Hi, everyone, welcome back — hope you had a stellar weekend!

(Web visitors, you can find an easier-to-read version of this morning’s email right here. You can sign up to receive StrictlyVC here.)

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Top News in the A.M.

According to leaked documents, Apple won’t be selling its Apple Watch to walk-in customers at launch.

Interest in bitcoin is growing on Wall Street.

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The Ellen Pao Case: A Postmortem

On Friday, jurors concluded that Ellen Pao, a former junior partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, was neither discriminated nor retaliated against by the famed venture capital firm when she was passed over for promotions and ultimately fired.

It was a dramatic conclusion to the five-week trial of Pao, who is today the interim CEO of the site Reddit. It’s also the beginning of more discrimination lawsuits in Silicon Valley, say employment attorneys who’ve seen the same patterns across the securities, legal, and medical industries over the years and who believe the smaller, more insular, male-dominated venture industry has just been set on the same path by Pao’s high-profile case.

In fact, they say, both junior employees and their firms can learn a few things from what just happened.

Most importantly, it will never be easy, winning a discrimination claim in court. According to longtime employment attorney Gary Phelan of the East Coast firm Mitchell & Sheahan, cases today tend to feature much more subtle types of discrimination than they did 10 or 20 years ago, meaning there are “no smoking guns” typically but rather “a series of pieces that, put together, may or may not equal discrimination.”

In Pao’s case, the jury concluded that the pieces didn’t add up to a judgment against Kleiner, but that doesn’t mean discrimination based on gender didn’t play any role. “In many trials,” says Phelan, “part of it may be gender, age, race, disability, personality, performance – it’s never clearly one thing or another.” (If it were, it would likely settle before reaching a courtroom.)

Saving up material for a court battle can prove a double-edged sword, too, says Phelan, referring to the 700,000 pages of documents that Kleiner’s defense team accused Pao of having amassed over the years.

While junior partners might be inclined to record even more of their contributions in the wake of the Pao verdict, Phelan warns that clients with “lots of documentation” are “encouraging and scary at the same time. If you have a client who perceives every negative as discrimination and writes down everything, that’s not necessarily a good sign. It’s often someone who may be paranoid or someone who, by documenting everything, is perceived as trying to build a case that otherwise isn’t there.”

That doesn’t mean firms should sit back and relax for now.

Many have probably already taken a harder look at the way their partnership and employee agreements are written and whether, if they are sued, they can send a case to arbitration, where the proceedings are private and legally binding. (The arbitration agreements that Pao had signed related to Kleiner’s agreements with its limited partners, not an employment agreement with the firm. That’s why Pao was able to land the court case she wanted.)

Firms need also think more about their HR practices. “You have people in this industry who say they’re changing the world, and in many ways they are,” says Phelan. But “thinking that you’re dealing with much bigger things than unconscious biases and HR practices — viewing them as a nuisance — tends to work to the disadvantage of females.” (Kleiner’s lack of well-defined HR policies didn’t hurt it in the end; the next firm might not be so lucky.)

Not last, more firms will need to hire more women into their ranks, even if it takes longer than many women might like. “Kleiner won, but it hurt them, and venture firms shouldn’t conclude that they don’t have to worry about this,” says Phelan.

“Change is always incremental” but lawsuits have slowly begun to transform numerous industries over the years, including Phelan’s own. (According to the research organization Catalyst, women accounted for 22 percent of law firm partners in 2013, up from roughly 13 percent in 1995.) He says “there will be more” lawsuits that target venture firms, as well. “Once something like this case gets so much attention, people start to wake up and pursue their rights.”

Longtime employment attorney Cliff Palefsky of McGuinn, Hillsman & Palefsky in San Francisco agrees. The Pao lawsuit “has had unfortunate effect on a lot of people, including on Ellen and on Kleiner’s privacy and dignity,” he says. “But in terms of the debate it has created and its focus on the subtle forms of discriminations that absolutely go a long way in explaining the dearth of women in technology and venture capital, a social purpose has been served by it.”

One public lawsuit “will do more to change the environment than 100 cases that land in arbitration,” Palefsky adds.

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New Fundings

Arborlight, a 4.5-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based company whose skylights emulate outdoor conditions as experienced in real time, has raised $1.7 million in funding led by the Michigan Angel Fund, with participation from Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund. MLive has more here.

Auctionata, a three-year-old, Berlin startup that broadcasts online live auctions for fine art and collectibles, has raised $45 million in Series C funding led by MCI Management. Other participants in the round include Hearst Ventures, Kreos Capital, Yuan Capital and previous backers Earlybird Ventures, e.ventures, Kite Ventures, Raffay Group, TA Ventures, Bright Capital, REN Invest and Holtzbrinck Ventures. The company has now raised $95.7 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.

CarVue, a year-old, U.K.-based company that has developed service and sales management tools for automative workshops, has raised an undisclosed amount of money from Castrol innoVentures, the venture arm of the motor oil company Castrol.

Handy, the three-year-old, New York-based on-demand house cleaning service, has raised $15 million in funding led by TPG Growth, with participation from Sound Ventures and other, earlier backers. The company has now raised $60 million altogether.

Jama Software, a 7.5-year-old, Portland, Or.-based maker of collaboration software aimed at solving delivery problems, has raised $20 million from Updata Partners, along with earlier investors Trinity Ventures, Madrona Venture Group and the Oregon Angel Fund. The company has now raised $33 million altogether.

LimeRoad, a three-year-old, New Delhi, India-based site that lets users create and share collages of fashion products, has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Matrix Partners India. The company has now raised $60 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

MyCheck, a four-year-old, Tel Aviv-Israel startup whose technology allows users to view, split, and pay their bill in real-time from their smartphones, has raised $5 million in Series B funding from the Spanish bank Santander via its recently launched venture arm, Santander Innoventures Fund. According to Crunchbase, MyCheck had previously raised $6.1 million from investors, including France’s Wertheimer family (they have a controlling interest in Chanel). TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Redpoint Ventures, the 16-year-old, Sand Hill Road venture firm, is raising its next early-stage fund, reports Venturewire. Its sources expect the fund to be around $400 million, the size of its fifth fund, which closed in 2013. Redpoint also raised a $400 million growth fund in 2011.

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Exits

LiveLoop, a five-year-old, San Francisco startup whose plugin and hosted service enables real-time cloud-based collaboration for PowerPoint users, has been acquired by Microsoft for undisclosed terms. The company had raised two rounds of undisclosed amounts from Webb Investment Network, shows Crunchbase.

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People

Apple CEO Tim Cook has published an op-ed, denouncing the “religious freedom” law enacted in Indiana last week that allows people to cite their personal religious beliefs to refuse service to customers. The law and 100 similar bills introduced in more than two dozen states “rationalize injustice by pretending to defend something many of us hold dear. They go against the very principles our nation was founded on, and they have the potential to undo decades of progress toward greater equality.” More here.

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina said yesterday that her chances of running for U.S. presidency were “higher than 90 percent” and that she will announce her plans in late April or early May.

More than a year after deciding to replace the traditional management structure at Zappos with a self-organization approach called Holacracy, CEO Tony Hsieh is telling reluctant employees to either opt in or opt out of the company altogether — and soon. Quartz has more here. (StrictlyVC wrote about Holacracy and how it works last year.)

Mina Mutafchieva has joined Palamon Capital Partners, a London-based pan-European growth investor, has an associate principal. She spent the last five years at McKinsey & Co.

Lynn Tilton, the “diva of distressed,” who runs the private equity firm Patriarch Partners, has just been charged with fraud by the SEC. More here.

Entertainer Jay Z is already re-launching Aspiro, that Swedish streaming service he acquired for a reported $56 million just a couple of weeks ago. Its new name: Tidal.

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Happenings

StrictlyVC’s second INSIDER series event is coming up, May 13, a Wednesday night, at the new, contemporary space Galvanize in San Francisco’s South of Market district. Speakers include Zenefits cofounder and CEO Parker Conrad; Lightspeed Venture Partners managing director Jeremy Liew; Thumbtack CEO Marco Zappacosta; Sequoia Capital partner Bryan Shreier; Pantera Capital founder Dan Morehead; and investor and venture advisor Semil Shah of Haystack. Space is limited. Tickets are available here. Thanks to Amazon Web Services and Personal Capital for partnering with us on what we expect will be a fun night for readers.

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Essential Reads

More — and more questionable — Wall Street middlemen are helping Silicon Valley employees cash out early. The WSJ has the story here.

For hardware makers, sharing their secrets is now part of the business plan.

Amazon wants to be your home services middleman, too.

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Detours

One of the most creative photos of the recent eclipse.

Why we buy what we do.

South African comic Trevor Noah is replacing Jon Stewart at “The Daily Show.” Here’s Noah in action.

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Retail Therapy

Coup D’Etat. (For after the stock run-up.)

Hi, good morning, all! (Web visitors, here’s an easier-to-read copy of this morning’s newsletter, which follows.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Twitter is about to nab Yahoo’s spot as the third-largest seller of online display advertising in the U.S., according to eMarketer.

Facebook‘s annual developer event wraps up today. Here’s a quick recap of what happened yesterday.

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Jason Lemkin on the “Slack” Effect

There’s no shortage of talk lately about frothy private company valuations, particularly when it comes to enterprise companies. Slack Technologies, the company behind the increasingly popular enterprise messaging platform, is the current poster child. Less than six months ago, Slack raised $120 million at a billion-dollar-plus valuation that many found stunning. Now, Bloomberg says it’s talking with investors about a round that would value it at more than $2 billion.

Very notably, Slack is growing at a torrid pace. As of mid February, it reportedly had 500,000 users, a number that had grown by 35 percent in just the first six weeks of this year. In fact, Jason Lemkin, a managing director at the early-stage, enterprise investment firm Storm Ventures, seems to think Slack is probably worth every penny at a $2 billion-plus valuation.

