Happy Tuesday!

Quick reminder: On Thursday, September 29, on the top floor of SurveyMonkey’s Palo Alto offices, StrictlyVC is hosting our fifth and newest INSIDER event, featuring VC Marc Andreessen, SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie, and a surprise guest (to be announced!). There are only about 20 seats left at this point and we can’t accommodate you once they’re gone. (We’ve already been told that SurveyMonkey’s security guard will kindly point you back out the door owing to space constraints.)

Giant thanks to our partners in the event, who make these nights possible: Ballou PR, which helps startups and VCs establish themselves in Europe; Mattermark, which collects and analyzes data on private market funding and more; and Bolt, an early-stage venture firm focused on hardware startups.

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Top News in the A.M.

Surprise? Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer provided no updates on the sale process yesterday during Yahoo’s quarterly earnings report.

Meanwhile, Netflix revealed that subscriber growth has stalled.

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Line, the Messaging App, Has Quietly Funded at Least Nine Startups

Line, the popular Japanese messaging service that went public last week on both the NYSE and in Japan, partnered on a fund a couple of years ago with the New York-based venture firm Collaborative Fund in order to gain more of a foothold in the U.S.

According to a Dealbook story that announced the pairing, the fund planned to invest less than $10 million and to focus on very early-stage startups. If all went as planned, it would also hopefully help Line find a way to compete with the likes of popular U.S. messaging services like Snapchat.

Fast forward to today, and that fund, called simply Collab+Line, has so far invested in nine companies, all of which can “benefit from working with a mobile messenger and/or have aspirations to expand to Asia,” says Craig Shapiro, Collaborative Fund’s CEO.

Its areas of focus include media, IoT, commerce, communications, and community.

Collaborative Fund is the sole manager of the fund, but it works closely with Line to “ensure there is an alignment of interests,” says Shapiro. In fact, Shapiro had told Dealbook for its story that by investing in start-ups through Collab+Line, Line could get close to U.S. startups and potentially even acquire them.

Asked if that’s still the idea, Shapiro tells us he “can’t comment.” Still, given Line’s new resources — its market cap is currently around $7 billion — some of its portfolio companies may be wondering.

Some of Collab+Line’s bets to date include the live social video network YouNow (five years old, based in New York, has raised $26 million); Particle, a prototype-to-production platform for developing IoT products (nearly five years old, based in San Francisco, has raised $4.2 million ); Slash, an iPhone keyboard that makes it easy to share things without switching apps (a year old, New York based, has raised $1.4 million); and Zendrive, a startup that uses smartphone sensors to measure drivers’ behavior (three years old, San Francisco based, has raised $15 million).

More here.

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New Fundings

Blue Cedar Networks, a months-old, San Francisco-based maker of app security software, has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Accelerate IT Ventures, Benhamou Global Ventures, Grayhawk Capital, andGeneration Ventures. More here.

Cadenza Innovation, a 3.5-year-old, Oxford, Ct.-based battery technology company, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Golden Seeds, with participation from Connecticut Innovations, Scale Investors, and numerous individual investors, including Summit Power Group co-chair Eric Redman.More here.

Cambridge Medical Robotics, a two-year-old, Cambridge, U.K.-based startup developing a robotic system to perform minimally invasive surgery, has raised $20.3 million in new funding from investors, including ABB Technology Ventures, LGT Global Invest and Cambridge Innovation Capital. MedCity News has more here.

CommonBond, a five-year-old, New York-based platform that specializes in loans and refinancing for students, has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by Neuberger Berman Private Equity, with participation from August Capital, Tribeca Venture Partners, Social Capital, and Nyca Partners. The company has also secured $300 million in debt to loan out to prospective borrowers, including from Victory Park Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Guideline, a year-old, San Francisco-based startup that aims to make it much easier for employees to set up and make changes to the 401(k) plans, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Propel Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backers New Enterprise Associates and Lerer Hippeau Ventures. The company, founded by Task Rabbit cofounder Kevin Busque, has now raised $10 million altogether. More here.

Jolt, a year-old, San Francisco-based marketplace that connects companies with professionals for live learning sessions, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Hillsven and UpWest Labs. GeekTime has more here.

Kiip, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based rewards network and mobile app that offers rewards from brands and companies for virtual achievements, has raised $12 million in Series C funding led by North Atlantic Capital, with participation from US Cellular and North Atlantic. That brings its total amount of funding up to $32 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Zenreach, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based enterprise software startup that provides WiFi hardware to restaurants and coffee shops on a monthly subscription basis, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Founders Fund, with participation from Bain Capital, SV Angel, Felicis Ventures, and SoftTech VC. The company has now raised $50 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

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Exits

A $1.2 billion takeover of Opera Software by a group of Chinese internet firms fell through yesterday after failing to get regulatory approval in time. It sent the Norwegian browser firm’s shares to a seven-month low. Reuters has more here.

Lookup, an India-based chat service that connects consumers to local business and is backed by Khosla Ventures, has been acquired by business discovery service NowFloats, which is also based in India. The deal priced is undisclosed, and Lookup said it will continue to operate independently. More here.

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Jobs

B Capital Group, the new venture firm cofounded by Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin, is looking to hire a VP of capital formation. The job is in L.A.

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Essential Reads

Should Silicon Valley startups and their investors be accepting money from Saudi Arabia?

Flipkart’s Amazon’s problem.

Germany wants to add black boxes to autonomous vehicles. Will other countries follow suit?

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Detours

Melania Trump’s determined ascent.

A trick to make first dates less painful.

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Retail Therapy

Astronaut tape dispenser. (This one’s for you, Steve Jurvetson.)

Hi, good Monday morning!

Quick reminder that Semil Shah is at bat for the next couple of weeks while Connie is offline, taking a woodworking course. (Today’s project, we’re told, is stilts.) To reach Semil, you can find him here.

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Top News in the A.M.

Arm Holdings, a Cambridge, U.K. -based company known for its chip designs for mobile handsets, as well as for processors to power hardware in Internet of Things networks, is being acquired by Softbank Group for £24.3 billion ($32 billion) in cash. That’s a 40 percent premium over the company’s closing price on Friday and the biggest-ever deal involving a European tech company. It’s the IoT piece that interests Softbank the most, Softbank said. TechCrunch has more here.

