Tuesday, August 19, 20143BLACKDOT Snags Machinima Vet For Game Development EffortLos Angeles-based 3BLACKDOT--founded by Machina Vets Angelo Pullen, Luke Stepleton, Adam Montoya, and Tom Cassell--said Tuesday that it has snagged another Machinima vet, Marwan Abderrazzaq, to head up game development at the company. Abderrazzaq was previously Director of Franchise at Machinima. The company said that he worked with Warner Bros. and Microsoft on premium content efforts tied with Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, Mortal Kombat: Legacy II and Street Fighter: Assassins Fist. He also has p (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2014(Full story)
Intuit Chops 120 In Woodland HillsFinancial software developer Intuit is cutting 120 employees in Woodland Hills, according to a state Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, part of a larger cut involving locatoins in Illinois, Virginia, and Arizona. The layoffs--first uncovered by the San Fernando Business Journal--apparently are due to a shift at the company towards more cloud-based services. Intuit had sold much of its Woodland Hills operations, Intuit Financial Services, to private equity firm Thoma Bravo back in Jul (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2014(Full story)
Flywheel Targets LA Airport Rides With Advance BookingFlywheel, the venture backed startup offering up an Uber-like experience for users--except via licensed taxi and transportation services--is rolling out advanced booking to Los Angeles users this week. According to Flywheel, the new service lets customers pre-book a ride to the airport, via either its iOS or Android apps. The company had been offering up pre-booking over the last month for the San Francisco area. The company said the new booking feature allows for advance booking up to two weeks (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2014(Full story)
Epicor Sale Off The TableEpicor Software, the developer of supply chain management software which has its roots and still has significant operations in Orange County, is off the block, after its private equity investors did not see enough interest--or high enough prices--for the business. According to the WSJ, Apax Partners has decided to retain the company, after testing the market for a sale of Epicor. The news on that move came in May. Apax bought Epicor
posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2014(Full story)
Uber, DogVacay Tie To Help Animal SheltersIn a move which brings two of the hottest online, peer-to-peer marketplaces in the area together, ride service Uber and dog boarding marketplace DogVacay said today that Uber will donate $5 for every ride to help animal shelters on National Dog Day--August 26th--for riders who use DOGVACAY as the promo code for their ride. DogVacay said that the $5 for each ride--taken in Los Angeles, Orange County, and Central LA--will go towards the nonprofit group STARTrescue. STARTrescue helps relocate anima (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2014(Full story)
Why Sidevision Is Tying Content, E-Commerce Together, with Justin Wu
How do you make online video more interactive--and profitable? Los Angeles-based Sidevision (www.sidevision.com) has developed a set of tools--aimed at content creators, multi-channel networks (MCNs), and others--to help connect online videos with e-commerce. We recently spoke with co-founder and CEO, Justin Wu to learn more about the company, which so far has received a small seed funding from Warner Bros. as part of that company's Warner Media Camp accelerator.
What is Sidevision all abou (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2014(Full story)
Report: SpaceX Raising New Funding At Near $10 Billion ValuationA new report this morning says that Hawthorne-based spaceship and rocket developer Space Exploration Technologies is in the midst of raising a new round of investment, which values the company at around $10 billion. Amount of funding, and the investors involved, have not been disclosed. The report came from TechCrunch. If true, the valuation of SpaceX near the $10 billion mark would about double its last known valuation of roughly $4.8 billion.
posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2014(Full story)
Lynda.com Names Chief Revenue Officer, Opens San Francisco OfficeCarpinteria-based Lynda.com said this morning that it has named a new Chief Revenue Officer, Andrew Wait, and opened up a new office in the San Francisco area. According to the online learning site, Wait was previously President of EF Englishtown, an online English school, and prior to that was SVP and General Manager of Ancestry.com. Wait also has served at Blurb, Bank of America, Hilton Hotels and Kodak Gallery (Ofoto). The company said the new San Francisco office will allow the company to ac (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2014(Full story)
Teledyne Buys Atlas HydrographicThousand Oaks-based Teledyne Technologies has acquired German company Atlas Hydrographic GmbH, a designer and manufacturer of marine sonar systems. Financial terms of the asset buy were not disclosed. According to Teledyne, it will use the buy to strengthen its marine acoustic imaging business. The acquisition was made by Teledyne's subsidiary, Teledyne RESON GmbH. Atlast Hydrographic's marine sonar systems are aimed at mid and deep water applications, such as ocean survey and marine science. Te (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2014(Full story)
ID Analytics Names Chief Revenue OfficerSan Diego-based ID Analytics, the developer of risk management software and technology, said today that it has named Daniel Rawlings as the company's Chief Revenue Officer. Rawlings joins the company from Smith Micro Software, where he had been Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Revenue Officer. Rawlings also has served at Oracle, LogicalApps, Perfect Commerce, KhiMetrics Software, and SourcingLink. ID Analytics is now owned by LifeLock.
posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2014(Full story)
Cytori Sets CFOSan Diego-based biopharmaecuticals developer Cytori Therapeutics has named a new Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer. According to the company, it has appointed Tiago Girao to the position, replacing existing CFO Mark Saad, who the company said is leaving the company for another opportunity. Girao was most recently VP of Finance and CFO of NuVasive. He also was a Senior Manager at KPMG, and also had served at Ernst & Young.
posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2014(Full story)