Qualcomm just told Broadcom to buzz off.

The dread that gripped equity markets earlier in the week re-emerged today as U.S.stocks plunged again on concerns that rising interest rates will drag down economic growth.

Twitter shares soared the most today since its market debut in 2013, after the company posted the first revenue growth in four quarters. The social network credited improvements to its app, efforts to fight spam, and the added video content that’s persuading advertisers to boost spending with the company.

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.

It’s a half-serious joke among people who bet early on cryptocurrencies and have watched their values soar. At some point, it’s time to buy a Lamborghini, as did Peter Saddington, an Atlanta-based coder and self-described serial entrepreneur who says he cashed out 45 bitcoins last fall to purchase a $200,000 Lamborghini with race exhaust features.

Saddington tells CNBC that he paid less than $115 for the bitcoins in 2011 and that he’s been buying bitcoin every Friday for the last five years, suggesting he has more bitcoins in his possession.

In the world of cryptomillionaires, that’s diversification, and it should be worrying for wealth managers beginning to eye those whose high net worth has risen along with the price of bitcoin. Though financial advisors have converted plenty of wealthy tech founders and employees into loyal clients over the years, the largely young and male participants in the cryptocurrency gold rush seem decidedly uninterested in traditional banking and traditional money management. They’re preferring to pour their new digital riches in more cryptocurrencies and blockchain ideas — as well as the occasional impulse purchase.

“Liquidity still remains a question in many people’s minds,” says Ben Jorgensen, the chief operating officer of Constellation, a San Francisco-based outfit that describes itself as a blockchain microservice operating system. But “reinvesting into blockchain and leveraging social and technical knowledge of companies is the most popular [approach to] wealth management,” he says.

It’s not so unlike successful startup founders going on to invest in their friends’ startups, Jorgensen suggests. “Individuals are forming strong syndicates that share deal flow much like the venture world,” he offers. “Nearly the whole community is reinvesting in the industry as it’s still in its early stages, and there are brilliant companies and projects coming out the gate.”

To non-believers, it all seems like an insane gamble. In 2017, Bitcoin went from $830 to $19,300, then dropped below $6,000 this week before zooming past $8,000 again yesterday.

The broader market for cryptocurrencies is even more stomach churning. Some who are bullish on the growing number of cryptocurrencies in existence believe they could collectively pass the trillion-dollar mark this year in terms of value. Meanwhile, the head of investment research at Goldman Sachs reportedly issued a note this week comparing the current market to the “internet bubble of the late 1990s” and suggesting that most cryptocurrencies will likely “trade to zero.”

All the ups and downs can impact less certain cryptocurrency holders, some of whom have begun cashing out their stakes.

Lorraine Fox, a principal with the San Francisco-based wealth management firmAspiriant, says the firm is starting to hear from a small but growing number of people wanting to lock in their cryptocurrency gains.

More here.

Agrinos, a nearly nine-year-old, Oslo, Norway-based company whose biological crop inputs aim to help farmers increase and improve their yield, has raised $14.7 million in funding, including from Manor Investment SA, Havfonn AS andEuroChem Group AG. More here.

Appili Therapeutics, a three-year-old, Halifax, Nova Scotia-based developer of anti-infective drugs, has raised more than $4.3 million in funding, including from Innovacorp. BetaKit has more here.

Attentive, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based personalized mobile messaging platform for e-commerce and retail businesses, has raised $13 million in Series A funding, including from Bain Capital Ventures, Eniac Ventures and NextView Ventures. As TechCrunch notes, the company’s founders previously founded TapCommerce, which Twitter later acquired for $100 million. More here.

Autobooks, a nearly three-year-old, Detroit, Mi.-based company that makes integrated invoicing, payment and accounting software for small businesses, has raised $10 million in funding, including from Draper Triangle, Baird Capital,Detroit Venture Partners, Invest Michigan and CU Solutions Group. Crain’s Detroit Business has more here.

BurnAlong, a two-year-old, Baltimore, Md.-based streaming fitness class platform, has raised $1 million from Baltimore Angels, Brown Advisory, Machem Capitaland Johns Hopkins University. More here.

GOAT, a nearly three-year-old, Culver City, Ca.-based online sneaker marketplace, has raised $60 million in Series C funding led by Index Ventures, with participation from earlier investors Accel Partners, Matrix Partners and Upfront Ventures. The company is also merging with sneaker retailer Flight Club, which has established a reputation over its 12-year history for featuring highly rare and coveted sneakers. TechCrunch has more here.

Icertis, a nine-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based company that sells cloud-based contract lifecycle management software, has raised $50 million in Series D funding led by Meritech Capital Partners. Other investors in the round include PSP Growth, Cross Creek Advisors and earlier backers B Capital Group, Ignition Partners, Greycroft and Eight Roads Ventures. The Seattle Times has more here.

Instacart, the 5.5-year-old, San Francisco-based grocery delivery company, is apparently raising up to $250 million in Series E funding (H/T: Axios). The company may well need the firepower, with Amazon and Whole Foods introducing free two-hour deliveries of Whole Foods products through Prime Now (in four markets). More here.

Niche, a 16-year-old, Pittsburgh, Pa.-based platform for helping people choose schools and neighborhoods, has raised $6.6 million in Series B funding co-led by Allen & Co. and Grit Capital Partners. GeekWire has more here.

ParentPowered, 1.5-year-old, Belmont, Ca.-based startup whose text messaging app texts parents of young children facts and tips on literacy, math and social and emotional skills three times a week, has raised $2.65 million in seed funding led by the Omidyar Network. EdSurge has more here.

Stadium Goods, a nearly three-year-old, New York-based consignment sneaker and apparel marketplace, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from LVMH Luxury Ventures. Footwear News has more here.

Swiggy, a nearly four-year-old, India-based food delivery company, has raised $100 million in new funding from Naspers and Meituan-Dianping. The company has now collected $255 million from investors altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Tilray, a nearly five-year-old, Toronto-based medical cannabis research, cultivation, and distribution company, has raised a whopping C$60 million ($47.6 million) in Series A funding from undisclosed investors. Previously, the company had been solely funded by Privateer Holdings. More here.

Zenflow, a four-year-old, South San Francisco-based medical device company whose focus is on addressing prostrate enlargement, has raised $31.4 million in Series A funding from Invus Opportunities, F-Prime Capital Partners andMedical Technology Venture Partners. More here.

B Capital Group, the cross-border venture firm cofounded by Facebook cofounderEduardo Saverin, has closed its debut fund with $360 million — “substantially exceeding the original target,” the firm says. B Capital has offices in L.A., where firm cofounder Raj Ganguly is based, and in Singapore, where Saverin lives. It has also has people posted in San Francisco and New York. The Economic Times has more here.

Danhua Capital, the nearly five-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based venture firm that invests in both early and growth stage companies and whose founders have extensive networks in Silicon Valley and China, has raised $343.2 million for its second fund, shows an SEC filing. According to the document, the firm began raising the fund in 2016. More here.

Swan & Legend Venture Partners, a five-year-old, Leesburg, Va.-based investment firm known for backing many Washington area companies (it’s also a major investor in Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals), is looking to raise up to $250 million for its fourth fund, shows an SEC filing. More here.

TrueBridge Capital Partners, an 11-year-old, Chapel Hill, N.C.-based asset management firm, just closed its fifth venture fund-of-funds with $450 million, it says. 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.

BitPesa, a nearly five-year-old, Nairobi-based online blockchain payment platform, has acquired TransferZero, a Spain-based online money transfer platform. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. CoinJournal has more here.

Goldman Sachs is reportedly in discussions to acquire Clarity Money, a New York-based personal finance app that was founded by Adam Dell and focuses on monthly bills. Clarity has $14.5 million from RRE Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners,Maveron and Citi Ventures. Bloomberg has the story here.

LogMeIn, the company that offers conferencing services like GoToMeeting and join.me, says it’s acquiring Jive Communications for $342 million in cash, plus up to $15 million based on reaching specific milestones in the next two years. Jive, a 12-year-old enterprise communications company based in Orem, Utah, had raised around $31 million from investors. TechCrunch has more here.

The poet, essayist and digital civil rights pioneer John Perry Barlow passed away Tuesday night in San Francisco. Wired’s Steve Levy remembers him here.

Naomi Pilosof Ionita has joined Menlo Ventures as partner. Pilosof Ionita was most recently a VP with the mobile invoice app company Invoice2go.

Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick completed his testimony in the Uber-Waymo trial yesterday. Here’s what he had to say.

Liza Landsman, who recently left her role as president of Jet.com, is joining New Enterprise Associates as a venture partner beginning this spring. She’ll be operating out of NEA’s New York office.

Lyft yesterday named Jon McNeill as its COO. McNeill was most recently Tesla’s global head of sales and service.

Former child actor-turned-crypto investor Brock Pierce is vowing to give away $1 billion.

The jobs platform Hired has published a new report about what tech workers are making where.

What it’s really like to live in a “smart” home.

You can now use Alexa to create music playlists.

Amazon delivery drivers have reportedly begun entering homes unauthorized. Said one man — who was in the master suite of his four-story home, when a deliveryman walked into his bedroom: “My mind started thinking bad thoughts. What could happen? How do I protect myself? Where the hell is my gun?”

SoftBank is reportedly in talks to take a minority stake in reinsurer Swiss Re, in what would be a major expansion into financial services. More here and here.

Who’s who at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

The first clip from Wes Anderson’s new stop-motion animation “Isle of Dogs.”

Have you read this Quincy Jones interview? (You have to read it.)

The iconic Eames lounge chair and ottoman — now in mohair, too.

Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick testified today at the Waymo-Uber trial (and will again tomorrow). Here’s some of what he had to say.

Snap Inc. just beat Wall Street’s expectations today for the first time with its Q4 2017 earnings report.

