Tuesday, March 8, 2011Specific Media Expands In SeattleIrvine-based Specific Media, the Internet advertising network operator, said Tuesday that it has opened up a new regional office in Seattle. According to the company, the office will serve Washington and Oregon, and will be based in downtown Seattle. The firm said the Pacific Northwest is a "key region" for the company.
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Anthony Batt Heads To Ashton Kutcher's KatalystAnthony Batt, the founder and Chief Creative Officer of BUZZmedia, has joined Katalyst, the digital media studio founded by Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg. Katalyst said that Batt will lead the Katalyst team as President, and will help create content, recruit talent, and serve its brand clients. Katalyst was founded in 2000 by Goldberg and Kutcher, and includes clients such as Gatorage, Levi's Nikon, and Intel. The firm creates programming for television, film, and the web. Batt co-founded BU (More info...)
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Grid2Home Lands $2.6MSan Diego-based smart grid startup Grid2Home has pulled in another $2.6M in funding, according to a regulatory filing by the firm Tuesday. The filing indicates the fundraising effort is part of an ongoing, $3.1M round. Details on the funding have not been disclosed by the company. Grid2Home is developing smart energy management software, and has previously raised funding from Granite Ventures. The firm last received funding in a seed round in September of last year.
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LA Leads In Entrepreneurs, Says ReportA new study released by the Kauffman Foundation this week shows that the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) has the highest number of entrepreneurs per 100,000 people, of the top fifteen largest MSAs. According to the study of entrepreneurial activity in the United States, LA-Long Beach-Santa Ana had 620 entrepreneurs for every 100,000 people, beating out such areas as New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island (360 per 100,000), San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont (550 (More info...)
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Bizzy Launches Check-OutsIn a twist to the popularity of mobile "check-in" applications, Woodland Hills-based ReachLocal's local recommendation site Bizzy said this morning that it has launched "Check-Outs", a new feature which allows users to rate and review local businesses--after visiting those businesses. Unlike the usual "check-in", which is typically done to announce the arrival of a mobile phone user to friends and others, Bizzy said its "check-out" is used to help provide recommendations on businesses and how mu (More info...)
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Sapphire Energy Scores Backing From MonsantoSan Diego-based Sapphire Energy, a developer of algae-based biofuels technology, has scored an investment and deal with agricultural chemicals firm Monsanto, the two said this morning. Financial details of the investment were not disclosed. Monsanto said it would make an un-specified equity investment in Sapphire, and the two will collaborate on algae-based research projects. Sapphire Energy is developing technology focused on "green crude", using algae which converts sunlight and COs into biofu (More info...)
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Sonos Connects To MOGSanta Barbara-based Sonos, the developer of the user friendly, multi-room, wireless music systems, said today that it has connected up the MOG music service to its products. MOG said it will offer up high quality, 320kbps streamed music to Sonos customers. Sonos has been gradually adding nearly every Internet radio and music streaming service to its devices; the latest comes on top of recent additions of SiriusXM, Rdio, and Spotify over the last few months. Like the other streaming music service (More info...)
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Interview with Jim Carol, DonateGames.orgWhat would you do if your child was diagnosed with a terminal illness? That nightmare happened to Jim Carol, a serial entrepreneur who was co-founder and CEO of San Diego's PacketVideo, when his son was diagnosed with cancer. However, out of that experience, Jim channeled that frustration into a nonprofit, DonateGames (www.donategames.org), aimed at helping children with rare and neglected diseases. We heard the story behind the nonprofit--as well as its brand new online store--from Jim.
Firs (More info...)
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Anabios Gets Angel BackingBonita, California-based Anabios, a stealth mode firm working on drug testing services for pain drugs, has scored an angel investment round from the Tech Coast Angels. The funding came from the TCA's new ACE Fund, the angel group's more formally organized investment fund which it is using to more quickly invest in companies. The new fund is managed by TCA member Dave Berkus. Details of the size of the funding was not disclosed. The funding is the second for the ACE Fund; the first was an investm (More info...)
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MarketShare Links With Software FirmLos Angeles-based MarketShare, the marketing analytics firm headed by Wes Nichols, and software firm TRA, Inc., said today that the two will jointly marketing their solutions to each other's clients. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. TRA is a provider of information on television advertising, used to analyze second-by-second TV viewing from set top box data and purchasing behavior. MarketShare provides predictive models and software used by companies to manage their sales, market (More info...)
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Insights and Opinions: Introductions are a privilege not a rightFor today's Insights and Opinions section, investment banker Megan Jones talks about how to best ask and use an introduction.
This topic is a touchy one with me so I'll tread lightly and just list my rules with minimal commentary. The title, in my opinion, speaks for itself.
12 rules for introductions
1. Both parties need to benefit from the introduction. Occasional exceptions can be made for my children, clients, friends and those that have proven their loyalty. Know and explain (More info...)
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Warner Bros. Starts Renting Movies On FacebookBurbank-based Warner Bros. said Monday that it is beginning to test renting movies via Facebook, using Facebook Credits, allowing consumers to watch movies directly from the social networking site. According to Warner, its first title is The Dark Knight, which it will be renting for 30 Facebook Credits, or $3. Warner said it plans to roll out additional titles in the testing of the effort. The studio said that users can watch titles in full screen, pause and resume the movie, and will have 48 ho (More info...)
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MeLLmo Links With SASSan Diego-based MeLLmo, the developer of the Roambi mobile business application, said today that it is in an alliance with business analytics software provider SAS. According to MeLLmo, the partnership will integrate Roambi with the SAS Enerprise BI Server, allowing users to access SAS business intelligence data on any iPhone or iPad. The two said the software integration is expected in early April. Financial details of the alliance were not announced. Roambi allows users to browse business data (More info...)
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FoodTruckDeals.com Takes On Daily DealsIt looks like the daily deals phenomenon has hit the Los Angeles food truck scene. This morning, Los Angeles-based FoodTruckDeals.com said it has launched a new online service to provide daily deals on the ubiquitous mobile food trucks. The service, headed by Alex Katz, said it will provide discounts of 50 to 90 percent on local food trucks. At the time of launch, the site only had one, sold out deal on its site, for Los Angeles Buttermilk Truck.
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OpenX Snags Chauhan As General ManagerPasadena-based OpenX Technologies announced this morning that it has named Raj Chauhan as its General Manager of its Publisher Business. Chauhan comes from the Rubicon Project, and was co-founder of ad networks Banner Brokers and ClickAgents. He also has served at Move, Inc. and Yahoo! OpenX said that Chauhan will be responsible for increasing adoption of its OpenX Enterprise and OpenX Market ad exchange platform. OpenX is a provider of Internet advertising serving software and related services. (More info...)
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Sorenson Media Signs ComtrendSan Diego-based Sorenson Media, the developer of video encoding and decoding technology, said today that electronics manufacturer Comtrend Corporation has licensed its Sorenson Spark video decoder. Financial impact of the deal were not disclosed. Sorenson said the decoder will be used in a new line of set top boxes for Swiss Telecom.
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