Shocker: When it came to Twitter’s IPO, Wall Street reserved its best information for its top clients.

Dealbook has been live-tracking Twitter’s first hours as a public company. You can see its stream here.
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Brian O’Malley of Battery Ventures: “Investors Are Fundamentally Lazy”

Yesterday afternoon, I sat down with Brian O’Malley of Battery Ventures in the gleaming marble lobby of San Francisco’s Four Seasons Hotel. 

Despite having a cold, O’Malley – who has led Battery’s deals in a long line of solid companies, including Bazaarvoice, which helps e-commerce companies manage customer reviews; SkullCandy, which makes headphones and earbuds; and the hotel booking service HotelTonight — spoke animatedly on a wide variety of topics. We chatted at length about the consumer packaged goods space, for example. I’ll share that part of our interview next week. In the meantime, here’s a quick excerpt from our discussion of the ever-evolving dynamics of post-Series A investing.

Money for anything past the Series A round seems to have tightened up this past summer. What are you seeing?

It really depends on the company. The way the market is working today, growth-oriented investors are much more interested in getting into the right company in the right space, versus taking a risk on something that’s unknown. They’ll pay five times the price to get in the Series B of some hot company rather than do something that maybe has some question marks around it.

Do you subscribe to the winner-take-all theory? Do you think there are only a small number of breakout companies worth chasing?

Investors are fundamentally lazy, so a lot of the time, they aren’t going to figure [out a business’s potential] on their own unless they’re super savvy about a particular space.

On the flip side, most VCs now recognize that the winner in any given space does get 90 percent of the economics, while the second-place company gets 8 percent, and everyone else [shares] 2 percent. So by Series B, people are already starting to see how the market is evolving; they’re already starting to see how repeatable your business is, and they’re spending much more time chasing the one or two dozen companies that everyone wants to get into.

And you think that makes sense?

I think it’s a function of larger funds needing bigger exits to make their math work.

As the funds get larger, what you need from a success gets larger as well. For funds for which it’s incredibly easy to raise money, their limiting factor is their time. And companies take longer to exit [these days], and so [the VCs] have less capacity for new investments. And when you have less capacity, you need each of your investments to return more money. That’s one of the big challenges.

What’s another?

What’s interesting, and what has surprised me, is how much people are influenced in terms of which companies they think will break out based on which companies are having success today.

There’s a lot of emphasis right now on these more enterprise-focused businesses, which has a lot to do with enterprise-focused businesses doing incredibly well on the public market. But the reality of my doing a Series B investment is that I’m not going to be selling for three to five years, and the market might be very different by then. Even still, people are willing to back much less mature companies in the space du jour rather than invest in something that has some scale in a space that’s out of favor.

New Fundings

Building Robotics, a two-year-old, Berkeley, Calif.-based company whose software tries to optimize the heating and cooling of buildings, has secured a $1.14 million in seed funding from Claremont Creek Ventures, Google Ventures, Formation 8, Navitas Capital, Red Swan Ventures and numerous angel investors. The company was formed early last year at the Berkeley Skydeck startup accelerator, a collaboration between the university’s College of Engineering, the Haas School of Business, the Vice Chancellor for Research office, Berkeley Lab, the City of Berkeley, the Downtown Berkeley Association, and the Chamber of Commerce.

Channel IQ, a four-year-old, Chicago-based company that provides on-demand promotion and pricing information to its retailing and manufacturing customers, has raised $12 million from Drive Capital, the new firm by former Sequoia Capital partners Mark Kvamme and Chris Olsen. The capital appears to be Channel IQ’s first round. (StrictlyVC reported a standalone piece on Drive Capital on Monday if you missed it.)

Concordia Beverage Systems, a 23-year-old, Bellevue, Wash.-based company that makes a range of super-automatic espresso machines, has raised $1.5 million in new funding, according to an SEC filing. Marker Hill Capital, Fluke Venture Partners, and Heidi Sinclair, the former chair of Weber Shandwick’s global technology practice, are named in the Form D. Concordia raised a $6.5 million round from Marker Hill, Fluke, and Swiftsure Capital last year.

Coresystems, a 13-year-old, Windisch, Switzerland-based maker of a cloud-based field service app, has raised $15.5 million from a syndicate of private Swiss investors, including tech investor Peter Zencke.

ImmunGene, a six-year-old, Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based company, has secured $9 million in a Series A financing from Ally Bridge Group. ImmunGene is a biotechnology company developing targeted protein therapies to treat cancer.

Rubicon Media, a San Francisco-based startup founded by Christopher Griffin, founder of the real-money gaming platform Betable, has raised $22.5 million, according to a new SEC filing. Rubicon was founded in 2013 but has been operating in stealth mode. No investors are listed on its new Form D.

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New Funds

Blumberg Capital, a San Francisco-based, seed- and early-stage venture capital firm, has closed its third fund with $150 million. Firm cofounder David Blumberg notes in a release about the new fund that the firm has already seen a 52x return on its initial, 2009 investment in the five-year-old social media management platform HootSuite, which has raised $187 million altogether.

Icon Venture Partners, a year-old venture firm based in Menlo Park, has closed on a $100 million debut fund that will target seed and Series A rounds of companies. The firm is particularly interested in companies that are “taking advantage of the capital efficiency brought about by lower cost, high performance computing infrastructure and a faster time to market for today’s enterprise technology start-ups,” says a release. Icon was founded by Charles Beeler, most recently of El Dorado Ventures, and Jeff Hinck, a cofounder of Vesbridge Partners. The pair has already backed five companies, including the mobile relationship management company Appboy; the security platform company Bugcrowd; 9Lenses, which helps collect and analyze organizational intelligence; Sport NGIN, which makes software for sports organizations; and Swiftstack, a maker of private cloud storage software.

The Austin-based venture capital firm Silverton Partners has just raised $75 million for its fourth fund, money the firm will use to investing solely in early-stage Austin startups. TechCrunch has more.

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IPOs

Venture-backed security company Barracuda Networks went public on the NYSE yesterday, raising roughly $75 million and establishing a market cap of $1.14 billion. (Its shares debuted at $18 and closed last night at $22.80.) Two of its biggest shareholders — Francisco Partners and Sequoia Capital — sold some of their stakes in the offering but they still have sizable ownership positions. Barracuda’s S-1 shows Francisco owned 26.5 percent pre-IPO and that it would own 24.3 percent afterward; Sequoia’s ownership dropped slightly from 17.4 percent to 15.9 percent.

Karyopharm Therapeutics, a four-year-old Natick, Mass-based company that’s working on a drug that would bolster the body’s natural tumor-suppressing proteins, went public yesterday on the Nasdaq. The shares, which debuted at $16, were up by just five cents by the market’s close. Karyopharm’s biggest shareholders heading into its offering were the Cyprus-based firm Chione, which owned 46.8 percent of the company (and now owns 37.2 percent), Plio Limited, which owned 14.6 percent (and now owns 11.6 percent), Foresight Capital, which owned 9.4 percent (and now owns 7.5 percent), and Delphi Ventures, which owned 8.2 percent (and now owns 6.5 percent).

Twitter is now a public company. (Perhaps you’ve heard.)

Wix.com, the seven-year-old, Tel Aviv-based company that has been likened to a WordPress for the rest of the world, went public yesterday on the Nasdaq in one of the biggest U.S.-listed Israeli deal in years. The offering could potentially set the stage more Israeli tech firms to pursue IPOs, observes the WSJ. Wix had raised roughly $60 million over the years, including from Bessemer Venture Partners, Mangrove Capital Partners, Benchmark Capital, Insight Venture Partners, and DAG Ventures. The company, which sold 7.7 million shares at $16.50 each (they closed at $16.31 per share) has a market value of about $750 million.

