Hi, everyone, happy Monday! No column today, but we have some good stuff coming your way tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Also, congratulations to our co-conspirator in StrictlyVC events and our favorite guest editor, investor Semil Shah, on his beautiful week-old twin sons. We’re so happy for his family.

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Top News in the A.M.

The Transportation Department plans to announce today that it wants to soon require registration for all unmanned drones “except for toys and those with minimal safety risk,” according to the WSJ. Its concern: That the devices increasingly pose a threat to people on the ground and in the air.

This morning, Amazon has come out swinging hard at the mid-August New York Times piece that called the company’s workplace culture “bruising.”

Hundreds of iOS applications have just been pulled from the App Store, following a report from analytics service SourceDNA, which uncovered a group of applications that were extracting users’ personally identifiable information, including their email associated with their Apple ID, device and peripheral serial numbers, and a list of apps installed on their phone.

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New Fundings

AppSheet, a three-year-old, Seattle-based startup whose tool lets companies build their own custom mobile apps without writing code, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from New Enterprise Associates. The company has now raised $2.1 million altogether. GeekWire has more here.

Ensighten, a six-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based maker of enterprise tag management software to enable companies to manage their sites more effectively,has raised $53 million in private equity and debt financing. Insight Venture Partners, Lead Edge Capital, Mack Capital and Volition Capitalprovided the equity; Silicon Valley Bank provided the debt. AdExchanger hasmore here.

HealthiPASS, a two-year-old, Chicago-based patient check-in and payments company, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding led by OCA Ventures, with participation from Beverly Capital and MPG Equity Partners.More here.

StreetHub, a two-year-old, London-based startup that helps independent retailers be discovered and sell online, has raised $2.6 million in new funding led by earlier investor Octopus Ventures, with participation from Index Ventures and Playfair Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

TinderBox, a five-year-old, Indianapolis Ia.-based company that sells cloud-based sales productivity software, has raised $7 million in funding co-led by Greycroft Partners and Allos Ventures, with participation from the regional firm High Alpha. Indianapolis Business Journal has more here.

UserZoom Technologies, an eight-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based SaaS platform used to test web and mobile products, has raised $34 million in new funding led by TC Growth Partners, with participation from Trident Capital and StepStone Group. NovoBrief has more here.

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Exits

Dyson, the British maker of vacuums, has agreed to acquire Ann Arbor, Mich.-based battery startup Sakti3 for $90 million in cash, according to Quartz. Sakti3 has raised around $50 million in VC funding from Dyson, Beringea, GM Ventures, ITOCHU Corp. and Khosla Ventures.

Time Inc. has acquired Hello Giggles, operator of the pop-culture, beauty and lifestyle website HelloGiggles.com, for $20 million, give or take, says the WSJ. The company was founded in 2011 by entertainer Zooey Deschanel.

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Exits

Ellipse Technologies, a 10-year-old Aliso Viejo, Ca.-based company that makes orthopedic implant systems, has filed for a $75 million IPO. Its largest outside shareholders include HBM Healthcare Investors, which owns 29.9 percent of the company; Wexford Capital, which owns 18 percent; and HBM-MedFocus, which owns 12.9 percent. More here.

Match Group, a spinoff of IAC that owns properties like Tinder and OKCupid, has filed to go public. TechCrunch has much more here.

Mimecast, a 12-year-old, London-based email security provider, has filed to go public on Nasdaq. The company has raised roughly $90 million over the years, shows CrunchBase. Its investors include Insight Venture Partners, which owns 19.8 percent of the company; Index Ventures, which owns 17 percent; and Dawn Capital, which owns 14.5 percent. Reuters has more here.

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People

Legendary venture capitalist Michael Moritz has published an opinion piece about the boom in “unicorn” tech businesses, saying many are “subprime.”

Jacqueline Reses is leaving her role as chief development officer at Yahoo, to help boost the executive team at Square. Bloomberg has the storyhere. Yahoo Marketing Partnership SVP Lisa Licht is also out the door, though it isn’t clear yet where she’s headed.

VCs tend to be optimistic about startups, but have they grown blindly defensive? Business Insider suggests the answer is yes.

Inside a love triangle at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

Meet venture capital’s teenage analyst.

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Jobs

Mercedes-Benz is hiring a venture scout. The job is in Sunnyvale, Ca.

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Data

Home prices are bad in San Francisco, but they’ve pulled almost as far away from the middle class in Los Angeles and San Diego, suggests Standard & Poor’s data.

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Essential Reads

Late last week, TechCrunch obtained documents that show Pinterest has been forecasting $169 million in revenue this year and $2.8 billion in annual revenue by 2018, and expecting to grow its monthly active users to 151 million by year end and to 329 million by 2018.

In April, Amazon filed suit against the operators of websites that offered Amazon sellers the ability to purchase fake, four and five-star reviews of their products. Now it’s going after individuals who provide such fake reviews.

Apple wants mobile devices to be filled with apps. Google supports a world where people browse the web for most things. Sites are increasingly caught in the middle.

Twenty new ways Facebook is eating the Internet.

