• A Small New Fund with a Game-Changing Idea

    kent_goldman2Unlike venture capitalists, who get to place dozens of bets in search of a winner, founders typically have one shot at winning the startup game.

    Kent Goldman, a former partner with First Round Capital, thinks he has struck on a way to improve those odds. Today, Goldman takes the wraps off a new, San Francisco-based, $30 million seed fund called Upside Partnership that will give every founding team in its portfolio a piece of its carry, making them effectively Upside’s partners.

    That’s right. Goldman will take what he characterizes as a standard management fee. But he’ll be sharing an amount of carry that he expects will reach “significantly into the double digits,” albeit “less than half” of Upside’s overall upside.

    If a venture capitalist somewhere just spit out his coffee, it’s understandable. Like it or not, Goldman may have just changed the game for everyone. What founder wouldn’t want a piece of a venture portfolio at no additional cost? And what better motivation for founders to help one another?

    VCs like to talk with entrepreneurs about what’s fair. Goldman’s model — where founders will receive carry on a sliding scale, based on Upside’s initial check size — doesn’t get much fairer.

    Other details about the fund: Unlike the many specialized seed funds springing into existence these days, Goldman says he went in the opposite direction, with plans to focus very generally on “purpose-built founders who can explain why this is the right time in their life to pursue their passion.”

    Certainly, if Goldman is predisposed toward certain sectors, you wouldn’t know if from his portfolio at First Round, where his varied investments included the hotel booking application company HotelTonight; the real time analytics platform MemSQL; and Airware, a platform that helps other companies develop commercial drones.

    Goldman says he plans to write relatively small checks, too, staying in the “$300,000 range” when possible. For one thing, he thinks there’s a dearth of VCs who are willing or able to meaningfully help startups without more money riding on those companies. He also suggests that getting into the best deals might be easier if he’s not asking founders or other investors to “make room for me.”

    As for fundraising, Goldman, who is the fund’s sole general partner for now, says it took roughly four months, with most of the capital coming from institutional investors. In fact, Goldman says that less than $2 million came from individuals, including First Round founder Josh Kopelman, with whom Goldman remains close.

    It begs the question of why Goldman left a plum job with First Round in the first place.

    “Venture tends to not be a terribly entrepreneurial industry,” Goldman says. But he had his big idea, and he couldn’t let it go.

    “I view this like any founder who leaves a great company to try something on their own,” he says. Particularly when that company’s mission involves meeting with entrepreneurs every day, it’s “hard not to catch the bug yourself.”

    Sign up for our morning missive, StrictlyVC, featuring all the venture-related news you need to start you day.

    Connie

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  • StrictlyVC: June 9, 2014

    Good morning, everyone, hope your Wednesday is off to a fine start!

    No top story today — apologies — but we’ll have some good stuff for you in coming days, including a look tomorrow at a new venture firm that’s among the more innovative we’ve seen. (Btw, you can click here for the email version of today’s email.)

    —–

    Top News in the A.M.

    The Senate Intelligence Committee advanced a cybersecurity bill yesterday that would grant legal immunity for companies to share computer threat data with the government; civil liberties advocates say it fails to adequately shield Americans’ privacy.

    Time for companies to shed far more light on their data gathering, argues writer-investor Om Malik.

    In today’s Potato Salad Watch: Zack Brown of Columbus, Oh., has now raised $56,900 on Kickstarter for potato salad that he plans to make for his more than 4,763 contributors. Brown states very clearly in the “risks and challenges” section of his Kickstarter page that, “It might not be that good. It’s my first potato salad.” But with 24 days of his campaign left, the money keeps pouring in.

    —–

    New Fundings

    Amino, a three-year-old, Boston-based company that has created a mobile-only platform for niche communities (like pet and book lovers), has raised $1.65 million in seed funding led by Union Square Ventures. Other participants in the round included Google Ventures, SV Angel, Box Group, Kal Vepuri and Slow Ventures. BostInno has more here.

    Busbud, a 2.5-year-old, Montreal-based company whose app and website help users discover online places where they can book last-minute travel by bus, has raised $9 million in new funding led by Revolution Ventures and OMERS Ventures. Previous investors iNovia Capital and Real Ventures also participated in the round, which brings Busbud’s total funding to $10.2 million.

    Credit Benchmark, a year-old, London-based company that aims to improve financial market benchmarks by aggregating anonymized credit risk data from multiple banks, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Index Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

    Duetto, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that makes software to help hotels optimize costs, has raised $21 million in new fund led by Accel Partners. Earlier investors Battery Ventures, Altimeter Capital, Thayer Lodging CEO Leland Pillsbury, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, also participated in the round, which brings the company’s funding to roughly $33 million.

    GetYou, a nine-month-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based company whose app helps people see how well other people “get” them, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding, including from the venture firm RDSeed and angel investors, including Wix co-founder Avishai Abrahami.

    Grabhouse, a 16-month-old, Mumbai, India-based startup that helps people find roommates and apartments for rent, has raised $500,000 from earlier investor India Quotient, says VCCircle.

    Healthcare Interactive, an eight-year-old, Glenwood, Md.-based company whose platform collects and manages data, processes benefit plans, and helps it healthcare customer engage with customers online, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Grotech Ventures and Harbert Venture Partners. InTheCapital has more here.

    Jianshu, (meaning “simple book”), a new, China-based writing and blogging platform that’s been compared to Medium, has raised $806,000 in seed funding from undisclosed angel investors, says TechInAsia, which has much more here.

    Linio, a two-year-old, Durango, Mexico-based Amazon-like e-commerce marketplace that was originally incubated by Rocket Internet, the Berlin-based company, has raised $79 million in fresh funding led by new investors Northgate Capital and Access Industries. The company says the financing will be used to expand its footprint to other large Latin American markets like Chile and beyond. The company has already raised $175 million to date, shows Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.

    Pokkt, a two-year-old, Mumbai-based alternative mobile payment platform that helps app developers and publishers monetize their users through advertising, has raised $2.5 million in Series A funding led by Jafco Asiaand SingTel Innov8, with participation from earlier investors, including Jungle Ventures and serial entrepreneur K Ganesh. Pokkt had previously raised $500,000, says VCCircle.

    RetailNext, a 6.5-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based company whose software helps retailers and manufacturers analyze and visualize data about in-store customer engagement, has raised $30 million in growth funding led by Nokia Growth Partners. Other participants in the round included Qualcomm Ventures, Tyco, American Express, Activant Capital Group and earlier investors August Capital, StarVest Partners and Commerce Ventures. The company has now raised $59 million to date.

    Spring, a year-old, New York-based company that was founded by investor David Tisch and his brother Alan (who is CEO), has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding led by Thrive Capital, Groupe Arnault, and Box Group, with a long list of other venture capital firms and individual investors participating. TechCrunch has more here. Spring is still operating in stealth mode, but TechCrunch suggests it could be fashion retail play given that its many backers include Uri Minkoff CEO Rebecca Minkoff, Proenza Schouler CEO Shirley Cook, and “Project Runway” producer Desiree Gruber.

    Universal Education Group, a seven-year-old, Beijing-based Chinese company that trains students for their postgraduate entrance exams, civil servant recruitment examinations, and more, has raised “tens of millions” of dollars in Series C funding from search engine giant Baidu, reports China Money Network. The company had previously raised $40 million over two rounds, says the outlet, including from Sequoia Capital, Legend Capital, DCM, and the Singaporean private equity group F&H Fund Management.

    Vizury, a 5.5-year-old, Seoul, Korea-based digital marketing company that focuses on the online travel industry, has raised $16 million in Series C funding led by Intel Capital. Ascent Capital also participated in the round, along with earlier investors Nokia Growth Partners and Inventus Capital Partners.

    Webydo, a 3.5-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based SaaS platform that helps designers create and manage cross-platform business websites without writing code, has raised $7 million in funding led by OurCrowd. A Magna Ventures affiliate from Spain and private investors also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $8.4 million, shows Crunchbase.

    Zynstra, a 2.5-year-old, Bath, England-based company that offers remotely managed, enterprise-level IT on a pay-as-you-go basis to small- to medium-size businesses, has raised $8.4 million in Series B funding led by earlier investor Octopus Investments. Numerous individual investors who’d previously invested in the company also participated in the round, which brings its total funding to $14.8 million.

    —–

    New Funds

    Columbia Capital, the 25-year-old, Alexandria, Va.-based venture capital firm, is looking to raise a new, $425 million fund according to SEC filings turned up by the Washington Business Journal. Columbia, co-founded by Mark Warner (now Virginia’s senior U.S. senator), specializes in enterprise IT, infrastructure, wireless spectrum and other complex technology bets. The firm is currently investing out of its fifth, $441 million, fund.

    Greylock IL, the eight-year-old, international affiliate of U.S. venture capital firm Greylock Partners, is planning to spin off and rebrand as an independent entity, reports Fortune’s Dan Primack. To date, Greylock IL has raised $360 million for a pair of funds, the economics of which have been shared across Greylock Partners. Going forward, that won’t be the case, says Primack.

    Ziegler Companies, whose investment banking operations focus on senior-citizens’ health care, is teaming up with Link-Age Ventures, an organization launched by nonprofit senior-living centers, to create a new investing venture, reports VentureWire. The two plan to invest $26.6 million together across 10 to 12 startups.

    —–

    IPOs

    As the Alibaba IPO approaches, the company’s structure, known as a variable interest entity, is raising some concerns among possible IPO investors.

    Sage Therapeutics, a four-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based biopharmaceutical company that’s developing a drug for a life-threatening seizure condition, has updated its S-1, reflecting its plans to price its shares at between $14 and $16 apiece. Sage, which has already raised at least $93 million from private investors, would collect $60 million from public market investors at the midpoint of that range, and its market cap would be roughly $360 million. The company’s biggest shareholders include Third Rock Ventures, which owns 58.5 percent of the company; ARCH Venture Partners, which owns 21.3 percent; and Fidelity Investments, which owns 5.6 percent.

