Good morning and welcome back, everyone! Hope you had a wonderful weekend.

A quick reminder that investor-writer Semil Shah is in charge of our columns while Connie is offline, riding her bicycle. If you need to reach Semil, you can find him on Twitter.

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Top News in the A.M.

After months of speculation, Nokia has agreed to sell its HERE mapping business to a consortium of automobile makers including Audi, BMW Group and Daimler in a deal valued at €2.8 billion ($3.07 billion). TechCrunch has more here.

The Honest Company is under fire, following a slew of complaints that its sunscreen is ineffective. USA Today has more here.

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Startup L. Jackson on Interest Rates, Bubbles, and Anonymity

By Semil Shah

Twitter persona Startup L. Jackson has published roughly 5,400 savvy startup-related tweets over the last four years, observations that have earned him roughly 50,000 followers — as well as great interest in uncovering his identity. So far, he has managed to keep it a secret, and if he can help it, his real name will remain unknown to most. Says Jackson of why he does it: “You are forced as a reader to judge the ideas rather than the speaker.”

We talked with him recently about his strange role in the tech-investing landscape.

Startup L Jackson seems to have the makings of a media company. Why not do the whole thing — blog, podcast, YouTube — all on the back of the Twitter account?

That sounds like a lot of work. I have a blog (startupljackson.com), but post to it infrequently due to the time it takes to do well. The others are less anonymous and more time-consuming. (I do have a day job.) Twitter is great because it fits into my normal learning-about-the-startup-world time. I can just show up and tweet about the last person I met with, an article I just read, or ideas I’ve been kicking around for a while.

Anonymity enables you to say things about people and topics that would otherwise be taboo. Is that a good or bad thing?

I am somewhat provocative, but I don’t think it’s really anything you couldn’t tweet [otherwise]. And, by the way there’s a circle of people who do know my identity. I think the common assumption is that the account is for saying things I couldn’t say [in real life], but people who know me realize I don’t have much of a filter there either.

I think the “good” thing about it—or at least the thing I think makes it interesting—is that you are forced as a reader to judge the ideas rather than the speaker. My experience is that Silicon Valley is obsessed with pattern matching and pedigree, and that makes it much harder to discuss ideas than it should be. In practice, SLJ is a great hack to get around that limitation.

You seem to like AngelList, you take Lyft Line, and you are clearly aware of the ins and outs of investing. Can we expect SLJ Ventures to be forming anytime soon? Either way, what’s your view on the continued push toward smaller funds, micro funds?

I can neither confirm or deny the SLJ fund. What fun would it be if you knew for certain which side of the table I’m on? I do use AngelList, and knowing VC is smart wherever you sit in the ecosystem.

In terms of small funds, it seems to me that there are a lot of small funds because there are a lot of new funds, and funds start small. I think it’s a obviously a great thing for entrepreneurs, and probably for LPs. Big funds can’t afford to spend their time at the earliest phases of a business, especially as they get bigger. It’s not economical when a $100,000 check is out of a $100 million-plus fund. For a small fund, a $50,000 to $250,000 check is meaningful, so they can write the check that’s meaningful, and then pay attention. These VCs are hungry.

As for the VCs/LPs, I think very early-stage investing is still inefficient in terms of discovery versus later stages, so there’s not as much of a winner-take-all dynamic, but there are still power law outcomes. I see very few Series A and B funds that I believe will beat bonds. Maybe five to ten. I think many more small funds will do well.

What excites you most about the San Francisco-Silicon Valley startup ecosystem right now? And what most concerns you?

Big picture, I think we’re in the second inning of the internet, and it’s defined by the other 90 percent (much of it in the U.S., by the way) of the world coming online with supercomputers in their pockets. That’s why I don’t think there’s a bubble, and why I think it’s less a question about the one to three big opportunities in the next decade and a question of where you want to focus. San Francisco is still ground zero. That’s exciting.

In terms of industry worries, there is a question of what happens to venture capitalists if interest rates go up significantly. We could see fewer funds at all stages. But that’s a problem for the VC industry. Tech will do fine even if financing changes significantly. If I were a VC, I’d be cognizant that the current boom is at least in part a function of investors having nowhere else to put their money.

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New Fundings

Board Vitals, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based test preparation platform for the Medical Specialty Boards, has raised $1.1 million in Series A funding from Rock Creek Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

BuzzFeed, the seven-year-old, New York-based digital publisher, is reportedly on the cusp of raising $250 million from NBCUniversal in a deal that will value the company at around $1.5 billion. Recode, which has the story, reports that early BuzzFeed investors may sell shares via secondary sales connected with the transaction. More here.

Meal Box, a year-old, Istanbul, Turkey-based healthy meal delivery startup, has raised $3.6 million in funding from regional venture firm Aslanoba Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

OYO Rooms, a 2.5-year-old, Bangalore, India-based platform for low-cost, standardized hospitality bookings throughout SouthEast Asia, has raised $100 million in fresh funding led by SoftBank. The round comes just five months after the startup raised $25 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Greenoaks Capital Management. TechCrunch has more here.

Snapdeal, the five-year-old, New Delhi, India-based e-commerce juggernaut, has raised $500 million in fresh funding led by the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. Foxconn, the Taiwanese company, also invested, as well as Snapdeal’s earlier investor SoftBank. Snapdeal had previously raised $1.1 billion across eight rounds, shows Crunchbase. Recode has more on the newest funding here.

Uber, the six-year-old, ride-hailing company, has completed a new round of funding that values it at close to $51 billion, according to the WSJ. Among its newest investors: Microsoft and the investment arm of Indian media conglomerate Bennett Coleman & Co. More here.

Vox Media, an 11-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based digital publisher, isreportedly in talks with NBCUniversal about a new round that would value the company at $850 million. Last fall, Vox Media raised money at a $380 millionvaluation.

