Category: San Diego

Skinit Lands $60,000,000 New Funding

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=7b6c96f0-4633-4365-90cb-21871eb9877d&Preview=1 Date 7/20/2010 Company Name Skinit Mailing Address 8969 Kenamar Drive San Diego, CA 92121 Company Description The company provides products and services that allow people to customize their portable electronic devices. Website http://www.skinit.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $60,000,000 Transaction Round Undisclosed Proceeds Purposes Skinit will use the funds to … Continue reading “Skinit Lands $60,000,000 New Funding”

Auspex Pharmaceuticals Secures $12,000,000 New Funding Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=6d17486f-3d06-4e88-8504-f860e11f63aa&Preview=1 Date 7/20/2010 Company Name Auspex Pharmaceuticals Mailing Address 1261 Liberty Way Vista, CA 92081-8356 Company Description Auspex Pharmaceuticals is a developer of next-generation medicines with improved safety and performance and a pioneer in the targeted application of deuterium chemistry to clinically validated drugs. For more than five years the company has … Continue reading “Auspex Pharmaceuticals Secures $12,000,000 New Funding Round”

Ramius Makes Unsolicited Bid for Cypress Bioscience

An activist investment fund managed by Ramius, a New York multi-fund hedge fund, pounced on Cypress Bioscience (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CYPB]]) today, offering to pay almost $160 million in cash to acquire the San Diego biotech. Ramius Value and Opportunity Advisors, a subsidiary of the $7.8-billion Ramius fund group, already owns about 9.9 percent of Cypress, making … Continue reading “Ramius Makes Unsolicited Bid for Cypress Bioscience”

ESRI Launches Open Website for Mapping, Verenium Sells Cellulosic Biofuels Biz, MindTouch Unveils Improved Platform, & More San Diego BizTech News

[Corrected 7/19/10, 1:05 pm. See below.] Some 13,000 developers of geographic information systems (GIS) gathered at the San Diego Convention Center last week as ESRI, the Redlands, CA-based GIS software developer, moved to address the market for mobile and other users. We’ve got that and the rest of our BizTech News all mapped out for … Continue reading “ESRI Launches Open Website for Mapping, Verenium Sells Cellulosic Biofuels Biz, MindTouch Unveils Improved Platform, & More San Diego BizTech News”

Venture Funding Drops Sharply in San Diego; Life Sciences Deals Predominate in Our Top 10 List

Venture capital investments in the San Diego region during the second quarter declined significantly—from both the same quarter of 2009 as well as the previous quarter, according to data released over the weekend by two rival surveys. The local downturn was in sharp contrast to the nationwide trend, which showed VC funding on the rise … Continue reading “Venture Funding Drops Sharply in San Diego; Life Sciences Deals Predominate in Our Top 10 List”

Venture Surveys Show Nationwide Increase, More or Less, in Second-Quarter Investments

How would you prefer your venture capital survey data this morning? Depending on the source, we can serve it up lukewarm, hot, or scalding. All three measures show that venture funding rose during the second quarter; it’s just a matter of degree: —CB Insights, a startup financial services firm based in New York, reports that … Continue reading “Venture Surveys Show Nationwide Increase, More or Less, in Second-Quarter Investments”

Single Touch Interactive Obtains $6,169,005 New Financing

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=dac2213b-874d-4a46-867f-5305f76f6f9b&Preview=1 Date 7/19/2010 Company Name Single Touch Interactive Mailing Address 2235 Encinitas Blvd Encinitas , CA 92024 Company Description Single Touch is a pioneer and leader in customized easy-to-use wireless solutions. Single Touch’s Patent Pending technology drives adoption by reaching new data subscribers, generating new revenue streams for carriers and content owners. … Continue reading “Single Touch Interactive Obtains $6,169,005 New Financing”

Lessons Learned About the Outlook for New Obesity Drug Approval

Yesterday’s FDA advisory committee meeting on Vivus’ weight loss pill proved to us, once again, how incredibly difficult it is to successfully develop and register new drugs for obesity. Mountain View, CA-based Vivus had a solid program supporting their drug—demonstrating that their combination product of phentermine and topirimate (Qnexa) is very effective and has a … Continue reading “Lessons Learned About the Outlook for New Obesity Drug Approval”

ESRI Reshapes its Proprietary Mapping System Into an Open Crowdsourcing Platform, Raising a Challenge for Google

In the plenary session that kicked off the ESRI International User Conference this week in downtown San Diego, ESRI founder and president Jack Dangermond demonstrated the features of ArcGIS.com, a free website the company recently launched that allows ordinary folks to create their own maps. Dangermond also highlighted a free mobile app that the private, … Continue reading “ESRI Reshapes its Proprietary Mapping System Into an Open Crowdsourcing Platform, Raising a Challenge for Google”

