All right, all right, it’s Friday. No column today; we’ve been a little busy trying to figure out our next event and we’re happy to announce that you can get your tickets for it starting today. The date: the evening of Thursday, February 25th. The location: San Francisco. The venue: The beautiful Autodesk Gallery, at 1 Market Street.

We’re exceedingly happy to announce that longtime VC and Stanford lecturer Heidi Roizen will be joining us this time to talk about the investing landscape (and how to survive in a crummy market). We’re also thrilled to say that GV CEO Bill Maris is coming to give readers the lowdown about where Google Ventures will — and won’t — be shopping in 2016. Not last, Autodesk CEO Carl Bass himself is going to sit down to talk about the software giant’s new Internet of Things fund and a bunch of other stuff. (The amiable Ben Einstein of Bolt will be interviewing him.) We may have one last surprise for you, too, so stay tuned.

Tickets are available here. If you’d like to partner with us on the event as a sponsor, we’d love to hear from you.

Thanks, and have a terrific weekend, everyone!

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Top News in the A.M.

U.S. federal marshals raided a hoverboard booth yesterday at CES yesterday.

Speaking of hoverboards, colleges are beginning to ban them on campus.

Why formerly mysterious Faraday Futures probably shouldn’t do interviews just yet.

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New Fundings

Agilence, a nine-year-old, Mt. Laurel, N.J.-based data analytics company, has raised $6 million in Series B funding led by Arrowroot Capital, with participation from previous investor Aster Capitol. More here.

Alector, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based biotech company pioneering the discovery and development of first-in-class, immuno-modulatory therapies for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, has raised $29.5 million in Series D funding led by the Dementia Discovery Fund, with new investors Amgen Ventures and AbbVie participating. More here.

ASLAN Pharmaceuticals, a five-year-old, Singapore-based developer of immunotherapies and targeted agents for Asia-prevalent tumor types, has raised $43 million in Series C funding, including from MVP Capital Partners and Accuron Technologies, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings.More here.

Cortexyme, a three-year-old, South San Francisco-based company at work on therapeutics and diagnostics for Alzheimer’s disease and other degenerative disorders, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Pfizer, along with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company through its venture arm, and earlier investor Dolby Family Ventures. Cortexyme previously raised roughly $1 million, including an investment award from Breakout Labs.

Cloud Elements, a 3.5-year-old, Denver-based provider of a cloud-based API platform, has raised $5 million in new Series A funding from Access Venture Partners, among others. More here.

Deposit Solutions, a four-year-old, Germany-based open-architecture platform for retail deposits in Europe, has raised roughly $7 million in funding led by FinLab AG, with participation from Peter Thiel, e.ventures, Stefan Wiskemann, Stefan Glanzer and Christoph Linkwitz.

Dibs Technology, a year-old, New York-based company that makes dynamic-pricing technology for the fitness club market, has raised $1 million in seed funding. Gree Ventures led the round, and was joined by Comcast Ventures‘ Catalyst Fund, Caerus and Dreamit Ventures.

MakeMyTrip, a 15-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based travel booking site, has received an investment of $180 million from Ctrip, a China-based travel booking site. TechCrunch has more here.

KidPass, a year-old, New York-based startup whoses membership passes help parents discover and book children’s activities, has raised $325,000 in seed funding from Rugged Ventures, Bionic Fund, CoVenture and individual investors.

MyMusicTaste, a four-year-old, Seoul-based startup that gauges fan interest to help figure out where to plan concerts, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Softbank Ventures Korea. Other participants in the round include Samsung Ventures, Formation 8, Golden Gate Ventures, Timewise Investment, Partners Investment, Bokwang Ventures Investment, and DT Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

PierianDx, a year-old, St. Louis-based provider of genomic software and services for personalized medicine development, has raised $9.25 million in Series A funding led by Health Catalyst Capital Management, with participation from Ocean Road Advisors, Inova Translational Medicine Institute and ARUP Laboratories. More here.

Platzi, a two-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based online education startup that offers live streaming classes on design, marketing and code, has raised $2.1 million in seed funding from Omidyar Network, 500 Startups, Nazca Ventures and Amasia Ventures.

Scalr, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose enterprise cloud management platform is used by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, the FDA, Autodesk, and many others, has just raised $7 million from OpenView Venture Partners. More here.

StartEngine, a four-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based equity crowdfunding platform, has raised $5.5 million in Series A funding from SE Agoura Investment. More here.

Xeris Pharmaceuticals, a 10-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based company that’s developing patient-friendly injectables for indications in diabetes, epilepsy, and immunology, has raised $41 million in Series C funding led by Redmile Group, with participation from Deerfield Management, Sabby Management, The McNair Group, and others. MedCity News has more here.

Zai Lab, a 1.5-year-old, Shanghai, China-based biopharmaceutical company, has raised more than $100 million in Series B funding led by Advantech Capital, with participation from OrbiMed and earlier backers Qiming Ventures, Sequoia Capital China, and TF Capital. More here.

Zymeworks, an 11-year-old, Vancouver-based developer of bi-specific antibodies and antibody drug conjugates for the treatment of cancer, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, has raised $61.5 million in Series A funding co-led by BDC Capital and Lumira Capital. Other investors included Perceptive Advisors, Teralys Capital, Northleaf Venture Catalyst Fund,Brace Pharma Capital, Merlin Nexus and return backers Eli Lilly & Co., Celgene, CTI Life Sciences Fund, and the Fonds de solidarite FTQ. More here.

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New Funds

Hamilton Lane, the 17-year-old investment firm, has raised $240 million for its fourth private equity secondaries fund, shows an SEC filing that lists a $1.25 billion target.

K2 Global, a seven-month-old, San Francisco-based venture firm that has partners in Silicon Valley and Singapore, is looking to raise up to $100 million for its debut fund, reports Dow Jones VentureWire. The firm is investing in software, Internet and mobile companies. More here.

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IPOs

The world’s most valuable company is considering an IPO. Fortune has more here.