“No one is dumb in Silicon Valley,” he argues. “Early-stage investors are rolling the dice on hypergrowth and betting companies like Slack will be decacorns” worth more than $10 billion one day. “These crazy valuations, generally in [business-to-business companies], are associated with crazy growth.”

Lemkin notes, for example, that Slack is growing faster than the enterprise social network Yammer — and that Yammer grew faster than the online file sharing company Box. Both are success stories. Yammer, founded in 2008, sold to Microsoft for $1.2 billion in 2012. Box, founded in 2005, went public in January and is currently valued at nearly $2 billion.

But in both cases, their rates of adoption can’t touch what newer startups are seeing, says Lemkin. “[Today’s crop of leading enterprise startups are] growing their month-over-month revenue by mid-teen percentages. And after they hit a million dollars in revenue, that’s a lot of compounding.”

A variety of factors explain such accelerated growth, says Lemkin, including that the adoption of new business-to-business technologies often trails business-to-consumer adoption by three to five years. “That means lot of verticals are just getting ‘webified’ today, including doctors’ offices, e-discovery for regular people,” along with lots of other small and mid-size companies that are realizing what they can gain from the power and low-maintenance needs of hosted systems.

Lemkin also points to the growing piece of CIOs’ budgets that are being spent on SaaS products rather than traditional on-premises technology. Instead of buying their own servers and storage systems, companies are now buying both as a service — along with enterprise analytics, security, and more.

“You only need a few more percent of that roughly trillion dollars in enterprise budgets to create, say, 40 more Workdays,” says Lemkin, referring to the cloud-based HR and finance technology company that went public in 2012 and is now valued at more than $16 billion.

It’s not an outrageous estimate. Global SaaS software revenue is reportedly expected to reach $106 billion by next year, an increase of 21 percent of projected spending levels this year.

Indeed, while industry observers fret over soaring valuations, Lemkin says it’s those enterprise startups with monthly revenue growth in the single digits that should be doing some hand-wringing. While “you’d have gotten funded in days a couple of years ago, today, no one is going to take a meeting with you.”

Slack is “sort of [the standard that] everyone wants now,” he says.

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New Fundings

91App, a three-year-old Taipei, Taiwan-based startup that builds customized apps for brands and retailers, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by AppWorks with participation by CID Group, NineYi Capital, and individual investors. Tech in Asia has more here.

BetterCloud, a three-year-old, New York-based company that makes a cloud-based directory management and enterprise security application, has raised $25 million in Series D funding led by Accel Partners, with participation from earlier backers FlyBridGe, Greycroft Partners, Tribeca Venture Partners, New Amsterdam Capital, and Millennium Technology Value Partners. The company has now raised roughly $47 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.

Beyond Pricing, a 15-month-old, San Francisco-based company whose revenue management tool optimizes and posts prices to Airbnb to help hosts maximize their revenue, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Resolute Ventures.

FinancialForce, a 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that builds cloud back-office applications for Salesforce’s Force.com platform, has raised $110 million in funding led by Technology Crossover Ventures, with participation from Salesforce Ventures. The company has now raised $220 million altogether. Forbes has much more here.

FusionOps, a 10-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company whose cloud-based analytics application helps supply chain business users deliver dashboards, reports and analytics, has raised $12 million in new funding led by New Enterprise Associates. The companies earlier investors — all individuals — also joined the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $19 million. Venture Capital Dispatch has much more here.

GreenRoad Technologies, a nine-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based maker of real-time driver performance and safety management software for fleets and other organizations, has raised $26 million in funding led by Israel Growth Partners, with participation from earlier investors Amadeus Capital Partners, Benchmark, DAG Ventures, Generation Investment Management and Virgin Green Fund.

Helpling, a 15-month-old, Berlin, Germany-based on-demand home cleaning startup, has raised $45 million in Series B round led by Lakestar,Kite Ventures, Rocket Internet and the investor-entrepreneur Lukasz Gadowski. The company had announced $17 million in Series A funding just four months ago, including from Gadowski, Point Nine Capital,Phenomen Ventures, and Mangrove Capital Partners.

iAngels, a two-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based equity crowdfunding platform, has raised $2.25 million in seed funding led by Millhouse Capital.

InAuth, a five-year-old, Las Vegas-based maker of mobile fraud prevention and mobile application security software, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Bain Capital Ventures. The company had previously raised $835,000 in seed funding last year.

Mango Man Consumer Electronics, a two-year-old, Bangalore, India -based startup that makes home entertainment hardware like HDMI dongles, has raised $1.75 million in seed funding from Sequoia Capital and India Quotient Fund. The company has now raised $2 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Roposo, a 2.5-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based company that helps users discover and shop for trending fashion items across the Internet, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from earlier backers India Quotient and Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal. The company has now raised $6 million altogether, according to Crunchbase.

Silk Therapeutics, a two-year-old, Medford, Ma.-based company that makes skin-care products that target wrinkles, has raised $2 million in Series A-1 funding led by Kraft Group.

Tales2Go, a five-year-old, Bethesda, Md.-based startup that sells a Netflix-like monthly service for children’s audio books, has raised $2.4 million in Series A funding from its seed investors, including NewSchools Venture Fund and Maryland Venture Fund. The company has now raised $3.9 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

TTTech Computertechnik, a 17-year-old, Vienna, Austria-based company that makes electronics for the automotive, aerospace and other industries, has raised $55 million in growth funding from GE Ventures, Infineon Technologies, and earlier backer Audi.

Tujia.com, a three-year-old, Beijing, China-based vacation-rental website similar to Airbnb, is reportedly in talks to raise more than $200 million from investors. In June of last year, the company raised $100 million from Lightspeed China Partners, GGV Capital and Qiming Venture Partners. To date, it has raised $164 million altogether.

Victor, a 4.5-year-old, London-based on-demand service that enables users to compare and book private jet travel via its site and iOS app, has raised $8 million from undisclosed investors. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Bespoke Management, a months-old, New York-based venture firm, is looking to raise up to $125 million for its first debut effort, shows an SEC filing. The firm is co-led by Docks Sutherland, a veteran of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs and most recently a member of Blackstone Group’s M&A advisor group.

FLAG Capital Management, the 21-year-old, Stamford, Ct.-based fund of funds group, has raised $88 million toward its latest venture capital-focused fund, according to an SEC filing that shows fundraising began last year. The vehicle, FLAG Venture Partners IX, is targeting $175 million.

Ignition Partners, the 15-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based venture firm, is looking to raise a new, $200 million fund, shows an SEC filing that lists four partners: Frank Artale, John Connors, Robert Headley, and Nick Sturiale. (Longtime industry watchers will know Ignition was once far larger. It underwent a shake-up several years ago.)

Glynn Capital Management, a low-flying, 41-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based investment firm that funds public and private technology growth companies, has raised $200 million for its fourth and newest fund, according to an SEC filing. As VentureWire notes, the fund is slightly larger than its predecessor, which closed at nearly $185 million, in 2012. (The fund before that closed with $111 million in 2010.)

Ribbit Capital, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based venture firm that invests solely in financial services companies, is looking to raise $220 million for its third fund, shows an SEC filing. The firm had closed its second fund with $125 million last year and its first fund with $100 million in 2013. StrictlyVC talked with founder Micky Malka about the firm and his credentials last summer.

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Exits

LearnVest, an eight-year-old, New York-based online financial-planning services company, has been acquired by the 160-year-old insurance company Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. for undisclosed terms. According to Crunchbase, LearnVest had raised $69 million from investors, including Northwestern Mutual, Accel Partners, American Express Ventures, Conversion Capital, and Claritas Capital.

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People

The Benchmark “five” get a glowing profile in Forbes, where they discuss succession among other things. Says Bill Gurley, who has now been with the powerful venture firm the longest: Making way for fresh faces is “the biggest secret of Benchmark . . . When our founders were at the peak of their powers, they handed us the keys.”

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and venture capitalist Chris Sacca — who owns 4 percent of Uber — are no longer on speaking terms, Sacca admits in an engaging Forbes profile about his rise to the top of the investing heap. Kalanick apparently grew frustrated over Sacca’s efforts to buy up secondary shares from other initial investors. Says Sacca, “I guess I wasn’t hearing what [Kalanick] was really saying, which was ‘Don’t f–king do it.’ ”

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Jobs

The NewSchools Venture Fund is looking for an associate partner to hire. The job is in Oakland, Ca.

PayNearMe, a venture-backed, cash-based payment platform for the underbanked, is looking for a director of business development. The job is in San Francisco.

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Essential Reads

Nextdoor, the social network for neighbors, is experiencing meteoric growth. It’s also reportedly becoming home to some racial profiling.

Twitter has launched its newly acquired, live-broadcasting app Periscope, a direct competitor to Meerkat. Its killer feature, says the Verge: replays.

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Detours

The 50 smartest private high schools in the U.S.

Hilariously honest ads, starring Ricky Gervais.

A Pacific Heights home in San Francisco has changed hands for nearly $24 million in the biggest sale of the year. (Now, to find out who bought it!)

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Retail Therapy

Clothes and boots and raincoats emblazoned with Big Macs. We’re lovin’ it(?).

Happy Wednesday, everyone! (Web visitors, here’s an easier-to-read version of this morning’s email.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Here are 47 startups that launched at Y Combinator‘s second demo day yesterday.

Google has averaged one White House visit per week during President Obama’s presidency.

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The “Fuzzy” Logic of Venture Capital Partnerships

The gender discrimination and retaliation case of Ellen Pao versus Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has enthralled Silicon Valley in recent weeks, with everyone now focusing on what a jury that’s set to begin deliberations will decide.

But one of the many, bigger questions the trial has raised is whether it will impact how venture capitalists nurture talent and groom junior people to become partners.

If it isn’t top of mind for many partnerships, it should be.

