Dozens of Bay Area startups will be pitching their businesses to investors and tech VIPs at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco from Monday through Wednesday.

Cromwell Schubarth
Senior Technology Reporter- Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal

Email
 | Twitter

The Bay Area startup expo’s fall season gets into full swing this week with TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, where dozens of companies will be pitching their ideas to investors and tech VIPs.

The three-day event at the San Francisco Design Center is followed on Thursday by Plug and Play Tech Center’s Fall Expo in Sunnyvale and the fall Demo expo in Santa Clara from Oct. 1 to Oct. 3.

In addition to the 30 new companies pitching on the Startup Battlefield and the 100 or so who will line Startup Alley at TechCrunch, a series of VIP panels and fireside interviews are scheduled, highlighted by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s first post-IPO public interview.

I will be at this week’s events, including serving as a “VIP Media Judge” for the Plug and Play pitches.

Here are the Bay Area companies that are scheduled to appear Monday in Startup Alley, some of which are also pitching on the Battlefield. They will be joined by dozens more from around the world which I haven’t listed.

The locals are in alphabetical order and include who is scheduled to appear at the booth and the company’s self-description:

AppFlow Inc. — Redwood City, CEO Balint Orosz : “Discover apps with a browsing experience.”

Ascendify Social Recruiting — San Francisco, Lauren Smith, marketing director: “Hiring reimagined – now with more social.”

Best Apps Market — San Francisco, Anurag (Anu) Nigam, CEO: “GameGenomeProject.com – Game discovery”

BetterDoctor ­— San Francisco, Ari Tulla, CEO Co-founder: “BetterDoctor helps find the right doctor in minutes.”

Bootic — San Francisco, Eric Barbier, CEO: “Free and neutral marketplace for the 400k small online merchants.”

Bynow Inc. — San Francisco, Pham Khac Tan: “The mobile digital menu.”

Cromwell Schubarth is the Senior Technology Reporter at the Business Journal. His phone number is 408.299.1823.

Follow Your Favorites with My News

My News is a way to create a customized news feed based on companies and industries that matter to you.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/2012/09/dozens-of-bay-area-startups-pitch-at.html

Eli Segall Reporter – Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal

Email

Several Bay Area real estate investors have agreed to plead guilty for conspiring to rig bids and commit mail fraud at foreclosure auctions, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

The investors named include Silicon Valley residents Gary Anderson of Saratoga and Troy Kent of San Mateo.

The government said six other people plan to plead guilty: Patrick Campion of San Francisco; James Doherty of Hillsborough; Keith Goodman of San Francisco; Craig Lipton of San Francisco; Henry Pessah of Burlingame; and Laith Salma of San Francisco.

Charges were filed against the eight investors on Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the department said.

According to the charges, the investors conspired to “rig bids” by agreeing not bid against each other at public foreclosure auctions in San Francisco and San Mateo counties.

According to the department, the investors conspired mainly to “suppress and restrain competition” and “conceal payoffs” in order to obtain certain real estate offered at the auctions.

The investors were also charged with conspiracies to use the mail to carry out a “fraudulent scheme to make payoffs to obtain title” for certain properties, as well as to receive payoffs and divert money to co-conspirators, the department said.

The conspiracy took place over various lengths of time between November 2008 and January 2011, the department said.

Three of the investors participated in the conspiracy in San Francisco. Anderson, Kent and three other investors were involved in San Mateo County, the Justice Department said.

The Justice Department noted that when real estate is sold at a foreclosure auction, the proceeds are used to pay off the mortgage and other debt attached to the property. The remaining proceeds, if any exist, are paid to the homeowner.

Eli Segall covers finance, law and sports business at the Business Journal. His phone number is 408.299.1829.

See all your followed company news on your personalized dashboard.

To access the full benefits of bizWatch and receive a weekly email with aggregated news on all the companies you are following, please provide your email address below.

