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Top News in the A.M.

Expect to be inundated with headlines about Apple products very shortly. Here’s how to watch the live stream of the company’s iPhone keynote, which kicks off at 10 a.m. PST.

Social Finance, or SoFi, the online lender known for its unconventional marketing tactics, said late yesterday that cofounder and CEO Mike Cagney will resign by the end of the year. He’s also stepping off the company’s board. His departure follows recently filed lawsuits over claims of sexual harassment and unfair wage practices at the San Francisco-based start-up. Several former employees have said that Cagney had inappropriate relationships with SoFi employees, and that those fueled the company’s toxic workplace culture. More here.

Genetics testing company 23andMe has confirmed a giant round that TechCrunch broke the news of last week; the final tally, led by Sequoia Capital: $250 million. The financing brings the company’s funding to date to $491 million. More here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is brought to you this week by the Future Labs AI Summit, a two-day conference comprising trainings, talks, and discussions with leading AI technologists, investors, academics, and entrepreneurs in New York City on October 30 – 31.

From deep dives into key areas animating AI conversations from leading technical experts to introductory courses in machine learning and game theory for AI, the Future Labs AI Summit features offerings for scholars, technologists, and investors alike. Attendees will also get a first look at demos from the second cohort of startups in the AI NexusLab, the accelerator program run by Future Labs, NYU Tandon, and ff Venture Capital. Get tickets here.

Unity CEO John Riccitiello on the AR Apps We’ll See Within the Year

Presumably, it would be good for business to speak onstage at an Apple event — essentially the tech world’s equivalent of a U2 concert. But John Riccitiello, the CEO of San Francisco-based Unity Technologies, says you won’t see him presenting at tomorrow’s Apple event or that of any other platform company, for that matter.

The reason: Unity, which makes software at the heart of Pokémon GO and other interactive entertainment, sees itself becoming the de facto content creation engine for a wide number of companies and their applications. While Apple is expected tomorrow to release iOS 11, which includes support for ARKit, a tool kit for developers to easily create AR apps, and Unity supports ARKit, the 13-year-old company doesn’t want to be perceived as playing favorites. Says Riccitiello, “Our philosophy is to put powerful tools in hands of developers, but also to support every meaningful platform so they can have success” — whether that’s Apple or Google or even Amazon.

We talked with Riccitiello earlier today about the company’s approach, along with the short-term future of AR and VR, where Unity is positioned to play a starring role for some time to come. Our chat has been edited for length.

Apple is obviously well-positioned to usher in the AR age with its coming iPhone 8 and iOS 11. How important are these releases to Unity, and will you factor into the show? Are you introducing some news at its event?

We’re probably under 12 NDAs [with Apple]. But we’re by definition cross-platform, so we never build platform-specific demonstrations. We support more than 30 platforms and I can’t think of a time when we’ve produced a platform-specific demo.

I can talk about a lot of other things, though. The future of AR and VR, my family…

Okay then, let’s talk about the future of VR, which is seemingly further out than people had earlier imagined.

Commercial applications are taking off like crazy, but sure, generally speaking, the consumer side of VR is off to a slow start. The hardware is too expensive; it’s not that functional. Those problems will solve themselves by the 2018-2019 time frame, which is what I’ve been saying since 2015.

Now, if you take this new thing, using your phone for AR — [including via] ARKit and [Google’s recently introduced challenger to ARKit] ARCore, the future is coming fast. The biggest app in history was Niantic’s Pokémon GO, powered by Unity. Tens of millions of people played Pokémon GO. That was just the start.

What will we be doing with our phones a year from now?

You’ll point a camera at a friend’s shoes and be told where to get them and at what price. In a year, a friend will be able to use an app that scans your body and comes up with a millimeter accurate picture, so you’ll know what you’d look like inside that particular shirt or dress, based on the dimensions of the garment. You’ll also be able to point your phone at an acquaintance and pull up their LinkedIn profile, or point at a restaurant and a menu will pop up, along with information perhaps about which friends have been there and who the architect is of the building.

More here.

New Fundings

Airburg, a three-year-old, China-based company that makes air purifiers for the home, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding “worth tens of millions” of dollars led by Lightspeed China Partners, with participation from Zhen Fund. China Money Network has more here.

Aunt Fannie’s, a four-year-old, Portland, Or.-based company that makes food-based cleaning and pest products, has raised raised $2.5 million in funding, including from RCV Partners, CircleUp, and Monica Nassif. (She previously founded Caldrea, a specialty brands that catered to environmentally conscious consumers and was sold in 2008 to SC Johnson.) More here.

Basecare, a seven-year-old, China-based medical device maker that makes devices for embryonic pre-implantation genetic screening, has raised $14 million in Series B funding from unnamed investors. The company had raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding in 2015 from Oriza Seed Venture Capital and Genesis Capital. China Money Network has more here.

Camera IQ, a four-year-old, L.A.-based startup that helps companies build marketing and advertising experiences for smartphone cameras, has raised $2.3 million in seed funding led by Shasta Ventures, with participation from Presence Capital, Greycroft Partners, Brilliant Ventures and Act One. TechCrunch has more here.

DNA Script, a three-year-old, Paris-based synthetic DNA manufacturer, has raised $13 million in Series A funding led by Illumina Ventures, with participation from Merck Ventures BV and earlier investors Sofinnova Partners, Kurma Partners, and Idinvest Partners. More here.

Eevo, a three-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based app that offers virtual reality experiences tied to publishers’ and other creators’ content (including the  BBC show “Planet Earth II”), has raised $1.3 million in seed funding from Eagle Advisors, FundersClub, and 37 Angels, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Genvid Technologies, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based company that provides an SDK for game developers to integrate into their games and make broadcasts across multiple streaming platforms, has raised $2.5 million in funding led by March Capital Partners, with participation from OCA Ventures. More here.

Lenda, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based platform that enables homeowners to refinance or originate mortgages completely online, has raised $5.25 million in Series A funding led by SF Capital Group, with participation from CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund and earlier investor Rubicon Venture Capital. More here.

Lesara, a four-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based online fashion and lifestyle retailer, has raised $40 million in funding from previous investors in a round that brings its total funding to $60 million. Earlier backers in the company include Mangrove Capital Partners, Northzone, and Partech Ventures, among others. More here.

ManoMano, a four-year-old, Paris-based online marketplace for DIY and gardening products, has raised €60 million ($72 million) in Series C funding led by General Atlantic. Other investors in the round include Piton Capital, Partech Ventures, and Bpifrance. More here.

Petal, a two-year-old, New York-based company that’s applying machine learning to make credit accessible to people with little or no credit history, has raised $3.6 million in seed funding from Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, Afore Capital, Rosecliff Ventures, Guild Capital, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Story Ventures and Silicon Badia. CityBizList has more here.

Red Dot Payment, a six-year-old, Singapore-based company that enables merchants and financial institutions to provide end-to-end payment options for their customers worldwide, has raised $5.2 million in Series B funding from DORR Group, along with earlier backers GMO Venture Partnersfrom Japan, Wavemaker Partners, Skype co-founder Toivo Annus and MDI Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

SendInBlue, a seven-year-old, Seattle- and Paris-based maker of cloud-based digital marketing tools, has raised $36 million in Series A funding from Partech Ventures. More here.

Tonbo Imaging, a five-year-old, Bangalore- and Palo Alto-based developer of advanced imaging and sensor systems, raised $17 million in Series B funding led by WRV Capital, with participation from Artiman Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and Edelweiss Private Equity. Livemint has more here.

Wellem, a three-year-old, Shanghai, China-based pediatric clinic chain, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by the private equity firm GTJA Investment Group. China Money Network has more here.

Zilingo, a two-year-old, Singapore-based fashion marketplace that works with independent sellers and boutiques to expand their businesses online, has raised $18 million in Series B funding. Sequoia Capital India and Burma Principal Investments led the round, with participation from earlier backers Venturra Capital, SIG, Beenext, Wavemaker, renowned investor Tim Draper, and the former head of IDG Ventures India, Manik Arora. More here.

New Funds

Point Judith Capital, a 16-year-old, Boston-based, early-stage venture capital firm, is raising $100 for its fourth fund, according to an SEC filing that shows the firm has already closed on at least $61 million in capital commitments. More here.

IPOs

Switch, a Las Vegas, Nev.-based data center provider, filed for an IPO to raise up to $100 million Friday.  Terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed. More here.

Blackstone is mapping out an IPO or sale of smart-home technology company Vivint, reports Fox Business, which says Blackstone recently invited banks to pitch a dual-track process. The outlet further reports that any deal could value Vivint at more than $3 billion. Vivint sells smart locks, security cameras, burglary-detection systems and other such items and services. Blackstone paid $2 billion for the company in 2012. More here.

Also Sponsored By . . .

“South of Market, The Musical” is back for v2!  The annual tech parody is running Oct 12-22nd in San Francisco and features an entirely new script, cast and score! This year’s show follows an aspiring tech journalist as she attempts to get the scoop on the too-good-to-be-true hottest startup of the year – ai.ai.  With songs likes “Self Driving,” “Boulder Moves, Bolder You,” and “Tech Issues,” this year’s show highlights the perks and perils of startup scene hype machine.

Tickets go on sale tomorrow, but StrictlyVC readers can access a limited pre-sale here. Use “strictlyvc” as both the access code and the promo code for a 10 percent discount.

People

Britain’s markets watchdog has become the latest regulator to crack down on the booming “initial coin offering” sector, warning investors today that “ICOs are very high-risk, speculative investments” and that they should be “prepared to lose your entire stake.”

YouTube star PewDewPie tells viewers of the racist remark he uttered during a livestream on Sunday, “It’s not that I think I can say or do what I want and get away with it. That’s not it at all. I’m just an idiot.”