The best way to raise capital is to “run a process.” The best way to run a process is to use Foundersuite. Foundersuite makes the leading investor CRM, used by startups to raise more than $500 million in seed and VC since Q1:16. 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 discuss volume pricing for your entire portfolio.

Battery Ventures is a 35-year-old, global investment firm that tends to keep its nose down. Its bench of 10 general partners have mostly been operating quietly in the business for many years if not decades, yet none are household names.

Partly, that owes to the fact that Battery prefers to promote from within — often after many years of service. General Partner Neeraj Agrawal, who joined the firm in 2000, was made a general partner in 2007. A brand-new general partner, Morocco native Morad Elhafed, joined Battery in 2008.

Battery’s partners also more or less eschew social media, opting to rely instead on intensive research and aggressive behind-the-scenes networking to land the firm in interesting deals. In fact, its partners will proudly tell you that excluding seed-stage deals, Battery has invested in 385 companies since its founding and 59 of them have gone public while another 154 have merged or been acquired. Among its notable recent deals: last summer, the firm talked its way into the $108 million Series D round of the digital currency exchange Coinbase.

Certainly, its own investors approve. They’ve just committed to invest a fresh $1.25 billion with the firm across two funds: Battery Ventures XII, a stage-agnostic vehicle with $800 million to invest; and a side-fund — Battery’s seventh — which just closed with $450 million. The first fund will see the firm write checks of anywhere from $250,000 to $60 million. The latter is meant as a companion vehicle for giant growth rounds and private equity investments. (In other words, if Battery makes a bigger investment — say $50 million — the firm might write two checks totaling that amount from the main fund and its side fund.)

Yesterday, we talked with general partner Roger Lee — who joined Battery more than 16 years ago — about the firm’s new funds. We also talked about shifts in the industry and what they mean for the firm, from the rise of SoftBank, to ICOs, to a growing focus on diversity.

Congratulations on the new funds, which are a step up from your last set of funds, which Battery closed in 2016 with $950 million. Why raise more money this time? 

It allows us to write slightly bigger checks. We’ve seen more and more opportunities, including with mature companies, and having a larger fund and also a side fund lets us compete.  We just see tons of opportunities where industries are getting redefined before our eyes, from healthcare to transportation.

So readers are clear, you’re investing across all stages, from seed-stage rounds all the way through buyouts — and all of these investments come from that bigger, $800 million fund.

Yes, we’ve been investing [across the spectrum] from one fund over probably our last five or six funds, and it has worked out well for us. We take thematic deep dives into categories and find out where the best investments are, and sometimes they’re earlier stage. Sometimes, they’re Series C and Series D stage investments.

What are you looking for when it comes to gobbling up companies whole, which Battery does with some regularity? 

First, we believe that great companies are always expensive, and crappy companies are always cheap. Our job is to find out which are great and can be category-defining business that are worth their valuations, and which are crappy.

On the later-stage side, is that getting harder, with SoftBank writing the enormous checks that is out of its $100 billion Vision Fund? The values it’s assigning companies seem to be way ahead of where VCs would value them, taking the dog-walking company Wag as the most recent example. 

More here.

8th Wall, a 1.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based augmented reality platform, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Norwest Venture Partners. Other participants in the round include the Venture Reality Fund, Shasta Ventures and Sparkland Capital. The company has now raised about $10.4 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

Badi, a 2.5-year-old, Barcelona-based marketplace for room rentals in cities (it makes it easier to find roommates), has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Spark Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Loris.ai, a months-old, New York-based spin-out product from the maker of suicide prevention organization Crisis Text Line, has raised $2 million to help companies navigate conversations around harassment and other charged topics. Loris.ai’s seed round was led by Floodgate with participation from LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner,Kapor Capital and others. TechCrunch has more here.

Mirror, a year-old, New York-based startup whose not-yet-released, at-home device looks like a mirror but allows users to see a fitness instructor and classmates for routines like barre, yoga, and boxing, has raised $13 million in funding. Spark Capital is leading the round, with participation from Lerer Hippeau Ventures, First Round Capital, BoxGroup and others. TechCrunch has more here.

Mixmax, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based email productivity startup, has raised $10.35 million from Creandum and SaaStr Fund, with participation from earlier investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Nyriad, a 3.5-year-old, Cambridge, New Zealand-based startup that specializes in the use of GPUs for converging computing and IO to minimize data movement during the processing of large data sets, has raised $8.5 million in Series A funding. Investors include Data Collective, Prelude Ventures, East Ventures, IDATEN Ventures and New Zealand Venture Investment Fund. More here.

Quizlet, a 12-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of education apps focused around modern-day flash cards, has raised $20 million in fresh funding led by Icon Ventures, with participation from Union Square Ventures, Costanoa Venturesand others. The company had previously raised about $12 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Reonomy, a nearly five-year-old, New York-based commercial real estate platform that helps brokers and lenders analyze data points around tenancy and ownership, has raised $16 million in fresh funding led by earlier backer Bain Capital Ventures. Other participants in the round include  MMC Technology Ventures, Red Apple Group and the family office of Barry Sternlicht, chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital Group. More here.

RigUp, a 3.5-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based online marketplace for services and labor for the energy industry, has raised $15.8 million in Series B funding, including fromQuantum Energy Partners, Global Reserve Group, and Founders Fund. The company has separately secured a $30 million credit line from Silicon Valley Bank. Silicon Hills News has a bit more here.

Robinhood, the three-year-old, San Francisco-based free-to-trade financial investment platform, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Roc Nation, the entertainment management company created by the music impresarioShawn Carter (better known as Jay Z). As TechCrunch notes, Carter is just the latest celebrity rapper plowing cash into Robinhood, whose other investors includeSnoop Dogg and Nasir Jones, also known as Nas. More here.

David Sacks, the serial entrepreneur who cofounded Yammer and Geni.com and more recently served as CEO of the beleaguered HR software company Zenefits, is starting to take the wraps off his new venture firm: Craft Ventures. According to one source, the fund closed with $350 million. It also looks like it will focus in part (if not entirely) on crypto-related opportunities. We were in touch with its CEO of the firm’s first investment, Harbor, last night and should have more on the company for you shortly. (We also hope to talk with Sacks soon.)

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.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced today that board member Marc Andreessen won’t seek reelection at its annual stockholder meeting in April 2. Andreessen reportedly informed the board earlier this month.

Isaac Choi, the founder and CEO of a shuttered start-up called WrkRiot, pleaded guilty on Monday for defrauding former employees, according to the Justice Department. As Axios reminds readers, Choi admitted to luring employees to work at his company based on false information about his background and forging documents to reflect salary payments that were actually never made.

Lylan Masterman has been promoted to general partner at the venture firm White Star Capital. He joined the firm in July 2014 as a principal and will lead its New York office.

Ulili Onovakpuri has been promoted to partner at Kapor Capital, the venture arm for the Kapor Center for Social Impact. Onovakpuri, who focuses on health and human resources tech, joined the firm in 2015, after spending two years as a venture partner with the firm Fresco Capital.

Marco Santori, a former Cooley attorney who co-authored the first SAFT contracts (and spoke at our last StrictlyVC event in September), has joined the digital token wallet startup Blockchain as its president and chief legal officer.

In a blog post this morning, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield announced the company is naming long-time employee Allen Shim as its first CFO.

Adams Street Partners is looking to add a senior associate to its strategy and risk team. The job is in Chicago.

A driver’s suicide reveals the dark side of the gig economy.

As the Bitcoin bubble loses air, frauds and flaws are rising to the surface.

The hardest move in ice dancing? The twizzles.

People who don’t apologize probably aren’t nice to themselves, either.

The 2019 Mercedes Sprinter vans revealed!

U.S. stocks are plunging again, with the DJIA dropping more than 1,400 points and the S&P 500 enduring its steepest single-day decline since August 2015, erasing its gains for the year.

The price of Bitcoin fell below $8,000 for the third time in four days today, too.

Broadcom really wants to buy Qualcomm.

The best way to raise capital is to “run a process.” The best way to run a process is to use Foundersuite. Foundersuite makes the leading investor CRM, used by startups to raise more than $500 million in seed and VC since Q1:16. 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 discuss volume pricing for your entire portfolio.

Two years ago, Bloomberg TV journalist Emily Chang set out to write a book about gender discrimination in Silicon Valley. It wasn’t specifically prompted by that now-famous post of former Uber engineer Susan Fowler, wherein Fowler calmly recounted the many ways that Uber’s internal controls were either very messed up or nonexistent. But the national movement that Fowler unwittingly kicked off certainly gave more urgency to Chang’s work, and today, the product of that effort,Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley, hits bookshelves.

Vanity Fair was first to run an excerpt of the book, featuring Chang’s reporting about “exclusive, drug-fueled, sex-laced parties” where female founders are preyed upon. What we learned, once we had the book in our hands, is that there’s far more to it than that. We talked with Chang about Brotopia this past weekend. Our conversation has been edited for length.

Reading about these parties in Vanity Fair, it was hard to discern the scale of what you were describing and how much attention these nights should be paid — in part because no one was named. How big are these gatherings, and how frequent are they? 

I talked with more than three dozen people [about these parties] and more  since that excerpt was published — people who’d either gone and felt they couldn’t escape [or else risk access to the powerful people there] and people who were shut out of them. And I was told they happen every week.

In the Bay Area?

San Francisco. Napa. Malibu. Ibiza. New York. Women entrepreneurs will get invited and they aren’t sure if the gatherings will be shady or not. They don’t realize what they’re getting themselves into. This includes young women who’ve come from other countries and immediately wonder: ‘Is this something that I need to get used to? Is this Silicon Valley?’ You can imagine how alienating that might be for someone new to the U.S.

