Hello! Hope you had a terrific weekend, everyone.

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Top News in the A.M.

Yikes. From the New York Times: “Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications, raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of tension or conflict.”

The U.S. government-backed American Egg Board has been working to sink the privately held food startup Hampton Creek, reveals a report from The Guardian that turns up leaked emails describing Hampton Creek as a “major threat” and a “crisis” for the $5.5 billion-a-year egg industry.

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Bessemer’s Byron Deeter on Mobile Enterprise Apps: They’ll Create “Tens of Billions” of Dollars

Top SaaS investors have been saying for nearly a year that the next billion-dollar market opportunities are rooted in mobile enterprise apps – software for people who don’t sit behind a desk but do keep a smartphone in their pocket.

Last month, we talked about the trend with Kevin Spain of Emergence Capital. More recently, we caught up with Byron Deeter of Bessemer Venture Partners, who says Bessemer, which has already made 10 related bets, is similarly making a giant push into more mobile enterprise apps businesses. More from our chat, lightly edited, here:

How long have you been focusing on mobile enterprise apps?

We probably began focusing on this 18 months ago, with investments that range from pure plays like [the conference calling software company] Speakeasy to vertical applications – meaning they have mobile-heavy use cases or vertical use cases — like [the construction management software company] Procore; ServiceTitan [it makes management software for home services businesses like plumbing]; and ClearCare [which makes software for home care agencies].

Something like 80 percent of the 3 billion people in the world who work do not sit behind a desk. Given the opportunities, how do you decide which industries to go after first?

We look at industries and market size and sectors. We look at the state of existing technologies. And we try to have hypotheses around which verticals should fall first and where the biggest opportunities should lie. But we’re also very opportunistic in terms of meeting with great entrepreneurs and trying to find out where traction is happening because often it happens in areas you wouldn’t expect. For example, construction wasn’t an area we were looking at as an early adopter segment. Now that we work with Procore, it seems obvious in hindsight. But it isn’t something you would have seen outside in. It took industry insiders and proactive outreach to understand the power of the trend.

Which is suddenly huge. There seem to be a lot of mobile companies now tackling the construction market. 

There can be multiple winners in these markets; they’re surprisingly big. Take ClearCare in the health care space. Healthcare alone is massive and it’s just sourcing a small part of it.

The company is [focused on] home care workers for a specific type of segment. But there are probably dozens of other opportunities to do mobile-centric things in healthcare, within the hospital setting, within the home setting . . . we think it will be many years in the making, and that these are very early days.

What industry do you think is ripe for mobile disruption next?

More here.

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New Fundings

Angaza, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose hardware and software platform enables consumers to pay for clean energy devices in an affordable way over time, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by an unnamed U.S.-based family office, with participation from New York-based The Social Entrepreneurs Fund and several others. The company had raised $1.5 million in seeding funding in 2013. TechCrunch has more here.

GoCardless, a four-year-old, London-based service that allows smaller merchants to easily set up interbank transfers for customers, is reportedly in talks to raise a “big round of funding,” in the “tens of millions” of dollars. Business Insider has the story here. GoCardless last raised $7 million in January 2014 from Balderton Capital, Accel Partners, and Passion Capital.

IronNet Cybersecurity, a year-old, Fulton, Md.-based cybesecurity company, has raised $32.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Trident Capital Cybersecurity, with participation from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Jifiti, a four-year-old, Columbus, Oh.-based company that offers packaged gift registries, including the ability to trade an item for another of equal value (without integrating with the retail sites), has raised $3.3 million in funding from Liberty Israel Venture Fund, a subsidiary of the Liberty Media Corp., and the Schottenstein Store Corp. GeekTime has more here.

Karhoo, a 10-month-old, New York-based taxi comparison app that plans to launch in January, has reportedly raised a whopping $250 million and plans to raise more than $1 billion as part of an attempt to combat the likes of Uber. Confirmed financial backers include David Kowitz, cofounder of Indus Capital Partners; Jonathan Feuer, managing partner at CVC Capital Partners; and Nick Gatfield, former chairman and chief executive of Sony Music Entertainment, the record label. The Financial Times has the story.

Knip, a two-year-old, Zurich, Switzerland-based “mobile-first” digital insurance broker, has raised $15.7 million in Series B funding led by Route 66 Ventures, with participation from QED Investors, Creathor Ventures and earlier backers Orange Growth Capital and Redalpine Capital. TechCrunch hasmore here.

Magic Leap, a four-year-old, Dania Beach, Fla.-based semi-secretive “cinematic reality” company that has already raised a giant funding round from Googleand other investors, is talking with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba as the lead investor in a new round. As we told you on Friday, the South Florida Business Journal has reported that Magic Leap is raising upwards of a billion dollars. Recode has more here.

Palantir, the 11-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based data analytics company that caters largely to government agencies and Wall Street, has added an extra $105 million to an earlier round of $450 million in funding, according to a new SEC filing. Its latest round of financing now totals more than $554 million and, as of a July WSJ report, values the company at $20 billion. Palantir has raised more than $1 billion from investors to date, In-Q-Tel, Founders Fund and Tiger Global Management. Business Insider has more here.

Signals Group, a six-year-old data analytics company that delivers intelligence to Fortune 500 companies to support product development strategy, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from existing investor TPY Capital. More here.

SimilarWeb, a six-year-old, Tel Aviv-based company whose search tools help users understand insights about sites and mobile apps (including those of their competitors), has raised $25 million in funding at a $400 million valuation led the South African media conglomerate Naspers, with participation from Lord David Alliance. To date, SimilarWeb has raised $65 million. TechCrunch has the story here.

Uber, the six-year-old, San Francisco-based ride-hailing service, is reportedly planning to raise close to $1 billion in new venture capital from investors, at a valuation of $60 billion to $70 billion. The round will make Uber the world’s most valuable private start-up. The New York Times has the story here.

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Exits

Five-year-old Everything.me, which added contextual capabilities to smartphones and raised more than $35 million from high-profile investors, is shutting down. Tech.eu has the story here.

