It’s Friday. We love Friday! Have a wonderful weekend everyone; see you here next week.

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Top News in the A.M.

Bitcoin trading platforms can, for now, operate freely under Japanese law, the government said today in a note that signaled a hands-off approach to the virtual currency.

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A Bitcoin Bear in Silicon Valley, It’s True

Well, yesterday was crazy.

Newsweek published a story saying it had finally found the elusive original creator behind the digital currency bitcoin. People on Reddit then went nuts, arguing that the world should leave the guy alone. On Twitter, journalists then weighed in on whether Newsweek had put his life at risk, before a gaggle of them in L.A. (where the man lives) converged on his home, then chased him around town by car until he denied to reporters that he has anything to do with bitcoin.

Plenty of investors appeared to be following the action, too. At Andreessen Horowitz, for example, at least three partners who follow bitcoin tweeted of their skepticism that Newsweek had the story right, with Balaji Srinivasan observing that bitcoin connoisseurs know that “there are vastly more credible candidates” than the 64-year-old California man that Newsweek turned up.

So much of the day revolved around the story that you might think that everyone in the tech world is convinced that bitcoin will be as big as the Internet itself.

You would be wrong, though.

While venture capitalists often seem in league on Next Big Things, Josh Stein, a managing director at the storied venture firm DFJ, says that when it comes to bitcoin, he isn’t convinced of anything — even calling himself a “bitcoin bear” in an interview early yesterday (that I’ll run more of next week).

Stein is a savvy investor who is known, among other things, for writing the first check to the online data storage company Box. It isn’t surprising that he doesn’t like advertising his position on bitcoin, which he says is personal and not a reflection of the firm’s interest. (He says others at DFJ are “looking at it.”)

As he explains it, “I’m at a huge disadvantage to the bulls. Bulls have huge incentives to make elaborate arguments for why bitcoin is going to work. But I’m not going to short it, so I have zero upside [in discussing at length why it may fail].”

Still, given that the “bulls” have had the floor for much of 2014 (Marc Andreessen in particular has been actively promoting the currency since the company placed its first big bet on a bitcoin company, investing $25 million in Coinbase in mid-December), I pushed Stein for more.

Noting that if Andreessen is right, he’ll “make a billion dollars,” and that if Stein is right, “I don’t make any money — so who do you think will spend more time refining their argument?” – he continued.

“Look, why does everyone think bitcoin is going to work? Well, you say, it [offers] a lower transaction cost between existing systems. But anyone can [enjoy low to no costs] with ACH,” for Automated Clearing House, a widely used electronic network that allows financial institutions to process transactions in batches, transactions that are often free for customers.

“People also say bitcoin is a hedge against inflation. And why? Because they say it’s like gold. But gold actually has value. People want gold, aside from its value, and that’s been true for thousands of years. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. It’s electrons; it doesn’t exist.”

Here, Stein stopped talking, noting that publicly stating his position on bitcoin would only serve to “cue the trolls.”

I hope he’s mistaken. Forgive the pun, but there are two sides to every coin, and skepticism is a good thing; it strengthens the development of new technologies. Silicon Valley is often an echosphere. In just a few months, the tech cognoscenti have seemingly anointed bitcoin as the currency of the future. It’s refreshing to hear a VC challenge this new conventional wisdom and express a little doubt once in a while.

New Fundings

DigitalOcean, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based cloud hosting company, has raised a $37.2 million Series A round at a $153 valuation led byAndreessen Horowitz. Earlier investors IA Ventures and CrunchFund also participated, says TechCrunch. The company had raised roughly $40 million to date.

Emotient, a two-year-old, San Diego-based developer of automated facial expression recognition and analysis technologies, has raised $6 million in Series B funding led by Handbag, a new venture capital firm founded by former Crosspoint Venture Partners general partner Seth Neiman. Earlier investors Intel Capital also participated in the round, which brings Emotient’s total funding to $8 million.

General Assembly, a three-year-old, New York-based digital trade school, has closed $35 million in Series C funding led by Institutional Venture Partners. Other participants in the round included GSV Capital, Rethink Education and Western Technology Investment. The New York Times reports that since opening its doors, the companyhas grown to more than 100,000 students, about 6,000 of whom have finished from coursework taught at eight locations.

Hello Curry, an Hyderabad, India-based fast-food chain serving Indian cuisine, has raised roughly $500,000 from Sri Capital, the seed-stage venture capital fund of Indian entrepreneur Sashi Reddi. “Hello Curry has the potential to become the McDonald’s and Dominos Pizza of Indian food,” Reddi told the outlet Live Mint. “It has the potential to change the way we think of Indian food.”

iRxReminder, a 4.5-year-old, Akron, Oh.-based patient management medical app developer, has raised $250,000 commitment in seed funding from an undisclosed Washington, D.C.-based angel investment group. The company has raised $458,000 to date.

Layer3 TV, a two-year-old, Boston-based still-stealth developer of technology for TV service providers, has raised $7.5 million, according to an SEC filing that shows the company is targeting roughly $25 million. Jeff Binder, a partner with the Groton, Ma.-based investment firm Genovation Capital, is also Layer3’s CEO, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Livestage, a two-year-old, New York-based still-in-beta digital venue for live music that will stream concerts live and on-demand, has raised $1.6 million, according to an SEC filing that shows the startup is targeting a $3 million fundraise. The company had previously raised $55,000 in seed funding.

