Thursday, July 21, 2011


Amira Pharmaceuticals Acquired By Bristol-Myers Squibb
San Diego-based Amira Pharmaceuticals, a developer of small molecule pharmaceuticals for treating inflammatory and fibrotic diseases, has agreed to be acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb, the firms said late Thursday. Bristol-Myers Squibb said it would pay $325M upfront, and up to $150M in milestone payments, for Amira. Amira Pharmaceuticals was venture backed by Avalon Ventures, Novo A/S,Prospect Venture Partners, and Versant Ventures. The firm had raised somewhere around $40M in venture capital f (More info...)
posted on Thursday, July 21, 2011(Full story)

Report: Demand Media Targets Critical Blog
Santa Monica-based Demand Media, the online content publishing empire run by Richard Rosenblatt, is targeting a blog which has been posting internal documents and criticism of the company. According to a report from Forbes, the firm has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Demand Studio Sucks, alleging copyright infringement. The site appears to have been created by an unhappy, freelance contributor to Demand Media in May of 2010.
posted on Thursday, July 21, 2011(Full story)

MacBook Air Includes Two Broadcom Chips
Irvine-based Broadcom is the source of two key components in Apple's updated MacBook Air. According to a teardown published today by iFixit, the MacBook air includes the Broadcom BCM20702 chip for wireless funcationality, and a Broadcom BCM4322 Intensi-fi Single-Chip 802.11N transceiver. Apple is a major customer of Broadcom, and uses two Broadcom chips in its iPhone and iPod touch devices, three chips in the iPad, as well as other products.
posted on Thursday, July 21, 2011(Full story)

PixelFish Nabs $4M For Online Video Ads
Torrance-based PixelFish, which provides online video marketing products to local businesses, announced Thursday that it has raised $4M in a funding round. The round was led by Bullpen Capital, and also included Floodgate, Mack Capital, Tomorrow Ventures, 500 Startups, and Western Tech. The firm is headed by John McIntyre. PixelFish said the funding will go towards sales, marketing, and technology. The firm's software-as-a-service creates video advertising for local business customers, using a n (More info...)
posted on Thursday, July 21, 2011 (More)(Full story)

Idealab Backs Clean Power Technology Firm
Pasadena-based Idealab announced today that it has invested in a developer of clean energy generation technology. The firm has invested in Cool Energy, a Boulder, Colorado based developer of Stirling engine technology, used to convert heat energy into power. Financial details of the funding were not announced. Cool Energy's technology takes waste heat from industrial processes and other sources, and efficiently converts it into electrical power.
posted on Thursday, July 21, 2011(Full story)

Interview with Rob Reed, MomentFeed
With the rise of location-based check-ins from Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook, Twitter, and others, there's suddenly lots more data that marketers want to parse through to make sense of how consumers are interacting with their brands. Los Angeles-based MomentFeed (www.momentfeed.com) is looking to sort through that data to help marketers better tap into location based, social networking. The firm announced a funding round last week, from DFJ Frontier, DFJ JAIC, Gold Hill Capital, and angel inve (More info...)
posted on Thursday, July 21, 2011(Full story)

ZestCash Gets $19M For Lending Startup
Hollywood-based ZestCash, a startup offering up short-term, consumer loans online, has scored $19M in funding today, including $11M in a Series A equity round plus $8M in venture debt. The equity came from Lightspeed Venture Partners and GRP Partners. The firm's founder and CEO is Douglas Merrill, the former CIO and VP of Engineering of Google.
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National Technical Systems Buys Testing Firm
Calabasas-based National Technical Systems, the provider of testing and engineering services, said today that it has acquired Ingenium Testing. Ingenium Testing is a provider of product compliance and engineering services, based in Rockford, Illinois. The deal was worth $12.5M in cash plus potential earnout. NTS--which is publicly held--said the acquisition as funded via a $14M, private placement of debt and equity with Mill Road Capital, completed the last week of June.
posted on Thursday, July 21, 2011(Full story)

RealD Expands Win With Cinemark
Los Angeles-based RealD, the provider of 3D movie projection technology, reports this morning that it has expanded its 3D deal with movie theater operator Cinemark. RealD said it is adding an additional, 1,5000 3D enabled screens for the theater chain's North American and Latin America locations. Financial details of the win were not disclosed. Cinemark already has 2,000 RealD enabled screens. RealD said that, as of June 6, it has over 16,700 theater screens worldwide who have deployed or will b (More info...)
posted on Thursday, July 21, 2011(Full story)

Local.com Names Sales VP
Irvine-based Local.com, the operator of a network of local business search and directory sites, announced this morning that it has appointed Tullio Siragusa as its new Senior Vice President, Sales. Siragusa joins the firm from Ansearch ltd., and has also served at Operative Media, Acxiom, Computer Sciences Corporation, PricewaterhouseCoopers, MCI and M3 Mobile, Ltd.
posted on Thursday, July 21, 2011(Full story)

StockTwits Tightens Posting Rules
San Diego-based StockTwits, the online community for posting and sharing stock related messages, has tightened its posting rules, saying yesterday that it will now require users to create their an account in order to message on the firm's streams. The firm offers up stock-related micro messaging services, similar to Twitter messages but categorized and sorted by stock symbol. The firm said the new requirement will help it implement feature enhancements, including member follow and block features (More info...)
posted on Thursday, July 21, 2011(Full story)

Splash News Acquired By Corbis
Los Angeles-based Splash News, the provider of celebrity photos and images, has been acquired by Corbis, the visual rights firm owned by Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Corbis did not disclose financial details of the acquisition. Splash News is known for its celebrity, candid photos -- a staple of gossip magazines and publications, and television shows like TMZ and E! News Network.
posted on Thursday, July 21, 2011(Full story)

MIR3 Adds Solutions Exec
San Diego-based MIR3, a supplier of notification and communications software for the IT and business continuity market, said today that it has named Ann Pickren as its Vice President of Solutions. Pickren was most recently an EVP at Firestorm Solutions, a provider of business continuity consulting. She also was at Sungard.
posted on Thursday, July 21, 2011(Full story)