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  • StrictlyVC: May 4, 2015

    Hi, everyone, happy Monday! (Web visitors, click here to read this email in a slightly easier-to-scan layout.)

    —–

    Top News in the A.M.

    Silicon Valley executive and SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg passed away suddenly Friday night at age 47. Goldberg, beloved by friends and the many fellow entrepreneurs, investors, and former employees who knew him, was married to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in 2004 when both were executives elsewhere; the couple has two children. In recent years, Goldberg had become renowned for being a highly supportive husband, as described by Sandberg in her best-selling book, Lean In. In fact, notes a New York Times article published yesterday, Goldberg was a lifelong advocate for women. (Business Insider also ran a nice piece about Goldberg over the weekend that you can find here.)

    —–

    Accel Partners’s Fred Destin on What’s Changing (Fast) in Europe

    Almost exactly a year ago, Belgian-born venture capitalist Fred Destin decided to leave his longtime post with Atlas Venture in Boston for Accel Partners in London. Last week, over a charcuterie board at a French cafe in San Francisco, Destin talked with StrictlyVC about the move, what the Accel team in London shares in common with their U.S. peers (and what they don’t), and the newest trend in European startup funding. Some of that chat, edited for length, follows.

    Accel London has been around since 2000 and closed a $475 million fund in 2013. 

    Yes, and started investing it in April of last year. The fund was raised with maybe a little bit of anticipation. Also, sometimes you meet no entrepreneurs you want to back, then you meet five at the same time, so our pace is always a little inconsistent.

    How big is the team?

    We have six partners, one VP, one principal, three associates. We have a habit of promoting from within. I’m a rare external hire.

    How closely tied are you to the team here in the U.S.?

    We run separate funds, but it’s the same brand and we have a fair amount of overlap [in terms of LPs], and I believe we have 18 coinvestments that come in a variety of flavors. Both funds had been looking at SaaS accounting for small businesses, and in the end, [New Zealand-based] Xero is the only company you want to back in this field – we think it can kill Intuit – so we [collectively] made a $100 million investment in the company. We’ve also co-invested in [the newly public online marketplace] Etsy and [the Australia-based collaboration software company] Atlassian. Sometimes, it’s European-born companies, too. When we backed World Remit, a remittance business, half of its $40 million Series A came from the U.S. and the other half came from London.

    What if you wanted more than 50 percent? Do you ever compete with the U.S. team? 

    I can’t really think of a case where we’ve  been competitive. They’re a really disciplined team on investments, and so are we. If we find something that we think is really great, we’ll say, hey, we can syndicate with Index [Ventures] or we can try to move all the money through the Accel partnership. [The U.S. firm] looks at [the deals] independently. But there are definite benefits [to partnering], as when we find a little gem like Showroomprive (a Paris-based online shopping giant that sells discounted clothes, cosmetics and household items). It was bootstrapped and had got to quite a large size, and [my London colleague] Harry [Nelis] went to meet them and said, “We can write a single check. I’ll bring Palo Alto into it so you have one investor and one board member.” So we put in [roughly $47 million] in a single shot, with both funds contributing.

    Can you see a future where you won’t be Accel London but something else? DFJ and Benchmark obviously decided to reign in their brands at different points.

    You learn from what happens in the past. I’m not sure you can scale venture very well. Having general partners in London who effectively decide on what happens to the firm makes decision-making really simple.

    We’re also in close cooperation with Palo Alto to make sure we represent the brand in the same way.

    How institutionalized are your communications?

    The important decisions, like when to hold an annual LP meeting or when to fundraise, are discussed extensively between the groups, but the rest of our discussions are very organic and multithreaded. You don’t want to fight the natural order of things. We’re very careful about not sharing too much information about the companies we look at, but we definitely share expertise and views and kind of help each other be better.

    It helps when you have funds that are performing well and teams that are high quality. If one part of the organization was doing well and the other wasn’t, it might become more tense, but that’s not the case.

    For more from our sit-down with Destin, including his insights into how hedge funds and Rocket Internet specifically are changing Europe’s startup scene, continue reading here.
    —–

    New Fundings

    Aegea Medical, an eight-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based medical device company whose water vapor treatment system is designed to treat abnormal uterine bleeding, just raised $36 million in Series C funding from BioMed Ventures, Solas Bioventures, and earlier backers Alloy Ventures, Delphi Ventures, and Covidien/Medtronic. The company has now raised at least $55.4 million in equity and debt, shows Crunchbase.

    AltSchool, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based network of new schools with a tech-heavy, personalized learning approach, has raised $75 million in new equity funding and $25 million in venture debt to grow its enrollment and add to the four schools it currently operates. Earlier backers Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund led the new round, reports the WSJ, with participation from Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s donor-advised fund; Emerson Collective; First Round Capital; Learn Capital; the foundation of venture capitalist John Doerr; Harrison Metal; Jonathan Sackler; Omidyar Network; Adrian Aoun; and other individual investors. AltSchool had previously raised $33 million in equity and $11 million in debt from Silicon Valley Bank. StrictlyVC talked in January with founder Max Ventilla about ballooning demand for the school.

    Artivest, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based company that pools the assets of individual investors into single purpose vehicles that invest in both private equity and hedge funds, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by KKR. Other participants in the round include earlier backers Peter Thiel, Nyca Partners, Anthemis Group, and FinTech Collective. KKR, which has close to $100 billion in assets under management, tells TechCrunch that early-stage investments, of which the firm now has a few, will probably never be a “significant portion” of the firm’s balance sheet but that it could reach into the “hundreds of millions of dollars.” Artivest was co-founded by James Waldinger, who previously worked for Thiel’s hedge fund, Clarium Capital Management. (Thiel is known for working with and otherwise continuing to support previous employees.)

    BlueLine Grid, a two-year-old, New York-based mobile messaging platform that’s based on verified identity (it connects local, state, and federal agencies with one another), has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from In-Q-Tel.

    CareCloud, a six-year-old, Miami, Fla.-based company that sells practice-management and electronic health-record software to physician practices, has raised $15 million from unnamed earlier backers. The company has now collected roughly $96 million from investors altogether, shows Crunchbase. Its known backers include Adams Street Partners, Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Intel Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, and Tenaya Capital.

    Culinary Agents, a nine-month-old, New York-based job matching site for people in the hospitality industry, has raised $3 million in funding led by strategic investor Metro AG, a global retailer based in Germany that operates supermarkets, consumer electronics stores, department stores, theme stores and more. According to Crunchbase, Culinary Agents had previously raised $1.7 million in seed funding from Mesa Ventures, RRE Ventures, Correlation Ventures, and On Grid Ventures.

    Forte Research Systems, a 15-year-old, Madison, Wi.-based company that makes specialized clinical research management software, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Primus Capital. More here.

    Gameit, a 10-month-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based free mobile trivia app that builds trivia games around branded videos and offers users chances to win featured products, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding from DAK Capital and individual investors. More here.

    Kano Computing, a two-year-old, London-based company that makes computer and coding kits for people of all ages, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Breyer Capital, with participation from Collaborative Fund and Jim O’Neill, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The company had previously raised $1.4 million on Kickstarter.

    NeuroVigil, an eight-year-old, La Jolla, Ca.-based neurotechnology company whose portable monitor reads brain wave data and is used by the pharmaceutical industry in chemical trials, has raised a second (undisclosed) amount of financing that it claims more than doubles the post-money valuation it received when it raised an (undisclosed) amount of seed funding in 2011. Investors include First Round Capital cofounder Howard Morgan, entrepreneur Elon Musk, investor Tim Draper, and venture firms DFJ andZone Ventures.

    Nutiva, a 16-year-old, Richmond, Ca.-based brand of all-organic coconut oil, chia seeds, hemp foods, and red palm oil, has secured a $21 million senior credit facility from MB Business Capital.

    Real Matters, an 11-year-old, Toronto, Ontario-based platform that provides property valuation, collateral risk management and data analytic services to the real estate lending and insurance markets, has raised $60 million in new funding co-led by earlier investor Whitecap Venture Partners. Other investors in the round were not disclosed. Real Matters has now raised at least $127 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

    Retale, a 1.5-year-old, Chicago-based company whose mobile app allows users to browse store circulars from their smartphones, has raised $12 million in funding from earlier backers, including the European media giant Axel Springer. TechCrunch has more here.

    Tradelab, a three-year-old, Bangalore, India-based startup that’s developed an online trading platform for both brokers as well as casual traders, has raised $390,000 in seed funding from Rainmatter, a fin-tech startup incubator.

    Wahanda, a seven-year-old, London-based hair and beauty marketplace, has raised $46 million in new funding from earlier backer Recruit Holdings, which now owns 80 percent of the business. To build its stake, Recruit acquired the shares of earlier investors such as Fidelity, 14W, Lepe Partners and ASI. The Telegraph has more here.
    —–

    People

    After 20 years at the helm of Cisco, John Chambers is stepping down to become executive chairman. His replacement as CEO: Chuck Robbins, the company’s senior vice president of worldwide field operations, who joined Cisco in 1997 and assumes his new position in July. Fortune has more here.

    Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina just announced that she’s running for U.S. president, but she apparently forgot to register her domain names beforehand. As Gizmodo notes, somebody has already grabbed CarlyFiorina.org, and it’s “definitely not her PAC.”

    Business Insider interviews Don Harrison, the Google VP “responsible for Google’s billion-dollar acquisitions.”

    There’s a fight brewing in San Francisco over a new arena for the Golden State Warriors NBA team. Tech heavyweights like investor Ron Conway and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff are pushing to have it built, but a newly formed nonprofit, whose apparently well-heeled backers include local political consultant Jack Davis, wants to save the land for the future expansion of a nearby medical center. To give you some sense of how things are going, Davis wasn’t above calling Conway a “bag of crap” in an interview with the San Francisco Business Times last week. More here.
    —–

    Jobs

    SK Telecom Ventures is looking to hire an analyst. The job is in Sunnyvale, Ca.
    —–

    Data

    India outpaced China in the number of deals struck by venture capital funds in the first quarter of 2015, with 69 deals compared with China’s 66, according to a report by CB Insights. China was still ahead of India in terms of deal value at roughly $3 billion compared with $1.35 billion in India, but deal value in India still represented a 225 percent jump from the first quarter of 2014. The Times of India has more here.

