Happy Friday song!

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Top News in the A.M.

China’s securities regulator plans to lift its moratorium on new stock market listings before the end of the year, the official news agency Xinhua said today. More here.

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In India, a Founder Detained for Days By Axed Employees, and Police

Well that was . . . different.

Last night, one of six cofounders of TinyOwl, a two-year-old, Mumbai, India-based food ordering software startup, was released after reportedly being held captive for two days by disgruntled former employees at the company’s office in Pune.

TinyOwl had earlier this week announced $7.67 million in fresh funding from earlier backers Matrix Partners and Sequoia Capital. But the funding came with the understanding that TinyOwl would follow through on a major restructuring to control its burn rate.

Part of those changes, reported the Economic Times, involved moving TinyOwl’s order processing to a third party app. According to Media Nama, they also included plans to lay off 112 sales employees across India in a second massive round of layoffs. (In September, reportedly, the company had separately laid off 100 employees.)

As part of that restructuring plan, the company is shutting down its operations in four cities, including Pune. Which leads us to what happened to company cofounder Gaurav Choudhary.

Choudhary had traveled to Pune earlier this week to oversee the office’s closure, while his fellow cofounders – all of whom are graduates of IIT Bombay — traveled to sites in Gurgaon, Chennai and Hyderabad to do the same.

More here.

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New Fundings

Biological Dynamics, seven-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based company whose technology is used to monitor patients treated for cancer, has raised $26.8 million in Series C funding led by an unnamed investor associated with a university. Other participants included Alexandria Venture Investments, Heritage Group and Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs. More here.

BrightFarms, a four-year-old, New York-based locally grown produce purveyor, has raised $13.65 million in Series B-1 financing from WP Global Partners, NGEN Partners, Emil Capital Partners and other investors. More here.

BuildingConnected, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of bid management software, has raised $8.5 million in Series A funding led by CrossLink Capital, with participation from Homebrew, Freestyle Capital, Bee Partners and Brick & Mortar Ventures. More here.

Hasselblad, the 174-year-old, Gothenburg, Sweden-based high-end camera maker, has accepted an undisclosed amount of money from the China-based, venture-backed drone maker DJI in exchange for a minority stake in its business. The deal is significant enough that DJI gets a board seat in the transaction. TechCrunch has more here.

HotChalk, an 11-year-old, Campbell, Ca.-based platform that helps non-profit universities and colleges create online graduate degrees and currently supports 33 online degree programs, is raising $230 million from the European media group Bertelsmann, which will become the largest shareholder in the company. Reuters has more here.

Hyperloop, Elon Musk’s year-old, L.A.-based super high-speed transportation project, has raised $26 million in funding led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Formation 8 and Sherpa Capital. The company has now raised roughly $37 million altogether. Fortune has more here.

Innit, a nearly two-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based startup behind a new, “connected” cooking system, has raised $25 million in funding from unidentified investors. Wired has much more here.

Relayr, a two-year-old, Berlin-based Internet-of-Things startup, has raised more than $11 million in Series A funding from Munich Venture Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Tech.eu has more here.

TicketManager, an eight-year-old, Calabasas, Ca.-based startup whose software and services help businesses measure and manage the cost, use and effect of client and employee rewards, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by previous backer Point Judith Capital, with participation from Kayne Partners. More here.

Xometry, a two-year-old, Gaithersburg, Md.-based company advanced manufacturing company, has raised $8.8 million in funding led by Highland Capital Partners. More here.

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IPOs

Payments company Square, which filed to go public last month, has filed new paperwork suggesting it plans to sell 27 million shares at between $11 and $13 per share. As Fortune notes, at the high end of the range, Square would be valued at $4.19 billion. Meanwhile, its last private round of funding, in October 2014, pegged its valuation at $6 billion. More about the offering — which would represent roughly 8 percent of the company’s outstanding shares — here.

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Exits

Livescribe, an eight-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based smart pen maker, has been acquired for $15 million by Anoto, a digital writing company in Sweden. The sale represents a sizable loss for investors, who’d plugged at least $68 million into the company. According to CrunchBase, its backers include VantagePoint Capital Partners, Crosslink Capital, Scale Venture Partners, andQualcomm Ventures.

Sosh, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based online marketplace that allowed users to find things to do in their city, is shutting down, with 18 of its 40 employees headed to Postmates as part of an acquihire. Sosh CEO Rishi Mandal is also joining the company. None of Sosh’s technology is part of the deal, reports TechCrunch. Sosh had raised a little more than $16 million from investors, shows CrunchBase. Backers include Redpoint Ventures, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, Battery Ventures, and Polaris Partners.

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People

Robert De Niro is apparently out of patience when it comes to these tech moguls and their condescending attitudes.

Steve Newcomb’s newest company, Famo.us, is pivoting again and firing 20 people in the process.

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Jobs

Felix Capital, the year-old, venture firm founded by longtime investor Frederic Court, is looking to hire both a principal and an associate. The jobs are in London.

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Data

Agriculture startups raised $113.6 million in the third quarter, reports Venture Capital Dispatch. That’s the highest amount raised in a quarter since industry tracker Dow Jones VentureSource began collecting data in 1992. The amount raised in the agriculture and forestry sector has hit $161.1 million 2015 so far.

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Essential Reads

Goldman Sachs says it will start promoting junior bankers faster to prevent them from defecting — including to tech startups.

Faraday Future, an under-the-radar, 18-month-old, Gardena, Ca.-based company, already has 400 employees and big ambitions to take on Tesla.

Toyota is coming to Silicon Valley with plans to spend $1 billion on artificial intelligence R&D.

Behind rising inequality: more unequal companies.

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Detours

Two guys, wearing jetpacks, flying alongside an Airbus A380. NBD.

