Tuesday, July 14, 2015Women's Entrepreneurship Pitch Deadline ApproachesWomen entrepreneurs interested in pitching their startups to local investors have until tomorrow, July 15th, to apply for the Women Founder's Network fast pitch, the group said Tuesday. According to the group, it is looking for women-led startups--including a founder or co-founder, or a CEO who is a woman--in any high growth industry to to pitch investors at an October event, with the opportunity to win part of $100,000 in prizes. Judges for the event include such tech luminaries as Kelsey Doore (More info...)
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Realty Mogul Adds $35M In Series B FundingLos Angeles-based Realty Mogul, the online real estate crowdfunding site led by Jilliene Helman, said this morning that it has raised $35M in a Series B funding. The funding was led by Sorenson Capital, and also included Canaan Partners. The online marketplace for real estate investments said the funds go towards hiring more technologists and data scientists, and also for geographic expansion. As part of the funding, the company said that Rob Rueckert, head of Sorenson Capital's technology pract (More info...)
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Zadara Extends In Middle EastIrvine-based Zadara, which provides storage-as-a-service to the enterprise, said it is extending into the Middle East and Africa with the deal with a IT provider in the region. Zadara said its platform is now being offered by Orixcom, which serves the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region. Zadara uses a hybrid model for enterprise storage, offering both public and private storage-as-a-service via its own set of appliances. The company also allows companies to deploy storage-as-a-service on-premise (More info...)
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Avalon Ventures Leads Round In AeroFSSan Diego-based venture investor Avalon Ventures is the lead investor in a new, $10M funding round for AeroFS, a developer of private cloud collaboration software. AeroFS said the Series B funding also included NHN Investment. Avalon's Rich Levandov represents Avalon Ventures on the AeroFS board. AeroFS is based in Palo Alto, California.
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Green Dot Opens Development Center In ShanghaiPasadena-based Green Dot, the provider of prepaid Mastercard and mobile banking services, said today that it has opened up a new office in Shanghai, China, which will provide engineering and software development resources to the company. According to Green Dot, it officially opened up Green Dot Shanghai Software Technology Co. Ltd. at the Zhangjiang Hi Technology Park in the Pudong district of Shanghai, with 24,000 square foot of space. Green Dot said the new software development center will he (More info...)
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PlentyOfFish Joins Tinder At IAC's Match Group, After $575M BuyDating website PlentyOfFish is joining up with Los Angeles-based dating service Tinder, over at Tinder's parent company--The Match Group--after IAC said it would pay $575M in cash for PlentyOfFish this morning. IAC's Match Group--which also runs Match, OkCubid, and Meetic, in addition to Tinder--said the buy will help it expand its family of produccts. PlentyOfFish was led by Markus Frind; the deal is subject to approval by Canadian authorities.
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Sonos Updates SoftwareSanta Barbara-based whole home music system manufacturer Sonos said Monday that it has rolled out a nuber of minor updates to its streaming music systems. According to Sonos, the updates include visual indications when users have shuffled their playlists; ability to connect into Google Play Music's curated radio stations; and updates to TuneIn, which streams traditional radio stations from across the globe. Sonos said the updates had rolled out earlier to beta users, and are now available to all (More info...)
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VIZIO Licenses Technology From Dolby, RoviIrvine-based consumer electronics maker VIZIO has renewed two patent and technology licensing deals it has with Dolby and Rovi Corporation. The two, separate agreements and announcements, cover use of technology in VIZIO's line of products. No financial details of the licenses were announced. In the Dobly deal, Dolby said that VIZIO has licensed its Dolby AC-4 standard for use in televisions for next generation broadcast systems and streaming Internet content. In the Rovi patent deal, Rovi sai (More info...)
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aTyr Pharma Loses COOSan Diego-based aTyr Pharma, which is developing treatments for rare diseases, said late Monday that its President and Chief Operating Officer, Frederic Chereau, has resigned. In a tersely worded statement, aTyr said that Chereau has left to "pursue other opportunities".
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