Tuesday, June 16, 2009


STEC Ups Estimates
Santa Ana-based STEC, a manufacturer of solid state disk drives, said Tuesday that the firm is boosting its estimates for the quarter, as a result of an increase in sales of its ZeusIOPS SSD line. The firm said it is now expecting revenues of $82M to $84M for the quarter, up from previous estimates of $68M to $70M. The company did not explain the reason for the increase in its business. The firm now pegs its Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share in the range of $0.32 to $0.36, up from a range of $ (More info...)
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Report: Ripe Digital Entertainment Shuts Doors
Los Angeles-based Ripe Digital Entertainment, a producer of digital video entertainment, has shut down, according to Deadline Hollywood Daily. Details on the shutdown are sketchy, however, the firm is reportly looking for buyers. Ripe Digital Entertainment was backed by Hearst-Argyle, Time Warner Investments, Columbia Capital, and Rho Ventures.
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MySpace Chops 30 Percent
Los Angeles-based MySpace has chopped 30 percent of the firm's staff, saying Tuesday that the company is laying of 30 percent of its employees, or 400 people. According to a widely released memo from CEO Owen Van Natta, the moves were made "for the long-term health" of the company, and will cut the number of employees at the firm to 1,000. Van Natta said that MySpace's size had become "unsustainable," and instead, the firm needs to operate "as a nimble and entrepreneurial company with the adapti (More info...)
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Permlight Gains Debt Financing
Tustin, California-based Permlight Products, a developer of products for the LED-based lighting market, has raised $750,000 in a venture debt round, according to funding provider Agility Capital. According to Agility, the debt facility will be used to support Permlight's growth; Permlight's products are used in residential and commercial light fixtures and illuminated signs.
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SharesPost Launches Private Equity Marketplace
Santa Monica-based SharesPost, a new startup out of Scott Painter's BrightHouse incubator, said Tuesday morning that the firm has launched on online platform which will match buyers and sellers of private equity. According to the firm, it will allow buyers and sellers of privately held companies to sell and buy shares in privately held firms, through secondary market transactions. Among the private shares that sellers are looking to unload on the site are shares in Facebook, LinkedIn, SolarCity, (More info...)
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Ace Metrix Targets TV Advertising
Los Angeles-based Ace Metrix is looking to apply analytics to the television advertising market, saying this morning that it has launched a service which helps advertisers measure persuasion and watchability of their advertising. The firm, which is funded by Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and Palomar Ventures, said that the software-as-a-service product is aimed at advertisers and agencies looking to understand and compare the performance of competitive ads across their own market and other ind (More info...)
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WD Ships New Solid State Drives
Lake Forest-based WD, said this morning that the firm is shipping a new line of solid state disk drives, from the firm's March acquisition of SiliconSystems. According to WD, the firm's new SiliconDrive III SSD product family offers capacities of up to 120 gigabytes, and supports 2.5 inch SATA and parallel ATA, as well as 1.8 Micro SATA formats. WD bought Aliso Viejo-based Silicon Systems in March for $65M in cash; SiliconSystems was venture backed by Miramar Venture Partners, Rustic Canyon Part (More info...)
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Interview with Jason Spievak, RingRevenue
Earlier this month, Santa Barbara-based RingRevenue (www.ringrevenue.com) announced that it had raised a round of venture funding. We caught up with the firm's CEO, Jason Spievak, to learn more about the firm's technology, as well as to hear about the company's experienced team, which came out of Callwave. Explain your technology? Jason Spievak: At a high level, what we do, is enable affiliate networks to track calls like they do clicks. There's a lot of complexity behind that, but that's (More info...)
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Boingo Wireless Adds Android Support
Los Angeles-based Boingo Wireless, which operates a network of Wi-Fi access points in airports, hotels, and other public areas, said today that it has rolled out a new hotspot finder and connection manager for Google's Android operating system. According to the firm, its software--which helps Boingo's customers determine if there's a wireless network available, and will login the user to the network--runs on all Android smartphones, including the T-Mobile G1 and Vodafone HTC Magic. Android is th (More info...)
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Accelrys Names New CEO
San Diego-based life sciences and scientific software developer Accelrys reported Monday that Scipio "Max" Carnecchia has joined the company as chief executive officer and president, effective immediately. Carnecchia has also been appointed to Accelrys' board of directors. Carnecchia succeeds Todd Johnson, who had served as interim president and CEO since January. Carnecchia most recently served as president of Interwoven, which Autonomy Corp. acquired earlier this year. Carnecchia has also held (More info...)
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Tsavo Loses Macadaan
Santa Monica-based Tsavo, the online media company which owns Manolith, Twirlit, Kidglue, and Nibbledish, has lost its Vice President of Product and Design, Mike Macadaan. Macadaan is well known in the Los Angeles technology community for creating and running Twiistup, the popular Los Angeles technology networking and startup showcase event. According to Macadaan, this week is his last at Tsavo. Macadaan's departure closely follows the departure of Tsavo founder and CEO Michael Jones, who recent (More info...)
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