Friday! [Tom Cruise-style-sock slide.] Hope you have a terrific weekend, everyone.:)

Top News in the A.M.

Whoa. According to the WSJ, CVS is in talks to buy Aetna for more than $66 billion as the drugstore giant scrambles to fortify itself against looming competition from Amazon. (You may have heard: Amazon has quietly received pharmacy-wholesaler licenses in a dozen states.) More here.

Also somewhat shocking: Amazon is now the second-largest U.S. employer after Walmart.

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You can have it both ways. Work with a PR partner that delivers high-level results without the B.S. or fluff. At FLIGHT, we build long-term relationships with our clients and focus on smart visibility that grows their business. Visit us at www.flightpr.com or say hello@flightpr.com. Woman-owned and operated, with offices in Silicon Beach and Austin.

Peter Thiel Thinks Focus on Self-Driving Misses an Important Shift: Telecommuting

Billionaire investor Peter Thiel doesn’t like investing in trends, he’s fond of saying. It’s a mantra he repeated this week at the Future Investment Initiative, an investment forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he took the stage with journalist Maria Bartiromo.

Asked about where he’s investing, he noted that he’s looking outside of Silicon Valley largely, but he suggested he doesn’t put much stock in “buzzwords” like SaaS software or virtual computing or augmented reality or artificial intelligence. “Even though these trends may or may not happen, as investments, they’re dangerous,” he said. In fact, “when you hear buzzwords, you should run away as fast as you can,” he added. Otherwise, there are “many companies of that kind, and many competitors.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Thiel feels the same way about self-driving technologies —  even while his venture firm, Founders Fund, is an investor in the ride-sharing company Lyft, whose future would seem to depend on its ability to become a self-driving company at some point.

Thiel did say, however, that he will make one exception to his own rule; he said that he’s willing to “look at trends that aren’t on anybody’s radar.”

In fact, one trend that he said he thinks merits far more attention that it receives today, perhaps because it doesn’t challenge the mind in the same way as self-driving cars or flying planes might, is good-old telecommuting and how the inevitable rise of it will change the landscape.

Indeed, asked about the future of transportation, Thiel seemed to suggest there might not be much need for it, at least, not by individuals needing to get to the jobs.

More here.

New Fundings

&pizza, a five-year-old, Washington D.C.-based pizza chain, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from RSE Ventures. More here.

Carousell, a five-year-old, Singapore-based mobile listing service for secondhand goods and services, has raised between $70 million and $80 million in Series C funding, including from Rakuten, Sequoia Capital, Golden Gate Ventures and500 Startups. TechCrunch has more here.

City Cloud International, a Hangzhou, China-based cloud computing startup, has raised $30 million in Series B funding co-led by Cisco Investments and Country Garden Holdings. DealStreetAsia has more here.

SoundAI, a 1.5-year-old, Beijing, China-based developer of acoustic technologies, has raised $15 million in equity and debt funding, including from Baidu, Aplus Capital, Frees Fund, Linekong Interactive Group and the Bank of Beijing. China Money Network has more here.

Templum, a months-old, New York-based blockchain startup, has raised $2.7 million in seed funding, including from Raptor Group, Galaxy Investment Partners, Blockchain Capital and firstminute.capital. More here.

New Funds

The Hong Kong-based investment firm China Everbright, and the international venture firm Walden International Group, are jointly launching a $500 million fund that will target investments in enterprises along the semiconductor and electronic information supply chain, including microchips and artificial intelligence. China Money Network has more here.

IPOs

Thursday (already!).

Top News in the A.M.

New Funds

Wednesday!

Top News in the A.M.

Steve Jurvetson, a cofounder of DFJ, is being investigated for sexual harassment, according to The Information. A spokeswoman tells that outlet that it has “never received a complaint about the professional conduct of any of our partners or investment professionals” but based on “indirect and second-hand allegations about Steve Jurvetson” opened an “independent investigation, which is ongoing at this time.” It isn’t clear if the investigation is tied to founder Keri Kukral, but she wrote yesterday https://www.facebook.com/keri.kukral in Facebook post that “women approached by founding partners of Draper Fisher Jurvetson should be careful. Predatory behavior is rampant.” Kukral had a personal relationship with Jurvetson, a source tells The Information. She added in subsequent comments to her post that her experience was not in a professional context.

Tesla just fired hundreds more workers, this time at SolarCity, citing performance reviews. But the workers say planned performance reviews never happened. CNBC has more here.

Donald Trump does not intend to appoint National Economic Council Director (and former Goldman Sachs president) Gary Cohn to lead the Federal Reserve, three people tell Bloomberg this morning. In fact, says Bloomberg, Trump has remarked in at least one private meeting that Cohn has no chance. (So, who knows, basically.)

Sponsored By . . .

You can have it both ways. Work with a PR partner that delivers high-level results without the B.S. or fluff. At FLIGHT, we build long-term relationships with our clients and focus on smart visibility that grows their business. Visit us at www.flightpr.com or say hello@flightpr.com. Woman-owned and operated, with offices in Silicon Beach and Austin.

Social Capital is Now Investing in Startups Sight Unseen

There’s little question that former Facebook executive and venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya thoroughly enjoys challenging the way that startups are funded. Because he has the hot hand, so to speak, he’s able to get away with it, too.

Last month, for example, Palihapitiya’s firm, Social Capital, took the unusual step of raising $600 million in an IPO for a SPAC called Social Capital Hedosophia. The shell company will use the money to acquire all or part of a privately held tech company, thereby taking it public and circumventing what Palihapitiya sees as the unnecessarily long, expensive and distracting process of going public.

Now, Social Capital has another trick up its sleeve. It’s beginning to invest in far-flung startups, sight unseen.

Entrepreneurs from anywhere in the world can fill out a questionnaire, then submit revenue figures and either raw engagement or transaction logs (or both) to Social Capital, including sometimes by granting the firm direct access to the cloud services they use. It’s entirely self-serve. If Social Capital likes what it sees, it will write a check of up to $250,000. If it doesn’t, it will at least deliver feedback to the startup regarding tweaks it might make to its business model. (Entrepreneurs interested in applying can let the firm know here.)

How can Social Capital possibly know how to improve a company’s business model when it hasn’t even met its founders?

More here.

New Fundings

AMOpportunities, a four-year-old, Chicago-based platform that brings international medical trainees to the U.S. for short-term medical training, has raised $1.1 million in financing led by OCA Ventures and HealthX Ventures. More here.

