The personal genetics startup 23andMe announced last night that it will stop giving new customers genetic analysis information , after being warned by the FDA over compliance issues. It will provide new customers only ancestry information and raw health data until it’s classified as a medical device. The road toward that end could beespecially long, observes the Washington Post, given the government has rarely dealt with the kind of health claims that 23andMe makes.

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VCs Start Thinking More Creatively About AngelList 

This week, three-year-old Kima Ventures, a Paris-based seed fund that backs one to two startups a week, made headlines for a new way that it plans to use AngelList, the popular platform for startups and investors. As Kima’s cofounder Jeremie Berrebi told me, the firm will invest $150,000 a shot in up to 50 startups in exchange for a 15 percent equity stake in each company. Kima says the funds will be transferred to each winning startup within 15 days. Companies have to apply for the money on AngelList.

Kima’s AngelList play may be the splashiest to date, but it’s one of a growing number of venture firms that’s looking for ways to work with AngelList in new and different ways.

Indeed, AngelList’s months-old Syndicate’s platform, which allows a “lead investor” to syndicate investments on a deal-by-deal basis in exchange for carry, seems to be bringing out the creative side of many investors.

Renowned VC Tim Draper, for example, told me recently via email that “I certainly plan to syndicate on AngelList.”  Draper wasn’t specific about a timeline or his plans, but he said it’s all part of the natural evolution of things. “I want launching a company to be a snap,” including the funding process, he wrote.

Similarly Semil Shah, who manages a $10 million seed-fund called Haystack, recently voiced enthusiasm over Syndicates as we chatted over coffee in downtown San Francisco. “I’m not 100 percent sure how I’m going to use it,” he admitted, “but I’m definitely going to use it.”

Jeff Fagnan, a partner at Atlas Venture, which has invested in AngelList, says Atlas has “identified a dozen very influential serial entrepreneurs and angels in Boston who we think could [further spur the growth of the startup] ecosystem [locally], and we’re telling them that anything they invest in as a lead [using the Syndicates platform], we’ll invest up to an additional $250,000 per any of their projects.”

“I don’t think we know what kind of activity it will result in,” says Fagnan, but he says it beats “scout programs,” which he calls “archaic and wrong. It’s like, ‘You’re our scout. Bring us back some dealflow and we’ll throw you a few ducats.’” Atlas is open to anyone else joining a Syndicate that involves the firm. “We just want to promote as much early-stage innovation as possible,” he says.

The firms won’t be the first to publicly embrace the platform; in October, Foundry Group, the Boulder, Colorado-based venture firm, said that it plans to start investing in startups using Syndicates. But they seem to signal that VCs would rather experiment with the platform than let it cannibalize their business.

As Shah puts it, “After the noise of the launch of Syndicates, there’s going to long education process, and mistakes will be made. But we’ll definitely see a major venture capital firm” use the platform soon. “General frustration with [traditional] venture capital has been building up to the point that it’s inevitable,” he says.

New Fundings

Box, the eight-year-old, Los Altos, Calif.-based storage and collaboration software company, has raised $100 million in new funding at a valuation of roughly $2 billion, CEO Aaron Levie tells the WSJ. The money comes from international investors interested in helping the company expand across the globe, including, most immediately, Japan, Australia, and Brazil. Backers in the round include Itochu Technology Ventures, Macnica, and Mitsui & Co. in Japan; Telefónica SA in Europe and Latin America; and Telstra Corp. in Australia. Other investors include DST Global, Coatue and previous Box investors. The company has now raised more than $400 million from investors.

DioGenix, a six-year-old, Gaithersburg, Md.-based company behind a next-generation sequencing assay that measures changes in human immunity, has received $3.2 million in funding. The capital comes from new and existing investors, including the pharmaceutical company Nerveda.

EducationSuperHighway, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based nonprofit that’s working to remove the “roadblocks to high-speed Internet for students and teachers” has raised $9 million from Mark Zuckerberg’s Startup:Education fund, along with the Gates Foundation, and several other “foundations and education entities.” EdSurge founder Betsy Corcoran has much more on the investment here.

Healthbox, a two-year-old, Chicago-based accelerator focused on identifying and helping to grow healthcare-related startups, has raised $2 million, according to an SEC filing. The outfit is targeting $8 million.

