Reality TV star Kylie Jenner wiped out $1.2 billion in Snap’s market value with a single tweet posted yesterday.

Today’s StrictlyVC is sponsored by Siftery Track. As a reader, get free early access to Track and easily optimize your team’s software expenditures. Simply sync your credit card or accounting system, and Siftery Track will automatically create beautiful visualizations of your historic and forecasted spend. You’ll also get alerts for new products, duplicate charges, unexpected increases in spend, and more.

Glossier, the nearly four-year-old, direct-to-consumer beauty company, has landed $52 million in Series C funding in what it describes as a heavily oversubscribed round. The financing was led by earlier investors IVP and Index Ventures.

The New York-based company — which evolved out of the popular blog Into the Gloss by founder and CEO Emily Weiss — began selling its own make-up at the outset but has more recently added body and fragrance products, too, bringing its total number of offerings to 22. One of the company’s most popular products is a mascara-like eyebrow filler called Boy Brow. Among its newest: a solid version of its fragrance, You.

The company says it launches something new every six weeks, on average, and that it spends a lot of time working on its formulas. (A spokesperson tells us Glossier spent 15 months developing a new $24 exfoliant.) But Glossier is just as well-known for brand-building and its ability to grow consumer awareness in a highly crowded global beauty industry that’s expected to grow from $433 billion today to $750 billion by 2024, according to one estimate.

The 150-person company doesn’t disclosed its revenue numbers, but it tells us Glossier saw three times as much revenue last year as in 2016. It also opened offices in London and Montreal, after quietly acquiring a small Canadian digital strategy studio called Dynamo. (One of Dynamo’s cofounders, Bryan Mahoney, is now Glossier’s CTO.)

And Glossier opened up a sixth-floor showroom in the same SoHo building where its offices are located. Even without a street-level window, it generates more sales revenue per square foot than the average Apple store, Weiss told New York Magazine in a glowing cover story about Glossier that ran last month. (The story also referred to Weiss as the “millennials’ Estée Lauder.”)

More here.

Agent IQ, a 2.5-year-old, Bay Area-based startup that has developed customer service bots, has raised $6.3 million in Series A funding led by Sierra Ventures, with participation from CRCM and Rubicon Ventures. The company has now raised $8.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Beauty By Design, a two-year-old, L.A.-based personalized skincare platform, has raised $2.2 million in seed funding led by Resolute Ventures, with participation from Ludlow Ventures, TenoneTen Ventures, and Troy Capital Partners. More here.

Cota Healthcare, a New York-based healthcare data company that collects select oncological patient level data to provide real-time functions for oncologists, has raised $40 million in Series C financing led by IQVIA, with participation from EW Healthcare Partners and other investors. More here.

Dover Microsystems, a nearly eight-year-old, Framingham, Ma.-based cybersecurity company, raised $6 million in seed funding led by Hyperplane Venture Capital, with participation from Draper, Qualcomm Ventures, and the Hub Angels Investment Group. American Inno has more here.

Honcker, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based startup that acts as an aggregator and search engine for leasing services, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from IAC. TechCrunch has more here.

Indigo Fair, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based platform that helps small shop owners discover and try thousands of unique items from chocolates to travel goods risk-free, has raised $12 million in new funding from Forerunner Ventures and Khosla Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

KitSplit, a nearly three-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based startup that operates an online rental marketplace for creative equipment, has raised $2.1 million fromHearstLab, Entrepreneurs Roundtable, 3311 Ventures, NYU Innovation Venture Fund, WTI and Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger. TechCrunch has more here.

KKDay, a nearly four-year-old, Tapei, Taiwan-based startup whose online platform helps travelers find local activities, has raised $10.5 million in funding led by Japanese travel operator H.I.S., with participation from earlier backer MindWorks Ventures, a Hong Kong-based venture firm. TechCrunch has more here.

Lindora, a 46-year-old, Costa Mesa, Calif.-based weight loss management company that says it’s among the largest in the country, has raised an undisclosed amount of growth funding from investors, including Montage Capital, Solis Capital Partnersand Innovate Partners. More here.

Meritize, a two-year-old, Frisco, Tex.-based educational lender, has raised $6.8 million in seed funding co-led by Colchis Capital, Chicago Ventures, and Cube Financial Holdings. More here.

ParkBee, a four-year-old, Amsterdam-based startup that lets private car parks monetize underutilized spaces by making them bookable to the public, has raised roughly $7 million in new funding led by the German-based outfit Statkraft Ventures, with participation from existing investors. TechCrunch has more here.

SpinLaunch, a three-year-old, Bay Area-based startup that’s aiming to blast cargo into space using a catapult,  is raising $30 million in Series A funding. (Does it sound less crazy if you know its founder sold his last company, a drone startup, to Google?) TechCrunch has much more here.

Teampay, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based company whose software enables businesses to request, approve, pay for, and track employee purchasing in real-time, has raised $4 million in funding led by Crosscut Ventures, with participation from KEC Ventures, Precursor Ventures, CoVenture, and numerous other angels and other venture funds. TechCrunch has more here.

Tinyclues, an eight-year-old, Paris-based digital marketing company that says it uses AI to help its customers push the right products to the right customers at the right time, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led by EQT Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Alven, Elaia Partners, and ISAI. TechCrunch has more here.

Vence, a 1.5-year-old, San Diego-based startup whose wearable device creates a kind of virtual fence for livestock like cattle, has raised $2.7 million in new funding led by Eniac Ventures, with participation from the venture capital arm of the Dutch investment bank, Rabobank. TechCrunch has more here.

Vision Esports, a year-old, Beverly Hills, Ca.-based holding company set up to invest in esports businesses, has raised $38 million in funding led by Evolution Media, the investment firm backed by CAA and private-equity fund TPG Growth. Other investors include the New York Yankees, NFL star Odell Beckham Jr.; NBA star Kevin Durant and his business partner Rich Kleiman; MLB’s St. Louis Cardinals; Shamrock Holdings, the private investment arm of the Disney family;Seth Bernstein Capital Management; and Simon Tikhman of First Access Entertainment. Variety has more here.

Work well win, a nine-month-old, New York-based flexible office space provider that’s touting the health benefits of the spaces it’s leasing (think air purification systems, etc.), has raised a whopping $22 million in seed funding from undisclosed investors it describes only as New York real estate investors. Interestingly, the company was founded by someone who’d spent the previous year as the head of domestic development at WeWork. More here.

SaaS Ventures, a 1.5-year-old, Washington D.C.-based enterprise technology SaaS focused fund, has raised $10 million for its first fund, says Fortune; according to SEC filings, the outfit was earlier targeting upwards of $40 million.

Solium Capital, a Calgary-based maker of software-as-a-service for equity administration, financial reporting and compliance, has acquired Advanced-HR, a 21-year-old, San Francisco-based company that sells compensation data and compensation planning software to private and venture-backed companies. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

SK Telecom Americas, the development arm of large South Korean telecommunications company SK Telecom, is looking to hire a full-time associate. The job is in Sunnyvale, Ca.

At the U.K. investment bank Barclays, women investment bankers earn 26 percent less than men and their bonuses are 60 percent lower, according to the lender’s annual report. Overall — and holy s — it pays women just under half as much as male colleagues. American Banker has more here.

Voice-activated Siri AirPods could be coming.

Amazon is opening at least six more cashier-less stores in the U.S. this year.

Robinhood has opened cryptocurrency trading.

The meaning of “middle class” in Palo Alto.

When is a child Instagram-ready?

A clubby French bistro is ruffling feathers on New York’s Upper East Side.

Opus Camper. Just flip a switch and voila.

Huge thanks again to New Enterprise Associates for generously offering to host this event. Much thanks, too, to the global law firm Morrison Foerster (MoFo), which works with startups at every stage, and Anduin, cofounded in recent years by Joe Lonsdale and Alin Bui to help companies close their private market transactions. We greatly appreciate their support.

Tickets are no longer available but we promise lots of coverage afterward; we’re also hoping to host another of these in the spring if we can swing it. In the meantime, happy Wednesday.:)

Bitcoin fell as much as 12 percent today, whipsawing investors who thought they could finally take a deep breath after last month’s volatility.

Despite surpassing analyst expectations for the quarter, digital streaming business Roku disappointed Wall Street when it shared its fourth-quarter earnings after the bell today; its shares fell roughly 18 percent in after-hours trading as a result.

Today’s StrictlyVC is sponsored by Siftery Track. As a reader, get free early access to Track and easily optimize your team’s software expenditures. Simply sync your credit card or accounting system, and Siftery Track will automatically create beautiful visualizations of your historic and forecasted spend. You’ll also get alerts for new products, duplicate charges, unexpected increases in spend, and more.

The micro venture firm UpWest Labs was founded nearly six years ago in Palo Alto with one mission in mind: to bring Israeli founders to the U.S. when their companies are still nascent and provide them with enough financial and other resources to get going.

