Three-Wheeler Gets Rolling With $6 Million in Funding

0

The three-wheel gasoline-and-electric hybrid car looks like something the Jetsons might have in their garage.


Called VentureOne and still under development, the vehicle is a cross between a motorcycle and a car. It seats two people and integrates a patented tilt control system that allows it to make stable turns.


The gas mileage is the most beautiful part of the creation 100 miles per gallon. That’s about double what a typical motorcycle gets.


Venture Vehicles Inc., a Century City-based company that’s developing the car, just got $6 million from Santa Barbara-based venture fund NGEN Partners for brand development.


It’s a safer alternative to motorcycles and scooters, said Ian Bruce, the company’s co-founder and executive vice president of design and engineering.


“About 90 percent of all commuting is done with one person per vehicle. It’s such a waste of resources,” Bruce said. “That’s why sales of motorcycles and scooters went up by 11 percent last year, but there’s got to be a middle ground.”


Venture Vehicles, which started two years ago, has developed an engine and is currently working on integrating hybrid technology. A leading automotive design firm will finish the design of the car, and if all goes according to plan, California will see the first 4,000 of these cars hit the market by first quarter of 2009. The little car will have a fairly big price tag, though: about $20,000.



NxTV on Roll

It looks like the times have finally caught up with NxTV Inc.


The Woodland Hills-based video-on-demand provider has been delivering video content to hotels over an IP network since 1997. Now as the entire industry shifts from analog to digital broadcasts, responding to a federal mandate, the company is experiencing explosive growth.


NxTV, privately held, brought in $9.2 million last year, which is a 736 percent growth since 2003. Inc. magazine this week listed the company as one of the fastest growing private companies in the nation.


“We’ve had 10 years to get ahead of everyone,” said Russ Reeder, chief operating officer of NxTV. “There are larger companies out there like LodgeNet Entertainment that provide video-on-demand to 2 million rooms. But it’s the old horse-and-buggy analog technology.”


Compared with its competitors, the company boasts clearer picture quality, a larger movie library and faster delivery to the hotel.


NxTV digitally transmits a library of 250 movies to about 30,000 rooms in four- and five-star hotels in 14 countries. It has an additional 25,000 rooms in the pipeline. “The second the studios say ‘yes,’ we can turn on a set of movies for the month, instead of taking all the content and physically delivering it to the hotels,” he said.


Most video-on-demand companies hand-deliver the movies on a hard-drive, Reeder said. Movies traditionally are released to airlines and hotels before they get put on DVDs.


NxTV services such hotels as the Peninsula Beverly Hills, Park Hyatt in Tokyo and the Four Seasons London in Canary Wharf.


Peninsula Beverly Hills was one of NxTV’s first customers. A decade ago, the company had to build its own IP network to deliver its movies to Peninsula. “Now we run on their IP network. That’s hands-down the best advancement that’s really helped us,” Reeder said.


Hotels, in addition to the entire television industry, will get more tech-savvy due to a federal mandate. Feb. 17, 2009 is the deadline for all analog broadcasts to cease and the entire country to switch to digital television.



PC Mall Expands

When PC Mall Inc., the Torrance-based online computer and electronics retailer, agreed to buy Sarcom Inc. last week, it was part of its strategic plan to boost it information technology business.


Sarcom, based in Columbus, Ohio, provides computer services to enterprise and mid-market corporate clients, including health care organizations, government agencies and schools. It generated about $248 million in revenues in 2006, according to a news release.


PC Mall, a $1 billion public company, said the acquisition for $55 million in cash and stock would enhance its ability to provide technology services and falls in line with the company’s plans to buy more shares of its customers’ spending on information technology.


The company’s shares rose 7 percent immediately following the announcement last week.



Oversee.net

Kamran Pourzanjani has joined the board of Oversee.net, a $28 million high-tech online marketing company based in downtown Los Angeles.


Pourzanjani is the former chief executive and founder of PriceGrabber.com, a comparison shopping Web site that was acquired by Experian in 2005.


Pourzanjani has 25 years of experience managing technology, systems integration and software companies. Prior to launching PriceGrabber.com, he was the chief executive of Syseca Inc., an information technology company.



Staff reporter Booyeon Lee can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 230, or at

[email protected]

.

No posts to display