• StrictlyVC: June 26, 2015

    Glorious Friday, we meet again. Hope you have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

    —–

    Top News in the A.M.

    Historic day: Same-sex marriage is a right, the Supreme Court ruled this morning.

    Airbnb, the seven-year-old, San Francisco-based online home-rental marketplace, is reportedly closing in on $1.5 billion in fresh capital that would value the company at a whopping $24 billion. According to the Financial Times, the round is being led by General Atlantic; the Beijing-based investment management firm Hillhouse Capital; and Tiger Global Management. Others involved in the round reportedly include Baillie Gifford, Wellington Management, and earlier backers Fidelity and T. Rowe Price. More here.

    —–

    For Potential Recruits, VC is So 1999

    There’s a lot to love about being a venture capitalist. You meet with smart people every day. You make money regardless of whether or not your investments work. People assume you have smart opinions about things.

    Strange as it may seem, however, a growing number of illuminati are passing up the chance to work with established firms to do their own thing. Among the newest of them: Avidan Ross, a former private investment company CTO turned angel investor, who says he met with a number of firms about tie-ups before setting out to raise his own, $31.4 million fund from mostly high-net-worth individuals. (We reported on its closing earlier this month.)

    Why would anyone pass up the chance to land a plum role with a venture firm that’s managing hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars? The overarching reason, of course, is that they can.

    Often, such potential recruits have already made enough money to gamble on themselves. See Aydin Sekut of Felicis Ventures, Manu Kumar of K9 Ventures and dozens of other individuals who’ve turned themselves into venture capitalists over the last decade.

    It’s also easier than ever for those who haven’t yet made their fortune to raise a fund, particularly given widening interest in getting into startup deals. Venture capitalist Niko Bonatsos works for General Catalyst Partners but sees many of his peers taking alternative paths. As he puts it, “If someone can [raise and] invest $30 million or $40 million themselves, why wouldn’t they do that? It’s like, ‘You’re a young guy, you know founders. Here’s $10 million. Go invest it.”

    For more on our story this morning, check out it out here on TechCrunch.

    —–

    New Fundings

    24M, a five-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company whose lithium-ion cell promises to dramatically reduce manufacturing and materials costs, has raised $50 million in financing from undisclosed backers, along with a $4.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The WSJ has more here.

    Andela, a year-old, New York-based accelerator that helps educate developers and connect them with employers, has reportedly raised “well over $10 million” in Series A funding led by Spark Capital, with participation from earlier investors Omidyar Network and Learn Capital. TechCrunch has much more here.

    BankerBay, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based ideal origination platform that connects institutional investors with qualified investment opportunities, has raised more than $2 million in seed funding from ScaleVC and individual investors. More here.

    Brazen, an eight-year-old, Arlington, Va.-based online engagement platform that allows organizations to schedule and host chat-based online meetups and events to engage a wide variety of audiences, has raised $4.7 million in funding led by Osage Venture Partners, with participation fromRandstad Innovation Fund, Militello Capital and Kegonsa Capital Partners. The company has now raised just more than $10 million altogether.

    Celect, a 2.5-year-old, Boston-based company whose machine-learning technology helps retailers select and distribute their products in ways that reflect buying patterns, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by August Capital, with participation from Activant Capital Group. VentureBeat hasmore here.

    Eargo, a five-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company whose new hearing devices are modeled on a fishing fly and are nearly invisible when placed in the ear canal, has raised $13 million in Series A funding led by Maveron, with participation from Dolby Family Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Birchmere Ventures and others. GeekWire has more here.

    Guavus, a nine-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based big data analytics company, has $30 million in funding from earlier backers. The company has now raised roughly $130 million altogether, including from Artiman Ventures, Sofinnova Ventures, Intel Capital, SingTel Innov8, Investor Growth Capital, QuestMark Partners and Goldman Sachs. More here.

    Lyra Health, a six-month-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based company aiming to help employers and health plans better manage populations of people with behavioral-health illnesses, has raised $3.1 million in strategic funding from Castlight Health. More here.

    OneWeb, a three-year-old, London-based company that plans to launch a constellation of satellites to provide affordable high-speed internet, has raised $500 million in funding from Airbus Group, Bharti Enterprises, Hughes Network Systems, EchoStar Corp., Intelsat, Qualcomm, The Coca-Cola Company, Virgin Group, and Mexico’s Grupo Salinas. Reuters has more here.

    PayRange, a two-year-old, Portland, Or.-headquartered company whose tools enable machines to accept card and digital payments, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Matrix Partners.

    Postmates, the three-year-old, San Francisco-based urban delivery platform, has raised $80 million in new funding at a more than $400 million valuation led by Tiger Global Management. Earlier backer Slow Ventures also joined the round, chipping in $5 million via a special purpose vehicle that enabled its own limited partners to invest in the company. The WSJ has the scoop here.

    Redis Labs, a four-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company that offers enterprise-grade services around the open-source NoSQL Redis database and memcached object caching system, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Bain Capital Ventures and Carmel Ventures, with participation from Silicon Valley Bank. The company, formerly known as Garantia, has now raised $28 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

    Sebacia, a five-year-old, Duluth, Ga.-based company that makes an acne treatment that must be administered by dermatologists, has raised $22 million in Series C funding comprised of $10 million in debt financing from Square 1 Bank and $12 million in equity from earlier backers Accuitive Medical Ventures, Domain Associates, Partners Innovation Fund and Versant Ventures. The company has now raised $55.6 million, shows Crunchbase.

    ShopJester, a year-old, Danville, Ca.-based mobile retail app that allows shoppers to search for producs from 32 different retailers and segregates the items into “sales,” “new arrivals,” and more, has raised $600,000 in seed funding from numerous investors, including Roger Smith, former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank.

    Stand, a year-old, San Francisco, Ca.-based mobile app that connects users with people who might inspire their own personal philanthropy, has raised $2.25 million in funding led by Resolute Ventures, with participation from Greylock Partners, Fresco Capital and entrepreneur Jack Dorsey, along with many other individual investors. More here.

    Tesora, a 4.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that’s developing and supporting OpenStack Trove, a system for managing database capacity in an on-demand way, has raised $4.5 million in funding from backers, including Rho Canada Ventures and earlier backers General Catalyst Partners, CommonAngels, and Point Judith Capital. Xconomy has more here.

    WeWork, a five-year-old, New York-based company whose main business is renting office space from landlords, then building it out into an incubator-like spaces and renting to startups, has raised a fresh $400 million led by Fidelity Management & Research at a $10 billion valuation. (As the WSJ notes, WeWork leases about 3.5 million square feet of space globally, yet its valuation is now nearly half that of Boston Properties, a $19 billion company that owns 45 million square feet of real estate.) Other participants in the round include earlier backers J.P. Morgan, Harvard Corp., Benchmark, T. Rowe Price, Goldman Sachs, Wellington Management and Mort Zuckerman.

    —–

    New Funds

    137 Ventures, a 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based firm that provides startup employees with loans in exchange for their equity, is looking to raise $200 million for its third fund, shows an SEC filing. The company closed its second fund with $137 million almost exactly a year ago. Its first, $50 million, fund closed in 2011.

    Formation 8, the three-year-old, San Franciso-based venture-capital firm known for backing virtual-reality company Oculus VR, has filed to raise a $400 million fund for late-stage investments in Asia, reports Reuters. Called F8 Asia Growth, the average size investment the fund will make is roughly $50 million, a person tells the outlet.

    Grotech Ventures, a 31-year-old, Vienna, Va.-based venture firm, is looking to raise $200 million for its newest fund, shows an SEC filing that states the fund’s first sale has yet to occur.

    Russian investment firm Target Ventures has opened an office in San Francisco as it seeks to diversify its portfolio of consumer Internet startups, reports VentureWire. The firm is reportedly looking to invest in Series B, C and later rounds and can commit anywhere from $1 million to $30 million in companies.

    —–

    IPOs

    Sunrun, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based residential solar energy company, has filed for a $100 million IPO. The company has raised roughly $680 million in debt and equity over the years, shows Crunchbase. According toits S-1, its biggest shareholders include Foundation Capital, which owns 19.7 percent of the company; Accel Partners, which owns 13.2 percent; Canyon Partners, which owns 9.1 percent; Sequoia Capital, which owns 9 percent; and Madrone Partners, which owns 7.5 percent.

    Sophos, the 30-year-old, Abingdon, England-based security company that makes antivirus software, firewall hardware and other products for networks, individual users and servers, went public on the London Stock Exchange earlier today, with plans to raise $125 million on a valuation of £1.013 billion ($1.6 billion). It is the the latest tech “unicorn” to come out of the UK, notes TechCrunch.

    —–

    Exits

    Deliv, a three-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based same-day delivery company, has acquired WeDeliver, a 2.5-year-old, Chicago-based provider of same-day delivery for local merchants. Financial terms of the deal weren’t announced. Deliv has raised $12.4 million from investors, including Westfield Labs, Upfront Ventures, and Redpoint Ventures. WeDeliver had raised $800,000 in seed funding, including from Jumpstart Ventures.

    —–

    People

    Facebook released its annual diversity numbers yesterday and they look much the same as the year earlier. In May of 2013, Facebook was 69 percent male and 57 percent white. As of June 2014, it was 68 percent male and 55 white.

    Deutsche Bank has started a new group dedicated to private fundraising, reports the WSJ. The group, called Private Growth Capital, will work with the bank’s existing venture-capital coverage bankers and private-wealth management, advising both companies seeking to raise capital and investors looking to jump into deals.

    Bill Gates reckons he has already dropped a cool $1 billion on investments in renewable energy technologies. Now he’s looking to double that. More here.

    —–

    Jobs

    Saints Capital in San Francisco is looking for an analyst.

    —–

    Essential Reads

    Google has quietly launched a GitHub competitor.

    —–

    Detours

    What type of introvert are you?

    How having an unethical boss can make you look bad, too.

    Someone is renting out a Coleman tent in the backyard of his parent’s Mountain View, Ca., home for $899 a month or $49 per day (a scary sign of the times if ever there was one!).

