Hi, everyone, hope you had a terrific weekend! Ours was nice, though after being shaken awake by an earthquake early yesterday, we’ll tell you that we’ve never loved good old Monday morning more. 

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Top News in the A.M.

Sony’s PlayStation Network was forced offline for much of yesterday by a cyberattack in what appears to be a campaign against several online gaming services. The BBC has more here.

It’s perfectly okay that the White House’s cybersecurity czar can’t code, says the White House, defending a recent interview of Michael Daniel in Gov Info Security. “Anyone who has worked with Michael Daniel recognizes that he is a master of the substance and technology undergirding U.S. cyber policy,” a spokeswoman tells the Washington Post.

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Micky Malka Doubles Down: “I Don’t Believe in Diversification”

In a crowded market, venture capitalists tend to talk up particular investment angles to differentiate themselves from their peers. When Ribbit Capital founder Micky Malka talks financial services, though, it isn’t for marketing purposes. Malka has been living and breathing finance since co-founding his first company in 1993, a broker dealer that evolved into an online financial services portal and sold in 2000, just before the bubble burst, to the Spanish bank Banco Santander.

LPs clearly like his credentials. Ribbit, in Palo Alto, closed its first fund with $100 million last year and officially closed on a second, $125 million fund last week. I chatted with Malka on Friday to learn more about what those investors — including Silicon Valley Bank, the Spain-based lender Banco Bilbao VIzcaya Argentaria, and individuals from the financial services world — find so compelling about what Malka is doing.

You’re Venezuelan and spent most of your life in South America. When did you come to the U.S. and why?

I came here seven years ago this month. I’d started all kinds of consumer financial services companies in Europe and Latin America and did very well for myself, but I felt like I was playing in the AAA leagues and that Silicon Valley was the majors.

You came to be an entrepreneur, though, not an investor.

Yes, I moved with my family to build another company, again around consumer financial services – around mobile payments. Bling Nation was right on the vision but so wrong on the strategy, wrong on the protocols. It took us a couple of years to figure it out, though. At that point, we went to our VCs and said, “It’s not working and we have two options. We can return your money and lose our own personal money that we’d put in. Or you can give us six months to figure it out.” To my surprise, the investors said, “We backed you guys, not the idea. Take six months to figure it out.” It was really big [of them]. We launched a company called Lemon, a financial app, and we sold it last year to a public company.

Had you had it with startups at that point? Why form Ribbit?

I’d listen to this guy say, “I’m doing this lending business in the U.K.,” and I’d say, “I’d love to be involved.” Then I’d learn of a new financial advisor in the U.S., and I’d think that was interesting. I realized there was an investment thesis going on that was broader than what people were thinking about. Also, I’ve started companies on four continents, and there aren’t many VCs who really know financial services in different jurisdictions. It’s a very particular DNA around which to start a firm.

So much is happening on the financial services front right now. Where in the cycle are we?

Financial services innovate when there’s a new channel and when users or clients are tired of existing brands. Well, people aren’t wearing their Goldman Sachs or Citibank hats anymore. Meanwhile, mobile has taken off dramatically, and banks and insurance companies don’t think in mobile terms. I’m not saying the brands we know will disappear, but who will be the Capital One or Charles Schwab of this generation? It’s early, and there are a lot of unique innovators in different subsets of the universe.

Where are you investing your capital geographically?

Our mandate is global. We look for opportunities in seven markets: The U.S. and Canada, Brazil, the U.K., Germany, South Africa, Turkey, and India, which are all markets where there are entrepreneurs and investment partners who I’ve known for 15 years.

Where have you made some of your biggest bets to date?

We’re the largest bitcoin VC in world. Let Marc [Andreessen] be Marc [in being so public about bitcoin]; we’ve been investing since 2012. Back then, there were no bitcoin entrepreneurs so we had to buy bitcoin directly. Later, we found our first entrepreneurs, including at [bitcoin exchange service] Coinbase [which Ribbit backed last year]. We’ve now made five investments in bitcoin [startups]: Two here in the U.S., one in Hong Kong, one in Brazil and one in Slovenia.

You made 10 investments out of your first fund, and you’ve made six from your second fund, only one of which, Wealthfront, has been announced. Are you still focused narrowly on consumer-facing financial startups?

Yes. We’ve done lending businesses, personal finance, wealth management, accounting and invoicing, and bitcoin, and now we’re going to add insurance, which we’ve spent the last year researching. We just see too many opportunities that we like.

What size checks are you writing?

We make very concentrated bets. Our checks are usually between $3 million to $4 million and $20 million. When we find what we like, we have a lot of conviction. I don’t believe in diversification.

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New Fundings

Aldea Pharmaceuticals, a three-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company whose therapeutics aim to treat aldehyde metabolism disorders, has raised $24 million in Series B funding, including from RusnanoMedInvest and WuXi PharmaTech Corporate Ventures. All previous investors, including Canaan Partners and Correlation Ventures, also participated in the round. The company has raised $42 million to dates, shows Crunchbase.

Bearch, a 1.5-old, Austin, Tx.-based startup that has developed an anonymous photo-sharing app for college students called Unseen, has raised $2.1 million in seed funding, reports Austin Business Journal. The company’s investors include Rackspace co-founder Dirk Elmendorf, Indeed.com CEO Rony Kahan, and other angel investors.

Delivery Agent, a nine-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose technology that lets viewers make purchases from television shows and ads, has raised $8 million in fresh funding, shows an SEC filing. The company has previously raised roughly $140 million over 10 rounds, shows Crunchbase, from investors including Grazia Equity, Intel Capital, Liberty Global Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Samsung Ventures.

DraftKings, a three-year-old, Boston-based daily fantasy sports business, has raised $41 million in Series C funding led by Raine Group, with earlier investors Redpoint Ventures, GGV Capital and Atlas Venture participating. The company has now raised $76.4 million, shows Crunchbase. The WSJ has more here.

Dynamic Signal, a four-year-old, San Bruno, Ca.-based social marketing company, has raised $12 million in Series C funding led by investor Rembrandt Venture Partners. Earlier investors Venrock, Trinity Ventures, Time Warner Ventures and Cox Enterprises also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to just over $33 million.

Groupize, a five-year-old, Gloucester, Ma.-based company that helps users book group hotel reservations, has raised $2 million in Series A funding from Golden Seeds and Thayer Ventures. The company has raised $4 million to date, including from Launchpad Venture Group, shows Crunchbase.

