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

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Top News in the A.M.

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

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New Fundings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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New Funds

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

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

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

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

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IPOs

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

Wayfair, the 12-year-old, Boston-based online home goods retailer, plans to raise up to $350 million in an IPO, the company revealed in an SEC filing processed Friday. The company has raised roughly $360 million from investors over the years. According to its S-1, its biggest outside shareholders are Battery Ventures, which owns 6.15 percent of the company; Great Hill Partners, which owns 11.43 percent, and HarbourVest Partners, which owns 7.03 percent.

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Exits

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

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

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

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

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

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People

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

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

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Job Listings

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

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Data

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

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Happenings

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

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Essential Reads

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

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

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Detours

The first jobs of tech’s biggest rock stars.

The wonderful, weird economy of Burning Man.

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

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

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Retail Therapy

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

Holy cow. (More here.)

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

Hi, everyone, Semil Shah, filling in for Connie, who returns Monday. Hope you’ve enjoyed the last couple of weeks and that you’ll find today’s column — my personal take on what it’s like to jump into startup investing — at least a little bit useful. To talk about the column or anything else, you can find me at Haystack or on Twitter at @semil.

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Top News in the A.M.

In a complaint filed with the FTC yesterday, a consumer watchdog is accusing 30 U.S. companies of violating an international privacy agreement and urging U.S. regulators to get involved.

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What I’ve Learned in My First 18 Months of Investing

I’ve been investing for a year and a half, and I’ve learned more than I would’ve imagined by just jumping into the game. Now, I’m playing with very small amounts of capital, and whatever lessons I’ve gathered for myself aren’t necessarily “right” and aren’t generally applicable to everyone. With that disclaimer, I wanted to briefly share what the key learnings (so far) have been for me in this final column for my guest run with StrictlyVC:

Polite But Clear, Direct Language: When I’ve been talking to a founder and decide I’d like to invest, I will usually write in email: “I would love to invest in the company if you’d have me.” In a way, it is asking for permission. The investor is not in control; the founders grant access. For every investment, there are many “no’s” to deliver. I try to do these quickly over email or even in a meeting. I’ve received so many “no’s” before that it helps me deliver them, too — I hope. I also briefly describe how I expect to help once the check is deposited. As a small investor at the table, I generally ask founders to contact me anytime they need to, and I will proactively focus on helping set up the company up for future financings.

Following Founders Versus Predicting the Future: When I started, I thought: “Hey, I’ll pick some spaces I like.” Wrong. Founders define the future and dollars simply follow. Originally, I thought I’d take a portfolio approach and focus in some areas, but as things have evolved, I just focus on the people I get to meet and make sure I pay attention to every word, every pixel, and every slide. I cannot predict the future, so I try to find people who can invent it.

Pro Rata is a Privilege, Not a Right: Pro-rata rights are very important for small, early-stage investors. I don’t ask for them, because I don’t think I’d get them, and mostly because I don’t feel like I deserve them. Without pro rata, early-stage investments suffer quite a bit of dilution, so there’s extra pressure to be a “high-contact” hitter who hits for batting average. Over time, I hope I earn the right to ask for pro rata.

Dialogue Over Time Pressure: I will trade many emails with a founder to ask key questions and learn more. I like email as a medium. Most people would rather talk in person or at least on the phone, but my personal preference is to get up to speed via email and then engage in live conversation. This doesn’t work for everyone, and I’ll miss things because of that, but that’s one of the things I’ve just come to accept.

Tough Love Over Coddling: I don’t talk or write about it much, but I was a founder of a life sciences technology company before coming to the Bay Area. It was both a great and painful experience, and in part why I’ve held off starting something again. I kind of just fell into it, and I wasn’t ready. Back then, in the Boston area, there wasn’t anyone around to support or coddle us. Then, I came here and got my a__ kicked for 11 months straight. It was bad. All of these experiences make me think about existential risk. I see an early-stage company and think: “Hey, you’re awesome, but hey, you could run out of funds pretty quickly and then evaporate.” So, in the course of early-stage investing, yeah — at times, you sense existential risk for others, and then if you’re outspoken and direct like me, you have the delicate job of pointing out that existential risk. In those moments, I tend to be driven by tough love over coddling. It’s not right or wrong, and there’s always room to improve, but that’s how I’m wired, for better or worse.

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New Fundings

FreshGrade, a two-year-old, Kelowna, British Columbia-based, cloud-based educational assessment tool that teachers can use to figure out how a student learns, has raised $4.3 million in seed funding fromNewSchools Venture Fund, Emerson Collective, Accel Partners and the Social + Capital Partnership. The WSJ has much more on the company — which was cofounded by Club Penguin founder Lane Merrifeld — here.

Helion Energy, a four-year-old, Redmond, Wa.-based company that’s developing an advanced engine that aims to make viable fusion technology a reality, has raised $1.5 million from Mithril Capital Management and Y Combinator, whose accelerator program Helion participated in this summer. The company had previously raised $5 million from the Department of Energy to help prove its technology in a series of small-scale prototypes. Helion tells the WSJ it will need $30 million to $50 million in future funding to create a larger-scale prototype.

