Hi, everyone — hope your Wednesday is off to a stellar start. (Web visitors, you might want to check out this version of this morning’s newsletter for easier reading.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe have agreed to a new settlement that would resolve a class action lawsuit by tech workers who accused them of agreeing not to poach one another’s employees.

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There’s Something About Abie Katz

Abie Katz, 24, is halfway through his second week as an associate at the tony Sand Hill Road firm August Capital. Why is that notable? Well, for one thing, the 20-year-old venture firm doesn’t really hire associates. Also, despite his age, this isn’t Katz’s big break into the venture world. He has already spent more than two years at the associate level, having joined the seed-stage firm CrunchFund in 2012.

Katz has also managed to attract profiles in Wired, which likened him to Mark Zuckerberg in 2008 just two months after he’d cofounded a company, and TheNextWeb, which later reported on his decision to leave college to become a venture intern. (That’s a feat. No offense to interns, but who write about interns?)

What is it about Katz? We talked with him last week to find out. Our chat has been edited for length.

How does a 17-year-old student with a fledgling company get compared to Mark Zuckerberg in Wired?

That was the greatest fluke of my life. The business that [reporter Brian Chen] wrote about never ended up launching. We just hit it off and he decided to interview me and gave [the story] an inflammatory headline that was very positive — though undeserved. I thought the press might be helpful. It was so many years ago now, it’s more of an artifact.

Nothing relating to you is an artifact yet. But what is it about you that so enchants reporters? Why did TheNextWeb care that you were leaving college? Why am I interviewing you right now?

[Polite laughter.] I met [TheNextWeb] reporter at [TechCrunch] Disrupt. I asked for directions and we ended up getting dinner in a group and she thought that I had an interesting story.

For the most part, I like to be more behind the scenes in venture capital. I’m still new to my career and realize I have a lot to learn. I also think entrepreneurs should really be the center point for mass media. But I’m glad that things like StrictlyVC are out there because I think it’s a really interesting industry.

How did you break into VC as a college drop-out?

I went to college for a one-and-a-half years at Claremont McKenna College, then took some time off to intern at a [San Diego startup]. I’d find small business initiatives that weren’t in anyone’s purview and [try making something happen]. I [later] reached out [Merus Capital cofounder] Sean Dempsey, a Claremont alum, and offered to do free diligence work up in San Francisco. He had me look at three companies, I worked as hard as I could and tapped into whatever network I had at the time, and Merus decided to bring me on as an intern.

Did you think about finishing up your degree?

After about six months, Merus encouraged me to go back to school but the next semester, I heard that CrunchFund was looking to hire an intern. I’d met [CrunchFund cofounder] Pat Gallagher while at Merus; he and [partner] Mike Arrington are also Claremont alums, so I came back to San Francisco for the summer to work for them. I thought I’d be with the firm through the end of 2012 as an intern . . . Thankfully, they thought it was a good idea to bring me on full-time.

How does one start drumming up deal flow from scratch?

It really helped [to have] the network and reputation of CrunchFund. I was able to tap into the partners’ networks and, over time, build my own. I also relied on a combination of AngelList and working with accelerators and going to demo days. The rest was a hodgepodge of more thesis-driven research, where I’d do a deep dive into an industry to learn about specific white spaces and just read a lot.

You say you sourced 21 investments for CrunchFund over two-plus years, including the startup Kinnek. Now you’ve been recruited into August, a very different firm.

Yes, and I’m taking in as much information as possible and trying to get familiarized it. There are definitely differences between the firms in terms of the style of investments they make and their size. CrunchFund has a model similar to SV Angel: a small team making about 40 investments a year through checks that are typically between $100,000 and $250,000 and occasionally as much as $1 million. August is more traditional, with a long history of leading rounds and being very hands on. It’s a different style.

It’s a very different career arc.

In the venture business, especially coming from a nontraditional background, you need to find that unorthodox foot in the door. From there, things can kind of snowball.

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New Fundings

Apama Medical, a 5.5-year-old, Campbell, Ca.-based medical-device company focused on atrial fibrillation technologies, has raised $11 million of a planned $17.5 million Series B round. Ascension Ventures led the round, with participation from Medvance Incubator Partners, Onset Ventures and Incept. Apama had previously raised $4.3 million from investors.

CoLucid Pharmaceuticals, a 10-year-old, Durham, N.C.-based company that makes oral and intravenous treatments for migraine and other headache pain, has raised $37.1 million in Series C funding led by TVM Capital Life Science. Other participants in the round include Novo Ventures, Auriga Partners and return backers Pappas Ventures, Domain Associates, Care Capital, Triathlon Medical Ventures and Pearl Street Ventures. The company has now raised $55.8 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Lynda.com, the 20-year-old, Carpinteria, Ca.-based online learning startup, has raised $186 million in Series B funding led by the private equity firm TPG — money reportedly raised to fuel an acquisition spree. Lynda had previously raised its first outside funding in 2013, collecting $103 million from Accel Partners, Spectrum Equity, and Meritech Capital Partners.

MediSafe, a 2.5-year-old, Israel-based company behind a cloud-synced mobile medication management system, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Pitango Venture Capital, with participation from 7wire Ventures and earlier backers Lool Ventures, TriVentures and Eyal Gura. The company, which has now raised $7 million altogether, is using some of its new funds to relocate to Boston.

MGG Investment Group, a seven-month-old, New York-based small-business lender, has raised $200 million from Frank McCourt, the real estate developer who formerly owned the Los Angeles Dodgers. The company plans to lend to companies with $10 million to $40 million of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Dealbook has more here.

Moderna Therapeutics, a 4.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based whose drugs stimulate the body’s ability to produce proteins and could eventually treat cancer, heart conditions and other illnesses, has raised $50 million through a new license and collaboration agreement with Merck & Co. The funding comes just a week after Moderna closed the largest biotechnology venture capital financing on record: $450 million from RA Capital Management, Viking Global Investors and Wellington Management, along with earlier backers.

Moovit, a four-year-old, Israel-based company whose mobile app lets riders plan trips and anticipate slow-downs on local public transit systems around the world, has raised $50 million in Series C funding from Nokia Growth Partners, BMW i Ventures, and the French public transit operator Keolis, which plans to partner with Moovit. Other investors in the round include Bernard Arnault Group, Vaizra Investments, and earlier backers BRM Group, Gemini Partners, and Sequoia Capital.

Personalis, a nearly four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based genomics-based clinical diagnostics lab, has raised $33 million in Series C funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backers Abingworth and Mohr Davidow Ventures. Personalis had raised $22 million in Series B funding just three months ago; it has raised $75 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Purple WiFi, a 5.5-year-old, London-based company that provides WiFi hotspot software in public venues and employs social media to do it (users can use their Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts to log-in), has raised $5 million in funding led by former Tesco CEO Sir Terry Leahy. Numerous other angel investors also participated.

Qstream, a 6.5-year-old, Burlington, Ma.-based maker of sales acceleration software, has raised $4 million in Series A funding from Excel Venture Management, Frontline Ventures and Launchpad Venture Group. The company has raised $6.85 million to date. Boston Business Journal has more here.

Rounds, a 5.5-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based mobile application for group video chats, has raised $12 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital. Other participants include Samsung Ventures, along with earlier backers Verizon Ventures and Rhodium. The company has now raised $22 million altogether.

Sokrati, a 5.5-year-old, Pune, India-based ad technology and analytics company, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series B funding from IvyCap Ventures, with participation from return backer Inventus Capital. VCCircle has more here.

True Fit, a 4.5-year-old, Woburn, Ma.-based startup whose technology aims to help online shoppers buy clothes that fit, has raised $15 million in growth equity led by Jump Capital, Promus Ventures and Signal Peak Ventures. Earlier backers Breakaway Ventures, Guggenheim Partners and Novel TMT also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $36.5 million.

Vidyard, a 4.5-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company whose software helps companies use online video to boost sales, has raised $18 million in Series B funding at a valuation of close to $100 million. Bessemer Venture Partners led the round. Earlier backers Salesforce Ventures, Omers Ventures, iNovia Capital and SoftTech VC also participated. The company has now raised $25 million. Venture Capital Dispatch has a nice piece on how the funding (very slowly) came together.

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New Funds

New Enterprise Associates, the 37-year-old venture investing powerhouse, is in the market right now, raising $2.5 billion for its 15th fund, according to numerous reports. The firm closed its last fund with $2.5 billion in 2012.

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IPOs

Bellerophon Therapeutics, a 1.5-year-old, Hampton, N.J.-based clinical-stage therapeutics company focused on cardiopulmonary and cardiac diseases, has filed to go public. The company’s net loss was $46.9 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2014, and $62 million for all of 2013. Its biggest outside shareholders include New Mountain Capital, which owns 48 percent of the company; Linde, which owns 16 percent;Arch Venture Partners, which owns 9.5 percent; and Venrock, which also owns 9.5 percent.

Etsy, the 10-year-old, Brooklyn N.Y.-based site where people sell handmade crafts and vintage goods, is working on an IPO that could take place as soon as this quarter, sources tell Bloomberg. It may be the biggest technology IPO to come out of New York since 1999, says the report.

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People

Cooley, the tech and life sciences law firm, has launched in London with a 55-lawyer group that includes 20 partners. The office is the firm’s first in Europe and is being headed up by Justin Stock, the former head of Morrison & Foerster’s London corporate practice.

Rick Zullo has joined the Chicago-based venture firm Lightbank as a vice president. Zullo had previous interned at Foundation Capital and worked as an associate at Red Oak Growth Partners and Bowery Capital, among other jobs.

New Enterprise Associates has promoted three members of its investing team: Frank Torti and Rick Yang have been named partners at the firm, while Aaron Jacobson has been promoted to principal. Torti, an MD with an MBA, joined NEA in 2007 as a principal, and has focused on investments across the healthcare spectrum. Yang, formerly an analyst at Credit Suisse, joined NEA in 2007 and is focused on information and financial technology investments. He also co-manages NEA’s seed practice. Jacobson joined NEA in 2011 and is focused on information and energy technology.

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Jobs

Andreessen Horowitz is looking to hire a talent partner. The Menlo Park, Ca.-based firm is also in the market for a financial operations partner.

AppNexus, the New York-based ad tech firm, is looking for a VP of corporate development.

Samsung Electronics is looking to hire a corporate development manager in the Bay Area.

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Data

Israeli venture capital funds attracted $914 million in 2014, up 68 percent over the previous year, the Israel Venture Capital Research Center said this morning. Carmel Ventures raised the largest amount, raising $194 million for its fourth fund. Jerusalem Venture Partners had a first closing of $160 million out of a targeted $180 million for its seventh fund. More here.

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Essential Reads

Apple was granted a patent for a remote-control camera system yesterday, and GoPro investors are freaked out about it.

When his wife was misdiagnosed, Michael Balzer turned to 3D printing for answers.

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Detours

What to do with a dying neighborhood.

Who carries around wads of $100s: A pickpocket’s guide.

“Let’s get drinks!”

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Retail Therapy

What.

Hi, everyone, happy Tuesday! (Psst, web visitors, here’s an easier-to-read version of today’s email newsletter.)

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Top News in the A.M.

For the first time, Uber is (very smartly) giving government officials a look inside its rich trove of transportation data. Specifically, reports the WSJ, it will provide the city of Boston with anonymized information about rides that might help ease traffic congestion and lead to better city planning.

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App Annie Rakes in $55 Million, As It Races Away from the Pack

According to Comscore, activity on smartphones and tablets now absorbs60 percent of our digital media time, driven predominately by apps. Yet, for the most part, anyone hungry to know how — and how often — those apps are used has been left in the dark.

Onavo, an app analytics company, was widely seen as providing better insights into app usage than most analytics startups. But when it was acquired by Facebook last year, its insights were moved behind a curtain.

Now, App Annie, the five-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile analytics company, says it has developed everything Onavo featured and much more.

To an extent, it’s following Onavo’s playbook.

Onavo’s mobile measurement product evolved out of a couple of applications designed to do something very different – help users reduce their expensive data consumption. Once the company gathered enough user data, it shifted gears, turning itself into a market intelligence product.

Similarly, App Annie is rolling out a tool today called Usage Intelligence that provides customers with detailed analytics about individual app usage and engagement – information that largely comes from its free, five-month-old VPN Defender app, which offers encrypted and secure access to a user’s favorite sites and apps.

Conveniently, VPN Defender also gives App Annie a window into its users’ app usage.

The development is a big deal for app developers and investors who’ve been unable to accurately gauge how apps fare on the open market, as well as how people use them after they’ve been downloaded.

It’s a huge boon, too, for App Annie, which makes money by selling yearly contracts for its analytics and says its broader tool sets are already being used by most top mobile app developers, giving it insights into 675,000 apps as a result.

