Happy Tuesday, everyone! Yes, we’re still figuring out the ideal format for readers. (Half of you loved what we did yesterday; the other half threw up on it.) Thanks very much for your patience, and if you haven’t signed up yet, you can do that here!

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Top News in the A.M.

Seven billionaires have joined Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge club; among them, Groupon cofounder Eric Lefkofsky and his wife, Liz.

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Entrepreneur Tristan Walker to VCs: Not Focusing on African-Americans is “Crazy”

Yesterday, StrictlyVC featured software mogul Mitch Kapor, who noted that VCs aren’t paying enough attention to the changing demographics of the country — even if it’s good business for his own investment firm, which is paying very close attention. Indeed, among other things, Kapor goes to events hosted by the Latino Startup Alliance and aligns himself with NewMe, a San Francisco-based accelerator focused on underrepresented entrepreneurs.

But Kapor isn’t alone in trying to wake up Silicon Valley. Tristan Walker, a Palo Alto-based entrepreneur who cut his teeth running business development at Foursquare and is now running his own still-stealth startup, is also doing what he can to shine a light on underrepresented groups.

It’s personal for Walker, who is African-American, which puts him in the company of just 1 percent of black tech entrepreneurs in Northern California. But like Kapor, Walker also believes proactively reaching out to African-American and Hispanic groups makes good business sense. We talked late last week.

A year or so ago, you set up the internship program Code2040 to bring black and Latino engineering undergrads to the Valley. Why?

Because for the first 24 years of my life, prior to coming here [to attend Stanford Business School], I had no idea that Silicon Valley was a place, let alone a great place. I don’t want people making the same mistake, so I thought [to] create an organization that gets black and Latino engineering graduates into internships in the Valley, and I enlisted one of my classmates [Laura Weidman Powers] to run it. In the summer of 2012, we had five fellows; this past summer, we had 18.

How does it work?

Startups only have so many resources to recruit at universities, so while you find [recruiters] at Stanford and M.I.T. and [the University of] Waterloo, my thinking was: What about engineering students at Harvey Mudd [College in Claremont, Calif.] and Stony Brook University [in New York], where I received my undergraduate degree? There are kids at these places who are incredibly talented and deserve that chance. So we visit these colleges, connect with administrators and students, educate them, and make it easier for [startups] to find great talent in the process.

Is this a pipeline problem or is there more to it?

It’s an access problem; there aren’t enough black folks here to put people in the network. But there’s an awareness problem, too. Growing up, I wanted to be an actor or athlete because I saw the Denzel Washingtons and Michael Jordans of the world. I also wanted to work on Wall Street, because those guys were very visible. As Silicon Valley becomes more visible to elite engineers who happen to be of color, the virtuous cycle will [begin]. I do think we’re at the start of something.

In another 30 years, the majority of people in the U.S. will be people of color. Is there more that VCs could be doing to target different demographics, so they aren’t playing catch-up later?

Definitely. Talk of white founders of black founders aside, focusing on this demographic is good business. [African Americans] are the earliest adopting, most culturally influential demographic in the world. To not be focusing on them is crazy.

Also, think about it: years down the road, if I’m a startup founder building a mobile app, do I build a Spanish-language version first? Do I focus on Android or iPhone first? What do I do about people who can only pay in cash? There’s a seismic shift [coming]; we should be thinking about it from now.

New Fundings

Anturis, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that makes IT infrastructure-monitoring software, has raised $2 million in Series A funding led by Runa Capital and VEB Innovations.

BrandProject, a months-old, Toronto-based venture that invests in consumer products, has raised $3 million in funding from BDC Venture Capital. BrandProject rose its first, $12 million, round of funding from undisclosed sources in August.

Catchpoint Systems, a five-year-old, New York-based company that makes Web and infrastructure monitoring software, has raised $6 million in Series B financing led by existing investor Battery Ventures. The company has raised just north of $10 million altogether, according to Crunchbase.

HealthLoop, a four-year-old, Mountain View, Calif.-based whose software is used by medical practices to monitor and communicate with patients during the recovery process, has raised a $10 million Series A round led by Canvas Venture Fund. Subtraction Capitalalso participated in the funding. The funding brings the company’s total capital raised to date to $13 million.

Lazada, a two-year-old, Kuala Lumpur-based Amazon-like e-commerce platform that targets consumers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, has raised $250 million from retail giant Tesco PLC and Access Industries, along with previous investors Investment AB Kinnevik and Verlinvest. The round brings Lazada’s funding to a stunning $486 million. Bloomberg has much more here.

Monexa, a 15-year-old, Vancouver-based company focused on an on-demand subscription billing and payment automation for its customers, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding fromYaletown Venture Partners, also in Vancouver.

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People

AllThingsD editors Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher have signed a deal with NBCUniversal for a news and conference business that will bring their current staff to a newly named website, reports Bloomberg.Details here.

Reggie Brown, the early Snapchat employee who says he invented the idea for disappearing messages, has admitted to leaking information to the press (including those deposition videos that Business Insider ran late last month). As a result, Brown is facing a restraining order, along with possible fines and even a dismissal of the suit itself, reports Techcrunch.

We had a bad feeling about Clinkle‘s launch when it announced the “largest seed round in Silicon Valley history” in June. Now, as Fortune reports, the still-stealthy mobile payments startup has laid off25 percent of its workforce.

Yesterday, The Information assembled a list of top executives who may be looking for new opportunities, and the outlet included Scott Forstall, who co-invented the iPhone operating system but wasforced out of the company in October 2012. Reportedly Forstall has been traveling, as well as talking with Kleiner Perkins and Andreessen Horowitz, though Apple employees think it’s more likely that Forstall will start his own company than become a VC.

