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

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

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Top News in the A.M.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What was your largest takeaway from the whole experience?

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

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

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

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

Have you totally ruled out a traditional venture fund?

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

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

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

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New Fundings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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New Funds

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

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Exits

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

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People

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

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

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

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

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

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Job Listings

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

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

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Data

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

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

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Essential Reads

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

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

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Detours

The big kahunas of surfboard design.

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Retail Therapy

Perforated sneaks.

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Corrections

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

Good morning, everyone!

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

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

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Top News in the A.M.

Apple‘s next major Mac revealed!

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

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

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

Just how bad are late-stage valuations right now?

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

Have you been passing on deals you like?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How do you feel about Bitcoin?

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

What interests you more?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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New Fundings

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

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

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

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

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

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New Funds

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

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People

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

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

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

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

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Job Listings

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

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Data

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

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Essential Reads

This charger boosts batteries in seconds.

This company turns human waste into drinking water.

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

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Detours

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

An Honest Letter from Your I.T. Department.

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Retail Therapy

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

Oh, come on.

Good Tuesday morning, everyone!

Most of you know that the multi-talented Semil Shah covered for us in late December, drumming up a lot of stellar content, some of which we have yet to run. We’re publishing one of those interviews today, with the Winklevoss twins. Note: Because it’s a longer-than-usual interview and it’s worth reading in its entirety, we’re running more of it later this week.

(Psst, web visitors, this version of today’s email is easier on the eyes.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Kickstarter just ditched Amazon payments for Stripe.

Meet the Nokia 215, which Microsoft is calling its most affordable Internet-ready entry-level phone yet. (It says its battery lasts one month.)

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Investing the Winklevoss Way

By Semil Shah

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the 6-foot-five-inch, Olympic-rowing twins who remain best known for their legal battles with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, could have taken the money they were eventually awarded in the case (a reported $65 million shared with partner Divya Narendra) and hit the beach. They decided to become full-time investors instead. In fact, since 2013, they’ve been assembling startup stakes across numerous industries. The brothers, who live both in L.A. and New York, have grown especially bullish on Bitcoin, creating among the single largest portfolios of the digital currency. To better understand why they’re so convinced that Bitcoin is here to stay — despite a rough 2014 — we asked Tyler to explain their thinking.

You are both well-known for a variety of things now. Briefly catch us up on all of your activities. What are you both focused on for 2015?

Sure. Over the last two years, Cameron and I have been focused on building Winklevoss Capital. Prior to this, we were elite athletes for close to 15 years. After retiring in 2012, we decided we wanted to get back into the startup game and investing seemed like a natural entry point. For the past two-plus years we been spending a lot of time building a strong network of fellow investors and promising entrepreneurs. We’ve been fine-tuning our filters to what we like and don’t like, and developing our overall investment thesis. Most importantly, we’ve been investing a lot. Ourportfolio now comprises more than 40 companies and is growing by the day.

Our main focus for the coming year will be in Bitcoin and growing our overall angel portfolio. In the Bitcoin world, we will continue or joint role as both investors and entrepreneurs. We believe there will be some great opportunities in the infrastructure company layer, as well as some promising application layer startups. We will be working on the Bitcoin ETF and improving the WinkDex, the Bitcoin price index we launched in February, which will be used to price the Bitcoin ETF.

In the non-Bitcoin world, we will continue to place bets on strong entrepreneurs. We’ve found a lot of great teams attacking compelling problems in the logistics, human operations, smart home, consumer packaged goods and security spaces. We’ll keep our ears to the ground in those spheres but also be on the lookout for other secular trends that start to emerge.

You’re both active on AngelList. How do you plan to use your own fund and AngelList to your advantage? Are you thinking of angles beyond just crowd-based syndication?

AngelList has been instrumental to our overall investing. We’ve found great investments on the platform and the platform has made it really easy to diligence companies. Being able to message a founder directly or see a company’s existing investors and reach out to them makes the research process much more efficient. When the opportunity to invest directly in AngelList presented itself, the decision was a quick and easy “yes.”