On the stand last week, Kleiner Perkins general partner Matt Murphy described the promotional path at the storied firm as “fuzzy,” explaining to jurors that when he’d come aboard in 1999, you “just weren’t going to become a partner. You stayed two years, then you went to an operating company.”

As Murphy and then-colleague Aileen Lee were promoted to more senior roles, a “fuzzy process” of promotion began to develop that led to less collegiality and more self-interested maneuvering at the firm, Murphy testified.

That murky process also played a starring role in Pao’s lawsuit, which is why Joseph Sellers, the head of the civil rights and employment practice group at Cohen Milstein in Washington, D.C., suggests partnerships adopt a more structured promotional path than many feature today.

Explains Sellers: “There are certain types of workplaces where the path to advancement isn’t as well defined as others, and in some people’s minds, that might look to provide some protection; with a poorly defined path, it’s harder to hold people accountable for decisions.” The reality, adds Sellers, is that “what might be legitimate grounds on which to deny somebody advancement could be perceived as being influenced by something impermissible.”

Asking venture firms to be more transparent about how they choose general partners is easier said than done, of course. When it comes to the promotional paths of most firms, it’s “part fraternity, part sorority rush,” notes Cliff Palefsky, a top employment and civil rights lawyer in San Francisco. “It’s always a question of: Who do you want to hang out with?”

Murphy told jurors last week that promotions at Kleiner depend on a “critical mass of partners within the firm who are saying, ‘We want this person to be promoted . . . There have to be enough people around the table who want this person to be a partner and to work with them for a long time.”

Given that partnerships typically last at least 10 years and involve shared economics, it’s understandable to a point, too. “There’s very much an are-you-like-me orientation that comes into play in a small partnership,” says Palefsky. “Who do you trust? Who do you go to battle with? Those are the kinds of things that sunk Ellen. No one trusted her.”

The irony is that Pao – as well as Trae Vassallo, another female partner who is no longer actively investing on behalf of the firm – have been revealed as big money makers for Kleiner, even if they didn’t quite fit in longer term.

If Pao had gotten her way, Kleiner would have backed Twitter years earlier than it did, and made a far richer return. She also lobbied to invest in RPX, a company that later enjoyed a successful offering, and Climate Corp., a company that was acquired seven years after is founding for roughly 10 times what investors poured into it. (Kleiner invested in RPX; it passed on Climate Corp.)

Vassallo, meanwhile, played a key role in Kleiner’s investment in Nest Labs, which sold to Google for $3 billion last year. She also led the firm’s investment in Dropcam, the camera company that sold to Nest Labs for $550 million last year. (According to two sources, Dropcam liked Vassallo so much that Kleiner’s investment in the company was contingent on securing her as a board member.)

Says Palefsky: “One thing this trial highlighted is how men and women can be held to a different standard without people realizing it, and how you can be a successful venture capitalist without being an identical twin to the person who came before you.”

Helping startups with strategic decisions and recruiting is great, but “you can be great on the board of a company that’s failing,” he says. Ultimately, he says, “What matters is whether the fund goes up or down because of how well you can analyze a business. And there’s zero reason a man would be better than a woman in doing that.”

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New Fundings

August, the 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based technology company whose flagship product is a smart lock and access system, has raised $38 million in Series B funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Comcast Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures. Earlier backers Maveron, Cowboy Ventures, Industry Ventures, Rho Ventures, and SoftTech VC also participated in the round, which brings August’s total funding to $50 million.

Ayasdi, a seven-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based data analytics software company, has raised $55 million in a funding round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The round more than doubles the $51.3 million the company had previously raised, including from Floodgate, Khosla Ventures, Citi Ventures, GE Ventures, and IVP. More here.

Cohere Technologies, a 3.5-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based mobile-infrastructure startup, has raised $35 million in new funding led by the Australian telecommunications giant Telstra, with participation from Macquarie Capital, AME Cloud Ventures, and earlier backers New Enterprise Associates and Lightspeed Ventures.

Cotopaxi, a 1.5-year-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based direct-to-consumer outdoor gear and apparel company, has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding led by Greycroft Partners, with participation from earlier backers New Enterprise Associates, Forerunner Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures and individual angels. The company has raised $9.5 million to date, show Crunchbase.

Falcon Social, a four-year-old, Copenhagen, Denmark-based company whose SaaS platform allows marketing departments to create and measure social media campaigns in real time, has raised $16 million in Series B funding led by Prime Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Northcap and Target Partners.

FullContact, a five-year-old, Denver-based maker of cloud-based contact management software, has added $3 million in funding to a $7 million Series B round that the company had closed in January. The new capital comes from the venture group of Baird Capital. Foundry Group had led the earlier round, with the participation of Blue Note Ventures and 500 Startups. The company has raised roughly $19 million altogether.

Harvest.ai, an eight-month-year-old, San Diego-based cyber security company that tries to detect and stop breaches of cloud-based services before any data is stolen, has raised $2.3 million in funding led by Trinity Ventures.

Hedvig, a 2.5-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based distributed storage platform, has raised $12.5 million in Series A funding led by Atlantic Bridge Capital, with participation from True Ventures and Redpoint Ventures.

InterVene, a 3.5-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based medical device start-up company working to create new vein valves for people who are unable to efficiently pump blood back to their heart, has raised a $5.9 million in Series A funding led by Boston Scientific, with participation from North Texas Angels Network, Green Park and Golf Ventures, LaunchCapital, and a syndicate of angel investors.

Localytics, a 5.5-year-old, Boston-based analytics and marketing platform for mobile and web apps, has raised $35 million in Series D funding led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from return backers Foundation Capital and Polaris Partners. The company has now raised roughly $60 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Logikcull, a nearly 11-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based file organization and discovery firm, has raised $4 million in seed funding led by Storm Ventures, with participation from angel investors Nick Mehta and Anshu Sharma. Forbes has more on the company’s decision to finally raise outside capital.

Nanigans, a five-year-old, Boston-based company that makes social and mobile advertising software for customers wanting to manage their digital advertising in-house, has raised $24 million in Series B funding led by the Chinese Internet company Cheetah Mobile. Wellington Management Company and earlier backer Avalon Ventures also joined the round. The company has now raised $32.9 million altogether.

ProtectWise, a two-year-old, Denver-based cloud-security software firm, has raised $17 million in funding from Arsenal Venture Partners, Crosslink Capital, Paladin Capital Group and Trinity Ventures.

Realm, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile database company that enables its users to develop applications faster, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by earlier backer Khosla Ventures, which also led the San Francisco company’s Series A. Scale Venture Partners also participated in the financing. The company has now raised $30 million altogether, shows Crunchbase data.

Rsam, a 12-year-old, Secaucus, N.J.-based company that sells governance, risk and compliance software and services, has raised $32 million in growth equity funding from JMI Equity.

Schoolrunner, a three-year-old, Denver, Co.-based student data system that allows educators to track academics, attendance, behavior, and standards, has raised $1.5 million from Colorado Impact Fund.

Semma Therapeutics, a months-old, Cambridge, Mass.-based developer of a cell therapy for Type 1 diabetes, has raised $44 million in Series A funding led by MPM Capital, with participation from Fidelity Biosciences, ARCH Venture Partners, and Medtronic. Xconomy has more on the young company here.

Skycure, a 2.5-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based mobile security startup, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Shasta Ventures, with participation from New York Life Insurance Co. and earlier investors, including Pitango Venture Capital.

Socratic, a two-year-old, New York-based online community that allows teachers to upload video lessons and educational content for K-12, college, and graduate students, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Shasta Ventures, with participation from Spark Capital and Omidyar Network. The company had previously raised $1.5 million in seed funding, including from Betaworks and BoxGroup. EdSurge hasmore here.

Swan Global Investments, a 27-year-old, Durango, Co.-based independent advisory firm, has raised $23 million in growth equity from FTV Capital.

Teabox, a three-year-old, Bangalore, India-based e-commerce player in the tea packing and export space, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by JAFCO Asia. Other participants in the round include Keystone Group, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Accel Partners, which seed funded Teabox with $1 million a year ago. Time of India has more here.

WP Engine, a 4.5-year-old, Austin, Tx.-based managed hosting service for websites and apps built with WordPress, has raised $20 million in fresh funding led by earlier investor North Bridge Venture Partners. The company has now raised $36.2 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

—–

New Funds

New Enterprise Associates, the 38-year-old venture firm, has gathered $2.57 billion in commitments thus far for its fifteenth fund, reports Fortune. A final close has not yet occurred, says the report, which notes NEA closed its last fund — a $2.6 million pool — in 2012. NEA has also promoted longtime partner Scott Sandell to co-managing partner alongside Peter Barris.

—–

Exits

FoundationDB, a company that specializes in scalable NoSQL databases, has been acquired by Apple, reports TechCrunch. Terms of the deal aren’t known. FoundationDB had raised $22.7 million from SV Angel, Sutter Hill Ventures, and CrunchFund.

Playbook HR, a year-old, San Francisco-based startup that builds on-demand marketplaces to manage hiring, has been acquired by Intuit for an undisclosed amount. The company had participated in the StartX program last fall.

Rekindle, an eight-month-old, Boston-based company that gathers contact information from a user’s networks to make new connections or rekindle old ones, has been acquired by HubSpot, the sales software developer. Rekindle had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Google Ventures and FKA Atlas, the tech-investment arm of Cambridge-based Atlas. Boston Business Journal has more here.

The assets of SugarSync, an 11-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based company that provided cloud file sharing, file sync and online backup services, have been acquired by the Internet services provider J2 Global for an undisclosed sum that J2 has characterized as “not expected to be material.” SugarSync had raised roughly $55 million across seven rounds, plus another $6.5 million in debt financing. Its venture backers include DFJ, Sigma Partners, Coral Group, and Selby Venture Partners.

—–

People

After pocketing millions and buying a Ferrari, Secret founder David Byttow may be pivoting his year-old startup yet again.