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Exits

Apple has acquired Emotient, a three-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based artificial intelligence startup whose technology is used to assess emotions based on people’s facial expressions. The company had raised $8 million from investors, including Intel Capital. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. The WSJ has the story here.

Germany company RNTS Media has officially acquired the mobile ad network Heyzap in a deal worth up to $45 million. Heyzap was incubated at Y Combinator and raised $8 million in total funding from investors including Founder Collective, Union Square Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Balderton Capital has promoted Rob Moffat and James Wise to partner. Balderton’s partnership now comprises eight investing partners. Moffat and Wise have been members of Balderton’s investment team for a combined total of eleven years.

Madrona Venture Group has brought aboard Bill Richter as a venture partner. Richter was most recently the president of the Isilon Storage Division of EMC.

Sequoia’s Michael Moritz will be speaking at Stanford on Wednesday, January 20th. The talk is open to the public. More here.

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Jobs

Salesforce is looking to add a manager/senior manager to its Salesforce Ventures team in London.

Redpoint Ventures is hiring a data scientist. The job is in San Francisco.

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Essential Reads

San Francisco’s largest taxi company is edging toward filing for bankruptcy, claiming lawsuits from traffic collisions, as well competition from the likes of Uber and Lyft. The San Francisco Examiner has the story here.

The big data of bad driving.

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Detours

52 places to go in 2016.

Back hair stylist. (Warning: You can not unsee this.)

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Retail Therapy

A personal robot from Segway.

Hi, everyone, happy Thursday!

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Top News in the A.M.

Now Amazon has entered the semiconductor business, too, with its own branded chips.

A China stock plunge forced a trading halt this morning, and global markets are still reeling.

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Guardant Health Raises Nearly $100M More to Test Blood for Cancer

Guardant Health, a three-year-old, Redwood Shores, Ca.-based company whose non-invasive genomic sequencing test for cancer requires just two vials of blood, has raised nearly $100 million in Series D funding roughly one year after closing on $90 million for its Series C round.

The financing was led by OrbiMed Advisors, with earlier backers participating, including Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Pejman Mar, Formation 8, Heritage Group, and Felicis Ventures.

Guardant, a 135-person company that has now raised almost $200 million altogether, isn’t talking about its valuation. But cofounder and CEO Helmy Eltoukhy, a Ph.D who worked at the Stanford Genome Technology Center before cofounding and quickly selling an earlier company, talked with us yesterday about what Guardant’s investors are funding exactly. Our conversation has been edited for length.

Your test alleviates the need to cut out a piece of tissue and sequence the DNA in that biopsy. Other than being less invasive, why is it better?

You can take a single tumor and every part will have potentially different mutations. Through two teaspoons of blood, we can see the entirety of the disease.

How has your technology changed in the last year? What prompted so much new investment?

The way it works is as these tumors grow rapidly, they are also dying rapidly and shedding their content into the bloodstream, including DNA signature. [Over time] we’ve made our sequencing technology about 1,000 to 10,000 times more accurate in order to see those fragments of DNA. It’s akin to the difference between high-resolution TV and old black-and-white technologies. Because we can see those trace fragments, we can reconstruct the genome.

How accurate is your blood test?

It matches tissue biopsies with 99.3 percent diagnostic accuracy, and we see often more mutations [than doctors can find] in that tissue biopsy. Maybe the patient had a recent biopsy and nothing actionable was found, but now, with the mutations that we detect, that person can be given corresponding drugs that target those mutations.

Have the public woes of another blood-testing company, Theranos, impacted your business?

More here.

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New Fundings

7LeKang, a 4.5-year-old, Guangzhou, China-based online pharmacy startup, has raised $100 million in Series B funding from undisclosed investors. China Money Network has more here.

Blinkist, a 3.5-year-old, Berlin-based app that turns insights from nonfiction books into 15-minute text and audio “blinks,” has raised €4 million ($4.3 million) in Series A funding co-led by Greycroft Partners and e.ventures. Earlier backers IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft and MGO Digital Ventures also participated. More here.

C4 Therapeutics, a new, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that’s developing a class of targeted protein degradation (TPD) therapeutics for the treatment of a broad range of diseases, has raised $73 million in funding. Cobro Ventures led the round, with participation from Cormorant Asset Management, EG Capital Group, Novartis, Roche, and the Kraft Group. The company is a spin-out of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Forbes has more here.

Elastagen, a 13-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based company developing next generation medical and cosmetic treatments, has raised A$13 milion ($9.1 million) in Series B funding from Korea Investment Partners, AMOREPACIFIC Ventures, Wellcome Trust, Brandon Capital Partners, GBS Ventures and ATP Innovations.

Exosome Diagnostics, a 7.5-year-old, New York-based company that develops and commercializes blood-based cancer molecular diagnostics for disease monitoring, has raised $60 million in Series B funding from Forbion Capital Partners, NGN Capital, CD Ventures, Qiagen, Arcus Ventures, Tiger Management, and Blue Ridge Capital. More here.

Gem, a two-year-old, Venice, Ca.-based blockchain startup, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Pelion Venture Partners, with participation from Blockchain Capital, Digital Currency Group, KEC Ventures and RRE Ventures. More here.

Holidu, a 1.5-year-old, Munich, Germany-based metasearch engine for European holiday rentals, has raised €5 million ($5.4 million) in Series A funding led by EQT Ventures, with participation from Venture Stars, Senovo, and angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Inke, a Beijing, China-based mobile app allowing users to watch live video broadcast on smartphones, has raised $10 million in funding from the Shenzhen-listed online gaming firm Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. China Money Network has more here.

MMB Networks, a seven-year-old, Toronto, Ontario-based company that makes embedded interoperability software for enabling connected devices, has raised $7 million in Series B funding led by Roadmap Capital, with participation from NXP Semiconductor and previous investors Arctern Ventures and VentureLink Funds.

Nubank, a two-year-old, São Paulo, Brazil-based digital finance company, has raised $52 million in funding led by Founders Fund, with participation from earlier investors Sequoia Capital and Kaszek Ventures, which is based in Buenos Aires. Dealbook has more here.