We’ve already seen a number of VCs leave their firms. Do you think we’ll see more fallout from these parties?

People who are part of the scene have told me it has taken a bit of a pause since the excerpt was published. But the problem is not just sex parties. We all know how much work bleeds into personal life in this industry. I’ve talked with female Uber engineers who were routinely invited to strip clubs and bondage clubs in the middle of the day. As I recount in the book, I went to the famous San Francisco strip club Gold Club and it was packed with tech workers eating lunch.

What we’re talking about is bad behavior that’s not just tolerated but that’s been normalized.

Do you regret that this bit of reporting was the first excerpt published? It grabbed the country’s attention, but Elon Musk, who was in attendance at one of the parties included in the book, has called your conclusions “salacious nonsense.”

More here.

Fair, a two-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based flexible car-ownership startup, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by next47, the venture arm of Siemens. It has also acquired Los Angeles-based Skurt, a service that delivers rental cars directly to users. Terms of the acquisition aren’t being disclosed, but Fair just last week acquired a service that Uber established in 2015 to lease new and nearly new vehicles to drivers. TechCrunch has more here.

Infarm, a five-year-old, Berlin-based vertical farming startup, has raised $25 million in Series A funding led by Balderton Capital, with participation from TriplePoint Capital, Mons Investments and seed backers Cherry Ventures,QUADIA and LocalGlobe. TechCrunch has more here.

Lightful, a three-year-old, London-based social media and campaign management platform for charities and social enterprises, raised £4 million ($5.6 million) in Series A funding. Tech.eu has more here.

Lightmatter, a year-old, Boston-based startup that makes photonic chips that essentially perform calculations at the speed of light (it’s aiming to leaving transistors in the dust), just raised $11 million in Series A  led by Matrix Partners and Spark Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Lino, an eight-month-old, Cupertino, Ca.-based decentralized autonomous video startup (TechCrunch calls it a kind of crypto YouTube), has raised $20 million via a token sale led by ZhenFund. Other investors in the pre-sale included the crypto-currency focused investment vehicles FBG Capital, DFund, and INBlockchain. TechCrunch has more here.

MDClone, a two-year-old, Beersheba, Israel-based medical data company, has raised $10 million from OrbiMed Israel Partners and earlier investor Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company has now raised $15 million altogether. Globes has more here.

Medopad, a seven-year-old, London-based health tech AI company whose app connects patients with health care professionals, has raised $28 million in funding, including from NWS Holdings. CNBC has more here.

Paige.AI, a relatively new, New York-based startup that’s building an AI system specifically to help understand cancer pathology, has raised $25 million in Series A funding led by Jim Breyer of Breyer Capital, along with other investors who “wish to remain anonymous,” the company tells TechCrunch. More here.

Zebra Fuel, a 1.5-year-old, London-based startup that wants to deliver fuel directly to users’ vehicles, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by LocalGlobe, with participation from Firstminute Capital and Zoopla founder Alex Chesterman. TechCrunch has more here.

The San Francisco-based secondary investment firm 137 Ventures is looking to raise up to $200 million for its fourth fund, shows a new SEC filing. The seven-year-old firm makes loans to founders and early employees, using their stock as collateral. The firm had closed its third fund with $200 million in 2016.

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.

Alison Bush Delgado has joined venture firm SeventySix Capital as a managing director and head of strategic development. She was formerly the global head of consultant relations for Neuberger Berman.

Ripcord CEO and former Apple engineer Alex Fielding is a piece of work, according to a former and current employees, who reportedly say the venture-backed founder keeps a bazooka displayed next to his desk and has a penchant for sexually-charged conversation. Business Insider has more here.

Former Intel president Renee James has launched a new chip company.

A South Korean appeals court has Samsung Vice Chairman Jay Lee walk free from prison after suspending his sentence for bribery.

Bucky Moore has joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a principal from Costanoa Ventures, where he spent three years as a principal. Moore had also spent less than a year as an associate with Battery Ventures several years ago.

Lululemon CEO Laurent Potdevin abruptly resigned today from the athletic-apparel seller, which says his behavior didn’t live up to its standards. (This one is breaking.)

Venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar has dropped his lawsuit against political opposition research firm Definers Public Affairs, reports Axios. As readers might remember, Pishevar — who stepped away from his firm, Sherpa Capital, in December, amid sexual harassment allegations — had sued Definers last year, claiming it had launched a smear campaign against him. More here.

Storm Ventures has two freshly minted partners: Arun Penmetsa and Paul Willard. Penmetsa joined storm as a principal more than three years ago and worked previously as an engineer at both Oracle and Google. Willard was previously a partner at Subtraction Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Splunk, an intelligence software company that went public in 2012, is looking to hire a corporate development director. The job is in San Francisco.

Online classes to build your dream career. With over 3 million members and 18,000 classes, Skillshare is basically Netflix for online learning. For an affordable $8.25 per month, you can learn everything from business analytics and photography to marketing and graphic design. Skillshare is also offering the first 100 StrictlyVC readers 2 months for just $0.99. Just click here to redeem. Unlock your potential, invest in your career, and start learning today.

Intel has made smart glasses that look normal.

Lightspeed Venture Partners is trying to hold its more than 300 portfolio companies accountable by asking them to sign a new diversity letter, though Recode wonders if it has enough teeth.

Four investors in a $1 billion health-care fund managed by Dubai’s Abraaj Group have hired a forensic accountant to examine what happened to some of their money, people familiar with the situation said. Among these: Bill and Melinda Gates. The WSJ has the story here.

The most beautiful coffee shop in every U.S. state.

Four of the world’s best Olympians, as you’ve never seen them before (in augmented reality).

“Lady-friendly” Doritos for women. Not a joke, much as we wish it were.

Quick mention: seats are very nearly sold out at this point for our evening event, coming up a little more than three weeks from now on Tuesday, February 27, at New Enterprise Associates‘ space in San Francisco’s South Park. If you RSVP’d on our event page, just a reminder/clarification that this doesn’t secure a ticket.

If you can’t make it, don’t worry; we’ll have coverage about what goes down afterward. In the meantime, much thanks again to NEA for generously playing host. We’re also very thankful for the support of Mofo, the global law firm, and Anduin, the platform focused on making private market transactions safe.

Yikes. As of a bit ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was on track today to shed more than 1,105 points for the week. That’s the steepest weekly slide since Oct 2008, when it shed 1,874 points. An upbeat jobs report (and related fears over inflation) appears to be the culprit. MarketWatch has more here.

HQ Trivia, the 2.5-year-old, New York-based popular trivia gameshow app, plans to raise money in a new round of financing that values the company north of $100 million, according to Recode. Founders Fund, the venture firm founded by controversial billionaire Peter Thiel, is expected to lead the $15 million round, and though firm partner Cyan Banister is spearheading the investment, the mere association with Thiel had some deleting the app today. More here and here.

Betts Recruiting is the leading recruitment firm for revenue generating, marketing and people operations roles, from entry-level to VP. Are you or one of your portfolio companies looking to scale your organization? We have established networks of the highest-quality talent and execute quickly in San Francisco, New York, Austin, Palo Alto, and Los Angeles. Check out our 2018 Salary Trends Report, and connect with our Director of Sales, Allison Andrade, if you’re hiring!

Science Inc, the Santa Monica, Ca.-based incubator and investment firm, has closed a new venture capital fund with $75 million in commitments, shows a new SEC filing.

According to the six-year-old firm, the vehicle is its first official venture fund — with traditional limited partners, including a fund of funds, sovereign wealth funds, foundations, and other institutional investors.

The capital will be used to back breakaway companies coming out of its incubators, as well as to co-invest in deals that were not seeded by Science, and it comes on the heels of a few other vehicles that Science has raised over its relatively short history.

Those other entities include its Science Incubator, which raised $40 million from investors; its Science Incubator II, which raised $8.2 million; and Science Blockchain, which raised $12.3 million from roughly 400 individuals through an initial coin offering last fall. (Science Blockchain is an incubator focused on creating and funding companies in the blockchain space. In December, for example, Science announced that it planned to use some of the capital raised to launch Blockchain Delta, a renewable energy bitcoin mining operation headquartered in the U.S.)

The new venture fund will be used to co-invest alongside other venture investors, as happened recently when Science teamed up with Greylock Partners to provide Series A funding to Mammoth Media, a company Science incubated at its offices.

We weren’t able to talk last night with Science’s team, which includes Mike Jones, Peter Pham, Greg Gilman and Tom Dare. But the fund is a bit of a departure for the ambitious outfit.

More here.

BigBasket, a six-year-old, Bangalore, India-based online grocery company, has raised $300 million in new funding at a $950 million post-money valuation led by Alibaba Group, with participation from Abraaj Group and Bessemer Venture Partners. Bloomberg has more here.

Blueday, a year-old, Boston-based company whose software aims to help retail store managers meet their daily revenue goals, has $6 million in funding, including from Radian Capital. More here.

Bustle, the nearly five-year-old, New York-based online media company for millennial women, is reportedly trying to raise $30 million in fresh funding. TechCrunch has more here.

Figma, a 5.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based  open design platform, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation fromGreylock Partners and Index Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

Furnishare, a three-year-old, New York-based furniture sharing service, has raised $2 million in seed funding, including from Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Correlation Ventures and Max Ventures. AlleyWatch has more here.

Harmless Harvest, a nine-year-old, San Francisco-based food and beverage company that markets refrigerated coconut water and probiotic drinks, has raised $30 million in funding led by Danone Manifesto Ventures. BevNet has more here.

Honeycomb, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based startup that helps users find out where things are going wrong with their web services, has raised  $11.5 million in funding led by e.ventures, with participation from earlier investor Storm Venturesand new investors NextWorld Capital and Merian Ventures. The company has now raised $15.5 million altogether. GeekWire has more here.

