Hello, dear readers, and happy 2015! Hope you had a terrific break. (Web visitors, you can find an easier-to-read version of this morning’s newsletter here.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Get ready. The FCC says it will vote on net neutrality next month.

Xiaomi, the four-year-old Chinese smartphone maker that just closed on $1.1 billion in new funding, last week revealed just how fast it’s growing, with sales of 61 million phones last year, up from 18.7 million devices in 2013 and 7.2 million in 2012.

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The Partovi Brothers Keep It In the Family

Nationally, the Partovi twins don’t have the same name recognition as another pair of high-powered twins who will soon be appearing in StrictlyVC. But in the Bay Area, the 41-year-olds’ involvement in a startup – as both operators and investors – is a powerful signal that a company is probably on to something big.

Ali Partovi was on the founding team of the Internet ad company LinkExchange, acquired by Microsoft in 1998 for $265 million; Hadi Partovi was on the founding team of the speech recognition company TellMe Networks, also acquired by Microsoft, for $800 million in 2007. The brothers have also been early investors in Zappos, Facebook, Airbnb and Dropbox, among others, and they’ve cofounded two organizations together: iLike, a social music service that sold to MySpace for a reported $20 million in 2009, and Code.org, a two-year-old nonprofit that’s making computer science available in more schools. (This reporters’ sons have participated in its one-hour introduction to computer science, along with more than 75 million other people.)

StrictlyVC recently talked with the twins to learn more about their relationship, what’s most interesting to them right now from an investing standpoint, and what they make of the broader market. Our chat has been edited for length.

Hadi, you live in Seattle, while Ali lives in the Bay Area. How long have you lived in different cities, and how often do you see one another?

HP: I’ve been up in Seattle since 2002, but we see each other every few months.

You’ve been investing together for many years. How full-time is that pursuit? How involved are you in Code.org?

HP: Code.org now has 40 employees; it’s pretty all-consuming. We’re still investing as angels, though as a side job, which is when we’ve been best at investing. Because we don’t have enough time, we reject almost everything. But being picky makes us more selective. Of the 30 to 40 investments we’ve made, only two or three have been failures, and we’ve had 13 or 14 exits.

How many companies did you back in 2014?

AP: We made only four new investments. Over the past five years, we’ve averaged only four new investments per year. If anything, I’d be happy with even fewer. Our annualized IRR as investors has been 44 percent, not including Dropbox, Airbnb, Indiegogo, and others [that haven’t exited yet].

How does a startup win you over?

HP: We like companies that are making a social impact – not a charity but companies that have a vision that the world should be different and better. Snapchat, for example, is a really high-value business, but it’s unclear that its mission is making the world a better place. We also like tech that’s disrupting the physical world.

But the quality of the people involved is what’s most important. We’re probably the only investors out there who will run a tech team through a tech interview as if they wanted to get a job at Google or Facebook. After all, why would an investor give tons of money to someone who couldn’t possibly get a job at [one of those two companies?]

Have you missed out on deals because of that hurdle?

HP: Some, though if we miss them, it’s not a big deal. We can afford to be choosy. Also, I think entrepreneurs recognize that our investment means a lot and that they can tell other people, including other VCs, who know about our interview process.

What size checks do you write and what do you expect for your money?

HP: Check sizes range from $100,000 to $250,000 typically, and the size of the stake completely depends on whether something is earlier or late. I think the biggest check we’ve written was $2 million for [the still-private, cloud-based electronic medical records company] Practice Fusion, which we think is incredibly promising.

Would you make an investment without your brother’s blessing?

HP: Yes, though we’ve made better investments when it’s unanimous. Ali has a passion for food-related investments, but almost all the rest have been joint investments.

You were both investors in the food tech company Hampton Creek, correct? Did you participate in its $90 million Series C round, announced last month? Ali, you even joined, then quickly left, the company as its chief strategy officer. Are you and Hadi still investors in the company or have you sold your stake to other investors?

HP: We did not participate in Hampton Creek’s newest round.

(To continue reading, click here.)

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New Fundings

3-V Biosciences, a 7.5-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based biopharmaceutical company that’s developing therapeutics for infectious diseases, has raised $28.5 million in Series D funding co-led by earlier backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, New Enterprise Associates and Rock Springs Capital Management, with participation from new investors, including Ally Bridge Group. The company has now raised $106.6 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Apploi, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based company that makes In-store kiosks to help employers with “walk-in” applications, as well as pushes job listings out to users’ phones based on their location, has raised $7.4 million in Series A funding, including from Mistral Equity Partners’ managing partner Andrew Heyer. TechCrunch has more here.

Depict, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based online platform that works with galleries and art institutions to allow users to explore digital work by new artists, has raised $2.4 million in new funding from Slow Ventures, Founder.org Capital and unnamed angel investors, reports VentureWire.

eShares, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company that digitizes paper stock certificates along with stock options, warrants, and derivatives, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from Spark Capital and earlier backers, including K9 Ventures. USV announced the round yesterday on its blog. StrictlyVC talked with eShares CEO Henry Ward last year about what the company is trying to pull off.

LaLaMove, a year-old, Hong Kong-based delivery service that enables users to dial up the delivery of nearly anything through a fleet of vans, trucks and motorbikes, has raised $10 million in new funding led by China’s Crystal Stream Capital, with participation from Geek Founders,Mindworks Ventures, Sirius Venture Capital and Aria Group, along with individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Scribd, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based company that offers unlimited access to half a million e-books for $8.99 a month, along with a document-sharing service, has raised $22 million in new funding led by Khosla Ventures. TechCrunch has more on the funding here. StrictlyVC spoke with Scribd CEO Trip Adler about the company’s all-you-can-eat library model last year. Scribd has now raised $47.8 million altogether.

Snapchat, the 3.5-year-old, Venice, Ca.-based messaging startup, has raised $485.6 million in new funding, shows a new SEC filing. The round reportedly includes Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Yahoo, among many others, and is the 10th largest deal among U.S. venture capital-backed companies, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. The company has now raised $648 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Symic Biomedical, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company that’s studying treatments for osteoarthritis and cardiovascular ailments, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Lilly Ventures. The company has raised $16.4 million altogether.

TinyPulse, a two-year-old, Seattle-based company that makes employee engagement software, has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding led by Baseline Ventures, with participation from Harrison Metal and undisclosed strategic investors. StrictlyVC talked with TinyPulse last month about its pulse surveys and their increasingly widespread adoption at companies both big and small.

Vuzix, an 18-year-old, Rochester, N.Y.-based company that makes Internet-connected eyewear products, has sold 49,626 of its Series A preferred stock — convertible into 4,962,600 shares of Vuzix’s common stock — to Intel, which will own 30 percent of the company upon that conversion. Intel is spending $24.8 million for the shares. Vator has more here.

Wanda E-commerce, a six-month-old, Suzhou, China-based company designed to compete with Alibaba, has raised roughly $161 million in funding from investment funds Centec Networks and Xude Rendao. Wanda E-commerce was founded in August as a joint venture by mega-conglomerate Wanda and two of China’s biggest Internet firms, Tencent Holdings and Baidu. More here.

X.ai, a 10-month-old, New York-based company that’s developing a virtual email assistant that can schedule meetings on users’ behalf, has raised $9.2 million in Series A funding led by FirstMark Capital, with participation from Pritzker Group Venture Capital, CrunchFund, and earlier investors. X.ai had raised $2.1 million in seed funding last summer, including from Lerer Hippeau Ventures, IA Ventures, and SoftBank Capital.

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New Funds

Aperture Venture Partners, a New York-based healthcare focused venture firm, has raised $49.2 million for its third fund, shows a new SEC filing that lists a target of $100 million. The firm began raising the fund (officially) in August 2013.

Incubate Fund, a Tokyo, Japan-based venture capital firm, has raised a new 11 billion yen ($91 million) fund that will invest in early-stage startups located in North America, Japan, and the rest of Asia, reports TechCrunch. The firm’s LPs include Internet giant Tencent, Yahoo Japan, Sega Sammy, Tokyo Broadcasting System, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking, and Development Bank of Japan, among others.

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IPOs

Inovalon Holdings, a 17-year-old, Bowie, Md.-based analytics and data-based technology service company that caters to the healthcare sector, has filed to raise up to $500 million in an IPO. Its biggest outside shareholders include Meritas Group, which owns 38.8 percent of the company, and Lapis Ventures, which owns 16.1 percent.

Micromax Informatics, India’s second-largest smartphone maker, plans to raise as much as $500 million through an IPO this year, reports Reuters. The company is backed by TA Associates and Sequoia Capital. Micromax’s biggest rivals include Samsung Electronics, Motorola and China’s Xiaomi. In India, Samsung reportedly dominates, with roughly 25 percent market share (as of September), followed by Micromax at 20 percent.

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People

Renee DiResta, a principal at O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures for the past three-plus years, has left to join an OATV-backed, months-old shipping logistics company called Haven in business development. In a post published late last week, DiResta says she will also continue to invest as an angel investor. More here. (H/T: Dan Primack.)

Super entrepreneur Elon Musk and his wife, actress Talulah Riley, are divorcing — for a second time. Musk filed for divorce in L.A. County Superior Court on New Year’s Eve, with Musk planning to provide Riley with $16 million in cash and other assets as part of a financial settlement, according to a joint statement. Musk has five sons from his first marriage to author Justine Musk. NBC has more here.

Operator-investor Semil Shah has created a Twitter list of “underrepresented minorities in startups, tech, and investing.” (It’s a good starting point if you’re looking for exposure to new perspectives.)