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    Wireless headset.

    Instant photo coasters. (We love these.)

    Connie

  • For Potential Recruits, VC is So 1999

    pass_stamp-3There’s a lot to love about being a venture capitalist. You meet with smart people every day. You make money regardless of whether or not your investments work. People assume you have smart opinions about things.

    Strange as it may seem, however, a growing number of illuminati are passing up the chance to work with established firms to do their own thing. Among the newest of them: Avidan Ross, a former private investment company CTO turned angel investor, who says he met with a number of firms about tie-ups before setting out to raise his own, $31.4 million fund from mostly high-net-worth individuals. (We reported on its closing earlier this month.)

    Why would anyone pass up the chance to land a plum role with a venture firm that’s managing hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars? The overarching reason, of course, is that they can.

    Often, such potential recruits have already made enough money to gamble on themselves. See Aydin Sekut of Felicis Ventures, Manu Kumar of K9 Ventures and dozens of other individuals who’ve turned themselves into venture capitalists over the last decade.

    It’s also easier than ever for those who haven’t yet made their fortune to raise a fund, particularly given widening interest in getting into startup deals. Venture capitalist Niko Bonatsos works for General Catalyst Partners but sees many of his peers taking alternative paths. As he puts it, “If someone can [raise and] invest $30 million or $40 million themselves, why wouldn’t they do that? It’s like, ‘You’re a young guy, you know founders. Here’s $10 million. Go invest it.”

    For more on our story this morning, check out it out here on TechCrunch.

    Connie

  • StrictlyVC: June 25, 2015

    Hello and happy Thursday, everyone! Lots of fundings today.

    —–
    Top News in the A.M.

    Amazon just announced three initiatives to support its cloud-based intelligent Alexa voice service and the Amazon Echo, a wireless speaker that can respond to basic voice commands. One of those initiatives involves a software development kit. The other: A $100 million fund to back engineers focused on building experiences around human speech. More here.

    —–

    LittleBits Raises $44.2 Million to Get Its Little Bits Into More Hands

    If you work in tech and have or know young children, you’ve likely heard of LittleBits, a 3.5-year-old, venture-backed maker of electronic components that are sold via kits and snap together to create everything from toy robots to synthesizers and more.

    Today, the New York company is getting serious about ensuring its modular pieces make their way into the hands of many more people. Toward that end, it’s announcing $44.2 million in Series B funding led by DFJ Growth, with participation from Morgan Stanley, Alternative Investment Partners, Grishin Robotics and Wamda Capital. (Foundry Group, True Ventures, VegasTechFund, Two Sigma Ventures, and Khosla Ventures  — earlier investors that had provided the company with $15.6 million in previous funding — also joined the round.)

    Educators, who have been discovering LittleBits, are about to become one big area of focus for the 90-person, New York-based company. Already, LittleBits are being used in 2,100 schools in 70 countries, says LittleBits’s founder and CEO, Ayah Bdeir, who says that while LittleBits has a “good footprint” in California particularly, the company is looking to add to that momentum nationally and internationally by adding employees in sales and distribution.

    LittleBits is also going after more corporate customers. Indeed, according to Bdeir, companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and SAP have — in the last year, entirely on their own — begun employing LittleBits in creativity workshops and in the prototyping of their various products, including those centered on the Internet of Things. (Part of the attraction: Last year, LittleBits introduced a “cloudBit” device that allows users to add a variety of things to their connected home via LittleBits hardware and a companion app. It has since introduced many other related modules that make it easier to play around with popular connected devices as well as invent new ones.)

    Of course, parents and others interested in providing children with an easy way to understand electronics also remain a big target for the company, which currently sells its products through its own site and Amazon, but plans to slowly grow its number of retailing partners starting with Barnes & Noble, which will begin selling LittleBits kits later this year.

    As for sales to date, the company isn’t disclosing numbers but says it has been growing “three to four times revenue” annually and that it has sold “millions of units” (meaning pieces, not kits) in more than 100 countries.

    It also says a subscription model may be on the horizon. “People have been asking for it a lot,” says Bdeir. “It’s something we want to develop.”

    (For more on LittleBits and its newest funding, you can check out our TechCrunch piece here.)

    —–

    New Fundings

    Automatic, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based connected car platform, has raised $24 million in Series B funding led by the investment arm at USAA, a insurance and financial services provider for military families. CDK Global and Comcast Ventures also participated in the round, alongside earlier backers Y Combinator, RPM Ventures, Anthemis Group, Amicus Capital and numerous angel investors. Automatic has now raised $32 million in total. TechCrunch has more here.

    Autonomic Technologies, an eight-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based maker of a microstimulator that treats severe headaches, has added another $5.5 million from HBM Healthcare Investments to its Series D round, which is closing with a total of $43.2 million. The round was led by Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, with participation from Forbion Capital Partners and earlier backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, InterWest Partners, Aberdare Ventures, Novatis Venture Funds, and the Cleveland Clinic. More here.

    Bento, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based on-demand food delivery service focused around Asian food, has raised $1.5 million led by LAUNCH Fund, with participation from Slow Ventures, 500 Startups, FundersClub and numerous angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

    BitSight Technologies, a four-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based security ratings company that helps enterprises monitor the risk posed by vendors in their supply chain, has raised $23 million in Series B funding from Comcast Ventures, along with earlier backers Globespan Capital Partners, Menlo Ventures, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Shaun McConnon and Flybridge Capital Partners. The company has now raised $49 million altogether.

    Bricoprivé, a 2.5-year-old, Toulouse, France-based online retailer focused on DIY, gardening and home improvement products, has raised €2.5 million ($2.8 million) from the Paris-based investement company Ardian, following the partial exit of Bricoprivé’s previous minority shareholders. More here.

    Checkmarx, a nine-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based software application security company that sells application security testing and application layer attack prevention services, has raised $84 million from Insight Venture Partners. Reuters has more here.

    Conga, a nine-year-old, Broomfield, Co.-based developer of a set of document generation and reporting applications for Salesforce, has raised $70 million in funding from Insight Venture Partners. Denver Business Journal has more here.

    Curbside, a nearly two year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup whose mobile app allows shoppers to buy from local retailers like Target and Best Buy then pick up items at stores without exiting their car, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Sutter Hill Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Index Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures and others. The company has now raised $34.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

    Highland Therapeutics, a seven-year-old Toronto, Canada-based pharmaceutical company that tries optimizing the delivery of previously approved drug products, has raised $50 million in funding, half of which came in the form of equity from Eastern Capital Limited, and half of which it secured through a credit facility provided by Citibank. More here.

    Inspirock, a three-year-old, East Palo Alto, Ca.-based company whose site creates customized travel itineraries for users, has raised $3 million in funding from earier investor MakeMyTrip, one of India’s largest travel booking sites; angel investors; and its founders, Anoop Goyal and Prakash Sikchi.

    Lost My Name, a two-year-old, London-based publishing startup focused on kids’ personalized publishing and entertainment, has raised $9 million in Series A funding from Google Ventures, Greycroft Partners, The Chernin Group, Allen & Co., and former SunGard president and CEO Cris Conde. More here.

    Matterport, a 4.5-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company that makes a $4,500 camera capable of capturing an environment in 360 degrees, has raised $30 million in growth funding from Qualcomm Ventures and Singapore’s GIC. VentureBeat has more here.

    Qwilt, a five-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based maker of networking equipment that helps service providers manage the demand for internet video, has raised $25 million in Series D funding led by Disrupt-ive, with participation from Innovation Endeavors and Cisco Investments. The company has now raised $65 million to date. Recode has more here.

    Radiant Entertainment, a new PC games studio, has raised $4.5 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst Partners and London Venture Partners. Venture Capital Dispatch has much more here.

    TextMaster, the four-year-old, Belgium-based startup that offers a platform for content translation, copywriting and proofreading, has raised $5 million in funding from Serena Capital, with participation from earlier backer Alven Capital. The company has now raised $8 million altogether. TechCrunch hasmore here.

    Topia Technology, a 16-year-old, Tacoma, Wa.-based data security platform, has raised $5.5 million in Series B funding from private angel investors in the Pacific Northwest.

    Treebo Hotels, a months-old, Bangalore, India-based company that partners with small, standalone hotels and helps them improve their service quality standards and also market themselves more effectively, has raised $6 million in its first institutional round of funding rom Matrix Partners India and SAIF Partners. More here.

    Vogogo, a seven-year-old, Alberta, Canada-based compliance, risk management and payment processing specialist, has raised $12.5 million in Series B funding co-led by Salman Partners, Clarus Securities, and Beacon Securities. TechVibes has more here.

    Yieldify, a two-year-old, London-based predictive marketing technology startup that helps online retailers convince people to buy products online, has just $11.5 million from Google Ventures and Softbank. Business Insider hasmore here.

    Zumper, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based real estate tech startup, has raised $6.4 million in funding led by Goodwater Capital, with participation from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Both had invested previously in the company, which has now raised $14.6 million altogether. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

    —–

    Exits

    NantCell, a six-month-old Culver City. L.A. based company that’s part of the growing empire of billionaire entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong and which focuses on the discovery and development of disease treatments through cell-based therapies at the molecular level, has acquired VivaBioCell SpA, a Udine, Italy-based biotechnology company. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. (Fierce Biotech wrote more on Soon-Shiong and NantCell earlier this month.)

    Spotify, the nine-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based streaming music company, has acquired the analytics firm Seed Scientific to create a new unit tasked with understanding and improving how artists, listeners, and brands interact with its technology. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

    —–

    IPOs

    IAC/InterActiveCorp is planning an IPO for The Match Group, the dating conglomerate behind popular sites such as Match.com, OkCupid, and Tinder. Fortune has the story here.

    Vice Media head honcho Shane Smith has been talking with bankers about the possibility of taking his media company public. “We have met with all the big banks. We’ve had talks,” he told The Post earlier today at the Cannes Lions festival.

