Friday!

We realize SVC is arriving comically late today. (We almost hate to send it and draw attention to this fact.) It’s been one of those days.:)

Hope you a great weekend, everyone. See you back here Monday.

Top News in the P.M.

Alphabet”s Waymo unit is seeking a preliminary injunction against Uber over self-driving car technology. TechCrunch has more here.

The SEC has denied a bid to list a bitcoin-tied exchange-traded fund, citing the risk of fraud and a lack of regulation among the world’s bitcoin markets. As CoinDesk reports, the decision caps a years-long quest by bitcoin investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who first sought to list the ETF in mid-2013. The value of bitcoin has fallen 18 percent on the news, says Bloomberg.

The Case for Tenured Voting

It’s hard to get too worked up about unequal voting rights, which are seen by public market investors as giving founders too much control, while viewed by founders as necessary to protect their companies from short-term shareholders. The reality is that only a minority of companies can command these terms, most famously Google, Facebook, Zynga, Groupon and now Snap. The majority of other startups have far less leverage.

Still, the controversial structure seems to be growing more common. According to Dealogic, 27 of 174 U.S. IPOs in 2015 featured a dual-class structure. In 2014, 36 IPOs used the structure out of a total of 292 U.S. IPOs.

Why it matters: Research published last year by Institutional Shareholder Services suggests that companies with unequal voting rights underperform non-controlled companies over a one-year, five-year and 10-year period. Now Snap has taken the structure to an unprecedented extreme, even writing in its IPO paperwork that, “to our knowledge, no other company has completed an initial public offering of non-voting stock on a U.S. stock exchange.”

It’s too soon to know how Snap will fare. While its shares soared 44 percent on the day of its IPO last Thursday, they’ve since fallen about 16 percent, helped along by a growing chorus of skeptical analysts. The trend has some worried, though, including SEC Commissioner Kara Stein, who publicly raised questions yesterday about the rights of investors, and who suggested the SEC “focus on how some innovations may prove detrimental to investors.”

One alternative the SEC might discuss is tenured voting, a structure that was lightly used decades ago, halted by regulators in the 1980s, and of growing interest again to a small number of Silicon Valley denizens who argue it’s a lot better than what tech companies have come up with.

It works much like you’d guess based on the word “tenure.” The longer an investor hangs on to his or her shares, the more voting control he or she amasses. The idea is to protect founders from activist investors, while also giving public market shareholders some say.

It’s immediately easy to see the appeal. Carl Bass long served as Autodesk’s CEO and had to wrestle with activist investors last year. Somewhat unsurprisingly, he told us recently that he’d “like to see tenured voting, where there’s a premium based on how long you own the shares.” It makes sense to Bass that “one person who has owned a million shares for one year has less voting power than another person who has owned a million shares for two years.”

Managing partner Scott Kupor of Andreessen Horowitz is also a fan of the idea, saying that as “part of broader capital markets reform to better align the long-term interests of shareholders and management teams, tenure-based voting would be far more amenable as a solution than the more blunt-force application of dual stock.”

The challenge, says Steven Davidoff Solomon, a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law, is that “it takes time and you need a first mover.”

More here.

New Fundings

Datebox, a 1.5-year-old, Oklahoma City, Ok.-based e-commerce company that organizes dating ideas and products for couples, has raised $2.6 million in seed funding from Oklahoma Seed Capital Fund, SeedStep Angels and other angel investors. More here.

Thursday?! (Where did this week go?)

Top News in the A.M.

Airbnb, the fast-growing accommodations marketplace, has officially closed off its Series F round with $1 billion. The company is now worth $31 billion. Much more here.

Google is turning Hangouts into a Slack competitor.

Facebook now has its own “stories” feature, too.

A New, Affordable Naming Startup for Startups

A few years ago, I launched a daily email newsletter, and I was ecstatic to be striking out on my own for the first time. Alas, just a few weeks after filing to secure a trademark, an officious-sounding note appeared in my inbox, and soon after, I found myself shelling out $10,000 in lawyer’s fees over a short-lived trademark dispute. It wasn’t nearly as painful as it might have been, but it was a rude realization that figuring out the right brand can be both time-consuming and have implications that founders might not foresee.

Of course, my experience is hardly rare. Most founders are typically left to either conduct trademark searches on their own via the USPTO site, or else pay top dollar for law firms or branding agencies to do it for them. Often they do both.

Thankfully, affordably eliminating risky name choices is exactly the opportunity that a two-year-old Bay Area company, Naming Matters, is chasing, and the company’s founder is very familiar with the market. S.B. Master previously co-founded Master-McNeil, a 29-year-old corporate naming and branding firm in Berkeley, Ca., whose past clients include Apple, General Motors, Disney and PayPal.

Now Master sees an opportunity to cater not just to deep-pocketed corporate customers but also startups on shoestring budgets. Indeed, 18 months ago, she decided to take everything she has learned over the years about linguistic analysis, trademark searching and domain name acquisition and pour it into a self-service software product that also incorporates search and data visualization. I talked with her earlier today to learn more.

You’ve already run a naming company for decades. Why start this new thing?

SM: Naming is hard, and we tend to work with companies that can afford us to do deep preliminary availability screening. I grew frustrated with how slow and antiquated that searching step is [for companies that can’t afford such a service]. I mean, if you have 100 names, how do you figure out which are most likely to get you into trouble, and which are your stronger candidates that you should focus on? There are legacy providers, but their model is to charge users for every name they look up. If you’re looking for a name in every country and every class, it adds up. You have to be very skilled to [keep your costs down].

More here.

New Fundings

Astro, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based AI company focused on improving workplace communication, including via more intelligent email software, has raised $8.3 million in Series A funding from Redpoint Ventures, Harrison Metal, Aspect Ventures and Upside Partnership. More here.

Chairish, the 3.5-year-old, San Francisco, Ca.-based parent company of Chairish and Decaso (Chairish is an online marketplace for vintage furniture and decor; Decase is an online platform for antiques and art dealers), has raised $8 million in funding. The round was led by Altos Ventures, with participation from return investors OATV and Azure Capital Partners. More here.

Chowbotics, a 2.5-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based maker of robots for the food service industry, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from Techstars Ventures, Foundry Group, Galvanize Ventures and the Geekdom Fund. More on the company, formerly known as Casabots, here.

Cradlepoint, an 11-year-old Boise, Id.-based cloud-based network management company, has raised $89 million in Series C funding from TCV. The round marks the largest recorded venture investment for an Idaho-based company, according to Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.

Currencycloud, a five-year-old, London-based company that builds tools for payment companies to use by way of an API, has raised £20 million ($24.3 million) in Series D funding led by GV. Earlier backers also joined the round, including Notion Capital, Sapphire Ventures, Rakuten FinTech Fund, and Anthemis. TechCrunch has more here.

Fluxx, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based software company catering to grantmaking professionals, has raised $16 million in Series B funding. Canvas Ventures led the round, with participation from Kresge Foundation and Felicis Ventures. More here.

Kidizen, a six-year-old, Minneapolis, Mn.-based marketplace for secondhand children’s apparel, has raised $3.2 million in Series A funding led by Chicago-based Origin Ventures. Other participants in the round include Royal Street Ventures, Corigin Ventures, Mergelane, and earlier investors Sofia Fund and Gopher Angels. TechCrunch has more here.

Kinsa, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of smart thermometers, raised $17 million in funding from GSR Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, FirstMark Capital and others. More here.

OncoResponse, a two-year-old, Houston, Tex.–based immuno-oncology antibody discovery company, has closed its Series A round with $22.5 million in funding from HT Family Office, Arch Venture Partners, Canaan Partners, MD Anderson, Marsh Rice University, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Baxalta, GreatPoint Ventures and the Helsinn Investment Fund. The company has now raised $28.6 million altogether. More here.

Prevedere, a five-year-old, Columbus, Oh.-based company whose predictive analytics software aims to help enterprises improve their sales numbers, has raised $10 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from Microsoft Ventures and earlier backers PointGuard Ventures and Rev1 Ventures. More here.

RealConnex, a four-year-old, Miami and New York-based platform connecting real estate professionals to capital, investments, and services, has raised $3.5 million in strategic funding led by Silver Portal Capital, a San Diego-based real estate investment and merchant banking firm. The company has now raised $10.2 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

RiskSense, a year-old Albuquerque, N.M.-based company that makes cyber risk management software, has closed its Series A round with $14 million, including some new funding from Jump Capital. Earlier investors in the round include Paladin Capital Group, Sun Mountain Capital, EPIC Ventures, and CenturyLink. In addition, Silicon Valley Bank has also provided the company with a debt facility. More here.

ScyllaDB, a nearly two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that produces a NoSQL database that’s compatible with Apache Cassandra but has much faster throughout (it says), has raised $16 million in Series B funding. Investors include Western Digital Capital, Samsung Ventures, Magma Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and Bessemer Venture Partners. More here.

