Hi, happy Monday, everyone!  Quicklike: we have more great news on the event front. As many of you know, we are hosting drinks in San Francisco with investor Semil Shah next month, thanks to the very generous support of Lightspeed Venture Partners. Now, we can also announce the date of our next StrictlyVC event, which is happening (also in San Francisco) at the stylish South Park offices of Norwest Venture Partners, which very nicely offered to host all of us after our last event in February. Date is September 25th, a Tuesday night.  You can nab a seat here if you know you’ll be in town. If you’re interested in partnering with us as a sponsor, we’re happy to tell you more.

Top News

In a victory for the state of New Jersey and a setback for professional sports leagues, the Supreme Court today struck down a law that bars states from allowing wagers on games.

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Walmart’s Deal to Buy Flipkart Featured an Interesting Caveat

Retail giant Walmart, which earlier this week announced that it’s paying $16 billion for a 77 percent stake in the Indian e-commerce company, Flipkart Group, could have to take Flipkart public within four years, shows a public filing that was reported on earlier by Reuters.  Specifically, the filing states that, “acting together,” holders of 60 percent of the Flipkart shares held by the company’s minority shareholders, may require Flipkart to stage an IPO following the fourth anniversary of the deal’s official close — and at a valuation that’s “no less” than that paid by Walmart under its current agreement, which is $20.8 billion.  The caveat is a highly unusual one as far as we can tell — an apparent insurance policy for earlier investors who were concerned about giving away too much upside by selling so many of their shares now to Walmart.  Some of the company’s minority shareholders following Flipkart’s tie-up with Walmart include Tencent Holdings, Tiger Global Management, Microsoft, and company cofounder Binny Bansal, who, according to the Economic Times, sold $104 million in shares but held on to a 4.2 percent stake. (Bansal is staying on with the company as a group CEO while his cofounder, Sachin Bansal, is leaving with at least$1 billion, according to regional outlets. Some are more newly suggesting he didn’t have much choice in the matter.)  Another of Walmart’s minority shareholders, very notably, is SoftBank, whose CEO, Masayoshi Son, preempted Walmart itself by announcing the deal to reporters and analysts last Monday while discussing SoftBank’s quarterly results.  At the time, Son suggested that SoftBank, which invested through its Vision Fund, would see a sizable return on its initial investment of $2.5 billion. (Told while still discussing SoftBank’s earnings that no announcement had been made by Walmart, he uttered the equivalent of: “Oops. I already said it.”)  Now the Economic Times is reporting that SoftBank might not be selling those shares.  More here.

New Fundings

Acousia Therapeutics, an 18-month-old. Tübingen, Germany-based drug startup focused on inner ear-related diseases and pathologies, has raised €10 million in Series B funding led by LBBW Venture Capital, with participation from Creathor Ventures, Bregua Corp. and return backers BIVF and KfW. More here. Beam Therapeutics, a year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based developer of precision genetic medicines, has launched with $87 million in Series A funding co-led by F-Prime Capital Partners and ARCH Venture Partners. The company was cofounded by CRISPR trailblazers Feng Zhang and David Liu. FierceBiotech has more here.  Carousell, a nearly six-year-old, Singapore-based company behind a mobile classifieds app, has raised $85 million in Series C funding co-led by earlier backers Rakuten Ventures and EDBI. TechCrunch has more here.  Carro, a three-year-old, Singapore-based automotive classifieds service and car financing startup, has raised $60 million in Series B funding to scale its business in Southeast Asia. The deal was co-led by SoftBank Ventures Korea, Insignia Ventures, and B Capital Group. Other participants include IDG Ventures India founder Manik Arora and earlier investors Venturra, Singtel Innov8, Golden Gate Ventures and Alpha JWC. TechCrunch has more here.  Cellulant, a 14-year-old, Kenya, Nairobi-based digital payments company that operates in 11 African markets, just raised $47.5 million in new funding led by TPG’s The Rise Fund, with participation from Endeavour Catalyst and Satya Capital. Reuters has more here.  Rubicon Global, a 10-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based technology platform for waste and recycling, has raised $65 million in fresh funding from NZ Super Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of New Zealand. Recode has more here.  Qventus, a six-year-old, Los Altos, Ca.-based real-time decision-making platform for hospital operations, has raised $30 million in Series B funding, including from Bessemer Venture Partners, New York Presbyterian Ventures, Mayfield Fund and Norwest Venture Partners. More here.  SeqOnce Biosciences, a four-year-old, Pasadena, Ca.-based company that describes itself as a next-gen sequencing sample preparation startup has raised $1 million in seed funding led by Mount Wilson Ventures. More here.  TruValue Labs, a 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based data analytics company, has raised $13.6 million in Series A funding led by Katalyst Ventures, with participation from Hearst Financial Venture Fund, The Entrepreneurs’ Fund, and Sun Hung Kai Strategic Capital Limited. More here.  VidMob, a three-year-old, New York-based online platform that connects marketers with a global network of video editors, animators, and motion graphics designers, has raised an additional $6.4 million extension to a previously announced $7.5 million Series A round. Investors include Manifest Growth, Interlock Partners, Acadia Woods, Macanta Investments, and You & Mr Jones. More here.

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New Funds

Silverton Partners, a 12-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based venture firm, has closed its fifth fund with $108 million in commitments. Apparently, the firm is having a pretty amazing year; it says it has realized “five exits representing an aggregate of more than $1.1 billion in market capitalization” since the beginning of 2018 alone. More here.  Trail Post Ventures, a new venture capital firm focused on consumer brands, has been cofounded by Nick Mendel, a former banker with Piper Jaffray, and Will Schmitt, formerly a principal with Beechwood Capital, a Boston-based investment group that invests in low-middle market growth and venture-stage companies. Mendel is based in San Francisco; Schmitt is based in Chicago. Axios first noted the firm’s existence; it isn’t clear how much the firm has to invest. (No SEC forms yet.) More here.

IPOs

GreenSky, a 12-year-old, fintech firm that facilitates loans for businesses and other customers, expects its shares to price between $21 and $23 in its initial public offering. Based on the midpoint of that range, the Atlanta company expects to raise about $701.4 million, it said today in a securities filing. GreenSky is offering about 34.1 million shares, or 39.2 million if underwriters fully exercise options. The WSJ has more here.

Exits

Farewell, Favstar.

People

Yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook delivered the commencement address at his alma mater, Duke University, and he didn’t resist the opportunity to take a shot at Facebook, even while he didn’t name the company.  About a dozen Google employees are resigning in protest over the company’s continued involvement in a controversial military pilot program.

Lawsuit

A little more than three years ago, Apple announced a new MacBook with a “butterfly” keyboard that was 40 percent thinner and ostensibly four times more stable than the previous “scissor” mechanism that MacBooks employed. The promise was to more evenly distribute pressure on each key. Not everyone loved this “reinvention,” however, and now, Apple is facing a class action lawsuit over it.

Jobs

Visa is looking for a director of corporate development in San Francisco.  Intuit is also looking for a director of corporate development. This one is in Mountain View, Ca.

Essential Reads

Tencent‘s bitterly expensive rivalry with Alibaba could be hampering the company’s health. Specifically, notes Bloomberg, it has shed $78 billion in value since January, and it’s facing its worst margins ever.  Crypto company Ripple is going after startups to build an ecosystem around the XRP cryptocurrency. TechCrunch has much more here.  Google just rolled out a new, cheaper tier of storage for consumers and their family members.  Long before the fatal crash of a Tesla car in March, some developers of the vehicle’s Autopilot system expressed concern there aren’t enough safeguards to ensure drivers remain attentive.  Let’s see how long it takes Tinder to roll back this fresh and also terrible idea.

Detours

United passengers will put up with a lot, but this is one step too far.  Ryan Reynolds went on a South Korean singing show disguised as a unicorn.  One very deep lotus.