Megan Smith, the former Google executive turned CTO of the U.S., is doing what she can to bring the administration into the present, but the “real struggle” for her is “that while this role does have a direct line to the presidency, it does not have much of a budget or any authority over other agencies,” notes Clay Johnson, who ran President Obama’s online campaign in 2008 and worked in his administration as a presidential innovation fellow.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced on Facebook that he plans to read a book every other week this year, and he asked his 30 million Facebook followers to join him in a kind of online book club. The first book is “The End of Power” by Moisés Naím, a former Foreign Policy editor. Unsurprisingly, it’s already “temporarily out of stock” at Amazon.

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Essential Reads

The U.S. patent system is so broken that almost no patented discoveries ever get used.

Welcome to the new ransomware economy.

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Detours

A glimpse into the process of stop motion animation.

“In most major cities, there are now dedicated day spas for children, offering a range of massages, facials and other treatments for girls (and sometimes boys) too young to have had their first pimple.”

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Retail Therapy

The making of a Porsche 918 Spyder Hybrid. By hand.

Good Tuesday morning, dear readers!

Some notes: StrictlyVC’s inaugural “Insider” series event takes place Thursday, February 12th, at Next World Capital in San Francisco. The evening program will feature AngelList cofounder Naval Ravikant, Khosla Ventures partner Keith Rabois, and Strava CEO and cofounder Mark Gainey, among others. Space is limited. Get your tickets here.

Also, a reminder that your next issue of StrictlyVC will arrive on Monday, January 5. Happy New Year, everyone!:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Instacart, the 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based grocery delivery startup, has closed on $210 million in new funding that a Recode source says will balloon to $220 million before the round is closed. The investment will value the company at around $2 billion, says Re/code.

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Top Investor Michael Dearing on the Startup Ecosystem Now

By Semil Shah

Nearly five years ago, reporter Kara Swisher labeled Michael Dearing the “hottest angel investor you’ve never heard of.”

Things haven’t changed much. Dearing, a former senior VP at eBay who joined Stanford’s faculty in 2006 as a consulting associate professor (he also teaches off campus), has quietly backed a long string of highly successful companies. Think AdMob, the mobile advertising start-up acquired by Google for $750 million in late 2009. Or Aardvark, the social search engine, also acquired by Google, for $50 million 2010. Dearing had another big win just this month when Acompli, a 1.5-year-old maker of a mobile email application, sold to Microsoft for $200 million in cash. It had raised just $7.3 million from investors, including Dearing’s investment vehicle, Harrison Metal.

Despite keeping a low profile, Dearing nicely agreed to chat with us recently about a few things, including who he thinks is the best early-stage tech investor in the business today. From that interview:

There’s been increasing chatter in the Valley about diversity in startups and investing, as well as the moral actions of companies. What strikes you most about the ecosystem in 2015? What’s healthy and what’s unhealthy in your opinion?

On the “healthy” list: continued inbound immigration — international and domestic — of exceptional people; circulation of talent from company to company; and bio-diversity of products being created. The “unhealthy” list for Silicon Valley is the same as for Earth. Sometimes people treat each other terribly. Sometimes fear and status anxiety creates a zero-sum thinking. But it’s a self-cleaning oven. What I mean is that the stuff on our “healthy” list eventually, inevitably overcomes the stuff on our “unhealthy” list. [It happens] slower than I’d like, but I’m an optimist, I guess. This is the world capital of our Industrial Revolution, so of course good will win!

As a long-time seed investor, what have been the biggest changes you’ve seen in how companies get off the ground?

Today, there’s an ample supply of money, ideas and talent. I think we’re short on great general management. Gears grind when people struggle to make a business work. Get everyone working on the right stuff. Make sure we set goals and hit them. All the stuff Andy Grove talks about in High Output Management. But it’s an old issue. The scarcest input in our system right now has been in short supply for 200-plus years of industrial capitalism — exceptional general management. That means stuff is harder than it needs to be, things take longer, the runway gets eaten up faster than it should. If we fix that, we can massively amplify the power of our talent, good ideas, and money. That’s why great general managers are so important. That’s where I am steering Harrison Metal.

What’s your view on hot, high-growth companies staying private longer?

I think it’s a good thing when founders have options. Obviously there’s risk on pricing. Will the companies grow into the valuations? I hope so. Where you get into trouble is in the high-flying private deals where the leadership takes out a ton of money in secondary sales. Especially if those companies face a shortage of great general management. Stuff goes sideways really quick when the business is run poorly and the leadership is prematurely rich.

You’ve been in Palo Alto for years, but the center of gravity for many consumer and some B2B startups is now in San Francisco. How has Palo Alto changed for you, and have you ever thought about moving to the city?

I love Palo Alto. We have Stanford, the sun, things like that. I spent eight years teaching at Stanford and my home is here. I don’t think of it as an “or” — PA versus SF. They are each part of the whole, and I spend a lot of time in both places. PA has changed a ton, though. When I started Harrison Metal, I used to be able to walk around PA and see a good chunk of the portfolio. But today it’s not that way. Maybe it will be again someday. Until then I, for one, affirm loyalty to my Palantir overlords.

You’re not one to appear often publicly or promote yourself, so I’m curious: Who is one early-stage investor who founders should get to know, and what have you learned by working and co-investing with this person?

The very best early-stage investor in the business is Steve Anderson [of Baseline Ventures]. His track record is exceptional, obviously — and he’s well known for it — but I mean “best” in the broadest sense. Tells the truth. Focuses on making the pie big first. Crazy supportive of his founders in good and bad times. He’s honest and hard-working. He’s the very first person I would go see if I were raising money. There are some truly exceptional people in the early-stage business, but he’s at the top of my list.

Semil Shah is a guest holiday contributor to StrictlyVC. Shah is currently working as a venture advisor to two funds, Bullpen Capital (which focuses on post-seed rounds) and GGV Capital (a cross-border U.S.-Asia fund). You can follow him on Twitter at @semil.

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New Fundings

Blu Homes, a 6.5-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based company that assembles eco-friendly homes and then ships them to customers, has raised $21.7 million of a planned $35 million funding round, according to an SEC filing. To date, shows Crunchbase, the company has raised $184.2 million, including from Skagen Group and Brightpath Capital Partners.

EHang, a year-old, San Francisco-based company that makes drones for recreational use, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by GGV Capital, with participation from entrepreneurs Xiaoping Xu and Nick Yang, as well as PreAngel, a fund focused on early-stage startups. (The WSJ has more on the company here.)

FXiaoKe, a three-year-old, Beijing-based social cloud-based service provider that’s also known as Facishare, has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by DCM, with participation from earlier backers IDG Capital and Northern Light Venture Capital. The outlet e27 has the story. The company has now raised $63 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Neurotrack Technologies, a 2.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company that’s developing a predictive test for Alzheimer’s disease that would enable its detection up to six years before the first symptoms appear, has raised $1 million in debt, shows an SEC filing that was first flagged by MedCity News. Neurotrack had previously raised $2 million in Series A funding from Rock Health, Founders Fund, and The Social+Capital Partnership.

TaxiForSure, a 3.5-year-old, Bangalore, India-based app-based taxi and car rental aggregator, is planning to raise close to $60 million from a new investor, reports Deal Curry. Earlier this year, the company had raised $30 million in funding led by earlier backer Accel Partners, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners and Helion Venture Partners. This would be the fourth round of funding for the company.

VideoDesk, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based cloud-based video-chat services company whose service is designed to ease online consumer purchases, has raised $4.8 million from unnamed investors. More here.

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New Funds

Cowboy Ventures, the seed-stage investment firm led by former Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Aileen Lee, has officially closed on $57 million for its second fund, reports Venture Capital Dispatch, which says the firm has yet to make an investment from that fund. An SEC form processed in September had shown Cowboy was targeting $55 million. The firm’s debut fund had closed with $40 million in 2012.

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IPOs

Flex Pharma, a year-old, Boston-based biotech company that’s developing treatments for leg cramps and spasms associated with severe neuromuscular conditions, has filed to go public (already!). The company has raised $40 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. According to its S-1, its biggest outside shareholders are Longwood Founders Fund, which owns 19.23 percent of the business, and Bessemer Venture Partners, which owns 9.82 percent.

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People

Media magnate John Malone and his wife, Leslie, are giving $42.5 million to Colorado State University to develop stem cell and other treatments for animals and people, the biggest donation in the school’s history.

Former WSJ reporter Cari Tuna and Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz were in their mid-20s in 2010 when they became the youngest couple ever to sign on to the Giving Pledge, and they quickly decided to focus on research-driven “effective altruism,” rather than any personal causes. Indeed, reports the Washington Post, after “three years, several hundred interviews and trips that took them from Washington think tanks . . . to rural villages in Kenya,” the couple — who fly coach and share a used car — has narrowed their interests to four overarching buckets and they plan to announce their first major gifts early this coming year.

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Data

In the first three quarters of 2014, 35 debut early-stage funds closed at less than $100 million, the highest number recorded by Dow Jones VentureSource.

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Essential Reads

Hacked emails reveal China’s elaborate and absurd Internet propaganda machine.

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Detours

The building that strands lawmakers, lobbyists and journalists on their way to meetings—and sometimes to their own offices.

The weird connections between hearing and taste.

Building the Golden Gate Bridge.

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Retail Therapy

Minivans for budding oligarchs.

The ultimate (four-foot-long) electric sports car.

Happy Friday, everyone! Today, we have something a little out of the ordinary: Lise Buyer of Class V Group, a consultancy for firms looking to go public, has written a column for us, authored with her colleague Leslie Pfrang. It’s a great guide for companies that are contemplating a run at the public market in 2015. Hope you enjoy it. (Web visitors, you can find an easier-to-read version of the column, along with the rest of today’s email, right here.)

