Jeff Clavier has closed a $55 million third fund that will enable his seed-stage firm, SoftTech VC, to make bigger bets on portfolio companies and reap bigger rewards. Clavier, the firm’s founder and managing partner, said the fund was oversubscribed and has invested in 23 companies so far with money from its first and second [...]

Fitbit, a manufacturer of digital health and fitness devices has raised $12 Million in Series C funding from existing investors: Foundry Group, True Ventures, SoftTech VC and Felicis Ventures. Fitbit was founded in 2007 in San Francisco. PRESS RELEASE Fitbit, the market leader in the digital health and fitness device category and maker of the [...]

San Francisco-based Bionic Panda Games, a mobile games startup focused on casual social games for the Android platform, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from a wide syndicate of investors. Participants in the financing include SoftTech VC, Norwest Venture Partners, Google Ventures, 500 Startups, and angels Craig Sherman and Kal Vepuri. Charles Hudson, who [...]

Design-focused flash sales site Fab.com has acquired NYC-based FasionStake. Terms of the deal were not released, though the company said that FashionStake founders Vivian Weng and Daniel Gulati will join Fab.com. FashionStake is an online marketplace for independent designers. Fab.com is backed by more than $50 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Menlo Ventures, First Round Capital, Baroda Ventures, SoftTech VC, and A-Grade Investments, an angel fund co-founded by actor Ashton Kutcher and friends Guy Oseary and Ron Burkle.

(Recent funding news based on Form D filings with the S.E.C.) New York-based Peer39 Inc. has raised $2.5 million in fresh capital, according to a regulatory filing. Peer39 provides data based on the content and structure of web pages, and aims to help companies improve the effectiveness of online display advertising. The company raised a [...]

Seed investing fell 56% in the recent third quarter to the lowest level of the past six years, according to the MoneyTree Report. The question is whether this accurately reflects the seemingly irrepressible seed market. One line of thinking is that the MoneyTree study may not entirely capture the continued ground swell of support for [...]

Fab.com — which pivoted from a lifestyle website for gay men to a design-focused flash sales site — announced Wednesday that it raised $40 million in a Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The new round comes just five months after the company raised an $8 million Series A led by Menlo Ventures. Joining [...]

DNAnexus, a DNA data management and analysis platform, has closed a $15 million second round led by Google Ventures and TPG Biotech. First Round Capital, SoftTech VC, K9 Ventures, and Felicis Ventures also participated in the financing, which will be used for development. Krishna Yeshwant of Google Ventures, and Geoff Duyk of TPG Biotech, have joined the company’s board.

Yesterday, it came to light that a San Francisco-based freelance writer used the peer-to-peer vacation rental Website Airbnb to disastrous effect last month.  Among other damage to her apartment were smashed doors, stolen family heirlooms, and guest sheets turned to ash in the fireplace. The injury to Airbnb’s reputation may prove extensive, given the image it [...]

Welcome to a new weekly feature called “Social Scene,” where we compile personality-related news from the worlds of venture capital and private equity. We’re starting off by trolling for tidbits on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms, but long-term we want to get items straight from peHUB readers. What are we looking for? Birthdays, [...]