Friday! For new readers or those who might have missed our mention earlier this week, a quick note: we’re taking a little time off next week and handing the keys over to our friend, seed-stage investor Semil Shah, who’s running a series of short interviews with a variety of institutional investors, including from the University of Texas and Invesco. (These are the women and men who provide VCs with the money they sprinkle across startups. They don’t like being outed publicly, because it means being asked by VCs and aspiring VCs for even more money, so we appreciate their willingness to participate in these Q&As.)

You can check out his first interview below.

We will *not* be running the other sections of the newsletter, but we’ll be back in full form a week from Monday.

Speaking of this coming Monday, U.S readers will know it’s Memorial Day stateside, so we’ll resume publishing on Tuesday. Hope you have a *wonderful* long weekend, and remember next week to direct your positive feedback/ire/corny jokes to @semil.:)

GO CAVS.

Top News in the A.M.

On-demand meal delivery service Sprig is preparing to shut down, reports The Information. Sprig had raised $56 million from investors, including Accel Partners, Social Capital and Greylock Partners. TechCrunch has the note that customers will be receiving here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Dash: TGIF, amirite? As we head into the Memorial Day weekend, the team at Dash want to wish you safe travels. And if you’re going to hit the road, why don’t you check out Dash’s suite of connected car products for iPhone and Android. Our platform is designed to make driving smarter, safer, greener and more affordable for everyday users. Take us for a spin and put a little KITT in your car!

LP Conversation No. 1: Sarah Anderson of Cintrifuse

By Semil Shah

Sarah Anderson is a director at Cincinatti, Ohio-based nonprofit Cintrifuse, an organization created by Cincinnati’s business community that also manages a fund that invests in early-stage venture capital funds outside of Cincinnati. (The idea is to generate investment and interest in the region, while increasing the amount of capital available to Cincinnati startups.) We recently interviewed Anderson about what she’s seeing on the front lines; that exchange follows.

Is there any part of the tech startup ecosystem that feels saturated to you?

Seed stage feels very saturated. We’re seeing larger seed rounds with much higher valuations, which, I believe, is led by too much money on the supply side.

LPs are flooding the market with VC dollars, and emerging managers are finding themselves able to raise on a dream and a vision without much track record. Right now, emerging managers with great credentials are typically able to raise $50 million to $100 million funds right now [and those funds] are becoming quickly oversubscribed in many cases.

Series A and beyond feels more right-sized. [I should note that] we don’t deal alot with growth-stage VCs.

More fund of funds want to invest directly in companies; meanwhile, more VC firms are also investing in [others’] funds. What do you make of this trend?

We’re seeing the same thing. We are not yet [a part of it], but we do sense the pressure from our LPs to start doing more directs in order to boost cash flow and returns without the added fees.

The funds I know of that are investing in other funds are doing so more for deal flow, but they’re merging their fee structures so their LPs don’t suffer from the excess fees. This seems to be an optimal way to do business for some larger funds, but likely won’t work for all funds.

Are there new tools and methods for LPs to diligence their fund investments? If so, how does your team use them?

We continue to refine our existing templates and optimize for qualities that seem to matter most. I would love to know more about existing tools for diligence. In the end, it is an art, not a science, but there are likely better ways to inform the art that I’m not aware of.

Do you think we’ll reach a point where crowdfunding could replace early-stage investing? 

Only if you believe a check is a check —  a commodity. VCs should bring alot more to the table than just a check if they are doing their job correctly, and that includes mentoring and guidance at the early stages for the entrepreneur, opening doors to customers, sharing expertise in product development and scaling, and a host of other necessary pieces of wisdom and intelligence that are needed to build a successful company. VC investors should be partners in building a company from the ground up. The color of money from crowdfunding is completely different in this regard.

ESPN recently reported on how NFL teams monitor and analyze the social media activity of players who enter the draft as part of their evaluation process. Do LPs do something similar when tracking VCs?

Oh yes, but probably for different reasons. First, VCs should have some strong insight into the industries in which they’re investing. Looking at who they follow and what they post can provide a good perspective on how deeply they’re engrained in a particular sector. Second, having a brand as a VC firm is critical to deal flow and competing on terms for investments. Many times, entrepreneurs are driven to particular partners based on insights shared through a blog post or a twitter feed. It’s an important way to reach those founders you want to reach.

(Editor’s note: Cintrifuse is not an investor in Shah’s seed-stage fund, Haystack.)

New Fundings

Change.org, a 10-year-old, for-profit petition and fundraising website focused on social and political change, has raised $30 million in new funding led by LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman. Other investors include Y Combinator’s Sam Altman and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates. Fortune has more here.

Demandbase, a 10-year-old, San Francisco-based software platform for marketers, has raised $65 million in new funding led by earlier backer Sageview Capital, with participation from Silver Lake Waterman. Earlier backers also joined the round, including Adobe Systems, Altos Ventures, Greenspring Associates, Scale Venture Partners, Sigma Partners and Split Rock Partners. The company has now raised $158 million altogether. VentureBeat has more here.

Ele.me, a nine-year-old, Shanghai-based giant in the crowded Chinese food-delivery service arena, is reportedly raising at least $1 billion in new funding led by Alibaba Group Holding and Ant Financial, in a round that will value the company at between $5.5 billion and $6 billion. Bloomberg has more here.

Harpoon Therapeutics, a 1.5-year-old, Brisbane, Ca.-based biotech company that’s developing T-cell-recruiting therapies for the treatment of cancer, has raised $45 million in Series B funding led by Arix Bioscience and New Leaf Venture Partners, with participation from Taiho Ventures and earlier investor MPM Capital. FierceBiotech has more here.

Readly, a five-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based company whose app provides users unlimited access to thousands of national and international magazines for a fixed monthly subscription, has raised €13 million ($14.5 million) in Series B funding. Investors include Zouk Capital, Hermes GPE, and Aggregate Media Fund. More here.

Rentalutions, a five-year-old, Chicago-based online platform that streamlines the rental process for do-it-yourself landlords and their tenants, has raised $2 million in funding led by Cultivation Capital, with participation from M25 Group and Sandalphon Capital. More here.

Riley, a year-old, San Francisco-based company that provides lead qualification as a service (real estate brokers buy leads and Riley quickly qualifies them and passes them back to the realtor), has raised $3.1 million in seed funding. Investors include Y Combinator, FundersClub, Social Capital, Fuel Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Liquid 2 Ventures, Rough Draft Ventures and numerous angel investors, including Michael Seibel and Paul Buchheit. TechCrunch has more here.

Sana Health, a two-year-old, U.K.-based company whose smart sleep mask aims to helps insomniacs and chronic nerve pain patients fall asleep with a press of a button, has raised $1.3 million in seed funding from Founders Fund, Maveron and SOSV, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Soft Space, a five-year-old, Malaysia-based payment startup that works typically with banks to create customized offerings for their mobile payments process, has raised $5 million in Series A funding. The round comes solely from the Japanese firm Transcosmos. TechCrunch has more here.

Spin, a seven-month-old, San Francisco, Ca.-based stationless bikeshare system, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Grishin Robotics, with participation from Exponent, CRCM, Quora co-founder Charlie Cheever and early Y Combinator alum Matt Brezina. TechCrunch has more here.

Spruce, a New York City-based digital title insurance and closing company, has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding. Bessemer Venture Partners led the round, with participation from Omidyar Network, Third Prime Capital, and earlier backers Collaborative Fund and Notation Capital.

UltraSoC, an 11-year-old Cambridge, U.K.-based semiconductor company, has raised $6.4million in funding led by Atlante Tech, with participation from new investors Enso Ventures, Oxford Capital, and CEO Guillaume d’Eyssautier. Earlier backers Octopus Ventures and South East Seed Fund also joined the round. More here.

New Funds

Engage Ventures, a new, Atlanta-based accelerator fund for early-stage deals, has closed on $15 million in capital commitments for its debut effort. Its investors include a wide range of Fortune 1000 companies, including AT&T, Chick-fil-A, Cox Enterprises, Delta Air Lines, Georgia-Pacific, Georgia Power Foundation, Intercontinental Exchange, Invesco, The Home Depot, and UPS. More here.

People

Another one of the co-founders of online lending startup SoFi is leaving the company, TechCrunch has learned. Dan Macklin, who served as VP of Community and Member Success at SoFi, has announced internally that he’ll be stepping down from his position on June 6. More here.

Tesla is bringing in a new leader for its human resources unit amidst a flurry of complaints about workplace culture at its California factory. More here.

Ahead of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s commencement speech at Harvard yesterday, the school’s much-lauded student newspaper had some… interesting headlines to share.  Here’s Zuckerberg’s full 30-minute address, and here’s a richly detailed (and not overly long) piece about his travels around the country this year.

