Hi, all, hope you’re having a good Tuesday.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

Twitter is planning hundreds more job cuts as soon as this week, says Bloomberg.

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IPO Pro Lise Buyer on What You Need to Go Public in the Next Six Months

Last week, I sat down with IPO pro Lise Buyer to talk about the Bay Area ecosystem for a Sirius XM radio show that’s broadcast from Wharton’s San Francisco campus.

Buyer was the host and I was the guest, but because the IPO market is top of mind for so many in the startup industry right now, I asked if I could turn the table for a few minutes on Buyer, who is best known for helping to architect Google’s 2004 IPO and for the IPO advisory firm she founded in 2007, Class V Group.  She shared whether she thinks the IPO market will pick up substantially next year, and what it takes right now to become a publicly traded company.

We’ve seen eight IPOs in the last six weeks.

After the first six months of the year, we’re on track to have a pretty average year in terms of IPOs; there’s momentum.

But we’re heading into the final months of the year — an election year.

I think IPOs are going to grind to a halt temporarily in November, even leading up to November, pretty much starting [this] week, because everyone is afraid of the election, and markets don’t like uncertainty, and whatever you think of the candidates, one of them is a little less predictable than the other. And should Donald Trump be elected president, I’d expect the markets to express some . . . I’ll be kind and say, wicked bad indigestion. And I don’t think anyone wants to take their company public in the middle of that.

Do you think the companies that have gone out in recent months are solid? Do you expect their share prices to hold?

Are these solid companies? Yes. Do I expect [their share prices] to say where they’re trading? We’ll see. A number of them did very small deals, and they did very small deals because no one was quite sure of how the market would be. So if you have a product to sell and you’re not sure of what kind of price you could get, [you start with little inventory].

Twilio did a $150 million IPO in June, and they recently announced a $450 million follow-on offering. When they announced that, their share price [fell]; then they announced that they’d had a terrific quarter, and the stock is recovering. It’s a supply-and-demand issue.

When did we start to see these smaller floats, and is it something you recommend to clients? Is it a good trend, a bad trend?

We’ve seen this periodically for years. It used to be that you sold 10 to 20 percent of your shares in an IPO but LinkedIn only sold 8 percent of its shares. Valuations are low, so companies are smart to take advantage of the [demand created from] limited supply. Also, why sell for a low price and take the incremental dilution? The best path is to prove the company can function effectively as a public company, and once investors are convinced that the risk isn’t that great and that the company understands the ramifications [of being publicly traded], do a higher-value secondary.

Which you can do before a 180-day lock-up, correct?

Investment banks have the ability to release the lock-up early. So you have to get your bank’s approval to do it, which basically means that you agree to use the same banks [that underwrote your IPO]. So we’ve seen them not infrequently after four months in those cases where the company has met expectations and its stock has performed well. If a company’s shares aren’t trading above its IPO price, you won’t see an early lock-up.

What are bankers telling startups right now? Do they need to be profitable?

More here.

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New Funds

AEVI, a five-year-old, Reykjavík, Iceland-based payment transactions startup and marketplace for B2B apps and services, has raised €10 million ($10.9 million) in new funding from Adveq. More here.

Baffle, a two-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based end-to-end encryption platform, has raised $3 million in funding led by True Ventures. More here.

Clarifai, a three-year-old, New York-based startup that lets developers tag metadata to photos in such a way that the company algorithmically learns what kinds of objects are in photos, has raised $30 million in new funding led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Union Square Ventures, Lux Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, and Osage University Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Dataiku, a three-year-old, Paris-based startup that helps data scientists and data analysts manage and extract insights from huge data sets, has raised $14 million in Series funding led by FirstMark Capital, with participation from previous investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Hixme, a two-year-old, Agoura Hills, Ca.-based startup that uses information about employees and their family members to present them with health insurance plan options and customized benefit options, has raised $14.1 million in Series B funding led by Propel Venture Partners. Other participants in the round include Transamerica Ventures, Rosemark Capital, and earlier backer Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. The company has now raised $26.6 million altogether. More here.

InContext Solutions, a seven-year-old, Chicago-based developer of 3D virtual technology that helps retailers visualize what their store shelves will look like in a simulated store, has raised $15.2 million in  funding co-led by Intel Capital and return backer Beringea. VentureBeat has more here.

Industry, a two-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based job site for the hospitality sector, has raised $2.3 million in seed funding from a “stealth VC fund on Sand Hill Road,” with participation from our previous individual investors. Vator has more here.

K4Connect, a three-year-old, Raleigh, N.C.-based startup whose software platform integrates disparate smart devices into a single system and is specifically tailored for seniors and individuals living with disabilities, has raised $8 million in Series A funding. Intel Capital led the round and was joined by Traverse Venture Partners and a unit of Reinsurance Group of America. More here.

KredX, a two-year-old, Bangalore, India-based company that connects small and mid-size companies with investors who are willing to buy their unpaid receivables, has raised roughly $6 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital India, with participation from earlier backer Prime Venture Partners. The Economic Times has more here.

Lively, a year-old, New York-based direct-to-consumer lingerie startup, has raised $4 million in seed funding led by GGV Capital, with participation from Gelmart International, an intimate apparel manufacturer, and individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

OpenDataSoft, a five-year-old, Paris-based SaaS platform that makes it easier for other companies and developers to take advantage of a customer’s data for reuse in other services, has raised $5.4 million in Series A funding from Aster Capital and Salesforce Ventures, with participation from Ader Finance and earlier backer Aurinvest. TechCrunch has more here.

