Some more great news about our new event, coming together on February 27th, in San Francisco; in addition to Tina Sharkey of Brandless, we’ve just added Marten Mickos of HackerOne to the agenda. Mickos’s company is helping a growing number of companies fight increasingly virulent strains of ransomware, not to mention other bugs that are putting them at risk of seeing their sensitive information leaked. We’ll talk with Mickos about the biggest battles brewing, how companies come to grips with hiring people they don’t know — hackers — to fight cybercriminals, and a lot more.

Other announcements to come. In the meantime, readers have snapped up a little less than half of these tickets since we first mentioned the evening on Tuesday, so don’t wait too long if you want to come. (And if you’d like to partner with us on the event, let us know.)

More tomorrow!

Instagram now lets you share live videos through direct messages. More in TechCrunch. 

Sequoia is going big, says Recode, which reports the storied venture firm may be raising up to $6 billion from its investors to better compete with SoftBank and its $100 billion Vision Fund.

China’s Didi Chuxing, the country’s top ride-hailing company, said yesterday it has raised $4 billion in new capital from undisclosed sources to support a range of new initiatives including international expansion. The company had already raised $13 billion from investors, including Alibaba, Tencent and Apple; it says its newest round will go toward developing its artificial intelligence technology, as well as international expansion. TechCrunch has more here.

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Aura Biosciences, a 10-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based biotech company aimed at preventing blindness in cancer patients, has raised $30 million in Series C funding co-led by Lundbeckfonden Ventures and Arix Bioscience, with participation from earlier backers Advent Life Sciences, Chiesi Ventures, Ysios Capital,Alexandria Venture Investments, Columbus Venture Partners and LI-COR Biosciences. Endpoints News has more here.

conDati, a months-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based maker of marketing analytics software, has raised $2.5 million in Series A funding led by The Entrepreneurs’ Fund. More here.

Framer, a two-year-old, Amsterdam-based startup behind a visual design prototyping tool, has raised $7.7 million in Series A funding led by Accel Partners, with participation from Foundation Capital, Designer Fund and AngelList. VentureBeat has more here.

FLX Bio, a two-year-old, South San Francisco, Ca.-based developer of cancer immunotherapies, has raised $60 million in Series C funding from GV, along with earlier backers The Column Group, Kleiner Perkins, Topspin Partners andCelgene Corp. More here.

iRecommend Software, a 1.5-year-old, Tulsa, Ok.-based startup that’s developing a recommendation engine for the retail, recruiting, real estate, entertainment, and healthcare industries, has raised $1.85 million in Series A funding led by i2E, with participation from the Warren Foundation, Falcon Partners and other unnamed investors. More here.

Nuritas, a three-year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based data mining biotech startup, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Cultivian Sandbox Ventures. The Irish Times has more here.

Nylas, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based company providing APIs for email, calendars, and contacts, has raised $4 million in funding led by 8VC, with participation from Rubicon, Great Oaks and Crunchfund. More here.

Pig.gi, a two-year-old, Mexico City, Mexico-based company whose Android lock screen app lets users earn free mobile airtime, has raised $2.3 million in seed funding from Archipelago Global. More here.

PrecisionLender, an eight-year-old, Charlotte, N.C.-based pricing platform for commercial banks, has raised an undisclosed amount of growth equity funding fromInsight Venture Partners and earlier investor Georgian Partners. More here.

Radar Relay, a five-month-old Fort Collins, Co.-based decentralized crypto currency exchange, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Blockchain Capital, with participation from SV Angel, Digital Currency Group, Reciprocal Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Kindred Ventures, Kokopelli Capital, Notation Capital, Sparkland Capital, and V1.VC. Coindesk has more here.

Ripcord, a two-year-old Hayward, Ca.-based company that uses machine vision, robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning to digitize all of an enterprise’s records, has raised $25 million in what it’s calling B1 funding. (The round comes on the heels of a $40 million Series B round that closed in August.) GV led the new round, with participation from Telstra Ventures and earlier backers Icon Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Lux Capital, and Silicon Valley Bank. VentureBeat has more here.

SendBird, a four-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company behind a chat API and messaging SDK for in-app chat and messaging, has raised $16 million in Series A funding. Shasta Ventures and August Capital co-led the round; other participants include earlier backers Y Combinator and FundersClub. More here.

SolidEnergy Systems, a five-year-old, Woburn, Ma.-based lithium-metal battery company, has raised $30 million in Series C funding from earlier backers Temasek,Applied Ventures, General Motors and Vertex Ventures China. China Money Network has more here.

Stitch Health, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company that helps manage patient health data through care checklists, team chat rooms, and patient conversations, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding. Benchmarkled the round, and was joined by the Y Combinator Continuity Fund among others. Business Insider has more here.

Streem, a five-year-old, Portland, Ore.-based startup pitching customers on unlimited cloud storage for all their media, has raised more than $1.7 million in funding, including from GVR Fund, Flying Fish, Columbia Ventures Corp, Rogue Venture Partners, Curious Capital, betaworks Ventures, Greycroft Partners,GGV Capital and General Catalyst AR Fund. GeekWire has more here.

Tessa Therapeutics, a 16-year-old, Singapore-based developer of virus-specific T cell immunotherapies for cancer, has raised $80 million in new funding led byTemasek, with participation from EDBI, Karst Peak Capital, Heliconiaand Heritas. DealStreetAsia has more here.

Fly Ventures, a 1.5-year-old, Berlin-based seed-stage venture firm, has closed its debut fund with $41 million in capital commitments, including from the European Investment Fund, Korelya Capital, and a number of unnamed family offices from Europe and the U.S. TechCrunch has more here.

Industry Ventures, a 17-year-old, San Francisco-based investment firm that makes both primary and secondary investments, is raising up to $250 million for its fifth fund-of-funds, per an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. More here.

The music streaming company Spotify is expected to receive approval from the SEC to move forward with a listing of its shares on the NYSE, says the WSJ. The Journal first reported back in April that Spotify was contemplating an IPO that’s not an IPO.

Daimler has acquired a majority stake in Chauffeur Privé, a French app that provides ride hailing services in Paris, Lyon and the Côte d’Azur. The ownership stake means that Daimler now has controlling interests in a number of smaller Uber competitors, particularly operating in Europe and MENA, including MyTaxi and Careem. TechCrunch has more here.

Emil Oldenburg, co-founder and CTO of Bitcoin.com, one of the largest “one-stop shop” sites for Bitcoin, says Bitcoin is “the riskiest investment you can make” at the moment, so he’s trading all his Bitcoin for Bitcoin Cash.

Snap just lost more talent.

57 startups became unicorns this year and seven lost their horns. More here.

Facebook may be helping advertisers discriminate against older workers in their jobs listings, shows an investigation by the New York Times and ProPublica. Facebook says it isn’t doing anything wrong.

Facebook and Universal Music Group just announced a global, multi-year partnership that will allow users to upload and share videos containing licensed music and personalize their music experiences on Facebook, Instagram and Oculus. Variety has more here.

And more Facebook, with Bloomberg arguing that the company is “no bystander in global politics,” that, on the contrary, it’s eagerly enabling the dark art of digital propaganda.

Netflix spent $90 million on a Will Smith movie, and critics hate it.

Why you should never take your car to a carwash.

The biggest breakups of 2017 (sniffle).

Game of Thrones beer, because, yes, winter is (still) coming.

