Hi, welcome back, everyone! Hope your Monday is off to a fine start.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

A new report from the San Jose Mercury News claims that Tesla used cheap foreign labor to build its newest facilities, paying workers as little as $5 an hour, according to one electrician who talked with the outlet.

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New Fundings

AtScale, a three-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based startup that aims to make business intelligence work easily on Hadoop, has raised $11 million in Series B funding led by Comcast Ventures, with participation from UMC, AME Ventures, Storm Ventures and XSeed Capital. NetworkWorld has more here.

CircleCI, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based software platform that aims to help developers rapidly release code for web and mobile apps, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led by Scale Venture Partners. Earlier investors DFJ, Baseline Ventures, and Harrison Metal also joined the round. The company has now raised $28 million altogether. More here.

DalCor Pharmaceuticals, a year-old, Montreal-based developer of cardiovascular disease treatments that genetically targets patients, has raised $100 million in Series B funding from Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the Fonds de solidarité FTQ and CTI Life Sciences, along with earlier backers Sanderling Ventures and André Desmarais. The company had previously raised $50 million late last year. More here.

Irras, a four-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based commercial-stage med tech company whose devices aim to address a broad range of brain pathology therapeutic applications and procedures, has raised $11.3 million in funding from Serendipity/Ixora, The Vandel Group, and unnamed, individual healthcare investors in Sweden. More here.

PebblePost, a two-year-old, New York-based programmatic direct mail platform, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Greycroft Partners and Tribeca Venture Partners, with full participation from earlier individual investors. The company has now raised $8 million to date. New York Business Journal has more here.

Properati, a 3.5-year-old, Buenos Aires, Argentina-based online real estate platform, has raised $2 million in funding from Neveq II, NXTP Labs, and Telor International Limited. FinSMEs has more here.

Renovo Financial, a five-year-old, Chicago, Il.-based private lender that assists real estate investors who acquire, renovate and manage residential properties, has raised $25 million from earlier investor Victory Park Capital, which has now committed $75 million to the company altogether. More here.

Taobao Mobile, the two-year-old, Hangzhou, China-based online movie ticketing platform unit of Alibaba Group’s film and TV subsidiary, Alibaba Pictures, has raised $260 million in Series A funding led by Ant Financial (also an Alibaba affiliate), CDH Investments, and Sina.com, with participation fromHehe Pictures, BONA Film and Huace Media. TechCrunch has more here.

Zeality, a two-year-old, Pleasanton, Ca.-based startup that’s creating an ecosystem for creators and brands that want to create virtual reality content for end-users, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Rothenberg Ventures; Paraag Marathe, chief strategy officer of the San Francisco 49ers; and Jason Khalipa, owner of NC Fit. More here.

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New Funds

WI Harper Group, a 20-year-old, San Francisco-based venture firm focused on expansion-stage, cross-border investing between the U.S. and greater China, has raised $174.3 million for its eight fund, shows a new SEC filing. The firm last closed on two funds in 2011. Its seventh fund closed with $110 million; a fund that it co-manages with Innovation Works (called Innovation Works Development Fund), separately closed with $180 million in 2011.

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IPOs

Oncobiologics, a 5.5-year-old, Cranbury, N.J.-based developer of biosimilar therapeutics, raised $35 million in its IPO late last week. The company priced 5.8 million shares at $6 per share, down from the $11 to $13 per share where the company originally planned to price its shares. (The shares fell another 20 percent by the end of the day Friday.) The outlet 24/7 Wall St. has more here.

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Exits

AT&T is acquiring Quickplay Media, a 13-year-old, Toronto-based provider of Internet-video streaming services, which it will use to launch three over-the-top DirecTV services later in 2016. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Quickplay was acquired in 2012 for $100 million by the private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners. (QuickPay had raised roughly $43 million from VCs before that sale.) Variety has more here.

Pfizer is acquiring 14-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based Anacor Pharmaceuticals in a deal valued at $5.2 billion net of cash. Anacor’s most important product is a non-steroidal gel used to treat eczema that’s currently under review by the FDA. Under the terms of the agreement, a subsidiary of Pfizer will acquire Anacor for $99.25 a share in cash. That represents a 55 percent premium over Anacor’s closing stock price from Friday. Dealbook has more here.

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People

Legendary investor Warren Buffett is putting his money behind a consortium of investors that’s bidding on Yahoo, reports Reuters. The group is led by Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert, who’s being advised for former Yahoos Dan Rosensweig and Tim Cadogan, says Recode.

