Hi, everyone! We’re so excited to see some of you tomorrow at StrictlyVC’s first INSIDER series event. It’s sold out, but we do have good news for those who wanted to come and couldn’t be accommodated owing to space constraints. We’re now planning a second event at the top of San Francisco’s Transamerica building May 13 (thank you, Rembrandt Venture Partners), and a third event in Boston on June 4 at the expansive offices of OpenView Venture Partners. (Have you seen its roof deck? Let’s use it!)

We’ll have more details about both for you soon. In the meantime, we want to say one last giant thank you to Next World Capital for hosting us tomorrow at its beautiful space. Thanks, too, to our wonderful partners in this endeavor, Ballou PR and Standish Management.

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Top News in the A.M.

Thefts involving smartphones have declined dramatically in three major cities since manufacturers began implementing “kill switches,” authorities said yesterday. More here.

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IVP’s Sandy Miller on Big Banks: They’re “Ideal” Competition

Later this year, the peer-to-peer student loan startup Social Finance (SoFi), will likely go public. If it does, the company – whose marketplace enables college alumni to provide student loans at better rates – will join a line of online lenders in the portfolio of Institutional Venture Partners with similar plans. (IVP’s other investments include OnDeck, the small business lender, which went public in December, and Prosper Marketplace, a peer-to-peer lending platform that appears to be laying the foundation for an IPO later this year.)

Last week, we caught up with Sandy Miller, a longtime general partner at IVP who once managed 3i’s late-stage technology business, as well as cofounded the investment bank Thomas Weisel Partners. We talked about just how many online lending bets the firm might make – and whether those companies might wind up competing head-on in the not-too-distant future.

SoFi just raised $200 million. It’s reportedly valued at $1.3 billion and poised to go public. But student loans are just the beginning for the firm. Is IVP at all concerned that its portfolio companies will start knocking into each other?

All of our investments are completely different businesses. OnDeck is lending to small businesses, a market that the banks have really abandoned. Meanwhile, SoFi lends primarily to relatively recent, well-educated college graduates, refinancing their student loans as a next step in these young professionals’ careers. We don’t know what the businesses will do [going forward], but online lending is an enormous category; there’s plenty of room [for everyone].

Everyone is so confident that big banks like Wells Fargo will completely cede this territory. Why?

Regulation and litigation from the financial crisis is part of it. It’s also a matter of technology. Most of the big banks have been built up through a series of acquisitions, and all are dealing with legacy architectures and cumbersome bureaucracies. Because their cost structure is so high, they can’t compete. They reflexively look at small loans as not profitable, whereas small loans can be very profitable for younger, nimble companies using advanced technology.

IVP has placed numerous bets on online lending companies. Are you actively looking for more?

We have four online lending companies: OnDeck, Prosper, SoFi, and Opportune, which focuses on the underbanked Hispanic community. There’s nothing imminent [in terms of new investments], but we’re really happy with the four companies we’ve backed and we think that finance overall is one of the most attractive areas of new investment because of several factors. First, it’s an absolutely massive category. Also, it’s all digital, compared with some companies that have to ship stuff that’s delivered to your door. Third, the big banks are ideal companies to have as competitors for the reasons we’ve just discussed.

You say it’s all digital, but people still need to go to the bank on occasion. Do you think we’ll see more of these lenders lease space for marketing and other business purposes, as we’re seeing happen with online retailers?

A lot of businesses do benefit from both an offline and online presence. Opportune has locations in targeted geographies. The others [of our portfolio companies] don’t have any plans [to create storefronts] as far as I know, but the concept is a valid one and I do think more tech businesses will be marrying offline and online.

IVP has finance companies beyond online lending. How much of your time do you think you’ll spend looking at and potentially investing in new finance companies in 2015?

We don’t really know until the end of each year. We just look at the best companies. We’re roughly half consumer and half enterprise, and finance cuts across both. We have Personal Capital, for example, an online wealth management platform; and Klarna, for online payments in Europe; and the leading crowdfunding site Indiegogo. There’s quite a range.

Is IVP looking at international opportunities, or do your U.S.-based finance companies have you covered globally?

We generally focus here, but we do find companies in northern Europe that seem to meet our criteria. Regulations vary by country, even state by state in the U.S., so [for these U.S.-based companies to branch out globally] isn’t a trivial task. At the same time, it’s all digital, so these are all potentially global markets. I generally think they’ll move cautiously since regulations are different everywhere and there’s so much opportunity here.

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New Fundings

Angani, a two-year-old, Nairobi, Kenya-based company that claims to be the first public cloud infrastructure company in the region, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding led by Invested Development, with participation from Africa’s Talking, Savannah Fund, and Africa Angels Network.

Alice, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based platform that allows hoteliers to provide mobile services to their guests so they can secure tables, order tickets to shows and more, has raised $3 million in seed funding from the property management company Tishman Realty, 645 Ventures and numerous angel investors.

AppDirect, a 5.5-year-old, San Francisco, Ca.-based start-up focused on helping customers like ADP, Samsung, and Comcast sell software online, has raised $50 million in new funding led by earlier backer Mithril Capital Management, with participation from private equity magnate Henry Kravis and ContiGroup chairman and CEO Paul Fribourg. The company has now raised $105.8 million to date, shows Crunchbase. Dealbook has more here.

Bento, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that offers businesses a full-featured Mastercard that allows them to set rules by employee, place, time and category, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by Anthemis Group. Other participants in the round include Blumberg Capital, LionBird and Pivot Investment Partners. More here.

Borro, a 6.5-year-old, U.K.-based online platform for luxury asset-backed lending, has raised $19.5 million in new funding co-led by the crowdfunding platform OurCrowd and Rocket Internet, with participation from earlier backers Canaan Partners, Eden Ventures and Augmentum Capital. The company has now raised $171.6 million altogether, most of it through a $112 million Series D round that closed a year ago.

Bottlenose, a four-year-old, L.A.-based data analytics startup, has raised $13.4 million in Series B funding led by KPMG Capital, with participation from Origin Ventures and earlier backers, including Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Transmedia Capital, ff Venture Capital, and others. The company has raised $17 million to date.

Capital Float, a two-year-old, Bangalore-based financial tech startup that wants to make it easier for small businesses in India to get loans, has raised $13 million in Series A funding led by SAIF Partners and Sequoia Capital, with participation from earlier backer Aspada. The company has raised $17 million to date.

ComparaGuru, a six-month-old, Mexico City, Mexico-based price comparison site that helps consumers and companies order a variety of financial products, has raised $4 million in funding from the Spanish venture capital firm Seaya Ventures.

EPatientFinder, a two-year-old, Austin, Tx.-based platform that connects patients with clinical trials, has raised $2.6 million in Series A funding through Parsons & Whittemore, alongside a group of angel investors. The company had previously raised $1.4 million in seed funding.