LTG Exam Prep Platform, a two-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based startup whose mobile platform helps students study for standardized tests, has raised $3 million in Series A funding, including from Atlas Venture, ZhenFund, Honglin Technology Group, Tal Education Group, and numerous individual investors.

Playlist Media, a San Francisco-based company, has raised $515,000 in debt, as part of a round that’s targeting $2.5 million, shows an SEC filing. Playlist appears to be the newest iteration of Project Playlist, a startup that had raised at least $23 million from investors before threats by music labels drove it to sell off its assets for a nominal amount. Playlist Media’s CEO is Bobby Davidorf, who’d joined Project Playist as CFO in 2009; he went on to lead the company as CEO for several years.

TinyOwl Technology, a months-old Mumbai, India-based startup behind a location-based mobile app for food ordering, has raised $3 million in Series A funding from Sequoia Capital and Nexus Venture Partners, reports VCCircle. More here.

XSteach, a six-year-old, Guangzhou, China-based online education and training platform (course offerings include classes on Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and 3D animation), has raised $30 million in Series B funding from Legend Capital and Northern Light Venture Capital, reports China Money Network. The company reportedly raised $2.4 million in Series A funding last year.

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New Funds

Alsop Louie Partners, the eight-year-old, San Francisco-based early-stage venture firm, has raised $54.4 million for a third, $100 million fund that the firm began raising a year ago, shows an SEC filing. Alsop Louie, whose areas of focus include security-related companies, closed on a $98.6 million second fund in 2010. One of the company’s newest portfolio companies is Wickr, whose mobile application helps users send messages with photos and other attachments on Android and iOS devices. StrictlyVC had breakfast with firm cofounder Stewart Alsop last fall to discuss the firm’s “kid VCs.”

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Exits

Gecko Design, an 18-year-old, Los Gatos, Ca.-based product design firm that has made products for wearable device company Fitbit and high-end furniture maker Herman Miller, among others, has been acquired by Google for undisclosed terms. The company and all of its “geckos” will join Google’s X lab, says the company. Bloomberg has more here.

Moonshark, a small mobile game publishing start-up that was backed in part by Creative Artists Agency, has been acquired by the interactive and creative agency Hitcents (which came up with the digital typewriter that become the most downloaded app in 16 countries last week). Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. The L.A. Times has much more here.

Reverse Medical, a seven-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based startup whose medical devices treat vascular disease, has been acquired by the Irish medical-technology giant Covidien for undisclosed financial terms. Reverse Medical had raised $15.5 million from investors, including Emergent Medical Partners, NBGI Ventures, BioStar Ventures, Early Stage Partners, Wexford Capital, and Medfocus.

StarStreet, a five-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based daily fantasy sports site, has been acquired by a bigger competitor, DraftKings, which itself just raised $41 million in fresh funding. (See New Fundings.) Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. StarStreet, a TechStars alum, had raised at least $2.1 million from investors, including Ecosystem Ventures and SV Angel.

Zao, a three-year-old, L.A.-based social recruitment platform that offers rewards to employees for making job referrals, has been acquired by the recruitment company Amris (owned by The Internet Corporation Limited). TechCrunch has the story here. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed. Zao had raised $1.3 million seed round led by Oren Zeev, a former general partner at Apax Partners.

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People

Bryan Hsu is the newest associate at the late-stage venture firmInstitutional Venture Partners (which, it’s worth noting, tends to promote employees into more senior positions, rather than hire outside operators from brand-name companies). Hsu, a Dallas native, last worked as an investment banking analyst at Qatalyst Partners, the technology-focused boutique investment bank.

Looks like billionaire VC Vinod Khosla could lose his fight to keep surfers and others off property that he acquired several years ago in San Mateo County. Legislation that could mean greater public access to Martins Beach cleared its final legislative hurdle on Thursday and now awaits California Governor Jerry Brown’s signature.

The offices of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers were ransacked in late July, reports Bloomberg, and six laptops, two monitors and a docking station were taken during the break-in. Among the items stolen were two password-protected laptops that contained social security numbers and financial-accounts data.

U.S. Chief Technology officer Todd Park is planning to step down by year-end, reports Fortune, which says Park’s next role will see him working from Silicon Valley, where he’ll be recruiting tech talent into government roles.

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Job Listings

Samsung is looking for a senior associate to work at its Open Innovation Center, which invests in startups, as well as helps incubate them. The job is in Mountain View, Ca.

Stanford Management Company is looking for an investment attorney.

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Essential Reads

Xiaomi Mi4 review: China’s iPhone killer is “unoriginal but amazing,” says The Verge.

Business Insider looks at the origins of UBeam and a lawsuit between its founders that has gone unreported until now.

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Detours

In tennis, the one-handed backhand has all but disappeared, but Stan Wawrinka may save it.

“From our humble beginnings selling jam to white people with way too much disposable income, to convincing those same diners that poached quail eggs is a totally normal thing to consume, Hirl has never been about getting bogged down in stasis.”

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Retail Therapy

The Sony Smart Tennis Sensor, compatible with most big-name rackets.

3D printed bobble heads. (Hey, why not?)

Woot! It’s Friday. Hope you have a lovely, summery weekend, everyone. Web visitors, for an easier-to-read version of the email, click here. (You can sign up to have these delivered to your inbox here.)

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Top News in the A.M.

An Apple iPhone 6 screen snag has left a supply chain scrambling, reports Reuters.

A federal court has rejected Aereo’s request to argue it’s a cable company.

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After Onavo

Earlier this week, The Information published a piece about mobile software makers who are flying blind following Facebook’s acquisition last year of the app analytics startup Onavo, even as consumers spend more time inside apps than ever before. In fact, according to a new Comscore report, activity on smartphones and tablets has grown to 60 percent of our digital media time, driven predominately by apps.

On the desktop, of course, Comscore, Nielsen and SEO companies can learn a lot about site referrals based on URL tracking, and for the most part, everyone has access to the same data. By contrast, the mobile ecosystem offers no such visibility. Aside from tracking how may times an app has been downloaded, says Keval Desai of Interwest Partners, “There’s no true visibility into the traffic of top sites, no visibility into app discovery.”

Desai compares the dearth of mobile analytics to the old days of the Internet, when there were “these closed islands, like AOL and CompuServe, before the web came along and opened everything up.” Today’s “islands” are Google and Apple and, increasingly, Facebook, which control most of the mobile app market and thus can see what others cannot, including how often particular apps are used.