ChowNow, a seven-year-old, L.A.-based online food ordering service, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Catalyst Investors. The round brings ChowNow’s total funding to nearly $40 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Convargo, a 1.5-year-old, Paris-based marketplace for shippers and carriers that enables both sides to connect and send goods across France more efficiently, has raised $19 million in Series A funding led by Inventure Partners and Earlybird, with participation from numerous individual investors, including Nest Labs cofounderTony Fadell. TechCrunch has more here.

Deserve, a 4.5-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based company that makes credit products for international students and college-age teeneagers, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Accel Partners, with participation from Aspect Ventures, Mission Holdings and others. The company was formerly called SelfScore. TechCrunch has more here.

Echo, a two-year-old, London-based startup whose app helps users manage their medication and order repeat prescriptions for delivery, has raised £7 million in Series A funding led by White Star Capital, with participation from MMC Ventures, LocalGlobe, and Rocket Internet’s Global Founders Capital. More here.

GuestReady, a year-old, London-based service for Airbnb hosts wanting to manage their property, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Impulse VC (a Russian fund that’s backed by billionaire Roman Abramovich), with participation from Australia’s Xponova and Boost Heroes, a VC led by Lastminute founder Fabio Cannavale. Existing backers also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Jiko, a 1.5-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based debit card banking startup, has raised $7.7 million in Series A funding from Upfront Ventures, Radical Impact, Social Capital and others. TechCrunch has more here.<

Klook, a three-year-old, Hong Kong-based travel startup that specializes in helping travelers book trip activities and logistics for when they are overseas, has raised $60 million in Series C funding led by earlier backer Sequoia Capital, with participation from Matrix Partners (also an earlier backer). The money comes just six months after Klook closed its Series B round with $30 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Reflektion, a five-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based marketing startup that uses predictive analytics to increase conversion rates on e-commerce sites, has raised $12 million in additional Series B fund. SAP founder Hasso Plattner led the round, with participation from returning investors Battery Ventures and Clear Ventures. Reflektion has now raised $41.3 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Draper Espirit, the publicly listed venture firm in London, has said it planned to invest in other early-stage venture firms in Europe. Now it has taken those plans a step further, buying outright the first two funds of Seedcamp, an investing outfit in the U.K., for $23.6 million. It will manage out the assets from both, reports TechCrunch. More here.

Not a new fund exactly, but it’s worth noting that Weibo, the Beijing-based, Twitter-like Chinese social network, is raising $700 million as it looks for acquisitions to continue the growth its business has seen this year. The publicly traded company, which is majority owned by Alibaba and the media company Sina, is listed on Nasdaq and currently enjoys a $21 billion market cap. TechCrunch has more here.

People

DoorDash CFO Mike Dinsdale has left the company less than a year after he joined, TechCrunch has learned. The food ordering and delivery startup is actively looking for a replacement. More here.<

Ronnie Gurion — whose LinkedIn profile states that he has been leading Airbnb’s international business development efforts since April of last year — has quietly stepped down to become the chief strategy officer at the competing vacation rental platform HomeAway. More here.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son is claiming that his Vision Fund has already bagged $3 billion in profit. It’s  all on paper at this point, but hey, no one likes a stickler.

Grab, Uber’s chief rival in Southeast Asia, finally has a new CTO more than two years after its previous one departed. Today the company introduced Theo Vassilakis, a former Googler who also spent time with Microsoft, as its second ever CTO. TechCrunch has more here.<

Jobs

Foundry Group, the Boulder, Co.-based early-stage venture firm, is hiring a general counsel. This individual will be responsible for all legal activities of the fund and work with portfolio companies on select issues. More here.

Data

The Silicon Valley executive search firm Lonergan Partners has just published a new “Who Runs the Valley” type survey, focused on C-suite execs at the biggest publically traded companies in the region. It has some interesting info, including the average age of incoming CEOs, how long CEOs who were replaced last year had been in their roles, and what percentage had previous experience running public companies. One alarming observation: all incoming CEOs were male. You can check it out here.

Essential Reads

Uber just launched a credit card.

Square, the Twitter boss’s other company, could soon pass it in value.

Detours

The art world star you’ve never heard of.

“Tiny House Hunters” and the shrinking American dream.

The surprising history of “OMG.”

Retail Therapy

Smallbirds, for those too young to work in tech (for now).

Hi, all, happy Tuesday!

Top News

Over the summer, two women filed complaints with the state of California against Uber for allegedly paying them less than men in similar roles. The previously unreported claims just came to light through a public records request by The Information. More here.

Sponsored By . . .

You can have it both ways. Work with a PR partner that delivers high-level results without the B.S. or fluff. At FLIGHT, we build long-term relationships with our clients and focus on smart visibility that grows their business. Visit us at www.flightpr.com or say hello@flightpr.com. Woman-owned and operated, with offices in Silicon Beach and Austin.

Airbnb Just Lost the Exec It Hired to Lead Its China Biz

China is a tough nut to crack, no matter how much money U.S.-based companies have to throw at it.

That was the overarching takeaway last night, given the news — first reported by Bloomberg — that Hong Ge is abandoning his post as the head of Airbnb’s China business for a new, as-yet-undisclosed opportunity.

Why does the departure matter? For starters, Ge was appointed to the role just four months ago. Further, Bloomberg says the company had struggled since 2015 to recruit a business chief, finally turning within and hiring Ge. He’d originally joined the company at its Bay Area headquarters last year, and earlier spent more than four years at both Facebook and Google as an engineer.

Kum Hong Siew, the current president of China operations, will take over the role in an interim capacity. Last week, the company also announced that co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk would become chairman of Airbnb’s China arm, spending half his time on business there and making monthly trips to the country from the U.S.

Airbnb, which goes by the name of Aibiying (it means “welcome each other with love”), faces fierce competition from local startups, including Tujia.com, which is backed by China’s largest online travel agent, and fast-growing Xiaozhu.com.

All are further dealing with tough regulatory challenges in China, where, as Reuters notes, movement between cities is watched closely and people must register temporary stays with local police.

We were unable to reach Ge for comment for this story, but this looks like a setback on its face.

More here.

New Fundings

Averon, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based developer of a mobile identity verification standard, has raised $8.3 million in Series A funding led by Avalon Ventures. More here.

Blickfeld, a 1.5-year-old, Munich-based startup developing a LiDAR system to let autonomous vehicles “see,” has raised $4.25 million in seed funding. The round was led by Fluxunit (the corporate venture arm of lighting company Osram), High-Tech Gründerfonds, Tengelmann Ventures, and Unternehmertum Venture Capital Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Derq, a 1.5-year-old, Dubai-based startup aiming to reduce vehicle accidents by improving how cars and infrastructure talk to each other, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from Techstars Mobility Accelerator. TechCrunch has more here.