Machinima, the 14-year-old, L.A.-based YouTube network for gamers, is raising $18 million in new funding led by movie studio Warner Bros., sources tell Re/code. Some of the company’s earlier investors, includingGoogle, Redpoint Ventures and MK Capital, are reportedly planning to participate, too. Ahead of the round’s completion, Machinima will also lay off 42 employees as part of a restructuring of its sales organization.

Optio Labs, a two-year-old, Nashville, Tn.-based developer of security and productivity technologies for mobile and embedded systems, has raised $10 million in funding from its parent company, Allied Minds, as well as several private investors.

Polarion Software, an 8.5-year-old, San Francisco-based application lifecycle company that tries cutting the time-to-market of its customers, has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Siemens Venture Capital.

PrestaShop, a 6.5-year-old, Miami, Fla.-based company whose open source e-commerce software is used by small business owners looking to build and manage their online stores (it then sells them customized services), has raised $9.3 million in Series B funding from XAnge Private Equity, Seventure Partners and Serena Capital.

Quipper, a three-year-old, London-based maker of quiz-based e-learning apps, has received $5.8 million in funding from Atomico, Benesse Holdings and Globis Capital Partners. The company has raised roughly $10 million altogether.

Redlen Technologies, a 15-year-old, British Columbia-based maker of high-resolution Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) semiconductor radiation detectors, has raised $5.5 million in financing led by Pangaea Ventures.In-Q-Tel also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $13.3 million, according to Crunchbase.

Sailogy, a two-year-old, Chiasso, Switzerland-based marketplace that pairs those wanting to charter a yacht with companies that own them, has just closed a $1.15 million Series A funding round. The financing was led by the Swiss Government Foundation AGIRE and Fabio Cannavale, exec chairman of online travel group BravoFly Rumbo Group. The company previously raised $400,000 in seed funding.

SolarBridge Technologies, a 10-year-old, Austin, Tx.-based company that develops microinverters designed to increase solar panel efficiency, has $42 million in funding. Constellation Technology Ventures led the round, with participation from Shea Ventures, Rho Ventures and Prelude Ventures.

Trusper, a 2.5-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based mobile app and social network that encourages users to share tips, has raised $6.17 million led by DCM and numerous individual investors, including Charles Schwab.

TVSmiles, a 15-month-old, Berlin-based mobile app that encourages people to watch TV ads in exchange for redeemable virtual currency, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by earlier investor Ventech. Other investors to join the round included e.ventures, German Startups Group;Brandenburg Ventures; and Magix.

ZS Pharma, a 5.5-year-old, Coppell, Tx.-based specialty pharmaceutical company focused on treating kidney, cardiovascular and liver disorders, has raised $55 million in Series D financing led by Novo A/S. Other investors in the round included RA Capital, Adage Capital, Sofinnova Ventures, Alta Partners, Devon Park Bioventures, 3×5 Special Opportunity Fund, Salem Partners and RiverVest.

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New Funds

Benchmark Capital has raised $34 million for its latest Founders Funds, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The filings show Benchmark raised $22.8 million for Benchmark Founders’ Fund VIII and $11.3 million for Benchmark Founders’ Fund VIII-B. (H/T: PE Hub)

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IPOs

Coupons.com, the 16-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based digital promotions company, raised $168 million in an IPO last night, selling 10.5 million shares — which is 500,000 more than originally offered — at $16 a share up from their original range of $12 to $14 a share. The shares are set to begin trading today on the NYSE. Its biggest shareholder is Passport Capital, which owns a 19 percent stake that was about $220 million as of last night.

Spotify, the 7.5-year-old, Stockholm-based music-streaming company, is speaking with banks about raising a credit facility, a type of business loan from banks that could signal a not-too-distant U.S. IPO, sources tell Bloomberg.

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Exits

The Echo Nest, an 8.5-year-old, Somerville, Ma.-based “music intelligence company,” has been acquired by Spotify for $100 million, 90 percent of it in Spotify equity, reports TechCrunch. Echo Nest had raised roughly $25 million from investors over the years, including Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Matrix Partners, and Norwest Venture Partners.

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People

Disney’s video game and Internet division laid off roughly 700 employees, or 26 percent of its staff, yesterday. “These are large-scale changes as we focus not just on getting to profitability but sustained profitability and scalability,” James Pitaro, the president of Disney Interactive, said in an interview with the New York Times. The layoffs come as Disney melds its mobile games business with its comparatively poorly performing social games business. The Times also reports that Disney is “significantly” scaling back its in-house development of games of all types.

John LeFevre, who authored the Twitter account GSElevator, has lost a book deal with Simon & Schuster roughly a week after it was revealed by Dealbook that Lefevre has never been employed by Goldman Sachs and is instead a former bond trader living in Texas. “In light of information that has recently come to our attention since acquiring John Lefevre’s Straight to Hell, Touchstone has decided to cancel its publication of this work,” Simon & Schuster said in a statement. “Guess elevators go up and down,”tweeted Goldman Sachs. Said LeFevre, through the GSElevator account: “I want to thank Simon & Schuster for supporting me…. until now…. The book Straight To Hell is still coming…..”