Things don’t look to change any time soon, either, despite the growing number of companies attempting to make money off of mobile analytics. These companies range from four-year-old, San Francisco-based App Annie, which tracks downloads, to Singular.net, also in San Francisco, a new company in the broader mobile-usage-tracking space that was founded by ex-Onavo employees and raised $5 million in seed funding from General Catalyst Partners this summer.

Other analytics startups trying to figure out mobile analytics include Mobileaction, Sensor Tower, MixPanel, Amplitude, AppGenius, and Mobiledevhq, a Seattle-based company that was acquired earlier this month for undisclosed terms.

The question is whether the absence of a mobile analytics standard will stunt the development of new mobile apps. Desai, for one, isn’t ready to toss in the towel.

While a lack of transparency into the ecosystem may frustrate reporters and venture capitalists looking for the Next Mobile Trend, the rest of the world may wonder, “Who cares?” suggests Desai. Consumers can visit an app store to get an idea of what’s new and exciting, he notes. VCs employ people to write scripts to figure out what’s hot and what’s trending. Meanwhile, “If you’re a large advertiser and want to know what are the most frequently used apps by a particular demographic, you can get that data through your ad agencies or through the publishers themselves. App publishers have an incentive to voluntarily disclose that information – in private. It’s like with TV and radio and print, where you have publishers who, for the right reasons, aren’t interesting in [publicly] disclosing their viewership data.”

Desai — whose firm was an investor in the mobile analytics firm Flurry, which sold to Yahoo earlier this summer in a reported $200 million deal — adds that he “isn’t saying that [mobile analytics is] not important.” Better insight into how applications are performing would be great. “But people who really care about this stuff have a way of finding it out.”

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New Fundings

Advanced Cooling Therapy, a 5.5-year-old, Chicago-based medical device firm working on an esophageal cooling device to control patient temperature, has raised $1.5 million in Series A funding from Heartland Angels, Gopher Angels and TWB Investment Partnership, along with several individual investors.

Claret Medical, a five-year-old, Santa Rosa, Ca.-based developer of a filter system used during structural heart, vascular and cardiac surgery procedures, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led by Santé Ventures, with participation from Lightstone Ventures. The company has raised at least $23.1 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

ClickBus, a year-old, Sao Paulo, Brazil-based online bus ticket platform, has raised $10 million in funding from Latin America Internet Group, Tengelmann Ventures, Holtzbrinck Ventures, and Rocket Internet.

Guavus, an eight-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based big data analytics platform, has raised $20 million in new funding from its investors, which include Artiman Ventures, Sofinnova Ventures, Intel Capital, SingTel Innov8, Investor Growth Capital, QuestMark Partners and Goldman Sachs. The company now raised just more than $107 million altogether.

Holtzbrinck Ventures, a 14-year-old, Munich-based investment firm, is transferring its stakes in seven e-commerce companies to Rocket Internet AG in exchange for a 2.5 percent stake in the company, which is planning to go public. The announcement, notes Tech.eu, comes after other recent funding rounds at Rocket, the Berlin-based company that creates and funds new startups.

Jaunt, a year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based virtual reality cinema startup that recently emerged from stealth mode, has raised $27.8 million in Series B funding led by Highland Capital Partners. Other participants in the round included Google Ventures and existing investors Redpoint Ventures, British Sky Broadcasting, Peter Gotcher and Blake Krikorian. GigaOm has more here.

Lastline, a three-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based malware defense company has raised $10 million in new funding from Dell Ventures and Presidio Ventures, along with earlier investors e.ventures and Redpoint Ventures. The company has raised $23.7 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Madrone, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that provides a cloud-based service for alternative investment managers to analyze and automate their portfolio and business decisions, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Green Visor Capital.

Mark One, a nine-month-old, San Francisco-based company whoses flagship product is the Vessyl smart cup — a cup that tracks your liquid consumption throughout the day and was designed in part by renowned designer Yves Behar — has raised $3 million in seed funding co-led by Felicis Ventures and Horizons Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

MobileDay, a three-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based company that provides one-tap mobile dialing into any conference bridge, international call, or online meeting, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by theFoundry Group, with participation from Innoventure Partners and Drummond Road Capital. Earlier investors SoftBank, Google Ventures, Bullet Time Ventures, and SoftTech VC also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $10 million, shows Crunchbase.

Product Hunt, a 10-month-old, San Francisco-based site and app that highlights new tech products and services, has raised $1 million in seed funding. Y Combinator provided $120,000 of the funding. (Product Hunt passed through its program this summer.) The other $880,000 came from A-Grade Investments, betaworks, Cowboy Ventures, CrunchFund, Google Ventures, Greylock Partners, Ludlow Ventures, Slow Ventures, SV Angel, Tradecraft, Vayner/RSE and unnamed individual investors.

Swift Navigation, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based GPS technology company that promises more accurate positioning, including for drone use, has raised $2.6 million in seed funding led by First Round Capital. Other participants in the round included Fall Line Capital, Felicis Ventures, Lemnos Labs, Qualcomm Ventures, VegasTechFund and individual investor Kal Vepuri.

Vestaron, a 13-year-old, Kalamazoo, Mi.-based company that makes environmentally friendly insecticides, has raised $10 million in funding led by new investor Cultivian Sandbox Ventures. Earlier investors Southwest Michigan First Life Science Venture Fund, Open Prairie Ventures, Pangaea Ventures, Michigan Accelerator Fund and others also participated. The company has now raised roughly $20 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

ViaCyte, a 15-year-old, San Diego-based therapeutic company focused on diabetes, has raised $20 million via a deal with Janssen Research & Development as it prepares to launch clinical studies of a regenerative-medicine treatment. The company has raised at least $61 million to date from institutional investors, including Pacific Horizon Ventures,Sanderling Ventures, Asset Management Company, and Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation.

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New Funds

Global Polymeric Materials Technology Commercialization Fund, a new, Akron, Oh.-based investment vehicle that’s looking to invest in and help commercialize polymer technologies, has raised $11 million so far — $5 million of which has come from an unnamed Chinese investor. The fund is looking to assemble an additional $20 million by year end in order to receive additional capital from the state of Ohio. More here.

Pereg Ventures, a two-year-old, early-stage venture capital firm, has closed on $25 million for its first fund, shows an SEC filing. The firm was founded by Itzhak FIsher, EVP of Global Business Development for The Nielsen Company. Previously, Fisher led global product development and was executive chairman of Nielsen Online. (Nielsen has reportedly committed $10 million to the fund.) It isn’t clear if the filing represents a final closing. Fisher has told reporters in the past that he was targeting $50 million.