Why do this? UpWest’s founders, Shuly Galili and Gil Ben-Artzy, say it’s because startups can lose their shot at greatness if they aren’t exposed fast enough to U.S. customers — and U.S. investors.

The two came to this conclusion in their past lives, before they became investors. Galili had spent the previous 12 years as executive director at the California Israel Chamber of Commerce, often working to drum up the interest of U.S. companies and VCs in Israel-based companies.

She says she saw plenty of money in the ecosystem but a lack of understanding about the customers that Israeli companies were hoping to target, including in the U.S. “I always asked myself why founders weren’t spending more time here,” says Galili. “And the answer for a lot of them was that they couldn’t.”

Ben-Artzy, who’d moved from Israel to the U.S. to attend Wharton and later worked in corporate development and operations at Yahoo, saw the same in his job, he says.

A growing number of limited partners seems to buy into their vision of writing early, $250,000 checks to fledgling startups that want to head to California — as well as giving them a place to crash for a while. (The firm rents out a home in Menlo Park where founders can live until they’re able to get and running.)

More here.

4me, a nearly eight-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that helps companies organize and track their IT outsourcing projects, has raised $1.65 million in seed funding led by Storm Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Anyfin, a year-old, Stockholm-based startup that enables consumers to refinance their existing loans by sending in a picture of their monthly credit card bills or loan statements, has raised $5.9 million in Series A funding co-led by Accel Partners and Northzone, with participation from Global Founders Capital. More here.

Capillary Technologies, a 10-year-old, Singapore-based maker of customer engagement software for retail customers, has raised $20 million from earlier investors, including Warburg Pincus and Sequoia Capital. The Economic Times has more here.

Carlease, a nearly five-year-old, Chicago-based startup that lets consumers lease cars without leaving the house, has raised $3.5 million in funding led by Lightbank. Built in Chicago has more here.

DecaWave, a 14-year-old, Ireland-based fabless semiconductor company, has raised $30 million in funding led by Atlantic Bridge Ventures, with participation from the China Ireland Growth Technology Fund, ACT Venture Capital, and ZZ Ventures. More here.

Fever Labs, a 5.5-year-old, New York-based maker of an event discovery app, has raised $11.7 million in new funding, according to an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. More here.

FourKites, a 3.5-year-old, Chicago-based freight tracking and logistics tech company, has raised $35 million in Series B funding led by August Capital, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures and Hyde Park Venture Partners. The WSJ has more here.

Gabi, a two-year-old San Francisco-based online personal insurance shopper, has raised $9.5 million in Series A funding led by Canvas Ventures. Also joining the round were Correlation Ventures, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, Securian Ventures and earlier investors A.Capital Ventures and Project A. TechCrunch has more here.

Greenlight Financial Technology, a four-year-old Atlanta, Ga.-based maker of a smart debit card for kids and teens, has raised $16 million in Series A funding led by TTV Capital with participation from New Enterprise Associates, Relay Ventures, SunTrust Bank, Ally Financial, nbkc bank, Canapi, and the Amazon Alexa Fund. We profiled the company last year, when it was just a snuggly little seed-stage startup.

Intello, a months-old, Queensland, Australia-based SaaS optimization startup, has raised $1.3 million in seed funding led by Emerge, with participation from BoxGroup, Blacktop, Kaedan and Tectonic, along with numerous angel investors, including The Muse founder Kathryn Minshew. TechCrunch has more here.

Mabl, a year-old, Boston-based startup aiming to make functional testing for developers as easy as possible, has raised $10 million in Series A funding from CRV and Amplify Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Moovit, a six-year-old, Israel-based maker of a public transit app, has raised $50 million in Series D funding led by Intel Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital, BMW iVentures, NGP, Sound Ventures, BRM, Gemini, Vaizra,Vintage, and Hanaco. Forbes has more here.

Prophesee, a nearly four-year-old, Paris-based machine vision startup at work on sensors and camera systems, has raised $19 million in Series B funding led by an undisclosed investor, with participation from 360 Capital Partners, Supernova Invest, iBionext, Intel Capital, Renault Group, and Robert Bosch Venture Capital. Tech.eu has more here.

Signal, the seven-year-old encrypted chat app, has raised $50 million in funding from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton and simultaneously launched the newly founded Signal Foundation nonprofit. TechCrunch has more here.

Templarbit, a year-old, San Francisco-based cybersecurity startup formed by former engineers at the bug-hunting startup Synack, have raised $3 million in funding led by 205 Capital, with participation from Y Combinator and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Fortune has more here.

Thirdpresence, an 11-year-old, Helsinki, Finland-based AI-driven programmatic video advertising company, has raised $2.4 million in seed funding, including from Inventure and Tesi. Tech.eu has more here.

Vectra Networks, a seven-year-old, San Jose, Ca-based security platform that identifies cyber-attacks while they are happening, has raised $36 million in fresh funding led by Atlantic Bridge Capital, with participation from Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, Nissho Electronics Corp., and earlier backers Khosla Ventures, Accel Partners, IA Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, DAG Ventures and Wipro Ventures. The company has now raised $123 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Zagster, an 11-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based bike-share service, has raised $15 million in new funding led by Edison Capital Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Singapore-based Insignia Ventures Partners, founded by former Sequoia Capital venture partner Yinglan Tan, has closed its debut fund with $120 million less than a year after Tan left Sequoia, sources tell DealStreet Asia. The outlet says it’s the “largest ever maiden vehicle by a venture capital firm in this region.” More here.

Ganesh Bell, former chief digital officer at GE and CEO at GE Power Digital, will become president of the Chicago-based startup Uptake later this month, reports Reuters. As readers might recall, Uptake was founded several years ago by Groupon cofounders Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky.

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes explained yesterday in a Reddit AMA what “The Social Network,” the film about the company’s early years, got right and wrong.

Jeff Schumacher is stepping down as CEO of BCG Digital Ventures and will become non-executive chairman of the firm, according to Axios.

Venture-backed Vox Media is laying off 50 staffers, while The Atlantic, newly backed by Laurene Powell Jobs, is looking to hire 100 new employees.

Gallup just released survey information that suggests Americans aren’t so excited about self-driving cars as Silicon Valley might imagine. Roughly 54 percent of those surveyed said they’re unlikely to use self-driving cars; 59 percent said they’d be uncomfortable riding in self-driving cars; and 62 percent said they’d be uncomfortable sharing the road with self-driving trucks. More here.

Amazon’s startup fund is betting on an Alexa-everywhere future, reports Fast Company. But The Information warns that there are risks for startups that take its money.

Crytpocurrency: The Hail Mary pass for people who missed the tech boom.

Oat milk’s humble ascent.

The ultimate Craigslist nightmare.

“Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler breaks down a fight scene.

Two words that can help get you an airline upgrade over the phone: “Revenue management.” Here’s why.

Supermarket juggernaut Albertsons is buying a big part of drug store giant Rite Aid in an attempt to better compete with both Amazon and an increasingly acquisitive Walmart. The combined revenue of the two companies should also allow Albertsons to go public. The WSJ has more here.

Qualcomm today increased its takeover bid for rival chip maker NXP Semiconductors to about $44 billion in hopes of shoring up support for the deal, and to potentially fend off its own unwanted suitor, Broadcom. The New York Times has more here.

Today’s StrictlyVC is sponsored by Siftery Track. As a reader, get free early access to Track and easily optimize your team’s software expenditures. Simply sync your credit card or accounting system, and Siftery Track will automatically create beautiful visualizations of your historic and forecasted spend. You’ll also get alerts for new products, duplicate charges, unexpected increases in spend, and more.

BabelBark, a three-year-old, Newton, Ma.-based digital platform that connects pet owners with  hundreds of pet care businesses (including veterinary practices, trainers, shelters, groomers, and boarding kennels), has raised $2.8 million in Series A funding from undisclosed investors. More here.

Bind Benefits, a 1.5-old, Minneapolis, Mn.-based on-demand insurance startup, has raised $60 million in fresh funding after closing a $2.5 million. More here and here.

Dynamic Signal, a nearly eight-year-old, San Bruno, Ca.-based maker of employee communications software, has raised $36.5 million, including from Adams Street Partners, Cisco Investments, Founders Circle Capital, Microsoft Ventures, Time Warner Investments, Trinity Ventures, and Venrock. More here.

Even Financial, a 3.5-year-old, New York-based company that sells data tools to online lenders, has raised $3 million in funding from American Express Ventures, Plug & Play and Arab Angels. More here.

FanDom, a 3.5-year-old, Vancouver, British Columbia-based social media platform for sports brands, organizations, and teams, has raised $3.1 million in fresh funding, shows a new SEC filing. More here.

Homie, a two-year-old, London-based startup that helps Londoners find suitable rental properties, has raised $4 million in seed funding led by Connect Ventures, with participation from VentureFriends, Seedcamp, and The Family. TechCrunch has more here.

