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

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Top News in the A.M.

What today’s mid-term elections will hold for tech policy.

Three judges at one of the nation’s most powerful appellate courts will hear oral arguments today in the only legal challenge to result in a judicial order against the NSA’s vast telephone metadata collection program. Ars Technica has the story.

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Late-Stage Investor: “Funding Acceleration Doesn’t Add Up”

In a recent piece in TechCrunch, writer and investor Danny Crichton highlighted an emerging trend: that of investors treating A and B rounds more like mezzanine rounds when it comes to funding promising startups. Called the tendency “funding acceleration,” Crichton used Slack — an enterprise collaboration software startup that just raised $120 million at a $1.12 billion valuation — as a prime example. (Slack publicly rolled out its product just eight months ago.)

Yesterday, we talked with one of the industry’s most successful late-stage investors about whether or not the shift makes sense. The investor spoke candidly; he also asked not to be identified by name. (Apologies.) Our conversation has been edited for length.

Many VCs now subscribe to this “winner’s circle” theory that there are 15 or so companies formed each year that produce all the returns. Do you believe that?

I still remember seeing a report by Mary Meeker – then an equity research analyst – during the depths of the post-bubble recession that said only a few companies over the previous few years had really succeeded despite how many were funded. It wasn’t 15, though.

Well, that’s the number that Andreessen Horowitz often cites, which is tied to some earlier research of investor and entrepreneur Andy Rachleff.

Right. Andreessen Horowitz became the first to loudly declare that they wanted to be in the 15 good companies created each year, saying if you got into those companies, it would make up for all the others. But you’ll notice they quit that a couple of years ago; they’ve retracted from that and are now more focused on early-stage companies.

Marc Andreesssen told me about a year ago they had largely jumped out of late-stage investing, saying the firm was going to let the “hot money” do its thing.

And that was smart. If you look at the number of $3 billion-plus exits we’ve seen since the start of 2012 – and I say $3 billion because that constitutes a venture return if you’re investing at a $1 billion valuation – there have been 19 companies to go public or get acquired. Meanwhile, something like 60 private companies have been assigned $1 billion-plus valuations over the same period. If the flow at one end isn’t equal to the other end, you know something is wrong. Either the markets will be more receptive in future years, or there will be some disappointing outcomes.

Sounds like you’re anticipating the latter.

There were seven tech IPOs in the third quarter. The markets aren’t wide open, yet there’s a tremendous amount of investing going on at high valuations.

Did you look at Slack?

We did. Slack is a really interesting collaboration platform. But as quickly as it’s become available — and people are adopting it very quickly — therein lies part of the longer-term risk. There have been dozens of collaboration tools to pop up because they’re easy to develop, and it’s easy to see what has worked in the past and improve on it. I think we’ll see a tremendous amount of innovation in the space. But people will use whatever is best at the moment. It isn’t like a viral network like Facebook or Linkedin, where everyone is using it and you can’t drag the network over to the next new product.

What do you make of the general idea that it makes sense to pay up early for a young company that looks to be taking off?

You see companies that have a great start, but that doesn’t predict ultimate high-valued outcomes. We don’t think it makes sense to [make a big bet] until you have an awful lot of things that are proven and visible: rapid growth, great margins, a sustained track record of performance, a tangibly large market. For every [online retailer] Zulily, there are several Fabs – companies that raised a lot of money and never quite delivered.

It’s troubling, what you’re seeing. It makes it very difficult for investors – and much less so for entrerepreneurs. We’re really out of balance right now, but this is a cyclical business. We’ll reach a point [as an industry] where several companies that are considered destined for success fail, then we’ll revert back to more proven ways.

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New Fundings

Avegant, a two-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based company that’s developing a headset called Glyph that can project video directly in front of a user’s eyes, has raised $9.37 million in Series A funding led by Intel Capital andNHN Investment of Seoul, South Korea. Venture Capital Dispatch hasmore here.

Blueshift Labs, a months-old, San Francisco-based company that sells a predictive marketing software service to e-commerce customers, has raised $2.6 million in seed funding led by New Enterprise Associates and Nexus Venture Partners, with participation from unnamed angel investors.

CashCashPinoy, a four-year-old, Makati, Philippines-based e-commerce membership club that offers flash sales on everything from restaurants to stores and hotels, has raised $2 million in funding from Hera Capital. The company had previously raised $1.4 million in seed funding, shows Crunchbase.

DeltaDNA, a four-year-old, Edinburgh, Scotland-based company that sells game makers software that helps them analyze their players, has raised $3 million led by Edge Performance VCT, with earlier investors Par Equity, STV Group and the Scottish Investment Bank participating. The round brings the company’s total funding to date to $5 million.

Emaze, a five-year-old, Tel Aviv-based online presentation platform, has raised $2 million in Series A funding led by FirstTime Venture Capital. The company has raised $2.8 million altogether.

Imago BioSciences, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based biotech company developing therapeutics for orphan diseases, has raised $26.5 million in Series A funding led by Clarus Ventures, with participation from Frazier Healthcare, Amgen Ventures, and Merck Research Labs Venture Fund.

MX, a 4.5-year-old, Provo, Ut.-based company that develops omnibanking technologies, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding that it says brings its total capital raised to $20 million. The new capital comes from Commerce Ventures, North Hill Ventures and TTV Capital. MX also counts former Omniture CEO Josh James as a backer, along with half a dozen other angel investors.

Namely, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based end-to-end HR and payroll platform, has raised $12 million in Series B funding led by Matrix Partners, with participation from earlier backers True Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, and Bullpen Capital. The company has now raised $21.8 million to date, including a $4.7 million round closed just last June.

Nitro Software, a nine-year-old, San Francisco-based digital document company, has raised $15 million in Series B funding from Battery Ventures. The company, which was founded in Australia, has now raised $21.6 million altogether, including from Starfish Ventures.

Paracosm, a nearly two-year-old, Gainesville, Fl.-based company whose cloud-based application converts scanned locations into three-dimensional models, has raised $3.3 million in seed funding led by Atlas Venture, with participation from iRobot, Osage University Partners, BOLDstart Ventures, New World Angels, Deep Fork Capital and unnamed angel investors.

Riffsy, an eight-month-old, Berkeley, Ca.-based company that makes a free app that enables users to search and share GIFs, or animated image files, across Twitter, Facebook, iMessage and text messaging, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding from Redpoint Ventures, Initial Capital, and John Riccitiello.

VideoSelfie, an 18-month-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company whose video-messaging app allows users to record videos and decorate them with text or graphics, has raised $900,000 in seed funding from investors, including East Ventures, Klab Ventures, Cyberagent Ventures, and earlier investor 500 Startups. The company has raised $1.2 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

Rover.com, a three-year-old, Seattle-based online network connecting dog owners with dog lovers for hire, has raised an undisclosed amount of new funding from A-Grade Investments. The company had earlier raised $25.9 million from investors, including Menlo Ventures, Petco, Madrona Venture Group, and Foundry Group. (StrictlyVC talked with the company last year when it was looking to raise its next round.)

