Friday, March 9, 2007


ElephantDrive Gets Funding From Intel
Los Angeles-based ElephantDrive, a company that uses Amazon's S3 storage service to provide online storage and backup services, has quietly raised a round of funding from Intel. The firm targets its online storage services for photos, music, videos, and other files. Emails to ElephantDrive as of press time were unreturned, however sources at Intel Capital confirmed the investment. The initial investment by Intel in the firm was November 3 of last year, according to Intel's web site.
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Khosla Ventures Funds Gevo
Pasadena-based Gevo, which is developing biofuel technology around fermentation using synthetic biology, has raised a round of venture capital from Khosla Ventures, according to a regulatory filing and reports in VentureWire. The regulatory filing was disclosed March 1st, and Gevo is mentioned as a portfolio company in documents on Khosla Ventures' web site.
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SodaHead.com Launches Public Beta
Los Angeles-based SodaHead.com, an online social question and answer firm that is backed by Mohr Davidow and the Tech Coast Angels, launched its public beta this week. The firm's founder, Jason Feffer, started SodaHead.com after running operations and as one of the first employees at MySpace. The firm raised $4.25M in a round with Mohr Davidow last November.
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Teledyne Acquires D.G. O'Brien
Los Angeles-based Teledyne Technologies announced this morning that it has agreed to acquire the assets of D.G. O'Brien, a Seabrook, New Hampshire manufacturer of electrical and fiber optic interconnect systems. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. DGO's interconnect systems are used for subsea military and offshore oil and gas applications. Teledyne Technologies is a provider of electronic components, instrumentation, and other products.
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Interview with Bryce Benjamin, CEO of Language Weaver
Bryce Benjamin is the CEO of Language Weaver (www.languageweaver.com), a Marina Del Rey-based firm that develops automated language translation software. Language Weaver's translatio software uses a technique called statistical language translation, and supports a wide range of two way language pairs. The firm is funded by Palisades Ventures, the Tech Coast Angels, and The Athenaeum Fund. socalTECH's Ben Kuo caught up with Bryce at the recent Montgomery Technology Conference in Santa Monica. (More info...)
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WFI Sells EMEA Business
San Diego-based WFI, a company that designs and deploys wireless communications networks, said Friday that it is in a definitive agreement to sell its Europe, Middle East, and Africa business to LCC International. The deal is worth $4m in cash. WFI said the sale will allow it to focus on domestic opportunities and business initiatives.
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Practical Instruments Gets $4M In Federal Funding
Pasadena-based Practical Instruments, a company developing rooftop solar concentrators, said today that it has been awarded $4M in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Energy. Practical Instruments said the award came as part of the DOE's Technology Pathway Partnerships (TPP) program. The funding will go toward accelerating development of Practical Instrument's Heliotube solar panels.
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LogicalApps Signs GE Infrastructure Sensing
Irvine-based LogicalApps, a provider of software for managing enterprise applications, announced this week that it has been selected by GE Infrastructure Sensing for its ERP environment. GE Infrastructure Sensing is a subsidiary of General Electric developing precision measurement systems and instruments. Size of the deal was not disclosed. LogicalApps develops software used for managing risk and compliance.
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Zetera Unveils Network Storage Device
Irvine-based Zetera Corporation this week unveiled a new line of network storage products. Zetera said that its new NBOD (networked bunch of disk) family of network storage solutions is focused on providing storage area network (SAN) capabilities with the simplicity of direct attach storage. The new products are targeted at SMBs, and allow more than one server to share storage over an IP network. Zetera develops storage over IP technology based on its own proprietary IP format.
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