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Detours

Facebook will now notify you of “state-sponsored attacks” on your account.

Parents talk differently to boys and girls after accidents.

An epic escape from Syria.

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Retail Therapy

A 24-karat gold manicure set, for when every other overpriced gift idea in the world has been exhausted.

Ah, Friday, not a day too soon.:) Hope you have a fantastic weekend, everyone!

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Top News in the A.M.

Regulators in Nevada just banned DraftKings, FanDuel and other daily fantasy sports sites, saying that they’re unlicensed gambling operators.

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YC Tells VCs Not to Worry About Its New, $700 Million Growth Fund

Almost a year-and-a-half after Ali Rowghani resigned as COO of Twitter, he’s been appointed the head of Y Combinator’s growth fund by the organization’s president, Sam Altman.

TechCrunch had heard whispers of the move earlier this week, but Altman made the announcement official earlier yesterday,tweeting of Rowghani that he’s a “wonderful partner to help companies scale.”

Rowghani joined Y Combinator as a part-time partner back in November of last year. Earlier in his career, from 2002 through 2008, he served as the CFO of Pixar. (Rowghani had joined Twitter as CFO from Pixar but was made COO in 2012.)

Yesterday, we hopped on the phone with Rowghani to discuss some of his plans moving forward.

Most notably, Y Combinator will be leading investments in startups with its new growth capital, which is coming in part from Stanford University, Willett Advisors, and TrueBridge Capital Partners, according to the Wall Street Journal. Indeed, as TechCrunch reported early this week, YC is the lead investor in Checkr, a San Francisco-based startup that runs background checks and vets potential hires for fast-growing startups. The company is raising at least $30 million in Series B funding, at a valuation north of $250 million.

For VCs who haven’t had to compete with Y Combinator in later-stage rounds, this is a Big Deal.

More here.

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New Fundings

Codacy, a three-year-old, Lisbon, Portugal-based company that makes an automated code review tool, has raised €1 million ($1.1 million) in a seed extension round from Caixa Capital, with participation from current investors Faber Ventures and E.S. Ventures. The company has now raised €1.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

HappyCar, a two-year-old, Hamburg, Germany-based car rental comparison startup, has raised $1.58 million in funding led by Capnamic Ventures, with participation from HR Ventures, Global Founders Capital, and Swoodoo founder Wolfgang Heigl, among others. The company has now raised $3.2 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

Emergent VR, a months-old, Francisco, N.C.-based startup that promises full video capture that can be viewed on virtual reality headsets, has raised $2.2 million from Accel Partners, Rothenberg Ventures and Google Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Klook, a year-old, Hong Kong-based company that sells travel activities across Asia, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Matrix Partners. China Growth Capital and Francis Leung, chairman of CVC Capital. The round brings the company’s total funding to $6.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

MycoTechnology, a two-year-old, Aurora, Co.-based natural food technology company that employs “gourmet fungi,” has held a first close on a $9.2 million Series A round from S2G Ventures, Seventure Partners, and Middleland Capital. More here.

Quip, a three-year-old, San Francisco, Ca.-based company behind a hybrid communications, collaboration and productivity service, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Greylock Partners, with participation from Benchmark. Recode has more here.

Virtus.pro, a 12-year-old, Moscow-based online sports company that live-streams video game tournaments, has received roughly $100 million in funding from billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s USM Holdings. Bloomberg has more here.

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Exits

Alibaba is acquiring Youku Tudou, one of China’s top YouTube-like services, in a $3.5 billion deal. TechCrunch has more here.

The publicly traded enterprise software company Red Hat is spending more than $100 million to acquired Ansible, a two-year-old, Santa Barbara, Ca.-based company that helps its clients build and manage hybrid IT deployments across the cloud and on site, reports VentureBeat. Ansible had raised $6 million from Menlo Venture and e.ventures, shows CrunchBase.

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IPOs

First Data Corporation ended lower in its trading debut yesterday, a move that could dampen the struggling IPO market even more. Dealbook has more here.

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People

Former Microsoft CEO (and current L.A. Clippers owner) Steve Ballmer says he has built up a 4 percent stake in Twitter.

Flipboard cofounder Evan Doll isn’t returning to the company after a long sabbatical. Instead, he’s becoming an entrepreneur-in-residence at Redpoint Ventures.

Square (and Twitter) CEO Jack Dorsey is giving almost 20 percent of his Square stake to an organization serving struggling communities.

Matt Kelly, Facebook‘s head of growth product, has resigned from the company.

The restaurant search app Zomato has laid off 300 employees, or 10 percent of its staff.

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Jobs

Hercules Technology Growth Capital is looking to hire an associate. The job is in Palo Alto, Ca.

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Essential Reads

Under pressure from regulators, Theranos has stopped collecting tiny vials of blood drawn from finger pricks for all but one of its tests, reports the WSJ.

Stanford and Michael Bloomberg now back every Y Combinator startup.

Dropbox‘s reinvention continues with Paper.

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Detours

How well do you know the news? Take Fast Company’s quiz.

American’s top 10 fears, 2015 edition.