Jobs

The venture-backed delivery startup DoorDash is looking for a biz dev manager; the job in San Francisco.

ff Venture Capital is hiring a senior financial venture capital analyst. The job is in New York.

Data

Wearables suck at tracking the calories that users burn, shows a new study.

Essential Reads

Even the world’s largest bitcoin exchange couldn’t handle this week’s cryptocurrency boom.

A battery-powered 3D printed rocket was successfully blasted into space yesterday.

Detours

The highest-paid CEOs in 2016.

The art and science of comedic timing.

Beverly Hills’s most expensive home is on the market, replete with Rolls-Royce and champagne vault.

Retail Therapy

Volvo’s sleek new wagon is being called a throwback, but it looks an awful lot like a Mercedes to us. (Hey, we’d take either one.)

Thursday!

Top News in the A.M.

Facebook has signed deals with Vox Media, BuzzFeed, ATTN, Group Nine Media and others to make shows for its upcoming video service, which will reportedly feature long and short-form content with ad breaks. Reuters has the story here.

Flipkart, the Bangalore, India-based e-commerce company, has moved closer to sealing its merger with rival firm Snapdeal. According to media reports, it has signed a term sheet and will conduct financial due diligence in the coming days. More here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Dash: Women are better drivers. So are Android users. Ditto for drivers in California. These are some of the insights from Dash‘s award-winning connected car platform. So, whether working with insurers who want to develop better risk algorithms, or OEMs who are improving their models for predictive maintenance, Dash’s fleet, data and enterprise solutions are a trusted provider for automotive data driven insights. To learn more, check our Dash’s recent coverage or contact us directly.

Despite recent controversy, Tanium Announces $100M Secondary Sale

Tanium hasn’t had the best year, but a new stock sale is telegraphing that while the company may be down, it’s far from out. This morning, the 10-year-old, Emeryville, Calif.-based company, whose technology enables organizations to continuously scan all endpoints in a network to detect vulnerabilities and unmanaged devices, is announcing it has raised $100 million led by the private equity firm TPG.

The deal assigns the company a post-money valuation of  $3.75 billion, meaning Tanium is essentially priced the same as when it last raised roughly $150 million from investors in 2015 at a post-money valuation of $3.65 billion.

Tanium’s CEO, Orion Hindawi, says the company has $300 million in cash and investor capital in the bank and that it didn’t need to raise money.

The company nevertheless “realized there was an opportunity to do a secondary [sale]” that could provide early employees and shareholders with some liquidity, while also getting heavy-hitting TPG involved in its future success, he says. “I want institutional investors on our cap table who can help [do an eventual public offering] right,” Hindawi explains.

Hindawi says that none of the outfit’s previous institutional investors — including its biggest outside shareholder, Andreessen Horowitz — are selling any of their shares and that the secondary sale instead involves “friends and family” shareholders.

He also claims that Tanium has already conducted secondary sales “multiple times” in the past to “lessen the pressure” on both employees as well as Tanium, which aims to go public on its own timeline.

Certainly, Tanium isn’t the first Silicon Valley outfit to allow early investors and employees to wring real money out of their paper holdings while making its way toward an initial public offering. Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, Pinterest, Zynga and Automattic are among many companies that have enabled employees and early investors to cash out of some of their privately held shares.

Companies typically negotiate secondaries from a position of strength, because their shares are desirable to outside investors. Indeed, Hindawi claims that Tanium’s revenue has been growing 100 percent year over year, and that it’s seeing 150 percent “net renewals. When [customers] pay us $1 one year, they pay us $1.50 the next, not because we charge more for the same thing, but because we keep adding value” by introducing new features on a monthly basis.

Still, with Tanium’s previous secondary sales conducted so quietly, it’s easy to wonder why the company is today choosing to broadcast its newest stock sale.

More here.

New Fundings

99, a four-year-old, São Paulo, Brazil- based rival to Uber, has raised $100 million from SoftBank. The New York Times has more here.

Billtrust, a 16-year-old, Trenton, N.J.-based maker of cloud-based payment cycle management software, has raised $50 million in new funding led by Riverwood Capital Management. Payment Week has more here.

Casper, the three-year-old, New York-based mattress startup, has officially raised $75 million from Target, which reportedly explored buying Casper for $1 billion previously. Earlier investors Lerer Hippeau Ventures, IVP and NEA are also participating in the round, which could hold a final close with $100 million, says Recode. More here.

FS Card, a three-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based fintech startup whose credit card aims to become a welcome alternative to local payday lenders and to improve users’ FICO scores, has raised $8 million from Tricadia Capital.  More here.

Inflowz, a months-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based AI process optimization company, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding from Glilot Capital Partners. More here.

Mydream+, a two-year-old Beijing-based co-working space start-up, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by the venture firm JOY Capital, with participation from credit assessment start-up Wecash and the venture capital firm K2VC. China Money Network has more here.

OrphoMed, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based clinical stage biopharma company whose lead candidate aims to treat irritable bowel syndrome, has raised $39 million in Series A funding led by co-led by New Enterprise Associates and seed investor Takeda Ventures. Other earlier investors also joined the round, including Pappas Capital, Relativity Healthcare Partners, and the Mario Family Fund. More here.

Paragon One, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based online career coaching service and mentor marketplace that caters in part to Chinese college students who want to work abroad, has raised $1.9 million in seed funding from a long list of investors, including Y Combinator. (The company took part in the accelerator’s last batch of startups). More here.

Peloton, a five-year-old, New York-based maker of indoor cycling bikes and live-streamed fitness content, has raised $325 million in Series E funding at a $1.25 billion post-money valuation. Backers include Wellington Management, Fidelity Investments, Kleiner Perkins, True Ventures, Comcast NBCUniversal, GGV Capital, Balyasny and QuestMark Partners. Business Insider has more here.

Prumentum Group, a 1.5-year-old, Los Gatos, Ca.-based wealth management startup that’s partly automated (and partly not), has raised $25 million in Series A funding from family offices, including The Cynosure Group and Fremont Group. TechCrunch has more here.

Reali, a nearly two-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based real estate technology company, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Signia Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

The Yard, a six-year-old, New York-based coworking space company, has landed a $15 million credit line from IDB Bank to expand its number of coworking offerings. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Apax Partners is raising its first fund focused exclusively on tech investments, with plans to pursue both growth equity and buyout opportunities. Private Equity International has more here.

B Capital, an early-stage firm founded last year by Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin and Raj Ganguly, a prominent investor who worked previously with Saverin, has closed its debut fund with $180 million, shows an SEC filing. It was widely reported last year that the firm had closed on an initial $143.6 million in commitments.

Horsley Bridge Partners, a San Francisco firm that invests in venture capital and small buyout firms, is raising a $1.3 billion venture capital fund of funds, according to new SEC filing. This 12th fund somewhat quickly follows the firm’s 11th venture-focused fund of funds, which closed with $1.1 billion in 2015.

Saudi Telecom Company, or STC, a 19-year-old, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based publicly traded telecommunications company that offers landline, mobile, internet services, has announced the establishment of STV, its own venture capital fund, to which it plans to commit $500 million. The vehicle, which aims to invest in the region’s digital innovation ecosystem, is now reportedly the largest institutional technology venture capital fund in the Middle East. The Daily Mail has more here.

IPOs

Appian, a Reston, Va.-based software development platform that caters to enterprise customers, hit the public market this morning with a $75 million IPO, and its shares have climbed more than 34 percent since. CNBC has more here.

Smart Global Holdings, a Newark, Ca.-based maker of specialty memory solutions to the electronics industry, has raised $58 million in its IPO, pricing 5.3 million shares at $11 per share, below its originally proposed $13 to $15 per share range. Smart Global is owned by Silver Lake.

Exits

Red Hat has been making clear in recent years that it sees the cloud and containerization as a significant part of its future. Toward that end, it just acquired 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup Codenvy. Codenvy had raised $9 million from investors. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

Publicly traded ServiceNow has acquired Qlue, a 12-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based virtual messaging agent developer. Financial terms aren’t being disclosed. Silicon Valley Business Journal has more here.

People

Hamish Douglass, cofounder of the Magellan Financial Group, which manages more than $37 billion, thinks Uber has a less than 1 percent chance of surviving the next decade.

Former tech CEO Greg Gianforte is running as a Republican candidate in a hotly contested special House election; an audio tape of him roughing up a reporter may instead land him six months in jail.

After leaving his role at Uber as VP of Global Vehicle Programs in April, Sherif Marakby is back at Ford to lead its autonomous vehicles and electrifications program. More here.