    By the way, here’s a recent, related report on the India’s rising online grocery delivery industry that you might want to check out.
    —–

    Essential Reads

    Apple is reportedly pushing music labels to kill free Spotify streaming ahead of its Beats relaunch, and the Department of Justice has noticed.

    Google is this morning announcing that it’s backing an alternative to Docker, cloud computing’s next big thing.

    The media companies with “the most exciting video outfits aren’t Condé Nast, or the Times, or even CNN or MTV. They are upstarts making content that looks nothing like the footage you’d see on television,” reports Fortune. More on the big battle for the small screen here.
    —–

    Detours

    An Argentine company has designed tooth implants for the country’s rugby players who have lost teeth in games. And hey, good news, they also function as bottle openers.

    The 2016 U.S. presidential race: A cheat sheet.

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    The Volkswagon e-Golf, when you want to drive an electric car without screaming, “I drive an electric car!”

    Connie

    May 4, 2015
    Morning Summary

  • Fred Destin of Accel Partners on What’s Changing (Fast) in Europe

    ©2013 Jon Chomitz Photography 3 Prescott street, Somerville, MA 02143 www.chomitz.com jon@chomitz.com 617.625.6789

    Almost exactly a year ago, Belgian-born venture capitalist Fred Destin left his longtime post with Atlas Venture in Boston and joined Accel Partners in London. Last week, over a charcuterie board at a French cafe in San Francisco, Destin talked with StrictlyVC about the move, what the Accel team in London shares in common with their U.S. peers (and what they don’t), and the newest trend in European startup funding. Some of that chat, edited for length, follows.

    Accel London has been around since 2000 and closed a $475 million fund in 2013. 

    Yes, and started investing it in April of last year. The fund was raised with maybe a little bit of anticipation. Also, sometimes you meet no entrepreneurs you want to back, then you meet five at the same time, so our pace is always a little inconsistent.

    How big is the team?

    We have six seven partners, one VP, one principal, three associates. We have a habit of promoting from within. I’m a rare external hire.

    How closely tied are you to the team here in the U.S.?

    We run separate funds, but it’s the same brand and we have a fair amount of overlap [in terms of LPs], and I believe we have 18 coinvestments that come in a variety of flavors. Both funds had been looking at SaaS accounting for small businesses, and in the end, [New Zealand-based] Xero is the only company you want to back in this field – we think it can kill Intuit – so we [collectively] made a $100 million investment in the company. We’ve also co-invested in [the newly public online marketplace] Etsy and [the Australia-based collaboration software company] Atlassian. Sometimes, it’s European-born companies, too. When we backed World Remit, a remittance business, half of its $40 million Series A came from the U.S. and the other half came from London.

    What if you wanted more than 50 percent? Do you ever compete with the U.S. team? 

    I can’t really think of a case where we’ve  been competitive. They’re a really disciplined team on investments, and so are we. If we find something that we think is really great, we’ll say, hey, we can syndicate with Index [Ventures] or we can try to move all the money through the Accel partnership. [The U.S. firm] looks at [the deals] independently. But there are definite benefits [to partnering], as when we find a little gem like Showroomprive [a Paris-based online shopping giant that sells discounted clothes, cosmetics and household items]. It was bootstrapped and had got to quite a large size, and [my London colleague] Harry [Nelis] went to meet them and said, “We can write a single check. I’ll bring Palo Alto into it so you have one investor and one board member.” So we put in [roughly $47 million] in a single shot, with both funds contributing.

    Can you see a future where you won’t be Accel London but something else? DFJ and Benchmark obviously decided to reign in their brands at different points.

    You learn from what happens in the past. I’m not sure you can scale venture very well. Having general partners in London who effectively decide on what happens to the firm makes decision-making really simple.

    We’re also in close cooperation with Palo Alto to make sure we represent the brand in the same way.

    How institutionalized are your communications?

    The important decisions, like when to hold an annual LP meeting or when to fundraise, are discussed extensively between the groups, but the rest of our discussions are very organic and multithreaded. You don’t want to fight the natural order of things. We’re very careful about not sharing too much information about the companies we look at, but we definitely share expertise and views and kind of help each other be better.

    It helps when you have funds that are performing well and teams that are high quality. If one part of the organization was doing well and the other wasn’t, it might become more tense, but that’s not the case.

    There’ve been lots of reports out this year about Europe falling behind.

    I’m just back in Europe, and I’m amazed by the number of large successes being built. There were seven or eight billion-dollar-plus exits last year, including [the British property site] Zoopla [which went public last June] and [the online restaurant delivery company] JustEat [which went public in April 2014]. Our third fund has three [billion-dollar-plus] companies, including [streaming music service] Spotify, and guys like [ridesharing company] BlaBlaCar, World Remit, and [the online lending marketplace] Funding Circle are growing super fast.

    I used to be quite negative about the market,  but now we’re seeing companies achieving hyperscale and building value really quickly, and in the case of [our portfolio company, the online marketplace and Craigslist competitor] Wallapop, it’s even bringing the fight to the local guys [in the U.S.].

    But European entrepreneurs are often quick to note that their funding options remains fairly limited.

    The VC landscape remains quite weak. You have Index and Accel as the sort of leaders. You have Balderton [Capital], which has enjoyed a great reinvention-slash-turnaround [since parting ways with Benchmark]. Then you have some new managers, including Mosaic [Ventures] and Frederic Court [a longtime investor at Advent Venture Partners who is raising a new fund under the brand Felix Capital], and a bunch of micros VCs like Hoxton [Ventures]. But there are a bunch of funds that have exited or stopped fundraising — names that everybody knows aren’t going to make it.

    What’s happening, though, is that U.S firms and the “Tiger Cubs” are smelling blood, so we’re seeing Insight [Venture Partners], DST [Global], TCV, and some of these tech hedge funds all suddenly coming into Europe on a regular basis, and anything that scales they want to fund. It’s a huge factor right now. They’re hunting aggressively, writing big checks, and moving fast.

    And that’s purely good news? As you know, there’s a little angst here about the impact all their money is having on companies and their burn rates.

    In general, we love it because we finally have scaling capital. We just invested in Deliveroo, which is the European version of DoorDash. It’s growing like a weed, but a few years ago, we’d have had to scale organically or raise a small Series B. Now people are knocking at the door of companies that are scaling and saying: “Can we write a big check?” We’re like, finally, we’ll be able to build billion-dollar companies in less than 10 years – maybe in three to five years.

    The other big factor in Europe is Rocket Internet, which used to clone companies but they had no balance sheet. Since its IPO [last October], they have a balance sheet. And while I don’t know exactly how much cash they have, it’s probably a billion-plus [dollars] that they can use to invest, replicate and whatever else they do, and they’re the biggest VC in Europe. They force people to raise their game, because if you want to compete against Rocket, you have to know what they’re doing.

    Connie

    May 4, 2015
    Firm Dynamics, Investment Opportunities, Morning Summary
    Accel Partners, Blablacar, Deliveroo, Fred Destin, Showroomprive, Spotify, World Remit, Xero

  • StrictlyVC: May 1, 2015

    It is May, people! Can you believe it? Hope you have a great, spring-y weekend in store.:) (Pst, web visitors, here’s an easier-to-read version of this morning’s email.)

    —–

    Top News in the A.M.

    Spotify has just raised roughly $350 million in a new round of fundraising that values it at a stunning $8 billion.

    —–

    TPG Growth’s Bill McGlashan: We’re No Stranger to Startups

    Bill McGlashan would like you to know something. TPG Growth is no newcomer to startups. The 45-person group that McGlashan leads within 22-year-old TPG Capital hasn’t just been writing checks to startups since 1999, but it has incubated a number of companies, too (including, last year, the film studio STX Entertainment). “I think there’s been a lot of noise lately about PE getting into growth investments, which is a function of absolute check sizes getting so large . . .. but [investing in privately held companies] is part of what we do and have done for a very long time. This isn’t private equity now doing growth. This is what we’ve always done.”

    We talked Wednesday with McGlashan about how TPG Growth works, why the typically private firm is talking with the press suddenly, and how it plans to raise the giant, $3 billion fund it announced earlier this week. Our chat has been edited for length.

    How old is TPG Growth, how many funds has it raised, and how does it differentiate itself from the broader company?

    We raised a $500 million venture fund in 1999. It was one of the largest-ever first time funds and the team went happily off to do VC, which seemed like a good idea in 1999. In 2000, which is when the fund actually closed, things were obviously challenging from a macro perspective. So I came aboard in 2003 to rethink the strategy. With the second half of that fund, we took a different approach [that was more integrated with the rest of the firm], and we’ve maintained it through three subsequent growth funds.

    What’s your overarching approach? 

    We want to do investments where our $67 billion platform can be a uniquely compelling partner in delivering growth, and that can mean different things depending on the industry and stage of the business and the nature of the company . . . so we’re agnostic about sectors and geographies. The problem with consumer funds or geography-specific funds is that everything a hammer sees is a nail, and we couldn’t do what we do if we had hammer/nail syndrome.

    How many companies a year do you fund, and who works in your group? Can you describe the hierarchy for us?

    We [typically fund] 10 or 15 companies a year where we can [accelerate the business]… There are nine partners in the group and each [focuses on] a combination of sector and geography. We also have a range of senior advisors that can be deeply involved. Then we have principals, VPs, associates, [as well as access to a] whole, 90-person operating team [at TPG], whose head of human capital [Fred Paulenich] was [senior VP of HR] at Walmart and Levi Strauss [previously].

    So when we go into a company like [famed guitar maker] Fender [in which TPG Growth took a majority stake in early 2013], we’re fixing the core business, including improving the sales organization, but we’re also embarking on a digital strategy, thinking of e-learning and collaboration, and focusing on direct-to-consumer engagement. Even though it’s a $700 million revenue business, it doesn’t have leadership that could go on this journey alone, so we can plug in people who can accelerate that change, and we do the same with all our companies.