Also, a quick reminder that we’re not publishing StrictlyVC next week. We hope you have a terrific holiday with loved ones, and we’ll see you back here on Monday, December 29.

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Top News in the A.M.

A BBC investigation has found poor treatment of workers in Chinese factories that make Apple products, including exhausted workers who were filmed falling asleep on their 12-hour shifts. One undercover reporter, working in a factory making parts for Apple computers, had to work 18 days in a row despite repeated requests for a day off. Another reporter was housed in a dormitory where 12 workers shared a cramped room. Apple says CEO Tim Cook is “deeply offended” by the allegations.

Whoa. Citigroup raised the valuation of Instagram this morning from $19 billion to $35 billion.

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Ready to Go Public? Really? You’re Sure?

It’s been a pretty terrific time in the IPO market this past year. According to Renaissance Capital, through December 15, there have been 271 IPOs in the U.S. in 2014, compared with 221 IPOs a year ago at this time, a volume increase of 23 percent. Thanks to Alibaba’s thunderlizard of a deal, the dollars raised by IPOs this year, $84.2 billion, exceeds last year’s total of $ 54.6 billion by 54 percent. Not bad.

Ah, but look deeper and you will see that actually, roses weren’t coming up everywhere. While 271 IPOs have been completed so far this year, conservative estimates suggest that more than 350 companies filed S-1s, a difference of nearly 30 percent. For every 3 deals that filed and went public this year, at least one did the training, filed an S-1 and didn’t make it to the starting line. Of course, we need to back out those companies that filed late in the year, targeting a 2015 transaction. If we aggressively estimate that 20 fit that pattern, we still have more than 50 that didn’t get the job done as planned. When you consider the time and expense required for an initial filing, that is a big number.

What’s the difference and what price “optionality”?

Bankers and others can be convincing when suggesting companies take advantage of the relatively new option to file confidentially: “Get on file now, then choose your timing later, but you’ll be ready.” Factually correct? Yes. Good for your business, your P&L, your employees or your IPO? Not so fast. Preparing for an IPO too soon is neither a cost free nor risk free option.

The ongoing and elevated expense, distraction, loss of momentum and sometimes embarrassment (Box anyone?) that accompany a premature “go” decision can easily outweigh any timing flexibility benefits.

OK, but IPOs do take a long time. How do we know when to start?

At January board meetings, following the “year in review” appraisals, many private company boards will have the “Is this the year to go?” conversation. (By “go,” we mean schedule a bake-off and hire bankers.) In advance of those meetings, we offer five questions every board should ponder before dropping the green flag:

1) Can your sales and financial teams accurately forecast results for the next few quarters? Did you nail your forecasts last quarter? If answering either of these is anything other than a rock solid “yes”, then take your time. Public investors show no mercy to companies that miss an early quarter. Worse still, the brickbats courtesy of angry investors will be but mere annoyances relative to the grenades your employees, customers and partners may lob through your door if you miss an early public quarter.

2) Do you have the right team in place? No really, are you sure you have the right team in place, not just for the IPO but also for the long term? Step back and take a cold, clear look. The team that helped you get this far may be gifted, battle-tested and composed of friends. That doesn’t mean it’s the team for a fast-growing public company. Public investors want to know that the C-suite in place for the IPO can scale the organization. Newly public companies juggle enough knives when adjusting to the market’s spotlight. There’s little bandwidth for concurrently integrating new senior leaders.

3) Is your business model stable and ready for public scrutiny? Admittedly, there are companies (like Twitter) where even 12 months post-IPO the model remain an enigma. We grant that if your business has north of 200 million active users, investors may cut you some slack. However, for most, a more stable model correlates to a larger crowd of investors rallying around your IPO’s order book. Are you hoping to migrate to a subscription model? Do you see significant price changes or regulatory updates on the near-term horizon? Launch that new model or absorb the changes before you step on the IPO court. In the eyes of investors, a foot-fault of your own making — or because someone else moved the lines in a way you could have predicted — will cripple your stock’s performance.

4) Are you ready for an intense audit? The reason most companies on the IPO trail get thrown off course is because their audits aren’t ready on schedule. Audits won’t be rushed. The drill-down scrutiny on every last decimal point is much more intense when your auditors know you’re preparing for an IPO. The size of your audit team and number of questions will often triple during this process.

5) Is your company really strong enough to support the valuation you expect? For this point, we will excuse readers at health-science companies, but for those selling products and services, size matters. Management teams tend to be optimistic. Bankers, reflecting experience, tend to be conservative. Your finance team may produce a model projecting revenues over the next two years of $X and $Y. By the time bankers have helped you “refine” them, your forecasts (for the sell side analysts) will likely be closer $.7X and $.8Y. Expect similar treatment (in the opposite direction) for your expense projections. It is those banker-adjusted numbers from which your initial valuation range will be determined. Do the exercise in-house to be sure the projected valuation, based off a hacked-up model, will be acceptable before hiring banks and kicking off a process. The more directly you face the conservative forecast reality, the better prepared you will be for the go/no go decision.

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New Fundings

Bustle, a 1.5-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based news, entertainment, lifestyle, and fashion site, has raised $15.5 million in Series C funding led by General Catalyst Partners. Other participants in the round include Time Warner Investments, Rothenberg Ventures, 500 Startups and The Social+Capital Fund. The company has now raised roughly $27 million to date.

Echodyne, a new, Bellevue, Wa.-based company that makes radar products based on metamaterials technology invented by Intellectual Ventures in collaboration with Duke University and the University of California at San Diego, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Bill Gates and the Madrona Venture Group, with participation fromVulcan Capital, Lux Capital, The Kresge Foundation, and others. The company is the fourth spin-out of Intellectual Ventures.

Hampton Creek, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company that’s committed to finding new ways of using plants in food products, has raised $90 million in Series C funding led by previous investors Horizons Ventures and Khosla Ventures, with participation from a long list of other investors, including Collaborative Fund, Founders Fund, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. The company has now raised $120 million altogether. TechCrunch has much more here.

Mixpanel, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based advanced analytics platform that was originally incubated at Y Combinator, has raised $65 million in new funding from earlier backer Andreessen Horowitz, reportedly at a $865 million valuation. TechCrunch has more here. The company had previously raised around $12 million, including from Sequoia Capital, Bebo founder Michael Birch, and Affirm cofounder and CEO Max Levchin, among others.

Scioderm, a two-year-old, Durham, N.C.-based company in clinical studies with a topical therapy meant to treat the genetic skin disorder epidermolysis bullosa, has raised a $20 million Series B funding led by new investor Redmile Group, with participation from earlier backers Morgenthaler Ventures and Technology Partners.

Skytap, an eight-year-old, Seattle-based service that aims to help development and test teams in the enterprise work more efficiently, has raised $35 million in new funding led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backers, including OpenView Venture Partners, Ignition Partners, Madrona Venture Group, and Washington Research Foundation. Skytap has now raised $64.5 million altogether.

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New Funds

Venture Investment Associates, a 21-year-old fund of funds group, has started raising a $150 million fund of funds that will back venture capital, growth equity and buyout funds, according to VentureWire. The firm recently closed a $50 million seed fund of funds. (StrictlyVC talked with managing director Chris Douvos about the latter last month.)

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IPOs

DraftKings, a 3.5-year-old, Boston-based daily fantasy sports business, is looking to go public in as little as two years, CEO Jason Robins tells The Street. DraftKings had raised $41 million in Series C funding led by Raine Group back in August; it has raised $76.4 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Juno Therapeutics, a 13-month-old, Seattle-based biotechnology company, priced 11 million shares at $24 each in its IPO last night, for gross proceeds of $264 million. Shares for the company’s widely anticipated IPO begin trading today on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol JUNO.

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Exits

Zomato, a 6.5-year-old, New Delhi, India-based, Yelp-like service, has acquired Italian rival Cibando for undisclosed terms. Zomato, which now has a presence in 20 companies, has raised $113 million from investors. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Billionaire Sean Parker has donated $24 million to Stanford to study severe allergic reactions and look for a cure. Parker after whom the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research will be named, has reportedly been in the emergency room up to 14 times himself owing to a severe peanut allergy.

In the fall, 35-year-old Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson sold his company to Microsoft for $2.5 billion. Now, he has outbid Beyonce and Jay Z on this $70 million pad in Beverly Hills.

Venrock partner Bryan Roberts, a life-sciences investor, has quietly racked up six major exits this year — four IPOs and two acquisitions with high price tags. Venture Capital Dispatch asks him how he pulled it off.

Entrepreneur-investor Peter Thiel says he’s taking human growth hormone pills in hopes of living to be 120 years old. More here.

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Happenings

StrictlyVC is hosting its very first “Insider” event on Thursday, February 12, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the art gallery of Next World Capital in San Francisco. Featured speakers include AngelList Naval Ravikant, investor and entrepreneur Keith Rabois, Strava cofounder and CEO Mark Gainey, and Next World cofounder Craig Hanson. (There will also plenty of drinks, hors d’oeuvres, and networking to go around.) Half the tickets have sold already; get yours here.

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Essential Reads

Unilever has dropped its lawsuit against the three-year-old food makerHampton Creek. Unilever, which makes Hellman’s and Best Brands mayonnaise, had accused Hampton Creek of false advertising for calling its egg-free spread “mayo.” Hampton Creek said public support for its sustainable products likely prompted Unilever to abandon the suit.

New York magazine on Yahoo‘s Marissa Mayer and the so-called “glass cliff,” a term psychologists apply to the act of promoting women to board positions after a company has started faltering.