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Retail Therapy

When James Bond chases bad guys in the Alps, he wears Danner Boots to keep his feet dry and comfortable.

Aziz Ansari in “Master of None.” Available on Netflix today.

Wow, is it really Thursday already?! Hope you enjoy the day, everyone.

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Top News in the A.M.

JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and other big banks are reportedly “snarling the flow of data” to popular sites that help consumers manage their finances. The WSJ has the story here.

Unrelated (we think): JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon thinks the government willcrack down on bitcoin and other virtual currencies before they get too big.

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Trinity Ventures Raises $400 Million for 12th Fund

Trinity Ventures, a 29-year-old, Sand Hill Road Firm whose recent hits include the IPOs of Zulily, New Relic and TubeMogul — not to mention the still-private but highly valued startup Docker — has closed its 12th fund with $400 million in capital.

We were in touch yesterday with Ajay Chopra, a general partner at the firm for nearly the last decade, to ask what the fundraising process was like at a time when valuations are high — as are concerns about exits. Our exchange has been edited lightly for length.

You raised your last fund in 2012 with $325 million. This fund is considerably larger. 

We’re writing slightly larger checks for the same ownership. With valuations higher, it takes a larger check to get the same ownership in a similarly sized portfolio. But our mission and strategy for achieving it have stayed the same: invest early in world-class teams going after big ideas, support them through good times and bad, and build meaningful businesses together.

How has the firm’s team changed since that last fund was closed?

Since then, we’ve added six people to our staff. Four of the new additions are women, and two of those women are partners. We’re very glad that with these additions, we’re probably the most diverse firm of our size.

The [general partners are] the same except for Noel Fenton, who founded the firm almost 30 years ago and is taking a well-deserved step back.

What was fundraising like? What did your investors want most to see? Did you sense nervousness on their part over exits, or a general lack of them?

Besides good performance, they want to see funds where partners have worked well together over several investment cycles with consistent investment style over several funds. They’re definitely concerned about current startup valuations but also understand that from a return standpoint, it’s primarily an issue for late-stage investors.

How are you dealing with the slowdown in IPOs?

More here.

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New Fundings

Atreca, a five-year-old, San Carlos, Ca.-based company developing antibodies that could enable more patients to benefit from new, immunotherapies, has raised $56 million in Series A funding led by an undisclosed health care-focused fund, with participation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GlaxoSmithKline and Mission Bay Capital. More here.

Cask, a four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based open-source software company that makes it easier for developers to build applications that run on the big data software system Hadoop, has raised $20 million in Series B funding, reports VentureWire. The round was led by Safeguard Scientifics. The company has now raised $37 million altogether.

Coveo, a 10-year-old, Quebec-based enterprise search technology company, has raised $35 million in Series D financing led by IQ Venture Capital, with participation from earlier backers, including Tandem Expansion Fund, BDC Capital, Propulsion Ventures SEC, Fonds de solidarité FTQ, and Coveo CEO Louis Tetu. Altogether, the company has now raised $75 million. More here.

Hivemapper, an 11-year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based startup that wants to help drone pilots avoid crashing into buildings and other structures, has raised $2.9 million in a new seed round led by Spark Capital, reports Venture Capital Dispatch.

M.Gemi, a 1.5-year-old Boston-based company that sells shoes made in Italy directly to consumers, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led by Accel Partners, with participation from earlier investors General Catalyst Partners, Forerunner Ventures and Breakaway Ventures. BetaBoston has more here.

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(Other) New Funds

In a surprising turn of events, the four-year-old venture firm Formation 8 has axed plans to raise a third fund, reports TechCrunch. Instead, cofounder and general partner Joe Lonsdale will be raising his own $400 million fund (with a lot of Formation 8 staffers joining him, we hear). Its brand: 8 Partners.

Greenspring Associates, the 15-year-old, Owing Mills, Md.-based venture capital fund-of-funds, has raised $430 million for Greenspring Global Partners VII. Like its previous six funds, the money will be earmarked for emerging venture capital managers, expansion-stage companies and secondary interests of funds and companies. Some of the firm’s investments include the venture firms 5AM Ventures, Balderton Capital, and Accel Partners. Its startup stakes include the web performance and security company CloudFlare and the marketing platform DemandBase. More here.

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Exits

Expedia announced yesterday that’s acquiring the publicly traded vacation rental service HomeAway and its brands — including VRBO.com —  for $3.9 billion in cash and Expedia common stock. The 10-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based compay had raised almost $505 million across five funding rounds before its 2011 IPO. TechCrunch has more here.

Johnson & Johnson is acquiring the six-year-old, Radnor, Pa.-based antiviral drug discovery company Novira Therapeutics for undisclosed terms. Novira had raised roughly $40 million in equity and debt funding, including from 5AM Ventures, Canaan Partners, Versant Ventures, shows CrunchBase.

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People

Facebook director Marc Andreessen has sold roughly 15 percent of his stake in the social network in recent days, netting nearly $31.9 million, according to an SEC filing. He sold the shares under a prearranged trading plan, reports the WSJ.

Madrona Venture Group has hired serial startup exec Mike Fridgen to lead its Madrona Venture Labs, an in-house startup studio that launched 18 months ago and has since spun out two companies: Spare5, an app that pays people to perform tasks on their smartphone in their spare time and is now funded by New Enterprise Associates, Foundry and Madrona, among others; and a second company that’s still operating in “stealth” mode. Among other things, Fridgen was previously president and CEO of the shopping service Decide. After it sold to eBay in 2013, he became general manager of eBay’s 400-person Seattle office.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said earlier this week that Tesla may add constraints to its autodriving mode, mostly because people are idiots. (Gizmodo’s words, not his.)

