Hi, everyone, hope your Tuesday is off to a great start.:) We were just handed a delicious croissant, which has greatly improved our late morning and fortified us for the Tesla product announcement that’s coming out at noon PST today.

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Top News in the A.M.

Find a comfortable seat; here’s a quick look at all 44 startups that launched yesterday on day one of Y Combinator‘s 16th Demo Day.

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For HBS Students, a Study in What Not to Do

At Harvard Business School, students pay top dollar to learn everything from how to manage international trade to scaling technology ventures. They’re also schooled in the art of venture capital. Among the case studies they learned last year is the story of Rothenberg Ventures (RV), a four-year-old seed stage firm.

Whether the San Francisco outfit should have been part of their curriculum is an open question.

Though RV was founded by HBS graduate Mike Rothenberg, the firm, which has raised at least $47 million over the years and employed upwards of 60 people at its peak, is on the brink of imploding owing to a “lack of controls,” in the words of one of its investors.

That the firm isn’t a breakaway success story isn’t necessarily the issue. Many case studies center of companies that make missteps. A larger problem, seemingly, is that the study about RV – which was funded by HBS before the firm’s troubles publicly surfaced last week — was also co-authored by two professors who have a “significant financial interest in Rothenberg Ventures,” as stated prominently in a curriculum footnote. (The study is available for purchase here.)

One of those professors has since left HBS and is now a visiting associate professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He didn’t respond to a message seeking more information.

Asked about attracting students’ attention to a venture firm that he has funded, Professor Ramana Nanda, another of the study’s co-authors, wrote us yesterday that HBS has numerous, strict guidelines governing the relationship between professors and students, the most relevant in this case being that professors aren’t allowed to invest in ventures started by current students or to contract with them while students to invest after they graduate. Dr. Nanda notes that he made an investment in RV after Rothenberg graduated from HBS, as he sometimes has with other HBS alums.

Stringent ethicists might quibble with whether that’s sufficient, given that many HBS students attend the school with an eye toward getting a startup off the ground and that introducing them to certain brands may make it more likely that students will approach them.

It’s easy, too, to imagine a fund using the support of HBS professors (not to mention an HBS case study) to gain legitimacy with future investors.

More here.

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New Fundings

Bitfinder, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based maker of an air quality monitor, has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding led by Altos Ventures, with participation from Samsung Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Centricient, a year-old, Bozeman, Mt.-based customer service messaging management toolkit, has raised $6.5 million from Venrock and Next Frontier Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Coda Payments, a five-year-old, Singapore-based alternative payment gateway that enables merchants to accept payments from cardless customers in Southeast Asia, has raised $2 million in new funding. Earlier backers GMO Global Payment Fund, Skype co-founder Toivo Annus and Golden Gate Ventures provided the capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Lemonade, a year-old, New York-based peer-to-peer insurance carrier, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from XL Innovate. More here.

LendUp, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based direct lender focused on non-prime borrowers, has raised $47.5 million in Series C funding led by the Y Combinator Continuity fund. Other participants in the round include GV, Thomvest Ventures, QED Investors, Data Collective, Susa Ventures, Radicle Impact, Bronze Investments and SV Angel. 

Logikcull, a 12-year-old, San Francisco-based legal intelligence startup, has raised $10 million in funding led by OpenView Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backer Storm Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

MediaBrix, a five-year-old, New York-based developer of in-app advertising compaigns, has raised $6.5 million in new funding from Edison Partners, Revel Partners and Horizon Technology Finance. More here.

RedShelf, a 4.5-year-old, Chicago-based e-textbook comapny, has raised $4 million in Series B funding from Coniston Capital, with participation from existing investors, including the National Association of College Stores. More here.

ThreatQuotient, a three-year-old, Reston, Va.-based threat intelligence platform, has raised $12 million in Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from return backers Blu Venture Investors and the Center for Innovative Technology. DCInno has more here.

Vyome Biosciences, a six-year-old, New Delhi, India-based company that makes treatments for skin diseases caused by resistant microbes, has raised $14 million in Series C funding led by Perceptive Advisors, with participation from Romulus Capital and return backers Kalaari Capital, Sabre Partners and Aarin Capital. The Economic Times has more here.
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IPOs

How HotelTonight went from burning millions of dollars to reportedy planning an IPO, in Bloomberg.

