Attention, San Francisco: Uber Is Chauffeuring the Tamale Lady Tonight to Deliver Free Tamales On Demand

While AllThingsD generally abstains from writing about Uber's myriad food delivery stunts, here's a fun one that may concern our readers who happen to be out enjoying the mild San Francisco weather tonight.

In hyper-hyperlocal news, ride-hailing service Uber is underwriting free on-demand tamales from San Francisco's famous Tamale Lady, Virginia Ramos, this evening.

Ramos will be chauffeured around town in an UberSUV, delivering tamales and hugs to anyone who can get through to make the request from the Mission and the Lower Haight neighborhoods.

A San Francisco institution and a friendly and recognizable face to many who enjoy the city's nightlife, Ramos was blocked in June from selling her tamales to hipsters and hippies and everyone else in San Francisco because she had been cooking them in an unlicensed kitchen.

Prior to that, she had been pushing her cart from bar to bar for some 20 years, selling homemade late-night snacks for $4, inspiring bumper stickers and nearly 350 Yelp reviews.

Now Ramos is trying to open a brick-and-mortar tamale shop, and has launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise $50,000.

The tamales start at 8 pm PT tonight and go till they run out. Uber warns, "There's only one Virginia, so if you see a grayed-out icon and can't get tamales right away, please keep trying."

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.

Uber Launches Wallet-Based Payment System In India To Comply With New Regulations

Fast Car: Uber Funding Auction Could Reach a $3.5B Valuation

Uber, the ride-logistics startup, could be valued at up to $3.5 billion in a new funding round led by TPG Capital, said multiple sources close to the discussions, which are ongoing but advanced. We had first reported that Uber was seeking the round in June.

In the past few days, we've heard a continuous stream of rumors and reports about the funding auction for the high-profile startup, with uber-high valuations floated. That seems to be the case for the deal as it is now conceived, as the amount that Uber is valued at has risen over the last month.

Still, no deal is done as yet, said sources, warning that any terms could change.

In recent weeks, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick hasn't been particularly discreet about his company's fundraising efforts, which sources said could bring the company more than $100 million in investment funds for use in expansion of its offerings.

Sources said that TPG, the large private equity firm, is aware of the perception of such a lofty valuation and has been endeavoring to negotiate more favorable terms for its investment.

A year and a half ago, Uber raised $37.5 million in 2011 from investors including Menlo Ventures, Benchmark Capital and Goldman Sachs. At the time, the company was valued at $330 million.

The ensuing months have been fruitful. Sources said Uber is now on track to bring in about $125 million in total revenue this year, much higher than had been projected, and that number is growing quickly.

In addition to TPG, Google Ventures could also be one of its new investors, sources said.

It must be noted that, when asked a direct question at the Fortune Brainstorm conference in Aspen this week about new Uber funding at a $2.5 billion valuation that Airbnb reportedly has, Kalanick appeared to deny the higher price, but was also not specific.

"So, the party line is that we are not commenting on fundraising discussions we may or may not be having," said Kalanick, who often playfully parses his words. "You know, there are probably one or two folks we're talking to who we've signed NDAs with who are particularly loose with information, but that information is not correct."

Reached for comment late Wednesday, an Uber representative referred us back to Kalanick's onstage remarks, but declined to elaborate or answer further questions.

Uber now operates in 35 cities around the world, and Kalanick told us less than a month ago that revenue is growing 18 percent each month. The company now has some 320 employees, and said Wednesday that it would launch its service in Silicon Valley. In recent months, Uber hired CTO Thuan Pham, formerly of VMware, and set up international operations in the Netherlands.

After starting as a limo-hailing service and expanding to all sorts of vehicles, Uber has also extended into new areas beyond moving people around - such as stunts to deliver ice cream. "We like to think of Uber as the cross between lifestyle and logistics, where lifestyle is what you want and logistics is how you get it there," Kalanick has said.

Other car services have also raised money recently. Lyft recently raised $60 million, bringing its total to $83 million.

Another peer-to-peer ride-sharing service, Sidecar, raised $10 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Google Ventures.

