Happy Tuesday, everyone! No column today. We had a strange Monday, including having our car towed (while parked legally, as we were volunteering at a school, no less!). Mostly, we’re sorry we missed an outing at San Francisco’s AT&T park that Rothenberg Ventures organized yesterday. Sounds like it was a hit (no pun intended).

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Top News in the A.M.

Apple’s announcement yesterday that it would dole out the biggest chunk of cash to shareholders in history—$200 billion of capital will be returned to investors through March 2017—means one thing and one thing only, says Time: The market has topped.

After three years of testing, Amazon is rebranding its business offerings and unveiling a new site around them. The WSJ has more here.

Watch out, Skype. Facebook just introduced video calling in its Messenger platform.

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New Fundings

Babajob, a nearly eight-year-old, Bangalore, India-based jobs marketplace, has raised $10 million in new funding from SEEK, an Australia-based online employment marketplace. The company had raised an earlier, undisclosed amount of Series A funding led by GrayGhost Ventures and Khosla Impact. The outlet e27 has more here.

Beijing Weiying, a year-old, Beijing, China-based company that provides online booking and payment for movie tickets via mobile apps based on Tencent’s Wechat and QQ platforms, has raised $105 million in Series B funding from Tencent Holdings, Dalian Wanda Group, and other investors. China Money Network has more here.

Benefit, a 2.5-year-old, Grand Rapids, Mi.-based pre-paid mobile wallet application that sends a percentage of each transaction to the cause of a user’s choice, has raised $900,000 in seed funding led by Start Garden, an early stage venture capital fund. The company had previously raised $550,000 in seed funding across two rounds, shows Crunchbase.

CareCloud, a six-year-old, Miami, Fla.-based company that makes practice management and electronic health records software, has raised $15 million in funding from previous investors. The company also appointed a new CEO. The company has now raised roughly $100 million altogether, shows Crunchbase, including from Tenaya Capital, Intel Capital, and Norwest Venture Partners. More here.

DataTorrent, a three-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based data analytics software company, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Singtel Innov8, with participation from GE Ventures and all of its previous investors. The company has now raised $23.8 million altogether, including from Morado Venture Partners, August Capital, and AME Cloud Ventures.

DingIt.tv, a year-old, Ashburn, Va.-based live streaming broadcast site for professional and aspiring gamers, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from the London-based venture firm Black Green Capital. More here.

DocDoc, a three-year-old, Singapore-based online service providing ratings about doctors in Southeast Asia, along with booking services, has raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Raymond Choong Yee How, CEO of the Malaysian banking conglomerate Hong Leong Financial Group. Sparklabs Global Ventures also participated in the round. DocDoc had previously raised $2.6 million in seed funding. TechCrunch has more here.

Icertis, a six-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based company whose software lets corporate customers manage contracts from the cloud, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Greycroft Partners and Fidelity Growth Partners India. The company had previously raised roughly $500,000 in seed funding.

Loop Commerce, a 2.5-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based online gift card startup, has raised $16 million in Series B funding co-led by investor Oren Zeev and Wicklow Capital. The company has now raised roughly $30 million altogether. Venture Capital Dispatch has much more here.

Naaptol, a seven-year-old, Mumbai, India-based online store selling a wide variety of items, has raised $21.4 million in Series C funding led by the Japanese conglomerate Mitsui & Co., with participation from earlier backers New Enterprise Associates, Canaan Partners and Silicon Valley Bank. The company has reportedly raised around $76 million altogether. Tech-Portal has more here.

Refinery29, an 11-year-old, New York-based fashion and style site, has raised $50 million in new funding led by Scripps Network Interactive and the ad giant WPP. The company, which has raised $80 million to date — including from Floodgate, First Round Capital, and Lerer Hippeau Ventures — is reportedly now valued at $290 million. Recode has more here.

SensorSuite, a three-year-old, Toronto, Ontario-based wireless sensor and cloud analytics platform, has raised $550,000 in seed funding from Extreme Venture Partners, BDC Capital, and unnamed angel investors. TechVibes has more here.

Smava, a 10-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based social lending platform, has raised $16 million in funding led by Phenomen Ventures, with participation from existing investors Earlybird Ventures and Neuhaus Partners. The company has now raised $29.1 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

UBeam, a four-year-old, L.A.-based wireless power startup that transmits power over-the-air to charge electronic devices, is reportedly in talks to raise $50 million or more in Series B funding, at a valuation of $500 million or more. The company has raised just $13.2 million to date, from a long list of investors that includes Crunchfund, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. TechCrunch has the story here.

Validic, a five-year-old, Durham, N.C.-based company whose mobile health API connection enables healthcare companies to access data from clinical and remote-monitoring devices, sensors, fitness equipment, wearables and other applications, has raised $12.5 million in Series B funding from Kaiser Permanente Ventures, SJF Ventures and Greycroft Partners. The company had previously raised $5.9 million over numerous rounds, shows Crunchbase.

Windward, a five-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup that has developed maritime tracking and predictive technology, has raised $10.8 million in Series B funding led by Horizon Ventures, with participation from earlier backer Aleph. The company had previously raised $5 million in Series A funding.
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New Funds

Scale Up Ventures Fund, a new, Ontario-based venture fund, has received $25 million from the Government of Ontario that will be matched with $25 million from private investors — all to provide capital to Ontario-based start-ups. The fund is expected to begin operations in summer. More here.

Saama Capital, a three-year-old, Bangalore-based venture firm whose team previously worked together at SVB Financial Group, is raising its third fund, shows an SEC filing that doesn’t list a target. More here.

Yet2Ventures, a five-old, Wilmington, De.-based secondary shop that buys stakes from venture funds looking to liquidate some of their holdings, has raised roughly $12 million for its newest fund, shows an SEC filing. Yet2Ventures was cofounded by Ben DuPont, a member of the Du Pont family.

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Exits

Drug company Celgene Corp. is acquiring the six-year-old, San Francisco-based biotech startup Quanticel Pharmaceuticals for $100 million cash, with another $385 million in payouts contigent on certain milestones being met. Quanticel, a Stanford University spin-off, had entered into a multi-year deal with Celgene in 2011 and was provided with $45 million in return.

Hi, happy Monday, everyone! Hope you had a great weekend. (We’re still trying to recover from ours.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Google announced this morning that it’s launching an experimental portal that allows interested patent holders to sell their patents to the company.

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A Far-from-Comprehensive List of Women We’d Hire as VCs

In recent weeks, StrictlyVC has received several requests from readers asking what women we’d propose that venture firms hire. The timing isn’t surprising. Ellen Pao’s gender discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins dominated the headlines throughout March and triggered anew discussions about the gender imbalance in the venture community. Then there was Fortune’s sit-down with Marc Andreessen, in which he said his venture firm – whose general partners are exclusively male — has repeatedly tried, and failed, to hire the same female executive as a GP.

VCs are asking recruiters for help, too, says Joe Riggione, a cofounder of the executive recruiting firm True Capital, who tells us that even before the Pao trial got underway, “we’d begun getting investor searches where they asked us to prioritize female candidates.”

Riggione sees a particularly “big opportunity on the operator side,” because so many women have the engineering, product and marketing experience that would make them attractive venture candidates, particularly for investor roles where they can be groomed into general partners.

We don’t think it’s all that hard to come up with potential general partners, either. Let’s face it: Any top female executive would have the same odds of developing a great track record as a male executive pulled into a venture firm (or founding their own). In fact, in little more than an hour this weekend, we came up with a short list of 16 women that firms would be smart to pursue if they’re truly interested in diversity (and they should be, for the obvious reason that more diverse teams are more effective teams). Here’s what we came up with, in alphabetical order. Note: we have not talked to these women about this list or gauged their interest in VC.

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy. Cassidy is the founder and CEO of the e-commerce video platform company Joyus. We’ve no idea how it’s doing, though it has raised $41 million, including a $22 million round led by Marker last November. (It also just settled a lawsuit against it by a company claiming it infringed on its patents.) We’d probably hire Cassidy no matter its fate. Before Joyus, she served (briefly) as the CEO of Polyvore, spent a year as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Accel Partners, and before that, logged five-and-a-half years as president of Asia Pacific and Latin America operations at Google. Cassidy was also a senior VP of business development at the now publicly traded company Yodlee, which she helped form with numerous colleagues from Amazon, where, yes, she also once worked, as a business development manager. (And her resume goes on. In fact, this reporter wrote a piece for BusinessWeek about Cassidy’s impressive track record back in 2001.)

