Y Combinator Startups Now Have A Combined Valuation Of $13.7 Billion, Up $2 Billion Since June

In a conversation at the GMIC mobile conference this week, Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham gave the most recent stats on the seed stage incubator. Of the 511 companies that had passed through YC prior to its most recent Summer 2013 class, 306 had valuations tied to them. The total value of those companies is now $13.7 billion, up $2 billion since Graham's last update on the number in June. So what's happened in the past couple of months that would juice the total valuation so much? Is the it due to growth among many YC startups, or concentrated at the top? A Rising Tide There are likely several reasons for the increase in valuation. For one thing, as more Y Combinator companies raise their first rounds, their valuations get added to the pool. The aggregate valuation also increases each time it sees an alumni company get acquired. And, of course, later-stage companies raising their rounds at higher valuations will also drive that number up. Of course, not every YC startup ends up raising money or getting funded right after demo day. And many that do initially get seed funding do so with convertible notes rather than through priced rounds, so you can't really peg down a valuation as such. But for those you can calculate - either because they died, got acquired, or sold stock at a specific valuation - the value of the YC portfolio has jumped considerably. Some of the growth can be attributed to an increase in the number of companies funded. At the 500 Startups PreMoney conference in June, Graham told me that there were 285 YC companies with post-money valuations, compared to 306 now. (Check out the video below.) At that time, the total amount that YC companies had raised was $1.7 billion. Those statements echoed data that Graham had previously shared on Hacker News. A number of YC companies have also raised additional rounds of funding in the past several months. Twitch (formerly Justin.tv) raised $20 million, E La Carte raised $13.5 million, Clustrix raised $10 million, and Instacart brought on $8.5 million, among others. And, finally, there have been a few notable exits since June. YC alum Xobni was acquired by Yahoo, Cue was bought by Apple, and Lanyrd got purchased by Eventbrite. Major Changes At The Top? But the bulk of the increase probably comes from a major change at the top. Like many private equity investors, the lion's share of Y Combinator's investment value is concentrated in just a few high-flying startups. Back in June, Graham told me that the top 10 companies accounted for $8.6 billion of its $11.6 billion total valuation. Y Combinator wouldn't break out what the valuation of that top 10 is right now, but it seems likely that some major change in the value of those companies is the biggest reason for the increase. That could mean a revaluation among one or more of the ten, perhaps triggered by an equity sale that has closed but hasn't yet been announced. For the conspiracy theorists out there, it's very possible that YC wouldn't share this data because a company (or companies) doesn't want that information to be public. After all, saying that the top 10 now accounted for $10 billion of the $13.6 billion total valuation - and note, YC did not say this, but if it did - that would mean that somebody just got a big boost in funding, or perhaps saw shares revalued through a secondary sale. Ignoring the fact that we don't actually know this to be true but assuming this is the case,* which of the ten was it? Well, there was that big Airbnb funding round that was never quite announced.** It's possible it took forever to get done, and didn't actually close until the summer. Or maybe Stripe has raised money that we just haven't heard about yet. It's become a sort of poster child for Y Combinator success, after all. Or perhaps Drew Houston & Co. have sold off some secondary shares in Dropbox. Or maybe, maybe, none of the above.

EU Reconsiders Intelligence Cooperation With US After Spying Reports

German Chancellor Merkel is angry with President Obama; so furious that she's publicly calling the European Union to reconsider its intelligence cooperation with the United States, after reports that the National Security Agency tapped her and 35 other leaders phones. Merkel denounced “spying among friends" at an EU meeting and, together with France, called for a renewed “frameworks for cooperation” on intelligence sharing by the end of the year. "We have diplomatic relations and channels that we use in order to discuss these issues that have clearly caused some tension in our relationships with other nations around the world," said White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney While the US categorically denies spying on Merkel, Carney did not reveal whether the US had ever spied on her. President Obama personally called Merkel to deny spying allegations–this evidently did not calm her fears. Congress has proposed several changes to the NSA spying practices, but none include overseas practices.

