Hi, everyone!

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Top News in the A.M.

Facebook has rolled out six more emoticons. We feel so happy! Sad. Angry! Hungry.

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Travel Platform KimKim Brings Back the Travel Agent

Sometimes, there can be a little too much disruption. So goes the thesis of Joost Schreve, the former head of mobile for TripAdvisor, who left the company last November and started his own startup, KimKim, in December.

The nascent company — newly seed-funded with $1 million from investors, including NFX Guild — is catering to the presumably many people who no long want to plan their next vacation by scouring the web. Its simple, secret weapon? Good old-fashioned travel agents, who talk online with customers via a conversational interface.

We talked with Schreve earlier this morning to learn more about what he’s developing at his four-person, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company. Our conversation has been lightly edited for length.

You left TripAdvisor — where you worked after selling it your startup in 2011 — expressly to start this new thing. What wasn’t TripAdvisor doing that you think you can?

TripAdvisor and many sites like it have a lot of information, so users have to do a lot of filtering and comparing and it becomes a very painful process, especially for trips that are complex or longer. The average consumer goes to 38 different sites, according to an Expedia study, and they spend more than 10 hours [researching these more involved trips].

The difference between this painful process and a nice process is one person who is unbiased and can help you.

We are talking, of course, of the long-maligned travel agent. But how do you convince people that these online agents are unbiased and not getting kickbacks for their recommendations? Wasn’t that part of the problem to begin with?

More here.

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New Fundings

AppilyEverAfter, a months-old, Hyderabad, India-based wedding services app, has raised $400,000 from a group of angel investors. The Economic Times has more here.

Captain401, a year-old, San Francisco-based company whose tech allows employers to quickly set up 401(k) retirement savings plans for employees, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by SoftTech VC, with participation from SV Angel, CrunchFund, Slow Ventures, Susa Ventures, FundersClub, former NFL quarterback Joe Montana, and others. VentureBeat has more here.

ClearMetal, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based predictive logistics startup, has raised $3 million in seed funding from New Enterprise Associates, Skyview and Innovation Endeavors. FinSMEs has more here.

Deliv, a three-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca-based crowdsourced same-day delivery startup, has raised $28 million in new funding from UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, with participation from earlier backers Upfront Ventures, RPM Ventures, PivotNorth Capital, General Growth Properties, The Macerich Company, Simon Venture Group, Taubman Centers and Westfield Corp. We talked with the company about its business model back in November.

Forty Seven, a young, Palo Alto, Ca.- based immuno-oncology startup started by a group of Stanford professors, has raised $75 million in Series A funding co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sutter Hill Ventures, with participation from Clarus Ventures and Google Ventures. More here.

Loanzen, a six-month-old, Bangalore, India-based peer-to-peer lending marketplace, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Tracxn Labs, angel investors through Tracxn Syndicate, and others. Inc 42 has more here.

MakeSpace, a three-year-old, New York-based self-storage business, has raised $17.5 million in funding led by Harmony Venture Partners and Upfront Ventures, with participation from its Series A and seed investors. (These include Founders Fund, Carmelo Anthony’s Melo7Tech, and Gary Vaynerchuk.) TechCrunch has more here.

NICO, a nine-year-old, Indianapolis, In.-based company that makes “corridor” surgical instruments that provide access to difficult-to-reach places in the body through smaller openings, has raised $15 million in new funding from earlier backers River Cities Capital Funds and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. FierceMedicalDevices has more here.

NoBroker, a 1.5-year-old, Bangalore, India-based person-to-person property rental site, has raised $10 million in Series B funding co-led by Beenext and Digital Garage, with participation from Qualgro, Asuka Holdings and return backer SAIF Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

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Top News in the A.M.

Wow. Oscar, the nearly three-year-old, New York-based health insurance company, has raised $400 million in funding led by Fidelity Investments at a valuation of $2.7 billion, reports Forbes. As its report notes, that’s roughly $1 billion more than when the startup last raised funding — $32.5 million from Google Capital — in September.

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“Tough Sledding” for New Funds in 2016, Says LP

Most institutional investors are notoriously circumspect. Chris Douvos is not like most institutional investors. In fact, Douvos, a managing director with Venture Investment Associates — a fund of funds group that commits capital to venture capital, growth capital, and private equity groups — is very opinionated comparatively.

It’s a refreshing quality, particularly when looking for insights into how the people who fund venture firms are feeling about the industry right now. And according to Douvos, they’re nervous, including because their venture customers are coming back to them a lot sooner for capital than they once did.

He explained during a chat on Friday, which we’ve lightly edited for length.

There’s a lot of nervousness out there suddenly. Are you feeling it at VIA, or does it seem to you like this will pass?

