Tuesday, November 19, 2013


Fullscreen Launches Third Party Discount Program
Los Angeles-based YouTube network Fullscreen said today that it has launched a brand new, third party discount program for video creators, which is it calling Sign In with Fullscreen. The service--which lets users sign in with Twitter or Facebook--gives Fullscreen's video creators access to discounts on t-shirts, audio tracks, closed captioning services, and much more. The links tie Fullscreen's video creators with such provides as AudioMicro, Spreadshirt, TubeStart, and many others. Fullscreen (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, November 19, 2013(Full story)

WD Backs Hightail
Irvine-based WD, via its venture investment arm, Western Digital Capital, has backed online file sharing service Hightail, in a $34M Series E funding round. Hightail--which is based in Campbell, California--said the funding round also included Alloy Ventures, Sevin Rosen, Emergence Capital, Adams Street Partners and Sigma Partners. The new funding brings the company's total raised to $83M. The investment in Hightail by Western Digital Capital was led by Mark Long. Hightail was formerly known as (More info...)
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Voxox Drops Calling Rates To The Phillippines In Wake of Disaster
San Diego-based IP communications application provider VoxOxVoxOx is dropping the rates on its phone calls to the Phillippines, the company said, to help people look to keep in touch with families and friends in the country. The company--which provides both personal cloud communications services for consumers and businesses--said it will charge a penny a minute for its international calling rate to the Philippines until at least January 1st, 2014, to help families affected by the Super Typhoon H (More info...)
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Announcing The Socaltech 50: Southern California's Up-and-Comers
We're proud to announce the Socaltech 50, our list of the 50, up-and-coming people in Southern California's technology ecosystem. Getting to this list was not easy: we received over 700 nominations for people to be considered on the list, and it took a lot of work by our selection committee to whittle down the list to the finalists. Our selection committee -- which included Marc Averitt (Okapi Venture Capital), Barbara Bry (Blackbird Ventures, founder of Proflowers), Amanda Coolong (TechZulu), (More info...)
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Scoutfit Takes On Pricing Alerts, Promotions
Looking to score the best price on that gift for the holiday season? A new, Los Angeles startup, Scoutfit, said today that it has launched a new, online shopping service which helps users track discounts and get price alerts on items during the holiday. The startup said it emails out price alerts to users whenver new promotion codes are available or a specific item dropes in price. The startup says its service tracks such sites as Amazon, Nordstrom, Nasty Gal, Topshop, West Elm, Sephora, and oth (More info...)
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TrueCar Sells 1 Million Cars, Hits $31 Billion In Total Sales
Santa Monica-based TrueCar, the auto pricing and sales company headed by Scott Painter, said late yesterday that it has sold its one millionth vehicle through its service, and that $31 billion in sales have gone through its network to date. The company says it now has nearly 40,000 monthly transactions and accounts for nearly three percent of U.S. monthly retail vehicle sales. TrueCar offers up a combination of new car pricing reports for consumers, as well as operates technology driven, auto pu (More info...)
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Zadara Wins IaaS Provider CloudSigma
Irvine-based cloud storage provider Zadara Storage and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) provider CloudSigma said this morning that the two are in a strategic partnership. According to the two companies, CloudSigma will offer up Zadara's Virtual Private Storage Array service via its IaaS offering. Financial details of the link were not announced. Zadara offers up private block and file-based, storage area network and network attached storage services to customers. The two said the link will giv (More info...)
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Glip Aims at Students, Educators With Free Plan
Los Angeles-based startup Glip, a developer of team productivity tools and software, said this morning that it is making its service free for students and educators. According to Glip, any individual with a .edu email address can sign up for free to use its team communications and collaboration service. Glip normally charges per user for its service. Glip's service lets users share documents, share and manage tasks, keep shared calendars, and collaborate through text and video group chat. The co (More info...)
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Rivalry Games Adds College Teams
Los Angeles-based fantasy football app developer Rivalry Games, which develops fantasy football games for iOS and Android, has added NCAA college teams to its app, the company said this week. According to the company, the teams have been added to its mobile app, Rivalry Fantasy Football, lettings users keep up with both pro and college football teams. The startup--founded by Justin Bauer and Nathan Leland--said it is looking to target the casual sports fan, offering up "quick-play" fantasy footb (More info...)
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Cal-X Stars Accelerator Seeks $15M
Santa Monica-based life sciences accelerator Cal-X Stars Business Accelerator said this morning that it is in an effort to raised $15M in funding for the accelerator, via a number of crowdsourcing sites. The accelerator--backed by Leonhardt Ventures--says it focuses on startups in the cardiovascular and social good areas. The firm has retained Merriman Capital to assist it in the offering. Leonhardt Ventures launched the accelerator in Santa Monica earlier this year.
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Ixia Delays Third Quarter Report
In yet more bad news over at Calabasas-based Ixia, the company said late Monday that it is further delaying filing of its 10-Q financial report, for its third quarter of 2013. The company had already delayed the report until yesterday but failed to meet the deadline. Ixia has been dealing with the sudden forced resignation of President and CEO Victor Alston, who the company had revealed had falsified his educational background. Ixia said that as a result of that resignation, the company has tapp (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, November 19, 2013(Full story)