Thursday, July 13, 2006Feds Target Silicon Valley Firms With New Options Task ForceThe U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI have formed a new stock options backdating task force, focused on the backdating of stock options of Silicon Valley companies. The new task force, which includes members of the U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI, said Thursday that the task force will be charged with investigating allegations of companies and individuals in Northern California who retroactively changed the grant dates of stock options with the intent to defraud. The task force is the first (More info...)
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CinemaNow Raises $20.3MMarina Del Rey-based CinemaNow has raised $20.3M in a new round of venture funding, the firm said today. The Series E financing came from EchoStar Communications and Index Holdings. The funding also included Transcosmos, Cisco Systems, Lionsgate, and Menlo Ventures. The funding brings the total raised by CinemaNow to over $40M. As part of the funding, CinemaNow and Echostar said that they would be looking at ways to deliver CinemaNow's content offerings to Echostar's subscribers. CinemaNow provi (More info...)
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ChoicePoint Buys ePolicyGeorgia-based ChoicePoint has acquired Torrance-based ePolicy, a provider of web-based insurance management software, the firm said today. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. ChoicePoint said that it acquired ePolicy in an asset purchase deal, and will offer ePolicy's products in its suite of business process improvement products and services for the insurance industry. Billy McCarter, COO and EVP of ePolicy, will join ChoicePoint as part of the acquisition.
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Revver Finds Dollars For UsersLos Angeles-based Revver this morning is claiming that two of its users have earned more than $28,000 based on their creation and distribution of viral videos. Revver said this morning that Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, creaters of the "Diet Coke and Mentos Experiment" earned the money by using Revver's video distribution system. Revver competes against YouTube and other user-generated content and distribution web sites, and is looking to carve a niche by allowing video makers and content owner (More info...)
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Mobizzo Names VPHOllywood-based Mobizzo, the mobile content unit of Fox Mobile Entertainment, said Wednesday that it has named Natalie Farsi to Senior Vice President of Content and M-Commerce. Farsi will oversee the company's direct-to-consumer, mobile entertainment service. Farsi was most recently VP of Media at m-Qube. Mobizzo is aggregating content from mobile phones, including ringtones, mobile games,and content from Fox for sale through wireless carriers.
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Local.com Adds People SearchIrvine-based Interchange, operators of the local search engine Local.com, have added the ability to search for people. The company said today that it has partnered with WhitePages.com to provide the new functionality. The new feature adds 92 million residential listings to the firm's collection of local business listings. Local.com provides a targeted, local search engine that serves both the US and UK.
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