A lot of people are worried right now that we’re in a game of musical chairs, and no one wants to be standing when the music stops. People think that 80 to 90 percent of the billion dollar companies will end up getting liquid for less than a billion dollars, and I think there’s truth to that. We’ve been in a market where capital has been relatively cheap, and we’re looking ahead to a market where capital will get more expensive potentially.

So VCs should be selling before things fall further? We wrote about secondary firms last week, and they say they’re getting a lot of calls.

CD: LPS are definitely yelling at VCs to put some ‘moolah in the coolah.’ They’re hammering their GPs to turn some of that [paper] value into actual cash because of what I call the exit sphincter. When the capital isn’t coming back [to institutional investors], it interrupts the flow of things. We give out money expecting it will come back with profits in a reasonable amount of time. When it doesn’t, we can’t put more money into the asset class because a.) we’re at the top of our allocation [to venture capital and b.) we’re out of money.

We have a down-trending public market at the same time that [our] private investments are really inflated [and not exiting], so LPs are getting doubly crushed.

But you saw some money back. For example, one of your funds is True Ventures, which made an apparent fortune on its early check to Fitbit.

We have seen money from Fitbit and there’s more on the way. We’re in some great funds. But now, all the funds we love are coming back in 2016.

More here.

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New Fundings

Betterview, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company that uses drones to collect data that is then analyzed by remote roofing experts, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Arena Ventures. More here.

Namely, a four-year-old, New York-based HR software platform for mid-market companies, has raised $30 million in Series D funding led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Matrix Partners, True Ventures and Greenspring Associates. Fortune has more here.

MasterClass, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based online education platform that’s luring some of the most talented professionals in their respective fields to teach, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates. Javelin Venture Partners also joined the round, which follows a previously undisclosed $4.5 million Series A led by Javelin. Other investors in the company include Bloomberg Beta, Novel TMT Ventures, Advancit Capital, Harrison Metal, WME Ventures, Downey Ventures, and numerous individual investors, Casper CEO Philip Krim, actor Kevin Spacey and singer Usher. We talked with the company’s founders here.

Mintos, a 1.5-year-old, Riga Latvia- based peer-to-peer lending marketplace, has raised €2 million ($2.2 million) in seed funding from Skillion Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Raw Pressery, a three-year-old, Mumbai, India-based home delivery service for cold-pressed juices in India, has raised $4.5 million in Series B funding from Sequoia Capital, Saama Capital and DSG Consumer Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Razer, an 18-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based Carlsbad, Ca.-based maker of interactive gaming hardware, has raised $75 million in Series C funding at a $1.5 billion valuation, says TechCrunch. The funding comes in part from China, specifically the Digital Grid subsidiary of IT company Hangzhou Liaison Interactive. TechCrunch has more here.

Reflektion, a four-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based company that uses machine learning to recommend e-commerce products to shoppers so they’re shown just-right products in real time, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led by Battery Ventures, with participation from Hasso Plattner Ventures and earlier backer Intel Capital. More here.

TaskBob, a year-old, Mumbai, India-based home services startup that pairs customers with servicemen, has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding led by IvyCap Ventures,  with participation from earlier backers Orios Venture Partners and Mayfield. TechCrunch has more here.

Team8, a two-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based cybersecurity startup, has raised $23 million in Series B funding, including from AT&T, Accenture, Nokia,Mitsui & Co. and Temasek. The companies earlier backers include Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent, Bessemer Venture Partners, Marker and Innovation Endeavors. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

500 Startups has just launched two micro funds: A $25 million fintech fund, to be run by Sheel Mohnot and 500 Startups cofounder Dave McClure, and a $25 million India fund, to be run by Pankaj Jain and McClure. More here and here.

Battery Ventures, a 33-year-old investment firm with offices in San Francisco, Menlo Park, Boston, and Herzliya, Israel, has raised $950 million across two new funds: a main fund, Battery Ventures XI, which is a $650 million pool, and a side fund that will support the company’s larger investments, which closed with $300 million. The firm previously similarly closed a $650 main fund and a $250 million side fund in 2013. More here.

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Exits

Ativision Blizzard today announced that it has closed its acquisition of King Digital for $5.9 billion, a deal that it says makes it the largest game network in the world with more than 500 million users. TechCrunch has more here.

Publicly traded ResMed is paying $800 million in cash for Brightree, a 14-year-old, Lawrenceville, Ga-based maker of business management and clinical software that Battery Ventures began backing in 2008. (Battery was its majority owner as of yesterday.) The Atlanta Business Chronicle has more here.

Synacor, a company that provides monetization services for ISPs, carriers and others that offer content services, has acquired Technorati, once a leading authority for ranking important blogs and other sites online, for $3 million in cash. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Bill Gates is siding with the FBI and says Apple should unlock the phone of the San Bernardino shooter. He has plenty of company, seemingly. Pew Research Center has just released a study on the dispute between the FBI and Apple. Fifty-one percent of Americans think Apple should assist the FBI and unlock the iPhone 5c, while 38 percent of Americans side with Apple. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is meanwhile siding with Apple on this one.