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People

DraftKings is spending $250,000 on a marketing campaign featuring the “King of Instagram,” Dan Bilzerian, who earned his nickname on Instagram after sharing hundreds of photos of his seemingly lavish lifestyle. Wrote Bilzerian under an Instagram photo last week: “So I guess Draft Kings figured they hadn’t spent enough money running commercials so they gave me 250k to spend on a 3 day Cabo trip hosted by a bunch of models, I usually spend 150k for 4-5 days, so it will be a bit of a challenge to spend it, but I’m sure I can find a way.” Business Insider has the story.

Fortune talks with Ted Ullyot, Facebook’s first general counsel and today Andreessen Horowitz policy chief, about startups, safety nets, and tech’s lack of love for Donald Trump.

We sat down last week with Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures to talk IPOs, Theranos, and why it’s NBD that Square’s CEO is already running another public company. (Khosla Ventures owns roughly 17 percent of pre-IPO Square.)

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Essential Reads

Lawyers are suing Apple over high customer iPhone bills they say are caused by an iOS 9 upgrade can result in phones automatically switching from Wi-Fi to more costly cellular data usage. The Recorder has more here.

Facebook’s “Internet for all” vision is reportedly a tough sell in India.

Are coding academies nonsense?

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Detours

Hello, glorious Friday! Hope you have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

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Top News in the A.M.

Yesterday, Amazon reported a surprise $79 million profit during its third-quarter earnings report (52 percent of it from its cloud business, Amazon Web Services). This morning, the stock is up nearly 10 percent.

Pandora meanwhile reported a big loss yesterday, and its investors appear to be losing faith.

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Watch Out, VCs, Chris Farmer Plans to Massively Disrupt the Industry

For years, Chris Farmer worked as a venture partner at General Catalyst Partners, helping develop its then-nascent seed-investing program while simultaneously working on a big idea: a database that could help screen engineering talent.

Today, that idea forms the basis of SignalFire, a San Francisco-based investment firm that Farmer, who is its sole general partner, calls the “most quantitative fund in the world.” He says to “think of us as the world’s most elite angel group, with a central institutional fund, built on top of a mini proprietary Google.”

It all sounds pretty audacious, of course, but there’s some “there” there, as we saw first-hand during a demonstration last week.

According to Farmer, SignalFire’s platform, Beacon, tracks more than half a trillion data points that it collects from two million data sources, from patents to academics publications to open source contributions to financial filings.

As a result, SignalFire is able to keep close tabs on the comings and goings of millions of engineers around the globe. And that’s just one piece of the picture. SignalFire also invests heavily in unstructured data, including raw consumer transactions that allow Beacon to see where consumers are spending their time and money — and which companies and sectors are growing or not.

Much more here.

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New Fundings

Allay, a year-old, San Francisco-based, easy-to-use online HR and benefits platform for the country’s 500,000 insurance brokers, has raised $3.4 million in seed funding led by BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners, with participation from Sandbox Industries, 500 Startups, Arnold Capital and individual angels. The company has passed through AngelPad’s accelerator program last winter.

Avito, a seven-year-old, Moscow, Russia-based site for online classified ads in Russia, has raised $1.2 billion from Naspers. The deal sees the South Africa conglomerate upping its stake in the site — reportedly the third largest classifieds site in the world — to 67.9 percent from its previous ownership position of 17.4 percent via the shares of previous shareholders. TechCrunch has more here.

IntelliCyt, a nine-year-old, Albuquerque, N.M.-based company whose platforms aim to accelerate drug discovery, has raised $5.4 million in new funding led by Arboretum Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Prolog Ventures, Verge Fund, and New Mexico Community Capital. The company also secured a $2 million debt facility from Oxford Finance. More here.

Magic Leap, a four-year-old, Dania Beach, Fla.-based augmented reality technology company (click here to see what it can do), is closing on $1 billion in new funding from as-yet undisclosed sources, reports the South Florida Business Journal. The transaction will reportedly value the company — which has previously raised upwards of $600 million, including from Google and Andreessen Horowitz — at more than $4.5 billion.

Off Grid Electric, a four-year-old, Arusha, Tanzania-based pay-as-you-go solar power provider, has raised $25 million in Series C funding led by DBL Partners, with participation from Western Technology Investment, SolarCity, Omidyar Network, Serious Change LP, Vulcan Capital, and Helios Investment Partners founder Tope Lawani.

Outlearn, a year-old, Boston-based cloud publishing platform and curated content catalog for professional developer learning, has raised $2 million in seed funding from General Catalyst Partners and Paul Sagan, an EIR at General Catalyst and the former CEO of Akamai Technologies. BetaBoston has more here.

Poynt, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based smart payment terminal manufacturer, has raised $28 million in Series B funding led by Oak HC/FT, with participation from Stanford-StartX Fund and earlier backers Matrix Partners, Webb Investment Network, and Nyca Ventures. The company never disclosed how much funding it raised for its Series A round last year. Vator has more here.

Simility, a 1.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Calif.-based maker of fraud prevention software that employs machine learning, big data analytics, and data visualization, has raised $3.45 million in seed funding led by Accel Partners. More here.

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New Funds

Sequoia Capital is raising a new U.S. growth fund and a global growth fund, show SEC filings.

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Exits

Nitro, a 10-year-old, San Francisco-based document productivity company that has raised roughly $25 million from investors over the years, just acquired DoxIQ, a 1.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based “connected documents” company that raised a small amount of debt funding. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed.

Yota Devices, a Russian company that sells two-screened Android smartphones, has a new owner after shareholder Telconet Capital sold its majority 64.9 percent holding to Hong Kong-listed REX Global Entertainment for $100 million, according to a regulatory filing. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Hoping to counter poverty’s toll on children, Priscilla Chan and her husband, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are launching a private comprehensive preschool and K-8 school that’s linked to health services for children and families in East Palo Alto, Ca. More here.

Domo, the fast-growing business management platform provider, has begun providing an interesting perk to its expectant employees: $2,000 in gift certificates for maternity clothes.

Jack Dorsey is giving about a third of his Twitter shares — or 1 percent of the company — back to Twitter’s employees, he said in a yesterday today. More here.

