Thursday, March 25, 2010


Cyntellect Raises $3.0M
San Diego-based Cyntellect, a developer of cytometry equipment, has raised $3.0M in a new funding round, according to a regulatory filing from the firm earlier this week. Details on the funding have not been disclosed by the company. Cyntellect's equipment is used for cell analysis and purification.
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ICanBuy Gets Series A Funding
Santa Ana-based ICanBuy, which develops online tools for helping consumers determine what they can afford on their mortgage, said this week that it has raised a Series A funding round. Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed. The firm said the funding came from high tech execs Vahid Manian and Massoud Dabir. Manian was most recently SVP Global Manufacturing Operations at Broadcom; Dabir is President/CEO of semiconductor firm DTEC. ICanBuy is headed by Alex Aydin, who took ProStor I (More info...)
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Scripped Merges With Zhura
Scripped, the developer of online screenwriting software headed by Sunil Rajaraman, has merged with Zhura.com, another online provider of screenwriting software, the firms announced to their users today. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, although the firm said the merger is in the "seven-figure range." Zhura.com is based in Boston; Scripped was based in Los Angeles, but is moving to San Francisco to become part of a technology incubator called I/O ventures. As part of the merger, t (More info...)
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3Tera Acquisition Completes
CA announced Thursday that it has completed its acquisition of Irvine-based 3Tera, a developer of virtualization and cloud computing products. Financial terms of the deal, which was originally announced February 24th--was not disclosed. CA said it plans to extend 3Tera's support--currently based on Xen--to VMware ESX and Microsoft Hyper-V. 3Tera's products are used to manage the deployment of both public and private cloud computing.
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Materia Raises $11.75M
Pasadena-based Materia, which is commercializing olefin metathesis catalyst technology developed by Caltech Nobel Prize winner Robert H. Grubbs, has raised $11.75M in a funding round, according to a regulatory filing by the firm today. Source of the new funding was not disclosed by the company. Materia is headed by Michael Giardello, and has licensing deals with Dow Corning, BASF Technology, and others for various applications of its technology.
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Citysearch Nabs Gorilla Nation's Louvion
West Hollywood-based Citysearch announced today that it has hired on Christophe Louvion--the former CTO of Gorilla Nation Media--as its Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Core Products. Citysearch, which is owned by IAC, said that Louvion will be responsible for the firm's CityGrid's ad and content engine, plus its search and data platform. Louvian also previously served at BizRate.com and Shopzilla.
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Shackleton Equity Partners Buys Excel Meridian Data
Los Angeles-based private equity firm Shackleton Equity Partners said today that the firm has acquired Excel Meridian Data, a provider of data storage equipment. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. According to Excel Meridian Data, the acquisition will allow it to expand its data storage hardware and software offerings. Excel Meridian Data's customers include the U.S. Army, L3 Communications, Harvard University, and Savvis. EMD is based in Dallas, Texas.
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V-Vehicle Rejected For Federal Loans
San Diego-based V-Vehicle Company, the stealthy alternative energy auto startup backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers and T. Boone Pickens, said Wednesday that the Department of Energy has rejected the firm's bid for $321.1M in federal loans. According to V-Vehicle, the firm was notified yesterday that the funds from the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) loan program were not recommended for approval by the Program Office of the U.S. Department of Energy. Reasons for the r (More info...)
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Orange County's OCTANe, OCVG Merge
Two major orange county technology advocacy and business groups, OCTANe and the Orange County Venture Group (OCVG) said today that they have merged their organizations. According to OCTANe and OCVG, all operations and program management will now be managed by OCTANe, with OCVG's board continuing to be focused on venture capital content as the OCTANe Investor Advisory Board. Both groups have regularly run events geared toward the high tech market in Orange County. The two groups had already slate (More info...)
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Hydra Signs Meteor Games
Beverly Hills-based CPA advertising network operator Hydra announced today that it has signed an exclusive deal with Hollywood-based Meteor Games, to help the social gaming firm sign up new players, and to also extend out its ad inventory. Financial details behind the win were not disclosed. Hydra said that it will help Meteor sign up players for its Facebook games, and that it will also help Meteor monetize its user base, by giving its advertisers access to Meteor's 600 million monthly ad impre (More info...)
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Genomatica Raises $15M
San Diego-based Genomatica, a developer of chemical processes based on bio-manufacturing, has raised $15M in a Series C funding round, the firm announced today. According to the firm, the new funding was led by TPG Biotech, and also included prior investors Mohr Davidow Ventures, Alloy Ventures, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. The company said the funding will go to expand its product pipeline, as well as to hire additional chemical industry veterans to its executive team. The firm's initial target (More info...)
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Taltopia Launches iPhone, Android Apps, Seeks Funding
Los Angeles-based Taltopia, an angel backed, online social networking site focused on Hollywood, said today that it has launched both Apple iPhone and Google Android applications. According to the firm, the application allows users to apply for casting calls on the site, and also view real time feeds of jobs and auditions on the service. In related news, the firm said it now has over 400,000 registered members on the site, and is getting around 30,000 new members per month. A major part of Talto (More info...)
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eSolar Names Operations VP
Pasadena-based eSolar, the developer of concentrating solar thermal power plants spun out of Idealab, said today that Gary J. Breton has been named Senior Vice President of Operations for the firm. Breton joins the company from Aurora Semiconductor, and also has served at Cypress Semiconductor and Amkor Technologies. The firm said that Breton has more than 20 years of experience in executing global expansion and improving the operational profitability of semiconductor companies. eSolar is backed (More info...)
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EdgeCast Powers ClickStream TV
Santa Monica-based content delivery network provider EdgeCast Networks announced Wednesday that it has tied with ClickStreamTV, to power ClickStreamTV's pay-as-you-go CDN service. Financial impact of the deal was not disclosed. EdgeCast said it will power ClickStreamTV's self-provisioning content delivery services, which are offered to businesses to speed up their video delivery.
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Slacker Adds Windows Mobile App
San Diego-based personalized radio service Slacker said Wednesday that it has debuted a new application for Windows Mobile. Slacker said that its Slacker Radio Mobile app provides access to its personalized Internet radio service, and will debut on T-Mobile HTC HD2. The application is pre-installed on the HTC HD2, and is free. The firm also offers Palm webOS, Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry versions of its software.
posted on Thursday, March 25, 2010(Full story)