Good morning! StrictlyVC ran out of time to write a column today (you can kind of see why below), but we do have a lot of good stuff coming your way.

Have a great Wednesday, everyone.

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Top News in the A.M.

Comcast has been boasting that fully 70 mayors support its proposed $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable, including Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel, who recently wrote the FCC in support of the deal. The International Business Times thinks it’s also worth noting that Emanuel and the political committees he controls have received more than $100,000 from Comcast and its employees.

A federal appeals court has cleared Yelp of claims that it extorted businesses into advertising by fabricating bad reviews about them, reports PC World.

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New Fundings

3D Hubs, a 1.5-year-old, Amsterdam-based platform that gives users access to a global network of individually run 3D printers, has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding led by Balderton Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

ActivityHero, a three-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based startup that makes it easy for parents to find and book after-school activities and summer camps, has raised $2.2 million in Series A funding led by Inventus Capital Partners, reports VentureWire.

AirSig, a months-old, Taiwanese startup that makes authentication products for mobile devices, has raised $2 million in seed funding from Foxconn Technology Group. More here.

Axial Healthcare, a two-year-old, Nashville, Tn.-based company whose cloud-based data and analytics platform aims to help manage the cost and quality of patient care, has raised $1.75 million in Series A funding from BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners and Sandbox Industries.

Black Duck Software, a 12-year-old, Burlington, Ma.-based company that helps its customers deploy and manage open-source software, has raised $20 million from insiders, reports VentureWire, which says the round was led by General Catalyst Partners. The company has now raised at least $66 million over the years, shows Crunchbase. More here.

Core2 Group, a two-year-old, Mclean, Va.-based company that culls and analyzes digital-activity data from website, email and machine-to-machine traffic, has raised $4.3 million in Series A funding led by Blue Chip Venture Company of Cincinnati, Oh.

Culture Machine, a 15-month-old, Mumbai, India-based digital video entertainment startup cofounded by former Disney executive Sameer Pitalwalla and former YouTube executive Venkat Prasad, has raised between $3.5 million and $4 million in Series A funding from Zodius Capital, reports the Economic Times.

Emprego Ligado, a two-year-old, São Paulo-based mobile-based recruiting platform that targets blue-collar workers, has raised $7 million in Series A funding from investors, including Monashees Capital, Grupo RBS e.Bricks and Qualcomm Ventures. The company had earlier raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from 500 Startups, Initial Capital, and Fortify Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

FanDuel, a five-year-old, New York-based real-money fantasy sports site, has raised $70 million in Series D funding led by Shamrock Capital Advisors, reports Venture Capital Dispatch. Other participants in the round included NBC Sports Ventures and private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. Earlier investors Bullpen Capital, Pentech Ventures and Comcast Ventures also participated. FanDuel has now raised $86.2 million, shows Crunchbase.

Feidee, a four-year-old, Shenzhen, China-based personal finance mobile platform, has raised “tens of millions” of dollars in Series B funding led byFosun International, reports China Money Network. Earlier investor Sequoia Capital, which had reportedly provided Feidee with $15 million in Series A funding in 2012, also participated in the round.

Hobo Labs, a new, San Francisco-based stealth mobile gaming company, has raised $4 million from investors, including Shasta Ventures, reports Vator News. Hobo Labs was cofounded by Lyle Fong, who founded Lithium Technologies, a pre-IPO company, in 2001.

IEX, a year-old, New York-based upstart stock-trading platform, has raised $75 million funding from Spark Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance, Franklin Templeton, Netscape co-founder James Clark, and casino magnate Steve Wynn. Dealbook has a look at how the deal came together here.

IndoorAtlas, a two-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company whose indoor mapping technology can reportedly determine locations inside a structure to within six feet, has raised $10 million in funding from China’s top search company, Baidu. The two companies also announced that they have signed an agreement that will make Baidu the only user of IndoorAtlas’ technology in China. The funding comes just three months after IndoorAtlas raised $4.5 million in a round led by Mobility Ventures and the Finnish seed fund KoppiCatch. TechCrunch has more here.

ItzCash Card, an eight-year-old Mumbai, India-based company that sells multi-purpose pre-paid cash cards, has raised just less than $15 million in funding from a group of unnamed strategic Asian investors, sources tell VCCircle. ItzCash had previously raised $20.6 million in funding across two rounds. Its earlier investors include Matrix Partners, Intel Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Lehigh Technologies, an 11-year-old, Tucker, Ga.-based specialty materials company that recycles rubber tires into new materials, has raised $8 million in venture funding led by synthetic rubber maker JSR Corp. of Japan. Earlier investors Leaf Clean Energy, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Index Ventures and Florida Gulfshore Capital, also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to roughly $70 million, shows Crunchbase.

Measurabl, a 1.5-year-old, San Diego-based maker of cloud-based sustainability reporting software, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by CrossCut Ventures.

Memorado, a year-old, Berlin-based brain training and cognitive science startup, has raised $1.3 million in funding from Sunstone Capital and numerous Berlin-based angel investors, including the founders of Zalando and Wimdu. TechCrunch has more here.