A.) We have a date and a place and even our first guest speaker for our first StrictlyVC event of 2018! Date: February 27, a Tuesday night. Place: The lovely South Park space of New Enterprise Associates in San Francisco. Our first guest announcement: Tina Sharkey of the young, e-commerce company Brandless has agreed to come (yay). We’ll have much more for you as the event comes together. In the meantime, roughly one-third of the tickets disappeared yesterday so don’t wait too long to get yours. (NEA is providing a beautiful home for the evening but it can only accommodate so many of us.)

B.) We will not be publishing StrictlyVC next week or the week after, because kids. You could probably use a break from us anyway.:)

We’re working on a year-end slideshow at the moment so no column today.

Snap and Twitter now have roughly the same market cap as of this writing.

Get the pulse of the innovation economy. Download the State of the Markets Report from Silicon Valley Bank for insights on the venture ecosystem, market dynamics, M&A and exits, and fundraising. This quarter we explore how new sources of capital, including Corporate Venture, Family Offices and ICOs, are disrupting the venture ecosystem. Terms and conditions apply. Silicon Valley Bank, Member FDIC.

Ataata, a 1.5-year-old, Bethesda, Md..-based cybersecurity training platform, has raised $3 million in Series A funding led by Next Frontier Capital, with participation from TEDCO, 2M, SaaS Ventures and ARRA Capital. Technical.ly DC has more here.

Bigfoot Biomedical, a three-year-old, Milpitas, Ca.-based medical device company that ties smartphones to its automated insulin delivery pump for sufferers of Type 1 diabetics, has raised $37 million in Series B  funding co-led by Janus Henderson Investors and return backer Quadrant Capital Advisors. Other backers in the round include Cormorant Asset Management, Senvest, Visionnaire Ventures,JDRF T1D Fund and T1D Exchange. FierceBiotech has more here.

Carbon, a four-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based digital 3D manufacturing company, has raised a whopping $200 million in Series D funding. Investors includeBaillie Gifford, Fidelity Management & Research Company, ARCHINA Capital, General Electric, JSR Corporation, Sequoia Capital, Silver Lake Kraftwerk, and Reinet Investments. TechCrunch has more here.

Common, a two-year-old. New York-based co-living startup, just raised $40 million in Series C funding led by Norwest Venture Partners. More here.

ExPace Technology, a 1.5-year-old, China-based commercial space company, has raised $180 million in Series A funding from unnamed investors. China Money Network has more here.

Happy Returns, a two-year-old, L.A.-based technology, logistics and service provider for online retailers, has raised $8 million in Series B funding led by USVP, with participation from Upfront Ventures and Trunk Club founder Brian Spaly. TechCrunch has more here.

Juul Labs, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of nicotine vaping devices, has secured $112 million of what could become a $150 million convertible note offering, per an SEC filing flagged by CNBC. More here.

Maana, a five-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based company that helps large companies in industries like oil and gas, manufacturing, healthcare, and insurance extract knowledge from their employees and internal data, has raised $28 million in Series C funding. China International Capital Corporation and Eight Square Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including Accenture Ventures and Sino Capital, among others. GeekWire has more here.

Mobike, the two-year-old, Beijing, China-based bike rental company, has raised funding of an undisclosed amount from Line to boost its presence in Japan. TechCrunch has more here.

Nuritas, a three-year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based biotechnology company focused on the discovery and use of bioactive peptides through artificial intelligence and genomics, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Cultivian Sandbox Ventures. More here.

Orchard Therapeutics, a two-year-old, London-based developer of gene therapies for orphan diseases, has raised $110 million in Series B funding co-led by Ballie Gifford and ORI Capital, with participation from Temasek, Cowen Healthcare Investments, Juda Capital, F-Prime Capital and UCL Technology Fund. FierceBiotech has more here.

Passport, a seven-year-old, Charlotte, N.C.-based company focused around mobile payments for the transportation industry (think parking, transit and tolling payments, parking enforcement, and permit management), has raised $43 million in Series C funding led by Bain Capital Ventures. The company has now raised $60 million altogether, including from Grotech Ventures, MK Capital and Relevance Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Flagship Pioneering, a 17-year-old, Cambridge, Mass.-based venture capital and private equity firm, has closed its newest fund with $618 million, pushing its total capital under management to roughly $2.3 billion. FierceBiotech has more here.

Hadean Ventures, a two-year-old, Norway-based early-stage venture capital firm, says it has raised $118 million for its life sciences fund. More here.

Jesse Draper, daughter of longtime VC Tim Draper, has closed a $10 million venture fund focused on female founders. Called Halogen Ventures, Draper is looking to back  early-stage consumer startups, from plus-size clothing to interior design, says the WSJ.

E-commerce company Stitch Fix was kind of clobbered last night in after-hours trading on the heels of its first earnings report as a public company. It hasn’t quite recovered today. More here.

Docusign is acquiring the IP rights and the employees of Appuri, a Seattle-based machine learning and data platform startup that had raised $6 million in funding from Baseline Ventures, TDF Ventures, Divergent Ventures, and Vulcan Capital. GeekWire has more here.

Natalie Bruss has joined the young, real-estate-focused venture firm Fifth Wall Ventures as a partner. More here.

Uber has hired former Orbitz CEO Barney Harford as its first-ever COO. More in Recode.

At long last, Magic Leap has shared a first look at what they’ve been building with the nearly $2 billion it has raised from Google, Alibaba, and others. Here’s its three-part offering.

Coinbase launched, then was forced to suspend, Bitcoin Cash yesterday amidst allegations of insider trading. More here.

Marc Lore is shaking up Wal-mart in two new ways.

So trippy: A 26-year-old woman just gave birth to a baby that was conceived 25 years ago.

A year of climate change in photos.

You know you need a vacation when you accidentally send your phone number to 16 million people.

And oldie but a goodie.

First and foremost, we’re very excited to let you know that we’re starting to figuring out our next StrictlyVC event. We’ll have more on the agenda soon, but note that it will be hosted at the beautiful offices of New Enterprise Associates in San Francisco’s South Park on Tuesday evening, February 27. (Thank you, NEA!). You can start nabbing your seats here. Also, if you’re interested in partnering with us on this one as a sponsor, we’d love to talk.

Also important: we wanted to start noting that we’re shutting down the works for two weeks, beginning this coming Monday. As longtime readers know, we usually turn off the lights for one week in December, but it’s been an atypically busy year, and we just kind of want to shower our kids with our undivided attention over their school break so they don’t grow up to be criminals. We’ll miss writing SVC, but we’ll look forward to seeing you back here January 8.

More tomorrow.:)

House Republicans just passed a sweeping tax overhaul puts President Donald Trump one step away from his first major legislative victory, despite it being widely viewed as a p.o.s. for everyone other than corporations and private equity and real estate executives. Bloomberg has more here. So does Dealbook.

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Ample Hills Creamery, a six-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based chain of ice cream shops, has raised an $8 million Series A funding led by Rosecliff Ventures and joined by Bullish, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, RiverPark Ventures, The Allana Group, Charles Cohen of Cohen Media and others. The company has raised $4 million in funding in 2015, a round we’d written up here.

Anodot, a three-year-old, Ra’anana, Israel-based AI-powered analytics company, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Redline Capital Management, with participation from earlier backers Aleph Venture Capital and Disruptive Technologies Venture Capital. The company has now raised $23 million. More here.

Asimov, a months-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based startup that says it’s using computer-aided design platform enables it to precisely engineer genetic circuits for customers in diverse sectors, has raised $4.7 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation by Data Collective, Pillar, and AME Cloud Ventures. More here.

Bigfinite, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that sells data analytics aimed at optimizing the pharmaceutical manufacturing process, has raised $8.5 million in seed funding led by Crosslink Capital, Uncork Capital and La Famiglia, with participation from Industry Ventures and Krohne. More here.