Watch: Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg‘s powerful and emotional commencement speech on building resilience.

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel has purchased a Brentwood, Ca., home with model Miranda Kerr for $12 million (down from its listing price of $12.5 million). Business Insider has more here.

Jason Spinell, former head of venture investing at the now defunct consulting firm Undercurrent, has joined Slack to help manage and invest the fund, per Spinell’s LinkedIn account. (H/T: Dan Primack of Fortune.)

Robby Stein, who has led mobile and video strategy in New York for Yahoo for the last several years, has accepted a role with Instagram’s product leadership team, reports Recode. More here.

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Essential Reads

Amazon is preparing to launch more products — from food to detergent — under its own brand names, says the WSJ.

Google is facing record-breaking fine for monopoly abuse, as officials in Brussels finish a seven-year investigation of the company’s dominant search engine. The Telegraph has more here.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway took a new $1 billion position in Apple in the first quarter, according to a new regulatory filing.

A company that’s running itself without executives or managers or a board of directors has just raked in more than $107 million through a crowdfunding effort.

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Detours

Why movie theaters smell like people’s feelings.

How long will a museum visitor typically stand before a masterpiece? About 28 seconds, according to a recent study.

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Retail Therapy

A 1974 VW Bug with just 56 miles on its odometer.

Aaaand we’re back in SF! Happy Friday, everyone! Hope you have a stellar weekend.

(We were offline most of yesterday, so no column today.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Big deal. Didi Chuxing (formerly called Didi Kuaidi), China’s top-ride hailing app, has raised $1 billion in strategic funding from a little company called Apple. CEO Tim Cook says Apple is making the investment for a “number of strategic reasons, including a chance to learn more about certain segments of the China market. Of course, we believe it will deliver a strong return for our invested capital as well.” More here.

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New Fundings

Accion Systems, a three-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that’s developing miniature space propulsion systems using penny-size ion engines, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding led by Shasta Ventures. RRE Ventures, Founder Collective, and Slow Ventures also participated in the round. The company had previously raised $2 million from seed funding and $6.5 million from partnerships with the Department of Defense. TechCrunch has more here.

Astrobotic Technology, a nine-year-old, Pittsburgh, Pa.-based company that plans to deliver payloads to the moon (it originally spun out of Carnegie Mellon University), has raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by Space Angels Network. TechCrunch has more here.

Bigcommerce, a seven-year-old, Austin- and Australia-based start-up whose software-as-a-service helps more than 55,000 companies create and manage their online stores has raised $30 million financing round led by GGV Capital. DealStreetAsia has more here.

Capital Float, a three-year-old, Bangalore, India-based online lending platform for small businesses, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Creation Investments, with participation from returning investors SAIF Partners, Sequoia Capital and Aspada. TechCrunch has more here.

EnBiotix, a four-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based bioengineering startup focused on combatting drug-resistant and drug-tolerant bacterial infections, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from  Wired Holdings Investment Corp. and Apeiron Holdings. More here.

EndoStim, a seven-year-old, St. Louis, Mo.-based company that makes a neurostimulation therapy device for gastroesophageal reflux disease, has raised $25 million in Series D funding led by Endeavour Vision, with participation from Wellington Partners, GIMV and return backer Santé Ventures. Mass Device has more here.

Evaneos, a seven-year-old, Paris-based European travel marketplace, has raised $21 million in its third round of funding, from Serena Capital, Fonds Ambition Numérique (managed by Bpifrance), ISAI and XAnge. The company has now raised around $28 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Medal, a year-old, San Francisco-based online platform for unifying medical records, has raised $3.78 million in new funding, shows an SEC filing first flagged by Fortune. Investors aren’t disclosed on the form. According to CrunchBase, the company had raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding roughly a year ago, including from Lee Linden, who heads up Facebook’s emerging initiatives in commerce. More here.

Viridity Energy, a seven-year-old, Philadelphia, Pa.-based company that makes battery storage and demand response products, has raised $8.5 million in new funding from AltEnergy. More here.

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New Funds

In a bid to make South Korea’s tech industry more diverse, the government has created an accelerator for startups from around the world. Called the K-Startup Grand Challenge, the program is being organized by South Korea’s Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP), in partnership with Seoul-based accelerators SparkLabs, DEV Korea, ActnerLab, and Shift. It will accept applications through June 14. More here.