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Quick Chat with USV’s Andy Weissman

Roughly five years ago, Andy Weissman was recruited from the startup studio that he’d cofounded — Betaworks — to join the influential, New York-based venture firm Union Square Ventures as a partner. Just last month, Weissman was officially named one of its key men, too.

We caught up with him last week to ask whether and how that changes USV going forward.

Your firm, USV, recently pulled off a “changing of the guard” in terms of leadership, with you and Albert Wenger now leading. Has any part of the transition changed your point of view or style in investing and, if so, how so?

Because USV is thesis driven, the transition has resulted in only a few changes at the firm, and those are management wise, not investing-wise. [We have the] same five investing partners, the same emphasis on creating a peer network out of the people and companies in the portfolio, and, to answer your question directly, the same point of view and investing styles [as before].

When I think of contrarian concepts in VC, Bitcoin and blockchain come to mind. After the first few years of fervor die down, how does the USV team and network maintain conviction and a long-term view, particularly given the 24-hour nature of VC today?

The way we really maintain conviction is by creating and constantly working on a framework for investing. That framework has a few components. One is a focus on stage. Another is [maintaining the same-size] funds and one office location. A third is our style of making decisions, which is conversational/consensus driven. And the last is by publishing and constantly refining our thesis.

USV is known to invest regardless of location, especially in Europe. Besides Berlin and Sweden, what other emerging pockets of entrepreneurship do you see bubbling up in Europe? Will USV ever invest in Asia?

The last couple of years, we’ve invested in companies founded in Helsinki, Tallin/Estonia and Paris. We’d probably have a harder time investing in Asia given the relatively small nature of USV.

What’s more important over the next 10 years, technology or networks and why?

Come on dude, this is USV, you know the answer. All joking aside, we continue to focus on the applications layer of the internet — the layer that sits on top of the relatively open and robust infrastructure of the internet, the infrastructure that allows for permissionless connectivity. And we continue to believe there are numerous additional opportunities to create new kinds of networks.

In the context of early-stage investing, what’s something that you believe that isn’t necessarily a widely embraced point of view?

That in the context of growing your business, who you choose as an investor is a lot less important that otherwise might be popularly held.

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New Fundings

Azalea Health, an eight-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based company that makes revenue cycle software for healthcare practices, has raised $10.5 million in Series B funding led by Kayne Partners, with participation from earlier backer Intersouth Partners. More here.

Civil Maps, a two-year-old,  Albany, Ca.-based startup that makes 3D mapping technology for fully autonomous vehicles, has raised $6.6 million in seed funding led by Motus Ventures, with participation from Ford Motor Co.,Wicklow Capital, StartX Stanford and AME Cloud Ventures.

Lifesum, an eight-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based digital health startup, has raised $10 million in fresh funding led by Nokia Growth Partners, with participation from Draper Esprit, Bauer Media Group and SparkLabs Global Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Magnetic Insight, a two-year-old, Alameda, Calif.-based diagnostic imaging startup, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Sand Hill Angels, with participation from Stanford StartX Fund. More here.

Modo Labs, a six-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based mobile engagement platform that helps its customers create campus apps, has raised $10 million in Series B funding from Education Growth Partners, Storm Ventures, and New Magellan Ventures. More here.

ZestFinance, a six-year-old, L.A.-based startup that blends machine learning with big data analysis to pinpoint more accurate credit scores, has received an undisclosed amount of funding from the Chinese search juggernaut Baidu. Fortune has more here.

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New Funds

Thrive Capital, a New York-based, stage-agnostic venture fund that focuses primarily on media and internet investments, has closed its fifth fund with $700 million. The seven-year-old outfit is now managing a little less than $1.5 billion altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

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Exits

Immediately, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that built mobile sales tools, will be shutting down at the end of the month, while part of the team will move on to cloud-monitoring company New Relic. According to CrunchBase, Immediately had raised $2.6 million from investors, including Streamlined Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos got to live out every Trekkie’s fantasy; he plays an alien in the new Star Trek movie, says the Hollywood Reporter.

Hillary Clinton has amassed a spate of Silicon Valley stars to help with her campaign. Wired takes a look here.

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Essential Reads

Tesla Motors is making changes that aim to help its Autopilot technology “see” more effectively in rain, snow, and bright sunlight. Fortune has more here.

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Detours

Donald Trump’s ghostwriter tells all.

Over the weekend, “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert made an unexpected evening appearance at the Republican National Convention.

Is full-time work bad for our brains?

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Retail Therapy

Meteor illuminated benches for your summer soiree.

Hi, everyone. We’re so heavy-hearted about the news out of Nice today. What a terrible shame.

In case you missed the news earlier this week, we did want to let you know that, starting on Monday, our friend Semil Shah will be steering the ship around here for a couple of weeks; specifically, he’ll be bringing you your daily column (and has some fun stuff lined up). If you want to chat with him about anything, you can track him down here. Thank you, Semil.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

It’s crunch time for Yahoo. Final bids for its services, which include Yahoo’s search, email, advertising and media operations, are due Monday, reports the New York Times.

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Tesla’s Former VP of Production Just Became a VC

Greg Reichow, who in May left his post as Tesla’s vice president of production (and reportedly as one of its highest-paid executives), has joined Eclipse Ventures as an investor.

If the Eclipse brand isn’t entirely familiar, it may be soon, given its growing star power. Venture geeks might recall that Eclipse was originally part of Formation 8, a firm that has since disbanded but that, before doing so, raised a $125 million fund that was designed to invest exclusively in early-stage hardware companies. (Its original name was F8 Hardware Fund. Among its limited partners is Flex, the publicly traded contract design and manufacturing company formerly known as Flextronics.)

Former F8 partner Lior Susan now manages Eclipse, with a team that includes not only Reichow but longtime Sequoia Capital partner Pierre Lamond, who’d been an F8 advisor and joined Eclipse as a full-time partner last year.

It’s been active, too. The firm has already invested in 27 companies, including making an early bet on the computational photography startup Light, which last week announced $30 million in fresh funding led by GV.

According to a new SEC filing, Eclipse is also raising a new, $125 million fund.

More here.

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New Fundings

Alphabet Energy, a maker of flare combusters for oil and gas companies, has raised $23.5 million in fresh funding from Osceola Capital Management, Claremont Creek Ventures, TPG and GM Ventures. Fortune has more here.

