socalTECH

JANUARY 22, 2009

Santa Monica-based Zag , which has developed an automobile configuration and buying service for affinity organizations like credit unions and automobile organizations, has raised around $32.4M A spokesperson for Zag told socalTECH that a round had closed, but would not confirm the investors or details of the round. in a funding round.

Zag 100

Zag Tech Coast Angels Arcturus GRP Partners 100

socalTECH

APRIL 1, 2009

According to Zag, the firm will provide a turnkey, fully integrated auto buying program for the site, which will offer resources to research and compare vehicles, read AAA editorial reviews, and configure and purchase vehicles. Financial details of the win was not disclosed.

Zag 100

Zag Services Arcturus GRP Partners 100

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 5, 2009

Santa Monica-based Zag has finally revealed the total invested in its latest, strategic round of funding, saying Thursday that it raised $37.4M. USAA is an affinity group which is using Zag's automotive configuration software and services. USAA is an affinity group which is using Zag's automotive configuration software and services.

Zag 100

Zag GRP Partners Anthem Santa Monica 100

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 5, 2009

Los Angeles-based Zag , the online car buying software firm headed by former CarsDirect CEO Scott Painter, has scored an investment from financial services firm USAA , USAA disclosed Thursday. According to USAA, it is taking an equity position in Zag, which is also providing the firm with its car buying services. READ MORE>>.

Zag 100

Zag Invest CarsDirect Venture Capital 100

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

He eventually applied his lessons learned in these experiences when he founded Zag, a company that helps consumers buy cars over the Internet at pre-negotiated prices with nearly 4,000 dealers across the country [disclosure: my firm GRP Partners is an investor in Zag].

Zag 248

Zag Truecar Venture Capital CarsDirect 248

socalTECH

JUNE 10, 2009

Zag's technology provides a level of customization and detail on "fleet" style, pre-negotiated sales of autos, down to the accessory level; the firm has deals with USAA, Capital One, Overstock.com, AAA groups, and others to provide its service. over MSRP on their autos. Painter is the former CEO of CarsDirect.com.

Zag 100

Zag GRP Partners Anthem Santa Monica 100

socalTECH

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Santa Monica-based Zag, which is developing software for auto buying programs, has signed on another AAA group as a customer. According to Zag, AAA Mid-Atlantic has just unveiled a auto buying program which is powered by the firm's software. million members. The deal includes both providing new and used cars for AAA Mid-Atlantic.

Zag 100

Zag CarsDirect Arcturus GRP Partners 100

socalTECH

OCTOBER 14, 2008

Santa Monica-based Zag, a venture-backed developer of online car buying software, said this morning that it has made. Zag said it has promoted Bernie Brenner to Executive Vice President in charge of the firm's consumer initiatives, named David Pributsky as VP of Partner development. a number of hires and a promotion.

Zag 100

Zag Arcturus GRP Partners Anthem 100

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2011

Zigging and zagging amongst the obstacles is the fun part of being an entrepreneur, and it’s what sets you apart from the average worker who knows exactly what he or she has to do every day to get paid. After the initial zigs and zags to get profitable, it is time to formalize and document the processes that worked.

Zag 102

Zag Entrepreneur Startup Resource 102

socalTECH

JULY 9, 2009

Santa Monica-based Zag.com , the online automotive buying firm headed by Scott Painter, announced Thursday that the company has reached an agreement with Mercedes-Benz USA to offer an additional $5000 off pricing of new Mercedes-Benz cars to members of USAA, one of the affinity groups using Zag's auto pricing and purchasing services.

Zag 100

Zag GRP Partners Anthem Santa Monica 100

socalTECH

JULY 7, 2009

Zag has previously received venture capital from such firms as Anthem Ventures, GRP Partners, the Tech Coast Angels, Capricorn Management, Capital One, and Arcturus Capital. The firm did not say what drove the growth, and did not provide any financial details on its sales or profitability.

Zag 100

Zag Sales CarsDirect Tech Coast Angels 100

socalTECH

APRIL 21, 2010

The new auto buying services come as part of a partnership with Zag, which operates online car buying programs. The partnership brings TrueCar--which is a spinout of Zag and also run by Zag CEO Scott Paitner--full circle. READ MORE>>.

Truecar 145

Truecar Zag Santa Monica Pricing 145

socalTECH

APRIL 8, 2009

Santa Monica-based TrueCar , the automotive pricing spinout of Zag, said today that it is targeting dealers with a new web site, to help dealerships price vehicles based on market data. TrueCar also said that it is in a distribution deal with Zag, to serve Zag's dealers with better upfront pricing details. READ MORE>>.

