L.A. Business Journal
JULY 7, 2018
Sgrouples Inc.’s MeWe, a Culver City social network startup that calls itself an alternative to Facebook Inc., announced July 5 it had raised $5.2 million in Series A fundraising.
L.A. Business Journal
JULY 11, 2018
University of California–Los Angeles has received a $9.75 million grant from the United States Department of Energy of to advance research in rechargeable batteries.
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L.A. Business Journal
JULY 13, 2018
Spotify moves to L.A.
Berkonomics
JULY 12, 2018
Close. At many board meetings, I can be counted upon to ask, “Where’s the bottleneck this month?” Senior management is usually prepared with an answer, and a good discussion of resource availability and application follows. Sometimes, the bottleneck is not so visible to the CEO. In those instances, I follow with: “Do you notice people waiting at your door, telling you that they were waiting for your response or decision, even if you were unaware of this?”.
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socalTECH
JULY 10, 2018
Santa Monica-based air travel provider Surf Air --which got its start offering up low cost "all you can fly" travel between Silicon Beach and Silicon Valley--has lauched a new offering which hopes to attract its members for weekend getaways. According to Surf Air, its new Surf Air Experiences, which it is running in conjunction with partner All Roads North, will offer up special, three-day weekend trips to its Surf Air Members only.
SoCal Tech Calendar
JULY 13, 2018
Thursday, July 19, 2018 -- LAXTechRecruit. All Day hands-on conference on Recruiting and Hiring Strategies. Lou Adler keynote, 35+ Talent Acquisition Leaders speaking and opening playbooks on Hiring, Employer Branding and Sourcing Automation Tools and Recruiter Outbound Marketing. 200+ attendees @ CTRL Collective and Sponsored by Hiretual.
Southern California Tech Central brings together the best content for technical professionals in Southern California from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Xconomy
JULY 11, 2018
Mark Cummins wondered why online search engines could help you locate a landmark halfway around the world in a second but couldn’t tell him whether the corner store had a craft beer he liked. That’s what led him to co-found Pointy, which makes a hardware device that enables small retailers to easily upload inventory onto their websites—thereby making the products more easily found in online searches.
socalTECH
JULY 10, 2018
San Diego-based Crinetics Pharmaceuticals , a pharmaceuticals firm focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of novel therapeutics for rare endocrine diseases and endocrine-related tumors, has set its estimated IPO range, saying in a filing that it is looking to sell 5,000,000 shares of its stock at between $15.00 and $17.00 per share.
SoCal Tech Calendar
JULY 12, 2018
Wednesday, July 18, 2018 -- BizBash Live Los Angeles. BizBash Live: Los Angeles returns to the California Market Center with the most important experience for event and meeting professionals. These event organizers will connect, collaborate, and cultivate new relationships with industry vendors from across Southern California and North America, and learn from the leading names in live experiences.
L.A. Business Journal
JULY 12, 2018
Ashton Kutcher’s VC opens $150 million funding round; Cleantech and Clean Energy kick off climate-change challenge; $9.
Xconomy
JULY 9, 2018
Last year, U.S. venture capital investments swelled to a level not seen since the dot-com era of the early 2000s. This year could be even bigger. Investors funneled $57.5 billion into U.S. companies through the first six months of 2018, according to the latest Venture Monitor report produced quarterly by Seattle-based PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA).
socalTECH
JULY 11, 2018
The Irvine Company , which operates a huge list of shopping centers in Orange County and elsewhere, including Fashion Island and the Irvine Spectrum, is in the midst of a flap over license plate data sharing. The real estate development firm was accused of sharing license plate scanning data with ICE , according to a report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
SoCal Tech Calendar
JULY 8, 2018
Saturday, July 14, 2018 -- Pitch Genius Workshops/ The purpose of this workshop is to educate idea-to-early stage startups about investors, fundraising, and how to make a successful pitch.
L.A. Business Journal
JULY 9, 2018
Guess Inc.
