Hey, hey, it’s Friday!

If you’re considering coming to our upcoming INSIDER event February 25th, you can still pick up a ticket right here. It’s now at standing-room-only capacity, but seating is open (i.e, move fast and get a seat). If you know the beautiful Autodesk Gallery, you also know there’s plenty of other space to relax and watch with a glass of wine and hors’ d’oeuvres in hand.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! (No column today; long day yesterday.)

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Top News in the A.M.

LinkedIn reported fourth quarter earnings yesterday, and Wall Street really did not like what it heard.

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New Fundings

BeON Home, a two-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based maker of a Bluetooth Smart-enabled home protection system, has raised $2.9 million in funding led by Jopeko LLC, with participation from earlier (unnamed) investors.The company has now raised nearly $5 million altogether. More here.

Riskmethods, a three-year-old, Munich-based maker of global supply chain risk management software, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by EQT Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Senovo, Point Nine and Bayern Kapital.

Fit Pay, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based payment platform for wearable devices, has raised  $3.1 million in seed funding led by Giesecke & Devrient, a supplier of mobile security products,  with participation from the startup accelerator Plug and Play Tech Center. More here.

Hobnob, a 1.5-year-old Honolulu, Hawaii-based event management and invitation platform, has raised $2.25 million in seed funding from Norwest Venture Partners, Aspect Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners and Greycroft Partners. Pacific Business News has more here.

PuzzleSocial, the five-year-old, New York-based company behind the popular daily digital crossword puzzle “Daily Celebrity Crossword,” has raised $5 million in a debt round led by earlier backer (and former HBO president) Thayer Bigelow. New York Business Journal has more here.

Receipt Bank, a nearly seven-year-old, London-based maker of bookkeeping automation software provider, has raised $10 million in growth capital from Kennet Partners. EU Startups has more here.

Symantec, the publicly traded company best known for its Norton antivirus software, says Silver Lake Partners has invested $500 million in the company through convertible debt. Reuters has more here.

Wevr, a five-year-old, L.A.-based virtual reality startup, has raised $25 million from strategic investors. Fortune has the story here.

WiSilica, a 2.5-year-old, Aliso Viejo, Ca.-based Internet of Things startup, has raised $3.35 million in funding from FirstFloor Capital, with participation fromAnchor Asia Management and angel investors. FinSMEs has more here.

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New Funds

Saxo Bank co-founder and longtime co-CEO Lars Seier Christensen has set up a new venture capital firm in Switzerland called Seier Capital that he’s fueling with $350 million of his own money as available capital. He’s apparently interested in far more than fintech, too, with initial investments ranging from a fast-food burger restaurant to a Danish hockey team to numerous online startups. LeapRate has the story here.

General Catalyst Partners has raised $845 million for its eighth venture fund and a supplemental fund designed for follow-on investments. The firm now manages $3.75 billion. TechCrunch has more here.

Tony Lacavera, the founder of Canada’s fourth-largest wireless carrier, Wind Mobile, is looking to raise a $100 million venture fund.  CBC News has more here.

Terry Kawaja, a longtime media and tech banker, has launched a venture capital fund called Luma Partners that will be led by a pair of Intel Capital vets, reports Fortune. The SEC filing shows a target of $100 million.

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Exits

Rocket Internet is selling food takeaway operations in Spain, Italy, Brazil and Mexico to Just Eat for €125 million ($140 million), with the admission that they are all “non-core operations that are not market-leading”, in the words of Rocket. TechCrunch has some great analysis about the “takeout shakeout” here.

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People

Elon Musk‘s next big idea could be an electric jet that takes off vertically. Answering a question at Texas A&M University earlier this week, Musk said he’s “been thinking about the vertical takeoff and landing electric jet a bit more. I think I have something that might close. I’m quite tempted to do something about it.” TheNextWeb has more here.

Justin Palmer recently joined Redpoint Ventures as an entrepreneur-in-residence. Palmer was most recently VP of data at LendingHome. More here.

