Tuesday, June 23, 2015


NantCell Buys VivaBioCell, Backed By $75M In New Funding
Los Angeles-based NantCell, one of the companies that is part of Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong's NantWorks, said today that it has acquired an Italian company, VivaBioCell SpA. Financial terms of the deal wer enott disclosed. VivaBioCell is based in Udine, Northern Italy. The deal was done through VBC Holdings LLC, a subsidiary of NantWorks. VivaBioCell focuses on stem cell and tissue engineering for regenerative medicine. NantCell recently disclosed a $75.0M investment in the company from a single in (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, June 23, 2015(Full story)

Heal Finds $5M For On Demand Doctor's Housecalls
Santa Monica-based Heal, an on-demand startup offering up access to house calls from doctors via smartphone, has raised $5M in a seed funding round, the company announced this morning. The funding came from Slow Ventures, March Capital and Pritzker Capital, along with angels Paul Jacobs (Qualcomm); James Lassiter (Overbrook Entertainment); Stephen Rader (Clarity Partners); Jamie McCourt; Lionel Richie; and Mike Wortsman (Univision). The company says it can deliver a doctor on housecall in less t (More info...)
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CrossCut Ventures Raises New, $75M Venture Fund
Venice, California-base CrossCut Ventures, one of the region's earliest believers in the potential of Silicon Beach startups, has raised a new, $75M fund, the firm announced this morning. Managing Directors of the new fund are Rick Smith, Brett Brewer, and Brian Garrett, along with new addition Clinton Foy. This is the third fund for CrossCut, which said the new fund was significantly oversubscribed, having had an initial target of $50M. Notable limited partners in the fund include The John Irvi (More info...)
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MRV Gets Win With T-Mobile In Czech Republbic
Chatsworth-based MRV Communications, which develops packet and optical products for the telecom market, reported a deployment in the Czech Republic today, with T-Mobile Zech Republic. The company said it is launching a 100G bandwidth interconnect for an unnamed, package delivery company which MRV says is one of the world's largest package delivery companies. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. MRV said its hardware is being used to deploy a fully redundant optical transport network (More info...)
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Green Dot Renews With Walmart
Pasadena-based prepaid debit card provider Green Dot Corporation, which is led by Steve Streit, said Monday afternoon that it is in a new, long term agreement with Walmart. Green Dot said it will remain the program manager and issuer for Walmart's MoneyCard, in a deal which will cover the next five years. Green Dot rose to prominence--and an IPO--almost entirely on the strength of its business through Walmart. The company had launched the Walmart MoneyCard with Walmart back in 2007, helping to c (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, June 23, 2015(Full story)

Ankasa Regenerative Therapeutics Gets $8.5M For Stem Cells
La Jolla-based Ankasa Regenerative Therapeutics, a company developing stem-cell based products aimed at organ and tissue regrowth, repair, and healing, has raised $8.5M in a Series A funding, the company said this morning. The funding was led by Avalon Ventures, and also included Hereaus Medical and Correlation Ventures. the company said the funding is the first tranche of a $17M, Series A round of funding. Ankasa said its is focused on development of the stem cell growth factor WNT3A, which is (More info...)
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OneRoof Energy Ties With Fry's Electronics For In-Store Kiosks
San Diego-based solar power provider OneRoof Energy said today that it has linked up with Fry's Electronics, to install kiosks in a number of Fry's stores. OneRoof said the deal initially includes Fry's San Diego and Sunnyvale locations. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. In store kiosks are quite common now in the solar power industry--other similar arrangements include one SolarCity has with Best Buy and LinkedIn. OneRoof's backers include Black Coral Capital, GDF SUEZ Energy No (More info...)
posted on Tuesday, June 23, 2015(Full story)