No one gives a shite about your features other than your product manager and your developers.  If 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 Most people suck at presenting to big groups.  It’s It’s a shame because the ability to nail

The funding came from Mission Ventures and Okapi Ventures. According to the firm, it is developing mobile infrastructure for relationship marketing, including mobile POS and mobile gift cards. Transaction Wireless said the funding will go towards sales and marketing expansion, technology development, and customer deployment. San Diego-based Transaction Wireless announced this morning that it has raised $2.25M in a Series A funding. Leo Spiegel of Mission Ventures and Marc Averitt of Okapi Ventures have joined the firm's board as part of the funding.

Nirvanix is a provider of a cloud storage service targeted at enterprises and web application developers; Nasuni develops a virtual network attached storage (NAS) file server that runs on VMware. 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

San Diego-based Transaction Wireless , a developer of mobile gift card and other mobile marketing products, announced this morning that it has raised an additional $2M in funding. The funding came from its existing investors, Mission Ventures and Okapi Ventures. Transaction Wireless develops a stored value, gift card platform which allows users to purchase products using their mobile The company said the new funds will go towards ongoing technology and customer deployment and sales and marketing. The firm's customers include AMC Theatres and Bass Pro Shops.

According to the company, the funding came from Mission Ventures, Selby Ventures, and the Tech Coast Angels. The company said the new funding will go to accelerate research and development, along with sales and marketing. Big Stage Entertainment develops technology which takes user photos and creates 3-D, facial avatars. Los Angeles-based Big Stage Entertainment is announcing this morning that it has raised an additional $2.7M in a Series B funding for the firm.

Pasadena-based Big Stage Entertainment , which is developing technology for creating 3D avatars, said Tuesday that the firm has hired on Patrick Barry as the firm's Vice President of Content Alliances. Big Stage said that Barry joins the firm from SK Telecom, where he was Senior Director of Corporate Development and Strategy. Big Stage Entertainment is venture backed by Mission Barry has also served at Brilliant Digital, Warner Bros., and Intel Corp.

Lake Forest-based Nexiant , a developer of materials management software tools, announced this morning that it has named Michael Aghajanian to its board. The firm is backed by Argentum Group, Forrest Binkley & Brown, Innocal, Inverness Capital Partners, Mission Ventures, and Omnicell. ...Tags: Aghajanian was most recently CEO of supply chain firm PRTM, and also was founder of The Performance Measurement Group. Nexiant said that Aghajanian has over 25 years of experience in the field.

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. 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. The firm said the certification came through the certification of an SMC Networks cable gateway, which uses the firm's components.

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 MaxLinear is venture backed by USVP, Battery Ventures, Mission Ventures, UMC Capital, and others. million shares of its stock at between $11 and $13 per share. The firm is looking to trade on the NYSE as MXL.

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: