Category: News

Time to close up. The patient will have the battery placed in two weeks. The implanted system will be… instagram.com/p/Zqmn0_RI_p/

— UCLA Health(@UCLAHealth) May 23, 2013

And that’s it. Thank you for joining us today! #UCLAORLive vine.co/v/bVzh1JBpwUE

— UCLA Health(@UCLAHealth) May 23, 2013

It’s almost impossible for the average computer to mine Bitcoins in any efficient way, hence the rise of Bitcoin mining machines so tuned to their specific purpose that they barely resemble PCs. To wit: the Cryonic Bitcoin FrostBit machine is a PC in name only and contains a liquid nitrogen generator, special ASIC chips, and a price tag that would make the Winklevii twins think twice.

“It’s the first time a ‘PC’ has been built for consumers with built-in liquid nitrogen generators. We use helium compression technology to super-cool condensers that in turn condense nitrogen air into its liquid form. There’s nothing even remotely similar available to the consumers,” said CEO of Cryoniks, Inc. Fahad Koumaiha. “By sustaining cryonic temperatures we were able to achieve superconductivity with our custom designed ASIC processors. Not only do we get a huge boost in speed, but we cut down power consumption to around 2800W per unit; significantly less than anything on the market today.”

The PC hits a peak of 2800W – the average PC hits 200W on a bad day – but the device can perform 1000 Gigahashes a second. To put that in perspective a strong PC with good graphics card can hit about 100 MH/S and in my experience I haven’t been able to get any my machines to hit higher than 50 MH/S. It’s a powerful claim.

What are you going to pay for this ridiculous machine? Try a cool $15,000, which, sadly, you can’t pay for in BTC.

Can this thing really pay for itself? Probably, but not immediately. There are some BTC fans who believe a $10,000 BTC isn’t too far off and if that happens the potential benefits of this machine far outweighs the cost. They are planning on shipping this monster in July so if you’re seriously into mining, it may be worth a look. Everyone else? Be satisfied with your low GH/S. It’s a cryonic, nitrogen-cooled world out there and we’re just visiting.

UPDATE – Further discussions with both the company and BTC fans have led me to believe this is more or less an impossible device however the company has offered to allow me to try one of their machines when they begin shipping and, at that point, I will post a follow-up. At this time I would not recommend leaving money in their hands until such a time as an independent reviewer has seen the device.

Before he leaves the shores of the Star Trek franchise to takeover the upcoming Star Wars sequel, J.J. Abrams is having to do a little bit of damage control with his latest installment for the universe Gene Roddenberry created. The hubbub surrounds what is being deemed as a gratuitous shot of the striking Alice Eve while she was changing uniforms, which can seen here:

Apparently, showing a woman’s body while galloping around the cosmos is frowned upon, isn’t that right, Orion Slave Girl? The Alice Eve kerfuffle has, however, introduced a deleted scene from Star Trek Into Darkness, which came to light while Abrams was on the Conan O’Brien show discussing the “controversy” around Eve’s revealing attire (Conan approved of the scene, by the way). During his interview, Abrams pointed that Kirk/Christopher Pine also appeared in the movie without his shirt, and the director had done that with the idea of it being a trade off between that and Alice Eve’s popular scene.

From here, the deleted scene in question–which features the movie’s antagonist, Benedict Cumberbatch, taking a shower–was brought and shown by Conan:

For those of you who don’t feel like listening the conversation, the scene in question shows up at the 1:30 mark, so you can either fast forward the video, or click here to see the movie’s villain in all of his shirtless, dripping wet glory.

So, do two shots of shirtless guys make up for one scene of Alice Eve in underwear? Granted, Cumberbatch’s scene wasn’t in the movie, but now that it’s hit the web, it won’t be hard to find.

Shocking as it may seem, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) still isn’t happy with Google’s efforts to stamp out piracy. On its official blog this week, the RIAA once again bemoaned Google’s supposed lack of enthusiasm for removing links to alleged pirated content from its search results. In particular, the RIAA complained that online piracy is still thriving despite the fact that Google has removed 20 million links to alleged piracy sites from its search results.

Continue reading…

The Trayvon Martin/Zimmerman case took another interesting turn today as Zimmerman’s defense released photos and text message exchanges from Martin’s cell phone. The photos show Martin blowing smoke, riding a horse, and holding a gun. With the defense releasing the photos, they’re hoping to defame Martin in hopes of proving Zimmerman’s claims of self defense.