WizRocket, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company that helps companies increase user engagement by fine-tuning mobile, web, and e-mail notifications, has raised $8 million in new funding from Sequoia Capital and earlier investor Accel Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Zscaler, a seven-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based company that provides its customers with integrated, cloud-delivered internet security, including web security, firewalls, and mobile security, has raised $100 million led by TPG, with participation from earlier backers EMC and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company, now valued at north of $1 billion, has raised $138 million altogether. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

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Exits

Yahoo announced on Friday that it is acquiring the style-focused community Polyvore. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Polyvore, based in Mountain View, Ca., had raised roughly $22 million over its eight years as a standalone company. Its backers include DAG Ventures, Goldman Sachs, Matrix Partners, Benchmark, Harrison Metal, and investor Aviv “Vivi” Nevo.

Battery Ventures is acquiring Physical Security Business Unit (PSBU), part of the security division of publicly listed NICE Systems, in a transaction valued at up to $100 million. Under the deal, PSBU, which makes video-management, video-analytics and situation-management software, will be spun out into an independently operating business.

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IPOs

Sounds like Practice Fusion is prepping for an IPO. It just brought aboard Alan Black, CFO at the now publicly traded help-desk software company Zendesk, as its audit chair. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

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People

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed some rare and wonderful personal news Friday. He and wife, Priscilla Chan, are expecting a baby girl. Zuckerberg also shared the news that before entering this “new chapter in our lives,” the couple suffered through three miscarriages, noting it was not easy, but that talking with the many friends who’ve gone through the same experience helped them realize how frequently they occur. Wrote Zuckerberg on Facebook: “You feel so hopeful when you learn you’re going to have a child. You start imagining who they’ll become and dreaming of hopes for their future. You start making plans, and then they’re gone. It’s a lonely experience. . . In today’s open and connected world, discussing these issues doesn’t distance us; it brings us together. It creates understanding and tolerance, and it gives us hope. . .We hope that sharing our experience will give more people the same hope we felt and will help more people feel comfortable sharing their stories as well.”

Bradley Tusk, a former campaign manager for New York’s last mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is starting Tusk Ventures, a political consulting firm geared toward helping start-ups work with — and in some cases, fight against — government regulators. (Uber is among his clients.) More here.

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Jobs

Bigcommerce, a six-year-old, Austin-based start-up whose subscription-based service helps tens of thousands of companies create and manage their online stores, is looking for an SVP of business and corporate development. The job is in San Francisco.

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Essential Reads

How Google quietly revved up its very own car company.

As it rapidly matures into a Silicon Valley giant, Zenefits has also racked up a number of customer complaints over issues like software glitches and human error. Buzzfeed has the story here.

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Detours

Famous movies mashed up as “Uptown Funk.”

On the neediness of narcissists.

Bid on the props of “Mad Men.”

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Retail Therapy

Soylent 2.0. It “reaches an unprecedented level of environmental sustainability.” Yum!

Happy last day of July, everyone! Hope you’re in for a wonderful weekend. Investor-writer Semil Shah continues to guide the vessel that is StrictlyVC while Connie takes some time offline to perfect her pool game. If you’d like to reach out to Semil, you can often find him on Twitter.

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Top News in the A.M.

LinkedIn reported second quarter earnings yesterday and sales were up — but not because of a recovery in its core business. The WSJ has more here.

Apple is moving into San Francisco, starting with 76,000 square feet in the city’s South of Market neighborhood.

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Musings on LPs and Direct Investments

By Semil Shah

In the few years I’ve been able to meet and learn from limited partners or LPs (those who invest in VC funds), I have noticed an increasing desire to co-invest alongside their general partners. This makes perfect sense. If I was an LP, I’d want to co-invest, as well. Yet, in the process of doing this over the past few years, I’ve found myself repeating some warnings to LPs who have grown eager to do co-invest at the very early stages of seed.

Typically, I cite three key warnings:

One, oftentimes the founders want to meet all potential investors who will be on their cap table. Even though a VC can offer syndication to the founder, that founder may not welcome the introduction and prefer to control the process him/herself. LPs can certainly ask for insight into a GP’s processes, policies, and histories around creating co-investment opportunities, but they cannot be guaranteed. Furthermore, what if a GP has two or three LPs interested in co-investing but there’s room for only one or two. How is the GP supposed to decide?

Two, when there is a real co-investment opportunity for an LP, sometimes the LP doesn’t have the proper resources at hand (domain knowledge, or network, etc.) to independently vet and diligence the specific deal in a few days. If the LP is a family office, they may have enjoy the latitude to quickly stress-test their network and then make a yes/no call; if the LP is a fund of funds managing other institutions’ money, they may have an incentive to seek these types of deals out given their fund economics, regardless of engaging in proper diligence.

And, three, whenever someone is the recipient of an investment opportunity, one should ask: “Why I am so lucky?” In a competitive deal, I often have to fight just to wedge in, and I am not always successful. These are the investments LPs would love to participate in directly as a co-investor, but such opportunities rarely surface. Yes, there are companies that go unnoticed for months or years before breaking out and becoming a sensation, but those aren’t a monthly occurrence.

Again, if I was an LP, I would want to co-invest. After all, LPs are looking for outsize returns, just like the rest of us. More, if an LP doesn’t get in at seed, the bigger VC firms won’t create room for the LP down the road. Still, I’d welcome more conversation and debate around this topic, both from GPs and LPs alike, so that we can all learn more about best practices learned and minefields to avoid. Dangling the opportunity to co-invest may help ink a commitment, but in practice, all that glitters may not be gold.

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New Fundings

Behalf, a 3.5-year-old, New York-based online lending startup that makes short-term loans to small businesses, has raised $119 million in equity and a credit facility. Victory Park Capital has provided the credit line; MissionOG led the Series B round, with participation from Maverick Ventures and earlier backers Spark Capital and Sequoia Capital. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Catawiki, the seven-year-old Amsterdam-based online auction house, has raised $75 million in Series C funding led by Lead Edge Capital, with participation from Accel Partners and Project A Ventures. Several Booking.com executives, including former CMO Arthur Kosten, also joined the round. VentureBeat has more here.

Future Home, a 2.5-year-old, Rogaland, Norway-based maker of a connected home app, has raised $1.4 million in seed funding led by Ståle Kyllingstad from IKM Invest, with participation from iPark, Ålgård Holding, and other individual investors. ArcticStartup has more here.

