Monday, March 5, 2012


Activision Blizzard Snags New CFO From Microsoft
Santa Monica-based Activision Blizzard said this morning that it has hired a new CFO. The firm said that Dennis Durkin has been named Chief Financial Officer, and will report to CEO Bobby Kotick. Durkin was most recently Corporate Vice President, Chief Operating and Financial Officer of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, which is in charge of Microsoft's Xbox game controller. He also has served at Alex. Brown and Company. Durkin takes over for interim CFO Thomas Tippl, who has held (More info...)
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Burstly Buys TestFlight
Los Angeles-based Burstly, the mobile advertising technology firm headed by Evan Rifkin, said today that it has acquired TestFlight,. a developer of a real-time dashboard which provides mobile advertising and revenue analytics for iOS apps. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. TestFlight's product provides iOS developers with information on an app's audience, revenue, engagement, and other metrics. Burstly is backed by GRP Partners, Rincon Venture Partners, and SoftBank, and announced (More info...)
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Nasty Gal Gains $9M For Online Fashion
Los Angeles-based Nasty Gal, an online fashion retailer which focuses on vintage clothing, said Monday that it has raised $9M in a funding round. The round came from Index Ventures. Nasty Gal is led by Sophia Amoruso, who started the company selling vintage clothing on eBay in 2006; the company says its now had over $28M in revenues in 2011, with revenues increasing around 500 percent each year. The firm said the funds will go towards technology, operations, creative curation, and editorial desi (More info...)
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Numecent Emerges From Stealth
Irvine-based Numecent, a new startup which was spun out of Endeavors Technology, said today that it has launched a new, cloud-based product which turns any Windows application into a cloud-enabled product. The firm said that its technology allows software to appear in your Windows Start menu as a local application, but which actually runs in the cloud, providing native execution speeds and storing its data in the cloud. The firm says its "cloudpaging" technology allows apps to run without having (More info...)
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ReachLocal Appoints Chief Product Officer
Woodland Hills-based ReachLocal has set a new, Chief Product Officer, the firm announced this morning. The provider of services to help small businesses place Internet advertising said it named Kris Barton to the position. Barton was previously at Nero, where he was Chief Operating Officer. Nero also had served at Microsoft, heading up product development for MSN.com and MSN Network, in addition to serving at Omniture and Novell. ReachLocal said Barton will be responsible for development of new (More info...)
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Interview with Aaron Hirschhorn, DogVacay.com
Do you have a pet dog, and do you travel a lot? If so, you're probably familiar with the travails of having to find a kennel to place your dog into, are constantly worrying about how your dog is doing in that kennel, and probably are feeling a little guilty, too, about having them locked up all week while you are away. To address that worry, Los Angeles-based DogVacay (www.dogvacay.com) lauched last week -- just in time for SXSW -- to help connect dog owners with individual dog lovers to help (More info...)
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Broadom Expands 10GbE, 40GbE Products
Irvine-based Broadcom said announced a new set of 10GbE and 40GbE products. According to the firm, it has shipped four new physical layer transceivers (PHYS) for the 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 40GbE markets for the optical fiber communications market, as well as a new 40G Serial Mux/Demux chipset. Both sets of products are used for data center and enterprise networking. Both announcements were made to coincide with the ongoing OFC/NFOEC Technical Conference, a conference aimed at the optical fiber (More info...)
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KYTHERA Biopharmaceuticals Launches Phase III Trials
Los Angeles-based KYTHERA Biopharmaceuticals, the venture-backed developer of aesthetic medicine products, said today that it has intiated two, PHase II trials of its injectable drugs for reducing under-the-chin fat. KYTHERA is developing drugs used for submental, under-the-chin fat. The company said the two trials will be conducted in approximately 70 centers across the U.S. and Canada, enrolling a total of 1,000 patients. The company said the U.S. trials follow a European Phase II trial of its (More info...)
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SMC Networks Names Technology VP
Irvine-based SMC Networks, the developer of cable gateway and other networking hardware, announced today that it has named John Edmund Sweeney as VP of Technology. Sweeney joins the company from set-top box maker Scientific-Atlanta/Cisco Systems, and also served at Honeywell, Inc. Sweeney reports to Joe Wytanis, EVP and COO of SMC.
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Acacia Research Names Two VPs
Newport Beach-based Acacia Research, the technology patent licensing firm, said today that it has named two VPs. The firm said it has named Eric Lucas as Senior Vice President, and John Schneider as Vice President at the company. Lucas joins from Alcatel Lucent, and also has served at The Boeing COmpany, Cambridge Display Technology, Motorola, Harman International, and Discovision Associates. Schneider was previously at Fulbright & Jaworski, and also served at Exxon Mobile Chemical Company, Fish (More info...)
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