Thursday!

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Top News in the A.M.

The FBI, newly expert at unlocking iPhones, has offered its assistance in unlocking an iPhone and iPod for a prosecutor in Arkansas, the Associated Press reports. More here.

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Is Tony Fadell in Nest’s Way?

Last week, we witnessed something fairly remarkable. A major Alphabet executive — Nest Labs CEO Tony Fadell — publicly shamed the cofounder and employees of Dropcam, the connected camera company that Nest had acquired in 2014 for $555 million.

In an article in The Information, Fadell said that he didn’t think Dropcam cofounder and CEO Greg Duffy had “earned” the right to report to him directly. Fadell also explained away an exodus of Dropcam staffers by suggesting they were subpar. “A lot of the employees were not as good as we hoped,” he told The Information. It was “a very small team and unfortunately it wasn’t a very experienced team.”

Fadell may have been reacting to comments by Duffy, who painted a highly unflattering portrait of Fadell in the same article. However, Fadell’s comments and his poor performance underscore what an ill fit Fadell is for Alphabet and why Alphabet needs new leadership at Nest.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, of course. Nest was acquired by Google for $3.2 billion in January 2014, a feat that earned Fadell plenty of accolades. Worried about competition and in awe of Fadell, who’d created the iPod as an Apple SVP, Duffy concluded that selling was his smartest play when Nest came knocking that spring.

Despite what seemed like a handsome payday for everyone involved with Dropcam, the bet soon looked like a poor one.

As we’d reported here in November 2014, not only did Duffy’s beloved VP of marketing almost immediately leave Nest over an apparent culture clash, but numerous employees we interviewed, along with scathing write-ups by former employees on Glassdoor, pointed surprisingly to trouble.

“Everything revolves around the CEO,” wrote one Glassdoor reviewer at the time. “It’s a dangerous mix of cult of personality and Stockholm syndrome. Comments like ‘[Fadell is] the next Steve Jobs are not uncommon, while people proudly say things like ‘I’m used to Tony screaming at me.’”

It wasn’t just the different management styles of Fadell and Duffy, whose organization was one-eighth the size of Nest and who was well-liked by his employees. There was suddenly an inability to get anything meaningful done. One Nest employee described to me a “huge meeting culture, to the point where anyone at the director level or up spends their entire day in meetings, many of them duplicative meetings about the same subject, over and over to the point where a lot of people have complained.”

Things remain much the same 16 months later, suggests The Information, whose report says Nest’s culture of micromanagement has more recently led the firm to plaster its offices with the phrase “Step Up” to ostensibly encourage lower-level employees to take more initiative.

More here.

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New Fundings

Airware, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based company that used to sell drone operating systems but is now selling drone hardware, the software to control them, and cloud services for related data, has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by Next World Capital. Other participants include Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and former CIsco CEO John Chambers, who’s joining the company’s board. TechCrunch has more here.

Garena, a seven-year-old, Singapore-based company that makes mobile gaming, e-commerce, and payment apps, has raised $170 million in Series D funding, at a reported $3.75 billion valuation. The funding was led by Khazanah Nasional Berhad, the Malaysian government’s strategic investment fund. Earlier investors in the company include General Atlantic, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and Keytone Ventures. The company has now raised $500 million altogether. The WSJ has more here.

ICEBRG, a 1.5-year-old, Seattle-based stealth-mode enterprise network security startup, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Pelion Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backer Madrona Venture Group and other unnamed institutional and individual investors. More here(though not much more).

Juicero.com, a three-year-old, Bay Area-based food tech startup whose countertop device cold presses juice out of “packs” of already prepped fruit and veggies, has raised $70 million in Series B funding led by Artis Ventures. The company’s other Series A and B investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, GV, Thrive Capital, Campbell Soup Company, Two Sigma Ventures, DBL Partners, First Beverage Group, Acre Venture Partners, and others. TechCrunch has the story here.

Mashable, an 11-year-old, New York-based digital media publisher, has raised $15 million in new funding led by Turner, with participation from Time Warner Investments, Updata Partners and several other, unnamed investors. Mashable’s valuation wasn’t disclosed. The WSJ has more here.

Scentbird, a two-year-old, New York-based startup that lets users try luxury perfumes for a month before they buy them, has raised $2.8 million in funding from Eclipse Ventures, Vaizra Investments, Ludlow Ventures, and SGH Capital. The company has now raised $3.8 million altogether. VentureBeat hasmore here.

Zavante Therapeutics,  a year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based biopharmaceutical company at work on an antibiotic to treat multidrug-resistant pathogens, has raised $45 million in Series A funding, consisting of $35 million from new investors and $10 million from the conversion of outstanding convertible notes. Frazier Healthcare Partners and Longitude Capital were co-leads on the deal; Aisling Capital participated. More here.

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Exits

IBM has acquired Bluewolf Group, a 16-year-old, San Francisco-based consulting company that focuses on helping businesses use Salesforce and other cloud software applications. Terms of the deal are disclosed, but Recode sources peg the purchase price at slightly more than $200 million. More here.

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People

Hi, everyone!

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Top News in the A.M.

Expa, a three-year-old, New York- and San Francisco-based startup studio, is taking the wraps off a new, six-month program for startups that provides them $500,000 in backing, office space, and mentoring. The outfit also just revealed to the New York Times that it has itself raised $100 million from investors. More here.

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IPO Pros Expect Window to Open in Q2

Earlier today, Renaissance Capital, the IPO research firm, published a new report about the first quarter of this year, and it didn’t paint a pretty picture.

For starters, it noted the U.S. IPO market hit the lowest levels in the first quarter since the financial crisis of late 2008. It noted that not a single deal priced outside of the health care sector (which we’d flagged in this recent story). It also noted that of the eight deals that managed to price and collectively raise $700,000 million, the companies’ performance was largely propped up by their venture backers, who bought shares during and after the IPO.

There is, however, a silver lining. Echoing a conversation we’d had last week with another IPO expert — IPOScoop founder John Fitzgibbon — Renaissance Capital Principal Kathleen Smith tells us that a handful of pre-IPO companies could soon inject new life into the torpid IPO market. We talked this morning; our chat has been edited for length.

