Happy Thursday, readers. Do you have a game plan for Valentine’s Day? Because, you know, it’s tomorrow. (Just trying to keep you out of trouble.)

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Comcast is acquiring Time Warner Cable for $45.2 billion in stock, say reports, a deal that combines the biggest and second-biggest cable television operators in the country. (Isn’t this a walking talking anti-trust suit?) Reporter Om Malik looks at what drove the deal.

—–

For eShares, a Race to Win Over Startups — and Their Cap Tables

Henry Ward, the cofounder and CEO of 18-month-old eShares in Palo Alto, has a business that’s arguably great for startups. eShares digitizes paper stock certificates along with stock options, warrants, and derivatives to create a real-time picture of who owns what at a startup. The company insists that it also makes it dead simple to transfer ownership of these things.

“Right now,” says Ward, “a company can hire Wilson Sonsini or [startup stock exchange] SecondMarket to create a liquidity program for employees to allow them, say, to sell up to 10 percent of their vested options to existing shareholders. But it can be a costly, three-month-long process that involves figuring out demand and supply. We offer the same thing with a click of a button,” he says, referring to eShares’ clean, simple interface.

Now it’s just a race to convince law firms – gatekeepers for most startups and their paper certificates – of eShare’s merits.

So far, three law firms – Perkins Coie, Gunderson Dettmer, and DLA Piper – have handed over access to 350 companies’ cap tables. But eShares aims to become the private market equivalent of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, which provides clearing and settlement services to the public financial markets. And to get there, it needs to sign up the top 10 to 20 law firms — before someone else does.

The competition is growing by the month. Among the companies that eShares needs to fence out are SecondMarket, Nasdaq Private Market (as it will be known), and upstarts like CapShare, DocDep, and TruEquity.

Ward is clearly in it to win it, touting eShare’s advantages as a transfer agent capable of moving stock certificates directly from one person to another. (He likens broker-dealers like SecondMarket to Craigslist, which matches buyers and sellers but is incapable of handling transactions and isn’t exactly a marvel of modern technology from a design perspective.)

Ward also insists that eShare’s pricing model makes more sense than that of competitors, some of which exclusively rely on a SaaS model. Though eShares charges companies $159 a month or roughly $1,900 a year to maintain an ongoing valuation report (an alternative to spending $5,000 for every 409a valuation), it also charges a $20 fee every time a company issues a new grant and another $20 every time someone exercises the sale of one of their holdings. The model means eShares isn’t constrained by the number of startups up and running. As long as companies are hiring and their employees and investors are moving shares around, eShares is making money. Presumably.

Still, eShares will need to further distinguish itself from the pack, which it has numerous plans to do. In April, for example, eShares will begin buying “zombie investments” from investors whose shares have gone to zero and would otherwise be stuck waiting until the startup is dissolved to write off their investment. It’s not a great business, notes Ward. But it could further endear eShares to investors – who can then recommend eShares to their other portfolio companies.

The 12-person company — which has so far raised $1.8 million, including from Draper VC, Expansion VC, K9 Ventures, Subtraction Capital and IronPort cofounder Scott Banister — will also need to raise more capital later this year, says Ward.

“We have a very sticky value proposition, and once companies are on the platform, they’re on for life. But it’s a slow growth model,” he explains. “Getting companies to use eShares as a master record isn’t an impulse purchase for them.”

Ward doesn’t kid himself. He freely admits that if a “new entrant comes in and the market bifurcates, it’ll be much harder for us.”

But that won’t happen if he can help it. “We’re in a land grab,” he says. “It’s a race to a monopoly.”

New Fundings

Architizer, a 3.5-year-old, New York-based online marketplace for architectural construction projects, has secured $2 million in seed funding led by Gaspar Global Ventures, Alessandro Piol, and Joanne Wilson. According to co-founder Marc Kushner, a scion of one of the New York area’s pre-eminent real estate dynasties, the money will help the firm pursue the international construction supplies market.

Axine Water Technologies, a 3.5-year-old, Vancouver-based developer of wastewater treatment technologies, has raised $5.6 million Series A financing from The Roda Group, along with earlier investors Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital and BDC Venture Capital. The company has raised roughly $7 million to date, according to Crunchbase.

BlueConic, a 3.5-year-old, Boston-based customer engagement software maker, has raised $3 million in Series A funding led by Sigma Prime Ventures.

CloudPassage, a 4-year-old, San Francisco-based software SaaS company, has raised $25.5 million in Series C funding led by Shasta Ventures, with Meritech Capital Partners, Seagate CEO Stephen Luczo and return backers Benchmark, Musea Ventures and Tenaya Capital participating.

Curious.com, a 10-month-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based online platform that provides instructional videos on a wide variety of subjects, has raised $15 million in Series B funding from new investor GSV Capital, along with previous investors Redpoint Ventures, Bill Campbell, and Altamont Capital Partners cofounder Jesse Rogers.

Cybereason, a two-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based cyber security startup formed former Israeli intelligence agency members, has secured $4.6 million in Series A funding from Charles River Ventures. TechCrunch has more on the company here.

Hoopla, a 3.5-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based maker of software that incorporates gamification with data meant to motivate and track sales team performance, has raised $8 million in Series B funding led by Trinity Ventures, with participation from previous investors Safeguard Scientifics, Illuminate Ventures and additional private investors. The company has raised $10.8 million altogether, according to Crunchbase.

Miramar Labs, a 7.5-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based medical electromechanical device maker, has raised $10 million in Series D funding from Aisling Capital, Cross Creek Capital, Domain Associates,Morgenthaler Ventures, and RusnanoMedInvest. Miramar has raised around $66 million altogether.

Oorja Protonics, a 10-year-old, Fremont, Ca.-based maker of liquid fuel cell technology, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series E funding from Mingxin China Growth Fund and DAG Ventures. The company has raised at least $20 million prior, including from Sequoia Capital, DAG Capital, and Artis Ventures.

Otoy, a four-year-old, Sherman Oaks, Ca.-based company that’s building rendering technology for running games and other applications in the browser, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series D funding led by Yuri Milner, who was joined by former Morgan Stanley CEO, John Mack, Autodesk, Taylor Frigon, George Gilder and The Roddenberry Trust.

RetentionGrid, a 10-month-old, Berlin, Germany-based company whose analytics promise to predict and produce repeat business, has raised €520k in in seed funding, led by Connect Ventures, with participation from a long line of individual investors.

Sideband Networks, a two-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based maker of application aware performance monitoring software, has raised $6 million in Series A funding from undisclosed sources.

Tapiture, a 18-month-old, Venice, Ca.-based social curation and e-commerce platform, has raised $2.25 million in seed funding led by JUMP Investors.

Tintri, a 5.5-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based startup that provides storage for virtualization and cloud customers, has raised $75 million in Series E funding led by by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Venturesand New Enterprise Associates. The company has now raised $135 million altogether.

Welltok, a four-year-old, Denver-based company whose health platform tries to optimize consumers’ health by aligning activities with incentives, has raised $22.1 million in Series C funding led by New Enterprise Associates. IBM and Qualcomm Ventures also participated. The company has raised close to $50 million to date.

—–

New Funds

Arizona State University has received $1 million from a state-backed job creation organization to create a university venture capital fund to fund companies that have passed through the school’s accelerator programs. The school is reportedly looking to raise up to $10 million altogether for the fund, and to make investments of between $50,000 and $250,000, any proceeds from which would be funneled into new investments.

Illumina, a San Diego-based life science tools company, announced the launch of its Illumina Accelerator Program yesterday, which it’s calling the first business accelerator focused solely on creating an innovation ecosystem for the genomics industry. Through the accelerator’s six-month program, Illumina will provide invited participants with technology and business guidance and $100,000 in support, including access to sequencing systems and reagents and lab space close to the company’s planned R&D facilities in San Francisco’s Mission Bay. Initial partners include investor Yuri Milner, who will offer each participating company $100,000 in exchange for convertible notes, and Silicon Valley Bank.

The Walt Disney Company announced Wednesday it is launching a three-month Los Angeles-based accelerator in partnership with Techstars. Ten media and entertainment startups will receive up to $120,000 in cash and a convertible note. Cody Simms, a former exec with StumbleUpon and Yahoo, will oversee the accelerator as managing director.

Yahoo yesterday announced a $10 million partnership between its nine-year-old Yahoo Labs division and Carnegie Mellon University, to focus on mobile and personalization projects. Yahoo will be giving researchers at Carnegie Mellon access to Yahoo’s APIs and data services so that they can experiment and build products using real mobile data from users. Yahoo will also fund research for students and faculty members. CNet has more here.

—–

IPOs

Jumei.com, a Chaoyang, China-based e-commerce company that sells cosmetics from lines such as Clinique and Kiehl’s, is planning a U.S. IPO and hopes to raised around $500 million, reports Bloomberg. The news follows reports that retailer JD.com, formerly known as 360buy Jingdong, has also filed to go public in the U.S. Jumei has raised at least $10 million from Sequoia Capital and Ventech. More here.

Already this year, 31 companies have sold their shares to the public for the first time, a 72 percent increase from this point in 2013, Kathleen Smith of Renaissance Capital tells USA Today. If the trends continue as they have, she says, 2014 could be the best start to a year since the dot-com boom of 2000. (Yikes.)

—–

People

Yesterday, we reported that CrunchFund has joined the special situations firm Clearlake Capital Group as investors in the decades-old, New York-based e-tailer Bluefly. In a twist, the company is announcing the appointment today of Melissa Payner as its chief merchandising officer. Payner has extensive experience in e-commerce, including as a former CEO of Spiegel catalog, president of Chicos FAS, and, most interestingly, CEO of Bluefly from 2003 through 2012.

Gary Vaynerchuk — the renowned social media marketer whose Manhattan-based agency, VaynerMedia, helps companies promote their brandss — is launching a $25 million seed fund that’s backed by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross. Re/code has the story.

Dennis Woodside, a Google veteran who most recently ran the Motorola Mobility handset unit, has joined the fast-growing online storage company Dropbox as its first chief operating officer, reports the WSJ.

—–

Happenings

The 11th annual Media Summit New York kicks off March 4th. Learn more here.

—–

Job Listings

Secondaries market giant Coller Capital is looking for a senior associate in New York.

—–

Essential Reads

Jawbone, maker of a popular speaker line and the the activity-tracking Up wristband, is poised to complete a new $250 million round of funding that values the company at $3.3 billion, reports Re/code, which says the round was oversubscribed and that its lead investor is San Francisco-based Rizvi Traverse Management. Much more here.

Facebook is testing out a 30-person water shuttle to transport employees from San Francisco to Redwood Shores, Ca., a few miles from its headquarters. It joins Google in looking for ways to transport its employees outside of the big corporate shuttle buses that have spurred protests this year.

—–

Detours

The full-fat paradox: Why whole milk may keep us lean.

Valentine Cards Featuring Dictators and Philosophers.

—–

Retail Therapy

This waterproof MP3 player “isn’t too groundbreaking,” “holds only 4 GB of music” and “doesn’t offer any great way to scan through songs.” But it comes packaged in a clear bottle of water that you could conceivably drink at some point, though please do not unless someone has triple dog dared you, in which case you must, obviously. (Note: remove MP3 player first.)

Make-out pillows.

—–

To sign up for StrictlyVC, click here. To advertise, click here.

Good morning, everyone!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

After last month’s landmark decision by a federal court to strike down key parts of the FCC’s Open Internet rules, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler now says the group is working to bring them back.

—–

Dana Stalder: Why $1.5 Million Seed Rounds No Longer Work

Dana Stalder, a Palo Alto-based general partner with Matrix Partners, is quick to note that he is “not a career VC.” In fact, he has spent much more of his career inside tech companies, from Netscape in the mid ‘90s, to the early online lead generation company Respond.com, to eBay, then PayPal, where he was a senior VP in charge of product, sales, marketing and technology when Matrix lured him away in 2008.

Still, Stalder isn’t shy about sharing some pretty specific ideas about the industry. When talking fund sizes, for example, he implies that funds that have grown far larger over time might be just a leetle motivated by management fees. Matrix, which has raised three $450 million funds in a row, is “less opportunistic about making money and more focused on helping build category-leading companies,” he says.

He also thinks that the days of the $1.5 million seed round – which became the norm around 2009, driven by ballooning numbers of seed investors – are nearing an end.

“It’s hard to build a business or prove that you can get a good markup off the back of that amount,” Stalder says. It’s also “terrible for the entrepreneur,” who winds up giving away up to 25 percent of the company over the course of a seed round and a seed extension round.

“Basically, they’re stuck in this no man’s land – running out of money without enough runway to take off – and they have the anxiety of having to bridge two rounds of seed funding for basically the same [dilution] as they’d [see with a Series A investment],” he says.

Stalder is an early-stage investor, so perhaps it’s no surprise that he thinks the “million-dollar seed round will come under pressure,” or that early-stage fundings will “revert back to the norm, which was the multimillion-dollar first round.”

A movement in the direction of larger first rounds would presumably benefit Stalder, who tends to invest in two companies a year and has led investments for his firm in both Zendesk, a help-desk software-as-a-service company, and online retailer Gilt Groupe, both of which are reportedly planning IPOs this year. Before seed-stage investors changed the ratio, entrepreneurs had no choice but to give their business to venture capitalists.

The news isn’t all rosy for Stalder. Thanks to seed investors, who have played a big role in grooming nascent companies and scaling them for investment, VCs now have the luxury of more information, Stalder acknowledges. They’ve grown “more accustomed to focusing on traction signals, and that wasn’t the case five years ago.”

Still, he suggests that that the trends towards larger deals will ultimately pay off for everyone.

“It might mean more syndication among the small seed funds,” says Stalder. “It might also mean that slightly fewer businesses get started.” Either way, he says, “Bigger rounds feel inevitable to me.”

New Fundings

365 Retail Markets, a 4.5-year-old, Troy, Mi.-based vending and food service technology company, has raised a “multimillion-dollar Series A” round led by Plymouth Ventures.

Aviasales, a 6.5-year-old, Phuket, Thailand-based Russian online travel search engine, has raised $10 million from iTech Capital, a Russia-based private equity and venture capital fund, reports VentureBurn.

