Sat.May 25, 2019 - Fri.May 31, 2019

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Delane Parnell’s plan to conquer amateur esports

TechCrunch LA

Most of the buzz about esports focuses on high-profile professional teams and audiences watching live streams of those professionals. What gets ignored is the entire base of amateurs wanting to compete in esports below the professional tier. This is like talking about the NBA and the value of its sponsorships and broadcast rights as if that is the entirety of the basketball market in the US.

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Is The Future Here? Startup Launches Hydrogen Powered Air Vehicle

socalTECH

Is the future of flying vehicles finally here? We spoke with Steve Hanvey, CEO of Alaka'i (www.alakai.com) about the launch of the company's futuristic, hydrogen powered air vehicle, the Skai, on Wednesday. Hanvey told us how the company decided on the use of hydrogen for powering its multi-rotor craft, how soon he hopes the Skai will actually take to the air, and how long it will take to actually get the aircraft certified for flight.

Design 113
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San Diego Tech Roundup: Startup Week, Planck, TuSimple & More

Xconomy

On the eve of the start of the seventh annual San Diego Startup Week, let’s learn more about the event—which is expected to draw thousands to its talks and gatherings—and take a look at some other recent tech news. —Local entrepreneurs have dozens of speakers teed up and get-togethers organized for Startup Week, which kicks off Tuesday.

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Can you create a great customer case study?

Berkonomics

Attention spans are growing shorter by the second. Studies have shown that attention spans for engaging a reader or listener have fallen from eleven seconds to eight seconds on average. Eight seconds to reach someone in most any medium. Ouch! Growing weary of paid advertisements. We have grown more than a bit weary of most advertising, no matter in what form.

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Can You Ask for Office Rent Relief? How to Manage Your Lease During COVID-19

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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Startups Weekly: VCs are drunk on beverage startups

TechCrunch LA

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a newsletter published every Saturday that dives into the week’s most noteworthy venture deals, fundraises, M&A transactions and trends. Let’s take a quick moment to catch up. Last week, I wrote about an alternative to venture capital called revenue-based financing and before that, I jotted down some notes on one of VCs’ favorite spaces: cannabis tech.

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Interview with Robin Richards, CareerArc

socalTECH

Our interview this morning is with Robin Richards , the CEO of Los Angeles-based CareerArc (www.careerarc.com). Richards--a serial entrepreneur who has been involved in a number of technology companies here, including NTI Group (sold to Blackboard), Internships.com, MP3.com, and Vivendi Universal Net USA, where he was also CEO. Richards also has been an active angel investor in local startups.

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Moonshots Capital Leads $2.1 Million Backtracks Seed Round

L.A. Business Journal

Podcast analytics software developer Backtracks Inc. announced May 30 it raised a $2.1 million seed round led by Marina del Rey-based venture capital firm Moonshots Capital.

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Rumpus, the collaborative toolkit from Oblong Industries, is now available on Webex

TechCrunch LA

In a previous life, John Underkoffler spent his days in Los Angeles dreaming up all of the possible ways men and machines would interact as a science adviser on films like Minority Report. Now, he designs those systems for the real world through his company Oblong Industries , which has labored to create a full stack of collaborative tools for business users that are every bit as high-tech as the one’s Underkoffler dreamt for the silver screen.

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Cornerstone OnDemand To Help Underrepresented Job Seekers In LA

socalTECH

Santa Monica-based Cornerstone OnDemand Foundation , the nonprofit arm of Cornerstone OnDemand, says it will launch a set of free, online learning programs to help under-represented, job sekers in Los Angeles. According to Cornerstone OnDemand, it has partnered with the Bixel Exchange, a division of the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce, to provide access to a free online learning program for job seekers.

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RecruitMilitary Greater Los Angeles Veterans Job Fair

SoCal Tech Calendar

Thursday, May 30, 2019 -- RecruitMilitary Greater Los Angeles Veterans Job Fair. This free event for veterans, military spouses, transitioning military, National Guard members and Reservists features 70 employers ready to hire.

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Silicon Beach Report May 29: Cinelytic Brings AI to Film Casting

L.A. Business Journal

3Diligent begins offering consulting services; Hulu reports majority of users pay for ads; Hollywood experiments with AI to measure impact of key filmmaking decisions.

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Immunotherapy Is Now Here For Breast Cancer. What Are Its Prospects?