Famed VC Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital is now publicly predicting “some sort of setback” in tech investing, too.

A look at India’s new one-man venture capital fund, Ratan Tata.

—–

Jobs

Industry Ventures, the San Francisco-based investment firm, is looking to add an associate to its secondary investments team. The job requires two to three years of experience in corporate development, investment banking, management consulting or venture capital. Email resumes to will@industryventures.com.

—–

Essential Reads

Google is working on letting you receive and pay bills directly inside Gmail.

YouTube is reportedly preparing to relaunch its livestreaming platform.

—–

Detours

France is letting 14-year-olds drive this tiny electric car.

Inside Google’s insanely popular emotional intelligence course.

Advanced card shuffling in slow motion.

—–

Retail Therapy

A 1956 Maserati 200 SI. It can be yours.

Hi, everyone, welcome back! Hope you had a wonderful weekend. We were pretty busy, so no column this a.m. (By the way, web visitors, here’s an easier-to-read version of this email here.)

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Tina Huang, a former engineer at Twitter, has filed a class action lawsuit against the company, claiming its “black box” promotion process unlawfully favors men. Huang’s filing follows that of former Facebook product manager Chia Hong, who filed a lawsuit against Facebook last Monday for sexual discrimination and harassment.

—–

New Fundings

850 Sports News Digest, a seven-month-old, London-based sports news service that delivers its content via iOS and Android apps, has raised $500,000 in seed funding from iBus Media Network. TechCrunch has more here.

AchieveIt Online, a 4.5-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based company whose cloud-based software service helps businesses track their performance and operational goals, has raised $2 million in Series D funding led by earlier investor BIP Capital. The company has raised at least $5.6 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

Binti, a year-old, San Francisco-based company that aims to help simplify child adoptions by streamlining paperwork and increasing transparency throughout the process, has raised $2.7 million from investors, shows an SEC filing that names only the company’s executives, including CEO Felicia Curcuru and president Julia Chou (alums of McKinsey & Co. and Google, respectively).

Corsa Technology, a two-year-old, Ottawa, Ontario-based company focused programmable SDN switching, has raised $16.5 million in Series B funding led by Roadmap Capital, with participation from earlier backers, including Celtic House Venture Partners and BDC Capital.

EZCater, a four-year-old, Boston-based online platform that makes it easy for businesses to order food from local caterers and restaurants, has raised $11.7 million from investors, including Breton Capital Management, shows an SEC filing. The company had previously raised $6.8 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. Its earlier backers include Sidecar Ventures and LaunchPad Ventures.

Graphic India, a four-year-old, Singapore-based company focused on creating leading characters, comics and stories for the Indian youth market via mobile and digital platforms, has raised $2.8 million in seed funding from earlier backer CA Media, which is the Asian investment arm of The Chernin Group, and the New York-based media investment group Start Media. Numerous angel investors also participated in the round, which brings the company’s funding to $5.3 million, shows Crunchbase.

LendingHome, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based online platform that allows both individuals and institutions to invest in residential real estate loans, has raised $70 million in fresh funding, shows an SEC filing that lists Ribbit Capital‘s Micky Malka and Renren CEO Joseph Chen, among others, as directors. The round comes just eight months after the company closed on $28 million in funding led by Foundation Capital. LendingHome has now raised roughly $103 million to date, show SEC filings.

Life on Air, a three year-old, San Francisco-based company that recently created the live-streaming app Meerkat, has raised $12 million in Series B funding led by Greylock Partners, with participation from unknown angel investors. The company has now raised roughly $16.2 million since its founding, including from Aleph, Ooga Labs, and Entree Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

OrthoSensor, a five-year-old, Dania Beach, Fl.-based medical device company that makes sensor-assisted surgery tools, has raised $19 million in Series C funding led by Bridger Healthcare and The Tullis Growth Fund. The company has now raised at least $72 million to date, shows Crunchbase

Pear Therapeutics, a two-year-old, Boston-based company that’s combining mobile health apps with supplements, medical foods, and pharmaceuticals to improve the treatment of addiction and other mental illnesses, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by 5AM Ventures, with other, undisclosed investors participating.

Slidejoy, a year-old, New York-based Android application that pays users daily for having relevant articles, deals and ads displayed on their lockscreen, has raised $1.2 million from angel investors, shows an SEC filing.

Smatoos, a four-year-old, Seoul-based education startup whose English learning service, BeNative Pro, launched earlier this year, has raised $2.7 million in Series B funding from Korea Investment Partners, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, and Partners Investment. The company has now raised $6 million altogether. Tech in Asia has more here.

Uber, the 5.5-year-old, San Francisco-based car-booking company, has taken a strategic investment from the digital arm of the media giant Times of India to boost its visibility in India. TechCrunch has the story here.

—–

New Funds

Bertram Capital, a nine-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based private equity firm that targets lower middle market companies, has formed a holding company called CG Acquisitions to invest in businesses that create and manage digital content for e-commerce applications. Bertram launched the platform last week; a new SEC filing shows the fund has $47.9 million to invest.

Infosys, the 34-year-old, Bangalore-based technology consulting company, made its first startup investment last month. Now, it reportedly wants to plug roughly $125 million into startups in Silicon Valley, Israel and India. The Economic Times has more here.

Westly Group, the 15-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based venture firm founded by former eBay executive turned California controller Steve Westly, is planning to start raising its fourth fund this year in the range of $150 million to $200 million, he tells VentureWire. The firm raised its third fund — a $160 million pool designed to invest largely in clean tech companies — in 2013, its second fund of $127 million in 2009, and its debut fund of $16 million in 2000. That first fund was backed solely by Westly. The firm’s subsequent funds have reportedly featured meaningful capital contributions from the firm’s principals. Its outside investors include E.ON, SK Group, and Citi.

—–

IPOs

Apigee, an 11-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based company whose software is used to manage web applications, has filed plans to raise up to $86.3 million in an IPO. Its S-1 is here.

SteadyMed, a 10-year-old, Tel Aviv-based medical technology company, has raised nearly $40 million in its initial public offering. The company sold 4.7 million shares at a price of $8.50 per share (down from the $12 to $14 range at which it originally hoped to sell the shares). More here.

—–

People

Silicon Valley “techies” are reportedly snapping up real-estate in L.A. Says one 25-year-old entrepreneur to CBS, “I have a yard with a pool and a beautiful home for less than what I would pay for an equivalent-sized condo in San Francisco.”

Y Combinator head Sam Altman agrees with other recent complaints that early stage startups are often overvalued. But yesterday, on Twitter, he blamed investors — not founders — for those frothy valuations.

King Digital, the company behind the mobile gaming sensation “Candy Crush Saga,” is the target of a class-action lawsuit that claims it deliberately hid a significant decline in users ahead of its IPO last year. Mashable has the story here.

On Saturday, the judge in the discrimination and harassment case of Ellen Pao vs. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers denied a motion by Kleiner to rule out punitive damages for Pao. Here’s why.

Matt Swann, long an Amazon VP and its general manager of payments, has left the company and headed off to Citigroup, reports TechCrunch. The move came shortly after Amazon shut down its beta version of Wallet — a Square competitor — in January.

Fascinating early posts from tech founders who’ve changed the world.

—–

Job Listings

Equinix, the publicly traded data center giant, is looking for a director of corporate development. The job is in Redwood Shores, Ca.

Spring Lake Equity Partners, a growth-stage venture firm, is looking for an analyst. The job is in Boston.

Westly Group, the venture firm, is looking to hire a new managing director to focus on consumer investments. The job is in Menlo Park, Ca.

—–

Data

The financial tech startups that are unbundling banking — an infographic courtesy of CB Insights.

—–

Essential Reads

Last month, China’s two biggest taxi hailing rivals, Kuaidi and Didi, decided to merge, creating a powerhouse that has Uber looking to merge with a Chinese ally of its own. More here.

Meanwhile, China’s internet boom is reportedly starting to fade, undermined by poor earnings at Chinese technology companies.

—–

Detours

Inside the Mercedes robo-car.

An artist without a memory.

When the 13-year-old picks a $14 million condo.

—–

Retail Therapy

Aspen’s priciest listing.

Pathogens, embroidered.

Hi, everyone! Hope you’re having a wonderful Friday. See you in a few days.:)

——

Top News in the A.M.

Details from an anti-trust investigation into Google have emerged and they suggest the company specifically worked to keep competitors out of its top search results.

Amazon just received permission from the FAA to start testing its delivery drones in the US.

—–

In Kleiner Case, Question of Discrimination Moves Front and Center

Yesterday, Paul Gompers, a Harvard Business School professor, testified that Kleiner Perkins has one of the best records in venture capital when it comes to the number of female investors it employs. Gompers had taken the stand as an expert witness of behalf of Kleiner, which is currently fighting a suit brought against it by former junior partner Ellen Pao, who says she endured gender discrimination at the firm and was retaliated against when she complained about it.

While Gompers’s testimony cast Kleiner in a flattering light, it’s likely that his statements – and those of others – won’t prove nearly as important to the case as those of Matt Murphy, a general partner at Kleiner who finished his testimony yesterday shortly before Gompers was sworn in. The reason: retaliation claims are often easier to prove than discrimination claims, and several things surfaced in Murphy’s testimony that may give jurors pause. Among them, Murphy, who worked closely with Pao, said that he didn’t begin taking extensive notes about Pao’s performance until days after she filed her lawsuit against the firm in May 2012. Murphy also acknowledged that Pao was given 60 days to save her job in July 2012. (She was asked to leave at the end of that period.)

In two days on the stand, Murphy denied any hint that Kleiner retaliated against Pao after she filed her very public suit. Murphy said he’d experienced “various episodes of friction” with Pao over the years and had long viewed her as “overly opinionated.” Asked by jurors what he meant, he said that Pao sometimes drew conclusions about investments too quickly and without enough information. He added that it can be “common with junior partners, because you’re associated with whether an investment gets done” rather than “whether it should have been made.”