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People

Ali Behbahani has been promoted to partner at New Enteprise Associates. Behbahani joined the firm in 2007 and specializes in biopharmaceuticals and medical devices. Before joining NEA, he was a consultant in business development at The Medicines Company, a specialty pharmaceutical company.

Joanne Bradford, who joined the San Francisco Chronicle as president just five months ago, has joined Pinterest as its head of partnerships, reports AllThingsD. Before joining the Chron, Bradford spent nearly four years as the chief revenue and marketing officer of Demand Media, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Tim Connors, the lone GP of PivotNorth Capital, tells the WSJ in an interview about his investing style and his brand new fund: “I’m not a ‘shop at Demo Day’ investor.”

Mark Murphy, who has been leading communications and public affairs for SecondMarket for the last five years, has left to join Bloomberg as head of communications for its financial products, including Bloomberg Terminal.

Greg Sugar is the new VP of business development at the mobile video company Tout. Sugar joins Tout from Zynga, where he was the former senior director of ad revenue. (We’ve heard Sugar is kind of a rock star, so this seems like a big win for Tout.)

Ariel Tseitlin, formerly the director of cloud solutions at Netflix, is joining Scale Venture Partners as a venture partner. You can click here for more on Tseitlin, who will be helping Scale to expand its portfolio of cloud companies.

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Happenings

The Tech Policy Summit kicks off in Napa, Calif., today. You can check out its list of speakers here.

It’s day two of the ad:tech conference at New York’s Javitz center. Click here to learn more about it.

—–

Job Listings

Earlier this year, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen‘s investment arm, Vulcan Capital, opened a new office in Palo Alto. Now it’s looking to hire a senior associate to help manage the team’s existing investments and support and identify other investment opportunities. (Note: This is a more senior position than the associate director job we shared with you on October 7.)

This person will focus on making investments in the $10 million to $100 million size range in Internet and other tech companies, including mid- to late-stage venture capital, growth equity, recaps, buyouts and strategic public market block investments. Abhishek Agrawal, a former principal at General Atlantic, heads up the office.

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Essential Reads

Google has now encrypted the traffic that the NSA was accessing. “F*&k these guys,” says Google security engineer Mike Hearn.

Striking while the iron is hot: Square, the payments startup founded by Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, is exploring a 2014 IPO.

Business Insider’s Nicholas Carlson does a deep dive into AOL, and CEO Tim Armstrong‘s ongoing struggle to turn it around.

Smart phones are turning into portable laboratories. (You can read more on the trend in StrictlyVC next week.)

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Detours

The New Republic explores the world’s biggest building — a Chinese mall you’ve never heard of.

PBS Frontline publishes startling video of billionaire Steve Cohen answering questions about insider trading rules in connection with a 2011 civil suit.

Here’s what sunset looks like from outer space.

This severed head wedding cake reportedly “killed” at a couple’s wedding reception (though the guests declined to eat it, offering politely that they were “just too full”).

Former reporter Stephen Glass, who famously fictionalized part of his work, received a blow by California’s Supreme Court yesterday, which looks unlikely to allow him to practice law in California. The 2000 graduate of Georgetown University Law Center was refused admittance by the New York State Bar in 2002. The Recorder has more.

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Retail Therapy

You think your iPhone camera takes perfectly good pictures, but you are wrong, silly reader. If you really want to film what you see, you need a Garmin VIRB, an HD 1080p action camera with built-in Chroma display (don’t ask us what that is), up to three hours of battery life, and a rugged, waterproof* design. (*Device can withstand accidental immersion in 1 meter of water for up to 30 minutes. Longer than that and you are screwed.)

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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.

Microsoft has narrowed its list of external CEO candidates to about five people, including Ford’s chief executive, Alan Mulally.

The price of bitcoin just hit an all-time high.
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To Save Other Startups, Exitround Must First Prove Itself

Many thousands of companies have been funded in recent years, and most of them will fail. Exitround, a San Francisco-based startup, hopes it can find buyers to snap them up.

Exitround was founded about a year ago by Jacob Mullins, who was working at the time as a senior associate at Shasta Ventures. (He left the firm this summer.) “We’d see really smart entrepreneurs with great ideas and great products who potentially wouldn’t be able to get that next round of funding but that would be interesting to a Facebook or Twitter; I started thinking there was more of a marketplace [opportunity] here.”

One can see why. Just yesterday, the outlet The Verge lavished several thousand words on the failure of Everpix, a startup that helped users easily store and organize their photos. Everpix’s founders include a French entrepreneur who sold his first company to Apple a decade ago. Beyond the founders’ pedigree, the team had also raised seed funding from some top-notch VCs, including Index Ventures. Exitround would seem a great alternative to shutting down completely, as Everpix was abruptly forced to do.

Here’s how it works: Exitround makes introductions between startup teams and corporate development types. It also provides plenty of anonymity to startups seeking buyers. Exitround supplies buyers with a rough sketch of a startup’s offering. If a buyer expresses interest, Exitround checks with the founding team before providing more information or setting up a meeting. For its matchmaking, Exitround charges a recruiting fee of between $10,000 and $20,000 per hire.

So far, Exitround has convinced more than 500 buyers to sign on to the platform, Mullins tells me. Among them, he says, are “growing startups with super-aggressive growth goals,” big tech names that are known to be serial acquirers, and “legacy companies, including in manufacturing, insurance, healthcare and hospitality. These are companies that, while their core business may not be tech, realize that they need to deliver a better customer experience.” He also says Exitround has attracted “hundreds” of startups to its platform.

Still, not everyone is convinced that M&A can be automated.  One corporate development executive privately tells me his company’s experience “acquiring and integrating companies has been very difficult,” adding that using a middleman like Exitround would “just be adding on another layer of complication.”

Scott Rafer, a serial entrepreneur who has been in acqui-hire situations numerous times, also sees problems with Exitround’s model. First, he notes that the “likelier buyers know everyone in their sector  … if there’s any IP value at all.” Also, he questions Exitround’s ability to keep its deals completely anonymous. “If a company is described [to a potential acquirer] in any way that’s useful, three minutes on Google, and any decent corp dev guy can figure out who it is.”

Such issues may explain why Exitround is a bit cagey about its progress. Although the company announced its first “exit” in July, Mullins tells me he can’t release any transaction details. Similarly, he says Exitround has “sold some [startups] subsequently,” but he doesn’t disclose how many or any other details about these deals. Mullins also isn’t revealing how much capital Exitround has garnered to test out its business. (He says the company has raised seed funding but that the round remains open, with Exitround hoping to bring aboard “a few other investors strategic to our business.”)

Either way, a veteran who has been shutting down companies for decades – Martin Pichinson of Sherwood Partners – thinks there’s plenty of room for a company like Exitround in today’s market.

“I think this is a fantastic idea,” says Pichinson. “It’s hard for corp dev people and others to always and easily have quick and easy access to new technologies, ideas and know-how. We are in an exciting new world, and anything that can expedite adoption is a total win.”

New Fundings

2nd Watch, a three-year-old, Seattle-based company that helps businesses more easily move their applications to Amazon Web Services, has raised $23 million led by Columbia Capital. Existing investor Madrona Venture Group also participated. Madrona had led a $4.2 million round for the company in December of last year.

Appboy, a three-year-old, New York-based customer engagement platform used by mobile app developers, has raised $7.6 million in what it’s calling an “oversubscribed” Series A funding led by Icon Venture Partners, which was joined by IDG Ventures and Buddy Media founder Mike Lazerow. Previous investors to participate in the round included Accelerator Ventures, Blumberg Capital, Bullpen Capital and T5 Capital, which have provided he company with seed funding over the last two years.