Doctorlink, a 1.5-year-old, U.K.-based startup that provides surgeons with a clinically approved digital triage and advice tool, has quietly raised an undisclosed amount of funding over the last 12 months, including £20 million from Eight Roads, the proprietary investment arm of Fidelity International. TechCrunch has more here.

Gro Intelligence, a three-year-old, New York-based agricultural data analytics startup, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A2 funding led by TPG Growth, with participation from Data Collective. More here.

HashiCorp, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based datacenter management tools company,, announced $40 million in Series C funding from its earlier backers, including GGV Capital, Redpoint, Mayfield and True Ventures. The company has now raised $74 million altogether. More here.

iAdvize, a seven-year-old, Nantes, France-based customer engagement platform, has raised another $37.6 million from Idinvest, Bpifrance and Quadrille Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Kindred, a 2.5-year-old, Vancouver-based company aiming to create human-like intelligence in machines, has raised $28 million in Series B funding led by Tencent, with participation from previous investors Eclipse Ventures and First Round Capital. The company has now raised $44 million altogether. Betakit has more here.

KnowBe4, a seven-year-old, Tampa Bay, Fla.-based security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, has raised $30 million in new funding led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity, with participation from earlier investor Elephant. (Kevin Mitnick, an internationally recognized computer security expert, is the company’s chief hacking officer.) More here.

NeuroPace, an 18-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based developer of a neurostimulation system that can monitor and respond to brain activity with the aim of reducing seizure frequency, has raised $74 million in new  funding co-led by KCK Group and OrbiMed. Reuters has more here.

Nimble Pharmacy, a three-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based prescription drug delivery startup, has raised $28 million in new funding led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, First Round Capital, DAG Ventures and Khosla Ventures. CNBC has more here.

OpenIO, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based object storage company, has raised $5 million from Elaia Partners, Partech Ventures and Nord France Amorçage. TechCrunch has more here.

Shift Technology, a four-year-old, Paris-based software-as-a-service that uses artificial intelligence to detect patterns and flag fraudulent insurance claims, is raising a $28 million Series B round from earlier backer Accel Partners, along with General Catalyst Partners. Other earlier backers, Elaia Partners and Iris Capital, are also participating in the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Trimian, a two-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based company whose app, mia Contacts, aims to make it easier for users to figure out that right person to connect with, has raised $3 million in funding led by Spark Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Unikrn, a three-year-old, Seattle-based e-sports betting startup, has raised roughly $31 million in an initial coin offering. Celebrity investor Mark Cuban had participated in a pre-sale for the offering. CoinDesk has more here.

Wibbitz, a six-year-old, New York-based startup that uses artificial intelligence to create short videos based on text news stories, has raised $20 million in Series C funding, including from Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments and participation from The Weather Channel, The Associated Press and TF1. Previous backers NantMobile, lool Ventures and Horizons Ventures also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

People

AppDynamics co-founder Jyoti Bansal (you might remember he sold his company to Cisco in January for $3.7 billion) is back with a news startup called Harness. Its aim: to automate continuous code deployment. TechCrunch has more here.

And a switcheroo at Hulu: Mike Hopkins, the former 21st Century Fox executive who has been running the company since 2013, is leaving to run Sony TV. Randy Freer, another Fox executive who has been president and chief operating officer of that company’s TV business, is Hulu’s new top dog. Recode has more here.

Jobs

London-based venture firm Seraphim Capital is looking to bring aboard an investor director to help it source and lead deals for its new, $95 million space fund. Experienced applicants should write to info@seraphimcapital.co.uk.

Data

Since the beginning of 2015, U.S.-based fintech startups have pulled in roughly $18 billion across nearly 1,400 deals with venture participation, per PitchBook. Here are the 11 most valuable of them.

Essential Reads

Saudi Arabia’s state-owned Public Investment Fund is poised to become one of the world’s biggest investors. But the fund is troubled by disappointing investments, including in Uber Technologies, says the WSJ. In fact, says the report, the fund’s chairman has been pushing back against parts of a deal with the biggest PIF partner, SoftBank Group, that could cut Uber’s value, which would force the Saudi fund to take a loss. More here.

Snap‘s internal data shows that well under half of Spectacles owners continued to use the camera-equipped sunglasses after just four weeks, reports Business Insider. More here.

Detours

A grain that tastes like wheat but grows like prairie grass.

Quiz: Which Mexican border-wall prototype is the worst?

Retail Therapy

The iPhone X. It’ll be available for walk-in customers to Apple stores who get there early enough on Friday, November 3.

No column today. We’re too busy digesting all the super creepy happenings in Silicon Valley of late. At this rate, we’ll need to add a new section soon called “Police Blotter.”  Check out “People” for more.

Also, happy Monday.:)

Top News

Amazon just spent more than it ever has in a single quarter lobbying the federal government, at $3.41 million. The (Jeff Bezos-owned) Washington Post has more here.

Hi, happy Friday, everyone.:)

Top News in the A.M.

Chariot, the commuter shuttle bus network that Ford Smart Mobility acquired in 2016, has halted its increasingly ubiquitous services in San Francisco. The California Public Utilities Commission has suspended its operating permit after it failed three consecutive California Highway Patrol inspections.

Fair.com, an all-digital car marketplace that was co-founded by car industry vets and has been operating under the radar, is roaring into the open today, revealing it has raised upwards of $1 billion — and not from Softbank, for a change. Investors instead include BMW’s iVentures, Penske Automotive Group, and others. More here.

Nearly two dozen major companies in tech and other industries are planning to launch a coalition to demand legislation that would allow young, illegal immigrants a path to permanent residency. Reuters has more here.

Sponsored By . . .

Treble was founded on the premise that PR is directly connected to exits. And with six exits to-date including StackEngine (acquired by Oracle), Boxer (acquired by VMware) and Joyride (acquired by Google), Treble wins as an immersive partner for VC firms across the spectrum of your portfolio investments. For startups, we align early and scale to drive brand differentiation, strategic partnerships and revenue. Click here to elevate your PR game.

Madison Reed Raises $25M to Open “Color Bars” Across the U.S.

You get to a certain age, and if you’re remotely vain (and let’s face it, you are), you need to have your hair colored fairly frequently. You’re hardly alone. Roughly 75 percent of women in the United States color their hair, which today adds up to an $18 billion opportunity for brands like L’Oréal and Clairol.