Bluefly, the 23-year-old, New York-based Internet retailer, has a new investor in CrunchFund, whose cofounder, Pat Gallagher, has joined the board. Terms of the investment aren’t being disclosed. Bluefly was long traded on Nasdaq, but was in the process of being delisted in February of last year after its shares fell below $1. By May, the special situations firm Clearlake Capital Group had purchased all of the shares of Bluefly’s common stock from its four principal shareholders — Rho Ventures,Quantum Industrial Partners, Maverick Fund, and Prentice Consumer Partners — for $0.0076 per share. Last August, Clearlake installed Clearlake operating advisor Neel Grover as Bluefly’s CEO and co-chairman. Grover is the former CEO and president of Buy.com and a former director of Rakuten USA.

CGTrader, a two-year-old, Vilnius, Lithuania-based company that operates a marketplace for 3-D models and content, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Intel Capital. Earlier investor Practica Capital also participated in the round.

Crowdfunder, a two-year-old, L.A.-based crowdfunding platform that helps connect entrepreneurs and investors, has raised $1 million in seed funding from a number of sources, including 500 Startups, K5 Ventures, and numerous individual investors. The company had raised an earlier, $400,000, seed round in 2012.

Kaltura, an eight-year-old, New York-based open-source video platform that helps clients host, analyze, and monetize video content, has raised $47 million in fresh funding, reports VentureBeat. SAP Ventures, Nokia Growth Partners, Commonfund Capital, and Gera Ventures led the new funding, with participation from existing investors .406 Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Intel Capital, Mitsui & Co. Global Investment, andSilicon Valley Bank. The company has now raised $115 million to date.

Lithera, a six-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based clinical stage pharmaceutical company focused on lifestyle and medical indications (such as an injectable treatment to reduce fat tissue), has added $8 million to its Series C financing, bringing the round’s total to $35.6 million.The new funding came from earlier investors Alta Partners and Domain Associates, new investor AKS Capital, and undisclosed investors.

Makexyz, a year-old, Austin, Tx.-based 3D printing marketplace that connects people with nearby, consumer-grade 3D printers in their neighborhoods, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Intel Capital. “Our goal is to help people make stuff,” the company’s founder tells TechCrunch. “With a quickly growing, global network of 3D printers, a lot becomes possible.”

Tacit Innovations, a two-year-old, Toronto-based startup whose app lets users locate restaurants, browse menus, and manage and pay for their orders, has raised $700,000 in seed funding from BDC Venture Capital,Canrock Ventures, private unnamed investors, and the Canadian seed accelerator program Hyperdrive.

VoAPPs, a six-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based company that makes voice applications for mobile phones, including call center follow-up communications, has raised $1.5 million in Series B funding from earlier investor Buckhead Investment Partners, numerous angel investors and two new strategic investors.

Voyager Therapeutics, a new, Cambridge, Ma.-based spin-out of Third Rock Ventures that will focus on treatments for fatal and debilitating diseases of the central nervous system, has raised $45 million in Series A funding from Third Rock. The investment marks the firm’s third foray into genetic medicine and the treatment of rare diseases, notes the Boston Globe.

—–

New Funds

Robert W. Baird & Co., the Milwaukee-based investment firm, intends to raise $150 million for a fourth fund, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. Baird raised more than $170 million for its third venture fund, closed in 2008.

Toronto growth-equity firm Georgian Partners has held a first close of $100 million for its second fund, according to Dow Jones.
The firm is looking to raise up to $116 million, according to a months-old regulatory filing.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is planning to raise its sixteenth early-stage fund later this year, according to Fortune. The firm raised its fifteenth fund, which closed with $525 million, in 2012. That pool supplemented many of the other vehicles being managed by Kleiner, including a $1 billion Digital Growth Fund, a $200 million iFund, a $250 million sFund, and a $1 billion Green Growth Fund.

Tsai Capital Corporation, a New York-based global equity manager, announced the launch yesterday of Tsai Ventures, an internally funded seed and early- stage venture capital arm. Christopher Tsai, the president and chief financial officer of Tsai Capital, and Justin Soffer, a member of its advisory committee, will both be looking to back startups in finance, media, and travel on behalf of the firm. No word yet on how much the firm is willing to put to work or what size checks it will be writing.

—–

IPOs

Flexion Therapeutics, a 6.5-year-old, Burlington, Ma.-based maker of osteoarthritis drugs, began trading on the Nasdaq this morning. It priced its IPO late yesterday, becoming the 15th biotech to do so in 2014, notes Xconomy. The company’s principal shareholders include Versant Ventures, which owns 29.8 percent of the company, Sofinnova Ventures(19.25 percent), Pfizer (17.32 percent), 5AM Ventures (15.52 percent), andNovo A/S (11.20 percent).

—–

Exits

Easytobook.com, a 10-year-old, Amsterdam-based hotel booking site, has been acquired for $5 million by publicly traded MakeMyTrip, a 14-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based online travel company.

GetJar, a seven-year-old, San Mateo, Calif.-based free app store, is being acquired by Sungy Mobile, the newly public China-based mobile company, reports GigaOm. The outlet’s sources say Sungy is paying more than $50 million for GetJar, which had raised $42 million from investors, including Accel Partners and Tiger Global Management.

Klout, a 5.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that measures “social influence’ online, is about to be sold to the social customer service company Lithium Technologies for at least $100 million reports Re/code. Klout has raised at least $40 million from venture capitalists, includingKleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Venrock, Greycroft Partners, andInstitutional Venture Partners. It had also raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Microsoft in 2012. Lithium Technologies has meanwhile raised $150 million from investors, including Emergence Capital Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Benchmark, and Shasta Ventures.

Simplytics, a 20-month-old, London-based mobile ad server and analytics platform, has been acquired by Integral Ad Science, a provider of advertising intelligence for digital media buyers and sellers. No financial terms were disclosed. Simplytics never disclosed venture funding. Integral Ad Science, a four-year-old, New York-based company, has raised nearly $50 million to date, including from August Capital, Founder Collective,Atlas Venture and Pelion Venture Partners.

Wander, a two-year-old, New York based company that lets users create a series of photos and gifs in a package called a “Day” that can be shared with others, has been acquired by Yahoo for “over $10 million,” reports TechCrunch. The company had raised $1.2 million in funding.

—–

People

Len Schlesinger, formerly the president of Babson College, is joining the Internet-focused venture capital firm Data Point Capital as a special advisor. Schlesinger currently serves as a Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School and previously served as the vice chairman and COO of Limited Brands (now L Brands), and executive vice president and COO of Au Bon Pain.

—–

Happenings

The Venture Summit Silicon Valley takes place tomorrow at Draper University in San Mateo, Ca. You can check out the agenda here.

The Women 2.0 Conference kicks off tomorrow in Las Vegas and features an impressive line-up of speakers, including Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX; Sarah Friar, CFO of Square; and Julia Hartz, cofounder and president of Eventbrite. Learn more here.

—–

Data

Dow Jones has published a list of the five “things” that VCs “most loved in 2013.” On its list, unsurprisingly: hardware startups. According to its findings, some 31 deals were completed in the sector last year, beating out the previous high of 29 deals done back in 1999. Some of the biggest deals in the sector — which attracted $847.6 million last year, nearly double the $441.7 million seen in 2011 — included Jawbone, which raised $100 million in debt and equity, and Roku, which closed a $60 million round. Much more here.