Xconomy

Drugs that rev up a patient’s immune system have changed how we treat cancers of the skin, lung, and more, offering people whose tumors have spread a chance to live longer than ever thought possible. But until this year, the field had nothing for breast cancer, which kills more women than any other cancer type. That changed in March, when the FDA approved a combination of the immunotherapy atezolizumab (Tecentriq), made by Roche, and chemotherapy for a subset of patients with an aggressive

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Report: Grindr's Chinese Parent Accessed Sensitive Data

socalTECH

A report today, from Reuters, says that the Chinese owner of Los Angeles-based gay dating app developer Grind , gave access to its Beijing-based engineers to the data of millions of Americans, despite U.S. orders to keep that data private. According to the report, Grindr's parent company, Beijing Kunlun Tech Co Ltd gave those Chinese engineers access to private messages and HIV status of millions of Americans, and prompted the recent ruling which ordered the firm to sell Grindr as matter of Nati

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10 Change Recommendations To Meet Business Pressures

Startup Professionals Musings

Every business professional needs to stay cool under pressure, to be a top performer, and for the sake of their own health. Yet everyone has a melting point – a critical threshold where pressure causes them to respond irrationally. Many people believe their threshold is permanently set by family genetics, or cultural influences, but I believe anyone can train themselves to stay cool.

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Watson Joins TrueCar as Chief Financial Officer

L.A. Business Journal

Noel B. Watson will join Santa Monica-based digital auto marketplace TrueCar Inc. as its new chief financial officer.

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The Winners of the 2019 Xconomy Awards San Diego Are…

Xconomy

The nominees and finalists for the first-ever Xconomy Awards San Diego were an impressive bunch, making it tough for our judges and the editors to pick the winners. There were multiple deserving companies and people in each category. After much discussion and debate, we decided that these winners represent the best of the San Diego life sciences and healthtech community.

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Sizmek's Ad Server, Optimization Products Acquired By Amazon

socalTECH

The ad serving and "creative optimization" businesses of Sizmek , the now-bankrupt developer of advertising technology which had a significant portion of its team in Los Angeles, has been acquired by Amazon , Amazon said on Friday. Financial details of the acquisition were not announced. Amazon said it has agreed to acquire both the Sizmek Ad Server and Sizmek Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) products.

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10 Activities That Will Tag You As A Business Leader

Startup Professionals Musings

Based on my years of experience as a new business advisor, I always find leadership to be more important to business success than any new technology or innovative solution. The challenge is to adequately define leadership in terms of everyday activities. Most entrepreneurs believe they are leaders, even though the feedback I get from their team and partners may indicate otherwise.

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Silicon Beach Report May 28: SpaceX Works to Reduce Impact of Starlink

L.A. Business Journal

Cornerstone OnDemand aids job seekers; SpaceX Starlink’s astronomical implications; Snap working to integrate music

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Quantum Computing 101: Brilliant, Google, Microsoft Training Workers

Xconomy

From Microsoft and IBM to Alphabet’s unit X and Canada’s D-Wave Systems, companies are racing to build powerful quantum computers that may solve problems beyond the capacity of the most sophisticated conventional processors, and do it much faster. It’ll be some years before such uber-computers are robust and reliable enough for broad commercial use.

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Esri Partners With Agriculture Software Developer

socalTECH

Redlands-based geographical information systems (GIS) provider Esri said on Thursday that it has partnered with a provider of software consulting and technology provider AgIntegrated , which develops a data hub for the agriculture and forestry market. AgIntegrated is the developer of Onsite API Services and QC Pro, which offers up a centralized platform for agriculture and forestry customers to connect.

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Why Amazon Is the Undisputed E-Commerce Growth Leader

Startup Professionals Musings

Everyone wants to grow and innovate like Amazon these days. From meager beginnings selling books online back in 1994, Amazon is currently the largest e-commerce retailer and cloud computing platform in the world, and now dominates even the giant Walmart. In my role as a business advisor, I’ve long wondered how to pass their secrets along to other new ventures.

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Silicon Beach Report May 30: Moonshots Capital Backs Backtracks

L.A. Business Journal

Mission finds $15 million; Moonshots leads Backtracks funding round; ATTN hires new executive from Vox

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Can Tiny Drug Doses (and One Woman’s Fortune) Fight the Most Vicious Cancer?

