Santa Monica-based Zag, the online car buying software firm headed by former CarsDirect CEO Scott Painter, has spun out a new company called TrueCar, the firm said late Wednesday. According to TrueCar, it will provide information about new car pricing, using the actual price people have paid for cars. The firm said it has scored Series A funding from Zag, Anthem Venture Partners, Global Retail Partners, Capricorn, Capital One Auto Finance, ARcturus Capital, Scott Painter, and co-founder Tom Taira.

DemandMedia has already scaled a tech team to a considerable size in Santa Monica. My commute, for example, from Santa Monica to Century City is less than 15 minutes each way and I never have to take the freeway.  But Scott Painter , founder of CarsDirect has created two new generation LA startups (Zag and TrueCar, both backed by GRP Partners). Los Angeles.  People People either love it our hate it.  All

Santa Monica-based SharesPost , which has created on online marketplace for sellers and buyers of private company stock, reported to its users late Friday that the firm now has sales of LinkedIn, Linden Lab, Tesla Motors, and SugarCRM going into escrow. Brighthouse is a technology incubator headed by both Brogger and Scott Painter, who also co-founded Zag and CarsDirect. The firm--which launched in early June--also said that that it now has offers to sell Facebook, Tesla, XDx, eHarmony, and LindenLab shares, as the firm's marketplace starts to gear up. The firm also bolstered

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. Painter was previously CEO of CarsDirect, and is now involved with such firms as TrueCar and SharesPost. 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. The firm did not say what drove the growth, and did not provide any

Santa Monica-based SharesPost , a new startup out of Scott Painter's BrightHouse incubator, said Tuesday morning that the firm has launched on online platform which will match buyers and sellers of private equity. SharesPost was founded by Greg Brogger; the firm is one of the companies incubated by Scott Painter and his BrightHouse incubator; Painter is the former CEO of CarsDirect, currently founder at Zag, and has been quietly helping to fundraise and incubate a number of local startups through BrightHouse. According to the firm, it will allow buyers and sellers of privately held companies to sell and buy shares in privately held firms, through secondary market transactions.

Santa Monica-based Zag, which is developing software for auto buying programs, has signed on another AAA group as a customer. Zag is headed by former CarsDirect CEO Scott Painter, and is venture backed by Anthem Venture Partners, Capital One Auto Finance, GRP Partners, Arcturus Capital, Callaway Cars and the Skoll Fund. According to Zag, AAA Mid-Atlantic has just unveiled a auto buying program which is powered by the firm's software. Zag has developed a software product which allows users to fully configure and price cars for car buying programs and affinity groups; the

invite you to the Second Annual Digital Family Reunion on Wednesday, December 2nd at Wokcano Restaurant in Santa Monica from 6-11pm. In Scott Painter, Founder of CarsDirect and Entrepreneur. Tell Dear readers: We've got offers for two different event -- a discount to tomorrow's Digital Family Reunion , and a chance to win a ticket to digiday:APPS next week. Read more below for details.

We invite you to the Second Annual Digital Family Reunion on Wednesday, December 2nd at Wokcano Restaurant in Santa Monica from 6-11pm. In Scott Painter, Founder of CarsDirect and Entrepreneur. Dear readers: We’ve got offers for three different events today — a discount to tomorrow’s Digital Family Reunion , a chance to win a ticket to digiday:APPS next week, and a 50% discount to the new Schmoozd Social Media Mixer . Read more below for details.

Yesterday, Santa Monica-based SharesPost (www.sharespost.com) launched a new service of particular interest to the venture capital and high tech startup market, a new, online service which facilitates the buying and selling of private company stock. We co-founded Zag together, and I was the COO of CarsDirect. We caught up with Greg Brogger , the firm's CEO, to understand the service and how it might help private investors. Explain Explain how your service works? Greg