Friday! [Rolls a spliff in celebration of 4/20 day and also because we need it for medical reasons.] Hope you have a wonderful weekend.:) See you in a few days.

Top News

The Justice Department has reportedly opened an antitrust investigation into potential coordination by AT&T, Verizon and a telecommunications standards organization to hinder consumers from easily switching wireless carriers. The New York Times has the skinny here.

Startup Ecosystem Report: China is Rising, Women Founders Have More Connections, and More

Startups are a gamble, but it’s possible to better understand why some thrive and many more die by looking at the ecosystems in which they operate. Such is the mission of eight-year-old Startup Genome, comprised of a group of researchers and entrepreneurs who, every year, interview thousands of founders and investors around the world to get a better handle on what’s changing in the regions where they operate, and what remains stubbornly the same.  The larger objective is to figure out how to help more startups succeed, and the outfit — which this year surveyed 10,000 founders with the help of partners like Crunchbase and Dealroom — produced some data that should perhaps concern those in the U.S. To wit, China looks positioned to overtake U.S. dominance when it comes to numerous tech sectors. Consider: In 2014, just 14 percent of so-called unicorns were based in China. Between the start of last year through today, that percentage has shot up to 35 percent, while in the U.S., the number of homegrown unicorns has fallen from 61 percent to 41 percent of the overall global number.  You could argue that investors are simply assigning China-based startups overly lofty valuations, as happened here in the U.S., and we partly believe that to be true. But China is also clearly “in it to win it,” based on a look at patents, with four times as many AI-related applications and three times as many crypto- and blockchain-related patents registered in China last year. With so much of the tech industry now focused on deep tech, it’s worth noting. In fact, as much as we loathed the January Financial Times column penned by famed VC Michael Moritz, who suggested that U.S. companies follow China’s lead, his underlying call to arms was probably, gulp, prescient in its own way.  What else should startups know?  More here.

New Fundings

Chai Point, an eight-year-old, Bengaluru, India-based chain of tea and snacks stores, has raised $20 million in Series C funding led by new investor and private equity firm Paragon Partners. LiveMint has more here.  Contessa Health, a three-year-old, Nashville, Tn.-based home recovery care firm, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Health Velocity Capital, with participation from BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners, Noro-Moseley Partners, and Sandbox Advantage Fund. More here.  DroneSense, a three-year-old, Austin, Tx.-based unmanned aircraft systems maker focused on public safety, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from publicly traded FLIR Systems, an Oregon-based sensor maker. More here.  Emboline, a six-year-old, Santa Cruz, Ca.-based company that makes a medical device for use during percutaneous heart valve repair and replacement procedures and other cardiovascular procedures, has raised more than $10 million in Series B funding, including from SV Tech Ventures and Shangbay Capital. More here.  FlexyBeauty, a three-year-old, Paris, France-based SaaS solution for hairdressers and beauty salons, has raised $8 million in Series A funding from Serena Capitaland earlier backer Newfund Capital. More here.  FuboTV, a nearly four-year-old, New York-based startup that sells a cable-TV-like bundle of live TV that can be streamed to laptops, phones or actual TVs, has raised $75 million from investors that include AMC Networks, 21st Century Fox,Discovery, Northzone and Luminari Capital. Recode has more here.  Inocucor, an 11-year-old, Montreal-based developer and producer of biological crop inputs, that’s been raising (and making announcements around) its Series B round for months, has finally closed the financing with $15.9 million. The capital comes from Cycle Capital Management, Desjardins Innovatech, TPG ART, andPontifax AgTech. More here.  Point, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that buys equity in American homes, landed its largest financial commitment to date this week through a $150 million boost from New York hedge fund Atalaya Capital Management. Specifically, Atalaya will buy as much as $150 million of home-equity investment instruments from Point over the course of three years. Bloomberg has more here.  RealSelf, a 12-year-old, Seattle-based online community where people can ask questions and connect with doctors who provide cosmetic treatments, has raised $40 million in new funding — its first round of financing since the $2 million raised in 2008, two years after its founding. The round was led by Elephant, the venture firm co-founded by Warby Parker co-founder Andy Hunt. TechCrunch has more here.  Saviynt, an eight-year-old, L.A.-based cloud access governance and intelligence services firm, has raised $40 million in Series A funding from Carrick Capital Partners. More here.  Scriptation, a nearly five-year-old, L.A.-based film and TV script reader and annotation app, has raised funding from individual investors, including actor Rob Morrow and producer Kenya Barris. More here.  Zimplistic, a 10-year-old, Singapore-based product design company at work on intelligent kitchen appliances, has raised $30 million in Series C funding co-led byCredence Partners and EDBI. Tech in Asia has more here.

New Funds

Red Sea Ventures, a seven-year-old, New York-based early stage venture firm, is looking to raise upwards of $50 million for its second fund, shows an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. More here.

IPOs

Laser maker nLight could hit the public markets next week, says Renaissance Capital. The Vancouver, Wa.-based company last month filed the paperwork declaring its intent to go public. Another regulatory filing Monday indicated that it intends to price 5.4 million shares between $13 and $15 per share, giving it a market cap of $462 million at the midpoint. Portland Business Journal has more here.  Pivotal Software, the cloud-native app development platform majority owned by Dell Technologies, raised $555 million in its IPO. The company priced 37 million shares at $15 for a market cap of around $4.3 billion. It began trading earlier today, and things went so-so so. Forbes has more here.  Surface Oncology, a Cambridge, Ma.-based immuno-oncology company, raised $108 million in its IPO after pricing 7.2 million shares at $15. Its biggest shareholders include Atlas Venture, Novartis, Eli Lilly, New Enterprise Associates, and F-Prime Capital Partners. Xconomy has more here.

Exits

Cognizant, a publicly traded multinational IT services company, has picked upBolder Healthcare Solutions, a five-year-old, Louisville, K.Y.-based maker of revenue cycle management software for medical practices and hospitals.  Financial terms weren’t disclosed. More here.

People

AI researchers are making giant boatloads of money.  Travis VanderZanden keeps telling media outlets that cities are receptive to his Bird scooters, and media outlets keep reporting that this is not true.  Dobbs Ferry residents remember a young Mark Zuckerberg.

Essential Reads

Google is “pausing” development of its messaging app, Allo, since not enough people download it to make it a serious threat to Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.  Facebook is reportedly using some questionable tactics to enroll users in a facial recognition test in Europe.  Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures met with officials at the SEC late last month, arguing that Washington oversight could slow innovation based on the blockchain technology that underpins cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.

Detours

How close are we to real-life “Westworld” robots?  We’re almost starting to feel sorry for Michael Cohen.

Retail Therapy

Buy sake.

Happy Thursday!

Top News

Top News Amazon this morning introduced “Alexa Blueprints,” a new way for any Alexa owner to create their own customized Alexa skills or responses, without needing to know how to code. (“Alexa, never again play the Gummy Bear song, no matter how many times you are asked.”)

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The Making of a Hardware Founder

Working in tech, it’s hard to avoid the many stories and congratulatory tweets about the latest company to close a funding round, and little wonder. It’s a milestone worth celebrating before getting back to work. Yet what’s happening in the trenches before those funding announcements roll out is often more instructive. How does one decide to make the leap in the first place? How do you mold a product or service into something that you can present to outsiders? How can you enlist people to help you when everyone you want to meet has more pressing demands on their time?  These are questions that many new founders wrestle with, including Sarah McDevitt, a college basketball star turned hardware founder whose product she hopes to have in consumers’ hands by this holiday season – even while she’s acutely aware that a lot has to go right first.  McDevitt didn’t anticipate being in this position five years ago when she was making a generous salary as a product manager at Microsoft, working a stone’s throw from where she’d grown up in Seattle. But like a lot of founders, McDevitt eventually felt compelled to start her now two-year-old company, Core Wellness, which aims to sell meditation experiences.  We checked in with her this week about how far along she has gotten, the obstacles she wasn’t expecting, and where she goes from here.  You played college basketball at NYU, where you also studied math and computer science. Which was more fun?  In high school, I used to walk to a gym that was open at all hours of the night and play until my parents were like, ‘You have to come home.’ But I’ve always loved math and education, too.  When you graduated, you went home to Seattle to work for Microsoft for five years. How did you get from there to launching a startup that makes it easier for people to meditate?  More here.

