Good Wednesday morning, everyone. Semil Shah here, filling in with a shortened version of StrictlyVC while Connie is out for a couple of weeks. If you’d like to talk about today’s column or anything else, you can find me on Twitter at @semil.

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Top News in the A.M.

China’s government has excluded iPads and MacBook laptops from the list of products that can be bought with public money because of security concerns, says a new Bloomberg report that suggests the implications could be wide-reaching. “When the government stops the procurement of products, it sends a signal to corporates and semi-government bodies,” a Hong Kong-based analyst tells Bloomberg. “The Chinese government wants to make sure that overseas companies shouldn’t have too much influence in China.”

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Adam Besvinick on Breaking Into Today’s VC Market

Breaking into VC requires plenty of hustle, and Adam Besvinick has been hustling since graduating from Duke University in 2009 — nabbing summer stints at places like Accrue Ventures and DreamIt Ventures, an MBA from Harvard, and a part-time associate job at Lowercase Capital along the way.

Last month, Besvinick, who was most recently working as the head of business development at the e-commerce site Wanelo, landed a full-time job as a principal with the early-stage venture firm Deep Fork Capital. We caught up with him last week to find out more about his new gig, how he operates, and where he’ll be shopping.

Tell us about where you’ll focus your investing, including geographically.

I’ll be based full-time in New York, making monthly trips to the Bay Area and fairly regular trips to other hubs like L.A. and Boston, where we have portfolio companies. I won’t be constrained to a particular geography, but the first few opportunities I sourced for Deep Fork are in New York, and we think it’s increasingly valuable to have a constant presence there.

Most of my attention will be spent on seed-stage investment opportunities in content, commerce, and marketplaces, both consumer-facing and enterprise-facing companies in those sectors. However, my “first love” is social, so if I find something interesting in this world, I’m definitely going to take a hard look.

You were most recently working at a startup. What precipitated this shift back into venture?

Coming from a finance background, I always had a latent interest in investing, and when I started to break into the startup ecosystem, I felt like it was easier to get in front of VCs than to get in front of founders or other early-stage operators. And my first thorough exposure to the world of startups was through being fortunate enough to work with Chris Sacca and Lowercase Capital, as opposed to being on the operating side of things. I loved the different types of work I got to do with Chris and had a passion for and obsession with startups, so I knew that VC was where I ultimately wanted to end up.

Since working for Chris in business school, how have you seen the early-stage market change?

One major change is how we, as consumers, are inundated with apps and products in a way that we weren’t even two-and-a-half years ago. As a seed-stage investor, it makes it that much more difficult to extract signal from noise. Also, consumers have begun to develop engrained “mobile flows”—they have a set group of apps that they go to repeatedly, and it’s difficult to break up that flow unless you’re sufficiently different and valuable.

What tools and products do you use daily in your VC work?

I’m on Product Hunt, AngelList, and Crunchbase for checking out companies and products. I like Mattermark’s emails and Twitter feed but haven’t pulled the trigger on a subscription yet. LinkedIn and Rapportive are both critical for contacts. I read email newsletters from StrictlyVC, Term Sheet, and CB Insights daily. I downloaded Homer after adding it to Product Hunt and came across a couple of interesting apps on people’s phone screens that were shared, but I’m not sure this will be a persistent use case. I’ve also been playing around with Weave and SwiftIntro for meeting people who are building cool things, and I’m in a few interesting Facebook groups that have led to the discovery of compelling products. Last, but certainly not least, is Twitter – it’s my go-to for staying on top of everything that’s relevant to me.

How are you and Deep Fork thinking about using crowd-funding platforms such as AngelList? And how do you feel founders should be thinking about these platforms?

So far, I’ve used AngelList as a sourcing tool and to generate some inbound deal flow. It’s a great way to get a lay of the land, particularly if you follow a fair amount of individual investors and funds, which I’ve been making a point of doing.

When it comes to raising, I have seen it be a great way to fill out rounds after there are initial commitments and/or a lead. I’m carefully watching [AngelList’s] Syndicates to see how they evolve.

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New Fundings

Doctor On Demand, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that offers doctor consultations via mobile video chat, has raised $21 million in Series A funding led by Venrock, with participation from Shasta Ventures and Virgin Group Chairman Sir Richard Branson.

InVision, a three-year-old, New York-based company whose software enables users to more easily design their own apps, has raised $21 million in Series B funding led by Tiger Global Management, with FirstMark Capital participating. The company has now raised $35 million altogether.

Kiwi, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based mobile game developer, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Northgate Capital, with participation from DFJ and returning investor Sequoia Capital. The company has now raised $21 million altogether.

Spoqa, a three-year-old, Seoul-based mobile loyalty platform, has raised $3.9 million in new funding led by Daesung Private Equity group and Bokwang Investments. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Felicis Ventures, the Palo Alto, Ca.-based early-stage investment firm founded by former Googler Aydin Senkut in 2006, has closed its fourth fund with $96 million in commitments. Reuters has much more here.

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IPOs

Vivint, the three-year-old, Provo, Ut.-based home security and solar-energy provider owned by Blackstone Group, has confidentially filed for an IPO, reports Reuters. The company is now the second-biggest installer of residential solar panels in U.S. behind SolarCity, backed by Elon Musk. SolarCity went public in late 2012 at roughly $8 per share; its shares are currently trading at $71 a piece.

Zendesk, the 6.5-year-old, San Francisco-based on-demand customer service platform, handily beat Wall Street estimates in its first, post-IPO earnings report. Investors Business Daily has more here.

The European IPO market remains superhot, says Christoph Stanger, Goldman Sachs’s co-head of equity capital markets for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “When I look at our pipeline – and I think that’s representative for others’ – it’s actually jam-packed . . .We can assume that if markets hold, it will be a very, very active second half of the year.”

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People

Greg Coleman, who spent the last three years as president of the now-public ad tech company Criteo, has joined BuzzFeed as its new president. Before joining Criteo, Coleman had been the president of Huffington Post. The WSJ has more here.

Dev Ittycheria, who joined OpenView Partners as a managing director late last year and who was formerly the president of BMC Software, was just appointed CEO of database giant MongoDB, reports Forbes. He replaces Max Schireson, who spent just one year at the helm. More here.

Speaking of venture capitalist Chris Sacca (see today’s column), did you know his brother Brian starred in Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street?” More here.

The 25 most famous Harvard students of all time.

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Job Listings

Comcast Ventures is looking for a market development analyst. The job is in New York.

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Essential Reads

A Russian crime ring has amassed the largest known collection of stolen Internet credentials, including 1.2 billion user name and password combinations and more than 500 million email addresses, reports the New York Times. Forbes goes on to note that the security firm that reported the breach to the New York times is hoping to directly profit from it.

Bitcoin supporters are stepping up the pressure on New York’s top financial regulator to extend the comment period for the state’s new virtual currency rules.

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Detours

It’s hard giving away money,” says Jason Buzi, who made a fortune in the real estate business and has been trying to share the wealth by announcing cash giveaways via Twitter.

The Japanese literature trend that conflates one extreme after another.

“Meet Noah Ritter, Wayne County Fair attendee and Human of the Year. He’s being interviewed about rides on which he has been scared HAFF TUH DEFF.”

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Retail Therapy

Timex is teaming up with AT&T and Qualcomm on a connected version of the Ironman GPS series. A “Dick Tracy watch this is not,” notes Recode. (We’ll be looking for it this fall anyway.) More here.

Oh, wow, every 10-year-old boy’s dream bike, made real.

Hi, everyone. Semil Shah here, filling in with a shortened version of StrictlyVC while Connie is out for a couple of weeks. If you’d like to talk about today’s column or anything else, you can find me on Twitter at @semil.

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Top News in the A.M.

Google has revealed the identity of a user to police after discovering child abuse imagery in his Gmail account.

