2016 – Page 4 – StrictlyVC, LLC

StrictlyVC: November 1, 2016

Hi, happy Tuesday, everyone (and happy November). Not sure what it says about us that we woke up thinking it was Thursday(!).

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Top News in the A.M.

Gannett, publisher of USA Today among other properties, has ended its monthslong attempt acquire its rival, Chicago Tribune publisher Tronc, over terms it deemed to be unacceptable. The WSJ has more here.

Fantasy sports sites DraftKings and FanDuel are closing in on a merger, says Recode, which reports that FanDuel CEO Nigel Eccles will become chairman of the new company and DraftKings CEO Jason Robins will run the entity as CEO, if and when a deal gets done.

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How to Sell Your Company to China

Michael Levit knows a thing or two about China. As an executive vice president at the e-commerce services company Vendio, he stayed with the company for six months after Alibaba agreed to acquire it in 2010. (It marked the Chinese conglomerate’s first U.S. acquisition.)

Levit says it was long enough to develop a consumer shopping project called Dealio that Alibaba had no interest in owning. So, he helped spin it off, renamed it Spigot, and eventually turned it into an application advertising company. (Users installing one app would receive a suggestion for another.) Roughly a year ago, Spigot also sold to a China-based company, publicly traded Genimous, for a reported $252 million.

Now Levit is taking the lessons learned from those experiences, and turning it into his next startup. Specifically, he has teamed up with longtime friend and advisor Rick Marini — cofounder of Tickle (sold to Monster) and Branch (picked up by Hearst) — to form Dragonfly Partners, a new advisory firm that’s matching U.S. companies looking to get sold with China-based companies that are hungry for revenue.

They’ve also brought in a third partner, Gary Hsueh, who was most recently Yahoo’s global head of search partnerships and an investment banker with Goldman Sachs before that.

I sat down with Levit yesterday to learn more about the business, and how it might help Silicon Valley founders who might be ready to hand over the keys.

TC: This business sounds perfectly timed. What inspired it?

ML: Selling Spigot was wonderful, but the sales process was very challenging and tedious, and partially that’s because there aren’t many people who understand cross-border transactions and specifically how you take a U.S. company and sell it to China. Thankfully, I still have a number of friends from my Alibaba days, including David Wei (who was Alibaba’s CEO when Vendio was bought). He remains one of my mentors and helped us through that process.

TC: How many companies have you been working with, and have you sold anything yet?

ML: The first two companies that we advised informally are [the ad tech company] Media.net, sold to a Beijing-based company called Miteno for $900 million in August, and [mobile ad tech company] AppLovin, which sold last month to the private equity firm Orient Hontai Capital for $1.4 billion.

TC: You’re not an investment bank, but it sounds like you’re not far afield from one.

We’re akin to being an investment bank, though frankly there are a lot of people on the ground in China who are formal investment bankers [working with us]. What [we’re more focused on is talking with entrepreneurs about] whether China is real, what do the numbers look like, what do [China-based companies] want, how do you create your financial forecast, how do you create the right PowerPoint presentation, and help put those materials together before you even meet with a bank. Then we make the introduction to the bank.

TC: Which banks are you working with?

ML: There are a couple that we work with, including CV Capital. We’re also starting to work with [the private equity firm] CSC Venture Capital [the private equity firm that has committed to invest $400 million on the AngelList platform].

You have massive pools of capital in China that want to be deployed in the U.S.; you have entrepreneurs in the U.S. who want do business in China. What’s missing is a level of trust and understanding of how the two sides do business with each other. CSC solved that problem in part by partnering with AngelList. We’re doing something similar for much bigger deals and for M&A.

Frankly, some companies in China will promise you the sun, moon, and stars, and won’t give you any of it. Conversely, there are other companies that are soft-stated and that you’d never find and that have $90 billion [in market cap]. There are multiple entities like that because of the scale of China. We want to be the trusted layer that helps founders find those entities.

More here.

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New Fundings

AirPR, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based company that provides analytics, insights, and measurement tools to the PR industry, has raised $5 million in Series B funding led by Storm Ventures, with participation from Salesforce Ventures and earlier backers Mohr Davidow and Correlation Ventures. The company has now raised $10 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Cirina, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup developing non-invasive tests for early cancer screening, has disclosed $12 million in Series A funding led by Shanghai-based Decheng Capital. More here.

Classy, a 10.5-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based fundraising platform for social enterprises, has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by JMI Equity, a growth equity firm. Earlier backers Bullpen Capital, Galileo Partners, Mithril Capital Management and Salesforce Ventures also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Cross River Bank, an eight-year-old, Fort Lee, N.J.-based community bank that’s become a major player in the marketplacing lending space, has raised $28 million in growth-equity funding led by Battery Ventures, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and Ribbit Capital. The WSJ has more here.

CounterTack, a nine-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based maker of endpoint detection and response technologies for the enterprise, has raised $10 million in new funding from TenEleven Ventures, Fairhaven Capital, Goldman Sachs, Razor’s Edge, ManTech International, Siemens Venture Partners, Alcatel-Lucent, EDBI, and Mitsui & Co. More here.

Emissary, a three-year-old, New York-based service that connects salespeople with executives at companies they are targeting, has raised $10 million in Series A funding co-led by Canaan Partners and G20 Ventures. The company has now raised $12 million altogether. More here.

Freshdesk, a five-year-old, San Bruno, Ca.-based startup whose software enables companies to provide multichannel support via phone, email, chat, website, social networks and mobile apps, has raised $55 million in new funding led by Sequoia Capital India, with participation from earlier backer Accel Partners. The company has now raised $150.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Gauzy, a seven-year-old, Tel Aviv-based startup that develops liquid crystals that can double as both glass surfaces and computer screens, has raised $7 million in Series B funding led by Lazarus Fund. More here.

GoMeta, a three-month-old, San Diego-based augmented reality startup started by former Google group product manager Dmitry Shapiro, has raised $2 million in seed funding from angel investors, including former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, Science Inc. cofounder Mike Jones and others. Variety has more here.

Graphcore, a nearly year-old, Bristol, England-based company whose server hardware system aims to accelerates the processing of complex machine learning models, has raised $30 million in Series A funding led by Robert Bosch Venture Capital, with participation from Samsung Catalyst Fund, Amadeus Capital Partners, C4 Ventures, Draper Esprit, Foundation Capital, and Pitango Venture Capital. More here.

Headset, a 1.5-year-old, Seattle-based market research and analysis service for the marijuana industry, has raised $1 million in seed funding, says Fortune. More here.

Hubble Contacts, a six-month-old, New York-based startup offering more affordable disposable contact lenses, has raised $7.2 million in seed funding from Founders Fund, Greycroft Partners, Wildcat Capital Management, Two River, and two individual angels: Oscar Salazar, a cofounder of Uber, and Brian Levy, formerly Bausch and Lomb’s chief medical officer. TechCrunch has more here.

Hungry Marketplace, a months-old, Arlington, Va.-based service that connects professional chefs with consumers, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from private equity firm Timeless Capital. More here.

