It is Wednesday, woot! In observance of Thanksgiving, we’ll be shutting down the works until Monday. Before we go, we’d like to say thank you, so much, for reading and helping us to grow StrictlyVC. We hope you have a wonderful long weekend.

(P.S.: No column today. Also, web visitors, this version is easier to read than what you see below.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Uber, the 5.5-year-old mobile car-booking company, is closing in a round of funding that would value it at between an astonishing $35 billion to $40 billion, according to Bloomberg sources. T. Rowe Price Group is reportedly in the mix, though that could change, says Bloomberg, whose sources expect Uber to raise at least $1 billion. The company has raised $1.5 billion to date.

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New Fundings

Appear Here, a two-year-old, London-based online marketplace for short-term retail space rentals (it accommodates pop-up stores), has raised $7.5 million in new funding led by Balderton Capital. Earlier backers MMC Ventures, Forward Partners, and the real estate investment fund Meyer Bergman also took part in the round, which brings the company’s funding to $9.4 million.

Cell Medica, an eight-year-old, London-based cellular immunotherapy company, has raised £50 million ($78.5 million) in Series B funding, including from Imperial Innovations, Invesco Perpetual and Woodford Investment Management. The company has now raised $118 million across five funding rounds, shows Crunchbase.

Elara Technologies, a 3.5-year-old, Singapore-based company that runs PropTiger.com, an Indian real estate platform, has raised $30 million from News Corp. in exchange for a 25 percent stake in its business. Earlier investors SAIF Partners, Accel Partners and Horizen Ventures also participated in the round. The company has now raised roughly $44 million altogether, says the Economic Times.

Experiment Engine, a 10-month-old, Austin, Tx.-based A/B testing platform, has raised $1 million in seed funding from Founder Collective and Mercury Fund, along with individual investors.

Flipkart, the seven-year-old, Bangalore, India-based e-commerce giant, has raised another $600 million just months after raising $1 billion, reports the Economic Times. Earlier backers, including Tiger Global Management, Naspers and DST Global, have each poured $50 million to $100 million into the new round, with a new, undisclosed investor, “chipping in a nominal amount,” says the Economic Times. Flipkart has now raised nearly $2.5 billion dollars altogether.

Grabyo, a 1.5-year-old, London-based video platform that partners with TV broadcasters to allow TV viewers to legally share real-time clips of their content, has raised $2 million in funding from a global group of sports starts, including Premier League soccer stars Cesc Fabregas and Robin Van Persie and NBA player Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs.

Harry’s, a three-year-old, New York-based company that mails shaving cream, razors, and “German-engineered” blades to customers, has raised a new round of “about $75 million” from an unknown group of investors,reports The Deal. The company’s earlier backers include Thrive Capital, Lakestar Capital, Box Group, SV Angel, Red Swan Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, and Tiger Global Management. The round brings the company’s total funding to $211 million, shows Crunchbase.

Higher Learning Technologies, a 2.5-year-old, Coralville, Ia.-based company that makes customized digital test prep programs, has raised $5.5 million in Series A funding led by a group of angel investors in New York. The company had raised $1 million in seed funding earlier this year.

Inzen, a two-year-old, Singapore-based mobile game developer, has raised about $748,000 in Series A funding led by Japan’s Incubate Fund, with participation from China’s Global Mobile Game Confederation and returning investors Hatcher and Hans De Back, among others. To date, the company has raised roughly $1.2 million. More here.

Jumia, a two-year-old, Nigeria-based e-commerce player in Africa, has raised €120 million ($150 million) in new funding from Africa Internet Group at a $555 million valuation. In 2013, the Rocket Internet-incubated company had raised $35 million and $26 million in separate rounds from Millicom International Cellular and Summit Partners, respectively. More here.

Mobilize, a nearly two-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose community-management platform helps businesses mobilize members, freelancers, and other stakeholders into action, has raised $1.2 million in seed funding led by Hillsven Capital, with participation from UpWest Labs and Eddy Shalev.

Scripted.com, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that sells written content on demand, has raised $9 million in Series B funding led by Storm Ventures, with participation from earlier investors Crosslink Capital and Redpoint Ventures. Angel investors Gil Penchina, Auren Hoffman, and Justin Moore also participated.

SimilarWeb, a five-year-old, London-based mobile measurement service, has raised $15 million in Series D funding from earlier backers Naspers and angel investor Lord David Alliance. The company has now raised $40 million in total funding. TechCrunch has more here.

VigLink, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based platform for monetizing content-driven commerce for publishers, bloggers, forums, social networks and apps, has added roughly $2 million from Foundry Group and Costanoa Venture Capital to a now $20 million Series C round. VigLink has now raised $27.3 million altogether, including from Correlation Ventures, Google Ventures, First Round Capital, Emergence Capital Partners, and RRE Ventures. It also just acquired a company. (See “Exits.”)

Wealth-X, a 4.5-year-old, Singapore-based curator of research on ultra high-net-worth individuals, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Insight Venture Partners. The round appears to represent the company’s first institutional financing.

Yomp, a four-year-old, London-based gamification platform designed to boost employee health and well-being, has raised $315,000 in seed funding led by London-based angel investors.