Mobile Payments Startup Flint Raises $6M Series B Led By Digicel Group

Mobile payments startup Flint has been keeping a low profile for much of this year, but it's looking like that quiet period is finally over. The company just recently launched support for Android in a bid to widen its reach, and today the startup has confirmed that it's raised a $6 million Series B round led by Digicel Group with SVG Partners, Storm Ventures, and True Ventures also participating. Wait, Digicel Group? Who? They're not exactly a known quantity around these parts, but their oeuvre may just offer a glimpse at where the mobile payments startup goes next - it's best known as a wireless service provider with networks peppering the Caribbean and the South Pacific. “They're kind of renegades in the mobile operator space,” CEO Greg Goldfarb told me. “Which is fine by us, we're kinda the new kid on the block too.” He isn't kidding. If you haven't been keeping tabs on the Flint odyssey, the startup launched in May 2012 to bring yet another perspective to the booming mobile payments space. In a nutshell, Flint wants to get a new generation of entrepreneurs and business owners processing payments on the fly without having to be tethered to a traditional countertop POS system.And I know what you're thinking: I've heard that before too. Where Flint aims to set itself apart is no-nonsense approach to getting mobile entrepreneurs up and running. There's no additional hardware needed to get started for one - after a brief setup process merchants can simply scan their customers' credit cards using the Flint app and the iDevice's camera. That data is then encrypted and passed along to the backend payment processor (nothing remains on that device), and a quick signature with a finger seals the deal. Flint also offers more competitive transaction fees than players like Square, especially when debit cards come into play - debit card swipes essentially cost 1.95% while those with credit cards pay 2.95%. Now that the team is suddenly flush with some extra capital, what's next? Goldfarb is definitely content to keep the Flint roadmap closely guarded, though he did note that he planned to flesh out the 16-person team considerably and that Flint is working on backend tools focused on driving repeat business and referrals for small business owners. He wouldn't confirm how many users now tap into the service these days, though he did note that the company has seen “strong engagement” off the 150,000 iOS app installs since launch May 2012 and a 10x surge in transaction volume.

Fab.com Updates Site To Give Better Recommendations As It Pursues Global Growth

Lifestyle focused e-commerce company Fab has unveiled a new design for its website in time for the holiday shopping season. The core of Fab.com's new user interface is its ‘Personalization' feature, which leverages collaborative filtering technology developed by Fab to make product recommendations more relevant to each shopper's interests. Fab will also update its iOS and Android apps within the next few days. The company is offering a $10 credit today at this link. Fab.com's collaborative filtering tech, which integrates users' activity on the site as well as social networking sites, evaluates the items each visitor has viewed, faved or shared on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest, past purchases, and activity by other shoppers Fab believes have similar tastes. The site's recommendation engine takes advantage of data points accumulated from its members, which numbered 14 million in June. Fab and other sites that use collaborative filtering (including Pinterest) constantly try to refine their algorithms so they can provide the most accurate recommendations based on the smallest amount of data. This is important to hook users as early as possible, even if they have clicked on only a few items. Fab's collaborative filtering technology uses Apache Mahout's machine learning libraries, which also includes support for user and item based recommendations. The company says its next step is working on singular value decomposition, or the factorization of a real or complex matrix in linear algebra. This helps Fab because collaborative filtering may become slower as the amount of data it has to evaluate increases. Singular value decomposition, on the other hand, offers more scalability and potentially make more accurate predictions using data sets with less dimensionality. Fab's redesign (which also includes a new user interface that follows the recent trend for flat design among tech companies and larger product photos) comes as the company focuses on expansion in Asia, part of its goal to join a roster of e-commerce companies that are valued at more than $10 billion: Amazon, eBay, Alibaba and Rakuten. But Fab's growth strategy has not come without its share of headaches. Earlier this year, Fab made the latest in a series of pivots by moving its business model away from flash sales to focus on its “lifestyle shop,” including home goods, which account for 50 percent of sales. The company said it abandoned its flash sales model because it is difficult to scale globally if Fab wants to be able to sell the same products around the world. Then in July, it was sued for trademark infringement and unfair competition by shoes and apparel site Just Fab. Around the same time, Fab.com laid off about 150 employees from its Berlin offices in what it said was an effort to reduce redundancies. The lay-offs came just one month after Fab announced the close of $150 million in Series D funding, with plans to raise another $100 million. Founder and CEO Jason Goldberg said the company started down the fundraising route in March to raise enough capital to have several years of runway, at least until 2015. The funds will be used to invest in additional enhancements to its supply chain, logistics, customer service, technology and merchandising.

