Tuesday, June 2, 2015Instantly Names New VPLos Angeles-based Instantly, which develops automated sampling and market research tools, said Tuesday that it has named Jim Collins as its Executive Vice President of Instantly Audiences. Collins was most recently CEO of Sycamore Canyon Strategies, and also had served as CEO of Affinity, Inc, CEO of Pictage, and CEO of Bizmago. Instantly--which until recently, was known as uSamp--is venture backed by Greycroft, Openview Venture Partners, DFJ Frontier, and DuPont Capital.
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DreamHost Upgrades Managed WordPress HostingLos Angeles-based web hosting provider DreamHost has announced a big upgrade to the company's managed WordPress hosting service, DreamPress, saying that it has added solid state drives, caching, security, and other features to the service. DreamHost said the upgraded service also includes options to easily migrate installations from shared hosting, DDoS auto-mitigation, and more. The new service costs $24.95 per month.
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Purch Raises $135M To Grow Online Publishing EmpirePurch, the online publishing company with offices in Culver City that owns Tom's Guide, TopTenReviews, Laptop, and other online publications, has raised $135M in a Series C funding round. The funding was led by Canso Investment Council, and included both equity and debt. The company--until recently known as Tech Media Network--said the funding goes towards strategic acquisitions. Tech Media Network acquired LA's Bestofmedia Group, the publisher of Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide and Tom's IT Pro onl (More info...)
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DataScience Gets $6M For Business AnalyticsCulver City-based DataScience, a provider of data analytics services aimed at enterprises to help make sense of business data, said this morning that it has raised $4.5M in a Series A funding round. The round was led by Greycroft Partners, and also included Pelion Ventures Partners, Crosscut Ventures and TenOneTen. The startup, led by Ian Swanson, said it works with business teams, to help those customers plug in raw data, ask specific questions about their business, and get answers from the Dat (More info...)
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Robot Invasion! DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals In LA This WeekendFans of the huge advances being made in robotics will not want to miss the finals of the three year long, DARPA Robotics Challenge, which is happening this weekend at the Pomona Fairplex. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) says it will be running the final competition for $3.5M in prize money, to spur the creation of robots which can assist humans in responding to natural and man made disasters. The robots in the competition are humanoid-like (think Robby the Robot), and inten (More info...)
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Entropix Finds $1M For Video Surveillance TechnologyLos Angeles-based Entropix, which says it is developing super high resolution, video surveillance technology, has raised $1M in a seed funding round. Names of the company's seed investors were not disclosed. According to Entropix, it is developing a GPU-powered, super-resolution video surveillance software technology which uses commodity cameras and computer hardware to capture images in much higher resolution.
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Ciphrex Adds Advisor, Kicks Off Series B FundingSan Diego-based Ciphrex, a startup developing a Bitcoin and payment network technology, said today that it has added Bitcoin law expert Peter Townshend to its advisory board, to help kick off a Series B funding round. The company said Townshend is a partner at Perkins Coie LLP. Ciphrex did not say how much it is looking to raise in its Series B. The company had raised $500K in a Series A funding back in January.
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Shopatron Launches Product Locator ToolSan Luis Obispo-based Shopatron, which develops software which helps manufacturers direct online orders to local retailers, said it has launched a new product aimed at product search. Shopatron said its new product, Local Product Search, helps customers find products from brands, offering up real time, local product inventory to those customers. Shopatron said the new tool is aimed at replacing "dealer locators", which simply direct customers to local dealers, which the company says is a disappo (More info...)
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Zadara Rolls Out Cloud Storage In TokyoIrvine-based Zadara, the developer of enterprise storage-as-a-service hardware, software, and services, has rolled outs its product in Japan, with Objective Ventures. Zadara said that its enterprise cloud storage product is available for private and public cloud users in Tokyo. The two said that Zadara's expanded services are being hosted in Objective Ventures' cloud datacenters. Zadara's enterprise, storage-as-a-service is aimed at helping companies move their enterprise data into the cloud, wh (More info...)
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