agency headquarters.”

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Can an ‘Airbnb’ of Outdoor Gear Work? 

Everyone wants to be the Airbnb of something. Spinlister is among them. Launched with much fanfare last year as a bike-sharing marketplace, the platform failed to gain traction, its owners ultimately deciding to sell the business to one of their earliest investors, Brazilian businessman Marcelo Loureiro. Despite Spinlister’s lack of momentum, Loureiro isn’t fundamentally altering the business. Instead, he shut it down and relaunched it with an eye towards renting many more types of outdoor equipment. And he recently raised a $1.65 million seed round from friends and family to help the process along.

The question remains whether enough people want to rent their outdoor goods. Yesterday, I chatted briefly with Loureiro about why they should, and what he hopes to do about it.

Your business seems very hard to scale. Is that fair?

We need to connect with the right audiences first. Originally, we were just connecting with the tech community, and a lot of bikes got listed, but not a lot of users joined. Now, we’re targeting more hard-core cyclists, and while we’re not seeing exponential growth, it’s solid and constant.

When are you broadening out Spinlister’s offerings?

In mid-December, when we have enough inventory, we’re planning on opening up the platform for other sports equipment, starting with skis and snowboards. Afterwards, we’ll add skateboards and surfboards and camping gear and kayaks — anything you have in your garage that you aren’t using. A lot of cyclists have snowboards or skis, and a lot of snowboarders have bikes, but we weren’t talking to them. There’s a whole community that’s just sitting on gear and we’re now very focused on creating awareness [within that community].

People rent their bikes for $20 a day on average. How much of that fee do you collect?

I take 30 percent: 12.5 percent on the renter’s side as a service fee as 17.5 percent as a lister’s fee. It sounds like a lot, but it’s what we need right now to keep the lights on. We do have people making [real] money renting bikes. If you have a good bike or bikes in a good location, you’re going to get the business.

Where are you seeing the most traction? 

We have bikes listed all over the world. But right now, we have the most inventory in San Francisco and New York, with 350 bikes in New York and 500 bikes in SF.

Is that more or fewer bikes than people are trying to rent in those cities?

We have more demand than supply. My fulfillment [rate] is around 35 to 40 percent of requests because I don’t have the inventory, or sometimes the bike’s owner isn’t available in time or the bike is broken.

Other complicating factors must include drop-off and pick-up, along with theft, (despite that you cover damages). Why are you so convinced in this model?

Access trumps ownership; it’s where things are headed. You used to own CDs; now you access Spotify whenever you want. I think similarly, people will access, versus own, their gear. I talked recently with [big wave surfer] Laird Hamilton, and he [suggested that with Spinlister] everyone who lives by the beach who has a few boards can have a business without having a shop. It’s the same with people who own multiple bikes.

Down the road, there are lots of opportunities to [capitalize] on the knowledge we’re amassing about what kind of equipment people like to use. That kind of data could be very valuable to brands, for example, who could also test new gear within the platform.

It’s early. This year has been about building and fixing a lot of stuff; in 2014, we go after the users.

New Fundings

AppLife, a year-old, Berlin-based, mobile games marketing platform, has raised $7 million from existing investor Prime Ventures. The company has raised $20 million altogether from Prime.

Boxer, a year-old, Austin, Tex.-based email management system, has raised $3 million in funding led by Sutter Hill Ventures.

G1 Therapeutics, a five-year-old, Chapel Hill, N.C.-based pharmaceutical company that’s largely focused on cancer therapies, has raised a $12.5 million Series A round led by MedImmune Ventures. Hatteras Venture Partners and Mountain Group Capital also participated in the funding.

Kii, a provider of tools for mobile developers, has closed on $7.3 million in funding from Fenox Venture Capital and other investors. The company, which has offices in San Francisco and Tokyo, was formed in 2010 through the merger of Servo Software and Synclore Corp., companies that were focused on mobile data synchronization and backup.

Mapbox, a three-year-old, Washington, D.C., has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Foundry Group. The company’s cloud-based map platform allows users like designers and news outlets to create and share interactive Web maps.

Mintingo, a four-year-old, San Mateo, Calif.-based marketing intelligence company, has raised $10 million in Series C funding led by Adams Street Partners. Sequoia Capital and Giza Venture Capital, which led Mintigo’s $9 billion round, also participated.

Sage Therapeutics, a two-year-old, Boston-based company that’s developing medicines for central nervous system disorders, has raised $20 million in Series B financing from investors ARCH Venture Partners and Third Rock Ventures. To date, the company has raised $57.8 million.

Stitch Fix, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based online shopping platform, has raised $12 billion in Series B funding from Benchmark Capital. The round brings the company’s total funding to date to $16.8 million. Earlier investors include Baseline Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures Partners, and Western Technology Investment.

Usermind, a new, Seattle-based startup whose software aims to make business operations people more productive, has raised a $7.6 million led by Andreessen Horowitz, which was joined by Charles River Ventures and SV Angel. (Vator News has much more here.)

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New Funds

5AM Ventures, a 12-year-old, San Francisco-based seed and early-stage venture capital firm focused life science companies, is looking to raise a fourth, $240 million fund, according to an SEC filing. The Form D says the firm has yet to begin fundraising; it lists the firm’s three managing directors: John Diekman, Scott Rocklage, and Andy Schwab.

