Happy Wednesday, everyone. It’s our last day up here in Aspen and we’ll be sorry to leave it, though we’re pretty zonked at this point. Big thanks to Battery Ventures for hosting a very fun dinner at the end of a long day yesterday, one that included an equally lively cocktail party hosted by venture capitalist Gary Lauder and his wife, Laura. It’s been great seeing so many StrictlyVC readers, especially those of you we hadn’t met in person previously.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

More Americans are getting their news on Facebook and Twitter, according to a new Pew survey.

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Bill Maris on Rising Valuations, Biggest Misses, and More

Happy Tuesday, dear readers! We’re still at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, which is crammed with great content. As we arrived, we caught a talk by YouTube head Susan Wojcicki, who said the video unit’s priorities right now are “mobile, mobile, mobile.” We were also wowed by former Googler turned U.S. CTO Megan Smith, who made a persuasive case (over the loudest thunderstorm we’ve ever heard) for why many others in tech should consider public service, at the state, federal, and even international level. “Show up where you are rare,” she told attendees.

We’re actually racing off to yet another panel discussion this morning, so apologies for a somewhat abbreviated newsletter. More soon!

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Top News in the A.M.

A hoax story this morning suggested that Twitter is on the verge of being acquired for $31 billion. While it lit up Twitter for a while, Twitter cofounder Evan Williams suggested at the Brainstorm conference this morning that the company isn’t interested in being bought (at least right now). “No, not at this time,” he answered when asked if Twitter might be better off under an umbrella company.

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Andrew Braccia’s Big Bet on Slack

Andrew Braccia of Accel Partners doesn’t tweet or write blog posts. He rarely talks with the media. But that doesn’t mean the 39-year-old isn’t working it. In fact, Braccia may have landed as big a deal for Accel as Facebook, whose $12.7 million Series A investment produced billions of dollars for its investors.

That company? Slack.

I had coffee with Braccia last week to ask about his early bet on the company, which Accel led with help from Andreessen Horowitz. It could become the defining deal of Braccia’s career, despite his other prescient bets, including on the high-profile Hadoop software company Cloudera (expected to go public sooner than later); Vox Media (owner of The Verge, SB Nation, Vox and Recode); and the 30-year-old, fast-growing online learning company Lynda.com, which had raised nearly $300 million from investors in recent years and announced in April that it was being acquired by LinkedIn for $1.5 billion.

Our chat, edited for length, here.

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New Fundings

Arivale, a year-old, Seattle-based company that combines genetic analysis with personal coaching to put individuals on a scientific path to wellness, has raised $36 million in Series B funding led by ARCH Venture Partners and Polaris Partners, with participation from Maveron. Geekwire has more here.

FanDuel, the six-year-old, New York-based daily fantasy sports startup, has raised $275 million in new venture funding at a valuation “well north” of $1 billion, according to a Recode source. The round was led by KKR and included new investors Google Capital and Time Warner Investments with Turner Sports. Existing investors Shamrock Capital, NBC Sports Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Bullpen Capital, Pentech Ventures and Piton Capital were also involved. More here.

Fastacash, a three-year-old, Singapore-based fintech startup— it acts as an intermediary for banks that want to get into social payments — has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Rising Dragon Singapore, Life.SREDA, UVM 2 Venture Investments, and undisclosed existing investors. The company had previously raised $8.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

MySmartPrice, a four-year-old, Hyderabad, India-based price comparison and search site, has raised $10 million in fresh funding led by Accel Partners, with participation from Helion Venture Partners. The startup had previously raised $1.3 million across two prior funding rounds. TechCrunch has more here.

Pager, a year-old, New York-based healthcare on-demand service, has raised $14 million in Series A funding from New Enterprise Associates, Sound Ventures and earlier investors Goodwater Capital, Lux Capital andMontage Ventures. Crain’s New York has more here.