Tim Sullivan is stepping down as the longtime CEO of geneology site Ancestry.com, which is gearing up to go public.

Jobs

NBCUNiversal Media is looking to hire a VP of Drama Development to help develop new broadcast, cable and streaming series for the studio. The job is in L.A.

This is maybe not the best day to mention this, but SoFi is looking for a VP of biz dev and strategic partnerships. The job is in San Francisco.

Data

Fintech trends worth watching in the EU.

Trademark Showdowns

WeWork, the co-work company valued at $20 billion, has filed a complaint with New York’s Southern District Court, alleging that China-based UrWork is guilty of trademark infringement. It’s arguing UrWork is far too similar to WeWork given that both companies operate in the co-working industry. TechCrunch has more here.

And Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is brought to you by Parachute. This bedding startup makes sheets so comfortable, you’ll think they’re made out of unicorn hair.

Essential Reads

Lawsuits against Equifax are fast piling up.

New gene-therapy treatments are coming . . . along with whopping price tags.

Detours

Move it, people, because sitting too long can kill you, even if you exercise.

What Americans will, and won’t, pay for avocados.

Watching hurricanes from 22,000 miles above earth.

Retail Therapy

Castle Bed. $18,000 up front, plus a lifetime of paying for it.

Hi, happy Monday, all!

We’re so sorry for those of you who suffered through Irma this past weekend (and whose friends and family did). For those of you wanting to help, GlobalGiving’s Irma Relief Fund is accepting donations here. It vets the local organizations it helps fund and is reportedly well-regarded by charity watchdogs.

Top News in the A.M.

Chinese authorities are ordering domestic bitcoin exchanges to shut down, delivering a heavy blow to once-thriving trading hubs that helped popularize the virtual currency pushing it to recent record highs. The currency went into a freefall on Friday on reports that this move was coming.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is brought to you this week by the Future Labs AI Summit, a two-day conference comprising trainings, talks, and discussions with leading AI technologists, investors, academics, and entrepreneurs in New York City on October 30 – 31.

Rackspace today announced its intention to acquire Datapipe, one of its largest competitors in the managed public and private cloud services business. Rackspace expects the acquisition, which is its largest one yet, to close in the next quarter. The two privately held companies aren’t disclosing terms of the deal, but Datapipe has raised roughly $310 million in funding since its 1998 founding. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Gary Cohn, the former Goldman president turned White House advisor, is on the thinnest of ice, reportedly. “The calculus has shifted for Gary. He’s gone, essentially, from untouchable to possibly being bounced out,” one source tells Reuters.

Dara Khosrowshahi, the recently named CEO of Uber, is leaving the New York Times Company’s board of directors to focus on his new gig (and presumably owing to potential or perceived conflicts of interest, too). Khosrowshahi had joined the board in 2015.

Waymo CEO John Krafcik sat down with The Information and talked, among other things, about why Wall Street doesn’t value car companies more highly. The full transcript is here.

YouTube’s biggest star, PewDiePie, used a racial slur again during one of his popular livestreams. What YouTube will do about it isn’t yet clear.

Uber’s Advanced Technology Group has hired Jon Thomason, who most recently acted as Head of Mobile and Product at Facebook’s Oculus. Thomason will lead ATG software teams across Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto, working on autonomous driving and trucking, among other advanced software projects. More here.

HPE exec Meg Whitman is joining Dropbox’s board.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify on the witness stand later this month — a rare and high-profile courtroom appearance as his company defends a controversial plan to give shareholders non-voting stock.

Jobs

Dropbox is looking to hire a business strategy associate. The job is in San Francisco.

Stripe is looking to add someone to its business operations team. The job is in San Francisco.

Data

Investors and founders take note: The U.S. Asian population is growing faster than any other U.S. racial or ethnic group, climbing 72 percent between 2000 and 2015, says new Pew Research data. Asians Americans are projected to become the largest immigrant group in the country by 2055. More here.

And Sponsored By  . . .

Two MIT grads walked into a bar . . .and they created a wine club. Bright Cellars is the personalized subscription service founded by two MIT grads with a passion for wine. Their custom algorithm matches you to wines you’ll love based on your specific tastes. Take the quiz today to see your results and receive 50 percent off your first box.

Essential Reads

What to expect from the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X, all of which are being unveiled tomorrow.

For good or bad, Twitter has built but not-yet-launched feature for easily composing “tweetstorms.”

Forget Equifax. Facebook and Google have the data that should really worry you.

Detours

How it feels to drop a kid off at college.

Friends are genetically similar.

Retail Therapy

A chair that only a golf fanatic could love.

FRIDAY. Hope you have a terrific weekend, everyone.

[Ties sneakers. Pulls on headband. Bids fond farewell to unsuspecting pet fish. Heads to nearby elliptical machine.]

Top News in the A.M.

Bitcoin is tumbling on a report that China plans to shutter digital currency exchanges‍​, too.

The Equifax hack; here’s what you need to know (so far).

Holy s. Filecoin, a blockchain data storage network, says it completed its ICO with a record-breaking $257 million in funding, including $52 million raised during a presale, from investors that include Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures. Filecoin is a decentralized storage network; we’d interviewed founder Juan Benet in July. Coindesk has more here.

Sponsored By . . .

CNN. TechCrunch. WSJ. Forbes. Bloomberg. Business Insider. These are a fraction of the outlets where our clients have appeared — and they’ve paid us a fraction of the price most PR firms charge them for our efforts. We’re Rosebud Communications. Find out just how scrappy we are, at info@rosebud.io.

A Stanford Prof’s Advice of Surviving the A**hole at Work

If you’ve never worked for a complete jerk, consider yourself lucky. Roughly one in five people polled say they’ve experienced bullying in the workplace, according to a 2017 study commissioned by the Workplace Bullying Institute. The study — which is actually pretty fascinating — concluded that 61 percent of the time, the bully is the person to whom an employee reports directly. Bullies are also men 70 percent of the time, while 66 percent of the time it’s women who are targets of bullying.

None of this is news to Stanford Professor Bob Sutton, who co-founded both the d.school and Stanford Tech Ventures. He authored “The No Asshole Rule” a decade ago, and, relying on academic studies and thousands of email exchanges and conversations he has had with readers since, Sutton is now publishing a follow-up book next week called “The Asshole Survival Guide.”

We talked with Sutton yesterday about what it means to be an asshole, how to work alongside one and why startups likely have more than their fair share of them.

You cover a lot of ground in this book, which is basically a guide to figuring out a way to survive a terrible human being based on how much power you have. Why write a second book on this particular topic?

“The No Asshole Rule” was really meant to be about building relatively jerk-free cultures, but people from all corners have been approaching me ever since, saying, “I work with a jerk. What do I do?” I sort of became the Dr. Phil for people with asshole problems.

Is this meant to mostly entertain? Is it anecdotal?

I did want it to be entertaining and readable, but I take an evidence-based perspective. I’m an organizational researcher at Stanford, so I’ve carefully reviewed thousands of economic papers on bullying and abusive workplaces.

You talk a lot about creating physical and mental distance from bullies. But I’ve interviewed one of your Stanford colleagues in the past, Jeffrey Pfeffer, who takes a very different stance. He argues that you’ve got to fight bullies or else lose to them. His thinking is that nice guys finish last.

I’ve written two books with Jeff and although he loves making that argument, he’s in the minority.

More here.

New Fundings

DataCubes, a two-year-old, Chicago, Il.-based data science platform for the commercial insurance industry, has raised $2.5 million in Series A funding led by Seyen Capital and MK Capital. More here.

Meero, a three-year-old, Paris, France-based platform that aims to provide affordable access to professional photography, has raised €15 million ($18 million) in Series A funding. The round was led by Alven Capital, with participation from WhiteStar Capital and earlier investors GFC and Aglaé Ventures. More here.

Pineapple Payments, a 1.5-year-old, Pittsburgh, Pa.-based payment processing company focused on mid-size businesses — both online and offline — has received $35 million in its first institutional round from Providence Strategic Growth. More here.

Replimune Group, a two-year-old, Woburn, Ma.-based biotechnology company focused on developing a new generation of oncolytic immunotherapies, has raised $55 million in Series B funding led by Foresite Capital. Other participants in the round include Bain Capital Life Sciences, Redmile Group, Cormorant Asset Management, entities affiliated with Leerink Partners, Atlas Venture, Forbion Capital Partners, and Omega Funds. More here.

ReWork, a 1.5-year-old, Indonesia-based WeWork-like company, has raised $3 million in “pre-Series A” funding led by the cross-border firm ATM Capital and Indonesia’s Convergence Ventures. URWork, a rival to WeWork in China that was itself recently valued at $1.5 billion, also joined the round. More here.

Talkspace, a five-year-old, New York-based online therapy platform, has raised $31 million in Series C funding led by Qumra Capital, with participation from earlier backers Norwest Venture Partners, Spark Capital, SoftBank, Compound and FirstTime. More here.

Vade Secure, an eight-year-old, Picardy, France-based cybersecurity company, has raised €10 million ($12 million) in funding led by Isai Fund. More here.

Vekia, a nine-year-old, Lille, France-based predictive analytics company that uses machine learning to help its retail customers forecast demand and supply, has raised €12 million ($14.4 million) in funding led by Serena Capital and BPIFrance, with participation from previous investors Pléiade Venture, CapHorn Invest and Zenium Technology Partners. More here.