Kabam, a nine-year-old, San Francisco-based games developer, is letting go of nearly 8 percent of its employees in order to cut its burn rate. VentureBeat has more here.

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Jobs

Hearst Health Ventures, a member of the Hearst Organization, is looking for a venture capital associate. The job is in South San Francisco.

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Essential Reads

Venture capital firm Fenox Venture Capital in San Jose, Ca., has agreed to pay $331,269 in back wages after the U.S. Department of Labor found the company misclassified 56(!) workers as unpaid interns. The WSJ has more here.

Time Inc., is reportedly interesting in joining the fray of Yahoo suitors. Bloomberg has more here.

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Detours

Happy Monday, everyone! Hope you had a stellar weekend. We’re excited to see a bunch of you four days from now.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Early this morning, Apple CEO Tim Cook sent an email out to employees about the FBI’s request to unlock an iPhone with the subject line “Thank you for your support.” More here.

In related news, the director of the FBI has claimed that the organization is not trying to break Apple’s encryption or set up backdoor access to Apple’s devices and services.

In unrelated news, Cook has again refused to confirm that Apple is working on a car.

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Social Capital’s Newest Partners on How the Firm Works

Ashley Carroll and Arjun Sethi never thought they’d be working as venture capitalists. Yet in the last year, both have landed at Social Capital, a 4.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based firm that incubates and invests in companies in healthcare, education, financial services, mobile and enterprise software.

Social Capital was also, somewhat famously, created by Chamath Palihapitiya, a straight-shooting former Facebook and AOL executive who brought in as cofounders Mamoon Hamid and Ted Maidenberg, former colleagues at USVP. Hamid started his investing career at USVP; Maidenberg’s first gig as a VC was at Time Warner Ventures in 1999.

Carroll joined the firm last spring after previously working as a product lead at Docusign, Optimizely, and SurveyMonkey. Sethi was the cofounder and CEO of the mobile messaging app MessageMe, which was acquired by Yahoo for reportedly “double digit millions” in 2014; he remained at Yahoo as a senior director or product management until last month.

Neither was new to Social Capital when they joined, having served separate stints as EIRs. In fact, during a recent sit-down, the two – who bring Social Capital’s investment team to five people — told of a very fluid firm where entrepreneurs and investors drop in, hang out, then move on to other projects, often to return again. “It’s really a community of entrepreneurs-in-residence, executives-in-residence, engineers-in-residence, all loosely coupled but tightly aligned,” said Carroll.

Here are some other ways the firm is a little different from traditional venture firms:

More here.

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New Fundings

Chainalysis, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based regulatory platform designed to help companies transact on a blockchain, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding led by Point Nine Capital, with participation from Techstars, Digital Currency Group, Funders Club and Converge VP. FinSMEs has more here.

Impact Therapeutics, a seven-year-old, Nanjing, China-based developer of cancer drugs and treatments for other life-threatening diseases, has raised $10 million in Series B funding China Summit Capital, Guangzhou YUEXIU Industrial Investment Fund, Sungent Bioventure, HAIBANG Ventures and earlier backer Lilly Asia Ventures. More here.

JetSmarter, a 3.5-year-old, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.- based “Uber of private aircraft,” has raised $26.1 million in funding from members of the Saudi Royal family. Bloomberg has more here.

Magicpin, a year-old, Gurgaon, India-based hyperlocal discovery app, has raised $3 million in Series A funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners. TechStory.in has more here.

NuoDB, a five-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based cloud database software technology company, has raised $17 million in new funding from earlier backersHummer Winblad Venture Partners, Longworth Venture Partners andMorgenthaler Ventures. More here.

Qubit, a five-year-old, London-based big-data analytics platform formed by four former Googlers, has raised $40 million in Series C funding led byGoldman Sachs, with participation from Sapphire Ventures and earlier investors Salesforce Ventures and Accel Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Trusona, a year-old, Scottsdale, Az.-based iOS mobile identity authentication technology company, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers. Fortune has more here.

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New Funds

Lifeline Ventures, a seven-year-old, Helsinki-based early-stage venture firm, has closed on a new, €57 million ($63 million) fund to invest in startups. TechCrunch has more here.

At the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona yesterday, Nokia Growth Partners announced a new, $350 million fund focused specifically on the Internet of Things. TechCrunch has more here.

There’s a new, global, evergreen bioscience fund now up and running. London-based Perceptive Bioscience Investments — funded by Woodford Investment Management and other institutional investors — says it will back seed-stage companies, all the way to “mispriced” public companies. (H/T MedCity News.) More here.

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IPOs

Syndax Pharmaceuticals, a 10-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based company that’s developing a therapy that enhances immuno-oncology drugs, has announced terms for its IPO this morning. It’s the company’s second attempt to go public. Renaissance Capital has more here.