According to a new Bloomberg report, the hackers who broke into Sony’s Hollywood unit probably spent months collecting passwords and mapping the network before they committed a last act of vandalism, setting off a virus that wiped out data and crashed the system in 10 minutes.

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Detours

Incredible real-life castles from around the world.

The language of food.

Who said what? The 2014 news quiz!

——

Retail Therapy

The ol’ Rambo Lambo. It could be yours.

Good Thursday morning, everyone! Semil Shah here, helping to run StrictlyVC through month’s end. Here’s a bit about me from yesterday’s newsletter, if you missed it.

If you’d like to chat about anything, you can usually find me on Twitter; I’m @semil.

If you’re looking for an easier-to-read version of this email, you can find it here.

—–

Top News in the A.M.

The hackers win. Yesterday afternoon, Sony Pictures Entertainment announced it will not be releasing the Seth Rogen-James Franco comedy “The Interview” in any form. It also removed any mention of “The Interview” from its official web site.

According to Variety, Sony spent $42 million making the movie and “tens of millions” promoting it. The decision follows threats of a 9/11-style attack on theaters that showed the film.

American officials now believe that North Korea was “centrally involved” in the hacking of Sony Pictures computers. Meanwhile, veteran security experts aren’t so sure.

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VC Andy Weissman on the DNA of Union Square Ventures

For the last four or so years, Andy Weissman has been a partner at New York-based Union Square Ventures. But like his colleagues, including Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham, Weissman has been investing since the dot.com boom and bust of the late ’90s. He first joined Soundview Ventures/Dawntreader Ventures in 1999, spending more than six years with the firm before cofounding Betaworks with John Borthwick in 2007. In 2011, when Betaworks began to focus less on creating an investing portfolio (which Weissman had managed) and more on becoming an operating company, he hopped over to Union Square Ventures.

We talked last week about his work, and what USV is doing to maintain its status as one of the most successful venture firms in the game today.

How has USV’s thesis around “engaged networks of users” factored into investing in mobile-first companies? It’s obviously hard to find apps on mobile, and distribution can feel gated.

Well, at some level our thesis is not monolithic but instead is by design flexible, debatable, and evolving. When we wrote this post [about our pursuit of large networks of engaged users, differentiated through user experience, and defensible through network effects], we tried to explain how each of those words in the thesis matter, and how they each are subject to conversation over time.

So, at another level, the thesis applies to mobile-first companies the same way it applies to any companies or sectors, from mobile to blockchain to marketplaces. That being said, when you have a device that is available in everyone’s pocket, is location aware, and so forth, all the other attributes of a mobile device and mobile apps, there are real questions about the strength of the network effects. Are they the same? Or stronger? Or even weaker? That’s a conversation we’ve been having.

Speaking of which, tell us more about Figure1 and the story of how you came to invest in the company.

Kind of funny. I read something somewhere about the company. And I searched on Twitter and found the names of some of the founders. So I reached out to them on Twitter. A year later, we participated in their Series A financing. One of the best things was that as we got to know them, we realized Figure1 was precisely the kind of company in a medical or healthcare related field that was consistent with our thesis. I just didn’t know that until afterwards.

USV often travels as a team to the Bay Area and other regions to meet companies. This seems different than the lone-wolf culture of other firms.

USV operates in particular way. It’s not necessarily the only way to operate, nor is it necessarily the best way, but it is our way. We are a small firm by design and structure (meaning team size and capital size). And our framework for decision-making is a a particular point of view about the Internet – the thesis. So at least two times a year, we all go to San Francisco and get to spend a little more intimate and collective time with the companies we’ve invested in and others that we want to get to know us better. It works well. That small collaborative nature is part of the DNA. So we move in packs sometimes.

On mobile, besides Twitter, where do you find yourself having the most conversations? What apps are you most social on and why?

Twitter, Tumblr, Groupme, Reddit — the usual suspects. I lurk a lot in Figure1 and K-Pop Amino [a social network for Korean pop songs, photos, news and Korean music videos], then some other, very niche communities. As my friend Brad Dickason wrote to me the other day, “Put any self-branded introvert in a room with someone else who shares their passion and an intense dialogue ensues.”

USV has been doing more seed rounds of late. Naming rounds these days seems more complicated than it’s worth. How has USV adjusted its strategy to meet today’s environment?

I think we view our DNA as early stage investors foremost, without regard necessarily for whether something would classically be called Seed or A or whatever. I don’t think we’ve really adjusted the strategy. There are periods when we seem engaged in companies that at the earliest stages require less capital, and periods when the don’t. Lately, there have been more of the former than the latter, but we’ve also done a few of what you’d consider classic “Series A.”

—–

New Fundings

Beautycounter, a 1.5-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based company that sells non-toxic personal-care products, said that TPG Growth has made a strategic investment of undisclosed size in the company in exchange for a minority stake in its business. Reuters has more here.

Expect Labs, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose speech recognition technology aims to predict the items you intend to search before you say them, has raised $13 million from new strategic investors, including Samsung Ventures, Intel Capital, Telefónica Digital and Liberty Global Ventures. Fenox Venture Capital, Westcott and Quest Venture Partners also joined the round. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

First Opinion, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup with a texting app that pairs doctors who want to work from home with people who have basic health questions, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Polaris Partners. Earlier backers also joined the round, including Felicis Ventures, Monashees Capital, Scrum Ventures and True Ventures. The company previously raised $2.6 million in seed funding, including from 500 Startups and Greylock Partners.

Flexus Biosciences, a 1.5-year-old, San Carlos, Ca.-based biopharmaceutical company that’s developing small-molecule cancer immunotherapies that target regulatory T cells, has raised $38 million in fresh funding from Celgene Corp., Column Group, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Inbox Messenger, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based mobile messaging application, has raised $3.9 million in seed funding from unnamed angel investors. The company has now raised $4.9 million, shows Crunchbase.

Open Garden, a nearly four-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile broadband network for Internet of Things devices, has raised $10.8 million in Series A funding led by August Capital, with Firebolt Ventures, Future Perfect Ventures, Kima Ventures, Tseung Kwan Ventures and Sherpalo participating. The company says the round closed in March and “remained undisclosed until now for competitive purposes.” The company has raised $12.8 million altogether.

P97 Networks, a two-year-old, Houston-based cloud-based mobile commerce and marketing platform for the convenience and fuel retailing industry, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Emerald Technology Ventures led the round, with participation from American Trading and Production Corp. and other unnamed new and existing investors,

Padlock Therapeutics, a year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that’s developing therapies that remove molecular triggers behind autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, has raised $23 million in Series A led by Atlas Venture. Padlock was incubated as part of the Atlas Venture seed program.

PeerNova, an eight-month-old, Silicon Valley-based company that’s developing distributed trust systems based on blockchain technologies, has raised the first tranche of a Series A equity and debt funding round led by Mosiak Partners, with participation from Crypto Currency Partnersand individual investors.

Quanergy Systems, a two-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company whose software and sensors capture and process 3-D mapping data in real time, has raised $30 million in Series A funding led by Rising Tide Fund, with participation from Wicklow Capital, Motus Ventures, and Wardenclyffe Partners. The company has now raised $34.5 million to date.

Rapid7, a 14-year-old, Boston-based maker of security risk management software, has raised $30 million in fresh funding from earlier backers Bain Capital Ventures and Technology Crossover Ventures. The company has now raised at least $89 million, shows Crunchbase.

RealConnex, a two-year-old, New York-based creator of an online marketplace for real estate services and investing, has emerged from beta with a $3.5 million Series A round led by Star Capital and Stratus Investments, Venture Capital Dispatch reports. As part of the funding, one of the lead investors, Star Capital, is also creating a $100 million fund, the RealConnex Opportunity 1 Fund, to finance projects on the platform. More here.

Redfin, the 10-year-old, Seattle-based online real estate search and brokerage service, has raised $71 million in Series G funding, including from Annox Capital, Brothers Brook, Glynn Capital Management, and Wellington Management, reports Inman News. The company has now raised $167.8 million to date.

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New Funds

Avalon Ventures, a 31-year-old, La Jolla, Ca.-based early-stage venture firm, will be looking to raise a new, $250 million fund next year, the firm tells VentureWire. Its last fund, Avalon Ventures X, closed on $200 million in 2012.

High Peaks Venture Partners, the 10-year-old, New York-based early-stage venture firm, is looking to raise up to $60 million for its third fund, shows an SEC filing that states the firm has raised $11.2 million so far.

Khosla Ventures, the 10-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based venture firm, is raising a new $400 million seed fund, according to an SEC filing flagged by TechCrunch.

——

Exits

RainStor, a 10-year-old, San Francisco-based startup specializing in online big-data archiving on Hadoop, has been acquired by publicly traded Teradata Corp. for undisclosed terms. RainStore had raised at least $26 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. Its backers included Credit Suisse and Storm Ventures.

—–

People

First Round Capital just posted its holiday video, “All About Burn Rate.”

More semi-embarrassing emails leaked as part of the Sony hacking were published yesterday. Among them, a note from Insight Venture Partners cofounder Jerry Murdoch to Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel around the time that Snapchat turned down Facebook’s $3 billion acquisition offer last year. “I am happy to hear that Zuck came back and you wisely turned him down again!,” writes Murdoch to Spiegel. “Ha that must have been painful for him! He is too cheap to really pay up for the thing that is killing his core.” Business Insider has more here.