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IPOs

IPO stock watch: recent issuers iDreamSky and TrueCar have hit new highs, notes Investor’s Business Daily.

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People

Eesh. When Y Combinator cofounder Jessica Livingston arrived at The Wine Room in Palo Alto, Ca., to meet a reporter, another investor, also waiting outside, asked if she was there for a Match.com date.

LinkedIn’s head of product, Deep Nishar, is leaving the Silicon Valley-based business network after a six year run, reports Recode.

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Data

Snapchat versus Skype in the U.S. (H/T: Benedict Evans)

The 10 fastest-growing health IT companies, according to Inc.

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Job Listings

Siemens Venture Capital is looking for an associate. The job is in Boston.

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Essential Reads

Ebay has been telling potential recruits for the position of PayPal CEO that it’s considering spinning off PayPal as soon as next year, sources tell The Information. Former PayPal exec Keith Rabois says it’d be a whole lot easier if eBay just rebranded itself PayPal.

There are 18,796 distinct Android devices, according to OpenSignal’s latest fragmentation report.

The New Yorker goes to Y Combinator’s Demo Day.

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Detours

Why no one wants to run against Hillary Clinton.

A secret subway exit disguised as a Brooklyn townhouse, and 11 other hidden gems in New York City.

Most office dogs would rather work from home, actually.

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Retail Therapy

It’s a finger puppet, it’s a nail mitten, it’s Screenster, a protective microsuede thing that doesn’t leave behind prints on touchscreen devices.

The iPhone 5s for $79, at Wal-Mart right now.

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To sign up for StrictlyVC, click here. To advertise, click here.

Hi, happy Thursday, everyone. No column today. StrictlyVC — who is still recovering from vacation — was buried under an avalanche of new funding announcements!

By the way, if you missed yesterday’s issue, it’s right here. (Also, web visitors, for an easier-to-read version email version of today’s newsletter, click here.)

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Top News in the A.M.

AT&T has announced the first city in Silicon Valley that will get its new ultra-high-speed fiber service. The big winner: Cupertino.

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New Fundings

Alfresco Software, a nine-year-old, Maidenhead, U.K.-based open source enterprise content management platform, has raised $45 million in new funding led by Sageview Capital. Earlier investors Accel Partners, Mayfield Fund and SAP Ventures also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $64.5 million, shows Crunchbase.

Cardiva Medical, a 12-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based that develops and commercializes vascular closure technology, has raised the first of two tranches of a $16.5 million financing from new investor Canepa U.S. AmKey Ventures, PTV Healthcare Capital and TriVentures also participated in the funding.

Chain, a six-month-old, San Francisco-based company that aims to make it easier for developers to build Bitcoin applications, has raised $9.5 million in funding led by Khosla Ventures. RRE Ventures, Thrive Capital, SV Angel, Pantera Capital and SecondMarket founder Barry Silbert also joined the round, which brings Chain’s total funding to $13.7 million. Dealbook has more here.

DoubleDutch, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile event app company, has raised $19 million in Series D funding led by Mithril Capital Management. Previous investors Bessemer Venture Partners,Index Ventures and Bullpen Capital also participated, along with Singapore-based Enspire Capital. DoubleDutch has raised $37.5 million in funding to date.

FeeX, a two-year-old, New York-based company that helps users find and reduce hidden fees in their IRA savings accounts, has raised $6.5 million in Series B funding from Blumberg Capital and Horizons Ventures. The company has now raised $9.5 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Flybits, a two-year-old, Toronto-based software start-up that has created a development platform for mobile environments, has raised $3.75 million in Series A financing led by Robert Bosch Venture Capital and Trellis Capital Corp., with participation from MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund and Ryerson Futures.

GoGoVan, a 1.5-year-old, Hong Kong-based on-demand delivery service serving Asia, has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding led by Centurion Private Equity, along with a number of unnamed Singapore-based angel investors.

Health Gorilla, a three-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based electronic requisition network that connects doctors to service providers, has raised $1.2 million in seed funding from True Ventures. The company has now raised $1.7 million altogether, including from numerous angel investors.

Hightower, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based software platform that allows commercial landlords and their brokers to collaborate on deals in real time, has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Thrive Capital. Earlier investors, including RRE Ventures and Red Swan Ventures, also participated in the round, which brings Hightower’s total funding to $8.6 million.

Imoji, a months-old, San Francisco-based app that allows users to turn any picture into a shareable emoji, has raised $2 million from Goodwater Capital and Joe Lacob, a longtime VC who is now majority owner and CEO of the Golden State Warriors NBA team.

Laurel & Wolf, a year-old, L.A.-based online interior design marketplace, has raised a $1.1 million seed round led by venture capitalist Tim Draper, reports VentureWire. Other investors include Upside Partnership, Siemer Ventures, Structure Capital, and investors Paige Craig and Jeff Lo.

Lavante, a three-year-old, San Jose-based maker of cloud-based business software used to manage transactions with suppliers, has raised $3.5 million in funding led by PointGuard Ventures. Earlier investors SAP Ventures and ATA Ventures also participated. The company has raised $8.5 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Meedoc, a two-year-old, Helsinki, Finland-based app and service connects patients and their doctors over online video, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from unnamed investors.

Nervana Systems, a new, San Diego-based company whose software architecture promises to enable computers to more quickly analyze and learn from massive amounts of data, has raised $3.3 million in Series A financing led by DFJ. Earlier investor Allen & Co., Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures, and Fuel Capital also participated in the round. The company has now raised $3.9 million, shows Crunchbase.

OnBeep, a year-old, San Francisco-based maker of wearable communication devices, has raised $6.25 million in Series A funding led by Rich Levandov of Avalon Ventures. Fuel Capital and numerous angel investors also participated, according to the company, which has now raised $6.8 million altogether.

Shipbeat, an eight-month-old, Copenhagen, Denmark-based company whose API aggregates the services of parcel delivery companies like UPS and Fedex to give customers a wider range of delivery options, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding led by Sunstone Capital, SEED Capital and former JustEat CEO Klaus Nyengaard. TechCrunch has more here.

