Power-One, Inc. (NASDAQ:PWER) — a large manufacturer of power inverters for the renewable energy industry and provider of software to manage power harvesting and distribution — opened its first North American manufacturing facility in Phoenix today, where they plan to employ 350 people full-time.

According to a company press statement, the facility will primarily produce photovoltaic and wind inverters that convert renewable energy into a usable form of electricity for distribution on the utility grid. The chief executive of Power-One, Richard J. Thompson, explained ahead of the facility’s opening ceremony on Monday:

“We have manufacturing design centers, service centers and a sales force in Europe, the U.S. and Asia, now. Europe has been where the largest percent of our revenue comes from, some 90 percent today. At the beginning of 2010, we started creating product for U.S. customers who may have [made-in-America requirements] and fielding a sales force and developing a service organization here. This is a continued geographic expansion to bring our technology and services to the U.S. market. “

The company scouted sites in the “sun belt” states, and specifically looked at Texas, Mississippi and California along with Arizona. They chose Phoenix for this facility, Thompson confirmed, due to: availability of technical resources and talent thanks to the proximity of Arizona State University, and grants from local government that are tied to employment in the area over the long run.

Power-One is facing different market conditions in the U.S. where about half the demand for its inverter technology comes from residential and commercial buyers, the other half from utilities, and where government incentives to develop renewable energy generating projects have not been strong as they have been in Canada, Germany and elsewhere.

As such, Thompson explained:

“The Phoenix facility will enable us to do many things, including introduce a new line of products towards the third quarter of 2011, like a liquid cool set of inverters for utilities.

We’ll also have a Power-One research and development center in Phoenix that will add some 35 graduate engineers and technicians in addition to our manufacturing headcount over the next two years.

We’re also strongly considering manufacturing at this site for export. That was not in our plans earlier. But we like the efficiency we’re seeing out of this factory, so far, from a small sample. We’ve had about 40 folks there in manufacturing so far.”

Power-One competitors include Emerson Network Power (NYSE: EMR) based in St. Louis, Missouri, and the strongly venture-backed Enphase Energy, which recently announced plans to triple its capacity and start selling its inverters in Europe.

Digital publishing company LibreDigital (formerly known as NewsStand, Inc.) has secured $4 million in debt funding, the company announced this morning (an SEC filing shows they had recently raised $1.3 million for the round).

LibreDigital last raised money back in May 2010, securing $8 million in funding – its total now stands at roughly $31 million.

According to the digital reading pioneer, the capital will be used to help the company go to market faster and support innovation in new reading technology for books, magazines and newspapers.

In 2010, LibreDigital became a preferred content aggregator for Apple’s iBookstore and has risen to become one of the largest providers of book content to Apple. The company also forged deals to provide high-res magazines and newspapers to color reading platforms including NOOKcolor, Sony and others.

In addition, LibreDigital provides an HTML5 reader for major publishers who are offering free content in the Starbucks Digital Network via the Bookish Reading Club. The company also handles e-book distribution for 7 of the 10 largest US trade publishers, providing electronic replica editions for The New York Times, e-book fulfillment for partners like Baker & Taylor/Blio and Harlequin, and book, magazine, and newspaper distribution to more than 50 digital retail marketplaces including Amazon, Google, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Sony.

LibreDigital is backed by Adams Capital Management, Triangle Peak Partners, S3 Ventures, Noro-Moseley Partners and HarperCollins Publishers.

ShareThis, which you may be familiar with thanks to all the buttons online publishers worldwide have been plastering on their sites to lure you into spreading their content, is now live at roughly 1 million websites, aggregately reaching more than 400 million users.

The company has now tapped Kristen Fergason, formerly a marketer at Yahoo, as its new CMO to grow even more. In addition to her hiring, ShareThis has named Julie Greenhouse SVP Ad Sales & Business Development and Ben Slutter VP of Revenue and Ad Operations.

Both were with the company previously.

ShareThis allows users to share content from anywhere to anyone and also offers a so-called ‘social advertising platform’ called AudienceShare.

Fergason will henceforth lead ShareThis’ overall marketing strategy and execution. She previously held executive roles in marketing and business development at companies like Yahoo, where she was responsible for B2B marketing and industry outreach.

Fergason came to Yahoo with its acquisitions of Maven Networks, where she was VP of Marketing. She was also a member of the Major League Baseball Advanced Media executive team for six years, serving in a similar role.

ShareThis competes with companies like AddThis (which claims installs on 7 million domains and a reach of 1 billion users per month) and Gigya (which claims a reach of more than 280 million users across more than 500,000 sites).

What’s the first thing you think when you hear the word “focus.” You might respond, “camera,” or “cheap car,” or “concentration,” but definitely not, “fun,” “technological,” or “practical.” This will likely change in a second because those are the words I’d use to tentatively describe this year’s Ford Focus, a small, sporty car for just about everybody.