Caterina Fake. A Vassar grad, Fake cofounded Flickr and Hunch, both of which were acquired for nice sums (by Yahoo and eBay, respectively). Fake is also a seasoned investor who is a partner of Founder Collective and has made numerous seed-stage investments, including in the online marketplace Etsy, where she wound up serving as board chair for five years. Fake is currently running her newest company, four-year-old Findery, and likely wants to see it through to some natural exit. It could be worth starting to woo her from now, though.

Shana Fisher. Fisher may not be interested in working for anyone but herself, which is currently the case, but it’d be worth making the effort to see. Fisher currently runs her own New York-based, early-stage firm, High Line Venture Partners, but earlier in her career, she was an SVP of strategic planning at IAC; served as a VP and director of media and technology mergers and acquisitions at Allen & Company; and, oh, yeah, was a program manager at Microsoft before that. Did we mention that she was also one of the first investors in Pinterest?

Kimber Lockhart: Lockhart was recently appointed chief technology officer at One Medical Group, a very well-funded primary care practice, which she’d joined in April of last year as its VP of engineering. Given that plum assignment, she might be hard to wrest from the company, but if we were hiring, we’d give it a shot. Before joining One Medical, the Stanford grad was a senior director of web application engineering at the storage company Box, which she joined in 2009 after it acquired her two-year-old collaborative document editing startup Increo Solutions.

For more, click here.

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New Fundings

Good Friday morning, everyone! We hope you’re in for a terrific weekend.:)

Quick note: Tickets are nearly sold out to our May 13 INSIDER event with Zenefits CEO Parker Conrad and many others. If you were going to grab a ticket, now’s the time. We’ll send a separate note to those of you who’ve RSVP’d at our Splash page.

(Psst, if you’re reading this online, here’s an easier-to-read version of this morning’s email.)

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Top News in the A.M.

It’s over. Comcast has terminated its $45 billion Time Warner Cable merger agreement.

A new version of Google Glass is in the works and will be out soon, the CEO of Italian eyewear maker Luxottica said this morning.

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Need a Breather? This VC is Hoping So

This week, StrictlyVC chatted with Steve Schlafman, a principal with RRE Ventures in New York who spends a fair amount of his time considering on-demand startup models. Among the deals he has led for RRE are Managed by Q, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based company that provides office cleaning and services like restocking to small businesses; and Shuddle, a year-old company in San Francisco that employs women to shuttle around children on behalf of their busy parents. (The proposed promise: the ride is safer than an Uber.)

Along with Vayner/RSE, Schlafman also led a $6 million Series A last September inBreather, a company that provides on-demand rooms in cities so that visitors can pop in to relax with friends, finish a speech, or maybe make some calls that would be harder to execute from a crowded coffee shop.

It may be Schlafman’s boldest, and riskiest, bet. Getting enough repeatable business to make profitable use of Breather’s rooms — which the company leases — would seem to be an enormous challenge. Breather also operates in a crowded sector with more than a handful of competitors, including LiquidSpace, which also invites users to find and book private spaces to rent by the hour, day or longer. (It’s raised more than $26 million, including from Shasta Ventures, Floodgate and Greylock Partners.)

Schlafman, who says Breather might look for capital later this year, isn’t concerned, telling us that it’s all in the execution. Here’s more from our chat, edited for length.

You call Breather the craziest idea you’d ever seen, yet you invested anyway. Why?

I became a user, and they’ve just completely nailed the experience of creating a fourth space. Think about it. For a long time, people had their home space and work space and there wasn’t much in between. Then along came Starbucks and cafes and public spaces that had multifunctional uses, but we believe that people need another space, so when you’re in [San Francisco’s] SOMA [neighborhood], for example, and you have two hours, you can pull out your phone, book a room, and have a business meeting or [quietly decompress].

A lot of startups now offer people an alternative to Starbucks.

A lot of companies are focused on coworking on demand, including LiquidSpace, PivotDesk and WeWork; they’re very much catering to a business user. Breather is building a tightly controlled experience that’s aesthetically pleasing. You can sell to a business user or a consumer.

How many rooms does it currently offer users?

It has 60 spaces right now – something like 15 in San Francisco, almost 40 in New York. The company just opened in Boston, too. What’s nice is that as soon as they put a space on the map, it gets to breakeven. What I love about [cofounder and CEO] Julien [Smith] is that he’s scrappy. He isn’t a Silicon Valley-type operator in a tweed jacket. He’s a child of the Internet who believes in testing, including when it comes to developing relationships with landlords. I’m not sure he’d want me to spill the beans, but he’s looking at asset-light models where Breather isn’t necessarily taking on the lease.

How many people are these rooms supposed to accommodate?

These are fairly small rooms, with a couch and a desk and a conference table with chairs and WiFi, and you can fit 5 to 10 people in them, which is great as companies can use it for overflow space or small offsite events, instead of spending a sh_tload of money on a hotel. It’s hard to wrap your head around the concept, but once you use one, you get it.

That’s a big challenge, though, getting people to think about heading somewhere new. I’d also think establishing repeatable business would be tricky. How is the company juggling that?

They’ll be introducing a smart pricing algorithm, so that not every hour is created equally. [It’ll be] upwards of $35 to $40 an hour during peak times. You’ll also be able to unlock certain services eventually. In the meantime, based on early cohorts, the payback is very fast on our marketing spend.

How does Breather ensure that there’s nothing funky going on in these rooms?

Trust is a huge factor. Every single time a room is cleaned – and we partner with a well-known cleaning service right now — there are reviews coming from the cleaning side, as well as from [the next] consumer.

Will the spaces always run on the smaller side?

That’s where we think there’s a good opportunity to build a completely new category. The idea is to have a breather in every city in the world. Will that happen in the next year or two? I don’t know, but once I tried it, I was sold.

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New Fundings

Dash Robotics, a two-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based maker of hand-held, bio-inspired robots, has raised $1.4 million in seed funding led by IronFire Capital. VentureBeat hasmore here.

Datical, a three-year-old, Austin, Tx.-based company that creates database schema automation software, has raised $2.25 million in funding, extending its total Series A round to $5.9 million. The new funding was led by Mercury Fund, with participation from Austin Ventures and other investors.

EatShopLove, a year-old, Bangalore, India-based fashion e-commerce company, has raised $3.5 million in angel funding from an unnamed investor in London. The company had previously raised $1 million in seed funding last fall. More here.

Ferris, a three-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based company whose app makes mobile videos more watchable — and shareable —  has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Upfront Ventures, with participation from Machinima founder Allen DeBevoise and other investors. TechCrunch has the story here.

GoFundMe, a seven-year-old, San Diego-based crowdfunding and fundraising startup, is reportedly raising its first institutional round of funding, at a $500 million valuation, with “Accel Partners” in “the mix,” reports TechCrunch. More here.Happay, a three-year-old, Bangalore-based startup that makes software to manage business expense reports, has raised $500,000 in seed funding from AngelPrime. Tech In Asia has more here.

Headout, a year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based on-demand “mobile concierge” that helps travelers book local experiences at discounted prices, has raised $1.8 million in seed funding from Version One Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, 500 Startups and Arena Ventures, along with individual investors, including WhatsApp vice president Neeraj Aroraand entrepreneur-investor Rick Marini. More here.

iContainers, an eight-year-old, Barcelona, Spain-based freight forwarding company offering online ocean and air quotes and bookings, recently raised $1.4 million in Series B funding, including from Kibo Ventures, Vitamina K, and GrupoRomeu. More here.

StrataCloud, a year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based company that sells infrastructure management software for virtual, converged and cloud environments, has raised $3.4 million in Series A funding from Hallett Capital, BLH Venture Partners, Mosley Ventures and BIP Capital.

TrackTik, a five-year-old, Montreal, Canada-based company that sells security operations management software, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by iNovia Capital, with participation from Klass Capital. More here

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New Funds

Institutional Venture Partners has officially closed its newest fund with $1.4 billion, making it the second largest venture fund formed in the U.S. this year (right behind NEA’s mammoth new fund). Forbes has much more here.

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IPOs

Apigee, an 11-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based software platform that sells enterprise tools that helps companies build and scale apps, began trading publicly this morning. The company had priced its shares at $17, the midpoint of an expected range of $16 to $18, giving it a valuation of $494.5 million. The company had raised at least $173 million over the years, shows Crunchbase. Norwest Venture Partners is its largest shareholder with a 26.2 percent stake; Bay Partners meanwhile owns a 18.6 percent stake. More here.

Laureate Education, the largest for-profit college network in the world, is interviewing banks for a $1 billion IPO, according to Bloomberg sources. The company was taken private in a management-led $3.8 billion buyout in 2007, backed by an investor group including KKR and Citigroup. It would be the the biggest school chain to go public, notes Bloomberg.

Renaissance Capital offers a look at next week’s IPO calendar.

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Exits

ClassPass, a two-year-old, New York-based subscription service for unlimited monthly fitness classes, has acquired two-year-old, San Francisco-based FitMob — a direct competitor — for undisclosed terms. ClassPass has raised more than $54 million, including from CRV, General Catalyst Partners, and Slow Ventures. FitMob had raised $14.8 million from investors, including QueensBridge Venture Partners, Silicon Valley Bank, and Mayfield Fund, where Fitmob CEO Raj Kapoor was formerly a managing director. TechCrunch has more here.

The publicly traded cloud business software company Netsuite is paying $200 million to acquire Bronto Software, a 13-year-old, North Carolina-based marketing software company. The deal is NetSuite’s sixth acquisition and will be its largest yet. Forbes has more here.

Publicly traded Synopsys is acquiring the 14-year-old, Oulu, Finland-based software security company Codenomicon, which had long ago raised $3.6 million from Prime Ventures and Eqvitec Partners Oy. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

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People

The file-sharing company BitTorrent laid off 40 of its 150 U.S.-based employees yesterday as part of an effort to streamline its operations and narrow its focus to a smaller suite of products. Buzzfeed has the news here.Zynga COO Clive Downie has resigned from the social gaming company and is joining the game development platform Unity Technologies as chief marketing officer, reports VentureBeat. Downie was hired by Don Mattrick, who resigned as CEO of Zynga two weeks ago. Unity is led by John Riccitiello, who says he goes back “a long ways” with Downie. (The two were executives together at Electronic Arts.)

Robert Heath, a 64-year-old software engineer rejected for a job at Google, is suing it for age discrimination, saying that when he was interviewed for a job with the company, the recruiter called 10 minutes late, was barely fluent in English, and conducted the interview over a malfunctioning speakerphone, which made it hard for the two to communicate. According to Heath’s attorneys, “Google intentionally did not allow Mr. Heath to communicate or demonstrate his full technical abilities, and did not have a sincere interest in hiring Mr. Heath.” Several years ago, Google settled a separate age discrimination claim. The Recorder has more here.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is offering to let Ellen Pao — the former junior partner who famously lost her gender discrimination suit against the firm last month — off the hook if she promises not to pursue the case further. Otherwise, Kleiner will ask her, as the losing party in the suit, to repay the $972,815 in witness fees, deposition and court reporter costs that it spent on the case. The New York Times has more here.

Amazon revealed yesterday that its Amazon Web Services unit is a nearly $5 billion business and is profitable.

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Detours

Bizarre trends in Taiwanese pet grooming.Haunting photos of abandoned factories.

How to set up your Apple Watch in 16 steps.

Retail Therapy

A look inside the Four Season’s private new jumbo jet.

The Phantom Flex4K full-featured digital cinema camera. It’ll cost you an arm and a leg, but it can do this!

Hi, everyone, happy Thursday! We’ve run out of time for a column this morning, but more tomorrow! (Psst, web visitors, here’s an easier-to-read version of this morning’s email.)

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Top News in the A.M.

When Amazon reports its quarterly earnings today, it will, for the first time, provide financial information on an important division: Amazon Web Services.

The Apple Watch arrives in stores tomorrow. (Just not Apple stores.)

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New Fundings

3D Robotics, the six-year-old, San Diego-based personal drone manufacturer co-founded by former Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson, has added $14 million to its Series C round led by WestSummit Capital, with participation from SanDisk Ventures and Atlantic Bridge Ventures. At February’s end, the company had announced $50 million in Series C funding led by Qualcomm. The company has now raised roughly $100 million in funding, including from Ooga Labs, True Ventures, Foundry Group, SK Ventures, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, and Mayfield Fund.BurstIQ, a Colorado Springs, Co.-based technology advisory services company, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from the Colorado Springs-based firm PV Ventures.

Chef, a 6.5-year-old, Seattle-based company that allows its users to automate how they build, deploy, and manage their infrastructure, has raised $32 million as part of a larger Series E round that’s expected to close later this year. The company has now raised $63 million altogether, including from Scale Venture Partners, Citi Ventures, Battery Ventures, DFJ and Ignition. Total funding now stands at $63 million. GeekWire has more here.

Craftsvilla, a four-year-old, Mumbai, India-based, Etsy-like e-commerce site for ethnic products, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Nexus Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Global Founders Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Deep Information Sciences, a five-year-old Waltham, Ma-based database science startup, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Sigma Prime Ventures and Stage 1 Ventures, with participation from AlphaPrime Ventures. The company has now raised $18 million altogether.DNAnexus, a six-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company that says it accelerates the development of genomic medicine through a global network for sharing and managing genomic data and tools, has raised $15 million in Series D funding from WuXi PharmaTech, a laboratory and manufacturing services company. Genomeweb has more on the deal here.

Folsom Labs, a nearly four-year-old, San Francisco-based developer of a PV design tool that simplifies the process of engineering and selling solar projects, has raised $1 million in funding from individual investors, includng REC Solar founder Tim Ball. More here.

Funding Circle, a six-year-old, London-based online marketplace that lets individuals and organizations to loan money to small businesses online, has raised a whopping $150 million in funding led by DST Global, BlackRock, and Temasek Holdings. The company has now raised $300 million altogether, including from Accel Partners, Union Square Ventures, Ribbit Capital, and Index Ventures.

Jounce Therapeutics, a two-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that’s developing cancer immunotherapies that harness individuals’ immune systems, has raised $56 million in Series B funding from Wellington Management Company, Redmile Group, Nextech Invest, Pharmstandard International, Cormorant Asset Management, Omega Funds,Casdin Capital, Foresite Capital Management and an undisclosed investment fund. The company had launched out of Third Rock Ventures in early 2013 with $47 million in Series A funding.

Knotch, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based still-in-beta company that’s building what it hopes will become a  standard digital means of tracking the impact of advertising content, has raised $4 million from Greylock Partners, Allen & Co. and Stanford University, as well as individual investors, including entrepreneur Michael Birch. The WSJ has more here.

LiveStories, a two-year-old, Seattle-based company whose software makes it easier for governments and nonprofits to analyze and visualize data, has received $1 million in seed funding from Founder’s Co-op and Social Leverage among others. More here.

Minube, an eight-year-old  Madrid, Spain-based travel startup whose site and mobile app help travelers decide where to go, then plan their trips and share photos and reviews afterward, has raised $1.6 million in funding led by FIDES, with participation from earlier investors Kibo Ventures and Bonsai Venture Capital. The company has now raised $2.9 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Mpirica Health, a year-old, Bellevue, Was.-based  healthcare startup that scores surgeries at more than 4,800 U.S. hospitals based on a methodology developed by Harvard-trained cardiologist Michael Pine (the scores reveal relationships between procedure cost and quality), has raised $1.6 million in Series A funding from McQuinn Trust. Geekwire has more here.

New Signature, a 12-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based systems integrator that works closely with Microsoft, has raised $35 million in funding from Columbia Capital. More here.

OpenFin, a 4.5-year-old, New York-based company that provides runtime technology for financial desktops, has raised $3 million in funding from Bain Capital Ventures, Pivot Investment Partners, Nyca Partners, Cris Conde and Tom Glocer. Crunchbase shows the company has now raised $9.6 million altogether. More here.

Peloton Technology, a four-year-old, Mountain View, CA-based company that sells radar and dedicated short-range communication-based safety systems to trucking fleets (it keeps them in close formation on the highway, reducing collisions), has raised $16 million in Series A funding led by Denso International America and Intel Capital. Other participants in the round include Magna International, Castrol innoVentures, Volvo Group Venture Capital, UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, Sand Hill Angels, Band of Angels, and Birchmere Ventures.

Perseus, a six-year-old, New York-based high-frequency trading technology firm, has raised  $20.5 million in funding from Goldman Sachs. The International Business Times has more here.

PingThings, a year-old, San Juan Capistrano, Ca.-based company that’s building its predictive intelligence software for the electric utility industry, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from earlier backers GE Capital and Frost Data Capital.

