socalTECH

MAY 5, 2014

'Brock Pierce , the Southern California technology investor and Bitcoin mogul, is leading a group of investors looking to take over failed Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox -- in exchange for a single Bitcoin. According to a report , Brock--and his investment group, Sunlot--apparently are hoping to help stabilize the Bitcoin economy through its move. Pierce is a leading investor in Southern California companies, and is one of the many investors here who have recently honed in on the opportunities in Bitc

Southern California 254

Southern California Clearstone Santa Monica Organization 254

InfoChachkie

MAY 5, 2014

'A version of this article previously appeared on Forbes. Noted American architect Frank Lloyd Wright famously cautioned his design disciples that form should not compromise function. However, for many online startups, form should drive the design process. I hesitate to write about design, as I have never considered myself to be a "color or font" person.

Symantec 227

Symantec Technical Review Software Review Design 227

Berkonomics

MAY 8, 2014

'First, here’s a link to my recent TEDx talk, “Smiling at success; laughing at failure.” . I am chairman of a company that, as I write this, is twelve years old and has not yet taken a dollar of outside investment. The company has been funded entirely by grants from the National Institute of Health, amounting to millions of non-dilutive dollars in all.

Company 166

Company Companies Writing Education 166

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2014

'Entrepreneurs who require funding for their startup have long counted on self-accredited high net worth individuals (“angels”) to fill their needs, after friends and family, and before they qualify for institutional investments (“VCs”). New crowd funding platforms on the Internet, like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo , as well as the Jobs Act of 2012 , are expected by many to ramp up regular people’s ability to fund new opportunities and kill the need for angel groups.

Invest 111

Invest Angel Funding Startup 111

Advertiser: Aggregage

Office leases are one of companies’ largest expenses, and if your whole team is working from home with no clear end in sight, you may be wondering what to do about your lease.

Company

socalTECH

MAY 9, 2014

'There''s been a lot of hype recently about crowdfunding, particularly of a myriad of consumer-focused products on such sites as Indiegogo and Kickstarter. It seems like you can''t go anywhere without bumping into a dozen people all with their own projects on one of those crowdfunding sites, hoping to get enough investors in their projects to take them to the next level.

Startup 220

Startup Sites Invest Help 220

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 9, 2014

'Amphitheater seating, hundreds of investors. Stage lights above four months of hustling behind you. X marks the spot. You have three minutes. As our first time covering a 500 Startups demo day , we could only imagine the stratospheric levels of stress our Batch 8 founders must have gone through to get on stage and present their progress from their last four months of startup bootcamp.

Startup 111

Startup Mobile Commerce Education 111

socalTECH

MAY 7, 2014

'The battle for mindshare--and riders--in Los Angeles is continuing today, as Taxi app provider Taxi Magic announced that it will gain offer up free taxi rides to people who uses the company''s app to hail a cab, through Friday, May 9th. Taxi Magic said that the promotion --which requires the special CINCO14 code--is part of a push into the Los Angeles market by the company, which launched into Los Angeles last year.

Manhattan Beach 182

Manhattan Beach San Fernando Santa Monica Los Angeles 182

socalTECH

MAY 7, 2014

'Score another exit for technology veteran Jeff Zwelling. Los Angeles-based online advertising attribution technology developer Convertro has been acquired by AOL , in a deal worth approximately $101M. According to AOL late Tuesday, it will pay $89M in cash plus approximately $2M in converted stock awards and $10M in earn out for Convertro, which develops software used for helping brands and agencies measure the return on their advertising spending on both online and offline media channels.

Advertising 182

Advertising Equity Acquisition Los Angeles 182

socalTECH

MAY 8, 2014

'Los Angeles-based Lettuce , the developer of inventory and order management apps headed by Raad MObrem, has been acquired by Intuit , the company announced this morning. According to Lettuce, the company will help Intuit provide solutions to the small business market. Financial terms of the acquisition were not announced. Lettuce said it will continue to offer up its products to customers, and will provide more about the company''s "joint vision" and new product development efforts with Intuit

Acquisition 178

Acquisition Los Angeles Report Software 178

socalTECH

MAY 7, 2014

'Beauty Noted , an online beauty and cosmetics social discovery site founded by USC student Sarah Kortschak, said Tuesday that it has raised $2.2M in a funding round. The startup--which is based in San Francisco--said the funding came from Kortschak Investments, as well as IDG Ventures and Crosslink capital. Beauty Noted said it uses the favorite products of members, as well as individual preferences to help provide personalized recommendations for cosmetics to its members.