It used to look that way, anyway. Eating into a growing percentage of these giants’ market share is Madison Reed, a four-year-old, 85-person, San Francisco-based maker of affordable “prestige” hair products. These include 45 shades of permanent hair color, 8 shades of hair “gloss,” 6 shades of liquid-based root touch-up (for in between coloring sessions), and 6 shades of powder for root touch-ups. The company also more recently began making shampoos and conditioners for color-treated hair.

Now Madison Reed is working on what could become its biggest product of all: a chain of real-world “color bars” that it expects will accelerate its business further. Toward that end, the company just raised $25 million in new funding led by Comcast Ventures, an earlier investor, with participation from other previous backers, including Norwest Venture Partners, True Ventures and Calibrate Ventures.

Yesterday, we phoned CEO and founder Amy Errett in Hawaii, where she’s attending the high-wattage, low-flying Lobby conference. We asked her about the company’s newest round of funding, its color bars, and much more. If you care about consumer packaged goods more generally, keep reading.

You’ve quietly closed on $25 million that brings your funding to $70 million. Why go with Comcast, which is already an investor?<

Comcast was a very small shareholder previously and they just kind of watched our progress. Also, for us, Comcast adds enormous value; our investors there have been super helpful with TV and connections into other media.

How much are you spending on TV? And how else are you marketing Madison Reed?

We spend money on marketing four ways. First, Facebook and Instagram continues to be great for us and we work hard at [cultivating our image on both]. Radio is the fastest-growing channel, including satellite, local, and more recently national. We measure ROI by asking people how they’ve heard of us and through promo codes. The third is TV, which has been super effective. Fourth are referrals, which is an important part of our business. We put referral cards in boxes, and a lot of people give them out to friends who then get their first box for free. We’ve been doing it long enough to measure that it’s not just that first box (that they use).

What percentage of your business is recurring, and are people buying one-offs or subscriptions?

More here.

New Fundings

Amenity Analytics, a two-year-old, New York-based text analytics platform startup, raised $7.6 million in Series A funding. Investors include Intel Capital and State of Mind Ventures. More here.

Constructor.io, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based SaaS company providing search services to sites to help them learn from their users and boost conversion rates, has raised $5 million in Series A funding. Zetta Venture Partners led the round, with participation from Signia Venture Partners. More here.<

Contrast Security, a three-year-old, Los Altos, Ca.-based company whose security technology enables software applications to protect themselves against cyberattacks, has raised $30 million in Series C funding. Battery Ventures led the round; earlier backers Acero Capital and General Catalyst also participated. Technical.ly Baltimore has more here.

Horizon Robotics, a two-year-old, Beijing, China-based maker of robotics chips, is raising up to $100 million in new funding, including from Intel Capital, Harvest Investments, Hillhouse Capital, Wu Capital, Linear Ventures and Morningside Venture Capital. DealStreetAsia has more here.

SafeTraces, a two-year-old, Pleasanton, Ca.-based company that makes edible, invisible, odorless, tasteless, FDA-approved barcodes in order to trace the travels of fresh or processed foods, pharmaceuticals, and other commodities, has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding. Omidyar Network led the round and was joined by UL Ventures, S2G Ventures, Maumee Ventures, City Light Capital and Tuscan Management. More here.

Spoke, a San Francisco-based internal request management platform, has raised $28 million in funding from Accel Partners and Greylock Partners. CNBC has more here.

IPOs

Stitch Fix, the mail-order clothing service, has filed to go public. The numbers look good. The IPO will be the first test of investor reception to the newest breed of online shopping companies.

WatchGuard Video, a 15-year-old, Allen, Tex.-based manufacturer of law enforcement video systems (it says it supplies in-car and body worn cameras, along with evidence management software, to nearly one-third of all law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and Canada) has filed to go public. The plan is raise $75 million and trade on Nasdaq. More here.

Exits

Quest Diagnostics is acquiring Cleveland HeartLab, a Cleveland, Oh.-based diagnostic services company, from investors that include the Cleveland Clinic. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed.

People

Prominent Stanford leader and donor John Freidenrich, an alumnus who was involved with the university for more than 40 years, died last week at Stanford Hospital. He was 80. More here.

Uber’s U.S. chief Rachel Holt said at a conference hosted today by The Information that “mistakes” have been made at the company, but the business is “sound.”

Rebecca Kaden has announced that she’s leaving Maveron to join Union Square Ventures as a general partner on its investment team. She’ll be the first female partner at USV. TechCrunch has more here.

Ben Metcalfe has joined San Francisco-based Ridge Ventures (f.k.a. IDG Ventures USA) as a principal. Metcalfe was most recently a senior product manager at Uber and before that, had cofounded the managed hosting platform company WP Engine. TechCrunch has more here.

Snap has been hit with more layoffs as management evaluates trimming headcount across different teams, reports Business Insider.

Lockhart Steele, Vox Media’s Editorial Director and former Curbed CEO and founder, has been fired for “engaging in conduct that is inconsistent” with the company’s “core values.” More here.

Jobs

Nationwide’s year-old corporate venture capital unit, Nationwide Ventures, is looking to hire an in-office consultant to screen potential investments in financial and insurance startups. The job is in Columbus, Oh.

Essential Reads

And it is Thursday! Hi, everyone.:)

Top News in the A.M.

Ride-hailing company Lyft has raised a new $1 billion funding round, putting its post-money valuation at $11 billion. The financing was led by Alphabet’s CapitalG, its growth-focused investment fund, with CapitalG partner David Lawee joining Lyft’s board as part of the transaction. More here.

Assa Abloy, the $23 billion Swedish lock giant that owns Yale and many other brands, announced this morning that it’s buying smart lock maker August Home to double down on new technology. Terms aren’t being disclosed, but August had raised $73 million from a whole lot of investors, including Cowboy Ventures, Maveron, and Bessemer Venture Partners. More here.

Sponsored By . . .

Treble was founded on the premise that PR is directly connected to exits. And with six exits to-date including StackEngine (acquired by Oracle), Boxer (acquired by VMware) and Joyride (acquired by Google), Treble wins as an immersive partner for VC firms across the spectrum of your portfolio investments. For startups, we align early and scale to drive brand differentiation, strategic partnerships and revenue. Click here to elevate your PR game.

Tony Fadell’s Newest Product? An Investment Firm Called Future Shape

Tony Fadell is starting yet a new chapter.