VSL Partners, a two-year-old, San Fransisco-based investment firm that make loans to stockholders of pre-IPO companies, has raised $17.7 million for its second fund, according to an SEC filing that shows a $50 million target. The firm began its fundraising last fall. VSL was cofounded by David Crowder, a co-founder and longtime general partner Thomas Weisel Venture Partners, which was a $250 million early-stage venture fund.

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IPOs

Acacia Communications, a Maynard, Ma.-based fiber optics component maker, went public this morning and its shares are soaring. The biggest shareholders heading into the IPO included Matrix Partners, which owned 39.2 percent of the company, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, which owned 19.7 percent, and Summit Partners, which owned 9.4 percent. Barron’s has more here.

China Online Education Group filed an F-1 form with the SEC for an IPO. No pricing details were given in the filing, but the offering was valued up to $100 million. The company has yet to decide on which exchange to list its American depositary shares. The outlet 24/7 Wall St. has the story here.

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People

Sunny Balwani, the president and chief operating officer of Theranos, the beleaguered medical diagnostics startup, is stepping down as the company reorganizes its structure. More here.

In an interview yesterday, billionaire investor Mark Cuban likened Trump to a drunk and a womanizer and said his campaign is “like a Seinfeld episode,” meaning that it’s about nothing. Apparently, despite these views, he’s supporting Trump for president.

Magic Johnson, the Hall of Fame basketball player and businessman, has left Square’s board, saying he decided to resign owing to time constraints with other projects on which he is working.

Evan Spiegel wants everyone to use his messaging app, Snapchat. He meanwhile “tries to stay off the grid,” reports Recode, which says Spiegel “shares very little with very few, a practice that has come to define his role at Snapchat and the company’s underlying culture.”

Elizabeth Weil, who started Twitter’s corporate development team in 2009 and spent the last three years at Andreessen Horowitz, introducing its portfolio companies to key contacts at Fortune 500 companies, has joined 137 Ventures as a managing partner. Fortune has the story here.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he wants to invite “leading conservatives and people from across the political spectrum” to discuss recent reports that its “Trending Topics” feature is biased against conservatives.

How the 1 percent parties, in pictures.

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Essential Reads

New crowdfunding rules taking effect Monday will allow anyone to invest in startups—not just wealthy people.

Google is moving beyond Cardboard and introducing a standalone Android VR headset next week.

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Detours

The amazing pancakes of Dr. Dancakes.

Where in the U.S. the middle class is shrinking and the upper class is growing.

Living in the fast lane apparently will kill you.

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Retail Therapy

Fender — now owned by TPG Growth and Servco Pacific — just released headphones that double as in-ear monitors for performers. More here.

Bad Affleck is coming back, this November.

It is Wednesday and we are done interviewing people on stage! (Phew. It’s always a little nerve-wracking.)

If of interest, can check out our sit-down here with legendary Wall Street exec Sallie Krawcheck, who just took the wraps off her new financial advisory firm Ellevest. You can also check out our interview with Honest Company cofounder Jessica Alba and her chief marketing officer, Chris Thorne, right here. We covered a lot of ground, from the lawsuits facing the company, to the company’s IPO plans, to a new line of products coming this fall that are centered around hair products.

Note: We’ll be on a flight back to SF early tomorrow so won’t be able to write SVC, but we’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming on Friday.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Google announced today that it will no longer allow payday lenders to advertise on its systems because the loans often come with high interest rates and quick repayment requirements that push borrowers into debt. More here.

Instagram has a new look today.

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Naspers Plants a Flag in the U.S. with New Venture Group

Naspers, the 101-year-old, internet and entertainment group, is finally planting a flag in the U.S., establishing a Naspers Ventures unit that will operate largely out of San Francisco.

The 30,000-person company, which is based in Cape Town, South Africa and tends to focus on less developed markets, including Latin America, Africa, India and even Russia, said its decision to come to the U.S., owes to a few factors.

The first is organizational. Though Naspers is one of the most active investors in the world – it committed $1.5 billion to companies last year, including Avito, an online classified ads company in Moscow — the company has created smaller operating companies around certain sectors where it has a wealth of bets. Some of those sectors and bets include e-commerce (Flipkart), online retail (Allegro), online classifieds (including Mail.ru and OLX), social networking (Tencent), and payments (PayU).

“We’ve gotten well-represented in those areas,” says Naspers CEO Bob van Dijk. “But we also realized that to prepare for our next phase of growth, we want to be focused on other, new consumer needs that are being transformed by tech.” And to do it via a dedicated ventures unit.