    —–

    People

    Alex Stamos, a world-renowned cybersecurity expert and vocal NSA critic who spent roughly 15 months commanding Yahoo’s team of “Paranoids” to protect the company from all manner of threats, is joining Facebook as its Chief Security Officer on Monday, he announced in a Facebook post yesterday. “Careers are long, and I hope our paths will cross often in the future,” he wrote to his now-former Yahoo colleagues.

    Teespring, the custom apparel startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures and others, just laid off 70 employees, as it closes up shop in Providence, R.I., where it first got off the ground. TechCrunch has more here.

    —–

    Jobs

    Lewis & Clark Ventures, a new, St. Louis-based venture firm that’s focused on startups in the Midwest, is looking to hire a venture capital associate.

    —–

    Essential Reads

    Dropbox is struggling, and competitors are catching up.

    The story of what really happened with that Sony Pictures hack —and why Sony should have seen it coming.

    Why Docker has Microsoft and Google on alert. (This is a good overview if you still don’t understand all the buzz around Docker.)

    —–

    Detours

    “Fight Club” for kids, read by author Chuck Palahniuk.

    An instructional video on “how to use the internet,” by a young Ev Williams.

    Silent and deadly: Fatal farts.

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    You can now rent the “smallest house in the world” on Airbnb (though we would not recommend it).

    Connie

  • LittleBits Raises $44.2 Million to Get Its Little Bits Into More Hands

    space kit+bitsLRIf you work in tech and have or know young children, you’ve likely heard of LittleBits, a 3.5-year-old, venture-backed maker of electronic components that are sold via kits and snap together to create everything from toy robots to synthesizers and more.

    Today, the New York company is getting serious about ensuring its modular pieces make their way into the hands of many more people. Toward that end, it’s announcing $44.2 million in Series B funding led by DFJ Growth, with participation from Morgan Stanley, Alternative Investment Partners, Grishin Robotics and Wamda Capital. (Foundry Group, True Ventures, VegasTechFund, Two Sigma Ventures, and Khosla Ventures  — earlier investors that had provided the company with $15.6 million in previous funding — also joined the round.)

    Educators, who have been discovering LittleBits, are about to become one big area of focus for the 90-person, New York-based company. Already, LittleBits are being used in 2,100 schools in 70 countries, says LittleBits’s founder and CEO, Ayah Bdeir, who says that while LittleBits has a “good footprint” in California particularly, the company is looking to add to that momentum nationally and internationally by adding employees in sales and distribution.

    LittleBits is also going after more corporate customers. Indeed, according to Bdeir, companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and SAP have — in the last year, entirely on their own — begun employing LittleBits in creativity workshops and in the prototyping of their various products, including those centered on the Internet of Things. (Part of the attraction: Last year, LittleBits introduced a “cloudBit” device that allows users to add a variety of things to their connected home via LittleBits hardware and a companion app. It has since introduced many other related modules that make it easier to play around with popular connected devices as well as invent new ones.)

    Of course, parents and others interested in providing children with an easy way to understand electronics also remain a big target for the company, which currently sells its products through its own site and Amazon, but plans to slowly grow its number of retailing partners starting with Barnes & Noble, which will begin selling LittleBits kits later this year.

    As for sales to date, the company isn’t disclosing numbers but says it has been growing “three to four times revenue” annually and that it has sold “millions of units” (meaning pieces, not kits) in more than 100 countries.

    It also says a subscription model may be on the horizon. “People have been asking for it a lot,” says Bdeir. “It’s something we want to develop.”

    (For more on LittleBits and its newest funding, you can check out our TechCrunch piece here.)

    Connie

  • StrictlyVC: June 24, 2015

    Happy Wednesday, everyone! No column today — we were busy figuring out what’s what at TechCrunch yesterday.

    We did want to thank the many of you who’ve reached out to us about an internship here at StrictlyVC. You’re an impressive lot. We had a bit more interest than we were expecting (thank you); we’ll be looking at your resumes and other details and getting in touch soon.

    One last note: More than a quarter of the tickets for our September 16 event sold yesterday. (In other words, you have time, but don’t wait until the last minute.) The agenda is here; tickets are available for purchase here. Also, if you are interested in partnering with us on the program as a sponsor, let’s talk!

    —–

    Top News in the A.M.

    Uh, oh, take note, Bay Area readers: ominous new cracks have been found in the rods on San Francisco’s new Bay Bridge tower.

    Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is addressing investors this morning at a shareholder’s meeting. You can catch the live stream here.

    —–

    New Fundings

    Autho, a 1.5-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based “universal identity platform,” has raised $9.3 million in funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from K9 Ventures. More here.

    Barkly, a two-year-old, Boston, Ma.-based endpoint security startup, has raised $12.5 million in Series A funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from Sigma Prime Ventures. The company has now raised $17 million altogether. More here.

    Belong, a year-old, Bangalore, India-based recruitment startup, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Matrix Partners and Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, the co-founders of Snapdeal, with participation from earlier backers Blume Ventures, Phanindra Sama, and Raju Reddy. More here.

    Biodesix, a 10-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based molecular diagnostics company that  develops and commercializes blood-based tests for precision medicine in oncology, has raised $11 million in Series E  funding from earlier investors (whose names it has never disclosed). More here.

    Calcivis, a three-year-old, Edinburgh, Scotland-based medical devices company whose tools enable dentists to better see and address tooth erosion, has raised roughly $7 million in new equity and grant funding from Archangel Investors, the Scottish Investment Bank, and the European Commission, under its Horizon 2020 SME Instrument programme.

    eFounders, a five-year-old, Brussels-based startup studio, has raised $6 million from Fotolia co-founder Oleg Tscheltzoff to build its next batch of software-as-a-service startups. TechCrunch has more here.

    Frame, a three-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based service that allows users to run desktop programs like Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Excel directly from their browser, has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Columbus Nova Technology Partners, Bain Capital Ventures and SQN Venture Partners. The company had previously raised $2.5 million in seed funding. TechCrunch has more here.

    Goodservice, a year-old, Mumbai, India-based company whose app aims to serve as a kind of virtual personal assistant to users, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding from Sequoia Capital. More here.

    HackerOne, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose bug bounty platform helps companies find vulnerabilities in their products, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from earlier backer Benchmark and a long list of prominent individuals, including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. TechCrunch has more here.

    Indix, a 4.5-year-old, Seattle, Wa.-based product intelligence company that provides analytics and insights to brands and retailers, has raised $15 million in funding from Nokia Growth Partners, Nexus Venture Partners and Avalon Ventures.

    MDLive, a six-year-old, Sunrise, Fla.-based telehealth company, has raised $50 million in new funding from Bedford Funding. The company has now raised at least $73.6 million altogether from investors, shows Crunchbase. Previous backers include Sentara Healthcare, Sutter Health, Heritage Group and Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors.

    Palantir Technologies, the 11-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company specializing in software used in counterterrorism and the financial industry, is raising up to $500 million in new capital at a valuation of $20 billion, according to BuzzFeed News. The company raised money late last year at a $15 billion valuation; at a $20 billion valuation, Palantir would be the third-most-valuable startup in the U.S. behind Uber and Airbnb, notes BuzzFeed.

    PromisePay, a two-year-old, Melbourne, Australia-based secure payment gateway company, has raised $2 million in funding from Cultivation Capital, Reinventure, and numerous individual investors. The company had previously raised several hundred thousand dollars in seed funding. More here.

    Squadrone System, a 1.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company behind an autonomous flying camera, has raised $3 million from Living Water Investment Corp. The company has now raised $5 million altogether. More here.

    Soundtrack Your Brand, a two-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based service that allows retailers to manage in-store Spotify streams, has raised $10.9 million in Series B funding led by Telia Sonera, with participation from Creandum, Northzone Ventures, Play Networks, Wellington Partners and Spotify.

    SQZ Biotech, a two-year-old, Boston, Ma.-based developer of a platform that enables the intracellular delivery of macromolecules, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Polaris Partners, with participation from 20/20 Healthcare Partners and others. More here.

    Stockspot, a two-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based automated investment advisor and fund manager, has raised an undisclosed amount of capital from Rocket Internet and H2 Ventures, a new fintech venture capital fund. Australia’s Financial Review has more here.

    TissueTech, a 14-year-old, Miami, Fla.-based regenerative tissue engineering company, has raised $15 million in Series B funding from River Cities Capital Funds and Ballast Point Ventures.

    VenueNext, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company whose tools aim to help guests and venue operators easily manage live events (from ticketing to parking and directions to loyalty programs), has raised $9 million in Series A funding from investors, including Causeway Media Partners, Live Nation and Twitter Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

    ViraTherapeutics, a two-year-old, Innsbruck, Austria-based biopharmaceutical company developing cancer immunotherapies based on cancer-destroying viruses, has raised raised €3.6m (roughly $4 million) in the first closing of its Series A round. Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and EMBL Ventures co-led the financing, with participation from Austria Wirtschaftsservice.

    —–

    New Funds

    Blockchain Capital, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based micro venture firm, has held a first closing on its second fund with $7 million. The firm invests exclusively in blockchain-enabled technology companies. More here.

    DBL Partners, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based firm founded by former J.P. Morgan exec Nancy Pfund, has announced a new, $400 million fund, as well as a new managing director in Ira Ehrenpreis, who spent the previous 19 years as a general partner at the firm Technology Partners. The firm aims to back startups that have a positive social or environmental impact, reports Venture Capital Dispatch.

    —–

    Exits

    Circa, the news app, is shutting down. The company just made the announcement.

    The founders of GoFundMe, a five-year-old crowdfunding site, are selling a majority stake in their business to a syndicate of investors and stepping down from day-to-day operations. The investor group is led by Accel Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures, and Rob Solomon, a former Groupon COO and Yahoo exec who joined Accel as a venture partner in 2013, will head up its new leadership team. The WSJ has more details about the company — valued in the deal at $600 million — here.

    —–

    People

    Space X‘s roughly 700 annual interns are reportedly compensated well, but the company wrings plenty of work out of them in return. According to a Bloomberg report, it’s standard for them to work 80 hours a week. More here.

