Hello, Friday, old pal!

Have a terrific weekend, everyone. See you back here on Monday.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Facebook is plotting its first steps into the “fertile field of healthcare,” Reuters is reporting this morning.

Meanwhile, Apple is asking music labels for a price cut on streaming subscriptions. (Hah. Good one, Apple.)

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Made in Japan: Osuke Honda on the Evolving Startup Scene

Osuke Honda is having a good week. In 2010, the DCM partner bet on Kakao Talk, Korea’s biggest messaging app, and on Wednesday, Kakao acquired Korea’s second biggest Internet company, Daum Communications, which was already public. Now the combined company, Daum Kakao, is expected to list on the Korean stock exchange in a couple of weeks with a market cap of roughly $10 billion.

It’s quite a feather in Honda’s cap, though he’s had a pretty prosperous career all along. We talked the other day about his work and, largely, the evolving startup scene in Japan, where Honda was born and lives today. Our chat has been edited for length.

You were born in Japan, but you’ve always been a global citizen.

I was born in Japan but came to the U.S. when I was eight months old because my dad was transferred here. We lived in Houston, then L.A. I went to Tokyo for my undergraduate degree [at Hitotsubashi University], then grad school [at Wharton] in Philadelphia.

Why head to Japan for college?

I always identified as Japanese, but I didn’t really know Japan. I’d spent a month and a half there in the summers, but that was it, and I wanted to know where my family is from. I’d also started doing martial arts when I was 11 and figured if I wanted to get better at Judo, I should go. I figured if I didn’t like it, I’d just come back, but I liked it.

Your first job was at Mitsubishi. What was that like?

Very Japanese – kind of like Samsung in Korea. It was the kind of company everyone wanted to get into. I spent seven years there and was lucky enough to be part of a new organization that in 1999 was [tasked] with figuring out the e-commerce thing in Japan, which Mitsubishi’s CEO recognized was going to be the Next Big Thing.

You were eventually lured into venture capital, first at Apax Globis Partners, then, in 2007, at DCM.

Yes, one deal I was involved in was Gree, the largest mobile gaming platform in Japan, which went public in 2008 and was valued at $5 billion at its market peak. There isn’t a big venture community in Japan and you get to know people, and [during that time, DCM’s] David Chao and I started talking about what we thought was a successful VC model moving forward, which is cross-border [investing]. And we eventually joined forces.

What shifts have you seen in your time as a VC in Japan? Are founders still seen as, well, crazy?

Relative to five years ago, things are changing very quickly for the good.
In the past, raising money in Japan was a challenge. That was one reason people didn’t do startups. But especially because the IPO market has been very good, a lot of corporate VCs are being established. And as [more capital emerges], the mindset of entrepreneurs is changing, too.

Is hiring still a challenge? I sometimes hear that more people are willing to start companies, but that it’s hard to extricate employees from their comparatively safe jobs to work for them.

I think it depends on the sector. When it comes to consumer Internet, I see a lot of folks [joining startups] if there’s a hot entrepreneur involved, especially someone from Google or Rakuten or Yahoo or Gree. They’re very much able to attract smart, capable people.

I noticed you’ve backed a number of people to come out of Google, including Daisuke Sasaki, the founder of the accounting software startup Freee, and Hiroshi Kuraoka, the cofounder of the online bookings company Coubic.

Folks who come out of Google are interesting based on what I’ve seen. Because at Google, they work across offices, their teams tend to follow what’s happening in the U.S. and other regions around the globe and to think: What can we learn from them? That mindset is very important. Also, if you’re a product manager at Google, the way it’s metric driven is a great way to be trained.

Are college graduates thinking about startups right out of school, as in the U.S.?

No. If you go to a top university and ask students what they want to do, they’ll still say they want to work for Mitsubishi. But it’s changing, and growing a company is something that people respect more these days.

Ten or 15 years ago, for example, no one could have imagined that SoftBank would own a carrier. But entrepreneurs like [SoftBank founder Masayoshi] Son are kind of encouraging people that, hey, I can do that, too. They’re looking at the CEOs of [the clothing company] Uniqlo and [e-commerce giant] Rakuten – these self-made billionaires – and getting inspired.

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New Fundings

Aclaris Therapeutics, a two-year-old, Malvern, Pa.-based company that’s developing new therapies to treat skin disorders, has raised $21 million in Series B funding led by earlier investors Vivo Ventures, Fidelity Biosciences and Sofinnova Ventures. The company has now raised $42 million altogether.

Adarza BioSystems, a six-year-old, St.Louis, Mo.-based company whose immunoassay technology can identify proteins and genetic markers in medical samples like blood, has closed on $6.8 million in Series A funding led by Cultivation Capital and Siemens Venture Capital. Other participants in the round included the nonprofit organization BioGenerator in St. Louis, the St. Louis Arch Angels, Missouri Technology Corp.,Serra Capital, and numerous angel investors.

Brewbot, a 1.5-year-old, Belfast, North Ireland-based company that makes consumer-friendly, in-home beer-making machines, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Bebo cofounder Michael Birch, with participation from Bullet Time Ventures, Hallett Capital, TechStart NI, Galvanize, SparkLabs Global, and angel investor Federico Pirzio-Biroli. The company staged a successful Kickstarter campaign last year that netted it $194,000. You can still find that campaign here.