The company — whose average contract is $80,000 per year — isn’t yet profitable, says cofounder and CEO Bertrand Schmitt. “I’d be sad if we were,” he says. “It would mean we don’t know where to invest next.”

App Annie is clearly an IPO candidate, though. In fact, the 300-person company has just raised $55 million in Series D funding led by Institutional Venture Partners, a late-stage investment firm that just saw its 101st portfolio company go public in December. “Among the reasons we chose to work with IVP was their extensive experience with IPOs,” says Schmitt, who says an offering isn’t in the cards for 2015 but suggests it’s not too far off either.

In the meantime, App Annie — which has now raised $94 million altogether — remains focused on growing its business as fast and as wide as possible. The company already has 10 offices around the world. And it expects its headcount to reach 450 by year end as it pursues several new markets more aggressively, including India and South America.

Schmitt says App Annie intends to create more of a social network around the business that makes it easier for developers to share and collaborate on App Annie.

Unsurprisingly, the company also plans to release many more apps like VPN Defender from which it can continue to wring valuable and lucrative insights for its customers — and break further away from competitors in the process.

“If we keep improving as we have done, how do you fight?” says Schmitt. “There’s no other company with the same ability to execute.”

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New Fundings

10X Genomics, a two-year-old, Pleasanton, Ca.-based company at work on a new DNA sequencing technology, has raised $55.5 million in Series B funding led by Foresite Capital Management, with participation from Venrock, Paladin Capital Group and funds managed by Morgan Stanley. Forbes has more here.

AppVirality, a year-old, Hyderabad, India-based startup that makes a plug-and-play growth hacking toolkit for mobile applications, has raised $465,000 in seed funding from India Internet Group, TNN Capital, and individual investors, including Rajan Anandan, managing director of Google India, and Mike Galgon, co-founder of aQuantive.

Basho Technologies, a seven-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company behind the Riak key-value database and Riak CS cloud-storage system, has raised $25 million in fresh funding from earlier backer Georgetown Capital Partners. The company has now raised $57.5 million to date. GigaOm has more here.

FSLogix, a two-year-old, Suwanee, Ga.-based company whose software enables policy-based control of an app’s visibility on a physical or virtual desktop, has raised $1.1 million of an anticipated $2 million round led by Mosley Ventures of Atlanta. The company has now raised $2.3 million, including from angel investors.

Gluru, a 1.5-year-old, London-based company that makes advanced analytical and predictive user data software, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Playfair Capital and Gecad Group, with participation from angel investors.

Ionic Security, a 3.5-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based data security platform, has raised $40 million in Series C funding less than a year after closing a $25 million Series B round. The newest funding was led by Meritech Capital Partners and includes earlier backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Google Ventures, Tech Operators and Jafco Ventures. The company has now raised $78.1 million altogether. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Juicero, a two-year-old, New York-based company that’s reportedly developing juice in a pouch, along with a contraption that turns it into something drinkable, is raising $100 million in funding right now, according to Business Insider, which says that the company has already quietly closed on two previous rounds of funding, totaling roughly $21 million. Investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (which reportedly housed the early-stage startup), and Campbell’s Soup. Google Ventures, Thrive Capital, and Vast Ventures may also be involved, reports BI.

Teads, a four-year-old, Paris-based video advertising platform, has raised roughly $30 million in new funding split evenly between equity and debt. The equity portion of the round comes from Bpifrance, with earlier backers Gimv, Partech Ventures, and Elaia Partners participating.The debt portion of the funding comes from numerous banks, including Bank of China and HSBC. The company has now raised $81.9 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.

Thinkful, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based online education company focused on programmers and developers, has raised $4.3 million new funding led by Floodgate Fund, with participation from earlier investors RRE Ventures and Quotidian Ventures. The company has raised $5.3 million to date.

Verne Global, an eight-year-old, U.K.-based developer of energy-efficient data centers, has raised $98 million in Series D financing led by Stefnir, an Icelandic asset management and private equity firm. Earlier investors General Catalyst Partners, Novator Partners and Wellcome Trust also participated in the round.

Whistle Sports, a five-year-old, New York-based sports and entertainment broadcaster whose content largely appears on YouTube, has raised $28 million in Series B funding led by Emil Capital Partners, with earlier investors participating. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Qualcomm Ventures is forming a joint investment business with the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis. The entity will make as much as $100 million available for innovative health startups. Xconomy has more here.

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Exits

Convergence Pharmaceuticals, a U.K.-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that spun out of GlaxoSmithKline last year with a portfolio of neuropathic pain drug candidates, has been acquired for $200 million by Biogen Idec, the publicly traded biotech company. FierceBiotech has more here.

Level Money, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based money management app, has been acquired by Capital One for undisclosed terms. The startup had raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Tappy, an L.A-based mobile startup behind an ephemeral, mobile messaging app, has been acquired by IAC-backed Tinder, reports TechCrunch. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Tomax, a Salt Lake City-based cloud-based point of sale company, has been acquired by Boston-based Demandware for roughly $75 million in cash and incentives. TechCrunch has more here.

Twitter may be making an acquisition with international growth in mind, reports TechCrunch. According to its sources, Twitter is in negotiations to buy ZipDial, a startup whose use case — missed calls — is unique to the Indian market. Tech in Asia has more on the company here.

Zomato, the restaurant discovery site backed by Sequoia, has bought Urbanspoon from IAC. Terms of the deal were undisclosed, but sources tell TechCrunch it was between $50 million to $60 million. This marks the entrance of Zomato into the U.S. market and looks to be among the largest purchases of a U.S.-based consumer Internet company by an Indian startup. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Sophia Amoruso, the founder of the L.A.-based online fashion retailer Nasty Gal, is stepping down as CEO. Sheree Waterson, who joined the company as president roughly a year ago, will replace her. Waterson was formerly the chief product officer of Lululemon. Amoruso tells Recode the decision to change roles was her own. “While I find myself really capable of leading our customer . . . I’m not even a parent . . . I hope to someday be the leader that Sheree is.”

Sasha Frere-Jones, the longtime pop music critic for The New Yorker, has left the magazine to join Genius, the Andreessen Horowitz-backed onlne forum for annotated rap lyrics. Says Frere-Jones to the New York Times, “I don’t want to stay up until 4 a.m. any more at shows, and you can annotate lyrics during the day.”