Hilarie Koplow McAdams has been newly appointed as the chief revenue officer of New Relic, which makes application management and performance software. As GigaOm observes, the move is likelypre-IPO preparation. Koplow-McAdams was most recently VP of global sales for Salesforce.com.

Balaji Srinivasan, who cofounded the genetic-testing company Counsyl, is the newest general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Srinivasan, who taught data mining, statistics, and computational biology at Stanford before founding Counsyl, made waves in Octoberwhen, during a Stanford lecture, he suggested building “an opt-in society, ultimately outside the United States, run by technology.” Characterized as a “super-high-octane polymath” by firm cofounderMarc Andreessen, Srinivasan is particularly interested in healthcare, education, finance (including bitcoin), drones, and 3D printing.

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IPOs

King, the mobile games maker behind “Candy Crush Saga,” has delayed its IPO until next year amid fears that its flagship game has been “too successful.” The Telegraph has more here.

Quartz looks at the “mind-bendingly” complex ownership structure behind Chinese internet IPOs, asking (very rhetorically): What could go wrong?

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Exits

Newsy, a five-year-old, Columbia, Mo.-based video news service that monitors and analyzes news coverage, has been acquired by the media giant E.W. Scripps for $35 million in cash. Newsy, which raised at least $3.5 million from undisclosed investors, will beoperated as a subsidiary.

QuikIO, a 2.5-year-old, Mountain View, Calif.-based cross-platform video streaming app, has been acquired by Yahoo in what sounds like an acqui-hire. PandoDaily has the story.

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Happenings

Gartner Group‘s four-day Data Center Conference rolls into its second day in Las Vegas today. More information here.

The 10th annual LeWeb Paris conference is now in full swing. Clickhere to learn more. (LeWeb may be posting video of some of the conference here, too.)

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Job Listings

Canaan Partners is looking for an analyst to join its Menlo Park, Calif., office. (The firm has a health care team, but this person will focus on information technology.) To apply, you need an undergraduate degree in a technical field and between one and three years of experience working at a startup or other tech company. Canaan’s analysts typically work for the firm for two to three years before heading off to business school or to a company.

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Essential Reads

The hack that brought Foursquare back from the dead.

Venture capitalist Fred Wilson on bitcoin, data Leakage, health care and more.

Yesterday, Facebook announced that one of the most prominent artificial-intelligence researchers in the world, Yann LeCun, will be joining the company. Here’s why, suggests the New Yorker.

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Detours

If a story is viral, truth may take a beating.

Ohioans lead the nation in cursing. (StrictlyVC was hoping for a World Series or NBA Championship but will have to make do with this.)

Eyelid art. It’s a real thing.

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Retail Therapy

Turn your baby into a delicious-looking burrito using one of these giant, flour tortilla wraps — just in time for the holidays!

As long as you’re freezing your arse in this weather, get in the spirit with an Arctic Force Snowball Blaster. It makes three snowballs at a time that you can shoot at high velocity in the corporate parking lot. Or, heh, you know, wherever.

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Please feel free to send us any and all story suggestions (anonymous or otherwise) by clicking here. If you’re interested in advertising in our email newsletter, please click here. To sign up for this newsletter, please click here.

Good morning, everyone! Hope you had a great weekend. I also hope you’ll bear with us as we experiment with a few things, including our formatting. (Love it? Hate it? Let me know, at connie@strictlyvc.com or @cookie.)

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Top News in the A.M.

In an open letter to President Obama and Congress this morning, Google, Apple, Microsoft and five more of the most prominent U.S. tech companies, are demanding the government set new, stricter limits on surveillance.

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Mitch Kapor Asks: Where Is Twitter’s Person of Color?

Mitch Kapor, who founded Lotus and is widely considered a pioneer of the personal computing industry, wasn’t impressed when Twitter announced it had finally welcomed a woman – Marjorie Scardino – to its eight-member board last Thursday. As Kapor says of the move, “There’s no reason that Twitter had to wait until now to put a woman on the board.”

Scardino’s appointment also doesn’t address the fact that every member of Twitter’s board is white, says Kapor, noting people of color are even more active on the platform than whites. (According to Pew Research, 26 percent of black Internet users surveyed say they use Twitter, compared to 19 percent of Hispanic users and 14 percent of white users.) “No one is talking about the fact that people of color over-index on Twitter. Why aren’t we talking about the reason no one of color is on its board?” Kapor asks.

Late last week, I chatted with Kapor – today an active investor whose personal foundation works to ensure equity, particularly for low-income communities of color – about Silicon Valley and issues of race. Our conversation has been edited for length.

It often feels like Silicon Valley isn’t paying much attention to different ethnic and racial groups, including as end users. How big a problem is this in your view, and how is it remedied?

Entrepreneurs scratch their own itch, naturally, turning problems into opportunities. So as you have more underrepresented people of color starting companies, they’re naturally going to form them in ways that serve markets that have been overlooked.

But it has to be a multi-pronged approach, because while it’s the case that the Valley thinks of itself as a meritocracy, the gatekeepers take all kinds of shortcuts – paying attention to where you went to school, all the while professing that they don’t care what color or gender you are. It’s a ridiculous claim. People make all kinds of implicit assumptions about what success looks like that makes it harder for African Americans, Latinos, women, and people with accents to succeed.

What’s a practical way to get the ball moving? Is it a matter of getting more underrepresented groups integrated early on into the ecosystem?

A good first step would be to recognize that the smartest VCs and entrepreneurs are subject to systematic distortions from implicit bias. We could do much more to mitigate it if we’d stop pretending it doesn’t exist.