Paxata, a 4.5-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based platform built to help analysts turn raw data into ready data for analytics, has raised $33.5 million in new funding led by Intel Capital, with participation from Microsoft Ventures, Cisco Systems, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, AirTree Partners and earlier investors Accel Partners, In-Q-Tel and Singapore’s EDBI. Silicon Valley Business Journal has more here.

Uplevel Security, a two-year-old, New York-based incident response and threat Intelligence platform founded by Roselle Safran, a former branch chief for cybersecurity operations at the White House, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from First Round Capital and Aspect Ventures, along with a host of individual angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Verse, a year-old San Francisco-based payments company that’s aiming to become the Venmo of Europe (it also has an office in Barcelona), has raised $8.3 million in Series A funding led by Greycroft Partners. Other participants include Spark Capital and eVentures. TechCrunch has more here.

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IPOs

As its IPO quiet period came to a close, Nutanix was welcomed with several positive analyst reports initiating coverage with buy ratings or equivalents, though it hasn’t helped the stock, which is trending downward after big jumps the first two days after its Sept. 30 IPO. Investors Business Daily has more here.

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Exits

Google has acquired Eyefluence, a three-year-old, Milpitas, Ca.-based eye-tracking technology company, for undisclosed terms. CrunchBase shows Eyefluence had raised $21.6 million in funding from investors, including Motorola Solutions Venture Capital, Jazz Venture Partners, Intel Capital, NHN Investment and Dolby Family Ventures.  TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Marc Andreessen at Startup School (video).

Redpoint Ventures has brought aboard two associates: Medha Agarwal has joined the firm’s early-stage consumer team, after stints as a student investor with Rough Draft Ventures and as a summer associate at Javelin Venture Partners. Jamin Ball will be focusing on early growth opportunities. Ball was formerly an investment banking analyst at Morgan Stanley.

Krishna Yeshwant, the part-time physician who leads GV’s life sciences and health investment team, talks with MedCity News about the kind of consumer wearable company that would win its support.

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Essential Reads

This self-driving truck’s first mission: a beer run.

Google is getting into the whiteboard business.

After years of awarding Tesla high marks, Consumer Reports has now decided that it’s among the least reliable car companies in America.

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Detours

Chad McQueen talks about his famous dad.

Rules for living with roommates.

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Essential Reads

A $17 million townhouse in West Village.

Last week, I sat down with IPO pro Lise Buyer to talk about the Bay Area ecosystem for a Sirius XM radio show that’s broadcast from Wharton’s San Francisco campus.

Buyer was the host and I was the guest, but because the IPO market is top of mind for so many in the startup industry right now, I asked if I could turn the table for a few minutes on Buyer, who is best known for helping to architect Google’s 2004 IPO and for the IPO advisory firm she founded in 2007, Class V Group.  She shared whether she thinks the IPO market will pick up substantially next year, and what it takes right now to become a publicly traded company.

TC: We’ve seen eight IPOs in the last six weeks.

LB: After the first six months of the year, we’re on track to have a pretty average year in terms of IPOs; there’s momentum.

TC: But we’re heading into the final months of the year — an election year.

LB: I think IPOs are going to grind to a halt temporarily in November, even leading up to November, pretty much starting [this] week, because everyone is afraid of the election, and markets don’t like uncertainty, and whatever you think of the candidates, one of them is a little less predictable than the other. And should Donald Trump be elected president, I’d expect the markets to express some . . . I’ll be kind and say, wicked bad indigestion. And I don’t think anyone wants to take their company public in the middle of that.

TC: Do you think the companies that have gone out in recent months are solid? Do you expect their share prices to hold?

LB: Are these solid companies? Yes. Do I expect [their share prices] to say where they’re trading? We’ll see. A number of them did very small deals, and they did very small deals because no one was quite sure of how the market would be. So if you have a product to sell and you’re not sure of what kind of price you could get, [you start with little inventory].

Twilio did a $150 million IPO in June, and they recently announced a $450 million follow-on offering. When they announced that, their share price [fell]; then they announced that they’d had a terrific quarter, and the stock is recovering. It’s a supply-and-demand issue.

TC: When did we start to see these smaller floats, and is it something you recommend to clients? Is it a good trend, a bad trend?

LB: We’ve seen this periodically for years. It used to be that you sold 10 to 20 percent of your shares in an IPO but LinkedIn only sold 8 percent of its shares. Valuations are low, so companies are smart to take advantage of the [demand created from] limited supply. Also, why sell for a low price and take the incremental dilution? The best path is to prove the company can function effectively as a public company, and once investors are convinced that the risk isn’t that great and that the company understands the ramifications [of being publicly traded], do a higher-value secondary.

TC: Which you can do before a 180-day lock-up, correct?

LB: Investment banks have the ability to release the lock-up early. So you have to get your bank’s approval to do it, which basically means that you agree to use the same banks [that underwrote your IPO]. So we’ve seen them not infrequently after four months in those cases where the company has met expectations and its stock has performed well. If a company’s shares aren’t trading above its IPO price, you won’t see an early lock-up.

TC: What are bankers telling startups right now? Do they need to be profitable?

More here.

Hi, everyone, welcome back and happy Monday!

(Busy morning; no column today.)