TurnKey, a 4.5-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based vacation rental management company, has raised $21 million in Series C funding led by Adams Street Partners, with participation from earlier backers Altos Ventures, Silverton Partners and other unnamed angel investors. The company has now raised $41 million altogether. More here.

Tushy, a new New York-based startup whose attachment turns any toilet into a bidet, has raised $500,000 in seed funding led by Propulsion Capital, with participation from numerous angel investors. More here.

VATBox, a nearly four-year-old, Herzliya, Israel-based company that helps its corporate customers maximize their foreign and domestic VAT (value-added tax) returns and ensure governance, has raised $20 million in funding led by Target Global Fund. Earlier backers Viola Private Equity and others also joined the round. The company has now raised $50 million altogether. Globes has more here.

Vertiflex, a 12-year-old, Carlsbad, Ca.-based company that makes a minimally invasive implant for spinal stenosis, has raised $40 million in funding co-led by Endeavour Vision and H.I.G. BioHealth Partners, with participation from New Enterprise Associates, Thomas, McNerney & Partners, and Alta Partners. More here.

New Funds

Blumberg Capital, a 26-year-old, San Francisco-based venture firm, has raised $200 million for its fourth fund, up from the $150 million the firm raised for its third fund. Most of that capital was secured by early last year. TechCrunch has more here.

Rethink Impact, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based impact investing venture capital fund that looks to fund gender-diverse, tech-enabled companies, has raised $110 million for new fund. It partnered with UBS Wealth Management Americas toward that end, with more than half the capital commitments coming from UBS clients, including high net worth individuals, family offices, private foundations, and universities. More here.

Exits

Pinterest, the San Francisco-based visual discovery tool and social network, has acquired Jelly, a San Francisco question-and-answer app started by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone for undisclosed terms. Jelly had raised an undisclosed amount in  funding from Greylock Partners, Spark Capital, and SV Angel. In a post yesterday, Stone said he didn’t know  details of the acquisition, including whether Jelly will remain a standalone property or be integrated into Pinterest.

People

Dropbox CEO Drew Houston had a birthday party last weekend in San Francisco, and some well-known faces came to celebrate.

Gary Marcus, a research scientist who joined Uber four months ago as director of its AI labs, is leaving the company, according to Axios. More here.

Trevor Oelschig has joined General Catalyst Partners as a managing director working from its Palo Alto and San Francisco offices. Oelschig had spent the last nine years with Bessemer Venture Partners; he’ll initially be focused on application layer technologies.

Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan are having another baby girl, he announced on Facebook this morning. (Babies! Happiness.)

Zuckerberg is also giving the commencement speech at Harvard this year (and getting an honorary degree in the process). Here, he asks another Harvard dropout for some advice on what to say to students.

Essential Reads

Fitbit‘s VCs have paid a price for not selling their shares earlier.

Detours

With Trump, planning has become “virtually impossible,” say late show execs.

Essential Reads

When you can’t stop, won’t stop (playing hoops).

Happy International Women’s Day, sisters!

No column today.

Top News in the A.M.

According to the Financial Times, Japan’s SoftBank is selling an $8 billion stake in ARM — or 25 percent of the the U.K.-based chip designer that it purchased only six months ago — to its new $100 billion Vision Fund. (Put another way, Vision Fund is buying the stake.) According to Bloomberg, the transaction will be separate from the $25 billion that SoftBank plans to contribute separately to the fund. The FT says the decision was made as Vision Fund looks to hit its fundraising goals and secure the backing of Mubadala, an Abu Dhabi state-backed investment group that wanted the fund to own a portion of Arm. More here (subscribers only). A source familiar with WeWork told us recently that funding for the valuable venture-backed company hinges in part on the Vision Fund securing more money from Middle East sources.

New Fundings

Anchor FM, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based free iPhone app that makes it easy to broadcast short audio clips to a mass audience, has raised $2.8 million in new venture funding from Omidyar Network, the Chernin Group, and audio artist Mick Batyske. TechCrunch has more here.

Caicloud, a 1.5-year-old, Shanghai, China-based Kubernetes-based cluster management service, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Matrix Partners China, with participation by Cybernaut. More here.

Dialogue, a year-old, Montreal-based telemedicine platform that provides a range of employee-focused healthcare services and benefits, has raised $4 million in seed funding led by Diagram, with participation from BDC Capital, Hacking Health Accelerator, and others. More here.

Farmer’s Business Network, a 2.5-year-old, San Carlos, Ca.-based platform where farmers anonymously share data about things like seed performance and chemical pricing, has raised $40 million in Series C funding led by GV and DBL Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Garrison Technology, a 2.5-year-old, London-based cybersecurity firm, has raised £12 million ($14.6 million) in Series A funding led by Touchstone Innovations, with participation from BGF Ventures, NM Capital, and earlier angel investors. Tech City News has more here.

Gobi, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based social network that lets users create public and private groups where they can share snaps that lasts for three days, has raised $500,000 at a $15 million valuation from numerous angel investors, including Olympic gold medalist Petter Northug and billionaire salmon farming heir Gustav Witzøe. TechCrunch has more here.

Hubble, a nearly-year-old, New York-based e-commerce startup focused on daily disposable contact lenses, has raised $16.5 million in Series A funding led by FirstMark Capital, with participation from seed backers Greycroft Partners, Wildcat Capital Management and Two River. TechCrunch has more here.

ID.me, a 6.5-year-old, McLean, Va.-based digital identity network that empowers parties to grant access or benefits based on verified identity and attributes, has raised $19 million in Series B funding led by FTV Capital. More here.

Instacart, the 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based grocery delivery startup, has raised another $400 million in a new round of financing at a valuation of $3.4 billion. The Wall Street Journal reported that early investor Sequoia Capital contributed $100 million to Instacart’s latest round of funding. According to Instacart, other investors in the round include Wellcome Trust, Y Combinator Continuity, Andreessen Horowitz, FundersClub, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Initialized Capital, Thrive Capital and Valiant Capital. More here.

Isotropic Systems, a three-year-old, London-based developer of satellite antenna technology for mobile and high throughput satellite applications, has raised $5 million in funding led by the London-based venture firm Waterlow Management. More here.

Liven, a 3.5-year-old, Melbourne, Australia-based membership club that offers offers from Melbourne’s top restaurants and entertainment venues, is poised to raised AUD $10 million ($7.6 million) from undisclosed venture investors, but the funding comes with a catch, reports Financial Review. More here.

LoopMe, a five-year-old, London-based digital advertising firm that uses artificial intelligence to optimize mobile video advertising, has raised $10 million in funding led by Impulse VC and Harbert European Growth Capital, with participation from Holzbrinck Ventures and Open Ocean Capital. VentureBeat has more here.

Qapital, a 4.5-year-old, New York-based personal finance app company, has raised $12 million in Series A funding from backers that include Northzone, Anthemis Exponential Ventures, Industrifonden and Rocketship VC. TechCrunch has more here.

Quidd, a nearly two-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based platform for one-of-a-kind digital goods (users can trade and share animated, science-fiction, and fantasy characters, for example), has raised $6.8 million in funding from unnamed angel investors. More here.

Veem, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based payment services company that was known until now as Align Commerce, has raised $24 million in funding led by strategic investor National Australia Bank Ventures. Other participants in the round include GV, Softbank’s SBI Investment Co., Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers and Silicon Valley Bank. TechCrunch has more here.

Velano Vascular, a four-year-old San Francisco-based medical device company focused on needle-free blood draws, has raised $17 million in funding from First Round Capital, Griffin Hospital, Kapor Capital, Safeguard Scientifics, Sutter Health, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and White Owl Capital. VentureBeat has more here.

Virta Health, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that aims to reverse type 2 diabetes, is launching publicly today and disclosing it has raised $37 million in funding so far. Investors include Venrock, Allen & Company, Obvious Ventures, Redmile Group, PayPal and Max Levchin’s Scifi VC. TechCrunch has more here.

Wrapify, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that pays drivers to wrap their cars with advertisements, has raised $3 million in seed funding from Avery Dennison, the global manufacturer of adhesive materials. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Last year, investors David Lee (formerly of SV Angel) and Zal Bilimoria (formerly of Andreessen Horowitz) teamed up to launch Refactor Capital, a new seed-stage venture capital firm. Today they’re officially launching the platform and announcing a $50 million debut fund. Axios has more details here.

Exits

Amazon has quietly acquired Do, a startup that had built a platform to make meetings more productive by doing things like managing notes in preparation for them. Amazon is rolling it into Chime, a new communications suite for businesses that it launched last month and offers via AWS. Terms aren’t being disclosed. Crunchbase shows Do had raised $2.4 million from investors, including New Enterprise Associates. TechCrunch has more here.

Google is acquiring Kaggle, a 6.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company behind a community platform that hosts data science and machine learning competitions. Details about the transaction aren’t yet known, but according to Crunchbase, Kaggle has raised roughly $13 million from investors, including Index Ventures and Khosla Ventures. Techcrunch has the scoop here.