Xconomy

When the brain goes bad, modern medicine is often powerless to help. That’s the case for Alzheimer’s disease, where drug after drug has failed, and the only approved treatments are marginally helpful at best. The same seems increasingly clear for the most common and aggressive type of brain cancer, glioblastoma multiforme. Its origins are mysterious , its ravages swift.

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Moonshots Capital Leads Investment In Backtracks

socalTECH

Los Angeles-based venture investor Moonshots Capital is the lead investor in a new startup, Backtracks , a developer of podcast analytics software. According to Backtracks, it has raised $2.1M in a seed funding round, which was led by Moonshots Capital, and also included Capital Factory, Sputnik ATX, Next Coast Ventures, Bull Creek Capital, and BNSG Capital.

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5 Team Dynamics That Raise Real Barriers To Progress

Startup Professionals Musings

Managing and motivating a team in a startup is more than just using the right interpersonal skills. It’s more than providing recognition, tangible incentives, and clear work goals. A key influencer of satisfaction and motivation, top-ranked by employees, is positive progress and the completion of meaningful work. Sometimes you have to manage progress, not people.

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Silicon Beach Report May 31: Snap Sells Location Data Business to Foursquare

L.A. Business Journal

Foursquare purchases Placed from Snap; Pluto TV carves out LA footprint; Netflix raises U.K.

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Agenda Posted for Net@50 on July 16 at MIT Media Lab

Xconomy

Come celebrate milestones the internet has made over the past 50 years at a special event called Net@50 on July 16 in Cambridge, MA, organized by the World Frontiers Forum and Xconomy. An afternoon forum at the MIT Media Lab will explore the big issues and challenges surrounding the internet. And a gala dinner at Café ArtScience will honor the internet’s pioneers and bring together past, present, and future technology and business leaders.

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Mission Finds $15M For AWS Managed Services, Consulting

socalTECH

Los Angeles-based Mission , a startup providing managed services and consulting for Amazon Web Services, has raised $15M in a funding round, from private equity investor Great Hill Partners. According to Mission, it will use the new funding to expand its team, technology, system, and go-to-market. Mission said it provides services providing AWS solutions in three major areas--Southern California, Northern California, and the Northeast.

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7 Keys To Exponential Growth Driven By The Whole Team

Startup Professionals Musings

Many startups and entrepreneurs I advise still default to growing their business via the traditional top-down, order-taking culture. I’m convinced that you can’t stay competitive that way with today’s customers, and today’s employees. It’s time to push decision making down into the organization –insisting that the people closest to the customer and the markets learn and make the decisions.

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Feather Plans to Land in LA

L.A. Business Journal

High residential turnover brings Feather to L.A.

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Bio Roundup: Opioids in Court, IPO Parade, Brain Cancer Bet & More

Xconomy

[ Corrected 5/31/19, 8:48 am ET. See below. ] Pharmaceutical companies that make or market opioids have found themselves in legal hot water, and much of the heat is coming from Oklahoma. This week, a trial began litigating Johnson & Johnson’s responsibility for opioid addiction in the Sooner State. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ ) entered the Norman, OK, courtroom without any of its industry peers.

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Transphorm Gets Design Win In New Gaming Power Supply

socalTECH

Goleta-based high voltage, Gallium Nitride (GaN) semiconductor developer Transphorm announced a design win on Wednesday, as part of a PC gaming power supply from OEM manufacturer Wentai Technology Corporation. Transphorm said that Wentai is using its TP65H050WS Gen III 50 milliohm GaN FET in its Titanium ATX gaming power supply, the Aidan-T1616. Wentai's new 1.6 kW power supply has more than 95% percent energy efficiency, according to Transphorm.

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MakerWalk LA 2019

SoCal Tech Calendar

Friday, May 31, 2019 --.

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Upfront-Backed Software Comes Out of Stealth

L.A. Business Journal

Projector launches presentation software.

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HyperX Launches New Gaming Gear

socalTECH

Fountain Valley-based HyperX , the division of Kingston Technology which develops accessories aimed at videogame enthusiasts, has rolled out a new line of gaming gaer, the company announced on Monday. According to HyperX, it has rolled out a new HyperX Alloy OriginsT Mechanical Gaming Keyboard, new HyperX switches, a new gaming headset, and new FURY DDR4 memory.