GoodData, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based business intelligence platform, has raised $25.7 million in Series E funding led by Intel Capital, with participation from earlier investors Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst Partners, Tenaya Capital, Next World Capital, Windcrest, and Pharus Capital, among others. The company has now raised $101.2 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

Insightpool, a 2.5-year-old, Atlanta-based marketing automation company, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by TDF Venturesand Silicon Valley Bank, with participation from Checkfree founder Peter Kight, serial investor Steve Chamberlain, former Turner Networks president Steve Koonin, and others. The company previously raised $500,000.

SoftBank, the 33-year-old, Tokyo-based telecommunications and media company, is investing $250 million in the Hollywood production and finance company Legendary Entertainment, after reported talks about a buyout or partnership between SoftBank and DreamWorks Animation cooled. The WSJ has more here.

Locqus, a 1.5-year-old, Detroit-based company whose cloud-based software makes it easier for mobile workers to check in with their companies about everything from time cards to mileage reimbursements, has raised $2 million in seed funding from Moneris Solutions. VentureBeat has more here.

MedAware, a two-year-old, Israel-based developer of big-data analytics for the medical prescription market, has raised $1 million in Series A funding from the equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd and GE Ventures.

NantHealth, a 6.5-year-old, Culver City, Ca.-based company that’s focused on delivering next-generation care and raised $25 million from the publicly traded drugmaker Celgene Corp. last month, has just raised an additional $250 million from the Kuwait Investment Authority. NantHealth is run by billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, who sold his cancer-treatment company Abraxis BioScience to Celgene in 2010.

Navdy, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company behind a Head-Up Display (HUD) unit that allows drivers to use their apps while keeping their eyes on the road, has raised $6.5 million in seed funding led by Upfront Ventures. Other participants in the round included Eniac Ventures,Lightbank, Ludlow Ventures, MESA+, Promus Ventures andWareness.io.

ScribbleLive, a six-year-old, Toronto-based content syndication marketplace that allows brands and companies to create and distribute content for their respective audiences, has raised $12 million in Series C funding led by Waterloo Innovation Network. Other participants in the round included Georgian Partners, Export Development Canada, Summerhill Venture Partners and Rogers Venture Partners. The company has now raised $20 million altogether.

ShipHawk, a two-year-old, Santa Barbara, Ca.-based company whose app aggregates packing and shipping options, helping users determine which carriers are optimal for particular shipments, has raised $5 million in fresh funding led by DN Capital, with participation from Karlin Ventures, Rothenberg Ventures, and Wavemaker Partners. The company has raised $6 million altogether.

Travador, a 1.5-year-old, Munich, Germany-based online platform for short-term and adventure travel, has raised $7.3 million in Series C funding co-led by Capnamic Ventures and Iris Capital, with XAnge Private Equity participating.

Viyet, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based e-commerce site for pre-owned furniture, lighting and accessories, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from F Cubed, Metamorphic Ventures and other, unnamed investors.

Woto, a 1.5-year-old, London-based online publishing platform that enables users to publish standalone pages and publish them via social channels, has raised $500,000 in seed funding from Ingenious Venturesand Galata Business Angels, a Turkish business angel group. More here.

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New Funds

The Boston-based venture firm Atlas Venture is splitting its healthcare and IT teams into two separate groups, each with their own fund. Fortune has the story here. The healthcare team will reportedly retain the Atlas brand and plans to raise a new fund next year that would be similar in size to the $265 million that Atlas raised for its ninth fund early last year. The IT team will rebrand itself and expects its next fund to be in the range of $130 million.

Forbion Capital Partners, a seven-year-old, Netherlands-based venture capital firm, has held a first close of roughy $116 million on its new medical venture fund, reports VentureWire. The firm has raised two funds prior, a EUR200 million debut fund and EUR140 million fund that closed in 2010.

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IPOs

Calithera Biosciences, a four-year-old, South San Francisco, Ca.-based clinical-stage pharmaceutical company at work on small molecule drugs, saw its shares drop yesterday from $10 to $9.40 in their first day of trading. The company had initially expected to price its shares at between $13 and $15.

Wayfair, the 12-year-old, Boston-based online home-goods company, saw its share close at $37.32 yesterday, up more than 30 percent above their offering price in the company’s debut.

Fifteen-year-old Yodlee, an aggregator of financial apps for both consumers and small enterprises, is set to begin trading today. It raised $75 million in its IPO yesterday, with underwriters pricing the offering at $12 per share. Dealbook has more here.

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Exits

Adaptive Path, a 13-year-old, San Francisco-based design and user experience consultancy, has been acquired by the financial firm Capital One for undisclosed terms. TechCrunch has more here.

Pure Energies Group, a five-year-old, Toronto-based energy advisory services company, has been acquired by the residential solar business NRG Energy for undisclosed terms. Pure Energies had raised $11 million from New Enterprise Associates, NGEN Partners, and Western Technology Investment.

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People

Gazillionaire Larry Ellison is hosting a Republican fundraiser for Senator Rand Paul at his Woodside, Ca., home next Wednesday. Just $1,500-per-person, though hosts are being asked to cough up $32,400 and co-hosts have to pitch in $15,000.

During a podcast interview show last week, former Apple directors Nitin Ganatra and Don Melton dished on all the drawbacks of working at tech giant, including never truly getting time off. According to Melton, via Valleywag: “Sunday is a work night for everybody at Apple . . . This was especially worse after ‘The Sopranos’ ended because for a while there, you could count on the hour that The Sopranos was on that [former iOS leader] Scott [Forstall] wouldn’t bug you ’cause he was watching ‘The Sopranos.’ And that was your reprieve. You could go to the bathroom, you could have a conversation with your family, you know, whatever. But after that . . . And Scott was a late-night kind of guy. He was not a morning guy at all. You were basically on until, like, 2 o’clock in the morning.”

