Wednesday, January 2, 2013Insights and Opinions: Startup MentorsIn our Insights and Opinions section, we regularly feature useful advice, opinions, and more from the local community. For this year's first article, we share the advice of Tony Karrer, Founder and CTO of TechEmpower, Founder and CTO of Aggregage and organizer of the LA CTO Forum and Startup Specialist Network, two local groups focused on startups.
I've had several startup CTO consulting sessions recently where it became apparent that the Founder needed help with the business and product (More info...)
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Broadcom Leads In Connectivity ChipsThat brand new, Wi-fi connected tablet you got for Christmas? The new GPS-enabled smartphone you got in your stocking? All of that is good for Broadcom, the Irvine-based semiconductor maker, according to a report published Wednesday from ABI Research. According to the report, Broadcom is the leading supplier for chips powering Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, satellite positioning, near-field communications and ZigBee communications, and will "continue to dominate" in 2013.
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TapIt Media Acquired By Phunware For $23MIrvine, California-based TapIt Media Group, the operator of a mobile advertising network, has been acquired by mobile apps infrastructure developer Phunware, the two firms announced Wednesday. Phunware said it paid $23M for TapIt, in a deal which closed on December 28th. Phunware said that all of TapIt's facilities and employees join the company. TapIt Media ran a mobile advertising network, with a reach of over six billion ad impressions per month, across 30,000 active publishers, the firms sai (More info...)
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Ignyta Lands $6M For Personalized MedicineSan Diego-based Ignyta has raised $6M in a Series B funding, the firm said over the holidays. The firm said the funding included $5.5M in a Series B equity funding and $500,000 in a capital term loan from Silicon Valley Bank. The first close of the Series B came in June of 2012, and was worth $2.1M, with the remaining $3.4M from Colt Ventures, City Hill Ventures, and others. Ignyta is working on personalized medicine for treatment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), lupus and other autoi (More info...)
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The Gores Group Completes Therakos AcquisitionLos Angeles-based private equity firm The Gores Group said today that it has completed the acquisition of Therakos, a New Jersey-based firm which provides systems used for immunomodulatory therapy. Financial terms of the buy were not announced. Therakos was part of Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Inc. Gores has named Michael Rechtiene as CEO of Therakos as part of the acquisition. Gores originally announced the acquisition in October.
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Report: Broadcom In Deal To Power 802.11ac For New MacsA new report this morning says that Irvine-based semiconductor maker Broadcom has inked a deal to power super-fast Wi-Fi connectivity on Apple's new 2013 lineup of Macs. The report, from TheNextWeb, said that Broadcom will power the 802.11ac networking features of an updated lineup of Mac machines, a boost from current 802.11n support. 802.11ac supports speeds of up to 1.3Gbps using three antennas. TheNextWeb cited sources "familiar with Apple's plans" for the information.
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Elon Musk Settles In With New, Bel-Air MansionIt looks like Elon Musk, the tech mogul behind Hawthorne-based SpaceX, is settling further into Los Angeles, and has purchased a $17M mansion in Bel Air. The buy was first reported by the LA Times. Musk--who has been splitting his time between Los Angeles and Silicon Valley--is also head of electric car company Tesla Motors, and solar leasing firm SolarCity. Musk is actually among the more unusual tech-executives-with-Southern California mansions, in that he is very active with a Los Angeles com (More info...)
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Fandango: Best Year EverLos Angeles-based Fandango, the online and mobile movie ticketing service which is a unit of NBCUniversal, said today that its 2012 was its "best year in company history". The company said it had a 12-year record high in ticket sales, web and mobile traffic, and app downloads. Fandango said it was seeing around 41 million monthly unique online and mobile visitors in its peak months of 2012. The site did not give any financial details of its year, but did say it saw a 57 percent surge in annual t (More info...)