    —–

    Exits

    Perceptis, a 10-year-old, Greenville, S.C.-based company that provides IT and help-desk services to higher ed institutions, has been acquired for an undisclosed amount by Blackboard, a portfolio company of Providence Equity Partners. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. Perceptis had raised at least $7.5 million from investors, including Frontier Capital.

    RakNet, a Costa Mesa, Ca.-based company behind a game networking engine, has been acquired by Oculus VR for an undisclosed amount. Oculus VR, which acquired Carbon Design Group just a few weeks ago, was acquired by Facebook in March for $2 billion. Bloomberg has morehere.

    TwinStrata, a seven-year-old, Natick, Ma.-based maker of cloud gateway appliances, has been acquired by EMC Corp. for an undisclosed amount. TwinStrata had raised $19.4 million over the years, shows Crunchbase. Avalon Ventures is among its backers.

    —–

    People

    Michael Balmuth just joined SV Life Sciences to direct its health-care information technology investments. Balmuth was previously a general partner at Edison Ventures. Balmuth has also logged time as a general partner at Summit Partners, as an investment banker with Broadview International, and at IBM.

    Billionaire investor Mark Cuban talked parenting yesterday with the Huffington Post. The questions included, “From the worlds of both sports and business, what lessons do you try to teach your kids?” Cuban’s answer: “That you have to be a good teammate. That you get out of life what you put in it. That you are responsible for yourself.”

    Urban Airship CEO Scott Kveton announced yesterday that he was taking an “extended leave of absence” from the company following news that police are investigating a long string of sexual assault accusations from Kveton’s former girlfriend. (The Oregonion actually crafted a timeline to simplify things for readers.) Urban Airship, a startup that makes mobile relationship management software helps brands push messages to users, has raised nearly $50 million from investors in its five-year history. The Oregonian describes it as one of Portland’s “leading tech companies.” Kveton told employees that the company has hired a search firm to look for his successor.

    —–

    Job Listings

    GE Capital is looking to hire a vice president. The job is in Norwalk, Ct.

    —–

    Data

    LPs heart venture again, looks like. According to data out this morning from the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters, U.S. venture capital firms raised $7.4 billion in new commitments across 78 funds in the second quarter. That’s 42 percent more funds than closed in the second quarter of last year and marks the strongest quarter for VC fundraising, based on fund number, since the fourth quarter of 2007. You can check out more fundraising stats here.

    —–

    Essential Reads

    Bloomberg looks at the highly rewarding life of the Silicon Valley intern.

    Catalonia to Airbnb: No vacancies.

    —–

    Detours

    The New Yorker is making all the articles it has published since 2007 free online for three months.

    The world’s fastest hot tub.

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    Batman, the complete series, remastered in HD and coming to Blu-ray.

    Depressing circumstances candles.

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

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    Connie

  • StrictlyVC: July 8, 2014

    Good Tuesday morning, dear readers!

    So, wow. Some of you did not like yesterday’s column. Here is some reader feedback if you’re interested, including from Google’s 25th employee, David desJardins.

    —–

    Top News in the A.M.

    A potato salad has so far raised $38,000 on Kickstarter. Here’s how.

    —–

    Mitch Kapor on Dropcam and Data Collection

    Lotus Software founder Mitch Kapor is well-known for his philanthropy, including through the Kapor Center for Social Impact, which funds startups as one prong of a strategy to strengthen underrepresented communities.

    But Kapor has also made many bets on companies based purely on their technology and teams. Among them is the home surveillance startup Dropcam, acquired last month by Google’s Nest Labs for $555 million. In fact, Kapor was its first investor.

    Late last week, we talked about how that deal came together, and how Kapor feels about the outcome.

    How did you find Dropcam five or so years ago?

    I came across it through a third founder who left very early, Anson Tsai, who went on to found Cardpool, a market for buying and selling gift cards. Cardpool was acquired by [the payments network] Blackhawk early and very successfully. I’d met Anson socially through [entrepreneur and popular blogger] Andrew Chen.

    I don’t think people realize there was a third founder.

    Yes, with Greg [Duffy] and Aamir [Virani], who’d worked together at [the email startup] Xobni, which was just shut down by Yahoo, ironically [roughly a year after it was acquired for undisclosed amount]. I think the chemistry wasn’t right, so Anson left to start his own company, but I liked Greg and Aamir and what they were doing and thought they were riding some good themes so invested.

    Were you privy to any of Dropcam’s conversations with Google? I always wonder which investors know what and when.

    Our relationship as seed investors is heavily concentrated from the time we first make an investment up through a Series A. In Dropcam’s case, the Series A came pretty early, because, to his credit, Sameer [Gandhi] of Accel saw something in the company [and led the company’s Series A round in 2011]. Once Dropcam had a board, our relationship changed. I was involved, but more on demand, when Greg or Aamir wanted coaching or advice or introductions. In fact, I found out about the sale by reading about it in my Twitter stream and getting congratulated, and that’s typical if you don’t have a board seat. Seed investors often find out about big events as they’re happening or sometimes just before.

    What kind of return did you see on your investment? More than 100x?

    Definitely more than 100x. It was a big return.

    As a big believer in the company, do you think selling to Google was the best outcome for Dropcam?

    The right outcome has to do with the founders who are in place and deciding the right thing to do. Sometimes, they think it’s the right time to sell because being part of something bigger helps in achieving strategic objectives and getting [a financial] outcome. There are tradeoffs, too, if you stay on your own. You enjoy your independence and you can maybe build something larger, but it comes with a lot of headaches.

    I’m surprised people aren’t more concerned by certain companies’ moves to dominate the connected home, given their growing reach into other aspects of our lives. Do you have any thoughts about why that is?

    I think ultimately there will be some kind of new social contract backed up by laws that will put some restrictions on what companies that collect a lot of data on people can do with that information, and that would include Google, Apple, and Facebook. I believe it will be a long and messy road to get there, but if we look at what’s going on today, we see the outlines of how it will happen. For a number of years, for example, Silicon Valley companies resisted releasing their employment data. Google gets credit for its willingness to put it out there, though. It was difficult, because its diversity numbers are terrible. But the time had come for the company to take a step forward and it has.

    When do you think we’ll see these protective regulations?

    Probably 5 or 10 years from now, and I think it will come from unhappiness among consumers and other forces that convince Google that its long-term interests are better served by agreeing to do something that previously it found difficult or impossible to do.

    People will have to get more upset about the whole subject of large amounts of personal information being collected. But change happens. Consider gender issues. There’s been one embarrassing scandal after another, with Tinder, Github, and others. I don’t think there’s more of that going on now than before, but people are more aware that it’s going on now, it’s covered more, and there’s more of a climate that this isn’t right. It’s an issue that’s no longer ignored.

    We’re not there yet on data collection, but I think we’ll get there. It will happen.

    —–

    New Fundings

    Adtile, a nearly four-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based mobile ad tech company that develops more interactive ads, has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding from undisclosed investors. The company had previous raised $2.7 million, reports TechCrunch.

    Box, the nine-year-old, Los Altos, Ca.-based online-storage startup, has raised $150 million in funding from private-equity firm TPG and hedge fund Coatue Management, according to the WSJ, which says the financing values Box at about $2.4 billion. Box has now raised around $565 million altogether from investors, including General Atlantic, DFJ, New Enterprise Associates, Bessemer Venture Partners, The Social+Capital Partnership, SAP Ventures, and Scale Venture Partners.

    Cloudian, a 2.5-year-old, Foster City, Ca.-based cloud storage company that features a two-tiered pricing system, has raised $29 million in Series C funding from Innovation Corporate Network of Japan, Fidelity Growth Partners Japan, and earlier investors, including Intel Capital and Goldman Sachs.

    Curse, an eight-year-old, Huntsville, Al.-based gaming services company that offers in-game voice communications platforms, among other things, has raised $10 million in Series B financing led by new investor GGV Capital. The company says it has now raised $22 million to date, including from Ventech, SoftTech VC, and IDInvest Parters.

    FishBrain, a four-year-old, Gothenburg, Sweden-based social network for anglers, has raised $2.4 million in funding led by Northzone and Active Venture Partners. Other participants in the round included new investors GP Bullhound and Edastra Venture Capital, along with earlier backers.The company has raised $3.9 million to date, says TechCrunch. (Readers might recall that Fishidy, another social startup that provides fishing information to anglers, just raised $1.5 million in Series A funding last month.)

    Fuisz Media, a three-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based company behind a new commerce-enabled interactive video technology, has raised $2.1 million in seed funding led by Metamorphic Ventures and Lerer Hippeau Ventures. Other investors include Science Inc., WGI Group, United Talent Agency, Mesa+, and numerous individual investors.

    mBlox, a 14-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based mobile marketing company, has just raised $43.5 million in new funding, including from Comerica, Horizon Technology Finance, Norwest Venture Partners, Scale Ventures, Avanti, Trident, Stratem and Saints Capital. The company, which has now raised at least $120 million over the years, tells VentureWire that it’s using the money to rebrand its service by adding many new features.

    Mint Solutions, a four-year-old, Iceland-based hardware startup whose scanning device aims to ensure that healthcare workers provide each patient with the right medicine and dosage levels, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by the European investment firm Life Sciences Partners and Seventure Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

    OpenDoor, a new, San Francisco-based company that aims to to make buying homes as simple as clicking a few buttons, has just closed $9.95 million in an ” insane party round,” as TechCrunch puts it, one that was led by Khosla Ventures. The company, which has yet to launch, was cofounded by Eric Wu, the former head of geo and social products at real estate listings platform Trulia, and Keith Rabois, the former Square COO turned venture capitalist. More on OpenDoor’s long list of investors here.

    Racemi, a 13-year-old, Atlanta-based company whose cloud migration software helps automate the process of migrating workloads to public, private and hybrid clouds, has raised $10 million in Series C funding led by Milestone Venture Partners. Earlier investors Harbert Venture Partners and Paladin Capital Group also participated in the round. The company has now raised roughly $25 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

    Regent Education, an eight-year-old, Frederick, Md.-based company that makes financial aid management and enrollment optimization software for higher ed institutions, has raised $9 million in venture and debt funding. The company closed a $4 million Series C round from new investor New Markets Venture Partners, which joined by earlier investor Chrysalis Ventures. Meanwhile, Ares Capital provided $5 million in debt financing. Regent has now raised roughly $23 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

    Robin, a months-old, Boston-based company that’s developing a service for presence sensing and automation in the office, has raised $1.4 million in seed funding led by Atlas Venture. Other participants in the round included Deep Fork Capital, Boldstart Ventures and Space Pirates, a seed venture group. BostInno has more here.