With Lyft Line, Passengers Can Split Fares For Shared Rides

Uber Looking To Raise An Uber Round Of Funding Led By TPG, At A $3.5B Valuation

On-demand car service Uber is looking to raise another big round of funding, this time led by private equity firm Texas Pacific Group we're hearing. And so is Dan Primack. And Liz Gannes. The round is expected to be between $150 million and $200 million, at a valuation of about $3.5 billion. The round hasn't closed yet, but it's close to being completed, or so our sources say.

The funding comes as Uber is growing fast, expanding into new territories and adding lower cost services. AllThingsD reports that the company is expected to pull in $125 million in revenue this year, which is higher than had been expected.

Uber is now available in more than 35 cities around the world with its on-demand black car service. But it's quickly adding lower-cost options in many of those markets. In several cities, that means lower-cost hybrid cars taking passengers, while in others, the company is partnering with local taxi companies to use its e-hail service. With the funding, it will likely expand even more quickly.

TPG isn't your typical tech investor, although it has held stakes in companies like SurveyMonkey and Travelocity parent company Sabre Holdings. But it has done a fair amount of investing in travel and leisure companies, including a number of airlines and hospitality businesses.

On that front, Uber seems like a good fit, as it's not your typical tech investment. The company is looking to disrupt the urban transportation industry, which has been stifled by decades of regulation. But it's also built a logistical framework that could be used for any number of things: in the past it's experimented with barbecue and ice cream delivery, and it's even been used to order canal boats in Amsterdam and water taxis in Sydney.

Google Ventures is also expected to be an investor in the round, according to Gannes and Primack, though we hadn't heard about that.

Uber has raised $57 million since being founded in 2009. Its most recent funding round was for $37 million in late 2011, and came from investors that included Menlo Ventures, Jeff Bezos, Goldman Sachs, Benchmark, CrunchFund*, and Troy Carter. Other investors include Benchmark Capital, First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital, Founder Collective, and a whole bunch of angels.

Uber, TPG, and Google Ventures all declined to comment for this story.

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* DISCLOSURE: Some time ago, Michael Arrington founded TechCrunch. Later, he founded CrunchFund. And at some point after that, CrunchFund wrote a check to invest in Uber. But that all has nothing to do with why I'm writing this story about someone else possibly writing a check to invest in Uber.

Android Co-Founder Rich Miner on How He Is Spending Google's Money

Rich Miner set out a year ago to make sure that Google Ventures had its hand in more mobile deals.

And it's fair to say that is happening. Among its recent mobile deals, Google's venture arm has invested in Appurify, Apportable, Cluster, MessageMe, Osito, Sold and Uber.

In that last one, Google Ventures wrote a check for $258 million.

"And a lot of deals that aren't coming to us as mobile deals are turning out to be," the Android co-founder and Google Ventures partner said in an interview.

Mobile itself, Miner said, is broadening from experiences limited to the phone to those that touch the rest of our lives. Uber, for example, is part of a growing category of companies whose business revolves around "pressing a button and having real-world things happen."

The number of sensors being added in and around mobile devices is also creating tons of opportunities.

"MacGyver would have loved to have had a mobile phone," Miner said. "Think what he had to do to make a flashlight or compass."

Now those devices - a camera and so many more formerly standalone features - are just part of what comes standard on a phone. That creates opportunities for new kinds of companies for giving a second chance to ideas that didn't make it during the early days of the Internet.

"I definitely think there are things in local and groups that were tried in Internet 1.0 that become a lot easier with mobile," Miner said.

Also top-of-mind for Miner are enterprise efforts, such as the recent investment in Enterproid, which these days is going by the name Divide.

As for whether too many things are getting funded, Miner said that there probably are some bad ideas or weak teams that got angel funding, but that, in general, the good ideas with solid teams are getting continued funding; he said that some of the startups that are struggling to find cash probably weren't worthy of angel funding in the first place.

"There's no doubt the influx of angel funding had more bad ideas get funded," Miner said. At the same time, he noted that the advent of Kickstarter has meant good ideas that would never have gotten traditional funding have been able to see the light of day. "I think it all balances out in the end."

Travis Kalanick: The Transportation Trustbuster

I walk to the security desk in the lobby of what could be any of this city’s downtown office buildings filled with lawyers, architects and finance firms. “I’m here to see Travis Kalanick at Uber.”

“You’ll have to email him, they’re very secretive. And take a seat.”

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