Kelly Porter, a managing partner at investment bank Woodside Capital Partners, has sold finally sold his massive Los Altos Hills, Ca. home. The buyer: Nora Lacey, president of biotechnology company Cell Marque. The price was a whopping $25 million, though it represents a steep discount to the $45 million that Porter had been asking for the property in 2008. Porter reportedly purchased the home in 1999 for $5 million, then spent extensively on renovating it.

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Job Listings

OpenTable is looking for a director of corporate and business development. The job is in San Francisco.

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Data

Venture capital investors in India are set to raise nearly $2 billion this year,reports the Economic Times. Accel Partners, which manages $230 million in India-focused capital, plans to raise up to $275 million for its fourth India fund, a Bangalore-based Accel partner tells the outlet. Another Bangalore-based early stage investor, Kalaari Capital, plans to raise up to $250 million.

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Essential Reads

Facebook‘s Mark Zuckerberg and Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun discussed a potential investment by Facebook in the Chinese smartphone maker ahead of its $1.1 billion fundraising last month, reports Reuters. A deal never materialized, “but the talks underscore how ties between U.S. and Chinese companies have deepened as China’s tech industry matures,” notes Reuters.

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Detours

Twenty-four must-see cars from the Detroit Auto Show.

Woody Allen on his first ever TV series, which he’s creating for Amazon: “I don’t know how I got into this. I have no ideas and I’m not sure where to begin. My guess is that [Amazon Studios head] Roy Price will regret this.”

Markus “Notch” Persson made a lot of money making Minecraft. Some of his game’s players are getting rich and famous, too.

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Retail Therapy

A graphic case for the Eames lounge chair.

 

Happy Friday, everyone! No column today (busy week), but we hope the intel below is useful.

Also, a quick note that there are suddenly less than 10 seats left for our first event, happening next month in San Francisco. If we run out of tickets, we’ll happily put you on our wait list and let you know if anything opens up. (Worth noting: We’re hoping to plan another Bay Area event soon. We’re also hosting an evening event at the Boston offices of OpenView Venture Partners in late spring. More on that soon.)

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you Monday.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Box is going public sooner than you might have guessed. This morning, the online data storage provider disclosed plans to raise up to $162.5 million in its IPO, via shares priced at between $11 and $13. At the midpoint of that range, notes Dealbook, Box will be valued at about $1.4 billion — far less than the $2.4 billion valuation the company fetched when it raised its latest round of private funding in July, led by TPG Growth andCoatue Management.

Twitter is planning to unveil its new video product in the next few weeks and it may have a 20-second time limit, says Recode.

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New Fundings

Atlas RFID, an eight-year-old, Birmingham, Al.-based maker of auto-ID based tracking systems for the construction industry, has raised an undisclosed amount funding from Kayne Partners, the growth equity group of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors.

AveXis, a four-year-old, Dallas-based gene therapy company focused on treating severe genetic and orphan diseases like spinal muscular atrophy, has raised $10 million in funding led by Deerfield Management and Roche Venture Fund.

Hua Medicine, a Shanghai, China-based drug development company at work on an oral diabetes therapy, has raised $25 million in Series B funding from new investors Ally Bridge Group, Frontline BioVenturesand TF Capital. Earlier backers ARCH Venture Partners, Venrock, Fidelity Biosciences, WuXi Ventures and SAIL also joined the round.

Miracor Medical Systems, a 6.5-year-old, Vienna, Austria-based medical device firm behind a pressure-controlled coronary sinus occlusion technology for heart patients, has raised €4.5 million ($5.3 million) in Series B funding from BioMedInvest, aws Founders Fund, and earlier backers Earlybird Venture Capital, Delta Partners and SHS.

Mister Spex, a seven-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based online eyewear business, has raised $40 million in new funding led by Goldman Sachs, with participation from return backers Scottish Equity Partners, XAnge and DN Capital. The company has now raised $69.7 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Reach | influence, an eight-year-old, Royal Oak, Mi.-based retail analytics company, has raised $5 million in funding led by Vineyard Capital Group, with participation from Detroit Venture Partners.

Rethink Robotics, a 6.5-year-old, Boston-based company that develops robots for production and research environments, has raised $26.6 million in Series D financing led by GE Ventures, with additional participation from Goldman Sachs. Rethink Robotics’ earlier investors also joined the round, including Bezos Expeditions, CRV, Highland Capital Partners, Sigma Partners, DFJ, and Two Sigma Ventures. The company has now raised roughly $100 million altogether.

RetroSense Therapeutics, a 5.5-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based company that’s investigating the use of gene therapy and optogenetics to restore vision loss, has raised $6 million in Series A funding from Nerveda, Blue Water Angels, SDL Ventures, Tech Coast Angels, and Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

Samba Networks, a year-old, London-based mobile video ad network, has raised £250,000 ($377,000) in seed funding from Digicel and numerous angel investors, reports TechCrunch. The company has raised roughly $600,000 altogether so far.

Seismic Software, a 3.5-year-old, Solana Beach, Ca.-based maker of cloud-based sales software, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by JMI Equity, with participation from earlier backer Sigma West. The company has now raised $24.5 million.

Surface Oncology, a 1.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that’s developing antibody therapies to combat cancer, has raised $35 million in Series A funding from Fidelity Biosciences, Lilly Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, and Atlas Venture, which initially seeded the company. Other participants in the round include Amgen Ventures,Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research, and Elliott Sigal, a former head of R&D at Bristol Myers Squibb.

Trevi Therapeutics, a 3.5-year-old, New Haven, Ct.-based clinical development company focused on treating chronic pruritus conditions, has secured a $15 million senior loan from Solar Capital and Square 1 Bank. The company has now raised $47.6 million across three funding rounds, shows Crunchbase.

Vascular Dynamics, a 6.5-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based medical device company whose implantable stent-like devices treat hypertension, has raised $8.4 million in a Series B round that’s expected to reach $16.9 million. The funding was led by HBM Healthcare Investments, with earlier backers Rainbow Medical, the MedFocus Funds, and an undisclosed existing investor participating. To date, the company has raised $23 million altogether.

Welltok, a 5.5-year-old, Denver-based company whose “health optimization” software tries providing an engaging way for consumers to get involved in their health, has raised $37 million in Series D funding, including from Hearst Health Ventures and Catholic Health Initiatives. Others of the company’s backers include Bessemer Venture Partners,Qualcomm, IBM Corp., Emergence Capital Partners, InterWest Partners, Miramar Venture Partners, Okapi Venture Capital and New Enterprise Associates. The company has now raised $85 million altogether.