    Spark Labs, a 2.5-year-old, Minneapolis, Mn.-based company that sells a Wi-Fi development kit to engineers and designers who develop connected hardware products, has raised $4.9 million in Series A funding led by Lion Wells Capital and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. Other participants in the round included Collaborative Fund, and SOSventures. The company has raised $4.9 million to date, it tells the WSJ.

    TranServ, a four-year-old, Mumbai, India-based prepaid payments company, has raised an undisclosed amount in Series B round led by Faering Capital, with earlier investor Nirvana Venture Advisors also participating. The Economic Times has more here.

    WordStream, a seven-year-old, Boston-based search-marketing software company, has raised $9 million in Series C funding led by Baird Capital of Chicago, with earlier investor Sigma Partners participating. The company also raised an addition $3 million in venture debt from City National Bank. According to Crunchbase, WordStream has raised $28.4 million to date.

    Xapo, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-base “bank” for bitcoin, has raise $20 million from Greylock Partners and Index Ventures, which were joined by Emergence Capital Partners, Max Levchin, Yuri Milner, and Jerry Yang. The company has raised $40 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

    YouChe.com, an eight-month-old, Beijing, China-based online retailing platform for second-hand cars, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by IDG Capital, according to China Money Network, which says the company previously raised “several million RMB” in seed funding from Zhen Fund last December when the company was founded.

    —–

    New Funds

    DST Global, the nine-year-old investment firm cofounded and controlled by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, is raising its fourth fund, DST Global IV, according to an SEC filing that doesn’t list a target. Milner, whose bets through DST have included Facebook, Twitter, and Spotify, among others, talked with Forbes late last year about some of those past investments and where DST planned to spend some of its time in 2014. VentureBeat has more here.

    HomeAway, the nine-year-old, Austin-based vacation rental marketplace, is thinking about ways to formalize its startup investing, reports TechCrunch. The company’s cofounder and CEO Brian Sharples tells the outlet: “There are lots of entrepreneurs in the travel space — and now in particular around the vacation rental space . . .We’re very actively looking at [investing]. Historically we have either bought companies outright or bought a joint position.” The company has already made roughly 20 acquisitions since its founding.

    —–

    IPOs

    TubeMogul, a nearly seven-year-old, Emeryville, Ca.-based video ad platform that filed its S-1 in March, looks to be proceeding with its plans to go public, despite a choppy market for ad tech companies. The company has raised more than $50 million in funding. Its biggest shareholders include Trinity Ventures (which owns 26.5 percent of the company prior to the IPO), Foundation Capital (22.7 percent), and Northgate Capital (8 percent). TechCrunch has more here.

    Yodle, a nine-year-old, New York-based online marketing platform for small businesses, has filed to go public. The company has raised at least $40 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. Its biggest shareholders are Bessemer Venture Partners, which owns 29.7 percent of the company; DFJ, which owns 24.4 percent; JAFCO Technology Partners, which owns 8.7 percent; and David Rubin, formerly the CEO of ProfitFuel, which Yodle had acquired. Rubin owns 5 percent.

    —–

    Exits

    Newport Media, a nine-year-old, Lake Forest, Ca.-based fabless semiconductor company, has been acquired for $140 million by the publicly traded semiconductor company Atmel as Atmel shifts more of its focus toward smart connected devices. Newport had raised $66 million over the years, shows Crunchbase, including from Oak Investment Partners, Global Catalyst Partners, Venrock, Pinnacle Ventures, DAG Ventures, and Benchmark. VentureBeat has more here.

    —–

    People

    Fortune profiles John Arrillaga, the billionaire real estate developer (and father-in-law to Marc Andreessen), who “grew up one of five children in a lower-middle-class home in Inglewood, Calif.” and whose mother “kept the kids full with pieces of bread stuffed with lettuce. When Saturday ‘steak night’ rolled around, the seven of them shared one flank.”

    Apple CEO Tim Cook is reportedly looking for some fresh faces to add to Apple’s board. According to a WSJ story, “Mr. Cook is actively seeking new directors to add to Apple’s eight-person board, known for its loyalty to Mr. Jobs. Six of the seven outside directors are aged 63 or older. Four of them have served for more than a decade, including two who have been on the board since the late 1990s: former Intuit Corp Chief Executive Bill Campbell and J. Crew Group Chief Executive Millard S. “Mickey” Drexler.”As 9to5mac notes, most of the Apple’s current board members were hand-picked by Steve Jobs, with Cook adding only Disney CEO Bob Iger and promoting Art Levinson to non-executive Chairman of the Board.

    Katie Stanton, previously VP of international market development at Twitter, is stepping into the role of the company’s media chief, weeks after the departure of her predecessor, Chloe Sladden. Stanton, reports Variety, was already running the company’s international media division; in her new role, she be overseeing the U.S. division, too.

    —–

    Job Listings

    Frost Data Capital is looking for a summer associate (this is an unpaid eight-week internship). The firm is in San Juan Capistrano, Ca.

    —–

    Essential Reads

    Meet the ex-Google hacker who’s taking on the world’s spy agencies.

    Young Israelis are suddenly flocking to Germany to start their businesses, says Newsweek.

    Reminder: The SEC is due to review the definition of accredited investor this summer.

    —–

    Detours

    Yada, yada, yada: Larry David looks back at 25 years of “Seinfeld” in aQ&A with Rolling Stone.

    Spectators jumping into the road to snap selfies are becoming a giant pain in the arse, say Tour de France riders.

    Are you smart enough to get into a private New York City kindergarten?

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    An iPhone charger that looks like an umbilical cord. (It’s horrifying, but you kind of have to see it.)

    —–

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

    Connie

  • Mitch Kapor on Dropcam and Data Collection

    MitchKaporLotus Software founder Mitch Kapor is well-known for his philanthropy, including through the Kapor Center for Social Impact, which funds startups as one prong of a strategy to strengthen underrepresented communities.

    But Kapor has also made many bets on companies based purely on their technology and teams. Among them is the home surveillance startup Dropcam, acquired last month by Google’s Nest Labs for $555 million. In fact, Kapor was its first investor.

    Late last week, we talked about how that deal came together, and how Kapor feels about the outcome.

    How did you find Dropcam five or so years ago?

    I came across it through a third founder who left very early, Anson Tsai, who went on to found Cardpool, a market for buying and selling gift cards. Cardpool was acquired by [the payments network] Blackhawk early and very successfully. I’d met Anson socially through [entrepreneur and popular blogger] Andrew Chen.

    I don’t think people realize there was a third founder.

    Yes, with Greg [Duffy] and Aamir [Virani], who’d worked together at [the email startup] Xobni, which was just shut down by Yahoo, ironically [roughly a year after it was acquired for undisclosed amount]. I think the chemistry wasn’t right, so Anson left to start his own company, but I liked Greg and Aamir and what they were doing and thought they were riding some good themes so invested.

    Were you privy to any of Dropcam’s conversations with Google? I always wonder which investors know what and when.

    Our relationship as seed investors is heavily concentrated from the time we first make an investment up through a Series A. In Dropcam’s case, the Series A came pretty early, because, to his credit, Sameer [Gandhi] of Accel saw something in the company [and led the company’s Series A round in 2011]. Once Dropcam had a board, our relationship changed. I was involved, but more on demand, when Greg or Aamir wanted coaching or advice or introductions. In fact, I found out about the sale by reading about it in my Twitter stream and getting congratulated, and that’s typical if you don’t have a board seat. Seed investors often find out about big events as they’re happening or sometimes just before.

    What kind of return did you see on your investment? More than 100x?

    Definitely more than 100x. It was a big return.

    As a big believer in the company, do you think selling to Google was the best outcome for Dropcam?

    The right outcome has to do with the founders who are in place and deciding the right thing to do. Sometimes, they think it’s the right time to sell because being part of something bigger helps in achieving strategic objectives and getting [a financial] outcome. There are tradeoffs, too, if you stay on your own. You enjoy your independence and you can maybe build something larger, but it comes with a lot of headaches.

    I’m surprised people aren’t more concerned by certain companies’ moves to dominate the connected home, given their growing reach into other aspects of our lives. Do you have any thoughts about why that is?

    I think ultimately there will be some kind of new social contract backed up by laws that will put some restrictions on what companies that collect a lot of data on people can do with that information, and that would include Google, Apple, and Facebook. I believe it will be a long and messy road to get there, but if we look at what’s going on today, we see the outlines of how it will happen. For a number of years, for example, Silicon Valley companies resisted releasing their employment data. Google gets credit for its willingness to put it out there, though. It was difficult, because its diversity numbers are terrible. But the time had come for the company to take a step forward and it has.

    When do you think we’ll see these protective regulations?

    Probably 5 or 10 years from now, and I think it will come from unhappiness among consumers and other forces that convince Google that its long-term interests are better served by agreeing to do something that previously it found difficult or impossible to do.

    People will have to get more upset about the whole subject of large amounts of personal information being collected. But change happens. Consider gender issues. There’s been one embarrassing scandal after another, with Tinder, Github, and others. I don’t think there’s more of that going on now than before, but people are more aware that it’s going on now, it’s covered more, and there’s more of a climate that this isn’t right. It’s an issue that’s no longer ignored.

    We’re not there yet on data collection, but I think we’ll get there. It will happen.

    Sign up for our morning missive, StrictlyVC, featuring all the venture-related news you need to start you day.

    Connie

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    , ,

  • Googler #25 and Others Respond to That Khosla Interview

    Larry PageSunday afternoon, I wrote a column about a new video that features investor Vinod Khosla interviewing Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. I noted the interview was not going to be well-received outside of tech circles, where it was uniformly applauded. For example, asked by Khosla about rising income inequality in San Francisco, an issue that’s been linked in the public mind to Google, Page called it a  “governance problem.” Page also talked at length about a future in which machines replace human workers without addressing who will keep those workers afloat financially.