Renaissance’s new report notes that healthcare IPOs have averaged a return of 20 percent so far in 2016, but it adds that that’s thanks to “substantial buying by their existing shareholders.” Is that a bad thing?

It doesn’t mean they aren’t doing well, but it means there’s concern about their liquidity. Their tradable float is small — even smaller than their deal size would suggest.

That’s not a brand new trend, though. Haven’t health care investors long bought up shares to keep the price of their portfolio companies from dropping until the stock becomes more liquid? 

It has long helped to get the deals done. But we’ve seen the percentages increase quite a bit. It used to be that [VCs] would [buy up] 15 percent of the [IPO and post-IPO] shares; now it’s more like 40 percent, and I’d say it began ticking up over the last 24 months. In one recent deal, [for the gene editing company] Editas, insiders bought 67 percent of the float.

The goal in going public is to establish a valuation publicly that either helps other companies to understand them and perhaps buy them at that accepted valuation, or to raise more money down the road, which most [biotech companies] need to do, even though most [generate] capital from the IPO.

In the meantime, there were no tech IPOs in the first quarter. How worried should private tech investors be?

More here.

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New Fundings

Asana, an eight-year-old, New York-based collaboration software startup cofounded by Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by Y Combinator President Sam Altman. Other backers include Moskovitz, Asana cofounder Justin Rosenstein, 8VC, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh (via VTF Capital), Groupon co-founder Andrew Mason, Elevation Partners founder Roger McNamee, and Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo. Fortune has more here.

Branch, a year-old, San Francisco, and Nairobi, Kenya-based mobile-first digital bank for developing markets, has raised $9.2 million in Series A funding from Andreessen Horowitz, as well as seed investors Khosla Impact and 8VC. Forbes has more here.

CockroachDB, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based open-database company that aims to keep the applications of its enterprise customers up and running, even when their data centers and cloud infrastructure suddenly go offline, has raised $20 million in Series A1 funding. The capital comes from Index Ventures and earlier investors Benchmark and GV (formerly Google Ventures). More here.

Frichti, a nearly year-old, Paris, France-based food production and delivery company, has raised $13.4 million from Idinvest, earlier investor Alven Capital, and numerous angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Invoca, a nearly eight-year-old, Santa Barbara, Ca.-based call intelligence platform, has raised $30 million in Series D funding led by Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners, with participation from earlier backers Accel Partners, Upfront Ventures, Rincon Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures and Stepstone. The company has now raised just north of $60 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

MapD, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based big data analytics platform, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Vanedge Capital, with participation from Verizon Ventures, Nvidia Corporation and GV. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Planday, a 2.5-year-old, Copenhagen-based workforce management software company, has raised $14 million in Series B funding led by Idinvest, with participation from SEB Private Equity, existing backer Creandum, and Booking.com co-founder Arthur Kosten. TechCrunch has more here.

Spotify, the nine-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based streaming music service, has raised $1 billion in convertible debt from TPG, Dragoneer, and clients of Goldman Sachs. The WSJ has the story here.

Wanliyun Medical Information Technology, a seven-year-old, Beijing, China-based medical imaging company, has raised roughly $35 million in funding from the business juggernaut Alibaba. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

MIT has announced the creation of a Bitcoin Development Fund to cover the salaries, travel and work costs of three leading developers of the Bitcoin Core project. Silicon Angle has much more here.

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Exits

Ebay is acquiring Cargigi, a six-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based company that provides advertising and marketing services on a number of popular free classified websites like Craigslist. Deal terms weren’t disclosed, though eBay described the acquisition as small. TechCrunch has more here.

Foxconn said earlier today that it’s paying close to 389 billion yen (around $3.5 billion) for a 66 percent stake in Sharp, which is a lot less than the $6.2 billion fee that Sharp announced one month ago. TechCrunch has the story here.

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People

Cyan Banister, a renowned angel investor and startup founder, has joined 11-year-old Founders Fund. She’s the firm’s first female investing partner. More here.

How much Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer may make if she gets fired.

Meanwhile, Google CEO Sundar Pichai was paid $100.5 million for his first year at the helm. More here.

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Jobs

First Round Capital is looking for a special projects lead to help design and execute initiatives intended to help its entrepreneurs (and other people it would like to pull into its orbit). The job is in San Francisco.

XL Catlin, a global insurance company, is looking for a venture analyst to join its venture arm. The job is in Menlo Park, Ca.

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Data

Venture-capital firms are raising money at the highest rate in more than 15 years, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. More here.

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Essential Reads

Nearly a week after being silenced because the internet taught her to be racist, Microsoft’s artificial intelligence bot “Tay” briefly returned to Twitter early today, whereon she went on a spam tirade and then quickly fell silent again. More here.

Eight things Chinese money is buying in America right now.

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Detours

Unlocked iPhone worthless after FBI spills glass of water on it.

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Retail Therapy

Girl with Balloon.

Hi, everyone! We realize we’re a bit late in sending out SVC today; we had some technical issues this a.m.

Hope you’re having a terrific Tuesday.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Dropcam cofounder Greg Duffy isn’t done putting Nest‘s Tony Fadell in his place. (We asked Nest if it wants to comment on Duffy’s specific challenge to the company. A spokeswoman said Nest will “decline commenting at this time.”)

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AND CO Raises Seed Round to Tackle Freelancers’ Tedious Tasks

If you’ve ever  worked as a freelancer, you know the last thing you want to do — after lining up gigs, submitting your work, and reworking your project (when that last person on the client side decides he or she wants something entirely different) —  is to handle all the administrative stuff. Think invoicing. Expenses. Other paperwork.

That’s why a year-old, New York-startup called AND CO is creating a system that does it for you, using both software and live chat support. (Every freelancer gets a personal “chief operator” during working hours.)

AND CO was born at Prehype, a four-year-old design and incubation boutique that produces new ideas for corporate customers. Among other companies to come from its team are the subscription business BarkBox and the office cleaning and management startup Managed by Q.

Prehype founder Henrik Werdelin is a BarkBox founder. Managed by Q cofounder Saman Rahmanian is also a partner at PreHype. Meanwhile, Leif Abraham, a former creative director who joined Prehype in 2014 and was an early employee at BarkBox, is the cofounder and CEO of AND CO. (Abraham says his cofounder, Martin Strutz, also a longtime digital creative, was “like an entrepreneur-in-residence” at Prehype.)

