Monday, May 19, 2014GoPro, With SoCal Ties, Files For IPOAction sports camera maker GoPro, which has a few Southern California connections, has filed for an IPO, saying Monday in a regulatory filing that it is looking to raise $100M on the NASDAQ Global Select Market as GPRO. The firm's founder, Nicholas Woodman, is a graduate of UC San Diego, and came up with the idea for the company while surfing off of San Diego; the company's investors also include Steamboat Ventures--the venture arm of Walt Disney--which looks to own something around 3 percent of (More info...)
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FarFaria, Education.com Target Southern California TeachersMobile children's story app developer FarFaria and online parenting and education site Education.com are targeting the Southern California market, with an offer to provide 10,000 local teachers with a year of access to FarFaria's storytime application. According to the companies, they will give away unlimited access to its apps to teachers if they register on the company's site. FarFaria is based in San Francisco, and backed by Inventus Capital Partners. Education.com is backed by Azure Capital (More info...)
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Incentive Raises $1.8M, Sets Up Shop In LAIncentive Corp, a developer of private, intranet services aimed at small and medium sized business users, said this morning that it has raised $1.8M in a funding round, and set up shop in Los Angeles. The startup--which has headquarters in Malmo, Sweden--said the funding will go towards launching in the United States. The funding came from un-named angel investors. Incentive is led by Rickard Hansson; the company's software offers up activity streams, wikis, blogs, and other social apps for comp (More info...)
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Qualcomm Ventures Gets Exit At BYOD Software Maker DivideSan Diego-based Qualcomm Ventures, the venture capital arm of Qualcomm, has scored an exit this morning, at bring-your-own-device (BYOD) software developer Divide. Divide said this morning that it has been acquired by Google, and will go to work on Google's Android operating system. Financial details of the acquisition were not announced. Qualcomm Ventures was an early investor in Divide, back when it was known as Enterproid. Qualcomm--along with Comcast Ventures and Google Ventures--had made an (More info...)
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Whisper Raises $36M For Secret SharingLos Angeles-based Whisper, which develops mobile apps for anonymously sharing confessions, has raised another $36M in funding. The funding came from Tencent, Shasta Ventures, Thrive Capital, Lightspeed Ventures, and Sequoia Capital. The funding brings the company's total raised to around $60M. Whisper's site pairs confessional-style statements from people paired with photos, which can be browsed by other users but are not attributed--or traceable--to any person.
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OVGuide.com Connects With Google GlassLos Angeles-based online video guide service OVGuide.com, which is backed by Baroda Ventures, said today that it has launched a new application for Google Glass. According to OVGuide.com, its new app for Google Glass allows users to watch streaming video on Google's platform. The company said the app allows users to watch movie trailers, TV clips, college sports videos, celebrity news, and other content. OVGuide said the new app is based on its own application programming interface (API) for cre (More info...)
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Vitesse In IP License Deal With FreescaleCamarillo-based Vitesse Semiconductor, which develops high speed, integrated circuits for the networking market, reported today that it has licensed its Gigabit Ethernet IP cores to Freescale. Vitesse said that Freescale Semiconductor is using its VSC9953-01 Sparx Gigabit Ethernet switch core in two different, communications processors. Financial impact of the licensing win was not disclosed. Freescale is using the Vitesse cores within its QorIQ T1040 quad-core and T1020 dual-core communications (More info...)
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DIRECTV Acquired By AT&TEl Segundo-based satellite TV operator DIRECTV and AT&T said Sunday afternoon that AT&T has agreed to acquire DIRECTV, in a deal worth approximately $67.1 billion. According to the two, DIRECTV will continue to be based in El Segundo after the acquisition. AT&T will pay $95 per share for DIRECTV in a stock and cash transaction, and the deal has an enterprise value of $48.5 billion. The two said the move would help it offer content distribution across mobile, video, and broadband platforms.
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SweetLabs Launches New Offerings For AndroidSan Diego-based SweetLabs, the app install platform developer headed by Darrius Thompson, said last week that it has launched a new app install platform aimed at Android devices. SweetLabs said its new App Install Platform is targeted at Android and Windows device manufacturers, to replace their old app, preload model. The new offering includes an app ad server, app ad network, analytics tools, and more. SweetLabs is backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, Google Ventures, and Intel Capital.
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Sophiris Raises $2M In PIPESan Diego-based Sophiris Bio said this morning that it has raised $2M in funding from Aspire Capital Fund, and received commitments of up to $13M more, to help fund its efforts to develop a treatment for localized prostate cancer. Publicly held Sophiris Bio said that Aspire Capital has agreed to purchase 604,320 common shares of its stock at $3.31 per share, and will purchase the additional $13M in shares over the next 30 months, based on the market pricing of the company's stock at the time. Th (More info...)
posted on Monday, May 19, 2014(Full story)