Private Equity
Boku has hired Mike Cahill as chief technology officer. Previously, Cahill worked at American Express where he was vice president of mobile engineering. And, prior to that, Cahill was Boku's vice president of engineering. Based in San Francisco, Boku is a carrier billing-based mobile payment company. It is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Index Ventures, Khosla Ventures and New Enterprise Associates.
3 min read · 11 December 2014
Cubic Defense Applications, which provides combat training systems and secure communications, has appointed Gilman Louie to its defense executive advisory board. Louie is a partner at Alsop Louie Partners. He is also the founder and former CEO of In-Q-Tel.
3 min read · 11 December 2014
Redwood City, Calif.-based ThreatStream, a cyber security threat intelligence platform provider, has hired Rick Wescott as vice president of worldwide sales and W. Todd Helfrich as director of federal sales. Previously, Wescott worked at ArcSight where he served as vice president and general manager of public sector sales while Helfrich was at HP. ThreatStream's backers include General Catalyst Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, Google Ventures and Paladin Capital Group.
2 min read · 11 December 2014
San Francisco-based human resources platform Zenefits has named David Sacks as its first chief operating officer. He will also join the company's board of directors. Sacks was the founding CEO of Yammer and and a former COO at PayPal. Zenefits backers include Andreessen Horowitz, Institutional Venture Partners and Oscar-winning actor Jared Leto.
4 min read · 10 December 2014
Guest columnist Lisa Suennen is troubled that "there were no White people or Silicon Valley CEOs" at a recent discussion about diversity in the tech business. "I think that until the guys in charge come to the party, the story isn’t going to change," Suennen writes.
5 min read · 09 December 2014
San Francisco-based car-sharing app Lyft has named Kira Wampler as chief marketing officer and promoted Brian Roberts to chief financial officer, the company announced in a blog post on its site. Previously, Wampler worked at Trulia where she served as CMO while Roberts is Lyft's former senior vice president of partnerships and corporate development. Lyft's backers include Andreessen Horowitz, Mayfield, Founders Fund, Coatue Management, Third Point Management and Alibaba. To read more about Lyft's new appointments, visit here.
1 min read · 05 December 2014
Hong Kong-based DNA biotech firm Prenetics has received $2.65 million in seed funding. The investors were not named. Also, the firm has appointed Danny Yeung as CEO. Previously, Yeung was at Groupon East Asia where he served as CEO.
4 min read · 05 December 2014
Julie Meyer of Ariadne Capital talks about her place in venture and European investing.
3 min read · 04 December 2014
Solarflare has named John Hamm to its board of directors. Hamm is a former GP at VSP Capital and venture partner at Redpoint Ventures. Based in Irvine, Calif., Solarflare is a provider of application-intelligent networking software and hardware.
2 min read · 04 December 2014
Atlanta-based cybersecurity firm NexDefense has raised $2.4 million in funding. Mosley Ventures and Buckhead Investment Partners led the round. Also, Tom Noonan, a member of the White House National Infrastructure Advisory Council, has been added to the company's board of directors.
4 min read · 03 December 2014