Amplero, a months-old, Seattle-based company whose software attempts to predict the lifetime customer value of its customers’ customers, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Wildcat Venture Partners. Other participants in the round include Globys/Trilogy Equity Partners, Salesforce Ventures and Seven Peaks Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

CyberGRX, a months-old, Denver, Co.-based cyber risk management platform, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Allegis Capital, with participation from The Blackstone Group, TenEleven Ventures, Rally Ventures, GV and MassMutual Ventures. Xconomy has more here.

Discors, a nearly two-year-old, Bay Area-based mobile app that presents news stories alongside columns and analysis, photos, and a timeline, all in one stream, has raised $1.2 million from angel investors, founders, and Matter Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Endotronix, a nine-year-old Woodridge, Il.-based company that makes miniaturized, wireless, implantable pressure sensors for use in interventional cardiovascular procedures, has raised $32 million in Series C funding, including from BioVentures Investors, SV Life Sciences, Lumira Capital, Aperture Venture Partners and OSF Ventures. MedCity News has more here.

Findo, a two-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based smart search assistant, is raising a $4 million seed round led by  Flint Capital. VentureBeat has more here.

GameOn, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile engagement platform for sports fans, has raised $2 million in new seed funding from Quest Venture Partners, XG Ventures, Next News Ventures, the DeBartolo family, former NFL quarterback Joe Montana and rapper-investor Snoop Dogg. More here.

ISI Technology, a 10-year-old, Charleston, S.C.-based company that makes a fully electronic water heater for residential and commercial applications, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Wave Equity Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

PureLifi, a four-year-old, Edinburgh, Scotland-based company that’s developing what it calls LiFi technology, an alternative to Wi-Fi that uses modulating LED light as a way of sending data from one LiFi-equipped device to another, has raised just over £7 million ($9.3 million) in Series B funding. Singapore’s state-owned investment firm Temasek led the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Scope AR, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based company that’s developing augmented reality smart instructions and live support video calling software,  has raised $2 million in seed funding, including from Susa Ventures, Presence Capital Fund and New Stack Ventures. More here.

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Exits

Atlassian said yesterday that it has acquired StatusPage, a Y Combinator-incubated service that allows online businesses to keep their users updated about the status of their online services. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.According to CrunchBase, StatusPage had raised just $100,000. TechCrunch has more here.

FlightCar, a 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that invited users to list and rent each others’ cars from airports around the country, announced yesterday that, effective immediately, it is closing operations at all 12 of its airport stations around the U.S.. It has also sold its technology platform to Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America, where it will become part of Mercedes’ innovation lab for mobility services. Flightcar had raised more than $40 million from investors. Forbes has more here on the company’s closure. We’d first written about Flightcar’s woes last October.

Pinterest has acquired the team behind Highlight, a location-based social app that never quite broke through. Its parent company was five-year-old, San Francisco-based Math Camp. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. The Verge has more here.

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People

An L.A. judge has dismissed former Hyperloop One CTO and co-founder Brogan BamBrogan’s restraining order against the company’s former head of legal, Afshin Pishevar. More here.

The Tesla Model X that crashed in Pennsylvania on July 1 had Autopilot disabled at the time, Elon Musk announced yesterday Twitter. More here.

Yesterday, a group of more than 140 tech entrepreneurs and executives published a scathing online letter opposing Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency, saying he’d be truly terrible for innovation. As product manager Michael Gartenberg of Apple later tweeted, though, “Thing is, people likely to vote for Trump don’t read or care about stuff like this.”

In related news, just to be clear, “Peter Thiel is attending and speaking at the RNC in his personal capacity,” said Facebook of its famed board member in a statement yesterday. Recode has more here.

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Data

According to new data out of the NVCA and Thomson Reuters, VCs invested $15.3 billion in 961 deals in the second quarter. That’s a 20 percent increase in dollars over the first quarter, though total deal count was down 5 percent. More interesting (to us): this is the tenth consecutive quarter that more than $10 billion in venture capital invested was invested in a single quarter. More here.

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Essential Reads

T-Mobile is offering free “Pokémon Go” data for a year, but not everyone is happy about it.

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Detours

Ten completely over-the-top hotel butler services.

That spicy green paste is not wasabi, yo.

Mick Jagger is going to be a dad for the eighth time at age 72.

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Retail Therapy

Nickelblock, the first app for your phone that will play Nickelback songs when you try to contact your ex or look at their photos on the Internet. (Haha. H/T: Lora K.)

Hi, all, happy Thursday.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Line, the mobile messaging app from Japan, went public today in a dual Japan-U.S. IPO that’s expected to be the largest of a tech company this year. Here’s what you need to know about the company. Meanwhile, here’s how it’s doing so far on the NYSE.

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DCM Just Raised a $500 Million Fund 

DCM Ventures, an early stage venture firm, with offices in Menlo Park, Ca.; China; and Japan, has just closed its eighth early-stage fund, DCM VIII, with $500 million.

The fund came together on the heels of two other funds that DCM has raised in the last 18 months, including a $170 million “Turbo Fund” that DCM is using to invest in growth-stage companies (that it mostly but not exclusively has previously funded), and a $100 million “A Fund,” which is a healthy-size seed-stage fund that DCM is using to fund mobile and emerging platforms.

Altogether, DCM is now managing more than $3 billion. That’s a lot of money, even for a firm that’s been around since 1996. But here’s what DCM can boast that most venture firms in recent years cannot: It has also returned a lot of money to its investors —  $1.5 billion over the last three years, in fact.

Last week, we chatted with firm co-founder and general partner David Chao about how DCM pulled off this hat trick. Our chat has been edited for length.

What’s the mandate of this new, $500 million fund?

It hasn’t really changed. Trying to get 15 to 25 percent of Series A rounds in the U.S. and Asia has been our bread and butter for the last 20 years.

And your A Fund, which closed last year — why is it necessary to run that separately?

With the advent of angel rounds and seed rounds and convertible notes, we felt we could be more bold and experimental with the A Fund. For example, a lot of game companies aren’t the greatest profile for a typical venture fund. It’s a hit-or-miss business — almost like Hollywood movies. We also focus on new platforms. So when we did some of our first VR deals and drone deals, we did it out of our first A Fund [which closed in 2011], and we’ve done more VR and AI deals out of our second A Fund already. So it’s a higher risk fund.