Murphy also suggested that Pao lasted as long as she did at Kleiner only because of general partner John Doerr, who Pao had served as chief of staff in her first years at the firm. “John was very protective of Ellen and she felt protected, and that was a dynamic that persisted for some time.”

Still, jurors had plenty of pointed questions for Murphy, including whether the 60-day performance plan that Pao was put on in July 2012 was “fair.” At the time, Pao was asked to improve on several fronts, including to be sought out as a team member, be a good networker, and to demonstrate so-called thought leadership.

“It’s not that we’d expect definitively that you’d see black and white [change] in 60 days [given that] she had all these issues for six years,” said Murphy. “But we wanted to give her very concrete feedback and see how she responded. Did she suddenly start sourcing more ventures, be collaborative, work more with [general partner] Mike Abbott, go down the list of things we talked about? Was there a real change and did you see — was it visible — that she was behaving differently, trying harder, being proactive – all those kinds of things? If we’d seen those things after 30, 45, 60 days, we obviously would have extended it, but we did not see meaningful change in her behavior.”

Murphy’s testimony seemingly led Kleiner into tricky terrain. For example, though Murphy described the objectives set forth in Pao’s performance plan as “concrete,” jurors might see them as subjective. “How do you prove you had a better attitude?” says Gary Phelan, an employment attorney with the East Coast firm Mitchell & Sheahan and the chair of the Connecticut Bar Association’s labor employment section.

In situations like Pao’s, says Phelan, “The employer is both the accused and the judge of whether you’re trying hard enough.”

Murphy also argued that Pao was difficult and didn’t understand her role as a junior partner, but her reviews leading into 2012 contained both positive and negative feedback, as did other partners’ reviews. More, her compensation remained stable. For example, in 2010, Pao earned $362,250, with an additional bonus of $150,624 (or roughly $513,000 altogether). In 2011, Pao was paid a base salary of $380,000 base salary, with a bonus of $136,800 (or roughly $517,000).

Speaking generally, notes Phelan, “If you were rated an exemplary employee, then you complain, and the next thing you know, you’re getting a poor review, that’s evidence of retaliation.”

The biggest problem for Kleiner could boil down to timing. Says Phelan: “When after somebody complains about something, and all of a sudden, there’s a paper trail where [the employer] is resurrecting things from the past, that in itself is enough to show retaliation — even if maybe the employer should have been [taking notes] before.”

Sometimes, he adds, employers “kind of tolerate things for a long time.”

—–

New Fundings

Maple, a year-old, New York-based food delivery startup, has raised $22 million in Series A funding led by Greenoaks Capital, with participation from Thrive Capital, Primary Ventures, David Chang of the Momofuku empire, and Bonobos CEO and founder Andy Dunn. The company had previously raised $4 million in seed funding. Fortune has the story here.

Modernizing Medicine, a five-year-old, Boca Raton, Fl.-based company that makes a cloud-based, specialty-specific electronic medical record system with a library of built-in medical content that’s designed to save physicians time, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from IBM. The company had previously raised $48.6 million from investors, includingSummit Partners, Pentland Group, and Sands Capital Ventures. More here.

ProtonMail, a 1.5-year-old, Geneva, Switzerland-based secure email service, has raised $2 million in funding from CRV and the Swiss startup accelerator Fongit. The company had previously raised $550,000 in a crowdfunding campaign. TechCrunch has more here.

Quid, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based company that uses semantic analysis to analyze and visually depict where its customers’ financial resources are being spent online, has raised $39 million in Series D funding led by Liberty Interactive Corporation, with participation from ARTIS Ventures, Buchanan Investments, Subtraction Capital, Tiger Partners, and Thomas H. Lee Limited Family Partnership II, along with company executives. The company as now raised $63 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Rover.com, the four-year-old, Seattle-based pet-sitting marketplace, has raised $25 million in a new funding led by Technology Crossover Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Foundry Group, Madrona Venture Group, Menlo Ventures and Petco.

Svelte Medical Systems, an eight-year-old, New Providence, N.J.-based company that makes drug-eluting coronary stent systems, has raised $16 million in funding led by CNF Investments, with participation from Gary and Mary West Health Investment Fund and New Science Ventures.

Thirstie, a year-old, New York-based on-demand alcohol delivery startup, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from numerous individuals. More here.

—–

Exits

Clinical Ink, an eight-year-old, Winston Salem, N.C.-based company that automates data-gathering during clinical trials of new medical technologies, has merged in an all-stock transaction with CentrosHealth, which collects data on patients via a mobile application. Clinical Ink has raised at least $4.3 million from investors, including FCA Venture Partners, shows Crunchbase. CentroHealth was founded by the Boston-based venture firm MPM Capital. Xconomy has more here.

Deep Forest Media, a 2.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based automated ad-buying platform, has been acquire by the Japanese ecommerce giant Rakuten to make use of Rakuten’s e-commerce data, reports Ad Age. Deep Forest had raised money from Handmade, a mobile-only seed fund, and the incubator and venture fund The Hive.

Giphy, the two-year-old platform that makes it easy to search and share GIFs and which raised $17 million in Series B funding in January, has acquired two-year-old Nutmeg, a GIF messaging app. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

X01, a two-year-old, U.K.-based cardiovascular drug startup, has been acquired by Johnson & Johnson for an undisclosed amount. The company had been founded by and backed by Index Ventures and represents the first exit from its (debut) €150 million life sciences fund, closed in 2012. AltAssets has a bit more here.

—–

People

Daniel Gulati has joined Comcast Ventures as principal, working out of its New York office. Gulati, who originally joined Comcast as an EIR last May, will focus on seed and early-stage investments in consumer internet companies. Gulati previously worked at the Boston Consulting Group and cofounded a venture-backed online marketplace for fashion designers called FashionStake that Fab acquired in early 2012.

Christopher Payne, most recently head of eBay North America and a former VP at both Microsoft and Amazon, is taking over as CEO of the popular dating app Tinder. Recode has more here.

David Recordon, who has worked as one of Facebook’s engineering directors since 2009, is joining the White House in a newly created role as its director of information technology.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and investor Marc Andreessen recently launched a pilot “boot camp” program for promising women and racially diverse candidates that helps teach them what it means to be on a board. Bloomberg has more here.

—–

Essential Reads

A new Apple TV set-top box is reportedly coming to Apple stores this summer.

—–

Detours

To the man who has been taking my Wall Street Journal.”

Classic pop songs: Where are they now?

Here’s why the International Space Station has that weird shape.

—–

Retail Therapy

Tony Montana’s home is for sale.

Hi, happy Thursday, everyone!

In yesterday’s issue, we let you know that we now have a slightly larger venue for our next INSIDER event so we can accommodate more of you.

Relatedly, we’d like to thank two new blue-chip sponsors that are partnering with us on the evening: Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing arm of everyone’s favorite global online retailer, and Personal Capital, the digital wealth management founded by former Intuit and PayPal CEO Bill Harris.

We’re proud to be working with both brands.

Now on to the news!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Yahoo is pulling the plug on its China operations.

Move over, Apple Watch? Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer is teaming up with Google and Intel to create a luxury smartwatch. Its CEO just called it the “biggest announcement ever” in his 40-year industry career.

Greylock Partners is in talks to invest in the live broadcasting app Meerkat, reports The Information. More here.

—–

An IPO Survey Hints at Trouble

This morning, the law firm Fenwick & West published its most recent report on the state of the IPO market. Its “2014 IPO Survey” doesn’t hold many surprises, but it does underscore an important point: Public market investors have grown more discriminating than they were in the late ’90s — and that’s bad news for the many late-stage companies that are being assigned bubble-era valuations.

Let’s start with the number of IPOs in the U.S. across all industries last year. Sixty-eight life sciences companies went public (up from 41 in 2013). Meanwhile, 38 U.S.-based tech companies went public, which is almost exactly how many went public in 2013 when 37 IPO’d. (For some context, in 1999, 308 U.S. tech companies went public.)

Life sciences offerings were on average smaller than technology deals, reports Fenwick, and they faced more pricing uncertainty. Of the life sciences deals in the first half and second half of 2014, approximately 44 percent and 52 percent priced below the bottom end of their expected range, compared with 15 percent and 27 percent of tech deals.

Then again, they went public much faster, says Fenwick, which reports that of the tech companies that priced in the second half of last year, roughly two-thirds were on file for more than five months before pricing.

Either way, the trend, post offering, was downward. According to Fenwick, those tech companies to go public in the first half of last year saw their shares fall by an average of 16.2 percent by the time their lock-up periods had expired. On average, shares of life sciences companies to go public in the first half of last year were down 1.3 percent by the end of their lock-up periods.

Castlight Health, the cloud-based health-care tech company whose shares soared 149 percent on its opening day roughly a year ago, probably factors meaningfully into the above figures. Almost immediately after its IPO, its stock began to spiral. Today, those shares, originally priced at $16, are trading at $9.

Still, the second half of the year looked much the same. In fact, first-day pricing appears to have grown even more rational, with tech stocks falling an average of 3 percent by the time their lock-up periods had ended, and life sciences shares dropping by 1.5 percent.

That lack of drama is good for the public market investors, who are plainly approaching new offerings more carefully than they did during the go-go days of the late ’90s Internet boom and bust.

It’s bad news for the many still-private tech companies have been raising money at exuberant valuations. (They can’t all be the next Uber.)

You can download Fenwick’s full report here.

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New Fundings

1More, a two-year-old, Shenzhen, China-based maker of high-performance earbuds, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by GGV Capital. Xiaomi is a co-investor in the company.

CafeX Communications, a two-year-old New York-based startup whose service allows apps and websites to include plugin-less video chat and screen sharing, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Intel Capital. The company had previously raised $19.6 million from investors, including Illuminate Ventures.

Conversa Health, a two-year-old, San Rafael, Ca.-based company that operates a personalized patient relationship management platform, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from unnamed health care angel investors. VentureBeat has more here.

