Friday! Pheeeww. Hope you have a wonderful summer weekend, everyone!

Top News in the A.M.

Benchmark, a major Uber shareholder, filed a lawsuit against recently ousted CEO Travis Kalanick yesterday in a remarkable move that may be unprecedented in Silicon Valley. Axios has the full lawsuit here. We’ve got some thoughts of our own below.

Shares of Snap have plunged 13 percent so far today —  to a new low — after the company reported worse-than-expected second quarter results. More here.

SoundCloud just closed the necessary funding round to keep the struggling music service afloat. More here.

Sponsored By . . .

Pollen VC addresses a universal pain point for mobile app and game developers – growth-crushing payment delays in a market where engaged users are notoriously short-lived. Long payment delays massively hinder your momentum, so why wait 2-3 months for payment when you could be funded on-demand? Pollen works with live apps that are earning $$$ through the app stores or via ads so that we can focus our expertise on what we do best – helping apps rapidly scale through a combination of growth financing and hands-on advisory. Try our robust LTV forecasting tool and visualize your potential growth, then head over to Pollen.VC to see how flexible capital can help you achieve rapid scale.

What Was Benchmark Thinking?

Yesterday, Benchmark, the powerful venture firm and a major Uber shareholder, filed a lawsuit against the company’s recently ousted CEO Travis Kalanick in a remarkable move. The suit seeks to remove Kalanick from the board, while eliminating three additional board positions that it says Kalanick sought (and won) approval for last year, partly by withholding crucial information from the board.

The central issue: When Kalanick resigned as CEO, he also resigned from his board seat, but he quickly re-appointed himself to one of those outstanding and “fraudulently procured” seats, says Benchmark. It now alleges that Kalanick ultimately hopes to “pack the board to facilitate his desired re-appointment as Uber’s CEO,” and it aims to stop that maneuver.

The suit casts Kalanick in a highly unflattering light yet again. But if I were an investor in Benchmark’s funds, I’d be just as furious with the venture firm. What was Benchmark thinking, giving Kalanick three new board seats and carte blanche to do with them whatever he liked? It’s beyond belief that the firm wasn’t acutely aware of Kalanick’s management style a year ago when it agreed to this crummy deal. It had front row seats into what was happening at the company — not to mention unfettered access to the endless media coverage that Uber’s controversial corporate culture has received since its initial launch in San Francisco. A February blog post by former Uber engineer Susan Fowler may have set off the chain of events leading to this moment, but nothing new transpired between last year and this year other than intensified media scrutiny combined with growing public outrage.

“It feels a little to me like they painted themselves into a corner, and now they’re crying about it,” says succession expert Jeff Cohn of Benchmark’s lawsuit. “It was poor and unusual governance practice, and now it’s come back to bite them.” Adds Cohn, “There was always doubt around Kalanick’s style.”

We reached out to Benchmark earlier this morning. The firm hasn’t responded to our request as of this writing.

Despite the unprecedented nature of the suit — Benchmark has been sued in the past by a former portfolio company but has never sued one of them, as far as we know — it isn’t surprising, looking back at the last decade or so.

More here.

New Fundings

AMP Americas, a six-year-old, Chicago-based company that turns cow manure into trucking fuel, has raised $47 million in funding from EIV Capital. The Chicago Tribune has more here.

Coinbase, the five-year-old, San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange, has raised $100 million in Series D funding at a $1.5 billion pre-money valuation led by Institutional Venture Partners. Other participants in the round include Spark Capital, Greylock Partners, Battery Ventures, Section 32 and Draper Associates. TechCrunch has more here.

Flyspaces, a two-year-old, Manila, Phillippines-based startup operating as a kind of Airbnb for office space rentals, has raised $2.1 million from Net Group co-president Raymond Rufin, along with other, unnamed players in the retail space. TechCrunch has more here.

Toutiao, a five-year-old, Beijing-based Chinese news aggregator, is reportedly raising around $2 billion at a valuation north of $20 billion, possibly led by General Atlantic. The company’s earlier backers include Sequoia Capital China and CCB International. Reuters has more here.

New Funds

HighBar Partners, a 22-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based venture firm that was originally cofounded by Sun Microsystems co-founders Bill Joy and Andy Bechtolsheim, and which focuses on SaaS, enterprise software and infrastructure software, has closed its third fund with $208 million in capital commitments. More here.

Exits

India-based messaging app Hike has acquired Creo, a three-year-old, Bangalore-based hardware company that previously released smartphones, streaming devices and an operating system. According to Crunchbase, Creo had raised $3 million from investors, including Sequoia Capital, BEENEXT, and India Quotient. Hike has meanwhile raised at least $261 million, including from Tiger Global Management. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. More here.

PayPal is acquiring Swift Financial, a 12-year-old, Wilmington, Del.-based company that extends credit to small businesses through loans and advances. No financial terms were disclosed. Swift Financial raised an undisclosed amount of venture funding, including from Village Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures. More here.

WeWork has acquired Unomy, a five-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based maker of sales and marketing intelligence software, for undisclosed terms. According to Crunchbase, Unomy had raised more than $2.4 million in seed funding, including from Janvest Capital Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Uber SVP of Global Operations Ryan Graves will be leaving that full-time senior leadership role in the middle of September to “focus” on his role as a director of Uber’s board. More here.

In the last couple of days, a story lifted from Ashlee Vance’s biography of Elon Musk has been making the rounds on the internet, claiming that Musk fired his assistant of 12 years when she wanted a raise. Musk is now saying it’s “total nonsense.” More here.

Essential Reads

Google CEO Sundar Pichai canceled a much-anticipated meeting to talk about gender issues yesterday after some of its employees expressed concern over online harassment they had begun to receive.

Amazon is reportedly exploring a refrigeration-free prepared-meal technology for home delivery.

Detours

The death and life of helicopter commuting.

The key to day drinking like a pro.

Nine scandalous royal romances you may have forgotten about!

Retail Therapy

Eek.

Happy Thursday, everyone! We’re still on our work-ation, which we could more or less call “working odd hours in a new location every week.” In the meantime, we want to thank our friend and investor, Semil Shah, who offered to help us with SVC by interviewing founders and VCs about how they raised their first Series A rounds and first funds.

For today’s column, Semil talks with Paul Martino, cofounder of Bullpen Capital where, full disclosure, he was once a paid consultant. It’s worth checking out; Martino is fairly candid about LP priorities that you might not expect.

Top News in the A.M.

Facebook today launched a new home for original video content produced exclusively for it by partners; they’ll earn 55 percent of ad revenue while Facebook keeps 45 percent.

Sponsored By . . .

Pollen VC addresses a universal pain point for mobile app and game developers – growth-crushing payment delays in a market where engaged users are notoriously short-lived. Long payment delays massively hinder your momentum, so why wait 2-3 months for payment when you could be funded on-demand? Pollen works with live apps that are earning $$$ through the app stores or via ads so that we can focus our expertise on what we do best – helping apps rapidly scale through a combination of growth financing and hands-on advisory. Try our robust LTV forecasting tool and visualize your potential growth, then head over to Pollen.VC to see how flexible capital can help you achieve rapid scale.

How I Raised It: Bullpen’s Paul Martino on How to Close a Fund

By Semil Shah

Paul Martino is a founder and general partner at Bullpen Capital, a San Francisco-based, early-stage, post-seed venture fund investing in technology companies that have already been funded by super-angels and institutional seed funds. Prior to forming Bullpen, Paul Martino was the CEO of Aggregate Knowledge and, before that, the CTO of Tribe. We talked with him recently to learn more about how Bullpen got off the ground.

How many LP meetings did it take to raise Bullpen’s first fund, and what was its initial target?

It took around 200 LP meetings over two years. We started in 2011. Friends and family signed on quickly, but of the roughly 150 meetings, we held with new contacts, about 25 panned out. Our initial target was $50 million, and we raised $25 million in two closes. The first close was $8 million, and the second close of $17 million came a year and a half later. By that point, we could show some good companies like FanDuel. In the end, we closed with 65 LPs in that first fund and we wound up deploying it over three years, in 28 companies.

Was it mostly individuals? Did you have any traditional “institutional” LPs?

We had one traditional LP – Greenspring Associates.

Looking back now, were there mistakes you can share? Lessons learned?

Mistakes is the wrong word, but we learned some lessons. People who raise funds successfully tend to be experienced GPs who left big firms. If, like Bullpen, you’re a team of three new GPs without any significant LP relations, doors shut in ways you wouldn’t anticipate.

Duncan (Davidson), Rich (Melmon), and I had started a combined dozen companies, but we didn’t have a significant relationship with any traditional LPs, so we got outflanked many times by people with middling investment records who’d left larger, established funds. The lesson was to start a fund with someone who knows LPs – or expect a long and painful process. Especially in 2017 you better know some LPs if you want to raise a fund; there’s too much competition now.

You’ve raised two newer funds since. Was that a fundamentally different experience?

In 2014, we raised our second fund with pretty much the same set of LPs. It was $30 million, which was a frustratingly small increase. We thought we could get major LPs, but those relationships and our model required more time to get over the hurdle.

Our third fund took us from one institutional investor to over a dozen, raising $85 million. It took five years of building relationships and a track record. It’s not like raising money for a startup, which has a limited window. With a startup, VCs are in or out. If they wait a few extra months, they miss the boat. Most institutional LPs require GPs to show up at their office for several years in a row and keep the dialogues, progress, and updates going. Eventually the meetings start feeling more like, “The Bullpen team is here, good to see you again! I like when you visit.”