You kind of already knew this but now it’s official: serial entrepreneur Sean Parker is no longer making new investments on behalf of Founders Fund, reports Fortune. The firm announced it had raised $1 billion for its sixth fund on Wednesday.

Former Apple CEO John Sculley is reportedly planning to launch a new smartphone brand in India that is backed by Inflexion Point, a Singapore-based supply-chain company cofounded by Sculley. The new company is expected to launch a series of smartphones as early as next month.

At the end of March, Sony Computer Entertainment America president and CEO Jack Tretton will be stepping down from his position after nearly two decades, after he and the company were unable to “renew their contractual relationship,” reports The Verge.

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Happenings

Northeastern University is hosting its second Collegiate Alternative Investments Summit, a student-run conference at its Boston campus on March 21st and 22nd. You can learn more here.

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Job Listings

Yelp is looking for a senior manager of corporate development in San Francisco.

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Data

When it comes to new fundings, New York City is on track to see its best first quarter in history, says TechCrunch, with 98 companies raising nearly $1.3 billion to date. More here.

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Essential Reads

Surveillance by algorithm.

Yahoo is shutting down innovative apps and services right and left as it snaps up startups—to no clear purpose, writes ReadWrite.

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Detours

Very funny meme alert.

Possibly the most maddening teaser of all time.

Five ideas for future New York Times hipster trend pieces.

Twitter’s advertising rate keeps falling. The average cost to advertise on Twitter’s website and mobile apps fell 18% in the last three months of 2013.

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Retail Therapy

This Chinese company will print a three-dimension, life-size copy of you for $28,000. Perfect for pitch meetings, LP meetings, and video-conferenced partner meetings with far-flung colleagues. (Why feign interest when you can literally be somewhere else?)

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To sign up for StrictlyVC, click here. To advertise, click here.

Happy Thursday morning!

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Top News in the A.M.

Wow, Newsweek says it has tracked down the person behind Bitcoin, its investigation leading to a 64-year-old California man with a “penchant for collecting model trains and a career shrouded in secrecy, having done classified work for major corporations and the U.S. military.”

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DCM Reboots with a New Fund and Three Fewer GPs, Including Dixon Doll

case you haven’t noticed, the global, early-stage venture firm DCM has been killing it in recent years. Since 2009, 15 of its portfolio companies have exited, many through highly successful IPOs. For example, DCM owned 20 percent of the China-based online retailer VIPshop when it went public in 2012 with a market cap of $600 million. Today, the company is valued at $8.7 billion.

Eighteen-year-old DCM, which invests in the U.S, China, and Japan, doesn’t appear to be resting on its laurels. This morning, the firm is announcing its seventh, $330 million, venture fund. It’s also disclosing that longtime general partner Carl Amdahl and general partner and cofounder Dixon Doll will no longer be investing in new companies on behalf of the firm, a plan that has been in the works for several years, says general partner Jason Krikorian. (A third general partner, Gen Isayama, who opened DCM’s office in Tokyo in 2009, left last year to launch a new fund, which StrictlyVC wrote about in January.)

On Tuesday, I chatted with Krikorian about the latest developments at the firm. Here’s part of that conversation, edited lightly for length.

DCM clearly could have raised a bigger fund. Why didn’t it?

For a few reasons. First, it has to do with where we think the sweet spot is, meaning the amount of money that [early-stage] investors should manage, and we think it’s between $50 million and $60 million per GP. [Editors note: DCM now has six active GPs.]

This new fund also marks a bit of a transition for Dixon and Carl and it’s important for LP relations to have a long-planned out transition period; it’s part of the reason I was brought in [in 2010]. Also, it’s very tempting for funds to get bigger, but we think small teams operate better.

DCM invests in three geographies. Which of them attracts the most of the firm’s capital?

In the past, it’s really been balanced, with half in the U.S. and half in Asia, which is still dominated by China. Our returns in Japan have been good but there are far fewer startups to see; Japan still has a big company culture, so the best and brightest still go that route.

You raised your sixth fund in 2010, but you assembled a couple of other side vehicles around the same time, right?

Yes, we had raised [DCM VI] when I first joined, and we created two other funds simultaneously. One was an RMB (yuan) fund that primarily focused on later-stage China investments that we’d invested in [and wanted to back again]. We used that, for example, to invest more in both VIPshop and 58.com. It was a fund that we invested at basically $15 million a pop.

The other fund was an Android fund that was backed by Asian-based corporates in China, Japan and Korea that viewed Android as a significant global opportunity. Some of the key LPs of that fund are [the Chinese investment holding company] Tencent, KDDI [which is one of Japan’s largest mobile phone operators], and NHN [which owns one of the largest search engines in South Korea].

That fund has also been really great and given us a lot of flexibility to do deals where we put in a few million dollars at a valuation in the high, double-figure millions, including [South Korean messaging company] Kakoa, which now has something like 95 percent penetration of the [regional] population. [Editor’s note: The WSJ recently reported that the company is talking with bankers about an IPO that would value it at $2 billion.]