YPlan, a two-year-old, London-based event discovery app that helps people find things to do and a way to buy tickets, has raised $24 million in Series B funding led by previous backers Octopus Investments, Wellington Partners, and General Catalyst Partners. The company has now raised $38 million altogether. As part of its new funding, the company has laid off a number of its direct sales employees and is now building out a new DIY platform. TechCrunch has the story here.

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New Funds

Artis Ventures, a 13-year-old, San Francisco-based early stage venture fund, has raised nearly $52 million for a fund called Artis Ventures II that it began raising last year, shows a new SEC filing. The firm also recently raised a special purpose vehicle called Artis Juicy SPV that we reported on earlier this month. Artis famously invested in YouTube before its acquisition by Google. Its more recent bets include Practice Fusion, a company that offers doctors cloud-based electronic medical records software, and the in vitro meat producer Modern Meadow.

DAG Ventures, the 23-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based venture capital firm, is looking to raise a new, $300 million fund, shows an SEC filing that states that the first sale has yet to occur. The firm had targeted a much larger pool — $500 million — for its fifth fund in 2011. No word on what the firm ultimately raised for that vehicle. It had raised $451 million for its fourth fund in 2008.

Keiretsu Forum, a San Francisco-based network of angel investors, is launching a business accelerator called Keiretsu Ventures. More here.

MediaTek, Taiwan’s largest chip designer, will invest roughly $50 million in a Chinese government fund. MediaTek’s planned investment comes as China’s chip industry is expected to outpace global growth during the rest of this decade. The company is aiming to catch up with Qualcomm in China’s smartphone chip business, where Qualcomm has about half of the market. The EE Times has more here.

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IPOs

Boston Business Journal profiles Altiostar, a well-funded, 200-person startup that’s just emerging from stealth mode — and already has its sights on an IPO.

Zalando, the large online-only fashion retailer that went public last month on the Frankfurt stock exchange, says it’s on track to make its first annual profit this year. The Financial Times has more here.

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Exits

BranchOut, a 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based professional network service that once flourished on Facebook’s platform, is being acquire by 1-Page, an Australian company that sells cloud-based human resources technology, for $2 million in cash, plus stock worth around $4.7. BranchOut had raised $49 million from investors, including Floodgate, Mayfield Fund, Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and Norwest Venture Partners.

LinkSmart, a five-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based real-time bidding engine for brands and marketers to programmatically connect their content with publishers, has been acquired by the startup VigLink for an undisclosed amount. LinkSmart had raised $9.7 million from investors, including Costanoa Venture Capital and Foundry Group (which just joined VigLink’s newest round).

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People

Whoa. Netflix says former executive Mike Kail collected around $500,000 in kickbacks from vendors he helped connect to the streaming video company. Now Netflix is suing Kail, who was appointed Yahoo’s chief information officer in August. (Quel scandale.) Recode has the story here.

Oops: After threatening hacker Fidel Salinas with 440 years, prosecutors have settled for a misdemeanor. Wired has more here.

NBC Universal network SyFy ha green-lit a new, six-episode series that will follow teams of startups through two Silicon Valley accelerator programs: 500 Startups and Highway 1. Let’s hope it isn’t as intensely boring as it sounds (no offense to the participants intended).

Vladimir Vapnik, credited with coming up with the first support vector machine (SVM) algorithm, has joined Facebook. SVMs are widely used today for machine learning purposes. VentureBeat has more here.

Can’t get enough of Mark Zuckerberg? You are in luck. Facebook has scheduled another public Q&A with him on December 11 at 2 pm. PST.

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Data

Tumblr has overtaken Instagram as the fastest-growing social platform in the world, and Snapchat is the fastest-growing app, according to new research from the Global Web Index. TechCrunch has more here.

San Francisco’s “ultra-rich” population jumped 12 percent this year, pushing it past Los Angeles as the California home to the most residents worth $30 million or more. The survey, by the research firm Wealth-X in partnership with Swiss banking giant UBS, says San Francisco has 5,460 ultra-rich residents, up from 4,840 a year ago. Los Angeles has 5,135, up 4 percent from 4,945.

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Job Listings

Andreessen Horowitz still appears to be in the market for both a consumer and an enterprise partner.

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Essential Reads

Twitter introduces “Offers” to drive online, and offline, shopping.

Betaworks introduces Homescreen, an app that looks a lot like Max Levchin’s Homer, which came out of the gate to much enthusiasm in August, then floundered.

How startups are transforming major cities, in time-lapse maps.

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Detours

The hipster business name generator. (H/T: GMSV)

Terrible predictions. (H/T: Chris Dixon)

What surfing at 1000 frames per second looks like.

Another reason to feel thankful this week: You probably weren’t one of these people.

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Retail Therapy

The unofficial Goldman Sachs holiday gift guide for 2014.

Thanksgiving travelers are expected to put away nearly 1 million Cinnabons between today and Sunday. If you think this might describe you, we wish you safe travels and good luck.:)

Hi there,  if you’re just visiting StrictlyVC online and not yet a subscriber, you might want to read this version of today’s email. (Easier on the eyes than scrolling through the text below.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Recent press reports suggest to Senator Al Franken that Uber has a “troubling disregard for customers’ privacy.” That’s what he wrote in a letter yesterday to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick that asks what policies Uber has in place around tracking the personal data of users. Franken, who chairs the Subcommittee On Privacy, Technology, and the Law, has asked that Kalanick respond to his inquiry by mid-December.