PushDoctor, a two-year-old, U.K -based marketplace that enables patients to have video consultations with doctors, has raised $8.2 million in funding led by Oxford Capital Partners and Draper Esprit, with Partech Ventures also participating. The company had previously raised $1.2 million in seed funding. TechCrunch has more here.

QuanCheng, a 2.5-year-old, Shanghai, China-based corporate expense management start-up, has raised a Series B round worth a reported “tens of millions of dollars” led by Eight Roads, an investment arm of Fidelity International. ClearVue Partners and Arbor Ventures also participated in the round. China Money Network has more here.

Sisense, a 4.5-year-old, New York-based company whose technology speeds the analysis of large, complex data sets so that businesses can make faster decisions, has raised $50 million in Series D funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Current investors also participated in the round, including Battery Ventures, DFJ, Genesis Partners and Opus Capital. The company has now raised $98 million altogether. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

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New Funds

Today, Sierra Ventures, the 33-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based early stage technology venture capital firm, is announcing that it has closed its 11th fund with $170 million. We talked yesterday with managing director Ben Yu about its latest effort.

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Exits

It’s official. Hudson’s Bay Company, which owns Saks Fifth Avenue and other store chains, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the formerly high-flying flash sales site Gilt Groupe for $250 million in cash. Recode has more here.

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People

DCM Ventures cofounder David Chao talks with us about investing in China — and cannabis.

1776, the incubator and seed fund based in Washington, D.C., has hired Rachel Haot as a managing director. Haot was formerly chief digital officer for New York State and was the first chief digital officer of New York City under Michael Bloomberg.

In a Reddit AMA yesterday, Oculus cofounder Palmer Luckey apologized for the confusing messaging around the price of its Rift headset, which is going to cost more than people were anticipating.

Pinterest, the social networking company, has hired Candice Morgan as its first-ever diversity chief, with the goal of ensuring that at least 30 percent of its engineering hires are women and that 8 percent represent ethnic minorities. Morgan previously spent 10 years with Catalyst, a non-profit group that tracks women’s progress in business.

Fresh from laying off 9 percent of its 200 employees and closing down its e-commerce service at the end of 2015, messaging app Tango has made a change at the top, with CTO and co-founder Eric Setton stepping in to replace fellow co-founder Uri Raz as CEO. TechCrunch has the story here.

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Jobs

Facebook is hiring a corporate development manager. The job is in Menlo Park, Ca.

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Essential Reads

Yahoo is reportedly preparing to lay off 10 percent or more of its workforce.

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Detours

Business school is worth $22,000 per year more if you’re white or Asian.

36 hours in Havana.

A lunar theory of Bill Clinton.

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Retail Therapy

Sommi wine cellars.

A seascape retreat in New Zealand. (For writing that novel.)

Hi, good morning, everyone! Or good evening, depending on where you are.

Thanks so much to those of you who’ve reached out to help with interview ideas and suggestions for Davos. (This, from a colleague, should also come in handy.)

On a separate note, we’re putting together the finishing touches for our next StrictlyVC event, taking place late next month. More on the last soon!

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Top News in the A.M.

Activist investor Starboard Value this morning called for changes to Yahoo‘s board and management. Otherwise, the hedge fund wrote in a letter to the board, it may try to run its own slate of directors.

Twitter says it’s readying itself for life after 140 characters.

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The Landlord VC

You might be hearing talk of depressed valuations, but that message certainly isn’t reaching commercial real estate owners in the Bay Area. The median price per square foot to rent office space in the city has shot up 33.7 percent in just the last three months alone, says Loopnet, an online real estate resource. Over the last 12 months, San Francisco rents have soared 106 percent.

It’s easy to throw up one’s hands at that the situation. Aspect Ventures, a year-old, early-stage venture firm founded by longtime VCs Jennifer Fonstad and Theresia Gouw, is instead using the trend to its advantage by renting up to 20 desks in its own, 2,600-square-foot headquarters in San Francisco. It’s charging market rates, too.

It’s a smart move on a number of levels. First and most obviously, it helps Aspect defray its own costs, which can’t be inexpensive given current prices. According to real estate specialist Jones Lang LaSalle, average office rent in San Francisco has hit a whopping $70 per square foot.

Aspect, which closed its debut fund with $150 million last year, is also willing to rent the desks to both startups it has backed and those it might fund in the future, which allows it to see more young companies up close.

That’s harder to do than you might think.

More here.

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New Fundings

Aver, a 5.5-year-old, Columbus, Oh.-based company whose data management platform promises to simplify the healthcare reimbursement process, has raised $13.6 million in funding led by Heritage Group, with participation from Cardinal Health, GE Ventures, Hearst Health Ventures, and affiliates ofNCT Ventures and StartUp Health.

Entac Medical, a 4.5-year-old, Memphis, Tn.-based predictive analytics company that’s developing noninvasive devices to predict and diagnose gastrointestinal and other medical conditions, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding led by Innova Memphis, with participation from Angel Syndicates Central, an angel syndicate located in Huntsville, Al., and the Angel Round Table of Johnson City, Tn.

Flatiron Health, a three-year-old, New York-based maker of oncology software, has raised $175 million in Series C funding led by Roche, with participation from Allen & Co., Baillie Gifford and Casdin Capital.

Kolibree, a two-year-old, Paris, France-based hardware startup focused on smart toothbrushes for kids, has raised $4 million in venture funding in a two-phased equity seed round that includes Cap Horn Invest, the Dental Investment Group for Health, Innovacom, SEB Alliance and SOS Ventures. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Mycity4kids, a five-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based online-content platform for children, has raised $3 million from SIDBI Venture Capital Limited and YourNest Angel Fund. The Business Standard has more here.

NextCure, a new, New Haven, Ct.-based biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of new immuno-oncology products, has raised $67 million in Series A funding from Canaan Partners, Lilly Asia Ventures, OrbiMed Advisors, Pfizer, Sofinnova Ventures, and Alexandria Venture Investments.