Kidaptive, a five-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based adaptive learning company with a suite of curriculum-focused iPad games for kids, has raised $19.1 million in Series C funding led by Formation 8 and the Korean education company Woongjin ThinkBig. TechCrunch has more here.

Losant, a three-year-old, Cincinnati, Oh.-based enterprise IoT platform designed to help its customers quickly build complex real-time connected software, has raised $5.2 million in a Series A funding. CincyTech led the round; other participants include TechNexus, Vine Street Ventures, and Rise of the Rest fund. More here.

Lyric, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based hospitality company that designs and manages short-term rentals, has raised $15.5 million in Series A funding, including from Fifth Wall Ventures, NEA, hotelier Barry Sternlicht, the founders of Casper, AXA Strategic Capital and NFX Guild. The WSJ has more here.

Molly, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that’s building AI-powered databases of people’s information, has raised $1.5 million from BBG, Betaworks, CrunchFund and Halogen Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

OrCam, a nearly eight-year-old, Jerusalem-based company that’s developing visual aids for the blind, has raised $30.4 million in new funding from investors, including Israel’s Clal Insurance and Meitav Dash. The company — whose wireless smart camera device attaches to the side of a pair of spectacles and reads texts and barcodes and recognizes faces while speaking the information into the user’s ear — is now valued at $1 billion. Reuters has more here.

Small Giant Games, a nearly four-year-old, Helsinki, Finland-based mobile game developer, has raised $41 million in new funding led by EQT Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Creandum, Spintop Ventures, and PROfounders. VentureBeat has more here.

SparkCognition, a 3.5-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based startup that uses AI to improve the cybersecurity systems at big oil and gas and aerospace companies, has raised $24 million in additional Series B funding. (The company had separately raised $32.5 million in Series B funding last June.) It has now garnered $63.6 million in funding altogether. AustinInno has more here.

Tagnos, an eight-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based company whose hospital software platform features several front-end applications around patient and asset tracking, has raised $5.8 million in funding, shows a new SEC filing that lists a $6.3 million target. More here.

Tunity, a 4.5-year-old, New York-based startup whose free app enables users to hear mute TVs (including at sports bars, gyms, airports, waiting rooms, or even at home), has raised $12 million in Series A funding, including from former Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack and WeWork CEO Adam Neumann. More here.

Weed, a 12-year-old, Tucson, Az.-based legal and medical marijuana holding company that oversees eight for-profit divisions, has raised $11.6 million in funding, shows a new SEC filing. More here.

xMatters, a 17-year-old, San Ramon, Ca.-based maker of incident management software, has raised $40 million in Series D funding led by Goldman Sachs Private Capital Investing. TechCrunch has more here.

Pantera Capital, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based investment firm and hedge fund focused exclusively on ventures, tokens, and projects related to blockchain tech, digital currencies, and crypto assets, says it’s raising its third blockchain fund and seeking up to $175 million. It hopes to close the fund by mid-June.

Quake Capital, a nearly two-year-old, New York-based accelerator and seed fund, is raising a $30 million second fund, it says. The outfit closed its debut fund last year with $18 million. More here.

TechOperators Venture Capital, a nine-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based venture firm that specializes in growth-stage opportunities, is looking to raise $100 million for a third venture fund, according to an SEC filing that shows it has already secured $40.2 million in commitments. The firm is fun by former entrepreneurs Dave Gould, Glenn McGonnigle, Tom Noonan and Said Mohammadioun. More here.

The Adecco Group, a global HR services firm headquartered in Switzerland, announced today that it has acquired Vettery, a four-year-old, New York-based online hiring marketplace. The financial terms were not disclosed, but a source with knowledge of the deal tells TechCrunch that Adecco paid a little more than $100 million (likely in some combination of cash and stock). According to Crunchbase, Vettery had raised roughly $12 million, including from Greycroft, Lightbank, and Raine Ventures. More here.

New Matter, a 3.5-year-old, Pasadena, Ca.-based maker of mid-range 3D printers, is shutting down this month, the victim, apparently, of waning consumer interest in anything but the most affordable products in the category. The company had raised $6.5 million in venture funding from investors, including Dolby Family Ventures, First Round Capital, and Alsop Louie Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Oracle says it’s acquiring Zenedge, a 3.5-year-old Aventura, Fla.-based cybersecurity company. Terms aren’t being disclosed. Zenedge had raised roughly $13.7 million in venture funding, including from TELUS Ventures, Union Bay Partners, and Pilot Growth Equity. More here.

China’s largest personalized news app Toutiao has reportedly acquired a three-year-old, augmented reality-based selfie app called Faceu for $300 million. It isn’t clear how much Faceu had raised. China Money Network says it raised an undisclosed amount of both seed and Series A funding, including from IDG Capital and Lightspeed China Partners. It reports the company was later rumored to have raised $50 million from Toutiao itself, though neither company has ever confirmed as much.

Arcus Biosciences, a nearly three-year-old, Hayward, Ca.-based biotech that’s developing immunotherapy drugs, has filed to raise $100 million through an IPO. The firm posted revenue of $1.4 million and loss of $53.1 million last year. Its biggest outside shareholders include GV, Foresite Capital, and The Column Group. Nasdaq has a bit more here.

German conglomerate Siemens said yesterday that it plans to sell shares in its health care division — Siemens Healthineers — to public shareholders in the first half of the year. The offering, in which Siemens will retain a majority stake, could be one of Europe’s biggest IPOs in years. CNN has more here.

Jeff Bezos is funding a 500-foot-tall clock that’s powered by thermal cycles and meant to outlast the United States. He calls it a “symbol for long-term thinking.” Watch it come together here.

Amy Errett, the founder and CEO of hair color company Madison Reed, has been named venture partner with True Ventures. Errett was previously a special advisor with True, which is an investor in her company. (In fact, firm cofounder Jon Callaghan told us a couple of years ago that True had authorized Errett to write checks on its behalf.) More from Callaghan here.

Facebook’s VP of global public policy, Joel Kaplan, would like you to please forget the tweets of his colleague, Rob Goldman, the company’s VP of ads, whose diatribe about the Mueller investigation was picked up by Donald Trump this past weekend. In a statement published Sunday night, Kaplan wrote: “Nothing we found contradicts the Special Counsel’s indictments. Any suggestion otherwise is wrong.”

The Kapor Center for Social Impact is looking to bring aboard four summer associates to review and analyze pitch decks, among other things. The jobs are in Oakland, Ca.

Meet Chronicle, Alphabet’s latest moonshot.

Say hello to Google Pay.

Spotify is on its way to creating its first physical products.

One of the world’s largest hedge funds, Elliott Management has described in three pages its negative view of cryptocurrencies in a fourth-quarter letter to clients, calling them “one of the most brilliant scams in history.”

Seven breakout trends from London Fashion Week.

Elmore Leonard’s rules for writers.

A peek at Chris Rock’s new Netflix special, “Tamborine.”

Please never buy this shower curtain.

We’re heading back now so have to jump offline for a bit, but more tomorrow. Hope you’re enjoying a day off if you’re here in the states.:)

Someone just bought $400 million worth of Bitcoin.

Jolted by the global investment craze over bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, U.S. lawmakers are moving to consider new rules that could impose stricter federal oversight on the emerging asset class, several top lawmakers tell Reuters.

Today’s StrictlyVC is sponsored by Siftery Track. As a reader, get free early access to track and easily optimize your team’s software expenditures. Simply sync your credit card or accounting system, and Siftery Track will automatically create beautiful visualizations of your historic and forecasted spend. You’ll also get alerts for new products, duplicate charges, unexpected increases in spend, and more.

If you follow the startup industry, you likely know the story of smartwatch maker Pebble, including that famous Kickstarter campaign in 2012 that sought $100,000 but wound up raising more than $10 million instead. You might also remember thinking that Pebble’s fate was sealed once Apple launched its own now-ubiquitous smartwatch in 2014. You were right if so. By late 2016, Pebble was forced to sell its software and intellectual property to another wearable giant, Fitbit, for less than $40 million — an amount that reportedly barely covered Pebble’s debt.

What you probably don’t know was that behind the scenes, Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky was frequently seeking advice from Y Combinator. Pebble had passed through the accelerator’s program in the winter of 2011 and like many alums, Migicovsky had formed strong bonds with both his fellow founders and with YC execs, including its president, Sam Altman. “Seven years later . . . I was still phoning Sam at 11 p.m. to get help in that deal” to Fitbit, says Migicovsky with a laugh.

Now, Migicovsky will be sharing lessons learned with future YC startups, having quietly joined YC last month as one of its now 18 full-time partners. His role: to work with incoming teams, including those whose companies have a hardware component. We talked with Migicovsky late last week about his wild ride to date and what he hopes to accomplish in his new role. Our chat has been edited for length.

Your relationship with YC dates back some time.

I was in Waterloo, Ontario [studying engineering and starting up Pebble] and [YC founders] Paul [Graham] and Jessica [Livingston] wound up investing and I ended up moving the company the California. YC was really the first [outfit] to believe in us. We did the winter 2011 batch and did our Kickstarter a year later  — before it was even a thing — because we couldn’t raise money. It was hard days for hardware back then.