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New Funds

Fountain Healthcare, a 6.5-year-old, life science venture capital fund based in Dublin, Ireland, has raised €85 million ($100.8 million) for its second fund, which is targeting €125 million ($148 million). The firm now has €158 million under management. Fountain focuses on specialty pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices and diagnostics and says it intends to invest more than three-quarters of its new capital to European startups, with the balance committed to U.S. companies. The Irish Times has more here.

Insight Venture Partners, the New York-based growth-equity investor, is raising its ninth fund and has so far received $2 billion in commitments, according to SEC filings first flagged by VentureWire. The New York firm has a pair of offerings: Insight Venture Partners IX LP has closed on $1.51 billion so far; and Insight Venture Partners (Cayman) IX LP has raised $596 million.

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Exits

Ariosa Diagnostics, a four-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based maker of a DNA test for pregnant women, has withdraw plans to go public following an announcement that it will be acquired by Roche of Basel, Switzerland, the world’s largest biotech company. Terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed. Ariosa had raised $52.7 million in Series C funding fromDomain Associates, Meritech Capital Partners, and Venrock in 2012. (It isn’t immediately clear how much it had raised altogether.)

NetProspex, an eight-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based firm specializing in managing a vast database of professional contacts, has been acquired for $125 million by the data and analytics firm Dun & Bradstreet. The company has raised at least $27.5 million from investors over the years, including Spring Lake Equity Partners and Edison Partners.

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People

Early last year, David Baazov walked into the Manhattan offices of the Blackstone Group with an outrageous plan to stage the $4.9 billion purchase of PokerStars, the world’s biggest online poker company. Baazov, the son of a construction worker, was tossed on the street, but he’s now laughing all the way to the bank, reports Forbes, which profiles this new “king of online gambling.”

Web TV startup Aereo lost its day in court. But its founder and CEO, Chet Kanojia, isn’t crying into his coffee, apparently. According to Recode, Kanojia and a handful of Aereo veterans are now working on “Project Decibel,” a Boston-based company that Recode’s sources describe as a lab for Kanojia and his former engineers to work on new ideas and technology. More here.

Dave McClure‘s fund and startup incubator 500 Startups has “raised capital from plenty of supporters around the world. But there’s one group that continues to shun Mr. McClure’s efforts — U.S. institutional investors,” reports VentureWire’s Yuliya Chernova. “‘The institutional folks, they generally don’t like what we are doing. They think what we are doing is crazy. And I’m having a hard time convincing them that we are not full of s—,’” McClure tells her.

John Pedersen is the new CEO of venture-backed Augmenix, a Waltham, Ma.-based company that’s developing minimally invasive hydrogel products to improve outcomes following cancer radiotherapy. Pedersen was formerly a senior health-care adviser for Gores Group and Pritzker Group and president of the Urology and Women’s Health Division at Boston Scientific Corp.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg recently took to the question-and-answer site Quora to answer how often she and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg meet and for how long. Her reply: “Mark and I meet for an hour on Monday morning and then again for an hour on Friday afternoon.” (They have since she joined seven years ago, she added.)

John Solomon, a former senior VP with Hewlett-Packard’s printing and personal systems group, has been hired by Apple to run sales of its products to large corporations, and he may take on a role involving international sales of the forthcoming Apple Watch, reports Recode.

Following InterMune’s $8.3 billion October sale to Roche, the company’s former president and CEO, Dan Welch, has joined Sofinnova Ventures as an “executive partner.” San Francisco Business Times has more here.

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Job Listings

Yahoo is looking to hire a corporate development associate. The job is in Sunnyvale, Ca.

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Data

Every quarter, SharesPost takes a stab at the venture-backed private companies that it considers the most promising, based on their revenue growth, product stage, management team and venture investor quality. Here are the 100 companies it sees as ahead of their peers right now.

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Essential Reads

Uber just cut its prices in 48 markets.

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Detours

Malcolm Gladwell dissects Steven Brill’s account of how health-care reform went wrong.

Incredible photos taken by the U.S. Army last year.

Catman.

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Retail Therapy

Zombie toothpicks.

Wax seal magnets.

Campervan bunk bed. [Ta dah!]

Good morning, everyone, and thanks to the many of you who signed up yesterday for our first event, coming up February 12! Thanks also to our generous sponsors, including 12-year-old Ballou PR, which works with European startups and VCs — along with U.S. outfits that are looking to make a splash abroad.

As promised, today, we’re running the second part of Semil Shah’s recent interview with Olympic rower-turned-investor Tyler Winklevoss, who talks candidly about “The Social Network” and more.

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Top News in the A.M.

The number of videos that Facebook users post has shot up to 75 percent globally and 94 percent in the U.S., the company announced late yesterday.

Google‘s dominance of the U.S. Internet search market slipped last month in the biggest drop since 2009 while Yahoo posted its largest share gain. Bloomberg has more here.

The FTC has “raised concerns about the complexity and privacy risks posed by the rise of an Internet of Things,” reports TechCrunch. More here.

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Tyler Winklevoss on the Positive Impact of “The Social Network”

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twins who remain best known for their legal fight with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg — and the ensuing depiction of that battle in “The Social Network” — have moved on from those days. Still, speaking for both men, Tyler Winklevoss recently agreed to share some thoughts about life in the public spotlight and how it has impacted the brothers.

Many people in tech and startups know your name but may have an impression of you based on movies and press stories. What’s one thing you wish people knew about you that you feel is misunderstood?

I think most people in tech and startups today actually know us through the investments we’ve made, the projects we’re working on, or their own first-hand experience in meeting or working with us. Over the past two years we’ve met with hundreds of entrepreneurs, attended many demo days, and keynoted at TechCrunch Disrupt, the Bitcoin 2013 Conference, and Money20/20, to name a few. We’ve co-invested with many top valley investors, built what we believe to be a strong portfolio, and have worked very hard to bring value beyond capital to entrepreneurs we’ve partnered with. Chances are, if you are a part of the tech ecosystem in either Silicon Valley, Los Angeles or New York, you know us or know someone who really does knows us, and this informs your impression of us, not a Hollywood movie.

That being said, “The Social Network” was a fantastic film and it was a lot of fun to watch its success. It was certainly an interesting time back then, but we never got too caught up in it. We couldn’t. Our focus was on training for the Olympics. Today, we’ve traded athletics for Bitcoin and angel investing. The fact that we were portrayed in a film that won some Oscars and almost won for Best Picture is a cool piece of history, but it’s not really relevant to our daily lives. I feel the same way about graduating from Harvard and Oxford and competing in the Olympic Games. I’m proud of these accomplishments, but I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about them. They’re in the past and just not directly related to what I’m trying to accomplish these days.

