When I drill down on that term, you can see why with posts like: Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals Lops A Third Of Company THQ Lays Off 100 Employees, Closes San Diego Office Citrix Cuts 10 Percent; Santa Barbara Hit And it's also interesting to see what geographies are being associated with "Layoffs" more often than others: Layoffs Woodland Hills Layoffs San Diego Layoffs Santa Monica Layoffs Los Angeles I guess this is a sign of the times. The Scott Sanfilippo Interview Media Optimization Firms Are Red Hot In Southern California in 2009

Santa Monica-based Anthem Ventures , the venture capital firm run by Bill Woodward, has scored an exit with portfolio firm Siperian , as Informatica said last week that it would buy the maker of data integration software for $130M in cash. Anthem Ventures was the original investor in Siperian, which was also one of Anthem's first investments, out of its Anthem Venture Partners I fund. Samit Varma at Anthem represented the firm as on Siperian's board of directors. ...Tags: Tags: anthem ventures venture capital siperian merger acquisiti

Santa Monica-based venture capital firm Anthem Ventures is the lead investor in an avatar-focused, social networking site called Meez. Meez, which is based in San Francisco, said today that it has raised a financing round from Anthem. Anthem's Brian Mesic has been added to the firm's board as part of the funding. Amount and details of the funding were not disclosed. The deal also included the merger of Meez with another avatar firm called Pulse Entertainment. ...Tags:

Santa Monica-based ThisNext , which operates an online social shopping site and community, has raised another $1.2M No details on the funding have been announced by the firm, however, the filing indicates that Clearstone Ventures Suman Mandal and Anthem Ventures' Bill Woodward remain on the company's board. in venture funding, according to a regulatory filing from the firm Thursday. The funding brings the company's total raised to around $9.7M

Santa Monica-based ThisNext announced this morning that it has acquired fashion and beauty site Stylehive , and raised a Series C round of funding. ThisNext said the Series C funding round came from Clearstone Venture Partners, Anthem Venture Partners, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The firm did not disclose amount of the funding, however, a regulatory filing by the firm last week indicated the funding round was worth $1.2M. As part of the acquisition and funding, ThisNext said it has created a new parent company, Curatemedia , to operate both Thisnext and Stylehive.

Santa Monica-based Zag has finally revealed the total invested in its latest, strategic round of funding, saying Thursday that it raised $37.4M. The round came from USAA, and included Capricorn Investment Group, LLC, GRP Partners and Anthem Venture Partners. USAA is an affinity group which is using Zag's automotive configuration software and services. The firm's venture round had earlier been reported to be worth $32.4M, and included USAA--however, the firm had refused to confirm those details until today.

Jason Calacanis , CEO of Santa Monica-based Internet search site Mahalo , has signed on several angels for his new angel group, the Open Angel Forum - Los Angeles . Coffin is the founder of LowerMyBills, Dayton is the founder of Earthlink, and Woodward is a venture capitalist at Anthem Venture Partners. Calacanis--who started the group as an outgrowth of his crusade against pay-to-pitch angel groups like The Keiretsu Forum--said in his blog today that he has signed up Matt Coffin , Sky Dayton , and Bill Woodward as members of his group. Calacanis launched what he called

Santa Monica-based TrueCar , the automotive pricing spinout of Zag Automotive, disclosed Wednesday that the firm has inked distribution deals with five automotive websites. TrueCar is venture backed by Anthem Venture Partners, Global Retail Partners, and Capricorn. READ MORE>> ...Tags: According to TrueCar, it will provide its price reports on Pricequotes.com , Carbuyingtips.com , Carzen.com , Carpricesecrets.com , and Cardevotion.com . Financial details of the distribution deals were not disclosed.

Santa Monica-based Zag.com , the online automotive buying firm headed by Scott Painter, announced Thursday that the company has reached an agreement with Mercedes-Benz USA to offer an additional $5000 off pricing of new Mercedes-Benz cars to members of USAA, one of the affinity groups using Zag's auto pricing and purchasing services. Zag is backed by USAA, Capricorn Investment Group, LLC, GRP Partners and Anthem Venture Partners. READ MORE>> ...Tags: The firm said the additional offer comes on top of special member prices, rebates, and dealer incentives available to members.

Santa Monica-based Zag.com , the online automobile buying service headed by Scott Painter, is reporting today that it had what is calls its "strongest sales so far this year" in June. Zag has previously received venture capital from such firms as Anthem Ventures, GRP Partners, the Tech Coast Angels, Capricorn Management, Capital One, and Arcturus Capital. The firm--which provides its car buying service as a private-label offering through affiliate groups such as the AAA and USAA--said it had 20% sales growth in June, and 15% growth on average for the previous three months.