Jiuxian, a six-year-old, Beijing, China-based alcoholic beverage e-commerce company, has raised $80 million in new funding from undisclosed Chinese investors, according to Chinese media reports. The company had previously raised $150 million from investors, including Rich Land Capital, Oriental Fortune Capital and Sequoia Capital. More here.

Light, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company behind a high-quality smartphone camera, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led byFormation 8 Hardware Fund. Additional participants in the round include StepStone Group, Bessemer Venture Partners, CRV, Foxconn’s FIH Mobile, former Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha and CrunchFund. The company has now raised at least $35 million to date. VentureBeat has more here.

Tripfactory, a 1.5-year-old, Bangalore, India-based online marketplace that offers customized trip planning and packages to users, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from Aarin Capital Partners. The Economic Times has more here.

TytoCare, a four-year-old, Israel-based telehealth platform that enables patients to perform home medical examinations and consult with a remote clinician, has raised $11 million in Series B funding led by Cambia Health Solutions. Others of its backers include OrbiMed Advisors, Walgreens, Fosun Pharma and LionBird. More here.

Ubox, a five-year-old, Beijing, China-based vending machine company with growing market share, has collected $85 million from the Carlyle Group in exchange for an undisclosed stake. TechNode has more here.

WEVR, a 6.5-year-old, L.A.-based virtual reality community and technology platform, has received $10 million from HTC — the smartphone maker that more recently branced into wearable devices and the virtual reality category — in exchange for a 15 percent stake in the company. More here.

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New Funds

Foundry Group, the 10-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based venture firm, has closed its fifth fund with $225 million, the same size of its last two early-stage funds, which were raised in 2012 and 2010, respectively.

NewSchools Venture Fund has launched an ed tech accelerator with a focus on science learning. TechCrunch has more here.

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Jobs

S3 Ventures, an eight-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based venture firm, is looking to hire a pre-MBA associate.

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Data

CB Insights looks at the venture firms that are consistently involved in the largest tech exits.

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Essential Reads

Google is quietly distributing a new version of its Glass wearable computer aimed at businesses.

Pinterest just became the first Silicon Valley company to publicly establish its diversity goals.

Uber is set to pour $1 billion into India, placing its business development efforts in the country on a par with China and signaling an escalation of its rivalry with domestic ride-sharing Ola.

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Detours

Unwrapping the “Happy Birthday” legal dispute.

Tom Cruise’s 10 greatest movie stunts, reviewed by a stuntman.

The really big one. (Gulp.)

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Retail Therapy

Cool camera bag.

By Semil Shah

In the few years I’ve been able to meet and learn from limited partners or LPs (those who invest in VC funds), I have noticed an increasing desire to co-invest alongside their general partners. This makes perfect sense. If I was an LP, I’d want to co-invest, as well. Yet, in the process of doing this over the past few years, I’ve found myself repeating some warnings to LPs who have grown eager to do co-invest at the very early stages of seed.

Typically, I cite three key warnings:

One, oftentimes the founders want to meet all potential investors who will be on their cap table. Even though a VC can offer syndication to the founder, that founder may not welcome the introduction and prefer to control the process him/herself. LPs can certainly ask for insight into a GP’s processes, policies, and histories around creating co-investment opportunities, but they cannot be guaranteed. Furthermore, what if a GP has two or three LPs interested in co-investing but there’s room for only one or two. How is the GP supposed to decide?

Two, when there is a real co-investment opportunity for an LP, sometimes the LP doesn’t have the proper resources at hand (domain knowledge, or network, etc.) to independently vet and diligence the specific deal in a few days. If the LP is a family office, they may have enjoy the latitude to quickly stress-test their network and then make a yes/no call; if the LP is a fund of funds managing other institutions’ money, they may have an incentive to seek these types of deals out given their fund economics, regardless of engaging in proper diligence.

And, three, whenever someone is the recipient of an investment opportunity, one should ask: “Why I am so lucky?” In a competitive deal, I often have to fight just to wedge in, and I am not always successful. These are the investments LPs would love to participate in directly as a co-investor, but such opportunities rarely surface. Yes, there are companies that go unnoticed for months or years before breaking out and becoming a sensation, but those aren’t a monthly occurrence.

Again, if I was an LP, I would want to co-invest. After all, LPs are looking for outsize returns, just like the rest of us. More, if an LP doesn’t get in at seed, the bigger VC firms won’t create room for the LP down the road. Still, I’d welcome more conversation and debate around this topic, both from GPs and LPs alike, so that we can all learn more about best practices learned and minefields to avoid. Dangling the opportunity to co-invest may help ink a commitment, but in practice, all that glitters may not be gold.

Happy Thursday, everyone! Investor-writer Semil Shah is in charge this week while Connie is working on some sort of sand castle, we want to call it, down at the beach. If you’d like to reach out to Semil with questions or comments, you can usually find him on Twitter.

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Top News in the A.M.

The venture firm First Round Capital, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, sat down with its vast troves of proprietary data, producing 10 very interesting findings, including that company alma maters matter far more than schools (though the two are invariably intertwined), and that female founders outperform their male peers. If you’ve missed the report, it’s here.

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Leo Polovets on Branding, Data, and One Funky New Trend

By Semil Shah

In recent years, Leo Polovets has been busily building a brand for himself as one of four partners at Susa Ventures, a young, San Francisco-based venture firm that’s focused on data. Polovets — who most recently worked a senior software engineer at the L.A.-based global location data company Factual and before that, as a software engineer at Google (and who, earlier in his career, was the second non-founding engineer at LinkedIn) — has made meaningful strides toward that end, too. Actively blogging smart observations has helped. We caught up with Polovets recently to learn more.

Seed stage valuations — stable, going up, returning to earth?

Valuations have felt fairly stable over the last year. The one change I’ve seen is strong-but-not-spectacular founding teams that have built a [minimum viable product] in four to eight weeks and are trying to fundraise at high ($7 million-plus) caps. To me, that feels like way too high of a valuation for a month or two of work. I didn’t see this pattern 12 to 24 months ago, but I’ve seen it about a dozen times in the last six months.