We recently launched the Winklevoss Capital Syndicate on AngelList and have already begun syndicating our first deal. We think the crowdfunding venture model has a lot of merit and we have been devoting significant time and effort towards getting behind it. When possible, our plan is to syndicate the deals that are appropriate and give accredited investors access to these deals. Our current portfolio demonstrates the types of deals we do, and investors who back our syndicate ahead of time will get priority. It’s important to note that backing does not obligate an investors to invest in any of our deals.

I still think there is ample room to improve crowd-based syndication before focusing on other alternatives. Currently, closing takes days waiting on every wire and ACH transfer to hit. Incorporating Bitcoin into the AngelList platform for instance, would allow settlement to happen immediately. In addition, there is a lot of territory to be explored with regard to smart contracts in this context. Investors could invest contingent on certain fundraising targets being met, and the real-time balance of a syndicate would be completely transparent if it lived on the blockchain. Investors worried about momentum could instead invest immediately, knowing that if certain goals weren’t met, their money would be sent back. This particular example could help mitigate a chicken-and-egg funding dilemma and tip some startups into getting funded that otherwise wouldn’t.

But the possibilities don’t end there. Any conceivable investment term could be baked into a syndicate smart contract and be triggered when certain milestones were met. Pro-rata pre-emptive rights, super pro-rata pre-emptive rights, sliding scale discount rates, information rights, etc., could be hard-wired, all the way to the election of a board member by vote of the syndicate investors. It is going to be fascinating to see this play out.

You’re both big Bitcoin believers, but 2014 was a tougher year. As early-stage investors and with only a few larger firms investing (or conflicted out), how do you help your seeded companies thrive during a time where the area isn’t as hot as it was in 2013?

2014 had its own set of challenges for Bitcoin, but as the saying goes, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I think Bitcoin will finish the year more robust than ever. I say this taking into account a lot of metrics beyond just a surface measure of price. Price is just one indicator of strength, and there is evidence to show that the price highs at of the end of last year were more noise than signal (as a result of Mt. Gox trading bot manipulation), and should not be used as a benchmark. A more complete measure of strength should include the number of 10xers and tier-one venture capitalists who have moved into the space. It should also include growth in the number of Bitcoin startups, the amount of accelerators, incubators and hackathons that are Bitcoin-focused, and the sheer lines of Bitcoin-related code that have been written. All of these numbers have grown dramatically this year.

Bitcoin may have lost some of its novelty buzz, but today it lives in meaningful business and technology headlines more than ever. Let’s not forget that less than a year ago the majority of media stories were busy lampooning Bitcoin as a ponzi scheme and/or a safe haven for money laundering that was on the brink of being outlawed. Now, serious Bitcoin news and developments are reported by the minute in the most respected and well-read publications and blogs around the world. If some of the frenzy has ceded to a calmer, more earnest narrative, then I think that is a positive development.

The growth curve of venture capital Bitcoin investments over the last few years has been steep and up and to the right. Provided that there isn’t a major economic downturn, I believe the venture capital money flowing into the space will be plenty to fuel continued growth. Some have brought up a potential funding gap with respect to core development. I think that is a more relevant concern, but again, there are a lot of projects and non-profits tackling this.

This year, both federal and state lawmakers have time and again decided not to outlaw Bitcoin but rather embrace it as an extremely transformative and monumental technology. This sets the stage for some great possibilities for this year and beyond.

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New Fundings

Blue Box, a 12-year-old, Seattle-based managed cloud-hosting provider, has raised $14 million in Series B funding led by an undisclosed strategic investor, with participation from Founders Collective and Voyager Capital. The company has now raised roughly $23 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

CytomX Therapeutics, a seven-year-old, Santa Barbara, Ca.-based company that develops antibodies that are inert in healthy tissue but activated around a tumor, has raised $20 million in Series C funding led by Pfizer Venture Investments, with participation from earlier backers Third Rock Ventures, Canaan Partners, and Roche Venture Fund. The company has now raised $63.5 million to date.

EnGeneIC, a 14-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based biotechnology company whose cancer treatments work through the delivery of therapeutic agents to cancer cells, has raised $10 million in Series B financing led by new investor GRT Capital Partners, with participation from Foley Ventures and various partners of the law firm Foley & Lardner.