Ministry Brands, a four-year-old, Lenoir, Tn.-based company that sells software as a service to churches and private schools, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Insight Venture Partners, in a transaction valued at north of $1 billion, according to the WSJ. The company already had backing from Genstar Capital and Providence Equity Partners. More here.

Nurx, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based drug prescription and delivery app, has raised $5.3 million in Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from six Y Combinator partners and other angel investors. Mashable has more here.

Lilt, a 1.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based machine translation service, has raised $2.35 million in seed funding co-led by Redpoint Ventures and Zetta Venture Partners, with participation from XSeed Capital. VentureBeat has more here.

Ola, the six-year-old, India-based ride hailing startup, is reportedly in talks to raise about $600 million and may close the deal by year end, says Bloomberg. More here.

Paktor, a three-year-old, Singapore-based Tinder-like dating app, has raised $32.5 million in new funding led by U.S.-Asia-based K2 Global and Indonesia’s MNC Media Group, with participation from other, undisclosed investors. Paktor’s previous investors include Yahoo Japan-affiliate YJ Capital and Singapore’s Vertex Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Postmates, a five-year-old San Francisco-based on-demand delivery company, has officially closed its newest round of funding with $140 million led by Founders Fund. (TechCrunch had reported the company was fundraising last month, in case this sounds familiar.) The company’s post-money valuation is $600 million. More here.

Promethera Biosciences, a seven-year-old, Belgium-based cell therapy and regenerative medicine company focused on treating liver diseases, has raised €10 million ($11 million) in additional Series C funding round. Investors include Vesalius Biocapital, SRIW, Fund+, MGI Global Fund, Mitsui & Co., Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, SMS Investments, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Cell Innovation Partners, and LifeLiver in South Korea. More here.

Terra’s Kitchen, a two-year-old, Baltimore-based fresh meal delivery kit startup that uses eco-friendly packaging, has raised an undisclosed amount in funding from KiwiVenture Partners. More here.

Tiff’s Treats, a 16-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based warm cookie delivery company, has raised a fresh $11 million in funding, led by Dallas-based CIC Partners. The company had previously raised $14 million in August 2014. More here.

uBiome, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose platform helps users understand their microbiomes, including through testing the DNA of microorganisms found in their fecal matter, has raised $22 million in Series B funding led by 8VC, with participation from Slow Ventures, Stanford’s StartX Fund, and various angel investors. The company has now raised $27 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Unbabel, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based translation startup, has raised $5 million in Series A funding co-led by Notion Capital and Caixa Capital.

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New Funds

Israel-based equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd is launching a sector specific fund fully focused on digital health and touting it as Israel’s first fund with such a focus. The fund, called OurCrowd Qure, will invest in early-stage startups at the seed and Series A level. Fundraising is starting now, with a target of $50 million for the first raise. TechCrunch has more here.

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Exits

Nitrous.io, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based cloud development platform, is shutting down. The company had raised roughly $7 million from investors, including from Bessemer Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Brad Garlinghouse, who joined the payments company Ripple as president and COO last year, is becoming its CEO, as longtime CEO Chris Larsen stepping into a role as executive chairman of the company. Garlinghouse was previously CEO of Hightail, as well as a former AOL and Yahoo senior executive. TechCrunch has more here.

San Francisco’s most expensive home on the market has been sold to 30-year-old tech entrepreneur Kyle Vogt, who paid more than $21 million. Vogt cofounded the autonomous driving startup Cruise Automation, which sold to GM back in March for reportedly more than $1 billion. Vogt also founded the “ESPN of gaming,” Twitch, which sold to Amazon for $1.1 billion in 2013. NBC Bay Area has more here.

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Jobs

Prehype, a six-year-old venture development firm in New York, is looking to hire a venture associate. More here.

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(Alarming) Data

Female CEOS get more tough press than male leaders do, according to a new analysis by the Rockefeller Foundation and public-relations and research firm Global Strategy Group. It finds that nearly 80 percent of media stories about companies in crisis cited the CEO as a source of blame when the company’s leader was a woman, compared with 31 percent of stories assigning blame to male CEOs. The WSJ has more here.

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Essential Reads

Palantir Technologies has won a second chance at a contract to build the next phase of the U.S. Army’s integrated combat data system, an undertaking potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

“In a stunt that begs to be spoofed by Mike Judge for his HBO series ‘Silicon Valley,’ Menlo Ventures portfolio company Flirtey delivered socks from the sky above the Rosewood Hotel during the firm’s annual limited partner meeting,” reports TechCrunch. More here.

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Detours

LeBron James hosts a Warriors-themed Halloween party.

How hitting the snooze button messes with your mind.

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Retail Therapy

Mahabis slippers. They got soles. (H/T: Uncrate.)

Connie

November 19, 2016

Morning Summary

Serial Entrepreneurs Rick Marini and Michael Levit are Selling Companies to China — for a Lot of Money

Michael Levit knows a thing or two about China. As an executive vice president at the e-commerce services company Vendio, he stayed with the company for six months after Alibaba agreed to acquire it in 2010. (It marked the Chinese conglomerate’s first U.S. acquisition.)

Levit says it was long enough to develop a consumer shopping project called Dealio that Alibaba had no interest in owning. So, he helped spin it off, renamed it Spigot, and eventually turned it into an application advertising company. (Users installing one app would receive a suggestion for another.) Roughly a year ago, Spigot also sold to a China-based company, publicly traded Genimous, for a reported $252 million.

Now Levit is taking the lessons learned from those experiences, and turning it into his next startup. Specifically, he has teamed up with longtime friend and advisor Rick Marini — cofounder of Tickle (sold to Monster) and Branch (picked up by Hearst) — to form Dragonfly Partners, a new advisory firm that’s matching U.S. companies looking to get sold with China-based companies that are hungry for revenue.

They’ve also brought in a third partner, Gary Hsueh, who was most recently Yahoo’s global head of search partnerships and an investment banker with Goldman Sachs before that.

I sat down with Levit yesterday to learn more about the business, and how it might help Silicon Valley founders who might be ready to hand over the keys.

TC: This business sounds perfectly timed. What inspired it?

ML: Selling Spigot was wonderful, but the sales process was very challenging and tedious, and partially that’s because there aren’t many people who understand cross-border transactions and specifically how you take a U.S. company and sell it to China. Thankfully, I still have a number of friends from my Alibaba days, including David Wei (who was Alibaba’s CEO when Vendio was bought). He remains one of my mentors and helped us through that process.

TC: How many companies have you been working with, and have you sold anything yet?

ML: The first two companies that we advised informally are [the ad tech company] Media.net, sold to a Beijing-based company called Miteno for $900 million in August, and [mobile ad tech company] AppLovin, which sold last month to the private equity firm Orient Hontai Capital for $1.4 billion.

TC: You’re not an investment bank, but it sounds like you’re not far afield from one.