Have one last piece of advice for aspiring fund managers? 

Most LPs value brand over strategy. When we were raising our second fund, a potential LP said, “Tell me about your differentiators.” I talked about Bullpen’s post-seed model, which, to us, is the differentiator. “That’s nice,” he said, “but that’s not differentiation. How do you source deals? Who do you know? Who are you friends?” Basically, the question he was asking is, “How famous and connected are you?”

They prefer to work with sexy, famous GPs, but that doesn’t mean you can succeed without a differentiated model. Just be careful when an LP says the word “differentiation” as it might mean something very different to him or her than to you.

New Fundings

Amplitude, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based analytics company that helps teams better understand their user engagement, retention, and revenue, has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by Institutional Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backers Benchmark and Battery Ventures. The company has now raised $59 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Big Squid, an eight-year-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based predictive analytics software company, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Signal Peak Ventures, with participation from Kickstart Seed Fund. More here.

Brayola, a four-year-old, New York-based marketplace for branded women’s intimate apparel, has added $2.5 million to a Series A round that had previously closed with $2.5 million. The round, which now stands at $5 million, includes The Firstime Fund and numerous individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Chef’d, a four-year-old, El Segundo, Ca.-based meal-kit company, has raised $25 million in Series B funding from pork producer Smithfield Foods. Additionally, Campbell Soup contributed $10 million in the round (a deal that was announced in May), with the remaining $200,000 coming from online grocer Fresh Direct. CNBC has more here on why the company has skirted venture capital funding.

Flipkart, the 10-year-old, Bangalore-based online shopping giant, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Softbank’s Vision Fund, just a week after its deal to acquire Snapdeal (which is backed by Softbank) fell through. Though terms aren’t being disclosed, various reports say Vision Fund is buying both primary and secondary shares and that it may have invested upwards of $2.5 billion. The deal is being called the largest private investment in an India-based tech company to date. More here.

GawkBox, a year-old, Seattle-based company that provides monetization for live streamers and other content creators, has raised $3.7 million in Series A funding. Madrona Venture Group led the round, and was joined by investors London Venture Partners and Erlend Christofferson. VentureBeat has more here.

Glint, a 2.5-year-old, London-based still-stealth fintech startup that says it will give users more control in the way they store, spend, exchange and transfer money, and which is launching in the fourth quarter, has raised £3.1 million ($4 million). Investors include Bray Capital along with numerous individuals. TechCrunch has more here.

Netlify, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that’s trying to make it easier than ever for programmers to build a static website, has raised $12 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz. Business Insider has more here.

Parse.ly, an eight-year-old, New York City-based internet analytics platform, has raised $6.8 million in Series B funding. Grotech Ventures and Blumberg Capital led the round, with participation from Felton Group, FundersClub and DreamIt. VentureBeat has more here.

PCCW, a Hong Kong-based video and music streaming services company, has raised $110 million in funding co-led by Hony Capital (which recently backed WeWork’s China business), Foxconn Ventures and Temasek. PCCW Media, which is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, will retain its majority ownership stake in the spin-off. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Betaworks Ventures, a $50 million seed and Series A stage fund, is sharing more information about where it’s shopping and who is involved. More here.

IPOs

Another day, another tumble in Blue Apron shares. They fell as much as 19 percent after the company reported earnings for the first time earlier today. Bloomberg has more here.

Exits

After receiving a $15 million lifeline from investors last year, Birchbox has reportedly held acquisition talks with several retailers, including Walmart, says Recode. More here.

TeamSnap, an eight-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based integrated sports management software company, has acquired Korrio, an eight-year-old, Seattle-based cloud service for organizing and sharing youth sports. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. According to Crunchbase, Korrio had raised roughly $8 million, including from Ignition Partners. TeamSnap has meanwhile raised roughly $50 million, including from Foundry Group and Northgate Capital. The Denver Post has more here.

Voices.com, a 14-year-old, Ontario-based voiceover marketplace that’s backed by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, is acquiring Voicebank.net, a 19-year-old, Beverly Hills, Ca.-based site that hires celebrities for voiceovers. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. BetaKit has more here.

People

Brian Pinketon, the top technology exec at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the philanthropic investment vehicle founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, is leaving the organization after less than a year. More here.

Data

The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers surveyed over 250 American colleges and universities and found that 39 percent of Americans schools witnessed a decline in international applications in the last year.

Essential Reads

Tesla is working on self-driving technology specifically tied to its forthcoming electric semi-truck plans, says Reuters. The tech would allow the transport trucks to move in convoy formation with a lead vehicle providing guidance for autonomous follow trucks. (We’ll be talking about this at our September eventwith Alex Rodridgues, the cofounder and CEO of Embark, a young, self-driving truck company that’s on everyone’s radar.)

500 Startups continues to feel the impact of a sexual harassment scandal involving its co-founder and former managing partner Dave McClure. In May, the outfit announced a partnership in Australia with LaunchVic, a government-backed investing arm. Now, LaunchVic has terminated its partnership with the firm.

How Facebook squashes competition from startups.

Intel is building a fleet of more than 100 self-driving test cars starting later this year, but it plans to use them as a sales tool. More here.

Detours

A first look at the second season of “The Crown.”

The fascinating story behind America’s most expensive home (on the market now for $350 million).

The new way to tell your airline you hate it.

Retail Therapy

Shore House.

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Interesting news today — Roivant Sciences, whose founder and CEO spoke at our first StrictlyVC event of this year, just raised $1.1 billion from Softbank’s Vision Fund (which seems determined not to let that $93 billion burn a whole in its pocket!).

We obviously think the company is worth watching. More on its giant new round below.

Top News in the A.M.

Essential Products, the smartphone maker founded by Andy Rubin, just confirmed it has a new $300 million war chest as it prepares to take on Apple and Samsung. The WSJ has more here.

Sponsored By . . .

Pollen VC addresses a universal pain point for mobile app and game developers – growth-crushing payment delays in a market where engaged users are notoriously short-lived. Long payment delays massively hinder your momentum, so why wait 2-3 months for payment when you could be funded on-demand? Pollen works with live apps that are earning $$$ through the app stores or via ads so that we can focus our expertise on what we do best – helping apps rapidly scale through a combination of growth financing and hands-on advisory. Try our robust LTV forecasting tool and visualize your potential growth, then head over to Pollen.VC to see how flexible capital can help you achieve rapid scale.

Roivant, Which Saves Drugs Abandoned by Big Pharma, Just Raised $1.1B from Softbank

Roivant Sciences, a three-year-old, Basel, Switzerland-based company aiming to one day be a giant holding company for dozens of independent biopharmaceutical companies, has raised $1.1 billion in equity led by the Softbank Vision Fund — making it the latest in a string of enormous bets by Softbank, and putting the young outfit more squarely on the radar of the tech world.

Roivant focuses on developing and commercializing therapies by creating subsidiaries, all of which involve the word “vant.” To date, these include Axovant Sciences, which is focused on neurology; Myovant Sciences, which is focused on women’s health and endocrine diseases; Dermavant Sciences, which is focused on dermatology; Enzyvant Sciences, which is focused on rare diseases; and Urovant Sciences, focused on urology.

Roivant is also creating a new tech-focused subsidiary for the first time called Datavant, an AI-driven initiative that’s aiming to unlock insights in health care datasets by improving the design of clinical trials, creating virtual trials between similar drugs using pooled placebo groups, and developing new molecular targets to pursue for any given drug.

Softbank’s investment is in Roivant only — not its subsidiaries.

Roivant was founded by Vivek Ramaswamy, a biology major at Harvard who went on to nab his law degree from Yale before going to work as a hedge fund analyst, where he says he noticed pharmaceutical firms abandoning promising drugs for various reasons having nothing to do with their efficacy.

Seeing an opportunity to complete the development of some of these abandoned drug candidates and get them to market quickly, Ramaswamy struck out on his own in 2014.

More here.

(Other) New Fundings

Appboy, a six-year-old, New York-based marketing tech startup that’s challenging Salesforce and other business software giants, has raised $50 million in new Series D money led by Iconiq Capital. The company has now raised $93.6 million altogether. Fortune has more here.

BAMTech, a 17-year-old, Arlington, Va.-based video streaming company that grew out of the interactive media company of Major League Baseball, has raised a fresh $1.58 billion in funding from majority owner Disney, in a deal that values the company at $3.75 billion. TechCrunch has more here.

Buoy, a three-year-old, Boston-based startup that uses advanced artificial intelligence to resemble a chat with a favorite doctor to assess what’s wrong with someone, has raised $6.7 million in Series A funding. Backers include F-Prime Capital Partners, FundRx, and various angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Fanatics, a 17-year-old, Jacksonville, Fla.-based licensed merchandising marketplace, is reportedly about to seal up $1 billion in fresh funding led by Softbank‘s Vision Fund. The WSJ has more here.

Railsbank, a year-old, London-based startup offering an open banking and compliance platform aimed at helping companies that have global banking requirements and need to accessed programatically via an API, has raised $1.2 million. The seed round was led by Firestartr and included participation from Kima Ventures and numerous angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Socure, a five-year-old, New York-based company that uses digital identity verification (think email, phone IP, etc.) to authenticate people, has raised $13.9 million in Series B funding. Commerce Ventures led the round, and was joined by iSynchrony Financial, Flint Capital, Workbench, Santander InnoVentures and Two Sigma Ventures. Built In NYC has more here.