Billionaire Paul Tudor Jones to staff: Learn to write or I’ll rip up your memo.

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Essential Reads

Turing Pharmaceuticals, the company that last month raised the price of the decades-old drug Daraprim from $13.50 a pill to $750, now has a competitor — and it’s charging $1 per pill.

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Detours

When the doorman is your main man.

The perfect password that’s also easy to remember.

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Retail Therapy

Cocoon Cabin. (H/T: Uncrate)

Hi, everyone, happy Thursday!

Sorry for the late send — we were on several back-to-back calls this a.m. Also, no column today. More tomorrow!

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Top News in the A.M.

Nasdaq has agreed to buy SecondMarket to combine forces with the Nasdaq Private Market, reports TechCrunch. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. The group will facilitate the exchange of shares for private companies, including DocuSign, Pinterest, Shazam and Tango. Bill Siegel, present CEO of SecondMarket, will lead the expanded Nasdaq Private Market business, which will be headquartered in both San Francisco and New York.

Amazon‘s one-hour delivery service, Prime Now, has hit the Bay Area.

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New Fundings

Ampy, a 1.5-year-old, Chicago-based kinetic charging battery startup — it makes a wearable spare battery pack charged by human movement — has raised $875,000 in seed funding led by Clean Energy Trust and NewGen Ventures, with participation from numerous angel investors. TechCrunch hasmore here.

Bownty, a 4.5-year-old, Copenhagen, Denmark-based aggregator that collects, sorts and distributes deals from more than 100 deal sites in approximately 1,200 cities in Europe, has raised €3.4 million (roughly $3.9 million) in Series A funding. Backers include HOWZAT Partners, SEED Capital, and Bownty chairman Pia Vemmelund. More here.

Clutter, a 2.5-year-old, L.A.-based high-tech self-storage service, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital. The company has now raised $12.3 million altogether. The WSJ has more here.

DigiTour Media, a five-year-old, L.A.-based company that produces concerts and other live events that feature social media stars, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Viacom, LionTree Entertainment and Slow Ventures. More here.

Honestbee, a year-old, Singapore-based on-demand grocery concierge and delivery service startup, has raised $15 million in funding led by Formation 8, with participation from Pejman Mar Ventures, Gideon Yu and Owen Van Natta. Tech In Asia has more here.

Insureon, a Chicago-based online provider of small business insurance, has raised $31 million in new funding led by Oak HC/FT, with participation from earlier backer Accretive. The Chicago Tribune has more here.

Kaleo Software, a three-year-old, El Segundo, Ca.-based enterprise cloud platform for capturing and sharing employee expertise, has raised $7 million in funding led by OMERS Ventures, with participation from Saturn Partners. More here.

MoneyForward, a Tokyo, Japan-based online financial management startup, has raised JPY 1.6 billion (US$13.3 million) in Series C funding from SBI Holdings, Shizuoka Bank, Yamaguchi Financial Group, Toho Bank, Fenox Venture Capital, Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation, and Mitsui & Co. Tech in Asia has more here. The company had raised a separate,$12.6 million round, less than a year ago.

Numerify, a three-year-old, Cupertino, Ca.-based company that sells IT business analytics applications to companies, has raised $37.5 million in Series C funding led by Tenaya Capital. Silicon Valley Bank and Four Rivers Group also joined the round, along with earlier backers Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company has now raised more than $60 million altogether. Vator has more here.

Opinio, a six-month-old, Bangalore, India-based hyperlocal delivery startup, has raised $7 million in Series A funding from Accel Partners, Sands Capital and the logistics firm Delvhivery. Tech in Asia has more here.

Periscope Data, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that has built a platform for data scientists to create fast, detailed and customized visualizations, has raised $9.5 million in Series A funding led by by DFJ, along with participation from earlier backers AngelPad, Susa Ventures and Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors. TechCrunch has more here.

Playful Corp., a three-year-old, McKinney, Tex.-based virtual-reality gaming studio founded by Paul Bettner, cofounder of the once-popular mobile game “Words with Friends” (it sold to Zynga for a bundle in 2012), has raised $25 million from undisclosed investors. The WSJ has more here.

Portal Instruments, a three-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based drug delivery company focused on injectable biologics for chronic diseases, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by 5AM Ventures. Earlier backer Sanofi Sunrise also joined the round. Med Device Online has more here.

Silk Road Medical, an eight-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company that makes medical devices for neurovascular diseases, has raised $57 million in equity and debt financing. CRG led the debt financing. It also participated in the company’s equity funding, with Warburg Pincus and The Vertical Group. Fierce Medical Devices has more here.

Squad, a months-old, New York-based app that connects groups of friends together (including around events or nights out), has raised $1.7 million in seed funding led by Lerer Hippeau Ventures and First Round Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Sunnova, a three-year-old, Houston, Tex.-based private residential solar service company, has raised $300 million in debt arranged by Credit Suisse and equity funding led by Triangle Peak Partners. Other equity investors include business development companies sponsored by Franklin Square Capital Partners. Sunnova had raised another giant round — $250 million — last November. More here.

The18, a 1.5-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based online content and commerce platform for soccer enthusiasts, has raised $1 million in funding from unnamed individual investors. More here.

Hi, everyone, hope your Wednesday is off to an auspicious start!

We’re racing out the door a little early for an interview; please send any and all complaints to trumpforpresident@aol.com.

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Top News in the A.M.

JP Morgan is about to make it easier for retail investors to gain access at the IPO price. The bank is announcing today that it will partner with Motif Investing to give ordinary investors the option to purchase shares in IPOs that it manages.

Morgan Stanley downgraded Twitter stock to “underweight” this morning, with a price target of just $24 — down from the roughly $30 at which it was trading. (As of this writing it has fallen just 4 percent to $29.50.)

Apple and Dropbox said yesterday that they do not support a controversial cybersecurity bill that critics say would give the government new powers to spy on Americans.

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Howdy Raises $1.5 Million from Top VCs to Build Apps for Slack

Despite a checkered history with online platforms, developers are always looking for the next big distribution model and a small but growing number is betting Slack, the popular group-messaging platform, is the way to go.