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People

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stole Samsung’s Galaxy S7 show this past weekend. Here’s how.

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Essential Reads

Fenwick & West just released its fourth quarter venture survey, covering 152 financings.

Uh oh. Sovereign wealth funds may withdraw $404.3 billion from global stock markets this year if crude prices stay between $30 to $40 per barrel, says the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute.

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Detours

The exercise that’s best for the brain.

The toast maker. “I’ve always loved making things with my hands — something that’s tactile.”

Top 10 trends from New York Fashion Week (including “logomania!”).

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Retail Therapy

Jaguar E-Types.

Live like the Big Lebowski.

Hi, everyone, it’s is Friday, whoop!

A few notes: First, congratulations to readers Sam, Kevin, and Daniela, who were among many of you to note some funny symbols of startup entitlement (including gluten-free and organic everything). They’ve received complimentary tickets to next week’s event, courtesy of Ludlow Ventures. In fact, thanks to everyone who wrote in yesterday. We tried writing back to most of you, but we were trying to steer 20 six-year-olds through Chinatown in San Francisco at the time, so apologies if we missed anyone. (In related news, six-year-olds can be terrible people.)

See you Monday.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Facebook and Twitter have joined team Apple in its public fight with the Obama administration over an iPhone used in the San Bernardino, Ca., shooting late last year.

Yahoo just hired investment banks Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and PJT Partners to help it explore its options.

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New Fundings

Hi, everyone, hope your Thursday is off to a great start.

Our upcoming event is now sold out, but we have some good news for those of you who’d still like to make it: One of our sponsors, Ludlow Ventures, is offering to give away three tickets. To make things interesting, we’re going to give the seats to the three readers who come up with the funniest symbol of startup entitlement. (Examples that you can’t use: Kind bars or exposed brick walls. VC Chamath Palihapitiya called those at our September event.)

We have somewhere to be suddenly, so it looks like we’re running an economy version of the newsletter today. We’ll have more funding news for you tomorrow.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Apple CEO Tim Cook’s letter on Monday about iPhone security drew somesupportive tweets from Google CEO Sundar Pichai yesterday. Overall, however, the tech industry’s response has been muted, notes the New York Times.

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Jana Raises $57M to Bring Unrestricted Internet Access to the World

Nathan Eagle was a Fulbright scholar from MIT, teaching at the University of Nairobi, when he had his “aha moment.”

Specifically, Eagle was teaching a mobile phone programming curriculum at the school when he and his students built an SMS system that enabled rural nurses to text information about low blood supply levels to centralized blood banks. (Earlier, the nurses depended on someone who drove from hospital to hospital, reporting back who needed what.)

The system earned Eagle praise and a photo in the local papers. Unfortunately, the nurses almost immediately stopped using the system. The reason: the onerous costs of text messaging. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was basically asking them to take a pay cut,” says Eagle.

Indeed, in many countries, including India, Brazil, and Indonesia, one of the main barriers to connectivity is the crippling cost of data. Facebook reminded the world of this problem when its India-focused Free Basics program — designed to offer free Internet access to certain sites only — was recently banned by India’s telecom regulator, which ruled that the practice of charging different prices to different customers is not acceptable.

Now, Facebook’s fumble looks well-timed for Eagle’s company, Jana, which has been quietly providing free, unrestricted Internet access in emerging markets.

How it works: through an Android app by Jana called mCent, users must first agree to immersive advertising experiences, like spending five to 10 minutes using Amazon’s app in exchange for 20 to 50 megabytes of data.

Another advertising client of Jana’s, the popular, India-based music streaming service Saavn, gives customers 10 free songs that they can listen to any time they want. The idea is to give those users a sense that their phone is much more than a two-way communication device; it’s a music player, too.

More here.

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New Fundings

Triptease, a three-year-old, London-based startup that provides a SaaS to enable hotels to increase direct sales, has closed $7 million in Series A funding from investors, including earlier backers Notion Capital and Episode 1. TechCrunch has more here.

Vera, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based cloud service that wants to protect data regardless of where it’s stored or used, announced a $17 million Series B today led by Sutter Hill Ventures, with participation from earlier Battery Ventures, Clear Venture Partners and Amplify Partners. The company has now raised $31 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Aaand now Campbell Soup is getting into the venture biz, launching a $125 million fund to invest in food startups.

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Exits

Google today announced that it is building its first engineering team devoted to Southeast Asia and toward that end has acquired Pie, a Slack-like team communications service based in Singapore. Pie, which raised $1.2 million in funding last year led by Gree Ventures, is the first acquisition Google has made in Southeast Asia. TechCrunch has more here.

IBM announced its intent to buy Truven Health Analytics today for a whopping $2.6 billion. Truven is a four-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based provider of data to hospitals, doctors and companies, that had reportedly begun preparing for an IPO last year. Truven had raisd an undisclosed amount of funding from InvestMichigan and others. TechCrunch has much more here.

