This site uses cookies to improve your experience. To help us insure we adhere to various privacy regulations, please select your country/region of residence. If you do not select a country, we will assume you are from the United States. Select your Cookie Settings or view our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Used for the proper function of the website
Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Strictly Necessary: Used for the proper function of the website
Performance/Analytics: Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
I’ve heard a lot of people question whether there is too much money in venture capital chasing too few great deals. “We’re in a new tech bubble!” some have pronounced. “Valuations are out of control” is the mantra of others. Others believe that new business models are emerging that could replace venture capital all together. Every year I try to answer the question of “what has changed in the Venture Capital industry” and this year my colleague Chang Xu and I took a deep dive through the data and
Machinima , which had been the poster child for Southern California's multi-channel-network (MCN) boom, has laid off most of its employees and ceased its operations , according to reports. The shutdown comes after a reorganization of the digital properties of AT&T, as well as its Otter Media subsidiary. Machinima had been acquired by Warner Bros. in 2016, in a deal then reported as worth less than $100M.
Battery-technology business Maxwell Technologies has agreed to be acquired by Silicon Valley electric car company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA ) in an all-stock deal valued at about $218 million, the San Diego-based company announced Monday. Maxwell (NASDAQ: MXWL ) said Palo Alto, CA-based Tesla would buy its shares at $4.75 apiece, a 55 percent premium over its stock price as of market close Feb. 1.
Cryptocurrency is rarely out of the news, but the recent case involving Canadian currency exchange QuadrigaCX is a real show stopper. With the sudden death of its founder, Gerald Cotton, customers are owed an estimated $190 million due to a missing password only he knew. A huge amount of cryptocurrency is believed to be stored on a device that is now inaccessible, leaving customers in the dark as to what has happened to their funds.
Office leases are one of companies’ largest expenses, and if your whole team is working from home with no clear end in sight, you may be wondering what to do about your lease.
Stacey Abrams Interviewed by Lisa Borders, CEO of TimesUp This past week Stacey Abrams spoke at The Upfront Summit in a 25-minute talk followed by a breakout town hall discussion. You may know that later today she will deliver the response to The State of the Union speech by the president. She was interviewed by Lisa Borders, CEO of TimesUp (who spoke separately, video will be released soon).
Santa Monica-based venture investor March Capital Partners (www.marchcp.com) announced last week that it has raised a second fund, worth $300M. To learn about the new fund, we sat down with Jamie Montgomery , one of the fund's co-founders, to hear about March Capital's strategy and the new fund. Tell us a little bit about the new fund? Jamie Montgomery: It's interesting, as you grow, you get bigger and more focused.
Think you don’t use negotiation most every day of your life? From the time we learn to manipulate our parents from the crib to today, we learn to negotiate to obtain our wants and needs. As we grow, we negotiate constantly with our parents, then with our peers. As we enter the business world, we negotiate with our bosses and our subordinates. We negotiate with our suppliers, customers, investors, and even our auditors.
Sign up to get articles personalized to your interests!
Southern California Tech Central brings together the best content for technical professionals in Southern California from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Think you don’t use negotiation most every day of your life? From the time we learn to manipulate our parents from the crib to today, we learn to negotiate to obtain our wants and needs. As we grow, we negotiate constantly with our parents, then with our peers. As we enter the business world, we negotiate with our bosses and our subordinates. We negotiate with our suppliers, customers, investors, and even our auditors.
After a deal that just closed this week, Spotify is stretching its streaming wings beyond music and into podcasts. It reportedly paid a hefty $230 million to acquire the podcast publisher and network startup Gimlet Media, and has also acquired the podcast monetization platform Anchor for an undisclosed price. It’s the biggest podcast industry acquisition ever, and Spotify isn’t done.
As you may know we run an annual conference called The Upfront Summit in which we try to bring together the world of investors, entrepreneurs and interesting people from the world of sports, politics, music & film. We do this to showcase what is uniquely LA and to create a more cohesive network in our community. We have sought ways to make it more open while not turning it into a mega conference so while we have capped it at 1,000 attendees, starting a couple of years ago we opened up the ev
Los Angeles-based footwear trading site Goat Group , founded by Eddy Lu and Daishin Sugano, has raised a big, $100M funding round from footwear retailer Foot Locker , the two announced on Thursday. According to the company, the move also will include exclusive shopping opportunities and joint efforts in Foot Locker's physical stores. New York-based Foot Locker said the strategic minority investment came through its subsidiary in 1661, Inc.