Red Dot Payment, a three-year-old, Singapore-based online payment processing company with a focus on Southeast Asia, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from GMO Global Payment Fund and Wavemaker Pacific. Tech in Asia has more here.

Sobrr, an eight-month-old, Emeryville, Ca.-based mobile social app that promises that the content its users post will expire in 24 hours, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from IDG Ventures. VentureWire has more here.

Uzabase, a six-year-old, Tokyo-based company that competes with the Bloomberg Terminal computer system, has raised $4.5 million in Series C funding from nine investors, reports Tech in Asia. The round included Itochu Technology Ventures, YJ Capital, Kodansha, SMBC Venture Capital, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Shinsei Bank. Existing investors Globis Capital Partners, GMO Venture Partners, and Monex Ventures also participated.

Wizeline, a year-old, San Francisco-based company whose data service helps companies prioritize decision-making, has raised $6.7 million in funding from A Capital Partners, XG Ventures, Core Ventures Group,Bowery Capital, Sierra Ventures and SV Angel.

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New Funds

Chiesi Ventures, a new venture capital fund that will have offices in Parma, Italy; Boston, Ma.; and Research Triangle Park, N.C, launched yesterday as part of a strategic collaboration between the Italian pharmaceutical company Chiesi Group and life sciences investor A.M. Pappas & Associates. The targeted fund will focus on early-stage rare and orphan disease investments in the U.S and Europe. More here.

As part of another strategic partnership, Reliance Industries, India’s largest private company with interests in petroleum, retail and telecom, is partnering with Microsoft to incubate startups and provide them with seed funding. The program will be operated via Gennext Ventures, an early-stage corporate VC arm that Reliance established in 2010. The Economic Times has much more here.

Prime Ventures, a 15-year-old, Amsterdam-based venture capital firm focused on growth-stage European Internet, software, and other high-tech startups, has raised $170.7 million for its newest fund. The firm says it intends to invest between EUR5 million ($6.6 million) and EUR20 million ($26.3 million) per company.

TenOneTen Ventures, a year-old, L.A. based firm cofounded by enterpreneurs Gil Elbaz and David Waxman, are raising a debut fund of up to $25 million, according to an SEC filing first flagged by Venture Capital Dispatch. The outlet spoke with Elbaz, who previously cofounded Applied Semantics; he said that while his new fund’s name pays homage to the 10 and 110 freeways bisecting Los Angeles, he and Waxman, who previously co-founded SpotRunner, aren’t limiting themselves to startups in their backyard. “We aspire to be great investors in L.A., not great L.A. investors,” he said.

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IPOs

E-retailer Zalando has confirmed that it’s going public this year on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and it says it plans to offer between 10 and 11 percent of its shares.

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Exits

BackupAgent, a 10-year-old, Netherlands-based cloud backup company, has been acquired by Acronis, a 12-year-old, Singapore-based company helps corporate customers migrate, protect and recover data no matter its location. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. BackUpAgent had raised at least $2 million from Runa Capital and Solid Ventures, shows Crunchbase. Acronis has raised at least $11 million from investors, including Insight Venture Partners and OpenView Venture Partners.

BeyondTrust, a 29-year-old, Phoenix-based security company, has been acquired for $310 million by Veritas Capital, the New York-based private-equity firm that targets companies providing government services, reports Bloomberg. BeyondTrust is owned in part by Insight Venture Partners.

Branderati, a nearly two-year-old, New York-based social-media tools maker, has been acquired by the social media platform Sprinklr for an undisclosed amount. Branderati doesn’t appear to have reported outside funding. Sprinklr has raised at least $77.5 million from investors, including Intel Capital and Battery Ventures, shows Crunchbase.

DocuSphere, a 21-year-old, Perrysburg, Oh.-based company that sells automated accounts-payable services, has been acquired by the electronic trading network Tungsten Network for undisclosed terms. According to VentureWire, investors in DocuSphere include Plymouth Ventures and Rocket Ventures.

Location Labs, a 13-year-old, Emeryville, Ca.-based mobile security company, is being acquired by online security firm AVG in a deal worth up to $220 million. According to Crunchbase, Location Labs had raised roughly $25 million, including from DFJ, BlueRun Ventures, Second Avenue Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, Saturn Partners, and British Telecom, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Ouya, the two-year-old, L.A.-based startup that makes an inexpensive TV game console based on Google’s Android software, is being shopped in the U.S. and abroad after receiving inbound interest from Chinese technology firms, according to The Information. Ouya has raised roughly $23 million from investors, including Shasta Ventures, Mayfield Fund, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Occam Capital, and Nvidia.

XRS Corp., a 29-year-old, Eden Prairie, Mn.-based fleet-management software company that trades publicly, is being acquired by the privately held, San Diego-based fleet-management software company Omnitracs, a former Qualcomm unit.

