Both Sides of the Table
MAY 20, 2015
Anybody who reads the blog regularly will know that I’m long video. I’ve made 5 investments in the sector and I hope to make 5 more. Between the US & Europe alone the video sector is worth around $500 billion. And TV / Film / Video Games / Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality and frankly the Internet will all merge. Western countries watch > 5 hours of TV per day.
InfoChachkie
MAY 18, 2015
A version of this article previously appeared in Forbes. When joining a startup, there are seven important questions you should ask in order to answer the question: “What the heck are my stock options worth?”. You just received a job offer from a startup which includes 50,000 stock options. That is wonderful…or is it? I reviewed and approved hundreds of employment offer letters at my various startups, all of which included stock option grants.
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Berkonomics
MAY 21, 2015
Venture capitalists sometimes make an error in directing their portfolio company CEOs to push resources to the limit and scale the business to immense size quickly, all to seize market share. The logic in this is simple: once a company has market share, other issues can be sorted out to monetize the market, make the company profitable, scoop up wavering competitors, or even sell the company to a larger firm looking for a large customer base.
socalTECH
MAY 20, 2015
In some unwelcome news, the University of Southern California looks to be the center of an alleged Chinese spying ring, formed by three former graduate students from the school's electrical engineering school. According to the U.S. Department of Justice , it has charged six defendants with economic espionage and theft of trade secrets, which benefited the People's Republic of China.
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.
Eric Greenspan
MAY 19, 2015
Years ago I began doing a presentation called Think Big for area high schools and colleges which included The Ten Commandments for Entrepreneurs. It became quite popular and I was asked to keynote my Think Big presentation for Women’s Economic Ventures. I was honored and knew my material mattered when I got hugs from several of the women after my talk.
Startup Professionals Musings
MAY 16, 2015
Even in this age of globalization and virtualization, the geographic area where you choose to live and work can still make or break your startup business. I still have to tell some entrepreneurs that even with the best idea, they have to move to Silicon Valley to find the investors they need, or they need to move to the U.S. get the attention of the market they choose.
Southern California Tech Central brings together the best content for technical professionals in Southern California from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
socalTECH
MAY 18, 2015
Hawthorne-based SpaceX , the commercial spaceship and rocket company founded by Elon Musk, is promoting travel to Mars with three, retro-style travel posters. SpaceX--which released the posters on Flickr over the weekend--released the posters under the caption "Adventure awaits! Explore Mars� ultimate vacation destinations". The posters are reminiscent of the vintage, National Park posters created by the WPA back in the 1930's in response to the Great Depression.
Tech.Co
MAY 19, 2015
Make some noise Los Angeles because it’s time to compete in Tech.Co’s Startup of the Year Competition! Tech.Co has been traveling the globe, both virtually and physically, searching for the world’s best startup, and the Tech.Co’s Startup of the Year Competition & Tour’s next stop is in Los Angeles! Winners will get the chance to compete in Tech.Co’s Startup of the Year Competition at Celebrate 2015.
Startup Professionals Musings
MAY 17, 2015
How is it that only a few business leaders and entrepreneurs seem to drive exceptional results and disruptive innovation in this rapidly changing market economy (marketquake)? These few seem more adept at executing market and technology turns, not just incremental evolution. They consistently take bold steps to stay ahead of the curve, often contrary to conventional wisdom.
Tech Zulu Event
MAY 17, 2015
Boasting over 100 million players, Minecraft is an online virtual reality game where players create online worlds by placing and breaking blocks, surviving monsters and sustaining life. The game takes up where “Second Life” left off — but is so simple kids can build worlds in it. Beloved by children and parents alike, the game has been lauded and awarded by education groups for teaching STEM and code skills while encouraging social collaboration.
socalTECH
MAY 18, 2015
Santa Monica-based Mucker Capital , the seed stage investment fund led by Erik Rannala and William Hsu, has just booted up fundraising efforts for the group's third venture capital fund, Mucker III, L.P. The fundraising effort was first disclosed in a regulatory filing by the firm. Mucker Capital has recently started targeting pre-seed and seed-stage investments in local companies, of between $1M and $3M, as it has more broadly looked to support the growth of the startup industry in Los Angeles.
socalTECH
MAY 19, 2015
Los Angeles-based Tape , a new startup focused on social video, launched Tuesday, saying that it has released a new social video app for iOS. The free app let users combine and edit clips which they can share with other users, adding such things as special effects and music. Tape was founded by CEO Garret Alan Jiroux. READ MORE>>.