AND CO, which charges a flat $60 a month, focuses largely on freelancers with project workflow, like designers, writers, and developers.

It’s also fairly limited in what it can do — for now.

More here.

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New Funding

Betterment, a 7.5-year-old, New York-based startup that automates financial planning, has raised $100 million in Series E funding led by Sweden’s Kinnevik. Previous investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, Anthemis Group, and Francisco Partners participated. The round reportedly values the company at $700 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Figtree Financing, a five-old, San Diego-based residential financing program for cleantech products, has raised $30 million in Series A funding led by the private equity firm LL Funds. More here.

Havenly, a two-year-old, Denver-based online interior design platform, has raised $5.8 million in additional Series A funding, bring the total round to $13.3 million. The round was led by Binary Capital with participation from Foundry Group and Chicago Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Homie, a two-year-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based online platform that helps users buy and sell their homes, has raised $3.76 million, shows a new SEC filing. Peak Ventures announced in November that it had provided an undisclosed amount of funding to the company. More here.

Hopper, a nine-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company whose app tells travelers the best time to fly in order to find the best deals, has raised $16 million in growth funding led by BDC Capital IT Venture Fund, with participation from earlier backers OMERS Ventures, Accomplice (formerly Atlas Venture) and Brightspark Ventures. The company has now raised $38 million altogether. More here.

Rythm, a two-year-old, Paris and San Francisco-based company that claims its still-in-prototype headset will improve sleep quality, has raised more than $11 million from private (unnamed) investors and public grants, including France’s Concours Mondial d’Innovation. TechCrunch has more here.

Slice Labs, a six-month-old, New York-based startup that will offer insurance to on-demand workers and providers, has raised $3.9 million in seed funding from Horizon Ventures and XL Innovate. TechCrunch has more here.

Umbo CV, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose security cameras use artificial intelligence to identify suspicious activity, has raised a $2.8 million in seed funding. The round was led by AppWorks Ventures, with participation from Mesh Ventures, Wistron Corporation, and Phison Electronics. TechCrunch has more here.

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Exits

Dating app Tinder is acquiring Humin, a  San Francisco contact management startup. Terms were undisclosed, but sources tell TechCrunch the deal was an acqui-hire. Humin had raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding led by Sherpa Capital, shows CrunchBase. More here.

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People

Investor Chamath Palihapitiya chats with Vanity Fair, telling the outlet, “Most of the things [VCs have] funded are mostly crap and largely worthless.”

Man moves to San Francisco, pays $400 a month to sleep in wooden box inside friends’ living room.

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Jobs

Longtime VC recruiter Jon Holman is doing a general partner/managing director search for a long-time player in the venture business who has raised a new fund. To apply, you have to be in the Bay Area already or have focused on Bay Area deals. Contact Holman here.

Venture-backed Managed By Q is looking to hire a business analyst. The job is in New York.

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Data

Renaissance Capital has just published a first-quarter IPO report and it’s not pretty. Says its research team, the U.S. IPO market “hit its lowest levels since the depths of the financial crisis in 2008/2009. Not a single deal priced outside of the health care sector, where eight deals managed to raise $0.7 billion thanks to substantial buying by their existing shareholders. The resulting low tradable float also helped to prop up performance, and IPOs averaged a return of 20 percent, even as the broader health care sector vastly underperformed major indices.” You can find the entire write-up here.

And from Pitchbook: A look at some of the largest U.S. pension fund commitments to private equity and venture funds since 2013.

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Essential Reads

Coming soon: 60-second videos in Instagram.

SoundCloud just took the wraps off a new subscription audio service that puts it in head-to-head in competition with the likes of  streaming services Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer.

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Detours

The fall of China’s hedge fund king.

Unicorns were real, and they were real ugly, too.

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Retail Therapy

20,000 bottles of wine,  from William Koch’s cellar.

Hi, everyone, hope readers had a Happy Easter!

It’s spring break for our kiddos this week (maybe yours, too); the newsletter may reflect the fact that they’ll be running circles around us over the next five days.

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Top News in the A.M.

The Tesla 3 is launching this week.

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What Life Sciences VCs Got Right in This Last Boom

It’s long been the case that life sciences investors don’t get the attention that their more traditional tech counterparts do. They’re underrepresented on lists of top investors in venture capital. They’re also remarkably underfunded, according to institutional investors (or limited partners) who back venture firms.

It’s the “life sciences guys who are smart as hell,” says one LP who’s grown frustrated with some of the tech-focused firms he has backed because they’ve haven’t produced the cash-on-cash returns he expected, yet who’s exceedingly happy with bets on firms like Third Rock Ventures, a 10-year-old, Boston-based outfit that incubates biotech startups and which took many of those companies public before the IPO window largely slammed shut last fall.

Taking companies public is “exactly what the tech guys should have been doing,” says this person, who represents a sizable endowment.

Whether the LP is being completely fair is an open question. Certainly, in recent years, many more biotech startups have gone public than consumer or enterprise startups, with public investors seemingly drawn in part to unprecedented levels of innovation, including new machine therapies and other treatments for a variety of diseases that couldn’t be addressed earlier in time.

However, even healthcare investors are quick to point out that they took so many companies public in part because they didn’t have much choice.

More here.

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New Fundings

Cyberpost, a young, Toronto, Canada-based online platform where “virtual mailboxes” are assigned to actual street addresses for use by marketers, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from a group of private investors. More here.

Emulate, a two-year-old, Boston-based company that aims to develop and sell organs-on-chips for testing drugs, has raised $28.8 million in Series B funding from earlier investors Hansjörg Wyss, NanoDimension and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Boston Business Journal has more here.

FixNix, a 3.5-year-old, Bangalore, India-based governance, risk management, and compliance platform, has raised $500,000 in seed funding led by former Tesla Motors CIO Jay Vijayan, along with other, unnamed, Silicon Valley-based angel investors. YourStory has more here.

Katerra, a six-month-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based startup that sells design services to the construction industry, has raised $75 million as part of what looks to be an $85 million round, shows an SEC filing. More here.