Arjun Sethi, who sold his mobile messaging startup MessageMe to Yahoo in 2014, then worked to help Yahoo compete in the area of mobile chat apps, is leaving the company. Sethi’s next stop: Social Capital, the four-year-old venture firm cofounded by Chamath Palihapitiya. He’ll be focused on consumer Internet startups, reports the WSJ.

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Jobs

The Plug and Play Tech Center is looking to hire a business development associate. The job is in Sunnyvale, Ca.

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Essential Reads

The Honest Company is working with banks on an IPO, reports Bloomberg.

Autodesk just laid off 10 percent of its workforce in a move to trim costs as it moves toward a subscription model.

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Detours

The town of Colma, where San Francisco’s dead live.

Six steps to curb materialism in your kids.

Why we haven’t found aliens (yet).

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Retail Therapy

We kind of like this crazy boat coffee table.

Thursday! So tantalizingly close to Friday, you know?

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Top News in the A.M.

Remember that WSJ story about Amazon opening up several hundred brick and mortar stores? Hundreds might have been overstating things a skosh, sources now tell Recode. Also, Amazon has plans for retail stores other than simply bookstores. More here.

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Now You Can Swipe for a Notary, Too

On-demand services have taken off, much to the delight of pretty much everyone who uses them.

Now we can add notary services to the list of conveniences we can call up with a tap on our iPhones thanks to Notarize, a months-old startup with offices in Alexandria, Va., and in Boston. It offers a 24-hour service that enables people in all 50 states to have their documents notarized remotely. [Yay.]

If you’ve experienced the ridiculousness of having to track down a notary, this may all sound too good to be true. And it would have been until very recently. But in 2011, Virginia passed a bill allowing documents to be notarized remotely, using audio-video technology.

Founder and CEO  Pat Kinsel discovered this law soon after learning on, while on vacation, that a brokerage couldn’t accept a document that he’d given to a notary who lost track of it.

Kinsel — who cofounded an earlier company called Spindle that sold to Twitter and who is today also a venture partner with Polaris Partners — says that out of his own “intellectual curiosity, I started researching this in my spare time.”

One of the things Kinsel learned? That there’s a $30 billion potential market opportunity to chase, given that an estimated one billion documents get notarized annually in the U.S. (Many are these are done for free, we should mention, but Notarize is charging $25 per document for its ease of use.)

More here.

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New Funding

Admedo, a 3.5-year-old, London-based programmatic ad tech company, has raised $6 million in fresh funding led by MMC Ventures. More here.

Aira.io, a year-old, San Diego-based company that’s developing remote assistance technology to bring greater independence to the blind and visually impaired, has raised more than $2.5 million in Series A funding led by Lux Capital and ARCH Venture Partners. Other participants in the round include Felicis Ventures, Larry Bock, Scott Belsky, and several other well-known angel investors. More here.

Blockstream, a nearly two-year-old, San Francisco-based company behind bitcoin-like ledgers that operate independently of, but are pegged to, bitcoin, has raised $55 million in Series A funding from Horizons Ventures, AXA Strategic Ventures and Digital Garage. Earlier backers AME Cloud Ventures, Blockchain Capital, Future\Perfect Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Mosaic Ventures and Seven Seas Venture Partners also joined the round. The WSJ has the story here.

Boqii.com, an eight-year-old, Shanghai, China-based pet e-commerce company, has reportedly raised $102 million in Series C funding led by China Merchants Bank, with participation from Goldman Sachs and other investors. China Money Network has more here.

Hi, happy Wednesday, dear readers! Busy morning over here. Know some of you are in sunny L.A. today; hope you’re enjoying it.

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Top News in the A.M.

In what is surely a surreal twist for the many traditional booksellers done in by Amazon, the e-commerce giant is now planning to open hundreds of brick-and-mortar bookstores.

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Mifold Raises $1.5 Million for its Grab-and-Go Booster Seat

If you have young children, or your children aren’t so old that you can still remember what a pain clunky car seats can be, you might want to acquaint yourself with three-year-old, Ra’anana, Israel-based mifold.