Joby Aviation, a nine-year-old, Santa Cruz, Ca.-based maker of so-called air taxis, has raised $100 million in Series B funding led by Intel Capital. Other investors in the round include EDBI, JetBlue Technology Ventures, Toyota AI Ventures,Allen & Co., AME Cloud Ventures, Ron Conway, Capricorn Investment Group, 8VC, and entrepreneurs Sky Dayton and Paul Sciarra. Bloomberg has more here.

Lambda School, a year-old,San Ramon, Ca.-based startup that provides free computer science education training until someone is hired (graduates then pay back a percentage of their salary), has raised $4 million in seed funding, including from Y Combinator and Tandem Capital. More here.

Lightelligence, a six-month-old, Boston-based startup that’s trying to accelerate artificial intelligence workloads with a new technology based on light, has raised $10 million in seed funding led by Baidu Ventures. SiliconAngle has more here.

Moderna Therapeutics, a nearly eight-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based mRNA drug discovery and development company, has raised $500 million, at a valuation of $7.5 billion, says Pitchbook. Investors Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, BB Biotech, Julius Baer, EDBI and Sequoia Capital China were joined by earlier investors Fidelity, Pictet, Viking Global Investors, ArrowMark Partners andAlexandria Venture Investments. Xconomy has more here.

nCino, a six-year-old, Wilmington, N.C.-based cloud banking startup, has raised funding of an undisclosed amount led by Salesforce Ventures. The company, spent out of Live Oak Bank, has raised $140 million altogether to date. More here.

Nuro, a Mountain View, Ca.-based developer of a self-driving delivery vans, raised $92 million in Series A funding co-led by Banyan Capital and Greylock Partners. Reuters has more here.

Owl, a 1.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company that’s making an automobile security camera, has raised $18 million in funding, including defy.vc, Khosla Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Sherpa Capital, Moment Ventures, Maniv Mobility and CSAA Insurance Group. Fortune has more here.

QuVa Pharma, a 2.5-year-old, Sugar Land, Tex.-based platform for sterile compounding pharmacy services, has raised $40 million in debt and equity funding. The financing ncludes $15 million from investors, including Bain Capital Private Equity; a $20 million loan from Silicon Valley Bank; and a $5 million lease facility from Farnam Street Financial. More here.

SaaSOptics, a nine-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based B2B subscription management platform, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Fulcrum Equity Partners. 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!

8VC, the San Francisco-based venture firm led by Joe Lonsdale, is raising $640 million for its second fund, according to an SEC filing. We talked with Londsdale last year about the firm’s debut fund and approach.

Shutterfly says it’s acquiring Lifetouch, the leader in school photography, for $825 million in cash. TechCrunch has more here.

Soothe, an L.A.-based on-demand massage service, has acquired another L.A.-based rival called Melt. L.A. Biz has more here.

Talia Goldberg has been promoted from vice president to principal at Bessemer Venture Partners. Goldberg joined the firm more than five years ago after brief stints with First Round’s Dorm Room Fund and as a business development associate at Foursquare.

Kazuoa Hirai is stepping down as the CEO of Sony five years after taking the job.

Softbank just poached Sequoia Capital’s longtime head of communications, Andrew Kovacs. Before jumping into the venture world, Kovacs spent more than five years as a senior communications manager at Google.

David Marcus, Facebook’s vice president of Messaging Products, responded to the backlash against Messenger Kids when he spoke at the Upfront Summit in Los Angeles yesterday. “Families will be better off because it exists,” said Marcus. “I firmly believe that it is a good product.”

Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI) is looking to hire an analyst to its team. The job is in New York.

A growing number of big U.S. credit-card issuers are deciding they don’t want to allow cryptocurrency transactions on their credit cards.

There’s a disconnect among investors eyeing what could be the largest initial coin offering ever. Some of the biggest venture capital firms have signaled interest in an ICO from Telegram, while long-time cryptocurrency investors are skipping it.

Airbnb’s CFO quit after he didn’t get the strategy role he sought, but some investorshave questions.

How WeChat came to rule China.

How our fixation with capturing the perfect image has homogenized our creativity.

Now you can skip the Super Bowl without missing the commercials.

What your favorite composer says about you.

How to leave an impression (on your bathroom visitors).

Apple‘s cash pile is now a record $285.1 beellion.

Amazon just reported nearly $2 billion in profit, blowing past Wall Street’s fourth-quarter expectations for the company.

Alphabet‘s shares are tumbling after a fourth-quarter whiff.

Airbnb‘s CFO is out the door, and the company says it’s most definitely not going public this year. The Information reported recently that the exec, Lawrence Tosi, had been clashing with cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky.

Betts Recruiting is the leading recruitment firm for revenue generating, marketing and people operations roles, from entry-level to VP. Are you or one of your portfolio companies looking to scale your organization? We have established networks of the highest-quality talent and execute quickly in San Francisco, New York, Austin, Palo Alto, and Los Angeles. Check out our 2018 Salary Trends Report, and connect with our Director of Sales, Allison Andrade, if you’re hiring!

Astound, a 1.5-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based enterprise service management company, has raised $11.5 million in Series A funding co-led by Vertex Venturesand Pelion Venture Partners, with participation from The Hive, Slack Fund and Moment Ventures. More here.

Avrobio, a 3.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based clinical-stage developer of gene therapies for rare diseases, has raised $60 million in Series B financing co-led by Cormorant Asset Management and Surveyor Capital. Other investors in the round include Aisling, Brace Pharma Capital, Eventide Asset Management,Morningside, Atlas Venture, SV Health Investors and Clarus Ventures. More here.

Bespin Global, a nearly three-year-old, China and South Korea-based cloud management company, has raised $27 million in new funding led by ST Telemedia, with participation from earlier investor Legend Capital. DealStreetAsia has more here.

CanvasPop, a nine-year-old, Ottawa, Ontario-based print service, has raised $3.3 million in seed funding led by Celtic House Venture Partners and BDC’s Growth & Transition Capital group. Numerous angel investors also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Engine Biosciences, a Singapore-based biotech company that’s applying machine learning to genomics for drug discovery, has raised $10 million in funding co-led byDanhua Venture Capital and 6 Dimensions Capital. Other participants in the round include WuXi AppTec, EDBI, Pavilion Capital, Baidu Ventures, WI Harper and Nest.Bio Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Factmata, a 1.5-year-old, London-based company working on an AI-driven “anti-fake” news platform, has raised $1 million in seed funding, including from Twitter cofounder Biz Stone and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. TechCrunch has more here.

Heilan Home Co., a China-based publicly traded menswear group, is reportedly raising up to $1.59 billion in a round that’s being led by Tencent Holdings and includes the e-commerce companies JD.com and Vipshop Holdings. In exchange for the investment, the syndicate will acquire less than 10 percent of the company, says Reuters. More here.

Igneous Systems, a 4.5-year-old, Seattle-based SaaS company that streamlines its customers’ massive file systems, as well as protects their data and makes it recoverable, has raised $15 million in Series B funding co-led by Vulcan Capitaland Orca Bay Capital. More here.

Organica Water, a 19-year-old, Princeton, N.J. and Budapest, Hungary-based wastewater recycling company, has raised $21 million in Series D funding led byCITIC Capital Silk Road Fund, with participation from earlier backer Idinvest Partners. More here.

Platterz, a 1.5-year-old, Toronto, Ontario-cased on-demand corporate catering platform, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Aleph, with participation from earlier investors AltaIR Capital and Globalive Capital. More here.

Pulse Labs, a year-old, Seattle, Wa.-based startup whose testing platform and panel of testers generates UX feedback on voice applications, has raised $2.5 million in funding led by Madrona Venture Group, with participation from Amazon Alexa Fund, Bezos Expeditions and Techstars Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Tamatem, a 4.5-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based mobile games startup that creates versions of popular titles so that they resonate better with users in Arabic speaking countries, has raised $2.5 million in Series A funding led by Wamda Capital, with participation from Discovery Nusantara Capital, Raed Ventures,Vision Venture Capital, and Seed Equity Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Wildmoka, a 4.5-year-old, Valbonne, France-based startup that wants to streamline video editing during live events, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Alven Capital, with participation from earlier backer Apicap. 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!

LDV Capital, a nearly six-year-old, New York-based venture fund that focuses primarily on visual technology startups, has closed on a new, $10 million seed fund that will be used to fund technical teams who leverage computer vision, machine learning and artificial intelligence to analyze visual data. Investors in the new fund include Instagram cofounder Mike Krieger and YouTube cofounder Steve Chen.More here.

OurCrowd, the five-year-old, Jerusalem-based equity crowdfunding platform, just announced its 13th fund, called ADvantage. The $50 million fund (that we’re not sure has already been raised) will be solely focused on sports tech, says OurCrowd. It was co-founded with leAD Sports, a sports tech accelerator backed by the Adi Dassler Family Office. More here.

Per Axios: “Hamet Watt, a serial entrepreneur (MoviePass, bLife) and board partner at Upfront Ventures, is launching a new startup foundry in Los Angeles called Share Ventures. Its first company is a stealthy effort co-founded by the foundry and actress Halle Berry, who yesterday told Upfront Summit that “the next evolution for me is becoming an entrepreneur.”

A new venture capital firm called Trust Ventures has launched with the support of the Koch brothers and it’s reportedly looking for startups that will challenge government corruption and regulations. Fortune has more here.

The company behind Pokémon GO, Niantic, has announced that it is acquiring augmented reality startup Escher Reality. Escher Reality builds backend services for cross-platform mobile AR so users can interact with each other and objects in the environment. TechCrunch has more here.

Intel reportedly plans to sell a majority stake in its augmented reality business, which aims to start offering smart glasses to consumers as soon as this year. Bloomberg has more here.