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People

Ray Bradford appears to have left Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where he has served as a partner since 2011. (Bradford has not yet responded to press request.) Bradford came to Kleiner from Amazon, where, as a product manager, he helped grow the company’s cloud infrastructure business. Before joining Amazon, Bradford interned at both Twitter and Linden Labs. At Kleiner, Bradford has been focused on big data services.

The National Venture Capital Association yesterday announced the appointment of Justin Field as its VP of federal policy. Field comes to NVCA from the office of Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), where he was a legislative assistant responsible for tax issues.

Tim Kopp, the former CMO of marketing software company ExactTarget, has joined Hyde Park Venture Partners in Chicago as an advisor and venture partner. ExactTarget was acquired by Salesforce for $2.5 billion last year. Kopp has also worked in marketing for both Coca-Cola and Proctor & Gamble.

Susan Lyne, CEO of AOL’s brand group since early last year, is stepping down to run a venture fund inside AOL that’s aimed at early-stage women-led, consumer Internet companies, reports Recode. The fund’s name for now is Build Fund and it will initially have between $10 million to $12 million to invest.

It’s official(ish).The White House has selected Google executive Megan Smith to be the nation’s next chief technology officer and will announce her appointment once she’s fully vetted, reports Fortune.

That didn’t last long. Greg Wyler, founder of satellite-communications startup O3b Networks, who recently joined Google as part of its effort to build a constellation of Internet-beaming satellites, has left the company, says The Information. Neither The Information, nor the WSJ, which published a follow-up piece, were able to discern what went wrong, but the Journal reports that Wyler is now “spending a lot of time at the office of SpaceX, the space-transport company” founded by Elon Musk. At Google, Wyler had reported to Craig Barratt, Google’s senior vice president in charge “Access and Energy.” Barratt joined Google last year, having been CEO of Wi-Fi chip maker Atheros Communications, which sold to Qualcomm in 2011 for $3.1 billion.

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Job Listings

Fenox Venture Capital is looking for a full-time analyst. Applicants must be fluent in at least one Southeast Asian language. The job is in San Jose, Ca.

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Happenings

Samsung‘s Unpacked event is happening today in Berlin. The Verge is taking notes and has embedded a live feed.

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Essential Reads

The tool that people use to steal pictures from Apple’s iCloud.

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Detours

Inside the most expensive home for sale in Silicon Valley enclave Woodside, Ca.

Losing Louisiana.

Fun with pie charts.

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Retail Therapy

Glamorous evening wear, inspired by “American Psycho.”

Eggbots. (We love these.)

Hi and welcome back, everyone! Web visitors, here‘s an easier-to-read version of today’s email newsletter. To have StrictlyVC delivered straight to your inbox, click here.

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Top News in the A.M.

People are likely better acquainting themselves with Apple’s two-factor authentication system, after explicit photos of more than 100 celebrities were leaked over the weekend — stolen, seemingly, from their iCloud accounts. (Actress Kirsten Dunst, one of the victims, had some choice words for the cloud-storage service yesterday.)

Uber is now banned across Germany.

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With Kleiner’s Snapchat Deal, There Isn’t Much to See

About a week ago, the WSJ reported that Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is investing up to $20 million in Snapchat at a $10 billion valuation as part of a larger round that the messaging app is assembling. The piece noted that just months earlier, DST Global had also quietly committed capital — at a $7 billion valuation.

The news generated a lot of chatter, with one piece in particular suggesting that Kleiner is part of a broader pump-and-dump scheme to keep valuations frothy until retail market investors are convinced to buy companies like Snapchat on the public market. (If Snapchat is eventually sold for top dollar to a publicly traded acquirer like Facebook and Google, that’s apparently just as pernicious as they, too, are partly owned by retail investors.)

It’s not the first time tech investors have been accused of looking to sell their shares to a greater fool. When it comes to Kleiner’s investment, though, the argument misses the mark. Kleiner’s motivations look simpler to me.

First and foremost, despite a recent string of exits for the firm, including Dropcam’s sale to Google, Kleiner is still seen as slightly out of touch compared with some of its Sand Hill Road peers. It nearly missed Facebook and Twitter. It bet heavily on Zynga. And it has parted ways with many of its younger partners, through attrition, downsizing, and a lawsuit, which probably doesn’t make it any cooler to young entrepreneurs (or younger LPs, for that matter). Some say that institutional investors are no longer swayed by the logos in a venture firm’s portfolio, but LPs don’t swoon over Kleiner like they once did. In this case, maybe Kleiner is hoping the logo makes an impression.

Another motivating factor might be Kleiner’s desire to acquire information rights to Snapchat. What direction is Snapchat moving toward? What new technologies is it developing that will change the face of mobile apps? Who is it partnering with and which startups might it acquire? While it might seem like general information, it puts Kleiner in the know and could help its portfolio companies, at least tangentially.

There’s also IRR to consider. Kleiner’s Snapchat investment might not generate a good cash-on-cash return for the firm, but it could turn into a high IRR deal if Snapchat sells soon, which seems as likely as any scenario given that it has virtually no revenue at this point. Even if an acquisition doesn’t do much for Kleiner’s overall fund, it’s always nice to have some flashy numbers to produce for potential investors.