Will we see you raise similar side funds this time around?

There’s interest [from LPs] as you might imagine, but we don’t have any definite plans to do [either]. We kind of view this new fund as a consolidation of those efforts.

You had a personal win this week with the wearable device maker Basis, the first deal you led for DCM. How has the wearables and hardware space changed in the three-plus years since you made that investment?

There’s a perception that this is a great time for hardware companies, and I think it’s true. There’s a more cooperative supply chain, [booming] capital markets, and a more favorable marketing environment with social media and blogs, so word gets out about great products.

But I still think VCs are primarily funding the aggressive growth of the guys who’ve really broken out, so Fitbit, Jawbone, Nest. I still think there’s a lack of comfort around funding early-stage hardware companies pre-launch…because [a device] isn’t a Web service that can be tweaked. For instance, we backed Whistle [a health monitor for dogs] and 20,000 units just moved onto the shelves at [pet retail giant] Petsmart, and they have to work.

New Fundings

AppsFlyer, a three-year-old, New York-based based mobile app tracking and campaign measurement platform, has raised $7.1 million in Series A funding from Pitango Venture Capital and Magma Venture Partners.

Boxever, an 18-month-old, Dublin, Ireland-based big data and personalization platform for airlines and travel operators, has raised $6 million in funding led by Polaris Partners, with local Dublin firm Frontline Ventures also participating. According to Crunchbase, the company had previously raised $1 million in seed funding from Delta Partners and Bloom Equity.

Business Insider, the seven-year-old, New York-based online media company, has raised $12 million in new funding from investors including RRE Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and publishing execs Jim Friedlich and Gordon Crovitz. The company will use some of the money to finance a launch into the U.K. Business Insider has raised $30 million altogether.

Canary, a two-year-old, New York-based home security company, has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Khosla Ventures and earlier investor Two Sigma Ventures. The company had previously raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Two Sigma and Brooklyn Bridge Ventures.

CloudBees, a 3.5-year-old, Woburn, Ma.-based SaaS company that accelerates the delivery of mobile and online applications, has raised $11.2 million in Series C financing led by Verizon Ventures. Matrix Partners, LightSpeed Venture Partners and Blue Cloud Ventures also participated in the round, which has brought the company’s total funding to $27.7 million, shows Crunchbase.

GuideSpark, a 5.5-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based employee communications software platform, has raised roughly $15 million in new funding led by New Enterprise Associates. Earlier investors Storm Ventures and IDG Ventures also participated in the round. The company has raised $20 million to date.

Health Outcomes Sciences, a four-year-old, Overland Park, Ka.-based healthcare IT company that uses peer-reviewed clinical research to create predictive analytics, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from Kansas Bioscience Authority and Grayhawk Capital. The company has raised $8 million so far.

Javelin, a four-year-old, New York-based whose enterprise software helps teams define, run, and track so-called “lean” experiments at big companies, has raised $1.5 million in funding led by Upfront Ventures, with participation from 500 Startups and more than a dozen individual investors, including “Lean Startup” author Eric Ries.

Lotame, a 7.5-year-old, New York-based data management platform, has raised $15 million in Series D funding led by Sozo Ventures andTrueBridge Capital Partners. Earlier investors Battery Ventures,Emergence Capital Partners and RJ Finlay & Co also participated in the round, which brings Lotame’s total funding to $44 million.

NephroPlus, a 4.5-year-old, Hyderabad, India-based company that operates a chain of dialysis centers, has raised $10 million in Series B funding from International Finance Corp (the private sector lending arm of the World Bank), and earlier investor Bessemer Venture Partners. The company has raised roughly $15 million to date.

NextGxDx, a three-year-old, Nashville, Tn.-based genetic testing marketplace, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series B funding led by Voyent Partners, which was joined by the Nashville Capital Network. Last year, the company raised $1 million in angel funding, including from JumpStart Foundry.

Omnidrone, an 18-month-old, Barcelona, Spain-based mobile gaming company, has raised $2 million in its first institutional funding from Nokia Growth Partners, London Venture Partners and Kibo Ventures.

OnDeck, the 6.5-year-old, New York-based tech-powered alternative lending company that provides working capital and loans to small businesses, has raised $77 million in fresh funding led by Tiger Global Management. Earlier investors Institutional Venture Partners, RRE Ventures, SAP Ventures, Google Ventures, First Round Capital,Industry Ventures and Peter Thiel all participated in the financing, which brings OnDeck’s total funding to date to $180 million in equity and more than $300 million in debt financing.

Payoneer, an 8.5-year-old, New York-based payment-technology startup, has raised $25 million in Series D financing led by private equity firm Susquehanna Growth. Earlier backers Carmel Ventures, Greylock Partners and Vintage Venture Partners also participated in the round. The company has raised roughly $40 million to date, according to Crunchbase.

Persimmon Technologies, a 3.5-year-old, Zurich-based hybrid-field motor technology company, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from ABB Technology Ventures. Persimmon had raised an earlier, $6 million round, from Intel Capital and other investors.

