Happy Monday, all! With any luck, you’re on a boat or a beach or resting poolside today. Either way, we hope you’re enjoying a very leisurely July 4th break.

We’re racing out the door ourselves; we’ll see you back here Wednesday.:)

Top News in the A.M.

Two days after apologizing for being a “creep” toward women (and, notably, three days after the New York Times reported that he’d been demoted from the firm he cofounded, owing to inappropriate interactions with female founders), Dave McClure has resigned as general partner of the venture firm 500 Startups. Firm co-founder Christine Tsai asked for McClure’s resignation and he accepted, according to a letter sent to limited partners today. More here.

VC Aileen Lee’s Specific Advice to Female Founders Seeking Funding

In May, at TechCrunch’s Disrupt event in New York, researchers from Harvard Business Review were in the audience, and they were taking notes. Using their findings, along with the help of a linguistic software program that scanned video transcriptions of Q&A sessions between onstage venture capitalists and startup founders, they came to an interesting — and disturbing — conclusion.

They discovered the investors (and 40 percent of them were women) tended to ask men questions about the potential for gains at their startups, while they asked women about the potential for losses.

That wasn’t a surprise to longtime venture capitalist Aileen Lee, who spent nearly 13 years with Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers before leaving in 2012 to start her own seed-stage venture firm, Cowboy Ventures. Lee has funded male founders (August, Dollar Shave Club, Philz Coffee), as well as women founders (Textio, Brit & Co., Accompany); she has also sat around many tables with her mostly male VC peers as they’ve discussed where best to steer startups as they’ve sought follow-on funding.

At Y Combinator’s fourth Female Founders Conference in San Francisco last week, Lee talked about that HBR study and the bias she sees every day. She also shared very specific advice to female founders who are looking to raise capital (along with one observation for male-heavy venture firms).

Among her suggestions for women founders:

1) Be a good storyteller, and don’t fret if storytelling doesn’t come naturally to you. “If you are not a great storyteller, you can become one. It’s just a matter of feedback and practice.”

2) Each story has basic but important elements. Make sure you include these, beginning with:

More here.

New Fundings

AUrate, a three-year-old, New York-based jewelry startup, has raised $2.6 million in funding, including from Arab Angel and Victress Capital. City Biz List has more here.

Bonfire, a five-year-old, Waterloo, Canada-based company that makes software for procurement teams, raised $11 million in funding led by Battery Ventures, with participation from Crosslink Capital and Spider Capital. BetaKit has more here.

Emocha, a nine-year-old, Baltimore, Md.-based mobile health platform for patient engagement, has raised $1 million in seed funding from Propel Baltimore Fund, Kapor Capital, Sand Hill Angels, Baltimore Angels, and Blue Jay Syndicate. The Baltimore Sun has more here.

Harver, a seven-year-old, Amsterdam-based HR tech company, has raised $8.1 million in Series A funding led by Insight Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Lynq, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based startup whose peer-to-peer technology allows individuals and groups to locate each other anywhere in the world and works independently of phones, cell networks, Wi-Fi and maps, has raised $1.9 million in seed funding. Plus Eight Equity Partners led the round; other participants include ARC Angel Fund and Angel Investor Forum. More here.

Make.TV, a year-old, Seattle, Wa.-based company that’s trying to reinvent how broadcasters and publishers can discover, acquire, produce and distribute video content from mobile users, has raised $8.5 million round of funding. Voyager Capital led the round, with participation from Microsoft Ventures, Vulcan Capital and Arnold Ventures. More here.

Mendel.ai, a year-old, San Francisco-based AI-powered clinical trial matching platform, has raised $2 million in seed funding from DCM Ventures, Bootstrap Labs and Launch Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

ProSteel Security, a 70-year-old, Provo, Utah-based maker of safety and security products like vaults and gun safes and doors, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from City Capital Ventures and Promus Equity Partners. More here.

New Funds

Nandan Nilekani, a co-founder and the former CEO of $33 billion IT services giant Infosys, and Sanjeev Aggarwal, an investor with Helion Ventures, have come together to launch the Fundamentum Partnership, a new firm that is looking to raise a $100 million debut fund (and that’s halfway toward that target). TechCrunch has more here.

Growth Street Partners, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, raised $70 million for its debut fund. More here.

IPOs

Dropbox, the data-sharing business, is looking to hire underwriters for an IPO that could come later this year; it would be the biggest U.S. technology company to go public since Snap Inc, sources told Reuters on Friday. More here.

Redfin, the popular real estate listings site, has filed for an IPO. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Apple CEO Tim Cook took home $145 million last year.

Microsoft is poised to layoff thousands of employees worldwide in a move to reorganize its salesforce.

Essential Reads

Under new leadership, the SEC expanding a program that will allow all (not just some) private companies to keep some details of their finances and business strategies under wraps early in the process of an initial public offering. Dealbook has the story here.

The WeChat app has almost a billion users, and many of them use it all day. So why isn’t the company everywhere by now?

The first 30 production examples of the Tesla Model 3 will be released to customers on July 28, says CEO Elon Musk. CNet has more here.

Detours

You shouldn’t exercise to lose weight.

How a napping commuter knows when it’s his or her subway stop.

Retail Therapy

Twenty things for your preppy July 4th party. (We know you’re going to host one at some point.)

Happy Friday, everyone! If you’re heading out of the town in advance of July 4th, safe travels. So you know, we will be publishing StrictlyVC next week except on Tuesday; it might be a little more compact, depending on what’s happening in startupland.

See you back here soon.:)

Top News in the A.M.

Social media companies operating in Germany face fines of as much as $57 million if they do not delete illegal, racist or slanderous comments and posts within 24 hours under a law passed on Friday. The New York Times has more here.

Sponsored By . . .

This week’s StrictlyVC was brought to you by Crowded Ocean, the two-person marketing agency that specializes in positioning and launching startups (46 to date, including Palo Alto Networks, Nimble Storage and Sumo Logic—as well as 10 exits). We help develop your positioning and messaging, turn it into content (website, white papers, use cases) and hire the resources (PR, web design, demand gen, etc.) to launch your company. We then help hire our successor. Today’s successful startup is based on strong positioning and early customer acquisition. To learn more about our services, see our book, The Ultimate Startup Guide, or contact us.

Binary’s Investors Just Accepted Jonathan Teo’s Resignation

Earlier this week, following the resignations of Binary Capital co-founder Justin Caldbeck and a more recent addition to the team, Matt Mazzeo, Binary co-founder Jonathan Teo offered to resign his position, as well.

Late yesterday, the firm’s limited partners — including WeatherGage, Legacy Venture, UNC and UCLA — accepted Teo’s resignation.

According to sources, the firm’s portfolio companies will now report directly to these limited partners with any questions or concerns. In the meantime, these institutional investors have committed to coming up with a new brand for the entity and to finding a new general partner to assume control of the stakes in Binary’s $125 million debut fund.

Binary had closed a second fund last year with $175 million, but it had yet to call down the vast majority of that capital. The companies in that portfolio will also be managed by the incoming general partner.

Binary’s investors were torn over whether or not to allow Teo to continue managing the firm’s investments, according to one source close to the situation. Not all were in agreement that he was culpable for the failings of Caldbeck, who was revealed in an explosive report last week to have harassed or preyed upon numerous female founders who’d met with Caldbeck in a professional capacity over the years.

When revelations about Caldbeck were initially made public last week by The Information, Caldbeck and Teo initially denied any wrongdoing, calling the allegations a “few examples which show that Justin has in the past occasionally dated or flirted with women he met in a professional capacity.”

On Sunday, after Caldbeck was pressured to step down from his post, Teo issued a statement calling the “predatory behavior” of Caldbeck “deplorable” and insisting that “there will be zero tolerance at our firm of any conduct that is demeaning to women.”

The company’s portfolio CEOs evidently didn’t buy it, banding together and telling Binary’s LPs that it was either their way or the highway. Specifically, we’re told, nearly all of the CEOs presented or obtained legal documents with which to buy back their shares from Binary unless the LPs agreed to accept Teo’s resignation, too.

New Fundings

ArangoDB, a five-year-old, Cologne, Germany-based distributed open-source database, has raised €4.2 million ($4.8 million) in funding led by the Munich-based venture capital firm Target Partners. More here.

Babyscripts, a four-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based virtual care platform for obstetricians, has raised $5.7 million in new funding led by Ysios Capital, with participation from Chemo Group, CG Health Ventures, Aurora Health Care Ventures, and P5 Health Ventures. More here.

Danke Apartment, a two-year-old, Beijing-based online apartment rental platform, has raised $14 million in fresh Series A funding led by JOY Capital, with participation from co-working space start-up UrWork and earlier investor Kaiwuhuadeng. China Money Network has more here.

Rong Cloud, a three-year-old, Beijing-based cloud-based instant messaging service provider, has raised $14 million in Series B funding led by GP Capital, with participation from other firms, including Tianxing Capital. China Money Network has more here.

Kakao Mobility, a ride-hailing Korea-based app business that’s been spin out of Kakao, the country’s top mobile messenger company, has raised roughly $437 million in funding from TPG. As some readers may know, TPG’s portfolio includes Uber, which is Kakao Mobility’s most visible rival in Korea. TechCrunch has more here.