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Top News in the A.M.

After days of speculation, the deal became official Friday: Pending regulatory approval, AT&T is acquiring Time Warner for $85 billion in a mix of cash and shares, paving the way for another behemoth in the converged media horizon. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson would head the new company, and Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes would stay for an interim period following the close of the deal to help with the transition. Already, though, there’s plenty of opposition to the deal. More here and here and here.

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New Fundings

Blackthorn Therapeutics, a three-year-old, South San Francisco-based clinical stage biopharmaceutical company that’s developing targeted treatments for neurobehavioral disorders, has raised $40 million in Series A funding from Arch Venture Partners, Johnson & Johnson Innovation and a cast of other venture investors. Forbes has more here.

Coins.ph, a two-year-old, Philippines-based online payment startup that delivers financial services over mobile to people in Southeast Asia who aren’t served by traditional banks, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund. A long list of investors also participated in the round, including Wavemaker Labs, Global Brain, BeeNext, Rebright Partners, Kickstart Ventures, Ideaspace Foundation, Innovation Endeavors, Pantera Capital, and Digital Currency Group. Tech in Asia has more here.

Eaze, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that offers medical marijuana delivery on demand, has raised $13 million in Series B funding from Fresh VC, DCM and Tusk Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Honeycomb, a two-year-old, London-based TV and video ad management platform, has raised £3 million ($3.7 million) in Series A funding led by Beringea, with participation from numerous individuals from the worlds of television and advertising. TechCrunch has more here.

New Dada, a China-based online grocery and delivery company that’s owned in part by JD.com, has raised $50 million in fresh funding from Walmart. Reuters has more here.

Nozomi Networks, a three-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based maker of cybersecurity and operational visibility for industrial control systems, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding co-led by GGV Capital and Lux Capital, with participation from existing investor Planven Investments SA. More here.

TurboAppeal, a two-year-old, Chicago-based startup whose software helps property owners appeal their taxes, has raised $4 million in Series A funding led by Guaranteed Rate, a Chicago-based mortgage company. The Chicago Tribune has more here.

Verdigris, a five-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based maker of cloud analytics software for enterprise facilities managers and large commercial buildings — it aims to allow them to increase facility uptime and save on energy costs — has raised $6.7 million led by Jabil, with participation from Verizon Ventures, Stanford StartX Fund, and existing angel investors. VentureBeat has more here.

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New Funds

Blume Ventures, a six-year-old, Mumbai, India-based seed-stage venture fund, has closed its second fund with $60 million; the firm’s debut fund had closed with roughly $20 million in 2011. More here.

Initialized, the seed-stage venture firm led by former Y Combinator partner Garry Tan, has officially closed on $102 million for its new fund. (We’d mentioned this one to you in June, when the firm first filed with the SEC.) More here.

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IPOs

The IPO quiet period for Coupa Software expires one week from today. Seeking Alpha has more on what that means here.

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Exits

The New York Times is buying The Wirecutter, a bootstrapped, five-year-old online consumer guide. The Times will pay more than $30 million, including retention bonuses and other payouts, according to Recode’s sources. More here.

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People

Gawker founder Nick Denton is selling his Soho loft, one of his only assets, as part of a privacy judgment against him. In August, Denton tried renting out the flat, now on the market for $4.25 million; a bankruptcy judge wouldn’t allow it.

“Mr. Robot” creator Sam Esmail talks with reporter Kara Swisher about hackers, VR, and much more in a new podcast.

Politico looks at Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz’s unexpected and abrupt rise to the top rung of Democratic party mega donors.

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Data

You might think otherwise, but government data shows a decades-long slowdown in entrepreneurship. More on what it means here.

Smartwatch sales are tanking, according to a new industry report by IDC. More here.

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Essential Reads

Sweden just became one of the first countries to ban camera drones.

Here are all the companies China is buying up around the globe.

The tech bubble didn’t burst this year, but VC Bill Gurley thinks we’re in a “slow correction. You might see a unicorn go down once a quarter,” instead of a crash taking them all down at once, he tells Bloomberg.

Netflix has proposed a new offering of $800 million in senior notes, with the stated aim of using the cash to acquire content, make investments, acquire targets and engage in strategic transactions. More here.

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Detours

Living in China’s expanding deserts.

Leonard Cohen makes it darker. (Great profile. We also could have listened all day to this 10-year-old “Fresh Air” interview with Cohen, replayed on Friday.)

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Retail Therapy

Frightful drinks recipes your Halloween party. Mmmmwhahaha.

Friday! Hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we’ll see you back here soon, as long as the Internet doesn’t completely implode between now and then. (Today’s blackout is now being investigated as a criminal act.)

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Top News in the A.M.

AT&T is in the advanced stages of negotiations to acquire Time Warner, which would give the carrier a huge content creation arm. The WSJ has the story here.

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Board of Hampton Creek Said to Be Investigating Buyback Allegations

The board of Hampton Creek has hired one of the Big Four accounting firms to investigate claims in a Bloomberg story that the San Francisco-based vegan food company executed on a campaign to buy back mass quantities of its eggless mayo product, Just Mayo.

A source familiar with the situation says the board was unaware of the alleged scheme until contacted by Bloomberg’s reporters this fall, and that if CEO Josh Tetrick and other managers were “buying back mayo solely for the purpose of juicing the numbers,” the board will be “livid.”

