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RINGING THE BELL

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi rang the bell this morning in a historic IPO for the tech world. After a decade, the ride-hailing giant is finally making its debut on the public markets.

Uber priced its IPO at $45 a share, and it will begin trading on the NYSE today. That brings the company’s estimated valuation to nearly $82 billion, making it one of the most valuable companies to ever go public.

We spoke with early Uber investor Bradley Tusk, who runs Tusk Ventures, a political consultancy and venture firm that works with startups facing regulatory hurdles. In 2011, he struck a deal with then-Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and offered his political advisory services in exchange for equity in the company. His shares (he sold half as part of SoftBank’s tender offer) are believed to be worth $100 million.

TERM SHEET: What are some of the regulatory hurdles that Uber faces today?

TUSK: First, there’s the worker classification issue, which is not a one-size-fits-all issue. There are markets where people are clearly full-time drivers, and it’s understandable they want to be treated as such. I think we need a model that’s flexible enough to recognize what people are doing, understands that not everyone is exactly the same, and treats them accordingly.

Second, Uber has to consider whether it wants to expand its own scooter work or move forward with a purchase of one of the two big scooter companies. Scooters are legal in some markets and illegal in others, so it’s still a process of legalizing it everywhere.

Three, it’s about autonomous vehicles. There are some bills in different states, but there’s no federal policy whatsoever. If Uber really wants to play in the autonomous space, it’s going to need to be involved in shaping the regulatory framework on a federal and local level.

As Uber innovates, it’ll run into issues no one’s ever had to face before.

Are you in touch with Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick today? Do you have any sense of how he feels about the IPO? [TS Note: Kalanick was in attendance at the NYSE, but he did not participate in ringing the bell.]

Yes, I’m in touch with him. I think it’s petty to take someone who took this thing from zero to one and created the entire concept of ride-sharing and try to erase him from history. To me, that’s pretty petty.

How confident are you in current Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi leading Uber into the future?

Dara’s a really, really good public company CEO. He proved that with Expedia. At Uber, he succeeded in a few key places — he did a really good job taking down some of the temperature, changing some of the culture, and improving the company’s reputation a little bit.

We’ve also seen growth in things like Uber Freight and Uber Eats, so obviously that’s important. He’s good at being a good public company CEO. When people like Evan Spiegel or Mark Zuckerberg go from startup founder to public company CEO, there’s a learning curve where they make mistakes. Dara will make fewer mistakes because he’s been through this before. Even though Uber’s a public company now, he’ll have to focus just as relentlessly on innovation as Travis did for Uber to reach its potential.

Will Uber and its ride-hailing counterparts ever be profitable?

Yes. I don’t know if it’ll be because of autonomous vehicles where they won’t have the driver anymore or it’ll be because the economics of this type of growth just don’t work anymore in the public markets and therefore the model will have to change.

Where do you expect Uber to invest the heaviest?

You’ll see a lot of focus on Uber Eats and Uber Freight because those verticals keep growing and growing. I would not be surprised if Uber begins creating other revenue streams like more old-school things. For example, government clients — school buses — to try and bring in some things that are more predictable. I have no knowledge of this, but could talks to buy one of the scooter companies be revived? Sure.

How do you feel about Uber’s IPO after watching the company for eight years?

The whole eight-year ride has been an emotional roller coaster. It’s the culmination of so many problems, so much opportunity, and so much success. Uber was just so much in every way — good and bad. I bet that anyone who has been involved since the early days has a lot of mixed emotions right now. I mean, I built my entire business and my whole fund off the work I did with this one company.

Read the story on Fortune.com.

VENTURE DEALS

• LetsGetChecked, a direct-to-consumer at-home health testing platform, raised $30 million in Series B funding. LTP led the round, and was joined by investors including Qiming Venture Partners USA.

• Mint House, a tech-enabled hospitality company for the business traveler, raised $15 million in Series A funding. Revolution Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including NextView Ventures, Nelstone Ventures, and Ingleside Investors.

• Podimetrics, a Somerville, Mass.-based care management company, raised $13.4 million in Series B funding. Investors include Rock Health, Norwich Ventures, and Scientific Health Development.

• Phyn, a Torrance, Calif.-based smart water monitoring system, raised $12 million in funding. Investors include Belkin International and Uponor.

• Understory, a Madison, Wisc.-based weather network and analytics company, raised $5.25 million in Series B funding. True Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including 4490 Ventures and Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund.

• Daye, a startup developing a tampon that uses CBD to help tackle dysmenorrhea, raised $5.5 million in funding. Investors include Khosla Ventures, Index Ventures and Kindred Capital. Read more.

• Stratio, a Portugal-based company focused on early fault detection and insight into vehicles’ health, systems condition, and performance, raised $3 million in funding. Investors include Crane Venture Partners and LocalGlobe.

HEALTH AND LIFE SCIENCES DEALS

• Pulmonx Corporation, a Redwood City, Calif.-based provider of diagnostic and therapeutic pulmonary device technologies, raised $65 million in funding. Ally Bridge Group led the round, and was joined by investors including RTW Investments, ArrowMark Partners and Driehaus Capital Management.

• Twentyeight-Seven Therapeutics, a Watertown, Mass.-based company focused on the modulation of functional non-coding RNA, raised $15 million in Series A funding extension. Sofinnova Partners led the round, and was joined by investors including MPM Capital, Novartis Venture Fund, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc., Vertex Ventures HC, Longwood Fund and Astellas Venture Management.

PRIVATE EQUITY DEALS

• SnapAV, which is backed by Hellman & Friedman LLC, agreed to acquire Control4, a Salt Lake City, Utah-based provider of smart home solutions, for $23.91 per share or about $680 million.

• DispatchHealth, a provider of mobile healthcare, raised $33 million in funding. Investors include Echo Health Ventures, Alta Partners and Questa Capital.

IPOs

• Abacus Medicine, a Danish drug retailer which buys medicines in cheaper parts of the EU to sell to pricier markets, revived plans for an IPO. It plans to raise at least 50 million euros ($56 million) in Germany, Reuters reports. Read more.

EXITS

• Apax Partners agreed to buy Baltic Classifieds Group, a portfolio of online advertising classified platforms, from Media Investments & Holding OÜ. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

• Boston Scientific agreed to buy Vertiflex Inc, a Carlsbad, Calif.-based medical device company. The deal calls for $465 million in upfront cash with additional payments contingent on commercial milestones for the next three years. Vertiflex had raised approximately $170 million in funding from investors including Endeavour Vision, H.I.G Capital and H.I.G. BioVentures.