YC played an amazing role through the sale to Fitbit, and after I sold the company, I took some time off, but because I’d been part of YC, I began working last summer as part-time partner. It was a great chance to start mentoring companies and to spend one-on-one time with the founders, and [YC CEO] Michael [Seibel] and Sam said I should jump on board.

You’ve now joined full-time. What is your role exactly?

I’m definitely covering the hardware desk. About 15 percent of companies going through YC have some connection to hardware, be it enterprise hardware, software with an enterprise component . . . So I’ll be a main point of contact for many of those companies.

Have you done any investing in the past?

I’ve done some but I didn’t have much time outside of Pebble, so the opportunity to take some of the anecdotes and experiences I’ve gathered and help apply them at other companies is really exciting to me.

What are some of the lessons learned that you’re likely to share with these startups?

More here.

BruVue, a 1.5-year-old, Raleigh, N.C.-based beverage data company, says it has closed on $1 million in seed funding from undisclosed sources. More here.

CounterFlow AI, a year-old, Crozet, Va.-based cybersecurity startup, has raised $2.7 million in seed funding from Osage University Partners, the Charlottesville Angel Network, and several individual investors. More here.

Imax Program, a seven-year-old, Hyderabad, India- and New York-based personalized education startup that serves schools across India, has raised $13.5 million in funding, including from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, LGT Impact, and Aspada. The Economic Times has more here.

LumiGrow, a nine-year-old, Emeryville, Ca.-based smart horticultural lighting company, has raised $5.1 million in bridge financing led by Ecosystem Integrity Fund, with participation from ValueAct Spring Master Fund and Greenhouse Capital. More here.

Morphisec, a 3.5-year-old, Be’er Sheva, Israel-based company that makes an endpoint threat prevention product, has raised $12 million in Series B funding, including from Orange Digital Ventures, along with earlier backers Jerusalem Venture Partners, GE and Deutsche Telekom. More here.

Re:infer, a three-year-old, London-based company that turns unstructured communications data (emails, calls, messaging, logs, reviews, social) into structured, annotated data, has raised $3.5 million in funding led by Touchstone Innovations, with participation from Crane Ventures, Seedcamp and AI investor Jason Kingdon. More here.

Vydia, a nearly five-year-old, Holmdel, N.J.-based video tech startup, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Vocap Investment Partners, with participation from Newark Venture Partners. More here.

Deciens Capital, a 5.5-year-old, San Francisco-based seed-stage venture firm that focuses on fintech startups, is looking to raise up to $80 million for a new fund, shows an SEC filing. More here.

Zscaler, a nearly 11-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based company that sells integrated, cloud-delivered enterprise security services, filed an S-1 on Friday, revealing plans to raise up to $100 million in an IPO. The company has raised roughly $150 million from investors, according to Crunchbase. One of its biggest outside shareholders is TPG. Nasdaq has a bit more here.

Car maker SEAT has acquired Respiro, a nearly eight-year-old, Madrid, Spain-based car-sharing company. The amount of the deal wasn’t disclosed, but according to Crunchbase, Respiro had only raised a tiny bit of seed funding. More here.

Apple employees keep smacking into their new headquarters’ glass walls.

Billionaire Richard Branson, who invested last year in Hyperloop One (now called Virgin Hyperloop One), is proposing to build a super-fast transportation system in India that would connect the city of Pune with the planned new airport in Mumbai in 25 minutes, saving about three hours.

Facebook is under fire after one of its execs — its VP of ads Rob Goldman — railed against the Russia coverage in a tweet that Donald Trump then cited to discredit U.S. media institutions.

Washington, D.C. has given Elon Musk and his Boring Company a permit to do a little digging.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel sold 2,675,600 shares of Snap last week at a price of $18.71 per share, a transaction netting him just over $50 million. It’s Spiegel’s first official public stock sale since Snap’s IPO last March. He previously promised not to sell any of his stock during 2017.

Waymo is looking to hire a corporate development and finance manager. The job is in Mountain View, Ca.

At WeWork, revenue is expected to top $2.3 billion this year.

Messaging app Telegram has already raised $850 million for its billion-dollar-plus ICO.

Russian operatives using social media to manipulate the U.S. election bought their Facebook ads in a sophisticated manner: stealing the identities of Americans and opening accounts at PayPal.

The 22nd-largest team at the Olympics: Zamboni drivers.

Comic Amy Schumer was voted “Teacher’s Worst Nightmare” in high school.

FAQ: Your new cursed instant pot.

Three acres in Antigua for $25 million. Reportedly “several very high-profile tech titans” have already looked at the property.

Monday is President’s Day here in the U.S., but we’ll be publishing because we can’t quit you. (Also, sponsors.) Hope you have a stellar weekend, everyone.:)

Swiss pharma giant Roche is spending $1.9 billion to acquire Flatiron Health, a start-up that gathers and analyzes data on cancer treatments and sells software based on those insights. Flatiron was founded by ex-Google employees Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg and had raised more than $300 million from investors, including Roche and Alphabet’s venture arm, GV. TechCrunch has more here.

Uber is preparing to sell its Southeast Asia business to Singapore’s Grab in exchange for a sizable stake in the company, according to CNBC sources. (Things are heating up fast there. You might recall that Google announced an investment in Grab and Uber rival Go-Jek a couple of weeks ago as part of a bigger, $1.2 billion round.)

StrictlyVC is sponsored this week by Meld Valuation, a premiere independent valuation firm. We care about understanding the unique risk profile of your situation and most importantly making the quantitative reflect the qualitative story. Contact us today to learn about our services and how we can help you everything from cap table management to complex valuation engagements.

Founders Co-op, a Seattle-based seed-stage venture firm, is looking to close its fourth and newest fund with $25 million, according to an SEC filing that shows the outfit has raised at least $10.7 million toward that end.

The firm — now a fixture on Seattle’s venture scene — was created 10 years ago and closed its last fund in 2015 with $20 million.

More here.

Adaptive Studios, a five-year-old, Culver City, Ca.-based upstart studio that’s focused on short-form content for digital platforms, has raised $16.5 million in Series B funding, including from AMC Networks and Atwater Capital. The company has now raised $24.9 million altogether. Variety has more here.

Algorand, a new, Boston-based blockchain-based payments platform cofounded by Silvio Micali, an MIT computer engineering professor and cryptographer who has won the prestigious A.M. Turing Award, just raised $4 million in seed funding. Investors include Pillar and Union Square Ventures. Xconomy has more here.

BlockFi, a year-old, New York-based non-banker lender to crypto-asset owners using their bitcoin and ether holdings as collateral, has raised $1.55 million in funding, including from ConsenSys Ventures, SoFi and Kenetic Capital. CoinDesk has more here.

Celularity, a nearly two-year-old, Warren, N.J.-based company spun out of biotech giant Celgene with the aim of developing cells from placentas to attack tumors and to treat Crohn’s disease, has raised $250 million led by Celgene. TechCrunch hasmore here.

CentralReach, a five-year-old, Pompano Beach, Fla.-based developer of electronic health record and practice management software for clinics, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Insight Venture Partners​. More here.

Harry’s, the five-year-old, New York-based razor subscription service, has raised $112 million in Series D funding co-led by Alliance Consumer Growth andTemasek, with participation from Tao Capital Partners and insiders. Dealbook hasmore here.

onXmaps, a nine-year-old, Missoula, Mt.-based mobile mapping startup for outdoor adventurers, has raised $20.3 million in funding led by Summit Partners, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Millennium Technology Value Partners, Next Frontier Capital and NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke. More here.

Reflektive, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based employee engagement and performance platform, has raised $60 million in Series C funding led by TPG Growth, with participation from earlier backers Andreessen Horowitz andLightspeed Venture Partners. Forbes has more here.

Roostify, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based web and mobile service that aims to simplify and accelerate the home-buying experience, just raised $25 million in Series B funding from Cota Capital, Point72 Ventures, Santander Innoventures and earlier backers JPMorgan Chase, Colchis Capital, and a subsidiary of USAA. More here.

TactoTek, a seven-year-old, Oulu, Finland-based company that produces 3D structural electronics by integrating printed circuitry and discrete electronic components into injection-molded plastics, has raised $23 million in funding. Investors include Ascend Capital Partners, Nanogate, Plastic Omnium, Conor Venture Partners and Faurecia Ventures. More here.

Zoomcar, a 5.5-year-old, Bangalore, India-based on-demand car rental service, has raised $40 million in Series C funding led by car manufacturing corporationMahindra & Mahindra. TechCrunch has more here.

Are you an entrepreneur, startup founder or CEO? Norwest Venture Partners wants to hear about your company-building journey and invites you to participate in a brief opinion survey. Your response will remain anonymous. The survey is being conducted by Wakefield Research, an independent research firm.

