Hi, good Monday morning, everyone! Hope you had a wonderful weekend. (Web visitors, here‘s an easier-to-read version of today’s morning email.)

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Top News in the A.M.

President Obama, who has long endorsed net neutrality, just asked the FCC to reclassify the Internet as a utility. Here’s his plan, released this morning.

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Sam Pullara on Being an Entrepreneur at a VC Firm

Sam Pullara has worn an awful lot of hats in his career. A staff engineer at WebLogic in the mid- to late- ’90s, Pullara went on to log time at BEA Systems [which acquired WebLogic, then sold to Oracle], Borland Software, and Yahoo, where over roughly three years, Pullara worked his way up to Chief Technologist. (He left a year later in 2010, as soon as his shares were vested.)

Pullara has also cofounded two companies and served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at both Accel Partners and Benchmark. In fact, it probably came as little surprise to those who know him when in 2012, Pullara, working as a senior infrastructure engineer for Twitter at the time, was invited to join Sutter Hill Ventures as a managing director. Last week, Pullara talked a bit with us about his latest adventure and how long he thinks he’ll stick around this time.

You’ve been a full-time VC for two years. Is the job what you expected?

It’s amazing. It is what I expected, which was a lot. It’s the last job I’ll have, which is surprising for me given my background, but the last two years have gone by super fast. Every day is interesting.

In addition to traditional things, like recruit for companies, Sutter Hill does what it calls origination. Can you explain to readers what that means?

The best example of what we do is Pure Storage, which my [Sutter Hill] partner Mike Speiser helped start when he was leaving Yahoo to come here. He worked with [founder and CTO] John Colgrove for eight months, trying to figure out the best company to start in flash storage. John started it and Mike joined as interim CEO as John built out the team. Then Aneel Bhusri of Greylock [Partners] did the Series B and the rest of that is going amazing. [Editor’s note: Pure Storage is now among the most richly funded companies in Silicon Valley, having raised $470 million since its 2009 founding.]

How is that model different from firms that help incubate companies?

Rarely do you see someone from [accelerator programs like] Y Combinator or Techstars join the [companies they help]. In fact, after Pure Storage, Mike went on to do another company that just came out of stealth, Snowflake Computing [a cloud data warehousing company that has so far raised $26 million, from Sutter Hill, Redpoint Ventures, and Wing Ventures]. Bob Muglia, who used to run Windows at Microsoft, is the CEO.

I’m on my third company. I’m the interim CEO of one of them. I was very active helping run product and engineering for one of them. And the third, I’ve worked with closely for product-market fit. I’m there [at the last] right now as we speak.

How big are these companies and do they leave you time to invest in companies where you don’t play an operating role?

You work 40 percent of the time on the companies you’re helping originate. One [of mine] has 12 employees, one has six, and the last has two, including me. I do have other investments. My first deal at Sutter Hill was in [an enterprise app studio called] Tomfoolery that sold to Yahoo in January. And I’m on the board of two other companies: Boxer in Austin [it makes a mobile e-mail application to access various e-mail accounts] and FoundationDB [which makes a scalable NoSQL database]. I was pretty skeptical about [the latter’s] strong claims, but when they came in, I realized I’d met the team when I was still at Twitter. I was like, Oh, wait, it probably does work.

In your own words, FoundationDB is a tool for building very high scale, fault tolerant, self-healing systems. Why is that such a big opportunity?

In my career, I’d seen tech shift from enterprise companies over to Web companies, and part of what I want to do is bring that back to ops infrastructure companies that offer some core of infrastructure as a service. It’s very different from lower-level applications that you see from Salesforce or Workday.

Why are you more interested in the “bottom of the stack,” so to speak?

I’m somewhat burned from offering tools to developers. My first company aimed to provide continuous deployment to developers, but it’s a tough business. I think these companies are super interesting and they enable a ton, but you have to be pretty clever to make them sustainable. Oftentimes, the biggest advantage you get from a developer-focused product is this ineffable quality of increased productivity, and people don’t pay for that yet. In fact, when someone comes up [to us] with an interesting developer tool, I try to tease out of them what’s the most awesome thing that someone could build with that tool — then I tell them to do that. [Laughs.]

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New Fundings

Ambiq Micro, a four-year-old, West Lake Hills, Tx.-based company that develops energy-efficient microcontrollers, has raised $15.6 million in equity, shows a new SEC filing. The company has now raised at least $36.9 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. Its earlier backers include Austin Ventures, Mercury Fund, and Huron River Ventures.

Arro Corp., a 28-year-old, Chicago-based company that sells processing, contract manufacturing, logistics and warehouse services, has received a $2.25 million loan from the specialty finance company CapX Partners.

Door to Door Organics, a seven-year-old, Lafayette, Co.-based outfit that delivers local produce and natural groceries from organic farmers, has raised $25.5 million in Series B funding led by agriculture investor Arlon Group and the investment bank Rabobank. The company had earlier raised $2 million in funding from Greenmont Capital Partners. VentureWire has more here.

Evernote, the six-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company known for its note-taking apps, has raised $20 million in new funding from the Japanese media giant Nikkei. It has also signed a content deal with company that will see it provide content from Nikkei’s editorial properties in its Evernote’s Context feature beginning early next year. The Context feature will “display relevant articles in real-time to help create a digital workspace that informs and supports users as they accomplish their best work,” says the company, which has now raised $290 million altogether from investors.

Farmer’s Edge Laboratories, a nine-year-old, Winnipeg, Manitoba-based company that offers a range of services to farmers, including drone and satellite imagery of their farmland, soil testing, and predictive computer modeling, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series B funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The company, also backed by Avrio Capital, tells VentureWire it has now raised $15 million to date.

Flipkart, the seven-year-old, Bangalore, India-based e-commerce juggernaut, is close to raising its third round of funding in 2014 at a valuation of more than $10 billion, according to the WSJ. Flipkart has already raised $1.8 billion across 10 funding rounds that have involved roughly a dozen investors, including Accel Partners, DST Global, and Digital Sky Technologies. In July, Flipkart raised $1 billion at a valuation of about $7 billion.