Indeed, this morning, Naspers Ventures is announcing it has led a $15 million Series B investment in the social learning network Brainly — a deal that represents the first ed tech investment for Naspers. (Seven-year-old Brainly was founded in Kraków, Poland and now has a second office in New York.)

More here.

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New Fundings

ConnXus, a six-year-old, Cincinnati, Oh.-based company whose tech platform helps connect large corporations with minority- and women-owned suppliers, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from Techstars Ventures, Serious Change and Impact America Fund. Cincinnati.com has more here.

Drayson Technologies, a nine-year-old, London-based startup whose technology harvests energy from radio frequency signals to potentially power a range of low-consumption devices, has raised £8 million ($11.6 million) in Series B funding led by earlier backers Lansdowne Partners and Woodford Investment Management, with participation from new, unnamed investors and the company’s staff. TechCrunch has more here.

Orderbird, a five-year-old, Berlin-based company that claims to be the leading iPad point-of-sale solution in German-speaking markets, has raised €20 million ($22.8 million) in Series C funding co-led by Digital+ Partners and Metro Group. The European payment-provider Concardis, an earlier backer, also participated again but via a secondary listing. TechCrunch has more here.

Soracom, a 1.5-year-old, Tokyo-based startup that provides a communication platform for developers of connected devices, announced today that it has raised a 2.4 billion yen (about $22 million) Series B from World Innovation Lab, Infinity Venture Partners, and other investors. The money will be used to enter the United States and other markets. TechCrunch has more here.

Weaveworks, a 1.5-year-old, London-based startup that’s creating open source tools for managing, monitoring and securing containers, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by GV, with participation from earlier backer Accel Partners. The company has now raised $20 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Cherry Ventures, a Berlin-based venture firm, has raised a new €150 million early-stage fund, its second. Cherry focuses on seed and early-stage startups, with a particular focus on Berlin’s tech hub and companies in the consumer space. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Elon Musk‘s Hyperloop dream is about to have its first public demo.

This Peter Thiel business is more serious than we thought.

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Essential Reads

Venture-backed uBeam could be vaporware, according to a blogger claiming to be uBeam’s former VP of Engineering.

Uber’s latest attempt to ease concerns about its labor model establishes benefits for drivers but stops short of unionization.

The most audacious part of Alphabet? Google Fiber, says Recode. Here’s why.

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Detours

Why the world’s richest airlines can’t get enough hand-me-down jets.

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Retail Therapy

Hotel Jerome. (H/T: Uncrate.)

Hi, all, happy Tuesday!

We’re still at Disrupt, where Google’s Sridhar Ramaswamy — in charge of Google’s lucrative ad products — is coming up next. We’re also excited to see Uber’s chief advisor David Plouffe take the stage in the next hour or so. A note that we may be a little late in reaching you tomorrow (we have a couple of interviews in the morning).

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Top News in the A.M.

Amazon, which touts itself as Earth’s biggest store, has officially launched its bid to be the place to watch any kind of video under the sun. Variety has the story here.

The world’s largest storage manufacturer, Western Digital, just got bigger, saying this morning that it has cleared all the necessary regulatory hurdles in their planned purchase of SanDisk. Engadget has more here.

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HP Rolls Out a New Venture Arm

There’s a new corporate venture arm in town.

Roughly six months after Hewlett-Packard finalized its division into two companies — Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which focuses on servers, storage, networking and security; and HP Inc., which continues to sell PCs and printers — the latter is introducing a new venture unit called HP Tech Ventures.

The eight-person team, which ultimately reports up to HP’s CTO Shane Wall, is being led by Andrew Bolwell, who has spent the last 16 years with HP and has held the title of chief disruptor for the last few of them.

Among his colleagues and cofounders are Irit Hillel, based in Israel, and Vitaly Golomb, who is based alongside Bolwell in Palo Alto.

In a brief meeting in New York yesterday, Bolwell gave us a few details about HP Tech Ventures’ plans. The idea is to focus primarily on seed and Series A deals that serve HP Inc. strategically. The team will focus on five areas, including: 3D printing and the broader ecosystem that supports it; immersive experiences, including both augmented reality and virtual reality; smart machines, including home and commercial robots; and the Internet of Things.

More here.

