Friday, February 28, 2014Websense To Move 470 Jobs To TexasSan Diego-based cybersecurity developer Websense announced Friday that it is officially moving its headquarters to Austin, Texas, and moving 470 jobs to the city. The move--which was announced earlier this month by Texas Governor Rick Perry--comes after a concerted effort by Texas to convince Websense, and its new private equity owners Vista Equity, to relocate its headquarters. Texas is providing a $4.5M grant to Websense--plus incentives worth around $438,000--to move Websense to Austin, as a (More info...)
posted on Friday, February 28, 2014(Full story)
Bitium Gets $6.5M For Enterprise SoftwareSanta Monica-based Bitium announced Friday that it has raised $6.5M in a Serie A funding, to go towards its app management, single sign-on, and analytics tools. The startup--which was founded by Scott Kriz and Erik Gustavson--said the round came from Polaris Ventures, Amplify, Resolute VC, Double M Partners, Social Leverage, Karlin Ventures, Lazerow Ventures and Rob Glaser. Dave Barrett of Polaris has joined the company's board. The company said the new funding will go towards product developmen (More info...)
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Maverick Angels Merging Members Into Tech Coast Angels, Say MembersLocal angel investment group Maverick Angels is merging its membership base into the much larger Tech Coast Angels, according to members of the groups. The move has not yet been announced by either group--however, Maverick Angels has been advertising an event about the "launch of our new company" in March, implying some big changes for the angel group. Maverick Angels--which was founded by the late John Dilts--was one of a number of angel investment groups active in making investments in local s (More info...)
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Adaptive Medias Names CTOIrvine-based Adaptive Medias, the developer of programmatic advertising technology which acquired StartEngine's Ember back in December, said Thursday that it has named Bryan Nguyen as its Chief Technology Officer. Nguyen has previously served at MyBuys.com and Traffic Marketplace. One of Adaptive Medias' largest shareholders is Ben Padnos, the Internet entrepreneur behind such companies as DONE! Ventures, Audioo, BetterPPC, and others, and also is an investor in a number of local venture funds. (More info...)
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Quick Pitch Friday: Taher Scherzay, Thaeres
For our pitch today, we have an interview with Taher Scherzay, founder of Thaeres (www.thaeres.com), a Los Angeles area startup developing subscription and recurring payment processing services. Scherzay was previously the CTO at CrowdGather, and also had founded social media software firm FavRav.
What is Thaeres about?
Taher Scherzay: We launched Thaeres last July. For organizations that have subscription or recurring revenue, Thaeres is a billing system that fully automates the operati (More info...)
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Surf Air Swaps CEOLos Angeles-based Surf Air, the startup which has been pioneering a membership-drive, all-you-can-fly airline providing a link between Southern California and Silicon Valley, as well as a number of other locations, told its members this week that it has named Jeff Potter--former CEO of Frontier Airlines--as its CEO. Founder Wade Eyerly is stepping down. Surf Air also said that Sudhin Shahani has been named Executive Chairman, and Jim Sullivan--former VP of Flight Operations at Frontier Airlines- (More info...)
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Hulu Sells Off Japanese BusinessLos Angeles-based streaming television service Hulu announced late Thursday that it is selling its Japanese business to Nippon Television Network Corporation (Nippon TV). Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Nippon TV said it would use the acuqisition to enter into the subscription, video-on-demand business. Hulu had only launched services in Japan three years ago, in September of 2011.
Hulu is jointly owned by NBCUniversal, 21st Century Fox, and The Walt Disney Company. According t (More info...)
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Mast Therapeutics Completes Acquisition of Aires PharmaceuticalsSan Diego-based Mast Therapeutics said yesterday that it has completed its acquisition of Aires Pharmaceuticals, the company developing treatments for pulmonary arterial hypertension. The deal is worth around $5.2M, and was announced earlier this month. Aires' primary product was AIR001, an intermittently nebulized formulation of nitrite used for reducing inflammation.
posted on Friday, February 28, 2014(Full story)