JANDI, a six-month-old, Seoul, South Korea-based maker of enterprise collaboration tools, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by SoftBank Ventures and Cherubic Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Prostate Management Diagnostics, a new, St. Louis, Mo.-based molecular diagnostics firm that’s developing and commercializing genomic tests for the diagnosis and prognosis of prostate cancer, has raised $1.06 million in Series A funding, including from BioGenerator, a nonprofit organization that invests in bioscience companies in St. Louis.

Restoration Robotics, a 12-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company whose newest robots are designed for follicular unit extraction (they help doctors treat baldness), has raised $45 million in Series C extension funding. The capital comes from earlier backers InterWest Partners,Sutter Hill Ventures, Alloy Ventures and Clarus Ventures, among others. The company has now raised $68 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

StratusLIVE, a six-year-old, Virginia Beach, Va.-based company that offers cloud-based fundraising and CRM software to nonprofit organizations, has raised $3 million in funding from unnamed investors. The company has now raised at least $5.3 million altogether, show SEC filings.

Stroma Medical, a nearly six-year-old, Laguna Beach, Ca.-based laser therapy company that claims it can quickly change eye color from brown to blue by removing the brown pigment from the top of the iris, has raised $3.7 million as part of a $4 million round, shows an SEC filing.

Uber, the 5.5-year-old, San Francisco-based car-hailing service, is in early talks with investors about raising at least $1 billion in fresh capital, just six months after it raised $1.2 billion, reports the Financial Times. According to Recode, the new round is likely coming from earlier investors, including Fidelity Investments and BlackRock, and the deal is likely being done at a $25 billion valuation. TechCrunch sources add that the company is shopping the deal as a convertible debt offering, meaning participants would “likely get a discount on the next round of financing. They would also benefit from a better liquidation preference in the case of an exit before Uber raised more money.”

Xiaomi, the 4.5-year-old, Beijing-based smartphone maker, is in talks to raise close to $1.5 billion in new capital at a valuation set to exceed $40 billion, in the largest private financing for a venture-backed company since Facebook in 2011, reports the Financial Times. Negotiations with investors, including Digital Sky Technologies, are yet to be finalized, according to it sources. Last week, Forbes reported the company was exploring funding that would value the company at more than $40 billion.

YourCause, a six-year-old, Carrollton, Tx.-based maker of cloud-based employee engagement software, has raised $4 million in Series A funding from Vocap Investment Partners.

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New Funds

The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center announced last week that it will invest up to $2 million, in individual awards of up to $200,000, to early-stage, Massachusetts-based companies that are selected by a panel of experts. The Boston Herald has more here.

The 13-year-old, San Francisco-based venture firm Artis Ventures is raising a $15 million special-purpose fund called Artis Juicy SPV that states only that Artis cofounder Stuart Peterson is involved. So far, the firm has raised $13.2 million for the effort, shows an SEC filing.

Tina Ju, founding and managing partner of KPCB China, is reportedly raising $200 million venture fund for TDF Capital, another venture fund established by Ju back in 2005. More here from China Money Network.

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IPOs

Capnia, a 15-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company that uses its proprietary medical gas delivery system to develop therapeutic products for chronic diseases, has revealed plans to sell 1.55 million shares at an estimated price of $6.50 in an IPO that would drum up $10.1 million for company. Capnia has raised at least $22 million from private investors over the years, shows Crunchbase, including Teknoinvest, Asset Management Company, and Vivo Ventures.

Momo, a three-year-old, Beijing-based mobile-based social networking platform, filed with the SEC on Friday to raise up to $300 million in an IPO of its American Depositary Shares. The company says it’s the third-most-popular instant messaging app in China, and that its user base more than doubled to 180.3 million in the year through September. Reuters has more here.

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People

Tom Fallows, an e-commerce veteran who has led Google Express since helping found the fast delivery service in late 2012, has left the company to join Uber as it executes out its own plans to become a logistics giant, reports Recode. Google hasn’t yet named a replacement for Fallows.

The Washington Post dissects patent lawyer Ro Khanna‘s failed bid to unseat the Democratic congressman who has represented Silicon Valley since 2000.

Apparently, serial entrepreneur Elon Musk isn’t content with shaking up the automotive and aerospace industries with his companies Tesla and SpaceX. Now he’s looking at ways to make smaller, less-expensive satellites that can deliver Internet access across the globe, according to WSJ sources who say he’s working with Greg Wyler, a satellite-industry veteran and former Google executive.

Jerry Seinfeld joined Facebook recently and he wrote to Mark Zuckerberg on Saturday, “You might really have something here.” The reason for his newfound enthusiasm: After posting a link to the season premiere of his “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” web series, it garnered more than 12 million viewers in one day. (Here is that very funny episode, by the way.)

Remember Travis VanderZanden, the former COO of Lyft who left the company in August and joined rival Uber? Well, after Lyft sued him last week, saying he made off with Lyft’s proprietary information, VanderZanden disclosed in court filings that he’d been in discussions with various board members to replace Lyft’s CEO, Logan Green — discussions that Green was not aware of. More here.

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss say their exchange-traded fund is still under review by the SEC, but that the ETF is “alive and well.” Tyler Winklevoss explained on television last week: “We’re still going through the regulatory process […] Any ETF is a long process to get approved and, in this particular case, we’re dealing with a very innovative product, which is a digital asset which has not been done before.” He added that there has been “no evidence that the ETF [is] going any slower or faster than any other ETF.”

In that live-streamed public Q&A last week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talked publicly for the first time about the popular film “The Social Network.” He said that while director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin “went out of their way” to include precise details about some aspects, when it came to the “overarching plot, in terms of why we’re building Facebook to help connect the world, or how we did it, they just kind of made up a bunch of stuff that I found kind of hurtful.” He added: “The thing that I found the most interesting about the movie was that they kind of made up this whole plot line about how I somehow decided to create Facebook to, I think, attract girls.”