New Fundings

Rare Bits, a year-old, Bay Area-based peer-to-peer marketplace for crypto goods, has raised $6 million in funding led by Spark Capital, with participation from First Round Capital, David Sacks’ Craft Ventures and SV Angel. TechCrunch has more here.  Shapeways, the 11-year-old, New York-based 3D printing marketplace company, has raised $30 million in Series E funding led by Lux Capital. The company has now raised more than $100 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.  TheWaveVR, a two-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based music and visual art creation VR startup, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by RRE Ventures, with participation from Upfront Ventures, KPCB, GC VR Gaming Tracker Fund andThe VR Fund. The company has now raised $10 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Dawn Capital, the 11-year-old, London-based early-stage venture firm, just closed its third fund with $235 million in capital commitments. The outfit invests primarily in financial and enterprise startups and, as Business Insider notes in a write-up, Dawn’s portfolio includes cybersecurity firm Mimecast, which IPO’d in 2015 and whose market cap is currently $2.16 billion, and the Swedish graph database firmNeo4j. More here.  Russia’s Fort Ross Ventures says it has closed a new, $200 million fund for U.S. startups that are developing products and services in the areas of fintech, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and e-commerce. VentureBeat has more here.

IPOs

Steel yourselves. The number of 2018 U.S. tech IPOs is going to double over the next 10 days.

Exits

Eventbrite has acquired the nine-year-old, Madrid, Spain-based ticketing platform Ticketea for undisclosed terms. The company had raised $5.7 million, including from Seaya Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.  Square has acquired elements of 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based corporate catering startup Zesty. Square already owns the on-demand food delivery service Caviar; it reportedly plans to use Zesty’s assets to strengthen Caviar’s corporate ordering business. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed, but TechCrunch has more here.

People

Executives at Theranos really don’t like Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Carreyou, whose reporting on the company’s exaggerated claims triggered its ongoing demise. As Business Insider reports, insiders even created a “Space Invaders”-like game where they shoot at floating pictures of him.  VC Bill Gurley came out strongly in favor of Uber today, despite leaving the company’s board last summer and later launching a lawsuit (since dropped) against former CEO Travis Kalanick. CNBC has more here.  It has been five months since Tesla and SpaceX placed board member Steve Jurvetson on leave, and Elon Musk’s companies have still not said whether or not he will remain on their boards of directors, observes Recode.  Uber has denied that its sitting CTO, Thuan Pham, met with Cambridge Analytica — the controversial political consultancy at the center of a Facebook user data misuse scandal. TechCrunch has more here.  According to Bloomberg, Uber’s top candidate for CFO is Zane Rowe, who holds the same position at VMWare. Uber needs to fill the position to prepare for what could be the biggest IPO of next year. More here.  Reddit, one of the internet’s largest hubs for both traffic and controversy, announced today that it has hired former Time Inc. President of Digital Jen Wong to take on the role of COO. TechCrunch has more here.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will donate $1 million to support relief efforts on Kauai after severe floods hit the island’s North Shore over the weekend. Zuckerberg and wife Pricilla Chan own hundreds of acres of land on Kauai’s North Shore. More here in Pacific Business News.

Essential Reads

Mt. Gox and the surprising redemption of Bitcoin’s biggest villain.  Palantir is a creepy 14-year-old that knows everything about you, says Bloomberg. That could be a problem if it tries to go public.  New York’s attorney general has demanded an examination into 13 cryptocurrency exchanges, amongst them the Winklevoss twins’ Gemini exchange and Coinbase. AG Eric Schneiderman says move should be seen as a fact-finding mission as opposed to a crackdown.

Detours

The year’s 100 most influential people, according to Time.  The diary of a settler of Catan.  Memorial Day getaways.

Retail Therapy

Bah hah.

Well, hello! Happy Wednesday, everyone.:)

Top News

Facebook is starting to roll out new data privacy settings thanks to a law out of Europe. Here’s what you need to know. And here’s what should concern you.

Basis, a Year-Old Startup Developing a Price-Stable Cryptocurrency, Just Raised $133 Million from VCs

If you own any Bitcoin, you’re probably in the habit of watching its price fluctuate wildly. What you aren’t doing is using your Bitcoin to buy things. It’s too valuable, not to mention unpredictable.  Enter Basis, a year-old, 10-person, Hoboken, N.J.-based cryptocurrency startup at work on a “stable coin” whose elastic supply will ostensibly expand and contract to keep its value at about a dollar instead of all over the map. The company’s big idea: to develop a new token that people will actually use, instead of use to speculate.  Investors apparently love what Basis is cooking up. The upstart is announcing today that it has raised a somewhat stunning $133 million in funding from Bain Capital Ventures, GV, longtime hedge fund manager Stan Druckenmiller, one-time Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Foundation Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, WingVC, NFX Ventures, Valor Capital, Zhenfund, Ceyuan, Sky Capital, Digital Currency Group and others.  Reuters reported on part of the round last October, though CEO Nader Al-Naji, who cofounded the company with former Princeton classmates Lawrence Diao and Josh Chen, didn’t share specifics at the time on how much the company was in the process of raising.  Al-Naji continues to keep details close to the vest, declining in an interview yesterday to discuss when, exactly, Basis’s tokens will be in circulation. He also declined to share when he believes the token could see widespread adoption or to elaborate on the major apps with which he says Basis plans to integrate.  He did explain his love of Bitcoin, first fostered during his senior year of college in 2012 when he managed to mine 22 Bitcoins. (“There was free electricity on campus,” he told us with a laugh.) More here.

Whistleblower Susan Fowler is Backing California Legislation to End Forced Arbitration

Susan Fowler, the former Uber engineer whose blog post about sexual harassment and troubling internal workings led to the departure of CEO Travis Kalanick, is backing new legislation that aims to give victims of sexual harassment and other workplace discrimination the freedom to seek legal action, and to do it publicly.  Fowler is lending her support to bill AB-3080 — being presented publicly today by California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, the California Labor Federation, and the Economic Policy Institute — which would forbid employers from the practice of forced arbitration in response to discrimination complaints.  The proposed legislation tackles a worrying norm in which companies, including throughout tech, mandate that employees air any grievances before a private, third-party arbitrator who is typically paid for by the company itself.  The hearings happen in secret, with non-disclosure clauses preventing the claimant from talking about the details or filing a class-action lawsuit — and they are on the rise. The percentage of nonunion, private-sector employees covered by mandatory-arbitration clauses has more than doubled since the early 2000s, according to a study last year by the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C.  Though the issue has come up periodically in Silicon Valley — venture firm Kleiner Perkins tried forcing former employee Ellen Pao into arbitration when she sued the firm for gender discrimination — it hasn’t received widespread attention “for the same reason that it hasn’t gotten much attention from people who work in other industries,” says Fowler via email. “They don’t realize that it affects them, and they don’t realize how widespread and sinister the problem really is.”  Fowler says that she was “one of those people” for most of her life, knowing nothing about forced arbitration until she experienced what she describes as illegal treatment at Uber, after which she says she discovered that she “had no way to get justice.” Now that she knows about forced arbitration, she says, “I’m hell-bent on bringing attention to it and doing everything I can to prevent what happened to me at Uber from happening to anyone else.”  More here.

New Fundings

100Credit, a four-year-old, Beijing, China-based provider of credit services, has raised $159 million in Series C funding led by China Reform Fund Management, with participation from earlier backer Sequoia Capital China. China Money Network has more here.  Airway Therapeutics, a seven-year-old, Cincinnati, Oh.-based developer of interventions for acute and chronic lung disease that originally spun out of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, has raised $11 million in Series B funding. It didn’t disclose the investors. More here.   BookingBug, a 10-year-old, Boston-based appointment and scheduling platform, has raised $13.4 million in Series C funding from PeakSpan Capital and Downing Ventures. More here.  Coverfox, a five-year-old, Mumbai, India-based startup that’s among a handful of companies trying to digitize insurance in India, has raised $22 million in Series C funding. IFC, a sister organization of World Bank, led the round. Other participants include the insurance firm Transamerica and earlier backers SAIF Partners, Accel and Catamaran Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.  Funding Societies, a three-year-old, Singapore-based peer-to-peer lending platform, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by SoftBank Ventures Korea, with participation from Qualgro, LINE Ventures and earlier backersSequoia India, Golden Gate Ventures and JWC Ventures.  TechCrunch has more here.  Green Bits, a four-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based maker of point-of-sale software for cannabis retailers, has raised $17 million in Series A funding led by Tiger Global, with participation from Casa Verde Capital. CNBC has more here.  Nano-C, a 17-year-old, Westwood, Ma.-based company that develops nanostructured carbon for energy and electronics applications, has raised $3 million in new funding from Ray Stata, a cofounder of Analog Devices. More here.  Node, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that says its platform uses artificial intelligence to find sales leads, has raised $5 million in fresh funding, including from Recruit Strategic Partners, WndrCo, Aragon Capital,GingerBread Capital, Falmouth Ventures, and Open Field Capital. TechCrunch has more here.  Project44, a four-year-old, Chicago-based company that connects shippers to their carriers, has raised $35 million in new funding led by OpenView, with participation from 8VC and earlier backers Emergence Capital, Omidyar Technology Ventures, Chicago Ventures and Pritzker Group Venture Capital. The WSJ has more here.  RapidSOS, a six-year-old, New York-based startup that provides data for emergency response situations, raised $16 million in new funding led by Highland Capital Partners, with participation from Microsoft Ventures and CSAA Insurance Group. More here.  Redaptive, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based SaaS business focused on energy efficiency, has raised $20 million in funding led by CBRE, which is joined in the round by ENGIE New Ventures; GXP Investments, the venture capital arm of Great Plains Energy; and Linse Capital. More here.  ReviveMed, a year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based biotech startup whose tech is trying to overcome the difficulties of identifying a large set of metabolites for each patient, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Rivas Capital, with participation from TechU, Team Builder Ventures, and WorldQuant. TechCrunch has more on the MIT spinout here.  Squarefoot, a 7.5-year-old, New York-based workspace-seeking platform, has raised $7 million in funding led by Rosecliff Ventures, with participation from RRE Ventures, Triangle Peak Partners, and Armory Square Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.  Tala, a six-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based company that’s providing credit to millions of customers in emerging markets using non-traditional data, has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by Revolution Growth. Earlier backers IVP, Data Collective, Lowercase Capital, Ribbit Capital and Female Founders Fund. TechCrunch has more here.  Vicarious Surgical, a four-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based developer of VR-based surgical robotics, has raised $16.75 million in Series A funding co-led by Khosla Ventures and Innovation Endeavors, with participation from Gates Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures and Marc Benioff. MassDevice has more here.  Wonolo, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based staffing platform that helps businesses to fill their immediate labor needs, just raised $13 million in a Series B funding round led by Sequoia Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Pioneer Square Labs, a Seattle-based startup studio,  is expanding beyond its original company-building model and promising a new infusion of capital into the region’s startup ecosystem, thanks to a new $80 million fund. GeekWire has more here.