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New Fundings

Hi, all, hope you had a terrific weekend! We’re in the thick of Disrupt so don’t have a column prepared for you, but you can catch our on-stage interview from earlier this morning with Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital, Andy Weissman of Union Square Ventures, and Chris Douvos of Venture Investment Associates. (The topic, broadly speaking: how in the world institutional investors get paid in today’s market.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Lending Club shares are down more than 25 percent this morning after the company announced that CEO and founder Renaud Laplanche would resign following an internal review of $22 million in near-prime loan sales to a single investor. TechCrunch has more here.

The lawsuit over the mental competency of the ailing mogul Sumner Redstone was dismissed this morning, after the judge viewed videotaped testimony from the 92-year-old billionaire that was shown on Friday. The New York Times has more here.

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New Fundings

CoreOS, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company behind the container-centric CoreOS Linux distribution and Tectonic container management service, has raised $28 million in Series B funding led by GV, with participation from Accel Partners, Fuel Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and the Y Combinator Continuity Fund. The company has now raised $48 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Musikki, a 5.5-year-old, London-based image management and distribution platform, has raised $1 million in fresh funding from Portugal Ventures, the biggest venture firm in Portugal. TechCrunch has more here.

Pivotal, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based software company that helps its customers build up their own software development capabilities, has raised more than everyone thought. Recode reported last Friday that it had garnered $253 million in Series C funding at a $2.8 billion valuation from Ford, Microsoft, EMC, VMware and GE. Turns out that was the tip of the iceberg; according to an SEC filing turned up Friday, the company has received a total of $653 million in new funding. Fortune has more here.

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New Funds

The private equity firm TPG has announced a final close of its latest North American- and European-focused private equity fund, TPG Partners VII with $10.5 billion in commitments, including $400 million from TPG and its personnel. More here.

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IPOs

Talend, a Redwood Shores, Ca.-based software firm that helps corporations organize and analyze data, has hired investment banks for an IPO, say Reuters sources, who tell the outlet that Talend has already registered its IPO confidentially with the SEC. More here.

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Exits

Bango, the U.K.-based mobile payments company that provides tech to enable consumers to charge app store purchases directly to their phone bill, has acquired the U.S.-based carrier billing service BilltoMobile from Danal for $3.5 million in mostly cash and newly issued Bango shares. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Point72 Asset Management, which manages hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen‘s fortune, has made its first venture investment as it looks to refine investment decisions and improve returns. Reuters has more here.

Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir Technologies, has fired back at a report published by Buzzfeed alleging that the data analysis firm he now advises has been struggling. Fortune has more here.

Ruby Lu, cofounder of DCM China, has joined H Capital, a China-focused venture capital firm founded by Tiger Global Management‘s former China managing partner, Chen Xiaohong. DealStreetAsia has more here.

John McAfee, America’s favorite (and most entertaining) cybersecurity expert has a new gig. TechCrunch has more here.

Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures thinks Uber could go public “at around $25 billion” (and not its private-market valuation of $60 billion) if it were to IPO today.

Norman Winarsky, the former president of SRI Ventures and co-founder and board member of Siri, has joined Relay Ventures as the firm’s first executive-in-residence.

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Jobs

Union Square Ventures is hiring an analyst. The job is in New York. (Work those connections; this is one of the best entry-level gigs in the business.)

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Data

The law firm Fenwick & West just analyzed the terms of 148 venture financings closed in the first quarter of 2016 by companies headquartered in Silicon Valley, finding small declines in the number of up rounds, as well as average and median prices. More here.

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Essential Reads

Here’s the first demo of Viv, the next generation AI assistant built by Siri creator Dag Kittlaus.

Twitter has cut off U.S. intelligence agencies from access to a service that sifts through the entire output of its social-media postings, the latest example of tension between Silicon Valley and the U.S. government. The WSJ has more here.

The company developing Elon Musk‘s 700 mile-per-hour maglev train has announced new details about the levitation system it plans to use.

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Detours

What the science of touch says about us.

The 50 best dive bars in New York.

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Retail Therapy

The perfect customizable sofa system (says Design Milk).

Hi, everyone, we made it! Happy Friday from beautiful, rainy, hectic New York City. Hope you’re in for a terrific weekend. We’ll see you Monday, after we finish an onstage interview at Disrupt with Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital, Andy Weissman of Union Square Ventures, and Chris Douvos of Venture Investment Associates.

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Top News in the A.M.

Lyft says it’s rolling out self-driving taxis — next year.

Square reported first quarter earnings yesterday that beat analysts expectations. Still, its shares fell as much as 20 percent on concerns about financing for its small-business customer-loan program, a service once viewed as a growth area for the company.