New Funds

Almost exactly two years after closing two funds totaling $4.75 billion, the New York-based venture capital and private equity firm Insight Venture Partnershas set its sights on two new funds totaling $5.5 billion, according to the WSJ. (SEC docs show the firm had closed on at least $330 million in commitments for both a of early July.) It was in August 2015 that Insight closed on its current, $3.29 billion “main” fund and a $1.46 billion growth-buyout co-investment vehicle that co-invests alongside the bigger fund. The funds are among the biggest in the venture world, rivaling that of a small group of other firms, including New Enterprise Associates, which closed a $3.3 billion fund in June. More here.

Also Sponsored By . . .

Morgan Conbere loves public transit and values great UX. In fact, Conbere and his co-founders — alums of Google, Apple, and other tech giants — all depended on public transit day-to-day. But it bugged them that there was no modern, simple interface to pay for and ride the bus. So Token Transit was born — a FinLab company (and one of today’s sponsors) — and buying a bus pass will never be the same.

Exits

After a pivot and months of speculation about the future of car valet and concierge startup Luxe, automaker Volvo Cars says it’s acquiring the startup’s platform, technology, key staff and other assets to  fuel its own digital services strategy. Terms of the acquisition aren’t being disclosed, but the assumption here, says TechCrunch, is that Luxe’s venture investors are receiving “pennies on the dollar.” More here.

Publicly traded Cloudera said yesterday that it is acquiring Fast Forward Labs, a three-year-old, Brooklyn-based startup that gives companies the latest information on how to apply machine learning and AI to their businesses. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. We can’t dig up any venture backing for Fast Foward Labs (that doesn’t there wasn’t any — just a mention!). More here.

People

Renowned e-commerce investor Kirsten Green has made Vanity Fair’s international best-dressed list.

Twyla, a startup that collaborates with artists to create exclusive prints for sale at its site, has a new CEO. In June, Brian Sharples — who founded the 10-year-old, vacation rental marketplace HomeAway, acquired in 2015 for a whopping $3.9 billion by Expedia — quietly took the helm of the young company, after its original CEO stepped away. More here.

Jobs

Dropbox is hiring MBAs. The jobs are in San Francisco.

JPMorgan Chase is looking to add an associate to its strategic investments team. The job is in New York.

Essential Reads

Uber is facing another FBI probe over a program that targeted its rival Lyft.

Inside Juicero’s demise — from prized startup to firesale.

China banned ICOs this week, but in nearby Japan, one company is planning to offer a one-stop-service that would allow companies across the world to take advantage of blockchain technology and IPOs — all without violating financial regulations. TechCrunch explains here.

Detours

How to survive a bear encounter.

The “About Us” page of every digital media agency.

Retail Therapy

A 360-degree tour through a $17.75 million penthouse that’s 52 floors above New York.

Hi, happy Tuesday, everyone! We’re getting very excited to see a bunch of you on the 27th.:) We’re also happy to announce that our friend and former colleague Lora Kolodny of CNBC has joined the program.

In the meantime, a quick reminder for those of you in San Francisco that TechCrunch’s Disrupt show is coming up even faster — two weeks from now, in fact. We’ll be sitting down for chats with top investors Sam Altman, Kirsten Greene, and Steve Jurvetson as part of the program and we’ll share what they say with you (natch).

Top News in the A.M.

Bloop! Credit reporting firm Equifax says a data breach could potentially affect 143 million of U.S. consumers.

Amazon said earlier today that it plans to open a second headquarters in North America to house up to 50,000 employees. Bids are due by October 19 for a location for the structure, which Amazon says could cost up to $5 billion to build. More here.

Sponsored By . . .

CNN. TechCrunch. WSJ. Forbes. Bloomberg. Business Insider. These are a fraction of the outlets where our clients have appeared — and they’ve paid us a fraction of the price most PR firms charge them for our efforts. We’re Rosebud Communications. Find out just how scrappy we are, at info@rosebud.io.

Annie’s Longtime CEO is Working on a “Stealth” Food Startup

John Foraker, who led the well-known organic food brand Annie’s for 17 years, is working on a new organic food startup in Berkeley, according to both his LinkedIn account and a recent report in the Star Tribune of Minnesota.

General Mills bought Annie’s for $820 million in 2014. Foraker was supposed to stay for one year. He stayed on for three but told the Star last month that he isn’t cut out for corporate life and instead wants to pour his time into his new startup, which he expects will grow “big and fast into a highly disruptive force in the organic food space.”

Foraker has also been somewhat active as an angel investor. In 2015, for example, he participated in a $22 million funding round for CircleUp, the crowdfunding platform for consumer brands to raise money from accredited investors. According to a new SEC filing, Foraker also contributed recently to a $5.3 million round for Bkhati Chai, an iced tea line based in Boulder, Colorado. And he lists Quinn, a new, snacks brand that makes pretzels and microwaveable popcorn, among his investments on the platform AngelList.

Foraker remains a special advisor to General Mills. He has said he’ll be taking the wraps off his new startup this fall.

If General Mills is an investor, don’t be surprised.

More here.

New Fundings

Airobotics, a three-year-old Israel-based building autonomous drones for the enterprise sector and, increasingly, for defense and homeland security, just raised $32.5 million in funding led by BlueRun Ventures China, with participation from Microsoft Ventures and OurCrowd.com. TechCrunch has more here.

Excision BioTherapeutics, a two-year-old, Philadelphia-based startup that is working on a CRISPER-based HIV treatment, has raised $10 million in seed funding led by Artis Ventures, the low-flying firm that led Stemcentrx’s Series A round. More on Excision here.

Favor, a four-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based on-demand delivery service that’s focused on its home state for now, has raised $22 million in Series B funding led by its earlier backer, S3 Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Gritstone Oncology, a two-year-old, Emeryville, Ca.-based personalized cancer immunotherapy startup, has raised $93 million in Series B funding led by Lilly Asia Ventures, with participation from GV, Trinitas Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments and earlier backers Versant Ventures, The Column Group, Clarus Funds and Frazier Healthcare Partners. Business Insider has more here.

Guru, a four-year-old, Philadelphia-based startup whose Chrome extension has been likened to a “tricked-out internal wiki” that provides information to staffers that they can use to close a deal or respond to a customer complaint, has raised $9.3 million in Series A funding led by Emergence Capital. Earlier backers FirstMark Capital and MSD Capital also joined the round. More here.

Innoviz Technologies, a 1.5-year-old Israel-based company at work on developing LiDAR remote sensing solutions, has raised $65 million in Series B funding from Delphi Automotive, Magna International, 360 Capital Partners, Naver and Glory Ventures. Earlier backers Zohar Zisapel, Vertex Venture Capital, Magma Venture Partners, Amiti Ventures and Delek Motors also participated. TechCrunch has more here.

MapR Technologies, an eight-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based data management platform, has raised $56 million from earlier investors, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Forbes has more here.

Movandi, a 1.5-year-old, Newport Beach, Ca.-based startup that was launched by a brother-and-sister team from Broadcom and has build a millimeter-wave module for 5G networks, has raised $9 million in funding, including from Cota Capital, shows an SEC filing. More on the company in EETimes.

NOW Money, a two-year-old, Dubai-based fintech startup focused on improving the lives of regional, low-income migrant workers, raised $1.46 million in bridge funding, including from Myrisoph Capital and WAIN. More here.

NS1, a four-year-old, New York-based intelligent DNS and traffic management provider, has raised $20 million in funding led by GGV Capital. Other participants in the round include Salesforce Ventures, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners, Sigma Prime Ventures, Telstra Ventures and Two Sigma Ventures. More here.

OncoStem Diagnostics, a six-year-old, Bengaluru, India-based personalized cancer treatment start-up, has raised $6 million from Sequoia Capital India. LiveMint has more here.

OYO, a four-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based budget hotel network, has raised $250 million in funding led by SoftBank‘s Vision Fund. Other participants in the round include Sequoia Capital India, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Greenoaks Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Roobo, a three-year-old, Beijing, China-based AI-startup that’s building home service robots, has raised $53 million in Series B funding led by Seven Seas Partners. China Money Network has more here.

Shunwei, a three-year-old, China-based company that provides indoor positioning services for mobile Internet platforms and smartphone manufacturers, has raised $7.7 million in Series A funding led by Fosun RZ Capital. China Money Network has more here.

Weave Communications, a nine-year-old, Lehi, Ut.-based unified patient communication technology platform, has raised $17 million in Series B-1 funding. Catalyst Investors led the round, and was joined by earlier investors Crosslink Capital and Pelion Venture Partners. More here.

Wuxi NextCode, a four-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based contract genomics company, has raised $165 million in additional Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital China. The round, which now stands at $240 altogether, also includes Temasek, Yunfeng Capital and 3W Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Aristos Ventures, a 5.5-year-old, Dallas-based micro VC fund that writes checks of between $300,000 and $2 million, is looking to raise a $15 million fund, per an SEC filing that shows it has raised $4.2 million toward that end. Aristos was founded by Felipe Mendoza, a former engineering manager at Flextronics who later served as an associate and the CFO of Silver Creek Ventures in Dallas. More here.

Tempus Partners, a five-year-old, Syndey, Australia-based venture firm, is launching a $40 million fund to invest in local B2B startups. The firm closed its debut fund with $15 million in 2014. More here.

Also Sponsored By . . .

“Work like there’s someone trying to take it away from you 24 hours a day,” says Dave.com investor Mark Cuban. So Dave co-founder Jason Wilk keeps some insane hours. Email him at 2:01am? You might hear from him by 2:05. He’s intensely reliable, kind of like Dave.com, which looks out for you and keeps you from overdrafting before it happens. And yes, they’re a FinLab company (one of today’s sponsors). Here’s a little more about them.

Exits

Alice, a New York startup that sells operations software to hotels, has acquired a competitor, GoConcierge, for undisclosed terms. If Alice sounds familiar, it’s because last week, Expedia became a majority investor in the company as part of a $26 million round. The outlet Skift wonders if Expedia is thinking about thinking about selling more software to hoteliers. More here.