The judge presiding over the case allowed the photos to be used, if they showed Martin showed a history of violence.

Here are a few of the photos released by the defense.

The defense also released text messages from Martin’s phone.

I’m not sure what the defense hopes to gain by showing Martin on a horse, but I didn’t go to law school, so what do I know?

[Source: CBS Miami]

There’s an epidemic going on in science, and it’s not of the H7N9 bird flu variety. The groundbreaking, novel results that scientists are incentivized to publish (and which journalists are then compelled to cover) seem peppered with gaps: experiments that no one can reproduce, studies that have to be retracted, and the emergence of an iceberg of an integrity crisis, both for scientists personally and for those who rely — medically, financially, professionally — on the data they produce.

As a recent PhD, I can attest to the fact that many researchers first experience the iceberg as no more than an ice cube-sized annoyance impeding their work towards a Nobel Prize. Maybe the experimental instructions from a rival lab don’t quite seem to work. Maybe the data you’re trying to replicate for your homework assignment don’t add up, as UMass graduate student Thomas Herndon found. If a spreadsheet error that underpins sweeping global economic policy doesn’t convince you, here is some more evidence that we are already scraping the iceberg of a research and data reliability crisis.

Newton, we have a problem

All those life-saving cancer drugs? Drug makers Amgen and Bayer found that the majority of research behind them couldn’t be reproduced.

Amgen only able to reproduce 11% of landmark papers bit.ly/Hkk2MM ; Bayer had similar findings in NRDD last year bit.ly/Hkklav—
Nature Rev Drug Disc (@NatRevDrugDisc) March 29, 2012

What about neutral reporting of scientific results? A number of pervasive sources of bias in the scientific literature have been discovered, such as selective reporting of positive results, data suppression, or academic competition and pressure to publish. The hunger for ever more novel and high-impact results that could lead to that coveted paper in a top-tier journal like Nature or Science is not dissimilar to the clickbait headlines and obsession with pageviews we see in modern journalism. (The long-form investigative story is experiencing a bit of a digital renaissance, so maybe that bodes well for the appreciation of “slow science.”)

Readers of the New York Times Magazine will recall last month’s profile of Diederik Stapel, prolific data falsifier and holder of the number-two spot in the list of authors with the most scientific paper retractions. ScienceIsBroken.org is a frank compendium of first-hand anecdotes from the lab frontlines (the tags #MyLabIsSoPoor and #OverlyHonestMethods reflect the dire straits of research funding and the corner-cutting that can result) and factoids that drive home just how tenuous many published scientific results are (“Only 0.1% of published exploratory research is estimated to be reproducible”). The provocative title of a 2005 essay by Stanford professor John Ioannidis sums it up: “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.”

Interestingly, unlike in science where many results are interdependent and on-the-record, in big data accuracy is not as much of an issue. As my colleague Derrick Harris points out, for big data scientists the abilty to churn through huge amounts of data very quickly is actually more important than complete accuracy. One reason for this is that they’re not dealing with, say, life-saving drug treatments, but with things like targeted advertising, where you don’t have to be 100 percent accurate. Big data scientists would rather be pointed in the right general direction faster — and course-correct as they go – than have to wait to be pointed in the exact right direction. This kind of error-tolerance has insidiously crept into science, too.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics

Fraud (the principal cause of retractions, which are up roughly tenfold since 1975)  is not a new phenomenon, but digital manipulation and distribution tools have increased the spread and impact of science, both faulty and legitimate, beyond the confines of the ivory tower. Patients now look for new clinical trial data online in search of cures, and studies that are ultimately retracted (with a delay of 12 years, in the case of the infamous MMR vaccine study published in The Lancet) can persist in their effects on public health, and public opinion.

Even in fields that don’t end up in the news or have direct medical impact, the effects of a retraction can be broad and disconcerting. When a lab at the Scripps Research Institute had to retract five papers because of a software error, hundreds of other researchers who based their work on those findings, and who used the same software, were affected. When the proverbial giants on whose shoulders scientists stand turn out to be a house of cards, years of effort can go down the drain.

For those providing the funding, like foundations and the federal government, events like this present a further justification to tighten the purse strings, and for the general public, they serve to deepen the distrust of science and increase the reluctance to support audacious (and economically and medically important) projects. This is not a PR crisis borne out of the actions of greedy charlatans or “nutty professors” – they are but a highly visible minority. The real problems for research reproducibility have to do with how we handle data, and are much more benign – and controllable.