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LP Chris Douvos on the (Still) Difficult Case for VC

Chris Douvos is a rare animal — an LP who doesn’t shy from expressing his opinions publicly.

Since 2011, Douvos has been a managing director with Venture Investment Associates, a fund of funds group that commits capital to venture capital, growth capital, and private equity groups. Douvos worked previously for TIFF (The Investment Fund for Foundations) and the endowment for Princeton University, “despite having not one, but two degrees from Princeton’s bitter rival, Yale,” as he says at his personal blog. We caught up last week for an email chat, part of which we’ll run separately later this week.

Are you the only LP who blogs? Do you think other LPs will and/or should in the future?

I think I was the most prolific blogger. Some others had tried it, but it’s time-consuming to keep it up; I’m not writing as much as I’d like nowadays, either, so I’ve got to sharpen the pencil again. Too many topics, not enough time! It’s also tricky for LPs because part of the voodoo we do is done in the shadows. We’re in an information business and knowledge is a scarce currency There’s a real “close to the vest” mentality and LPs are always glad to share their second-best ideas, but that’s about it. I’d be surprised if many LPs pick up the blogging standard, as a result.

What’s the bull and bear LP view on the rise of equity crowdfunding and platforms such as AngelList, for example?

I love crowdfunding and think that AngelList Syndicates has the opportunity to be massively disruptive to the funds world. I’m an investor in AngelList’s Maiden Lane fund and am watching what happens there very closely. My neighbors in Palo Alto are building a crowdfunding platform for real estate that’s really getting traction. There’s going to be evolution in all this stuff, of course, but having a front row seat is pretty exciting; after all, sometimes, we make the road by walking.

As for the the broader LP world, it’s hard to say if there’s really a bull or bear view, as most LPs are still watching to see how some of this stuff shakes out. It’s more of a curiosity at the moment. Also, beyond [Bay Area] area codes, not that many people are really thinking about this stuff yet. As LPs, we’re trained to be patient, have an extremely long horizon, and gather data. Also, most LPs tend to be very risk averse. Jeremy Grantham famously says that 90 percent of decisions in finance first take into account career risk, and I think that’s true. It’s hard to get LPs to think — much less act — at start-up speed. That’s not a knock, it’s may even be a compliment as too many people have been run over by steamrollers looking to pick up shiny new pennies. That’s particularly true in long-dated, illiquid asset classes like VC.

Companies are staying private longer, especially the breakouts. How does that affect an LP’s strategy?

Venture capital is already the longest-dated, furthest-out-of-the-money option that most institutions invest in. In a post-Lehman world, institutions realized that illiquidity wasn’t free; it carried a risk premium for a reason. And once these institutions had touched the hot coal of liquidity risk, many started to actively seek to shorten the duration of their portfolios. Also, there’s a question about the evaluation horizon for funds. You rarely see results before a GP comes back with their next fund, and in a lot of cases, the evaluation horizon stretches longer than people’s attention span or tenure at an institution. This principal-agent problem is a big issue.

To be sure, some risk appetite is seeping back into the market now, but people are asking hard questions about how long it takes to see distributions. Indeed, we’re seeing more interim liquidity, but seeing companies stay private longer makes it harder for the PE portfolio manager to make the case for VC in the Monday meeting at a multi-asset class pool of assets.

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New Fundings

Airbnb, the six-year-old, San Francisco-based home-sharing company, has officially closed a new round of funding, shows an SEC filing first flagged by VentureBeat. The filing, which shows the round closed with $475 million, doesn’t list any new investors, including TPG Growth,Dragoneer Investment Group, and T. Rowe Price, all of which were separately reported to be involved with the financing.

Scytl, a 13-year-old, Barcelona-based maker of secure electronic voting technology, has tacked on $44 million to a round it began raising in April. The money, from Vy Capital, Adams Street Partners and Industry Ventures, brings the total round to $104 million. Earlier participants included Vulcan Capital, SAP Ventures, Balderton Capital, Nauta Capital and Spinnaker. Altogether, Scytl has raised $113.2 million, shows Crunchbase.

