Good day. This year, many venture firms made it a point to target ever-younger startups. That trend shows no signs of slowing down.

Earlier this month, Lux Capital co-founder and managing partner Josh Wolfe posted to social media what he said was ​​a redacted Lux quarterly letter to limited partners.

The letter emphasized the Menlo Park, Calif.-based firm’s commitment to seeking out deals at earlier stages. This is being driven in part by rising valuations and auction-style deal-making across the market where potential investors attempt to outbid each other to win an investment, the letter said. “Diligence has fallen and excess is in excess,” the letter said about this deal-making environment.  

The firm should focus on “finding founders earlier and earlier,” being the first firm to write a check for a startup and helping more startups to form in-house, the letter said.

Lux raised a $675 million early-stage fund earlier this year, joining other venture firms including Andreessen Horowitz and Greylock Partners that are amassing war chests to target early-stage companies. 

And now on to the news...

IPOs keep jumping higher. Initial public offerings have broken record after record this year. So far, more than 900 companies have gone public, raising nearly $300 billion. Quietly, the market for publicly traded companies also did something it hadn’t done in years: It got bigger, The Wall Street Journal’s Corrie Driebusch reports.

• For two decades, America’s roster of public companies had dwindled. Mergers and acquisitions boomed, plucking ticker symbol after ticker symbol off stock exchanges. Mountains of private investment and the hassle of regulations kept startups from feeling the need to go public. This year, that started to change. The number of publicly listed companies in the U.S. rose above 4,000 for the first time in more than a decade, according to the Center for Research in Security Prices LLC.
   
• The reasons ranged from a surge of cash provided by Washington, D.C., to a search for new and bigger returns as interest rates hovered near zero. Startups that desperately needed cash added more fuel to the frenzy, as did newly popular “blank-check” companies whose only purpose was to acquire a private target and take it public.

Intarcia Therapeutics Inc., once among the most promising emerging companies in biotech, is taking a rarely used route to dispute Food and Drug Administration rejections of its Type 2 diabetes treatment, WSJ Pro’s Brian Gormley reports. Intarcia was once valued at $4.2 billion on the promise of a matchstick-sized implant that delivers the Type 2 diabetes medicine exenatide, a drug now given by daily or weekly injection. By eliminating shots, Intarcia aimed to keep more patients on their medication.

• The FDA has already cleared exenatide and the implanted device, which was used in a prostate-cancer treatment. Both were first developed by other companies. But the agency has twice rejected Intarcia’s combination of the two, most recently last year.
   
• Investors have since lost all their equity in Intarcia, whose assets are now in a holding company. But the company is taking a final shot at FDA approval through a process that allows it to request a hearing to resolve factual disputes about the drug.

Chicago hedge-fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin said he won a $43.2 million first-edition copy of the U.S. Constitution at a Sotheby’s auction on Thursday—and now he intends to lend it to a free Arkansas art museum. The 53-year-old founder and chief executive of Citadel caused a stir Thursday when he outbid a large group of cryptocurrency investors who had crowdfunded more than $40 million earlier in the week in a frenzied attempt to win the document, the last surviving first edition in private hands.

IPO Tracking

Vigil Neuroscience Inc., a startup harnessing the power of microglia immune cells in the brain to treat neurodegenerative diseases, filed for an initial public offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to Dow Jones Newswires. In August, the Cambridge, Mass.-based company said it completed a $90 million Series B round from investors including Vida Ventures, Atlas Venture, Northpond Ventures, Hatteras Venture Partners, Lightstone Ventures and others. The company said it applied to list on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol VIGL.

People

Bugcrowd Inc., a startup that helps companies crowdsource hackers to identify vulnerabilities, appointed Ravi Chopra as chief financial officer. He previously held the same position at SonicWall. San Francisco-based Bugcrowd is backed by Blackbird Ventures, Costanoa Ventures, Industry Ventures, Paladin Capital Group, Rally Ventures, Salesforce Ventures and Triangle Peak Partners.

Imply, provider of a database for modern analytics applications, named Eric Tschetter to the post of chief technology officer. He was most recently a tech fellow at Splunk, and was previously an engineer at Yahoo. Burlingame, Calif.-based Imply is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, Tiger Global Management, Khosla Ventures and Geodesic Capital.

Privacy, security and third-party risk technology platform OneTrust named Guido Torrini as the company’s first chief financial officer. He was most recently CFO of Celonis. Based in Atlanta and London, OneTrust has raised a total of $920 million in funding at a $5.3 billion valuation from Insight Partners, Coatue Management, TCV, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Franklin Templeton.