The founders of King Digital Entertainment did. In fact, after seeing the Indiegogo campaign of mifold and its accompanying video, they reached out to mifold founder Jon Sumroy on LinkedIn of all places, asking if they could plug $1.5 million into the company.

Sumroy says it’s the “first formal” investment out of the King founders’ seed-stage fund, Sweet Capital. Sumroy also says that mifold has now raised $3.3 million altogether, including earlier seed rounds that came from friends, family, and several early production partners that like what the company is building.

As a parent who’s entering the carpooling phase of her sons’ lives, I definitely get it. Plainly, so do the 15,000 customers who’ve pre-ordered roughly 30,0000 mifold car seats, which are expected to start rolling off the production line in late March, at $39.99 apiece (or slightly less bought in bulk).

More here.

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New Fundings

After School, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup whose app for high school students allows them to post anonymously to their classmates (and was once banned from Apple’s App Store for violating the company’s safety guidelines) has raised $16.4 million in funding led by Accomplice, with participation from Cowboy Ventures and numerous individual investors, including Parse co-founder Tikhon Bernstam and AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant. Recode has more here.

Agrible, a 3.5-year-old, Champaign, Il.-based company that makes predictive analytics tools for growers and agricultural companies, has raised $4.1 million in Series A funding from Flyover Capital, Serra Ventures and Archer Daniels Midland. More here.

Avalanche Technology, a nine-year-old, Fremont, Ca.-based company that makes solid-state storage arrays, has raised $23 million in new equity and debt funding from Thomvest Ventures, Vulcan Capital, Rogers Venture Partners, VTB Capital, and Horizon Technology Finance. More here.

Curalate, a three-year-old, Philadelphia, Pa.-based image recognition marketing startup, has raised $27.5 million in new funding led by New Enterprise Associates. The company has now raised $40 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Elemental Machines, a year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based software simulator startup that hopes to reduce time and costs associated with drug research through data, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from Founders Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

eSentire, a 14-year-old, Cambridge, Ontario-based managed cybersecurity services company, has raised $19.5 million in new funding led by Edison Partners and Georgian Partners, with participation from Cisco Investments, Northleaf Ventures Catalyst Fund and Information Venture Partners.

FiscalNote, a 2.5-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based platform for analyzing government risk, has raised $10 million in Series C funding co-led by Visionnaire Ventures and Green Visor Capital, with participation from 645 Ventures, Renren, Plug and Play, SF Capital, Perle Ventures, Conversion Capital and individual investors, including Jerry Yang and Mark Cuban. Fortune has more here.

Geofeedia, a four-year-old, Chicago-based startup that pulls real-time, location-based data from social media, has raised $17 million in Series B funding led by Silversmith Capital Partners. Earlier investors, including Hyde Park Venture Partners, also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

JASK, a new, San Francisco-based AI startup focused on cybersecurity, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Battery Ventures. More here.

Lamudi, a 2.5-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based real estate classifieds site operating in Asia, South America and MENA, has raised €29 million ($31.4 million) in new funding from earlier backers Rocket Internet (via a joint venture with Qatar-based Ooredoo), Holtzbrinck Ventures, and Tengelmann Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Pear Therapeutics, a 2.5-year-old, Boston-based developer of software-based substance abuse treatments, has raised $20 million in new funding from 5AM Ventures, Arboretum Ventures, JAZZ Venture Partners and Bridge Builders Collaborative. More here.

Petcube, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that makes a connected home camera so owners can play with their fluffy friends remotely, has raised $2.6 million in funding from Almaz Capital, Y Combinator, and AVentures Capital. The company has now raised $3.8 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

Salesfloor, a three-year-old, Montreal, Canada-based SaaS platform that enables customers to shop online with their local store and associate, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by BDC Capital IT Venture Fund. FinSMEs has more here.

Siftery, a five-month-old, San Francisco-based database of sorts where companies list their software stacks, has raised $4 million from Felicis Ventures, Founders Fund, and Venrock among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Skybox Security, a 13-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based security analytics company, has raised $96 million in equity funding from the growth equity affiliate of Providence Equity Partners. Fortune has more here.