Degreed, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based free service that scores and validates a user’s lifelong education from accredited and non-accredited sources, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Signal Peak Ventures. The company had previously raised $1.8 million.

Draft, an eight-month-old, New York-based daily fantasy sports app, has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding led by Upfront Ventures, with participation from Advancit Capital, BoxGroup, the Chernin Group, and QueensBridge Venture Partners. Recode has the story here.

Fundbox, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose data analytics software aims to accelerate cash flow and clear invoices for small businesses, has raised $40 million in Series B financing led by General Catalyst Partners, with participation from NyCa Investment Partners and earlier backer Khosla Ventures. The company also announced a new credit facility in partnership with Silicon Valley Bank and other institutions. The company had previously raised $17.5 million from investors.

Ginkgo Bioworks, a 6.5-year-old Boston-based company that genetically programs microbes to produce molecules used in flavors, fragrances, cosmetics and nutritional ingredients, has raised $9 million in Series A funding from Felicis Ventures, OS Fund, Data Collective, iGlobe Partners and Vast Ventures. The company was the first biotechnology startup to go the Y Combinator accelerator, graduating last summer. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Healthfinch, a 5.5-year-old, Madison, Wi.-based company whose software helps simplify health organizations’ prescription refill process, has raised $1.5 million in funding led by Jumpstart Ventures, with participation from Chicago Ventures, OCA Ventures and Wisconsin entrepreneur and investor Mark Bakken.

Hungama, a 10-year-old, Sri Lanka-based company that aggregates, develops, publishes and distributes Bollywood and South-Asian entertainment content, is reportedly in “advanced talks” with investors — including previous backers Intel Capital and Bessemer Venture Parters— to raise more than $100 million in fresh funding. TechCrunch has more here.

Hypori, a four-year-old, Austin, Tx.-based mobile data security company, has raised $6.7 million in Series A-1 funding from multiple investors, including Green Visor Capital. The company has now raised $13.8 million altogether. Austin Business Journal has more here.

Joyable, a 15-month-old, San Francisco-based company whose online tools aims to help users overcome social anxiety, has raised $2.1 million in seed funding from Thrive Capital, Harrison Metal, and angel investors, including Benchmark co-founder Andy Rachleff.

Nimbus Therapeutics, an 6.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company that has developed an oral drug designed to disrupt a common condition called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, has raised $43 million in Series B funding led by Pfizer Venture Investments and Lightstone Ventures. Earlier backers Atlas Venture, SR One, Lilly Ventures, and Bill Gates also joined the round, which brings the company’s total funding to roughly $67 million. Xconomy has more here.

Petkit, a 1.5-year-old, Shanghai, China-based company whose wearable device for dogs lets owns record and analyze behavioral data and track their pet’s location, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from GGV Capital.

Reevoo, a 10-year-old, London-based online customer reviews company used by global brands for insights into how their products are perceived, has raised an undisclosed amount of capital that brings its total funding to £6.5 million ($9.6 million). MMC Ventures led the round and was joined by Talis Capital, Eden Ventures and Banexi Ventures.

Remitly, a four-year-old, Seattle-based mobile payments service that enables users to make person-to-person international money transfers from the U.S., has raised $12.5 million in Series B funding led by DFJ, with participation from DN Capital and earlier backers QED Investors and Trilogy Equity Partners. The company has now raised $23 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

Sentisis, a three-year-old, Madrid, Spain-based natural language processing startup whose tools analyze information from social networks, has raised $1.3 million in Series A funding led by Axon Partners Group and the Fundación José Manuel Entrecanales. Earlier investors, including Startcaps Ventures and 500 Startups, also participated in the round. The company had previously raised roughly $500,000. TechCrunch has more here.

Shuddle, a year-old, San Francisco-based car-share service and app that’s zeroing in on minors and seniors, has raised $9.6 million in Series A funding led by RRE Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Comcast Ventures, Forerunner Ventures, Accel Partners, and numerous angel investors. The company, whose service has only been available in the Bay Area to date, has now raised $12 million altogether.

Twin Prime, a 3.5-year-old, Redwood City, Calif.-based company whose technology promises to speed mobile data delivery, has raised $9.5 million in Series A funding led by DFJ and True Ventures, with participation from Milliways Ventures and Moment Ventures.

Vidder, a six-year-old, Campbell, Ca.-based cybersecurity company whose software mitigates network-based attacks by making servers invisible to everyone except authorized users, has raised $12 million in Series B funding led by LDV Partners, with participation from Presidio Ventures and earlier backers Onset Ventures and Voyager Capital.

Zimi, a Nanjing, China-based company that makes a portable battery charger for the smartphone maker Xiaomi, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by GGV Capital.

—–

New Funds

AppWorks, a 5.5-year-old, Taipei, Taiwan-based accelerator program, has raised a new, $50 million multistage venture fund to invest in mobile commerce and connected device startups. The accelerator’s investors include National Development Fund, Cathay Life, Phison Electronics,UDN Group, CID Group, FarEastTone Telecommunications, Fubon Life, China Trust Ventures, and CDIB Capital. Its previous fund closed with $11 million in 2012. TechCrunch has more here.

Vivo Capital, an 18-year-old, Palo Alto-based healthcare investment firm that focuses on later-stage medical companies in the U.S. and China, has raised a new, $750 million fund — twice the size of the $375 million it raised for its last fund in late 2011. (According to VentureSource, it’s one of the largest health-care venture funds ever.) In addition to Palo Alto, Vivo has offices in Shanghai, Beijing, and Chengdu, China.

—–

IPOs

GoDaddy has set a price range for its IPO. More here.

—–

Exits

OverDrive, a 29-year-old, Cleveland, Oh.-based e-book and audiobook marketplace, has been acquired for $410 million by the Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, which has been looking to boost its digital content business. TechCrunch has much more here.

SurfEasy, a four-year-old, Toronto-based company whose virtual private network (VPN) app lets users browse the web more securely, has been acquired by Opera, maker of the popular Opera web browser. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. SurfEasy had raised one undisclosed amount of funding, according to Crunchbase.

Yieldex, an eight-year-old, New York-based ad tech platform, has been acquired by a better-financed ad tech company in New York, eight-year-old AppNexus, in a cash-and-stock deal reportedly worth about $100 million. Yieldex had raised $18.5 million from investors, including Triangle Peak Partners, Hearst Ventures, Sequel Venture Partners, First Round Capital, and Woodside Fund. AppNexus has raised roughly $310 million over the years, including from WPP, Technology Crossover Ventures, Venrock, Tribeca Venture Partners, Microsoft, First Round Capital, Kodiak Venture Partners, and Khosla Ventures. Venture Capital Dispatch explains what’s going on here.

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People

A former Facebook product manager who was fired from the company is suing it for gender discrimination, racial discrimination, and sexual harassment—and she’s using attorney Theresa Lawless, who is currently representing Ellen Pao is her case against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. According to her suit, Chia Hong, who spent several years at Facebook, was “belittled at work” and asked to complete tasks that were not part of her job description, such as “organize parties and serve drinks to male colleagues.” She also says that she was “replaced by a less qualified, less experienced male” after being terminated. Wired has more here.

Madrona Venture Group has announced that it has three new strategic directors to work its portfolio company founders and executives. They are: John McAdam, Sujal Patel and Steve Singh, who’ve been the CEOs of publicly traded F5 Networks, Isilon Systems (acquired by EMC) and Concur (acquired by SAP), respectively. More here.

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Jobs

GE Ventures is looking to hire an associate to specialize in advanced manufacturing. The job is in Chicago.

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Essential Reads

The fuzzy, insane math that’s creating so many billion-dollar tech companies.

Forget passwords. Yesterday, Alibaba Group’s Jack Ma Monday showed off a new facial recognition tool that’s intended for use with the Alipay mobile payments service.

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Detours

A guide to (avoiding the) most offensive gestures around the world.

Your personality could be making you fat.

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Retail Therapy

Pinocchio party picks.

Hi, everyone. Before we jump into the news, we want to take a moment to thank the many of you who’ve bought tickets to our May event in San Francisco! We’re so excited, we wish it were sooner. Apparently, so does one mystery attendee, who we’re told turned up last Friday night, thinking the program was March 13 and not May 13. (Don’t feel bad. We once showed up at the airport the wrong weekend.)

In fact, because of interest in the event, we’ve moved it to a new, larger home, courtesy of the very fine folks at Galvanize, an airy, modern work space in downtown San Francisco. (You can check out lots of photos here.)

If you have already purchased a ticket, expect a separate email about the venue change. (It’s just four blocks from the gallery where we’d originally planned to host things.) If you have not purchased a ticket, we hope you’ll get one soon. It’s going to be fun. Our speaker lineup, if you’ve missed it, is right here.

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Top News in the A.M.

French police reportedly raided Uber’s offices on Monday as part of an investigation into the company’s low-cost UberPop carpooling service. They grabbed documents, emails, and smartphones on their way out, too. The Verge has more here.

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For Jeff Clavier of SoftTech VC, a New Partner, and Some Déjà Vu

Beginning next month, the Bay Area venture firm SoftTech VC will undergo a management change, with partner Charles Hudson beginning a transition out of the firm to start his own fund, and a new venture partner, Andy McLoughlin, who cofounded the enterprise collaboration startup Huddle, joining full time to focus on business-to-business opportunities.

For SoftTech founder Jeff Clavier, it must feel like a bit of déjà vu. It was 11 years ago, working for the venture arm of Reuters, that Clavier decided to gamble on himself and strike out on his own. SoftTech has since grown from a one-man operation into a well-regarded early-stage investment firm with more than 160 investments to its name and four funds, including an $85 million pool that it closed on last year.