Jobs

The global venture firm e.ventures is looking to hire a venture capital analyst. The job is in San Francisco.

Data

Index Ventures just published a 70-page step-by-step guide for companies looking to expand into Europe. You can check it out here.

Essential Reads

A new lawsuit is accusing Uber of fare fraud.

The tech industry is about to see its first big-name structure an ICO, or initial coin offering, when chat giant Kik introduces its own cryptocurrency via a token sale.

Now Google wants to monitor your real-world life, too.

Detours

The first thing to do when entering a hotel room.

Why your avocado toast costs so damn much. (H/T: Hunter Walk)

Good.

Retail Therapy

Go Gogoro.

Wednesday! Looks like we’re going to make it, everyone; hang in there.:)

(Quick reminder that investor Semil Shah takes the helm next week; he’ll be bringing you a rare series of LP interviews, so stay tuned.)

Top News in the A.M.

Unity Technologies, a 13-year-old, San Francisco-based company that says its software powers half of all new mobile games, has raised $400 million in fresh funding from the private equity firm Silver Lake. A “big chunk” of the round went toward purchasing the shares of longtime employees and earlier investors, CEO John Riccitiello told Bloomberg yesterday, explaining that he thinks it “makes sense to let employees buy cars.” More here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Dash: Dash is the fastest growing connected car platform, taking a lead in the $750 billion market for automotive data. And we are hiring! We have a variety of roles, in areas from machine learning and data science, to mobile development (Android and iPhone) and server-side, as well as business development and marketing. For more background on Dash, read the latest article in Techonomy. And if you believe you can help Dash make driving smarter and safer for everyone on the road, then connect with us today.

How to Stage and ICO (and Answers to Other Lingering Questions You Might Have)

Over the last month, it’s been hard to miss talk in the media and on social channels about initial coin offerings, or ICOs. What are they? Where did they suddenly come from? Who’s investing in them?

When the popular investing platform AngelList announced on Monday that it’s jumping into the business of making ICOs easier to coordinate, attention reached a fever pitch, prompting my colleague Alex Wilhelm to yesterday tackle the question, “WTF is an ICO?”

Because this editor was still confused (I’m not proud), I talked yesterday with Stan Miroshnik, a UC Berkeley grad with an MBA from MIT who today runs L.A.-based Argon Group, one of the first digital finance-focused investment banks. Miroshnik nicely answered an array of questions about ICOs, including how these things get staged, how companies establish a value for their offerings, and more. If you’re still trying to get a handle of this latest investing trend, too, read on.

ICOs are everywhere suddenly.  When was the first ICO staged?

You have to go back to around 2013, when Mastercoin, a protocol on top the bitcoin blockchain, raised $500,000. Then you had a number of other milestone token sales, such as Ethereum in 2014, then the DAO, or Decentralized Autonomous Organization, which was built on the Ethereum blockchain and that stored and transmitted Ether and Ethereum-based assets and that raised the equivalent of $150 million last year.

Momentum began to build after that, as a smaller group of [these offerings] grew in size, and by last fall, some companies were raising millions of dollars in minutes. That really kind of made people stand up and wonder if this is a new funding mechanism.

How many ICOs have there been to date?

There were 64 last year that collectively raised $103 million, excluding the DAO. So far this year, we’ve seen 25 offerings raise a bit more than $163 million, and we’re on track to see more than $210 million raised by the end of June.

The idea is that instead of raise traditional funding from a bank or investors, a company that sells tokens to its customers ensures those customers are better aligned with the company’s success. Is that accurate?

Yes. If I’m buying your token, I am incentivized to help the company’s product and ecosystem expand, bring in other users, maximize the tokens’ utility, and I’m hoping that demand for the token will increase and it may become more valuable. You’re creating the network and viral effect with these monetary incentives.

The term ICO is really a misnomer for what are token sales or token crowd sales.

So how do these ICOs work, practically speaking? 

There’s a cadence to these things. You do the prep-work and get your project to a natural technical milestone. Then you pre-announce when you’re planning to have a token sale, describing some of the terms, and telling a story of the project and its goals. You publish a white paper and disclosure and give people a chance to read it and comment. There are also usually threads that develop on Reddit, Bitcointalk, Slack, Telegram and elsewhere, where people actively debate the merits of the product. Then, on the landing page on the aforementioned date, there’s typically a tool that enables purchasers to acquire the tokens in exchange for bitcoin or ether.

These require digital wallets?

[The issuing company] requests [the investor’s] source wallet and the wallet where the token buyer wants to receive the token. Once the company collects the money, the sale is concluded, the smart contract is deployed, the tokens are issues via the smart contract, and delivered to the token purchasers.

How do companies establish a value for the tokens they’re offering?

More here.

New Fundings

BounceX, a five-year-old, New York-based marketing tech firm, has raised $31 million in funding led by Silicon Valley Bank. Business Insider has more here.

Bowery, a two-year-old, New York City-based commercial real estate appraisal firm, raised $1.75 million in seed funding led by Camber Creek, with participation from Fika Ventures, Corigin Ventures, LeFrak and Expansion Venture Capital. More here.

Bulletin, a two-year-old, New York-based shared retail space startup, has raised $2.2 million in seed funding, including from Flybridge Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Afore Ventures, and Y Combinator. Mashable has more here.

Bulletproof 360, a three-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based company that makes a coffee drink with butter, has raised $19 million in fresh funding led by CAVU Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backer Trinity Ventures. The company has now raised $28 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

Carpe Data, a year-old, Santa Barbara, Ca.-based startup that sells predictive scoring and data products to property and life insurance companies, has raised $6.6 million in Series A funding led by Aquiline Technology Growth. More here.

Chef’d, a four-year-old, El Segundo, Ca.-based home-delivery meal kit startup, has raised $10 million in Series B funding from Campbell Soup, with participation from online grocer Fresh Direct. Fortune has more here.

Circle Media, a three-year-old, Portland, Ore.-based company behind a device that helps parents enforce their home’s internet rules and restrictions, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Relay Ventures, with participation from an unnamed second investor. The company had previously raised $1.5 million in seed funding. TechCrunch has more here.

Coins, a three-year-old, Philippines-based blockchain-enabled mobile payments platform, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from Naspers Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Discuss.io, a five-year-old, Seattle-based video conferencing platform that enables brands and researchers to conduct in-depth interviews, including with focus groups, has raised roughly $5 million in Series A funding co-led by Unilever Ventures and Pereg Ventures. More here.

DocPlanner, a six-year-old, Warsaw, Poland-based health appointment booking platform, has raised €15 million ($17 million) in Series D funding led by ENERN Investments, with participation from Target Global and One Peak Partners. More here.

G2 Crowd, a five-year-old, Chicago-based business-to-business review platform, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Accel Partners, with participation from LinkedIn, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, G2 Crowd’s founders, and “key industry executives.” TechCrunch has more here.

Merlon Intelligence, an 11-month-old, San Francisco-based money laundering prevention platform, raised $7.65 million in seed funding led by Data Collective. (Merlon’s CEO, Bradford Cross, was formerly a partner with the venture firm.) TechCrunch has more here.

Meta SaaS, a year-old, Austin, Tex.-based maker of automated license auditing software, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding, led by serial entrepreneur Mark Cuban. VentureBeat has more here.

Hi, everyone. Hoping you have a happy Tuesday. We’re thinking of our friends in England today and actively trying to remind ourselves that the world has never been safer, despite the misguided dum-dums determined to tear it apart.

Top News in the A.M.

Uber said this morning that it mistakenly underpaid New York City drivers for the past 2.5 years, an error that will likely cost it tens of millions of dollars. It’s the second time in three months the ride-hailing company has acknowledged it deprived workers of their proper earnings. The WSJ has more here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Dash: As the leading open connected car platform, Dash‘s software and data is leveraged globally by enterprise partners – from OEMs and fleets, to insurers and smart cities, as well as highly novel use cases. For example, Dash was tasked by CBS Outdoor, a leader in out of home advertising, to gain insights into drivers who saw a set of billboards in Los Angeles. Dash’s data was able to track driver demographics and behavior, vehicle type, day part, trip origin and intent, as well as a host of actionable insights which would allow for highly targeted ad inventory on digital road signage. Read more: “Data is the new nitro.”

Benchmark Just Backed an ER Doctor Who Wants to Keep Stoned People Off the Road

Many people enjoy several careers over their lifetimes. Then there’s Mike Lynn, an emergency room doctor in Oakland, Calif.; a reserve deputy sheriff; a faculty member at UCSF; a former venture capitalist; and the founder of Hound Labs, a three-year-old, Oakland, Calif.-based company at work on a breathalyzer for marijuana. (Did we mention he also spent time at the White House, focused on counterterrorism?)