Former Stanford president John Hennessy has replaced Eric Schmidt as the chairman of Alphabet Inc. (You likely recall that Schmidt stepped down somewhat unexpectedly in late December.)

Jeff Immelt, who ran General Electric for 16 years as CEO, has joined New Enterprise Associates as a venture partner, the investment firm announced this morning.

Laurene Powell Jobs’s Emerson Collective is in talks to acquire a stake in BuzzFeed News, according to Bloomberg, which notes it wouldn’t be her first bet on the struggling publishing industry. In July, Emerson agreed to acquire a majority stake in the Atlantic.

Paul Willard has joined the venture firm Storm Ventures as a partner. Willard was most recently a partner with Subtraction Capital and, before that, served as CMO at both Practice Fusion and Atlassian.

Amazon is looking to add a principal to is corporate development team. The job is in Seattle.

All-women teams received just $1.9 billion — or 2.2 percent — of the $85 billion total invested by venture capitalists last year, according to PitchBook data. All-male teams meanwhile received about $66.9 billion from VCs —roughly 79 percent. Fortune looks at what’s up here.

Valentine’s Day cards they’ll remember. Every Lovepop opens to reveal a beautiful, pop up, paper sculpture that is sure to surprise and delight. With a full collection of Valentine’s Day designs you can find the perfect card to connect with your special someone.

Understanding why Snapchat is now selling hats and sweatshirts inside its app.

“I just said a prayer and stayed the hell away” — an owner of the Instant Pot, the best-selling all-in-one cooking pot that has users feeling terrorized.

Standing desks really do help you lose weight.

Inside the final days of Time, Inc.

1M Hauly. For after cashing out of some of those Bitcoin/Ripple/Litecoin holdings.

Facebook said today that people are spending less time on its social network and that fewer people are coming to the service daily in North America, for the first time ever. Its shares fell.

Meanwhile, Microsoft just beat Wall Street expectations again, as did PayPal.

And Sequoia Capital, an early investor in Google and Apple, among many other tech giants, aims to raise up to $8 billion in its largest-ever fundraising, and it has set its sights on Chinese investors, according to Reuters. As the outlet notes, the capital would help Sequoia more effectively compete in pre-IPO funding rounds (including against Softbank’s massive Vision Fund). More here.

Betts Recruiting is the leading recruitment firm for revenue generating, marketing and people operations roles, from entry-level to VP. Are you or one of your portfolio companies looking to scale your organization? We have established networks of the highest-quality talent and execute quickly in San Francisco, New York, Austin, Palo Alto, and Los Angeles. Check out our 2018 Salary Trends Report, and connect with our Director of Sales, Allison Andrade, if you’re hiring!

Last summer, the news came in dribs and drabs about initial coin offerings, the crowd sales of new cryptocurrencies that give entrepreneurs access to funding. A warning here that some coins sold in ICOs could be considered securities. An alert there that celebrity endorsements of ICOs might be unlawful.

Fast forward, and the warnings are starting to come with the kind of velocity that should give founders who are contemplating ICOs some pause. In fact, suggest some in the crypto industry, these founders would be smart to start structuring their ICOs more like traditional venture rounds.

Certainly, it seems like things are headed in that direction.

Just Monday, the SEC announced that it had obtained a court order to freeze the assets of Dallas-based AriseBank, a company that it says used social media, a celebrity endorsement, and other wide dissemination tactics to raise what it claims to be $600 million of its $1 billion goal in just two months. Just two of the many problems with this scenario, says the agency: AriseBank’s so-called offering lacked required SEC registration, and it claimed, untruthfully, that  it could offer investors FDIC-insured accounts.

The SEC also spoke up last week to note that it’s monitoring companies that suddenly incorporate or market cryptocurrencies or blockchain technologies in an attempt to “capitalize on the perceived promise of distributed ledger technology…”

Such actions are certain to have a chilling effect on ICOs, a slowdown of which actually began late last year, according to recent research produced by Ernst & Young.

Element Group founder Stan Miroshnik, whose investment bank is focused on digital token crowd sales and ICOs, calls it the somewhat inevitable bifurcation between “tier one issuers and everybody else,” wherein the “big, quality offerings are drawing the majority of capital.”

(Telegram, a messaging app that is planning to raise a staggering $1.2 billion in an ICO to build and support a payment system on its platform, is evidently among these.)

Now, with the SEC plainly focused on ICOs, there’s reason to the offerings will evolve further still — from one-time financing events that almost anyone can participate in, to the very thing they looked to displace, which is companies that receive funding over a series of rounds, often from accredited investors only.

We’re already partway there.

More here.

Asana, the 10-year-old, San Francisco-based productivity and collaboration service cofounded by Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, has raised $75 million new funding led by Generation Investment Management, a London-based firm backed by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. TechCrunch has more here.

Bench, a 5.5-year-old, Vancouver-based bookkeeping service for small and mid-size businesses, has raised $18 million in Series B-1 funding led by iNovia Capital. Earlier investors, including Bain Capital Ventures, Altos Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank, also participated in the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Busbud, a six-year-old, Montreal-based mobile app and platform that connects passengers to bus operators, has raised $11 million in Series B funding led byiNovia Capital. New investors backing the company include Teralys, Claridge andPlaza Ventures. Earlier investor Real Ventures also participated in the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Caffeine, a 1.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-basd new social broadcasting platform that was founded by a team of ex-Apple engineers and aims to take on Amazon-owned Twitch and Google’s YouTube, has raised $46 million from Andreessen Horowitzand Greylock Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Joymode, a 2.5-year-old, L.A.-based company that loans out products to subscribers interested in experiences, like a backyard movie night, has raised $14 million in funding from Naspers. The company was cofounded by Klout cofounder Joe Fernandez. TechCrunch has more here.

Juniper Square, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose software aims to streamline fundraising, investment administration, and investor reporting for the real estate industry, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Felicis Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Trifacta, a 5.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup whose tools help businesses structure and analyze their own data, has raised $48 million in fresh funding from Columbia Pacific, Deutsche Börse, Ericsson, Google, and New York Life, along with earlier investors Accel Partners, Cathay Innovation, Greylock Partners, Ignition Partners, and Ridge Ventures. The company has now raised $124 million to date. 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!

Polychain Capital, a cryptocurrency hedge fund founded by early Coinbase employee Olaf Carlson-Wee, is raising a traditional venture capital fund, shows an SEC filing processed this week. The company didn’t respond to our requests for more info, but Axios says the fund will be used to purchase equity in blockchain-related companies, as opposed to purchasing tokens. All existing Polychain investors were offered a spot in this fund, it adds.

Speedinvest, the pan-European venture firm, has taken the wraps off a new vertical fund that is targeting €25 million in commitments (and says it has €20.5 million locked down already). The capital will be used to fund marketplace startups exclusively.  TechCrunch has more here.

Fujifilm announced this week that it’s set to take a majority stake in Xerox. More on what the move means here.

Red Hat, known for its enterprise Linux products, has been making a big play for Kubernetes and containerization in recent years with its OpenShift Kubernetes product. Yesterday, the company decided to expand on that by acquiring CoreOS, a container management startup, for $250 million. More here.

CNet cofounder Halsey Minor tells Business Insider that he’s developing a distributed computing project for encoding, storing, and streaming video and that he plans to stage an ICO in March, giving investors a cryptocurrency called VideoCoin in exchange for their support. (You can never count Minor out of the game.)

Streaming music service Pandora is laying off about five percent of its employee base and taking other cost-saving measures in an attempt to save about $45 million annually.

Actress Maisie Williams, best known for her role as the ass-kicking Arya Stark on “Game of Thrones,” is the latest celeb to venture into tech entrepreneurship with the launch of a new company aimed at connecting creatives, called Daisie.

Google is looking to hire a corporate development strategy and scouting manager to help identify potential M&A and investment opportunities. The job is in Mountain View, Ca.

Uber is launching a bike-sharing service next week in partnership with JUMP, a startup that recently received the first and only permit to operate dockless bike-sharing in San Francisco. (Note: Jump was formerly known as Social Bicycles.) TechCrunch has more here.

Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp looks smarter by the month.

Samsung is making chips for cryptocurrency mining.

South Korea’s finance minister said yesterday the government has no plans to shut down cryptocurrency trading, welcome news for investors who worried it might follow in China’s footsteps and block virtual coin platforms.

This woman wanted to fly with her “emotional support” peacock. United said no.

Orcas can imitate human speech.

Photos of the highly photogenic super blue blood moon.

The one gadget that terrible sleepers should always pack.

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase announced today that they are forming an independent health care company to serve their employees in the United States. The three provided few details about the new entity but they say the idea is to initially focus on providing simplified, high-quality, affordable health care for their employees and their families — a development that must have health insurers quaking in their boots in this morning. The New York Times has more here.

And it is done. Wag, the three-year-old, L.A.-based on-demand mobile dog walking and dog care service, has raised $300 million in fresh funding from the SoftBank Vision Fund. Last week, The Information reported that this deal might not close — that SoftBank had not committed to the round after scaring off other potential investors with the amount of capital it wanted to plug into the company, so you can imagine that SoftBank turned the screws here. Indeed, SoftBank now owns 45 percent of the company, says Recode. It also installed a new CEO.

Bitcoin just fell below $10,000 again. Here’s what’s happening.

Betts Recruiting is the leading recruitment firm for revenue generating, marketing and people operations roles, from entry-level to VP. Are you or one of your portfolio companies looking to scale your organization? We have established networks of the highest-quality talent and execute quickly in San Francisco, New York, Austin, Palo Alto, and Los Angeles. Check out our 2018 Salary Trends Report, and connect with our Director of Sales, Allison Andrade, if you’re hiring!