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New York’s ff Venture Capital Just Raised a $54 Million Fund, and It’s Targeting Another

New York-based venture firm ff Venture Capital, has raised $53.8 million for its fourth seed-stage venture fund, according to an SEC filing that shows fundraising began in the fall of 2014.

The firm had closed its third seed-stage fund fund in January 2014 with $52 million. Since then, ff Venture Capital has hired two new partners, including Adam Plotkin, who was formerly one of its entrepreneurs-in-residence, and Michael Faber, who’d spent nearly two decades as a general partner with NextPoint VC.

Earlier (and remaining) partners with the firm include its founder, John Frankel; Alex Katz, who does double duty as the firm’s CFO; and David Teten, who previously cofounded a short-lived data mining and analytics company called Navon Partners.

Some of ff Venture’s biggest exits in recent years include the learning software maker Cornerstone OnDemand, which went public in 2011; ThinkNear, a hyper-local mobile ad company that sold to Telenav in 2012 for undisclosed terms; and Omek Interactive, which sold to Intel for $40 million in 2013.

The firm has also seen two of its portfolio companies sell this year. In February, the car service app Whisk sold to the cloud and mobile commerce company Deem, and last week, Livefyre, a portfolio company focused on brand engagement, was acquired by Adobe. Terms of both deals weren’t disclosed publicly.

ff Venture Capital (the “ff” stands for founder friendly) employs 30 people, including recruiting, PR, and investor relations staff to assist its portfolio companies. Some of those that remain privately held are Indiegogo, Plated, Distil Networks, Ionic Security, and Skycatch.

Indeed, according to a source familiar with the firm’s plans, ff Venture Capital is still in the fundraising market, with plans to raise a separate “opportunities” fund to invest in the best-performing companies in its existing portfolio. The idea is to invest in 15 of the roughly 85 startups the firm has funded to date across its four early-stage funds.

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New Fundings

360fly, a 16-year-old, Pittsburgh, Pa.-based company behind a single-lens camera that captures 360-degree video, has raised $40 million in Series C funding led by L Catterton Backers, with participation from Hydra Ventures, which is the corporate venture arm of Adidas Group. Earlier investor Qualcomm Ventures also joined the round. More here.

ACT Genomics, a two-year-old, Taipei, Taiwan-based integrated cancer molecular information company, has raised $12.5 million in Series B funding led by Hotung Group and CDIB Capital Management, with participation from earlier investors Eminent II VC, Hua Nan Venture Capital, President International Development and UMC Capital. More here.

DigiExam, a 4.5-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based startup that sells software-as-a-service for academic testing and grading, has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding, including from Joen Bonnier of the Bonnier family, owner of the largest media group in Sweden. TechCrunch has more here.

Drawbridge, a 5.5-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based ad tech company, has raised $25 million in Series C funding from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Northgate Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Omni, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based on-demand storage startup, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Highland Capital Partners, with participation from Bolt, Formation 8 and individual investors, including Drake and Scooter Braun. The company had previously raised $3 million in seed funding. Fortune has more here.

Pivotal, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based software company that helps its customers build up their own software development capabilities, has raised $253 million in Series C funding at a $2.8 billion valuation from Ford, Microsoft, EMC, VMware and GE. Recode has more here.

Sirqul, a four-year-old, Seattle, Wa.-based company behind an IoT platform, has raised $3 million in additional Series A funding led by Miteno USA. The round, closed now with $9 million, also includes Compal Electronics and numerous angel investors. More here.

Via, a four-year-old, New York-based on-demand rideshare app operating in New York City and Chicago, has raised $100 million in Series C funding led byPitango Growth, with participation from numerous other VCs and family offices including Poalim Capital Markets and C4 Ventures. TechCrunch hasmore here.

VTS, a five-old, New York-based commercial real estate management and leasing platform, has raised $55 million in Series C funding led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from earlier investors OpenView and Trinity Ventures. The company has now raised $84 million to date. The Real Deal has more here.

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New Funds

venBio Partners, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based life sciences investment firm, closed its second venture capital fund, with approximately $315 million. More here.

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Exits

Airtime, Sean Parker’s live mobile video chat platform, has acquired vLine, a  video chat infrastructure startup. No financial terms were disclosed. According to CrunchBase, vLine had raised $1.5 million from Harrison Metal and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. TechCrunch has more here.

