Monday, March 7, 2011DONE Ventures Gets Trial Date In NBC SuitLos Angeles-based DONE! Ventures, the Internet marketing firm headed by Ben Padnos, the former founder of BetterPPC, said today that it has received a trial date in its lawsuit against NBC Universal. DONE! had sued NBC over a failed domain name sale back in May of 2010, after it said NBC Universal agreed to sell the company Women.com and Women.net in via domain name broker Sedo. DONE! Ventures said that Judge S. James Otero has set a trial date of December 13, 2011. DONE! sued NBC Universal afte (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 7, 2011(Full story)
International Rectifier Completes CHiL Semiconductor AcquisitionEl Segundo-based International Rectifier said Monday afternoon that it has completed its acquisition of CHiL Semiconductor Corporation. The deal had been announced February 25th, and was worth $75M in cash. CHiL Semiconductor is a developer of digital power management products, and was venture backed by Highland Capital Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners, Panorama Capital, and id SoftCapital.
posted on Monday, March 7, 2011(Full story)
FastCall411 Gets FundingHollywood-based FastCall411, the developer of pay-per-call technology headed by Richard Rosen, has scored funding from Dave McClure's 500 Startups fund. FastCall411 was one of seven recipients of funding from the Twilio Startup Fund, a fund which looks to invest $250,000 in startups that use Twilio's telephony API. FastCall41 provides lead generation for local search publishers using Twilio.
posted on Monday, March 7, 2011 (More)(Full story)
Myricom Names New Sales VPArcadia-based Myricom, the developer of low latency, 10 Gigabit Ethernet clustering products for the high performance computing (HPC) market, said Monday that it has named Mike McPherson as the firm's new Vice President, Worldwide Sales. McPherson has previously served at such firms as Alteon WebSystems, Nortel Networks, Neterion, PathScale, SilverStorm, and others, serving in a number of VP of Sales and related roles. Myricom said that McPherson has over 30 years of experience in the business. (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 7, 2011(Full story)
Inphi Backers To Sell More SharesThe venture capital backers of semiconductor maker Inphi Corp., based on Santa Clara but with major operations in Westlake Village, are looking to cash out more shares, according to a filing by the firm this morning. According to Inphi Corp., it has a new, follow-on offering from the firm which looks to sell 5,500,000 shares of its common stock. About 5.4 million shares of those are from its existing shareholders, which include Walden International, Tallwood, and Mayfield Fund. The follow-on off (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 7, 2011(Full story)
Transphorm Unveils ProductsGoleta-based Transphorm, the stealthy, Google and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers startup in the energy conversion space, has unveiled its first product today at a conference. The firm said it has created a power diode, based on Gallium Nitride technology, which provides over 99 percent efficiency for DC-to-DC converters. The firm said that its product cuts energy waste by 20 percent, and simplifies design and manufacturing of electrical systems and devices. Transphorm, which is headed by Umesh (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 7, 2011(Full story)
Interview with Edo Cohen, SeevolutionRecently, we ran into Edo Cohen, CEO of Los Angeles-based Seevolution (www.seevolution.com), a firm developing web site heat map tracking software. We talked with Edo about what his firm is up to.
What is Seevolution all about?
Edo Cohen: Seevolution is a real time analytics and heat map company for web sites and web applications. It will show you in real time, live, what people are clicking on, what people are looking at, and what they are paying attention to, and how far down a web site (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 7, 2011(Full story)
Western Digital To Acquire Hitachi Global Storage For $4.3BIrvine-based disk drive maker Western Digital and Hitachi Ltd. said this morning that Western Digital is buying Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, Hitachi's disk drive and storage arm, for approximately $4.3 billion. The deal is a combination of $3.5 billion in cash, plus 25 million shares of WD common stock valued at $750M. As part of the deal, Hitachi Ltd. will own ten percent of WD, and add two representatives to Hitachi's board. The deal would combine two of the biggest manufacturers of di (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 7, 2011(Full story)
Cooking.com Powers Good BiteMarina Del Rey-based Cooking.com, which operates its own and other online stores for cooking-focused brands and companies, reported today that it will be managing and building a new, online kitchenware store for recipe video web site Good Bite. Good Bite is a site owned by Los Angeles-based online video firm DECA. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Cooking.com said the new site will offer branded and tailored ktichenware and cookware, as well as exclusive products developed by Coo (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 7, 2011(Full story)
SG Biofuels Expands Into IndiaSan Diego-based SG Biofuels, the developer of biofuels crop seed based on Jatropha, announced this morning that it has expanded its operations into India. SG Biofuels said that it will be developing multiple center to test and adapt hybrid cultivars of its products to grow in a range of conditions in that country. To head up those operations, the firm said it has named Subhas Pattnaik as Director of Operations for that market. Pattnaik was most recently at Misison New Energy, and has also served (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 7, 2011(Full story)
Fallbrook Technologies Buys HodyonSan Diego-based Fallbrook Technologies, a developer of transmission technology being used for the electrical vehicles and other industries, announced this morning that it has acquired Hodyon LP, a manufacturer of auxiliary power units for the heavy truck industry. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Fallbrook said that Hodyon will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of the firm, and incorporate Fallbrook's continuously variable planetary transmission technology into its own, (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 7, 2011(Full story)