It’s also high reward, seemingly. That first fund invested in Kakao Talk, a cross-platform mobile messaging application that took off.

Its first round was [valued at] $100 million [premoney], so it wasn’t a typical main fund bet. [Ed: Kakao went public in 2014, and its valuation continued to soar. Though competition from LINE has dampened its growth, Kakao is still valued at $6.4 billion currently.]

More here.

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New Fundings

GSV, a merchant bank in Chicago, is hoping to raised upwards of $250 million for a venture fund, shows a new SEC filing. The bank’s venture arm was formed 10 years ago and co-invests in mid- to late-stage deals across a spectrum of sectors, from biotech to energy to information technology. According to its site, it has stakes in Instacart, Palantir, and Pinterest, among others.

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New Funds

Amazon Web Services has acquired Cloud9, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that has built an integrated development environment (IDE) for web and mobile developers to collaborate together. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. According to CrunchBase, Cloud9 had raised $5.5 million from investors, including Accel Partners and Balderton Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Toy giant Hasbro is acquiring Boulder Media, a 16-year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based animation studio, for an undisclosed amount. Marketwatch has more here.

China’s Tencent is acquiring a controlling stake in the music streaming company China Music Corp. for roughly $2.7 billion, creating a dominant competitor in China’s online music market. The WSJ has the story here.

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Exits

Amazon Web Services has acquired Cloud9, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that has built an integrated development environment (IDE) for web and mobile developers to collaborate together. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. According to CrunchBase, Cloud9 had raised $5.5 million from investors, including Accel Partners and Balderton Capital. TechCrunch hasmore here.

Toy giant Hasbro is acquiring Boulder Media, a 16-year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based animation studio, for an undisclosed amount. Marketwatch has more here.

China’s Tencent is acquiring a controlling stake in the music streaming company China Music Corp. for roughly $2.7 billion, creating a dominant competitor in China’s online music market. The WSJ has the story here.

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People

VC Jim Breyer just joined the board of Blackstone.

Apple dealmaker Eddy Cue reveals what he learned about Hollywood from Steve Jobs, why TV distribution is broken, and to whom he turns for advice.

Billionaire investor Peter Thiel will be speaking at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next week. Recode has more here. Meanwhile, TechCrunch takes a look at where Thiel and Donald Trump agree and disagree.

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Essential Reads

Twitter is doubling down on live-streaming with a new partnership with Pac-12 university sports to broadcast its content.

Consumer Reports just called on Tesla to disable hands-free operation until its system can be made safer.

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Detours

Don’t drive and Pokemon.

Kids explain the internet.

How giving a memorable job interview is like dating.

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Retail Therapy

Nest is finally making an outdoor camera and it ships for $199 this fall.

Hi, happy Wednesday, everyone!

We’re back in San Francisco tomorrow, but we wanted to note that beginning this Monday, the popular and talented Semil Shah — investor, writer, father, horologist — will be taking over SVC’s daily column for a couple of weeks as we dial back for a bit of family time. He has some great interviews with numerous VCs and founders lined up, so stay tuned.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 both closed at all-time highs yesterday. Marketwatch has more here.

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Magic Leap Says Product Coming Out “Hopefully Soonish”

Anyone hoping that Magic Leap would share exact plans today about when it will debut its “mixed reality” technology was probably a little disappointed. At a Fortune conference in Aspen this afternoon, Magic Leap founder and CEO Rony Abovitz and company CMO Brian Wallace called the company’s products “very real” and “not a research project anymore.” They also seemed to hint that they’ll release their tech this fall. But they stopping short from explicitly saying so.

Said Abovitz of the now 600-person company, which operates out of a former Motorola factory in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., “We have production lines that look like aircraft carriers with class 100cleanrooms [which feature controlled levels of contamination]. That’s running right now. We’re debugging our high-volume production line. It’s [being] made in the U.S., this summer. So we’re in that go mode, and hopefully soonish, the public will see [our products].

Magic Leap has raised $1.4 billion from investors at this point, including Alibaba, Andreessen Horowitz, and Google. In fact, Google CEO Sundar Pichai sits on the company’s board. (It also counts director Peter Jackson as an advisory board member.)

Asked what’s so expensive, Abovitz — whose last company sold for $1.65 billion a few years ago — noted that Magic Leap is “building a full-stack computing company,” from its chip designs to sensors to software to much of its content. “We took on the whole problem, including the manufacturing [because] we wanted to deliver something that never existed before and there was no way to do it unless we created everything from scratch.”

The company’s technology, as both described by Abovitz and Wallace, certainly sounds nothing short of revolutionary, even while it has competitors in Microsoft’s HoloLens headset and Meta, another maker of an augmented reality headset.

More here.

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New Fundings

Appthority, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based app risk management service, has raised $17 million in Series B funding led by Trident Capital Cybersecurity, with participation from U.S. Venture Partners, Venrock, Blue Coat Systems and Knollwood Investment Advisory. More here.

Bay Dynamics, a 15-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of cyber-risk analytics software, has raised $23 million in Series B funding led by Carrick Capital Partners, with participation from Comcast Ventures. The company has now raised $31 million altogether. eWeek has more here.

FiveAI, a year-old U.K.-based startup that’s building AI-driven software to help accelerate the development of autonomous vehicles, has raised $2.7 million in funding led by Amadeus Capital Partners, with participation from Spring Partners and Notion Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Shyft Technologies, a year-old, Seattle-based company whose mobile app connects shift workers based on their employer and location so they trade and cover shifts, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from Madrona Venture Group and numerous angel investors. Bloomberg has more here.

SirionLabs, a four-year-old, Gurgaon, India and Troy, Mi.-based company that uses tech to help companies manage their contracts and relationships with suppliers, has raised $12.25 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia India, with participation from QualGro ASEAN Fund and Canopy Ventures. The company has now raised $16 million altogether. More here.