IPOs

There’s an IPO frenzy in Vietnam, but the market has a richer valuation than Shenzhen tech stocks, warns Bloomberg. More here.

People

Hedge fund manager Steve Cohen is bringing his passion for tech startups to Asia, along with his checkbook. Point72 Ventures, which invests mostly the billionaire’s money in early-stage companies, is starting to evaluate prospects on the continent after putting millions of dollars into startups in the Americas and Europe, says Bloomberg.  Activist investor Carl Icahn has amassed a stake in VMware, the cloud computing and virtualization software company majority-owned by Dell Technologies, says CNBC. It isn’t clear yet whether he has a particular agenda.  Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is renting Google’s original office and planning her next act. She talks with the New York Times about it.  Elon Musk told employees yesterday in an email that he wants to personally approve any Tesla expenditure of more than $1 million if an effort to pull the company into profitable territory. Recode has more here.   A conversation with legendary programmer Richard Stallman on the real meaning of “privacy rights” and why he only ever uses cash. In NYMag.

Essential Reads

Home Depot is launching its biggest tech hiring spree ever to protect its lead over Amazon, with more than 1,000 tech hires planned.  Best Buy will sell Amazon-powered TVs in its stores and on its website as Amazon makes another foray into our homes.

Detours

A Florida man has been accused of making 97 million robocalls. (Of course.)

Retail Therapy

Moto Rockers, for pint-size rebels.

Hi, happy Tuesday, all.:)

Top News

A Southwest jet engine blew out in flight today, killing one passenger and making an emergency landing in Philadelphia. As the plane dropped from the sky, seemingly bound for destruction, passenger Marty Martinez, who runs a digital marketing company called Social Revolt in Dallas, bought WiFi so he could broadcast one last picture on Facebook. Bloomberg has more here. Just in time for tax day: the IRS website to make payments is down.

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This Tiny AgTech Company Backed by Joe Lonsdale Thinks It Knows What Better-Funded Rivals Do Not

In November, we told you about Farmers Business Network, a social network for farmers that invites them to share their data, pool their know-how and bargain more effectively for better pricing from manufacturing companies. At the time, FBN, as it’s known, had just closed on $110 million in new funding in a round that brought its funding to roughly $200 million altogether.  That kind of financial backing might dissuade newcomers to the space, but a months-old startup called AgVend has just raised $1.75 million in seed funding on the premise that, well, FBN is doing it wrong. Specifically, AgVend’s pitch is that manufacturers aren’t so crazy about FBN getting between their offerings and their end users — in large part because FBN is able to secure group discounts on those users’ behalf.  AgVend is instead planning to work directly with manufacturers and retailers, selling their goods through its own site as well as helping them develop their own web shops. The idea is to “protect their channel pricing power,” explains CEO Alexander Reichert, who previously spent more than four years with Euclid Analytics, a company that helps brands monitor and understand their foot traffic. AgVend is their white knight, coming to save them from getting disrupted out of business. “Why cut them out of the equation?” he asks.  Whether farmers will go along is the question. Those who’ve joined FBN can ostensibly save money on seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and more by being invited to comparison shop through FBN’s own online store. It’s not the easiest sell, though. FBN charges farmers $600 per year to access its platform, which is presumably a hurdle for some.  AgVend meanwhile is embracing good-old-fashioned opacity.  More here.

New Fundings

Agentology, a five-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based startup whose rapid response service aims to help real estate sales reps vet leads and hand off potential clients, has raised $12 million in funding led by Defy.vc. TechCrunch has more here.  Applitools, a five-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based AI-based cloud engine that aims to validate all the visual aspects of any web, mobile and native app in an automated way, has raised $31 million in Series C funding led by OpenView, with participation from earlier backers Sierra Ventures, Magma Venture Partners, iAngels and La Maison. More here. AppOnboard, a two-year-old, L.A.-based startup that creates playable demos for mobile apps, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Korea Investment Partners, with participation from Mirae Asset Management, Mantaray, MTG, and Runa Capital. VentureBeat has more here.  Carpe, a nearly four-year-old, Durham, N.C.-based startup selling over-the-counter antiperspirant for sweaty hands and feet, has raised $2.3 million in seed funding led by Carolina Angel Network and Duke Angel Network, with participation fromLaunchCapital, Rubicon Venture Capital, and Triangle Angel Partners. More here.  Cohesity, a five-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based data-storage company founded by Nutanix cofounder Mohit Aron, is reportedly in talks to raise at least $150 million in funding at a valuation of roughly $1 billion. No big surprise that SoftBank’s Vision Fund is said to be involved. Recode has the story here. Drift, a four-year-old, Boston-based conversational marketing and sales platform, has raised $60 million in fresh funding led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from earlier backers CRV and General Catalyst. TechCrunch has more here.  Eightfold.ai, a two-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based “talent intelligence platform” has raised $18 million in Series B funding co-led by Foundation Capitaland Lightspeed Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.  Harbor, a young, San Francisco-based blockchain platform that we’d written about in February when it raised $10 million in funding, has raised another $28 million in funding. Founders Fund led the round and was joined by investors Andreessen Horowitz and Pantera Capital, as well as earlier backers Craft Ventures, Vy Capital, and Valor Equity Partners. TechCrunch has more here.  Imperative Execution, a 1.5-year-old, Stamford, Ct.-based startup that aims to prevent high-frequency traders from eating away at the profits of stock-pickers, has raised an undisclosed amount of money from Point 72 Ventures, the venture fund of longtime hedge fund manager (and stock picker) Stephen Cohen. The WSJ has more here.  Instant Financial, a 2.5-year-old, Vancouver-based “financial wellness” platform for employees, has raised $11.4 million in Series A funding led by TTV Capital, with participation from ITC Partners Fund, Kinetic Ventures, and Real Ventures. More here.  Kdan Mobile, a nine-year-old, Taiwan-based maker of cloud software for content creators, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from W.I. Harper Group,Darwin Venture Management and Accord Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.  LawGeex, a four-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based maker of business contract review automation software, has raised $12 million in new funding led by Aleph, with participation from earlier backer Lool Ventures. More here.  LimFlow, a 1.5-year-old, Paris-based medical device maker focused on Critical Limb Ischemia (CLI), has raised $33.5 million in Series C funding led by Sofinnova Partners. More here.  Parsley Health, a two-year-old, New York-based company that charges $150 a month for direct primary care,  has raised  $10 million in Series A funding led byFirstMark Capital, with participation from Amplo, Trail Mix Ventures, Combineand The Chernin Group. TechCrunch has more here.  Qapital, a five-year-old, New York-based personal finance management platform, has raised $30 million in new funding led by the Scandinavian mutual fund manager Swedbank Robur, with participation from other investors, includingNorthzone. More here.  QingKe, a six-year-old, Shanghai, China-based rental apartment service, has raised $100 million in funding co-led by Morgan Stanley Asia and Crescent Point. More here. Scality, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based software storage firm, has raised $60 million in funding, including from Harbert European Growth Capital. VentureBeat has more here.  Tempo Automation, a nearly five-year-old, San Francisco-based company that’s focused on getting quick prototypes to Bay Area tech firms looking to rapidly iterate on a design, has raised $20 million in funding led by Point72 Ventures, with participation from Dolby Ventures, Industry Ventures and Cendana Capital, along with earlier backers Lux Capital, Uncork Capital and AME. Axios has more here.  Turo, the nine-year-old, San Francisco-based car-sharing marketplace, has raised $12 million in new Series D funding from American Express and Sumitomo in a move that brings the round to roughly $104 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.  XpertSea, a six-year-old, Québec City-based developer of technologies aimed athelping hatcheries, farms and research centers track and manage aquatic populations with greater accuracy and speed, has raised $10 million in Series A financing. The round was led by Obvious Ventures and Aqua-Spark, and includes participation from seed investor Real Ventures. More here.