Raise Labs, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company that enables students to earn micro “scholarships” throughout high school, has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding led by Owl Ventures, with participation from First Round Capital, SJF Ventures and individual angel investors. The company had previously raised $1 million in seed funding, as well as $200,000 in cash awards from education tech and business plan competitions. The WSJ has its story here.

RadPad, a two-year-old, L.A.-based mobile rental marketplace, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Altpoint Ventures, with participation from Goldcrest Investments. The company has now raised $12.8 million altogether. Business Insider has more here.

Simplilearn, a 5.5-year-old, Houston, Tx.-based company helping customers get certified in areas like Android development, has raised $15 million in Series C funding led by Mayfield Fund, with participation from earlier backers Kalaari Capital and Helion Venture Partners. Simplilearn has reportedly now raised a total of $27 million. TechCrunch has more here.

SiteZeus, a two-year-old, Tampa, Fla.-based company whose technology automates the process of choosing physical sites for the restaurant, retail and hospitality industries, has raised $2.2 million in funding from Baldwin Beach Capital and Outback Steakhouse cofounder Chris Sullivan. The Tampa Bay Business Journal has more here.

Smule, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose apps enable users to play or sing along with musical arrangements by professional artists, as well as to record music and invite others to layer in their voices or instruments, has quietly raised $26 million in funding led by Adams Street Partners. The round brings the company’s total funding to $68 million. It also has $12 million line of credit. Venture Capital Dispatch has the story here.

SnowShoe, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose plastic “stamps” interact with the touch sensors on mobile phones, unlocking content from video game characters to gift cards, has raised $1 million in seed funding led by Lowercase Capital, with participation from Collaborative Fund and MESA+ Capital. SnowShoe had raised an earlier $2.5 million in seed funding from Foundry Group’s AngelList Syndicate, 500 Startups, TechStars, Ludlow Ventures, Queensbridge Capital, BAM.vc, Scott Banister, Hiten Shah, and other angels. TechCrunch has the story here.

SureCash, a five-year-old, Bangladesh, India-based mobile banking and payment platform that allows users to deposit cash, send money, make purchases, and pay bills, has raised $7 million in Series B funding from the Osiris Group. The company says it previously raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from a “group of Japanese investors.”

Swirl Networks, a four-year-old, Boston-based micro-location marketing startup, has raised $18 million in Series C funding at a $150 million valuation led by Twitter Ventures, with participation from two unnamed groups. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

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New Funds

Yesterday, the online storage company Box announced a $40 million fund for startups that are building their companies on top of its service. It’s partnering with Bessemer Venture Partners and Emergence Capital Partners in the endeavor. Business Insider has more here.

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Exits

Lifecake, a three-year-old, London-based company whose photo-sharing app lets parents privately share photos of their young children with friends and family, has been acquired for undisclosed terms by Canon Europe. According to Crunchbase, Lifecake had raised just $1.4 million from investors, including Saber Growth Partners, EC1 Capital, and Balderton Capital.

Milyoni, a six-year-old, Pleasanton, Ca.-based social video marketing platform for brands and artists, has been acquired for undisclosed terms by the photo-sharing site Photobucket, which itself recently raised $3.6 million in new funding. Milyoni had raised roughly $30 million from investors, including Oak Investment Partners, ATA Ventures, and Thomvest Ventures, shows CrunchBase. More here.

Ozon, the e-commerce portal commonly referred to as the Amazon of Russia, is selling Sapato.ru, a Zappos-like business that it acquired three years ago. The buyer, for undisclosed terms, is online fashion retailer KupiVIP. Citing the Russian finance publication Vedomosti, TechCrunch writes that the deal was likely for hundreds of thousands of dollars , a far cry from the reported $60 million Ozon had spent on the company. (StrictlyVC had lunch last year with Ozon CEO Maelle Gavet, who, understandably, tried downplaying the challenges she faces as the head of a Russia-based company.)

—–

People

Bloomberg takes a look at the “big business” of being Google cofounder Sergey Brin, saying that in addition to the ex-bankers and philanthropy experts working at Brin’s family office, Bayshore Global Management, Brin also has employed a former Navy SEAL for security, a yacht captain, a fitness coordinator, a photographer, and an archivist. More here.

Google’s robotics unit is now reporting to former SVP or products and longtime advisor to CEO Larry Page, Jonathan Rosenberg, reports The Information. Rosenberg succeeds James Kuffner, a professor turned Google engineering director who oversaw the robotics unit after Andy Rubin left last year to start a fund called Playground Global. The move doesn’t appear to be permanent, adds the report.

Joseph Tsai, Alibaba’s executive vice chairman, along with other early Alibaba executives, is setting up a multibillion-dollar family office to invest the wealth created by the e-commerce giant’s highly successful IPO. Tsai reportedly controls a roughly $6.5 billion stake in Alibaba. More here.

Twitter has ended a program whereby top executives had been selling company stock at regular intervals and possibly depressing the stock’s price as a result, reports Fortune. Co-founder and director Ev Williams is reportedly the exception; according to Fortune, he has cashed out $45 million worth of Twitter stock since the broader moratorium went into effect.

—–

Essential Reads

The online marketplace Jet talks an awfully big game for a company that hasn’t yet launched.

In its first-quarter earnings call yesterday, Facebook said it now sees four billion video streams each day. It didn’t say much about its efforts to monetize video ads, though.

The Verge reviews Jawbone‘s new Up3, and it’s not a ringing endorsement.

More on the Pentagon‘s plans to open a Silicon Valley office, which is expected to be up and running at Moffett Field in a month.

—–

Detours

Every question you’ve ever had about flying, answered by a pilot.

Wanted: Style and design intern for up-and-coming instabrand.

Can your relationship handle a trip to IKEA?

—–

Retail Therapy

The Xiaomi Mi 4i. Says Business Insider: “On paper at least, it bests the iPhone 6 in most categories — for less than a third of the price.“

Hi, all, good morning, and happy Earth Day! Hope it’s off to a good start.

H, everyone! So the good news: It looks like you received yesterday’s email. [Fist pump, karate kick.] The bad news (for us alone) is that our new email delivery partner is a bit more technical than what we’re accustomed to, so we spent much of yesterday figuring out what’s what. Put another way, no column. Hope you enjoy the rest, though.:)

Also, just a quick mention that our San Francisco-based May event (with Parker Conrad of Zenefits, Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners and other terrific guests) is coming up in just three weeks. Around 150 of you are already planning to attend. If you’ve RSVP’d but not purchased a ticket, you might want to do that before we reach capacity. (We’d also like to get your T-shirt orders in, give our caterers a final head count, etc.) Thanks again to our valued sponsors Personal Capital, Amazon Web Services, and Galvanize for helping make the evening possible!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Twitter just announced a crackdown on abusive language, unveiling a new feature designed to filter out threatening messages. More here.

Uber must defend against a lawsuit accusing it of discriminating against blind people by refusing to transport guide dogs, a federal judge has ruled. Among more than 40 instances cited by plaintiffs of drivers refusing to comply with the law, one Uber driver allegedly refused a blind woman’s plea to pull over once she realized he’d locked her guide dog in the trunk of his car.

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New Fundings

Hi, happy Friday, everyone. No column today. (Psst, web visitors, you can find an easier-to-read version of this morning’s email here.)

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Wikileaks published a searchable database of 30,000 leaked Sony documents yesterday. More here.

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New Fundings

Assured Labor, a seven-year-old, New York-based company that helps low- and middle-income workers across Latin America find jobs through their mobile phones, has raised $6.8 million in Series B funding led by earlier backer Capital Indigo, a Mexico-based venture firm. The round also included new investors Mexico Ventures, Promotora Social Mexicoand San Francisco-based firm Thayer Ventures. The company had previously raised $5.5 million in Series A funding, including from Great Oaks Venture Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Kima Ventures, Enzyme Venture Capital, and entrepreneur-investor Fabrice Grinda.

Attivo Networks, a four-year-old, Fremont, Calif.-based company that’s been developing cyberthreat detection technology, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Bain Capital Ventures.

COBI, a year-old, Frankfurt, Germany-based company whose hardware and “intelligent” software offerings create more than 100 ways to upgrade a traditional bike, has raised more than $4 million in funding from Capnamic Ventures, Iris Capital and Creathor Venture. More here.

EyeEm, a four-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based online marketplace where photographers can showcase and sell their photos, has raised $18 million in new funding led by Valar Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Earlybird Ventures, Passion Capital, Wellington Partners, Atlantic Labs, and Open Ocean Capital. Fortune has more here.