The powers that be on this subject say the most amazingly stupid things. They say things like, “I don’t care if you happen to be black or Latino.” But no one happens to be black or Latino; you can’t grow up and not be treated differently in one way or another. And to fail to take that into account is poor rationalization.

What else could ultimately make a difference? The country’s demographics are changing fast.

It’s sort of like climate change. Even though the science was strong, people took a wait-and-see position at first. After the science kept adding up, you were left with a relatively small number of climate denialists. On the topic of changing demographics, it’s the same thing. It’s inexorable. It will only come out one way. It’s just a question of how long it takes to get to critical mass.

At some point, especially if there’s one big outcome – one black billionaire – it will be a game changer. You can talk until you’re blue in the face without results. It’s when founders from nontraditional backgrounds start breaking out that we’ll start seeing a real impact.

Who have you backed recently who has a different perspective given his or her nontraditional background?

Take Regalii, a recent Y Combinator graduate whose founder is Latino. It’s a mobile solution for the international remittances market, and it comes out of [co-founder Edrizio de la Cruz’s] life experience as an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who went to Wharton. It’s a totally valid opportunity and the sort of thing that investors should fund, but it’s not the sort of thing that other people are necessarily going to think of, even though they should.

I agree 100 percent that there are lots of opportunities to cater to underserved markets that entrepreneurs aren’t going after. Because we’ve become known for being focused on high-growth opportunities that have a positive social impact, we’ve become a magnet, and we feel like we have an unfair competitive edge. These are companies not being fought over by other VCs. But that’s their loss and our gain.

New Fundings

BeHome247, a two-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based company that makes a smartphone-operated remote access, management, and property control system, has closed on $1.6 million in funding, shows an SEC filing. The company isdeclining to name its investors.

Chef, a five-year-old, Seattle-based company formerly known as Opscode, has closed a $32 Million Series D funding round led by Scale Venture Partners. Other new investors Citi Ventures and Amplify Partners also participated in the funding, alongside previous investorsBattery Ventures, DFJ, and Ignition Partners. Chef, an IT infrastructure automation company, has now raised roughly $55 million altogether.

Citrus, a three-year-old, Mumbai, India-based payment company that’s often likened to PayPal of China’s Alipay, has raised $5.5 million, reports Dow Jones, which saysSequoia Capital was part of the round.

Clever, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose software helps schools set up and update their student information easily, from student enrollment status to class rosters to teacher schedules, has raised $10 million in new funding led by Sequoia Capital, reports TechCrunch. The funding brings the total capital raised by the company to $13 million, says the outlet.

Daily Secret, a three-year-old, New York-based company that emails users a daily “best kept secret” about their favorite cities, has raised a new, $1.25 million round of funding, shows an SEC filing that lists E.ventures, as well asPan Africa Investment Co. Daily Secret, which puts out editions for more than 35 cities, including Athens, San Francisco and Tel Aviv, raised a $1.85 million Series A round last year from E. Ventures, BV Capital, Greycroft Partners, and Trigger Media.

Honest Buildings, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based startup, has raised a fresh round of funding, just six months after closing its $5.5 million Series A round, judging by an SEC filing. Thrive Capital appears to have led the $4 million fundraise (its cofounder, Jared Kushner, is listed on the filing). Honest Buildings, whose online platform connects real estate construction and design space professionals, has received past funding from Westly Group, RockPort Capital Partners and Mohr Davidow Ventures; collectively, it has now attracted about $11.5 million.

Flurry, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile analytics company, has raised $12.5 million in new funding, according to TechCrunch. The company declined to name its new investors but told the outlet it has raised $62.5 million altogether. Its many existing investors include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Union Square Ventures, First Round Capital, Crosslink Capital and Menlo Ventures.

ObserveIT, a seven-year-old, New York-based maker of activity recording and auditing software, has raised $20 million from Bain Capital Ventures. The company, whose monitoring and insight into user activity helps its customers solve their compliance, security and IT operational problems, hasn’t publicly disclosed previous institutional funding.

Practice Fusion, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based company focused on electronic health records, has raised a $15 million Series D extension led by Qualcomm Venturesand Longtitude Capital. The funding brings Practice Fusion’s Series D to $85 million and its overall funding to $149 million.

Via Motors, a three-year-old, Orem, Utah-based company that specializes in extended-range electric trucks, vans and SUVs, is apparently in aggressive fundraising mode. Last month, it filed a Form D, showing it had $5.7 million as part of a $10 million round, with Silicon Valley real estate billionaire Carl Berg and automotive executive Bob Lutzlisted as non-executive directors. On Friday, the company filed a fresh Form D showing it’s now raising $50 million. In a press conference on the main stage of the LA Auto Show last month, Lutz announced that Via would start production of its trucks and vans soon.

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New Funds

Silicon Valley venture capital firm Benchmark has officially raised $425 million for its eighth fund, judging by an SEC filing. The fund size is exactly the same as the firm’s previous fund, closed in January 2011. Five GPs are listed in the filing: Matt Cohler, Bill Gurley, Mitch Lasky, Steven Spurlock, and Peter Fenton.

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People

Paul Bragiel, a 36-year-old, American entrepreneur who three years ago founded the seed fund and accelerator i/o Ventures in San Francisco, has put his career on ice to try skiing in the 2014 Olympic Games — for Colombia. The Journal has much more on this very unusual story.

Blackberry cofounder Mike Lazardis made (and lost) a fortune on his ailing smartphone company. Now, he seems prepared to bet it all on quantum computing. As he tells the National Post of his investments, including a brand-new “Quantum Nano Centre” at the University of Waterloo: “There is a quantum revolution coming, an industrial revolution. It’s audacious.”

