Tuesday, October 12, 2010Rustic Canyon Boosts Social Gaming Firm PlayFirstSanta Monica-based venture capital firm Rustic Canyon Partners has upped its investment in social games firm PlayFirst, which is based in San Francisco. According to PlayFirst, Rustic Canyon, Mayfield Fund, Trinity Partners, and DCM--all current investors in the game developer--have invested $5.2M in an equity funding for the company, with Comerica Bank providing $4.0M in debt. PlayFirst is the company behind the popular Diner Dash, Cooking Dash and Wedding Dash casual games. Rustic's Mark Menel (More info...)
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ELC Technologies Acquired By Pourzanjani, RahmatKamran Pourzanjani, the former CEO and founder of PriceGrabber.com, and Omid Rahmat, the former CEO of Tom's Hardware, have acquired Portland- and Santa Barbara-based ELC Technologies, the development firm founded by Jonathan Siegel. ELC is the firm behind startups RightScale, RightCart, and RightSignature, and also provides technology consulting and development to other companies. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. According to ELC Technologies, Rahmat takes the helm of ELC. ELC is (More info...)
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Boingo Launches Effort With Make-A-Wish FoundationLos Angeles-based Boingo Wireless, the provider of Wi-Fi access services headed by Dave Hagan, said today that the firm is in a charity effort with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. According to an email to users, Boingo said it will donate 100 airlines miles to the Make-A-Wish Foundation for any users who upgrade to its Boingo Unlimited plan between September 30th and November 15th. The firm did not say how many miles it has donated so far, but it also said it would match donations of Delta SkyMiles (More info...)
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Arktos Entertainment Funds Online Gaming FirmLos Angeles-based Arktos Entertaiment Group, a firm which says it provides investment, creative and production management support, and other services to interactive and online entertainment firms, said today that it has led a $5M investment round in firm Online Warmongers. Online Warmongers is based in San Francisco, and is developing online war games. Online Warmongers lead title is "War Inc. Battlezone" which it says it will release in late 2010. Arktos is headed by Sergey Titov, and according (More info...)
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Demand Media Selects NYSE For IPOLos Angeles-based Demand Media, the online content publishing empire of Richard Rosenblatt, has updated its S-1 filing with the SEC, saying that it has applied to list its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, under the symbol "DMD". The firm had not yet specified an exchange where it hopes to take the company public before today. In addition, Demand Media revealed it had executed a 1-for-2 reverse stock split of its common stock ahead of its planned IPO, and also that it plans to use $50 to $75M (More info...)
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Insights and Opinions: Exit Strategies in 2010For today's Insights and Opinions section, we have a piece from Megan Jones, an investment banker from Hadley Partners Incorporated:
As I often say, I grew up in and out of Silicon Valley with a dad in
high-tech. So, early on I knew what venture capital is (along with
"chips", "boxes", "burn rate" and other valley lingo). The valley has
changed; most of the orchards are gone and Tully Road is lined with
company headquarters not the stables I visited in my teens.
Some things haven't (More info...)
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uSamp Links With J.D. PowerEncino-based uSamp, the online sampling and market research firm headed by Matt Dusig and Gregg Levin, is powering a new online market research effort for Westlake Village-based J.D. Power and Associates. According to J.D. Power and Associates, it has created the J.D. PowerPanel, which will expand its market research capabilities in the online panels area. J.D> Power said the new offering--scheduled to launch in Q4--will expand the demographic and geographic range of its online survey respondent (More info...)
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GameSalad Rolls New Publishing ServiceLos Angeles- and Austin-based GameSalad, which develops software to easily create iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad games, said today that it has released a new publishing service and product. The firm said it has launched GameSalad Studio, which includes it free GameSalad Creator game creation software, GameSalad Viewer, a new Apple iOS application for game testing, and a new game publishing service, GameSalad Direct. GameSalad said the new Studio and publishing service will pull together games buil (More info...)
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MRV Names New Division PresidentChatsworth-based MRV Communications announced this morning that it has named Barry R. Gorsun as President of the firm's Optical Communications Systems (OCS) Division. Gorsun replaces Mary Jane Gruninger, who the firm said is leaving the firm after 19 years. Gorsun was most recently managing partner at BayState Capital, an investment firm, and also previously served at Summa Four, a firm he headed up and eventually sold to Cisco Systems in 1998. Gorsun reports to MRV's CEO, Dilip Singh. MRV is a (More info...)
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Halozyme Therapeutics Chops 25 PercentSan Diego-based Halozyme Therapeutics, a firm developing biopharmaceuticals for the endocrinology, oncology, dermatology and drug delivery markets, said late Monday that it has cut its workforce by approximately 25 percent, as it says it is shifting to a "development focused strategy." According to the firm, it is decreasing is research relating to discovery and preclinical assessment of new compounds, and will instead focus on bringing ints Phase 2 and Phase 1 programs to market. The firm said (More info...)
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