Friday, October 28, 2016


GM Car Sharing Program, Maven, Launches In Downtown LA
Maven, the car sharing program run by General Motors (GM), has made its first expansion into Los Angeles, the company said this week. According to GM, it will offer up Chevrolet Cruze, Malibu, Tahoe and Volt, GMC Acadia and Yukon, and luxury Cadillacs such as the ATS, CTS, CT6, XT5 and Escalade in the program, which lets people rent cars starting at $8 an hour. GM said that it will initially locate stations in downtown Los Angeles, Little Tokyo and South Park plus locations near the University o (More info...)
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KYTHERA, Amgen Vet Takes Helm At UNITY Biotechnology After $116M Funding
A local, Ventura County biotechnology executive, Keith Leonard, has taken the helm of UNITY Biotechnology, a heavily backed San Francisco biotech startup focused on curing diseases of aging, as a result of a big $116M funding round at the company. Leonard--most recently, CEO of KYTHERA Biopharmaceuticals--also is a longtime Amgen veteran, where he spent 13 years. UNITY Biotechnology says it is developing therapeutics that increase healthspan by preventing, halting or reversing diseases of aging. (More info...)
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BlackLine Soars In IPO Debut
Woodland Hills-based BlackLine Software, the developer of accounting close software, soared in its IPO debut on Friday, and was trading up more than 45 percent in morning trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market. BlackLine was trading around $24.79 at around 12:50PM EDT, up $7.79 from its IPO debut price of $17.00 per share. BlackLine had already priced at the high end of an upped IPO pricing range of between $16.00 to $17.00 per share. BlackLine is now trading as BL.
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Amplify LA's Paul Bricault On Startup Accelerator Lessons, Five Years Later
Venice-based Amplify LA (www.amplify.la) is celebrating its fifth anniversary as a startup accelerator here in the Los Angeles area – one of the few in the area to have survived in more or less original form after the launch of a number of startup incubators and accelerators five years ago. Paul Bricault, co-founder of the accelerator, sat down with us earlier this week to reflect on the lessons he's learned over those five years, and what he's learned about LA's startup environment. Congr (More info...)
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Soylent Pulls Powder From Market As Recall Expands
Los Angeles-based food alternative developer Soylent--which develops a line of products intended to replace the need for normal food--has pulled its "Powder" product from the market, saying that it is halting sales of the product until it can determine the issues behind reported digestive issues with its product. Soylent says it has now removed its Bar and Powdr products for reformulation, and will expect to resume shipping those products in early Q1 of 2017. The company said that its testing ha (More info...)
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Faraday Future Teases Look At Production Vehicle
Los Angeles-based Faraday Future, the mysterious electric car vehicle startup which has announced big plans to build electric vehicles, but has yet to officially launch its production car, has shown the first look at its production vehicles in a teaser video. Faraday Future showed about 5 seconds of a heavily obscured sedan racing around a track in a teaser video on Thursday, the first look at the company's yet-to-be-announced production vehicle. Faraday Future has only been showing off a "conce (More info...)
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Blizzard Books Weird Al As Headliner For BlizzCon
Irvine-based Blizzard Entertainment, which is just getting set to launch its annual BlizzCon 2016 video gamers conference, says it has booked "Weird Al" as the headliner for the event. Blizzard said Weird Al will close out its two-day gaming convention with his multimedia rock and comedy live show next Saturday. BlizzCon is sold out, but Blizzard is live streaming the conference both online and via a pay-per-view DIRECTV event. The statement announcing the addition quotes Weird Al saying "I'm ve (More info...)
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Masimo Expands Board
Irvine-based medical equipment maker Masimo announced Thursday afternoon that it has appointed Adam Mikkelson, who is a Partner at healthcare-focused investment fund Camber Capital Management LLC, to its board of directors. Mikkelson has been at Camber since 2007. Masimo is a developer of noninvasive patient monitoring equipment, including a line of widely used pulse oximetry devices.
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TP-Link Unveils Color Changing Smart Light Bulb
Brea-based networking equipment maker TP-Link is expanding its lineup of smart home devices, saying this week that it has rolled out a new "smart" light bulb to its product line. TP-Link said its new LB130 Smart Wi-Fi Bulb installed like a normal light bulb, but then can be controlled via Wi-Fi. The new bulb can be programmed to output any color or brightness, and follow any schedule. The new light bulb is controlled by TP-Link's own iOS or Android apps. TP-Link is better known for its Wi-Fi rou (More info...)
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