    It’s official. Google cofounder Sergey Brin and 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki have gotten divorced after eight years of marriage. They married in 2007 and have two children together. Business Insider has more here.

    The “Silicon Valley 100,” which is Business Insider’s take on the “most amazing and inspiring people in tech right now.”

    —–

    Jobs

    Hubspot is looking for a director of strategic partnerships. Candidates can be based in San Francisco, with quarterly travel to Cambridge, Ma., or vice versa.

    —–

    Essential Reads

    The real reason banks are happy to help startups stay private.

    Box just announced a huge partnership deal with IBM. More here.

    WPP, Snapchat and the Daily Mail have announced a new marketing agency that will create online brand-sponsored video and print content. The name: Truffle Pig. Bloomberg has more here.

    After just one year, Alibaba Group is selling it U.S. website 11 Main to rival online marketplace OpenSky, with merchants saying they grew disenchanted with the company’s first experiment in American e-commerce. More here.

    Startups are finding the best employees are actually employed.

    How Uber takes over a city.

    —–

    Detours

    The man who created the plastic pink flamingo has died.

    “All treble, no base.” Why some men sound gay and others don’t.

    A city accidentally tickets a truck sculpted in its honor. (Meter maids.)

    A patient was just awarded $500,000 by a jury after his phone’s voice recorder, accidentally left on during a procedure, captured mocking comments his doctors made about him while he was under anesthesia(!).

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    The largest private tract of land in the world is on sale. Price: $375 million.

    Connie

  • StrictlyVC: June 23, 2015

    Happy Tuesday, everyone. We have news! We’re hosting our next StrictlyVC event in San Francisco in late summer, and we’re thrilled to announce our terrific speaker line-up, which includes the straight-shooting Chamath Palihapitiya, founder of  Social+Capital Partnership; legendary investor and DFJ cofounder Steve Jurvetson; serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist Tony Conrad of both About.me and True Ventures; and Matt Mullenweg, the founder and CEO of WordPress.com parent Automattic, valued at more than $1 billion during its last financing in 2014.

    And there’s more!

    It all happens Wednesday evening, September 16, at the sleek Autodesk Gallery at 1 Market Street. (Special thanks to the wonderful team at Bolt for helping us secure such a cool venue.) As always, we’ll also have yummy food and drinks for you. The full speaker list and agenda is here. To buy tickets, click here. Space is limited.

    —–

    Top News in the A.M.

    Facebook knocked Wal-Mart out of the top 10 most highly valued companies in the world yesterday.

    —–

    L.A.’s Crosscut Ventures Rounds Up $75 Million

    L.A.’s startup ecosystem has more money today, thanks to Crosscut Ventures, a local, seven-year-old outfit that just closed its third fund with $75 million – considerably more than the $50 million was looking to raise when it hit the fundraising trail at the beginning of 2014.

    Crosscut’s newest pool — whose investors include The James Irvine Foundation, Top Tier Capital, and numerous family offices — is also roughly five times the size of the firm’s second fund, which closed with $16 million in 2012. (The outfit collected just $5.1 million for its first, proof-of-concept, fund in 2008.)

    Is it Crosscut, or L.A., or a combination of the two? We recently asked cofounder Brian Garrett, who cofounded Crosscut with fellow managing directors Rick Smith and Brett Brewer — all of whom are joined in the newest fund by managing director Clinton Foy, previously a venture partner. Our conversation has been been edited here for length.

    You’ve just raised a lot of money, considering where you started seven years ago. How do you explain it?

    A lot of it has to do with the general momentum of L.A. ecosystem. When [local VC] Mark Suster announced [his firm, Upfront Ventures’s]$280 million fund last year and hosted its [invite-only] Upfront Summit [in February], I think everyone became more aware of what’s happening here. I don’t think they’d thought it was a long-term or a sustainable [shift] until then.

    There’s also a lack of competition relative to the opportunity here, and, more specific to us, there aren’t a lot of micro venture firms that have four managing directors – two of whom have 15 years of venture experience. [Editor’s note: Garrett and Smith were previously partners at Palomar Ventures.]

    What are your biggest hits to date?

    We’ve had seven exits out of 18 investments in our first fund, four of which produced 9x returns, including [the e-commerce site] ShoeDazzle. We sold our stake when late-stage investors were buying. We had local market knowledge about how competitive that market was getting. We also sold [the digital ad company] Pulpo Media to the public company Entravision for a 9x return; we sold [the e-document repository] Docstoc to Intuit for a 9x – we were the first money in. We also made another secondary sale that hasn’t yet been announced.

    We’ve had two liquidity events in our second fund, too, with the sale of Lettuce to Intuit for a 4x, and the sale of Gradient X to Amobee [a mobile ad company acquired by SingTel in 2012] for 2x our investment.

    You mention ShoeDazzle, which you’d funded when it was valued at less than $10 million. Sounds like you were smart to get out when you did, though did you the miss out on the chance to invest in founder Brian Lee’s next startup, The Honest Company?

    We did. We were at the tail end of fund one and didn’t have a lot of money left, and some sharp-elbowed Silicon Valley VCs took the whole round. We definitely should have gotten money into Honest Company.

    How do you view secondary sales generally? 

    We look at them on a deal-by-by deal basis to evaluate whether to hold or sell. We have a stake now in a company whose valuation is similar to where ShoeDazzle’s was when we decided to sell, but we’re holding because we think it will be a multibillion-dollar company.

    We look at the market landscape and who the buying audience will be and whether the next plateau of value creation is worth the risk it will take to achieve.

    Where do you think it’s not worth the risk?

    In ad tech, for example, we think you’re either first in a new category and you get a big exit via an acquisition from Google or Yahoo, or you’re in the walking dead zone, along with tons of other good, profitable ad tech businesses that no one wants to buy because it’s become so hard to defend any particular intellectual property or sustain a differentiation.

    You were long juggling Crosscut with a startup you’d cofounded, a fashion and media platform called StyleSaint. Meanwhile, Brett was a senior VP of corporate development at the company Adknowledge. Are you both still doing double-time?

    Brett and I are now full-time with the fund. Brett [quit Adknowledge] six months ago; I’ve been full time since August of last year, when I set out to raise the fund. I quickly realized I couldn’t wear both hats.

    —–

    New Fundings

    >Alert Media, a two-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based emergency communication platform for interactive mass notification, has raised $4.2 million in Series A funding led by Silverton Partners, with participation from ATX Ventures and Capital Factory.

    Appuri, a three-year-old, Seattle, Wa.-based customer data platform, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Divergent Ventures, with participation from Baseline Ventures and Vulcan Capital. More here.

    AtScale, a 1.5-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based company whose software connects widely used business intelligence tools, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by UMC Capital, with participation from AME Cloud Ventures, and earlier backers Storm Ventures and XSeed Capital. The company has now raised $9 million altogether. More here.

    BlaBlaCar, a nine-year-old, Paris-based carpooling platform, is looking to raise fresh funding at a valuation of more than $1 billion, reports Bloomberg. The company has so far raised $110 million investors, including Lead Edge Capital, Accel Partners, and Index Ventures.

    Casper, the 1.5-year-old, New York-based online mattress retailer, has  raised $55 million in Series B venture funding, at a pre-money valuation of $555 million, according to Venture Capital Dispatch. Institutional Venture Partners led the round, joined by Scooter Braun, the Pritzker Family and celebrity investors. Earlier backers also participated, including Lerer Hippeau Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Norwest Venture Partners, Slow Ventures, SV Angel, Vaizra Investments and Queensbridge Venture.

    Coravin, a four-year-old, Burlington, Ma.-based company whose device allows users to access and pour bottles of wine without pulling the cork (so as not to disturb the wine’s aging process), has raised $13.6 million in Series C-1 funding led by Windham Venture Partners, with participation from Quadrille Capital. The company has now raised $41.8 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

    Credit Karma, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based platform that provides credit scores to users and serves as a portal for visitors to search and apply for various financial services, has raised $175 million at a $3.5 billion valuation from Tiger Global Management, Valinor Management and Viking Global Investors, reports TechCrunch. The company had previously raised $193 million over five rounds, shows Crunchbase. More here.

    Currency Cloud, a three-year-old, London-based cross-border money transfer service, has raised $18 million in Series C funding led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from Rakuten and earlier backers Anthemis Group, Atlas Venture, Notion Capital, and XAnge Private Equity. More here.

    DigitalGenius, a two-year-old, New York-based automated customer-service platform, has raised $3 million in funding led by Metamorphic Ventures, with participation from Lerer-Hippeau Ventures, Lowercase Capital, RRE Ventures and Lumia Capital.

    Dollar Shave Club, the three-year-old, Venice, Ca.-based online seller of razors and other men’s grooming products, has raised $75 million in fresh funding less than a year after announcing its last, $50 million, round. Investors include Dragoneer, a growth-stage investment firm, as well as earlier backers Venrock, Technology Crossover Ventures, and Forerunner Ventures.

    Dropoff, a year-old, Austin, Tex.-based on-demand, same-day delivery platform for businesses, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Greycroft Partners, with participation from Correlation Ventures, Texas Atlantic Capital, and Wild Basin Investments. More here.

    Enigma, a four-year-old, New York-based data discovery and analytics company, has raised $28.2 million in Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from Two Sigma Ventures, New York City Investment Fund, and earlier backers American Express Ventures, Comcast Ventures and The New York Times Company.

    Envoy, a San Francisco, Ca.-based maker of sign-in software for office visitors to register and check-in via an iPad-based system, has raised $15 million in Series A funding from Andreessen Horowitz. The company had previously raised $1.5 million in seed funding from angel investors, including Marc Benioff, Alexis Ohanian, Garry Tan and Semil Shah (a StrictlyVC advisory board member). More here.

    eWings, a two-year-old, Berlin-based maker of flight-booking software, has raised $1.2 million in funding led by High-Tech Grunderfonds, with participation from FSF Beteiligungs and Kima Ventures. More here.