Agricultural equipment giant Deere and Company says it’s spending $305 million to acquire the six-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based ag-tech startup Blue River Technology, which develops machine learning technology for precision farming. According to Crunchbase, Blue River had raised $30.35 million from investors, including, notably, Monsanto’s venture capital arm, Monsanto Growth Ventures. Other backers include Data Collective, Pontifax AgTech, Innovation Endeavors and Khosla Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Nestle is buying Sweet Earth, a six-year-old, Moss Landing, Ca.-based company that makes frozen meals and chilled, plant-based burgers. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Sweet Earth raised an undisclosed amount of venture funding from Renewal Funds. Fortune has more here.

Unilever has acquired Pukka, a British organic tea company that makes flavors such as turmeric gold and mint matcha. Terms weren’t disclosed. Bloomberg has more here.

VizEat, the European “social eating platform” that connects travelers and local hosts around authentic food experiences, has acquired EatWith, a similar startup headquartered in San Francisco. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. EatWith is thought to have raised more than $8 million from backers, including Greylock Partners. TechCrunch has the story here.

IPOs

SharesPost just published a research report analyzing Dropbox’s inevitable IPO (which could be the biggest tech offering since Snap). You can scan it here.

People

Battery Ventures promoted seven team members: Zack Smotherman was promoted to principal. Roland Anderson, Sabrina Chiasson and Satoshi Harris-Koizumi were promoted to vice president. Three other team members were promoted associate: Brandon Gleklen, Dominic Kallas, and Adi Dangot Zukovsky. (Click through to see their LinkedIn profiles.)

Former Binary Capital partner Justin Caldbeck, who resigned in June after multiple women alleged he had sexually harassed them, sent a cease-and-desist letter to entrepreneur Niniane Wang to prevent her from repeating allegations that he attempted to silence reporters and other accusers. The letter calls out comments that Wang made at a Fortune conference in July. Buzzfeed has more here.

A Massachusetts judge has sided with Techdirt, dismissing a $15 million lawsuit against the media company, its founder Mike Masnick and writer Leigh Beadon. The suit centered on Techdirt’s coverage of Shiva Ayyadurai’s claim that he is the inventor of email and Masnick’s article, “Here’s The Truth: Shiva Ayyadurai Didn’t Invent Email.” Ayyadurai had sued Techdirt for defamation. TechCrunch has more here.

Nate Williams has joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as an entrepreneur-in-residence. He was previously chief revenue officer and head of business for August Home. (H/T: Axios.)

Jobs

Learn Capital is looking for a part-time investment team fellow this fall. The job is in San Mateo, Ca.

Data

A record $800 million poured into ICOs in the second quarter.

Essential Reads

Apple‘s new iPhone, expected to be unveiled this coming Tuesday, was plagued by production glitches this summer, according to WSJ sources; they suggest that, as a result, the company could face supply shortfalls when customers start ordering the device later this month.

Atlassian just built a Slack competitor.

Detours

Graydon Carter is ending his 25-year run as Vanity Fair’s editor.

The best and worst countries to live and work in, according to expats.

How to decline a job offer respectfully.

Retail Therapy

Toy blocks that make coding so easy, a monkey kids could do it.

Well, hello!

Top News in the A.M.

3andMe, the 11-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based genetic testing and analysis company, is raising roughly $200 million at a $1.5 billion pre-money valuation led by Sequoia Capital. Fidelity is also part of the mix. TechCrunch has the scoop here.

Mark Zuckerberg is answering questions about Dreamers and immigration on Facebook Live right now.

Sponsored By . . .

CNN. TechCrunch. WSJ. Forbes. Bloomberg. Business Insider. These are a fraction of the outlets where our clients have appeared — and they’ve paid us a fraction of the price most PR firms charge them for our efforts. We’re Rosebud Communications. Find out just how scrappy we are, at info@rosebud.io.

This Startup Just Raised $2 Million to Analyze Drone Footage for Insurers

Betterview, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose software can analyze detailed aerial footage captured by drones to help insurers better understand a property’s condition, has raised $2 million in funding from a long list of investors.

Compound led the round; other participants include Maiden Re, 645 Ventures, Arab Angel, Winklevoss Capital, Chestnut Street Ventures, Pierre Valade (who co-founded the calendar application Sunrise), angel investor Edward Lando and earlier backers Haystack and MetaProp.

It’s easy to understand the appeal of the company, which currently supports DJI drones and says its special sauce is the more than one million photos of roofs and properties in its database. That data set has been analyzed on an individual photo basis by claims adjusters, roofers and other experts and it ostensibly continues to grow and improve via machine learning with every new image it processes.

Though co-founder and CEO David Lyman isn’t at liberty to disclose the company’s customers publicly, there’s clearly a market bubbling up here. Insurance companies Travelers and Allstate have said they now use drones to take pictures and video — and for fairly straightforward reasons, like the ability to keep their inspectors out of harm’s way, and to view areas where it might be harder for a human to see. Insurers are also deciding that it’s faster to send up an image-capturing drone rather than have someone traipse around a property looking for damage and taking notes.

A year-old FAA rule that makes it easier for drone operators to fly legally as long as their drone is within sight doesn’t hurt, either.

Betterview is chasing a sizable market. There are more than 8 million commercial properties in the U.S.. More than 300,000 of these buildings are valued at more than $5 million, which is the segment that Betterview — which sells it software on a subscription basis — is targeting right now. Should it enter into the business of helping to inspect single family homes, charging perhaps on a one-off basis, the market opens up even further. According to the latest U.S. census data, there are more than 76 million single family homes in the U.S., and 83 percent of them are insured.

More here.

New Fundings

Aras, a 17-year-old, Andover, Ma.-based maker of product lifecycle management software meant to help engineers adapt to changing business practices, has raised $40 million in funding led by Silver Lake Kraftwerk, with participation from GE Ventures. More here.

Axonius, a months-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based open platform looking to help enterprises manage their fast-growing number of mobile, compute and IoT devices, has raised $4 million in seed funding from YL Ventures, with participation from Vertex Ventures and Emerge Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Dataiku, a four-year-old, Paris-based startup whose analystics software aims to help data analysts communicate with data scientists to build more meaningful applications, has raised $28 million in Series B funding led by Battery Ventures, with help from FirstMark Capital, Serena Capital and Alven. The company has now raised nearly $45 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

DivvyCloud, a four-year-old, Arlington, Va.-based startup whose software automates the lifecycle management of IT resources across a company’s public and private cloud technologies, has raised $6 million in funding led by RTP Ventures. More here.

Elastifile, a three-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based enterprise hybrid cloud data management company, has raised $16 million in funding led by Western Digital Capital, the venture unit of Western Digital Corp. Other participants in the round include CE Venture and earlier backers Lightspeed Venture Partners, Battery Ventures, Dell Technologies Capital and Cisco Investments. The company has now raised roughly $65 million altogether. More here.

Fanatics, a 15-year-old, Jacksonville, Fla., and San Mateo, Ca.-based sports e-commerce firm, has officially closed $1 billion in funding led by SoftBank Group‘s Vision Fund. Reuters has more here.

FiveAI, a two-year-old, Cambridge, England-based company that’s building its own autonomous driving system to take on Uber and other transportation services, has raised two tranches of funding totaling roughly $35 million from investors that include Lakestar Capital, Amadeus Capital Partners, Notion Capital and Kindred. TechCrunch has more here.

Guild Education, a two-year-old, Denver-based education benefits company, has raised $21 million in Series B funding led by Bessemer Ventures, with participation from Redpoint Ventures, Harrison Metal, and Cowboy Ventures. The company has now raised $31.5 million altogether. We talked with founder Rachel Carson last fall. More here.

Labster, a 5.5-year-old, Copenhagen-based company whose software platform enables virtual simulations of laboratories in order to teach life sciences to students, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. Balderton Capital led the round; other participants include Northzone and Unity Technologies founder David Helgason. TechCrunch has more here.

Notable Labs, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based drug-testing service that helps oncologists identify the most appropriate combination of drugs for individuals with blood cancers, has raised  $10 million in Series A funding led byBuilders VC, with participation from existing investors. FierceBiotech has more here.

Tenka Labs, a two-year-old, Sausalito, Ca.-based startup whose simple kits help young students create small gadgets with the use of motors and other bits that connect to legos, has raised $2 million in seed funding from undisclosed sources. TechCrunch has more here.

Truveris, an eight-year-old, New York-based healthcare technology company that aggregates data and insights from across the pharmacy ecosystem to deliver cost savings and patient access to its clients (which include employers, unions, and government entities, among others), has raised $25 million in Series D funding. McKesson Ventures led the round, with participation from Canaan Partners, New Leaf Venture Partners, Tribeca Venture Partners, and New Atlantic Ventures. More here.

Turo, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based car-rental marketplace that invites travelers to use nearby cars, has raised an undisclosed amount tof funding from automaker Daimler as part of a new, $92 million Series D round. In addition to Daimler, other investors in the round include Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, Founders Circle Capital, and earlier investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Vericool, a two-year-old, Livermore, Ca.-based developer of sustainable cold chain packaging, has raised $5 million in funding led by BillerudKorsnäs Venture AB. More here.

Zipwhip, a 10-year-old, Seattle-based company that’s built a texting platform for businesses to send and receive texts (and more) via their landlines, has raised $22.5 million in Series C funding led by OpenView, with participation from previous backers Voyager Capital and Microsoft Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

According to Axios, ConsenSys, a company that develops apps and tools based on Ethereum, has launched a $50 million venture capital fund that will provide pre-seed and seed capital to blockchain technology startups. It will be led by Kavita Gupta, who most recently led mission investing for Eric Schmidt’s family foundation, with the involvement from ConsenSys founder Joe Lubin (also Ethereum’s cofounder). More on ConsenSys Ventures here.