Super Evil Megacorp, a four-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based maker of competitive video games, including the online battle arena video game “Vainglory,” has raised $19 million in funding from undisclosed investors. Exactly two years ago, the company raised $26 million in funding led by Index Ventures, with Yuri Milner, Jim Breyer, and Korea Investment Partners, also participating. More here.

Exits

Carvana, a Phoenix, Az.-based online marketplace for used cars that went public in April, has acquired Carlypso, a San Carlos, Ca.-based platform for buying and selling used cars. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Fortune has more here.

Enterprise software startup Huddle is selling to San Francisco-based private equity firm Turn/River, after months of financial struggles left it in dire straights. One Business Insider source estimated the deal at $89 million. The company was once reportedly valued between $250 to $300 million in a previous fundraising round.

Tableau, the 14-year-old, Seattle-based, publicly traded, business intelligence and analytics firm, has acquired ClearGraph, a Palo Alto, Ca.-based semantic search company, for undisclosed terms. According to Crunchbase, ClearGraph had raised $1.53 million from investors, including Accel Partners and Great Oaks Venture Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

People

James Damore, the 28-year-old former Google engineer who was fired over a memo he wrote about gender differences, said yesterday he’s exploring all his legal options and has already filed a labor complaint over his treatment.

Cack Wilhelm has joined Boston-based venture firm Accomplice as a partner based in San Francisco. She was previously a principal with Scale Venture Partners.

Jobs

Johnson & Johnson Innovation is looking to hire a director of new ventures. The job is in Menlo Park, Ca.

Data

According to new research just published by the data science team at jobs marketplace Hired, President Trump’s efforts to push an America-first philosophy is having a measurable impact on how comfortable tech companies feel in seeking out foreign-born workers. More here.

Essential Reads

The culture wars have come to Silicon Valley. (Interesting anecdote in here about Facebook board members Reed Hastings and Peter Thiel.)

Detours

Twelve secrets to keep in mind the next time you check into a five-star hotel.

Retail Therapy

Classic car go karts. (Amazing! Also, not cheap.)

Happy Tuesday!

Quick note: We’re nearing the point of selling out seats at our upcoming event, September 27, in San Francisco. We can still accommodate some of you (and want to!), but don’t wait too long (really). You can nab your seat here.

Much thanks again to our partners in the evening: Bolt, the hardware-focused venture firm, Ballou PR, the firm that many startups and VCs rely on to navigate the European media landscape, and Rosebud Communications, a scrappy L.A.-based firm that’s getting results for a number of young startup clients.

Top News in the A.M.

Google fired that engineer, and reactions have been mixed and highly charged. Here is CEO Sundar Pichai’s note to employees about the matter.

Sponsored By . . .

Pollen VC addresses a universal pain point for mobile app and game developers – growth-crushing payment delays in a market where engaged users are notoriously short-lived. Long payment delays massively hinder your momentum, so why wait 2-3 months for payment when you could be funded on-demand? Pollen works with live apps that are earning $$$ through the app stores or via ads so that we can focus our expertise on what we do best – helping apps rapidly scale through a combination of growth financing and hands-on advisory. Try our robust LTV forecasting tool and visualize your potential growth, then head over to Pollen.VC to see how flexible capital can help you achieve rapid scale.

Rothy’s, Whose Ballet Flats are All Over Social Media, Has Raised $7M in Funding

You’ve likely seen them plastered across your social media accounts, if not on someone’s feet in San Francisco, where the company is based: attractive women’s flats in bright red with black soles, or bright red with pink stripes and blue detailing, or a gray camo pattern with a red sole.

Rothy’s, available online only at the company’s site, suddenly seem to be everywhere.

What’s the appeal? In addition to their aesthetics, the shoes are highly eco-friendly. Founders Roth Martin and Stephen Hawthornthwaite — a former gallery owner and investment banker, respectively — say the company has now used more than five million plastic water bottles to create an undisclosed number of shoes. How? After sourcing the bottles from recycling centers, they are “hot-washed” and sterilized, chipped into tiny flakes, then shaped into pellets that are then melted into malleable, thread-like fibers that get weaved into shoes by car-size knitting machines.

Right now, the shoes are available in two silhouettes — a rounded and a pointed-toe version. Shoppers further have 20 patterns from which to choose.

Yesterday, TechCrunch talked with Martin and Hawthornthwaite about how, given their very different backgrounds, they came together to form this modern shoe company. We also talked about the company’s funding picture, including the $5 million that it quietly raised from Lightspeed Venture Partners in April. (The company had earlier raised $2 million in convertible notes, including from Finn Capital Partners, M13 and Grace Beauty Capital.) Our chat has been edited for length.

Neither of you worked in retail. How did Rothy’s come into being?

SH: I’d spent around 18 years focused on M&A [at various banks]. A lot of what I’d worked on was in e-commerce and highly relevant, and by 2010, I was ready to make a change and really wanted to build something on my own. Roth and I have been friends for about 10 years, and professionally, he was in the same place. He’d been running a gallery and wanted to bring his design aesthetic [to something new].

RM: We were at a dinner and started kicking ideas around. We both have a passion for consumer goods and discussed a number of ideas but settled on footwear based on a number of trends we saw developing, including women wearing workout clothes whether or not they were working out. We wanted to create a front-of-the-closet shoe that she [the customer] can gravitate toward, without knowing what’s happening on a particular day.

How did you decide to create knitted footwear, specifically?

RM: What drew us to knitting was the ability to create shaped art. Instead of cutting a circle from a square, one could knit a circle and eliminate waste in doing so. In typical manufacturing, 30 percent of materials can end up as waste. So we innovated by being able to program shaped parts. That drew us to knitting, then that drew us to footwear. [I will add that] the requirements of footwear in terms of fit and standardization is really complicated; we had no appreciation for that at the time.

Where are the shoes made?

SH: We have 100 employees in southern China, working in a 65,000-square-foot factory that we own. The shoes are made by knitting machines that are about the size of a car, and which we’ve been adding to quickly to keep up with demand. We have waitlists for certain items; demand is still outstripping our expectations, but we’re catching up.

What’s your marketing strategy? I can’t open Facebook without seeing a Rothy’s ad.

More here.

New Fundings

Altaeros, a seven-year-old, Boston-based startup that develops autonomous aerostats, has raised $7.5 million in new funding from SoftBank Group, which had also backed the company in 2014. TechCrunch has more here.

CarDash, a year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based startup offers an end-to-end concierge service for car owners who don’t have time to drop off their vehicles at a service center or pick them up at day end, has raised $5.3 million led by Index Ventures and Felicis Ventures. Y Combinator — in whose accelerator program CarDash is currently enrolled — also joined the round, along with Afore Capital, NextView Ventures and NextGen Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Careem, a five-year-old, Dubai-based Uber rival in the Middle East that’s valued at more than $1 billion, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from the Chinese ride-sharing giant Didi Chuxing. TechCrunch has more here.

Guideline, a two-year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based company that wants to make it easier for small and medium-size businesses to offer 401(k) retirement accounts, has raised $15 million in funding led by Felicis Ventures. The company has now raised $25 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Jetty, a two-year-old, New York-based platform for rental insurance, has raised $11.5 million in Series A funding led by Valar Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Ribbit Capital, SV Angel, BoxGroup and Red Swan. AlleyWatch has more here.

Oryx Vision, an eight-year-old, Israel-based company at work on LiDAR tech that’s designed to be as simple as a digital camera, with greater reliability and sensitivity than existing LiDAR, has raised $50 million in Series B funding led by Third Point Ventures and WRV. TechCrunch has more here.

Pro.com, a four-year-old, Seattle-based company that formerly connected homeowners with home improvement and renovation professionals and today has its own teams in place in the cities where it operates, has raised $10 million. The growth round was led by DFJ, with participation from earlier backers Maveron, Madrona Venture Group and Two-Sigma Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Innovations Endeavors, the Silicon Valley venture firm funded by Eric Schmidt, has merged with Israeli venture firm Marker LLC. More here.

People

Travis Kalanick will not again be appointed CEO of Uber, according to an e-mail to staff from co-founder and chairman Garrett Camp. Recode has more here.

Jobs

Kraken, a digital currency exchange, is looking to hire a head of corporate development. The job is in San Francisco.

Also Sponsored By . . .

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Essential Reads

The FDA is concerned that Impossible Food‘s secret sauce may be an allergen.

Uber plans to wind down its U.S. car leasing business, owing to unsustainably high losses.

The brands you had no idea that Amazon owns.

A year after tests with advertisers began, Pinterest is rolling out video ads to all advertisers targeted for both search results and feeds.

Detours

Being neurotic may help you live longer.

The colorful history of the best-selling Porsche 911.

Find out if President Trump would let you immigrate to America with this test. (We didn’t make the cut.)

Retail Therapy

Tile Pro. We need so many of these.

Hi, everyone, happy Monday.:)

Top News in the A.M.

Softbank’s Masayoshi Son sent a pretty clear warning to Uber this morning — that if its shareholders don’t sell him shares on his terms, his next stop is Lyft.