    Who makes the ultimate decisions on these investments?<

    There about about 30 partners across TPG and 8 managing partners [and from that group] there’s an investment committee [that includes members of TPG Growth]. We don’t have several wizards who are pushing a red or green button. [Firm cofounders David] Bonderman and [James] Coulter and other senior partners are [involved in all the] decisions. It’s important because if you’re an entrepreneur and we’re investing $50 million, we want you to know the firm cares as much about your company as it does with a $1 billion investment.

    How long does it take for a yes or no?

    We don’t make bets, write a check and hope it all works out. We’re signing up for being held accountable as a partner who will deliver value, and that takes real time. There are [some deals] when we move quickly and get deals done in a month. Sometimes, we spend six months getting to know each other. Time isn’t usually the gating issue. We do real work. It can’t happen with tummy rub.

    For more with McGlashan, including news about TPG Growth’s SurveyMonkey investment, continue reading here.

    —–

    New Fundings

    Anacail, a four-year-old, Glasgow, Scotland-based company whose technology temporarily turns some of the oxygen inside sealed packaging into ozone, an effective germicide (that can, say, extend the life of packaged foods or sterilize medical devices), has raised £2m ($1.5 million) in Series A funding from Sussex Place Ventures, along with earlier backers IP Group and the Scottish Investment Bank.

    Bebaio, a months-old, Boston, Ma.-based software startup targeting the connected-home market, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from undisclosed backers. More here.

    Clearent, a 10-year-old, Clayton, Mo.-based payment processing company, has raised $25 million from FTV Capital. You can learn more about the company here.

    Descartes Labs — a Los Alamos, N.M.-based deep-learning image analysis startup that was was incubated in Los Alamos National Labs for seven years before spinning out, has raised $3.3 million in funding. Among its investors: Venky Harinarayan, a founder of Kosmix, which was acquired and turned into Walmart Labs. TechCrunch has the story here.

    Dmall, a young, Beijing, China-based hyperlocal shopping app founded by longtime Huawei executive Liu Jiangfeng, has reportedly raised a whopping $100 million in angel funding, which would make it the largest angel round ever in China, reports Tech In Asia. More here.

    Dopay, a nearly two-year-old, London-based company whose cloud-based payroll service can be used to calculate and remit salaries electronically to employees who don’t have bank accounts, has raised $2 million in seed funding, including from ACE & Company, Techstars Ventures, and a syndicate of other investors.

    Edgemont Pharamaceuticals, a nine-year-old Austin, Tex.-based maker of psychatric drug therapies, has raised $5 million more in debt from Oxford Finance, from which the company already has a $10 million senior secured term loan. The company says it already has two FDA-approved antidepressant products in the U.S. and a Phase III product candidate that’s being developed for generalized anxiety disorder.

    Foodpanda, the three-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based food delivery juggernaut, has raised $100 million in fresh funding led by Goldman Sachs, with Rocket Internet — which incubated the company — among other earlier backers to participate in the round. The new funding comes less than two months after Foodpanda raised a separate, $110 million round led by Rocket Internet. The company has now raised $310 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

    Flybits, a 2.5-year-old, Toronto, Canada-based SaaS startup that helps consumer-focused companies expand and manage their mobile offerings, has raised $4.75 million in Series A funding led by Vodafone Ventures, Robert Bosch Venture Capital and Trellis Capital. TechVibes has more here.

    InDinero, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose software helps small businesses with unlimited, flat-fee accounting, tax and payroll services, has received a line of credit (of undisclosed size) from lender SaaS Capital.

    Kiana Analytics, a two-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based location-based marketing company, say it has raised more than $1 million from Plug and Play Ventures, Sand Hill Angels, Hawaii Angels and several individual investors.

    Let’s Recycle, a three-year-old, Ahmedabad, India-based waste management and recycling startup, has raised $2 million in Series B funding led by social venture fund Aavishkaar. Tech-Portal has more here.

    Mirna Therapeutics, an Austin, Tex.-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that’s developing cancer therapeutics, has raised $41.8 million in Series D funding led by Baxter Ventures, with participation from Eastern Capital, Santé Ventures, Morningside Ventures, Rock Springs Capital, and Celgene Corporation. Earlier backers, including Sofinnova Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Pfizer Ventures, Osage University Partners, and Correlation Ventures, also joined the round. According to Crunchbase, the company has raised at least $82.8 million to date.

    Payzer, a three-year-old, Charlotte, N.C.-based mobile payment tool, has raised $4.2 million in Series A funding led by Grotech Ventures and Route 66 Ventures. More here.

    Rapid Micro Biosystems, a nine-year-old, Bedford, Ma.-based company whose machines detect microbial contamination in manufacturing, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and other fields, has raised $25 million in Series C funding from Hepalink USA, Richard K. Mellon and Sons, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Longitude Capital, Quaker Partners, TPG Biotech, and TVM Capital. According to Crunchbase, the company has now raised roughly $100 million altogether.

    Signpost, a five-year-old, New York-based maker of CRM software for business-to-consumer companies, has raised $20.5 million in funding led by Georgian Partners, with participation from Spark Capital, OpenView Venture Partners, Scout Ventures and the Launch Fund. The company has now raised $36.6 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

    Sirrus, a six-year-old, Cincinnati, Oh.-based company whose platforms serve as a foundation for next-generation adhesive, sealant, coating, ink and plastic products, has raised $6.5 million in Series B funding along with a previously announced $5 million in debt financing. The round was co-led by Braemar Energy Ventures and GM Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Arsenal Venture Partners and Mitsui Global Investments.

    Smartvue Corporation, a 17-year-old, Nashville, Tn.-based video surveillance technology company, has raised $15 million in Series B funding, including from funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group. The company has now raised at least $20.9 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

    Synergis Education, a four-year-old, Mesa Az.-based company that provides outsourced education and technology services for colleges and universities, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from media giant Bertelsmann.

    Vuru, a five-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based free advanced stock analysis platform, has raised $1 million in seed funding led by Tim Draper, with participation from serial entrepreneurs Naveen Jain (InfoSpace, Intelius, Moon Express) and Sony Mordechai (Global Eye Investments).

    —–

    New Funds

    Acceleprise Ventures, a three-year-old San Francisco-based incubator focused on enterprise startups, has announced a new, $3.5 million fund. More here.

    Longwood Fund, a seven-year-old, Boston-based health-care firm, is looking to raise up to $90 million for a third fund, shows an SEC filing that states the first sale has yet to occur.According to Thomson Reuters data, the firm raised $66.7 million for its previous fund, which closed last year, and $86.9 million for its debut fund in 2010.

    Shoreline Venture Management, a 17-year-old, San Francisco and San Mateo, Ca.-based venture firm focused on seed-stage and early-stage healthcare and software deals, is also looking to raise a third fund, according to an SEC filing that shows it has so far raised $3.9 million from 19 investors.

    The Western Growers trade group in Salinas, Ca., is raising a $4 million venture fund.  (A skeptic might call this the jump-the-shark moment. But not us!)

    —–

    IPOs

    There have been 49 U.S. IPOs priced so far this year, a -51 percent change from last year, says Renaissance Capital.

    —–

    Exits

    Circa, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of a mobile news app by the same name, is seeking a buyer after failing to secure a new round of venture capital funding,reports Fortune. Circa has raised $5.7 million from investors, shows Crunchbase, including Quotidian Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Fenox Venture Capital, and Lerer Hippeau Ventures.

    Grooveshark, an eight-year-old, Gainesville, Fla.-based music streaming service, has shut down roughly eight months after a U.S. District Court judge found that its employees had violated copyright infringement laws. The company had raised at least $4.6 million in venture and debt financing, shows Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.

    —–

    People

    Mark Greenbaum has joined the Palo Alto, Ca.-based investment bank Luma Partners as a partner. Greenbaum had previously spent more than 11 years with the investment bank GCA Savvian. (H/T: Dan Primack.)

    How filmmaker George Lucas‘s bid to build a museum in San Francisco’s Presidio misfired. (One Presidio Trust staffer reportedly described the proposed building as “Empire meets [“Gone With the Wind”] meets Snow White.”

    —–

    Jobs

    McKesson, the healthcare services and information giant, has a newly formed venture unit and it’s looking for a managing director. The job is in San Francisco.

    —–

    Happenings

    TechCrunch Disrupt kicks off Monday in New York. If you’re not at the event, you can always watch a live stream of it.

    The NVCA’s annual VentureScape conference is coming up next Wednesday and Thursdayin San Francisco.

    StrictlyVC’s May 13 event is now pretty much sold to capacity, but if you live in or near the Bay Area, you might want to check out this on-demand economy conference on May 19. (We’ll be there to moderate one panel toward the end of the day.)

    —–

    Essential Reads

    Lyft is spending an awful lot to compete with Uber, per a document leaked to Bloomberg that shows the company spends a combined $530 on marketing to each driver and 22 passengers in San Francisco, and that it takes about nine months to recoup those costs.

    The crazy new tech that explains why Microsoft bought Minecraft.

    —–

    Detours

    Rich parents agree: $63 million to too much inheritance (but $26 million isn’t enough).

    The difference between living in New York and San Francisco.

    A brand-new, all-electric Shelby Cobra, care of 3D printing.<

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    Liteloks.

    The Tesla Powerwall battery, to charge your home and boost your nerd cred. Deliveries begin this summer.

    Connie

    May 4, 2015
    Morning Summary

  • TPG Growth’s Bill McGlashan: We’re No Stranger to Startups

    Bill McGlashanBill McGlashan would like you to know something. TPG Growth is no newcomer to startups. The 45-person group that McGlashan leads within 22-year-old TPG Capital hasn’t just been writing checks to startups since 1999, but it has incubated a number of companies, too (including, last year, the film studio STX Entertainment). “I think there’s been a lot of noise lately about PE getting into growth investments, which is a function of absolute check sizes getting so large . . .. but [investing in privately held companies] is part of what we do and have done for a very long time. This isn’t private equity now doing growth. This is what we’ve always done.”

    We talked Wednesday with McGlashan about how TPG Growth works, why the typically private firm is talking with the press suddenly, and how it plans to invest the giant, $3 billion fund it announced earlier this week. Our chat has been edited for length.