New Funds

Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet and longtime VC Nick Brown have raised their first venture fund with $75 million in capital commitments, including from billionaire mall owner Rick Caruso. The firm, Imaginary Ventures, has already made 11 investments and is looking for early-stage opportunities at the intersection of retail and technology in both Europe and the U.S. We have more on the new fund here.  New Leaf Ventures, a 13-year-old, healthcare-focused venture firm, is raising up to $275 million for its fourth vehicle, according to an SEC filing. The outfit never disclosed how much it had raised for its third fund, but it was at one point targeting $375 million, according to the WSJ. More here.  Parade Ventures, a Los Gatos, Ca.-based pre-seed and seed-stage firm recently formed by Shawn Merani — who’d previously cofounded and been a partner at Flight Ventures in San Francisco — is looking to raise up to $25 million for its debut fund, shows an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. Not much more here (the elephant notwithstanding).

Exits

Adobe says it has acquired Sayspring, a startup that helps developers prototype and build the voice interfaces for their Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant apps. The company says the Sayspring team will join Adobe tomorrow and that it’ll then start integrating the company’s technology into its own products. TechCrunch has more here.  Carvana, an online marketplace for buying used vehicles that went public last year, is acquiring Car360, a three-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based startup that’s expected to help improve the car-buying experience through enhanced imagery. The deal cost Carvana $6.7 million in cash and another $15.2 million in stock. TechCrunch has more here.  Livongo Health, the Mountain View, Ca.-based digital health startup focused on managing chronic conditions that just raised $110 million in funding last week, has acquired Retrofit, a Chicago-based online weight loss platform. Retrofit, founded in 2011, had raised $15.7 million according to Crunchbase, including from Cambia Health Solutions, Hyde Park Angel Network and DFJ. American Inno has more here.

IPOs

Docusign, the San Francisco-based e-signature platform, has revealed more about its IPO plans, which include selling 21.7 million shares at between $24 and $26 apiece. That band would give the company a market valuation of $3.8 billion at the mid-range. GeekWire has more here.  Yet another Chinese technology company is headed for an IPO, reports Bloomberg.Meilishuo, the online fashion retailer that’s focused on women and backed byTencent Holdings, is in talks with several investment banks about a U.S. offering that could value it at about $4 billion, it says. More here.

People

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn is stepping down after eight years on the job. She broke the news at the Commission’s monthly open meeting, confirming the plans to move on that she has mentioned occasionally since the new administration took over. More here.  Banking heir Matthew Mellon has passed away at age 54. According to Page Six, Mellon was attending a drug rehabilitation facility in Cancun, Mexico, having battled addiction issues throughout his adult life. Mellon, says the report, had most recently made a fortune in cryptocurrency, turning a $2 million investment in Ripple into $1 billion dollars.  Myrna Soto, who has just been hired as the first female partner at Trident Capital Cybersecurity, a San Mateo, Ca.-based venture capital firm focused exclusively on digital security. Soto was previously Comcast’s chief information security officer.

Essential Reads

At Facebook, median pay tops $240,000.  A former Cambridge Analytica employee meanwhile said today that the number of Facebook users whose data may have been comprised in recent years is potentially “much greater than 87 million.”

Detours

San Francisco’s terrifying seismic gamble.  On a lighter note! The best comedies of 2018 (so far).  John Mulaney’s 10 best SNL sketches.

Retail Therapy

Boosted’s electric skateboard: now shorter and cheaper.

Happy Monday, all! Hope yours is going well. We’ve been on calls, in meetings, and in the middle of a laptop switcheroo; if we missed anything, we’ll catch you up tomorrow.:)

Top News

The U.S. Department of Commerce just banned American companies from selling components to leading Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE for seven years for violating an agreement in a sanctions violation case. Industry watchers expect the move to pretty much destroy ZTE’s handset business. Reuters has more here.  Elon Musk’s Boring Co. raised $113 million in equity to dig tunnels and develop a high-speed transportation system known as the hyperloop. The startup disclosed the investment in an SEC filing processed earlier today. Bloomberg has more here.

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New Fundings

AgNext, a two-year-old, India-based agriculture data firm, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Omnivore. The Economic Times has more here.  Ceterus, a 10-year-old, Charleston, S.C.-based maker of accounting software for small-business entrepreneurs, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Harbert Growth Partners, with participation from earlier investorsTechOperators, Grotech Ventures, Idea Fund Partners, and Alerion Ventures. More here.  Embibe, a 5.5-year-old, Bengaluru, India-based online education platform that says it uses data analytics to capture and address student weaknesses, has raised $180 million from Reliance, which now owns a majority of the company. Your Story has more here.  GrAI Matter Labs, a two-year-old, Paris, France-based ultra-low power neuromorphic computing startup, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led byiBionext, with participation from 360 Capital Partners and 3T Finance. More here. Kolide, a two-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based infrastructure analytics company, raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Matrix Partners. TechCrunch has more here.  Level Ex, a three-year-old, Chicago-based medical technology company creating professional video games for physicians, has raised an undisclosed amount in funding from OSF Ventures. MedCity News has more here.  Mixcloud, a 10-year-old, London-based long-form digital audio streaming platform, has raised $11.5 million in funding led by WndrCo. TechCrunch has more here.  Sensu, a year-old, Portland, Ore.-based full-stack monitoring platform, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Battery Ventures, with participation from Foundry Group. TechCrunch has more here.  SpaceX, the 16-year-old, Hawthorne, Ca.-based maker of rockets and other spacecraft, is reportedly aising $507 million of private capital in a deal that will value the company at $25 billion. As Fortune notes, the deal would rank SpaceX just behind Uber and Airbnb among the most valuable startups. More here.  Sword Health, a six-year-old, Porto, Portugal-based company whose digital physiotherapy solution allows patients to be treated remotely in their own homes, has raised $4.6 million in seed funding from Green Innovatons and Vesalius Biocapital.  TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Caerus Ventures, a 5.5-year-old, West Palm Beach, Fla.-based seed and early-stage venture firm, is looking to raise up to $100 million for its second fund, shows an SEC filing first flagged by Fortune. More here.  Niv Dror, AngelList’s former head of marketing, has launched a $3 million venture-capital fund called Shrug Capital, stylized as ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Capital. Business Insider has more here.  Gili Raanan, general partner at Sequoia Capital Israel, has raised $50 million for a new venture capital fund called Cyberstarts that plans to invest in 10 cybersecurity companies. Investors in the fund include Sequoia Capital and Check Point Software cofounders Shlomo Kramer and Marius Nacht. Reuters has more here.  Octopus Ventures, the 11-year-old, London-based early-stage venture fund, says it has closed its newest fund with roughly $285 million, bringing its total assets under management to roughly $1.2 billion. The new fund is 64 percent bigger than the firm’s last fund, closed in 2016. Bloomberg has more here.  Chinese venture capital firm Qiming Venture Partners has announced the closing of three new funds totaling $1.39 billion. The new funds include Qiming Venture USD Fund VI, with closed with $935 million; Qiming Venture RMB Fund V with RMB2.1 billion ($334 million); and Qiming U.S. Healthcare Fund I, which the firm closed with with $120 million in commitments. China Money Network has more on the different funds here.

Exits

Boston Scientific has agreed to acquire nVision Medical, a San Bruno, Calif.-based developer of a medical device to detect ovarian cancer and tube blockages, for roughly $275 million, including $150 million in an upfront payment. nVision had raised just $16.4 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. Its backers included Arboretum Ventures, Catalyst Health Ventures and Astia. Mass Device has more here.  Coinbase, the high-flying cryptocurrency exchange, announced plans earlier today to acquire Earn.com, the five-year-old startup that uses the blockchain for its paid-email service, in a deal worth more than $120 million in cash, stock, and some crypto assets. In addition, Coinbase has appointed Earn.com co-founder and CEO Balaji Srinivasan as its first CTO. TechCrunch has lots more here.  The seven-year-old coding school General Assembly has agreed to be acquired for $412.5 million in cash by Swiss staffing and workforce development company Adecco. General Assembly raised nearly $120 million in venture funding between 2011 and 2015, with a final round at a post-money valuation of around $440 million. Axios has more here.  Goldman Sachs has acquired Clarity Money, a two-year-old, New York-based personal finance app focused on monthly bills. Clarity had raised $14.5 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. Backers included RRE Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Maveron and Citi Ventures. Reuters has more here.