Navent, a four-year-old, Latin American real estate and jobs classifieds company, has raised $20 million in Series C funding from global technology private equity firm Riverwood Capital. In November 2012, the company had raised a $30 million Series B round from Riverwood and Tiger Global Management. TechCrunch has more here.

Quinyx, a nine-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based maker of cloud-based workforce management software, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from the private equity and venture capital firm Alfvén & Didrikson, which has acquired both direct and secondary shares in the company. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

London has a new, $25 million pool of startup capital, shows a new SEC filing that lists Bessemer Venture Partners‘s longtime partner Rob Stavis and Silicon Valley Bank‘s chairman, Ken Wilcox, among others. The fund is called Columbia Lake Partners Growth Lending I.

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IPOs

Potential accounting problems have been discovered at Alibaba‘s recently acquired film division, raising new questions ahead of the company’s massive IPO.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission has canceled plans to review 129 companies out of 628 companies that have applied to go public, according to China Daily, meaning those companies (and their backers) now have to find another exit strategy.

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Exits

SmartThings, a two-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based company whose smartphone app allows its users to monitor and control everyday things in their home, office, and car through sensors, has officially been acquired by Samsung for “about $200 million,” reports Recode. TechCrunch had originally reported that the deal was nearly closed in mid-July. Samsung says the company will continue to operate independently but that it will now do so from Palo Alto, Ca., where Samsung’s Open Innovation Center is situated.

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People

Performer 50 Cent and Intel are pairing up to launch a pair of heart-rate-measuring headphones.

Meet 48-year-old Gavin Andresen, the “man who really built Bitcoin,” says Technology Review.

Tim Danford has joined Intel Capital as an investment director, reports Venture Capital Dispatch. Danford, an engineer by training, worked in M&A at Cisco in the late ‘90s and spent 12 years at Storm Ventures, where he was a managing director. Danford was most recently a venture partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, where he worked for roughly one-and-a-half years.

Sam Lessin, Facebook‘s VP of product, will leave the company two weeks from today, he announced last night on his Facebook page. Business Insider has republished the letter here. In it, Lessin, whose file-sharing startup, Drop.io, was acquired by Facebook in 2010, says he doesn’t have his next move planned out just yet but that he intends to do some “kite-surfing, skiing, and general adventuring,” as well as to help wife Jessica Lessin at her news organization, “where I can and when she wants it.”

The world’s 10 youngest billionaires.

USA Today has begun reporting on Silicon Valley’s struggling contract workers. Here’s its latest installment.

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Job Listings

GE Capital is looking for a senior strategic analyst. The job is in Norwalk, Ct.

Piper Jaffray is looking for an investment banking associate to focus on healthcare and biotechnology. The job is in New York.

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Essential Reads

Take note: the gyroscopes in your phone could let apps eavesdrop on the conversations around you.

The power of adding a personal touch to e-commerce.

Researchers from Harvard have created a self-organizing thousand-robot flash mob.

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Detours

It’s official: Chuck Todd is taking over “Meet the Press” from David Gregory.

How comedian and talk show host John Oliver beats apathy.

Film director Liz Goldwyn guest-edits the September issue of “Town & Country,” focusing attention on “34 of the boldest visionaries to represent the city’s seismic shift in fashion, food, and fine art.”

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Retail Therapy

The very first Range Rover can be yours.

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

Good morning, everyone. Semil Shah here filling in for Connie until next Monday. If you’d like to chat about today’s column or anything else, you can always find me on Twitter at @semil.

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Top News in the A.M.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer wants the FTC to investigate the data gathering and sharing practices of makers of personal fitness devices and applications. Without federal regulations restricting the companies from reselling the health data to third parties, users could be in for a “privacy nightmare,” says Schumer.

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Nakul Mandan on His New Role at Lightspeed, and What He Was Recruited to Do

Nakul Mandan has spent most of the last five years as a VP at Battery Ventures. Earlier this summer, though, he quietly joined Lightspeed Venture Partners, where he’s focusing on early- and growth-stage software-as-a-service investments as a “principal partner.” We asked him about some of the considerations involved in switching from one powerful venture firm to another, and what he was recruited to do.

You recently moved from Battery Ventures to Lightspeed. What’s it like to switch firms on Sand Hill?

In a way, it’s more of the same in terms of the daily routine – figure out thesis areas you like, invest in teams attacking those areas, and then support them in every way possible. But each firm has its own DNA in terms of how they think of risk-reward, the nature of risks they’re comfortable taking, and how the investment team works together pre- and post-investment. Understanding that DNA and finding alignment is key.

The other aspect of the switch is to ensure a smooth transition for the entrepreneurs you’re working with, within the portfolio and outside. This is extremely important. You want to make sure that there is somebody to take over an ongoing relationship — board role, or otherwise — and represent the firm in the same way as you would have.