Siluria Technologies, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based materials company that’s developing processes for transforming natural gas into chemicals and fuel, has raised $30 million in Series D funding led by Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures. The company has now raised $99.5 million altogether, including from ARCH Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Presidio Ventures, Alloy Ventures, Altitude Life Science Ventures, Lux Capital, and Vulcan Capital.

SimPrints, a two-year-old, Cambridge, England-based company that’s working on a rugged, low-cost biometric fingerprint scanner can sync wirelessly with mobile phones to help medical personnel access health records in developing regions, has raised $830,000 in funding. The money comes via a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundationand the microprocessor company ARM.

Stitch Labs, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose software aims to simplify life for retailers and wholesalers, has raised $3.5 million from earlier investors True Ventures and Costanoa Ventures. The company has now raised $8 million altogether. VentureBeat has more here.

StudioNow, a seven-year-old, Nashville, Tn.-based startup that helps brands create, manage and syndicate online videos, has raised $5 million in funding led by FCA Venture Partners, with Claritas Capital participating. The company spun out of AOL roughly a year ago after being acquired in 2010 for $36.5 million.

TaxiForSure, a three-year-old, Bangalore-based online taxi services aggregator, has raised around $30 million in fresh capital led by earlier investor Accel Partners, reports the Times of India. Previous backers Bessemer Venture Partners and Helion Venture Partners also reportedly participated in the round, which follows a $10 million round that the company closed in April. The company has now raised $44 million altogether.

Thumbtack, a 6.5-year-old, San Francisco-based online marketplace for hiring workers for particular tasks, has raised $100 million in new funding led by Google Capital. Other investors in the round include earlier investors Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital and Javelin Venture Partners. Thumbtack has now raised $150 million altogether. Dealbook has more here.

Transactis, a 13-year-old, New York-based maker of electronic billing and payment software, has raised $11 million in Series D funding led by Safeguard Scientifics. Earlier investors StarVest Partners, along with senior management, also participated in the round. Transactis has now raised $40 million from investors, including Metamorphic Ventures,Vermont Information Processing, and Harland Clarke.

vArmour Networks, a three-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based cybersecurity company that’s operating in stealth but say that it’s built for the mobile, virtual and cloud-dominated world, has raised $21 million in Series C funding led by Columbus Nova Technology Partners, with Citi Ventures and Work-Bench participating. The company had previously raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Menlo Ventures, and $6 million in Series A funding led by Highland Capital.

Wearable Intelligence, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that’s dreaming up Google Glass apps for enterprise markets, has raised $8 million in new venture capital funding, according to an SEC filing first flagged by Fortune. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round. Earlier investors in the company include Andreessen Horowitz, First Round Capital, Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Initialized Capital and Subtraction Capital.

Xamarin, the three-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile app development platform used to build cross-platform native applications, has raised $54 million in Series C funding led by Insight Venture Partners. Earlier investors including Lead Edge, Floodgate, CRV, and Ignition Partners also participated in the round. TechCrunch has much more here.

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New Funds

JMI Equity, a 22-year-old growth equity firm with offices in Baltimore and San Diego, has closed its eighth and largest fund to date with $1 billion, it disclosed yesterday. The firm, which has raised roughy $3.1 billion over its entire history, will invest its new capital in software and services firms. JMI Equity’s last fund closed with $875 million in 2010.

Wells Fargo is jumping into the startup business. Yesterday, the banking giant took the wraps off its new Wells Fargo Startup Accelerator, a twice yearly, six-month-long boot camp for 10 to 20 startups startups that will receive between $50,000 and $500,000 from Wells Fargo. On-site occupation of Wells Fargo office space isn’t required. VentureBeat has much more here.

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Exits

CloudVolumes, a three-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based developer of a real-time application delivery technology, has been acquired by virtualization powerhouse VMware for undisclosed financial terms. CloudVolumes had raised $4.4 million from a long list of angel investors. ZDNet has more here.

MadMimi, a seven-year-old, Brooklyn-based, bootstrapped email service provider (that StrictlyVC uses to send you this newsletter), has been acquired by GoDaddy for undisclosed terms.

WillCall, a four-year-old, music discovery and ticketing application that allows users to reserve and book tickets for music events, has been acquired by Ticketfly, one of the nation’s biggest concert ticket sellers. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. WillCall had raised $2.1 million from investors, including Slow Ventures, Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia, and SV Angel.

—–

People

Dropbox’s head designer, Soleio Cuervo, has left Dropbox in a full-time capacity, he announced in a Facebook post last night. As reports Recode, Cuervo was hired as Facebook’s second designer, creating its renowned “Like” button before being lured away by Dropbox in 2012. Cuervo — who says he has decided to focus his attention on design education reform — will still work with Dropbox as an advisor, he said in his announcement.

NFL Hall of Famer Joe Montana on becoming a startup investor: “I grew up with [Sequoia Capital’s] Doug Leone coaching my kids in baseball. I only knew Doug as a baseball coach and went to my first meeting and he was there and I was like, ‘There’s no way!’ [Laughs] We’ve known a lot of the people in this space for a long period of time since I played here, so that transition is a little bit easier.”

Tim Riitters, who spent a decade at Google, overseeing its annual planning and budgeting processes, has been appointed CFO of Pure Storage, the flash-storage company. He has a lot of money to manage. In April, Pure Storage raised $225 million in Series F funding that reportedly values the company at $3 billion.

—–

Job Listings

Northern Trust, whose private equity fund of funds team raises capital primarily from Northern Trust clients (wealthy families and institutions) and invests in buyout and venture capital funds in the U.S., Europe and Asia, is looking for a vice president. The job is in Chicago.

—–

Happenings

Burning Man, man — although with more billionaire and millionaire entrepreneurs and investors showing up each year, it’s “no longer a counterculture revolution,” says one longtime festival goer to the New York Times. “It’s now become a mirror of society.” Says another who attends Burning Many with a group of Bay Area founders: “We used to have R.V.s and precooked meals. Now, we have the craziest chefs in the world and people who build yurts for us that have beds and air-conditioning.” Happening August 25 through September 1.

—–

Essential Reads

Big VCs are getting greedier and hogging the hottest deals for themselves, say angel investors.

Amazon looks poised to being testing its delivery drones in India this fall.

—–

Detours

A graphic demonstration of what happens when you apply sunscreen.

Why smart people fall for fake news.

Chairless chairs.

A four-year-old reviews French Laundry.

—–

Retail Therapy

Ignore No More. Soon to be: Every Teenager’s Worst Nightmare. “Your phone is locked. Call Mom.”