Retail Therapy

A classic returns. Again.

Friday! We’re at UC Berkeley at the moment, where we just talked  robotics investing with Renata Quintini of Lux Capital, Rob Coneybeer of Shasta Ventures and Chris Evdemon of Sinovation Ventures. We’re super short on time but more Monday.:)

Top News

Snapchat has starting rolling out its redesigned redesign.

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New Fundings

Forever Labs, a three-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based startup that extracts and stores stem cells, just raised $2 million in funding from Northwestern Mutual, Silicon Badia Ventures, Babel Ventures, and Aaron Hirschhorn, founder and CEO of DogVacay. Fast Company has more here.  Luminary Media, a new, New York- and Chicago-based podcasting company, has raised $40 million in funding led by New Enterprise Associates and unnamed other investors. The WSJ has more here.   NewTV, a months-old, L.A.-based company that was co-created by Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and plans to produce short-form, high-end content for mobile devices, has reportedly raised roughly $800 million from numerous media giants, including 21st Century Fox and Warner Bros. Bloomberg has the story here.

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New Funds

CRV, the now 48-year-old venture firm formerly known as Charles River Ventures, has closed its  17th fund with $600 million in commitments, capital it intends to use to fund enterprise, consumer and bioengineering startups. More here.

IPOs

Avalara, a 14-year-old, Seattle-based cloud-based maker of sales tax and compliance software, filed today with the SEC to raise up to $150 million in an IPO. GeekWire has more here.  Dropbox‘s reported its first quarter’s performance as a public company and it was . . . fine. The company beat analysts’ expectations. The stock dipped a tiny bit. We talked about this and more yesterday if you’re looking for a podcast about the week’s biggest tech news.  Shares of Huya, a China-based company that’s reminiscent of Twitch here in the U.S., saw its shares jump 34 percent today, its first day of trading. Investors Business Daily has more here.

People

Scout Ventures, a New York City based early-stage venture capital firm, has added a new partner, Wes Blackwell. TechCrunch has more here.  Robinhood’s founders, Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, are now “worth” $1 billion a piece on paper (though their families would say they are priceless, of course).

Essential Reads

Facebook is reportedly planning to launch its own cryptocurrency.  Sounds like the electric scooter company Bird just pulled a fast one on its competitors.  A look at who pays the most, and the least, in Silicon Valley.

Detours

Woman discovers her dog is a fox.  Man allegedly uses a change of address form to move a UPS headquarters to his apartment.   They’re coming to get us.  Nope.

Retail Therapy

Shoebox safe.

Thursday! We’re about to race over to TechCrunch HQ for its podcast “Equity.” On today’s show: Villi Iltchev of August Capital, who we’re looking forward to meeting for the first time.  Also, tomorrow, StrictlyVC could be either short or late or possibly both, as we’re heading to UC Berkeley to help out with TechCrunch’s annual robotics event. (Believe you can still buy tickets for this, by the way.) More soon.

Top News

Democrats from the House Intelligence Committee have released thousands of ads that were run on Facebook by the Russia-based Internet Research Agency. More here.  Dropbox‘s investors will dissect its latest efforts to convert free users into paying subscribers today, when the file-sharing service reports quarterly results today for the first time as a public company.  Google has fixed its burger emoji. (Important.)

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Tiger Global is Killing It Right Now

It took some time, but Tiger Global Management is starting to wring some serious paydays out of its tech investments.  In one of its biggest wins to date, the secretive, 16-year-old, New York-based hedge fund is reportedly set to make roughly $3 billion off Flipkart, the India-based e-commerce juggernaut that’s selling a majority stake in its business to Walmart for a whopping $16 billion. Part of that stake includes three-quarters of the roughly 20 percent of Flipkart that Tiger had come to own since writing its first ($9 million) check to the company back in 2009.  In a lesser but apparent win, Tiger should also see a return on its investment in Glassdoor,  the jobs and salary website that announced Monday that it’s being acquired by the Japanese human resources company Recruit Holdings for $1.2 billion in cash.  Tiger had led the company’s $50 million Series E back in late 2013 when Glassdoor was still very much expected to go public. Earlier venture backers like Sutter Hill Ventures and Benchmark will see bigger returns, as they bought in at the A round when Glassdoor’s valuation was just beginning to ramp up. Still, it’s probably safe to assume that Tiger made a little something, too. One clue is that in 2016, during its Series H round, Glassdoor was assigned a post-money valuation of $1 billion, presumably more than the company was worth when Tiger bought in more than two years earlier.  It’s a lot of good news, and that’s saying nothing of Spotify’s  direct listing on the stock market last month, another deal that involves Tiger Global. In fact, Tiger had become one of the streaming company’s biggest shareholders in recent years, and like Flipkart and Glassdoor, that position is also poised to pay off. Consider that Tiger owned 7.2 percent of Spotify as of its first day of trading in April, and the value of that stake was $1.9 billion. It may still be. Spotify’s shares are trading roughly where they started, and if Tiger has sold any of its stake, it hasn’t revealed as much. (Some of Spotify’s major record label shareholders have sold theirs and reported as much on their earnings calls.)  Either way, you can bet these wins will go a long way with investors, who are probably in the process of committing to Tiger Global’s newest mega fund as we type.  More here.

New Fundings

ClickFox, an 18-year-old, Denver-based data analytics company focused around customer interactions, has raised more than $38 million in growth equity funding led by Arrowroot Capital. More here.  Escient, new, San Diego, Ca.-based company that hopes to develop a pipeline of drugs around a novel family of G-protein coupled receptors, has raised $40 million Series A Series A funding from The Column Group, 5AM Ventures, and Osage University Partners. Endpoints News has more here.  LyGenesis, a year-old, Pittsburgh Pa.-based biotech company focused around organ regeneration, has raised $3 million in Series A funding from Juvenescence. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette has more here.  The Mom Project, a three-year-old, Chicago-based careers marketplace for professional women seeking part time roles, has raised $2.6 million in seed funding led by Atlanta Seed Company, with participation from OCA Ventures, BBG Ventures, IrishAngels, Wintrust Ventures and Engage VC. More here.  NomNomNow, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of fresh meals for dogs, has raised $13 million in funding with participation from Bullish, CircleUp, e.ventures, Tandem Capital and Greycroft among others. The funding includes a $10 million Series A round, and a previously unannounced $3 million seed round. More here.  OpenSea, a year-old, San Francisco-based marketplace for crypto assets, has raised $2 million in seed funding. Blockchain Capital and 1confirmation co-led, and were joined by Founders Fund, Foundation Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Chernin Group, Stable Fund and Blockstack. More here. Perch, a nine-month-old, New York-based online marketplace for buying and selling homes, has raised $30 million in Series A funding led by FirstMark Capital, with participation from Juxtapose and Accomplice. More here.  Robinhood, the five-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based no-fee investment app, has raised $363 million in Series D funding at a $5.6 billion post-money valuation. DST Group led the round, and was joined by Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, CapitalG and earlier investors, including New Enterprise Associates and Thrive Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Entrée Capital, a nine-year-old venture outfit, has closed its second early stage fund with $80 million in capital commitments. The idea is to support Israeli founders no matter where they’re located. Among its LPS is the fund of funds Cendana Capital. The company was founded by Aviad Eyal and Martin Moshal. Globes has more here.  Fifth Wall Ventures, a real estate-focused venture capital firm, is raising a new, $200 million fund, shows an SEC filing. We’d written about the firm’s debut fund last May. This new vehicle looks like it has a special purpose, if it’s not basically a giant SPV; it’s called the Fifth Wall Ventures Retail Fund. More here.

IPOs

The Palo Alto, Ca.-based online survey company SurveyMonkey has hired investment bank JPMorgan Chase to help lead preparations for an IPO that could come later this year, according to Reuters. More here.

Exits

Klout, the company everyone loved to hate, is officially kaput.