Rovio Entertainment, the Finnish maker of the “Angry Bird” franchise, said yesterday that it’s cutting 130 employees, or about 16 percent of its workforce, amid slowing growth. The Verge has more here.

Oh, it’s on. In the wake of a recent dig made by Apple CEO Tim Cook about Google’s privacy policies, Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, took the opportunity to talk trash about Apple yesterday, telling CNN Money: “We have always been the leader in security and encryption. Our systems are far more secure and encrypted than anyone else, including Apple. They’re catching up, which is great.”

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Jobs

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is looking for post-graduate interns. More here.

Storm Ventures is looking for an analyst-associate. The job is on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, Ca.

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Data

According to a new study by New York-based equity fundraising platform SeedInvest and the data firm Crowdnetic, 4,700 U.S.-based companies have tried raising capital under the JOBS Act Title II rule in the last year, and at least 38.2 percent of them were tech companies. The WSJ has the story.

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Essential Reads

It may be time for Wall Street to give the ad tech space a second chance, says Fortune.

Camera maker GoPro found a way to maneuver around its lockup restriction, but the development spooked investors and sent the stock plummeting as much as 14 percent yesterday.

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Detours

The 25 most successful Wharton graduates, care of Business insider.

The most ticketed cars in the U.S.

A tourist map of laptops.

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Retail Therapy

Unstructured. Neat fitting. Meet the sweazer.

Hallelujah. Ikea furniture you can assemble without losing it.

Hello, everyone, and happy Thursday! (Here’s an easier-to-read version of this morning’s email if you’re just visiting online and haven’t yet signed up.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Apple Pay is coming in about two-and-a-half weeks, says a new report.

An attorney representing more than a dozen celebrities whose photos were recently stolen from their iCloud accounts, is now threatening Google with a $100 million lawsuit, writing in a letter to Google’s top brass that they should have removed the photos faster and that “Google’s ‘Don’t be evil’ motto is a sham.”

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Max Levchin’s Glow Closes on $17 Million

Glow calls itself a women’s health and fertility company, but like nearly everything launched by its cofounder, the serial entrepreneur Max Levchin, it has much bigger ambitions.

For the past year, the startup — with offices in San Francisco and Shanghai — has been focused around an iPhone app for women who are trying to get pregnant. It helps them track their fertility cycles and find optimal days when they might conceive, in exchange for a wide assortment of data that it anonymizes. The app is free but users can also opt-in to a program to which they pay $50 a month, with those who don’t conceive after 10 months receiving their money back, plus a split of all funds contributed by those who do.

The 21-person company claims it has already helped 25,000 women become pregnant. And it more recently created a post-pregnancy app for expectant mothers to track their progress.

But Glow isn’t interested in women’s health alone, says Levchin’s cofounder, Mike Huang. Glow plans to tackle a host of other areas where similarly focusing on “prevention” can keep users from costly corrective events later on (like the fertility clinic). Toward that end, the company, which raised $6 million in funding at the outset, has just added $17 million in fresh funding led by Formation 8, with help from initial backers Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz. Its idea, broadly: to generate even more data, which Glow sees as good for the apps, good for the broader medical community, and good for employers, too.

In fact, Glow’s chief (and possibly only) source of revenue is expected to come from enterprises that offer Glow apps as an employee benefit, paying $50 per month to help keep its workforce healthy.

Asked about obvious privacy concerns around issues like pregnancy, Huang says employers will never know which of its employees are trying to conceive or who hasn’t yet announced that she is expecting. Glow provides employers only with information about how many people have signed up for the service.

He adds that a small but growing number of companies, including the file storage company Evernote, the onine ticketing service Eventbrite, and the cloud computing company Pivotal, are already customers. The focus now, says Huang, is, “How do we get this to be bigger?”

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New Fundings

15Five, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based, SaaS-based inter-company employee feedback system, has raised $2.2 million in seed funding led by Matrix Partners, with participation from earlier investor Point Nine Capital and individual investors. The company has now raised $3.4 million altogether.

365Scores, a six-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based mobile sports application company, has raised $5.5 million in new funding led by LETA Capital, with participation from Cedar Fund, Titanium Investments and other, unnamed investors. The company has raised $6.7 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Appboy, a 3.5-year-old, New York-based app optimization company, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by InterWest Partners, with participation from earlier investor Marketo. The company has now raised $22.6 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Bridge US, a nearly three-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose software aims to make the complex immigration process easier and more affordable, has raised $800,000 in seed funding from 500 Startups, Ulu Ventures, and individual investors.

Building Robotics, a 1.5-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based software company that makes it possible for office workers to control the temperature of their respective work stations, has raised $5.5 million led by The Westly Group and Claremont Creek Ventures. The company had previously raised $1.5 million in seed funding, including from Claremont, Google Ventures, Formation 8, Navitas Capital, Red Swan Ventures and individual investors.

Cognoptix, a 13-year-old, Acton, Ma.-based medical device company that’s developing an eye test to identify early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, has raised $15 million in Series D funding. The company has raised at least $20 million over the years, including from LaunchPad Venture Group, Inventages Venture Capital Investment, and Alopexx Enterprises.