This source says the board has no evidence of wrongdoing currently but that an auditing firm is currently “looking at every f_cking receipt that the company has created.”

A spokesman for the board refused comment.

Tetrick also declined to comment for this story, though a source close to Tetrick insists that there is no board-initiated investigation ongoing or taking place imminently.

In August, Bloomberg reported that the SEC and the Justice Department had launched probes of Hampton Creek for possible securities violations and criminal fraud, following its report that Hampton Creek had hired contractors to purchase Just Mayo from grocer’s shelves.

Reporter Olivia Zaleski said in the piece that Bloomberg was “shown 250 receipts, expense reports, cash advances and e-mails” from these contractors that collectively showed buybacks at Safeway, Kroger, Costco, Walmart, Target, and Whole Foods.

Tetrick told Bloomberg that the buybacks were centered around quality control, but these same contractors said they were free to consume, distribute to friends, or discard the product rather than look for quality issues.

What happens next is anyone’s guess, but a follow-on story in Bloomberg didn’t reflect well on Hampton Creek’s board, which was reportedly warned by the successful entrepreneur and investor Ali Partovi that the company might have a truthiness issue, to steal from comic Stephen Colbert.

More here.

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New Fundings

Buzzfeed, a 10-year-old, New York-based digital content company, is reportedly raising a fresh $200 million from Comcast’s TV and movie arm NBCUniversal, at a valuation of roughly $1.7 billion. Recode has more here.

EverQuote, a six-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based online marketplace for consumers to shop for auto insurance quotes (and soon home and life insurance, too), has raised $23 million in funding led by Maryland-based Savano Capital Partners, with participation from Stratim Capital, Oceanic Partners and T Capital Partners. Insurance Journal has more here.

IbanFirst, a three-year-old, Brussels, Belgium-based specialist in international payments with real-time exchange rate access, has raised €10 million ($10.9 million) in funding led by longtime investor Xavier Niel. More here.

Joymode, a year-old, L.A.-based startup that rents gear to people so they can organize things like beach parties and backyard barbecues, has raised $3 million in venture funding led by Homebrew, with participation from Lowercase Capital, Founders Collective, Collaborative Fund, TenOneTen, Slow Ventures, Sherpa Ventures, and individual investors Scott Belsky and Emil Michael. Joymode’s CEO and co-Founder is Joe Fernandez, who previously founded Klout (acquired by Lithium Technologies). TechCrunch has more on the company here.

Ladder, a 1.5-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based insurtech startup, has raised $14 million in Series A funding led by Canaan Partners, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, NYCA and 8VC. More here.

Mio Global, a 16-year-old, Vancouver, British Columbia-based wearables company whose tech tracks heart rates, has raised $15 million in funding led by Hydra Ventures, with participation from private investors. More here.

Undo, a nearly 12-year-old, Cambridge, U.K.-based startup that makes debugging tools for Linux and Android developers, has raised $3.3 million in Series A funding led by Cambridge Innovation Capital, with participation from Rockspring, Martlet, Sir Peter Michael, the Cambridge Angels group, and Jaan Tallinn. More here.

Yijiupi.com, a two-year-old, Beijing-based wholesale alcohol business-to-business e-commerce start-up, has raised $100 million in Series C funding led by the Shanghai-based alternative investment firm Greenwoods Asset. Other participants in the deal include Source Code Capital, Lighthouse Capital, Meituan-Dianping, HG Capital, and Meituan-Dianping, which is China’s largest peer review and group buying company. China Money Network has more here.

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Exits

Event ticketing startup YPlan has been acquired by travel publication Time Out in a deal worth $1.96 million, a figure that will rise to $2.94 million after a year if certain terms are met. It’s not a great outcome for investors; YPlan had raised $37.5 million, including from actor Ashton Kutcher. VentureBeat has more here.

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People

The ride-share company Lyft just underwent an executive reshuffling. Raj Kapoor, from Mayfield Fund, has joined Lyft in the new position of chief strategy officer. Melissa Waters, formerly Pandora’s vice president of brand and product marketing, is taking over as head of marketing. More here.

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Essential Reads

Google is the latest tech company to drop the longstanding wall between anonymous online ad tracking and user’s names. More here.

Slack is still growing fast, but not as fast as before. More here.

Walmart is hitting reset on its online business in China. More here.

Ride-hailing app Uber is partnering with MasterCard and Mexico’s first online bank, Bankaool, to launch its own debit cards, a move aimed at getting more people to use Uber in Mexico. More here.

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Detours

Tom Cruise acts out his career.

Apparently, drinking hand sanitizer will not kill you right away.

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Retail Therapy

You’re going to want a good lock for this one.

The board of Hampton Creek has hired one of the Big Four accounting firms to investigate claims in a Bloomberg story that the San Francisco-based vegan food company executed on a campaign to buy back mass quantities of its eggless mayo product, Just Mayo.

A source familiar with the situation says the board was unaware of the alleged scheme until contacted by Bloomberg’s reporters this fall, and that if CEO Josh Tetrick and other managers were “buying back mayo solely for the purpose of juicing the numbers,” the board will be “livid.”

This source says the board has no evidence of wrongdoing currently but that an auditing firm is currently “looking at every f_cking receipt that the company has created.”

A spokesman for the board refused comment.

Tetrick also declined to comment for this story, though a source close to Tetrick insists that there is no board-initiated investigation ongoing or taking place imminently.