Speaking of Mark Zuckerberg and Hollywood, Zuckerberg, along with producer Harvey Weinstein and Digital Sky Technologies investor Yuri Milner, hosted a private screening for the film “The Imitation Game” at a Los Altos, Ca., mansion this past weekend, reports Deadline. Among those invited to the screening of the movie — a biopic about computer scientist and cryptologist Alan Turing — were Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Linkedin’s Reid Hoffman, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Airbnb’s Nathan Blecharczyk and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.

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Job Listings

Starbucks is looking for a senior business analyst. Amazon is, too. Both jobs are in Seattle. Meanwhile, Criteo is looking for a corporate development manager or senior manager. The job is in Palo Alto, Ca.

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Essential Reads

Apple has finally made it easy to disable iMessage.

Uber has just brought its controversial vehicle-financing program to India.

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Detours

Correcting the record: The CIA tweets the “real” Argo story.

Luxury condos, built for doomsday.

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Retail Therapy

Cool helmet.

Classy wetsuit.

Laser lapels. Hah, hah. Good one.

 

Good morning, everyone! No column — StrictlyVC had one too many meetings yesterday — but we have some good stuff coming your way next week. Hope you have a terrific weekend. (Web visitors, here’s an easier-to-read version of this morning’s email.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Twitter is opening an office in Hong Kong to serve greater China and tap ad revenue from fast-growing China-based companies.

Yesterday, Home Depot announced that its breach last spring was worse than earlier thought. In addition to the 56 million credit card accounts that were compromised, the company says around 53 million customer e-mail addresses were also nabbed.

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A Note from Our Sponsor

Techweek Los Angeles is coming up November 20-21 in Techweek’s purpose-built tent on Santa Monica Pier. Come hear JustFab founderAdam Goldenberg, Techstars Managing Director Cody Simms, and FundersClub cofounder Alex Mittal speak among dozens of other entrepreneurs and investors, then watch as more than 50 startups battle in front of the conference’s top judges and you. Registration information is here.

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New Funds

BluWrap, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose technology extends the shelf life of meats and other proteins while they’re being shipped, has raised $12.6 million led by Wheatsheaf Investments, an food-and-energy-focused fund. Earlier investors Anterra Capital, Firelake Capital, and Rabo Ventures also participated in the round.

Chartcube, a year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based company whose app is used to help review, share and discuss data, has raised $4 million in Series A funding from Shasta Ventures. The company had previously raised an undisclosed amount of money, shows Crunchbase.

Confluent, a new, Mountain View, Ca.-based company that’s commercializing an open-source system messaging project called Apache Kafka, has raised $6.9 million in seed funding led by Benchmark, with participation from LinkedIn and Data Collective. Confluent was cofounded by engineer Jay Kreps, who was the tech lead for LinkedIn’s online data infrastructure. GigaOm has more here.

Codoon, a three-year-old, Chengdu, China-based fitness wearable maker that’s trying to compete with the wearable offering of Xiaomi, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by SIG and SBCVC. Earlier this year, the company had raised $10 million in Series A funding from CITIC Capital.

Drybar Holdings, a four-year-old, Brentwood, Ca.-based owner of a fast-growing chain of blowout-only hair salons, has raised $18.5 million in new funding led by Pine River Capital Management, which invested $13.5 million. The new investment follows a $20 million round in June led by SPK Capital and Castanea Partners. The WSJ has more here.

Encoding.com, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based video encoding company, has raised $3.5 million in Series B round led by the publicly traded video delivery infrastructure company Harmonic. The company has now raised $8 million altogether, including from Metamorphic Ventures and Zelkova Ventures.

Fyndiq, a five-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based e-commerce platform that sells bargain-basement items for merchants, has raised $20 million in funding led by the Nordic investor Northzone and Industrifonden, a venture outfit backed by the Swedish government. Fyndiq has now raised $26 million altogether.

Highspot, a two-year-old, Seattle-based startup founded by four Microsoft veterans to help sales and marketing people more efficiently target their customers, has raised $9.6 million in Series A funding led by Madrona Venture Group. The company had also raised $2.7 million in convertible debt last year. GigaOm has more here.

Maple, a new, New York-based food-delivery service set to launch early next year, has raised $4 million in seed funding led by Thrive Capital, with participation from 14W, Bessemer Venture Partners, High Peaks Venture Partners, Momofuku chef David Chang, and numerous other individual investors.

Meekan, a year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup whose scheduling software connects different online calendars, has raised $870,000 in seed funding, $750,000 of which came from Horizons Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

MyTomorrows, a two-year-old, Amsterdam-based healthcare platform that facilitates patient access to experimental treatments, has raised €4.5m ($7.1 million) in its first institutional financing. Balderton Capital and Sofinnova Partners co-led the round.

OrthAlign, a six-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based medical device company that recently secured U.S. clearance for its handheld navigation device for hip replacement surgery, has raised $15 million from earlier investors, including River Cities Capital Funds and Mutual Capital Partners. The company has raised at least $24.2 million altogether, shows Crunchbase

Parenthoods, a months-old, San Francisco-based startup whose iPhone app promises parents access to localized advice and support by making it easier to connect with other millennial parents, has raised $1.32 million in seed funding led by Slow Ventures, with participation from Lowercase Capital, Liberty City Ventures, 500 Startups, Y Combinator (whose program Parenthoods passed through in summer), and individual investors.

Powa Technolgies, a seven-year-old, London-based commerce companies whose technologies integrate the physical and digital world, has raised $80 million from Wellington Management. Powa has now raised at least $176 million over three rounds, including from Bay Pond Partners, shows Crunchbase.