We’re akin to being an investment bank, though frankly there are a lot of people on the ground in China who are formal investment bankers [working with us]. What [we’re more focused on is talking with entrepreneurs about] whether China is real, what do the numbers look like, what do [China-based companies] want, how do you create your financial forecast, how do you create the right PowerPoint presentation, and help put those materials together before you even meet with a bank. Then we make the introduction to the bank.

TC: Which banks are you working with?

ML: There are a couple that we work with, including CV Capital. We’re also starting to work with [the private equity firm] CSC Venture Capital [the private equity firm that has committed to invest $400 million on the AngelList platform].

You have massive pools of capital in China that want to be deployed in the U.S.; you have entrepreneurs in the U.S. who want do business in China. What’s missing is a level of trust and understanding of how the two sides do business with each other. CSC solved that problem in part by partnering with AngelList. We’re doing something similar for much bigger deals and for M&A.

Frankly, some companies in China will promise you the sun, moon, and stars, and won’t give you any of it. Conversely, there are other companies that are soft-stated and that you’d never find and that have $90 billion [in market cap]. There are multiple entities like that because of the scale of China. We want to be the trusted layer that helps founders find those entities.

More here.

(Pictured above: Michael Levit.)

StrictlyVC: October 31, 2016

Good morning, everyone. We’re running over to a Halloween parade that we know will feature at least one San Francisco 49er and one “infected zombie chimp” so today’s edition is a tad short on funding news, but we’ll have more for you tomorrow. Happy Halloween; enjoy your office costume parties.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Massive telecom merger alert. To expand its fiber optic network and high-speed data services, CenturyLink said this morning it will buy Level 3 Communications in for about $24 billion. Reuters has more here.

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In Speech, Peter Thiel Defends Idea of Trump Above Actual Candidate

Billionaire investor Peter Thiel may have been trying to drum up more support for Republican candidate Donald Trump this morning at the National Press Club in Washington. But a 15-minute long speech he delivered sounded more like a plea to Americans to understand what’s so wrong with this country, rather than a case for Trump. His pitch: American is broken, and there’s nothing crazy about supporting change — despite Trump.

He didn’t talk about Trump’s intellect, his command of the issues, or his suitability for the office of president.

Instead, Thiel spoke at length about the condition of the U.S., citing a litany of statistics mean to alarm: 64 percent of people age 55 in the U.S have less than a year’s worth of savings. Healthcare costs are “10 times” the cost of “simple medicines” anywhere else in the world. College tuition has risen faster than the rate of inflation. Millennials expect their lives to be worse than the lives of their parents. Incomes are stagnant, with the median household making less money today than 17 years ago. The government is “wasting trillions of dollars of taxpayer money” on foreign wars in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia.

Trump, argued Thiel, is a vote against the status quo, even while Thiel offered nary a detail about how Trump would address any of these issues.

In many ways, follow-up questions that followed Thiel’s presentation were more interesting than the speech itself.

Asked about Trump’s vulgar, decade-old comments about women that aired earlier this month, Thiel said they were in “extremely poor taste” and “extremely inappropriate” but he argued that Trump wouldn’t make the same comments today.

Asked about his recent, widely reported $1.25 million donation to Trump’s campaign, Thiel said he “didn’t think about it as much as I should have.” He noted that neither candidate’s campaign has been hugely successful on the fundraising front, adding that Trump specifically hasn’t raised much, so “I didn’t think he needed the money, and I hadn’t donated.”

When the campaign finally asked him for help — apparently after it became clear that none was forthcoming — “I thought I’d go ahead and write a check,” Thiel said.

Thiel was also asked about Trump’s personality traits and whether he is concerned about his temperament. Thiel mostly dodged the question, saying instead that when it comes to president, he’s more concerned with world view than temperament, and that he’s more worried about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, saying he thinks she has the propensity to get the U.S. into “more wars.”

Asked about other government regulations, including around small businesses, Thiel said he thinks Trump “viscerally” understands them.

What about Trump’s track record as a businessman? He has a “huge number of zeros” in his net worth, said Thiel.

Pressed on what he thinks of Trump’s four (or more) bankruptcies, Thiel said he suspects that “real estate is very different than tech. It’s a fairly zero sum business — a very tough industry especially in big cities like Manhattan or San Francisco. I suspect in many ways what [Trump] did was par for the course in that context.”

What about the tax returns that Trump has refused to admit? Here, Thiel suggested that government focuses too much on transparency, suggesting that it’s why we “in some ways have a less talented group running [for office] than 30 or 40 years ago.”

More here.

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New Fundings

Everything But The House, an eight-year-old, Cincinnati, Oh.-based startup creating a digital marketplace for estate sales, has raised $41.5 million in new funding led by earlier backer Greenspring Associates, with participation from returning investors Greycroft Partners and Spark Capital. The company has now raised $84.5 million altogether. Fortune has the story here.

Giphy, a 3.5-year-old, New York-based search engine for the short, looping video files, has raised a fresh $72 million in funding led by DFJ, with participation from Institutional Venture Partners, China Media Capital, and earlier backers Betaworks, Lightspeed Venture Partners and GV. The company has now raised roughly $150 million altogether, and is valued at $600 million, says the WSJ. More here.

Riskalyze, a five-year-old, Sacramento, Ca.-based company whose software helps investment advisors assess their client’s risk tolerance and find investments that fit them, has raised $20 million in growth equity led by FTV Capital. More here.

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New Funds

Chicago Ventures, a 3.5-year-old early-stage venture firm focused on startups in Chicago and the central U.S., has closed its second fund with $66 million. The firm has also added to its roster of “entrepreneur partners” and advisors, which now includes Signal’s Eric Lunt, OkCupid’s Sam Yagan, Trunk Club’s Brian Spaly, and SteelBrick’s Godard Abel. Chicago Ventures closed its debut fund with $40 million in 2013. The Chicago Tribune has more here.

Third Rock Ventures, the 10-year-old, Boston-based firm focused on fields such as oncology, immunology, neurological disorders, cardiovascular and rare genetic diseases. has closed its fourth fund with $616 million. It’s the firm’s largest fund yet. The Boston Globe has more here.

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Exits

Starbreeze, an 18-year-old, Stockholm-based game development studio that also makes a VR headset, has purchased Nozon, a Belgium-based visual effects studio for about $7.75 million. More here.

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People

Justin Kan, Y Combinator partner, serial entrepreneur, and one of the internet’s most-loved reality stars, has started another venture called Whale, a video Q&A app. More here.

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Jobs

Cisco‘s corporate development team is looking to hire a senior manager. The job is in San Jose, Ca.

Energy Capital Partners, a year-old early-stage venture firm that’s focused primarily on energy technologies, is looking to hire an associate. The job is in New York.

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Essential Reads

Tesla unveiled new solar roof tiles on Friday and they look amazing. No one saw them coming, either.

This past summer, Facebook made an unsuccessful bid to acquire Snow, a Snapchat-like service from Naver, the $25 billion-valued Korean firm behind chat app Line. TechCrunch has more here.

A new study finds discrimination against women and black people by Uber and Lyft drivers.