ANDalyze, an eight-year-old, Champaign, Ill.-based company that makes a handheld device designed to test drinking water for heavy metals, has raised $1.54 million of a targeted $2 million round of debt funding, according to an SEC filing.

Betable, a five-year-old, London-based startup focused on monetizing the social gaming industry, has raised $18.5 million in Series A funding led by Venture51, with participation from previous investors including Greylock Partners and Founders Fund. (This seemingly represents a big bet for Venture51. I’d interviewed the founders in June and the firm was targeting $25 million for a new fund at the time.)

Coho Data, a two-year-old, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based  company that enables businesses to build their own high-performance data storage repositories, has raised $25 million in Series B funding. Ignition Partners led the round; previous investor Andreessen Horowitz also participated. The company has raised $35 million to date.

Garantia Data, a 2.5-year-old, Santa Clara, Calif.-based cloud-computing company, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Bain Capital Ventures and Carmel Ventures. The company had previously raised a $3 million round of funding, including from Zohar Gilon, a managing partner at Tamar Technology Ventures.

LiveQoS, a nine-year-old, Ottawa-based company whose software finds and fixes problems on wired and wireless networks, has raised $4 million in Series C financing led by the Canadian venture capital firm Miralta Capital. Last month, the company — formerly known as iPeak Networks — acquired a startup, Openera, in an all-stock transaction. According to Crunchbase, LiveQoS has raised roughly $4.5 million altogether.

Mobli, a three-year-old Israel-based photo- and video-sharing platform that competes with Instagram, has raised $60 million in funding from America Movil, the Latin American telecom led by billionaire investor Carlos Slim. The round brings the company’s funding to $86 million, money that has come from celebrity investors, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Serena Williams, and Lance Armstrong. GigaOm has more information about the deal here.

Seeq Corp., a months-old, Seattle-based startup that aims to work with manufacturers to more effectively mine and gain insights from their sensor and other data, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Second Avenue Partners. Other participants in the round included Madrona Venture Group, Clear Fir Partners, Gaylord Kellogg, John Meisenbach and unnamed individual investors.

Seriously, a months-old, L.A.based company behind a new mobile gaming platform, has raised $2.35 million in seed funding led by Upfront Ventures and Sunstone Capital of Denmark. Seriously’s founders are former Rovio executives, reports TechCrunch in a longer story about the company here.

SiTime Corporation, an eight-year-old, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based, analog semiconductor company, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Innovative Venture Fund and SMBC Venture Capital. Previous investors in SiTime include Greylock Partners, JAFCO Ventures, Rusnano, and Bosch Group.

Sprinklr, a four-year-old, New York-based social media management platform, has raised $17.5 million in Series C Funding from existing investors Battery Ventures and Intel Capital. The company has raised $37.5 million to date.

View, a seven-year-old, Milpitas, Calif.-based company formerly known as Soladigm, has raised $72.6 million in equity, debt, and a combination of other warrants and securities, a new SEC filing shows. The company appears to be targeting around $110 million, according to the filing, which shows fundraising for the round began in June. Investors in the round include Sigma Partners; the investment firm VenFin; Khosla Ventures; NanoDimension, a nanotechnology-focused venture capital firm; Harold Hughes, the former CEO of Rambus; George Hambro, a longtime exec with First Solar; and Jeffrey Evenson, a senior VP at Corning.

Zemanta, a six-year-old, New York-based content discovery and audience development partner for media outlets like VentureBeat and AP, has raised $2 million in new funding from Union Square Ventures and the angel investment fund Social Starts. The capital brings the company’s total funding to date to $7.3 million.

Zola, a brand-new, New York-based wedding registry startup, has raised a $3.25 million Series A funding round led by Thrive Capital.

Zomato, a five-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based restaurant discovery service that competes globally with Yelp, has raised $37 million. Sequoia Capital led the round with the help of India-based investor Info Edge. According to TechCrunch, which has a longer write-up of the company here, Zomato has raised roughly $55 million to date.

Zoomingo, a two-year-old, New York-based company behind a shopping and deal-finding app, has raised $1.25 million from existing investors Benaroya Capital and Naya Ventures, along with other angels. The capital brings Zoomingo’s total funding to date to $2.75 million.

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IPOs

CardioDX, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based molecular diagnostics company that specializes in cardiovascular genomics,  has set pricing terms for its IPO, according to an amended S-1. The company plans to offer the shares at between $14 and $16 and to trade on Nasdaq. The company’s principal shareholders include V-Sciences Investments, Longitude Venture Partners, Artiman Ventures, JP Morgan, Mohr Davidow Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Tandem Diabetes Care, a seven-year-old, San Diego-based medical device maker, has set pricing terms for its IPO in its newest S-1 that shows it plans to offer roughly 7.1 million shares on the Nasdaq at between $13 and $15. Tandem has raised about $90 million in funding over the years. Its principal shareholders include Delphi Ventures, Domain Associates, TPG, HLM Venture Partners, and Kearny Venture Partners.

Twitter has revealed in the newest update to its S-1 that IBM is alleging the company infringes on “at least three U.S. patents” held by IBM. IBM is “inviting us to negotiate a business resolution of the allegations,” Twitter added in the filing, but it noted: “We believe we have meritorious defenses to IBM’s allegations, although there can be no assurance that we will be successful in defending against these allegations or reaching a business resolution that is satisfactory to us.”

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Exits

SiteScout, a three-year-old, Toronto-based ad tech company with a self-serve, real-time bidding platform, has been acquired by the Chicago-based, digital media software and services company Centro. It sold for $40 million in cash and stock. Ad Age has detailed overview of why the deal is relevant.

—–

People

In Term Sheet this morning, my old colleague Dan Primack reports that Peter Fenton of Benchmark may have pulled a fast one on Institutional Venture Partners when it came time to join forces for Twitter’s Series C round in 2009. According to Primack’s sources, Twitter originally agreed to a Series C term sheet from Institutional Venture Partners, which is what Todd Chaffee told StrictlyVC last month. Said Chaffee, “Eventually, that news [that Twitter had accepted our term sheet] broke, and it brought everyone out of the weeds to outbid us. We asked [Williams and Stone], ‘Who do you like best of these groups?’ and they said Benchmark [Capital], so we dialed Benchmark into the deal.”

Primack reports this morning that Fenton “somehow convinced Williams to tear that [term sheet] up to let Benchmark lead the round, with IVP participating as a co-investor.”  (Though the deal will prove hugely lucrative for both firms, Benchmark clearly ended up with a bigger stake; it’s on Twitter’s  S-1 while IVP isn’t.)

—–

Happenings

Today, ad tech giant AppNexus is hosting its third annual New York Summit featuring industry leaders from the digital ecosystem today. If you can’t attend but want to tune in for part of the conference, you can follow along remotely by signing up here.

It’s the second and last day of the GigaOm Roadmap conference in San Francisco. Instagram founder Kevin Systrom and Franz von Holzhausen, chief designer at Tesla Motors, are among other featured speakers.

Today, Fast Company’s Innovation Uncensored conference takes place in downtown San Francisco. Among those speakers expected to appear: Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann; Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppleman; PayPal cofounder Max Levchin; and designer Hartmut Esslinger. You can check out the agenda here.

—–

Job Listings

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is looking for a program investment officer to help manage a $1.5 billion pool of money designed to advance the foundation’s charitable goals. The job’s requirements include investment and finance experience at a “top-tier” venture capital, private equity, or investment banking firm, as well as PhD-level scientific expertise in a field relevant to global health.