Glassdoor, the 7.5-year-old, Mill Valley, Ca.-based jobs and career marketplace, has raised $70 million in new funding led by Google Capital and earlier investor Tiger Global Management, with participation from earlier backers Battery Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures. To date, the company — which says it now features 7 million pieces of user-generated content about more than 340,000 companies — has raised roughly $160 million altogether.

Global Blood Therapeutics, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company that develops small-molecule treatments for blood disorders, including sickle cell disease, has raised $48 million in Series B funding from Wellington Management Company, RA Capital, Deerfield Management, Sabby Capital, Perceptive Life Sciences, an affiliate of Cowen Group, and one undisclosed public investment fund.

GlySens, a young, San Diego, Ca.-based company that’s developing an implantable glucose meter for diabetics, has raised $12 million in Series C funding from undisclosed investors. The company has raised at least $14 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

iSIGHT Partners, a seven-year-old, Dallas-based company that sells cyber threat intelligence, has raised $30 million in Series C funding from Bessemer Venture Partners. The company has raised $46.3 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Iskn, a year-old, Grenoble, France-based company that makes a system that digitizes pen-and-paper writing or drawing, has raised $2 million in funding from CEA Investissement, Kima Ventures and Partech Ventures.

Kuaidi Dache, a 2.5-year-old, Hangzhou, China-based taxi-hailing app backed by e-commerce giant Alibaba, has closed a Series D round of financing worth more than $700 million, according to China Travel News, which reports that Alibaba and Tiger Global Management participated in the funding, among others. The company’s arch rival in China, Didi Dache, raised more than $700 million in its latest funding round in December. StrictlyVC recently talked with Kuaidi Dache cofounder Joe Lee about the race to compete with Didi Dache (and Uber) in China.

Moderna Therapeutics, a 4.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company whose drugs stimulate the body’s ability to produce proteins and could eventually treat cancer, rare diseases, heart conditions and other illnesses, has closed the largest biotechnology venture capital financing on record: $450 million from RA Capital Management, Viking Global Investors and Wellington Management, along with earlier backers AstraZeneca and Alexion Pharmaceuticals. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Reonomy, an 18-month-old, New York-based commercial real estate data and analytics company, has raised $13 million in Series B funding led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from earlier backers SoftBank Capital, Resolute Ventures, High Peaks Venture Partners, KEC Ventures and FinTech Collective. Solon Mack Capital, the family office of William Mack, Richard Mack and Stephen Mack, also joined the round. The company has now raised $17.9 million to date.

Ruby Receptionists, a 12-year-old, Portland, Or.-based company that hires receptionists to field calls for small businesses, has raised $38.8 million from Updata Partners in exchange for a majority stake in its business. The money is the first outside capital the company has taken.

Yett, a five-month-old, Oakland, Ca.-based startup whose first product is a mobile money management application called Even that targets low-income workers with interest-free credit, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Homebrew, Red Swan Ventures, Slow Ventures, and a long list of individual investors, including David Tisch and Sam Lessin. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Lok Capital, a Mumbai, India-based impact investor that’s backed by the Rockefeller Foundation, aims to raise $45 million by June as part of the initial close of its third India-focused fund, reports the Economic Times. It’s targeting $100 million altogether and expects to raise capital commitments from development financial institutions such as International Finance Corporation, Proparco, and CDC Group.

Four years after opening for business, a subsidiary of Nestlé specializing in nutritional therapy, Nestlé Health Science, is announcing a partnership with the Boston-based venture firm Flagship Ventures to help incubate start-ups in the nutritional therapy field, reports Dealbook. More here.

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IPOs

Of the companies that had the 10 biggest U.S. IPO “pops” in 2014, only three ended the year above the price at which they closed their first-day of trading. The WSJ looks at the IPOs that fizzled.

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Exits

Facebook has acquired Wit.AI, a San Francisco-based startup that’s been building a speech-recognition platform for the so-called Internet of Things. The company launched early in 2014 raised a $3 million seed round in October from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Partners and New Enterprise Associates. GigaOm has more here.