You were recruited to Lightspeed to help build the firm’s SaaS practice. Is SaaS still hot after the public SaaS companies were hurt in public markets in March? What has the industry learned from that slight correction?

I’m not sure I’d make a good investor if I invested in early-stage startups based on the current public market reaction to a particular category. Just a year or so ago, consumer was supposed to be out of vogue because the long-awaited Facebook IPO didn’t do well initially. But now Facebook, Twitter, Uber, and Airbnb are all kicking ass and so consumer is back.

I’m sure SaaS, or for that matter any other category, will see similar ups and downs. But if the business is fundamentally creating value for its customers, and customers are willing to pay a price for that value that eventually leads to strong profitability, then the business can see through those ups and downs in valuations.

What do you see as the key differences between web-based versus mobile-only SaaS opportunities today?

Similar to the consumer world, in mobile, less is more. For mobile apps to be useable, they need to be extremely easy to navigate and focused on a couple of core features that they’re great for. Sometimes that requires trimming the functionality down. For instance, collaboration software on mobile will look closer to Whatsapp than Facebook. For companies trying to redefine existing workflows like CRM or sales productivity or collaboration on mobile, that’s something to keep in mind.

The challenge is how do you deliver enough value while keeping it simple to use on mobile. To that extent, I think there’s more opportunity for mobile-first rather than mobile-only SaaS startups. A lot of enterprise use cases can benefit from the ease of use of a mobile app focused on one or two core features but also need a more comprehensive workflow that is better delivered via a web app to support the end-to-end needs of the business user.

We always hear about seed deals for consumer startups. How do you see the seed ecosystem working for enterprise-focused founders?

I think it’s a pretty robust ecosystem. There are lots of good angels and seed funds that are focused on enterprise startups. There’s also a lot of good talent coming out of all the recently acquired enterprise companies, like Eloqua, Yammer, ExactTarget, Successfactors, etc.

My sense is that enterprise will never be the area that gets written about the most in tech blogs, but it continues to be the area where most of the early-stage investment dollars go, and where a lot of innovation is happening.

What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in your five years on Sand Hill Road? And, why is this important for both investors and founders to understand?

The biggest change for me is how much more mature startups are, and are expected to be, by the time they pitch their Series A. With the cost of building a product going down, and a greater influx of seed-stage capital, I’m regularly seeing startups raise seed rounds that give them two-plus years of runway. This gives them more time to tweak their initial product, and get more feedback from customers before they hit the road for a Series A. Founders need to keep that in mind as they think about the timing of their Series A. And investors need to accordingly adjust their expectations on valuations and round size, given that startups are coming to them with more proven out.

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New Fundings

CyberLightning, a four-year-old, Oula, Finland-based company whose software platform helps energy, infrastructure, and other companies analyze data being created through strategically placed sensors, has raised $4.2 million in funding from investors, including Inventure, TEKES (the tax payer-funded Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation), and other EU tax payer-sponsored funds. TechCrunch has much more here.

EverString, a two-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based company whose predictive analytics platform helps companies better leverage their sales data, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Earlier investors Sequoia Capital and IDG Ventures also participated.

Hireology, a four-year-old, Chicago-based company whose technology platform helps companies organize their hiring processes, has raised $10 million in Series B funding from Bain Capital Ventures. The company has now raised $13 million altogether, including from earlier backers Lightbank and FireStarter Fund.

JoyTunes, a four-year-old, Tel Aviv-based company that develops music-related games and applications that aim to shorten the process for users learning to play music, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by the venture firms Aleph and Formation 8, with participation from earlier investor Genesis Partners. The company has now raised $7 million to date.

Nasuni, a five-year-old, Natick, Ma.-based storage services provider, has raised $10 million in new funding from earlier backers Flybridge Capital Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners, Sigma Partners, and a strategic investor. The new financing brings Nasuni’s total funding to $53 million.

Vyome Biosciences, a four-year-old, Delhi, India-based dermatology company focused on developing treatments for refractory skin conditions like persistent dandruff and skin fungal infections, has raised $ 8 million in Series B funding led by Sabre Partners, with earlier investors Kalaari Capital and Aarin Capital participating.

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Exits

Benchmark returned roughly 5.3 million shares of Twitter stock to its limited partners on Friday, according to documents filed with SEC yesterday. Recode has the story here.

Bubbly, a once-popular, Singapore-based social network that had received $39 million from prominent venture firms, including Sequoia Capital, Singtel Innov8, JAFCO Asia, and others, is being dismantled after a few acquisition deals failed to work out. Tech in Asia has the story here.

Ooyala, a seven-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based streaming video distribution and monetization platform, is being acquired by one of its earlier investors, Telstra, which will operate it as a wholly owned subsidiary. The Australian telecommunications company is investing $270 million, for a 98 percent ownership stake in the company, up from the 23 percent it owned through a previous investment round. TechCrunch has the story here. Ooyala had raised $122 million from backers, including Google Ventures, CID Group, ITOCHU Corporation, Sierra Ventures, Rembrandt Venture Partners, and angel investor Ron Conway.