In a first of its kind, half a dozen ICO companies have come together to collaborate on a new fund that promises to pay out more than $100 million to promising projects in the Ethereum crypto space. It’s called the Ethereum Community Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Bynder, a five-year-old, digital asset management company, is acquiring another digital asset management service called Webdam that publicly tradedShutterstock had acquired in 2013 for undisclosed terms. Bynder, based in Amsterdam, says it’s paying Shutterstock $49.1 million for the business. TechCrunch has more here.

Favor, a 3.5-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based on-demand delivery service, is being acquired by H-E-B, a privately held supermarket chain that’s based in San Antonio and operates hundreds of stores in Texas and northeast Mexico. Favor had raised roughly $38 million from investors,  according to Crunchbase. Terms of the deal aren’t being made public. TechCrunch has more here.

Google says it’s acquiring the Xively IoT platform of LogMeIn, a publicly traded maker of remote access software, for $50 million. The deal aims to complement the company’s Google Cloud efforts. LogMeIn had acquired Xively in 2014 for $12 million. ZDNet has more here.

OpenText, an acquisitive Canadian content management company, has gobbled up Hightail, a 14-year-old, Campbell, Ca.-based cloud service for file sharing that was once known as YouSendIt. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Hightail had raised more than $90 million in venture funding from investors, including Adams Street Partners, Emergence Capital, Sigma Partners and Western Digital Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Walmart is in talks to buy more than 40 percent of the Indian e-commerce juggernaut Flipkart, says Reuters. It would be a direct challenge to Amazon in Asia’s third largest economy. More here.

Adam Brotman, a Starbucks executive who helped mold the Seattle coffee giant into one of the most technologically advanced retailers, is leaving after nine years for J.Crew, where he’s becoming president and chief experience officer.

In case you were curious: JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon was the best-paid Wall Street CEO for the second straight year in a row.

Snap cofounder and CEO Evan Spiegel yesterday reportedly told those gathered at Goldman Sachs’s annual internet and technology conference that he likes to have an executive team that operates “just below the boil. . . Like when you heat water, and it’s really f_cking hot, but it’s just below the boil.” Spiegel also doubled-down on Snapchat’s unpopular new redesign, saying user complaints only “validate” the changes it has made.

Hours after being pink-slipped from Amazon’s “Transparent,” actor Jeffrey Tambor yesterday took aim at the streaming service for its handling of an investigation of sexual harassment claims against him last year.

Malicious cyber activity cost the U.S. economy between $57 billion and $109 billion in 2016, the White House Council of Economic Advisers estimated in a report published this morning.

Frontline Ventures, is looking to add an analyst to its investment team. The job is in Dublin, Ireland.

While the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has had its fair share of technical issues the last few months, it seems the latest one may not be its fault.

Google has removed the “view image” button from its search results to make pics harder to steal.

Virtual currencies are now becoming an issue in divorce cases, too.

The tyranny of convenience.

Ronan Farrow’s latest blockbuster piece in the New Yorker.

How to be better at being wrong.

There was some barfing. People fell down. It was a very dramatic night at the Olympics.

Daniel Craig’s 2014 Aston Martin Vanquish. Bids start at $400,000.

Bitcoin just hit $10,000 again.

Biggish news in today’s WSJ: “Billionaire investor Peter Thiel is relocating his home and personal investment firms to Los Angeles from San Francisco and scaling back his involvement in the tech industry, people familiar with his thinking said, marking a rupture between Silicon Valley and its most prominent conservative.

“Mr. Thiel has also discussed with people close to him the possibility of resigning from the board of Facebook, the people familiar with his thinking said. His relationship with the social-networking company—where he has been a director since 2005, the year after its founding—came under strain after a dispute with a fellow director [Netflix’s Reed Hastings] over Mr. Thiel’s support for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and a related confrontation over boardroom leaks with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg last summer, the people said.​”

Thiel reportedly purchased a 7,000-square-foot home overlooking the Sunset Strip six years ago that he’s now planning to use as his primary residence. Of greater interest, to us: the WSJ piece also notes that Thiel plans to create a new, right-leaning media outlet. (Maybe he’s trying to beat to the punch Donald Trump, who reportedly wanted to, and perhaps still wants, to launch his own cable empire.)

StrictlyVC is sponsored this week by Meld Valuation, a premiere independent valuation firm. We care about understanding the unique risk profile of your situation and most importantly making the quantitative reflect the qualitative story. Contact us today to learn about our services and how we can help you everything from cap table management to complex valuation engagements.

Boost.ai, a 1.5-year-old, Norway-based maker of chatbots and virtual assistants, has raised $5 million in funding from Alliance Venture. More here.

Catalyte, a nearly 18-year-old, Baltimore, Md.-based company that uses AI to identify, train, and assemble software development teams, has raised $27 million in Series A funding. Investors include Rise of the Rest, Cross Culture Ventures,Expon Capital and Palm Drive Capital. Technical.ly Baltimore has more here.

CommonSense Robotics, a three-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based company that’s building an on-demand supply-chain to allow retailers to offer sustainable, one-hour delivery service to their online customers, has raised $20 million in Series A funding.Playground Global led the round, with Aleph VC and Innovation Endeavorsalso participating in it. TechCrunch has more here.

DroneBase, a 3.5-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based drone operations company, has raised $12 million in Series B funding co-led by Union Square Ventures andUpfront Ventures, with participation from DJI, Hearst Ventures and Pritzker Group. TechCrunch has more here.

Gr8 People, a 7.5-year-old, Newtown, Pa.-based talent hiring platform, has raised $8 million in Series B funding led by Ascent Venture Partners, with participation from Delancey Street Partners and Randstad Innovation Fund. The Philadelphia Inquirer has more here.

HeartFlow, a nearly 11-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company whose technology creates personalized 3D models of the heart, has raised $240 million in Series E funding from Wellington Management, Baillie Gifford and earlier backers, including HealthCor. Mass Device has more here.

IdentityMind Global, a five-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based digital identity-based SaaS platform for online risk management and compliance, has raised $10 million in Series C funding co-led by Benhamou Global Ventures and Eastern Link Capital, with participation from Hanna Ventures, Overstock.com and Zanadu Capital Partners. More here.

JD Logistics, a subsidiary spun out of the Chinese online retailer JD.com last April, has raise a stunning $2.5 billion from investors at a reported $13.5 billion valuation ahead of an anticipated IPO later this year. Backers include Hillhouse Capital,Sequoia China, China Merchants Group, Tencent, China Life, China Development Bank Capital FOF, China Structural Reform Fund and ICBC International, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Kakao Games, a three-year-old spin-off of the South Korean messaging app maker Kakao, has raised $130 million in pre-IPO funding, including from Tencent Holdings, Premier Growth, Actozsoft and Bluehole Studio. TechCrunch has more here.

LimeBike, a year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based dockless bike-share startup, has raised $70 million in additional Series B funding that brings the round to a healthy $132 million altogether. New backers include Fifth Wall Ventures. TechCrunch hasmore here.

LiveLike, a nearly three-year-old, New York-based startup that powers VR streaming experiences for broadcasters like FOX Sports and Sky, has raised $9.6 million in Series B funding led by Greycroft and Lepe Partners. The company has now raised just more than $23 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Lydia, a seven-year-old, Paris, France-based mobile payments company, has raised $16.1 million in funding led by CNP Assurances, with participation from earlier backers XAnge, New Alpha AM, Oddo BHF, and Groupe Duval. TechCrunch has more here.

Miso Robotics, a two-year-old, Pasadena, Ca.-based robotics company that last year rolled out a burger-flipping robot named Flippy, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Acacia Research. Other investors include Levy, a Chicago-based hospitality company, and OpenTable CTO Joseph Essas. TechCrunch has more here.

Primary Kids, a 3.5-year-old, New York kids clothing startup that was founded by former Diapers.com execs and which intentionally eschews logos, has raised nearly $20 million in new venture capital funding, according to an SEC filing. The company previously raised around $8 million, including from Homebrew and USVP. Axios has a bit more here.

SaltStack, a seven-year-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based systems management platform for enterprises, has raised $15.5 million in Series A funding led byMercato Partners, with participation from earlier backers Peak Capital, Epic Ventures and Deep Fork Capital. More here.

Signallamp Health, a three-year-old, Scranton, Pa.-based personalized care management company, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Sopris Capital. More here.

Singularity University, a nine-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based public benefit corporation that markets educational programs, has raised $32 million in Series B funding co-led by WestRiver Group and Boeing, with participation from Silicon Valley Bank, TAL Education Group, Mukita, and PeopleFund. TechCrunch has more here.

StreamLoan, a nearly three-year-old, San Francisco, Ca.-based mortgage lending startup, has raised $2 million in seed funding, including from Acorn Pacific Ventures. More here.

Uncommon.co, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based hiring platform, has raised $18 million in Series A funding from Canaan Partners, Spark Capital, and Zeev Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Vivino, a 7.5-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile wine app and online wine marketplace, has raised $20 million in Series C funding. SCP Neptune International led the financing; earlier backers also joined the round, including Balderton Capital, Creandum, SEED Capital Denmark and Iconical. VentureBeat has more here.

Workast, a year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based Slack app for team management, has raised $1.85 million in seed funding led by Greycroft, with participation from Spider Capital, Mucker Capital and Dream Incubator. More here.

Are you an entrepreneur, startup founder or CEO? We want to hear about your company-building journey! Norwest Venture Partners invites you to participate in a brief opinion survey. The survey is being conducted by Wakefield Research, an independent research firm, and all responses will remain anonymous. Thank you for your time!

1315 Capital, a three-year-old, Philadelphia-based healthcare growth equity firm, says it has raised more than $300 million for its second fund. More here.

Activant Capital Group, a Connecticut-based growth-stage venture firm focused on commerce infrastructure and IoT startups, has closed its second fund with $129 million. More here.

Mucker Capital, an L.A.-based pre-seed and seed-stage firm, is raising $90 million for a pair of new funds, shows an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. More here.

True Wealth Ventures, an Austin, Tex.-based venture capital firm, has raised $19.1 million for its debut fund. The outfit was founded by women, to invest in women founders. More here.

99 Designs, a 10-year-old, Melbourne, Australia-based crowd-sourced design marketplace that has raised more than $40 million in funding — including from Accel Partners, Slack cofounder Stewart Butterfield, and investor Michael Dearing — is planning an IPO in Australia, though exactly when isn’t clear, says its CEO. TechCrunch has more here.

Farfetch the 10-year-old, London-based online fashion retailer, is reportedly planning to talk with bankers in upcoming weeks to discuss an IPO here in the U.S. The company is aiming for a valuation as high as $5 billion, reportedly. It may need to aim high; according to Crunchbase, Farfetch has raised more than $720 million from investors, including JD.com, DST Global and Index Ventures. CNBC has more here.

BioXcel Therapeutic, an eight-month-old(!) subsidiary of BioXcel Corp., has filed with the SEC to go public this year.  Seeking Alpha has more here.

Andrew Chen, a popular blogger and founder who’d joined Uber’s growth team in 2015, has left the ride-share company to become a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (which lost a general partner last week, when Lars Dalgaard left to spin up his own thing). The venture firm is an investor in Uber’s rival, Lyft, though it reportedly sold part of its position two years ago. Chen writes more about the move here.

Axovant, a subsidiary of the biotech holding company Roivant, saw a major exodus this week, when its prized CEO David Hung resigned and was followed out the door by three board members and the company’s COO. Last September, roughly one month after SoftBank committed to invest $1.1 billion in Roivant, Axovant received news that its much-hyped, experimental Alzheimer’s drug, intepirdine, doesn’t work. It was a huge blow for Axovant and for Hung, whose last company, Medivation, sold to Pfizer for $14.3 billion in 2016. Roivant CEO Vivek Ramaswamy came to a StrictlyVC event last year to talk about the company’s promise — and its growing pains.

Uber’s Dara Khosrowshahi perfectly summed up how CEOs feel about taking money from SoftBank at this week’s Goldman Sachs tech conference. “I’d rather have their capital cannon behind me.”

Victor Echevarria has joined Jackson Square Ventures as a principal. Echevarria was previous a VP of biz dev at TaskRabbit and more recently founded a seed-stage company called Remedy Labs that aimed to protect people from errors and overcharges in their medical bills. More here.

Adam Levin has joined Bain Capital Ventures as a Boston-based partner focused on growth-stage investing. Levin was previously a vice president with the investment firm Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors.

SOSV, the seed, early- and growth-stage venture firm, is looking to hire an in-house venture capital counsel to oversee its global legal operations and team. The job is in Cork, Ireland, with the opportunity to travel extensively.

Don’t respond to the texts you receive from Facebook.

Why it’s getting harder to tell banks from tech companies.

Before Kehinde Wiley’s striking depiction of Barack Obama, another presidential portrait stood out from the rest.

Why light your cigar — so pedestrian! — when you can toast it instead?

Ugh, ugh, ugh!

StrictlyVC is sponsored this week by Meld Valuation, a premiere independent valuation firm. We care about understanding the unique risk profile of your situation and most importantly making the quantitative reflect the qualitative story. Contact us today to learn about our services and how we can help you everything from cap table management to complex valuation engagements.

Ditto, a year-old, Manchester, U.K.-based startup that has developed AI-powered software bots that solve queries and provide the reasoning behind their decisions to create a kind of audit trail, has raised £4 million from IP Group and Parkwalk Advisors. Tech.eu has more here.

Duetto, a 5.5-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of revenue optimization software for hotels (the software aims to optimize demand, maximize rates, and minimize costs), has raised $80 million in Series D funding led by funds affiliated with Warburg Pincus. Duetto’s other backers include Icon Ventures, Accel Partners, Battery Ventures and Spectrum 28. More here.

Frank and Oak, a 5.5-year-old, Montreal, Canada-based direct-to-consumer menswear brand, has raised $16 million in Series C funding. Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec led the round; Goodwater Capital and Investissement Québec also participated. TechCrunch has more here.

Homesnap, a 10-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based platform for up-to-the-minute real estate data, has raised $14 million in Series B funding led by Updata Partners, with participation from Moderne Ventures. The company has now raised $32 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Jupiter, a 1.5-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based startup selling data and analytics services to better predict and manage risks generated by climate change, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Ignition Partners, with participation from seed investor Data Collective and others. The company has now raised $10 million altogether. More here.

Lumi, a three-year-old, L.A.-based startup that supplies the packaging for a growing number of direct-to-consumer e-commerce businesses, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Spark Capital, with participation fromForerunner Ventures and earlier backers Homebrew, Lowercase Ventures, andLudlow Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Neptune Financial, 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based online commercial lending platform for mid-sized U.S. businesses, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Sands Capital Ventures. More here.

Ocean Solutions Accelerator, a new, San Francisco-based program that aims to help advance startups in tech and conservation relating to the “ocean economy,” has raised $1 million in funding from an outfit called the Pineapple Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Overtime, a 1.5-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based sports media startup that aims to become an ESPN-like brand for high school sports, has raised $9.5 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with additional investment fromGreycroft, basketball star Kevin Durant and several other investors. Former NBA commissioner David Stern is among the company’s seed investors.Variety hasmore here.

Payfone, a 10-year-old, New York-based digital identity authentication network, has raised $23 million in funding  led by an undisclosed institutional investor, with participation from Synchrony Financial, MassMutual Ventures, and the founders of the Money20/20 conference, among others. More here.

RealWear, a 1.5-year-old, Vancouver, Wa.-based maker of a head-mounted tablet for connected industrial workers, has raised $17 million in  Series A funding led byColumbia Ventures Corporation. TechCrunch has more here.

SecFi, a year-old, San Francisco-based startup that provides financing to option holders and shareholders of late-stage private companies without forcing them to sell their shares, has raised $1 million in seed funding from Social Leverage,FJLabs and CoVenture. More here.

Spryker Systems, a 3.5-year-old, Hamburg, Germany-based startup behind a “commerce operating system,” has raised $22 million in growth equity funding led by One Peak Partners, with participation from Project A. More here.

Stealth Security, a four-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based startup that says it detects and mitigates bot attacks without affecting legitimate user traffic, has raised $8 million in Series A funding from Shasta Ventures. The company has now raised $12.5 million altogether, according to Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.

Templafy, a four-year-old, Copenhagen, Denmark-based SaaS company focused on enterprise governance, has raised $17.2 million in Series B funding led byInsight Venture Partners, with participation from SEED Capital. More here.

Ucommune, a nearly three-year-old, China-based co-working space company (it had to change its name from UrWork after rival WeWork filed an infringement lawsuit against it), has raised a fresh $17.4 million at a reported $1.42 billion valuation from earlier backer Qianhai Wutong M&A Funds. China Money Network has more here.

Unacast, a three-year-old, New York-based location-based data platform, has raised $17.5 million in Series B funding led by White Star Capital, with participation from Telia and earlier investors Open Ocean Capital and Investinor. TechCrunch has more here.

Varsity Tutors, an 11-year-old, St. Louis, Mo.-based live learning platform, has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by Learn Capital, with participation from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and earlier backer TCV. TechCrunch has more here.

Are you an entrepreneur, startup founder or CEO? We want to hear about your company-building journey! Norwest Venture Partners invites you to participate in brief survey here. Your response will remain anonymous. The survey is being conducted by Wakefield Research, an independent research firm. Thank you for your time! Follow us on Twitter: @NorwestVP

Norwest Venture Partners, the multi-stage investment firm backed by Wells Fargo, just closed its largest fund ever with $1.5 billion, up from the $1.2 billion fund it closed in January 2016. TechCrunch has more here.

In an interview with Axios, Bill Gates warns Apple and other tech giants that they risk the kind of nightmarish government intervention that once plagued Microsoft if they act arrogantly.