Camden Partners, an 18-year-old, Baltimore based firm that specializes in growth capital opportunities, is raising its fifth fund, according to an SEC filing. The first sale has yet to occur, according to the firm; no target is listed.

Javelin Venture Partners, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based early-stage venture firm, has raised $125 million for its third fund. It also promoted principal Alex Gurevich to partner. Javelin had raised $105 million for its most recent fund in 2011.

SoftTech VC is raising a fourth, $85 million, fund, according to an SEC filing, which says the first sale has yet to occur. The firm, founded by Jeff Clavier, raised a $55 million third fund in January 2012. Clavier alone is listed on the filing.

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Exits

SMS Masterminds, a small, San Luis Obispo, Calif., loyalty marketing business, is being acquired by SpendSmart Payments Company, a Des Moines-based prepaid payments services company. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed.

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IPOs

Veeva Systems, a 6.5-year-old, Pleasanton, Calif.-based maker of CRM software for life sciences companies, went public yesterday, selling more than 13 million shares at an offering price of $20 per share. The stock soared throughout the day, closing at $37.16, up 85.8%. The company’s biggest institutional backer is Emergence Capital Partners, which owns 31 percent of the company, according to SEC filings. Emergence’s LPs include the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the University of Michigan. Bloomberg has more here.

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Happenings

In San Francisco, you might want to check out day two of the GigaOm Mobile event. Details are here.

It’s also day two of the MobileCon 2013 conference in San Jose.

Meanwhile, in Chicago today and tomorrow: Erikson’s TEC Center, Columbia College Chicago, and Catherine Cook School are hosting an early childhood technology conference that focuses on tech use in early childhood programs (and features app developers). You can find out more here.

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Job Listings

Velos Partners, one of L.A.’s newest venture firms, is looking an analyst with two years of work experience in a related field. (VC, private equity, banking, and management consulting all count.)

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Essential Reads

Maybe it’s time to stop making fun of fusty old AOL? ComScore says it’s  now the biggest video ad property in the U.S.

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Detours

The new, new thing? Private music festivals. (You’re no one until you are invited to Burning Lamb.)

A Sydney company thinks it has solved the same-day delivery problem and its attendant expenses: Flying robots.

The National #Selfie Portrait Gallery opens this week at the Moving Image Contemporary Art Fair in London.

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Retail Therapy

Inspiring views!

Pants that make us wonder: do men’s clothing designers hate men?

The flask for people who pretty clearly don’t understand the point of flasks.

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An 11th hour Senate fiscal deal may be in the works! Woo-hoo!

Apple gets its “spaceship” campus approved.

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Silicon Valley’s Most Famous Rug Dealer Forms a New Fund

Pejman Nozad, Silicon Valley’s best-known rug dealer, has launched a new, low-flying venture firm.

According to SEC filings, Nozad began raising $20 million for the new firm, Pejman Mar, a couple of months ago; his cofounder in the venture is serial entrepreneur Mar Hershenson.

The new effort isn’t exactly top secret. Nozad has himself mentioned it in social media forums, and Hershenson’s LinkedIn profile reflects that she’s been co-running Pejman Mar since May. Still, Nozad isn’t discussing the effort publicly just yet. (When I’ve asked to meet about it over the last couple of months, he has politely declined each time, suggesting that we sit down at an unspecified future date.)

The firm will be the second that Nozad has cofounded. In 1999, Nozad partnered with Saeed and Rahimi Amidi, whose rug-dealing father had given Nozad one of his first jobs as a salesman soon after the Iranian native arrived in San Francisco with $700 in his pocket. Silicon Valley lore has it that Nozad so successfully formed relationships with the rug gallery’s well-heeled clients — including Sequoia Capital’s Doug Leone – that the Amidis and Nozad formed Amidzad Partners to seize on those ties and the investment opportunities that come with them.

Some VCs would kill for the track record that Nozad has established since, with past investments that include the mobile computing device company Danger, acquired by Microsoft in 2008; the online contest site Bix, which Yahoo purchased in 2006; and the online movie service Vudu, bought by Walmart in 2010.

None were huge home runs for investors, but Forbes estimates that Nozad is “worth in the ballpark of $50 million,” suggesting those many base hits have added up. More, Amidzad is an early investor in other, flashy companies that have yet to exit, including Dropbox, which Nozad himself reportedly introduced to Sequoia. (Dropbox closed its most recent round of $250 million a year ago, at a $4 billion valuation.)

It isn’t clear whether Nozad will continue to invest with Amidzad, on whose Website he remains featured. Rahimi Amidi didn’t respond to related questions.

Either way, he seems to have a hard-charging partner in Hershenson, a Stanford engineering PhD who has cofounded numerous companies, including, most recently, the mobile commerce company Revel Touch. The 2.5-year-old startup, since renamed Tocata, has raised more than $10 million from investors, including Nozad. (Hershenson left the company in November 2012.)

The duo has already placed numerous bets in recent months, including on a still-stealth startup called Solvvy; on Sensor Tower, whose tools help developers track and increase their app rankings within app stores; and on DoorDash, a food-delivery company whose funding was led by Khosla Ventures and Charles River Ventures.

The question now is whether investors will be as charmed with Nozad as the many industry friends he has made over the years. At least one VC who has co-invested alongside him thinks they will. Nozad’s credentials may not look like everyone else’s, the investor told me, but it’s all about track records. And “Pejman,” he said, “has a good reputation.”