Beleaguered ad tech company Rocket Fuel has announced a series of changes to its top management. Business Insider has more here.

A couple of Skype‘s cofounders —  Janus Friis and Ahti Heinla — are going against the grain with a drone that makes deliveries from the ground, not sky.

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Jobs

Venture Lab, an Accion-sponsored initiative to invest in and support seed-stage startups that are improving the way financial services are delivered to the poor, is looking for an investment associate. The job is in Washington, D.C. Past experience working in India is a plus.

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Data

Feel like corporate VCs are taking over? You aren’t far off. According to a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, corporate groups invested $2.3 billion across 240 deals to the startup ecosystem during the third quarter of 2015, accounting for 14.1 percent of all venture capital dollars invested and 21.5 percent — or one fifth(!) — of all deals. Through the first three quarters, a combined 181 corporate venture groups participated in 20.5 percent of all deals and accounted for 13.6 percent of the capital invested in startups. More here.

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Essential Reads

Facebook video viewership is growing — fast. According to company, it now sees 8 billion average daily video views from 500 million users. That’s up from just 4 billion video views per day in April. Facebook also disclosed yesterday in an earnings call that more than 1.55 billion people now visit its platform each month.

The higher price of delivery app convenience: a breakdown.

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Detours

The best Bond cars.

Twenty-two fascinating facts about Warren Buffett’s success.

A Change.org petition is asking the United Nations to stop singer Phil Collins from coming out of retirement with a new album, citing “too much suffering in the world as it is.”

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Retail Therapy

A smoke-colored weekender bag by Malle. (We like this one.)

Hi, everyone!

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Top News in the A.M.

San Francisco voters have rejected a measure to curb Airbnb rentals in the city.

The price of Bitcoin is suddenly surging again.

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Marc Andreessen and Sheryl Sandberg Battle Notion that Tech is Driving Income Inequality

Yesterday morning at Fortune’s Global Forum conference in San Francisco, Fortune interviewer Alan Murray got quite an earful from the guests on his panel: Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and venture capitalist and Facebook board member Marc Andreessen, who pushed back hard on the notion that technology is exacerbating income inequality.

It was a riveting chat that touched on what’s next in mobile, whether Facebook might restructure itself a la Alphabet, and why Andreessen has seemingly been promoting Facebook competitor Twitter by spending so much time publishing to the platform. Some highlights follow.

On the changes brought by mobile. . .

For his part, Andreessen talked at some length about the “smart phone wars,” and the fact that “gigantic manufacturing capacity is being built up worldwide” – from screens to chips to batteries – which has driven down the cost of making smart phones to $25.

That’s great for smartphone customers, of course, but it’s also great for investors, he suggested. The reason: The same components are now used to help produce electric cars, drones, virtual reality hardware and connected toys, among other things. There are “thousands of categories that weren’t possible before that will use smart phone components,” he said.

More here.

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New Fundings

Hi, all, happy Tuesday!

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Top News in the A.M.

Volkswagen‘s emission cheating scandal is now threatening to spread to its Porsche brand.

Google is aiming to begin drone deliveries in 2017.

Tencent Holdings is about to invest $1 billion in China’s biggest online provider of on-demand services, as part of a new round that could value the startup at $20 billion.

Twitter is changing its star icon for favorites to a heart and calling them “likes.”

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RelayRides Rebrands as Turo, Raises $47 Million Led by Kleiner

RelayRides, the six-year-old, San Francisco-based peer-to-peer car rental service, has just rebranded itself as Turo. The company is also announcing $47 million in Series C funding led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

The combined announcement is meant to grab attention. Turo doesn’t disclose the number of people using its platform or the number of cars currently available to renters. But the company says that 60 percent of its revenue now comes from out-of-town travelers who are renting the cars of people who are themselves flying out of town. And it wants to take the trend global, thus the name. CEO Andre Haddad says it evokes both “touring,” or, in Italian, “turismo.”

The shift makes sense. There are plenty of hassles involved in airport parking, from the typical drive to the far-flung lot to the big parking tab. Cars are also depreciating assets from which more owners could easily wring money.

Turo isn’t not alone in trying to capture people who are willing to hand over their car keys for a little more spending money. Among its other competitors are GetAround and Flightcar, a company whose major restructuring we wrote about last month.

Still, there are differences. Whereas GetAround rents cars by the hour or day, Turo requires a one-day minimum and says the average rental period is 5.5 days.

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New Fundings

3nder, a nearly two-year-old, London-based dating platform for “curious, open-minded people” (we won’t ask), has raised $500,000 in seed funding from an undisclosed group of angel investors. More here.

Affinio, a two-year-old, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada-based marketing intelligence platform, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by Whitecap Venture Partners, with participation from Build Ventures, Social Starts, BRaVe Ventures, and unnamed angel investors. More here.

Appier, a three-year-old, Taipei, Taiwan-based marketing company that uses artificial intelligence to find audiences for ads across mobile, desktop and tablet platforms, has raised $23 million in Series B funding from investors, including Sequoia Capital, JAFCO Asia, TransLink Capital, MediaTek Ventures and an investment arm of Singaporean bank UOB. The South China Morning Post has more here.

ByeBuy, a six-month-old, London-based pay-as-you-go and on-demand alternative to gadget ownership, has raised €1 million in seed funding, including from the Commerzbank subsidiary Main Incubator, Rocket Internet’s venture arm Global Founders Capital, Hannover Innovation Fund, KRW Schindler Investments, and previous investor Seedcamp. TechCrunch has more here.

Deporvillage, a five-year-old, Spanish ecommerce startup focused on sports apparel, has raised €3.7m ($4 million) in funding from backers that include la Nevera Roja, Ad4Ventures, Cabiedes & Partners, the Italian venture firm Programma 101, and business angels. More here.

