By Stephen Nellis / Friday, January 3rd, 2014 / Columns, Technology / Comments Off on IPOs may be the name of the game for tri-county tech in 2014
When I’m out at networking events, I often get asked, “How’s tech doing in the region?” And over the past year or so, my answer has been, “We’ll know the answer in 2014 and 2015.”
Ventura County’s hopes to be designated a Federal Aviation Administration test site for drones were dealt a setback on Dec. 30 when the FAA picked six winners in the first round of a nationwide competition.
Shares of Oxnard-based CalAmp plunged 9 percent on Christmas Eve, after the company delivered a fourth-quarter outlook that missed analyst expectations. The wireless products company said it expects fourth-quarter profits of between 19 and 23 cents per share, lower than the 24 cents per share analysts were expecting, on average, according to FactSet.
Ron Pretlac of GreenTech Motors Corp. in Westlake Village and Peter Jardine of Shape Change Technologies in Thousand Oaks will receive almost $95K each from the Energy Innovations Small Grant Program.
Atara Biotherapeutics, a Thousand Oaks firm that emerged last year with major Silicon Valley backers and licenses to develop six Amgen assets, has raised $38.5 million to pursue treatments for dialysis complications and ovarian cancer.
James Reilly has been pushing for a new manufacturing plant to bring about 100 new jobs to Santa Maria for two years, and now the real work of getting it financed is about to begin.
The CEO of Ventura-based Clean Diesel Technologies has stepped down after a year on the job, a move that likely reflects a faltering relationship with Italian tire-maker Pirelli. In a separate announcement, the company said it has amended its ethics code in light of a $1.9 million fine from federal labor regulators over a whistleblower complaint.