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

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

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

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Top News in the A.M.

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

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

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Need a Breather? This VC is Hoping So

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How many rooms does it currently offer users?

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

How many people are these rooms supposed to accommodate?

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

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

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

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

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

Will the spaces always run on the smaller side?

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

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New Fundings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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New Funds

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

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IPOs

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

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

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

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Exits

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

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

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

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People

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

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

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

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

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Detours

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

How to set up your Apple Watch in 16 steps.

Retail Therapy

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

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

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

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Top News in the A.M.

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

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

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New Fundings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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New Funds

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

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Exits

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

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

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

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People

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

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

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

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

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Essential Reads

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

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

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

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

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Detours

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

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

Can your relationship handle a trip to IKEA?

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Retail Therapy

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

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

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

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

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Top News in the A.M.

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

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

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New Fundings

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

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Top News in the A.M.

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

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New Fundings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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New Funds

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

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

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

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IPOs

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

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

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Exits

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

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

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People

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

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

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

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

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Essential Reads

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

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Detours

Why CEO pay reform failed.

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

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

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Retail Therapy

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

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

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

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Top News in the A.M.

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

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

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Heads Up: Navdy Raises $20 Million Series A Round

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And where will they sell?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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New Fundings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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IPOs

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

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

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

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Exits

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

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People

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

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

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

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

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

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Happenings

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

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Essential Reads

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

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

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Detours

The man who makes the funniest people even funnier.

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

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

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Retail Therapy

Sporty “smart” glasses you might actually want.