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Exits

In a bid to grow its retail sector reach, IBM is reportedly in discussions to acquire Revel Systems, which makes an iPad point-of-sale system. Bloomberg has more here. Revel has raised roughly $127 million, shows CrunchBase. Its backers include DCM Ventures; Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, and Rothenberg Ventures, among others.

Pinterest is acquiring the team behind eight-year-old, New York-based Instapaper, which will continue operating as a separate app. TechCrunch has more here.

And now we know: One Kings Lane, once valued at more than $900 million, sold for less than $30 million, says Recode. More here.

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People

Vadim Lavrusik, a former Facebook product manager who worked on the company’s live video feature, just debuted a new service, Alively, that allows users to share live-streamed or recorded footage with select friends and family. VentureBeat has more here.

Sir Ian McKellen reportedly turned down $1.5 million to officiate Sean Parker’s “Lord of the Rings” themed wedding. “I said, ‘I am sorry. Gandalf doesn’t do weddings.’” Vanity Fair has more here.

Michael Steinmetz, a longtime healthcare venture capitalist who co-founded Clarus Ventures in 2005, has passed away. Fortune has more here.

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Essential Reads

How Google keeps familiar former engineers close to the fold.

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Detours

In insider trading case that pit father against son.

Why we judge parents for putting kids at perceived, but unreal, risk.

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Retail Therapy

Freak out your office guests with these.

We’re not quite ready for Monday, yet here it is anyway.:) Happy Monday, everyone.

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Top News in the A.M.

Pfizer is buying the publicly traded San Francisco-based cancer drug maker Medivation for a whopping $14 billion. Dealbook has more here.

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VC Charlie O’Donnell on Building Community on the Cheap

Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, a nearly four-year-old, seed-stage venture firm that’s solely run by founder and general partner, Charlie O’Donnell, just closed its second fund with $15 million, up from an $8.3 million debut fund in early 2014.

Yesterday, we talked  with O’Donnell about what the process was like, whether the New York venture scene will be impacted by the $3 billion sale of e-commerce company Jet.com to Walmart, and how a small operation like Brooklyn Bridge Ventures can make an outsize impact on a shoestring budget.

TC: We sat down last November and you’d mentioned that you’d circled $13 million or so for this new fund.

CO: I estimated that I had about $13 million in estimated commitments, and we didn’t go into detail on what that meant. For me, it’s a spreadsheet that has a [potential investor] in the fund, a number, and a percent chance of closing, much like a sales pipeline.

Comparatively, my first fund took 9 months from announcement to first close, and 15 months from first close to last close. This fund took 6 months from first close to last close, with 70 percent of the capital commitments coming in the first two closes.That all seemed super fast to me.

TC: We were wondering if you ran into trouble this year with investors; some of the institutions that fund venture firms say they were mobbed earlier this year by firms that raised funds a couple of years ago and that didn’t want to be the last in line for their new fund.

CO: Most of my [investors] aren’t in any other funds. An endowment that wrote me a $1 million check certainly is. And I think my lead investor is in one or two other funds, along with maybe a handful of individuals [who wrote me checks]. But they’re definitely in the minority. At my size, I’m not talking to many traditional [investors]. I have no idea why they keep writing checks every two years for funds that haven’t proved themselves out yet. I came from the fund side. I thought VCs raised every three to four years.

TC: You’ve funded a lot of very promising companies. In your past life as a principal with First Round Capital, you also backed a number of companies that have sold. Do you have any “exits” yet at Brooklyn Bridge?

CO: One exit returned its capital, but given that most of these companies average about two years old or less (it was a three-year investment period fund), it would be pretty early to start seeing exits at this stage. Also, standouts like [the smart home security company]Canary are ramping up revenues and releasing new and improved products and not looking to take an early exit anytime soon.

TC: People have long said that New York needed a giant exit, especially after certain companies that looked to become big wins saw their fortunes change, including Gilt Groupe and Fab. Was Jet that exit? 