Spero Therapeutics, a 2.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based developer of treatments for bacterial infections, has raised $30 million in Series B funding from earlier investors Atlas Venture, S.R. One, Partners Innovation Fund,MRL Ventures, Lundbeckfond Ventures and The Kraft Group. Xconomy hasmore here.

StayNTouch, a 3.5-year-old, Bethesa, Md.-based enterprise mobile cloud platform that helps hotels better connect with staff and guests, has raised $9.5 million in new funding co-led by Concur and Shiji Ltd. More here.

Thumzap, a 2.5-year-old, Israeli startup whose payments platform alerts parents to the proposed online purchases of their teenagers through a “just ask” button, has raised $3 million in seed funding from Sierra Wasatch Capital and individual angels. TechCrunch has more here.

Travelstart, a 17-year-old, Cape Town, South Africa-based online travel agency, has raised $40 million in funding from Amadeus Capital and the Africa-based mobile services operator MTN.

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New Funds

Index Ventures, the 20-year-old venture firm, with offices in San Francisco, London, and Geneva, has just closed its eighth early-stage venture firm, a $550 million pool that it plans to invest in the U.S. and Europe in equal parts. (The firm had raised around the same amount for its seventh early-stage fund, closed a few years ago.) Index — whose U.S. partners include firm cofounder Danny Rimer, former Cisco chief strategy officer Mike Volpi, and former Dropbox head of product Ilya Fushman — has also promoted to partner Shadul Shah. Shah had joined the firm from Summit Partners in 2008 as an associate. We talked with Volpi and Shah about the fund and more here.

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Exits

Housejoy, an India-based home services on-demand company backed by Amazon (among others), has acquired the on-demand laundry and cleaning company MyWash. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. TechCrunch hasmore here.

Microsoft has acquired London-based SwiftKey, which makes a predictive smartphone keyboard, for $250 million, or roughly 10 times what SwiftKey raised from its investors. TechCrunch has more here.

ZAGG, best known for its line of Invisible Shield screen protectors, is acquiring Mophie, makers of the popular JuicePack line of smartphone battery cases. (Our Mophie products have saved our bacon more times than we can say.) Zagg will pay $100 million for Mophie up front, plus an earn-out based on Mophie’s performance over the next year. TechCrunch has more here.

Veolia, a Paris-based company, is acquiring Kurion, an Irvine, Ca.-based nuclear waste management technologies company, for $350 million. Kurion had reportedly raised just $5 million from investors. Reuters has more here.

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People

GitHub VP of Engineering Susan Lally has parted ways with the company, in what’s become a long string of executive departures from the company. Business Insider has more here.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk thinks we made too big a deal of his canceling the car order of VC Stewart Alsop.

Alexander Taussig has joined Lightspeed Venture Partners as a partner. He previously spent more than six years with Highland Capital Partners.

Yahoo has confirmed its plans to lay off approximately 15 percent of its workforce. TechCrunch has more here.

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Data

According to Pitchbook, venture capital invested soared to an astonishing $14 billion in January, with 50 different rounds generating $50 million or more. Almost one quarter of that sum centered on one deal — China’s Meituan-Dianping, a seller of movie tickets and restaurant bookings raised a stunning $3.3 billion — but  900 other financings also went down, totaling a lot more funding than in January 2015. More here.

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Essential Reads

Investor Mark Suster, whose Upfront Ventures kicked off a two-day conference in L.A. this morning, has put together one of his big fat state-of-venture-capital type presentations. You can read about it here.

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Detours

The art world insider who went too far.

The company behind the Super Bowl coin toss — and its dark secret.

Resting bitchface, examined.

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Retail Therapy

The Jaguar XF R-Sport. It “literally pulses with excitement,” says the New York Times.

Hi, everyone, happy Tuesday!

Very big thanks to the generous folks at Ludlow Ventures, which just signed up to help sponsor our upcoming event. This is the second time they’re helping us produce one of these evenings; we greatly appreciate their support!

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Top News in the A.M.

Perhaps you heard: Alphabet became the most valuable publicly traded company in the world yesterday.