WeWork just raised another $500 million, bringing its total funding to more than more than $2 billion from investors this year alone.

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On Managing Outrage in Silicon Valley

I hate sexism; it can’t be eradicated fast enough. I’m frustrated that there’s still far too little diversity in Silicon Valley.

Yet a newer form of discrimination is starting to greatly alarm me, and that’s discrimination against anyone with a point of view that’s deemed offensive to the tech majority.

You know already what I’m talking about: people are angry about a Google engineer who wrote an overly long memo, arguing that the fact that there are fewer women engineers than men is a natural state.

I have no interest in trying to deconstruct what this person wrote.  I don’t think it made much sense, and what I did understand of it seemed very poorly argued. For what it’s worth, I’ll note that like the vast majority of people who have read this memo — and that’s now roughly one million people, including Google employees — I strongly disagree with this person’s views about gender and race.

But let’s stop for a minute and think about exactly what has happened here. The author is a junior to mid-level engineer. He is one individual in a company that employs more than 72,000 people. Why has Silicon Valley spent the weekend talking about him, railing against him, bashing Google?

Quartz wrote a smart piece earlier, saying that the real problem with this person’s viral anti-diversity memo “is bigger than Silicon Valley,” and it tied this engineer’s leanings to Trumpism, which has emboldened a subset of Trump supporters to be more public about their repulsive views.

I understand the temptation to draw a line from one to the other, but I don’t think it’s right or fair. I will admit that the tech industry’s swift response to real scandals has led to outcomes that I secretly hoped to see. It also makes a certain kind of sense to feel anger toward Google given that it has been accused by the U.S. Department of Labor of “extreme” gender pay discrimination.

But this groupthink terrifies me when it’s used to bully people for exercising their right to free speech. How will we know what people are truly thinking if we rush to silence them?

Contrary to what some people have written, this engineer was not violating anti-discrimination laws by writing his memo. (If he were a manager and put this kind of thinking into practice, he would be, and I’d have my pitchfork out, too.)

More here.

New Fundings

Banza, a three-year-old, Detroit, Mi.-based producer of wholesale chickpea pastas, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding led by Beechwood Capital, with participation from Strand Equity Partners and RSE Ventures. More here.

Fatherly, a two-year-old, New York-based media startup focused on millennial men, has raised $4 million in venture funding from BDMI (which is the investment arm of media company Bertelsman) and talent agency UTA. Fortune has more here.

Gu Sheng Tang, a seven-year-old, Guangzhou, China-based traditional Chinese medicine clinic franchise, has raised $150 million in Series D funding that comprises both equity and debt. Investors including China State-owned Capital Risk Investment Fund, China Life Insurance Co., CMB International, China Orient Asset Management Co., and two unnamed government “guidance” funds. China Money Network has more here.

iflix, a 3.5-year-old, Kuala Lumpur-based Netflix-like service that covers Southeast Asia and other emerging markets, has raised $133 million in funding led by Hearst, with participation from EDBI, BDS private bank clients, and earlier backers Evolution Media, Sky PLC, Catcha Group, Liberty Global, Jungle Ventures and PLDT. The round follows another sizable round — of $90 million — that closed in March. Dealbook has more here.

Karius, a three-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based life sciences company focused on infectious diseases, has raised $50 million in Series A funding. Data Collective and Lightspeed Venture Partners co-led the round, and were joined by Tencent, Khosla Ventures, and earlier backers Innovation Endeavors, and Spectrum 28. CNBC has more here.

LevitasBio, a two-month-old, San Francisco-based cellular analysis startup launched by former Stanford professors and focused around  a proprietary magnetic levitation technology that they hope will enable them to identify, isolate and characterize cells from a wide range of biological samples, has raised $8 million in funding, shows an SEC filing. More here.

Rothy’s, a months-old, San Francisco-based e-commerce startup that makes fashionable women’s flats from recycled plastic water bottles, has raised just more than $5 million in funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, shows a new SEC filing. More here.

Tokyo Smoke, a two-year-old, Toronto-based cannabis lifestyle and retail brand, has raised C$4 million ($3.15 million) in the first close of its Series B financing. The found was led by Aphria, a Canadian medical cannabis producer, and Green Acre Capital, a Canadian cannabis-focused private investment firm. More here.

Werk, a year-old, New York-based job board platform focused on flexible work, raised $2.9 million in seed funding led by Rethink Impact, with participation from SoGal Ventures, TaskRabbit founder Leah Busque, and earlier investors Halogen Ventures, Precursor VC, and Better Ventures. More here.

Wickr, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based secure messaging app has raised $8.7 million as part of a targeted $13 million round, shows a new SEC filing. According to Crunchbase, Wickr had previously raised roughly $73 million, including from Breyer Capital and Alsop Louie Partners. More here.

Winky Lux, a two-year-old, New York-based cosmetics brand that sells (for now) online only, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Female Founders Fund, with participation from BBG Ventures, GGV Capital, SoGal Ventures and TGZ Capital. More here.

New Funds

March Capital Partners, cofounded by renowned investment banker Jamie Montgomery, is looking to raise up to $150 million for its second early-stage venture fund, shows an SEC filing. It is separately raising $150 million for an opportunity fund, presumably to back its breakaway companies as they mature and need more capital. We talked with the outfit last year when it closed on a $240 million debut fund.

Exits

Netflix just made its first-ever acquisition, paying an undisclosed sum for Millarworld, a comic book publishing company. Netflix wants to turn its franchises into films. TechCrunch has more here.

Publicly traded ad tech company Tremor Video is selling its “demand-side platform” to Israel-based mobile advertising firm Taptica for an enterprise value of $50 million, continuing a raft of consolidation in a sector facing stiff online competition from Google and Facebook. The WSJ has more here.

People

Uber quietly unsealed the deposition of former CEO Travis Kalanick in the Uber-Waymo case over the weekend, and one interesting tidbit it reveals is that Kalanick regrets not firing Anthony Levandowski — who has been accused of stealing from Waymo to benefit Uber —  sooner. Asked why he didn’t, Kalanick said that Levandowski denied that the files he’d downloaded while at Google were used to build Uber’s technology. As time passed, says Kalanick, “You know, I just — I felt that [Levandowski] had done something that was f’ing stupid . . . I — I didn’t feel like he had stolen anything. I knew that it hadn’t gotten over to Uber. I felt a little bullied by Google generally with how the initial complaint was and where it — where the facts actually were. You know, if I were to do it over again, I probably would have immediately. It took a little more time, but I eventually got there.” Buzzfeed has more here.

Lisa Marrone has joined August Capital as a principal. Marrone previously spent three years with Bain & Co. and enjoyed short stints at the White House (working with the National Economic Council), and as a director of strategic marketing at Lydra, a biotech company in Massachusetts.

Jobs

Eniac Ventures is looking to hire an analyst. The job is in San Francisco.

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Essential Reads

Apple is working on a new version of its smartwatch that works with cellular networks, untethering it from the iPhone for the first time.

Apparently the iPhone 8 will be capable of scanning your face, even if your phone is on a table.

Detours

Watch the spine-chilling, season three trailer for “Mr. Robot.”

Steve-O versus hot wings.

And this is why I’ve decided not to become a spear fisherman.

Retail Therapy

Just a little summer home on Corfu.

Friday! [Cartwheels into padded wall.]

We have a shorter edition of SVC for you today as we unexpectedly have to run out the door. Hope you have a wonderful weekend, everyone. See you Monday.:)

Top News in the A.M.

Elon Musk to the two companies currently vying to build the first functional hyperloop: sorry, suckas, but I’m doing this myself.

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Mamoon Hamid is Leaving Social Capital for Kleiner Perkins

Mamoon Hamid, a longtime partner at U.S. Venture Partners who went on to co-found Social Capital with Chamath Palihapitiya in 2011, is moving on to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

First reported by Axios and confirmed by Social Capital, Hamid will focus on early-stage tech investments, with a focus on enterprise software.

We’ve reached out to Hamid, whose auto-responder states he is currently on paternity leave. But Palihapitiya calls it “a great opportunity for Mamoon” and says that “we’re happy for him and Kleiner Perkins.”

He adds that Social Capital is “building a platform where people with potential can come, build a track record, do great and then try new things.”

The move is interesting for a wide variety of reasons, including, obviously, that Hamid isn’t simply a managing director with Social Capital. It isn’t every day that a venture firm co-founder breaks off to join someone else’s firm.

As Axios notes, too, this isn’t the first time that Social Capital’s world is colliding with that of Kleiner Perkins. Palihapitiya has said that in December 2014, Kleiner’s most famous investor, John Doerr, asked Palihapitiya if he might be interested in joining Kleiner to lead it. Palihapitiya told Fortune that Doerr said, “I want to talk about Kleiner 3.0.”

Palihapitiya declined the invitation. Meanwhile, Doerr stepped back from the day-to-day management of Kleiner last year, instead taking on the role of firm chairman.

Kleiner doesn’t seem to be faring much better at grooming a younger generation of VCs in the wake of that move.

More here.

New Fundings

Auris Surgical Robotics, a 10-year-old, San Carlos, Ca.-based surgical robotics company that was founded by star entrepreneur Frederic Moll, has quietly raised $280 million in Series D funding led by Coatue Management. The company had previously raised at least $184 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. Its other backers include Mithril Capital Management (cofounded by Peter Thiel and Ajay Royan), Lux Capital, NaviMed Capital, and Highland Capital Partners. We have more on this story for you here.