It may be convenient to use Snapchat as an example of a bubble in Silicon Valley. But pointing to Kleiner’s role in Snapchat’s soaring valuation is giving Kleiner a bit too much credit. The reality is more mundane, as far as I can tell. Kleiner wanted to be associated with a high-profile deal and it was willing to get in at any cost. And it succeeded.

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New Fundings

Clearside Biomedical, a three-year-old, Alpharetta, Ga.-based biopharmaceutical company that’s developing drug therapies to treat blinding diseases of the eye, has raised $16 million in Series B financing from new investor RusnanoMedInvest, along with earlier investors Hatteras Venture Partners, Santen Pharmaceuticals Co., Mountain Group Capital, and Georgia Research Alliance Venture Fund. The company has now raised $33.9 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

eNeura Therapeutics, a 14-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based medical technology company whose stimulation devices treat migraines, has raised $5.8 million in new funding, shows new SEC paperwork. Previous filings show the company has now raised roughly $14.6 million in equity and debt over the last two years alone. Terry Lierman, the founder of Summit Global Ventures, is among those directors listed on the filing.

FreeCharge, a four-year-old, Mumbai, India-based online platform that lets user earn coupons when they add money to their prepaid mobile phone plans or pay utility bills online, has raised a $33 million in Series B funding from Sequoia Capital, Sofina, and RuNet. The company has also added several new board members, including Gokul Rajaram, a well-known Silicon Valley operator who is currently head of online payments at Square. TechCrunch has the story here.

GC-Rise Pharmaceutical, a six-year-old, Beijing-based pharmaceutical company that specializes in women and children’s healthcare, has raised $15 million in Series B round funding from OrbiMed. GC-Rise makes a wide array of products, including to address anti-aging, reproductive health, autoimmune diseases and central nervous system disorders.

MindMixer, a 4.5-year-old, Kansas City, Mo.-based online platform that allows local governments and school districts to connect with their communities, has raised $17 million in Series C funding led by the Omaha-based firm Dundee Venture Capital, with Govtech Fund and another, unnamed strategic investor participating. The company has now raised $23.2 million altogether, it says.

Nabysys, a 10-year-old, Providence, R.I.-based life sciences company that makes semiconductor tools for DNA analysis, has raised $25 million in new funding, shows a new SEC filing that shows a $32 million target. The company had previously raised at least $58 million, shows Crunchbase. Its investors include Stata Venture Partners, Bay City Capital, and Point Judith Capital.

Purposely, a 1.5-year-old, Phoenix, Az.-based company whose online platform helps optimize college students’ employment preparation, has raised $2.4 million in new funding, shows an SEC filing. An earlier filing shows the company had previously raised $2 million from investors.

Ting Ting Group (“DXY”), a 14-year-old, China-based social media platform focused on healthcare services, has received $70 million in strategic funding from Tencent in exchange for a minority stake in its business. Reportedly, the company had previously raised two rounds of funding from DCM and Shunwei China Internet Fund. TechNode has the story here.

Whill, a two-year-old, San Carlos, Ca.-based company that creates high-performance wheelchairs, has raised $11 million in Series A funding from Innovation Network Corp., 500 Startups, NTT DoCoMo Ventures, Jochu Technology Co. and Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy, reports the WSJ. (If this deal sounds familiar, it’s because we reported on this round in July after spotting a related SEC filing.) The company had earlier raised $1.9 million in seed funding, including from Bridge Global Ventures, 500 Startups, Itochu Technology Ventures, KAMIA, MUFJ Capital, and VegasTechFund. It also ran a small, successful campaign on Kickstarter, which you can still see here.

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New Funds

DN Capital, a 14-year-old, London-based Pan-European early-stage venture firm, has raised $200 million for its third fund, reports TechCrunch. The firm, whose latest effort is three times the size of its predecessor, has now raised $320 million altogether. Among its newest bets is the real estate agency PurpleBricks, which raised a $13.4 million Series A round last month, and the online reservation platform Quandoo, which raised $25 million in Series C funding in July. (DN Capital also participated in Quandoo’s $8 million Series B round, closed last last year.)

Floodgate, the eight-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based early-stage firm, has closed its fifth fund with $75.8 million, the third fund in a row that has closed at roughly the same size, says the firm.

Sequoia Capital is raising a fifth China fund, shows an SEC filing that doesn’t list a target and says the first sale has yet to occur.

Surgical Frontiers, a Utah-based incubator and investor in new medical technologies, has closed its inaugural fund with $7 million, reports VentureWire.

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IPOs

The highly anticipated public offering of e-commerce giant Alibaba is coming — fast. According to Bloomberg, the company “tentatively” looks to price its offering on September 18.

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People

Business Insider remembers the kings of the dot.com bubble, and catches us up on where they are now.

Google‘s Sergey Brin Is “totally obsessed” with high-adrenaline exercise, says Business Insider in a sensational (but fun) read.

Eric Cantor, the recently defeated House majority leader, has joined the boutique investment bank Moelis & Co.; he’ll open a new office for the firm in Washington, reports the WSJ.