WearYouWant, a three-year-old, Bangkok-based fashion retail site, has raised $1.5 million in Series A funding, reports TechCrunch. The round was led by Digital Media Partners and Japanese e-marketing firm OPT SEA. Other investors include IMG Investment Partners and WearYouWant co-founder Julien Chalte.

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New Funds

German magazine-publishing giant Bauer Media has been investing in more digital media startups, and today, it announced Bauer Venture Partners, a new fund with $134 million set aside to invest in startups over the next decade. Created alongside VC Thomas Preuss, late of Neuhaus Partners, the fund will invest in European tech startups at a range of stages, reports GigaOm.

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IPOs

Loxo Oncology, a year-old, Stamford Ct.-based company that develops targeted small molecule therapeutics to treat cancer in genetically defined patient populations, went public on Friday, selling 5.3 million shares at $13 a piece. The stock closed at the same price. The company’s private investors include Aisling Capital, OrbiMed, Array BioPharma, AI Loxo Holdings, and New Enterprise Associates.

Mobileye, a 15-year-old, Har Hotzvim, Israel-based company whose software algorithms and camera-based technology helps drivers see and manage traffic risks, had a promising public market debut Friday. Its shares, priced at $25 a piece, ended their first day at $37. Bloomberg has more here. The company’s private investors include Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, Enterprise Holdings, and Blackrock.

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Exits

Caviar, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based food delivery service whose app lets users track their order on a map, is reportedly being acquired by the payments company Square for $90 million in stock. TechCrunch had reported on the talks last month, writing the Caviar would be sold to Square for up to $100 million. The official announcement is expected this week.

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People

Shiva Rajaraman, the executive in charge of YouTube‘s consumer products, is headed to Spotify, reports Recode. According to Recode’s report: “Rajaraman’s departure is notable for multiple reasons, but the most obvious is that one of his jobs was to shepherd YouTube’s long-delayed music subscription service. And now he’s headed to the world’s biggest music subscription service.”

Pinterest cofounder Evan Sharp talks to the Atlantic about when he knew he had something bigger than a bookmarking site. “You build something and it’s like, what can I build on top of that and what can I build on top of that and what can I build on top of that. Great companies, I think, are the ones that see what they’ve built and can build on top of it and iterate their product.”

Wealth managers are increasingly enlisting spy tools to map portfolios. The New York Times has more here.

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Job Listings

Nike is looking for a director of business development for its “innovation” unit to research, source, evaluate, and model partnership opportunities across the company, including, footwear, apparel, equipment, materials science, exploration, and athlete research. The job is in Portland, Or.

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Essential Reads

Yelp has the power to make or break proprietors, both financially and, apparently, psychologically. Now, an upscale hotel in Hudson, Ny., is fighting back by charging couples who book weddings at its venue $500 for every bad Yelp review posted online by their guests.

Here are some of the terrifying possibilities that have Elon Musk worried about artificial intelligence.

Drone use is outpacing regulations in New York.

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Detours

The power of a round face.

NFL players’ stunning evolution since the organization’s 1920 founding.

Quite a whisky advertisement: “The Gentlemen’s Wager,” a short film from Johnnie Walker starring Jude Law.

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Retail Therapy

Vertical dopp kit.

Five great sets of stationary, for those times when email just won’t cut it.

Hello, and happy Friday, everyone! If you missed yesterday’s newsletter in your inbox, it’s here. For the email version today’s newsletter (it’s easier to read), click here.