Iboss Cybersecurity, a nearly 13-year-old, San Diego-based cybersecurity company, has raised $35 million in Series A funding from Goldman Sachs‘ Private Capital Investing group. The San Diego Tribune has much more here.

IPV, an 18-year-old, Cambridge, UK-based provider of multi-media content management systems, has raised £$2.5 million ($3.8 million) from Calculus Capital. More here.

Localize, a two-year-old, San Francisco, Ca.-based business translation platform for both large, mid-size, and small businesses, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding led by FG Angels, with participation from Kima Ventures, zPark, and Matchstick Ventures. Business Insider has more here.

Lumo, a four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based smart sensors and software platform, has raised $10 million in Series B financing. New investor Wuxi Healthcare Ventures led the latest round, along with previous investors Madrona Venture Group, Innovation Endeavors, AME Cloud Ventures, Innovalue Capital, MAS Holdings, and SanDisk founder Eli Harari. TechCrunch has more here.

Qraved, a two-year-old, Jakarta, Indonesia-based company that provides users with restaurant information, reviews, recommended dishes with photos, promotions, and the abiity to book a table, has raised $8 million in Series B funding co-led by Richmond Global Ventures and Gobi Partners, with participation from GWC and earlier backers Convergence Ventures, 500 Startups, Toivo Annus, and M&Y Partners. The outlet e27 has more here.

Personal Genome Diagnostics, a five-year-old, Baltimore-based company that’s making advanced cancer genome testing products and services, has raised $21.4 million in Series A funding round led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from Windham Venture Partners and Nanjing Kaiyuan Growth Capital Investments. More here.

It is November! Or Movember, for some of you. Hope it’s off to a great start.

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Top News in the A.M.

The SEC on Friday approved rules that pave the way for Main Street investors to take equity stakes in startup businesses raising capital via crowdfunding. Much more here.

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Thomas Korte of AngelPad on Its “Disproportionate Success” with European Founders

Soon, AngelPad, a five-year-old incubator that twice a year chooses roughly a dozen startups to coach over a three-month period, will host an invite-only “demo day” for a couple hundred angels and VCs in San Francisco.

Likely, the investors are already looking forward to it. AngelPad has funded 115 companies to date, including its current cohort, and half a dozen of those companies are now valued at more than $100 million. Among them: the in-app video startup Vungle, the business-to-business marketplace Kinnek, and the mobile application performance management company Crittercism. AngelPad has also seen at least one major exit in MoPub, a startup that helped mobile publishers manage their ad inventory. Twitter acquired the company for $350 million in stock in the fall of 2013. The value of those shares shot to $1 billion after Twitter went public later that year.

Recently, we grabbed some coffee with Thomas Korte, the former international product manager at Google who cofounded AngelPad with his wife, Carine Magescas, to get a sneak preview of its latest companies. (More on those to come.) We also talked about why he has seen “disproportional success with Euro founders.” More from that chat, edited for length, follows:

Back in September, Bill Gurley questioned the unit economics of several companies, including the delivery service Postmates, which is one of your early investments. His concern was that their margins are too low relative to the amounts of money they’ve raised from investors. What did you make of his comments?

I didn’t hear them, but I read about them, and I think he’s a very smart guy whose points were valid. I just know he got it completely wrong about Postmates’s unit economics. The other companies he mentioned at the time, including Instacart, are fundamentally different businesses. If you as a founder or investor think a company’s success is just about scale and grabbing market share, you’re living in a world of bedlam. I couldn’t agree more.

I do think you need to disregard business fundamentals sometimes, but not at a scale where you’re raising and spending hundreds of millions of dollars, because you reach a point where people start to ask questions and [investors grow weary].

Amazon is making a big push into on-demand delivery. How big a threat is it to Postmates?

More here.

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New Fundings

AppDynamics, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose software monitors the performance of business applications, has raised a fresh $83.4 million in funding as part of a round that’s targeting up to $150 million, shows a new SEC filing. Just last month, the company announced that former Adobe digital chief David Wadhwani had joined as CEO. According to CrunchBase, the company has raised $206 million to date in debt and equity, excluding its newest funding. We have more for you here. (H/T: EquityZen.)

ClearSky Data, a 1.5-year-old, Boston-based company offering enterprise storage as a fully managed service, has raised $27 million in Series B funding led by Polaris Partners, with participation from Akamai Technologies and earlier backers General Catalyst Partners and Highland Capital Partners. The company has now raised $39 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Confer, a two-year-old, Boston-based cyberthreat prevention network, has raised $17 million in Series B funding led by Foundation Capital, with participation from earlier investors Matrix Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners. The company has now raised $25 million altogether. More here.

Crinetics Pharmaceuticals, a seven-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based therapeutics company focused on specialty endocrine disorders, has raised $40 million in Series A funding led by 5AM Ventures, Versant Ventures, and Vivo Capital. Xconomy has more here.

DraftKings, the three-year-old, Boston-based online daily fantasy sports startup, is reportedly raising another $200 million in investor funding. The round would bring the company’s total  funding to about $630 million and peg its valuation at $2 billion. Boston Business Journal has more here.

Handy, a three-year-old, New York-based platform that invites users to book household service providers, has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by new investor Fidelity Management, with participation from earlier backers TPG Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, Highland Capital Partners and Revolution Growth. The round brings the total invested in Handy (formerly known as Handybook) to just under $111 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Huckletree, a 1.5-year-old, London-based community of coworking spaces, has raised £2.4 million ($3.7 million) in Series A funding, including from Felix Capital. More here.

Nestpick, a 1.5-year-old, Berlin-based company aiming to digitize the entire apartment rental process and eliminate in-person viewings, has raised $11 million in Series A funding from Mangrove Capital Partners, Enern and Rocket Internet. TechCrunch has more here.

Sighten, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based solar financing and supply chain software developer, has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding led by Obvious Ventures. More here.

Vinaya, a two-year-old, U.K.-based startup whose first product is a range of high-end jewelry wearables called Altrius, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Passion Capital, with participation from former Index partner Robin Klein, Playfair Capital, Bebo cofounder Michael Birch and several others. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Pitango Venture Capital — which has invested in companies such as AppsFlyer and Taboola — has announced the first clos of its new Pitango Growth Fund, a vehicle that’s targeting $250 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Startupbootcamp, which bills itself as Europe’s largest startup accelerator, has today announced the launch of its first accelerator programme in the U.S. It’s open for applications now and plans to host its first class in Miami, Fla.. The focus will be on so-called digital health. Tech.eu. has more here.

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IPOs

Instructure, a seven-year-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based company that operates an online learning management system, announced terms for its IPO today. It plans to raise $75 million by offering 4.4 million shares at a price range of $16 to $18. Instructure has raised roughly $80 million from investors, including Bessemer Venture Partners and Insight Venture Partners. More here.

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Exits

Big win alert: Bristol-Myers Squibb is acquiring the 10-year-old, Chapel Hill, N.C.-based cardiovascular disease drug developer Cardioxyl for up to $2 billion. According to CrunchBase, Cardioxyl had raised roughly $66 million over the years, including from New Enterprise Associates, OrbiMed, Aurora Funds and Osage University Partners. Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News has more here.

The social media management company Sprinklr has acquired Booshaka, a three-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company aiming to give businesses a better understanding of their audience.The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Booshaka had raised $3 million from SV Angel, PivotNorth Capital, FF Angel, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and others, according to CrunchBase. Founder ad CEO Erik Ober tells TechCrunch that his entire 10-person Booshaka team will be joining Sprinklr, which was founded six years ago in New York and has raised roughly $123 million to date.

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People

This weekend in San Francisco’s ritzy Sea Cliff neighborhood, StrictlyVC spied Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff dressed like a pirate and gleefully handing out full-size Hershey bars to trick-or-treaters while Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album blared from behind him. He stood underneath a canopy alongside several beefy guys who were also happily handing out chocolate bars and who we took to be bodyguards. Nice to see all of them out in front of Benioff’s home on a Halloween night.

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Jobs

F-Prime Capital (the venture outfit affiliated with Fidelity Investments) is looking to hire an associate for its tech investment team. The job is in Boston.

iNovia Capital is looking to hire a data-driven analyst for its early stage investment team. The job is in Waterloo, Ontario. To apply, write to antoine@inovia.vc

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Data

As private valuations increase, public market returns are shrinking, shows a new study.

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Essential Reads

How Uber and its peers turned us into horrible bosses.

Amazon is giving up on Local, a daily deals coupon business that competed with services offered by Groupon.

Apple is testing a way to goose sales: By offering $50 off to shoppers who buy a new iPhone and Apple Watch together.

The war continues in the world of wearable fitness trackers. Jawbone — which makes fitness trackers, speakers and Bluetooth headsets — has filed a counterclaim against Fitbit in a patent infringement case brought by the latter company against its rival in September.

Can GM beat Google to the self-driving car?

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Detours

Diagnostic exam: Do you have math anxiety?

Product reviews written by people going through breakups.

The joy of bats.

Driving mode. We’re all for it.

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Retail Therapy

Someone who must be very brilliant has made a remote-controlled R2-D2 mini fridge.

Hi, everyone, we’re running off to a Halloween parade. Hope you have a frightfully good weekend, and we’ll see you back here on Monday!

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Top News in the A.M.

The SEC is voting to finalize rules on Title III of the JOBS Act today.

HTC’s latest financial results are out, and the struggling Taiwanese company is still struggling.

LinkedIn reported its third quarter earnings yesterday, and they trounced analyst expectations.

SolarCity also beat revenue expectations yesterday.

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Blind, An Anonymous Chat App for Employees, Raises Series A Funding from DCM

Tired of being monitored by your company while wanting to dish with colleagues about said company? Or maybe you’re curious about what people with similar work experience are making at other companies. Blind, a two-year-old app founded in South Korea and newly available in the U.S., may be just the thing for you.

Its big idea: bringing anonymity to the workplace so you can “share the real you” with other employees. If you happen to figure out what’s really happening in the upper echelons of the company, so much the better.

Blind’s origins trace back to Naver, the South Korean Internet giant, which long ran a widely used employee forum but pulled the plug when employees began making less-than-flattering remarks about management. When a group of Naver employees left to form Blind, many Naver employees embraced the platform, followed by employees elsewhere.

It’s been growing ever since, says Osuke Honda, a general partner at DCM, which led an unannounced Series A round of “single digit millions” in the company in May. Indeed, he says that another pivotal moment for Blind came late last year, when a senior Korean Air executive exploded in a rage after a flight attendant presented her peanuts in a bag instead of on a dish.

More here.

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New Fundings

Aira.IO, a year-old, La Jolla, Calif.-based visual interpreter for the blind, has raised $790,000 in seed funding from Lux Capital and ARCH Venture Partners. More here.

Monclarity, a Burlingame, Ca.-based company that was cofounded by a neuropsychologist and makes games that it promises can train the brain under the brand Brainwell, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Access Industries. More here.

Elastic Path Software, a 15-year-old, Vancouver, Canada- based company that builds commerce software for e-tailers, has raised $7.6 million from Yaletown Venture Partners and BDC Venture Capital. More here.