    I didn’t realize the piece would be quite so controversial, but a number of readers reached out this morning, complaining that I was unfair to Page. Adrian, for example, said that my “coverage of the Page / Brin interview is righteous and disappointing. You are bashing Page for not feeling guilty for and not self flagellating in public over being rich. Seems like you think some contrived displays of guilt and some vague promises of being a better ‘corporate citizen’ (whatever that means today) would have been better than his attempt at a thoughtful response / analysis.”

    Meanwhile, Graeme wrote, “I could really do without the stereotypical political commentary. I can get that from [we’ll just skip this part of Graeme’s email] or [and this] or the shitheads at [you get the point]. Yay let’s cheer on political terrorists attacking people in their homes or on their way to work! Fuck those smart people and their work ethics!”

    It also seems worth steering readers to a response sent my way this morning by Google’s 25th employee, David desJardins, who is now a private investor. Specifically, desJardins had wanted to talk about “Abundance,” the book Page cited when speaking to Khosla about the free time we’ll all enjoy when our jobs disappear.

    While desJardins said he agrees that “human ingenuity and exponential growth are exceptionally powerful tools for solving a wide range of problems and challenges,” he disagrees completely that “human society has been, and is, on a trajectory to harnessing those tools to address our biggest problems and challenges.”

    Here’s more of desJardins’s email, published below with his consent:

    [Abundance authors Peter] Diamandis and [Steven] Kotler make many arguments about the power of innovation and human ingenuity with which I agree. However, they then make an essentially utopian argument about how deeply and rapidly these tools are being used and will be used to address current and foreseeable problems.  In this area, I claim that they are wildly optimistic.  The question is not whether human civilization could harness its ingenuity and creativity to solve all of the problems they discuss—of course it could.  The question is whether it will.  And as to that I think their optimism is totally unwarranted.

    They only arrive at an optimistic conclusion by cherry-picking the evidence.  They trumpet a few anecdotal examples of dedicated and resourceful individuals making big contributions to society with only modest costs.  The problem is that the examples they use are mostly notable for how rare and unusual they are.  As Larry Page says, but they ignore, 99.9999% of people aren’t working on stuff that can dramatically improve the world.  That means we’re only generating 0.0001% of the innovation on critical problems that we could be generating.  And that’s just not enough.

    The role of government is hardly mentioned anywhere in the text.  In the U.S. today, we’re slashing public investment that isn’t driven by a pure profit motive.  Of private investment, the vast majority is profit-driven rather than public-benefit-driven.  This is yet another reason that the fraction of human ingenuity that’s actually being applied to our biggest challenges is really small.

    The assumption in the book is that self-organizing, self-motivating, self-actualizing individuals, left to their own devices, can and will independently address virtually all human problems.  But this is a subject on which we have considerable empirical evidence, and the evidence is much less encouraging than they would have it.  Corruption is rising in most parts of the world.  Exploitation of people by others is rising in most parts of the world.  The vast majority of innovation is directed to trivial problems rather than to big problems (the world invests far more in treatments for erectile dysfunction or skin wrinkles than in treating any of the most widespread diseases).  People whose lives could be dramatically improved by a 60-watt bulb, have been in that position for decades and they still don’t have the bulb.  The observation that we could give them that bulb (or a 6-watt LED replacement) doesn’t mean that we will—what makes anyone think we are going to start making a serious worldwide effort to address human needs when we have never done that so far?

    The authors suppose that as the “bottom billion” are lifted out of abject poverty, they will become consumers and their needs will be valued and met.  But that’s wildly optimistic.  The bottom billion are far, far behind the graduates of even the worst U.S. schools in terms of their knowledge and education and preparation to compete in the world economy.  The economic value of their labor is going to remain near zero for the foreseeable future.  By the time they make it to third grade, they are going to need a postgraduate degree to be prosperous.  It may only cost a few dollars to prevent malaria or to give someone a light, but it costs tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars (and takes generations) to educate people to the level where they can make really significant contributions to society.  Most of the jobs that people can do without a significant education are disappearing and becoming obsolete.  The bottom billion aren’t getting richer and more educated as fast as the world economy is leaving them behind.  

    The arrow of accumulation of human knowledge is pointed in the right direction.  But the arrow of organization of human society—the extent to which we serve humanity rather than exploit it—is pointed in the wrong direction. 

    Sign up for our morning missive, StrictlyVC, featuring all the venture-related news you need to start you day.

    Connie

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  • StrictlyVC: July 7, 2014

    Hi, everyone, welcome back. Hope you had a terrific break!

    —–

    Top News in the A.M.

    A quick heads up: the TSA says that it will no longer allow U.S.-bound passengers to board flights at certain overseas airports with uncharged electronic devices.

    —–

    Missed Connections: Larry Page on Income Inequality

    Over the long weekend, Khosla Ventures released a video of its founder, Vinod Khosla, interviewing Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who rarely participate in joint speaking engagements.

    Page and Brin come across as charming in different but complementary ways. Page plays the straight man, responding earnestly to Khosla’s questions about Google’s priorities. “I guess we feel that, right now . . . the actual amount of knowledge you get out of your computer versus the amount of time you spend is still pretty bad. And I think our job is to solve that,” he says.

    Meanwhile, Brin is like the smart-alecky brother who cracks wise at Page’s expense. When Khosla asks the founders about machine learning, Brin drapes an arm around Page, saying, “Well, look, this is our latest model right here. See? Not perfect yet but doing pretty well.” The crowd bursts into laughter as Page buries his face in his hands. (We also laughed, watching it online.)

    For all the founders’ endearing chemistry, the interview is far from a public relations coup for Google, whose gleaming private buses sparked San Francisco’s so-called “culture wars” last winter. In fact, the video might serve as further evidence that Google’s CEO and co-founder doesn’t think very much of the growing wealth disparity between tech workers and everyone else.

    Consider Page’s response when Khosla somewhat timidly asks him about “short-term issues like you see in San Francisco,” such as “people not appreciating that people who are part of the ideas economy … are doing much better than people who aren’t.” Page might have used the question to assert Google’s interest in being a good corporate citizen. Instead, he effectively dismisses the idea that Google has any responsibility for San Francisco’s growing divide between rich and poor.

    “This kind of thing is really a governance problem,” says Page, “because we’re building lots of jobs, lots of office buildings, and no housing. So it’s not surprising that [has] caused a lot of issues. You also have a lot of people who are rent controlled, so they don’t participate in the economic increase in housing prices. It actually hurts them. It doesn’t help them. So I think those problems are more structural and very serious problems. We’re not really on a path to fix those problems in this area.”

    Page sounds more out of touch when Khosla asks him about the consequences of machines replacing human jobs. “If you really think about the things that you need to make yourself happy – housing, security, opportunities for your kids – anthropologists have been identifying these things — it’s not that hard for us to provide those things,” he tells Khosla. “The amount of resources we need to do that, the amount of work that actually needs to go into that is pretty small. I’m guessing less than 1 percent at the moment.”

    Because everyone needs to “feel like you’re needed and wanted and have something productive to do,” one solution might be to “just reduce work time.” Page then adds, “Most people like working, but they’d also like to have more time with their family or to pursue their own interests. So that would be one way to deal with the problem, if you had a coordinated way to just reduce the workweek.”

    Simple, right? Not exactly. Page sidesteps the economic consequences of reducing employee hours in an economy in which most people still live paycheck to paycheck. Does he expect companies to pay their employees the same amount of money for less hours? Should the government foot the difference? He doesn’t say.

    Judging from the interview, Page wasn’t prepared to talk at length about social issues. After all, this wasn’t a sit-down with the Washington Post. He and Brin were being interviewed by Khosla, a fellow billionaire, at an intimate CEO summit.

    But it’s probably time to ditch the platitudes of “Abundance,” a book by serial entrepreneur Peter Diamandis that describes a world in which everyone’s quality of life will continue to rise thanks to the exponential growth of technology. (“I totally believe we should be living in a time of abundance,” Page tells Khosla.)

    At the very least, Page might pretend for a moment that he’s not worth $30 billion and consider how his words might sound to those who are working to make ends meet and, in many cases, failing. It’s worth remembering that more than 45 million Americans are right now living in poverty.

    We know Brin was just joking when he said his friend Page was a robot. Now it’s time to prove it.

    —–

    New Fundings

    Bonobos, the seven-year-old, New York-based fashion brand that started selling menswear direct-to-consumers online and is now expanding into physical “guide shops” where customers can try on the company’s clothes, has raised $55 million in Series D funding led by Coppel Capital. Bonobos’s earlier investors Accel Partners, Felicis Ventures, Forerunner Ventures, Glynn Capital Management, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mousse Partners and Nordstrom also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $127.6 million. PandoDaily has more here.

    FXiaoKe, a three-year-old, Beijing, China-based mobile sales management tool, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Northern Light Venture Capital, with firms Huaruan Venture Capital, Boya Capital, and IDG Capital participating. FXiaoke previously received “several million dollars” in Series A funding from IDG Capital in July 2012, says China Money Network.

    GeneWeave Biosciences, a four-year-old, Los Gatos, Ca.-based diagnostics company that aims to help doctors more quickly identify and fight drug-resistant organisms, has raised $12 million in Series B funding led by earlier investor Decheng Capital. Other previous investors, including Claremont Creek Ventures and X/Seed Capital, also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $25 million, shows Crunchbase.

    Hansoft, a nine-year-old, Uppsala, Sweden-based company that makes project management and and collaboration software, has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Hasso Plattner Ventures and the Nordic venture capital firm Creandum.

    HiWiFi, a 16-month-old, Beijing-based maker of “smart” routers, has raised $10 million in Series B funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and the Taiwanese semiconductor maker MTK, according to reports. The company had previously received “tens of millions” of dollars in Series A funding from GGV Capital and Innovation Works, according to China Money Network.