True Fit, a six-year-old, Woburn, Ma.-based company that partners with big retailers like Nordstrom, Macy’s and Kate Spade to help online customers order the right size and style for their measurements, has raised $25 million in funding led by Intel Capital, with participation from earlier backers Jump Capital and Signal Peak Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Fontinalis Partners, a seven-year-old, Detroit and Boston-based venture capital firm, has closed its second fund with $100 million. The firm was cofounded by Bill Ford, the executive chairman of Ford Motor Co., and it has been designed from the start to expressly fund next-generation mobility companies. Some of its newest bets include Elementum, a four-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based cloud supply chain platform; nuTonomy, a three-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that makes software for self-driving cars; and TransLoc, a two-year-old, Durham, N.C.-based transportation app company whose products include a live regional transit map and a bus tracking mobile app. Fontinalis has now raised $165 million in committed capital altogether. More here.

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IPOs

Line, the Japanese mobile messaging app company, is seeing bids of 15 percent above its IPO price ahead of its market debut. Bloomberg has more here.

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Exits

Google has made another small acquisition to help it continue building out its latest efforts in social apps. The search and Android giant has hired the team behind Kifi, a startup that was building extensions to collect and search links shared in social apps. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Skully co-founders Marcus and Mitch Weller have reportedly been kicked out of the company by investors. Skully has raised $14.95 million from two investments and an Indiegogo campaign over the last two years. More here.

Hyperloop One, the futuristic transportation company backed by $92 million in funding, looks like it could be mired in lawsuits for the foreseeable future. The The startup was cofounded by the venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar and Brogan Bambrogan, an early employee at SpaceX. But a couple weeks ago, Bambrogan abruptly left the company. Yesterday, the world learned that Bambrogan has filed a restraining order against the company’s former head of legal, Afshin Pishevar (who happens to be Shervin’s brother), alleging Pishevar left a noose at his desk, among other terribleness. Bambrogan and other employees are also suing the company, saying it has been “strangled by mismanagement.” You can scan the entire lawsuit here.

Vishal Lugani, who spent the last 3.5 years as a senior associate at Greycroft Partners in L.A.,  is moving to San Francisco to joins Aspect Ventures as an investor.

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Essential Reads

Tesla‘s biggest Wall Street fan — Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley — think he’s worked out Elon Musk’s master plan. Bloomberg has more here.

Vine, Twitter’s three-year-old short-form video service, is no longer growing, and most of its top executives have left, reports Recode.

—–

Detours

Detroit-made bicycles are taking over bike-share programs.

Forty-four-and-a-half years later, the FBI is finally giving up on the famed DB Cooper case.

—–

Retail Therapy

Good news, bad news: a portable, collapsible fire hammock.

Hi, happy Tuesday, everyone! We’re in ridiculously beautiful Aspen for a couple of days to catch Pokemon attend a Fortune conference. Having fun here; we’re also a little exhausted.:)

Btw, if you’re here, too, and want to meet up, let us know. We won’t be quite as crazed today as yesterday.

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Now a third Tesla crash is being blamed on Autopilot. Elektrek has more here.

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Who, Us? VCs Blame Banks for Messaging to Startups

Despite all the capital that venture firms have managed to raise in the first and second quarters of this year, venture capitalists at an investor panel at Fortune’s Brainstorm conference this morning said that early-stage valuations are softening, reality is “setting in” for unicorn companies that are too richly valued to be acquired and too immature to go public, and that there’s much more focus on revenue than in recent years.

The VCs also blamed bankers on their messaging to founders, which, until recently, was to focus on growth at all costs.

When it comes to very early-stage valuations, Floodgate cofounder Ann Miura-Ko said she thinks her firm is seeing more “willingness by entrepreneurs to take much lower valuations than what their initial expectations were” for two reasons. One is increasing conservativeness on the part of venture capitalists. The other, she said, is “fear for the next round of financing. They’ve already heard from other entrepreneurs that the next round of financing is going to be really difficult.”

In terms of falling valuations for later-stage companies, general partner Roger Lee of Battery Ventures said they’re all but inevitable, given that there’s been one “truly notable” tech IPO in the U.S. so far in 2017.  As he noted, a new category of investors had emerged — including hedge funds and mutual funds — to fund these companies’ later stage funding rounds based on the assumption that there would be a brisk IPO market. Absent one, these companies now need to “focus on the fundamentals” to prove that they’re worth the valuations they were assigned.

Of course the big question, and one posed by Brainstorm co-chair Dan Primack, is why companies weren’t focusing on the fundamentals from the start. “Is it the [founders’] fault or yours,” he asked the VCs, including Spark Capital general partner Megan Quinn, who readily acknowledged that there was “certainly a point in time in the Valley when investors were funding growth above all else.” Because “public markets were rewarding it?” Primack asked. “Yes,” said Quinn, “exactly.”

It’s an observation that Jeff Fagnan, a founder of Accomplice (formerly the tech group at Atlas Venture) agreed with wholeheartedly. VCs’ focus on growth was “definitely driven by the public market,” he told those gathered. “I remember being in a couple of IPO bakeoffs, and these bankers would always focus on [growth] . . . And they said, ‘You don’t really need to worry about profit. Just grow. This is the story that everybody wants to buy.’”

More here.

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New Fundings

3scan, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based computational pathology platform company, has raised $14 million in Series B funding co-led by Lux Capital and Data Collective, with participation from Dolby Family Ventures, OS Fund, Comet Labs and Breakout Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Codecademy, a five-year-old, New York-based online coding school with 16 million registered users, has raised $30 million in new funding led by Naspers Ventures, with participation from Union Square Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners, Index Ventures and Sir Richard Branson. The company has now raised $42.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

CornerJob, a year-old, Barcelona, Spain-based mobile jobs marketplace, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Northzone, with participation from e.ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Freshly, a four-year-old, New York-based company that delivers healthy meals for $11 per meal, has raised $21 million in Series B funding led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from previous investors Highland Capital Partners and White Star Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Paktor, a three-year-old, Singapore-based dating app that rivals Tinder in Southeast Asia, has raised $10 million in fresh capital led by YJ Capital, the corporate venture firm belonging to Yahoo Capital. Other participants include Global Grand Leisure, Golden Equator Capital, Sebrina Holdings and earlier backers Vertex Ventures, MNC Media Group, Majuven and Convergence Ventures. The company has now raised $22 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

RedKix, a nearly two-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based startup that is combining email with chat, has raised $17 in seed(!) funding, including from Salesforce Ventures, Wicklow Capital, SG VC, and individual investors, including Oren Zeev. TechCrunch has more here.

