Carlsbad-based Aptera, the electric car startup backed by Google and Idealab, is delaying delivery of the firm's vehicles to customers, according to a letter to customers. According to Aptera, it missed its goal to deliver its first production 2e vehicles by the end of 2008, and is moving its volume production launch to October 1 of 2009. Aptera raised $24M in a Series C investment from Google, Idealab, The firm said that it plans to build a "much slower rate" starting with a small test fleet. Among issues causing the delay was feedback from customers who had put down a deposit

Pasadena-based Perfect Market, the Idealab-backed startup which is looking to help publishers monetize their underutilized and archive content, said Wednesday that it has created a new advisory board. The firm said that it has added Darshan Kantak, Chief Product Architect for Yahoo's Marketing Products Division; Larry Goodman, President of White Mountain Media; Jonah Schnel of the Ezralow Company; and Chris Muller, Director of Business Development of Synthasite, to its advisory group. Perfect Market is looking to apply search engine marketing and search engine optimization techniques to what has traditionally been considered "archive" content--for example, old advice articles from newspapers and magazines.

Pasadena-based X1 Technologies , the desktop search tools software firm backed by Idealab, said this morning that it has shipped a new enterprise product, X1 eDiscovery Search Suite. The firm said the new product is focused on information management and identification for the eDiscovery market. X1 explained that the new product is based on its X1 enterprise search tools, but is The new software starts at $20,000. The new software suite comes as a result of the firm finding that a quarter of its customers were already using its software for eDiscovery purposes.

Pasadena-based Energy Innovations , a developer of solar concentrators for the photovoltaic market, said this morning that it has spun off its RayTracker product group. Both Energy Innovations and RayTracker are backed by Idealab. Tags: innovations solar energy raytracker idealab photovoltai According to Energy Innovations, the group will create a new firm called RayTracker, Inc. The new firm will be headed by Kang Sun, who joins the firm from JA Solar Holdings Co.,

At at time where nearly all advertising was purchased on a CPM (cost per thousand) basis and not very measurable this was a huge innovation that should be credited to Bill Gross, the founder of IdeaLab.  But The configuration of the team was: 1 CEO, 1 Product Lead and a tech team of 6 people.  Perfect. They already had a completed product and a distribution deal with the One of the investment themes I’ve been focused on in the past 3 years has been Performance-Based Marketing.  When When I started investing the US advertising market was $300 billion with only 10% of

Los Angeles-based X1 Technologies , the Idealab-backed software firm developing enterprise and desktop search tools, announced Wednesday that the firm has added web indexing capabilities to its software. According to X1, its latest Enterprise Search Server product can now index external and internal web sites. X1 is backed by Idealab, and has been developing desktop search The firm said it has added web crawler technology to its version 3.3.1 software, which is available immediately.

The firm said in a statement that the firm's vehicle development has "outpaced the rate of fundraising" at the firm, and it is now adjusting its production schedule to "align with financing realities." In the statement, Aptera said it will begin volume production when it receives private funding or if it can secure financing through the Department of Energy's Advanced Technology Vehicle loan program. Vista-based electric vehicle maker Aptera , on the heels of the departure of the firm's co-founders, has officially pushed back deliver of the firm's Aptera 2e vehicle, acknowledged the departure of co-founders Chris Anthony and Steve Fambro, and said it has laid of an unspecified number of staff.

According to StoreNext, which supplies independent grocers and groery chains with IT and POS hardware, it will integrate Evolution Robotics Retail's product into its POS solutions. Evolution Robotics Retail is the retail-focused spinout of Idealab's Evolution Robotics, which split as a wholly owned subsidiary from its parent back in 2006 to focus solely on its LaneHawk product. Pasadena-based Evolution Robotics Retail has signed on reseller for the firm's object recognition technology for grocery stores, LaneHawk, the firm's reseller, StoreNext Retail Technologies, said this week.

Pasadena-based X1 Technologies , the document indexing and search software firm backed by Idealab, disclosed this morning that it has released two upgrades to its software. Among the updates is a new release of its X1 Profesisonal Client software, and a new versino of its connector to the Symantec Enterprise Vault product. X1 said the new update of its client adds improvements for IBM Lotus Notes and Mozilla X1's search software is targeted at enterprise customers, and indexes and allows the searching of files on desktops, servers, and software such as Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, and other enterprise information applications.

The firm said the round was led by Tribune Company, and also included Trinity Ventures, Rustic Canyon Partners, and Idealab. Perfect Market said that the Tribune Company has been using its product on a number of its web properties. Altadena-based Perfect Market , which is developing technology to help publishers monetize their long tail content, confirmed today that it has raised $6M in a Series C funding round. According to Perfect Market, the new funding will go to market and deploy its solutions.