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Angel5 Highlights Top Angel InvestorsIf you're a startup, one of the popular ways to reach out to angel investors is through the site AngelList. However, it's often difficult to sort through the many angel investors and others on the site in a useful way. To solve that, Southern California's own Sean Percival (founder and CEO of Wittlebee), has cooked up Angel5. Angel5 helps startups and others sort through who are the top angel investors, filtered by everything from region, to type of companies, to what accelerators those angels m (More info...)
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Independa Raises $5M In Series ASan Diego-based Independa, the developer of electronics products and software to help seniors live independently longer, has raised $5M in its Series A funding round, the firm announced this morning. The firm said the funding came from City Hill Ventures, strategic partner LG Electronics USA, and other investors. Independa is led by Kian Saneii. Independa said the new funds will go to expand its network of distributors and channel partners, and also will go towards R&D, sales, and marketing.
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Nexsan Acquired By ImationThousand Oaks-based Nexsan, the developer of data storage arrays, has been acquired by Imation, the firms said this morning. According to the two, Imation will pay $120M for Nexsan, comprised of $105M in cash and $15M in stock. Imation said the buy will help provide it with a "proven technology platform" and portfolio of disk and hybrid disk/solid state storage systems. Philip Black, CEO of Nexsan, will join Imation, along with the rest of Nexsan's management team. The two said that Nexsan's 201 (More info...)
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9 Ways socalTECH Can Help You With Your New Year's ResolutionsHave you compiled your list of New Year's resolutions? We're here to help you in 2013, with our own set of ways we might be able to help you reach your goals for the coming year.
1. Find a new job. Browse our job postings, and navigate our (new) extensive map of Southern California high tech companies in your neighborhood.
2. Get new customers. Sign up for our daily email newsletter to get our news delivered to you directly every morning, or search our news archives. Or, sign up for our da (More info...)
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Fisker Automotive Sues Insurer Over Flooded CarsAnaheim-based electric auto firm Fisker Automotive has filed a lawsuit against its insurance company, over the 338 Karma cars which were destroyed in Hurricane Sandy. The lawsuit, against XL Insurance America, claims breach of contract for denying coverage for the damaged vehicles, which were parked in Port Newark, New Jersey. The autos were among the thousands damaged in Sandy from multiple manufacturers. Apparently, Fisker estimated a loss of $33M from the loss of those cars, just one of the m (More info...)
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Crystal Engineering Acquired By AMETEKSan Luis Obispo-based Crystal Engineering, a developer of high tech, digital pressure calibrators and digital test gauges, has been acquired by Berwyn, Pa.-based AMETEK. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. AMETEK said that Crystal Engineering becomes part of AMETEK Measurement & Calibration Technologies (M&CT), a division of AMETEK's Electronic Instruments Group.
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Cohu Completes Ismeca BuyPoway-based semiconductor test equipment provider Cohu said today that it has completed its acquisition of Ismeca Semiconductor Holding SA, a Switzerland-based provider of test handling and back-end finishing equipment for ICs, LEDs and discrete components. The deal was worth $54.5M. The two had originally announced the buy on December 9th. Cohu said Isemca had unaudited sales for the twelve months ended June 2012 of approximately $84M. Cohu acquired Ismeca Semiconductor from Schweiter Technolog (More info...)
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Kurion Shuffles ExecsIrvine-based Kurion, the venture-backed developer of nuclear waste management technology, said this morning that it has shuffled its executive team. Ralph DiSibio, the company's Chairman of the board, becomes Executive Chairman and CEO. Former President and CEo John Raymont becomes Vice-Chairman and President, International Operations/M&A Initiatives. Raymont founded Kurion in 2008, and will focus primarily on Kurion's efforts in Japan where the firm has been working on cesium removal at the Fuk (More info...)
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Vitesse CTO Names To Industry BoardCamarillo-based Vitesse Semiconductor said today that Martin Nuss, the company's Chief Technology Officer, has been named to the board of directors for the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS). Vitesse said Nuss joins the group to focus on next-generation wired and wireless networks.
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