OrbiMed Advisors has closed its third Asia-focused life sciences VC fund with around $551 million in capital commitments. FierceBiotech has more here.

Speciale Invest, a new venture fund looking to fund deep tech startups, has launched with a $20 million target that it hopes to reach within six months’ time.  The firm’s cofounders are Vishesh Rajaram, who used to be a principal investor at VC firm Ventureas, and Arjun Rao, who worked with Yahoo! and Ibibo before co-founding the 10-year-old, venture-backed bus booking portal Travelyaari. Tech in Asia has more here.

Also Sponsored By . . .

Today’s sponsor, the Financial Solutions Lab at CFSI, would like you to know that there’s an enormous (and growing) population out there that needs your big brilliant fintech ideas to become reality in the next few years. Who are they? The 111 million Americans over the age of 50. This segment will grow by 45 percent from 2015-2050, and their total share of the population will reach 40 percent. So start your startup engines: Innovate for the aging! (Sign up here for more info.)

Exits

Earlier this year, Amazon launched its business in the Middle East by paying $580 million to acquire Souq.com, an Amazon-style marketplace based out of Dubai. Now, Amazon and Souq are making another acquisition to build out the logistics that will underpin that operation’s growth: Souq has acquired Wing.ae, a startup that is building out a network for Prime-style same-day and next-day deliveries for various e-commerce marketplaces. TechCrunch has the rest of the story here.

IPOs

NuCana, a Edinburgh, U.K.-based clinical stage biopharmaceutical company that’s looking to fund late-phase trials of its reformulated cancer candidates, has filed to raise $115 million in a Nasdaq IPO. FierceBiotech has more here.

People

Institutional Venture Partners has brought four new people aboard: Kelly O’Kane, who joins as VP of biz dev; Parsa Saljoughian, who joins as a VP; Chloe Breider, a new associate; and Jason Kong, who was also named an associate. (Click through to see their LinkedIn profiles.)

Kendra Ragatz has joined Aspect Ventures as a general partner and the COO of the firm. Ragatz, who will focus on the growth and development of the firm, including recruiting and finance, was formerly a venture partner with DAG.

Tom Wehmeier, Atomico’s head of research, has been named a partner with the venture firm. More here.

Data

These countries do not love your ICO plans.

Also Sponsored By . . .

The Blinkist app gives you the key insights from the world’s bestselling nonfiction books in 15-minute text and audio packs. Discover titles in a wide range of categories — from business to personal growth — and kickstart your reading habit. Personalised recommendations and expertly-curated book lists ensure that you stay ahead of the curve. With the audio feature, you can listen to key takeaways and learn on the go. This means you can understand the key points of a recent New York Times bestseller on your commute to work. Find out here why and how people are overhauling the way that they read and how you can join them.

Essential Reads

Gulp. Hackers have gained “switch flipping” access to U.S. power grid control systems.

Cancer’s invasion equation.

Detours

Twenty-five women making some of the best rock music today.

Where 50 celebrities went to college.

So American, we know, but pass.

Retail Therapy

Martin Shkreli, the “pharma bro” who’s now facing 20 years in the big house, looks to be selling his one-of-a-kind, 128-minute-long Wu-Tang album on eBay. (Fwiw, he paid $2 million; the starting bid last night was $100K.)

Hello! You are back! Hope you had a great break.:)

No column today. (We’re working on a couple of things but neither is done.)

Top News in the A.M.

President Trump just put in legal limbo one million people who consider themselves Americans. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, writing about the administration’s decision this morning, said what most of us are thinking right now: “This is a sad day for our country. The decision to end DACA is not just wrong. It is particularly cruel to offer young people the American Dream, encourage them to come out of the shadows and trust our government, and then punish them for it.”

Microsoft says it will pay legal fees to fight its Dreamer employees’ deportation.

Sponsored By . . .

CNN. TechCrunch. WSJ. Forbes. Bloomberg. Business Insider. These are a fraction of the outlets where our clients have appeared — and they’ve paid us a fraction of the price most PR firms charge them for our efforts. We’re Rosebud Communications. Find out just how scrappy we are, at info@rosebud.io.

New Fundings

Acutronic Robotics, a year-old, Álava, Spain-based robotics development firm (it sells hardware products, engineering services and more to clients), has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding led by Sony Innovation Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Aifloo, a two-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based startup that combines hardware sensors and AI in a “smart” wristband designed to help care for the elderly, has raised €5.1 million ($6 million) in new funding. EQT Ventures led the Series A round. TechCrunch has more here.

Allbirds, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of eco-friendly wool shoes that have taken over the tech world, has raised $17.5 million in Series B funding, led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from Elephant and earlier investors Maveron and Lerer Hippeau Ventures. The company has now raised $27.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Bitmain Technologies, a Beijing, China-based leading maker of chips and machines for mining bitcoin, is reportedly raising $50 million from several venture firms, including Sequoia Capital and IDG Capital. Bloomberg has more here.

Classcraft, a four-year-old, Quebec- and New York-based startup that produces a free, online, educational role-playing game that teachers and students play together, has raised $2.8 million in funding led by Whitecap Venture Partners, with participation from Brightspark Ventures, MaRS Catalyst Fund, and previous investors. More here.

Entasis Therapeutics, a two-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based company that’s trying to develop a portfolio of cures for serious drug-resistant bacterial infections, has raised $31.9 million Series B-1 extension financing. New investors include Pivotal bioVenture Partners, Sofinnova Ventures and TPG Biotech. The original Series B round had closed with $50 million in March of last year, led by Clarus. More here.

Event Pop, a two-year-old, Thailand-based digital ticketing startup, has raised more than $2 million in Series A funding led by InVent, a subsidiary of the parent of operator AIS, and Kasikorn Bank. TechCrunch has more here.

Fast Travel Games, a 1.5-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based VR games studio founded by industry veterans from Rovio, Electronic Arts and DICE, has raised $2.1 million in Series A funding led by Industrifonden, with participation from Creades, Inbox Capital and earlier investor Sunstone Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Finaeo, a 1.5-year-old, Toronto, Canada-based sales platform for insurance advisors, has raise $2.25 million in seed funding led by Impression Ventures, with participation from 500 Startups, Robo Ventures, iGan Partners, and unnamed angel investors. More here.

ForeverCar, a five-year-old, Chicago-based technology platform for the car repair industry, has raised $12 million in debt from City Capital Advisors, and $3 million in equity from earlier backers, including CMFG Ventures (the venture arm of CUNA Mutual Group). More here.

ForgeRock, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based identity management startup, has raised $88 million in Series D funding led by Accel Partners, with participation from KKR, Meritech Capital Partners, and Foundation Capital. The company has now raised more than $140 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

Lilium, a two-year-old, Munich-based aviation startup whose machine has been compared to a flying car (including, fine, by us), is announcing it has closed $90 million in Series B funding, including from Tencent Holdings; LGT, which is a private banking and asset management group; early investor Atomico; and Obvious Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

LookBookHQ, a five-year-old, Toronto-based intelligent content platform that aims to accelerate B2B purchase decisions, has raised $11 million in Series B funding led by Edison Partners, with participation from Hyde Park Venture Partners. More here.

Metawave Corporation, a months-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup whose primary market focus is to build intelligent beamsteering radars for autonomous driving, has raised $7 million in seed funding from Khosla Ventures, Motus Ventures, and Thyra Global Management. More here.

Runtime, a three-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.–based startup that provides IoT device management and monitoring, has raised $7.5 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates, Foundation Capital, and DHVC.

SinoVision Technologies, a five-year-old, Beijing, China-based medtech start-up developing computed tomography (CT) scanners, has raised $29 million in new funding from HG Capital, Qiming Venture Partners and a little-known Chinese healthcare investment firm called Yili Fuyi Daohe. China Money Network has more here.

Wizer, a three-year-old, New York-based AI-powered consumer research company, has raised $4 million in funding led by State of Mind Ventures, with participation from Nielsen Innovate. More here.

Yi+, a three-year-old, Beijing, China-based start-up developing machine vision technology for content marketing (it specializes in object recognition and facial recognition technology), has raised $14 million in Series B funding. Investors include Haitong Securities, Bairongjun Group and The Bank of Beijing. China Money Network has more here.

Zomato, the nine-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based food ordering and restaurant discovery platform, is reportedly in talks with China’s payments giant Ant Financial Services Group to raise between $100 and 200 million in a deal that could value the company at between $800 million and $1 billion. LiveMint has more here.

New Funds

Eight Roads Ventures, a 22-year-old, venture firm, has launched its first dedicated China healthcare fund, and it’s targeting $250 million in capital commitments. Eight Roads is the proprietary investment arm of Fidelity International and it has offices in China, India, Japan and the UK. China Money Network has more here.

StageOne Ventures, a Tel Aviv, Israel, and Palo Alto, Ca.-based early stage venture capital firm that focuses on Israel-related tech startups, has closed its third fund with $110 million in capital commitments. StageOne specializes primarily in IT infrastructure deals. The firm closed its second fund with $65 million in 2015. More here.

Exits

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has been mostly known in recent times for selling off pieces of its business, but it has quietly been buying up cloud companies in an attempt to build out a hybrid cloud business, notes TechCrunch. In fact, in what marks its fifth acquisition (at least) this year, the company said it’s buying Cloud Technology Partners, a Boston-based cloud consulting firm. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. More here.

Huddle, the enterprise software startup that was once considered the hot competition against Box and Dropbox, has quietly confirmed an effective sale to San Francisco private equity firm Turn/River. Business Insider has more here.