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A Former Mercedes Exec Tries Bypassing the Auto Industry

No one paid much attention when last week, a 15-person company called Apio Systems in Crystal City, Virginia, announced that it had raised $5 million in funding. Mercedes-Benz was probably watching, though.

In fact, Apio’s founder, Sascha Simon, spent nearly a decade at the company, including as head of its Advanced Planning Group, the same unit that launched Mercedes’s connected car system. But in 2012, Simon began thinking the technologies he was developing could live outside of Mercedes and every other car maker, so he left. We talked yesterday about that decision and what he’s trying to accomplish at his new company. Our conversation has been edited for length.

You had a big role at Mercedes. Why leave?

I felt the benefits of the connected car shouldn’t [accrue] just to Mercedes drivers but to everyone. Everyone carries a smart phone, so the idea was: Let’s use smart phones to bring safety benefits to drivers worldwide. I also thought I could do this faster outside of the car industry.

You’ve created a “situational awareness” technology that provides safety alerts and monitoring tools that help make drivers safer. How does it work, exactly?

The technology utilizes all the sensors in the smart phone that are there already — the gyroscope, accelerometer, audio and video sensors, barometric pressure [sensors] — and uses them to enable your phone or tablet to sense everything around it. [The smart device then] communicates with our cloud to make a determination about what’s happening. It’s almost like having an extra driver or passenger looking out for you.

So this is sort of tech for the here and now, until advanced car technologies are more ubiquitous.

If we had fully autonomous cars, no one would need what I’m doing, but they won’t come that fast. I think if we wait until car companies get there, it will be another 15 years. In the meantime, I believe that we’re building something that can be incredibly helpful in [hastening] that day. If everyone experiences [the advantages of the connected car], then everyone will want it.

How far along is your tech? And how – or to whom – are you selling it?

We have a functioning prototype and customers who are waiting, including Transdev, an international, multimodal transportation company that’s both a customer and an investor. It runs everything from trains to trucks and basically, what it will be buying is features and functionalities that will be packaged in the smart phones or apps it already has. [The technology] will allow it to be in constant communication with its vehicles to sense what its drivers are doing, if a vehicle is in trouble, how well a vehicle is performing. It’s a complete feed management platform.

It’s a subscription model?

Yes.

What does Mercedes think about what you’re doing?

I have communications with former colleagues all the time. That’s about all I can say at this point.

You just announced $5 million in funding. I don’t suppose you’re thinking about your next round?

Certainly we’re not ready to announce new funding plans yet, but you can imagine it’s all planned out. Our job right now is to take the money we’ve raised, get product to our customers and take it from there. I can tell you smart devices will continue to take over more functionalities from cars, and I plan to be a part of it.

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New Fundings

Altair Semiconductor, a nine-year-old, Hod Hasharon, Israel-based maker of chips for mobile networking, has raised an undisclosed amount of money from SanDisk Ventures. The company had previously raised at least $125 million, shows Crunchbase, which lists Giza Venture Capital, Jerusalem Venture Partners, and Pacific Technology Partners among its other investors.

Bellhops, a year-old, Chattanooga, Tn.-based startup that provides on-demand moving help, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Binary Capital, with participation from Great Oaks Venture Capital, Lowercase Capital, Queensbridge Venture Partners, and individual investors, including the rapper Nasir “Nas” Jones. The company has raised $7.8 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Bloc, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based online bootcamp for web and mobile development and design, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Shasta Ventures. The company has now raised $8 million altogether, including from Baseline Ventures, Learn Capital, First Round Capital, and Harrison Metal.

CS Disco, a two-year-old, Houston, Tx.-based legal technology company that offers an electronic-discovery service, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from earlier investor LiveOak Venture Partners and individual investors. The company has raised $12 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Endgame, a six-year-old, Arlington, Va.-based security intelligence and analytics services company that sells to federal and commercial customers, has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by Edgemore Capital and Top Tier Capital Partners. Other investors include earlier backers Bessemer Venture Partners, Paladin Capital Group, Columbia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Kaufmann Mercantile, a five-year-old, New York-based online store for high-end, hand-selected goods, has raised $3.2 million in funding led by 14W, with participation from Slow Ventures and other private investors.

Getaround, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based peer-to-peer car sharing company, has raised $24 million in new funding led by Cox Enterprises (owner of AutoTrader, Kelley Blue Book and Manheim Auctions) at a roughly $200 million valuation, reports Venture Capital Dispatch. New investor Triangle Peak Partners also participated in the round, along with earlier backers Menlo Ventures and SOSVentures. Getaround has now raised roughly $43 million altogether.

LexShares, a year-old, New York-based comapny whose platform allows people to invest in commercial lawsuits and get a portion of the proceeds of cases that win, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Atlas Venture, along with several angel investors. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Live Auctioneers, a 12-year-old, New York-based live auctions marketplace, has raised $47.6 million in its first round of institutional funding from Bessemer Venture Partners. In a related press release, the company said it has helped facilitate almost $3 billion worth of gross merchandise sales over the last year.