Ad Targeting Startup Drawbridge Hires Tech Veteran Kate Burns To Expand In Europe

Drawbridge, a cross-device ad targeting startup backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital, officially expands into Europe today with the appointment of Kate Burns, one of Europe's most experienced ‘scaling up' executives. Burns is the ex-Director of Google UK and the ex-CEO of AOL EU and will be based in London to lead Drawbridge's entry into Europe, Middle East, and Africa markets. Burns is a rare beast on the European tech scene: a highly experienced operator with over 16 years of sales, business development and digital expansion experience on an international level for major technology brands. In particular, London, where she will build out the office, is widely acknowledged as the platform for the international advertising industry. Drawbridge is clearly looking to capitalise on the growth in the global market for cross device advertising. The company is located in Silicon Valley and is backed by Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Northgate Capital. Its ‘big idea' is trying to improve mobile ad targeting by collecting data about user activity on the desktop web, mobile web, and mobile apps, then using "probabilistic and statistical inference models" to suggest which PC and mobile users are actually the same person using different devices. This is extremely important when it comes to so-called “two screen media” – where people watch TV and interact with the mobile or tablet device. Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan, CEO of Drawbridge notes that "Kate was instrumental in driving Google's early growth in Europe and her effort building AOL's advertisers and publishers networks, made her a perfect choice to lead our international expansion.” Burns was Google's first international hire in 2001, has held key sales positions at Altavista, Doubleclick, Ziff Davis, and News International and also created KT3, a commercial development firm helping technology businesses expand into Europe. Drawbridge recently expanded with a new feature allowing mobile advertisers to reach consumers with retargeted ads, regardless of whether they're using an app or on the mobile web.

Here Comes The FUD: UK Police Claim To Find 3D-Printed Gun Parts In Raid On Home

It begins. The Greater Manchester Police in the UK raided the home of a criminal suspect where they found a 3D printer and 3D printed parts. With great pride and fanfare the police reported: During the searches, officers found a 3D printer and what is suspected to be a 3D plastic magazine and trigger which could be fitted together to make a viable 3D gun. Sadly, they were quite wrong. The items in question, a little piece that looks like a trigger (shown here) and something that looks like a magazine, are actually a poorly-printed Replicator 2 drive block and a filament spool holder – essentially two parts you'd build if you were building another 3D printer. The criminal masterminds also printed it out of PLA plastic, which is not ideal for heavy-duty use, let alone firing a projectile. The printer, pictured above, is a Makerbot 2 which, in fact, only prints PLA. The jeers, needless to say, have been flying. https://twitter.com/Codepope/status/393661206000840704 https://twitter.com/foxsoup/status/393724792194760704 https://twitter.com/thefalken/status/393725471881326592 This sort of fear, uncertainty, and doubt will soon be flowing fast and heavy from “authorities” all over the world. What Cody Wilson at Defense Distributed has done by creating a media spectacle around his nearly useless 3D gun is set back the 3D printing industry considerably in the eyes of the uninitiated. While his gun works and can be fired, it requires far better materials and a higher-resolution printer to prevent death or maiming of the person behind the trigger. This “gun,” on the other hand, is simply plastic scrap. via Buzzfeed

Join Us For TechCrunch Bangalore

India's startup ecosystem is showing some promise. In the first half of 2013, for example, investors dropped $400 million into 141 deals, and startup Red Bus had a sweet $150 million exit. In other words, the time is right for our first ever event in India: TechCrunch Bangalore, which we are hosting with PlatformPlay in India's tech hub on November 14-15. TechCrunch Bangalore will focus on how to build companies in India that will go global - the question is how and when India's startups will crack the code. The event will feature a hackathon, startup pitch presentations and startup exhibits. On the second day there will be speakers, panelists and TechCrunch editors (including me!) on stage. In the hackathon, over 400 hackers were shortlisted from over 750 entries. Picked from across the country, these hackers will work in groups to create their hacks in just 24 hours. The following day, each team will get 60 seconds to speed-pitch their creation to a panel of expert judges and audience members. The pitch presentations will showcase 50 startups selected from over 400 entries, each launching their products before a live and online audience. The judging panel for the event will include VCs, investors, seasoned entrepreneurs and tech and product experts. The main conference keynotes will feature speakers from across the globe, including Turochas “T” Fuad, CEO and co-founder of Travelmob, and Keith Nilsson, partner at TPG Growth. In addition, Troy Malone of Evernote and Anthony Hearne of Outbrain will join us for panels in Bangalore. The winning teams will be awarded tickets to the TechCrunch New Delhi event, planned for August 2014, and a chance to attend TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2014. TechCrunch and PlatformPlay will host two additional India events together next year in Pune and New Delhi. The exhibits in Startup Zone are a great place for attendees - especially investors, media and potential partners - to look over some great new entrants to the startup scene.