Wednesday, May 19, 2010Tech Coast Angels Ups Funding In Five Firms, Sees New DealsThe Tech Coast Angels, Southern California's largest angel investor group, told its sponsors and members this week that it invested in five follow-on deals in Q1, investing a total of $11.5M, and just made three additional investments in firms in recent weeks. The group said that it boosted its investments in Cyber-Rain, Benchmark Revenue, Allylix, Vigilistics, and H2Scan in Q1, and just closed on $2.9M invested across Amplyx Pharma, Vokle, and MicroPower, with two of those deals just closing in (More info...)
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Cubic Buys Impeva LabsSan Diego-based Cubic Corporation, a defense services firm, said earlier this week that it has acquired the assets of Mountain View-based Impeva Labs. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Impeva provides tracking and monitoring technology used by the Department of Defense. The firm's technology uses satellite, GSM mobile communications, and RFID to track supply chains for the military and others, and was founded in 2004.
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Giiv Ups Funding To $3.35MLos Angeles-based Giiv, a mobile gifting service which allows users to text message gifts to their friends, has upped its funding to $3.35M in its latest venture round, according to a filing by the firm Wednesday. Source of the new funding was not disclosed. Giiv has previously raised funding from Saban Ventures, which continues to hold a spot on the firm's board of directors. The funding is up from an earlier $2.3M raised in the same round of funding by the firm in November. Giiv.com is headed (More info...)
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Clicker.com Debuts Big Screen SiteLos Angeles-based Clicker.com, the online video programming guide firm run by former Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone, debuted a "big screen" version of its site today at the Google I/O conference. The firm said its new site, Clicker.tv, uses HTML5 to provide a guide which can be navigated with a remote or arrow keys on a big screen television. The firm said the new site is designed to support using the web on 50-inch displays. Clicker is venture backed by JAFCO Ventures, Benchmark, and Redpoint Ventures (More info...)
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MySpace Rolls Out Mobile SDKLos Angeles-based social networking service MySpace is looking to attract mobile developers, saying today that it has released a new SDK which will allow developers to integrate the site into mobile applications. MySpace said the SDK, which works for both the Google Android platform and Apple platforms, will allow developers to incorporate features such as logins, status updates, photo and video uploads, and access to friends lists. MySpace said that the Android toolkit is available today, and t (More info...)
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Insights and Opinions: Top 10 Ways to Win a Business Plan CompetitionFor our Insights and Opinions section this afternoon, we have Frank Peters of the Frank Peters Show, who is back with another top ten list--a bit less controversial than his last list of Top Ten Lies Angels Tell. This time, Frank gives the Top 10 Ways to Win a Business Plan Competition.
I'm a judge in a local university's business plan competition. Over the past few years I've been involved in different ways in the UC Irvine, Paul Merage School of Business, Business Plan Competition. Last y (More info...)
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Paragon Airheater Technologies Snags FundingCorona-based Paragon Airheater Technologies, a developer of technology to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions in fossil fuel power generation plants, has raised a round of funding, according to Costa Mesa-based venture capital firm SAIL Venture Partners. Amount of the funding was not disclosed. According to SAIL, the investment came from the firm along with co-investor Arborview Capital. Paragon serves such companies as ExxonMobil, Chevron, DTE Energy, Duke Energy, Georgia Power, Shell, (More info...)
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CyberDefender Taps Symantec For Product Development VPLos Angeles-based CyberDefender, a developer of anti-spyware and anti-virus software, said today that it has named Sarah B. Hicks as the firm's new Senior Vice President of Product Development. Hicks comes to the firm from Symantec, where she had been for more than 12 years. CyberDefender said Hicks helped to develop a number of Symantec flagship products, including Norton AntiVirus, Norton SystemWorks, Norton Internet Security and N360. hicks reports to CEO Gary Guseinov.
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CODA Raises $58M In Series C FundingSanta Monica-based electric car manufacturer CODA announced this morning that it has raised another $58M in funding, as part of a Series C investment round. According to the firm, the round was led by Aeris Capital, and also included EDB Investmentes (EDBI); Countyline LLC, owned by Tony Pritzker and J.B. Pritzker; and Lex Wexner, Chairman and CEO of Limited Brands. The firm also said that Thomas F. Steyer, Mac Heller, Miles Rubin, John Bryson and Angeleno Group also participated in the funding (More info...)
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Acclaim Games Acquired By PlaydomLos Angeles-based Acclaim Games, a developer of casual and social networking games, has been acquired by Mountain View-based Playdom, Playdom said Tuesday evening. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. According to Playdom, Acclaim will continue to be run by Howard Marks, most recently CEO of Acclaim, with Acclaim Chief Technology Officer Neil Malhotra acting as Senior Technical Officer. Playdom said the acquisition would also give it access to the game development talent in Southern C (More info...)
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PEAK15 Wins Tour OperatorCarlsbad-based PEAK 15 Systems, a developer of integrated trip planning, marketing, booking/reservations, operations and accounting automation software-as-a-service for tour operators, said it has signed on Austin-Lehman Adventures as a customer. Financial terms of the win were not disclosed. PEAK 15's software uses the OpenTravel standard to provide trip information to travel agents. PEAK15 is headed by James O'Leonard.
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RealtyTrac Names VPIrvine-based RealtyTrac said Tuesday that it has hired Jesse Gant as the firm's new Vice President Product and User Experience. The firm, which operates an online service for researching and finding foreclosure properties, said that Gant joins the firm from Teradata. Gant also served at Move Networks, Ancestry.com, Omniture, and Buy.com. RealtyTrac said Gant will help develop a product plan and vision for the firm.
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