Also, a quick reminder that we’re stepping away for two weeks beginning this Monday for some downtime at home with the kiddos. In our place, we’re excited to feature Semil Shah, a smartypants when it comes to consumer products, a consultant to various venture firms, and an investor with Haystack Fund. He’ll be publishing an abbreviated version of the newsletter and if you don’t like it, feel to complain to him on Twitter at@semil. (Just kidding! Keep your complaints to yourself.) You can see some of the good stuff he has lined up here. Thank you again, Semil.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Microsoft has to fork over customer’s e-mails held in a server overseas, a federal judge ruled yesterday. Writes the Washington Post, “”The case — the first of its kind in the United States — is a test of whether the government can assert a right to digital content wherever in the world it is stored.” More here.

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Homer is a Good Idea; Now, Will it Work?

A week ago, the latest creation to come out of Max Levchin’s R&D lab, HVF, was publicly released. Unfortunately for Levchin, a widely read review suggested the app, called Homer, was “creepily intimate” because it allows users to view other people’s home screens.

Given that users have to choose to make a conscious decision to upload their own home screens with Homer and have full control over what apps they share, it’s hard to see how the app is truly intrusive. On the contrary, in an era where an endless supply of apps now compete for attention, Homer can help users discover useful new apps that their friends enjoy. It also comes with more privacy protections than that initial review suggested.

Homer’s bigger problem, seemingly, is that it wasn’t ready for prime time when it launched. Though some VCs immediately began talking up the iOS app, users weren’t so charitable, giving Homer three out of five stars. Two called it “very buggy,” and a third commented, “Nice concept but can’t even use the app.” Perhaps not surprisingly, HVF says it doesn’t have a timeline for an Android version.

In an interview earlier this week, Homer’s creators, fellow Stanford grads Elliot Babchick and Jason Riggs, quickly volunteered that the app, which they began working on in April, isn’t perfect. “We’re still working on it full-time,” said Riggs. “There’s still plenty to do, like making it faster and fixing bugs … this is basically a [minimum viable product], and we’re making it better.”

The question is whether they’ll get another shot from users. Apple’s approval process can take days; it can also take weeks. That’s a lot of time for a buggy app to be out in the wild.

There’s also a slight risk that Apple will decide it doesn’t like the app after all, especially given the early public impression that it’s somehow meddlesome. Babchick noted that while “someone at Apple did check a box and let us through,” its guidelines are somewhat squishy. “Years ago, the rule was that you weren’t allowed to feature any other app within your app. Since then, the clause has evolved to say that you can’t promote an app unless it’s to a specific set of people for a specific use case.” Apple, he added, “is leaving itself the opportunity to interpret [new apps] how they wish.”

HVF is a member of Apple’s affiliate program — reason for the team to feel some degree of confidence. In fact, Homer can “technically be making money off apps that we refer people to,” though “we’re not doing that yet,” Babchick says.

Asked how long it makes sense to give an app a chance, Babchick told me, “We don’t set an arbitrary guideline that we’ll work on [this or that project] for an amount of time and if it doesn’t make it, [we’ll move on]. Once you start seeing solid retention, for a significant period of time, that’s when you know you have a thing. For something that [came out last Friday], we don’t have the answer.”

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New Fundings

Efficient Drivetrains, an eight-year-old, Beijing-based maker of hybrid and electric drivetrains, has raised $3.5M in Series A funding led by Jinyuan Development Company, with participation from Silicon Valley China Venture Partners and the Shanghai Gui Guo Assets Management Partnership.

Forage, a new, San Francisco-based meal-kit delivery startup focused on chef-approved recipes that customers can create at home in 20 minutes, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding, reports Venture Capital Dispatch. Its investors include Twitter and Medium cofounder Evan Williams, Whole Foods Market, and Hass Hassan, founder of the U.K.-based organic food retailer Fresh & Wild, a chain acquired by Whole Foods a decade ago.

Geekatoo, a four-year-old, Walnut Creek, Ca.-based platform for in-home tech support, has raised $1.7 million in seed funding from investors, including Eric Ries, Dave Mclure, Parker Thompson of 500 Startups, and Mikihiro Yasuda of DeNA.

Gen9, a five-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based synthetic biology company, has raised $25 million in new funding, shows an SEC filing flagged by the Boston Business Journal. The company has now raised at least $50 million from investors, shows Crunchbase.