N30 Pharmaceuticals, a seven-year-old, Denver-based clinical-stage company that’s working on a treatment for cystic fibrosis, has raised $30 million from new investors Wellington Management, RA Capital Management, Jennison Associates, Rock Springs Capital Management, and Sabby Management, with participation from earlier investor Deerfield Management Company. The company has now raised at least $40 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Overdog, a 2.5-year-old, Nashville, Tn.-based company whose app enables fans to play games alongside their favorite athletes on Xbox and PlayStation, has raised $2 million in funding co-led by Atlas Venture and Chicago Ventures, with participation from Mountain Group Capital, United Talent Agency, and individuals, including Zynga founder Mark Pincus.

Plunify, a five-year-old, Singapore-based company whose software tools help semiconductor designers shorten their time to market, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Lanza TechVentures. The company had raised at least one previous round of funding from Singapore’s National Research Foundation and from Get2Volume. The amount of that earlier round was also undisclosed.

SendHub, a three-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based company that enables users to quickly set up business phone systems using their personal phones, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Bullpen Capital, with participation from Kapor Capital, Menlo Ventures, Seraph Group, and Eric Ries. The Y Combinator alum has now raised $10 million altogether.

SimScale, a two-year-old, Munich, Germany-based company whose web service allows engineers to simulate and analyze the physical behavior of their products with a standard web browser, has received an undisclosed amount of funding from investors, including Earlybird Venture Capital, High-Tech Gründerfonds and Bayern Kapital.

ThreatConnect, a three-year-old, Arlington, Va.-based cyber security company formerly known as Cyber Squared, has raised $4 million in Series A funding from Grotech Ventures and unnamed strategic partners.

Valence Health, a 20-year-old, Chicago-based company whose software is used by hospitals and other health systems to track clinical integration, population health and more, has raised $15 million in growth-equity funding led by Heritage Group in Nashville. Foundation Medical Partners, North Bridge Growth Equity, and GE Ventures also participated in the round. The company has now raised $45 million altogether.

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New Funds

Golden Venture Partners, a three-year-old, Toronto-based mobile-focused early-stage venture firm, has closed its second fund with C$40 million. Golden Venture Partners was founded by Matt Golden, its sole GP, who was previously a partner at Blackberry Partners Fund. His LPs include Northleaf Venture Catalyst Fund and BDC Capital.

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Exits

RelativeWave, the company behind the mobile app prototyping software Form, has been acquired by Google, notes 9 to 5 Mac.

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People

Anand Subramanian is newly a partner and the head of private capital markets at the San Francisco-based investment bank Qatalyst Group. Previously, he worked at Morgan Stanley as a managing director and head of private capital markets.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has joined Primary Data, a new company from the founders of Fusion-io. Primary Data plans to extend the concept of virtualization more broadly in data centers. Wozniak will be the company’s chief scientist. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

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Job Listings

Nike is looking for a new senior director of business development. The job is in Portland, Ore.

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Essential Reads

Brands are wasting money on Facebook and Twitter, Forrester says.

A new study shows that Amazon keeps cutting prices to take on rivals like Walmart, begging the question: Good strategy, or mutually assured destruction of profits?

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Detours

Zen and the art of cubicle living.

The 2014 National Book Award winners.

A tiny hamster Thanksgiving.

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Retail Therapy

Yoda slippers.

A carbon steel axe with hickory wood and horn handle, handmade in Brazil and lovingly delivered in a vegetable-tanned leather sheath. Even though it is an axe.

Some of today’s fastest-growing startups act as if they’re immune to bad publicity.

While Uber was in the news today for deciding to retain it senior vice president of business, Emil Michael, despite his veiled threats against a journalist, it’s hardly alone. This past May, when troubling, years-old emails by Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel were leaked to the media, Spiegel issued a short public apology and then went back to business as usual.

Partly, today’s companies recognize that consumers and journalists have short attention spans. But today’s startups also realize that their window to succeed has never been smaller. As far as they’re concerned, nothing must get in their way.

A new report tries to quantify this situation. According to the Bay Area consultancy Play Bigger, those select companies that hit the big time are meeting major milestones (including $500 million, $1 billion, and $5 billion valuations) two to three times faster than they did roughly 15 years ago.

Indeed, poring over 500,000 venture-backed tech companies dating back to 2000, Play Bigger found that the winners founded between 2000 and 2003 took 8.5 years to reach a valuation of $1 billion, while a corresponding set of companies founded around 2009 and afterward have been hitting the same milestone in just 2.9 years. Similarly, startups founded in 2000 to 2003 took 4.5 years on average to reach a $500 million valuation, and companies founded in 2009 and afterward have been hitting the same target in just 1.6 years. The firm’s report is here.

The reasons for this hyper-growth aren’t surprising. Thanks to social media, word-of-mouth about products and services spreads faster than ever before. The costs of scaling have fallen dramatically with cloud services. Ubiquitous mobile devices mean global distribution is easier than at any time in history. And startups have a wider variety of funding sources.

Still, Uber and its brethren are making a mistake if they think their need-for-speed trumps good crisis management.