Bima, a seven-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based startup that builds and sells “microinsurance” services for low-income consumers in Africa, Asia and Latin America, has raised $96.6 million in a strategic investment from Allianz X, the digital investment unit of the insurance giant. TechCrunch has more here.

Convercent, a five-year-old, Denver, Co.-based company that provides ethics and compliance software to businesses, has raised a $25 million funding round led byRho Ventures, with participation from Sapphire Ventures and Tola Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Daily Harvest, a two-year-old, New York-based subscription service specializing in frozen, plant-based, one-step-prep foods, has raised $43 million in Series B funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from VMG Partners,M13, chef and restaurateur Bobby Flay, Olympic gold medalist Shaun White, and actress Haylie Duff. Earlier investors also joined the round, including Rubicon Venture Capital. More here.

Dev/Con Detect, a 1.5-year-old, Tampa, Fla.-based cybersecurity company, has raised $1.29 million in seed funding led by Newfund US, with participation fromGolden Seeds, Innova Memphis, Off The Grid Ventures, The JumpFund, GAN Ventures, Las Olas Venture Capital, Start Co., and individual investors. More here.

Dgraph Labs, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based open-source distributed graph database that uses a version of Facebook’s GraphQL as its default query language, has raised $3 million in funding. The round includes Bain Capital Ventures, Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes, Blackbird Ventures and AirTree. TechCrunch has more here.

DigitalGenius, a four-year-old, London-based AI-based customer service startup, has raised $14.75 million in Series A funding led by Global Founders Capital, with participation from MMC Ventures, Paua Ventures and earlier investorsSalesforce Ventures, Runa Capital, RRE Ventures, Lumia Capital, Compoundand Lerer Hippeau Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Fyusion, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that’s applying 3D computer vision and machine learning to make images intelligent, has raised $22 million in Series B funding, including from New Enterprise Associates; Presence Capital;2020; NTT DOCOMO Ventures; a publicly traded Japanese gaming company called Colopl; and Gionee, which is a Chinese smartphone company. More here.

Heretik, a months-old, Chicago, Il.-based legal software company that uses machine learning to make the contract review process smarter, has raised $2.4 million in seed funding led by Corazon Capital, with participation from existing investors Chicago Ventures and Relativity. Crain’s Chicago Business has more here.

Label Insight, a nine-year-old, Chicago, Il.-based data company that breaks down product packaging information for a wide spectrum of customers, has raised $21 million in Series C funding led by Delta-v Capital, with participation from River Cities Capital Funds. More here.

Lemonade, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based tech-based insurance company, has raised $120 million in Series C funding led by SoftBank, with participation from earlier investors, which include Aleph, Allianz, General Catalyst, GV (Google Ventures), Sequoia Capital, Sound Ventures, Thrive Capital, Tusk Ventures, and XL Innovate. TechCrunch has more here.

Skymet Weather Services, a 13-year-old, Noida, India-based weather forecasting services startup, has closed an undisclosed amount of Series C funding from theInsuResilience Investment Fund, which is acquiring 26.8 percent of the company. The InsuResilience Investment Fund was set up on behalf of the German government. The Economic Times has more here.

Inventure, the 10-year-old Nordic seed- and early-stage venture firm, says it has held a first close on its third fund with €110 million ($130 million) in commitments. TechCrunch has more here.

In November, the popular lip-syncing app Musical.ly announced its acquisition by Chinese social media giant Toutiao (itself owned by Bytedanc). Now, Musical.ly is launching a $50 million “Creator Fund” that will be used to invest in education, training and community enrichment on its platform, as well as to aid in the discovery and development of new talent. TechCrunch has more here.

Ola, the Uber rival in India, is entering the food delivery space with a deal to acquire Foodpanda’s India business from its parent company, DeliveryHero. Terms of the all-stock deal aren’t being disclosed, but TechCrunch suspects a willingness to sell. More here.

Google has suspended a senior artificial intelligence researcher for alleged sexual misconduct, reports Bloomberg.

Lauren Kolodny has been promoted to partner at Aspect Ventures, the three-year-old, early-stage venture firm cofounded by longtime VCs Theresia Gouw and Jennifer Fonstad. Kolodny, who’d previously worked in product marketing at Google, focuses on the future of work, fintech, cybersecurity, AI and autonomy. TechCrunch has more here.

“Silicon Valley” star T.J. Miller is being accused of sexually assaulting and punching a woman while a college student at George Washington University. He denies the allegations. The Daily Beast has more here.

More terrible news for Uber: A man suspected of strangling and killing a young British diplomat in Lebanon who’d booked a ride following a work party, is an Uber driver. According to sources who spoke to a daily paper in Lebanon, he had a criminal record, too.

Of the 3,000 largest companies in the U.S., there are 624 of them with no women on their boards. (Psst, companies, it may be time to check this out.)

Reach Capital, an early-stage ed tech venture firm, is looking to hire an associate. The job is in Palo Alto, Ca.

The SEC today temporarily suspended trading of securities of The Crypto Company, a California-based firm whose shares have skyrocketed more than 17,000 percent since it first began trading in September.

Facebook can now find your face, even when it’s not tagged.

Go, Microsoft. The software giant said today that it has eliminated forced arbitration agreements with employees who make sexual harassment claims. It’s also supporting a proposed federal law that would widely ban such agreements.

Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne says more than 2,000 accredited investors have committed more than $100 million on the first day of pre-sale of tokens for its SEC-registered tZERO alternative trading platform. (More background on that platform here.)

Retiring early might just kill you.

Twenty people we will miss.

How to make a shoe.

Last-minute stocking stuffers (that should reach your place in time).

Well, now you’ve done it. Global venture capital investment has hit an all-time record, with more than $142 billion already disbursed in 2017, according toPitchBook. Axios has more here.

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Aptinyx, a two-year-old, Evanston, Ill.-based developer of therapeutics for treating neurologic disorders, has raised $70 million in Series B funding. Bain Capital Life Sciences led the round and was joined by Adage Capital, Agent Capital, andHBM Healthcare Investments, among many others (which is why we aren’t listing them all!). Crain’s Chicago Business has more here.

AxleHire, a two-year-old, San Francisco and L.A.-based last-mile logistics startup that facilitates deliveries for companies like HelloFresh, Freshly, Sunbasket, La Boulangerie and others, has raised $4.3 million from Acorn Pacific, RGA Venturesand others. TechCrunch has more here.

Fano Labs, a two-year-old, Hong Kong-based maker of AI-based call center software, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Horizons Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Fiit, a nine-month-old, London-based startup that provides users real-time performance feedback and live leaderboards that let them challenge friends anywhere in the world, has raised $3.2 million in seed funding. London-basedConnect Ventures led the round, with participation from Rooks Nest Ventures,Westminster Capital and others. TechCrunch has more here.

Leadspace, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based B2B audience management platform for marketing and sales, has raised $21 million in Series C funding co-led by Arrowroot Capital and Jerusalem Venture Partners. Globes has more here.

Quinyx, a 12-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-headquartered company that offers cloud-based software to help businesses manage employee scheduling, communication, task-management and payroll integration, has raised $12 million in fresh funding from Battery Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Reniac, a 5.5-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based maker of data-aware architecture for applications, servers, and data centers, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Intel Capital. More here.

Respicardia, an 11-year-old, Minnetonka, Mn.-based med tech company focused on treating moderate to severe central sleep apnea in adults, has raised $58.5 million in funding, two months after receiving FDA approval. The round was led byZoll Medical Corporation, a maker of medical devices and related software, with participation from unnamed earlier investors. More here.