As for what the crowd understands or misunderstands, your guess is as good as mine. At the end of the day, impressions drawn from a movie or a movie portrayal, either right or wrong, live in a parallel universe of pop-culture. This is not a universe that I live in so I don’t spend much time analyzing it.

What was your largest takeaway from the whole experience?

My largest takeaway is just how powerful films can be. When we graduated from Harvard in 2004, computer science was the least popular major. When we went back to Harvard to speak to students in 2012, computer science was the tied for the most popular major on campus and it seemed like every student was involved in some sort of startup or had plans to be down the road. “The Social Network” has driven a lot of this cultural interest and shift towards technology and entrepreneurship and has had a profoundly positive impact on young people around the world. I’m very happy for this.

As you grow as investors, do you see yourselves moving into traditional VC, or being more entrepreneurial and taking investing in a new direction?

Right now, we’re really enjoying the freedom and agility that comes with running our own book, and this freedom has turned out to be a great asset so far. If we were operating a traditional VC fund, there’s a good chance we never would have been able to buy Bitcoin back in 2012, because Bitcoin is not a C-corp, and VC funds are, by and large, restricted to investing in corporations. I can only imagine what the conversations might have been like trying to explain what Bitcoin was to our LPs, let alone defend a direct investment in the asset itself. Being a fiduciary to outside parties also makes it a lot more complicated to put on the entrepreneur hat, which we have done with the Bitcoin ETF and the WinkDex bitcoin price index.

Bitcoin aside, we’ve been able to place bets in a wide-range of sectors that I think has been crucial to our overall learning. While focus is important, there’s a lot of promising deals in our portfolio that wouldn’t be living side-by-side if we had a stricter mandate.

Have you totally ruled out a traditional venture fund?

We haven’t, but we’ve never really been traditional guys in that sense, and traditions don’t necessarily last forever. I do believe that venture crowdfunding will replace a significant portion of the venture capital stack in the future. This just has to be the case. Right now we see the majority of syndicate activity at the seed level, but it’s conceivable that later rounds could be filled out by syndicates down the road. By increasing liquidity, access and flexibility on both sides of the ledger, the crowdfunding model has the potential to greatly improve the power of the venture capital marketplace.

We’re more interested in exploring this new path before walking down the existing one.

Semil Shah is a guest contributor to StrictlyVC. Shah is currently a venture advisor to Bullpen Capital and GGV Capital.

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New Fundings

Accion Systems, a 2.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that spun out of M.I.T. and is working on more affordable and reliable satellite propulsions systems, has raised $2 million in seed funding led byFounders Fund. Other participants in the round include RRE Ventures,SDF Ventures, Founder Collective, Galvanize Ventures, and Slow Ventures. The Boston Business Journal has more here.

Aduro Biotech, a 14-year-old, Berkeley, Ca.-based company that’s developing drugs that aim to teach the body’s immune system to fight cancer, has raised a $51.4 million in Series D from OrbiMed, Janus Capital Management, funds managed by Franklin Advisers, andForesite Capital Management. The company has now raised $130 million to date. The San Francisco Business Times has more here.

Apervita, a 3.5-year-old, Chicago-based health analytics marketplace, has raised $18 million in Series A funding co-led by GE Ventures and Baird Capital, with participation from Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Math Ventures and returning seed investors. The Chicago Tribune has more here.

Caremerge, a four-year-old, Chicago-based care coordination platform, has raised $4 million in funding led by Cambia Health Solutions, with participation from Generator Ventures, GE Ventures, Arsenal Venture Partners and Ziegler-LinkAge Longevity Fund. The company has raised $6.1 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

CommonFloor.com, a seven-year-old, Bangalore, India-based online real estate and apartment management portal that raised $30 million from Tiger Global Management in September, has just raised another, undisclosed, amount of funding from Google Capital. (The deal marks Google Capital’s third investment in Asia investment, notes TechCrunch.) Not including Google’s new investment, CommonFloor has raised $47.9 million from investors, including Accel Partners.

Dato, a 1.5-year-old, Seattle-based platform for using scalable machine learning to build predictive apps (it was formerly called GraphLab), has raised $18.5 million in Series B funding from Vulcan Capital and Opus Capital. Earlier backers New Enterprise Associates and Madrona Venture Group also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $25.3 million.

Genkyotex, a 8.5-year-old, Geneva, Switzerland-based drug development company that’s focused right now on stalling the progression of kidney damage, has raised $21 million in Series D funding led by NeoMed Management, VI Partners and BioMedInvest, with participation from earlier backers Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, Eclosion2, and Vesalius Biocapital Partners. The company has now raised $72.8 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Par8o, a four-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based cloud-based “healthcare operating system” that aims to create a common point of contact for coordinating care delivery and plan design, has raised a $10.5 million in Series A funding from Atlas Venture, Founder Collective, CHV Capital and Allscripts. BostInno has more here.

Pivot Freight, a 1.5-year-old, Austin, Tx.-based online comparison engine that helps companies ship freight, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Silverton Partners, with participation from Techstars’s Bullet Time Ventures, Capital Factory, Hurt Family Investments and angel investors.

Privateer, a 3.5-year-old, Seattle-based operating company focused on cannibas-related companies, has raised $75 million in Series B funding, including from Founders Fund. So far, the company, which has now raised $99 million altogether, has acquired a cannabis review site called Leafly, launched a Canadian marijuana-by-mail company called Tilray, and announced a venture with Bob Marley’s family to create cannabis strains and related products. Recode has more here.

Purplle, a 3.5-year-old, Mumbai, India-based beauty and grooming e-commerce platform, has raised more than $5 million in Series A funding from IvyCap Ventures. The company had received an earlier, undisclosed, amount of backing from Blume Ventures, Mumbai Angels and The Chennai Angels. More here.

Scratch, a five-month-old, Boston-based startup that works with personal shoppers to help users select gifts and other items, has raised $600,000 in seed funding from Bessemer Venture Partners. The Boston Globe has more here.

Soylent, the 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of a buzzed-about nutritional supplement of the same name, is raising just over $10 million at a pre-money valuation of $100 million led by Andreessen Horowitz, reports Recode. More here.