One such startup, Austin-based Howdy, may be the first to nab venture funding based largely on that vision. Specifically, the company, which has developed a customizable chat bot application that runs automated tasks for teams on Slack, has just nabbed $1.5 million in venture funding from Bloomberg Beta, True Ventures, a small angel group called Outlier and numerous individual investors.

Howdy is first and foremost a time saver for now, especially when it comes to meetings. For example, after connecting to Slack, the app can simultaneously message each member of a team, collecting status updates that can be archived and viewed by everyone. The idea: to keep meetings from turning into one long catch-up session and enabling attendees to focus on decision-making instead. (Worth noting: Howdy can also be used to collect everyone’s lunch orders. It’s up to the team using it.)

Howdy co-founder Ben Brown says the still-in-beta company will eventually charge customers on a monthly basis but that it’s a “little early to know the details.” What he says he does know is that providing applications, content and services via messaging applications is becoming a “huge opportunity.”

More here.

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New Fundings

Hi, happy Tuesday, everyone!

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Top News in the A.M.

Venture capital funds should face less red tape across the 28-nation European Union so there can be more of them and in more regions, EU Financial Services Commissioner Jonathan Hill said at a conference earlier today in Brussels. Here’s what he has in mind.

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Crisis Experts Debate Amazon’s Latest Lob

When a New York Times piece came out in August that described Amazon’s workplace culture as “bruising,” Amazon cofounder and CEO Jeff Bezos acted quickly to dampen the story’s blow. He wrote a memo to employees saying the account “doesn’t describe the Amazon I know” and pointed out a separate piece by an Amazon engineer who described the Times article as “utter reader bait.”

It was a smart approach, suggests Marina Ein, whose Washington, D.C.-based crisis communications firm has represented Michael Milken and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, among others. “I thought the company was acting on very good advice,” she says.

More confounding to Ein is a new post authored by former journalist and current Amazon spokesman Jay Carney, in which Carney not only systematically attacks the now two-month-old Times piece for being imbalanced but works to undermine several former employees quoted in the story.

One is former site merchandiser Bo Olson, who spent roughly 20 months at Amazon and had told the Times for its story, “You walk out of a conference room and you’ll see a grown man covering his face . . . Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk.”

Wrote Carney of Olson today: “His brief tenure at Amazon ended after an investigation revealed he had attempted to defraud vendors and conceal it by falsifying business records. When confronted with the evidence, he admitted it and resigned immediately.”

“I think it’s crazy,” says Ein of Carney’s unexpected missive.

More here.

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New Fundings

AgentDesks, a year-old, San Francisco-based mobile-first CRM for real estate agents that helps realtors track tasks, find property leads, import contacts, and store notes, has raised $2.95 million in seed funding from Sierra Ventures, Cota Capital and Vegas Tech Fund, among others. The company was incubated at the accelerator program, AngelPad, late last year. The Economic Times has more here.

Amino, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based digital healthcare startup that’s been quietly amassing a database of U.S. consumer healthcare data since late 2013 to make it easier for consumers to locate a doctor or specialist with experience treating their condition, has raised $19.4 million in pre-launch funding from Accel Partners, CRV, Rock Health and more than a dozen individual investors. TechCrunch has much more here.

Attune Technologies, a six-year-old, Singapore-based startup that makes cloud-based software for hospitals and labs, has raised $10 million in Series B funding from Qualcomm Ventures and returning investor Norwest Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Illusive Networks, a 1.5-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based cybersecurity company focused around so-called deception technology, has raised $22 million in Series B funding led by new investor New Enterprise Associates, with participation from new and earlier backers, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Marker LLC, Citi Ventures, and Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors.

Mobvoi, a three-year-old, Beijing, China-based company specializing in mobile voice search technology, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series C, including from Google, which has become a minority shareholder. Altogether, the company has raised $75 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

Redox, a 1.5-year-old, Madison, Wi.-based health care software development tool-maker, has raised $3.5 million in  funding round led by .406 Ventures, with participation from Flybridge Capital Partners, and HealthX Ventures, a venture capital fund that formed in Madison to invest in digital health companies. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has more here.

Stitch Labs, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of online inventory control software, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Triangle Peak Partners. The company has now raised $23 million altogether. More here.

Hi, everyone, happy Monday! No column today, but we have some good stuff coming your way tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Also, congratulations to our co-conspirator in StrictlyVC events and our favorite guest editor, investor Semil Shah, on his beautiful week-old twin sons. We’re so happy for his family.

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Top News in the A.M.

The Transportation Department plans to announce today that it wants to soon require registration for all unmanned drones “except for toys and those with minimal safety risk,” according to the WSJ. Its concern: That the devices increasingly pose a threat to people on the ground and in the air.

This morning, Amazon has come out swinging hard at the mid-August New York Times piece that called the company’s workplace culture “bruising.”

Hundreds of iOS applications have just been pulled from the App Store, following a report from analytics service SourceDNA, which uncovered a group of applications that were extracting users’ personally identifiable information, including their email associated with their Apple ID, device and peripheral serial numbers, and a list of apps installed on their phone.

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New Fundings

AppSheet, a three-year-old, Seattle-based startup whose tool lets companies build their own custom mobile apps without writing code, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from New Enterprise Associates. The company has now raised $2.1 million altogether. GeekWire has more here.

Ensighten, a six-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based maker of enterprise tag management software to enable companies to manage their sites more effectively,has raised $53 million in private equity and debt financing. Insight Venture Partners, Lead Edge Capital, Mack Capital and Volition Capitalprovided the equity; Silicon Valley Bank provided the debt. AdExchanger hasmore here.

HealthiPASS, a two-year-old, Chicago-based patient check-in and payments company, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding led by OCA Ventures, with participation from Beverly Capital and MPG Equity Partners.More here.

StreetHub, a two-year-old, London-based startup that helps independent retailers be discovered and sell online, has raised $2.6 million in new funding led by earlier investor Octopus Ventures, with participation from Index Ventures and Playfair Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

TinderBox, a five-year-old, Indianapolis Ia.-based company that sells cloud-based sales productivity software, has raised $7 million in funding co-led by Greycroft Partners and Allos Ventures, with participation from the regional firm High Alpha. Indianapolis Business Journal has more here.