Nasdaq is buying eVestment, a 17-year-old, Marietta, Ga.-based investment analytics provider, for $705 million, says Reuters. More here.

IPOs

Rovio Entertainment, the Finnish maker of the “Angry Birds” games, said today that it will go public in Helsinki. Dealbook has more here.

Also Sponsored By . . .

Today’s StrictlyVC is brought to you by the Financial Solutions Lab at CFSI, which would like to tell you about Tomorrow. Serial entrepreneur Dave Hanley founded Tomorrow to help you do the things you need to do today — like a will — to take care of your family’s financial future (tomorrow). It’s financial security, simplified. Learn more about Lab companies.

People

Inside billionaire Reid Hoffman‘s well-funded, semi-secretive campaign to seed a national political movement.

Ted Rheingold, a widely known and loved Bay Area entrepreneur, has passed away. Rheingold had been writing with grace about his battle with stage four metastatic carcinoma throughout the year.

Jobs

Emergence Capital Partners is looking to hire an associate. The job is in San Mateo, Ca.

Data

According to the China Internet Network Information Center, a government agency, China is now home to 724 million mobile internet users. Relatedly, 96 percent of Internet users are mobile. (H/T/ Benedict Evans.)

Essential Reads

It’s not always property owners who post rentals on Airbnb; they’re the ones getting fined, though.

Google is teaming with Xiaomi to resurrect its Android One smartphone programfor India, in a bid for more users in emerging markets.

The lonely lives of Silicon Valley conservatives.

Detours

How to set up your iPhone for a kid.

The 13 scariest evil movie clowns . . . so far.

Retail Therapy

Paul Newman’s rare Rolex is being auctioned off late next month on Park Avenue in New York, and vintage watch dealers have out their popcorn.

Hello! We hope you’re having a leisurely Labor Day weekend here in the U.S. and that, if you’re in California, you survived the heat wave. (We haven’t sweated that much since Trump’s inauguration address.) Short edition today but more tomorrow.:)

Top News in the A.M.

China is banning companies from raising money through ICOs. CNBC has more here.

Sponsored By . . .

CNN. TechCrunch. WSJ. Forbes. Bloomberg. Business Insider. These are a fraction of the outlets where our clients have appeared, and they’ve paid us a fraction of the price most PR firms charge them for our efforts. We’re Rosebud Communications. Find out just how scrappy we are by writing info@rosebud.io.

At Pear Day, a Who’s Who of VCs, and Some Fresh Ideas

Pear, a popular seed-stage venture firm whose early bets include Guardant Health, Memebox, and Branch, hosted its fourth demo day in Woodside, Ca., last Thursday, and though it was a scorchingly hot afternoon at a largely outdoor venue, a veritable who’s who of VCs showed up: Bryan Schreier of Sequoia Capital was there. So was Brian O’Malley of Accel Partners, another frequent guest. Others of the 120 other VCs in attendance included Shawn Carolan of Menlo Ventures, Shahin Farshchi of Lux Capital, Ann Miura-Ko of Floodgate, Maha Ibrahim of Canaan Partners, Bobby Yazdani of Cota Capital, Semil Shah of Haystack, Hunter Walk of Homebrew, James Currier of NFX Guild, and Josh Elman of Greylock Partners.

What everyone came to see was 15 teams, all of them roughly six months old or younger, and all led by current college students or recent graduates who’d been invited by Pear to build companies over ten weeks in its airy but cramped Palo Alto offices. It’s a nice deal for the founders, who receive an uncapped note of between $25,000 and $40,000, along with advice from people who know how to grow companies. Among those to speak with this summer’s crop: Dropbox cofounder and CEO Drew Houston.

These demo days are also a chance for Pear to showcase its ability to spot talent at the earliest stages. Satellite company Capella Space got its start in Pear’s summer program; it raised a $12 million Series A round in May.

Viz, a startup that helps physicians identify anomalies in brain scans using machine learning and which landed $7.5 million in Series A funding in May, was part of the line-up last year. (Pear asks to invest up to $250,000 when its summer teams raise these first rounds.)

Because we know some of you like learning about these companies as prospective investments, to identify future trends, or simply to better understand the competition, we’re written up some of the nascent startups that presented. Meanwhile, here is the full line-up of companies, and a quick snapshot of what the show was like.

More here.

New Fundings

Coya, a 1.5-year-old, Berlin-based insurtech startup, has raised $10 million in seed funding led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures. Other participants in the round include e.ventures and La Famiglia. Business Insider has more here.

GetAccept, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based e-signature service that helps salespeople track their documents and close deals, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding from Amino Capital and Y Combinator, as well as other angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Habito, a two-year-old, London startup that is bringing the entire mortgage process online, has raised £18.5 million ($22 million) in Series B funding led by Atomico, with participation from earlier backers Ribbit Capital, Mosaic Ventures, and Revolutionary (Ad)Ventures. The company has now raised roughly £27 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Via, a five-year-old, New York-based company that runs a shuttle-based carpooling service that it offers directly to consumers and through partnerships with other transportation companies, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from the German carmaker Daimler. Daimler’s Mercedes Benz division is further investing $50 million into a joint venture with Via. Altogether, says a TechCrunch source, Via just raised $250 million in the deal. More here.

Also Sponsored By . . .

Today’s StrictlyVC is also being brought to you today by the Financial Solutions Lab at CFSI, which would like to remind you of Labor Day’s origins. As we rethink the world we live in, we’d also like to reflect on the glory that pensions once were — and, as it turns out, can be again — through Blueprint Income, the FinLab company of founder Matt Carey. It’s a much happier origin story, and a positive outcome is guaranteed.

IPOs

Roku has filed for an initial public offering and is looking to raise up to $100 million. The company will be listed on the NASDAQ appropriately under the ticker of ROKU. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Apple’s Siri efforts are now being led by software SVP Craig Federighi, instead of online services SVP Eddy Cue, who had previously led its development. Business Insider has more here.

Essential Reads

The U.S administration is expected to announce plans to end DACA tomorrow. But a six-month delay would give Congress time to protect young undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.

Detours

The urban revival is over.

Prince George and Princess Charlotte are going to have a younger sibling.

Retail Therapy

The best local beers across the U.S.

Friday! StrictlyVC is publishing Monday, Labor Day, but don’t hate us if it’s highly condensed (which, let’s face it, is what’s going to happen).

Happy long weekend, everyone. If you haven’t already, please do send a little something to the folks in Houston, who have a long road ahead. We know that WeWork is still matching gifts to the Harvey Relief Fund, for what it’s worth. Your company may well match the organization of your choice, too.

Top News in the A.M.

The chief executives of Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google joined roughly 300 business leaders urging President Donald Trump late yesterday to continue protecting children brought illegally to the United States from being deported. Reportedly, Trump isn’t make any announcements about it today.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is brought to you this week by Studio Science, a leading design and innovation consultancy that specializes in building and launching ambitious brands, services and products for some of the world’s leading technology companies. Studio Science partners with world-class VCs, startups and founders to design compelling brand experiences, explore emergent business models and innovate new products and services. To learn more about Studio Science’s customers, results, and work, we invite you to visit www.studioscience.com.

New Fundings

7shifts, a four-year-old, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based maker of restaurant scheduling software, has raised $3.5 million in new  funding from Tandem Capital and earlier investor Relay Ventures. More here.

8th Wall, a year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based provider of augmented reality platform that works on iOS and Android phones and integrates with ArKit (Apple) and Google’s Tango, has raised $2.4 million in funding. Its investors included Norwest Venture Partners, the VR Fund, SV Angel, Greylock Partners, Betaworks, and Third Kind. More here.

Abcfintech, a year-old, China-based startup whose AI-driven analysis products for the financial industry aim to improve how investment decisions are made, as well as to predict future trends., has raised $30 million in a combined angel and Series A round. Qiming Venture Partners led the financing; other participants Source Code Capital, SIG Asia Investment and Welight Capital. China Money Network has more here.

Cara, a year-old, Berlin-based precision medicine company focused on chronic digestive disorders, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Atlantic Labs, with participation from numerous angel investors. More here.

Citybox, an eight-month-old, China-based smart vending machine operator, has raised $15 million in Series A funding from Blue Lake Capital, GGV Capital, Yunqi Partners and Zhen Fund. China Money Network has more here.

Good Feeling Group, a four-year-old, Shenzhen, China-based fitness club chain, has raised $14 million in Series B funding led by China Merchants Bank, with participation from Century Golden Resources Corp.

Teckro, a two-year-old, Limerick, Ireland-based life sciences company that uses machine-learning technologies to improve the speed and accuracy of clinical trials, has raised $10 million in Series B funding. Investors include Bill Maris’s Section 32; the company has now raised $17.8 million altogether. The Irish Times has more here.

Weekly Shirts, a year-old, Seoul, South Korea-based shirt rental service for men, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by K Cube Ventures, with participation from D.Camp and The Yoonmin Foundation. More here.

Simpli.fi, a seven-year-old, Fort Worth, Tex.-based programmatic advertising platform, has received a majority investment from GTCR, a private equity firm based in Chicago. The amount of money changing hands isn’t being disclosed. More here.

Tencent Music Entertainment Group, an operator of streaming music and karaoke apps that is controlled by China’s Tencent, is looking to raise additional funding at a $10 billion valuation ahead of IPO, reports Bloomberg. (Tencent Music was created last year, when Tencent agreed to acquire a controlling stake in China’s then leading music-streaming company, China Music Corp. As of last year, it owned roughly 60 percent of the company.) More here.

New Funds

Joanna Rees, whose firm VSP Capital imploded among infighting roughly ten years ago, is raising a new $100 million fund under the brand West, shows an SEC filing. Her partner in the fund is the head of a marketing agency that operates under the same brand. Rees was once a rising star in the venture industry and one of the first women to launch her own venture firm, though LPs later asked for their money back. Rees subsequently ran unsuccessfully for mayor of San Francisco.