USC 178

USC Funding Invest Capital 178

socalTECH

MAY 6, 2014

'Dubset Media Holdings , a developer of technology used to help DJs monetize their music, and helps identify music for music rights holders--which has offices in Beverly Hills--has scored a strategic round of funding from Rhapsody International. Size of the funding was not announced. Dubset is led by Bob Barbiere, and has offices in New York, London, and Beverly Hills.

Beverly Hills 178

Beverly Hills Invest Hollywood Media 178

socalTECH

MAY 9, 2014

'San Diego-based Quippi said this week that it has expanded its list of partners in Mexico. The startup--which is backed by Avalon Ventures--operates a financial service which lets consumers in the U.S. send money in the form of gift cards to their friends and family in Mexico. Quippi said it has added four new partners, including Office Depot Mexico, Farmacias Benavides, Farma Todo, and Opticas Devlyn.

Avalon 174

Avalon San Diego Services Funding 174

socalTECH

MAY 8, 2014

'Hollywood-based Talenthouse , which operates an online community of artists and creatives, said this morning that it has raised $10M in a funding round. The funding was led by Germany company Starwatch, which is part of ProSiebenSat.1. Other investors in the round included angels First Artist Bank, Gerard Butler and Jean Pigozzi. Talenthouse operates an online community which allows artists to submit their work to possible clients, essentially helping with crowdsourcing artistic works.

Hollywood 173

Hollywood Capital Funding Help 173

socalTECH

MAY 6, 2014

'Irvine-based PEAR Sports , a developer of personalized coaching apps for the iPhone and Android, has raised $5M in a funding round, to go towards its mobile apps and platform. The company--led by Bob Allison--said that the funding round came from Innovate Partners, Nordic Ventures, as well as VIZIO and other private and family office investors. PEAR Sports said the funding will go towards sales and marketing of its mobile app and hardware.

Coach 170

Coach Mobile Activity Platform 170

socalTECH

MAY 5, 2014

'Pasadena-based UberMedia , the provider of mobile advertising technology, announced this morning that it has raised $8M in a funding round. The funding came from Gordon Crawford and Blue Chip Ventures, as well as others. Crawford is a member of the board of Lionsgate Entertainment, and previously was a portfolio manager at Capital Research and Management.

Idealab 164

Idealab Advertising Mobile Pasadena 164

socalTECH

MAY 7, 2014

'Pasadena-based managed cloud provider Metacloud has raised $15M more, in a Series B funding round, the company said this morning. The startup--which helps companies deploy OpenStack-based, private clouds--said the funding came from Pelion Venture Partners, Silicon Valley Bank, and UMC Capital, along with AME Cloud Ventures, Canaan Partners, and Storm Ventures.

Pasadena 164

Pasadena Venture Capital Capital Funding 164

socalTECH

MAY 6, 2014

'Santa Barbara-based HG Data , a developer of B2B sales and marketing tools, said today that it ahs raised $2M in an additional Series A funding. The funding was led by Rincon Venture Partners, and also included Epic Ventures and angels. According to the company, the new funds bring its total raised to $5.5M. HG Data says it plans to add more than a dozen engineers and data scientists at the company as a result of the funding.

Santa Barbara 164

Santa Barbara Sales Tool Software 164

socalTECH

MAY 6, 2014

'Los Angeles-based Campaigner , the email marketing services brand owned by J2 Global, said today that it has launched a new, A/B split testing tools. Campaigner said that the new tool helps email marketers deliver and test email marketing campaigns, and helps test different subject lines, offer details, imagery, calls to action, and more to small groups before sending those emails on to a full target list.