The new “billionaire beach bunker,” in Miami.

Pirate cat.

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Retail Therapy

Vuarnet Glacier Spectre sunglasses. James Bond wears them. Just sayin’.

Hi, everyone, and happy birthday to one of our most cherished readers!

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Top News in the A.M.

Square is officially going public, and investors in its most recent round were guaranteed a return of at least 20 percent, shows its SEC filing.

The FBI and the US attorney’s office in Boston have launched an investigation into whether DraftKings and other fantasy sports operators are violating federal gambling laws, according to the Washington Post.

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Kinnek, a Small Biz Marketplace, Raises $20 Million Led by Thrive

Kinnek, a 3.5-year-old, New York-based marketplace for small businesses to find suppliers and manage purchasing, has just raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Thrive Capital.

It already looks like a smart bet.

The company currently has 20,000 businesses and 2,000 suppliers using its marketplace, and they’re striking millions of dollars worth of deals every week, says cofounder Karthik Sridharan. Considering the company’s age and the fragmented landscape in which it’s operating – think restaurants to distilleries to manufacturers – that kind of traction is meaningful.

It’s also just the tip of the iceberg, apparently. According to a spokesperson for the company, Kinnek “conservatively” estimates that U.S. businesses with up to 100 employees and $20 million in yearly sales spend more than $2.2 trillion annually on machinery, equipment and physical goods based on data from Visa, Intuit, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While we can’t vouch for the accuracy of that number (there are lots of different figures floating around out there), what is clear is the competition, or lack of it, facing Kinnek.

More here.

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(Other) New Fundings

17hats, a 1.5-year-old, L.A.-based business management app for small business owners, including project management, quotes, time tracking and bookkeeping, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by Wavemaker Partners, which also led the company’s $1.3 million seed round earlier this year. TechCrunch has more here.

8i, a 1.5-year-old, New Zealand-headquartered company that’s building a consumer media platform to let users create and share immersive 3D video of real people, has raised $13.5 million in Series A funding from RRE Ventures, Founders Fund Science, Horizons Ventures, Samsung Ventures, Dolby Family Ventures, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, Sound Ventures, Signia Venture Partners, Inevitable Ventures, Freelands Ventures, Advancit Capital, Rothenberg Ventures and Boost VC (among others). TechCrunch has more here.

23andMe, the nine-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based genetics-testing company, has raised $115 million in Series E funding led by Fidelity Management & Research Co., with participation from Google Ventures and New Enterprise Associates and new backers Casdin Capital and WuXi Healthcare Ventures. The financing implies a valuation of $1.1 billion, reports Bloomberg.

Bracket Computing, a four-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company that protects corporate customers from some of the security risk associated with cloud computing, and which was founded by veterans of the anti-spam company Ironport Systems, has raised $45 million. Fidelity Management and Research and Goldman Sachs joined the round along with several current investors. The company has now raised $130 million altogether. Venture Capital Dispatch has the story here.

Clustree, a two-year-old, Paris, France-based recruiting tool that helps HR departments assess internal candidates by matching up employees’ talents and job openings, has raised $2.9 million (€2.5 million) in new funding from Alven Capital and business angels. TechCrunch has more here.

Decibel Therapeutics, a months-old, Boston-based hearing company focused on discovering and developing new medicines to protect, repair and restore hearing, has raised $52 million in Series A funding led by Third Rock Ventures, with participation from SR One. Forbes has more here.

FabFitFun, a five-year-old, L.A.-based women’s lifestyle subscription box company that sends off products from numerous categories, including beauty, fashion, food, wellness, and technology, has raised $3.5 million in funding led by New Enterprise Associates and Upfront Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

FollowAnalytics, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile marketing automation and engagement platform, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Aspect Ventures, with participation from Salesforce Ventures. Earlier backers Sapphire Ventures, Zetta Venture Partners and others also joined the round. More here.

Gaana, a five-year-old, New Delhi, India-based music streaming service, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Micromax, the country’s largest smartphone maker, which will now bundle Gaana’s music app on its devices. TechCrunch has more here.

Galera Therapeutics, a six-year-old, Malvern, Pa.-based clinical-stage biotech developing new treatments for cancer patients, has raised $37 million in Series B funding led by Novo Ventures, with participation from earlier backers New Enterprise Associates, Novartis Venture Fund, Correlation Ventures and Galera Angels. More here.

Hatch Baby, a two-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based company whose smart changing pad is due to ship soon (it weighs babies so parents know they’re gaining enough weight as they grow), has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by True Ventures. Other participants in the round include Geoff Ralston, James Hong, H. Barton Co-Invest Fund, and Veddis Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Hermo, a 3.5-year-old, Malaysia-based online cosmetics and skincare marketplace, has raised $2 million in Series A funding from Gobi Partners. Tech In Asia has more here.

Lenddo, a four-year-old, New York-headquartered company that helps financial service providers with their credit scoring and online verification, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series B funding led by new investors AT Capital and Life.SREDA, with participation from earlier backers Omidyar Network, Blumberg Capital and Golden Gate Ventures. More here.