New Fundings

1366 Technologies, a Bedford, Mass.-based maker of silicon solar cells, has raised $15 million in Series C funding led by Tokuyama Corp. Previous investors North Bridge Venture Partners, Polaris Venture Partners, VantagePoint Capital Partners and Energy Technology Ventures also participated in the round. The company has raised roughly $64 million to date.

7signal Solutions, a year-old Akron, Ohio-based company that aims to make wireless LAN networks work more reliably, has raised $4 million in funding from Allos Ventures and Mutual Capital Partners Funds. North Coast Angel Fund, which helped provide 7signal’s $250,000 in seed funding, also participated in the new round.

CounterTack, a nine-year-old, Waltham, Mass.-based security software firm, has $12 million in Series B funding from investors including Goldman Sachs and existing investor Fairhaven Capital. The company has raised $21.5 million to date.

EcoFactor, a seven-year-old, Redwood City, Calif.-based company whose software is designed to reduce customers’ home energy consumption, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by power company NRG Energy, with existing investors Claremont Creek Ventures, RockPort Capital Partners, and Aster Capital participating in the funding. To date, EcoFactor has raised $23.9 million. GigaOm has a good overview of the company here.

Immatics, an eight-year-old, Germany-based biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the development of new immunotherapeutic substances for cancer therapy, has raised $43.7 million in new funding from a syndicate that includes Wellington Partners and biotech billionaire Dietmar Hopp. FierceBiotech has more here.

Logi Analytics, a 13-year-old, McLean, Va.-based company that makes Web reporting and data visualization software, has raised $27.5 million from new investor LLR Partners, a private equity firm in Philadelphia that focuses on business intelligence companies. Logi Analytics has now raised about $45 million altogether, including from Updata Partners, Summit Partners, and Grotech Ventures.

mParticle, a new mobile data platform founded by former Yahoo ad executive Michael Katz, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Bowery Capital, with participating from Google Ventures and Greylock Partners. The company is based in New York.

Refinery29, the nine-year-old, New York-based fashion and lifestyle site, has raised $20 million in Series C funding from growth equity firm Stripes Group, bringing total funding since inception to $30.4 million. The company’s earlier investors include Floodgate, Lead Edge Capital, First Round Capital, Lerer Ventures and Hearst Corporation.

Sofie Biosciences, a Culver City, Calif., company that makes molecular imaging probes and devices, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Tata Industries. Existing investors MRM Capital and the Cycad Group also participated in the funding. The company had closed on a $2 million seed round in 2010.

StarMobile, an 18-month-old, Atlanta-based company developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by U.S. Venture Partners. Other participants included GRA Venture Fund and Atlanta Technology Angels. The company’s software aims to extend enterprise applications to users on any mobile device.

Thinking Phone Networks, a seven-year-old, Cambridge, Mass., communications services provider, has raised $10 million in Series C follow-on funding from previous investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Advanced Technology Ventures. The company has raised about $30 million to date.

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New Funds

500 Startups, the Mountain View, Calif.-based investment firm, is in the market again, according to a new SEC filing, which shows 500 Startups III is targeting $100 million. Four investing partners are listed on the new filing: Dave McClure, Christine Tsai, George Kellerman, and Christen O’Brien. (TechCrunch has previously reported that the 30-person firm has empowered 10 employees to make investments.) The target is considerably higher the $44 million that that the firm closed on in July. As reported at the time, that second fund was nearly double the size of the firm’s first fund, but it fell short of its $50 million target.

CommonAngels, a well-known startup investing group of around 50 Boston-area angel investors, is looking to raise a $35 million new pooled fund, according to an SEC filing. The group has already collected $11.5 million, says the filing, which lists the group’s managing directors, James Geshwiler and Maia Heymann.

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Exits

Media Temple, a 15-year-old, L.A.-based Web hosting services company that largely serves professional developers and designers, has been acquired by the Web hosting giant GoDaddy, reports VentureBeat. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Media Temple will continue to operate independently, says GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving. The acquisition marks GoDaddy’s sixth in little more than a year.

Optimal, a five-year-old, Palo Alto-based social media advertising and analytics platform is being bought by the social media marketing company Brand Networks for $35 million in cash and stock. Optimal had raised just more than $5 million, including from Neu Venture Capital, the Social Internet Fund and a long line of individuals.

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IPOs

Oxford Immunotec, a 13-year-old, U.K.-based medical diagnostics company, has filed to go public. It hasn’t yet listed a price range but it’s looking to raise $86 million. The company’s principal shareholders are Clarus Lifesciences, which owns 24.3 percent of the company; New Leaf Ventures, which owns 13 percent; Espirit Nominees Limited, which owns 10 percent; Imperial Innovations Businesses, which owns 7.9 percent; Invesco Asset Management, which owns 7.9 percent, and Wellington Partners, which owns 7.7 percent.

Aerie Pharmaceuticals, an eight-year-old, Bedminster, N.J.company that’s developing treatments for glaucoma and other eye diseases, announced the terms for its IPO yesterday. The company plans to raise $68 million by offering 5.3 million shares at a price range of $12 to $14 for a valuation of about $265 million. Aerie is predominately owned by VCs. Alta Partners owns 27 percent of the company. TPG owns 27 percent. Clarus Lifesciences owns 21.7 percent. And Sofinnova Venture Partners owns 19.3 percent.

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Happenings

Today is the last day of the O’Reilly Velocity conference in New York City.