Faaso’s, a two-year-old, Pune, India-based Indian fast food chain that primarily sells wraps, has raised $16 million in Series B funding from Sequoia Capital and Lightbox Ventures. According to the outlet Inc42, the company also just raised $4 million in debt financing.

Fancy, a six-year-old, New York-based social shopping platform, has raised $20 million in Series D funding led by billionaire Carlos Slim, reports TechCrunch. Fancy has now raised roughly $124 million altogether, including from Allen & Co., General Catalyst Partners, and a long list of big-name angel investors, including entrepreneur Jack Dorsey.

Hammer & Chisel, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based online gaming company, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from Tencent Holdings, Benchmark, and the accelerator 9+. TechCrunch has more here.

Inoviem Scientific, an 18-month-old, Strasbourg, France-based contract research biotech firm, has raised €500,000 ($566,000) in seed funding led by Cap Innov’Est, a $41 million seed-stage fund.

Lamudi, a two-year-old, Berlin-based real estate classifieds site serving emerging markets in Asia, South America and beyond, has raised $19 million in new funding led by Holtzbrinck Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Rocket Internet and Tengelmann Ventures. The company has now raised $25 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Locket, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose mobile app pushes personalized news and other stories to users’ Android phone lock screens, has raised $3.2 million in seed funding, including from entertainer Tyra Banks, Turner Broadcasting, Great Oaks Venture Capital and numerous angel investors. The company has raised $3.7 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

MineralTree, a five-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company whose Web-based software helps companies manage their accounts payable, has raised $11.1 million in Series B funding led by the payments processor First Data Corp. Earlier backers .406 Ventures and Fidelity Growth Partners also joined the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $22.7 million..

Miovision Technologies, a 10-year-old, Kitchener, Ontario-based company that uses video to analyze traffic data, has raised $24 million in Series B funding led by MacKinnon, Bennett & Co., with participation from Investeco Capital, Renewal Funds, Plaza Ventures and Comerica.

Move Loot, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that helps sellers make money off their used goods by picking them up, taking pictures of them, storing them and delivering them to buyers once payment has been made, has secured $9 million led by Metamorphic Ventures. Other participants in the round include First Round Capital, Index Ventures, Great Oaks Venture Capital, IDG Capital Partners, and Sherpa Ventures. The company has now raised $11.8 million altogether, including from Y Combinator and Google Ventures.

New Matter, a 14-month-old, Pasadena, Ca.-based company at work on affordable 3D printers, has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding led by Alsop Louie Partners, with participation from Arden Road Investments, Dolby Family Ventures, First Round Capital, Idealab and frogVentures. GigaOm has more here.

NinePoint Medical, a 4.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based maker of medical devices for advanced optical imaging, has secured a $15 million venture loan facility led by Horizon Technology Finance Corporation. The company had previously raised $67 million from investors, including Corning, Third Rock Ventures, and Prospect Venture Partners.

Proletariat, a 2.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based multiplayer games maker, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Spark Capital, with participation from Atlas Venture and FirstMark Capital.

Quixey, a six-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based search engine that helps people discover the right mobile apps for their needs, is reportedly raising $60 million in Series D funding at a $600 million valuation led by the e-commerce giant Alibaba, with Twitter, SoftBank Corp., an investment platform controlled by investor George Soros, Goldman Sachs, and GGV Capital participating. The company has previously raised $74.9 million, including via a $50 million round in 2013 led by Alibaba.

Rally Bus, a four-year-old, New Haven, Ct.-based startup that offers crowdsourced event travel on luxury buses, has raised $1.25 million in seed funding from the YEI Innovation Fund (run by the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute), Connecticut Innovations, First Niagara Bank, and angel investors.

Sigfox a 5.5-year-old, Toulouse, France-based cellular network that aims to be a bigger player in the market for internet connected objects, has raised $115 million (€100 million) in Series D funding from earlier backer Partech Ventures, along with new investors, such as telecom operator Telefonica SA, Korea’s SK Telecom and Japan’s NTT DoCoMo. The company has now raised roughly $150 million altogether.TechCrunch has more here.

Team8, a months-old, Tel Aviv, Israeli-based cybersecurity startup foundry and think tank, has raised $18 million in Series A funding, including from Alcatel-Lucent, Bessemer Venture Partners, Cisco Investments andInnovation Endeavors. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Thirty Labs, an eight-month-old, New York-based video-focused startup studio, has raised $2 million in funding from a long list of investors, including Elisabeth Murdoch,Tumblr founder David Karp, Bloomberg Beta, and Advancit Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Wandera, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based secure mobile gateway company, has raised $15 million in new funding led by 83North, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners. The company has raised $25 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Zig Bang, a Seoul, Korea-based apartment hunting app, has raised $18 million from Company K Partners and Stone Bridge Management. The company had reportedly raised $8.21 million from investors previously.

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New Funds

Lux Capital, a 15-year-old venture capital firm that’s focused on physical and life sciences and has offices in New York and Menlo Park, Ca., is looking to raise up to $350 million for its fourth fund, shows an SEC filing. StrictlyVC talked about the firm and how it works with partner Shahin Farshchi last summer.

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New Fundings

PGI Specialty Materials, a 5.5-year-old, Charlotte, N.C.-based producer of polymer-based personal and industrial nonwoven materials (they’re used in everything from diapers to those indestructible disinfectant wipes), has registered plans to raise up to $100 million in an IPO. The company is owned by Blackstone. Reuters has more here.

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Exits

Curby, an L.A.-based valet parking app that allows its customers to monitor cars and staff in real time, has been acquired by a local competitor, CurbStand, in a cash and stock deal whose value isn’t being disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

Mortar Data, a 4.5-year-old, predictive analytics company, has been acquired for undisclosed terms by Datadog, a 4.5-year-old company whose software helps customers monitor what’s happening within their IT infrastructures. According to TechCrunch and Crunchbase, Mortar Data had raised just $3 million in equity and debt, while Datadog has raised $53.4 million from a long list of investors, including Amplify Partners, IA Ventures, OpenView Venture Partners, RTP Ventures, and Index Ventures.

Pentaho, a 10.5-year-old, Orlando, Fl.-based big-data platform-integration and business-analytics startup, has been acquired by Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd, for an undisclosed amount that the companies are describing as the “the largest private big data acquisition transaction to date.” Crunchbase shows Pentaho had raised $72 million from investors, including DAG Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Index Ventures, and Benchmark.

Rocket Internet has agreed to purchase two online food takeaway operators in the Middle East. It will pay around 150 million euros ($169 million) to acquire Talabat, based in Kuwait. The company will become part of Rocket’s newly created Global Online Takeaway Group. Rocket also said its 50-percent-owned Foodpanda had struck a deal to buy24h.ae, a strong player in the United Arab Emirates. Reuters has more here.

StudioKUMA, a Hong Kong-based company whose app filters out marketing calls and suspicious numbers, has been acquired for undisclosed terms by Gogolook, a subsidiary of Korean Internet giant Naver. TechCrunch has more here.

