Wednesday, February 15, 2017


Cosemi Sells Off Business Unit To Avago
Irvine-based Cosemi Technologies has sold off its photodetector chip business to Avago Technologies, and is refocusing its business on "active optical cables", the company said over the last few weeks. Financial terms of the sale were not announced. Avago is a unit of Broadcom Ltd. Cosemi said the deal also includes a supply agreement, where Avago will continue to supply it with photo detectors and other essential semiconductor components, such as lasers, for its products. Cosemi said its active (More info...)
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Fika Ventures Launches New, $40M Seed Fund In LA
Fika Ventures, a new startup venture fund led by venture capitalists Tx Zhuo, Eva Ho, and Arteen Arabshahi, has officially launched this morning, saying that it is investing in startups focused on data, related AI-enabled technologies, and automation. The new seed stage fund says it is looking to invest in "founders solving meaningful, systemic problems" in those areas. Zhuo and Arabshahi were both previously at Karlin Ventures, and Ho had been a founding GP at Susa Ventures and also an foundin (More info...)
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How Float Is Tackling Millennials' Lack Of A Credit Score
If you're just out of school, at your first job--and you didn't get a credit card in school--you might just have a real difficult time of getting that first credit card. That's the experience that Max Klein, the CEO of Float (www.hellofloat.com) had, and is now looking to fix, with a new fintech startup which hopes to make it easier for Millennials to start to establish their credit record. We caught up with Max to hear about the company, which just announced a $3M angel funding round last week. (More info...)
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Jecure Therapeutics Raises $20M From Versant Ventures
San Diego-based Jecure Therapeutics, a new startup focused on treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and fibrosis of the liver, has raised $20M in a Series A funding round. The funding came from Versant Ventures, which launched the startup as its sole investor. Jecure's founders include CEO Jeffrey Stafford, PhD, and CSO James Veal, PhD, who previously were at Quanticel Pharmaceuticals (Acquried by Celgene in 2015). Quanticel Pharmaceuticals was also founded by Versant Ventures, and h (More info...)
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Hello Kitty Comes To Microsoft HoloLens, Thanks To SPACES
If you can't get enough of Hello Kitty, the iconic cartoon character owned by Sanrio, you can now add your own set of Hello Kitty holograms into Microsoft HoloLens--thanks to Playa Vista-based SPACES. SPACES said on Tuesday that it is bringing a new "Hello Kitty Actiongram" theme pack to HoloLens, the Microsoft virtual/augmented reality environment, adding 14 Hello Kitty holograms to the environment. SPACES said it is also planning additional, Hello Kitty characters--including Badtz-Maru, Keropp (More info...)
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Twilight Technology, Now Electronics Buy Semiconductor Manufacturer STI
Anaheim-based Twilight Technology and New York-based partner Now Electronics announced on Tuesday that they have acquired Semiconductor Technology (STI), a developer of NPN and PNP high voltage transistors, MOSFETs, and other transistors. Financial details of the asset acquisition were not announced. The two said they have created a new company, Twilight Now, which will do business as STI. The new company will be split between Anaheim and Huntington, New York. Twilight Technology is a developer (More info...)
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Ingenu Links With Microsoft Azure
San Diego-based Ingenu, which develops Internet-of-Things networking technology, said this morning that it has teamed up with Microsoft Corp., and will use Microsoft's Azure IoT Hub to facilitate deployment of networks based on its technology. The company said its device management platform will integrate with Azure's IoT Hub, which helps connect IoT data from Ingeu's networking technology with Azure services, including Stream Analytics, SQL Database, Event Hubs, App Service, and Power BI Embed (More info...)
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