In August, Bloomberg reported that the SEC and the Justice Department had launched probes of Hampton Creek for possible securities violations and criminal fraud, following its report that Hampton Creek had hired contractors to purchase Just Mayo from grocer’s shelves.

Reporter Olivia Zaleski said in the piece that Bloomberg was “shown 250 receipts, expense reports, cash advances and e-mails” from these contractors that collectively showed buybacks at Safeway, Kroger, Costco, Walmart, Target, and Whole Foods.

Tetrick told Bloomberg that the buybacks were centered around quality control, but these same contractors said they were free to consume, distribute to friends, or discard the product rather than look for quality issues.

What happens next is anyone’s guess, but a follow-on story in Bloomberg didn’t reflect well on Hampton Creek’s board, which was reportedly warned by the successful entrepreneur and investor Ali Partovi that the company might have a truthiness issue, to steal from comic Stephen Colbert.

More here.

Hi! Happy Thursday, everyone. We’re running out the door so have a streamlined version of SVC for you today, but more tomorrow!

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Top News in the A.M.

Verizon just reported declining revenue and plunging subscriber growth, and said it is assessing whether it will need to renegotiate its acquisition of Yahoo after a major data breach. The WSJ has more here.

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Jess Lee Become’s Sequoia’s 11th Investing Partner

Sequoia Capital has brought aboard Jess Lee as its eleventh investing partner in the U.S., becoming the firm’s first senior female U.S. investor in its 44-year-old history.

Lee was a former Google product manager turned CEO of the fashion site Polyvore, which was acquired for $230 million in cash by Yahoo last year. She had stayed on with Yahoo, which is now being sold, maybe, to Verizon.

Lee seemed to demonstrate a strong eye for startups long ago. Indeed, in 2008, as an avid user of Polyvore, which was then just months old,  Lee wrote to its founder, Pasha Sadri, with whom she shared mutual friends. After offering him her unsolicited feedback via email about how to improve the site speed and other aspects of its product design, the two met for coffee and she was quickly brought into the company. By 2012, she was its chief executive.

The new appointment is a huge win for Lee, a Stanford grad who grew up in Hong Kong and joked to Fortune last year that she would have gone to art school but “Asian parents don’t really like that,” so she took a more traditional path; it has led her straight to the top of the venture industry.

The appointment is highly meaningful for Sequoia, too, of course. Though Sequoia China and Sequoia India feature five female investing partners, they are separate, affiliated funds. Meanwhile, the storied Sand Hill Road firm has been pressed for years on the lack of any female investors in its ranks. Pressure on the firm seemed to intensify late last year after longtime Sequoia investor Michael Moritz gave a widely watched interview given to journalist Emily Chang where they discussed whether Sequoia felt a responsibility to hire women.

Adjusting his collar uncomfortably at the time, Moritz said he’d like to think that the firm is “blind to somebody’s sex, to their religion, to their background.” He’d added that there is, in his view, a pipeline problem to explain the dearth of women at Sequoia. Asked if Sequoia might not be looking hard enough, Moritz had added that Sequoia “looks very hard . . . We just hired a young woman from Stanford who is every bit as good as her peers and if there are more like her, we’ll hire them. What we’re not prepared to do is to lower our standards.”

The comment drew scorn from across the internet, though a Bloomberg story this morning reports that longtime Sequoia partner Roelof Botha invited Lee to join Sequoia in the summer of 2015 when Yahoo acquired Polyvore.

More here.

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New Fundings

Atipica, a 20-month-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based recruiting software startup, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by True Ventures, with participation from Kapor Capital, Precursor Ventures, and numerous angel investors, including former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao. USA Today has more here.

Bumpers.fm., a months-old, New York-based company whose iOS app that lets anyone make a podcast straight from their phone, using the phone’s built-in microphone, has raised $1 million in seed funding led by Spark Capital, with participation from Founders Collective and angel investors, including Evan Williams. TechCrunch has more here.

Finrise, a year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based online lending startup that plans to reach customers in doctor’s offices (to aid with out-of-pocket expenses), has raised $5.4 million in debt and seed equity funding, including from Mayfield, NFX Guild, WTI, and numerous angel investors, including Funding Circle cofounder Sam Hodges and LendingHome CEO Matt Humphrey. We wrote up more here.

Hangar Technology, a months-old, Austin, Tex.-based startup, has raised $6.5 million in seed funding for technology that lets corporations get all the business intelligence they want out of drones, without having to pilot them or crunch the billions of data points that they generate. The deal was led by Lux Capital, with participation from Fontinalis Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Propeller Health, a six-year-old, Madison, Wi.-based mobile platform that offers sensors, mobile apps, analytics, and services to support respiratory health management, has raised $21.5 million in Series C funding, including from 3M Ventures, S.R. One, and Hikma Ventures. Earlier backers Safeguard Scientifics and Social Capital joined the round. More here.

Ritual, a year-old, L.A.-based West Hollywood, Ca.-based vitamin company, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by Forerunner Ventures, with participation from Norwest Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, and earlier backers Upfront Ventures and Rivet Ventures. The company has now raised $5 million altogether TechCrunch has more here.

Sequoia Capital has brought aboard Jess Lee as its eleventh investing partner in the U.S., becoming the firm’s first senior female U.S. investor in its 44-year-old history.