BrowserStack, a seven-year-old mobile and browser testing platform that’s headquartered in Mumbai, India, has raised $50 million in Series A funding — entirely from Accel Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Cake Technologies, a 1.5-year-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based developer of a swipeable browser built specifically for mobile devices, has raised $5 million in pre-Series A funding led by Peak Ventures, with participation from Pelion Venture Partners and Kickstart Seed Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Drop, a 2.5-year-old, Toronto-based startup whose app allows consumers to collect points for transactions they make and then receive reward offers, has raised $21 million in Series A funding led by New Enterprise Associates. Other participants in the round, which bring the company’s total funding to $26 million, include Sierra Ventures, White Star Capital, ff Venture Capital, Portag3 Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank. TechCrunch as more here.

Memphis Meats, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based, so-called clean meat startup, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Tyson Foods. The company previously raised $22 million from investors, including DFJ, Cargill andBill Gates. Fortune has more here.

Next Trucking, a 2.5-year-old, Lynwood, Ca.-based online marketplace that connects truckers with shippers, has raised $21 million in Series B funding led bySequoia Capital, with participation from (unnamed) previous investors. VentureBeat has more here.

TytoCare, a seven-year-old, New York-based online healthcare platform that connects people to clinicians for home examinations and diagnosis, has raised $25 million in funding led by Ping An Global Voyager Fund, with participation from Qure and earlier investors Cambia Health Solutions,Walgreens, Orbimed, Fosun Pharma and LionBird. MedCity News has more here.

Virzoom, a 2.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma-based VR fitness company, has raised $5.5M in seed funding, including from cofounder and CEO Eric Janszen, Skywood Capital, Eastham Capital, Fairhaven Capital, and Equity Resource Investments. More here.

Xperiel, a 4.5-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based startup that says its tools can connect technologies like AR, VR, and IoT with existing infrastructure in order to offer experiential content through mobile devices, has raised $7 million in Series A funding. Investors include Intuit cofounder Scott Cook, Founders Fund, WTI and the National Basketball Association’s Sacramento Kings. 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!

Andrew Ng, the former chief scientist at Baidu and co-founder of Coursera, has officially closed his debut fund with $175 million in capital commitments, including from Greylock Partners, Sequoia Capital, New Enterprise Associates andSoftBank. TechCrunch has more here.

Canopy, a Boulder, CO-based venture capital firm and business accelerator for products and services companies in the legal cannabis industry, is trying to raise $50 million for a venture fund that will target growth-stage companies. More here.

LRVHealth, a nearly 18-year-old, Boston-based venture firm that was formerly known as Long River Ventures, is hoping to raise $100 million in capital commitments by the fall for its fourth early-stage venture fund. Modern Healthcare has more here.

American Express has acquired Mezi, a personal travel assistant app that helps consumers plan and book trips. The nearly three-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company, which had raised roughly $12 million from investors (including, notably, American Express Ventures), should help Amex’s global network of travel counselors to facilitate more personalized, high-touch services for its Amex Card Members. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

Microsoft has acquired PlayFab, a 3.5-year-old, Seattle-based maker of cloud-based tools for game developers. PlayFab had raised  $13 million in funding, including from Benchmark, Madrona Venture Group and Startup Capital Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Software giant SAP has agreed to acquire Callidus, itself a publicly traded company that makes cloud-based sales and marketing software, for $2.4 billion, or $36 per share. TechCrunch has more here.

Ken Chenault, the outgoing CEO of American Express, has already joined the boards of Airbnb and Facebook in recent weeks. Behind the scenes, as it turns out, he also decided to join the venture firm General Catalyst as its chairman and managing director. It will be a full-time job, Chenault tells Dealbook.

Michael Mashkautsan, the former chief of staff at the National Cyber Bureau in the Israeli Prime Minister’s office, has joined London-based venture firm LocalGlobe as a partner. More here.

Meet Sunguk Moon, the CEO behind Blind, the anonymous chat app that has tech workers talking.

Pinterest has hired Chuck Rosenberg, Google’s computer vision research lead, to be its head of computer vision and lead its visual search engineering team.

Gradient Ventures, the relatively new firm within Google that’s investing in early-stage artificial intelligence start-ups, is looking to hire a principal. The job is in Mountain View, Ca.

Founded by two MIT grads, Milwaukee-based Bright Cellars is pulling ahead as a leader in wine ecommerce. They’re powered by a proprietary algorithm that matches individual members to wines they’ll enjoy by asking questions like “how do you prefer your coffee?”. Take their quiz to learn your top four wine matches.

Google is launching a digital store offering cloud-based software to companies and other organizations, its latest effort to catch cloud leaders like Amazon Web Services. Bloomberg has more here.

Facebook is banning all ads promoting cryptocurrencies — including bitcoin and ICOs.

The U.S. Department of Justice and SEC are reportedly investigating whether Appleviolated securities laws concerning its disclosures about a software update that slowed older iPhone models. Bloomberg has more here.

The worker who sent that false Hawaii alert thought the threat was real, says the FCC.

Inside the trippy, high-speed world of drone racing.

This would be very cool.

A quick update about our first INSIDER event of 2018, coming up next month: founder, angel investor and now VC Caterina Fake has now joined the line-up, which also includes Brandless CEO Tina Sharkey, Cadre CEO Ryan Williams and HackerOne CEO Marten Mickos. We’re just so excited about how the night is shaping up.:)

More to come. In the meantime, no column today. We’re still recovering from the last couple of days. (We spent *a lot* of time at the Apple Genius Bar.)

Dell could emerge as a public company through a reverse-merger with VMware, the $60 billion cloud computing company it already controls, according to CNBC. The reverse merger, whereby VMware would buy Dell, would allow Dell to be traded publicly without going through a formal listing. More here.

The Trump administration insisted this morning that it currently has no plans to build its own ultra-fast 5G wireless network, despite publication of a memo in Axios yesterday that suggested the idea was under consideration.

Betts Recruiting is the leading recruitment firm for revenue generating, marketing and people operations roles, from entry-level to VP. Are you or one of your portfolio companies looking to scale your organization? We have established networks of the highest-quality talent and execute quickly in San Francisco, New York, Austin, Palo Alto, and Los Angeles. Check out our 2018 Salary Trends Report, and connect with our Director of Sales, Allison Andrade, if you’re hiring!

BehavioSec, a 10-year-old, Luleå, Sweden-based company focused on continuous authentication through behavioral biometrics, has raise $17.5 million in Series B funding led by Trident Capital Cybersecurity, with participation from Cisco Investments, ABN AMRO, and earlier backers Octopus Ventures and Conor Venture Partners. More here.

BigID, a two-year-old, Israel-based private customer data identification startup, has raised $14 million in Series A funding from Comcast Ventures, SAP, ClearSky Security Fund and BoldStart Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Bodle Technologies, two-year-old, Oxford, England-based startup that’s developing a reflective smartphone display technology that promises to use less power, has raised £6 million ($8.4 million) in Series A funding led by Parkwalk Advisors. Other participants include Woodford Patient Capital Trust, and returning backers Oxford Sciences Innovation and the Oxford Technology and Innovations Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

ContentSquare, a five-year-old, Paris, France-based insights platform that aims to help businesses understand how and why users are interacting with their app, mobile and websites, has raised $42 million in Series B funding. Canaan Partnersled the round. Earlier investors Highland Europe, Eurazeo and H14 also joined the financing. More here.

Cuberg, a 2.5-year-old, Berkeley, Ca.-based battery tech startup whose founding team includes Stanford University researchers, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from HorizonX, Boeing’s investment vehicle. TechCrunch has more here.

Dominode, a year-old, Boca Raton, Fla.-based startup making verified identity software for regulated industries, has raised $1.3 million in funding from Blockchange Ventures. More here.

Duco, an eight-year-old, London-based startup that sells self-service data engineering software to the financial services sector, has raised $28 million in new funding from Insight Venture Partners, NEX Opportunities, Eight Roads Ventures and Cristóbal Conde. The Times has more here.

Goxip, a three-year-old, Hong Kong-based social shopping service, raised $5 million in funding led by Meitu, with participation from Nan Fung Group. TechCrunch has more here.

Hover, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based platform that says it generates accurate, interactive 3D models of any property, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by GV, with participation from The Home Depot and Standard Industries, the large roofing and waterproofing manufacturer. More here.

Logikcull, a 14-year-old, San Francisco-based discovery platform for legal teams, has raised $25 million in new funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from earlier investors OpenView Venture Partners and Storm Ventures. More here.

Pay By Group, a 6.5-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based maker of group payments software, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding, including from Czar Ventures. More here.

Protenus, a three-year-old, Baltimore, Md.-based healthcare startup that aims to protect patient privacy in electronic medical records by detecting privacy breaches in real-time, has raised $11 million in Series B funding. Kaiser Permanente Ventures and F-Prime Capital Partners co-led the round, with participation from earlier backers Arthur Ventures, Lionbird Venture Capital and Cognosante Ventures. More here.

Ripple Foods, a three-year-old, Emeryville, Ca.-based maker of a milk-like drink from peas, has raised $65 million in new funding led by Euclidean Capital. Other participants in the round include Goldman Sachs, Khosla Ventures, Fall Line Capital and S2G Ventures. More here.

Xiaopeng Motors, a nearly four-year-old, China-based electric vehicle company that’s sometimes described as a Tesla clone, has raised $348 million in Series B funding co-led by Alibaba, IDG Capital and Foxconn. Other investors in the round include Yunfeng Capital, Apoletto Asia, CICC and earlier backers GGV Capital,Matrix Partners China and Morningside Venture Capital. Electrek 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!

Thirty tech startups from over 14 countries that are part of 500 Startups’ summer 2017 program in San Francisco have announced a ICO called the 22X Fund, a token offering that they say will enable investors to invest in and own up to 10 percent equity in the group of startups. Entrepreneur has more here.