Google has closed more deals than any company over the past three years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg through January. Advertising-firm WPP was second, followed by chipmaker Intel Corp.

—–

Job Listings

Airbnb is looking for a country manager in its Singapore office to be “fully responsible for the expansion and evolution” of the Singaporean market. Verbal fluency in both English and Mandarin is a must. Learn more here.

—–

Essential Reads

Two subsidiaries of Alibaba Group are creating a new U.S. e-commerce site called 11 Main, which will be a marketplace for local merchants to sell their goods online. The upcoming launch marks the latest signal that the massive Chinese Internet company is preparing a big splash in the U.S.online retail market.

Twitter is testing a major profile redesign that’s very reminiscent of Facebook and Google+.

—–

Detours

The rising cost of not going to college.

The iPhone 6 line starts here, evidently.

Awkward romantic photos.

The New Yorker’s George Packer says covering Amazon is a reporting challenge not much easier than covering national security and intelligence.

—–

Retail Therapy

The $45 In1Case for the iPhone. Tweezers? Check. Scissors? Check. Kickstand for viewing video? Sold!

—–

To sign up for StrictlyVC, click here. To advertise, click here.

Hi, everyone, StrictlyVC has the mother of all head colds so please excuse any and all typos, which are probably legion today. And happy Tuesday!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Foxconn has long been associated as the Taiwanese manufacturing partner of Apple. But few people know that it has also been quietly working with Google.

—–

Bullpen Capital on Its New Fund, Post-Seed Deals, and Changing LP Sentiment

A few years ago, when three prominent operators came together to create a venture fund, Bullpen Capital, they figured they’d line up capital easily. Paul Martino has founded four companies, including the ad optimization platform Aggregate Knowledge; Richard Melmon cofounded Electronic Arts; and Duncan Davidson cofounded Covad Communications and SkyPilot Networks.

LPs couldn’t care less. “We had meetings where we were hollered at for an hour,” Martino tells me of their lives in late 2010, when industry returns had sunk to a 10-year low. “Even though we were each running companies [through the late ‘90s and the 2000s], “it was like we’d wronged [LPs] by proxy. One guy even said to me, ‘Venture capital isn’t an asset appreciation class; it’s an asset destruction class.’”

Fortunately for Bullpen – and LPs – times have changed. In a few weeks, says Martino, the Menlo Park, Ca., firm will hold a first close on a second fund that will ultimately be “between $50 million and $75 million,” up from its first, $25 million fund (about one-third of which came from Martino, Melmon, and Davidson). We talked yesterday about that new fund, and how Bullpen separates itself from the pack. Our conversation has been edited for length.

You say you’re positioned to double, if not triple, your first fund. How have you won over LPs?

Well, for one thing, we’ve made 33 investments, and four of them could [return] the whole fund [based on their IRR]. Also, LPs want to know how you’re going to differentiate yourself from the many other small funds they’re seeing, and we have a stage focus that only two or three other funds out there share.

LPs also want to catch the next Mike Maples; they want to buy an option to get into your later funds. Instead of writing a $25 million check to one firm, they’ll write five $5 million checks with the hope that they might be able to give [the best of those small funds] $50 million the next time. There’s a fear of missing out, that they don’t have exposure to the best managers of the future.

It seems like more firms are making follow-on investments in seed-funded startups. Venture51 is doing something similar, right?

And they’re our best friends and most common co-investors. I’d hate if there were 23 firms doing what we’re doing, but we need partners and there just aren’t a lot of us doing this. When we’d learned Ronny Conway might be raising a fund to back seed-funded startups, I wrote him a note saying, “Welcome, please go do this.” Companies bumble and stumble, and we’re big believers in the power of strong syndicates. A few more of us would be a good thing.

What’s your criteria? Does your interest extend to good teams that need to come up with a new idea?

Investing in pivots would be like seed investing again. Instead, we invest in post-product market fit companies where big VCs say, “Come back in six to 12 months when you have a million users instead of 100,000.” We’re like an accelerator that gets the companies to the milestone that guarantees them the big round.

What do you get in return for your check? Are you aiming for 10 percent?

We’re like Greycroft Partners in that we have no ownership requirements – and that has helped us win 87 percent of the deals we’ve tried to get into. Sometimes, we [own] 3 or 4 percent; sometimes it’s 7 or 8 percent.

You’ve told me you don’t take board seats, either. Does that concern LPs?

LPs don’t like it but GPs do. Duncan and I have started 14 companies so we’re viewed as trusted advisors, rather than as a firm that’s going to potentially force the CEO’s hand. It puts us in a better position. We just led a round in an ad tech company and the week before one of its board meetings, I was asked, “What do you think the board is going to think of this presentation?” It’s a better situation to be in than the person who’s getting a distilled view of the company.

New Fundings

ArborMetrix, a three-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based healthcare analytics company, has received $1.3 million in Series B funding from Renaissance Venture Capital Fund and Detroit Innovate Fund. The company has raised $8.3 million over the last year, according to Crunchbase.

DeviceAuthority, a year-old, Fremont, Ca.-based company that’s focused on the advanced authentication and security of connected devices, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from Alsop Louie Partners.

iSocket, a 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based direct sales platform for online ads, has raised $5 million in new funding led by Time Warner Investments, with Condé Nast, R&R Venture Partners, and Vivi Nevo participating. iSocket has raised just more than $15 million to date.

Joyme.com, a three-year-old, Beijing-based mobile game portal operator, has reportedly raised $21.5 million in Series B funding led by Fosun Venture Capital Investment. Earlier investor BlueRun Ventures also participated in the round.

Kantox, a 2.5-year-old, London-based, peer-to-peer foreign currency exchange for businesses, has raised $10.6 million in Series A funding led by Partech Ventures and Idinvest Partners, with participation from existing investor Cabiedes & Partners.

MassRoots, an 8-month-old, Denver, Co.-based social network for the medical cannabis community, has raised $150,000 in seed funding, including from ArcView Group.

Melinta Therapeutics, a 14-year-old, New Haven, Cn.-based antibiotics-focused company, has raised $70 million in fresh funding from earlier investor Vatera Healthcare Partners, along with other existing investors. The company has now raised nearly $190 million, including from Warburg Pincus, ABS Ventures, and Axiom Ventures.

nCino, a two-year-old, Wilmington, N.C.-based company behind a new kind of operating system for bankers, has raised $10 million fromWellington Management Company to accelerate nCino’s growth into the community bank and credit union markets. The company has raised $19 million altogether.

PlaceIQ, a 3.5-year-old, New York-based startup that uses location data for mobile advertising, has raised $15 million in Series C financing led byHarmony Partners led the round. Iris Capital and previous backers from the company’s Series B round, participated. The company has raised roughly $28 million to date.

Primary Data, a year-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based startup whose software aims to help enterprises manage their unstructured data, has raised $60 million in new funding from new investor Mercato Partners, which was joined by earlier backers Accel Partners, Battery Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pelion Venture Partners. The company has raised $60 million to date, according to Crunchbase.

RatedPeople.com, a nine-year-old, London-based online marketplace that connects homeowners with recommended local tradesmen, has raised $9 million in “pre-IPO” funding from earlier investor Frog Capital, along with $1.6 million in venture debt from Western Technology Investment (WTI). The company has raised at least $15 million to date.