Mast Mobile, a two-year-old, New York-based mobile communications platform that provides phones to its corporate customers that feature separate work and personal numbers, has raised $7 million in funding led by by FirstMark Capital. Other participants include DFJ, Eniac Ventures, Harrison Metal, HMM Investors, and Initialized Ventures. We talked about the company yesterday with CEO David Messenger. More from that chat here.

Niantic, a four-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based games maker that began as a lab within Google and was spun out last month, has raised $20 million in Series A funding from Pokémon Company Group, Google and Nintendo. TechCrunch has more here.

OpenGov, a three-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company whose software visualizes municipal financial data, allowing governments to access, analyze, and share that data with the public, has raised $25 million in Series C funding from earlier backers Andreessen Horowitz, Formation 8, Thrive Capital and AITV, along with new investors Glynn Capital, Sound Ventures, and Intuit founder Scott Cook. TechCrunch has more here.

Outdoor Voices, a three-year-old, New York-based recreational apparel — or “athleisure wear” — company, has raised $7 million in new funding led by earlier backer General Catalyst Partners, with participation from Forerunner Ventures, Collaborative Fund, and 14W. The company had previously raised $1.1 million in seed funding. TechCrunch has more here.

Zwipe, a six-year-old, Oslo, Norway-based company whose embedded fingerprint reader technology can authenticate card payments, just raised $5 million in Series B funding from Photon Future, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Shenzhen, China-based high-tech holding group Kuang-Chi Group. TechCrunch has more here.

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Exits

VMware has announced plans to purchase email management app Boxer for an undisclosed amount. Three-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based Boxer had raised $3 million dollars from Sutter Hill Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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IPOs

The eight-year-old, French music streaming service Deezer has announced that it plans to raise €300 million ($343 million) in a public listing that will take place in its native France at the end of this month. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Christina Smedley, who’d been PayPal’s VP of global brand and communications, is joining Facebook to run communications for Messenger. TechCrunch has more here.

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Jobs

Eastman Kodak is looking for a director of business development. The job is in San Francisco.

Pandora wants to add a senior associate to its corporate development group. The job is in Oakland, Ca.

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Data

Yesterday, CB Insights and KPMG published their most recent numbers. Today, it’s Dow Jones VentureSource, and the theme is much the same: Investments continued apace in the third quarter, hitting $19 billion, according to its findings. U.S. venture investments hit $54.6 billion for the first nine months of the year; that’s nearly all the venture money invested in 2014 (which was $55.5 billion). Still, bubbly as those figures may sound, they’re still likely to be below the record $94.17 billion invested in 2000 at the height of the dot-com boom, says the report. Much more here.

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Essential Reads

Theranos, which has raised more than $400 million from investors, is struggling with its blood tests, reports the WSJ. Notably, it has retained legendary litigator David Boies, too, which could mean one of two things. Meanwhile, founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes has pronounced the WSJ piece “disappointing” and “full of falsehoods.”

The unicorn boom has just begun, argues Forbes.

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Detours

A Twitter account run by a chicken.

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Retail Therapy

The August doorbell cam, accessible from you phone.

Hello, dear readers, happy Wednesday!

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Top News in the A.M.

Apple just lost a patent lawsuit to the University of Wisconsin. More here.

Uber is expanding its same-day delivery service, with an eye toward crushing rivals Deliv and Postmates.

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Forget Amazon Gift Cards: Give the Gift of Stock

There are plenty of people who’d happily become shareholders in companies like Apple and Facebook if the process of buying stock were simpler. They are plenty of people who’d prefer to give the gift of stock but who hand out money or retailers’ gift cards for the same reason.

Stockpile, a five-year-old, 15-person, Palo Alto, Ca.-based brokerage services firm has a solution to that problem: Stock gift cards. They say they’ll be everywhere soon, too, thanks in part to $15 million in Series A funding the company has just stockpiled from Sequoia Capital, Mayfield, and actor-investor Ashton Kutcher.

We talked yesterday with Stockpile founder and CEO Avi Lele, along with its chief commercial officer (and former PayPal general manager), Dan Schatt. We asked how the company works, and why traditional brokerages haven’t created gift cards for stock much sooner.

Avi, you previously spent 16 years as a patent attorney. Why start Stockpile?

AL: I’d long thought that rather than buy gifts for my niece and nephew, things they toss to the side after a couple of days, it’d be neat to turn them onto something that would last into the future. So I tried to buy them shares, but it was such a pain that I gave up. You had to open a brokerage account, then get their social security numbers, then fund the account with a couple thousand dollars. And even then, a lot of shares were too expensive. I was like, wait, this is too hard.

You say you then spent four years quietly building a licensed brokerage platform to turn stock into a consumer product. Who are some of your partners?

DS: We’ve got great distribution partners already, including Blackhawk Network, which has 180,000 locations. It’s the company that powers the gift cards you see in racks everywhere from Safeway to Giant Eagle to Toy “R” Us. You’ll be able to buy [our cards] off the shelf at Kmart. They can light up all sorts of chain locations for us.

Much more here.