Mirexus Biotechnologies, a nine-year-old, Ontario-based natural nanomaterials company, has raised $12 million funding led by GEL Tech, with participation from the GreenSky President’s Club, an Ontario-based group of angel investors. More here.

Swift Navigation, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based tech company that’s building centimeter-accurate GPS technology to power autonomous vehicles, has raised $34 million in Series B funding led by Forest Baskett and Greg Papadopoulos of New Enterprise Associates, with participation from earlier backers Eclipse and First Round Capital. More here.

Trax, a seven-year-old, Singapore-based computer vision company that’s trying to transform how in-store retail data is collected, viewed and analyzed, has raised $64 million in funding from private equity giant Warburg Pincus. China Money Network has more here.

Unchained Labs, a two-year-old, Pleasanton, Ca.–based life sciences company that provides new tools to biologics researchers, has raised $13 million in Series C financing including from Novo Ventures, Canaan Partners and TPG. More here.

Vector, a year-old, Tucson, Az.-based micro satellite launch company, has raised $21 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Shasta Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company — founded by aerospace engineer Jim Cantrell, who was part of the original Space X team — has now raised $31 million altogether. Bloomberg has more here.

Work Truck Solutions, a four-year-old, Chico, Ca.-based commercial truck sales platform, has raised $5 million in Series B funding led by Autotech Ventures. Earlier backers Belle Michigan, Wakestream Ventures, Moneta Ventures and Golden Seeds also joined the round. More here.

IPOs

Delivery Hero rose as much as 8.6 percent in its first day of trading, giving the Berlin-based takeout company a market capitalization of 4.7 billion euros ($5.3 billion) in a successful debut on the Frankfurt stock exchange. Bloomberg has more here.

Enterprise cloud company Tintri is finally out, after lowering its price last night to $7 per share (down from an initial targeted range of between $10.50 to $12.50). The shares, which began trading this morning, are up the slightest bitas of this writing. More here.

ZhongAn Online Property and Casualty Insurance, China’s first internet-only insurer, has filed for an initial public offering in Hong Kong worth up to $1.5 billion. Reuters has more here.

People

Designer Tony Fadell sees a screenless future.

Not all is Zen at Headspace, as layoffs hit the app-based mindfulness startup.

Nokia has nabbed Samsung’s North America CEO, Gregory Lee, to lead its consumer-focused technologies division.

Palmer Luckey, who created the Oculus headset, is now pledging money to a project that allows users to play Oculus-exclusive games on competing products.

Elon Musk says he’s revealing more details about the Tesla 3’s release this Sunday.

Retired VC Chris Sacca says he hasn’t always been so great to women founders, either.

Data

People who post 50-plus times per day are likely sharing spam or false news, Facebook says, and it plans to demote those links.

Essential Reads

If you missed the Female Founders Conference yesteday, you can watch it here.

How teens really use Snapchat, Instagram, and other apps.

Here’s when you should buy bitcoin and ethereum.

Detours

The man who drew Eloise.

A new planet has just been discovered at the edge of the solar system. At least, that’s what everyone is hoping it is.

Retail Therapy

Neat,  an app that connects you with real-life photo editors who can clean up your snaps.

Thursday!

No column today.

Top News in the A.M.

The global ransomware attack that’s still spreading: what we know and don’t know.

Immigrants and refugees from six majority-Muslim countries will be barred from entering the U.S. beginning tonight unless they can prove a relationship with a U.S. person or entity.

Tech stocks are diving right now.

Sponsored By . . .

This week’s StrictlyVC is being brought to you by Crowded Ocean, the two-person marketing agency that specializes in positioning and launching startups (46 to date, including Palo Alto Networks, Nimble Storage and Sumo Logic—as well as 10 exits). We help develop your positioning and messaging, turn it into content (website, white papers, use cases) and hire the resources (PR, web design, demand gen, etc.) to launch your company. We then help hire our successor. Today’s successful startup is based on strong positioning and early customer acquisition. To learn more about our services, see our book, The Ultimate Startup Guide, or contact us.

New Fundings

Abl Schools, a nearly two-year-old, San Francisco-based company that makes time and resource management software for middle schools and high schools, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding. Rethink Education led the round, with participation from Sinovation Ventures and earlier backers Owl Ventures, Reach Capital, and First Round Capital. The company, which had raised $4.5 million last year, has now garnered $12 million in funding altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

ClauseMatch, a five-year-old, London-based Saas platform offering smart document management to banks, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding, led by Speedinvest, with participation from earlier backers SparkLabs Global Ventures, Techstars, former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer and former SunGard CEO Cristobal Conde. TechCrunch has more here.

Highcon, an eight-year-old, Yavne, Israel-based company that sells digital finishing materials for applications ranging from packaging to marketing collateral, has raised $20 million in new funding led by JVP, with participation from earlier backers Landa Ventures, LR Group, OurCrowd and Go Capital. More here.

iKongjian, a three-year-old, Beijing-based online platform for home renovation, has raised $31 million in Series C funding led by Gome Holdings. The company is now reportedly valued at $2 billion. China Money Network has more here.

Kinetica, an eight-year-old startup that builds databases that harness fast graphical processing chips to perform everyday business applications, now has $50 million in Series A funding led by Canvas Ventures and Meritech Capital Partners, with participation from Citi Ventures and earlier backer Ray Lane. (That’s a lot of Series A funding.) The company has now raised $63 million altogether. Fortune has more here.

LogicBio Therapeutics, a three-year-old, Foster City, Ca.-based company at work on disease-modifying gene therapies for orphan pediatric diseases, has raised $50 million in Series B funding. London’s Arix Bioscience led the round; other participants include OrbiMed Advisors, Edmond De Rothschild Investment Partners, Pontifax and SBI. More here.

Pray.com, a year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based interfaith mobile app that helps religious leaders keep in touch with their congregants, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Science Inc., with participation from Greylock Partnersand Spark Capital. More here.

Science Exchange, a six-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based platform for outsourced research and development, has raised $28 million in Series C funding led by Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backers Union Square Ventures, Maverick Capital, and Collaborative Fund. The company has now raised $58 million altogether. More here.

Spruce Finance, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based consumer financing company centered around residential energy efficiency and solar technology, has raised $25 million in strategic funding from HPS Investment Partners. More here.

Super League Gaming, a three-year-old, L.A.-based e-sports platform, has raised $15 million in Series C funding including from Nickelodeon, DMG Entertainment, Jeff Vinik and aXiomatic. More here.

Terran Orbital, a four-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based nanosatellite company, has raised an undisclosed amount of strategic funding from aerospace giant Lockheed Martin. The company had previously raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Marc Bell Capital and Staton Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Zai Lab, a four-year-old, Shanghai-based biopharma company led by former Sequoia Capital China managing director Samantha Du, has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by OrbiMed Asia Partners, with participation from Vivo Capital, Cormorant Asset Management and Rock Springs Capital. China Money Network has more here.

New Funds

Upfront Ventures, the 19-year-old, L.A.-based early-stage venture firm, has closed its sixth fund with $400 million in capital commitments. Partner Mark Suster has more here.

Kairos Ventures, a nearly two-year-old, L.A.-based early-stage venture firm founded Jim Demetriades, founder of the software company SeeBeyond, has raised $74.7 million toward a $150 million venture fund, according to an SEC filing. More here.

IPOs

Blue Apron opened for trading at $10 per share this morning and . . .  that’s where the shares are trading hours later, meaning its IPO investors have yet to reap any gains. TechCrunch has more here.

Tintri, a venture-backed company that’s focused around VM-aware storage for virtualization and cloud environments, has called off its IPO, which was supposed to price last night. It hasn’t explained why yet, though based on what’s happening in the market today, it was probably a good move. Business Insider has more here.

Exits

Staples agreed yesterday to be acquired by private equity firm Sycamore Partners for $6.9 billion, an 11 percent premium over its share price as of yesterday afternoon. The deal is expected to dramatically restructure the struggling office supply retailer. USA Today has more here.

Cloudyn, a company that helps customers manage their cloud billing across multiple clouds, is officially being acquired by Microsoft. Sources tell TechCrunch the price was between $50 million and $70 million. According to Crunchbase, Cloudyn had raised roughly $20 million from investors over four rounds. Its backers included Carmel Ventures, Infosys, Titanium Investments. More here.

The Muse, a six-year-old, New York-based recruitment site for millennials, has acquired Brand Amper, a three-year-old, Chicago-based startup whose Mad Libs-like web app makes it easier for companies to capture employee sentiment. Brand Amper had raised a small friends-and-family round of funding; terms aren’t being disclosed, though The Muse says it was a cash deal. More here.

People

Ann Lai, a former principal at Binary until May 2016, is suing the firm for harassing and defaming her after she resigned. In the lawsuit, Lai claims that Binary cofounder and all-around miscreant Justin Caldbeck texted her repeatedly after she left the firm, threatening her not to disparage or divulge information about the company. TechCrunch has the filing here.