Steve Case, the former chief executive of AOL and founder of Revolution, is planning an 1,800-mile bus tour next month to draw attention to entrepreneurial communities in Madison, Wi.; Minneapolis, Mn.; Des Moines, Ia.; and Kansas City, Mo. Each stop will include a pitch competition whose winner will receive a $100,000 investment from Case.

Brian O’Malley, a general partner at Accel Partners, has some harsh words about Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, squarely blaming him for much of the company’s C-suite departures in 2014. “If someone’s gotten divorced once, you really don’t know who’s to blame,” O’Malley tells BusinessWeek. “But if someone’s gotten divorced five times, there may be a pattern there.” (O’Malley is a straight shooter. When StrictlyVC sat down with him last winter, just before Accel poached him from Battery Ventures, he also noted that “investors are fundamentally lazy.”)

You might take a second (or third) look at Y Combinator’s most recent graduates. Investor-entrepreneur Keith Rabois calls the 75 teams “almost surely the best batch as a whole that has ever existed at YC.”

Lindsay Sharma has joined Industry Ventures as a vice president, working with the firm’s secondary investment team. Sharma was most recently a principal in corporate strategy and development at Intuit.

Y Combinator is launching a recruiting drive to get more black entrepreneurs into its incubator program, including by adding black colleges to its recruiting tour this fall.

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Job Listings

Oyster, the e-reading startup, is hiring a VP of business development. The job is in New York.

Online retailer Zulily is looking for a director of business development. The job is in Seattle.

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Happenings

BoxWorks gets underway in San Francisco today. Keynote speakers include Box CEO Aaron Levie, author Jim Collins, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, and LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner.

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Data

Women venture capitalists underperform their male counterparts by some 15 percent, according to a new Harvard University study of old data. The study further suggests that difference narrow over time and at firms that employ more than one female VC.

Most accelerators aren’t worth much, according to Silk.

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Essential Reads

Startups are accruing funding in case of leaner times, they tell the New York Times.

The top 10 reasons that Apple rejects apps.

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Detours

Even Ikea can’t be bothered to assemble its furniture.

The “sweet rides” of tech’s millionaires and billionaires.

We’ve definitely been peeling apples the wrong way.

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Retail Therapy

Futuristic helmets.

Coffee cups for geeks.

If you’re in the market for a spider-shape, blow-up home that could be highly useful in a refugee situation and also a party-pad situation at Burning Man, billionaire Bob Pittman has you covered.

Good morning, and happy Labor Day weekend, everyone! We’ll see you back here next week, where, among other things, we’ll be featuring renowned serial entrepreneur and investor Ariel Poler and former Tiger Global Management director Nazar Yasin.

(Web visitors, you can find an easier-to-read version of today’s email here.)

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Top News in the A.M.

The White House has picked Washington, D.C. attorney Danny Marti to be its next “IP czar.”

To compete against Alibaba, Wanda has just joined forces with Baidu and Tencent.

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NEA Partner Dayna Grayson on Turning Designers Into Founders

New Enterprise Associates is growing more serious about young design talent. On Wednesday, the 36-year-old venture firm announced the third of an ongoing series of two-week-long design mentorship programs that aim to transform more designers into founders. Among the big names who’ve signed on to help with the initiative are Albert Lee, the founder of the New York-based product studio All Tomorrows; and Liz Danzico, founding chair of the MFA in Interaction Design program at New York’s School of Visual Arts.

To better understand why NEA — which manages billions of dollars — is bothering with the whole enterprise, I spoke yesterday with Dayna Grayson, the Washington, D.C.-based NEA partner who is herself a former product designer and who helped launch the program last summer.

NEA and Kleiner Perkins are among a growing number of venture firms that are trying to close the gap between design and technology. Why do startups need investors to play that role?

There are different flavors of these programs. But the reality is that for any startup – consumer or enterprise – great, intuitive design has become table stakes. Ten years ago, you could have clunky design and enterprise salespeople would explain it and get the technology into the hands of users. Today, technologies have to suit users from day one, so we asked ourselves last year: What if we could mentor and push more designers to become founders to ensure that that [design] DNA is there from the beginning rather than a bolt-on later?

Kleiner’s program aims to get more and better designers into its portfolio companies, whereas NEA’s is designed to help designers start their own companies. Where are your applicants coming from, and how far along must they be to gain admittance into NEA’s program?

Some are coming straight out of design schools. Some have held agency jobs but want to own and commercialize a product themselves.

We now have two types of sessions on a rolling basis. For the [upcoming] “go-to-market” session, you have to have a product that’s ready to be taken live imminently. We’ve also [organized two-week] “vision” sessions, where we take applicants that have nothing.

So you’re first helping people create a vision, then inviting them back to hone it.

We’ll have some teams back, though we’ll also select new teams.

Many accelerator programs go on for months. What convinced you that two weeks of intense mentoring is enough?