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People

There’s been a bit of a blood bath at Amazon’s Lab126, the Silicon Valley-based R&D group behind the Fire Phone and some of Amazon’s other consumer products. The “changes were long overdue, a response to an organizational structure that some contend had grown ‘bloated’ if not ‘inexplicable,’” as one former high-level employee describes it to Fast Company.

Investor Marc Andreessen tweeted up a storm about Bitcoin yesterday, including what he sees as “dumb,” “smart,” “smarter,” and “innocent” critiques of the virtual currency, whose value fell meaningfully in 2014. The whole thread is here.

SpaceX cofounder Elon Musk took time out for a Reddit AMA yesterday, fielding a range of questions before the expected launch of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft today. (That launch was scrubbed at the last minute this morning; they’ll try again on Friday.)

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Jobs

Piper Jaffray is looking to hire an investment banking associate to focus on technology, media, and telecommunications. The job is in San Francisco.

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Data

A lot of unprofitable companies are going public — the largest percentage since 2001, reports PandoDaily.

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Essential Reads

Verizon has approached AOL about a potential acquisition to expand its mobile-video offerings, reports Bloomberg, saying no formal proposal has been made and no agreement is imminent. According to Bloomberg, Verizon is mostly interested in AOL’s programmatic ad technology.

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Detours

Twentysomethings: Barely saving but surprisingly confident.

Talk to your kids.

Eleven movies to look for in 2015.

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Retail Therapy

ESPN on the web, for $20 a month.

Snow helmets for ‘70s fans.

Hello, dear readers, and happy 2015! Hope you had a terrific break. (Web visitors, you can find an easier-to-read version of this morning’s newsletter here.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Get ready. The FCC says it will vote on net neutrality next month.

Xiaomi, the four-year-old Chinese smartphone maker that just closed on $1.1 billion in new funding, last week revealed just how fast it’s growing, with sales of 61 million phones last year, up from 18.7 million devices in 2013 and 7.2 million in 2012.

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The Partovi Brothers Keep It In the Family

Nationally, the Partovi twins don’t have the same name recognition as another pair of high-powered twins who will soon be appearing in StrictlyVC. But in the Bay Area, the 41-year-olds’ involvement in a startup – as both operators and investors – is a powerful signal that a company is probably on to something big.

Ali Partovi was on the founding team of the Internet ad company LinkExchange, acquired by Microsoft in 1998 for $265 million; Hadi Partovi was on the founding team of the speech recognition company TellMe Networks, also acquired by Microsoft, for $800 million in 2007. The brothers have also been early investors in Zappos, Facebook, Airbnb and Dropbox, among others, and they’ve cofounded two organizations together: iLike, a social music service that sold to MySpace for a reported $20 million in 2009, and Code.org, a two-year-old nonprofit that’s making computer science available in more schools. (This reporters’ sons have participated in its one-hour introduction to computer science, along with more than 75 million other people.)

StrictlyVC recently talked with the twins to learn more about their relationship, what’s most interesting to them right now from an investing standpoint, and what they make of the broader market. Our chat has been edited for length.

Hadi, you live in Seattle, while Ali lives in the Bay Area. How long have you lived in different cities, and how often do you see one another?

HP: I’ve been up in Seattle since 2002, but we see each other every few months.

You’ve been investing together for many years. How full-time is that pursuit? How involved are you in Code.org?

HP: Code.org now has 40 employees; it’s pretty all-consuming. We’re still investing as angels, though as a side job, which is when we’ve been best at investing. Because we don’t have enough time, we reject almost everything. But being picky makes us more selective. Of the 30 to 40 investments we’ve made, only two or three have been failures, and we’ve had 13 or 14 exits.

How many companies did you back in 2014?

AP: We made only four new investments. Over the past five years, we’ve averaged only four new investments per year. If anything, I’d be happy with even fewer. Our annualized IRR as investors has been 44 percent, not including Dropbox, Airbnb, Indiegogo, and others [that haven’t exited yet].

How does a startup win you over?

