Last month, Los Angeles-based Language Weaver (www.languageweaver.com), the developer of machine translation software, was acquired by SDL, a publicly held, UK-based firm in the language translation business. Having followed the firm since its early days as a spinout of USC, we thought we'd talk with CEO Mark Tapling to get the back story behind the acquisition, and where the firm is going form here.

Mark, thanks for the time today.

It's been about a year since Santa Monica-based SharesPost (www.sharepost.com) stepped into the market last year with a way for owners of privately held, venture backed companies to gain some liquidity, as well as diversify their holdings.

Last week, Pasadena-based Rockoco announced that it had raised $1.5M in funding from the Pasadena Angels, for its technology which applies semiconductor processing to diamonds to create more brilliant and super-polished stones. It turns out that the firm--a spinout of Caltech--came out of the exact same lab as Helixis, the molecular diagnostics firm acquired for a healthy $105M by Illumina last week. We caught up with Paul Gloger, the firm's CEO, to learn more about the technology and company.

Thursday afternoon, Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp., a new firm built on assets spun out of Dun & Bradstreet, announced that it had raised $100M in funding from Great Hill Capital. Little noticed by most, the new firm is headed by Jeffrey Stibel, who is involved in such firms as Edgecast, Autobytel, The Search Agency, was CEO of Web.com, and had served as GM at United Online.

Yesterday, the X Prize Foundation (www.xprize.org) announced the finalists in the Progressive Automotive X Prize, a $10M competition geared at advancing automotive technology and developing 100 MPG automobiles.

This week, Santa Monica-based ThisNext (www.thisnext.com) said it has raised another round of funding for the firm's social shopping site. We thought it would be interesting to speak to the firm--which is now headed by Matt Edelman--to hear where it's headed nowadays.

How long have you been at the firm now?

Matt Edelman: It's been since April 1st.

One of Southern California's successful, serial entrepreneurs is Winston Damarillo, who founded Gluecode, which he sold to IBM in 2005. Earlier this month, his latest startup, El Segundo-based Morphlabs announced it had raised a Series B funding worth $5.5M. We thought we'd catch back up with Winston to hear about the Morphlabs.

Winston, nice speaking with you again.

One of the questions we get most from entrepreneurs is how companies reach an exit event, and the thinking that goes into acquisitions. Last week, San Diego-based provider of web content classification and security services developer BrightCloud was acquired by Webroot, and we thought it would be a great opportunity to talk to founder Quinn Curtis about how the acquisition of his firm came about. Quinn is now VP of Hosted Security Services at Webroot (www.webroot.com).

Mehdi Daoudi is CEO of CatchPoint Systems (www.catchpoint.com), a new Los Angeles startup focused on the web site and web application monitoring industry. Daoudi was previously an executive at DoubleClick. Daoudi spoke to us about how his experience at DoubleClick resulted in starting up CatchPoint.

What does CatchPoint's software do?

Mehdi Daoudi: The idea is very simple. We're trying to make monitoring of web sites and applications sexy and simple.

Last month, Glendale-based VidMe (www.vidme.com) announced that it had launched a private, video sharing service with backing from Applied Minds and Will Hearst, one of the partners at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. Applied Minds is the stealthy research and development outfit backed by Kleiner Perkins and also based in Glendale. To understand what opportunity the firm sees in the market, we chatted with Greg Siegel, the firm's founder and CEO.

Greg, thanks for the time today.

Last week, Los Angeles-based Stroome (www.stroome.com), a new startup originally spawned out of a project at the USC Annenberg School of Communications, won $200,000 in the 2010 Knight News Challenge. The Knight News Challenge is a contest which highlights digital news experiments and technology, and is closely watched by those in the news industry.

Earlier this month, Los Angeles-based startup Worlize (www.worlize.com) announced it had received a seed round of funding, and launched a firm to focus on social gaming and chat. The firm's CEO is Brian McKelvey, who we caught up with recently to learn more about his background, the firm, and the market it hopes to serve.

Thanks for the interview.

Last week, Irvine-based Inspired Instruments (www.yourockguitar.com) announced a round of funding, saying that it has developed an electronic guitar which combines the game controller functionality for popular videogames like Rock Band and Guitar Hero with actual musical functionality. To hear about how the firm is hoping to change the music industry, and bridge between the world of video games and music, we spoke with CEO and co-founder Kevin Kent.

Last week, Los Angeles-based HauteLook (www.hautelook.com), an online private sales site, scored a major round of funding--raising $31M from Insight Venture Partners. To understand why investors are finding the firm so interesting, and why the company raised such a large round, we spoke with Adam Bernhard, CEO of the firm, about the company and funding, how email has allowed the firm to get past the "Google trap" of marketing on the web, and where the firm is going.

Adam, thanks for the time.

This morning's interview is with Alon Goren, co-founder and President of Los Angeles-based Invested.in, an online site which allows users to run fundraisers for their projects. Invested.in launched earlier this year at DEMO. We had a chance to sit down recently with Alon to better understand the firm and where it is nowadays.

What is the idea behind Invested.in?

Alon Goren: Basically, what we've done, is we've built a platform where anyone can raise money for anything.

For this morning's interview, we have an interview with Kieve Huffman, the co-founder of Dather (www.dather.com), a new Los Angeles startup which has created a tool which helps to aggregate social networking web sites and media. Kieve has previously been GM and VP of Sony BMG's Global Digital Business Group, and VP of Media Content at InfoSpace, and his partner, Scott Boyd, who was most recently GM at Buzznet and also was Managing Director of AOL Music.