Openness to the rescue?

As I reported last week, blind trust in black box scientific software is one part of the problem. Users of such software may not fully understand how the scientific sausage they end up with is made. Om has written about the deterministic influence big social data can have on people and businesses. As the velocity and volume of data have increased, the practices of science have struggled to keep pace. (I will discuss some potential solutions to the data-credibility problem in a separate post tomorrow.)

The question of whether the retraction and irreproducibility epidemic is spreading is akin to the debate over whether spiking autism or ADHD rates, for example, are real or the result of better diagnoses. The recent insight that retractions are correlated with impact factor (a measure of journal prestige derived from the number of citations papers in journals receive) seems to suggest that much of the most valued and publicized science could be less than trustworthy. (Retractions can result from innocuous omissions or malfunctioning equipment as well as more severe and willful acts like plagiarism or fraud.)

Some see the phenomenon not as an epidemic but as a rash, a sign that the research ecosystem is getting healthier and more transparent. Openness is indeed a much-touted solution to the woes of science, with even the White House mandating an open data policy for government agencies; the National Institutes of Health (the major biomedical research funder in the U.S.) and many foundations already require research they fund to be publicly accessible.

Efforts to combat seedy science are popping up at an almost viral pace. A new Center for Open Science has launched at the University of Virginia, and the twitterati of the ScienceOnline un-conference spearhead a number of initiatives to improve the practice, publishing and communication of science.

Motivation through tastier carrots

Many in these communities point to a broken incentive structure as the source of compromised science. Novel, “breakthrough” results are rewarded, though the foundation of science rests in the power of real physical phenomena to be experimentally replicated. If the best research – the real McCoys in a sea of trendy one-hit wonders – can be identified and rewarded, science, industry and the public stand to benefit. The challenge is finding predictors of high-quality research, beyond the traditional impact factor metric.

Much like scientists can rapidly sequence the genetic code of new influenza strains like H7N9, they are also starting to identify systemic frailties, attitudes and entrenched practices, and take measures to inoculate science against them. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, which will cover three remedies to tame the epidemic and revitalize reproducible research.

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Movies with game tie-ins are pretty common now, and it’s not surprising to see Fast and Furious 6 keep up that tradition. The game features incredible graphics, tons of challenges, and quite a bit of in-depth car customization. Aside from that, it features many of the popular characters from the movies. If you’re into multiplayer, there are also competitive tournaments and leaderboards to challenge your friends. No word on if those use Google’s new multiplayer servers and leaderboards. In the app description, it isn’t listed as using Play Services, but some apps still don’t display those correctly. Either way, the game is free to try out. Hit the link below to give it a spin.

Play Store Download Link

Come comment on this article: Fast and Furious 6 game hits the Play Store

With TEDGlobal 2013 just 17 days in the distance, we in the TED office are getting very excited to “Think Again.” Here, a look at the conference speakers who made the news this week.

• Education innovator Anant Agarwal is interviewed in The New Yorker article “Laptop U.” The founder of edX, Harvard and MIT’s online learning venture, Agarwal will speak at TEDGlobal during the session “Tech Impact.” In the article, Agarwal charmingly introduces himself: “Welcome to our start-up. It is very start-up-y.”
  .
• The Beirut Marathon — which was founded by Session 6 speaker May El-Khalil – will hold its 10K Women’s Challenge this Sunday, May 26. It will be the first all-female race in Beirut. In this tweet, May El-Khalil’s daughter, Zena, suggests that people run it wearing pink!

• Gabriele Gomez-Mont, who’ll co-host the session “The World on Its Head,” has been named an IFTF Fellow. This is the Institute for the Future’s inaugural group of fellows, selected for their passion in creating innovative solutions to the world’s toughest problems.

• CNN has profiled false memory expert Elizabeth Loftus, who’ll speak during the session “Exquisite Enigmatic Us.” CNN writes of this fascinating researcher: “One conversation with Elizabeth Loftus may shake your confidence in everything you think you remember … Her work is reminiscent of films like Memento and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind where what you believe happened is probably far from the truth.”

• Here’s a fascinating interview with economist Dambisa Moyo via Slate — in which she suggests how Bill Gates might better help Africa.