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Essential Reads

Perhaps you’ve noticed: China’s homegrown Internet giants are buying their way into Silicon Valley. (CB Insights has more on the trend here.)

—–

Detours

How being a tax dummy cost the New York Times a whopping $60 million.

Tesla’s Model S is now the most-registered car in eight of the 25 wealthiest U.S. zip codes.

The brother of journalist Michael Hastings sheds more light on Hastings’ life and death.

“Is Eric there, please?”

—–

Retail Therapy

Glowdoggie LED dog collars, so you can spot Spot long after the sun sets.

Yin-Yang bathtubs for couples who don’t quite understand the concept of taking a bath together.

Star Trek hoodies. Oh, just do it. Embrace your inner nerd.

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Correction: Yesterday, StrictlyVC flagged an SEC filing that appeared to show that Apple Tree Partners, a 14-year-old, Princeton, N.J.-based venture capital firm that invests in pharmaceuticals, biotech, and healthcare services, has raised $13.5 million for an annex fund to its second fund. We also noted that the firm’s second fund, which the firm began raising in 2008, had targeted roughly $30 million, according to a separate SEC filing. A representative for the firm has since told us that over the years, Apple Tree has raised a total of $112 million for its second fund and its annex fund.

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.

 

 

It’s election day. Don’t forget to vote.

How the Washington Post knows the NSA had access to internal Google and Yahoo cloud data, despite the agency’s denials.

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NEA’s Ravi Viswanathan on the Firm’s Concerns, Processes, and Next Big Fund

New Enterprise Associates may be big, but it isn’t unwieldy. Not according to the picture painted by Ravi Viswanathan, who joined NEA nine years ago from Goldman Sachs to co-head the firm’s growth equity effort. I sat down with Viswanathan last week at the expansive Sand Hill Road offices of the 35-year-old firm, which has raised $13.3 billion over its history, including $2.6 million it raised for its 14th fund last year. (It’s one of the largest funds in venture capital history.)

We chatted about where the firm has seen some of its biggest hits in recent years (think Workday, Tableau Software, Cvent); why it hasn’t made a single late-stage investment in 2013; and how the organization — which employs more than 100 people, including 12 general partners — decides on a deal. Our conversation has been edited for length.

NEA does deals of all sizes out of a single global fund. What’s its investing range?

We’ll do a $200,000 seed deal, [involving] two guys out of a Stanford class, all the way to a $50 million to $75 million check. We’ve written $100 million checks a couple of times – probably about 10 years ago, including for a semiconductor investment. But if I look at the last 10 growth deals, I’d say our sweet spot is in the neighborhood of $25 million to $50 million.

You have offices in Silicon Valley, Washington, D.C., China and India. How much of your fund are you investing abroad?

We invest up to 25 percent [abroad], though in the last five years, the number is less than 20 percent, because there’s been so much going on in the U.S. and, at the same time, there have been political and economic headwinds in China and India.

How much consensus do you need to make an investment? Can you ever act autonomously?

No, ultimately everything goes to the full partnership. Some of the smaller deals may occasionally get delegated [to a smaller group] but for growth deals, because it’s bigger checks, they always go up [to the general partnership for approval].

How many votes do you need to get a deal done?

You need a quorum; you need seven or eight partners to vote on it. But usually, if there’s more than one or two no’s, the deal almost never gets done. We don’t have a hard and fast blackball rule, but if there are serious reservations, we just [back off].

As a firm, we have off-sites four times a year to spend time together, so the East Coast and West Coast knows each other really well; we’re very integrated. So if a partner calls me and says, “Here are three things that really bother me about the deal you presented,” it helps you arrive at the right decision. Of course, sometimes you have to say, “This is a great investment; we should go for it.” And we’re trusting enough of each other that if someone has that much conviction, [the others can be convinced to go along].

You’ve made 24 growth investments in recent years, but none this year because of soaring valuations. Do valuations look more reasonable at the earlier financing stages? Do you have your pick of B stage companies to fund?

Series B deals concern us. The quality deals — those that have the great syndicate, the great team — you have to pay up for them. On the flip side , people have paid up and been validated, because the Series C round has been that much higher. But broadly speaking, I think valuations are pretty rich here and in New York. In Chicago, meanwhile, we’re seeing full valuations, but they aren’t astronomical.

Among the biggest venture capital firms, more seem to be adopting an agency type model. Would we see NEA embrace the same?

We have a quasi-agency model. When we invest, rarely if ever do you get one person; you get two, three, or four people: A GP, an associate, a principal. And those folks spend a lot of time with the company. Do we have an army of biz dev people and marketing people and recruiters? No. We’ve thought about it; we know some firms are having great success with it. But we haven’t made any decisions. What’s important to us is making sure that we’re convincing [founders] with data that we’re adding value above and beyond our peers.

You raised $2.6 billion last year. When will you be back in the market, and might NEA raise an ever bigger fund the next time around?

We’ll be back in the market in 2015, plus or minus a couple of quarters. As for size, we go in with a pretty open mind, but [$2.5 billion] is the default. The question we have is: what’s the right thing for the companies and the LPs? We’ve spent a lot of years figuring out this model. But every fund is a new discussion.

New Fundings

ADial Pharmaceuticals, a six-year-old, Charlottesville, Va.-based developer of therapies for addiction diseases and disorders has raised $1.8 million from Cato BioVentures, the venture arm of the Cato Research organization.

AetherPal, a four-year-old, South Plainfield, N.J.-based company whose software enables mobile carriers to remotely access users’ smartphones for customer support issues, has raised $6 million in Series A funding. The round was led by New Enterprise Associates and Point Judith Capital.

Bambeco, a four-year-old, Baltimore-based company that makes home furnishings and décor for eco-conscious customers, has officially raised $4.5 million in funding led by New Atlantic Ventures, with participation from Maryland Venture Fund and numerous angel investors. (StrictlyVC reported on this funding on October 18, based on an SEC filing, so if it looks vaguely familiar…)

ContaAzul, a three-year-old, Brazil-based maker of easy-to-use SaaS accounting and invoicing software, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series B funding led by its lead Series A backer, Ribbit Capital. Other participants in the round included Valar Ventures and existing investors Monashees Capital and Napkn Ventures.

CyPhy Works, four-year-old, Danvers, Mass.-based maker of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), has raised $7 million led by Lux Capital, with participation from General Catalyst Partners, Felicis Ventures and several undisclosed angel investors. CyPhy’s founder and CEO is Helen Greiner, one of the three founders of publicly-traded iRobot Corp.

Hinge, a 2.5-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based maker of a mobile dating app, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by Great Oaks Venture Capital. Among the many other investors to participate in the funding were Social+Capital Partnership, Red Swan Ventures, 500 Startups, Eniac Ventures, Fortify Ventures, Graph Ventures, Middleland Capital, Militello Capital and angel investors.

IID, a 17-year-old, Tacoma, Wash.-based company that protects data from cyber attacks, has raised $8 million in Series A funding from Bessemer Venture Partners. IID, a 65-person company that counts enterprises and government agencies among its customers, has never taken institutional funding before.

Lob, a months-old, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company that calls itself the Amazon Web Services for printing (it will print and mail users’ content, as well as help developers integrate shipping and printing into their own apps), has raised $2.4 million. The money comes from a long list of angel investors, including Kevin Hale, Dalton Caldwell, Sam Altman, Joshua Schachter, and Alexis Ohanian. The company has previous raised money from Y Combinator, whose program it passed through last summer.

MediaSpike, a two-year-old, Mountain View, Calif.-based company that runs a marketplace for in-game product placement, has raised $5.2 million in Series A funding led by CMEA Capital. Other new participants in the round include Andreessen Horowitz, Inspovation Ventures, and individuals, including entrepreneurs Jonathan Abrams, Othman Laraki, Rick Marini and Naval Ravikant. Existing investors to also participate included 500 Startups, Google Ventures, and Raptor Capital.

Midatech, a 13-year-old, clinical-stage biotech company based in Abingdon, England, has raised $15.2 million in new funding that boosts the total amount the company has raised to $24.9 million. The financing was led by Ippon Capital SA, a Geneva-based private equity firm. Midatech is focused on cancer and diabetes treatments.

NeuroSky, a nine-year-old, San Jose, Calif.-based company that sells body and mind monitoring and analysis software and hardware, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from SoftBank Corp. As part of the investment, NeuroSky is forming a strategic partnership with SoftBank Mobile Corp.

Terrajoule, a four-year-old, Redwood City, Calif.-based startup, has raised $11.5 million. The money comes from strategic investor Air Liquide, along with early investor New Enterprise Associates and individual investors who include Jim Bochnowski and Craig Winkler. Terrajoule is an energy storage and solar startup whose technology employs an old-fashioned steam engine design. Greentech Media has more on the company here.

TicTasks, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based company behind a productivity app, has raised $1.1 million, including from Kapor Capital, according to an SEC filing.

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New Funds

Apple Tree Partners, a 14-year-old, Princeton, N.J.-based venture capital firm that invests in pharmaceuticals, biotech, and healthcare services, has raised $13.5 million for an annex fund to its second fund, according to an SEC filing. The firm’s second fund, which the firm began raising in 2008, had targeted roughly $30 million, an SEC filing shows.

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IPOs

Yesterday, Twitter became the 16th pre-IPO company to boost its price range ahead of its launch this year, according to Dealogic.

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Exits

Sold, an 18-month-old, Boston-based company that aimed to simplify e-commerce by handling the shipping of goods and their payment, among other things, has been acquired by Dropbox. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Sold had raised just $1.2 million from investors, including Google Ventures, Greylock Partners, Matrix Partners and Boston Seed. TechCrunch has much more on the acquisition here.

Velti, a 12-year-old, San Francisco-based company that was considered a mobile ad giant just two years ago, is selling off its mobile marketing businesses in the U.S., UK, and India to Blackstone‘s credit division GSO Capital Partners. Under terms of the deal, Velti has filed for chapter 11 while GSO has committed to provide up to $25 million to restructure the company. Velti went public in 2011 in an offering that valued the company at $800 million. By this summer, its market cap had dropped to roughly $70 million. Among its numerous problems, says Reuters: the company was “particularly hit by the meltdown in Greece and Cyprus, two countries where it wrote down more than $100 million in receivables in the second quarter ended June.”

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People

MacKenzie Bezos doesn’t think much of Brad Stone‘s new book about her husband. Posting her feedback on Amazon (of course), she writes: “‘Bezos felt…’ ‘Bezos believed….’ ‘Bezos wanted….’ ‘Bezos fixated…’ ‘Bezos worried….’ ‘Bezos was frustrated…’ ‘Bezos was consumed…’ ‘In the circuitry of Bezos’s brain, something flipped…’ When reading phrases like these, which are used in the book routinely, readers should remember that Jeff was never interviewed for this book…” (In response, Stone notes he has interviewed Bezos numerous times for articles; he also interviewed 300 other people for the book.)

Lady Gaga and her longtime manager Troy Carter are splitsville, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter. The separation could negatively impact Carter as he raises a new $75 million venture capital fund, notes TechCrunch.

Anthony and Jay Robert Pritzker, brothers and heirs to the Hyatt Hotels Corp. and the Marmon Holdings’ manufacturing fortune, have turned from family feuding to deal-making.

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Happenings

It’s the first day of the GigaOm Roadmap conference in San Francisco, where you can catch Square’s Jack Dorsey and Nest’s Tony Fadell among others. Click here for more details.

It’s also day one of the App Developers Conference at the Los Angeles Convention Center (which could be good for poaching). You can learn more about it here.

Kicking off tomorrow, also in San Francisco, is Fast Company’s Innovation Uncensored conference, with an all-star line-up of its own that includes Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann; Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppleman; PayPal cofounder Max Levchin; and designer Hartmut Esslinger. You can check out the agenda here.

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Job Listings

Amazon is looking for a business development manager to zero in on the venture capital community. Specifically, says the company, the right person will help the company identify “appropriate VCs to target” and influence to use Amazons’ AWS cloud services as the basis for their portfolio companies’ infrastructure. (Sounds a little evil, doesn’t it?) Among the preferred qualifications of the job: 10 or more years in business development or strategic partnerships, and experience within the VC industry, as well as the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem. The job is in San Francisco.

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Essential Reads

Silicon Valley probably needs the rest of the nation more than the rest of the nation needs Silicon Valley, argues WSJ columnist Farhad Manjoo.

The three reasons Twitter didn’t sell to Facebook.

Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt said yesterday that the company plans to tap into Hong Kong’s “natively entrepreneurial” culture.

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Detours

Want your employees to work harder? Try cash bonuses. They’re more effective than raises, say Harvard researchers.

A look inside the global junk trade.

The Atlantic investigates: Does Balthazar, the 16-year-old, 180-seat, New York brasserie need bathroom attendants? You bet your ass it does, says one longtime employee. Otherwise, customers “take five of [paper towels]. Nobody wants that. I give one, but if no one here, they take five.” Another common atrocity to occur when no one is monitoring the bathroom: “If there’s not somebody here, people come in, drop the paper, pee, no flushing,” whispers the employee. “Make kaka, no flushing. Very very very messy.”

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Retail Therapy

It’s nearly winter. Time for a new glencheck blazer by Gant.

This book about “unnecessary” quotation marks is a fun “read.”

We’re not sure why anyone would acquire a giant motorcycle, but we howled, looking through images of this monster sitting beside a normal-size motorbike. (We’d say it’s thoroughly American, but the bikes are actually made in Eppingen, Germany.)

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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.

Blackberry’s CEO is out after the company’s plans to sell itself collapse.

Things are gettin’ real: Twitter just raised its expected price range from between $17 to $20 per share to $23 to $25 per share.

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Former Sequoia Partner Mark Kvamme at the Center of Controversy Again

Mark Kvamme, a former partner with Sequoia Capital, has cultivated numerous fans since moving to Ohio in early 2011. But he has also attracted critics who worry that Kvamme’s relationships with some of the state’s biggest power brokers are a little too cozy.

In the latest controversy, press reports on Friday revealed that Drive Capital, Kvamme’s new, Columbus-based venture firm, received a $50 million commitment from Ohio State University in July, despite concerns that the fund is unproven.

As of early August, Drive Capital had raised $181 million for its fund, which is targeting $300 million.

Kvamme did not respond to a request for comment over the weekend. Ohio State officials also did not respond to requests for more information over the weekend.

Records released to the Associated Press and Cleveland’s Plain Dealer newspaper on Friday show that university officials were pushing back against the school’s investment in Drive Capital until April, over concerns that the firm’s Midwest investing thesis was based on “the attractiveness of what is perceived as an underserved market” rather than proof of concept.

An email on April 5 from Ohio State’s chief investment officer, Jonathan Hook, to the school’s chief financial officer, Geoff Chatas, shows Hook told Kvamme directly that the school’s officials “did not see his fund as a good investment.” Later emails show that between April and July, when the investment was made, Kvamme and his wife, Megan, dined with then-president of the university Gordon Gee, during which time Kvamme seems to have secured a verbal commitment from Gee.