Stem, a 3.5-year-old, Millbrae, Ca.-based startup that offers battery storage for use on the electric grid (it stores power during non-peak hours), has raised $27 million in Series B funding, including fromConstellation Technology Ventures and Total Energy Ventures. The company has now raised roughly $40 million altogether, including fromGeneral Electric, Iberdrola SA, and Angeleno Group.

VHX, a 3.5-year-old, Brooklyn-based online digital distribution platform, is raising a $5 million round led by Comcast Ventures, reports Recode. Earlier backers, including Union Square Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, and Reddit Chairman Alexis Ohanian, are also participating. The round will bring the company’s total funding to $9.5 million.

VocalZoom, a five-year-old, Yokneam, Israel-based developer of sensors for speech enhancement, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Motorola Solutions. The company had previously raised $650,000 in seed funding, shows Crunchbase.

Vtesse, a new, Gaithersburg, Md.-based startup spun out of the orphan-drug accelerator Cydan Development, has raised $25 million in Series A funding to develop a treatment for Niemann-Pick disease type C. The funding comes from Alexandria Venture Investments, Bay City Capital, Lundbeckfond Ventures, Pfizer Venture Investments, and New Enterprise Associates.

WeLab, a two-year-old, Sheung Wan, China-based Internet finance company, has raised $20 million from DST Global founder Yuri Milner,ICONIQ Capital, and Ule, along with previous investors Sequoia Capital and TOM Group. Tech in Asia has more here.

Xeris Pharmaceuticals, a nine-year-old, Austin, Tx.-based company that’s developing injectable treatments for diabetes, epilepsy and other diseases, has raised $17.9 million in Series B funding from undisclosed investors. The company has raised at least $21.7 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

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New Funds

Spruce Capital Partners of San Francisco and Xeraya Capital of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, have raised $150 million for their newest fund, MLS Capital Fund II. The fund is a successor to the $162 million Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund, which is also co-managed by Spruce Capital Partners and Xeraya Capital. The firms plan to invest the capital in a “biogreentech” companies at all stages of development.

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Exits

Hike, a messaging app based in India, has purchased Zip Phone, a year-old, Y Combinator-backed startup, for an undisclosed amount. This is Hike’s first acquisition. Hike has raised $86 million from Tiger Global Management and BSB. TechCrunch has more details here.

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People

Deutsche Bank has appointed two new tech IPO heads. Kristin DeClarkwill now lead technology equity capital markets on the West Coast. DeClark was previously a managing director at Credit Suisse. Chris Cormier was also named Deutsche Bank’s head of technology equity capital markets. He joined the bank a decade ago.

Evernote, the seven-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company whose note-taking app is used by more than 100 million people, has laid off about 20 employees in offices around the globe, reports the Verge. More here.

Doug Gilstrap has joined Technology Crossover Ventures as a venture partner in the firm’s New York office. Gilstrap was previously chief strategy officer for Ericsson in Stockholm and New York.

Abie Katz, who spent the last 2.5 years as an associate at Crunchfund, has left the outfit to join August Capital as an associate. Katz attracted some attention for leaving college to pursue a career in venture capital several years ago, beginning with Merus Capital, where he spent six months.

Groupon cofounder and CEO Eric Lefkofsky is reportedly the “mystery buyer” of a historic $19.5 million 15,800-square-foot mansion in Glencoe, Illinois that was purchased last summer and boasts a swimming pool and tennis courts, among other amenities. Business Insider has more here.

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Job Listings

Glassdoor, the jobs site, is looking for a director of business development. The job is in Mill Valley, Ca.

Sapphire Ventures is looking for a director of business development. The job is in Palo Alto, Ca.

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Data

In 2014, a total of 504 venture capital financing deals were announced in the Greater China region, up 15 percent from a year earlier. Total transaction value reached $12.8 billion, up 212 percent compared to 2013, according to data tracker Preqin. China Money Network has more here.

Sequoia Capital, SAIF Partners and Accel Partners emerged as the most active venture backers of India-based tech companies last year, according to the research firms TOI and Tracxn. Times of India has more here.

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Essential Reads

Challenged by upstarts, lenders try a new tack — cooperation.

Jeff Bezos bought Marc Lore’s company; now Lore is coming for him.

—–

Detours

The big kahunas of surfboard design.

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Retail Therapy

Perforated sneaks.

—–

Corrections

Yesterday, we also sent you to a creepy picture of famed director John Waters instead of a business analyst position at HarbourVest in Boston. Here’s the correct link.

Good morning, everyone!

StrictlyVC’s inaugural INSIDER event is coming up on February 12. Woot! Featured speakers include Naval Ravikant of AngelList, Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures, and Strava CEO and cofounder Mark Gainey. As an added bonus (that, full disclosure, is just dumb luck), attendees will enjoy a private viewing of a Banksy piece that’s headed to the gallery of San Francisco’s Next World Capital, which is hosting the early evening program.

Tickets are going fast and space is limited. If you’d like to come, you can purchase your tickets here.

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Top News in the A.M.

Apple‘s next major Mac revealed!

Uber was ordered yesterday to suspend operations in five of its six dispatch bases in New York after failing to fork over data demanded of it by the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission.

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Todd Chaffee of IVP: Uber “Wins This,” Could Be “Googlesque”

Todd Chaffee has spent the last fourteen years as a managing director at Institutional Venture Partners, a Sand Hill firm that has evolved into a powerful late-stage investor over that period. (It celebrated its 101th IPO last month when the small business lender OnDeck went public.) Given the market zigs and zags that he has witnessed, we asked Chaffee — famous for his investments in Twitter and HomeAway – to share what he’s seeing in the late-stage market right now. We chatted yesterday in a conversation that has been edited for length.

Just how bad are late-stage valuations right now?

They’re high. They’re extraordinarily high. At the same time, the companies we’re seeing are more interesting, with more attractive business models and stronger and faster revenue growth than we’ve seen before. So it’s a little like, prices are high, but these are amazing companies. It’s a bit of a high-wire act.

Have you been passing on deals you like?

We’re very selective. We see several thousand deals a year, evaluate several hundred, and last year we made 14 investments. It’s a funny time because prices are so high, but these companies are so cool. When you have great management, a big market, and numbers [moving] up and to the right, you have to pay a high price.

IVP hasn’t backed one of the most highly valued private companies in the U.S.: Uber. Why?

Uber is in our “anti portfolio.” It’s a phenomenal company, with probably more potential than any other private company that’s out there right now. It could be Googlesque.