• Chrystia Freeland, the author of the book Plutocrats who’ll speak during the session “Money Talks,” wrote an essay for Reuters called “Poor Little Rich Kids.” The deeply surprising thesis:  rising spending on education in the upper classes is not only challenging social mobility, but actually turning upper-middle-class kids into an at-risk group.

• Apollo Robbins is co-hosting the National Geographic Channel show Brain Games. The next episode is “Seeing Is Believing,” and it asks the question: Can we trust our eyes? Should we?

Find out more about TEDGlobal 2013, “Think Again,” including how to attend or watch it live from home »

Since the Verizon S 4 is officially available today, we’re also getting the official bootloader unlock method today. Dan Rosenberg, who has been responsible for unlocking many Snapdragon powered devices lately, was waiting for Verizon to drop their variant of the S 4 before releasing his work so Verizon couldn’t work a patch in. This method works on the Verizon and AT&T models, but now that the exploit is out in the open, a patch may come in updates down the road.

Right now, the tools aren’t really easy to use. Fortunately though, we can probably expect some friendly tools to show up for the less tech savvy soon. In case you do want to get your hands dirty and unlock your new S 4, you can check out the links below to download the tools.

source: XDA

Come comment on this article: Verizon Galaxy S 4 gets bootloader unlock method

Andreessen Horowitz is leading a $60 million Series C financing round for Lyft, according the company’s blog. Lyft, of San Francisco, is a ride sharing app.

The post Andreessen Horowitz Leads $60 Mln Series C for Lyft appeared first on peHUB.

Google has released Chrome for Android 27, a major update to its open-source browser for Android smartphones and tablets. Version 27 boasts several key new features, including full-screen support on smartphones and the ability to access a history of previously opened tabs on tablet machines.

A key improvement on all platforms is the simplified searching tool. When using the omnibox to search the net, it will remain visible when displaying search results, making it easier to both view and edit searches.

Chrome for Android 27 also introduces client-side certificate support. This means users can now access sites that require certificates, selecting an installed certificate using the browser when applicable.

Of the platform-specific improvements, smartphone users can now switch to full-screen mode to maximise screen real estate simply by scrolling down the page — the toolbar will disappear, reappearing only when users scroll back to the top of the page again. Tablet users gain access to tab history in turn — simply tap and hold the browser’s back button and the history will appear for easy retrieval.

The update is rounded off with what Google describes as “a ton” of stability and performance fixes. The update follows hot on the heels of Google Chrome 27 FINAL for desktop, which promises faster web page loading times and improved spell correction among other changes.

Google Chrome 27.0.1453.90 is available now as a free, open-source download for Android-powered smartphones and tablets.

Smartphones never cease to amaze me. I’m still impressed by how productive I’m able to be on my Android device no matter where I am (often to the chagrin of my wife), and I’m still surprised every time I see someone pull out a Square when it comes time to pay (like happened last night at Fat Choy in Las Vegas, a way-off-strip place you should totally check out if you’re in town). But neither of those situations really compare with busting out a phone in order to detect the levels of toxins in the air.

Yet that’s exactly what a group of researchers at the University of Illinois have created — a cradle that wraps around an iPhone and turns it into a biosensor that can detect, according to a university press release, “toxins, proteins, bacteria, viruses and other molecules.” Inside that cradle are about $200 worth of mirrors, lenses and a photonic crystal that the researchers claim can identify these substances as accurately as a $50,000 spectrophotometer in the lab.

The cradle is essentially there for support, though, while the phone’s camera and processor do the real work. With everything firmly aligned in front of the camera, a scientist would simply snaps a photo and the CPU processes the result. What it’s processing is the difference in wavelength that the photonic crystal, primed to react to a specific molecule, reflects. The team demonstrates the device and app in the video embedded below.

And if you’re into this type of mobile data collection, another group of University of Illinois researchers actually created a smartphone-powered water-pollution device called MoboSens

Like all things mobile or sensor, though — from SkinScan (now SkinVision) to health care apps like Ginger.io — the biggest value might come from data that has nothing to do with what the app is primarily measuring. Rather, when data about a certain condition, air quality or what have you is tagged with time and geodata, for example, it becomes the basis for mapping how situations are spreading or where there might be safe haven.