Universal Avenue, a two-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-headquartered startup that lets companies access a local sales force on demand, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Eight Roads, the proprietary investment arm of Fidelity International. Earlier investors Northzone and MOOR also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

New Funds

Veteran Silicon Valley investor Jim Breyer and Chinese firm IDG Capital Partners have raised one of the largest venture-capital funds in China despite concerns that the market for later-stage startups is overheated. The WSJ has more here.

—–

IPOs

WeWork CEO Adam Neumann, who was interviewed on stage with his wife and co-founder Rebekah Paltrow Neumann yesterday, hinted an IPO may be in the offing. The company has been valued by its investors at $17 billion. Fortune has more here.

—–

People

Five-year-old mobile events and conferences company DoubleDutch announced yesterday that it will be laying off 55 of its employees as a part of a company-wide restructuring. The company has raised more than $78 million in funding to power its mobile tools which allow event organizers to create dedicated app experiences and easily share information with attendees. TechCrunch has more here.

Yesterday afternoon, before he took the stage at the Fortune’s Brainstorm conference, we sat down with GV CEO Bill Maris in a billowing white tent on the campus of the Aspen Institute, where the conference is being held. We talked about how Brexit impacts GV’s European strategy. (You may recall it has an office in London.) We also asked Maris about some of GV’s newest bets, its biggest bet of all time (Uber), and the decision of one of GV’s highest-profile investors, Rich Miner, to leave the group. More here.

—–

Essential Reads

Google couldn’t score LinkedIn’s business. But it’s getting LinkedIn’s real estate. Recode has more here.

With new tech, the United Nations is seeking to end hunger Silicon Valley-style.

—–

Detours

The richest generation in U.S. history just keeps getting richer.

How to negotiate with a liar.

Britain is getting a new leader, but Larry, the Downing Street cat, is staying put.

—–

Retail Therapy

Smell like a fig candle everywhere you go, if you dare.

Love dem short work weeks! Hoping you have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

Quick mention: We leave insanely early on Monday for Fortune’s Brainstorm conference in Aspen, so we won’t have a chance to send out the newsletter; we’ll be back with a good story or two for you on Tuesday.:)

—–

Top News in the A.M.

It actually happened. Elizabeth Holmes, chief executive of Theranos, has been banned by U.S. regulators from owning or operating a medical laboratory for at least two years.

The Dallas police force used a bomb-defusing robot equipped with an explosive device to kill a shooting suspect last night, police chief David Brown revealed today at a press conference. Bomb-defusing robots have been used by police forces in the past, but this may be the first time one has been use to kill a person. More here.

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Where Today’s Tech Can, And Can’t, Replace Humans

This morning, McKinsey & Co. is releasing a new look at the impact automation is likely to have across various sectors of the economy and, ultimately, the workplace. Its findings are based on analysis of 2,000-plus work activities across more than 800 occupations and includes data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The good news, says the report, is that automation will “eliminate very few occupations entirely in the next decade.” It adds that automation will eventually affect “portions of almost all jobs to a greater or lesser degree.”

Whether you see this as a good or bad thing could depend on how much of your job involves physical activity or operating machinery.

For example, if even current technologies were broadly adopted, says McKinsey, fully 78 percent of “predictable physical activities” across manufacturing, retailing, and food service and accommodations could be automated. The study notes that working on an assembly line is a “highly predictable” physical activity, whereas forestry or raising outdoor animals is much less so. Either way, as tech grows more advanced, expect that percentage to rise.

What else could be far more automated if current tech was adopted more widely? Plenty of so-called white collar occupations, particularly those that involve collecting and processing data. And it’s not just entry level workers who will be impacted, notes McKinsey. For example, it notes that “stock traders and investment bankers live off their wits, yet about 50 percent of the overall time [in their field] is devoted to collecting and processing data . . .”

Ditto insurance sales agents. McKinsey’s estimate for how much of these jobs could be automated: about 43 percent of workers’ time.

More here.

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New Fundings

Airwallex, a seven-month-old, Melbourne, Australia-based startup that specializes in cross-border transactions, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Chinese investment firm Gobi Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

SmartNews, a four-year-old, Tokyo, Japan-based news aggregation app, has raised $38 million in Series D funding led by the Development Bank of Japan, with SMBC Venture Capital and Japan Co-Invest L.P. participating. The company has now raised $90 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Uber, the seven-year-old, San Francisco-based ride-share giant, has raised $1.15 billion from a new high-yield loan, according to the WSJ. The company has now raised more than $15 billion in debt and equity. More here.

—–

Exits

The videoconferencing company Polycom has abandoned plans to sell itself to the Canadian telecommunications company Mitel and is instead selling for $2 billion to the private equity firm Siris Capital. That’s a 14 percent premium over Mitel’s offer. Bloomberg has more here.

Google is getting deeper into the tech side of the video and broadcasting business. The company yesterday announced that it has acquired Anvato, a platform for encoding, editing, publishing and distribution video across platforms. More here.

The six-year-old, New York-based media valuation platform Integral Ad Science is unveiling some new steps to combat ad fraudsters, including the acquisition of a bot detection company called Swarm. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

People

LinkedIn is selling to Microsoft because it couldn’t keep pace with the world’s biggest tech companies, cofounder and executive chairman Reid Hoffman told CNBC yesterday. More here.

—–

Essential Reads

Facebook is shying from substantive policy questions in the aftermath of a gruesome but important Facebook Live video. Buzzfeed has more here.

The IRS is suing Facebook over asset transfers to Ireland. Fortune has more here.

Aaaand, Facebook Messenger is adding end-to-end encryption in a bid to become your primary messaging app. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

Detours

1001 blistering future summers.

How silence benefits the brain.

—–

Retail Therapy

Supreme x Nike Air Force 1 Low Premium 08 NRG.

It’s Thursday, woot!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Apple just dropped to fifth place in China’s smartphone market.

