Ron Conway may have stepped back from funding Y Combinator startups, but FundersClub has stepped in. The online platform for seed investing said it raised a $1.1 million fund to invest in Y Combinator startups.

SV Angel acknowledged two weeks ago that it raised a $30 million fund called SV Angel III-Growth P. It turns out the new fund is a special purpose vehicle for investing in secondary shares of Pinterest,

Ron Conway‘s success with a payroll tax initiative demonstrates a profound transformation playing out in San Francisco’s business corridors and its halls of power. As startups blossom, attracting a wave of entrepreneurs and investment dollars, the tech industry is wielding newfound clout in local politics.

Atlanta-based Kabbage, which provides capital to small and mid-sized online merchants, has raised $30 million in Series C funding. The company has now raised $56 million in total equity. The latest round was led by Thomvest Ventures, the venture arm of Peter Thomson, who’s also a director of Thomson Reuters (owner of peHUB). Joining in the round are UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, Mohr Davidow Ventures, BlueRun Ventures, SV Angel and individuals Warren Stephens and David Bonderman.

SV Angel is in the market for a fresh $40 million, according to a new SEC filing.

More than you might expect, Y Combinator’s current crop of demo day companies addressed real problems experienced by real people.

San Francisco-based startup ClassDojo has launched out of beta an announced it has raised $1.6 million in seed funding. The company, which says it already has 3.5 million teacher and student members on its site, helps teachers manage student behavior using game mechanics. Investors include Paul Graham of Y Combinator, Ron Conway of SV Angel, [...]

Here are the past week’s top 10 posts based on number of pageviews from peHUB’s regular readers. Hot topics include a portfolio of funds CalPERS unsuccessfully tried to sell on the secondary market, Providence Equity’s troubles hitting its target for fund VII, and unique accounting techniques used by IPO candidates.

1. Slideshow: Someone Send Some Love To These Unwanted, CalPERS-Backed Funds – by David Toll
2. Overrated: Five Things We’d Like a Little Less of in 2012 – by Connie Loizos
3. Providence Equity’s Fund VII Hits Fundraising Problems, May Fall Short of $6B Target – by Luisa Beltran
4. Slideshow: Top Unique Accounting Techniques for IPO Candidates – by Joanna Glasner
5. Sequoia-Backed Jive Will Be A Test Of The IPO Market: Slideshow – by Mark Boslet
6. Slideshow: Five Powerful Women In Private Equity (subscribers only) – by Bernard Vaughan
7. Ron Conway on How New York and Chicago Stack Up to Silicon Valley (subscribers only) – by Mark Boslet
8. Uncle Sam Wants You To Raise An Early Stage VC Fund (subscribers only) – by David Toll
9. Three VCs Weigh In On Incubators, The Late Stage Bubble And Big Data – by Mark Boslet
10. For Startup Employees, Getting Rich Has Never Been More Complicated – by Connie Loizos

Entrepreneurs in Chicago and New York until recently stood in the shadow of the nation’s premier tech center, Silicon Valley. No longer. Today, “these are great centers of innovation as good as Silicon Valley,” said Ron Conway during an on-stage interview Thursday afternoon at the Plug and Play Expo. “I couldn’t say that three years [...]

On Monday, more than 500 outlets reported that Facebook is acquiring the location-based startup Gowalla, which will shutter in January. Gowalla’s team will now work on Facebook’s new Timeline feature. The acquisition was unexpected for several reasons, including that Austin-based Gowalla has been eating Foursquare’s dust for some time. There were also niggling questions over [...]