Voltage, a 13-year-old, Cupertino, Ca.-based encryption and tokenization technology company, is being acquired by Hewlett-Packard for undisclosed terms. Crunchbase shows the company had raised at least $27.6 million from investors, including Icon Ventures, Siemens Venture Capital, Trident Capital, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, and Menlo Ventures.

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People

Erik Bardman is the new chief financial officer of the software tools maker Atlassian. Bardman had previously served as the CFO of Roku and Logitech, among other past jobs. Atlassian’s former CFO, Alex Estevez, is now a venture advisor with Accel Partners.

Anthony Noto, the top Goldman banker turned Twitter CFO, was unpleasantly surprised yesterday when his Twitter account was hijacked, sending his 13,000 followers roughly 300 spam tweets over the course of 20 minutes. The Verge has more here.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, Google CEO Larry Page, Nest Labs CEO Tony Fadell, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Sun co-founders Scott McNealy and Bill Joy, and Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster are among other Detroit natives to take over the tech world. As Detroit “finds its footing as a modern city,” here’s what many of them have to say about what’s happening in their hometown.

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Jobs

Ubeam, the wireless power startup, is in the market for a VP of manufacturing and production. The job is in L.A.

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Essential Reads

The mathematical theory cited by analysts to justify concerns over Apple’s growth potential doesn’t really exist, says Apple CEO Tim Cook.

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Detours

How to be a rock star for $290.

Timelapse video of a slow-moving landslide.

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Retail Therapy

The $100 wallet.

Egg balls. Because.

Happy Tuesday, dear readers!

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Top News in the A.M.

The Obama administration is establishing a new agency to combat the deepening threat from cyberattacks. The Washington Post has the story here.

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At Venture Firms, Balancing Brands Within Brands

There was a time in venture capital when it was almost unthinkable for investing professionals to make personal bets on startups outside their firms. That seemingly began to change about a decade ago. For example, after Accel Partners made an early bet on Facebook that would prove among the most lucrative in venture history, the high-profile partner who’d taken a seat on Facebook’s board, Jim Breyer, began backing a variety of companies through a personal fund, Breyer Capital. Tim Draper, a cofounder of DFJ, similarly began making investments unrelated to DFJ long before leaving an active investing role at the firm in late 2013.

Whether VCs are doing more angel investing today is an open question; no one yet tracks their collective personal investments. But it’s a rare week when at least some funding announcements don’t feature VCs who are backing startups with their own checks.

It’s easy to appreciate why. Sometimes, the investments being made are too small for a fund, or they fall outside a firm’s wheelhouse. In a crowded landscape, the brand of an individual VC can also help a firm win competitive deals; allowing the VC’s involvement in as many promising companies as possible is a means toward that end.

But there are pitfalls. For one thing, conflicts can arise. If a VC has a personal stake in a new productivity app, what happens if another partner brings a different, competing productivity app into the firm? An employee’s headspace can be taken up by a company that’s not part of the firm’s portfolio. You could probably also argue that every side deal a VC makes undermines the decision-making process of his or her partners — especially in cases where those angel investments turn into home runs.

The last is a particularly thorny issue for a firm’s LPs. Says one San Francisco-based institutional investor: “If an investor funds a company that hits it big, and the firm isn’t in it, the LPs are going to be mad. They’re going to ask why the hell wasn’t the fund in that deal.”

Still, done right, the trend can be a win for everyone involved. First, side deals can become portfolio companies. Bill Pescatello, a partner at Lightbank in Chicago, has made three angel investments outside his firm, all startups where he “had a direct connection with the founders and/or a very specific connection to the business through my own interests.”

Pescatello adds that in each case, he ran the investment opportunity by Lightbank, which passed on two of the startups but has funded the third.

Niko Bonatsos, a principal at General Catalyst Partners in Palo Alto, Ca., has similarly made two “unique” investments that he first ran past his partners. One of of his checks went to Raise, a Chicago-based gift card marketplace that has since attracted $81.2 million from investors, including $56 million that the company announced just last month. New Enterprise Associates led the deal.

Bonatsos also personally invested in the 2.5-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based anonymous messaging startup Yik Yak. When Bonatsos wrote a check to Yik Yak – he was its first angel investor — it was barely a speck on anyone’s radar. Last November, the company announced $62 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital. (The company has raised $73 million altogether.)

Bonatsos — who scans roughly 30 newsletters and outlets before he starts his day each morning – notes that both were risks, particularly given that principals don’t necessarily have the same bank balance as more established VCs.

He is also quick to add that his firm’s “interests always come first. I’m first and foremost a General Catalyst team member.” Sometimes, he explains, “a founder doesn’t want to raise capital from a venture capital firm right away, and in order for the firm to maintain a relationship with that entrepreneur, it makes sense for someone at the firm to write a personal check.”

In fact, says Bonatsos, if General Catalyst opts to invest in either company down the road, he’ll sell the firm his stake at cost, per a standard arrangement with the firm.

General Catalyst could also pass again. Yik Yak was the sixth most popular social networking app in the world three months ago, according to the analytics firm App Annie. Right now, it’s the 24th most popular social networking app.

“If the VC firm doesn’t [acquire an employee’s stake later], you’re stuck with the angel investment,” says Bonatsos, acknowledging the possibility.

“If things work out, it’s great for you. But there’s also a good chance you’ll lose your money.”

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New Fundings

Aventura, an eight-year-old, Denver-based medical workflow-automation software company, has raised $14 million in Series C funding co-led by Safeguard Scientifics and Merck Global Health Innovation Fund. Earlier backers Excel Venture Management, HLM Venture Partners and Memorial Care Innovation Fund also joined the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $36.3 million, shows Crunchbase.

BitPesa, a 1.5-year-old, Nairobi, Kenya-based remittance platform that uses bitcoin to as a more reliable way to send money to East Africa, has raised $1.1 million in a second round of funding led by Pantera Capital.Other investors included Crypto Currency Partners, Stephens Investment Management, Bitcoin Opportunity Corp., and FuturePerfect Ventures. The company has raised $1.7 million to date.

DigiSight Technologies, a three-year-old, Portola Valley, Ca.-based software company that integrates data from mobile tests into clinical settings, has raised $7.8 million in Series B financing from new investors Biosys Capital, GE Ventures, Lagunita and Waycross Ventures, along with earlier investors.

Grapevine Logic, an 11-month-old, Boston, Ma.-based startup that connects YouTube personalities with brands that hire them, has raised $1.1 million seed funding from Boston Seed, Atlas Ventures, and numerous angel investors.

Humanity, an 11-month-old, San Francisco-based cloud-hosted workforce management platform, has raised $9 million in Series B funding led by MHS Capital, with participation from Klever Internet Investments, Point Nine Capital, Team Builder Ventures and Boku CEO Mark Britto. The company never publicly disclosed the size of its Series A round.