Imagine a team of scientists with iPhones dispersed throughout a city after a disaster, painting a real-time picture of what areas are most affected by a particular toxin (or maybe radiation). Taking a longer term approach, researchers could track how situations are evolving over time. Throw in even more data that smartphones are capable of detecting — temperature, ambient noise, vibration, etc. — and we might unlock entirely new ways to think about how diseases spread through the air or what conditions tend to favor the spread of foodborne bacteria.

In some ways, though, this is more than another cool thing you can do with a smartphone. It’s the furtherance of something we’ll discussing in depth at our Structure conference next month, which is how we rethink IT when computation and data are no longer bound within a single server or even the corporate network somewhere. The biological data this app will collect isn’t much use locked inside the phone; it needs a way to reliably and securely connect with other datasets and other services, likely distributed across the country or even the world. That’s where the real opportunity lies.

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Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Don’t ask Netflix subscribers: The video service removed Spongebob Squarepants, Dora the Explorer, Go Diego Go, Blue’s Clues  and other animated Nickeolodeon fare from its streaming library this week as its licensing agreement with Viacom is expiring. Also gone are shows like iCarly, Teen Mom, Jersey Shore and the Sarah Silverman Show.

Netflix had announced in April that it wasn’t going to renew its broad licensing deal with Viacom. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said at the time that his company was in talks with Viacom to possibly strike separate deals for specific shows. A Netflix spokesperson told us Thursday that the company doesn’t have any news to share on that front.

Netflix’s previous deal with Viacom included titles from Nickelodeon, MTV, BET, VH1, Logo and Spike. In a position paper on the future of his company, Hastings said in April that Netflix was using a whole lot of data to evaluate these kinds of deals before deciding to renew them:

“We might pay, for example, $200,000 for a 4 year exclusive subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) license for a given title. At the time of renewal, we evaluate how much the title has been viewed as well as member rating feedback to determine how much we are willing to pay. How many similar titles we have is also a consideration.”

Netflix doesn’t share any of its ratings with the outside world, but the company has made it clear in the past that kids are a very important audience, which even deserved a dedicated UI to further encourage their viewing. With that in mind, it’s possible that there may be hope for Dora or any of the other more popular kids shows to return to the service sooner or later. Fans of Teen Mom on the other hand may have to look elsewhere.

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Microsoft has released a second advertisement targeting Apple and its popular iPad this week. The company compares the iPad to an ASUS VivoTab RT, noting that the Windows RT device is slimmer, lighter and can perform more functions than Apple’s tablet. Microsoft highlights Windows RT’s multitasking ability, integration with Office, and convenience with features such as a built-in microSD card reader and compatibility with “nearly all printers.” This is the second advertisement released by Microsoft that targets the iPad, as an earlier video mocked the supposedly inferior voice recognition capabilities of Apple’s Siri voice assistant. Microsoft’s Windows RT commercial follows below.

Continue reading…

Susan Powell, the wife and mother who disappeared in 2009 under mysterious circumstances, made a home video the year before documenting her possessions in case something ever happened to her.

Last February, Powell’s husband, Josh, killed their two sons with a hatchet and then set off an explosion in his home that took his own life after he locked out a Child Protective Services employee who was on a supervised visit. Police had long suspected him to be involved in Susan’s disappearance, but had no physical evidence. Josh said he decided to take the boys on an impromptu camping trip the night she disappeared…in the middle of a snowstorm. He claimed she was gone when they returned home.

“This is me July 29th, 2008,” Powell says in the video. “(I am) covering all my bases, making sure that if something happens to me or my family, or all of us, that our assets are documented.”

Powell also left a secret will in a safety deposit box, with a note that indicated if she was found dead, it “may not be an accident, even if it looks like one”.

As of now, police are calling the case closed as they still have no body and no suspects now that Josh is dead. A tragic end to what was already a tragic story.

An interview with Michael Raynor, director at Deloitte Services LP and coauthor of the article Three Rules for Making a Company Truly Great. For more, see his book.

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A written transcript will be available by June 2.

Catamount Ventures said Thursday that it agreed to sell Plum Organics to Campbell Soup Co. Financial terms weren’t announced. Earlier, Catterton Partners said it also agreed to sell its stake in Plum, a provider of organic baby food.