“Your thoughtful questions, insightful comments, and sense of humor always give us food for thought accompanied by the delicious meal,” Kvamme wrote Gee in an email dated May 15. “We also always come away from our dinners with more ideas on how we can make Ohio the center of innovation and creativity.”

In his email, Kvamme also asked Gee to approach other major universities for funding commitments, including the University of Michigan, Indiana University, and the University of Wisconsin.

Gee replied to Kvamme that he would “see how we can best get other institutions to join with us.”

Joseph Alutto, who succeeded Gee as the school’s interim president in July, had also questioned the size of the investment that Ohio State was planning to make in Drive Capital in the weeks before Alutto took his new office. Writing to Chatas in June, Alutto asked: “What is the justification for a $50 million investment rather than one in the $20-30 million range you had described as more typical? Let’s discuss.”

Several weeks later, in an email to Chatas signed by “G,” the sender wrote that he had convinced Alutto to “honor the Kvamme agreement,” adding, “We are back on solid ground. Make that happen quickly.” (The name and email address of “G” were redacted by OSU when it submitted the emails to the media.)

Venture capital is very much a relationship-driven business, of course. And surely, Kvamme looks as good a bet as any. Kvamme led Sequoia’s early investment in LinkedIn – a bet that has paid off handsomely for Sequoia’s LPs. Kvamme also borders on VC royalty. His father, Floyd, is a partner emeritus at Kleiner Perkins, and his ex-father-in-law is famed venture capitalist Pierre Lamond, long one of Sequoia Capital’s most powerful partners.

Still, the investment appears to represent the largest commitment to a venture firm that Ohio State has made. Venture capital investments represented just 0.7 percent, or $21.7 million, of the $3.1 billion that the university was managing as of June 30.

The agreement is also attracting scrutiny as Gee has reportedly been seeking an investment from Kvamme. According to the emails provided to news outlets on Friday, Gee, who remains at Ohio State in an emeritus position and as a law professor, talked about soliciting a $1.5 million contribution from Kvamme to help establish a higher-education policy center.

An OSU spokeswoman told the Plain Dealer that it’s “important to note that exchanges about Mr. Kvamme as a possible donor took place well after the investment was made, and on the Center in particular, Gordon did not even know about the idea for such an institute at the time he started advocating for the investment opportunity.”

Combined with school officials’ apparent change of heart, the “huge departure” for the university has critics like Brian Rothenberg, the executive director of the public interest group ProgressOhio in Columbus, concerned.

“Mark Kvamme seems to have a very inquisitive mind and he doesn’t mind pushing the envelope, but it’s a toxic mix with public money,” says Rothenberg.

Rothenberg has been focused on Kvamme’s activities for some time. In fact, ProgressOhio is challenging the constitutionality of JobsOhio, a private nonprofit that Ohio Governor John Kasich created with Kvamme’s help in January 2011. Gee joined the board six months later.

The job, which brought Kvamme to Ohio from Silicon Valley, was expected to last just five months. But by August 2011, Kvamme had acquired an Ohio’s driver’s license, along with a farm outside Sunbury, Ohio. Apparently, he had also fallen in love. (Kvamme is now married to the daughter of a former director of the Ohio Office of Budget and Management.)

In 2011, Kvamme said he hoped to create 30,000 new Ohio jobs through JobsOhio. But from the outset, the program, which manages roughly $100 million per year in public and private money, has operated under a shroud of secrecy. (The bill that created JobsOhio states that “records created or received by JobsOhio are not public records.”)

ProgressOhio and others have characterized that lack of transparency as unconstitutional. The Supreme Court of Ohio will begin hearing oral arguments relating to the case this Wednesday.

New Fundings

Alianza, a four-year-old, Lindon, Utah-based cloud-based voice platforms company, has raised $3.5 million, according to a new SEC filing. Signal Peak Ventures is among its investors.

Campus Quad, a new, San Carlos, Calif.-based company that’s working with universities to foster greater student engagement over its mobile platform, has raised $500,000, according to an SEC filing. No investors are listed on the form, which shows the money raised came through a combination of debt, options and warrants rather than equity.

Game Play Network, a year-old, L.A.-based company that appears to be in the business of online advance-deposit wagering (a form of horse race gambling where bettors have to fund their accounts before placing bets), has raised $6.175 million as part of a $20 million fundraise, according to an SEC filing. Among the company’s investors is Santa Monica Capital Partners.

Hoopika Biotech, a two-year-old, Vienna-based biotech company focused on developing next-generation vaccines, has raised $25.7 million from new investors Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, Takeda Ventures, and BioMedPartners. Previous investors Sofinnova Partners and Forbion Capital Partners also participated in the funding. The company has now raised about $35 million altogether.

InVision App, a three-year-old, New York-based company that helps its clients create interactive, Web application prototypes, has raised $11.6 million in Series A funding from Tiger Global, along with previous investor FirstMark Capital, according to an SEC filing. FirstMark had provided the company with $1.5 million in seed funding last year.

Malauzai Software, a four-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based company that makes mobile banking apps for community financial institutions, has completed $3 million in new funding. It isn’t revealing the source of the capital. Last year, Live Oak Banking Company provided the company with $2.3 million in funding.

Owlstone, a Norwalk, Conn.-company that’s commercializing a breathalyzer that can detect cancer and other diseases, has raised $772,000 as part of a $1.25 million round, according to an SEC filing. Among those listed on the filing is Thomas Finn, president of global health care at Procter & Gamble. You can learn much more about this company here.

RapidMiner, a six-year-old, Burlingame, Mass.-based predictive analytics platform, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Earlybird Venture Capital and Open Ocean Capital.

RockLive, a nearly four-year-old, San Francisco-based company that describes itself as a mobile development lab, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from baby-faced Canadian crooner Justin Bieber, according to Crunchbase. In August 2012, RockLive raised a separate $1.6 million round from investor Shervin Pishevar and boxer Floyd Mayweather among others.

Svelte Medical Systems, a six-year-old, New Providence, N.J.-based stent maker, has raised $22 million in a round led by CNF Investments and New Science Ventures. The company has raised roughly $65 million to date.

Thinfilm Electronics, an eight-year-old, Oslo, Norway-based company that produces paper-thin electronic components, has raised $24 million from Invesco Asset Management, which secured 46.7 million shares of the publicly traded company for its investment. Invesco, which acquired 13 percent of ThinFilm in a private placement earlier this month, now owns 23 percent of the company.

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New Funds

Aligned Partners Fund, a two-year-old early-stage venture capital firm led by Jodi Sherman Jahic and Susan Mason, has raised $25.9 million for its first fund, according to a new SEC filing that shows the pair began fundraising in November 2011. Prior to cofounding Aligned Partners, Jahic was the managing director of Sherman Capital Group, a San Francisco-based venture fund; she also led wireless investments at Voyager Capital and logged time earlier in her career at Anderson Consulting (now Accenture). Mason, meanwhile, spent 15 years with the early-stage firm ONSET Ventures.

NCT Ventures, a 27-year-old venture capital firm based in Columbus, Oh., is hoping to raise a new, $75 million fund, according to an SEC filing. The firm doesn’t provide much information at its site, but one of its partners is Jeff Bell, who was VP of global marketing at Microsoft from 2006 through 2008. Among its exits is Clearsaleing, an ad analytics company that raised just $3.25 million and sold for an undisclosed amount to publicly traded GSI Commerce in 2011. GSI Commerce was acquired for about $2.4 billion by eBay in early 2012.

