Kick off Thursday morning with the latest on Cerberus’ new fund; Zombies taking advantage of PE’s weakness and Yahoo’s acquisition of to-do app maker Astrid.

Zynga and the NewSchools Venture Fund joined forces Wednesday to unveil an ed-tech accelerator aimed at assisting young companies developing games to help students learn. Zynga.org, the game maker’s non-profit arm, said it plans to invest $1 million in the effort in its first year

Zynga Inc has named John Doerr, a general partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, to its board, the online gaming company said Friday.

This morning check out eight examples of companies ruined by their founders, what the future holds for 4G, Zynga’s plans to make more and spend less and how much Think Big has secured from angel investors.

This morning’s First Read brings you the latest venture deals, what ten big brands have plummeted in value and a McKinsey report predicting more doom and gloom for world banking.

The firm closed its third fund, which at $225 million is exactly the same size as its second and first funds. Foundry Venture Capital 2012 will follow the same strategy as the earlier funds, also.

The social games company disclosed the news in a second SEC document that was filed after its second quarter earnings 8-K.

The Preqin study, released today, found that the quarterly deal flow varied over the 10-quarter period from about 60 to almost 100, with a spike of dollars allocated in the first quarter of 2011, when Facebook raised $1.5 billion and Zynga brought in $485 million.

Across Silicon Valley, people are getting rich through sales and IPOs of startups in the social media and software sectors. But they’re not getting as rich as they thought they would, so they’re being more careful about how they spend their money, wealth advisors say.

The VC with a string of smash-hit investments is about to close its biggest fund ever.