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People

Jonathon Triest and Brett deMarrais of Detroit-based Ludlow Ventures (one of our sponsors) drive to work together every day, sometimes recording their in-car conversations with other entrepreneurs and VCs for a low-rent but often funny show they call Carpool VC. In the latest edition, they coax CEO Jeff Epstein of GetAmbassador.com into the car. (The company received Ludlow’s very first check.) You can check it out here.

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Jobs

General Mills wants to hire a venture capital analyst. The job is in St. Louis Park, Mn.

Intel is looking for a strategic business development manager. The job is in Santa Clara, Ca.

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Data

In the fourth quarter of last year, global smartphones sales  experienced their slowest growth rate since 2008, according to Gartner’s latest market report. The quarter saw sales of Apple’s iPhone decline for the first time, falling 4.4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2014. More here.

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Essential Reads

Secondary shops are being flooded with unicorn sellers. More here.

How startups learned to love debt.

The most important Apple executive you’ve never heard of.

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Detours

Nine incredible selfies from before they went mainstream.

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Retail Therapy

Droid socks.

Happy Wednesday, everyone! (It’s Wednesday, right?)

A quick note that our event early next Thursday night is now pretty much sold out. We could probably squeeze in another 10 of you, but that’s it. (The Autodesk Gallery doesn’t fool around with headcount, owing to insurance concerns.) Tickets are here.

We’re getting very excited to see a lot of our readers, both those of you we know and those who we’ll be meeting for the first time. Thanks again to our very generous sponsors Autodesk, AiBrain, Bolt, and Ludlow Ventures for making the evening possible!

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Top News in the A.M.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has confirmed that the company will appeal a California judge’s order to unlock an iPhone belonging to one of the terrorists involved in the San Bernardino shooting.

Google is getting into the business of delivering fresh groceries.

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RobinHealth Enters the Online Pharmacy Race

You’ve probably noticed; on-demand pharmacy services are springing up like daisies. New York-based Zipdrug, for example, is an online app that processes customers’ payments and dispatches messengers to pick up their medicine for a $10 delivery service fee. The company has so far raised more than $2.6 millionin seed funding from Notation Capital, Lux Capital, and Collaborative Fund, among others.

A better-funded upstart is PillPack, a full-service pharmacy that delivers pre-sorted pills packaged individually on a tape-dispenser-like roll to customers every two weeks. It has mostly operated as online platform, but after raising$50 million last year led by CRV, it’s opening small brick and mortar locations, too, where patients can consult with licensed pharmacists — and more people can learn of the company.

Online pharmacy ScriptDash formed around the same opportunity last spring.

None are stopping yet another new entrant from gearing up to compete with them. Instead, RobinHealth — a 10-month-old, San Francisco-based startup — has already raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding and is preparing to pitch investors at the March 1, invite-only demo day of NFX Guild, a Bay Area accelerator program that graduated its first batch of startups last summer. (We’ve written about NFX here.)

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, RobinHealth says that it’s different.

More here.

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New Fundings

AQ Metrics, a 3.5-year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based company that makes legal governance, risk and compliance software for global financial services firms, has raised $3.25 million in funding led by Frontline Ventures, with participation from Bluff Point Associates and Enterprise Ireland. More here.

Bux, a 1.5-year-old, Amsterdam-based company behind a casual stock and derivatives trading app, has raised $6.9 million in new funding led by Holtzbrinck Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Cala Health, a two-year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based Stanford spin-out whose wearable device treats hand and wrist tremors, has raised $18 million in funding according to an SEC filing turned up by MedCity News. According to CrunchBase, the company’s investors include Johnson & Johnson Development Corp., Lux Capital, and Lightstone Ventures. More here.

Grana, a 1.5-year-old, Hong Kong-based online clothing retailer, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by Golden Gate Ventures, with participation from MindWorks Ventures and Bluebell Group. The company has now raised $6 million altogether. FinSMEs has more here.

Hometeam, a three-year-old, New York-based company that provides families with caregiver matching, custom iPads, and a team trained to promote healthy and active days, has raised $5 million in funding from Kaiser Permanente. Fortune has more here.

Makeable, a 3.5-year-old New York-based online marketplace for manufacturing, has raised $1.35 million in bridge funding from earlier backers ff Venture Capital and KEC Ventures. The company has also been renamed Gooten and named its CFO, Brian Rainey, as CEO. More here.

MindMaze, a 3.5-year-old, Lausanne, Switzerland-based company whose virtual reality products, including both wearables and training software, aim to reboot damaged parts of the brain, has raised $100 million in new funding at a premoney valuation of $1 billion led by India’s Hinduja Group. TechCrunch hasmore here.

PokitDok, a 4.5-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based company whose cloud-based API platform is designed to make healthcare transactions more efficient and streamlined, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from McKesson Ventures. Silicon Valley Business Journal has more here.