Exits

Publicly traded Workday Inc. agreed to acquire VNDLY, a provider of cloud-based external workforce and vendor management technology, for about $510 million, mostly in cash. Mason, Ohio-based VNDLY is backed by investors including Madrona Venture Group, Insight Partners, Battery Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, EPIC Ventures and Bowery Capital.

Enterprise commerce technology provider Commercetools acquired Frontastic, a provider of front-end technologies for commerce sites, for an undisclosed amount. Munich-based Commercetools recently raised a $140 million Series C round led by Accel.

Sierra Space, a Colorado-based startup working toward the launch of a winged commercial spaceplane, secured a $1.4 billion Series A round at a $4.5 billion valuation. General Atlantic, Coatue Management and Moore Strategic Ventures led the investment, which included support from funds and accounts managed by BlackRock Private Equity Partners, AE Industrial Partners and others.

Gemini, a New York-based cryptocurrency platform founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, scored a $400 million growth equity round, valuing the company at $7.1 billion. Morgan Creek Digital led the investment, which included participation from 10T, ParaFi Capital, Newflow Partners, Marcy Venture Partners and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Up&Up, a New York-based startup enabling renters to build towards homeownership or savings, raised $275 million in funding. Led by Khosla Ventures, the round included participation from Founders Fund, Goldman Sachs, L2 Point Management and Rialto Capital.

Deliverr Inc., a San Francisco-based e-commerce fulfillment and technology startup, picked up a $250 million Series E round. Tiger Global Management led the round, which included contributions from 8VC, Activant Capital, GLP, Brookfield Technology Partners and Coatue Management.

Benchling Inc., a San Francisco-based maker of collaborative software for life science research, secured $100 million in Series F funding at a $6.1 billion valuation. Franklin Templeton and Altimeter Capital co-led the round, which included contributions from Tiger Global Management, Lone Pine Capital and others.

Royal, an Austin, Texas-based startup that enables anyone to invest in music and earn royalties, closed a $55 million Series A round. Andreesen Horowitz led the investment, which included support from Connect Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Founders Fund and Paradigm.

Packhelp, a Warsaw-based custom packaging marketplace, grabbed €40 million ($45 million) in Series B funding. InfraVia Capital Partners’ growth fund led the round, which included participation from PortfoLion, FJ Labs, European Investment Bank, Speedinvest, ProFounders Capital, Market One Capital, Inovo, White Star Capital and others.

Flytrex, a Tel Aviv-based provider of on-demand drone delivery for food and retail, secured $40 million in Series C financing. BRM Group led the round, which saw participation from OurCrowd, Benhamou Global Ventures, Btov and BackBone Ventures.

Kettle, which uses artificial intelligence to insure against wildfires, collected a $25 million Series A round. Lead investor Acrew Capital was joined by Homebrew, True Ventures, DCVC, LowerCarbon Capital and others in the funding.

AiMi Inc., an Austin, Texas-based artificial intelligence-powered music platform, landed $20 million in Series B funding. Lead investor Great Mountain Partners was joined by Founders Fund in the round.

Helaina Inc., a New York-based provider of a breast milk alternative, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Spark Capital and Siam Capital co-led the investment, which included additional support from Primary Venture Partners, Plum Alley Investments, Barrel Ventures and others.

Yay Lunch, a school lunch delivery provider, secured $12 million in Series A financing. Valor Siren Ventures led the round, with participation from Animo Ventures, Reach Capital, Alpaca Ventures, Pritzker Group and TMV.

Zuma, a San Francisco-based provider of a virtual leasing agent, was seeded with a $6.7 million investment. Andreessen Horowitz led the round, which included participation from Y Combinator, Range Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, Day One Ventures, Soma Capital and others.

• Roku plans to develop more than 50 original shows in next two years
   
• Semiconductor stocks soar as chip shortage persists
   
• Pentagon seeks bids from four tech firms for JEDI cloud replacement

• Grammarly is now one of the most valuable U.S. startups (Emerging Tech Brew)
   
• Finished with San Francisco, a founder falls in love with San Juan (The Information)

This newsletter was compiled by Matthew Strozier and Zachary Cole.

WSJ Pro Venture Capital is a premium service of The Wall Street Journal. We cover venture capital and the global startup ecosystem. Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The Team: Matthew Strozier, Yuliya Chernova, Brian Gormley and Marc Vartabedian.

Follow us on Twitter: @wsjvc, @ychernova, @BrianPGormley, @marcvarta.