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel wrote a year ago that Facebook would soon see a reversal of its fortunes, shows a separate email exchange with Snapchat board member and Sony executive Michael Lynton that has surfaced in the Sony hack. Wrote Spiegel, “Facebook has continued to perform in the market despite declining user engagement and pullback of brand advertising dollars — largely due to mobile advertising performance – especially App Install advertisements. This is a huge red flag because it indicates that sustainable brand dollars have not yet moved to Facebook mobile platform and mobile revenue growth has been driven by technology companies (many of which are VC funded) . . . This props up Facebook share price . . . When the market for tech stocks cools, Facebook market cap will plummet, access to capital for unproven businesses will become inaccessible, and ad spend on user acquisition will rapidly decrease – compounding problems for Facebook and driving stock even lower. Instagram may be only saving grace if they are able to ramp advertising product fast enough.”

The seven-year-old online dating platform Zoosk has shaken up management has postponed plans to go public. Chief Executive Shayan Zadeh and President Alex Mehr are stepping down, though both will remain on the company’s board. Kelly Steckelberg, who has worked for the company for four years, including as its CFO and COO, will become CEO. Zoosk had filed to go public in April. It has raised roughly $60 million from investors over the years, including Bessemer Venture Partners and Crosslink Capital.

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Data

Renaissance Capital just released its 2014 US IPO annual review. You can view the whole report here.

—–

Essential Reads

Jawbone‘s missing Christmas.

Graphene: Fast, strong, cheap, and unusuable.

—–

Detours

Kids’ movies feature more onscreen deaths than films for grownups, says a surprising paper published this week.

I am an artisanal attorney.

—–

Retail Therapy

Sushi socks.

The “Blackberry Classic” smartphone. Really.

Hi, happy Wednesday, everyone! Semil Shah here, helping to run StrictlyVC through month’s end. Some of you know me; for those who don’t, I’m currently working as a venture advisor to two funds, Bullpen Capital and GGV Capital; I have a seed fund, Haystack; and I thoroughly enjoy talking with smart investors, which I’ll be doing here over the next few days and the last week of December. (StrictlyVC won’t be publishing next week.)

If you’d like to chat about anything, you can usually find me on Twitter; I’m @semil.

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Snapchat is more ambitious than you might have thought. TechCrunch last night discovered three acquisitions made by the messaging giant, per leaked Sony emails between Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton and Snapchat board member (and Benchmark general partner) Mitch Lasky. According to those exchanges, reports TechCrunch, “Snapchat bought a QR scanning and iBeacon startup called Scan.me for $14 million in cash, $3 million in restricted stock units, and $33 million in Class B common Snapchat stock. It also acquired Vergence Labs, maker of an eyeglass video camera, for $11 million in cash and $4 million in stock.” Snapchat also shelled out $10 million in cash and $20 million in stock and bonuses for AddLive, which handles the back end of Snapchat’s video chat. The exchanges also suggest that Snapchat is interested in starting a record label and promoting the artists through Snapchat. Much more here.

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VC Patrick Gallagher on Where CrunchFund is Shopping Now

When college friends Patrick Gallagher and Michael Arrington came together in 2011 to start CrunchFund, Arrington — who’d founded the media property TechCrunch in 2005 — brought contacts, startup smarts, and a talent for drumming up attention to the table. Gallagher brought his own sizable network and institutional investing know-how, having been a partner with VantagePoint Ventures and, before that, an investor at Morgan Stanley Venture Partners.

The mix appears to work. The pair have funded hundreds of companies to date, including Uber and Airbnb. They’re also investing a second fund that closed earlier this year, having reportedly closed on about $30 million, or roughly the amount of their debut fund.

This week, I asked Gallagher about that second fund via email. We also talked about Arrington, who made Seattle his primary residence back in 2010, a year before he sold TechCrunch to AOL. Our conversation follows:

When most people think of “CrunchFund,” they think of Mike Arrington. How often is Mike in the Valley these days, and how have you observed him change as he transitioned from a writer and blogger to a full-time investor?

These days, Mike spends at least half his time in the Valley, where around 70 percent of our investments are.

When we started CrunchFund, one of the things that really resonated with Mike was the ability to meet with and interact with entrepreneurs at the earliest stages of a company’s life. Those were the types of companies he initially wrote about when he started TechCrunch and what he enjoys the most. Mike has always had a good sense for consumer start-ups but when you’re writing about a company, the opportunity cost is primarily your time to write the article. When you make an investment, the opportunity cost is much higher in terms of dollars and time. The biggest change I’ve seen in Mike since he became a full-time investor is his investment evaluation process. He now spends significantly more time trying out products and getting to know the company founders before he’s ready to sponsor an investment.

CrunchFund’s smaller bet in Uber’s [$37 million, December 2011] Series B round is now of epic status. Walk us through how that deal came together. Was the partnership divided about making such an investment as a seed firm?

CrunchFund is primarily a seed and early stage fund, but we allocate up to 20 percent of our fund for later-stage investments in companies we think can still generate venture level returns, and these have included Uber, Airbnb, Square, Skybox Imaging, Bluefly, Redfin, and a few others.

Mike had written about Uber when it had first launched and had been friends with the company’s CEO, Travis [Kalanick], since 2006. We were both loyal users of the service, and when we found out that the company was raising its Series B, we asked if we could invest a small amount, and they graciously gave us an allocation.

Tell readers more about what you focus on as an investor, including the B2B side and infrastructure side. I think founders want to know more about CrunchFund’s appetite for startups.

I started my career in the venture business in 1997 at Morgan Stanley Venture Partners. We were the venture arm of this massive financial services firm that spent over $1 billion on IT, so I’ve spent most of my career investing in enterprise-facing companies and I spend the majority of my time focused on them at CrunchFund. About 40 percent of our investments are enterprise-facing companies, including Digital Ocean, Mesosphere, Branding Brand, Abacus Labs, Feed.fm, Rocketrip, Layer and many others. I see a ton of innovation in the enterprise, from the infrastructure inside the datacenter to the software people are using to manage their businesses day to day.

I’m also a big believer in companies that sell to [small and mid-size businesses]. I was on the board of Constant Contact through its IPO and have seen firsthand that you can build a large business selling to this segment.

For enterprise infrastructure deals, which don’t feature as many “party” rounds as do consumer deals, how does a smaller fund like CrunchFund make a dent when all the big firms want to max their ownership?

CrunchFund typically invests $100,000 to $250,000 as an initial investment, and we normally don’t lead deals, so it’s pretty easy for us to fit into most rounds. We’re additive to any investor syndicate, and we focus on providing specific help with media and PR positioning and
and introductions for larger follow-on rounds of financing through our network. We also open up our networks for things like business development, recruiting, and customer introductions. For us, because our fund size is still relatively small, investments in this range are meaningful.

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New Fundings

FarmLogs, a two-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based agricultural tech startup (and Y Combinator alum) that helps U.S. farms analyze data to increase their fields’ profitability, has raised $10 million in Series B funding from new investors SV Angel and Y Combinator President Sam Altman, along with earlier backers Drive Capital, Huron River Ventures, and Hyde Park Venture Partners. The company has now raised $15 million altogether.

Freight Farms, a 4.5-year-old, Boston-based start that has developed a portable commercial farming system (it sells shipping containers that grow vegetables using hydroponics), has raised $3.7 million led by Spark Capital. It marks the venture firm’s first agriculture-related investment. Freight Farms has now raised $4.9 million altogether, including from Morningside Venture Investments, LaunchCapital and Rothenberg Ventures. BostInno has more here.

Mattermark, the nearly two-year-old, San Francisco-based business intelligence site, has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding led by Foundry Group, with participation from earlier investors. TechCrunch has more here.

NowThis Media, a two-year-old, New York City-based video news startup, has raised $6 million in Series C funding led by Oak Investment Partners, with participation from new investor Axel Springer, as well as earlier backers NBC Universal News Group, SoftBank Capital and Lerer Hippeau Ventures. The company has raised $15.6 million altogether.

Phononic Devices, a 6.5-year-old, Durham, N.C.-based semiconductor-based heating and cooling company, has raised $44.5 million in Series D funding led by earlier backer Eastwood Capital. The company has now raised a total of $87.5 million.

Predilytics, a 3.5-year-old, Manchester, N.H.-based company whose software helps health plans and other medical groups use data to improve their care and operations, has raised $10 million in Series C funding, including from new investors Qualcomm Ventures and Foundation Medical Partners and earlier backers Highland Capital Partners and Flybridge Capital Partners. The company has raised $20.5 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Quantenna Communications, an eight-old, Fremont, Ca.-based high-speed wireless silicon company, has raised $22 million in new funding led by Centerview Capital Technology, Vivint and NTT Group. Earlier investors also participated, including Sequoia Capital, DAG Ventures, Rusnano, Sigma Partners and Venrock. The company has raised roughly $166 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Serviz, a year-old, L.A.-based app and website that lets users order up appliance repair, carpet cleaning, and other home services, has just raised $12.5 million in Series B funding led by PointGuard Ventures. Existing investors Andy Sheehan, Jeff Stibel of Stibel Investments, and numerous other individuals also joined the round. The company has now raised $20 million.

The Skimm, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based daily email newsletter that simplifies headlines for busy professionals, has raised $6.25 million in new funding from investors, including from earlier backer RRE Ventures and new backers Greycroft Partners, comedian Chelsea Handler and former Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff. The company has now raised $7.8 million altogether.

Star2Star, a nine-year-old, Sarasota, Fl.-based company whose software unifies communications for businesses, combining voice, video conferencing, and instant messaging, has raised $30 million in a round led by NewSpring Growth Capital, with participation from PPM America Capital Partners, which is a NewSpring limited partner. Venture Capital Dispatch has the story here.

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New Funds

Northzone, the 18-year-old, Stockholm-based venture capital firm, has closed its seventh fund with 250 million euros ($312.6 million). One of the firm’s newest bets is on Dots, a New York-based mobile gaming studio that was just spun out of Betaworks. One of its highest-profile bets is on Spotify, the popular streaming music service.