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New Funds

Boost VC, a three-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based accelerator that makes seed investments, has raised $6.6 million in new funding from Marc Andreessen, Ben Davenport, Barry Schuler, Rothenberg Ventures, Maven II, and Kilowatt Capital, among others. The outfit, which has already worked with 69 companies, plans to work with another 200 startups over the next three years — half of which will be focused on bitcoin. Boost was cofounded by Adam Draper, whose father and grandfather, Tim and Bill, are also, famously, venture capitalists. Tim Draper has also become a major proponent of bitcoin in recent years. Coindesk has more here.

Versant Ventures, a 15-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based life sciences investor, is rising its fifth fund, with up to $25 million coming from Germany-based Bayer HealthCare. Versant hasn’t disclosed yet how big its fund will be. It has partnered in the last year with Bayer on opthalmology research; together, they formed Inception Sciences, a drug discovery incubator. MedCity News has a bit more here.

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IPOs

EHi Car Services, a Shanghai-based car rental and chauffeuring company, plans to raise around $130 million by selling 10 million of its American Depository Shares at a price of $12 to $14 per share in an IPO, according to a new SEC filing.

Reval Holdings, a New York-based cash management software provider, has withdrawn plans to go public, citing unfavorable market conditions.

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Exits

Apalon, a seven-year-old, New York-based mobile and game development outsourcing company, has been acquired by Mindspark Interactive Network, an IAC subsidiary. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

BlogHer, a nine-year-old, Belmont, Ca.-based network of women’s blogs, has been acquired for undisclosed terms by SheKnows Media, a women’s lifestyle media company. BlogHer had raised at least $15.5 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. Its backers included NBC Universal, Peacock Equity, and Venrock.

Bswift, an 18-year-old, Chicago-based creator of an online benefits enrollment system, is being acquired by the insurance giant Aetna for $400 million. Bswift had raised $51 million earlier this year from the private equity firm Great Hill Partners.

Doremi Labs, a 29-year-old, Burbank, Ca.-based developer and manufacturer of digital servers and format converters, has been acquired by Dolby for undisclosed terms.

Fanhattan, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that makes a set-top box and interface designed to provide a next-generation experience for cable TV services, has been acquired by Rovi, a publicly traded maker of TV guide software. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Fanhattan had raised at least $8.4 million from investors including New Enterprise Associates, Redpoint Ventures, BV Capital and Greycroft Partners.

Fuze Network, a four-year-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based payments technology startup, has been acquired by its payments peer Ingo Money for an undisclosed amount. Fuze had raised at least $3.7 million from investors, including Ribbit Capital, Matrix Partners, Deciens Capital, Insikt Ventures, Kickstart Seed Fund, and Metamorphic Ventures. Ingo, in Roswell, Ga., has raised $8.4 million from Camden Partners.

PingTone, a 15-year-old, Herndon, Va.-based cloud-based communications service provider, has been acquired by rival Fusion Telecommunications International in New York for a cash and stock deal valued at $10 million.

Proximal Data, a three-year-old, San Diego-based developer of software that caches I/O in the server virtualization layer, has been acquired by Samsung Electronics. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Proximal had raised at least $8 million from investors, including Avalon Ventures and Divergent Ventures.

RedPath Integrated Pathology, a 10-year-old, Pittsburgh, Pa.-based molecular diagnostics startup that helps physicians better manage patients at risk for certain types of gastrointestinal cancers, has been acquired by the New Jersey-based healthcare commercialization company PDI. Terms of the deal are here.

Union Bay Networks, a 1.5-year-old, Seattle-based cloud networking startup, has reportedly been acquired by Apple for undisclosed terms. The company had raised $1.9 million in seed funding from Sujal Patel, Divergent Ventures, Greylock Partners, and Madrona Venture Group, shows Crunchbase. (In related news, Apple is opening a software office in Seattle.)

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People

So much for that. Actor Christian Bale has bailed on Sony’s Steve Jobs biopic, which could be hard to recast, particularly in light of what screenwriter Aaron Sorkin said on Bloomberg TV last month: “We needed the best actor on the board in a certain age range and that’s Chris Bale.”

At a medical conference in New Orleans yesterday, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates spoke at length about why his foundation has joined the battle against the Ebola epidemic. “This disease, not only does it kill directly, it also shuts down health systems,” he noted. “If this thing had spread throughout West Africa, among other things you could throw out the window is the incredible progress we’ve made on polio.” More on his comments here.

Sean Rad, the cofounder of Tinder, the increasingly popular dating app, has been ousted from his job as CEO. Forbes has the story here.

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Happenings

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

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Job Listings

Zendesk, the now publicly traded customer service platform, is looking for a business analyst in San Francisco.

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Essential Reads

The publicly traded travel-lodging site HomeAway is suing the city of San Francisco over a new law that restricts home rentals from going into effect, reports the WSJ.

Meet the guy behind China’s Tinder.

Amazon Prime members have a new perk as of today: free, unlimited photo storage.

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Detours

A car that enables you to see everything outside the car from the inside? It’s possible.

Why restaurant food tastes better when the chef can see you.

Silicon Valley entrepreneur Michael Klein and his wife are selling what’s currently San Francisco’s most expensive home on the market at $39 million. Curbed has some pictures here.

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Retail Therapy

It’s a raft! It’s a kayak! It’s the Alpackalypse.

Related articles

• Late-Stage Investor: “Funding Acceleration” Doesn’t Add Up
• Fundraising Acceleration Is the New VC Investment Thesis
• Slack rockets to $1.1B valuation in $120M funding
• “Appeals court to weigh NSA phone data program”

Hi, everyone, no column this morning, but stay tuned for good things to come this week. (Web visitors, here’s an easier-to-read version of this morning’s email.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Midterm elections are tomorrow. Do not forget to vote.

The Apple Watch is now slated for a spring 2015 launch, according to a leaked video transcript. CEO Tim Cook had previously said it would be “available early next year.”

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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 Fundings

Ebaoyang, a 10-month-old, Beijing-based, online-to-offline car maintenance service provider, has raised $5 million in Series A financing led by Source Code Capital, an early-stage fund founded by former Sequoia China VP Charlie Cao. (He closed his firm’s debut fund with $100 million last month.) China Money Network has some details here.

Joyent, a 10-year-old, San Francisco-based cloud infrastructure company, has raised $15 million in Series E funding from earlier investors El Dorado Ventures, Epic Ventures, Intel Capital, LGI Ventures, and Orascom TMT Investments, along with other unnamed investors. The company has now raised $131 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Photofy, a 20-month-old, Raleigh, N.C.-based social content creation app whose users can add pre-designed content to their photos, has raised $1 million in funding, including from Capitol Broadcasting Corp., Highland Capital’s James Dondero, and Michael Olander of MDO Holdings. The company has now raised $1.75 million altogether, it says.

Social Labs, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based company that helps marketers launch new social acquisition programs, including via in-house “growth hackers” who help optimize clients’ programs, has raised $13.4 million in new funding across two rounds in 2014, show SEC filings. The company had previously raised $7 million in Series B funding and an undisclosed amount of Series A funding, shows Crunchbase. Real Ventures, Battery Ventures, Quest Venture Partners, and Javelin Venture Partners are among the company’s backers.

