Tuesday, March 17, 2009Innovative Micro Targets Life SciencesSanta Barbara-based Innovative Micro Technology, a maker of micro-electromechanical (MEMS) systems, announced today that the firm has created a new division focused on life sciences. The firm said the new division will focus on developing miniaturized products for the medical, diagnostics, and research markets. IMT said it has appointed James P. Linton as President of the new division. Linton has previously served at Invitrogen, Prometrix, Genicon Sciences, and Cyntellect.
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InstaMed Gains $6MInstaMed, which operates a network for healthcare payment processing, said Tuesday that the firm has raised $6M in a growth equity financing. The firm, which has operations in Newport Beach and is headquartered in Philadelphia, said the round came from Osage Partners and Ashby Point Capital. InstaMed said it is developing payment processing and healthcare clearinghouse functions for the healthcare industry.
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Emergent Game Technologies Signs Square EnixCalabasas-based Emergent Game Technologies and game developer Square Enix said today that the two have reached an agreement where Square Enix will license Emergent's video game development engine. Financial impact of the agreement was not announced. According to the firms, Square Enix will use Emergent's Gamebryo game engine for an upcoming project. Details of the new project were not released. Emergent's Gamebryo engine is used to provide the tools for developing computer and console games.
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Vicente Capital Partners Raises $165M Growth Equity FundLos Angeles-based private equity firm Vicente Capital Partners announced today that the firm has held a final close on its Growth Equity Fund, bringing the total commitment to the fund to $165M. The firm said that new capital commitments came from Credit Suisse and the State of Connecticut. Vicente Capital had announced the new funding in October with $150M in commitments. In addition to the final close, the firm also said it has made an investment in South Carolina-based MedBridge,a provider of (More info...)
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GoodFoodNearYou Expands ListingsLos Angeles-based GoodFoodNearYou, an online site that allows users to find healthy eating options at restaurants, is expanding its listings of restaurants and menus, the firm said today. The site--created by Global Fitness Media--said it is adding "several thousand" restaurant locations to its database. GoodFoodNearYou allows users to use their computer, iPhone, or BlackBerry to find the healthiest menu items at local fast food and other restaurants near them, using GPS and other location infor (More info...)
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Interview with Rob Farrow, Chi.mpRob Farrow is one of the co-founders of Chi.mp, a new startup which is getting set to launch a service to allow users to manage their profiles across the many sites on the Internet. The firm recently relocated much of its team to San Diego from Hawaii, and we talked with Rob about why someone might need the service, how it's different from the scores of social networking sites on the web, and what problem it's trying to solve. The firm is based in both San Diego and Honolulu.
Why did you s (More info...)
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BridgeCo Expands In BangaloreHuntington Beach-based BridgeCo, a developer of semiconductors for the home entertainment equipment market, fresh off a $6M financing round, said it will use some of that funding to open up a new, research and development center in Bangalore, India. BridgeCo said that it will invest $2M of its recent round into financing the new R&D center, which will be staffed initially with 20 software engineers. BridgeCo develops semiconductors which can be used to stream music over Wi-Fi, Ethernet, USB, and (More info...)
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Sorenson Media Opens San Diego Office, Hires CEOSorenson Media, a developer of video compression and encoding software, said today that the firm has opened up a new, San Diego office which will serve as the firm's "central hub" for its business operations. According to the firm, the new office comes as the firm hired a new CEO, Peter Csathy. Csathy was most recently at SightSpeed, which was acquired by Logitech last year, and has also served at Musicmatch, which was sold to Yahoo in 2004. The firm said it is looking to "significantly expand" (More info...)
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Clearstone Ventures Into AptureSanta Monica-based Clearstone Venture Partners is the lead investor in a Northern California firm focused on the blogging and publishing industry, Apture. Apture said this morning that Clearstone was the lead investor in a $4.1M, Series A investment in the firm, which develops tools which allows publishers to add multimedia to their articles and web pages. David Stern and Sumant Mandal of Clearstone have joined Apture's board along with the funding. Apture develops tools which allow publishers t (More info...)
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Kofax Names VPIrvine-based Kofax said this morning that the firm has appointed James Hendrickson as its VP of Technical Services. Kofax, which develops document capture software, said that Hendrickson joins the firm from the Service and Support Professionals Association (SSPA), and has also served at Agentis Software, BEA Systems, JFH Associates, Informix, international Customer Solutions, and IBM Corporation. Kofax develops document management software used by the financial services, manufacturing, retail, g (More info...)
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