For the first time, Alphabet also broke out its revenue and loss from its “other bets” outside of its core products yesterday, revealing those bets generated $448 million in revenue in 2015 but that Alphabet’s operating loss for them was almost $3.6 billion.

Apple is reportedly eyeing March 15 for its next big iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch event.

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Don’t Mess with Musk

Yesterday, longtime Bay Area venture capitalist Stewart Alsop posted something fairly unexpected to Medium.

In a letter to Tesla CEO Elon Musk titled “Banned by Tesla,” Alsop wrote of his surprise that Tesla would cancel the Model X he’d ordered and that Alsop has been eagerly awaiting. (Alsop says in the post it was to be red, with black leather seats and Tesla’s Ludicrous Speed option.)

It was no clerical or accounting error. Alsop says that after complaining — also on Medium — about what he viewed as the Model X’s poorly orchestrated launch event back in September (Alsop titled that one, “@ElonMusk, You should be ashamed of yourself”), Musk personally got involved in his order.

Specifically, says Alsop, he canceled it.

We reached out to both Alsop and Tesla yesterday to find out more about the incident, which we gather is unprecedented, but have yet to hear back from either.

What we do know, from Alsop’s post, is that the two talked on the phone at some point, at which point Musk told Alsop that he was not comfortable with him owning a Tesla after having been flamed by Alsop publicly.

More here.

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New Fundings

Bochewang, a 1.5-year-old, China-based online auction platform for salvaged (then restored) cars, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led China Pacific Insurance Corporation, with participation from Sino-Ocean Land, Far East Horizon, and earlier backer Fosun Kinzon Capital. Asian Venture Capital Journal has more here.

Calysta Energy, a four-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based company that’s developing a new biological gas-to-liquids and biological gas-to-chemical technology using natural gas, has raised $30 million in Series C funding from Cargill, the Municipal Employee Retirement System of Michigan, Old Westbury Global Real Assets Fund, and earlier backers Walden Riverwood Ventures, Aqua-Spark and Pangaea Ventures. More here.

Click Notices, a five-year-old, Annapolis, Md.-based SaaS company that provides delinquency management services to the multifamily property industry, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding led by Sopris Capital. More here.

TheFamily, a nearly three-year-old, Paris-based startup accelerator and startup studio for big corporate clients, has raised $6.6 million in funding from 500 Startups, ACE & Company, SGH Capital, Pentalabbs, and numerous individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Grapeshot, a 24-year-old, New York- and London-based ad tech firm, has raised $8.5 million in funding from European-based investors IQ Capital, Draper Esprit, and Albion Ventures. The company has now raised $14.25 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

HI-FI, a three-year-old, Ponte Vedra, Fla.-based interest-centric social media network (users join micro-communities of other users who share similar interests), has raised $3 million in seed funding from friends, family and local seed investors.

Kraken, a 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based digital currency exchange, has raised an undisclosed “mult-million dollar” round of Series B funding from SBI Investment,  the venture arm of SBI Holdings, a Japan-based Internet-based financial group. StrictlyVC had talked with Kraken founder and CEO Jesse Powell back in June. CoinDesk has more on the round here.

Magic Leap, a four-year-old, Dania, Fla.-based startup at work on a yet-to-debut device that reportedly overlays digital animation on a user’s field of vision, has officially raised $793.5 million in a Series C round of funding at a whopping $4.5 billion post-money valuation. The round was led by e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba, with participation also from earlier backers Google, Qualcomm Ventures, Warner Bros, Fidelity, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, T. Rowe Price and Wellington Management Co. The company has also added Alibaba founder and executive president Jack Ma to its board of directors. TechCrunch has more here.

OutSystems, a 15-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based service that helps enterprises quickly build line-of-business apps, has raised $55 million in funding led byNorth Bridge Growth Equity. Previous investors in the company include ES Ventures and Portugal Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Pencil + Pixel, a year-old, San Francisco-based company whose online service, Modsy, allows users to see and purchase designs and decor within the context of their own homes, has raised $8 million in Series A funding. Norwest Venture Partners led the round, with participation from earlier investors and prominent angels Restoration Hardware SVP Eoin Harrington, Joanne Wilson of Gotham Gal, and Pascal Levensohn of Dolby Ventures. The company has now raised $11.75 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

PhotoSonix Medical, a 1.5-year-old, Ambler, Pa.-based company whose medical device treats acne, has raised more than $1.4 million in funding led by Princeton BioPharma Capital Partners, with participation from unnamed healthcare executives and entrepreneurs. MedCity News has more here.