Qualia, a five-year-old, New York-based SaaS marketing platform focused on mining “intent” data, has raised $5.5 million in Series B funding co-led by S3 Ventures and earlier investor Verizon Ventures. AdExchanger has more here.

Happy Tuesday, everyone, and welcome back!

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Top News in the A.M.

Apple Pay debuts in China this week. Reuters has more here.

DoorDash is close to completing a round of investment valuing the food-delivery startup at around $700 million, a steep discount to the $1 billion valuation it sought when it began fundraising last fall, according to people familiar with the deal. The WSJ has more here.

SoftBank yesterday moved to bolster its share price beaten down by worries about its subsidiary, Sprint, saying it would buy back up to  $4.4 billion in shares, its biggest repurchase ever. The WSJ has more here.

Yahoo just announced it will be live-streaming the annual shareholders meeting of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway on April 30. CNBC has more here.

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Venture-Backed Fundrise Fires CFO, Citing Extortion Scheme

It’s strange days for Fundrise, a Washington, D.C.-based, venture-backed crowdfunding platform that allows a range of investors to fund commercial real estate projects.

Yesterday, The Real Deal, an outlet that covers New York real estate news, turned upan SEC filing which states that Fundrise has fired its mortgage REIT’s chief financial officer and treasurer Michael McCord, citing an attempt by McCord to extort more than $1 million from the company.

“Exhibit one” listed in the filing is a letter to Fundrise’s backers that reads: “Strategic Investors & Advisors, I am saddened to have to inform you that an employee of our company has engaged in what we believe to be an attempt to extort over $1M from the company. As part of this, he claims the company acted inappropriately concerning two real estate deals. Though we believe there is no merit to his claims, we take any allegation with the utmost seriousness.

As a result, we have engaged a third-party financial audit firm to conduct a thorough investigation concerning his allegations. We are pursuing all appropriate and precautionary steps to protect our investors and our organization.

Furthermore, we are contacting the appropriate law enforcement agency to report what we believe to be his criminal behavior.”

The letter was presumably authored by Fundrise cofounder and CEO Benjamin Miller, who, according to the same SEC filing, is taking on the role of interim CFO and treasurer in addition to his other responsibilities.

Miller did not respond to requests for comment today.

Miller’s brother, Daniel Miller, who cofounded Fundrise and formerly served as its president, wrote us on LinkedIn, saying he has “moved on to pursue other independent opportunities, which will be announced shortly. Since my departure in October 2015, I have not been involved in corporate governance or the day-to-day operations that may relate to this matter.”

Asked about the accusation, McCord told us last night that the “current narrative” is “baseless and a pathetic deflection attempt from the real story by Fundrise.” He declined to comment further.

More here.

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New Fundings

Akarna Therapeutics, a 1.5-year-old, San Diego-based biopharmaceutical company at work on a drug for a progressive form of fatty liver disease, has raised $15 million in Series B funding from Forbion Capital Partners, with participation from earlier backers New Science Ventures and Third Point Ventures. FierceBiotech has more here.

EnTouch Controls, a seven-year-old, Richardson, Tex.-based company that makes facility asset and energy management software, has raised $8 million in Series C funding led by Egis Capital Partners, with participation from Traverse Venture Partners, Aster Capital, Calvert Investments, and earlier backers SJF Ventures and Trailblazer Capital. More here.

Giphy, a three-year-old, New York-based startup that provides a search engine for a vast library of GIFs, has raised $55 million in Series C funding at a post-money valuation of $300 million. The deal was led by earlier investor Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from General Catalyst Partners, RRE Ventures, Betaworks, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, CAA and other existing Giphy investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Knewton, an eight-year-old, New York-based adaptive learning technology company, has closed on $52 million in fresh capital led by Belgium-based Sofina and London-based Atomico. Other participants in the round include EDBI, the dedicated corporate-investment arm of the Singapore Economic Development Board; TAL Education Group, a China-based K-12 education company; and earlier backers Accel Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital, and Founders Fund. FinSMEs has more here.

LiveAction, an eight-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based enterprise IT network visibility software platform, has raised $36 million in Series B funding led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from prior investors Accelerate-IT Ventures and Cisco Investments. More here.

Mondo, a year-old, London-based fully digital bank, is raising £6 million ($8.6 million) in funding at a reported has been valued at £30 million ($42.9 million) valuation, despite that it has yet to fully launch to the public or secure a banking licence. Mondo has raised £5 million from the London-based firm Passion Capital, which invested £2 million in the company last year. The startup is also launching a £1 million crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube. Business Insider has more here.

Naritiv, a 1.5-year-old L.A.-based platform that connects brands and advertisers with influencers on Snapchat, has raised $3 million in Series A funding from FreeForm, Third Wave Capital, Luminary Capital, and Disney, among others. Naritiv launched out of the Disney Accelerator, powered by TechStars, in 2015. TechCrunch has more here.