More Americans are ditching their gas-guzzling SUVs and heading straight for the small car market. From a marketing standpoint, Ford’s approach to selling a small car to people is by offering all the features found in their larger vehicles, but in a smaller package. No longer do people have to feel ashamed for “cheaping out” and getting a Focus, instead, it’s simply a lifestyle choice. Why should the choice take out all the fun of owning a car?

I got a chance to drive the new 2012 Ford Focus last week in LA. Those in the area know the hills overtop the city feature some of the most entertaining roads in the country.

Read more…

“The problem was that no one wanted to type in the bar they were at,” Adam Cahan told us when we met with him last week to see his latest venture, IntoNow. He wasn’t talking about his startup. Instead, he was talking about Dodgeball, the location-based service that came well before Foursquare. That is, he was describing why Foursquare took off while Dodgeball didn’t, even though they had the same basic concept. GPS being built-in to smartphones changed everything, he said. “Now our industry is in the same place. We’re the GPS layer.”

What industry is that? So so-called media check-in space. (Though don’t use the word “check-in” around Cahan, he hates it.) More specifically, IntoNow is trying to own the tv engagement app space. And while competitors like GetGlue, Miso, TunerFish and others all beat IntoNow to market, they have a secret weapon: it’s called SoundPrint.

Just like GPS with location services, SoundPrint, a new technology created by IntoNow, allows you to automatically “check-in” to watching a show simply by hitting a button in the IntoNow app. How? It reads the sound waves and patterns of each television show (and a growing collection of movies as well) and matches it with a database they keep. Yep, it’s a lot like Soundhound or Shazam, but for video content.

And it’s amazing how well it works.

When I first got a demo from Cahan and co-founders Didier Hilhorst and Rob Johnson, I was amazed to the point where I was dumbfounded. You see, the first thing they demoed the app on was a live broadcast of a CNN show featuring Hillary Clinton talking. Within seconds, IntoNow picked up the exact name of the show. I wasn’t sure how this was possible since the same Clinton sound clip could be playing on a number of different shows. But there are a few keys to how SoundPrint works (most of which the team won’t go into since it’s their patented technology) — one key is to scan all live channels and bring in their audio footprint in realtime.

IntoNow knew the CNN show I was watching because their backend was also watching it. It was just a matter of lining up the audio. Which again, it did, in seconds.

But IntoNow works for much more than live TV. Their content catalog currently includes some 140 million minutes of broadcast TV. That’s roughly 266 years worth of video. And it’s growing more with each passing second. They’re monitoring 130 broadcast channels in realtime, 24 hours a day — all of which is stored and saved.

After a few more demos, I was mostly sold. But, of course, there’s always the possibility that a sneaky startup could try to get things perfectly aligned for a demo. I’m not suggesting anyone would stage something, but there could be ideal conditions (and/or shows) set up. So I took the app home to try it out for myself. It worked even better there.

I put on one show, hit the button on the IntoNow app, boom: 4 seconds later, it got it. I flipped the channel, same result. I tried it with a show I had DVR’d. Worked like a charm. I tried it with an older movie I was watching on Netflix. Perfect. I tried it with a live sporting event. Yep, it even worked with that.

Okay, so IntoNow has clearly built some impressive technology. But why enter this space? Because 62 percent of leisure time is spent watching TV. It’s the biggest single activity that people do after working and sleeping, Cahan says. And when they’re watching, increasingly, they’re interacting with the Internet in some way. Currently, much of that is surfing the web on a laptop or mobile device. So IntoNow set out to make a “companion experience” for TV and movie watching.

Once you “check-in” to whatever you’re watching, that info is sent out to your IntoNow social graph (and you have the option to share on Facebook or Twitter). From here, within the app, you can see what your friends are watching. And comment on any of those shows. You can also see what shows are popular at any given time. And there’s a way to discover new shows that will be based on your social and interest graphs.

The app also has indicators to let you know if a piece of content is currently airing. So if I see a friend is watching a certain episode of a show, I can see that it’s currently on live TV and I could flip over to it. Or, if it’s on Netflix, there will be a link to get to it from within the app.

So, what are the downsides? Well, first of all, IntoNow is iPhone-only for the time being. But the team says that Android support will be coming shortly. Secondly, due to some licensing and/or legal issues, they don’t have a big collection of newer films. This includes not only movies still in theaters, but also those just released on DVD. Again, the technology is based around what has been shown on television before, so newer stuff won’t be there, and they’re not indexing pay-per-view. When I joked that they could send a team into theaters to record the sound of new films, Cahan did assure me that they’re thinking about ways to expand their content reach.

But again, they already have 140 million minutes worth of content. And everything I watched, IntoNow found.