Flatiron School, a three-year-old, New York-based computer science educational platform for kids and young adults, has raised $9 million in Series B funding led by Thrive Capital, with participation from earlier backers CRV and Matrix Partners. Last year, the company raised $5.5 million in Series A funding.

Hydra Biosciences, a 14-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that develops drugs to treat pain, inflammation, cardiovascular and other diseases, has raised $11 million in Series E funding from Abingworth, Advanced Technology Ventures, BioVentures Investors, and Lilly Ventures. According to Crunchbase, the company raised its last financing, a $22 million Series D round, in 2009.

Ihiji, a five-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based remote monitoring tool developer, has raised $1.8 million in Series A funding from Jopeko, the Capital Factory, Silverton Partners, and Floodgate. Austin Business Journal has more here.

MeQuilibrium, a five-year-old, Boston-based online platform for managing stress, has raised $9 million in Series B funding led by Safeguard Scientifics, with participation from earlier backer Chrysalis Ventures and others. According to Crunchbase, the company has now raised $14.3 million altogether.

MoneyStream, a 2.5-year-old, Los Gatos, Ca.-based personal money management service, has raised $3.2 million in Series A funding led by H&R Block, with participation from angel investors, including entrepreneur and tech executive Kim Polese.

Omeicos Therapeutics, a two-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based company developing small-molecule therapeutics to prevent and treat cardiovascular diseases, including atrial fibrillation, has raised 6.2 million euros ($6.7 million) in Series A financing led by Vesalius Biocapital Partners, with participation from High-Tech Gruenderfonds, KfW Group and VC Fonds Technologie Berlin.

Peloton Cycle, a three-year-old, New York-based stationary bike startup with a built-in tablet for live streaming cycling classes, has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by Tiger Global Management and True Ventures. The company has now raised $44 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Phantom Cyber, a year-old, Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup that automates enterprise security operations, has raised $2.7 million in seed funding from Foundation Capital and Rein Capital, along with a long list of angel investors, including former Symantec CEO John Thompson and former Sourcefire CEO John Becker.

Pledgeling, a year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based online platform that aims to make it easier to follow charitable influencers, create a philanthropic profile, and centralize one’s giving, has raised $4.1 million in seed funding from Double M Partners and a roster of angel investors, including “Wheel of Fortune” co-host Vanna White.

Purch, a 12-year-old, Ogden, Ut.-based network of sites about technology, is raising between $50 million and $60 million at a valuation of between $175 million and $250 million, according to Fortune. The company has previously raised at least $40.5 million from Village Ventures, ABS Capital Partners, and Highway 12 Ventures, shows Crunchbase. More here.

Recorded Future, a six-year-old, Somerville, Ma.-based analytics company that crawls more than 650,000 publicly available Web sources to identify possible cyber threats for its customers, has raised $12 million in Series D funding led by Reed Elsevier Ventures, with participation from MassMutual Ventures and previous backers Google Ventures, In-Q-Tel,Atlas Venture, IA Ventures, and Balderton Capital. BostInno has much more here.

Relationship Science, a five-year-old, New York-based professional-networking startup that aims to connect top deal makers and power brokers on Wall Street and beyond, has raised $31 million in new funding from new and earlier backers, including hedge-fund manager William Ackman. The round brings the company’s total funding to date to $119 million, reports the WSJ. The company has also hired a new CEO: Jon Robson, a veteran of NYSE Euronext and Thomson Reuters. StrictlyVC talked with Relationship Science last year about its hopes to bring more VCs into its platform.

Rethink Robotics, a seven-year-old, Boston-based maker of a robots for production and research settings, has increased the size of its Series D financing by $13.4 million, bringing the total round to $40 million. Goldman Sachs had led the earlier round; Wellington Management led the newest installment. Altogether, Rethink Robotics has raised $113.5 million. BostInno has more here.

Robosoft, a 19-year-old, New Udupi, India-based mobile app and game developer, has raised $12 million in Series B funding from Ascent Capital and existing investor Kalaari Capital. According to Crunchbase, the company has raised at least $15.7 million in recent years (since retooling itself in 2008 from a desktop game developer). DealCurry has more here.

Spring, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based shopping application for iOS devices, has raised $25 million in funding from BoxGroup, Yuri Milner, Google Ventures, Sound Ventures, Thrive Capital, and Groupe Arnault, the investment firm controlled by LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault. Fortune has more here.

Vessel, the two-year-old, San Francisco-based online video platform cofounded by former Hulu head Jason Kilar, has raised $57.7 million in fresh funding led by Institutional Venture Partners, with participation from previous investors Greylock Partners, Benchmark and Bezos Expeditions. The company has now raised $132.5 million to date. The Guardian has the story here.

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New Funds

.406 Ventures, the 10-year-old, Boston-based early-stage, tech focused venture firm, is raising up to $200 million for its third fund, according to an SEC filing. The company closed its most recent fund with $175 million in 2012. Boston Business Journal has more here.

Atlas Venture, the 35-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based venture firm, has raised $280 million for its first biotechnology-only fund — its tenth fund altogether. The firm’s last fund, a $265 million pool closed in 2013, was used to fund both tech and biotech deals, but last fall (as some of you know) the tech and biotech teams went their own ways. Forbes has much more here.

Helion Venture Partners, a nine-year-old, Mauritius-based venture firm focused on India-based startups, has closed its fourth fund with $300 million. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

IPOs

Here are the biggest winners in the blockbuster IPO of Etsy, whose shares closed their opening day yesterday 86 percent higher than where they’d started.

Shares of Virtu, the high-speed, computerized trading company, also debuted yesterday, ending the day 17 percent above their offering price of $19. More here.

—–

Exits

Two of Washington D.C.’s tech networking and venture capital hubs are combining, with incubator and seed fund 1776 acquiring Crystal City’s Disruption Corp, launched more than a year ago by venture capitalist Paul Singh, reports the Washington Post. Singh had previously been a partner at 500 Startups. He left the outfit in 2013, enticing 500 Startups venture partner George Kellerman to join him last year. More here.

India’s Snapdeal, e-commerce rival of Flipkart, has acquired Bangalore-based FreeCharge, a service that providers users with coupons for charging their mobile plans. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though media outlets report the price at between $400 million and $450 million. If accurate, the deal would be the biggest M&A tie-up yet in India’s e-commerce sector — even beating out Flipkart’s $330 million acquisition of Myntra last year, notes India West.

—–

People

Andrew Beebe has joined Obvious Ventures, the San Francisco-based seed-stage firm of Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, as a managing director. Beebe was previously a VP at NextEra Energy Resources and chief commercial officer at Suntech Power Holdings. He’s now focusing on renewables and clean tech opportunities for the outfit.

Apple CEO Tim Cook apparently has the best pay-for-performance rating of any chief executive officer on the Bloomberg Pay Index, the first daily ranking of the highest-paid U.S. executives. More here.

Steve Dowling has officially replaced Katie Cotton as Apple‘s head of public relations. Cotton stepped down from the role last year after an 18-year run. Dowling, a 12-year veteran of the company, was named interim head of PR about six months ago. Dowling is known to be more open and friendly with the press than was Cotton, possibly because of his background. Before joining the company, he was a producer and the Silicon Valley bureau chief for CNBC.

Scott Forstall stands to make a windfall as an advisor to Snapchat, suggests a leaked email from that Sony Pictures hack that shows Snapchat set aside .11 percent of its stock for the former Apple head of iOS. Indeed, if Forstall completes his two-year vesting schedule (it kicked off in February 2014), his stake could be worth at least $16.5 million, given the $15 billion valuation that Snapchat is believed to currently wield. TechCrunch has the story here.

—–

Essential Reads

Microsoft just took Android’s future out of Google’s hands.

—–

Detours

Why CEO pay reform failed.

Last month was the hottest March worldwide since record keeping began in 1880.

Let your mind wander. It’s good for you.

—–

Retail Therapy

“Game of Thrones” Horn Mug. (Pretty good, no?)

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

If you missed yesterday’s newsletter (we chatted with Peter Denious of FLAG Capital Management about the 56 “unicorns” in his portfolio, and why they’re starting to make him nervous), it’s here.

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Top News in the A.M.

It may be that few who’ve ordered an Apple Watch will receive it by the official launch date of April 24th. At least, Apple quietly removed the date from its site last night, reports 9to5mac.