We want [these designers] to take what they’ve learned and ruminate on it and decide if it’s right for them. These aren’t necessarily people who are founders above all else. You have to let their entrepreneurial ability sort itself out. Also, frankly, I think it’s more true to life. With entrepreneurship, you have these intense periods of advice and ideation followed by intense periods of executing and scaling.

What sorts of companies are people coming up with?

We had one team come up Shortwave, an app that allows customers to easily exchange files via Bluetooth with others who are within 100 feet. Another, Factory, is a mobile application that features a stream of fascinating facts in short form. It’s like an ingestible Wikipedia. A third project, Booya Fitness, features high intensity workouts [online] for people who don’t have an hour-and-a-half to exercise.

Have you funded any of the teams to pass through the program? Also, how much of your time is focused on it?

We’re in the process of funding one startup now. Because we encourage some to come with nothing — they’re pre-seed — we expect more to [evolve into] seed-stage and Series A [type opportunities] over time.

I’m an investor first and I have five portfolio companies, so the [NEA Design Studio] is a project that probably accounts for 10 to 20 percent of what I do. But it’s an important project of mine.

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New Fundings

Armetheon, a three-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based biopharmaceutical company that’s developing mid- to late-stage cardiovascular drug candidates, has raised $7 million in Series A funding co-led by AshHill Biomedical Investments and Hercules Bioventures. Other participants in the round included Atheneos Capital and Larry Hsu, the founder of Impax Laboratories.

Attero Recycling, a seven-year-old, Noida, India-based e-waste disposal and management company, has raised $16.5 million in Series C funding led by Forum Synergies. The company has now raised at least $28.6 million altogether, shows Crunchbase, including from earlier investors DFJ, Granite Hill India Opportunity Ventures and Kalaari Capital.

CyanogenMod, a five-year-old, mobile software startup that has “quietly built a dedicated fan base of thousands of developers who contribute code to it” and supporters who believe it’s “poised to become a full-fledged alternative to Google Android” is “looking to raise a big Series C round,” reports The Information. The company, largely a side project for founder Steve Kondik until last year, raised its first institutional funding — two rounds totaling $30 million — last year. Its investors include Benchmark, Redpoint Ventures, Tencent, and Andreessen Horowitz.

Enevo, a four-year-old, Espoo, Finland-based company that runs a sensor-based system designed to optimize waste collection, has raised $8 million in new funding, including from Draper Associates, Earlybird Venture Capital, Finnish Industry Investment and Lifeline Ventures. The company has now raised $11 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Green & Grow, a four-year-old, Austin, Tx.-based company focused on developing new, naturally derived agricultural products, has raised $6 million in Series B funding from Otter Capital.

Hipvan, a year-old, Singapore-based e-commerce platform that sells various types of men’s, women’s, and children’s products, has raised $1.4 million in Series A funding from Hong Kong-based LionRock Capital and Toivo Annus, a former head of engineering at Skype.

IFTTT, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that acts as a “giant switchboard to connect disparate services, anything from Facebook to text messages to telephone calls,” as the New York Times describes it, has raised $30 million in funding from Norwest Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz. The company has now raised $38.5 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

JustFab, a four-year-old, El Segundo, Ca.-based, subscription-based e-commerce startup that personalizes users’ experiences based on their fashion preferences, has raised $85 million in new funding led byPassport Capital, with participation from earlier investors Shining Capital, Matrix Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures. The round, done at a $1 billion valuation, pushes JustFab’s funding to $250 million altogether. Venture Capital Dispatch has all the details here.

MinuteBuzz, a four-year-old, Paris-based media entertainment site focused around viral stories, has raised $1.3 million in funding from Seventure Partners. Rude Baguette has more here.

OncoPep, a four-year-old, North Andover, Ma.-based developer of targeted immunotherapeutics to prevent the progression of cancer, has raised $6.9 million in Series B funding from new and existing investors, including angel groups, family foundations, individuals and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The company has raised at least $14.4 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Plasticity Labs, a two-year-old, Toronto, Ontario-based company that uses data analytics to measure workplace morale, has raised $2.1 million in seed funding led by Fibernetics Ventures. The company had previously raised $500,000 in seed funding, including from BDV Venture Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Patsnap, a seven-year-old, Singapore-based IP analytic and management platform (it makes finding patents easier by turning search results into a 3D topographical map), has just raised $3.6 million in Series A funding led by Vertex Venture Partners. The company has now raised $5.4 million to date. Tech in Asia has the story here.

ReaLync, a two-year-old, Chicago-based mobile and web platform that enables live virtual tours of real estate, has raised $300,000 in funding from angel investors who’ve come out of GrubHub, Leo Burnett, and ExactTarget, among other companies.

SeatGeek, a five-year-old, New York-based ticket search engine, has raised $35 million in Series B funding led by Accel Partners. Other participants in the round included Causeway Media Partners (a firm that StrictlyVC profiled last month); Melo7 Tech Partners, a new fund co-founded by NBA star Carmelo Anthony; and individual angel investors, including football’s Peyton Manning and Eli Manning and the rapper Nas. The company has now raised $41 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

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New Funds

HighLight Capital, a young, Shanghai-based firm looking to back both early-stage and growth-stage healthcare companies in China, has raised two separate funds totaling around $300 million, reports VentureWire. According to PEDaily, Sequoia Capital is among the firm’s LPs.