—–

(Some) LPs Speak Up

Venture capital used to be such an insular, under-the-radar industry that entrepreneur-investor Marc Andreessen has said that he’d never heard the term before arriving in the Bay Area in 1994. He’s hardly alone. It wasn’t until the mid- to late-1990s, during the dot.com boom, that the world became acquainted with what venture capitalists do. And it wasn’t until after venture capitalists Fred Wilson and Brad Feld began publishing insights about their work roughly 12 years ago that the art of VC blogging began to border on competitive sport.

The exercise has paid off for many investors. Among those to actively raise their profiles (and presumably, increase their deal flow) through blogging are Jason Lemkin, whose new venture fund we covered here; Hunter Walk of Homebrew; and Mark Suster of Upfront Ventures. (CB Insights has a longer rundown of VC bloggers here.)

Institutional investors, the money behind the VCs’ money, have not followed suit, though there’s reason to think the industry is thinking more about outreach at long last. Indeed, though these limited partners (LPs) have largely remained mum, not sharing much about their selection process, not blogging, and not talking publicly with reporters, a few signals suggest a change may be afoot, including recent feedback from one investor from a mid-size university endowment, who recently shared on background that he’s been asked to raise his profile.

The reason, simply: competition. As you may have noticed, a smaller group of so-called top-tier venture funds now manages more of the money flowing into venture capital than ever before. Still, these firms can only responsibly manage so much, which puts pressure on LPs who want stakes in those venture funds.

Perhaps because of uncertainty about the market, LPs are also less interested in brand-new funds right now than in the second or third funds of micro-venture firms that are starting to prove themselves. Forerunner Ventures, which has tripled the amount of money it is managing in the last four years, is just the latest example. These managers, too, can only make room for so many LPs.

Then there’s foreign money. More specifically, there’s more of it than ever to compete with. Take Peakview,  which is the investment advisory arm of Shengjing Group and the largest global fund of funds in China. Its U.S.-based managing partner told this reporter in March that Peakview has millions of dollars to invest in U.S. venture firms. To curry favor with them, it’s promising to help their portfolio companies bridge networking gaps between the U.S. and China.

More here.

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New Fundings

BevSpot, a two-year-old, Boston-based software platform that enables mobile bar management, has raised $11 million in Series B funding led by earlier backer Bain Capital Ventures. The company has now raised $19 million altogether. BostInno has more here.

Black Swan Data, a five-year-old, London-based data science startup that analyzes consumer behavior using public and private data, has raised £6.2 million ($8 million) in Series B funding led by Albion Ventures, with participation from Blackstone and Mitsui. TechCrunch has more here.

Brillen.de, a four-year-old, Wildau, Germany-based online business that sells its own eyewear, has raised €45 million ($49 million) in its first round of funding from Technology Crossover Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Light, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based computational photography startup, has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by GV. Forbes has more here.

NextVR, a six-year-old, Laguna Beach, Ca.-based startup that develops and delivers video capture technology for live and recorded experience, has raised $20 million from a Chinese investment firm as a part of an upcoming Series B raise. The money is reportedly a quarter of the Series B round; Variety reported earlier this week that the company is looking to raise $80 million altogether, at an $800 million valuation. More here.

Pixie, a five-year-old, Los Altos, Ca.-based company whose guitar-pick-like bluetooth beacons make it harder for users to lose their stuff, is raising a $25 million round of funding, according to a new SEC form that shows it has raised $16.6 million toward that end. According to CrunchBase, the company previously raised $6 million from investors, including Spark Capital and Cedar Fund. The Verge wrote about the company last year.

Post-Quantum, a seven-year-old, U.K.-based company that has developed an encryption system designed to safeguard quantum computers from hackers, has raised £8 million ($10.3 million) in Series A funding from VMS Investment Group and AM Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Yuntongxun, a three-year-old, Beijing, China-based corporate cloud communications service company, has raised $70 million in Series C funding led by earlier backer Sequoia Capital, with participation from TBP Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Zingle, a six-year-old, Carlsbad, Ca.-based platform that enables businesses to communicate with customers via texting and other mobile messaging channels, has raised $3 million in equity, shows an SEC filing. Tnooz reported this past spring that the startup recently landed Hyatt as a client. More here.

—–

Exits

Security giant Avast is acquiring fellow Czech-based antivirus software makerAVG for $25 per share in cash, in a transaction that will total around $1.3 billion. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

People

Android co-creator and longtime GV general partner Rich Miner is leaving the investing unit to launch an education-focused company within Google, reports Fortune. Miner says he doesn’t know exactly what he’s building yet but it sounds like he already has the “big vision” of it in mind. A GV spokeswoman wrote us separately that though Miner will no longer be leading any deals for GV, he will “remain active with many of his board commitments.”

Elon Musk is still duking it out with Fortune over whether Telsa should have disclosed sooner an investigation into a crash involving one of its cars. (See our column yesterday if you’re coming to this story late.)

In a blog post this morning, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that long-time COO Kevin Turner is leaving after 11 years at the company. Meanwhile, Citadel Securities has announced this morning that Turner is joining as CEO. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

Essential Reads

Germany’s digital entrepreneurs are not only convinced that London is finished but also believe they are poised to wrest its crown as Europe’s fintech center. The Financial Times has more here.

Erm. Whoever acquires Yahoo might have to pay Mozilla annual payments of $375 million through 2019 if it doesn’t think the buyer is one it wants to work with. Recode has the story here.

—–

Detours

What becomes of the brokenhearted’s stuff.

Twenty beautiful modern staircases.

The rise of hip-hop producer Mike Will.

—–

Retail Therapy

BikeBlock. So simple, a monkey could use it.

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Quick mention for those of you who’ve been in and out on vacation: On September 29, a Thursday night, at the glass-lined offices of SurveyMonkey in Palo Alto, we’re hosting our fifth and newest StrictlyVC INSIDER event, and it’s going to be great. Featured guests include the inimitable Marc Andreessen, along with SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie, who will update us on the unicorn company and where it goes from here. We’ll also be announcing a third interview that you won’t want to miss. Seating is limited and many spots have been snapped up by readers already, so don’t wait too long to nab yours.

Much thanks to our wonderful partners in the evening, without whom we couldn’t host these things. They include the young, early-stage venture firm Bolt; Ballou PR, to which many startups (and VCs) have turned to raise their profile in Europe; and Mattermark, which organizes and sells information about a wide swath of startups and, increasingly, other businesses.

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Twitter is streaming Wimbledon today.

