Friday, April 17, 2015


FastPay Funds Altitude Digital In $30M Financing
Los Angeles-based FastPay, the provider of financing products for ad and media driven companies which is led by Jed Simon, has backed mobile and video advertising products firm Altitude Digital with $30M in financing, Altitude said Thursday. Terms of the financing were not announced. Altitude Digital, which is based in Denver, Colorado, offers up a video ad and mobile, supply side advertising platform. FastPay offers up invoice-based financing to many media businesses, who usually see long delay (More info...)
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Upfront Ventures Leads $20M Investment In Heads-Up Display Developer Navdy
Los Angeles-based Upfront Ventures is the lead investor in a developer of a new, heads-up display which connects to your smartphone, projecting messages, information, and more directly on your windshield. According to San Francisco-based Navdy, it raised $20M in its Series A round, bringing it to a total of $33M in funding. Upfront was the lead, with Formation8, Qualcomm Ventures, Promus Ventures, Eniac Ventures and Wareness.io also participating. The company is looking to commercially launch it (More info...)
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Fliptu Gets $1.2M For Social Aggregation Tools
Los Angeles-based Fliptu, the developer of social aggregation tools for music and entertainment brands, has raised $1.2M in a seed funding round, the company said Friday. The startup--led by Jeremy Gocke--said the funding came from Scout Ventures, Rick Dalzell (former Amazon CIO), Rich Heise (early Groupon investor), Hivers & Strivers, Kelly Perdew, and other angels. The company said it will use the funds to bolster its product team and expand into new verticals. Fliptu offers up a social aggreg (More info...)
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Sony Documents, Emails Go Online At WikiLeaks
A huge collection of internal documents and emails from Sony Pictures Entertainment--stolen from the company in a massive hacking last year tied to the movie "The Interview"--has been posted online by WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks said it had posted a searchable database of 30,287 documents and 173,132 emails from Sony, claiming it did so to show "the inner workings of an influential multinational corporation." WikiLeaks said in a statement that the documents were "public domain", despite the fact that t (More info...)
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Bitium Rolls Out In Google Apps Marketplace
Santa Monica-based Bitium, the developer of identity and access management software led by Scott Kriz, has rolled out its products in the Google Apps Marketplace, the company said Thursday. Bitium said its products are tightly integrated and work with Google Apps for Work, helping to secure business applications. Bitium is venture backed by Polaris Ventures, Amplify, Resolute VC, Double M Partners, Social Leverage, Karlin Ventures, Lazerow Ventures and Rob Glaser. The company says its customers (More info...)
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Lytx Wins Commercial Trucking Insurance Customer
San Diego-based Lytx, which develops video-based, driver safety systems, reported a win with trucking insurance company Canal Insurance Company. Lytx said Canal will offer up its Lytx DriveCam Program to its fleet customers as a value added service. Lytx said its Lytx DriveCam Program helps prevent collisions, reduce injuries and save lives by offering up video, predictive analytics, real-time driver feedback and coaching for fleets.
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Precision Health Economics Acquired By Precision For Medicine
Los Angeles-based Precision Health Economics, a provider of health economics consultancy and analytics, has been acquired by Maryland-based Precision for Medicine. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. PHE was founded by Drs. Dana Goldman, Darius Lakdawalla, and Tomas Philipson, professors at the University of Southern California and the University of Chicago.
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Southern California Sees $1.9 Billion In Q1 Deals, Biggest Since Dot Com Boom
Southern California saw a staggering $1.9 billion in investments in Q1 of 2015, according to the latest numbers from the PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree report, which was released this evening, The quarter was the biggest, investment quarter for Southern California since the dot com era. The last quarter to ever reach the same investment heights was more than fourteen years ago, in fourth quarter of 2000, when $1.95 billion was invested in the region at (More info...)
posted on Friday, April 17, 2015(Full story)