Yes, the startup world forgets many of these stumbles quickly, but the public markets are much less forgiving. And when the same company keeps experiencing one public relations disaster after another, one has to wonder whether there’s some sort of systemic problem.

Today, in pardoning Michael, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick tweeted, “I believe that folks who make mistakes can learn from them – myself included.” We hope so. Time will tell.

Photo courtesy of David Paul Morris, Bloomberg

Related articles

• Uber CEO issues Twitter apology for revenge comments
• Uber aggro: Executive proposes spying on critical reporters
• Travis Kalanick’s apology fails to dampen storm over Uber exec’s threat to investigate reporters
• Uber ignites firestorm with exec’s plan to investigate reporters

Hi, good Tuesday morning, everyone! Hope it’s off to a good start. (Web visitors, here’s an easier-to-read version of this morning’s email.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Uber’s senior vice president of business, Emil Michael, has dragged the company into what could be its biggest public relations disaster yet. According to Buzzfeed, Michael suggested at a recent gathering in New York that Uber splash out on opposition research in an effort to muzzle journalists who’ve been critical of the company. Michael, whose comments were overheard and reported on by Buzzfeed’s editor, Ben Smith, went on to suggest that Uber should — and could — expose the personal business of one female tech reporter in particular. Much more here.

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A Custom Apparel Company with Big Ambitions Raises $35 Million

Into ironic T-shirts? You aren’t alone. In fact, the market is so robust that Teespring, a two-year-old company that helps anyone turn their idea for a T-shirt (or hoodie) into a real product, has just raised $35 million in Series B financing from Khosla Ventures. Andreessen Horowitz, which had plugged $20 million into the company earlier this year, also participated in the round.

It seems like an awful lot of money for a simple apparel business, but Providence, R.I.-based Teespring says it has big ambitions to move into numerous verticals. “T-shirts are to Teespring as books were to Amazon,” says the company’s co-founder and CEO, Walker Williams, a Brown University grad who originally started the company to help save a college bar.

Indeed, the general idea is to help anyone with the inclination become an entrepreneur with as little effort as possible.

Here’s how it works today: Users simply download a picture of their design; Teespring handles the rest, from manufacturing to fulfillment to customer service. Teespring outsources some pieces of the process right now but going forward, it plans to manage more of it internally. For example, it already has its own customer service department; to further support its ambitions, the company is building out a 105,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Kentucky that it says should significantly increase its manufacturing and logistics capabilities.

Teespring is still keeping its revenue close to the vest, but it claims that it has already shipped six million products to more than 80 countries and that 1 in 75 people in the U.S. have purchased a Teespring tee in the past year.

Williams also says that of the “thousands” of vendors and individuals using the service to make their products, “hundreds” of them are “making six figures” and that more than 10 are making in the millions of dollars a year.

On average, he adds, users pay Teespring between $8 and $10 per T-shirt, and between $14 and $18 per hoodie depending on the print design, the fabric, and the number of ink colors the unit requires. (That includes Teespring’s margin.) From there, users can sell the goods for whatever they want.

Today, Teespring employs 170 employees. Once it gets its new facility in Kentucky up and running, says Williams, it will be adding 300 more jobs to the payroll.

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(Other) New Fundings

Alfred, a year-old, New York-based company that charges users $100 per month for an assistant (or “Alfred”) to visit their homes twice weekly to handle everything from groceries to shoe repair, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Spark Capital, with participation from SV Angel andCrunchFund.

Bipsync, a 2.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company whose platform aims to simplify the process of gathering, retrieving, and analyzing information about investment opportunities, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from a mix of investors, including Russell Siegelman, a partner emeritus at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Steadfast Venture Capital.

Blockstream, a two-month-old, San Francisco-based startup that aims to enhance bitcoin’s blockchain and turn it into a universal platform for bitcoin 2.0 applications, has raised $21 million in seed funding led by LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, Khosla Ventures, and Real Ventures. Other participants in the crowded round include Innovation Endeavors and AME Ventures. The WSJ has much more here.

Breezeworks, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose mobile app makes it easier for small business owners to do scheduling, invoicing, and more, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led byObvious Ventures. Other investors in the round included Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, James Murdoch of 21st Century Fox, former eBay president Jeff Skoll, and investor-entrepreneurs David Sacks, Max Levchin, and Peter Thiel. TechCrunch has more here.

CompStak, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based real estate data firm that crowdsources commercial real estate information for investors, brokers, asset managers and appraisers, has raised $4.4 million in new funding led by Canaan Partners. Other investors in the funding round include investment firm dmgi, Expansion VC, and real estate investment firm Rubenstein Partners. The Real Deal has more here.

Eyeview, a seven-year-old, New York-based company that provides marketers with a personalized video advertising platform, has raised $15 million in financing from earlier backer Marker. The company has now raised $35.4 million altogether, including from Nauta Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Gemini Israel Ventures, and Innovation Endeavors, shows Crunchbase.

Indico, a year-old, Needham, Ma.-based machine learning data science startup, has raised $3 million in initial funding from General Catalyst Partners, .406 Ventures, Two Sigma, Boston Seed and angel investors.