Cohealo, a 13-year-old, Boston-based analytics and resource-sharing platform for major hospital systems, has raised $9 million in Series A funding from earlier investor Romulus Capital, with new investor Krillion Ventures and individual investors participating. The company had previously raised $750,000 in seed financing.

Coinapult, a two-year-old, Panama City, Panama-based bitcoin wallet service has raised $775,000 in seed funding, including from FirstMark Capital, Barry Silbert’s Bitcoin Opportunity Corp., angel investor Roger Ver, and Coinapult co-founders Erik Voorhees and Ira Miller. Coindesk has more here.

Eve, a new, San Francisco-based database company “that allows you to build anything from a simple website to complex algorithms” without needing any prior coding background, has raised $2.3 million in seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz partner Chris Dixon, Hunch engineer Tom Pinckney, and Y Combinator president Sam Altman, among others. Business Insider has more here.

Flocasts, an eight-year-old, Austin-based digital media content company for sports like track and field, wrestling, and gymnastics, has raised $8 million from Causeway Media Partners.

Front, a 1.5-year-old, Paris-based startup that operates a service for shared email inboxes, has raised $3.1 million in seed funding led by SoftTech VC, with Boldstart Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, Point Nine Capital and individual investors participating.

Houzz, a five-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based home décor site that’s preparing for a major push into e-commerce, has raised $165 million in new funding led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from DST Global and T. Rowe Price. The company had earlier raised $48 million from investors, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and New Enterprise Associates.

Lever, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that makes job-applicant tracking software, has raised $10 million in Series A funding fromMatrix Partners. The company had previously raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from, among others, Box co-founder Aaron Levie, SV Angel, and Y Combinator. (Lever graduated from its program in 2012.)

MinuteKey, a six-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based company that operates self-service kiosks for duplicating keys, has raised $30 million in funding from earlier investor Main Street Capital Corp., a publicly traded investment firm. The company says it has now raised $81 million altogether.

Rowl, a four-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based company whose app helps users discover events, activities and meet-up possibilities, has raised $4 million in funding from individual backers, including former Logitech CEO Jerry Quindlen and investor Gary Vaynerchuk. TechCrunch has more here.

StoreDot, a two-year-old, Ramat Gan, Israel-based company behind a battery charger that can recharge a smartphone in 30 seconds (wow), has closed a $42 million Series B round, reports Globes. Singulariteam, the private investment company of serial entrepreneur Moshe Hogeg (most recently of Yo) led the round, which also included a $10 million investment from Millhouse, the asset management company of Roman Abramovich. The company had previously raised $6.25 million. Others of its investors are Genesis Angels Fund and Nation-E.

Stratos, a two-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based Bluetooth-enabled mobile-payments service, has raised $5.8 million in funding from Toba Capital Partners, Hyde Park Venture Partners, Resonant Venture Partners, and Western Technology Investment.

Ticketbis, a five-year-old, Madrid, Spain-based online exchange for buying and selling after-market tickets to events in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, has raised €5.2 million ($6.6 million) in funding led by Active Venture Partners, along with participation from existing investors. The company has now raised roughly $12.6 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Visterra, a seven-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that’s developing antibodies for serious cases of influenza and other infectious diseases, has raised $30 million in Series B funding co-led by new investors Merck Research Labs Venture Fund, Vertex Venture Holdings, and Temasek. Other participants in the round included Cycad Group and earlier backers Polaris Partners, Flagship Ventures, Omega Funds and Alexandria Venture Investments. The company has now raised $73.4 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Zafin, a 12-year-old, Vancouver, British Columbia-based company that develops software for the financial-services industry, has raised $15 million in new funding from Kayne Partners, the growth-equity arm of alternative-investment firm Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors.

ZenMate, a year-old, Berlin-based service that encrypts one’s browsing history and hides IP addresses and locations, has raised $3.2 million in Series A funding led by Holtzbrinck Ventures. Shortcut Ventures and T-Venture also joined the round, along with earlier investor Project A Ventures. The company has reportedly raised $4.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

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IPOs

Box, the nine-year-old, Los Altos, Ca.-based cloud-storage company, won’t go public until later this year or early next year because of volatile market conditions, according to Bloomberg sources. The company had filed to go public in March, but first postponed plans to go public in May, citing market conditions. In July, it raised $150 million at a valuation of $2.4 billion. That capital gives Box more than two years of runway, notes a WSJ piece, but the company is still in a race against the clock, it suggests, noting that the “market for online storage is growing more competitive by the day as bigger companies bring the price closer to zero with similar features, and at lower costs or as an add-on to their existing service.”

Rocket Internet, the seven-year-old, Berlin-based e-commerce investor, went public earlier today in Frankfurt and things aren’t looking so great at this hour. Its shares, which it priced at the top of their book-building range yesterday at 42.50 euros ($53.77), dropped 14 percent within minutes of the stock’s debut. Reuters has much more here.

Wayfair, the 12-year-old, Boston-based online home-goods company, is also expected to begin trading today, with its shares initially priced at $29, above the expected range of $25 to $28 per share. The stock will trade on the New York Stock Exchange. It’s the first e-commerce company to make its public debut since Alibaba’s IPO last month. Wayfair’s biggest outside shareholders include Battery Ventures, which owns 6.15 percent of the company; Great Hill Partners, which owns 11.43 percent, and HarbourVest Partners, which owns 7.03 percent.