PPzuche.com, a year-old, Beijing-based peer-to-peer car sharing platform, has raised $60 million in Series B funding led by Morningside Ventures and IDG Capital Partners, with participation from Source Code Capital, Sequoia Capital, Mingshi Capital and Qingliu Capital. The company, which had previously raised $10 million, has two brands: iCarsClub focuses on Singapore, while PPzuche is growing in Chinese cities. Tech in Asia has more here.

Royalty Exchange, a three-year-old, Raleigh, N.C.-based online marketplace that connects royalty owners with investors, has raised $500,000 from IDEA Fund Partners. The company had previously raised $2.9 million from investors, including Grotech Ventures.

Showpad, the three-year-old, Belgium and San Francisco-based startup that provides mobile-first software to help support sales teams with up-to-date information they might need to close more sales, has raised $8.5 million in funding led by Dawn Capital with participation from earlier investor Hummingbird Ventures. The company has raised $10.5 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Vicarious, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based artificial intelligence technology startup, has raised $12 million in funding led by ABB Technology Ventures, the venture arm of the power and automation giant ABB. Vicarious has now raised $72 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. VentureBeat has more here.

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New Funds

Aligned Partners, a three-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based venture firm “dedicated to helping founders start lean and stay lean,” is hoping to raise up to $40 million for a second fund, according to an SEC filing that shows the first sale has yet to occur. The firm’s first fund closed with roughly $26 million in commitments.

Cervin Ventures, a six-year-old, Newark, Ca.-based post-seed-fund investment firm, is in the market for a third fund, shows an SEC filing first flagged by VentureWire. The filing doesn’t provide an offering amount; it also states the first capital has yet to be raised.

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IPOs

Coherus BioSciences, a four-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company that’s developing similar versions of widely used biotechnology drugs, saw its shares close down yesterday, its first day of trading on the Nasdaq. The company, which sold 6.3 million shares at $13.50, raising $85 million, ended the day with its shares priced at $12.61.

Nevro, a four-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based medical device company that’s targeting back pain, raised $126 million in an IPO yesterday that saw its share rise nearly 40 percent. Silicon Valley Business Journal has more here.

Sky Solar Holdings, a five-year-old, Hong Kong-based independent power producer that develops, owns, and operates solar parks in the downstream solar market, postponed its IPO yesterday, citing poor market conditions.

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People

People close to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo reportedly say the scrutiny that comes with running a public company has amplified his “reactive” management style, and “left him struggling to convey a consistent vision for a business whose cultural impact overshadows growing losses.” More here from the WSJ.

Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine have revolutionized hip-hop. They’ve revolutionized headphones. Now can they revolutionize college? They’re trying.

Paul Lee is becoming an entrepreneur. A general partner at Lightbank in Chicago for the past four years — and a VC for the past decade, including at NBC’s Peacock Equity Fund and at GE Capital before that — Lee announced in a post yesterday that he has “decided to focus full time on my own stealth venture.” He added that details will “come shortly.” Lee will also remain a venture partner at Lightbank for now.

Dwolla cofounder Ben Milne: “It’s just time for me to go home for a bit and I know it.”

Zynga founder and former CEO Mark Pincus has “started a new endeavor that is a little bit incubator, a little bit startup factory and a lot the new ideas of Mark Pincus,” reports Recode, which says Pincus has already hired a handful of people to work on two of his (yet undisclosed) ideas.

Ali Rowghani is joining Y Combinator as a part-time partner, the outfit’s president, Sam Altman, announced yesterday. Rowghani was most recently the COO of Twitter; he also spent several years as the company’s CFO and, before joining Twitter, spent six years as the CFO of Pixar. Rowghani will “mostly focus on helping our alumni that are a few years out of YC scale their companies,” said Altman in a blog post. Y Combinator now has 13 full-time partners and nine part-time partners, notes TechCrunch.

Yesterday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took part in his first public Q&A. Watch the full video here.

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Job Listings

Blackrock, which has participated in some outsize venture rounds this year, including for the software analytics company New Relic and the big data company Hortonworks, is looking for a corporate development VP or director. The job is in New York.

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Data

CB Insights runs some numbers to see how much Tinder, the fast-growing dating app majority owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp, might be worth as a standalone company.

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati has just released its newest report on financing trends, determining that up rounds remained at a historical high in the third quarter, while down rounds increased slightly, from 16 percent to 19 percent of all deals. The report also says that median pre-money valuation in Series A deals backed by venture and corporate strategic investors held steady at $10 million in the third quarter, while the median Series B pre-money valuation hit $33.8 million, higher than any quarter since 2007. More here.

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Essential Reads

Authorities have launched a scorched-earth purge of the Internet underground, and Wired delves into the details of that campaign.

New documents reveal that fire-safety concerns sank Google’s barges.

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Detours

Not everyone prepares for their work the same way.

Twenty-six photos of vintage Ducati’s.

The rise of the lumbersexual.

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Retail Therapy

App-enabled string lights.

Baskin-Robbins is now making camouflage ice cream. Baskin-Robbins does not know you cannot hide ice cream from StrictlyVC.

A Beverly Hills estate with its own revolving dance floor, 27-car garage and vineyard has hit the market with a record-breaking listing price of $195 million. It is called the Palazzo di Amore, of course.

Good morning, everyone! (Web visitors, here’s an easier-to-read version of today’s morning email.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Government officials are trying to expand their authority to hack into computers by changing an arcane federal rule governing how judges can approve search warrants, reports the National Journal.

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The Industry Gets a New, $50 Million Micro VC Fund of Funds

Today, Venture Investment Associates, a 21-year-old fund of funds group that commits capital to venture capital, growth capital, and private equity groups, is announcing that it has closed on an oversubscribed $50 million seed fund of funds that counts some pretty tony institutions as LPs. Managing director Chris Douvos — who joined the firm in 2011, having worked previously for TIFF (The Investment Fund for Foundations) and Princeton University’s endowment — won’t let StrictlyVC name those investors. But we talked recently about numerous other facets of the new fund, and who it’s liable to back. Our chat has been edited for length.