Permission Click, a three-year-old, Winnepeg, Manitoba-based digital permission slip platform that helps schools create registration forms and permission slips for field trips, fundraising programs, and more, has raised $1.75 million from investors including Friesens and Real Ventures. More here.

Venus Medtech, a seven-year-old, Hangzhou, China-based replacement heart valve maker, has raised $37 million from Goldman Sachs, with participation from Qiming Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital China and Dinova Venture Capital. MedCity News has the story here.

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New Funds

Founders Fund made official on Friday what had earlier this month been whispered to the New York Times. According to a new SEC filing, the 11-year-old, San Francisco-based venture firm has raised $1.27 billion for its sixth fund. More here.

UniCredit evo, a new, $223 million joint initiative between Italian lender UniCredit and the London venture firm Anthemis Group, will invest in mid-stage fintech startups, as well as early-stage startups in Europe and North America. UniCredit is a bank with operations in 17 countries throughout Western, Central, and Eastern Europe that’s looking to ramp up the digitalization of its banking group. More here.

Zhuang Chenchao, co-founder and former CEO of the China-based online travel giant Qunar, has started up his own venture capital fund to invest in Chinese start-ups. Financial details of the fund haven’t been reported yet. More here.

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People

Al Jazeera Media Network has reportedly fired about 500 people, with most of the layoffs occurred at Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar, the country’s capital. Al Jazeera earlier this year announced plans to shut down its U.S. operations after failing to find an audience (though it plans to open new platforms here). Fortune has more.

Since 2014, there’ve been a dozen important departures from Verily, the life sciences subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet, and a new article in STAT suggests that Verily CEO Andrew Conrad is why. More here.

Writer Dan Lyons documents his “year in startup hell.”

Pandora cofounder Tim Westergren is taking over as CEO if the online radio service roughly a decade after he last ran it. The idea: the reverse its flagging stock price. Bloomberg has more here.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg‘s “most important meeting of the day.”

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Jobs

Venture-backed Zymergen is looking for a business development analyst. The job is in Emeryville, Ca.

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Data

Between 2014 and 2024, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the first and third largest occupational jumps to be personal care aides and home health aides. In case you were wondering why HomeHero, Hometeam, and Honor have raised a combined total of $86.5 million in the last year or so. MedCity News has more here.

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Essential Reads

Last month, hedge funds participated in the fewest number of venture capital rounds in U.S. tech companies since 2013, inking just two deals, according to research firm PitchBook Data. Even Tiger Global Management has pulled back, and smaller firms are getting out altogether.

How Oculus cracked the impossible design of VR. (CEO Palmer Luckey hand-delivered the first edition to a surprised buyer in Alaska on Saturday, which you can see here.)

A would-be WiFi paradise, in Sri Lanka.

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Detours

Do you live in a bubble?

How pushy parents ruined a giant Easter egg hunt in Connecticut yesterday.

Fascinating maps that show the different places locals and tourists go in 19 major cities.
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Retail Therapy

When you’re single and ready to flamingle (though we do not endorse this look).

Hi, all, happy Easter. Hope you have a terrific weekend.:)

No column today.

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Microsoft execs have reportedly been meeting with private equity firms mulling over bids to buy Yahoo and telling investors the company might be willing to lend significant financing to their efforts. Recode has the story here.

Netflix admits it’s been throttling its videos on AT&T’s and Verizon’s wireless networks for more than five years, saying it wanted to protect users from exceeding data caps, which could discourage viewing. The WSJ has the story here.

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New Fundings

6Fusion, an eight-year-old, Raleigh, N.C.-based end-to-end cloud management platform, has raised $6.6 million from investors, shows an SEC filing. More here.

Bromium, a 5.5-year-old, Cupertino, Ca.-based developer of endpoint protection using virtualization, has raised $40 million in funding from Silver Lake Waterman and earlier backers, including Andreessen Horowitz,Ignition Partners, Highland Capital Partners, Intel Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Meritech Capital Partners. The company has now raised $115 million altogether. More here.

CiValue, a two-year-old, Israel-based customer analytics and personalization cloud platform for grocery, health and beauty retailers, has raised $2.4 million in seed funding from Nielsen Innovate, Mac Fund and Deutsche Telekom. VentureBeat has more here.

DimensionalMechanics, a year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based startup that says it’s making artificial intelligence scalable, has raised $4.7 million in funding, shows an SEC filing. More here.

EndoStim, a seven-year-old, St. Louis, Mo.-based company that makes a neurostimulation device to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease, has raised $11 million in new funding, shows an SEC filing that shows a $20 million target. Earlier investors include Sante Ventures and Prolog Capital.

FLYR, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based travel and data science company, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from JetBlue Technology Ventures. More here.

Hive, a 10-month-old, New York-based team collaboration platform, has raised $1.4 million in seed funding led by Tribeca Venture Partners with participation from funds and angel investors from Google and Grey Group. More here.

Iterum Therapeutics, a year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based pharmaceutical company that’s developing anti-infective therapies, has raised $40 million in Series A funding led by Frazier Healthcare Partners, with participation fromCanaan Partners, Sofinnova Ventures and New Leaf Venture Partners. FierceBiotech has more here.

June, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based countertop “smart” oven designed by former Google, Apple and GoPro employees, has raised $22.5 million in Series A funding led by hardware and software investor Eclipse. Previous investors also participated in the round, including Foundry Group, First Round Capital, and Lerer Hippeau Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Lagou, a nearly three-year-old, Beijing, China-based online recrutiing platform, has reportedly raised $34 million in Series C funding led by Hongdao Capital, with participation from earlier backers Qiming Venture Partners and Rongchao Capital. DealStreetAsia has more here.

Soasta, a 10-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based performance analytics business, has raised $30 million in debt funding led by Tennenbaum Capital, with participation from earlier backers Canaan Venture Partners, Pelion Venture Partners and Formative Ventures. More here.

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New Funds

Forté Ventures, a four-year-old, Atlanta-based VC firm, is looking to raise up to $75 million for its second fund, shows an SEC filing that states the first sale has yet to occur. More here.