People

Founder-investor Naval Ravikant says a single test — one that enabled him to attend Stuyvesant High School in New York — forever changed the trajectory of his life. The New York Post has more here.

Essential Reads

Apple and Goldman Sachs are preparing to launch a new joint credit card, a move that would deepen the technology giant’s push into its customers’ wallets and mark the Wall Street firm’s first foray into plastic. Its record in consumer finance is scarcely two years old, notes the WSJ.  Carnegie Mellon just launched an undergraduate degree in artificial intelligence.

Detours

A day in the life of British model David Gandy.  Big wave surfing for crazy people.  Okay, fine! We read this entire story about the Katy Perry/Taylor Swift saga and how it has come to an end for now. In our defense, we did not click on any of the videos.

Retail Therapy

Rolls-Royce today unveiled Cullinan, its first “high bodied” vehicle— known better to the hoi polloi as an SUV.

Geez, that was fast. Late in the day yesterday, we announced a drinks event for next month, and tickets are already gone. We’ll have to do a much bigger drinks thing next summer(!). In the meantime, we’ll see if there’s any way we can open this up to a few more readers in coming weeks. (We have a fixed cap, per the restaurant, but the flake factor is always higher in summer, so we’ll keep you posted, especially those of you who’ve already written us about this.)  We’ll also be announcing the date of our fall event soon, so stay tuned. Giant thanks again to Lightspeed Venture Partners for supporting us as our partner in this gathering and to investor and friend-willing-to-play-guest-editor-on-occasion Semil Shah for co-hosting it with us. We’re excited to see everyone who signed up.:)

Top News

Retailing behemoth Walmart has finally confirmed that it is making a $16 billion investment into India’s biggest online retailer, Flipkart, for a 77 percent share of its business. Tencent, Tiger Global, Microsoft, Accel and Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal will continue to be investors in the company. The deal, expected to close later this year,  will value Flipkart, which has 54 million active customers, at $20.8 billion. TechCrunch has more here.  The White House tomorrow plans to convene executives from Amazon, Facebook,Google, Intel and 34 other major U.S. companies to discuss the development of artificial intelligence.The administration intends to ask academics, government officials and AI developers about ways to adapt regulations to advance AI in such fields as agriculture, health care and transportation, according to a draft schedule of the event reviewed by the Washington Post. More here.

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This Modcloth Cofounder Just Launched an Invite-Only Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency is cool, but you know what’d be even cooler? If people used it to buy things.  That they don’t, because it’s either not secure or simply too hard to use, is a problem that a growing number of founders is trying to tackle. Among them is Merit, a new digital currency and wallet startup that aims to be as simple to use as traditional payment apps like PayPal and Venmo and that officially launches today.  The idea is to make it easy enough for to use to split a bill or shop for clothing online — even for the crypto illiterate — by building a layer atop the blockchain that requires a lot less processing power by the humans who use it.  Naturally, Merit is facing a daunting uphill battle in a world suddenly chock-full of cryptocurrencies competing for mindshare. But that isn’t dissuading its founder and CEO, Adil Wali, who previously cofounded and served as the CTO of indie womenswear brand ModCloth. (To the chagrin of some of its customers, ModCloth  sold to Walmart last year after several rounds of layoffs.) Wali has since started two more companies, and he’s clearly not afraid to see where an idea takes him.  This particular idea, which Wali and nine other full time employees are working on from Seattle, involves a few interesting facets that could potentially help the currency gain traction. First and foremost, Merit says it’s removing barriers to entry to blockchain investments and payments by making the Merit cryptocurrency as easy to send as a tweet. Users can also send the Merit cyptocurrency via different communication channels, whether SMS, WhatsApp, or email. (Wali insists this is possible today, not at some theoretical date in time.) More here.

New Fundings

AI.Reverie, a year-old, New York-based startup that offers a suite of synthetic data and vision APIs to help different types of businesses train their machine learning algorithms, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding. Investors include Vulcan Capital, Compound and Locke Mountain Ventures. More here.  Akili Interactive Labs, a seven-year-old, Boston-based cognitive therapeutics startup that develops prescription digital treatments that are delivered through video game experiences, has just raised $55 million Series C funding. Temasek led the round, with participation from Baillie Gifford, Amgen Ventures, M Ventures,JAZZ Venture Partners, Canepa Advanced Healthcare Fund, and Brooklands Capital Strategies. Mobihealth News has more here. Ample Foods, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company that makes ostensibly nutritious “meal in a bottle” products, has raised $2 million in new funding led by Slow Ventures. The Spoon has more here.  At-Bay, a two-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based cyber insurance company, has raised $13 million in Series A funding. Investors include Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Check Point cofounder Shlomo Kramer. More here.  Axiom Energy, a 4.5-year-old, Berkeley, Ca.-based thermal storage startup, has raised $7.6 million in Series A funding co-led by GXP Investments and Shell Ventures co-led, with participation from WorldQuant Ventures, SV Tech Ventures and Meson Capital. Greentech Media has more here.  CStone Pharmaceuticals, a two-year-old, Shanghai, China-based maker of immune-oncology drugs, has raised $260 million in Series B funding led by GIC, with participation from Sequoia China, Yunfeng Capital, 6 Dimensions Capital, Hillhouse Capital, and more than half a dozen other investors. China Money Network has more here.  Drishti, an eight-month-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that describes its technology as a commercial application of so-called action recognition to digitize human activities on the assembly line, has raised $10 million in Series A funding.Emergence Capital led the round; other participants in the funding include Andreessen Horowitz and Benhamou Global Ventures. More here. Fuse Universal, a 10-year-old, London-based corporate learning management platform, has raised $20 million from Eight Roads Ventures. Reuters has more here.  Gamalon, a five-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based AI company that’s focused on understanding customer communications, just raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Intel Capital. Other participants in the round include .406 Ventures, Omidyar Technology Ventures and earlier investors Boston Seed Capital, Felicis Ventures and Rivas Capital. TechCrunch has more here.  KeyedIn, a seven-year-old, Minneapolis-based provider of cloud-based enterprise resource planning and project management software, has raised $15 million in Series C funding led by Arrowroot Capital. More here. Life House, a year-old, New York-based hospitality management company, has raised $10 million in new funding from Global Founders Capital and Trinity Ventures. It separately raised $30 million in private equity and debt funding led by Henley, a private equity real estate investor. Skift has the skinny here.  Murj, a three-year-old, Santa Cruz, Ca.-based digital health company that helps clinicians streamline care for patients with implantable cardiac devices, has raised $8.5 million in new funding led by Longitude Capital, with participation from True Ventures. More here.  Rootility, a 12-year-old, Ashkelon, Israel-based developer of root-focused plant breeding methods, has raised $10 million in Series C funding co-led by an ADM Capital affiliate, Middleland Capital and GreenSoil Investments. Calcalist has more here. SHOP, a year-old, Seattle-based startup that’s trying to create a retail operating system for apps and storefronts built on top of Ethereum’s blockchain, has raised $2 million in funding from Reflective Venture Partners. More here.  Tailor Brands, a four-year-old, Tel Aviv- and New York-based company that uses artificial intelligence to create new company brands, has raised $15.5 million in Series B funding led by Pitango Venture Capital and the U.K.’s Armat Group. Other participants in the round include Mangrove Capital Partners and Disruptive Technologies. VentureBeat has more here.  Targetprocess, a 14-year-old, Minsk, Belarus-based company that makes it simpler to manage agile-driven programming projects, has raised its first major round of outside funding — a $5 million Series A round led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Zubr Capital, which is a private equity firm in Minsk. TechCrunch has more here.  ThoughtSpot, a six-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based AI-driven data analytics company, has raised $145 million in Series D funding from Sapphire Ventures, as well as earlier backers Lightspeed Venture Partners, Future Fund, Khosla Ventures, and General Catalyst. The WSJ has more here.  Trussle, a two-year-old,  U.K.-based online mortgage broker, has raised £13.6 million ($18.4 million) in Series B funding led by Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments and Propel Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backers Finch Capital and Seedcamp. TechCrunch has more here.  WeDoctor, an eight-year-old, Shanghai, China-based mobile medical scheduling and information company, has raised $500 million in fresh funding at a whopping $5.5 billion valuation co-led by AIA Company, which is part of Hong Kong-listed insurer AIA Group, and infrastructure and services group NWS Holdings. Reuters has more here.  XNOR, a two-year-old, Seattle-based artificial intelligence startup, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Madrona Venture Group. Other participants include NGP Capital, Autotech Ventures and Catapult Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Roughly five years after the launch of its first fund in 2013, the New York-based seed-stage venture firm, Female Founders Fund (F3), has closed on $27 million for its latest seed fund — backed by some of the startup world’s top women entrepreneurs and investors. TechCrunch has more here.