—–

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Good morning, everyone! Hope your Wednesday is off to a fine start.

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Twitter said yesterday that it will remove images of deceased individuals at the request of family members. Relatedly, the company say it’s actively suspending the accounts of anyone tweeting graphic images of the apparent execution yesterday of photojournalist James Foley.

—–

Is Keith Teare Crazy, or Crazy Like a Fox?

In Silicon Valley, entrepreneurs and investors are often rewarded for having outsize ambitions. Perhaps it’s no wonder then that tech industry veteran Keith Teare — who hasn’t managed any institutional money in his career – has set his sights on raising two new investment funds that he expects will total $800 million.

The first $400 million fund that Teare plans to open to investors next month is Micro Fund Capital, a fund of funds that will targets micro funds; a second fund that’s also targeting $400 million will make direct investments in the first portfolio’s breakout successes. Its name: 2nd Round Capital.

Certainly, LPs could do worse than listen to Teare, whose background makes him as well-suited to invest hundreds of millions of dollars as many VCs in the business. In 1994, for example, he cofounded one of Britain’s first consumer-facing ISPs, EasyNet, which remains a large DSL carrier. Among other things, Teare also cofounded the Internet keyword company RealNames; the classified ad company edgeio; the media company TechCrunch; and Archimedes Labs, a small outfit that incubates, invests in and advises tech startups.

Not all of Teare’s companies have been unmitigated successes. RealNames was poised to go public just as the dot com bubble burst; it shut down operations in 2002. Teare’s startup edgeio, cofounded with famed blogger Michael Arrington, also landed in the so-called deadpool in 2007. The pair did much better with TechCrunch, which sold to AOL in 2010 for a reported $30 million.

Archimedes Labs –originally a joint endeavor of Arrington and Teare and today a company operated by six other business executives, including Kambiz Hooshmand — has also had hits and misses, though its portfolio holds promise. For example, Archimedes furnished M.dot, a mobile site building app, with its first check. (M.dot was acquired last year by GoDaddy in a mostly stock deal that could prove lucrative if GoDaddy goes public as expected.) Archimedes was also the first investor in Quixley, an app search engine that has raised roughly $75 million over the last five years, including a $50 million round led by Alibaba last fall.

The big question, naturally, is why Teare thinks investors will give him hundreds of millions of dollars to invest for his newest act. While he has raised some outside money for Archimedes, he characterizes the amount as “very small.” (Archimedes typically writes checks of between $25,000 and $100,000 and has 14 companies in its portfolio.) Most operators with a similar profile — including Arrington — start small and raise progressively larger pools as they prove out their theses.

Teare says that he; Hooshmand; and a third partner, Patrick Gannon, a founder at LendingClub, originally planned to raise a $25 million microfund. In fact, he says that “within about two weeks, we had $6 million in commitments.” But he says the interest was coming entirely from small investors — which gave him an idea.

“It’s clear that microfunds are too small for institutional investors” other than the few fund of funds that target them expressly, including Cendana Capital and Weathergage Capital, says Teare. With such firms already overwhelmed by requests — and many nascent startups left with a shortage of post-seed, pre-Series A funding choices, he says, “We thought: Why not do what [Cendana] is doing on a much bigger scale? Why not go and raise a serious amount of money for microfunds?”

Teare says he knows raising the money won’t necessarily be a walk in the park. “I’m a smart guy who knows which way the wind is blowing, but I’d say I’m highly challenged to justify to the world that I can be an investor in other people’s companies except [for showing] what I’ve done at Archimedes.”

Then again, the whole idea of investing in already successful micro fund managers is to “mitigate” investors’ risk, he says. “The issue isn’t whether I can pick companies but whether you think [top micro fund managers] can. No individual can really do better than the market.”

I ask Teare what happens if the leading micro VCs don’t take his money. I ask if he has shared his plans with several whose names he raises during our conversation.

He says he hasn’t. He doesn’t seem terribly concerned that he’ll be turned away, though. “These are people who I admire and know for the most part. The personal risk for me is, can I get access to these fund and companies? And that comes down to personal relationships, which I already have.”

—–

New Fundings

Avizia, a year-old, Reston, Va.-based telemedicine company that connects medical experts for remote teaching, consultations and more, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by NextGen Angels, with Blu Venture Investors and Middleland Capital participating.

Chunyu, a three-year-old, Beijing-based medical app developer, has raised $50 million in Series C funding from CICC, Rushan Venture Capital, and Pavilion Capital, with participation from earlier investor BlueRun Ventures. TechNode has more here. The company had previously raised at least $4 million, shows Crunchbase.

Clinverse, a six-year-old, Raleigh, N.C.-based company that makes financial management and payments software expressly for clinical trials, has raised $9 million in new funding led by Edison Partners, with earlier investor Hatteras Venture Partners participating. The company has raised at least $15.6 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Dermira, a four-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based biotech company that’s focused on new therapies for dermatology, has raised $51 million in Series C funding. Earlier investors Bay City Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Canaan Partners and UCB S.A. participated in the round, alongside new investors Apple Tree Partners, Aisling Capital, Rock Springs Capital, Sabby Capital and others. The company has now raised $128 million altogether.

Enlighted, a five-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company whose sensors help monitor things like lighting to save energy, has raised $20 million in Series D funding from earlier investors DFJ, Draper Nexus Ventures, Intel Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and RockPort Capital Partners. The company has raised $55.6 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Famo.us, a three-year-old, San Francisco, Ca.-based programming startup, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Insight Venture Partners and earlier investor Javelin Venture Partners. Famo.us had previously raised roughly $5 million, including from Greylock Partners, CrunchFund, and individuals Barney Pell and Lorenzo Thione, who cofounded Powerset with Famo.us founder Steve Newcomb. (StrictlyVC had interviewed Newcomb last year about his intriguing take on hiring.)

FarmLink, a five-year-old, Kansas City, Ms.-based company whose software helps farmers maximize farm productivity and avoid unnecessary spending, has raised $40 million in Series B funding led by OpenAir Equity Partners. The family office Thorndale Farm, Early Investments and individual investors John Rose and Don Walsworth also participated in the round. Venture Capital Dispatch has much more here.

Groundfloor, a 1.5-year-old, Atlanta-based real estate crowdfunding platform, has raised $1 million in seed funding from Micro Angel Fundand individual investors. The WSJ has more here.