Petra Pharma, a new, New York City-based developer of small molecule inhibitors for the treatment of cancer and metabolic diseases, has raised $48 million in Series A funding from AbbVie, Alexandria Venture Investments, ARCH Venture Partners, Eli Lilly and Company, Harris & Harris Group, Innovate NY Fund, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, The Partnership Fund for New York City, Pfizer Venture Investments, Watson Fund and WuXi PharmaTech. Xconomy has more here.

Toast, a four-year-old, Boston-based service that includes a point-of-sale tool for restaurants, has raised $30 million in a round led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with Google Ventures participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Tracxn, a 2.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company that tracks and analyzes data about startups, has added entrepreneur Ratan Tata as an angel investor, though amount of funding it raised from him is undisclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

UIEvolution, a 15-year-old, Seattle, Wa.-based maker of connected device software platforms for the automotive, hotel and cruise industries, has raised $5 million in funding from The Mirai Creation Fund. More here.

Xfers, a nearly two-year-old, Singapore-based startup that wants to simplify bank transfers, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, Lazena Investment, Golden Gate Ventures, 500 Startups, GMO Venture Partners, Partech Ventures, BWB Ventures, and Convergence Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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IPOs

Another biotech files to go public. This time it’s Visterra, an 8.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that’s working to develop antibodies for serious cases of influenza and other infectious diseases that have been hard to treat with conventional small-molecule drugs. Its biggest shareholders include Polaris Partners, which owns 25 percent of the company, and Flagship Ventures, which owns 21.9 percent.

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Exits

Cloudability, a four-year-old cloud service that helps companies manage and optimize their cloud spending, is acquiring four-year-old DataHero, a cloud service that helps non-technical users generate data visualization. DataHero had raised $10.25 million from investors. Cloudability has raised almost $16 million plus another $4 million in debt. TechCrunch has more here.

Ellipse Technologies, an Aliso Viejo, Ca.-based company that develops minimally invasive, remote controlled implants for limb lengthening and scoliosis treatment, is being acquired by the publicly traded spine-focused medical device company NuVasive. Ellipse had filed for an IPO last fall. It had raised around $32 million from investors, shows CrunchBase, including BioStar Ventures, HBM Partners, Wexford Capital and the MedFocus Funds.

Oracle is acquiring AddThis, an 11-year-old, Vienna, Va.-based startup that offers personalization tools for publishers in efforts to boost marketing. The company had raised roughly $73 million over the years, shows CrunchBase. Its backers include New Enterprise Associates, Novak Biddle Venture Partners, and Institutional Venture Partners.

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Jobs

Speedinvest, a four-year-old, Austria-based venture firm focused largely on early-stage European startups, is looking to hire an associate. The job is in San Francisco. (You’d be largely helping its portfolio companies scale globally.)

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Data

U.K. technology companies raised a record $3.6 billion from VCs in 2015, according to data from research firm CB Insights and London & Partners. Business Insider has more here.

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Essential Reads

WeChat, the popular Chinese messaging app, has launched an international calling service.

Automakers, not Silicon Valley, lead in driverless car patents.

How the daily fantasy sports industry turns fans into suckers.

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Detours

Uber is making New York City cab drivers nicer.

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Retail Therapy

Ah, yes, good, a new technology in chip eating.

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

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Top News in the A.M.

President Obama yesterday ordered the federal government to study how smart gun technology could stem gun violence. The agencies involved have 90 days to produce recommendations. CNet has more here.

China’s terrible start to 2016 has its government in fire-fighting mode. Bloomberg has more here.

New York City’s first “phone booth of the future” — a kiosk that provides free one-gigabyte WiFi to anyone in a 150-foot radius — was unveiled earlier today. Roughly 7,500 more are coming by 2024.

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Biotechs Hit the Ground Running

If we had to gamble on it, we’d bet the IPO market will be far more brisk this year than last year, which was the worst year for tech IPOs in particular since 2009.

Even still, it came as a bit of a surprise yesterday when not one or three but six biotech startups revealed plans to go public. (If you recall, biotech IPOs, which ticked along nicely for a couple of years, practically came to a standstill in the second half of last year.)

If you happened to miss the steady string of announcements — which, as Bloomberg notes, comes one week before JPMorgan Chase & Co’s big annual health care conference in San Francisco — here are the handful of companies that plan to test the IPO waters soon:

1.) Audentes Therapeutics. It’s a three-year-old, San Francisco-based  biotechnology company focused on developing and commercializing gene therapy products for patients suffering from serious, life-threatening rare diseases caused by single gene defects. One of those diseases is myotubular myopathy, a degenerative muscular condition that afflicts almost exclusively males and kills one in every 50,000 newborns by the time they reach age two. The company plans to raise $86.3 million offering. As the San Francisco Business Times notes, Audentes first filed IPO plans confidentially in early November, about a month after it raised $65 million in a Series C funding. According to CrunchBase, it has raised roughly $138 million altogether, including from T. Rowe Price, Venrock, Sofinnova Ventures, and 5AM Ventures.

2.) Editas Medicine. Like Audentes (and many biotech startups to go public before it), this Cambridge, Ma.-based company is also awfully young at just two years old. What it does: develop treatments to modify disease-causing genetic defects. What it’s planning: to offer up to $100 million in stock. That’s less than what it has raised from private investors to date. According to CrunchBase, Editas has collected around $120 million from investors, including Flagship Ventures, Polaris Partners, and Third Rock Ventures. (The Boston Globe has more here.)

3.) Corvus Pharmaceuticals.This Burlingame, Ca.-based company is practically brand-new, having been founded in November 2014. But that’s not stopping it from attempting to raise $115 million in an IPO for its business, which is focused on the development and commercialization of immuno-oncology therapies that harness the immune system to attack cancer cells. Its plans aren’t as crazy as they sound.

More here.

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New Fundings

Alef Mobitech, a three-year-old, Bernardsville, N.J.-based mobile startup whose software promises to enhance user engagement by increasing the relevance and responsiveness of the mobile apps people use, has raised $5 million from Tata Capital Innovations Fund, a private equity fund managed by Tata Capital. The Economic Times has more here.