PRESS RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwired – May 23, 2013) – Catamount Ventures, the leading venture capital firm focused on healthy living, sustainability and education firms, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell Plum Organics, a leading premium, organic kids nutrition company, to Campbell Soup Company (“Campbell”). Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Since co-founding Plum Organics in 2007, Catamount Ventures has worked with the company’s management team to aggressively grow the Plum brand into a leading organic baby food brand. With its complete line of organic products, unique food and flavor combinations, and innovative offerings and packaging, Plum has helped to revolutionize the baby food industry. With Catamount, Plum grew from three founders and an idea to a full team, multinational distribution, and a broadened product assortment including offerings for toddlers and kids. In 2012, Plum Organics was the second fastest-growing food business in the U.S.
“Partnering with Catamount and Jed Smith from the outset of this tremendous firm has been instrumental to our success,” said Plum Organics CEO Neil Grimmer. “Catamount worked with us every step of the way from expanding our team, marketing and distribution, raising capital and guiding our significant strategic relationships. Along the way, we have stayed focused on our mission to give the very best food to our little ones. We have succeeded in driving growth in our category, and we look forward to continuing our momentum as part of Campbell.”
Jed Smith, Chairman of Plum Organics and Managing Partner at Catamount Ventures, said, “Six years ago we set out to help guide an innovative and modern approach to family nutrition. With this mission at our core, Plum is building a lasting brand that will be impactful for generations. Campbell is the perfect acquirer to reach new levels of success.”
Plum Organics is a pioneer in pouch-based packaging for baby food. After experiencing a three-year growth in sales of over 4,000%, Plum Organics placed number 63 in Inc. Magazine’s 2012 Inc. 500 list of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. In addition, Plum Organics was featured on Forbes 2012 ranking of America’s Most Promising Companies — a list of one hundred privately held, high-growth companies with bright futures.
The transaction remains subject to applicable regulatory approval and satisfaction of other customary closing conditions.
About Plum Organics
Plum Organics® is a pioneer and global provider of premium, nutritious organic baby food, toddler and kid snack food products. Recognized for their unique, culinary-inspired recipes and a modern approach to family nutrition, Plum offers a complete line of organic products that ensure healthy eating from the highchair to the lunchbox™. Plum has dedicated its social mission to delivering nutrient rich, organic food into the hands of little ones in need across America. Forbes magazine named Plum #19 on its 2013 list of “America’s Most Promising Companies.” For more information about Plum please visit: http://www.plumorganics.com.
About Catamount Ventures
Catamount Ventures has created a new category of venture capital investing focused on healthy living, sustainability and educational technology firms. With $210 million under management we have a 14 year track record of backing world class entrepreneurs with outstanding visions going after major segments of our economy with disruptive solutions. The Catamount team brings decades of partner experience as entrepreneurs, CEOs and operators. Catamount investments include: Seventh Generation, Revolution Foods, Café Press, Linden Lab, Numi Tea, Quri and MasteryConnect. More Information about Catamount Ventures can be found at http://www.catamountventures.com

The post Catamount Ventures to Sell Plum Organics’ Stake appeared first on peHUB.

Catterton Partners said Thursday that it has agreed to sell Plum Organics to Campbell Soup Co. Financial terms weren’t announced. Emeryville, Calif.-based Plum Organics provides organic baby foods.