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New Fundings

Area 1 Security, a two-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based cybersecurity startup, has raised $15 million in funding led by Icon Ventures and previous backer Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. Other participants in the round include earlier investors Allegis Capital, Cowboy Ventures, Data Collective, First Round Capital, RedSeal Networks CEO Ray Rothrock and Shape Security CEO Derek Smith. The company has now raised $25.5 million altogether. Fortune has more here.

Audentes Therapeutics, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based gene-therapy company, has raised $65 million in Series C fundingco-led by earlier backer Sofinnova Ventures and new investor Redmile Group. Other participants in the round include RA Capital Management, T. Rowe Price Associates, Rock Springs Capital, Cormorant Asset Management, Cowen Private Investments and Foresite Capital. More here.

BuildZoom, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based startup whose online marketplace puts users in touch with licensed contractors, has raised $10.6 million in Series A funding led by Joe Lonsdale of Formation 8, with participation from Y Combinator and Peter Thiel. The company says the investment from Y Combinator, whose program BuildZoom passed through in 2013, represents one of its largest to date. More here.

Concord, a months-old, San Francisco-based contracts management software company, has raised $2.7 million in funding from Cota Capital, WTI, Alven Capital and angel investors, including Zuora cofounder and CEO Tien Tzuo.More here.

Figure 1, a nearly three-year-old, Toronto-based crowdsourced medical image library for healthcare professionals (they can share patient photos to obtain feedback), has raised $5 million in new funding led by earlier investor Union Square Ventures, with participation from other earlier backers, including Rho Canada, Version One Ventures and Graph Ventures. Allen & Co. and individual investors also joined the round.

Kabbage, a six-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based online platform that loans money to businesses and individuals using a wide set of online data and algorithms to measure credit-worthiness, has raised $135 million in Series E funding and expanded its credit facility — the money it has on hand to fulfill loans — to $900 million. The round was led by Reverence Capital Partners, with participation from big banks, including Holland’s ING, Spain’s Santander (via InnoVentures), and Canada’s Scotiabank. TechCrunch has more here.

Lookup, a year-old, Bangalore, India-based messaging system used to connect users with merchants in their local area, has raised $2.5 million in Series A funding from Khosla Impact, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Catamaran Ventures and Global Founders Capital, the investment fund of the Samwer brothers. TechCrunch has more here.

Lyra Health, a 10-month-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based company aiming to help employers and health plans better manage populations of people with behavioral-health illnesses, has raised $35 million in Series A funding led by Greylock Partners, with participation from Breyer Capital, Providence Health & Services, Origin Capital Management, Castlight Health, and earlier backer Venrock. More here.

Nucleus, a 1.5-year-old, Philadelphia, Pa.-based company whose connected home device lets families have two-way audio and video conversations in the home or between homes or with any mobile device, has raised $3.37 million in seed funding led by Foxconn, which will be manufacturing the device. Other participants include FF Angels and StartUp PHL, a Philadelphia-based public-private venture fund led by Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Playlab, a three-year-old, Hong Kong-based mobile games firm that’s focused on Southeast Asia, has raised $5 million in Series B funding from Monk’s Hill Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Service, a months-old, L.A.-based on-demand customer service startup (it caters to the disgruntled customers of on-demand companies), has raised $3.1 million in seed funding led by Founders Fund, with participation from Menlo Ventures, Maveron Ventures, Eight Ventures and a handful of individual investors. In June, the company had raised $540,000 from Arena Ventures and angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

SteelBrick, a six-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based quote-to-cash cloud service aimed primarily at small- and mid-market companies, has raised $48 million in Series C funding led by Institutional Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backers Emergence Capital, Salesforce Ventures and Shasta Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Veridu, a three-year-old, London-based online verification service, has raised £800,000 ($1.2 million) in seed funding from various institutional and private investors, including the newish fund Force Over Mass Capital, Knightsbridge Executive Services, and Belgian Callataÿ & Wouters Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Highland Europe, a Geneva-based growth-stage venture firm, has raised a new €332 million ($379 million) fund that will target startups in the internet, mobile and software space, investing between €10 million and €30 million in them. TechCrunch has more here.

The San Francisco-based seed investment firm SignalFire, founded by former General Catalyst partner Chris Farmer, has closed its debut fund with $53 million. Venture Capital Dispatch has the lowdown here.

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Exits

Customer support giant Zendesk is acquiring French startup BIME Analytics for $45 million in cash. BIME Analytics is a business intelligence startup with a software-as-a-service approach. It had raised $3.4 million from Alven Capital and business angels. TechCrunch has the story here.

Google has acquired Divshot, an HTML5 web-hosting platform. The Santa Monica-based company had raised $1.18 million in funding from TenOneTen Ventures, 500 Startups and numerous others. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has a new general partner in Eric Feng, who was most recently CTO at Flipboard, a Kleiner-backed company. Feng is well-acquainted with the firm; he worked for Kleiner five years ago, helping invest  in green tech companies.

Twitter has named Omid Kordestani, Google’s former chief business officer, as its new executive chairman. More here.

Adam Lisagor of Sandwich Media has a new show and it looks interesting.