Blueshift Labs, a year-old, San Francisco-based marketing automation startup, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Storm Ventures, with participation from earlier backer Nexus Venture Partners. More here.

Cuvva, a year-old, Edinburgh, Scotland-based startup that enables customers to insure a car for as little as an hour (interesting!), has raised £400,000 ($586,000) in seed funding from an Edinburgh-based private angel syndicate. TechCrunch has more here.

Happy New Year, dear readers! Hope 2016 has wonderful things in store for you.

As for us, we’re just back in town and excited to get back to work. Toward that end, a quick mention: We’re headed to the World Economic Forum in Davos in a couple of weeks as part of our role with TechCrunch. (We’re excited, though probably still ill-prepared for how insanely c-c-cold it will be.)

If you’re headed there, too, please let us know. We’ll be helping out with video and print interviews throughout the week and looking to talk with top CEOs and other smart people in tech and academia about a wide range of things, from driverless cars, to the future of work, to Paul Graham’s controversial new essay.

(No column today.)

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Top News in the A.M.

World stock exchanges are falling.

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New Fundings

Athletigen, a nearly two-year-old, Halifax, Nova Scotia-based sports genetics startup, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding led by Exponential Partners. More here.

BionX Medical Technologies, a nine-year-old, Bedford, Mass.-based company that makes bionic prosthetic devices, has raised $17 million in Series E funding led by ZGC Shiner Investment, with participation from earlier backers, including Gilde Healthcare. The company has now raised roughly $70 million to date. More here.

DipJar, a three-year-old, New York-based provider of digital tip jars and donation boxes for credit cards, has raised $2.4 million in seed funding from Corazon Capital, Charge Ventures and individual angels, along with earlier backers Bolt and Project 11. More here.

Geniee, a five-year-old, Tokyo, Japan-based ad tech startup, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series D funding led by Fenox Venture Capital. Tech in Asia has more here.

HealPros, a four-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based mobile telemedicine triage service company that focuses largely on diabetic retinopathy eye examinations, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding led by Sopris Capital. More here.

Hometeam, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based in-home-care company that promises personalized care planning, caregiver matching, and proactive case management, has raised $27.5 million in Series B funding led by Oak HC/FT. Earlier backers Lux Capital, IA Ventures and Recruit Strategic Partners also joined the round. More here.

Lyft, the 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based rideshare company, has closed $1 billion in Series F funding, half of it from General Motors. Other participants in the round include Saudi Prince Al-Waleed’s Kingdom Holding Company, Janus Capital Management, and previous investors Didi, Rakuten, and Alibaba. TechCrunch has more here.

Movinga, a year-old, Berlin, Germany-based online relocation services startup, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Index Ventures, with participation from earlier backers, including Earlybird VC, Heilemann Ventures, and Global Founders Capital (the venture arm of Rocket Internet). TechCrunch has more here.

Phytech, a five-year-old, Hayyin, Israel-based company whose mobile platform combines agricultural analytics and data management to help growers in their farming decisions, has raised an undisclosed amount of new funding from earlier backers Syngenta Ventures and Mitsui & Co. More here.

Quartzy, a seven-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based lab supplies marketplace, has raised $17 million in Series B funding led by Eminence Capital, with participation from Khosla Ventures (which led its Series A), along with the YC Continuity fund, A Capital, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, Binary Capital, Scribd and Parse co-founder Tikhon Bernstram, and Factual founder Gil Elbaz. TechCrunch has more here.

RapidMiner, an 8.5-year-old, Cambridge, Mass.-based company behind a predictive analytics platform, has raised $15 million in new funding, according to an SEC filing first flagged by Fortune. The company’s earlier backers include Ascent Venture Partners, Longworth Venture Partners, Earlybird Venture Capital and Open Ocean Capital. More here.

Scholar Rock, a Cambridge, Ma.-based drug developer focused on new biologic therapeutics, has raised $36 million in Series B funding led by Fidelity, with participation from Cormorant Asset Management and earlier backers Polaris Partners, Timothy Springer, ARCH Venture Partners, EcoR1 Capital and The Kraft Group.

Silvercar, a 3.5-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based startup that rents out silver Audi cars as part of its airport rental car business, has raised $28 million in Series C funding led by Audi. Previous investors Austin Ventures and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin also participated in the new round. TechCrunch has more here.

Zipnosis, a 6.5-year-old, Minneapolis, Mn.-based online diagnosis and treatment platform for common medical conditions, has raised $17 million in Series A funding led by Safeguard Scientifics, with participation fromAscension Ventures and earlier investors Fairview Health Services, Hyde Park Venture Partners, Arthur Ventures, Waterline Ventures and Omphalos Ventures. More here.

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New Funds

Former Earlybird Venture Capital investors Ciarán O’Leary and Jason Whittier have raised a $120 million debut fund for their new firm, BlueYard Capital. The fund is based in Berlin but plans to make investments across Europe. More here.

Healthquest Partners, a 2.5-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based med-tech venture capital firm founded by former Sofinnova Ventures partner Garheng Kong, is looking to raise up to $175 million for its second fund, according to an SEC filing. The firm closed its debut fund with $110 million in 2014.

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Exits

Alibaba-backed Paytm has acquired Shifu — a smart consumer behavior prediction platform — in a deal reportedly valued at $8 million. The Tech Portal has more here.

—–

People

Vinnie Lauria, a cofounder of the three-year-old venture firm Golden Gate Ventures, tells TechCrunch, “Most people have invested in China and India, but they’ve seen the market get way too overvalued. Southeast Asia is the next opportunity.” More here.

Blythe Masters, a former star banker at JPMorgan Chase, has reportedly been struggling to raise money for her blockchain start-up, Digital Asset Holdings, after potential investors learned that JPMorgan was being given better terms than others.

April Underwood, who joined Slack in June after nearly five years as Director of Product at Twitter, has been named VP of Product.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, known for announcing a personal challenge for himself each year, has divulged his goal for 2016: to “build a simple AI to run my home and help me with my work. You can think of it kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man.” More here.