Hireku, a five-year-old, Pittsburgh, Pa.-based online recruiting software company, has raised $15 million in growth financing led by Volition Capital, with participation from Blue Cloud Ventures and Riverfront Ventures. Earlier backers Birchmere Ventures and Rincon Venture Partners also joined the round.

LeadCloud, a 20-month-old, Ellicott City, Md.-based cloud-based online marketing platform, has raised $1 million in Series A funding from undisclosed investors. The round brings the company’s total funding to date to $1.2 million.

Nvite, a year-old, Washington, D.C.-based event registration and ticketing platform, has raised $1 million in seed funding led by Crystal Tech Fund. Other participants in the round included Middle Bridge Partners, CIT Gap Funds, Middleland Capital, District Capital Partners and NextGen Angels.

OrderUp, a five-year-old, Baltimore, Md.-based food delivery service that targets mid-size cities like Phoenix and Denver that aren’t already overrun by food couriers, has raised $7 million in Series A funding fromRevolution Ventures and former LivingSocial chief executive Tim O’Shaughnessy. The Washington Post has more here.

PernixData, a two-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based flash virtualization startup, has raised $35 million in Series C funding led by Menlo Ventures. Other participants in the round include Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, Lightspeed Ventures, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Silver Lake co-founder Jim Davidson, and numerous other individuals. TechCrunch has much more on the company, which has now raised $62 million altogether, here.

PlayFab, a 1.5-year-old, Seattle-based startup that provides online gaming companies with a dashboard for tracking players and purchases, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding including from Larry Bowman of Bowman Capital Management and Startup Capital Ventures.

Sharp Edge Labs, a three-year-old, Pittsburgh, Pa.-based biosensor developer for cellular biology research that was created at Carnegie Mellon University, has raised $600,000 in new funding led by Newlin Investment Co. The company has raised just less than $1 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Vantage Analytics, a year-old, Toronto-based company that makes predictive analytics and data mining software, has raised $1.1 million in funding led by Real Ventures.

Upstart, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based lending platform that provides loans to individuals based on variety of less traditional signals, is now working with Victory Park Capital, the Chicago-based asset management firm, which will invest $100 million in Upstart loans over the next two years. More here.

Zvooq, a three-year-old, Moscow-based music streaming platform, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by the Russian e-tailer Ulmart,with participation from Essedel Capital, a private equity fund in Helsinki.

—–

New Funds

Moonscape Ventures, a new venture capital fund created by the founder of security company AGT International, has launched with $120 million at its disposal, funded by AGT. The firm will be looking to invest in startups in the connected-devices and analytics sectors, as well (interestingly) as in news media, reports VentureWire.

—–

Exits

FunPlus Group, the four-year-old creator of mobile-social games like “Family Farm,” has agreed to sell its game subsidiary to publicly traded Zhongji Holding for $960 million. VentureBeat has more here.

German industrial company Bosch is in talks to buy Red Bend Software, a 15-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based maker of mobile phone management software, for $200 million to $250 million, says Reuters, citing Israeli media outlets. Red Bend has raised roughly $35 million in funding over the years from Carmel Ventures, Coral Group, Greylock Partners, Pitango Venture Capital, Poalim Ventures and Infinity Equity.

—–

People

Steve Ballmer resigned from the board of Microsoft yesterday, eight months after stepping down as CEO. Ballmer, who remains the company’s largest individual shareholder, cited his “new responsibilities” as new owner of the L.A. Clippers as one reason for his departure. But analyst Brendan Barnicle tells Bloomberg that Ballmer also likely “recognizes that it’s very hard for a new CEO to take the reins and have full authority with the old CEO on the board.”

The New York-based venture firm ffVenture Capital has appointed two individuals as partners, reports Fortune: Adam Plotkin, who previously served as an EIR with the firm, and Michael Faber, who was a general partner at NextPoint VC for nearly two decades. The firm, which is investing a $52 million fund, now has five partners.

Intellectual Ventures, the “patent troll” company that Silicon Valley loves to hate, is laying off about 20 percent of its employees, reports Bloomberg Businessweek.

Ping Li of Accel Partners on the one thing he makes certain he does every day: “I try to spend time with my family. My kids are five, two-and-a-half, and fifteen months, so pretty much I’m changing at least a diaper every day at this point. It’s an important thing that I try to do because I think someone said it well, ‘The days are long, but the years are fast’ with the kids. It’s precious times now when they still want to hang out with you.”

A court arbitrator has ruled that game studio Bungie must return founders’ stock to the fired employee who created the music for “Halo” and the upcoming “Destiny” video game series but was later stripped of his founders’ shares. The employee, Marty O’Donnell, also successfully sued the company to recover unpaid wages. VentureBeat has the story here.

David Plouffe, President Obama’s famous campaign manager, has just accepted a job as Uber‘s top lobbyist, reports Recode. With the title of SVP of policy and strategy, Plouffe’s overarching assignment, per recent comments made by Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, will be to take on an “a__hole” opponent “named Taxi” and “bring out the truth about how dark and dangerous and evil” it is.

—–

Job Listings

Cisco is looking for a business development manager to help lead acquisitions and investments for the company. The job is in San Jose, Ca.

—–

Data

Private financing rounds that valued U.S. venture-backed companies at $1 billion or more were four times as common through the first half of this year as IPOs where market capitalizations reached $1 billion or more, finds VentureWire.

—–

Essential Reads

Uber is testing on-demand product deliveries in Washington D.C.

PandoDaily wonders what in tarnation is happening at Google Ventures.

The already meager percentage of women in venture capital is shrinking, reports Sarah McBride of Reuters.

—–

Detours

James Foley and the last journalists in Syria.

A collection of auditory illusions.

—–

Retail Therapy

The collapsible hot tub of your dreams.

—–

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And we’re back! (Web visitors, you can find an easier-to-read version of this, today’s email, right here.)

—–

Top News in the A.M.

The Daily Telegraph’s recent campaign to document all of its stories that were removed from Google under the EU’s so-called right to be forgotten ruling, took a strange turn on Friday when the Telegraph itself removed three stories about removals. More here from Marketing Land.

—–

New Fundings

Comprehend Systems, a four-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company whose cloud-based, real-time cross-data source visualization and analytics tools bring together disparate data produced by clinical trials, has raised $21 million in Series B funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Earlier investor Sequoia Capital also participated in the round. The Y Combinator alum has now raised $30.6 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Lybrate, a 1.5-year-old, New Delhi, India-based online doctor directory service akin to ZocDoc, , has raised $1.23 million in funding, shows an SEC filing first flagged by VentureBeat. More here.