SomaLogic, a 15-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based protein biomarker discovery and clinical diagnostics company, has raised $16.5 million in new funding, shows an SEC filing that says two investors participated in the round. The company had previously raised at least $31 million, shows Crunchbase. The company has not disclosed its backers. In June, it received a $1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Tout, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based company that invites users to create video updates and to publish them instantly to the web, mobile and social outlets, has raised $3.1 million in debt, shows an SEC filing. The company had previously raised $24.1 million from Horizons Ventures, SRI International, Jawbone founder Hosain Rahman and others.

Weaved, a year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based Networking as a Service (NaaS) provider for the so-called Internet of Everything, has raised $2.3 million in seed funding led by CrunchFund, with Alpine Meridian Ventures, Big Basin Partners, Core Ventures Group, Double M Partners, Haystack Fund, Ironfire Angel Partners, Maxfield Capital Fund, Metamorphic Ventures and previous angel investors participating. The company has now raised $2.6 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

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New Funds

Insight Venture Partners, the 19-year-old, New York-based investment firm, is looking to raise $4 billion for two technology-focused funds — $3 billion for a growth equity fund and $1 billion for a buyout pool — reports Bloomberg. Insight, which has previously made its investments out of a single fund, raised its last giant pool, of $2.6 billion, in 2012. In May, it raised an additional $510 million to invest alongside that fund in larger companies.

Jerusalem Venture Partners, the 21-year-old, Jerusalem-based venture firm, has raised has raised $100 million of a targeted $120 million for its seventh, general purpose fund, shows an SEC filing. The firm disclosed in a separate SEC filing that it has raised $60 million for its “cyber investment initiative.” At the beginning of this year, JVP launched a cyber security incubator in partnership with Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheva, in the south of Israel. It’s called Cyber Labs.

Maple Leaf Angels, a Toronto-based angel group, has launched a new fund called MLA48 LP that will focus on startups in southern Ontario. The fund commits to making decisions about prospective investments within 48 hours. More here.

Mercury Fund, a nine-year-old, Houston-based seed and early stage fund that largely targets startups in the Midwest and Texas, has raised $97.4 million, according to an SEC filing that shows a $125 million target. The company had closed its previous fund with $70 million in 2010.

Rock Health, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based incubator and seed fund that’s focused around digital health startups, has just raised its third fund. It isn’t disclosing the amount but its leading investors include Kaiser Permanente Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mayo Clinic,Montreux Equity Partners and Great Oaks Ventures. With the new fund, Rock Health portfolio companies will receive investments of $250,000, up from a previous $100,000, with the idea that it will fund fewer companies with more money. Rock Health has backed 55 companies to date, including Augmedix, which StrictlyVC featured here; Lift Labs, acquired by Google; and Wello, sold to Weight Watchers. MedCity News has more here.

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IPOs

VeriSilicon Holdings, a Shanghai-based provider of intellectual property, design and semiconductor manufacturing services, has filed to list its American Depository Shares on Nasdaq. The company, which also has an office in Santa Clara, Ca., said it could raise up to $75 million.

Virobay, an eight-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based clinical stage pharmaceutical company, withdrew its plans for a $50 million IPO late last week. Renaissance Capital has more here.

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Exits

Publicis Groupe, the Paris-based advertising giant, is acquiring the publicly traded, Boston-based marketing and consulting company Sapient Corp. for $3.7 billion, the companies announced this morning. The amount represents a 44 percent premium to Sapient’s Oct. 31 close. Publicis, notes Bloomberg, is moving on from a planned $35 billion merger with Omnicom, which was scuttled in May after executives clashed over how to run the combined entity.

SiTime Corporation, a nine-year-old, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based, analog semiconductor company that had raised roughly $100 million, has been acquired by MegaChips, a publicly traded chip maker in Japan, for $200 million. SiTime’s backers include Innovative Venture Fund, SMBC Venture Capital, Greylock Partners, JAFCO Ventures, Rusnano, andBosch Group. The WSJ has more here.

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People

The head of Google’s web spam team, Matt Cutts, who went on leave in July and said would return this month, announced Friday that he’s continuing his leave through 2015, and Search Engine Land speculates that he may not return at all. Cutts joined Google in 2000.

Parents in cities from Los Angeles to New York are starting to use car-booking and ride-sharing apps like Uber to ferry their kids around. Byron Deeter, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, is among them, he says.

Google “probably” needs a new mission statement, cofounder and CEO Larry Page tells the Financial Times in a wide-ranging interview that underscores Google’s ambitions to pioneer massive changes in the fields of biotech, robotics, and beyond.

Steve Schnell, the former VP of operations at Lyft, has joined rival Uber to work on its international growth, according to TechCrunch and Bloomberg. In defecting to Uber, Schnell follows in the footsteps of former Lyft COO Travis VanderZanden, who joined Uber as its VP of international growth in October, two months after leaving Lyft.

Former Google executive Megan Smith, now chief technology office of the United States, talks with the New York Times about why more techies should consider Washington, despite the old-school tech with which they have to work. “My son saw me with my BlackBerry, and he was like, ‘Hi, ’90s mom.’ Also, I had this big, thick laptop, and my other son, who was born in 2005, was like, ‘What is that?’ He’d never seen such a big one.”

On Friday, a San Francisco Superior Court judge said he would allow civil claims to proceed against Nextdoor CEO Nirav Tolia for intentional infliction of emotional distress and willful misconduct in the operation of a motor vehicle, says The Recorder. Tolia is accused of swerving into another highway lane in August 2013 to pass a slower car, a maneuver that caused driver Patrice Motley to spin out of control and crash into a highway median, says her lawyer. Tolia was charged criminally for his role in the crash, and pleaded no contest to misdemeanor hit-and-run causing injury in June. The civil suit accuses Tolia of “despicable” conduct “done with a willful and knowing disregard of the rights or safety of other motorists.”

At 2 p.m. PST on Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will host his first public “Community Q&A” on Facebook. You can ask your questions here. (For its part, TechCrunch hopes he’ll answer what’s happening with teen engagement, which the company has declined to address since last year.)

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Job Listings

Gree, the Japanese gaming giant, is looking for a director of corporate development in San Francisco.

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Essential Reads

A new startup has raised $100 million for a portable ultrasound.

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Detours

What NASA engineers can do to pumpkins in an hour.

A look at Christopher Nolan, now considered among the most powerful directors in Hollywood, one whose “rejection of many modern trends—he doesn’t shoot with digital cameras, own a cellphone or have an email address—only adds to the mystique,” says the WSJ.

Colleges are becoming enablers of helicopter parents, seemingly scheduling a growing number of events for parents (and grandparents, and siblings) to attend each year. “It’s the weirdest thing ever,” one parent of a Middlebury sophomore tells the New York Times. “Midnight roller skating! But we felt we had to go.”

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Retail Therapy

The Porsche Panamera Executive Exclusive Turbo S. Only 100 will be created. We hope at least one boasts the license plate “HDQRTRS.”

Happy Halloween, everyone! We hope you have a positively ghoulish Friday. [Cue the maniacal laughter.]

Web visitors, you can find an easier-to-read version of this, today’s newsletter, here.

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Top News in the A.M.

The details about that funding round for Slack just came out and they’re stunning. According to a new report by the WSJ, Slack — which is less than two years old — has raised $120 million in a mega-round of financing that values the company at $1.2 billion. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Google Ventures led the deal.