HP: We like companies that are making a social impact – not a charity but companies that have a vision that the world should be different and better. Snapchat, for example, is a really high-value business, but it’s unclear that its mission is making the world a better place. We also like tech that’s disrupting the physical world.

But the quality of the people involved is what’s most important. We’re probably the only investors out there who will run a tech team through a tech interview as if they wanted to get a job at Google or Facebook. After all, why would an investor give tons of money to someone who couldn’t possibly get a job at [one of those two companies?]

Have you missed out on deals because of that hurdle?

HP: Some, though if we miss them, it’s not a big deal. We can afford to be choosy. Also, I think entrepreneurs recognize that our investment means a lot and that they can tell other people, including other VCs, who know about our interview process.

What size checks do you write and what do you expect for your money?

HP: Check sizes range from $100,000 to $250,000 typically, and the size of the stake completely depends on whether something is earlier or late. I think the biggest check we’ve written was $2 million for [the still-private, cloud-based electronic medical records company] Practice Fusion, which we think is incredibly promising.

Would you make an investment without your brother’s blessing?

HP: Yes, though we’ve made better investments when it’s unanimous. Ali has a passion for food-related investments, but almost all the rest have been joint investments.

You were both investors in the food tech company Hampton Creek, correct? Did you participate in its $90 million Series C round, announced last month? Ali, you even joined, then quickly left, the company as its chief strategy officer. Are you and Hadi still investors in the company or have you sold your stake to other investors?

HP: We did not participate in Hampton Creek’s newest round.

(To continue reading, click here.)

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New Fundings

3-V Biosciences, a 7.5-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based biopharmaceutical company that’s developing therapeutics for infectious diseases, has raised $28.5 million in Series D funding co-led by earlier backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, New Enterprise Associates and Rock Springs Capital Management, with participation from new investors, including Ally Bridge Group. The company has now raised $106.6 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Apploi, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based company that makes In-store kiosks to help employers with “walk-in” applications, as well as pushes job listings out to users’ phones based on their location, has raised $7.4 million in Series A funding, including from Mistral Equity Partners’ managing partner Andrew Heyer. TechCrunch has more here.

Depict, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based online platform that works with galleries and art institutions to allow users to explore digital work by new artists, has raised $2.4 million in new funding from Slow Ventures, Founder.org Capital and unnamed angel investors, reports VentureWire.

eShares, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company that digitizes paper stock certificates along with stock options, warrants, and derivatives, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from Spark Capital and earlier backers, including K9 Ventures. USV announced the round yesterday on its blog. StrictlyVC talked with eShares CEO Henry Ward last year about what the company is trying to pull off.

LaLaMove, a year-old, Hong Kong-based delivery service that enables users to dial up the delivery of nearly anything through a fleet of vans, trucks and motorbikes, has raised $10 million in new funding led by China’s Crystal Stream Capital, with participation from Geek Founders,Mindworks Ventures, Sirius Venture Capital and Aria Group, along with individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Scribd, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based company that offers unlimited access to half a million e-books for $8.99 a month, along with a document-sharing service, has raised $22 million in new funding led by Khosla Ventures. TechCrunch has more on the funding here. StrictlyVC spoke with Scribd CEO Trip Adler about the company’s all-you-can-eat library model last year. Scribd has now raised $47.8 million altogether.

Snapchat, the 3.5-year-old, Venice, Ca.-based messaging startup, has raised $485.6 million in new funding, shows a new SEC filing. The round reportedly includes Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Yahoo, among many others, and is the 10th largest deal among U.S. venture capital-backed companies, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. The company has now raised $648 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Symic Biomedical, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company that’s studying treatments for osteoarthritis and cardiovascular ailments, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Lilly Ventures. The company has raised $16.4 million altogether.

TinyPulse, a two-year-old, Seattle-based company that makes employee engagement software, has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding led by Baseline Ventures, with participation from Harrison Metal and undisclosed strategic investors. StrictlyVC talked with TinyPulse last month about its pulse surveys and their increasingly widespread adoption at companies both big and small.