Lynn is still juggling several of those roles, but his top priority these days is perfecting his breathalyzer technology, which measures THC — the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis — to determine whether a marijuana user is impaired. The plan is to first sell the product to law enforcement agencies, then employers, then directly to people who get high but don’t want to drive (or be caught driving) while in a marijuana-induced haze.

Clearly, investors like what he’s dealing. Today, Hound Labs is announcing that Benchmark has invested $8.1 million in the company as its sole Series B investor, capital that brings the company’s total funding to $14 million. As part of the round, Hound Labs has also added Mitch Lasky to its board (he’s the same Benchmark partner on the board of Snap), as well as “Law & Order” creator Dick Wolf.

We talked yesterday with Lynn about his trajectory and what he’s building. Our chat has been edited for length.

Your background reads like that of a fictional character. How did this happen?

I can’t say I had a grand plan for everything. [Laughs.] [As an undergrad], I went on a Fulbright scholarship to Sri Lanka in the late ’80s to work on leprosy. I then went to med school; I did my emergency training in Oakland, and because I was still interested in infectious diseases, I volunteered as part of my emergency medical training to work at a missionary hospital near where Sudan and Uganda come together that’s very violent and poor. We were working with patients with hemorrhagic diseases and we didn’t know what they were; I remember flying through Frankfurt and on to San Francisco and thinking [about the potential consequences] if I were infected.

More here.

(Other) New Fundings

American Robotics, a year-old, Boston-based commercial farming drone system developer, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding, including from Brain Robotics Capital. Xconomy has more here.

Blispay, a three-year-old, Forest Hills, Md.-based startup that provides a financing program for small and midsized retailers to offer to their customers, has raised $12 million in funding from FirstMark Capital, Accomplice, NEA, Camden Partners, and F-Prime Capital. The Baltimore Sun has more here.

Embrace.io, a year-old, Culver City, Ca.-based company that’s aiming to help developers understand the performance of their apps, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by Eniac Ventures, with participation from The Chernin Group, Techstars Ventures, BoxGroup and others. TechCrunch has more here.

Fastly, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based content network delivery company, has raised $50 million in funding led by Sorenson Capital, with participation from Sapphire Ventures and earlier backers Iconiq Capital, Amplify Partners, August Capital, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, and IDG Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

Frichti, a 1.5-year-old, Paris-based food delivery platform, has raised €30 million ($33.7 million) in funding from Verlinvest and Felix Capital, with participation from earlier backers Alven Capital and Idinvest Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

GraniteShares, a year-old, New York City-based ETF company, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding from Bain Capital Ventures. More here.

KidPass, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based children’s activities discovery platform, has raised $5.1 million in Series A funding led by Javelin Venture Partners, with participation from CoVenture, Y Combinator, TIA Ventures, Bionic Fund, Cocoon Ignite Ventures, and FJ Labs. More here.

Long Game, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based personal finance platform that provides users with FDIC-insured bank accounts, as well as an app that invites them to play games and win cash prizes, has raised $4 million in seed funding from Collaborative Fund and Thrive Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Mavin, a four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based mobile app engagement tool developer, has raised $3 million in Series A funding, including from Mousse Partners and Montane Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Organogenesis, a 32-year-old, Canton, Ma.-based regenerative medicine developer (one of its FDA-approved products is used to treat venous leg ulcers), has secured a $20 million financing facility from Eastward Capital Partners, which provides venture debt and equity to tech companies. More here.

Outreach, a three-year-old, Seattle-based sales-focused enterprise communication platform, has raised $30 million in funding led by DFJ Growth, with participation from Four Rivers Group and earlier backers Mayfield, MHS Capital, Microsoft Ventures and Trinity Ventures. The company has now raised $60 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

PandaDoc, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based document automation software platform, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Rembrandt Venture Partners, with participation from Microsoft Ventures, HubSpot, EBRD, and Altos Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

R3, a three-year-old, New York-based consortium of financial firms that are looking to develop blockchain-based software, has raised $100 million in funding, including from Intel, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo. Fortune has more here.

Stanley Robotics, a two-year-old, Paris-based company at work on an automated valet parking service (for reals), has raised €3.6 million ($4 million) in funding, including from Elaia Partners, Idinvest Partners and Ville de Demain. More here.

Trove, a year-old, San Francisco-based self-storage startup, has raised $8 million in funding led by Greylock Partners, where Trove CEO Michael Pao worked last year as an entrepreneur in residence. (Before that, Pao had spent several years at Uber, working his way up from a general manager role to the company’s head of product.) TechCrunch has more here.

URWork, a two-year-old, Beijing, China-based co-working space operator, has raised $58 million at a $1.3 billion valuation, including from investors Sequoia Capital China, Sinovation Ventures and Tianhong Asset Management Co. Bloomberg has more here.

ViaCyte, an 18-year-old,  San Diego, Ca.-based regenerative medicine company at work on diabetes cell therapies, has raised $10 million in funding from W.L. Gore & Associates. Xconomy has more here.

VitalConnect, a six-year-old, Campbell, Ca.-based maker of wearable, medical-grade biosensor systems, has raised $33 million in Series C fund co-led by MVM Life Science Partners and Baxter Ventures. MassDevice has more here.

New Funds

The Japan-based venture firm Gree Ventures has closed its newest fund with the equivalent of $67 million in capital commitments. The team says the money will be used to fund seed- to Series A-stage startups in Japan, Southeast Asia, and India. Tech in Asia has more here.

Osage Venture Partners, a Bala Cynwyd, Pa.-based early-stage venture firm that focuses on business-to-business software companies on the East Coast, has closed its ninth fund with $90 million in capital commitments. More here.

New York-based Trail Mix Ventures is raising up to $15 million for its debut fund, which will focus on seed-stage, “future of living well” e-commerce opportunities, says Axios. More here.

Former Sequoia Capital China Managing Director Samantha Du is raising $150 million for a venture fund, Zai Venture Fund I, shows an SEC filing. More here.

Exits

Space Ape Games, a nearly five-year-old, London-based social and mobile games studio founded by alums from Playfish, Mind Candy and EA, says Supercell has acquired 62 percent of the company for $55.8 million as part of a long-term strategic partnership. TechCrunch has more here.

People

LeEco, a Chinese company that made a big splash in the U.S. last fall, is preparing for a round of layoffs that may happen as soon as Tuesday, says CNBC, whose sources claim the company may be letting go of as many as 440 of its 500 U.S. employees. More here.

Mark Zuckerberg: Yes, I’m on a listening tour. No, I’m really not running for public office.

Jobs

CSAA, formerly known as the California State Automobile Association, is looking to hire a managing partner to help oversee its corporate venture capital and labs unit. The job is in Walnut Creek, Ca.

Data

Law firm Fenwick & West just released its first quarter Silicon Valley Venture Capital Survey. The biggest takeaway: valuations are now level with their 13-year averages, after falling from crazy territory in 2015. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the use of investor-favorable deal terms, including multiple liquidation preferences, participation rights, and cumulative dividends, increased in the first quarter, too. More here.

Essential Reads

VCs aren’t so excited about what Softbank’s Vision Fund could do to valuations. There’s concern that SoftBank will ladle out more money than startups need or can absorb, too. More here.

At Google, an employee-run (and Google-sanctioned) email list is being used to track harassment and bias complaints. More here.

JD.com, one of China’s biggest online retailers is building a delivery drone that can carry 2,000 pounds of cargo. More here.

Detours

RIP, 007.

A look inside Facebook’s New York office.

What to do if there’s a terrorist attack while you’re traveling.

Retail Therapy

For $650,000, you can escape civilization with one thousand acres of Welsh countryside. It comes with a derelict shooting lodge to sweeten the deal.

Hello and happy Monday! Just a quick mention to readers: we’re taking a little time off next week after Memorial Day. In our absence, investor and frequent guest editor Semil Shah will be publishing a series of interviews with limited partners (the “money behind the money,” in other words — the investors who provide venture firms with the capital that they then plug into startups).

We’re super excited about these as LPs aren’t the world’s most talkative bunch yet they have prized insights into what’s what in the world of venture capital. Note, however, that we will *not* be publishing the newsletter in its entirety (no new funding announcements, essential reads, etc.). Please send complaints to @semil. (JK.)

More tomorrow.:)

Top News in the A.M.

Softbank’s Vision Fund — the largest tech fund in history — announced a first close on a whopping $93 billion in capital commitments on Saturday. Backers include Apple, Qualcomm, UAE-based Mubadala Investment Company, Foxconn, and Foxconn-owned Sharp. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is also a major investor, in a tie-up that demanded special privileges. Specifically, says the WSJ, Softbank had to agree to let the Saudis sit in on deal meetings. Softbank also had to grant veto rights for deals over a certain size. More here.