Intellia Therapeutics, a months-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that aims to treat disease through the new science of genome editing, has raised $15 million from Atlas Venture and Novartis. The company was created by Atlas Venture and Caribou Biosciences, a Berkeley, Ca.-based biotech company.

Obillex, a three-year-old, U.K.-based payments platform that matches small businesses in need of good rates with investors looking for modest, low-risk returns, has raised has secured £3 million ($4.7 million) in funding led by Dawn Capital, with participation from MMC Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Oppex, a two-year-old, Helsinki, Finland-based company that operates a search engine for public sector bidding contests, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from the media company Alma Media, startup acceleratorVeturi, the Finnish fund Tekes, and numerous angel investors.

OrderWithMe, a 3.5-year-old, Las Vegas-based company that lands discounts for small businesses by aggregating their orders with other small business, has raised $28 million in new funding led by earlier investors, including Vegas Tech Fund, SOSVentures, BaseVC and Tony Hsieh, with additional participation from Silicon Valley Bank, Pentland Group, Advantage Capital and several others. The company has now raised roughly $37 million to date. Tech Cocktail has more here.

Pingboard, a 1.5-year-old, Austin, Tx.-based office management software maker, has raised $2.2 million of a planned $2.5 million financing per a filing with the SEC. Silverton Partners is among the companies investors. Austin Business Journal has more here.

RealScout, a two-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based online search engine for local home listings, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by DCM, participation from Formation 8 and numerous individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Shift Technologies, an 11-month-old, San Francisco-based used car marketplace that enables people to buy or sell used cars from their phones with the help of car concierges who schedule test drives and who personally bring the cars to shoppers, has raised $20 million in Series A funding. DFJ and Highland Capital Partners co-led the round. SV Angel and Great Oaks VC also participated, along with individual investors, including Google Maps co-creator Lars Rasmussen, Meraki Networks founder Hans Robertson, Square co-founder Jim McKelvey, and Shazam founder Chris Barton. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Soci, a 2.5-year-old, San Diego-based company behind a social content discovery engine and social media marketing technology, has raised $1.5 million in Series A funding led by angel investor Peter Fisher, with participation from Silicon Valley Growth Syndicate.

Veradocs, a 10-month-old, San Francisco-based company whose technology enables IT departments to track documents, as well as change in real time who can access them, has raised $14 million in Series A funding led by Battery Ventures. Other participants in the round include Amplify Partners and individual investors, such as Yahoo CIO Mike Kailand Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

V-Key, a 3.5-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based mobile security and cryptographic technology company, has raised $12 million in Series B funding from Ant Financial Services Group (the operating company of Alipay) and earlier backer IPV Capital. The company has now raised $16 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

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New Funds

Nigeria has a new, government-backed $50 million fund, its president, Goodluck Jonathan, announced yesterday.

Chicago has a new fund, too. According to Crain’s Chicago Business, Baird Capital has closed its fourth venture fund with $185 million, substantially more than the $150 million the firm says it had initially targeted. Baird’s investors include the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, Venture Michigan and Shelter Insurance. It closed its last fund with $171 million in 2008, a pool it used to back the 13-year-old babysitting platform Sittercity, among other companies. Baird invests in both IT and health care, diagnostics, and medical device startups.

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IPOs

Juno Therapeutics, a year-old, Seattle-based startup that’s developing immunotherapies for cancer, has filed for an IPO after raising $310 million. The company said it could raise up to $150 million in the offering. Juno was formed by Arch Venture Partners and the Alaska Permanent Fund (the state of Alaska’s oil revenue fund) from technologies spun out of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and Seattle Children’s Hospital in Washington, and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Its biggest shareholders include Arch, which owns 15.17 percent of the company; CL Alaska and JT Line Partners, which collectively own 34.75 percent of the company; and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, which owns 5.17 percent of the company. Xconomy has more here.

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Exits

GetFeedback, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based online survey startup, has been acquired by the 10-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based email marketing firm Campaign Monitor for undisclosed terms. Campaign Monitor will reportedly use GetFeedback offices as its new North American headquarters. GetFeedback had raised just $2.3 million in Series A funding from Salesforce Ventures. Campaign Monitor raised $250 million earlier this year from Insight Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Rubicon Project, the L.A-based publicly traded advertising automation platform, is acquiring ad tech startups iSocket and Shiny Ads for less than $30 million collectively (and mostly in stock). iSocket, a 5-year-old, San Francisco-based company, had raised roughly $15 million from investors, including Foundry Group, Accelerator Ventures, Quest Venture Partners, Blumberg Capital, and DFJ. Shiny Ads, a five-year-old, Toronto-based startup, had disclosed only $500,000 in seed funding, from Maple Leaf Angels and York Angel Investors.

Swarm Mobile, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based service that sells in-store retail analytics and customer engagement services to small businesses, has been acquired by the deals company Groupon for undisclosed terms. Swarm had raised $4.5 million over two rounds, including from Abundance Partners and Icon Venture Partners.

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People

New York will soon have a floating park above the Hudson River, thanks to billionaire IAC/InterActive chair Barry Diller and his wife, the fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg. They’ve donated $130 million — the largest donation to a public park in New York City’s history — to fund the project, called Pier55, which will feature a mix of green spaces and performance venues. Construction begins in 2016. More here.