Waterline Data, a three-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based data mining company, has raised $16 million in Series B funding led by Partech Ventures, with participation from Infosys and earlier backers include Menlo Ventures and Jackson Square Ventures. The company has now raised $23 million altogether. More here.

SchoolMint, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company that makes mobile and online-enrollment software for K-12 public, charter and private schools, has raised $5.6 million in Series A funding led by Runa Capital, with participation from Reach Capital, Fresco Capital, Govtech Fund, Kapor Capital, Crosslink Capital, Maiden Lane Ventures and CSC Upshot, as well as individual investors from human resources solutions company Gusto. The company has now raised just less than $8 million altogether. More here.

Understory, a 3.5-year-old, Somerville, Ma.-based weather data and analytics company that provides real-time, surface-level data generated by grids of proprietary weather stations, has raised $7.5 million in fresh funding, shows anSEC filing. The company is an alum of Bolt‘s hardware accelerator program. More here. (Disclosure: Bolt is a sponsor of our upcoming StrictlyVC event.)

Zoomdata, a 3.5-year-old, Reston, Va.-based data visualization and analytics system optimized for real-time and historical big data backends, has raised $25 million in Series C funding led by Goldman Sachs’ Principal Strategic Investments Group. New investor Comcast Ventures also participated, along with prior investors Accel Partners, Columbus Nova Technology Partnersand New Enterprise Associates. Zoomdata has now raised a little more than $47 million, according to CrunchBase. TechCrunch has more here.

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Exits

YouTube has acquired BandPage, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that helps artists show off and sell concert tickets, merchandise, and exclusive fan experiences, for a reported $8 million, or slightly less than a third of the $27.6 million in funding that BandPage had raised from investors. TechCrunch has more here.

The ADT Corporation, which provides home and business security systems for 6.5 million customers, is being acquired by the private equity firm Apollo Global Management for $6.9 billion in the largest leveraged buyout so far this year. Dealbook has more here.

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People

Early-stage venture firm First Round Capital has brought aboard Birchbox cofounder and former co-CEO Hayley Barna as a venture partner. We have more here.

Reddit has hired Mark Luckie, the former news manager at Twitter and the person behind Today in Black Twitter, as its first-ever head of journalism and media.

Elon Musk’s little brother Kimbal Musk is facing off against Wolfgang Puck over the name of brand “The Kitchen.” Musk owns restaurants in Colorado by the same name (and the concept has since moved to Chicago). Meanwhile, Puck has opened a restaurant of the same name in Grand Rapids, Mi. Musk, who owns some related trademarks, said he’s willing to take Puck to court if a formal protest, and a burgeoning Twitter campaign, don’t work first.

Schwark Satyavolu has joined Trinity Ventures as a general partner. Satyavolu was the co-founder and CTO of Yodlee, along with Trinity-backed Truaxis (formerly known as BillShrink). His latest post was as EVP of product and technology at the publicly traded company LifeLock. Satyavolu will be focusing on financial tech and services, consumer apps and marketplaces. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Entertainer Kanye West appeared to have an epic meltdown over the weekend, telling the world that he’s $53 million in debt and asking Silicon Valley billionaires Mark Zuckerberg, then Larry Page, to bail him out. “Mark Zuckerberg I know it’s your bday but can you please call me,” he tweeted, before adding: “All you dudes in San Fran play rap music in your homes but never help the real artists.”

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Jobs

National Australia Bank has launched a $50 million fund and it’s looking for an investment analyst and an investment manager to help lead it. The jobs are in Sydney.

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Essential Reads

Google‘s internet balloons are arriving in Sri Lanka. More here.

Flubbing Kanye West’s album release is just the newest misstep for digital music service Tidal. More here.

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Detours

A way to prevent jet lag while you sleep.

The parmesan cheese you sprinkle on your penne could be wood.

Nineteen things keeping you from becoming rich — rich, I say!

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Retail Therapy

Because why shouldn’t your kids have their own Tesla Model S?

You know how much we love Fridays!

For those of you coming to our event in less than two weeks(!), we’re excited to see you. Much thanks again to our generous sponsors Autodesk, Bolt, Ludlow Ventures, and AiBrain, without which we wouldn’t have such a lovely venue, or food and drinks from wonderful Jessica Lasky catering. There’s still a sprinkling of tickets available; if you haven’t grabbed yours yet, do before the Autodesk Gallery tells us we’re overdoing things.

Hope you have a wonderful long weekend, everyone! See you back here Tuesday.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Whoa. A secret software program inside Zenefits made it seem that brokers were completing a legally required 52-hour online training course and led them to certify under penalty of perjury that they had actually done so. BuzzFeed has the scoop here.

More broadly, Zenefits is being investigated by the California Department of Insurance, and firing execs who may have encouraged employees to skirt the law.