RiskMethods, a three-year-old, Munich, Germany-based SaaS company that supports geo-based modeling of complex supply chains to provide its customers greater transparency about risk exposures, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by EQT Ventures. Earlier backers Senovo, Point Nine Capital and Bayern Kapital also joined the round. EU Startups has more here.

SolidEnergy, a 4.5-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based company that makes anode-free batteries, has raised $12 million in Series B funding led by an unnamed U.S. auto company, with participation from SAIC, Applied Ventures, and the company’s Series A backers, which includes Vertex Ventures. More here.

Spotcap, a 1.5-year-old, Berlin-based Rocket Internet-founded fintech startup that operates an online lending platform for small businesses, has raised €31.5 million ($34.4 million) in new funding led by Russian private equity firm Finstar Financial Group, with participation from previous investor Holtzbrinck Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Tattoodo, a three-year-old, Copenhagen-based digital lifestyle content and e-commerce hub for all things tattoo-related, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from numerous individual investors, including AOL executive Jimmy Maymann, Pluto TV CEO Tom Ryan, and Threadless CEO Jake Nickell. TechCrunch has more here.

ThirdLove, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based intimates brand, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from new and earlier investors, including former Spanx CEO Laurie Ann Goldman; Lori Greeley, the former CEO of Victoria’s Secret Stores; REI chairman John Hamlin; Starwood Hotels founder Barry Sternlicht; and American Express EVP Claire Bennett.

Widespace, a nearly nine-year-old, Stockholm Sweden-based mobile ad platform, has raised $17.2 million in growth capital from Kreos, with participation from earlier backers. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Lewis & Clark Ventures, a year-old, St. Louis, Mo.-based growth-stage venture firm focused on Midwest startups, has closed its debut fund with $104 million. More here.

Medicxi Ventures, a new venture capital firm that has offices in London and Geneva and which comprises all of the existing life sciences portfolio companies and funds from Index Ventures, has closed Medicxi Ventures 1, a $250 million fund that will focus on early-stage life sciences investments, predominantly in Europe. It’s being managed by four general partners: Francesco De Rubertis, David Grainger, Kevin Johnson and Michèle Ollier, all of whom previously led the life sciences practice of Index Ventures. More here.

The United Nations plans to funnel $9 million into 60 startups to help create open source technologies that improve the lives of children in developing countries. Wired has more here.

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Exits

Bezar, the year-old design ecommerce platform led by Fab cofounder Bradford Shellhammer, is being acquired by the four-year-old, Australian ecommerce site AHALife, which sells hard-to-find design products. The terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed. Bezar looks to have raised just $2.25 million, including from Maveron, Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, and BoxGroup. TechCrunch hasmore here.

Publicly traded FireEye has acquired Invotas, a 1.5-year-old, Alexandria, Va.-based company that develops a platform that helps administrators respond faster to security incidents. Terms were not disclosed. Invotas hadn’t disclosed any outside funding. PCWorld has the story here.

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People

Roy Bahat, who heads up the venture outfit Bloomberg Beta in San Francisco, says that he and his partners have made the future of work their overarching investment theme, and it’s something he wants their entrepreneurs to be focused on, too. More here.

Geekwire talks with “Silicon Valley” actor and comic T.J. Miller, who somewhat famously offended a long list of people at TechCrunch’s Crunchies award ceremony last year. (This year’s Crunchies is coming up Monday, by the way. We’ll be on hand to help present the Angel of the Year award.)

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Jobs

Moscow-based Runa Capital, which opened a San Francisco office last year, is looking to hire an associate in SF.