Startup Professionals Musings
JULY 9, 2018
Every entrepreneur knows that good demand generation marketing is the key to growth these days, but very few have the discipline or know-how to measure return in a world of a thousand tools and techniques. Even those things that worked yesterday may not work tomorrow, as the market matures, the culture changes, and competitors appear with new solutions.
socalTECH
JULY 10, 2018
Irvine-based Illuminate Education , a brand new startup backed by Insight Venture Partners, said today that it has merged five different companies-- Illuminate Education , IO Education , SchoolCity , Alpine Achievement , and Key Data Systems --to create a new company focused on data platforms, data, analytics, and formative assessments of K-12 students.
Xconomy
JULY 13, 2018
Humans have had a drastic physical evolution recently—one that has notably taken only a few years. While the evolution from hunched primates to homo sapiens took tens of millions of years, we needed only about a decade to develop an arched neck that is perennially looking down at a smartphone—presumably one with a social media app open. Whether or not social media is healthy for or bodies—or minds—it now influences every aspect of our life, in particular the economy, with
Startup Professionals Musings
JULY 8, 2018
Most of the young entrepreneurs I know are classic proof of the old adage that people tend to overestimate what they can do in a short period, and underestimate what they can do over a long period. They become frustrated when they are unable to build their startup in a weekend, and give up way too soon when the path to real success seems to be interminable.
socalTECH
JULY 13, 2018
Irvine-based cybersecurity software developer Cylance has launched a new product, aimed at the consumer market. Cylance said it has launched Cylance Smart Antivirus, which takes the company's enterprise, artificial intelligence-driven antivirus technology and applies it to home users. The software is the first for the consumer market for Cylance, which supplies its AI antivirus software to corporate users under the name CylancePROTECT.
L.A. Business Journal
JULY 11, 2018
Musk takes on Flint water crisis, the Overwatch League’s grand finals will be televised, Jam City is taking Harry Potter to Asia
Xconomy
JULY 11, 2018
Akcea Therapeutics (NASDAQ: AKCA ) has beaten rival Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALNY ) to a first drug approval, getting the nod for its drug inotersen (Tegsedi) in the European Union. Akcea and Alnylam, both of Cambridge, MA, are developing treatments for the rare genetic disease transthyretin amyloidosis, or ATTR. It stems from a gene mutation that causes the protein transthyretin, which carries vitamin A around the body, to misfold and build up in nerves and other tissues, causing pain,
Startup Professionals Musings
JULY 7, 2018
I’ve noticed that most young entrepreneurs are more socially conscious today than ever before, which is a great trend. Unfortunately, some are so focused on this principle that they forget that every business, even nonprofits, have to practice the basic principles of capitalism (build a business model to make money) to cover their costs to do good things another day.
socalTECH
JULY 12, 2018
Santa Monica-based private equity investor Clearlake Capital said this morning that it has sold one of its portfolio companies, Pomeroy Group Holdings , to an affiliate of Getronics Group. Financial details of the acquisition were not announced. Clearlake has owned Pomeroy Group Holdings for the last five years. Pomeroy provided information technology services, including managed services, to the middle market and enterprise customers.
socalTECH
JULY 12, 2018
Semiconductor giant Broadcom , which has significant operations in Orange County, said late Wednesday that it will acquire software developer CA Technologies in a deal worth $18.9 billion in cash. According to Broadcom, it will pay $44.50 per share in cash for CA, in a move which it says will help it create a "infrastructure technology company" and add "significant recurring revenue" to the company.
socalTECH
JULY 10, 2018
Los Angeles- and London-based MTech Capital , a brand new venture capital fund focused on the insurance technology, or "InsureTech" market, says it has raised a new, $75M venture capital fund. According to MTech Capital, the new fund has three anchor investors, including CNA Financial Corporation, NN Group, and a top-3 global insurance company. MTech Capital says that its founders are Kevin McLoughlin and Brian McLoughlin, and that it is focused on technology-enabled investment opportunities wit
socalTECH
JULY 9, 2018
Los Angeles-based fashion brand Guess is making a move into the world of artificial intelligence, with a link with Chinese technology and e-commerce giant Alibaba. According to Guess, it is working with Alibaba on Alibaba's FashionAI project, whcih the two said will "provide customers with a more enriching shopping experience that combines online and offline shopping behaviors.