As the firm has evolved, so has its mandate. “Something like 500 companies now ping us ever quarter, and we invest in four or five,” Clavier says of the firm, whose average check size today is $750,000. Not only does SoftTech “have the luxury of trying to get the right level of signals before we invest,” he adds, but the firm’s LPs expect it.

That evolution has made it harder for Hudson to chase the nascent ideas about which he’s most passionate, acknowledges Clavier, who recruited Hudson into SoftTech as a venture partner in 2010 and promoted him to partner in 2013. In fact, says Clavier, Hudson decided several months ago to raise his own, “pre-seed” fund, an effort that Clavier says he fully supports. (Owing to SEC rules, Hudson can’t talk yet about that fund, but we’ve learned that its brand, for now at least, is Precursor VC.)

It will be a gradual move out of SoftTech for Hudson, who is expected to manage his startups through the end of the current fund’s investing period, in the summer of 2016.

In the meantime, notes Clavier, McLoughlin brings SoftTech far more expertise in enterprise startups as it looks to shift more of its capital from business-to-consumer startups to businesses catering to other businesses.

Not only has McLoughlin been scaling his own enterprise business first-hand at Huddle (which remains privately held), but he has made more than 35 investments as an angel investor over the last five years, many of them on exactly the types of companies that SoftTech has grown more interested in funding. Among those bets is Apiary, a San Francisco-based company whose tools help companies build, test, monitor, and document web APIs; and PipeDrive, a maker of sales pipeline software that’s based in Menlo Park, Ca.

“Charles and I had in mind to bring in a new investment professional [who], on the one side is a SaaS cofounder who has seen different levels [of growth] over many years, and [on the other], is someone who can help set up sales, marketing, and customer success [for our startups],” says Clavier.

“From that standpoint — and many others — Andy is a score.”

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New Fundings

Advanced Catheter Therapies, a 6.5-year-old, Chattanooga, Tn.-based medical device company with a portfolio of catheter technologies, has raised $4.5 million in Series B funding from TAM Ventures, the venture arm of Toray Industries, a chemical company in Tokyo. The company has raised at least $9.9 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

BBOXX, a five-year-old, London-based company that designs and constructs solar kiosks in rural communities throughout Africa, has raised $3 million in Series B funding from Bamboo Finance and the DOEN Foundation. The company has now raised $4.9 million altogether, shows Crunchbase, including from Khosla Ventures.

Clearpath Robotics, a 5.5-year-old, Kitchener, Ontario-based startup offering light industrial bots, has raised $11.2 million in funding led by RRE Ventures, with participation from iNovia Capital. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Clue, a two-year-old, Berlin-based fertility cycle tracking app, has raised $2 million in new funding, including from LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton and numerous angel investors. The company has raised $3 million to date.

Collective Health, a 1.5-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based company that automates self-insurance for small businesses, has raised $38 million in Series B funding led by Founders Fund and New Enterprise Associates, with participation from Formation 8, Redpoint Ventures, RRE Ventures, Subtraction Capital and Rock Health. The company previously raised two undisclosed amounts of funding.

Darktrace, a two-year-old, U.K.-based cyber security startup backed by Autonomy founder Mike Lynch’s Invoke Capital, has raised $18 million in new funding at a valuation of $80 million from Invoke, Talis Capital, Hoxton Ventures and unnamed private individuals. TechCrunch has the story here.

DoorDash, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based on-demand delivery service for local restaurants, has raised around $35 million in new funding at a valuation of nearly $600 million led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, reports Fortune. The company has now raised $54.7 million altogether, including from Sequoia Capital, CRV, Khosla Ventures, Pejman Mar Ventures and Ted Zagat.

Drivestream, a 13-year-old, Sterling, Va.-based company that helps businesses integrate cloud applications, has raised $5 million in funding from the new venture arm of India-based enterprise company Wipro.

FiftyThree, a four-year-old, New York-based company that makes mobile tools like Paper — an app that enables users to sketch, write, draw, outline and color on the iPad — has raised $30 million in new funding led by New Enterprise Associates. The company has now raised $45.1 million altogether, including from Thrive Capital and entrepreneur Jack Dorsey. Xconomy has more here.

Health Catalyst, a seven-year-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based company focused around healthcare data warehousing services, has raised $70 million in new funding led by earlier investor Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from other insiders, including Sequoia Capital, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Sorenson Capital, CHV Capital and Partners HealthCare. New investors Sands Capital Ventures, Tenaya Capital, Epic Ventures and Leavitt Equity Partners also participated. The company has now raised $170 million altogether.

Help Scout, a four-year-old, Boston-based maker of customer support software, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Foundry Group, with participation from CommonAngels Ventures. The company had previously raised about $1.2 million in seed funding.

Honest Dollar, a five-month-old, Austin, Tx.-based financial services startup that aims to make it easier for small businesses to offer retirement benefits to their employees, has raised $3 million in seed financing led by Expansive Ventures, with Core Innovation Capital and Formation 8 also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Initiafy, a three-year-old, Dublin, Ireland-based job training platform specifically designed for contractors and short-term workers, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding, including from Delta Partners Group, ACT Venture Capital, and angel investor Leslie Buckley. The company has raised two seed rounds previously. More here.

InsideSales.com, an 11-year-old, Provo, Utah-based cloud-based sales acceleration platform, has raised $60 million in funding led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from Microsoft and earlier backers Polaris Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, U.S. Venture Partners, and Zetta Venture Partners. The company has now raised $143 million, shows Crunchbase.

nCino, a three-year-old, Wilmington, N.C.-based company whose web-based operating technology serves banks and financial-services companies, has added an undisclosed amount of funding to its Series B round from Salesforce Ventures. Last month, the company had closed its Series B with $29 million led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backers Wellington Management, former Morgan Stanley chairman and CEO John Mack and Promontory Financial Group founder and CEO Gene Ludwig. Forbes wrote about the company last month.

Playbuzz, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based company behind a free authoring platform that enables any editor or contributor to author a new item on their topic of choice, then embed the item on their site, has raised $16 million in Series B financing led by 83North, with additional investment from Saban Capital and earlier backers Carmel Ventures and FirstTime Ventures. The company, founded in Tel Aviv, had previously raised $3.8 million from investors.

Red Rock Biofuels, a 3.5-year-old, Fort Collins, Co.-based renewable biofuels company, has raised an undisclosed amount of new funding from Flagship Ventures. Xconomy has more here.

Uxin, a four-year-old, Beijing, China-based online auction platform for used cars in China, has raised $170 million from a syndicate of investors, including the search engine company Baidu, the private equity group KKR, and Coatue Management. Dealbook has more here.

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People

Sean Cook, who announced last week he was leaving Twitter after five years, is planning to join messaging startup Layer as head of product, reports Recode.

Apple CEO Tim Cook talks with Fast Company about the company and his friendship with Steve Jobs, whose office has apparently been left untouched since his death in 2011. “I haven’t decided about what we’ll do there. But I wanted to keep his office exactly like it was. I was in there with Laurene [Powell Jobs, Steve’s wife] the other day because there are still drawings on the board from the kids.”

General partner Randy Komisar of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers took the stand yesterday in the Ellen Pao trial, denying that he ever made romantic gestures toward Pao and testifying that Pao had a tendency to “politic behind my back.” Komisar also called Pao’s behind-the-scenes complaints about Komisar’s seat on the board of the now-public company, RPX (a company Pao has said she convinced Kleiner to fund), a “betrayal” and “unforgivable.” Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Yesterday, to the surprise of his many customers, Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk said at a conference that when true driverless technology hits the road, society will need to “outlaw driving cars” because error-prone humans will be deemed too dangerous. Hours later, Musk tweeted: “Tesla is strongly in favor of people being allowed to drive their cars and always will be. Hopefully, that is obvious. However, when self-driving cars become safer than human-driven cars, the public may outlaw the latter. Hopefully not.”

Oke Okaro, Bloomberg’s head of mobile, has left the company to pursue a new venture, though no one knows yet exactly what that is. Business Insider has the story here.

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Jobs

Google Capital, the growth equity unit of the search giant, is looking to hire an associate. The job is in Mountain View, Ca.

—–

Data

Pitchbook has run some numbers, and says that of the 32 funds that closed funds in the range of $250 million and $500 million in 2007, the best performing of the bunch — based on net IRR — are ARCH Venture Fund VII, Shasta Ventures II, The Column Group Fund I, and Third Rock Ventures Fund I. The 32 funds have distributed, on average, $143.31 million.

A growing discrepancy between public and private valuations of enterprise software companies is exposing late-stage investors to greater risks, suggests new research from Barclays. Venture Capital Dispatch has more here.

Y Combinator says it has now funded 842 companies to date, and those startups have raised upwards of $3 billion in investment and have a collective market cap of more than $30 billion. TechCrunch has the rundown here.

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Essential Reads

You can now send money on Facebook. Here’s what’s in it for Mark Zuckerberg & Co.

Why the pricing strategy for the Apple Watch is “insanely smart.”

A bill introduced recently by a California state senator could end the University of California‘s ability to keep private how its individual venture investments are doing.

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Detours

Here’s everything that’s hiding in your cup of coffee.

Welcome to Seoul, the world capital of plastic surgery.

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Retail Therapy

Rethinking the Land Rover Defender.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone! (Web visitors, click here for an easier-to-read version of what you see below. To sign up for the newsletter, click here.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Apple is planning to offer online television service by this fall.

Pinterest said yesterday that it has raised $367 million at a lofty $11 billion valuation. It isn’t done fundraising, either. The company, which isn’t disclosing its newest backers, could raise as much as $211 million more before the round closes, the company tells the WSJ.

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Mary Meeker Goes to Bat for Kleiner Perkins — and Ellen Pao

In a San Francisco courtroom yesterday, Mary Meeker, the star investment analyst turned general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, took the stand, testifying that she has not experienced discrimination at Kleiner and calling the firm the “best place to be a woman in the business.”