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Essential Reads

China is planning a pilot program that will allow select commercial banks to set up equity investment arms and take direct stakes in tech firms, a move aimed at giving lenders a chance to buy into a high-growth industry while stoking competition with private equity players. Reuters has more here.

At Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, the freshmen wear Fitbits. They have to. They’re now mandatory, reports the Washington Post.

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Detours

23andMe on why some people are more chipper than others in the mornings.

How many steps a day should you really walk?

The death of a troll.

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Retail Therapy

Stomp walker stilts. (Your kids will thank us.)

Hi, everyone, welcome back, and happy February.

We’re getting super excited to see many of you in a few weeks at our early evening event on Thursday, February 25th, at the Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco! Wish cofounder and CEO Peter Szulczewski will be there, as will GV CEO Bill Maris, VC and lecturer Heidi Roizen, and Autodesk CEO Carl Bass, among others. We’ll also have plenty of food and drink on hand.

Thanks very much to our generous sponsors Autodesk and Bolt for making the evening possible, including by providing us with an amazing venue!

Two-thirds of our tickets are now gone; if you’re planning to come, too, please do grab yours soon.

(P.S. No column today. We’re busy taking care of an eight-year-old ventriloquist who’s a little under the weather this morning.)

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Top News in the A.M.

SFX Entertainment, a company created four years ago to capitalize on the popularity of dance music festivals, has just declared bankruptcy, roughly 2.5 years after going public.

Twitter shares are trading up this morning on speculation that investor Marc Andreessen could partner with private equity group Silver Lake to buy the company. More here.

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New Fundings

Aprecia Pharmaceuticals, a 12-year-old, Langhorn, Pa.-based company that develops and manufactures precision drug delivery systems and products, including an epilepsy treatment that it developed through 3D printing technology, has raised $35 million in new funding led by Deerfield Management, with participation from JW Asset Management. Aprecia also converted $44 million in convertible debt to equity according to VentureWire. The company’s debtholders included Great American Insurance Co. and Scion Cos.

Atom Tickets, a 20-month-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based online ticketing app, is reportedly raising $50 million from three Hollywood studios: The Walt Disney Company, Fox, and Lionsgate. The company was founded by CEO Ameesh Paleja, who formerly ran the product and engineering division for the Amazon Appstore. The Hollywood Reporter has more here.

Flyp, a months-old, Boston-based mobile app that allows users to create a free U.S. phone number, has raised $5.8 million in seed funding, including from MAG Ventures, Aspect Ventures, Acorn Ventures, Structure Capital, and individual investors Jeffrey Parker and Russell Simmons. VentureWire says the round closed back in September. More here.

Kaizen, a 2.5-year-old, Tokyo- and San Francisco-based user interface marketplace and testing platform, has raised $8 million in Series B funding from YJ Capital, the venture arm of Yahoo Japan; NTT Docomo Ventures; Saison Ventures KK; and COLOPL, along with earlier backers Eight Roads Ventures Japan, GREE Ventures, and GMO Venture Partners. The company has now raised $17.8 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

KFit, a nine-month-old, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based service that offers gym and healthcare services a la ClassPass in the U.S., has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by the Southeast Asian venture firm Venturra Capital. Other participants include SIG, Axiata Digital Innovation Fund, and earlier backers Sequoia Capital India and 500 Startups. TechCrunch has more here.

KnowBe4, a five-year-old, Tampa Bay, Fla.-based software platform that teaches employees about security awareness, including through simulated phishing attacks, has raised $8 million in funding led by Elephant Partners, reports VentureWire. Elephant is the relatively new venture fund formed by Andy Hunt, co-founder of Warby Parker, and Jeremiah Daly, a former partner from Highland Capital Partners. More here.

Lexumo, a year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based cloud service that continuously checks open source code to be sure it has the latest security updates, has raised $4.89 million in seed funding led by Accomplice, .406 Ventures and Draper Laboratory. TechCrunch has more here.