Fifteen months after leaving Nest Labs, a maker of digital thermostats and smoke detectors that Fadell cofounded and sold to Google for $3.2 billion in 2014, Fadell is taking the wraps off a new investment and advisory firm that’s working with engineers and scientists called Future Shape.

The firm’s site, which appears to have gone live very recently, explains that Future Shape is not relying on outside investors for its capital. It also states that the idea is to provide “seed funding, and sometimes A” to companies no matter where they are.

In fact, it says its portfolio is already based mainly in Europe, as well as the U.S., and that it has some “great companies in Asia and the Middle East, too.”

Fadell, who is living at least part time in Paris, has already funded more than 100 companies over the years, including Rohinni,  a four-year-old, Idaho-based startup that makes LED Lighting products andreportedly pitched Fadell while he was still managing Nest. Others of his investments include CashShield, a nine-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based online fraud risk management company, and Turvo, a three-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based logistics management startup.

Future Shape appears to be a way for Fadell to create more structure around these bets.

More here.

New Fundings

Coda, a 3.5-year-old, Bay Area-based startup whose next-generation spreadsheets aim to make Excel a thing of the past, has quietly raised $60 million across two rounds of fundraising. Its investors include Greylock Partners, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers. The Verge has more here.

Feather, a 10-month-old, New York-based company aiming to rent modern furniture to millennials from 3 to 12 months to accommodate their itinerant lifestyles, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding from Kleiner Perkins, Bain Capital Ventures, SV Angel and others. TechCrunch has more here.

Forty Seven, a 1.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based immuno-oncology startup, has raised $75 million in new funding led by Wellington Management, with participation from earlier investors Clarus,Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures and GV. The company has now raised $150 million altogether. FierceBiotech hasmore here.

GuiaBolso, a five-year-old, Sao Paulo, Brazil-based personal finance management platform, has raised $39 million in funding led byVostok Emerging Finance, with participation from Ribbit Capital,IFC, QED Investors, Endeavor Catalyst and Omidyar Network. TechCrunch has more here.

Hiya, a 1.5-year-old, Seattle-based company that aims to provide customers with important context about the people they are calling (and from whom they receive calls), has raised $18 million in Series A funding led by Balderton, with participation from Nautilus Venture Partners and Lumia Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Meituan-Dianping, a seven-year-old, Beijing, China-based provider of a wide array of on-demand services, has raised a whopping $4 billion in new funding at an even more stunning $30 billion valuation. Earlier backer Tencent led the round and was joined by Sequoia Capital, GIC and Tiger Global. Tech in Asia has more here.<

Mya Systems, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based developer of an AI-recruiter, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led byFoundation Capital, with participation from Emergence Capital, among other investors. More here.

Movinga, a two-year-old, Berlin-based online relocation service company, has raised €22 million ($26 million) by Santo Venture Capital, the venture arm of the Strüngmann family office, with participation from earlier backers Earlybird Venture Capital andRocket Internet. The capital will be called over two tranches, reports TechCrunch. More here.

PayKey, a two-year-old, Tel Aviv-based company whose smartphone keyboard lets bank customers access financial services without having to log onto a banking app, has raised $10 million in Series B funding. MizMaa led the round, with participation from other investors that include SBI Group, Siam Commercial Bank’s financial tech subsidiary Digital Ventures, SixThirty and FinTech71. The company has now raised $16 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Guardian Media Group is planning to launch a new, independent £42 million ($55 million) venture capital fund called GMG Ventures. The idea is to support the development of GMG’s core news business by funding early-stage startups focused on developing the next generation of media technology.  The Guardian has more here.

Plenty of investors have broken their picks, trying to find gold in education technology. That doesn’t seem to concern the limited partners of Owl Ventures, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based venture firm that’s focused only on edtech, and which just closed on $185 million — nearly twice the $100 million it raised for its debut fund in 2014. TechCrunch has more here.

SparkChain Capital is a new outfit that’s planning to raise $100 million in an ICO so it can invest in blockchain and cryptocurrency-related companies. (Expect to see a lot more of these, for good or bad.) More here.

IPOs

MongoDB made its public debut with a bang, jumping more than 25 percent today after spending the past several days revising expectations upward. TechCrunch has more here.

SendGrid, the eight-year-old, Denver-based email marketing platform (that happens to power StrictlyVC), has filed for a $100 million IPO. The company, which reported a $3 million net loss on $38 million in revenue for the first half of this year, has raised more than $80 million from VCs, including Foundry Group, Bessemer Venture Partners, Highway 12 Ventures, and Bain Capital Ventures, each of which have sizable pre-IPO stakes in the bidness. The Denver Post has more here.

Exits

Atlas Informatics, a 1.5-year-old, Seattle-based encrypted personal search engine whose tool helps users quickly locate information within files, emails, and other sources, is somewhat abruptly shutting down for undisclosed reasons. It had raised more than $20 million in funding from investors, including Microsoft Ventures and Aspect Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Cisco said today that it’s acquiring Perspica, a machine learning-driven operations analytics firm that has raised $8.5 million. Terms aren’t being disclosed, but Cisco intends to fold Perspica’s team intoAppDynamics, the company it purchased earlier this year for $3.7 billion. TechCrunch has more here.

Hearst is buying publisher Rodale, the family-owned publisher of magazines like Women’s Health, Men’s Health and Prevention. The deal is priced at roughly one times revenue — which is roughly $225 million these days (down from $600 million in 2008). The WSJ has more here.

Jinn, a London-based startup that offers a same-hour “shop on your behalf” delivery app that operates similarly to Postmates in the U.S., has shut down. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Meal-kit seller Blue Apron said yesterday that it’s laying off 6 percent of its staff as part of “a company-wide realignment of personnel to support its strategic priorities.” The company went public four months ago. TechCrunch has more here.

As far as Jeff Bezos is concerned (apparently), there are some things you’ve just gotta do yourself.

Comcast Ventures has named Gil Beyda as a managing director and promoted Daniel Gulati to partner. Beyda previously founded a seed venture fund called Genacast Ventures. Gulati, who joined Comcast Ventures in 2014, was previously an analyst with Boston Consulting Group.

Benjamin Erhart has joined Unternehmertum Venture Capital Partners as a partner. Previously, Erhart was an investment director at High-Tech Gruenderfonds, a seed fund in Europe.

Tom Willerer, who has spent the last four years with the online education company Coursera — the last two as its chief product officer — is joining the venture firm Venrock to seek out consumer deals. More here.

Jobs

Trident Capital Cybersecurity, a sector-focused, early-stage venture capital firm, is looking to hire an associate. The job is in San Mateo, Ca.