socalTECH
JULY 9, 2018
Los Angeles-based Famous Birthdays , the online information provider led by Evan Britton, is expanding into the Spanish language market, with a new Spanish site called Famous Birthdays Español. According to Famous Birthdays, the new site will provide its brand, technology, and user experience to the Spanish market. Famous Birthdays profiles celebrities and other famous people's birthdays and bios.
socalTECH
JULY 12, 2018
A new, startup competition, called the California Climate Cup --run by te Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) and the California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF)--says it is looking to identify the most promising startups, globally, who are working on innovations for megacities for zero emission transportation and clean energy. The new competition will offer up cash prizes and an opportunity to pitch those startups to investors.
socalTECH
JULY 12, 2018
Peer-to-peer car sharing site Turo has filed a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), over difficulties Turo has been having in launching at LAX. Turo said it filed a lawsuit today at the U.S. Central District Court of California in Los Angeles. Turo said that it blames its lawsuit against collusion between LAX and car rental company Enterprise to keep it out of LAX.
socalTECH
JULY 12, 2018
Carlsbad-based Viasat is powering the new in-flight Wi-Fi service from EL AL Israel Airlines , the two companies said today, as El Al officially launches its new commercial in-flight Wi-Fi service. According to Viasat, EL AL was its original European launch customer. Viasat says that so far, 15 EL AL aircraft have been outfitted with its latest equipment, including Boeing 787 Dreamliners, Boeing 737-900 aircraft and Boeing 737-800 planes; Viasat says EL AL expects to have the majority of its fle
socalTECH
JULY 11, 2018
La Jolla-based private equity investor JMI Equity has made a $35M strategic growth investment in Cosential , a developer of customer relationship management (CRM) and proposal automation software for the architecture and engineering market. Cosential announced on Wednesday that it has raised $35M in the strategic growth investment, which came from private equity investor JMI Equity.
socalTECH
JULY 11, 2018
Irvine-based Blizzard Entertainment has inked a television deal where ESPN and Disney XD will provide live television coverage of the Overwatch League , the three companies announced on Wednesday. Financial details of the multiyear, exclusive telecast agreement were not announced by the company. According to Blizzard, ESPN, and DisneyXD, the live coverage will include Overwatch League playoffs and Grand Finals across ESPN and Disney television networks in 2018, with a 2019 schedule to be announc
socalTECH
JULY 11, 2018
Pegasus Solar , the startup developing rooftop mounting systems for solar installations which is backed by Orange County's Okapi Ventures, has raised new funding, bringing its total raised to $10M in its Series A. The company announced the additional funding on Tuesday. Pegasus Solar said the round was led by Ecosystem Integrity Fund (EIF), with participation from Okapi Capital, Howard Wenger, Mike Miskovsky, and other solar industry executives.
socalTECH
JULY 11, 2018
San Diego-based Synteract , a contract research organization (CRO) which runs clinical trials for the pharmaceutical industry, said today that it has acquired Cu-Tech , a contract research organization which specializes in dermatology. Synteract said it would use the buy to create a "dedicated center of dermatology development" at the company. Cu-Tech was based in New Jersey.
socalTECH
JULY 11, 2018
Los Angeles-based electronics e-commerce site NewEgg said today that it is kicking off its annual, "FantasTech" sale on July 16th--a counter to the big Amazon Prime Day sale on the same day. According toNewegg, it will offer up a four-day sale on a wide range of the "latest and greatest" tech products. NewEgg said it will start with a "pre-sale" starting on July 11th, an offer up daily deals leadin gup to its big sale on July 16th.
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