I spotted my fellow VC Leo Spiegel (from Mission Ventures) who had spoken previously to the same group and asked about his experiences. My choices – talk about the VC industry and where it is heading (which is what the dean asked me to cover), talk about how to start companies (which is partly what Lada Rasochova , the director of the entrepreneurship program asked me to cover), talk about how to get into VC (which a few students asked me to cover) or give advice on what the Rady School’s venture fund should think about when investing (the event was a kick off for

The firm is backed by Argentum Group, Forrest Binkley & Brown, Innocal, Inverness Capital Partners, Mission Ventures, and Omnicell. ...Tags: Lake Forest-based Nexiant , a developer of materials management software tools, announced this morning that it has named Michael Aghajanian to its board. Aghajanian was most recently CEO of supply chain firm PRTM, and also was founder of The Performance Measurement Group.

Nirvanix is backed by Intel Capital, Valhalla Partners, Mission Ventures, Windward Ventures, and the European Founders Fund. San Diego-based cloud storage provider Nirvanix has added a new customer of the firm's storage service, Nasuni , a Massachusetts startup providing virtual file server software. Nasuni said it is using Nirvanix to provide its customers with unlimited cloud capacity.

MaxLinear is one of the Southern California companies in the midst of an IPO effort, hoping to list on the NYSE; the firm is venture backed by USVP, Battery Ventures, Mission Ventures, and UMC Capital. Carlsbad-based MaxLinear , a developer of integrated radio frequency (RF) and mixed-signal circuits for the communications market, said today that it has certified the performance of its MxL241SF MPEG tuner with industry group CableLabs. The firm said the certification came through the certification of an SMC Networks cable gateway, which uses the firm's components.

MaxLinear is venture backed by USVP, Battery Ventures, Mission Ventures, UMC Capital, and others. Carlsbad-based MaxLinear , a developer of radio frequency analog and mixed signal semiconductors, set its pricing range on its IPO Friday, saying that it will offer 5.43 million shares of its stock at between $11 and $13 per share.

Slacker is venture backed by Austin Ventures, Centennial Ventures, Mission Ventures, Rho Ventures, and Sevin Rosen Funds. San Diego-based personalized Internet radio service Slacker announced yesterday that it has linked with The Source Magazine, to launch an online, Hip-Hop radio station. Slacker said it would power The Source Digital Radio, a hip-hop station linked with The Source's print magazine and online web site.

Torrance-based Active Storage , a venture backed developer of storage products for the Apple market, announced a new, 32TB RAID product this morning. Active Storage is headed by ex-Apple executives, and is venture backed by Intel Capital, Mission Ventures, and Valhalla Partners. According to Active Storage, the new 3U product is specifically targeted at media production and Apple professionals, and includes an iPhone monitoring app and native Mac OS X storage management software. The firm said the new product starts at $19,999. ...Tags:

Slacker is venture backed by Austin Ventures, Centennial Ventures, Mission Ventures, Rho Ventures, and Sevin Rosen Funds. READ MORE>> ...Tags: San Diego-based Slacker , which operates a personalized Internet radio service, said Thursday that it has shipped a version of the firm's application for the Palm webOS. The firm said its new application--which is free--runs on Plm Pre, Palm Pre Plus, Palm Pixi, and Palm Pixi Plus smartphones.

San Diego-based Slacker , the personalized Internet radio service backed by Austin Ventures, Centennial Ventures, Mission Ventures, Rho Ventures, and Sevin Rosen Funds, has raised $2.0M Tags: slacker personal internet radio service venture capita in a debt funding round, according to a regulatory filing by the firm today. The filing indicates the firm has a target of $6.0M

San Diego-based Slacker , the personalized Internet radio service backed by Mission Ventures, Austin Ventures, Centennial Ventures, Rho Ventures, and Sevin Rosen Funds, reported Thursday that it has expanded its service into Canada. Slacker said that it has expanded its service to Canada through its web site, along with free applications for BlackBerry and Android phones. The firm claimed it is the first, and only personal radio service available for Canadian listeners, and came after getting agreements in place with key content owners in the country.