SocietyOne, an 18-month-old, Syndey, Australia-based peer-to-peer lending company, has raised $8.5 million in a Series A funding from the newly launched Australian venture fund Reinventure, Munich-basedGlobal Founders Capital and a private investment from Justin Reizes, the head of KKR Australia.

Surveying And Mapping (SAM, Inc.), a 20-year-old, Austin, Tx.-based company that provides geospatial data services to oil companies, cities needing to survey streets, and many other types of customers, has raised an undisclosed round of funding from Austin Ventures.

TreSensa, a three-year-old, New York-based mobile game distribution company, has raised a $2 million Series A round led by Caribou Asset Management, with participation from angel investors, including Tremor Video co-founders Jason Glickman and Andrew Reis, American Media CEO David Pecker, and AdMeld founder Ben Barokas. TreSensa has raised roughly $3.5 million to date.

TripleLift, a two-year-old, New York-based ad tech startup that helps companies turn their brand images on the Web into ads, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by True Ventures. Earlier investors iNovia Capital, NextView Ventures, MESA+, Liberty City Ventures, Social Starts, Laconia Ventures, the Social Internet Fund and several individual investors also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to just more than $6 million.

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New Funds

CrossCoin Ventures, a new outfit led by serial entrepreneur Gary Kremen, has launched a digital currency accelerator that will be based in San Francisco. GigaOm has much more here.

Founders Fund, the nine-year-old, San Francisco-based venture capital firm cofounded by early Facebook investor Peter Thiel, has raised $1 billion for its fifth fund, a huge jump from the firm’s $50 million debut fund and even from its $250 million third fund, closed in 2010. “We want to find companies across all sectors and stages that are passionate about developing technologies to address the world’s most critical problems,” Founders Fund partner Luke Nosek said in a statement. Founders Fund has become known for seeking out ambitious ideas around robotics, space, and personalized healthcare, among other things, and counts SpaceX and Palantir Technologies among its sundry portfolio companies.

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IPOs

Adamas Pharmaceuticals, a 14-year-old, Emeryville, Ca.-based specialty pharmaceutical company focused on chronic disorders of the central nervous system, has filed paperwork with the SEC to raise roughly $70 million in an IPO. The company’s biggest shareholders include Mohr Davidow Ventures, which owns 32.4 percent of the company; Aeris Capital Equity Investments, which owns 16.9 percent; DAG Ventures, which owns 12.7 percent; and NCD Investors, which owns 6.6 percent.

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Exits

Glad to Have You, a three-year-old, Santa Rosa Beach, Fla.-based maker of hospitality management software for vacation rental professionals, has been acquired by HomeAway, the publicly traded online marketplace for vacation rentals. No financial terms were disclosed. Glad to Have You appears to have raised less than a million dollars in seed funding.

LeisureLink, a 12-year-old, Pasadena, Ca.-based vacation rental booking platform, has been acquired by VacationRoost Group for undisclosed terms. LeisureLink had raised roughly $17 million from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mission Ventures, and Wyndham Worldwide. VacationRoost Group, a vacation rental platform, is owned by the private equity group Kinderhook Industries.

Vizify, a three-year-old, Portland, Or.-based startup that turns social media chatter into visualizations, has been acquired by Yahoo, which is shutting down the service. “As for what’s next, we can’t talk specifics just yet, but we’re excited to bring a more visual approach to data at Yahoo,” the company said in a statement. Terms of the acquisition haven’t been disclosed. Vizify had raised roughly $1.5 million in seed funding, including from Portland Seed Fund and TechStars.

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People

Investor-entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, who served on the founding board ofPayPal, publishes a pointed message aimed at activist investor Carl Icahn, who has been flaming eBay‘s board over its stewardship of PayPal: “Sometimes, activist investors can help spur constructive action against CEOs and boards who have been mis-managing a company’s long-term innovation efforts. That isn’t the case with PayPal.”

Beth Jacob, who has overseen everything from Target‘s web site to its internal computer systems as its CIO since 2008, has resigned. Target tells the Associated Press the resignation was Jacob’s idea, but industry observers think someone had to go to restore shoppers’ faith in the company after a massive data breach.

The Winklevoss twins have purchased two tickets from Virgin Galactic to travel to space. In a post about their plans, Tyler Winklevoss likens the brothers to famous explorers throughout time, writing, “Humans have a long tradition of exploring and forging new frontiers, both physically and metaphorically. In the Middle Ages, Marco Polo’s writings—which recounted his 24 years of travel and trade on the Silk Road—built a new and lasting level of economic and cultural awareness between Europe and Asia. 200 years later, they would inspire 15th century explorer Christopher Columbus to search for a shorter route to the Far East by sea.” (There’ smuch more, alas.)

A new Web show called “Zero to IPO” is launching soon and the production, which sounds like a less sensational “Shark Tank,” is looking for high-profile types to appear as mentors on upcoming episodes. Among those already signed up to appear: Ken Chenault, the longtime CEO and chairman of American Express, and Jody Allen, CEO of Vulcan and sister, of course, to billionaire Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, whose business and charitable endeavors are managed by Vulcan. The site for the show apparently goes live next week. (Thanks to reader Jason for pointing this one out to StrictlyVC.)