Imagine Health, an 8.5-year-old, Midvale, Ut.-based startup that matches companies insuring their own large workforces with teams of health-care providers, has raised $21 million in Series A funding from Trident Capital and HLM Venture Partners.

NEXTracker, a two-year-old, Freemont, Ca.-based designer and builder of single-axis PV trackers, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by new investor SJF Ventures, with participation from Tennenbaum Capital Partners and earlier backers Sigma Partners and DBL Investors. The company has now raised $30 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. GreenTechMedia has more here.

Parklet, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based HR tech startup, has raised $1.5 million in seed financing from Greylock Partners, Storm Ventures, FundersClub, Winklevoss Capital, Western Technology Investment and numerous angel investors, including KISSMetrics cofounder Hiten Shah. VentureBeat has more here.

Rainforest, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose quality assurance platform marries product mangers with software that needs to be tested with people who can try it out, has raised $4 million in seed funding from Storm Ventures, Rincon Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Morado Venture Partners, and Crosslink Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Vaxxas, a four-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based company whose patch delivers vaccines painlessly through the skin, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by OneVentures. According to Crunchbase, the company has now raised $35 million altogether.

UrbanStems, a year-old, Washington, D.C.-based online flower delivery startup, has raised $1.5 million in seed financing led by Middleland Capital, with participation from Sagamore Ventures, NextGen Angels, and Great Oaks Venture Capital.

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New Funds

Ballast Point Ventures, a 14-year-old, St. Petersburg, Fl.-based growth capital firm, has raised $164 million for its third fund. Among the company’s newer bets is PowerDMS, an Orlando, Fl.-based compliance and content management software startup.

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Exits

Eat24, a seven-year-old, San Bruno, Ca.-based food and delivery service, has been gobbled up by Yelp for $134 million in cash and stock. Eat24 had very proudly raised zero dollars. VentureBeat has more here.

WebPay, a four-year-old, Tokyo, Japan-based company whose Stripe-like service facilitates payment on e-commerce sites, mobile apps and other web-based services, has been acquired by the messaging app companyLine for undisclosed terms. WebPay had raised $1.5 million from undisclosed angel investors, according to Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Entrepreneurs Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki are worth billions of dollars. Inside Philanthropy takes a quick look at the organizations their family foundation is currently supporting.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, are donating $75 million to San Francisco General Hospital to help fund critical equipment and technology for the new public hospital, which is slated to open later this year.

Tech is stepping it up across the board. Giving by tech donors represented nearly half the $9.8 billion in donations made by the 50 people who made the largest charitable contributions last year. Among those individuals, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy: Bill and Melinda Gates; WhatsApp founder Jan Koum; former Facebook president Sean Parker; and Nicholas and Jill Woodman, founders of the camera company GoPro. (Maybe it’s no wonder that San Francisco’s antitech movement has fizzled.)

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Data

Adtech M&A prices take a hit after their IPO troubles last year. Exitround breaks it down here.

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Job Listings

Draper University of Heroes, the nearly two-year-old boarding school for entrepreneurs, is looking for a director of investments and business development. The job is in San Mateo, Cal.

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Essential Reads

On the 10th anniversary of Google Maps, Re/code speaks with the people who were there at the beginning. (Great piece.)

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Detours

Right and Left Shark are back to work in a new ESPN commercial.

How secret Swiss bank accounts actually work.

Love matches: monogamy in the animal kingdom.

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Retail Therapy

Handwriting robots. It has apparently come to this. (We love this option, tho’!)

Happy Monday, everyone! Hope you had a terrific weekend.

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Top News in the A.M.

Eek. A 16-year-old from Pennsylvania is facing murder charges after allegedly killing a classmate and sharing a selfie of himself with the victim over Snapchat.

Starting today, Cubans with Internet connections and access to international payment methods can subscribe to Netflix for $8 a month.

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Venture Gets Liquid, But Top Jobs Remain Scarce, Says Recruiter

Last year was a great time for venture capitalists and their investors. According to the deal database Pitchbook, U.S. venture firms saw a record $78.4 billion in exits across 845 companies, up from $39.5 billion in 2013. In fact, compared with the industry’s most recent nadir in 2009, when VCs saw just $14 billion in exits, it was a flat-out bonanza.

Don’t expect all that liquidity to transform into more venture jobs, though — so says Jon Holman, an executive recruiter who has specialized in CEO and GP searches for more than 30 years, including for firms such as Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital.

Here’s why: While all this recent liquidity has goosed the industry’s returns, the industry’s numbers are still nothing to crow about, particularly given the outperformance that VCs promise their investors. According to the National Venture Capital Association and Cambridge Associates, venture capital bested the DJIA, Nasdaq Composite, and S&P 500 during the last year, but it has tied or been beaten by the indices over the last three and five years.

Venture has more powerfully outperformed some of those same indices over the last 10 and 15 years. But because the public pension funds, endowments, and foundations that pay the industry’s tab aren’t keen to wait that long for meaningful returns, many are pressuring firms to at least lower their high fees (which are typically 2 percent on committed capital and 20 percent carry on any profits).

Says Holman: “It may not be happening to Sequoia, but damn near everybody else is under pressure in terms of their fees and carry.”

That kind of pressure means there’s less money to pass around, raising a question that isn’t difficult for most firms to answer. “They ask: Do we have the same number of partners and everyone makes less money, or do we make do with fewer partners so we can make as much as we used to? The trend over the last 15 years has been to make do with fewer partners.”

Holman says that he does “have the vague sense that there are more associates and [other junior employees] than they’re used to be.” But he says he doesn’t expect that many or most will eventually become general partners, as was once the case at venture firms. “I think now there are more associates who don’t get any share of the carry; that’s how some firms are [maintaining some of their former staffing levels].”

Certainly, it’s worth drawing a distinction between traditional venture firms and other, newer types of firms, including many seed-stage firms that have launched in recent years and are typically run by a former entrepreneur or operator with some help from more junior staffers.

The number of corporate venture firms has mushroomed, too. According to the media company Global Corporate Venturing, over the past four years, more than 475 corporate venture funds have sprung into being, bringing the worldwide total to more than 1,100.

Still, firms that have been around a cycle or two are not hiring aggressively, and that’s not likely to change, suggests Holman.

“Yes, some investors are having nice returns because of these ‘unicorns,’ but that won’t keep up,” says Holman. “Only crazy people think it will keep up. This is an asset class, and all asset classes wax and wane.”

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New Fundings

Fetch Robotics, a seven-month-old, Bay Area-based company that makes human-size ambulatory robots for the industrial warehouses of companies like Amazon, has raised $3 million in funding from Shasta Ventures and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Kura MD, a 1.5-year-old, Roseville, Ca.-based healthcare commerce platform that facilitates HIPAA-compliant telehealth appointments between physicians and patients, has raised $1.5 million in Series A funding from Moneta Ventures, a Folsom, Ca., firm.