    Hungama Digital Media Entertainment, a 15-year-old, Mumbai, India-based aggregator, developer, publisher and distributor of Bollywood and South-Asian entertainment content, has raised $40 million in new funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners, reports VCCircle. Earlier investor Intel Capital, which poured an undisclosed amount of funding into the company in 2012, also participated in this round.

    Lmbang, a 1.5-year-old, Shenzhen, China-based online social platform for young mothers to share their experiences, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Greenwoods Asset Management. Earlier investors Morningside Ventures, Matrix Partners and K2 Ventures also participated.

    Matterport, a three-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company whose 3D reconstruction system allows users to construct 3D models of physical objects and interior spaces, has raised $16 million in new funding led by DCM, which was joined by Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures. Earlier investors who also participated in the round include AMD Ventures, Felicis Ventures, Greylock Partners, Lux Capital, Navitas Capital, Qualcomm Ventures and Rothenberg Ventures, as well as Crate & Barrel founder Gordon Segal and Sling Media founderBlake Krikorian. The company has now raised $26 million to date, shows Crunchbase. The WSJ has more here.

    ParkTag, a 2.5-year-old, Berlin-based mobile app whose community of users help each other to find parking spots, has raised $680,000 from Germany’s High-Tech Gründerfonds, a semi governmental venture fund; the KfW Bank group; and numerous industrial groups, including Deutsche Telekom and Siemens. TechCrunch as more here.

    SpaceWays, a new, London-based self-storage business, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from the German startup backer Rocket Internet, which hired the founders to create the service, reports Reuters. SpaceWays, which launched in London last week, it reportedly “looking to transform the self-storage market into an on-demand business more like package delivery.”

    Synchroneuron, a three-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based biopharmaceutical company that’s developing new therapies to treat tardive dyskinesia and other neuropsychiatric disorders, has raised $20 million in Series B funding from Morningside Technology Ventures. The company has raised $26 million altogether, all from Morningside, shows Crunchbase.

    Traity, a two-year-old, Madrid and San Francisco-based online reputation startup, has raised $4.7 million in Series A funding led by Active Venture Partners. Other investors in the round included Horizons Ventures, KRW Schindler Private Ventures, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, Lanta Digital Ventures, 500 Startups, Lisa Gansky, Juan Lopez, Matthew Bothner and Dalibor Siroky. TechCrunch has more on the company here.

    —–

    New Funds

    Edison Ventures, a 28-year-old, Lawrenceville, N.J.-based venture firm that focuses on expansion-stage companies in the Eastern U.S., will begin raising its eighth fund later this year, reports VentureWire. Reportedly, the firm will target around $250 million, roughly matching the size of its seventh and six funds. Among Edison’s newest portfolio companies is Trialscope, a Jersey City, N.J.-based company whose software helps clinical trial sponsors comply with legislation and internal policy, as well as to register their clinical trials and disclose their results. The company raised $10 million last month.

    Runa Capital, a four-year-old, Moscow-based venture firm, is targeting $200 million to $300 million for a second venture fund that it’s currently raising, reports VentureWire. Serguei Beloussov, the firm’s cofounder and senior partner, says Runa plans to invest the new fund mostly outside of Russia because of Russia’s still small (comparatively) customer base for IT services. Among the firm’s newest portfolio companies: Ecwid, a Moscow-based company that enables merchants to add an online store to their existing website or mobile site.

    Santander, one of the largest banks in Europe, is launching a $100 million venture fund to back startups in the financial-technology sector. The London-based fund will operate as a standalone unit and have a global focus.

    —–

    IPOs

    DreamSky Technology, a five-year-old, Shenzhen, China-based third party mobile game publishing platform, has filed to go public on Nasdaq to raise up to $115 million in funding. THL A19 Limited, a company controlled by Tencent Holdings, is the company’s largest shareholder, with a 26.6 percent stake. Dream Data Services, meanwhile, owns 22 percent; Legend Capital owns 20.4 percent; and Redpoint Ventures owns 16.6 percent.

    —–

    Exits

    Expedia just agreed to acquire Australia’s Wotif Group for $658 million. Skift has more here.

    Novus Biologicals, an 18-year-old, Littleton, Co.-based supplier of both outsourced and in-house developed antibodies and other reagents for life-science research, has been acquired for $60 million in cash byTechne Corp., a publicly traded company that does business as Bio-Techne. More here.

    Wilocity, a seven-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company that builds multi-gigabit wireless chipsets, has been acquired by Qualcomm for undisclosed financial terms that some reports peg at $300 million. Wilocity had raised $55 million from investors, including Benchmark, Sequoia Capital, Tallwood Venture Capital, Atheros Communications, Marvell Technology, Jerusalem Global Ventures, and Vintage Investment Partners.

    —–

    People

    Chris Dixon, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, tweeted out some funny (and probably fairly true) advice over weekend, writing that “If you are wondering why big tech company bought small tech company, a good default answer is: phones.” He then added, “In fact, you could probably go to a tech cocktail party and answer every question with ‘phones’ and you’d sound pretty smart.”

    Jason Goldberg, the CEO of richly funding and flailing Fab, has a new furniture site called Hem that he says it’s going to be fabulous, telling a skeptical reporter: “I’ll tell you what I told our investors: We never signed on to building a two-year business . . .We signed onto build a business over 10, 20 years.”

    —–

    Job Listings

    Syracuse University is in the market for an entrepreneur, business executive or venture capitalist to serve as an assistant professor. (The job is full time, with a renewable annual contract.)

    —–

    Happenings

    Allen & Co.‘s annual Sun Valley conference kicks off on Tuesday.

    —–

    Essential Reads

    How Twitch’s founders turned an aimless reality show Into a video juggernaut.

    Wired reports on Google Map hackers, who “can destroy a business at will.”

    The Life and Death of “The Internet’s Own Boy.”

    —–

    Detours

    Inside the Viper Room, Hollywood’s most exclusive poker game.

    A new report finds that higher intelligence is linked with rural-to-city migration, and with city-to-suburb movement.

    James Suroweicki asks: Why are the super-rich so angry?

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    No cloud hanging over your head? You might try this one.

    Paddle ball set, now on sale.

    —–

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

    Connie

    ,

  • Missed Connections: Larry Page on Income Inequality

    Brin, Page, KhoslaOver the weekend, Khosla Ventures released a video of its founder, Vinod Khosla, interviewing Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who rarely participate in joint speaking engagements.

    Page and Brin come across as charming in different but complementary ways. Page plays the straight man, responding earnestly to Khosla’s questions about Google’s priorities. “I guess we feel that, right now . . . the actual amount of knowledge you get out of your computer versus the amount of time you spend is still pretty bad. And I think our job is to solve that,” he says.

    Meanwhile, Brin is like the smart-alecky brother who cracks wise at Page’s expense. When Khosla asks the founders about machine learning, Brin drapes an arm around Page, saying, “Well, look, this is our latest model right here. See? Not perfect yet but doing pretty well.” The crowd bursts into laughter as Page buries his face in his hands. (We also laughed, watching it online.)

    For all the founders’ endearing chemistry, the interview is far from a public relations coup for Google,  whose gleaming private buses sparked San Francisco’s so-called “culture wars” last winter. In fact, the video might serve as further evidence that Google’s CEO and co-founder doesn’t think very much of the growing wealth disparity between tech workers and everyone else.

    Consider Page’s response when Khosla somewhat timidly asks him about “short-term issues like you see in San Francisco,” such as “people not appreciating that people who are part of the ideas economy … are doing much better than people who aren’t.” Page might have used the question to assert Google’s interest in being a good corporate citizen. Instead, he effectively dismisses the idea that Google has any responsibility for San Francisco’s growing divide between rich and poor.

    “This kind of thing is really a governance problem,” says Page, “because we’re building lots of jobs, lots of office buildings, and no housing. So it’s not surprising that [has] caused a lot of issues. You also have a lot of people who are rent controlled, so they don’t participate in the economic increase in housing prices. It actually hurts them. It doesn’t help them. So I think those problems are more structural and very serious problems. We’re not really on a path to fix those problems in this area.”

    Page sounds more tone deaf when Khosla asks him about the consequences of machines replacing human jobs. “If you really think about the things that you need to make yourself happy – housing, security, opportunities for your kids – anthropologists have been identifying these things — it’s not that hard for us to provide those things,” he tells Khosla. “The amount of resources we need to do that, the amount of work that actually needs to go into that is pretty small. I’m guessing less than 1 percent at the moment.”

    Because everyone needs to “feel like you’re needed and wanted and have something productive to do,” one solution might be to “just reduce work time.” Page adds, “Most people like working, but they’d also like to have more time with their family or to pursue their own interests. So that would be one way to deal with the problem, if you had a coordinated way to just reduce the workweek.”

    Simple, right? Not exactly. Page sidesteps the economic consequences of reducing employee hours in an economy in which most people still live paycheck to paycheck. Does he expect companies to pay their employees the same amount of money for less hours? Should the government foot the difference? He doesn’t say.

    Judging from the interview, Page wasn’t prepared to talk at length about social issues. After all, this wasn’t a sit-down with the Washington Post. He and Brin were being interviewed by Khosla, a fellow billionaire, at an intimate CEO summit.

    But it’s probably time to ditch the platitudes of “Abundance,” a book by serial entrepreneur Peter Diamandis that describes a world in which everyone’s quality of life will continue to rise thanks to the exponential growth of technology. (“I totally believe we should be living in a time of abundance,” Page tells Khosla.)

    At the very least, Page might pretend for a moment that he’s not worth $30 billion and think how his words might sound to those who are working to make ends meet and, in many cases, failing. It’s worth remembering that more than 46 million Americans are now living in poverty.

    We know Brin was just joking when he said his friend Page was a robot. Now it’s time to prove it.

    Sign up for our morning missive, StrictlyVC, featuring all the venture-related news you need to start you day.

     

     

    Connie

    , , ,

  • StrictlyVC: July 2, 2014

    Happy Wednesday morning!

    We are officially outtie 5000 for the long weekend. Hoping you have a very happy, restful July 4th.

    —–

    Top News in the A.M.

    Amazon is defending its stance against Hachette.

