Thursday, July 31, 2008


GumGum Gets Series A
Santa Monica-based GumGum, a provider of technology for licensing content and images online, said Thursday that it has raised a Series A round of financing. The round was co-led by First Round Capital and Crosscut Ventures. Along with the financing, Howard Morgan of First Round Capital, and Brian Garrett of Crosscut Ventures have both joined the firm's board of directors. This is the first investment of Crosscut Ventures, which was founded by Garrett and Rick Smith, both formerly venture capital (More info...)
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Versant Ventures Closes Fourth Fund, Worth $500M
Versant Ventures, a Newport Beach- and Menlo Park-based venture capital fund, announced today that it has closed Versant Venture Capital IV, L.P. at $500M. The fund brings Versant's total under management to $1.6 billion, in the areas of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices. Versant Ventures said the firm now has more than 75 portfolio companies under management. Versant Ventures said that it will target approximately 30-35 medical device, biotech, and pharmaceutical investments t (More info...)
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Greenspan: We're Still Suing MySpace
Brad Greenspan, former founder of eUniverse, the parent firm of MySpace, said today that a U.S. District Court Federal Judge has ordered a stockholder class action lawsuit against the firm to proceed to trial. According to a statement released by Greenspan, Federal Judge George H. King has denied a motion to dismiss the complaint, which alleges that owners of eUniverse were "defrauded of billions of dollars in potential profits from the unlawful sale" of eUniverse and MySpace to News Corp. The l (More info...)
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Vertiflex Scores $28M
San Clemente-based Vertiflex, a developer of medical devices for spinal surgery, has quietly raised around $28.3M in venture funding. The funding came to light in the PricewaterhouseCoopers/NVCA MoneyTree venture capital survey earlier this month. Current investors in Vertiflex include Aberdare Ventures, Alta Partners, and Morgenthaler Ventures; no details on investors in this round have been released.
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OnDemandIQ Acquired By LogiXML
Los Angeles-based OnDemandIQ, a provider of software-as-a-service for managing sales organizations, has been acquired by LogiXML, a McLean, Virgina-based software developer. According to LogiXML Director of Sales and Marketing, Bill Kotraba, everyone at OnDemandIQ will join the firm to become part of LogiOnDemand, its on-demand business intelligence service. OnDemandIQ co-founder Steve Schneider will become CTO of LogiOnDemand as part of the acquisition. Kotraba said that the team from OnDemandI (More info...)
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Equipois Takes $3.45M
Los Angeles-based Equipois, a developer of technology for heavy lifting, targeted at reducing workplace injuries, has raised $3.45M in a venture round from Terrapin Partners. The Series B round closed in May. Equipois said that its technology utilizes a patented spring, cam and gimbal-based ergonomic arm allows users to "float" objects as if "virtually weightless."
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You2Gov Launches Political Site
Los Angeles-based You2Gov.com, an online web site that bills itself as a "political social network," recently launched the firm's services. The firm said that the it is targeted at providing American citizens with online forums about issues they care about, to form interest groups, and influence representatives in Government. The service offers Digg-style voting on political news articles; online voting and polling; and resources on finding government officials. The new service is headed by Alan (More info...)
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Entropic Gets Design Win At DIRECTV
San Diego-based Entropic Communications, a semiconductor provider focused on home entertainment electronics, said today that DIRECTV has incorporated its products into a new set-top box. According to Entropic, DIRECTV is using its Channel Stacking Switch (CSS) technology in its SWM-ODU dish unit, which delivers HD programming to set-top boxes. Financial impact of the design win was not disclosed. Entropic's technology is being used to reduce the number of cables between DIRECTV satellite dishes (More info...)
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Sometrics Ties With Social App Service
Los Angeles-based Sometrics, which is developing tools for analyzing traffic and data about widget software, said Thursday that it has inked a deal with social applications development service zembly. The companies said that developers using zembly's social application publishing tools will now automatically have access to Sometrics' analytics solution. zembly's tools are used to develop widgets for Facebook, OpenSocial, Meebo, and other social networking sites; the zembly service is operated by (More info...)
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