Think you don’t use negotiation most every day of your life? From the time we learn to manipulate our parents from the crib to today, we learn to negotiate to obtain our wants and needs. As we grow, we negotiate constantly with our parents, then with our peers. As we enter the business world, we negotiate with our bosses and our subordinates. We negotiate with our suppliers, customers, investors, and even our auditors.
Innovation is the key to long-term business success, both in startups as well as established organizations. Yet every business and every entrepreneur I know struggles with this challenge, focused on hiring the right people and implementing the right process. Yet, in my experience the key seems to be more a discipline of innovative thinking from everyone, driven from the top.
Alector, a company taking an immunotherapy approach to Alzheimer’s disease and other brain disorders, has raised approximately $176 million in an initial public offering. The South San Francisco, CA, biotech sold 9.25 million shares Wednesday evening priced at $19 apiece, which was the midpoint of its targeted $18 to $20 per share range. Those shares are expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq Thursday under the stock symbol “ALEC.
Costa Mesa-based Ice Energy , which develops energy storage technology based on storing energy for air conditioning in the form of ice, has completed the first phase of a big deployment for Southern California Edison (SCE), the company announced on Wednesday. According to Ice Energy, it has installed 100 of its "Ice Bear" units across SCE's service territory, the first stage of a 21.6 MW energy storage contract it has with SCE.
Thursday, February 14, 2019 -- TCVN Legal Program #2: IP Protection Strategies For Start-Ups. TCVN now features four educational tracks in four specific areas. The four tracks are: Legal, Execution, Finance, and Marketing and will consist of a series of five, consecutive monthly programs designed to give the entrepreneur a comprehensive overview of each area.
A version of this article previously appeared Forbes. When I saw World Series Poker Champion Annie Duke speak in 2017, I was inspired to write an article describing some of her recruiting techniques. Impressed with her wit and insights during her talk, I was excited to read her latest book, Thinking In Bets. I was not disappointed. Business (And Life) Is Poker, Not Chess.
Gossamer Bio, the San Diego-based biotech founded by former Receptos executives, has raised $276 million in its initial public offering, a total that puts it in a rare class among biotechs that have gone public in recent years. The amount raised surpassed expectations. During the partial federal government shutdown in January, Gossamer announced it would pursue a little-used path to the public markets that required it to fix a share price, which was locked in for 20 days.
San Diego-based Radicle Growth , a new, seed-stage investor focused on the agtech and food technology sector, said this morning that it has invested $250,000 in Leaf Agriculture , a pre-seed company developing application programming interfaces (APIs) between agtech products. Radicle Growth said Leaf Agriculture is developing an API product that facilitates fast, easy and secure data transfer between agtech platform partners through a single point of access.
Tuesday, February 12, 2019 -- Start-Up Options for Rapid Development, Funding, and Commercialization. LAVA Healthcare. Is VC funding the only way to develop and grow your company? Have you heard of accelerators, incubators, angles, and other resources for rapid development, funding, and growth of your start-up? Attend our LAVA event on February 19th as our distinguished panel will share their expertise and insight.
The pervasive ability and need to communicate constantly and globally through the Internet and smartphones is incenting everyone to get more out of their own assets and time, and capitalize on the idle resources of others. This sharing economy is rapidly becoming the new business of sharing, with major winners already including Airbnb (rooms), Uber (rides), and Chegg (books).
Last week, it was reported by multiple media outlets (see here , and here , and here ) that a group of Israeli scientists had found “a cure for all cancer” and that it could be ready within a year. As a long-time life sciences industry executive my knee-jerk reaction was not “finally!” but “crap, not again!” As someone who knows from experience the challenges of treating cancer—man, it’s hard—the hairs on the back of my neck stood up with concern for the more than 15 million people l
Tesla Motors , the electric car-and-solar panel company led by Elon Musk, is acquiring San Diego-based technology developer Maxwell Technologies , in a deal worth approximately $218M, the companies announced on Monday. ACcording to the two, the merger agreement calls for Tesla to pay $4.75 per share for all of the outstanding stock of Maxwell Technologies.