Anthony Levandowski was making an s-load at Google.

Julie Sandler, who spent the last six years an investor with Madrona Venture Group, has joined the two-year-old startup studio Pioneer Square Labs. The Seattle Times has more here.

A passenger who says she was raped by an Uber driver in Kansas City has filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging that Uber ignored previous warnings that the driver was not fit to drive for the company. More here.

Data

Finnish startups attract the most venture capital in Europe — but there’s one big problem. (Turn page to see more.)

Essential Reads

As Uber stumbles, Lyft sees an opening, and bites its tongue.

Feeling good about the markets? Maybe you shouldn’t read this.

Detours

Once a model city, Hong Kong is in trouble.

Thirteen ways to be better at grilling.

So very presidential. So pride much.

Retail Therapy

We could probably live in Seattle.

Hi, happy Wednesday.:)

Top News in the A.M.

Less than a week after an explosive report emerged about the predatory behavior of Justin Caldbeck, cofounder of Binary Capital, the firm is being shut down, for all practical purposes. Bloomberg, which has the news here, said last night that LPs would likely either sell off all the firm’s current portfolio stakes, allow remaining cofounder Jonathan Teo manage them, or assign their management to another venture firm. In an update this morning, however, Teo has just offered to resign from both funds. It could be for reasons that aren’t publicly apparent (yet). Another possibility: a growing number of Binary’s startups seem to prefer breaking all ties. One of them, Assist, said  last night that they’ve asked to buy back Binary’s stake in its business.

Axios yesterday published a related report on Lightspeed Venture Partners, which previously employed Caldbeck, and it’s not going to win the powerful firm many new fans. According to Axios, Lightspeed removed Caldbeck from a board observer seat several years ago after Katrina Lake, cofounder and CEO of the e-commerce company Stitch Fix, complained about him. Alas, when Lake began talking with Benchmark Capital about her next round of funding, Lightspeed had Lake sign a non-disparagement agreement, effectively silencing her. A year later, Caldbeck cofounded Binary Capital.

Sponsored By . . .

This week’s StrictlyVC is brought to you courtesy of Crowded Ocean, the two-person marketing agency that specializes in positioning and launching startups (46 to date, including Palo Alto Networks, Nimble Storage and Sumo Logic—as well as 10 exits). We help develop your positioning and messaging, turn it into content (website, white papers, use cases) and hire the resources (PR, web design, demand gen, etc.) to launch your company. We then help hire our successor, then skedaddle. Today’s successful startup is based on strong positioning and early customer acquisition. To learn more about our services, see our book, The Ultimate Startup Guide, or contact us.

While Most Investment Firms Ponder ICOs, This Outfit is Barreling Ahead with a $100 Million ICO Fund

Most investors are trying to get a handle on initial coin offerings, which have begun racing through the tech ecosystem like a fire, veering off in multiple directions and causing excitement and confusion and some degree of terror as they grow in number.

In the simplest terms, the offerings enable startups to create their own digital currencies and sell them to users who can either redeem them later for the startups’ services, or sell them on a coin exchange at a later date.

Because the offerings are unregulated, most venture capitalists remain wary of them, even as their very line of work suddenly looks threatened. (Why sell equity to an investor when your customers are willing to throw money at you?)

However, one San Francisco-based firm is barreling full steam ahead into the world of ICO investing: Pantera Capital, founded 14 years ago by Tiger Management veteran Dan Morehead, whose team was among the first to launch funds focused exclusively on bitcoin and other digital currencies.

That Pantera is again chugging past its peers into territory they view as uncertain isn’t surprising. (Pantera has done pretty well with bitcoin, which it began buying when the currency was valued at $65. Today, one bitcoin is valued at roughly $2,500.) Still, the size of its newest fund — which has already garnered $35 million and Pantera expects to close with $100 million by summer’s end — seems like an outsize gamble, even for the gun-slinging outfit.

To learn more, we talked yesterday with Morehead, Pantera partner Paul Veradittakit and new hire Joey Krug, who previously co-founded Augur, a decentralized prediction market platform that raised $5.3 million in an ICO in 2015 — long before the rest of us had ever heard the term.

More here.

New Fundings

Cabin, a year-old, San Francisco-based hospitality transportation company (it operates buses with private cabins and other luxuries for regional travel, including from San Francisco to L.A.), has raised $3.3 million in seed funding. The round was led by Founders Fund, with participation from SV Angel, Floodgate, Box Group, Brainchild Holdings, Justin Rosenstein, StartX, FJ Labs, and 1517 Fund. More here.

Clique Media Group, an 11-year-old, L.A.-based fashion startup that is part media company, part consumer product house, has raised $15 million in Series C funding co-led by Greycroft Partners and e.ventures. Recode has more here.

Kry, a three-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based digital health startup, has raised $23 million in Series A funding led by Accel Partners in London, with participation from Creandum, Index Ventures, and Project A. More here.

Lazada, five-year-old, Bangkok-based online shopping and selling destination that’s reportedly Southeast Asia’s number largest, has raise $1 billion in further funding from earlier backer Alibaba Group, which now owns 83 percent of the company. Bloomberg has more here.

LendUp, a 5.5-year-old, San Francisco-based online lending company that says it helps the underbanked develop better credit, has received an undisclosed amount of strategic funding from PayPal. According to Crunchbase, the company had previously raised at least $360 million in equity and debt funding. TechCrunch has more here.

Wonder, a two-year-old, Venice, Ca.-based mobile company that’s been operating in stealth mode since its launched, has raised an undisclosed amount to Series A funding led by Grishin Robotics and TCL Communication Holdings. The round brings the company’s total funding — including from Kevin Spacey, Shakira, Greycroft Partners and 8VC —  to $14 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Xometry, a nearly four-year-old, Gaithersburg, Md.-based on-demand manufacturing platform, has raised $15 million in funding led by BMW i Ventures, with participation from earlier backers GE Ventures and Highland Capital Partners. More here.

New Funds

Benhamou Global Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm that focuses exclusively on enterprise investments, says it has closed its third fund with $80 million in commitments from existing LPs, as well as new international and institutional LPs that include several U.S., European, Israeli and Chinese investors. More here.

Google today is more formally taking the wraps off its internal incubator, Area 120. More here.

Verizon Ventures, the corporate venture capital unit of Verizon, has established a new arm in Tel Aviv called Verizon Ventures Israel. The group, which isn’t disclosing how much capital it has to use, is being headed up by Merav Rotem-Naaman, the  former Head of Nautilus, AOL’s Israeli investment and scouting arm. It will back both early- and late-stage companies. More here.

IPOs

Blue Apron just slashed its price range target (by a lot).

People

The Democratic National Committee has tapped Raffi Krikorian, a former top engineer at Uber’s self-driving-car program, to be its next chief technology officer. The idea is to create tools to reach more voters. Recode has more here.

Speaking at the annual Stanford Directors’ College yesterday, former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer defended ousted Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, suggesting he was unaware of the toxic culture brewing at Uber because of the company’s rapid growth. The San Francisco Chronicle has more here.

Joshua Newman, a fitness entrepreneur who was raised in Palo Alto and previously ran a venture fund that provided backing to startups founded by college students, was just sentenced to 41 months in prison for using money he’d raised for a new venture for his personal use. Dealbook has more here.

Essential Reads

ProPublica on Facebook’s secret censorship algorithm: it protects white men more than black children.

That malware attack is still spreading.

Detours

What it costs to open a restaurant in San Francisco.

Nike’s cofounder says not even Tiger Woods could make golf profitable.

Retail Therapy

No.

Hi, dear readers, happy Tuesday!

Top News in the A.M.

Google was just slapped with a $2.7 billion fine by European antitrust officials for unfairly favoring some of its own services.

Facebook now has two beellion users.

And, crikey, a new ransomware attack is going global fast.

Sponsored By . . .

Today’s successful startup is based on strong positioning and early customer acquisition. This week’s StrictlyVC is brought to you courtesy of Crowded Ocean, the two-person marketing agency that specializes in positioning and launching startups (46 to date, including Palo Alto Networks, Nimble Storage and Sumo Logic—as well as 10 exits). We help develop your positioning and messaging, turn it into content (website, white papers, use cases) and hire the resources (PR, web design, demand gen, etc.) to launch your company. We then help hire our successor and depart. To learn more about our services, see our book, The Ultimate Startup Guide, or contact us.

StdLib Just Raised $2 Million to Connect Businesses via APIs

Six years ago, Keith Horwood was known in his native Toronto as a former graduate student who’d hacked into his school’s student union election site, changing candidates’ titles for comic effect. (He was given what’s called a conditional discharge after paying a fine and performing community service.)

He also determined that he’d rather become known in tech circles as an agent for good, and he seems to be working toward that end with StdLib, his roughly two-year-old startup that abstracts away infrastructure using “serverless” architecture, allowing developers to write everything from simple functions to complex business logic, then deploy their code as scalable, fully­ documented web APIs.

The idea: delivering web services and APIs is a complex problem, and plenty can go wrong between the birth of a business idea and the production implementation of a web service. StdLib is aiming to solve the problem by making it possible to deploy new updates that are uncoupled from a company’s infrastructure. (This way, if things go awry with that new function or update, users and customers needn’t know.)