Evernote Opens a Trunk of Goodies for Online-Notes Fans

If I only had a second brain—one that could hold my Web clips, store my business cards, transcribe my voice memos, keep my to-do lists, preserve my receipts and recipes and passwords, and archive items from my Twitter, Facebook, and RSS feeds, just to list a few of the myriad types of information I attempt … Continue reading “Evernote Opens a Trunk of Goodies for Online-Notes Fans”

Vivus Obesity Drug Shot Down by FDA Panel, in Close Vote

[Updated: 12:45 pm Pacific, 7/16/10] Mountain View, CA-based Vivus (NASDAQ: [[ticker:VVUS]]) suffered a setback today at an important meeting for the future of obesity drug development, with implications for San Diego’s Arena Pharmaceuticals and Orexigen Therapeutics. A panel of experts who advise the FDA said today in a 10-6 vote that Vivus’ experimental weight loss … Continue reading “Vivus Obesity Drug Shot Down by FDA Panel, in Close Vote”

Sony Electronics Gets New Boss

Japan’s Sony Corp. today named Phil Molyneux as the new president and chief operating officer of Sony Electronics in San Diego, the North American headquarters for the company’s consumer electronics business. Stan Glasgow, who has served as president and COO since 2006, was named to a newly created position—senior advisor, entrepreneurship and innovation—at Sony Corp. … Continue reading “Sony Electronics Gets New Boss”

Biofuels Reboot: Verenium Sells Cellulosic Biofuels Business to BP for $98M, Includes San Diego R&D Facilities

[[Updated: 2:15 pm, 7/15/10]] Looking to get out from under ongoing financial losses and focus on new growth opportunities, Cambridge, MA-based Verenium has struck a deal to sells its cellulosic biofuels business for $98.3 million in cash to BP, the energy giant at the center of the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico. … Continue reading “Biofuels Reboot: Verenium Sells Cellulosic Biofuels Business to BP for $98M, Includes San Diego R&D Facilities”

How Novartis Got Its Vaccines Groove Back, Intellikine Gets a Drug Development Deal, Ambrx CEO Departs, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

San Diego’s life sciences newsmakers must have been over compensating, after slacking off last week. This week we have deals, fundings, comings, and goings—not to mention Luke scoops No. 1 and 2—and our summary begins now. —Infinity Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, MA, could pay San Diego-based Intellikine as much as $488.5 million in various types of … Continue reading “How Novartis Got Its Vaccines Groove Back, Intellikine Gets a Drug Development Deal, Ambrx CEO Departs, & More San Diego Life Sciences News”

ExxonMobil and Synthetic Genomics Open Greenhouse for Algae Biofuels Development

San Diego’s Synthetic Genomics and Texas-based ExxonMobil celebrated the first anniversary of their strategic alliance today with the official opening of a greenhouse for growing and testing algae that could someday replace crude oil in the production of diesel and other fuels. On this day last year, ExxonMobil announced plans to spend at least $600 … Continue reading “ExxonMobil and Synthetic Genomics Open Greenhouse for Algae Biofuels Development”

Translational Science Grants Include Awards for San Diego, New England

A program to accelerate the transformation of biomedical discoveries into patient treatments has awarded $37.2 million to a consortium headed by UC San Diego Health Sciences and its Clinical and Translational Research Institute (CTRI). A $20 million grant also was awarded for a similar consortium in New England, headed by the University of Massachusetts Center … Continue reading “Translational Science Grants Include Awards for San Diego, New England”

Vivus Faces Turning Point in Obesity Drug Battle Tomorrow With Arena, Orexigen

[Updated: 3:06 pm Pacific] Vivus will be the biotech company everybody’s watching tomorrow. That’s when the Mountain View, CA-based company (NASDAQ: [[ticker:VVUS]]) will go before a panel of expert advisers to the FDA, who will recommend to regulators whether Vivus has created a new obesity drug that’s good enough to be sold on the U.S. … Continue reading “Vivus Faces Turning Point in Obesity Drug Battle Tomorrow With Arena, Orexigen”

Peter Schultz Exits Top Job at Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation

Peter Schultz, the prominent chemist who founded one of San Diego’s top research centers more than a decade ago, is out as the director of the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF), Xconomy has learned from multiple sources. Schultz’s departure was confirmed on his faculty biography on The Scripps Research Institute’s website, which … Continue reading “Peter Schultz Exits Top Job at Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation”

San Diego’s MindTouch Launches Next-Generation Version of Content Development Platform