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The NVCA’s Newest Weapon: Bobby Franklin

Last year, Bobby Franklin became president and CEO of the National Venture Capital Association in Washington, D.C. On Tuesday, over croque-monsieurs in San Francisco, we talked about the battles he’s been trying to win since for VCs and, increasingly, he says, entrepreneurs.

To say that Franklin’s job is complicated is kind of understating things. Still, we gather that Franklin — formerly executive VP of a wireless communications lobbying group — is up to the challenge. Our chat with him has been edited for length.

You officially started the job in August of last year. What was first on your agenda?

My priority in coming into an association that’s been around for 40 years has been to take it to the next level, including moving our office up to Capitol Hill to be more engaged with policymakers. As close as we’ll be, I can imagine inviting entrepreneurs to our office as well as congressional staff who can come by and meet some of [these founders] so they can better understand who they’re working for.

Part of the vision that we talk about as I’ve taken over is directing all the focus on the entrepreneurial ecosystem. If policies that we’re working on with policymakers are explained to them in terms of how they can help the entrepreneurial ecosystem [versus how they can help wealthy venture capitalists], we’ll obviously have a more receptive audience.

We’re guessing most entrepreneurs aren’t aware or have time for the NVCA. How do you get them involved?

I don’t think you manufacture this. I think you have to earn the right to speak for them. An important issue to our members is immigration. But really, that’s most important to the entrepreneurs [at risk of being turned away from the U.S.], so we’re working on policies that benefit those entrepreneurs. You do a really good job of representing them and over time I think you earn the right to engage them more. If they see that you’re actually doing something for them, it draws them into ecosystem.

What are your next steps regarding immigration? Less than a month ago, President Obama announced he’d delay using his executive authority to reform immigration laws.

In a mid-term election year, it’s not surprising that it wouldn’t be able to make it across the goal line. They talked about doing it before the end of the summer, then [the administration] said, “Folks on our side of the aisle don’t want us to do anything before the midterm election and we respect that,” so part of what we’re looking for in a lame-duck session is what could be accomplished. Obviously you’re not going to get comprehensive immigration reform passed, but if the White House could make progress and help push this issue along, it’s not a bad place to be.

There are ways [the administration] can mess things up, too, if they do it the wrong way [as through executive order] and they further alienate both sides. Let’s say the Republicans make gains next week in the election and the Senate flips and goes Republican, which, right now, oddsmakers believe will happen; Republicans will clearly have an interest in putting their stamp on something bigger in the next couple of years.

What we do is ensure the White House, as well as Congress, understands the importance to the entrepreneurial ecosystem [of immigrants]. If we want this golden goose here in our country to keep producing new companies and creating new jobs and positively contributing to the economy, we have to recognize what’s important to it, and immigration is one of those things. Almost half of the companies that are founded have foreign-born entrepreneurs.

There will be a lot of investors reading this interview. Is there more they could be doing to help you?

Once there’s a clear path to getting immigration reform across the goal line, I think there will be opportunities for us to reach out to the broader VC communities to say, “Now is the time to write letters, to have portfolio companies reach out, to maybe reach out to VCs in other districts like Texas, Arizona, and Florida,” where there may be resistance to comprehensive reform. There’s often these two groups that talk past each other. We’re talking about the benefits of legal immigration; they’re talking about the downside of illegal immigration. They aren’t two sides of the same coin; they’re totally different coins.

What’s the second biggest priority for the NVCA right now after immigration reform?

Members are very interested in seeing patent reform moved forward because they’ve experienced the so-called troll problem. However, we have a very diverse membership. Some say, “Why do we even need a patent to begin with?” And there are others who, but for the patent, there wouldn’t be a company. So we have this diversity of interests and views, and ones of our roles, working in policy, is to find the right voice from a startup perspective and say to policymakers, “It isn’t just about this bill or nothing: you have to understand the implications of what you’re considering on the young, very small startup companies.”

If your own constituents can’t agree on how to move forward, what do you propose to Congress? Does that recent Supreme court ruling make your job any easier? I’m talking about the ruling that made it such that if a big company sues a little company over a broadly worded patent, the little company can stand up to its claims, because there’s a much better chance now that it can recoup its legal fees.

If you’re a small company trying to protect yourself against a large company, you may want to avail yourself of the tools at your disposal so you go after a large company But cases are not slam dunks, and you’ve put yourself in the position of having to pay somebody else’s legal fees that you can’t afford. Some of these things that sound like solutions to a part of the problem create unintended consequences.

A lot of times in Washington, [lawmakers] are very busy and focused on lots of different issues and when someone talks about the patent issue, a particular member of Congress or a Senator knows that they’ll be “for” patent reform, but they don’t know much else. And they know there’s a patent troll problem and they want to be a part of passing legislation that solves that problem. Our job is to say, “We understand this is the issue and this is your position, but you need to understand that what’s on the table could have an [unintended] impact on other parts of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and that they have to take a second [try] at this — that the first solution is from someone who doesn’t care about these small startup companies.”

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New Fundings

Cytovance Biologics, an 11-year-old, Oklahoma City, Ok.-based biopharmaceutical contract manufacturer that specializes in the production of therapeutic proteins and antibodies from mammalian cell culture and microbial cell cultures, has secured a $20 million credit facility from Monroe Capital.

Digital Lumens, a six-year-old, Boston-based maker of “intelligent” LED lighting solutions, has raised $23 million in Series C funding from Nokia Growth Partners, Aster Capital, and Goldman Sachs, with participation from earlier investors Flybridge Capital Partners, Black Coral Capital, and Stata Ventures. The company has now raised $49.3 million, shows Crunchbase.

Gogoro, a three-year-old, Taiwan-based energy management startup founded by former HTC executive Horace Luke, is raising $100 million in new venture funding, Luke tells Recode. The company had previously raised $50 million from HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang and Samuel Yin, the Taiwanese billionaire founder of Ruentex Group.

Jongla, a five-year-old, Helsinki, Finland-based cross-platform instant messaging app, has raised the equivalent of $4.3 million in Series B funding from JSH Capital, Ingman Finance, Kontino Invest and Holdington. The company has now raised $7.7 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Minted, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based e-commerce design startup that helps users create storefronts, has raised $38 million in Series D funding led by Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from Technology Crossover Ventures. The company has now raised $89.1 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. Others of its backers include Benchmark, Allen & Co., Menlo Ventures, IDG Ventures and high-wattage angels, including Julia Hartz, Marissa Mayer, and Jeremy Stoppelman.

NerVve Technologies, a two-year-old, Buffalo, N.Y.-based whose technology help users gather information from videos and images by quickly searching pixels as if they were text, has raised $5 million in Series A-1 funding from the publicly traded company HC2 Holdings. The company had raised an undisclosed amount of funding prior, including from In-Q-Tel.

Print Syndicate, a two-year-old, Columbus, Oh.-based e-commerce company turns turns social media trends into designs on printed objects like tee shirts and other apparel, phone cases, pillows, tote bags, and blankets, has raised $4.3 million in Series A funding led by Data Point Capital, with participation from Lightbank, Vegas Tech Fund, CNF Investments and TechColumbus.

Valooto, a year-old, Jerusalem, Israel-based maker of collaborative sales engagement software, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from JVP Media Labs.