The company has plenty of competition. Still, investors must think it has a chance at fighting through a growing field of upstarts.

StdLib first passed through the accelerator program AngelPad early last year; today, it’s announcing another $2 million in fresh seed funding led by BlueYard Capital, a Berlin­- based venture firm focused largely on the democratization of software development.

Other investors in the round include Joe Montana’s Liquid 2 Ventures; Aston Motes, who was Dropbox’s first engineer; Michael Dabrowski, president of the biotechnology company Synthego; and the Nordic Makers Venture Group.

Horwood says it wasn’t easy breaking into the Silicon Valley scene several years ago, where he first moved to work at Storefront, a company that likens itself to an Airbnb of retail, renting out short-term commercial space.

More here.

New Fundings

Acquired.io, a newly launched, Bay Area-based startup that want to enable publishers to manage their user acquisition from a single place, has raised $2 million in funding from individual investors, including AdColony founder Jonathan Zweig and John Zdanowski, a former CFO at  Linden Lab. TechCrunch has more here.

Auth0, a four-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based company that makes online identity verification and protections software, has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by Meritech Capital Partners. Japan’s NTT DoCoMo and Australia’s Telstra also joined the round, along with earlier backers Bessemer Venture Partners, Trinity Ventures, and K9 Ventures. GeekWire has more here.

Diffblue, a year-old, Oxford, England-based company whose core AI can apparently build an exact mathematical model of any code base with just a few examples provided, has raised $22 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments, with participation from Oxford Sciences Innovations, and the Oxford Technology and Innovations Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Drive.ai, a two-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based self-driving technology startup, has raised $50 million in Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from GGV and previous investors, including Northern Light. TechCrunch has more here.

Flip, a two-year-old, New York-based company that enables users to sublet or escape their apartment leases, has just raised $2.2 million from Union Square Ventures, Techstars New York City, and Collaborative Fund. The company had earlier raised $1.2 million from Joanne Wilson, Scott Belsky, Techstars Ventures, Built by Girls Ventures, V1 Ventures and MetaProp NYC. TechCrunch has more here.

Glooko, a seven-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based diabetes data management platform, has raised $35 million in new funding led by Georgian Partners. Other investors in the round include Insulet Corporation, Mayo Clinic, Canaan Partners, Social Capital, Medtronic and Samsung Next. More here.

HealthLoop, an eight-year-old, SaaS platform that enables medical practices to monitor symptoms and communicate with patients during the recovery process, has raised $8.4 million in Series B funding. Investors include NextEquity, Lafayette General Hospital, Canvas Ventures, Summation Health Ventures, and iCarbonX, a Chinese health-related data mining and analysis firm. DealStreetAsia has more here.

JASK, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose technology  automates network monitoring and management for overtaxed security teams, has raised $12 million in funding led by Dell Technologies Capital and TenEleven Ventures. Earlier backers Battery Ventures and Vertical Venture Partners also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Klarna, the 12-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based e-commerce payments “unicorn,” has raised an undisclosed amount of strategic funding from Visa. TechCrunch has more on what the tie-up means here.

Oars & Alps, a two-year-old, Chicago-based e-commerce company that’s focused on “premium” men’s grooming and skincare products, has raised $1.3 million in seed funding, including from Breakout Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

PromoRepublic, a five-year-old, Helsinki-based SaaS business that helps freelance marketers and small businesses create content for social networks, has raised $1.2 million in seed funding, including from Howzat Partners, Digital Future and Spring Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Stashfin, a 1.5-year-old, Delhi, India-based online lending company, has raised $5 million in “pre-Series A” funding  from Snow Leopard Ventures and Alto Partners. The Economic Times has more here.

Stayawhile, a nine-month-old, New York-based collection of furnished apartments for guests who want to move freely between cities, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by New Enterprise Associates. Founders Fund and Global Founders Capital also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Sumo Logic, a seven-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based cloud-based log analysis platform, has raised $75 million in funding led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from Accel Partners, DFJ Growth, Greylock Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Sutter Hill Ventures. The company has now raised $235 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

View, a 10-year-old, Milpitas, Ca.-based maker of internet-connected windows that can be made more or less transparent, eliminating the need for blinds, has raised $200 million in fresh funding from TIAA and earlier investor BlackRock, which had previously provided the company with $70 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Your.MD, a five-year-old, London-based AI-driven health information service delivered via a bot, has raised $10 million in new funding. The round was led by Orkla Ventures, the venture arm of Orkla, a supplier of branded consumer goods to the health, pharmacy, and grocery sectors in the Nordics, Baltics and parts of Central Europe. Earlier backer Smedvig Capital also participated. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Capnamic Ventures, a five-year-old, early-stage venture capital firm based in Berlin and Cologne, has closed its newest fund with €115 million in capital commitments, including from corporate investors Axa Germany, Cisco, and several media companies. The firm plans to invest in the primarily German-speaking regions of Europe, with a focus on “B2B solutions, digital infrastructure, and digital transformation.” TechCrunch has more here.

Cloudflare, an eight-year-old performance and security company that provides online services to protect and accelerate websites online, just announced a $100 million fund, which it has created with the help of its own investors. (These include NEA, Union Square Ventures, and Fidelity Investments.) The idea is to back developers whose apps take advantage of the Cloudflare ecosystem. TechCrunch has more here.

DayTwo, a two-year-old, Israel-based microbiome-health management startup, has raised $12 million in Series A funding from Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Seventure Partners and the Mayo Clinic. More here.

The South African bank Investec is planning to put together a new €75 million venture capital fund to support early-stage, high-growth Irish companies. The Irish Times has more here.

Ludlow Ventures, an eight-year-old, early-stage venture firm in Detroit, has closed its second venture fund with $45 million in capital commitments, founder and managing partner Jonathon Triest tells us. Ludlow’s team, which includes partner Brett deMarrais and associate Blake Robbins, was originally targeting $40 million; its investors, or limited partners, include four institutions, along with numerous family offices and high-net-worth individuals. TechCrunch has more here.

Pantera Capital, an investment firm that for years has focused exclusively on digital currencies, has now raised $23.5 million from 28 investors to expressly to back initial coin offerings. The SEC filing, which doesn’t state a target, is here.

Monday! What a weekend. If you were online and obsess about all things Silicon Valley — and we recognize there are plenty of you who, to your credit, do not fall into this camp — you already know what we’re about to tell you: Binary Capital’s limited partners are right now trying to decide whether or not to move forward with young venture fund. (We predicted a few days ago this would happen.)

Binary cofounder Justin Caldbeck — outed last week in a report for making unwanted advances to at least six women in the tech industry — downplayed the story at first. Within 36 hours, after being shamed by many more prominent people in the venture industry, Caldbeck had issued a hollow-sounding apology about a self-rehabilitation campaign he planned to launch. Soon after, Binary’s investors were discussing a third fund that Binary has been rushing to close. (The firm was aware for some time that an expose about Caldbeck was about to hit.) As of Saturday, that new fund has been suspended, and now both Caldbeck and a newer member of Binary, Matt Mazzeo (formerly of Lowercase Capital), are out of the firm.

Mazzeo’s friends say he he left because he made an obvious mistake in joining. Caldbeck presumably had no choice. Meanwhile, Binary’s remaining investor, cofounder Jonathan Teo, is trying to see what he can salvage from this situation. He seems to be starting with his own reputation, suggesting in a statement sent to TechCrunch last night that he was himself clueless about Caldbeck. “I trusted my partner and it is clear that I shouldn’t have.  The predatory behavior Justin has been accused of is deplorable, and there will be zero tolerance at our firm of any conduct that is demeaning to women.”

Interesting tack; we don’t think it will work but stay tuned. In the meantime, no column today.

Sponsored By . . .

This week’s StrictlyVC is brought to you courtesy of Crowded Ocean, the two-person marketing agency that specializes in positioning and launching startups (46 to date, including Palo Alto Networks, Nimble Storage and Sumo Logic—as well as 10 exits). We help develop your positioning and messaging, turn it into content (website, white papers, use cases) and hire the resources (PR, web design, demand gen, etc.) to launch your company. Today’s successful startup is based on strong positioning and early customer acquisition. We then help hire our successor and depart. To learn more about our services, see our book, The Ultimate Startup Guide, or contact us.

New Fundings

Autotalks, a nine-year-old, Israel-based fabless semiconductor company, raised $40 million in Series D funding, including from the Mirai Creation Investment Fund. More here.

Clobotics, a year-old, Shanghai-based drone platform and analytics service, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding led by GGV Capital. China Money Network has more here.

Dook Book, an 11-year-old, Shanghai-based book publisher that also has digital media and film operations, has raised $18 million in Series A funding led by Legend Capital, with participation from Zhihe Capital and Neixiang Fund. China Money Network has more here.

Fintonic, a five-year-old, Madrid, Spain-based personal financial management app, has raised €25 million ($28 million) in Series B funding, including from the banking and financial services giant ING Group and the insurance group PSN. TechCrunch has more here.