IPOs

Evelo Biosciences now has $85 million to spend on its pipeline of drugs that target the human microbiome. The Cambridge, Ma.-based biotech priced its IPO of 5.3 million shares at $16, right at the midpoint of the $15 to $17 range that it had previously set. Evelo’s shares began trading on Nasdaq this morning, where they’re trading flat as of this writing. Xconomy has more here.

Exits

The 11-year-old, Mill Valley, Ca.-based jobs site Glassdoor,  which is best known for providing insight into company working cultures, has been acquired for $1.2 billion in cash by Recruit, a $39 billion Japanese corporate that specializes in HR and recruitment services. The all-cash acquisition will see Glassdoor continue to maintain its brand, CEO Robert Hohman explained in a blog post. Glassdoor had raised more than $200 million from investors, including Benchmark and Battery Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.  The augmented reality startup Blippar is abandoning Silicon Valley after losing two key execs and a board member. Business Insider has more here.

People

Chris Cox is becoming Facebook’s most important executive not named Mark Zuckerberg. Here’s a helpful look at its re-organization.  Super entrepreneur Elon Musk says he’s now getting into the brick-making business, with an eye toward improving low-income housing. He is also reportedly dating musician Grimes. We know, we know, you don’t care (liars).  And for his next act, Twitter and Medium cofounder Ev Williams will fix the internet.

Essential Reads

Essential Reads Apple is cracking down on applications that send location data to third-parties.

Detours

The best collections from the Pratt Institute’s 2018 graduate fashion show.

Retail Therapy

Now this is how you convert a barn.

Hi, happy Tuesday, all!   We know this is arriving a bit late (okay, insanely late). Before you start zooming through the newsletter: we recently mentioned that we have a couple of things coming up. We’re excited to announce the first, and that’s summer drinks with StrictlyVC, which we’re co-hosting with our longtime friend Semil Shah at the beautiful restaurant/ bar Trou Normand in San Francisco, on June 20th, a Wednesday night. We’ll be there from 4 pm. to 7 p.m. and we’d love to see your mugs.:)  Lightspeed Venture Partners has very generously offered to host all of us. (Thank you, Lightspeed!) We’re also asking those of you who come to chip in $35 that we’ll donate to the nonprofit organization Girls Who Code because we all of us appreciate its mission of getting more women into computer science.  We can’t be super flexible with our head count, so if you can come — and we hope you will! — register soon.

Top News

Facebook just named new leaders, including in its core social network, WhatsApp, and Messenger divisions, in the biggest management reshuffling since the company’s founding.  One of those execs, Messenger’s longtime head David Marcus, will now lead a small group of Facebook employees to explore what blockchain technologies can do for the social media giant.  Google‘s annual developer conference, Google I/O, kicked off today in Mountain View, Ca., and a whole lot was announced, including better recommendations by Google Maps, the renaming of its research division, and new features that are coming to Google Assistant. If you’re still curious, here’s everything else that happened.

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$10 Million Later, Elon Musk’s Ownership Stake in Tesla is Reportedly Approaching 20 Percent

Last Thursday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk  managed to freak out investors by acting dismissively toward analysts during an earnings call, calling a question about the company’s capital requirements “boring” and “bone-headed” and “not cool,” a strange performance that seemed tied to a slide in the shares’ performance afterward.  More bravura was on display the following day, with Musk warning the growing number of short sellers who are betting against the automaker. Specifically, he tweeted that a “short burn of the century” is “coming soon.” He also retweeted a Barron’s article that highlighted that there’s now more demand for short positions than supply. (Barron’s compared the conundrum to the same one facing Tesla’s customers.)   Perhaps to make certain that Tesla bears feel some pain, Musk himself shelled out roughly $10 million to acquire more Tesla stock yesterday, a purchase that pushes his stake in the company to nearly 20 percent, according to Bloomberg’s analysis.  Whether or not directly correlated, Tesla’s shares rose 3 percent yesterday, boosting Tesla’s market cap to $51.4 billion. It has slipped again slightly, as of this writing, to $49.7 billion.  Tesla’s shares seem to recover almost no matter what Musk does or says, but it’s worth asking why Musk still talks with analysts at all. More here.

New Fundings

BorderX Lab, a four-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based cross-border e-commerce company that connects global brands with Chinese customers, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Hillhouse Capital Group, CBC, Welight Capital and iFly Venture Capital. More here.  HousingAnywhere.com, a nine-year-old, Rotterdam, Netherlands-based accommodation marketplace for international students, has raised $7.1 million in Series B funding led by Vostok New Ventures, with participation from earlier investors Real Web and henQ. More here.  Miovision, a 12-year-old, Kitchener, Ontario-based maker of smart traffic intersection technology, has raised $15 million from MacKinnon, Bennett & Co.,McRock Capital, BDC Capital and HarbourVest Partners. The Globe and Mail has more here.  mPulse Mobile, a four-year-old, Encino, Ca.-based mobile health engagement platform, has raised $11 million in Series B funding led by SJF Ventures, with participation from HLM Venture Partners, EchoHealth Ventures, OCA Ventures and Bonfire Ventures. MobiHealth News has more here.   Owlet Baby Care, a five-year-old, Lehi, Ut.-based maker of health tracking devices for babies, has raised $24 million in Series B funding led by Trilogy Equity Partners, with participation from Eclipse Ventures, Broadway Angels, Enfield Ventures, and Pelion Venture Partners. Silicon Slopes has more here.  Peltarion, a 12-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based deep learning AI startup, has raised raised $13 million from FAM — a holding company owned by Sweden’s most powerful industrial family — and EQT Ventures. Bloomberg has more here.  SafeBreach, a four-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based startup whose platform simulates hacker breach methods, has raised $15 million in fresh funding led by Draper Nexus, with participation from PayPal and earlier backers Sequoia Capital, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners and HPE Pathfinder. More here.  Solv, a 2.5-year-old, Bay Area-based startup that wants its app to become the go-to way for people to book same-day health appointments and pay their medical bills, has raised $16.8 million in fresh funding led by Greylock Partners, with participation from Aspect Ventures. Forbes has more here.  VenueNext, a four-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based venue management startup, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Intel Capital. Roughly a dozen other companies recently raised money from Intel, too, it announced today. Here’s the full rundown.  Yobe, a four-year-old, Boston-based AI-powered signal processing startup, has raised $1.8 million in seed funding from Clique Capital Partners. More here.

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New Funds

The French space agency CNES is creating an investment fund of 80 to 100 million euros ($95 to $119 million) to spur innovation in the space sector. CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall announced the fund during an interview with French publication Les Echos that was posted yesterday, though few details were released about the fund. Space News has more here.

IPOs

iZettle, the Sweden-based “Square of Europe,” says it’s going public this year and listing on Nasdaq’s Stockholm exchange. The company plans to raise 2 billion Swedish kronor ($227 million at current rates), giving it an estimated valuation of about SEK10 billion ($1.1 billion). TechCrunch has more here.  Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker that’s gearing up for an IPO, just cut its IPO valuation target from $100 billion to between $70 billion and $80 billion, says the WSJ. More here.