Without much M&A these days, how does Susa think about exit profiles and returning a fund when liquidity is rare?

We think about it a bit, but it’s a lower priority concern — at least for now. First, I think seed funds have more opportunities to sell stock in later funding rounds. It’s probably much easier for us to sell some seed stock during a Series C than it is for a Series D investor to sell their stock in a Series E. Second, I think this is an area where the market will likely figure something out. If there’s a true liquidity crunch, someone will come up with a transferable financial instrument, or a fund that buys out seed fund stakes, or something else that will address the problem. Finally, I think it’s hard to predict how liquidity will look in 5 or 10 years, which is when funds that started in the last few years will be reaching their conclusion.

You’re quite active on Quora. Are founders reaching out to you via that network?

I’ve had a few founders reach out to me on Quora, but not many — perhaps one founder every few months. My blog has turned out to be a much better source of deal flow. I get three to ten leads from that every month.

I think the real value of blogging/tweeting/writing on Quora is less about explicit deal flow and more about creating a brand. Folks like you and Tomasz Tunguz and Jason Lemkin have done a great job in this department. As capital becomes more commoditized, especially at the seed stage, it becomes more important for investors to stand out from the crowd. My sense is that five years ago, having strong deal flow was one of the keys to being a great seed investor; now it’s more about getting an allocation in oversubscribed rounds — and a big part of that is just having people know who you are.

Susa focuses on companies who create data moats. In a world where downstream investors want to see revenue, what’s the appetite for data startups that will take time to make money?

The nice thing about data moats is that they’re usually built up as a side effect of growth and revenue, so monetization doesn’t need to be deferred. For example, if a startup is building an accounting tool, and the expense data being collected can be used in interesting ways, the founders are not going to say, “Ok, we need to make the product free so that we can collect more data.” Instead, they’re going to keep iterating on the product, improving the onboarding, exploring new growth channels, and so on. More and more people will find the product, use it, love it, and pay for it, and as a side effect the data moat will become stronger.

One angle to data that I think is interesting is that it can provide some downside protection. VCs and founders generally swing for the fences, but it’s nice to know there are some exit options if a company’s plans don’t pan out. For products with a strong team, potential acquihires from companies like Google provide some downside protection. For products with network effects, sometimes an acquirer will want to buy a failing company just to get access to its customers and network. I think data moats can provide another acquisition asset, because data can have a lot of value to the right buyer.

Finally, I think having data moats provides great optionality for companies and, by extension, for investors. Having a data moat makes it easier to defer revenue if desired because focusing on growth increases the strength of the moat faster, but it also makes it easier to start charging because having a data moat and features/products built on top of that data creates a lot more stickiness and lock-in — and fewer alternatives for customers who are reluctant to pay.

Securing Series A funding is much harder these days. As a seed investor, what do you coach your founders to anticipate?

My main pieces of advice are: 1.) Budget four to six months of runway to raise a Series A. If you need 12 months to hit good metrics, raise enough capital for 16 to 18 months so that you have time to raise money at the end. 2.) Budget time for hires to become effective. If enterprise sales will take six months to close, and you have to raise more capital in 12 months, then it’s probably pointless to hire salespeople in month eight. Hire a salesperson in month five or raise more runway in the first place.3.) Figure out what milestones you want to hit for your next round and work backward to figure out how much you need to raise. For example, for most SaaS companies, $1 million [in annual recurring revenue, or ARR] is the minimum viable revenue for a Series A. When deciding how much to raise, figure out how much capital you need to get to $1 million ARR; don’t just pick an amount to raise because it sounds reasonable or because it’s how much your friends raised. 4.) Don’t let money in the bank tempt you into spending faster than you should. Spend as slowly as possible until you’ve found product/market fit.
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New Fundings

Droom, a year-old, Gurgaon, India-based online used car marketplace, has raised $16 million in funding led by the Mumbai-based venture firm LightBox Ventures and the Japanese internet firm Beenos. Inc42 has more here.

FreedomPop, the four-year-old, L.A.-based U.S. wireless carrier startup that has been building a business based on completely free voice and data services, has raised $10 million in funding from two strategic investors: the pan-Asian mobile carrier Axiata and an unnamed U.S. tech investor. The company has now raised $59.3 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.

G2 Crowd, a three-year-old, Highland Park, Il.-based platform for users to share reviews about specialized business software, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Pritzker Group Venture Capital, with “significant participation” from earlier backers Chicago Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, company chairman Godard Abel, and G2 Crowd’s own executives. Business Insider has more here.

GitHub, the seven-year-old, San Francisco-based company that says it hosts the largest community of software developers and projects on the web, has raised $250 million at a $2 billion valuation led by Sequoia Capital. Other participants in the Series B round include Institutional Venture Partners, Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, which had provided GitHub with$100 million in Series A funding back in 2012. Venture Capital Dispatch hasmore here.

GoButler, a months-old, New York-based startup that promises users access to its staff of “Heros,” who act as personal assistants, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by General Catalyst Partners, with participation from Lakestar, Rocket Internet’s Global Founders Capital, Slow Ventures, BoxGroup, Sound Ventures, and Cherry Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

PicMonkey, a three-year-old, Seattle-based photo editing web app, has raised a whopping $41 million in growth equity investment (its first institutional round) from Spectrum Equity. TechCrunch has more here.

Seedrs, a six-year-old, London-based equity crowdfunding platform, has raised a $15.6 million (£10 million) Series A round led by Woodford Patient Capital Trust and Augmentum Capital. Seedrs had previously raised $7.2 million from Faber Ventures and its own crowdfunding campaign. More here.

Tictail, a three-year-old, New York-based platform that  helps retailers set-up commerce stores and combines the brands into a single, unified marketplace, has raised $22 million from earlier backers, including Creandum, Thrive Capital, Balderton Capital and Acton Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Thrive Market, a two-year-old, L.A-based company that sells users $60 annual memberships to shop for healthful products, has raised $30 million in Series A funding led by Greycroft Partners, with participation from Scripps Network, CAVU, Powerplant Ventures, and celebrity investors, including Justin Timberlake, Toby McGuire, and Demi Moore. TechCrunch has more here.