Homer Logistics, a three-year-old, New York-based startup aiming to optimize local, final-mile delivery using its logistics technology, has raised $8.5 million in Series A funding led by Two Sigma Ventures. Other participants in the round include Lerer Hippeau Ventures, RSE Ventures, and Laconia Capital Group. More here.

Houzz, an eight-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based home design platform, has confirmed that it has raised $400 million in Series E funding, reportedly at a $4 billion valuation. Iconiq Capital led the round; other participants include Wellington Management and earlier investors GGV Capital, Sequoia Capitaland Zeev Ventures. The WSJ has more here.

M2i, a four-year-old, Paris-based industrial groupe that manufactures and markets natural products meant to replace traditional pesticides, has raised €12 million ($13.4 million) in funding from Idinvest Partners. More here.

OMG Digital, a year-old, Ghana-based media startup dubbed the “BuzzFeed of Africa,” has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from Kima Ventures, Soma Capital, Comcast Ventures Catalyst Fund, Social Capital, M&Y Growth Partners, and Macro Ventures, and a long list of angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Outschool, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based platform for live online classes catering to children in grades K through 12, has raised $1.4 million in seed funding led by Collab+Sesame, a venture vehicle involving Sesame Workshop (the non-profit organization behind Sesame Street) and Collaborative Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Provention Bio, a year-old, Lebanon, N.J.-based developer of therapeutics for preventing immune-mediated diseases, has raised $28.4 million in Series A funding co-led by Johnson & Johnson Innovation and JDRF T1D Fund. More here.

Satellogic, a seven-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based space tech company that sells high-resolution satellite images, has raised $27 million in Series B funding led by Tencent, with participation from Pitanga (a São Paulo-based firm) and CrunchFund. TechCrunch has more here.

Silvernest, a 1.5-year-old, Denver-based roommate-matching service for baby boomers and empty nesters, has raised $1.3 million in seed funding, including from Halogen Ventures, 1843 Capital, Rockies Venture Club, Investor’s Circle and 500 Startups. More here.

SparkCognition, a four-year-old, Austin, Tex-based company that makes cognitive security analytics software, has raised $32.5 million in Series B funding led by Verizon Ventures, with participation from Boeing’s HorizonX Ventures. More here.

TechSee, a two-year-old, Tel Aviv-based AI-powered app that aims to expedite call resolution for customer support centers, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding. Planven Investments led the round, with participation from innogy, Comdata Group, and earlier backer OurCrowd, among others. More here.

Tizeti, a five-year-old, Menlo Park Ca.- and Lagos, Nigeria-based high-speed wireless networking company, has raised $2.1 million in funding from Western Technology Investment, Social Capital, Vy Capital, Picus Capital, Ace & Co., Lynett Capital Partners, Zeno Ventures and individual angels. TechCrunch has more here.

Upstream Security, a months-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based cloud-based cyber-security platform for connected and autonomous vehicles, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Glilot Capital Partners. More here.

Vineti, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of cell and gene therapy software, has raised $13.75 million in Series A funding from GE Ventures, Mayo Clinic Ventures, DFJ and LifeForce Capital. Vineti was previously known as Vitruvian Networks. TechCrunch has more here.

Yoyo Wallet, a four-year-old, Lonon-based  mobile payment and customer loyalty platform, has raised a £12 million in Series B funding led by the food retail giant Metro Group. Other participants in the round include Woodford Investment Management and Touchstone Innovations. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Applied Ventures, the venture-capital arm of Applied Materials, is partnering with the government-backed fund of funds Korea Venture Investment Corporation on a $40 million fund that will be used to invest in Korean startups. More here.

TLcom Capital, an 18-year-old, London and Nairobi-based venture capital firm, says it had raised $40 million for its new Africa fund, TIDE Africa Fund. The outfit is targeting $100 million. More here.

In May, we told you (courtesy of Axios) that Dropbox’s head of corporate development strategy, Xuezhao Lan, had left the company to launch a new venture capital firm with two corporate development pros from elsewhere. Looks like that firm is called Basis Set Ventures, and it’s targeting $136 million for its debut fund. Here’s the SEC filing, which also lists as a director Richard Peng, formerly a corporate VP and head of M&A for Tencent.

IPOs

Best, a ten-year-old, Hangzhou, China-based logistics company founded by Google China’s former co-president, Johnny Chou, has filed plans to raise $750 million via a U.S. public offering. Alibaba Group owns 23.4 percent of the company; the next biggest outside investor is IDG-Accel China, which owns 6.2 percent. Reuters has more on the company — and other Chinese logistics companies that have been going public — here.

Ten companies are expected to go public on U.S. exchanges this week; of the most interest to VC investors: Blue Apron. Renaissance Capital has more here.

Exits

Pearl Automation, a year-old, Scotts Valley. Ca.-based maker of a wireless rear-view mirror camera for cars, has shut down, reports Axios. The company had quietly raised $50 million in Series A and B funding, rounds that Accel Partners, Shasta Ventures, Venrock and Wellcome Trust. More here.

JustGiving, a 17-year-old, peer-to-peer online fundraising platform, has been acquired by Blackbaud, a U.S.-based software and services provider for not-for-profit organizations. Blackbaud is paying £95 million ($120 million) to procure “all outstanding equity interests of JustGiving,” it tells VentureBeat. More here.

Last week, JPMorgan analysts wondered whether Wal-Mart might make a rival bid to acquire Whole Foods; the company doesn’t plan to get in Amazon‘s way, though, reports Bloomberg. More here.

Hobbled by a deadly air bag scandal, Japanese auto supplier Takata filed for bankruptcy protection late yesterday. The company’s air bags — which are prone to erupting — are used on vehicles for nearly all of the world’s major automakers, affecting about one-quarter of all vehicles on the road in the U.S. More here.

People

Revolution CEO and co-founder of AOL Steve Case is investing a fresh $500,000 across five startups in regions that include Ann Arbor, Mi., and Columbis, Oh. as part of his “Rise of the Rest” bus tour. More details here.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday pitched 21 top U.S. CEOs on investment in his country, ahead of a meeting with Donald Trump today. At the meeting: Apple’s Tim Cook and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who was spied lunching afterward with Uber cofounder Travis Kalanick.

Joanna Rees, the founder of VSP Capital, a venture firm that was plagued by in-fighting and dissolved roughly a decade ago by its limited partners, is in the process of raising a new venture fund, we’re told. Rees has more recently been working in marketing at the agency West.

Pandora founder and CEO Tim Westergren plans to step down, says Recode. Westergren only returned to the company last year after a decade-long absence.

Wendy Tan White, an entrepreneur turned general partner at Entrepreneur First since late 2015,  has joined the U.K.-based early-stage firm BGF Ventures as a partner. White previously cofounded Moonfruit.com, a site builder that was sold to Yell Group (now Hibu) in 2012 for $37 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Is it just us? Other than Susan Wojcicki (and Sheryl Sandberg, who has seemingly already said no), we can’t get excited about this list of Uber CEO candidates.

Jobs

Eniac Ventures, an eight-year-old, seed-stage firm that just closed its fourth fund with $100 million in April, is looking to hire an analyst. The job is in San Francisco.

Data

After a steep fall in 2016, India is on track for a record funding level this year. Tech in Asia has more here.

Essential Reads

Facebook is getting into the scripted content business now, too.

Amazon is trying to  patent a multi-level beehive-like tower that would deploy and receive delivery drones.

Amazon’s Echo: a review.

Detours

T.J. Miller on leaving “Silicon Valley”: it felt like a break-up.

Where the world’s wealthiest spend their weekends.

Preet Bharara’s second act.

Retail Therapy

Oh, Ken, you’ve changed (too much).

Friday! And not a minute too soon.

Before we wish you a wonderful weekend — and we do hope you’ll have one! — we want to address something that readers have been asking us, which is why we haven’t weighed in yet on The Information’s report about venture investor Justin Caldbeck, a report to which we linked yesterday morning. (It’s here if you missed it.)

It’s a detailed account about six female founders who say Caldbeck made unwanted advances toward them, several of whom allowed the outlet to publish their names. Are we outraged by the report? Disgusted? Absolutely. Do we think one individual represents his industry more broadly? You may be disappointed here, but we do not.

There are rotten people everywhere who take advantage of their positions: in academia, the arts, advertising, sports, finance. These people should be outed and they should lose their standing. In fact, we hope that if The Information’s report is correct, Binary’s limited partners will take action, and swiftly. (We’re guessing Caldbeck is a “key man,” which complicates things, but a firm’s investors always have options.)

In the meantime, we’re very thankful that smart entrepreneurs, particularly women founders, have a growing number of funding options so that they can speak out about an unethical investor in the industry without fear of burning their bridges to future capital. That wasn’t always the case. It’s not easy now, we’re sure. But that door is open at last.

Sponsored By . . .

This week’s StrictlyVC is being brought to you courtesy of Crowded Ocean, the 2-person marketing agency that specializes in positioning and launching startups (46 to date, including Palo Alto Networks, Nimble Storage and Sumo Logic—as well as 10 exits). We help develop your positioning and messaging, turn that into content (website, white papers, use cases) and hire the resources (PR, web design, demand gen, etc.) to launch your company. We then help hire our successor and depart. To learn more about our services, see our book, The Ultimate Startup Guide, or contact us.