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Exits

Bering Media, a six-year-old, Toronto-based online advertising platform has been acquired by the privately held ad platform Audience Partners. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Bering had raised $7.5 million over the years, shows Crunchbase; its investors include MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund, Tech Capital Partners, and Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund.

Perzo, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based instant-messaging software company, has been acquired for $66 million by 14 financial-services firms that plan to turn it into a communications platform for traders. Goldman Sachs led the consortium. Other investors included Bank of America,Bank of New York Mellon, BlackRock, Citadel, Citigroup, Credit Suisse Group, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, Jefferies,  Capital, Morgan Stanley, Nomura Holdings and Wells Fargo. Crunchbase shows that Perzo, which is being renamed Symphony Communication Services, had raised at least $5.5 million, including from Merus Capital.

Struq, a six-year-old, New York-based ad personalization platform, has been acquired by the privately held ad-targeting company Quantcast for undisclosed terms. Struq had raised at least $8.5 million from investors, including Allen & Company, Reed Elsevier Ventures, and Pentech Ventures.

Socialarc, a five-year-old, Emeryville, Ca.-based public relations boutique catering to technology startups, has been acquired by San Francisco-based SparkPR for undisclosed terms. The company’s 14 employees will remain in place in Emeryville. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed.

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People

Cindy Cheng has quietly joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a partner focused on its Digital Growth Fund. Cheng joined the firm from Hillspire, a family office in Menlo Park, Ca.. Earlier in her career, she worked as an analyst in the technology investment banking practice at Morgan Stanley.

Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz — who at age 30 is the second youngest billionaire in the U.S. — says he plans to “be rid” of his money before he dies: “I’m very fond of this quote from Louis C.K. below and generally view the world through this lens: ‘I never viewed money as being My Money. I always saw it as The Money. It’s a resource. If it pools up around me, then it needs to be flushed back out into the system.’”

Alison Rosenthal, most recently COO of mobile messenger app company MessageMe, has been hired by the investment service Wealthfront as its VP of strategic partnerships, reports Recode. Before joining MessageMe, Rosenthal spent 1.5 years at Greylock Partners as an entrepreneur-in-residence. Before that, she spent five years as a business development director at Facebook.

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Data

The New York-based healthcare investment firm Psilos Group released its annual “healthcare outlook” report. Here’s the link if you’re interested in checking it out.

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Essential Reads

That Uber rider attacked by his driver might lose his eye.

Verizon is backing down on its plan to slow down unlimited data users.

Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham just posted his guest lecture from Sam Altman’s startup class at Stanford.

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Detours

The Secret Service scandals explained.

Strategies on finding your right time to go to bed.

Socrates addresses the county school board.

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Retail Therapy

This is not a Prius.

And we’re not sure about connecting these slippers to our laptop, but they are kind of adorbs.

Hi, everyone, happy first day of October! StrictlyVC is juggling a little more than usual this week, so no column today, but stay tuned.

Also, if you’ve missed any recent editions of StrictlyVC, here is Monday’s issue; Tuesday’s newsletter is here. (You can also find an easier-to-read version of today’s issue here.)

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Top News in the A.M.

PayPal was in the running to be a prominent partner in Apple‘s rollout of Apple Pay, but talks reportedly soured after PayPal’s parent company,eBay, forced PayPal to strike a similar deal with Samsung. The pact didn’t just torpedo relations between PayPal and Apple; it prompted PayPal’s then-president David Marcus to hightail it for Facebook, says the report.

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New Fundings

Acutus Medical, a three-year-old, San Diego-based company whose 3-D imaging system for the heart helps in treating complex cardiac arrhythmias, has added $26.2 million to its Series B funding from unnamed investors. According to Crunchbase, the capital brings the company’s total funding to $63.2 million. Its investors include GE Ventures, Index Ventures, Advent Venture Partners, and OrbiMed Advisors.

Allakos, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based biotech company developing antibody-based therapeutics to treat various allergies and diseases, has raised $10 million in fresh funding from current investors, including Novo Ventures, Alta Partners, RiverVest Venture Partners and the Roche Venture Fund. The round brings the company’s total funding to $44.5 million, shows Crunchbase.

Aquion Energy, a six-year-old, Pittsburgh, Pa.-based company that makes sodium ion batteries, has raised $25 million from undisclosed investors. Earlier, the company — spun out of research at Carnegie Mellon University — had secured $20 million in venture debt from Trinity Capital Investment and CapX Partners. It had separately raised about $94 million in equity, including from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Foundation Capital, Advanced Technology Ventures, Bright Capital, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, and Gentry Venture Partners.

Birds Eye Systems, a four-year-old, Mumbai, India-based company behind an traffic information app called Traffline, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series B funding from Qualcomm Ventures. The company reportedly raised an earlier round of funding from Matrix Partners India.

BRD Motorcycles, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of all-electric racing motorcycles, has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding led by Modara Technologies. Other participants in the round includedCedarville Investments, Tesla Motors founders Martin Eberhard andMarc Tarpenning, and the chief executive of Baluarte Real Estate in Spain, Pedro Zapata Gil. The funding brings BRD’s total funding to $8.2 million. Venture Capital Dispatch has the story here.

Consensus Orthopedics, a 22-year-old, El Dorado Hills, Ca.-based company that makes artificial hip and knee replacements, has raised $8 million from Breakwater Investment Funds, an L.A.-based growth capital firm. MedCity News has more here.

