Wednesday, January 20, 2016Snapchat Opening Office In SeattleVenice, California-based social messaging service Snapchat is opening up an office in Seattle, and plans to hire at least 50 staffers in the Rain City. According to a report, Snapchat has leased 8,000 square feet in the city, part of a quest to find more technical talent for the company. Seattle is a favored location for recruiting technical talent, particularly by Silicon Valley companies, drawing from the University of Washington (UW), and big, existing employers like Microsoft, Facebook, and (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2016(Full story)
LoanHero Gets $2.5M For Consumer Lending StartupSan Diego-based LoanHero, a startup which helps merchants easily offer up financing to their end customers, has raised $2.5M in seed funding, the company said Wednesday. The funding was led by Alsop Louie Partners and Mucker Capital. LoanHero says it has now raised $4.2M in equity funding for the company. LoanHero develops an online software platform which lets merchants offer up streamlined application for consumer loans by their customers, to fund purchases. The startup is led by Steve Connoll (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2016 (More)(Full story)
FreedomPop Raises $50M MoreLos Angeles-based free mobile wireless service FreedomPop has raised $50M more for its service, the company said today. Source of the new funding was not disclosed. FreedomPop says it has now raised over $109M in funding. The funding will go towards growth in international markets. The company says it plans to expand to over 40 countries by the end of the year, including in Asia and Latin America. FreedomPop is led by Steven Sesar.
posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2016 (More)(Full story)
Univision Acquires The OnionLos Angeles-based Univision said Tuesday that it has acquired satirical news site The Onion. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The Onion is based in Chicago, but was started in Wisconsin in 1988 by two college students, Tim Keck and Christopher Johnson. The Onion's satirical articles have often been mistaken for real news, despite the publication's longtime reputation for fake stories.
posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2016(Full story)
Telesign Adds Behavioral Analysis For Authentication, VerificationLos Angeles-based Telesign, the developer of a service that is heavily used by Internet services providers, financial services, e-commerce, and others userse to verify and authenticate their users, has added behavioral analysis to its toolkit, the company said today. The company said it has tapped into technology from BehavioSec, a provider of behavioral biometric solutions, to add additional capability to its products for securing end-user accounts. Financial details of the partnership were not (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2016(Full story)
TaskUs Tops 5,000 EmployeesSanta Monica-based TaskUs, the outsourcing firm founded by Jaspar Weir and Bryce Maddock, said today that it has just passed up 5,000 employees. The company--which had just over 1,000 employees in 2014, and started with a mere 5 employees in 2011--says it now has five outsourcing centers in the Philippines. TaskUs has seen rapid growth due to its focus on back end office functions for many, "unicorn" startups, and such customers as Tinder, Savings.com, Wikipedia, Gilt Groupe, and many, many othe (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2016(Full story)
CapLinked Raises $3.5M MoreLos Angeles-based CapLinked, the developer of a cloud-based platform for secure, enterprise document sharing for financing and other deal management, has raised $3.5M more in a funding round, according to the company. The funding was led by Subtraction Capital, and also included Peter Thiel and Indicator Ventures. CapLinked also said it has received venture debt funding from Western Technology Investment (WTI) as part of the round. CapLinked, which was founded by Eric M. Jackson and Christopher (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2016 (More)(Full story)
Esri Rolls Out Replacement For Google Earth EnterpriseRedlands-based GIS and mapping software developer Esri has launched a new product, which takes aim at enterprise users of Google Earth. According to Esri, its new ArcGIS Earth software is a free, desktop based interactive globe which allows users to visualize, explore, and understand spatial data, letting users work with 3D and 2D map data. Esri said the new offering is part of an effort to help support current Google customers and partners, who were using Google Earth Enterprise (Google Earth E (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2016(Full story)
Jaunt, USC Link On Virtual Reality LabVirtual reality hardware and software developer Jaunt--which is backed by The Walt Disney Company, Evolution Media Partners, China Media Capital, Highland Capital Partners, Google Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Axel Springer, ProSiebenSat.1 SE, The Madison Square Garden Company, Peter Gotcher, Blake Krikorian, and Sky--says it has partnered with the USC Cinema School on a new virtual reality lab. According to the two, the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts is opening up a n (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2016(Full story)
Tongal Links With The United Talent AgencyLos Angeles-based Tongal, the online crowdsourcing site which helps brands and studios create content by tapping into a pool of creators, said Tuesday that it will be represented by the United Talent Agency (UTA). The two said that the UTA will help Tongal develop deeper relationships with studios, networks, digital publishers, advertising agencies and brand marketers, and also provide Tongal access to additional talent.
posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2016(Full story)