CO: Jet was certainly a large exit and a testament to the great team the company assembled. Three billion dollars is a lot of money, but given how much they raised right out of the gate, I don’t know what multiples its investors got given what one would assume were the entry prices. So, do the aggregate dollars count or the return multiple? I’m not sure, but I’m also not someone who believes in the “giant exit” theory.

What’s supposed to happen when we get a giant exit? We get more angels?

More here.

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New Fundings

Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, a 3.5-year-old, Canton, Ma.-based company at work on a therapeutic for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and other neurodegenerative diseases, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Morningside Ventures, with participation from the ALS Investment Fund, former Genzyme CEO Henri Termeer, and other new and previous investors. More here.

Mobike, an 11-month-old Shanghai, China-based mobile app that allows users to rent bikes for short distance commutes, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Panda Capital, with participation from Joy Capital. The company, which operates its own bike fleet, was founded by a former Uber manager in China, says China Money Network. More here.

Quanergy Systems, a nearly four-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company that’s working on solid state LiDAR sensors and smart sensing software, has raised roughly $90 million in Series B funding at a valuation that’s “well over $1 billion,” says the outfit. The publicly traded companies Sensata Technologies and Delphi Automotive participated in the round, along with Samsung Ventures, Motus Ventures and GP Capital. Quanergy has now raised $150 million altogether. More here.

Singlera Genomics, a two-year-old, Shanghai, China- and La Jolla, Ca.-based non-invasive genetic testing company, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Lilly Asia Ventures, with participation from Green Pine Capital Partners, CDBI Partners and others. More here.

Teambition, a three-year-old, Shanghai, China-based workplace collaborations SaaS startup,  has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Chinese Internet services giant Tencent.  DealStreetAsia has more here.

Virtru, a four-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based email and file encryption service, has raised $29 million in Series A funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Other participants include New Enterprise Associates, Soros Fund Management, Haystack Partners, Quadrant Capital Advisors, and Blue Delta Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Zoona, a seven-year-old, Cape Town, South Africa-based mobile money platform whose products include money transfers, electronic voucher payments, and agent payments, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group. Earlier backers Accion, Omidyar Network and Lundin Foundation also joined the round. CNBC Africa has more here.

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New Funds

Kobe Bryant is now a venture capitalist, reports the WSJ. According to its report, Bryant has teamed up with longtime entrepreneur and investor Jeff Stibel to create an L.A-based firm called Bryant Stibel that — somewhat amazingly — will invest their own $100 million in combined capital. (They say they aren’t seeking outside investors.) The reports notes that they’ve already funded 15 startups together in recent years, including the home-juicing company Juicero and the legal services company LegalZoom. Much more here.

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IPOs

Everbridge, a Burlington, Ma.-based emergency communications platform provider, has filed plans for its IPO, putting an end to rumors of its intentions to go public. BostInno has more here.

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Exits

Apple has acquired a three-year-old personal health data startup Gliimpse, reports Fast Company. Terms aren’t known.

Microsoft has acquired Genee, a two-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based artificial-intelligence-powered scheduling service. Microsoft is planning to integrate the intelligence technology into Office 365 and shut down the Genee service on September 1. Genee appears to have raised one small venture round. VentureBeat has more here.

A group of Chinese investors said it’s acquiring the six-year-old ad-tech startup Media.net for about $900 million in cash, with plans to eventually sell the company to an obscure telecommunications firm whose shares have been suspended from trading since last year. Bloomberg has more here.

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People

Isaac Evans has joined Redpoint Ventures as an entrepreneur-in-residence. Evans, 22, spent the last three years as a computer scientist at the Pentagon and will be looking at a a variety of security, machine learning and natural language processing technologies while at the firm.

Longtime ad exec turned consultant Cindi Gallop doesn’t care what you think. (Great profile of Gallop, whose path you’ve perhaps crossed on Twitter.)

Bill Gates‘s net worth just hit a record high of $90 billion.

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Data

The New York Times takes a look at the 20 U.S. cities with the greatest percentage increase in technology jobs from 2010 to 2015. Among them: Phoenix, Az., and Warren, Mi.

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Essential Reads

How venture-backed Bandcamp became the holy grail of online record stores.

There may be another Snowden at the NSA. Here’s why.

