The mortgage settlement between the top five mortgage banks and state attorneys general may indeed be a net positive in the short term, as it offers more certainty about the myriad state inquiries and offers additional hope that more individual foreclosure cases can be resolved.
But there’s a reason why New York and California signed the accord: It does nothing to hold back their efforts to pursue banks for a wide range of mortgage-related claims.
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Virginia-based startup timeRAZOR has added $3.4 million in funding. The company has been in stealth mode since June 2011. The online startup’s mission is to bring “a sense of serendipity back to our highly-scheduled world.” The company’s board of advisors includes Linda Abraham, co-founder of comScore; Eddie Amos, former Microsoft executive; and Gene Riechers, former General Partner of Valhalla Partners.
Read more »TastemakerX has raised $1.8 million in funding. Investors include Guggenheim Partners, Baseline Ventures, True Ventures, AOL Ventures and Tekton Ventures. The company has also attracted Internet and music industry advisors John Battelle, Marc Geiger, Ian Rogers, Paul Bricault and Ted Rheingold and angel investors Andrew Anker, Mich Mathews, Michael Kassan and Mike McGinley. TastemakerX is a social gaming platform.
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Read more »When the New York attorney general sued three big consumer banks and MERS last week, it seemed like a thumb up the nose of the majority of other states who were on the verge of signing a deal to settle a host of mortgage crimes, such as robo-signing.
Read more »Goldman Sachs has raised brows by throwing its support behind the Human Rights Campaign's effort to legalize same-sex marriages.
For the movement, this is a big deal, as the firm ranks as one of the most powerful businesses in the world. The Human Rights Campaign produced a video of CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who asks viewers to join a "majority of Americans who support marriage equality."
Read more »The Federal Reserve Board will likely decide the fate of the proposed Capital One deal for ING Direct when it convenes on Wednesday.
The $9 billion deal will create a bank with 1.5 percent of total U.S. deposits. As of now anyway, it does not own strong operations outside of core commercial banking, most of it at the retail level. The Fed has already held three hearings on the deal, which generated a surprising amount of opposition. Various consumer advocacy groups--notably the National Community Reinvestment Coalition--have opposed the deal largely on systemic risk concerns.
Read more »Conviva Inc., a maker of video quality optimization and analytics technology, has raised $15 million in a round led by Time Warner Investments. The company will use the funds to bolster its staff and for international growth, according to a press release. Names of other investors were not disclosed.
Read more »Xceleron, a company which accelerates drug development using ultra-sensitive bioanalytical analyses, has attracted existing investors Albion Ventures and Solon Ventures to invest $2.4MM to locate all of the company’s business in its custom-built facility in Germantown, MD. Xceleron was founded in 1997 in York, UK. In 2008, the company opened its US facility in Maryland.
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Read more »The conventional wisdom on the Volcker Rule is that it would hit trading-intensive firms the hardest.
A JPMorgan analyst last year estimated that the rule would reduce U.S. bank’s revenue by up to 46 percent. Most assume that Goldman Sachs would be among the hardest hit, as it has long been one of the most trading intensive. But at a conference covered by Reuters, CFO David Viniar suggests that his firm might benefit--at the expense of clients.
Read more »Velomedix Inc., a Menlo Park, Calif.-based medical device company focused on therapeutic Hypothermia, has raised $10.2 million in Series B financing. In conjunction with the financing, the company also named Jeffrey Gold as chief executive officer and Michael Moore as the vice-president of operations. Details of the financing were not released.
Read more »Praesidian Capital, a provider of mezzanine capital for small and mid-sized businesses, has led a $24.25 million senior debt and equity investment in DisplayWorks. DisplayWorks is an exhibit company based in Irvine, California and a JPB Growth Capital Partners’ portfolio company.
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Read more »Virtacore Systems, a Sterling, Va.-based provider of hybrid clouds backed by Insight Venture Partners, has brought aboard Phill Lawson-Shanks as CTO. Lawson-Shanks previously served as the chief strategy officer of Nimbus Exchange and as chief strategy officer at Alcatel-Lucent. . He also spent many years with Compaq Computer in both Europe and the U.S.
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Read more »The perpetual crisis at Bank of America has claimed another big-name executive.
Barbara Desoer was once an executive on the rise, mentioned every now and then as a candidate to lead the bank some day. That was before the mortgage crisis and the disastrous Countrywide purchase rocked Bank of America to its foundation. Since then, Desoer has seen her portfolio whittled down, and it is no surprise that she has announced she will leave the bank.
Read more »Touchmedia said Wednesday that they have closed another round of financing led by Founder and CEO Mickey Fung. Internal investors from prior rounds, including Qi Ming Venture Partners, TLC Capital, and Mustang Ventures, also participated. Touchmedia is a Chinese developer of interactive touch-screen solutions.
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Read more »TruTouch Technologies, a developer of biometric intoxication detection systems, has raised $3 million in fresh capital. iTulip Inc., a Lexington, Mass.-based online economics and financial markets community, led the round. Other investors were not disclosed.
PRESS RELEASE
TruTouch Technologies, a pioneer in non-invasive biometric intoxication detection systems, today announced that it has secured $3M which will enable the company to build sales revenues through direct sales and secure additional licensing partners.
Data storage company Pivot3 has announced a new, $23 million round of funding to fund its expansion and development. The round was led by Samsung Ventures, and included participation from all existing Pivot3 investors: Focus Ventures, InterWest Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mesirow Financial, Northleaf Capital Partners and Silver Creek Ventures.
Read more »GigaOM has acquired paidContent from Guardian News & Media Ltd. Financial terms weren’t announced. GigaOm said it bought all the assets of ContentNext Media, including paidContent.org, mocoNews.net, contentSutra.com and paidContent:UK. It will retain editorial and business staff, according to the statement.
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Read more »Monday was the deadline for states to sign onto a deal hammered out with big mortgage companies to settle a litany of fraud charges.
Read more »Prince Alwaleed, as one of Citigroup’s top shareholders, has the ear of CEO Vikram Pandit. They had a conversation just last week reportedly. And now the prince says he expects the bank to hike dividends just as soon as it passes the Fed stress tests. Bank management would appear to be confident. But then again, Bank of America was confident last year, when it suffered the humiliation of being told that it could not boost its dividend after it voiced public confidence. Let’s hope we’re not in for a repeat.
Read more »Cardon Healthcare Network, which is backed by Serent Capital, has combined with Outreach Services. Financial terms were not announced. The new company, headquartered in Woodlands, Texas, will be called Cardon Outreach. The company will provide revenue cycle management services to hospitals.
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