    The Russian government has moved one step closer towards a “China-like” approach towards Internet services, reports TechCrunch. Last night, the Russian State Duma passed the first bill requiring that the personal data of all Russians be stored inside the country.

    —–

    For Razor’s Edge, Ties to Intelligence Community are Key

    To do business with the government, you could do worse than partner with Razor’s Edge Ventures, a no-frills, Herndon, Va.-based venture firm that’s investing a $55 million fund and whose managing directors include several executives from the defense contractor Blackbird Technologies; a former director of technology assessment at the C.I.A.-backed venture firm In-Q-Tel; and a longtime Cooley attorney who used to focus on M&A.

    The firm has especially close ties to the classified community, says the former attorney, Mark Spoto, who happens to be the only managing director that Razor’s Edge lists by name at its site. (The others prefer operating below the radar owing to their “other business interests,” he says.)

    That kind of — yes — intel, is a big advantage, Spoto says. National security officials “don’t just let people knock on the door and show off their stuff. You have to have clearances and longer relationships and to show people that you’ve vetted the technologies. Otherwise, they’d be buried in business plans.”

    So far, Razor’s Edge has made seven investments, writing initial checks of between $2 million and $5 million. Its most recent bet is CounterTack, a three-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based firm that makes threat detection and response software. The company held a final close on its Series B financing last month.

    Razor’s Edge doesn’t focus on security startups alone, though. While a company “has to have some kind of innovative technology that has important national security applications,” says Spoto, “we’re looking for companies that have the ability to take their technologies out to other markets as well,” such as the oil and gas, financial services, and healthcare industries.

    The firm’s ties to the government also inform what it won’t invest in. For example, while Razor’s Edge is interested in autonomous vehicles, including drones, its partners think it’s too soon to make a bet. “The marketplace is being driven by an FAA regulatory scheme that’s still being developed,” says Spoto. “Investors who think the market will break free of that process in 2015 are being optimistic.” (Indeed, a new audit report notes that the FAA is “significantly behind schedule” in its attempt to meet Congress’ September 2015 deadline for integrating commercial drones into U.S. airspace.)

    Razor’s Edge doesn’t have any exits to show for its efforts just yet, but Spoto says its portfolio companies are healthy and growing. He points to two-year-old 908 Devices, a Boston-based company that manufactures battery-operated, hand-held chemical detection tools. “When we invested, it was pre-revenue. We helped them finish their product development and now the company is doing amazingly well.” (Razor’s Edge first backed the company in a Series A round in the fall of 2012. It went on to raise Series B funding last summer.)

    In fact, Spoto talks enthusiastically about all of the firm’s startups, as well as his transition from attorney to venture capitalist, a move he made after being approached by his current partners, who were previously his clients.

    “I had some sense of what it was going to be like before I came in,” he says. But he likes it even more than he imagined he would. “I learn new stuff every day, I see different ideas, I get to interact with people and solve problems. I wouldn’t go back to the practice of law if you paid me all the money in the world.”

    —–

    New Fundings

    Akosha, a four-year-old, Delhi, India-based online consumer complaint forum, has raised $5.2 million in Series A funding from Sequoia Capital, which had provided the company with $200,000 in seed funding in 2011. Deal Curry has more here.

    BlaBlaCar, a 10-year-old, Paris-based ride-sharing that matches people needing a ride with people traveling in the same direction and willing to share their car, has raised $100 million in Series C funding led by Index Ventures. Accel Partners, ISAI and Lead Edge Capital also participated in the round, which is four times what the company was initially seeking, its CEO tells Re/code. It has now raised $110 million altogether.

    CTERA Networks, a six-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based company whose in-cloud storage technology makes it possible for its corporate customers to provide their own employees and customers with cloud-based storage (versus rely on the products of Dropbox and other big-name storage providers), has raised $25 million. Bessemer Venture Partners led the round, joined by earlier investors Cisco, Benchmark, and Venrock. The company has raised $45 million altogether.

    DC Devices, a five-year-old, Andover, Ma.-based company that’s developing a transcatheter device for diastolic heart failure, has raised $34 million in Series D funding led by Accelmed. A new, undisclosed strategic investor also joined the round, along with earlier investors Third Rock Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, and Lumira Capital. To date, the company has raised $44.7 million, shows Crunchbase.

    ElectroCore, a nine-year-old, Morris Plains, N.J.-based company that develops non-invasive and non-pharmacologic therapies that treat or prevent symptoms of serious headache conditions among other things, has closed a multi-tranched Series A round of $50 million. The company’s investors include Merck Global Healthcare Innovation Fund, Easton Capital and Core Ventures Group.

    EnergySavvy, a 4.5-year-old, Seattle-based company whose online tools help utilities operate energy-efficiency programs, has added two new investors that are bringing its most recent round, closed in early May, to $8.25 million, up from $7 million. Its new investors are EnerTech Capital and El Dorado Investment Company. Earlier investors in the round included Prelude Ventures and Pivotal Investments. The company has now raised $14.2 million altogether.

    Hinge, a three-year-old, New York-based mobile app that helps people meet dates through friends on Facebook, has raised $4.5 million in funding from Founders Fund, Lowercase Capital, CAA Ventures, Lumia Capital, Middleland Capital, and Great Oaks Venture Capital. The round brings the company’s total funding to $8.6 million.

    HzO, a three-year-old, Draper, Ut.-based company that manufactures a thin-film nano-coating to protect electronic devices from water, humidity and other liquid damages, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Iron Gate Capital, which was joined by Translink Capital and Delta Electronics. Earlier investors Harris & Harris Group, Prudence Holdings and VY Capital also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $33.6 million, shows Crunchbase.

    InSightec, a 15-year-old, Tirat Carmel, Israel-based maker of an ultrasound therapy for the non-invasive treatment of tumors, is raising a $50 million Series D round led by York Capital Management. According to the company, there’s still time for “other investors to invest in the current round either by taking part of the $50 million or expanding the investment to $62.5 million.” In 2012, InSightec raised roughly $30 million led by GE Healthcare, shows Crunchbase.

    Involta, a seven-year-old, Cedar Rapids, Ia.-based data center operator, has raised $50 million in funding led by M/C Partners, with participation from Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners. The company has raised at least $59.4 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

    Keen IO, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that helps developers build their own analytics products, has raised $11.3 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital. Earlier investors Pelion Venture Partners, Amplify Partners, and Rincon Venture Partners, Cloud Power Capital, and Morris Wheeler also participated in the new funding, which brings the company’s total funding to $14.5 million, shows Crunchbase.

    Lattice Power, an eight-year-old, Nanchang, China-based company that produces what it says is a cheaper light-emitting diode technology, has raised $80 million in new funding, the company tells VentureWire. The company had previously raised at least $115 million, shows Crunchbase. Its backers include AsiaVest Partners, GSR Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Keytone Ventures, and Mayfield Fund.

    Liquid Environmental Solutions, a 12-year-old, Irving, Tx.-based company that contracts with restaurants, laundromats, car washes and other businesses to clean up their wastewater, has raised $31.6 million in Series C funding led by ABS Capital Partners. Several non-employee members of the company’s board of directors also participated in the round. The company has raised at least $51.6 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

    Meitu, a six-year-old, Xiamen, China-based mobile app maker that enables its users to create customized images, typically for uploading to social media networks, has raised $10 million in Series C funding led by earlier investor Qiming Ventures. Other participants in the round were not identified. China Money Network has more here.

    Moven, a three-year-old, New York-based startup whose mobile banking app provides users with money management tools and real-time updates on their purchases, has raised $8 million in Series A funding, led by SBT Venture Capital. Anthemis Group, Route 66 Ventures, Standard Bank, New York Angels and other angel investors also participated in the round. The company has raised $12.4 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

    OOTU, a new, San Francisco-based semantic discovery company, has raised $325,000 in seed funding, including from the company’s CEO and cofounder, Michael Knapp, individual investors Robert Nelsen and Clinton Bybee, and McKenna Ventures.

    Partnered, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company that aims to help brands and agencies needing the help of startups (and vice versa) find each other, has raised $850,000 in new seed funding from Rothenberg Ventures, Structure Capital, Kima Ventures, Slow Ventures, Sherpa Ventures, and Gary Vaynerchuk. The company, a Y Combinator alum, has raised $1.6 million altogether.

    Rotation Medical, a five-year-old, Plymouth, Mn.-based medical device company whose implant, which helps heal the shoulder’s rotator cuff, recently received FDA clearance, has raised $27.2 million in Series B funding co-led by new investor Life Science Partners and earlier investor New Enterprise Associates. Pappas Ventures and other undisclosed investors also participated. The company had previously raised $19.4 million in equity and debt.

    Seal Innovation, a four-year-old, Raleigh, N.C.-based wearable technology startup that’s commercializing a swim safety monitor, has raised $2 million in Series B funding from undisclosed investors. More on the company here.

    Simply Hired, a 10-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company that operates job search engines in dozens of countries, has raised a new round of $12 million in equity and debt from previous investors Foundation Capital and IDG Ventures, along with City National Bank. The company has now raised at least $34.3 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

    Streetline, a nine-year-old, San Francisco-based company that’s building a network of sensors to detect and collect data on parked cars, has raised $10 million from Citibank, Fontinalis Partners, RockPort Capital Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, True Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures, all of which had previously invested in the company. Streetline has now raised $50 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

    Tuul, a new, Santa Cruz, Ca.-based still-stealth company that’s promising to simplify the interaction between businesses and consumers via their mobile devices, has $1.7 million in seed funding led by Greycroft Partners. Raine Group, Streamlined Ventures and other, unnamed individual investors, also participated in the round. Tuul was founded by Toby Corey and Wayne Tsuchitani, who previously cofounded the Internet marketing company USWeb.

    —–

    IPOs

    The NYSE said it plans to hold a test run of Alibaba Group‘s eagerly awaited market debut, reflecting the securities industry’s intense interest in avoiding another debacle as happened the morning of Facebook’s May 2012 IPO.

    Four days into life as a public company, and GoPro is killing it, in the parlance of the extreme sports lovers who use its cameras. Shares in the company gained 20 percent yesterday to close at $48.80, double their IPO price.