You must have a bizjournals account to follow a company.
Please Log In or Register.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2011/10/28/bay-area-realty-investors-to-plead.html

Based on worker feedback, 125 Bay Area organizations were designated as ‘Best Places to Work’ by the San Francisco Business Times and Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal. The top employers were split into five divisions based on staff size and included Intuit, Juniper Networks, Kaiser Permanente, Genentech and Santa Clara University (1500+ workers); Kimpton Hotel Restaurant Group, Zynga, Riverbed Technology, Fairmont Hotels Resorts, and Fenwick West (501-1500); Bradley Real Estate, Box.net, Workday, DPR Construction and Demandforce (101-500). Rankings were derived from multiple-choice surveys distributed to over 180,000 employees at 301 nominated companies.

For complete results, visit bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco.

On the Job Front

CORTE MADERA – Circle Bank, which operates seven days a week, has opened its sixth and largest branch here.

FOLSOM – Staffing firm Mainstay Business Solutions has shut down after losing a 2-yr dispute with the state EDD over $16.5 million in unpaid unemployment taxes and penalties. They employed 48 local admin staffers and had placed over 400 workers in the region and another 7500 workers elsewhere in CA. All will lose their jobs with Mainstay, although it is likely that many of the employers will make arrangements with other staffing firms to retain the affected workers.

FREMONT – Meltwater Group, which monitors electronic media and provides search-engine marketing services, is opening a new 8700-sq-ft RD office here.

ROSEVILLE – Colorado-based Sunflower Farmers Market is opening its first CA store on May 11. They need directors, dept managers, clerks, cashiers, bakery/meat/deli staffers, and expect to hire up to 100. Apply online at sfmarkets.com . . . BookKeeping Express, which provides accounting services for small businesses, just opened here. . . US Cryotherapy, has opened the first cold-therapy clinic in the nation.

SAN FRANCISCO – A $1.5-billion development plan to build thousands of housing units on Treasure Island has been approved. . . Twitter will lease 200,000 sq ft of space on Market Square, enough for 1200 more employees when they move in mid-2012. . . Meckler Bulger Tilson Marick Pearson LLP, a Chicago-based firm specializing in insurance law, has opened a new office with 7 partners and 4 associates.

SAN JOSE – Of the nation’s major metropolitan areas, San Jose is ranked 20th for its small-business vitality, according to The Business Journals. . . Cisco Systems is discontinuing the manufacture of Flip video devices, which will cut 550 jobs out of the picture in a realignment plan.

SUNNYVALE – Bloom Energy expects to add more than 1000 new jobs and quadruple its local manufacturing space for producing solid oxide fuel cells known as “Bloom Boxes.”

UNION CITY – Packaging distributor Container Consulting Services is expanding its footprint at Willowbrook Business Center, from about 34,000 to 45,000 sq ft. o

MODESTO – After losing its major wholesale account with SaveMart Supermarkets last October, which accounted for most of its bread business, Word-of-Mouth Baking Co closed at the end of March.

REDWOOD CITY – After more than a year of negotiations with a union representing 2700 nurses, Stanford Hospitals Clinics and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital has agreed to a 4-percent pay raise retroactive to April 2010, another 4-percent increase effective this month, and enhanced support for professional development programs.

ROSEVILLE – 850 registered nurses will get an immediate 5-percent pay increase, plus another 14 percent over the next three years, after the CA Nurses Association/National Nurses United ratified a new agreement with Sutter Health hospitals. In Auburn, 250 nurses will get a 3-percent increase immediately, and 14 percent over 3 years.

SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY – The Business Forecasting Center at the University of the Pacific says that the San Joaquin County and Valley have “turned the economic corner” and are showing signs of recovery.

SILICON VALLEY – According to the University of the Pacific’s Business Forecasting Center, this area is leading the state in the recovery and “experiencing robust growth.”

Article source: http://www.jobjournal.com/thisweek.asp?artid=3148