Email 157

Email Tool Marketing Services 157

socalTECH

MAY 6, 2014

'A new, Los Angeles startup, HashAtIt.com has launched this morning, offering up a search engine specifically for searching for hashtag content. According to HashAtIt.com, which calls itself "The Social Search Engine", it is offering up an online search engine which lets users search content from Facebook, Twitter,Instagram, and Pinterest all in a single search, all keyed off popular hashtags--those #keywords which are popular in social media for organizing messages, comments, photos, and video.

Social Media 157

Social Media CIO Content Tool 157

socalTECH

MAY 6, 2014

'Los Angeles-based online advertising company Rubicon Project said today that it has expanded its international operations, and has opened up a new, Latin American office in Sao Paulo, Brazil. According to Rubicon Project, the expansion comes on top of recent international moves in Asia and Japan. Rubicon Project says it sees the potential for rapid growth in Latin American markets.

Advertising 153

Advertising Los Angeles Marketing Angel 153

socalTECH

MAY 8, 2014

'Santa Monica-based Science, Inc. , the startup studio and incubator run by former MySpace CEO Michael Jones, has acquired longtime social bookmarking site Delicious , the company disclosed this morning. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. Delicious was previously owned by Steven Chen and Chad Hurley, the founders of YouTube, who had acquired Delicious from Yahoo back in 2011 via their company, Avos Systems.

Sites 150

Sites Santa Monica Yahoo Incubator 150

socalTECH

MAY 7, 2014

'Thousand Oaks-based Teledyne Technologies Incorporate said Tuesday that one of its subsidiaries, Teledyne Energy Systems , has scored a $17.6M contract from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Teledyne said the contract is for a technology transfer and flight hardware upgrade program. The contract covers turning a lab-scale thermoelectric material production process into flight-ready materials and components.

Outsource Development 149

Outsource Development Thousand Oaks Technology Product 149

socalTECH

MAY 6, 2014

'Irvine-based flat panel HDTV and electronics provider VIZIO has settled a patent infringement suit with CyberFone Systems LLC , the two said this morning, with a charitable donation. According to the two, CyberFone has dismissed its patent infringement claims against VIZIO, and will not assert those patents against VIZIO. In exchange, VIZIO is donating $15,000 to the Mattel Children''s Hospital UCLA.

Patents 149

Patents UCLA 149

socalTECH

MAY 9, 2014

'Consumer electronics and computer giant Apple is in talks to acquire Los Angeles-based Beats Electronics , according to multiple reports Thursday evening, which would value Beats at around $3.2 billion. Citing multiple sources, the reports said the deal would include both Beats Electronics'' headphone business as well as its newly launched streaming music services, Beats Music.

Report 147

Report Los Angeles Acquisition Services 147

socalTECH

MAY 8, 2014

'Venice, California-based Snapchat has settled charges with the Federal Trade Commission , the FTC said Thursday afternoon, and has agreed to misrepresent the extent to which it maintains the privacy, security, and confidentiality of users'' information--and will also be required to implement a "comprehensive privacy program" monitored for the next 20 years.

Snapchat 147

Snapchat Venice Satisfaction Mobile 147

socalTECH

MAY 8, 2014

'San Diego-based solar financing company OneRoof Energy said this morning that it is expanding in the Northeast, and has entered into the New York market. According to the company, it has expanded its residential solar leasing operations to cover New York State. The expansion follows an earlier expansion to Massachusetts. OneRoof Energy said the expansion in New York comes due to growing demand in the Northeast; the firm said that the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) found that demand

San Diego 147

San Diego Demand Marketing Company 147

socalTECH

MAY 8, 2014

'Irvine-based Local Corporation said late Wednesday that it has named Fred Thiel as its new Chief Executive Officer. Thiel had been Chairman of Local''s board of directors. In addition, Local said that its current President and Chief Operations Officer, Michael Sawtell, will be leaving the company. The reason for Sawtell''s departure was not given by the company, which has been in the midst of a major executive shakeup since January, when the company''s longtime CEO, Heath Clarke, resigned.

