Monday, July 20, 2009BeneChill Pulls In $13.5MSan Diego's BeneChill, a firm developing medical devices for rapid, non-invasive cooling of patients for the treatment of cardiac arrest, stroke, or head injury, said Monday that it has raised $13.5M in a Series C financing round. The round was led by HealthCap, and also included prior investors MedVenture Associates, NGN Capital, and the Solon Foundation. BeneChill said that Johan Christenson of HealthCap will join the firm's board as part of the funding, which it will use for early commerciali (More info...)
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Numira Biosciences Gets $3.2MIrvine-based Numira Biosciences, a contract research organization focused on high resolution imaging, has raised $3.2M in a funding round, according to a recent regulatory filing by the firm. No details on the funding have been announced by the company. Numira has previously raised funding from the Pasadena Angels, Tech Coast Angels and vSpring Capital. Paul DeRidder, of Crystal Cove Capital and a member of the TCA, sits on the board, as does Dinesh Patel of vSpring.
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Thunderhead Gets Win In AustraliaIrvine-based Thunderhead, a developer of customer communications software, announced today that it has signed on AXA Australia, a provider of financial advice and wealth management in Australia, as a customer. Financial impact of the win was not disclosed. Thunderhead said that AXA will use the firm to streamline its business processes, and to replace an existing application for client communications.
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Femta Pharmaceuticals Raises $1MSan Diego-based Femta Pharmaceuticals, which is focused on protein therapeutics, has raised $1.0M in an equity fundraise, according to a regulatory filing by the firm last week. Investors in the stealth-mode firm were not disclosed. The firm's board includes Jim Woody and Ken Widder of Latterell Venture Partners, which lists the firm as a portfolio company.
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Report: Venture Investments Total $5.27B For Q2The second quarter venture capital numbers from Dow Jones VentureSource were released over the weekend, with the firm reporting $5.27 billion across 595 deals invested in Q2, down from $8.33 billion in 726 deals for Q2 of last year, but up 32% over the first quarter of 2009. Dow Jones only totaled $433M invested in 62 deals in Southern California, which the firm said was 59% from the same quarter last year. Dow Jones said, nationally, that health care investment led the nation in terms of deal v (More info...)
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Interview with Adam Lieber, WebtideOne of the big, open source successes in both Southern California and the software world was Gluecode Software, which was based in Los Angeles and acquired by IBM in 2005. One of the firm's co-founders, Adam Lieber, is now the founder and CEO of Webtide (www.webtide.com), which is also based here. Adam also had a stint at Mission Ventures, and ran worldwide sales for open source middleware at IBM. We caught up with Webtide to learn more about the firm's open source web server software, Jetty.
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MyLife Reports One Million SubscribersLos Angeles-based MyLife.com, the online people search site run by Jeffrey Tinsley, reports this morning that it has registered its one millionth subscriber to the site. The firm--which was previously known as Reunion.com--said it now has a database of 750 million profiles of people. MyLife's service is used by consumers to find old contacts, and offers its people search services on a subscription basis. Reunion.com merged with the Wink people search engine site in November and renamed itself My (More info...)
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Demand Media Buys Demand.comSanta Monica-based Demand Media, the well funded Internet content startup headed by Richard Rosenblatt, the former chairman of MySpace, has acquired the domain name Demand.com. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Demand Media acquired the domain name from Phoenix-based inter123, a firm owned by Jeffrey Peterson, former founder of Quepasa.com. In a quote released by Inter123, Demand Media's Rosenblatt said the domain name would go to expand its corporate branding efforts.
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LeisureLink Wins CasinoPasadena-based LeisureLink, which operates a service to distribute specialty lodging and vacation rentals to online travel sites, disclosed over the weekend that it has signed on John Ascuaga's Nugget Resort Casino as a customer. According to the firm, the Reno casino will distribute its resort rooms through LeisureLink's ABetterStay.com network. Financial impact of the deal was not disclosed. LeisureLink said the casino is the first major resort casino to sign up with the company.
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Spot Runner Names GMLos Angeles-based Spot Runner, which operates an online service to help businesses buy and sell TV and video advertising, said late Friday that it has promoted Gus Warren to General Manager of the firm's Malibu Media Platform unit. Warren has been VP of Media Partner Sales and Development for the last three years. Before Spot Runner, Warren was at Time Warner Investments Group, and has also served at Granite Ventures, NetMarket, and Internet Profiles.
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