Thursday, April 1, 2010Amonix Hits $104.4M In Funding EffortsTorrance-based Amonix, a developer of concentrated photovoltaic power generation systems for the utility industry, has hit $104.4M in an equity fundraising effort, according to a regulatory filing by the firm this week. The filing indicates that the firm is raising $136.6M, in a continuation of a round that was kicked off in November of 2009. No details of the funding have been announced by the firm, which is backed by private equity firm MissionPoint Capital Partners. MissionPoint is the invest (More info...)
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First Quarter IPOs Beat All Of 2009IPOs in the first three months of the year handily beat all of 2009, as eight U.S., venture backed companies raised $711M in offerings, according to an analysis by Dow JOnes VentureSource today. According to Dow Jones, those eight IPOs matched the same number of IPOs throughout all of 2009, and made it the most active quarter for venture-backed company IPOs since Q4 of 2007. In addition to the IPOs, Dow Jones reported there were 77 acquisitions worth $4 billion for the first quarter, roughly on (More info...)
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IO Semiconductor Finds $1.0MSan Diego-based IO Semiconductor, a semiconductor firm which is one of the firms in the CommNexus EvoNexus incubator program, has raised $1.0M in a funding round, according to a regulatory filing by the firm this week. According to the filing, the funding is part of a $14.0M fundraising effort by the company. The firm said on its site that the funding is part of a "multi-stage funding agreement" with an un-named private investor. IOsemi is developing CMOS components targeted at multi-band, multi (More info...)
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Boingo To Give Away Free Wi-Fi, For Tattoo (in April Fool's Joke)In what seems to be a new trend in Los Angeles companies exchanging things of value for a tattoo of their logo, Los Angeles-based Boingo Wireless, which operates a global network of wireless access points, said it will give away one million free Wi-Fi credits to any user who permanently tattoos a Boingo logo somewhere on their body. According to Boingo, the Boingo tattoo just needs to be spelled correctly, and can go anywhere on a user. The firm said a number of the firm's employees already have (More info...)
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mobileStorm Snags Marketing VP From Rubicon ProjectLos Angeles-based mobileStorm, the online and mobile marketing firm headed by Jared Reitzin, said today that it has hired on Marwan Soghaier as VP of Marketing and Product at the firm. Soghaier was most recently in Product Marketing and Brand Development at Los Angeles-based Rubicon Project. Soghaier has also served at AT&T, Verizon Wireless, AMP'D MOBILE, Motorola, and Qualcomm.
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J2 Global Expands In Brazil, PeruLos Angeles-based j2 Global Communications reported yesterday that the firm has added Brazil and Peru to the firm's eFax service. The company said that the new country support brings its network to a total of 48 countries. j2's eFax service allows companies to send and receive faxes online using local numbers. The company said the service now spans more than 3,500 cities worldwide.
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Kyocera Merges North American UnitsSan Diego-based Kyocera International, the North American head of Kyocera Group, said Wednesday that it has mreged its two U.S. wireless communications units. According to the firm, it has combined San Diego-based Kyocera Wireless Corp. and Kyocera Communications, Inc., into a single firm, Kyocera Communications, Inc. Kyocera Communications originally was the wireless handset business of Sanyo Electro Co., Ltd., which Kyocera acquired in 2008.
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Electro Rent Closes Telogy BuyVan Nuys-based Electro Rent announced Wednesday afternoon that it has completed its acquisition of Telogy LLC, a supplier of electronic test equipment. The deal was worth $24.7M. According to Electro Rent, it will transfer TElogy's equipment inventory to its Southern California distribution center and integrate Telogy's operations into its own.
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Clean Technology Deals Hit $1.9B In Q1Clean technology venture capital deals hit $1.9 billion, across 180 clean technology companies in Q1, according to a report released yesterday by the Cleantech Group and Deloitte. According to the report, the investment represent a new record total in the number of quarterly clean technology investments. The report found that infrastructure and vehicle investments led the industry, with $704M in investments, including $140M in Irvine-based Fisker Automotive and $30M for Santa Monica-based Coda A (More info...)
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Interview with Evan Rifkin, BurstlyEarlier this week, Los Angeles-based Burstly (www.burstly.com) announced that it had raised $1.8M in a venture round from GRP Partners and Rincon Ventures, for the firm's mobile ad management platform. Mark Suster lead GRP's investment in the firm, and Jim Andelman led Rincon's investment. We caught up with founder Evan Rifkin--who previously founded and sold TagWorld/Flux to MTVN in November of 2008--to learn more about the startup.
What is Burstly?
Evan Rifkin: Basically, we are an open (More info...)
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Yardi Systems Buys PropertySharkSanta Barbara-based Yardi Systems said Wednesday afternoon that it has acquired PropertyShark, a real estate data website providing property reports, foreclosure listings, sales listings, and other data. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed. According to Yardi, the acquisition will allow it to integrate deep property data into its suite of real estate investment management and property management software. PropertyShark was based in New York, and was founded by Matthew Haines.
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Solarflare Claims LAN Speed RecordIrvine-based Solarflare, a developer of 10 Gigabit Ethernet network adapters, said this week that it has set a speed record on local area networks, using one of its dual-port adapters running on the Intel Nehalem server processor. The firm said the testing of its SFN5112F Dual-Port, 10 Gigabit Ethernet Server Adapter, on Intel's Xeon Processor 7500 Series Server, achieved a speed of 118 Gb/s network throughput. The firm claimed it beat the record through its own testing, using Ixia's Chariot tes (More info...)
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