Friday, March 19, 2010Spark Networks Hires Piper Jaffray & Co.Beverly Hills-based online dating operator Spark Networks said Friday afternoon that it has hired Piper Jaffray & Co., as its independent financial advisor, to help the firm consider a buyout proposal from Great Hill Partners III, LP. According to Spark, Piper Jaffray & Co. will advise its Special Committee of its Board on the transaction. Great Hill offered to buy Spark on March 2nd, saying it is looking to pay $3.10 per share, or approximately $64M, for the firm. As part of the announcement, S (More info...)
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Eucalyptus Snags MySQL CEOSanta Barbara-based Eucalyptus announced Friday afternoon that the firm has snagged Marten Mickos, most recently the CEO of MySQL AB, as its new CEO. Current Eucalpytus CEO Woody Rollins becomes Chief Financial Officer of the firm. Eucalpytus develops open source, cloud software used to manage cloud deployment, and is venture backed by Benchmark Capital and BV Capital. Mickos was CEO of MySQL for seven years, and headed up the firm until its acquisition by Sun Microsystems--for $1 billion--in 20 (More info...)
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Four SoCal Firms Head to DEMOFour Southern California firms are headed to Palm Springs for the DEMO launch conference next week, according to a list of the presenters released Friday. According to DEMO, Thousand Oaks-based Invested.In, Santa Barbara-based Phone Halo, San Diego-based Tastr, and Los Angeles-based Immitter will all be presenting at the technology launch conference. DEMO has traditionally been a major launch event for startups and new technology products.
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Power-One Names Renewable Energy Sales VPCamarillo-based Power-One, a manufacturer of power supplies, said Friday that it has named Kent Sheldon as the firm's Vice President of Renewable Energy Sales for North America. Sheldon was most recently at Enphase Energy, and also served at SMA America and Xantrex, two firms in the photovoltaic inverter market. Power-One said the appointment would help support the firm's efforts in the global PV and wind inverter market.
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Gorilla Nation, ProFlowers, eHarmony See February Traffic SurgeThe latest comScore Media Metrix ranking of top growing Internet properties shows that, among Southern California's Internet companies, Gorilla Nation, ProFlowers, and eHarmony saw big gains in their Internet traffic in February. According to comScore's February 2010 numbers, GN Kids, Gorilla Nation's kids-focused online ad network, was number six in terms of percentage change in unique visitors -- up 241 percent between January and February. The report said that GN Kids now had 5.6 million uniq (More info...)
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Insights and Opinions: Do You Want Your Startup Bad Enough?Our Insights and Opinions piece this morning is from Dan Bliss, co-founder of Los Angeles-based Perfect Business, an online site focused on entrepreneurship and startups.
Whether you want to start a new business or buy an existing business, you need to be passionate about it. This is my mantra. Passion is the core from which everything builds.
If you "kinda" believe in your idea, or just "like" your business, it will come across in everything you do. Even if you get the business up and r (More info...)
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Elcelyx Therapeutics Gets $1.2MSan Diego-based Elecelyx Therapeutics, a stealth mode biotech firm, has raised $1.2M in a funding round, which includes Morgenthaler Ventures, according to a regulatory filing this week. Details on the funding have not been announced by the company. The filing indicates the firm is looking to raised $2.2M in the round. Elecelyx Therapeutics is headed by Alain Baron, former Senior Vice President, Research, Amylin Pharmaceuticals, and now an EIR at Morgenthaler. Morgenthaler's Ralph Christofferson (More info...)
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Mota Motors Founder May Benefit From IPOReza Bundy, the founder of Venice-based Mota Motors, looks to be a major beneficiary of an IPO -- not of his current firm, but of his prior company, Iron Planet. In papers filed Thursday evening by Iron Planet, the Pleasanton-based firm said it is looking to raise up to $92M in an IPO on the NASDAQ Global Market. Bundy founded Iron Planet, which is venture backed by Accel Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, as well as Caterpillar and Komatsu America. In those filings, Iron Planet indicat (More info...)
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Netlist Looks To Raise $15M In Stock SaleIrvine-based Netlist, a publicly held manufacturer of memory subsystems, is looking to raised approximately $14.38M in a public offering of 3,995,000 shares of its common shares, at approximately $3.85 per share. The firm said it will receive net proceeds of approximately $14.12M after undewriting discounts and commissions. The offering was managed by Needham & Company and Roth Capital Partners LLC. Netlist said the additional capital will be used for marketing, research and development, working (More info...)
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Valeant Buys Brazilian FirmAliso Viejo-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals announced today that it is in an agreement to buy a Brazilian manufaturer of branded, generic and over the counter pharmaceuticals. According to Valeant, the deal is worth approximately $28M. Valeant said the Brazilian firm has annual sales of approximately $19M in 2009, mainly in the dermatology business. In a related move, Valeant said it will acquire a 165,000 square foot manufacturing plant in Brazil for approximately $28M. Name of the Brazilian firm (More info...)
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Genmark Diagnostics Files For IPOPasadena-based Genmark Diagnostics, a developer of a diagnostic biomarker detection system, has filed for an IPO, saying it is looking to raised up to $46.0M in an IPO on the NASDAQ Global Market. The firm said it is looking to trade as GNMK. The firm's IPO is being underwritten by Piper Jaffray and Leerink Swann. Genmark is backed by Gartmore Investmetn Ltd., Efficacy Capital, FMR, Schroders, and Ronin Capital. The firm reported revenues of $998K in 2009, and a loss of $19.9M in 2009. Genmark D (More info...)
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Kofax Wins UK ContractIrvine-based Kofax announced earlier this week that it has signed a $2.7M contract in the United Kingdom, for an un-named, public health services organization. Kofax said it will provided its document capture solutions to capture and extract data from hundreds of millions of medical forms and related documents received annually by its customer. The firm said the deal also included maintenance and professional services.
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Ixia Joins Test Automation GroupCalabasas-based Ixia, a developer of network test hardware and software, said this week that it has joined the Network Test Automation Forum (NTAF). The firm, which is a founding member of the group, said the group of service providers, network equipment manufacturers, and test equipment vendors would work together to promote interoperability of test infrastructure for the data communications and telecommunications industry. Other companies involved in the effort include Breaking Point, BT Oper (More info...)
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