VivaReal, a five-year-old, Brazilian real estate portal, has raised $41.7 million in Series C funding led by Spark Capital — the firm’s first investment in Brazil. The company has now raised $70.9 million altogether, including from Monashees Capital, Kaszek Ventures, Valiant Capital and Dragoneer Investment Group.

VytronUS, an eight-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company that makes medical devices that treat cardiac arrhythmias, has raised $31.6 million in Series B funding led by Apple Tree Partners, with participation fromBioStar Ventures, Windham Venture Partners, Abbott Labs and earlier investor New Enterprise Associates. The company has now raised $66.4 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

uBeam, a nearly three-year-old, L.A.-based company that beams electricity through the air to charge portable electronics wirelessly, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Upfront Ventures. The company has now raised $13.2 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. Its other investors include Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz,CrunchFund, Ludlow Ventures, and numerous high-profile individuals, including Marissa Mayer, Tony Hsieh, Troy Carter, Shawn Fanning and Mark Cuban.

Zoomcar, a 1.5-year-old, Bangalore, India-based vehicle-rental startup, has raised $8 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital. Other participants in the round included earlier backers Empire Angels, FundersClub,Basset Investment Group, funds advised by Triangle Growth Partners, and a number of prominent angel investors. The company had previously raised $2 million, including from former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. Venture Capital Dispatch has more on the company — and broader opportunities around urban transportation that VCs see in emerging markets — here.

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New Funds

Montage Ventures, a year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based seed-stage firm, has raised $11.3 million toward its first fund, according to an SEC filing that shows a target of $17.5 million. Montage has already begun investing the fund. Two of its recent investments include Glamsquad, a 10-month-old, New York-based on-demand beauty services business that raised $7 million in Series A funding last week led by SoftBank Capital; and Olset, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based hotel-booking service for business users that raised $1.1 million in seed funding led by Montage back in May.

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Exits

Metalogix International, a six-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based company that makes software management tools, is being acquired by the U.K. private equity firm Permira for undisclosed terms. Metalogix was backed by Insight Venture Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners, which are fully exiting their stakes.

Topera, a four-year-old, San Diego-based company that makes diagnostic catheter and electrophysiological mapping software for use in ablation procedures, is being acquired by Abbott Laboratories for $250 million in upfront cash and further milestone-based payments. According to Crunchbase, Topera had raised at least $31.5 million in funding, including from New Enterprise Associates.

—–

People

Ha. Actor Seth Rogen is set to portray Steve Wozniak opposite Christian Bale as Steve Jobs in Sony’s Steve Jobs biopic. Variety has the details here.

Longtime Google executive and former Android boss Andy Rubin is leaving Google, The Information reported late yesterday. Its sources say his departure may have owed to the structure of his team, which he was seeking to change. Google says Rubin will be starting a incubator for hardware startups and that James Kuffner will run the robotics unit that Rubin has been overseeing. “I want to wish Andy all the best with what’s next,” Google CEO Larry Page said in a statement. “With Android he created something truly remarkable— with a billion-plus happy users. Thank you.” The WSJ has much more here.

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Job Listings

American Express is looking to hire a director for its corporate development and mergers and acquisitions team. The job is in New York.

—–

Essential Reads

Amazon exec: We priced the Fire phone wrong.

Uber’s data could be a treasure trove for cites. But they’re wasting the chance to get it, argues the Washington Post.

Business Insider on the main difference between Harvard and Stanford.

—–

Detours

What your zip code says about you.

Frank Bourassa became the most prolific counterfeiter in U.S. history, with $200 million in fake bills. How he got away with it all is even crazier.

Ten hours of walking as a man in New York City.

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Retail Therapy

Pigeon Mask. (Maybe next year, though we love that it’s recommended for “even a formal, official working day!”)

Hi, happy Wednesday morning, everyone. We ran out of time for a column but have some good content coming your way. In the meantime, we’re holding our breath until this World Series ends. What a game last night! (Web visitors, this version of today’s email is a little easier to read.)

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Top News in the A.M.

The FTC is suing AT&T because the carrier throttles speeds of its unlimited data customers, a policy that the FTC describes as “deceptive” and “unfair.”

Facebook reported solid third-quarter earnings yesterday, but it managed to spook Wall Street, warning that 2015 would be a major “investment” year for the company.

A spectacular explosion last night marked the first failure of NASA’s commercial rocket program.

—–

Sponsored Post

Techweek Los Angeles is coming up November 20-21 in Techweek’s purpose-built tent on Santa Monica Pier. Come see JustFab CEO Adam Goldenberg, FundersClub CEO Alex Mittal and Myspace cofounder Chris DeWolfe 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 Fundings

Abacus Labs, a year-old, New York-based expense-reporting software company, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners and General Catalyst Partners. Other participants in the round include CrunchFund, FundersClub, Google Ventures, Homebrew, Sherpalo Ventures and a long list of individual investors, including Naval Ravikant, Paul Buchheit, and the entertainer Nas.

Blink, a new, Chinese-based photo-sharing startup that has been called China’s answer to Snapchat, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Tencent, with participation from Innovation Works and Sequoia Capital. The outlet E27 has more here.

Bright.md, a 10-month-old, Portland, Or.-based company that sells healthcare SaaS products to improve communication between physicians and patients, has raised $1 million in seed financing from Seven Peaks Ventures, Portland Seed Fund and Oregon Angel Fund.

Cardlytics, a six-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based company that helps advertisers use bank purchasing data to target consumers, has raised $70 million in Series F funding led by the hedge fund Discovery Capital. The company has now raised just more than $170 million altogether, including from Groupe Aeroplan, Canaan Partners, ITC Holdings, Kinetic Ventures, Polaris Venture Partners, and TTV Capital. Venture Capital Dispatch has more on the company and its IPO plans here.

Curioos, a 3.5-year-old, New York-based curated online marketplace for digital art, has raised $1.9 million from an unnamed family office.

Enlitic, a three-month-old, San Francisco-based company that aims to use machine learning to help doctors make medical diagnoses, has raised $2 million in funding led by Amplify Partners, with participation from Data Collective. VentureBeat has more here.

Fleksy, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose typing technology makes typing on touchscreen devices fast and easy, has raised $2 million in new funding, including from Digital Garage, Eniac Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, Middleland Capital and Militello Capital. The company has now raised $7.3 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Freightos, a two-year-old, Hong Kong-based startup that automates the routing and pricing of international freight shipments, has added $3 million to its Series A financing from Annox Capital, bringing the round to $7.6 million. The company’s other investors include Aleph VC, Israel Cleantech Ventures, and the crowdfunding platform OurCrowd. Freightos has now raised $9.3 million altogether.

Lenda, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based online loan provider, has raised $1.54 million from Structure Capital, Winklevoss Capital, China Growth Capital, Tom Fallows, Naval Ravikant, Scott and Cyan Bannister, and Jared Kopf. The company had previously raised around $500,000 across a couple of rounds, shows Crunchbase.

Olacabs, a four-year-old, Mumbai, India-based Uber-like car-for-hire service, has raised $210 million in new funding led by SoftBank. The company has now raised nearly $277 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Paragon Bioservices, a 24-year-old, Baltimore, Md.-based contract-research and manufacturing company, has raised $13 million in Series A funding from NewSpring Capital and Camden Partners.