For our interview today, we caught up with Al Eisaian , CEO of Pasadena-based IconApps (www.iconapps.com), which is developing mobile applications for the iPhone/iPod market. Al is a repeat entrepreneur, who last founded Integrien, and was SVP and GM at LowerMyBills. We caught up with Al recently to hear about his latest startup.

What is IconApps all about?

Al Eisaian: IconApps is built around simplifying people's lives through mobile technology.

It's been just about a year since Matthew Jenusaitis took the reins at OCTANE (www.octaneoc.org), the Orange County-based organization which has been looking to spur the high technology industry in the area, so we thought we'd talk Matthew about how that year has gone, the group's recent merger with the Orange County Venture Group (OCVG) and the upcoming VC in the OC conference, and what Orange County's biggest challenges are in the high tech area.

Thanks for the time this morning.

Last week, Los Angeles-based EcoMom (www.ecomom.com) launched its "green" parenting site, with backing from Dave McClure. We caught up with EcoMom CEO Jody Sherman, to learn more about the company. Jody--an experienced entrepreneur who was most recently co-founder of a firm he sold to the Virgin Group, and has been involved with such firms as Lycos, Buydirect.com, and Xoom--told us the story of EcoMom, plus how he connected with McClure on the investment.

For this morning's interview, we spoke with Marc Friedmann, the experience executive who is now CEO of Solana Beach-based SciVee (www.scivee.tv). Marc was previously CEO of Syntricity, and was founding CEO at Prisa Networks (acquired by EMC).
SciVee recently inked a major deal with Thomson Reuters, and Marc tells us a bit about that deal as well as the company's business.

It's our pleasure today to feature an interview with Yossi Vardi, one of Israel's best known high tech entrepreneurs. Yossi is much sought out by entrepreneurs both here, in Silicon Valley, and the rest of the world for his insights into startups, having backed Mirabilis (ICQ, sold to AOL), Answers.com (IPO), Tucows (IPO), and dozens of other successful startups. Yossi, who is co-chairing the upcoming Israel Conference (www.theisraelconference.

Last week, San Diego-based Confident Technologies (www.confidenttechnologies.com) announced that it had acquired the assets of Vidoop, and created a company focused on security and authentication of users. The firm is headed by Curtis Staker, former president of Websense, and also includes an experienced executive team of other former Websense executives. We spoke with Curtis, along with William Goldbach, Executive Vice President at the firm, about the company.

Dave Waldman, CEO and Founder of Los Angeles-based Bccthis (www.Bccthis.com), a startup looking to add additional functionality and private messaging into both corporate emails and Twitter messages. Bccthis just announced a version of their product which plugs into Gmail. Dave told us about how and why he and his co-founders--both previously executives at Twistbox--decided to start their own startup, specifically outside of the mobile industry, and a bit about the product.

Last week, Irvine-based Teridian Semiconductor (www.teridiansemiconductor.com), a developer of semiconductors for the electric metering and electricity measurement market, was acquired by Maxim Semiconductor. We had a chance to speak with Jerry Fitch, CEO of the firm, about the interest in the electric/smart metering market, his views on where the market is today, as well as a bit about the experience of operating as a private equity backed firm.

Thanks for the time.

Over the last few months, Santa Monica-based Clearstone Ventures (www.clearstone.com) has had a number of high profile exits in its portfolio. We sat down with Sumant Mandal, Managing Director at Clearstone, and who has been closely involved with a number of those exits, to get some more color on what has driven those exits, and about his outlook on the venture market.

One of the types of startups we see most of nowadays, are private sale, limited time bargain, and local group buying startups. One of those startups is Orange County-based DealPerk.com (www.dealperk.com), which is headed by Albert Ko. Albert previously founded CheapCheapCheap.com, an online coupon and deal finding site, and we thought we'd hear from Albert why he thinks the local, group purchasing market is so interesting, and how he hopes to grow the service beyond just Orange County.

Our interview this morning is with Lolita Carrico, founder of Gloss Network for Women (www.mygloss.com), an online network of sites focused on women. Lolita was founder of ModernMom.com, which she sold to Lisa Rosenblatt, wife of Demand Media's Richard Rosenblatt last year. We caught up with Lolita to learn more about her newest venture.

What is Gloss Network?

Lolita Carrico: After I sold ModernMom last year to Lisa Rosenblatt, which she merged into Brook Burke's company, BabooshBaby.

Earlier this week, Los Angeles-based Burstly (www.burstly.com) announced that it had raised $1.8M in a venture round from GRP Partners and Rincon Ventures, for the firm's mobile ad management platform. Mark Suster lead GRP's investment in the firm, and Jim Andelman led Rincon's investment. We caught up with founder Evan Rifkin--who previously founded and sold TagWorld/Flux to MTVN in November of 2008--to learn more about the startup.

Last week, Ventura-based The Trade Desk (www.thetradedesk.com) announced a $2.5M funding round. The firm's CEO and founder, Jeff Green, was a co-founder of AdECN, the Internet advertising exchange acquired in 2007 by Microsoft. We talked with Jeff about his new startup, and where it fits into the Internet ad market.

Jeff, thanks for the interview. What's the story behind the funding?

Jeff Green: We put together a seed round, worth approximately $2.5 million.