Paktor, a two-year-old, Singapore-based social networking platform for singles, has raised $7.4 million in Series B funding from earlier investor Vertex Venture Holdings and new backers Majuven, and Convergence Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

RealtyMogul.com, a two-year-old, L.A.-based leading online marketplace for real estate investing, has raised $35 million in Series B funding led by Sorenson Capital with additional funding from Canaan Partners, the lead investor in the company’s Series A financing.

StyleSeat, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based company that helps independent beauty pros schedule clients and manage their business, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Fosun Kinzon Capital. Lightspeed Venture Partners, Cowboy Ventures and Slow Ventures also participated. The company had previously raised $14 million, including from Uber cofounder and CEO Travis Kalanick and entertainer Ashton Kutcher. Fortune has more here.

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New Funds

Workday, the 10-year-old, Pleasanton, Ca.-based publicly traded human resources software maker, is launching its own investment fund called Workday Ventures that will solely focus on data science and machine learning startups. Business Insider has more here.

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Exits

The Seattle-based mobile remittance app Remitly — which lets people in the U.S. send money to India or the Philippines — has acquired Talio, a picture messaging app co-founded by ex-Amazon engineers. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed. TechCrunch has the story here.

Match Group, the IAC subsidiary, is acquiring the dating site PlentyOfFish for $575 million in cash. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

The rapper known as 50 Cent filed for bankruptcy protection in Connecticut yesterday as a lawsuit against him over a controversial online video plays out in a New York court. His boxing promotion company, SMS Promotions, has also filed for bankruptcy, listing assets and debt of $100,000 to $500,000 in May. 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, is also a tech entrepreneur: In late 2011, he formed a consumer electronics company in Delray Beach, Fla., called SMS Audio. The company, which stands for studio mastered sound, makes headphones and other electronics. No word on what happens to that company now. Bloomberg has more here.

Chris Gomersall has spent the past three years working with brands and agencies at Facebook, where he was the first creative strategy leader. Now he’s leaving to run his own startup, Atomized. More here.

Tumblr, Yahoo’s microblogging and social service, has tapped Comedy Central’sDon Steele as head of audience development. Tumblr also has named Evan Minskoff, previously with Ovation TV, head of marketing strategy and operations. Variety has the news here.

In a post on Reddit late Sunday, Yishan Wong, Reddit’s former chief executive and Ellen Pao’s predecessor, accused Alexis Ohanian, a Reddit co-founder, of firing a popular employee, Victoria Taylor, which caused a major-league backlash against the company and led to the resignation last week of Pao.“When the hate-train started up against Pao,” Wong wrote, “Alexis should have been out front and center saying very clearly ‘Ellen Pao did not make this decision, I did.’” Wong added, “I used to respect Alexis Ohanian. After this, not quite so much.” The New York Times has the story here.

In related Reddit news, the company’s chief engineer of the last two months, Bethanye Blount, has just quit, saying she has lost confidence in the direction of the company. Recode has the story here.

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Essential Reads

Facebook’s new security chief, Alex Stamos, is calling for Adobe Flash to be killed off.

Venture-backed Wealthfront was called out yesterday by Mozilla Firefox co-creator Blake Ross, who thinks the company is wrongly charging its clients “Wall Street prices” for “Silicon Valley tech.”

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Detours

How to behave at the airport.

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Retail Therapy

Calm Before the Storm beer. (We could use these in Aspen right now.)

Happy Friday, everyone, we hope you have an outstanding weekend!

Quick reminder that we’ll be in transit en route to Fortune’s Brainstorm conference early Monday so we will not be publishing. We’ll see you back here Tuesday, though.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Samsung is reportedly bumping up the launch of its smartphone line-up to August to gain some ground against Apple, which typically has some big reveals of its own in September. The WSJ has the story here.

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Y Combinator’s Big Future

Hi, good morning, readers. It is Thursday!

A few quick things: If you are interested in coming to our Wednesday, September 16 event, you may want to pick up a ticket soon. (More than half have sold.) Speakers include Chamath Palihapitiya of Social + Capital; DFJ’s legendary cofounder Steve Jurvetson; investor-entrepreneur Tony Conrad of About.me and True Ventures; and Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg, among others. (We’re very excited about the full line-up.) If you’re interested in a sponsorship opportunity, we’d love to talk with you.

We also want to let you know we will not be publishing StrictlyVC this coming Monday, as we’ll be en route to Fortune’s Brainstorm conference at a very early hour. We’ll be back in full-form on Tuesday, though.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Jawbone has just filed its third legal action against rival fitness tracker company Fitbit, this one seeking to block Fitbit from importing fitness trackers or their parts. The WSJ has the story here. (Interestingly, shareholders don’t seem phased; Fitbit’s shares have doubled in price to roughly $42 since their public market debut roughly a month ago.)

IBM is this morning announcing new computer chips that are more powerful than any in existence.

Uber has dropped out of the running to buy Nokia’s mapping business. Reuters has the story.

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New Fundings

Afferent Pharmaceuticals, a six-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based drug developer focused on debilitating neurogenic disorders, has raised $55 million in Series C funding led by Fidelity Management & Research Company, with participation from Jennison Associates, New Leaf Ventures, Partner Fund Management, Redmile Group, Tekla Healthcare Investors, Tekla Life Science Investors, and an undisclosed public investment fund. More here.

Amistad Energy Partners, a newly formed, Houston, Tex.-based independent oil and gas company, has raised $150 million in funding from Kayne Anderson Energy Funds and members of the management team, which includes four former BP executives. More here.

Apester, a four-year-old, New York City-based digital storytelling platform for publishers that enables them to embed interactive units – polls, surveys, personality tests and video quizzes – in stories, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Mangrove Capital Partners, with participation from former AOL Video CMO Tal Simantov and other individual investors. More here.

Clara Foods, a nine-month-old, San Francisco-based biotech that’s creating egg whites out of genetically modified yeast, has raised $1.7 million in seed funding from David Friedberg, Gary Hirshberg, Ali and Hadi Partovi, Scott Banister, and SOS Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Collectabillia, a three-year-old, Bangalore, India-based celebrity commerce company that sells memorabilia autographed by celebrities, as well as fan merchandise, has raised $7.5 million in Series B funding from earlier investor Accel Partners. VCCircle has more here.

Curely, a year-old, Newport Beach, Ca.-based mobile application that connects doctors and consumers around the world, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Exponential Partners. More here.

DigitalOcean, a four-year-old, New York-based cloud-hosting service built for developers, has raised a $83 million in Series B funding led by Access Industries, with participation from earlier backer Andreessen Horowitz, which led the company’s $37 million Series A round last year. The company has now raised $173.2 million altogether.

Emma, a 12-year-old Nashville, Tenn.-based email service provider, has raised $5 million in equity and debt funding from Nashville Capital Network and Square 1 Bank. More here.

Genymobile, a four-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company at work on three different products that aim to make using Android much easier for Android developers, has raised $7.7 million from Alven Capital, with Bpifrance also participating. TechCrunch has much more here.

Influitive, a 4.5-year-old, Toronto-based company focused on advocate marketing, has raised $30.5 million in Series B funding led by Georgian Partners, with participation from OurCrowd, DoCoMo Capital, BDC Capital IT Venture Fund, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Illuminate Ventures, Resolute Ventures, Relay Ventures, CommonAngels Ventures and First Round Capital. The company has now raised $41.8 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Jinfuzi, a three-year-old, Shenzhen, China-based online wealth management firm, has raised $50 million in Series B funding led by the Chinese social networking firm Renren, according to China Money Network. Earlier backer Sequoia Capital also participated.

Foody, a three-year-old, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam-based restaurant review app, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series B funding from the Singapore-based Internet company Garena. The company has previously raised two other rounds; its other investors include CyberAgent Ventures and Pix Vine Capital Investment. DealStreetAsia has more here.