Homejoy, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based home cleaning company, has raised $38 million in Series B funding from Google Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, First Round Capital, and individuals Max Levchin, Oliver Jung and Mike Hirshland. Homejoy’s online platform matches users with screened, background-checked and trained cleaners, who charge $20 per hour. The company has now raised a total of $40 million.

Mozido, an eight-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based mobile payment company, announced that it has received the first $30 million of a committed $70 million round of financing led by an unnamed Boston-based investment advisor. The funding brings the company’s total capital raised to more than $100 million. Other investors in the company include Brentwood Investments, TomorrowVentures, Atlanticus Corporation and Turner Investments’ founder Bob Turner.

Palantir Technologies, the nine-year-old, Palo Alto, Calif.-based data insights company with roots in the intelligence world, is about to announce a round of as much as $100 million in new funding, at a stunning $9 billion valuation, reports the WSJ. The company was valued at $6 billion as recently as September, when it raised a $196.5 million round. Palantir’s earliest investors include Founders Fund and In-Q-Tel.

Roka Bioscience, a four-year-old, San Diego-based industrial testing that develops molecular tests for biopharmaceutical, food, and water safety testing, has raised $17 million, just months after closing on a separate, $25 million round, show SEC filings. The company has now raised more than $100 million, including from publicly traded Gen-Probe (which spun out Roka in 2009), OrbiMed Advisors, New Enterprise Associates, and TPG Biotech.

Sketchfab, a two-old, New York-based company that aims to become the “YouTube of 3D renderings” has raised $2 million from Balderton Capital, Partech Ventures, Borealis Ventures, and TechStars founder David Cohen, along with existing angel investors.

Swapbox, a nearly two-year-old, San Francisco-based company that is building rental lockers for people to receive and store items, has raised $800,000 in funding. Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh and roboticist and Y Combinator partner Trevor Blackwell led the round. Other notable investors include Base Ventures and the Swiss firm ACE & Company. Vator News has much more here.

Takipi, a 2.5-year-old, Tel Aviv-based startup that analyzes software code and creates real-time maps of how code evolves, has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding led by Menlo Ventures. Cofounder Iris Shoor tells me the idea behind Takipi “came about in the previous startup I co-founded [VisualTao, which was acquired in 2009], when we scaled from zero to five million users in one year. All the tech bumps and downtimes we faced led us to build a new kind of technology that helps companies deal with rapid code changes across millions of daily events.”

Trifacta, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based software company developing productivity platforms for data analysis, has raised $12 million in Series B financing. Greylock Partners and Accel Partners led the round. Altogether, investors, including XSeed Capital and Data Collective, have provided the company with $16.3 million, according to Crunchbase.

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People

Venture capitalist and Tesla investor Ira Ehrenpreis has made a mint on green tech, but it’s been anything but easy, and the cleantech sector still faces formidable challenges, as Ehrnepreis noted in a speech this week. “We are not an industry like the bits and bytes world,” he said. “Many cleantech companies have to cross the valley of death to get to the market.” Xconomy has more here.

Jon Jenkins, who joined Pinterest a year ago as its head of engineering, is leaving the company, reports TechCrunch. On Quora, Jenkins revealed that he wants to launch his own company.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is profiled again, this time in the January issue of Vanity Fair. One aspect of the profile that we found particularly fascinating (and new) is that Mayer is routinely and sometime atrociously late for meetings. When news broke of Mayer’s appointment as Yahoo’s CEO, writes reporter Bethany McLean, “Mayer set up a meeting with [interim CEO Ross] Levinsohn at the board’s behest, because the board hoped he’d stay on. According to one person he confided in, he came at the appointed time to Mayer’s office. He waited, and waited some more. And then he said to her assistant, ‘I’m going to wait in my office,’ which was just a short walk from Mayer’s. Mayer’s assistant said, ‘Oh no, you have to sit right here and wait.’” (Levinsohn didn’t wait.) Mayer still makes people wait, reports McLean. As a former executive tells it: “You get the team together [for a meeting with Mayer], you wait 10 minutes, 30 minutes, two hours, and she doesn’t show.”