This is your second formal micro-VC fund of funds, and half of it is already committed. Is that right?

Yes, we’ve been investing in [micro-VC] since 2004; we were part of First Round Capital’s friends-and-family round. But we closed on an oversubscribed $25 million fund of funds in 2012, 80 percent of which went to four managers: True Ventures, First Round Capital, Data Collective and [O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures]. And half of this oversubscribed $50 million fund is deployed among First Round, True, and Data Collective. We’re also likely to do OATV again when it comes back in the market.

That’s concentrated.

I believe investing is about conviction. I would give [First Round founder] Josh Kopelman the last dollar in my kids’ college funds.

What kind of ownership percentage do you target?

When we’re a major institutional backer of a new entity, we like at least 10 percent of the fund. In the case of OATV, back in 2006, we did 15 percent of the fund. At Data Collective, we [bought] 10 percent of fund in 2012. We have a group of [institutional] investors who are super sophisticated and we’re sort of bird-dogging ideas for them.

What new idea are you spying? What other types of funds are you looking to back right now?

We’re looking to find another group or two where we can really make an impact and put them in business. Having invested in the space for more than a decade now, it’s easy to tell who the tourists are and who the long-term players are. I focus on groups that somehow punch above their weight, that offer a platform dynamic where their companies will materially benefit from interaction with the VC but where the VC doesn’t end up being a bottleneck.

I’m not looking for sharpshooters that are the next really smart ex-entrepreneur, because I’ve seen that model rise and fall several times.
There are a plethora of these people raising funds; I think we’ll have a Cambrian explosion and the species will kind of die off during the next financial crash. It’ll be like a meteor hitting.

Are you seeing many newer firms emerge with platform approaches? I take it you’re looking for another True or First Round – firms that do a lot to facilitate interactions between the founders of their portfolio companies.

Firms that demonstrate platform dynamics are really special, but they’re few and far between. There’s no one on my radar screen right now.

Do you care where a firm is based? Would you fund a firm that’s not in the U.S.?

This is an information business, and when you’re investing far afield, you start outrunning your supply lines of information. You’re investing in people and you need to understand their motivations and their fears and their contexts, and it’s hard to know those when they’re thousands of miles away.

Do you favor VCs who spin out on their own to entrepreneurs?

I think operating experience is overrated and that people undervalue the investing experience of people who’ve written checks of institutional size. When I’m looking at an entrepreneur, I’m asking myself: How do they think about investing as a fiduciary, because it’s a very different skill set and thought process.

There’s a bias in the Valley that [investing experience] is a secondary consideration and that finding a cool technology or exciting team will make everything work out. But we’re starting to see with late-stage deals that are heavily structured and sapping the returns of earlier investors that [those ties] aren’t sufficient to the end goal of making money for investors.

What do you make of AngelList? Do you think more entrepreneurs should or will begin using it to form their own micro VC outfits?

I think AngelList Syndicates and [the accredited investor platform] FundersClub could really reshuffle the landscape. We don’t know yet how those stories play out. We made a small investment in AngelList’s Maiden Lane [a fund that backs investors on AngelList] partially to have a front row seat as things unfold.

But part of me wonders about a lot of people who are raising these small funds. Traditional fund structure is deeply flawed. The average fund lasts twice as long as the average American marriage. It often outlasts their LP’s tenure at an institution. They’ve got to be thinking: Why not raise money via AngelList instead?

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New Fundings

Agorize, a three-year-old, Paris-based company that relies on open innovation and community crowdsourcing to let companies gather data on new ideas and ventures, has raised $2.6 million from Iris Capital and Capnamic Ventures with Ader Finance participating. TechCrunch has more here.

C3Nano, a four-year-old, Hayward, Ca.-based company develops hybrid carbon nanotube-based transparent electrode inks and films for display devices, has raised $12 million in Series C financing led by Nagase America Corp. and another, undisclosed company. The company has now raised roughly $21.9 million to date, shows Crunchbase; others of its backers include Phoenix Venture Partners, and GSR Ventures.

Cloud9 IDE, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based online development platform technology that enables web and mobile developers to collaborate from anywhere, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series B funding led by Balderton Capital. The company had previously raised $5.6 million in Series A funding from Accel Partners and Atlassian.

Creditera, a two-year-old, South Jordan, Ut.-based service that gives small-business owners free access to their personal and business credit data, has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, along with Peak Ventures and other, undisclosed backers. The company had previously raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Kickstart Seed Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

FilmTrack, an 18-year-old, Studio City, Calif.-based provider of rights and content management SaaS solutions for the film and television industries, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by earlier investor Insight Venture Partners and SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg. The company has now raised $30 million to date, shows Crunchbase. In related news, FilmTrack has acquired the music licensing software platform Dashbox, which Goldberg co-founded, for undisclosed terms.

Gemr, a 1.5-year-old, Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based company whose app and website community aim to help people find and value collectibles, has raised $4.9 million in Series A funding from investors, including James Hawkes, the former chairman and CEO of Eaton Vance Corp., and co-founder Gary Sullivan, who is also an appraiser on PBS’s “Antique Roadshow.” TechCrunch has more here.

Intersec, a 10-year-old, Paris, France-based company that sells optimization software to mobile operators, has closed a $20 million Series B funding round from Highland Capital Partners Europe and existing investors.

MediaRadar, an eight-year-old, New York-based company whose competitive intelligence platform is designed for digital and magazine advertising sales executives, has raised $6.7 million in funding from Bain Capital Ventures, Mousse Partners and Founder Collective.

Shippable, a year-old, Seattle, Wa.-based company that continuously integrates, tests, packages and deploys developers’ software to any cloud, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Madrona Venture Group, with participation from earlier investors Vulcan Capital, Divergent Ventures and Founders Co-Op. The company has now raised $10.1 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Spacehive, a 2.5-year-old, U.K.-based civic crowdfunding platform, has raised 1.3 million pounds ($2 million) in funding led by SI2 Fund, with participation from Big Society Capital and other, unnamed investors.