Exits

Alibaba has expanded its e-commerce empire into South Asia, acquiring the five-year-old, online retail unit of Rocket Internet, Daraz, for undisclosed terms. The deal is the second time Alibaba has bought a Rocket company, the first being Lazada in Southeast Asia two years ago. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Eric Friedman, formerly the head of Expa Labs in New York, has joined BlockTower Capital, a cryptocurrency hedge fund, according to Axios. He’s now a partner with the year-old outfit. More here.  Early bitcoin investor Tyler Winklevoss tweeted at Bill Gates yesterday to explain how to bet against the cryptocurrency, after the Microsoft co-founder said he would short it if he could.  Sally Yates has launched an investigations practice at the Atlanta, Ga.-based  law firm King & Spalding, where she started her legal career almost 30 years ago. The former DOJ official and hero to Trump critics said she’s ready to return to practicing law. “I know other people sort of have political ambitions for me—but for me, I’m a lawyer,” Yates tells the National Law Journal. More here.

Essential Reads

Inside the ecosystem that fuels Amazon‘s fake review problem.  Speaking of Amazon, employees are upset over its reported opposition to adding more diversity to its board.  Apple may be assembling its own editorial machine.

Detours

The best, worst, and most sacrilegious looks at this year’s Met Gala.  Navigating the complicated world of credit card points.  These aren’t your regular-season Cavs.

Retail Therapy

Channel your inner Picasso.

Hello! Welcome back.:)

Top News

For Apple, a trillion-dollar market cap is coming up, fast.  The five biggest announcements from Microsoft’s Build event, which wrapped up a bit ago.

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A Life Sciences Firm Run by a Top VC and a Cofounder of Alphabet’s Life Sciences Arm, Just Closed a Huge Fund

There’s no end to the number of fascinating devices and therapies being created right now in the fields of health and life sciences. The investors behind them are often pretty interesting, too, given the expertise needed to make informed bets on what are often completely unproven projects.  Such is the case with Foresite Capital, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based outfit that just closed on $668 million for its fourth venture fund, its biggest pool of capital so far. (Its first funds closed with $100 million, $300 million, and $450 million, respectively.)  The firm was founded by Jim Tananbaum, who has started and sold healthcare companies and who earned the dubious distinction — courtesy of Bloomberg — of symbolizing the extremely wealthy who’ve begun descending on the Burning Man festival in recent years. (Months after Bloomberg described an elaborate camp he had built, Tananbaum, who in 2014 was elected to the board of the nonprofit that oversees the event, resigned.)  No doubt Tananbaum — who has both an MD and an MBA from Harvard — would prefer to be known for being named to Forbes’ Midas List of top venture capitalists for the last four years, thanks to a wide array of bets in Foresite’s portfolio. Some of these include Aimmune Therapeutics, whose treatment to protect children with food allergies is seeking FDA approval; Puma Biotech and Juno Therapeutics, both of which have gone recent public in recent years; and Intarcia Therapeutics, which makes a matchstick-size, diabetes-treating pump and was flying high two years ago, though it has more recently taken its lumps.  Foresite’s approach has impressed more than Forbes. More here.

New Fundings

iPrice, a three-year-old, Malaysia-based service that aggregates Southeast Asia’s e-commerce websites in a single destination, has reportedly raised roughly $4 million in funding led by messaging app Line’s VC arm, Line Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Cento Ventures and Venturra Capital. TechCrunch has more here.  Kexin Health, a Changsha, China-based cancer hospital operator, has raised $38 million in Series C funding led by HG Capital. China Money Network has more here.  Learning Machine, a year-old, New York-based blockchain-based records like digital transcripts, diplomas, and resumes, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by PTB Ventures, with participation from Omidyar Network and Learn Capital. TechCrunch has more here.  Lyra Health, a three-year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based developer of a data-driven platform to identify people at risk of behavioral and mental health conditions, has raised $45 million in funding. The capital came from Tenaya Capital, Glynn Capital Partners, Crown Ventures, and Casdin Capital, as well as earlier backers Greylock Partners, Venrock, and Providence Ventures. (You might recall that longtime Facebook CFO David Ebersman cofounded and leads this company as CEO.) TechCrunch has more here.  Mesosphere, a five-year-old. San Francisco-based cloud platform company that’s creating an operating system of sorts for the modern datacenter, has raised $125 million in funding led by T. Rowe Price and Koch Disruptive Technologies, with participation from ZWC Ventures, Qatar Investment Authority, Disruptive Technology Advisers, Andreessen Horowitz, Two Sigma Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, SV Angel, Fuel Capital, and Triangle Peak Partners. TechCrunch has more here.  Printify, a three-year-old, Riga, Latvia-based customer printing marketplace, has raised $1 million in seed funding led by Google AdSense pioneer Gokul Rajaram. TechCrunch has more here. Purple Carrot, a four-year-old, Needham, Ma.-based meal kit company, just raised $4 million from Fresh Del Monte Produce. TechCrunch has more here.  Shenma Finance, a three-year-old, Shanghai, China-based fintech startup that’s providing financing for vehicles like motorcycles and two- and three-wheel scooters for rural consumers, has raised $47 million in Series C funding. Investors include China Growth Capital, Hina Group, Tongbanjie Group and earlier investors Credit Ease Financial Industry Investment Fund and ChinaEquity Group. China Money Network has more here.

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New Funds

China is reportedly close to finalizing a $47 billion investment fund that would finance semiconductor research and chip startup development. The fund, formally the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Co., appears to be underwritten predominantly by government capital sources. TechCrunch has more here.  Backstage Capital, a venture firm that invests in underrepresented founders, has raised $36 million for its new seed fund. The new fund will invest exclusively in black female founders. Arlan Hamilton, the founder of Backstage Capital, tweeted on Sunday: “They’re calling it a ‘diversity fund.’ I’m calling it an IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME fund.”  Recode has more here.  Golden Ventures, a seven-year-old, seed-stage outfit with offices in Toronto and Waterloo, has closed it third and newest fund with $57.5 million ($72 million in Canadian dollars), up from the roughly $38 million ($50 million Canadian) that it raised for its second fund in 2014. The capital will be used primarily to back Canada-based startups. TechCrunch has more here.  Oxx, a 15-month-old, London- and Stockholm-based growth capital firm, has closed on $100 million in capital commitments to invest in business-to-business software companies in the U.K., Israel and the Nordic countries. The outfit was founded by Richard Anton and Mikael Johnsson, both formerly of Amadeus Capital. UKTN has more here.  Yes VC, a new, San Francisco-based seed-stage venture firm created by entrepreneurs and angel investors Caterina Fake and Jyri Engeström, has filed SEC paperwork for a debut fund that’s targeting up to $50 million. We’d talked with Fake about the new effort in late January.

Exits

Okay, so not an exit exactly, but we’re not sure where else to slide this one: Nestlé says it’s paying $7.15 billion in cash to Starbucks in exchange for the right to sell its products in non-Starbucks shops around the world. Reuters has more here.  Nokia has acquired SpaceTime Insight, a San Mateo, Calif.-based maker of visual analytics software that raised upwards of $65 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. Its backers included Zouk Capital, Opus Capital Ventures,EnerTech Capital, Novus Energy Partners, E.ON Strategic Co-Investmentsand NEC. TechCrunch has more here.

People

On Saturday, legendary investor Warren Buffett told a CNBC reporter that in his humble opinion, Bitcoin is “probably rat poison squared.”  Daniel Jones, a London-based general partner with Global Founders Capital — the venture capital arm of Rocket Internet — has reportedly left to raise his own fund. He’s not exactly the first member to leave the outfit, reports TechCrunch.  TV writer Nell Scovell, who co-wrote the book “Lean In” with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, had convinced a studio to produce a similarly themed movie that she wrote. Then notes from producers starting coming in.