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IPOs

Art.com, the decades-old online seller of prints, posters, frames and canvas is still hoping for an IPO, according to USA Today, which says the company recently brought in investment banks to discuss the possibility.

Lumenis, a 22-year-old, Yokneam, Israel-based company that develops and sells lasers used in minimally invasive surgeries, has registered to go public on Nasdaq to raise up to $115 million. The company’s biggest outside investors include Viola-LM Partners, which owns 45.9 percent of the company, XT Hi-Tech Investments, which owns 35.5 percent, and Bank Hapoalim, which owns 5.2 percent.

Rubicon Project, the six-year-old, L.A.-based online- ad company, has picked Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group to lead its IPO, according to people who talked with Advertising Age. The company is reportedly aiming for a market debut next year. Rubicon has raised more than $50 million over the years, according to Crunchbase, including from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund and News Corp.

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Exits

EdgeCast, a seven-year-old, Santa Monica, Calif.-based content delivery network company, has been acquired by Verizon for an undisclosed amount that a source tells TechCrunch is in excess of $350 million. Verizon will use EdgeCast’s technology to enhance its video delivery and Web services offerings. EdgeCast had raised roughly $75 million from investors, including Steamboat Ventures and Menlo Ventures.

getTalent, an 18-month-old, San Francisco-based company that made online engagement tools for recruiters, has been acquired by the job site Dice, says TechCrunch. getTalent had raised $2.6 million in funding from HR software maker SuccessFactors and angel investors. Terms of the acquisition weren’t disclosed, but in a note to TechCrunch, Dice’s president made it sound like an acqui-hire, writing: “We are pleased to have the team behind getTalent join our Dice.com development team.”

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Happenings

The 10th annual LeWeb Paris conference kicks off tomorrow; speakers include venture capitalists Fred Wilson, Tony Tjan, and Guy Kawasaki, along with a long list of founders and operating execs. You can learn more about what’s happening and when here.

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Job Listings

The corporate giant Johnson & Johnson is looking for a manager of venture deal and analysis to help the company make equity investments in early-stage venture and publicly traded companies in the areas of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical and surgical devices, health care information technology, diagnostics, and consumer products. The job is in Menlo Park, Calif.

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Data

Venture capital firms poured nearly $350 million into food-related startups last year, compared with less than $50 million in 2008, according to the research firm CB Insights. The AP has a nice report on the evolving landscape here.

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Essential Reads

Late last week, a federal judge gave the green light to an employee class-action suit against Uber that claims the ride-sharing company has stiffed drivers on tips and expenses. The case could now move forward, possibly even as a national class action. As the Recorder sees it, the move injects uncertainty into the freelancer model central to Uber and other tech ride-share startups like Lyft and Sidecar.

How to bet against the bitcoin bubble.

There really isn’t a VC industry in Spain, reports Tech.EU. And that’s a pretty big problem for the 38 startup programs now operating inside the country.

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Detours

Go ahead. Mail your boring holiday cards.

Artist Jee Young Lee creates surreal dreamscapes in her small studio. (These are dazzling.)

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Retail Therapy

These “dynamic balance” golf shoes look a little odd, but hey, when it comes to your swing, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Yes! Finally, a combination bottle opener and wire stripper.

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Etc.
A couple of weeks ago, I had to run off in the early a.m. to speak at Wharton‘s San Francisco campus. Here’s a clip if you’re interested.  Thanks to Wharton’s vice dean, Doug Collom, for inviting me!

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Please feel free to send us any and all story suggestions (anonymous or otherwise) by clicking here. If you’re interested in advertising in our email newsletter, please click here. To sign up for this newsletter, please click here.

 

Related articles

• StrictlyVC: December 6, 2013
• Clever Gets $10 Million From Sequoia To Provide A Standardized API For School Data
• StrictlyVC: December 3, 2013

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy your weekend and we’ll see you back here next week with some interesting features, including interviews with entrepreneur Tristan Walker and software mogul and philanthropist Mitch Kapor.

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Is it really Thursday already?! Hope you’re in for a fabulous day. Also, a quick reminder that you can reach out any time with tips, complaints, broken links, etc., at connie@strictlyvc.com or @cookie.

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At long last, Twitter has its female board member, announcing the appointment of Marjorie Scardino, former CEO of the media company Pearson, in a filing today. The appointment is effective immediately.

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Meet the VC Who Single-Handedly Raised $150 Million from Investors 

In all likelihood, you’ve never heard of Rami Elkhatib. He isn’t Twitter-famous. He seldom speaks with reporters. He hasn’t worked at a brand-name firm. Before launching Acero Capital on Sand Hill Road in 2010, Elkhatib quietly represented the Raleigh, N.C.-based venture firm Southeast Technology Funds, where he worked as a West Coast-based general partner for roughly eight years.

But while Elkhatib may be a stranger to you, enough institutional investors know him — and apparently think quite highly of him – that they committed $150 million to his debut fund in 2010, where he was (and remains) the sole general partner. 

Earlier this week, I caught up with Elkhatib, whose hits include the 2006 sale of Pixel Magic to Dai Nippon and the 2007 sale of the managed storage solution company Arsenal Digital to IBM. Our conversation has been edited for length.

You’ve been investing this fund since 2010. What are you shopping for, and how many startups have you backed?

The fund closed in 2010, but it’s still pretty early. We’ve made six investments, and the plan is to make 20 or so. As for focus, it’s on Enterprise IT broadly. We’ll probably invest in up to 18 [related] companies, along with a couple outside that space. Within Enterprise IT, the approach is to look at what enterprises are interested in, and for us, right now, that focus translates into analytics, mobility, infrastructure, and virtualization.

How big are the bets that you’re making?