Localytics, an eight-year-old, Boston-based mobile engagement platform, has acquired two-year-old, Berlin-based Tapglue, which offers mobile app developers an API and backend service to enable them to easily add social features to their apps. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. Both companies are Techstars Boston alums. Localytics has raised roughly $60 million from investors, according to Crunchbase; Tapglue had raised just $100,000, shows Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.

Earlier this week, MeetMe agreed to acquire If(we), a San Francisco app developer, for $60 million in cash. If(we) had raised $23.7 million in venture funding from Leader Ventures and Lighthouse Capital Partners, among others. MeetMe, a social networking service formerly known as MyYearbook, has raised at least $30 million over its 12-year history, shows Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Joseph Huang is the new CEO of StartX, a non-profit business incubator associated with Stanford University. Huang is an alumn of the program who sold his company, WiFiSLAM, to Apple for $20 million in 2013. He replaces founder Cameron Teitelman, who becomes the organization’s chairman. TechCrunch has more here.

Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and a critic of the U.S. government’s new travel ban, is meeting with the president at the White House today to speak her mind. (Notably, Jobs’s father was a Syrian political refugee.) Bloomberg has more here.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick told employees at an all-hands meeting yesterday morning that the company is seeking a No. 2 executive to help him manage the troubled car-hailing company. Recode has more here.

Lawsuit

Late last year, audio giant Bose announced the limited release of its hearing-assisting Hearphones. Now, in a new lawsuit, startup Dopper Labs accuses Bose of “unfair and deceptive business practices.” The problem: Doppler believes Bose incorporated a modified version of Doppler’s own sound-isolating technology for its own product, and it’s pointing the finger at Bose exec Chris Miller, who became one of Doppler’s earlier backers on Kickstarter. TechCrunch has the skinny here.

Essential Reads

Alphabet’s Nest, seeking a bigger share of the connected home market, is developing a cheaper version of its flagship thermostat, says Bloomberg, which also reports that a  home-security alarm system, a digital doorbell and an updated indoor security camera are also in the works. More here.

Didi Chuxing isn’t resting on its momentum in China. Today, the ride-hailing juggernaut officially launched DiDi Labs in Mountain View, Ca., where it says it plans to focus on AI-based security and intelligent driving technologies with the aim of attracting top engineering talent. Recode has more here.

Apparently, there’s a secret, celebrity and supermodels-only version of Tinder. (But do they use it?)

Detours

Hi, everyone, happy Tuesday. There’s so much news breaking today; we’re still trying to catch up on all of it(!).

Top News in the A.M.

The controversial organization Wikileaks just released a trove of alleged C.I.A. hacking documents that it says describes sophisticated software tools used to break into smartphones, computers and Internet-connected televisions. Wikileaks says the agency was even able to bypass encryption on popular phone and messaging services like Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Confide (whose CEO is coming to our next StrictlyVC event in May and will presumably have plenty to say about this). The New York Times has more here.

Snap shares are tumbling again today.

Lemnos Lands $50 Million for Fund Three

Lemnos, a seed-stage, hardware-focused venture firm in San Francisco, is today announcing the close of its third and newest fund, with $50 million in commitments.

It’s a proud moment for cofounder Jeremy Conrad, whose pitch for Lemnos wasn’t met with a lot of enthusiasm when the firm was founded in 2011 but whose passion for hardware now resonates with plenty of investors.

Successful outcomes for hardware companies like Fitbit, Square, Oculus, and GoPro have helped, despite rocky moments for each. But perhaps even more appealing to investors are two tweaks that Lemnos is making to its model. For one thing, the firm, which has been running an incubator program since the outset, is dropping that operation to focus exclusively on operating as a venture firm. “We felt that as a bigger firm, when you’re writing bigger checks, it’s a different model,” says Conrad. (Lemnos closed its second fund with $20 million in 2014.)

The outfit is also expanding its mandate to invest in both startups with a hardware component and software companies that are developing a particular technology that will be used in a hardware device. Think a computer vision software startup looking to sell to robotics companies.

As for check sizes, those will be changing, too, as you might imagine. Whereas the firm began writing $50,000 to $100,000 checks to startups back in 2011, it might now start off with a check that’s $100,000, but it has money to invest up to $1.5 million in a $3 million round.

To date, Lemnos — operated by Conrad, cofounder Helen Zelman, and partner Eric Klein — has invested in roughly 40 companies.

It has just two small exits under its belt so far: the fleet management startup Local Motion, which sold to Zipcar for undisclosed terms in 2015; and Sproutling, maker of a smart monitor for babies, which was acquired by Mattel last year, again for undisclosed terms.

Still, Lemnos has stakes in a number of companies worth watching.

More here.

New Fundings

Bigo Live, a year-old, Singapore-based social video streaming app (akin to Periscope) that has taken Southeast Asia by storm, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series C funding from Ping An Overseas Holdings. The round reportedly brings the company’s total funding to $180 million and its valuation to more than $400 million. Tech in Asia has more here.

Confluent, the 2.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based principal commercial entity behind the Apache Kafka streaming data platform, has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from previous investors Benchmark and Index Ventures. ZDNet has more here.

Current, a new, Takoma Park, Md.-based company that’s making a debit card for kids, has raised $3.6 million in seed funding led by Expa and Human Ventures, with participation from Future Perfect Ventures and others. (This is apparently seen as fertile territory. We recently featured another company, Greenlight, going after the same market.) TechCrunch has more on Current here.

Epicrop, a 3.5-year-old, Lincoln, Neb.-based agtech company that’s developing epigenetic technology to improve crop yields, has added capital from TechAccel, a Kansas City-based venture development company, to its Series A. The round now stands at $3.2 million and includes funding from North Forty Ventures, Nelnet, Speedway Properties and Allen & Company. AgFunder News has more here.

Function of Beauty, a 1.5-year-old, Stamford, Ct.-based startup that creates personalized shampoos and conditioners, has raised $9.5 million in Series A funding led by GGV Capital, with participation from Y Combinator. TechCrunch has more here.

iflix, a three-year-old, Kuala Lumpur-based Netflix-like service that covers Southeast Asia and other emerging markets, has raised $90 million in new funding from the international cable firm Liberty Global, the Middle East and Africa-focused operator Zain, and earlier backers Sky, Catcha Group and EMC. TechCrunch has more here.

Peerspace, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based online marketplace for “unique and undiscovered” locations, has raised $11 million in funding from Foundation Capital, Mitsui Fudosan, Carthona Capital and Red Bridge Partners. The company has now raised $18 million altogether. VentureBeat has more here.

New Funds

Serial entrepreneur Justin Kan, best known for co-founding Twitch, Justin.tv and Socialcam, has left his position as a partner at Y Combinator to start his own startup incubator program. The venture is called Zero-F, for zero to funding. “I joined YC to recover from the brain damage of starting companies,” he told TechCrunch yesterday. “But I want to get back more towards what I like doing, which is starting companies.” More here.

Oak HC/FT Partners, a growth equity firm that spun out of Oak Investment Partners in 2014, is reportedly raising a second, $500 million fund. The firm’s first $500 million fund closed in June 2014. The priorities for that fund were growth-stage, revenue-generating companies in health IT and fintech that had established a position in the market. MedCity News has more here.

Notation Capital, a two-year-old, Brooklyn-based seed-stage venture fund, is looking to raise up to $25 million for its second fund, shows an SEC filing. StrictlyVC talked with Notation last year about life as a young, pre-seed East Coast fund.

Exits

AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing arm, has acquired Thinkbox Software, a six-year-old company that develops production tools for media design and content creation that are aimed at people in the video and wider visual media industries. Thinkbox appears to have been bootstrapped. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

CA Technologies is acquiring 11-year-old, Burlington, Ma.-based application security testing company Veracode for $614 million in cash, the companies announced yesterday. According to CrunchBase, Verde had raised roughly $114 million from investors, including Wellington Management and Meritech Capital Partners. (In more recent years, some secondary shares were acquired by Founders Circle Capital, too.) The Boston Globe has more here.

GIF-finding platform Giphy last week revealed a new line of business offering artist-created stickers in Apple’s iMessage app. TechCrunch has since learned that Giphy had quietly acquired imoji — a three-year-old startup with a popular platform for creators to build and distribute custom-made stickers and emoji to the messaging masses — to fuel this initiative. Terms of the deal haven’t been learned, but according to CrunchBase, imoji had raised $2 million from Goodwater Capital and longtime investor Joe Lacob. More here.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. is acquiring a publicly traded maker of so-called flash storage systems, Nimble Storage, for about $1 billion in cash, a 41 percent premium to Nimble’s roughly $700 million market value as of Monday’s close of trading. The WSJ has the story here.

Streaming music service Spotify has acquired a year-old company called Sonalytic, maker of an audio detection technology that can identify songs, mixed content, and audio clips. (It can also track copyright-protected material.) Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Sonalytic had emerged from the London-based incubator Imperial Create Lab, though it isn’t clear whether it raised much in the way of outside funding. TechCrunch has more here.

