Thursday, December 10, 2009Insights and Opinions: When the Cloud Goes Poof...Paul Resnikoff, publisher of the Digital Music News, which provides news, information, and analysis of the digital music industry, published this editorial Thursday, and gave us permission to reprint it here in our Insights and Opinions section.
Just think. Your entire collection in the sky, accessible from wherever, whenever, without the hassle of hard drives, synchronizations, or downloads.
Now, just think about what happens when it all goes away, without warning. Sure, inside the (More info...)
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Venture Firm: We Missed That Networks In Motion DealOVP Venture Partners, a venture firm in Oregon and Washington, is highlighting its latest "missed deal" in Aliso Viejo-based Networks In Motion. NIM, which was acquired last week for $170M, had been backed by venture firms Redpoint Ventures, Mission Ventures, and Sutter Hill Ventures. OVP is known for its list of "missed deals" in its portfolio, and recently added Networks In Motion to its missed deal for its 2001-era Fund 6. According to OVP's site, it was approached in 2005 by the CFO of a for (More info...)
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M86 Security Rebrands Finjan ProductsOrange-based M86 Security, a developer of web security products, said Thursday that it has relaunched its products from its acquisition of Finjan, under the new M86 Security Secure Web Gateway brand. M86 acquired Finjan in November. The firm said the new products will be available in the first quarter of 2010. M86 claims the addition of Finjan has made it the largest worldwide Web security appliance vendor, with over $47M in combined web security appliance revenue in 2008, exceeding competitors (More info...)
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Pfenex Spins Out From Dow Chemical With $24MSan Diego-based Pfenix, a new startup focused on biotechnology technology for producing proteins, has spun out of Dow Chemical Company, Pfenex said this week. As part of the spinout, the firm has received $24M in a Series A funding round. The funding was led by Signet Healthcare Partners. The amount was disclosed from a regulatory filing Wednesday. Pfenex is headed by Bertrand C. Liang, and according to the firm initially includes a team of over 20 scientists. The company develops a Pseudomonas (More info...)
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Lottay Launches Bad Gifts SiteLos Angeles-based Lottay, the online gifting firm recently funded by DFJ Frontier, has launched a new site today focused on highlighting bad gifts. The firm's new site--MyWorstGiftEver.com--highlights and allows users to submit pictures and a description of what they think is the worst gift they ever got. The company said that userse can anonymously share what they think was their worst gift, and also vote for the worse gift listed on the site. Lottay is headed by Harry Lin, formerly of Evite.co (More info...)
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Rippol Removes Logins, Rolls Lightweight SiteSan Diego-based Rippol, a startup which is looking to use social networking information to help users discover new videos and online shows, has quietly rolled out a new "lightweight" version of its site, and has removed requirements to login and register with the site to view videos. The firm said the lightweight site has been up for a few days, but is still in the midst of design refinement. The primary changes to the site is the highlighting of content on the firm's home page, and removal of t (More info...)
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Gogii Raises $8.2MMarina del Rey-based Gogii, a developer of text messaging applications, said Thursday that it has raised $8.2M in a Series B investment round. The round was led by Matrix Partners, and also included prior investor Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Gogii is the latest startup of Scott Lahman, Austin Murray, and Zack Norman, all previously at JAMDAT Mobile. The firms' texting applications, textPlus, allows people to create group text conversations. Gogii's initial funding came from Kleiner Perkins (More info...)
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Interview with Nikhil Jain, Clean Green GuyOne of the industries which has seen a lot of activity lately in Southern California is clean technology, with a large amount of investment activity and new company formation. We recently ran into Nikhil Jain, CEO of Clean Green Guy (www.cleangreenguy.com), a newly launched online marketplace for green tech deals. We spoke with Nikhil, to hear why he thinks the site is important for green technology companies and investors, as well as how the effort is related to his own incubation firm, Artili (More info...)
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Semtech Completes Sierra Monolithics BuyCamarillo-based Semtech reported Wednesday afternoon that it has completed its acquisition of Sierra Monolithics, a maker of analog ICs for the communications and defense market. The deal was worth $180M. The acquisition was originally announced November 18th. Semtech said the acquisition will expand its high performance, analog competencies and portfolio.
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