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In Race to Build Kid-Activity Subscription Services, a New Entrant

They’re starting to crop up here and there, new startups that have appropriated the monthly class-pass model and are focused on children’s activities. Last month, a New York-based startup called KidPass announced $325,000 in seed funding, including from serial entrepreneur Kevin Ryan. Meanwhile, Brooklyn-based The Kids Passport, which caters to local families and launched in October, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Notation Capital and Collaborative Fund.

Now, there’s a new entrant. A Chicago-based startup that’s similarly focused on helping parents and other caregivers find affordable and varied things to do with young children, is launching this coming Monday.

Called Pearachute, it’s just six weeks old, yet investors love the idea so much that the company has already raised $1.2 million in seed funding, including from former Match.com CEO (and now vice chairman) Sam Yagan, Techstars cofounder David Cohen, Chicago Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, HotelTonight CEO Sam Shank, SitterCity cofounder Genevieve Thiers, and various other angel investors.

Yagan has even signed on as chairman.

More here.

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New Fundings

DataRobot, a nearly four-year-old, Boston-based machine learning company, has raised $33 million in Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from Accomplice, Intel Capital, IA Ventures, Recruit Strategic Partners and New York Life. The company has now raised roughly $57 million altogether. More here.

Diffbot, a five-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based developer of machine learning and computer vision algorithms and public APIs for web scraping, has raised $10 million in Series A funding co-led by Tencent and Felicis Ventures, with participation from Amplify Partners, Valor Capital, Bill Lee, Georges Harik and Andy Bechtolsheim. Xconomy has more here.

Jisto, a 2.5-year-old, Boston-based company that creates a private elastic compute cloud for the enterprise out of the enterprise’s idle server/cloud resources, has raised $2.45 million in seed funding led by .406 Ventures. More here.

Label Insight, an eight-year-old, Chicago-based cloud-based analytics company that provides insights to retailers and consumer packaged goods brands, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by KPMG Capital, KPMG’s investment fund. Earlier backers Mercury Fund, Cultivation Capital, Serra Ventures and dunnhumby Ventures also joined the round, along with new investor West Capital Advisors. More here.

Uber, the seven-year-old, San Francisco-based ride-hailing service, has raised another $200 million in fresh funding; this time it comes from LetterOne, a fund based out of Luxembourg and headed by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

GGV Capital, a 15-year-old, cross-border venture fund that invests in both U.S. and China-based companies, is raising two giant new funds, shows new SEC filings that list a target of $880 million and $250 million, respectively. Both forms state that the first sale has yet to occur. The figures represent an enormous increase in the amount of money that GGV is managing. A fast close would also represent a remarkably short turnaround for its investment team. GGV closed its fifth fund with $620 million less than two years ago. Much more here.

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IPOs

Proteostasis Therapeutics, a nearly 10-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company whose therapeutics aim to treat diseases caused by defects in protein processing, has raised $50 million in its IPO. The pre-revenue company has raised $107 million in private funding, shows Crunchbase. Its biggest backers include Elan Science One, which owned 21.6 percent of the company heading into its IPO; New Enterprise Associates, which owned 17.1 percent; and Healthcare Ventures, which owned 13.9 percent.

According to Renaissance Capital, there are no IPOs scheduled for next week.

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Exits

ASICS, the Tokyo-based specialty athletic retailer, has acquired Runkeeper, a 7.5-year-old, Boston-based fitness app maker. No financial terms were dislcosed. Runkeeper had raised at least $11.5 million in funding over the years, including from Spark Capital, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Boston Seed Capital and Revolution Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

The publicly traded streaming music service Pandora has reportedly retained Morgan Stanley to solicit possible takeover offers. The New York Times has more here.

Rakuten, the Japan-headquartered e-commerce firm, has written down $340 million from a range of businesses, including its Kobo e-reader division and France-based e-commerce site PriceMinister. It has also announced plans to close a number of global operations as part of a new strategic focus. TechCrunch has more here.

Yodle, an 11-year-old, New York-based company that specializes in local online marketing, is being acquired by publicly traded Web.com Group for $300 million, plus an additional $42 million in earn-outs over the next two years. Yodle had raised $40 million from investors, including DFJ and Icon Ventures. New York Business Journal has the story here.

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People

Michael Paulus, the former president of Addepar, has left Andreessen Horowitz, where he had been a member of the investment team, reports Fortune. Paulus hasn’t yet shared what his next move will be.

VC Mark Suster swung by Bloomberg’s offices yesterday, and chatted with Emily Chang about whether or not there’s a funding slowdown.

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Essential Reads

You can reserve Tesla’s low-cost Model 3 starting March 31. Unless you are Stewart Alsop.

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Detours

Surreal paintings by Jeremy Geddes.

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Retail Therapy

The “Tesla” for the nine-year-old set.