Tuesday, January 10, 2017


Sonos Founder MacFarlane Steps Down As CEO
John MacFarlane, the founder and CEO of Santa Barbara-based music system maker Sonos, has stepped down as CEO, and has handed over the CEO position to Patrick Spence, MacFarlane announced on Tuesday. According to MacFarlane, he will remain an employee of Sonos, where he will "help and advise" the company, and also focus on STEM education. Spence has been President of Sonos since July of 2016, and had joined Sonos in 2012 as Chief Commercial Officer. Spence also had served at Research in Motion (More info...)
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Snap Inc: No, We Don't Have A New HQ In London
Venice, California-based Snap, Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, said on Tuesday that it has not established a new international headquarters in London--despite media reports. The company said it has "one HQ, in Venice", and the changes in London simply involved billing advertising revenue in the UK through a UK entity. The change will allow the company to pay taxes in the UK, according to the company, so that it can be a "good local partner as we grow our business."
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MobileCause Raises $15M For Nonprofit Software
Los Angeles-based nonprofit fundraising and crowdfunding software platform developer MobileCause has raised $15M in a Series B funding, according to the company. The funding came from growth equity firm Level Equity. As part of the funding, Levil Equity's Sarah Sommer has joined the company's board. MobileCause said the new funding will go towards "aggressive" product innovation and expansion in the US and internationally. MobileCause is led by CEO Sean MacNeill.
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Moonshots Gets Big Exit At Harvest.ai
Los Angeles-based venture investment firm Moonshots Capital, which is led by Kelly Perdew, has seen a big exit via the acquisition of San Diego's Harvest.ai by Amazon Web Services. The deal, which has not yet been formally announced, was reportedly worth around $20M. Moonshots and fellow investors, including Trinity Ventures, had invested only $2.3M in Harvest.ai, which develops cybersecurity software aimed at data loss prevention. Moonshots was only founded two years ago by Perdew and co-founde (More info...)
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PSI Services Buys Software Secure
Burbank-based testing software and services provider PSI Services announced this morning that it has acquired Software Secure, a provider of cloud-based, online testing services for the higher education, K-12, and certification markets. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed. The acquisition is the second for PSI in the area in the last two years; the company had earlier acquired Innovative Exams, a similar provider of remote testing services to the industry; the company also ac (More info...)
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March Capital Partners Backs Activehours
Los Angeles-based venture investor March Capital Partners, the investment firm run by Jim Armstrong, Sumant Mandal, Gregory Milken, and Jamie Montgomery, has made an investment in Activehours, a new startup offering up early access to paychecks. Activehours, based in Palo Alto, said it had raised $22M in a funding round, which was led by Matrix Partners, and also included March Capital Partners, plus existing investors Ribbit Capital, Felicis Ventures, and others. Activehours is a mobile app whi (More info...)
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Lionsgate Backs eSports Team, The Immortals
In a further boost to the growing e-sports industry, movie studio Lionsgate announced this morning that it has made an investment in the e-sports franchise Immortals. Size of the investment was not announced. Immortals is the team which is backed by such investors as Michael Milken, Steve Kaplan OakTree Capital, Memphis Grizzlies), Greg Milken, Allen DeBevoise, CrossCut Ventures, Clinton Foy, and many, many others. Lionsgate said it the e-sports market has the "potential to transform the face of (More info...)
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Resonant Swaps CEO
Goleta-based Resonant Inc., which designs RF filter technology for the wireless industry, said today that its CEO, Terry Lindgren, is retiring from the company. Lindgren has been CEO of the company since it was founded in May of 2012, an is one of its founders. According to Resonant, George B. Holmes, the company's President, Chief Commercial Officer and board member, will become CEO. Resonant's filters are used as part of the radio frequency signal processing circuits in mobile phones and other (More info...)
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