—–

IPOs

Juno Therapeutics, the year-old, Seattle-based biotech, boosted its IPO range to $21 to $23 per share yesterday as it prepares to become a publicly traded company. Last week, it had set its IPO range at between $15 and $18 per share.

OnDeck Capital, the online service providing small business loans, has already jumped more than 30 percent this morning in its market debut. More here.

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Exits

PeerIndex, a five-year-old, London-based social media analytics company, has been acquired by its better-funded peer Brandwatch for undisclosed terms. According to Crunchbase, PeerIndex had raised $3.8 million from investors, including Meridian Venture Partners. Brandwatch has raised $31.7 million altogether, including from Highland Capital Partners Europe and Nauta Capital.

TrueX Media, a seven-year-old, L.A.-based online ad tech company, has been acquired for upwards of $200 million by 21st Century Fox, reports VentureWire. TrueX had raised roughly $50 million from investors, including Redpoint Ventures, Jafco Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, and Pinnacle Ventures.

—–

People

Last Friday, at an M.I.T. event, 500 Startups founder Dave McClure and Chris Lynch of Atlas Venture had a spirited disagreement over the value of accelerator programs. ““My view,” said Lynch, “is lazy VCs go to demo day and they bid up deals and they overpay for them and that doesn’t help the entrepreneur and it doesn’t help them, and most importantly it doesn’t help the ultimate investor.” The WSJ has more here.

Joel Sng has joined Formation 8 as a partner in Singapore. Sng founded a business incubator in Singapore and has reportedly backed a number of fast-growing companies, including Xiaomi, Coursera, Airbnb, and Palantir Technologies. He came to know Formation 8 when it set up a business development outpost in his incubator’s offices. He has also made at least one co-investment with Formation 8, in the startup Grabit, which makes electroadhesion-based gripping products for material handling applications. Three-year-old Formation 8 recently raised its second fund, closing on $500 million. Reuters has more here.

—–

Job Listings

Capital One Ventures is looking to hire both a principal in San Francisco and an associate in New York.

—–

Data

Google Ventures hearts health care, notes the Wall Street Journal, reporting that one-third of the money Google Ventures invested in 2014 went to health care and life-sciences companies, up from 9 percent each of the prior two years. Google also slowed its investments in consumer Internet startups this year, committing just 8 percent of its capital to related companies, down from 66 percent last year.

—–

Essential Reads

What happened when Marissa Mayer tried to be Steve Jobs.

Ben Thompson on the state of consumer technology right now.

Twitter and Foursquare are planning to partner together in 2015 to power location in tweets, says Business Insider.

—–

Detours

Mars may harbor life after all.

How headlines change the way we think.

The Sony Hack isn’t merely embarrassing; it’s growing increasingly costly, with the potential to wipe out half of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s 2013 profits.

—–

Retail Therapy

Basketballs crafted from “from Italian tumbled leather and other premium leathers embossed with patterns of alligator, ostrich, python, stingray, and more.” Hah, hah. Ho. That is a good one.

Happy Tuesday, everyone! Thanks very much to those of you signed up yesterday for our inaugural StrictlyVC event, being held on Thursday, February 12th in San Francisco. We’re really excited to host you. (If you missed yesterday’s email, announcing what’s happening, check out our Eventbrite page here.)

In other very good news for readers, Semil Shah — who ran the show here for a couple of weeks this past August — will be taking over StrictlyVC again for the rest of this week and for the week of Dec. 29th. (We’re shutting down the works next week.)

Shah is currently working as a venture advisor to two funds, Bullpen Capital, which focuses on post-seed rounds, and GGV Capital, a cross-border U.S.-Asia fund. He’s also a former TechCrunch columnist and has some terrific content lined up for readers, including interviews with Andy Weissman of Union Square Ventures, Michael Dearing of Harrison Metal, and Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss of Winklevoss Capital, so stay tuned!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Samsung is now in talks to launch an Apple Pay competitor.

Uber has written back to Senator Al Franken and he’s not entirely satisfied with its note.

WeWork Companies, a 4.5-year-old company that rents office space, then turns it into shared office space (much of it used by tech startups), has raised $355 million at a stunning $5 billion valuation co-led by T. Rowe Price Associates, clients of Wellington Management, and Goldman Sachs Group. Earlier backers J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Harvard Management Co., and Benchmark also participated. The WSJ has much more here.

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(Other) New Fundings

Adyen, an eight-year-old, Amsterdam-based multichannel payments company that serves as a middleman between merchants and Facebook, Spotify, Airbnb and many other companies that accept credit cards and various currencies, has raised $250 million in funding. General Atlantic led the round, with participation from earlier backers Temasek, Index Ventures and Felicis Ventures. The company has now raised $266 million altogether. The WSJ has more here.

Annexon Bioscience, a four-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company that’s developing drugs to treat neurodegenerative and autoimmune disorders, has raised $34 million in Series A funding led by Novartis Venture Funds, with participating investors Satter Investment Management, and Clarus Ventures. Annexon spun out of Stanford. The San Francisco Business Times has more here.

Boxbee, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based storage service that provides users with plastic containers that are filled and then picked up and stored by the company, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Metamorphic Ventures, with participation from earlier backers. The company has now raised $7.3 million altogether, including from AngelPad, Floodgate Capital, Google Ventures, 500 Startups, Techstars, Ludlow Ventures and individual investors.

Clever, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based education software company that enables schools to quickly sign up and access numerous education apps, all from a single online dashboard, has raised $30 million in new funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backer Sequoia Capital and new backers GSV Capital and Peter Thiel. The company has now raised roughly $43 million altogether.

Dots, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based mobile-gaming company, has raised $10 million in funding from Tencent Holdings, Greycroft Partners, Crunchfund, and Northzone. The company’s two games, “Dots,” and “TwoDots,” have reportedly been downloaded a combined 45 million times.

Foko, a 1.5-year-old, Quebec-based photo sharing and messaging service for corporate workforces, has raised $2 million in seed funding from BDC Capital, Real Ventures and individual investors. The company had previously raised $450,000 in seed funding from individual investors.

Housing.com, a 2.5-year-old, Mumbai, India-based online home and rental property portal, has raised $90 million in new funding led bySoftBank Capital, with participation from participation from Falcon Edge Capital and other, undisclosed investors. The company has now raised roughly $140 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.

Hubba, a two-year-old, Toronto-based company whose online data sharing platform enables retailers to exchange product information, has raised $3.1 million in seed funding from Brightspark, The Social+Capital Partnership, and numerous angel investors.

Infinity Levels, a 1.5-year-old, Bangkok-based gaming startup that originally focused on dating apps, has raised $500,000 in funding from the corporate venture group InVent.

Merchbar, a months-old app that sells official band merchandise (including shirts and vinyl) via a smartphone app and web site, has raised $1 million in seed funding from 500 Startups, Maiden Lane, Structure Capital, Universal Music Group, and numerous individual investors, including WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg, and KISSmetrics co-founder Hiten Shah.

Miyabaobei, a Chinese site that sells formula, clothes, and other items for babies and toddlers, has raised $60 million in Series C funding from H Capital, with participation from returning investors Sequoia Capital and ZhenFund. The company has now raised roughly $100 million altogether,reports TechCrunch.

Neurio Technology, a nine-year-old, Vancouver-based company that was formerly known as Energy Aware Technology and whose in-home technology monitors users’ energy usage, has raised 1.5 million Canadian dollars ($1.3 million) in seed funding from BDC Capital.

OneLogin, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose cloud-based identity and access management software helps companies secure all their users apps on all devices, has raised $25 million in Series C funding led by Scale Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backers CRV and The Social+Capital Partnership. The company has now raised $42.7 million altogether.

SurveyMonkey, the 15-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based online survey platform, has raised $250 million in equity financing, some of which is being used to help employees cash out of some of their equity. New investors include T. Rowe Price, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, and Baillie Gifford & Co.; earlier backers participating in the new funding include Google Capital and Tiger Global Management. SurveyMonkey has raised more than $1.2 billion in debt and equity to date.

Talkspace, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based company that runs a marketplace through which therapists can connect with new clients, book appointments, and deliver therapy remotedly, has added $1 million in seed funding from Metamorphic Ventures. Earlier this year, the company raised $2.5 million in seed funding from Metamorphic, SoftBank Capital, and Spark Capital.

Tendril, a 10-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based company that provides a cloud platform to energy service providers for their energy management applications, has raised $20 million from the publicly traded solar panel maker SunPower. The company has now raised $131.2 million over the years.

Virtuos, a 10-year-old, Shanghai, China-based game developer that specializes in 3D art, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series B funding from Shanghai-based Xuhui Venture Capital. The company says it’s one of the largest providers of offshore production services to the game and movie industries.

Yangche Diandian, a 10-month-old, Hangzhou, China-based company whose mobile app platform connect users with car wash, maintenance and repair services, has raised $30 million Series B funding led by GGV Capital. China Money Network has more here.

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New Funds

Upfront Ventures, the 18-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based early stage venture firm, has closed on $280 million for its fifth fund, considerably more than the $250 million it stated it was targeting in a November SEC filing. The firm, which was formerly known as GRP Partners and specializes in digital media, retail, and consumer-facing tech startups, closed its most recent fund with $200 million in 2013. Venture Capital Dispatch has much more here.

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IPOs

OnDeck Capital, the seven-year-old, New York-based online lender, will price later today and begin trading tomorrow. Investor’s Business Daily has more here.