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Exits

Ebates, a San Francisco-based subsidiary of Rakuten, has acquired Shopular, a four-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based mobile product discovery app, for undisclosed terms. Shopular had raised $13.6 million, including from Sequoia Capital, shows CrunchBase.

Olapic, a 5.5-year-old, New York-based startup that helps brands leverage user-generated images, has acquired Piqora, a 3.5-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based visual marketing and visual commerce platform for marketers and publishers. Deal terms aren’t being disclosed. Olapic has raised $21 million in funding, according to CrunchBase. Its backers include Felix Capital and Fung Capital. Piqora had raised roughly $11 million, shows CrunchBase. Its backers include DFJ, Baseline Ventures and Freestyle Capital.

PriceZombie, a three-year-old, Tampa, Fla.-based price comparison site, is shutting down without investor intervention, the company announced this morning, saying it lost 90 percent of its income after its Amazon affiliate account was closed. The company appears to have been bootstrapped. More here.

Snapchat has agreed to acquire Bitstrips, an 8.5-year-old, Toronto-based company that makes customized emojis, for a reported $100 million in cash and stock (roughly). Bitstrips had raised $11 million in funding, including fromHorizons Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Fortune has thestory here.

TiVo, the digital video recorder company, is reportedly in advanced negotiations to be sold to Rovi, one of the largest owners of patents for digital entertainment devices. Dealbook has the story here.

—–

People

Alphabet’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, on how Google helps the government track down criminals.

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Jobs

Credit Karma is looking to hire a summer associate to join its corporate development team. The job is in San Francisco.

—–

Essential Reads

Snapchat has hit a notable milestone: for the first time ever, its iOS application reached the top of the iTunes App Store, where it briefly become the number one “overall” free application in the U.S. More here.

Square has jumped into the online lending business.

Dyson may be gunning for Tesla Motors. Here’s why.

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Detours

Professional rowers really seem to love economics, finance, and management.

In Tokyo, friendship is just a credit-card swipe away.

The 100 funniest Twitter jokes. (Our favorite: Hello sir, I-*briefcase full of jellybeans falls open*)

—–

Retail Therapy

Trax & Wax. And seriously fashionable backpacks.

Hi, everyone, happy Thursday!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Hedge fund Starboard Value is seeking to remove the entire board of Yahoo, setting the stage for a battle over the future of the faded Web giant. (We’re actually starting to feel sorry for CEO Marissa Mayer.)

Google is reportedly building a live-streaming app to take on Twitter‘s Periscope.

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Recharge Invites Users to Book Hotel Rooms — One Minute at a Time

Call it on-demand on steroids. A 10-month-old, San Francisco company called Rechargehas developed an app that enables users to book a stay in hotel for just for 67 cents a minute, or $40 an hour.

The offering sounds both brilliant and preposterous, yet it has already attracted some smart investors, including Scott and Cyan Banister and early Google engineer Harry Cheung, who’ve provided the company with $650,000 in seed funding. It’s raising up to $2.5 million altogether.

To learn more about the company, we chatted recently with CEO Emmanual Bamfo, who held numerous brief stints at startups, including at the carpooling company Hitch (acquired by Lyft), before teaming up with two former classmates at Washington University in St. Louis to create Recharge.

Okay, so tell us about this seemingly crazy idea that just might work. Who is your target audience?

Somebody who came up to San Francisco from L.A. for a day trip booked a Recharge earlier today. We see folks who just want to change a diaper or nurse their baby. We get people who live in Menlo Park but work in San Francisco and who want to shower and take a little time for themselves before they head to an evening engagement.

It’s a real need that we’re solving. [Customers] are getting privacy in the city to nap or shower or prepare for something. You can’t do that at Starbuck’s.

This concept is very much like that of Breather, which provides on-demand rooms in cities so that visitors can pop in to relax with friends or maybe make some quiet calls. We should also note that Breather has raised nearly $28 million from investors. Why is this better?

More here.

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New Fundings

Acutus Medical, a five-year-old, Carlsbad, Ca.-based medical device maker with a new technology for diagnosing and treating irregular heartbeats, has raised $75 million in Series C funding, including from new investors Deerfield Management, Xeraya Capital, and an undisclosed strategic investor. Advent Life Sciences, the company’s founding investor, also joined the round, along with existing backers OrbiMed and GE Ventures. Xconomy has more here.

Fixt, a three-year-old, Baltimore, Md.-based app for on-demand smartphone repair services (it works with both individuals and enterprise customers), has raised $1.4 million in seed funding, according to VentureWire. More here.

Juno, a months-old, New York-based ride-sharing service that is planning to take on Uber, is talking with investors about a $30 million round of funding, according to several TechCrunch sources, one of whom said of the valuation that Juno seeking, “It’s high.”  More here.

Kreditech, a four-year-old, Hamburg, Germany-based startup that offers loans and other financial services to consumers who have little or no credit history, has added another $11 million to its Series C financing, bringing the total round to $103 million. The new capital comes from the International Finance Corporation (a division of the World Bank). Other investors already in the round — which initially closed last September — include PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Amadeus Capital Partners, Värde Partners, HPE Growth Capital, Blumberg Capital, and the private equity firm J.C. Flowers, which invested the most in the round. More here.

LifeBEAM Technologies, a four-year-old, New York-based startup that makes wearable goods for measuring fitness and performance, has raised $16 million in Series A funding, says VentureWire. Square Peg Capital led the round, with participation from Wellborn Ventures, Cerca Partners, Atomic14 Ventures, Triventures and angel investors. More here.

Mesosphere, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based container-centric company that aims to help enterprises better use their data centers with the help of its own operating system, has raised a $73.5 million Series C funding round. The round was led by Hewlett Packard Enterprise and also includes previous investors Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, and Fuel Capital, as well as new investors A Capital, Triangle Peak Partners, and Microsoft. TechCrunch has more here.

OneRent, a nearly two-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based startup behind a full-service rental management platform for landlords and tenants, has raised $4 million in Series A funding from the Chinese social-networking company Renren. More here.

Turner, a unit of Time Warner, reportedly intends to pour $100 million into its digital sports property, Bleacher Report. The WSJ has the story here.