In a shake-up reflecting the pressures on the American auto industry, Ford Motor is replacing CEO Mark Fields with Jim Hackett, who oversees the Ford subsidiary that works on autonomous vehicles. The New York Times has more here.

Texas is close to overturning regulations so onerous that both Uber and Lyft pulled out of Austin last year.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Dash: Data is the new nitro (Techonomy): when the world’s leading automotive battery manufacturer wanted to develop a model to predict battery failure, they challenged Dash to use data from their connected car platform, and machine learning capabilities, to build the algorithm. Despite a decade of R&D, industry shop tools typically yield 60% accuracy, but within eight weeks, Dash’s algorithm delivered over 90% predictive power. To learn more about Dash’s enterprise offerings, contact us.

This Young Used-Car Marketplace is Now Valued at $2.8 Billion

Auto1 Group, a nearly five-year-old, Berlin-based used-car marketplace, just announced a huge round — €360 million ($404 million) in debt and equity financing that includes €75 million ($84.2 million) from Princeville Global, itself a Hong Kong-based investment firm with a second office in San Francisco.

Why the excitement over Auto1? Momentum, seemingly.

The company, which values and buys used cars from individuals, dealerships, and manufacturers, then sells them for a profit to other dealerships, says it facilitated 330,000 vehicle transactions on its platform last year. It also says it reached revenue of €1.5 billion. Indeed, in a press statement released late last week, cofounder and co-CEO Christian Bertermann said the company will use its new funding to capture what it hopes will soon be 10 percent of Europe’s used sales car market.

It has plenty of competition, of course. Among its rivals are the giant dealer groups Emil Frey and AVAG Holding, which are headquartered in Switzerland and Germany, respectively.

Plenty of used car marketplaces have also lost their thrust at some point, including Beepi, a direct-to-consumer platform founded in 2013 that was sold for parts earlier this year after raising $150 million from investors.

In fairness, Beepi was mismanaged, according to TechCrunch sources, including by paying “grossly high salaries.” Beepi, along with a spate of other used-car startups that includes Vroom, Shift, and Carvana, also featured a rather different business model than Auto1. Instead of selling cars directly to consumers via the Internet, Auto1 isn’t looking to skip the dealership; it’s betting consumers want to literally kick the tires.

More here.

(Other) New Fundings

Casper Sleep, the 3.5-year-old, New York-based mattress startup, is reportedly raising a new round of funding led by Target, which had offered $1 billion to buy the company but couldn’t or wouldn’t close the deal, according to Recode. When Casper closed its Series B round in 2015, it was valued at $550 million by its investors, which include Lerer Hippeau Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, and Institutional Venture Partners.  More here.

Cloudwise, a seven-year-old, Beijing-based company that makes cloud application performance management software, has raised $26 million in Series C funding led by CBC Capital, with participation from SIG and earlier investor Sequoia Partners China. More here.

CornerJob, a 2.5-year-old, Barcelona-based recruitment app that’s focused on low-skill, high-turnover jobs, has raised $19 million in Series C funding. Investors in the round include Northzone, Randstad Innovation Fund, e.ventures, Samaipata Ventures, Caixa Capital Risc, Sabadell Venture Capital, Mediaset Italia, Mediaset España, Groupe TF1, 5M Ventures, Media Digital Ventures, Augesco Ventures and TV Azteca. More here.

Echodyne, a three-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based maker of lightweight radar systems designed to bring autonomy to vehicles of every kind, has raised $29 million in Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates. Other participants in the round include Bill Gates, Madrona Venture Group, Vulcan Capital, Lux Capital, The Kresge Foundation and others. The company has now raised $44 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

EcoIntense, a 10-year-old, Berlin-based company that makes software for safety and sustainability compliance, raised €22 million ($24.7 million) in funding from One Peak Partners and funds managed by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital. Tech.eu has more here.

HubHaus, a 1.5-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based co-living startup that competes with Common and other shared-housing companies, has raised $1.4 million in funding led by General Catalyst Partners. More here.

Ledger Holdings, the three-year-old, New York-based parent company of bitcoin operations exchange operator LedgerX, has raised $11.4 million in Series B funding led by Miami International Holdings and Huiyin Blockchain Venture Investments. The round comes as LedgerX awaits final approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for its bitcoin options trading service. The company had previously raised $1.5 million in seed funding from investors, including GV and Lightspeed Venture Partners. CoinDesk has more here.

Lemonaid Health, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based online healthcare platform, has raised $11 million in Series A funding co-led by Novartis Venture Fund and Hikma Ventures, with participation from Quest Diagnostics, Correlation Ventures, Adaptive Healthcare Fund, Vega Ventures and 415 Ventures. More here.

Hi, happy Friday! We’re back home in San Francisco but running off to oversee some potato sack races this morning (for reals) so no column today. Hope you have a terrific weekend and that our East Coast readers find a way to stay cool today. See you Monday.:)

Top News in the A.M.

Uber has threatened to fire Anthony Levandowski, one of its top self-driving engineers, if he does not cooperate with an investigation into allegations that he stole trade secrets from Alphabet’s Waymo, his former employer, before joining Uber.

Facebook just made it easier for you to order food from your favorite restaurants directly within its app.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Dash: In the race for autonomy, auto OEMs and technology companies need increasing amounts of data to ‘feed the machine’ of their self-driving algorithms. Since 2009, Google’s cars have driven two million miles – Dash’s fleet produces a similar yield of data in under a month. With the world’s leading open connected car platform, Dash is working with smart cities, OEMs, tier 1 suppliers, insurers and more, leveraging our global telematics marketplace. To learn more about Dash’s enterprise offerings and our vision for autonomy, read “Data is the new nitro” on Techonomy.

New Fundings

Away, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based travel brand that sells carry-on luggage with internal chargers, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Global Founders Capital, with participation from earlier investors Comcast Ventures, Accel Partners and Forerunner Ventures. The latter three had also invested in Away’s seed and A rounds. TechCrunch has more here.

CreativeLive, a seven-year-old, Seattle, Wa.-based education platform, has raised $25 million in funding round of funding led by GSV Acceleration, with participation from REV Venture Partners, actor Jared Leto, and earlier backers Greylock Partners, Social Capital, Richard Branson and Creative Artists Agency. The company has now raised $58.8 million altogether. More here.

CSquared, a four-year-old, Nairobi, Kenya-based tech company that was spun out Google and is focused on deploying wholesale, carrier-neutral, open-access fiber optic networks across Sub-Saharan Africa, has raised $100 million in funding, including from International Finance Corp (IFC), Google, Convergence Partners, and Mitsui & Co. VentureBeat has more here.

Dor, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based provider of foot-traffic counting and analytics software, has raised $3.8 million in funding led by Zetta Venture Partners and Vertex Ventures. More here.

Iterum Therapeutics, a two-year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, has raised $65 million in Series B funding led by Arix Bioscience, with participation from new investors Advent Life Sciences, Domain Associates, Bay City Capital and Pivotal bioVenture Partners. Earlier investors also joined the round, including Frazier Healthcare Partners, Canaan Partners, Sofinnova Ventures and New Leaf Venture Partners. More here.

N2W Software, a five-year-old, West Palm Beach, Fla.-based provider of cloud-native data protection and disaster recovery for  AWS, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Insight Venture Partners. More here.

Numerated Growth Technologies, a new, Boston-based real-time commerce platform for banks that was incubated at Eastern Labs, the fintech innovation space at Eastern Bank, has raised $9 million in initial funding. The round was led by Cultivation Capital FinTech and Venrock, with participation from Eastern Bank, FIS, First Federal Lakewood, Hyperplane, and Bright FinTech. Built in Boston has more here.

OppSource, a nine-year-old, St. Paul, Mn.-based SaaS sales development platform, has raised $1.2 million in funding led by Bozeman, Montana-based Next Frontier Capital. The Minneapolis Star Tribune has more here.

Paytm, a seven-year-old, Noida, India-based digital payments startup, has officially raised $1.4 billion from SoftBank Group to maintain its market lead in Asia’s third-largest economy. Reuters has more here.

Upfront Healthcare, a two-year-old, Chicago-based company whose software helps doctors improve patient scheduling, has raised $5.6 million in Series A funding led by Nashville Capital Network, along with Hyde Park Venture Partners, Echo Health Ventures and Martin Ventures. The Chicago Tribune has more here.

Wandera, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile gateway for enterprise mobile security and data policy, has raised $27.5 million in equity and debt from Sapphire Ventures, with participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and 83North. The company has now raised $50 million altogether. More here.