MobileCon 2013, a conference that is “100 percent business and mobile IT focused” kicks off today at the San Jose, Calif., convention center. You can learn more here.

Job Listings

The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan is looking for a senior investment associate to help evaluate new investments. The ideal candidate has  five to seven years of post-graduate experience in PE, banking or consulting. A graduate degree is also preferred.

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Essential Reads

Path, the social network, appears to be struggling. Valleywag reports that the San Francisco company laid off 20 percent of its staff yesterday and that it’s having trouble finding an investor to lead its next funding round.

Here’s why it’s so hard to climb Amazon’s corporate ladder.

Twitter will list on the NYSE as — what else — TWTR.

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Detour

Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who broke the NSA story, has left the Guardian to start his own “very substantial new media outlet.” Reuters’ sources say his financial backer is Pierre Omidyar.

Oddly, it was a Norman Mailer fan who later became his editor and, now, his authorized biographer.

Training young gentleman in the mollification of bullies. (“First, attempt to broker a détente…over cucumber sandwiches.”)

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Retail Therapy

Beard wash. It’s the least you can do if you’re planning to grow a long, smelly beard this winter.

A card case so soft you’ll regret throwing the last of your business cards into the fireplace last Christmas.

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A Google Watch is reportedly coming soon.

Apple hires yet another big wheel from the fashion industry: Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts

We’re all still waiting on a deal to reopen the government and raise the debt limit.

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Med-Tech in the Midwest: Are the Coasts Missing Out?

As a Cleveland native, I often find myself reading about some advanced medical technology that’s bubbling out of Northeast Ohio. To learn more about what’s really happening in the Midwest, I recently caught up with Mike Stubler, the Pittsburgh-based managing director and the cofounder of Draper Triangle Ventures, who nicely answered my very broad questions.

You focus on healthcare in the Midwest, right?

About 25 to 40 percent of what we do is med-tech. The balance is generally information technology, enterprise and cloud computing. But we’ve had great success with med-tech companies and frankly, we can’t ignore them; we live in a very rich environment for it. The Cleveland Clinic is arguably one of the world’s most renowned research institutions and a pioneer in coronary care. Meanwhile, here in Pittsburgh, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is a great research institution.

What’s changing in the industry? My understanding is that the focus used to be on licensing technology to big pharmaceutical companies, but now there are more development groups helping to commercialize these technologies.

A lot of different efforts come into play now: Universities, government-backed venture development groups, other combined programs. Many more people are now focused on getting this research commercialized rather than just licensing the technology to somebody. [The Cleveland-based, early-stage support organization] JumpStart has probably made 60 or 70 investments at this point. Innovation Works [an equivalent program focused on Southwestern Pennsylvania’s startup ecosystem] has made dozens of investments to which we pay very close attention, to see what’s coming through.

We’ve also seen more companies getting funded with super angel kinds of rounds. You didn’t see that five or six years ago.

Do you have more or less venture competition than you did, say, five years ago?

Well, you see some big coastal firms coming in, especially once you see a company gain some traction. Sequoia Capital just did a bio deal in Cincinnati last year. Drive Capital [newly cofounded by former Sequoia investors Mark Kvamme and Chris Olson, who are investing in Midwestern startups] has closed on $180 million of a $300 million target. I think when Mark Kwamme came from Silicon Valley, he was probably cynical but quickly saw the opportunities here.

Unfortunately, the contraction that’s taking place throughout the industry is also taking place in the Midwest, so there are fewer firms. We’ve always been more collaborative than cutthroat, as in the Valley, where every one is fighting for the same great deal. But those that are here are really trying  to work together more so than ever.

New Fundings

Centri Technology, a four-year-old, Seattle-based producer of mobile network management software, has raised $500,000 toward a $1.5 million financing round, according to an SEC filing. The company has previously raised $7.17 million, including from the Matthew Pritzker Company.

Druva, a five-year-old, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based maker of data protection and sharing software, has raised a $25 million Series C investment from Sequoia Capital, Nexus Venture Partners and Tenaya Capital. In fact, Sequoia has backed the company across its three rounds; Nexus participated in Druva’s Series B. One Druva’s earliest investors is Indian Angel Network. So far, the company has raised roughly $42 million.

FlockTag, an Ann Arbor-based company that helps businesses set up and manage customer-loyalty programs through its website and smartphone app, has finished raising a financing round of $1.25 million, according to Crain’s Detroit Business. Investors in the round were not disclosed.

Nginx, a company that makes Web server software and has offices in San Francisco and Moscow, has raised $10 million Series B round led by New Enterprise Associates. The round also included previous investors, including e.ventures, Runa Capital, and MSD Capital. Individual investor Aaron Levie, CEO and founder of Box, was also included in the financing.

SundaySky, a seven-year-old, New York-based company that creates video ads that are customized and updated for individual viewers, has raised $20 million in Series C funding led by Comcast Ventures. New investors Liberty Global Ventures and Vintage Investment Partners also participated in the round, alongside earlier investors Carmel Ventures, Globespan Capital Partners, and Norwest Venture Partners. The company has raised $40 million altogether.

Supercell, the 3.5-year-old Finnish gaming giant, has traded a 51 percent ownership share for a whopping $1.53 billion from Japan’s SoftBank and games developer GungHo Online Entertainment in a move that makes Supercell a subsidiary of Softbank. Techcrunch notes that the deal represents a quadrupled valuation for 100-employee Supercell to over $3 billion in the last seven months, when it raised its last round of $130 million. Altogether, Supercell has now raised $1.8 billion, including from Atomico, Index Ventures, Institutional Ventures Partners and earlier investors Accel Partners, London Venture Partners, Initial Capital, Cerval Investments, and Lifeline Capital.