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Exits

The networking company Riverbed Technology has agreed to be acquired for $3.6 billion after being unable to shake a challenge from activist investor Elliot Management, led by Paul Singer. Its new owner will be the private equity firm Thoma Bravo, which is being joined by a Canadian teachers’ pension group. The San Jose Mercury News has morehere.

Skyera, a four-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based enterprise storage company, has been acquired by the Western Digital Corp. subsidiary HGST in an all-cash deal whose terms aren’t being disclosed. Skyera had raised $51.6 million from investors, including Dell Ventures and the venture arm of Western Digital.

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People

Serial entrepreneur and early Etsy investor Caterina Fake is leaving her role as chairwoman of Etsy’s board, telling VentureBeat that she has mixed feeling about the move but that she’ll still “hang out with Etsy employees, wear Etsy clothes, eat from Etsy dishes, play an Etsy guitar, and wash my hair with Etsy shampoo.” Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson is taking over the role.

Investor Vinod Khosla, speaking at an event in Bangalore, India on Friday, told attendees, “Technology is my only religion. It’s the only thing I subscribe to as a belief system in life.” (Incidentally, Khosla has yet to reopen a private road leading to Martins Beach in San Mateo County one week after a judge ordered him to do so. “It’s clear he’s going to take this all the way to the Supreme Court,” said Joe Cotchett, an attorney for the Surfrider Foundation, which sued Khosla over his 2010 decision to bar public access to the beach.)

Did Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer host a raucous holiday party over the weekend that entailed several days of loud construction, a backyard ice-skating rink, and music that was pumped up as midnight approached? An apparent neighbor says she did. (H/T: Katie Benner.)

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Job Listings

Johnson & Johnson Innovation, a division of Johnson & Johnson, is looking for a director of new ventures at its new life sciences incubator. The job is in Houston.

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Data

CB Insights has just published its 2015 tech IPO pipeline report. You can get a solid overview of its findings, as well as request a free copy of the full report, here.

Crunchbase takes a look at the C.I.A.’s 15-year-old venture arm In-Q-Tel, which has now quietly backed four billion-dollar-plus companies to date: Cloudera, Pure Storage, MongoDB, and Palantir Technologies. More here.

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Essential Reads

Unicorns vs. Dragons.” The first features a rich valuation; the second returns a fund.

China has newly allowed insurance companies to invest in venture capital funds. Reuters has more here.

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Detours

The global conflicts to watch in 2015.

New York magazine’s investing “boy genius” made it all up.

CIA agents assess: How real is “Homeland”?

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Retail Therapy

Butter. It costs [cough] $49 a pound but chef Thomas Keller reportedly swears by it.

Truly incredibeards.

Hi, good Monday morning, everyone!

Before we dive into the news, we’re extremely excited to announce StrictlyVC’s inaugural “Insider” series event on Thursday, February 12th, in the elegant gallery space of Next World Capital, the San Francisco-based expansion-stage firm with ties to Europe.

The early evening program will feature, among others, AngelList cofounder Naval Ravikant, Khosla Ventures partner Keith Rabois, and Strava CEO and cofounder Mark Gainey. We’ll also have yummy hors d’oeuvres and drinks and a very cool bonus for attendees that we’ll be able to disclose shortly.

Space is limited. Tickets are available on a first-come, first-serve basis right here. If you’re interested in co-sponsoring the event, let’s talk!

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Top News in the A.M.

Sony Pictures Entertainment warned media outlets yesterday against using the mountains of corporate data revealed by hackers who raided the studio’s computer systems.

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Erin Glenn, Alphaworks’s New CEO, on Waiting for the SEC

Any new CEO has a lot to contend with, like getting to know employees and clarifying the business’s strategy. Erin Glenn, who recently joined the New York-based crowdfunding platform Alphaworks, has to worry about something else, too: the SEC.

Launched by Betaworks in February of this year, Alphaworks is a white label platform that obtains stakes in companies via seven venture “sponsors” that leave open between $100,000 and $250,000 of certain startups’ rounds. The companies then sell the equity directly to their own “communities,” in turn making those customers even more loyal.

Glenn — who spent the previous four years as CFO of the gaming company Kixeye — sees a day when the model is used across numerous industries, but Alphaworks’s clients so far have been consumer-facing Internet companies with impassioned members.

Gimlet Media, a New York-based podcasting company, is a prime example. Earlier this fall, when the company was looking to top off roughly $1 million in venture funding, it agreed to crowdsource some of the round to its listeners. Alphaworks’s nine employees sprang into action, posting a deal page for Gimlet, reformatting its pitch deck, helping gather audio testimonials and, not last, helping coordinate media coverage to drive interest in the campaign.

The plan worked. Gimlet’s $200,000 crowdfunding campaign was fully subscribed within three hours. (In fact, the company wound up accepting $275,000.) Alphaworks is now represented on Gimlet’s cap table as a special purpose vehicle whose investors have delegated their voting, follow-on, and information rights to Alphaworks.

Still, not everyone who wanted to back Gimlet could — not even close, says Glenn, who estimates that just 25 percent of those who began the registration process were able to complete it. The others didn’t qualify as accredited investors. And until the SEC finalizes a key rule in the now two-year-old JOBS Act that was designed to let small businesses raise money from virtually anyone over the Internet, the non-accredited will remain locked out of the process. (As recently as last week, the agency’s chair, Mary Jo White, suggested it’s in no rush to make binding decisions about the rule, called Title III.)

“It’s frustrating,” says Glenn of the continued delays. “There’s a concern about ‘frothiness’ in the market right now. But in a hot market or a down market, the timing is always going to be difficult.”

In the meantime, Alphaworks has a uniquely challenging mandate. While other crowdfunding platforms cater to wealthy investors in search of investment opportunities, Alphaworks’s focus on turning a company’s fans into owners means it’s catering to very different end users. Not only do many of them lack the financial muscle required currently by the SEC, but some need to be educated on startup investing. (Indeed, Alphaworks, which is backed by $1.5 million from Betaworks, SV Angel, and Lerer Hippeau Ventures, has organized just four campaigns to date.)

Glenn — who says that Alphaworks is sticking to its original mission — isn’t discouraged. As far as she’s concerned, its patience today will pay big dividends later.

She notes, for example, that Gimlet saw nearly triple the demand for what it raised, taking into account the roughly 75 percent of registrants who were forced to abandon the process along the way. “That kind of demand is a strong signal for Gimlet to talk about,” says Glenn. “But it should also be a signal to the SEC. People want to participate in the growth of their favorite companies. They also want to be responsible for their own financial destiny.”

And Alphaworks, she suggests, will be waiting to help them.

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New Fundings

Beactica, an eight-year-old, Uppsala, Sweden-based drug discovery company, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Almi Invest, with participation from other investors, including UNIONEN and Uppsala University Holding.

Carwow, a four-year-old, London-based online platform for buying new cars in the U.K., has raised £4.6 million ($7.2 million) in Series A funding led by Balderton Capital, with participation from Episode 1 Ventures and Samos Investments. The company had previously raised £1.3 million ($2 million) in February this year from the same group of investors.

Hi.Q, a 2.5-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company whose app tests users’ health knowledge through quizzes and by competing with others, has raised $5.5 million in seed funding led by CRV, with participation from Greylock Partners, Menlo Ventures, First Round Capital, Rock Health and Western Technology Investments. Hi.Q was founded by Munjal Shah, who sold his last company, the visual search engine Like.com, to Google for a reported $100 million in 2010. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

iFit, a two-year-old, Taiwan-based online fitness and weight loss community, has raised a $3 million in Series A funding led by Cherubic Ventures, with participation from Yuan-jin Capital, Sino Strategy Group,Alan Chien, and Ming-zhe Ou, the former general manager of Lenovo Taiwan. The company had previously raised $900,000 in seed funding. TechCrunch has more here.

The parent company of Midea, a 46-year-old, Shenzhen, China-based home appliance firm, has sold a 1.29 percent stake in the business to the smartphone giant Xiaomi for roughly $205 million. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

New York state is launching a $50 million fund to back to regional startups. The New York State Innovation Venture Capital Fund is expected to leverage at least $100 million in private capital to support high-growth areas, including advanced materials, clean technology, life sciences/biotechnology and information technology, reports Newsday.

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IPOs

Hortonworks, the big data software provider, saw its stock surge 65 percent on Friday after it raised $100 million in an IPO that topped its price range. (It sold 6.25 million shares at $16 each. It was expected to sell 6 million shares at between $12 and $14 each.) The stock closed trading on Friday at $26.48.

New Relic, the seven-year-old, San Francisco-based software analytics company, also saw its stock rise — nearly 48 percent, in fact — on Friday. More here.

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Exits

Aatalogix, a five-year-old, Westminster, Co.-based company that sells offline purchase data to giant publishers and that had raised a $45 million round in late May, is seeking a buyer, reports peHUB, which says the company is seeking bids of $1 billion. Datalogix has raised at least $111 million to date, shows Crunchbase. Its investors include Breyer Capital, Institutional Venture Partners, General Catalyst Partners, Sequel Venture Partners and Costanoa Venture Capital.

Oculus VR, the Facebook-owned virtual-reality headset maker, is acquiring two startup companies: San Francisco-based Nimble VR, which had raised about $2.2 million from investors, including K9 Ventures,CrunchFund, and Intel Capital; and 13th Lab, a Swedish start-up that had raised just $700,000 from Creandum. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

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People

Business Insider’s Henry Blodget has posted the entirety of a recent interview with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and it’s worth reading. Just one nugget from the sit-down is the revelation that Bezos, like many tech execs, actively limits how much technology his kids use. He tells Blodget: “I have three boys and a girl. The oldest is 14. He was the last person in his class to get a smartphone. He reminded me of this frequently. When the second-to-last person got a smartphone, he sent an email message to all of his classmates that said, ‘Then there was one.’”