Poynt, a year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based “future-proofed” payment terminal company created by Osama Bedier, the former head of Google Wallet, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding. Matrix Partnersled the round, with participation from Webb Investment Network, Nyca Partners, and angel investors. TechCrunch takes a look at the company — which rolls out of stealth mode today — here.

QualiSystems, a 10-year-old, Israel-based infrastructure automation company, has raised $8 million in funding led by the venture arm of an (unnamed) cloud company, along with Evergreen Venture Partners, Gemini Israel Ventures, and Fishman Investments. The company has raised $26.3 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

RhodeCode, a year-old, San Francisco-based company behind an enterprise-grade code collaboration platform, has raised $3.5 million in funding from DFJ Esprit and Earlybird Venture Capital.

Seedling, an eight-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based startup that sells party supplies, crafts, toys and more online, has merged with competitor P.S. XO and the combined entity has raised $7 million in funding from UpFront Ventures and Greycroft Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Seen, a two-year-old, New York-based company that captures and ranks real-time events via media that it then delivers to users, has raised $1.3 million in funding co-led by Horizons Ventures and KEC Ventures. Other investors in the round include Scott and Cyan Banister, Matt Rolandson, Sam Tripodi, Andrew Rasiej, Cantora Records, Thatcher Bell, and earlier investor BoxGroup.

Spotcap, a two-month-old, Madrid-based online lender that offers credit lines of as much as 50,000 euros to businesses in Spain, has raised $16.5 million from a group of investors led by billionaire Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries, with participation from Holtzbrinck Ventures. Rocket Internet, the Germany technology company that went public earlier this month, incubated Spotcap. Bloomberg has more here.

Strava, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of a popular mobile app for cyclists and other athletes who want to track and share their fitness activities, has raised $18.5 million in Series D funding led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from earlier investors Sigma West and Madrone Capital Partners. As part of the investment, Sequoia’s Michael Moritz is joining the company as an advisor. Recode has more here.

TrepScore, a seven-month-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based data management software startup for entrepreneurs and investors, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Bullet Time Ventures and Business Rockstars.

Vestaron, a 13-year-old, Kalamazoo, Mi.-based company that makes environmentally friendly insecticides, has added $4 million from Anterra Capital in the Netherlands to a previously announced $10 million Series C round. Others of the company’s investors include Moonray Investors, Rabo Private Equity, Cultivian Sandbox Ventures, Southwest Michigan First Life Science Venture Fund, Open Prairie Ventures, Pangaea Ventures, and Michigan Accelerator Fund. According to Crunchbase, the company has now raised $24.2 million altogether.

Vida, a new, San Francisco-based company whose mobile app connects consumers with coaches and doctors to improve their health, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from Aspect Ventures, Khosla Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, Signia Venture Partners, The Valley Fund, Kevin Scott, Skip Battle, Lorrie Norrington and Yahoo Chairman Maynard Webb. The company was founded by Stephanie Tilenius, who has spent much of her recent career in the payments and commerce business at Google, eBay and PayPal and was mostly recently an entrepreneur-in-residence at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Silicon Valley Business Journal has much more here.

Wealthfront, the three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based online wealth management firm, has raised $64 million in new funding led by new investor Spark Capital Growth. Other participants in the round include Dragoneer Investment Group and earlier investors Index Ventures, DAG Ventures, Greylock Partners, Ribbit Capital and the Social+Capital Partnership. (If this sounds familiar, it’s because yesterday we referred you to an earlier TechCrunch report that pegged the company’s new funding at roughly $70 million.)

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New Funds

Advent Life Sciences, a four-year-old, London-based, early-stage biotech investment firm, has raised $235 million for its second fund, capital it raised from funds of funds, pension funds and family offices. The company closed its debut fund with $158 million in 2011. Xconomy has much more here.

BlueChilli, an eight-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based venture fund and accelerator program, has raised its first, $10 million venture firm — money the firm plans to use to seed-fund companies that have passed through its accelerator. Business Insider has more here.

The city of Dubai plans to invest $1.22 billion over five years to help establish itself as a capital for innovation, reports Arabian Business. The plan aims to boost the number of companies in the content, knowledge, technology, education, development and research sectors to 10,000 in its so-called Internet City and Media City business districts, and to grow the number of people who work inside them to 100,000.

Mosley Ventures, a new, Atlanta-based seed-stage firm that will be targeting technology startups in Atlanta and the Southeast, has raised $2 million in funding from the three-year-old, Atlanta-based email marketing company MailChimp, via its investment group Karman Line Ventures. The deal represents MailChimp’s first investment in a venture fund. Mosley Ventures, founded by Atlanta super angel Sig Mosley, is in the process of trying to raise a $30 million debut fund, reports the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

OCA Ventures, the 15-year-old, Chicago, Il.-based seed and early-stage firm, is looking to raise up to $100 million for its third fund, shows a new SEC filing that states no money has been raised just yet. The firm closed its second fund with $50.1 million in 2008.

United Ventures, a Milan, Italy-based venture firm, has closed its debut fund with at $80 million, it announced yesterday. The firm was created last year through a merger of two venture firms: Annapurna Ventures, a seed-stage firm founded by former Google exec Massimiliano Magrini, and Jupiter Venture Capital, a firm that was founded by Paolo Gesess, formerly the CEO of a finance company. Some of United’s LPs include Fondo Italiano di Investimento, Fondazione Banco di Sardegna, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca, Banca Sella and Banca Patrimoni.

Wells Fargo & Co. is launching a $10 million clean-tech incubator that will be co-administered by the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The Denver Business Journal has much more here.

—–

IPOs

Jaguar Animal Health, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that’s developing proprietary pharmaceuticals, food additives, and nutraceuticals for animals, revealed in a new SEC filing that it plans to price its IPO shares at between $7 to $9 a share, giving it a market cap of roughly $80 million at the midpoint of that estimated price range. Jaguar’s largest shareholders are Napo Pharmaceuticals, which owns 54.6 percent of the company, and BVCF, the China-based life sciences investor, which owns 31.7 percent.

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Exits

iViZ Techno Solutions, a Sudbury, Ma.-based cloud-based application security testing company that had raised at least $1.6 million in funding from IDG Ventures India, has been acquired by Cigital, a portfolio company of the middle-market private equity firm LLR Partners. Terms were not disclosed.

Torando Labs, a two-year-old, New York-based company behind an opinion-sharping app called Gelato, has been acquired for an undisclosed sum by online publisher BuzzFeed to anchor its new data engineering unit. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

People

Jody Allen, the sister and long-time confidante of billionaire Paul Allen, is leaving the CEO post at Vulcan, Allen’s investment, real estate and philanthropic organization, reports Geekwire, whose sources describe a growing rift between the siblings.

Matt Cohler, the venture capitalist, is joining the board of the popular mobile dating app Tinder in exchange for an equity stake for his firm, Benchmark. It’s a decidedly “unusual investment configuration,” reports Recode.

—–

Jobs

Softbank Internet & Media is looking for a corporate development analyst to help it oversee its investment activities. The job is in San Carlos, Ca.

—–

Essential Reads

Google’s X research lab is working on magnetic nanoparticles that aim to attach themselves to cells, proteins or other molecules and detect signs of cancer and other diseases.