Leading Mark, a seven-month-old, Tokyo, Japan-based mobile app for job-seeking college graduates, has raised $1.45 million in Series A funding from Nippon Venture Capital, Mizuho Capital, Link and Motivation,SMBC Venture Capital, East Ventures, and several other angel investors, reports Tech In Asia.

Meizu Technologies, a 12-year-old, Guangdong, China-based smartphone maker, has accepted $590 million in funding from the e-commerce giant Alibaba in exchange for an undisclosed, “minority,” share of its business. As Reuters reports, Alibaba intends to push its mobile operating system within China through Meizu’s handsets. In return, Meizu will get access to Alibaba’s e-commerce sales channels.

NodeSource, a year-old, New York-based corporate software development toolkit for the node.js programming language, has raised $3 million in seed financing from Crosslink Capital and Resolute Ventures.

Quantum Biosystems, a two-year-old, Osaka, Japan-based company that’s developing a fast genome sequencer, has raised $20.5 million in funding from Jafco; Innovation Network Corp. of Japan; Mizuho Capital;University of Tokyo Edge Capital; and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital. Bloomberg has the story here.

SeatGeek, a 5.5-year-old, New York-based search engine for sports and concert tickets, is closing in on a new investment at a valuation of more than $200 million, according to Recode’s sources. Less than six months ago, the company announced $35 million in funding from Accel Partners and some famous athletes, including Peyton and Eli Manning.

Shopline, a 20-month-old, Hong Kong-based startup that offers online tools for e-commerce vendors, has raised $1.2 million in seed funding from 500 Startups, Ardent Capital, SXE Ventures, East Ventures, and COENT Venture Partners. Tech in Asia has more here.

Volusion, a 16-year-old, Austin-based company that sells e-commerce software, web design, and inbound marketing services to online businesses, has received $55 million in venture capital led by Main Street Capital Corp. Main Street provides long-term debt and equity to lower middle market companies.

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New Funds

Aligned Partners, a three-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based venture firm “dedicated to helping founders start lean and stay lean,” has raised $50 million for its second fund. Run by general partners Jodi Sherman and Susan Mason, the firm’s first fund closed with roughly $26 million in commitments.

Line, the 15-year-old, Tokyo, Japan-based company behind a popular calling and messaging app in Japan, is launching a $42 million venture fund called Line Life Global Gateway to fund startups that provide online-to-offline, e-commerce, payment, media, and entertainment services. TechCrunch has more here.

MasterLink Securities, a 26-year-old, Taipei, Taiwan-based brokerage, is setting up a venture capital firm in Tianjin, reports The China Post. The company expects the new venture capital firm, which will launch with roughly $16 million, to open for operations next month.

Nautilus Venture Partners, a new firm cofounded by a pair or former corporate investors – Connie Sheng, formerly of Foxconn Technology Group, and Brian Kang, formerly of Samsung Ventures — has launched and is looking for up to $150 million for its debut fund, according to an SEC filing that was first flagged by Fortune.

—–

IPOs

SteadyMed Therapeutics, a 10-year-old, Tel Aviv- and San Francisco-based company that makes a “patch-pump” gadget to steadily deliver drugs to the body, has filed to go public on the Nasdaq. It hasn’t yet disclosed how many shares it will offer or at what price. Its largest outside shareholders include Samson Venture Partners, which owns 12.8 percent of the company; Deerfield Management, which owns 6.7 percent; and Federated Investors, which also owns 6.7 percent. According to Crunchbase, the company has raised $15.4 million from investors altogether.

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Exits

Enviance, a 16-year-old, Carlsbad, Ca.-based software company focused on environmental, health and safety compliance, has been acquired by Battery Ventures for undisclosed terms.

Odysee, a four-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based iOS and Android app that people use to automatically back up, as well as to share, their smartphone photos and videos, has been acquired by Google for undisclosed terms. The company appears to have raised less than $1 million in seed funding. TechCrunch has more here.

ZenCash, a four-year-old, Dallas-based company that makes cloud-based accounts receivable software, is shutting down next month, it announced on its blog last week. The company had raised two undisclosed amounts of funding from Aristos Ventures.

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People

According to Seeking Alpha, Marc Andreessen, who joined the board of Facebook in 2008, just sold 33 percent of his indirect and direct holdings in the company.

Facebook has spent an estimated $400 million to acquire a 56-acre industrial park immediately south of its current Menlo Park headquarters, reports Silicon Valley Business Journal. The company has said that it will consider building mixed-use housing, retail, and even a hotel on the property.

The London-based office of Google Ventures hasn’t made any bets yet, despite the $125 million it launched with six months ago, reports TechWorld. Bill Maris, the corporate arm’s CEO, told The Independent last year that there’s no pressure to rush into any investments. “My instructions to the team are to avoid losing money rather than aggressively seeking to just do something. It’s like when you become a doctor and they say: first rule, don’t kill anyone. First thing: don’t lose money; next, let’s try to make some money.”

On Friday, a judge rejected venture capitalist Vinod Khosla‘s bid for a new trial in the legal fight over public access at Martins Beach, an isolated cove on the San Mateo County coast. The San Jose Mercury News hasmore here.

Peter Pham, cofounder of the Santa Monica, Ca.-based incubator Science, was incensed after an alleged hate crime took place six blocks from his Manhattan Beach home. Determined to catch the perpetrator, he turned to Twitter, the neighborhood social network Nextdoor, and the fundraising site Fundly, to quickly raise more than $27,000 as a reward to catch the person. USA Today has the story here.

Jeff Veen has joined True Ventures as a design partner. Veen, a former user experience manager at Google, had cofounded the web-based typography comapny TypeKit, acquired by Adobe in 2011. Veen then stayed on, working as a VP at Adobe until last month.

—–

Job Listings

Flextronics, the publicly traded electronics manufacturer, is looking to hire a VP of business development. The job is in San Jose, Ca.

Okta, the venture-backed identify and mobile management service, is hiring a director or business development to focus on mobile partnerships. The job is in San Francisco.

—–

Data

The angel network Tech Coast Angels invested a total of $16.4 million across 61 deals last year, making 2014 the most active year since the network’s 1997 founding in terms of both number of deals funded and capital committed. More here.

—–

Essential Reads

PCH Innovations is buying the e-commerce company Fab in a deal reportedly valued at $15 million to $50 million, based on PCH’s stock. Business Insider outlines where the company, which had raised $330 million from investors, went wrong.

Vice takes readers inside the Chinese bitcoin mine that’s making $1.5 million a month.

—–

Detours

The rise of the secret buyer.

Forget 15 minutes; it’s now a 15-seconds-of-nano-fame kind of world.

Health Experts Recommend Standing Up at Desk, Leaving Office, Never Coming Back.

—–

Retail Therapy

Maybe it’s us, but these don’t seem like the greatest idea.

Meanwhile, in Japan . . .