socalTECH
MAY 22, 2015
Los Angeles-based fintech venture investor Core Innovation Capital has made another investment, this time in San Francisco-based payment technology developer Ripple Labs. Ripple announced the investment earlier this week, saying it had raised $28M for its real time payments technology for the finance and banking industry. Investors in the round included Los Angeles-based Core Innovation, along with IDG Capital partners, CME Group, and Seagate, AME Cloud Ventures, ChinaRock Capital Management, Ch
socalTECH
MAY 18, 2015
Los Angeles-based live event ticket marketplace ScoreBig.com said Monday that it has linked up with Southwest Airlines. ScoreBig.com said it has partnered with Southwest's Rapid Rewards program to let members of Southwest's frequent flyer program earn points, whenever they purchase tickets through ScoreBig.com. ScoreBig offers up discounts to NBA, NFL,MLB, NHL, NCAA, concerts, family, and theater tickets, helping venues maximize the number of tickets sold to those events.
socalTECH
MAY 20, 2015
Santa Monica-based venture capital investor March Capital Partners is the lead investor in a new, $30M investment in Coho Data , a developer of high performance, flash-based storage. Coho said that March led the Series C funding, a round which also included Hewlett Packard Ventures, Intel Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Ignition Partners. March's investment in Cohu is led by Sumant Mandal.
socalTECH
MAY 19, 2015
Goleta-based AppFolio has filed for an IPO, saying in a filing that it is hoping to raise up to $100M on the NASDAQ Global Market as APPF. The IPO is being underwritten by Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Pacific Crest Securities, and William Blair. Appfolio--which is led by Brian Donahoo--is venture backed by Investment Group of Santa Barbara and BV Capital, along with such local angels as Andreas von Blottnitz and Klaus Schauser.
socalTECH
MAY 19, 2015
A new, Los Angeles-based startup, Karma , said today that it has launched out of private beta, to help create a global "Karma Score" to rank a user's trust and reliability in peer-to-peer marketplaces. The startup, led by Zach Schiff-Abram, says it is looking to fill in holes in the area of online interactions, and says it already works with Airbnb, DogVacay, eBay, Etsy, RelayRides and Vayable.
socalTECH
MAY 19, 2015
Santa Monica-based Mobcrush , a new startup which wants to allow mobile users to broadcast, watch, and chat about video games as they are playing them, has raised $4.9M in a seed funding round. The company said the funding came from Raine Ventures, First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital, CrunchFund, Rincon Venture Partners, Crosscut Ventures, Lionsgate, Advancit Capital, Kevin Chou (Kabam CEO), Chris Carvalho (former Kabam COO), Jari Ovaskainen (Supercell early investor ), Richard Wolpert (Accel
socalTECH
MAY 20, 2015
Venture capitalist David Lee , who was Managing Partner of seed and angel investing fund SV Angel , one of the most active venture investors in San Francisco, has resigned to spend more time with his family in Los Angeles, the fund told its Limited Partners on Tuesday. According to a memo leaked from the firm, Lee has decided to spend more time with his wife, children, and extended family in Los Angeles.
socalTECH
MAY 20, 2015
Santa Barbara-based e-commerce software developer FastSpring announced late Tuesday that it has named Michael Smith as the company's new Chief Technology Officer. Smith was most recently CTO of Verisk Analytics, and also had served at Interthinx and Strategic Analytics. FastSpring develops cloud-based e-commerce software used by software, cloud, and other online service companies.
socalTECH
MAY 22, 2015
El Segundo-based satellite television service DIRECTV has launched a new, iOS application which lets kids view its content for free on their iOS device--as long as families are already subscribers to the service. According to DIRECTV, its new DIRECTV Kids App runs on the Apple iPhone and iPad, and lets children stream hundreds of children's shows and kid-friendly movies anytime, at no extra charge.
socalTECH
MAY 18, 2015
Los Angeles-based cloud service provider Infinitely Virtual has expanded its set of cloud offerings this morning, saying it has expanded its cloud file sharing service aimed at businesses. The company said it has expanded its InfiniteVault file sharing solution specifically for business users, allowing those users to securely share files on all of their devices and PCs.
socalTECH
MAY 18, 2015
Los Angeles-based online, commercial real estate loan marketplace AssetAvenue announced this morning that it has named Varun Pathria as the company's new Chief Investment Officer. Pathria joins the company from Colony Capital, where he was Senior Vice President. Pathria had been at Colony --which specializes in real estate investments--for eleven years.
socalTECH
MAY 22, 2015
San Diego-based Companion Medical , a developer of a Bluetooth- and smartphone app-enabled insulin delivery system for diabetics, has raised $3M in a Series B funding, the company said this week. The funding came from Eli Lilly & Company. Companion Medical, which is led by Sean Saint, develops an "insulin pen" which is Bluetooth enabled, and connects to a smartphone app, to deliver insulin to patients when needed.