Vuzix, an 18-year-old, Rochester, N.Y.-based company that makes Internet-connected eyewear products, has sold 49,626 of its Series A preferred stock — convertible into 4,962,600 shares of Vuzix’s common stock — to Intel, which will own 30 percent of the company upon that conversion. Intel is spending $24.8 million for the shares. Vator has more here.

Wanda E-commerce, a six-month-old, Suzhou, China-based company designed to compete with Alibaba, has raised roughly $161 million in funding from investment funds Centec Networks and Xude Rendao. Wanda E-commerce was founded in August as a joint venture by mega-conglomerate Wanda and two of China’s biggest Internet firms, Tencent Holdings and Baidu. More here.

X.ai, a 10-month-old, New York-based company that’s developing a virtual email assistant that can schedule meetings on users’ behalf, has raised $9.2 million in Series A funding led by FirstMark Capital, with participation from Pritzker Group Venture Capital, CrunchFund, and earlier investors. X.ai had raised $2.1 million in seed funding last summer, including from Lerer Hippeau Ventures, IA Ventures, and SoftBank Capital.

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New Funds

Aperture Venture Partners, a New York-based healthcare focused venture firm, has raised $49.2 million for its third fund, shows a new SEC filing that lists a target of $100 million. The firm began raising the fund (officially) in August 2013.

Incubate Fund, a Tokyo, Japan-based venture capital firm, has raised a new 11 billion yen ($91 million) fund that will invest in early-stage startups located in North America, Japan, and the rest of Asia, reports TechCrunch. The firm’s LPs include Internet giant Tencent, Yahoo Japan, Sega Sammy, Tokyo Broadcasting System, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking, and Development Bank of Japan, among others.

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IPOs

Inovalon Holdings, a 17-year-old, Bowie, Md.-based analytics and data-based technology service company that caters to the healthcare sector, has filed to raise up to $500 million in an IPO. Its biggest outside shareholders include Meritas Group, which owns 38.8 percent of the company, and Lapis Ventures, which owns 16.1 percent.

Micromax Informatics, India’s second-largest smartphone maker, plans to raise as much as $500 million through an IPO this year, reports Reuters. The company is backed by TA Associates and Sequoia Capital. Micromax’s biggest rivals include Samsung Electronics, Motorola and China’s Xiaomi. In India, Samsung reportedly dominates, with roughly 25 percent market share (as of September), followed by Micromax at 20 percent.

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People

Renee DiResta, a principal at O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures for the past three-plus years, has left to join an OATV-backed, months-old shipping logistics company called Haven in business development. In a post published late last week, DiResta says she will also continue to invest as an angel investor. More here. (H/T: Dan Primack.)

Super entrepreneur Elon Musk and his wife, actress Talulah Riley, are divorcing — for a second time. Musk filed for divorce in L.A. County Superior Court on New Year’s Eve, with Musk planning to provide Riley with $16 million in cash and other assets as part of a financial settlement, according to a joint statement. Musk has five sons from his first marriage to author Justine Musk. NBC has more here.

Operator-investor Semil Shah has created a Twitter list of “underrepresented minorities in startups, tech, and investing.” (It’s a good starting point if you’re looking for exposure to new perspectives.)

Megan Smith, the former Google executive turned CTO of the U.S., is doing what she can to bring the administration into the present, but the “real struggle” for her is “that while this role does have a direct line to the presidency, it does not have much of a budget or any authority over other agencies,” notes Clay Johnson, who ran President Obama’s online campaign in 2008 and worked in his administration as a presidential innovation fellow.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced on Facebook that he plans to read a book every other week this year, and he asked his 30 million Facebook followers to join him in a kind of online book club. The first book is “The End of Power” by Moisés Naím, a former Foreign Policy editor. Unsurprisingly, it’s already “temporarily out of stock” at Amazon.

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Essential Reads

The U.S. patent system is so broken that almost no patented discoveries ever get used.

Welcome to the new ransomware economy.

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Detours

A glimpse into the process of stop motion animation.

“In most major cities, there are now dedicated day spas for children, offering a range of massages, facials and other treatments for girls (and sometimes boys) too young to have had their first pimple.”

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Retail Therapy

The making of a Porsche 918 Spyder Hybrid. By hand.