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Tuesday, January 6, 2009 DTS Buys Neural Audio, Opens Silicon Valley Offices  Agoura Hills-based DTS has acquired Neural Audio, a firm which develops music playback and creation technology, the firm said Tuesday afternoon. DTS said it will pay $7.5M in cash for certain assets and liabilities of Neural Audio, and will pay up to $7.5M in earn out over the next five years if certain conditions are met....READ MORE >> posted on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 ContentNext Hires Sales Head  Santa Monica-based ContentNext, a publisher of online news focused on the content and publishing business, said Tuesday that it has hired on Susan Leiterstein as the firm's new head of sales. Leiterstein was most recently VP and Publisher of Incisive Media's ClickZ, SearchEngineWatch and SES Events. She has also served as Associate Publisher at The Deal, as well as in positions at DoubleClick Media, JupiterMedia, Cowles Business Media, Thomson and McGraw Hill, Inc....READ MORE >> posted on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 ParAccel Doubles Staff, Expands Offices San Diego-based ParAccel, which develops database appliances used to accelerate database queries, said today that it has doubled its workforce over the past year, and has moved into new offices. The firm--which is backed by Bay Partners, Enterprise Partners, MDV Mohr, Davidow Ventures, and Walden International--said the move was made to accommodate the firm's rapid growth. The firm also said it has added former HP executive Bill Russell to the firm's board of directors....READ MORE >> posted on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 Play N Trade Names CEO Newport Beach-based Play N Trade, which operates a retail video game franchise, said Tuesday that it has named Larry Plotnick as the firm's CEO. Plotnick was most recently EVP and Chief Operations Officer for Hollywood Entertainment, and has served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Game Crazy. Plotnick replaces Tom McMahon, who remains on the company's board of directors. Play N Trade has a network of 241 stores, operated as franchises, for buying, selling, and trading video games.READ MORE >> posted on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 Boingo Wireless Partners With Skype On Wi-Fi Access  Los Angeles-based Boingo Wireless and Internet phone service Skype said this morning that the companies have partnered on a network access deal. According to the firms, the deal will allow Skype users to access Boingo's network of Wi-Fi hotspits worldwide using Skype's payment credits. The new feature--called Skype Access--is debuting on Skype's Mac software, and will roll out to other operating systems this year, the firms said....READ MORE >> posted on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 SendMeHome Gets Social  Santa Barbara-based startup SendMeHome.com, which provides a free service to help people retrieve their lost items, has launched a new social feature the firm says will help connect people through objects. The new feature--called "Stories"--lets anyone with a physical object share stories, photos, or other information about that object to SendMeHome's internet site....READ MORE >> posted on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 TV Guide Deal Gets Shuffled The deal to sell the remaining parts of former Pasadena-based firm Gemstar-TV Guide has just been shuffled by Gemstar's buyer, Macrovision. Macrovision said yesterday that it will sell TV Guide Network and TV Guide Online, the programming guide components of the Gemstar-TV Guide business, to studio Lionsgate, rather than a consortium of private equity buyers....READ MORE >> posted on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 Tetra Tech Buys Haselwood Enterprises Pasadena-based engineering and consulting firm Tetra Tech disclosed Tuesday morning that the firm has acquired Haselwood Enterprises, a provider of nuclear science and engineering services. Tetra Tech did not disclose financial terms of the deal, but said that Haselwood has annual revenues of approximately $14M. Haselwood provides services to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), commercial nuclear and the U.S....READ MORE >> posted on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 Networks In Motion Opens New Offices, Makes Hire  Aliso Viejo-based Networks In Motion, a developer of location-based services for the mobile phone market, said today that it has opened up two new offices and hired a managing director in the EMEA. The firm, which develops wireless navigation and search services, said it has opened up both a Silicon Valley and a China office to tap into the respective talent base in those locations, plus hired on Johan Lindskog as the firm's Managing Director of EMEA markets....READ MORE >> posted on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 Novatel Launches New Wireless Module  San Diego-based Novatel Wireless, which develops wireless cards for the broadband communications market, has announced a new embedded module targeted at OEMs and laptop manufacturers. Novatel said that it has introduced a new mini-card module in its Expedite embedded product line, the E760, which provides better power efficiency and decreased weight and cost....READ MORE >> posted on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 Vangard Voice Signs Customer  Irvine-based Vangard Voice Systems, which develops speech recognition software for enterprise applications, has signed a partnership with Agilysys, a provider of IT solutions to the corporate and public sector. The firms said this morning that Vangard will provide its AccuSpeech Mobile Voice Platform to Agilysys to voice-enable the Agilysys web-based mobile and wireless retail software suite. Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed....READ MORE >> posted on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 Inphi Gets Intel Validation Westlake Village-based Inphi Corporation, which develops high speed analog semiconductors, said Monday that the firm has scored validation from Intel. The firm said the validation for its DDR3 register silicon covers use with Intel's Core i7 processors. The semiconductors are used for DDR3 memory for servers, and are being used by Micron for building DDR3 registered DIMMs....READ MORE >> posted on Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009 uPlay Acquired By Callaway Golf Carlsbad-based uPlay, which develops consumer electronics devices for the golf market, has been acquired by golf products manufacturer Callaway Golf, Callaway said Monday afternoon. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. uPlay is a manufacturer of a device which helps golfers measure their shots, using aerial and satellite photography and GPS technology. Callaway is also based in Carlsbad.READ MORE >> posted on Monday, January 5, 2009 CaseStack Taps Kline For Board  Santa Monica-based CaseStack, which provide supply chain and logistics services for retailers, distributors, and manufacturers, announced today that it has added Frank R. Kline, of Kline Hawkes & Co., to its board. Kline is founder of the venture capital firm, and also sites on the baords of NewBridge College, Rayne Corporation, and Cyalume Technologies. CaseStack helps manufacturers, retailers, and distributors to outsource and manage their supply chain and logistics operations....READ MORE >> posted on Monday, January 5, 2009 Tickets.com Extends NHL Deal Costa Mesa-based Tickets.com, which provides online ticketing services, said Monday that it has signed a long term contract extension with the NHL's Buffalo Sabres. The firm said the deal includes use of the firm's StubHub site for secondary ticket marketing, and will make StubHub "the Official Fan to Fan Ticket Marketplace of the Buffalo Sabres." Financial impact of the contract was not disclosed. Tickets.com is a subsidiary of MLB Advanced Media.READ MORE >> posted on Monday, January 5, 2009 Interview with Mike Starkenburg, Image Metrics Los Angeles-based Image Metrics (www.image-metrics.com) recently landed a $6.5M, Series B funding round for the firm's facial animation products. We spoke with CEO Mike Starkenburg -- a former venture capitalist at the Sprout Group and longtime reader of our newsletter -- about the firm and its technology and how it's revolutionizing facial animation in both computer games and the movies....READ MORE >> posted on Monday, January 5, 2009 SmartDrive Names Product Chief San Diego-based SmartDrive Systems, which develops technology and associate services for managing vehicle fleet safety, announced today that it has hired Jason Palmer as its Chief Product Officer. Palmer has previously served at 800.com, Qualcomm, Now Software, Clientele Software, and Tut Systems. SmartDrive is venture backed by Clarium Edelson Ventures, Founders Fund, New Enterprise Associates, Oak Investment Partners, Revolution Ventures, and Western Technology Investment.READ MORE >> posted on Monday, January 5, 2009 Illumina Hires Operations VP  San Diego-based Illumina has hired on a new Senior Vice President of Operations, Bill Bonnar, the firm disclosed this morning. The firm, which develops life science products and services for the genomics market, said that Bonnar joins the company from KLA-Tencor, the semiconductor equipment provider, where he was Vice President of operations for KLA-Tencor's Reticle and Photomask Inspection and Ebeam Divisions. Bonnar has also served at Pacific Press Technology and Procter and Gamble.READ MORE >> posted on Monday, January 5, 2009 Smith Micro Snags Clearwire  Aliso Viejo-based Smith Micro Software has scored a win with WiMax provider Clearwire, the company announced this morning. Smith Micro said that the firm has been selected by Clearwire to deliver connection management software for Clearwire's mobile WiMax customers. Financial impact of the win was not disclosed. Clearwire is deploying a nationwide wireless network based on the WiMax wireless standard. Smith Micro is a developer of mobile communications and other retail software.READ MORE >> posted on Monday, January 5, 2009 Brickfish Bolsters Social Media Efforts San Diego-based Brickfish, an online advertising network focused on social media, announced this monring that it has hired Becky Carroll as the firm's Director of Social Media. The firm said that Carroll joins the company from Petra Consulting Group, where she was President and Founder. Carroll has also served at Peppers and Rogers Group, Hewlett Packard, and NASA/Ames Research Center. Carroll will head up the firm's social media marketing....READ MORE >> posted on Monday, January 5, 2009
Friday, January 2, 2009 Venture-Backed Liquidity Reaches 5 Year Low U.S., venture-backed companies are seeing their lowest liquidity in five years, according to a report released today by Dow Jones VentureSource. Dow Jones found that there was only $24.1 billion in IPOs and M&A in 2008, making 2008 the worst year in terms of liquidity for the venture capital industry since 2003. Dow Jones said the totals were down 58% from the liquidity produced in 2007. In the fourth quarter, there was only $3.9 billion generated via merger and acquisitions, and no IPOs....READ MORE >> posted on Friday, January 2, 2009 Wednesday, December 31, 2008 Online Holiday Sales Down 3 Percent Holiday shopping on e-commerce sites declined by 3 percent, according to the latest numbers released by comScore, which tracking online spending and internet traffic. comScore reported Tuesday that spending for the holiday season, beginning November 1st and ending December 23rd, totaled $25.5 billion, down 3 percent versus 2007. The results were the first decrease for holiday seasons since 2001, when comScore began gathering e-commerce statistics....READ MORE >> posted on Wednesday, December 31, 2008 EdgeCast Scores Customers  Los Angeles-based content delivery network provider EdgeCast said yesterday that it now has more than 300 customers, saying that it has signed Twistage, a provider of video publishing services; Parallels, maker of virtualization software; PureVideo, an online video content firm; as well as many others during the year. The firm provides caching of web content, including video, software, and other multimedia content. Financial impact of the new customers was not disclosed....READ MORE >> posted on Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008 RotoHog.com Snags GoDaddy.com  Los Angeles-based RotoHog.com has snagged domain name registrar GoDaddy.com as a sponsor, the firm said last week, as part of a new Fantasy Football game on the Facebook social networking site. Financial impact of the customer win was not disclosed. RotoHog.com, which develops fantasy sports games, will operate a Facebook game which allows users to create their own fantasy football team for a chance at a number of prizes. The game is part of a Super Bowl advertising campaign by GoDaddy....READ MORE >> posted on Monday, December 29, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008 SpaceX Gets $3.1B NASA Contract  Hawthorne-based SpaceX, the commercial spaceflight startup headed by former PayPal founder Elon Musk, has scored a contract with NASA that is worth up to $3.1 billion, the firm said earlier this week. According to SpaceX, NASA selected its Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft for the International Space Station (ISS) Cargo Resupply Services (CRS) contract award....READ MORE >> posted on Friday, December 26, 2008 |
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