To MindTouch CEO Aaron Fulkerson, websites are becoming the primary storefronts for most businesses and their chief way of interacting with their customers. And in this age of metatags and search engine optimization, Fulkerson says each page of website content viewed by customers represents a business opportunity—a chance to generate new customer leads, increase sales, … Continue reading “San Diego’s MindTouch Launches Next-Generation Version of Content Development Platform”

Zogenix Secures $50,000,000 New Financing

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=f2c3f958-1b6f-49fd-a4c9-20c47f00811f&Preview=1 Date 7/14/2010 Company Name Zogenix Mailing Address 12671 High Bluff Drive San Diego, CA 92130 Company Description Zogenix is a specialty pharmaceutical company whose goal is to uniquely enhance and differentiate medicines by incorporating innovative technologies in an effort to relieve suffering in people with CNS and pain disorders. Founded in … Continue reading “Zogenix Secures $50,000,000 New Financing”

Morphlabs Receives $5,500,000 Series B Funding

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=f2cb1c85-1ee0-43ba-be44-ba36827ad2b6&Preview=1 Date 7/14/2010 Company Name Morphlabs Mailing Address 2321 Rosecrans Ave. El Segundo, CA 90245 Company Description Morphlabs solutions enable enterprises and service providers to easily deploy automated and elastic computing infrastructures to support flexible and high performance applications and processes. Website http://www.mor.ph Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $5,500,000 Transaction Round … Continue reading “Morphlabs Receives $5,500,000 Series B Funding”

San Diego Power Line Approval Opens Path to Renewable Energy Projects—But Opponents Vow to Keep Fighting

The U.S. Forest Service has approved San Diego Gas & Electric’s plan to build a high-voltage power line through a 19-mile stretch of the Cleveland National Forest, clearing the final hurdle the utility needed for construction to begin on a locally controversial project known as the Sunrise Powerlink. “The Forest Service’s decision to authorize the … Continue reading “San Diego Power Line Approval Opens Path to Renewable Energy Projects—But Opponents Vow to Keep Fighting”

Femta Pharmaceuticals Snags $2.2M for Potent Antibody Drugs

San Diego-based Femta Pharmaceuticals has pocketed some more venture capital to make targeted antibody drugs that pack more punch. The company has raised $2.2 million in equity and options financing out of a deal that could be worth $2.47 million, according to a regulatory filing. Latterell Venture Partners and Biotech Investment Group, a couple of … Continue reading “Femta Pharmaceuticals Snags $2.2M for Potent Antibody Drugs”

How Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics Turned Around the Ship it Got From Chiron

Matthew Stober had a dramatic story to tell when he came through San Diego to speak to pharma manufacturing executives at last month’s annual Vaccine Production Summit. As the global head of technical operations for Cambridge, MA-based Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics, Stober was closely involved in the corporate turnaround that enabled Novartis to ship more … Continue reading “How Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics Turned Around the Ship it Got From Chiron”

A Newly Candid FDA on the Future Of Medical Device Regulation

We all know the Food and Drug Administration is one of the most important entities for those who develop drugs and medical devices, but for the public, and even many of the people in industry, it remains a notoriously mysterious organization. So I was very excited about the opportunity to have an in-depth phone conversation … Continue reading “A Newly Candid FDA on the Future Of Medical Device Regulation”

SpectraFluidics Lands $552,820 New Funding

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=58ea47dc-470f-436f-a2ba-ebbb7e7582a4&Preview=1 Date 7/13/2010 Company Name SpectraFluidics Mailing Address 6950 Hollister Ave Santa Barbara, CA 93117 Company Description SpectraFluidics, Inc., has developed a novel chemical detection technology and platform which exceeds existing state-of-the-art sensitivity and specificity performance metrics by orders of magnitude. SpectraFluidics technology provides molecular-specific detection of explosives, illicit drugs, and other … Continue reading “SpectraFluidics Lands $552,820 New Funding”

Femta Pharmaceuticals Secures $2,200,005 New Funding Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=5d0305aa-7781-4cdc-a197-f18e9152a690&Preview=1 Date 7/13/2010 Company Name Femta Pharmaceuticals Mailing Address 4510 Executive Drive San Diego, CA 92121 Company Description Femta Pharmaceuticals is a San Diego biotech development company. Website http://www.femtapharma.com/ Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $2,200,005 Transaction Round Undisclosed Proceeds Purposes Proceeds purposes were not disclosed. M&A Terms Venture Investor Undisclosed