Truecaller, a six-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based company whose caller ID app let’s users see who is calling and to block calls, is looking to raise around $100 million at a $1 billion valuation, reports TechCrunch, which says Morgan Stanley has been hired to lead the process. To date, the company has raised $80 million, shows Crunchbase. Its backers include Atomico, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital, Access Partners and Open Ocean. TechCrunch has the scoop here.

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People

Sandi MacPherson, founder of the social network Quibb, has launched an initiative that asks conference organizers to ensure that half their panelists are female speakers. She has a growing list of 1,100 women leaders at companies like Google, Facebook, PayPal, and Shopify to make it easier for them, too. Fast Company has more here.

A new app lets anyone with a startup idea instantly chat with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer‘s newest investors.

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Jobs

Airbus Group, Europe’s largest aerospace company, is looking to add an investment analyst to its newly formed corporate venture fund. The job is in Palo Alto, Ca.

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Essential Reads

The Supreme Court decision about which every startup should know.

Facebook’s cash cow: Mobile.

Yelp is in a “death spiral” says tech investor Eric Jackson. (He points, in part, to the decision of entrepreneur Max Levchin to step down as chairman of the company as proof.)

Uber is now leasing cars to its drivers through its own subsidiary.
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Detours

The growing wealth gap that no one is talking about.

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Retail Therapy

Nerf, we like you as much as the next person, but 70 miles per hour? Let’s maybe chillax a little bit.

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Investor-writer Semil Shah is in charge this week while Connie is offline, working on her comically bad golf swing. If you need anything or just want to compliment Semil’s investing acumen, he can find him on Twitter.

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Top News in the A.M.

Yelp reported its second-quarter earnings yesterday and shareholders did not like what the company had to say.

Twitter also reported second quarter earnings yesterday. The good news: its revenue is up. The bad: user growth remains stagnant. More here.

The China-based hackers who stole data on tens of millions of U.S. insurance holders and government employees in recent months breached another big target at around the same time — United Airlines, Bloomberg is reporting this morning. The previously unreported breach raises the possibility that the hackers now have data on the movements of millions of Americans — and that the 10 companies and organizations the group has hacked aren’t some random assembly. Much more here.

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Quick Chat with Jed Katz of Javelin Venture Partners

By Semil Shah

Hi, good morning, everyone! Talented investor-writer Semil Shah is in charge of our columns for a few weeks, as Connie catches up on her reading. If you’re interested in reaching out to Semil, you can find him on Twitter at @semil.

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Top News in the A.M.

Remember Product Hunt? (We featured it yesterday.) Today, Amazon is taking the startup Launchpad.

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Quick Chat with Scalus Founder and CEO Kristen Koh Goldstein

Scalus, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of workflow and collaboration software, was born out of necessity, says founder and CEO, Kristen Koh Goldstein, a former investment banking analyst turned entrepreneur. We recently caught up with her to learn more.

With Scalus and a company you founded previously, BackOps, you seem to have developed a passion and expertise around building software and networks for remote workers — how did that all come to be?

It’s fueled from a place of personal experience. After 9/11, I left Wall Street to learn operational finance and accounting at startups. Then life happened. I became a mom.  And I learned firsthand the challenges of being a mom and a professional. So I started BackOps, a back office service employing skilled moms who work from home between school dropoff and pickup.  The business grew quickly, doubling revenue every year for four years, so we ended up needing to develop software to clear the hurdles to scaling our business and Scalus was born.

Our corporate mission is to prove that the future of work includes workplace flexibility for all.  Our social mission is to get a million parents back to work by empowering them to be productive at work and engaged at home.

Speaking of remote workers, some of them are likely to be on contract. Have you been following the contractor versus full-employee debate as it relates to the on-demand sector? Any reactions?  

The labor laws haven’t caught up with the changing face of the workforce. The Millennial generation approaches employment differently than its predecessors. Companies look more like Hollywood productions or real estate development projects. The line between “internal” and “external” becomes much more blurred in this environment, where contractors can often have the same longevity and close working relationships as internal employees, especially across departments.

Philosophically, I believe it’s important to make a commitment to people who commit to you.  At BackOps, where I’m the chairwoman, my perspective has always been that unless you have an active income source elsewhere (you’re working for others), you are an employee of the company, even if just part-time on a temporary basis.<

What’s your point of view on the increased attention paid to having more women in VC and investing roles in the Valley? Are there more women quietly doing this than we know about, or is it still pretty dismal? If so, what can change it quickly?

In angel investing, there have always been a lot of women funding and supporting early-stage companies. Shawn Byers, a prolific investor in female-led companies, is probably the only member of her family [which includes her husband, Brook Byers of Kleiner Perkins and their sons Blake Byers of Google Ventures and Chad Byers of Susa Ventures] who you haven’t heard about.  I think it’s quite possible that Shawn may end up backing just as many startups as Brook, Blake, and Chad. Full disclosure: Blake Byers is our biggest champion at Google Ventures, so we’re a big fan of the whole Byers clan.

I am thrilled that trailblazers, including Helena Morrissey and Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, are pushing forward the discussion about getting more women in the boardroom, which is a positive change toward getting more women in VC. I am also so grateful to the countless women quietly working behind the scenes, including Aileen Lee. Hopefully, more companies, especially startups where like-think reigns, will start diversifying their boards, which will increase the demand for female VCs, who will in turn invest in a broader range of founders who will seek diverse boards.

You’re an active angel and seed investor but keep a relatively low profile. Is that on purpose or all part of the plan?

It’s on purpose. I have been listening, learning, and waiting for the remote worker movement to come center stage. When the time is right to talk about what it means to empower everyone across an organization to determine the way that they work, you’ll hear a lot more from me.

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New Fundings

Castle Biosciences, a seven-year-old, Friendswood, Tex.-based molecular diagnostics firm, has raised $11.7 million in the first tranche of a Series F round that’s targeting $20 million. Industry Ventures led the financing, with participation from earlier backers HealthQuest Capital and Mountain Group Partners.