    Grand Rounds, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose service gives employees access to healthcare advice and treatment from professionals in the U.S. regardless of where they live, is being valued at roughly $750 million as part of a new financing round, according to TechCrunch. The company has so far raised $51 million, shows Crunchbase. Its backers include Harrison Metal, Venrock, and Greylock Partners.

    Heal, a six-month-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based startup providing on-demand primary healthcare services (it was cofounded by serial entrepreneur Nick Desai), has raised $5 million in seed funding from Slow Ventures, March Capital, and Pritzker Group.

    Jelli, a seven-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based platform for the audio advertising market, has raised $21 million in Series B funding from iHeartMedia, Universal Music Group, and earlier backers Relay Ventures, Intel Capital, and First Round Capital.

    Koubei, an 11-year-old Hangzhou, China-based “dormant brand” under Alibaba Group Holding, is being revived by Alibaba and its affiliate Ant Financial, which are investing nearly $1 billion in a 50/50 joint venture under the Koubei name that they hope can tap China’s fast-growing local services market. (Instead of on-demand, they call the industry online-to-offline, or O2O.) The WSJ has much more here.

    Olapic, a 4.5-year-old, New York-based startup that helps brands leverage user-generated images, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Felix Capital, with participation from Unilever Ventures, Fung Capital,Longworth Venture Partners, and serial entrepreneur Michael Lazerow.

    OneSource Virtual, a 25-year-old, Irving, Tex.-based company that offers business process cloud-sourcing services, has raised $150 million in new equity funding led by Technology Crossover Ventures, with participation from earlier backer Halyard Capital. More here.

    Portworx, a seven-month-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company that’s creating software-defined infrastructure for “containerized” applications, has raised $8.5 million in funding led by Mayfield Fund.

    Senet, a six-year-old, Hudson, N.H.-based network services provider for low-cost, long-range Internet of Things applications, has raised $18 million in Series A funding from investors, including Fisk Ventures, Milestone Venture Partners, City Light Capital, and Harbor Light Capital Partners. More here.

    Snowflake, a three-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based data warehousing services company, has raised $45 million in Series C funding led by Altimeter Group, with participation from return backers Redpoint Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures, and Wing Ventures.

    Transphorm, an eight-year-old, Goleta, Ca.-based semiconductor company focused on power conversion technology, has raised $70 million in new funding led by KKR, with participation from earlier backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Foundation Capital, Google Ventures, Soros Quantum Strategic Partners, INCJ and Fujitsu.

    Uber, the six-year-old, San Francisco-based ride-hailing company, is raising money from Chinese fund manager Hillhouse Capital Group, and the deal nvolves purchasing bonds that will convert into shares at a discount to Uber’s IPO price. The WSJ has the story here.

    Yotpo, a four-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup that allows companies to generate social reviews for their e-commerce websites or products, has raised $15 million in funding led by Marker, with participation from Innovation Endeavors, Vintage Investment Partners, Blumberg Capital and Access Industries. The company has now raised around $28 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

    —–

    New Funds

    New Leaf Venture Partners, a 10-year-old, New York-based, early-stage firm focused on life sciences, has raised a $200 million growth equity fund, says VentureWire.

    Whitecap Venture Partners, a Toronto-based firm that began as the venture arm of a family office, has held a final close on its third fund, having received $100 million in commitments from its first outside LPs, including Kensington Venture Fund, Bank of Montreal, and several high net-worth families. Whitecap focuses on three verticals: information technology, med tech, and food tech.

    —–
    People

    Slack founder Stewart Butterfield lashed out at the Wall Street Journal Sunday night, after an editorial in the paper said last week’s killing of nine people at a famous church in Charleston, South Carolina, was caused by a “problem that defies explanation.” Noting that the “problem” is systemic racism, Butterfield wrote in a series of angry tweets that “[a]cknowledging that we still have a very, very long way to go is literally the least anyone could do.”More here.

    According to Twitter, there’s no way cofounder Jack Dorsey becomes its permanent CEO unless he quits his other company, Square.

    Less than three months into the job as interim chief executive of Jay Z’s Swedish music streaming service, Tidal, Peter Tonstad has been fired. The company, privately owned by Jay Z and a consortium of artists, will be run by executives in New York and Oslo until a new CEO is in place, a company spokesperson tells the WSJ.

    Where in the world Uber is hiring, and for what jobs (from our friends at Silk).

    —–

    Jobs

    Breakout Labs, a Thiel Foundation venture fund, is looking to hire a portfolio manager. A background in science, health care or engineering is a plus. The job is in San Francisco.

    —–

    Essential Reads

    Six massive shifts coming soon to power markets near you.

    Same-day delivery company Instacart announced Monday that it had started to reclassify some of its giant workforce as part-time employees. More here.

    According to recent market research, Facebook is on track to deliver two thirds as many video views in 2015 as YouTube does — two trillion versus YouTube’s three trillion. VentureBeat has more here.

    North Dakota looks poised for a transformation thanks to the burgeoning drone industry.

    —–

    Detours

    The difference between a supercar and hypercar (should it come up).

    Nine ways to spot a liar.

    The town that banned Wi-Fi.

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    The You and Me Ping Pong Table. (You’d probably win some points for using this as a conference table.)

    Connie

  • L.A.’s Crosscut Ventures Rounds Up $75 Million

    Crosscut VenturesL.A.’s startup ecosystem has more money today, thanks to Crosscut Ventures, a local, seven-year-old outfit that just closed its third fund with $75 million – considerably more than the $50 million was looking to raise when it hit the fundraising trail at the beginning of 2014.

    Crosscut’s newest pool — whose investors include The James Irvine Foundation, Top Tier Capital, and numerous family offices — is also roughly five times the size of the firm’s second fund, which closed with $16 million in 2012. (The outfit collected just $5.1 million for its first, proof-of-concept, fund in 2008.)

    Is it Crosscut, or L.A., or a combination of the two? We recently asked cofounder Brian Garrett, who cofounded Crosscut with fellow managing directors Rick Smith and Brett Brewer — all of whom are joined in the newest fund by managing director Clinton Foy, previously a venture partner. Our conversation has been been edited here for length.

    You’ve just raised a lot of money, considering where you started seven years ago. How do you explain it?

    A lot of it has to do with the general momentum of L.A. ecosystem. When [local VC] Mark Suster announced [his firm, Upfront Ventures’s] $280 million fund last year and hosted its [invite-only] Upfront Summit [in February], I think everyone became more aware of what’s happening here. I don’t think they’d thought it was a long-term or a sustainable [shift] until then.

    There’s also a lack of competition relative to the opportunity here, and, more specific to us, there aren’t a lot of micro venture firms that have four managing directors – two of whom have 15 years of venture experience. [Editor’s note: Garrett and Smith were previously partners at Palomar Ventures.]

    What are your biggest hits to date?

    We’ve had seven exits out of 18 investments in our first fund, four of which produced 9x returns, including [the e-commerce site] ShoeDazzle. We sold our stake when late-stage investors were buying. We had local market knowledge about how competitive that market was getting. We also sold [the digital ad company] Pulpo Media to the public company Entravision for a 9x return; we sold [the e-document repository] Docstoc to Intuit for a 9x – we were the first money in. We also made another secondary sale that hasn’t yet been announced.

    We’ve had two liquidity events in our second fund, too, with the sale of Lettuce to Intuit for a 4x, and the sale of Gradient X to Amobee [a mobile ad company acquired by SingTel in 2012] for 2x our investment.

    You mention ShoeDazzle, which you’d funded when it was valued at less than $10 million. Sounds like you were smart to get out when you did, though did you the miss out on the chance to invest in founder Brian Lee’s next startup, The Honest Company?

    We did. We were at the tail end of fund one and didn’t have a lot of money left, and some sharp-elbowed Silicon Valley VCs took the whole round. We definitely should have gotten money into Honest Company.

    How do you view secondary sales generally? 

    We look at them on a deal-by-by deal basis to evaluate whether to hold or sell. We have a stake now in a company whose valuation is similar to where ShoeDazzle’s was when we decided to sell, but we’re holding because we think it will be a multibillion-dollar company.

    We look at the market landscape and who the buying audience will be and whether the next plateau of value creation is worth the risk it will take to achieve.

    Where do you think it’s not worth the risk?

    In ad tech, for example, we think you’re either first in a new category and you get a big exit via an acquisition from Google or Yahoo, or you’re in the walking dead zone, along with tons of other good, profitable ad tech businesses that no one wants to buy because it’s become so hard to defend any particular intellectual property or sustain a differentiation.

    You were long juggling Crosscut with a startup you’d cofounded, a fashion and media platform called StyleSaint. Meanwhile, Brett was a senior VP of corporate development at the company Adknowledge. Are you both still doing double-time?

    Brett and I are now full-time with the fund. Brett [quit Adknowledge] six months ago; I’ve been full time since August of last year, when I set out to raise the fund. I quickly realized I couldn’t wear both hats.

    Connie

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  • StrictlyVC: June 22, 2015

    Good morning, everyone, and welcome back! Hope you wonderful dads out there had a great Father’s Day yesterday.

    —–

    Top News in the A.M.

    Hours after singer Taylor Swift criticized Apple in an open letter yesterday, the company said it will pay royalties to artists and record labels for music played during a free, three-month trial of its new streaming music service. The WSJ has more here.

    —–

    Talking 1099 Workers (and More) with Redpoint’s Ryan Sarver

    Last week, the California Labor Commission found that a San Francisco-based Uber driver should have been legally classified as an employee, and not a contract worker, by the company.

    The ruling could be a very big deal for Uber and many other on-demand companies that argue they’re an appealing alternative to people who want to work flexible hours and to be their own bosses — even if they aren’t paying them unemployment, workers compensation or health benefits, all of which would cost such companies roughly 30 percent more per worker.

    The ruling could also be a big deal for investors who’ve poured hundreds of millions of dollars into such companies, though at a dinner last week with partner Ryan Sarver of Redpoint Ventures, it was clear that Sarver isn’t concerned about Uber and its ilk losing this fight. We talked at some length about the case, as well as what types of on-demand companies Sarver wouldn’t be inclined to fund, regulatory tussles notwithstanding. Our chat has been edited for length.