New Funds

Menlo Ventures, an early-stage venture fund founded in 1976, has closed its newest early-stage fund with $450 million in commitments. Forbes has more here.

RM Global, a New York-based  life sciences investment banking firm, is expanding its presence in Israel with the launch of an Israel-focused biopharma venture fund that just held a first close with $30 million in commitments. More here.

The Japanese electronics company Sharp said yesterday that it would invest up to $1 billion in SoftBank Group’s planned $100 billion Vision fund. Taiwan’s Foxconn, the parent of Sharp, has also said it intends to invest in the fund. Business Insider has more here.

Exits

Spotify has acquired a four-year-old, Paris-based AI startup Niland for undisclosed terms. Niland offered an API-based product focused on providing more accurate search and recommendation options for music and raised undisclosed funding from French investor IT Translation. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Chelsea Clinton’s husband, Marc Mezvinsky, was named vice chairman at Social Capital, where he’ll be tackling government relations, among other things. Last year, Mezvinsky shut down Eaglevale Partners, the hedge fund he founded in 2011. Bloomberg has more here.

Spotify has hired longtime M&A specialist Sheila Spence to help it buy other companies. Recode has more here.

America’s richest self-made women, in Forbes.

Despite its scandals, people still really want to work at Uber, apparently.

Jobs

Zetta Venture Partners is looking to hire an associate. The job is in San Francisco. Write to work@zettavp.com.

Data

It’s been a year since U.S. rules went into effect enabling anyone to buy a slice of a startup. Turns out, few are interested.

Essential Reads

Uber’s future may rely on predicting how much you’re willing to pay.

Musical.ly, an app for creating and sharing personal music videos, is in talks with media companies including Viacom and NBCUniversal to make original show programming, set to launch this summer, reports Bloomberg.

Detours

There’s a right way and a wrong way to do empathy.

Behind the myth that you only use 10 percent of your brain.

“In his last act, he gets to leave, and we are stuck with Donald Trump, who he created.”

Retail Therapy

Bar box, for when you want to play Don Draper.

Hi, everyone. After a very fun Disrupt event (kudos to our colleagues over at TechCrunch), we’re jumping on a plane this morning, so please excuse the hyper-abbreviated newsletter.

Also! If you’re an AngelList junkie and you’d like to learn more about its plans to create venture funds on its platform; what it’s planning for its acquired property Product Hunt; as well as how the company plans to exit, maybe, some day, you can check out our sit-down yesterday with AngelList cofounder Naval Ravikant.

See you back here tomorrow:)

Top News in the A.M.

European Union antitrust regulators fined Facebook $122 million this mornign for providing misleading information during a vetting of its deal to acquire messaging service WhatsApp in 2014. Reuters has more here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Dash: When Norway’s leading value retailer was launching an innovative new insurance portfolio, they partnered with Dash to develop a first-in-market usage-based insurance (UBI) product for drivers. Building on our connected car platform, Chassis, Dash was able to go from concept to launch in six months. Dash’s data allowed the underwriter to model risk algorithms, while our capabilities provided seamless integration between hardware, software and automotive architectures. To learn more about Dash’s enterprise offerings and data marketplace, read “Data is the new nitro” on Techonomy.

A Simple Argument for Co-Living: People Need People

People, people who need people, are the luckiest people in the world.

So go the lyrics of the famous Barbra Streisand song. It was also a theme at a future of cities panel at Disrupt today, where the discussion came back and time again to community as a competitive advantage — particularly when it comes to startups that are trying to shake up the long-staid but quickly evolving $200 trillion real estate industry.

Featuring  Brad Hargreaves, the CEO of the co-living startup called Common; Shruti Merchant, the CEO of a the co-living startup HubHaus that more recently launched in Mountain View, Ca.; and Stonly Baptiste, an investor with a New York-based seed-stage venture firm Urban Us that’s focused on addressing climate change through smarter cities, all three argued the business case for renting rooms at a premium in exchange for amenities that were once found only at hotels. (Think furnishings, weekly cleanings, and commercial-grade WiFi among them.)

Common and HubHaus, for example, are part of a growing spate of companies that don’t acquire buildings but instead act as property managers — Common in New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.; and HubHaus in a dozen California cities.

Merchant said her startup was born of her own experience, living in a seven-bedroom house that had so much energy, an eighth tenant asked to live in the garage.

Hargreaves, who’d earlier cofounded the adult education school General Assembly, said he started Common because he knew that from students and instructors that the housing supply in urban centers is a problem poised to grow even more extreme.

Baptiste, meanwhile, said he has backed another different community home startup, Starcity, in keeping with his interest in backing founders looking to disrupt transportation, built environments, utilities, and other massive industries that are ripe for tech-driven changes.

The three painted a rosy picture of the benefits of co-living — community being first and foremost, given that it’s become a scarce commodity in today’s day and age. Yet moderator Jon Shieber pushed back several times, asking if the lifestyle being sold is really for everyone. How much does the average tenant make in salary, he asked, and do the companies worry that they’re burnishing the already obnoxious stereotype of the wealthy techie?

More here.

New Fundings

Brit + Co, a 5.5-year-old, San Francisco-based digital content business that caters to women, has raised a fresh $15 million in funding led by Verizon Ventures. The company had previously raised $27 million in funding from Intel Capital, Lerer Hippeau, Marissa Mayer and others. More here.

Cheddar, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based live-streamed financial and tech video news site aimed at millennials, has raised $19 million at an $85 million post-money valuation, says Axios. Raine Ventures led the round and was joined by AT&T, Amazon, Altice USA, the New York Stock Exchange, Broadway Video Ventures and earlier investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Comcast Ventures and Ribbit Capital. More here.

The Farmer’s Dog, a two-year-old, Brooklyn, NY-based pet food startup, has raised $8.1 million in Series A fundin led by Shasta Ventures, with participation from earlier investors Forerunner Ventures, Collaborative Fund and SV Angel. More here.

Qupital, a one-year-old Hong Kong-based startup that addresses cash flow issues for SMEs, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by the Hong Kong-London firm MindWorks Ventures and the $130 million Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Slice, a seven-year-old, New York-based pizza-ordering app(?), has raised $15 million in Series B funding. The round was led by GGV Capital, with participation from existing investor Primary Ventures and brings the company’s total funding to $20 million. More here.

Hi, everyone! It’s our last full day in New York, and we’re gearing up to interview AngelList cofounder Naval Ravikant on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt. We’ll be making our way back to San Francisco beginning fairly early tomorrow, but we’ll get something out to you — condensed as it might be. More soon.

Top News in the A.M.

Google is kicking off its annual I/O conference today. You can check out its live stream here.

The market isn’t liking the Trump-Comey turmoil.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Dash: Dash is the world’s leading open connected car platform. When the City of New York wanted to roll out a safe driver initiative, Drive Smart, they partnered with Dash, in conjunction with AllState and the Department of Transportation. By leveraging Dash’s fleet of users, award-winning software, and driver behavior algorithms, the city was able to deliver on its bold vision. The program rewarded safe drivers with insurance discounts, while providing the city with a real-time telematics for the Mayor’s Vision Zero agenda. Read more at Techonomy: “Data is the new nitro.”

Brava Health Braves the Fickle Kitchen Device Market, Bolstered by Fresh Funding

Customers are notoriously fickle when it comes to sophisticated kitchen devices. On the one hand, there’s undoubtedly a market for items that are deemed useful and priced appropriately. Consider, for example, the Anova Precision Cooker, a $145 WiFi- and Bluetooth-enabled device that managed to get its parent company sold to the appliance giant Electrolux in February for $250 million.

On the other, make your device too complicated and expensive, and you get mocked. Yes, Juicero, we’re talking to you.

Brava, a stealth-mode IoT company with plans to create a suite of domestic hardware and software products, would seem to face the same risk. But investors clearly like what it’s cooking up. Indeed, the company — which last year raised $12 million in Series A funding led by the venture firm True Ventures — just raised an undisclosed amount of additional funding that more than doubles that amount.

TPG Growth led the round. Additional investors in the financing include The Rise Fund (which is TPG’s social impact fund), Lightspeed Venture Partners, Next Coast Ventures, Lead Edge Capital, DGNL Ventures, and earlier investors. Some of these include Chris Anderson, who runs the TED conference; Rob Reid, founder of the Rhapsody music service; and Cowboy Ventures’s founder Aileen Lee.

Brava, which now employs 46 people in Redwood City, Ca., is headed by CEO John Pleasants, who has led a number of digital media companies over the last couple of decades, including as co-president of Disney Interactive Media Group, COO of Electronic Arts, CEO of Ticketmaster, and most recently as an EVP at Samsung.