As Uber’s Value Slips on the Secondary Market, Lyft’s is Rising

It’s been happening for months. The value of Uber’s shares has been falling on the secondary market, hammered by a barrage of press attention paid to its real and perceived misdeeds.

That slip is widely seen as the reason Uber investors strong-armed CEO Travis Kalanick out of his role as CEO on Tuesday night. As numerous sources confirmed to us yesterday (and The Information first reported in late April), Uber is right now valued at roughly $50 billion by secondary shareholders — a far cry from the $68 billion that its primary investors have assigned it. Such a fall is especially notable given that last year, secondary investors were willing to pay full freight — even a premium — for any Uber shares they could lasso.

Meanwhile, Lyft’s stock is on the rise. Specifically, say our sources, the typical 20 percent discount assigned to shares by secondary purchasers has, in Lyft’s case, dropped to between 13 and 9 percent, as buy-side interest grows and existing shareholders hang on for the ride. “We’ve definitely seen pricing in Lyft go up,” says one source who asked not to be named in an article about related trades.

“Part of that is the clouds around Uber have made Lyft relatively more attractive,” says this person. But that rise is also a function of Lyft’s recent round of fundraising, he says, noting that in April, Lyft closed on $600 million in fresh funding, at a $7.5 billion valuation.

It’s hard to know if these trend lines will continue, obviously. Much depends on how quickly Uber is able to fill out its executive ranks and with whom.

But sharks are circling, with prospective buyers trying to gauge fear in the market — and how much it might buy them.

More here.

New Fundings

Alert Logic, a 15-year-old, Houston, Tex.-based company that sells Security-as-a-Service solutions for the cloud, has locked down a $70 million syndicated credit facility that was spearheaded by Square 1 Bank. FinSMEs has more here.

Algorithmia, a four-year-old, Seattle-based marketplace that allows developers to easily tap into its catalog of 3,500 algorithms, functions and machine-learning models, has raised $10.5 million in funding led by Google’s new AI-focused fund. Other participants in the round include new investor Work-Bench and previous backers Madrona Venture Group, Rakuten Ventures and Osage University Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Centriq Technology, a 1.5-year-old, San Rafael, Ca.-based maker of a home management platform, has raised $4.8 million in seed funding led by Office Depot, which is partnering with the company to develop an app for its own customers. The SunSentinel has more here.

Datometry, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based virtualization platform that makes databases interchangeable by intercepting and converting an application’s communication with the database in real-time, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Redline Capital, with participation from Dell Technologies Capital and Acorn Pacific Ventures. FinSMEs has more here.

Duocaitou, a three-year-old, China-based crowdfunding platform for hotel and apartment projects, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. DCM Ventures led the round, and was joined by Shunwei Capital. China Money Network has more here.

Elevate Security, a months-old, San Francisco-based behavior-focused security platform, has raised $2 million in funding, including from Costanoa Ventures and Webb Investment Network. Newscenter.io has more here.

Hosco, a six-year-old, Geneva, Switzerland-based job recruitment platform for the hospitality sector, has raised €6.44 million ($7.2 million) in Series A funding, including from Athos Capital, along with other unnamed funds and earlier backers. Tech.eu has more here.

Hubdoc, a six-year-old, Toronto, Canada-based cloud accounting platform, has raised $4.85 million in seed funding co-led by BDC Capital and Round13 Capital, with participation from Hyde Park Venture Partners.

Kalray, a nine-year-old, Rhone-Alpes, France-based developer of low-power microprocessors, has raised $26 million in new funding from Safran and Penpai, along with earlier investors ACE Management, CEA Investissement, EUREKAP, Héléa Financière and INOCAP Gestion. More here.

MOL Global, a 17-year-old, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based online payment firm that traded on (then was delisted from) Nasdaq, has raised $20 million in funding from the gaming company Razer. Razer bought the equity from earlier backers in a deal that values the company at $100 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Synthio, a six-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based customer data platform, has raised $10.5 million in new funding led by Fulcrum Equity Partners, with participation from Vocap Investment Partners, Spinnaker VC Direct, Bahns Stanley, Stanley Partners, Ellis Capital, Buckhead Investments, the AIM Group and Silicon Valley Bank. More here.

Westwell Lab, a two-year-old, Shanghai-based AI chipmaker specializing in “neuromorphic” engineering, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding led by Fosun Group. China Money Network has more here.

Exits

Between Blue Apron’s plans to go public and Amazon’s proposed acquisition of Whole Foods, a Chicago-based meal kit company called Home Chef has reportedly begun exploring strategic options that could include a sale, which could be worth around $600 million, says Reuters. According to Crunchbase, Home Chef has raised $57 million in funding, including from L Catterton, Agility Capital, Shining Capital and Guild Capital. More here.

Speaking of Amazon and Whole Foods, JPMorgan research analysts suggested in a note yesterday that Walmart could still step in as a rival bidder. More here.

People

Waymo has hired Satish Jeyachandran, Tesla’s former director of hardware engineering, as it moves closer to commercializing its self-driving vehicle technology. Bloomberg has the story here.

Ousted Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, who remains on the company’s board, owns more than 30 percent of the company’s shares, says The Information, despite the company’s many, many (many) rounds of funding to date.

Jobs

Omidyar Technology Ventures is looking to hire an associate. The job is in Redwood City, Ca.

Essential Reads

Tesla is reportedly in talks to create its own streaming music service to ensure “maximum happiness” for its car customers. (Tweets Pandora’s cofounder and former CTO, Tom Conrad, “Finally Elon is tackling something truly difficult.”)

It’s looking like Theranos might run out of cash if shareholders don’t loan it $50 million.

Target represented a third of Hampton Creek‘s retail business; now Target is pulling all of its products over allegations of potential health issues.

It’s not just a problem on the secondary markets; a large cap mutual fund also marked down the value of Uber‘s stock last month.

Detours

It’s offal, but an “ugly food” boot camp is enticing chefs and diners alike.

How you can take photos while recording video on your iPhone.

Oh, Goop.

Retail Therapy

The new-and-improved Super 8 is coming.

Hi, everyone! Another day, another dramatic turn (actually two). In unrelated developments, Benchmark’s Bill Gurley has resigned from his role as a director at Uber. More on this below.

The morning, The Information also published a shocking piece about investor Justin Caldbeck, a former Lightspeed Venture Partners investor who in more recent years cofounded his own venture firm, Binary Capital, with Jonathan Teo (formerly of General Catalyst). The piece reports that at least six women have fended off unwanted advances from Caldbeck, all in meetings that they say they believed to be business discussions. Binary responded to the accusations, telling The information that while the outlet had  “found a few examples which show that Justin has in the past occasionally dated or flirted with women he met in a professional capacity, let’s be clear: there is no evidence that Justin did anything illegal and there is no evidence that any of his investing decisions were affected by his social interests.”

Top News in the A.M.

Imagination Technologies, the British firm that lost 70 percent of its value after being ditched by its biggest customer Apple, put itself up for sale this morning in a disappointing end to a once-great European tech success story. Reuters has more here.

Sponsored By . . .

This week’s SrictlyVC is being brought to you courtesy of Crowded Ocean, the 2-person marketing agency that specializes in positioning and launching startups (46 to date, including Palo Alto Networks, Nimble Storage and Sumo Logic—as well as 10 exits). We help develop your positioning and messaging, turn that into content (website, white papers, use cases) and hire the resources (PR, web design, demand gen, etc.) to launch your company. We then help hire our successor and depart. To learn more about our services, see our book, The Ultimate Startup Guide, or contact us.

Kalanick is Out, But Uber’s VCs Screwed Up Royally, Too, Industry Watchers

Travis Kalanick, who last night resigned from his post as CEO of ride-share giant Uber, has taken the blame for the company’s very long list of problems, from allowing a culture of sexual harassment to thrive, to skirting the law with its Greyball program, to mishandling the medical files of a customer raped by one of the company’s drivers (for starters).

But many view the VCs who pushed Kalanick from his role are nearly as culpable for what’s gone wrong. Indeed, while Benchmark, First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital, Menlo Ventures and Fidelity Investments all reportedly pressed Kalanick to quit last night, it was also their fault the company drove into trouble, say industry observers.

“The investors were really caught with their pants down here,” says Jeff Cohn, a succession planning expert at the New York-based leadership development firm Elevate Partners, who’d immediately predicted that the leave of absence taken last week by Kalanick wouldn’t work.

“The fact that Uber is right now being led by 14 internal people is absolutely insane,” says Cohn of the company’s current status as without a CEO, CFO, COO or general counsel, among other executive openings. “It’s not uncommon for leaders to suddenly depart for whatever reason; that [the company and its board] weren’t developing any viable candidates in recent years in case Kalanick were hit by a bus … for a company with 14,000 employees and a $70 billion market cap, that’s nuts.”