Essential Reads

Everyone’s mad at Google, and Sundar Pichai has to fix it.

Detours

From assistants to executives, at the Weinstein Co., everyone is playing the grim Hollywood parlor game of who knew what, and when.

Retail Therapy

Tiny shipping container house. (If you’d otherwise be living in someone’s backyard in Palo Alto right now, this doesn’t look so terrible.)

Wednesday!

Top News in the A.M.

Treble was founded on the premise that PR is directly connected to exits. And with six exits to-date including StackEngine (acquired by Oracle), Boxer (acquired by VMware) and Joyride (acquired by Google), Treble wins as an immersive partner for VC firms across the spectrum of your portfolio investments. For startups, we align early and scale to drive brand differentiation, strategic partnerships and revenue. Click here to elevate your PR game.

How More Than 3,000 Tech Workers Are Trying to Turn the Political Tables

There have always been outliers, people in tech who are willing to volunteer to help certain candidates. An even smaller percentage of techies quit their jobs to join campaigns. Still, it’s probably safe to say that most tech employees, who are also U.S. citizens, have long viewed the extent of their obligation as Americans to vote for their preferred candidate — then get back to work.

The surprising rise of Donald Trump has changed that stance in largely liberal Silicon Valley. In fact, more than 3,000 skilled tech workers have now signed on to help a nonprofit called Tech for Campaigns that injects tech talent into the campaigns of centrist and liberal candidates who need advice and tools to better make use of Facebook and Twitter, craft individualized emails for segmented voters, and much more.

More people are signing up to help every day, too, particularly now that the low-flying organization is raising its profile a bit to further that momentum.

It has been writing explainers, for example, including this one in Quartz, on the importance of focusing on so-called down-ballot (non-presidential) state races. Tech for Campaigns also recently launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise $250,000 to hire additional full-time employees who can help its three cofounders — entrepreneurs Jessica Alter, Pete Kazanjy and Ian Ferguson — run the organization. (It has 23 days remaining to reach its goal.)

We talked recently with Alter about that campaign, as well as to get a better understanding of the specific candidates Tech for Campaigns is aiming to help, as well as how. Our chat, following, has been edited for length.

You’d previously started a founder dating company that was sold. How did you end up starting this nonprofit?

Peter and I and our other cofounder, Ian, are all tech founders, and the election last year woke us up. After the inauguration, there was one alarming executive order after another. I like posting on social media, but saying, “I can’t take this anymore” wasn’t helping, and we were seeing the same from many people we know who wanted to do more but weren’t sure how.

“60 Minutes” recently aired a segment with Trump’s digital head, who said Facebook employees embedded themselves with the campaign, trying to provide it expert help. He also said the Clinton campaign was offered some of the same help and declined it. Is your organization trying to get the job done for Democrats that they aren’t getting done themselves?

We’re not saying that tech is coming in to save politics.

More here.

New Fundings

Bespoke Post, a six-year-old, New York-based lifestyle subscription club for men that sends themed boxes to its customers each month, has raised $6 million in Series A funding, including from Walden Venture Capital, Scout Ventures, and Kiwi Partners. The company has raised $8 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Bluevine, a four-year-old, Redwood City Ca.-based fintech company that provides online loans to small and medium-size companies, has raised $130 million in debt funding from Silicon Valley Bank,SunTrust Bank, Bank Leumi and TriplePoint Venture Growth BDC Corp. Globes has more here.

BuddyGuard, a three-year-old, Berlin, Gernany-based startup that makes an AI-powered home security camera, has raised €3.4 million ($4 million) in funding led by Bachmann Group. TechCrunch hasmore here.

Cydan, a four-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based orphan drug accelerator, has raised $34 million in funding from Longitude Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Pfizer Venture Investments, Alexandria Venture Investments andLundbeckfond Ventures. FierceBiotech has more here.

Duo Security, a seven-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based cyber security company, has raised $70 million in Series D funding, at a valuation of $1.17 billion. Meritech Capital Partners and Lead Edge Capital led the round, which also includes Index Ventures,Workday, and earlier backers Redpoint Ventures and True Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Feedzai, a six-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based startup whose machine learning tools help banks and merchants spot payment fraud, has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by an unnamed venture firm, with additional capital from Sapphire Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Fingerlix, a 1.5-year-old, Mumbai, India-based ready-to-cook food brand that makes a range of products, including batters and parathas, is reportedly raising $7 million in Series B funding fromAccel Partners and Zephyr Peacock. The Economic Times hasmore here.

Gemini Therapeutics, a two-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based precision medicine company focused on genetically-defined, dry age-related macular degeneration, has raised $42.5 million in Series A funding. Atlas Venture, Lightstone Ventures and OrbiMed led the round. FierceBiotech has more here.

Lightspeed, a 12-year-old, Montreal-based point-of-sale system, has raised roughly $166 million in Series D funding led by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, with participation fromInvestissement Québec, iNovia Capital, and Silicon Valley Bank also participated in providing funding. BetaKit has more now.

Magic Leap, the six-year-old, Dania Beach, Fla.-based augmented reality startup (that has yet to release a product but keeps attracting investor capital in the meantime), has officially closed on a $502 milion Series D round led by Temasek. Other participants in the round include EDBI, Grupo Globo, Janus Henderson, Alibaba Group, Fidelity Management and others. TechCrunch has more here.

Prenetics, an eight-year-old, Hong Kong-based genetic testing startup, has raised $40 million in Series B funding led by Beyond Ventures and Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund. The round also includes capital from Yuantai Investment Partners,mFund and eGarden Ventures, and brings Prenetics’ total funding to $50 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Revelo, a three-year-old, Brazil-based job recruitment marketplace, has raised $4.6 million in funding led by Valor Capital, with participation from the online Australian recruiting company Seek. TechCrunch has more here.

SelfMade, a two-year-old, New York-based professional photo editing service, has raised $11 million in funding, including fromPrimary Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital, BoxGroup,Founder Collective, CrunchFund, SV Angel and GGV. TechCrunch has more here.

Veo Robotics, a 1.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based startup that says it’s building a smarter, more intuitive robotics system for industrial applications, has raised $12 million in funding co-led byLux Capital and GV, with participation from existing investor Next 47, which is a venture firm created by Siemens. VentureBeat has more here.

Torch 3D, a months-old, Portland, Ore.-based augmented and virtual reality prototyping platform, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding co-led by The Venture Reality Fund and Silicon Valley Data Capital. Other investors in the round include Seven Peaks Ventures, GVR Fund, Presence Capital, Antipodean Ventures, Jerome Capital and TWB Investment Partnership. VentureBeat has more here.