    Europe’s largest online fashion retailer, Zalando, is considering reducing the size of its stock market listing, sources tell Reuters. More here.

    —–

    Exits

    Predictive Edge, a 3.5-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based startup that offered e-commerce personalization as a service to marketers, has been acquired by Dropbox for an undisclosed amount. The company, the 17th that Dropbox has acquired, says Techcrunch, will be shut down and the founders put to work on a yet-undisclosed part of Dropbox’s business.

    Songza, a 6.5-year-old, Long Island City, N.Y.-based music curation and streaming service with a reported 5.5 million active users, has officially been acquired by Google, roughly one month after rumors of an acquisition began to surface in the media. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed, but a source tells the New York Times it paid more than $39 million. Songza had raised at least $6.7 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. They include Gary Vaynerchuk, Scooter Braun, Troy Carter, Metamorphic Ventures, Nicole Junkermann, Geoff Judge,Deep Fork Capital, Lerer Ventures, Amazon, William Morris Endeavor, and AFSquare.

    —–

    People

    Bessemer Venture Partners has two new vice presidents: Amit Karp and Sunil James. Karp joined the firm as a senior associate in 2012; he was previously a senior associate at McKinsey & Company. James comes directly from Google, where he spent the greater part of the last three years as a product manager. James was previously a senior product manager at Amazon.

    Venture capitalist Tim Draper was the winning bidder of all 30,000 bitcoins auctioned off by the U.S. Marshals Service following its seizure from an underground online marketplace called Silk Road. He plans to sell all or most of the bitcoin through Vaurum, a startup he has backed and which is launching trading platforms in emerging markets. More here.

    Derek Gottfrid, characterized by Business Insider as “Tumblr’s Sheryl Sandberg,” is out of the microblogging platform, pushed through the door, seemingly, by Tumblr founder David Karp, who’d hired Gottfrid away from the New York Times in 2010. More here.

    Things might not be so bad for Mike Gupta, who was replaced yesterday as Twitter‘s CFO by former Goldman Sachs banker Anthony Noto. As the WSJ smartly notes, buried under all the chatter about shifts at the top of Twitter was the fact Gupta is now leading a new strategic investments group at the company. Read: Twitter now has a corporate venture arm.

    Google Ventures is opening an office in London soon. Here is the team that will reportedly be running it.

    Lux Capital has promoted three of its investing pros: Zack Schildhorn and Shahin Farshchi are now partners, and Adam Goulburn is a principal. Schildhorn had joined the firm in 2007 as an associate; the firm says he “pioneered Lux’s landscaping of the 3D printing market and sourced the firm’s investment in [the 3D printing marketplace] Shapeways,” among other things. Farshchi, who has a PhD in electrical engineering and who joined the firm as a principal in 2006, has sourced many of Lux’s investments in hardware and devices. Goulburn joined Lux as an intern in 2011. A postdoctoral fellow of neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College at the time, Goulburn was promoted to associate later the same year.

    Zoltan Szabadi, a former Amazon Web Services manager, is being sued by the e-commerce giant, which says Szabadi’s new job at Google Cloud Platform violates the terms of a noncompete agreement he’d signed when joining Amazon.

    —–

    Job Listings

    Bloomberg Ventures, the venture arm of Bloomberg L.P., is looking for either an analyst or an associate. The job is in New York.

    —–

    Essential Reads

    Don’t worry. Facebook still has no idea how you feel.

    —–

    Detours

    Rafa Nadal may have been eliminated at Wimbledon yesterday, but he can still juggle a ball 400 times on the side of his racket.

    Cracks in facade visible as teen enters third day vacationing with friend’s family.

    Notes to thieving a__holes.

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    Tents for misanthropes.

    Rubiks Cube coasters.

    Handsome black Filson bags.

    Related articles

    Connie

  • For Razor’s Edge, Ties to Intelligence Community are Key

    intelTo do business with the government, you could do worse than partner with Razor’s Edge Ventures, a no-frills, Herndon, Va.-based venture firm that’s investing a $55 million fund and whose managing directors include several executives from the defense contractor Blackbird Technologies; a former director of technology assessment at the C.I.A.-backed venture firm In-Q-Tel; and a longtime Cooley attorney who used to focus on M&A.

    The firm has especially close ties to the classified community, says the former attorney, Mark Spoto, who happens to be the only managing director that Razor’s Edge lists by name at its site. (The others prefer operating below the radar owing to their “other business interests,” he says.)

    That kind of — yes — intel, is a big advantage, Spoto says. National security officials “don’t just let people knock on the door and show off their stuff. You have to have clearances and longer relationships and to show people that you’ve vetted the technologies. Otherwise, they’d be buried in business plans.”

    So far, Razor’s Edge has made seven investments, writing initial checks of between $2 million and $5 million. Its most recent bet is CounterTack, a three-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based firm that makes threat detection and response software. The company held a final close on its Series B financing last month.

    Razor’s Edge doesn’t focus on security startups alone, though. While a company “has to have some kind of innovative technology that has important national security applications,” says Spoto, “we’re looking for companies that have the ability to take their technologies out to other markets as well,” such as the oil and gas, financial services, and healthcare industries.

    The firm’s ties to the government also inform what it won’t invest in. For example, while Razor’s Edge is interested in autonomous vehicles, including drones, its partners think it’s too soon to make a bet. “The marketplace is being driven by an FAA regulatory scheme that’s still being developed,” says Spoto. “Investors who think the market will break free of that process in 2015 are being optimistic.” (Indeed, a new audit report notes that the FAA is “significantly behind schedule” in its attempt to meet Congress’ September 2015 deadline for integrating commercial drones into U.S. airspace.)

    Razor’s Edge doesn’t have any exits to show for its efforts just yet, but Spoto says its portfolio companies are healthy and growing. He points to two-year-old 908 Devices, a Boston-based company that manufactures battery-operated, hand-held chemical detection tools. “When we invested, it was pre-revenue. We helped them finish their product development and now the company is doing amazingly well.” (Razor’s Edge first backed the company in a Series A round in the fall of 2012. It went on to raise Series B funding last summer.)

    In fact, Spoto talks enthusiastically about all of the firm’s startups, as well as his transition from attorney to venture capitalist, a move he made after being approached by his current partners, who were previously his clients.

    “I had some sense of what it was going to be like before I came in,” he says. But he likes it even more than he imagined he would. “I learn new stuff every day, I see different ideas, I get to interact with people and solve problems. I wouldn’t go back to the practice of law if you paid me all the money in the world.”

    Sign up for our morning missive, StrictlyVC, featuring all the venture-related news you need to start you day.

    Connie

  • StrictlyVC: July 1, 2014

    Happy first day of July, everyone!

    A quick reminder, as if you need it: the U.S. squares off against Belgium at 1 p.m. PST today.

    —–

    Top News in the A.M.

    Mike Gupta is no longer Twitter‘s CFO, tweets L.A Times reporter Chris O’Brien. Gupta is now the company’s senior vice president of strategic investments. Meanwhile, Anthony Noto, the high-profile Goldman Sachs banker who helped take Twitter public last November and left the bank in May to join the hedge fund Coatue Management, is now Twitter’s CFO. “Welcome to the daily dose of soap opera that is the San Francisco social communications company,” writes Recode’s Kara Swisher of the switcheroo.

    —–

    Causeway Media Partners, an Investment Firm By and For Sports Nuts

    Causeway Media Partners, a Boston-based growth equity firm, has been flying under the radar since its inception in the spring of last year. That’s partly because its founders don’t need to draw attention to themselves. Wyc Grousbeck, a former general partner at Highland Capital Partners, is now an owner and the CEO of the Boston Celtics. Mark Wan, who cofounded the healthcare-focused firm Three Arch Partners, is an owner in the Celtics and the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers. Meanwhile, Bob Higgins cofounded Highland Capital Partners, where he worked with Grousbeck and invested alongside Wan.

    Higgins, who still sits on the boards of four Highland portfolio companies, says there is also an experimental element to the whole endeavor. In fact, Causeway was never something he expected to jump into when he began transitioning out of Highland in 2012. As he tells it, he, Wan, and Grousbeck sat down last year for a friendly chat, and wound up in business together.

    “We starting talking about what’s going on in sports media, and the more we talked, including with [sports team owners], the more [interest it generated]. And before we knew it, we’d raised a fund without even really trying,” he says, laughing.

    Today, Causeway has a clear mission, to find media- and tech-related investment opportunities that can benefit from the friends’ network of NBA and NFL team owners, media executives and professional investors. And it’s investing $125 million — including a “good chunk of our own money,” says Higgins — to “see if the space is as attractive as we thought.”

    They’ve already placed three bets. Last year, they invested $21 million in Formula E Holdings, series promoters of Formula E, the world’s first fully-electric racing series. In April, they spent $5 million for a non-controlling stake of up to 50 percent in the four-year-old Street League skateboarding circuit, which brings together professional skateboarders in competitions. And just last week, Causeway closed its third investment in Sport Ngin, a company that helps sports organizations build websites and mobile applications. (Causeway co-led the company’s $25 million Series D round.)

    Higgins says Causeway’s ability to make warm introductions is among the biggest benefits to its portfolio companies. “If you’re a biotech investor, you need to know all the pharmaceutical people, because they’re your potential partners and acquirers. Similarly, we’re spending a lot of time with media companies, team owners, and people with sponsorship dollars so we can make connections that are critical to our companies.”

    Going forward, the idea is plug between $5 million and $25 million into a handful of other portfolio companies – deals that will likely find their way to Causeway through a variety of sources, including some of Causeway’s LPs, which include the general partners of 11 other investment firms, along with sports owners. Higgins say the firm is also receiving calls from “people in the entertainment industry that know of things that are potentially interesting as acquisitions for them, but aren’t quite at that stage yet,” says Higgins.

    There’s certainly no shortage of potential opportunities, says Higgins, who sounds a bit taken aback by the amount of deal flow the partners are now seeing.

    “We’re looking at 100 things for every one [investment] we make. And inquiries are in the thousands.”

