Friday, August 5, 2016Santa Barbara Gets Another $100M Plus Exit, At AurrionAdd another, high dollar exit for a young startup in Santa Barbara, adding to the region's growing list of successful technology exits: Aurrion. According to a 10-Q, quarterly filing from acquirer Juniper Networks on Thursday, it paid $165M for Goleta-based Aurrion, a fabless, wafer scale silicon photonic technology provider. Aurrion is a spinout of UC Santa Barbara, and develops technology being used to make high speed optical networking in a more cost effective manner. Juniper had announced it (More info...)
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Core Innovation Capital Backs Mosaic's $220M FundingLos Angeles-based fintech investor Core Innovation Capital is one of the backers in a big, $220M equity funding for solar power financing provider Mosaic. Mosaic, which works with both owners and installers to help provide the upfront capital for residential solar installs, said the $220M equity round was led by Warburg Pincus, and also included Core Innovation Capital and Obvious Ventures. The company is based in Oakland. Core Innovation Capital is very active nationally in fintech investments, (More info...)
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GrubMarket, With Big Operations In LA, Finds $20M For Food MarketplaceGrubMarket, a foood marketplace startup which has nearly half of its employees in Los Angeles, has raised $20M in funding, the company said this week. The San Francisco startup--which says it has 20 employees in LA, and 25 in San Francisco--runs an online and mobile marketplace which connects local farmers and food producers with consumers. Los Angeles is one of the company's launch markets, and the big presence here is a result of the company's acquisition of another, local grocery delivery sta (More info...)
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Disney Launches DisneyMix, Social Messaging For The Younger SetWant to let your kids message back and forth with their friends--but a wee bit leery of the anything-goes world of Snapchat? Burbank-based Disney launched a new, mobile messaging service this week called Disney Mix, aimed at kids and families, which lets users send messages back and forth, send stickers, play games, and more using Disney characters. Disney's new entry into the social messaging area, which is free, launched onto iTunes and Google Play. The new service apparently also includes man (More info...)
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TheWaveVR Raises $2.5M For VR Live Music PlatformLos Angeles- and Austin-based TheWaveVR announced this morning that it has raised $2.5M in a seed funding round, for its efforts to develop a virtual reality experience specifically for experiencing live music. The startup said the funding came from KPCB Edge, Presence Capital, Rothenberg Ventures, RRE Ventures, The VR Fund, Seedcamp, and angels such as Mike Fischer (Square Enix) and Joe Kraus (GV). The startup, led by Adam Arrigo, is developing a VR platform which lets users join an immersive l (More info...)
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Oblong Industries Bumps Funding Round To $50MLos Angeles-based Oblong Industries, the developer of gesture recognition and immersive collaboration platforms, has bumped its latest funding round to over $50M, saying in a regulatory filing yesterday that it has now raised nearly $45M in the funding. The funding looks to be an extension over an earlier, $15M close on the same round in February. Oblong has not yet announced any details on the round. The regulatory filing says that 9 investors participated in this latest funding. Oblong is led (More info...)
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NantHealth Wins Deal With Large Health SystemCulver City-based NantHealth said this week that it has signed on one of the largest health systems nationwide, Sanford Health, as a customer. According to NantHealth, Sanford Health has entered into a commercial license for its eviti, evidence-based treatment and oncology decision support platform. Financial impact of the deal was not announced. NantHealth said oncologists who use the eviti system will gain access to evidence-based regimens, condition-specific clinical trial options and the pot (More info...)
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Inphi's Memory Interconnect Business Now Part Of RambusRambus said late Thursday that it has completed its acquisition of all of the assets of Inphi's Memory Interconnect Business, in a deal worth $90M in cash. The deal--originally announced in June--included product inventory, customer contracts, supply chain agreements, and intellectual property. Inphi has major operations in Westlake Village.
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