People

How the world’s richest doctor gave away millions — then steered the cash back to his company: STAT with an unflattering profile of Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong.

Essential Reads

Well, Amazon’s First Amendment fight was short-lived.

Yesterday, IBM and Salesforce announced a sweeping tie-up that will see the two giants integrate their artificial intelligence platforms, along with some of their software and services. Fortune has more here.

The ambitious transportation company Hyperloop One released images today of its development site in Nevada, saying that its first public trial of the full-scale system will take place in the first half of this year. Seemingly, the biggest test will be around braking. In a shorter trial last May, a test vehicle ended its run by crashing into a sand pile.

Pinterest will now let you search for products using any image you find online — without visiting Pinterest.

Detours

Alec Baldwin says his Trump impression won’t last much longer. (Nuts.)

Eight words the royal family never uses.

The curse of the Bahia emerald.

Retail Therapy

Quite an ad for a USB port(!).

Hoping you’re having a productive Monday, everyone!

Top News in the A.M.

Snap shares cratered for the first time today, dropping 7 percent at one point. CNBC has more here.

NFX Takes the Wraps of 21 New Startups

Last week, two-year-old, NFX Guild, a Silicon Valley-based, invite-only accelerator program, hosted its newest demo day before 200 venture investors from Sand Hill Road and San Francisco.

The outfit — which is backed by the venture firms CRV, Shasta Ventures, Greylock Partners, and Mayfield and works only with startups that have been referred to it through a network of scouts — might have surprised attendees. NFX’s last two batches have featured 16 and 13 companies, respectively. Its newest class wound up featuring 21 companies — a meaningful jump in size. The good news: with startups focused on health care, augmented reality, shopping and more, there was seemingly something for everyone.

For those of you who didn’t make it to NFX’s presentation, here are the companies it introduced (and that we assume are actively fundraising).

More here.

New Fundings

AgroStar, a 3.5-year-old, Pune, India-based mobile-commerce firm that helps farmers place orders for pesticides and fertilizers, among other things, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Accel Partners, with participation from earlier backers IDG Ventures and Aavishkaar. Time of India has more here.

Atom Bank, a three-year-old, U.K.-based mobile-based banking services company, has raised £83 million ($102 million) in funding at a post-money valuation of £261 million ($320 million) led by the Spanish bank BBVA. Others participating in the round include previous backers Woodford Investment Management and Toscafund Asset Management. TechCrunch has more here.

Brayola, a four-year-old, New York-based online marketplace that sells lingerie for women, has raised $5 million in funding led by Firstime Fund. The Globes has more here.

Busybusy, a six-year-old, St. George, Ut.-based maker of mobile time tracking software, has raised an undisclosed amount of strategic funding from Caterpillar Venture Capital. World Cement has more here.

Great to see a few of you in Palo Alto last night.

Top News in the A.M.

Snap‘s IPO shares soared a little too high yesterday for some brokerage firms. Two downgraded the stock yesterday and a third, London-based Atlantic Equities, downgraded the company today, warning that its valuation may be “unsustainable.” Wrote an equity analyst in his research note: “At current levels, the stock is trading at a premium to Facebook after normalizing for engagement levels. This seems unsustainable given Snap’s unproven monetization potential, structurally lower profitability, and likely challenges in materially reaccelerating user growth.” CNBC has more here.

NexGen Venture Partners Just Raised $22 Million — from 83 Investors

NextGen Venture Partners,  a young, Washington, D.C.-based venture firm that’s quarterbacked by a handful of investors but fueled financially by a network of hundreds of part-time investors who help with its portfolio, has raised $22 million for its debut fund. (This if you don’t count a $1 million pool of capital that it raised from its network in 2015.)

We had a quick chat with Jon Bassett, one of the firm’s five partners, late last week to talk about what NextGen is trying to create. That conversation has been edited for length.

NextGen evolved from a group of angel investors, correct? Was this a formal investor group that’s just been renamed?

We began as a group of young entrepreneurs based in Washington who agreed to support our companies regardless of whether we personally invested. Over time, we had friends in New York City who wanted to expand this idea, and from there NextGen began to take shape. Now, it’s a rapidly growing group of over 650 people who continue to give us an edge in sourcing, diligence, and portfolio support.

Did all of them contribute to this new $22 million fund?

We have 83 LPs in our fund. A large number of them are also our venture partners who invested relatively small dollars. Our anchor LP is Brown Advisory, a $60 billion asset management firm that spun out of the former investment bank Alex. Brown. We also have high-net-worth investors from Dell, Carlyle, and T Rowe Price.

Eighty-three LPs is a lot of LPs to manage. Do you think in the future that you’re likely to seek out bigger checks from fewer investors?

We plan to raise larger dedicated funds over time with bigger check writers, but it’s important we maintain what makes our model so unique. Our strength in deal flow and portfolio support comes from our venture partners. Also, we [do and will] continue to create SPVs where our venture partners have the opportunity to invest alongside our funds.

Do investors in your network get any special rights or privileges if they more actively help your portfolio companies than other investors in the network?

More here.

New Fundings

Bobo’s Oat Bars, a 12-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based producer of baked oat bars, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Boulder Investment Group Reprise, with participation from Range Light. The Denver Business Journal has more here.

Boragen, a months-old, Durham, N.C.-based synthetic chemistry platform focused on developing fungicides for agriculture, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. Investors include Alexandria Venture Investments, ARCH Venture Partners, Bayer, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Elanco Animal Health, Flagship Pioneering, Hatteras Venture Partners, Mountain Group Capital, Pappas Capital and Syngenta Ventures. AgFunder News has more here.

C3 IoT, an eight-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based enterprise software developer, has raised an undisclosed amount in Series E funding at a $1.4 billion pre-money valuation. Breyer Capital led the round, and was joined by TPG, Sutter Hill, Wildcat Venture Partners, Pat House, and founder and CEO Thomas Siebel. More here.

Examity, a 3.5-year-old, Needham, Ma.-based company that manages proctoring and identify verification for online testing, has raised $21 million in funding from University Ventures and Inherent Group. Boston Business Journal has more here.

Grail, a year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based developer of blood tests to detect cancer at its earliest stages, has raised $900 million in Series B funding. ARCH Venture Partners led the round, with participation from Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, Celgene, Tencent, Amazon, McKesson and Varian Medical Systems. (It’s probably no coincidence that the company announced its funding a few hours after did its competitor, Freenome, which we’d written about here.)

Hedvig, a 4.5-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based software-defined storage platform company, has raised $21.5 million in Series C funding. Investors include Singapore-based EDBI and Hewlett Packard Pathfinder, Atlantic Bridge Ventures, and earlier backers True Ventures and Vertex Ventures. The company has now raised $52 million altogether. More here.

Lucy, a year-old, San Francisco-based platform that provides support to employees from their early pregnancy through their baby’s first year, has raised $2.25 million in seed funding co-led by Forerunner Ventures and Felicis Ventures. Forbes has more here.

Nearpod, a 4.5-year-old, Hallandale, Fla.-based mobile app that enables teachers to create and share interactive multimedia presentations with their students, has raised $21 million in Series B funding led by Insight Venture Partners. Earlier investors Reach Capital, GSV Acceleration, Krillion Ventures and AGP Miami also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

OpenRent, a London-based online realtor, has raised £4.4 million ($5.4 million) in new funding from Global Founders Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Surefire Medical, an eight-year-old, Westminster, Co.-based company that develops infusion systems for the interventional radiology market, has raised $12.8 million in Series D funding led by ORI Healthcare Fund, with participation from earlier backers. FinSMEs has more here.

(Other) New Funds

Next Coast Ventures, a 1.5-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based venture capital firm that looks to invest in “software-powered, full-stack business models,” has closed its debut fund with $85 million in commitments from institutional investors, funds of funds, and family offices. The amount makes the fund one of the largest in Austin in the last three years, says the firm. More here.

Ribbit Capital, a nearly five-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based venture firm that focuses on fintech, is looking to raise $300 million for its fourth fund, shows an SEC filing. Ribbit closed its third fund with $220 million in 2015. More here.

Sofinnova Partners, a Paris-based venture capital and private equity firm, has raised €106 million ($112 million) in commitments for Sofinnova Industrial Biotech, an industrial biotech fund that will focus on renewable chemistry and synthetic biology. FinSMES has more here.

Symantec, the publicly traded digital security company, has launched a cybersecurity-focused corporate venture unit called Symantec Ventures. CRN has more here.

Exits

The venture-backed cryptocurrency exchange Kraken yesterday announced that it has brought market portal Cryptowatch — a site that provides real-time market information and trading services — into the fold. CoinDesk describes the deal as an acqui-hire. More here.