Karmic Labs, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based business-to-business payments infrastructure company, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Greycroft Partners. More here.

Lendingkart, a year-old, Gujarat, India-based online lending company focused on small businesses, has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Saama Capital, Mayfield, and individual investors. More here.

Lybrate, an 18-month-old, New Delhi, India-based, mobile-based platform that connects patients and doctors, has raised $10.2 million in fresh funding fromTiger Global Management, with participation from earlier backer Nexus Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

The Medical Memory, a seven-year-old, Phoenix, Az.-based medical video messaging platform that lets doctors record and securely share videos of patient visits, has raised $2.1 million in seed funding led by Provenance Venture Partners. More here.

mLevel, a three-year-old, Chicago, Il.-based game-based learning platform for corporate customers, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from BIP Capital. More here.

News In Shorts, a two-year-old, New Delhi, India-based mobile news app, has raised $20 million in Series B funding from earlier backer Tiger Global Management, which also led the company’s $4 million Series A in February. TechCrunch has more here.

PandaDoc, a two-year-old, South San Francisco, Ca.-based company whose software product sits atop customers’ CRM tools to help manage quotes, proposals, contracts, and other collateral, has raised $5 million in funding led by Altos Ventures, with participation from TMT Investments and other unnamed investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Pickup, a year-old, Addison, Tex.-based developer of an on-demand delivery app, has raised $600,000 in seed funding from undisclosed sources. The Dallas Business Journal has more here.

Secoo, a four-year-old, Shanghai, Chinese-based luxury e-commerce site, has raised $55 million in Series E funding led by Ping An Ventures. More here.

Touchten, a six-year-old Indonesia-based gaming studio, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series C funding led by Japanese mobile and social firm GREE, with 500 Startups as a follow-on investor. VentureBeat has more here.

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New Funds

TLV Partners, a new Tel Aviv, Israel firm cofounded by Eitan Bek and Rona Segev, both formerly of Pitango Venture Capital, is looking to raise up to $100 million for its debut fund, shows an SEC filing first flagged by Fortune.

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Exits

AOL, recently acquired by Verizon for $4.4 billion, is in the process of buying mobile ad network Millennial Media, sources tell TechCrunch. The rumored price: betwen $300 million and $350 million, a premium to its public market capitalization of $217 million.

The 17-year-old security company Avast Software has acquired Remotium, a 2.5-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based company whose enterprise security services protect mobile devices. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. According to Crunchbase, Remotium had raised $1 million from Draper Nexus Ventures.

ViralNova, a one-person content company run by Canton, Ohio-based entrepreneur Scott DeLong, has been acquired by Zealot Networks in a deal worth roughly $100 million in cash and stock. Zealot was founded by former Maker Studios chief executive Danny Zappin last year. TechCrunch has the story here.

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People

Netscape billionaire Jim Clark has a new super yacht — Comanche — and it’s expected to make a big ol’ splash at the upcoming Transatlantic Race. The WSJ has the story here.

Ben Huh, the entrepreneur who founded Cheezburger, parent company to site I Can Has Cheezburger, is stepping down as CEO, with the company’s president and COO Scott Moore assuming the role. Huh announced the news on Medium. More here.

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Essential Reads

Nick Bilton of the New York Times visited Twitter recently to see how its CEO search is coming along. He walked away more concerned than ever.

Yahoo is introducing a more intense, daily form of fantasy sports that allows competitors to compete with real money. The San Jose Mercury News has more here.

You can now tell Facebook what you want in your News Feed.

9to5mac is reporting new details about Google Glass’s “enterprise edition.”

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Detours

The people who barely sleep (and are fine)!

The work the rest of us do when we’re in dreamworld.

The 10 best islands in the world, according to travelers.

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Retail Therapy

Zip line kit. You never know; it could come in handy(?).

Happy Wednesday! (Though it kind of feels like it should be Thursday, doesn’t it? No? Just us?)

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Top News in the A.M.

