Tuesday, October 28, 2014


Edmunds.com Buys Hackathon Winner CarCodeSMS
Los Angeles-based Edmunds.com said Tuesday that it has acquired CarCodeSMS, a developer of mobile service to allow car shoppers to engage in one-on-one text messaging with dealers. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. Edmunds.com said it has renamed CarCode SMS under the new name Edmunds CarCode as part of the acquisition, which came as a direct result of CarCodeSMS winning a recent "hackathon" sponsored by the Edmunds.com. CarCodeSMS had won $20,000 as part of Edmunds.com's Hackomotiv (More info...)
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Tinder Gets Investment From Benchmark
Los Angeles-based mobile dating app developer Tinder said late Tuesday afternoon that it has scored an equity investment round from Benchmark. Size of the investment was not announced. According to Tinder, Benchmark takes an undisclosed equity stake in the company and also has added Matt Cohler to Tinder's board of directors. Tinder, which is led by Sean Rad, had been entirely owned by Match Group/IAC. Tinder develops an immensely popular mobile app which lets users swipe left or right to indica (More info...)
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ScoreBig Finds $18M
Los Angeles-based ScoreBig, the online live event ticket marketplace led by David Goldberg, said this morning that it has raised $18m in a new funding round. The round was led by Hearst Ventures, and also included the company's prior investors. As part of the funding, George Kliavkoff of Hearst Entertainment & Syndication joins the company's board. ScoreBig helps sports teams, live event venues, and others sell unsold tickets using a reverse auction. The company said it more than doubled its rev (More info...)
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SolarReserve Buys Unit Of Aerojet Rocketdyne
Santa Monica-based utility-scale, solar power developer SolarReserve said Monday that it has acquired the Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) business of Aerojet Rocketdyne. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. According to SolarReserve, it will use the acquisition of the unit to bolster its intellectual property in the area of molten salt technology for solar thermal power. SolarReserve said it also will hire key personnel from Aerojet Rocketdyne with the technology acquisition, including (More info...)
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Newegg Kicks Off Holiday Season
It looks like it's the start of the holiday shopping season, once again, as Los Angeles-based e-tailer NewEgg announced the beginning of its "Black November". Newegg has been offering up weekly deals and specials for the last six years through the entire week of November, entirely bypassing the traditional "Black Friday" start to the holiday season. Newegg said its first deals will roll out on November 1st.
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Forza Silicon Rolls Out Image Sensor
Pasadena-based image sensor and mixed signal IC developer Forza Silicon announced this morning that it has rolled out a new, reconfigurable image sensor design aimed at the Internet of Things (IoT) market. According to Forza Silicon, the new reconfigurable image sensor is aimed at connecting smart sensors to the Internet, smart cars, smart electricity grids, and other applications. Among the types of things that can be reconfigured on its new chip are support for different network connections an (More info...)
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Calient Technologies Names Sales SVP
Santa Barbara-based optical switching technology developer Calient Technologies said this morning that it has named Erik Leonard as its Senior Vice President of Sales. Leonard had most recently been Vice President of Sales for its Service Provider and Digital Entertainment markets area. He also has served at Lineage Power, on2 Technologies, Narus, Maple Optical Systems, Cisco Systems, GTE Internetworking, and AT&T Data networks. Calient's optical switches are used in the data center.
posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2014(Full story)