LivingSocial, the Washington-based local deals platform partly owned by Amazon, is laying off 200 people, which is 20 percent of its workforce. More here.

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Jobs

eBay is looking for a corporate development director. The job is in San Jose, Ca.

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Data

CB Insights and KPMG have released a third-quarter report that’s chock full of data. One of its most notable points: while deal volume dropped from the second quarter (we’d written about a slow-down here), venture-backed investments year to date are 11 percent higher than all venture-backed investments last year. Here’s a short wrap-up about the new report in TechCrunch. For the whole enchilada — it’s worth reading — you can check it out here.

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Essential Reads

Looks like Y Combinator will be leading deals after all. It’s heading up the $30 million Series B round of Checkr, which runs background checks and vets hires for on-demand startups.

Facebook is trying out a dedicated video feed.

Here’s what happens when you get into an Uber crash.

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Detours

Worst. Aunt. Ever.

“Duh? Who are we? No one.” [Abruptly race to car, run over Tesla employees.]

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Retail Therapy

Live like a Winklevoss in the twins’ L.A. home. Cost: Just $110,000 per month.

Another option: A Texas mansion for $1.27 million. We should probably note it has a cinema room painstakingly designed to recreate the Starship Enterprise.

Hi, everyone! Hope your Tuesday is off to a great start.

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Top News in the A.M.

Shares of Twitter fell yesterday on news that job cuts were coming. They’re rising today as the social-media company made the cuts official.

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Drone Maker CyPhy Works Raises $22 Million for Two-Prong Strategy

iRobot maker iRobot has long had two major lines of businesses: its famous disc-shaped vacuum cleaning robot called the Roomba; and another robot that, well, disposes of bombs.

Cofounder Helen Greiner says iRobot — now a publicly traded company currently valued at $940 million — “wouldn’t been able to have struggle through” without both.

No wonder Greiner is again focusing on disparate lines of business at her seven-year-old drone company, CyPhy Works in Danvers, Mass, a startup that has just raised $22 million in Series B funding.

On the one hand, CyPhy is about to start mass producing its Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications (PARC) drones, which can fly as high as 500 feet in the air and hang there for 100 hours at a time. How? They’re tethered to the ground with a highly specialized microfilament that both powers them and acts as a secure communications link. As an added bonus, the tether keeps the robots from flying away in sandstorms and other harsh conditions.

The PARC drones have mostly been used to date by the U.S. military, which employs them at combat posts to monitor compounds. The drones can also accept a variety of payloads. But now that the FAA has begun more freely authorizing the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for non-governmental purposes, Greiner is expecting enterprise customers of all kinds to start ordering them, from mining to port security to construction to even media companies.

More here.

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New Fundings

Bizongo, a year-old, Mumbai, India-based B2B marketplace for industrial goods like plastics, chemicals, and packaging materials, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Accel Partners. Iamwire has more here.

Cape Productions, a 1.5-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based drone photography and video service startup, has raised more than $10 million in funding, reports VentureWire, including a recent (and very quiet) $7.7 million Series A round led by New Enterprise Associates. Other investors in the company include Madrona Venture Group, XSeed Capital, S:Cubed Capital, and the Commercial Drone Fund. More here.

Cybereason, a three-year-old, Boston-based cybersecurity firm with an R&D center in Tel Aviv, has raised $50 million in funding led by SoftBank, with participation from earlier backers CRV and Spark Capital. The company had raised a separate, $25 million from defense contractor Lockheed Martin back in May. The WSJ has more here.

DataVisor, a nearly two-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based cybersecurity company that aims to protect consumer-facing sites and mobile apps from cyber criminals, has raised $14.5 million in Series A funding led by GSR and New Enterprise Associates. VentureBeat has more here.

Doctolib, a two-year-old, Paris, France-based platform that aims to make it easier for doctors to schedule appointments with patients and vice versa, has raised €18 million ($20.4 million) led by the London team of Accel Partners. The company has now raised roughly $26 million altogether. Business Insider has more here.

EverString, a three-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based marketing startup that sells software for personalizing business-to-business sales outreach, has raise $65 million in Series B funding led by LightSpeed Venture Partners, with participation from Sequoia Capital, IDG Ventures, and Lakestar. The company had previously raised $13.7 million in seed and Series A funding. Fortune has more here.

InvestCloud, a five-year-old, L.A.-based maker of of cloud-based front and middle-office software for investment managers, has raised $45 million in growth equity funding led by FTV Capital. More here.

K4Connect, a two-year-old, Raleigh, N.C.-based startup whose connected home technology aims to integrate consumers’ disparate devices, has raised $1.9 million in seed funding from Sierra Ventures and Better Ventures, along with North Carolina-based Lowe’s Companies and Florida’s Stonehenge Growth Equity Partners. Individual investors also joined the round. American Underground has more here.

Marfeel, a four-year-old, Barcelona, Spain-based ad tech platform focused around mobile publishers, has raised $3.5 million in funding led by Nauta Capital, Elaia Partners and BDMI. More here.