Lee was a former Google product manager turned CEO of the fashion site Polyvore, which was acquired for $230 million in cash by Yahoo last year. She had stayed on with Yahoo, which is now being sold, maybe, to Verizon.

Lee seemed to demonstrate a strong eye for startups long ago. Indeed, in 2008, as an avid user of Polyvore, which was then just months old,  Lee wrote to its founder, Pasha Sadri, with whom she shared mutual friends. After offering him her unsolicited feedback via email about how to improve the site speed and other aspects of its product design, the two met for coffee and she was quickly brought into the company. By 2012, she was its chief executive.

The new appointment is a huge win for Lee, a Stanford grad who grew up in Hong Kong and joked to Fortune last year that she would have gone to art school but “Asian parents don’t really like that,” so she took a more traditional path; it has led her straight to the top of the venture industry.

The appointment is highly meaningful for Sequoia, too, of course. Though Sequoia China and Sequoia India feature five female investing partners, they are separate, affiliated funds. Meanwhile, the storied Sand Hill Road firm has been pressed for years on the lack of any female investors in its ranks. Pressure on the firm seemed to intensify late last year after longtime Sequoia investor Michael Moritz gave a widely watched interview given to journalist Emily Chang where they discussed whether Sequoia felt a responsibility to hire women.

Adjusting his collar uncomfortably at the time, Moritz said he’d like to think that the firm is “blind to somebody’s sex, to their religion, to their background.” He’d added that there is, in his view, a pipeline problem to explain the dearth of women at Sequoia. Asked if Sequoia might not be looking hard enough, Moritz had added that Sequoia “looks very hard . . . We just hired a young woman from Stanford who is every bit as good as her peers and if there are more like her, we’ll hire them. What we’re not prepared to do is to lower our standards.”

The comment drew scorn from across the internet, though a Bloomberg story this morning reports that longtime Sequoia partner Roelof Botha invited Lee to join Sequoia in the summer of 2015 when Yahoo acquired Polyvore.

More here.

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

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Top News in the A.M.

Get out the guacamole. Tonight is the third and final presidential debate, which you can stream live here.

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Why Do We Even Care About Peter Thiel’s Politics?

Peter Thiel is supporting Donald Trump, and it’s time to for Silicon Valley to take sides. Is it for Peter Thiel or against him? Relatedly, should Y Combinator president Sam Altman resign if he can’t bring himself to fire Thiel as a part-time partner?

These were actual questions posed publicly yesterday, I’m sorry to note.

It’s clear that Trump is about as popular as the Zika virus in Silicon Valley (and, seemingly, a growing number of other places). But it’s worth asking: Why does everyone care so much what Peter Thiel thinks about politics? Is he also running for office? Did somebody appoint him Silicon Valley’s official representative in Washington? Along the same vein, why spend so much time worrying about what Sam Altman says and whether Y Combinator will continue to work with Thiel?

The common wisdom seems to be that Trump poses a threat to the country, and because Thiel sits on the boards of some very powerful companies, including Facebook, we should be concerned by his support of Trump. Meanwhile, Y Combinator is an influential force in Silicon Valley, and if it continues to employ Thiel as a part-time partner, it’s sending the wrong message to the many entrepreneurs whose minds it is helping to shape and who may themselves be in positions of power at some point.

Aren’t we all smarter than this? Do we really think founders are that impressionable? Thiel is renowned, yes, but there are many successful people with varied perspectives in Silicon Valley. Those worried about a Trump presidency should be delighted that Thiel is seemingly alone in sticking his neck out here. It could be a lot worse.

I don’t know Thiel. I’ve interviewed him maybe a handful of times, and nearly a decade ago, he accepted an invitation I extended to meet a gaggle of reporters out for drinks at a dumpy pool hall, which I thought was nice, even if it was also self-serving.

But I’m a little astonished by how he tends to be depicted by the media.

More here.

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New Fundings

Chorus, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco- and Tel-Aviv-based startup that adds AI to sales conversations, has raised $6.3 million in first-round funding led by Emergence Capital.

ContentSquare, a four-year-old, Paris-based company whose optimization shopping technology is used by L’Oreal and Unilever, has raised $20 million in Series B funding from Highland Europe. The Telegraph has more here.

Finwizard Technology, a 1.5-year-old Bengaluru, India-based company that makes a wealth management app called Fisdom, has raised $1.1 million from Saama Capital. The company’s founders include Subramanya SV, a former partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. The Economic Times has more here.

FR8, a three-month-old, Chennai, India-based logistics service provider that aims to provide long haul transportation, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from the venture firm Omnivore. More here.

Furlenco, a five-year-old, Bangalore, India-based online furniture rental platform, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by earlier backer LightBox Ventures, with participation from the Hong Kong-based venture capital fund Axis Capital and other investors. The company has also secured $15 million in new debt funding. YourStory has more here.

HigherMe, a two-year-old, Boston-based hiring startup, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding, including from Y Combinator (where the company was incubated), Barbara Corcoran Venture Partners, NatureBox founder Gautam Gupta, HootSuite founder Ryan Holmes, TEEC Angel Fund and The Unofficial Syndicate. TechCrunch has more here.

Leanplum, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile marketing startup, has raised $29 million in Series C funding led by Canaan Partners, with participation from earlier backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Shasta Ventures. GeekWire has more here.