In a speech this week, billionaire investor J.B. Pritzker noted that as many as 24 Chicago-area tech companies are now mature enough to consider plans to go public, but he cautioned that the city desperately needs to staunch a brain drain that still sees 60 percent of computer science graduates from the University of Illinois take jobs in Silicon Valley.

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IPOs

Glassdoor, the jobs listings site, announced a $50 million round yesterday, led by Tiger Global Management, along with Dragoneer Investment Group and existing investors Benchmark Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures, Battery Ventures and DAG Ventures. Now, the company suggests, it’s IPO time. “It’s a real business,” CEO Robert Hohman tells AllThingsD. With $93 million in venture backing and hundreds of employees, “We are approaching a size when we begin to think about being a public company,” he says.

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Job Listings

Google is looking to hire a “venture capital and incubator sales manager” to convince venture firms (and their portfolio companies) to use Google’s cloud platform. Minimum qualifications include an undergraduate degree and six years of business development or sales experience in tech. Preferred qualifications include three years of experience at a venture capital firm or tech incubator.

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Data

CB Insights reports that while funding for edtech startups has fallen between this year and last, investors have still poured more than $500 million in to the top 10 biggest deals. Here is its list of the biggest rounds of 2013.

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Essential Reads

Looks like red-hot messaging app Snapchat may be raising far less, at a lower valuation, than previous reports have speculated.

Square, the company behind an increasingly popular mobile payments system, has been talking to investors about funding a tender offer for employee shares that would value the company at around $5 billion, three people tell The Information. The move suggests an IPO may not be around the corner after all.

Bitcoins continue to be stolen and transferred illegally, and there’s little to stop perpetrators. As the New York Times reports, top regulators often don’t knowwhich authority should be cracking down on virtual currency fraud, or even what constitutes fraud in a market that some view as a giant bubble and others as the future of money.

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Detours

Are you a workaholic? Blame your parents.

This week, Senator Chuck Schumer, Senator Dick Durbin and Rep. George Miller opened up their D.C. frat house to CNN, and things got weird.

DEAR AUNT ROSE COMMA THANK YOU FOR THE SPEECH RECOGNITION SOFTWARE EXCLAMATION POINT.

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Retail Therapy

You can get a iPhone 5s in Apple’s gold finish, or you can buy a real, 24-carat gold iPhone. Which is it going to be, player?

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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.

The results are in. When it comes to American schools versus the rest of the world, our institutions are expensive, unequal, and pretty lousy at math.

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With Little Notice, Seed-Stage Valuations Begin Falling

A widely held belief in Silicon Valley is that valuations are still on a one-way trajectory toward the sky, with founders firmly in the driver’s seat.

But the reality for seed-stage companies may be a bit more dire than that — and getting worse by the month.

According to the research firm CB Insights, both average and median seed-stage valuations have fallen since last year, with the average valuation dropping from $2.2 million to $1.7 million and median valuation falling even more precipitously, from $1.7 million to just .6 million.

Data from AngelList, a matchmaking service for investors and seed-stage entrepreneurs, also shows declining valuations. According to AngelList, which tracks thousands of startups in its system, the average seed-funded company’s valuation dropped from $3.9 million in the third quarter of 2012 to $3.6 million in the third quarter of this year. That isn’t a massive dip, but AngelList founder Naval Ravikant tells me that “by the time [a shift in one direction] shows up in the averages, it’s pretty pronounced.”

A recent quarterly venture capital report out of Pitchbook, which operates a subscription-only database of private equity and VC deals paints a rosier picture. Pitchbook found that median pre-money valuations for seed-stage, VC-funded companies have nearly doubled over the last three years — from $3.2 million in 2010 to $5.2 million through the first three quarters of 2013.

Still, this same report observed that lofty valuations are only making it harder for companies to raise Series A rounds. Pitchbook further noted that the rise of valuations can’t go on endlessly, suggesting there will likely be more flat and down rounds in coming years.

Ravikant — noting that “everyone’s dataset is incomplete” — suggests the future is now. Though he can’t pinpoint exactly when things began trending downward, he thinks valuations “kind of peaked around the Facebook IPO, when it turned out to be less than people thought it would be.”

According to Ravikant, there “hasn’t been a mass exodus out” out of the seed-stage investing market, mainly because “people still believe some percentage of your portfolio should be early-stage. But there’s increased recognition” that it’s a tough racket, with many angels suffering from investor fatigue and suddenly becoming more realistic about the chances of their portfolio companies receiving follow-on investments.

There will always be a market for the most promising seed-stage startups, in other words. But evidence from CB Insights and AngelList suggests that for entrepreneurs just setting out, the road ahead looks bumpy.

New Fundings

Biodesix, an eight-year-old, Boulder, Colo.-based molecular diagnostics company, has raised $8.3 million in funding. New funds accounted for $4.3 million of the financing round, while the remaining $4 million came from the conversion of a convertible note, the company said in a release yesterday. Existing shareholders provided all of the capital. (The company, which has raised more than $65 million over the years, has never disclosed its investors.)

Catalyze, a months-old, Madison, Wi.-based company that’s building healthcare apps, has raised roughly $2 million in Series A financing, led by Arthur Ventures, Baird Venture Partners, and Chicago Ventures.

Green Biologics, a 10-year-old, Oxford, England-based industrial biotechnology company that’s largely focused on breaking down agricultural waste to create butanol fuel, has raised $23.3 million. Sofinnova Partners led the Series B round, joined by previous investors, including Swire Pacific, Capricorn Venture Partners, Oxford Capital Partners, and Morningside Ventures.

Grokker, a nascent, San Francisco-based video network that pairs consumers with experts in a variety of verticals, from yoga to Pilates to French cooking, has raised $5.5 million, reports AllThingsD. Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital founder Josh Kopelman, and angel investor Ron Conway, are among Grokker’s investors, says the outlet.

Payoff.com, a three-year-old, Long Beach, Calif.-based company that aims to make personal finance social and “fun” through rewards and goal setting, has closed on $7 million in new funding, according to an SEC filing. Investors including FirstMark Capital and Great Oaks Venture Capital have previously provided the company with roughly $5.8 million, according to Crunchbase.

Portea Medical, a two-year-old, Bangalore-based provider of in-home healthcare and emergency medical services in India, has secured Rs 48 crore ($8 million) from Accel Partners and Ventureast. Reportedly, the company already employs 150 people, who provide services in Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai. The outfit is now looking to expand into Hyderabad and Pune, among other spots.

Quest Inspar, an 18-month-old, Kent, Washington-based company that robotically rehabilitates energy, water supply and other pipelines, has raised $4.2 million from Five Elms Capital.

Restorsea Holdings, a two-year-old, New York-based company behind a new skin care line, has raised $24.9 million as part of a $28 million round, according to an SEC filing. It isn’t clear from the Form D who the lead investor is, though Restorsea’s chairman, Muneer Satter, is listed. (Satter is credited with building the world’s largest family of mezzanine funds at Goldman Sachs before leaving the bank last year after a 24-year career.) Also included on the filing is Corinne Nevinny, who cofounded the L.A.-based, early-stage venture capital firm LMN Ventures in 2010.

Stem, a four-year-old, Millbrae, Calif.-based company that’s selling “intelligent” energy storage, has raised $15 million in Series B financing. The international utility Iberdrola and GE Ventures led the round, joined by previous investor Angeleno Group. In September 2011, Angeleno Group and Greener Capital provided Stem with $10.2 million in Series A funding.

Vertical Brands Media, the five-year-old, San Francisco-based parent company to ApartmentList.com, a site that aggregates rental listings from numerous sources, has raised $14.9 million in new funding, according to an SEC filing that shows a target of $19.9 million. The filing doesn’t disclose the startup’s investors.

Visterra, a six-year-old, Cambridge, Mass.-based company building a pipeline of medicines to combat infectious diseases, has raised $8.1 million as the final tranche of a $34.2 million Series A round that the company began raising last year. Previous investors Polaris Partners, Flagship Ventures, Lux Capital, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Omega Funds provided the newest funding, along with Visterra insiders.

Xagenic, a three-year-old, Toronto-based molecular diagnostics company, has raised $20 million in Series B financing led by Domain Associates. Previous investors CTI Life Sciences Fund and the Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund also participated in the found. Xagenic is developing a “lab-free” diagnostic platform that produces results within 20 minutes.