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IPOs

In an SEC filing on Friday, Zulily, the Seattle-based flash deals site for mothers, revealed plans to go public on Nasdaq and to price its shares between $16 and $18. The company is planning to sell 6.3 million shares of class A common stock (which would amount to roughly $238 million if it prices at the high end of its range). Among Zulily’s biggest shareholders are Maveron, which owns 23.5 percent of the company; August Capital, which owns 7.4 percent; and Andreessen Horowitz, which owns 7.3 percent;

Renaissance Capital takes a look at some of the other IPOs coming up.

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People

Allen DeBevoise, the cofounder and current CEO of eight-year-old Machinima, a popular YouTube network that caters to gamers, is looking for a replacement for himself. DeBevoise says the company needs “more professional management.”

Henri Lamiraux, Apple’s Vice President of Engineering for the iOS iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch operating system, has left the company, reports Mark Gurman of 9to5mac.com.

“This is going to come off a little cocky,” warns venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, before telling reporter Liz Gannes that he has cracked the code for making startups grow.

Sequoia Capital has hired Blair Shane as its chief marketing officer, reports AllThingsD. Shane replaces Sequoia’s longtime marketing partner Mark Dempster, who says he left Sequoia to launch an “independent advisory service for founders.”(Dempster’s LinkedIn profile still shows him at Sequoia.) Previously, Shane ran marketing for the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the California Academy of Sciences.

Fab‘s creative director and co-founder, Bradford Shellhammer is out the door of the seemingly beleaguered company. On his personal blog, he writes that he has “an explorer’s heart. And I don’t sit still. And I want to make other things in this world.”

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Data

Aileen Lee, the former Kleiner Perkins partner turned cofounder of Cowboy Ventures, asked her team to to examine some venture numbers dating back to 2003, and she published their findings on TechCrunch this past weekend. Among their conclusions: Over the last decade, 39 companies have sprung into existence that are now valued at $1 billion by either public market or private investors; enterprise-oriented billion-dollar companies have delivered much higher returns on investment than consumer-facing giants; and there’s very little educational diversity among the billion-dollar companies’ cofounders. Lee’s data suggests the “vast majority” of all cofounders went to “selective” universities, with Stanford leading the pack.

Worth noting, there’s already plenty of disagreement over Lee’s findings. Venture capitalist Fred Wilson weighs in here with his own observations.

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Happenings

It’s a big week for conferences, beginning with Defrag 2013, a three-day conference that’s kicking off this morning in Broomfield, Colo. (It’s been likened to a small-scale TED event.) Today’s line-up looks interesting, with “life business coach” Jerry Colonna and venture capitalist Brad Feld speaking on the emotional challenges of entrepreneurship. You can learn more here.

Getting underway tomorrow with the help of featured speaker Jack Dorsey is the GigaOm Roadmap conference in San Francisco. Click here for more details.

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Job Listings

Square, the mobile payments company, is looking for a business associate in San Francisco. The job is described as a hybrid of planning and sales strategy. Ideally, says the company, candidates will have worked for a top-tier management consultancy, investment bank or in a similar capacity at another firm and will feel comfortable interacting with senior management on a regular basis.

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Essential Reads

Bill Gates on the Internet’s limits: “I certainly love the IT thing,” he tells the Financial Times. “But when we want to improve lives, you’ve got to deal with more basic things like child survival, child nutrition.”

Mobile-phone based hearing aids could become a big deal in health technology. Here’s a snapshot of what’s happening.

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Detours

We love this conversation between Alec Baldwin and Dick Cavett at New York’s “21” Club.

Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology have created a very simple way of assessing how well your body functions compared with how well it should work, given your age. If you dare, you can try it out here.

In defiance of standing desks, a writer — like Marcel Proust and Mark Twain before him — lies down to work.

Harrison Ford begs his agents for sweet mercy.

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Retail Therapy

Flip-flops for Burning Man.

A shampoo that startup geeks will appreciate.

The $225 Clairisonic brush, for your face. Hey, why stop with your hair?

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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.

Tech giants are bolstering their defenses against snooping. The government “blew it,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a conference this fall.

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Elon Musk: People Need “Things That Are Inspiring”

This week, the Web Summit conference in Ireland managed to attract some very big names, including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who was interviewed yesterday as part of the event’s closing ceremonies.

The billionaire entrepreneur wasn’t alone on stage; venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar was among the guests. But Musk was clearly the main attraction. (As a leather-clad Musk strode to his seat, the James Bond theme resounded throughout the hall, and every smartphone in the audience shot up into the air to take pictures.) Here’s some of what Musk had to say during the panel, which was moderated by Storyful founder and CEO Mark Little:

On whether it’s a “great time to be alive as a creator”:

“I don’t think you could ask for a better time in history. I think people sometimes forget that. Realistically, when else would you want to be alive?”

On why, while running two billion-dollar companies, he would bother to fly to Ireland for Web Summit:  

“I understand there’s going to be a great party tonight,” said Musk (convincingly).

Asked about his “lightbulb moment” as a teenager: 

“It was more like when I was 21,” said Musk. “When I was a teenager, I didn’t really know what I was going to do. I liked playing video games and I liked writing software. So I thought maybe I’ll write [software professionally]; that seemed like a pretty fun thing. And then when I was in college, I started thinking about, ‘Well, what’s going to most affect the world?’ Actually, I thought there were five things that would most affect the world, three of which I thought would definitely be positive things to solve, two of which [were] a slight question mark. As it happens, I was able to get involved in all three of those things: the Internet, sustainable energy, and space.” [Alas, Little didn’t ask about the two other things.]

On why Musk didn’t simply start another e-commerce company after co-founding PayPal: 

“The thing that motivated me there was I kept expecting that there would be a manned mission to Mars. That was the continuation of the dream of Apollo. We went to the moon. Then there was supposed to be a base on the moon; there were supposed to be space hotels. There were going to be missions to Mars. And year after year, that stuff didn’t happen. At first, I thought [that] maybe people [had] lost the will to do that, and I came up with the idea of this mission to Mars to kind of get people excited about that stuff again. But I came to the conclusion that I was actually wrong about that assumption, and there’s plenty of will. But it’s really about making sure there’s a way. If people think there’s a way to do it without bankrupting the economy, I think there’s plenty of will.”

On all the attention he receives versus SpaceX: 

“We’ve got an awesome team at SpaceX. There’s way too much attention paid to me, and that’s not right. People want to identify with an individual, and so that’s naturally what occurs, but there’s a super-talented group at SpaceX who make it happen.”

Musk was also asked about his vision for the future of humanity and space exploration in particular:

“I think it would be really great to have a base on Mars, and ultimately to be making steady progress towards making it a self-sustaining civilization on Mars. I think that’s the most powerful thing we can do to ensure the long term survival of civilization. And it’s just a very exciting future, I think, if you imagine a future where we’re exploring the stars, and we’re a multi-planet species, and the scope and scale of society is that much greater.

“I find that view of the future really exciting and inspiring, and there need to be things that are inspiring. There are lots of problems on Earth, and there always will be, but there need to be things that are inspiring, that make you want to get out of bed in the morning. Having a bright future in space is one of those things.”

[By the way, for European readers eager to get their hands on a Model S sedan, Musk said Tesla “should have the right-hand version in production in March” and he estimated that the car will be available to purchase by “late March [or] April.”]

New Fundings

6Wunderkinder, a three-year-old, Berlin-based startup behind a popular task management app called Wunderlist, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital, reports TechCrunch. Previous investors Atomico and Earlybird also participated in the funding. Wunderlist has about six million users; it has raised $34.9 million to date.

Ador, formerly known as Lockerz, has raised $9 million in a round that appears to be targeting $25 million, according to an SEC filing that was flagged yesterday by AllThingsD. Lockerz, a four-year-old, Pittsburgh-based social commerce network, had raised nearly $80 million as of this time last year, including from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Liberty Media, Live Nation and DAG Ventures. Lockerz is still operational, the company told AllThingsD, but most of its capital will now be invested in Ador, a new shoppable digital magazine.