Saatchi Online, a four-year-old, L.A.-based online gallery focused on connecting people with art and artists, has been acquired by publicly traded Demand Media for $17 million in cash and stock. Saatchi had raised $11.2 million from investors, including Balderton Capital and Project A Ventures, shows Crunchbase.

Twitter has disclosed in a quarterly filing that it paid $134.1 million in mostly cash for Gnip, a data partner it agreed to acquire in April. The WSJ has more here.

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People

Greylock Partners‘s John Lilly talks app constellations — the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Buffalo Bills fans hoped venture capitalist Chris Sacca might buy the team and keep it from the clutches of Jon Bon Jovi, who’d like to move it to Toronto. It’s not going to happen, though. Writes Sacca to Fortune’s Dan Primack: “Not a buyer. The head injury fallout is going to get much worse. I don’t even enjoy watching knowing the trauma to those guys.”

The White House announced a new, “U.S. Digital Service” team yesterday to improve government websites and upgrade U.S. technology infrastructure. The team of seven to 10 will include Mikey Dickerson, a former Google website manager. Recode has more here.

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Job Listings

Box, the pre-IPO storage company, is looking for a corporate strategy associate. The job is in Los Altos, Ca.

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Data

The return distribution of biopharmaceutical VC financings.

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Essential Reads

A bill requiring smartphone makers to include antitheft software on devices sold in California is one step away from becoming law.

Uber rival Lyft says Uber employees have ordered, then canceled, roughly 5,500 Lyft rides over the last 10 months.

Forbes takes a long look at the “big data startup factory” created by Frost Data Capital.

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Detours

Set up to fail: How bosses create their own poor performers. (This paper dates back to 1998, but it’s making the rounds again because of its timeless findings.)

Growing embryos are now being tracked with genetic precision that will change pregnancies forever.

RIP, Robin Williams.

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Retail Therapy

It’s late to the party, but the Polaroid Cube is hoping to make up for lost time with cuteness. (H/T: Uncrate)

Cloud file solutions, brought to you by people with a good sense of humor.

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

Hi, everyone, Semil Shah here, filling in with a shortened version of StrictlyVC while Connie is out for a couple of weeks. If you want to chat about today’s newsletter or anything else, you can reach me on Twitter at @semil.

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Top News in the A.M.

BuzzFeed, the eight-year-old, New York-based digital content company, has raised $50 million in new funding from Andreessen Horowitz, with general partner, Chris Dixon — an early angel investor in BuzzFeed — joining BuzzFeed’s board. Buzzfeed now reaches more than 150 million people per month and will generate “triple-digit-millions” in revenue this year, Dixon wrote in a blog post published yesterday. The round brings BuzzFeed’s total funding to $96 million. Previous investors includeFounders Collective, Hearst Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, RRE Ventures, SoftBank Capital and SV Angel.

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Ryan Sarver on Life as a VC, Twitter’s Future, and Why Startup Spillover Out of SF is Inevitable

It’s been nearly a year since Redpoint Ventures appointed Ryan Sarver, Twitter’s former Director of Platform, as a partner. At the time, Sarver was making the occasional angel investment, but he has spent the last 10 months or so getting up to speed as a formal, full-time investor. We caught up with him last week to find out how it’s going.​

You recently left Twitter for Sand Hill Road. What was the process like talking to VC firms? What about the process do folks on the outside perhaps not fully appreciate?

Originally my plan when I left Twitter last year was to take three to four months off and then start something on my own. I had a few ideas brewing that I was curious about and if you had asked me, there was no doubt in my mind that was what I was going to do.

When I signaled that I was leaving Twitter, a few firms reached out to talk — some about EIRing and some about doing investing full time. I was still pretty focused on starting something in the fall, but after spending the summer getting to know the Redpoint team, I started to seriously consider the role. I spent a lot of time thinking back through my career to what I felt most fulfilled by and realized that I most enjoyed the early, foundational days of a company. Team building, vision setting, figuring things out when you have almost no information and no resources. I didn’t enjoy being part of a larger organization as much and realized that venture could be a way for me to do more of the parts that I loved and less of the parts that I didn’t.

I think the most unique thing about the hiring process is that, unlike a startup, you’re being hired into a partnership which makes the process fairly complicated. There isn’t a single hiring manager but many, and your time horizon is much, much longer. It’s a more complex process in many ways, but rightfully so.

What are your first few deals as a VC, and how did you go from “interested” to “having conviction” as an investor?

I’ve done two deals so far, but only one, Secret, has been announced. I think the idea of having and maintaining conviction has been one of the hardest parts for me in the role. It’s much easier when you’re an individual making angel investments to find founders and companies that you get passionate about. It’s a whole other thing to do it as part of a partnership with much bigger checks. To me the difficulty is in the lack of information and time in a deal. Founders are dealing with very imperfect information and they are living and breathing the space. As an investor, you’re getting to spend very little time with a team before you have to make a call. Naturally, I’ve found the deals that I have the most conviction about are the ones where I am coming to the deal with a lot of background in the space. There are a million reasons companies can fail, so you have to find the few things about the team and their approach that you can hang your hat on and that give you optimism that this one is going to beat the odds.