Bonfire Ventures, a new venture firm created by longtime operators and investors, including former Rincon Venture Partners Jim Andelman, has raised $60 million for its debut fund. The capital will flow primarily to startups in Southern California. According to TechCrunch, the team has already backed nine startups. More here.

Another day, another near-billion-dollar deal in Canada’s marijuana industry, reports Bloomberg, which says that publicly traded cannabis producer Aphria has agreed to buy Nuuvera, another cannabis company, for roughly $670 million in cash and stock. Marijuana sales are expected to become legal in the country at some point this year, which explains some of these big deals.

SoFi, the online lending company that last week appointed Anthony Noto as its new CEO, has acquired the engineering and product teams of mortgage startup Clara Lending, says Bloomberg. More here.

The publicly traded unified communications company Avaya has agreed to acquireSpoken Communications, a 12-year-old, Seattle-based contact-center as-a-service company that had raised roughly $58 million in funding, including fromIgnition Partners and Riverwood Capital. GeekWire has more here.

The RELX Group (formerly known as Reed Elsevier) say it is acquiring the digital identity platform ThreatMetrix for £580 million (about $817 million) in cash. This is a big exit for 13-year-old ThreatMetrix, which was last valued at around $237 million in its last funding round in 2014, according to PitchBook analysis. TechCrunch has more here.

China’s Tencent is leading the acquisition of 14 percent of billionaire Wang Jianlin’sWanda Commercial Properties Co. for 34 billion yuan ($5.4 billion). It’s just Tencent’s latest foray into old-school retail. Bloomberg has more here.

Cardlytics, a 10-year-old, Atlanta-based marketing analytics company, has set its IPO terms, revealing plans to sell 5.4 million shares at between $13 and $15 apiece, giving it a market cap of roughly $285 at the midpoint of that pricing. The company has raised more than $180 from investors, including Canaan Partners, Polaris Partners, and Discovery Capital. Nasdaq has more here.

Huami, a four-year-old, China-based maker of wearable devices, has revealed plans to offer 10 million shares at between $10 and $12 in an upcoming IPO, a range that would give it a market cap of $662 in the middle of that range. Nikkei Asian Review has more here.

Several mega-funded Chinese tech unicorns, including smart phone and electronics maker Xiaomi, are angling to go public later this year with huge, multibillion-dollar offerings, and behind the scenes, New York and Hong Kong are competing for these listings. At stake could be deals worth well more than a quarter-trillion dollars, notes CNBC. More here.

Famed former NFL quarterback Brett Favre is being sued for allegedly helping to conspire with other business partners to fraudulently induce an investor to put $16 million into a sports social media network that never took off.

One of the great entrepreneurs of the 20th century, Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, passed away yesterday at age 91.

Thanks to Elon Musk‘s promotions on Twitter and Instagram, Boring Co. has taken orders for thousands of its $500 flamethrower. The total right now exceeds 10,000 units, worth $5 million, a spokesman tells Bloomberg, and Boring Co. plans to sell double that amount altogether. (This is going to look pretty bone-headed if someone is badly injured, though Musk insists he’d be “way more scared of a steak knife.”)

“Social media has peaked as an influential player” in politics, says NBC Political News Director Chuck Todd, the moderator of “Meet the Press.”

Over the weekend, Saudi officials released Prince Alwaleed bin Talal​, one of the world’s richest men (before he was detained, anyway) and a favorite in tech circles. More here.

Sapphire Ventures is looking to hire two people into its fund investments team, a group that makes primary investments in venture capital funds. Both of the roles — a vice president and an associate — are based in Palo Alto, Ca. More here.

Facebook will start prioritizing local news in users’ feeds.

SpaceX’s new beast of a rocket is a go for launch after more than five years of delays.

How Apple built a chip powerhouse to threaten Qualcomm and Intel.

The best-dressed stars at last night’s Grammy awards.

Intimate glimpses of everyday life in Iran.

NASA will stream Wednesday’s rare lunar eclipse. (Yay.)

The Ritz Carlton, Langkawi, now on our to-do list. (Hey, we can dream.)

Also! We’re just so excited to see a bunch of you a little more than a month from now at our INSIDER event at the beautiful San Francisco offices of New Enterprise Associates. We still have a limited number of seats left, so don’t wait too long if you’re planning to come.

We should have another announcement about the evening for you soon. In the meantime, thank you everyone who is already participating in the evening, including sponsors Anduin, a company cofounded by Joe Lonsdale and Alin Bui that helps companies close private market transactions, and the global law firm MoFo, which prides itself of giving startups expert advice without taking itself too seriously.

More Monday.:)

Bitcoin prices are rebounding right now following possibly the largest cryptocurrency hack yet.

The FT reported today that Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital are keen to invest tens of millions of dollars in the messaging app Telegram, which claims to have 170 million monthly users and is planning to raise up to $1.2 billion(!) by selling its own digital currency through an ICO. More here.

Founders, innovators, and key Fortune 1000 leaders together with policy and regulatory thinkers are gathering to navigate today’s shifting business landscape, including the Genentech CEO Ian Clark, former DNC Chair and author Donna Brazile, Impossible Foods founder Patrick Brown, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. One room. Three days. This is Shift Forum. February 26-28 in SF. StrictlyVC readers use CODE: STRVC for a 20 percent discount.

The prevalence of so-called fake news is far worse than we imagined even a few months ago. Just last week, Twitter admitted there were more than 50,000 Russian bots trying to confuse American voters ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

It isn’t just elections that should concern us, though. So argues Jonathon Morgan, the cofounder and CEO of New Knowledge, a two-and-a-half-year-old, Austin-based cyber security company that’s gathering up clients who are looking to fight online disinformation. (Worth noting: the 15-person outfit has also quietly gathered up $1.9 million in seed funding led by Moonshots Capital, with participation from Haystack, GGV Capital, Geekdom Fund, Capital Factory and Spitfire Ventures.)

We talked earlier this week with Morgan, a former digital content producer and State Department counterterrorism advisor, to learn more about his product, which is smartly using concerns about fake social media accounts and propaganda campaigns to work with brands that are eager to preserve their reputation. Our chat has been edited lightly for length and clarity.

Tell us a little about your background.

I’ve spent my career in digital media, including as a [product manager] at AOL when magazines were moving onto the Internet. Over time, my career moved into machine-learning and data science. During the early days of the application-focused web, there wasn’t a lot of engineering talent available, as it wasn’t seen as sophisticated enough. People like me who didn’t have an engineering background but who were willing to spend a weekend learning JavaScript and could produce code fast enough didn’t really need much of a pedigree or experience.

How did that experience lead to you focusing on tech that tries to understand how social media platforms are manipulated?

When ISIS was employing techniques to jam conversations into social media, conversations that were elevated in the American press, we started trying to figure out how they were pushing their message. I did a little work for the Brookings Institution, which led to some work as a data science advisor to the State Department — developing counter-terrorism strategies and understanding what public discourse looks like online and the different between mainstream communication and what that looks like when it’s been hijacked.

Now you’re pitching this service you’ve developed with your team to brands. Why?

The same mechanics and tactics used by ISIS are now being used by much more sophisticated actors, from hostile governments to kids who are coordinating activity on the Internet to undermine things they don’t like for cultural reasons. They’ll take Black Lives activists and immigration-focused conservatives and amplify their discord, for example. We’ve also seen alt-right supporters on 4chan undermine movie releases. These kinds of digital insurgencies are being used by a growing number of actors to manipulate the way that the public has conversations online.

We realized we could use the same ideas and tech to defend companies that are vulnerable to these attacks. Energy companies, financial institutions, other companies managing critical infrastructure — they’re all equally vulnerable. Election manipulation is just the canary in the coal mine when it comes to the degradation of our discourse.

More here.

Heetch, a four-year-old, Paris, France-based ride-sharing service, has raised $20 million in funding. Investors include Felix Capital, Via ID, Alven Capital,Idinvest Partners and InnovAllianz. TechCrunch has more here.

Occipital, a 10-year-old, San Francisco-based developer of mobile computer vision applications, has raised $12 million in Series C funding led by Foundry Group. The company has now raised $33 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Songtradr, a 3.5-year-old, Santa Monica, C.-based music licensing platform, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by Richard White, the CEO and founder of WiseTech Global. Los Angeles Business Journal has more here.

Sun Basket, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based organic meal delivery service, has raised $42.8 million in Series D funding led by August Capital. The company separately secured $15 million in debt from Trinity Capital Investment. VentureBeat has more here.

Treble is a PR agency with a unique value prop for both VC firms and startups: we expedite exits. We like to partner early, carve out brand differentiation and reverse engineer your brand into breaking news. Headquartered in Austin, with Silicon Valley roots, we specialize in emerging tech (SaaS, AI, IoT, cybersecurity, blockchain, crypto and more). Contact us here.

ESPN, a unit of Walt Disney Co., is considering a sale or spinoff of the Nate Silver-founded FiveThirtyEight property, says The Big Lead. More here.

Ford will acquire Autonomic and TransLoc, two of its partners, in deals that will help its new mobility business take shape. TechCrunch has much more here.

Amazon’s Super Bowl ad, featuring Jeff Bezos. It’s his first-ever appearance in an Amazon ad.

Liza Landsman, president of Jet.com, is leaving the company just a little more than a year after she was elevated to her current role, multiple sources tell Recode. More here.

Ryan Morris, a young investor who joined Global Founders Capital six months ago in the Bay Area, has joined Plus Capital, a new L.A. firm, as an associate. More here.

The Department of Justice’s special counsel Robert Mueller and his office have interviewed Facebook staff as part of its Russia probe. Wired has more here.