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Detours

Polo lessons for Conan, by legendary player Nacho Figueras.

Make that two not-so-easy days.

Everything I’m afraid might happen if I ask new acquaintances to get coffee.

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Retail Therapy

Ka-pow! Big-budget director Michael Bay’s 30,000-square foot Bel Air home. (We’re not sure if it’s for sale, but it will be, someday!)

Oh, sweet Friday, is it really you at long last? [Collapses.]

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Top News in the A.M.

Vevo, the online music video service owned by the world’s largest record labels, has hired Goldman Sachs to raise up to $500 million from new investors, says the Financial Times. More here.

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Quero Education Looks to Educate U.S. VCs

Much has been written about Brazil during the Rio Olympics. But one facet of the country that’s relatively unknown to foreigners is how 9 percent of the population – or the roughly 17 million Brazilians between the ages of 15 through 19 – can get a decent, affordable college education.

If U.S. investors were to take an interest, says Quero Education, they might be rewarded for it.

We chatted with Quero’s co-founder and CEO Bernardo de Pádua about his six-year-old, online college marketplace and the opportunity it’s chasing.

TC: You say the education industry is very different in Brazil versus the U.S. What are some of the biggest differentiators?

BDP: About 20 years ago, for-profit colleges took over the market, and now almost 85 percent of students are attending them. A company called Kroton this year acquired the second-largest college on the stock market in Brazil and it’s now the world’s largest school corporation, with 1.6 million students and more than $3 billion in annual revenues. And they only own a small share of the market — around 10 percent.

TC: Quero is helping match students with these for-profit schools. Is that correct?

BDP: Yes. These [for-profit] colleges have been fighting for new students and partnering with companies that have large databases and giving them discounts in exchange. Or, for example, if you have a church or soccer team, you can partner with a college and [because you’re sending multiple people to the school], you’ll get a 10 to 50 percent discount on tuition. But there’s a great mismatch of information that exists for the students.

TC: So you’re saying these colleges suffer from oversupply?

BDP: That’s right. There are six million seats open every year, and three million people enroll, so something like 50 percent of the seats are available. Some schools get oversubscribed. Public colleges are a very different story. They’re free to attend but have a limited number of seats [so it’s very competitive to attend them] and just 10 percent of people who take a national exam are really eligible for those slots. Medical schools are very heavily regulated. But there’s an oversupply in most other fields of study.

More here.

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New Fundings

CellSavers, a year-old, Bay Area-based on-demand mobile repair platform, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Carmel Ventures, with participation from earlier backer Sequoia Capital. Reuters has more here.

DevMynd Software, a five-year-old, Chicago-based digital strategy firm, as raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from Motorola Solutions Venture Capital. More here.

Dexter, a year-old, New York-based bot-building platform, has raised $2.3 million in seed funding led by Rakuten Ventures, with participation from Social Starts and Betaworks. TechCrunch has more here.

Ecobee, a nine-year-old, Toronto, Ontario-based smart thermostat maker, has raised $35 million in funding from the Amazon Alexa Fund, Thomvest, and Relay Ventures. The company has now raised more than $51 million altogether. VentureBeat has more here.

Histogen, a nine-year-old, San Diego-based regenerative medicine company, has raised $6 million in Series D funding led by Pineworld Capital, an affiliate of Huapont Life Sciences. More here.

KRY, a two-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based health startup that connects patients with healthcare professionals for consultations via video, has raised €6.1 million ($6.9 million) in seed funding  led by Index Ventures and Creandum, with participation from Berlin-based Project A. TechCrunch has more here.

NVBots, a three-year-old, Boston-based company whose 3D printing technology that can print multiple metals in the same build, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding led by Woodman Asset Management. BostInno has more here.

SmartFile, a seven-year-old, Indianapolis, In.-based secure enterprise file management and sharing platform, has raised $1.1 million led by VisionTech Angels, with participation from Elevate Ventures. More here.

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New Funds

Darwin Ventures, a 12-year-old, San Francisco-based venturee fund of funds, is looking to raise $100 million for its fourth fund, shows an SEC filing. Darwin closed its last fund with roughly $60 million in early 2014.