Kleiner is currently fighting charges of gender discrimination and retaliation by former junior partner Ellen Pao, and Meeker was called as a witness for its defense. In addition to testifying that she had never personally experienced discrimination at the firm, Meeker said she has not been excluded from Kleiner Perkins events because of her gender. She also said she hasn’t observed any gender discrimination at the firm.

Meeker likely left an impression on jurors, particularly given her impressive career, from her early days at Morgan Stanley to her 19-year rise within the powerful investment bank, where she ultimately became the head of its global technology research practice.

“I had a pretty good track record of finding things before others could see them,” said Meeker, pointing to companies she’d covered from almost their outset, including Microsoft, America Online, Google, Netscape, and Alibaba. In fact, Meeker said yesterday, Kleiner had “recruited me off and on for about a decade for a whole host of things.” (She finally joined the firm in December 2010.)

Defense attorney Lynn Hermle had asked Meeker about her background to highlight the contrast between Meeker’s experience and that of Pao, who says she was denied the opportunity to advance at the firm because of her gender. Pao, who at 45 is roughly 10 years younger than Meeker, has enjoyed an impressive but far less celebrated career, including as a law firm associate, as a business development executive at numerous tech companies, and today, as the interim CEO of the site Reddit.

Still, Meeker didn’t make as ideal a witness for Kleiner as she might have, volunteering information about Pao’s investing instincts and politely pushing against some of defense attorney Lynn Hermle’s attempts to show Pao in a poor light.

Hermle, for example, asked Meeker to contrast her experience with Chi-Hua Chien — a former Kleiner investor who was promoted to a more senior role — with that of Pao, who was not promoted at the same time.

Meeker called Chien “very bright, very intense” and someone who would “sort of get on the edge of his seat and jump up a bit and get really enthusiastic about the business.” Asked afterward to describe Pao in meetings, Meeker called Pao “certainly more passive, but I think thoughtful.”

She also prefaced her comments by explaining that she had far less interaction with Pao, saying, “I was in a lot of meetings with Chi-Hua – I’d say every week. . . . With Ellen, we worked on a couple of things together.”

One of those things was the news app Flipboard, which Kleiner’s early-stage fund had backed and whose later-stage, digital growth fund, which Meeker oversees, was also considering funding. (It passed at the time, said Meeker. “It was a little early. The company didn’t have revenue at that point.”)

Pao also brought Climate Corp. to Meeker’s attention, Meeker said yesterday, occasionally facing Pao – who was seated 50 feet away — as if they were still colleagues. “It’s a company that has done quite well,” said Meeker. “It was acquired by Monsanto. Its founder is quite good, but the company focuses on offering insurance to farmers based on weather trends, which wasn’t an area where I thought any of us had particular expertise because we weren’t in the farming business.” (Climate Corp. went on to raise $107 million from investors; it sold for $930 million in October 2013, seven years after it was founded.)

Hermle separately asked Meeker if Pao had ever come to Meeker and asked her to mentor her. “Not that I recall,” said Meeker.

Meeker could have left it at that, but she added, “Bear in mind, I was the new kid on the block in 2011 and we were investing at a very rapid pace in a different area of investments than were core.”

Hermle pushed the point. “So you were available?”

“I think I’m around, though I can’t say I’m the most available person at all times,” answered Meeker.

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New Fundings

Altocloud, a two-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company whose customer care software helps businesses connect with their customers, has raised $2 million in funding led by Delta Partners, Digicel Group and ACT Venture Capital, with participation from Enterprise Ireland and Western Development Commission. The company has now raised $3 million altogether.

Birst, a 10-year-old, San Francisco-based business analytics vendor, has just raised $65 million in new funding led by Wellington Management, with participation from earlier backers Sequoia Capital, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, DAG Ventures and Northgate Capital. The company has raised $156 million altogether. Venture Capital Dispatch has much more here.

CyPhy Works, a 6.5-year-old, Danvers, Ma.-based maker of unmanned aerial vehicles, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Motorola Solutions. The company has previously raised at least $10 million from investors, including General Catalyst Partners, Felicis Ventures, and Lux Capital.

Dataminr, the six-year-old, New York-based company that analyzes tweets and other information streams to create alerts for traders, reporters and government agencies, has raised $130 million in a deal that values that company at roughly $700 million, reports the WSJ. Dataminr’s new investors include Fidelity Investments, which led the round, Wellington Management, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, and Glynn Capital Management. Earlier venture backers Venrock and Institutional Venture Partners also participated in the funding, which brings Dataminr’s total funding to $180 million.

DraftKings, the four-year-old, Boston-based daily fantasy sports site through which users can legally wager real money, is raising a new round of venture capital funding at a valuation of at least $1 billion, reports Fortune. According to Crunchbase, the company has already raised at least $75 million from investors, including Atlas Venture, GGV Capital, Redpoint Ventures and The Raine Group.

Glooko, a 4.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company that has developed a diabetes management platform, has raised $16.5 million in Series B funding from Canaan Partners and Medtronic, along with previous investors The Social + Capital Partnership and Samsung Ventures.

Orbital Insight, a two-year-old, Mountain View, CA-based geospatial company that’s using data science to extract insight from satellite images, has raised $8.7 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Bloomberg Beta, Google Ventures. Earlier backers citizen.vc and Lux Capital, which provided the company with an undisclosed amount of funding last year, also joined the round.

Peatix, a four-year-old, Japan-based mobile event and ticketing startup, has raised $5 million in Series B funding led by the Tokyo-based firm Digital Garage, with participation from Singapore Press Holdings, the Japanese media firm Sunny Side Up, and earlier backers Fidelity Growth Partners Japan and Draper Nexus. The company has now raised $9.6 million altogether. Tech in Asia has more here.

Petcube, a nearly three-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose gadget and mobile community app helps pet owners connect remotely with their pets, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding co-led by AVentures Capital and Almaz Capital, with participation from SOSVentures and individual investors.

RedOwl Analytics, a 3.5-year-old, Baltimore, Md.-based company whose software helps organizations analyze their internal corporate data streams, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Blackstone Group to fund development the company’s insider-risk detection platform. RedOwl had previously raised at least $7.5 million from investors, includingConversion Ventures and Scout Capital, shows Crunchbase.

Retty, a four-year-old, Tokyo-based social site that helps people navigate Japan’s restaurants, has raised $8.24 million in Series C funding led by Fidelity Growth Partners Japan, with participation from earlier backers Gree Ventures and Mizuho Capital. Tech In Asia has more here.

TableSafe, a five-year-old, Seattle-based company that has developed a payments technology and bill-paying device for restaurants, has raised $4.5 million from undisclosed investors that brings its total funding to $15 million. The company’s earlier backers include Swiftsure Capital.

Tachyon, a months-old, Bay Area-based memory-centric storage system, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding from Andreessen Horowitz. Venture Capital Dispatch has much more here.

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New Funds

The tech half of the Cambridge, Ma.-based venture capital firm Atlas Venture has closed its first fund with $200 million under a placeholder name, FKA Atlas Venture, for “formerly known as.” Now the outfit is offering $50,000 in a crowdsourcing competition to whomever comes up with the best name for the firm. (Half the money will go to the winner. Half will go to a nonprofit that’s part of a particular Boston-area philanthropy network; the winner gets to choose which one.) Our favorite suggestion so far, by Cendana Capital founder Michael Kim, is The Dome Fund.

Dutch businessman Ben Verwaayen, the former head of British Telecom and Alcatel-Lucent, is looking to raise more than 200 million euros ($212 million) for his new, London-based fund management group, Keen Ventures. The Financial Times has much more here.

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IPOs

Cidara Therapeutics, a 1.5-year-old, San Diego-based company that’s developing novel therapies for fungal infections, filed on Friday to raise up to $69 million in an IPO. The company had just raised has raised $42 million in Series B funding from undisclosed investors last month, bringing the total amount it has raised to $74 million, according to Crunchbase. The company’s backers include 5AM Ventures, which owns 22.1 percent of the company, along with Aisling Capital, Frazier Healthcare, InterWest Partners and Seachaid Pharmaceuticals.

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Exits

Careerify, a six-year-old, Toronto-based startup that makes online recruiting software, has been acquired by LinkedIn for undisclosed terms. TechCrunch has more here.

FreeCharge, a five-year-old, Mumbai, India-based company that provides users coupons for charging their mobile plans, is in talks to sell to e-commerce juggernaut Snapdeal for more than $400 million, the WSJ reports. The negotiations are reportedly in the “advanced” stages. FreeCharge has raised at least $113 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. Its backers include Sofina, ru-Net Holdings, Sequoia Capital, Tybourne, and Valiant Capital Partners.

Lookback, a two-year-old, Stockholm-based company that makes a user testing feedback app, has acquired a U.K.-based startup called Reissued that makes a popular screencasting app called QuickCast. TechCrunch has more here.

Patreon and Subbable, two subscription-based funding site for artists, have joined forces. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Brent Callinicos is stepping down as Uber‘s CFO. Callinicos joined the company in 2013 from Google, where he was treasurer and chief accountant. The Wall Street Journal has more here about the move, which is widely seen as Callinicos making way for a public company CFO. Here are the related emails that were sent out to investors about his departure if you’re interested.

Polaris Partners is announcing two new principals this morning: Paulina Hill and Dan Lombard. Hill joined Polaris Partners in 2011 and has been working as a senior associate. She already sits on three boards for Polaris. Lombard has just joined the firm from H.I.G. Growth Partners. Boston Business Journal has more here.

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Essential Reads

Next week, at its developer conference, Facebook is expected to announce a tool to help mobile app developers measure whether an ad caused people to download an app, according to The Information.

Delivering on a partnership announced last summer, eBay is launching high-end auctions with Sotheby’s.

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Detours

Just as you suspected: Inactive kids grow up to be middle age couch potatoes.

Florida man.

In honor of today: 15 reasons everyone should visit Ireland.

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Retail Therapy

Cuddle Clones!