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Happenings

Box is hosting a developers conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, March 26, an event that will feature informational sessions with Andreessen Horowitz cofounder Ben Horowitz, Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, and Evernote CEO Phil Libin, among others. Click here to register, and use the promo code nextgendev.

Also coming up in a couple of weeks: CoinSummit San Francisco, a two-day event connecting virtual currency entrepreneurs, investors, and others in industry who want to learn and network. Among those speaking at the event: Andreessen Horowitz cofounder Marc Andreessen, David Lee of SV Angel, and AngelList cofounder Naval Ravikant. More information here.

Meanwhile, if you’re in New York, or will be two weeks from now, you might want to catch the Gigaom Structure Data 2014 event March 19th and 20th. Details are here.

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Job Listings

Lemnos Labs, the San Francisco-based hardware incubator, is looking for a “utility player” to do, well, pretty much everything the partners can’t do. Worth noting: the position could grow into an investing role but isn’t a tracked position from the get-go.

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Essential Reads

The NASDAQ Private Market announced its official launch yesterday, with promises to give companies more control over how their pre-IPO shares are bought and sold. VentureBeat has more on the venture here.

Apple has shifted an estimated $8.9 billion in untaxed profits from its Australian operations to a tax haven structure in Ireland in the last decade, an investigation by The Australian Financial Review has found.

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Detours

Sixteen billionaires who started with bupkis.

The U.S. economy’s big baby problem.

The Dating Ring, a Y Combinator-backed startup, is looking to raise more money to bring a group of “datable” New York women to mingle with a hand-picked set of San Francisco men. You can donate to this questionable cause here.

Sometimes, you just need a “basic, no frills, in-and-out place to cry.” Luckily, there are plenty of places to choose from in New York.

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Retail Therapy

Lifestraw — a cheap drinking tube that removes almost all the disease-causing bacteria, viruses, and parasites in untreated water and has long been distributed by aid groups in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America — has now been incorporated into an expensive sports bottle. (Unexpected but smart.)

Do not, whatever you do, buy several of these Cinnabon Air Fresheners as an office gag. Per a damning Amazon review: “I didn’t need to freshen the office, but since we get cinnamon rolls pretty regularly I was hoping to fake the office out and just make it smell like we had them. This wasn’t going to fool anyone. The general thought of those in the office was that someone had forgotten to flush the toilet after eating a stack of Ginger snaps.”

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Hi, everyone, hope your Wednesday is off to a good start!

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Top News in the A.M.

The Brussels government really doesn’t want Uber operating in the city. To reinforce its stance, it seized two private cars operated by Uber drivers this morning, reports Tech.eu.

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Study: Entrepreneurs Are Pretty Rational After All

It takes a lot to be an entrepreneur. Founders often work longer hours and for less money than people with “paid jobs.” And entrepreneurs who start companies that take off stand a very good chance of being elbowed aside at some point. According to HBS professor Noam Wasserman, who conducted a decade of extensive research into roughly 3,600 startups, 52 percent of founders are gone by the time a company raises its third round of venture funding.

Still, the common myth that entrepreneurs are an irrationally optimistic lot isn’t entirely accurate, suggests new research from Daniel Ekeblom, a PhD student (and ex M&A analyst) at Lund University in Sweden;  and renowned finance professor Ola Bengtsson (who, sadly, passed away in January).

Indeed, using a dataset of 180,814 individuals’ responses culled by the Swedish government between 1986 to 2009 — answers to questions like, “Do you think your country will be better off financially a year from now?” — the pair discovered that optimism is actually correlated with favorable beliefs about nationwide conditions. More, when entrepreneurs have more favorable beliefs about nationwide conditions, those beliefs are relatively good predictors of the future.

In a recent call, I asked Ekeblom what motivated the research. He said simply that it’s an aspect of entrepreneurship that’s almost always overlooked: what people know about the immediate environment in which they’re working. “We thought: Can we use our data to sort that out? Can we avoid that problem, eliminate it somehow?”

Ekeblom went on to call the endeavor “real science,” given that he and Bengtsson were comparing expectations to outcomes on a subject that was beyond any respondent’s domain of influence.

Either way, armed with his conclusions, I was curious to know how he viewed the current founder boom. He told me: “When I look at like Silicon Valley — and we have small clusters of startups here in Sweden as well — people are trying to make some interesting stuff, but many aren’t generating cash flow like you’d expect based on these billion-dollar valuations. There’s something that’s not really catching up.”

You could blame a glut of optimistic entrepreneurs for continuing to start viral but unprofitable companies, but Ekeblom sees a reason for it. “Maybe they’re rational, and it’s the [investors and acquiring companies] who aren’t. I’m not at all sure people are looking at or responding to pricing signals in a rational way. Meanwhile the entrepreneur is saying, ‘Free money. Let’s go.’”

New Fundings

3CLogic, a 6.5-year-old, Rockville, Md.-based contact center software company, has raised $4.2 million in Series B funding led by Blu Venture Investors. The company has raised $5.74 million altogether, including from Maryland Venture Fund.

Aseptia, a 7.5-year-old, Raleigh, N.C.-based food processing technology company, has raised $28 million in Series C funding led by Lookout Capital, with SJF Ventures, Prudential, and the F.B. Heron Foundation participating. The company has raised $38 million altogether.