    How old is TPG Growth, how many funds has it raised, and how does it differentiate itself from the broader company?

    We raised a $500 million venture fund in 1999. It was one of the largest-ever first time funds and the team went happily off to do VC, which seemed like a good idea in 1999. In 2000, which is when the fund actually closed, things were obviously challenging from a macro perspective. So I came aboard in 2003 to rethink the strategy. With the second half of that fund, we took a different approach [that was more integrated with the rest of the firm], and we’ve maintained it through three subsequent growth funds.

    [Ed: Those are a $1.2 billion fund, which McGlashan says has “about a 25 percent” gross IRR and “19 percent net IRR”; a second, $2 billion fund that he says has a 60 percent gross IRR and net IRR of 40 percent, and the firm’s newest, $3 billion fund.]

    What’s your overarching approach? 

    We want to do investments where our $67 billion platform can be a uniquely compelling partner in delivering growth, and that can mean different things depending on the industry and stage of the business and the nature of the company . . . so we’re agnostic about sectors and geographies. The problem with consumer funds or geography-specific funds is that everything a hammer sees is a nail, and we couldn’t do what we do if we had hammer/nail syndrome.

    How many companies a year do you fund, and who works in your group? Can you describe the hierarchy for us?

    We [typically fund] 10 or 15 companies a year where we can [accelerate the business]… There are nine partners in the group and each [focuses on] a combination of sector and geography. We also have a range of senior advisors that can be deeply involved. Then we have principals, VPs, associates, [as well as access to a] whole, 90-person operating team [at TPG], whose head of human capital [Fred Paulenich] was [senior VP of HR] at Walmart and Levi Strauss [previously].

    So when we go into a company like [famed guitar maker] Fender [in which TPG Growth took a majority stake in early 2013], we’re fixing the core business, including improving the sales organization, but we’re also embarking on a digital strategy, thinking of e-learning and collaboration, and focusing on direct-to-consumer engagement. Even though it’s a $700 million revenue business, it doesn’t have leadership that could go on this journey alone, so we can plug in people who can accelerate that change, and we do the same with all our companies.

    Who makes the ultimate decisions on these investments?

    There about about 30 partners across TPG and 8 managing partners [and from that group] there’s an investment committee [that includes members of TPG Growth]. We don’t have several wizards who are pushing a red or green button. [Firm cofounders David] Bonderman and [James] Coulter and other senior partners are [involved in all the] decisions. It’s important because if you’re an entrepreneur and we’re investing $50 million, we want you to know the firm cares as much about your company as it does with a $1 billion investment.

    How long does it take for a yes or no?

    We don’t make bets, write a check and hope it all works out. We’re signing up for being held accountable as a partner who will deliver value, and that takes real time. There are [some deals] when we move quickly and get deals done in a month. Sometimes, we spend six months getting to know each other. Time isn’t usually the gating issue. We do real work. It can’t happen with a tummy rub.

    You have investments all over the map. Do you have any idea where in the world you’ll be committing this new capital?

    [Our first growth fund] was 60 percent developed world, 40 percent emerging market. Our last fund was more like 80/20. Rough justice, [our new fund will be] 70/30, but we’re careful not to settle on allocation targets. We’re truly global, with investments in Brazil, Indonesia, Africa, Turkey, China; we have a tower company in Myanmar that’s growing like a weed.

    Some of those places are obviously frothier than others. China, for example, seems dangerous from this distance.

    We’ve not invested in China in the last three years because we felt valuations were very challenging with all these R&D funds and local funds and angels and super angels. We just felt that valuations, married to the fundamental risks in that market, didn’t make sense. But we did just approve our first deal recently; we’ve found that there’s been a valuation reset in certain sectors.

    What about private company valuations here in the U.S.? Plenty of people have grown concerned about those, too, particularly given how few companies are going public.

    Overall, what entrepreneurs have been able to do is trade an IPO for private financing, and that offers real advantages to building these businesses. I don’t think that’s going away, by the way. I think that public-private confluence we’re seeing is probably here to stay.

    As for valuations, some of these are great companies, like [our portfolio companies] Airbnb, Uber, Domo, and SurveyMonkey, which we recently exited. There are others – you can imagine that we’ve seen them all – that we’ve passed on.

    You sold your stake in SurveyMonkey? Are you doing much secondary selling? Have you sold any of your shares in Uber or Airbnb?

    It’s a deal-by-deal, case-by-case basis. Honestly, with SurveyMonkey, it wasn’t a case of the company not doing well. It was their strategy to do a series of refinancings and there was tremendous interest because the company is so [fast-growing] and fundamentally profitable that they can generate strong, ongoing yield for new investors. We weren’t looking for a 25 percent annual return.

    We have not sold Airbnb or Uber. The fundamental growth in those businesses is incredible.

    Connie

    May 1, 2015
    Firm Dynamics, Investment Opportunities
    Airbnb, Bill McGlashan, Domo, Fender, SurveyMonkey, TPG Growth, Uber

  • StrictlyVC: April 30, 2015

    Happy Thursday, everyone! We interviewed a couple of folks yesterday — including the head of TPG Growth, Bill McGlashen —  and hoped to publish one of those chats today. We’re running a little late as it is, though, so stay tuned. McGlashen, in particular, had some interesting things to say about the way TPG Growth operates — and why he takes issue with one common perception about his group.

    (Psst, web visitors, here’s an easier-to-read version of this morning’s email.)

    —–

    Top News in the A.M.

    Salesforce is working with financial advisers to help it field takeover offers after being approached by a potential acquirer, according to Bloomberg sources. ZDNet takes a look at some possible buyers.

    Shares of the business ratings and reviews company Yelp have tanked more than 21 percent today, following a big miss on its first quarter earnings.

    —–

    New Fundings

    Beisen, a 13-year-old, Beijing, China-based maker of SaaS-based HR software, has raised $18 million in Series C funding led by Matrix Partners and another unnamed investor. The company reportedly raised roughly $10 million in Series B funding in 2013 from Matrix and Sequoia Capital.

    Campus Job, a year-old, New York-based online marketplace for college students to find part-time jobs and internships, has raised $7.8 million in Series A funding led by General Catalyst Partners, with participation from Index Ventures, SV Angel, Slow Ventures, and others. Earlier backers Box Group and Lerer Hippeau Ventures also joined the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $9.1 million.

    Cintell, an eight-month-old, Boston, Ma.-based customer intelligence platform, has raised $800,000 in seed funding led by angel investor and entrepreneur Venkat Janapareddy, whose startup, Gozaik, was acquired by Monster Worldwide.

    Circle Internet Financial, a two-year-old, Boston-based bitcoin brokerage firm, has raised $50 million in new funding led by Goldman Sachs and IDG Capital Partners, with participation from all of its earlier backers. (Some of those include Breyer Capital, Accel Partners, Pantera Capital, and Oak Investment Partners.) The company, cofounded by by Brightcove founder Jeremy Allaire, has now raised $76 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. Reuters has more here.

    Clarifai, a two-year-old, New York-based company whose image recognition software helps companies better handle certain kinds of data, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures, Lux Capital and Osage University Partners. Other participants included Google Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Nvidia Ventures,Corazon Capital, LDV Capital and New York University. Crain’s New York has more here.

    Femasys, an 11-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based company that has developed a non-surgical female sterilization device that delivers biomaterial through a catheter-based system to block a patient’s fallopian tubes, has raised $10.2 million in funding led by Legacy Capital Partners, Salem Partners, and Mario Family Partners. The company has now raised $16.6 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.

    Glu Mobile, the 14-year-old, San Francisco-based publicly traded games maker, has sold 21 million shares, or 14.6 percent of its outstanding shares, to the Chinese Internet giant Tencent for $126 million. Recode has more here.

    Lyst, a four-year-old, London-based fashion e-commerce platform, has raised $40 million in Series C funding from Groupe Arnault, Accel Partners, Balderton Capital, 14W, DFJ and an unnamed New York based hedge fund. More here.

    MD Insider, a three-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based healthcare platform that helps companies choose the best doctor networks for their employees based on experience, quality and cost, has raised $9.5 million in Series A funding led by the company’s executive chairman, Jason Ader, with participation from Tim Ferriss and Bill Ackman.

    Mobile Action, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based marketing platform that helps app publishers figure out how to better optimize their apps’ search result rankings, has raised $2 million in funding led by Felicis Ventures, with participation from Streamlined Ventures, 500 Startups, 500 Mobile Collective, CrunchFund and numerous angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

    MX, a five-year-old, Provo, Ut.-based  personal finance startup, has raised $30 million in Series A funding led by a subsidiary of USAA, with participation from the Tokyo-based venture firm Digital Garage. The company has now raised $50 million altogether, including from Peak Ventures, Commerce Ventures, North Hill Ventures, and TTV Capital. (We’d mentioned this same deal early last week, though we didn’t know at the time who the new backers were.)

    MyoKardia, a 2.5-year-old, South San Francisco-based company that’s developing precision therapies for genetic heart disease, has raised $46 million in Series B funding from an undisclosed public investment fund, Casdin Capital, Cormorant Asset Management, Perceptive Life Sciences, an affiliate of Cowen Group, and BridgeBio, with participation from earlier backer Sanofi.

    NetBase, an 11-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based social media analytics company, has raised $9 million in Series E funding led by ORIX Ventures, with participation from return backer Thomvest Ventures. The company had earlier raised $24 million in Series E funding (announced in March). Altogether, Netbase has raised $84.6 million, shows Crunchbase.

    PlateJoy, a two-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based meal-kit delivery startup, has raised $1.7 million in seed funding from Foundation Capital, Sherpa Ventures, HealthBox, 500 Startups, VaynerRSE, Bassett Investments, and angel investors Joanne Wilson and Jared Leto.

    Rimidi, a three-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based digital health company focused on diabetes and other chronic conditions, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Cox Enterprises. The company had previously raised at least $1.4 million in seed funding, shows Crunchbase. More here.

