Term Sheet — Friday, October 31

• Out the door: We’ve written a lot about the trials and tribulations of North Bridge Venture Partners, the longtime VC shop that is struggling to remain relevant in the early-stage investment game. The latest news is that partners Jonathan Heiliger and Michael Skok are out, despite both having been listed as general partners when North Bridge began raising its eighth early-stage fund (which appears to now be targeting $200 million, per an SEC filing).

Heiliger had joined North Bridge back in April 2012 after spending four years with Facebook, where he was known as the company’s “cloud fixer.” He was based in Silicon Valley, where he led deals for such companies as Lytro, Ravel Law, Quora and Tastemaker. Skok had been with North Bridge for 12 years, working on such deals as Demandware, Acquia, Salsify and Apperian.

Skok is expected to retain some of his North Bridge board seats, while Heiliger is not. No specifics yet on future plans for either of them, although Heiliger said he is working on some sort of new VC platform that he’ll be ready to unveil after the holidays.

• Today's big deal is that Slack has raised $120 million in new VC funding at a $1.12 billion post-money valuation, co-led by Kleiner Perkins and Google Ventures. I posted a full Q&A with CEO Stewart Butterfield (read it here), and also spent a few minutes last night discussing the deal with KP's John Doerr (who will become a board observer).

Doerr emphasized not only Slack's remarkable adoption rate -- 30k teams actively using product launched publicly just this past February, including multiple teams at companies like eBay and Adobe -- but also how it's been done via word-of-mouth, since Slack's first marketing exec doesn't even begin work until next week. Doerr added that the company already has "received multiple offers" from interested acquirers.

• Deal data: It's not your anecdotal imagination, corporate spin-offs are back in vogue. Thomson Reuters released new numbers showing that there has been a major rebound in corporate spin-off activity in 2014, after a major dip in 2013. One key to the final 2014 figures, however, will be how many announced deals actually get closed. For example, HP has said that its split will take around 12 months to complete.

• Answer Key: I recently asked you to name the "unicorn" working on a new tender offer for vested employees and ex-employees, similar to what has been reported about AirBNB. Your hint was that, like AirBNB, this company has a track record of not letting employees sell openly on the secondary market. The answer was Dropbox, which is doing the offering at the valuation of its most recent funding round (approx. $10 billion). No comment from the company, which one source says is capping current employees at 10%, while ex-employees either can sell up to 15% or 100% (no middle ground).

• Distressed deal? Fortress Investment Group CEO Randy Nardone said during an earnings call that he would consider taking his private equity/hedge fund firm private, "when the opportunity presents itself." Fortress shares have fallen more than 60% since it went public in 2007, which begs the question: If a private equity firm were to acquire a listed company whose value had fallen that much over the past seven years, wouldn't it fire management? Didn't hear Nardone make any mention of that...

• Feedback: Got a lot of emails based on yesterday's column about America's economic disconnect. We'll do a mailbag on Monday, so drop me a note if you'd like to chime in.

• Have a great Halloween weekend… Go Pats!

THE BIG DEAL

• Slack, a San Francisco-based team communication platform led by Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield, has raised $120 million in new VC funding at a $1.12 billion post-money valuation. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Google Ventures co-led the round, and were joined by return backers Andreessen Horowitz, Accel Partners and The Social+Capital Partnership. The company previously had raised $60 million, including a $43 million round just six months ago.

We've posted a Q&A with Butterfield about the deal, which you can find here.

VENTURE CAPITAL DEALS

• Peraso Technologies Inc., a Toronto-based provider of wireless gigabit chipsets, has raised C$20 million in new VC funding. Roadmap Capital led the round, and was joined by return backers Celtic House Venture Partners, Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund and VentureLink Funds. www.perasotech.com

• uBeam, a Los Angeles-based wireless power startup, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. Upfront Ventures led the round, and was joined by seed backers Andreessen Horowitz, Mark Cuban and Ludlow Ventures. www.upfrontventures.com

• Zoomcar, an Indian car-rental startup, has raised $8 million in new VC funding led by Sequoia Capital. Read more.