XMOS, 12-year-old, Bristol, U.K.-based outfit that earlier this month became the first European chip company to release a qualified Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS) development kit, has raised $15 million in Series E funding led by Infineon Technologies. Earlier backers also joined the round, including Amadeus Capital Partners, Draper Esprit, Foundation Capital and Robert Bosch Venture Capital. More here.

Zype, a three-year-old, New York-based cloud video distribution service for OTT that aims to make it easy for content owners to connect directly with audiences on every screen, has raised $4.9 million in Series A funding. Runa Capital led the round; other participants include Revel Partners, Point Nine Capital, Alpine Meridian Ventures and Entrepreneurs Investment Fund. Newscenter.io has more here.

New Funds

Blockchain Capital, one of the first venture firms to specialize in bitcoin and crypto projects, is setting out to raise $150 million in two funds, with plans to invest in companies and emerging cryptocurrencies. The firm, based in San Francisco, said in SEC filings yesterday that each fund is targeting $75 million. CNBC has more here.

Quantopian, a “crowdsourced” hedge fund backed by Point72’sSteven Cohen and Andreessen Horowitz, has launched its first fund for outside investors that want to tap into its community of data scientists and programmers, shows an SEC filing flagged yesterday by The Financial Times. The Boston-based company provides a platform for computer scientists to try their hand at coding trading algorithms, awarding prizes to and licensing the best strategies. More here.

Airbnb’s former head of data science, Riley Newman, has quietly formed a venture firm with David Rosenthal, formerly of Madrona Venture Group, according to Axios. The outfit is reportedly calledWave Capital and is raising between $35 million and $50 million for its debut fund, which will focus on early-stage marketplace startups.

Sponsored By . . .

Online classes to build your dream career. With more than three million members and more than 17,000 classes, Skillshare is basically Netflix for online learning. Learn everything from photography and marketing, to technology, design, and more. The first 500 StrictlyVC readers can try them free for two months for free here.

Exits

One small ad company has acquired another for undisclosed terms.AdHawk, incubated at Techstars Boulder, has acquired Y Combinator-backed Automate Ads. Both offer products for running Facebook and Google ad campaigns, but where AdHawk has focused on providing data to optimize existing campaigns, Automate’s tools help advertisers create those campaigns in the first place. TechCrunch has more here.

Adobe today announced that it has acquired KyleBrush.com, a service that offers digital brushes for Adobe’s Creative Cloud tools, and hired the service’s creator, Kyle Webster. Other financial terms were not disclosed. More here.

Jobs

The early-stage venture firm Libertus Capital is looking to bring aboard an associate. If you speak Mandarin or a European language, all the better. The job can be based in San Francisco, London, or Shanghai.

Essential Reads

Smartphones are killing Americans, but no one is counting.

General Motors’ autonomous vehicle unit, Cruise, is in discussions to launch fully self-driving cars for customers in San Francisco by next year, reports The Information. As readers may recall, GM is also an investor in Uber rival Lyft.

Snap and NBCUniversal are creating a Hollywood studio dedicated to the future of app-centric entertainment, and they’ve already signed their first deal with indie filmmakers, the Duplass brothers.

Detours

David Letterman rips Jimmy Fallon again.

Retail Therapy

Surprise! It’s a speaker.

Happy Tuesday, all.:) No column today.

Top News in the A.M.

SoftBank — the Japanese conglomerate that is already upending Silicon Valley finance with its existing $93 billion Vision Fund — is in early planning discussions to raise a second and possibly larger fund, multiple sources tell Recode. As crazy as that sounds, it isn’t surprising. As of a couple of weeks ago, the firm had already committed $20 billion to startups — and that doesn’t include whatever it eventually works out with Uber. As investor Jeff Bussbang of Flybridge Ventures told us a couple of weeks ago, for a story about Softbank’s overarching strategy, “What people don’t appreciate is that this is just the beginning. [Softbank founder Masayoshi] Son is providing a way for sovereign wealth funds to invest $2 billion at a time into an asset class they can’t otherwise access.” In fact, he’d said to expect Softbank to raise another $100 billion fund sooner than later.

Sponsored By . . .

Treble was founded on the premise that PR is directly connected to exits. And with six exits to date, including StackEngine (acquired by Oracle), Boxer (acquired by VMWare) and Joyride (acquired by Google), Treble wins as an immersive partner for VC firms across the spectrum of your portfolio investments. For startups, we align early and scale to drive brand differentiation, strategic partnerships and revenue. Click here to elevate your PR game.

New Fundings

Allset, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based restaurant reservation app that allows users to order food and pay for their meals, too, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Greycroft Partners. Other participants in the round include Andreessen Horowitz, Vaizra Investments, Compound, FJ Labs, and SMRK VC Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Backplane, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that helps companies manage their software deployments, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Baseline Ventures, with participation from Harrison Metal. Fortune has more here.

BankBazaar, a nine-year-old, Chennai, India-based credit marketplace, has raised $30 million in fresh funding led by Experian, the London-headquartered credit giant (with an $18 billion market cap). TechCrunch has more here.

BridgeU, a four-year-old, London-based maker of university prep and career guidance software, has raised £4 million ($5.3 million) in Series A funding led by Octopus Ventures, with participation fromDowning Ventures and earlier investor Fresco Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Connexin, an 11-year-old, Cambridge, England-based company that says it has built multiple carrier-grade metropolitan networks in its history, has raised $13.2 million in funding led by Digital Alpha Advisors, with participation from Cisco Systems.

Digital Asset Holdings, a 2.5.-year-old, New York-based developer of blockchain software for the financial sector (it’s run by former JPMorgan Chase executive Blythe Masters), has raised more than $40 million in Series B funding led by Jefferson River Capital. The Financial Times has more here.

Fluent City, a six-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based online language school, has raised $3 million in new funding led by Lerner Enterprises, with participation from New Ground Ventures, ZG Ventures, and WorldQuant Ventures. The company has now raised $5.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

LevelTen Energy, a 1.5-year-old, Seattle-based two-sided market that connects electricity sellers and buyers, has raised $6.8 million in Series A funding, including from Prelude Ventures, Techstars Venture Capital Fund, Founders’ Coop, Wireframe Ventures, Element 8 Fund and Avista Development. GeekWire has more here.

Militus, a 1.5-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based maker of cybersecurity software, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from CyberSEC3, a Florida-based private equity firm. More here.