It’s Friday, the most glorious weekday of all. Have a great weekend, everyone! (Web visitors, here’s an easier-to-read version of today’s newsletter.)

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Twitter‘s user base barely grew at all in the fourth quarter, the company revealed yesterday. But on a brighter note, its revenue nearly doubled to $479 million. The WSJ has more here.

—–

At StartX Demo Day, a Wide Variety of Startups

Little about the accelerator program StartX is conventional. On the one hand, the 5.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based outfit is a nonprofit that helps founders affiliated with Stanford University to build peer groups, as well as their confidence. Specifically, it provides companies with 10 weeks of free educational programming about everything from setting goals to launching products.

But StartX is also becoming a power player, owing largely to a deal it struck in September 2013 with Stanford University and Stanford Health Care, which asked it to manage a for-profit vehicle on their behalf — uncapped capital that StartX now uses to invest in up to 10 percent of its founders’ rounds.

You can actually see StartX’s growing influence. Not only does the 16-person outfit now operate out of 13,000 square feet of office space, but at a demo day yesterday, on the heels of one of StartX’s three yearly sessions, roughly 200 investors stood elbow-to-elbow in a nook of that space to hear 20 of its companies ask them for funding.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the companies were a tad unconventional, too.

One presenting company, Summer Technologies, a sustainable agriculture startup, is hoping to transform the cattle industry by bringing analytics to grazing management. Currently, says CEO Christine Su, farmers aren’t making the most of their land. They allow their cows to graze too long in one place, when moving them around more frequently would keep the grass and soil healthier. Summer’s software, currently being piloted at 30 ranches across five states, pulls in rain, soil and other data that can help those farmers boost their productivity.

Another company, Payjoy, aims to bring consumer finance to hundreds of millions of people in India and elsewhere by embedding technology in smartphones and TVs that allows them to pay for the products as they’re used, instead of in up-front cash. Striking the right relationships would seem to be a big hurdle for Payjoy, but founder Doug Ricket, a former Google engineer, has spent the last six years selling technologies into the developing world; presumably, he has a network to leverage.

Vouch, a third startup, also has an unusual approach to what’s an increasingly crowded space. It intends to use the creditworthiness of a borrower’s personal network, as well as their own individual data, to tailor personal loans for its users. Think friends, uncles, cousins. It sounds a little out there, but online lending is obviously a huge and growing market, and the team includes former alums of PayPal and Prosper, among other companies.

How far these companies will go is anyone’s guess. But the portfolio of StartX appears to hold promise. Since launching its fund with Stanford’s capital — it’s called the Stanford-StartX Fund — StartX has invested $31.4 million across 82 companies, 9.2 percent of which have already been acquired.

At least one company, six-year-old, San Francisco-based Life360, looks like a breakout success story, too. Right now, two million families are signing up for its family communication app each month — traction that investors have noticed. (The company has raised $76 million to date.)

Of course, the organization has also seen its flops. Though 88.5 percent of its companies are still up and running, StartX readily admits that another 11.4 percent have gone out of business.

If press reports are to be believed, one of its highest-profile portfolio companies – the payment startup Clinkle – may be headed in the same direction.

For a full list of the companies that presented yesterday/are looking for funding, click here.

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New Fundings

Airtame, a 1.5-year-old, Copenhagen-based startup whose wireless dongle allows users to broadcast their computer of phone screen to a TV or projector, has raised $1.4 million in seed funding led by the Danish firm SEED Capital, along with Tommy Andersen, founder of the wireless speaker company Libratone. The company had previously raised $1.3 million through the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo.

Armetheon, a four-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based biopharmaceutical company at work on an anticoagulant, has raised $24.3 million in Series B funding from a syndicate including Hercules Bioventure Partners and Capital TEN II. The company has now raised $31.3 million altogether. FierceBiotech has more here.

Culture Machine, a two-year-old, Mumbai-based digital video startup that enables its users to create, promote and monetize their videos on YouTube, has raised $18 million in Series B funding from Tiger Global Management, along with earlier backers Zodius Capital and Times Internet Limited. The company has raised at least $21.5 million to date. DealCurry has more here.

Delivery Hero, a four-year-old, Berlin-based food delivery company, has raised $586 million from publicly traded Rocket Internet, the Berlin-based e-commerce group, which now holds a 30 percent stake in Delivery Hero’s business. Rocket’s earlier food delivery business, FoodPanda, has meanwhile snapped up stakes in six other rival sites across seven countries. The company is stuffing all the assets into a new subsidiary called its Global Online Takeaway Group.TechCrunch has much morehere.

FreeCharge, a 4.5-year-old, Mumbai, India-based mobile commerce platform that gives users coupons and other rewards when they pay their phone, TV, and utility bills, has raised $80 million in Series C funding from new investors Valiant Capital Management and Tybourne Capital Management. Earlier backers Sequoia Capital, RuNet, and Sofina also joined the round. The company has now raised $115 million altogether.

Greenlight Planet, a 6.5-year-old, Riverside, Il.-based company that designs and distributes solar-powered lanterns to villages in rural India and Africa, has raised $10 million in new funding led by Fidelity Growth Partners India. The company has raised $14 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Lineage Labs, a months-old, Boston-based company whose first product, Bevy, aims to make it easier to store, organize, and share digital photos and videos, has raised $4 million from Blade, The Kraft Group, CommonAngels Ventures, and Windspeed Ventures.

Newshunt, a six-year-old, Bangalore-based mobile news aggregation service, has raised $19.4 million in Series C funding led by the New York-based hedge fund Falcon Edge Capital. Earlier backers Matrix Partners India, Sequoia Capital India and Omidyar Network also participated. The company has now raised $40.4 million altogether. The outlet e27 has more here.

Orig3n, an eight-month-old, Boston-based company that’s creating a bank of pluripotent stem cells that can be used to better understand genetic diseases, has raised $3.1 million from Harris & Harris Group, Hatteras Venture Partners, KTB, and Mountain Group Capital. BetaBoston has much more here.

Picsart, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile photo editing app and community that claims 60 million monthly users, has raised $10 million in funding from Sequoia Capital. The capital is the first outside funding the company has taken.

Sight Machine, a nearly four-year-old, San Francisco-based manufacturing analytics platform, has raised $5 million in new funding led by Mercury Fund, with participation from Michigan eLab, Huron River Ventures, Orfin Ventures and Funders Club. Earlier backers IA Ventures and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures also joined the round, which brings the company’s funding to $11 million. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

TrialReach, a six-year-old, London-based company whose technology connects patients to clinical trials of new medical treatments, has raised $13.5 million in Series B funding led by new investor Smedvig Capital, with participation from earlier backers Amadeus Capital Partners and Octopus Investments. The company has raised $17.9 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

—–

IPOs

Wowo, a three-year-old, Beijing, China-based company that operates the Groupon-like, Chinese group-buying site 55tuan.com, set terms for its IPO yesterday, revealing plans to raise up to $66 million by selling 6 million shares at between $9 and $11 per share. The company, which filed paperwork to list its American Depository Shares on the Nasdaq las month, was originally seeking around $40 million.