Food52, a five-year-old, New York-based crowdsourced cooking and commerce site, has raised $6 million in Series A-1 funding led by investorAlex Zubillaga, with participation from Scripps Network Interactive, Walden Venture Capital, BDMI, Vocap Investment Partners, Thomas Lehrman, Robin Klein, Joanne Wilson, Gary Vaynerchuk and other individual investors. The company has raised $9 million altogether thus far. TechCrunch has more here.

Good Technology, the 18-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based mobile-device security company, which has already raised money from every investor in Silicon Valley (and beyond) and had finally filed for an IPO back in May, has raised yet another $80 million from unnamed investors. The company says it still plans to go public.

Heliatek, a eight-year-old, Dresden, German-based maker of organic solar films, has raised $22.7 million in Series C funding led by the family office of entrepreneur Stefan Quandt, with participation from earlier investors, including Bosch, BASF, Innogy Venture Capital, and Wellington Partners. The company has raised roughly $58 million to date.

Netuitive, a 12-year-old, Reston, Va.-based company that sells self-learning performance management software, has raised $6.5 million in new funding led by MK Capital and Rembrandt Venture Partners, with participation from Cross Creek Advisors and Columbia Capital. The company has raised at least $29.5 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Oncoceutics, a five-year-old, Hummelstown, Pa.-based drug developer that’s focused on cancer treatments, has received an undisclosed amount of funding in a “substantially oversubscribed” round led by Spring Mountain Capital.

Pica8, a 2.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that specializes in software defined networking, has raised $12.5 million in Series B funding from VantagePoint Capital Partners, Cross Head and Pacific Venture Partners, among others. The company has now raised more than $20 million altogether.

Reddit, the nine-year-old, San Francisco-based social news startup, has raised $50 million in Series B funding at a $500 million valuation led by Y Combinator President Sam Altman, with participation from Alfred Lin of Sequoia Capital and Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz. Other investors in the round include Peter Thiel, Ron Conway, Paul Buchheit,Jared Leto, Jessica Livingston, Kevin and Julia Hartz, Mariam Naficy,Josh Kushner, Snoop Dogg (yes), and Reddit CEO Yishan Wong. In an unusual twist, investors in the round have proposed giving 10 percent of their shares to the Reddit community for helping to build the site — and possibly increasing that amount over time. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Remerge, a six-month-old, Berlin-based adtech startup, has raised $1 million in seed funding led by Point Nine Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Sharethrough, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based ad tech company, has raised $5 million from British Sky Broadcasting Group as part of a $10 million round that includes Elevation Partners, Floodgate, North Bridge Venture Partners and Silver Creek Ventures. The company has raised $38 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

StackEngine, a months-old, Austin, Tx.-based maker of application management software, has raised $1 million in seed funding fromSilverton Partners and LiveOak Venture Partners.

Tile, a nearly two-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based maker of tiny wearables that can be placed on things to keep track of them (like keys), has raised $9.5 million in Series A funding led by GGV Capital, with participation from Tencent, Tandem Capital, Go Pro founder Nick Woodman, Rothenberg Ventures, Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures, Slow Ventures, Guitar Hero cofounder Charles Huang and others. The company had previously raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by Tencent.

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New Funds

Health Enterprise Partners, an eight-year-old New York-based growth equity firm focused on health care, has raised a $148.5 million fund from investors, including Cigna Corp., reports VentureWire.

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IPOs

EndoStim, a five-year-old, St. Louis, Mo.-based medical device company whose neurostimulation system was created to treat severe gastroesophageal reflux disease, said yesterday that it plans to sell 3.2 million shares at $10 to $12 each in its IPO. (It filed a couple of weeks ago.) The company has raised at least $42.5 million from private investors, shows Crunchbase. The company’s biggest shareholders include Santé Health Ventures, which holds a 35.4 percent stake; Prolog Capital, which owns a 5.7 stake; and 1998 Co-Investing LLC, which owns a 5.8 percent stake.

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Exits

Alios BioPharma, a 7.5-year-old, South San Francisco-based company at work on a treatment for respiratory syncytial virus, a top cause of brochiolitis, is being acquired by Johnson & Johnson in a $1.75 billion deal that represents the largest acquisition of a venture-backed drug company on record, according to VentureSource. The company had raised $73 million in funding from investors, including Novo Ventures, SR One, Roche Venture Fund and Novartis Ventures.

MedSynergies, an 18-year-old, Irving, Tx.-based company that makes practice-management software for physician clinics, is being acquired for undisclosed terms by UnitedHealth Group’s data services division, Optum. MedSynergies had raised at least $90 million over the years from undisclosed investors, shows Crunchbase.

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People

The most beloved CEOs in tech (chart).

Sameer Dholakia has been named CEO of SendGrid, the email platform. He was formerly group VP and general manager of the Cloud Platforms Group at Citrix Systems.

Things in Las Vegas appear to be collapsing around Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, the founder of Downtown Project, a costly development project in the city that Hsieh has been funding single-handedly. A few weeks ago, Hsieh stepped down as leader of the project, according to Recode. Yesterday, Hsieh also laid off about 30 percent of Downtown Project’s staff, or 30 people, which excludes entrepreneurs who’ve been funded by the project. Downtown Project has been hugely ambitious from the start, with Hsieh trying to transform 1.5 miles of desolate downtown Las Vegas into a bustling entrepreneurial center, using up to $350 million of his own money. As we noted during a trip to meet with Hsieh in 2012, Hsieh had also installed relatively inexperienced people at the helm of Downtown Project’s various intiatives, including Hsieh’s cousin and her husband, who’ve been handling Hsieh’s education and small business initiatives for Downtown Project. (Both previously worked at Citigroup in New York.) It’s too early to know if the layoffs mean more than a major calibration right now. In a statement to the media yesterday, Downtown Project wrote: “We remain focused on the long-term plan and the evolution of the downtown area. As such, we have restructured our support team. This change has affected approximately 30 positions, the majority of which were based in our corporate office. We continue to directly employ more than 300 people across our various operations in downtown Las Vegas.”