In terms of how they monetize this idea, there are a number of possibilities. They could team up with some consumer electronic makers to build their system directly into hardware. Or they could do some potentially interesting stuff with the viewing data to disrupt something like Nielsen. They’ve also already built in a way for SoundPrint to detect commercials. So when it does, there’s a lot of potential there in terms of what IntoNow could do with advertisers within the app. “We’re also into this because we think there’s big business behind this,” Cahan says.

Not surprisingly, IntoNow has already received funding from Greylock Ventures and Redpoint Ventures — though they won’t disclose how much. Also not surprising is that those are two of the backers of Auditude, the video monetization startup which just raised a new round of funding and saw Cahan transition out as CEO earlier this month. A few of the IntoNow team members had been working there when they decided to spin this project off (though Auditude owns no part of IntoNow). The IntoNow team members also include veterans of Google, Microsoft, IDEO, MTV, and Stanford’s AI program.

As was the case with me, seeing is believing with IntoNow. So download the app and try it out yourselves.

As part of a White House effort to promote job creation, entrepreneurship and private-sector investment in startups, President Obama is announcing a new initiative today, called Startup America Partnership, to foster growth in the startup world and jumpstart job creation. The Partnership will be chaired by AOL co-founder Steve Case and will be partly funded by the Kauffman Foundation and the Case Foundation.

Startup America’s core goals are “to increase the number of new, high-growth firms that are creating economic growth, innovation, and quality jobs; celebrate and honor entrepreneurship as a core American value and source of competitive advantage; and inspire and empower an ever-greater diversity of communities and individuals to build great American companies.” And the campaign will work with both the White House and a number of technology companies, universities, and entrepreneurs to help achieve these goals.

As part of the initiative, Intel Capital plans to commit $200 million of new investment in U.S. companies; IBM will invest $150 million in 2011 to fund programs that promote entrepreneurs and new business opportunities in the United States; and HP will be investing more than $4 million in 2011 in the HP Learning Initiative for Entrepreneurs (HP LIFE).

Facebook will be launching Startup Days, a series of events around the country that helps provide entrepreneurs with engineering and design support to build off the Facebook Platform.

Google is partnering with Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), a nonprofit that provides entrepreneurship education for at-risk high school students from low-income communities, to offer a number of NFTE’s lessons and curriculum plans to Bay Area students. And startup incubator TechStars is rolling out “The TechStars Network,” which encourages and promotes regional organizations that operate start-up accelerator programs with models similar to the incubator.

The initiative sounds like a impressive effort if the White House actually does in fact take part in the campaign. In terms of sponsorship, there seems to be a good amount of non-profit, and private sector involvement but it’s unclear how involved the White House plans to be with implementing Startup America’s goals.

You can watch a livestream of the actual announcement of the initiative at The White House at 11 am ET here.

Unirac — a company that makes racks that are used to install and hold solar panels in place within power generating systems of any size — today revealed a new partnership with solar tech manufacturers, Canadian Solar Inc. (nasdaq: CSIQ).

Through the partnership, the companies will install 30 MW of solar projects in Canada, starting with a 10.9 MW solar park in Napanee, Ontario. According to a Unirac press statement, Canadian Solar will serve as the engineering, procurement and construction entity on these projects, and Unirac will provide the racking infrastructure.

In May 2010, Albuquerque, N.M.-based Unirac sold to Hilti Group, a massive construction sector business. Before it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Hilti, Unirac’s sales increased 100% from 2009 to 2010 said the chief executive of Unirac, Doug May.

He sees tremendous growth ahead for U.S. based solar companies, especially those serving domestic power companies with made-in-America products, yet have capacity to export:

“The U.S. [solar market] was around 800 megawatts this year, and could grow to 2.5 gigawatts. We’re slated for growth, near-term. The utility market alone next year, could be the same size as the entire U.S. market was this past year,” May said.

Today, 90 percent of Unirac’s supply chain is in the U.S. — most of its aluminum, for example, is extruded in California — but it gets 10 percent of its supplies from Canada, Europe and Asia.

Since 2009, the company also began building manufacturing, assembly and shipping operations outside of New Mexico, to be closer to customers and take advantage of government incentives in other states and countries, when possible.

Unirac specifically established manufacturing operations in Canada, anticipating a boom in solar project building thanks to the country’s feed-in-tariffs and other incentives.

Subsidized or not, May believes that Unirac’s products can solve problems for those who hesitated to build solar power generating systems due to labor costs, before. He explained:

“Solar projects for large utilities take a long time to get approved, with so many transmission and environmental challenges to be dealt with. They are all massive construction projects.

When it comes to the cost of solar power, people always want to talk about module efficiency. That is important. But the racking has to last for twenty years, too.

