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Semiconductors - Thursday, April 24, 2008

Apple Forks Over $278M For PA Semi

Thumb Apple Computer is set to pay $278M to buy PA Semi. Santa Clara-based PA Semi's chips are designed for the embedded computing market. PA Semi is venture backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, Highland Capital Partners, Silicon Valley Bank, Venrock Associates, and Focus Ventures. Back in 2005, we wrote up PA Semi: "The talk of the Fall Processor Forum in San Jose is the emergence from 2 years in stealth mode of the tiny firm P.A. Semi. The outfit's frontman is Dan Dobberpuhl, the lead designer of t... Full Story

Search - Thursday, April 24, 2008

Sony Pays $260M For Music Recognition Service Gracenote

Thumb Sony is buying Emervyille-based Gracenote for $260M. We expect that a:c readers are familiar with Gracenote - it's a database of music titles, artist names and lyrics used in digital music applications like iTunes. Founded in 1995, Gracenote has bee... Full Story

Educational Software - Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Teacher Site Raises TeachStreet $2.25M

Thumb Founded in May 2007, TeachStreet has recently launched a website to help students of all ages find local teachers and classes. It's also meant to empower teachers with online tools to manage their teaching businesses. The site isn’t geared towards... Full Story

More Recent Articles

Kleiner Perkins To Bring Tiny Norwegian Electric Car Think To US

Wednesday April 23, 2008

We have been covering Norway's Think Global for some time. Our sense has been that the tiny electric powered vehicle might be great for Europe but that the SUV-lovin' USA won't go for it. But with gas going at $4 a pop, we can see 50K people buying ... Full Story

Seoul's Pre-launch Nurien Raises $15M 1st Round For Social Gaming

Tuesday April 22, 2008

Seoul, Korea's Nurien Software has raised $15M in Series A funding from Globespan Capital Partners, New Enterprise Associates , Northern Light Venture Capital and QiMing Venture Partners. Nurien plans to launch in China and Korea at the end of 2008 ... Full Story

$130M Investment To Build eSolar Power Plants

Tuesday April 22, 2008

We keep hearing talking heads on NPR, CNN and other MSM sites prescribe academic and government investments to seed alternative energy technologies, which they expect will be followed by late stage private sector pick-up. Clearly these folks are not... Full Story

IBM Pays $200M for Israeli Storage Firm Diligent

Monday April 21, 2008

IBM has paid $200M for Israel-based Diligent Technologies, reports Israeli newspaper Globes. Diligent sells de-duplication technology, a technique for saving storage space by eliminating redundant data, such as multiple copies of the same e-mail att... Full Story

Travel Ad Network Jets Off With $15M In 1st Funding

Monday April 21, 2008

We have known the guys from Travel Ad Network for some time. Founded back in December 2003, Travel Ad Network (TAN) has been not raised venture funding to date, but has been scrappy. It claims to be the largest online travel audience on the Internet... Full Story

MSFT Buys Travel Site Farecast

Friday April 18, 2008

Microsoft is buying fellow Seattle business Farecast for $75M plus significant earnouts. This seems like small but smart deal by Microsoft to continue to add to its vertical market buildouts. Farecast launched in May 2006, and went through a year of... Full Story

AOL Befriends The Blogosphere With Buyout of Sphere

Thursday April 17, 2008

AOL has paid an undisclosed amount for San Francisco-based Sphere. Sphere operates as a blog search engine that helps users to discover blog posts on defined topic. You get customizable time frames, related mainstream media, books, photos, and podca... Full Story