Friday, January 18, 2013Report: Pop Up Pantry Shuts DownLos Angeles-based Pop Up Pantry, the LaunchpadLA incubated gourmet food delivery startup, is shutting down, according to a report. The report, from PandoDaily, said that the company shut down due to the high costs of delivering food anywhere in the country. The shutdown comes a mere seven months after the firm raised $1.7M in a funding round from GRP Partners and Crosscut Ventures.
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Local Startups Draw Far And Wide For Funding In Q4If you're a Southern California startup, it's most likely you're going to find funding from local, Southern California startup funds, right? Maybe not. According to data from the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers/NVCA MoneyTree report, the funding for Southern California's startups in Q4 of 2012 came from a total of 124 different venture groups, only 26 of which (20%) were actually based in Southern California. Among the top investors, some of the most active (500 Startups, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, (More info...)
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Calacanis Backs 15FiveJason Calacanis, the Los Angeles angel investor, podcast host, speaker, conference organizer, and CEO of Mahalo, is one of the angel investors in employee feedback firm 15Five. 15Five, a San Francisco company developing an online platform to help companies gather employee feedback and ideas, said it raised $1M earlier this week, gathered from Richmond Global, 500 Startups, David Sacks (Yammer), John Ham (USTREAM), Jason Calacanis (Mahalo/LAUNCH) and Ben Parr (#DOMINATEFUND), Matt Brezina (Xobni) (More info...)
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Scopely Snags Zynga VetScopely, the Los Angeles-based gaming startup headed by Walter Driver, has snagged yet another Zynga veteran for the firm, the firm said Friday morning. Scopely said it has hired on Andy Kleinman, former Zynga GM, as its Chief Business Officer. Kleinman was most recently General Manager of Latin America for Zynga, and also founded EMEPE3.com, the first and one of the biggest online music websites in Spanish. He's also been involved with Vostu.com and Three Melons (acquired by Playdom). Kleinman (More info...)
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JustFab Buys FabKidsOnline fashion site JustFab, which is headed by Adam Goldenberg and Don Ressler, is acquiring children's fashion service FabKids, the firm announced this morning. Financial details of the buy were not disclosed. JustFab, which is backed by Rho Ventures, Matrix Partners, Technology Crossover Ventures, and Intelligent Beauty, is one of a crop of fashion-based startups which have been growing in Southern California; the firm is also very well backed, with $76M in a round for the company last July f (More info...)
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Venture Numbers From Dow Jones Also Show Big Investment DropIn the second set of venture capital numbers released today, Dow Jones VentureSource has released its tabulation of Q4 2012 venture capital financings, reporting similar numbers to those from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the National Venture Capital Association, and Thomson Reuters released earlier this morning. According to Dow Jones, it also tabulated a decline in fourth quarter investments in 2012, with companies raising $6.6 billion in 733 venture capital deals; that was a 20 percent decrease in (More info...)
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CoreLogic Buys CDS Business MappingCoreLogic, the Irvine-based provider of residential property information, services, and analytics, said this morning that it has acquired a digital mapping firm, CDS Business Mapping, LLC. CoreLogic said it paid $78M in cash for CDS. CDS provides underwriting information and property reports to insurance carriers, including reporting property-specific hazard like distance to coast, flood zones, rating territories, proximity to brush, wind pool eligibility and earthquake information. CDS was base (More info...)
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The Trade Desk Names COOVentura- and New York-based online advertising firm The Trade Desk announced Thursday that it has named Rob Perdue as its new Chief Operating Officer. Perdue was most recently COO at EyeWonder, a rich media and video ad serving firm, and also has been an investment banker with Jordan, Edmiston Group. Perdue apparently helped to broker the acquisition of EyeWonder by MediaMind in 2011. The Trade Desk said Perdue will be based in The Trade Desk's New York offices. The Trade Desk develops real-time (More info...)
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Life Technologies Hires Investment Bankers, Looks For BuyerCarlsbad-based Life Technologies said this morning that it has hired two investment banking firms, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Moelis & Company LLC, to assist it in what it called an "annual strategic review". However, according to a Canadian newspaper, the investment bankers are actually looking to help drum up interest in buyers for the company. The Financial Post reports that Life Technologies is seeking a private equity buyer or other acquirer for the company, and has talked with Black (More info...)
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Causora Taps Into Passions, Skills For Charity FundraisingA new, Los Angeles startup, Causora, said this week that it has launched a new online marketplace to help users convert their passions and skills into charitable donations. The startup allows users to offer up their services--anything from math tutoring, cooking lessons, yoga lessons, to making a video-- with anything earned from those efforts going to a charity of their choice. The startup said it had over 100 nonprofit organizations and foundations signed up to the site already. The new startu (More info...)
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Southern California Venture Deals Hit $683.7M in Q4 2012
The latest numbers from the PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree report were released today, finding that a total of $683.7M was invested across Southern California in Q4 of 2012. That total was less than the $859.6M raised by companies in Q4 of 2011, and less than the $701.18M raised by companies in the region in Q3 of 2012. The funding brings Southern California's total 2012 investments to $3.2 billion in venture capital.
Los Angeles had a total of $311.2 (More info...)
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