Tuesday, January 29, 2013


Rubicon Project: LA's Next IPO?
Rubicon Project, the online advertising technology firm headed by serial entrepreneur Frank Addante, looks like it may just be the next Southern California company to file for an IPO, based on a number of executive appointments made Tuesday. Rubicon--which has widely been rumored to be in preparation for an IPO, among local executives--said Tuesday that it has named Greg Raifman as President of the firm, and Todd Tappin as COO and CFO. Raifman was most recently at LiveRail, and also founded Medi (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013(Full story)

Who'll Be The Next CEO of Hulu?
Jason Kilar, the CEO of Los Angeles-based Hulu, is due to leave the firm on April 1st--but Hulu has yet to find a successor, according to an AdAge report today. The streaming TV and movie service, which is set to hit nearly $1 billion in revenues this year, is one of Southern California's biggest technology/Internet companies, despite a strange relationship with its studio owners, which include Disney, News Corp., and Comcast. However, AdAge says that Hulu has yet to appoint a search firm to fin (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013(Full story)

DreamHost Debuts Public Cloud Storage Service Into GA
DreamHost, the Los Angeles-based web hosting and cloud services provider, said Tuesday that it has debuted its DreamObjects public cloud storage service into general availability, aiming the service at application storage, Web site backup, content storage, disaster recovery, as well as personal backups. The new service--which is built on Ceph, the open source storage project spun out of DreamHost--follows an earlier, smaller scale launch of the service last year to a smaller audience. DreamO (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013(Full story)

DB Networks Gets $4.5M For Database Security
DB Networks, a developer of a firewall specifically designed to counteract SQL injection and database denial of service attacks on websites and web applications, has raised $4.5M in a funding round. The San Diego company said it raised the Series B round from Khosla Ventures. As part of the funding, Shirish Sathaye of Khosla Ventures joins the company's board of directors. DB Networks said it is developing a security platform which reacts to real-time, database attacks, including SQL injection a (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013 (More)(Full story)

EventUp Hits Eight Locations, Plans Further Expansion
EventUp, the online marketplace which helps people find and book unique venues for their events, has now expanded into eight markets, after recently adding Washington, D.C., to its list of cities. The company, which now has operations in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, said that the market is among a number of markets it plans to expand into during 2013, as it rolls out its service nationwide. EventUp says it now has over 5,000 venues signed up fo rits serv (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013(Full story)

Event Honors Sky Dayton, Identifies SoCal's Tech and Innovation Leaders
Who are the top technology and innovations leaders? C-Suite Quarterly has identified the top leaders in Southern California's technology industry, and is honoring them Wednesday evening at an event at the Viceroy in Santa Monica. The event--which is being sponsored by HP, Macallan, Cohiba, and others, is honoring Boingo's Sky Dayton, as well as other entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, Brian Lee, Bill Gross, Karen Kerr, Gil Elbaz, Richard Rosenblatt, Josh Berman, Adam Miller, Brandon Beck, John Kei (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013(Full story)

SpaceX's Elon Musk Rides To 787 Rescue
Can Elon Musk, the technology mogul behind SpaceX, Tesla Motors, and SolarCity help solve the battery problems dodging Boeing and its troubled 787 Dreamliner? It appears that Musk might be riding to the rescue, saying on Twitter over the weekend that he is "corresponding" with the 787's Chief Engineer to help the airplane maker with its battery issues. Musk had said earlier this month that Tesla and SpaceX are "happy to help" solve issues with the 787's Lithium ion batteries. Tesla has been a (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013(Full story)

Qualcomm Wins Smart Meter Maker Itron
San Diego-based Qualcomm Technologies has scored a design win with Itron, a maker of smart energy and electricity makers. Itron said today that it has linked with Qualcomm Technologies, a subsidiary of Qualcomm, to use Qualcomm's Gobi MDM8x15 chipset for its next generation smart energy platforms. Financial impact of the win was not disclosed. Itron is using Qualcomm's chips to connect its smart meters across cellular networks, including 4G-LTE, 3G, and 2G networks. Qualcomm's chips are used for (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013(Full story)

Teledyne Buys RESON
Thousand Oaks-based Teledyne Technologies announced this morning that it has entered into an agreement to acquire RESON A/S, a developer of high-resolution marine acoustic imaging and measurement products. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. Teledyne said the buy will bolster its ability to provide 3D imaging solutions for full ocean depth survey, shallow water and coastal zone imaging, terrestrial and airborne mapping, and other applications. RESON's technology is used in a variety o (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013(Full story)

Sierra Wireless AirCard Sold To NETGEAR
The AirCard business of Sierra Wireless, which has much of its operations in Carlsbad, has been sold to NETGEAR, according to the firms. Sierra Wireless said it paid approximately $138M in cash for the AirCard business of Sierra Wireless, and is expecting to hire approximately 160 employees from Sierra Wireless as part of the deal. Those employees are primarily located in Carlsbad, California and Richmond, British Columbia. Sierra Wireless AirCard develops mobile, broadband devices used by consu (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013(Full story)

Silicon Beach Firms Plan Showcase At SXSW
A local group is planning an Silicon Beach-themed event at the upcoming SXSW Interactive event in Austin, to help showcase the diversity of companies in the LA tech industry. According to organizers Kevin Winston of DigitalLA and Nicole Jordan of Radix Collective, the Silicon Beach Sunday Funday--planned for March 10th--will include a mixture of companies from multiple verticals - everything from fashion to enterprise to demo, connect, and network at SXSW. The group said it hopes to include 20 o (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013(Full story)

EcoMom's Jody Sherman Passes Away
Jody Sherman, founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based startup Ecomom, has passed away, according posts on his Facebook account and in multiple reports. Details on Sherman's death have not been released or confirmed by EcoMom or his family, however, the news first came via a post credited to his wife, Kerri, on Facebook. EcoMom is venture backed by Blue Pacific Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Cue Ball, Rising Tide, Vegas Tech Rhodium and Embarcadero Ventures; it's unclear on how the company plans to mo (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013(Full story)

FileTrek Adds Reseller
FileTrek, the developer of file tracking software, said today that it has signed up a value added reseller in the security, risk, legal, and compliance area. The firm said that NuTech Integrated Systems has partnered with the firm, via a reseller agreement. FileTrek said its software allows companies to monitor their sensitive information, including the location of a file, who has worked on it, how it has been moved, and the genealogy relationships of files. The firm now looks to be targeting th (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013(Full story)

Beachfront Media Ties Into Connected TVs
Burbank-based Beachfront Media, which develops video publishing and syndication tools, and also runs the MeFeedia video discovery site, has extended its platform to support publishing video to connected TVs. The firm said it now supports publishing videos to LG, Samsung, Roku, and most Google TV products using its Beachfront Builder software. Beachfront Media is headed by Frank Sinton. Beachfront Media recently shifted from its consumer focus on MeFeedia to providing the tools and backend softwa (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013(Full story)

Infinitely Virtual Shifts Backup Data Center To Boston
Santa Monica-based Infinitely Virtual, which provides cloud computing and virtual servers to clients, said today that it is moving its backup data center from San Diego to Boston. The firm's primary data center remains in Los Angeles. Infinitely Virtual provides cloud hosting services, including virtual server hosting, hosted MIcrosoft Exchange Server, and other hosted services like Sharepoint. The firm said the move will allow customers to select a data center of choice for its services.
posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013(Full story)