Filld, a months-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based on-demand fuel delivery startup, has raised $3.25 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Javelin Ventures Partners. More here.

MabSpace Biosciences, a seven-year-old, Suzhou, China-based developer of antibody-based therapeutics designed to treat cancer, has raised $15 million in Series A funding from Lilly Asia Ventures. China Money Network has more here.

TrendKite, a three-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based public relations analytics company, has raised $10.7 million in Series C funding led by Noro-Moseley Partners, with participation from earlier backers Battery Ventures, Silverton Partners and Mercury Fund. More here.

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New Funds

Altos Ventures is looking to raise up to $110 million for its second Korea-focused venture capital fund, according to an SEC filing that states the first sale has yet to occur.

Hi, happy Thursday, everyone.:)

—–

Top News in the A.M.

PayPal stumbled yesterday in its first earnings call since splitting from eBay.

GoPro also took a dive yesterday after releasing Q3 financials that disappointed street expectations.

Meanwhile, Yelp disclosed its third quarter earnings, too, and they look far better than the previous quarter.

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Pay to Play: How Investors Get Burned in a Downturn

Earlier this year, the law firm Fenwick & West published a report analyzing the financing terms of 37 U.S.-based venture-backed companies that raised money at valuations of $1 billion or more in the 12-month period ending March 31.

The report’s headline-grabbing conclusionwas that in all cases, the investors had received significant downside protection in case the companies’ value declines. (Called a liquidation preference, the companies’ later-stage investors basically received the right to get paid ahead of other investors, as well as the companies’ management teams and employees.)

The findings were a revelation, but they didn’t provide a complete picture of what could happen in a downturn. In fact, there’s a giant hitch the report did not touch on, and that’s pay-to-play provisions, which became routine during the dot com bust of 15 years ago and could well become commonplace again if things head south.

“VCs, especially people who’ve been in the business a long time, understand them,” says attorney Barry Kramer, who authored the Fenwick & West report and more recently wrote on Mediumabout pay-to-play provisions. “It’s part of their calculation. I’m not sure that a good chunk of newer investors, whether non-traditional or because they’re just younger or whatever, have this scenario in mind.”

They should.

More here.

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New Fundings

Brandwatch, an eight-year-old, Brighton, U.K.-based social media monitoring firm that says it crawls more than 80 million sites, has raised $33 million in Series C funding led by Partech Ventures, with participation from earlier investors Highland Capital Partners Europe and Nauta Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Digital Currency Group, an eight-month-old, New York-based holding firm that was created by SecondMarket founder Barry Silbert and focuses on investing and developing businesses that deal in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from some big U.S. financial names, including Bain Capital Ventures, MasterCard, New York Life Insurance Company, and CIBC. Reuters has more here.

Enlitic, a year-old, San Francisco-based company applying machine learning to X-rays, MRIs and other medical images to radiologists, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Capitol Health Limited, an Australian radiology company that operates imaging centers in Australia and some Asian markets. Enlitic previously raised $5 million in Series A funding from Amplify Partners, Data Collective, and individual investors. Venture Capital Dispatch has the story here.

Gobble, a four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company that delivers weekly “dinner kits” — meals that can be prepared in 10 minutes or fewer, using just one pan — has raised $10.75 million in Series A funding led by Trinity Ventures, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Fenox VC, Initialized Capital and Trinity Ventures entrepreneur-in-residence Anjula Acharia-Bath. More here.

Qvella, a six-year-old, Toronto-based molecular diagnostics company, has raised $20 million in Series A financing co-led by RA Capital Management and Whitecap Venture Partners, with participation from Hatteras Venture Partners and Sands Capital Ventures. More here.

Two Bit Circus, a three-year-old, L.A.-based company that produces interactive, experiential tech exhibits, has raised $6.5 million in funding co-led by Techstars Ventures and Foundry Group. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

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New Funds

Frazier Healthcare Partners, a 24-year-old healthcare-focused venture firm with offices in both Menlo Park, Ca., and Seattle, has raised $262 million for its eighth fund. The vehicle is substantially smaller than its predecessor fund, a $375 million pool raised in 2013. We’ve talked with longtime general partner Jamie Topper about why that is. More here.

—–

People

A new ruling clears the way for a trial of Facebook shareholder Ernesto Espinoza’s allegations that Facebook allowed directors to award themselves excessive pay in 2013, when non-employee directors received an average of $461,000 in stock. That’s as much as 43 percent more than its industry peers, says Espinoza’s complaint. Bloomberg has the story here.

Nirav Tolia, co-founder and CEO of the neighborhood social networking site Nextdoor.com, met with a group of activists in Oakland, Ca., yesterday to discuss concerns about racial profiling on the website; he told them that Nextdoor plans to add a “racial profiling button” to allow users to flag inappropriate posts. East Bay Express has more here.

Jon Winkelried, who previously served as president and co-chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs, has been named Co-CEO of TPG Holdings, where he’ll work alongside TPG cofounder and current CEO Jim Coulter. David Bonderman, who co-founded TPG with Coulter, will continue on as chairman of TPG. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

—–

Jobs

Redpoint Ventures is looking to hire a data-driven analyst for its early-stage investing team. The job is in both San Francisco and Menlo Park, Ca. To apply, write to talent@redpoint.com.

—–

Essential Reads

IT is using wireless signals to identify people through walls.

Amazon is planning to release its own QVC-like shopping channel, and purchases can be done right from the screen. More here.

An interesting new virtual reality startup is trying to bring professional decorating to the masses. More here.

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Det0urs

Expectant dad photographer.

How the 1 percent says, “Boo!”

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Retail Therapy

Frappula, the Halloween drink of your nightmares (if you are scared of chocolate sauce and raspberry syrup).