Kabam, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile gaming company, has raised $120 million in strategic funding from the China-based giant Alibaba, money that Kabam plans to use to acquire other companies in Asia and other regions, the company tells the WSJ. Kabam had previous raised roughly $125 million from investors, including Canaan Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Intel Capital, Pinnacle Ventures, Google Ventures, SK Telecom Ventures, and Performance Equity Management.

KnowledgeVision Systems, a four-year-old, Concord, Ma.-based maker of interactive and multimedia software, has raised $1.2 million from undisclosed investors. The company had previous raised $8 million, including from GrandBanks Capital, shows Crunchbase.

Portea Medical, a 2.5-year-old, Bangalore-based provider of in-home healthcare and emergency medical services in India, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Qualcomm Ventures, reports LiveMint. Last December, the company raised $8 million from Accel Partners and Ventureast, a Bangalore-based venture firm. The company is looking to raise another $50 million in the next six to eight months, its CEO tells LiveMint.

Portfolium, a 1.5-year-old, San Diego-based startup whose online platform is designed to help students visually showcase their skills, projects and experiences to employers, has raised $900,000 in seed funding from Tech Coast Angels and others.

Qiniu, a three-year-old, Shanghai-based cloud storage service provider, has raised “tens of millions” of dollars in Series C funding led by CBC Capital, says China Money Network. Earlier investors Matrix Partners and Qiming Venture Partners also participated in the round.

Settle, a new, Ukraine-based mobile payment service for restaurant patrons, has raised $1.5 million funding round from the Moscow-based venture fund Life.SREDA. TechCrunch has more here.

Vakast, a year-old, Newport Beach, Ca.-based online travel agency for vacation rentals, has raised $1.3 million in seed funding led by Blackstone Group senior managing director Chinh Chu and Ken Pansuria, a founder of the Fine Hospitality Group. Nicky Nguyen, founder of NJ Enterprises, also invested in the round.

ViralGains, a two-year-old, Boston-based video marketing platform for brands, ad agencies, marketers, and media buyers, has raised $2.8 million of what it expects to be a $3.3 million seed round of funding. Its investors include Hub Angels, investor Dave McClure, and rapper Nas, among many others.

Wantable, a two-year-old, Milwaukee, Wi.-based e-commerce company that sends customers personalized beauty and fashion accessories, has raised $1.5 million in Series A funding from local angel investors. The company says it has raised $2.3 million altogether so far.

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New Funds

AOL has plans to invest in more Israeli startups. Nautilus, its new program, will invest $100,000 in as many as 10 projects at a time, according to an earlier Reuters report out of Jerusalem that notes AOL already has a development center in Israel. Merav Rotem-Naaman, formerly of Better Place, is directing the program. More information is coming soon, suggests Nautilus’s new site.

Canaan Partners, the 27-year-old venture firm, with offices in the U.S., Israel, and India, is raising a $600 million fund with a $650 million cap, reports peHUB. “The fundraising will go fast, their numbers are really good,” one unnamed LP tells the outlet. The firm closed its ninth and most recent fund with $600 million in 2012.

Venrock, the 45-year-old venture firm that began life, investing on behalf of the Rockefeller family, has just closed its seventh fund with $450 million in commitments. Venrock closed its last fund in 2010 with $350 million. TechCrunch has much more here.

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Exits

Mitro, a two-year-old, New York-based that stores and allows users to share cloud service credentials, has been acquired by Twitter, Mitro announced yesterday. The terms were undisclosed, but as TechCrunch notes, Twitter isn’t shutting down the service. Instead, Mitro is becoming an open source project, at least through year end. Mitro had raised $1.2 million in seed funding from Google Ventures and Matrix Partners.

