Monday, September 14, 2015Avalon Ventures Gets Commitments Of $103M In New, $300M FundLa Jolla-based venture capital investor Avalon Ventures has just received a $103M commitment to a new, $300M fund, according to a regulatory filing by the firm. The filing indicates that, so far, the fund has 26 investors in the first sale. General Partners listed on the new fund are Tighe Reardon, Braden Bohrman, Kevin Kinsella, Richard Levandov, and Jay Lichter. Avalon invests in both life sciences and technology companies, and invests in seed an dearly stage companies.
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FLIR Moves Into New Goleta OfficesFLIR, an Oregon manufacturer of infrared detectors and heat-detecting cameras, is expanding its operations in Goleta, and is moving into a new, 170,000 square foot space in the city, according to a report. The Pacific Coast Business Times says that FLIR has around 450 employees in Goleta, developing its thermal imaging sensors. FLIR had actually acquired the new property back in 2010, from SARES-REGIS Group. The leases for existing tenants in the property all expired last year, in 2014.
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Outdoorsy Launches RV Rental Marketplace In LAOutdoorsy, an online marketplace which lets people rent RVs, motorhomes, and trailers, is tackling the Los Angeles market, and is taking on the Los Angeles market with a big promo push starting today. The startup said it will be offering up a free tailgate at the USC vs. Stanford game next weekend on Saturday, in an Airstream trailer provided by the company, via a promotion to be launched today sometime. Outdoorsy--which launched its services nationwide last month--lets RV owners offer up their (More info...)
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Google Poaches TrueCar's President For Self-Driving Car ProjectGoogle said over the weekend that it has hired on John Krafcik, most recently President of Santa Monica-based TrueCar, as CEO of its self driving car project. Krafcik had been President of TrueCar since April of 2014. According to TrueCar, Krafcik will remain on the board of directors for TrueCar, and will exit the company on Wednesday. TrueCar said in a regulatory filing last week that Michael Guthrie, the company's Chief Financial Officer, will become Interim COO of the company starting tomorr (More info...)
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Qualcomm Buys Capsule TechnologieSan Diego-based Qualcomm announced this morning that it has acquired Capsule Technologie, a provider of medical device integration and clinical data management software. Capsule Technologie becomes part of Qualcomm Life. Qualcomm did not announced financial details of the acquisition. According to Qualcomm, Capsule Techonlogie has more than 1,930 hospital clients in 38 countries.
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NantWorks Inks Licensing Deal With AmgenLos Angeles-based NantPharma, one of the companies that is part of Patrick Soon-Shiong's NantWorks companies, said this morning that it has entered into a license agreement with Thousand Oaks-based Amgen. NantPharma said it has acquired exclusive rights to develop and commercialize worldwide, excluding Japan, Russia and certain other Central Asian countries, AMG 337, a compound Amgen hhas been developing for cancer therapy. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. The license is the se (More info...)
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SpaceX Gets Two New Launch ContractsHawthorne-based commercial space vehicle developer SpaceX said this morning that it has added two new orders, for a Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch. Financial details of the contracts were not announced. SpaceX said the contracts cover a launch of a communications satellite for HISPASAT, on a Falcon 9, and a launch of the Saudi Arabian Arabsat 6A communications satellite on the Falcon Heavy. SpaceX said the two launches are expected between late 2017 and 2018. SpaceX says it now has over 60 mis (More info...)
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Broadcom Rolls Out New Navigation Chip Aimed At WearablesIrvine-based Broadcom announced a new navigation chip aimed at offloading the work currently done by hardware devices such as fitness bands and smartphones, the company said today. According to Broadcom, its new Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) chip is aimed at the Internet-of-Things (IoT), and helps figure out position, velocity, and time on chip, freeing up microcontrollers from those tasks--saving power and processing cycles for other things. The new chip is aimed at the wearables ma (More info...)
posted on Monday, September 14, 2015(Full story)