UserZoom Technologies, an eight-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based SaaS platform used to test web and mobile products, has raised $34 million in new funding led by TC Growth Partners, with participation from Trident Capital and StepStone Group. NovoBrief has more here.

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Exits

Dyson, the British maker of vacuums, has agreed to acquire Ann Arbor, Mich.-based battery startup Sakti3 for $90 million in cash, according to Quartz. Sakti3 has raised around $50 million in VC funding from Dyson, Beringea, GM Ventures, ITOCHU Corp. and Khosla Ventures.

Time Inc. has acquired Hello Giggles, operator of the pop-culture, beauty and lifestyle website HelloGiggles.com, for $20 million, give or take, says the WSJ. The company was founded in 2011 by entertainer Zooey Deschanel.

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Exits

Ellipse Technologies, a 10-year-old Aliso Viejo, Ca.-based company that makes orthopedic implant systems, has filed for a $75 million IPO. Its largest outside shareholders include HBM Healthcare Investors, which owns 29.9 percent of the company; Wexford Capital, which owns 18 percent; and HBM-MedFocus, which owns 12.9 percent. More here.

Match Group, a spinoff of IAC that owns properties like Tinder and OKCupid, has filed to go public. TechCrunch has much more here.

Mimecast, a 12-year-old, London-based email security provider, has filed to go public on Nasdaq. The company has raised roughly $90 million over the years, shows CrunchBase. Its investors include Insight Venture Partners, which owns 19.8 percent of the company; Index Ventures, which owns 17 percent; and Dawn Capital, which owns 14.5 percent. Reuters has more here.

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People

Legendary venture capitalist Michael Moritz has published an opinion piece about the boom in “unicorn” tech businesses, saying many are “subprime.”

Jacqueline Reses is leaving her role as chief development officer at Yahoo, to help boost the executive team at Square. Bloomberg has the storyhere. Yahoo Marketing Partnership SVP Lisa Licht is also out the door, though it isn’t clear yet where she’s headed.

VCs tend to be optimistic about startups, but have they grown blindly defensive? Business Insider suggests the answer is yes.

Inside a love triangle at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

Meet venture capital’s teenage analyst.

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Jobs

Mercedes-Benz is hiring a venture scout. The job is in Sunnyvale, Ca.

—–

Data

Home prices are bad in San Francisco, but they’ve pulled almost as far away from the middle class in Los Angeles and San Diego, suggests Standard & Poor’s data.

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Essential Reads

Late last week, TechCrunch obtained documents that show Pinterest has been forecasting $169 million in revenue this year and $2.8 billion in annual revenue by 2018, and expecting to grow its monthly active users to 151 million by year end and to 329 million by 2018.

In April, Amazon filed suit against the operators of websites that offered Amazon sellers the ability to purchase fake, four and five-star reviews of their products. Now it’s going after individuals who provide such fake reviews.

Apple wants mobile devices to be filled with apps. Google supports a world where people browse the web for most things. Sites are increasingly caught in the middle.

Twenty new ways Facebook is eating the Internet.

—–

Detours

Facebook will now notify you of “state-sponsored attacks” on your account.

Parents talk differently to boys and girls after accidents.

An epic escape from Syria.

—–

Retail Therapy

A 24-karat gold manicure set, for when every other overpriced gift idea in the world has been exhausted.

Ah, Friday, not a day too soon.:) Hope you have a fantastic weekend, everyone!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Regulators in Nevada just banned DraftKings, FanDuel and other daily fantasy sports sites, saying that they’re unlicensed gambling operators.

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YC Tells VCs Not to Worry About Its New, $700 Million Growth Fund

Almost a year-and-a-half after Ali Rowghani resigned as COO of Twitter, he’s been appointed the head of Y Combinator’s growth fund by the organization’s president, Sam Altman.

TechCrunch had heard whispers of the move earlier this week, but Altman made the announcement official earlier yesterday,tweeting of Rowghani that he’s a “wonderful partner to help companies scale.”

Rowghani joined Y Combinator as a part-time partner back in November of last year. Earlier in his career, from 2002 through 2008, he served as the CFO of Pixar. (Rowghani had joined Twitter as CFO from Pixar but was made COO in 2012.)

Yesterday, we hopped on the phone with Rowghani to discuss some of his plans moving forward.

Most notably, Y Combinator will be leading investments in startups with its new growth capital, which is coming in part from Stanford University, Willett Advisors, and TrueBridge Capital Partners, according to the Wall Street Journal. Indeed, as TechCrunch reported early this week, YC is the lead investor in Checkr, a San Francisco-based startup that runs background checks and vets potential hires for fast-growing startups. The company is raising at least $30 million in Series B funding, at a valuation north of $250 million.

For VCs who haven’t had to compete with Y Combinator in later-stage rounds, this is a Big Deal.

More here.

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New Fundings

Codacy, a three-year-old, Lisbon, Portugal-based company that makes an automated code review tool, has raised €1 million ($1.1 million) in a seed extension round from Caixa Capital, with participation from current investors Faber Ventures and E.S. Ventures. The company has now raised €1.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

HappyCar, a two-year-old, Hamburg, Germany-based car rental comparison startup, has raised $1.58 million in funding led by Capnamic Ventures, with participation from HR Ventures, Global Founders Capital, and Swoodoo founder Wolfgang Heigl, among others. The company has now raised $3.2 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

Emergent VR, a months-old, Francisco, N.C.-based startup that promises full video capture that can be viewed on virtual reality headsets, has raised $2.2 million from Accel Partners, Rothenberg Ventures and Google Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Klook, a year-old, Hong Kong-based company that sells travel activities across Asia, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Matrix Partners. China Growth Capital and Francis Leung, chairman of CVC Capital. The round brings the company’s total funding to $6.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

MycoTechnology, a two-year-old, Aurora, Co.-based natural food technology company that employs “gourmet fungi,” has held a first close on a $9.2 million Series A round from S2G Ventures, Seventure Partners, and Middleland Capital. More here.