Interface Security Systems, a 22-year-old, Earth City, Mo.-based bundled managed service provider, has raised $125 million in funding, including from SunTx and Prudential Capital Partners. More here.

MojiLaLa, a year-old, San Francisco-based developer of an emoji and sticker database, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding, including from Great Oaks VC, Betaworks, and venture capitalist Dennis Phelps of IVP. More here.

Primary Data, a four-year-old, Los Altos, Ca.-based data storage service company, has raised $20 million in funding from Pelion Venture Partners, Accel Partners, and Battery Ventures. More here.

Quanterix, a 10-year-old, Lexington, Ma.-based developer of an ultra-sensitive diagnostic platform, has raised $8.5 million in funding led by T. Rowe Price Associates. More here.

Sugarfina, a five-year-old, Beverly Hills, Ca.-based boutique featuring featuring gourmet sweets from artisan candy-makers around the world, has raised $35 million in funding from Great Hill Partners.  Fortune has more here.

Universal Standard, a two-year-old, New York City-based direct-to-consumer size-inclusive brand for women sizes 10 to 28, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Red Sea Ventures. Fast Company has more here.

New Funds

Science, the L.A.-based venture firm and startup studio cofounded by Mike Jones and Peter Pham, say it’s using an ICO to raise up to $100 million to invest in blockchain startups. The WSJ has more here.

Exits

Yelp is selling the food delivery service Eat24 to GrubHub for $287.5 million. Yelp had acquired the company for $134 million in 2015. The move seemingly signals Yelp’s interest in returning to its core expertise as a content company. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Ousted Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has hired high-profile CEO advisory firm Teneo to help him repair his tarnished public image.

Jobs

LiveOak Venture Partners is looking to hire a principal. The job is in Austin, Tex.

Essential Reads

Uber managers in Singapore bought more than 1,000 Hondas that they knew were defective and had been recalled, then rented them to drivers without the needed repairs.

Coinbase, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has reversed its stance on Bitcoin Cash and said it will introduce support for the fork next year.

Detours

Post-millennials are safer than adolescents have ever been, because of their smart phones. They’re also on the brink of a mental-health crisis.

A dinosaur so well preserved, it looks like a statue.

Why newborn babies smell so delicious.

Retail Therapy

Now this, this is a BBQ.

Hi, happy Thursday!

Good news for those of you who were (understandably) wondering: we finally have a website for our upcoming event, on September 27th in San Francisco. You can check out the full agenda here. The majority of the seats are gone but we still have room for you so don’t wait too long.

Also, as we mentioned Monday, we’re in the midst of a working vacation. To help out with the newsletter, our friend, investor Semil Shah, has been talking with VCs and founders about how they raised their first meaningful capital. (With founders, this means how they raised their Series A rounds. With VCs, he’s learning how they raised their debut funds.) Today, we’re running one of those interviews below. Hope you enjoy it.:)

Top News in the A.M.

Oof. Another investor is out the door. According to The Information, Greylock Partners COO Tom Frangione stepped down at the firm’s request last month, after Greylock “learned of some behavior which would represent a significant lapse of judgment,” a Greylock spokeswoman said. According to The Information’s source, Frangione had an inappropriate relationship with an employee.

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How I Did It: VC Charles Hudson on Raising His First Fund

By Semil Shah

Charles Hudson is the managing partner and founder of Precursor Ventures, a seed-stage firm based in San Francisco. Hudson, who likes to write the first check into B2B software applications, B2C software and services, and connected hardware startups, previously worked as a partner with SoftTech VC, where he remains a venture partner. We talked with him recently about what it took to close his debut fund earlier this year.

You closed on $15.3 million in capital commitments earlier this year. How long did it take to get there?

It took about 20 months from my first pitch to my final close. I expected it to take a year, I planned for 18 months, and in terms of personal finances and mental runway, I budgeted for 24 months.

How many LPs meetings did the process involve?

Nearly 300. Some were with LPs who I knew were unlikely to come in on Fund I, but where I wanted to get to know them or get their advice in the fundraising process. I knew that we’d need to talk to a lot of LPs in order to find a fit with their interest in what we’re building at Precursor and learn their perspective on investing in new managers.

Were you targeting $15 million?

My initial target was $20 million, but I felt that by the time I got to $15 million, I had reasonably covered the universe of known LPs who would invest. I’d also been warehousing investments along the way and some of those investments were beginning to raise follow-on rounds at higher valuations; there came a point where it just didn’t feel right to bring in new LPs at cost when my early investors had supported me prior to evidence. So I closed the fund at that point with 56 LPs.

Does that include traditional LPs, such as endowments, foundations, and funds of funds?

There’s only one that I would consider a traditional institutional LP. Most of the more traditional LPs I pitched had a lot of concerns about pre-seed and our strategy. Back in 2015 when I began fundraising, I don’t think the argument for pre-seed was nearly as strong, and I met a lot of LPs who’d never been pitched on a pre-seed strategy before.

For those StrictlyVC readers who are new to fund fundraising, it’s worth noting that many traditional LPs can afford to wait until a subsequent fund to invest, even if they like you and your strategy. The best ones have been doing this long enough and know that you’ll either increase your fund size and have room for a new investor in your next fund, or you’ll have some LP attrition, creating space for them to jump in, or a bit of both.

Looking back now, what did you do right and wrong in your fundraising process? What are some other lessons you can share?

Get the easy “yes” commitments as quickly as you can so you have some momentum. I had a pool of folks who I thought were likely going to support me, but I didn’t prioritize pitching them early and getting their commitments to show that I was not stuck on zero. It’s very difficult to go into meetings with institutional LPs and get them over the hump when their check will literally be the one that puts you in business. Having the equivalent of friends-and-family type backers who want to see you succeed gives you some early momentum.

I also learned that structural novelty in your fund can be a bug when you think it’s a feature. When I started Precursor, I had a pretty high level of conviction that it needed to be a solo GP fund, with a diverse portfolio in terms of sector and geography, and that we would use AngelList SPVs to syndicate our pro rata in our follow-on rounds. When I put together the fund, I thought that some of the things we were doing were fairly innovative and differentiated relative to a typical reserves-heavy fund that charges typical management fees. What I quickly realized when pitching was that the things I thought of as novel and unique about my fund were giving LPs pause [in part] because those are things that need to be explained and defended when your sponsor takes your fund to committee.

Last, the LPs I met with did a lot more diligence with other GPs than they did with founders I had backed. Had I known that would be the case, I would have invested much more time upfront, educating my network on the model and strategy for Precursor and making sure I knew how folks felt about the model we were pursuing.

Any other last pieces of advice?

I tell people all the time that most GPs I know who fail to raise their funds quit not because they get discouraged but because they run out of LP leads to pitch. You have to be really focused on making sure the top of your LP lead funnel stays full. I always tried to hold myself to a rule of trying to find or connect with two new LPs every day that I was in market. I didn’t achieve that goal every day, but I used it as a reminder to continue to find new people to approach even as I got close to being done.

New Fundings

Betterez, a six-year-old, Toronto-based reservations and ticketing platform for bus and motorcoach service providers, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from investors, including JetBlue Technology Ventures. More here.

Bread, a three-year-old, New York-based lender hoping to convince customers to finance big purchases using its technology, has raised $126 million in Series B funding. Menlo Ventures led the equity portion of the investment, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, RRE Ventures and others. A debt facility was also provided by Victory Park Capital. Forbes has more here.

Botmetric, a three-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based AI-powered cloud management platform, has raised $3 million in Series A funding led by Blume Ventures. More here.

Dianrong, a nearly five-year-old, Shanghai, China-based peer-to-peer lending platform, has raised $220 million in funding led by GIC Pte, with participation from CMIG Leasing, which is a unit of China’s biggest private investment conglomerates, and South Korean fund manager Simone Investment Managers. Reuters has more here.

Drive Motors, a year-old, San Francisco-based startup that makes software for car dealerships so they can offer the entire buying process directly online, has raised $5.2 million in seed funding led by Bullpen Capital. Other investors in the round include Y Combinator, Khosla Ventures, Perkins Coie, and Emagen Entertainment Group. More here.

ETC Global Group, an eight-year-old, L.A.- and Toronto-based brokerage and clearing group, has raised up to $68 million in funding from investors, including Cerberus Capital Management and Quantlab Investments. More here.

Gobee Bike, a seven-month-old, Hong Kong-based bike share startup, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Grishin Robotics, with participation from Alibaba’s Hong Kong entrepreneurship fund. Gobee had previously raised a pre-launch seed round led by Swiss Founders Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

GuardiCore, a four-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup that makes distributed breach detection and automated attack mitigation software, has tacked on $15 million to a previously closed Series B financing. TPG Growth and Greenfield Partners led the additional funding. The company has now raised $48 million altogether. More here.

Homology Medicines, a two-year-old, Bedford, Ma.-based genetic medicines company developing treatments for patients with rare diseases, has raised $83.5 million in Series B funding led by Deerfield Management. Other participants in the round include Fidelity Management & Research Company, HBM Healthcare Investments, Maverick Ventures, Novartis, Rock Springs Capital, Vida Ventures, Vivo Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, 5AM Ventures, ARCH Venture Partners and Temasek. More here.