socalTECH
MAY 22, 2015
Santa Monica-based Demand Media has had another shuffle in its executive ranks, saying late Thursday that it has named Brian Pike, currently its Chief Technology Officer, to the role of Chief Operating Officer. In addition, Demand Media said that Julie Campistron, who had been Executive Vice President, Media, will step down from the company, with Scott Boecker, Executive Vice President, Marketplaces, also leaving the company.
socalTECH
MAY 22, 2015
Los Angeles-based 3D movie projection technology developer RealD has filed a patent infringement suit in Paris, saying that a 3D manufacturer and cinema operator are infringing upon a European patent. RealD did not name the manufacturer and cinema operator. The company said the lawsuit was filed with the Paris First Instance Court, and covers European patent. patent No. 2067066, entitled "Polarization Conversion Systems for Stereoscopic Projection".
socalTECH
MAY 21, 2015
San Juan Capistrano-based Frost Data Capital , the investment and incubation effort led by Stuart Frost, has backed Maana , the developer of a big data search engine technology. Maana said Wednesday that it raised $14M in a funding round, which came from Chevron Technology Ventures, ConocoPhillips Technology Ventures, Frost Data Capital, GE Ventures, and Intel Capital.
socalTECH
MAY 21, 2015
Santa Barbara-based Sonos is expanding its footprint, saying that it is opening up a new office in Seattle, Washington. Sonos said the new office will let it tap into both music and technology talent in the Pacific Northwest. The company now has offices in Santa Barbara, Boston, Seattle, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Denmark, The United Kingdom, and China.
socalTECH
MAY 21, 2015
Irvine-based Kofax reported a $1.2M win Wednesday with a global engineering, architecture, and environmental firm. The name of the customer was not disclosed. Kofax aid its customer is using its products to automate it human resources onboarding and change request processes, and will modernize its accounts payable processing and handling of more than 140,000 invoices per year.
socalTECH
MAY 21, 2015
Calabasas-based network measurement equipment and software developer Ixia is in a partnership to provide Ethernet validation and conformance testing for the automotive industry, according to the company. Ixia said it has partnered with C&S Group on the effort to safeguard, validate, and optimize automotive Ethernet communications. Ixia said that Ethernet networking is quickly becoming the standard being used for in-vehicle communications.
socalTECH
MAY 21, 2015
Santa Monica-based TrueCar has been sued by a group of California car dealers, via the California New Car Dealers Association , which alleges that the auto buying site is noncompliance with California's laws regarding dealer licensing. The California New Car Dealers Association says that TrueCar is acting as a dealer and broker of new cars, and that as a result it is violating California law.
socalTECH
MAY 20, 2015
Fountain Valley-based flash memory developer Kingston is the lead investor in Liqid a stealthy developer of data center technology. Liqid said this morning that it raised $5.7M in funding, from Kingston Technology, Phison Electronics Corporation, ABR Capital Management, along with investors aggregated by DH Capital. The company has not announced what it is doing, but the company's CEO, Jay Breakstone, was previously Chairman and CEO of pureSilicon, a developer of solid state storage.
socalTECH
MAY 20, 2015
Westlake Village-based data storage and power supply manufacturer Qualstar > has promoted Daniel K. Jan, the company's Executive Vice President, to the role of President, the company said late Tuesday. Jan has been EVP of the company since April of last year. Jan takes over the President role from CEO Steven N. Bronson, who remains in the CEO position.
socalTECH
MAY 20, 2015
Irvine-based Kareo , the developer of cloud-based, medical office software, has rolled out a new Apple Watch app, which it says can help physicians improve their medical practice efficiency. Kareo said its new app provides appointment reminders, scheduling updates, and secure communications, all through the new Apple Watch. The new app also offers up analytics into medical practice metrics, including how many patients are scheduled for a day, how many patients are waiting to be seen, and who is
socalTECH
MAY 19, 2015
Thousand Oaks-based Amgen said today that it has named Jonathan P. Graham as the company's new Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary. Graham replaces David J. Scott, who the company said is retiring in August. Graham was most recently at Danaher Corporation, where he also served as SVP and General Counsel, and also had served at General Electric Company, Williams & Connolly LLP, and was a law clerk to the Honorable Joseph T.
socalTECH
MAY 19, 2015
Pasadena-based mobile application and advertising company UberMedia said late Monday that it has tied with Trade Area Systems, a developer of business intelligence systems for the real estate industry. The two said that Trade Area Systems will use UberMedia's mobile data points into one of its products, to help improve decisions by retail and restaurant real estate customers.
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