Verdigris, a five-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca., based company that makes cloud analytics software for enterprise facilities managers and large commercial buildings, has raised $9 million in funding across a previously undisclosed seed and Series A round, including from Jabil Circuit, Stanford StartX Fund, Founder.org Capital, DCVC, and a collection of private investors. More here.

Zeel Networks, a 5.5-year-old, New York-based on-demand massage startup, has closed $10 million of a $12 million Series A round. Emil Capital Partnersled the round, with participation from Slow Ventures, Partech Ventures, New Atlantic Ventures and Spafinder. The company has raised $11.5 million to date. VentureWire has more here.

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New Funds

Gobi Partners has partnered with Malaysia Venture Capital Management Berhard (MAVCAP), which claims to be the country’s largest venture capital firm, to launch a $14.5 million fund dedicated to seed-stage companies in Southeast Asia. More here.

True Ventures, the 10-year-old, early-stage venture firm, is targeting $295 million for its fifth investment fund, according to an SEC filing. The company, which closed its last fund with $290 million in 2014, could presumably raise much more. We wrote last fall about why that is.

—–

Exits

AppDirect, a company that helps customers manage multiple cloud vendors, is spending an undisclosed amount to acquire Xendo, a two-year-old startup that enables users to conduct federated searches across cloud services. This is the sixth purchase for AppDirect, which has raised more than $245 million so far. As for Xendo, it’ raised just $28,000 in seed money, says TechCrunch. More here.
—–

People

Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen has announced a $100 million investment in the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group, a fund focusing on the future of biotech research. Allen, who is worth about $15.3 billion, announced the investment yesterday at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. More here.

We told you in late 2014 that things were a mess at Nest Labs, particularly pertaining to its $550 million acquisition of Dropcam. Today, The Information takes an even deeper dive, with insight from Dropcam’s cofounder and CEO Greg Duffy, who left Nest after CEO Tony Fadell reportedly told him, “You can’t report to me because you haven’t earned it.” More here.

Smartwatch pioneer Pebble is laying off 25 percent of its staff amid increased financial concerns. More here.

—–

Data

Email is dying among mobile’s youngest users, says a new report out of App Annie (that we hope is wrong).

—–

Essential Reads

Instacart is  . . . generating profits?

A new startup, Boom, just landed a $2 billion deal with Virgin Group. Now it just needs to build 10 supersonic planes.

—–

Detours

You’re excited! Not nervous. Just keep telling yourself that.

—–

Retail Therapy

Neat. Swivel chairs, made from old Vespa parts.

Hi, everyone. It is Wednesday! [Slowly rolls head from left to right, cracks knuckles.]

Quick mention: If you’re interested in hardware and seed investing, we’ll be moderating a related investor panel on Tuesday, April 5 at Highway1’s offices in San Francisco. Among the featured investors: Charles Hudson of Precursor VC, Semil Shah of Haystack, and Highway1’s Brady Forrest. Come if you can; it should be fun. More details here.

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Cellebrite, an Israel-based maker of mobile forensic software, is reportedly helping the company that’s helping the FBI in its attemp to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino, California shooters. Reuters has the story here.

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Former Apple Exec Launches At-Home Blood Test Startup

Bob Messerschmidt knows a little about health and wellness tech, having spent three years helping architect the Apple Watch platform after Apple quietly acquired his spectroscopy company, Rare Light, in 2010. (The terms were undisclosed.)

Messerschmidt also knew when he left Apple to found a new company that it would again involve smartphones. After all, he reasoned, they’re starting to help us track not just our general wellness but also our responses to medicine and other treatments. The bigger question was which chronic condition he would tackle and before long, he settled on Cor, a now two-year-old, San Francisco-based, consumer-facing startup that helps measure heart health, all with just a tiny drop of blood.

Before you start worrying that Cor is a young Theranos, the embattled blood testing company, it’s worth noting that there are many meaningful differences between the two companies. For one thing, Cor wants people to test themselves in their own homes, using an appliance the size of an electric toothbrush and disposable cartridges. Their blood chemistry information is then sent “into the cloud,” analyzed, and results are beamed backed to users within five minutes, along with helpful tips about how to improve them.

Which raises another important point: Cor isn’t trying to tell its users anything definitive. “Theranos is trying to provide diagnostic numbers,” notes Messerschmidt. “We’re not. We’re not a medical device company. We’re providing life style guidance.”

It’s trying to be as transparent as possible about how, too.

More here.

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New Fundings

Aerin Medical,  a five-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based company that develops devices and procedures for improved nasal breathing, has raised $16.7 million in Series C funding from Targeted Technology Fund and KCK Group. FinSMEs has more here.

BetterWorks, a 2.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based cloud-based platform designed to help employees set and reach business goals, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Emergence Capital, with participation from earlier backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC. (Formation 8 was a Series A investor in the company.) Vator has more here.

Convoy, a year-old, Seattle-based on-demand service for local and regional trucking, has raised $16 million in Series A funding led by Greylock Partners. The company had raised $2.5 million in seed funding last fall. The Seattle Times has more here.

Domo, a 5.5-year-old, American Fork, Ut.-based data management platform company, has raised $131 million in additional Series D funding, pushing a $200 million round that it had initially closed last April to a whopping $331 million. The newest capital comes from BlackRock and unnamed family offices n Asia and Russia. The company, currently valued at $2 billion, has now raised $589 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

FOVE, a nearly two-year-old, San Francisco-based developer of an eye-tracking VR headset, has raised $11 million in Series A funding led by the Japanese game publisher Colopl. TechCrunch has more here.

GoCardless, a five-year-old, London-based payments company that makes collecting payments by direct debit easy, has raised a $13 million in new funding led by Notion Capital, with participation from earlier backers Balderton Capital, Accel Partners, and Passion Capital. TechCrunch hasmore here.

HomeUnion, a 6.5-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based online real estate investment management firm that specializes in single-family rental properties, has raised $16 million in Series B funding from Artiman Ventures, Colchis Capital, Northgate Capital, and Tamarisc. HomeUnion has now raised $23 million in funding altogether. More here.

Polarsteps, a 1.5-year-old, Amsterdam-based company that makes an automated travel blogging app, has raised €500,000 ($563,000) in seed funding from Silver Point Ventures and TMG. TechCrunch has more here.