Auction.com, a 24-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based online real estate marketplace, has raised $50 million from Google Capital. The funds bring the company’s total funding to date to roughly $142 million. Stone Point Capital of Greenwich, Conn., led a $91.7 million round of funding for Auction.com in January of last year. TechCrunch has more on the funding here.

Audiam, a year-old, New York-based online service that hopes to help artists get paid when their music is used on YouTube, has raised $2 million in Series A funding from the L.A. management firm GSO Business Group and a long line of individual investors, including singers Jason Mraz and Jimmy Buffet. Dow Jones has more here.

Blend, a year-old, San Francisco-based mobile social app that’s exclusively available to college students (they “share,” “snap,” and “score” photos, earning points to score gifts from brands), has raised $2.7 million in seed funding led by New Enterprise Associates. Trinity Ventures,Foundation Capital, Lerer Ventures, Maveron, BoxGroup, XG Ventures, and SparkLabs Global Ventures also participated in the round.

Borro, a 6.5-year-old, London-based online platform that lets people borrow cash against their art, jewelry, and other high-end goods, has raised an enormous new round of $112 million, which is coming primarily from Victory Park Capital. Borro has now raised roughly $150 million altogether, including from Canaan Partners, Eden Ventures, European Founders Fund, Augmentum and Ribbit Capital. TechCrunch has more on how the business works here.

Clinicient, a 10-year-old, Portland, Or.-based maker of revenue cycle management software for outpatient rehabilitation therapy businesses, has raised $15 million in Series C funding from the growth equity firm Catalyst Investors. The company has raised roughly $22 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

ClassDojo, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose behavior management software is meant to help keep students on track, has raised $8.5 million in Series A funding from Shasta Ventures, Yuri Milner, General Catalyst, SoftTech VC, and SV Angel. The company has raised more than $10 million to date.

DocuSign, the 11-year-old, San Francisco-based electronic-signature software company, has raised $85 million in new funding that values the company at roughly $1.6 billion, according to WSJ sources. DocuSign had previously raised more than $100 million in venture capital, and the round is considered a likely precursor to an IPO. The company’s many investors include Scale Venture Partners, Salesforce, Sigma Partners, Ignition Partners, Frazier Technology Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Accel Partners, Comcast Ventures, SAP Ventures, and Google Ventures.

Neos Therapeutics, a 20-year-old, Dallas-based oral drug delivery company with a pipeline of products for ADHD, has raised $15.5 million in new funding, including from Burrill Life Sciences Capital Fund III, CAC LLC, CMEA Capital, Crabtree Partners, and Delaware Street Capital. Neos has raised at least $53 million in recent years, shows Crunchbase.

Peek.com, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that aims to make it easier to plan out travel itineraries, has raised $5 million in fresh funding, including from Brad Gerstner of Altimeter Capital and Jeff Fluhr, a cofounder of StubHub, reports Dealbook. They join Eric Schmidt of Google and Jack Dorsey of Twitter and Square, who’d participated in the company’s $1.25 million seed round and reinvested in the company’s latest financing.

Play-i, a two-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based educational toy developer, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Madrona Venture Group and Charles River Ventures. The company has raised $9.4 million altogether.

Reflektion, a two-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based retail analytics startup that tries predicting what shoppers are going to buy next, has raised $8 million in Series B funding led by Intel Capital and Nike. Reflektion has raised more than $11 million to date.

ServiceMax, a 6.5-year-old, Pleasanton, Ca.-based field service management company, has raised $71 million in new funding led by Meritech Capital, with participation from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and other new investors. Earlier investors Emergence Capital Partners, Mayfield Fund, Trinity Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Adams Street Partners and Salesforce also participated in the financing, which brings ServiceMax’s total funding to $120 million.

Slyce, a two-year-old, Toronto-based visual product search platform has raised $10.8 million in new funding led by Beacon Securities. PI Financial, Salman Partners, Harrington Global, AlphaNorth Asset Management and other private investors also participated in the round. Slyce has raised roughly $14. 5 million altogether, according to Crunchbase.

StreamLink Software, a 5.5-year-old, Cleveland, Oh.-based maker of SaaS management products designed for nonprofits and the public sector, has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding led by a group of Ohio angel investors. Chicago-based firms Hyde Park Venture Partners and Hyde Park Angels also participated in the round, along with Blu Venture Investors from Virginia.

Vennli, a year-old, South Bend, In.-based SaaS company whose products are designed for sales and marketing executives, has raised more than $1.3 million in financing from Elevate Ventures, 1st Source Bank, and numerous individual investors.

Vinculum, a 6.5-year-old, Noida, India-based SaaS company whose software includes analytics functions designed to help e-commerce and multi-channel retailers, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series B funding from IvyCap Ventures. Earlier investor Accel India Ventures also participated, reports VC Circle, which has more here.

Weft, a year-old, Burlington, Mass.-based startup that uses hardware and software to track the shipping of goods worldwide, has raised a seed round of less than $1 million led by Andreessen Horowitz and Data Elite, a months-old structure that provides startups with funding, three months of workspace, and mentoring.