Springboard, a seven-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based educational platform focused on helping people advance their tech skills, has raised $9.5 million in Series A funding. Costanoa Ventures led the round, with participation from Learn Capital and AppDynamics cofounder Jyoti Bansal, as well as earlier investors, including Blue Fog Capital, Rocketship.vc, and Moneta Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Tovala, a four-year-old, Chicago-based startup that sells smart ovens and meals to go with them, has raised $9.2 million in fresh funding led by Origin Ventures, with participation from Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Morningstar founder Joe Mansueto, restaurant and real estate entrepreneur Larry Levy, Y Combinatorand others. Crain’s Chicago Business has more here.

Univercells, a four-year-old, Belgium-based maker of  biomanufacturing production units that are aimed at increasing the availability and affordability of biologics, has raised $3.56 million in Series A funding, including from Takeda Ventures. More here.

Virgin Hyperloop One, the three-year-old, L.A.-based company promising to shuttle cargo and passengers at super fast speeds through giant pneumatic tubes, is reportedly raising $50 million in new funding from earlier investors Caspian Venture Capital of Russia and DP World of Dubai. It also plans to name Richard Branson as chairman. Axios has the story here.

Amazon is in advanced talks to buy Sqrrl, a Cambridge, Ma.-based cyber “threat hunting” company whose founders used to work for the NSA. Sqrrl has raised nearly $30 million in funding to date, including from Accomplice, Matrix Partners, Rally Ventures and Spring Lake Equity Partners. Axios originally reported the news here.

Oracle  has agreed to acquire publicly traded Aconex, an Australian maker of collaboration software for the construction market, for $1.2 billion. The deal represents a 47 percent premium over Aconex’s Friday closing price. TechCrunch has more on the deal here.

Tencent and JD.com have agreed to pay $863 million for a 12.5 percent stake in the publicly traded Chinese e-commerce company Vipshop. The duo are paying a 55 percent premium for the stock, which will give Tencent a seven percent share and JD.com a 5.5 percent share, respectively. TechCrunch has more here.

HQ has become an enormously popular trivia app in a short amount of time, but investors are loath to invest in its founders, who are looking to raise a new round that values the company at up to $100 million, reports Recode. More here.

Bitcoin mania is driving rival coins to record highs.

Gradient Ventures, Google’s new AI-focused venture fund, is looking to hire an associate. The job is in Mountain View, Ca.

Twitter has a new hate policy, and it appears to make an exception for Donald Trump.

Do good companies ICO?

Berkshire Hathaway’s class A shares have climbed above $300,000 for the first time.

“Sunday Night Football” is coming to your mobile phone next year.

Why trying new things is so hard to do.

In conversation: Eminem.

The political year in photos.

The Echo Spot hits the . . . dot.

A Porsche dealership play set, for the little wheeler dealer in your life.

Hope you have an excellent weekend, everyone. See you Monday.:)

The large online brokerage TD Ameritrade says it will begin allowing trading of bitcoin futures on its futures platform on Monday.

SoftBank is reportedly in talks to invest as much as $300 million in the dog-walking app Wag, says Recode, which says the company was originally seeking (just) $100 million in funding and already had an offer from a top VC firm when SoftBank came a’ knockin’. More here.

In Jakarta, Indonesia, only 50 percent of the population has access to the piped sewerage system. More than 500,000 residents practice open defecation, and more than one million people discharge wastewater directly into the river, resulting in deteriorated groundwater quality and putting residents at risk to waterborne diseases.

The better news: the city has a master plan to improve the piped sewerage service that would cover 65 percent of the future population, while the remaining 35 percent would be served with alternative approaches, including on-site sewerage, conventional septic tanks, and community scale waste water treatment plans.

Whether that precise plan comes to fruition is an open question, but it’s certainly better than not having a plan at all. Such is the thinking behind a new summit called CityXChange that invites cities from around the world to work for five days with technologists and VCs across a variety of disciplines and that’s spearheaded by the Rockefeller Foundation, established by the Rockefeller family more than 100 years ago to promote the “well-being of humanity throughout the world.”

Indeed, back in May, in the small town of Bellagio, Italy, 50 city leaders, investors, and startup executives came together to brainstorm creative solutions to each of the cities’ most pressing problems, like congestion in Sydney, Australia and how to fulfill a promise made by the city of Atlanta, Ga. that it will fully transition to clean and renewable energy. The idea was to find technologies that can address each issue, while also recognizing the bureaucracy that often defines government at every level — and figuring out workarounds.

Now, the foundation is releasing some of its learnings from that confab, which it will host again in 2018, with the hope that such takeaways can begin to form a roadmap. (Cities and startups interested in attending can apply here.)

The biggest takeaway, seemingly, is that such meetings are not a waste of time.

More here.

3TEN8, a three-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based startup working on artificial intelligence for network operations, with a focus on diagnosing and predicting network outages and degradations, has raised $2 million in seed funding. Backers include Social Capital, Citrix and Cloudera CTO Amr Awadallah. More here.

Airwallex, a two-year-old, Melbourne, Australia-based fintech startup that helps banks and businesses handle cross-border transactions at scale, has raised $6 million in fresh capital from Square Peg. The startup had previously raised $16 million, including a $13 million Series A this past May. Others of its backers includeTencent, MasterCard, Gobi Ventures and Sequoia China. TechCrunch has more here.

Bay Labs, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based medical imaging technology company, has raised $5.5 million in Series A funding led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Data Collective, Grenoble Venture Partners, Minneapolis Heart Institute Ventures and Georges Harik. More here.

Bitwise, a year-old, San Francisco-based cryptocurrency index fund manager, has raised $4 million in seed funding from Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, and Blockchain Capital. More here.

Curisium, a months-old, Manhattan Beach, Ca..-based healthcare tech and services startup that’s using a blockchain-based platform, has raised $3.5 million in in seed funding. Investors include Flare Capital Partners, New Enterprise Associates,Shuttle Fund, Sanofi Ventures, and Green Bay Ventures. Healthcare IT News has more here.

Elemeno Health, a 1.5-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based, cloud-based “virtual coach” for healthcare teams, has raised $1.3 million in seed funding led by Launchpad Digital Health. More here.

Finiata, a 1.5-year-old, Berlin-based lending company that provides working capital to freelancers and small and medium-size businesses, has raised €18 million ($21.3 million) in Series A funding, including from DN Capital, Point Nine, Fly Venturesand Redalpine. More here.

Huddly, a four-year-old, Oslo, Norway-based startup whose smart camera for video conferences uses on-board computer vision to understand who’s in a room, what the lighting looks like and what background noises are affecting sound, has raised $10 million in Series C funding led by Huddly Chairman Graham Williams, with participation from numerous Huddly employees. TechCrunch has more here.

Kami, a 2.5-year-old, Hong Kong-based conversational AI company, has raised $1.7 million in seed funding, including from the ARM Innovation Ecosystem Accelerator, X Technology Fund and Tin Fu Fund. More here.

Kyn Therapeutics, a year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based biotechnology company that’s developing cancer therapies, has raised $49 million Series A funding fromOrbiMed and Atlas Venture. FierceBiotech has more here.

Loot, a three-year-old, London-based startup that offers digital-only accounts that come with a Mastercard and an app to help with budgeting, has raised £2.2 million ($2.9 million) in Series A funding. Power Corporation’s corporate VC arm, Portag3 Ventures, led the round, with participation from the venture firm Speedinvest. TechCrunch has more here.

Mirror AI, a months-old, Russia-based startup whose app takes a selfie photo of users, then attempts to transform the image of their faces, has raised $3.5 million, including from NBA star Kevin Durant and billionaire Peter Thiel. Crunchbase News has more here.