London’s Octopus Ventures just launched a new accelerator — Octopus Labs — to capitalize on the financial tech boom. Details here.

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Exits

Foodpanda, the food delivery startup backed by Rocket Internet, is selling its operations in Indonesia and evaluating its presence in the rest of Southeast Asia as part of a push towards profitability. TechCrunch has more here.

Rakuten has acquired the assets of Bitnet, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based bitcoin wallet startup that was reportedly struggling. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed, but according to CrunchBase, Bitnet had raised $14.5 million, including from Rakuten, ARTIS Ventures, Commerce Ventures, Webb Investment Network, and Highland Capital Partners. More here.

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People

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick talks with Business Insider about his vision of our self-driving future, where “a million fewer people are going to die a year. Traffic in all cities will be gone. Significantly reduced pollution and trillions of hours will be given back to people . . .”

Remember Eric Martin, who won a Jet.com contest whose prize was 100,000 shares? Media outlets seemed to think he was in line for up to $20 million following Jet’s sale to Walmart. Turns out it’s closer to $900,00 — pre tax, says Fortune. (We’d take it!) More here.

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Essential Reads

A legal battle is escalating between the venture-backed software startup Domo and one of its former managers who’s fighting the company for financial information. The WSJ has more here.

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Detours

They’re calling this the most lavish dorm room in America.

The strange brain of the world’s greatest solo climber.

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Retail Therapy

Extreme Series Roof Top Tent. (Extremely sweet.)

Hi, everyone — we didn’t forget about you. We were working on a story about the current struggles of an unusually ambitious young venture firm. In fact, we don’t have much more for you today, but there’s always tomorrow(!).

Happy Thursday.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Uber‘s first self-driving fleet arrives in Pittsburgh this month. Bloomberg has the story here.

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At Rothenberg Ventures, the Rise and Fall of a Virtual Gatsby

Rothenberg Ventures, the four-year-old, San Francisco-based seed-stage venture firm, may be on the brink of implosion, say several sources close to the firm.

We reported yesterday that several high-level employees had parted ways with Rothenberg, including its director of finance and the head of its SF office, who happen to be father and son (Tom and Tommy Leep). We’ve subsequently learned that firm departures run far more widely. Other top executives who’ve left include the company’s chief revenue officer, who quit yesterday; the company’s chief financial officer, who left in June; general manager James Taylor, who left very recently; and Fran Hauser, a former president of digital at Time Inc. Hauser was brought in with some fanfare as a venture partner in May 2014. Yesterday she updated her LinkedIn profile to reflect that she left Rothenberg in July.

Messages to Rothenberg have not been returned. According to one source, Rothenberg Ventures founder Mike Rothenberg has told those remaining that “very few people will be left.” In what appears to be a related development, the firm’s site has been down since last night.

Why the mass exodus? According to one source, Rothenberg Ventures is answering questions from the SEC after a lower-level employee alerted the agency to what this person reported as wire fraud and breach of fiduciary duty. This same source says the employee was subsequently fired and is now suing the firm for retaliation.

All SEC investigations are conducted privately. An investigation does not mean that the agency will file a case in federal court or bring an administrative action.

Either way, a much thornier issue for Rothenberg Ventures, say numerous former employees, is founder Rothenberg himself, who has sometimes seemed to live more like a billionaire than the manager of a modest venture fund — spending lavishly to attract moneyed individuals as investors and, over time, growing increasingly focused on becoming as famous as some of them.

Making a millionaire

It all began as a minor but inspirational story, proof that the American Dream can still come true.

Rothenberg, an Austin native who says he comes from humble means — “no one in my family has any money,” he once told us — was smart enough to nab undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford, then bootstrap a real estate fund with his brother before moving on to Harvard to secure an MBA.

Soon afterward, inspired by business leaders he had met while at Stanford, Rothenberg planted himself in San Francisco and got down to the business of trying to shake up the stodgy venture industry. Step one involved raising a $5 million fund from “friends, family, and former roommates,” as reported in a Bloomberg story about Rothenberg last year.

His timing was ideal as these things go. In 2012, the market was in the middle of a three-year upswing, following the financial crisis of late 2008. Some newer faces were also beginning to gain prominence in the venture industry, along with the trust of so-called limited partners — the individuals and institutions that fund venture firms.

