Wednesday, November 2, 2011GRP Targets $250M In New Fund, GRP IVLos Angeles-based venture capital firm GRP Partners is looking to raised $250M in its newest fund, GRP IV L.P., according to a regulatory filing from the firm this week. According to the filing, the fund is being managed by Steven Dietz, Brian McLoughlin, Yves Sisteron, and Mark Suster, and has just started fundraising efforts. GRP last closed on a fund--GRP III, L.P.--in 2009. GRP's investments include TrueCar, GOGII, Ad.ly, GumGum, among others.
posted on Wednesday, November 2, 2011(Full story)
Diverse Solutions Acquired By ZillowIrvine-based Diverse Solutions, a provider of services to help real estate agents market their business and improve their websites, has been acquired by real estate site Zillow. Zillow said it paid $7.8M in cash and stock for Diverse Solutions, which was headed by Justin LaJoie. Lajoie, who founded Diverse Solutions, becomes Vice President of Industry Solutions at Zillow. Zillow said that Diverse Solutions has over 6,000 customers, primarly local real estate agents, and 18 employees.
posted on Wednesday, November 2, 2011(Full story)
Geni Swizzles Pricing TiersLos Angeles-based Geni, the online family tree and genealogy site, is swizzling its membership plans again, as the company looks to fine tune its business model. Geni told its users today that it has modified its "Pro" and "Plus" premium membership tiers, to make it easier for its users to understand, modifying parameters around numbers of relationships, search access, and merge permissions for family trees. Among the changes was changing the limit for basic (free) members to a maximum of a tree (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, November 2, 2011(Full story)
Republican Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson on TechnologyIn an interesting diversion from our usual interviews with startup entrepreneurs and investors, we had the chance to sit down earlier with Republican Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson, the former Governor of New Mexico, to talk about his online town hall with Los Angeles-based Yowie later today (at 5pm PST). Johnson spoke to us about his online outreach efforts, and how he's hoping those efforts will bring some visibility to his campaign.
Thanks for taking time to speak to us today. How di (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, November 2, 2011(Full story)
ReachLocal To Shut BizzyWoodland Hills-based ReachLocal, the online marketing firm which helps small and medium sized business place Internet advertising, is shutting down its Bizzy local business recommendations site, according to a blog post from the site. The site said that it will be "closing its doors soon", saying that it ultimately did not attract the number of users needed to sustain the site in the long run. ReachLocal had started Bizzy in November of 2010, looking to develop its own, social recommendations an (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, November 2, 2011(Full story)
United Online Inks Mobile Broadband DealWoodland Hills-based United Online has inked a deal to offer up mobile, broadband Internet access, via a deal today with Clearwire. According to the two companies, they are in a new, five-year wholesale agreement which will make 4G high speed broadband service available under United Online's NetZero brand name. Financial details of the deal were not announced. The two said that consumers will be able to access the broadband service by either buying a NetZero USB modem, or purchasing a NetZero pe (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, November 2, 2011(Full story)
Idealab Boosts TeamPasadena-based Idealab, the startup business incubator founded by Bill Gross, announced this morning that it has added Andy Steuer to its team. The firm said Steuer will work on new company creation, particularly in the new mobile applications area. Steuer was most recently CEO of MerchEngines, which he founded in 2005; he also has served at MusicNet (acquired by Real Networks), CNET (acquired by CBS), Infoseek (acquired by Disney), Xoom.com (acquired by NBC), and ZeroDegrees (acquired by IAC). (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, November 2, 2011(Full story)
Local Companies Support MovemberA number of local, high tech companies are putting their efforts behind Movember, a charity which helps raise funding and awareness for men's health, and particularly prostate cancer. Los Angeles-based Break Media said it has produced a number of original videos and editorial content in support of the charity; Huntington Beach-based free web conferencing service AnyMeeting said it is running a contest to see who can grow the best mustache; and LIVESTRONG, the online health site run by Demand Med (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, November 2, 2011(Full story)
Sonos Extends ChannelSanta Barbara-based Sonos, the maker of the user-friendly, multi-room, wireless music streaming systems, said Tuesday that its products are now available at over 6,300 retail locations in North America. Sonos said its product is now being carried by new retail partners, including Target, Best Buy, Brookstone, Micro Center, Future Shop, hhgregg, P.C. Richard & Son, Microsoft Windows retail stores, among others. Sonos is headed by John MacFarlane, and venture backed by BV Capital and Index Venture (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, November 2, 2011(Full story)
Emulex Installs International Operations VPCosta Mesa-based Emulex said today that it has named Adam Winkelmann as its Vice President of International operations. Emulex said Winkelmann will be responsible for all of its overseas operations, plus sales and marketing in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Winkelmann has previously served at MobileAware, Cap Gemini Sogeti, as well as other companies in the corporate finance and venture capital sector.
posted on Wednesday, November 2, 2011(Full story)
Quest Software Powers HP VMware BackupAliso Viejo-based Quest Software said today that it has certified its VMware backup, replication, and recovery software, vRanger, on HP StoreOnce Backup Systems. Quest said the move helps customer protect their VMware environments using HP's StoreOnce Backup Systems. HP StoreOnce is HP's data deduplication software, used to reduce the amount of storage needed for backups and other data.
posted on Wednesday, November 2, 2011(Full story)
iRise Names AdvisorEl Seguno-based iRise, which develops enterprise software visualization products, said Tuesday that it has named Bryan MacDonald to its board of advisors. MacDonald was formerly a Regional Managing Partner at Heidrick & Struggles, and also served as CIO of an un-named energy company. iRise develops software which allows companies to prototype and visualize their enterprise apps, without requiring software developers, making it easier for those companies to define their software projects more ful (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, November 2, 2011(Full story)