Pace, a 1.5-year-old, London-based startup that uses machine learning and dynamic pricing to maximize hotels’ revenues and occupancy, has raised £2.5 million ($2.4 million) in seed funding led by InterGlobe, with participation fromSeedcamp, Speedinvest and Amadeus Capital Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Splice, a four-year-old, New York-based cloud-based music creation and collaboration platform, has raised $35 million in Series B funding led by DFJ Growth, with participation from earlier backers True Ventures, Union Square Ventures, and Flybridge Capital Partners. Recode has more here.

Spotlite, a months-old, L.A.-bsaed fan app that combines video, live streaming, messaging and gifting to enable aspiring artists to make money, has raised $10 million from Sequoia Capital China and BlueRun Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Join over 6000 VCs (from Sequoia, KPCB, A16Z, and other top firms) and VC job hunters on John Gannon‘s VC jobs email list. His readers have used his email list to help them get jobs at top firms like Bessemer, General Catalyst, and IVP. Click here to subscribe.

Andover, Massachusetts-based Casa Systems had a tough time pulling off its IPO this week, though it got the job done. TechCrunch takes a look here.

You can buy a 700-acre former sugar plantation in Hawaii to get away, but there will still be paparazzi.

Snap’s “People VP” Jason Halbert isn’t so popular with the troops, apparently. The decorated ex-military officer was investigated last spring by an outside law firm following numerous employee complaints, reports The Information, which notes he is still with the company.

Even Facebook is now saying that Facebook is bad for you. (It also adds that this isn’t the “whole story,” but it’s a lot of the story.)

China’s top phone makers are poised to challenge Apple on its home turf as soon as next year, after trouncing the iPhone maker in their own home market.

Investors love this artist who you’ve maybe never heard of before.

Inside the mad dash to bring you cheap, generic Viagra.

Every Star Wars movie, ranked.

Sixty-three gifts for every type of Mom. That you can buy on Amazon.

Despite overwhelming opposition from Congress, technical experts, advocacy organizations, and the American people, the FCC voted this morning to eliminate 2015’s Open Internet Order and the net neutrality protections it established. TechCrunch has more here (and it’s worth reading). Also, here’s what happens next.

Shervin Pishevar just announced his resignation from Sherpa Capital, the venture capital firm he co-founded, following a variety of sexual misconduct allegations. We’ll see what happens to the firm now. (LPs who we spoke with last week questioned whether the outfit can continue forward without him.) Story developing.

Today’s StrictlyVC is sponsored by EquityZen. We operate a secondary market for company-approved transactions in pre-IPO stock. Founded in 2013, EquityZen has already closed more than 3,000 investments in 80-plus companies. For as low as $10,000 on your first investment, you can gain access to proven private companies like Spotify, Lyft, and more! Join for free, and begin investing in the private markets: equityzen.com

Y Combinator famously funds a lot of companies, but there’s always more it could be doing, said its president, Sam Altman, in an interview with TechCrunch this fall. “I do think startups are a super important vehicle to make things happen in the world today and I think we are nowhere near the limit of how many we can help.”

Altman had added that YC is “always slightly broken, because we’re always trying to grow; we’re always trying to do new things.” And while he didn’t offer specifics on what new things YC might try,  today, the outfit is taking the wraps off one of those initiatives: a new growth-stage program designed to help both YC companies and non-YC companies figure out how to scale.

The idea is partly to address what YC companies have described to its leadership as a thinning of its network over time, largely because there simply aren’t as many companies that make it to the growth stage. YC estimates that of the more than 1,200 active YC companies in the world today, about 60 or so employ more than 100 people.

YC also sees an opportunity to work with companies that are too busy trying to keep the wheels on the track to think much about the big picture. Some of the questions that founders tell them they could use help with are how to recruit engineers at scale, and how to accelerate user growth and acquisitions systematically.

Presumably, too, the program allows YC to cement its relationship with maturing companies — an increasingly tall order in a world drowning in later-stage capital, including, most obviously, from SoftBank’s nearly $100 billion Vision Fund.

More here.

36Kr Media, a six-year-old, Chinese tech news group being spin off from 36Kr, has raised $45 million in Series A funding co-led Gobi Partners and China Prosperity Capital, with participation from Focus Media Information Technology,Hangzhou Finance Investment Group, and Baidu Video. China Money Network has more here.

Dreamscape Immersive, a 1.5-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based location-based virtual reality startup headed by Disney and DreamWorks veterans, has raised $30 million in Series B funding. led by AMC Entertainment. Other participants in the round include Nickelodeon, Majid Al Futtaim, VRSense Solutions, Image Nation Abu Dhabi and earlier investors Bold Capital Partners, 21st Century Fox and Warner Bros. Variety has more here.

Eight Sleep, a 3.5-year-old, New York-based smart mattress maker, has raised $10.5 million in fresh funding led by Khosla Ventures, according to an SEC filing. According to Crunchbase, the company had previously raised $22 million from investors, including Azure Capital Partners, Comcast Ventures, and Sinovation Ventures. More here.

Friss, a six-year-old, Netherlands-based maker of fraud, risk and compliance analytics software for personal and casualty insurers, has raised €15 million ($17.7 million) in Series A funding co-led by Aquiline Technology Growth and Blackfin Capital Partners. More here.

Ginkgo Bioworks, a nine-year-old, Boston-based synthetic biology startup that’s trying to tackle sustainable agriculture, has raised $275 million in Series D funding from earlier backers Viking Global, Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund, Cascade Investment, and Bill Gates. General Atlantic also joined the round as a new investor. The company has now raised $429 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Hawthorne, a two-year-old, New York-based brand that makes personal care products for men, has raised $2.2 million from investors, including Shana Fisher of3KVC, Comcast Ventures, and Founder Collective, as well as Zola founderShan-Lyn Ma and other individuals. More here.

Heartbeat, a nearly two-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based two-way brand endorsement platform (it develops user-generated content campaigns), has raised $1 million in seed funding led by Sinai Ventures, with participation from Right Side Capital Management, among others. More here.

Helpster, a two-year-old, Bangkok, Thailand-based startup that connects blue-collar workers with employers in Southeast Asia, has raised $2.5 million in new funding from Mojo Partners, along with earlier backers Convergence Venturesand Wavemaker Partners. The company has now raised $5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Kingsoft Cloud, a Beijing, China-based cloud storage and distribution company, has raised $300 million in Series D funding from Liyue Investment, China Minsheng Investment and controlling shareholder Kingsoft, which trades publicly on the stock exchange of Hong Kong.  China Money Network has more here.

NorthSea Therapeutics, a new, Netherlands-based Dutch developer of an oral treatment for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (a type of fatty liver disease), has raised €25 million ($29.4 million) in Series A funding co-led by Forbion and BGV, with participation from New Science Ventures. More here.

Pionyr Immunotherapeutics, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company developing immunotherapies that target the tumor microenvironment, has raised $62 million in Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from Sofinnova Ventures, Vida Ventures and earlier investorsOrbiMed, SV Health Investors, Osage University Partners and Mission Bay Ventures. More here.

Skillz, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based popular mobile e-sports startup, has raised $25 million in Series C funding co-led by Telstra and Liberty Global, with participation from earlier backers, including Accomplice and Wildcat Capital. Forbes has more here.

Squarespace, a 12-year-old, New York-based leader in the old-school art of designing websites, has raised $200 million in funding from General Atlantic, with most of the money being used to buy up the shares of earlier investors and employees. The new shares value the company at $1.7 billion, says Bloomberg. More here.

Virtual Incision, a 10-year-old, Lincoln, Neb.-based maker of a miniaturized robotically assisted surgical device, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led bySinopharm Capital, with participation from PrairieGold Venture Partners and return backer Bluestem Capital. The Lincoln Journal Star has more here.