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Detours

Apparently, you can be asleep and awake at the same time.

Forget bomb-sniffing dogs, we can now use spinach to detect explosives.

A New York man just returned a book that was 42 years overdue.

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Retail Therapy

Even if you have more money than you know what to do with, this seems wrong.

StrictlyVC: October 28, 2016

Friday!

Quick mention: Our next SVC event will be in San Francisco on February 8, so mark your calendars, babies! (We were shooting for December 1, but we couldn’t make the timing work. We do hope to see some of you the following week, at London Disrupt.) Details to come. If you’d like to get involved as a sponsor, let us know; we’d love to talk.

See you Monday, everyone.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Apple, why do you hate us?

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Accel Cofounder Jim Swartz: It Hasn’t Burst, But It’s a Bubble All Right

Earlier this week, the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, a “hub for entrepreneurship” in the center of Carnegie Mellon University’s Pittsburgh campus, was officially launched in an event attended by upwards of 600 students, alums, and professors. They’ll have even more to celebrate when construction on the 300,000 square-foot business school where it’s being housed is completed in 2018.

At the center of all: Jim Swartz, who cofounded the storied venture firm Accel Partners in 1983 and who last year donated $31 million to CMU, where Swartz nabbed his master’s degree in 1966. The native Pennsylvanian says the gift is designed to help Pittsburgh cement its new role as a thriving tech center. (Google, Microsoft, and Uber are among a growing number of companies with local campuses.)

We talked with Swartz earlier today about the donation, as well as whether he remains active on the venture scene, and, if so, what he makes of the current state of things. Our chat has been edited for length.

TC: You founded Accel with Arthur Patterson in 1983. When did you step back from the firm, and do you still invest in startups?

JS: It’s been a continuous process and I’m still involved to a significant degree. Arthur and I ran the firm, then we brought in Jim Breyer, and the three of us ran it, then he ran it, then we created an operations committee that ran it, and now there’s a fourth generation. But we’re still involved, [mentoring the VCs there], helping wherever we can with new projects, or selling our ways into things. We’re not under the gun anymore, though, which is a good feeling.

TC: How active an angel investor are you?

JS: I’m not San Francisco bubble crazy, but I’m reasonably active, funding two or three companies a year, something like that. I still look for really good technology and great people.

TC: What do you make of the current environment?

JS: It won’t end well. I’ve been at this since 1970 and Arthur and I have seen five or six cycles at this point. This one is prolonged for sure. In truth, I thought [the last bubble] was over in 1997 and let it run and thank goodness because we made a ton of money. I think the difference here is Sarbanes-Oxley, which has made it incredibly different and unsavory to take companies public. The regulatory environment is too difficult. Before, if you had $50 million in revenue and could show a profit, you could go public; today that number is what, $200 million, $300 million?

New funds are filling the funding gap. Accel Growth is one of them, and lot of other firms have taken advantage of things, too. But it creates questions about whether [founders] ever want to go public and how investors will get out.

TC: Do you see an actual “crash”? It’s hard to see how that happens, with new capital continuing to come in.

More here.

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New Fundings

Ather Energy, a three-year-old, Bangalore-based company that sells premium electric scooters, is raising $31 million in new funding from Hero MotoCorp, the world’s largest seller of motorcycles and scooters. Hero will own as much as 30 percent of the startup. Tech in Asia has more here.

Conekta, a five-year-old, Mexico City-based payments processing company, has raised $6.6 million in Series A funding from VARIV Capital, FEMSA Comercio, Jaguar Ventures, and Conconi Growth Partners. Forbes Mexico has more here (in Spanish).

CubeWorks, a three-year-old, Ann Harbor, Mi.-based millimeter-scale computing company (its tech aims to enhance existing devices like wearables with its new energy harvesting methods), has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Intel Capital. More here.

KNL Networks, a five-year-old, Oulu, Finland-based wireless communications startup that provides IP communications to isolated and inaccessible areas, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Creandum, with participation from Inventure, Butterfly Ventures, and angel investors. Tech.eu has more here.

Libryo, a year-old, London-based legal tech startup, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Nextlaw Labs, Seedcamp, and an unnamed seed-stage fund. More here.

MPower Financing, a 1.5-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based peer-to-peer lending platform for student loans (it connects students to loans from investors without the need for a co-signer), has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Zephyr Peacock, with participation from 1776 Ventures, Goal Structured Solutions, VilCap Investments, DreamIt Ventures, Fresco Capital, and University Ventures. Zephyr will help the company set up a location in Bangalore. The Tech Portal has more here.

Orvibo, a four-year-old, Shenzhen, China-based maker of smart light switches, smart electrical plugs and smart fire alarms, has raised $16 million in Series B funding led by Shenzhen Topband, itself a manufacturer of a wide range of electronic products. Earlier backer SAIF Partners and others also joined the round. China Money Network has more here.

Retention Science, a five-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based AI-driven retention marketing startup, has raised $750,000 in seed funding led by Forerunner Ventures. The company reportedly raised $1.3 million in seed funding led by Baroda Ventures back in 2012. Best Techie has more here.

Unity Biotechnology, a year-old, San Francisco-based company that’s targeting diseases related to aging and focusing its early work on halting the progression of atherosclerotic disease, has raised $116 million in funding. Arch Venture Partners, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity Management and Research Company, Partner Fund Management, Venrock, and Bezos Expeditions participated, along with earlier backers WuXi PharmaTech and Mayo Clinic Ventures. FierceBiotech has more here.

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New Funds

MIT President Rafael Reif announced Wednesday night that the Institute will launch The Engine, a new accelerator program with a planned $150 million venture fund to support startups innovating in the science and technology spaces (and hopefully address Boston’s retention problem). BostInno has more here.

System.One, a new, Berlin-based pre-seed venture capital fund with a global mindset and a single GP — Maximilian Claussen, who has formerly worked at Earlybird Ventures, Goldman Sachs and elsewhere — has launched with €8.2 million (roughly $9 million) in commitments. More here.

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IPOs

China’s ZTO Express, the company that provides shipping and delivery services to Alibaba among others, saw its shares trade downward on its first day of trading yesterday on the NYSE. More here.

Myovant Sciences, a Brisbane, Ca.-based drug company focused on women’s health diseases, raised $218 million in its IPO, making it the largest biotechnology IPO this year to date. Its shares hit the trading floor this morning (you can catch the action here). MedCity News has more here.

Quantenna Communications, a Fremont, Ca.-based provider of Wi-Fi video networking for whole-home entertainment, has raised $107 million by offering 6.7 million shares at $16 per share, the top end of its range. You can see how the shares are trading here.

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Exits

Earlier this year, Alibaba acquired a controlling stake in Lazada, the Rocket Internet-backed e-commerce company in Southeast Asia, for $1 billion. Now it’s taking steps to turn the business into the “emerging market Amazon,” says TechCrunch, which reports that Lazada is in advanced talks to acquire Redmart, a Singapore-based grocery delivery service. Much more here.