Hi, everyone! Apologies for the insanely late send; we’ve been on back-to-back calls since earlier this morning.

Hope you’re having a great Wednesday.:)

—–

Top News in the A.M.

The tiny vials used by Theranos to collect finger-pricked blood has been declared by the FDA as an “uncleared medical device” that the company was shipping across state lines, reports the WSJ.

Apple turned in another blockbuster quarter yesterday, fueled by sales of the iPhone.

Twitter revealed yesterday that it’s user base still isn’t growing.

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Klarna, a Swedish Unicorn, is Coming to the U.S. with Big Ambitions to Take on Its U.S. Peers

If you live in the U.S., you might not be terribly familiar with Klarna, a 10-year-old Stockholm-based company that provides payment services for online storefronts in a somewhat unique way — by “separating the buying from the selling,” as company cofounder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski explains it.

Put simply, you visit a site powered by Klarna, input only your email and zip code, and presto, your item is purchased. You then have 30 days to pay back Klarna, using whatever payment method you like. The big idea is to increase conversion rates, and whether or not they realize it, 35 million consumers have now used Klarna across the sites of 50,000 merchants, who understandably love the service. (The fewer keystrokes required, the higher the chance a purchase will be made, especially with a smartphone.)

Of course, what’s happening behind the scenes is a sophisticated fraud management operation, one that counts Sequoia’s Michael Moritz as a board member and which was most recently valued at $2.25 billion. Klarna plans to compete more aggressively in the U.S., too. Over the past year, it has set up offices in New York and Columbus, Ohio. Now it’s searching for space in San Francisco, where it eventually expects to employ up to 30 people to help it strike relationships with companies big and small.

Over coffee earlier this week, we talked with Siemiatkowski about Klarna’s roadmap and what he thinks of one competitor in particular: four-year-old Stripe, whose valuation is twice that of Klarna and which now has its sights on the Nordic countries where Klarna has become king. (Stripe also happens to be backed by Sequoia.) Our chat has been edited for length.

Much more here.

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New Fundings

Alteryx, which offers an analytics tool aimed at business users, announced an $85 million round today led by Iconiq Capital and Insight Venture Partners, with participation from Meritech Capital Partners. The company has now raised $163 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

APL Software, a two-month-old, San Jose, Ca.-based parallel computing company, has raised $5.2 million in funding from Accomplice, Wing Venture Capital and company co-founder Cheng Wu, who was previously head of tech strategy at Ericcson. More here.

Commerce Signals, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based data collaboration startup for serving retailers, mobile operators, banks and payment networks, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by OpenAir Equity Partners. More here.

Desktop Metal, a months-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based 3D printing startup that works with metal, has raised $14 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Lux Capital and Bolt. Desktop Metal was founded by Ric Fulop, the founder of A123 Systems and former general partner with North Bridge Venture Partners. Xconomy has more here.

Envelop VR, a year-old Bellevue, Wa.-based company creating enterprise and productivity software that allows businesses and consumers to create, work and play in a virtual reality environment, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by Madrona Venture Group. More here.

KeepTruckin, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose apps and hardware enable truck drivers to electronically log all of their miles and hours worked, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Index Ventures, with participation from Google Ventures, which had previously led the company’s $2.3 million seed round. More here.

Marqeta, a five-year-old, Emeryville, Ca.-based developer and provider of payment processing technologies, has raised $25 million in new funding from IA Capital, CommerzVentures, and entrepreneur Max Levchin. Earlier backers 83North, Granite Ventures, and Commerce Ventures also joined the round.TechCrunch has more here.

Nuritas, a 1.5-year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based therapeutics discovery startup that leverages artificial intelligence, has raised $3.2 million in new funding led by the Singapore-based firm New Protein Capital, with participation from entrepreneur-investor Ali Partovi.

Paddle8, a four-year-old, New York-based secondary marketplace for art and luxury collectibles, has raised $34 million in Series C funding from Mousse Partners, art dealer David Zwirner, Sony Music Entertainment Chairman Edgar Berger and Working Title Films Co-Chairman Eric Fellner. The company has now raised $51 million altogether, shows CrunchBase. More here.

Petnet, a three-year-old, L.A.-based company connected pet device company, has raised $4 million in funding from Black River Ventures, Aspiration Growth, iRobot Ventures and the Amazon Alexa Fund. More here.

SmartZyme, a two-year-old, New York and Israel-based company building a platform for protein design, has raised $4 million in funding led by OrbiMed. More here.

Spigit, a nine-year-old, San Francisco-based company focused on crowdsourcing software for enterprises, has raised $14 million in new funding led by earlier backer Investor Growth Capital. More here.

Taris Biomedical, a seven-year-old, Lexington, Ma.-based developer of treatments for urologic diseases, has raised $32 million in funding led by Flagship Ventures, with participation from RA Capital Management and earlier backer Polaris Venture Partners. More here.

Turnstone Biologics, a new Vancouver-based biotechnology company focused on developing treatments for cancer, has raised $11.3 million in Series A funding led by Versant Ventures. More here.

Zype, a two-year-old, New York-based cloud platform for video publishing and distribution, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding from Revel Partners, Entrepreneurs Investment Fund, and numerous individual investors including former Tumblr president John Maloney. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

Exits

IBM announced this morning it’s acquiring The Weather Company, the parent company to the The Weather Channel, as well as the company’s B2B, mobile and web properties. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

Essential Reads

You no longer have to dread the day that a game developer shuts off its servers and renders your favorite title unplayable. More from Engadget here.

—–

Detours

How to detect lies with a storytelling technique.

A Japanese study claims to have found the brain-scan imprint of misogynistic views.

Computer scientists in Germany and California have found a way to manipulate videos to change a person’s facial expressions in real time.