VC Bill Gurley thinks startup board members have grown too obsequious, he told a crowd today at the annual Goldman Sachs Internet an Technology Conference. (We would have far preferred to get his views on cryptocurrencies, but he declined to share these.)

Foursquare’s president, Steve Rosenblatt, is leaving to launch his own venture. Rosenblatt, who has spent the last six years with the location-based company, looks to be starting an early-stage investment firm or accelerator, reports Fortune.

Lisa Wu has been promoted to partner on the venture capital team at Norwest.  She joined the firm in 2012, and focuses on consumer internet, digital commerce, and next generation marketplace opportunities. Wu worked previously at Bessemer Venture Partners, where she spent roughly two-and-a-half years.

Pantera Capital, one of the first and largest institutional investors in blockchain and cryptocurrencies, is looking to hire a full-time associate. The job is in San Francisco.

Hedge funds are dumping Google and Facebook.

Here’s how many Model 3s Tesla is really making.

Netflix is getting huge. But can it get great?

Should Congress to create a “crypto cop“?

The new website of “Black Mirror” will reveal your relationship’s expiration date.

Here are the new handmaid costumes for Season Two of Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Six very expensive ways to say, “I love you. I really, REALLY love you.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting today to expect higher dividends and stressed that succession planning is a priority.

StrictlyVC is sponsored this week by Meld Valuation, a premiere independent valuation firm. We care about understanding the unique risk profile of your situation and most importantly making the quantitative reflect the qualitative story. Contact us today to learn about our services and how we can help you everything from cap table management to complex valuation engagements.

Travis VanderZanden. If you’ve been following the fast-changing transportation industry, it’s a name that may sound familiar. Until September 2016, VanderZanden was VP of growth at Uber and before that, COO of its fierce rival Lyft, which had acquired his on-demand car wash company, Cherry, in 2013.

It was a dramatic few years for VanderZanden, once he joined the ride-hailing race. Not only were his employers experiencing growing pains, but Lyft sued him for allegedly breaking a confidentiality agreement when he joined Uber, with the two sides later settling for undisclosed terms. Little wonder that after leaving Uber, VanderZanden wanted to take some time off to decompress with his wife and two daughters.

That was the idea, anyway. The thing is, VanderZanden, whose mother drove a public bus for 30 years, says he couldn’t stop thinking about transportation. Within six months, he was testing out different short-range electric vehicles. By last summer, he’d quietly launched his newest company, Bird.

Now, VanderZanden’s dockless electric scooter company is the talk of Santa Monica, Ca., where it’s based. That’s largely because over the last six months, Bird has plunked roughly 1,000 “Birds” on the streets of the city — and people are riding them: 50,000 people so far have taken 250,000 rides, he says.

But Bird, which just moved into Westwood and is easing its way into San Diego, also has local officials in all three places somewhat flummoxed — and not entirely delighted. A Washington Post piece published Saturday characterizes Santa Monica Mayor Ted Winterer as highly irked that VanderZanden reached out to him — via a LinkedIn message — after putting Bird’s scooters on the streets.

The message reportedly offered to introduce Winterer to Bird’s “exciting new mobility strategy for Santa Monica.”  Winterer says he responded: “If you’re talking about those scooters that are out there already, there are some legal issues we have to discuss.”

Legal issues and other complications, as it turns out. For example, according to that same Post story, local police officers issued 97 citations involving Bird scooters in the first six weeks of this year; the city’s fire department has responded to eight related accidents, some including minors and adults; and according to a senior marketing and communications manager for downtown Santa Monica, there have been numerous complaints of the scooters being left in front of doorways, in the middle of driveways and on wheelchair ramps.

Despite outward appearances, VanderZanden suggests he hasn’t stolen from the playbook of his last employer, which under the leadership of longtime CEO Travis Kalanick taught employees to ask forgiveness — not permission.

He paints a rosier picture of that exchange with Winterer, for example.

More here.

HackerRank, a 5.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based platform that helps companies evaluate technical talent based on skills, has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by JMI Equity, with participation from earlier backers Khosla Ventures,Battery Ventures, Randstad Innovation Fund, and Chartline Capital Partners. The company has now raised $58.2 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

InfluxData, the startup built on top of the open source time series database platform, has raised $35 million in Series C funding led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation Harmony Partners and earlier backers Battery Ventures,Mayfield Fund and Trinity Ventures. The company has now raised nearly $60 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Loopio, 3.5-year-old, Toronto, Canada-based maker of  RFP (request for proposal) response software, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by the expansion-stage firm OpenView. More here.

Perception Point, a nearly three-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based cybersecurity firm, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Pitango Venture Capital, with participation from State of Mind Ventures and Korea Investment Partners.More here.

UJET, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that makes software to improve customer support, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by GV, with participation from Citi Ventures and earlier backers Kleiner Perkins and DCM Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Are you an entrepreneur, startup founder or CEO? We want to hear about your company-building journey! Norwest Venture Partners invites you to participate in a brief opinion survey. The survey is being conducted by Wakefield Research, an independent research firm, and all responses will remain anonymous. Thank you for your time!

Southeast Asia has a new venture capital fund on the scene after Victor Chua, formerly a vice president at Gobi Ventures, launched Vynn Capital.The Kuala Lumpur-headquartered venture is founded by Chua and Singaporean Darren Chua, previously with IE Singapore, and it’s looking to raised $40 million in capital commitments. TechCrunch has more here.

Get ready for the long goodbye to car culture, many domestic flights, and insurance premiums.

Now people are using FaceApp to see what they’d look like as a person of the opposite gender.

You’ll never love songs so much as the songs you loved at 13.

The case for the self-driven child. (Amen.)

Why we are quitting StrictlyVC to become AI experts instead.

Dress like a postman. This look also works you’re young and English and planning a bank heist with your friends per what we’ve learned in movies.

We are going to be at Startup Grind in Redwood City, Ca., for much of tomorrow so SVC may come either really early or kinda late. Hope to see some of you there.:)

Good news(?). Stocks just recorded their biggest two-day rally since 2016.

StrictlyVC is sponsored this week by Meld Valuation, a premiere independent valuation firm. We care about understanding the unique risk profile of your situation and most importantly making the quantitative reflect the qualitative story. Contact us today to learn about our services and how we can help you everything from cap table management to complex valuation engagements.

According to serial entrepreneur Jeff Cavins, more than 35 million people each year look to rent an RV — 38 percent of them so-called millennials. Yet they often walk away from the experience empty-handed. The reason, he says: there are fewer than 100,000 commercial owned vehicles available from traditional rental services.

Cavins says that his San Francisco-based company, Outdoorsy, is beginning to address this issue by enabling owners of the 14 million privately owned RVs in the United States to rent them to users, à la Airbnb.

The vehicles are mostly sitting around collecting dust anyway, says Cavins, who cofounded the company in late 2014 after heading up seven previous companies — two of which were  publicly traded.

“Americans desperately want time off, but what happens is they’ll buy a camper van, they’ll use it year one, then use it again maybe one week that second year,” says Cavins. “In the meantime, it’s sitting in storage, with the owner often dealing with both a mortgage and insurance payment. By year three, people go back to the dealership and say, ‘We’re done,’ and the dealer says, ‘I’m sorry but that vehicle you paid $100,000 for three years ago is now worth $40,000.’”

Intuitively, the platform would seem to make sense. RVs are unaffordable for most people. Storing them is a hassle. And people are increasingly interested in reaching places where home-sharing sites and hotels cannot take them. Think Burning Man, for example, or the annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

But Cavins said venture investors “didn’t get it,” when he began pitching the idea to them several years ago. While he secured meetings with with all the right firms, he said he was repeatedly ushered politely out the door by people who deemed the idea too risky.

In fact, Cavins says that he and his cofounder Jen Young wound up funding the company for its first year and creating a sufficiently compelling platform with two “phenomenal” developers that within a year, VCs had produced four term sheets — all of which he turned down. (“I didn’t want to give my company to them,” he says.)

More here.

Ant Financial Services Group, the 3.5-year-old, Hangzhou, China-based fintech company that originated from the escrow service Alipay, is aiming to raise as much as $5 billion in a new funding round, according to media outlets. The affiliate of e-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group last secured $4.5 billion from a slate of investors, including the sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp. and the private equity firm Primavera Capital Group. The deal, closed in 2016, had valued Ant at about $60 billion at the time, notes the WSJ.

DataVisor, a five-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based maker of financial crime prevention software, has raised $40 million in Series C financing led by Sequoia China, with participation from New Enterprise Associates and GSR Ventures. More here.

Go-Jek, a nearly eight-year-old, Jakarta, Indonesia-based ride-hailing company, is raising $150 million in funding from the Indonesian conglomerate Astra International, as well as an undisclosed amount of funding from PT Global Digital Niaga, a unit of venture capital firm GDP Ventures. Reuters has more here.