Blackjet, a four-year-old, Florida-based on-demand jet service created by Uber co-founder and chairman Garrett Camp, has informed members that it is “abruptly” ceasing operations. Fortune has more here.

Hello, lovely and talented readers, happy Wednesday!

We’ll be on a plane to New York early tomorrow for TechCrunch Disrupt, so we can’t publish StrictlyVC. But look for your next issue Friday. See you then.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

It’s “Star Wars” Day again (we’re told). Just in time to celebrate, a new video marries the magic of the Force with the music of sold-out Broadway sensation “Hamilton.” The Washington Post has more here.

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eShares Puts the Screws to 409A Valuation Firms

very startup that gives employees option grants has to comply with 409A, a section of the U.S. tax code that was established in late 2004 and basically states that a company has to pay tax on some of the compensation it defers, including those options. The 409A valuations are a way to get to their value.

Unfortunately, for much of the last 12 years, such 409A audits have proved expensive, not to mention incredibly confusing. Accounting specialists initially charged startups north of $10,000 per audit, until a a sudden glut of specialists drove prices down fivefold. Meanwhile, many founders still don’t know precisely how valuation firms arrive at a particular number. Appraisers typically look at a company’s costs (meaning its assets and liabilities), its income, and/or the valuations of companies with similar financial and operating characteristics. But there’s little transparency into the whole process.

That’s not accidental or necessary, says Henry Ward, the cofounder and CEO of eShares, an 80-person Mountain View, Ca., startup that now works with more than 4,000 companies, digitizing their paper stock certificates along with stock options, warrants, and derivatives to create a real-time picture of who owns what. In fact, starting today, eShares is charging just $25 a month for its own wholly transparent 409A service. It’s also open sourcing its valuation models for startups that might like to manage the process themselves.

We talked with Ward yesterday about the new service and what it may presage.

There’s so much confusion about 409A valuations, including how they compare with a company’s fair market value. Is there an easy way to understand how the two work together?

In theory, and arguably in practice, a 409A valuation tends to run at a discount of 25 percent to the [value of a company’s] preferred shares. But as a company matures and heads towards an IPO, the 409A starts to converge toward the price that [investors have assigned it in its most recent funding round].

Why do you think confusion around 409A valuations has persisted for so long?

It’s consulting. When the IRS created this standard in the mid 2000s, they documented a set of models that you could use that would pass its requirements. Financial analysts got a hold of these models and they basically turned them into a trade secret. As more people ran into the business [to service startups], prices fell, but nobody solved the tech piece of it. Everyone was just hiring people to do cheaper and cheaper work.

Does that include you? You started offering 409A valuations as part of a bundled service a couple of years ago.

More here.

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New Fundings

Appboy, a five-year-old, New York-based mobile marketing automation platform, has raised $20 million in Series C funding led by Battery Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Blumberg Capital, Bullpen Capital, IDG Ventures, InterWest Partners, Metamorphic Ventures and Rally Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

ChargePoint, a nine-year-old, Campbell, Ca.-based electric vehicle charging network, has raised $50 million in funding led by Linse Capital, with participation from earlier backers Braemar Energy Ventures and Constellation Energy. Automotive News has more here.

DFLabs, an 11-year-old, Milan, Italy-based company that makes automated cyber incident management and response software, has raised $5.5 million in Series A funding from Evolution Equity Partners. More here.

Farfetch, an eight-year-old, London-based a fashion e-commerce platform that connects consumers with a curated global network of boutiques and bigger brands, has just raised $110 million in Series F funding led by new investors Temasek, IDG Capital Partners and Eurazeo, with the participation of earlier investor Vitruvian Partners. The company has now raised roughly $305 million. This new round was reportedly sewn up at a post-money valuation of $1.5 billion. The Business of Fashion has the story here.

Full Measure Education, a three-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based mobile platform for post-secondary student communication and administrative management needs, has raised $6 million in Series B funding led by Safeguard Scientifics. More here.

Haven, a two-year-old, San Francisco, Ca.- and Singapore-based programmatic logistics platform that automates freight procurement for commodity traders, food producers, and CPG companies, has raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Spark Capital. Other participants include AITV and earlier backers O’Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures, Data Collective and First Round Capital. More here.

IDEAYA Biosciences, a year-old, South San Francisco, Ca.-based oncology-focused biotechnology company, has raised $46 million in Series A funding from 5AM Ventures, Canaan Partners, Celgene, WuXi Healthcare Ventures, Novartis Institute of Biomedical Research and Alexandria Real Estate Equities. Biospace has more here.