Xlumena, a five-year-old, Mountain View, Calif.-based company that makes a stent and medicine delivery system, has closed a $25 million Series C financing.  The round was led Third Point, and included existing investors Prism VentureWorks, Charter Life Sciences, Ascent Biomedical Ventures and Aperture Venture Partners. The company had reported a $4.8 million round earlier this year, and another, $7 million round, in 2011.

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People

Willis Ware, an electrical engineer helped build a machine that would become a blueprint for computer design in the 20th century, died last week at age 93. The New York Times elaborates on the important role Ware played in the computer industry.

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IPOs

Inogen, a 12-year-old, Goleta, Calif.-based maker of portable oxygen equipment, filed to go public late last week, with plans to raised up to $86.25 million. Inogen’s principal shareholders include Novo A/S (it owns 42.2 percent of the company), Versant Ventures (26.1 percent), Arboretum Ventures (15.1 percent), Avalon Ventures (6.5 percent), and AMV Partners (5.95 percent).

Kindred Biosciences, a two-year-old, Burlingame, Calif.-based veterinary drug developer plans to raise less during its IPO than originally planned, according to its amended S-1, which shows it hopes to raise $46 million, down from as much as $57.5 million. Kindred has raised $6.3 million in venture backing, according to Crunchbase. Though its filings don’t disclose how much investors own, they show the company’s biggest outside shareholders include Adage Capital Partners and EcoR1 Capital 1 Fund.

Nimble Storage, a five-year-old, San Jose, Calif.-based hybrid data storage company, amended its S-1 yesterday to reflect its plans to raise up to $165.6 million in an offering. The company has raised around $82 million over the years, according to Crunchbase. Its biggest VC shareholders are Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners (each owns 20.9 percent) and Lightspeed Venture Partners (which owns 15.8 percent).

Twitter is getting mixed reviews by its IPO underwriters. Reuters has more here.

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Exits

Chalkable, a 3.5-year-old, New York-based ed-tech startup, has been acquired by STI, a private equity-backed data management company serving K-12 schools, reports PandoDaily. The deal value was not disclosed. Chalkable had raised $1.3 million in seed funding from 500 Startups, Expansion Venture Capital and Prolific Venture Capital.

Prolexic Technologies, a 10-year-old, Hollywood, Fla.-based Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation company, is being acquired by publicly traded Akamai Technologies, says the WSJ. Akamai agreed to pay about $370 million in cash for Prolexic, which was reportedly talking with bankers about going public. Prolexic had raised roughly $52 million in recent years, including from Kennet Partners, Trident Capital, and Camden Partners.

SkyPhrase, a two-year-old, New York-based company that’s been building Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology, is now part of Yahoo, the companies announced yesterday. No financial terms were disclosed. SkyPhrase had raised just $250,000 in seed funding, including from the Thiel Foundation.

Topsy Labs, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose tools analyze tweets to track news along with consumer sentiment, has been acquired by Apple for more than $200 million, according to WSJ sources. The company is one of a handful of Twitter’s partners that have access to the full stream of all tweets posted to the service. Topsy had raised north of $30 million, according to Crunchbase, which lists its earliest investor as IronPort Systems cofounder Scott Banister. Others of its investors include BlueRun Ventures, Founders Fund, and Ignition Partners.

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Happenings

The 17th annual Credit Suisse Technology Conference rolls into day two in Scottsdale, Arizona. You can check out the agenda here. If you don’t happen to be on hand, you can check out some of the companies’ presentations here.

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Job Listings

SAP Ventures is forming a new biz dev group to act as a liaison between SAP, the SAP ecosystem, and any other relevant business network, and it’s looking to add a director-level person to its ranks by January. Candidates need five to eight years of experience in business development, sales, or marketing. You can learn more here.

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Essential Reads

Yesterday, a federal judge tossed an antitrust class action accusing Apple of illegally driving up the price of applications sold for use on iPhones.

GigaOm looks at how Netflix is balancing its streaming traffic.

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Detours

Why our brains love lists.

“For most people, software programming’s social cachet falls somewhere between that of tax preparation and autism. But it’s catching fire among forward-thinking New York parents.”

While at a bar, “Don’t whistle, snap, yell, or wave money. Unless you want people to think you work at Morgan Stanley.” — The unofficial Goldman Sachs guide to bar etiquette.