A frequent concern I hear from aspiring entrepreneurs is “I have invented a great product, but I have no idea where to start in setting up a company, to avoid all the tax and legal problems I hear about on the news.” In fact, this is a complex question, with answers that are different all around the world, but I have some general rules of thumb that apply here in the USA to get you started: Create a business entity early to encapsulate your venture.
After Facebook posted a record profit of almost $7 billion in the fourth quarter on nearly $17 billion in revenue last week, an early investor, former advisor to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and current shareholder said he’s making it a mission to “fix’’ the 15-year-old tech giant. Roger McNamee, in a podcast interview with The New York Times , says the company is a dangerous, predatory instrument that uses the fun and convenience of its app to get users addicted.
Santa Monica-based MomentFeed , the developer of software that helps multi-location brands manage the mobile experience for their customers, has named Avik Dey as its new Senior Vice President of Engineering, the company said this morning. Dey was most recently Executive Vice President, Technology at Marin Software, and also served as Worldwide Director, Big Data Product/Apache Engineering at Intel Corporation, in addition to serving at Yahoo!
Tuesday, February 12, 2019 -- Reverse Mergers Into Public Shells. CONNECT. This program will educate private issuers about the process of going public by merging with an existing public shell.
If you are looking for funding and customers for your new business, you need to identify your “unique selling proposition” (USP) right up front, in 30 seconds or less, to differentiate yourself in today’s information overload. That may sound obvious, but as a new venture investor, I rarely see it happening. Investor and customer attention spans are short, and both will write you off quickly.
It’s not too late to submit your nominations for the first-ever Xconomy Awards San Diego. We are extending the deadline for nominations to 5 p.m. PST on Thursday, Feb. 7. This week is your last chance to nominate in categories including Digital Trailblazer, CEO, and Secret Weapon. Here is the full category list. This is your chance to tell our judges about the people, companies, and organizations that make the life science, healthtech, and medical device communities in San Diego so innovative.
Los Angeles-based commercial real estate services giant CBRE Group announced this morning that it has acquired UK-based Romonet Limited , a provider of software, technology, and consulting services for the large global data center market. Financial details of the acquisition were not announced. According to CBRE Group, Romonet's team of professonals will join CBRE as part of the acquisition.
Traditional business intelligence (and data mining) software does a very good job of showing you where you’ve been. By contrast, predictive analytics uses data patterns to make forward-looking predictions that guide you to where you should go next. This is a whole new world for small businesses seeking enterprise application opportunities, as well social media trend challenges.
Argenx, a Dutch firm with a pipeline of investigational antibody-based therapies, will pay San Diego-based Halozyme to use its drug delivery technology to develop subcutaneous versions of some of the drugs Argenx is developing to treat rare autoimmune diseases and cancers. The technology Halozyme (NASDAQ: HALO ) is licensing, called Enhanze, allows drugs that would otherwise be delivered intravenously to be injected, which can turn an hours-long process into one that lasts just minutes.
San Diego-based finance and treasury management software developer Kyriba announed today that it has surpassed $110M in revenues in 2018, and says it expects to grow 40 percent in the new year. The privately held company said the revenue and growth were driven by more than 229 new enterprise clients it signed in 2018. Kyriba has previously raised funding from American Express, BIH, Bpifrance, BRED Banque Populaire, Coface, Daher Capital, HSBC, Iris Capital, Mangrove Capital Partners, Mitsubishi
Carlsbad-based EasyPay Finance , a provider of consumer financing for automotive service and repairs, has raised $50M in a credit facility, the company announced this morning. The funding came from Ares Management Corporation. According to the company, it will use the new funding for growth, developing new financial technology, and other efforts. EasyPay Finance said the credit facility is expandable to $100M, subject to lender consent.
How do you take and create an entrepreneurial environment, within a big corporation? We sat down with Brian McCarthy , SVP of Dentistry.com (www.dentistry.com), a startup within a much larger company Futuredontics, which itself is a part of a big company called Sirona. McCarthy is a veteran of the local online marketing and startup space, having worked at such companies as Search123 (sold to ValueClick in 2003), Revver.com, CitySearch, IAC, and The Search Agency, We spoke to McCarthy about wha
We organize all of the trending information in your field so you don't have to. Join 5,000+ users and stay up to date on the latest articles your peers are reading.
You know about us, now we want to get to know you!
Let's personalize your content
Let's get even more personalized
We recognize your account from another site in our network, please click 'Send Email' below to continue with verifying your account and setting a password.
292 
Let's personalize your content