More here.China Rapid Finance, a 14-year-old, Shanghai, China-based online consumer lending marketplace serving online users and China’s emerging middle class, has raised $35 million in Series C funding led by Broadline Capital, a global private equity firm, with the participation of an unnamed family office and other investors. The company has now raised at least $56 million, shows Crunchbase. More on the company here.

Deliveroo, a three-year-old, London-based on-demand startup that offers food delivery from high-end restaurants that don’t traditionally offer a take-out service, has raised $70 million in Series C funding led by Greenoaks Capital and Index Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Accel Partnersand Hoxton Ventures. The company has now raised roughly $100 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Kareo, an 11-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based startup that provides small medical practices with tools they need to run their businesses, has raised $55 million in new funding led by the late-stage health tech fund Montreux Equity Partners, with participation from Silver Lake Waterman and all previous investors, including Greenspring Associates, OpenView Venture Partners, and Stripes Group. TechCrunch has more here.

Lecorpio, a nine-year-old, Freemont, Ca.-based company that sells software for managing intellectual property portfolios, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by  M2O. More here.

MacroFab, a nearly two-year-old, Houston, Tex.-based platform that helps hardware startups prototype and manufacture PCB boards, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Techstars Ventures. The company has now raised $2.7 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. More here.

Mobi, a seven-year-old Indianapolis, In.-based company whose cloud-based software centralizes the management of mobile devices by integrating with wireless carriers, corporate IT systems and more, has raised $35 million in funding from the growth equity firm Bregal Sagemount.

Oncobiologics, a four-year-old, Cranbury, N.J.-based biopharmaceutical company, has raised $31 million in new funding led by Perceptive Advisors, with participation from earlier backers, including Cormorant Global Healthcare Master Fund, Longwood Capital Partners, and venBio Select Fund. Other investors included Proximare Lifesciences Fund, OSSB Pharma Fund and MIH Fund.

Optoro, an 11-year-old, Lanham, Md.-based re-seller of unwanted retail goods that counts Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Revolution among its investors, has raised $40 million in debt financing from TriplePoint Venture Growth and Square 1 Bank. The Washington Post has more here.

Secret Escapes, a four-year-old, London-based members-only British travel deals site, has raised $60 million in a new funding led by Google Ventures, with participation from Index Ventures and Octopus Investments. The company has now raised $72.9 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

ShopKeep.com, a seven-year-old, New York-based  iPad-based payments-processing system allows retailers to accept a variety of payment methods, as well as keep track of inventory, employee hours, and customers’ contact information, has raised $60 million in new funding led by Activant. The company has now raised $97.2 million altogether. Venture Capital Dispatch hasmore here.

UpCounsel, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based on-demand network of pre-screened attorneys, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from previous investors Homebrew and Metamorphic Ventures. The company has now raised $13.9 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Stripe, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose APIs and tools enable businesses to accept and manage online payments, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Visa, a round that reportedly values the company at $5 billion. The company had previously raised $300 million in funding from Sequoia Capital, American Express, and General Catalyst Partners among others. Both Sequoia and American Express participated in the newest round, too. Fortune has more here.

Yozio, a three-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based which helps developers acquire more mobile users via an advanced analytics, growth-marketing platform, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Foundation Capital, with participation from firms including Illuminate Ventures, Webb Investment Network, and AME Cloud Ventures. The company has now raised $8.6 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

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Exits

Allergan, a Dublin, Ireland-based global pharmaceutical company, is acquiring Naurex, a seven-year-old Evanston, Il.-based biopharmaceutical company focused on treating central nervous system disorders, for $560 million. Naurex had at least $162 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. Its backers include Adams Street Partners, Druid BioVentures, Genesys Capital and Latterell Venture Partners. The Chicago Tribune has more here.

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People

Cisco’s new CEO, Chuck Robbins, announced some new appointments yesterday, his first day on the job. Zorawar Biri Singh is now Cisco’s CTO, and Kevin Bandy is the company’s Chief Digital Officer. Previously, Singh was a venture partner at Khosla Ventures. His earlier career was split between founding companies and working at HP, IBM, and Nortel Networks. Bandy was most recently senior vice president of enterprise transformation at Salesforce. Network World has more here.

Following a string of exits by women at Reddit, its head of community, Jessica Moreno, has just left the company, too.

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Jobs

Revo Capital, a two-year-old, Istanbul, Turkey-based venture firm focused on both enterprise and consumer-facing startups, is looking for an associate to help it establish a presence in Silicon Valley. The job is in San Francisco.

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Data

Europe-based venture capital firms raised more than €2 billion ($2.2 billion) in the second quarter of this year, a 30 percent jump compared with the same period last year, reports Venture Capital Dispatch. Recent amounts are still below those of the late ‘90s dot-com boom, it notes. In the second quarter of 2000, European VC firmed raised $3.9 billion (€3.5 billion).

Twenty-six companies (including 14 in the U.S.) plan to spend $1 billion or more each on Internet of things initiatives this year, according to research out from Tata Consultancy Services. Fortune has more here.

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Essential Reads

How Goldman Sachs became a tech-investing powerhouse.

Wired on Hollywood’s plan to smear Google.

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Detours

Bloomberg thinks Donald Trump is worth roughly $7 billion less than he says he is.

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Retail Therapy

The four-minute shower curtain. We may need to get one of these.

Good Monday morning, everyone! Investor-writer Semil Shah is largely steering the ship the next few weeks. If you want to reach out to him about a column, you can find him on Twitter at @semil. (If you have any complaints about anything, you can always yell at Connie when she’s back online.)

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Top News in the A.M.

In addition to high-end boutiques and department stores, Apple will begin selling Apple Watch at Best Buy next month. Apple has declined to break out sales of the watch so far. The WSJ has more here.

It is Friday! Can I get a “Hallelujah?”

Quick notes: This kid (Connie) is dialing back for a few weeks starting Monday, while talented writer-investor Semil Shah takes over the column. He has a lot of terrific content lined up for you, so stay tuned.