Nabobil, a four-month-old, Norway-based peer-to-peer car rental marketplace, has raised $600,000 in seed funding from an undisclosed group of angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Screen, a two-year-old, New York-based company whose hardware, coupled with a mobile application, allows parents to manage their children’s screen time across devices, has raised $1.9 million in seed funding from Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Advancit Capital, Novel TMT Ventures, Box Group, Maveron Capital, as well as individual investor Peter Hershberger. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

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New Funds

Creandum, a 13-year-old, early-stage venture firm with offices in Stockholm and Palo Alto, Ca., has just closed its fourth fund with €180 million ($196.3 million). The capital will be used to target internet and software startups across Europe. The fund is about a quarter larger than the firm’s last vehicle, which closed in May 2013 with €135 million ($147 million) and was used to back more than 30 companies. TechCrunch has more here.

Lemnos Labs, an early-stage hardware-focused, San Francisco-based venture fund, is raising $50 million for its second fund, according to an SEC filing. It closed its debut fund with $20 million in 2014. One of Lemnos’s newer bets is Teforia, a  Mountain View, Ca.-based startup that says its machine makes the perfect cup of tea every time.

RPM Ventures, a 16-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based seed- and early-stage venture capital firm, is looking to raise up to $100 million for its newest fund, shows an SEC filing that states the first sale has yet to occur. Some of the firm’s investments include Janrain, a Portland, Ore.-based maker of customer identity management products, and Able, an Austin, Tex.-based collaborative lender that connects entrepreneurs with capital.

Sesame Street is getting into the investing biz, with plans to pour $1 million into a bunch of startups. Business Insider has more here.

Sozo Ventures, a 3.5-year-old, cross-border venture fund focused on helping U.S. tech companies break into overseas markets, including Japan, is looking to raise up to $200 million for its second fund, shows an SEC filing that states the first sale has yet to occur. The firm had raised at least $110 million for its debut fund. Among its investments is Pley, a San Jose, Ca., startup that rents Legos via monthly subscriptions (it then cleans the pieces between rentals) that raised $10 million last year led by Sozo.

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Exits

Alere, a publicly traded maker of medical tests, has been acquired by the publicly traded baby formula maker Abbott for about $5.8 billion. Dealbook has more here.

Flyby Media, a five-year-old, New York-based augmented reality startup that develops mobile social applications, has been acquired by Apple for undisclosed terms. According to CrunchBase, Flyby had raised roughly $14 million from investors, including CNF Ventures and Chart Venture Partners. More here.

Sendd, a young, Mumbai, India-based on-demand shipping service provider that had raised roughly $500,000 in seed funding from Kae Capital, is being acquired for roughly $4.5 million by Craftsvilla, a Mumbai-based e-tailer that sells ethnic goods. Inc 42 has more here.

Sproutling, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose baby monitor system includes a rubber wearable sensor placed on the ankle, has been acquired by Mattel for undisclosed terms. The company had raised roughly $6.5 million, including from Lemnos Labs and Forerunner Ventures.

Tapad, a five-year-old, New York-based cross-device retargeting startup co-founded by two Norwegians, has just been acquired by the Norwegian carrier Telenor for $360 million “on a debt and cash-free basis.” Tapad had raised roughly $34 million from investors, including FirstMark Capital and Battery Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Bill Gates says he used to memorize his employees’ license plates to keep tabs on when they came and left during the early days of Microsoft.

Localytics, a mobile-app analytics company, has laid off about 37 people, or about 15 percent of its staff. The Boston Globe has more here.

Silicon Valley’s six favorite bankers, according to subscribers of The Information.

VarageSale, a mobile-first Craigslist competitor, has laid off 26 employees, or about one-third of its staff, reports Recode. StrictlyVC talked with the company last year, soon after it raised $34 million from Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

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Jobs

Next World Capital is hiring an associate or senior associate. The job is in San Francisco.

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Essential Reads

There are lots of shady locksmiths using Google to pick people’s pockets, and no one is stopping them.

Amazon is getting into the business of original podcasts.

The collaboration curse.

Get ready to binge-fly, with unlimited flight subscriptions.
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Detours

60 teens on what’s cool — and what’s not — right now.

The 100 jokes that shaped modern comedy.

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Retail Therapy

A plot of land and architectural plans that will cost you $35 million.