As someone with deep experience at Twitter, do you believe Twitter can grow its user base?

I think of it like “could Twitter as a product be valuable to more than 300 million people” and I have no doubt that that’s true. In many ways, I think it can be more widely applicable than Facebook even. Twitter is a real-time information service, similar to news, with messaging layered on top of it. Twitter’s biggest problem is twofold. First, it needs to better explain itself to the masses so that the next billion users know why they should be using Twitter. Everyone has heard of Twitter, but most people have no idea what role it fills in their lives. For those of us who have figured it out, it’s magical, invaluable and addictive.

Second, the product itself has to be more understandable to the masses without losing its soul. Tons of people have signed up for the service only to churn out because they don’t get value from Twitter. I don’t think this is a reflection of whether or not they can get value from Twitter, but instead a failing of the product to make it easy for the average user to get that value. Really it comes down to helping them find great accounts and delivering relevant content to them quickly. They have a huge challenge in front of them to accomplish those things, and I don’t think there is a silver bullet for them, but I feel strongly that it’s a product that could touch a billion users.

Give us an idea of how much time you spend in San Francisco versus the Valley.

I’ve gotten asked this a lot recently and I think the prevailing thought is that all deals have moved up to the city and out of the Valley. While it’s definitely true that there has been a big shift to the city, I’m still seeing some great deals down in the Valley. An overwhelming majority of consumer and mobile deals have moved to the city, so if those are the only deals you’re looking at, then you’re in the city 90 percent of the time. With that being said, we’ve seen some great deals down in the Valley [that] are typically more focused on b2b and infrastructure. RelateIQ and Jaunt, two of our more recent b2b deals, are both based down in the Valley, for example, whereas Secret, Coin, and HomeJoy are three recent consumer deals up in the city. On an average week, I’m probably splitting my time between Menlo [Park] and San Francisco.

Residential and commercial real estate in the city continues to get crazier and crazier, and I do think you’re going to see that trend push some new companies to open their first offices outside of San Francisco.

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New Fundings

Fiverr, a four-year-old, Tel Aviv-based online marketplace offering tasks and services (starting at $5), has raised $30 million in new funding led byQumra Capital, with participation from earlier backers Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel Partners and individual investors. The company has now raised $50 million altogether. The WSJ has much more here.

FoodPanda, a two-year-old, Berlin-based food delivery service incubated by Rocket Internet, has raised a fresh $60 million in funding from existing investors Falcon Edge Capital and Rocket Internet,reports TechCrunch. The round brings FoodPanda’s total funding to $108 million. Earlier backers include iMENA Holdings, Investment AB Kinnevik, and Phenomen Ventures.

MagForce, a Berlin-based medical device company, has raised $15 million in funding from Mithril Capital Management for its subsidiary, MagForce USA, whose new medical device aims to treat solid brain and prostate cancer tumors. Mithril, led by Peter Thiel and Ajay Royan, has the option to double the size of the round, according to reports.

Weddington Way, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based social shopping site for wedding parties, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Javelin Ventures. Earlier investors Battery Ventures, Felicis Ventures, and Trinity Ventures also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $11.5 million.

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New Funds

From today’s WSJ: “Boutique investment bank Moelis & Co. plans to launch an Australian initial public offering of a company that will give local investors access to global equities via partnerships with U.S. fund managers. Global Wealth Partners Fund is seeking to raise between 100 million Australian dollars ($93 million) and A$300 million before fees ahead of a late-September listing . . .The company has been marketing the offering over the past three weeks.”

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People

Alex Haislip, a reporter and marketing executive who has long written about venture capital (he was a favorite colleague of Connie’s at Reuters), has suffered a major brain hemorrhage caused by a large tumor. Haislip has been in and out of consciousness but right now has significant paralysis on his right side and his former classmates have organized a fundraiser for his young family. (His disability benefits cover just 60 percent of his pay.) If you’d like to pitch in to help the Haislips, please click here for more information.

Brian Jorgenson, a 32-year-old, former Microsoft employee, was sentenced to two years in prison on Friday for an insider trading scheme in which he passed along information gleaned in his role as a corporate finance manager to a former colleague who traded stocks and options. The two made more than $400,000 from their partnership. The judge who handed down Jorgenson’s sentence said it was “important that you serve as a public example.” Reuters has more here.

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Jobs

Cultivation Capital of St. Louis, Missouri, is hiring a director of operations who will double as a “fund principal,” receiving some ownership in the fund and helping make decisions on its behalf.

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Data

CB Insights has published a list of “most active VCs by year” since 2004.

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Essential Reads

The New York times gives readers a glimpse into Apple University, the tech giant’s secretive, six-year-old internal training program.

Wired’s Mat Honan “liked” everything he saw on Facebook for 48 hours. Here’s how the experiment played out.