Vensun Pharmaceuticals, a two-year-old, Yardley, Pa.-based company that’s working with partners to develop a range of generic prescription, has raised $10.7 million, according to an SEC filing, which states the company’s fundraising goal as $15.8 million. (H/T: Startup Report.)

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New Funds

Fenox Venture Capital, a stage-agnostic venture firm with a global focus, has raised $20 million of the $60 million it hopes to raise for its third fund, reports VentureWire. The two-year-old, San Jose, Calif.-based firm has previously had a single corporate LP in each of its two previous funds: Fenox Global Group invested in its first fund and Inter Media Japan Corp., backed its second fund.

Lemnos Labs, a two-year-old hardware incubator based in San Francisco, is targeting a $15 million second fund, reports VentureWire.

Sovereign’s Capital, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based venture firm that makes investments in emerging markets in the IT, healthcare, and consumer goods and services industries, has raised $12 million toward its $30 million offering, according to an SEC filing. The 34-month-old firm has five partners; three live in or just outside of Jakarta, Indonesia.

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Exits

Nanostim, a six-year-old, Milipitas, Calif.-based company, is being acquired by the publicly traded medical device company St. Jude Medical, based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Nanostim had raised $19.5 million to develop a wireless pacemaker that’s roughly the size of an AAA battery, according to SEC filings. St. Jude is paying $123.5 million to Nanostim shareholders, and promising another $65 million in cash if numerous milestones are reached down the road. Nanostim’s 45 employees become part of St. Jude’s implantable electronic systems unit.

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People

Richard Rosenblatt, Demand Media’s chairman and CEO, is leaving the online content company he co-founded, its board announced yesterday.

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Happenings

Ad Age is hosting a digital conference in San Francisco at the Ritz Carlton today. Things kick off around 9 a.m.; you can check out the agenda here.

The Verge‘s sustainability conference rolls into its second day at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel. You can view the various tracks here.

It’s also day two of O’Reilly’s Velocity engineering conference in New York. (VC Fred Wilson will be speaking at the conference, though we’re not sure at what time.) Learn more here.

And in New York today, GreenHomeNYC is hosting an event at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square that will feature talks on building, sustainability and resilience. More information is available here.

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Job Listings

Boston-based dunnhumby Ventures (dhV) is looking for an associate to join its team. Requirements include two to four years of experience in VC, private equity, investment banking with strong references, and a strong academic record.

Essential Reads

How the .0001% made its money.

Twitter is now allowing any of your followers to send you a direct message.

Yesterday, we linked to the New Yorker’s new profile of Jack Dorsey, but some of you complained that it was too damn long, especially after poring over Nick Bilton’s account of Twitter last week. (We feel you.) Some good news: Business Insider penned a cheat sheet.

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Detour

Valleywag republishes the deleted Web poetry of a much younger Jack Dorsey, leaving everyone who wrote their own crummy poetry in paper notebooks feeling very thankful.

Oops. Academic researchers discover a drug in the mainstream sports supplement Craze that’s never been studied in humans.

How a radical new teaching method could unleash a generation of geniuses.

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Retail Therapy

This is really smart: a wearable tracking device for dogs that can help owners and, in some cases, their caregivers, know when something is amiss.

Ralph Lauren’s favorite 22 cars of all time.

Last week, we featured a gun that shoots rubberbands. That was kids’ stuff compared with this deliciously sinister crossbow that shoots marshmallows. Ideal for camping trips and torturing siblings.

Please feel free to send us any and all story suggestions (anonymous or otherwise) by clicking here. If you’re interested in advertising in our email newsletter, please click here. To sign up for the newsletter, visit strictlyvc.com.

Really, people? Senate leaders are still deadlocked over budget negotiations in Washington — and the debt ceiling deadline is just three days away.

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SilverRide Bets On Offline Social Networking, for the Older Set

Last month, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) unanimously approved new regulations condoning ride-sharing services like Lyft and Sidecar. But the new legal framework could also breathe new life into lesser-known companies such a SilverRide, a six-year-old company whose name may be its biggest liability.

At first glance, SilverRide sounds like an Uber for seniors, but its focus actually extends well beyond transporting the elderly. “Transportation is 20 percent of what we do,” says founder Jeff Maltz over coffee near SilverRide’s San Francisco offices. The company’s primary focus is “championing socialization for seniors.”

It’s a big market. The senior population is growing steadily. By 2030, roughly 20 percent of Americans will be 65 years or older, up from 12.5 percent today.

More important, scientists are increasingly discovering how important socialization is for the elderly. Just last month, University of Missouri researchers published findings around what happens when seniors stop driving. Among their conclusions was that seniors’ health and happiness meaningfully declined. Social connectedness also helps the immune system to work better, lowers stress hormones, and can delay memory loss, according to the Harvard School of Public Health.

SilverRide offers seniors the chance to get outside the home and interact with others. For $85 an hour, the company’s drivers will escort the elderly to shop at the grocery store, to see a movie, or to pick up grandchildren for an ice cream outing, among other things. (Seventy percent of the time, drivers join riders in their activities.) In its six-year history, it has orchestrated 150,000 rides for more than 3,500 clients.