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IPOs

The German web fashion retailer Zalando reported a second-quarter profit yesterday — just in time for its IPO.

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People

Mikael Hed, CEO of Finland’s “Angry Birds” maker Rovio Entertainment, is stepping down in January, following plummeting profits at the company. Hed will be replaced by former Nokia executive Pekka Rantala, who joined Rovio is its chief commercial officer in June.

Megan Smith, a longtime executive at Google and most recently a vice president at its secret lab, Google X, is the top candidate for the role of U.S. chief technology officer, according to Bloomberg sources. Smith would become the third person to fill the job.

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Job Listings

LinkedIn is looking for a senior manager in its corporate development group. The job is in Mountain View, Ca.

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Essential Reads

The next iPhone will feature its own payment platform and it will be a “hallmark feature” of the device, reports Wired.

Apple has also tightened its privacy rules relating to health apps ahead of next month’s product launch.

Did we mention that the iPhone will feature full-screen ads?

Inside Google’s secret drone-delivery program.

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Detours

Conscious brain-to-brain communication in humans using non-invasive technologies. It is here, for real.

How to tell your French revolutions apart. (H/T: Heidi Moore.)

Paper transformed into stunning works of art.

“Welcome to this voice activated elevator, the Intellivator. Please select language.”

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Retail Therapy

Ninety-nine cans of beer in the fridge, 99 cans of beer . . .

Good Thursday morning, everyone! We had a few meetings yesterday so don’t have a column today. Hope you enjoy the rest of today’s newsletter. 

Also, psst, web visitors, an easier-to-read version of today’s newsletter is here.

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Top News in the A.M.

Ruh roh. At least a handful of U.S. banks, including JPMorgan Chase, have been struck by hackers in a series of coordinated attacks this month, reports the New York Times. Among the data stolen: checking and savings account information.

Good thing Uber has David Plouffe. Its campaign to cripple competitor Lyft might well prompt a federal investigation.

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New Fundings

Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, a 10-year-old, Houston, Tx.-based developer of cellular immunotherapies, has raised $55 million in Series C funding from new backers RA Capital Management, Perceptive Advisors, Jennison Associates, Sabby Capital, Ridgeback Capital Management, venBio Select, Redmile Group and AJU IB Investment, among others. Earlier investors AVG Ventures and Remeditex Ventures also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $107 million.

The Earnest Research Company, a young, stealthy New York startup that helps customers understand trends around the consumer economy, has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding, reports VentureWire. The round was led by Greycroft Partners. Other participants include Osage Venture Partners, ff Venture Capital, Rincon Venture Partners, and Peak Opportunity Partners.

Glassbeam, a five-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based machine data analytics company, has raised $2 million in new funding led by its sole earlier investor, VKRM Group. The company has now raised $3.3 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

GoEuro, a two-year-old, Berlin-based meta-mode travel search platform for Europe, has raised $27 million in Series A funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with Battery Ventures, Hasso Plattner Ventures and Lakestar participating. Venture Capital Dispatch writes about the company here.

Hike, a 1.5-year-old, New Delhi, India-based startup behind a popular mobile messaging app, has raised $65 million from Bharti Softbank Joint Ventures (BSB) and Tiger Global Management. BSB had invested at least $21 million in the company across two previous rounds, shows Crunchbase.

InContext Solutions, a five-year-old, Chicago-based market research firm that creates 3D virtual store environments so companies can study the shopping behavior of their customers, has raised $12 million in Series D funding led by Beringea, with its London affiliate, Beringea LLP, participating alongside earlier investors Plymouth Ventures and Hyde Park Venture Partners. The company has now raised roughly $20 million altogether.

KKBOX, a 10-year-old, Taiwan-based streaming music services company, has raised $104 million from Singapore GIC. TechCrunch has more here.

Mizzen And Main, a two-year-old, Dallas-based menswear startup that produces tailored clothing, has raised $1.2 million in Series A funding led by VegasTechFund and Astor & Black founder David Schottenstein, with other individual investors participating. The company has now raised just less than $1.5 million altogether. More here.

Nutanix, a five-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based virtualized datacenter platform, has raised $14 million in funding from unnamed investors that it characterizes as “two premier Boston-based public market investors with over $3 trillion in combined assets under management.” That description suggests Fidelity Investments and Wellington Management are involved, notes the WSJ, but neither responded to the outlet’s request for comment.

Rockbot, a 4.5-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based social music platform for businesses, has closed an undisclosed amount of funding from Universal Music Group, with Detroit Venture Partners, XG Ventures, Susa Ventures and an AngelList syndicate led by Sundeep Ahuja participating. The company had previously raised $1.2 million in seed funding from Google Ventures, Accelerator Ventures and others.