Rothenberg is also a natural salesperson, and, as such, quickly evolved his pitch for Rothenberg from yet another seed-stage fund to a thought-leading outfit willing to make big bets on virtual reality before most people in Silicon Valley saw it as a major opportunity.

More here.

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New Fundings

DriveTribe, an eight-month-old London-based digital media platform, has raised $5.5 million in Series A funding led by Breyer Capital, with participation from Atomico and individual angels. More here.

Heap, a three-year-old, San Francisco, Ca.-based analytics infrastructure company, has raised $11 million in Series A funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from Menlo Ventures and seed-stage investors SV Angel, Initialized Capital and Pear (formerly known as Pejman Mar Ventures). The company has now raised $13.2 million altogether. More here.

ID Experts, a 13-year-old, Portland, Ore.-based company that makes software and services for cyber breach and identity fraud protection, has raised $27.5 million in funding including from Peloton Equity, Trident Capital Cybersecurity, BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners and the Sandbox Advantage Fund. More here.

Instavest, a two-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based social investing site, has raised $1.7 million in seed funding from Y Combinator, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, Cherubic Ventures and others. TechCrunch has more here.

NextHealth, a three-year-old, Denver, Co.-based health IT startup that works with payers to reduce avoidable healthcare costs, has raised $8.5 million in Series A funding from Norwest Venture Partners. MedCity News has more here.

VUV Analytics, a seven-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based spectroscopy tech company, has raised $6.5 million in Series B funding led by New Science Ventures, with participation from S3 Ventures. AustinInno has more here.

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Exits

Uber has acquired Otto, a months-old, San Francisco-based startup that’s been working on a technology intended to automate parts of the drive on highways. Uber isn’t commenting on terms of the deal. But according to the New York Times, Uber will pay roughly 1 percent of its most current valuation — a sum worth about $680 million after the inclusion of its most recent fund-raising — if certain internal benchmarks are met by the Otto team. Much more here.

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People

PewDiePie, the biggest star on YouTube, wants people to stop coming to his house.

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Essential Reads

Wednesday! Hope you have a happy one, everyone.

Also, for those of you on the waitlist for our upcoming StrictlyVC INSIDER event next month, with VC Marc Andreessen, SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie, “Radical Candor” author and former Google exec Kim Malone Scott, and Homebrew’s Hunter Walk: we can’t accommodate all of you (which stinks), but we hope to squeeze in at least five to 10 more readers. More on that soon. In the meantime, we’re getting excited about seeing everyone.:)

Thanks again to Bolt, Ballou PR, and Mattermark for partnering with us on this one; we very much appreciate their involvement.

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Top News in the A.M.

Oof. Cisco is about to lay off upwards of 14,000 employees, representing nearly 20 percent of the networking giant’s global workforce, according to the outlet CRN. More here.

Univision has won the auction to acquire Gawker Media’s websites and business. It’s reportedly paying $135 million. Recode has more here.

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Several Key Rothenberg Ventures’ Employees Have Left the Firm

Several high-level employees at the early-stage venture firm Rothenberg Ventures have recently left, we’ve learned. Among them is Tommy Leep, a partner and the head of Rothenberg’s San Francisco office, who left last month after spending two-and-a-half years with the firm. (A former product manager at Intuit, Leep spent the previous two years as “chief connector” at the venture firm Floodgate.)

Other recent departures include Tom Leep, father to Tommy, who’d spent more than three years as Rothenberg’s director of finance before leaving in June; Sophie Liao, who was recently hired with the title of Managing Director, Asia-Pacific Region and appears to have left this month; and Catherine Johnson, a former SVP of HR at BrightSource Energy who joined Rothenberg Ventures this spring, only to leave three months later, in June.

Neither Liao or Johnson has returned a request for comment. Leep referred all questions about the firm to a company spokesperson. Asked if his father’s departure and his own were connected or unrelated, Leep said he had “no comment at this time.”