Quip, a three-year-old, San Francisco, Ca.-based company behind a hybrid communications, collaboration and productivity service, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Greylock Partners, with participation from Benchmark. Recode has more here.

Virtus.pro, a 12-year-old, Moscow-based online sports company that live-streams video game tournaments, has received roughly $100 million in funding from billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s USM Holdings. Bloomberg has more here.

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Exits

Alibaba is acquiring Youku Tudou, one of China’s top YouTube-like services, in a $3.5 billion deal. TechCrunch has more here.

The publicly traded enterprise software company Red Hat is spending more than $100 million to acquired Ansible, a two-year-old, Santa Barbara, Ca.-based company that helps its clients build and manage hybrid IT deployments across the cloud and on site, reports VentureBeat. Ansible had raised $6 million from Menlo Venture and e.ventures, shows CrunchBase.

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IPOs

First Data Corporation ended lower in its trading debut yesterday, a move that could dampen the struggling IPO market even more. Dealbook has more here.

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People

Former Microsoft CEO (and current L.A. Clippers owner) Steve Ballmer says he has built up a 4 percent stake in Twitter.

Flipboard cofounder Evan Doll isn’t returning to the company after a long sabbatical. Instead, he’s becoming an entrepreneur-in-residence at Redpoint Ventures.

Square (and Twitter) CEO Jack Dorsey is giving almost 20 percent of his Square stake to an organization serving struggling communities.

Matt Kelly, Facebook‘s head of growth product, has resigned from the company.

The restaurant search app Zomato has laid off 300 employees, or 10 percent of its staff.

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Jobs

Hercules Technology Growth Capital is looking to hire an associate. The job is in Palo Alto, Ca.

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Essential Reads

Under pressure from regulators, Theranos has stopped collecting tiny vials of blood drawn from finger pricks for all but one of its tests, reports the WSJ.

Stanford and Michael Bloomberg now back every Y Combinator startup.

Dropbox‘s reinvention continues with Paper.

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Detours

How well do you know the news? Take Fast Company’s quiz.

American’s top 10 fears, 2015 edition.

The new “billionaire beach bunker,” in Miami.

Pirate cat.

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Retail Therapy

Vuarnet Glacier Spectre sunglasses. James Bond wears them. Just sayin’.

Hi, everyone, and happy birthday to one of our most cherished readers!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Square is officially going public, and investors in its most recent round were guaranteed a return of at least 20 percent, shows its SEC filing.

The FBI and the US attorney’s office in Boston have launched an investigation into whether DraftKings and other fantasy sports operators are violating federal gambling laws, according to the Washington Post.

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Kinnek, a Small Biz Marketplace, Raises $20 Million Led by Thrive

Kinnek, a 3.5-year-old, New York-based marketplace for small businesses to find suppliers and manage purchasing, has just raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Thrive Capital.

It already looks like a smart bet.

The company currently has 20,000 businesses and 2,000 suppliers using its marketplace, and they’re striking millions of dollars worth of deals every week, says cofounder Karthik Sridharan. Considering the company’s age and the fragmented landscape in which it’s operating – think restaurants to distilleries to manufacturers – that kind of traction is meaningful.

It’s also just the tip of the iceberg, apparently. According to a spokesperson for the company, Kinnek “conservatively” estimates that U.S. businesses with up to 100 employees and $20 million in yearly sales spend more than $2.2 trillion annually on machinery, equipment and physical goods based on data from Visa, Intuit, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While we can’t vouch for the accuracy of that number (there are lots of different figures floating around out there), what is clear is the competition, or lack of it, facing Kinnek.

More here.

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(Other) New Fundings

17hats, a 1.5-year-old, L.A.-based business management app for small business owners, including project management, quotes, time tracking and bookkeeping, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by Wavemaker Partners, which also led the company’s $1.3 million seed round earlier this year. TechCrunch has more here.

8i, a 1.5-year-old, New Zealand-headquartered company that’s building a consumer media platform to let users create and share immersive 3D video of real people, has raised $13.5 million in Series A funding from RRE Ventures, Founders Fund Science, Horizons Ventures, Samsung Ventures, Dolby Family Ventures, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, Sound Ventures, Signia Venture Partners, Inevitable Ventures, Freelands Ventures, Advancit Capital, Rothenberg Ventures and Boost VC (among others). TechCrunch has more here.

23andMe, the nine-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based genetics-testing company, has raised $115 million in Series E funding led by Fidelity Management & Research Co., with participation from Google Ventures and New Enterprise Associates and new backers Casdin Capital and WuXi Healthcare Ventures. The financing implies a valuation of $1.1 billion, reports Bloomberg.

Bracket Computing, a four-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company that protects corporate customers from some of the security risk associated with cloud computing, and which was founded by veterans of the anti-spam company Ironport Systems, has raised $45 million. Fidelity Management and Research and Goldman Sachs joined the round along with several current investors. The company has now raised $130 million altogether. Venture Capital Dispatch has the story here.

Clustree, a two-year-old, Paris, France-based recruiting tool that helps HR departments assess internal candidates by matching up employees’ talents and job openings, has raised $2.9 million (€2.5 million) in new funding from Alven Capital and business angels. TechCrunch has more here.

Decibel Therapeutics, a months-old, Boston-based hearing company focused on discovering and developing new medicines to protect, repair and restore hearing, has raised $52 million in Series A funding led by Third Rock Ventures, with participation from SR One. Forbes has more here.

FabFitFun, a five-year-old, L.A.-based women’s lifestyle subscription box company that sends off products from numerous categories, including beauty, fashion, food, wellness, and technology, has raised $3.5 million in funding led by New Enterprise Associates and Upfront Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

FollowAnalytics, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile marketing automation and engagement platform, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Aspect Ventures, with participation from Salesforce Ventures. Earlier backers Sapphire Ventures, Zetta Venture Partners and others also joined the round. More here.

Gaana, a five-year-old, New Delhi, India-based music streaming service, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Micromax, the country’s largest smartphone maker, which will now bundle Gaana’s music app on its devices. TechCrunch has more here.