This morning, Yahoo and Microsoft announced an amended search relationship that keeps the basic framework of their original, 10-year deal in place while giving both companies — and primarily Yahoo — more autonomy, reports Search Engine Land.

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Heads Up: Navdy Raises $20 Million Series A Round

Navdy, a 20-person, San Francisco-based company, has spent the last two years working on a head-up display that can be installed on the dashboard of any car and aims to make driving safer by getting people to look ahead at the road, rather than down at their phones.

Its vision is about to be fulfilled, too. After taking more than 17,000 pre-orders for the product on its site, amounting to more than $6 million in sales, the company says it’s ready to start shipping the first version of the Navdy to customers in the second half of this year. (Pre-orders cost $299; the device will retail for $499.) In fact, investors are so excited about the company’s future that they’ve just given the company $20 million in Series A funding.

Earlier this week, we spoke with Navdy founder and CEO Doug Simpson to learn more. Our chat has been edited for length.

You’ve sold a lot of a product that hasn’t shipped yet. Did we miss your Kickstarter campaign, or did Navdy do this exclusively through its site?

It was all done on our own site. We wanted to have more control over the user experience, and we have a [fun, product demonstration] video that’s done well, with more than 1.4 million views – that’s a big success factor. It’s a problem that people can identify with, and it’s an experience that feels magical, and I think that came across in the video and people got excited about it.

How will big will the product run be, and did you always intend to begin shipping in the second half of this year?

It was not always the plan. We were targeting the first half the year, but the preorder campaign was way more successful than we thought it would be, which made things more difficult, including [regarding] the supply chain. We’ve also continued to [integrate feedback] from a lot of usability testing and made iterations that have taken longer than we expected, but the result is that we’ve made some great improvements in the product. It was a difficult decision to disappoint people with a delay, but it would be worst to disappoint them with the product itself.

As for production capacity, it will take less than a month to get through the orders we have now; after that, we’ll be producing between 20,000 to 30,000 units per month.

And where will they sell?

From a channel perspective, we’ll be able to take orders online this year, and next year, we’ll roll out to other channels, including traditional consumer retailers like Best Buy. We don’t have anything to announce, but the number of retailers and distributors who’ve [reached out out to us] is over 2,000.

You’ve probably gotten a lot of feedback regarding which apps people want Navdy to include and those they don’t. Have you made any big changes based on that feedback?

Not really. Our original plan was to focus on three use case: navigation; communication – meaning call control and text messages; and music control, and the feedback we’ve had is that those are the categories that are important to customers. Music control is a lower priority than the first two, so that’s helped us prioritize our development efforts.

The obvious concern with Navdy is that it will be rendered obsolete by newer cars that have this kind of technology baked in.

One of the surprises of the pre-order campaign is that lots of OEMS have already started contacting us about partnering. That’s always been our strategy, though we thought it would take time to get their interest. It will be a long process, but either way, we always plan to offer a direct-to-consumer product, too.

What proof you have that your product will make driving safer?

As part of user testing, we’ve taken a look at cognitive upload, the distraction of interacting with our product versus the phone. We’re also working with insurance companies and car companies on some of those aspects as well. There’s a lot of evidence to support that head-up display technology itself — developed by the military and used now by all commercial airlines – is safer.

What’s next? Is there a product line in the pipeline?

Yes, we really want to focus on making the in-car experience great, and we think we can expand beyond just this initial product, but right now, we’re very focused on [the first version] and the second version will build on that. I can’t really share more than that right now, though.

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New Fundings

Appirio, an 8.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that helps companies migrate to Salesforce, Workday and other cloud services companies, has raised $35 million in a still-open round led by Fidelity Management & Research Co. To date, the company has raised $111 million altogether, including from General Atlantic, GGV Capital, Sequoia Capital and Salesforce. Venture Capital Dispatch has the story here.

Billtrust, a 14-year-old, Trenton, N.J.-based payment cycle management company, has raised $25 million in a new funding led by Goldman Sachs Private Capital, with participation from the company’s earlier backer Bain Capital Ventures.

CurrencyFair, a six-year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based peer-to-peer currency transfer service, has raised $10.7 million in fresh funding led by Octopus Investments, with participation from earlier backer Frontline Ventures. The company has now raised at least $15.4 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Frenzoo, a 7.5-year-old, Hong Kong-based 3D mobile game company, has raised $1 million in seed funding led by existing investors Fresco Capital, K5 Ventures and Anshe Chung. The company has now raised roughly $3 million altogether. The outlet e27 has more here.

GreenLancer, a four-year-old, Detroit, Mi.-based solar design and permitting company, has raised $5 million in Series B funding from unnamed new and existing investors. The company had previously raised $500,000 from Bizdom, Start Garden, Blue Water Angels, and Northern Michigan Angels, shows Crunchbase.

Jawbone, the 16-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of audio and wearable technologies, has reportedly raised $300 million from investment giant BlackRock at about a $3 billion valuation. The round closes as the company unveils two new fitness tracking bands and prepares to ship a third next week. (More about those here.)

Kujiale, a 1.5-year-old, Hangzhou, China-based home decoration and furnishing online information and design platform, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by GGV Capital, with participation from Matrix Partners, IDG Capital Partners, Yunqi Partners, and others. China Money Network has a bit more here.

LocalOye, a two-year-old, Mumbai, India-based mobile marketplace for hiring local service professionals, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from Tiger Global Management and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company had previously raised seed funding from local angel investors, including Sachin Bhatia, the cofounder of MakeMyTrip.

Number26, a two-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based startup that lets users create a banking account in minutes from their smartphone, and provides them with a range of services like push notifications (as well as a traditional credit card), has raised $10.6 million in Series A fund led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, with participation from Swiss investor Daniel Aegerter and earlier backers Earlybird Venture Capital and Redalpine Venture Partners. The deal represents Valar Ventures’ second investment in a European fintech startup, notes VentureBeat.

Maaxi, a nearly two-year-old, London-based iPhone and Android app that lets users order a black cab ride that’s then shared with others traveling on a similar route, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from banking heir Nat Rothschild. More here.

NSS Labs, a 24-year-old, Carlsbad, Ca.-based security research and testing organization, has raised $7 million in new funding from Chevron Technology Ventures and earlier investor LiveOak Venture Partners. LiveOak provided the company with $4 million in Series A funding in late 2013, shows Crunchbase.

Ola, a four-year-old, Mumbai, India-based cab-hailing service, has officially announced that it has raised $400 million in Series E funding led by DST Global, with participation from GIC, Falcon Edge Capital, and earlier backers SoftBank, Tiger Global Management, Steadview Capital and Accel Partners. The company is now valued at $2.5 billion. (If this all sounds familiar, it’s because reports of the deal, which we’ve included in past newsletters, began leaking in early March.)

Ortho Kinematics, a nine-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based diagnostic technology company focused on spine imaging informatics, has raised $9.6 million in Series C funding from Medtronic, TEXO Ventures, MB Venture Partners and other previous and new investors.

Peak, a three-year-old, London-based maker of brain-training games and apps, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Creandum, with participation from earlier backers DN Capital, London Venture Partners and Qualcomm Ventures. The company has now raised $10 million altogether.

Pepperdata, a three-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company whose software runs on existing Hadoop clusters to give operators predictability, capacity, and visibility for their Hadoop jobs, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Wing Venture Partners, with participation Citi Ventures, Silicon Valley Data Capital, and earlier backers Signia Ventures and Webb Investment Network. The company has now raised roughly $20 million altogether.

Plae, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based online children’s shoes retailer, has raised $7 million in Series A financing led by Partech Ventures, with participation from Cherubic Ventures, Finn Capital, Floodgate, Western Technology Investment and numerous angel investors.

Sprig, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile application that helps users find and order healthy meals and have them delivered quickly, has raised $45 million in Series B funding led by Social+Capital Partnership, with participation from earlier investor Greylock Partners. According to Crunchbase, the company has now raised $56.7 million altogether, including from Accel Partners, Battery Ventures, MHS Capital, and Great Oaks Venture Capital.

StemBioSys, a five-year-old, San Antonio, Tex.-based company that’s developing proprietary stem cell technologies for the regenerative medicine market, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Targeted Technology Fund, with the rest of the capital coming from more than 50 angel investors.

Tray.io, a three-year-old, London-based company whose platform promises to makes it easy for anyone to build and share SaaS integrations, has raised $2.2 million in seed funding led by True Ventures, with participation from Redpoint Ventures and Angelpad. The company has now raised just less than $3 million altogether, reports TechCrunch.

