They put on great events. VentureNet – Great annual event by the Technology Council. CalTech MIT Enterprise Forum – Great events on various topics – there's one this Saturday that would be great to go to. AITP-LA – Monthly events. You can use keywords like: Events in Los Angeles or Southern California Events or even Santa Monica Events . You can also use Southern California Tech Central's list of Organizations to find possible events: UCLA , CalTech , Twiistup , USC , AeA , TCVN , OCTANE , BarCamp , Enterprise Forum , TCOSC , LAVA , UCI

A gem from the archives: Fred Farina on Caltech's approach to licensing technology . I wanted to re-issue this show since I met Siemens TTB chief, Stefan Heuser. And in just a few weeks you'll hear Joeph Steig and Phil Weilerstein of NCIIA descibe their work with colleges and universities. Thanks to Tech Coast Angel

Carlsbad-based Helixis , a developer of nucleic acid analysis tools based on technology spun out of Caltech, has raised $5.3M Tags: helixis venture capital caltec out of a ongoing, $10.0M venture round. According to a regulatory filing, some of the funds involved in the deal include Advanced Technology Ventures VII and Domain Partners VII.

He's a long term angel investor and Caltech professor, meet Ken Pickar. Ken's a Tech Coast Angel and he and I were part of a panel discussion at UC Irvine's recent Annual Entrepreneurship Conference. I could see he had a great way of dealing with the students, so I decided you should meet him, too.

Pasadena-based Materia , the advanced chemical technology firm spun out of Caltech, said Tuesday that it has licensed its metathesis technology to specialty chemical firm BASF. Materia's olefin metathesis catalyst technology has a very wide range of uses in the chemistry industry, and is based on reserach from Professor Robert Grubbs at Caltech. Tags: material chemistry chemical basf olefin metathesis c Financial terms of the license were not disclosed. According to Materia, BASF will use the technology in research and development of certain specialty chemicals.

The firm, which develops optical interconnects, is a Caltech spinoff. Tags: interconnect venture capital luxtera caltech optical semiconducto Carlsbad-based Luxtera appears to have raised $26.75M in another venture round, according to this week's PricewaterhouseCoopers/NVCA MoneyTree report. No details on the funding have been disclosed, however, the firm has previously raised three rounds of capital from August Capital, ITU Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Sevin Rosen Funds, and Zone Ventures.

Pasadena-based FastSoft , a developer of Internet acceleration appliances based on research out of Caltech, has raised $950K in a debt funding, according to a regulatory filing by the firm. FastSoft has previously received funding from Miramar Venture Partners, Caltech, and angel investors. READ MORE>> ...Tags: Tags: fastsoft internet acceleration caltech venture capital According to the filing, the round came from eight investors and has a target of $1.34M. No details on the funding have been announced by the firm.

If you’re three s***-hot kids from Stanford, Caltech or MIT you might be able to push valuation higher.  If Most Venture Capital “A” rounds (as of 2009) seem to start around $3 million pre-money and may go as high as $5-6 million pre-money if you’ve made a lot more progress or for some other reason the deal is “hot”.  But This is part of my ongoing series Pitching a VC . Last night I attended a DealMaker Media (whom I love because they always host such great discussions) panel on raising angel money moderated by Dan Gould and with panelists

have also attended Thursday Lunch ( thursdaylunch.com ), Caltech/MIT Enterprise Forum , and Digital LA . Visible networking is turning into a really great opportunity to get to know people better, get to meet new people, and have some interesting conversations. This time I'm getting to know Mark Geller ( LinkedIn , @markgeller ).

Review: None Added 11/8/09 by Todd Zebert Name: Caltech/MIT Enterprise Forum Sites: www.entforum.caltech.edu , twitter.com/CaltechMITForum Self-description: " About the Caltech/MIT Enterprise Forum The Caltech/MIT Enterprise forum is a joint venture of Caltech's Industrial Relations Center, Caltech’s Office of Technology Transfer, the Caltech Alumni Association and the MIT Alumni Association. Mission The mission of the Caltech/MIT Enterprise Forum is to encourage the growth and success of technology-based entrepreneurial ventures in