We tend to be pretty agnostic: we’re focused more on the opportunity and the management team, but the investments we’ve made so far have been A or B rounds in the $4 million to $6 million range, with reserves set aside [for follow-on fundings].

What themes are interesting to you right now?

Enterprise mobility is an area I’m really interested in. There’s still a lot of room for innovation; I’m personally focused on finding mobility middleware – the equivalent of systems management companies from the traditional IT space.

We’re also very interested in real-time data, meaning true real-time. When people talk about real-time in big data, they’re talking about minutes, but I think we’re moving to a world where real-time insights come in milliseconds, where data that’s going through the network hasn’t even been stored yet.

You say “we.” Explain to readers how Acero works. You rely on “venture consultants,” which seems like a new twist on things.

Well, I’m the sole GP, but I’m not the only person. We [including an associate and venture partner] have a corporate, enterprise-focused sourcing strategy, meaning that for every subsector, our approach is to cultivate very strong relationships with large public platform companies in that sector, and we use those relationships to decide [what themes to pursue]. Toward that end, we have venture consultants with us who happen to be senior VPs in product management at platform companies [who we] talk with about their needs or, if we are interested in, say, the storage space, we make it our job to talk with them about where they see the market headed.

It’s not a casual effort. It’s the cornerstone of how we’ve been sourcing deals.

Have you modeled these scouts after another firm?

I’ve modeled it more on my own experience within Toyota and Procter & Gamble, where I spent the first third of my career as a software engineer focused on database design – an early ’90s version of big data. If anyone back then had wanted to talk about how you collect information about every [stock-keeping unit] in every store in the United States, and how you do trend analysis on that, there was probably no one better to talk with than my team.

Are these consultants compensated?

They are, though I’d rather not get into specifics. Ultimately, I hope that it will become a recruiting strategy. There are three to five people who have worked for us in that capacity, and I’m sure our next partner will be one of those people. It’s very challenging to add someone new to a team; I think [our way of interacting with these individuals] is a good way to get to know them.

I’ve never heard of a single-GP firm managing so much money. Will you hire another GP shortly?

We’ll be adding a principal and an associate … but I think it will take more time to add a GP. I don’t have it calendared. Partly, that’s because we just made our sixth investment [leading the $11 million Series B round of Gridstore, a startup that makes low-cost storage devices] the same week we sold one portfolio company [Bitzer Mobile, a company that makes mobile applications management software and that Oracle acquired in the middle of last month for undisclosed terms; Acero had led its lone, $4.83 round in 2011, joined by Chevron Technology Ventures]. So net net, my board commitments didn’t increase.

If you start a fund with one or two or three GPs, it almost always takes a long time. Whoever starts the fund needs to establish its personality and approach and strategy. After that, you can add GPs.

New Fundings

3D Robotics, the four-year-old, San Diego-based unmanned aerial vehicle company headed by former Wired editor Chris Anderson, has raised $6 million in new funding from Mayfield. The money is reportedly part of a $30 million round that was announced in September and that also includes True Ventures, Foundry Group, and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. The company has raised $35 million to date.

Clarity Health, a six-year-old, Seattle-based, software-as-a service company focused on helping doctors, hospitals, and other parties coordinate the care of patients, has raised $6.6 million in funding. Columbia Pacific Advisors’ Opportunity Fund, which invested $3 million into the company in 2011, led the round.

ClearDATA Networks,a 14-year-old, Phoenix, Az-based healthcare cloud computing platform and services company, has raised $14 million in Series B funding. Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Excel Venture Management and Norwest Venture Partners participated in the round. (ClearDATA previously had a first, $7 million, closing of its Series B round in August; it just held a second closing for Merck.)

Juno Therapeutics, a brand-new, Seattle-based, clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing immunotherapies for cancer, has raised $120 million from investors, including ARCH Venture Partners and the Alaska Permanent Fund. Juno is a spin-out of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Seattle Children’s Research Institute. According to Geekwire, it plans to launch clinical trials for prostate, lung, breast and pancreatic cancer as soon as next year.

Misfit Wearables, a two-year-old, Redwood City, Calif.-company that makes a wearable activity tracker called Shine, has raised $15.2 million in Series B funding led by Horizon Ventures. Previous investors, including Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, and serial entrepreneur Max Levchin, also participated in the round. To date, Misfit has raised $23 million.

OrderWithMe.com, a 2.5-year-old, Las Vegas-based company that lands discounts for small businesses by aggregating their orders with other small business, has raised $6 million in Series B funding from Vegas TechFund, BaseVC, and other local Las Vegas investors. Previous investors Infinity Venture Partners, SOS Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to date to $9 million.

Playnery, a two-year-old, Korea-based game development studio, has raised $2.8 million in Series B financing led by JAFCO Asia. The company has raised $6.5 million altogether to date, including from Softbank Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and Stonebridge Capital.

Shareable Ink, a four-year-old, Nashville, Tenn.-based company that makes a digital pen and other software designed to easily document and organize patient visits, has closed a $10.7 million Series C funding round. Previous investor Lemhi Ventures led the round.

Snapsheet, a three-year-old, Chicago-based company whose mobile app promises to settle auto insurance claims by photo, has raised $10 million in Series B funding. No investors were named in an announcement about the round, though previous investors in the company, which has raised just north of $11 million altogether, include the Chicago-based firms Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Lightbank, and OCA Ventures.

Sweetgreen, a six-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based chain of farm-to-table eateries, has raised $22 million in new funding from Revolution Growth, an injection that brings the company’s total funding to $39 million. Revolution cofounder Steve Case had backed the company previously with his personal capital and decided to supercharge its growth after watching it expand, says the WSJ.