Virtual Reality Co., an L.A. firm that’s been working on several immersive entertainment offerings that involve a stereoscopic headset display, is currently raising nearly $23 million in early funding, reports the WSJ.

Vlocity, a year-old, San Francisco-based cloud startup, has raised $42 million led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from Accenture. ZDNet has much more here.

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IPOs

AshleyMadison, a dating website for terrible spouses, wants to pursue an IPO in London this year, after its parent company failed with a previous IPO attempt in Canada. “Europe is the only region where we have a real chance of doing an IPO” because of its more liberal attitudes toward infidelity, Christoph Kraemer, its head of international relations, tells Bloomberg.

Etsy, the Brooklyn-based online marketplace for handmade and vintage goods, went public this morning, and its shares opened at $31 — nearly double their pricing last night at $16. More here.

Virtu Financial, the high-speed trading firm, also went public this morning. After pricing its shares at $19 last night — the high end of their projected range — they’re right now trading at $22.

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Exits

Volo, a German startup that lets users order take-out from restaurants that don’t traditionally offer it, has been acquired for undisclosed terms byRocket Internet, which just days ago announced its participation in the Series A funding of a Volo competitor called Take Eat Easy. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Longtime Yahoo executive and former Hightail CEO Brad Garlinghouse has joined Ripple Labs as its COO. More here.

Ray Kurzweil, Google’s 67-year-old director of engineering, intends to live a very long time, reportedly eating a focused breakfast of berries (85 calories), smoked salmon and mackerel (100 calories), dark chocolate infused with espresso (170 calories), vanilla soy milk (100 calories) and porridge (150-350 calories). He also apparently spends $1,000 on a daily diet of 100 supplemental pills that target specific functions of the body. More here

Business Insider looks at why Snapchat‘s stealthy real estate moves are worrying small business owners in Venice, Ca.

One week after GetSatisfaction cofounder Lane Becker publicly revealed that he’d long ago lost the company to venture capitalists, another CEO has opened up about his “tactical mistake” in accepting venture funding.

Ted Ullyot, Facebook’s top lawyer before stepping down in 2013, has joined venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz as its first partner to focus on policy and regulatory affairs. Fortune has the story here.

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Happenings

Our friend Semil Shah is cohosting what looks like a strong conference about the on-demand economy on May 19 in San Francisco. Guest speakers include Postmates CEO Bastian Lehmann, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, and investor Sherwin Pishevar of Sherpa Ventures, among others. You can learn much more about it here.

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Essential Reads

Google said yesterday that it’s readying a challenge to the EU’s antitrust case against it. But Recode sources who are familiar with earlier EU antitrust cases say Google’s best bet is to settle and soon.

Clever. Snapchat has been using its own app with locale-specific features to recruit from a handful of companies, including Uber.

—–

Detours

The man who makes the funniest people even funnier.

The best — and the 10 worst — jobs of 2015.

If it’s any consolation, this German shepherd can’t get her kid to take a nap, either.

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Retail Therapy

Sporty “smart” glasses you might actually want.

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Google was formally accused in a letter this morning by the European Commission of “abusing its dominant position in the markets for general internet search services” in Europe by “systematically favouring its own comparison shopping product in its general search results pages. The Commission has also formally opened a separate antitrust investigation into Google’s mobile operating system Android. Google has already issued a statement explaining why it “strongly” disagrees with the letter.

Nokia has announced plans to acquire rival telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent for $16.6 billion in shares. More here.

Yahoo is reportedly about to acquire Foursquare for around $900 million. TechCrunch has the story here.

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FLAG’s Peter Denious: “It’s a Good Time to Be Asking Questions”

Roughly one year ago, FLAG Capital Management, the limited partnership, revealed that after 20 years, Diana Frazier would step down from her role as co-head of U.S. venture capital, and that Peter Denious, who formerly headed the firm’s emerging markets efforts, would assume her role.

Denious has been fairly quiet since then, possibly because the move came about as FLAG – which has backed Accel Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint Ventures, Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures, among others — was beginning to raise its ninth fund of funds.

Denious still declines to discuss that effort, but he did talk with us this week about his observations – and concerns – about the current state of the venture industry. Here’s part of that conversation, edited for length.

You recently created a presentation called “Venture Portfolio Management in the Age of the Unicorn,” stating that FLAG has exposure to 56 so-called unicorns across 100 positions but suggesting that you have concerns about whether investors are taking enough money out of those deals. Are you talking with them about it?

We talk with them pretty openly and actively about it. We’ve always been big believers that you have to be both a great investor who can attract world-class entrepreneurs, as well as be a world-class portfolio manager.

It’s easy for VCs operating inside partnerships to get involved in their 10 or so investments, but it’s important for somebody to be thinking about the dynamics of generating returns, too. It’s a piece that we think is relevant in a time when things are up and to the right.

Given the number of secondary shops to descend on Silicon Valley in the last couple of years, I’d guess that plenty of firms are selling portions of their stakes. What are you seeing?

These are case by case situations. Obviously, we’ve looked into our portfolio and across those exposures, and where the VC has an embedded return of at least 10x, we’ve been seeing them take chips off the table. We think as long as managers are having the discussion, they’ll arrive at the right answer.

Are you concerned by how few companies are going public, relative to the number of richly funded late-stage companies we’re seeing?

I don’t think that each of whatever the number of agreed-upon unicorns that we’re seeing will do well. Some will be severely tested when the capital runs dry, and anyone who says otherwise must be wearing a pretty strong pair of rose-colored glasses.

By the same token, the amount of transformation and disruption in these companies’ respective industries is truly amazing. I do think there’s a subset of these companies that deserve to be very big. Do they deserve to be $50 billion, $100 billion [in value]? That’s subject to debate, but many will be very profitable if they aren’t already.

So you’re more troubled by valuations than underlying business models.

In most cases, we don’t have a business model problem. We don’t see a lot of nonsense, as with the last [late ‘90s] cycle. What’s debatable is valuation and are people paying too much for growth as these businesses scale, and I think that’s all to be determined. Who are we to say that this company at that valuation is too low or too high?

We’re typically early-stage and not growth or late-stage investors and part of the reason we don’t invest there is because as you move later and later on the continuum, you’re taking more of the valuation risk. I don’t think anyone would question the 10 most highly valued unicorns. The question is whether the premiums being paid for their growth is justified, and again, only time will tell. I do think that late-stage and crossover ventures are the most at risk, but that’s what they get paid to do.

But you anticipate a day of reckoning?

With respect to the pool of these late-stage companies, one can argue that so much late-stage capital has allowed for more unicorns to be created than would otherwise be the case. When that capital goes away, you’ll see more exits at the sub-$1 billion level.

Some [may go public.] I think it’s too early to draw too many conclusions about IPOs, which were down in the first quarter; we’ll know more in the next few quarters. But it’s a good time to be asking questions. I do think there will be a day of reckoning.

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New Fundings

99designs, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based online graphic design marketplace, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Recruit Strategic Partners, with participation from earlier investor Accel Partners. The company has now raised $45 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Acorns, a three-year-old, Newport Beach, Ca.-based finance company that allows individuals to round up purchases and automatically invest the change, has raised $23 million in Series C funding co-led by Greycroft Partners and e.ventures, with participation from Sound Ventures, Garland Capital, and MATH Venture Partners. To date, Acorns has raised $32 million.

Bedrock Data, a three-year-old, Boston-based data integration platform for businesses, has raised $3.1 million in Series A funding led by .406 Ventures, with participation from Boston Syndicates, Maiden Lane, and Visible Measures CEO Brian Shin. BostInno has more here.

Benchling, a nearly three-year-old, San Francisco-based platform that makes it easy to edit, analyze, and collaborate on DNA sequences, has raised $5 million funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Thrive Capital. Benchling had previously raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from backers that include Y Combinator, Rock Health, FF Angel, SV Angel, Tim Draper, Geoff Ralston, Kevin Mahaffey, and Matt Huang.

CrossChx, a three-year-old, Columbus, Oh.-based company whose software helps reduce medical errors by identifying patients via fingerprint scan, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from earlier investor Drive Capital. The company has now raised $20 million altogether.