    Rocana, a year-old, Boston, Ma.-based company whose software helps IT professionals trace data center problems to their root cause, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Google Ventures, with participation from General Catalyst Partners, Toba Capital and Paul Sagan. The company, which has now raised $19.4 million altogether, was formerly called ScalingData.

    Sticky, a six-year-old, New York-based online eye-tracking analytics platform for content publishers, advertisers and agencies, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Dawn Capital, with participation from previous investors Northzone and Conor. More here.

    SwitchedOn, a year-old, Singapore-based company behind a team messaging app, has raised $300,000 from 14 angel investors. More here.

    TripleMint, a four-year-old, New York-based online real estate brokerage, has raised $1.65 million in seed funding from Dominion Capital, Winklevoss Capital, Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, Kima Ventures, Archangel Ventures, and individual investors, including Fabrice Grinda. TechCrunch has more here.

    Visidraft, a four-year-old, Cheverly, Md.-based augmented reality startup that’s developing a communications and design platform for architecture and construction work, has raised $250,000 in seed funding led by Hivers & Strivers. DCInno has more here.

    Warby Parker, the five-year-old, New York-based online glass retailer, has raised $100 million in new funding led by T.Rowe Price, with participation from Wellington Management and earlier backers Tiger Global Management and General Catalyst Partners. The round reportedly values the company — which has now raised $215 million altogether — at $1.2 billion. The WSJ has the story here.

    XOEye Technologies, a 4.5-year-old, Nashville, Tn.-based maker of work-related wearables, has raised $1.9 million in Series A funding led by IncWell, an early-stage venture firm founded by former Chrysler Group CEO Tom LaSorda. More here.

    Zooppa, a Seattle-based company that crowdsources advertising creative through online contests, has raised $3.4 million in a new round of funding, according to an SEC filing. GeekWire has more here.

    —–

    New Funds

    Catalyst Investors, a 15-year-old, New York-based growth equity firm, has closed its fourth fund with $377 million.

    Slow Ventures, a four-year-old, seed-stage firm, has raised $65 million for its fourth fund. Business Insider has more here.

    —–

    IPOs

    Blueprint Medicines, a seven-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based developer of experimental cancer therapies that was originally formed by Third Rock Ventures, sold 8.15 million IPO shares at $18 apiece last night, bringing in nearly $147 million. The company began trading on Nasdaq today. Along with Third Rock, which owned 41.8 percent of the company before the IPO, Blueprint’s biggest shareholder is Fidelity, which owned 13.4 percent. Xconomy has more here.

    —–

    Exits

    Amazon has acquired ClusterK, a 1.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company that can run apps on Amazon Web Services at 10 percent off the regular price, reports VentureBeat. According to its report, Amazon paid between $20 million and $50 million for the company, which had raised one undisclosed round of seed funding.

    Secret — the 16-month-old, anonymous social app that made headlines around the world in the months after its controversial debut— is closing shop, having lost the interest of users, BuzzFeed News reported yesterday. Secret had raised more than $37 million from investors, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, S-Cubed Capital, Index Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Google Ventures and Matrix Partners. Cofounder David Byttow declined to address questions from BuzzFeed regarding how much of that capital would be returned, including the $6 million in restricted stock he and his co-founder, Chrys Bader, sold and split last summer. (Byttow, who’d bought a red Ferrari with the proceeds, has since sold it, a source tells the New York Times.)

    You might want to know: Twitter paid $532.6 million in stock for the ad targeting company TellApart, whose acquisition it revealed in an earnings call on Tuesday. The number was first reported by Business Insider, which dug up a new, related SEC filing yesterday.

    —–

    People

    Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is heading to Silicon Valley – the first sitting Japanese leader to do so – in the “hopes of rekindling that innovative spark,” reports Reuters. Scheduled stops include meetings with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang, and California Governor Jerry Brown.

    Daniel Hoffer and Shashi Seth have joined the eight-year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based seed fund Tandem Capital as partners. Hoffer cofounded the startup CouchSurfing; Seth has spent the last 16 months as the president of Tribune Digital Ventures.

    Looks like Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel is set to deliver his first commencement speech next week, for undergraduates at the USC Marshall School of Business.

    Mark Troughton, a former president at Wonga and Green Dot, has joined the three-year-old, L.A.-based anonymous social network Whisper as president, reports Recode. Whisper — whose primarily competitor, Secret, just went out of business — also just disclosed that there are now 10 million people using the app every month. Recode generously suggests that both pieces of Whisper news, coming out this week, could be a coincidence rather than what they kind of look like — a way to elude inquiries into the health of Whisper’s own viability.

    —–

    Jobs

    Launch Angels, a New England-based venture capital firm that helps alumni, universities, and other affinity groups create early-stage venture funds, is looking for managing directors interested in raising (and helping fund) alumni venture funds.

    —–

    Data

    From Silk: A ranking of the leading AngelList syndicates, as of March’s end.

    Corporate venture groups accounted for 19 percent of all venture deals in the first quarter. (That’s $2.2 billion across 196 deals, though a big slug of that total, $900 million, centered on Google Ventures’s January investment in SpaceX.) The NVCA has more here.

    —–

    Essential Reads

    Twitter has a huge problem, and it’s all in your head.

    —–

    Detours

    Compare conditions in your own country with another country. (H/T: Business Insider.)

    Watch the first test flight of Jeff Bezos’s mysterious new rocket.

    Based on a study of reader comments at each NFL team website, Redskins fans can’t spell very well, reports the WSJ, which insists there is no correlation between fan exasperation and grammatical errors. (Indeed, Detroit Lions and Cleveland Browns fans were tied for the best spelling.)

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    The unstainable white shirt. We don’t care what it’s made of. We’ll take four.

    Connie

    April 30, 2015
    Morning Summary

  • StrictlyVC: April 29, 2015

    Good morning, dear readers. Our upcoming event in San Francisco is just two weeks from tonight — squeal! Excited to see many of you there.

    —–

    Top News in the A.M.

    Uber is quietly testing a massive merchant delivery program. More here.

    ——

    A Startup Exposes the Shadiness of Shipping

    Among a sea of specialized data companies,Windward, a five-year-old, 35-person, Tel Aviv-based company, stands out. The reason: it’s among few companies attempting to collect and sell detailed, real-time information about global ship activity.

    Its story attracted Horizon Ventures of Hong Kong to its door. (Horizon just led a $10.8 million strategic investment in the company, with participation from Windward’s early backer, Aleph). Windward also counts a dozen governments around the world as customers. After poring over some of Windward’s findings about ship behavior, we also found ourselves wanting to learn more.

    Luckily, we were able to catch Windward’s cofounder and CEO, Ami Daniel, as he bounded around New York City yesterday, trying to strike new partnerships. Our chat, edited for length, follows.

    You were a navy officer for six years before starting Windward. Did you start thinking about the company during that period?

    I was entrepreneurial as a teenager, and when I left the Navy, I hooked up with [Windward cofounder] Mantan [Peled], who I’d served with for five or six years. We wanted to do something big, and we felt that oceans were the Wild West. More than 90 percent of the world’s trade is carried by sea [according to the International Maritime Organization, or IMO], yet the shipping ecosystem is much more opaque than most people realize.

    How so?

    Talk to a big commodity trader, for example – someone who buys and sells more than $100 million in oil every year. His secret sauce is his connections, like port agents who know who is entering or leaving the ports, or the mine manager who knows when cargo is rolling out to market, or the contact in Nigeria who knows how to buy [low and sell high]. It’s an industry that’s based on 200-year-old methods. It’s all very gray. It’s kind of like real-estate in New York. [Laughs.]

    You claim Windward has a better picture than anyone of everything that’s happening. How does your tech work? 

    We start by checking whether you are who you say you are and creating a record of what you’ve been doing. We also calculate what you say you’re transporting by gauging, for example, how long you’re in the jetty, and how long it’s taking you to load what you’re carrying compared with the average loading rate for the same cargo. We don’t necessarily trust you to tell us how much oil you’re carrying. There’s a lot of [subterfuge in shipping]. For example, ships only report their final destination 41 percent of the time, and 55 percent of ships misrepresent their port of call for most of their voyage.

    Aren’t there mandates against doing such things?

    The IMO is responsible for maritime data and there are mandates issued by the UN, which is the regulator. But there is no punishment for not complying. You can steal an identity. You can turn off your data transmissions. I personally approached the head of the IMO to give him an executive summary of our findings and to ask for the organization’s feedback and they never called us back.

    And you collect all this information how? Through satellites? Sensors? 

    It starts with public information, then we get commercially available information. Spire, for example, is a San Francisco-based company that tracks ship transmissions and weather and sells information to companies like us. Beyond our data partnerships, we go to port agents and logistics brokers and we say, “We’ll give you technology [in exchange for information].”

    Everyone has a small segment of the picture. There are no magic solutions, no one vendor, no one protocol. Everybody’s stories are different, so it’s very time- and resource-intensive work. But one of the moats we’re building is one of the biggest databases ever.

    But you have competitors. 

    We do have competitors, including IHS [a company that sells information and analytics about the maritime industry to customers]. But what we’re doing is better. Others take this older approach of information services, with analysts looking at databases and writing reports and then selling a giant report to everybody. We’re taking a data science approach, using Hadoop and Apache Spark to compute and slice and dice things automatically according to different queries.

    You have a dozen governments paying you to subscribe to this platform. Can you give us some idea of what they’re paying you?

    We’re happy that we’re being paid for the value that we’re providing, which is high, but I can’t be more specific except to say that we’re seen three times revenue growth year over year for the last three years and we’re making enough that we’ve barely touched the [$5 million Series A round we closed in 2013 from Aleph].

    Like another intelligence specialist, Palantir Technologies, Windward started with government customers but wants to begin targeting financial clients. Have you lined up any firms so far?

    We’re in beta testing. No one is paying yet. But we’re not cash strapped. We can afford to engage with customers as we develop the product. We want to make a billion dollar company out of this  That’s why I’m in New York, meeting with hedge funds and commodity traders. Legwork!

    —–

    New Fundings

    Access Integrated Healthcare, a six-year-old, L.A.-based healthcare services company, has raised $8.5 million in its first round of growth capital led by Penta Mezzanine Fund. More here.