    You’ve invested in a number of on-demand companies, including [the peer-to-peer car buying and selling marketplace] Beepi and [home-cleaning service] Homejoy. If contract workers are reclassified as full-time workers, what happens to them?

    It’s so hard to predict where things are going to go. There’s a huge new class of people who really want flexible work, and that shift is happening and it’s growing and it’s not going away. You’re then trying to match regulation to them that was written in the 1930s and hasn’t been updated since. I don’t know where we land, but we need regulation that maps to those trends.

    What if we don’t get it? How big an impact would that make on, say, Luxe [an on-demand valet service that Redpoint has also backed]?

    It’s hard to say until we know what the rulings are going to look like, but labor is really important and Luxe is competing for it with Uber and Beepi and other [on-demand services]; it’s competitive. And [success] will come down to who can attract and retain that labor.

    Toward that end, what should these companies’ priorities be? Helping their contract workers land health care? Educating them about savings? Beyond the break room and free snacks, how do you win the labor race?

    Churn on the supply side is a big problem for a lot of these on-demand companies, so many of them are focused on hiring, training, and retaining [contract workers]. I think you need more than [break rooms], I agree. What Luxe is doing is giving employees a career path. If you become a really good valet, you become a shift captain. If you become a good shift captain, you can move inside Luxe’s operations center and become a full-time employee. I think smart companies are telling these employees: maybe you want flexible schedules now, but down the road, if you want to move into a full-time position, we’re also going to offer that to you.

    A new layer of companies is emerging to cater to these contract workers, providing them with shift-management software and other things. As an investor, do you think they’re interesting?

    The on-demand labor market is still pretty small; even with a million or so [on-demand] drivers around the world – that’s still a small labor force. As it continues to grow, maybe it becomes more interesting over time, but I think it’s a little too early to tell [what the potential] of those services will be.

    What’s the craziest business you’ve been pitched?

    Well, I did see bodyguards on demand. [Laughs.]

    Are you interested in telemedicine or these other on-demand startups that don’t require big city rollouts?

    I’m a big Doctor on Demand user and I love it, but it’s super infrequent. You’re going to use it in the moment, not every week [because it costs $40 for a 15-minute consultation]. There’s another startup, Better, that gives users access to “personal health assistants” that you might use on a more frequent basis, like, “Hey, our little guy has a rash, what should we do?” I think eventually, there will be a blending of the two, so that you can touch a service in a lightweight way and escalate [to the doctor level] if you need to.

    [Most consumer spending] goes to transportation, food, and housing, though healthcare is also an enormous one.

    Housing is interesting. What do you think of OpenDoor, the on-demand online home-selling service?

    We [invested in] Beepi and they’re very similar models from what I know. OpenDoor will take inventory and buy it from you and fix it up and resell it. Beepi won’t fix up your car, but they’ll send in a mechanic who has a very structured checklist and goes through the service and gives you a price to buy it that day and take it off your hands and bring it into their inventory. Then someone can buy it sight unseen because they trust that the mechanic has done the work and priced it properly.

    I think OpenDoor is doing something very similar, but they’re trying to increase the value of the homes. It’s really interesting and much more complicated than what Beepi is doing. It’s a very big swing.

    —–

    New Fundings

    Advanced Cell Diagnostics, an eight-year-old, Hayward, Ca.-based molecular pathology company developing cell- and tissue-based diagnostic tests for personalized medicine, has raised $22 million in Series C funding led by Summit Partners, with participation from Kenson Ventures and return backers Morningside Ventures and New Leaf Venture Partners. The company has now raised $40.8 million altogether.

    Airbnb, the seven-year-old, San Francisco-based community marketplace for people to list and book personal spaces, is reportedly raising $1 billion in funding at a $24 billion valuation. According to Crunchbase, the company has already raised almost $800 million from investors, including SherpaCapital, TPG Growth, T. Rowe Price, Dragoneer Investment Group, Founders Fund, CrunchFund, and Sequoia Capital. The WSJ has the story here.

    Ant Financial, Alibaba’s Hangzhou, China-based online payments affiliate, has completed an undisclosed amount of fundraising that values the company at between $45 billion and $50 milion, according to the Financial Times. Ant Financial operates Alipay, the PayPal-like online payments company that handled $778 billion in the year ended June 2014, according to Alibaba. As the Financial Times notes, that’s three times the amount handled by PayPal over the same period. Ant Financial’s main shareholder is Jack Ma, Alibaba’s chairman. Dealbook delved into its business late last year. Much more here.

    Are You A Human, a four-year-old, Detroit, Mi.-based startup that enables anyone offering commerce, services, or ads online to know they are addressing a human (versus a bot), has raised $4.2 million in Series A funding led by Detroit Venture Partners, with participation from MDC Dream Ventures, Foundry Group Angels and NCT Ventures.

    Artesian Solutions, the nine-year-old, U.K.-based platform that provides companies with better intelligence on their B2B customers and future prospects, has raised $8 million in Series B funding led by Kreos Capital and previous investor Octopus Investments. The company has now raised at least $11.2 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

    Bond Street, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based company that makes loans to small businesses, has raised $110 million in equity and debt capital led by Spark Capital and the Jefferies investment bank, with individual investors including Nathan Blecharczyk, co-Founder of Airbnb; David Chang, chef and owner, of Momofuku; and others. David Haber, co-founder of Bond Street, left Spark Capital to start the company. New York Business Journal has more here.

    Case Wallet, a 15-month-old, New York-based company behind a credit-card-size device used to securely store and send bitcoin, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by FuturePerfect Ventures, with participation from RRE Ventures, High Line Venture Partners and the Rochester Institute of Technology Fund.

    CropX, a nearly two-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel and San Francisco-based startup whose sensors and app measure soil moisture and temperature levels to help farms adjust their irrigation systems, has raised $9 million in Series A funding. Finistere Ventures led the round, joined by Innovation Endeavors, GreenSoil Investments and the company’s earlier backers, including OurCrowd. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

    Cryptzone, a 13-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based maker of context aware encryption software, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Kayne Partners, with participation from earlier backer Medina Capital. More here.

    Cure Forward, a year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company seeking to connect cancer patients with clinical trials, has raised $15 million in Series A funding from Apple Tree Partners. BetaBoston has more here.

    DIDiT, a two-year-old, New York-based mobile-first social platform that enables users to discover, connect and plan lifestyle experiences, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by BRaVe Ventures, with participation from numerous angel investors. More here.

    FreedomPop, a four-year-old, L.A.-based upstart freemium mobile carrier, has raised $30 million in funding led by European venture capital Partech Ventures, with participation from an unnamed strategic investors and previous backers DCM and Mangrove Capital. The company has now raised $49.3 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. Recode has more here.

    Knyttan, a two-year-old, London-based on-demand fashion startup, has raised £2 million ($1.6 million) in seed funding led by Connect Ventures, with participation from Felix Capital, Playfair Capital, and Ballpark Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

    Komprise, a year-old, Campbell, Ca.-based company selling data management-as-a-service, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Canaan Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

    LiveIntent, a six-year-old, New York-based company that makes technology for in-email display advertising, raised $32.5 million in a funding round led by FTV Capital, with participation from Battery Ventures, First Round Capital and Shasta Ventures. The company has now raised $65.1 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.

    Mapbox, a five-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based mapping platform for developers that makes it easier for location to be core to any mobile or online application, has raised $52.4 million in Series B funding led by DFJ Growth, with participation from Thrive Capital, Pritzker Group, Promus Ventures and former Goldman Sachs Group co-president Jon Winkelried.

    Mayvenn, a 2.5-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based e-commerce company that enables beauticians to sell hair extensions and other products without having to purchase, store or ship any inventory themselves, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Trinity Ventures, Core Innovation Capital, Troy Carter’s Cross Culture Ventures, Impact America, and numerous individual investors, including Jimmy Iovine and Serena Williams.

    Moovo, a seven-month-old, Delhi, India-based on-demand logistics booking platform, has raised seed funding from YouWeCan Ventures and angel investors. YourStory has more here.

    Namely, a three-year-old, New York-based HR software platform that offers cloud-based applications has raised $45 million in Series C funding led bySequoia Capital, with participation from earlier backers Matrix Partners,True Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures and Greenspring Global Partners. The company has now raised $77.8 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. Recode has more here.

    Oxford Sciences Innovation, a months-old, Oxford, England-based company that funds spinoffs from Oxford University’s tech and science departments, has raised an undisclosed amount of capital from Google Ventures’ European branch. The company is looking to raise upwards of $500 million altogether. More here.

    Sano, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company making a wearable device that monitors metabolic activity, has raised $10.3 million in seed funding led by True Ventures and Intel Capital, with participation from Felicis Ventures, Elevation Capital, Floodgate, and Rock Health. TechCrunch hasmore here.

    Sense.ly, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based patient engagement and chronic disease monitoring platform centered around a virtual medical assistant, has raised $2.2 million in Series A funding. Backers include Launchpad Digital Health, Fenox Venture Capital and TA Ventures. The company has now raised $3.5 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

    Smart Vision Labs, a two-year-old, New York-based company whose first device aims to make eye exams cheap and accessible worldwide, has raised $6.1 million in funding led by Techstars Ventures, with participation from Heritage Group, Connectivity Capital, and Red Sea Ventures. Forbes has much more here.

    Tamr, a 2.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based startup that helps companies understand and unify all of their disparate databases, has raised $25.2 million in Series B funding from Hewlett Packard Ventures, Thomson Reuters, MassMutual Ventures and other unnamed participants, with participation from earlier backers New Enterprise Associates and Google Ventures. The company has now raised $42.4 million altogether. More here.