Jony Ive, Apple‘s senior vice president of design at Apple, talks with Vogue about feeling a bit like an outsider in life, like his former boss, Steve Jobs. “When you feel that the way you interpret the world is fairly idiosyncratic, you can feel somewhat ostracized and lonely and I think that we both perceived the world in the same way.”

Norwest Venture Partners has promoted Robert Mittendorff to principal,Sumer Juneja to principal, and Lisa Wu to vice president. MIttendorff joined Norwest as a vice president in 2012 from Hansen Medical, where he was a vice president. Juneja had joined NVP India in 2009 as a vice president; he was previously an analyst at Goldman Sachs. Wu, who joined Norwest in 2012, worked previously as an investor at Bessemer Venture Partners and Comcast Ventures, and in corporate development at Amazon.

Zynga founder Mark Pincus is reportedly selling his Pacific Heights home in San Francisco for $18 million. Pincus and wife Ali, co-founder of the home décor company One Kings Lane, purchased the home in 2012 for $16 million, and it sits on one of the toniest blocks in the city. In fact, a year ago, Vanity Fair wrote a breathless piece about the two-and-a-half-block “showcase of freestanding, stately mansions designed by such iconic 20th-century architects as Willis Polk and William Wursters” where the Pincuses’ home sits a stone’s throw from the homes of Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, Benchmark partner Matt Cohler, and Michael and Xochi Birch of Bebo.

Mark Zuckerberg, plantation owner? It may be the case, judging by a new report in the Pacific Business News that suggests the Facebook CEO just spent $66 million on the 357-acre, beachfront plantation Kahuaina on the northeast corner of the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

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Happenings

Chicago Ideas Week, an annual week long event founded by Groupon and Lightbank co-founder Brad Keywell, is coming up the week after next in Chicago, reports Forbes. With 30,000 engineers, technologists, inventors, scientists, economists, artists, and other professionals expected to attend, the event’s mission is to stimulate new collaborations.

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Data

Twenty-three venture-backed IPOs raised $2.6 billion during the third quarter, marking the sixth consecutive quarter to see 20 or more venture-backed IPOs, according to a new report out by Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association. More here.

This video is shown to all Google Ventures portfolio companies to educate them about unconscious biases against women at work. (H/T: Mike Butcher)

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Essential Reads

Huh. Jawbone looks to be getting out of the hardware business.

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Detours

The only footage of Mark Twain, in digitally restored films shot by Thomas Edison.

“Enhance your lighting.”

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Retail Therapy

Oh, the indignities that dogs are made to suffer.

Also, Lapkins.

And it is Friday, party people. Have a terrific weekend! No column today, but we’ll see you back here next week with some good stuff. (Web visitors, click here for an easier-to-read version of today’s email.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Another day, another threatened crackdown on car services Uber and Lyft, this time from L.A. and San Francisco prosecutors.

FBI Director James Comey criticized Apple and Google yesterday for developing smartphone encryption so secure that law enforcement officials have trouble gaining information stored on devices, even when they have valid search warrants.

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New Fundings

BioMotiv, a two-year-old, Cleveland, Oh.-based therapeutic accelerator, has raised $25 million from the Japan-based pharmaceutical company Takeda Pharmaceutical in exchange for exclusive access to many of BioMotiv’s drugs. The financing constitutes a “significant minority investment,” says BioMotiv.

Coinify, a four-year-old Copenhagen-based bitcoin payment services company, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from SEED Capital, a Danish venture firm. According to the outlet Unquote, the investment marks just the second bitcoin-related investment for a Nordic firm, the other being Creandum’s recent Series A investment in KnCMiner, a Stockholm-based maker of bitcoin mining hardware.

Context Relevant, a two-year-old, Seattle-based company that sells prepackaged applications intended to solve specific, data-related business problems, has raised $13.5 million in Series B-1 funding from Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Formation 8, New York Life, and Bloomberg Beta. In late May, the company announced $21 million in Series B funding led by Formation 8. The newest round brings the company’s total funding to $42 million.

CureLauncher, a two-year-old, Bloomfield Hills, Mi.-based startup that helps users find medical treatments (including via clinical trials) based on their conditions, has raised $500,000 in Series B funding, a year after raising $500,000 in Series A funding. The new round was led by the early-stage venture capital firm InkWell.

Exo, a 1.5-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based producer of protein bars made from crickets (really), has raised $1.2 million in new seed funding fromCollaborative Fund, Start Garden and author and angel investor Tim Ferriss. The company had previously raised $100,000 via the New York-based packaged food and beverage accelerator, AccelFoods.

Fundrise, a four-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based real estate crowdfunding platform, has added $3.6 million to its Series A funding round, bringing its total funding to $38 million. New investors in the round — which remains open — include the Chinese social networking company Renren; Guggenheim Partners; Rockrose President Justin Elghanayan; and James Ratner, the chairman and chief executive of Forest City Commercial Group. Venture Capital Dispatch has the story along with a longer look at the crowded, crowdfunding sector in which Fundrise now finds itself.

