India’s Cash Ban Is the Best Thing to Happen to Digital PaymentsVijay Shekhar Sharma’s Twitter feed has come alive these past two weeks. From a roadside egg-seller in Bhopal to a soda hawker in Bangalore, the founder of Paytm has posted snapshots of the unusual array of merchants who ply the teeming streets of India -- and are now turning to his digital payments startup for help. Those fishmongers, vegetable vendors and rickshaw drivers count among the thousands who’ve signed onto India’s largest digital payments service since Prime Minister Narendra Modi triggered a nationwide cash crunch when he scrapped the country’s two largest note denominations. [ Bloomberg ] Trump’s Transition Team Adds VC From Thiel’s Founders FundPeter Thiel is wielding his influence over U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s administration planning. Trae Stephens, a principal at Thiel’s Founders Fund, is being appointed to Trump’s defense transition team, said people familiar with the matter. He will help shape policy and vet Defense Department staff but isn’t expected to take a role in the administration, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. Founders Fund confirmed the appointment but declined to comment further. [ Bloomberg ] Stripe has raised $150 million more at a $9 billion valuationStripe, the online payments company that has essentially become the default acceptance service for startup companies in the U.S., has raised around $150 million in a new round of funding. The round values the company at $9.2 billion after the cash infusion, up from $5 billion last year. Alphabet’s late-stage investment arm, CapitalG (formerly Google Capital), co-led the round along with existing Stripe investor General Catalyst. Stripe has now raised more than $400 million in venture capital. [ Recode ] How a Serial Con Man Fooled Silicon Valley and Took an NFL Star's MillionsYou've probably never heard of Eren Niazi, but you've certainly heard of his friends. Anyone who has ever met Niazi has heard the stories about them. They include the two most important Steves in Silicon Valley: Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Jobs, the inventor of the iPhone, took the young Niazi under his wing and made time for him just one week before his death from cancer in 2011. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is also a friend; he invited Niazi to accompany him to the Nasdaq on the day he rang the opening bell to mark Facebook's IPO and was devastated when Niazi told him he couldn't be there. [ Inc. ] Inside Expa Labs, Uber co-founder’s take on the startup acceleratorThere’s no shortage of startup incubators and accelerators, but there’s always room for improvement and iterations on an old operating model. Expa Labs, a six-month program for startups that spun out of Uber co-founder Garrett Camp’s Expa Studios, has a different take on the startup accelerator/incubator model. Last week, it wrapped up its first batch of startups. Launched in 2013, Expa Studios aims to test out new ideas and build new startups. The idea is that Expa partners (Camp, AddThis founder Hooman Radfar, Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai, Metrolyrics founder Milun Tesovic, former Twitter designer Vitor Lourenço and former Google search lead Roberto Sanabria) team up with founders to accomplish explore those ideas and launch them. [ Tech Crunch ] VENTURE CAPITAL JOBSVenture Capital, Accelerator and Startup Business Development Manager, Google Cloud Platform at Google,NY, USStaff Engineer at Proton Ventures, San Francisco, USData Engineer at CrunchBase, San Francisco, USBackend Engineer at CrunchBase, San Francisco, USAtomHouse Coordinator at Socialatom Group, Medellín, ColombiaBackend Engineer at Venture IQ, Amsterdam, NetherlandsMarketing Associate- Venture Capital at Kennison & Associates, Boston, USVenture Capital Analyst at Route 66 Ventures, LLC, Washington D.C. US Frontend engineer at Venture IQ, Amsterdam, NetherlandsVenture Analyst at Stockhorn Capital, London, UKDirector - Venture Capital at SeedInvest, NY, USHead of Founder Network at Connect Ventures, London, UKCo-founder / Entrepreneur in Residence at DONGXii.com, Berlin, Germany Business Development & Venture Management at GetOnDemand, Mountain View, US |