Didi Kuaidi, Uber’s biggest rival in China, confirmed that it has raised $2 billion in funding —  the largest private equity raise in the world and an amount that takes its cash reserves to $3.5 billion, it says. TechCrunch sources say the round values Didi Kuaidi at $15 billion.

Yikes. Microsoft plans to cut as many as 7,800 jobs and write down roughly $7.6 billion on its Nokia phone-handset unit, wiping out nearly all of the value of a business it acquired just 14 months ago, reports Bloomberg.

NYSE trading was halted a bit earlier owing to a technical issue. More here.

Speaking of delays: United Airlines flights are no longer grounded this morning after its computer system malfunctioned, but press reports say to expect heavy delays throughout major airports. About 3,500 flights were affected and delays could reach 235 domestic and 138 international destinations.

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Longtime VC Paul Lee is Back — With a Startup Factory

Over the last decade of so, Paul Lee had enjoyed a nice career as a venture capitalist. Last year, an idea began to nag at him, though, and in November, he left his job of several years, as an investor at Lightbank in Chicago, to pursue it with two other former Lightbank colleagues, Ryan Jeffery and Kathryn Saluke, and their friend Arman Ghosh.

The fruit of their labor: nine-month-oldRoniin, a Chicago-based startup that spins off other startups — with a few twists that we haven’t seen before.

More here.

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New Fundings

Axtria, a six-year-old, Berkeley Heights, N.J.-based big data analytics company, has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by Helion Ventures, with participation from individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Babbel, an eight-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based language learning service, has raised $22 million in funding led by Scottish Equity Partners, with participation from Reed Elsevier Ventures, Nokia Growth Partners, and VC Fonds Technology Berlin. More here.

Chakratec, a two-year-old, Lod, Israel-based maker of an energy storage system based on kinetic batteries, has raised $2 million in Series B funding led by ZZRunner, a China-based firm. More here.

Confluent, a 10-month-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based real-time data platform built around Apache Kafka, has raised $24 million in Series B funding led byIndex Ventures, with participation from Benchmark, which had led the company’s $7 million Series A. Fortune has more here.

Core Informatics, a nine-year-old, Branford, Ct.-based maker of data management software for scientists, has raised $17.5 million in Series B funding led by Oak HC/FT, with participation from earlier investors. More here.

GoodWorld, a 1.5-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based “company whose technology enables nonprofits to raise money more easily from their followers on social media networks, has raised $1.7 million in seed funding led by Nyca Partners. Camp One Ventures, Fenway Summer Ventures and others also joined the round. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

IrisVR, a year-old, New York City-based startup aiming to create a suite of products that help edit, share and visualize 3D models in virtual reality, has raised $1.6 million in funding led by Indicator Ventures and Valar Ventures. More here.

KnowledgeHound, a year-old, Chicago, Il.-based enterprise market research data-retrieval and visualization platform, has raised $1.2 million in seed funding from numerous angel investors, including Listen Ventures’s Jeff Cantalupo and Mitten Group founder Mark Mitten. More here.

Leesa, a year-old, Virginia Beach, Va.-based online luxury mattress company, has raised $9 million in Series A funding at a post-money valuation of $45 million led by TitleCard Capital. More here.

Mei.com, a China-based flash sales site, has received more than $100 million in fresh funding from Alibaba, reports TechCrunch.

PipelineRx, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based medication management services and platform company focused on clinical telepharmacy, has raised $9.1 million in funding led by Mitsui & Co., with participation from McKesson Ventures and earlier backer AMN Healthcare. More here.

Procept BioRobotics, a six-year-old, Redwood Shores, Ca.-based medical device company whose tool centers on a minimally invasive therapy to remove tissue in the the treatment of lower urinary tract conditions, has raised $42 million in funding led by Novo A/S, with participation from CPMG and others. More here.

Salviol, a six-year-old, London-based anti-fraud and fintech startup, has raised €6.5 million ($7.2 million) in Series A funding led by Orange Growth Capital. More here.