    Albeado, a five-year-old Santa Clara, CA-based software company that markets its predictive analytics and causal modeling platform to the healthcare, utilities and mining industries, has raised $3 million in Series A funding led by the tech consulting outfit Brillio.

    CargoSense, a three-year-old, Reston, Va.-based big data and analytics SaaS company that targets the pharmaceutical, cold chain, and refrigerated storage industries, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from IrishAngels, Middleburg Capital Development and Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology.

    Crispr Therapeutics, a two-year-old, London-based biopharmaceutical company that’s hoping to use a particular genome-editing technology to create medicines for serious human genetic diseases, has raised a combined $89 million in Series A and Series B funding, it just announced. Its investors include SR One, Celgene Corp., New Enterprise Associates, Abingworth, and Versant Ventures.

    The Daily Dot, a four-year-old, New York-based media company, has raised $10 million in funding from an undisclosed media company, reports The Observer. More here.

    Dedrone, a year-old, Kassel, Germany-based maker of drone early-warning and detection systems, has raised $2.9 million in funding. The round was led by Target Partners, with participation from angel investors, including  Tom Noonan, a Cisco exec who was long CEO of Internet Security Systems (acquired by IBM).

    Empathetics, a four-year-old, Boston, Ma.-based interpersonal skills training company for medical professionals, has raised $1.5 million in funding led by GDN Holdings and Key Venture Partners.

    Grab A Grub, a three-year-old, Mumbai, India-based food delivery service, has raised $1 million in seed funding from Oliphans Capital and former Network18 CEO Haresh Chawla. The startup says it has more than 500 delivery people in Mumbai and that it connects users to more than 350 restaurants in the city. VC Circle has more here.

    Huakang Mobile Health, a three-year-old, Shenzhen, China-based mobile healthcare app developer, has raised $32 million in Series B funding from Yunfeng Capital (cofounded by Alibaba’s Jack Ma), Shenzhen Co-Win Venture Capital Investments, New Horizon Capital, and Henan Haijie Healthcare Investment. More here.

    InCarda Therapeutics, a six-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based biotech company that’s developing inhaled therapies for acute cardiovascular conditions, has raised more than $5 million in Series A funding led by Morningside Venture, with participation from other angel investors.

    Infinidat, a five-year-old, Herzliya, Israel-based data storage company, has announced a whopping $150 million in new funding, at a valuation of $1.2 billion, led by TPG Growth. The company has now raised $230 million altogether. Venture Capital Dispatch has much more here.

    Jukely, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based concert subscription service, has raised $8 million in fresh funding led by Northzone and 14W, with participation from a long list of individual investors, including GroupMe founders Steve Martocci and Jared Hecht. The company has now raised $11.3 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

    Kaizen Platform, a two-year-old,  San Francisco-based marketing optimization platform, has raised $4 million in funding from Fidelity Growth Partners and GREE Ventures. The company has now raised $9.8 million altogether, shows Crunchbase. AdWeek has more here.

    Ninox Medical, a three-year-old, Lyon, France-based medical device company that’s developing a wearable to treat obstructive sleep apnea, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Mérieux Développement and Pitango Venture Capital, with participation from earlier backer Xenia Venture Capital.

    Pamlico BioPharma, an Oklahoma City, Ok.-based company that’s developing human monoclonal antibody therapeutics to treat human pathogens, cancer, and autoimmune diseases, has raised $2.2 million in Series A funding led by Accele Venture Partners and the Oklahoma Seed Capital Fund.

    ReGlobe, a six-year-old, New Delhi, India-based consumer electronics refurbishment platform, has reportedly raised around $1 million in seed funding from Bessemer Venture Partners and Blume Ventures. The Economic Times has more here.

    ShipBob, a year-old, Chicago-based shipping startup, has raised $1 million in seed funding from SV Angels, Funders Club, and WeFunder, and others. ChicagoInno has more here.

    SlamAd, a 16-month-old, New York-based ad tech startup that’s developing a mobile texting application that integrates advertising, has raised $1.2 million in seed funding from unnamed strategic investors.

    Styla, a three-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based company whose software makes it possible for anyone to publish an online magazine, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by Redalpine Venture Partners, with participation from Groupe Arnault, Atlantic Labs,Cherry Ventures, and Westtech Ventures.

    ThreatQuotient, a two-year-old Dulles, Va.-based cybersecurity software company, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Blu Venture Investors, the Center for Innovative Technology, the Virginia Tech Investor Network and angel investor Todd Headley.

    Tracxn, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based analytics firm that tracks data from startups, has raised 3.5 million in Series A funding from SAIF Ventures.

    —–

    New Funds

    Foundation Medical Partners is announcing a new name today — Flare Capital Partners — and a new, $200 million fund. The 14-year-old, Boston-based firm specializes in early-stage and growth-equity investments in healthcare technology, and it’s led by three general partners: Bill Geary, Michael Greeley and Lee Wrubel. Flare also recently appointed Kristen Laguerre as a partner and its CFO.

    —–

    IPOs

    Teladoc, a 13-year-old, Dallas, Tex.-based health services company that provides medical care via video conferencing and phone consultations, has taken a first step toward an IPO, filing a confidential registration statement with the SEC, it tells MedCity News. The company has raised at least $74.3 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. Its backers include Icon Ventures, Cardinal Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, QuestMark Partners, Greenspring Associates, and FLAG Capital Management.

    —–

    Exits

    Bitcoin Shop, a year-old, Arlington, Va.-based blockchain startup whose shares trade on the over-the-counter market, is merging with Spondoolies, a digital currency server manufacturer. Spondoolies, a two-year-old, Kiryat Gat, Israel-based company, has raised $5 million from investors, including Aleph partner Eden Shochat.

    SolarWinds, a 15-year-old, Austin, Tx.-based, publicly traded IT performance management service, has acquired Papertrail, a four-year-old, Seattle-based log management service, for $41 million in cash. Papertrail hadn’t raised outside funding. Geekwire has more here.

    Twitter has acquired the six-year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based commerce ads tech firm TellApart, which was formerly a big Facebook ad partner. TellApart had raised $17.8 from investors, including Harrison Metal, Bain Capital Ventures, Greylock Partners, SV Angels and Twitter CEO Dick Costolo (who presumably recused himself from the selection process of else sold his stake previously). More here.

    —–

    People

    Yesterday, at the Milken Institute Global Conference at the Beverly Hilton, Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz talked again about why the firm’s general partners are exclusively male, reportedly saying at one point,  “It would be great if we could attract a great person to that position, but why should that be a goal? It’s not going to actually change Silicon Valley.” Megan Quinn, an investor-turned-strategic advisor to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, respectfully disagrees.

    Rahul (“RJ”) Jain has joined the Menlo Park, Ca.-based venture firm Foundation Capitalas an entrepreneur-in-residence. Jain cofounded Appurify, a performance optimization platform for mobile applications that Google acquired last year for undisclosed terms. Earlier in his career, Jain was director of engineering at the ride-sharing startup Sidecar Technologies and a principal software engineer at the games company Zynga.

    Saul Klein, a longtime partner at Index Ventures, is leaving the firm, he announced in a post yesterday.

    Stripe, the five-year-old payment company, has just leased 300,000 square feet of a building in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, says the San Francisco Business Times. It’s apparently the largest lease deal of the year.

    —–

    Jobs

    Adobe is looking to add a senior manager to its corporate development team. The job is in San Jose or San Francisco.

    Hewlett-Packard is also looking for a senior manager who will be part of its venture investment, as well as corporate development, teams. The job is in Palo Alto.

    —–

    Essential Reads

    OUYA, a three-year-old, L.A.-based company that makes game consoles for television, is on the auction block after tripping a debt covenant, according to an email sent to investors from CEO Julie Uhrman and obtained by Fortune. Sounds like something has to happen by month’s end.

    Investors have spent the last year criticizing Twitter’s slowing user growth. After seeing its first-quarter numbers yesterday, their big concern now is revenue.

    Facebook‘s impact on surrounding real estate prices in East Palo Alto and Menlo Park has been profound, reports TechCrunch.

    —–

    Detours

    David Letterman on his 33-year run.

    The billionaire, the dealer, and the $186 million Rothko.

    Antartica.

    ——-

    Retail Therapy

    Wet suits.

    Connie

    April 29, 2015
    Morning Summary

  • A Startup Exposes the Shadiness of Shipping

    Shipping IndustryAmong a sea of specialized data companies, Windward, a five-year-old, 35-person, Tel Aviv-based company, stands out. The reason: it’s among few companies attempting to collect and sell detailed, real-time information about global ship activity.

    Its story attracted Horizon Ventures of Hong Kong to its door. (Horizon just led a $10.8 million strategic investment in the company, with participation from Windward’s early backer, Aleph). Windward also counts a dozen governments around the world as customers. After poring over some of Windward’s findings about ship behavior, we also found ourselves wanting to learn more.

    Luckily, we were able to catch Windward’s cofounder and CEO, Ami Daniel, as he bounded around New York City yesterday, trying to strike new partnerships. Our chat, edited for length, follows.

    You were a navy officer for six years before starting Windward. Did you start thinking about the company during that period?

    I was entrepreneurial as a teenager, and when I left the Navy, I hooked up with [Windward cofounder] Mantan [Peled], who I’d served with for five or six years. We wanted to do something big, and we felt that oceans were the Wild West. More than 90 percent of the world’s trade is carried by sea [according to the International Maritime Organization, or IMO], yet the shipping ecosystem is much more opaque than most people realize.

    How so?

    Talk to a big commodity trader, for example – someone who buys and sells more than $100 million in oil every year. His secret sauce is his connections, like port agents who know who is entering or leaving the ports, or the mine manager who knows when cargo is rolling out to market, or the contact in Nigeria who knows how to buy [low and sell high]. It’s an industry that’s based on 200-year-old methods. It’s all very gray. It’s kind of like real-estate in New York. [Laughs.]

    You claim Windward has a better picture than anyone of everything that’s happening. How does your tech work? 

    We start by checking whether you are who you say you are and creating a record of what you’ve been doing. We also calculate what you say you’re transporting by gauging, for example, how long you’re in the jetty, and how long it’s taking you to load what you’re carrying compared with the average loading rate for the same cargo. We don’t necessarily trust you to tell us how much oil you’re carrying. There’s a lot of [subterfuge in shipping]. For example, ships only report their final destination 41 percent of the time, and 55 percent of ships misrepresent their port of call for most of their voyage.

    Aren’t there mandates against doing such things?

    The IMO is responsible for maritime data and there are mandates issued by the UN, which is the regulator. But there is no punishment for not complying. You can steal an identity. You can turn off your data transmissions. I personally approached the head of the IMO to give him an executive summary of our findings and to ask for the organization’s feedback and they never called us back.

    And you collect all this information how? Through satellites? Sensors? 

    It starts with public information, then we get commercially available information. Spire, for example, is a San Francisco-based company that tracks ship transmissions and weather and sells information to companies like us. Beyond our data partnerships, we go to port agents and logistics brokers and we say, “We’ll give you technology [in exchange for information].”

    Everyone has a small segment of the picture. There are no magic solutions, no one vendor, no one protocol. Everybody’s stories are different, so it’s very time- and resource-intensive work. But one of the moats we’re building is one of the biggest databases ever.

    But you have competitors. 

    We do have competitors, including IHS [a company that sells information and analytics about the maritime industry to customers]. But what we’re doing is better. Others take this older approach of information services, with analysts looking at databases and writing reports and then selling a giant report to everybody. We’re taking a data science approach, using Hadoop and Apache Spark to compute and slice and dice things automatically according to different queries.

    You have a dozen governments paying you to subscribe to this platform. Can you give us some idea of what they’re paying you?

    We’re happy that we’re being paid for the value that we’re providing, which is high, but I can’t be more specific except to say that we’re seen three times revenue growth year over year for the last three years and we’re making enough that we’ve barely touched the [$5 million Series A round we closed in 2013 from Aleph].

    Like another intelligence specialist, Palantir Technologies, Windward started with government customers but wants to begin targeting financial clients. Have you lined up any firms so far?

    We’re in beta testing. No one is paying yet. But we’re not cash strapped. We can afford to engage with customers as we develop the product. We want to make a billion dollar company out of this  That’s why I’m in New York, meeting with hedge funds and commodity traders. Legwork!

    Connie

    April 29, 2015
    Entrepreneurs, Firm Dynamics
    Windward

  • StrictlyVC: April 28, 2015

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

    —–

    Top News in the A.M.

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

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

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

    ——-

    New Fundings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    New Funds

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

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

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

    —–

    Exits

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

    Loqate, a five-year-old, San Bruno, Ca.-based company that provides location-based intelligence and data to other apps, has been acquired for $13.4 million by GBGroup, a U.K.-based identity intelligence firm. Silicon Valley Business Journal has more here.

    Skava, a 13-year-old, San Francisco-based e-commerce company focused on mobile and in-store platforms for big-box retailers, is being acquired by an affiliate of the Indian tech services giant Infosys for $120 million. The San Francisco Business Times has more here.

    —–

    People

    Facebook and Twitter are gearing up to battle the gender discrimination and harassment claims that have been brought against them recently. According to The Recorder, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe’s powerhouse partner Lynne Hermle, who represented Kleiner Perkins in its recent case, is defending Twitter. Meanwhile, Facebook has hired Morgan, Lewis & Bockius partner Melinda Riechert to defend itself against claims brought by a former employee.  More here.

    —–

    Jobs

    Google is hiring a corporate development associate. The job is in Mountain View, Ca.

    —–

    Data

    In the first quarter of of this year, 166 Israeli high-tech companies raised $994 million, according to a survey conducted by IVC and KPMG. The total marks the second-highest quarterly amount in the last decade; it also represents a 48 percent jump up from the $673 million raised by 160 companies in the corresponding quarter of 2014. Globes has the story here.

    Apple is crushing it in China (chart).

    —–

    Essential Reads

    When it comes to real-estate related tech firms (and many others), Europe is playing catch-up with the U.S., reports the WSJ.

    The astonishing, untold story of Silk Road.

    —–

    Detours

    Art by roller skate.

    The 25 business schools with the best social life.

    Good news? The chore gender gap (kind of) evens out after retirement.

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    A bike cruiser that can land you a speeding ticket. (Well, if you’re biking through a school zone anyway.)

    Connie

    April 28, 2015
    Morning Summary

  • StrictlyVC: April 27, 2015

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

    —–
    Top News in the A.M.

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

    —–

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    For more, click here.

    —–

    New Fundings

    C2P, a 12-year-old, Singapore-based e-payments processing company, has raised $7 million in Series C funding led by Amun Capital AG and GMO Venture Partners. The company has now raised just more tthan $10 million, it says. Tech In Asia has more here.

    Chariot, a year-old, San Francisco, CA-based startup that operates 14-passenger vans across San Francisco on five set routes that passengers can book for $3 to $5 using their smartphones, has raised $3 million in funding, including from SoftTech VC, Maven Ventures, and Haystack. The company was incubated at Y Combinator. Bloomberg hasmore here.

    CoverFox, a two-year-old, Mumbai, India-based online platform which lets users quickly compare and purchase insurance packages, has raised $12 million in Series B funding led by Accel Partners and SAIF Partners. Tech-Portal has more here.

    Diandao, a nine-month-old, Beijing, China-based on-demand massage app that allows users (in Beijing and Shanghai alone, currently) to order at-home massages, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Banyan Capital, with participation from 58Daojia, a local startup that specializes in other on-demand services for things like housekeeping and beauty treatments. Tech In Asia has more here.

    Fliplet, a six-year-old, TK-based enterprise app platform that claims to help customers create, manage and securely distribute apps without writing code or creating designs, has raised roughly £500,000 ($780,000) in seed funding from angel investors, including Ben Wynne-Simmons, a Techstars mentor and former associate director at 3i. TechCrunch hasmore here.

    Helijia, a year-old, Beijing, China-based startup that provides on-demand manicure, facial, and hair-styling services, has raised $49.5 million in Series C funding led by Qiming Venture Partners, according to a Wechat post spied by China Money Network. Other investors include Maison Capital, GX Capital, and earlier backers IDG Capital Partners and Broadband Capital.

    HomeSlice, a two-year-old, San Luis Obispo, Ca.-based startup company whose app helps roommates build their own private social networks to manage the splitting of bills, chores, grocery shopping and more, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from an undisclosed investor. More here.

    Immunio, a 1.5-year-old, Montreal, Canada-based web security startup that vows to make web applications immune to exploitation by malicious actors in  less than two minutes, has raised $2.7 million in seed funding from Hoxton Ventures, Real Ventures, and Bloomberg Beta.

    Jimubox, a 1.5-year-old, Beijing, China-based peer-to-peer lending startup, has raised $84 million in Series C funding led by Investec Bank, with participation from Haitong Kaiyuan Investment, Mandra Capital, Zhong Capital Fund, and earlier backers Matrix China Partners, Xiaomi, Shunwei Capital, Ventech China, and Magic Stone Alternative. The round comes just months after Jimubox closed on $37 million from Xiaomi and ShunWei, a venture fund headed by the phone maker’s founder, Lei Jun. Tech In Asia has more here.

    MediaPro, a 22-year-old, Bothell, Wa.-based company that makes corporate security, privacy, and compliance training software and develops custom courseware, has raised $5 million in funding from Clovis Point Capital. It appears to be the company’s first institutional round.

    Neuronetics, a 12-year-old, Malvern, Pa.-based medical device company that develops non-invasive therapies for psychiatric and neurological disorders using magnetic field pulses, has raised $34.3 million in Series F funding from GE Ventures and unnamed earlier backers. (Some of those include Three Arch Partners, InterWest Partners, ONSET Ventures, Pfizer Venture Investments, and Polaris Partners.) The company has now raised $94.3 million altogether, according to Crunchbase.

    Predixion Software, a six-year-old, Aliso Viejo, Ca.-based developer of cloud-based predictive analytics software, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series D funding led by Software AG, with participation from GE Ventures and other unnamed earlier backers. The company had previously raised at least $32.8 million, shows Crunchbase. Among its earlier backers are Toba Capital, Frost Data Capital, Accenture, DFJ Frontier, and Miramar Venture Partners.

    Property Online, the three-year-old, Chennai, India-based company that owns real estate classifieds portal IndiaProperty.com, is raising more than $50 million, reports Live Mint. In December 2013, the company  raised $12 million in Series B funding, led by Bertelsmann India Investments, Canaan Partners, and Mayfield India. Altogether, it has raised $19 million to date, says the outlet.

    Scanadu, a Mountain View, Ca.-based company that’s building a family of mobile medical devices, including a puck-shaped, sensor-filled scanner that reads vital signs, has raised $35 million in Series B funding led by Fosun International and Tencent Holdings, with participation from China Broadband Capital, Iglobe Partners, and earlier backers Relay Ventures, Redmile Group, Ame Cloud Ventures, and Three Leaf Ventures. Scanadu, which StrictlyVC first profiled in late 2013, has now raised $49.7 million altogether.

    UrbanClap, an eight-month-old, Delhi, India-based mobile services marketplace, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding from SAIF Partners, Accel Partners and the founders of Snapdeal: Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal. More here.

    Visual Supply Co., a four-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based company known for its VSCO Cam, a mobile app that lets users edit and share their images, has raised $30 million in Series B funding from Glynn Capital Management, with participation from earlier backers Accel Partners and Goldcrest Investments, reports Bloomberg. The company has now raised at least $70 million, including a $40 million Series A round announced in May of last year.

    Westwing, a four-year-old, Munich, Germany-based e-commerce company selling furniture and homeware products, has raised €30m ($32.5 million) in Series E funding led by earlier backer Investment AB Kinnevik, with participation from other previous investors, including Access Industries, Fidelity Worldwide Investment, Odey, Rocket Internet, Summit Partners and Tengelmann Ventures. The Berlusconi family also reportedly invested in the company for the first time. More here.