The question is whether SilverRide – which is looking to raise $3 million to expand nationally –  is a big business.

From all outward appearances, the numbers sound good.

According to Maltz, SilverRide is profitable. Currently, the company pays $1000 to acquire a customer, and customers pay $450 a month on average for 24 months.

SilverRide’s expenses also just went down significantly. Up until now, SilverRide has used its own fleet of cars. (The company has a staff of 22 full and part-time employees to pick up seniors and take them out.) But the most recent CPUC regulations change all that. Now, SilverRide’s employees can use their own, commercially insured cars, vastly expanding the potential size of the company’s transportation fleet.

The biggest impediment to SilverRide’s growth may be convincing seniors to pay for something as intangible as an experience. SilverRide is a fairly expensive service, and there may not be a large population of elderly people who understand the service or can justify spending $450 a month on their social lives. (One-third of SilverRides’ customers call the company themselves. The other two thirds of its customers come by way of their children or other senior caregivers.) In fact, Maltz says his biggest competition is a customer’s friends and family.

SilverRide could benefit from the marketing leverage and distribution that a larger health care partner could provide. Maltz says that the company has attracted the attention of “several large health care companies” that are “engaging in pilots” with SilverRide, but he declines to be more specific.

In the meantime, VC-league help with advertising, as well as to build up an executive team, would also go a long way, suggests Maltz. “We have 400 people around the country interested in opening up regional SilverRides,” he says. “This company is ready to blast off and get out there.”

New Fundings

Nomi, year-old New York City-based startup that tracks shoppers’ mobile phones to help retail shops gather data on their activity, is close to closing a $10 million in Series B funding, reports AllThingsD. The funding is reportedly being led by new investor Accel Partners. The company’s previous investors in the company’s $3 million Series A include First Round Capital, Greycroft Partners, Forerunner Ventures and SV Angel.

Trafi, a 10-month-old startup based in Vilnius, Lithuanian, has raised $500,000 in seed funding from Practica Capital. The company’s app helps visitors and locals navigate their way around cities — whether on buses, foot, in taxis, or on bicycles — based on existing routes and real-time traffic information information. More here.

Xero, a seven-year-old online accounting software company based in Auckland, New Zealand, has raised a fresh $150 million in capital led by Valar Ventures and Matrix Partners. The company has now raised $244 million to date. Much more here.

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New Funds

Mithril Capital Management, the year-old venture firm backed by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, has closed its debut fund at $540 million, according to VentureWire. A report in the New York Times last year said that Mithril was starting off with $402 million, and that it counted Thiel himself as its biggest investor. Thiel cofounded Mithril with Ajay Royan, a former managing director at Thiel’s hedge fund Clarium Capital. The firm, which aims to make bets in slightly later-stage companies, most recently invested in the mobile security software company Lookout, which raised $55 million in a round led by Deutsche Telekom.

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Exits

Activision, the world’s largest video games publisher, has bought back $8.2 billion of its own shares from Vivendi, it announced on Friday. The move makes it an independent company once again, with Vivendi now a shareholder with a 12 percent stake.

Antenna Software, a 14-year-old, Jersey City, N.J.-based mobile software company, was acquired Friday by Pegasystems, a business software company in Cambridge, Mass. Terms of the acquisition weren’t disclosed. Antenna had raised $2.53 million in debt funding last month, according to an SEC filing.

Vet Therapeutics, a San Diego-based company focused on developing therapies for pet cancer and chronic conditions, has been acquired by a bigger player in the space, publicly traded biopharmaceutical company Aratana Therapeutics of Kansas City, Kan. Arantana is paying $30 million in cash, plus 625,000 shares of common stock, and an additional $3 million pay-out if Vet Therapeutics meets certain milestones by the end of next year. Vet Therapeutics investors include Innovis Investments.

Bread, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based social marketing software startup, was acquired on Friday by Yahoo for an undisclosed amount. The company had raised $3.5 million in funding, including from Raptor Ventures and individual investors, such as Palantir Technologies cofounder Joe Lonsdale and Lady Gaga’s longtime manager Troy Carter.

Hackermeter, a six-month-old, Portland, Ore.-based startup that aimed to match developers with hiring companies by using code challenge portfolios, has been acquired by Pinterest for an undisclosed amount, TechCrunch reported late Friday. The company had raised money from Y Combinator; it was in the process of trying to raise an additional $750,0000 in funding, reported Techcrunch, which says its service will be shut down and that its cofounders are joining Pinterest as engineers.

Onavo, a three-year-old, Tel Aviv.-based company focused on mobile data analytics, has just been acquired by Facebook for approximately $150 million, reports Techcrunch. The company had raised $13 million from Sequoia Capital, Magma Venture Partners, Horizons Ventures, and Motorola Solutions Venture Group. Much more here.

Waywire, a 16-month-old, New York-based video startup, is being acquired by Web video distributor Magnify, itself a 7-year-old company in New York. AllThingsD is reporting that the acquisition is likely a stock deal. Waywire had raised $1.75 million in seed funding from First Round Capital, Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, and numerous high-profile individuals, including Oprah Winfrey.

