Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 24, 2015

Dave’s note: Our guest author this week is John Huston, founder of the 300+ member Ohio TechAngel Funds and a past Chairman of both the Angel Capital Association and the Angel Resource Institute. . By John Huston. There are only two types of companies -those which have achieved positive cash flow and those which have not. (Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization, or EBITDA is the most commonly used definition of cash flow.).

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socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

Venice, California-based Headspace , the developer of a mobile app that helps people meditate, has raised $34M in a funding round, the company disclosed over the last few days. The funding came from The Chernin Group, and also included Advancit Capital, Allen & Co., Breyer Capital, Broadway Video Ventures, Deerfield Management, Freelands Ventures, and William Morris Endeavor, along with celebrities Jessica Alba, Cash Warren, Jared Leto, and Ryan Seacrest.

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InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

A version of this article previously appeared in Forbes. Even entrepreneurs that already sold on SaaS should stake note of new research from the SalientGroup : SaaS gets funded - Nearly 50% of SaaS-based startups are getting successfully funded—a rate of funding success no other sector can match. SaaS-based companies grow - The SaaS market is growing 3x faster than the software market (20% vs. 7%), and this rate is expected to continue through 2020.

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Tech.Co

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

From apps to hardware, to KickStarter successes and international startups, we’re inching closer to finding out who will take home the title of Startup of the Year competition at our annual Celebrate Conference in October. Among the dozens of participants that applied for the online competitions, only a few progressed into the semifinals. Climbing the ranks for our Los Angeles, CA region, Mobile Therapy was one of two semifinal winners.

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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.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2015

Too many people, young and older, let their career and their lifestyle happen to them, rather than proactively making things happen based on their personal passions, skills, and interests. Others make decisions based on someone else’s interests, such as the father who wants his son to take over the family business, or dreams openly of having a doctor in the family.

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SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

Los Angeles-based two-factor, phone authentication provider TeleSign has long worked in the shadows, helping to prevent fraudulent logins for a large chunk of the top, Internet and web services. However, for years, it hasn't been able to talk about the work it does with its technology. Now, however, it looks like another local company, Tinder , is helping TeleSign to get the word out about its success.

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Tech.Co

SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

LinkedIn is by far the world’s largest professional network with more than 380 million members in over 200 countries and territories. But it isn’t meeting the needs of everyone, leading to the creation of several sites positioning themselves as the go-to professional network for niche industries. If you work in hospitality, you’ve got Industry. If you’re a doctor, head over to Doximity.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

Business dreams are fun, but they don’t change the world or make you any money if you can’t turn them into a reality. Many aspiring entrepreneurs are stuck in the idea stage, and only a few have the discipline and the insight to move on to the execution phase. There is no magic formula for building a good business, but I’ve seen enough successful ventures to pick out some common elements.

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SEPTEMBER 24, 2015

Los Angeles-based Earbits , the streaming music service led by Joey Flores, which focuses on new artist discovery, has been acquired by Atlanta-based You42. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed. Earbits, which had been backed by Y Combinator, Charles River Ventures, and Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Wordpress, said that it is now planning to double its staff in the next year, after the last-minute save by You42.

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Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

Ten years ago wearable technology was a relatively unknown thing. Most people would think of science fiction of some niche prototype device, if they knew about the concept of wearable tech at all. Ask somebody today to describe wearable technology to you, and they’ll probably talk about the latest round of smart watches, or maybe Google Glass. Wearable technology is steadily gaining ground, but what we have today is similar to the walkmans or satellite phones of the past: clunky, limited, and un

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Jason Nazar

SEPTEMBER 24, 2015

What should the core values for our company be? Being a HUGE comic buff, I took this as the opportunity to frame our mission and values within the metaphor of an epic adventure. So here is the list of our core values, based on 10 Lessons Startups Can Learn From Superheros. (substitute “Superheros” for “Your StartUp Company”).

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 19, 2015

One of the realities of being an entrepreneur is that you have to keep learning and changing to survive. Everyone on the startup team knows there is no buffer, and no personal isolation from impact based on your job description that can save you. Thus everyone has to make sure they are focusing on what is important, and making leadership decisions to save the business.

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SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

Santa Monica-based VideoAmp , a developer of programmatic video advertising software, said Friday that it has opened up offices in New York, Chicago, and Detroit, and also has hired a new VP to head up its eastern region sales. VideoAmp said the New York office will be led by Amy McGovern, who has been appointed VP of Strategic Sales, to head up the company's eastern region; McGovern was most recently Vice President of Digital Video Ad Sales at Fox Networks Group, and also had served at GroupM.

