(Reuters) – Zynga Inc. is currently planning to price its initial public offering and have its shares begin trading the week before the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on November 24, two sources briefed on the offering said on Monday. The sources cautioned that the social gaming company’s plan has not been finalized and could change. They [...]

In late 2008, Institutional Venture Partners General Partner Todd Chaffee had never heard of Twitter. Two months later, it was one of the company’s biggest backers. Speaking at Venture Capital Journal’s Venture Alpha conference Thursday, Chaffee described how a then-junior Institutional Ventures employee, Jules Maltz, came back from a December event organized by the Churchill [...]

Zynga registered with the SEC for its highly anticipated IPO today, finally offering a look inside the social gaming powerhouse. We now know the answers to some burning questions, such as whether it is profitable (yes, it posted net income of about $90 million last year). For most of us, the most intriguing question has [...]

Hey, it’s Friday. Time to catch up on your reading. Here are the 10 posts regular peHUB readers found most interesting this week.

1. Slideshow: Top 10 Biggest Winners in LinkedIn’s Moon-Shot IPO, by Lawrence Aragon

2. Slide Show: Top IPO Pops By Venture-Backed Companies, by Steve Bills

3. VCs Are Interested in Stuff Besides Social Media (Really), by Nadia Damouni and Jennifer Saba, Reuters

4. VCs from Accel, Atlas and Google Ventures Are Skeptical of Secondary Market Trading, by Jennifer Saba and Nadia Damouni, Reuters

5. Scoop: ‘Super LP’ Chris Douvos Leaving The Investment Fund for Foundations, by Lawrence Aragon

6. Jeffrey Bussgang: Five Lessons Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Navy SEALs, by Jeffrey Bussgang, Flybridge Capital Partners

7. Lovechildren, Sexual Assaults, Now A Lovelorn Venture Elopement Sparks Controversy In China, by Mark Boslet

8. The Good-But-Not-Great News About Venture Returns, by Connie Loizos

9. Jules Maltz Speeds to GP Post at IVP, by peHUB staff

10. UBS Adds Frisch to Tech Banking Team, by Nadia Damouni, Reuters

Jules Maltz has completed his rapid ascent at Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), having been named a general partner today after joining the firm as a VP three years ago. Maltz is the firm’s sixth GP, joining Todd Chaffee, Norm Fogelsong, Steve Harrick, Sandy Miller and Dennis Phelps. Maltz joined IVP in 2008 as a vice [...]

Who knew that the world of renting college textbooks could be so competitive — or so dramatic?

Following Chegg.com’s announcement last week of its whopping $112 million in funding — $57 million in Series D equity led by Insight Venture Partners, plus $25 million in credit and $30 million in debt — BookRenter.com rushed out a press release today announcing that it too had raised funding: A $6 million Series A round from Storm Ventures and Adams Capital.

BookRenter’s round was really raised back in September, and both BookRenter’s CEO, Mehdi Maghsoodnia, and one of Bookrenter’s venture backers say they were wary of announcing it at all.

I thought IVP and Benchmark were crazy when they put $35 million into Twitter last month. I had tried out Twitter when it first came out and thought it was pretty lame and easy to ignore for several months at a time.

But after the latest investment round, I decided to give Twitter the benefit of the doubt and found several interesting things. The network effect has finally kicked in and it doesn’t feel like you’re shouting in an empty room anymore. It’s getting to be like that moment in time when somebody you knew from work invited you to be a friend on Facebook. I found it easy to add to the increasing cacophony.