Why not jump into one of its many, ongoing rounds then? Is it too richly priced at this point?

We don’t have current numbers, but I know it’s beating its numbers all the time. . . That said, its valuation is way, way ahead of the fundamentals in every round. We usually don’t have to stretch too far; we don’t have to pay crazy prices to access top companies.

Would you make another bet on this trend of people driving less?

I think Uber wins this and will be the dominant player with the largest market share by a long shot. You can be the number two or three player, but it’s tough. Generally, we’ve found that if you back the market leader, it will drive the greater returns.

What about the so-called connected home? It’s all anyone can talk about this week because of CES.

We invested in Dropcam [acquired last summer by Nest Labs] and we were looking at Nest before Google acquired it [a year ago]. Those were the best two companies in that space as far as we could tell.

I do think there’s opportunity there, but I also think [the connected home is] part of the hype cycle and that we haven’t reached the “trough of disillusionment” yet. We’re still in the “this is going to be amazing” phase.

You came to IVP long ago from American Express and Visa. What do you make of today’s payment technologies?

Payments are a funny thing. They migrate very slowly. We’ve been using paper and coins for thousands of years. Also, the thing about payments systems that people forget is that it isn’t a technology problem; it’s a system of guarantees. That’s what makes a payment system work – not whether the wireless NFC [reader] or the magnetic strip on the credit card will work.

It’s the chicken-or-egg problem, too. We used to see this at Visa, where we wanted to roll out smart cards globally. You have to equip merchants with readers, which is really expensive. Meanwhile, you aren’t going to get a smart card if you can’t use it anywhere. It’s tricky.

How do you feel about Bitcoin?

I don’t know what to make of Bitcoin. I’ve looked at it. I saw the wave of payment systems back in the [dot com] era: CyberCash and DigiCash and all those players and passed on them, which was the right thing to do. Bitcoin seems to have more momentum. I’m just not sure. The payment system works pretty well right now.

What interests you more?

I’m very interested in security companies right now. There are huge issues underway. There are fires in the building – right now – in enterprise.

We think the media world is fascinating, with big incumbent players just kind of losing it while companies like Vice and Buzzfeed and Business Insider – one of our portfolio companies – are showing up and saying, “We know how to work mobile and social.”

We also think — to [riff] on Marc Andreessen’s [2011 observation] that software is eating the world — that mobile is eating software. Mobile is eating the web.

IVP has backed Snapchat and Dropbox, which are riding that trend. What about startups that are turning smartphones into remote controls for the physical world. Are you interested in delivery service startups, for example?

Not many have broken out and gotten to our stage yet in terms of scale. Also, when you have a physical aspect [to your business], you have to watch the margins. They get tough. If you’re going to deliver things, the operational intensity is high. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it.

Did you look at the grocery delivery company Instacart, which just raised $220 million at a $2 billion valuation?

We did. I know Instacart has a great team and great model and attracted some marquee investors at a staggering valuation. The jury is still out.

Instacart’s newest round was led by Kleiner Perkins, but many deals now involve public market investors who’ve moved into private market investing. How are you getting on with them?

It’s good when they pay a higher price than we do. It’s troubling when they become undisciplined. Most are pretty good. We’re not seeing too many drunken sailors yet. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, though, and you always get one or two [firms] that you’re like, What are those guys doing?

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New Fundings

23andMe, the 8.5-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based personal genetics company, has struck a deal with Genentech that will see the company receiving up to $65 million from the biotech giant in exchange for a look at the health and genetic data that 23andMe collects from its customers on an anonymous but individual basis. Forbes has the story here.

Blend Therapeutics, a 2.5-year-old, Watertown, Ma.-based biopharmaceutical company at work on antibody drug conjugates to treat cancer, has raised $21 million in Series B funding from one new, unnamed investor, and all of Blend’s earlier backers, which include Eminent Venture Capital, Flagship Ventures, NanoDimension, and New Enterprise Associates. The company has now raised $45.8 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

BigTeams, a 14-year-old, Warrenton, Va.-based company that sells software systems to high school athletics programs, has raised $5 million in Series B funding from SWaN & Legend Venture Partners and Capital Sports Ventures. BigTeams also has acquired for undisclosed terms Schedule Star, a Wheeling, W.V.-based maker of high school scheduling software that was backed by Gannett & Co.

Device42, a four-year-old, New Haven, Ct.-based maker of data center management software, has raised $3.5 million from investors, including Connecticut Innovations, Alpine Meridian, Angel Investor Forum, Elm Street Ventures, Long River Ventures and New York Angels.

SiteSpect, an 11-year-old, Boston-based optimization platform aimed at helping web and mobile marketers improve their conversion rates, has raised $13 million from NewSpring Capital in its first outside funding.

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New Funds

Greylock IL, an international affiliate of U.S.-based Greylock Partners, is rebranding as 83North and announcing a new $200 million fund. Venture Capital Dispatch has much more here.

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People

Tracy Hogan has joined Institutional Venture Partners as CFO. Hogan had previously been the CFO and chief compliance officer of Elevation Partners for more than 10 years.

Noel Lee, CEO of the audio tech company Monster, is suing the Apple subsidiary Beats, saying its founders, Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young (Dr. Dre), squeezed Monster out of its interest in the company after it co-designed Beats’s popular headphones. USA Today has more here.

Scott Requadt has been named a managing director at Clarus Ventures, the 10-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based life sciences venture firm. Requadt had joined the firm a decade ago and was promoted to partner in 2010. Clarus is currently raising a new fund. As of last June, the firm had raised $234.2 million toward that effort.

Lior Susan has joined the 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based venture capital firm Formation 8, which recently closed on a new, $500 million fund. Susan previously founded Lab IX, a hardware-focused startup accelerator affiliated with Flextronics. He will be based in the U.S. but will work with startups in the U.S., Israel, and Asia, reports Venture Capital Dispatch.

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Job Listings

HarbourVest Partners is looking for a business analyst. The job is in Boston.

—–

Data

Algorithms will only get you so far, apparently. At least, according to CB Insights, Google Ventures is “average” when it comes to the number of its seed-funded portfolio companies that continue on to raise additional funding.

—–

Essential Reads

This charger boosts batteries in seconds.

This company turns human waste into drinking water.

This CEO says to expect a year of “boutique” acquisitions.

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Detours

A look at how much men and women cry in one sitting and why.

An Honest Letter from Your I.T. Department.

—–

Retail Therapy

You can now pre-order a Mophie for your new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

Oh, come on.