IPOs

Evelo Biosciences, a Cambridge, Mass.-based developer of monoclonal microorganisms for treating inflammatory diseases, has filed to raise $100 million in an IPO. The company has raised more than $170 million in venture funding. FierceBiotech has more here.  nLight, a Vancouver, Wash.-based maker of semiconductor lasers, has set the terms of its IPO terms, revealing plans to sell 5.4 million shares at between $13 and $15 for a valuation of $462 million if prices in the middle of that range. The company has raised roughly $200 million from investors. GeekWire has more here.  Pluralsight, the Utah-based online education company, has filed for an IPO that seeks to sell up to $100 million in shares, according to an SEC filing. The company has raised roughly $192 million from investors. TechCrunch has more here.  Smartsheet, a Bellevue, Wa.-based SaaS platform for managing and automating collaborative work that had raised around $106 million from VCs, just revealed plans to sell 11.6 million shares at between $10 and $12 in an IPO. GeekWire has more here.

People

VC John Doerr talks OKRs at TED. Renowned investor Tim Draper, who once advocated splitting California into six states, says he would now settle for three. Paul Jacobs, the ousted chairman of Qualcomm, is making progress in lining up enough funding to offer to take the chipmaker private  and could make the bid within a few months, says Bloomberg.  Lerer Hippeau is now taking over Binary Capital’s second fund, too.

Essential Reads

How Russian Facebook ads divided and targeted U.S. voters before the 2016 presidential election.  Google has worked out a fascinating, slightly scary way for AI to isolate voices in a crowd.  Amazon, which sells bulk items to business customers through its Amazon Business marketplace, has shelved its plan to sell and distribute pharmaceutical products after considering it last year, according to CNBC’s sources. More here.  Oof. Thousands of Android mobile apps are improperly tracking children, according to a new study.

Detours

Dan Scavino is the the White House’s social media director and the only man that Trump trusts with his Twitter account.  The 100 pages that shaped comics.  Forty sea gulls wrecked his hotel room. Then came the pepperoni pardon.

Retail Therapy

The 50 most luxurious hotels in New York. When words won’t suffice.

Friday! [Turns up Daft Punk.] Hope you have a fun weekend, everyone. See you Monday.:)

Top News

You’ll soon be able to send expiring emails in Gmail.  Walmart is likely to reach a deal to buy a majority stake in Indian e-commerce player Flipkart by the end of June in what could be the U.S. retail giant’s biggest acquisition of an online business, reports Reuters.  Apple just detailed how it plans to crack down on leaks . . . in a leaked memo.  Elon Musk offered a rare mea culpa earlier today, tweeting, “Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake,” he wrote. “Humans are underrated.” More here.

New Fundings

Agreement Express, a 17-year-old, Vancouver-based wealth management, payments, and insurance provider platform, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Frontier Capital. More here.  Biocytogen, a 10-year-old, Beijing-based contract research organization that’s focused on gene-targeted animal models, just raised $65 million in Series C funding. CMB International led the round. FierceBiotech has more here.   empow, a four-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based security firm, has raised $10 million in funding led by Ascent Venture Partners. More here.  Honest Buildings, a six-year-old, New York-based project management platform for commercial real estate owners, has raised $25 million in Series B funding, including from QuadReal and Altus Group. More here.  Kadena, a year-old startup that’s selling private distributed ledger technology, has raised $12 million in Series B funding, including from Devonshire Investors, SV Angel, Multicoin Capital, Susquehanna International Group and Asimov Ventures. Coindesk has more here.  Local Crate, a three-year-old, St. Paul, Mn.-based meal kit startup, just raised $1.4 million in seed funding from The Syndicate Fund, Matchstick Ventures, M25 Group and Router Ventures. More here.  Mapillary, a 4.5-year-old, Malmo, Sweden-based street-level imagery platform that extracts map data using computer vision, has raised $15 million in Series B funding, led by BMW i Ventures, with participation from Samsung Catalyst Fund, NavInfo, and the company’s earlier backers. More here.  Onapsis, a nine-year-old, Boston-based company that sells business-critical application cybersecurity and compliance software, raised $31 million in Series C funding. LLR Partners led the round, with participation from earlier investors .406 Ventures, Evolution Equity Partners and Arsenal Venture Partners. More here.  PullRequest, a year-old, Austin, Tex.-based code-review-as-a-service startup, has raised has raised $8 million Series A funding just months after closing on $2.3 million in seed funding. The new round was led by Gradient Ventures, which also led the seed financing. Other investors in the round include Y Combinator,  Fika Ventures, Lynett Capital and Defy Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Lerer Hippeau, the New York-based early-stage venture firm, has raised $150 million in capital commitments for its sixth fund, shows an SEC filing. The firm closed its fifth flagship fund with $113 million in 2015. It separately closed a $28 million fund for follow-on investments in its breakout portfolio companies last year. More here.

Exits

The cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is acquiring Cipher Browser, a decentralized app browser and wallet for the Ethereum blockchain that it will be using to bolster its own similar product. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.  Yahoo Japan says it’s buying 40 percent of a Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange — BitARG Exchange Tokyo — in the process becoming the latest major Japanese financial services company to join the digital money industry. CNBC has more here.

People

Elliott Broidy, an L.A.-based venture capital and a deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, resigned from his position today after it was reported that Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney, negotiated a $1.6 million settlement between Broidy and a Playboy playmate following an affair. It’s the second time that Broidy has been in the news over the last month.  Ben Davenport, the cofounder and CTO of blockchain security company BitGo, said today that he’s stepping down to spend more time with his family and the broader bitcoin community as he determines next steps. Coindesk has more here.  Pappas Capital, a Research Triangle Park, N.C.-based venture firm focused on life sciences, has brought aboard Tom Mathers, the the former CEO of CoLucid Pharmaceuticals, a Pappas Capital portfolio company that was acquired last year by Eli Lilly & Company for about $1 billion. Mathers, who is based in Boston, is expected to help create a new biopharmaceutical company that will be backed by Pappas.

Data

Games, dating apps and streaming services contributed to a rise in consumer spending in iPhone apps last year, according to new data from app store intelligence firm, Sensor Tower. The firm found that U.S. iPhone users spent 23 percent more on in-app purchases in 2017 than they did the year prior – or, an average of $58 per active user was spent on in-app purchases, up from $47 in 2016. TechCrunch has much more here.  Asian investors directed nearly as much money into startups last year as American investors did—40 percent of the record $154 billion in global venture financing versus 44 percent, according to a new WSJ analysis of private markets data. More here.

Essential Reads

An electrified road for charging vehicles was just opened in Sweden.  Waymo, the self-driving unit of Google parent Alphabet, this week applied to test cars without drivers on California roads.  A look at Red Antler, the increasingly powerful Brooklyn-based creative agency that has helped brands like Allbirds and Casper hone their customer pitches.

Detours

Nine ways you’re cooking pasta wrong (including pouring the sauce on top).  How to get the most out of college visits with your kid.  The monkey selfie lawsuit lives.

Retail Therapy

If you need more attention, this should do the trick.

Hi! Hope you’re having a terrific Thursday, everyone. We happen to be very tired. StrictlyVC’s beloved mascot was up all night after snarfing something he shouldn’t have eaten. Oh, Brodie! (He’s completely fine now, by the way.)

Top News

Top News Tesla is still fighting with the NTSB over its probe into a recent, fatal accident involving one of its cars. Tesla suggested the driver was to blame. The NTSB viewed Tesla’s public statements as a violation of its protocols. Now, the NTSB is saying it booted Tesla from its investigation, while Tesla is saying it withdrew itself. More here.

Background Checks Pay for Checkr; It Just Raised $100 Million from Investors

Criminal records, driving records, employment verifications. Companies that use on-demand employees need to know that all the boxes have been checked before they send workers into the world on their behalf, and they often need those boxes checked quickly.  A growing number of them use Checkr, a San Francisco-based company that says it currently runs one million background checks per month for more than 10,000 customers, including, most newly, the car-share company Lyft, the services marketplace Thumbtack, and eyewear seller Warby Parker.  Investors are betting many more customers will come aboard, too. This morning, Checkr  is announcing $100 million in Series C funding led by T. Rowe Price, which was joined by earlier backers Accel and Y Combinator.  The round brings the company’s total funding to roughly $150 million altogether, which is a lot of capital in not a lot of time. Yet Checkr is very well-positioned considering the changing nature of work. The company was born when software engineers Daniel Yanisse and Jonathan Perichon worked together at same-day delivery service startup Deliv and together eyed the chance to build a faster, more efficient background check. The number of flexible workers has only exploded in the four years since.  So-called alternative employment arrangements, in the parlance of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, including gig economy jobs, have grown from representing 10.1 percent of U.S. employees in 2005 to 15.8 percent of employees in 2015. And that percentage looks to rise further still as more digital platforms provide direct connections between people needing a service and workers willing to provide it.  Meanwhile, Checkr, which has been capitalizing on this race for talent, has its sights on much more than the on-demand workforce, says Yanisse, who is Checkr’s CEO. While the 180-person company counts Uber, Instacart, and GrubHub among its base of customers, Checkr is also actively expanding outside of the tech and gig economy, he says. It recently began working with the staffing giant Adecco, for example, as well as the major insurer Allstate.  At present, all of these customers pay Checkr per background check. That may change over time, however.  More here.