—–

Detours

Highlights from the 2014 World Beard and Moustache Championships.

A GoPro ad shows a lion’s lethal hunt from its perspective.

Thirty-five author-on-author put-downs.

—–

Retail Therapy

The Beer Hammer. Does it make sense? It does not. But its designer will burn your name into the handle, free of charge.

Happy Tuesday, everyone! Busy morning.

Reminder: The Giant’s game is on at 5 p.m. PST tonight, people. Don’t miss it; this could be the game.

(Psst, web visitors, here’s an easy-to-read version of today’s email.)

—–

Top News in the A.M.

The FCC is working on a plan to give online video companies all the same regulatory perks that cable companies get.

—–

Secondaries Are Back

In recent years, the secondary market has gone from hot to not and back again. And it looks poised to pick up steam going forward, as an unsteady public market forces more startups to push out their IPOs.

In the last two weeks alone, two investment firms that help cash out inside shares of privately held companies have closed new funds. The first, Founders Circle Capital, raised $195 million across two funds, beating its $125 million target. Another, Akkadian Ventures, just today closed on a $75 million fund; it was targeting $50 million.

A third firm, the new brokerage Battery East, officially swung open its doors last month with the aim of getting employees shares into the hands of growth-hungry institutional investors.

The outfits – all in San Francisco — each face the same challenge: Getting on the good side of startup CFOs, who typically have strict rules that limit share sales by employees. Toward that end, they’re actively working to differentiate themselves.

Battery East, for example, boasts of its connections to both Wall Street and Silicon Valley. The firm was founded by Barrett Cohn, a former adviser at Maveron, and Michael Sobel, a former BlackRock executive. And they recently hired Howard Caro, the former general counsel of Founders Fund, and Duncan Niederauer, who recently retired as head of the NYSE.

“We’re in close dialogue with large mutual funds, who [will] tell us there are three or four companies they have their eye on,” says Cohn. Battery East’s network also includes “folks who are looking for help, like the CFO who wants to run a tender offer, or the C-suite person who is moving on and needs help, or venture firms that are doing portfolio restructuring – especially guys who have companies that are way up and to the right.”

Battery East is “definitely seeing an uptick in demand and we think it will grow as the market does what it’s been doing of late, combined with blue chips that aren’t blue chips anymore,” says Cohn. “I don’t have a number to put on [that increased demand], but in just the next six months, more than a billion dollars of institutional buy-side demand is coming online from mutual funds, hedge funds” and others.

One major prong of Battery East’s strategy involves running auctions that “help companies advocate for employees better by running a real process around [the sale of their shares].”

Two-year-old Founders Circle Capital, meanwhile, doesn’t involve third parties at all, instead buying the shares directly based on their 409A valuations from startups’ management teams. (So far, the firm has assembled stakes in Ebates, Dollar Shave Club, Good Technology, Kabam, Lumos Labs, and Ticketfly, among others.)

“You’ve got great companies that are growing quickly and making the strategic decision to stay private longer,” says cofounder Chris Albinson, who previously co-founded Panorama Capital and was a general partner at JP Morgan Partners. Yet “they’re also dealing with this pressure valve of 400 employees working hard for a long period.”

Albinson compares building a “world-class company” to a marathon, saying that Founders Circle is “like the water station at mile 21, giving people what they need for that final push.”

Three-year-old Akkadian Ventures sees itself much the same way, says its founder Ben Black, who similarly touts Akkadian’s ability to buy directly from a startup, which helps ensure that the startup knows and trusts everyone on its cap table, even after its shares have traded hands.

Again, though, there are differences. Unlike Founders Circle, for example, Akkadian also offers “option exercise loans.” (Black describes these as fairly modest in size.) Akkadian also facilitates co-investments in some cases when its LPs want access to more of a particular portfolio company. One arrangement included a co-investment in the ad tech company Rocket Fuel, which enjoyed a hugely successful IPO in 2013, though its shares are trading down dramatically today.

“We’re not trying to time the market,” says Black. At the same time, he adds that in the last six months, Akkadian is seeing more companies that might have forbade insider sales beginning to rethink some of those rules.

“Companies see that liquidity can be a powerful tool in the war for talent,” says Black. “You can’t [compete] when companies are providing secondary liquidity to their employees and your company is not.”

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New Fundings

Adsquare, a two-year-old, Berlin-based ad tech company that helps advertisers target groups of people based on their location, has raised $4.3 million in Series A funding led by the German venture firm Target Partners, with participation from existing investors. The company has now raised $5.7 million altogether, including from Frühphasenfonds Brandenburg, Berlin Ventures and numerous angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Alchemist Accelerator, a two-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based program dedicated to enterprise startups, said Siemens has joined Cisco Systems, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Foundation Capital, Khosla Ventures, Salesforce, Sapphire Ventures and US Venture Partners as a backer. The amount of the investment is not disclosed. Alchemist is six-month program whose classes are limited to 13 teams that each receive $28,000 in funding. It was founded by Stanford University professor Ravi Belani.

BigPanda, a two-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company that automates processes involved with IT incident management, has raised $7 million in Series A funding from Mayfield and Sequoia Capital, which previously led a $1.5 million seed round.

Blendle, a six-month-old, Netherlands-based news startup that allows readers to browse and read the articles of major newspaper and magazine publishers in the Netherlands and Belgium, has raised $3.8 million from the New York Times and German publisher Axel Springer.

Credorax, a six-year-old, Southborough, Ma.-based small startup that enables online payment processing for a range of online merchants, has raised $40 million from Columbus Nova Technology Partners and earlier investor Blumberg Capital. The company has now raised $130 million altogether, including from FTV Capital. TechCrunch has the story here.

Harvest Power, a six-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based company that uses organic waste to generate power and produce compost, has raised $20 million in new funding from earlier investors Generation Investment Management, Industry Ventures and True North Venture Partners. The company had previously raised $204.5 million over 10 rounds, shows Crunchbase.

IMatchative, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose cloud-based platform tries matching hedge funds and institutional investors, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Wells Fargo & Company;Control Empresarial de Capitales, controlled by Carlos Slim; David Bonderman, founding partner of TPG Capital; and Andy Redleaf, CEO of Whitebox. Earlier investor Jeff Ubben, founder of Value Act Capital, also invested in the round.

Limeade, an eight-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based SaaS platform that helps employers implement wellness and employee-engagement programs, has raised $25 million from Oak HC/FT, a new $500 million growth equity fund led by the healthcare information services and financial services technology team of Oak Investment Partners. Limeade has now raised $34 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Peach, new, Berkeley, Ca.-based flash-sales app for top designer brands, has received $500,000 in funding from IDG Capital Partners.

ScoreBig, a five-year-old, L.A.-based online marketplace for live-event tickets, has raised $24 million in Series D funding led by Hearst Ventures, with other, unnamed earlier investors participating. The company had previously raised at least $31.5 million, including from Bain Capital Ventures and Checketts Partners Investment Fund, shows Crunchbase.

Segmint, a seven-year-old, Akron, Oh.-based company whose digital marketing software anticipates customer needs and spending to deliver targeted online advertising campaigns, has raised $9 million in funding from an unnamed financial technologies company. The company had previously raised $8.5 million from mostly undisclosed sources, shows Crunchbase. VentureBeat has more here.