Ticketland, a Moscow-based event ticketing company, has raised $10 million in funding from the Russia-based investment firm iTech Capital. TechCrunch has much more on the company here.

Yetu AG, a Berlin-based startup at work on a smart home platform that will enable consumers to monitor and adjust their heat, energy and Internet usage from a single point of contact, has raised $8 million in Series A capital from Bilfinger Venture Capital and KfW, reports TechCrunch.

Zalora, an 18-month-old, Berlin-based online fashion start-up that sells roughly 500 different brands across Southeast Asia, has raised $112 million in new capital from billionaire Leonard Blavatnik’s Access Industries and U.S. asset management firm Scopia Capital Management. Zalora was incubated by Berlin-based Rocket Internet. Reuters has more here.

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New Funds

5AM Ventures, an 11-year-old early-stage, life sciences-focused venture firm with offices in Menlo Park, Calif., and Waltham, Mass., has closed its fourth fund with $250 million. The firm says the capital came from existing and new institutional investors, including endowments, family offices, foundations, funds-of-funds and pension funds.

Hoxton Ventures, a new, London-based early-stage venture firm, has raised a $40m (£24m) fund that it plans to invest in startups across Europe. The firm’s founders include Hussein Kanji, who spent more than two years as an associate with Accel Partners in London prior, and several years with Microsoft before that; and Rob Kniaz, who spent more than four years as a product manager at Google, as well as worked as a venture capitalist at Fidelity Ventures for more than a year. Wired.co.uk has much more on Hoxton and its strategy.

Persistent Systems, a four-year-old, Pune, India-based software products and technology services company, has launched a seed-stage venture fund that will focus on “supporting innovation in social, mobile, analytics and cloud computing technologies.” Its first investment, says the company, is Ustyme, a Sausalito, Calif.-based company that makes a free video call app for the iPad. Persistent hasn’t disclosed how much it plans to invest in startups; Ustyme raised $2 million in seed funding in September, according to the outlet FinSMEs.

Volition Capital — the Boston-based growth equity firm previously known as Fidelity Ventures before spinning off on its own in 2010 — has closed on a new, $170 million, fund. In a release yesterday, the firm said the it was originally targeting $150 million but it raised more to accommodate investor interest. Volition focuses on software and technology-enabled services businesses with at least $5 million in revenue and between 30 percent and 100 percent top-line growth.

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People

Snapchat‘s Evan Spiegel is still living with his father (for now), but his cofounder, Bobby Murphy, has just acquired a very nice, glass-lined home/box not far from the startup’s new Venice Beach, Calif., headquarters.

John Maeda, a former MIT professor turned president of the Rhode Island School of Design has accepted a role as “design partner” at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a job he’ll assume in January. Maeda will also spend a small portion of his time at eBay, as chair of eBay’s new Design Advisory Board. AllThingsD has more here.

Brian O’Malley, long a general partner at Battery Ventures, has joined Accel Partners as a partner on its early-stage team. (StrictlyVC recent sat down O’Malley for this piece  and this piece.)

Six months after entrepreneur Dave Morin‘s interview about his bespoke phone app with Vanity Fair, Kevin Rose of Google Ventures dares to share with VF how he uses his own phone.

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IPOs

Biotech IPOs: from hot to cold like that.

Soon, Twitter will settle into a ranking as the fourth biggest IPO of 2013. Can you name the top three?

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Exits

Health Guru Media, a six-year-old, New York-based online video company focused on health content, has been acquired by the privately held digital media company Kitara Media Corp. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, though Health Guru’s stockholders will receive a collective 18 million shares of Kitara’s stock. Health Guru had raised just less than $10 million, according to Crunchase. Its backers include Village Ventures, Castile Ventures, and Long River Ventures.

Nearbuy Systems, a 3.5-year-old, San Mateo, Calif.-based company that offers shopping customers opt-in WiFi in exchange for allowing retailers to track them, has been acquired. The buyer: in-store analytics company RetailNext. Terms of the all-stock deal were not disclosed. Nearbuy Systems had raised a little more than $3 million over the years, including from Innovation Endeavors and Metamorphic Ventures.

Stayz Group, a subsidiary of Fairfax Media, has been acquired by HomeAway, the Austin, Tex.-based online marketplace for vacation rentals. Venture-backed HomeAway, which went public in 2011, paid $198 million in cash.

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Job Listings

LinkedIn is looking for a business operations associate/senior associate to focus on predictive business planning and strategic initiatives for its mobile team. Applicants should have two to four years of experience at a management consulting, investment banking, private equity or venture capital firm, along with experience working with large datasets. An undergrad degree in a technical major is preferred.

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Data

“Civic tech” companies — which help people better interact with the government and their neighbors — are gaining steam, reports Inc. Picking up on a study released yesterday by the Knight Foundation, the outlet reports that between January 2011 and May 2013 alone, individuals, venture firms, and philanthropic organizations poured $431 million into 102 related start-ups.

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Essential Reads

The Journal looks at Beijing’s Zhongguancun district, calling it “China’s answer to Silicon Valley.”

The Economist notes that while European venture capital has had a bad rep since the dotcom bubble’s implosion, things are turning around, with at least six new European venture firms to emerge recently on the scene.

Valleywag confirms your suspicions: Uber really is minting money.

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Detours

Bloomberg Business week looks at Politico’s newest ambition in “expanding beyond the Beltway [and] heading for a destination almost as obsessed with itself as Washington and with just as many self-appointed know-it-alls: New York.”

In news that will bolster the perception that Harvard grades “more softly than some of its rivals in the Ivy League,” the college just disclosed that its most commonly awarded grade is an A.

Urban Outfitters has been cast into the cold by Goldman Sachs over one lousy bear coat (well, and a rogues’ gallery of other terrible items).

