Startups Scrape Your Financial Data for Good. (No, Really!)

Two personal finance apps, SaveUp and Mogl, offer rewards as a byproduct. Their CEOs describe them as “a bit of gummy on the financial vitamin” and “Toms shoes for food,” respectively.

General Catalyst Raises $675M Seventh Fund

The venture capital firm General Catalyst Partners has raised $675 million for its seventh fund to invest in startups.

What Does the VC Sing? Harlem-Shaking, Twerking First Round Capital’s 2013 Holiday Video Is a Wrecking Ball.

Though I never knew it, Howard Morgan in a muscle costume stranded hanging on a wrecking ball is the Christmas present I have always wanted.

News Byte

Yahoo Acquires Content Delivery Startup PeerCDN

Yahoo on Tuesday acquired PeerCDN, a small California-based startup that aims to reduce bandwidth costs for companies’ servers while decreasing content delivery response times. It is unclear what the acquisition — which was first reported by TechCrunch — will bring to Yahoo, though PeerCDN alludes to its love of Web technologies in its blog post on the matter.

Voices

Inside China’s Version of Silicon Valley

On the outside, China’s answer to Silicon Valley doesn’t look the part: It’s a crowded mass of electronics malls, fast-food joints and office buildings in northwest Beijing, bisected by congested highways.

News Byte

Joy Covey Memorial Service Tomorrow at Stanford

A memorial service for the late Joy Covey will be held at Stanford Memorial Church on the campus of Stanford University from 2 pm PT to 3 pm PT tomorrow, which is open to all. Covey, an avid athlete, died in mid-September in a tragic cycling accident at 50 years old. She was best known in the tech industry as the first CFO of Amazon, who took the company public. She was also a wonderful mother, and a good friend to many in the tech community. More recently, she had been working for the National Resources Defense Council as its treasurer and also continued to advise startups.

Profitable for Three Years, Apartment List Raises $15M Series A Round

Unlike some other up-and-comers in the space, Apartment List never scraped Craigslist to boost its inventory.

MetroMile Gives Away Driving Sensors for Free as It Expands Pay-Per-Mile Insurance Service

Instead of making judgments about whether people are driving well, MetroMile simply counts miles.

Voices

For Startups, the Tricky Question of Holidays

There’s a cost to celebrating — and to not celebrating.

Could Google or Tencent Beat Facebook to Buying Snapchat?

And will the messaging startup sell, or continue to push ahead and build out a business?