Also, for those of you who don’t read every day, our September 16 event in San Francisco is fast approaching and we now have less than 50 tickets left. (We’d let all of you in, but the Autodesk Gallery can only accommodate so many people.) If you’ve missed details about the evening, they’re here. Tickets can bepurchased here. Huge thanks to the many friends who are helping us put the evening together, including the venture firms Bolt and Ludlow Ventures.

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Top News in the A.M.

Yesterday, Amazon bypassed Walmart in market value.

Nest’s thermostat was just booted from the Apple store.

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Dear Unicorn, Exit Please

In the last couple of years, it’s become the conventional wisdom that the hottest, fastest-growing tech companies benefit from steering clear of public market investors as long as possible.

The trend toward staying private is a pretty lousy development for employees looking to move on with their lives, though. They have to exercise their options within 90 days of leaving or else lose them. And with valuations of billion-dollar companies up a stunning 59.7 percent over last year, according to Crunchbase, the amount of capital needed to buy one’s options has escalated too fast for anyone who isn’t already exceedingly wealthy to afford them.

Put another way, amid a sea of headlines about billion-dollar valuations are many thousands of employees who stand to lose countless millions of dollars unless companies start to go public, or else sell to an acquirer.

The issue is growing more extreme with every new “unicorn.”

More here.

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New Fundings

MyEye, a months-old, Leicester, U.K.-based video livestreaming startup whose clips expire after 72 hours, has raised roughly $2 million from investors, including soccer star David Beckham. TechCrunch has more here.

JetSmarter, a 2.5-year-old, Boca Raton, Fla.-based company whose users pay for a yearly subscription to book an unlimited number of flights on private jets, has raised $20 million in Series B funding from investors, including members of the Saudi Royal Family, executives from Goldman Sachs and Twitter, and artist-entrepreneur Jay Z. Business Insider has more here.

Palantir Technologies, the 11-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that focuses on data mining, has raised $450 million in a new fundraising round, shows a new SEC filing first spied by the WSJ. The company, says its report, is now valued at $20 billion. Palantir has raised roughly $1 billion from investors to date, including In-Q-Tel, Founders Fund and Tiger Global Management. More here.

Peloton Technology, a four-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based developer of vehicle safety systems for trucking fleets, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Nokia Growth Partners. The company previously raised $17 million in Series A funding from Magna International, Castrol innoVentures,Volvo Group Venture Capital, UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, Birchmere Ventures, Sand Hill Angels, and Band of Angels. VentureBeat has more here.

Popular Pays, a two-year-old, Chicago-based Y Combinator-backed startup connecting Instagram users with marketers, has raised $2 million in funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Soma Capital, Social Starts, Mike Shinoda of the band Linkin Park and Romar Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

UXPin, a five-year-old, Gdynia, Poland and Mountain View, Ca.-based startup that makes a wireframing and prototyping tool, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by True Ventures. The company had previously raised two rounds of funding: a $700,000 round of funding that included Andreessen Horowitz, IDG Ventures, and a long line of individuals, and a $1.6 million round, led last year by Freestyle Capital. More here.

Voxel8, a year-old, Somerville, Ma.-based maker of a multi-material 3D electronics printer, has raised $12 million in funding co-led by ARCH Venture Partners and Braemar Energy Ventures, with participation from In-Q-Tel and Autodesk, through its Spark Investment Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

ZVerse, a two-year-old, Columbia, Md.-based 3D printing technology company, has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding from Mosley Ventures, Capital A Partners and strategic investors. More here.

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New Funds

DCM Ventures, the 19-year-old venture firm, with offices in Menlo Park, Ca., Beijing and Tokyo, has closed its second Android-focused investment fund with $100 million. Much more here.

Talent manager and investor Troy Carter has launched SMASHD LABS, a new, L.A.-based startup accelerator that will invest $50,000 in five to seven startups in exchange for a 3 percent stake in the companies. TechCrunch has more here.

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Exits

Centro, a venture-backed, 14-year-old, Chicago-based ad tech company, has acquired a social ad startup called GraphScience that advertisers use to create and optimize personalized Facebook ads. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. GraphScience had raised $3.2 million in funding from investors, including Grace Beauty Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

IBM has acquired Compose, a four-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based database-as-a-service startup originally known as MongoHQ. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. According to Crunchbase, Compose had raised $6.4 million from investors, including Trinity Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Data Collective, and Webb Investment Network. TechCrunch has more here.

Pearson has sold the Financial Times Group to Japan’s Nikkei for £844 million ($1.3 billion) in cash. The group includes the newspaper, the FT.com website and roughly a dozen other properties. The BBC News has more here.

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People

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky recently revealed seven rejection letters he received seven years ago. Now, seed-stage investor Paige Craig — who says that he was willing to write Airbnb its first check in 2008 — says Airbnb rejected him.

Zenefits, the HR software startup, has hired Rita Garg to run its business development operations. Garg joins the company from Twitter. TechCrunch has more here.

The insane life of former fugitive and eccentric cybersecurity legend John McAfee.

Philanthropy life lessons from KKR cofounder George Roberts.

Laurence Tosi, who has served as the CFO of Blackstone Group since 2008, is reportedly close to becoming CFO at Airbnb, which hasn’t had someone in the position since Andrew Swain left the company last year. The move, notes Bloomberg, could be a precursor to an IPO. (Swain, if you’re curious, is now CFO of the venture-backed San Francisco-based company LendingHome.)

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Jobs

VMWare is looking for a corporate development manager. The job is in Palo Alto, Ca.

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Data

Current global tech M&A trends, brought to you by Woodside Capital.

New YouTube stats, via a keynote speech by YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki.

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Essential Reads

Drug testing is coming to e-gaming.

China wants Silicon Valleys everywhere.

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Detours

A fifth(!) of all residents in Ottawa use Ashley Madison.

Cool at 13, adrift at 23.

How to speak cat.

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Retail Therapy

The “Swiss army knife of jackets.”

“Modest” bathing suits. Spring break will never be the same.

Happy Thursday, everyone!

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Top News in the A.M.