PowWow Mobile, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based app mobility company, is spending an undisclosed amount to acquire its 4.5-year-old, Atlanta-based competitor StarMobile. StarMobile had raised more than $6 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. PowWow has meanwhile raised $8.3 million from its backers. SearchMobile Computing has more here.

—–

People

Carmen Chang, a partner at New Enterprise Associates, has a new title: Chairman and Head, Asia. The firm also promoted two investors to general partner: Mohamad Makhzoumi, head of the firm’s healthcare services/IT investing practice; and Chetan Puttagunta, a tech investor focused on enterprise software. More here.

Ryan Collins, the hacker who stole nude photos of female celebrities in 2014, has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison, officials announced yesterday.

Renowned iPhone hacker-turned-entrepreneur George Hotz has cancelled his autonomous driving startup’s first official product, an aftermarket add-on that would’ve allowed certain cars to gain Autopilot-like highway driving assistance abilities. He says it wasn’t worth providing detailed answers to 15 questions from the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration about the technology.

Vinod Khosla sat down with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang this morning to talk investing strategy, and how he feels about clean tech investing today.

—–

Jobs

Verizon is looking for a strategy and corporate development manager. The job is in Palo Alto, Ca.

—–

Essential Reads

Meal replacement powder maker Soylent has now halted sales of its main product as part of an investigation into why some customers have been getting sick after eating its products. Soylent has raised roughly $22 million from investors. More here.

—–

Detours

Stand-up comedian Bobby Lee versus hot wings.

Millennials aren’t cheap; they’re thrifty.

I’m not an assh_le. I’m an introvert.

—–

Retail Therapy

A beautifully designed toaster (really!).

Accel Cofounder Jim Swartz: It’s a Bubble All Right

TC: You founded Accel with Arthur Patterson in 1983. When did you step back from the firm, and do you still invest in startups?

TC: How active an angel investor are you?

JS: I’m not San Francisco bubble crazy, but I’m reasonably active, funding two or three companies a year, something like that. I still look for really good technology and great people.

TC: What do you make of the current environment?

TC: Do you see an actual “crash”? It’s hard to see how that happens, with new capital continuing to come in.

More here.

StrictlyVC: October 27, 2016

Look, we will admit that we like the Cubs almost as much as the Indians, but we totally take back what we said yesterday. We can get used to winning! Team, let’s turn these stats around!

Happy Thursday, everyone.:)

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Yesterday, Tesla Motors posted a surprise profit of $21.9 million in the third quarter, defying Wall Street expectations.

Twitter also reported much-needed, solid third-quarter performance yesterday, and it confirmed that it would lay off roughly 9 percent of its staff.

Money, money, money: Snapchat will seek to raise as much as $4 billion in its planned IPO, which could value the company at between $25 billion and $35 billion.

—–

A Founder Seizes on Anti-Trump Sentiment to Market to Women

Earlier this year, Kristen Koh Goldstein merged two of her companies, three-year-old Scalus and six-year-old BackOps into a new company called HireAthena, a back-office-as a service startup that also sells fully automated workflow software.

From the start, the company has aggressively marketed itself to both customers and employees who are women, and it’s smartly playing up to them right now in a presidential election season where talk of sexism has often (yes) trumped talk of education, defense, and the war on drugs, among other national issues.

Explains Goldstein of HireAthena’s workflow software, on which the company appears to be focusing most of its time and attention: “Our software levels the amount of self-advocacy among a team of people who have to get something done together” by making it easier to follow exactly who committed to do what and when.

“Too often, you have skilled, hard-working women who are subject-matter experts having to deal with the Trumps of the world yelling over us,” says Goldstein, who worked earlier in her career as an analyst with both Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse. “Our software enables the shy voice to work with the bold voice to get work done. Our engagement is high because women are saying, ‘I have to use this product; it keeps me from being blamed for stuff that isn’t my fault.’”

Whether or not that’s true is hard to know. Goldstein doesn’t disclose many metrics about her business other than to say that it is profitable and that investors have expressed interest in providing HireAthena with more capital. (Goldstein’s earlier companies had raised a collective $10 million from Sherpa Capital, GV, Data Collective, Naval Ravikant, and Max Levchin among others.)

Either way, faced with endless reports about Donald Trump’s history of dehumanizing women, and women outside of his sphere coming forward with their own stories of harassment, Goldstein is honing her recruiting and sales efforts around a specific pitch.

More here.

—–

New Fundings

Bonesupport, a 16-year-old, Lund, Sweden-based med-tech company that develops treatments for bone fractures, has raised $37 million in equity and debt funding led by Tellacq AB, with participation from HealthCap, Lundbeckfond Ventures, Industrifonden, AP3 and Carl Westin. The debt was provided by Kreos Capital. More here.

BrainCheck, a two-year-old, Houston, Tex.-based app that helps users understand if they or a loved one may have suffered a concussion simply by playing games on an iPad, has raised $3 million in seed funding from undisclosed sources. TechCrunch has more here.

Busfor, a four-year-old, Moscow-based platform for buying bus tickets across Russia (it plans to expand into Eastern Europe and Asia soon), has raised $20 million from two Russia-based firms: Baring Vostok and Elbrus Capital. Earlier backer InVenture Partners, also based in Russia, joined the round, too. The company has now raised $25 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Cloudian, a three-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based hybrid cloud object storage platform, has raised $41 million in Series D funding led by Eight Roads Ventures and Epsilon Venture Partners. Other partipants in the round include Lenovo, City National Bank and DVP Investment, as well as earlier backers Intel Capital, INCJ and Goldman Sachs. The company has now raised $79 million altogether. The Register has more here.

DemystData, a six-year-old, New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore-based company that uses big data to create credit profiles, has raised $7 million in Series B funding led by MissionOG, with participation from Notion Capital and Singtel Innov8. More here.

eMindful, a 13-year-old, Vero Beach, Fla.-based provider of behavioral change programs to help reduce employee stress, has raised $6.85 million in Series B funding led by LFE Capital, with participation from One Earth Capital, Bridge Builders Collaborative, New Ground Ventures and Fairground Capital. FinSMEs has more here.

ForeverCar, a five-year-old, Chicago-based online platform that allows consumers to purchase extended auto warranty contracts directly, has raised $10 million in funding ed by CUNA Mutual Group’s venture capital arm, with participation from KDWC Ventures and entrepreneur Jai Shekhawat. Crain’s Chicago Business has more here.

NanoPay, a three-year-old, Toronto-based payments company that integrates loyalty, electronic receipts and coupons for its merchant customers, has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Goldman Sachs, APAGM Services, Jarnac Capital Management, and Rohatton. Banking Technology has more here.

PointGrab, an eight-year-old, Hod Hasharon, Israel-based company whose machine learning technology is installed in optical IoT devices for home and building automation systems, has raised $7 million in funding from Philips Lighting, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co., and earlier backer ABB Technology Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

Super League Gaming, a two-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based interactive video game league, has raised $5 million in funding from Toba Capital and aXiomatic. Forbes has more here.