Tolero Pharmaceuticals, a three-year-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based biopharmaceutical company developing therapies to help cure diseases such as cancer and rheumatoid arthritis, has raised a second tranche of a Series B funding that brings the round total to $22.4 million. The round was led by Fred Alger Management and includes participation from unnamed institutional and individual investors.

Watchup, a two-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based startup that delivers personalized newscasts, has raised $2.75 million in funding led by Tribune Media, with participation from the McClatchy Co. and earlier investors Knight Enterprise Fund, Stanford-StartX Fund and Ned Lamont. The company, founded at Stanford University’s Stanford-StartX accelerator, has now raised $4.25 million altogether.

ZergNet, a three-year-old, Indianpolis, Ia.-based content recommendation startup, has raised $3.2 million in Series A funding co-led by Greycroft Partners and Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, with participation from Lerer Hippeau Ventures and Mark Cuban. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

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New Funds

Arbor Ventures, a Hong Kong-based early-stage venture firm, has held a first close on $125 million for its debut fund, which is focused on the intersection of big data, financial services and digital commerce. The firm was founded by two senior female partners from Asia’s venture capital industry: Melissa Guzy, previously a managing director of VantagePoint Asia; and Citi Ventures’ former head of Asia, Wei Hopeman. The WSJ has much more here.

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IPOs

Inotek Pharmaceuticals, a 15-year-old, Lexington, Ma.-based biopharmaceutical company developing therapies for glaucoma, has filed the paperwork to raise up to $132.2 million in an IPO. The company has raised at least $30 million in equity and debt in recent years, shows Cruchbase. Some of its biggest shareholders including Devon Park Bioventures, which owns 25.7 of the company; Rho Ventures, which owns 20.4; Care Capital, which owns 17.8 percent; MedImmune Ventures, which owns 16 percent; and Pitango Venture Capital, which owns 11.6 percent.

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Exits

Supernova is shutting down its iOS apps, including the once popular video-sharing app Viddy, reports App Advice.

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People

The 100 best tech people on Twitter, per Business Insider.

The daily deals company LivingSocial has just announced 20 percent layoffs at the company, reports Valleywag. More here.

Travis VanderZanden, the former COO of Lyft, who left the company in August and joined ridesharing rival Uber in October, is being accused of taking secret documents with him in a new lawsuit filed by Lyft yesterday. The documents contained financial projections, product plans, customer lists and private personnel information, says Lyft.

Twitter has proposed constructing a sky bridge between its headquarters’ two buildings in San Francisco so Twitter employees won’t have to go downstairs and cross the street during the day. (One suspects this will not do wonders for local perceptions of Twitter as isolationist.)

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Data

In the past year, investors have contributed more than $300 million in 97 venture rounds for so-called Internet of Everything startups. TechCrunch has more here.

Venture capitalists are also investing in lots of tools to help programmers do their jobs better, reports Venture Capital Dispatch. Nineteen U.S. startups working on software-development tools raised $235.1 million in the third quarter, the most in any quarter since 2000.

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Essential Reads

Nest is now giving away its smart thermostats, starting with a public utility in Ireland whose users will have to sign a two-year contract in exchange for the product.

In a major twist of its own, Microsoft will now give away the mobile version of its Office software.

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Detours

“I work in San Francisco.”

Justine Bateman on pulling off a major mid-life career pivot.

Gone in an instant: How one NBA player lost $110 million.

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Retail Therapy

Mogo Portable Seats. You will look ridiculous, but sometimes you need to take a load off.

Hello and happy Wednesday morning, everyone! (Web visitors, click here for a version of today’s email that will not drive you blind.)

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Top News in the A.M.

It’s official. The Democrats got crushed. What that means remains to be seen, but the Washington Post observes that with Colorado Senator Mark Udall’s defeat, NSA reformers just lost an ally on the inside.

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Kleiner’s Mike Abbott on (Probably) Not Starting Another Company

Three years ago, Mike Abbott joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in the plum role of general partner. Yet one senses the longtime operator and entrepreneur — whose many past roles include as Twitter’s VP of Engineering; as SVP at Palm; and as cofounder of the data virtualization startup Composite Software, acquired by Cisco last year for $180 million in cash — isn’t completely finished getting his hands dirty as an engineer. We caught up the other day, chatting about everything from Kleiner’s well-documented management changes to Abbott’s closet coding. Our conversation has been edited for length.

When you joined Kleiner, it seemed to be undergoing a generational shift, with you and Megan Quinn reportedly charged with building the firm’s digital practice. Now, many younger partners the firm had brought on are gone, including Quinn, who has become a strategic advisor. What’s going on?

Megan decided for personal reasons that she and her significant other were moving to the U.K. We wanted her to be part of the KP family, so that’s totally distinct from [the decision the firm made a year ago to downsize] . . . But we’re very much making sure that KP’s platform is getting built for the future and clearly we’ll be adding a couple of new folks as we find the right people for us.

You joined the firm less than two years before it shook up its management team. How has that impacted your work and your outlook on KP?

I don’t think I knew the company, or the firm would [be involved in] different legal issues or what not. I’m not going to lie and say I was aware of everything. But I was aware there was a conviction to make changes and I applaud [longtime general partners] Ted [Schlein] and John [Doerr] for doing [what they felt was best for the firm]. We have a long history of handling generational transitions and a great history to leverage; it doesn’t change the fact that we have a lot of work to do.

John Doerr is joining the board of Slack, Kleiner’s latest high-profile deal. What are your new investments? What interests you?

I’ve been spending a lot of time around computer vision. I think the advancements in deep learning that Google and Facebook are making are interesting. One of my most recent investments is Airware [a three-year-old company that’s developing a drone operating system]. It’s going to be really interesting to see what kinds of applications get built [because of it].