Rocketrip, a year-old, New York-based travel management platform that helps its customers save money on travel expenses, has raised $2.6 million in Series A funding led by Canaan Partners, with Genacast Ventures and various unnamed investors participating in the round.

Splice Machine, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based SQL-on-Hadoop database for real-time big data applications, has raised $15 million in funding led by Interwest Partners. Previous investor Mohr Davidow Ventures also participated. The company has raised $19 million to date.

—–

New Funds

Austin Ventures, the 35-year-old private equity firm focused on venture capital and growth equity investments, is talking with LPs about a new $400 million to $650 million fund, reports Buyouts magazine. The firm closed its tenth pool with $900 million in capital commitments in 2008. Bloomberg had reported last May that Austin would reduce the size of its next fund by half to target younger companies. At $450 million, noted Bloomberg, the new fund would be the firm’s smallest since it raised $320 million in 1998.

Another Turkish venture fund looks to enter the Middle East.

—–

IPOs

Castlight Health, the 6.5-year-old, San Francisco-based company that provides employees with personalized shopping tools for healthcare benefits, filed yesterday with the SEC to raise up to $100 million in an IPO. The company booked $13 million in sales for the 12 months ended December 31, 2013. The company has raised $160 million, including from Morgan Stanley, Wellcome Trust (it owns 8.7 percent), U.S. Venture Partners, Maverick Capital (10.2 percent), Oak Investment Partners(15.8 percent), Venrock (20.6 percent), Fidelity Investments (9.8 percent), T. Rowe Price, and the Cleveland Clinic.

Gilt Groupe, the 6.5-year-old, New York-based online retailer of discounted luxury goods, has picked Goldman Sachs to manage its IPO, people with knowledge of the deal tell Bloomberg. Timing for the IPO hasn’t been decided, add these people. Gilt has raised more than $220 million over the years, including from Matrix Partners, General Atlantic, New Enterprise Associates, DFJ Growth, and, oh, hey, Goldman Sachs.

MobileIron, a 6.5-year-old, Mountain View, Ca. company whose software helps companies protect data that employees access on smartphones, is working with banks including Goldman Sachs Group as it prepares for an IPO, sources tell Bloomberg. Reportedly, the company is seeking up a valuation of up to $2 billion. MobileIron has raised $145 million, shows Crunchbase. Its investors include Institutional Venture Partners,Foundation Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Storm Ventures.

—–

Exits

Germany’s Deutsche Telekom says it is acquiring all remaining shares ofT-Mobile Czech Republic in a $1.1 billion deal. It’s buying the 39.23 percent stake in the company from a consortium of investors led by funds managed or advised by private equity group Mid Europa Partners. More here.

Independent eBook publisher Open Road Media has acquired E-Reads, an eBook publisher that has been around since 1999. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. GigaOm has a bit more here.

—–

People

Diana Frazier, who cofounded Flag Capital Partners in 1994 and heads the firm’s U.S. venture capital program, is retiring. She tells Fortune’s Dan Primack that she is “past retirement age,” and wants to be able to spend more time with her family.

Bill Gates took to Reddit yesterday morning to answer commenters’ questions. Asked what his most expensive guilty pleasure his, he answered: “Owning a plane is a guilty pleasure. Warren Buffett called his the Indefensible. I do get to a lot of places for [Bill and Melina Gates] Foundation work I wouldn’t be able to go to without it.”

Paul Grossman has joined Telegraph Hill Partners as a venture partner. Previously, Grossman worked at the life sciences company Life Technologies, where he was head of global strategy and corporate development. Based in San Francisco and San Diego, Telegraph Hill is a 13-year-old venture capital and growth equity firm that invests in life science and healthcare companies.

Jordan Hoffner has been hired as CEO of Federated Media, the San Francisco content marketing company that was bought by publicly traded LIN Media a couple of weeks ago. Hoffner has “worked in both old and new media, including at Google, YouTube, NBCUniversal and IAC-owned Electus,” reports Re/code, which has more here.

Ray Ko has been named a growth partner at Social+Capital Partnership, the venture capital firm founded by former Facebook and AOL execChamath Palihapitiya. Ko spent more than four years at Facebook as a director focused on growth an analytics, and more than four years at Yahoo before that focused on search and business operations. TechCrunch has the story.

Speaking of Chamath Palihapitiya, he flew to Cambridge over the weekend to deliver what Dealbook calls a “sobering message” to HBS students who’ve studied entrepreneurship: “It’s really unfair to you guys, but I think you’re discriminated against now…I would bet a large amount of money that the overwhelming majority of us would not look favorably on a company started by one of you.”

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has just bought a $22 million L.A estate that once belonged to Veronique Peck, the late wife of Hollywood legend Gregory Peck, sources tells the New York Post, which writes: “Conveniently for the tech ladies’ man, the estate in the exclusive enclave of Holmby Hills is right nearby Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion. Schmidt’s 9,182-square-foot, seven-bedroom ‘French chateau’ was listed for $24.9 million.”

—–

Happenings

The Venture Summit Silicon Valley takes place this Thursday at Draper University in San Mateo, Ca. To register, click here.

—–

Job Listings

Stripes Group is looking for a venture capital analyst to help the firm this coming summer. Apply here.

—–

Essential Reads

A vulnerability in the Snapchat app allows attackers to flood the device with information, freezing and crashing the users iPhone, according to a security researcher who works for Telefonica. The researcher disclosed the vulnerability on Saturday and found that the company had banned his two testing accounts and blocked the IP he used to demonstrate the attack – but had not immediately fixed the actual problem.

The mysterious developer of the world’s most popular free app, who drew global attention this past weekend with his sudden decision to remove it, tells Forbes that Flappy Bird is dead. Permanently. “Flappy Bird was designed to play in a few minutes when you are relaxed,” says Dong Nguyen, in an exclusive interview, his first since he pulled the plug on the app. “But it happened to become an addictive product. I think it has become a problem. To solve that problem, it’s best to take down Flappy Bird. It’s gone forever.”

—–

Detours

Married Kama Sutra.

Tightrope walking — between two hot air balloons.

—–

Retail Therapy

Toot, toot, hey, beep Beep, check out this creation by former Google hardware engineers Daniel Conrad and Shawn Lewis. (PandoDaily has much more on their late-stage prototype device here.)

Want to impress entrepreneurs? Try using these gravity defying doors at the office.

—–

To sign up for StrictlyVC, click here. To advertise, click here.

Good Monday morning! Welcome back.

—–

Top News in the A.M.

This morning, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba offered to buy 72 percent of publicly traded AutoNavi Holdings, which holds a rare mapping license from the Chinese government. The unsolicited takeover bid is one of Alibaba’s biggest-ever acquisition attempts.

—–

Big Data Hasn’t Hit CEO Searches, But It’s Coming

“People analytics,” applying predictive analytics to people’s careers, is here to stay. Perhaps the most recent indicator is LinkedIn’s brand-new acquisition of venture-backed Bright for $120 million — its biggest acquisition to date.

Bright uses machine-learning algorithms to recommend particular roles to job seekers. But plenty of other companies have sprung up with formulas to help with the hiring process. Evolv, a San Francisco startup, uses data science to advise companies on hiring and managing hourly workers. Knack, in Palo Alto, Ca., uses computer games to test cognitive skills, working memory, and risk aversion. And San Francisco-based Gild helps companies find software engineers.