Venture capitalist Ben Horowitz has publicly distanced himself from entrepreneur Mahbod Moghadam, after Moghadam authored a lengthy post about how to steal from Whole Foods. Moghadam’s company,Genius, has received much of its venture funding from Andreessen Horowitz, but in the two years since the firm first invested in the company, Moghadam has repeatedly embarrassed his cofounders and investors. He resigned from the company back in May over one bizarre outburst. On Sunday, asked on Twitter to explain “why he backs this awful guy,” Horowitz tweeted, “I don’t back him,” adding in subsequent tweets that, “He is not a nice person for sure,” and, to Moghadam himself: “It’s not that I don’t like you. It’s just a tragedy that you care only about yourself. I wish you only the best.”

Will Rosenzweig, a cofounder of Physic Ventures in San Francisco, is becoming the dean of the Food Business School, a Culinary Institute offshoot that Rosenzweig calls “an alternative to an MBA” for emerging entrepreneurs. Rosenzweig was formerly the CEO of Republic of Tea; he tells StrictlyVC that his work at the school will help inform his investments, which he’s continuing to make via syndications but “not in the conventional fund structure [as] in the past.”

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Job Listings

Valor Capital Group is looking to hire a venture analyst for its venture capital division. The job is in New York. The catch: You need to be fluent in Portuguese.

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Essential Reads

Yesterday, Snapchat unveiled Snapcash, a new payments feature it’s launching in partnership with Square. Recode has the story here.

Google and Stanford researchers have created image recognition software that teaches itself to identify entire scenes, reports the New York Times.

The U.S. government is planning to auction another 50,000 bitcoin — worth around $19 million. Dealbook has more here.

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Detours

A glowing bike path inspired by Van Gogh.

The coming chocolate crisis. (Eek.)

Ken Block’s latest and greatest, replete with O.J. Simpson chase scene.

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Retail Therapy

Amazing animated flip-books.

Black soap, for tough guys.

Hello, fair readers. No column today, but we’ll see you next week. Hope you have a terrific weekend, and in the case that you’re a Web visitor, here’s an easier-to-read version of this morning’s missive.

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Top News in the A.M.

“The Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands of cellphones through fake communications towers deployed on airplanes, a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging a large number of innocent Americans, according to people familiar with the operations,” reports the WSJ.

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New Fundings

Apio Systems, a 2.2-year-old, Crystal City, Va.-based company whose mobile platform uses existing sensors in smartphones and tablets to detect a broad range of driving conditions, has raised $5 million in Series A round funding led by Verizon Ventures, with participation from Lerer Hippeau Ventures, the international public transport company Transdev, and East Rock Capital. To date, Apio Systems has raised more than $6 million.

Craftsy, a four-year-old, Denver-based online craft site whose members learn how to create craft ideas via online tutorials, has raised more than $50 million in growth funding led by Stripes Group, with participation from earlier backer Foundry Group, Tiger Global, Adams Street Partners, Access Venture Partners and Silicon Valley Bank. The company has now raised almost $100 million altogether. The New York Times has much more here.

Eventbase, a five-year-old, Vancouver-based event app platform, has raised $2 million in Series A funding from the newly formed vehicle SXSW Tech, founded by the organizers of the South By Southwest conferences and festivals. The capital represents Eventbase’s first institutional funding.

HealthCare.com, an eight-year-old, Miami, Fl.-based healthcare pricing and meta-search engine, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding led by Priceline Chairman Jeffrey Boyd, with participation from People Fund.

Hihey, a three-year-old, Beijing-based online auction site, has raised roughly $100 million in Series B funding from Citic Securities andShenzhen Capital Group.

Indice Semiconductor, a six-year-old, Tualatin, Ore.-based fabless semiconductor company that makes mixed-signal power control and conversion ICs, has raised $6 million in Series A funding, including from the Australian venture firm Rampersand.

LaForge Optical, a 1.5-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based maker of prescription “smart” glasses, has raised $1.1 million in funding from the smart lens technology company Somo Optical.

Metal Networks, a 2.5-year-old, Houston, Tx.-based company that makes software for buying and selling semi-finished industrial metal, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by S3 Ventures.

Rival IQ, a 1.5-year-old, Seattle-based digital marketing analytics company, has raised roughly $1 million in funding from new and earlier investors, including Confluence Capital, Galvanize Ventures, Gravity Ventures, and Vulcan Capital.

Symbiota, a two-year-old, Cambridge, Mass.-based company whose microbial solutions promote plant health, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding from Flagship Ventures.

Trecker.com, a two-year-old, Berlin-based SaaS platform for farm and agriculture business processes, has raised 2.1 million euros ($2.6 million) in Series A funding led by Target Partners.

UpLift, a three-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based payment marketing platform that allows merchants to promote preferred payment types, has raised $8.2 million in Series A funding led by IDG Ventures, with participation from PAR Capital Ventures, Thayer Ventures and individual investors.

Wildcard, a 22-month-old, New York-based company behind a new mobile brower, has raised $10 million in funding led by General Catalyst Partners. Other investors in the round include Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Softbank Capital, SV Angel, GroupMe founders Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci, Dave Tisch, and Gary Vaynerchuk. GigaOm has a nice overview of why the company is interesting here.