Mubble Networks, a two-year-old, Bangalore, India-based start-up that helps smartphone users track their spending on calls, SMSes and mobile data, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from Accel Partners. LiveMint has more here.

Optimizely, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based site optimization company whose A/B tests compare two versions of a webpage to determine which performs better, has raised $58 million in Series C funding led by Index Ventures, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital Ventures and Citi Ventures. The company has now raised $146 million altogether. Reuters has more here.

SentinelOne, a two-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based security software maker that attacks security threats at the kernel of devices, has raised $25 million in new funding from the hedge fund Third Point, along with earlier backers Tiger Global Management, Data Collective, Granite Hill Capital Partners, and the Westly Group. TechCrunch has more here.

ShopWell Labs, a seven-year-old, San Carlos, Ca.-based personalized nutrition app, has raised $3.4 million in funding led by Finistere Ventures, with additional funding from Fairhaven Capital, Munich Venture Partners, S2G Ventures and ATA Ventures. The company has now raised $11.4 million altogether. More here.

Thistle, a two-year-old, Berkeley, Ca.-based healthy meal delivery startup that once focused on fresh juices, has raised $1 million from various, unnamed individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Vipkid, a two-year-old, Beijing, China-based online education startup that provides one-on-one video teaching sessions for Chinese children with teachers based in North America, has raised $20 million in Series B funding. Northern Light Venture Capital led the round, with participation from earlier backers Matrix Venture Partners, Innovation Works and Sequoia Capital. China Money Network has more here.

Voodoo, a five-month-old, Delhi, India-based startup that aims to help Indian consumers save money by enabling them to compare services in different apps without installing a bunch of them, has raised $1 million in seed funding from SAIF Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Zugata, a 1.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based software service that provides employees regular performance feedback on their iPhones, has raised $3.2 million in seed funding from General Catalyst Partners, Formation 8 and Redpoint Ventures, along with numerous angel investors. Fortune has more here.

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New Funds

Coatue Management has secured more than $543 million for its second private equity fund, according to SEC filings first flagged by Fortune.

IDC forecasts that Europe’s public cloud software market will grow almost 12 times faster than other IT segments to reach $37.8 billion by 2019, and Salesforce Ventures has noticed. TechCrunch has more here on its plans to plug a fresh $100 million into European startups.

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Exits

Qualcomm has sold its Vuforia augmented reality platform for $65 million to PTC, a Needham, Mass.-based Internet-of-Things company. Recode has the story here.

RetailNext, an eight-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based developer of in-store data analytics for retailers, is acquiring the mobile content startup Pikato, according to VentureWire. No financial terms are being disclosed. RetailNext has raised $184.5 million in funding from a long list of investors, including Activant Capital Group, August Capital, and Star Vest Partners, shows CrunchBase. Two-year-old Pikato, based in Chicago, doesn’t appear to have raised institutional funding.

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People

Google Ventures has brought aboard former Symantec COO Stephen Gillett as an “executive in residence.” TechCrunch has more here.

YouTube star Michelle Phan and L’Oréal USA have ended their partnership after a little over two years, WWD reports. The pair created a massive line of beauty products that reportedly never met the expectations of L’Oréal. More here.

Who wore it better? The Evan Spiegel Vogue photo shoot edition.

EMC CEO Joe Tucci could make about $30 million for selling his company to Dell.

That was fast: Six months ago, Snapchat hired Marcus Wiley — former co-head of comedy development at Fox Broadcasting — to run original content programming for its Snap Channel. Now, it has “done a course correction on its original content strategy, opting to shut down its Snap Channel permanently, leading to the departure of a number of executives” including Wiley, reports Deadline. More here.

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Essential Reads

Facebook Messenger: Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s app for everything.

New media companies — including BuzzFeed, Vice Media and Huffington Post — are increasingly venturing into the older medium of television.

Tesla’s batteries aren’t just for cars anymore. They’ll be used in battery farms at buildings around California.

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Detours

How America’s biggest for-profit college fleeced the U.S. military and taxpayers.

Soft rock is alive and well and, evidently, now called “yacht rock.”

Stephen Colbert shares rejected TED talks.

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Retail Therapy

The 21.5-inch iMac gets a major update.

A pomade for every occasion.

Happy Monday, everyone! Welcome back.

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Top News in the A.M.

Company-wide layoffs are coming to Twitter this week, reports Recode.

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VC Jeff Clavier on Getting to the Promised Land

Last month, we talked with Jon Callaghan of True Ventures and marveled at the billion-dollar-plus return that his firm is poised to reap from leading the seed round of the wearable fitness company Fitbit.

But True isn’t the only venture firm for which Fitbit is a giant home run. During a recent sit-down with Jeff Clavier, founder of the venture firm SoftTech VC in San Francisco, he joked that as another investor in Fitbit’s seed round, he finds it hard not to take a daily interest in the share price of the company, which went public in June and is now valued at more than $7 billion. (Its lock-up period ends in December.)

More from that recent chat follows, edited for length.

You moved up to San Francisco from Palo Alto a couple of years ago. How’s it going? How many companies do you have up here now?