Guide 147

Guide Equity Software Capital 147

socalTECH

MAY 8, 2014

'Los Angeles-based Maker Studios , the YouTube network which is in the midst of being acquired by Disney, has just signed a large, eight-figure online advertising deal with Omnicom Media Group , according to AdAge. The deal is apparently the first, upfront advertising deal signed by Maker Studios. OmniCom apparently has a similar, $100M deal with Instagram.

Advertising 147

Advertising Networking Los Angeles Media 147

socalTECH

MAY 6, 2014

'Calabasas-based Ixia reported this morning that it has received a letter from the NASDAQ Stock Market, warning the company of delisting, if the company fails to request a hearing on or before May 9th. Ixia said it expected the letter, which comes as a result of the failure by the company to timely file periodic financial reports with the SEC. Ixia has been working on a restatement of its quarterly reports, all of which stem from the sudden discovery that its former CEO, Vic Alston, had fabricat

Calabasas 147

Calabasas Education Report Networking 147

socalTECH

MAY 5, 2014

'Santa Monica-based Tennenbaum Capital Partners said Monday that it has added Brad Pritchard as a new Managing Director at the company, focused on investments in the energy sector. The alternative investment management company said that Pritchard joins the company from Hercules Technology Growth Capital, and also served at Wells Fargo Securities, SG Cowen, Banc of America Securities and GE Capital.

Capital 147

Capital Santa Monica Invest Marketing 147

socalTECH

MAY 5, 2014

'Google said over the weekend that it has expanded its same-day, shopping delivery service-- Google Shopping Express --into the Los Angeles market, along with a similar expansion into New York, which will allow for same day delivery from local retailers to consumers in West Los Angeles. Google has been operating the service in beta until now in the San Francisco area.

Los Angeles 147

Los Angeles Google West Los Angeles Angel 147

socalTECH

MAY 9, 2014

'Los Angeles-based ImagineAb , a developer of biotechnology used for molecular imaging, said Thursday that it has raised $21M in a Series B financing round. The funding was led by Merieux Developpement, and also included Novartis Venture Funds, Cycad Group and Nextech Invest. ImaginAb, which is led by Dr. Christian Behrenbruch, is developing antibody technology being used for treatment of cancer and immunology.

Venture Capital 138

Venture Capital Los Angeles Funding Capital 138

socalTECH

MAY 8, 2014

'San Diego-based growth equity investor TVC Capital is the lead investor in LiquidPlanner , a developer of online project management software this morning. LiquidPlanenr said it raised $8M in a Series B funding from TVC Capital, the first venture funding in the company since it was founded in 2007. Steven Hamerslag of TVC Capital will join LiquidPlanner''s board of directors with the funding.

Capital 138

Capital SaaS San Diego Equity 138

socalTECH

MAY 7, 2014

'Santa Monica-based videogame publisher Activision Blizzard said late Tuesday that it saw better than expected financial results for the first quarter of 2014. The company reported net revenues of $1.111 billion, compared with an earlier expectation of only $885M in sales. The company explained that the numbers were driven by record digital sales of its franchises, which include World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.

Activision 138

Activision Sales Santa Monica .Net 138

socalTECH

MAY 7, 2014

'Santa Barbara-based real estate software developer Yardi said Tuesday that it has acquired Enerliance , a developer of energy efficiency software. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Irvine-based Enerliance develops software used for optimizing large scale air conditioning systems, connected to meet demand response requirements. Yardi said that Enerliance and its team will remain in Irvine.

Santa Barbara 138

Santa Barbara Demand Acquisition Software Development 138

socalTECH

MAY 7, 2014

'Los Angeles-based T+ink , the startup developing conductive ink technology which allows printed items like ads, tickets, and packaging to change color, has partnered with Japanese printing company Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP). T+ink--which is led by former Global Crossing founder Gary Winnick--said the partnership will bring its technology to Dai Nippon Print''s 30,000 corporate clients around the world.

Company 138

Company Companies Los Angeles Technology 138