    Tech In Asia, a four-year-old, Singapore-based news site that reports on Asia’s tech ecosystem, has raised $4 million in funding to turn the site into a community hub that includes a Crunchbase-like database and paid-for analytics service. Backers include SB ISAT Fund, Walden International, Marvelstone, and M&S Partners, along with individual investors. The company had previously raised $2.89 million over several small rounds, including from East Ventures, Fenox Venture Capital and Simile Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

    Tidemark, a six-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based enterprise financial planning software company, has raised $25 million in funding from the management software vendor Workday, along with earlier backers Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners and others. Tidemark has now raised $118.4 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. Recode has more here.

    Vox Mobile, a nine-year-old, Independence, Oh.-based company that helps businesses adapt their products to mobile platforms, has raised $6.7 million in a round led by TELUS Ventures, Mutual Capital Partners Funds, Edison Partners and Permal Capital. Forbes has more here.

    —–

    New Funds

    Arboretum Ventures, a 13-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mich.-based venture firm, is looking to raise $215 million for its fourth fund, shows an SEC filing that was filed last week and states the first sale has yet to occur.

    RezVen Partners, a new, Newport Beach, Ca.-based early-stage venture firm focused on software and digital and social media companies, has closed a new fund with $50 million in capital commitments. More here.

    —–

    Exits

    Campus, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that rented out rooms in some 34 houses in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York, is no more — meaning its more than 150 residents need to find somewhere else to live before the official closure on August 31st. The company was founded by Thiel fellow Tom Currier and presumably raised money beyond the $100,000 that Peter Thiel gives budding entrepreneurs to drop out of school. Still, it managed never to disclose as much in various reports about the company (that StrictlyVC has read, anyway).  Business Insider has more here.

    —–

    People

    Politico published a meaty piece on businessman and former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, and among the many nuggets it holds is a breakdown of just how reliant Bloomberg Media is on those lucrative Bloomberg terminals: Per Politico: the company’s “many layers of ‘added value’ . . . the magazines, the TV channels, the specialized verticals . . . generally lose money. Lots of it. Businessweek, easily the most appealing product to consumers, reportedly burns almost $30 million a year. The TV operation has lost about $100 million a year for the past decade.”

    John Doerr says he “felt sick” when he first saw the gender discrimination charges brought against his firm, Kleiner Perkins, by former partner Ellen Pao. Last week, in an interview with Bloomberg TV, Doerr said, “I think it was an error to promote Ellen into an investing partner role. That didn’t work out for her. She was a really good chief of staff but not a good investor.” Video from that interview here.

    Alex Stamos, the world-renowned cybersecurity expert and vocal NSA critic who now commands Yahoo‘s team of “Paranoids” to protect the company from all manner of threats, says the “vast majority of people are not safe using the internet everyday.” Vice Media profiles him here.

    Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg with wife Priscilla Chan have donated $5 million to a scholarship program that helps young undocumented students attend college. Called TheDream.US, the program is geared toward students who come to the U.S. as children with no authorization and wish to pursue higher education. The program was cofounded in 2013 by Donald Graham, CEO of the Graham Holdings Company and a former Facebook director. USA Today has more here.

    —–

    Jobs

    Capital One Ventures is looking to hire a junior-level manager. The job is in San Francisco.

    —–

    Essential Reads

    Alipay is a phenomenon that’s difficult to fathom outside of China. Its president, Jingling Li, explains it to Fortune here.

    —–

    Detours

    Twenty-one amazing photos of Saturn.

    Why reading can make you happier.

    Here’s everyone you probably Googled last night during “True Detective.”

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    A vegetable-tanned English Bridle leather six-pack carrier, for your craft beers. (Warning: Bringing this to a party will get you punched in the face, or it should.)

    Connie

  • Talking 1099 Workers (and More) with Redpoint’s Ryan Sarver

    Ryan SarverLast week, the California Labor Commission found that a San Francisco-based Uber driver should have been legally classified as an employee, and not a contract worker, by the company.

    The ruling could be a very big deal for Uber and many other on-demand companies that argue they’re an appealing alternative to people who want to work flexible hours and to be their own bosses — even if they aren’t paying them unemployment, workers compensation or health benefits, all of which would cost such companies roughly 30 percent more per worker.

    The ruling could also be a big deal for investors who’ve poured hundreds of millions of dollars into such companies, though at a dinner last week with partner Ryan Sarver of Redpoint Ventures, it was clear that Sarver isn’t concerned about Uber and its ilk losing this fight. We talked at some length about the case, as well as what types of on-demand companies Sarver wouldn’t be inclined to fund, regulatory tussles notwithstanding. Our chat has been edited for length.

    You’ve invested in a number of on-demand companies, including [the peer-to-peer car buying and selling marketplace] Beepi and [home-cleaning service] Homejoy. If contract workers are reclassified as full-time workers, what happens to them?

    It’s so hard to predict where things are going to go. There’s a huge new class of people who really want flexible work, and that shift is happening and it’s growing and it’s not going away. You’re then trying to match regulation to them that was written in the 1930s and hasn’t been updated since. I don’t know where we land, but we need regulation that maps to those trends.

    What if we don’t get it? How big an impact would that make on, say, Luxe [an on-demand valet service that Redpoint has also backed]?

    It’s hard to say until we know what the rulings are going to look like, but labor is really important and Luxe is competing for it with Uber and Beepi and other [on-demand services]; it’s competitive. And [success] will come down to who can attract and retain that labor.

    Toward that end, what should these companies’ priorities be? Helping their contract workers land health care? Educating them about savings? Beyond the break room and free snacks, how do you win the labor race?

    Churn on the supply side is a big problem for a lot of these on-demand companies, so many of them are focused on hiring, training, and retaining [contract workers]. I think you need more than [break rooms], I agree. What Luxe is doing is giving employees a career path. If you become a really good valet, you become a shift captain. If you become a good shift captain, you can move inside Luxe’s operations center and become a full-time employee. I think smart companies are telling these employees: maybe you want flexible schedules now, but down the road, if you want to move into a full-time position, we’re also going to offer that to you.

    A new layer of companies is emerging to cater to these contract workers, providing them with shift-management software and other things. As an investor, do you think they’re interesting?

    The on-demand labor market is still pretty small; even with a million or so [on-demand] drivers around the world – that’s still a small labor force. As it continues to grow, maybe it becomes more interesting over time, but I think it’s a little too early to tell [what the potential] of those services will be.

    What’s the craziest business you’ve been pitched?

    Well, I did see bodyguards on demand. [Laughs.]

    Are you interested in telemedicine or these other on-demand startups that don’t require big city rollouts?

    I’m a big Doctor on Demand user and I love it, but it’s super infrequent. You’re going to use it in the moment, not every week [because it costs $40 for a 15-minute consultation]. There’s another startup, Better, that gives users access to “personal health assistants” that you might use on a more frequent basis, like, “Hey, our little guy has a rash, what should we do?” I think eventually, there will be a blending of the two, so that you can touch a service in a lightweight way and escalate [to the doctor level] if you need to.

    [Most consumer spending] goes to transportation, food, and housing, though healthcare is also an enormous one.

    Housing is interesting. What do you think of OpenDoor, the on-demand online home-selling service?

    We [invested in] Beepi and they’re very similar models from what I know. OpenDoor will take inventory and buy it from you and fix it up and resell it. Beepi won’t fix up your car, but they’ll send in a mechanic who has a very structured checklist and goes through the service and gives you a price to buy it that day and take it off your hands and bring it into their inventory. Then someone can buy it sight unseen because they trust that the mechanic has done the work and priced it properly.

    I think OpenDoor is doing something very similar, but they’re trying to increase the value of the homes. It’s really interesting and much more complicated than what Beepi is doing. It’s a very big swing.

    Connie

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  • StrictlyVC: June 17, 2015

    Hi, everyone, hope your Wednesday is off to a great start!

    Quick favor: if you’ve been discovering StrictlyVC in spam in recent weeks, could you shoot us a quick email? We’re working with our ESP this morning to get things resolved once and for all and could use your help.

    We also wanted to remind you that StrictlyVC will not be publishing tomorrow or Friday. (We have some major housekeeping to do before joining forces with TechCrunch.) We’ll see you back here Monday.:)

    —–

    Top News in the A.M.

    Amazon may soon pay normal people to deliver packages en route to their destinations as part of a crowdsourced delivery program. The WSJ has more here.

    A security flaw has left 600 million Samsung smartphones at risk of being hacked.

    Tesla Motors is getting a cash injection in the form of a loan worth up to $750 million from banks like Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Deutsche Bank ,reports Business Insider. The capital might concern Tesla fans, but CEO Elon Musk has said the company needs “staggering” amounts of money to grow its operations, and Tesla has five years to pay back the money, says BI.

    Uh oh, Uber.

    —–

    The Case Against Anthony Noto (and Most Other CFOs) Becoming CEO

    Dick Costolo — who is stepping down as CEO of Twitter in July — has, at a couple of recent conferences, described Twitter CFO Anthony Noto as more than an “accountant” and said that Noto was not brought into the company “just be a CFO.”Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal even suggested that Noto has emerged as a front-runner to replace Costolo, describing Noto – a former tech banker at Goldman Sachs and a former CFO of the National Football League – as a “take-charge” executive, based on interviews with his supporters at the company.

    But promoting Noto to the top spot may not be such a great idea — not based on the experience of longtime executive recruiter Jon Holman, who says CFOs tend to make lousy CEOs. In fact, of the hundreds of C-level executives that Holman has placed over the last 30-plus years, he says he has “never” placed a CFO as a CEO – “nor would I recommend it to someone.”

    Holman “doesn’t know Noto at all,” he is quick to say. He adds that Noto could become the “second or third guy in history who has gone from CFO to CEO and been successful.” But he’s highly skeptical of the model for a variety of reasons.

    First, it’s likely that until April — when Noto was also put in charge of Twitter’s floundering marketing department — Noto has never managed anything near the roughly 4,000 employees that Twitter has around the world.

    “At Goldman, Noto was an analyst, meaning he was a domain expert who knows a huge amount about various industries,” observes Holman. “But he was never managing large numbers of people,  and the people he was managing [in the several years that Noto spent as co-head of the investment bank’s technology, media and telecommunications group] were analysts – not people in marketing, sales, finance, engineering . . .” notes Holman.