Jon Holman, a renowned recruiter who has been placing VCs and CEOs at Silicon Valley startups for more than 30 years, thinks big data will eventually impact CEO searches, as well. (“Hopefully, I’ll be retired by then,” jokes Holman.) We talked Friday; our chat has been edited for length.

What’s one interesting example of how companies are using this science?

Take Marriott, the big hotel chain. It has a game that it uses, sort of like “FarmVille,” to hire kitchen managers. They have hundreds, if not thousands, of [these employees], so they’re trying to predict whether someone will be good at the job through this game, which requires them to keep six things in their head at the same time and moves faster as it progresses.

It seems like most startups using analytics or gamification are still targeting hourly workers. Is that true?

For now, these startups are largely peddling their technologies to companies like Walmart that are looking to reduce turnover by 1 percent, which is a huge cost savings. But that’s changing. More [companies] will say, “Geez, that worked so well here, let’s start to apply it to students in management training programs.” Then, “Let’s try this with mid-level executives and product managers and accounting managers and sales executives.” And it will work its way up the food chain. It’s hard to imagine that it won’t happen.

Will it reach the corner office?

I think so. It hasn’t come to CEO searches yet because the numbers aren’t big enough. No one is hiring lots of CEOs, so there’s no easy way to gather the right kind of data.

What would be a good starting point for a startup willing to try?

Well, when it comes to hiring CEOs, it all comes down to reference checks. No one has interviewed more senior execs than I have, and it’s impossible to know based on an interview if someone is honest, if they work hard, if they get along with other people. Any senior exec knows how to answer questions about their collaborative style. In fact, 98 percent of the people I interview make perfectly credible presentations.

Ultimately, you get the data you need by talking with the people they’ve worked with – not just the names that they give you but four or five others they didn’t. And you do that because most people will be 10 percent more positive about the person than they really feel, and they probably won’t tell you if the person is an alcoholic or has harassed someone in the workplace because they know that person won’t be hired.

Is there a way to institutionalize the types of questions you ask?

I’m not sure how to incorporate it into a software system, but the secret to reference checking is not to let people get away with generalizations. You’ll hear of someone, “Jon was really nice to work with.” You then have to ask that person: “How many bosses have you had?” If they’ve had 11, you say, “Obviously, you’ve liked some more than others. Was Jon the best boss you’ve ever worked for and if not, what differentiates him from the best boss?”

You force [the references] to do forced ranking, to come up with something that’s less good about someone they thought highly of. You’re forcing them into conversations about negatives. That’s the secret to reference checks.

New Fundings

Abe’s Market, a 4.5-year-old, Chicago-based online marketplace that helps makers of organic products sell their goods, has raised $10 million in funding led by Mistral Equity Partners, with the Israel-based crowd-funding platform OurCrowd participating, along with Beringea andBearing Capital. The company has raised close to $20 million to date, including from Index Ventures, Carmel Ventures, and Accel Partners.

Alphaworks, a months-old, New York-based, still-stealth company has raised $1 million in debt, as part of a $1.5 million fundraise, shows an SEC filing. Betaworks‘ CFO Joshua Auerbach is listed on the filing, along with Nicholas Chirls, who leads seed investment for Betaworks, and Jonathan Chin, who works in Betaworks’ finance department.

Blend Systems, a two-year-old, Los Altos, Ca.-based company whose app tries matching college students with the brands trying to connect with them, has raised $2.4 million in debt, options and warrants, according to an SEC filing. The company has raised $3.7 million to date.

CloudOne, a 3.5-year-old, Indianapolis-based software development platform, has raised $2.8 million in Series C funding led by Bootstrap Venture Fund of San Diego.

Edinburgh Molecular Imaging (EMI), a new spin-out of the University of Edinburgh, has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding from Epidarex Capital and the Scottish Investment Bank, the investment arm of the Scottish Enterprise. EMI is developing an optical molecular imaging technology to help in the diagnosis and monitoring of several major diseases.

First Aid Shot Therapy, a four-year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based company that sells what it describes as FDA-compliant, single-dose medicines for pain and upset stomach symptoms, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series B funding led by Sofinnova Ventures and Redmile Group. Other participants in the round included Sofinnova HealthQuest, Clearwell Group and Mark Rampolla, founder and former CEO of ZICO Beverages. Last May, Sofinnova Ventures led an undisclosed amount of Series A funding for the company, whose product comes in a can and looks like a sports drink.

Igenica, a six-year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based biopharmaceutical company that’s developing cancer antibody therapeutics, has raised $7 million as part of a round that’s targeting up to $14 million, shows an SEC filing. The company has raised at least $60 million so far, according to filings; its investors include Third Rock Ventures, Orbimed Advisors, and 5AM Ventures.

Quantum Technology Sciences, a 23-year-old, Cocoa Beach, Fla.-based security and surveillance tech company, has raised $2.3 million from unnamed private investors to commercialize its technology, which employs sensors to detect threats from the air, water, land and underground and is designed primarily for the energy industry. According to an SEC filing, the company is targeting $4.9 million for the round.

Skytap, a seven-year-old, Seattle -based creator of SaaS test environments for the enterprise, has raised a $6.45 million extension of its Series C round. All of its existing Series C investors, including OpenView Venture Partners, Ignition Partners, Madrona Venture Group, and Washington Research Foundation, participated. The company has raised roughly $30 million to date.

SportPursuit, a 2.5-year-old, London-based flash sales site for sports enthusiasts, has raised $8.2 million in Series B funding from DFJ Espirit, with participation from Silicon Valley Bank and a long line of individual investors. The company has raised roughly $10.5 million do date.

TNG Pharmaceuticals, a three-year-old, Louisville, Ky.-based company that develops animal pharmaceuticals, has raised $4.6 million in Series A financing led by Yearling Fund, with participation from Angel Investor Investment Management Group, Bluegrass Angels, Commonwealth Seed Capital, Goose Society of Texas, the Ogle Foundation, Texas Halo Fund and the University of Louisville Foundation. TNG is developing a vaccine, FlyVax, that immunizes cattle against the horn fly, a pest that reportedly costs the beef cattle and dairy industry an estimated $1 billion in lost production annually.

Togethera, a year-old, London-based family-photo-sharing app, has raised roughly $320,000 in seed money from numerous individual investors in both Europe and the U.S. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

New Funds

Kaszek Ventures, a three-year-old, Buenos Aires-based venture firm, has raised a new, $135 million fund, reports Dealbook. The firm’s founders are Hernán Kazah and Nicolás Szekasy, the cofounder and first CFO of MercadoLibre (considered to be Latin America’s eBay), respectively. The new fund is more than 30 percent larger than the firm’s last, $95 million, fund closed in 2011. According to Dealbook, Kaszek’s LPs include Horsley Bridge Partners; Sequoia Heritage, the fund of funds linked with Sequoia Capital; and Kevin Efrusy of Accel Partners.

—–

IPOs

AO.com, the U.K.’s largest online kitchen retailer, is gearing up to go public at a valuation of between $1.3 billion and $2.3 billion, sources tell the Financial Times. As part of that effort, the company has just appointed Brian McBride, a former managing director of Amazon in the U.K. to its board. McBride is also the chairman of Asos, one of the U.K.’s biggest online-only fashion and beauty stores.