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Retail Therapy

Nike’s tricked-out Lunarendor QS snowboard boots are (almost) ready for purchase for the extreme snowboarder in your life. Cost: $500.

Ah, yes, of course, Ron Burgundy Blended Scotch Whiskey, for those times when nothing will do like good old-fashioned scotchy, scotch scotch, down into your belly.

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Correction: Yesterday, StrictlyVC flagged a Form D reflecting that Industry Ventures had raised $100 million for a special opportunities fund, but the firm has collectively raised much more than that: Yesterday, it said it has closed on a $425 million secondary fund – Industry Ventures Secondary VII –  to buy up founder and employee stakes. It also announced that it has closed a $200 million Special Opportunities Fund that it plans to use to invest in larger transactions. Apologies for any confusion.

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Please feel free to send us any and all story suggestions (anonymous or otherwise) by clicking here. If you’re interested in advertising in our email newsletter, please click here. To sign up for the newsletter, visit strictlyvc.com.

 

 

Good morning!

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Top News in the A.M.

A federal judge has approved an antitrust suit against the patent advisory firm RPX. (The company, originally backed by Kleiner Perkins, Charles River and Index Ventures, went public in 2011.) The case will test the business model of defensive patent consortiums that allow member-companies to pay to use their vast portfolios.

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In Talk of Amazon and UPS Delivery Drones, a VC Sees Dollar Signs

Amazon and UPS made big news this week, disclosing that they are experimenting with flying parcel carriers, respectively.

But the companies’ eventual use of drones isn’t what’s interesting to VCs like Bilal Zuberi, an investor with Lux Capital who has been studying the drone space for several years. The real story, as far as he’s concerned, is that two major commercial deployment opportunities have come into view, validating the market for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) — and creating exit opportunities for them.

The development is of particular interest to Zuberi, whose firm owns a piece of CyPhy Works. CyPhy builds UAV hardware and software and could ultimately be involved in delivering your Amazon loot.

Jeff Bezos hasn’t invested in the company, but CyPhy was founded by iRobot cofounder Helen Greiner, and Zuberi tells me that Bezos is “close to the iRobot family.” (Bezos has invested in Rethink Robotics, a manufacturing robot company started by iRobots cofounder Rodney Brooks.)

Even if Amazon — which acquired the robotics company Kiva System last year, paying $775 million for the company and putting its robotics warehouse workers to use — doesn’t buy CyPhy, Zuberi suggests that Amazon’s embrace of delivery robots could encourage other potential acquirers from Walmart to FedEx to enter the market.

“People always ask me, ‘If you’re successful, who would buy you guys?’ Well, Amazon [has bought a robotics company]. Why would UPS or FedEx not buy one of these [UAV] companies?”

Of course, that’s all years down the road. UAVs, currently used in military applications, can’t access U.S. national airspace until the beginning of 2015. And initially, only limited drone activity will be permitted so that the Federal Aviation Administration can adjust its policies if need be.

Even then, observes Zuberi, companies like Amazon and UPS will likely stick to demo deployments for a while, as they figure out a raft of likely issues that extend well beyond picking up and delivering boxes to the right location. Among numerous other considerations, the companies will need to determine how to tightly integrate the technology into their supply chains and ensure the drones’ sensors can operate safely in crowded neighborhoods.

Zuberi thinks that by the time drones are flying paper towels to consumers, the technology will work as it should.

“I love where you have military and government use cases involved,” he says, “because they test and they test for resiliency and redundancy. These guys can’t have failures. Everything has to be perfect.”

New Fundings

Blaze Bioscience, a three-year-old, Seattle-based biotech company, has raised $9 million in Series B funding from unnamed backers. The company is developing what it calls Tumor Paint. According to a recent NPR segment that featured the technology, one part is a protein that can enter the bloodstream and find a cancerous tumor; the other part is a fluorescent dye that glows when a light is shone on it. (The hope is the “paint” will help doctors more easily distinguish a malignancy from healthy tissue.)

DataSift, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based social analytics platform, has raised $42 million in Series C financing. Insight Venture Partners led the round with participation from previous investors Scale Venture Partners, Upfront Ventures, IA Ventures, Northgate Capital, Daher Capital and Cendana Capital. The new funding brings the total capital raised by the company to roughly $72 million.

Gridstore, a four-year-old, Mountain View, Calif.-based company that makes low-cost storage devices with their own CPU and memory resources, has raised $11 million in Series B funding. Acero Capital led the round. The company’s previous investors, including GGV Capital, Investec Ventures Ireland Limited, ONSET Ventures and some of the original angel investors, also participated in the financing. Altogether, Gridstore has raised roughly $26 million to date.

MOVE Guides, a two-year-old, London-based startup whose software-as-a-service platform aims to help companies more easily relocate employees, has raised $1.8 million in seed funding from Notion Capital and New Enterprise Associates, which were joined by numerous angel investors. The round brings the company’s total funding to date to $2.4 million.

Rumr, a months-old, L.A.-based company behind a new, still-stealth messaging app, has raised $800,000 according to a new SEC filing. PandoDaily recently reported that numerous prominent investors participated in the round, including Khosla Ventures, Google Ventures, Greycroft Partners, and angel investor Paige Craig. The outlet also revealed that the teen-focused app will enable senders to hide their identity from recipients.

SitterCity, the 12-year-old, Chicago-based online resource for in-home care, has secured a $4.5 million credit facility from Square 1 Bank. Just last month, the company closed on $13 million in new funding from investors Point Judith Capital, Apex Venture Partners, Baird Venture Partners, New World Ventures and Bright Horizons Family Solutions, a round that brought its total equity funding to date to roughly $43 million.