—–

Retail Therapy

Tom Ford’s Black Orchid. Manly cologne, in a manly bottle. For men.

Hi, everyone, happy Tuesday!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

The European Union just rejected legal amendments that would firmly establish and protect the concept of net neutrality in Europe.

Skype, Spotify, and others have created European Tech Alliance, a lobbying group designed to influence policy-making; it’s being spearheaded by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström.

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Construction App Fieldwire Raises $5.5 Million Led by Formation 8

Fieldwire, a San Francisco-based mobile and web platform designed to make collaboration on construction projects more efficient, has raised $5.5 million in fresh funding led by Formation 8. Other participants in the round included Trinity Ventures and earlier backers Bloomberg Beta and AngelPad, the investment fund and accelerator where the company first gained investors’ attention in the fall of 2013.

Including earlier seed funding, the company has now raised $6.6 million altogether.Because Fieldwire is part of an increasingly crowded, if nascent, group of startups that are zeroing in on the same market, we decided to talk last week with cofounder Yves Frinault to learn more. Our chat has been edited for length.

One of your better-known competitors is PlanGrid. How do your companies differ?

At our core, we’re a task management platform, working on tasks and collaboration, including with the foreman, the subcontractors, and labor; PlanGrid is more focused on digitizing and storing blueprints and construction documents. We’re more like Asana for construction; they’re more like Box. It’s tasks versus files.

How big is Fieldwire at this point?

We were five people. We’ve doubled in the last four months to meet demand, but we could have been a lot more; we believe in dense, focused teams. As for [our clients], there are currently 35,000 projects on the platform [owned by] 1,000 companies.

So these are big clients.

When you operate a typical SaaS company, you usually start in mid-market and go up market. In construction, it’s different. The top line, half-a-billion-dollar companies are the ones driving the projects, so we found ourselves working with those guys — the large general contractors and specialty contractors — right away.

More here.

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New Fundings

ArtLifting, an online art marketplace for homeless, disabled and other disadvantaged people to sell their artwork, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from Toms Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie, angel investor Joanne Wilson, author and entrepreneur Eric Ries, the social impact accelerator Tumml, and others.

Cato Networks, a months-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based network security company co-founded by Shlomo Kramer, who famously cofounded Check Point Software and founded Imperva, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Aspect Ventures and  U.S. Venture Partners. The company’s software will be available next year; it’s currently accepting beta customers. More here.

Convoy, a year-old, Seattle-based startup whose platform aims to make it easy for shippers to quickly connect with nearby trucking companies to book jobs, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from a long list of investors, including Bezos Expeditions, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Omidyar Technology Ventures, KKR CEO Henry Kravis, entrepreneur-investors Hadi and Ali Partovi, Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, and Dropbox CEO Drew Houston. TechCrunch has more here.

DirectScale, a five-month-old, Provo, Ut.-based company that makes cloud-based software for the direct sales industry, has raised $4 million in Series A funding from Kickstart Seed Fund and publicly traded NetSuite. More here.

SourceClear, a two-year-old, Seattle-based company whose software helps development teams to visualize vulnerabilities across all their projects in real time, has raised $10 million in funding from Index Ventures and Storm Ventures. More here.

Sportradar, a 12-year-old, St. Gallen, Switzerland-based sports data company, has raised $44 million (€40 million) in new funding led by Revolution Growth, with participation from Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and basketball great Michael Jordan. TechCrunch has more here.

Zebit, a four-year-old, London-based company that provides zero-interest credit to shoppers who work but don’t yet have access to traditional credit cards, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Crosslink Capital, with participation from Correlation Ventures, Leapfrog Ventures and Wildcat Venture Partners.

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New Funds

VC Brad Harrison is planning to launch a $40 million Australian division of his seven-year-old, New York-based seed stage venture firm Scout Ventures, reports Financial Review. Harrison was formerly a director of media strategy and develoment at AOL. More here.

Singapore state-fund Temasek Holdings’ wholly owned investment arm –Vertex Venture Holdings – has garnered commitments of more than $200 million for its third China fund, a top executive with the firm tells DealStreetAsia. More here.

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Exits

Cisco is acquiring Lancope, a 15-year-old, Alpharetta, Ga.-based company that detects malicious activity on corporate networks. The purchase price is $452.5 million in cash and equity, with Lancope’s team becoming part of the Cisco Security Business Group. Over the years, Lancope had raised $24.6 million from investors shows CrunchBase, including Canaan Partners, GMG Capital, HIG Partners and Council Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

People

DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg is crediting Tesla’s Elon Musk with saving his life following a recent car crash.

—–

Data

In the past nine months, angel investors and venture capitalists have poured an unprecedented amount of money into Indian startups. Between January and September, $7.3 billion was invested across 639 deals. YourStory has much more here.

—–

Essential Reads

More bad news for Theranos; Over the last year, multiple news outlets have reported that Theranos earns a portion its income from large pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline. But according to representatives from both companies who spoke to the Financial Times, that information is incorrect. “I cannot find any evidence that we’ve done business with them in recent years,” a spokesperson for GSK tells the outlet.

At the payments company Square, quarterly losses are mounting and sales growth is slowing, it revealed in an amended SEC filing yesterday. (The filing also disclosed that Vinod Khosla, who joined the board in 2011, has stepped down.)

Slack, the workplace chat tool, has just reached a new milestone, according to CEO Stewart Butterfield: recently, one million users signed into the service at the same time.

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Detours

How the world’s 50 best restaurants are chosen.

The best time to schedule a job interview.

Why some U.K. firms are recruiting nameless applicants.

—–

Retail Therapy

Slaughterhouse Beach House. (You have to take the virtual tour.)