GoPro, the 10-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based maker of action cameras, announced on Friday that it plans to go public after the SEC completes “the review process initiated by GoPro’s confidential submission on Friday February 7, 2014 of its draft registration statement.” According to WSJ sources, GoPro and its bankers are expected to begin pitching the deal to investors by the end of the first half of the year and they’re aiming for a valuation well north of the $2.3 billion valuation that GoPro was assigned in 2012, when Foxconn International provided $200 million in exchange for a 9 percent stake in the company. The company has raised roughly $288 million altogether, including from Steamboat Ventures,Walden International, and U.S. Venture Partners, where GoPro founder Nick Woodman‘s stepfather, Irwin Federman, is a longtime general partner. (The Journal had an interesting piece on Woodman’s family ties last summer.)

PubMatic, a 7.5-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company that automates the buying and selling of digital advertising space, has tapped bankers for a potential IPO, say WSJ sources. It will aim for a valuation of more than $1 billion. Pubmatic has raised $76 million, according to Crunchbase. Its investors include August Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Nexus Venture Partners, Nokia Growth Partners, andHelion Venture Partners.

—–

Exits

CloudSquads, a 4.5-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based enterprise social apps platform, has been acquired by Persistent Systems, a 24-year-old company in Pune, India that develops software for a wide variety of verticals. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. CloudSquads hadn’t publicly disclosed any venture backing.

Target Compiler Technologies, a Leuven, Belgium-based maker of software tools to design and program application-specific instruction-set processors (ASIPs), has been acquired by publicly traded Synopsys for undisclosed terms. Synopsys makes software used to design computer chips. Target was privately held.

—–

People

Jerry Hill, a Democratic state senator from San Mateo, Ca., is ratcheting up the pressure on venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who has blocked public access to Martins Beach in Half Moon Bay since buying the property for $37.5 million.

Joy Marcus, a managing director at Gotham Ventures in recent years, has joined the 5.5-year-old, online platform Bloglovin as CEO, replacing former CEO and cofounder Mattias Swenson, who will continue to lead product development as the company’s chief product officer. Bloglovin, based in New York, helps users discover and easily follow their favorite blogs. The company has received funding from Betaworks, Lerer Ventures, RRE Ventures, and White Star Capital, among others. Marcus will remain a venture partner with Gotham.

—–

Happenings

Tom Perkins will speak with Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky about the war on the 1 percent this Thursday night at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. (Sigh.)

—–

Job Listings

GE is looking for a business development and ventures associate.

—–

Data

Boom times: The latest MoneyTree Report reported that investment in Internet companies last year hit the highest level since 2001. Meanwhile, software companies garnered 37 percent of total venture capital in 2013, the highest percentage since the MoneyTree Report began in 1995. The San Jose Mercury News has more here.

Venture-back healthcare deals are also still sizzling hot, notes CB Insights, which compiles a list of the dozen related companies that have already gone public in 2014.

—–

Essential Reads

Apple‘s iPhone: The new international currency.

The outlet 9to5mac has created a detailed list of all “pertinent” recent Apple hires to provide clearer insight into Apple’s future wearable technologies.

It was once the only serious bitcoin exchange on the Internet. But now, just a year later, Japan’s Mt. Gox is in shambles. Relatedly, SecondMarket has taken its first step to becoming a bitcoin exchange, the company’s founder and CEO Barry Silbert has suggested.

Twitter‘s “other” growth problem: Keeping the users it already has.

—–

Detours

The billionaire boys’ club that helped Vladimir Putin build the Sochi Olympics.

Oh, come on. Professional athletes aren’t just better at sports; they may be better looking than the rest of us, too, says Swiss biologist Erik Postma of the University of Zurich.

Comic writer Andy Borowitz on Twitter, and mostly jumping off it: “I was an extremely prolific tweeter. But my wife, for one, said that she felt that Twitter was this sort of third party in our relationship. Like, instead of just saying something to her, I would say, ‘Oh, I should tweet that.’ But for a long time, I was pushing back, saying, ‘No no no, it’s not invasive at all.’”

—–

Retail Therapy

Behold the Vespa Segway. In fact, we pretty much love everything by this design house.

“House of Cards.” Second season, babies. It returns Friday.

—–

To sign up for StrictlyVC, click here. To advertise, click here.

Happy Friday, everyone. Get some rest this weekend and we’ll see you next week!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Apple has bought $14 billion of its own shares over the last two weeks, reports the WSJ, which published an interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook last night. Said Cook of the company’s business going forward: “There will be new categories. We’re not ready to talk about it, but we’re working on some really great stuff.” Pressed for details, Cook added that anyone “reasonable” would consider what Apple is working on as new categories.

—–

Kleiner Perkins’ Trae Vassallo Reboots

Trae Vassallo’s early investment in Nest Labs, maker of Internet-connected devices like thermostats and smoke alarms, has placed her in the ranks of today’s top venture capitalists. But Vassallo, along with a handful of other longtime Kleiner Perkins general partners, was recently cut from the firm’s investment committee in a sweeping reorganization first reported by Fortune.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that sources say Vassallo is planning her next move – though she refuses to comment. She also seems ready to shed her reputation for green tech deal-making and to embrace her passion for Internet-connected devices for both consumers and enterprises.

During a visit yesterday afternoon to Kleiner’s Sand Hill Road offices, I chatted with Vassallo about her career thus far, and her goals for the future.

Hers is actually a very familiar story in Silicon Valley, land of the super achievers. After earning three degrees from Stanford – a bachelor’s and master’s degree in mechanical engineering and an M.B.A. – Vassallo headed to IDEO, where she designed products for Palm and Dell. She then cofounded the mobile device company Good Technology, which later sold to Motorola.

By 2003, Vassallo had been invited to join Kleiner Perkins, just as the firm was beginning to bet heavily on green tech. Vassallo worked closely with a number of related management teams, including RecycleBank, a green rewards and loyalty network; Altarock Energy, a geothermal development company; and the electric luxury car company Fisker Automotive.

But it was Vassallo’s innate knowledge of mechanical engineering that became her biggest triumph. While Kleiner Perkins’ partner Randy Komisar ultimately sat on the board of Nest, Vassallo was first to recognize the opportunity the startup presented to Kleiner, having investing so much of her time focused on smart grids and energy efficiency. In fact, Vassallo says, in the months before Nest founder Tony Fadell sat down with Kleiner, she was specifically studying thermostats as a way for consumers to more easily measure and control their energy usage.

According to Fortune, Vassallo further negotiated the Series A round on behalf of Kleiner and continued to support the management team, including through introductions to utilities.

The deal returned Kleiner a reported 20 times its investment when Nest sold to Google last month for $3.2 billion in cash.

But Nest wasn’t Vassallo’s only connected-device deal. In 2011, she also led Kleiner into Enlighted, a lighting control tech company that can individually measure and manage lighting at each light fixture and reduce energy consumption by 50 to 75 percent. Designed for offices and commercial buildings, Vassallo likens it to a “Nest for the enterprise,” particularly given its ultimate goal of proving security and other features beyond lighting.

As a next step, Vassallo says she’s looking for more related opportunities. For example, she sees a day when every home has numerous tablets that cost next to nothing and form a kind of in-home communications system.