More here.

New Fundings

Appear Here, a four-year-old, London-based marketplace for short-term retail space, has raised $12 million in Series B funding. Octopus Ventures led the round, with participation from Simon Venture Group and earlier backers Balderton, MMC, Meyer Bergman and Playfair Capital. It brings total funding for the company to $21.4 million, according to CrunchBase. TechCrunch has more here.

Converus, a 3.6-year-old, Lehi, Utah, based company whose EyeDetect technology claims to detect deception by scanning the human eye in a non-invasive manner, has raised $4.4 million from 21 investors, shows a new SEC filing. Motherboard wrote an interesting piece about the company last year.

CrowdStrike, a six-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based digital security specialist that aided the D.N.C. in its response to perceived interference by Russia, has raised $100 million in Series D funding funding led by earlier backer Accel Partners. Other participants in the round include CapitalG, Warburg Pincus, March Capital Partners and Telstra. The round, which pegs the company’s valuation at north of $1 billion, brings its total funding to $256 million. The New York Times has more here.

Cue, a seven-year-old, San Diego-based developer of molecular-level, self-tracking health devices, has raised $15.5 million in debt funding, shows a new SEC filing. Earlier investors in the company include Dentsu Ventures, Sherpa Ventures, Leonardo DiCaprio and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, among others. More here.

Fetchr, a five-year-old, Dubai-based delivery business and consumer tech app that means to disrupt shipping by eliminating the need for a traditional address, has raised $41 million in Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates. Other investors in the round include Nokia Growth Partners, Raed Ventures, Iliad Partners, BECO Capital, YBA Kanoo, Venture Souq and Swicorp. More here.

JobTeaser, a nine-year-old, Paris, France-based recruitment platform that’s integrated into more than 200 European universities, has raised €15 million ($16.7 million) in funding led by Alven Capital, with participation from IDinvest and Korelya Capital. More here.

MoBerries, a 1.5-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based AI-driven HR network, has raised €1.8 million (roughly $2 million) in funding. Investors included 42CAP, High-Tech Gründerfonds, Littlerock and several angel investors. More here.

Mode Analytics, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based collaborative analytics platform that aims to help companies improve their ability to use data effectively across the organization, has raised $13 million in Series B funding led by REV Venture Partners. More here.

Neighborly, a two-year old marketplace that connects cities with investors to fund civic projects like schools, parks, and bridges, has raised $25 million in additional funding co-led by 8VC and Emerson Collective. Existing investors including Sound Ventures, Maven Ventures, Bee Partners, and Stanford University also participated in the funding. The company has now raised $35 million altogether. Fortune has more here.

Social Native, a 2.5-year-old, Beverly Hills, Ca.-based marketing and ad tech company, has raised $6.9 million in funding, shows an SEC filing that lists an $8.3 million target. The filing lists 19 investors. The company had previously raised seed funding, including from serial entrepreneur Richard Wolpert and TenOneTen Ventures, shows Crunchbase. More here.

Telr, a four-year-old, Singapore-based payment gateway startup, has raised $3 million in Series B funding from Innovations East. Inc42 has more here.

Tiqets, a three-year-old, Amsterdam-based smartphone app for buying event and museum tickets, has raised $17 million in Series B funding led by HPE Growth Capital. Tech.eu has more here.

New Funds

Honeywell has launched a $100 million corporate venture fund focused on early-stage companies that are a strategic fit for the tech and manufacturing giant. More here.

Exits

Addepar, an eight-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based fintech platform for the investment management market, has acquired AltX, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based intelligence platform that caters to hedge funds. No financial terms were disclosed. Addepar has raised over $60 million in VC funding from firms like Valor Equity Partners and Formation8. AltX had raised at least $20 million from investors, including from Wells Fargo. Financial Planning has more here.

Synlogic, a three-year-old, venture-backed Cambridge, Ma.-based biotech company that’s developing modified bacteria to use as medicine, has sewn up a reverse merger with the shell of a former biotech company called Mirna Therapeutics, that was founded ten years ago in Austin, Tex., and taken public in 2015.  Synlogic had raised just more than $116 million, shows Crunchbase. Xconomy  has more here.

People

Facebook‘s most powerful employees, as seen through a birthday photo.

Elon Musk with the puns on Twitter last night: “What I love about The Boring Company are the low expectations. Nowhere to go but down.”

Twitter cofounder Biz Stone is back at the company after a six-year hiatus.

Jobs

FundersClub, the equity crowdfunding platform, is looking to bring aboard a venture intern from mid-June through August. The job is in San Francisco.

The venture firm Seven Peaks Ventures is also looking for a summer intern. The job is in Bend, Ore.

The Nike Digital Innovation team is looking to hire an innovation director. The job is in Beaverton, Ore.

RingCentral, the publicly traded cloud communications company, is looking to hire a VP of corporate development. The job is in Belmont, Ca.

Essential Reads

Amazon is hiring people to help it break into the multi-billion dollar pharmacy market.

The not-so-secret code that powers robots around the globe.

Bloop. San Francisco is considering legislation that would ban those sidewalk delivery robots.

Detours

The 15 films everyone will be talking about at Cannes.

Behind-the-scenes video of Spicey (is better than the actual SNL sketch).

Chris Rock insists that he can still bomb.

Retail Therapy

Juicero, but for tap water.

Hi, everyone! Hope your Tuesday is off to a great start.

We’re still here at Disrupt in New York, where yesterday we interviewed WeWork CEO Adam Neumann about the company’s funding and valuation (along with its reported plans to stage a big and somewhat controversial secondary sale). You can check it out here.

There’s also a lot worth watching today; you can find the live stream here.

Top News in the A.M.

Snap is snapping back from the nosedive its share price took last week. One big factor: the revelation, made yesterday in an SEC filing, that  Fidelity Management & Research, Coatue Management, and Temasek Holdings are among its newer shareholders. Bloomberg has more here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Dash: According to a recent McKinsey study, the market for automotive data will be worth $750 billion by 2030. As the world’s leading open connected car platform, Dash has a front row seat to driving data from over 150 countries. This data gave Dash early insight into potential issues with Volkswagen’s reported fuel efficiency, leading Ford to reach out to Dash to validate its EPA ratings for the real-world performance of its fleet, as well as competitive benchmarking. To learn more about Dash’s enterprise automotive data marketplace, read “Data is the new nitro” on Techonomy.

AngelList Just Launched Full-Fledged Venture Funds

According to AngelList, the startup funding and recruiting platform, the number of companies being minted continues to far exceed the number of funds that can support them at the Series A and even the seed stage. Meanwhile, angel investors don’t necessarily have enough capital, particularly those who may be respected operators but haven’t yet enjoyed a major liquidity event yet, meaning their wealth continues to be tied up in their companies.

That’s the argument for a new twist on AngelList: Angel Funds, or venture funds for angel investors who will be wholly supported by AngelList on the backend, as well as provided $35 million in funding from AngelList for the initiative, via a second Maiden Lane fund. (The firm’s first Maiden Lane fund was a $25 million vehicle that was similarly created to provide some money to active angels on the platform.)

Not just anyone can create a fund on AngelList — yet. The firm has for a couple of years been quietly testing the idea with investors who AngelList has already tracked and supported and it remains focused on them, seemingly. Indeed, a new spate of so-called deal leads includes serial entrepreneur Rick Marini; social entrepreneur Shiza Shahid; and Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover. (AngelList acquired Product Hunt last year for a reported $20 million and continues to operate it independently for now.)

Either way, creating full-fledged funds is seemingly a natural development for AngelList, which in late 2013 introduced its now-popular Syndicates program that allows angel investors to gather capital from fellow investors and plug it into companies on a deal-by-deal basis.

More here.

New Fundings

Airy3D, a two-year-old, Montreal, Quebec-based 3D computer vision company, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding co-led by CRCM Ventures and R7 Partners. Other participants in the round include WI Harper Group, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, Nautilus Venture Partners and angel investors affiliates of TandemLaunch, a Montreal-based incubator that spun out Airy3D. FinSMEs has more here.

Atavium, year-old, Minnetonka, Mn.-based data management company, has raised $8.65 million in Series A funding co-led by Rally Ventures and Grotech Ventures, with participation from Origin Ventures, Correlation Ventures, Brightstone Venture Capital and G-Bar Ventures.

Genoa Pharmaceuticals, a six-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based biopharmaceutical company, has raised $62 million in Series A funding co-led by F-Prime Capital Partners and Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, with participation from Novo AS, RiverVest Venture Partners, and TPG Biotech. More here.