Idealab Solar Startup Moves to SD

Energy Innovations, a renewable energy startup incubated and funded by Pasadena, CA-based Idealab, has moved its corporate headquarters, design center, and global manufacturing center to the suburban San Diego community of Poway, CA. Energy Innovations uses proprietary technology to concentrate the sun’s energy 1,200 times in solar panels that double the efficiency of current photovoltaic … Continue reading “Idealab Solar Startup Moves to SD”

AnaptysBio Gets $1.5M from DARPA

San Diego’s AnaptysBio, which has been developing antibody-based technology with backing from Avalon Ventures, says it got a $1.5 million contract to develop military biosensors that could be used to detect specific biological agents in possible terrorist attacks. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) provided funding for the two-year effort, which will use Anaptys … Continue reading “AnaptysBio Gets $1.5M from DARPA”

ESRI Releases Apple Map App, Reveals “19.20.21 Project” as Annual Conference Begins

At the U.S. Census Bureau, where the World POPClock is ticking, the total population of the world (as of July 10) is estimated at 6.85 billion. But what does that mean, really? Today, our understanding of what that means comes from the sort of knowledge that only information technology delivers. Now just about anyone with … Continue reading “ESRI Releases Apple Map App, Reveals “19.20.21 Project” as Annual Conference Begins”

Qualcomm’s Flo TV to Debut Datacasting; Nissan Leaf EV Rollout Begins in San Diego, TipCity Launches “Flash Deal” Technology, & More San Diego BizTech News

Not all our biztech news last week was about debuts; We also have a denouement or two, and maybe even some news that’s somewhere between. So here’s our summary, from beginning to end: —San Diego-based Qualcomm’s Flo TV plans to “datacast” background information related to some sporting events later this month. Flo TV President Bill … Continue reading “Qualcomm’s Flo TV to Debut Datacasting; Nissan Leaf EV Rollout Begins in San Diego, TipCity Launches “Flash Deal” Technology, & More San Diego BizTech News”

Playdom Takes Over Metaplace

Mountain View, CA-based social gaming company Playdom announced yesterday that it has acquired Metaplace, a San Diego-based startup that built social virtual worlds software and introduced two Facebook social games, Island Life and My Vineyard, earlier this year. Metaplace co-founder and CEO John Donham will run Playdom’s new San Diego office, according to the announcement, … Continue reading “Playdom Takes Over Metaplace”

Sex, Power, and Money: Dave McClure Tells Web Startups to Tap Into Consumers’ ‘Reptilian Psyche’

Dave McClure is a dynamic guy. I had the pleasure of hearing him speak to a small audience of tech startup founders in Seattle earlier this week. His impassioned message to entrepreneurs was, first of all, to take risks and be ambitious, and second, to build something that people really, really care about. That sounds … Continue reading “Sex, Power, and Money: Dave McClure Tells Web Startups to Tap Into Consumers’ ‘Reptilian Psyche’”

Adventures in YouTube-Land: The Making of “World Wide Wade Goes West”

It’s one of the cardinal rules of startup life: stick to your knitting. Don’t get distracted by all the cool things you could do, at the expense of the thing you already do well. At Xconomy, we’ve followed that rule pretty well: We’re journalists who write about technology and entrepreneurship for a living, and we … Continue reading “Adventures in YouTube-Land: The Making of “World Wide Wade Goes West””

Highwinds Network Group Acquires BandCon for Undisclosed Sum

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=aaca2df9-8dc2-4966-bedc-e3dfd6c7204e&Preview=1 Date 7/9/2010 Company Name BandCon Mailing Address 151 Kalmus Dr. Costa Mesa, CA 92626 Company Description BandCon has been providing network infrastructure since 2000, and in that time we’ve been supporting the success of companies like MySpace, NeuLion, Miniclip.com, Digg, Rackspace, Skype and others. We’ve learned what content providers need and, … Continue reading “Highwinds Network Group Acquires BandCon for Undisclosed Sum”

TipCity Offers Search Engine for Diners, Enables Local Restaurants to “Flash Deals”

As the entrepreneur who successfully pioneered Bluetooth software at San Diego’s Widcomm (now part of Broadcom), Hiep Pham is accustomed to taking some calculated risks. Today, he is betting that consumers will respond to “flash deals” for restaurant discounts that are sent to their mobile devices by text message or e-mail, and are displayed on … Continue reading “TipCity Offers Search Engine for Diners, Enables Local Restaurants to “Flash Deals””

With San Diego as “Ground Zero,” Nissan Targets Pragmatic Car Buyers With Leaf EV—and We Take It for A Test Hum