We have several dozen portfolio companies in San Francisco and three more in [nearby] Oakland. We started out in Palo Alto 11 years ago, then three years ago we started hanging out at [the San Francisco workspace collective] Founders Den and having weekly meetings there. By the time AOL kicked us out of its buiding in Palo Alto two years ago, there was no point in looking elsewhere because freaking Palantir [the private data analytics company] had killed the startup activity.

Meaning?

More here.

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New Fundings

Boostinsider, a year-old, San Francisco-based online platform company that lets brands pay influencers for shares on social media,  has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Fine Charm Ventures and Kyline Fortune, a new Silicon Valley fund led by ex-Twitter employees. TechCrunch has more here.

Cabify, a four-year-old, Madrid, Spain-based Uber competitor whose app enables users to request a high-end car with chauffeur or hail a taxi, has raised $12 million in Series B funding led Rakuten, with participation from previous investor Seaya Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Opsonix, a new, Cambridge, Ma. based company with technology to remove infectious microbes and toxins from circulating blood in a bid to treat sepsis and other infectious diseases, has launched with $8 million in Series A funding led by Baxter Ventures, with participation from Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss. Xconomy has more here.

Rong360.com, a four-year-old, Beijing, China-based financial products search and recommendation engine, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series D funding, according to Chinese media reports. The company, founded by former PayPal China general manager Ye Daqing, has reportedly raised roughly $97 million previously, including from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital, Zero2IPO Venture and Pavilion Capital, which is a subsidiary of Singapore’s Temasek Holdings.

Symphony, a year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based secure messaging platform backed by major Wall Street firms, announced today that it has raised $100 million round from a list of investors that includes Google. Google’s part in the investment was first reported last week, but now we know it was also joined by Lakestar, Natixis, Societe Generale, UBS and earlier backer Merus Capital. The company actually went looking for $50 million, but the demand was so great, it ended up doubling its original request, Symphony CEO David Gurle tells TechCrunch.

Womai.com, a six-year-old, Beijing, China-based online grocery store that’s backed by the state-owned food conglomerate COFCO, has raised a fresh $200 million in Series C funding led by Taikang Life Insurance Company and Baidu, according to China Money Network. The company had reportedly raised more than $100 million in funding previously, including from SAIF Partners and IDG Capital.

Wynd, a two-year-old, Paris, France-based startup that offers its software-as-a-service to restaurants to help them digitize their ordering, payment, and rewards programs, has raised $7.8 million in Series A funding (€7 million) led by Alven Capital, with Orange Digital Ventures also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Xpenditure, a four-year-old, Brussels-based startup that sells an expense management platform aimed at enterprises, SMEs and sole traders  has closed $5.7 million in Series A funding from a long line of individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Yunmake, a two-year-old, Hangzhou-based smart bike maker, has raised “tens of millions of RMB” (a seed amount in U.S. dollars) in Series A funding led by return investor Shunwei Capital, the investment firm led by Xiaomi chief executive officer Lei Jun. Other participants include Foxconn, Qualcomm, ZhenFund, Yinxinggu Capital and earlier backer Ricebank. TechNode has more here.

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New Funds

AngelList has a fresh, $400 million to invest in startups on its platform, care of one of China’s largest private equity firms. TechCrunch has much more here.

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Exits

In the largest tech deal in history by far, Dell and partners MSD Partners and Silver Lake agreed to buy EMC today for $67 billion, or $33.15 a share. Much more here.

Marvel, a U.K.-based startup that lets users turn sketches into mobile and web app “prototypes”, has acquired design and animation tool Plexi. Terms of the acquisition remain undisclosed but it sounds like an acqui-hire. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Keith Krach, who has been the chairman and CEO of the electronic signature company Docusign since January 2010, is stepping down as CEO, though he says he’ll remain chairman for three more years after a new CEO is brought aboard. DocuSign was most recently valued at $3 billion. Recode has the skinny here.

LinkedIn will soon give its employees “unlimited” vacation, plus 17 paid holidays, joining a reported 2 percent of companies that offer the same kind of alternative-vacation model. Business Insider has more here.

Sundar Pichai, Google’s new CEO under the company’s Alphabet restructuring, has made his first major wave of executive shuffles as CEO, promoting three top lieutenants on the critical ads and Android units. Recode has more here.

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Data

Before March, getting drone exemptions for commercial purposes from the FAA was much harder. Then things changed. Silk breaks out what’s happened over time and by sector here.

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Essential Reads

Computer science has for the first time become the most popular major for female students at Stanford University.

How WeWork, which saw $4.2 million in operating profit last year, convinced investors that it’s worth $10 billion. (Great reporting here, if you didn’t read this over the weekend.)

The traditional car market is as hot as ever. In California, though, where electric cars outpace electric plugs, sparks are flying.

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Detours

Searching for Bel Air’s biggest water waster. (We’re guessing it’s not resident Elon Musk.)

Five things in the new Steve Jobs movie that are completely made up.

Teenage Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai may be heading to Stanford to study politics.

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Retail Therapy

A snow helmet that’s more wearable computer than headgear.