A common theme in last week’s technology news is how companies and entire industries continually remake their businesses, whether it’s the venture capital community, startup carmakers, or a San Diego company that specializes in data storage technology. Read on to see what I mean.
—As the venture capital survey data comes in from the three months that ended September 30, we’re seeing a nationwide rebound in first-time financings for startups. Data from CB Insights, the New York financial information firm, shows seed-stage deals increasing from 1 percent of the deals in the third quarter of 2009 to 11 percent of all deals during the third quarter.
—Venture capital surveys from CB Insights and the MoneyTree Report both show an increasing deal count, but a decline in the total amount of invested. In a year-over-year comparison, the MoneyTree Report showed a 7 percent decline in capital invested with a 9 percent increase in deal count during the third quarter, when venture firms invested $4.8 billion in 780 deals nationwide.
—V-Vehicle, the San Diego startup automaker, changed its name to Next Autoworks. The company, which has raised $87 million from investors that include Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, and T. Boone Pickens, also hired industry veteran Kathleen Ligocki as CEO.
—Overland Storage (NASDAQ: [[ticker:OVRL]]), the San Diego data storage technology specialist, acquired Sunnyvale, CA-based MaxiScale, which provides data protection and data management technologies. Financial terms were not disclosed.
—San Diego’s Qualcomm (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOM]]) acquired San Francisco-based mobile social networks software developer iSkoot Technologies. Financial terms were not disclosed.
—Biz Stone, a Twitter co-founder and the San Francisco-based company’s creative director, told The San Diego Union-Tribune last week that a new-and-improved version of the micro-blogging service should improve service worldwide. “It was re-architected to actually be snappier, faster – to deal with information faster,” said Stone, who was in San Diego to speak at the 2010 Tijuana Innovadora conference on innovation across the border.
—Predixion Software, based just across the Orange County line in Aliso Viejo, CA, said it had closed on $5 million in Series A financing, led by DFJ Frontier. Predixion, which specializes in low-cost, self-service in the cloud predictive analytics software, said it will use the funds to expand product development,increase sales and marketing initiatives, and expand its sales channel programs and strategic partnership activities.