Wochit, a 4.5-year-old, New York City-based video creation platform company that helps publishers produce videos super fast, has raised $13 million in funding from ProSieben, Singapore Press Holdings’ SPH Media Fund, Carlo de Benedetti and earlier backers Redpoint Ventures, Marker LLC and Cedar Fund. Recode has more here.

Rokid, a two-year-old, China-based AI and robotics company that makes what it calls a family service robot (it connects to smart home devices to control lighting, window curtains, and other home electronics, but it also has face recognition technologies), has raised $65 million in Series B funding led by IDG Capital Partners, with participation from Walden International. China Money Network has more here.

—–

IPOs

Chinese logistics firm ZTO Express completed an IPO yesterday — the biggest of 2016 on the NYSE. It raised $1.4 billion in a deal that values it at more than $12 billion. Fortune has more here.

—–

Exits

Flexera Software, a Itasca, Ill.-based software asset management company, is spending an undisclosed amount to acquire Palamida, a nearly 12-year-old, San Francisco-based company that makes application security software to track undisclosed code and associated security vulnerabilities. Palamida had raised $18.5 million over the years from Walden Venture Capital, Mitsui Global Investment, and HWVP. More here.

Groupon is acquiring LivingSocial, its onetime rival, for an undisclosed but presumably not enormous sum. (It’s “not material,” says Groupon.) More here.

It’s official: Qualcomm will acquire NXP Semiconductor in a chip-making marriage made in heaven. The deal values NXP at around $47 billion in cash. More here.

Samsung is spending an undisclosed amount to acquire Tachyon, a five-year-old, Reston Va.-based specialist in mobile device configuration and security for businesses. Samsung plans to integrate Tachyon into its enterprise offering to help businesses speed up the secure configuration of third-party apps on their Samsung devices. TechCrunch has more here.

Verizon is buying Vessel, a San Francisco-based subscription video service founded three years ago by Hulu’s former CEO, Jason Kilar, and its former CTO, Richard Tom. Actually, Verizon is buying the company’s tech, with plans to shut down the service. Vessel had raised more than $130 million from investors, including Benchmark, Greylock Partners, Bezos Expeditions and Institutional Venture Partners. More here.

—–

People

Billionaire Mohamed Alabbar, one of Dubai’s most prominent businessmen, plans a phone messaging service for the Middle East that aims to compete with services such as WhatsApp. It will be designed for an Arabic-speaking audience, he says.

Tesla recently noted that car owners won’t be able to use their future self-driving Teslas to drive for Uber or Lyft. On Tesla’s Q3 earning call yesterday, CEO Elon Musk addressed claims that he’s taking aim at Uber.

Amazon has signed up “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner to write an eight-episode dramatic series for it, and it’s paying him a whopping $70 million. Deadline has more here.

—–

Jobs

Google’s “smart city” spinoff Sidewalk Labs is looking for an entrepreneur-in-residence to focus on modular housing. The job can be in San Francisco or New York.

—–

Essential Reads

Well! Harvard Management Co. employees called its board inattentive and called out colleagues as “lazy, fat and stupid” in an internal review by McKinsey & Co. More here.

Samsung is in trouble. The Korean electronics giant’s operating profit plunged 30 percent year-on-year as the effects of the Galaxy Note 7 crisis begin to take a financial toll. More here.

Those Apple AirPods won’t be ready this month after all.

—–

Detours

Caltech is now the hardest university to get into in the U.S.

Scientists starting labs today say they have precious little time for actual research.

It’s true: more people are behaving poorly on flights.

—–

Retail Therapy

Microsoft is not messing around this time.

StrictlyVC: October 26, 2016

The Tribe won last night; the Cavs won, too. All this winning is starting to trigger an identity crisis for us!

We have to race out the door this morning for a field trip with four second-grade classrooms. If you see a flare go up near the San Francisco Public Library, it is us. We’ll get you back tomorrow if we miss anything.:)

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Apple reported its first annual revenue decline in 15 years and its shares are sliding as a result.

Microsoft is expected to launch a “Slack killer” next week.

—–

Lending Club Zooms Into Car Refinancings as Part of Turnaround Effort

Many Americans learned through Lending Club that they can refinance their credit card debt online; now, the lending marketplace is hoping they’ll start refinancing their automotive loans using its platform, too.

Indeed, though automotive lending is a massive market, car refinance is far smaller owing to a lack of awareness, suggests Lending Club CEO Scott Sanborn, with whom we spoke by phone earlier today. “People know they can refinance their home. But after their home, their car is their second-largest purchase, yet the car refinance market in the U.S. was about $40 billion last year.”

In comparison, the overall U.S. auto loan debt market had grown to $1.103 trillion by this past June, according to the research firm Experian Automotive.

For Lending Club, it’s a prime opportunity (no pun intended), though it carries plenty of risk, as well.

The publicly traded, San Francisco-based company has struggled throughout 2016, following the forced resignation of its founder and CEO Renaud Laplanche in May over alleged conflicts of interest and a mishandled sale of loans to Jefferies Group.

Laplanche’s departure shook investors’ faith that the platform was among the strongest in the world of online lending. It also prompted more investors to examine whether the platform had become overly reliant on Wall Street banks that were looking for yield but are notoriously fickle customers.

Scott Sanborn, who took over as CEO and who’d served as the company’s chief operating officer prior, has taken drastic steps to get the company back on course, but none has had a meaningful impact just yet.

For example, in addition to hiring a new CFO, a new COO, a new general counsel and a new chief capital officer, Bloomberg reports that a separate new initiative hasn’t gone as well as hoped: providing loans to small businesses via partnerships with Alibaba and Alphabet.

Asked about that earlier today, Sanborn says that what “gives us confidence when I think about auto is that it’s not just leveraging our technical skills and learnings but also takes advantage of our marketing acquisition skills,” which he suggests Lending Club has been less able to do with its small loans program, given that it’s depending on partners for their distribution.

Sanborn also argues that though Lending Club has plenty of competition, the large auto lenders aren’t among its worries.

More here.

—–

New Fundings

Brickwork, a three-year-old, New York City-based SaaS platform for retailers that creates a path between online browsing and in-store purchasing, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Safeguard Scientifics, with participation from Recruit Strategic Partners, Advancit Capital, Beanstalk Ventures, Cowboy Ventures and Forerunner Ventures. More here.

Culture Trip, a four-year-old, London-based content platform that serves us personalized content and recommendations based on where its users are based, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by PPF Group, the fund managed by entrepreneur Petr Kellner. TechCrunch has more here.

Daqri, a six-year-old, L.A.-based augmented reality company whose flagship product is a smart helmet for construction workers, is trying to raise up to $200 million in funding, says Bloomberg. The company had earlier raised $15 million from Tarsadia Investments, shows CrunchBase. More here.

Genomics Medicine Ireland, a year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based human genome startup, has raised $40 million in Series A funding from ARCH Venture Partners, Polaris Partners, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, and GV. Silicon Republic has more here.