Almost exactly two years ago, the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz took the wraps off a $200 million “biofund” that aimed to invest at the intersection of biology and engineering and was being led by its (then) new general partner, Vijay Pande. Pande argued at the time that it was finally possible to invest in software-enabled biotech ideas — without having to wait eons for them to pan out — thanks largely to the growing ubiquity of machine learning and the falling cost of computing. Evidently, that experiment is playing out as planned. Today, the firm is announcing a $450 million second fund led by Pande —  formerly the chair of Stanford’s chemistry department — and Jorge Conde, a serial entrepreneur who officially joined the firm a few months ago as a general partner. More here.

Join over 6000 VCs (from Sequoia, KPCB, A16Z, and other top firms) and VC job hunters on John Gannon‘s VC jobs email list. His readers have used his email listto help them get jobs at top firms like Bessemer, General Catalyst, and IVP. Click here to subscribe.

YC President Sam Altman said today that he no longer feels comfortable discussing controversial ideas in Silicon Valley. It’s attracting some comments.

Felix Capital hired its first entrepreneur in residence, George Pallis and hired a new associate, Emilie Spire. Pallis was most recently director of marketing at Deliveroo; Spire was previously an operations project manager at BlaBlaCar.

Andrew Ng, the cofounder of Coursera who more recently led Baidu’s AI group, just launched a new startup called Landing.ai that’s focused on bringing artificial intelligence to the manufacturing industry. TechCrunch has more here.

Hubble, the venture-backed “Warby Parker of contact lenses,” appears to be playing fast and loose with some basic consumer protections.

You don’t want them. Facebook didn’t want them. But here come the Facebook pre-roll ads.

Samsung is coming out with its own smart speaker.

George and Amal Clooney definitely win at parenting.

How to plan your holiday party after you’ve been accused of sexual misconduct.

The most over-the-top private jets in Hollywood.

The 32 best gifts for every kind of kid.

Today’s StrictlyVC is sponsored by EquityZen. We operate a secondary market for company-approved transactions in pre-IPO stock. Founded in 2013, EquityZen has already closed more than 3,000 investments in 80-plus companies. For as low as $10,000 on your first investment, you can gain access to proven private companies like Spotify, Lyft, and more! Join for free, and begin investing in the private markets: equityzen.com

Sophia Amoruso famously founded the retailer Nasty Gal, growing it from an Ebay store that sold vintage items to a darling of the fashion world that was seeing more than $300 million in sales at one point.

Somewhere along the way, however, Nasty Gal lost its way. After raising $65 million over its ten years of operation — including from Index Ventures and renowned retail executive Ron Johnson — the company last November filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, in part to address “immediate liquidity issues.”

The company was ultimately acquired for $20 million in February. In the meantime, Amoruso, who’d stepped away as CEO of Nasty Gal in January of 2016 but remained on as executive chairman, is on to a new business, and now it’s venture-backed. Indeed, the media company that she began building on the side three years ago —Girlboss — is today announcing $3.1 million in seed funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, whose partner, Nicole Quinn, led the deal and joins the startup’s board.

The round also includes unnamed tech and digital media investors, according to a release.

Lightspeed’s interest in Girlboss isn’t surprising, given the many e-commerce brands it has supported previously, including early bets on The Honest Company, Stitch Fix, and Snap.

Amoruso’s built-in following is substantial, too

More here.

Aeronyde, a 1.5-year-old, Melbourne, Fla.-based aerial systems company that’s trying to build an end-to-end infrastructure for self-flying vehicles, has raised $4.7 million in seed funding led by Korean electronics manufacturing giant JASTech. More here.

Bizzabo, a six-year-old, New York-based events management platform, has raised $15 million in fresh funding led by Pilot Growth Equity, with participation fromMaor Investments and returning investors. The new round brings Bizzabo’s total funding to $30 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Cog, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company that makes a secure smartphone, has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding from Grok Ventures and the Australian tech venture fund rampersand. More here.

The Dots, a 3.5-year-old, London-based online marketplace for creative talent, has raised £4 million (roughly $5.4 million) in funding led by the growth equity firmHambro Perks, with participation from The Garage Soho, Angel Academe, and others. TechCrunch has more here.

Fanchest, a two-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based startup that curates and sends team-themed gift boxes as gift, has raised $4 million in seed funding from NFL quarterback Drew Brees, Drone Racing League founder Nick Horbaczeswki, and more traditional venture funds that include GoAhead Ventures and Connected VC. The company has now raised $5.4 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

FollowAnalytics, a  four-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile marketing startup, has raised $11 million in funding led by the French telecommunications group Orange, through its Orange Digital Ventures unit. Other investors in the round include Aspect Ventures, Zetta Venture Partners, Sapphire Ventures, Cathay Innovation, La Maison and Salesforce Ventures. More here.

FreightHub, a 1.5-year-old, Berlin- and Hamburg, Germany-based freight forwarding startup, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Northzone, with participation earlier backers, including Global Founders Capital, Cherry Ventures, Cavalry Ventures, and La Famiglia. TechCrunch has more here.

iZettle, a seven-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based commerce platform that competes against companies like Square, Paypal and SumUp, has raised another €40 million ($47 million) led by previous backer Dawn Capital. Other participants in the round include the Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund and other, earlier (unnamed) investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Homeis, a months-old, New York-based startup that aspires to build a digital online community for immigrants in cities across the globe, has raised $4 million in seed funding led by Canaan Partners, with participation from Oath CEO Tim Armstrong and numerous others. Business Insider has more here.

Joblift, a two-year-old, Berlin-based European job platform, has raised €10 million ($11.8 million) in funding led by VC DN Capital, with participation from Picus Capital and earlier backers Cherry Ventures, btov and TruVenturo. TechCrunch has more here.

INSIKT, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based online lending company to “underserved” individual and small businesses, has raised $50 million in fresh funding led by Grupo Coppel, with participation from FirstMark Capital,Revolution Ventures and Colchis Capital. The company has so far raised $100 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

ispace, a 4.5-year-old, Tokyo, Japan-based private space venture with two lunar missions in the works, has raised $90.2 million in a Series A funding round that it’s calling the “largest ever” Series A in commercial space financing. The funding comes from Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, Development Bank of Japan, Tokyo Broadcasting System, Konika Minolta and others. TechCrunch has more here.

Kasisto, a four-year-old, New York-based developer of a conversational AI platform for finance (called “KAI”), has raised $17 million in Series B funding led by Oak HC/FT, with participation from earlier investors Propel Venture Partners, Two Sigma Ventures, Commerce Ventures, Mastercard and Partnership Fund for New York City. More here.

Lily, a nearly three-year-old, Bay Area-based personalized shopping service for women that says it takes into account how women feel about their bodies, has raised $2 million in seed funding from New Enterprise Associates and other backers, including Global Founders Capital, Triplepoint Capital, Think + Ventures, Unshackled Ventures and numerous individuals. TechCrunch has more here.

Workboard, a four-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based SaaS platform that helps enterprises measure their OKR (objectives and key results), has raised $9.3 million in Series A funding led by Floodgate and Microsoft Ventures, with participation from earlier backers. The company has now raised $12.1 million altogether. More here.

NSI Ventures, a three-year-old, Singapore-based investor that early on backed the Indonesian unicorn and Uber rival Go-Jek, has announced a first close of its second fund, which is targeting $125 million. The firm, which closed its first fund with $90 million in 2015, says it has secured $75 million in capital commitments so far and expects to close its newest fund to investors in the first half of next year. TechCrunch has more here.