Vassallo is also interested in companies that apply social benchmarking to connected devices and put the numbers they generate into a more useful context. “I don’t necessarily want my friends to know how out of shape I am,” she jokes, “but I’d be interested in knowing how [my fitness level] compares to other working moms in the same age range.”

I ask Vassallo if she’s also interested in working more closely with other women VCs, a growing number of whom have been striking out on their own. She is friendly with longtime DFJ investor Jennifer Fonstad, for instance, and says she’s thrilled that Fonstad and Theresia Gouw, a former managing director at Accel Partners, have joined forces to create a new, self-funded venture firm.

“I think women should do business together,” she tells me, determined not to give away anything about her plans yet. “I think it’s important to have one another’s backs.”

For now, though, Vassallo is focused on Silicon Valley’s next generation. This weekend, she’s judging an “entrepreneurship” contest at the middle school of one of her three children. She also created a robotics program at Castilleja School, a school for girls in Palo Alto.

Sitting in her glass-lined office, Vassallo says, half-kiddingly, that she used to wonder why she nabbed a degree in mechanical instead of computer engineering. Today, that training is beginning to pay off in all kinds of ways.

New Fundings

Birdback, a 20-month-old, London based app platform for payment cards, has raised $2.4 million led by Passion Capital, with participation from Paul Nikkel, Luke Johnson, Playfair Capital and #1seed. The company links online to offline offers, such as cash-back and other loyalty offers. TechCrunch has more here.

Bloomthat, an 18-month-old, San Francisco-based flower-delivery startup, has raised $2 million in funding from SV Angel, A-Grade Investments,Joe Montana, Alexis Ohanian and Y Combinator.

CircleCI, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose tools enable development teams to quickly deliver features to customers, has raised $6 million in funding led Draper Fisher Jurvetson. The company has raised $7.5 million altogether, including from investors Baseline Ventures and Harrison Metal.

Embrane, a four-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based company that makes software for the delivery and management of network services in data centers, has raised $12 million in fresh funding led by Cisco Systems. Others of its investors include New Enterprise Associates, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and North Bridge Venture Partners. The company has raised roughly $40 million to date.

PayNearMe, a 4.5-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based cash payment network, has raised $20 million in Series E funding led by GSV Capital, withAugust Capital, Khosla Ventures, Maveron and True Ventures also participating. The company, led by serial CEO Danny Shader, has now raised more than $56 million.

Truecaller, a 4.5-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based mobile phone number verification directory, has raised $18.8 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital, alongside existing investor Open Ocean, Truecaller Chairman Stefan Lennhammer, and another, unnamed investor. The company has raised roughly $20 million to date.

Vungle, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile ad startup that focuses on 15-second, in-app videos, has raised $17 million in Series B funding led by Thomvest Ventures, with participation from existing investors Crosslink Capital, Google Ventures, AOL Ventures, SoftTech VC, and Webb Investment Network. The company has raised $25.5 million to date, shows Crunchbase.

—–

New Funds

Clarus Ventures, a nine-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based life sciences venture firm, is targeting $375 million for its third fund, shows an SEC filing. At that size, the pool would be meaningfully smaller than Clarus’s last two funds. (The firm closed its second, $660 million fund, in 2008 and its inaugural, $500 million, fund in 2005.) Interestingly, it has turned to Magog & Cie, a Dubai-based placement agent, for help, according to the filing.

Harbor Capital Group, a newly formed, Bloomington, In.-based company, will soon begin investing capital in young 3-D printing, big-data and robotics companies. CEO Jim Zitek says the firm isn’t assembling a dedicated fund but plans to form limited partnerships around each investment, giving individual investors an opportunity to back some startups but not others. You can read more here.

—–

Exits

Azuki Systems, a six-year-old, Acton, Ma.-based multiscreen video delivery platform, has been acquired by telecom giant Ericsson for an undisclosed amount. Azuki, formerly called Permeeta, had raised roughly $35 million over the years, reports Xconomy, including from Sigma Partners and Kepha Partners.

Bright, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based data-driven job search startup, has been acquired by LinkedIn for $120 million in mostly stock. Bright had raised roughly $20 million in funding from Toba Capital andPassport Capital. Re/code has more here.

LeadRocket, a Redwood City, Ca.-based social engagement and digital marketing platform provider, has been acquired by Callidus Software, a publicly traded sales and marketing cloud software company. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. LeadRocket had raised funding from Emergence Capital, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Accel Partners, Deep Fork Capital, the venture debt firm WTI, and Catapult Advisors.

MobiTargets, a 3.5-year-old, Madrid-based mobile ad network, has been acquired by adQuota, a 3.5-year-old, Copenhagen-based mobile advertising platform that is growing its European presence. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but adQuota recently raised around $3.4 million from the Danish venture firm Northcap.

Myntra, a seven-year-old, Bangalore-based fashion apparel e-tailer, has raised roughly $50 million led by Premji Invest, along with new and existing investors. This funding brings the company’s total funding to around $75 million.

Ness Computing, a three-year-old, Los Altos, Ca.-based maker of a personalized restaurant recommendations app called Ness, has been acquired by the restaurant reservation platform OpenTable in a deal worth $17.3 million. Ness had raised $20 million from investors, including Khosla Ventures, Alsop Louie Partners, Bullpen Capital, TomorrowVentures, SingTel Innov8 and American Express.

SET Media, a 6.5-year-old, New York-based digital video technology company that connects brands with people through targeted video advertising, has been acquired by the publicly traded, personalized digital marketing company Conversant. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. SET had raised $10 million from Crosslink Capital and Highland Capital Partners.

—–

People

Venture capitalist Ben Horowitz writes candidly about a business hire who might easily (if inadvertently) have landed him in jail.

Kleiner Perkins, its partner emeritus Ray Lane, and several others connected to Fisker Automotive have been named in a new lawsuit that alleges they misled investors in the now-bankrupt hybrid car company. The suit alleges that the defendants concealed negative information about Fisker’s business from plaintiffs and other investors “because they needed huge sums of additional cash to fund Fisker Automotive to position the Company for a sale or an initial public offering…without plaintiffs’ and other investors’ money, Fisker Automotive was not a viable company.” The Journal has the story.

—–

Job Listings

Uber is looking for a head of business development to help further the brand’s reach across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Requirements include 7 to 10 years of business development experience across the region. Apply here.

—–

Data

A growing number of backend-as-a-service (BaaS) vendors are enabling mobile and app developers to link their apps to a back-end cloud infrastructure and features including push notifications and social media integration. VCs are paying attention, too, notes CB Insights, which has published some helpful data around the trend.

—–

Essential Reads

Klout pivots again.

Silicon Valley has taken over the Secret app and the gossip being posted is priceless.

So much for slowing or stopping the patent monetization business. A patent infringement trial positioning Intellectual Ventures against Motorola Mobility ended in a mistrial when a jury couldn’t reach a verdict following two days of deliberations.

—–

Detours

As technology gets better, will society get worse?

Twelve ways to get what you want.

—–

Retail Therapy

From the fine folks at Ford, the F-150 RaptorTrax. If there’s a bigger, badder snowmobile out there, we shudder to imagine it.

—–

To sign up for StrictlyVC, click here. To advertise, click here.