Galera Therapeutics, a six-year-old, Malvern, Pa.-based clinical-stage biotech developing new treatments for cancer patients, has raised $37 million in Series B funding led by Novo Ventures, with participation from earlier backers New Enterprise Associates, Novartis Venture Fund, Correlation Ventures and Galera Angels. More here.

Hatch Baby, a two-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based company whose smart changing pad is due to ship soon (it weighs babies so parents know they’re gaining enough weight as they grow), has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by True Ventures. Other participants in the round include Geoff Ralston, James Hong, H. Barton Co-Invest Fund, and Veddis Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Hermo, a 3.5-year-old, Malaysia-based online cosmetics and skincare marketplace, has raised $2 million in Series A funding from Gobi Partners. Tech In Asia has more here.

Lenddo, a four-year-old, New York-headquartered company that helps financial service providers with their credit scoring and online verification, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series B funding led by new investors AT Capital and Life.SREDA, with participation from earlier backers Omidyar Network, Blumberg Capital and Golden Gate Ventures. More here.

Mast Mobile, a two-year-old, New York-based mobile communications platform that provides phones to its corporate customers that feature separate work and personal numbers, has raised $7 million in funding led by by FirstMark Capital. Other participants include DFJ, Eniac Ventures, Harrison Metal, HMM Investors, and Initialized Ventures. We talked about the company yesterday with CEO David Messenger. More from that chat here.

Niantic, a four-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based games maker that began as a lab within Google and was spun out last month, has raised $20 million in Series A funding from Pokémon Company Group, Google and Nintendo. TechCrunch has more here.

OpenGov, a three-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company whose software visualizes municipal financial data, allowing governments to access, analyze, and share that data with the public, has raised $25 million in Series C funding from earlier backers Andreessen Horowitz, Formation 8, Thrive Capital and AITV, along with new investors Glynn Capital, Sound Ventures, and Intuit founder Scott Cook. TechCrunch has more here.

Outdoor Voices, a three-year-old, New York-based recreational apparel — or “athleisure wear” — company, has raised $7 million in new funding led by earlier backer General Catalyst Partners, with participation from Forerunner Ventures, Collaborative Fund, and 14W. The company had previously raised $1.1 million in seed funding. TechCrunch has more here.

Zwipe, a six-year-old, Oslo, Norway-based company whose embedded fingerprint reader technology can authenticate card payments, just raised $5 million in Series B funding from Photon Future, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Shenzhen, China-based high-tech holding group Kuang-Chi Group. TechCrunch has more here.

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Exits

VMware has announced plans to purchase email management app Boxer for an undisclosed amount. Three-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based Boxer had raised $3 million dollars from Sutter Hill Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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IPOs

The eight-year-old, French music streaming service Deezer has announced that it plans to raise €300 million ($343 million) in a public listing that will take place in its native France at the end of this month. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

People

Christina Smedley, who’d been PayPal’s VP of global brand and communications, is joining Facebook to run communications for Messenger. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

Jobs

Eastman Kodak is looking for a director of business development. The job is in San Francisco.

Pandora wants to add a senior associate to its corporate development group. The job is in Oakland, Ca.

—–

Data

Yesterday, CB Insights and KPMG published their most recent numbers. Today, it’s Dow Jones VentureSource, and the theme is much the same: Investments continued apace in the third quarter, hitting $19 billion, according to its findings. U.S. venture investments hit $54.6 billion for the first nine months of the year; that’s nearly all the venture money invested in 2014 (which was $55.5 billion). Still, bubbly as those figures may sound, they’re still likely to be below the record $94.17 billion invested in 2000 at the height of the dot-com boom, says the report. Much more here.

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Essential Reads

Theranos, which has raised more than $400 million from investors, is struggling with its blood tests, reports the WSJ. Notably, it has retained legendary litigator David Boies, too, which could mean one of two things. Meanwhile, founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes has pronounced the WSJ piece “disappointing” and “full of falsehoods.”

The unicorn boom has just begun, argues Forbes.

—–

Detours

A Twitter account run by a chicken.

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Retail Therapy

The August doorbell cam, accessible from you phone.

Hello, dear readers, happy Wednesday!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Apple just lost a patent lawsuit to the University of Wisconsin. More here.

Uber is expanding its same-day delivery service, with an eye toward crushing rivals Deliv and Postmates.

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Forget Amazon Gift Cards: Give the Gift of Stock

There are plenty of people who’d happily become shareholders in companies like Apple and Facebook if the process of buying stock were simpler. They are plenty of people who’d prefer to give the gift of stock but who hand out money or retailers’ gift cards for the same reason.

Stockpile, a five-year-old, 15-person, Palo Alto, Ca.-based brokerage services firm has a solution to that problem: Stock gift cards. They say they’ll be everywhere soon, too, thanks in part to $15 million in Series A funding the company has just stockpiled from Sequoia Capital, Mayfield, and actor-investor Ashton Kutcher.

We talked yesterday with Stockpile founder and CEO Avi Lele, along with its chief commercial officer (and former PayPal general manager), Dan Schatt. We asked how the company works, and why traditional brokerages haven’t created gift cards for stock much sooner.

Avi, you previously spent 16 years as a patent attorney. Why start Stockpile?

AL: I’d long thought that rather than buy gifts for my niece and nephew, things they toss to the side after a couple of days, it’d be neat to turn them onto something that would last into the future. So I tried to buy them shares, but it was such a pain that I gave up. You had to open a brokerage account, then get their social security numbers, then fund the account with a couple thousand dollars. And even then, a lot of shares were too expensive. I was like, wait, this is too hard.

You say you then spent four years quietly building a licensed brokerage platform to turn stock into a consumer product. Who are some of your partners?

DS: We’ve got great distribution partners already, including Blackhawk Network, which has 180,000 locations. It’s the company that powers the gift cards you see in racks everywhere from Safeway to Giant Eagle to Toy “R” Us. You’ll be able to buy [our cards] off the shelf at Kmart. They can light up all sorts of chain locations for us.

Much more here.

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New Fundings

Area 1 Security, a two-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based cybersecurity startup, has raised $15 million in funding led by Icon Ventures and previous backer Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. Other participants in the round include earlier investors Allegis Capital, Cowboy Ventures, Data Collective, First Round Capital, RedSeal Networks CEO Ray Rothrock and Shape Security CEO Derek Smith. The company has now raised $25.5 million altogether. Fortune has more here.