A separate source suggests Leep left of his own accord, while a wide number of other employees were laid off. We don’t know if Michael Dempsey was among them, but the former CB Insights analyst, who joined Rothenberg Ventures in January as an investor, also left last week. Dempsey didn’t respond to a request for more information.

Rothenberg Ventures was founded just four years ago by Mike Rothenberg, an Austin native who nabbed a master’s in management science and engineering from Stanford before getting his MBA from Harvard.

Despite its age, the firm has made something of an outsize impact on the local venture industry, including by organizing popular events, such as an annual Founders Field Day at AT&T Park, where the San Francisco Giants play, and by barreling into virtual reality investments before many investors were paying much attention to them.

Indeed, in late 2014, Rothenberg Ventures announced it would be launching a startup accelerator, River, which planned to provide $100,000 in seed funding to virtual reality companies expressly. Among those early bets was FOVE, which makes an eye-tracking head-mounted display. FOVE passed through Microsoft Ventures Accelerator in London before being selected for River’s inaugural class, but, notably, it went on to raise an $11 million Series A round in March.

By May of last year, Rothenberg Ventures had also created River Studios, a “creative house for VR production” that, according to the firm’s site, currently “consists of 30 passionate creators, artists and developers, committed to creating inspiring stories, and pushing the boundaries of this awesome medium.”

More here.

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New Fundings

EasyVista, an 18-year-old, New York-based service management company for IT organizations, has raised $8.4 million in funding from Isatis Capital, Alto Invest and Conversion Venture Capital. More here.

EventBoard, a four-year-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based maker of cloud-based meeting tools and analytics, has raised $13.5 million in Series B funding led by NGP, with participation from GE Ventures and earlier investors Greycroft Partners, Origin Ventures and Zetta Venture Partners. More here.

Pymetrics, a four-year-old, New York-based online job marketplace, has raised $6.1 million in Series A funding from BBG Ventures, Khosla Ventures,Mercer and Ranstad Innovation Fund. More here.

Rotation Medical, a seven-year-old, Plymouth, Mn.-based company that makes medical devices to treat rotator cuffs, has raised $8 million in Series B “extension funding” from earlier backers New Enterprise Associates, Life Sciences Partners and Pappas Ventures. As part of the round, a second tranche of $4 million is expected to close next year. More here.

Stash, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based investment platform for millennials, has raised $9.25 million in Series A funding led by Goodwater Capital, with participation from Valar Ventures and Entrée Capital. More here.
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New Funds

Susa Ventures, a San Francisco-based seed-stage venture firm, announced yesterday that it has closed its second fund with $50 million. We wrote about Susa a little earlier this year when we first spied its filing for the fund.

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IPOs

Why the NYSE says it’s leading the tech IPO race (such as it is).

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Exits

Ford Motor Company has acquired SAIPS, a three-year-old Israeli company focusing on machine learning and computer vision. TechCrunch has more here.

Ola, the company battling Uber in India, has shut down TaxiForSure, a rival it acquired for $200 million last year, after it integrated its services. TechCrunch has more here.

Live streaming video platform Twitch (a subsidiary of Amazon) is doubling down on video games with the acquisition of a significant player in the world of video game communities: 10-year-old Curse. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Adam Selipsky, the executive in charge of sales, marketing, and business development at Amazon’s cloud computing juggernaut, is leaving the company.

A life sciences symposium taking place in Palo Alto next month will include an unusual guest: Martin Shkreli, the indicted pharmaceutical company CEO who gained notoriety last fall for massively increasing the price of a lifesaving AIDS drug. More here.

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Data

Not the most surprising news, but: nearly one-third of private tech companies in the U.S. that have achieved “unicorn” status will eventually be worth less than $1 billion, according to a report published yesterday. Reuters has more here.

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Essential Reads

Google is continuing a push to create a big business from its growing cloud-computing unit, announcing yesterday that it’s rolling out several new data features for small businesses.

Pinterest just began rolling out native video ads.

Here’s how Snapchat makes money from disappearing videos.

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Detours

How imperfections could bring down the world’s most perfect statue.

Hugh Hefner’s rent just went way, way up.

“Don’t I know you?”

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Retail Therapy

One way to spruce up your outdoor summer dining.

Right now is also a really good time to buy a helicopter if you’re so inclined.