Join over 6000 VCs (from Sequoia, KPCB, A16Z, and other top firms) and VC job hunters on John Gannon‘s VC jobs email list. His readers have used his email list to help them get jobs at top firms like Bessemer, General Catalyst, and IVP. Click here to subscribe.

EBay said today that it’s acquiring Terapeak, a Toronto-based startup that has built a platform that crunches data about supply, demand and pricing to help guide companies on what to sell and how to price it. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Terapeak had raised around $5 million in funding, including fromGeorgian Partners, shows Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.

WedPics, a five-year-old, Raleigh, N.C.-based photosharing app that had raised $10.7 million from investors like Bullpen Capital, is being acquired by Mixbook, an 11-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based platform for digitally collecting and editing physical photo books that has also raised roughly $11 million from investors. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

Crikey. The FCC’s own chief technology officer expressed concern today about Republican Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to repeal the net neutrality rules, saying it could lead to practices that are “not in the public interest.” Politico has the story here.

Here’s what people were Googling in 2017.

A San Francisco animal shelter has been facing a backlash after using a surveillance robot to scare off homeless people (raising the question of how society will respond to similar robots down the line).

Google is opening a new research center in China, with a focus specifically on AI. As TechCrunch notes, the development is a little surprising, given that Google has very little product presence within the Chinese market.

Patreon, a venture-backed platform that enables fans and sponsors to support artists and creators, has called off plans to add a service fee to patrons’ pledges, a proposed update that angered many users.

Omarosa’s dramatic White House exit.

A British surgeon has (gulp) admitted to branding patients’ livers.

You’re probably buying fancy jewelry the wrong way.

Scrubbies.

San Francisco’s mayor, Ed Lee, has passed away after suffering a heart attack last night. Lee, whose ambitions included making San Francisco, and not Silicon Valley, the tech center of the universe, was just 65. More here.

SEC Chair Jay Clayton warned investors yesterday to be cautious when it comes to investing in cryptocurrencies and ICOs, saying: “Investors should understand that to date no initial coin offerings have been registered with the SEC.  The SEC also has not to date approved for listing and trading any exchange-traded products (such as ETFs) holding cryptocurrencies or other assets related to cryptocurrencies. If any person today tells you otherwise, be especially wary.” More here.

Twitter is introducing a new way to tweet a thread and people are concerned.

Today’s StrictlyVC is sponsored by EquityZen. We operate a secondary market for company-approved transactions in pre-IPO stock. Founded in 2013, EquityZen has already closed more than 3,000 investments in 80-plus companies. For as low as $10,000 on your first investment, you can gain access to proven private companies like Spotify, Lyft, and more! Join for free, and begin investing in the private markets: equityzen.com

Yesterday, The Verge published comments made by investor and former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya, quoting his interview last month at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where he echoed recent comments made by former Facebook  president Sean Parker that the platform is having deleterious effects on society.

Said Palihapitiya at Stanford, “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse. No cooperation. Misinformation. Mistruth.”

It appears that Palihapitiya made the comments just a day or two after Parker broadcast his own warnings in an interview with Axios, telling interviewer Mike Allen that the thought process behind building the social media giant was: “How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?” Added Parker at the time: “God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”

Either way, the one-two punch was evidently more than Facebook’s could stomach, perhaps because Palihapitiya’s comments were so widely circulated yesterday — appearing first in the Verge but subsequently in CNBC, Quartz, Business Insider, and Fortune. This morning, Facebook issued a statement in which it referred by first name to Palihapitiya, writing:

Chamath has not been at Facebook for over six years. When Chamath was at Facebook we were focused on building new social media experiences and growing Facebook around the world. Facebook was a very different company back then and as we have grown we have realised how our responsibilities have grown too. We take our role very seriously and we are working hard to improve. We’ve done a lot of work and research with outside experts and academics to understand the effects of our service on well-being, and we’re using it to inform our product development. We are also making significant investments more in people, technology and processes, and – as Mark Zuckerberg said on the last earnings call – we are willing to reduce our profitability to make sure the right investments are made.

It’s a surprising move for the juggernaut, which would normally leave well enough alone.

More here.

Aspiration, a four-year-old, L.A.-based fintech company hat offers a pay-what-you-will fee structure for its customers, has raised $47 million in Series B funding led bySocial Impact Finance, along with new and existing investors, including Allen and Company, Omidyar Network, Alpha Edison, AGO Partners, Reyl & Cie, and Capricorn Investments. The company has now raised $67 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Clubhouse, a three-year-old, New York-based project management tools company, has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Battery Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Digital House, a two-year-old, Buenos Aires, Argentina-based group of coding schools for Latin America, has raised $20 million in fresh funding led by The Rise Fund, a TPG investment vehicle, with participation from Endeavor Catalyst,Omidyar Network, and earlier investors. More here.

Gremlin, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that helps companies stress test their apps, has raised $8.75 million in seed and Series A funding from Index Ventures and Amplify Partners. VentureBeat has more here.

Harry’s, the five-year-old, New York-based razor subscription service, has raised nearly $63.6 million in new funding, shows an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. The company had previously raised $287 million, shows Crunchbase, including fromWellington Management, Tiger Global Management, Highland Capital Partners, and Bullish. More here.

Landoop, a year-old, London and Athens-based startup that’s building systems powered by the popular open source project Apache Kafka to assist with stream processing, has raised $1 million in seed funding from Marathon Venture Capital. More here.

Manticore Games, a year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based startup founded by former Zynga and Electronic Arts execs, has raised $15 million from Benchmark Capital. VentureBeat has more here.

Mindspace, a four-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based co-working startup, has raised $20 million in new funding from the U.K.  private equity firm Crossroads. The company has now collected $35 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

NuCypher, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup trying to provide a privacy layer for the public blockchain and decentralized application, has raised $4.3 million in an ICO presale led by the crypto fund Polychain Capital. The company’s token sale will be staged early next year, it says. More here.

Simility, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based maker of machine learning–powered adaptive fraud prevention software, has raised $17.5 million in fresh funding led byAccel Partners. Other participants in the round include The Valley Fund andTrinity Ventures. The company has now raised $25 million altogether. More here.

Upstream Security, a new, Herzliya, Israel-based startup aiming to protect connected vehicles and eventually autonomous cars, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by CRV, with participation from Glilot Capital Partners and Maniv Mobility also participated. The company had raised $2 million in seed funding in June. TechCrunch has more here.

San Diego startups on the hunt for venture capital now have another option to pitch locally without traveling to Silicon Valley or elsewhere: Anzu Partners, which closed a new $128.4 million fund last week, says it will be investing in industrial technologies primarily. More here in the San Diego Tribune.

Israeli-born venture capitalist Alon Lifshitz is reportedly raising a $120 million fund, to be called Hanaco Venture Capital, and it has apparently already raised $80 million primarily from family offices. Lifshitz is a former managing director of San Francisco-based venture firm Blumberg Capital, where he headed the firm’s Tel Aviv office. Calcalist has the skinny here.

Join over 6000 VCs (from Sequoia, KPCB, A16Z, and other top firms) and VC job hunters on John Gannon‘s VC jobs email list. His readers have used his email list to help them get jobs at top firms like Bessemer, General Catalyst, and IVP. Click here to subscribe.

Eric Anderson has joined the venture firm Scale Venture Partners as its newest principal. Anderson was most recently a product manager in the data analytics and machine learning group at Google. More here.

Rob Rhinehart, founder of the oft-maligned food-replacement startup Soylent, is stepping down as CEO effectively immediately, he announced yesterday. Bryan Crowley, named president of Soylent parent company Rosa Foods in June, will take over. TechCrunch has more here.