HomeCare.com, a 3.5-year-old, McLean, Va.-based marketplace that connects families with caregivers, has raised $11 million in funding, including from 3TS Capital Partners, Blue Heron Capital, Maryland Venture Fund and Private Access Network. More here.

Jobcase, a nine-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based social platform focused on work, has raised $11.5 million in Series A-1 funding led by Providence Equity Partners. The company had previously closed on $7 million in Series A funding led by Savano Capital Partners. More here.

nOCD, a nearly four-year-old, Chicago-based company whose app helps people treat their own obsessive-compulsive disorder, has raised $1 million in seed funding from the early-stage healthcare investment firm 7wire Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Stash, a three-year-old, New York-based investing app that let’s people begin building a portfolio with just $5, has raised $37.5 million in Series D funding led byUnion Square Ventures. Earlier investors Breyer Capital, Coatue Management,Entree Capital, Goodwater Capital and Valar Ventures also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Volantio, a 4.5-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based maker of revenue and capacity optimization software for airlines, has raised $2.6 million in funding led byIngleside Investors, with participation from International Airlines Group,JetBlue Technology Ventures and Qantas Ventures. More here.

XebiaLabs, a 10-year-old, Boston-based software company that helps companies automate DevOps functions, has raised $100 million in Series B funding co-led bySusquehanna Growth Equity and Accel Partners. The round brings the company’s total funding to $121.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

YapStone, a 19-year-old, Walnut Creek, Ca.-based company that provides payment services to marketplace-style businesses, has raised $71 million in Series C funding in a round that the company expects to close with $100 million. Premji Invest, the venture arm of the Premji family office, led the round; other participants includeMasterCard and earlier investors Accel Partners and Meritech Capital Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Are you an entrepreneur, startup founder or CEO? We want to hear about your company-building journey! Norwest Venture Partners invites you to participate in a brief opinion survey. The survey is being conducted by Wakefield Research, an independent research firm, and all responses will remain anonymous. Thank you for your time!

Homebrew, the nearly five-year-old, San Francisco-based early-stage venture firm, has closed on $90 million for its third fund. More here.

Wave, a six-month-old, San Francisco-based venture firm, has raised $31.5 million for its debut fund, shows an SEC filing that lists a $35 million target. The firm was cofounded by David Rosenthal, a former principal at Madrona Venture Group, andRiley Newman, a former director of data science at Airbnb.

In a rare move for Amazon, the retail giant is reportedly laying off hundreds of corporate workers in its Seattle headquarters and elsewhere.

NFL great Tom Brady has cofounded a new sports media startup called The Religion of Sports. The company, which is raising $3 million from investors, aims to create a multi-platform storytelling business that functions like an old-school studio — one that happens to be dedicated to sports.

In a rare move for Amazon, the retail giant is reportedly laying off hundreds of corporate workers in its Seattle headquarters and elsewhere.

Lars Dalgaard, who sold SuccessFactors to SAP for $3.4 billion in 2011 before going into venture capital, is stepping down from his general partner role at Andreessen Horowitz to found his own investment firm.

Snap’s VP of Sales, Jeff Lucas, has reportedly left the company after joining less than two years ago. Lucas was previously head of sales and marketing at Viacom.

National Geographic watched Elon Musk watch his Falcon Heavy rocket take off last week.

Amazon is the latest major tech company, after Google and Apple, to design its own AI chips in hopes of differentiating its products — from Alexa to AWS — from those of rivals.

Another day, another scam: an emerging cryptocurrency startup more commonly known as LoopX has suddenly vanished out of thin air along with millions worth of its investors’ savings.

Inside the two years that shook Facebook, and the world.

Olympics medal count (interactive map).

The secret brunch party for billionaires.

Alternatives to resting bitch face.

How to spend your bonus.

Also, a quick, exciting note: Vlad Tenev, the cofounder and CEO of the commission-free trading platform Robinhood, has joined the already amazing line-up of speakers for attendees of our first StrictlyVC event of 2018. Unfortunately, we’re essentially out of seats, and because of space constraints, if you do not have an Eventbrite, you won’t be allowed into the venue. (Our hosts at NEA can’t mess around with this, owing to building codes.) We do promise to feature plenty of coverage from the night so that you those of you who can’t make it don’t miss out.

Thank you, Mofo and Anduin for partnering with us on the evening and helping to make the whole thing possible!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend, everyone.:)

That was fast. Uber has reached a settlement agreement with Alphabet over its lawsuit against the ride-hailing company claiming theft of trade secrets. As part of the deal, Uber will pay Alphabet the equivalent of $245 million in equity. Uber’s new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi went so far as to called Alphabet a “partner.” As Recode notes, the engineer at the heart of the lawsuit, Anthony Levandowski, was expected to be called by Alphabet’s attorneys this morning.

We like New York Times reporter Daisuke Wakabayashi’s take on things. “Gotta say this whole thing was played pretty well by Google,” he tweeted earlier. ” 1) Embarrass a potential competitor 2) An unspoken warning to current/former employees about walking out w Google info 3) a small (additional) chunk of Uber — “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

Gizmodo also has an interesting look at some of the horse trading that happened behind the scenes.

Raising capital is hard. Foundersuite makes it 143.2 percent easier via SaaS tools for fundraising and investor relations. Foundersuite makes the leading investor CRM, used by startups to raise more than $500 million in seed and VC since 2016. Foundersuite’s platform also includes a searchable database of 50,000 angels and VCs, as well as an investor update tool to engage stakeholders and “warm up” prospective investors. StrictlyVC readers get 30 percent off for 6 months using code “StrictlyVC,” or email us to set up a demo.

Apical Technology, a brand-new, Carlsbad, Ca.-based portfolio of artificial intelligence technologies that was formed by NextWave Ventures, a venture firm that specializes in commercializing early-stage tech, has raised an undisclosed amount from NextWave. More here.

CultureIQ, a nearly five-year-old, New York-based maker of “cultural engagement” software for employers, has raised $2.25 million in funding, including from Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Lerer Hippeau Ventures and Founder Collective. More here.

Grove, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based personalized financial planning platform, has raised $2.1 million in funding, including from First Round Capital,Lowercase Capital, Upside Partnership, SV Angel, CFSI, and Jake Gibson. TechCrunch has more here.

Honest Buildings, a 5.5-year-old, New York-based maker of construction management software, has raised $8 million in new Series B funding. Oxford Properties Group led the new tranche, with participation from The Durst Organization and DivcoWest Real Estate Investments. The Real Deal has more here.

MineralSoft, a 3.5-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based software company focused on mineral rights and royalty management, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by Cottonwood Venture Partners, with participation from Blue Bear Capitaland Y Combinator. More here.

Property Brands, a Knoxville, Tn.-based company that sells a SaaS platform focused around property management to multifamily, single family residential, student housing, and affordable housing companies, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Insight Venture Partners. More here.

Syndesi Therapeutics, a new, Belgium-based neurology drug discovery startup, has raised €17 million in first-round funding from V-Bio Ventures, Novo Nordisk,Fountain Healthcare, Walloon Investment Fund, VIVES Louvain Technology Fund and Johnson & Johnson. More here.

Treble was built in 2013 to elevate brand visibility for venture backed startups. We partner with VC firms across the U.S. to expedite exits. Our scalable model aligns with new rounds of venture capital funding to win early – and often – across your startup investment portfolio. Treble executes news announcements with precision, trendjacks breaking news, and transforms ideas into articles. Our roster is ready to expand. Contact us here.

Tencent Holdings is investing $474 million in Shanda Games, the China-based online gaming company. The move, says Reuters, is designed to boost Tencent’s lead in the local video game market.

Toyota will invest $69 billion in JapanTaxi, a Japan-based Uber-like service. Toyota is also an Uber investor and it previously backed JapanTaxi via $4.5 million investment from its Mirai Creation Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Mary Grove, a founding director of Google for Entrepreneurs, is joining the investment firm Revolution as a partner on its startup initiative Rise of the Rest.

Nest co-founder Matt Rogers announced yesterday that he’s leaving the smart home company now that it’s rejoining Google. The plan: to focus on his venture firm Incite.org.

Jennifer Salke was named the new head of Amazon Studios today, ending a nearly four-month search that began when Roy Price was ousted after a sexual harassment allegation.

Amazon is preparing to launch a delivery service for businesses, positioning it to directly compete with UPS and FedEx.

Uber’s tangled relationship with investors Didi and SoftBank is about to get more complicated after the duo inked an agreement to introduce taxi-hailing services that will compete directly with Uber in Japan.

SpaceX aims to make history three more times this year.

Did you know: Snapchat almost acquired the anonymous app Secret (but shhh, it was too expensive).

A sleeping Alexa can listen for more than just her name.

Timothy Affleck (father to Ben and Casey) on Hollywood: It’s a “disgusting place.”

The games have officially begun.

Louis Vuitton sneakers: $1,090 a pair. Not for the flat-footed, apparently.