Truecar 113

Truecar Zag Santa Monica Pricing 113

socalTECH

DECEMBER 13, 2010

TrueCar said the sales came via its more than 40 partner-branded Web Siets, which use the car pricing and sales engine powered by Zag. TrueCar said the number comes less than a year from when it reached an initial, 100,000 car sales, which occurred earlier this year.

Truecar 174

Truecar Zag Santa Monica Pricing 174

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 17, 2010

TrueCar is a spinout of Zag Automotive, which is also run by Painter. According to the company, the new site runs on Apple iPhone, BlackBerry, and other web-enabled mobile devices. TrueCar said the site is accessible either by going to its main url, or to its mobile site at mobile.truecar.com. READ MORE>>.

Truecar 154

Truecar Sites Mobile Zag 154

socalTECH

MARCH 14, 2012

SharesPost is now based in San Francisco, but had previously been in Santa Monica, where it was co-founded by Zag's Scott Painter. The SEC said that the newly emerging secondary marketplace for pre-IPO stock "presents risk for even savvy investors", and that SharesPost "skirted" important broker-dealer provisions in its operations.

Zag 145

Zag Santa Monica Company Companies 145

socalTECH

APRIL 27, 2009

The firm--which is a spinout of automotive configuration software firm Zag--said it will provide consumers with a "Price Report" showing the full distribution of prices paid by other people, for the exact same vehicle, in a consumer's local area. The new service is free, and is based on automotive transactions within the last four weeks.

Truecar 100

Truecar Pricing Zag Sites 100

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 18, 2012

Zigging and zagging amongst the obstacles is the fun part of being an entrepreneur, and it’s what sets you apart from the average worker who knows exactly what he or she has to do every day to get paid. After the initial zigs and zags to get profitable, it is time to formalize and document the processes that worked.

Course 99

Course Zag Startup Resource 99

socalTECH

JULY 15, 2009

Santa Monica-based TrueCar , the automotive pricing spinout of Zag Automotive, disclosed Wednesday that the firm has inked distribution deals with five automotive websites. According to TrueCar, it will provide its price reports on Pricequotes.com , Carbuyingtips.com , Carzen.com , Carpricesecrets.com , and Cardevotion.com.

Truecar 100

Truecar Zag HTML Anthem 100

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 8, 2011

Scott Painter is the CEO of TrueCar/Zag, and was also previously CEO of CarsDirect, and has been incubating a number of companies out of his Santa Monica-based BrightHouse incubator. In a regulatory filing Wednesday, the company--which had been spawned out of the spawned out of Scott Painter's BrighHouse incubator--said it had raised $3.3M

CarsDirect 140

CarsDirect Zag Santa Monica Incubator 140

socalTECH

JANUARY 14, 2010

Santa Monica-based TrueCar , the spinout of Zag Automotive which provides data on new car pricing, said today that it has partnered with automotive online marketing firm HomeNet Automotive. According to TrueCar, it will delier new car pricing data and information to HomeNet's Inventory Online Internet Marketing Suite.

Truecar 140

Truecar Zag Santa Monica Pricing 140

socalTECH

JANUARY 25, 2010

TrueCar provides new car pricing data derived from actual automobile dealership sales information, and is a spinout of Zag Automotive. TrueCar said that High Gear will include its search and pricing services through sites like TheCarConnection.com , MotorAuthority.com and GreenCarReports.com , part of High Gear's network of web sites.

Truecar 133

Truecar Pricing Zag Santa Monica 133

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

TrueCar is a spinout of Zag Automotive, and gathers its data from actual sales information from local dealerships. Santa Monica-based TrueCar , the automotive pricing startup headed by Scott Painter, said yesterday that it has rolled out a new, monthly consumer price report. READ MORE>>.

Truecar 113

Truecar Pricing Report Zag 113

socalTECH

APRIL 30, 2010

TrueCar, a spinout of Zag Automotive, is headed by Scott Painter, and uses data gathered from actual dealer car sales to provide the actual sale prices of automobiles in a local area to both buyers and other auto dealers. Financial terms of the settlement--which was filed Thursday with the court--were not disclosed.

Truecar 150

Truecar Edmunds Zag Santa Monica 150

SoCal Tech Calendar

JANUARY 15, 2010

Best Exit Internet Technology, Networks In Motion; Best Funding in New Media/Internet: Rubicon Project, The, HauteLook.com, Zag; Best Funding in Software/Services: OpenX Technologies, Inc. Master of Ceremonies: Ken Rutkowski, METal International. 2010 LAVA Hall of Fame Inductee: Jake Winebaum; Best Exit Life Sciences: Corevalve, Inc.;

LAVA 100

LAVA Cornerstone OnDemand Zag OpenX 100

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

SharesPost is the most visible startup so far out of BrightHouse, the business incubator founded by Greg Brogger and Scott Painter, who are also behind Zag Automotive. The firms said they expect to offer approximately $150M worth of private placements from AEI at launch. READ MORE>>.