    —–

    New Fundings

    AdEspresso, a 2.5-year-old, Milan, Italy and San Francisco-based company whose SaaS platform helps its customers manage and optimize their Facebook Ads, has raised $1.3 million in seed funding from new investors SierraMaya Ventures and VegasTech Fund. Earlier investor 500 Startups and other angels, via AngelList, also participated in the round.

    Artbinder, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based company whose mobile application allows users to present artworks remotely to streamline the sales and presentation experience, has raised $3.17 million in Series A funding led by Index Ventures. Numerous individual investors also joined the round, including former Etsy COO Adam Freed. The WSJ has much more here.

    Automated Insights, a seven-year-old, Durham, N.C.-based company whose real-time content automation services transform data into narratives, visualizations and applications, has raised $5.5 million in Series B funding led by Osage Venture Partners. Other investors in the round included Court Square Ventures, OCA Ventures, IDEA Fund Partners, Samsung Venture Investment, SevOne, and entrepreneur-investor Steve Case. (The company, which has now raised $10.8 million altogether, also announced a deal yesterday to provide the Associated Press with thousands of corporate earnings reports each quarter.)

    Cidara Therapeutics, a new, San Diego-based drug developer that’s trying to eradicate the types of fungal infections that often complicate cancer and transplant treatments, has raised $32 million in Series A funding from 5AM Ventures, Aisling Capital, Frazier Healthcare Ventures, and InterWest Partners.

    Databricks, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that builds software centered around Apache Spark, the open-source software project, has raised $33 million in Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates. Earlier investor Andreessen Horowitz also joined the round, which brings the company’s funding to $47 million. The WSJ has much more here.

    Drybar, a five-year-old, L.A.-based blow-dry-only salon concept, has raised $20 million in funding led by SPK Capital and earlier investor Castanea Partners. Individual investors, including Janet Gurwitch, the founder and former CEO of Laura Mercier Cosmetics, filled out the round. The company has raised $38 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

    Emerald Therapeutics, a four-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based company that’s developing potential treatments for viral infections like HIV and HPV, has raised $13.5 million over two funding rounds (the earlier of which wasn’t made public) from Founders Fund, PayPal cofounder Max Levchin and Schooner Capital. Recode has much more on the company here.

    Hexadite, a five-month-old, Israel-based cyber security startup launched by three former Israeli intelligence officials, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from YL Ventures, with participation from Moshe Lichtman, a general partner at Israeli venture capital firm Israel Growth Partners. Techcrunch has a bit more here about the company’s technology.

    Moi Corp., a two-year-old, Tokyo-based company whose service allows users to live stream video on Twitter or Facebook , has raised $5 million in Series A funding, including from East Ventures and Sinar Mas Indonesia.

    Percentil, a two-year-old, Madrid, Spain-based online marketplace for secondhand children’s products, has raised $1.4 million in seed funding from the European invest Active Venture Partners. The company has now raised $2.4 million altogether.

    Tapad, a four-year-old, New York-based ad retargeting firm, has raised $7 million Series B-2 financing led by earlier investor FirstMark Capital, which was joined by both new investors Battery Ventures and G&H Partners, as well as earlier investors Avalon Ventures and the publicly traded Firsthand Technology Value Fund. The company has raised $15.3 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

    —–

    IPOs

    Ambrx, an 11-year-old, La Jolla, Ca.-based company that develops protein therapeutics called bio-conjugates, has withdrawn its registration to go public, citing market conditions. Ambryx has raised at least $10 million, shows Crunchbase; its backers include Tavistock Life Sciences, Maverick Capital, Versant Ventures, Aravis Ventures, CMEA Capital, Merck Serono Ventures, and 5AM Ventures.

    Loxo Oncology, a year-old, Stamford Ct.-based company that develops targeted small molecule therapeutics to treat cancer in genetically defined patient populations, has filed to go public. The company has raised $57 million from investors, including Aisling Capital, which owns 29 percent; OrbiMed, which owns18.1 percent; Array BioPharma, which owns 15.3 percent , AI Loxo Holdings, which owns 13 percent, and New Enterprise Associates, which owns 14.9.

    Yodlee, a 15-year-old, Redwood Shores, Ca.-based online banking and finance service that works with nine of the biggest banks in the U.S., hasfiled for an IPO. The company is majority owned by Warburg Pincus, which has a 37.18 percent stake in the business; Bank of America Corporation, which owns 12.71 percent; S1 Corporation which owns 12.63 percent; and Accel Partners, which owns 9.25 percent.

    —–

    Exits

    Cliptamatic, a two-year-old, New York City-based video management system that helped content owners syndicate short clips, has been acquired by NowThis News, a nearly two-year-old startup that makes short-form videos for mobile devices and social platforms. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Techcrunch reports that Cliptamatic had raised $2 million from investors. NowThis News has raised $9.6 million altogether, including Lerer Hippeau Ventures (which incubated the company), Oak Investment Partners, Bedrocket Media Ventures, and SoftBank Capital.

    Grow Mobile, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose mobile advertising platform helps developers buy, track, optimize and scale user acquisition campaigns, has been acquired by the publicly traded, Tel Aviv, Israel-based sofware company Perion Network for $17 million in cash and stock. Grow Mobile had raised just $1 million in seed funding from Bessemer Venture Partners and Signia Venture Partners, according to Crunchbase.

    The assets of Small Bones Innovations, a five-year-old, Morrisville, Pa.-based company that makes devices for small bones and joints, particularly focusing on trauma and arthroplasty, are being acquired by the Fortune 500 medical technologies company Stryker Corp. for up to $375 million in cash. Small Bones Innovations had raised at least $244 million, shows Crunchbase. Its investors include 3i Group, NGN Capital, Trevi Health Ventures, Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund, Goldman Sachs, Viscogliosi Brothers, Khazanah Nasional Berhad and Axiom Ventures.

    Sourcebits, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile application development company, has been acquired by the Greek enterprise mobility products developer Globo for undisclosed terms. In a press release, Globo’s CEO said the “acquisition reinforces our commitment to U.S. market.” Globo trades publicly on the London Stock Exchange. Sourcebits had raised at least $10 million from investors, including Sequoia Capital and IDG Ventures India.

    TapCommerce, a two-year-old, New York-based mobile ad tech firm, has been acquired by Twitter for an undisclosed amount that Re/code sources place in the ballpark of $100 million. The company had raised $11.7 million from investors, including RRE Ventures, Metamorphic Ventures, Eniac Ventures, Nextview Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures and Pereg Ventures.

    TastemakerX, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose technology enabled users to create and share their music playlists in social networks, has been acquired by the digital music service Rdio for undisclosed terms. TastemakerX had raised $3.1 million from investors, including Alara Capital, AOL Ventures, Tekton Ventures, True Ventures, Baseline Ventures, and Guggenheim Partners. Rdio, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based startup, has raised $17.5 million from investors, including Atomico, Mangrove Capital Partners, and Skype cofounder Janus Friis.

    —–

    People

    A list of “all the techies playing in Sun Valley next week.”

    A former executive at startup Tinder has sued the popular dating app and its parent IAC/InterActiveCorp, claiming Tinder operates in a “frat-like” atmosphere and that she was harassed and discriminated against before being forced out.

    The attorneys at Cooley have just launched a neat new resource for entrepreneurs that features free legal and business content covering formation, financing, building a team, working with directors and advisors, intellectual property, M&A, IPOs and other stuff.

    It’s already widely believed that Jeff Bezos strikes fear in the hearts of his employees at Amazon. Now, a new documentary about him seems to confirm those suspicions. Says Stanford grad David Selinger (who went on to cofound Redfin among other companies): “I felt somewhat intellectually intimidated by [Bezos] to be honest with you. He was just so smart, and so driven and so confident in himself that sometimes it just felt like I was getting squished out of the room.” Selinger recalls, for example, proposing to sell advertisements on the home page of Amazon. Bezos responded that it was one of the stupidest ideas Selinger ever had. “I think he was being subtle,” says Selinger. GeekWire has the story here.

    Venture capitalist Tim Chang, a managing director at Mayfield Fund, has an admirer at Buzzfeed. More here if you missed her doting tribute. (In response to the “being made fun of non-stop” since the article was published, Chang decided to offer some nutrition and diet tips to those wondering how manages to look so fit.)

    David Hahn, a longtime VP of product management at LinkedIn, has joined Greylock Partners as an entrepreneur-in-residence; Hahn will be advising the firm’s portfolio companies on product and monetization strategies, says Greylock, whose ties to LinkedIn grow closer all the time. LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman joined the firm in 2009; another Greylock partner, Josh Elman, spent a year-and-a-half at LinkedIn as a senior product manager earlier in his career.

    —–

    Job Listings

    Comcast is looking for a high-level managing director to be the company’s primary business development contact in Silicon Valley and the West Coast.

    —–

    Data

    A new Rock Health report says that halfway through 2014, more than $2.2 billion has been invested in digital health startups — more than the $1.97 billion invested during all of 2013 (which itself attracted record funding). VentureBeat has more here.

    The NVCA is reporting this morning that 28 venture-backed IPOs raised $4.9 billion during the second quarter of 2014, a 45 percent increase, by dollars raised, from the previous quarter. The second quarter also marked the fifth consecutive quarter to see 20 or more venture-backed IPOs.

    —–

    Essential Reads

    No product? No problem. How the startup Telepathy hyped its way into South by Southwest, a CNN appearance, and $5 million in venture capital despite its “sparsely functional prototype“.

    “Automakers are not sure if Google is their friend or their enemy, but they have a sneaking suspicion that whatever Google’s going to do is going to cause upheaval in the industry.”

    Wired, on why Apple‘s Siri will soon understand you a whole lot better.

    —–

    Detours

    “By a 5–4 vote on Monday, the United States Supreme Court settled a dispute that Justice Samuel Alito said was ‘at its core about the rights of women versus the rights of people.’”

    Mick Jagger on Monty Python’s upcoming reunion gigs: “Are they still going? . . . I mean, the best one died years ago!”

    A prayer for the sunburned.

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    Finally, a product for tough poets.

    —–

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    Connie

    ,

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