In case you missed it Friday, that reported Alibaba investment in Snapchat isn’t happening, reports Recode.

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Detours

Why Zero Freitas is buying up all the vinyl records in the world.

An analyst who “nailed” the housing crash is quietly revealing the Next Big Thing.

First-person hyperlapse videos.

How Times Square works. (H/T: MediaREDEF)

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Retail Therapy

Handmade oil paintings of your digital images.

Kiravan, when you’re serious about exploring the world.

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

Hi, everyone, Semil Shah here, filling in with an abbreviated version of StrictlyVC while Connie takes a little time off. If you’d like to talk about today’s column or anything else, you can find me on Twitter at @semil.

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Top News in the A.M.

Watch out Amazon? Starting today, Google and Barnes & Noble are teaming up on the fast, cheap delivery of books.

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Chris Douvos: LPs Secretly Think “Certain Types” of Operational Experience are Overrated

Earlier this week, we featured a Q&A with Chris Douvos of Venture Investment Associates, a straight-shooting LP whose career began at Princeton University Investment Company more than a dozen years ago. Because the interview ran a bit long, and because Douvos is a smart guy with interesting insights, we decided to run the rest of our interview with him here today.

Are LPs starting to look for different kinds of backgrounds in the partnerships they back? If so, how?

In terms of backgrounds, there’s not a lot of change; I think that classically trained LPs like to see some operational experience among their GPs, but there’s also a belief that certain types of knowledge and experience get stale quickly.

There are a lot of people coming straight out of “hot companies” right now looking to raise funds, and I think that history teaches us that a lot of these funds will have unfulfilling results. In fact, some of the best investors out there — real titans of the VC world — had little operational experience.

But there are many different routes to success. I think the flavor of the month right now is “the platform.” A position that a bunch of funds seem to be adding right now is “VP of Platform” or something similar. The archetype in this regard for me was Brett Berson at First Round. For years, I called him the unsung MVP of the venture business. And indeed, [First Round founder] Josh [Kopelman] and the whole First Round team have done an amazing job of conceptualizing, building, and iterating their platform. The True [Ventures] guys have done an admirable job, as well. Of course, Andreessen Horowitz has built something special, too. But having known all those guys since the beginning, I see how significant an investment the building of these platforms has been, and I think it’ll be challenge to replicate.

What’s the one thing you believe founders should know about LPs in general?

LPs are putting their GPs under an enormous amount of pressure right now as they evaluate if they even want to invest in venture capital. Aside from the [roughly] dozen firms that don’t need to worry about fundraising, everyone seems to be on the “watch list” right now. Proof points — whether they’re nice exits or strong telltales of progress — can mean the difference between an easy fundraise and a protracted slog for that stressed-out board member of yours.

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New Fundings

All Def Digital, a year-old, L.A.-based online comedy and music network co-founded last year by hip hop mogul Russell Simmons, has raised $5 million led by Greycroft Partners. Other participants in the round included Advancit Capital, e.ventures, and Nu Horizons Investments, created by Simmons and his ex-wife, Kimora Lee Simmons-Leissner. Deadline has more here.

RedPoint Global, an eight-year-old, Wellesley Hills, Ma.-based maker of data management and digital marketing software, has raised $5.2 million in new funding led by Grotech Ventures, with participation from Sagamore Ventures. The company has raised $11.6 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Rocket Internet, the seven-year-old, Berlin-based incubator founded by the renowned Samwer brothers, has collected $446 million from Philippine Long Distance Telephone in exchange for a 10 percent stake in its business. Rocket Internet has helped form — as well as made early investments in — a long list of companies since its founding. Included in its porfolio: online fashion retailers Dafiti, Lamoda, Jumia, and Zalando, which target customers in Latin America, Russia, Africa, and Europe, respectively.

Splice Machine, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose transactional database sits on top of the Hadoop file system, has added $3 million to its Series B round from Correlation Ventures, Roger Sippl and Roger Bamford. The funding brings the round to $18 million. Earlier investors in the financing included Interwest Partners and Mohr Davidow Ventures. Splice Machine has now raised $22 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Two Tap, a 1.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based platform that helps publishers of mobile apps or websites sell products directly in their applications, has raised $2.7 million in seed funding. Its backers include Digital Garage, Green Visor Capital, Initialized Capital, Khosla Ventures, SV Angel, Transmedia Capital and individual investors.

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IPOs

Ten charts that shows us something new about the IPO boom.

iDreamSky Technology, a Chinese publishing platform for games played on mobile devices, has raised $116 million by offering 7.7 million ADSs at $15, above the expected $12 to $14 range. More here.

Microlin Bio, a diagnostic and therapeutics biotech, postponed its IPO yesterday. Renaissance Capital has more here.

Tobira Therapeutics, a biotech developing an immunotherapy treatment for liver disease and HIV, has also postponed its IPO. More here.

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Exits

Emu, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company whose messaging app can monitor chats and infer what people are talking about, has been acquired by Google for undisclosed terms. The company had raised $1.5 million in seed funding, including from TriplePoint Capital, Menlo Ventures, DFJ, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Wired analyzes the deal here.