FunnyorDie has created an hilariously funny “trailer” about legendary Deadline Hollywood founder Nikki Finke, who was recently pushed out of the company by its owner, Jay Penske. (Here’s some backstory, though you don’t need it to enjoy the clip.)

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Retail Therapy

This handsome jetpack will set you back more than $100,000, but listen, you can use it to fly up to 800 feet and you can travel at nearly 50 miles per hour for up to 30 minutes. More to the point, you’ll be the only person you know with a jetpack.

The Venus of Cupertino iPad docking station. How can you not buy it for someone you know?

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You want access to your phone’s data while in flight. But watch what you wish for. “We understand that many passengers would prefer that voice calls not be made on airplanes. I feel that way myself,” F.C.C Chairman Tom Wheeler tells the New York Times. “Ultimately, if the F.C.C. adopts the proposal in the coming months, it will be airlines’ decisions, in consultation with their customers, as to whether to permit voice calls while airborne.”

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A Venture Firm Focused on — Wait — Youth Tournaments? 

We’ve heard about startups backing professional sports athletes, including Fantex, which sells stocks designed to track athletes’ economic performance.

Now, Capital Sports Ventures, an eight-month-old, Washington, D.C.-based venture firm, is targeting what it argues is a much bigger market: non-professional athletes. Specifically, the firm is targeting all manner of minor league and participatory sports opportunities, from youth tournaments to startups that enable people to track their performance during sports events.

It may be far afield from the typical venture investment, but it’s a world that Capital Sports Ventures knows well. Firm founder Greg Bibb was previously EVP of business operations for the Washington Wizards NBA team and COO for the Washington Mystics WNBA team. Meanwhile, Bibb’s joint partner in the endeavor is SWaN & Legend Venture Partners, whose managing director, Fred Schaufeld, is also a partner in Monumental Sports and Entertainment, owner of the Washington Wizards; the Washington Mystics; the Washington Capitals NHL team; and the Verizon Center sports arena. 

I talked with Bibb and Schaufeld recently to learn more about their plans. Our conversation has been edited for length.

What’s so interesting to you about youth tournaments?

FS: There are 10,000 professional athletes in the U.S, but hundreds of millions of sports fans out there and it’s a disjointed market.

GB: That’s right; it’s a much bigger marketplace when you look at participatory sports. There are a lot of organizations that could be very successful, that are built on the relationships and expertise of folks who’ve spent the majority of their careers in that space. But while they’ve built these tournament businesses, perhaps they don’t have the expertise that professional sports teams enjoy including around sponsorships, licensing, ancillary event creation, and so forth. We’d make an investment, keep the operator in place, let them what they do best, and we’d bring capital and expertise to the equation.

Are you disclosing how much money you’ll put to work? Have you raised a pool of capital, or will you be investing on a deal-by-deal basis?

GB: SWaN & Legend is a $70 million fund and they are our anchor tenant, however they have multiple investments in addition to [us]. The precise amount that’ll ultimately be invested into [Capital Sports] from all sources is unclear and will be based on the opportunities we find.

We have about 30 LPs altogether, most of whom are CEOs of companies [who add value to the firm]. Essentially, we’re looking for opportunities where our background can accelerate the ventures as much as money can. We run the gamut in terms of sports and entertainment experience. Ticket sales, branding, social media, event creation – there’s not an aspect of the sports entertainment space that we can’t speak to.

Have you made any investments yet?

GB: We haven’t but we’ve been close on a couple. It takes a while to go through the due diligence process. One particular case required a partnership to be created around certain regional entities around the country, but unless they could work out their partnership issues, we didn’t think we could bring the sport to the Nikes [and other major sponsors] of the world.

FS: Getting to scale takes a while. I’m personally in the ownership of four pro sports team and these things take a while. But we’re patient. And Greg is very “trend right”; he knows what’s coming up next.

What’s is coming up next, when it comes to youth sports?

GB: LaCrosse right now seems to be a sport that’s on a significant rise; you’re really starting to see it spread west across the country. Another is girls’ volleyball, which is now one of the fastest-growing and lucrative sports in the country and is played more and more at the high school and middle school level, driven by club teams. Then, of course, soccer is the old “new.”  The sport was long ago established at the youth level, but it’s starting to [become popular with older kids], too, and it just expands as a generation of kids who had to educate their parents on the sport are now grown and beginning to educate their own children.

What’s the exit strategy with these types of investments, and what’s your timeline?

FS: We’ll see where the opportunities take us, but with professional leagues, some have sold to Providence Equity and people like that. Between myself and my partners, we’ve been involved with every kind of exit you can have — multiple times — and we feel comfortable letting the underlying businesses dictate [what happens].

New Fundings

Addwish, a five-month-old, Copenhagen, Denmark-based company that provides “wish list services” to users (type a desired item into a field, and you’re shown similar products from its retail partners), has raised $1.8 million in seed funding. The capital comes from Sunstone Capital Technology Ventures, also based in Copehagen.

Aujas, a five-year-old, Bangalore-based information risk management service, has raised 31 crore ($4.97 million) from new investors IvyCap Ventures and Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund. IDG Ventures India — which incubated Aujas as part of its entrepreneur-in-residence program and provided it with its initial, $3 million, round — also participated in the funding, reports the Economic Times.

CoinJar, a nine-month-old, Melbourne, Australia-based bitcoin exchange and online wallet service, has raised the equivalent of $455,000, led by the Australian venture capital firm Blackbird Ventures. CoinJar is one of numerous companies to emerge from the Australian startup incubator AngelCube, a company that offers teams $20,000 in startup capital, along with mentorship and networking opportunities. The outlet CoinDesk has more here.

Ekso Bionics, an eight-year-old, Richmond, Calif.-based company that makes mechanical exoskeletons for people with spinal cord injuries, has raised $5 million in a combination of debt and other securities, according to an SEC filing. The company, previously called Berkeley Bionics, raised $9 million last year from undisclosed sources and, according to the San Francisco Business Times, received separate funding in 2010 from IronPort cofounder Scott Banister, who sits on the company’s board. Ekso also reportedly received a $10 million grant from the Department of Defense in 2008.

Girnar Software, a six-year-old, Jaipur, India-based company behind an online automotive marketplace (Cardekho.com), a bike-buying marketplace (Bikedekho.com), and a comparison shopping platform (Pricedekho.com), has raised $15 million in Series A funding from Sequoia Capital.

MetaPack, a 14-year-old, London-based, e-commerce delivery management platform, has received £20 million ($33 million) in funding from Index Ventures. TechCrunch has much more on the company — and its efforts to take on Amazon — here.

Money Dashboard, a five-year-old, Edinburgh, Scotland-based online money management platform, has received £2.7 million ($4.09 million) in Series A funding. The round was led by Calculus Capital, a 14-year-old, London-based investment firm.

PingTune, a months-old, London-based, iPhone messaging app that invites users to share music with friends, has raised $1.6 million. According to TechCrunch, the funds come from Rupert Hambro, the chairman of J O Hambro Capital Management, and Dominic Perks, a former investment banker who has founded several small companies and actively invests in startups.

Seriously, a months-old, Pacific Palisades, Calif.-based mobile gaming firm, has raised $2.35 million, shows an SEC filing. The company was founded by Andrew Stalbow, who was previously Rovio Entertainment’s General Manager of North America, where he worked on growing the “Angry Birds” franchise. The filing doesn’t list any of the company’s backers, but Seriously’s Southern California headquarters are reportedly home to its business operations, while its games are being developed in Finland.

Trice Orthopedics, a two-year-old, King of Prussia, Pa.-based company that makes camera-enabled needles with miniaturized opto-electronics that are used in diagnostic procedures, has raised $3 million in financing. BioStar Ventures led the round with participation from Millennium Life Sciences. Previous investors and unnamed private investors also contributed to the funding.

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New Funds

Alpha Venture Partners, the new, early-stage venture firm of New York-based venture capitalist Steve Brotman, has raised $5.33 million for Alpha Venture Partners Fund, according to an SEC filing that lists the total offering amount as “indefinite.” Brotman was formerly a managing director and founder of Silicon Alley Venture Partners, where he spent 15 years; Brotman also spent more than two years advising New World Ventures (recently renamed Pritzker Group Venture Capital). According to his LinkedIn profile, he focuses on financial services, media, publishing, pharma, and enterprise IT infrastructure.