Kabbage, an eight-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based fintech and data company that lends money directly to small businesses and consumers, as well as licenses its technology, has raised a stunning $250 million from Softbank Group (and not from the Softbank Vision Fund). The company has now raised $500 million from investors altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Meican, a six-year-old, China-based online food ordering and delivery platform for corporate customers, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series D funding led by Goldman Sachs Investment Partners. Earlier backers also participated in the round, including include KPCB China, Nokia Growth Partners and Trustbridge Partners. China Money Network has more here.

Milestone Pharmaceuticals, a 12-year-pld, Canada-based clinical-stage cardiovascular company, has raised $55 million in Series C funding. Novo Holdings A/S led the round, and was joined by Forbion Capital Partners, Tekla Capital Management, Domain Associates, Fonds de solidarité FTQ,BDC Capital, Pappas Capital and GO Capital. FierceBiotech has more here.

Neurable, a two-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based startup whose brain-computer interface allows people to control software and devices using only their brain activity, has raised funding of an undisclosed amount from the Zell Lurie Founders Fund at the University of Michigan’s Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. Global University Venturing has more here.

Personio, a two-year-old, Munich, Germany-based SaaS HR management and recruiting platform, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Northzone, with participation from earlier backers, including Rocket Internet’s Global Founders Capital and Picus Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

SmartAssist.io, a new Seattle-based GE spinout that’s focused on helping enterprises manage customer service requests through AI, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from Madrona Venture Group. TechCrunch has more here.

Yiguo, a 12-year-old, Shanghai-based e-commerce platform for fresh produce, has raised $300 million from Tmall, Alibaba’s business-to-consumer platform. China Money Network has more here.

New Funds

Rewired, a new, Lausanne, Switzerland-based startup studio that will focus on helping roboticists create new companies (then fund them), is announcing a $100 million debut fund. The capital comes entirely from a multi-family office called Cascade Global. One of the outfit’s venture partners is Santori Tenorio-Garcés, who was previously the head of business development at an unnamed family office and, before that, was a director of global partnerships and innovation at American Express’ corporate payments division. Axios has more here.

Tracker, a new seed fund led by Greycroft venture partner Jon Goldman, has raised $15.6 million in capital commitments to fund opportunities in artificial reality, virtual reality, and gaming. He tells VentureBeat he’ll be writing checks of between $50,000 and $500,000. Greycroft is one of Tracker’s investors. More here.

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People

Yinglan Tan, a longtime Sequoia venture partner based out of Singapore, has left the firm following a five-year stint and is launching his own fund.

Data

Apple sold 56 percent more Apple Watches in the second quarter than it did in the second quarter of last year, but it’s still trailing both Fitbit and Xiaomi when it comes to selling wearables, says a new report. More here.

Essential Reads

Starting today, Facebook will begin drowning out fake news with more information. The move mirrors Google’s approach, which is to retool its search engine to prevent sites from peddling fake news, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories from appearing in its top results. The WSJ has more here.

Multiple agencies tell CNBC that advertiser interest in Snapchat is flat to dwindling, as many opt to move toward Instagram. More here.

Airbnb is being sued by a guest who says a “superhost” on the platform sexually assaulted her.

Detours

Why we can’t have the male pill.

I cut down my grocery bill by eating my roommate’s food and gaslighting her.

When is this going to be over? [Thought bubble appears with image of Justin Trudeau.]

Retail Therapy

Looks like the market for iconic triplex penthouses in New York may be cooling off.

Happy Wednesday, everyone.:)

Top News in the A.M.

A new version of bitcoin hit the market yesterday and, on its second day of trading, it has already tripled in price and its market cap is now third biggest of all digital currencies.

Sponsored By . . .

eero changed the world of home WiFi with a powerful idea: that a system of wireless access points placed throughout the home could deliver WiFi so good, you’d never think about it again. Now, the 2nd generation of eero is available — providing hyper-fast, super-stable WiFi in all corners of all types of homes. For StrictlyVC readers: use code StrictlyVC at checkout and select overnight shipping for free!

This Outfit Wants Startups to Trade Equity for Patents from Big Tech Cos.

Aqua Licensing is a four-year-old patent advisory and transaction firm that typically works behind the scenes, helping companies sell their patents for a variety of reasons. But it has a new proposal for venture-backed startups that are in fundraising mode: it wants them to give big tech companies like AT&T and Lenovo some of their equity in exchange for patents that the companies no longer use but could prove useful for the startups.

Put another way, it wants to create a two-sided marketplace that helps big corporations find stakes in more startups, while also pushing startups to think from an early age about their patent strategy.

The initiative makes some degree of sense. As companies mature, they often need to think more about patents as a way to protect their business. (If a company has a patent on a product or service or idea, that’s one less patent an outsider can acquire to assert against it.)

Of course, it’s also easy to imagine the many obstacles to it working, starting with startups’ priorities. “This relies on startups thinking proactively in the early stages about a need for patents,” notes Greg Gretsch, a longtime venture capitalist and a co-founder of Jackson Square Ventures in San Francisco. “In my experience, that’s generally not top of mind for founders, and if you told them it would cost them equity, they’d probably be even less interested in engaging.”

Late last week, we talked with Aqua founder Mark McMillan to learn more about how he sees this working, and why he thinks Aqua can overcome some of these challenges. Our chat has been edited for length.

You’re trying to match startups with patents or defensive patents, saying it will help them protect their innovations, as well as help them scale. What was the impetus for the idea?

We were working with a major client last year and a discussion came up around the challenges of selling IP assets into startups. The startups don’t have a lot of cash to buy them, and VCs don’t necessarily want them doing strategic transactions that are ancillary. Meanwhile, the patent market is growing and people — companies — find themselves with assets that may be depreciating in value and costing them maintenance fees.

What are some of the big companies that you’ve signed up to this exchange program?

We’re announcing Lenovo, Rambus and AT&T today, but we have a large collection of participants that are prepared to sell to the right startup at the right price.

How does this process work?

Startups will submit their investment plan to us, just like they would to VCs. We have analytics capabilities that will help them find appropriate assets.

Given these are young companies, how can you really know what patents make the most sense for them?

We start by assuming a company has started working on its own unique patents, and get a read on the competitors it’ll be disrupting. If we can find patents that likely read on these competitors, the startup’s business plan then goes to the participating member (with the relevant patents). If that member is interested in the startup and would like to sell its patent in exchange for equity, the member then values its patents and lists a price that the startup can accept or reject.

A final closing condition has to be the closure of a qualified venture funding round and [the big tech company’s] commitment to invest the proceeds of [that patent sale] into that round.

More here.

New Fundings

Azuqua, a four-year-old Seattle startup building software that allows businesses to integrate their various cloud applications to serve specific needs, has raised $10.8 million in Series B funding. Insight Venture Partners led the round, with DFJ and Ignition Partners also investing. Xconomy has more here.

Booster, a three-year-old, Seattle-based company that offers on-demand fuel service on large corporate campuses, has raised $20 million in Series B, led by Conversion Capital. Earlier investors Maveron, Madrona Venture Group, and RRE Ventures were among the other investors participating in the round. The startup has raised $32 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

Branch Messenger, a two-year-old, Minneapolis, Mn.-based collaboration platform for shift workers to message their coworkers, has raised $6.8 million in Series A funding led by March Capital Partners. Other participants in the round include CrossCut Ventures, Techstars Ventures and Matchstick Ventures. More here.

EazyScripts, a three-year-old, Chicago-based startup that enables healthcare providers to submit electronic prescriptions from their mobile devices, has raised $2 million in Series A funding from Bluff Point Associates. More here.

ExecOnline, a five-year-old, New York-based e-learning professional development platform, has raised $16 million in Series B funding. NewSpring Growth Capital led the round, with participation from Osage Venture Partners, New Atlantic Ventures, Kaplan and Thomas Lehrman (who cofounded Gerson Lehrman Group). More here.

Flutterwave, a year-old, San Francisco-based startup that’s building an underlying unified payments infrastructure for African businesses to accept cards, mobile money, and bank account payments, has raised $10 million in Series B funding. Greycroft Partners, Green Visor Capital, Y Combinator, and Glynn Capital Management all participated. Techpoint.ng has more here.

Gimlet Media, a three-year-old, New York-based podcast network, has raised $15 million in a round led by Stripes Group. Other participants in the round include Laurene Powell Jobs’s Emerson Collective and earlier backers Graham Holdings, Betaworks, and Cross Culture Investors. Recode has more here.

Hustle, 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based text-distribution tool that allows organizers to quickly start individual, personalized conversations with huge numbers of supporters, has raised $8 million in Series A funding. Social Capitalled the round, with participation from Omidyar Network, Twilio.org, earlier backer Canvas Ventures, along with nine other unnamed investment firms. TechCrunch has more here.

Impossible Foods, the six-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company known for its juicy meatless burgers, quietly announced $75 million in funding late last week, led by Temasek, with participation from Open Philanthropy, as well as earlier investors Bill Gates, Khosla Ventures and Horizon Ventures. The company says it isn’t providing further financial details but the round brings Impossible’s funding to nearly $300 million, including earlier rounds that have included GV, Viking Global Investors and UBS. TechCrunch has more here.