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New Funds

Qihoo 360 Technology, the nine-year-old Chinese Internet-security company, plans to form an early-stage fund with $60 million to invest in Internet-of-Things companies, says the WSJ. The intended fund, called360 Capital—IoT Fund, will reportedly focus on investments in China, the U.S. and Israel. More here.

Unshackled, a new San Francisco-based angel fund, has raised a $3.5 million fund that it will use to help foreign entrepreneurs who are already in the U.S. work full-time on their startups. The idea is to provide the foreign-born entrepreneurs with a paycheck, work visas and health benefits while they try to get their companies to the point where they can raise another round. Unshackled is itself backed by roughly 50 investors, including First Round Capital and 500 Startups. Venture Capital Dispatch has the story here.

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IPOs

DermTech, an 18-year-old, La Jolla, Ca.-based biotech company that develops and commercializes assays for skin samples using adhesive tape biopsy methods, has withdrawn its plans to go public. The company has raised $16.8 million from investors over the years, including Jacobs Investment Company.

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Exits

Aorato, a two-year-old, Herzliya, Israel-based cyber security company, has officially been acquired by Microsoft for what TechCrunch sources say is “in the region of $200 million.” Aorato had raised $11 million from investors, including Glilot Capital Partners, Accel Partners, Innovation Endeavors, and individuals Rakesh Loonkar and Mickey Boodaei.

Xtime, a 15-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company that sells customer-service software for auto dealers, has been acquired for $325 million in cash by Cox Automotive, a unit of Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises. Xtime had raised at least $28 million over the years, including a $23 million round in 2012 that included DFJ, Saints Capital, Lumia Capital, RPM Ventures, and Bessemer Venture Partners.

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People

Adam Boyden has joined RPM Ventures, a 14-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based seed- and early-stage venture capital firm, as managing director. Boyden had co-founded and led Openlane, an RPM-backed online wholesale automotive marketplace that was acquired by KAR Auction Services for $210 million in 2011. (It had raised $10 million.) In recent years, Boyden has also been the COO of the peer-to-peer lending platform SoFi and served as president of Conduit, a cloud-based user-engagement platform.

The Fancy, the five-year-old, New York-based social shopping platform that was rumored to be in acquisition talks with eBay in September for roughly a billion dollars, has laid off an estimated one-third of its staff,reports Business Insider. A number of Glassdoor reviewers allege that the company has a tendency to fire employees just before their stock options vest, notes BI. It also reminds readers that executives from Fancy took about $20 million off the table during the company’s last fundraise, money that was reportedly distributed to a dozen executives. The company has raised $104 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Serial entrepreneur Halsey Minor, who has famously burned many of his bridges with Silicon Valley investors, is turning to crowdfunding platforms to fund his newest company, Bitreserve, which seeks to use bitcoin to transfer funds across borders and minimize exchange fees. The company disclosed yesterday that it’s using Venovate Marketplace, a U.S.-based brokerage platform for alternative investing, and London-based crowdfunding platform Crowdcube to drum up its Series B funding.

Kara Nortman has just become the third partner with an operating background to join L.A.-based Upfront Ventures in the past two years. Nortman previously founded P.S. XO, a startup that delivered content for birthday and other kid celebrations to the doorsteps of harried parents; last month, it merged with a similar company, Seedling. Nortman has also run the IAC operating companies Urbanspoon and Citysearch and was a board member at Hatch Labs, where she advised Tinder, maker of a hugely popular online dating app.

Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire founder of eBay, apparently spent years living as a recluse, interacting with his business contacts using the virtual online world Second Life. More here.

Reddit, the popular online community message board, is undergoing a management reshuffle. Yishan Wong, Reddit’s CEO for the last two-and-a-half years, reportedly resigned from his position yesterday over a disagreement about the location and lease of a new office for the company. (He wanted to move the company down to Daly City, just south of San Francisco; Reddit’s board said no.) Ellen Pao, Reddit’s business and partnerships strategist, will serve as interim chief executive, the company said in a statement. A New York Times piece about the moves also reported that Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian will return to the company full time as its executive chairman.

Evan Spiegel, cofounder of the popular messaging service Snapchat, has moved on — out of his dad’s house, that is. Variety has more here.

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Data

Fenwick & West has released the results of its third-quarter Silicon Valley Venture Capital Survey, which analyzed 180 tech and life science companies. The upshot: Though the quarter one of the strongest in the past decade, it wasn’t as strong as the second quarter, with venture investment, IPOs and fundraising all declining a bit. In the third quarter, for example, up rounds exceeded down rounds 76 percent to 12 percent (with another 12 percent closing up so-called flat rounds). In the second quarter, 80 percent of the deals done had been up rounds, 6 percent were down rounds, and 14 percent remained flat. You can find much more here.

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Essential Reads

Amazon and Hachette have finally resolved their dispute. (Phew.)

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Detours

Tour the lab where scientists supercharge elite athletes.

Why everyone loves “Serial,” the true-crime podcast.

What it’s like to remember almost everything that has ever happened to you.

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Retail Therapy

To each his own, but this shower does not seem like a particularly good idea.