There have been changes since Kalanick announced to employees late yesterday that he was relinquishing his role. The New York Times is reporting tonight that longtime director Bill Gurley of the venture firm Benchmark is leaving the board; Gurley’s colleague, Matt Cohler, will replace him. David Trujillo, a partner at the private equity firm TPG Capital, also is joining the board, as Bloomberg reported earlier today; Trujillo is replacing colleague David Bonderman, who resigned as a director last week after making a sexist remark at a company presentation.

That’s perhaps as it should be.

More here.

New Fundings

Aproplan, a five-year-old, Brussels-based company that bills itself as the “Salesforce for construction,” has raised €5 million ($5.6 million) in Series A funding. The round was led by Fortino Capital, with participation from earlier backers, including Inventures, Matexi, and the co-founders of a company called Showpad. TechCrunch has more here.

Blockchain, a nearly six-year-old, Luxembourg-based bitcoin currency service provider, has raised $40 million in funding led by Lakestar, with participation from GV and earlier backers Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sir Richard Branson. Bloomberg has more here.

Celta, an 11-year-old, Boston-based management platform for digital advertising, has raised $15 million in funding led by Unilever Ventures and WPP. Ad Exchanger has more here.

Cloudbeds, a 4.5-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based maker of hospitality management software, has raised roughly $9 million in Series B funding led by PeakSpan Capital. Other investors in the round include Nashville Capital, Cultivation Capital, ClearVision Equity, and TTCER Partners. The company has now raised $20 million altogether. More here.

Dafengshou, a three-year-old, China-based agriculture e-commerce platform that sells pesticides, fertilizer and other tools to farmers across the country, has raised $29 million in Series B funding co-led by Orchid Asia Group and China Growth Capital, with participation from Matrix Partners China. China Money Network has more here.

Deliver, a three-year-old, Moscow-based online freight service company, has raised $8 million in seed funding led by Inventure Partners, with participation from A&NN Group and Singapore-based Amereus Group. TechCrunch has more here.

Farfetch, a nine-year-old, London-based marketplace for luxury brands, has raised $397 million in funding from J.D.com, itself China’s second-largest e-commerce company after Alibaba. Unsurprisingly, the deal makes JD.com one of the company’s biggest shareholders. TechCrunch has more here.

FloQast, a four-year-old, Sherwood Oaks, Ca.-based startup whose software helps accountants close their books faster and more accurately, has raised $25 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from current investors Toba Capital, Polaris Partners and the company’s earliest investor, L.A.-based Amplify. More here.

Nuvolo, a four-year-old, Jersey City, N.J.-based enterprise asset management company, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by GE Ventures, with participation from earlier backers New Enterprise Associates and ServiceNow Ventures. More here.

PingCAP, a two-year-old, Beijing-based commercial entity created by the developers of the open source TiDB database project, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by China Growth Capital. Previous backers Matrix Partners China, Yunqi Partners, FreeS Fund, and K2VC also joined the round. More here.

Samsara, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based fleet tracking management company, has raised $40 million in a round that values the company at more than $530 million, says TechCrunch. The round was led by General Catalyst Partners, with Andreessen Horowitz participating. More here.

Sense, a year-old, San Francisco-based startup that sells software as a service to staffing agencies so they can automate communication throughout workers’ job cycles, has raised $10 million. Investors include Accel Partners, GV, and Khosla Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

Tantan, a three-year-old, Beijing-based dating app that’s frequently compared to Tinder, has raised $70 million in Series D funding as it looks to monetize its business for the first time and explore overseas expansion options. Genesis Capital and the video social network YY co-led the deal, with participation from SAIF China and Zhongwei Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Yello, a nine-year-old, Chicago-based talent acquisition platform, has raised $31 million in Series C funding led by JMI Equity, with participation from previous investor First Analysis. Crain’s Chicago Business has more here.

New Funds

The 31-year-old, Paris-based venture firm Iris Capital has closed its newest fund with €250 million in commitments. The vehicle will be used to invest primarily in seed- to growth-stage Europe-based companies, though its founders say they will also make some investments in the U.S. Tech.eu has more here.

IPOs

Altice climbed in its trading debut yesterday, after raising $1.9 billion in the second-biggest U.S. initial public offering of the year. Bloomberg has more here.

Exits

Snapchat’s newest feature, Snap Map, is based on its latest acquisition, a Paris-based social mapping startup called Zenly. According to TechCrunch, Snapchat bought Zenly for between $250 million and $350 million in mostly cash and some stock in a deal that closed in late May. According to Crunchbase, the company had raised roughly $35 million from investors, including Benchmark and Idinvest Partners. More here.

Modern Times Group, a Swedish digital entertainment company, has agreed to buy nine-year-old games publisher and developer Kongregate from its current owner GameStop for $55 million. Broadband TV News has more here.

People

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is reportedly not interested in a job with Uber. Recode is reporting on three other possible CEO candidates to replace Travis Kalanick, including, most interestingly, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. Our own sources have floated Recode’s other two names: Thomas Staggs, the former COO of Walt Disney Co., and Alan Mulally, the former Ford CEO who retired in 2014. (In short, people expect the company to appoint someone from either the tech, hospitality, or automotive industry.)

Syed Zain Gilani, CEO of a fairly new Boston-based ride-share company that’s focused on women’s safety, was reportedly arrested based on a warrant from the Virgin Islands, where he is “wanted for defrauding the government of more than $2 million,” says the Boston Globe. His lawyers say the charges stem from a contract dispute. More here.

As Spotify inches its way to a public listing, the streaming music company has made some significant changes to its board of directors. More here.

Jobs

Lead Edge Capital, a growth equity firm, is hiring an associate to join its investment team. The job is in Santa Barbara, Ca.

Essential Reads

In the ongoing legal case between Uber and Waymo (formerly the Google self-driving project), a new filing suggests Uber knew that engineer Anthony Levandowski possessed Google information as of last March, before he sold his company to Uber.

Facebook just introduced new group admin tools.

Detours

The rise of 56 Leonard in New York.

Mocktail recipes for summer.

A pro athlete workout for lunchtime warriors. (We’ll stick with watching “Late Night with Seth Myers” on the elliptical.)

Retail Therapy

The Porsche Dark Knight 911 Turbo S. Vroom.

Wednesday (though given the news cycle, it feels like it should be Sunday already!).

No doubt you’re aware that Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is out as CEO (though remains as a board member). As we kind of suspected would happen, his decision to take a leave of absence, yet actively back-channel with managers, didn’t seem to go over so well with the company’s investors, who pressured him to resign last night. We’ll be working on follow-up stories about this today (along with half of Silicon Valley) so stay tuned. In the meantime, power VC and Uber board member Bill Gurley, tweeted last night: “There will be many pages in the history books devoted to @travisk – very few entrepreneurs have had such a lasting impact on the world.”

Today’s StrictlyVC is being brought to you courtesy of Crowded Ocean, the 2-person marketing agency that specializes in positioning and launching startups (46 to date, including Palo Alto Networks, Nimble Storage and Sumo Logic—as well as 10 exits). We help develop your positioning and messaging, turn that into content (website, white papers, use cases) and hire the resources (PR, web design, demand gen, etc.) to launch your company. We then help hire our successor and depart. To learn more about our services, see our book, The Ultimate Startup Guide, or contact us.

Top News in the A.M.

Uber‘s CEO is gone, but the many lawsuits and other challenges that embroil the company aren’t going away any time soon.

Uber is Implementing Tipping; How Well it Works Will Be Critical

On the heels of what must feel to employees like the longest six months in Uber‘s eight-year history, the company last week tried ending relentless news reports about its corporate misbehavior by encouraging its CEO, Travis Kalanick, to take a leave of absence. (He obliged before coming under increased pressure and resigning last night.)

Yesterday morning, Uber took things a step further, introducing an initiative that it’s calling “180 days of change” and announcing, most notably, that it will start allowing riders to tip drivers in the app.

This is no small thing. Uber has long rejected the idea of tipping for numerous reasons. The company had suggested, for example, that tips could lead to unpleasant consequences, such as drivers who might forego pick-ups in poorer neighborhoods in favor of wealthier enclaves where they might generate heftier tips.

Tipping also threatened to make a very clean experience too messy for Uber’s liking. (In the company’s words, it said it would create a confusing measure of uncertainty for customers.)

While its change of heart has been welcome by most, others were quick to assign ulterior motives to the company, whose business has been impacted — at least in the U.S. — by its abundance of poor publicity in recent months.

More here.

New Fundings

Cybereason, a five-year-old, Boston-based endpoint protection company, has raised $100 million in new funding from earlier backer SoftBank.  The start-up has raised a total of $189 million in funding to-date, and its backers also include CRV, Lockheed Martin and Spark Capital. CNBC has more here.

Fuzic, a year-old, Indianapolis, Ind.-based marketing technology startup that engages with customers via customized music playlists fused with on-demand audio announcements, has raised $3 million in seed funding that brings its total funding to $3.52 million. The round was led by High Alpha, Allos Ventures and Hyde Park Venture Partners. The Indianapolis Business Journal has more here.