Grofers, a 1.5-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based startup that provides quick delivery of products from local brick-and-mortar merchants, has raised $35 million Sequoia Capital and Tiger Capital, just two months after the same investors provided the company with $10 million in Series A funding. Grofers has now raised $45.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Innocrin Pharmaceuticals, a 15-year-old, Durham, N.C.-based clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing small-molecule inhibitors to treat certain breast and prostate cancers, has raised $28 million in Series D funding led by Eshelman Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Novartis Venture Fund, Lilly Ventures, Hatteras Venture Partners, Intersouth Partners, and A&B Equity Holdings.

LovetheSign, a 2.5-year-old, Milan, Italy-based home design e-commerce platform, has raised roughly $4 million in Series A funding led by United Ventures, with participation from unnamed angel investors from the Italian fashion and design industry. TechCrunch has more here.

OnePlus, a two-year-old, Shenzhen, China-based smartphone maker that offers high-end phones at less than half the price of flagship models by Samsung and Apple, is in funding talks with Silicon Valley venture capitalists to help double its workforce, reports Bloomberg. Co-founder Carl Pei isn’t sharing how much the company wants to raise; he says “the most important part is access to experience and senior-level talent that will help us scale further.”

PepperTap, a six-month-old, Gurgaon, India-based on-demand grocery delivery service, has raised $10 million in Series A from SAIF Partnersand from Sequoia Capital, which invested a $1.2 million in seed funding in the startup last month, reports TechCrunch. If it seems like on-demand grocery startups in India are suddenly awash in funding, it isn’t your imagination. In addition to Grofers (see above), ZopNow, featured in yesterday’s newsletter, also just received funding ($10 million, led by Dragoneer Investment Group).

Poachable, a year-old, Seattle-based anonymous talent marketplace (users tell Poachable about themselves and it gauges employers’ interest without revealing their identify), has raised $750,000 in seed funding from Vulcan Capital and angel investors, including former Drugstore.com CEO Dawn Lepore.

PolicyBazaar, a seven-year-old Gurgaon, India-based online insurance policy aggregator, has raised roughly $40 million (Rs 248 crore) in Series D funding from PremjiInvest, the personal investment vehicle of Wipro chairman Azim Premji, among other new and existing backers, including Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital, Steadview Capital and ABG Capital. VCCircle has more here.

RetailNext, a 7.5-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based maker of in-store retail analytics, has raised a whopping $125 million in growth funding led by Activant Capital Group, with participation from earlier backers August Capital, StarVest Partners, Nokia Growth Partners, Commerce Ventures, American Express, Pereg Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures. Siguler Guff & Company also joined the round as a first-time investor. The company has now raised $184 million altogether.

Skyport Systems, a two-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based enterprise security company, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Index Ventures, with participation from Intel Capital and earlier backer Sutter Hill Ventures. The company has now raised $37 million altogether.

TouchBistro, a 3.5-year-old, Toronto, Ontario-based iPad-based restaurant point-of-sale system enabling owners to manage reservations and take orders instantly, has raised $6 million in Series A funding, including from Just Eat, a publicly traded, U.K.-based online marketplace for restaurant delivery. Other backers include Difference Capital, Kensington Capital Partners and Relay Ventures. The company has now raised roughly $12 million altogether.

UniKey, a five-year-old, Winter Park, Fl.-based smart lock maker, has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Asset Management Ventures, AXCIT, Broadway Angels, CBRE, ff Venture Capital, Samsung Ventures, Haas Portman, Oriza Ventures and other, unnamed investors. According to TechCrunch, the company had raised $2.9 million in seed funding. More here.

WorldViz, a 13-year-old, Santa Barbara, Ca.-based virtual-reality company whose platform helps enterprise customers to develop their own VR content, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Intel Capital. VentureBeat has more here.

Yoyo, a two-year-old, London-based mobile wallet startup that focuses primarily on university campuses, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by the Imperial College-affiliated Imperial Innovations, reports Business Insider. Imperial Innovations had also provided the company with $1.2 million in seed funding in 2013. Other investors in the new round include angel investors, including Philip Riese, former president of American Express consumer cards.

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New Funds

Dentsu, the 113-year-old, Tokyo-based advertising powerhouse that has struggled to expand internationally, has just established a venture capital fund, Dentsu Ventures Global Fund I, with 5 billion yen (roughly $42 million). The fund will target companies in U.S., Europe and Asia, says the company.

New Enterprise Associates, the 38-year-old venture firm, has closed its 15th fund with $2.8 billion, as well as closed a co-investment fund of $350 million to invest alongside the main fund in growth deals. Together, the two funds top the $3 billion fund that Technology Crossover Ventures raised in 2007 (It remains the largest single venture fund ever raised, according to industry tracker Dow Jones VentureSource.) NEA commits around 70 percent of its capital to IT deals and another 30 percent to healthcare.

MAB Capital Management, a private equity group led by beverage entrepreneur Marc Bushala, has created a $50 million fund to invest in early-stage beverage businesses, reports VentureWire. The new fund, Liquid Asset Brands Innovation Fund I, plans to invest between $3 million and $10 million in early-stage U.S.-based beverage businesses that are already generating revenue.

Menlo Ventures has closed its 12th fund with $400 million, the same size as its previous fund. Two of its six general partners, Doug Carlisle, who joined the firm in 1982, and John Jarve, who joined in 1985, will begin to retire after this fund, reports Venture Capital Dispatch. More here.

Viola Private Equity has raised $250 million for the firm’s second growth-stage fund targeting technology companies based in Israel. GeekTime has more here.

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IPOs

Shopify, a nine-year-old, Ottawa, Ontario-based commerce platform that allows anyone to sell online via a professional-looking online storefront and Shopify’s payment solutions, has registered plans to raise up to $100 million in an IPO. According to Crunchbase, the company has raised $122 million from investors over the year, including from Felicis Ventures(which isn’t listed on the filing), Georgian Partners (which owns 5.9 percent), Bessemer Venture Partners (30.3 percent), FirstMark Capital (11.9 percent), Insight Venture Partners (not listed on the filing), and OMERS Ventures (6.1 percent).

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Exits

BlaBlaCar, a nine-year-old, Paris-based car-sharing site that connects drivers with empty seats and paying passengers to offset distance travel costs, is acquiring the German group Carpooling.com, its main European rival, as well as Hungary-based AutoHop, reports the Financial Times. According to its report, the “combined entity will make BlaBlaCar the leading ride-sharing service in Europe, where it will control more than a 90 per cent share of large markets such as Germany, Spain and Italy. It will also create one of the world’s biggest ride-sharing services with 20 million users across 18 markets.”

Datazen, a 13-year-old, Toronto-based mobile business intelligence and data visualization service, has been acquired by Microsoft for undisclosed terms. ZDNet has more here.

LinX Computational Imaging, a four-year-old, Israel-based company that develops and markets miniature cameras for tablets and smartphones, has been acquired by Apple for around $20 million, suggests the WSJ.

Segway, the 14-year-old, Bedford, New Hampshire transportation company, has been acquired — for a third time — selling to three-year-old, Beijing, China-based Ninebot, a company whose remarkably similar self-balancing robotic scooters have just attracted $80 million in fresh funding from Xiaomi, Sequoia Capital, and Shunwei Foundation. The companies will reportedly remain separate for now. Bloomberg has more here.

Temasek Holdings, the Singapore-based government-owned investment firm, has completed its acquisition of SVB India Finance, a debt venture firm run by Silicon Valley Bank, for roughly $48 million. The newly rebranded unit will be called InnoVen Capital India. The outlet e27 has more here.

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People

Annabelle Long, managing partner of Bertelsmann Asia Investments, talks with Venture Capital Dispatch about the roles played by former employees of Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu and the heated pace of investment in China. (As the article notes, China’s tech sector raised $7.2 billion in private funding deals last year, compared to $1.6 billion in 2013, according to the Centre for Asia Private Equity Research.)

Mark Pincus, who recently returned to Zynga as CEO, receives a scathing write-up in the San Francisco Chronicle, which suggests he’s back at the company because “no one could stop him.”

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Data

Last year, only 11 percent of the tech IPOs were profitable; that’s less than the 13 percent of unprofitable tech IPOs that hit the market 2000. The Information has more here (subscribers only).

Surprise: According to Pew Research Center, Facebook remains the most used social media site among American teens ages 13 to 17, and boys visit the site more often than girls.

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Essential Reads

The biggest thing in app making: small packages of code.

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Detours

Junk food with Michelin-style plating.

If you have to ask where your invite is, you’re not on the A-List.

A super-gross diagnostic tool that could save your life.

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Retail Therapy

Vermont Maple Sriracha. We have absolutely no idea how we’d use this, but you might.