    More, says Holman, while CFOs generally sound like they know everything, they do not. “Because CFOs sit in on board meetings along with the CEO, they speak as if they understand the business.They understand the financials of the business. They know that, ‘We’re spending 33 percent of revenue on sales and marketing.’ But they’ve never run a sales organization, and their job has never been on the line if there’s a revenue shortfall,” he notes.

    Not last, CFOs tend to reign in spending and to generally take the most conservative path possible, notes Holman. That’s probably not ideal at Twitter, which has shied away from making dramatic changes to its platform — and been soundly criticized for it. “Most CEOs are outer directed, while CFOs are inner directed,” says Holman. Using a baseball analogy, he observes that “Most CEO types want to swing for the fences; CFOs want players to hit singles.”

    That’s not to say Twitter should rule out Noto completely, suggests Holman. In fact, he could make sense as CEO in the very short term.

    Among other reasons why a company like Twitter might bring in a CFO is if “you have investors who think the sky is falling, or, in this case, that it’s a big problem that Twitter isn’t converting tweets to revenue. CFOs generally speak in appropriate adult-like tones and can [massage] investors and assure them that a company will get it all figured out.”

    Another argument for promoting the CFO is when a company is just going to sell itself anyway, says Holman. In that case, “What you need is someone who understands how to sell a company, someone who will run a [sales] process, which Noto clearly knows how to do.”

    A third reason a CFO like Noto could make sense right now is “if there’s a perception that what a company needs to do is big-time pruning: laying people off, getting expenses under control, those kinds of things that CFOs tend to be really good at.”

    Of course, all of these scenarios would be a prelude to bringing in someone else, and Twitter already has an interim CEO lined up in co-founder Jack Dorsey.  Could we see the equivalent of two interim CEOs at the company?

    Twitter “can do whatever it wants,” says Holman. “Is it a clever strategy? Probably not.”

    —–

    New Fundings

    123ContactForm, a seven-year-old, Timisoara, Romania-based provider of web forms and surveys for companies and NGOs, has raised more than $1 million in funding from Catalyst Romania.

    Bluebridge, a four-year-old, Fishers, Ind.-based, cloud-based mobile app development and management platform, has raised $2 million in funding led by CultivationCapital and Allos Ventures, with participation from angel investors, including ExactTarget cofounder Scott Dorsey. The company had previously raised $2. 8 million in seed and debt financing.

    Boxful, a six-month-old, Hong Kong-based valet storage startup (it comes to take and store users’ surplus items), has raised $6.6 million in Series A funding from Great Eagle, Arocrest Capital, Tinghsin Group, Lonsdale Capital, Soundwill Holdings, Vega Properties and Carlton Holdings.

    Brightwheel, a year-old, San Francisco-based mobile platform for preschools and daycares that allows teachers to track attendance, record observations, and gain insights into daily activities while administrators can send paperless, automated tuition invoices, has raised $2.2 million in seed funding.  The round was led by RRE Ventures and Eniac Ventures, with participation from CrossLink Capital, Golden Venture Partners, Red Swan Ventures, and SherpaVentures.

    Cohesity, a two-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based company that consolidates what are called “secondary” storage systems (meaning anything that doesn’t run a company’s production applications), has quietly raised $70 million across two funds, it says. The company, founded by Mohit Aron — who previously cofounded the “unicorn” storage company Nutanix — most recently raised $55 million in Series B funding led by Artis Ventures and Qualcomm, with participation from Accel Partners, Battery Ventures, Google Ventures andTrinity Ventures. Cohesity’s earlier, $15 million, Series A round was led by led by Sequoia Capital and Wing Venture Capital. Venture Capital Dispatch has the story here.

    Convene, a 5.5-year-old, New York-based conference and meeting company that promises to “orchestrate the perfect meeting” for its customers (it has access to more than 70 meeting rooms in New York and Washington, D.C.), has  raised $15.5 million in Series B funding led by Conversion Venture Capital, with participation from earlier backer Boathouse Capital. The company has now raised roughly $21 million altogether. More here.

    Crocus Technology, an 11-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based maker of magnetic sensors and embedded memory products, has raised $21 million in new funding from NanoDimension, Innovation Capital, IdInvest Partners,Ventech, Sofinnova, CEA Investissement, Rusnano, Industrial Investor Group, and Kreos Capital. The company has now raised $194 million altogether.

    Doctor on Demand, a nearly three-year-old, San Francisco-based telemedicine company that connects patients via video with certified doctors, has raised $50 million in Series B funding led by Tenaya Capital, with participation from Qualcomm Ventures, Dignity Health, 23andMe’s Anne Wojcicki, and earlier backers Venrock, Shasta Ventures, and Sir Richard Branson. The company has now raised $74 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

    FACEIT, a three-year-old, London-based online gaming platform, disclosed yesterday that it raised $2 million in funding earlier this year led by United Ventures. More here.

    Iris.tv, a three-year-old,  L.A.-based company that makes personalized video recommendations to viewers who watch short clips online, has raised $5.3 million in Series A fundng from Sierra Wasatch, BDMI, Progress Venturesand individual backers, including Machinima founder Allen DeBevoise. Venture Capital Dispatch has much more here.

    Kezar Life Sciences, a months-old, South San Francisco, Ca.-based company focused on the development of drugs targeting protein homeostasis for autoimmune disorders, has raised $23 million in Series A funding fromMorningside Venture, Cormorant Asset Management, EcoR1 Capital, 9W Capital Management, Omega Funds, Aju IB Investment, and private investors.

    LeadPages, a 2.5-year-old, Minneapolis, Mn.-based company whose software enables businesses to create responsive mobile landing pages, launch pages, sales pages and other conversion pages, has raised $27 million in Series B funding led by Drive Capital, with participation from Foundry Group and Arthur Ventures. The company has now raised $38 million altogether. More here.

    Minio, an eight-month-old, Woodside, Ca.-based open source cloud storage product, has raised $3.3 million in seed funding led by Nexus Venture Partners and General Catalyst Partners, with participation from AME Cloud Ventures, Index Ventures, and numerous individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

    Pixelligent Technologies, a 13-year-old, Baltimore, Md.-based advanced materials company that makes next-generation materials for applications in solid-state lighting, flat panel displays, optical components and film, has raised $3.4 million in new funding from undisclosed sources. The company has raised roughly $26 million altogether at this point. (It has also been awarded more then $12 million in U.S. grant programs.)

    ServiceTitan, a two-year-old, Glendale, Ca.-based mobile, cloud-based management platform for home service businesses, has raised $18 million in Series A funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners at a post-money valuation of $100 million. The company had previously raised an undisclosed amount of seed capital. Its other backers include Mucker Capital, I2BF Digital, and AMENALAV Group.

    Studitemps, a seven-year-old, Cologne, Germany-based company that places qualified students as temp workers,  has raised $12.4 million in Series C funding from Iris Capital, XAnge, Seventure and b-to-v.

    SQL Sentry, an 11-year-old, Charlotte, N.C.-based maker of software for SQL server database professionals, has raised $25 million in funding from Mainsail Partners. More here.

    Tumblbug, a four-year-old, Seoul-based Kickstarter-like crowdfunding platform for independent creators, has raised more than $1.5 million in Series A funding led by DCM Ventures, Naver and Strong Ventures.

    Tute Genomics, a three-year-old, Provo, Ut.-based company that sells cloud-based analytics, interpretation, and reporting for clinical sequencing, has raised $3.9 million in Series A1 funding from Intermountain Healthcare, Healthbox, and China-based Tencent Holdings. The company has raised now raised $7.7 million altogether.

    Vroom, a two-year-old, New York-based used car sales startup, has raised $19 million in venture funding and $35 million in debt funding from roughly 15 wealthy individuals, including former pro football player John Elway and former Autonation and Blockbuster CEO Steve Berrard. Fortune has the story here.

    —–

    New Funds

    Garage Technology Ventures in Palo Alto, Ca., and Startup Lab in Oslo, Norway, are launching a joint venture called Silicon Valley Catalyst to fund and grow emerging European tech companies. More here.

    Y Combinator is raising money to create a new venture fund, according to an SEC form flagged by Business Insider yesterday. The outfit isn’t talking yet about the vehicle, Y Combinator Continuity Fund I. But our former colleague, Jon Marino, reported back in March that Y Combinator was looking to raise several billion dollars for a fund to deploy in the later-stage rounds of its most promising portfolio companies, like Dropbox and Airbnb.

    —–

    People

    Brian McClendon, a Google engineering VP and 10-year company veteran of the company who was charge of Google Maps, is leaving to oversee Uber’s new Advanced Technologies Center out of Pittsburgh, reports Recode. McClendon is only the latest Googler to be poached by the popular car-service company. At a StrictlyVC event last month, Tom Fallows, another Uber exec recently poached by Google, remarked half-jokingly on stage that he was surprised in discovering on his first day that “one out of three people is a former Google colleague.”

    At the Bloomberg Technology conference yesterday, Mike Schur, an executive producer of TV shows, including “Parks & Recreation,” weighed in on whether or not there’s a tech bubble. “This feels like a very tense moment right now . . .” with “absurd” deals and valuations.” Schur added: “I think Hollywood really likes to satirize any subculture that’s more absurd and self-obsessed than we are.”  More here.

    —–

    Jobs

    Salesforce is looking to hire a senior corporate development manager. The job is in San Francisco.

    —–

    Essential Reads

    Microsoft announced an executive shake-up this morning. More here.

    Etsy, the newly public, Brooklyn-based online marketplace, anounced its own take on the crowdfunding model made popular by Kickstarter: Fund on Etsy. Now sellers can integrate fundraising directly into their virtual storefronts, as well as raise money for products they haven’t yet made. More here.

    —–

    Detours

    A new theory of distraction.

    An airport adventure for a lost toy.

    Nothing like having Arnold tell you to “turn left.”

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    BMW’s new, tech-laden 7-Series sedan, coming this fall. It isn’t cheap, but you’ll get what you pay for.

    Connie

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