—–

Exits

Fancy That, a 1.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based retail technology start-up, has been acquired by Palantir Technologies for undisclosed terms. Fancy That never publicly disclosed how much funding it had raised; it was part of the inaugural class at Pejman Mar Ventures’ Garage, a summer program that invites students to work out of the firm’s Palo Alto offices and meet with mentors. (StrictlyVC had swung by to meet with some of the startups last fall.)

The publicly traded ad network Marin Software has acquired SocialMoov, a nearly three-year-old, Paris-based Facebook marketing platform, for $18.75 million in cash and stock, with up to $2 million more in equity after the deal closes. According to Crunchbase, SocialMoov had raised less than $1 million in seed funding.

—–

People

This week, investor Chris Sacca, who owns “a bunch” of Uber stock, wrote about why he’d never want to compete with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, revealing in his post that among Kalanick’s other accomplishments, he was once quietly tied for 2nd place on the Wii Tennis global leaderboard. Bonobos cofounder Andy Dunn took to Twitter afterward to suggest he’s not impressed.

Omid Kordestani, Google‘s 11th employee, was awarded $123 million in restricted stock last year after he replaced Nikesh Arora as the company’s chief business officer. Bloomberg has the story here.

—–

Happenings

We’re less than a week away from StrictlyVC’s first INSIDER event! Thanks to our generous sponsors Next World Capital, Ballou PR andStandish Management for making the whole thing possible. We’re looking forward to seeing our featured guests, including Naval Ravikant of AngelList, Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures, Strava CEO Mark Gainey, Sigma West cofounder Greg Gretsch, and Haystack founder Semil Shah. We’re super excited to see many of you, too. (The event is sold out, but we’re working on two events this spring, so stay tuned.)

—–

Data

Who are the biggest bitcoin backers, and what companies have they funded to date? CoinReport breaks it down here.

—–

Essential Reads

Why Google Glass broke.

Y Combinator is seeing so many hardware startups nowadays that it announced plans yesterday to partner with Bolt, an early-stage fund that profiled on Monday.)

Tesla Motors has hired at least 150 former Apple employees, more than from any other company, even carmakers.

—–

Detours

Nobody seems to be talking bout how difficult it is for men, in every day life, to not seem like creeps.”

Teaching in the age of Minecraft.

Ride the subway? Don’t read this.

—–

Retail Therapy

Mercedes motoring.

Hello, everyone, happy Thursday! (Web visitors, here’s an easier-to-read version of what you see below.)

—–

Top News in the A.M.

In the first half of this year, tweets will start to be visible in Google’s search results as soon as they’re posted. Bloomberg has more here.

—–

In the Venture Database Race, a Kerfuffle

Anand Sanwal, founder of the New York-based venture database company CB Insights, made an unpleasant discovery yesterday after his subscribers pointed him to a TechCrunch piece about Techlist, a new venture database business.

Techlist made the news because the outfit — a subsidiary of the Singapore-based media company Tech In Asia — was just admitted to the winter class of the prestigious accelerator program Y Combinator. The problem spied by Sanwal and his customers: Techlist has borrowed heavily from CB Insights’s design and user interface. The company clearly “crossed over from inspiration into plagiarism,” says Sanwal.

Whether Y Combinator agrees remains to be seen. But Sanwal – whose bootstrapped, 27-person company is competing against a growing number of new investor database companies — isn’t imagining things, seemingly. In recent months, 12 Techlist employees have seized on a 30-day trial period that CB Insights offers, including Tech In Asia’s CEO, Willis Wee, his head of product, and numerous product managers and developers.

Indeed, on Twitter yesterday, Wee acknowledged using CB Insights “as a reference to launch fast,” writing to Sanwal specifically, “Credits to you and we will be improving as we go along.”

Wee — whose company has previously raised venture funding from East Ventures and Simile Venture Partners — quickly added that Techlist is “very very different from any other venture database out there.”

StrictlyVC chatted with Sanwal yesterday about what happens next.

You just wrote a jokey post about “arriving” now that you have a “copycat.” Are you thinking of taking further action?

We’ve talked to our lawyers and are awaiting their guidance. Since Willis admitted on [Hacker News] and via Twitter [that] they copied, a lot of the gray area has been removed. But ultimately, this is a distraction, so [I’m] not sure what we’ll do. Plus, I love our lawyers, but they ain’t cheap.

Techlist plans to zero in on the Asian market. How big an area of focus is that for you?

We cover financing and exit data globally, including Asia, as our institutional clients expect that we’re comprehensive. Also, Asia is our second fastest-growing market in terms of clients, so we’re putting a lot of effort on the area.

Have you asked Y Combinator for comment?

We haven’t. For the record, we don’t think this is YC‘s fault. They have a lot of companies and cannot audit the UI/UX of their portfolio companies. I also don’t think [President] Sam [Altman] and the team condone this type of thing or think great companies are built by copying other companies. That said, I am curious to see what YC does.

Just yesterday, the WSJ published a piece about the advantages that venture-backed companies have over those that choose to bootstrap, including investor connections. How big a concern is this company and its investor ties?

It’s annoying, mainly because our team works hard, and I feel this is sort of crappy for them. But beyond that, we’re not concerned. Money buys you time, not the ability to execute. And we’ve seen lots of well-funded companies come into our space and all flame out.

You seem to be maintaining a sense of humor about this.

We’re a heads-down, low-drama group, so this made things interesting for us today. I realized that some drama from time to time is fun.

—–

New Fundings

AuraSense Therapeutics, a six-year-old, Skokie, Il.-based company focused on developing and commercializing spherical nucleic acid conjugates, has held a second closing of its Series C funding from undisclosed investors, bringing the round to more than $18 million. The company has now attracted more than $27 million altogether, including from AbbVie Biotech Ventures, Abbott Biotech Ventures, and Bill Gates.

Civitas Learning, a 3.5-year-old, Austin, Tx.-based company that makes a cloud-based, predictive analytics platform for educational settings, has raised $16 million in new funding led by Rethink Education, with participation from earlier backers, including Austin Ventures and Emergence Capital Partners. The company has now raised $32 million altogether.

ClusterHQ, a seven-year-old, Bristol, England-based company that “makes containers play nice with data,” has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Accel Partners London, with participation from Canaan Partners and earlier backers. The company has now raised $13 million altogether. GigaOm has more here.

Dering Hall, a 3.5-year-old, New York-based online home-design marketplace, has raised $2.5 million in Series A funding from earlier backers Hearst Magazines, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, and SoftBank Capital. The company has now raised $3.9 million.

Eero, a year-old, San Francisco-based company behind a new Wi-Fi system for the home, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by First Round Capital, with participation from Stanford University, Menlo Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, Homebrew Ventures, Alexis Ohanian, and Garry Tan. VentureBeat has more here.