GrandCanals, a three-year-old, Los Gatos, Ca.-based fulfillment analytics platform, has raised $4.8 million in Series A funding co-led by Cloud Apps Capital Partners and AllMobile Fund. SiliconAngle has more here.

Karamba Security, a two-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based autonomous vehicles cybersecurity provider, has raised $12 million in Series B funding from earlier backers YL Ventures and Fontinalis Partners, with participation from GlenRock Israel, Paladin Capital Group, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, Presidio Ventures, and Asgent. TechCrunch has more here.

LevelUp, a nine-year-old Boston-based open mobile payments network, raised $50 million in funding, including from JPMorgan Chase, US Boston and CentroCredit Bank. CNBC has more here.

Nexla, a year-old, Millbrae, Ca.-based startup that aims to monitor, adapt, and securely move data between companies, has raised $3.5 million in funding led by Blumberg Capital, with participation from Storm Ventures, Engineering Capital and Correlation Ventures. More here.

Nymi, a six-year-old, Toronto, Ontario-based company whose wearable wrist band uses a wearer’s cardiac rhythm as a biometric identifier, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by GII Tech, with participation from earlier backers Relay Ventures and Ignition Partners. We’d talked with company’s president a couple of years ago to better understand what it’s doing. More on the new round here.

Oddup, a two-year-old, Hong Kong-based startup research platform, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by The Times Group, with participation from Moneta Ventures, White Capital, and previous investors 500 Startups and Click Ventures. DealStreetAsia has more here.

OpenGov, a five-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based maker of government performance management technology, has raised $30 million in Series C funding by the Emerson Collective, a social impact organization established by Laurene Powell Jobs. OpenGov has now raised more than $75 million altogether. We talked a couple of weeks ago with CEO Zac Bookman about the lift the company has seen since President Trump was elected to office. More here.

OpenInvest, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based social impact investing platform, raised $3.25 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Abstract Ventures, Wireframe Ventures and SV2. More here.

Razer, a 12-year-old, San Francisco-based gaming company, has raised between $50 million and $100 million from Horizons Ventures in a deal that values the company at close to $2 billion, says TechCrunch. More here.

Symphony, a 2.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based secure messaging app that counts 15 of the world’s biggest banks among its investors and 200,000 paying customers, has raised $63 million in new funding and according to TechCrunch sources, is now valued at more than $1 billion. French bank BNP Paribas led the round, with a majority of earlier shareholders participating, says the company. It has raised $229 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Talent.io, a two-year-old, Paris-based tech hire recruitment platform, has raised $8.8 million from earlier backers Alven Capital and Ventech. TechCrunch has more here.

Happy Monday, everyone! Hope you had a terrific weekend.

We’re just off the stage at TechCrunch’s Disrupt event in New York, where we chatted with investors Stuart Ellman of RRE Ventures, Maha Ibrahim of Canaan Partners, and Amish Jani of FirstMark Capital. (Thank you, each of you.) We touched on a lot of things — from how the Trump administration impacts their work, to sexism in the startup industry, to what happens if Uber fails or falls short of expectations. You can check out our sit-down here.

For a live-stream of the conference, click here.

More tomorrow!:)

Top News in the A.M.

The components of the global cyberattack that seized hundreds of thousands of computer systems last week may be more complex than originally believed, a Trump administration official said yesterday, and experts warn that the effects of the malicious software could linger for some time. In the New York Times.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is being brought to you this week by Dash: Dash is pioneering a data-driven approach to mobility and telematics, optimizing transportation industry operations. Its partners include companies like Ford, Johnson Controls and the Department of Transportation, as well as some of the world’s leading insurance companies. Its consumer products lead the industry, installed by nearly 400,000 drivers in 150 countries and winning awards from the White House and the Department of Energy. Read more: “Data is the new nitro.”

New Fundings

Akonni Biosystems, a 14-year-old, Frederick, Md.-based molecular diagnostics company that develops and manufactures advanced MDx systems, has raised $4 million in bridge financing from earlier investors, which includes the Maryland Venture Fund. More here.

BiomX, a two-year-old, Ness Ziona, Israel-based microbiome therapeutics company, has raised $24 million in Series A funding led by OrbiMed, Johnson & Johnson Innovation and Takeda Ventures, with participation from Seventure Partners, MiraeAsset, SBI Japan-Israel Innovation Fund and other European investors. More here.

Invenia, an 11-year-old, Winnipeg, Manitoba-based machine learning platform that optimizes power grids and reduces harmful emissions, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Zetta Venture Partners. More here.

Mintigo, an eight-year-old San Mateo, Ca.-based enterprise AI platform for marketing and sales, has raised $10 million in funding from Glilot Capital Partners, Sequoia Capital IL, Adams Street Partners, Giza Venture Capital, Maverick Ventures and Vintage Investment Partners. More here.

Protect My Car, a 12-year-old, Clearwater, Fla.-based provider of extended warranty service contracts for vehicles, has raised $7 million in Series C funding from Great White Shark Opportunity Fund. More here.

Scientist.com, a 10-year-od, San Diego, Ca.-based marketplace for outsourced research, has raised $24 million in funding co-led by Boston-based Leerink Transformation Partners and 5AM Ventures. Other participants include Heritage Provider Network, Bootstrap Ventures and Jack Giarraputo. More here.

Terminus, a 2.5-year-old Atlanta, Ga.-based account-based marketing platform, has raised $10.3 million in Series B funding co-led by Atlanta Ventures and Edison Partners, with participation from earlier backers Hyde Park Venture Partners, Arthur Ventures, and Knoll Ventures, and new strategic investors HubSpot, High Alpha, Vine St. Ventures, and individual investors. More here.

WinView, a three-year-old, San Francisco and New York based second-screen live TV sports prediction platform, has raised $12 million in Series B funding. Backers include Graham Holdings Company, Discovery Communications, Ted Leonsis’ Monumental Sports & Entertainment, and LionTree Partners. More here.

New Funds

We told you roughly a year ago that Trae Vassallo, a longtime partner at Kleiner Perkins, who left the firm in 2014, was teaming up with Neil Sequeria, a longtime partner at General Catalyst Partners who left the firm in the fall of 2015. Now, it looks they’re about to take the wraps off their new, early-stage, Palo Alto, Ca.-based venture firm, Defy.vc. While my old colleague Dan Primack had reported long ago that the duo was targeting $150 million, an SEC filing finally surfaced late last week, showing a $125 million target. You can get in touch with them here to learn more.

Silk Ventures, a 1.5-year-old, London-based venture firm that began life as a digital accelerator, has closed its debut fund with $500 million, thanks in part to financial backing from the Chinese government. The firm, which also has offices in Menlo Park, Ca., and Shenzhen, China, is reportedly focused on Series A stage startups, as well as more mature companies, and will center much of its attention on robotics and medtech companies. TechCrunch has more here.

IPOs

QuantGroup, a financial technology company backed by Chinese movie stars, is planning a U.S. IPO that could raise about $200 million, according to Bloomberg, which notes that deal would add to the $1.9 billion in U.S. IPOs from Chinese companies in the past 12 months. QuantGroup operates xyqb.com, which generates and estimates credit ratings using user-provided information, internet and traditional data. More here.

Exits

Apple has paid $200 million for Lattice Data, a company that applies an AI enabled inference engine to take unstructured, “dark” data and turn it into structured (and more usable) information, reports TechCrunch. The deal was closed a couple of weeks ago, says its source, and about 20 engineers have joined the larger company. More here.

People

A judge has ruled that Uber can continue working on its autonomous vehicle technology, but also that former Google employee and Otto founder Anthony Levandowski can no longer work on any projects that involve LiDAR technology. TechCrunch has more here.

Eighteen months after joining General Catalyst as a general partner, Phil Libin, who was previously CEO of Evernote, is no longer with the firm. Instead, Libin is heading up a new “studio” called All Turtles that will back entrepreneurs working in artificial intelligence, reports the Financial Times.

Retired MLB great Derek Jeter on why he started The Player’s Tribune.

Data

On the heels of a disappointing first earnings report for Snap, a new report indicates the company’s trouble attracting new users deepened at the start of the second quarter. According to Sensor Tower’s Store Intelligence data, downloads of Snapchat in April 2017 fell about 16 percent year-over-year on the App Store and Google Play combined. VentureBeat has the story here.

Essential Reads

Why Microsoft may be to blame for the largest ransomeware attacks in internet history.

Seattleites don’t want their city to become like San Francisco, says The Economist.

Detours

How to calculate how fast a plane is flying — while you’re on it.

The ridiculous Not Hotdog app from “Silicon Valley” is real.

Everything we know so far about how Facebook impacts your happiness.

Retail Therapy

New types of pink to drink this summer. Yummers.