Publicly traded Palo Alto Networks acquired LightCyber, a 5.5-year-old Israeli cybersecurity company, for $105 million. According to CrunchBase, LightCyber had raised roughly $36 million in venture funding, including from Access Industries and Battery Ventures. The Register has more here.

People

Richard Branson is starting a new venture dedicated to launching small satellites into space.

Former U.S. vice president, Apple board member, and sometimes venture capitalist Al Gore is starting to screen his new documentary, “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.” Yesterday, at one such screening, Apple CEO Tim Cook made a speech to introduce the film. You can see that clip here.

Snap cofounder Evan Spiegel on how he’s feeling after his historic IPO.

Yikes. Another female software engineer at Uber has outlined her unhappy experience at the company. Specifically, she alleges she faced sexism from a female manager.

Jobs

Verizon is looking to hire a corporate development manager. The job is in Basking Ridge, N.J.

Data

U.S. consumers now spend five solid hours a day on mobile devices.

Essential Reads

NBCUniversal invested $500 million in Snap during its IPO yesterday. TechCrunch has more here.

Amazon plans to release new Alexa devices that can make phone calls and work as intercoms, says Recode.

Palantir is reportedly providing the surveillance system to carry out the new administration’s raids on undocumented immigrants’ families. The Intercept has more here.

Detours

How to read more books when you never have time.

Retirees’ advice to the young.

Retail Therapy

Four lavish beach estates for deep-pocketed spring breakers.

Snap co-founders Evan Speigel and Bobby Murphy rang the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange this morning, marking the stock market debut of their six-year-old company. We’d guess they’ve been periodically high-fiving since — along with the company’s other biggest shareholders. As of this writing, the company, which opened at $24 per share (roughly 50 percent more than its original share price of $17), has reached a valuation of $30 billion. More here.

Top News Today

It’s Snap all day, babies. Here’s what startup it might decide to buy with all that cake. Here’s why two firms have already initiated a sell rating on its shares. Here’s why some of Snap’s most influential users are hightailing it for other platforms. And here’s a reminder that shareholders get no say in how the company is run.

Millennial Lender Upstart Just Raised $32.5 Million; Here’s Why

Upstart, a nearly five-year-old online lending company that prides itself on quickly identifying people who are less likely to default on money leant them, has raised $32.5 million in fresh funding that brings its total funding to date to around $85 million. Partly, the company plans to use the capital to further fuel its current growth trajectory. In fact, according to CEO (and former president of Google Enterprise) Dave Girouard, Upstart expects to turn profitable this year.

But the company also sees a huge opportunity in licensing its technology to banks, credit unions, and even retailers that are eager to make low-risk — and profitable — loans to to their own customers.

Rakuten is certainly buying into its vision. The Japan-based internet services giant just co-led Upstart’s newest round with an undisclosed U.S.-based asset manager. Earlier backers Third Point Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and First Round Capital also joined the financing.

We talked yesterday to Girouard to learn more about Upstart’s new software-as-a service offering, online lending’s perception problem, and how the Trump administration is likely to impact his 100-person company. Our chat has been edited for length and clarity.

Congrats on the funding. Is Upstart turning into a SaaS company?

No, we still have and continue to grow our direct lending business. It’s how we learn and grow.  This [SaaS arm] will grow alongside it.

What’s its “value proposition” to potential customers?

It’s very similar in nature to any SaaS business; it’s the whole idea of people saying, “We’re not going to try to build something ourselves.” We’re strongly on the tech and data science end of the spectrum. We don’t come from financial services, as do a lot of other [lending] companies. We apply very modern data science to the question of who gets a loan and at what price; that’s the heart of what we’re known for.

You’re targeting existing lenders, as well as hoping to help retailers and others get into the lending business. Is that right? And what you will be charging them?

Yes, and we’ll charge a monthly fee, then a smaller fee per loan that captures the cost of originating a particular loan.

You started your direct lending business by targeting millennials. Is that still your target market?

It’s still our sweet spot, young adults. Our average borrower is 28. The most common use of [our loans] is to pay credit card debt, though it’s really a personal loan that you can use for anything.

How do you market to this demographic?

Our approach is predominately digital. Our borrow is typically online, so [we advertise on] Facebook and Google; we have high marks on the [personal finance platform] Credit Karma. We still do some some offline direct mail; our industry is dominated by it. But we don’t do nearly as much as others.

What are your default rates? Do you share those publicly?

More here.

(Other) New Fundings

Amper, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based startup that offers AI-powered music composition, has raised $4 million in funding led by Two Sigma Ventures, with participation from Foundry Group, Kiwi Venture Partners and Advancit Capital. Amper previously raised funding from Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Booksy, a four-year-old, Wilmington, De.-based app that enables businesses like beauty salons to handle online booking and operate other aspects of their business, has raised $4.2 million in Series A funding led by OpenOcean, with participation from Australian company builder and early-stage investor Investible, Poland’s Nomad Fund, and numerous angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

ChargePoint, a 10-year-old, Campbell, Ca.-based electric vehicle charging network, has raised $82 million in Series G funding led by new investor Daimler. Others to participate in the round include BMW i Ventures, Linse Capital, Rho Capital Partners, Braemar Energy Ventures, and all of ChargePoint’s previous investors. VentureBeat has more here.

Clark, a 10-month-old, New York-based virtual assistant app for tutors, has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding from Human Ventures, Winklevoss Capital, and numerous individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

HowGood, a nine-year-old, Brooklyn-based company that specializes in rating food, personal care, and other household products, has raised $4.2 million in Series A funding led by FirstMark Capital. Other participants in the round include Contour Ventures, the labor rights advocacy foundation Humanity United, Serious Change, Great Oaks Venture Capital, High Line Venture Partners and individual angels that include Joanne Wilson. TechCrunch has more here.

Klook, a 2.5-year-old, Hong Kong-based service for finding and booking travel activities, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia China. Earlier backers Matrix Partners and Welight Capital, a firm founded by former Tencent executives, also joined the round, which brings Klook’s total funding to $36.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Lyft, the nearly five-year-old, San Francisco-based ride-hailing company that’s widely considered Uber’s biggest rival in the U.S., is reportedly pitching investors on a new, $500 milion round of funding that would value the company at between $6 billion and $7 billion. Lyft was valued at $5.5 billion at the close of its last round, one year ago. The WSJ has the story here.

Nimble, an eight-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based SaaS platform providing small businesses with CRM systems that combine social media, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Imagen Capital Partners. Other participants include Mark Cuban’s Radical Investments, GV, Indicator Ventures and individual investors that include Jason Calacanis, Howard Lindzon, and Don Dodge. The company has now raised $12.5 million altogether. More here.

Sensibill, a 3.5-year-old, Toronto, Ontario-based digital receipt data service for banks, has raised $17.3 million in Series A funding led by Information Venture Partners and OpenText Enterprise Apps Fund, with participation from Operative Capital, Mistral Venture Partners, and earlier backer Impression Ventures. More here.

Urjanet, an eight-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based company that collects, reconciles, and analyzes energy and carbon-related data from many different sources to help its customers reduce their energy costs, has raised $20 million in funding led by Oak HC/FT. Earlier backers Grotech Ventures, Correlation Ventures, Imlay Investments, and the Georgia Research Alliance also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

VeloCloud, a five-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based cloud networking services company, has raised $35 million in Series D funding led by Hermes Growth Partners. Other investors include Telstra Ventures, Khazanah Nasional Berhad (the strategic investment fund of the Government of Malaysia), and earlier backers New Enterprise Associates, Venrock, March Capital Partners, and Cisco Investments. More here.

ZoneFox, a four-year-old, Edinburgh, Scotland-based cybersecurity company, has raised £3.6 million ($3.8 million) in Series A funding led by Archangels, with participation from The Scottish Investment Bank and TriCap. Tech.eu has more here.

New Funds

Floodgate, an 11-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based early stage venture capital firm, has raised $131 million for its sixth fund, according to an SEC filing that shows the firm turned to just eight investors for the capital commitments. Though small by today’s fundraising standards, the new fund reflects a bit of a departure for the firm, whose fifth fund closed with $76 million in 2014.  (Its fourth fund similarly closed with $75 million and its third closed with $73.5 million.) More here.

People

Former Uber employee Susan Fowler Rigetti, who recently authored a widely read post detailing her experiences of sexual harassment and discriminatory behavior at the ride-hailing company, said today on Twitter that she has hired California employment attorneys Baker, Curtis & Schwartz. She said the move is a reaction to Uber’s decision to reference her by name in emails to customers looking to delete their account, and efforts she says that Uber has undertaken to investigate her personally. This investigation is unrelated to the efforts of former attorney general Eric Holder, who has been hired by Uber to investigate its HR practices, she says. TechCrunch has much more here.

Jobs

BlackRock is looking to hire a corporate development VP. The job is in New York.

Essential Reads

Oscar, the startup trying to reinvent medical insurance with its Obamacare-focused plans, lost more than $200 million on the products in 2016 as it heads into a year that may see the undoing of the health law. Bloomberg has more here.