Quanterix Corporation, a nine-year-old, Lexington, Ma.-based diagnostic company whose device is able to test for proteins in the blood that correlate with a variety of different diseases, has raised $46 million in Series D funding led by three new strategic investors: Trinitas Capital, Cormorant Asset Management, and Arch Overage Fund. Existing investors also joined the deal, including ARCH Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, Tufts University and David Walt. Hercules Capital participated, too. More here.

Science Exchange, a nearly five-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based scientific research marketplace, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Maverick Capital, with participation from Union Square Ventures, Index Ventures, OATV, Collaborative Fund, YC Continuity Fund and individual angels. TechCrunch has more here.

Start A Fire, a two-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based company whose software enables individuals and brands to promote their social presence and content over any link they share, has raised $2.5 million in funding led by Canaan Venture Partners, with participation from Lool Ventures and Aleksandar Totic, who was one of the original developers of the Mosaic browser. More here.

Stratoscale, a three-year-old, Herzliya, Israel-based company that sells data center software, has raised $27 million in Series C funding from Qualcomm Ventures along with earlier backers Battery Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Cisco Investments, Intel Capital and SanDisk Ventures. More here.

Visionary VR, a 1.5-year-old, L.A.-based story creation software company that’s hoping to make it possible for people other than expert-level developers to create VR stories, has raised $6 million in Series A funding by DFJ Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Last October, we told you about the newest early-stage fund of Frazier Healthcare Partners, a 25-year-old firm. Now, the firm is announcing that it has closed a companion fund, Frazier Healthcare Growth Buyout Fund VIII, at $525 million. The fund, which is run out of the firm’s Seattle office, was oversubscribed, according to its partners.

—–

People

Power couple? Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez is reportedly dating 23andme CEO Anne Wojcicki.

—–

Essential Reads

All 60(!) companies that launched at Y Combinator’s Demo Day yesterday.

SpaceX’s big plan to launch rockets every few weeks.

—–

Detours

Tesla is now offering Ludicrous Mode upgrades for older P90D models because why not.

The stars of “Silicon Valley” guess what real startups do.

—–

Retail Therapy

Hahaha. Worst place ribbons.

Hi, happy Tuesday, everyone. (We’re thinking of those of you in Europe today. Ugh.)

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Here’s everything that Apple announced yesterday.

The FBI thinks it has found a way to hack into that iPhone 5c without Apple’s help.

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A VC in Greece, Operating in Tumultuous Times

Georgios Kasselakis has the same concerns as most VCs: How to raise money, how to grow the money investors provide him, how to identify the most promising startups.

Unlike most VCs, Kasselakis and his seed-stage firm, OpenFund, are based in Athens, Greece, a country that’s nearly bankrupt and where, even worse, more than 44,000 refugees are now trapped (a number that’s growing daily, owing to the closed-door policies of its neighbors).

We talked with Kasselakis last week via email to learn more about how seven-year-old OpenFund operates, and how it’s coping with what’s happening all around it.

How much money is OpenFund managing?

We sit on top of a €15 million fund, which is our second one. [It’s] a big jump from the €500,000 that we originally launched with.

How many companies has your firm funded to date?

We’ve made more than 20 investments in our second fund. While small by Silicon Valley standards,  you have to keep in mind the cost of labor for highly trained knowledge workers (developers, IT, network), which is roughly six to seven times less than the Valley.

How many other active tech venture firms are there in Athens?

There are four:  Odyssey Venture Partners; First Athens; VentureFriends, which just launched; and PJ Tech Catalyst.

Is that more or less than, say, five years ago?

A lot fewer. At some point, a fund of funds firm called Taneo had helped create more than 10, which were then discontinued. Most fund managers stumbled on the crisis, panicked, and didn’t do any investments at all.

More here.

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New Fundings

Big Basket, a 4.5-year-old, Bangalore, India-based online grocery delivery company, has raised $150 million in new funding led by Abraaj Group, with participation from International Finance Corp, Sands Capital, and earlier backers Bessemer Venture Partners and Helion Advisors. More here.

BYJU, an eight-year-old, Bangalore, India-based educational app for Indian schoolchildren, has raised $75 million from Sequoia India and Sofina. The round brings the company’s total funding to $90 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Edgewater Markets, a seven-year-old, New York-based electronic foreign exchange aggregation and distribution platform, has raised $30 million in growth equity led by FTV Capital. More here.

Hi, everyone, welcome back! Hope you had a fun weekend.

—–

Top News in the A.M.

A group of Johns Hopkins University researchers has found a bug in Apple’s vaunted encryption, one that would enable a skilled attacker to decrypt photos and videos sent as secure instant messages.

Speaking of Apple, it’s holding its smaller iPhone event today; here’s where towatch the live stream.

Also newly posted: How to reserve your Model 3.

—–

How Goguen’s Suit Hurts Sequoia

The Friday before last, we told you that longtime Sequoia partner Michael Goguen had been slapped with a stomach-turning complaint. At its crux, it accused him of breaching an agreement he’d made to pay $40 million to a woman he’d known for years. Apparently, after paying her $10 million, Goguen concluded that he was within his rights to stop writing her checks. The woman then hired a lawyer.

Whether the case ever goes to trial is now beside the point for Goguen, who has enjoyed a lucrative career as a venture capitalist and who, fairly or unfairly, will now be publicly associated with that complaint and the person who filed it, despite his strongly worded counter-complaint.

Fairly or unfairly, it also does real damage to Sequoia Capital.

Entrepreneurs aren’t the immediate issue. It would take a lot more than this bizarre situation for most founders to be deterred from accepting a check from Sequoia, whose imprimatur can make everything easier, from assembling a team, to attracting press, to, later, luring the right investment bankers.

That Goguen is no longer a partner of Sequoia certainly minimizes the damage. (A spokesman didn’t elaborate when explaining to us last week why Sequoia decided Goguen’s departure was the “appropriate course of action.” But we suspect his original deal with his accuser was made without the firm’s knowledge, which would be a major no-no. That kind of financial agreement would be material information to a partnership.)

A much bigger problem for Sequoia will be recruiting female investing partners.

More here.