Mission Bio, a three-year-old, South San Francisco-based developer of single-cell DNA analysis, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Mayfield. More here.

Pick-Up, a 10-month-old, Hong Kong-based startup that operates a four-hour, door-to-door delivery platform, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Axis Capital Partners, Metroworks Equity, Sage 42 Apps and Shanghai Bestway Enterprise Development Company. More here.

Pluto TV, a four-year-old, L.A.-based free online television service that broadcasts more than 100 live channels, has raised $5 million from Samsung Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Snaps, a two-year-old, New York-based conversational marketing platform for brands, has raised $6 million in additional Series A funding from Signal Peak Ventures. More here.

Spotahome, a three-year-old, Spain-based startup that lets users view and book mid to long-term accommodation online, has raised €13.6 million ($16 million) in Series A funding. Investors includePassion Capital, Seaya Ventures, Howzat Partners, and Samaipata Ventures, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Vacasa, an eight-year-old, Portland, Ore.-based vacation rental management company, has raised a hefty $103.5 million in Series B funding. Riverwood Capital led the round; other participants included Level Equity, Assurant Growth Investing, and NewSpring. GeekWire has more here.

New Funds

Last year, Illumina — the world’s largest maker of DNA sequencing machines — committed $100 million to start a genomics-focused venture capital fund. Now, Illumina Ventures has locked down another $130 million in capital commitments from a range of corporate, sovereign, institutional, and individual investors, bringing the fund’s total to $230 million. The outfit invests in companies working on new ways to use nucleic acid sequencing and to use genomics to better human health. FierceBiotech has more here.

Next Frontier Capital, a two-year-old, Bozeman, Mt.-based early-stage venture firm, has announced the first close of its second fund with $22 million in capital commitments. The firm, which is targeting upwards of $30 million altogether, had raised $21.5 million for its debut fund, founder Will Price, tells us. More here.

Serial entrepreneur Rick Marini has launched an outfit called Protocol Ventures, which may be the first-ever fund-of-funds for cryptocurrencies. Marini plans to invest what he raises in roughly ten cryptocurrency hedge funds with diverse profiles, strategies, and sizes, reports Axios, which says he’s targeting $100 million in capital commitments. More here.

Sponsored By . . .

Online classes to build your dream career. With more than three million members and more than 17,000 classes, Skillshare is basically Netflix for online learning. Learn everything from photography and marketing, to technology, design, and more. The first 500 StrictlyVC readers can try them free for two months for free here.

IPOs

ForeScout Technologies, a 17-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based company that provides enterprise security software for network access control, announced terms for its IPO yesterday, revealing plans to raise $101 million by offering 4.8 million shares at a price range of $20 to $22. At the midpoint of the proposed range, ForeScout would command a fully diluted market value of $942 million — close to the $1 billion private valuation it was assigned in January 2016. Nasdaq has more here.

Baidu’s iQiyi, a Netflix style video streaming service in China, has selected Bank of America, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs to help arrange a U.S. IPO worth about $1 billion, the IFR reported yesterday, citing people familiar with the plans. The offering could come as soon as the first half of 2018, added IFR, via Reuters.

JBS SA has pulled a planned $500 million IPO of its processed food subsidiary, JBS Foods International BV, almost six months after a spree of corruption and food safety scandals in Brazil hurt investor demand for the deal. CNBC has more here.

MongoDB, the 10-year-old, New York-based open source database system, has increased its proposed IPO price range from $18-$20 per share to $20-$22 per share. It still plans to offer 8 million shares. Seeking Alpha has more here.

Exits

Device maker Boston Scientific has acquired Apama Medical, a Campbell, Ca.-based developer of a radiofrequency balloon catheter for the treatment of atrial fibrillation. Boston Scientific is paying $175 million in cash up front, with another $125 million contigent on Apama meeting certain milestones. According to Crunchbase, Apama had raised $43 million in equity and debt, including from Silicon Valley Bank. Fierce Biotech has more here.

Facebook announced yesterday that it’s acquiring the positivity-focused polling startup tbh (short for “to be honest”), and will allow it to operate somewhat independently with its own brand. Price isn’t being disclosed, but TechCrunch sources say the company fetched less than $100 million and won’t require regulatory approval. tbh had raised an undisclosed amount of funding, including from Bee Partners, in 2013. More here.

Lawsuit!

Warby Parker is being accused of signing partnership contracts and NDAs with online eyeglass prescription test startup Opternative, then stealing the technology to launch its own competing “Prescription Check” feature. That’s according to a legal complaint filed last month by Opternative that was unsealed today as the lawsuit unfolds. TechCrunch has the story here.

People

Scott Barclay has been named a partner at Data Collective, which he joined in 2015 as an operating partner. Just prior, Barclay had served as chief product officer of Surescripts, an e-prescription network based in Arlington, Va.

Emil Michael, the former top Uber executive who was ousted by the company’s board earlier this year, has filed a motion to have a problematic lawsuit related to a rape incident in India dismissed. This is Michael’s first public comment on the case, which has attracted a lot of controversy, and essentially his attempt to clear his name. Recode has more here.

Billionaire investor Peter Thiel was married in Vienna this past weekend, Axios reports. Guests came expecting to celebrate Thiel’s 50th birthday, but instead were surprised by his wedding to longtime boyfriend, Matt Danzeisen. (A little) more here.

Longtime VC Fred Wilson said this past weekend that he and his wife have poured 5 percent of their net worth into crypto assets, which he characterizes as “likely at the high end of what the average person should have” but “not a ridiculous number for the average person to have.” Bloomberg has more here.

Jobs

SenaHill Partners, a fintech-focused merchant bank, is looking to bring aboard a financial analyst with at least one year’s work experience to join its investment banking group. The job is in New York. If interested, please submit your resume and cover letter to careers@senahill.com.

Data

VC firms are investing in crypto hedge funds, ICOs, and tokens directly. According to data culled by Fortune, VC firms are on track to close 77 traditional deals with blockchain startups by the end of this year. Last year, they closed 57. More here.

Essential Reads

Wag, the so-called Uber for dog-walking, is reportedly being criticized for losing dogs and fighting with customers — spooking potential investors in the process. Bloomberg has more here.

Apple apparently explored buying a medical-clinic start-up as part of a bigger push into health care. CNBC has more here.

Detours

A Canadian man rescued from a Taliban-linked group in Afghanistan last week said he thought his captors were joking when they told him Donald Trump had been elected president of the United States.

Retail Therapy

The Populele.