Monday, January 23, 2017


Social Native Adds Ragovin, Elbaz To Exec Team
Los Angeles-based Social Native, which operates a marketplace for connecting brands with content creators, said this morning that it has added Buddy Media co-founder Jeff Ragovin as Chief Growth Officer, and Scopely and Applied Semantics' co-founder Eytan Elbaz as its new Chief Strategy Officer. Ragovin and Elbaz are already major investors in the company. Elbaz is a very active investor in local companies; Ragovin's Buddy Media was sold to Salesforce for $745M, and Elbaz's Applied Semantics was (More info...)
posted on Monday, January 23, 2017(Full story)

Angeles Equity Partners Finds $360M For First Private Equity Fund
Los Angeles-based Angeles Equity Partners, a new private equity investor, said this morning that it has raised $360M in its first private equity fund. The fund, Angeles Equity Partners I, L.P., came from institutional investors, public and private pension plans, endowments, foundations, a sovereign wealth fund, and alternative asset managers, according to the new fund. The new fund was founded by Timothy Meyer and Jordan Katz. The fund says it has made two investments so far, in ERP Power, the M (More info...)
posted on Monday, January 23, 2017(Full story)

Interview with Anna Barber, Techstars LA
Techstars (www.techstars.org) has a long history and record of success as a startup accelerator, with programs across the country and world--and recently opened up its third, Los Angeles program, Techstars LA. Techstars recently appointed Anna Barber as its Managing Director, so we thought we'd sit down and get to know Anna better. How did you get involved with Techstars? Anna Barber: Before this, I hadn't been involved with Techstars as a mentor, however, I'd been an entrepreneur and ment (More info...)
posted on Monday, January 23, 2017(Full story)

Report: Snap IPO To Be Fourth Biggest IPO In 10 Years
A new analysis of the IPOs from the last ten years, from Geckoboard, says that--if successful--the IPO of Venice, California-based Snap, Inc. will be the fourth largest IPO in the last 10 years, behind Alibaba, Facebook, and JD.com, and ahead of Twitter, VMware, and Renren. Geckoboard said it compared the 100 highest-valued tech companies that went public in the last decade to Snap's rumored IPO valuation.
posted on Monday, January 23, 2017(Full story)

Source Photonics Sold By Francisco Partners
West Hills-based optical components maker Source Photonics, which was owned by Francisco Partners, has been sold, to a private equity group led by Redview Capital and Asia-IO, and also including TR Capital, Axiom Asia and Aberdeen Asset Management. Financial terms of the acquisition were not announced. Francisco Partners acquired Soruce Photonics in October of 2010, from MRV Communications. Source Photonics was advised by Evercore and CITIC Securities in the deal. Source Photonics is a maker of (More info...)
posted on Monday, January 23, 2017(Full story)

Western Digital Names New CTO
Irvine-based Western Digital announced this morning that it has named Martin Fink as its new Chief Technology Officer. Fink was most recently CTO and director of HP Labs at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. He had spent 30 years at HP and HPE. Fink replaces Steven Campbell, who Western Digital said will be departing the company to "pursue other opportunities". Campbell had only been CTO since November of 2015.
posted on Monday, January 23, 2017(Full story)

Aerie Pharmaceuticals Names New Research VP
Irvine-based Aerie Pharma has named Kristine Erickson, O.D., Ph.D., as its new Vice President of Clinical Research. Erickson was previously Senior Director Clinical Sciences Ophthalmology at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and also has served at Unigene Laboratories and Opthalmic Research Associates, in addition to experience at Tufts University Medical School, Boston University School of Medicine, and Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. Aerie is developing pharmaceuticals fo (More info...)
posted on Monday, January 23, 2017(Full story)