Sapphire Ventures to looking to hire two people into its fund investments team, a group that makes primary investments in venture capital funds. (Some of its current stakes include in August Capital, Point Nine Capital, and Data Collective.) Both of the roles — a vice president and an associate — are based in Palo Alto, Ca. More here.

The dirty war over diversity inside Google.

Dell is reportedly mulling a return to the market four years after going private.

Lyft had its own “God View” and employees were reportedly using it track former paramours and celebrities, among other things.

Lawyers are increasingly getting paid in cryptocurrency to show they’re aligned with their new clients.

Your sloppy bitcoin drug deals will haunt you for years.

How to buy bitcoin with a credit card — though you probably should not.

Selling airborne opulence to the upper, upper, upper class. (This is pretty fascinating.)

The Boring Company flamethrower. (Legal everywhere but California and Maryland.)

No column today (too much news!).

Benchmark’s controversial, explosive lawsuit against cofounder and former CEO Travis Kalanick is officially history. A judge today permanently dismissed the venture firm’s case against the former Uber CEO following Benchmark’s agreement to dismiss the suit. Recode has more here.

Founders, innovators, and key Fortune 1000 leaders together with policy and regulatory thinkers are gathering to navigate today’s shifting business landscape. How will AI impact jobs? How will escalating education and healthcare costs impact business? Our economy? What is the responsible role of business in our society? This is the discourse you have been waiting for. This is Shift Forum. Don’t miss it. February 26-28 in SF. StrictlyVC readers use CODE: STRVC for a 20 percent discount.

Allure Security, a seven-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based company that’s developing data loss detection technology, has raised $5.3 million in seed funding led byGlasswing Ventures, with participation from Greycroft, Zetta Venture Partnersand Portage Partners. More here.

Arundo Analytics, a 2.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company that markets its big data and machine-learning-driven analytics to asset-intensive industries, has raised $25 million in Series A funding. Investors include Sundt AS, Stokke Industri, Horizon, Canica, Strømstangen, Arctic Fund Management,Stanford-StartX Fund and Northgate Partners. More here.

Botkeeper, a 2.5-year-old, Boston, Ma.-based automated bookkeeping software startup, has raised  $4.5 million in seed funding led by Ignition Partners., with participation from a long list of individual investors, including former Microsoft CFOJohn Connors. More here.

Carmudi, a 4.5-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based Rocket Internet-backed company that sells cars online in emerging markets, has raised $10 million to develop its business in Southeast Asia after shrinking its global footprint. The new funding was raised incrementally, including from Holtzbrinck Ventures, Tengelmann Ventures, and Asia Pacific Internet Group. TechCrunch has more here.

Enertiv, a nine-year-old, New York-based company that uses sensors to track equipment performance within a commercial building, has raised $4.25 million in funding led by Fifth Wall Ventures, with participation from Rudin Ventures, New York Angels, Cerium Technology and MetaProp NYC. The Commercial Observer has more here.

EtaGen, an eight-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based company that has developed a linear generator technology, has raised $83 million in Series C funding from 10 strategic investors, including American Electric Power, Centrica Innovations, and Statoil Energy Ventures. Earlier investors in the company include Bill Gatesand Khosla Ventures. More on the company, which has now raised $133 million altogether, here.

Inprentus, a 5.5-year-old, Champaign, Il.-based precision optics company that makes blazed diffraction gratings for x-ray and extreme ultraviolet light  applications, has raised $2.5 million in Series A funding led by Flyover Capital, with participation from other investors that included Serra Ventures. More here.

Nexar, a three-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup that makes an AI-based dashcam app to monitor road safety, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Ibex Ventures. Other participants include Alibaba Innovation Ventures,Nationwide Insurance and earlier investors Aleph, Mosaic Ventures, Slow Ventures, True Ventures and Tusk Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Ring, a six-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based maker of camera-enabled doorbell products, is raising $160 million at a valuation of nearly $1 billion, nearly double from only a year ago, according to a securities filing and investors. The Information has more here.

Snowflake, a 5.5-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based cloud data warehouse startup led by former Microsoft exec Bob Muglia, has raised another $263 million of venture capital, giving it a valuation of $1.5 billion. Sequoia Capital led the round, which also included earlier investors Iconiq Capital, Altimeter Capital, Capital One Growth Ventures, Madrona Venture Group, Redpoint Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures and Wing Ventures. GeekWire has more here.

StoreHub, a 3.5-year-old, Malaysia-based startup that helps retailers digitize their businesses, has raised $5.1 million in Series A funding led by Vertex Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

TeacherGaming, a seven-year-old, New York-based startup from the team behind MinecraftEdu, a company that helped teachers use Minecraft in the classroom and was subsequently acquired by Microsoft, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding. Leading the round is Makers Fund, with participation from Brent Hoberman’sFounders Factory. TechCrunch has more here.

Tigera, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that helps businesses connect and secure their container-based applications, has raised $10 million in fresh funding led by Madrona Venture Group, with participation from New Enterprise Associates and Wing Venture Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Tryb Group, a 1.5-year-old, Singapore-based organization focused on fintech services in Southeast Asia, has landed $30 million in funding from Makara Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

XtalPi, a three-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based biotech firm that uses artificial intelligence to accelerate the development of new drugs, has raised $15 million fromGoogle, Sequoia China, and Tencent. TechCrunch has more here.

Treble is a PR agency with a unique value prop for both VC firms and startups: we expedite exits. We like to partner early, carve out brand differentiation and reverse engineer your brand into breaking news. Headquartered in Austin, with Silicon Valley roots, we specialize in emerging tech (SaaS, AI, IoT, cybersecurity, blockchain, crypto and more). Contact us here.

DN Capital, one of Europe’s oldest venture capital firms with offices in Berlin and Menlo Park, Ca., has closed its fourth fund with €200 million in commitments. The firm invests primarily in seed-stage and Series A companies and is especially interested in marketplaces, SaaS, fintech, digital health and consumer mobile apps. TechCrunch has more here.

It’s high times for the marijuana industry as more regions move to legalize its use. One beneficiary: Privateer Holdings, one of the big investors in the space, which says it just closed on $100 million in capital commitments to back more cannabis startups. TechCrunch has more here.

Biotech’s next big IPO could unravel at the 11th hour. Here’s why.

AWS has purchased Sqrrl, a Cambridge, Ma.-based security startup with roots in the NSA. The company helps analyze a variety of sources to track and understand security threats quickly using machine learning. Financial terms of the deal aren’t known. TechCrunch has more here.

Gfycat, a player on the smaller side of the consumer-facing explosion of GIFs, continues to build out its suite of creator tools with a new acquisition: MovieLala, which helps studios craft campaigns for their movies for fans. MovieLaLa had raised $1.4 million in seed funding roughly a year ago, including from Walt Disney CFO Jay Rasulo and former LucasFilm COO David Anderman. TechCrunch has more here.

Square has acquired Entrees On Trays, a 32-year-old restaurant delivery platform. The plan is to expand the footprint of its on-demand food delivery service, Caviar, in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area, says the company. TechCrunch has more here.

Sotheby‘s, one of the world’s oldest and biggest art auction houses, has acquired AI startup Thread Genius, whose set of algorithms can instantly identify objects, then recommend images of similar objects to the viewer. Financial terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed, through Thread Genius was a three-person company and both founders and the data scientist they’d hired are joining Sotheby’s as part of the deal. TechCrunch has more here.

After being one of the first musicians to accept Bitcoin all the way back in 2014, Rapper 50 Cent (a.k.a. Curtis Jackson) appears to have accumulated a small fortune in the volatile digital currency. As TMZ first reported and Jackson seems to have confirmed, he left his Bitcoin sales untouched until rediscovering them some time recently.

Ken Chenault, the longtime chairman and CEO of American Express, looks to have a busy (and lucrative) career as a director when he steps down from the company next month. Last week, Facebook said it has added Chenault to its board — the first new Facebook board member since WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum joined in 2014. Now Airbnb has also brought him onto its board as its first independent director. (Could Twitter, whose CMO came from Amex, be next? Stay tuned.) Dealbook has more here.

Yikes. According to the New York Post, star Benchmark partner Peter Fenton has separated from his wife and is now dating entrepreneur Kate Greer, who earlier dated the star founder of both Twitter and Square, Jack Dorsey, for four years. Why it’s awkward, notes the Post: Fenton led an early round in Twitter and sat on its board until last May. The Post also spied a seething tweet published last fall by Fenton’s wife that read: “You know the guy who puts his family in a lower class of service on the plane, same guy puts his mistress in 1st #consistentlackofcharacter.”

CNN’s attempt at expanding its digital news business by bringing in a top YouTube creator has failed, reports TechCrunch, CNN is closing down YouTube star Casey Neistat’s video business, Beme, which it bought for a reported $25 million back in 2016. In addition, the YouTuber and his co-founder, Matt Hackett, are also leaving the company. More here.

One of Snap CEO Evan Spiegel’s top lieutenants, Tom Conrad, will leave Snapchat, and the whole tech industry, in March, roughly two years after he joined the company as VP of Product. Conrad tells TechCrunch that after more than 30 years in tech, it’s “time for me to put my energy outside of tech into music, food, photography and things closer to art than entrepreneurship.”

Engineer Steve Yegge writes on Medium that he left Google after nearly 13 years because it has lost the ability to innovate.

eBay is looking to hire a corporate development associate. The job is in San Jose, Ca.

Ripple wants its XRP currency to be bitcoin for banks. But banks say they have no interest in using it.

Twitter is working on a Snapchat-style video sharing tool.

These 12 camels were disqualified from a Saudi beauty pageant over Botox injections to make them more attractive. (True story!)

Are you also familiar with the psychotic barf crying of a toddler?

Twelve Winston Churchill quotes to live by.

A balm for the soul (and the lips, elbows, and feet).