M17 Entertainment, a Taiwan based Asian streaming company that recently merged with the Singapore-based dating startup Paktor, has raised $40 million in Series A funding. Earlier backer Infinity Venture Partners led the round, with participation from Golden Summit Capital, KTB Ventures, and other earlier backers that include Vertex Asia, Yahoo Japan, and Majuven. More here.

Personal Capital, an eight-year-old, San Carlos, Ca.-based digital wealth management firm, has raised $40 million in new funding as an extension of an earlier, $75 million Series E round. IGM Financial led the round, with participation from other (unnamed) existing investors. According to Crunchbase, the company has now raised roughly $215 million in equity and debt funding. More here.

ProoV, a two-year-old, Israel-based SaaS platform that aims to streamline the proof-of-concept process (so that CIOs and CTOs can understand more quickly whether a startup’s technology works), has raised $14 million in Series B funding. Helios Capital and Mangrove Capital Partners co-led the round, with participation from OurCrowd and Cerca Partners. The company has now raised $21.1 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Ritual Vitamins, a two-year-old, West Hollywood, Ca.-based vitamin subscription service, has raised $10.5 million in Series A funding led by Founders Fund, with participation from earlier backers Forerunner Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Upfront Ventures. The company has now raised $15.3 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Smash.gg, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that helps local esports fans create their own tournaments, has raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Spark Capital, with participation from Accel Partners, Horizon Ventures, Caffeinated Capital and Lowercase Capital. VentureBeat has more here.

TrackR, an eight-year-old, Santa Barbara, Ca.-based company that makes small wireless tracking devices to help users locate lost keys and other everyday items, has raised $50 million in Series B funding led by Revolution Growth. Other participants in the round include Foundry Group, Amazon Alexa Fund, DoCoMo Capital, The Glenmede Trust and Bespoke Strategies. TechCrunch has more here.

Vetted, a 1.5-year-old, L.A.-based startup that provides on-demand veterinary services for a flat $99 fee per house call, has raised $3.3 million in seed funding from Foundation Capital, with participation from Amplify LA, Sterling.VCand Reimagined Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Viome, a 1.5-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based startup that does RNA analysis of all living organisms in the gut and was founded by serial entrepreneur Naveen Jain, has raised $15 million in funding. Khosla Ventures led the round, with participation from Bold Capital Partners. VentureBeat has more here.

WanderJaunt, a 10-month-old, Bay Area-based startup property manager for short term rentals that’s also trying to establish its own verification badge as a meaningful marketing tool, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Khosla Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Wia, a two-year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based startup that offers a cloud platform to enable developers to turn various sensor-based hardware into Internet of Things devices, has raised €750,000 in seed funding led by Suir Valley Ventures, with participation from Enterprise Ireland. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Blue Lake Capital, a Shanghai-based venture capital firm led by former Sequoia Capital and GGV Capital execs, is raising $200 million for its second early-stage fund, according to a stock exchange filing spied by DealStreetAsia. Fundraising reportedly kicked off in March. More here.

Brightstone Venture Capital, a four-year-old, Minneapolis, Mn.-based early-stage tech and life sciences venture firm, has closed on $25 million in capital commitments for its second fund. The outfit is targeting $100 million altogether. More here.

Elevation Innovation Partners, a new early- to mid-stage venture firm that’s based in New York, says it has held a first close on $15 million in capital commitments. It’s hoping to raise $25 million by year end. More here.

Exits

Snap is in talks with China-based drone maker Zero Zero Robotics over an acquisition, as first reported by The Information. According to TechCrunch’s sources, the deal is in the range of $150 million to $200 million. More here.

People

500 Startups’ Christine Tsai has responded to sexual harassment allegations for the first time since founder Dave McClure’s ouster. She called the firm’s mission “much bigger than just one person. And it’s way too important to be taken down by one person’s mistakes.”

Data

Instagram, owned by Facebook, says its users under age 25 spend “more than 32 minutes a day on Instagram” and that users ages 25 and over “spend more than 24 minutes a day” on the app. Both numbers are bigger than what Snapshared in its S-1 back in February, notes Recode.

Researchers at Brunel University London and the University of Birmingham recently conducted an eight-week study to explore whether fitness wearables might encourage young teenagers to exercise more. Their findings? The devices had the opposite effect.

Essential Reads

You can now use PayPal through Skype‘s mobile app.

A look at how Facebook is silencing important conversations.

Detours

In a business trip the Bay Area last year, this Japanese chef “decided the tech elite needed a high-end place to eat.” (We’re still laughing so unable to finish the rest of this article.)

Here’s the algorithm that’s making preschoolers obsessed with YouTube.

Retail Therapy

“The King and I” at the Kennedy Center. Amazing. Really. It plays through August 20th.

Hi, everyone, happy August!:)

Before we jump into things, we’re excited to announce one more guest speaker who is joining us for our last event of the year, on Wednesday, September 27, in downtown San Francisco. Marco Santori, a New York-based attorney who now leads Cooley’s fintech practice, has generously agreed to join L.A.-based cryptocurrency banker Stan Miroshnik for our fireside chat about ICOs.

Both are fully immersed in the business of structuring new products; together, they’ll tell you all the ins and outs of ICOS (and how best to invest in them). Catch them while they’re in town. Seats for the evening are available here.

Top News in the A.M.

Blood testing startup Theranos just reached a settlement agreement with former customer Walgreens. As part of the confidential deal, Walgreens will dismiss its lawsuit against Theranos “with no finding of implication of liability.” Walgreens filed a lawsuit against the company last November, seeking up to $140 million in damages. More here.

SoftBank Vision Fund is now in talks to invest directly in India’s Flipkart, says Bloomberg, after talks to fold SoftBank-backed Snapdeal into Flipkart fell apart. More here.

Sponsored By . . .

eero changed the world of home WiFi with a powerful idea: that a system of wireless access points placed throughout the home could deliver WiFi so good, you’d never think about it again. Now, the 2nd generation of eero is available — providing hyper-fast, super-stable WiFi in all corners of all types of homes. For StrictlyVC readers: use code StrictlyVC at checkout and select overnight shipping for free!

This Startup Wants Every Camp, Swim School, and After-School Program Using Its Software

Sawyer, a two-year-old, Brooklyn-based startup that aims to become the OpenTable of children’s activities, has raised $6 million in new funding led by Advance Venture Partners. Others who contributed to the round include Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, 3311 Ventures, Female Founders Fund, and earlier backer Collaborative Fund,  as well as unnamed investors from the company’s $1.5 million seed round, which closed in April of last year.

Sawyer sees itself as capitalizing on the more customized ways that parents are trying to educate their children, in an age where they also expect the online tools they use to be simple. It has a two-pronged approach toward that end, too.

First and foremost, it’s been at work on a subscription-based software suite called Sawyer Tools that it says “hundreds” of outfits across the U.S. — from camps to after-school programs to early-development classes — are now using to schedule classes, communicate with parents, and process payments.

Sawyer CEO and cofounder Marissa Evans Alden suggests it’s a big opportunity that’s just waiting to be exploited. “None of these vendors run on any type of [sophisticated] software,” she says. She likens what Sawyer is building to the cloud-based business management software made by publicly traded MindBody, which caters to the wellness industry and went public in 2015. “Where MindBody was able to power yoga facilities, there isn’t this layer in that space,” says Alden.

More here.

New Fundings

Bitrise, a two-year-old, Hungary-based startup that helps app developers automate their daily development tasks, from building through testing to deployment, has raised $3.2 million in funding. OpenOcean led the round, with participation from Y Combinator (whose program Bitrise passed through recently), Fiedler Capital, and other angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Carspring, a two-year-old, London- and Berlin-based used car buying platform that was founded by Rocket Internet, has raised £5 million ($6.6 million) in Series B funding from Rocket Internet itself, Channel 4’s Commercial Growth Fund (which trades TV advertising for equity) and other, unnamed investors. TechCrunch has more here.

CommonSense Robotics, a two-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup that’s trying to create micro-fulfillment centers that can be built inside existing retail spaces, has raised $6 million in seed funding. Aleph VC and Innovation Endeavors co-led the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Helpling, a three-year-old, Berlin-based platform for on-demand home services that was incubated by Rocket Internet, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Unilever Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Juvo, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup looking to provide micro-loans to underbanked mobile users in emerging markets, has raised $40 million in funding led by New Enterprise Associates and Wing Venture Capital. Juvo had previously raised $14 million from investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Kin, a year-old, Chicago-based home insurance startup that promises to save users time and aggravation, has raised $4 million from investors, including Commerce Ventures, Omidyar Network, 500 Startups, Chicago Venturesand Portag3 Ventures, as well as numerous unnamed angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Taxify, a four-year-old, Estonia-based, Uber-like service that operates in Europe and Africa and plans to launch in London later this year, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Didi Chuxing. As you likely recall, Didi had forced Uber out of China; now it’s finding ways to expand its geographic footprint. TechCrunch has more here.

UnifyID, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based authentication platform that relies on factors that are unique to individuals but don’t require any user action (like users’ locations, their habits, and various signals from the devices they carry), has raised $20 million in Series A funding. New Enterprise Associatesled the round, with participation from earlier backers Andreessen Horowitz, Stanford-StartX and Accomplice Ventures. (We liked this company when we saw it live. It was the runner-up at TechCrunch’s Disrupt show in San Francisco last year.) More here.

Volocopter, a five-year-old, Germany-based flying air taxi developer, has raised $30 million in funding from Daimler. More here.