I’ve spent my career focused on big data, but now we have efficient ways to query it and store it and [the next step] is extracting real intelligence out of it.

How? What are some of the other related applications and services that interest you?

I think it’s interesting to think through how, if you were to build a Salesforce or NetSuite today, you would build it. RelateIQ, which Salesforce acquired, was starting to do interesting analytics around the email accounts of sales teams to enable them to do better lead forecasting – like looking at the frequency that [a rep] talks with a customer, and the time between that outgoing email and the customer’s response.

What we haven’t seen yet is more work around the quantified employee, meaning: How do you start building metrics that go beyond performance management? If I usually send X number of emails, and check in so many times on Github, and you build a fingerprint of me as an employee and that [fingerprint] suddenly changes, well, maybe it’s because of my personal life or maybe it’s because I don’t like who I’m working with and maybe now I’m at risk [of leaving the company]. I’m not suggesting monitoring employees for bad behavior, but when I was at Twitter, managing a couple hundred employees, boy, if there’d been a way for me to get different metrics that were implicitly derived and would have helped me be a more effective leader and manager . . .

Before joining Kleiner, you were a fairly active angel investor. What’s your pacing like as a VC?

I’ve done two Series A deals [for the firm] this year and one Series B. It’s not like, “You used your two; you’re done.” But if you look at the size of the fund and reserves, it kind of ends up that way.

Is that frustrating?

It’s not easy, even if I’m writing more software [on the side]. I really enjoy the mentoring and service aspect [of venture capital], but I won’t lie; as someone who has built products for 20 years, the feedback cycles are a lot longer than when you’re shipping software.

Wait. You still go home and write software?

I do. I’ve recently met with a number of companies doing deep learning and just wanted to see what state-of-the-art was for someone like me to try out.

A couple of weeks ago, I also wrote a couple of [scripts] for custom keyboards, which you can use for i0S 8 [as it now allows third-party keyboards in the App store]. I don’t necessarily know if there’s a company or not, but different keyboards for different locations is fascinating to me.

Are you talking about helping another team incubate a company or are you tempted to start another company?

I certainly can and would [help incubate a company]. KP has a history of people starting companies out of its offices, which made me feel better [when I joined], thinking I could start one. But having started companies, I know what kind of investment that takes and I’m not sure I’ve been able to reconcile whether [I] can really do [a startup] and provide enough time and support to the companies on whose boards I sit.

I wouldn’t say no way [will I ever start another company]. But I have a deep respect for what it requires.

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New Fundings

Blued, a two-year-old, China-based Grindr-style chat and matchmaking app for Chinese men, has raised $30 million in funding led by DCM. The company had earlier raised $1.6 million in seed funding from Zhonglu Capital and Crystal Stream.

BlueSnap, a 12-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based payment services company, has raised $50 million in growth equity led by Parthenon Capital Partners, with earlier investor Great Hill Partners participating in the round alongside BlueSnap management.

CheckoutSmart, a two-year-old, London-based company that makes a cashback app for supermarket shoppers in the U.K., has raised £1.5 million ($2.4 million) in seed funding from a long list of angel investors.

Chime, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based bank account and rewards app “for mobile millennials,” has raised $8 million in funding led byCrosslink Capital, with participation from investors Homebrew, Forerunner Ventures and PivotNorth Capital.

Contactually, a three-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based relationship marketing platform, has raised $2 million in seed funding from earlier investors, including 500 Startups, Boston Seed Capital, Point Nine Capital and Gil Penchina’s AngelList syndicate, along with new investors Crystal Tech, Middlebridge Partners and Middleland Capital. The company has now raised $3.5 million to date.

Ease Entertainment Services, a six-year-old, Beverly Hills, Ca.-based payroll and software services company for the entertainment industry, has raised $17 million from Bison Capital Asset Management.

Evermind, a two-year-old, Nashville, Tn.-based company whose sensor-laden outlets detect when appliances are turned on or off, sending email and text alerts when changes in activity could be cause for concern, has raised $2.5 million in Series A funding led by Tristar Technology Ventures, with participation from Solidus, Launch Tennessee, and numerous angel investors. MedCity News has more here.

Fuel3D, a year-old, London-based company that makes a high resolution handheld 3D scanner, has raised $6.4 million in funding led by earlier investor Chimera Partners. A spin-out of Oxford University, the company raised $300,000 last year via Kickstarter and another $2.6 million in funding from Chimera and Parkwalk Advisors earlier this year.

Gigya, an eight-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company that helps online businesses and publishers manage customer logins, has raised $35 million in a funding round led by Intel Capital. Other participants in the round include Common Fund Capital, Vintage Investment Partners and earlier investors Adobe, Advance Publications, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Greenspring Associates, and Mayfield Fund. Gigya has now raised $104 million altogether. (Intel Capital actually announced new investments in 16 companies yesterday. Here‘s the full list.)

Gravitant, a 10-year-old, Austin, Tx.-based company that provides businesses with a way to compare and select cloud service providers, has added $25 million to a $10 million Series B it had closed last year. New investor Cielo Private Equity led the funding, alongside earlier investor S3 Ventures. The company has now raised roughly $40 million to date, including from Corsa Ventures.

InList, a months-old, Miami Beach, Fl.-based company whose app allows users to make reservations at exclusive venues and events, has raised $3 million in funding from investors, including Moneta Group and Star Capital Partners. The company has raised $4 million to date, it says.

Kash, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile payments company, has raised $2 million in seed funding from investors, including Draper Associates, Green Visor Capital and Structure Capital.

Minus, a four-year-old, New York-based company whose “MeowChat” app prompts users to create profiles of themselves describing their age, gender, location, and hobbies so they can be matched with similar users in chat rooms, has raised $8 million in funding from investors, including Eniac Ventures, Social Starts, IDG-Accel, and SIG. Venture Capital Dispatch has the story here.