Some poor engineer who is probably (definitely?) out of job at Amazon is being cited as the reason AWS went down in part on Monday. TechCrunch has more here.

Detours

The case for eating weed at work. (What?! It’s in Bloomberg!)

Antarctica reached a record 63.5 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday. Pack your shorts! (Note: It would raise water levels by 200 feet if it were all to melt.)

Retail Therapy

In the doghouse? Try this.

March!:)

Top News in the A.M.

Snap is set to price its IPO today, with reports suggesting that there is enough demand for it to price at between $17 to $18, above the initially targeted range of $14 to $16 a share. Fortune has more here.

Samsung has disclosed that it paid around $215 million last October to acquire the virtual assistant startup Viv Labs, whose team built Apple’s Siri virtual assistant. The company wasn’t independently run for long. Founded in 2012, it publicly debuted its technology at a TechCrunch Disrupt show in New York last May and was snapped up just six months later. Viv had raised $30 million from investors. VentureBeat has more here.

In Uber Video, CEO Speaks Openly About Impact of Competitors

A newly published video clip of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick may offer the world’s first glimpse into his thinking about businesses that compete with his ride-sharing juggernaut.

The clip — filmed earlier this month while Kalanick was using Uber’s Black car service and provided to Bloomberg yesterday afternoon by the driver, Fawzi Kamel — mostly shows Kalanick bantering with the two women between whom he is sitting.

Once Kalanick prepares to exit the car, he shakes Kamel’s hand and engages in a conversation that he presumably thinks will be friendly but quickly sours. In that interaction, Kalanick explains why Uber’s rates have fallen so dramatically, pointing to competition that has made price drops inescapable. Meanwhile, Kamel argues with Kalanick, telling him he could have kept prices higher and that Kalanick’s decision not to do so has “bankrupted” him.

The conversation ends when Uber tells Kamel to take responsibility for his own decisions.

Kalanick has since apologized to his employees for his tone in speaking with Kamel. In an email to them last night, he wrote:

By now I’m sure you’ve seen the video where I treated an Uber driver disrespectfully. To say that I am ashamed is an extreme understatement. My job as your leader is to lead … and that starts with behaving in a way that makes us all proud. That is not what I did, and it cannot be explained away.

It’s clear this video is a reflection of me—and the criticism we’ve received is a stark reminder that I must fundamentally change as a leader and grow up. This is the first time I’ve been willing to admit that I need leadership help and I intend to get it.

I want to profoundly apologize to Fawzi, as well as the driver and rider community, and to the Uber team.

You can check out the full clip to see what transpires, and why Kalanick might have been caught off guard.

More here.

New Fundings

Banyan Technology, a 16-year-old, Cleveland, Oh.-based company that provides shippers, third party logistics companies, and carriers with software that features live data for rating, booking, and managing shipments, has raised $7 million in equity and debt. Its investors include JumpStart and River SaaS Capital. More here.

Blackbuck, a 1.5-year-old, Bangalore, India-based logistics startup, is raising $30 million in Series C funding from Capital Sands and International Financial Corp., along with earlier investors that include Flipkart and Accel Partners. LiveMint has more here.

Fortscale Security, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based cyber security company, has raised $7 million in fresh fundung led by Evolution Equity Partners and Valor Capital Group. The round also included investments from previous investors, including Intel Capital, Blumberg Capital, Swarth, CME Ventures and UST Global. More here.

Freenome, a two-year-old, South San Francisco-based liquid biopsy diagnosis platform that detects the cell-free DNA sequencing of cancer, has raised a huge Series A round — $65 million — led by Andreessen Horowitz, which also led the company’s $5.5 million seed round less than a year ago. Other investors in the deal include GV, Polaris Partners, Innovation Endeavors, Spectrum 28, Asset Management Ventures, Charles River Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, Allen and Company and earlier backers Data Collective and Founders Fund. We have more for you here.

Incorta, a 3.5-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based analytics platform that purports to make the modern data warehouse a thing of the past, has raised $10 million from GV. TechCrunch has more here.

Instacart, the 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based on-demand delivery company, is in talks to raise around $400 million in new funding at a $3 billion valuation, reports Dan Primack of Axios. Earlier investor Sequoia Capital is expected to lead the new round. More here.

Kensho, a 3.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that’s developing new analytics tools for investment professionals, has raised $50 million in Series B funding led by S&P Global,  with participation from banks Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Wells Fargo. Earlier backers, including General Catalyst Partners and Breyer Capital, also joined the round. Forbes has more on the company — now valued at $500 million — here.

Medisafe, a 4.5-year-old, Boston-based personalized medication management platform, has raised $14.5 million in Series B funding led by Octopus Ventures, with participation from M Ventures and earlier investors Pitango Venture Capital, 7wire ventures, Lool Ventures, TriVentures and Qualcomm Ventures. More here.

Muse Bio, a 1.5-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based genome engineering company, has raised $23 million in Series B funding led by Venrock, with participation from Foresite Capital, Paladin Capital and earlier investors NanoDimension and Spruce/MLS. More here.

Ofo, a nearly three-year-old, China-based bike-sharing service, has raised $450 million in Series D funding from DST, Citic Private Equity, Matrix Partners, Coatue Management, Atomico and Macrolink Group. (This may sound familiar, as yesterday, a different, China-based bike-sharing service, Bluegogo, had announced founding.) TechCrunch has more here.

Omeicos Therapeutics, a 3.5-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based biopharmaceutical company that’s developing small molecule therapeutics for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, has raised €8.3 million ($8.8 million) in Series B funding. The financing was led by Vesalius Biocapital II S.A. SICAR and SMS Company Group, with participation from earlier backers. More here.

Exits

Chinese travel site Qunar is delisting from the NASDAQ, having completed its sale to private equity firm Ocean Management (first announced last October). The transaction values Qunar — which is backed by Baidu — at around $4.44 billion. The firm had raised $167 million from its IPO in November 2013 but is now among numerous Chinese businesses to shun U.S. public markets, reports TechCrunch. More here.

Yelp has acquired a six-year-old, Pittsburgh, Pa.-based restaurant technology startup called Nowait in an all-cash deal valued at $40 million. The company had raised around $22 million in funding, including a strategic $8 million investment from Yelp made last year. The purchase price includes that capital. VentureBeat has more here.

People

A female engineer at Tesla has accused Elon Musk’s car company of ignoring her complaints of “pervasive harassment”, paying her a lower salary than men doing the same work, promoting less qualified men over her and retaliating against her for raising concerns. The Guardian has more here.

Investor-entrepreneur Max Levchin has an alternative strategy to surviving an apocalypse instead of heading to some fancy bunker somewhere; he says to be nice to your neighbors. Quartz has more here.

Jobs

Walt Disney is looking for a digital innovation director to help evaluate emerging tech that will complement its various properties. The job is in Glendale, Ca.

Essential Reads

What’s next for Snap after Spectacles? Maybe a 360-degree camera, reports TechCrunch.

Detours

How to escape a toxic workplace.

The true story of the Comey letter debacle.

Not good: You can accidentally rent a dog that you think you are buying.

Retail Therapy

A record player that’s just a wheel, so it’s called Wheel. (We really hope this gets made.)

Hi, all! Sorry this is a bit late — lots o’ calls again today. Hope you’re enjoying your Tuesday.:)

Also, apologies to anyone struggling to sign up to SVC today. Our email service provider is having an issue that should get sorted out soon. If you’ve been forwarded the newsletter and you want to subscribe, you might try again in a few hours.

Top News in the A.M.

Perhaps you’ve heard? Amazon AWS S3 storage service outage is breaking things for a lot of websites and apps right now. Amazon says it’s working on it.

Kabam’s Roller Coaster Ride to an $800 Million Sale

The Game Developers Conference kicked off in downtown San Francisco yesterday, and consolidation is a central theme for this year’s attendees.

Late last week, we talked with Kevin Chou, co-founder and CEO of the gaming company Kabam, about his own both stressful and euphoric experience in running a gaming startup for roughly a decade before selling most of its assets in December to South Korea’s Netmarble Games for a reported $700 million to $800 million.

His earliest investor, Maha Ibrahim of Canaan Partners, joined the conversation to share her perspective on the company’s highs, lows and in-between moments, too. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Kevin, you spent a little time working for Maha as a junior investor at Canaan before founding Kabam. In fact, Kabam was incubated at Canaan’s offices. At what point did you know you wanted to create a gaming company?

KC: I was definitely excited about what was happening with the consumer internet. This was in 2006, when Facebook was still mostly focused on college students. I wanted to start a social network for young professionals, but after some twists and turns, it became a gaming company.

MI: Kevin and his three co-founders were trying to build a better LinkedIn, but we found out with the seed money that we gave the company that it wasn’t working. I told him he could either give back the $250,000 we’d given him or find something else to do with it. So that first pivot was called Watercooler. It was a social network for sports and TV and movie fans.

