Thursday, April 7, 2016Lenny Bolsters Advisory BoardSanta Monica-based Lenny, which develops a mobile lending app targeted at millenials, said it has added Paul Spiller, COO and President at Acorns, as an advisory board member. Acorns is a startup offering up microinvestments from users' spare change, which are aggregated to create diversified investment portfolios. Lenny, which is led by Joe Bayen, says it has underwritten 1,000 credit lines for its users in the last three weeks. The company offers up loans of $100 up to $10,000 with average APR (More info...)
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Clutter Finds $20M MoreLos Angeles-based on-demand, full service self-storage startup Clutter has raised $20M in a Series B funding round, the company said this morning, in a round led by Sequoia Capital. Clutter, which was founded by Ari Mir and Brian Thomas, offers up storage of everything from single items to entire households. In addition to standard storage services, the startup takes photographs of its customers' various items, and provides an online inventory of that stuff. The funding comes on top of a $10.75M (More info...)
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Airmap Lands $15MSanta Monica-based Airmap, which operates an airspace mapping service for drone manufacturers, has raised $15M in a funding round, the firm said today. The funding came from General Catalyst Partners, and also included Lux Capital, Social Capital, TenOneTen Ventures, Bullpen Capital and the Pritzker Group. AirMap is led by CEO Ben Marcus, a pilot and air instructor, and already has deals with drone manufacturers DJI and 3DRobotics to incorporate the company's information into their APIs. The com (More info...)
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CrownPeak Gets $50M In Merger With UK CompanyLos Angeles-based web content management software developer CrownPeak has raised $50M in a funding round, and merged with UK-based ActiveStandards, according to the two companies. The investment round came from K1. According to the companies, the combined company will be based in Los Angeles, and will also have locations in Denver and London. Jim Yares, COO of CrownPeak, has been appointed CEO of CrownPeak as part of the deal, and ActiveStandards CEO Simon Lande and CrownPeak CEO Jim Howard will (More info...)
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Australian Startups Invade Southern California
In what appears to be an unprecedented surge of Australian companies setting up shop in Southern California's Silicon Beach, a surprising number of Australian startups have set up operations in Southern California over the last year. Australia--known for its own version of the tech industry, also called the Silicon Beach--has at least six companies which have opened up offices across the region in the last year, including:
Clapit (www.clapit.com) - social networking and sharing apps
(More info...)
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Teledyne Buys Frontline Test EquipmentThousand Oaks-based Teledyne Technologies announced this morning that it has acquired Frontline Test Equipment, Inc., a provider of electronic test and measurement instrumentation. Frontline is based in Charlottesville, Virginia. Financial details of the acquisition were not announced. Frontline's electronic test equipment is used for troubleshooting wireless protocols, including Bluetooth, 802.11, and near field communications (NFC), and serves the consumer electronics, semiconductor, telecommu (More info...)
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Solarflare Sues Exablaze For Patent InfringementIrvine-based Solarflare has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against competitor Exablaze Pty. Ltd., in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. According to Solarflare, which makes high speed networking products, Exablaze has infringed on four of its patents, including patents no. 8,116,312; 8,817,784; 8,645,558; and 9,258,390. Solarflare is seeking damages and a permanent injunction against Exablaze in the lawsuit.
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Rubicon Project Installs New ExecutivesLos Angeles-based Rubicon Project says it has named Harry Patz, Jr. as its new Chief Revenue Officer, and Rob Deichert, Jr., as Head of Global Revenue Organizations. Patz was most recently at Microsoft, heading up a 300 person sales team for Microsoft's Communications Sector, and also had served at Velti. Deichert was most recently Managing Director of North American Operations at Criteo Corporation, and also served at Tribal Fusion, Advertising.com, AOL (Platform-A), Weather Channel, and LivePe (More info...)
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REC Solar, Sungevity In PartnershipSan Luis Obispo-based commercial solar power installer REC Solar, and residential solar power provider Sungevity said today that the two are in a new, strategic partnership, where they will share sales leads with each other. The two specifically will help REC Solar, by pushing commercial sector leads to the company, particularly in the large scale, commercial market. The two said that Sungevity will offer the REC Solar PPA to its customers through the partnership. Sungevity will get leads in the (More info...)
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EDF Renewable Energy Wins 111 Megawatt Project For SCESan Diego-based solar power project developer EDF Renewable Energy reported late Wednesday evening that it has signed a power purchase agreement with Southern California Edison, for a 111.2 megawatt solar project in the Mojave Desert. The company said the Valentine Solar Project will deliver clean energy to SCE beginning in December of 2019. The new, photovoltaic energy project is next to an existing EDF RE project, the Catalina Solar 2 Project, which also supplies SCE. Financial details of the (More info...)
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Newegg Adds Facebook Messenger For Customer SupportLos Angeles-based online technology retailer Newegg said Wednesday that it has begun using Facebook Messenger for its customer support efforts. According to Newegg, it has begun piloting the use of Facebook Messenger, in addition to its existing support for email, SMS text messaging, phone, and chat for its customers. The company says it is among the first e-commerce vendors to announce support for Facebook Messenger for Business. Newegg said it will engage directly with customer during busines (More info...)
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