Los Angeles-based Crosscut Ventures (www.crosscutventures.com) is one of the newest venture capital funds in the area, and has quietly been working on funding local companies over the last year. The fund--started by Brian Garrett and Rick Smith --has been focused on digital media investments, and so far has made investments in six companies. The fund is just celebrated its first Let's start with an overview of the fund. What do you invest in? Brian

Ace Metrix is venture backed by Hummer Winblad, and Palomar Ventures. Tell Tell us a bit about your company? Steve She was really the inspiration behind our company. We can up with the initial idea of a standardized, effectiveness and scoring system--just like a FICO score for credit, or the SAT for college admittance, or the Robert Parker score for wine. Los Angeles-based Ace Metrix (www.acemetrix.com) launched its software-as-a-service, TV advertising rating service last month, and we spoke with the firm's CEO and co-founder, Steve Goldman, recently to learn more about the firm.

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 Proliferate