Tuesday, February 4, 2014


CallFire Names Chief Revenue Officer
Santa Monica-based voice and text-platform provider CallFire is bolstering its executive ranks today with a new hire, saying that it has named Barbara Palmer as the company's new Chief Revenue Officer. Palmer joins the company from The Search Agency, where she was President of the company; she also had previously been at United Online, Ameriquest Mortgage, Paramount Pictures, Planet Hollywood and Universal Studios Hollywood. Palmer will head up business development, marketing, and sales for Cal (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, February 4, 2014(Full story)

One Kings Lane Snags Chief Technology Officer From Zappos
One Kings Lane, the online, home furnishings flash sales site which splits its operations between San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, said today that it has snagged former Zappos.com CTO Arun Rajan as its new Chief Technology Officer. Rajan will be at the company's San Francisco offices. Rajan had been CTO at Zappos for the last four years. One Kings Lane is venture backed by Mousse Partners, Kleiner Perkins, Greylock Partners, Tiger Global Management, IVP and Scripps Networks. The firm ju (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, February 4, 2014(Full story)

textPlus Names Machinima's Nanea Reeves As President
Marina del Rey-based mobile app developer textPlus, which develops apps that provides free texting and phone service, said late Tuesday morning that it has named Nanea Reeves as President of the company. Reeves is a veteran of JAMDAT, and joins JAMDAT co-founders Scott Lahman, Austin Murray and Zachary Norman at textPlus. Reeves was most recently a key executive at Machinima, and was also Chief Product & Strategy Officer over at Gaikai before it was acquired by Sony.
posted on Tuesday, February 4, 2014(Full story)

REGEN Energy Gets $7M For Energy Management Technology
Newport Beach-based REGEN Energy announced today that it has raised $7M in a new funding round, as part of an initial close of a Series B funding. The company--which develops electric load management and demand response products for the electric industry, said the funding came from an un-named, international energy company, along with existing investors NGEN Partners and the BDC Venture Capital Energy/Cleantech Fund. REGEN Energy is led by Tim Angus, and develops systems used for automatic deman (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, February 4, 2014 (More)(Full story)

Be Green Packaging Acquired By The Riverside Company
Santa Barbara-based Be Green Packaging, a designer of sustainable, compostable, and recyclable packaging for the consumer packaged goods market, has been acquired by private equity investor Riverside Company. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. According to The Riverside Company, it will be investing heavily to help Be Green Packaging accelerate its growth, in the areas of manufacturing, sales and marketing, and research and development. Be Green Packaging's environmentally friendly (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, February 4, 2014(Full story)

JMI Equity Backs AtTask
San Diego-based private equity investor JMI Equity is the lead in a $38M funding for project management software developer AtTask. According to AtTask, it raised $38M in the Series D growth funding for its project management software, and will add JMI Equity's Peter Arrowsmith to its board. AtTask develops cloud-based, project management software, and has now raised $75M in funding. The company's other backers are GreenSpring Associates, Escalate Capital and University Venture Fund, who also par (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, February 4, 2014 (More)(Full story)

Unitas Global Gets Funding For Private Cloud Efforts
Los Angeles-based Unitas Global, a new, cloud services company founded by infrastructure veteran Grant Kirkwood, said today that it has raised a new funding round, from MK Capital and Azure Capital. Size of the funding round was not announced. Unitas Global provides cloud-based infrastructure to businesses, including enterprise private cloud, disaster recovery, data center management services, and other related offerings. The company said the new funding will help it grow its sales force and exp (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, February 4, 2014 (More)(Full story)

Pelican Products Buys UK Company
Torrance-based Pelican Products, which is best known for its protective cases and flashlights and other lighting systems, said late Monday that it has acquired UK-based Cool Logistics, a developer of temperature controlled packaging products. Financial terms of the buy were not announced. According to Pelican Products, it will merge Cool Logistics with its previously acquired Minnesota Thermal Science brand, which is part of its biopharmaceuticals division. Pelican said that the move in partic (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, February 4, 2014(Full story)

Teledyne Wins $60M NASA Contract
Thousand Oaks-based Teledyne Technologies said this morning that it has won a $60M, NASA contract to help design and manufacture a Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter (LVSA) for NASA's new Space Launch System launch vehicle. According to Teledyne, the win came via its subsidiary in Huntsville, Alabama, Teledyne Brown Engineering. The five year contract will go to support NASA's efforts to develop a new, heavy lift vehicle for delivering astronauts into space. Teledyne Brown has been involved in NASA pr (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, February 4, 2014(Full story)

ValueClick Renames Itself As Conversant
Goodbye, ValueClick, and hello, Conversant. Westlake Village-based online marketing and advertising company ValueClick said late Monday that it has rebranded itself as Conversant, with a new focus on providing an "integrated marketing personalization platform". According to ValueClick, the move will unify all five of the digital marketing companies that ValueClick has launched or acquired since 1998, including ValueClick Media, Commission Junction, Greystripe, Dotomi and Mediaplex. In addition t (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, February 4, 2014(Full story)

Kofax Names New Board Member
Irvine-based Kofax, which develops software for document capture and automation, said this morning that it has named James A. Urry as a member of its board of directors. Urry is a Partner at Augusta Columbia Capital Group, and also has served at venture firms Court Square Capital Partners and Citigroup Venture Capital. He also serves on the board of Intersil, and previously was on the board of Lyris and AMIS Holdings. Kofax develops software heavily used in the mortgage and financial industries.
posted on Tuesday, February 4, 2014(Full story)