Essential Reads

Walmart wins this round.  Instagram is preparing to let you add music to your Stories, judging by code found inside its Android app. TechCrunch has more here.  The likely cause of a fatal collision involving one of Uber‘s self-driving cars in Arizona in March centers on software that decides how the cars should react to objects they detect, according to The Information. The software is designed to ignore “false positives” like a bag floating across the street but was reportedly tuned incorrectly. Uber won’t confirm the accuracy of this report, but it just announced that it has hired former NTSB Chair Christopher Hart to advise it on its overall safety culture. Reuters has more here.

Detours

The man who cracked the lottery.  The vaping epidemic in America’s schools.  A look at the newly rediscovered and also dangerous Congressional Review Act.

Retail Therapy

A child tracker that works. (These things only sounds creepy until you lose your kid for what may in reality be tens of seconds but feels agonizingly like an eternity. Not that this has ever happened to us.

Friday! [Clashes giant cymbals.] Hope you have a dynamite weekend, everyone. See you Monday.:)

Top News

Top News A Google minivan in “autonomous mode” was just involved in a crash in Arizona. It wasn’t fatal, but it wasn’t pretty.

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New Fundings

Divvy, a two-year-old, Lehi, Ut.-based provider expense management solution, raised $10.5 million in funding led by Pelion Ventures, with participation from Josh James, CEO of Domo; Aaron Skonnard, CEO of Pluralsight; and Jeremy Andrus, CEO of Traeger Grills. More here.  Freeda Media, a two-year-old, Milan, Italy-based millennial-focused media organization, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Alven Capital, with participation from U-Start and numerous angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.  StratiFi Technologies, a 2.5-year-old, New York- and San Francisco-based fintech startup that makes software for wealth advisors, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Anthemis Group, with participation from Wolverine Holdings, Cboe Global Markets, HOF Capital, and AngelList, among other investors. More here.  Swift Health Systems, a four-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based maker of an invisible orthodontic treatment, has raised $20 million in Series B funding from disclosed sources. The company says it has now raised $25 million altogether. More here.  UBTECH, a five-year-old, Shenzhen, China-based maker of humanoid robots for entertainment and educational purposes, has raised an astonishing $820 million in Series C funding led by Tencent. Other investors in the round include the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Minsheng Securities, Telstra Corporation, Haier Group, Green Pine Capital Partners, CreditEase, and earlier backers, including CDH Investments. China Money Network has more here.  Wunder Capital, a five-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based financial firm that lends money to solar projects, has raised $112 million in Series A funding led by Cyrus Capital Partners, with participation from earlier backers, including Techstars Ventures.  More here. Wuxi Vision Pro, an eight-year-old, Shanghai, China-based ophthalmic medical device maker, has raised $12.6 million, including from Qiming Venture Partnersand Ruijian Capital. China Money Network has more here.

New Funds

Indaco Venture Partners, a new, Milan, Italy-based venture capital firm, says it has raised €130 million euro from Intesa Sanpaolo, Fondo Italiano d’Investimento and Fondazione Cariplo. The firm, which plans to invest the capital in 20 to 30 later-stage startups, says it is targeting more than €200 million for a final close. More here.

IPOs

Carbon Black, a 17-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based cybersecurity company, just had a very solid first day of trading. MarketWatch has more here.

Exits

Allscripts, one of the country’s largest provider of electronic medical records, has snapped up a patient engagement platform company, HealthGrid for $60 million, plus $50 million in potential earn-out payments based on certain revenue targets. Healthgrid was founded in 2014 in Orlando, Fla.; we aren’t sure of its funding situation. (It doesn’t appear to have raised venture capital.) FierceBiotech has more here.

People

Nathan Hubbard, a former Ticketmaster CEO who most recently ran Twitter’s now-defunct commerce initiative, has raised more than $30 million over the last 18 months for a new startup called Rival that aims to modernize how teams and arenas manage ticket sales. Hubbard insists that he wants to partner with Ticketmaster, not compete with it. Who lost the most on Theranos.

Essential Reads

Amazon and Walmart are fighting to control Flipkart, a company that both see as central to winning the Indian market. Facebook is weighing an ad-free subscription model. This small college’s endowment manager beat Harvard . . . with index funds.  An argument for Uber and Airbnb to follow Spotify with a direct listing.

Detours

Why there won’t be a Nobel Prize in literature this year.  The upside of envy.  A look at the reason dogs have floppy ears.

Retail Therapy

School performance, check. One too many meetings, check. Double-barrel vaporizer? Bring it.

Thursday! Another busy one around here, though we’re looking forward to joining GV partner MG Siegler on TechCrunch’s “Equity” podcast a little later this afternoon. Sure, we’ll talk about earnings and revenue and blahdy blahdy. As fellow native Clevelanders, you can also expect plenty of talk about King James. (Cavs are still in it!) More tomorrow.:)

Top News

Get ready to shop on Instagram.

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Wedding Startup Zola Just Received a Lavish Gift: $100 Million in New Funding

Zola, a fast-growing company that invites newly engaged couples to register their guests, shop from 600 different brands, and create customizable checklists, has itself received something a bit extravagant: $100 million in Series D funding.  Earlier investor Comcast Ventures led the round, which also included new investors NBCUniversal and Goldman Sachs Investment Partners. The five-year-old, New York-based, 110-person company has now raised $140 million altogether.  We talked last night with founder and CEO Shan-Lyn Ma to learn more. Ma is a former executive with the e-commerce companies Gilt Groupe and Chloe + Isabel who originally started Zola to reinvent the traditional registry process but who now sees an opportunity to eventually address every need a young couple may have, from caterers to Cuisinarts, to eventually, perhaps, even home mortgages. Our chat has been edited lightly for length.  You’re a decent size-company at this point. Is everyone in New York? The vast majority, though we also have a small number in Charlottesville, Virginia. Earlier this year, we acquired the assets of a small wedding startup that had shut down and brought some of that team into Zola.  Have you made other acquisitions? Will you now with this giant new round?  No, and it’s possible, but the bigger vision is to cater to couples from the day they get engaged, into their first years of marriage. We’ll be using the funding to accelerate the product development of more wedding planning tools for couples, so we can be that go-to destination.  How are people learning about Zola?  The biggest growth driver has been people who’ve gone to a wedding where Zola  was the registry that the couple used. One hundred and fifty people on average see the registry, and if those visitors believe it’s a better product, [they come to us, too]. It’s built-in virality. We also picked Comcast Ventures to be our lead investor because Comcast and [fellow investor] NBC are market leaders in media with wide reach. They’ll help us with our marketing and awareness goals, which is a big opportunity and area of focus for us in the coming year.  How many people have used the site to date?  More than 500,000 couples have used our wedding registry or else managed their guest list through Zola.  Zola started as a wedding registry product. Now, it’s a full-fledged marketplace, connecting engaged couples to 600 brands and 60,000 products. Are you making a percentage off each sale?  More here.

