Friday, October 12, 2007UCSB Gets $3M Gift For Stem Cell CenterSanta Barbara-based UC Santa Barbara said this week that it has received a $3M gift from William K. Bowes, Jr. to establish a endowed chair for the firm's planned Center for Stem Cell Biology and Engineering. Bowes is a venture capitalist at U.S. Venture Partners, where he the firm's founding partner. Bowes was the first shareholder and chairman of Thousand Oaks-based Amgen. According to UCSB, the professorship will be named after Bowes's mother, Ruth Garland.
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Leads360 Raises $3.25MSanta Monica-based Leads360 has raised $3.25M in a venture funding round from Rustic Canyon Partners, the firm said earlier this week. Leads360 is a provider of customer acquisition and lead management software. According to Lead360, John Babcock of Rustic Canyon Partners will join the company's board as part of the funding. The firm said that the funding will go towards accelerating growth and expanding into new categories for the profitable company.
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Interview with Kim Kovacs, OptionEaseThe world of software has seen a rapid shift towards software-as-a-service (SaaS) in the last few years, which has turned traditional software buying models upside down. San Juan Capistrano-based OptionEase (www.optionease.com) has combined the trend towards software-as-a-service with the new regulatory pressures companies have around stock options, and has developed software-as-a-service offering to manage stock option administration. We bumped into the company at the VentureNet conference la (More info...)
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Elevation Partners Sells Pandemic Studios To EAPrivate equity firm Elevation Partners has re-sold BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios, the video game development firms the company purchased in 2005, to Electronic Arts. The deal is worth $860M. Pandemic Studios was originally based in Los Angeles, and the firms continue to maintain an operation here. Electronic Arts said Thursday that it is acquiring VG Holding Corp., the holding company which is the parent firm of BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios, and roughly 800 employees across Edmonton, (More info...)
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Cornerstone OnDemand Opens EMEA OfficesSanta Monica-based Cornerstone OnDemand said Thursday afternoon that it has opened up a slew of new European offices for the firm. The company, which develops software used by human resources departments to manage their employees, said that it has opened offices in London, Paris, Munich and Tel Aviv. The new offices will provide customer care, consulting, account management, and sales throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The opening of the new offices follows a $32M investment round l (More info...)
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Networkcar Ties Into Software ProviderSan Diego-based Networkcar, a provider of wireless vehicle management systems, said earlier this week that it has partnered with Arsenault Associates, a provider of fleet maintenance software. The firm said that the two will use Networkcar's vehicle management system to provide information such as odometer readings, meter readings, and diagnostic trouble code notifications to Arsenault's maintenance software, to automate scheduling of preventative maintenance. Networkcar provides hardware which (More info...)
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Emulex Connects Into Virtualization SoftwareCosta Mesa-based Emulex said earlier this week that the firm's virtual Host Bus Adapter technology has been incorporate into the latest release of virtualization software provider VMware's Infrastructure product. The technology provides support for server virtualization in storage area networks using a technique called "N-Port ID Virtualization." The software was incorporated as part of a VMware "Community Source" program, which allows its partners to add to its source code base. N-Port ID Virtu (More info...)
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