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SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

Did you ever wish you could tell the story of your life as a comic strip? A new, San Diego startup, Lomics , said this morning that it has rolled out a mobile app which lets you capture yourself on camera, and create a comic--complete with speech and thought bubbles--where you can tell your own story. The startup said the app lets users shoot videos, which the app automatically frames and turns into live comics.

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SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

Los Angeles-based Ampsy , the social content sharing and aggregation software developer led by Jeremy Gocke, has linked into IBM's Watson technology, saying it is using the machine learning technology as part of a new analytics offering. Ampsy said the new analytics offering, AmpElite analytics, is aimed at helping live events stakeholders better understand social content sharing and fan sentiment.

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SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

Patrick Soon-Shiong , the biotech billionaire behind LA's NantWorks family of companies, is reportedly eyeing a bid for the LA Times. According to the San Fernando Valley Business Journal, Soon-Shiong is "seriously considering" acquiring the long suffering Los Angeles newspaper, which recently had a very visible fallout between CEO and publisher Austin Beutner and parent company Tribune Publishing Co.

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SEPTEMBER 24, 2015

Santa Barbara-based Graphiq , the startup led by former DoubleClick founder Kevin O'Connor, said Thursday that it has inked an agreement with the Associated Press , to increase the amount and variety of interactive content that the AP provides to news subscribers. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Graphiq said it will offer up its data visualizations to AP subscribers, and that the AP will also include Graphiq's content within top news stories.

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SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

Is the key to finding a satisfying date (or mate) thinking more about sharing a meal, than swapping hot photos? A new, LA-based dating app developer, InviteUp sure thinks so. InviteUp recently launched in the Los Angeles area, and lets users connect at local restaurants, coffee shops, bars, or through local activities and venues--all aimed at getting to a real, live date.

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SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

Los Angeles-based free mobile broadband provider FreedomPop has officially opened up service in the UK today, offering up UK residents 200MB of data, 200 minutes of calls, and 200 text messages a month for free. FreedomPop said it would offer the first, 10,000 users to sign up for its service with higher limits, including 1000 minutes, 1000 text messages, and 1GB of data free a month; it also said all users will be eligible for higher data limits by taking surveys or downloading coupons, among o

Mobile 149

Mobile Services Los Angeles Marketing 149

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SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

San Diego-based Brain Corporation said today that it has launched a new, software operating system aimed at robot application development. According to the company, its new BrainOS provides support for common peripherals, runs on low cost computing hardware, and is aimed at making prototyping and development of robots easier for hobbyists and commercial developers.

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SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

Jaunt , a developer of cinematic, virtual reality hardware and software, said this morning that it has opened up a new, virtual reality studio in Los Angeles, after receiving $65M in a Series C funding. The funding came from Burbank-based The Walt Disney Company, Evolution Media Partners--the investment joint venture which involves the CAA's Evolution Media Capital, TPG Growth and Participant Media--and Chine Media Capital (CMC), along with ProSiebenSat.1 SE, Axel Springer SE, The Madison Square

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SEPTEMBER 22, 2015

San Diego-based Qualcomm is joining Google and Microsoft in a big, $110M funding round for Cloudflare , the provider of web site security and caching services. CloudFlare said the $110M round was led by Fidelity, and also included Google Capital, Microsoft, Baidu, and Qualcomm Incorporated. Qualcomm made the investment through Qualcomm Ventures. CloudFlare's service combine both caching and website performance tools, along with distributed denial of service (DDOS) protection and other security f

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SEPTEMBER 22, 2015

CoverHound , which has offices in Westlake Village, and is also one of the portfolio firms of Los Angeles-based venture investor Core Innovation Capital , has raised $33.3M in a Series C funding. The company now reportedly has a valuation of over $103M. CoverHound operates an online marketplace to compare and purchase insurance, has raised $33.3M more in a Series C funding, in a funding led by ACE Group, and also including RRE Ventures, Blumberg Capital, Core Innovation Capital, Route 66 Venture

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SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

San Diego-based Qualcomm has invested in a home healthcare startup based in Bangalore, India, via its venture arm, Qualcomm Ventures. According to Portea Medical on Sunday, it raised $37.5M in a Series B funding, led by Accel, and also included International Finance Corporation (IFC), Qualcomm Ventures, and Ventureast. The company has more than 3,000 staff and plans to hire 5,000 more over the next 18 months, to provide in-home healthcare services in India and Malaysia.