New Fundings

Casma Therapeutics, a new Cambridge, Ma.-based biotech company that plans to develop new medicines based on Nobel prize-winning discoveries about how cells detoxify and repair themselves, is launching with $58.5 million in Series A funding from Third Rock Ventures. The Boston Globe has more on the company — and the decades-long friendship of its founders — here.  Cera, a three-year-old, London-based home-care startup advised by former Deputy Prime Minister Sir Nick Clegg, has raised $17 million in Series A funding in equity and debt from Guinness Asset Management, Yabeo, and Kairos. TechCrunch has more here.  Frontier Car Group, a two-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based used car marketplace targeted at countries outside of Western Europe and North America, has raised $58 million in Series B funding, including $41 million in equity funding and another $17 million in debt. The round was co-led by Balderton Capital and TPG Growth, and included participation from Fraser McCombs Capital and Autotech Ventures. More here.  IronNet Cybersecurity, a Fulton, Md.-based cybersecurity company that was founded by Keith Alexander, the retired four-star general and former NSA director, has raised $78 million in Series B funding led by C5 Capital, with participation from ForgePoint Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Reuters has more here.  The Outline, a two-year-old, New York-based digital media company, has raised $5.15 million in fresh funding led by RRE Ventures, with participation from Red Sea Ventures, Tegna, Advancit Capital and NextView Ventures. The company has now raised just more than $21 million altogether. The WSJ has more here.   SoundHound, the 13-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based maker of voice-enabled AI and conversational intelligence technologies, has raised $100 million in new funding to help fuel its international growth, as well as put its Hound voice assistant in everything from home appliances to cars. Investors in the round include Tencent, Hyundai, Orange S.A., and Daimler AG. TechCrunch has more here.  Station, a months-old, France-based SaaS startup that’s setting out to create a browser for businesses that gathers all their cloud-based web applications into a single portal, has raised $3.25 million in seed funding led by Accel. VentureBeat has more here.

New Funds

7wire Ventures, a Chicago-based venture firm led by former Allscripts execs Glen Tullman and Lee Shapiro, has raised $100 million for a “connected consumer” fund, reports Crain’s Chicago Business. Backers include insurers Arkansas Blue Cross & Blue Shield, Cigna, and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, among others. One of its first investments is Livongo, a health-software company led by Tullman that recently raised $105 million. More here.  Foresite Capital, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based multi-stage healthcare and life sciences investment firm, has closed its fourth and largest fund with $668 million in capital commitments. (We’ll post more on the firm and fund over at TechCrunch a little later today.) Salesforce Ventures just announced the Trailblazer Fund, a $100 million pool of capital that it intends to invest in startups out of Canada, with a special focus on those working in enterprise cloud computing. TechCrunch has more here.

IPOs

Xiaomi, the Chinese gadget maker that has become one of the world’s largest smartphone companies, has picked Hong Kong to list its shares in what is widely expected to be a major IPO.

Exits

Pocket Casts, widely considered to be one of the best mobile apps for podcast listening, has been acquired by a collective group that includes NPR, WNYC Studios, WBEZ Chicago, and This American Life. The Verge has more here.

People

Cambridge Analytica may be shutting down, but company executives, along with the Mercer family that backed them, have moved to create a new firm, Emerdata, based in Britain.  Elon Musk turned a Tesla call yesterday into a sparring match, cutting off two analysts and saying to another that “boring, bonehead questions are not cool.” Wall Street did not love the performance.

Essential Reads

Goldman Sachs is moving ahead with plans to set up what appears to be the first Bitcoin trading operation at a Wall Street bank.  Telegram‘s ICO was going to be historic. Instead, unsurprisingly, it has turned into a mess.  Wired looks at a dying scientist and his rogue vaccine trial.

Detours

The wolves of Instagram.  Good lord, Charlie Rose.  Watched while walking Brodie. (Not new but so funny.)

Retail Therapy

Eight new books that dish the dirt on show business.

Hi, everyone, happy Wednesday.:) We’ve been typing away while on calls today, so if you see any major screw-ups, that’s why. (We’re not so great at multitasking.)  Also! We have a couple of announcements coming up about SVC events. Stay tuned.

Top News

Tesla just beat analysts’ expectations. More here in TechCrunch.  Cambridge Analytica, the data firm that worked for Trump’s 2016 campaign, is shutting down following disclosures about its use of Facebook data and the campaign tactics it pitched to clients. The WSJ has more here.

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A CEO Known for the ‘Power of Smiling’ was Ousted Yesterday for Intimidating Employees

Ron Gutman, the co-founder and CEO of HealthTap, a venture-backed medical advice startup, was reportedly elbowed out today by his board of directors. The reason, the board said in a letter to employees, was that it had finally heard too many complaints about Gutman’s behavior inside the company.  Recode published the news of his termination earlier, along with excerpts of an explainer provided to Gutman that alleges he “committed acts of intimidation, abuse, and mistrust, and that [he] repeatedly mistreated, threatened, harassed and verbally abused employees.”  “This leaves us with no choice but to fire you,” reads the letter. “The toxicity you introduced into the workplace ends now.”  The development may seem curious to those who followed Gutman’s earlier career. Back in 2011, Gutman was on the TED speaking circuit, talking passionately about the power of smiling and attracting a great deal of publicity in the process. His presentation has been watched nearly five million times; it later spawned a book, published by TED, called Smile: The Astonishing Powers of a Simple Act.  Gutman, a Stanford grad, has denied that he abused his employees in a public statement.  More here.

New Fundings

BenchSci, a  three-year-old, Toronto-based developer of an AI-powered search engine for biological products, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by iNovia Capital, with participation from Gradient Ventures and earlier investorsGolden Venture Partners, Afore Capital, Real Ventures and Radical Ventures. More here.  C2RO Cloud Robotics, a two-year-old, Montreal-based startup that uses cloud-based AI services to augment the cognitive and collaborative capabilities of service robots, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding led by Harbor Street Ventures, with the participation of Fonds InnovExport, TandemLaunch Ventures and several angel investors. More here.  Humu, a year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based behavioral change software startup co-founded by ex-Googlers Laszlo Bock and Wayne Crosby, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by IVP, with participation from earlier backer Index Ventures. Forbes has more here.  iBeat, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based health tech company whose smartwatch perpetually monitors and analyzes users’ heart activity, has raised another $5.5 million in seed funding, bringing the total round to $10 million. New investors include Kairos, 8VC, City Light Capital, Plug and Play Ventures, ChinaRock Capital Management, as well as numerous angel investors, including renowned life coach Tony Robbins. VentureBeat has more here.  Parallel Domain, a 10-month-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that says its virtual world tech can enable the large-scale training and testing of driverless cars before they hit public roads, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding co-led by Costanoa Ventures and Ubiquity Ventures, with participation from RRE Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.  Soft Robotics, a six-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based industrial robotics company whose soft robotic gripping systems can grasp, manipulate, and conform to items with the same dexterity of the human hand, has raised more than $20 million in funding round led by Hyperplane Venture Capital, with participation from Scale Venture Partners, the venture capital arm of Honeywell International, and earlier investors, including ABB Technology Ventures. The WSJ has more here.  Soothe, a five-year-old, L.A.-based message-on-demand service, has raised $31 million in Series C funding from the late-stage and growth capital investment firm,The Riverside Company. TechCrunch has more here.  Washé, a three-year-old, Boca Raton, Fla.-based startup whose mobile app connects users to on-demand mobile car washers, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by a local tech entrepreneur and investor named Ron Zuckerman. More here.

New Funds

Fusion Fund, a four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based early-stage venture outfit that closed its first fund with $17 million, says its looking to raise up to $85 million for its second fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Exits

Birchbox, the subscription beauty-in-a-box startup, has sold the majority of its business to earlier investor Viking Global Investors for roughly $15 million, says Recode. The deal, which keeps cofounder and CEO Katia Beauchamp at the helm and preserves the jobs of its employees (for now), means earlier investors  are getting wiped out, reports Recode. Birchbox, which had earlier held talks with Walmart and QVC, among other potential buyers, had previously raised $90 million altogether.  Cisco is acquiring Accompany, a five-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that uses AI to build databases of people and relationships at companies. Cisco is paying $270 million in cash and stock and plans to incorporate Accompany’s tech into its collaboration products. Accompany had raised roughly $40 million, including from Cowboy Ventures, CRV, and Iconiq Capital. Its founder and CEO, Amy Chang, was notably on the board of Cisco, a role that she is resigning as a part of the transaction. (Local Bay Area readers might have caught Chang’s appearance at an SVC event early last year in San Francisco, soon after she’d become a director.) TechCrunch has more on the sale here.  Nokia says it plans to sell its small digital health business, including activity trackers and smartwatches, to a co-founder of the venture after it failed to meet the company’s growth expectations. Reuters has the story here.