Medallia, a 13-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company whose software helps corporations track their customers’ experiences by integrating data from call centers, social media, and so on, has raised $50 million in fresh funding from previous backer Sequoia Capital. In fact, Sequoia is Medallia’s sole institutional investor and now committed $105 million to the company over three rounds. The WSJ’s Deborah Gage has a great write-up about the company, and its rare relationship with Sequoia, here.

Nirmidas Biotech, a year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based diagnostic research company whose technology aims to significantly boost the ability to detect disease biomarkers, has raised $2 million in seed funding from an unnamed VC firm, a life science angel investor, and the Stanford-StartX Fund.

OKpanda, a two-year-old, New York-based company whose English learning platform that largely targets the Asian market, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding. Resolute Ventures led the round, joined by East Ventures, Beenos and earlier investors Innovation Endeavors, Kapor Capital, 500 Startups and others.

Rethink, a seven-year-old, New York-based maker of web-based learning and care management tools for children with autism and other behavioral health disorders, has raised $10 million in Series C funding co-ed by Beringea and Arboretum Ventures. Earlier investors also participated in the round.

ScriptRock, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based enterprise software company whose platform gives developers and operations visibility into the state of their server systems, has raised $8.7 million in Series A funding led by August Capital, with participation from earlier investors, including Valar Ventures and Square Peg Capital.

—–

New Funds

CircleUp Network, the three-year-old, San Francisco-based equity crowdfunding startup, looks to be raising a $25 million “growth capital” fund, shows an SEC filing first flagged by VentureWire. CircleUp is itself venture-backed, having raised $23 million to date from Rose Park Advisors, Canaan Partners, Google Ventures, Union Square Ventures, and Maveron, among others.

CircleUp has also partnered with Collaborative Fund to invest $4 million into certified B Corps. The WSJ has more here. Collaborative Fund is committing $1 million to the effort through a new Special Purpose Vehicle that StrictlyVC wrote about a few weeks ago.

Ribbit Capital, a two-year-old Palo Alto, Ca.-based venture firm that focuses on financial services startups, has raised $125 million for its second fund, shows an SEC filing. In January of last year, Ribbit Capital closed its inaugural fund with $100 million. The firm, whose investors include Silicon Valley Bank and the Spanish banking group Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, was founded by serial entrepreneur Micky Malka, who remains its sole general partner.

United Internet, a 16-year-old, German Internet service provider, is investing 435 million euros ($582 million) for a 10.7 percent stake in the Internet investing juggernaut Rocket Internet, which is expected to list its shares in Frankfurt this fall, according to reports. The deal values Rocket at 4.3 billion euros. It also makes United Internet the company’s fifth shareholder, reports Reuters, noting that Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company acquired a 10 percent stake in Rocket for 333 million euros earlier this month; the Swedish investment firm Kinnevik holds an 18.5 percent stake; Access Industries owns 8.5 percent, PLDT owns 86 percent and the Samwer brothers’ investment vehicle, Global Founders Fund, owns 53.7 percent.

—–

IPOs

Shareholders of the e-commerce company Zalando and Rocket Internet, the investment firm that helped launch Zalando, will be watching the Alibaba offering very closely next month, suggests the WSJ. Their concern? That “hitches with its flotation could demo their own [IPO] prospects.”

Wayfair, the 12-year-old, Boston-based online home goods retailer, plans to raise up to $350 million in an IPO, the company revealed in an SEC filing processed Friday. The company has raised roughly $360 million from investors over the years. According to its S-1, its biggest outside shareholders are 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.

—–

Exits

Artspace, a nearly four-year-old, New York-based online marketplace for contemporary art, has been acquired for an undisclosed amount by Phaidon Press, which publishes and distributes art books and digital products. Artspace had raised $12.2 million from investors, shows Crunchbase, including Canaan Partners, Felicis Ventures, Metamorphic Ventures, Accelerator Ventures, and individuals Dick Kramlich and Alex Lloyd.

Ask.fm, a 10-year-old, Riga, Latvia-based Q&A service that allows users to anonymously ask questions to others, has been acquired for undisclosed terms by Ask.com, an IAC company that’s making its “first significant push into social networking” with the acquisition, says the New York Times. Much more on the deal here.

ClarityRay, a two-year-old, Israel-based company whose software helps publishers identify fraudulent ads, has been acquired for an undisclosed amount (rumored to be in the $15 million range) by Yahoo. The deal marks the second Israeli company to be acquired by Yahoo in recent months. In May, it acquired the video streaming company RayV for $40 million. More here.

Jetpac, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based iPhone app for crowdsourcing city guides from public Instagram photos, has been acquired by Google for undisclosed terms. Crunchbase shows the startup had raised at least $2.4 million from investors, including Khosla Ventures, Morado Venture Partners, and AME Cloud Ventures.

Sight.io, a 1.5-year-old, Lausanne, Switzerland-based startup that had been developing technology to organize photos, has been acquired by EyeEm, a Berlin, Germany-based photography and community-centric platform on iOS, Android and the web. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed in a new announcement, but LinkedIn shows it took place back in February. Sight.io had raised just $30,000, reports TechCrunch.

—–

People

Meet Kathleen Moriarty, a 61-year-old attorney who has spent nearly two decades ushering in new financial products. Her latest project: the Winkelvii’s Bitcoin Trust.

Alexis Ohanian, Reddit cofounder and now, Y Combinator partner, on why he can no longer party like a student.

—–

Job Listings

Liberty Mutual Group, which makes both venture capital and buyout investments, is looking for an investment associate. The job, a “pre-MBA position,” is in Boston.

—–

Data

CB Insights has published new data about which U.K.-based venture firms have been the most active over the last five years. TechCrunch breaks it down here.

—–

Happenings

Y Combinator’s Demo Day is coming up tomorrow at the Computer History Museum.

—–

Essential Reads

Investment banks are being marginalized in the latest boom in technology deals. Dealbook explains what’s happening here.

Twitter’s latest experiment inserts tweets favorited by others in users’ timelines and it’s not such a big hit.

—–

Detours

The first jobs of tech’s biggest rock stars.

The wonderful, weird economy of Burning Man.

It isn’t your imagination. Incompetent managers don’t want to hear your ideas.

A cat, in a shark suit, riding a vacuum.

—–

Retail Therapy

Now you can try an Hermes tie with your shirt before buying.

Holy cow. (More here.)

—–

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