Snapdeal, the four-year-old, New Delhi, India-based online retailing giant, has raised $627 million in new funding from Japan’s SoftBank Corp., bringing Snapdeal’s total funding to at least $1.06 billion, shows Crunchbase. The deal is among several outsize investments made recently by Softbank, which last year acquired Sprint for $21.6 billion and earlier this month disclosed that it was buying a minority stake in Legendary Entertainment for $250 million.

Socure, a two-year-old, New York-based Manhattan-based company focused on behavioral biometrics — it validates a person’s identity by analyzing their largely public track record of Internet usage — has raised $2.5 million in Series A funding led by ff Venture Capital, with participation from Founder Collective and Two Sigma Ventures.

SwiftStack, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company that’s commercializing part of the open-source cloud software OpenStack, has raised $16 million in Series B funding led by OpenView Venture Partners, with earlier investors Mayfield Fund, Storm Ventures and UMC Capital also participating. The company has now raised $23.6 million to date.

Telogis, a 13-year-old, Aliso Viejo, Ca.-based company whose software gives organizations access to real-time information on the location and status of their mobile assets on a single dashboard, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from GM Ventures. The company had previously raised at least $95 million from investors, including Fontinalis Partners, Cross Creek Advisors, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. (It has twice before raised undisclosed amounts of funding.)

Wealthfront, the three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based online wealth management firm, has $70 million in new funding from as-yet-unknown backers, reports TechCrunch. Not including new monies, the company has raised $65.5 million to date, shows Crunchbase. Its current investors include Benchmark, SK Ventures, Science Inc., DAG Ventures, and a long list of renowned individuals, including Mark and Ali Pincus, Adam D’Angelo, and Ben Horowitz.

WeSwap, a four-year-old, London-based person-to-person currency exchange company, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding led by IW Capital, with participation from EC1 Capital.

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New Funds

Akkadian Ventures, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based firm that purchases stock in private companies from entrepreneurs, early employees, and angel investors, has closed on $75 million for its third fund, blowing past a target of $50 million, says the firm. Akkadian’s second fund closed in 2012 with $22 million; its proof-of-concept fund was a $5 million vehicle. Akkadian is managed by founder and managing director Ben Black; managing director Mike Gridley, who joined the firm last year from Industry Ventures; and venture partner Rob Bailey, who was most recently CEO of the venture-backed company DataSift.

Green House Ventures, a Gurgaon, India-based accelerator, has struck a partnership with World Innovation Lab (WiL), the new venture firm of Gen Isayama (who was long a partner at DCM) to help bridge the gap between India and both the U.S. and Japanese market. GHV Accelerator is designed to help startups get faster to Series A funding. Now, Palo Alto, Ca.-based WiL will help provide its startups with both growth capital (likely between $5 million and $30 million over time), along with resources and connections to help the companies take off in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

Ludlow Ventures, a five-year-old, Detroit-based investment firm, has closed on a $15 million micro fund after nearly a year of fundraising, according to Crain’s Detroit Business. The outfit, run by Jonathon Triest, is backed by limited partners that include Karen Davidson, the widow of former Detroit Pistons owner Bill Davidson, and Marc Weiser, managing director of Ann Arbor-based RPM Ventures. The firm has already assembled stakes in a long list of well-known brands, including the investor platform AngelList; Product Hunt, a 10-month-old community board where people can up vote tech products; and Boxbee, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-startup that delivers boxes to its customers, then takes way whatever they want to store.

Storm Ventures, the 17-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based early-stage venture fund, has raised more than $100 million so far for a fifth, $150 million fund that the firm is targeting, reports VentureWire. Storm has had a number of solid exits lately, notes the report. Its portfolio company Metacloud, which provides private-cloud services to its customers, was acquired last month by Cisco Systems for a reported 7x return for the firm. Storm was also the largest shareholder in MobileIron, a software company that made its debut on Nasdaq in June. MobileIron was cofounded by Storm managing director Tae Hea Nahm, who StrictlyVC interviewed last spring. (We talked about why he goes cool-hunting in Korea.)

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Exits

Cityvox, a 14-year-old, Paris-based reviews site that focuses on restaurants and nightlife, has been acquired by Yelp, which is building up its local listings in Europe. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Cityvox had raised an undisclosed amount of funding, including from entrepreneur-investor Fabrice Grinda. TechCrunch has more here.

Fasspay, a payment service provider based in Malaysia, has been acquired by Soft Space, a Southeast Asian white-label mobile point-of-sale platform maker. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed and the companies’ funding situations are unknown. TechCrunch has more here.

Nimbuzz, an eight-year-old, Netherlands-based messaging company that has found traction in recent years in India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, has sold 70 percent of its business for $175 million to New Call Telecom, a four-year-old, U.K.-based company that sells low-cost fixed line and broadband services. Nimbuzz had previously raised at least $25 million, including from HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, Naspers, and Mangrove Capital Partners, shows Crunchbase. The Economic Times has more here.

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People

Ken Coleman, the black, 69-year-old former Silicon Graphics executive who is today a special adviser at Andreessen Horowitz, still shudders when the police lights flash, he tells USA Today. “When I’m stopped I want to say, ‘I’m not what you think, I’ve got an MBA, I live in Los Altos Hills, I own a home in Maui.’ I want to say that . . . Because I know through experience that person might have an image of what I might be and view me as dangerous. And to not feel that way would be foolish.”

Uh oh. Lyft just lost another employee, reports Bloomberg. This time it’s Ryan Fujiu, its director of product, who joined the San Francisco-based ride-sharing company in January from About.me, where he was head of growth. The company declined to comment on Fujiu’s departure, but Bloomberg notes that he’s the latest in a spate of departures, including former COO Travis VanderZanden (who left in August and recently joined Uber); Steve Schnell, Lyft’s former VP of operations; and Art Henry, the company’s former VP of data engineering.

Despite investments like SolarCity and Tesla Motors, Nancy Pfund of DBL Investors “isn’t a household name. Yet over the last decade, she has quietly built a reputation as the go-to venture capitalist for companies looking to make a social impact,” reports Dealbook.

Andy White, an investment partner who was largely responsible for driving the strategy of Vegas Tech Fund, the venture firm of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, has been “let go” from the fund, reports PandoDaily. More here.

Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures takes a stab at explaining cryptocurrency “sidechains,” which investor Chris Dixon of Andreessen Horowitz calls “probably the biggest breakthrough in cryptocurrency research since Bitcoin itself.”

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Jobs

Tencent, one of China’s biggest Internet companies, is looking for a corporate M&A director in Palo Alto, Ca.

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Essential Reads

Twitter reported its third quarter earnings yesterday, showing slower user growth and widening losses. But sales more than doubled to $361.3 million, topping the $351 million average analyst projection compiled by Bloomberg.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki wants to sell you YouTube video subscriptions.

Jack Ma, co-founder and chairman of Alibaba, is “very interested” in partnering Alipay with Apple‘s new mobile payments system, Apple Pay, he said yesterday.

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Detours

Patagonia, the outdoor gear company, is even cooler than you think.

Classic Macs turned into modern furniture.

“Well, that is surprising,” said this cat.

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Retail Therapy

Wintercroft Halloween masks. Made by you. Sure to terrify the children in your life.