KC: It grew on the back of Facebook. At its peak, it was getting 2 billion page views per month, but we couldn’t monetize it at all. So we dabbled a bit more in fantasy sports.

MI: I’d given the company a Series A at that point, and there was this moment at this café in Mountain View where Kevin was totally stressed out. He’d taken up smoking again because he couldn’t figure out how to make money off [Watercooler]. So it was around this time — right, Kevin? — that he pivoted into becoming a Facebook game provider, with Kingdoms of Camelot, which became a massive hit.

So two pivots so far.

KC: At first, Facebook said [to game developers], “You’ll keep all the revenue, but we own the real estate around the frame,” so the economics were built on that type of relationship. Then, [in a later, somewhat infamous development] Facebook said we’re going to take 30 percent of everyone’s revenue. To be fair, Apple and other [platform companies] were also taking a 30 percent revenue share, but the way that Facebook had tried to build out platform — the way they used real estate — made it very difficult to operate a full-fledged game. You couldn’t control the entire experience. And then with that 30 percent tax, it became a very different business for us. We went from being very profitable to very not profitable overnight.

More here.

New Fundings

Atzuche, a 3.5-year-old, Shanghai, China-based peer-to-peer car rental start-up, has raised $58 million in Series C funding from China Pacific Insurance, China Equity Group, Hangzhou Financial Investment Group, China Securities, Matrix Partners China, Hearst Capital and Ivy Capital. Beijing Business Today has more here.

Belong, a 2.5-year-old, Bangalore, India-based predictive outbound hiring platform provider, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital India, with participation from earlier backer Matrix Partners India. IndiaWeb2 has more here.

Bluegogo, a 1.5-year-old, Tianjin, China-based smart bike sharing platform, has raised $58.2 million in Series C funding led by Black Hole Capital, with participation from Smart Xintong, a Shenzhen-based healthcare equipment developer. China Money Network has more here.

CloudMinds, a 1.5-year-old, Beijing, China-based start-up focused on the development of cloud-intelligence-based applications, has reportedly raised $100 million in Series A funding, but it isn’t disclosing from whom. The company had previously raised $31 million in funding from SoftBank Group, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Walden International and Keytone Ventures. China Money Network has more here.

Getaway, a 1.5-year-old, Brooklyn-based designer and operator of “tiny house” rentals, has raised $15 million in funding from L Catterton. More here.

Insilico, a 2.5-year-old, Baltimore, Md.-based startup that employs genomics, big-data analysis and advanced algorithums to research and develop new age-related drugs, has raised $10 million in new funding from so-far undisclosed sources. The Baltimore Sun has more here.

Maihuolang, a 2.5-year-old, Beijing-based e-commerce platform serving China’s rural communities, has raised $150 million in funding from Shenzhen New Industry Venture Capital, Shenzhen Weiji Investment Company and Qianhai Great Wall Fund Administration. China Money Network has more here.

MomentFeed, a seven-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based mobile customer experience management platform, has raised $16.3 million in funding led by Level Equity, with participation from earlier backers Signia Venture Partners, Draper Nexus and DFJ Frontier. FinSMEs has more here.

PartySlate, a 1.5-year-old, Chicago-based online platform to connect event providers with people looking to plan meetings and celebrations, has raised $1.6 million in fresh funding led by Hyde Park Venture Partners, with participation from Hyde Park Angels, InvestHER Ventures, WaveMaker Partners, Jump Investors and Halogen Ventures. The company has now raised $2.6 million altogether. Crain’s Chicago Business has more here.

PebblePost, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based startup that offers programmatic direct mail, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by RRE Ventures, with participation from Greycroft Partners and Tribeca Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Pypestream, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based messaging platform that connects businesses to their customers to engender satisfaction and loyalty, has raised $15 million in Series A funding. Rick Braddock, former CEO of Priceline and former COO of Citibank, led the round, with participation from The Chatterjee Group and an unnamed hedge fund. TechCrunch has more here.

ResearchGate, a nine-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based company that operates a network for scientists to connect and share research, has raised $52.6 in Series D funding. Investors in the round include Wellcome Trust, Goldman Sachs, Four Rivers Group, Ashton Kutcher, LVMH, Xavier Niel, Bill Gates, Benchmark, and Founders Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Sunlight Financial, a 2.5-year-old, Teaneck, N.J.-based company that provides loans for residential solar systems, has raised $130 million in funding from Route 66 Ventures, an investment firm that makes credit and equity investments in high-growth financial services companies. PV Magazine has more here.

WorkJam, a 2.5-year-old, Montreal-based company whose mobile employee engagement platform targets hourly and non-desk workers, has raised $12 million in funding from Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Blumberg Capital, Founder Collective and NovelTMT. TechCrunch has more here.

Xenex Disinfection Services, an eight-year-old, San Antonio, Tex.-based company that makes disinfection systems for healthcare facilities, has raised $38 million in funding led by Essex Woodlands, with participation from Piper Jaffray Merchant Banking, Malin Corporation and Tectonic Ventures. More here.

New Funds

Lux Capital, a nearly 17-year-old venture firm with offices in New York and Menlo Park, has closed its fifth fund with $400 million in commitments, to continue investing in tstartups that are “inventing the future without destroying humanity.” TechCrunch has more here.

Venture Investment Associates, the fund of funds manager, has closed new funds totaling more than $230 million in capital commitments.  These include $150 million toward the firm’s combined Venture Investment Associates (VIA) VIII & VIII-VC funds and $80 million toward a third iteration of VIA’s Seed Technology Partners (STP) funds. Last May, we talked on stage with one of the firm’s (atypically) high-profile managing directors, Chris Douvos, about the challenges of investing in venture firms.

Virginia Tech and Carilion Clinic, a Roanoke, Va.-based health care organization, have formed a new $15 million venture capital fund designed to fund the startups taking root around Blacksburg, Va., and Roanoke’s so-called innovation corridor. The Roanoake Times has more here.

An Australian superannuation fund called Hostplus has invested AU$85 million ($65.2 million) in Artesian, a nine-year-old venture capital firm. The capital brings Artesian’s capital under management to AU$150 million ($115 million). Artesian funds early-stage startups in Australia. The Tech Portal has more here.

Exits

Four-year-old OneWeb — which last December raised a whopping $1.2 billion from SoftBank for its yet-to-launch satellite internet service — is merging with large satellite incumbent Intelsat. SoftBank separately said it would invest another $1.7 billion in the combined company, which is expected to be valued at $13 billion, counting both equity and debt. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Bill Gates on how the internet has damaged democracy.

Today at Mobile World Congress, new FCC chairman Ajit Pai gave a wide-ranging speech in which he made his most pointed comments against net neutrality since taking over as chairman, calling the rules put in place in early 2015 a “mistake.”

Renata Quintini has joined Lux Capital as a partner. Quintini has spent the last five-and-a-half years as a general partner with Felicis Ventures. (She was its third member after founder Aydin Senkut.) The native Brazilian had earlier worked as an investment manager for Stanford’s endowment.

Amit Singhal has left his job at Uber as its SVP of engineering because he didn’t disclose that he left Google last year after top executives there informed him of an allegation of sexual harassment from an employee that an internal investigation found “credible.” Singhal was asked to resign by Uber CEO Travis Kalanick yesterday morning. Singhal joined the company just last month. Recode has more here.

Jobs

Amazon is looking to add a senior manager to its corporate development team. The job is in Seattle.

Sapphire Ventures, is hiring a senior associate into its fund investing team. (Rather than looking at startups, you’d be helping identify promising venture firms that Sapphire should be funding.) The job is in Palo Alto, Ca.

Data

As public markets reach record highs, venture-backed tech startups have been left on the sidelines, shows Bloomberg’s U.S. startups barometer.

According to a new report out today from eMarketer, much of Snapchat’s growth is now being driven by older Americans.

YouTube viewers world-wide are now watching more than 1 billion hours of videos a day, threatening to eclipse U.S. television viewership. That’s a 10-fold increase since 2012. The WSJ has more here.

Essential Reads

When Snap goes public on Thursday, one of the investors closely watching the result will be Rizvi Traverse, the secretive firm that rose to prominence amassing large stakes in Twitter and Square. The Information has more here.

Detours

Backstories you’re better off not knowing.

You can get pregnant while pregnant(!).

Inside the posh Hôtel Costes in Paris.

Retail Therapy

Sammy Davis Jr. once owned this 1977 Rolls Royce Camargue. If you’d like to own it, too, talk to the folks at Bonhams.

Hi! Happy Monday, everyone. Hope you had a terrific weekend. (Hey, it had to be better than PWC’s, right?)

Top News in the A.M.

The mobile industry’s biggest annual gathering—Mobile World Congress—is well under way in Barcelona. Apple never attends and Samsung has introduced new tablets instead of phones this year; that’s left Huawei and LG vying for attention for their new smartphones. You can find lots more coverage here at TechCrunch.

Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox web browser, just acquired Read It Later, developer of the read-it-later service Pocket. Terms aren’t being disclosed, but founder Nate Weiner will continue to run the company, including to manage his team of 25 people. Recode has more here.

Tesla stock is slipping in price today after Goldman Sachs turned negative on the stock and downgraded its shares to sell from neutral. More here at Bloomberg.

Softbank is in Talks to Invest Up to $4 Billion in WeWork

SoftBank is being linked with an investment that could value WeWork at more than $20 billion.

CNBC reported that the Japanese telco giant is gearing up to make an initial investment of $2 billion into WeWork, with a view to putting nearly $1 billion more into the firm. The publication said the secondary investment could reach $2 billion, which would put SoftBank’s total input at $4 billion overall.

WeWork declined to comment on the report.

So far, the seven-year-old company has raised $1.4 billion from investors.

A source familiar with the situation confirmed that WeWork is in talks with SoftBank over an investment per the report. However, the person added that the Japanese had also held discussions with a view to participating in its $150 million Series C (2013) and $355 million Series D (2014) rounds, deals that SoftBank ultimately did not join.

One gating factor this time around centers on SoftBank’s Vision fund, which is still seeking commitments from investors, and in particular prospective LPs in the Middle East, our source added.

More here.

New Fundings

Arrakis, a new Cambridge, Ma.-based company that’s developing two platforms to identify new RNA targets and their small molecule drug counterparts, has raised $38 million in Series A funding led by Canaan Partners, with support from Advent Life Sciences, Pfizer, Celgene Corporation, Osage University Partners and biotech entrepreneur Henri Termeer. MedCity News has more here.

Cherwell Software, a 12-year-old, Colorado Springs, Co.-based IT service management software company, has raised $50 million in fresh funding from KKR‘s $771 million Next Generation Technology Fund. KKR joins earlier investor Insight Venture Partners, which began investing in Cherwell in 2012. TechCrunch has more here.

Congenica, a nearly three-year-old, Cambridge, U.K.-based provider of clinical genome analysis technology, just raised $10 million in Series B funding from Parkwalk Advisors, along with earlier backers Cambridge Innovation Capital and Amadeus Capital Partners. More here.

Cordial, a 2.5-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based company whose software tracks user behavior across apps and sites, then generates marketing emails crafted for those users, has raised $6 million in new funding led by Upfront Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Dealflo, a nearly five-year-old, London-based startup that provides financial agreement automation services, has raised £10 million ($12.4 million) in funding led by Holtzbrinck Ventures, with participation from Notion Capital and Frog Capital. The company says it has now raised raised £13.5 million altogether. More here.

Dubset Media, a nine-year-old, San Francisco, Ca.-based music rights management database, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by Cue Ball Capital, with participation from MediaNet, Neoteny 3, Resolute Venture Partners, and Redwood Venture Partners. More here.

Exonics Therapeutics, a newly launched, Boston, Ma.-based biotechnology company that plans to use gene editing technologies like CRISPR to advance the development of a treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, has raised $5 million in seed financing. The capital comes from CureDuchenne Ventures, a subsidiary of the nonprofit CureDuchenne. FierceBiotech has more here.

LeoLabs, a year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based startup that aims to detect, map and help avoid collisions with debris and objects floating in orbit, has raised $4 million in funding from SRI International (from which the company spun out), Horizons Ventures, and Airbus Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Oyo Rooms, a nearly five-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based online marketplace for affordable hotel rooms in the country, is reportedly in talks to raise between $300 million and $500 million from the Softbank Vision Fund. It would be the largest round in India’s startup sector since November 2015. The Economic Times has more here.

POD Point, an eight-year-old, London-based electric vehicle charge point supplier, is raising £9 million ($11.2 million) in funding from Draper Esprit, along with Barclays Capital, which is is providing £2 million of venture debt. In addition, £550,000 in additional equity investment has been raised from angel investors and the company is making £2 million worth of shares available to the public through the equity funding platform Crowdcube. Tech.eu has more here.

Polarity, a 2.5-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based human memory augmentation and collaboration platform (we’re not sure what that means, either), has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Strategic Cyber Ventures, with participation from Ron Gula, founder of Gula Tech Ventures. More here.

Snow, a year-old, South Korea-based Snapchat clone that’s owned by parent company Naver, has sold a meaningful chunk of its business to Line, a now-public messaging service that also counts Naver as its parent company. Line had previously purchased 25 percent of Snow last fall for $45 million; its newest arrangement with the company, for an undisclosed amount of money, brings its stake in Snow to 48.6 percent. TechCrunch has the story here.

Tealium, a nine-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based customer engagement and marketing platform, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series E funding from Citi Ventures. More here.

Workfit, a months-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based company whose virtual assistant technology makes meetings searchable, takes note of decisions, and encourages follow-up on action items, has raised $5.5 million in seed funding from Battery Ventures, Greycroft Partners, Salesforce Ventures and a number of angels. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Alta Partners, a 19-year-old, San Francisco-based venture firm, is looking to raise $200 million for its ninth life sciences-focused fund, shows an SEC filing. The firmclosed its eighth fund with $500 million back in 2006.

Formation Group, a year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based investment firm, has closed on $121.3 million for its debut fund, shows an SEC filing. Formation was cofounded by Gideon Yu, a former CFO for both Facebook and YouTube. Yu was also a founding member of the venture firm Formation 8, whose members have since gone on to raise separate funds.

Sequoia Capital China and IDG Capital have teamed up with the Chinese travel agency China CYTS Tours Holding to establish a joint fund, reports China Money Network. Though the outlet doesn’t report a target, it says the fund aims to capitalize on China’s fast-growing tourism industry, which is seeing both record numbers of Chinese citizens traveling abroad and foreigners visiting China. More here.

And, not so much a new fund as a notable change at the top: Foxconn is taking over SoftBank’s Asia-based tech investment fund. The manufacturing giant has agreed to buy a majority 54.5 percent stake in SoftBank Asia Capital in exchange for $600 million, according to a filing spied by TechCrunch. The deal is scheduled to go through March 1, after which time SoftBank Asia Capital will no longer be a SoftBank affiliate. More here.

(Other) Exits

Apple has acquired Realface, a two-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based machine learning startup whose facial recognition technology can be used to authenticate users, for “a couple of millions of dollars,” according to the Times of Israel. More here.

Bloq, a 1.5-year-old, Chicago-based company whose software aims to allow companies to build, manage and scale blockchain-enabled ecosystems, has acquired a blockchain analytics company called Skry — formerly Coinalytics — for undisclosed terms. It’s the first acquisition for Bloq, which hasn’t disclosed outside funding. More here.

HomeHero, a three-year-old, Santa Monica., Ca.-based platform connecting in-home caregivers with clients, has shut down. The company had raised $23 million from investors, including Graham Holdings Company, Social Capital, Tencent Holdings, the Launch Fund, and Science Inc.  Cofounder and CEO Kyle Hill says that being forced to switch from a contractor model to paying staffers as W-2 employees killed the company. More here.

People

It pays to be an Apple board member. According to Apple Insider, an SEC filing on Friday revealed that Al Gore, the former U.S. vice president and climate activist, sold about $30 million in Apple stock last week. Gore, who was appointed to the company’s board in 2003, still owns Apple shares worth $31.5 million, according to the outlet.

Perhaps an on-stage interviewer at the Mobile World Congress was off the grid last week, or perhaps Anthony Levandowski, who sold his company Otto to Uber last year, refused to appear if asked about a new lawsuit from Alphabet that accuses Otto of IP theft. Either way, the allegations were very notably not addressed in a fireside chat earlier today, says TechCrunch. More here.

According to four sources who spoke to the New York Times last week, the reason that Snap’s founders are denying shareholders any say in the running of their company can be traced to dissatisfaction with Jeremy Liew, a venture capitalist with Lightspeed Venture Partners who wrote Spiegel the company’s first check, for $485,000. Here’s why we don’t buy that argument.

According to Fortune’s Erin Griffith, Brian Pham, a principal at Sherpa Capital since 2013, has left the firm to build his own startup in what he calls “consumable” AR. He tells Fortune he hasn’t raised any money yet.

Billionaire Peter Thiel‘s “fingerprints are all over the administration,” reports Politico in a breakdown of where Thiel’s influence is most apparent.

Jobs

Bolt, the early-stage, hardware-focused venture firm, is looking to bring aboard a VP of finance. The job can be in either San Francisco or Boston.

Data

A quick look at how some of the biggest tech companies stack up when it comes to gender.

Essential Reads

China is developing its own digital currency. Bloomberg has the story here.

Detours

How Ikea’s Billy bookcase took over the world.

Vanity Fair’s Oscar party pics (including of Elon Musk and his glamorous mother, Apple’s Jony Ive, sisters Anne and Susan Wojcicki, actress-founder Jessica Alba, Recode’s Kara Swisher and many others).

Retail Therapy

For busy, frazzled home cooks, this is a magical pot, says Bloomberg.