Veteran Apple blogger Jim Dalrymple has just written a scathing review of Apple Music. It’s a “nightmare” and “I’m done with it,” he writes.

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Y Combinator Reveals Its Approach to Late-Stage Investments

A couple of weeks ago, we published a post that pondered what investing pro rata would mean for Y Combinator. Just one month earlier, the popular accelerator program had filed for what it’s calling its Y Combinator Continuity Fund, which appears to be a growth-stage vehicle that’s rumored to be raising at least $1 billion.

We speculated that if Y Combinator used the money to cherry-pick deals from its portfolio of graduates — even if it were to skip a few stages to invest in a limited number of very late-stage deals — it could create a signaling risk for many other startups it funds. We added as a caveat that, “It’s possible that Y Combinator could follow on in every one of the venture-backed rounds of its portfolio companies, but the moment it doesn’t . . .”

Turns out, Y Combinator is doing exactly that — and it’s not a new decision. More here.

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New Fundings

Bulletproof, the controversial, nearly five-year-old, San Francisco-based startup behind Bulletproof coffee — featuring butter and oil — has raised $9 million in venture funding led by Trinity Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

Cazena, a year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based company that aims to quickly and securely optimize big data processing in the cloud, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Formation 8, with participation from earlier investors Andreessen Horowitz and North Bridge Venture Partners. The company had raised $8 million in Series A funding last October.

Clover, a year-old, Toronto-based dating app, has raised $2 million in led by Social Starts, with participation from unnamed angel investors. The company has now raised $4 million altogether, it says.

Continuum Analytics, a 3.5-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based company that develops Anaconda, an open source analytics platform powered by Python, has raised $24 million in Series A funding led by General Catalyst Partners and BuildGroup. The company has now raised $34 million altogether. VentureBeat has more here.

Events.com, a two-year-old, La Jolla, Ca.-based event management platform, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Arctaris, with participation from La Jolla Holding and Moore Venture Partners. The company has now raised $17 million, it says. More here.

Fishbrain, a five-year-old, Göteborg, Sweden-based social network for sport fishers, has raised $8 million in venture funding from Northzone, with participation from Industrifonden, Active Venture Partners, GP Bullhound, Edastra Venture Capital, Recruit Strategic Partners, and Novel TMT Ventures. The company has now raised $10.6 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. The Telegraph has more here.

Ginkgo Bioworks, a seven-year-old, Boston-based organism design company, has raised $45 million in Series B funding led by Viking Global, with participation from earlier backers OS Fund, Y Combinator and Felicis Ventures. The company has now raised $54 million in total funding. More here.

Giosis, the five-year-old, Singapore-based company behind the popular e-commerce platform Qoo10, has raised $82.1 million in Series A funding led by Singapore Press Holdings, with participation from earlier investor eBay. TechCrunch has more here.

Gynesonics, a 10-year-old, Redwood, Ca.-based medical device company that makes an ablation tool for treating uterine fibroids, has raised $43 million in funding co-led by Endeavour Vision and Abingworth, with participation fromHealthCrest, InterWest Partners, Advanced Technology Ventures, HBM Partners, Correlation Ventures and Hercules Technology Growth Capital. More here.

Leadspace, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based marketing analytics company that helps its customers determine how to prioritize leads, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led by Battery Ventures. The company, led by former Salesforce CMO Doug Bewsher, has now raised $35 million to date. Fortune has more here.

Outpost Games, a year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based maker of PC games, has raised $6 million from Benchmark. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Remedy Partners, a four-year-old, Darien, Ct.-based developer and manager of bundled payment programs for government and private health insurers, has raised $50 million from Bain Capital Ventures. The company has now raised $86.2 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. More here.

SGN, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile game developer, has raised $130 million in new funding from the South Korean mobile gaming company Netmarble Games. SGN had previously $28 million in funding, including from Columbia Capital, Felicis Ventures, Founders Fund, and Greylock Partners. Fast Company has more here.

SmarterHQ, a five-year-old,  Indianapolis, In.-based customer intelligence marketing platform, has raised $8 million in funding led by Simon Venture Group, with participation from Battery Ventures and angel investors. The company has now raised $23.5 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

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New Funds

Notion Capital, a seven-year-old, London-based venture firm focused on enterprise startups, has held a first close of $120 million on its third fund, which is expected to close with $150 million. The firm, founded by entrepreneurs and brothers Ben and Jos White (they sold their company MessageLabs to Symantec for $695 million in 2008), has invested in 33 companies across its first two funds, including NewVoiceMedia and Tradeshift. TechCrunch has more here.

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Exits

Consulting giant Accenture has acquired Chaotic Moon, a five-year-old, Austin Tex.-based studio that comes up with design technology for major brands. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

Dropbox has acquired Clementine, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based enterprise communication service that focuses on conference calls and chat services that aren’t connected to a personal phone number. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

Online real estate service Zillow has acquired DotLoop, a seven-year-old, Cincinnati-based real-estate service that moves much of the document sharing and signing process online. The financial details of the transaction aren’t being disclosed. DotLoop had raised $14 million, incuding from Trinity Ventures. More here.

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People

Jonathon Triest and Brett deMarrais of Detroit-based Ludlow Ventures carpool to work every day. In a Jerry Seinfeld-esque twist, they’ve decided to start recording their in-car conversations, including with other entrepreneurs and VCs. (Upcoming editions include conversations with Eric Reis and Mark Suster, among others.)  You can catch their first, introductory episode here. (Spoiler alert: there’s some singing.)

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Jobs

Twitter is looking for a corporate development manager. The job is in San Francisco.

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Data

Silk has put together the latest on Google’s self-driving car accidents.

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Essential Reads

After days of a political battle, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has temporarily relented on plans to cap the number of Ubers on NYC streets.

For ADP and Zenefits, the bickering goes on.

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Detours

Thirteen months of working, eating, and sleeping at the Googleplex.

From Harvard Innovation Lab: a startup to help take tiny houses mainstream.

How Berlin’s airport became a $6 billion embarrassment.

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Retail Therapy

A new GoPro video stabilizer is coming (from a company called Aetho).