Wonderbly, a five-year-old, London-based platform for creating and publishing personalized story books (it was formerly called Lost My Name), has raised $8.5 million in Series B funding. Ravensburger, a leading European publisher, led the round, with participation from earlier backers GV, Project A Ventures, Greycroft Partners, The Chernin Group, Allen & Co., and Silicon Valley Bank (which provided an undisclosed amount of debt funding). More here.

Exits

Following sexual harassment allegations that led to the resignation of 500 Startups co-founder Dave McClure, the troubled venture firm has reportedly abandoned its Canada fund. The outfit had reportedly already received $15 million in commitments and was targeting $30 million, but concerned LPs have asked it to stop making new or follow-on investments. According to reports, 500 Startups had already invested in 38 Canadian startups. More here.

Facebook has acquired the conversational AI startup Ozlo, a 3.5-year-old outfit founded by Charles Jolley, who was formerly head of platform for Android at Facebook. The companies aren’t disclosing terms of the deal, but Jolly isn’t heading back to the mothership, reports TechCrunch. Ozlo had raised $14 million from investors, including AME Cloud Ventures and Greylock Partners. More here.

LogMeIn, a 14-year-old, Boston-based company that sells authentication and other connectivity software and services to companies whose users connect remotely, is paying up to $50 million for an Israeli company called Nanorepthat developed chatbots and other AI-based tools that help people navigate self-service apps. Nanorep had raised just less than $7 million from investors, including Titanium, Oryzn Capital and OurCrowd. TechCrunch has more here.

Wyndham Worldwide, the giant hotel chain, has acquired Love Home Swap, a six-year-old, London-based startup that enables users to book time to stay in other people’s homes while renting out their own homes. According to Crunchbase, Love Home Swap had raised roughly $16 million in funding, including from MMC Ventures. Wyndam is buying it for just north of $50 million, says TechCrunch. More here.

Also Sponsored By . . .

Casper is an internet sensation, with thousands of five-star reviews and countless awards. The Casper mattress is obsessively engineered and sleeps cool. Plus, it ships for free, straight to your door, in a “how did they do that?” sized box. Try it risk-free for 100 nights. You can receive $50 off right now, too, by mentioning the promo code STRICTLYVC.

People

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is a smaller firm today. Yesterday, general partner Mike Abott announced that he’s leaving the firm to jump back into the world of startups. Separately, the firm is shutting down its early-stage “Edge” initiative — it was a way for the firm to market its seed-stage investments — with three young investors who’d joined to be lead that effort now parting ways with the firm, reports TechCrunch. (As we mentioned last week, Arielle Zuckerberg also left recently, apparently to travel in a camper van.)

Roughly 100 current or former Snap employees have profited on paper from their stock gains, according to new analysis in The Information. Shares for remaining employees are currently under water.

Essential Reads

Facebook is reportedly working on a video chat device for the home — the first major hardware product from its experimental Building 8 lab.

Uber is less valuable without Travis Kalanick as CEO than it was with him at the helm, according to some of the ride-hailing company’s biggest investors.

Less than a week after the SEC said that it may regulate certain crypto token sales, better known as ICOs, Singapore has followed suit, saying it will also regulate offerings that are deemed to be securities. As TechCrunch notes, Singapore has developed into a destination of sorts for ICOs.

Detours

You may now toke with the bride (evidently).

Do you love with your phone? We mean, romantically.

Retail Therapy

David Rockefeller’s 14.5-acre estate on Mount Desert Island in Maine is on the market. Price tag: $19 million.

Happy Monday, everyone! We’re in beautiful, balmy Washington, D.C. at the moment, at the start of a workation with the family. Our friend Semil Shah of the seed-stage firm Haystack nicely offered to help us out for a few weeks, so we can spend more time away from our laptop, and he can delve deeper into the psyche of some of his fellow investors and the many founders who interest him.

Toward that end, over the next few weeks, we’ll be running a series of “how I started” type interviews that Semil is conducting, chats we hope are instructive for those of you who could use an inside look at how things come together in startup world.

We also have great news to announce about our upcoming event on September 27, Wednesday night, at the Autodesk Gallery in downtown San Francisco. Our latest addition to the agenda: 21-year-old founder Alex Rogrigues, whose recently-out-of-stealth self-driving truck company, Embark, is not only taking on Uber and Alphabet as they duke it out with each other, but just two weeks ago it signed a deal with Peterbilt to develop a new group of test trucks. To hear more about how Rodrigues plans to compete with some of the richest companies in the world, grab a seat (before we run out).

With much thanks to our partners Bolt, Ballou PR, and Rosebud Communications, for their support in the evening. More soon . . .

Top News in the A.M.

Discovery Communications is acquiring Scripps Networks Interactive for $14.6 billion in cash and stock. The deal represents a 34 percent premium over the price where Scripps’s shares were trading on Friday. The deal combines two of cable TV’s bigger brands in an era where cord cutting has hit impacted all the major players across the board. TechCrunch has more here.

Charter Communications is saying it has “no interest” in merging with Sprint, following a Friday WSJ report that Sprint had proposed a deal. That’s apparently not stopping SoftBank, which currently controls a majority stake in Sprint. According to Bloomberg, its billionaire chairman, Masayoshi Son, is now mustering an offer from SoftBank to buy Charter outright. More here.

That was fast. Just days after Flipkart’s much-rumored acquisition of Snapdeal appeared to be complete, the deal has officially died, says TechCrunch.

Sponsored By . . .

eero changed the world of home WiFi with a powerful idea: that a system of wireless access points placed throughout the home could deliver WiFi so good, you’d never think about it again. Now, the 2nd generation of eero is available — providing hyper-fast, super-stable WiFi in all corners of all types of homes. For StrictlyVC readers: use code StrictlyVC at checkout and select overnight shipping for free!

Pillow CEO Sean Conway: How I Raised My Series A

By Semil Shah

Sean Conway is co-founder and CEO of Pillow, a startup that provides a suite of management services to both residents and building owners who are looking to earn extra income through the short-term rental economy. Before co-founding Pillow, Conway launched Notehall, a study materials marketplace acquired by Chegg in 2011.

As a founder, how do you define what a Series A means?

For me personally, Series A is an incredible milestone because it’s validation that your vision for should exist, and it gives you confidence by having the means to get there.

From a business standpoint, Series A provides the capital to find and surround yourself with a team that can focus on critical pieces of the business model – to execute and excellerate the vision at hand.  Prior, each team member pulled the weight of two to four jobs, which spread us thin.

Additionally, Series A provides social capital. Your VC becomes a partner for public and industry validation if you choose to publicize your raise. Your new board member is unlike any advisor you’ve likely had because they have skin in the game to accelerate you forward.

What are your thoughts on when to announce a Series A, once you’ve closed it?

I highly recommend founders delay their funding announcement three to six months until they put the capital to work to build the team and product. The positives include more invitations to speak at conferences, with press and introductions that you don’t want to pass on.

How many months did it take to raise the round?

It took six months in total. In those first couple of months, we collected data, created a deck, and created a list of prospective investors who we’d like to work with.  Over months three and four, we pitched six to 12 VCs each week. We lined these meetings up back to back and we had a term sheet by the end of the four month. We were ecstatic for about 48 hours, then [the realization hits that your] bank account balance is giving you anxiety because it’s lower than ever and you need to get funds wired — pronto. We went through due diligence in months five and six, which involved a lot of speaking with emailing lawyers. At the end of the sixth month, the round was closed. It was a europhic moment for us, and overall, it’s an incredible process that I would advise other founders to cherish, because a very limited number of entrepreneurs have the opportunity to experience it.

How many VC meetings did it take to get the round raised?

We pitched 25 different firms; that led to five partner meetings.  The most pitch meetings I scheduled in one day was six, and that was two too many.  I’d recommend beginning with two pitches a day in the first week and increasing to three or four meetings maximum in the second and third weeks.

What was the round size? What was your initial target?

We modeled out various amount of capital but targeted $8 million initially and wound up with $13 million. I recommend modeling out three different capital raises with three different scenarios; below target, at target, and above target.  From here you can better understand all scenarios and which milestones you’ll hit depending on performance.

Looking back now, what were the biggest mistakes you made in raising Series A and why? 

I think there was a large opportunity to include strategics in our Series A, and we only pitched VCs.  I also

Whisper, one of the few anonymous social sharing apps left standing, just laid off 20 percent of its staff. More here.

Jobs

Felix Capital is right now looking to hire an associate. The job is in London.

Essential Reads

Recode has a lot of detail about why Meg Whitman is no longer in the running to be Uber‘s new CEO. The New York Times also has a deep dive about backstabbing on Uber’s board, and why ousted CEO (and continuing board member) Travis Kalanick may be hoping a new Softbank investment will enable him to regain control of the company.

Elon Musk says it’s going to be “hell,” making Tesla‘s Model 3 quickly enough to satisfy to demand. According to Musk, reservations for the car now exceed 500,000. (Here’s everything you’d want to know about the car, by the way.)

Giphy, the four-year-old search engine for GIFs, is about to start testingsponsored GIFs.

Snap‘s lock-up period ended today for some insiders, and they are selling.

Detours

Men, stop eating sugar. (Women, you’re fine.)

RIP, Sam Shepard.

Retail Therapy

Death Wish cold brew coffee. If it doesn’t kill you, something else will.