—–

Jobs

Comcast Ventures is looking to hire an associate. The job is in San Francisco.

—–

Data

The best-paid U.S. executives don’t work on Wall Street. (Chart.)

—–

Essential Reads

Tesla is ramping up its hiring, as rivals loom.

Spotify has been hit with a $150 million class action lawsuit.

Why Alibaba wants Chinese shoppers to buy American.

What does virtual reality do to your mind and body?

—–

Detours

A bar inspired by Seinfeld’s George Costanza.

What Exactly Are My Obligations in a Situation Like This?

—–

Retail Therapy

For sale: One 48.6-acre development site in Santa Clara, Ca.

Movi, a neat little camera for filming live events.

It is Wednesday! And we. Are. Outta here. (Until early January.) Happy New Year, everyone! See you soon.

—–

Top News in the A.M.

The Beatles are coming.

—–

18 Female Founders Who Killed It In 2015

Last week, on an internal conversational thread over at my second job with TechCrunch, the staff began chatting about some of female founders who’ve made a major dent on the tech scene in 2015, and the thread quickly became a very long and involved one.

The following are some of the people who popped immediately into mind. This list is in no way comprehensive, so please do reach out with your own thoughts about some of the women impacting the world of startups right now. We welcome any and all nominations.

In fact, since publishing this list yesterday afternoon, we’ve received many great suggestions, including Leura Fine of the interior design marketplace Laurel & Wolf (her company raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Benchmark in September), and Ida Tin of Clue, a Berlin-based fertility tracking app that raised$7 million in Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures in October.

Much more here.

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New Fundings

ChargeItSpot, a three-year-old, Philadelphia, Pa.-based provider of cell phone charging stations for retail chains and other indoor public venues, has raised $5.3 million in Series A funding from Robin Hood Ventures, SeedInvest and SoundBoard Angel Fund. More here.

Eved, a five-year-old, Chicago-based provider of event management software, has raised $14.3 million in new funding led by Huizenga Capital Management, with participation from Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Merrick Ventures and MK Capital. ChicagoInno has more here.

Feedvisor, a nearly five-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based company that sells algorithmic repricing and revenue intelligence software to online retailers, has raised $5 million in funding led by Square Peg Capital, with participation from earlier backers JAL Ventures and Titanium Investments. More here.

Foursquare, the 6.5-year-old, New York-based startup, is close to finalizing a funding round that will value the company at about $250 million — less than half of what investors thought the company was worth two years ago, reports Recode. TechCrunch had reported earlier that the company, which focuses on local business recommendations, was raising a down round. More here.

Gojimo, a three-year-old, London-based app that helps U.K. high school students prepare for exams, has raised $1.8 million in seed funding, bringing the total raised by the startup to just more than $3 million. Investors in the round include father and son duo Robin and Saul Klein, Deborah Quazzo of GSV Advisors, seed-stage investment platform Firestartr, and the London Mayor’s London Co-Investment Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

The Happy Home Company, a 1.5-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based “home manager” that aims to eliminate the headaches of home maintenance and improvement by finding the experts for each job, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding from a long list of investors, including Lowercase Capital, SV Angel, Slow Ventures, Freestyle Capital, and Box CEO Aaron Levie. TechCrunch has more here.

HomeTouch, a three-year-old, London-based company that operates a home care marketplace to let families with elderly parents and others needing care to find vetted help, has raised an additional undisclosed amount of funding from Passion Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Neural Analytics, a nearly three-year-old, L.A.-based developer of devices and services that measure, diagnose and track brain health, has raised $10 million in Series A funding from JSR Ltd. and Taiyu Capital. More here.

PsiKick, a 3.5-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based semiconductor startup that’s building ultra-low-power sensors for use in Internet of Things applications, has raised $16.5 million in Series B funding led by Osage University Partners, with participation from earlier backers New Enterprise Associates, the University of Michigan Investment in New Technologies Fund, and unnamed individual angels. The company has now raised $22 million altogether. More here.

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New Funds

Greenspring Associates, the 15-year-old, Owing Mills, Md.-based venture capital fund-of-funds, is raising a $100 million secondaries fund, shows an SEC filing that states the first sale has yet to occur. It’s also raising a $225 million “opportunities” fund, shows a separate filing. Last month, the firm closed on $430 million for its Greenspring Global Partners VII. Like its previous six funds, the money for that fund will largely be earmarked in part for emerging venture capital managers.

—–

IPOs

Nutanix, a six-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based company that sells data center hardware that combine elements of servers and storage arrays, filed to raise $200 million in an IPO yesterday. The company has raised $317.6 million in funding, including a $140 million Series E funding round in August of 2014. Investors include Blumberg Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures and Battery Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

—–

People

The 2015 Silicon Valley “Nice” List.

Jack Dorsey on managing his busy life.

Sapphire Ventures (formerly known as SAP Ventures) has promoted three of its colleagues just in time for the holidays: Kevin Diestel, who joined the firm in 2012, is now a principal; Winter Mead, who joined last year, is now a VP; and David Pordes, who also joined last year, has been promoted to controller. (Congrats, all.)

—–

Jobs

Google Capital is looking for a senior financial analyst. The job is in Mountain View, Ca.

—–

Essential Reads

Drone registration may seem like unnecessary hassle for some, but an incident at the alpine skiing world cup this week illustrated why the FAA is pushing for regulation.

Rising costs have Amazon seeking alternative delivery routes, straining relations with its longtime shipping ally, UPS.

—–

Detours

The 12 best iPhone apps of 2015, by Mashable.

Forbes on 20 startups to watch in 2016.

The best sandwiches in New York.

—–

Retail Therapy

Wine bottle fire extinguisher. Just don’t drink the stuff.

Last week, on an internal conversational thread over at my second job with TechCrunch, the staff began chatting about some of female founders who’ve made a major dent on the tech scene in 2015, and the thread quickly became a very long and involved one.