EyeBrain, a 6.5-year-old, Ivry-sur-Seine, France-based company that develops markers of cerebral function for neurological and psychiatric disorders and diseases, has raised €1.3 million ($1.47 million) from previous backers Fonds Régional de Co-Investissement d’Ile-de-France and the Anaxago crowdfunding platform.

G1 Therapeutics, a 2.5-year-old, Durham, N.C.-based company developing small molecule therapies to treat various cancers and protect the bone marrow from the harmful effects of chemotherapy, has raised $33 million in Series B funding co-led by Eshelman Ventures and RA Capital Management, with participation from Lumira Capital and Boxer Capital. Earlier backers Hatteras Venture Partners, MedImmune Ventures, and Mountain Group Capital also joined the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $45.5 million.

HomeLight, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based service that matches homebuyers and sellers with real estate agents, has raised $3 million in Series A funding from Bullpen Capital, Crosslink Capital, Krillion Ventures, Montage Ventures, Western Technology Investment and 500 Startups. The company has raised $4.5 million altogether.

Ichuanyi, a 2.5-year-old, Shanghai-based e-commerce platform for women’s fashions, has raised $10 million in Series B financing from Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com, and Vertex Venture Holdings. China Money Network has more here.

Le Tote, a three-year-old, San Leandro, Ca.-based startup that rents out clothes and accessories to fashion-forward, budget-conscious women, has raised $8.8 million in Series A funding led by Azure Capital Partners, with participation from Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Simon Venture Group, AITV, Epic Ventures, Arsenal Venture Partners and Funders Club. Le Tote had raised a undisclosed amount of seed funding in 2013.

Manthan Software Services, an 11-year-old, Bangalore-based business intelligence company, has raised $60 million in new funding led by Temasek Holdings, with participation from earlier backer Norwest Venture Partners. As part of the round, earlier backers IDG Ventures and Fidelity have partially exited their investments. VCCircle has more here.

Sauce Labs, a 6.5-year-old, San Francisco-based website and mobile app testing service, has raised $15 million in Series D funding from earlier investor Toba Capital. The company has raised $36 million to date. VentureBeat has more here.

SteelBrick, a six-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based company that makes so-called configure, price, and quote applications for Salesforce.com customers, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led by Shasta Ventures, with participation from earlier backer Emergence Capital and new investor Salesforce Ventures.

Velano Vascular, a 2.5-year-old, Philadelphia, Pa.-based stealth startup whose syringe-like device can draw blood from hospital patients without the discomfort associated with needles, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by First Round Capital. (The deal represents the venture firm’s first investment in a medical device company.) Kapor Capital, Safeguard Scientifics, White Owl Capital, Griffin Hospital, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and several angel investors also participated in the round.

—–

New Funds

Crosslink Capital, the 25-year-old, San Francisco-based cross-stage investment firm, has closed its seventh fund with $170 million, it announced yesterday. It closed its previous fund with $220 million in 2010. Crosslink made 20 investments last year, including in the e-commerce mattress company Casper, the recruitment service Hired.com, and in Visual.ly, a community platform for data visualization and infographics that connects designers with clients. Some of its biggest hits in recent years include the streaming music service Pandora and the sports blog Bleacher Report.

India Internet Group, a four-year-old, Bangalore-based early-stage investor, is planning to raise a second fund of about $15 million later this year to invest in mobile payments providers, mobile marketplaces and communication apps. Livemint has more here.

Signia Venture Partners, a 2.5-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based firm founded by Playdom founder Rick Thompson, is looking to raise up to $100 million for its second fund, shows an SEC filing. The firm’s debut fund reportedly closed with $20 million. Among the firm’s portfolio companies is Boxed, a New York-based company that delivers wholesale club-like purchases to consumers’ front doors; ApplePie Capital, a San Francisco-based online loan business focused on franchise financing; and Vida, a San Francisco-based company whose mobile app connects consumers with coaches and doctors to improve their health.

—–

Exits

Bluegiga Technologies, a 15-year-old, Espoo, Finland-based that makes Bluetooth and Wi-Fi modules for short-range wireless connectivity, has been acquired by the publicly traded company Silicon Labs for $61 million in cash.

Datalogix Holdings, a 14-year-old, Westminster, Co.-based marketing analytics startup, has been acquired by Oracle for $1.2 billion, according to VentureWire sources. Oracle announced plans to acquire Datalogix in December without disclosing its purchase price. The deal closed last month.

Sunrise, a two-year-old, New York-based free calendar app, has been acquired by Microsoft for $100 million, reports TechCrunch. The company had raised $8.2 million from investors, including NextView Ventures, Balderton Capital, Resolute.vc, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, SV Angel, and many others.

Under Armour, the publicly traded athletic apparel maker, has acquired Endomondo, a seven-year-old, Copenhagen-based social fitness network; and MyFitnessPal, a 10-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile app and site for people looking to improve their fitness. Endomondo, which had raised $8.2 million from undisclosed investors, was acquired for $85 million. MyFitnessPal, which had raised $18 million from Accel Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, fetched $475 million.

—–

People

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo told employees yesterday that Twitter has “sucked for years” at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and vowed that things are going to change. Said Costolo in his memo: “I’m frankly ashamed of how poorly we’ve dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It’s absurd. There’s no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It’s nobody else’s fault but mine, and it’s embarrassing.” The Verge has the story here.

Since being called out on Twitter by investor Jason Calacanis last year for some bizarre behavior, ousted Genius cofounder Mahbod Moghadam has been trolling Calacanis’s Twitter account and calling him — among his less-offensive choices — “fat.” Both tell the Observer that there’s no real animosity, though.

—–

Jobs

A Silicon Valley-based family office that says it manages more than $1 billion in assets is looking for an investment associate.

SK Telecom Ventures wants to hire an analyst. The job is in Sunnyvale, Ca.

—–

Data

A new Forrester report covered by TechCrunch features some eye-opening figures, including its estimate that online spending in China will reach one trillion dollars by 2019. Forrester thinks China’s online retail sales hit $440 billion last year — roughly 10 percent of the country’s retail sales — up from $307 billion in 2013.

According to the Bay Area recruiting firm Riviera Partners, salaries at startups with either seed or Series A funding remained steady between 2013 and 2014, but the same wasn’t true of later-stage companies. For example, between 2013 and 2014, software engineers at seed-funded companies received an average of $117,000, while at Series A funded companies, they made $125,000. But last year, the average software engineer at a Series B funded company made $142,000, up from $130,000 in 2013, and Series C funded companies paid software engineers $137,000 on average, up from $128,000 in 2013. The Silicon Valley Business Journal has all the data here.

—–

Essential Reads

Apple has repeatedly tried to crack the TV business. According to Recode, it’s poised to try again.

—–

Detours

Shark photos.

Dinner in New York.

A real estate agent in Greenwich gets creative.

—–

Retail Therapy

Socks with character.