Alector, a six-month-old, San Francisco-based biotech company dedicated to the discovery and development of treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A financing. The money comes from Polaris Venture Partners and OrbiMed Advisors. (Xconomy has a nice write-up about the company here.)

Boyibang, a year-old, Beijing-based company that has created a diabetes management app and platform, has secured 4.5 million yuan ($733,974) of angel investment from Ameba Capital and Wu Jiong, the executive director of the online doctor-appointment platform Guahao.

Circle Internet Financial, a months-old, Boston-based bitcoin startup started by Brightcove founder Jeremy Allaire, has raised $9 million in funding from Accel Partners; Accel’s Jim Breyer, who invested some of his own money in the deal; and General Catalyst Partners. Lizette Chapman of Dow Jones notes that it’s the largest bitcoin funding on record.

Cloudnine, a six-year-old, Bangalore-based outfit that runs a handful of specialty maternity-care hospitals, has raised $16.1 million led by Sequoia Capital. The capital will be used to set up 10 new facilities over the next two years. Existing investor Matrix Partners also participated in the round.

Contego Fraud Solutions, a two-year-old, Oxfordshire, England- based startup whose software product provides due diligence and risk analysis on people and companies, has raised £900k from London Business Angel Investors and Rainbow Seed Fund. The company has raised a prior £350k in February 2012 from Cass Entrepreneurship Fund, bringing its total funding to date to around $1.9 million.

Kumu Networks, a two-year-old, Santa Clara, Calif.-based company whose technology aims to double the capacity of any wireless network, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Third Point Ventures. Previous investors NEA and Khosla Ventures also participated in the round. The company has raised $25 million to date.

Nanocomp Technologies, a nine-year-old, Merrimack, N.H.-based nanomaterials company, has landed a $6 million venture loan facility led by Horizon Technology Finance Corporation. Nanocomp raised an equity round of at least $7.7 million last year, according to an SEC filing that suggested the company was looking to raise $25 million. CEI Community Ventures is among its backers, along with numerous angels.

Nomorerack, a three-year-old, New York-based online e-commerce company that sells discounted items in a variety of categories, has raised $40 million in Series B funding from Oak Investment Partners and HTV Industries. The company raised a $12 million Series A round roughly one year ago led by Asian e-commerce giant G-Market.

Svelte Medical Systems, a seven-year-old, Providence, R.I.-based company that develops balloon expandable stents, has raised $22 million in fresh funding led by CNF Investments and New Science Ventures, which were joined by previous investors. The company has raised roughly $65 million to date.

TabTale, a three-year-old, Tel Aviv-based maker of interactive children’s books and games, has raised $12 million in funding led by Qualcomm Ventures and return backer Magma Venture Partners. Vintage Investment Ventures and numerous individual investors also participated in the funding. The company has raised $13.5 million to date.

Unitrends Software, a 24-year-old, Columbia, S.C.-based company that makes data protection software, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Insight Venture Partners. The company has raised at least $20 million in the past, according to Crunchbase, including a $9 million round closed in 2008 that included The Aurora Funds, The Trelys Funds, Paladin Capital Group, and Harbert Venture Partners.

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New Funds

Benchmark is raising a new fund in the neighborhood of its last $425 million vehicle, reports Reuters. “Benchmark is committed to maintaining a laser focus on early-stage investing,” general partner Bill Gurley said in an emailed statement to the outlet. The firm’s current fund, its seventh, closed in 2011.

MentorTech Ventures, a seed- and early-stage venture capital fund that invests in companies that are part of the University of Pennsylvania ecosystem, has raised $24.2 million toward its newest fund, according to a new SEC filing. The firm has been raising the capital for the past couple of years, the filing shows, and it appears to be targeting $35 million altogether. So far, 61 accredited investors have participated in the fundraise.

North Bridge Venture Partners, the Waltham, Mass.-based firm that first dipped its toe into growth-stage investing in 2006, has raised a new, $581.6 million growth-stage fund. An SEC form filed yesterday shows that the firm began fundraising in July. North Bridge issued a release about the fund late last week; in it the firm noted that its growth equity unit is now managing $1.1 billion altogether.

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IPOs

China’s 58.com, the country’s equivalent of Craigslist, saw its shares soar yesterday on its first day of trading on the NYSE. It priced its initial offering of 11 million shares at $17 million; the shares ended the day at $24.12, up 41 percent. The company is profitable. In the first half of 2013, it reported net income of $300,000 on sales of $58 million. Its biggest shareholders are Nihao China Corporation (which owns 22.3 percent of the company), WP X Asia Online Investment Holdings (which owns 25.8 percent), SB Asia Investment Fund (which owns 20.5 percent), and DCM (which owns 16.6 percent).

Chegg, the eight-year-old, Santa Clara, Calif-based textbook rental company, said in a new filing yesterday that it hopes to raise up to $172.5 million in its IPO by pricing its stock at $9.50 to $11.50 a share. (It would give the company a roughly $900 million valuation.) Chegg has raised nearly $200 million from investors over the years; its biggest shareholders include Foundation Capital (it owns 6.5 percent), Gabriel Ventures (it owns 10.3 percent), Insight Venture Partners (it owns 14.3 percent) and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (which owns 11.7 percent). Chegg first filed to go public in August. It’s expected to go public in a couple of weeks.

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Data

The research group CB Insights has released its newest report on what’s happening with seed-stage investments. You can find the full report here. Some highlights: Of the 762 U.S.-based tech companies that received seed funding between April and September 2012, 34 percent have received follow-on funding. Meanwhile, the follow-on rate for seed investments made between 2009 and 2012 was 40 percent (so things may be cooling off slightly).

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People

Larry Ellison and other Oracle executives just saw their pay packages rejected as bloated and out of sync with the company’s performance by shareholders.

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Job Listings

Yelp is looking to hire a business development senior manager to help build relationships across the industry’s international communities and negotiate strategic partnerships worldwide. This position splits time between Yelp’s San Francisco headquarters and its London offices and involves extensive international travel. Among other requirements, candidates need to have at least seven years of experience in international business development, product, consulting or finance.

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Essential Reads

Despite Harvard Management Company’s reputation as a great investor, it is not a great investor.

There are right now 24 venture-backed companies with valuations of $1 billion or more, and roughly 70 percent of them are based in either Silicon Valley or San Francisco, says data provider Pitchbook. The Silicon Valley Business Journal has more on the story here.

Soon, you’ll no longer have to turn off your iPhone/iPad/MacBook Pro/Kindle Fire/travel-size hair straightener as soon as you board a plane. Yesterday, the FAA revealed that by year end, fliers generally should be allowed to use tablets, e-readers and other gadgets during all phases of their flights.

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Detours

In defense of teenagers who take selfies at funerals.

Banksy ends his monthlong “Better Out Than In” New York show in understated fashion.

The New Yorker takes a look at what makes people cheat.

How to tell scary stories: Advice from the co-creator of “American Horror Story.”

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Retail Therapy

This is cool — the Phantom II Vision flying camera, which streams real-time video to your mobile devices. Now you can spy into your neighbors’ second-floor windows, too.

Ledge pants. Coffee, juice, wine, and water will slide right off this fabric, which is made of “elastane content” and other materials it’s probably best not to contemplate.

Beautiful, luxurious leather pouches, for all that paperwork you’re always carrying around. Oh? You never carry around paper anymore? Valentino does not care. Valentino will make beautiful pouches despite you and your “smart” tablets and other electronic gizmos.

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