Singapore Post Limited (SingPost), the national postal service provider, has received $206.85 million in fresh funding from Alibaba Holdings, which has increased its stake in the company to 14.5 percent in the process, reports TechCrunch. Alibaba will also invest $67.85 million for a 34 percent stake in SingPost subsidiary Quantium Solutions International, which provides logistics and warehousing solutions to more than 10 countries across Asia Pacific. Forbes has more here.

VideoStitch, a three-year-old, Paris, France-based maker of video editing software, has $2.25 million from Alven Capital. More here.

Wozlla, two-year-old, Beijing, China-based game developer, has raised $2 million investment from Greenwoods Asset Management. More here.

Xiaozhu.com, a Shanghai, China-based home-rental company that competes with Airbnb, has raised $60 million from four private-equity firms: Morningside Venture Capital, Citic Capital Venture Partners, Joy Capital and Magic Stone Alternative. The round values the firm at more than $300 million, it tells the WSJ.

ZeroTurnaround, an eight-year-old, Boston, Ma.-based maker of developer tools for creating software, has raised $5 million in Series B funding led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from Western Technology Investment. Both had backed the company previously. The company has raised $15 million altogether. More here.

Zoomcar, a three-year-old, Bangalore-based self-drive car rental platform, has raised $11 million in fresh funding from Sequoia Capital, Empire Angels, and NGP. The new capital brings its total funding to $22 million. More here.
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New Funds

Investors in Burrill Life Sciences Capital Fund III LP have tapped executives at San Francisco health-care firm Kearny Venture Partners to take on the role of general partner, reports Venture Capital Dispatch. The move comes after they dismantled the fund management team formed under the leadership of G. Steven Burrill. Burill was removed from the fund more than a year ago over unauthorized payments.

Innovation Works, founded by Google China head Kai-Fu Lee, is looking to raise up to $300 million for a new fund, according to an SEC filing first flagged by Venture Capital Dispatch.

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Exits

Capital One has acquired Oakland, Ca.-based Monsoon, a design studio, development shop, marketing house and strategic consultancy for an undisclosed terms. More here.

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People

GoPro is getting more serious about content, seemingly. It just hired Charlotte Koh, who formerly led Hulu’s original content initiatives, in the newly created role of head of features and series. Variety has the story here.

Bill Veghte, incoming CEO of SurveyMonkey, spoke with Bloomberg Television yesterday about his relationship with former CEO Dave Goldberg, saying Goldberg was going to name him to the company’s board the week that he died: “Yes, I had agreed to join the board and was looking forward to helping him and the rest of the board members build out what is I think a really remarkable opportunity.”  Said Veghte of Goldberg: “I remember when he first discovered SurveyMonkey, and he said, Bill, I found this great company that has — it’s a beautiful business that has so much potential in front of it.”

The 22 most important people in Silicon Valley’s enterprise tech scene, per Business Insider.

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Jobs

Visa is looking to add an associate to its corporate development and M&A team. The job is in San Francisco.

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Data

U.S. venture capital firms continue to rake in new capital, according to a new report out this morning from Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association. According to its data, VCs raised $10.3 billion for 74 funds during the second quarter — an increase of 10 percent over the first quarter and a 39 percent increase by dollar commitments. More here.

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Essential Reads

Apple has asked its suppliers to make a record-breaking number of new iPhones by year end. (Meanwhile, it looks like Apple Watch sales are tanking.)

What Uber can learn from Airbnb‘s global expansion.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has rejected Intellectual Ventures‘s appeal in its case against Capital One, citing “unpatentable abstract ideas.”

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Detours

A man crawled onto a Broadway stage to charge his phone.

Get out the popcorn; the San Francisco version of “Million Dollar Listing” kicks off today on Bravo.

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Retail Therapy

Star Wars cookie cutters.

The Hot Tub Hammock. Eat your heart out, Chris Sacca.