Directr, a 1.5-year-old, Boston-based mobile app company that makes it easy for users to create movies on their phones, has been acquired by Google for undisclosed terms. The company had raised $1.7 million in seed funding from a long list of investors, including Advancit Capital, NextView Ventures, Boston Seed Capital, and Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian. TechCrunch has more here.

Ringadoc, a four-year-old, L.A.-based cloud-based physician call-back service, has been acquired by the electronic health records company Practice Fusion for undisclosed terms. The company had raised at least $1.9 million, including from Founders Fund, Siemer VC, and Telegraph Hill Group, and Practice Fusion CEO Ryan Howard. RIngadoc was incubated at Practice Fusion’s San Francisco headquarters. MobiHealthNews has more here.

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People

Former Yahoo president Sue Decker gives HBR an insider’s account of the Yahoo-Alibaba deal that she helped broker in 2005.

Mike Kail is Yahoo‘s newly appointed chief information officer and SVP of infrastructure, a role that will see him leading Yahoo’s IT and data center operations. Kail was previously VP of IT operations at Netflix.

A court has ruled that Hong Kong tycoon Albert Yeung can sue Googleover its autocomplete results suggesting he has links to organized crime. More here.

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Job Listings

Universal Music Group is recruiting an analyst and an associate for its corporate development and strategy group. The jobs are in Santa Monica, Ca.

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Data

In 2005, 31 firms raised funds of between $100 million and $250 million. The top performers of that bunch are Skyline Venture Partners Fund IV, Storm Ventures Fund III, and Union Square Ventures 2004, according to Pitchbook, which says the funds’ median IRR is -0.04 percent and the top-quartile IRR hurdle rate is 4.96 percent.

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Essential Reads

Netflix now has more subscription revenue than HBO.

Foursquare has begun tracking users everywhere they go, even when the app is closed.

The San Jose Police Department doesn’t think it needs federal authorization in order to fly a $7,000 Hexacopter drone it procured earlier this year. The FAA thinks otherwise.

—–

Detours

A good way to wreck a local economy? Build casinos.

Is a more prestigious college worth the money?

The unauthorized letter that’s been passed to elite MBAs for decades.

A Meteorologist Works Out Some Personal Issues During His Forecast.

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Retail Therapy

Good old leather Jack Purcells.

Good Wednesday morning, everyone. Semil Shah here, filling in with a shortened version of StrictlyVC while Connie is out for a couple of weeks. If you’d like to talk about today’s column or anything else, you can find me on Twitter at @semil.

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Top News in the A.M.

China’s government has excluded iPads and MacBook laptops from the list of products that can be bought with public money because of security concerns, says a new Bloomberg report that suggests the implications could be wide-reaching. “When the government stops the procurement of products, it sends a signal to corporates and semi-government bodies,” a Hong Kong-based analyst tells Bloomberg. “The Chinese government wants to make sure that overseas companies shouldn’t have too much influence in China.”

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Adam Besvinick on Breaking Into Today’s VC Market

Breaking into VC requires plenty of hustle, and Adam Besvinick has been hustling since graduating from Duke University in 2009 — nabbing summer stints at places like Accrue Ventures and DreamIt Ventures, an MBA from Harvard, and a part-time associate job at Lowercase Capital along the way.

Last month, Besvinick, who was most recently working as the head of business development at the e-commerce site Wanelo, landed a full-time job as a principal with the early-stage venture firm Deep Fork Capital. We caught up with him last week to find out more about his new gig, how he operates, and where he’ll be shopping.

Tell us about where you’ll focus your investing, including geographically.

I’ll be based full-time in New York, making monthly trips to the Bay Area and fairly regular trips to other hubs like L.A. and Boston, where we have portfolio companies. I won’t be constrained to a particular geography, but the first few opportunities I sourced for Deep Fork are in New York, and we think it’s increasingly valuable to have a constant presence there.

Most of my attention will be spent on seed-stage investment opportunities in content, commerce, and marketplaces, both consumer-facing and enterprise-facing companies in those sectors. However, my “first love” is social, so if I find something interesting in this world, I’m definitely going to take a hard look.

You were most recently working at a startup. What precipitated this shift back into venture?

Coming from a finance background, I always had a latent interest in investing, and when I started to break into the startup ecosystem, I felt like it was easier to get in front of VCs than to get in front of founders or other early-stage operators. And my first thorough exposure to the world of startups was through being fortunate enough to work with Chris Sacca and Lowercase Capital, as opposed to being on the operating side of things. I loved the different types of work I got to do with Chris and had a passion for and obsession with startups, so I knew that VC was where I ultimately wanted to end up.

Since working for Chris in business school, how have you seen the early-stage market change?

One major change is how we, as consumers, are inundated with apps and products in a way that we weren’t even two-and-a-half years ago. As a seed-stage investor, it makes it that much more difficult to extract signal from noise. Also, consumers have begun to develop engrained “mobile flows”—they have a set group of apps that they go to repeatedly, and it’s difficult to break up that flow unless you’re sufficiently different and valuable.