    Xiaomi, the five-year-old, Beijing, China-based maker of smartphones and other consumer electronics, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from famed Indian businessman Ratan Tata. The round comes just five months after the company raised $1.1 billion at a $45 billion valuation led by All-Stars Investment, a tech investment fund run by former Morgan Stanley analyst Richard Ji. TechCrunch has more here.

    ——
    New Funds

    Knightsbridge Advisers, a 32-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based fund-of-funds investment firm, has closed its eighth venture capital pool with$ 203 million, as well as created a $50 million separate account around an undisclosed investor.

    TPG Growth, the San Francisco, Ca.-based middle market and growth equity investment firm, has officially closed its latest fund at $3 billion. Dealbook has the latest here.

    Whitecap Venture Partners, a Toronto-based firm that began as the venture arm of a family office, has held a first close on its third fund, having received $70 million in commitments from its first outside LPs, including Kensington Venture Fund, Bank of Montreal, and several high net-worth families. Whitecap focuses on three verticals: information technology, med tech, and what it calls food tech.

    —–

    Exits

    JP Morgan Asset Management has acquired the India portfolio of Canaan Partners, according to Live Mint. JP Morgan, in an emailed statement to the outlet, declined to comment on the acquisition. (The Economic Times and other India-based outlets reported last month that JPMorgan was the “frontrunner” to buy the portfolio for more than $200 million, which would be the largest secondary portfolio sale in India’s private equity and venture capital market.)

    Defense contractor Raytheon is buying Websense, the cybersecurity firm, for $1.9 billion. Reuters has more here.

    Bigcommerce, a six-year-old, Austin, Tx.-based software maker that helps small businesses set up online stores, is close to announcing its first acquisition, according to Recode. It’s reportedly buying ZingCheckout, a 4.5-year-old startup that makes checkout software and inventory management tools for brick-and-mortar businesses. ZingCheckout raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding in 2012 from Capital Factory, shows Crunchbase.

    —–

    People

    Dan Fredinburg, a 33-year-old who headed privacy for Google X and product management for the overall privacy team, died Saturday morning of a head injury after a 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Nepal triggered an avalanche on Mount Everest. According to aRecode report, Fredinburg along with fellow Googlers Michele Battelli and Flo Nagl, were scaling the world’s tallest mountain together. Battelli and Nagl suffered non-life-threatening injuries.Peter Hamby, a top CNN political reporter, is leaving the network to join Snapchat as Head of News, reports Politico. More here.

    Lars Rasmussen — Facebook’s engineering director, who helped create and run the Facebook search engine Graph Search and later the burgeoning Facebook at Work initiative — is leaving the company in June to co-found a music startup with his fiancé. TechCrunch has much more here.

    In an interview with Bloomberg Television late last week, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg commented on the Ellen Pao trial for the first time, saying she wrote “a whole book” about experiences like Pao’s, and observing that “for women, success and likability are negatively correlated.” The treatment of women in the workforce is an issue,” she added. “We all have it. Much more here.

    Madame Tussauds, which has been looking to add a new wax figure of a tech innovator to its San Francisco location, has narrowed down the field to 10 finalists, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. They include SpaceX and Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, filmmaker George Lucas, Google CEO Larry Page, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Pixar Animation Studio president and co-founder Ed Catmull, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Exploratorium founder Frank Oppenheimer and Wired magazine co-founder Jane Metcalfe.

    —–

    NewSchools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy firm in Washington, D.C., is looking to hire both an associate partner and an analyst.

    —–

    Data

    European venture investment in the first quarter: The WSJ breaks down the numbers here.

    ——-

    Essential Reads

    Xiaomi expects revenue from mobile services—such as games and a payment app—that it sells to more than triple this year to nearly $1 billion, says founder and CEO Lei Jun.

    The popularity of mobile phones in India is driving Flipkart, the country’s biggest e-commerce company, to shut down its website within a year. More here.

    The latest fashion: Trending on Google.

    ——-

    Detours

    A dozen absurd things acquired by Nicholas Cage.

    Bruce Jenner and the modern American family.

    How to turn your Apple Watch gold.

    —–

    Retail Therapy

    A portable washing machine that doesn’t need energy.

    What $27 million buys you atop the Baccarat Hotel & Residences New York.

    Connie

    April 27, 2015
    Morning Summary

  • A Far-From-Comprehensive List of Women Who Venture Firms Should Be Pursuing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Marissa Mayer. Life doesn’t seem so rosy for Mayer as the CEO of Yahoo, though she undoubtedly knew what she was walking into when she accepted the job in July 2012. (After all, life hasn’t been too rosy for any of Yahoo’s many recent CEOs.) Whether Mayer would leave without being ousted remains a question, but one senses she’d probably be a good investor (maybe even better than CEO). Certainly, she’s been building on her investing skills, collecting a wide range of startup stakes that include the automated investment service Wealthfront and the wireless power startup UBeam.

    Mary Meeker. Kleiner Perkins spent a dozen years trying to recruit Merrill Lynch’s longtime star investment analyst. It finally succeeded in late 2010, and Meeker, who helps lead the firm’s digital growth funds, sounded happy enough to be there during the very public trial last month of former junior partner Ellen Pao, where Meeker testified that Kleiner is the “best place to be a woman in the business.” Still, all things considered, we wouldn’t be shocked if Meeker decided on a change of scenery given the right circumstances.

    Michelle Peluso. Peluso is the CEO of the discounted luxury e-tailer Gilt.com, as well as a board member. It’s hard to know how the company is doing. It planned to go public in the third quarter of last year, then the fourth quarter, and instead wound up raising $50 million earlier this year. (The company has raised $286 million since it was founded in 2007.) Still, Peluso, who assumed the role of CEO in February 2013 from cofounder Kevin Ryan, has been widely credited with helping to revive the company’s fortunes. She’s also held some other major-league roles – – including as a top honcho at Citibank for four years and as the longtime CEO of Travelocity – that would make her a very big catch for any venture firm, particularly one focused on later-stage investments.

    Deborah Quazzo. Quazzo is the founder and managing partner of GSV Advisors, a six-year-old, Chicago-based broker dealer that provides advisory services to the education and business services sectors, as well as invests in related startups. Quazzo, who also co-founded the investment bank ThinkEquity Partners, was recently taken to task by the Chicago Sun-Times, which criticized her role as a member of the Chicago school board. It noted that during Quazzo’s tenure (which is ongoing), the district has tripled its spending on education-technology companies she has invested in. In response, Quazzo, who said she didn’t appreciate becoming the outlet’s “punching bag,” has promised to donate any profit she sees from those investments.

    Sheryl Sandberg. We don’t need to explain why it would be the coup of all time for any firm to hire Facebook’s longtime COO except to say that, in addition to having such an impressive career (Google, Treasury Department), she seems — from this distance, anyway — imminently likable. We’d guess this is the person Andreessen Horowitz has pursued, by the way, though it’s just a hunch based on Marc Andreessen’s penchant for working with his close colleagues. (The firm didn’t respond to our request for more information about the female GP it has tried to hire. But as many readers will know, Andreessen joined the board of Facebook in 2008. Sandberg, who was invited onto Facebook’s board in 2012, joined the company in 2008.)

    Gwynne Shotwell. Shotwell is the longtime president of SpaceX, which she joined in 2002 as its VP of business development. With a master’s and undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and applied math from Northwestern University and the very apparent endorsement of Elon Musk, we figure if she can help him run his spaceship company, she can probably figure out venture capital, too. (She’d presumably add a lot in particular to firms like DFJ and Founders Fund and Lux Capital that more aggressively think “outside the box.”)

    Kara Swisher. This may be the most controversial of our picks, mostly because it’s very hard to imagine Swisher abandoning journalism. Still, we think Swisher would be a huge get for a top venture firm. A former Wall Street Journal columnist turned co-executive editor of the highly successful All Things Digital franchise, Swisher isn’t just great at landing scoops and synthesizing information but she’s an entrepreneur now, too, having given her old employer the finger in late 2013 and more recently forming the media property, Recode, with her longtime partner, Walt Mossberg. Swisher isn’t a technologist. But you can imagine the flow of opportunities that would find their way to her based on her extensive network.

    Tiffany To. To has spent the last three years as VP of product management and marketing at Coho Data, a company whose storage appliances help enterprises scale-out storage. Before that, she was a group product manager at VMWare. (She has also held product and marketing jobs at Intel and SGI.) To, who graduated from Stanford with a computer systems engineering degree, also has an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School. (Just remarking.)

    Trae Vassallo. Vassallo, a strategic partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, might be turned off from venture capital, given what sounds like an uneven experience at Kleiner. To wit, she led the company’s investment in Dropcam and reportedly played an instrumental role in its investment in Nest Labs but was eventually cut in a broad downsizing. (She also testified recently that she once had to fend off a former colleague who showed up in her hotel doorframe in his bathrobe.) A firm would be smart to try changing her mind, if so.

    Emily White. White’s career has taken off over the last eight years, beginning with a job at Google as a director of its Asia Pacific Latin America online sales and operations. In 2010, she jumped to Facebook, ultimately becoming the director of mobile partnerships at its subsidiary, Instagram. White’s name was in the news more recently because of another role – as COO of Snapchat, a job she left in March after just 15 months. We don’t know if she’s interested in venture capital right now. According to Recode, White has “long wanted to become CEO of a company herself.” Given how highly she’s regarded by entrepreneurs, though, we’d certainly give her a call if we were running a top venture firm.

    Susan Wojcicki. Wojcicki probably has more money than most venture firms, even the big ones. She’d also be very hard to pry from Google, where she spent nearly 14 years as its SVP of Adwords and Adsense and where she has spent the last year-plus running its enormous YouTube subsidiary. Still, who would have thought LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman would join Greylock Partners? Sometimes, you just never know.

    Julie Zhou. She headed to Facebook nine years ago after getting her undergraduate and master’s degrees in computer science at Stanford and has been managing design and research teams across numerous products ever since. Zhou has also demonstrated a knack for sharing what she has learned about design and management issues. (See here.) We’re guessing she’d bring plenty to the table.

    Photo (above) of Emily White, via Instagram.

    Connie

    April 27, 2015
    Entrepreneurs, Firm Dynamics
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