Socure, a two-year-old, New York-based startup that verifies online identities through “social biometrics,” has raised $4.2 million in new funding from 34 investors, shows a new SEC filing. According to Crunchbase, the company has raised $8.5 million altogether, including from AlphaPrime Ventures and Abundance Partners.

Wikia, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based fan-generated media site, has raised $15 million in funding to expand in Asia, at a valuation north of $200 million, VentureWire reports. The round was led by Digital Garage, and includes earlier investors Amazon, Bessemer Venture Partners and Institutional Venture Partners, among others. The company has now raised $39.8 million to date.

Ybrain, a 1.5-year-old, Seoul, Korea-based neuroscience startup that makes wearables for Alzheimer’s patients, has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding led by Stonebridge Capital. The company has raised $4.2 million to date. TechCrunch has much more here.

ZAI Laboratory, a Shanghai, China-based drug development and commercialization company, has raised more than $30 million in Series A funding led by Qiming Venture Partners, with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, TF Capital, Sequoia Capital and other institutional investors participating. ZAI was founded by Samantha Du, who has also served as a Sequoia Capital venture partner.

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New Funds

Acer, the Taipei, Taiwan-based personal computer maker, has established a venture fund to seek out long-term strategic investments that also promise good financial returns, the company announced earlier today. The fund, approved by the company’s board of directors back in April, will invest roughly $33.5 million to start. More here.

Arch Venture Partners, a 28-year-old, Chicago-based venture firm that originally spun out of the University of Chicago, has raised a $400 million fund to invest in early-stage companies. The firm last closed a fund — also a $400 million vehicle — in 2007. Forbes has more here.

Shoreline Venture Management, a 16-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based early-stage venture firm, is hoping to raise up to $60 million for its third fund, shows an SEC filing that states that the first sale has yet to occur. Shoreline was last in the market in 2006, show SEC filings.

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IPOs

The last numbers that investors will likely see before deciding to buy into the Alibaba IPO are highly encouraging. The company’s net income almost tripled to $1.99 billion in the three months ended June. Bloomberg has the story here.

LendingClub, the seven-year-old, San Francisco-based, online peer-to-peer financing company, has filed to go public. The good news from the company’s S-1: the $86.9 million in revenue it saw in the first six months of the year is up 134 percent over the year-ago period. The meh news: the company’s growth precipitated a $16.5 million loss in the first half of the year, down from $1.7 million in profit during the same time last year. Dealbook has more here. LendingClub’s biggest institutional shareholders are Norwest Venture Partners, which owns 16.5 percent of the company; Canaan Partners, which owns 15.9 percent; Foundation Capital, which owns 12.8 percent; and Morgenthaler Venture Partners, which owns 9.2 percent.

Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, 1.5-year-old, Boston-based company that’s developing drugs to treat diabetes and obesity, has filed plans to raise as much as $86.3 million in an IPO. The company is majority owned by New Enterprise Associates, which holds a 31.21 percent stake; Third Rock Ventures, which owns 31.09 percent; MPM BioVentures, which owns 18.58 percent; and Pfizer, which owns 9.92 percent.

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People

Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates is joining Silicon Valley’s fight against the National Rifle Association.

Forbes asks Benchmark‘s Bill Gurley how he advises his portfolio companies. Says Gurley: “[I]t does feel like we are in the later innings. So I try to help the entrepreneurs in our portfolio understand that times like 2001 and 2009 happen with some regularity and that it is good to be prepared for such down-turns.”

Yuri Milner hasn’t retired to the Maldives on his Facebook riches. He’s still making bold bets, including on Snapchat, which he quietly backed earlier this year at a $7 billion valuation, according to WSJ sources.

Beth Seidenberg of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers on getting along with the agency tech loves to hate, the FDA.

SFWeekly profiles Sam Singer, Bay Area crisis manager extraordinaire. “When your workspace is engulfed in flames; when your mistress threatens to reveal your illegitimate family; when your restaurant serves up E. coli burgers . . . you better call Sam Singer. ‘When things go bump in the night,’ assures Singer, ‘we are there.’”

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Job Listings

IAC appears to be looking anew for an associate director or director of M&A. The job is in New York.

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Data

In the first six months of this year, $2.75 billion was invested in 218 venture deals throughout emerging Asia, nearing a record high, reports the WSJ. Sequoia Capital was reportedly the most active investor. It closed 25 deals in the region during the first half of the year.

Top mobile apps by age and share of time spent. (H/T: Paul Kedrosky)

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Essential Reads

Is Silicon Valley the new Versailles?

Find out how many people see your tweets.

The technology behind Hyperlapse from Instagram.

Google is opening a 20,000-square-foot startup center in Seoul’s Gangnam neighborhood to bolster regional startups and give them more global exposure.

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Detours

Who’s in the office? The American workday in one graph.

“The Simpsons” writer Dana Gould on the dark side of the funny business.

Seven smart smartphone photography hacks.

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Retail Therapy

Pigeon Edition prints.

Patchnride, a bicycle flat repair system that promises to permanently repair a flat tire — on the fly.

Oh, we’re definitely going to be needing one of these.