Moov, a four-year-old, Copenhagen, Denmark-based company whose wearables can be used to provide real-time feedback for fast-paced workouts, has raised $12 million in Series B funding led by Mangrove Capital, with participation from BOE Technology Group. TechCrunch has more here.

Oryx Vision, a seven-year-old,  Israel-based developer of solid state depth sensing solutions for autonomous vehicles, has raised $17 million in Series A funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Maniv Mobility and Trucks Venture Capital. FinSMEs has more here.

Productboard, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose product management system helps organize user research and prioritize development tasks, has raised $1.3 million in seed funding co-led by Index Ventures and Credo Ventures, with participation from Spread Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Ravelin, a two-year-old, London-based machine-learning fraud detection startup, has raised £3 million ($3.7 million) in Series A funding led by Playfair Capital, with participation from previous backers that include Amadeus Capital and Passion Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

ShotTracker, a 3.5-year-old, Overland Park, Ks.-based company that got its start by launching a wearable sensor to track and analyze users’ basketball shots, has raised $5 million in seed funding, including from basketball legend Magic Johnson, former NBA Commissioner David Stern, R/GA, Elysian Park Ventures, and Greycroft Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

TravelTek, a 14-year-old, Scotland-based startup that provides travel retailers, agents and wholesalers with the technology to package together a range of hotels, flights, cruises and ancillary travel services, has raised £5.3 million ($6.5 million) in funding from YFM Equity Partners. More here.

Vertical Mass, a three-year-old, L.A.-based data management platform and marketplace built specifically for the music, entertainment and sports industries, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from Greycroft Partners, Formation 8, Sierra Wasatch, Canyon Creek Capital, Magnetar Capital and the San Francisco 49ers. More here.

CRISPR Therapeutics, a three-year-old, Basel, Switzerland-based gene editing company, just raised $56 million in an IPO. The company priced 4 million shares at $14 per share. More here.

Ra Pharmaceuticals, an eight-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based clinical-stage biopharma company, plans to sell 5.8 million shares at a range of $12 to $14 apiece in its upcoming IPO. A midpoint pricing would raise $75.4 million for the company. Pitchbook has more here.

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Exits

Fintech startup Lendingkart Group, based in Bangalore and Mumbai, has acqui-hired KountMoney, an online lending marketplace for personal loans. Financial terms aren’t being disclosed. The Economic Times has more here.

Online travel firm MakeMyTrip has agreed to buy Ibibo Group’s travel business in India in an all-stock deal, creating the country’s largest online travel firm. LiveMint has more here.

Malwarebytes, an 8.5-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based detection engine for computer threats, has acquired French adware tracker and remover AdwCleaner for an undisclosed amount. Malwarebytes has raised around $80 million in funding, shows CrunchBase. AdwCleaner doesn’t appear to have announced outside funding. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Priscilla Chan, a pediatrician and the wife of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, spoke last night at a Fortune event about the couple’s philanthropic work, and about the moment she decided to “go to medical school to help advocate for the lives of children.” You can watch here.

When serial entrepreneur and father Mike Lanza turned his Menlo Park backyard into a place where kids can play unsupervised, not all of his neighbors were thrilled.

Pixar made Steve Jobs his first billion dollars. Now, former Pixar CFO Lawrence Levy shares some behind-the-scenes color about how that came to pass.

Zihao Xu has joined the London-based venture capital firm Octopus Ventures as an associate. Xu joins the firm from the consultancy Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, where he spent the last six years.

—–

Essential Reads

Snapchat is bringing the TV model to mobile. It just told its ad partners it will pay them a license fee for their content — and keep the ad revenue. Recode has more here.

Facebook caught an office intruder using the controversial surveillance tool it just blocked last week. The Verge has more here.

Walmart is teaming up with IBM and Tsinghua University in Beijing to digitally track the movement of pork in China on a blockchain. (Interesting.) Fortune has more here.

—–

Detours

On-demand orchestras for your living room.

Why autonomous cars will be great for jerks.

Find out if you’re underpaid.

—–

Retail Therapy

Finally, a robot crib.

GO TRIBE. Also, happy Tuesday.:)

We’re running a little behind today so no column.

—–

Top News in the A.M.

Amazon may become the latest company to try its hand in providing broadband access, not just the services that run on top of it. According to The Information, the company is considering offering internet access directly to consumers in Europe. More here.

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New Fundings

Baobab Studios, a year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based VR animation studio, has raised $25 million in funding led by Horizons Ventures, with participation from Twentieth Century Fox, Evolution Media Partners, Shanghai Media Group, Youku Global Media Fund and LDV Partners. Earlier backers Comcast Ventures, HTC, and Samsung also joined the round. VentureBeat has more here.

FirstCry.com, a six-year-old, Pune, India-based online and offline retailer of baby products, has acquired its younger competitor, Mahindra Retail, and raised a fresh $34 million in funding from the private equity firm Mahindra Group and Infosys executive vice chair Kris Gopalakrishnan, as well as from the company’s earlier backers. YourStory has more here.

Gymbox, a 13-year-old, London-based gym chain, has raised $48 million in equity and debt, including from Business Growth Fund and HSBC. FinSMEs has more here.

Heal, a year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based platform for ordering up on-demand doctor house calls, has raised $26.9 million in Series A funding led by Thomas Tull’s Tull Investment Group, with participation from Breyer Capital, Qualcomm’s executive chair Paul Jacobs, Skydance Media CEO David Ellison, and previous investors HashtagOne and Slow Ventures. The company has now raised $40 million altogether. More here.