What tools and products do you use daily in your VC work?

I’m on Product Hunt, AngelList, and Crunchbase for checking out companies and products. I like Mattermark’s emails and Twitter feed but haven’t pulled the trigger on a subscription yet. LinkedIn and Rapportive are both critical for contacts. I read email newsletters from StrictlyVC, Term Sheet, and CB Insights daily. I downloaded Homer after adding it to Product Hunt and came across a couple of interesting apps on people’s phone screens that were shared, but I’m not sure this will be a persistent use case. I’ve also been playing around with Weave and SwiftIntro for meeting people who are building cool things, and I’m in a few interesting Facebook groups that have led to the discovery of compelling products. Last, but certainly not least, is Twitter – it’s my go-to for staying on top of everything that’s relevant to me.

How are you and Deep Fork thinking about using crowd-funding platforms such as AngelList? And how do you feel founders should be thinking about these platforms?

So far, I’ve used AngelList as a sourcing tool and to generate some inbound deal flow. It’s a great way to get a lay of the land, particularly if you follow a fair amount of individual investors and funds, which I’ve been making a point of doing.

When it comes to raising, I have seen it be a great way to fill out rounds after there are initial commitments and/or a lead. I’m carefully watching [AngelList’s] Syndicates to see how they evolve.

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New Fundings

Doctor On Demand, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that offers doctor consultations via mobile video chat, has raised $21 million in Series A funding led by Venrock, with participation from Shasta Ventures and Virgin Group Chairman Sir Richard Branson.

InVision, a three-year-old, New York-based company whose software enables users to more easily design their own apps, has raised $21 million in Series B funding led by Tiger Global Management, with FirstMark Capital participating. The company has now raised $35 million altogether.

Kiwi, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based mobile game developer, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Northgate Capital, with participation from DFJ and returning investor Sequoia Capital. The company has now raised $21 million altogether.

Spoqa, a three-year-old, Seoul-based mobile loyalty platform, has raised $3.9 million in new funding led by Daesung Private Equity group and Bokwang Investments. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Felicis Ventures, the Palo Alto, Ca.-based early-stage investment firm founded by former Googler Aydin Senkut in 2006, has closed its fourth fund with $96 million in commitments. Reuters has much more here.

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IPOs

Vivint, the three-year-old, Provo, Ut.-based home security and solar-energy provider owned by Blackstone Group, has confidentially filed for an IPO, reports Reuters. The company is now the second-biggest installer of residential solar panels in U.S. behind SolarCity, backed by Elon Musk. SolarCity went public in late 2012 at roughly $8 per share; its shares are currently trading at $71 a piece.

Zendesk, the 6.5-year-old, San Francisco-based on-demand customer service platform, handily beat Wall Street estimates in its first, post-IPO earnings report. Investors Business Daily has more here.

The European IPO market remains superhot, says Christoph Stanger, Goldman Sachs’s co-head of equity capital markets for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “When I look at our pipeline – and I think that’s representative for others’ – it’s actually jam-packed . . .We can assume that if markets hold, it will be a very, very active second half of the year.”

—–

People

Greg Coleman, who spent the last three years as president of the now-public ad tech company Criteo, has joined BuzzFeed as its new president. Before joining Criteo, Coleman had been the president of Huffington Post. The WSJ has more here.

Dev Ittycheria, who joined OpenView Partners as a managing director late last year and who was formerly the president of BMC Software, was just appointed CEO of database giant MongoDB, reports Forbes. He replaces Max Schireson, who spent just one year at the helm. More here.

Speaking of venture capitalist Chris Sacca (see today’s column), did you know his brother Brian starred in Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street?” More here.

The 25 most famous Harvard students of all time.

—–

Job Listings

Comcast Ventures is looking for a market development analyst. The job is in New York.

—–

Essential Reads

A Russian crime ring has amassed the largest known collection of stolen Internet credentials, including 1.2 billion user name and password combinations and more than 500 million email addresses, reports the New York Times. Forbes goes on to note that the security firm that reported the breach to the New York times is hoping to directly profit from it.

Bitcoin supporters are stepping up the pressure on New York’s top financial regulator to extend the comment period for the state’s new virtual currency rules.

—–

Detours

It’s hard giving away money,” says Jason Buzi, who made a fortune in the real estate business and has been trying to share the wealth by announcing cash giveaways via Twitter.

The Japanese literature trend that conflates one extreme after another.

“Meet Noah Ritter, Wayne County Fair attendee and Human of the Year. He’s being interviewed about rides on which he has been scared HAFF TUH DEFF.”

—–

Retail Therapy

Timex is teaming up with AT&T and Qualcomm on a connected version of the Ironman GPS series. A “Dick Tracy watch this is not,” notes Recode. (We’ll be looking for it this fall anyway.) More here.

Oh, wow, every 10-year-old boy’s dream bike, made real.