IPOs

Lightstar Therapeutics, a London-based biotech company with a choroideremia gene therapy (choroideremia, which primarily affects men, causes untreatable progressive vision loss), has filed to raise up to $86 million in a IPO on Nasdaq. New Enterprise Associates and Wellington Management are two of the company’s biggest outside shareholders. FierceBiotech has more here.

Exits

Hewlett Packard Enterprise just completed the $8.8 billion sale of much of its software business to Micro Focus International.

People

Billionaire and native Texan Michael Dell has pledged $36 million of his foundation’s money to help disaster relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. It’s the largest donation to date aimed at recovery efforts.

David Famolari has joined Hearst Ventures as a managing director in New York. Famolari was previously a director with Verizon Ventures.

Blake Ross, the founder of Firefox and a former Facebook executive, will join Uber to develop product strategy, he said yesterday.

Whether Uber employees will want to leave under the company’s new leadership is one thing, but the company has made it far easier for them to do so — which wasn’t always the case. According to Axios’s Dan Primack, Uber earlier this year extended the time employees have to exercise their stock options to a healthy seven years (up from a typical 90 days that employees have after leaving a company). With an IPO now seemingly now coming in the next one to three three years, you may well see some departures.

Data

Stanford produces the most startup founders (still). Axios has more here.

Essential Reads

Samsung can start testing self-driving cars in California.

Yes, it’s true. Benevolent Google uses its power to quash ideas it doesn’t like.

Co-living buildings are just getting started.

Detours

Inside New York City’s priciest rentals.

The average dad is getting older. (Not George Clooney older, but older.)

We don’t know about you, but we’re growing a little worried about the future.

Retail Therapy

Quite a home concept! (H/T: Uncrate.)

Thursday! Hope yours is going well.:)

With some of you wondering: we recently ran out of seats to our StrictlyVC event next month, but you can always put your name on our waitlist, which is growing but not out of control, and we promise to do what we can. Either way, we’ll be posting interviews and pictures afterward, so those of you can’t come won’t miss out. Giant thanks again to Bolt, Ballou PR, and Rosebud Communications for supporting the event. It’s great to have you as partners(!).

Top News in the A.M.

Benchmark‘s lawsuit against former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is heading to an arbitrator, a decision that Kalanick immediately declared as win. More here.

New Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi met with employees for the first time yesterday, saying something they’ve undoubtedly longed to hear: that Uber could IPO as soon as 18 months from now. More here.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is brought to you this week by Studio Science, a leading design and innovation consultancy that specializes in building and launching ambitious brands, services and products for some of the world’s leading technology companies. Studio Science partners with world-class VCs, startups and founders to design compelling brand experiences, explore emergent business models and innovate new products and services. To learn more about Studio Science’s customers, results, and work, we invite you to visit www.studioscience.com.

Early Uber Backer Bill Maris: “I’d Invest Again But the Sellers Have Disappeared”

While Bill Maris was the CEO of Google’s venture unit, GV, the outfit made a bet in 2013 that drew snickers: it poured $258 million into the ride-share company Uber at a roughly $3.7 billion post-money valuation.

The investment was by far GV’s biggest investment at the time. Yet while seemingly rich, the investment looks brilliant in hindsight. (It also looks complicated, of course, with Google spin-off Waymo now suing Uber for allegedly stealing its trade secrets.)

Maris has more recently launched his own venture firm, Section 32, but as the founder of GV, he maintains a meaningful interest in Uber’s future, and he suggests that after this week, he’d buy Uber again — at its current $68 billion valuation — if only he could find a seller.

We talked with Maris earlier today about his renewed enthusiasm for the company. Our chat has been edited lightly for length.

You closed on a $150 million debut fund in May. How many investments have you made since?

It’s quite a long list: BloomAPI, Embark, Freenome, Coinbase, Auris. About ten have been made public and some are in stealth mode.

You’ve told me you’d consider investing in Uber at its current valuation. That would require a lot of money. Can you write any size check you like? 

I have broad latitude to make investments that I think are worthwhile.

When I look at Uber now, I don’t think of it as expensive. I’m very optimistic and bullish on the company’s future. I’m excited about new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who seems very much like a values-driven, principled leader. And I feel like Uber is a buy now, not a sell.

You say “now.” Did you feel differently recently?

Earlier, I might have felt more pessimistically. Now I can say there’s a light there.

What I’ve observed in talking with other investors and folks involved is that this feeling of fear has now shifted to optimism and excitement.

You own a stake through your previous employer’s venture fund. Have you tried buying secondary shares from another seller more recently? Have you been approached?

It’s best I don’t comment on that. I will note that groups that were sellers have disappeared and I think it would be foolish [otherwise] given what has transpired. There’s a lot of risk, of course, but the company has so much potential, especially given that people who work there are fired up again. If you believe Khosrowshahi can lead the company successfully, you see it as a unique investment opportunity.

At $68 billion. Do you think that, as Benchmark has said, Uber will “comfortably” be valued at more than $100 billion in the not-too-distant future?

More here.

New Fundings

Bambu, a year-old, Singapore-based B2B robo-advisor platform, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from investors, including Franklin Templeton Investments, Wavemaker Partners, and private investor Robby Hilkowitz. More here.

BitPesa, a four-year-old, Kenya-based bitcoin remittance platform, has raised $2 million in additional Series A funding from Greycroft Partners, bringing total capital raised in the round to $10 million. Fortune has more here.

BrainScope, a nearly nine-year-old, Bethesda, Md.-based medical neurotechnology company focused on traumatic brain injury, has raised $16 million in funding from DBL Partners, along with earlier backers Revolution LLC, ZG Ventures and Maryland Venture Fund. Mass Device has more here.

Elium, a 9.5-year-old, Belgium-based enterprise social network for knowledge-based organizations, has raised €4 million ($4.7 million) in Series A funding led by Serena Capital, with participation from the investment firm SRIW. Tech.eu has more here.

Fengxiansheng, a three-year-old, Hangzhou City, China-based intra-city logistics company that facilitates same-day delivery of everything from food to flowers to documents, has raised “tens of millions” of dollars in Series C funding from Daosheng Capital and the online apparel company Jolly Information Technology. China Money Network has more here.

Gamer Sensei, a year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based professional e-sports coaching service, has raised $4 million in funding led by Accomplice and Advancit Capital, with participation from Origin Ventures, CRCM Ventures, Kiwi Ventures, aXiomatic, Abstract Ventures and Subversive Capital. Xconomy has more here.

HowStuffWorks, a 20-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based digital media brand that has changed owners more the once in the past few years, is being spun out as an independent company with the help of $15 million in Series A funding. The Raine Group led the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Islands, a year-old, Tuscaloosa, Al.-based currently-in-beta college-focused digital communication platform, has raised $1.85 million in seed funding from investors, including Greylock Partners, Vaizra Investments, Scott Belskyand Howard Lindzon. Mashable has more on the app here.

Qadium, the four-year-old, San Francisco-based internet monitoring platform that alerts large organizations to risks outside their firewalls, has raised $40 million in Series B funding led by Institutional Venture Partners. Others in the round include TPG Growth and earlier backers New Enterprise Associates, Founders Fund, and Susa Ventures. We’ve written much more about the company here.SafeTrek, a four-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based personal safety mobile app, raised $3.2 million in seed funding led by Cultivation Capital, with participation from New Enterprise Associates, Maveron, and Aspect Ventures. More here.

SPORTLOGiQ, a three-year-old, Montreal-based sports statistics company that uses feeds from broadcast cameras, then applies advanced computer vision to analyze players’ movements and provide context to the game, has raised C$5 million ($4 million) in Series A funding. Rho Canada Ventures and Anges Quebec Capital led the round; other participants include Mark Cuban and TandemLaunch. BetaKit has more here.

SuperAwesome, a four-year-old, London-based company whose ad campaign platform works with companies to help them comply with strict rules on marketing to children, has raised $21 million in Series B funding from Mayfair Equity Partners. More here.

Travelbank, a year-old, San Francisco-based expense app for businesses that analyzes flight expenses and more, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by DCM Ventures, with participation from NEA and Accel Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Upper Hand, a four-year-old, Indianapolis, In.-based startup that sells sports organizations online tools to help them more effectively manage their businesses, has raised funding from earlier backer Elevate Ventures in a deal that brings the company’s total funding to $2.4 million. More here.

IPOs

Europe’s next major tech IPO is on the horizon. José Neves, CEO of luxury fashion website Farfetch, tells The Telegraph that a float is “the next logical stage” for his company. A Sky News report in June suggested Farfetch was close to choosing which bankers to underwrite a $5 billion IPO in New York. More here.

Rocket Internet-backed HelloFresh could be planning an IPO for as early as next month, per reports. In an interview with German publication Manager Magazin, CEO Dominik Richter said the startup is “keeping all options open” amid reports that the company could go public this fall. More here.

RYB Education, a China-based company that provides early childhood education services, has filed for a $100 million IPO, with plans to trade on the NYSE. More here.

Exits

Publicly traded BroadSoft, a Gaithersburg, Md.-based company that provides software and services that enable mobile, fixed-line and cable service providers to offer unified communications over their internet protocol networks, is contemplating a sale and working with the bank Jefferies toward that possible end, reports Reuters. More here.

Siemens is buying Tass International, a four-year-old, Netherlands-based self-driving software specialist, for undisclosed terms. We weren’t able to dig up much on Tass’s funding situation. Reuters has more here.

People

Brab, Uber’s Southeast Asia-based rival, which in the process of raising a huge $2.5 billion investment round, just lost its head of engineering. More here.

