Monday, January 31, 2011


eHarmony's Waldorf Joins Accel Partners
Greg Waldorf, the former CEO of Pasadena-based eHarmony, is joining venture capital firm Accel Partners as CEO-in-Residence, the firm said Monday evening. Waldorf left eHarmony on January 19th, as the firm has been rumored to be in process of an IPO. Waldorf was at eHarmony for 11 years at the company, including for five years as CEO; he also was the founding investor in the company. Waldorf joins a long list of CEO and Entrepreneurs-in-Residences from Southern California firms who are now assoc (More info...)
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Cognition Raises $200K
Culver City-based Cognition Technologies, the developer of natural language processing technology software, has raised $200,000, as part of an ongoing $500,000 funding round, according to a recent regulatory filing by the firm. No details on the funding have been announced. Source of the new funding was not disclosed. Cognition has previously raised funding from the Tech Coast Angels and Draper Associates, as well as Tim Draper and Scott Jarus.
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UCLA Gets $1M From Raytheon For Research Center
Raytheon said Monday afternoon that it has committed to $1M in funding during the next three years, to establish a new center at UCLA focused on public safety network systems. According to Raytheon, it is in a letter of intent with the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, to establish a new UCLA Center for Public Safety Network Systems. Raytheon said it selected UCLA because of its reputation as the "long-standing world leader in radio communications networking technology."
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CausePlay Launches Game For Children's Miracle Network
A new, Manhattan Beach-based social gaming startup, CausePlay, is powering a new social game for charity the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. According to the Children's Miracle Network, which raises funding for 170 children's hospitals, it has just launched a new, hospital-themed social game called Hospitopia. The new game was developed by CausePlay, and allows users to create and operate a virtual hospital. CausePlay will donate 10 percent of all of its game revenue to Children's Miracle (More info...)
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RFaxis Gets Design Win With Ralink
Irvine-based RFaxis, the developer of RF semiconductor headed by Mike Neshat, said Monday that ithas scored a design win with Ralink Technology, a developer of Wi-Fi hardware. According to RFaxis, its RFX2402 RF Front-end ICs are being design into Ralink's 802.11n 3Tx3R MIMO products. Expected financial impact of the win, or shipment volumes, were not announced. Ralink is based in Taiwan. RFaxis develops RF semiconductors used for Bluetooth, 802.11n/MIMO, ZigBee, WiMAX, and WHDI.
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MK Capital Funds ReachForce
Los Angeles- and Chicago-based venture capital firm MK Capital is the lead investor in Texas-based ReachForce, a provider of data quality software for marketers. According to ReachForce, MK Capital led a $4.6M investment round in the company. GSA Venture Partners (formerly Greenhill SAVP) also participated in the funding. MK Capital has its Los Angeles offices in Santa Monica. The firm invests across the country, but also has local investments in Geodelic, Machinima, and NXTV, among other compan (More info...)
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Demand Media Nets $77.2M From IPO
Santa Monica-based Demand Media said this morning that it received approximately $77.2M in net proceeds from the firm's IPO last week. The firm, which debuted on the NYSE as DMD, said it will use the new funding for investments in content, international expansion, working capital, product development, sales and marketing activities, general and administrative matters and capital expenditures. Demand's IPO offering was for 10,235,000 shares of common stock at $17.00 per share, with 5,175,000 shar (More info...)
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BAROnova Gets $5.2M
Goleta-based BAROnova, a developer of medical devices to treat obesity, has raised another $5.2M in funding, according to numbers released earlier this month in the PricewaterhouseCoopers/NVCA MoneyTree report. The funding has not yet been reported elsewhere. No details on the funding have been announced. BAROnova has previously raised funding from Allergan, Arboretum Ventures, DeNovo Ventures, Highland Capital, Interwest Partners, Latterell Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, ONSET Venture (More info...)
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Obama Proposes Tax Relief, Credits To Spur Startups
President Obama is proposing to permanently eliminate capital gains taxes on key investments in small businesses, as part of the administration's "Startup America" initiative, announced this morning. According to the White House, the President's new budget proposes making permanent the elimination of capital gains taxes on key investments in small businesses, which was passed as a temporary provision in 2010 as part of the Small Business Jobs Act. In addition, the White House said it is proposin (More info...)
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Geni Rolls World Family Tree Widget
Los Angeles-based Geni, which operates an online site for tracking your family tree, said Friday that it has rolled out a new widget which allows users to show how big Geni's family tree is. Geni, which allows users to become part of its "World Family Tree" project to show how everyone is connected via their family trees, said the widget will display the current number of profiles connected by its family tree project. The count is currently around 51 million profiles.
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Power-One Opens New Factory In Phoenix
Camarillo-based Power-One, which develops power inverters and other power conversion products, announced this morning that it has opened up a new manufacturing facility in Phoenix, Arizona. The firm said the new facility will eventually employ 350 people, manufacturing photovoltaic and wind inverters. The firm said the choice of Phoenix was because of its workforce, access to Arizona State University, as well as support from Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, the Arizona Commerce Authority, the City (More info...)
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AeroVironment Lands $7.8M Order
Monrovia-based Aerovironment, the developer of unmanned aircraft systems, reported this morning that it has scored a new $7.8M order from the U.S. Army. The firm said the order covers upgrade modules for its Raven unmanned aircraft systems, being used by the U.S. Marine Corps. Aerovironment's Raven is a handheld, 4-2 pound UAS used for reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition.
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White House Launches Startup America Effort
The White House is announcing a new effort today to spur high tech innovation and growth, called the Startup America Partnership. The new effort will be chaired by AOL's Steve Case, with funding from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Case Foundation, Intel Capital, and IBM. According to the partnership effort, it is looking to "dramatically increase the development, prevalence and success of innovative, high-growth U.S. firms." The new effort follows last week's call by President Obama t (More info...)
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Qualcomm Names QPrize Finalists
San Diego-based Qualcomm has named the finalists in its second annual QPrize Venture Investment Competition, the firm's global venture capital competition for investment dollars. According to Qualcomm, it has selected six regional finalists, who will each represent $100,000 in venture financing, with the chance to win $150,000 as a grand prize winner at DEMO Spring 2011 in Palm Desert. Finalists are Ji Ke, a Chinese operator of a mobile application store; Cambridge Temperature Concepts, a UK-bas (More info...)
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UCLA Startup AutoESL Acquired By Xilinx
AutoESL Design Technologies, a developer of software tools used for high level synthesis of electronic circuit designs, and a spinout of UCLA, was acquired this morning by Xilinx. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. AutoESL was co-founded by Jason Cong, Yiping Fan, and Zhiru Zhang, and originally started in Los Angeles; the firm's headquarters is based in Cupertino with additional offices in Austin and Beijing.
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Fallbrook Technologies, TRW In MOU
San Diego-based Fallbrook Technologies said this morning that it is in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with TRW Automotive U.S>, covering the exploration of its technology for commercial vehicles. Fallbrook said that the two will explore development of applications for Fallbrook's technology for commercial vehicle,s specifically aimed at system performance and efficiency of vehicles. No financial details of the MOU were given.
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Twentieth Century Fox Inks Angry Birds Game Deal
Los Angeles-based Twentieth Century Fox has inked a videogame deal with mobile games developer Rovio Mobile, which ties Rovio's popular Angry Birds videogame with the studio's upcoming Rio feature film. According to the two, they will create Angry Birds Rio, a new videogame which is a spin-off of Angry Birds. The deal was inked by Peter Levinsohn, President of New Media and Digital Distribution at Twentieth Century Fox. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Angry Birds is a popular m (More info...)
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