Hootsuite, the six-year-old, Vancouver-based startup known for its social media management dashboards, has raised $60 million in new venture funding, it told Re/code yesterday morning. The latest funding was led by a new Boston-based investor that Hootsuite hasn’t revealed, as well as earlier investors Insight Venture Partners, Accel Partners and OMERS Ventures. The company has now raised a total of $250 million.

MiaoPai, a three-year-old, Beijing-based short-video mobile app maker, has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers China, according to China Money Network. Sina Corp., Redpoint Ventures and StarVC also participated. The company had raised at least $25 million in priof funding, says the report.

Nubank, a year-old, São Paulo-based financial services start-up whose first product is a MasterCard Platinum credit card that users can manage through an Android or iOS app, has raised $13.8 million led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from new investor Berggruen Holdings and earlier investor Kaszek Ventures, a Buenos Aires-based venture capital firm. Dealbook has more here.

Skillz, a two-year-old, Boston-based cash tournament platform for mobile games that allows players to win rights, cash and other prizes, has raised $3 million in equity funding and $3 million in venture debt led by Atlas Venture, with NextView Ventures and individual investors participating. The new tranche brings the startup’s total equity funding raised to $10.3 million, reports Venture Capital Dispatch.

Zeptor, a five-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based company whose silicon anode enables battery makers to produce high-powered lithium ion batteries, has raised $5.2 million in fresh funding, shows an SEC filing. The company has raised at least $8.4 million to date.

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New Funds

The Small Business Administration is expanding its venture capital program for “impact investments,” reports the Austin Business Journal.More here.

UpWest Labs, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based accelerator program for Israeli entrepreneurs, has raised $4 million for its second fund, according to an SEC filing that shows a $15 million target. UpWest mentors founders for four months and provides them with $20,000 in exchange for an 8 percent stake in their business. Some of the outfit’s many investments include Honeybook, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based invite-only planning platform that helps creative businesses and their clients collaborate and that earlier this week announced $10 million in new funding led by Aleph. The company has also backed Sentinel Labs, a year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based cybersecurity startup that raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Tiger Global Management back in April.

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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, has filed to go public, with a maximum offering amount of $86.2 million. The company’s principal shareholders are Daiichi Sankyo Company, which owns 11.13 percent; Lilly Ventures (the venture arm of Eli Lilly), which owns 11.17 percent; KKR, which owns 9.7 percent; MX II Associates, which owns 9.67 percent; Sofinnova Ventures, which owns 8.28 percent; and Venrock, which owns 7.65 percent.

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People

Investor Marc Andreessen decided yesterday was the day to send the startup world into panic mode, tweeting that the many “cash-incinerating” startups up and running will be vaporized when the market turns. For good measure, he elaborated on the point, noting that venture-backed startups that have raised a bunch of cash and rented fancy offices and hired a lot of people (which describes a good number of companies at this point) should “worry.”

Andreessen Horowitz has brought on Stanford University professor Vijay Pande to be its first Andreessen Horowitz Distinguished Visiting Professor of Computer Science. Pande, who teaches chemistry, computer science and structural biology at Stanford, will essentially act as a liaison between the firm and the university, so that computer science and other students will know where to turn when they’re considering commercializing their research.

Deric Emry has left Baltimore, Md.-based ABS Capital after 15 years, saying in an email to his contacts that he has “decided to pursue my passion for venture capital in a different format” as a venture partner at Greenspring Associates in Owings Mills, Md. Before joining ABS Capital in 1999, Emry was an associate at the bank Alex.Brown & Sons.

Sam Waksal is back in a big way, seemingly. Having quietly raised $500 million in debt and equity for his newest drug company, Kadmon, whose products aim to treat and manage hepatitis C, he’s now planning to take it public, he tells CNBC. More here. As many readers know, Waksal founded the biotech company ImClone Systems; he was later jailed for five years following insider-trading charges. Three months after his release, Eli Lilly bought ImClone for $6.5 billion.

It’s a worldwide contagion. In an open letter addressed to his portfolio companies, Matrix Partners China co-founder David Zhang warns that the investment market is about to cool off, a direct reaction to public warnings by venture capitalist Bill Gurley about the current climate. The letter, which quotes Gurley, has since gone viral on Chinese social media, reports Tech in Asia.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally set up the Facebook account of comic Andy Samberg because Zuckerberg was horrified to discover that Samberg was not on Facebook. So Samberg tells “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon.

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Job Listings

Dawn Capital, an early-stage firm in London, in looking for an analyst. (Senior associate Teddie Wardi tells us this person will be wearing two hats, as an investor and as someone who can help with the firm’s marketing efforts.)

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Data

Some top reasons that startups fail, in the words of founders and investors who’ve seen these craters up close.

Why the Winklevoss twins are so bullish about bitcoin, in 33 slides.

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Essential Reads

Inside the building where Apple tortures the iPhone 6.

WWYD? (What will Yahoo do?)

How to start a startup: Lectures by Y Combinator president Sam Altman (here’s one; here’s two).

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Detours

To see every swing of the bat that Derek Jeter has made in his professional career, you would need to watch this motion nonstop for more than 4 days.

People feeling insecure about their relationships post about them more on Facebook, according to a new study that has misanthropes high-fiving.

A yacht-shaped hospital and spa that, if made, will kind of make every other hospital in the world look like prison.

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Retail Therapy

This seems like a bad idea.