Trufa, a brand-new, Heidelberg, Germany-based company that develops predictive analytics applications, has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding led by Accel Partners. Trufa was just spun out of this company.

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New Funds

Biomark Capital has spun off of Burrill Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm focused on drugs, diagnostics, medical devices, healthcare delivery, wellness and digital health. Burrill Capital had announced that it had raised $505 million in “aggregate capital commitments” roughly one year ago, but it had actually raised closer to $200 million. “Partly as a result of the size difference, the team responsible for investing the cash has split off from Burrill into a new venture firm,” says Xconomy, which has the full story, including which partners have joined Biomark and which haven’t.

Industry Ventures, the 13-year-old, San Francisco-based, venture-capital-focused investment firm, has closed on a $425 million secondary fund — Industry Ventures Secondary VII —  to buy up founder and employee stakes, as well as a $200 million Special Opportunities Fund that Industry plans to use to invest in larger transactions. The new funds bring the firm’s total capital under management to more than $1.7 billion, it says.

According to the WSJ, the Bloomberg administration is working with large pharmaceutical companies and venture capitalists to create a $100 million fund to invest in fledgling life sciences companies in New York. The city will invest $10 million in the fund, along with $40 million from pharmaceutical companies Celgene Corporation, Eli Lilly, and GE Ventures. The Economic Development Corp. is seeking a venture-capital firm to manage the fund and invest at least $50 million.

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People

Floodgate cofounder Ann Miura-Ko and Google Ventures’ Bill Maris are part of a new “40 Under 40” list that Silicon Valley Business Journal has just published.

Emily White, the director of business operations at Facebook’s Instagram photo-sharing unit, is leaving the company to become COO of Snapchat, reports AllThingsD. The hot messaging app company has been searching for someone to help lead the business, says the outlet; more, the hiring signals to the world that Snapchat plans to remain independent for now.

Venture capitalist Fred Wilson made a “grandmaster move” in pledging $10,000 to help every member of a Brooklyn school’s championship chess team head to the National Championship this year, reports the New York Daily News. Wilson, who has also blogged about teaching chess to children, has made “all the difference in the world,” said Steven Colding, the team’s coach. “We raised $6,000 in [additional funding in] four days, just because he said something.”

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IPOs

An IPO is the only way to go for Seattle-based DocuSign, CEO Mike Dinsdale tells the WSJ. “It would be close to impossible for anyone to pay us what we are valued at because we cross more than one vertical,” said Dinsdale, who added: “We won’t be acquired. An IPO is logical at some point.”

Twitter‘s IPO is sparking lots of investor interest in other so-called social startups.

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Exits

Crunchyroll, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based video service for Japanese Anime and Asian media, has sold a majority interest to The Chernin Group, former News Corp president Peter Chernin’s holding company. Terms of the acquisition weren’t disclosed, but sources have told numerous outlets that the price tag was close to $100 million. Crunchyroll had raised a reported $4.8 million, including from Venrock.

Rhythm NewMedia, an eight-year-old, Mountain View, Calif.-based mobile video advertising platform focused exclusively on smartphones and tablets, has been acquired by the publicly traded video search tool company blinkx for $65 million in cash and stock. Rhythm had raised nearly $29 million from investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Rembrandt Venture Partners, and Morgenthaler Ventures.

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Job Listings

Pinnacle Ventures, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based venture firm that provides both debt and equity financing to startups, is looking for an associate. The job is a two-year commitment “with possibility for growth if the candidate performs well.” Applicants should ideally have between one and three years of experience working in investment banking, venture capital, private equity, or an operating role.

Data

Pitchbook has scanned some data on the West Coast’s largest venture financings of the year (a good reminder of how massive some of them have been). In descending order, the top five are solar power installation company SunRun ($630 million), the private car service app Uber ($258 million), the social network Pinterest ($225 million), the short-term rentals platform Airbnb ($200 million), and, yes, again, Pinterest ($200 million).

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Essential Reads

Listen up: Software Americans living in San Francisco are tired of being called “techies.” Says one complainant to the San Francisco Chronicle, “If you use the word ‘techie,’ we know you’re not in tech. A lot of negative terms like that – yuppie, hipster – are outsider terms. We don’t call each other techies – at all, ever.”

Thanks to a patent that the USPTO has just awarded Apple, our iPhones may someday unlock, as well as hide messages, using facial recognition technology.

Over the last half-year, Google has quietly acquired seven startups to create a new generation of robots, and Andy Rubin, the engineer who built Google’s Android software, is spearheading the effort.

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Detours

Couples that drink together stay together, says a, hiccup, new study.

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Retail Therapy

If this Jaguar isn’t the most beautiful car in the world, it surely comes close.

And this, dear friends, is what overdoing it on every level looks like.

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Related articles

• StrictlyVC: December 3, 2013
• StrictlyVC: November 8, 2013
• StrictlyVC: November 5, 2013

Happy Tuesday! StrictlyVC is feeling a little sickly this a.m, so please excuse any craziness below. Also, just a quick reminder that if you haven’t signed up for the newsletter yet, you can do that right over here.

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Top News in the A.M.

Good morning and welcome back! Hope your break was as relaxing as ours (and less filling).

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Top News in the A.M.

It’s Wednesday! Happy Thanksgiving, U.S. readers! Hope you have a wonderful break. StrictlyVC won’t be publishing over the next two days but we have some great things lined up for next week, so stay tuned and we’ll see you then!

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Top News in the A.M.

Related articles

• StrictlyVC: November 26, 2013
• StrictlyVC: November 22, 2013
• StrictlyVC: November 21, 2013
• StrictlyVC: October 29, 2013
• StrictlyVC: November 25, 2013