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New Funds

Accelerant Ventures, a new, New York-based venture fund, is looking to raise between $5 million and $10 million this year to invest in early- to late-stage startups operating in the services, mobile, software, and security arenas. But Israeli startups only need apply. VentureBeat has much more on the story.

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IPOs

Corium International, a 19-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based biopharmaceutical company focused on commercializing specialty transdermal pharmaceutical products, has filed an S-1 that shows the firm plans to raise $50 million. Corium has raised at least $40 million from investors, through a a 2010 Series C funding. According to its S-1, Corium’s biggest backer is Essex Woodlands Health Ventures, which owns 55.9 percent of the company. Barr Laboratories owns another 10 percent.

Moelis & Co., a 6.5-year-old, New York-based investment bank, unveiledpaperwork for its IPO today. Given typical IPO timing, observes the WSJ, the shares could begin trading this spring.

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Exits

RTBTC.com, a trading platform developed that allows users to trade across various digital-currency exchanges, has been acquired for an undisclosed amount by Blockchain, whose ZeroBlock app provides bitcoin prices across several exchanges The transaction was completed entirely in bitcoin, said CEO Nic Cary on Bloomberg TV. PandoDaily has more here.

Topspin Media, a 6.5-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based marketing software company that helps artists and their partners build their brands, has been acquired by Beats Music for an undisclosed amount. Topspin Media has raised two rounds of of undisclosed amounts, first fromRedpoint Ventures, then from Foundry Group.

The assets of Touchstone Semiconductor, a four-year-old Milpitas, Ca.-based maker of high-performance, low-power analog IC products, have been acquired by publicly traded Silicon Labs for $1.5 million. Touchstone had raised $12 million in Series A funding from Opus Capital and Khosla Ventures in 2011.

CNN has sold its news reader app, Zite, to Flipboard, the social magazine application for a reported $60 million. CNN had acquired the app in 2011 for roughly $20 million. Writes TechCrunch: “The move is a sign of ongoing consolidation in the space and comes in the wake of Facebook launching a Flipboard competitor called Paper. It’s also a signal of how CNN has fallen into the same trap as other, older media companies of being unable to develop new media services effectively.”

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People

Kent Thexton has joined OMERS Ventures, the venture capital investment arm of the OMERS pension plan, as a managing director. He’ll be responsible for leading investments in the North American market in the technology, media, and telecommunications sectors. Thexton has held a number of founder and operational management roles over the years, including as the chief data and marketing officer of the telecom firm O2 Group, which sold to Telefonica S.A. in 2005 for $35 billion.

Fredric Vinna is joining Spotify from Beats Music, where he was head of product, engineering and design, reports CNet. The two are direct competitors; Spotify launched it service roughly six years ago; Beats Music launched less than two months ago.

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Happenings

Morgan Stanley’s Technology, Media & Telecom Conference is in day three at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel. If you aren’t going, you can register for its Webcast here.

The 11th annual Media Summit conference is also underway for a second day in New York. Here‘s the agenda.

One last reminder that the SXSW Festival kicks off on Monday. Planning to attend, at least virtually: former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who will via video in conversation with the ACLU’s Ben Wizner and Christopher Soghoian. The panel kicks off at 11 a.m. Central Time. (The Texas Tribune will stream it live.)

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Data

Pew Research takes a deep dive into the “selfie” phenomenon, reporting that “more than half of Millennials” have shared one on a social media site, compared with (still astonishingly high) 26 percent of all Americans, who have shared a “selfie” on a photo-sharing or social networking site.

On the heels one of the strongest investment years for angel and venture capital commitments in the U.K., the outlet GrowthBusiness looks at which firms were the busiest across seed, early venture, and growth-stage startups.

Twitter helped Goldman Sachs secure first place in the annual Bloomberg Markets ranking of equity underwriters, says the outlet. The bank earned an estimated $1.72 billion in fees in 2013 — a year in which companies raised $56 billion through IPOs in the U.S., the most since 2007, according to Bloomberg data. That’s a jump from the $41 billion in stock issued via IPOs in 2012.

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Job Listings

Thiel Capital is looking for a quantitative analyst in San Francisco. You need extensive programming skills, but a college degree is not required, naturally.

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Essential Reads

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has busted Wall Street insiders (including Galleon Group’s Raj Rajaratnam and SAC’s Steve Cohen) and dark Web drug dealers (Silk Road owner Ross Ulbricht). Now, reports Fast Company, Bharara intends to do what “Marc Andreessen, the Winklevoss twins, and cryptocurrency nuts can’t.” He intends to clean up bitcoin.

Which acquirer pays the most for startups? Redpoint Ventures‘ numbers whiz Tomasz Tunguz breaks it down.

As Arab startups get more serious, so too does VC investment, reports the WSJ. (StrictlyVC talked about the scene with one regional investor, Hummingbird Ventures, last week.)

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Detours

Singapore is now the world’s most expensive city, according to new report by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

According to a new study, 11 percent of Americans think HTML is a communicable disease.

Confessions of an Upworthy editor. (You won’t believe what he has to say.)

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Retail Therapy

We’d be more than happy to make this Mercedes Benz our headquarters.

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