Job Market Maker, a three-year-old Charleston, S.C.-based online recruitment startup, has raised $1 million in Series A funding from Charleston Angel Partners. More here.

Jolla, a five-year-old, Helsinki, Finland-based mobile OS maker whose Sailfish licensing business aims competes with Android  by offering OEMs the ability to tailor the mobile platform to their needs, has raised $12 million in Series C funding from undisclosed investors. TechCrunch has more here.

LiveNinja, a five-year-old, Miami, Fla.-based live video chat marketplace that connects users with topic experts, has raised $2 million in fresh funding from Scout Ventures, Anzu Partners, Comcast Ventures Catalyst Fund, Citi Ventures, Accelerated Growth Partners and SeedInvest.  The company has now raised $3.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

OutboundEngine, a 3.5-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based automated marketing platform for small business owners, has raised $16 million in Series C funding led by S3 Ventures, with participation from Silverton Partners, Noro-Moseley, Harmony Partners, Altos Ventures and Capital Factory. The company has now raised $33.8 million to date. More here.

Passport, a six-year-old, Charlotte, N.C.-based company specializing in enterprise business applications and payments for parking and transportation, has raised $8 million in Series B funding led by MK Capital, with participation from earlier backers Grotech Ventures and Relevance Capital. The company has now raised $17 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

PowWow Mobile, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based enterprise app mobility startup, has raised $4.3 million in new funding led by Vertical Venture Partners, with participation from IT-Farm, OurCrowd, Prabhakar Goel and VKRN. More here.

Rebagg, a two-year-old, New York-based online marketplace for previously owned designer handbags, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led byGeneral Catalyst Partners, which also led the company’s $4 million seed round last August. Other earlier investors to join the new financing include FJ labs, Metamorphic Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Founder Collective, Big Sur Ventures and Necotium. TechCrunch has more here.

Roli, a seven-year-old, London-based music technology company, has raised $27 million in funding led by Foundry Group, with participation from BGF Ventures, Founders Fund, Balderton Capital, FirstMark Capital, Index Ventures, Horizons Ventures, and Universal Music Group. TechCrunch has more here.

VTS, a five-year-old, New York-based commercial real estate leasing and asset management platform, has raised $55 million in Series C funding led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from OpenView Venture Partners andTrinity Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Winc, a 4.5-year-old, L.A.-based online wine retailer that’s been known until now as Club W, has raised $17.5 million in new funding co-led by Shining Capital and earlier investor Bessemer Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

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Exits

Adobe yesterday announced plans to acquire Livefyre, a service that’s probably best known for its online commenting system. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. Livefyre had raised $67.3 million from investors, shows CrunchBase. Adobe participated in its last $47 million round (as did Salesforce), so the two companies were already quite familiar with each other. TechCrunch has more here.

Pinterest, the popular, San Francisco-based visual bookmarking tool, has acquired URX, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based adtech startup whose platform helps consumers to discover content inside mobile apps. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. URX had raised $15 million from investors, shows CrunchBase.

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People

It’s graduation time; this year, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison is giving the commencement address at USC.

Apple has hired famed robotics expert Yoky Matsuoka, one of the co-founders of Google’s X lab and former head of technology at Nest, to work on the iPhone maker’s health projects. Fortune has more here.

Octopus Ventures in London has hired as an investor mobile gaming entrepreneur Eyal Rabinovich, who’s best known for co-founding the Israeli game publisher PlayScape.

In case you missed all the coverage (we love our tech execs!): 23andMe CEOAnne Wojcicki attended the Met Gala on Monday night with New York Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez. They arrived in the same car as Wojcicki’s ex-husband, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and his girlfriend of the last year,Nicole Shanahan, who founded the patent-technology company ClearAccesIP. Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was also at the gala, with his glamorous mama. So was Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Emerson Collective CEO Laurene Powell Jobs, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom, and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. Business Insider has more pics here.

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Jobs

NextEv, a Chinese car company taking on Tesla (and headed up by Cisco’s former chief strategy officer, Padmasree Warrior), is looking to hire a corporate development associate. The job is in San Jose, Ca.

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Essential Reads

Apple is revamping its streaming music service, in response to customers not liking it very much.

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Detours

The fascinating correlation between the first class cabin and air rage.

That baby is sizing you up.

Beautiful Kung Fu visualizations.

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Retail Therapy

A precision-engineered humidor, for your herb(s).