• User Replay, a UK-based provider of e-commerce customer experience management software, has raised $3.25 million in Series A funding. Episode 1 led the round, and was joined by return backers EC1 Capital and the FSE Group. www.userreplay.com

• Photofy, a social content creation app for iOS and Android, has raised $1 million in VC funding. Backers include Capitol Broadcasting Corp., James Dondero and Michael Olander Jr. www.photofy.com

• Buzz360 LLC, a Minneapolis-based provider of marketing software, has raised $385,000 in equity and debt funding. Dakota Venture Group led the equity tranche, and was joined by individual angels. www.buzz360.co

PRIVATE EQUITY DEALS

• Advent International has agreed to acquire the Balkan banking unit of bailed-out Austrian lender Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank International AG. Read more.

• Advent International is “nearing a deal” to acquire Distribution International Inc., a Houston, Texas-based distributor of thermal and acoustical insulation, from Audax Group and CapStreet Group, according to LBOWire. The sale could value Distribution International at around $600 million, including debt. www.distributionintl.com

• Altamont Capital Partners has acquired a stake in HUF Worldwide Inc., a skate and streetwear brand.   No financial terms were disclosed. www.hufworldwide.com

• Mander Portman Woodward Ltd., a portfolio company of Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, has acquired Justin Craig Education, a UK-based exam preparation and tutoring business. No financial terms were disclosed. www.mpw.co.uk

• Noble Environmental Technologies, a San Diego–based maker of sustainable building and design materials, has raised an undisclosed amount of strategic funding from Envisage Equity. Proceeds will be used by Noble to expand its existing production facility in Kraljevo, Serbia and build an R&D facility in San Diego. www.ecorusa.com

IPOs

• Fibrogen Inc., a San Francisco-based developer of therapeutics in such areas as fibrosis and anemia, has set its IPO terms to 7.1 million shares being offered at between $16 and $19 per share. It would have an initial market cap of approximately $974 million, were it to price in the middle of its range. The company plans to trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol FGEN, with Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Leerink Partners serving as lead underwriters. Fibrogen reports $30.5 million in net income on around $108 million in revenue for the first half of 2014. Shareholders include Astellas Pharma (10.5% pre-IPO stake). www.fibrogen.com

EXITS

• Audax Group is seeking a buyer for Laborie Medical Technologies Inc., a Canadian medical device maker focused on pelvic health, according to LBO Wire. The deal could be worth more than $300 million. www.laborie.com

• La Quinta Holdings (NYSE: LQ) has filed for a secondary public offering of 20 million shares, which would be valued at $405 million (based on yesterday’s closing price of $20.29 per share). Most of the shares in the hotel chain would be offered up by The Blackstone Group, which could see its ownership percentage fall from 62.8% to under 50%. www.laquinta.com

OTHER DEALS

• Danone (Paris: BN) has agreed to acquire a 25% stake in Chinese dairy Yashili International (HK: 1230) for around $550 million. www.yashili.hk

• General Electric (NYSE: GE) is in “early-stage talks” to sell its stakes in its South Korean auto-financing and credit-card businesses, according to the WSJ. A deal could be worth more than $1 billion. Read more.

• Lenovo (HK: 992) has completed its previously-announced $2.9 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google (Nasdaq: GOOG).Read more.

• Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) has agreed to acquire Systems Made Simple, a Syracuse, N.Y.-baased–based provider of health IT solutions to the U.S. federal government. No financial terms were disclosed. www.lockheedmartin.com

FIRMS & FUNDS

• Ares Management has agreed to acquire Energy Investors Funds, an energy infrastructure investment firm with approximately $4 billion in assets under management. The deal is expected to close by year-end. www.ares.com

• Bain Capital is nearing a final close on its fourth European buyout fund, as first reported by Dow Jones and confirmed by a firm spokeswoman. The firm already has €3.5 billion in commitments from LPs, and Bain partners will chip in another €250 million. www.baincapital.com

MOVING IN, UP, ON & OUT

• Tom Groh has joined Altus Capital Partners as a principal focused on new deal generation. He previously spent more than four years with KPMG Corporate Finance. www.altuscapitalpartners.com

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