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People

Alberto Vilar was granted permission to attend a sold-out performance to the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday night. As readers may remember, Vilar founded Amerindo Investment Advisors, a San Francisco-based investment firm that was later accused of bilking investors out of $22 million. Vilar was sentenced to nine years in prison but he’s been out of bail, and living with an 11 p.m. curfew, since October of last year. Vilar’s lawyers had appealed to a Manhattan federal judge to let Vilar see Tchaikovsky’s “Eugen Onegin,” because Vilar was given free tickets by the conductor. The judge grudgingly gave him until 1:30 a.m.

Arjun Gupta, the founder of Telesoft Partners, gets featured in a New York Times story about high-end matchmaking.

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Happenings

If you’re in San Francisco, you might consider heading to a sustainability conference being hosted by The Verge. Happening at the Palace Hotel, the program kicks off at 1:30. You can check out the various tracks here.

If you’re in New York, you might be interested in O’Reilly’s Velocity engineering conference, which promises attendees a “non-stop ride into the inner workings of Web ops and performance.” It’s a three-day conference; the last scheduled talk today is at 3:30 EST.

BrainTech Israel, which is being hailed as Israel’s first international brain technology conference, also gets underway today in Tel Aviv. The conference runs two days. Here is the program.

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Job Listings

ff Venture Capital, the early-stage venture capital fund, is looking for an associate “intern” to work full-time or at least 30 hours a week. The job is in midtown Manhattan and the firm is accepting applications now from current or recent graduate students.

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Essential Reads

Jack Dorsey is doing what he can to prove that he’s more than a lucky man.

Netflix is reportedly in talks with several US cable companies with the aim of making its video streaming app available on set-top boxes.

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Detour

It isn’t just us. American animals are getting fatter, too.

Smelling peanut butter from a distance may become the easiest, cheapest way to test for early Alzheimer’s.

Alec Baldwin reveals his inner Charlie Rose during the debut of his new weekly talk show on MSNBC.

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Retail Therapy

It’s a little hard to get excited about a sling chair, but this is one exciting sling chair.

This craft beer is named Dave and costs $2,000. Unless Dave comes with a waterproof bag filled with $1,990 inside, we will pass.

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Andreessen Horowitz has decided to largely eschew Series A fundings, with Partner Scott Weiss telling the WSJ that, too often, consumer-facing startups are founded by “MBA types” and that helping companies that are already gaining traction will now be a much greater focus for the firm.

Last week, we argued why, then how, venture capital firms could take advantage of new general solicitation rules. Today, ff Venture Capital becomes the first institutional venture fund to do just that. (See below in New Funds.)

If Washington doesn’t get its act together today, by Monday, Washington D.C. will run out of cash to keep basic services functioning, like public libraries and trash collection.

Does Jeff Bezos Need a Wingman?

Yesterday, Bloomberg published an excerpt from a new book on Jeff Bezos that portrays the billionaire CEO of Amazon as a brilliant but ruthless dictator, one who treats workers “like expendable resources.”

Michael Maccoby, a psychoanalyst who writes about business executives and teaches leadership at Oxford’s Saïd Business School, doesn’t view Bezos’s tendencies to mistreat employees as his biggest liability, though. Rather, it’s his lack of a strong number two.

Amazon’s success has certainly been stunning. As the book points out, 20-year-old Amazon now has roughly $75 billion in annual revenue, a $140 billion market cap, and nearly 100,000 full-time and part-time employees, up 40 percent from last year. In late summer, Bezos personally acquired the Washington Post newspaper and some related properties for $250 million.

Maccoby, who has worked closely with 40 CEOs over the years but has studied many more, thinks Bezos resembles “narcissistic visionaries” like Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, and Bill Gates — with one major exception. All had a right-hand man; Bezos seemingly does not. And “that kind of personality needs to have strong partners who balance them and who complement their skills,” insists Maccoby.

Maccoby points to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who, in the company’s earlier days, could dream about the future while sidekick Steve Ballmer obsessed about Microsoft’s day-to-day operations. Maccoby also cites Steve Jobs’ relationships, first with his Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak and much later with Apple executives Tim Cook and Jony Ive. And there is Oracle’s Larry Ellison, who has brought in a string of executives over the years, only to chew them up and spit them out. (Ellison’s current number two is co-president Mark Hurd.)

Asked whether Bezos might be an exception to the rule, Maccoby says, “So far, so good.” Still, he thinks Amazon’s decision to forego profits in favor of reinvestment are reminiscent of numerous endeavors throughout history, including those of, gulp, Napoleon.

It’s not necessarily an unfavorable comparison. Both enjoyed success at a young age, both rejected the established wisdom, and both took on seemingly invincible enemies and defeated them. If historians are to be believed, Napoleon – like Bezos – also had unrivaled intellectual powers and an astonishing capacity to integrate information from different disciplines.

Of course, as brilliant as Napoleon was, he eventually pushed his luck, ignoring repeated advice not to invade Russia. Says Maccoby: “Napoleon was very successful as long as he had Talleyrand as his foreign minister.” When he lost Talleyrand, he spun out of control.

“The danger with someone like Bezos is the same danger that Napoleon had,” Maccoby adds. Without enough pushback, “you can go too far.”

New Fundings

AboutOne, a three-year-old, Malvern, Pa.-based company behind an online family mangement journal platform, has raised $1.79 million in a partial raise, according to an SEC filing. The company had previous raised nearly $2 million from the Golden Seeds angel network.

Achates Power, a nine-year-old, San Diego-based developer of fuel-efficient combustion engines, has raised a $35.2 million Series C round from existing investors Sequoia Capital, RockPort Capital Partners, Madrone Capital Partners, InterWest Partners and Triangle Peak Partners.

GreenWave Reality, a five-year-old, Irvine, Calif.-based company that makes home energy management devices and related software, has raised $19 million in Series B funding led by The Westly Group, with participation from Craton Equity Partners.

Lookout, a six-year-old San Francisco-based company that makes software that protects personal devices, has raised $55 million in new funding. Deutsche Telekom led the round, which included participation from Qualcomm Ventures, Greylock Partners, Mithril Capital and previous investors Accel Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures and Khosla Ventures. The company has raised roughly $130 million since 2009.

Newsela, a new, New York-based site that features daily news articles from around the country, at five different reading levels, has closed $1.2 million in seed funding led by New Schools Venture Fund and Kapor Capital.

Silver Ridge Power — an Arlington, Va.-based joint venture between The AES Corporation and Riverstone Holdings that is developing and will operate numerous solar power plants — has received $103 million from Google for its Mount Signal Solar project, based in Imperial County, Calif. The plant is expected to be up and running next year, and has agreed to sell its output to the San Diego Gas & Electric Company.

Telepath, a young, U.K.-based consultancy focused making better sense of fleet management data for its customers, has raised $758,000 in seed funding from The North West Fund for Venture Capital and Enterprise Ventures.

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New Funds

Today, 5-year-old, New York-based ff Venture Capital becomes the first venture firm to embrace the new general solicitation rules. This morning, in fact, it’s announcing, quite publicly, that it’s raising between $50 million and $70 million for its third fund, ff Rose Venture Capital Fund. In a blog post, founding partner John Frankel notes that with venture capital itself “getting disrupted,” “[w]e wholeheartedly support the reinvention that comes along with it.” A spokeswoman tells me that the firm plans to use “21st century technologies” including “online media, social media channels, television, and email” to reach investors. The firm’s last fund, a $27 million vehicle called ff Silver, closed in 2010. The firm claims to have “consistently generated a gross IRR on invested capital of 30 percent.”

London has a new, $60 million, early-stage venture fund called Episode 1 (after a “Star Wars” movie, really). Episode 1 combines public and private money, so it can fund only U.K.-based startups or companies that have a significant presence in the country, but that’s the point of the fund anyway. You can read much more about it here.

Nextview Ventures, a three-year-old, Boston-based seed-stage fund is raising a second fund, according to an SEC filing, which doesn’t list a target. Nextview focuses on seed-stage, Internet-enabled startups, and has already backed roughly two dozen companies. One of its newest portfolio companies is Sunrise, a New York-based maker of a free calendar app; another is the online payment platform Plastiq, based in Boston.

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Exits

TenMarks, a five-year-old, Burlingame, Calif.-based company that produces an online math curriculum, is being acquired by Amazon, reports Techcrunch. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed. TenMarks has raised $4.6 million in venture and debt financing over the years, including from Catamount Ventures and Birchmere Ventures.

Familiar, two-year-old, Seattle-based private photo and video sharing service, has been bought by Taser, a company known best for its stun guns. The company will incorporate Familiar’s technology into its software and cloud services operation, Evidence.com. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Familiar has raised $1.3 million from Greylock Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Index Ventures and others. One of its first checks came from entrepreneur-investor brothers Hadi and Ali Partovi.

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IPOs

Criteo, the eight-year-old, Paris-based performance display advertising company, announced terms for its IPO yesterday. It plans to raise $176 million by offering 7.2 million shares at a price range of $23 to $26, for a market value of roughly $1.5 billion.

Trevena, a six-year-old, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in King of Prussia, Pa., has filed to go public, though the number of shares and pricing terms have yet to be decided. Trevena has raised roughly $130 million from investors; its principal stockholders include Alta Partners, New Enterprise Associates, and Polaris Partners, each of which own 20.8 percent of the company.

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People

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has purchased the four homes surrounding his own Palo Alto house for a collective $30 million, reports the San Jose Mercury News. Zuckerberg is leasing the homes back to their owners; he decided to purchase the properties after learning of a developer’s plans to buy one of the parcels, build a huge house atop it, then advertise its proximity to Zuckerberg.

Mike Hopkins, a Fox executive, is poised to become Hulu’s new CEO, reports Bloomberg. Hopkins would replace Andy Forsell, who has been the company’s acting CEO since March.

Vivian Schiller, chief digital officer at NBC News, is about to become Twitter‘s head of news, reports AllThingsD, though Schiller is expected to take time off in between jobs. Much more here.

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Job Listings

A Khosla Ventures-backed portfolio company in New York is looking for a director of digital marketing. Applicants should have at least 8 years of experience in digital marketing, several years of management experience, and familiarity with the ad tech industry, among other things.

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Essential Reads

A first look inside Google‘s futuristic quantum lab.

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Detour

The bigger the driver’s seat, the (much) higher the chances that someone will double-park their car.

The secret factor in China’s housing bubble? Mistresses!

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Retail Therapy

This wallet is made of buttery soft vegetable tanned bridle leather from Wickett & Craig of Pennsylvania. Is yours?

If you want to look this cool this fall, dress like a lumberjack! You heard it here first. No one has ever said it before anywhere (ever).

Please feel free to send us any and all story suggestions (anonymous or otherwise) by clicking here. If you’re interested in advertising in our email newsletter, please click here. To sign up for the newsletter, visit strictlyvc.com.