Wednesday, January 28, 2015Payoff Adds Arianna Huffington To BoardCosta Mesa-based Payoff, the consumer financial services firm led by Scott Saunders, said Wednesday that it has added Arianna Huffington to its board of directors. Payoff said that Huffington joins Mohamed El-Erian (Former CEO, Pimco), Joe Saunders (Former CEO, Visa), Sean Park (Founder & Chairman, Anthemis Group), Jim Lane (Former Partner, Goldman Sachs), and Scott Saunders (Founder & CEO, Payoff) on the company's board. Payoff offers up an online service to consolidate a consumer's credit card (More info...)
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Shasta's Flynn Gets Promotion After String Of Silicon Beach InvestmentsVenture capital investment firm Shasta Ventures said Wednesday that it has promoted Sean Flynn--who has been key to that firm's many investments in Southern California--to Managing Director. Flynn sits on the boards of Los Angeles-based startups TigerText and ZEFR, was involved in Shasta Ventures' investment in Dollar Shave Club, and also has backed Whisper, along with Brian Lee's flower startup, H. Bloom. Flynn focuses on early-stage investments on mobile-enabled consumer Internet and enterpris (More info...)
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Disney Opens Apps For Second Startup Accelerator ClassThe Walt Disney Company said Tuesday that it is running another, startup accelerator class, as part of the Disney Accelerator program in Burbank, and is now accepting applications for a class of another, ten startups for the program. The accelerator--which is being run by the Walt Disney Company by Techstars--said the next program begins July 6th, and runs through October 6th. Disney said that participants in this class will be offered up to $120,000 in investment capital, and access to mentors. (More info...)
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Lootsie Lands $3.5M For Mobile LoyaltyCulver City-based Loosie, a startup developing loyalty and rewards software for mobile apps, said this morning that it has raised $3.5M in a seed funding round. The funding came from tim Kendall (Pinterest, Facebook), Michael Liou (Anvil Capital), Anthony Saleh, and Brad Schwartz (SLP Ventures). Lootsie is developing software which plugs into any mobile app, allowing app developers to include loyalty and rewards offers within their apps. The company said that consumers can earn points for hittin (More info...)
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Voxox Rolls Out New Hosted PBX ServiceSan Diego-based cloud communications provider Voxox announced this morning that it has extended out its menu of services, adding a new, hosted PBX service called Cloud Phone Pro. The company said the new product is aimed at small, medium, and large businesses looking to shed the costs of on-site telephony services. The new service replaces all of the functions of a typical in-house PBX system, including call recording conference bridges, worldwide DIDs and more. Voxox did not announce pricing on (More info...)
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Activision Launches Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Havoc On XboxSanta Monica-based Activision said Tuesday that it has released Call of Duty: Advanced Warefare Havoc, an add-on to its popular game series, to Xbox. The pack will be available on Xbox Live for the Xbox One and Xbox 360. The new title offers up new multiplayer maps, new weapons, a new breed of zombies, and other features. Activision said that the Havoc DLC Pack will be available first exclusively on Xbox Live for Xbox One, and costs $14.99.
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