Habit, a new, San Francisco-based personalized nutrition and wellness company that will launch next year, has raised $32 million in funding from Campbell’s Soup Company. (The company’s founder and CEO, Neil Grimmer, previously led Plum Organics, a baby food firm acquired by Campbell Soup in 2013.) The Courier-Post has more here.

Hyperloop One, a two-year-old, L.A.-based transporation company that eventually hopes to shuttle people and cargo in train-like pods at speeds of up to 700 miles per hour, is looking to raise $250 million in its next funding round early next year and is already seeking tens of millions in new financing, according to Forbes. The company raised a $50 million convertible note from DP World Group earlier this month; to date, it has raised $141.1 million. More here.

Imzy, a year-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based social platform aiming to create positive online communities, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Index Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Lendio, a 10.5-year-old, South Jordan, Utah-based loan company for small businesses, has raised $20 million in funding co-led by Comcast Ventures and Stereo Capital, with participation from Napier Park, Blumberg Capital, Tribeca Venture Partners, and North Hill Ventures. FinSMEs has more here.

Perkbox, a two-year-old, London-based startup whose engagement platform aims to help companies retain both employees and customers, has raised £2.5 million ($2.7 million) in backing from the publicly listed European venture firm Draper Esprit. TechCrunch has more here.

Selency, a two-year-old, Paris-based platform that features second-hand furniture and decor items, has raised €3 million ($3.3 million) in Series A funding led by Accel Partners, with participation from Kima Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

TVision Insights, a nearly two-year-old, Boston-based machine-learning startup that tracks who is watching what on TV and how they are reacting to it (then provides that data broadcasters and advertisers), has raised $6.8 million from Accomplice, Golden Venture Partners, Jump Capital, and ITOCHU Technology Ventures. The company has now raised $9.8 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Wavefront, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based cloud analytics company, has raised $52 million in Series B funding led by Tenaya Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital and Sutter Hill Ventures. The WSJ is characterizing the deal as a down round. More here.

Winnie, a year-old, San Francisco-based online director of family friendly places, has raised $2.5 million in funding from Homebrew, BBG Ventures, Ludlow Ventures, Flight Ventures, Deep Fork Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and #Angels. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

New Funds

Javelin Venture Partners, a San Francisco-based, early-stage venture firm founded in 2008, has closed its fourth fund with $125 million, which is the same size as its third fund, closed exactly three years ago.The firm has also promoted principal-turned-partner Alex Gurevich to managing director. We have more here over at TechCrunch.

SJF Ventures, a Durham, N.C.-based venture capital firm, has raised roughly $74 million for a fourth fund that’s targeting $125 million, according to two different SEC filings.

Underscore.VC, a Boston-based early-stage firm cofounded by former North Bridge VC Michael Skok, has closed its first fund at $85 million. BostInno has much more about its new model here.

—–

People

At Mail.ru, the Russian Internet giant that owns the country’s most popular email service; Russia’s Facebook equivalent Vkontakte; messaging service ICQ and a number of other properties, cofounder Dmitry Grishin is stepping down as CEO. Boris Dobrodeev, the current CEO of Vkontakte, will replace him. More here.

The head of Google’s fiber business, Craig Barratt, is leaving (and layoffs are coming). Recode has more here.

—–

Essential Reads

Somewhat amazingly, Amazon is about to become the biggest clothing retailer in the U.S.

—–

Detours

The psychological case for dressing way up (or down) for work.

—–

Retail Therapy

Inside elevator door mural.

Lending Club Zooms Into Car Refinancings

In comparison, the overall U.S. auto loan debt market had grown to $1.103 trillion by this past June, according to the research firm Experian Automotive.

For Lending Club, it’s a prime opportunity (no pun intended), though it carries plenty of risk, as well.

Sanborn also argues that though Lending Club has plenty of competition, the large auto lenders aren’t among its worries.

More here.

StrictlyVC: October 25, 2016

Hi, all, hope you’re having a good Tuesday.:)

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Twitter is planning hundreds more job cuts as soon as this week, says Bloomberg.

—–

IPO Pro Lise Buyer on What You Need to Go Public in the Next Six Months

Last week, I sat down with IPO pro Lise Buyer to talk about the Bay Area ecosystem for a Sirius XM radio show that’s broadcast from Wharton’s San Francisco campus.

Buyer was the host and I was the guest, but because the IPO market is top of mind for so many in the startup industry right now, I asked if I could turn the table for a few minutes on Buyer, who is best known for helping to architect Google’s 2004 IPO and for the IPO advisory firm she founded in 2007, Class V Group. She shared whether she thinks the IPO market will pick up substantially next year, and what it takes right now to become a publicly traded company.

We’ve seen eight IPOs in the last six weeks.

After the first six months of the year, we’re on track to have a pretty average year in terms of IPOs; there’s momentum.

But we’re heading into the final months of the year — an election year.

I think IPOs are going to grind to a halt temporarily in November, even leading up to November, pretty much starting [this] week, because everyone is afraid of the election, and markets don’t like uncertainty, and whatever you think of the candidates, one of them is a little less predictable than the other. And should Donald Trump be elected president, I’d expect the markets to express some . . . I’ll be kind and say, wicked bad indigestion. And I don’t think anyone wants to take their company public in the middle of that.

Do you think the companies that have gone out in recent months are solid? Do you expect their share prices to hold?

Are these solid companies? Yes. Do I expect [their share prices] to say where they’re trading? We’ll see. A number of them did very small deals, and they did very small deals because no one was quite sure of how the market would be. So if you have a product to sell and you’re not sure of what kind of price you could get, [you start with little inventory].

Twilio did a $150 million IPO in June, and they recently announced a $450 million follow-on offering. When they announced that, their share price [fell]; then they announced that they’d had a terrific quarter, and the stock is recovering. It’s a supply-and-demand issue.

When did we start to see these smaller floats, and is it something you recommend to clients? Is it a good trend, a bad trend?

We’ve seen this periodically for years. It used to be that you sold 10 to 20 percent of your shares in an IPO but LinkedIn only sold 8 percent of its shares. Valuations are low, so companies are smart to take advantage of the [demand created from] limited supply. Also, why sell for a low price and take the incremental dilution? The best path is to prove the company can function effectively as a public company, and once investors are convinced that the risk isn’t that great and that the company understands the ramifications [of being publicly traded], do a higher-value secondary.

Which you can do before a 180-day lock-up, correct?

Investment banks have the ability to release the lock-up early. So you have to get your bank’s approval to do it, which basically means that you agree to use the same banks [that underwrote your IPO]. So we’ve seen them not infrequently after four months in those cases where the company has met expectations and its stock has performed well. If a company’s shares aren’t trading above its IPO price, you won’t see an early lock-up.

What are bankers telling startups right now? Do they need to be profitable?

More here.

—–

New Funds

AEVI, a five-year-old, Reykjavík, Iceland-based payment transactions startup and marketplace for B2B apps and services, has raised €10 million ($10.9 million) in new funding from Adveq. More here.