Hypr, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based biometric security startup that integrates fingerprint, voice, face, eye and palm recognition into mobile and desktop banking and shopping so customers need not use PIN numbers of passwords, has raised $3 million in funding from RTP Ventures, Boldstart Ventures, and Mesh Ventures. American Banker has more here.

Joy, a months-old, San Francisco-based hardware startup whose first product is an interactive photo frame, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from investors including Obvious Ventures, The Chernin Group, BoxGroup, and Maywic Select Investments. Joy was founded by Alan Chan, who sold his last startup, an ad tech company called Bread, to Yahoo in 2013. TechCrunch has more here.

Oblong Industries, a 10-year-old, L.A.-based developer of gesture recognition and immersive collaboration platforms, has raised $65 million from Greenspring Associates; Morgan Stanley; Foundry Group; Industry Ventures; and UTIMCO, the investment arm of the University of Texas. (You don’t see the last make many direct investments in startups, so this is interesting.) VentureBeat has more here.

PayCommerce, a 12-year-old, Edison, N.J.based cross-border payments network for payments disbursement, has raised $22 million investment from Tritium Partners. More here.

SafetyCulture, a 12-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based maker of a business-to-business inspection checklist app called iAuditor, has raised $23 million in Series B funding led by Index Ventures, with participation from Blackbird Ventures and Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar, who led the company’s Series A round in 2014. TechCrunch has more here.

SecureKey Technologies, an eight-year-old, Toronto-based company that makes identity and authentication software, has secured C$27 million ($20.6 million) in funding from BMO Bank of Montreal, Bank of Nova Scotia, CIBC, Desjardins, Royal Bank of Canada and TD. More here.

SoloLearn, a two-year-old, Pleasanton, Ca.-based app that helps would-be developers learn how to code via interactive lessons, coding exercises and more, has raised $1.2 million in seed funding led by Learn Capital, with participation from unnamed individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Tovala, a 1.5-year-old, Chicago-based startup that makes a smart, cloud-connected countertop oven, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding led by Origin Ventures, with participation from New Stack Ventures, Service Provider Capital, and GREE Ventures, along with a handful of individuals. Tovala graduated from Y Combinator last summer. The Chicago Tribune has more here.

Veritas Genetics, a two-year-old, Danvers, Ma.-based startup that offers whole genome sequencing to consumers for under $1,000, has raised $30 million in new funding led by the private equity firm Trustbridge Partners. Lilly Asia and Jiangsu Simcere Pharmaceutical of Nanjing, one of China’s largest drug companies, also joined the round. The Boston Globe has more here.

VMRay, a three-year-old, Bochum, Germany-based company that makes threat analysis and detection software, has raised $3.9 million in Series A funding, including from eCAPITAL entrepreneurial Partners and High-Tech Gründerfonds. More here.

Zumper, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based online apartment search platform, has raised $17.6 million in Series B funding led by Breyer Capital and Foxhaven Asset Management, with participation from earlier backers, including Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, Intuit cofounder Scott Cook and others. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Quark Venture, a year-old, Vancouver-based venture capital firm, said yesterday that it’s establishing a $500 million biotechnology fund — “the largest of its kind in Canada” — with the support of the China-based investment bank GF Securities. FierceBiotech has more here.

Ysios Capital, an eight-year-old, Barcelona, Spain-based venture capital firm focused on biotech, has closed its second fund with  €126.4 million (roughly $139 million). More here.

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IPOs

Skyscanner, a 13-year-old, Edinburgh, Scotland-based online travel search company,has begun exploring strategic options, including a possible sale or an IPO, reports Bloomberg. The company was reportedly valued at $1.2 billion after its most recent funding round in January. Its backers include Sequoia Capital and Artemis, among others. More here.

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Exits

Razer, an 11-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based company that develops hardware and services for gamers and the world of gaming, has made an acquisition to catapult it to more platforms and more people: The company has acquired THX, the legendary audio and video quality assurance company that was originally founded 33 years ago by George Lucas as part of Lucasfilm. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. Razer has raised $125 million from investors, including Accel Partners, IDG Capital, and Intel Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

—–

People

Trump TV is probably going to happen, says ex-Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau (who, by the way, doesn’t think think Hillary Clinton’s speeches work). More here.

A quick look at billionaire Dan Gilbert‘s mission to rebuild Detroit as a tech hub of “muscles and brains.”

Twitter has hired AngelHack founder Gregory Gopman to work on its virtual reality initiative. (In related news, Twitter has a virtual reality initiative.) Variety has more here.

Good grief, it continues. Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla is now suing two California agencies as part of protracted legal battle over public access to beach on his property. More here.

Dinesh Moorjani has joined Comcast Ventures as a managing director. Moorjani was most recently an executive-in-residence at Warburg Pincus. He also cofounded Saffronart, a 17-year-old, fine art and collectibles e-commerce marketplace in India.

—–

Essential Reads

Silicon Valley is now spending twice as much(!) on lobbying the government than does Wall Street.

You’ll have to wait longer on that Tesla Model 3 than you might have hoped.

—–

Detours

Can you identify these major global cities from space?

Things aren’t looking good for The Donald according to FiveThirtyEight’s newest election forecast.

Stop storing your tomatoes in the refrigerator already.

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Retail Therapy

An incomplete nuclear plant in Alabama can be yours, alarmingly.