Thursday, August 30, 2012Elevation Pharmaceuticals Acquired For $430MSan Diego-based Elevation Pharmaceuticals, the venture backed developer of treatment for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), has been acquired by Masachussets-based Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, in a deal worth up to $430M. The two said that Sunovion will pay $100M upfront, plus development milestone payments of up to $90M, and, upon regulatory approval, another $210M, along with $30M in milestones based on additional new programs. Elevation Pharmaceuticals' lead product is a (More info...)
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Recmnd.us Takes On Service RecommendationsThe team behind Recmnd.Me, the hiring and recommendations website, is applying its technology to recommending software tools, apps, and companies through a new service, Recmnd.us. The Newport Beach company--headed by Navid Nobakht, the former CTO of Buy.com--said the service is aimed at creating a free, crowdsourced search engine which users can edit to help others find the best business tools, apps or companies for whatever they need done. The company described its service as "Digg meets Yelp, (More info...)
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Virgin Dangles Suborbital Space Flight To Frequent FlyersVirgin America, the airline firm run by Sir Richard Branson, has dangled a new reward for its frequent flyers: a trip into space on Virgin Galactic, the suborbital space firm developing vehicles out in Mojave. According to the rules of a contest launched by Virgin America, Virgin will reward the person to earn the most number of status points in the next year on its frequent flyer program, Elevate, with a Virgin Galactic suborbital space flight. The contest runs through August 7th, and counts po (More info...)
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Mefeedia.com Adds New PartnersOnline social video discovery site Mefeedia said Thursday that it has added two new partners providing content to the site, MovieClips, and AnyClip. Mefeedia did not announce any details of the partnership, but did say the deal will provide it access to those firms' collection of clips from popular movies. Mefeedia's site lets user figure out what videos are popular with people, based on social networking activity; the firm also offers up a platform aimed at video producers, TV networks, and oth (More info...)
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Pokki Updates Desktop App SoftwarePokki, the desktop app software developed by San Diego-based Sweetlabs, the startup headed by former DivX exec Darrius Thompson, is launching a big update to the software today, saying that it now has over 1 million monthly active users of the software. The release launches the company out of beta. Updates to the software include a new notification center, ways to better manage and organize apps, as well as ways to discover new apps which run in the Pokki environment. Pokki is hoping to bring th (More info...)
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Amazon Santa Monica Shindig Likely To Revolve Around New Kindle Fire, TouchThe big announcement party that e-commerce giant Amazon.com has set for Santa Monica airport's Barker Hanger looks to be all about the Amazon Kindle Fire, and Amazon Kindle Touch, as the firm bragged this morning that it had "sold out" of its Kindle Fire. Kindle Fire is Amazon's tablet PC, which is based on Android. Amazon--which has been heavily promoting its press event on September 5th to tech press--started listing the Kindle Touch as out of stock Monday, and the Kindle Fire today, a very, v (More info...)
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Fliptu Bolsters Artists, CelebritiesLos Angeles-based Fliptu, the social media promotion startup headed by Jeremy Gocke, says it has started to line up a significant number of artists, bands, celebrities, and lifestyle brands for its service today. The service--which is still in beta--said it has added 50 high profile artists, brands, celebrities, and lifestyle brands reaching over 75 million fans and followers. Names and details of those customers were not announced, but a number are via a relationship Fliptu has with talent agen (More info...)
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JMI Equity, Apax Acquire Geosciences Software Firm For $1 BillionSan Diego-based JMI Equity has teamed with fellow private equity firm Apax Partners in the acquisition of Paradigm Ltd., worth $1 billion in cash, the firms involved with the transaction announced today. Paradigm is a developer of oil and gas software, used in the geosciences and exploration business. Paradigm was previously owned by private equity firm Fox Paine and Company. The companies did not outline the respective ownership split between Apax and JMI Equity. Paradigm's geoscience software (More info...)
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NuvoTV Gets $40M For Latino TVLos Angeles-based NuvoTV, a new, English-language cable network aimed at Latinos in the U.S., said it has raised $40M in a venture financing round. The round came from Columbia Capital and Rho Capital Partners, and also included Veronis Suhler Stevenson and Tennenbaum Capital Partners. The firm said the funding will go towards its programming efforts, which target "bi-cultural" Latinos between the ages of 18 and 49.
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How An Acquisition Is Helping Wittlebee Break Into The Clothing IndustryEarlier this week, Los Angeles-based Wittlebee (www.wittlebee.com) announced the acquisition of its own, clothing company--Cottonseed Clothing Company--as it continues to build out its subscription, children's clothing service. Wittleebee is backed by Science Inc., and co-founder Sean Percival is a MySpace vet and a familiar face in Southern California's social media circles. We caught up with Sean to learn more about the acquisition, and how the buy of Cottonseed is one of the things helping th (More info...)
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Wallaby Raises $1.1M For Smart Credit CardPasadena-based Wallaby, the digital wallet startup out of MuckerLab, has scored $1.1M in a funding round, the company announced this morning. The firm--which is led by Matthew Goldman--said the funding came from the Founders Fund Angel and and WI Harper Group, along with SLP Ventures, Lion Wells Capital, and other angels. Those angels, while un-named, including former Green Dot executives. Wallaby is developing a credit card, which automatically routes transactions to a consumers' other credit c (More info...)
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WD Targets Mac With New External Hard Drive SystemIrvine-based disk drive maker WD is targeting Mac OS X users with a new external hard drive system, the My Book VelociRaptor Duo, which it says is one of the fastest external HDD systems available on the market. WD said its new system is aimed at Mac computer users and creative professionals, and includes two, 1 TB, 10,000 RPM hard drives. The 2 TB dual-drive system is aimed at editing high resolution video and other high throughput applications like graphic design, digital media, and photo edit (More info...)
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DataDirect Networks Names European HeadChatsworth-based storage provider DataDirect Networks has named a new head of its European operations, the firm said Wednesday. DataDirect, which develops data storage products aimed at high performance computing and other sectors, said that it has named Pascal Barbolosi as Vice President, EMEA. Barbolosi was previously at Bull, heading up its High Performance Computing (HPC) business unit.
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SOA Software Trumpets Business Transactions VolumeLos Angeles-based SOA Software, the developer of service oriented architecture (SOA), cloud, and other enterprise API management software, said Tuesday that its products are now handling more than 50 billion business transactions per year. The firm pointed to the volume as proof that it's a "core part" of critical enterprise systems. SOA's software is used by companies to manage messages and transactions between business applications. It's unclear how that volume of usage translates into finance (More info...)
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