In the fall of 2008, I was green with cleantech envy when my colleague Greg Huang got to test drive a prototype Tesla Roadster, the luxury, all-electric sports car made by Silicon Valley’s Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: [[ticker:TSLA]]), which became a public company just last week. But yesterday I turned over a new Leaf—and then I … Continue reading “With San Diego as “Ground Zero,” Nissan Targets Pragmatic Car Buyers With Leaf EV—and We Take It for A Test Hum”

Infinity Pharma, Intellikine Strike Deal to Make Cancer Drugs Against Hot Target

Cambridge, MA-based Infinity Pharmaceuticals seeks to stay on the leading edge of cancer research, and today it has found something it likes in San Diego. Infinity (NASDAQ: [[ticker:INFI]]) has struck a global development and commercialization deal with San Diego-based Intellikine to pursue drugs aimed at one of the emerging hot targets in  biology of cancer … Continue reading “Infinity Pharma, Intellikine Strike Deal to Make Cancer Drugs Against Hot Target”

Arena Signs Deal With Eisai for Lorcaserin, Qualcomm CEO Identifies Two Opportunities in Mobile Health, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

The long Fourth of July holiday weekend made for a short week of life sciences news in San Diego. Even if I made short work of this week’s roundup, though, let’s hope you long remain interested. —Qualcomm (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOM]]) chairman and CEO Paul Jacobs, who was instrumental in bringing the World Economic Forum’s mobile health … Continue reading “Arena Signs Deal With Eisai for Lorcaserin, Qualcomm CEO Identifies Two Opportunities in Mobile Health, & More San Diego Life Sciences News”

AutoGenomics Secures $17,752,596 New Funding Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=7c339095-b681-4b5f-b1ae-24bd60835276&Preview=1 Date 7/8/2010 Company Name AutoGenomics Mailing Address 2251 Rutherford Road Carlsbad, CA 92008 Company Description AutoGenomics, Inc. is one of the first companies to harness the power of genomic and proteomic analysis to develop, manufacture and market a molecular diagnostics solution specifically designed for the clinical laboratory. The Company has capitalized … Continue reading “AutoGenomics Secures $17,752,596 New Funding Round”

Playdom Acquires Metaplace for Undisclosed Sum

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=8d9b152c-32ee-4e5f-ae1e-61bf9213df40&Preview=1 Date 7/8/2010 Company Name Metaplace Mailing Address 415 S. Cedros Avenue Solana Beach, CA 92075 Company Description We’re working on some new tech that will literally change how virtual worlds are made. We’ve got a cool world or two incubating on the back burner. And we’re hiring, so if any of … Continue reading “Playdom Acquires Metaplace for Undisclosed Sum”

World Wide Wade Goes West—Episode VII: Denver, CO

Well, I made it to San Francisco! I officially occupied my new Potrero Hill loft (which will double as Xconomy’s San Francisco bureau) Tuesday morning. But I don’t have an Internet connection there yet, so I’m writing this at the Starbucks on 16th and Kansas. Which means I’m feeling right at home—we depended on Starbucks … Continue reading “World Wide Wade Goes West—Episode VII: Denver, CO”

Flo TV to Launch Sports Datacasting This Month, as Parent Qualcomm Studies Datacasting for Magazines and Other Opportunities

Some of Qualcomm’s top executives have been suggesting the San Diego wireless technology giant is looking at alternative uses of the 700 MHz spectrum that Qualcomm’s Flo TV has been using since 2007 to broadcast television programming to mobile devices. As we reported last month, Qualcomm Chairman and CEO Paul Jacobs said the number of … Continue reading “Flo TV to Launch Sports Datacasting This Month, as Parent Qualcomm Studies Datacasting for Magazines and Other Opportunities”

Local.com Garners $1,500,000 New Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=91d988b4-5e46-4aec-ba32-77e12db41419&Preview=1 Date 7/7/2010 Company Name Local.com Mailing Address One Technology Drive Building G Irvine, CA 92618 Company Description Local.com (NASDAQ: LOCM) is a leading local search engine and the largest local search network in the United States. The company provides over 19 million consumers each month with the most relevant search results … Continue reading “Local.com Garners $1,500,000 New Round”

Alcon Acquires LenSx Lasers for $744,000,000

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=7f5fac20-2841-4f13-896e-ebc39f68ab7b&Preview=1 Date 7/7/2010 Company Name LenSx Lasers Mailing Address 33 Journey Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 Company Description The company develops next generation laser technology that is used in eye surgery. Website http://www.lensxlasers.com Transaction Type M&A Transaction Amount $744,000,000 Transaction Round Proceeds Purposes M&A Terms Alcon will pay US $361.5 million in cash … Continue reading “Alcon Acquires LenSx Lasers for $744,000,000”