Tuesday, April 5, 2016Zingy's On-Demand, Dog Walking Services Acquired By RoverLos Angeles-based Zingy, an online, on-demand dog walking service, has been acquired by Rover, according to the companies. Financial terms of the acquisition were not announced, and it's unclear when the actual acquisition occurred. Zingy founder and CEO Tobi Skovron says on his LinkedIn profile that he departed the CEO role in March. Rover has posted details of the acquisition on a web page, but the Zingy website has disappeared. Zingy launched in 2015, offering up a way to find on-demand, dog (More info...)
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Bombd Sets Up Shop In Venice, Aims At Social NetworkingBombd, a startup which develops a social networking and messaging app revolving around sharing instant photos with others, has set up shop in Venice Beach. The startup--originally started in Australia--said its team and founders have moved to Venice Beach to scale the app in the U.S., and that it has begun hiring a team here. Bombd's social networking app lets users send a request to their friends for a 7-second countdown to a picture, which is sent to the requester, and which only lasts for thr (More info...)
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Lyft Line To Debut In San DiegoOn-demand ride sharing provider Lyft said Tuesday that it is expanding its multi-user ride sharing service, Lyft Line, in San Diego, along with five other cities. According to Lyft, the service--which lets multiple riders going in the same direction split the cost of a ride--will roll out across Denver, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Jose, Seattle, and Newark, bringing its total number of cities with the service to 15. Lyft Line competes directly against UberPool, a similar offering from Ub (More info...)
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IDrive Rolls Nearline, Ultra-Low Cost Storage ServiceLos Angeles-based online backup and storage provider IDrive has launched a new, nearline storage service, aimed at online backup and data archiving, at a bargain price of 1 cent per GB/month, the company said today. According to IDrive, the new service is aimed at storing infrequency access data, while still offering what it says is "lightning fast" access speed. IDrive did not say what nearline storage technology it is using for its archiving service. Part of the new service will ship users sto (More info...)
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Techstars Healthcare Accelerator Announces 2016 ClassThe Techstars Healthcare Accelerator at Cedars-Sinai announced its first class on Monday, saying that it has selected 11 companies to participate in the first accelerator to be held at the Cedars-Sinai campus for the next three months. Demo Day for the accelerator class is June 23rd. According to the accelerator, the companies in the program include: AppliedVR (mobile VR for healthcare); Deep6 (AI applications for healthcare); Ella (chronic pain treatment using mobile apps); Grace (end of life m (More info...)
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HopSkipDrive Expands To Orange CountyLos Angeles-based app-based, ride service for kids, HopSkipDrive said this morning that it has expanded its service into Orange County. The service--which helps busy parents offload the shuffling of their kids between school and activities--is led by Joanna McFarland. Orange County is the second market for the service, which background checks and fingerprints all of its drivers. The service previously was only available in Los Angeles. HopSkipDrive requires that its drivers have 5 years of child (More info...)
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Human Longevity Raises $220MSan Diego-based Human Longevity, a genomics technology developer, has raised $220M in a Series B funding, according to the company. The funding came from Illumina, Celgene, GE Ventures, as well as others. Human Longevity--led by genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter, Ph.D.--said the new funding comes on top of an earlier, $80M in a Series A round which closed in Summer of 2014. Human Longevity (HLI) said the proceeds will go towards growth and expansion of the company. HLI says it is creating the wor (More info...)
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Symply Targets Rich Media StorageLos Angeles-based Symply, a new startup focusing on providing data storage for rich media, says it has launched out of stealth mode, and will target the new media industry. The company, with offices in Los Angeles, New York, and London, said is being supported by Promise Technology, and is led by Alex Grossman. The company has yet to launch its products, which it says it will roll out at NAB. Grossman was most recently VP Media and Entertainment at Quantum, and was founder and CEO of ActiveStora (More info...)
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Sorrento Gains $150M In Private PlacementSan Diego-based biopharmaceuticals developer Sorrento Therapeutics says it has raised $150M in a private placement, in the publicly traded company. According to Sorrento Therapeutics, the new funding was led by Ally Bridge Group, and also included Yuhan Corporation of South Korea, along other institutional investors. Sorrento said that the investors will invest up to $150M in separate private placements, at $5.55 per share, and also receive warrants to purchase common stock at $8.50 per share in (More info...)
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ServiceNow Acquires ITappIT cloud management software developer ServiceNow, which has major operations in San Diego, said this morning that it has acquired ITapp, provider of cloud management and DevOps software. Financial terms of the all-cash transaction were not announced. ServiceNow said the buy will expand its capabilities, adding automation and management of public, private and hybrid clouds. ITapp was based in Santa Clara, California, and also had operations in Bangalore.
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DTS Links Play-Fi To iHeartRadioCalabasas-based audio technology developer DTS said today that iHeartRadio is now available through DTS Play-Fi, its wireless music streaming technology, for both iOS and Android. iHeartRadio is a provider of a free radio and music streaming service. The two said the connection of iHeartRadio into DTS Play-Fi makes thousands of radio stations available for DTS Play-Fi, which DTS makes available to audio manufacturers, including Acer, Anthem, Definitive Technology, HP, MartinLogan, McIntosh, Para (More info...)
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OpenX Rolls Out Google AMP CompatibilityPasadena-based programmatic advertising marketplace operator OpenX has rolled out compatibility with Google AMP, Google's effort at a highly optimized set of rules for mobile web pages, across its entire set of products, the companys aid Monday. OpenX said that OpenX Bidder, OpenX Ad Exchange, OpenX SSP and/or OpenX Ad Server now are AMP compatible. Google's AMP defines a strict set of rules--including prohibition against external Javascript includes--to accelerate delivery of mobile pages usin (More info...)
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