New Fundings

Aetion, a six-year-old, New York-based company whose software analyzes how drugs are performing in the real world, has raised $36 million in Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates and Amgen Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Flare Capital Partners, Lakestar, and Oxeon Ventures. The company has now raised $50 million altogether. The WSJ has more here.  Billie, a six-month-old, New York-based women’s razor subscription startup, has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Silverton Partners, with participation from earlier investors Female Founders Fund and Lakehouse Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.  Cluno, a year-old, Munich, Germany-based startup offering what it calls a “car subscription” service, has raised €7 million ($8.6 million) in Series A funding. The round was led by Acton Capital Partners, with participation from previous investor Atlantic Labs. TechCrunch has more here.  East Meet East, a three-year-old, New York-based matchmaking service focused on connecting Asian people in the U.S., has raised $4 million in Series A funding, including from 500 Startups and new investors Asahi Medialab Ventures, DG Lab Fund, Mobile Internet Capital, and the ad tech firm Septeni. The startup previously raised $1 million in November 2016. TechCrunch has more here.  Livongo Health, a four-year-old, Mountain View, CA-based company behind a chronic disease management platform, has raised a whopping $105 million in new funding led by earlier backers General Catalyst and Kinnevik, with participation from other earlier investors that include DFJ, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Microsoft Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, Zaffre Investments, and 7wire Ventures. Echo Health Ventures, a new investor, also joined the round. Modern Healthcare has more here.  Punchh, a seven-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based marketing platform that serves more than 115 restaurant chains, has raised $20 million in Series B funding.Sapphire Ventures led the round, with participation from earlier investor Cervin Ventures. The company has now raised $31 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.  Revolut, a three-year-old, London-based international payments startup that functions like a digital bank, allowing users to transfer money across different currencies without transaction fees, is being valued at $1.4 billion in a new fundraising round that DST Global is expected to lead, says Recode. More here.  ServiceTitan, a nearly six-year-old, Glendale. Ca.-based software app for service professionals, has raised $62 million in Series C funding led by Battery Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Bessemer Venture Partners and ICONIQ Capital. TechCrunch has more here.  TravelPerk, a three-year-old, Barcelona, Spain-based SaaS startup with an end-to-end business travel platform, has raised $21 million in Series B funding co-led by Target Global and Felix Capital. Earlier backers Spark Capital and Sunstonealso participated in the round, alongside new investor Amplo. TechCrunch has more here.  Xeeva, a four-year-old, Madison Heights, Mi..-based company that sells procurement and sourcing software, has raised more than $40 million in funding led by PeakEquity Partners. More here.  Zaius, a six-year-old, Boston-based customer data company that works with consumer brands like Tea Forte and Burt’s Bees Baby, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Insight Venture Partners. Other participants in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $50.8 million, include Matrix Partners,Underscore VC and Leaders Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

IPOs

Subscription management software company Zuora raised $154 million today in an IPO that both topped its price goals and sold more shares than expected. The San Mateo-based company began trading on the NYSE this morning at $20 — 43 percent above the $14 price it set for the offering. It also sold 11 million shares in the IPO, giving it an implied valuation of about $1.44 billion. It was expected to sell 10 million shares for between $11 and $13 a share, reports Silicon Valley Business Journal.

Exits

Spotify announced this morning it has acquired the five-year-old, music licensing platform Loudr, which offers products and services that allow content creators, aggregators, and digital music services to identify, track and pay royalties to music publishers. Loudr had raised less than a million dollars from investors, according to Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.  WeWork is buying up one of its largest competitors in China: Naked Hub. The deal was widely reported by Chinese media yesterday, but WeWork has now confirmed it through a blog post from its CEO Adam Neumann. Terms of the transaction aren’t being disclosed but Bloomberg reports that it’s worth around $400 million. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg gets the Jim Carrey sketch treatment.  The FDA has launched a criminal investigation into research by a Southern Illinois University professor who injected people with his unauthorized herpes vaccine. According to the Daily Beast, the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations is also looking into the professor’s former company, Rational Vaccines, backed in part by billionaire Peter Thiel, who is considered a proponent of rolling back FDA regulations to speed up medical innovation.

Essential Reads

Essential Reads A comprehensive list of the 43 things that Mark Zuckerberg said that he will follow up on during his two days of congressional hearings this week. The HomePod isn’t the hot seller Apple had wanted. Google is redesigning Gmail, and here’s what it will look like. Nintendo is looking to startups to develop new ways to play or use its hit gaming console, and the company has teamed up with San Francisco-based Scrum Ventures toward that end.

Detours

What it’s like to make a million dollars a year. Cheap red wine that’s delicioso. Mother and Child: Portraits of prominent women and their children.

Retail Therapy

Perfect ice balls for your whiskey.  The Impossible Foods burger is now at White Castle.  The Sobro side table. Warning: it will make your other furniture look stupid.

It’s Wednesday! We hope you’re very well. We’re having to rush out the door unexpectedly, so you’re missing some sections, fyi.

Top News

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg emerged mostly unruffled after two grueling days of congressional hearings, reassuring investors with his composure even as lawmakers scoffed at his apologies over failures to protect user privacy and his assurances to do better.

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Tentrr is Turning Private Land into Glampgrounds, with the help of VCs

If you’ve ever gone camping and found yourself thinking it kind of sucks, likely because you’re too close to other campers, you might be interested in learn about Tentrr, a three-year-old, 47-person company that’s promising to make it “dirt simple” to enjoy the great outdoors. How: by striking deals with private landowners who are willing to host semi-permanent campsites on their property.  What do these look like? Picture elevated decks with Adirondack chairs, canvas expedition tents, wood picnic tables and sun showers, not to mention a fire pit, lanterns, dry food storage, cookware, a camping toilet and air mattresses that, courtesy of most hosts, will come with fresh linens.  Venture capitalists certainly appreciate the startup’s pitch. Tentrr — founded by one-time investment banker turned former NYSE managing director Michael D’Agostino —  has raised $13 million to date, including a newly closed $8 million Series A round led by West, a San Francisco-based venture studio that both funds startups and helps them market their goods and services.  No doubt the investors are looking at the overall market, whose numbers are compelling. According to one trade association, for example, the outdoor recreation industry represents a $887 billion opportunity, with Americans shelling out $24 billion annually on campsites alone.  Still, it’s easy to wonder how scalable the company will be. Tentrr had 100 campsites up and running in the Northeastern U.S. as of the end of last year. D’Agostino expects it will have 1,000 sites by year end, including on the West Coast, where it will begin installing camps this summer, but this assumes that Tentrr can convince enough families with sufficiently large properties that partnering with the company is worthwhile.  D’Agostino says its landowner partners need to have 15 acres at least and that the average property on the platform currently is much larger than that. He also says they keep 80 percent of whatever they decide to charge campers to stay on their grounds.  For what it’s worth, Tentrr doesn’t seem to have much in the way of direct competition if you exclude state campgrounds. Venture-backed Hipcamp, for example, which raised a small amount of seed funding back in 2014, partners with private landowners to help arrange camping experiences, but it mostly acts as search engine. Meanwhile, industry giant Airbnb offers unique experiences that include camping, but Tentrr is largely about offering a standardized experience. The idea is to leave fewer questions about what to expect. In fact, D’Agostino says roughly 40 percent of Tentrr customers are first-time campers.  We know that if the service makes it way to California, we’re likely to try it, having suffered through some fairly crummy camping experiences. If you’re also interested in learning more, you might check out our conversation with D’Agostino, edited for length. We chatted yesterday.  More here.

New Fundings

Liberis, an 11-year-old, London-based fintech company that provides capital to small businesses, has raised £57.5 million ($81.5 million) in new, and largely debt, funding. Backers include British Business Investments (the commercial arm of the tax payer-funded British Business Bank), Paragon Bank, and BCI Finance. TechCrunch has more here.  Symphony, the four-year-old, Palo Alto, C-based communications platform for the financial services market, raised $67 million in new funding, including fromBarclays, Bpifrance and CLSA. Finextra has a bit more here.

New Funds

Chris Paik, a cofounding partner of Thrive Capital in New York is leaving to raise his own fund, reports Axios, which says Paik isn’t sharing any details just yet.

IPOs

While Spotify‘s public listing last week was novel and successful at generating intrigue, it doesn’t change anything for most companies or the IPO industry at large, according to banking experts interviewed by Business Insider. More here (sub required.)

Exits

Palo Alto Networks, the California-based, publicly traded information security firm, announced today that it’s acquiring the Israeli startup firm Secdo. The Israeli media says the price was roughly $100 million. Times of Israel has more here.

People

Almost exactly three years ago, Patrick Pichette surprised industry observers when he left his powerful job as the CFO of Google to, well, enjoy his life. As he described the decision at the time, he wanted to “enjoy a perfectly fine midlife crisis full of bliss and beauty.” Now, Pichette is back in a role that should afford him both mental stimulation, as well as plenty of time to relax. He’s become a VC. More here. Congress can’t seem to stop asking Mark Zuckerberg about sisters Diamond and Silk. If you’re wondering who they are, read on.

Jobs

Lyft is looking to hire someone to lead its operations strategy team. The job is in San Francisco.

Essential Reads

The fact that Facebook  probably has a profile of you whether you’re a Facebook user or not might come as a surprise to some users, though today even CEO Mark Zuckerberg denied knowledge of the practice — or at least the term used to describe it. Mark Zuckerberg’s defense when asked in a Senate hearing yesterday about a lack of competition to Facebook was to cite that the average American uses eight social apps. what he didn’t say: Facebook owns three of the top 10 U.S. iOS apps and it’s aggressively looking to topple the rest.

Detours

Why we boil lobsters while they’re still alive.   Ten vacation ideas for a dreamy June getaway.  Know how manufacturers insist that consumers will void their warranty if they use unauthorized repair services or third-party parts? Those policies are illegal, the Federal Trade Commission announced today.

Retail Therapy

An Alexa car charger that’s half off today.

Happy Tuesday! As many of you know, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is right now delivering his Senate congressional testimony and you can catch the live-stream here. We’ve been watching closely and we’re not shocked to see Facebook shares are up more than four percent today. No matter what you think of the company, Zuckerberg has been masterful at addressing the senators’ questions and navigating around those with more contentious approaches, like Senator Lindsey Graham, who’d asked him if Facebook is a monopoly. (“It doesn’t feel that way to me,” Zuckerberg had answered, to laughter in the room.) Interestingly, Zuckerberg also just hinted that Facebook might one day offer a paid, premium version of its social network. Much more tomorrow. We’ve been squeezing in calls and have a couple of interesting young companies to tell you about.

Top News

Facebook announced a bug and data abuse bounty program today that will pay up to $40,000 to people who catch large data leaks. It’s believed to be the first program of its kind in the tech industry. CNBC has more here.  Chinese billionaire Jack Ma’s financial-technology business, Ant Financial, is about to vault into the ranks of the world’s most valuable companies, says the WSJ. According to its sources, Ant, which owns the mobile payments network Alipay and is among China’s largest non-bank lenders, is preparing to raised $9 billion in private funding at a valuation of $150 billion. More here.

New Fundings

Alan, a two-year-old, Paris, France-based health insurance startup, has raised $28.3 million in Series A funding led by Index Ventures, with participation fromXavier Niel, CNP Assurances, Partech and Portag3 Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.  BayoTech, a three-year-old, Albuquerque, N.M.-based chemical reactor company, has raised $12.5 million in Series B funding from an undisclosed strategic investor and earlier backers Cottonwood Technology Fund and Sun Mountain Capital. More here.  Chargifi, a nearly five-year-old, London-based company behind a wireless power charging platform, has raised $7 million in funding led by Accelerated Digital Ventures, with participation from Hewlett Packard Enterprise and firstminute capital. More here.  CloudMargin, a five-year-old, London-based web-based collateral management platform, has raised $10 million in funding, including from Leucadia National Corporation; the parent company of investment banking firm Jefferies; IHS Markit; and Illuminate Financial Management. More here.  CoinTracker, a nine-month-old, San Francisco-based portfolio and tax manager for cryptocurrencies, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Initialized Capital, with Y Combinator and numerous angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.  Directly, a seven-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based customer-service startup, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Northgate, with participation fromMicrosoft and earlier backers Costanoa Ventures and True Ventures. More here.  Eporta, a 3.5-year-old, London-based business-to-business interior marketplace startup, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Canvas Ventures, with participation from LocalGlobe, Oxford Capital Partners, Talis Capital, andSamos Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.  Expel, a two-year-old, McLean, Va.-based cybersecurity company, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Scale Venture Partners. More here.  Fleetsmith, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based cloud-based Mac management product that automates the management of apps and settings, has raised $7.7 million in Series A funding, including from Upfront Ventures, Index Ventures andHarrison Metal. TechCrunch has more here.  InsightFinder, a three-year-old, New York-based cloud monitoring and system analytics startup, has raised $2 million in pre-Series A funding led by Eight Roads Ventures, with participation from The Propel(x) Network. More here.  Karamba Security, a three-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based company at work on endpoint security software designed to protect connected cars from cyber attacks, has raised $10 million in funding led by Western Technology Investment. More here.  Knotel, a two-year-old, New York-based startup that’s competing with WeWork in the flexible-office-space business and planning a service that will use blockchain to track space listings, just closed on $70 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Newmark Knight Frank and The Sapir Organization, with participation from The Wolfson Group, The Moinian Group, and Wainbridge Capital. The WSJ has more here.  Say, a New York-based startup seeking to upend the proxy-voting process, has raised $8 million in seed funding led by Point72 Ventures, with participation fromQuiet Capital, Struck Capital, Core Innovation Capital, and other investors. Barron’s has more here. (Sub required.)  Spectral Edge, a four-year-old, Cambridge, U.K-based startup with a mathematical technique for improving  photographic imagery in real time, has raised $5.3 million in Series A funding from earlier backers Parkwalk Advisors and IQ Capital. TechCrunch has more here.  StackRox, a four-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based startup that provides security for containerized cloud-native applications, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Redpoint Ventures, with participation from follow-on investments from Sequoia Capital and Amplify Partners. More here.  Veerum, a four-year-old, Calgary, Canada-based artificial intelligence platform that aims to predict and resolve issues on construction projects, has raised $3.9 million in seed funding led by Brick & Mortar Ventures, with participation from Blackhorn Ventures and Creative Ventures.

New Funds

Conductive Capital, a new Bay Area-based expansion-stage venture firm, has secured $100 million from electronics giant Panasonic for its debut fund. The firm’s cofounders are Carey Lai, who previously worked at Intel Capital and IVP, and Paul Yeh, formerly of Kleiner Perkins. The two were previously roommates, says TechCrunch. More here.  The European Investment Fund and the European Commission have launched VentureEU, a pan-European venture capital funds-of-funds program to boost investment in innovative startup and scale up companies across Europe. The idea is to close the investment gap with the U.S. VentureBeat has more here.

IPOs

Carbon Black, a Waltham, Ma.-based maker of endpoint security software, has filed for a $100 million IPO. Its biggest outside shareholders include Accomplice,Highland Capital Partners, Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, .406 Ventures and The Blackstone Group. TechCrunch has more here.  Huya, a six-year-old, Guangzhou, China-based company that says it’s the largest live-streaming gaming platform in the country, is planning to raise $200 million through the sale of American Depository Shares on the NYSE, according to a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The pricing of the ADS and exact timing of the listing were not included in the filing. China Money Network has more here.  Zuora, the 12-year-old Foster City, Ca.-based subscription billing software company, boosted its IPO pricing today, from an initial $9 to $11, to $11 to $13. It still plans to offer 10 million shares. Nasdaq has more here.

Exits

Footwear and clothing giant Nike announced last night that it has acquired a Tel Aviv, Israel-based computer vision company called Invertex to strengthen its digital technology platforms. Financial details weren’t disclosed, but as the outlet Globes notes, but the acquisition is likely for a small sum. Last year, Invertex raised $2 million in a seed funding led by OurCrowd. More here.  An investor group led by tech-focused private equity firm Francisco Partnersagreed to acquire payments technology company VeriFone Systems for $3.4 billion, including debt. Francisco is paying a 54 percent premium over the company’s closing share price yesterday. As Bloomberg notes, VeriFone, which makes point-of-sale card readers, has struggled against increased competition from Silicon Valley upstarts like Square. Bloomberg has more here.

People

Jack Dorsey’s fight against twitter trolls has gotten personal, in ways that Twitter insiders describe as both promising and fraught.  Todd Jackson, a former product manager with Dropbox and Twitter, has joined First Round Capital as a founder-in-residence.  Uber rolled out a new app for its drivers today that aims to make their lives easier, and their work more lucrative. Dara Khosrowshahi talked today to Uber drivers in L.A. about the new app; you can catch his presentation here if you’re curious.  Former hedge fund manager Michael Novogratz was sidelined by Goldman Sachs, then Fortress Investment Group. Now he’s searching for redemption in cryptocurrencies. (Great New Yorker piece.)