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SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

Santa Monica-based streaming television site Hulu is dipping its toes into the world of virtual reality content, saying Thursday that it is launching its own, Hulu VR application. The new virtual reality app, which will launch sometime this fall, will offer up an immmersive 3D environment, and which will also include at least one, immersive 3D short film.

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Hulu Santa Monica Content Ideas 138

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SEPTEMBER 24, 2015

San Diego-based biopharmaceuticals developer Orexigen Therapeutics , which is developing treatments for obesity, reported receiving a total of $22M from two different partners. Orexigen ssaid it hass received $15M from partner Takeda Pharmaceuticals , the first of three milestone payments to the company, and $7M from Kwang Dong Pharmaceutical Company Ltd.

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SEPTEMBER 24, 2015

Los Angeles-based Squeegy , an on-demand, car wash service, said Wednesday that it has officially launched its service in Los Angeles. The company--which launched a pilot program in Santa Monica in August--said it now is offering up its service in Beverly Hills, Beverlywood, Brentwood, Century City, Culver City, Mar Vista, Marina del Rey, Pacific Palisades, Palms, Playa Vista, Playa del Rey, Santa Monica, Venice, West LA, Westchester and Westwood.

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SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

An effort by Citrix Systems to sell itself to a buyer has a possibility of some major impact on Southern California, particularly at Santa Barbara-based Citrix Online. According to Reuters, Citrix is in the midst of a last-ditch attempt to sell the entire company as a whole, before selling off individual assets of the company--and in particular, its GoToMeeting and other GoTo products.

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SEPTEMBER 22, 2015

Costa Mesa-based networking and telecommunications product developer EnGenius Technologies announced this morning that it has begun shipping a new product. EnGenius said it has rolled out a line of business class, IP surveillance cameras, aimed at use in indoor and outdoor video surveillance. The new Photon family cameras include 1MP CMOS sensors, infrared filters and illuminators, support for 720P video, and more.

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SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

Netflix said it has inked a deal to become the exclusive streaming provider of the season one episodes of ABC's How to Get Away With Murder , the company said Friday. Netflix started making the first season of the series available on its service this weekend, throughout the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

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SEPTEMBER 24, 2015

We recently ran into Chris Tragos , one of the co-founders of Jetpack (www.jetpack.net), provider of an online ad platform. Tragos is a veteran of technology industry here, having come from Spin Media (formerly, Buzznet) with his two other co-founders. We thought we'd talk with Chris about what Jetpack is up to. What is Jetpack, and what do you do? Chris Tragos: Jetpack is an ad platform, which I would describe as the most beautiful, best engaging, and most performant ad product for desktop, mob

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SEPTEMBER 22, 2015

Santa Barbara-based infrastructure and performance monitoring software developer LogicMonitor said today that it has opened up a new, European data center, as part of an expansion of business in Europe. LogicMonitor said the new data center, which is located in London, allows it to offer a local presence in the European Union. LogicMonitor says it is specifically targeting the EU to offer up its software-as-a-service to companies still impacted by a slow economy recovery in the EU, to help them

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SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

Venice, California-based email software developer Sanebox , which develops software to help you prioritize and respond to emails, has just rolled out a new feature which might just help you keep on top of that email monster. The company aid its new SaneNoReplies software helps users track which emails they need to follow up with, flagging those emails where you were expecting a response, but never got one.

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SEPTEMBER 22, 2015

Amazon.com , which has been investing in developing content out of its Los Angeles-based Amazon Studios arm, has scored five Emmy awards for its original content series, Transparent. Amazon--which opened up its Amazon Studios business out of Los Angeles back in 2010 , said today that it would offer up a special sale on Amazon Prime membership on Friday, offering up the service for just $67.00.

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SEPTEMBER 22, 2015

Los Angeles-based user generated content rights acquirer Jukin Media announced today that it has acquired the online video brand, People Are Awesome , which features online videos of people doing everything from wingsuit flying to cliff diving and more. Financial details of the buy were not announced. Jukin Media said People Are Awesome has more than 400,000 YouTube susbcribers, and more than 240 million views.

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SEPTEMBER 22, 2015

Santa Monica-based Demand Media is bolstering its efforts to reach out towards millennial women, and has acquired LEAFtv. Demand Media also said it has hired Geri Hirsch and Erin Falconer, the founders of LEAFtv, and will expand the LEAFtv brand. According to Demand Media, Hirsch and Falconer will be expanding the LEAFtv brand as Executive Editor and General Manager of LEAFtv, a move which will help it enhance its position in the categories of home, food, and fashion.

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