PRESS RELEASE

GREENWICH, Conn., May 23, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Catterton Partners, the leading consumer-focused private equity firm, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell Plum Organics, a leading premium, organic kids nutrition company, to Campbell Soup Company (“Campbell”). Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Since partnering with Plum Organics in 2010, Catterton Partners has worked with the company’s management team to aggressively grow the Plum brand into a leading organic kid’s nutrition company. With its complete line of organic products, unique food and flavor combinations, and innovative offerings and packaging, Plum has helped to revolutionize the baby food industry. With Catterton, Plum significantly grew its distribution channels, broadened its product assortment and expanded the brand to include offerings for toddlers and kids. In 2012, Plum Organics was the second fastest-growing food business in the U.S.
“We are proud of the profitable growth and expansion that Plum has achieved working with Catterton,” said Plum Organics CEO Neil Grimmer . “Catterton was instrumental in helping Plum expand marketing and distribution, refine operating capabilities, and recruit key talent to the team. Along the way, we have stayed focused on our mission to give the very best food to our little ones. We have succeeded in driving growth in our category, and we look forward to continuing our momentum as part of Campbell.”
Jon Owsley, Partner at Catterton Partners, said, “With their commitment to wholesome ingredients, a focus on flavors that children love and a modern approach to family nutrition, the Plum Organics team has established a leadership position in their category. We are pleased to have partnered with the management team to help drive the company’s success. This transaction represents a terrific outcome for Plum Organics, Catterton and Campbell, and we are confident that Plum Organics will thrive for years to come under new ownership.”
Plum Organics was the pioneer in pouch-based packaging for baby food. After experiencing a three-year growth in sales of over 4,000%, Plum Organics placed number 63 in Inc. Magazine’s 2012 Inc. 500 list of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. In addition, Plum Organics was featured on Forbes 2012 ranking of America’s Most Promising Companies – a list of one hundred privately held, high-growth companies with bright futures.
The transaction remains subject to applicable regulatory approval and satisfaction of other customary closing conditions.
About Plum Organics
Plum Organics(R) is a pioneer and global provider of premium, nutritious organic baby food, toddler and kid snack food products. Recognized for their unique, culinary-inspired recipes and a modern approach to family nutrition, Plum offers a complete line of organic products that ensure healthy eating from the highchair to the lunchbox(TM). Plum has dedicated its social mission to delivering nutrient rich, organic food into the hands of little ones in need across America. Forbes magazine named Plum #19 on its 2013 list of “America’s Most Promising Companies.” For more information about Plum please visit: http://www.plumorganics.com.
About Catterton Partners
Catterton Partners is the leading consumer-focused private equity firm in North America, with more than $3.3 billion currently under management and a twenty-four year track record of success in building high growth companies. Since its founding in 1989, Catterton has leveraged its category insight, strategic and operating skills, and network of industry contacts to establish one of the strongest private equity investment track records in the middle market. Catterton Partners invests in all major consumer segments, including Food and Beverage, Retail and Restaurants, Consumer Products and Services, Consumer Health, and Media and Marketing Services. Catterton’s investments include: Restoration Hardware, Outback Steakhouse, Sweet Leaf Tea, Noodles & Company, Frederic Fekkai , Build-A-Bear Workshop, Wellness and Nature’s Variety pet food, Kettle Foods, Odwalla and P.F. Chang ‘s, to name a few. More information about Catterton Partners can be found at http://www.cpequity.com.

The post Catterton Sells Plum Organics to Campbell Soup Co. appeared first on peHUB.

Benjamin Ling is joining Khosla Ventures. Ling is a former Google, Facebook and YouTube executive. Most recently Ling was chief operating officer at Badoo.

PRESS RELEASE

MENLO PARK, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Khosla Ventures, a venture assistance firm that focuses on sustainability and technology startups, announced today that Benjamin Ling, a former Google, Facebook and YouTube executive, will join the firm. Most recently Ben was chief operating officer at Badoo, where he oversaw product, engineering, marketing, operations, business development and corporate development.

While serving in executive roles, he has also developed a distinguished track record angel investing in technology companies, such as Fab.com, Palantir, Square, PracticeFusion, Quora and advisory positions in Pinterest and Pulse.

He will begin his new role at Khosla Ventures in May 2013.

“I love the Khosla Ventures approach of backing and assisting entrepreneurs who want to make big, impactful, long-term bets – who are not afraid to risk failure in an attempt to change the world. And the breadth of network and knowledge, along with the uncompromising work ethic of the Khosla team, helps entrepreneurs get the best possible assistance,” said Ben.

“We are thrilled to have Ben join us as he has shown himself to be an effective product executive, as well as a hands-on leader,” said Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures. “Our belief in bringing the best venture assistance to our companies is why we’re very excited about the newest addition to the Khosla Ventures team.”

“Ben is an amazing entrepreneurial leader and has a great eye as an investor for both talent and ideas. I’m excited to see him join Khosla Ventures to find and foster the next set of entrepreneurs who will define the technology world,” said Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo! and long-time friend and colleague to Ben.

About Khosla Ventures

Khosla Ventures offers venture assistance, strategic advice and capital to entrepreneurs. The firm helps entrepreneurs extend the potential of their ideas in breakthrough technologies in clean energy, mobile, IT, cloud, big data, storage, health, food, agriculture and semiconductors. Vinod Khosla founded the firm in 2004 and was formerly a General Partner at Kleiner Perkins and co-founder of Sun Microsystems. Khosla Ventures is based in Menlo Park, Calif. More information is available at http://www.khoslaventures.com.

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