Wednesday, February 18, 2015


NewCo Raises $1.7M For Tech Festivals
NewCo, the company which put together the NewCo festival in Los Angeles in November, has just raised $1.7M in a seed funding, the company disclosed today. The company--which connects people in the local technology industry with startups and others through a "distributed festival"--said the funding came from Obvious Ventures, True Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Transmedia Capital, Freestyle Capital, and Foundry Fund, along with a long list of angels. NewCo--which is based in the Bay Area--was founded (More info...)
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Jukin Media Feeds Viral Videos To Publishers
Los Angeles-based Jukin Media, which licenses and distributes viral, user-generated and other video content, said today that it has launched a brand new product to make it easier for publishers to tap into that viral content. Jukin said it has created a new "viral video MRSS feed", which is already being used by AOL, Complex, Flipps, Frequency, Rare.us, ViralNova and Yahoo, which helps those publishers immediately surface viral videos. Jukin acquires the rights to those viral videos directly fro (More info...)
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BlackBerry Files Second Suit Against Typo
Los Angeles-based smartphone case-and-keyboard maker Typo, which is backed by Ryan Seacrest, was sued again this week by BlackBerry. BlackBerry--which already has an outstanding lawsuit against Typo--claims the company's redesigned Typo 2 smartphone case still infringes upon its patents. Typo develops BlackBerry-like keyboards which allow iPhone users to type on a physical keyboard. Typo has raised $1M from celebrity Ryan Seacrest. BlackBerry first sued Typo last year over its keyboard design, a (More info...)
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Science Inc. Gets $20M In Debt Funding, Grows To 150 People
Los Angeles based startup incubator/studio Science--which is behind such local startups as Dollar Shave Club and DogVacay--has raised $20M in a debt financing round, according to the companies. According to Fortune, the funding came from private equity investor Silver Lake Waterman. Science said that it will use the new growth funding to enhance its technology platform. Science is led by former MySpace CEO Mike Jones; the company's latest companies include Re|Fame, Hiq, Playhaven, InLight, FameB (More info...)
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Nativo Snags comScore CEO For Board
Los Angeles-based native advertising startup Nativo said this morning that it has snagged comScore CEO Serge Matta for the company's board of directors. comScore is well known for its measurement of digital advertising and e-commerce. Matta has been at comScore since 1999. Nativo is led by Justin Choi, and venture backed by Greycroft Partners, e.ventures, and Signia Venture Partners. The company offers up native advertising technology, which incorporates ads into online publishers' properties in (More info...)
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eHarmony Aims At International Markets For Growth
Santa Monica-based matchmaking site eHarmony is looking to the overseas market to grow its service, saying today that it is launching a "globalization initiative" this year to add one new country per quarter to its service. eHarmony says it will create region-specific versions of its service, which will be customized for each country. The first new market for eHarmony is Singapore. The company--which differentiates itself from other online and mobile services in its focus on using data algorithm (More info...)
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Report: Snapchat Seeking $500M In New Funding, Valued At $19 Billion
Venice-based Snapchat is looking to raise at much as $500M in a new round of funding, currently valuing the company as high as $19 billion, according to a report from Bloomberg last night. The report cited a "person with knowledge of the matter", who said the valuation of the company would be between $16 billion to $19 billion.
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Firefly Games Raises $8M
Los Angeles-based Firefly Games has raised $8M in a Series A financing round, to help bring Asian mobile games to the Western market, the company said Monday. The funding was led by Skyocean International Holdings, Ceyuan Ventures and GuangZhou WinHi. The company said it is set to release four titles this year, partnering with other mobile game development firms to adapt popular Asian mobile games to Western markets. Firefly Games was founded by Michael Zhang and KJ Lin. The company said the fu (More info...)
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Cornerstone OnDemand Foundation Awards Grant
The Corstone OnDemand Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Santa Monica-based Cornerstone OnDemand, said today that it has made the first award from a new grant from the foundation called the Impact Acceleration Award. Cornerstone OnDemand said it is providing Darkness to Light, a nonprofit combating childhood sexual abuse, with two years of its Cornerstone Learning software, plus pro bono business consulting services.
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Vitesse Targets Internet of Things
Camarillo-based Vitesse Semiconductor, which develops a range of networking semiconductors, said today that it has rolled out a new reference design specifically aimed at the Internet-of-Things (IoT) market. The company said it has rolled out new Gigabit Ethernet PHY reference designs for small form factor, IoT networking, to help power embedded networking for devices. Reference designs are used by hardware designers as templates for creating their own applications. Vitesse said it is targeting (More info...)
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Cohu Names Board Member
Poway-based Cohu, which develops semiconductor test tools and systems, said yesterday that t has named Karl H. Funke to its board of directors. Funke was most recently an senior executive at Multitest GmbH, having been that company's CEO from 2001 until 2009. Funke had been at Multitest GmbH since 1994.
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