The following are some of the people who popped immediately into mind. This list is in no way comprehensive, so please do reach out with your own thoughts about some of the women impacting the world of startups right now. We welcome any and all nominations.

In fact, since publishing this list yesterday afternoon, we’ve received many great suggestions, including Leura Fine of the interior design marketplace Laurel & Wolf (her company raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Benchmark in September), and Ida Tin of Clue, a Berlin-based fertility tracking app that raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures in October.

Much more here.

Happy Tuesday, everyone! StrictlyVC happens to be working out of a Starbucks in Washington, D.C. today where things just got a little too real (customer brawl). But did we jump up, leave, stop writing StrictlyVC? We did not! (We should have left. We’re getting out of here right now, in fact. No column today.)

—–

Top News in the A.M.

You can register your drone now.

—–

New Fundings

4Tech, a six-year-old, Newton, Ma.-based medical device company focused on the treatment of tricuspid valve disease, has raised $26.4 million, shows an SEC filing. The company had previously raised at least $7 million previously.

eFFECTOR Therapeutics, a 3.5-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based biopharmaceutical company developing translation regulators for the treatment of cancer, has raised $40 million in Series B funding led by Altitude Life Science Ventures, with participation from AbbVie Biotech Ventures, BioMed Ventures and earlier backers Abingworth, Novartis Venture Fund, SR One, The Column Group, US Venture Partners, Astellas Ventures, Osage University Partners and Mission Bay Capital. More here.

Foursquare, the 6.5-year-old, New York-based startup focused on local business recommendations and discovery,  is reportedly in the process of raising capital in a down round, says TechCrunch. TC doesn’t list an exact dollar amount but suggests that Microsoft, which joined a previous financing round, is looking to participate in its current round. More here.

MapAnything, a 6.5-year-old, Charlotte, N.C.-based company that provides mapping and geoanalytics to Salesforce users, has raised $7.3 million in Series A funding led by Greycroft Partners, with participation from Harbert Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures and individual investors Michael Lazerow and David Stern. More here.

MJ Freeway, a five-year-old, Denver, Co.-based company that makes “seed-to-sale” tracking software for legal cannabis businesses, has raised $8 million in Series B funding from investors including longtime VC Roger McNamee and Tao Capital Partners. More here.

Nuvo Logistics, a year-old, Gurgaon, India-based company that provides hyper-local grocery delivery services its online platform PepperTap.com, has reportedly raised $15 million in its fourth round of funding this year. Investors in the newest financing include Russia’s Ru-net, the Japanese private equity firm JAFCO and Beenext. Earlier investors Sequoia India and SAIF Partners also joined the round. DealStreetAsia has more here.

Shuttl, an eight-month-old, Delhi, India-based startup that enables commuters find a route, buy their ticket and take one of the company’s air-conditioned mini buses by ordering a seat via its smartphone app, has raised $20 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Uber-investor Times Internet. TechCrunch has more here.

Siteimprove, a 12-year-old, Copenhagen, Denmark-based maker of web governance software, has received a  $55 million minority investment from global growth equity firm Summit Partners. More here.

The China business of  Uber, the six-year-old, San Francisco-based ride-hailing business, has taken a strategic investment from Chinese automaker GAC Group (Guangzhou Automobile Group). Terms are undisclosed, but Uber China said that the tie-up will also include partnerships around “auto sales, services, financing, and marketing, with a particular emphasis on promoting new energy vehicles.” TechCrunch has more here.

WorkFusion, a 5.5-year-old, New York-based platform for automating the sourcing and structuring of data by pairing machine learning with online human intelligence, has raised $14 million in Series C funding led by Nokia Growth Partners, with participation from Mohr Davidow Ventures, Greycroft Partners, iNovia Capital and RTP Ventures. More here.

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New Funds

Colle Capital Partners, a new, New York-based early-stage venture firm, has raised $9.4 million for a fund that’s targeting $20 million, shows an SEC filing.Victoria Grace is the firm’s founding partner. She was previously a partner at Wall Street Technology Partners, a mid-stage tech fund, and a director at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein Private Equity Group.

—–

Exits

Developers are always looking for the next big distribution model and right now, they seem to be betting on messaging platforms. Slack is one big target. So is China’s hugely popular WeChat. In another indicator of the trend, the Canada-based popular messaging app Kik yesterday acquired a small company behind one of the most successful apps on its service, Blynk. Terms weren’t disclosed, but TechCrunch has much more here.

Microsoft has acquired Talko, a Boston-based startup dedicated to helping workgroups (or families or other sets of associates) collaborate using their smartphones. Terms were not disclosed. Talko was founded by Lotus Notes founder and former Microsoft executiveRay Ozzie. Fortune has more here.

The publicly traded storage hardware company NetApp has acquired the five-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based flash storage hardware startup SolidFire for $870 million in cash. SolidFire had raised roughly $150 million from investors, including Greenspring Associates, Samsung Ventures, and New Enterprise Associates. VentureBeat has more here.

Vivendi, the French media conglomerate, has acquired a 64.4 percent stake inRadionomy, an 8.5-year-old, Brussels-based online radio services company that owns Winamp, Shoutcast, and the online radio ad marketplace Targetspot. Variety has more here.

—–

People

Jeff Bezos, founder of both Amazon and rocket company Blue Origin, took a little dig at fellow billionaire and rocket company owner Elon Musk yesterday.More here.

—–

Jobs

China Oceanwide USA Holdings, a newly established investment company with headquarters in Beijing, China, is looking to hire a venture capital analyst. The job is in San Francisco.

—–

Data

According to a new study from UBS and PwC, only 44 percent of global billionaires in 1995 maintained that status through 2014. That means 56 percent of the billionaires in 1995 lost a comma — and sometimes more — in roughly 20 years. More here.

—–

Essential Reads

SpaceX successfully launched and then landed a Falcon 9 rocket yesterday; previous attempts had ended in explosions.

Google and Ford will create a joint venture to build self-driving vehicles with Google’s technology, reports Yahoo.

Vanity Fair on the “piercing of the Millennial bubble.”