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New Fundings

ApniCure, a nine-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based startup whose medical device aims to treat sleep apnea, has raised $15.8 million toward a $17.4 million financing, according to an SEC filing first flagged by VentureWire. The company previously raised capital from Capricorn Investment Group, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and U.S. Venture Partners. More here.

Atlantic Healthcare, a nine-year-old, U.K.-based specialty pharmaceutical company focused on gastrointestinal disorders, has raised $24 million in funding from LDC, Fullbrook Thorpe Investments, the founders of Salix Pharmaceuticals, and earlier investors. More here.

Distribusion Technologies, a 3.5-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based company that connects travel resellers like travel websites, travel agencies and tour operators, with intercity bus operators worldwide, has raised €6 million ($11.3 million) in funding from Northzone, Creandum, HR Ventures and seed investor Frühphasenfonds Brandenburg. TechCrunch has more here.

eGym, a five-year-old, Munich, Germany-based startup that offers cloud-connected gym equipment and supporting cloud software and apps for fitness training, has raised $45 million in Series C funding led by HPE Growth Capital, with participation from earlier backers, including Highland Europe. TechCrunch has more here.

Elliptic, a three-year-old, U.K.-based fintech startup whose blockchain forensics tool mines the public Bitcoin ledger to identify and flag suspicious transaction patterns, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Paladin Capital Group, with participation from Santander InnoVentures, KRW Schindler, Digital Currency Group, and earlier investor Octopus Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

FuboTV, a nearly two-year-old, New York-based TV service that’s focused on streaming and curating soccer content, has raised $15 million in Series B funding, according to an SEC filing flagged by Fortune. Earlier backers include 21st Century Fox, I2BF Digital, BAM Ventures and Luminary Capital. More here.

Girnar Software, a nine-year-old, Rajasthan, India-based company that oversees several auto portals in India including CarDekho.com, has raised an undisclosed amount of new funding from Google Capital, with participation from earlier backer Hillhouse Capital. This is the fourth Indian startup Google Capital has invested in. (Its other bets include Freshdesk, Commonfloor, and Practo.) TechCrunch has more here.

GreatHorn, a year-old, Belmont, Ma.-based cloud security platform startup focused on stopping phishing attacks, has raised $2.25 million in seed funding led by ff Venture Capital and SoftTech VC, with participation from Techstars Ventures, RRE Ventures, Zelkova Ventures, V1.VC and local investor Walter Winshall. More here.

Mattermark, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that examines public Internet data to provide investors, sales teams and others with search tools and other business intelligence, has raised $7.3 million in Series B funding at a $42 million valuation from inside investors. Foundry Group led the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Mirriad, an eight-year-old, London-based maker of in-video ad software, has raised $15 million in funding led by IP Group PLC, with participation from Parkway Funds and Unilever Ventures. More here.

Moat, a 5.5-year-old, New York-based online media analytics company, has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by Insight Venture Partners. The WSJ has more here.

Partender, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based app that reduces the time it takes bar managers and owners to assess their inventory by digitizing the process, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding, including, reportedly, from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s parents and 500 Startups.

ServisHero, a nine-month-old, Malaysia-based company that provides local services on-demand in Southeast Asia via a mobile app, has raised $2.7 million in funding led by Golden Gate Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

StreetShares, a 1.5-year-old, Reston, Va.-based online lender, has raised $4.5 million in in the first tranche of its Series A round. The venture firm Fenway Summer, founded by a former deputy director at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is leading the round. Endeavor Equity Holdings and Pivot Investments are also participating in the round, which is still open. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Tinkergarten, a 1.5-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based startup that enables a network of instructors to lead classes for young children in parks, has raised $1.6 million in a seed round led by Omidyar Network. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

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New Funds

Bronze Investments, a new, Palo Alto, Ca.-based firm founded by Stephen DeBerry, a former partner with Kapor Capital and Omidyar Network, is looking to raise a debut fund of $50 million, shows an SEC filing first flagged by Fortune.

Empire Angels, a 3.5-year-old, New York based angel group that invests in early-stage tech start-ups, has raised $450,000 for a fund, shows a new SEC filing.

Movac, an 18-year-old, Wellingon, New Zealand-based venture firm, aims to raise at least $80 million by June for a new investment fund, it tells a local outlet. Toward that end, it has already lined up a commitment of up to $20 milllion from the Crown-owned New Zealand Venture Investment Fund. Stuff.co.nz has more here.

“Opportunity” funds are beginning to crop up in India, too, seemingly. Zodius Capital, a five-year-old, Mumbai, India-based venture firm, is  is raising a follow-on fund of up to $40 million to support its maturing portfolio companies, it tells LiveMint. According to managing director Gautam Patel, the firm has already held a first close of $30 million toward that end. Zodius raised a central fund, its $110 million Zodius Technology Fund, last year. More here.

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Exits

Next Step Living, an eight-year-old, Boston-based company that sold home energy evaluations and software to individuals and organizations, has shut down, it announced Friday on its website. The company had reportedly raised more than $80 million in venture capital, including from Black Coral Capital,VantagePoint Capital Partners, and Braemar Energy Ventures. Xconomy has more here.

Indian transportation app Ola has acquired Qarth, a startup that has developed a mobile payments app called X-Pay. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The is the third acquisition announced by Ola, and the first to build out an aspect of its business beyond basic transportation. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

People

Dave Engberg, Evernote’s founding CTO, is leaving the company in May.

Motorola President Rick Osterloh is leaving Lenovo amid a broad reorganization.

Jeff Williams, a former senior vice president of sales at the cybersecurity vendor FireEye, has joined Bain Capital Ventures as its first operating partner in California.

—–

Jobs

Yamaha is looking to hire someone willing to work double-duty as an accountant and venture analyst at its corporate venturing arm. The job is in Menlo Park, Ca.

—–

Essential Reads

Good news, cloud companies. Google is shopping for cloud companies.

What’s going on beneath the subprime auto loan turmoil.

Gawker is toast.

—–

Detours

Laser shaming.

The Bay Area Airbnb for both Biebs and Beyonce.

“Silicon Valley” returns next month to HBO. Here’s the trailer.

The Obama doctrine.

—–

Retail Therapy

A hoodie engineered to chill you out.