Baffle, a two-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based end-to-end encryption platform, has raised $3 million in funding led by True Ventures. More here.

Clarifai, a three-year-old, New York-based startup that lets developers tag metadata to photos in such a way that the company algorithmically learns what kinds of objects are in photos, has raised $30 million in new funding led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Union Square Ventures, Lux Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, and Osage University Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Dataiku, a three-year-old, Paris-based startup that helps data scientists and data analysts manage and extract insights from huge data sets, has raised $14 million in Series funding led by FirstMark Capital, with participation from previous investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Hixme, a two-year-old, Agoura Hills, Ca.-based startup that uses information about employees and their family members to present them with health insurance plan options and customized benefit options, has raised $14.1 million in Series B funding led by Propel Venture Partners. Other participants in the round include Transamerica Ventures, Rosemark Capital, and earlier backer Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. The company has now raised $26.6 million altogether. More here.

InContext Solutions, a seven-year-old, Chicago-based developer of 3D virtual technology that helps retailers visualize what their store shelves will look like in a simulated store, has raised $15.2 million in funding co-led by Intel Capital and return backer Beringea. VentureBeat has more here.

Industry, a two-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based job site for the hospitality sector, has raised $2.3 million in seed funding from a “stealth VC fund on Sand Hill Road,” with participation from our previous individual investors. Vator has more here.

K4Connect, a three-year-old, Raleigh, N.C.-based startup whose software platform integrates disparate smart devices into a single system and is specifically tailored for seniors and individuals living with disabilities, has raised $8 million in Series A funding. Intel Capital led the round and was joined by Traverse Venture Partners and a unit of Reinsurance Group of America. More here.

KredX, a two-year-old, Bangalore, India-based company that connects small and mid-size companies with investors who are willing to buy their unpaid receivables, has raised roughly $6 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital India, with participation from earlier backer Prime Venture Partners. The Economic Times has more here.

Lively, a year-old, New York-based direct-to-consumer lingerie startup, has raised $4 million in seed funding led by GGV Capital, with participation from Gelmart International, an intimate apparel manufacturer, and individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

OpenDataSoft, a five-year-old, Paris-based SaaS platform that makes it easier for other companies and developers to take advantage of a customer’s data for reuse in other services, has raised $5.4 million in Series A funding from Aster Capital and Salesforce Ventures, with participation from Ader Finance and earlier backer Aurinvest. TechCrunch has more here.

Paxata, a 4.5-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based platform built to help analysts turn raw data into ready data for analytics, has raised $33.5 million in new funding led by Intel Capital, with participation from Microsoft Ventures, Cisco Systems, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, AirTree Partners and earlier investors Accel Partners, In-Q-Tel and Singapore’s EDBI. Silicon Valley Business Journal has more here.

Uplevel Security, a two-year-old, New York-based incident response and threat Intelligence platform founded by Roselle Safran, a former branch chief for cybersecurity operations at the White House, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from First Round Capital and Aspect Ventures, along with a host of individual angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Verse, a year-old San Francisco-based payments company that’s aiming to become the Venmo of Europe (it also has an office in Barcelona), has raised $8.3 million in Series A funding led by Greycroft Partners. Other participants include Spark Capital and eVentures. TechCrunch has more here.

—-

IPOs

As its IPO quiet period came to a close, Nutanix was welcomed with several positive analyst reports initiating coverage with buy ratings or equivalents, though it hasn’t helped the stock, which is trending downward after big jumps the first two days after its Sept. 30 IPO. Investors Business Daily has more here.

—-

Exits

Google has acquired Eyefluence, a three-year-old, Milpitas, Ca.-based eye-tracking technology company, for undisclosed terms. CrunchBase shows Eyefluence had raised $21.6 million in funding from investors, including Motorola Solutions Venture Capital, Jazz Venture Partners, Intel Capital, NHN Investment and Dolby Family Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

—-

People

Marc Andreessen at Startup School (video).

Redpoint Ventures has brought aboard two associates: Medha Agarwal has joined the firm’s early-stage consumer team, after stints as a student investor with Rough Draft Ventures and as a summer associate at Javelin Venture Partners. Jamin Ball will be focusing on early growth opportunities. Ball was formerly an investment banking analyst at Morgan Stanley.

Krishna Yeshwant, the part-time physician who leads GV’s life sciences and health investment team, talks with MedCity News about the kind of consumer wearable company that would win its support.

—–

Essential Reads

This self-driving truck’s first mission: a beer run.

Google is getting into the whiteboard business.

After years of awarding Tesla high marks, Consumer Reports has now decided that it’s among the least reliable car companies in America.

—–

Detours

Chad McQueen talks about his famous dad.

Rules for living with roommates.

—–

Essential Reads

A $17 million townhouse in West Village.

IPO Pro Lise Buyer on What You Need to Go Public in the Next Six Months

Last week, I sat down with IPO pro Lise Buyer to talk about the Bay Area ecosystem for a Sirius XM radio show that’s broadcast from Wharton’s San Francisco campus.

TC: We’ve seen eight IPOs in the last six weeks.

LB: After the first six months of the year, we’re on track to have a pretty average year in terms of IPOs; there’s momentum.

TC: But we’re heading into the final months of the year — an election year.

LB: I think IPOs are going to grind to a halt temporarily in November, even leading up to November, pretty much starting [this] week, because everyone is afraid of the election, and markets don’t like uncertainty, and whatever you think of the candidates, one of them is a little less predictable than the other. And should Donald Trump be elected president, I’d expect the markets to express some . . . I’ll be kind and say, wicked bad indigestion. And I don’t think anyone wants to take their company public in the middle of that.

TC: Do you think the companies that have gone out in recent months are solid? Do you expect their share prices to hold?

LB: Are these solid companies? Yes. Do I expect [their share prices] to say where they’re trading? We’ll see. A number of them did very small deals, and they did very small deals because no one was quite sure of how the market would be. So if you have a product to sell and you’re not sure of what kind of price you could get, [you start with little inventory].

TC: When did we start to see these smaller floats, and is it something you recommend to clients? Is it a good trend, a bad trend?

LB: We’ve seen this periodically for years. It used to be that you sold 10 to 20 percent of your shares in an IPO but LinkedIn only sold 8 percent of its shares. Valuations are low, so companies are smart to take advantage of the [demand created from] limited supply. Also, why sell for a low price and take the incremental dilution? The best path is to prove the company can function effectively as a public company, and once investors are convinced that the risk isn’t that great and that the company understands the ramifications [of being publicly traded], do a higher-value secondary.

TC: Which you can do before a 180-day lock-up, correct?

LB: Investment banks have the ability to release the lock-up early. So you have to get your bank’s approval to do it, which basically means that you agree to use the same banks [that underwrote your IPO]. So we’ve seen them not infrequently after four months in those cases where the company has met expectations and its stock has performed well. If a company’s shares aren’t trading above its IPO price, you won’t see an early lock-up.

TC: What are bankers telling startups right now? Do they need to be profitable?

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