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23andMe confirms $250 million round led by Sequoia

Genetics testing company 23andMe has formally announced that Sequoia Capital is leading an investment round in the company. This confirms the news we broke last week.

The press release says that the final amount was $250 million and that Sequoia’s Roelof Botha will be taking a board seat. Others participating in the round include new investors Euclidean Capital, Altimeter Capital and the Wallenberg Foundation. Existing investors also joined, including Fidelity Management and Casdin Capital. 23andMe has raised $491 million to date. [ Tech Crunch ]

500 Startups continues divorce from Dave McClure

500 Startups founder Dave McClure resigned in July after accusations of sexual harassment, and the firm now has begun the process of legally removing him from its investment funds, according to an email sent today to investors and obtained by Axios. From the email, which was signed by 500 Startups CEO Christine Tsai:

While Dave has not had any involvement in any of the operations or management of the funds since his resignation in July, once effective, these changes will legally cement what has been in practice since early July.
For funds which are actively fundraising, these changes will require us to update our "Form D" filings with the SEC which we will be doing imminently.
After this milestone, there will be a few more legal steps to complete Dave's transition from the Firm. These are progressing well and we hope to have them completed shortly.
[ Axios ]

$5 billion Slack hits a $200 million milestone as the chat wars with Microsoft continue to escalate

When Slack first launched in 2013, it didn't take too long to set a new record as the fastest-ever startup to achieve a $1 billion valuation. From there, the work chat startup kept growing and growing: Just this past summer, Slack raised a monster $250 million funding round at a $5 billion valuation, essentially putting the kibosh on rumors that Amazon was looking to buy it up. Slack's success has sparked renewed competition from Microsoft and Aussie software giant Atlassian.

Today, at its first-ever Slack Frontiers user conference in San Francisco, the company shared a few updates on its business — our first look at Slack's performance since the last time it released some of these numbers in January 2017. [ Business Insider ]

Jamie Dimon Slams Bitcoin as a ‘Fraud

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said he would fire any employee trading bitcoin for being “stupid.” The cryptocurrency "won’t end well,” he told an investor conference in New York on Tuesday, predicting it will eventually blow up. "It’s a fraud" and "worse than tulip bulbs." Bitcoin has soared in recent months, spurred by optimism that faster transaction times will hasten the spread of the cryptocurrency -- a run that has drawn debate over whether it’s a bubble. Bitcoin’s price fell after Dimon’s remarks. Tulip mania swept Holland in the 17th century, with speculators driving up prices of virtually worthless tulip bulbs to exorbitant levels. That didn’t end well. [ Bloomberg ]

How Pro Rata Works In Venture Capital Deals

To the uninitiated, startup fundraising can be confusing. And even some of the resources designed to be approachable for the newcomer often raise more questions than they answer. So we’ve launched a series called “A Startup Takes Flight” to simply explain the dynamics of fundraising and deal terms. [ CrunchBase ]

Conservatives, liberals unite against Silicon Valley

About halfway through her gripping new book, in a chapter called 'The Last Straw,' Ellen Pao details the research she did before suing her former employer, venture capital giant Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, in 2012. Pao, then a junior partner at the firm, was preparing to sue the company for sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation in what was to become the most prominent suit of its kind in Silicon Valley history. [ Politico ]

WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton is leaving the company to start his own foundation

One month after reports of a sexual harassment and wrongful termination lawsuit against the online lending startup Social Finance came to light, the company has announced that its hard-charging chief executive Michael Cagney will be stepping down at the end of the year. The company said that it has already begun a search for Cagney’s successor and that he will remain in the executive role until a replacement is found. [ Re/code ]

Uber's Chief Legal Officer to Leave the Company, Sources Say

Dara Khosrowshahi, the new chief executive officer at Uber Technologies Inc., laid out an initial set of plans during a staff meeting Tuesday to get the troubled ride-hailing company back on course. He said his top priority was hiring a chief financial officer who can help the company balance its need to control spending with continued growth, said two people who listened to the presentation.

Khosrowshahi is also seeking a replacement for Uber’s longtime legal head though the topic didn’t come up at the meeting, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. Hours later, Chief Legal Officer Salle Yoo sent an email to employees, saying she would step down after helping Khosrowshahi find her successor. [ Bloomberg ]

Closing the gender gap in venture capital deserves our immediate and sustained attention

Like a lot of people who follow tech news, I’ve spent the past few weeks glued to my various screens. The wave of stories about entrenched sexism at Uber, alleged “biological differences” at Google, and rampant sexual misconduct in venture capital has left me both outraged and — though it might sound strange — a little bit optimistic. Outraged, because women across tech are still enduring some staggeringly backward attitudes and behaviors. And yet optimistic, because while these attitudes and behaviors are nothing new, what isnew is that they’re making the front page. Now, at least, we’re outraged together. And that gives me hope that this might be the moment when things begin to change. [ Bloomberg ]