Good Deeds

Last week, the crowdfunding website DonorsChoose.org featured more than 35,000 requests from teachers seeking cash for field trips, computers, musical instruments, and the like, and all the teachers’ needs were answered by a single outfit — Ripple — the San Francisco cryptocurrency company. Ripple’s donation — $29 million in XRP, the cryptocurrency it developed — is the largest gift in the 18-year history of DonorsChoose. The Chronicle of Philanthropy has more here. (H/T: Axios for flagging.)

Jobs

The venture firm IVP is hiring a financial analyst. The job is on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, Ca. Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange, is hiring a business operations and strategy associate. The job is in San Francisco.

Data

American teenagers continue to deeply prefer Apple’s iPhone to phones running Android,  according to Piper Jaffray‘s new “Teens Survey,” which questioned thousands of kids across 40 states and found that 82 percent of them own an iPhone, up from 78 percent last fall. Business Insider has more here.

Essential Reads

Japan wants to allow crypto ICOs. Big banks like Wells Fargo and Citigroup are using a back door to finance subprime loans.

Detours

The richest zip code in America.  The best tweets from Zuckerberg’s big day before Congress.  This may be our favorite story ever.

Retail Therapy

The Otto fan. (“Makes wind!”)

Hi, happy Monday, all! Hope your week is off to a great start.:) We’ve been a little crazed today, so no column.

Top News

Congress has released Mark Zuckerberg’s prepared testimony ahead of a Wednesday hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The greatest bubble in history is popping, according to Bank of America’s chief investment strategy; he wrote in a note last night that the cryptocurrency is tracking the downfalls of the other massive asset-price bubbles in history less than one year out from its record.

New Fundings

Armis, a 2.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based enterprise IoT security company, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Red Dot Capital Partners and Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Sequoia Capital and Tenaya Capital. The company has now raised $47 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.  Bitmovin, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based online video software and infrastructure company, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Highland Europe, with participation from earlier backers Atomico, Constantia New Business, Dawn Capital, and Y Combinator.  The company has now raised $43 million. TechCrunch has more here.  BookNook, a two-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based reading instruction startup that powers personalized and small group learning, has raised $2 million in seed funding co-led by Better Ventures and the Urban Innovation Fund, with participation from Reach Capital, Impact Engine, Kapor Capital, Redhouse Education, and Edovate Capital. TechCrunch has more here.  City Pantry, a five-year-old, London-based office catering marketplace, has raised £4 million ($5.7 million) in funding led by Octopus Investments, with participation from Newable Private Investing and earlier backers. TechCrunch has more here.  Comma.ai, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based transportation startup that has been in a near-state of constant iteration (we’re not exactly sure what it’s working on right now), has raised a fresh $5 million in funding, according to a new SEC filing. TechCrunch has more here.  Ecovia Renewables, a four-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based biotech company focused on developing high-performing bio-based chemicals and fuels, has raised an initial $1 million in seed funding, including from Seppic Group, a designer and manufacturer of specialty ingredients. More here. Edovo, a five-year-old, Chicago, Il.-based tablet-based education startup for incarcerated people, has raised $9 million from Impact Engine, Lumina Foundation, Kapor Capital and others. More here.  Great Jones, a nearly year-old, New York-based full-service residential property management company, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Crosslink Capital, with participation from Juxtapose and several New York City real estate and tech entrepreneurs. More here.  Holberton School, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based two-year program that trains full-stack engineers, has raised $8.2 million in Series A funding led by earlier backers daphni and Trinity Ventures, with participation from new investor The Omidyar Network. The company has now raised $13 million altogether.  IceKredit, a nearly three-year-old, Shanghai, China-based risk management platform, says it has raised roughly $25 million in Series “pre-B” capital led by Yoozoo Network, with participation from YongRui Investment and other investment firms. More here.  Intangible Labs, a 10-month-old, New York-based cryptocurrency startup that’s backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital Ventures, Digital Currency Group and Pantera Capital, has raised a whopping $125 million through a Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT) sale, a new SEC filing shows. The company is developing Basecoin, an adjustable-supply cryptocurrencies that, unlike fixed-supply (and wildly volatile) cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, is designed to maintain a stable value in volatile conditions. Coindesk has more here.  Juro, a two-year-old, London-based startup that makes contract workflow tools, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Point Nine Capital, with participation from earlier backer Seedcamp. TechCrunch has more here.  Magenta Therapeutics, a two-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based biotechnology company that’s aiming to make stem cell transplants accessible to more patients, has raised $52 million in Series C funding. Casdin Capital led the round, with participation from EcoR1 Capital, Eventide Asset Management, Watermill Asset Management and earlier backers Be the Match BioTherapies and Access Industries. More here.  Nexford University, a year-old, Washington, D.C.-based company that will develop a curriculum based on employer needs (it isn’t being more specific than that right now), has raised $4 million in seed funding, including from Magnify Ventures, and unnamed angel investors. A tiny bit more here.  Ocrolus, a four-year-old, New York-based startup that says its software can analyze uploaded bank and credit card statements quickly, cheaply and with near perfect accuracy, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by Bullpen Capital, with participation from QED Investors, Laconia Capital Group, ValueStream Ventures, and RiverPark Ventures. More here.  Plus Products, a 2.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company that makes cannabis-infused edibles, has raised roughly $6 million in Series B financing led by Serruya Private Equity Partners and Navy Capital Green Fund. More here. The Primal Pantry, a four-year-old, Maidenhead, U.K.-based food brand that sells snack bars, has raised £3 million ($4.2 million) in funding from NVM Private Equity. More here.  TVSquared, a six-year-old, Edinburgh, Scotland-based global TV performance analytics provider, has raised $8 million in funding led by West Coast Capital, with participation from earlier backers, including Scottish Investment Bank. The company has now raised $21 million altogether. More here.  WorkFusion, an eight-year-old, New York-based company whose robotic process automation software manages robots that perform repetitive work, has raised $50 million in Series E funding co-led by Hawk Equity and Declaration Partners, with participation from earlier investors Georgian Partners, iNovia Capital and NGP Capital. More here.

New Funds

A new Chinese blockchain fund called Xiong’An Global Blockchain Innovation Fund has a healthy $1.6 billion available to invest in innovative startups. The fund was launched publicly today by the Hangzhou, China-based venture capital firm . Tunlan Investment; reportedly, more than $400 million is coming from the Hangzhou city government. Coindesk has more here.  Background Capital, a four-month-old, Bay Area-based firm founded by former CRV general partner Rafael Corrales, has raised $9 million for its debut fund, reports Axios. It says the outfit employs a  super-angel strategy, with a group of LPs serving as “super-connectors” for founders. Slightly more here.  Saama Capital, a five-year-old, Bengalaru, India-based early-stage venture firm, has raised $100 million for its fourth fund shows an SEC filing. The outlet Inc 42 has a bit more here.

IPOs

Pivotal Software, a five-year-old, 2,500-person, Bay Area-based business that’s majority-owned by Dell Technologies, has revealed some more plans about an upcoming IPO in which it plans to raise up to $681 million. Specifically, the company plans to sell 37 million shares of Class A stock for between $14 and $16 each, which would give it a valuation of roughly $4 billion at the top of that range. Silicon Valley Business Journal has more here.

Exits

Uber has acquired bike-sharing startup JUMP for an undisclosed amount of money that TechCrunch is hearing is close to $200 million. TC had reported last week that JUMP was in talks with Uber, as well as with investors who were interested in providing it with more capital. More here.

People

In an interview, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg tells The Atlantic he’s not walking away from the company, but he is looking for outside expertise. National Geographic is developing a a six-part limited series called “Valley of the Boom” that’s set in Silicon Valley during the ’90s tech bubble. John Karna will play Marc Andreessen. Actors Bradley Whitford and Steve Zahn are also signed on for the project.

Data

Instagram was just ranked the worst social network for young people’s mental health in a survey of people ages 14 to 24.

Jobs

Industry Ventures is looking to bring aboard an associate to help in sourcing and executing deals. We’re told that top-performing associates will be considered for a promotion to senior associate after their second year. The job is in San Francisco. Applicants should write to ira@industryventures.com.

Essential Reads

Three-year old SenseTime has raised $600 million from Alibaba to continue making surveillance software that analyzes images and faces. TechCrunch has more here.  YouTube is in hot water again over how it deals with kids who use the video site.  A federal grand jury in Arizona has indicted seven people behind the classified-ads website Backpage.com on 93 counts, including charges of facilitating prostitution and money laundering.

Detours

Here’s the secretive waterfront town where both Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates live, among other billionaires. The trick to perfecting that spring suit. What animals think about EPA chief Scott Pruitt.

Retail Therapy

Embattled casino mogul Steve Wynn is quietly selling $100 million worth of art at Christie’s, in case you’re in the market.

Correction

Oopla. In Friday’s email, we told you that Jared Fliesler just joined the reading subscription site Scribd from Matrix Partners, but Fliesler had actually left Matrix a couple of years ago and has spent the last couple of years as an angel investor, advisor and world traveler. Sorry (mostly to Fleisler) for the mix-up.