Prelert, a five-year-old, Framingham, Ma.-based cyber security company, has raised $7.5 million in new funding from Intel Capital and earlier investors Fairhaven Capital and Sierra Ventures. The company had previously raised on round of $3.8 million, shows Crunchbase.

Thanx, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based customer loyalty program startup, has raised $4.7 million in Series A funding from Sequoia Capital. The company has now raised $6 million altogether, including from earlier investor SoftTech VC.

Wanderu, a three-year-old, Boston-based travel search site, has raised $5.6 million in Series A funding led by Metamorphic Ventures, with participation from Alta Ventures, 500 Startups, Barbara Corcoran Venture Partners and individual investors, including venture capitalist Brad Feld. The company has raised $8.1 million to date.

Xiaomi, the 4.5-year-old, Beijing-based electronics manufacturer and smartphone maker, is exploring the option of raising funding that could value the company at more than $40 billion, reports Forbes, noting the valuation would make Xiaomi the world’s most valuable privately held technology company. The company has previously raised at least $347 million, including from Morningside Group and QiMing Venture Partners.

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New Funds

Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, founded two years ago by its sole general partner, Charlie O’Donnell, is in the market for its second fund, he tells the WSJ. His debut fund, which closed with $8.3 million, has been used so far to invest in 19 startups and has produced an IRR of 53 percent, he says, though none of the companies in his portfolio has exited yet.

Mérieux Développement, a five-year-old, Lyon, France-based private equity investment arm of Institut Mérieux, has launched a second pool of 150 million euros ($188.4 million) to invest in health care and nutrition companies.

Xiaomi, the four-year-old, Beijing-based electronics powerhouse, announced yesterday that it plans to invest $1 billion in online video content to support its smart television ecosystem. The investment will be overseen by two Xiaomi executives with extensive experience in building online content, reports TechCrunch. More here.

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Exits

Allegiance, a nine-year-old, South Jordan, Ut.-based company whose software helps businesses analyze and apply customer feedback, has been acquired by the sales and marketing services company Maritz Holdings for an undisclosed amount. Allegiance had raised at least $51.7 million over the years, shows Crunchbase. Its investors include Nippon Venture Capital, Allegis Capital, El Dorado Ventures and Rembrandt Venture Partners.

ChanTest, a 16-year-old, Cleveland, Oh.-based biotech that provides ion channel testing services, has been acquired by Wilmington, Mass.-based Charles River Laboratories International for $52 million, with another $2 million in payments tied to future milestones. ChanTest had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from the private equity firm Ampersand in 2007.

Corona Labs, a six-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based maker of a mobile app development platform, has been acquired by the mobile monetization company Fuse Powered for undisclosed terms. Corona had raised $3 million in equity and debt from Merus Capital and Western Technology Investment, shows Crunchbase. Fuse Powered has raised at least $13 million from investors, shows Crunchbase, including Relay Ventures, Pinetree Capital, and NFQ Ventures.

CyVek, a six-year-old, Wallingford, Ct.-based company that has developed a new immunoassay technology, has been acquired by publicly traded Bio-Techne Corp. for $60 million. CyVek had raised at least $22.3 million over five rounds, shows Crunchbase. Its backers include Connecticut Innovations.

Definiens, a 20-year-old, Munich, Germany-based company focused on imaging and data analysis technology, is being acquired by the U.K.-listed drug maker AstraZeneca for $150 million, including additional, pre-determined milestone payments. Definiens had raised at least $33 million from investors, shows Crunchbase, including VM Capital, Cipio Partners, and Wellington Partners. The Telegraph has more here.

Shareholder InSite, a six-year-old, Nashville, Tn.-based software company that provides shareholder management and analytics services to venture and private equity firms and private companies, has been acquired for an undisclosed amount by Ipreo Holdings, a capital-markets research company backed by Blackstone Group and Goldman Sachs Group. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Shareholder InSite had raised at least $4.8 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. Its backers include the Council & Enhanced Tennessee Fund.

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People

Damon Kirchmeier has joined the Salt Lake City, Ut.-based venture firm EPIC Ventures as a director. Kirchmeier was previously the president of Rockwell Time USA, which distributes athletic watches. He earlier co-founded the investment firm InnoVentures Capital Partners, where he spent 10 years as a managing director.

GoPro has hired media veteran Zander Lurie to be its senior vice president of media, a new role, reports Recode. Lurie — whose past gigs include as the former CFO and head of business development at CNET and as SVP of Strategic Development at CBS Interactive — was most recently a partner at Guggenheim Partners, a role he left in January.

For the last 12 years, Michael Skok was a venture capitalist at North Bridge Venture Partners. Now Skok is on a listening tour and contemplating what’s next. BostInno has more here.

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Data

Yesterday, StrictlyVC asked CB Insights for a list of the top five funding rounds of 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. The data it provided is a stark remind that bigger rounds do not always translate into bigger exits. More here.

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Happenings

Web Summit kicked off yesterday in Dublin, Ireland. You can check out some of its high-wattage speakers here. For a live feed, click here.

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Job Listings

Facebook is looking to hire a strategic partner manager to manage and maintain strategic relationships for Instagram. The job is in Menlo Park, Ca.

—–

Essential Reads

The car leases that Uber is promoting to drivers are quickly turning into albatrosses around those drivers’ necks, reports Valleywag in a must-read piece. Meanwhile, The Verge reports on Uber’s efforts to recruit 50,000 veterans with the promise of good jobs when, “in reality, it’s a very precarious way to make a living,” notes a former Army machine gunner. Oh, and Vanity Fair has just published a new feature about Uber, too, authored by reporter-entrepreneur Kara Swisher.

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Detours

Don’t bother waiting for the grandchildren to start preschool. Now, you can set up a 529 when they’re still a mere glimmer in your child’s eye.

“Car Talk” America.

The art of not working at work.

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Retail Therapy

Wired loves Jawbone’s new wearable, the Up3. Perhaps you will, too?