Equity 133

Equity Zag Santa Monica Incubator 133

socalTECH

JULY 23, 2009

Santa Monica-based TrueCar , the online car pricing spinout of Zag Automotive, is expanding the depth of its vehicle data today, saying that it is licensing information on new vehicles from Chrome Systems, which is a part of DealerTrack Holdings. Financial details of the license deal were not disclosed.

Truecar 100

Truecar Zag Santa Monica Pricing 100

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 3, 2010

TrueCar pulls its car sales data directly from car dealers, operators of dealer management systems, and data aggregators, including a deal with sister firm Zag, which provides pricing and configuration tools for automotive dealerships.

Truecar 154

Truecar Pricing Tool Arcturus 154

socalTECH

JULY 1, 2009

TrueCar is a car pricing site which was spun out of automotive software firm Zag; the firm is venture backed by Anthem Venture Partners, Global Retail Partners, and Capricorn. The company said Cleckler will work on aiding in development of car pricing tools on the site. Cleckler has also served at Stamps.com. READ MORE>>.

Truecar 100

Truecar Edmunds Zag Anthem 100

socalTECH

AUGUST 18, 2009

Santa Monica-based TrueCar , the automotive pricing spinout of Zag Automotive, annoucned today that it has hired the Chief Evangelist from Edmunds.

Edmunds 100

Edmunds Truecar Zag Santa Monica 100

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

The firm was originally known as CarsDirect, the automotive buying site of Idealab, and was headed by Scott Painter--who is now head of both Zag Automotive and TrueCar. The firm changed its name to Internet Brands in June of 2005, and hit the markets with its IPO in November of 2007.

Internet Brands 190

Internet Brands Westlake Village Woodland Hills Beverly Hills 190

socalTECH

JULY 13, 2009

Brighthouse is a technology incubator headed by both Brogger and Scott Painter, who also co-founded Zag and CarsDirect. SharesPost, headed by Greg Brogger and incubated by Brighthouse, is looking to create a Web 2.0-enabled enabled secondary marketplace for shares in private companies, and particularly venture-backed, technology firms.

Research 100

Research Sales CarsDirect Web 2.0 100

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 8, 2010

And in recent years, they’ve been involved in some interesting SoCal startups such as Zag, SodaHead, and Vokle. Some of their major hits include Sandpiper Networks (acquired by Digital Island for $630M) and Green Dot (NYSE: GDOT). Visit TechZulu for full story.

Tech Coast Angels 61

Tech Coast Angels SoCal Southern California Angel 61

socalTECH

JUNE 16, 2009

SharesPost was founded by Greg Brogger; the firm is one of the companies incubated by Scott Painter and his BrightHouse incubator; Painter is the former CEO of CarsDirect, currently founder at Zag, and has been quietly helping to fundraise and incubate a number of local startups through BrightHouse. READ MORE>>.

Equity 113

Equity CarsDirect Zag Incubator 113

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 4, 2009

-The Scott Sanfilippo Interview Media Optimization Firms Are Red Hot In Southern California in 2009 Proliferate - Aggregate - Integrate Startups Uncensored #4 - “Finding and Working with Partners” SoCal VC’s absent from Forbes Midas List Top Five Best Uses of an Entrepreneur's Legal Dollars What Data Crunchers Did for Obama An Evaluation of Web Strategy (..)

Layoffs 159

Layoffs Woodland Hills Southern California Orange County 159

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 10, 2012

Representative companies: Zag, Pricelock, TrueCar, ListSpinner, Zig, RealFinancial, SharesPost. Notes: Digital studio/incubator of Mike Jones, former CEO of MySpace. Both incubates its own. ideas, as well as funds external companies. Brighthouse. Managed by: Scott Painter. Funding: Yes. Amount: Varies. Office Space: Unknown.

Southern California 145

Southern California Incubator Guide Truecar 145

socalTECH

APRIL 2, 2009

Other firms receiving significant capital during the quarter were car buying technology firm Zag , with around $37M raised, and solar energy firm eSolar , which raised $30M from an Indian partner during the quarter. Among the top deals for the quarter were an $86.6M

Southern California 113

Southern California SoCal Invest SoCalTech 113