Propeller, a one-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile startup that helps users create their own apps, has been acquired by the data analysis company Palantir for undisclosed terms. Propeller had raised $1.25 million in funding from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Menlo Ventures, Foundation Capital, Subtraction Capital, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Max Levchin, Ashton Kutcher, Keith Rabois, Scott Banister, Jason Portnoy, Lee Linden, Rothenberg Ventures, Alfred Mandel, and ffAngel, the seed fund of Founders Fund, cofounded by Peter Thiel, who has also backed Palantir, as Fortune notes. The deal marks the second acquisition that Palantir has announced this week. It’s other purchase: Poptip, a two-year-old, New York-based startup that helps companies conduct social media surveys and analyze online conversations and other unstructured conversation. Palantir has raised nearly $900 million from investors over its 10-year history, including a $107.5 million round last year that valued the company at $9 billion.

Simbionix, a 17-year-old, Cleveland, Oh.-based maker of 3D virtual reality surgical simulation and training, has been acquired for $120 million in cash by publicly traded 3D Systems. The company had raised at least $7 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. Its backers included River Cities Capital Funds, Early Stage Partners, and Western Reserve Partners. MedCity News has more here.

TOA Technologies, an 11-year-old, Beachwood, Oh.-based company that specializes in cloud services that coordinate customer service with field operations, is being acquired by Oracle for undisclosed terms. The company had raised roughly $96 million over the years, according to Crunchbase. Its investors included Draper Associates, Novitas Capital, Early Stage Partners, Draper Triangle Ventures, Intel Capital, Fort Washington Capital Partners Group, and Sutter Hill Ventures. ZDNet has a bit more here.

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People

All right, eBay. Finally, a tech giant that’s not so white, and not so male.

Venture capitalist Tim Draper is profiled in BusinessWeek, which reports that his father, Bill Draper, is “skeptical about [the younger Draper’s] Six Californias plan but has learned not to doubt his son. ‘He got hit three times by automobiles on his bicycle. He’s kind of a lucky guy as well as a risk-taker,’ he says, going on to recount a time when, in China, Tim at midnight walked up to a street vendor who was selling what he claimed was snake blood that would improve one’s brain. Tim downed a cup and was fine. ‘Tim has a way of getting away with murder, almost,’ Bill says.”

Snapchat’s VP of Engineering, Peter Magnusson, has left the company just six months after being lured away from Google. It’s not clear yet what happened, but TechCrunch has much more here.

Stanford’s StartX class has begun; here’s a bit of background about the founders and other participants taking part in the program.

Tinder CEO Sean Rad keeps pretending he’s the head of a self-funded startup, despite that Tinder is owned by IAC, says Valleywag. Writes Sam Biddle, “They want so badly to play startup, to trade on that image of entrepreneurial autonomy, like teens who insist on being dropped off a couple blocks away from the party.”

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Job Listings

Twitter is looking to hire a business development manager to help build and scale its commerce initiatives. The job is in San Francisco.

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Data

Pitchbook has published one of its “Daily Benchmark” summaries — this time about the 13 U.S. venture funds that closed in 2006 with between $500 million to $1 billion in commitments. Pitchbook says their median IRR is 10.1 percent; their top quartile IRR hurdle rate is 12.4 percent, and they’ve distributed an average of $227 million to their investors. The top performers of the bunch, based on net IRR: Caduceus Private Investments III, DCM V, and M/C Venture Partners VI.

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Essential Reads

Looks like Google is getting out the barge business.

Payment processor Stripe has launched an open source, decentralized payment network and protocol called Stellar. Unlike Bitcoin, reports VentureBeat, it supports traditional currencies, too.

Yo is evidently fed up with the numerous clones that have emerged, primarily to poke fun at the application. Says one developer of her app, whose interface is nearly identical, “YOLO is entirely different from Yo.“

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Detours

Thirteen strange things that can prompt people to fall in love.

Surreal photography by Oleg Oprisco.

When his wife refused to take maternity photos, this guy posed for them himself.

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Retail Therapy

You’ve probably heard that Grover Norquist is going to Burning Man this year. If you plan to go with your friends anyway, this could come in handy