Monday, July 1, 2013Intuit Sells Intuit Financial Services For $1.025 BillionFinancial software provider Intuit has sold its Intuit Financial Services business--which is based in Woodland Hills--to private equity firm Thoma Bravo. Intuit announced the deal on Monday, saying the cash transaction is worth approximately $1.025 billion. Intuit Financial Services is made of of what was formerly Digital Insight; Intuit renamed Digital Insight to Intuit Financial Services in March of 2010.
The companies said that Thoma Bravo will provide Intuit Financial Serviecs with both l (More info...)
posted on Monday, July 1, 2013(Full story)
FIGS Raises $2M In Seed For Fashionable ScrubsFIGS, a Culver City startup offering up fashionable medical scrubs, has raised $2M in a seed funding round. The round came from Crocs, Mohr Davidow Ventures, 500 Startups, Karlin Ventures, as well as others. FIGS was founded by Heather Hasson and Trina Spear, and combines both e-commerce with charity, saying that it gives a set of its scrubs to a healthcare provider in need with every set of scrubs it sells, through an effort called "Threads for Threads". FIGS says it works with Doctors without (More info...)
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RealD Takes On Imax With Theater BrandLos Angeles-based 3D movie projection technology provider RealD is hoping to leverage its brand across multiple theater
chains, and take on Imax, with a new brand called "LUXE: A RealD Experience". RealD detailed the strategic move last week, saying that it will provide standards for a premium, large format experience in both 2D and 3D. The branding and standards move is similar to what IMAX does for large format, premium movies. RealD said it will unify the exhibition company under one brand a (More info...)
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DTS Hits 20 YearsIn the world of technology, the lifespan of companies is usually measured in years (if not months). Among those local firms to cross over into multiple decades today is Calabasas-based DTS, which said today that it just hit 20 years since being founded in 1993. DTS provides audio enhancement technology, which is widely used in encoding soundtracks for movies. DTS has most recently been working on its DTS Headphone:X technology, which brings the company's multi-dimensional, surround sound to head (More info...)
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MannKind Gets $160M In Debt FundingValancia-based MannKind, which provides discovery, development, and commercialization of therapeutics products, said Monday that it has received $160M in a debt financing round. The publicly traded firm said the funding came from affiliates of Deerfield Management Company, L.P. MannKind said the financing is divided into four traches of $40M each, tied to a number of milestones, including release of results from a Phase 3 clinical studies of its lead compound; repayment of a term loan; and FDA a (More info...)
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Incubating LA's Biotech Future, With Richard Koffler, Greenwings Biomedical
A couple of weeks ago, a brand new, startup incubator launched in town--with a slightly different focus, on biomedical technology. The incubator--Greenwings Biomedical (www.greenwingsbiomedical.com), is led by Richard Koffler, a serial entrepreneur and angel investor in Los Angeles. Koffler tells us why Greenwings isn't just another accelerator --and instead, is internally incubating companies based on research from local universities. He sat down with us to tell us more about the incubator, p (More info...)
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Insights and Opinions: The Emergence of Los Angeles as a Booming Tech HubHas Los Angeles finally made it as a technology hub? For our Insights and Opinions section this morning, investment banker Ivan Nikkhoo argues that LA has become a booming technology hub.
Last week I had the pleasure of spending time at the various Silicon Beach Fest activities in Santa Monica. My conclusion: Los Angeles is a serious tech hub.
Make no mistake; we still have a long ways to go. There is a serious lack of growth capital. There are still very few large, brand name successe (More info...)
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Report: CityGrid Lays Off Two Thirds Of StaffA report this morning says that West Hollywood-based CityGrid, the parent firm of CitySearch, Urbanspoon, and InsiderPages, has laid off two thirds of its staff. The layoffs--reported by TechCrunch--reportedly affected 130 people. It's unclear how many of those staff are based in Los Angeles, but CityGrid has a significant presence in the LA area. The new cuts follow an earlier layoff in October of 2012, which also resulted in the loss of a number of positions in Los Angeles.
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VIMBY Powers Walmart's Entrepreneurship Competition
VIMBY, the Los Angeles-based, online production studio created by Mark Burnett, is powering a new entrepreneurship competition from Walmart, the Get On The Shelf crowdsourcing competition. According to Walmart, via its Silicon Valley-based @WalmartLabs unit, it is running the contest to let entrepreneurs get their products noticed and sold on its website and potentially, the Walmart store chain.
As part of the contest, Walmart said that it will provide broad exposure to products submitted t (More info...)
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CoreLogic Buys Marshall & Swift/Boeckh And DataQuick In $661M Deal
Irvine-based CoreLogic, which provides residential property information and analytics, said this morning that it has acquired two companies, in a deal worth $661M. According to CoreLogic, it has acquired Marshall & Swift/Boeckh, a provider of building cost information, residential and commercial analytics solutions and business management services for property insurance companies, financial services organizations and the public sector. It also has acquired DataQuick Information Systems, which (More info...)
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Triton Digital Wins Varick Media ManagementLos Angeles-based Triton Digital, which develosp technology for digital audio advertising and publishing, reported a win with Varick Media Management, a provider of programmatic streaming audio ads. According to Triton, it will provide its inventory to Varick. The companies asid the deal is the first time that streaming audio ads will be available via Varick's data management platform. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Triton Digital said its inventory includes online and mobile (More info...)
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Cytori Gets $27M In LoanSan Diego-based Cytori Therapeutics announced this morning that it has entered into a $27M, term loan, from Oxford Finance Corporation and Silicon Valley Bank. The biotechnology developer, which is developing treatments for cardiovascular disease and other conditions, said the term loan is being used to prepay and existing loan with GE Capital, Oxford Finance Corporation, and Silicon Valley Bank. Cytori said the new loan has a fixed interest rate of 9.75%, and includes a 12-month, interest-only (More info...)
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