Audentes Therapeutics, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based gene-therapy company, has raised $65 million in Series C fundingco-led by earlier backer Sofinnova Ventures and new investor Redmile Group. Other participants in the round include RA Capital Management, T. Rowe Price Associates, Rock Springs Capital, Cormorant Asset Management, Cowen Private Investments and Foresite Capital. More here.

BuildZoom, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based startup whose online marketplace puts users in touch with licensed contractors, has raised $10.6 million in Series A funding led by Joe Lonsdale of Formation 8, with participation from Y Combinator and Peter Thiel. The company says the investment from Y Combinator, whose program BuildZoom passed through in 2013, represents one of its largest to date. More here.

Concord, a months-old, San Francisco-based contracts management software company, has raised $2.7 million in funding from Cota Capital, WTI, Alven Capital and angel investors, including Zuora cofounder and CEO Tien Tzuo.More here.

Figure 1, a nearly three-year-old, Toronto-based crowdsourced medical image library for healthcare professionals (they can share patient photos to obtain feedback), has raised $5 million in new funding led by earlier investor Union Square Ventures, with participation from other earlier backers, including Rho Canada, Version One Ventures and Graph Ventures. Allen & Co. and individual investors also joined the round.

Kabbage, a six-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based online platform that loans money to businesses and individuals using a wide set of online data and algorithms to measure credit-worthiness, has raised $135 million in Series E funding and expanded its credit facility — the money it has on hand to fulfill loans — to $900 million. The round was led by Reverence Capital Partners, with participation from big banks, including Holland’s ING, Spain’s Santander (via InnoVentures), and Canada’s Scotiabank. TechCrunch has more here.

Lookup, a year-old, Bangalore, India-based messaging system used to connect users with merchants in their local area, has raised $2.5 million in Series A funding from Khosla Impact, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Catamaran Ventures and Global Founders Capital, the investment fund of the Samwer brothers. TechCrunch has more here.

Lyra Health, a 10-month-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based company aiming to help employers and health plans better manage populations of people with behavioral-health illnesses, has raised $35 million in Series A funding led by Greylock Partners, with participation from Breyer Capital, Providence Health & Services, Origin Capital Management, Castlight Health, and earlier backer Venrock. More here.

Nucleus, a 1.5-year-old, Philadelphia, Pa.-based company whose connected home device lets families have two-way audio and video conversations in the home or between homes or with any mobile device, has raised $3.37 million in seed funding led by Foxconn, which will be manufacturing the device. Other participants include FF Angels and StartUp PHL, a Philadelphia-based public-private venture fund led by Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Playlab, a three-year-old, Hong Kong-based mobile games firm that’s focused on Southeast Asia, has raised $5 million in Series B funding from Monk’s Hill Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Service, a months-old, L.A.-based on-demand customer service startup (it caters to the disgruntled customers of on-demand companies), has raised $3.1 million in seed funding led by Founders Fund, with participation from Menlo Ventures, Maveron Ventures, Eight Ventures and a handful of individual investors. In June, the company had raised $540,000 from Arena Ventures and angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

SteelBrick, a six-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based quote-to-cash cloud service aimed primarily at small- and mid-market companies, has raised $48 million in Series C funding led by Institutional Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backers Emergence Capital, Salesforce Ventures and Shasta Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Veridu, a three-year-old, London-based online verification service, has raised £800,000 ($1.2 million) in seed funding from various institutional and private investors, including the newish fund Force Over Mass Capital, Knightsbridge Executive Services, and Belgian Callataÿ & Wouters Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Highland Europe, a Geneva-based growth-stage venture firm, has raised a new €332 million ($379 million) fund that will target startups in the internet, mobile and software space, investing between €10 million and €30 million in them. TechCrunch has more here.

The San Francisco-based seed investment firm SignalFire, founded by former General Catalyst partner Chris Farmer, has closed its debut fund with $53 million. Venture Capital Dispatch has the lowdown here.

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Exits

Customer support giant Zendesk is acquiring French startup BIME Analytics for $45 million in cash. BIME Analytics is a business intelligence startup with a software-as-a-service approach. It had raised $3.4 million from Alven Capital and business angels. TechCrunch has the story here.

Google has acquired Divshot, an HTML5 web-hosting platform. The Santa Monica-based company had raised $1.18 million in funding from TenOneTen Ventures, 500 Startups and numerous others. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has a new general partner in Eric Feng, who was most recently CTO at Flipboard, a Kleiner-backed company. Feng is well-acquainted with the firm; he worked for Kleiner five years ago, helping invest  in green tech companies.

Twitter has named Omid Kordestani, Google’s former chief business officer, as its new executive chairman. More here.

Adam Lisagor of Sandwich Media has a new show and it looks interesting.

LivingSocial, the Washington-based local deals platform partly owned by Amazon, is laying off 200 people, which is 20 percent of its workforce. More here.

—–

Jobs

eBay is looking for a corporate development director. The job is in San Jose, Ca.

—–

Data

CB Insights and KPMG have released a third-quarter report that’s chock full of data. One of its most notable points: while deal volume dropped from the second quarter (we’d written about a slow-down here), venture-backed investments year to date are 11 percent higher than all venture-backed investments last year. Here’s a short wrap-up about the new report in TechCrunch. For the whole enchilada — it’s worth reading — you can check it out here.

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Essential Reads

Looks like Y Combinator will be leading deals after all. It’s heading up the $30 million Series B round of Checkr, which runs background checks and vets hires for on-demand startups.

Facebook is trying out a dedicated video feed.

Here’s what happens when you get into an Uber crash.

—–

Detours

Worst. Aunt. Ever.

“Duh? Who are we? No one.” [Abruptly race to car, run over Tesla employees.]

—–

Retail Therapy

Live like a Winklevoss in the twins’ L.A. home. Cost: Just $110,000 per month.

Another option: A Texas mansion for $1.27 million. We should probably note it has a cinema room painstakingly designed to recreate the Starship Enterprise.