Jim Roberts, a former Mashable executive editor and veteran New York Times and Reuters digital editor, is joining the venture-backed streaming TV startup Cheddar as editor-in-chief to lead its newsroom and editorial coverage. Axios has more here.

Beringea, a $675 million venture/growth capital fund, with offices in the U.K. and U.S., is looking to hire an investment director and/or an investment manager to its U.K. investment team. The role(s) are based in London. More details here.

Why the Amazon–Whole Foods deal is turning out to be good for delivery startups.

Are people souring on HQ Trivia?

Box just launched a new consulting unit.

It turns out you’re going to have to register your small drones with the U.S. government after all.

Millions of people post comments on federal regulations. Many are fake, reports the WSJ.

Spotted Pig owner Ken Friedman has been accused by at least ten women of sexual harassment.

End of semester bingo!

The new iMac Pro will be available to purchase on Thursday. Bring at least $5,000 with you.)

You’ll want to play hooky with this Hookie. (Yes, we are that corny.)

Hope you have a wonderful weekend, everyone!:)

Bitcoin is still going crazy. Bloomberg take a look at the Bitcoin whales: 1,000 people who own 40 percent of the market.

Maybe it’s no surprise that in Medium post, the CEO of Coinbase, one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, is urging users to be responsible about their investments. “Digital currencies are volatile and the prices can go up and down,” CEO Brian Armstrong wrote earlier today. TechCrunch has more here.

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A storm fueled by greater awareness about sexual assault and harassment has been gaining momentum in the U.S., ever since a former Uber engineer named Susan Fowler hit “publish” on a post about her jarring experience inside the high-flying ride-share company. So many man have been swept up – and out – of their respective businesses for behaving badly that Time magazine pronounced the powerful social campaign #metoo and the women behind it as “Person of the Year.”

Silicon Valley has hardly been immune. In the world of venture capital, two of the highest-profile poster boys for this uprising (as of this writing) are venture capitalists Steve Jurvetson, formerly of the venture firm DFJ, and Shervin Pishevar, who cofounded the firm Sherpa Capital and has, in recent days, taken a leave of absence from the outfit.

While seemingly devastating body blows for their respective firms, institutional investors with whom we’ve spoken and who asked not to be named in this story say they remain interested in superstars like Jurvetson if they’re able to repair their reputations.

If not, they say, plenty of family offices will rush to fill the void.

“I’m a bright line person,” says one investor (or limited partner, in industry parlance), who isn’t an investor in either DFJ or Sherpa Capital. “If you’re legally accused of a crime, that’s one thing.”  But “I’m not doing [my job as an institutional investor] for social justice,” adds this person. “I do that in my philanthropy.”

Says another LP who, like the first, has stakes in a wide number of venture firms but not in DFJ or Sherpa: “Are some of these VCs forever unbackable, or unbackable until the dust settles? As an LP, it’s easier to say right now, ‘I have a fiduciary duty to my investors’ [and pass]. But a family office doesn’t have to answer to anyone, and if they think Steve is a great investor, shit, they’ll give him money. They understand he hasn’t [assaulted] anyone.”

Indeed, while there’s no shortage of outrage in Silicon Valley about powerful men who wittingly take advantage of younger founders, behind the scenes there is growing concern – on the part of returns-seeking LPs, in any case – that every situation involving a VC and a founder is being painted, perhaps unfairly, in black and white.

Step aside

From the outside looking in, Pishevar’s situation may make it far harder for institutional investors to bet on him in the future. Last week, Bloomberg published a piece featuring five unnamed women who say Pishevar has used his position of power to pursue romantic relationships and unwanted sexual encounters.

Yesterday, a sixth woman, speaking with Axios, said Pishevar misled her into being alone with him in an elevator in December 2011 after a charity event; there, says the entrepreneur, Laura Fitton, he aggressively kissed her. She also said she followed him to his room, having been told a group of attendees were reconvening there in the late hours, but she found the two of them alone, where he made further unwanted advances before she fled.

These accusations follow Pishevar’s arrest in May, at a hotel in London, after a woman accused him of raping her. Police said Pishevar was “released under investigation” and never charged.

Pishevar didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story. His attorney, Randa Osman of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, has told media outlets that he “unequivocally and categorically denies any improper behavior toward Ms. Fitton.” Pishevar has also filed suit against a GOP political opposition research group that he alleges was conducting a smear campaign against him.

More here.

Blockstack, a four-year-old, New York-based decentralized Internet and developer platform, has raised $50 million in its initial coin offering (ICO). The Blockstack ICO sold 440 million of “Stacks” tokens from more than 8,000 investors. Investors who participated in the ICO include Union Square Ventures, Foundation Capital, Lux Capital, Winklevoss Capital, Blockchain Capital, Digital Currency Group, Y Combinator partner Qasar Younis, Techcrunch founder Mike Arrington and Digg cofounder Kevin Rose. (We’re still deciding how to cover ICOs but given the investors in this one, it seemed important to include.) More here.

MishiPay, a two-year-old, London-based startup that has built mobile self-checkout technology that promises to put an end to queuing to pay, has raised £1.65 million in seed funding led by the European venture firm Nauta Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

PhoneWagon, a months-old, New York-based maker of call-tracking software, has raised $1.2 million in seed funding led by Birchmere Ventures, with participation from Active Capital. More here.

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Denali Therapeutics has raised more than $248 million in its stock market debut, marking the largest biotech IPO of the year. The San Francisco-based company, which is working on experimental drugs for Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, had priced its offering of 13.8 million shares at $18 apiece late yesterday. They closed their first day of trading today at $21.45. Xconomy has more here.

Apple is making a stepping up its game in music services. Sources tell TechCrunch the company is close to acquiring Shazam, the popular app that lets people identify any song, TV show, film or advertisement in seconds by listening to an audio clip. More here.

Drugmaker Gilead Sciences is acquiring privately-held Cell Design Labs for up to $567 million, giving it access to new technology platforms that would help in the development of cancer drugs. Gilead said it would make an initial upfront payment to two-year-old, San Francisco-based Cell Design of about $175 million and additional payments of up to $322 million upon meeting certain milestones. The company had raised roughly $34 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. Its backers include Osage University Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Reuters has more here.

Uber has agreed to sell a majority stake in its Singapore-based car rental business to the country’s largest taxi company, ComfortDelGro. TechCrunch has more here.

Serial entrepreneur Samir Arora is back, this time with a company called Sage Digital.

Matt O’Connell, a former CEO of OneWeb and GeoEye, has become a partner with London-based Seraphim Capital, which runs thematically focused venture funds in the space tech sector.

Jony Ive is leading Apple’s design team again.

At a private party yesterday, Elon Musk reportedly spoke boldly about Tesla’s upcoming custom artificial intelligence hardware.

In a win for the early-stage financial services startup Tala, Uber‘s former data chief,Kevin Novak, has agreed to join the company as its chief data officer. Novak’s achievements at Uber include inventing dynamic pricing and creating the UberFreight business, says TechCrunch. More here.

Twitter’s M&A boss Jessica Verrilli is leaving the company after a nine-year run. Her next move is TBD, says Recode.

Spotify and Tencent are swapping stakes in each other’s music businesses.

Now you can buy that second-hand couch with cryptocurrency.

When it comes to boring tasks, kids apparently perform better dressed as Batman.

The dos and don’ts of dim sum.

A former Massachusetts state senator was charged today with using his position to collect $1 million in bribes, as well as — no kidding — hundreds of pounds of free Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. (Said the former senator, “Worth it!”)

Twenty-one eco-friendly gifts to give this year.