—–

Job Listings

Motorola Solutions Venture Capital is in the market for an investment director. The job is in Schaumburg, Il.

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Essential Reads

The Washington Post looks at the vast lobbying network that the car-share service Uber is assembling.

The group claiming responsibility for the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack has offered to selectively refrain from releasing employees’ email correspondence provided that they, erm, write in and ask.

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Detours

An entire collection of classic cars, forgotten for 50 years.

What kids’ drawings reveal about their homes.

“9 Kisses.”

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Retail Therapy

Visit the Paris-based industrial design-focused Museum of Arts et Métiers — through your smart phone.

The Mustachifier Baby Pacifier. It’s so wrong, but yet . . .

Hi, good morning, everyone. No column today. (We had some power outage issues yesterday.) Hope you have a terrific weekend, and we will see you Monday! (Psst, web visitors, here’s an easier-to-read version of what you see below.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Google is shutting down its Russian engineering office, a move “likely related to the Russian government’s decision to require Web companies, starting in 2016, to keep data related to its citizens within Russia as opposed to data centers outside the country,” says The Information.

Facebook has just rolled out a new feature that will let visitors click a single button on a Facebook page to book reservations, use an app, go to a company’s non-Facebook website or sign up for a subscription service, among other things.

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New Fundings

CellTrust, an eight-year-old, Scottsdale, Az.-based secure mobile messaging platform for enterprises, has raised $10.5 million in Series A funding from Kayne Partners.

Dolly, a year-old, Seattle-based peer-to-peer moving and delivery service that specializes in bulky, heavy stuff, has raised $1.7 million in seed funding, including from Hyde Park Venture Partners, KGC Capital and angel investors.

Drivemode, a year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based company whose Android app enables users to easily control their phones without looking at them while driving, has raised $2 million in seed funding from Tokyo-basedIncubate Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Exco InTouch, a 10-year-old, U.K.-based company that makes patient-engagement software for health-care providers and pharmaceutical researchers, has raised roughly $5 million in funding led by Albion Ventures, with earlier investor Scottish Equity Partners participating.

Framed Data, a year-old, San Francisco-based predictive analytics company, has raised $2 million in seed funding, including from Google Ventures, Innovation Works, Jotter, NYU Innovation Fund and angel investors.

Happn, a months-old, Paris-based mobile dating app, has raised $8 million in funding from Alven Capital, DN Capital, and angel investors, including Fabrice Grinda. TechCrunch has more here.

Kinsa, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based maker of a smartphone-connected thermometer, has raised $9.6 million in Series A funding from investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, FirstMark Capital, and serial entrepreneur Andy Palmer among others. The company has now raised $12.2 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Soasta, an eight-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based cloud testing vendor, has raised $15 million in debt from Hercules Technology Growth Capital, reports Venture Capital Dispatch. The company has now raised $78 million altogether, including from Macquarie Capital, Roth Capital, Formative Ventures, and Pelion Venture Partners.

Uber, the five-year-old, San Francisco-based car-booking company, is set to receive cash and non-cash assets worth up to $600 million from China’s biggest Internet search engine company, Baidu, reports Bloomberg. The deal would give Uber a much stronger foothold in China, where competing services Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache, backed respectively by Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group Holding, are gaining widespread traction. Earlier this month, Uber completed a round of funding that valued it at $40 billion; to date, it has raised $2.5 billion altogether.

VideoAmp, a nine-month-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based programmatic video-advertising platform, has raised $2.2 million in funding, including from Anthem Venture Partners, Simon Equity Partners, Third Wave Ventures, Wavemaker Partners and ZenShin Capital.

Woven Digital, a four-year-old, L.A.-based digital media publisher whose news and entertainment sites include Brobible, has raised $18 million in Series A funding led by Institutional Venture Partners, with participation from Advancit Capital, The San Francisco 49ers, United Talent Agency, MySpace and SGN co-founder Chris DeWolfe, Buddy Media co-founder Mike Lazerow, and others. The company has now raised $23.5 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

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New Funds

The renowned accelerator Techstars is launching a new program in Detroit to help startups that are focused on transportation and mobility issues. The initiative, created in partnership with Ford Motor Co., Magna International, and Verizon Telematics, is called Techstars Mobility. More here.

DCM, the 18-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based firm, is raising a second, $100 million fund to back Android startups, according to an SEC filing. Its predecessor fund, the $100 million A-Fund, was developed in partnership with the China-based Internet giant Tencent; KDDI, one of Japan’s largest mobile phone operators; and NHN, which owns one of the largest search engines in South Korea. As DCM general partner Jason Krikorian told us back in March, that side fund has “been really great and given us a lot of flexibility to do deals where we put in a few million dollars at a valuation in the high, double-figure millions, including [South Korean messaging company] Kakao, which now has something like 95 percent penetration of the [regional] population.” (At the time, Kirkorian told us there was “interest” from those same backers in another fund but that DCM didn’t have “any definite plans” to do a second one. Kakao has also since merged with the South Korean Internet portal Daum and is now publicly traded in Korea with a $7 billion market cap, notes TechCrunch.)

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IPOs

Hortonworks, the three-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based Hadoop startup that spun out of Yahoo, is making its Wall Street debut today. The company hopes to raise $100 million from 6.25 million shares offered at $16 per share. Underwriters will have the option of purchasing an additional 937,500 shares. Wired has more here.

Lending Club, the seven-year-old, San Francisco-based peer-to-peer lender, surged 56 percent in its Wall Street debut yesterday. Its shares, which began trading at $24.75 — up from the $15-per-share price set the previous night — ended the day at $23.43, giving the company a valuation of $8.5 billion. That’s higher than all but 14 U.S. banks, reports the San Jose Mercury News.

Momo, a Chinese social media application backed by Alibaba Group Holding, Matrix Partners China, Yunfeng Capital and Sequoia Capital, shot up 26 percent on its first day of trading in New York after raising $216 million. The shares jumped to $17.02 yesterday after they were sold for $13.50, the middle of the price range. Bloomberg has more here.

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Exits

Cognilytics, a five-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based, 200-person, predictive analytics company, is being acquired by the telecommunications company CenturyLink for undisclosed terms. VentureBeat has more here.

Fotolia, a nine-year-old, New York-based stock photo site that hosts 34 million images and videos, is being acquired by Adobe for $800 million in cash, reports VentureBeat, which spied the news buried in Adobe’s fourth-quarter earnings report. Adobe says Fotolia will “continue to operate as a standalone stock service,” but intends to integrate it into its Creative Cloud service. Fotolia has raised $225 million in private equity in recent years, from TA Associates and KKR.

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People

Microsoft‘s billionaire cofounder Paul Allen is picking up the tab for a lawsuit against the Department of the Interior. According to the suit, the agency oversees the leasing of public land to coal mining companies yet doesn’t take into account how that coal will contribute to global climate change.

Google is donating $2 million in grants to three San Francisco-based organizations that help the city’s homeless population, the city announced yesterday. Last Friday, Google cofounder Sergey Brin dropped off 50 hoodies to one of those groups, Larkin Street Youth Services, which will receive $500,000 from Google.org to roll out a college and career preparation program for homeless youth. Stunningly, the San Francisco Unified School District district estimates there are 2,100 homeless kids in San Francisco public schools.

Angry protesters, holding signs of “Ferguson” and “Black lives matter,” stormed through the doors during a speech by investor Peter Thiel on Wednesday at UC Berkeley. “F–k you!” one man shouted as he walked out of the hall, to which Thiel responded after several beats: “This is really a classic Berkeley event today — this is so cool.” Protesters later took over the stage, by which time Thiel had already skedaddled, reports Business Insider.

Twitter cofounder Evan Williams addresses reports that Instagram now has more users than Twitter: “If you think about the impact Twitter has on the world versus Instagram, it’s pretty significant. It’s at least apples to oranges. Twitter is what we wanted it to be. It’s this real-time information network where everything in the world that happens on Twitter—important stuff breaks on Twitter and world leaders have conversations on Twitter. If that’s happening, I frankly don’t give a sh_t if Instagram has more people looking at pretty pictures.”

Tesla China President Veronica Wu has resigned from the company just nine months after joining it from Apple, reports Bloomberg, which doesn’t cite a reason for her departure. Tom Zhu, who heads Tesla’s charging network development in China and who had previously co-founded Kaibo International, which provides project and construction management services, will reportedly take over for Wu. Tesla started delivering Model S sedans to China in April and expects to start building them there within three to four years.

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Job Listings

Monsanto Growth Ventures, the corporate venture arm of the agricultural products giant, is looking for a portfolio director to lead its $140 million portfolio of investments. The job is in St. Louis.

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Data

According to new data out of Cambridge Associates, U.S. private equity and venture capital funds generated positive returns in the second quarter, with PE outperforming VC by a margin of almost two to one. PE also surpassed VC over the six-month period ending June 30, and both surpassed the performance of public equities. More here.

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Essential Reads

Google has published a list of most-downloaded apps from Google Play, its online apps storefront, over the past twelve months.

When alleged Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht’s trial begins in January, he’ll face charges of narcotics conspiracy, money laundering, and computer fraud—not murder. But the prosecution and judge in his case have now refused to let him know which witnesses will be testifying against him for fear that he might orchestrate their killing from his jail cell, reports Wired. More here.

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Detours

A woman whose identity is stolen gets her revenge, and how.

The vanishing American male worker.

Forty examples of stunning aviation photography.

—–

Retail Therapy

Don’t have an iPhone 6 yet? You can buy one right now for $129 at Walmart.

Famous rapper bodysuit onesies. [Throws mic over shoulder.]