FTV Capital, a 15-year-old, San Francisco-based investment firm that typically follows venture capitalists into later-stage rounds, has raised $365.9 million for its fourth fund, according to an SEC filing. The Form D shows the firm began raising the fund one year ago, and that its target is $500 million. Three members of the firm are listed on the filing: Richard Garman, David Haynes, and Brad Bernstein. The firm, which mostly looks for investments in business services and financial services, typically invests somewhere between $10 million and $75 million in its portfolio companies.

Gilde Healthcare Partners, a 31-year-old, Netherlands-based healthcare investment firm, has closed its third fund with €145 million ($197 million) of capital commitments, reports Pitchbook, which says the firm has been raising the fund since 2010. Gilde’s previous fund, closed in 2007, was a similar-sized €150 million ($204 million) pool.

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People

The Verge profiles Fab cofounder Jason Goldberg, who raised loads of venture capital for his last startup, too — and it later sold for pennies on the dollar. Says veteran tech reporter John Cook, who has tracked Goldberg’s career for years and was interviewed for the article: “You would think having burned through so much money and then hitting the wall, [Goldberg] would have learned a thing or two. But watching Fab these days I just feel like, I’ve seen this movie before.”

Michael Rubin may be the richest tech founder you don’t know. Entrepreneur writes the rags-to-riches story of the man behind GSI Commerce (acquired by eBay for $2.4 billion in 2011) and Kynetic, the holding company behind the online sports gear site Fanatics, the Internet fashion flash sale site Rue La La, and the two-day shipping membership site Shop Runner. (“Relaxing is not a core strength of mine,” says the 41-year-old, whose net worth is estimated at $2.7 billion.)

Snapchat‘s cofounder Evan Spiegel handily manipulated his well-heeled parents during their divorce, suggests a new CNET feature on Spiegel that’s rich with details (and fun to read). Of the period when Spiegel’s parents were splitting up and Spiegel, then 17, was living with his father, CNET’s Jennifer Van Grove writes: “His father’s exceptional generosity was put to the test after 17-year-old Spiegel repeatedly overdrafted his bank account and begged for the BMW 535i, a $75,000 car…At the time, Spiegel Sr. was giving Spiegel Jr. an allowance of $250 a week. Along with the new car, the younger Spiegel made a strong case for why he should get $1,992 a month for car, food, entertainment, and clothing expenses. He also wanted a $2,000 ’emergency fund’ because his ‘life is full of unforeseen expenses,’ as he wrote in the note to his father.” (Grove reports that Spiegel’s father said no to the car; soon after, his mother leased it for him.)

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IPOs

China’s securities regulator said on Saturday that China will likely streamline its IPO approvals process by January; the commission also predicted that “around 50 companies may be able to complete their registration procedures” for public offerings by January’s end.

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Happenings

The International Conference on Connected Vehicles and Expo kicks off today in Las Vegas, if you happen to be in Sin City. Here are some of the details.

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Data

So far in 2013, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is leading the venture pack when it comes to the number of portfolio companies to go public; as peHUB’s Mark Boslet reports, the firm had seven IPOs under its belt as of Nov. 18, including Twitter, Epizyme, Chegg and Veracyte.

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Job Listings

5AM Ventures, an early-stage venture firm focused on life sciences, is looking to hire an associate in its Menlo Park, Calif., office to participate in all of its investing activities, from sourcing new, early-stage investments to helping manage the firm’s existing portfolio. To apply, you need an MD and/or PhD. Also, some “exposure” to venture capital, investment banking or business consulting is preferred. According to a filing registered with the SEC in mid-October, the 12-year-old firm is currently raising a fourth, $240 million fund.

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Essential Reads

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed an experimental drone-based delivery service in a “60 Minutes” segment last night. Bezos said the service, dubbed Amazon Prime Air, could be ready for customer use in “four or five years.”

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Detours

How happiness boosts the immune system.

The graffiti artist Banksy moves on to Paris.

A father colors his children’s drawings during his business trips. (What he comes up with is magical.)

He prayed. He won. And then he disappeared. Will we ever see Tim Tebow in the NFL again?

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Retail Therapy

We like this idea of a beanie with wireless bluetooth headphones built in, though we’d be really impressed if it were a cowboy hat.

This holiday season, you can shower your dog with bones and chew toys, but nothing says, “I love you, Caractacus,” like a $200 fireproof, shockproof earthquake preparedness suit.

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