Sherpa Ventures Starts $150M Fundraising With $15M Infusion From TPG

Sherpa Ventures - a new early-stage venture firm recently founded by well-known Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur Shervin Pishevar, formerly of Menlo Ventures, and former Goldman Sachs tech banker Scott Stanford - has started off its efforts to raise $150 million for its initial fund with a $15 million commitment from private equity giant TPG Capital, according to sources close to the situation.

The pair declined to comment on the new funding anchor for Sherpa, which has apparently already made more than two dozen investments in startups since its creation earlier this year. They include BackOps, a cloud-based company that offers back-office services like accounting, human resources and financial reporting; and Munchery, a gourmet-meal delivery service.

Along with Sherpa, Pishevar and Stanford also are working on a second part of their new business, called Sherpa Foundry, a business aimed at helping major strategic corporations gain a digital edge with their existing assets.

Interestingly, TPG recently made a big investment in Uber, the red-hot travel-logistics company. Pishevar has been a close adviser to co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick.

As I noted in a February post about their new endeavors, the pair's efforts will certainly be interesting to watch:

Indeed more than many in the tech scene, the incessantly networking Pishevar is perhaps well suited to such an ambitious effort like Sherpa. He's has worked closely with a lot of Web 2.0 s hottest startups, such as Uber, Fab and Warby Parker, while also leading Menlo's investment in Tumblr.

An active angel investor, he has also started a number of companies, such as the Social Gaming Network, which was merged with MindJolt.

And Stanford is equally well known in Silicon Valley, having shepherded a wide variety of high-profile deals for the banking giant, while heading its global Internet investment banking business from San Francisco as a managing director. He's been at Goldman for a dozen years and has been involved in investments in Facebook, Zappos and LinkedIn. Before banking, he worked at pioneering search company, LookSmart.

Yves Behar's "Smart" Lock Startup August Raises $8 Million

August, the home automation startup that makes a "smart" lock that uses virtual keys, said it has raised $8 million to bring the device to market next spring.

If you are talking about the Internet of Things trend, this is that.

The San Francisco-based company's Series A round was led by Maveron, who invested along with Cowboy Ventures, Industry Ventures, Rho Ventures and SoftTech VC. The funding follows on a $2 million seed round that included angel investors such as Matt Mullenweg, Mark Pincus and others.

August was co-founded by well-known tech designer Yves Behar and entrepreneur Jason Johnson.

The lock was, in fact, debuted at the 11th D: All Things Digital conference in the summer. It is a Bluetooth device that works with a mobile application to "send virtual keys to anyone you choose to have access to your home," the company said.

As part of the investment, Maveron's David Wu will join the August board.

Here's the video of the demo at D11: