Thursday, February 18, 2016Zindagi Games Acquired By ZyngaCamarillo-based Zindagi Games, a mobile games developer known for its title Crazy Kitchen, has quietly been acquired by San Francisco-based Zynga. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The acquisition had been announced as part of Zynga's earnings last week. Zindagi was founded by Umrao Mayer and George Simmons. Zynga said it plans to release a new game, Zindagi's Crazy Cake Swap sometime in the first half of this year.
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Chrome River Names CFOLos Angeles-based Chrome River, the fast growing developer of expense management and invoice processing software, said Thrusday that it has named Daniel Machock as its new Chief Financial Officer. Machock was most recently CFO at Outspoken, and also has served at DexOne, Business.com, uBid.com, Aleri Software, and Ernst & Young. Chrome River has been LA's fastest growing companies, and recently raised a big $100M funding round to help continue that growth rate; the company is one of a number of (More info...)
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Lytx Acquired For $500M In Private Equity AcquisitionSan Diego-based automotive telematics provider Lytx has been acquired by private equity investor GTCR, in a deal worth more than $500M in cash, the two said this morning. Lytx was founded in 1998, and offers up a video-based, driver safety and telematics system used for tracking driving fleets, encouraging safer driving, and capturing accidents and other events on cameras for fleet managers. Lytx--which was originally named DriveCam--was most recently in the hands of private equity investor Wels (More info...)
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Ingram Micro Acquired For $6 BillionIrvine-based computer products distributor Ingram Micro has agreed to be acquired by Chinese electronics company Tianjin Tianhai, in a deal worth approximately $6.0 billion, the company said late Wednesday evening. According to Ingram Micro, Tianjin Tianhai will pay $38.90 per share for the entire company, a premium of 39 percent over the average closing share price of Ingram Micro for the 30 trading days ended February 16, 2016. Tianjin Tianhai said that Ingram Micro is expected to remain headq (More info...)
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IBM Backs New $5M AI XPRIZEIBM and XPRIZE, the Culver City organization which runs major challenges to advance technology and help apply innovation to solving some of the world's biggest challenges, have announced a new IBM Watson AI PRIZE. The new prize offers up a $5M competition, which challenges teams to develop and demonstrate how humans can collaborate positively with artificial intelligence software. The challenge--which is being run in conjunction with TED--has an ultimate goal of using AI to create "landmark brea (More info...)
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Hollywood Presbyterian Pays $17,000 In Bitcoin RansomThe head of Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, the Los Angeles area hospital which has been grappling with a ransomware attack on its systems which nearly shut down the hospital, said in a notice posted to its website that it has paid $17,000 in Bitcoin, in order to access its computer systems and data. According to the hospital, it paid 40 Bitcoins, or approximately $17,000, in order to access the encrypted files and restore access to the hospital's files. The hospital said earlier reports (More info...)
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Google Expanding To Fresh Grocery Delivery In Los AngelesGoogle disclosed on Wednesday that it is expanding its Google Express service to include fresh groceries in Los Angeles and San Francisco, at least in parts of those cities, as part of an expansion of the same day delivery service. Google already offers up delivery of nonperishable goods from such local supermarkets as Whole Foods, Costco, and Smart and Final, but the new expansion also adds produce, meat, and eggs to the mix. Google offers up a wide range of products from retailers such as Targ (More info...)
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