—–

Detours

Understanding the lust for colored diamonds.

Longevity lessons from Ikaria, Greece.

Nicolas Cage just returned a stolen dinosaur skull he’d purchased. (Oh, Nicolas Cage.)

—–

Retail Therapy

Now this is a Japanese supercar.

Happy Monday, dear readers!

Just a quick reminder that we’re publishing for a few more days, then recharging through New Year’s, so we can keep going and going . . .

—–

Top News in the A.M.

U.S. health regulators are investigating complaints about laboratory and research practices at Theranos by two former employees of the blood-testing startup company, reports the WSJ.

—–

On “60 Minutes,” Tim Cook Bats Away Car Talk and More

Last night, “60 Minutes” aired a segment on Apple, in which interviewer Charlie Rose talked with CEO Tim Cook about running a modern-day tech giant and the challenges the company faces daily, from a world filled with terrorists to criticisms that its manufacturing operations in China have everything to do with low-wage workers.

Unfortunately, Rose didn’t get much new out of Cook, including about Apple’s rumored car-building operation.

Cook wouldn’t apologize for the fact that Apple is keeping $74 billion in revenue offshore, either. Two-thirds of Apple’s business is overseas, Cook noted, adding that he doesn’t plan to pay “40 percent [of that sum in taxes] to bring it home . . . I don’t think that’s a reasonable thing to do.”

One thing Cook did confirm for Rose: Apple’s new headquarters will cost a whopping $5 billion, give or take, to build.

The news magazine sent us the script last night; here it is in its entirety.

More here.

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New Fundings

Assurex Health, a nine-year-old, Mason, Oh.-based personalized medicine company that specializes in pharmacogenomics, has raised $15 million in Series D extension funding from existing (unnamed) investors. More here.

Axonics Modulation Technologies, a two-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based company that’s developing implantable neuromodulation technologies, has raised $38.5 million in Series B funding. New investors Advent Life Sciences and Cormorant Asset Management joined earlier investors in the round, including a syndicate led by Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, NeoMed Management, Legend Capital, The Alfred E. Mann Foundation and unnamed private individuals. Axonics has now raised $59 million altogether. More here.

CellSavers, a year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based on-demand repair service that’s like an Uber for smartphone repairs, has raised $3 million in seed funding from Sequoia Israel. TechCrunch has more here.

Flux Factory, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of collaborative design software for the building design and construction industry, has raised $29 million in Series B funding co-led by Temasek and Surbana Jurong Private Limited.  Far East Ventures, DFJ, South Park Ventures, Borealis Ventures, and Obvious Ventures also participated in the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Gusto, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based online platform for payroll, compliance, and benefit services, has raised $22.3 million in new Series B funding, according to an SEC filing that shows a $50 million target. Earlier backers include Google Capital, Emergence Capital Partners, Google Ventures, and Ribbit Capital. Gusto was formerly known as ZenPayroll.

Lyft, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based ride-hailing company, plans to raise as much as $1 billion in new funds, according to a Delaware state filing. Bloomberg has the story here.

Memblaze, a nearly five-year-old, Beijing, China-based flash memory card maker, has raised “tens of millions of U.S. dollars” in Series C funding from General Technology Venture Capital Co. and Qualcomm Ventures, according to a company announcement. China Money Network has more here.

Segura Networks, a four-year-old, U.K.-based company that makes production tracking systems that retailers and brand owners in the garment industry use to control their supply chain, has raised roughly $3 million in funding from Octopus Ventures.

—–

New Funds

BioGeneration Ventures, a nine-year-old, Naarden, North Holland-based venture investment firm, is looking to raise about 50 million euros ($54 million) for its third fund next year, reports Dow Jones VentureWire. The firm reportedly just saw a huge exit with AstraZeneca $4 billion purchase of the cancer-drug startup Acerta Pharma B.V.

OrbiMed, the 26-year-old, New York-based investment firm leading investment firm focused on the healthcare sector, just announced the closing of its newest fund, OrbiMed Private Investments VI, LP, with a stunning $950 million, citing the “increasing pace of translation of science to medicine” and the “exciting opportunities” that’s creating in areas like oncology, central nervous system disease, and gene editing. The new fund, focused on North America and Europe, is expected to fund roughly 30 companies, via checks that range from $10 million to $75 million. (If this announcement sounds vaguely familiar to you, it may be because last week, we mentioned another, Israel-focused fund that week that Orbimed is raising.)

—–

Exits

Qihoo, a Beijing-based developer of security software and Internet browsers, announced late last week that it will go private in a deal worth $9.3 billion. As Reuters notes, this makes Qihoo the latest in a growing list of U.S.-listed Chinese tech firms that have decided to go private. More here.

—–

People

More than two years after he bought the Post from the Graham family for $250 million, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has shaped its digital transformation in ways big and small. Bloomberg takes a look here.

Sam Fort has been promoted to partner at DFJ Growth. Fort joined the firm five years ago as a principal, after logging time as an analyst at Morgan Stanley and an associate at TPG Growth. When we talked with DFJ Growth cofounder Randy Glein last week, he credited Fort with “doing a terrific job for us, both in helping us envision new markets that we’ll be investing in and sourcing several of our important investments.”

The WSJ takes a look at famed investment banker Frank Quattrone‘s “comeback in the new tech era.”

Pharmecuticals executive Martin Shkreli said this weekend that securities fraud allegations that resulted in his arrest last week were “baseless and without merit.” No matter; he’s losing jobs left and right as a result.

—–

Jobs

Scrum Ventures is looking to hire an associate. The job is in San Francisco.

—–

Essential Reads

Ruh roh. On Friday, Jet.com announced in emails to customers and on its website that it can’t guarantee delivery of merchandise in time for Christmas except items eligible for pricey two-day delivery.

Maybe we’ll see Terrafugia‘s flying car in the U.S. someday after all.

—–

Detours

How you’ll search for a job in 2016.

How to read an entire book in a single day.

The siege of Miami.

—–

Retail Therapy

Apps to download in 2016.