Thursday, April 24, 2008


SaysMe.TV Raises Series A
Los Angeles-based SaysMe said Thursday that it has raised a Series A financing. Terms of the investment were not disclosed. The round was led by Intel Capital, and also included Prime Capital and Ashton Kutcher's Katalyst Films, Bill Apfelbaum, and other angel investors. SaysMe said it is creating a library of political and issue-based ads which can be branded and run on cable networks. According to the firm, the funding will be used to expand the company's product offering beyond politics. The (More info...)
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Orqis Medical Gets $12.5M More
Lake Forest-based Orqis Medical, a medical device firm developing products to treat heart failure, has added $12.5M in funding, according to the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers/NVCA Moneytree quarterly venture capital survey. The firm has not released details of this funding, however, it had previously raised more than $89M in funding over four rounds. The company last raised a round of funding in March of 2007 worth $12M, from Wasatch Advisors, Inc, Cross Creek Capital, the Omega Fund, and other (More info...)
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Riot Games Raises $4M
Riot Games, a Los Angeles-based developer of video games, has quietly raised $4.0M in funding, socalTECH has learned. The firm is working on an undisclosed title, to be released sometime in 2008, according to the firm's web site. Backers of the company have not been disclosed. The firm had previously raised $1.5M in an investment round in December of 2006. Riot Games is headed by Brandon Beck, who was formerly at Bain & Company; the firm's President, Marc Merrill, is formerly from Merrill Lynch (More info...)
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Xirrus Rolls WiFi Widget
Westlake Village-based Xirrus said Thursday that it has rolled out a widget version of the firm's Wi-Fi Monitor utility. The Yahoo! Widget works with Microsoft Windows XP. According to the firm, the software helps end users and IT managers to monitor, secure, and troubleshoot their Wi-Fi networks. The widget is also available for Windows Vista. The new tool is available for free on the Yahoo! Widget Gallery, Microsoft Live Gallery and through the Xirrus web site. Xirrus, which develops enterpris (More info...)
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Fandango, Tellme Link For Movie Information
Los Angeles-based Fandango and Tellme, Microsoft's voice directory subsidiary, said late Wednesday that the firm have launched a new service to provide movie information to mobile phone users. According to the two, the new, voice-activated movie information service will allow users to say a movie title or local theater name and see showtimes, purchase tickets, and driving directions. Financial details behind the deal were not disclosed. The new, GPS-enabled service is available for BlackBerry ph (More info...)
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MySpace Rolls Out Application Gallery
Los Angeles-based MySpace announced this morning that it has officially launched its Application Gallery, the firm's list of applications and widgets that users can add to their pages and profiles. According to MySpace, the Gallery will now be fully available to MySpace users. The Gallery has been in beta mode since March. According to MySpace, the gallery features more than 1,000 approved applications for the social networking web site, and will also feature and promote applications for develop (More info...)
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RightScale Raises $4.5M
Santa Barbara-based RightScale, a developer of software for managing cloud computing, said today that it has raised $4.5M in a first round of venture funding. The round came from Benchmark Capital. According to RightScale, it will use the funding to accelerate its customer growth, and develop more of its tools. RightScale's software is used to manage web applications being deployed on Amazon's Web Services and cloud computing environment. As part of the funding, Benchmark's Kevin Harvey will joi (More info...)
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Qualcomm, DriveCam In Licensing Deal
San Diego firms Qualcomm and DriveCam said today that the two companies are in a deal for DriveCam to license Qualcomm's CDMA2000 telematics modules. According to the companies, Qualcomm has granted DriveCam a worldwide license to its patent portfolio, to developm, manufacture, and sell CDMA telematics modules. Financial terms were not disclosed, however the firms said the deal calls for DriveCam to pay royalties to Qualcomm. DriveCam develops systems used to monitor and track fleet vehicle dri (More info...)
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