GreatHorn, a two-year-old, Belmont, Ma.-based security platform for post-perimeter threat detection and response, has raised $6.3 million in Series A funding co-led by Techstars VC Fund and .406 Ventures, with participation from ff Venture Capital, SoftTech Ventures and RRE Ventures. More here.

Growbots, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based machine-learning startup meant to kickstart the outbound sales process, has raised $2.5 million in funding from Buran VC, Lighter Capital and a number of angel investors. The round brings the company’s total funding to $4.2 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Hubdoc, a six-year-old, Toronto-based accounting technology company that automates financial document collection and processing, has raised roughly $5 million in seed funding co-led by BDC IT Venture Fund and Round13 Capital, with participation from Hyde Park Venture Partners. Newscenter.io has more here.

Keypr, a four-year-old, L.A.-based guest experience and management platform for hotels, casinos and luxury residences, has raised $12.8 million in Series A1 funding. Karlani Capital led the round and was joined by individual angels. VentureBeat has more here.

Lingokids, a three-year-old, San Francisco- and Madrid-based English learning platform, has raised $4 million in new funding led by Holtzbrinck Ventures, with participation from JME Venture Capital and Bessemer Ventures Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Mic, a six-year-old, New York-based millennial-focused online content company, has raised $6.5 million in additional Series C funding from WPP PLC, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Time Warner Investments, kyu Collective and You & Mr. Jones. The round, initially announced in April, has now reached $28.4 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Petasense, a three-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based industrial IoT startup that helps with asset reliability and predictive maintenance, is coming out of stealth today and revealing that it earlier raised $1.8 million in seed funding led by True Ventures, with participation from Felicis Ventures and several angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Rinse, a 3.5-year-old San Francisco-based dry cleaning and laundry delivery service, has raised $14 million in Series B funding led by Partech Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Javelin Ventures, Arena Ventures, Accelerator Ventures, and Structure Capital. The company has now raised $23.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Rubius Therapeutics, a two-year-old, Cambridge, Ma-based developer of red blood cell therapies, has raised $120 million in new funding, including from earlier backer Flagship Pioneering. Xconomy has more here.

Scalable Capital, a 2.5-year-old, Munich, Germany-based robo-advisory outfit, has raised €30 million ($33.4 million) in funding led by BlackRock, with participation from earlier backers Holtzbrinck Ventures and Tengelmann Ventures. Reuters has more here.

Sequent, a 6.5-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based company that helps banks, transit agencies and other issuers digitize their credit, debit, transit, loyalty or ID cards and distribute them via their own applications, has raised $16 million in funding led by TIS of Japan. Earlier investors Opus Capital Partners, SBT Ventures and Jado Investments also participated. Finextra has more here.

Soldo, a two-year-old, London-based fintech startup that offers a multi-user spending account, has raised $11 million in Series A funding. Accel Partners led the round, with participation from Connect Ventures, InReach Ventures, U-Start and R204 Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Syntimmune, a 3.5-year-old, New York-based biotech startup focused on autoimmune diseases, has raised $50 million in Series B funding led by Apple Tree Partners, with participation from earlier backers. The company has now raised $78 million altogether. Xconomy has more here.

Textio, a nearly three-year-old, Seattle-based company whose intelligent machine learning platform analyzes job listings and hiring outcomes and helps recruiters to better word their job postings, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Scale Venture Partners. Earlier backers Bloomberg Beta, Cowboy Ventures, Emergence Capital and Upside Partnership also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

TrueLayer, a year-old, London-based startup that’s built a developer platform to make it easier for fintech companies to access bank APIs, has raised $3 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Anthemis Group, with participation from existing investor Connect Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

TPG, an investor in Uber and Airbnb (and guitar maker Fender), is seeking $3 billion for its fourth growth-equity fund, reports Bloomberg. The unit, led by investor Bill McGlashan, last raised $3 billion for its third fund in 2015. More here.

Sorenson Capital, a Salt Lake City-based private equity firm with roughly $1 billion in capital under management, has formed Sorenson Ventures, a new investment group focused on early-stage enterprise software and security investments. Ken Elefant, formerly of Intel Capital, has been brought aboard to lead the group, which will be based in the Bay Area. More here.

Seven Peaks Ventures, a Bend, Ore.-based VC firm that was founded in 2013 by longtime investor Dino Vendetti, is looking to raise up to $30 million for its second fund, shows an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. As readers might remember, ate last year, Docusign Tom Gonser joined the firm as a partner.

IPOs

Sizing up BuzzFeed. Could this unicorn ever go public? Variety takes a look.

People

Bessemer Venture Partners has promoted Charles Birnbaum, Kristina Shen, and Amit Karp and to partner. The three joined the firm in 2012, 2012, and 2013, respectively. More here.

Andreessen Horowitz is making an even bigger push into healthcare IT, bringing aboard serial entrepreneur Jorge Conde as a general partner. Conde, who officially starts in September, has spent the last 15 years working largely in genomics, including cofounding the genome analysis company Knome (acquired in 2015 for undisclosed terms) and more recently becoming chief strategy officer at a small biotech company, Syros Pharmaceuticals, which staged an IPO last year. We have more here.

Etsy is reorganizing, including layoff 15 percent to its global workforce. Fortune has more here.

Tesla has hired deep learning and computer vision expert Andrej Karpathy in a key Autopilot role. Karpathy most recently held a role as a researcher at OpenAI, the artificial intelligence nonprofit backed by Elon Musk. TechCrunch has more here.

In related news, Chris Lattner just quit Tesla, tweeting last night, “Turns out that Tesla isn’t a good fit for me after all. I’m interested to hear about interesting roles for a seasoned engineering leader!” Lattner had joined the company in January, after an 11-year run at Apple, where one of his chief contributions was creating the programming language Swift. “Chris just wasn’t the right fit for Tesla, and we’ve decided to make a change,” Tesla had said in a statement earlier in the day.

Y Combinator is adding three new team members: Gustaf Alstromer, formerly product leader of Airbnb’s growth team, is joining as a partner. Meanwhile Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky is taking a visiting partner role, and Jocelyn Robancho, formerly the head of business operations at Hack Reactor, is coming aboard to assist with organizing YC’s startup batches. More here.

Essential Reads

And the battle intensifies: Wal-Mart is now telling some tech companies that if they want its business, they can’t run applications for the retailer on Amazon’s leading cloud-computing service, Amazon Web Services. The WSJ has more here.

Detours

To the class of 2050.

Retail Therapy

Cradle outdoor bed. We wouldn’t mind crawling into one of these right now.

Happy Tuesday!:)

No column today.

Today’s StrictlyVC is being brought to you courtesy of Crowded Ocean, the 2-person marketing agency that specializes in positioning and launching startups (46 to date, including Palo Alto Networks, Nimble Storage and Sumo Logic—as well as 10 exits). We help develop your positioning and messaging, turn that into content (website, white papers, use cases) and hire the resources (PR, web design, demand gen, etc.) to launch your company. We then help hire our successor and depart. To learn more about our services, see our book, The Ultimate Startup Guide, or contact us.

Top News in the A.M.

Google just jumped into the business of jobs search.

New Fundings

Aera Technology, a 12-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company that crawls the enterprise systems of its customers, then refines, indexes, and augments their data, has raised $50 million in funding led by New Enterprise Associates. More here.

AimBrain, a 1.5-year-old, London-based startup that sells biometric identity as a service to help fintech companies and other financial institutions fight fraud, has raised £4 million ($5 million) in Series A funding. BGF Ventures led the round, with participation from Episode 1, Entrepreneur First, and a number of angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Agentology, a two-year-old, San Diego-based startup aiming to deliver qualified real estate leads to brokers, has raised $4.5 million in funding led by Freestyle Capital, with participation from Entry Ventures Group and OurCrowd. Techcrunch has more here.

Alight, an 11-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose cloud-based apps aim to help enterprises understand the ripple effects of real and potential events, has raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Caterpillar Venture Capital. More here.

Bigger, a 1.5-year-old, Beijing-based co-working space startup that was launched by Modern Land (a regional property developer), has raised $18 million in Series A funding. Commercial real estate firm Hongfu Group led the round and was joined by Beijing incubator First Care. China Money Network has more here.

CirrusMD, a five-year-old, Denver, Co.-based text-based communication platform for large health systems and insurers, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Colorado Impact Fund, with participation from Bootstrap Incubation, Three Leaf Ventures, Rockies Venture Fund, Service Provider Capital, Sand Hill Angels, and New York Angels. More here.

CloudPost Networks, a two-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based maker of real-time analytics and risk management software, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by Wing Venture Capital, with participation from numerous individual investors. More here.

Cosmo Tech, a seven-year-old, Lyon, France-based maker of decision-management software, has raised $3 million in funding led by Sofimac Partners, with participation from BNP Paribas and Aster Capital. More here.

EaseCentral, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based SaaS platform for managing employee benefits, onboarding, and compliance, has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding led by Propel Venture Partners, with participation from Freestyle Capital, Compound, Upside Partnership, and Transmedia Capital. More here.

FinalPrice, a year-old, L.A.-based subscription-based travel app, has raised $4 million in funding from Almaz Capital, Sistema VC and unnamed private investors. TechCrunch has more here.