People

Last night, at his L.A. mansion, Jim Belushi charmed a crowd of diners with jokes and harmonica playing. But the actor and comedian wasn’t there as the entertainment: He was on a mission to promote cannabis entrepreneurs.  In an unusual move for a Silicon Valley company, Zynga chairman Mark Pincus has given up voting control of the social gaming company he founded more than a decade ago. (You might remember that Pincus had an unusual degree of voting control to start with.)   Pritzker Group Venture Capital has brought aboard three venture partners: Pat Basu, David Schonthal, and Craig Wortmann. More here. Former Twitter M&A executive Jess Verrilli is headed to GV to become the firm’s newest (and only) female general partner.

Essential Reads

Wall Street doesn’t like Spotify‘s first-ever earnings report. Amazon is reportedly offering to pass along the discounts it gets on credit-card fees to other retailers if they use its online payments service. The move is consistent with Amazon’s penchant for sacrificing profitability in order to grow.  A four-year-old outfit, Nikola Motor Company, has filed a $2 billion lawsuit in Arizona alleging that Tesla’s all-electric semi infringes on the hydrogen truck startup’s patents.

Detours

Photos by Stanley Kubrick.  There will be a season three of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” If you can take it.  Why an expert in counterterrorism became a beat cop. C hristie’s new AR app can help you visualize where to hang priceless works of art.

Retail Therapy

This is the final straw.

May? Mais oui! (Sorry.)   Sending out a slightly abbreviated issue today as we race off to a fourth grade field trip. More tomorrow.:)

Top News

Apple is scheduled to report its second-quarter results today after the market closes and expectations are . . . not high, notes Recode.  Facebook is separately kicking off its F8 developers conference today in San Jose and Mark Zuckerberg has already dropped a bit of news: the company will soon launch a new privacy feature that will allow users to see and delete the data Facebook has collected from websites and apps that use its ads and analytics tool. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Fundings

Algolux, a four-year-old, Montreal, Canada-based company at work on machine-learning stacks for autonomous vision and imaging, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by General Motors Ventures, with participation from Drive Capital,Intact Ventures, and Real Ventures. More here.  AMCS, a 15-year-old, Limerick, Ireland-based maker of software and vehicle technology for the waste, recycling, and material resources industries, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Insight Venture Partners and Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. More here.  Attenua, a three-year-old, New York-based developer of new treatments for chronic coughing, has raised $35 million in Series A funding led by Omega Funds, with participation from Abingworth, OrbiMed and Redmile Group. EndPoints News has more here.  Covee, a 1.5-year-old, Zurich, Switzerland-based network for decentralized data science collaboration, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding led by LocalGlobe, with participation from Atlantic Labs, among others. TechCrunch has more here.  Hustle, a four-year-old. San Francisco-based personalized mass texting tool, just raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from GV and Salesforce Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.   MasterClass, the five-year-old, San Francisco-based online education platform known for celebrity-taught classes, is working to finalize a Series D round that could raise around $70 million at a valuation north of $300 million, reports Axios, which says to expect it to be insider led. To date, the company has raised roughy $56 million, shows Crunchbase. Backers include IVP, New Enterprise Associates, Bloomberg Beta, and Javelin Venture Partners, among others.  Namogoo, a four-year-old, Boston- and Israel-based ad blocking technology company, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Hanaco Venture Capital with participation from GreatPoint Ventures, Blumberg Capital and Inimiti Capital. More here.  NovellusDx, a 7.5-year-old, Jerusalem-based precision medicine company at work on an early cancer detection technology, has raised $6 million in funding, including from Helsinn Group, Bio Capital Impact Fund and Windham Venture Partners. Globes has more here.  Paragraf, a U.K.-based graphene technology development company, has raised roughly $4 million in seed funding led by Cambridge Enterprise, with participation from Parkwalk Advisors, Amadeus Capital Partners, and IQ Capital Partners. TechCrunch has more here.  Sentenai, a three-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based data science company that organizes and stores sensor data to make it more useful, has raised $2 million in seed funding from One Way Ventures, TechNexus Venture Collaborative, and several angel investors. More here.  Substack, a year-old, San Francisco-based startup that provides users with tools to publish paid-for subscription newsletters, has raised $2 million in seed funding from The Chernin Group, Fifty Years, Zhen Fund, Garage Capital, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear, and Zynga co-founder Justin Waldron. More here.  Suki, a year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based maker of a voice assistant for doctors (it was formerly known as Robin AI), has raised $15 million funding round led by earlier backer Venrock. Other participants in the round included First Round,Social+Capital, Nat Turner of Flatiron Health, Marc Benioff, and other individual investors. The company has now raised around $20 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.  ZeroCater, a 8.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that provides office catering and snacks, has raised $12 million in Series B funding led by Cleveland Avenue, with participation from Romulus Capital and Struck Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Andra Capital, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based investment firm, has raised $500 million in funding for a new digital currency that investors can use to back a group of late-stage venture capital firms, says the firm’s managing partner, Haydar Haba. The new token is called Silicon Valley Coin (SVC) and it’s built on the Ethereum blockchain. Reuters has the story here.  Goodwater Capital, co-founded in 2014 by former Kleiner Perkins partner Chi-Hua Chien and Eric Kim, formerly of Maverick Capital, is looking to raise up to $350 million for its third fund, shows a new SEC filing. It’s a pretty fast return to the market. Goodwater closed its second fund just 14 months ago with $250 million. It closed its debut fund with $130 million. More on the consumer-tech focused firm here.

Exits

Marketo, a once publicly traded software company that’s now owned by the private equity firm Vista Equity Partners, has acquired Bizible, a Seattle-based marketing performance management software maker. Terms aren’t being disclosed. Bizible had raised about $19 million in equity and debt financing, including from Scale Venture Partners, Madrona Venture Group and Square 1 Bank. GeekWire has more here.  In 2012, Cisco made one of its biggest-ever acquisitions when it acquired video and security specialist NDS for $5 billion. Now, the company is selling part of that business to one of its previous owners, the private equity firm Permira, as it looks to refocus itself and boost growth in networking, multi-cloud, security, data, and collaboration services. TechCrunch has more here.

People

A U.S. jury yesterday convicted Sushovan Hussain, the former CFO of software company Autonomy, of wire fraud and other crimes related to the company’s sale to Hewlett Packard. Reuters has more here. WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum is leaving Facebook’s board — and potentially up to $1 billion — as he walks away from the social media juggernaut four years after it acquired his company.   Some big investors see warning signs ahead for markets but are holding their positions. Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris is taking action: He just put half of his $5.7 billion net worth into gold.  Rachel Star has joined Shasta Ventures as an associate. She was previously employed by Nordstrom, where she worked in corporate strategy. More here.  The U.K. parliament has issued an ultimatum to Facebook in a last-ditch attempt to get Mark Zuckerberg to take its questions: Come and give evidence voluntarily,  or the next time you fly to the U.K., you’ll get a formal summons to appear.

Essential Reads

Facebook wants to prove it can earn businesses money, not just build their social media audience. Now it has an app for that, too.  Apple has deleted a revealing job listing that hints at plans to cut Qualcomm and Intel chips from its future phones.  More than 100 Uber drivers in the U.S. have been accused of sexual assault or abuse over the last four years, says CNN.  A similar CNN review using the same methodology found 18 cases of Lyft drivers accused in the past four years.

Detours

“The Simpsons” just surpassed “Gunsmoke” as America’s longest-running scripted TV show. Can anyone catch London’s serial cat murderer? What’s inside Mars?

Retail Therapy

One of the most opulent homes in the 90210 zip code is looking for a buyer. Its marketing materials describe it as “an authentic Italian village” to give you some sense of its scale(!).