Tuesday, September 30, 2014Conversant Names New ExecutiveWestlake Village-based Conversant, the online advertising firm which is in the midst of being acquired by Alliance Data, said Tuesday that it has named Jim Rund as its new Chief Revenue Officer for its media business. Rund--who will be based in Chicago--joined the company from Catalina (now owned by Berkshire Partners), and also has served at General Mills. Conversant was formerly known as ValueClick, and offers up a wide range of online advertising products and services.
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It's Official: Metacloud Now Part Of CiscoPasadena-based Metacloud is now officially part of Cisco, the companies said Monday, with Metacloud joining Cisco's Cloud Infrastructure and Managed Services organization. MetaCloud provides implementation and management of OpenStack-based clouds for enterprise customers. Financial terms of the acquisition--which was announced earlier this month--have not been announced. Metacloud was venture backed by AME Cloud Ventures, Canaan Partners, Pelion Venture Partners, Silicon Valley Bank, Storm Ventu (More info...)
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AeroVironment Wins $27.2M Army ContractMonrovia, California-based unmanned aerial vehicle maker AeroVironment reported Tuesday that it has scored a $27.2M contract award from the U.S. Army, for spare parts for its RQ-11B Raven and RQ-20A Puma AE unmanned aircraft systems. The company said it expects to deliver those parts to the U.S. Army within the next 12 months. The company said the new order brings its total spare parts and upgrades to $77.6. AeroVironment's drones are used for tactical and security efforts by the military.
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Move Acquired By News Corp.Move, Inc., the operator of the Realtor.com, Move.com, and other related real estate businesses, is being acquired by News Corp., in a deal worth approximately $950M, the two companies said this morning. Move has operations in the Thousand Oaks, California area, although it is now based in San Jose. According to the two, News Corp. will pay $21.00 per share for Move Inc. Move had revenues of $227M for its year ended December 31, 2013. Move will become an operating business of News Corp., and wil (More info...)
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Vonjour: Turning Your Phone Into A Customer Support Center
For many employers, all those employee smartphones are a huge IT headache. However, what if you could take advantage of those ubiquitous smart devices, and turn that into a huge asset for your company? Vonjour (www.vonjour.com), a Los Angeles startup, has developed a cloud-based customer support and phone system which, in addition to handling all of a company's usual enterprise phone needs--also lets employers harness employee smartphones to deal with customer support issues, make calls, and i (More info...)
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Newport Corporation Completes V-Gen AcquisitionIrvine-based Newport Corporation said it has completed its previously announced acquisition of Israeli laser manufacturer V-Gen Ltd.. Financial terms of the buy have not been announced. Newport Corporation said it expects the acquisition to generate sales of $15M to $20M in the next twelve months. V-Gen is a developer of fiber lasers, and is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel. The company has approximately 50 employees worldwide, according to Newport Corporation. The deal had originally been anno (More info...)
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Emulex Names VPCosta Mesa-based storage networking technology developer Emulex said yeserday that it has named Ali Hedayati as its new Senior Vice President and General Manager of Network Visibility Products (NVP). Hedayati has served at BMC, Coradiant, and Intel. He was most recently a VP and GM at BMC, running that firm's application management business unit.
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Rubicon Project Ties With Marketing Agency DigitasLBiLos Angeles-based online advertising technology developer Rubicon Project and global marketing agency DigitasLBi said Monday that DigitasLBi is tapping Rubicon's technology for a premium programmatic buying effort. Financial impact of the win was not disclosed. DigitasLBi will use Rubicon Project's Agency Marketplace solution, to help its clients with programmatic buying of premium inventory. The companies said the agreement is an expansion of an existing relationship Rubicon Project has with Di (More info...)
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Avanir Pharmaceuticals Raises $230M In Public OfferingAliso Viejo-based Avanir Pharmaceuticals has raised another $230M, via the public markets, the company said Monday. The company said the funding came via a public offering of 20,930,000 shares of its common stock, sold at $11.00 per share. The company was already publicly traded. The company said the new funding will go towards general corporate purposes, funding commercial activities and clinical trails, and more, including potentially for acquisitions. Avanir is focused on treating central ner (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, September 30, 2014(Full story)