—–

Tesla Says It Told Government of Autopilot Crash Ahead of Stock Sale

Tesla says it told regulators about the May 7th crash involving one of its electric cars in self-driving Autopilot mode nine days after the incident, adding that there was nothing unusual in either the delay or its decision to keep quiet about the incident before a federal investigation was publicly announced last Thursday.

Tesla says the company was informed of the accident “shortly” after it took place.

Tesla’s statement, issued late this afternoon, seems to be a direct response to a Fortune article published earlier today that notes the enormous stock sale that Tesla announced on May 18. States the Fortune piece:

“On May 18, eleven days after [Tesla owner Joshua] Brown died, Tesla and CEO Elon Musk, in combination (roughly three parts Tesla, one part Musk), sold more than $2 billion of Tesla stock in a public offering at a price of $215 per share—and did it without ever having released a word about the crash.

“To put things baldly, Tesla and Musk did not disclose the very material fact that a man had died while using an auto-pilot technology that Tesla had marketed vigorously as safe and important to its customers.”

When Fortune sought comment from Musk, he first replied that he didn’t think the fact of the crash was “material to the value of Tesla” and therefore did not need to be disclosed at the time of Tesla’s stock sale. He reportedly continued, via email to Fortune:

“Indeed, if anyone bothered to do the math (obviously, you did not) they would realize that of the over 1M auto deaths per year worldwide, approximately half a million people would have been saved if the Tesla autopilot was universally available. Please, take 5 mins and do the bloody math before you write an article that misleads the public.”

In this afternoon’s statement, Tesla said it had disclosed the incident to the government by May 16.

Asked by Reuters why Tesla didn’t also disclose the accident to the public before that share sale, the company sent the outlet the following statement:

“Tesla does not find it necessary, nor does any automaker, to share the details of every accident that occur in a Tesla vehicle. More than a million people die globally every year in car accidents, but automakers do not disclose each of these accidents to investors, let alone before those investigations are complete and without regard to what the results of those investigations end up being.”

More here.

—–

New Fundings

Darktrace, a three-year-old, London-based company that makes enterprise cybersecurity software, has raised $65 million in growth equity funding led by KKR, with participation from TenEleven Ventures, SoftBank, and return backer Summit Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Homee, a nearly year-old,  L.A.-based company whose mobile app helps users design rooms for free, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from Founders Fund and Tinder CEO Sean Rad. TechCrunch has more here.

KisanHub, a four-year-old, Cambridge, U.K.-based enterprise farming platform that connects agronomic and operational data to enable smarter decision-making, has raised $1 million in seed funding led by Notion Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Service Partner One, a year-old, Berlin-based startup that’s trying to build a kind of office operating system for office managers, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by EQT Ventures, with participation from Earlybird Venture Capital, Target Global, Rheingau Founders, Ringier Digital Ventures, and Vito Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

StockTwits, an eight-year-old, San Diego-based real-time financial communications platform for the financial and investing community, has raised $2 million in new funding led by Social Leverage, a venture fund cofounded by StockTwits founder Howard Lindzon. The company has also just announced that Ian Rosen, co-founder of Even Financial and a former general manager at MarketWatch, is becoming CEO, as Lindzon becomes executive chairman of the company. TechCrunch has more here.

Twistlock, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that makes enterprise security software for virtual containers, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by TenEleven Ventures, with participation from Rally Ventures, an unnamed strategic investor, and return backer YL Ventures. GeekTime hasmore here.

Veriflow, a three-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based network breach and outage prevention software company, has raised $8.2 million in Series A funding led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from earlier backer New Enterprise Associates. SDX Central has more here.

—–

New Funds

Akkadian Ventures, a San Francisco-based firm that buys shares of privately owned startups from entrepreneurs, angel investors, and venture capital firms that are looking to sell a portion of their holdings, is raising a fourth fund, shows an SEC filing that doesn’t list a target. The firm closed its third fund with $74 million in October 2014. More here.

Forerunner Ventures, an early-stage, San Francisco-based venture firm that’s known as an e-commerce specialist, has closed its third fund with $122 million, shows an SEC filing. Forerunner’s second fund, which held its first close in 2012, was capped at $75 million, says Fortune. More here.

—–

Exits

Alibaba has acquired Wandoujia, a Chinese app store for Android devices, for a reported $200 million. Wandoujia was reportedly valued at more than $1 billion in January 2014 when it raised $120 million in funding led by SoftBank. But TechCrunch notes that “increased competition from carrier-run app stores and rivals like 91 Wireless and Qihoo 360, not to mention reports of internal conflict, appear to have impacted its development over the past two years.” More here.

Google has acquired Moodstocks, a startup based out of Paris that develops machine-learning based image recognition technology for smartphones. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. It’s not clear how much Moodstocks had raised, notes TechCrunch. Any related data has been scrubbed from CrunchBase, though TechCrunch reported in 2010 that Moodstocks had raised $500,000 in seed funding from European investors. More here.

SGN, an L.A.-based gaming company led by ex-MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe, has acquired TinyCo, a San Francisco-based mobile game studio. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.  According to CrunchBase, TinyCo raised $38 million in funding from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Pinnacle Ventures, and SV Angel. The Wrap has more here.

—–

People

Bret Taylor, best known as the longtime CTO of Facebook, has joined the board of Twitter. More here.

Zenefits may have dramatically readjusted its valuation (from $4.5 billion to $2 billion), but an analysis by The Information suggests that its Series A investors are still currently sitting on a none-too-shabby paper return of 1,800 percent. More here. (Subscribers only.)

—–

Data

Primary Venture Partners has taken a look at second-quarter seed activity in New York City. You can check it out here if you’re interested in what’s up and coming.

In separate news you can hopefully use, Mergermarket has just released its global M&A roundup report for the technology, media and telecom (TMT) sector for the first half of this year. You can check it out here.

—–

Essential Reads

Snapchat just rolled out a way of saving and sharing old snaps in a private archive inside the main app. More here.

—–

Detours

What. A 61-year-old Canadian man survived an attack by a 300-pound mother black bear by punching it in the face. (H/T: Significant Digits.) More here.

How Stephen Colbert met his wife.

Selfie-elbow.

—–

Retail Therapy

“Catastrophe.” Have you seen it? It’s so good. (More here.)