Yesterday, Expedia named its new CEO and it is . . . Expedia CFO Mark Okerstrom, who’d joined the company as an SVP back in 2006. More here.

The on-demand delivery startup Postmates has let go of all of its city managers as it centralizes some of its operations at its San Francisco headquarters. More here.

According to Bloomberg, a group of 17 former Apple engineers have joined the self-driving car startup Zoox since Apple backed off plans to build its own vehicle. (We’ll be on stage next month with Steve Jurvetson of DFJ, who led his firm’s investment in Zoox — and Tesla, and Space X. We’ll have to poke around on this one in that chat.)

Jobs

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is looking to hire a principal to help invest its strategic investment fund. The job is in Seattle.

Essential Reads

The first ICO unicorns are here. Gulp.

Detours

How much it costs to watch the NFL this season without cable.

Why the menswear world is (evidently) obsessed with Shia LaBeouf.

The Harvey Relief Fund, established to help the many in Houston without flood insurance. (Note: WeWork is right now matching donations up to $100,000.)

Retail Therapy

Yahoo’s first CEO, Tim Koogle, is selling his house in swanky Los Altos. The price: $19.4 million.

Wednesday!

Top News in the A.M.

Kalanick versus Benchmark heads today to a courtroom in Delaware, where the lawsuit ocould either be placed on a fast track or thrown out entirely.

In a rare partnership, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos just announced a tie-up that will enable users of the latter’s Alexa voice assistant to summon Microsoft’s Cortana voice assistant and vice versa.

Sponsored By . . .

StrictlyVC is brought to you this week by Studio Science, a leading design and innovation consultancy that specializes in building and launching ambitious brands, services and products for some of the world’s leading technology companies. Studio Science partners with world-class VCs, startups and founders to design compelling brand experiences, explore emergent business models and innovate new products and services. To learn more about Studio Science’s customers, results, and work, we invite you to visit www.studioscience.com.

Galvanize Lays Off 11% of Employees, as Bootcamps See Broader Correction

After years of explosive growth, coding boot camps are starting to scale back, if not shut down altogether. Two schools have announced plans to close this year: Dev Bootcamp in San Francisco and Iron Yard of Greenville, South Carolina. They have deep-pocketed parent companies, too, having been acquired by Kaplan and the Apollo Education Group, respectively.

Now, Galvanize is revealing that it, too, may have overstretched, saying in a statement obtained by Reuters that it plans to lay off 11 percent of staffers  —  totaling 37 employees — at its headquarters in Denver. It currently employs 350 people.

“In order to adjust to evolving market demands we made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce today,” said Galvanize, which looks to have raised $85 million from investors in its five-year history. “These actions are consistent with our overall strategy to build a more product-focused platform that enables a continuous learning environment.”

The move won’t surprise many who’ve been following the business of coding schools. “You can imagine this becoming a big industry, but not for 90 companies,” Michael Horn, a principal consultant at Entangled Solutions, an education research and consulting firm, told the New York Times in a recent story about what looks to be an early shakeout of the field.

As of 2014, there were at least 43 U.S.-based programming bootcamps that offered full-time in-person instruction or 40 or more hours of classroom time per week and were not affiliated with an accredited college or university. This according to Course Report, an outfit that tracks the industry.

By earlier this year, says the outfit, that number had reached 95 bootcamps.

More here.

New Fundings

Adwerx, a four-year-old, Durham, N.C.-based advertising and re-targeting network for real estate agents, has raised $4.3 million in fresh funding led by Grotech Ventures, with participation from Bull City Venture Partners and Alerion Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

ALICE, a five-year-old, New York-based startup whose platform connects every department of a hotel for all staff communications and guest requests, has raised $26 million in Series B funding. Expedia led the deal (under the leadership of Dara Khosrowshahi, who is now joining Uber as CEO.) The round brings the startup’s total funding to $39 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Appier, a five-year-old, Taiwanese startup that helps companies harness artificial intelligence to make marketing decisions, has raised $33 million in Series C funding from SoftBank, Line Corp., Naver Corp., EDBI and the Hong Kong-based financial services firm AMTD Group. The company has now raised $82 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

ARMO BioSciences, a four-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based late-stage immuno-oncology company, has raised $67 million in Series C funding led by new investor Qiming Venture Partners, with participation from Decheng Capital, Sequoia Capital, Quan Capital and RTW Investments. Earlier investors also joined the round, including Kleiner Perkins, OrbiMed, DAG Ventures, GV and others. More here.

Convey, a four-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based company aiming to give shippers better visibility in to how to reduce costs while also providing them tools to take action, has raised $8.25 million in Series B funding. Investors include Techstars and RPM Ventures. Built in Austin has more here.

Domuso, a three-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based property management system and payment portal that lets tenants in sticky situations pay late rent over time, has raised $3.1 million in funding. Investors include owner/operators of rental properties, including David Kim, founder of Bascom Group. The company has now raised $5.8 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Dwelo, a nearly three-year-old, Provo, Utah-based smart apartment platform that allows building owners to integrate smart lights, thermostats and the like while providing renters and app to control them, has raised $4.9 million in funding. Peterson Ventures led the round. The company has now raised $9.7 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

FlowAccount, a three-year-old, Bangkok, Thailand-based cloud-based platform for business accounting, has raised $1.15 million in seed funding from Kasikorn Bank, with participation from SBI Group and earlier investors 500 Startupsand Golden Gate Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Grab, the five-year-old, Singapore-based ride-sharing company competing with Uber for dominance in Southeast Asia, has confirmed that Toyota is among investors participating in a new, $2.5 billion round of funding that it’s targeting — $2 billion of which is coming from Didi and Softbank. The financing will reportedly value Grab at more than $6 billion. TechCrunch has more here.

Homelike, a two-year-old, Cologne, Germany-based startup that helps business travelers rent furnished apartments for a month or longer, has raised €4 million (about $4.8 million) in Series A funding led by Cherry Ventures, with participation from earlier backer Coparion. TechCrunch has more here.

Ideal, a three-year-old, Toronto-based startup that builds AI-driven recruiting software, has raised $3 million in funding, including from MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund. More here.

PriorAuthNow, a three-year-old, Columbus, Oh.-based software company that connects directly with all insurance carriers, making it faster for hospitals to submit, monitor and complete prior authorizations, has raised $3.6 million in funding. NCT Ventures led the round, with participation from Detroit Venture Partners. More here.

Shuidi, a year-old, China-based company that runs operates three crowdfunding platforms — a crowdfunding platform a la Kickstarter called Shuidichou, an online medical community called Shuidichou, and a medical insurance platform called Shuidibao — has raised $24 million in Series A funding. Tencent and BlueRun Ventures co-led the round, with participation from Sinovation Ventures, Banyan Capital, IDG Capital, Meituan-Dianping and Tongcheng Foundation. Shiudi was founded by Shen Peng, who previously cofounded the food delivery platform Meituan Waimai. China Money Network has more here.

Treebo Hotels, a two-year-old, Bengaluru, India-based budget hotel chain, has raised $34 million in Series C funding led by the Hong Kong-based investment firms Ward Ferry Management and Karst Peak Capital. Earlier backers SAIF Partners, Matrix Partners India, and Bertelsmann India Investments also joined the round. The outlet Inc42 has more here.

New Funds

Qingsong Fund, a five-year-old, China-based venture capital firm founded by Alvin Liu, a co-founder of Tencent Holdings, has closed its third fund with $129 million in committed capital from roughly 30 limited partners. The firm, which focuses on everything from education to artificial intelligence, is now managing $200 million altogether, says China Money Network. More here.

IPOs

Best, a 10-year-old logistic service company that was founded by the former co-president of Google China (Johnny Chou) and is backed by Alibaba Group, is now looking to raise up to $1 billion via a U.S. IPO, up from an earlier target of $750 million. China Money Network has more here.

Exits

RedOwl, a nearly six-year-old, Baltimore-based cybersecurity analytics startup, has been acquired by a Raytheon-owned company. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed, but according to the Baltimore Sun, RedOwl’s 60 employees will be absorbed into the Austin, Tex.-based company, Forcepoint, which specializes in content security and data protection. According to Crunchbase, RedOwl had raised roughly $24 million, including fromBlackstone. More here.

People

Kathryn Hume has joined the venture firm ffVC as a venture partner. Hume is also VP of product and strategy at integrate.ai, a Toronto-based SaaS platform company that helps its customers apply AI to social media, behavioral, and first-party transaction data.

While Dara Khosrowshahi (now officially Uber’s new CEO) is at an all-hands in San Francisco today (where this selfie suggests things are going well), Expedia is planning to name its new CEO. Stay tuned.

Magic Leap, which has so far raised $1.4 billion from investors, has settled a bitter legal battle with executives who started its Silicon Valley office.

Early Uber investor Shervin Pishevar just can’t stop weighing in on Benchmark’s lawsuit with his friend and former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. The latest: a somewhat strange letter he wrote last week to inspire Kalanick’s attorneys that was today made public.

Jobs

Fitbit is looking to hire a senior manager to its corporate development team. The job is in San Francisco.

Data

LinkedIn just published a “U.S. state of the salary” report for 2017. Interestingly, tech leads as an industry, but certain medical jobs are still the highest paying. More here.

Essential Reads

The SEC is worried about you getting sucked into an ICO scam.

PayPal just launched its first physical credit card.

What it was like to attend SpaceX‘s Hyperloop Pod competition last weekend.

Detours

Family vacation breakdown.

Would you like to sit down with me on my bed and check Twitter?

Organic Doritos. They’re real, and they may be heading to Whole Foods.

Retail Therapy

Lightheaded beds, for nighttime reading.