If you have workers who have to put a bolt in, or who have to go back down to the ground over and over again to build these projects, it’s going to drive up the costs of solar overall. We think about that.

We put a huge amount of testing into understanding code, snow loads, wind loads, what the ground is doing, and all the factors that influence the racking and ultimately the solar [power generating] systems. Even though we’re not making the panels, it’s highly technical.

Ultimately, it’s about taking the cost out of solar projects at any scale and making renewable energy competitive.”

Unirac was backed by the Maryland-based, private equity group Global Environment Fund prior to its acquisition by Hilti. Competing manufacturers of racking equipment for the solar industry include Zep Solar, also a partner of Canadian Solar, and Sollega, which offers one rack made of recycled materials.

TechCrunch exclusive – If you’d never heard about KIT digital before, you will after today.

The provider of cloud-based video asset management solutions has acquired not one, not two but three social software and video companies.

The company has acquired New York City-based KickApps, Paris-based Kewego, and San Francisco-based Kyte, for aggregate consideration of approximately $77.2 million.

In conjunction with the acquisitions, KickApps CEO Alex Blum has been appointed to the new position of Global COO of KIT digital, while KickApps CFO David Lapter will assume the role of SVP Finance and Administration within KIT digital.

KIT digital, which delivers video asset management solutions for multi-screen delivery, says the acquisitions are meant to enhance its existing product offering while “growing market share across geographies and client verticals”.

KIT digital’s chairman and CEO, Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, comments:

“We are committed to ensuring that our ‘VX-one’ video management platform has market-leading functionality that helps clients realize value across the video distribution value chain, from securing and capturing the right content to delivering it across multiple channels and via social communities.

We are intent on becoming the one-stop shop for medium and large-sized corporations’ video needs, delivering IP video management services from the eyes behind the camera shooting the video to the person watching it on any device—from ‘lens-to-lens’.”

Alex Blum, CEO of social software startup KickApps, will become KIT digital’s worldwide chief operating officer. Blum was an early pioneer of online video and interactive TV as VP of products at AOL, and was previously president and COO of JumpTV.

Blum will be responsible for the overall business operations of the company, including product management, R&D, client operations, and business administration. He will be based in KIT digital’s headquarters in Prague, Czech Republic, will apparently also spend significant time at the company’s newly acquired R&D centers in New York and San Francisco.

So why KickApps, Kewego and Kyte – apart from the fact their names all start with a ‘k’?

According to KIT digital executives, KickApps adds significant technology and product synergies to the company, its Open Source Media Framework (OSMF) App Studio in particular.

The latter product will serve as a unification point for all publishing-layer technologies across KIT digital’s family of products and enable its clients to leverage KIT’s infrastructure to deliver Flash and HTML5 deployments no matter which module of the VX-one platform they have currently deployed.

KickApps 450+ clients include NBC Universal, American Express, Hearst, Live Nation, Liverpool Football, Phoenix Suns, Scripps Network, Simon & Schuster and Viacom. KickApps is said to derive in excess of $12 million in annualized revenues, with the large majority derived from recurring software license fees from its software solutions.

KickApps has approximately 60 staff members, and raised $32 million in venture funding.

As for Kewego, this French company was founded in 2003 and – much like KIT digital – provides IP-based, multi-screen video asset management solutions for managing, broadcasting and monetizing videos on PCs, mobile phones, iPads, connected TVs, gaming consoles and other Internet-connected devices.

Kewego is also said to enhance KIT’s enterprise offering through onsite, digital signage deployments.

Kewego reported fiscal 2010 revenues of $10.2 million, the large majority also derived from recurring software license fees.

The company adds more than 400 clients across 16 countries, including Atos Origin, L’Equipe, Microsoft, Pages Jaunes and Volkswagen.

Michel Meyer, co-founder and CEO of Kewego, will assume the role of senior vice president, product management, and Olivier Heckman, general director and co-founder of Kewego, will become VP sales for Western and Southern Europe at KIT digital (including coverage of France, Benelux, Spain, Portugal and Italy).

Paris, Grenoble (France) and Madrid will continue to be home to Kewego’s approximately 60 employees, with Paris becoming an integral part of KIT digital’s existing Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) sales and account management operations.

Kewego raised $19.4 million in funding.

As for Kyte, this company has been around since 2006 and offers a cloud-based publishing platform that enables companies to deliver live and on-demand video experiences to websites, mobile devices and connected TVs. Kyte was acquired as KIT digital plans to leverage Kyte’s proprietary platform and application frameworks to serve KIT’s global client base.

KIT digital says Kyte also brings key additions to the KIT digital’s management team as well, including Erik Abair, CTO and co-founder of Kyte, and Gannon Hall, Kyte’s COO.

Abair will join KIT’s product development team as senior director of software development, while Hall will become KIT’s senior vice president of global marketing, where he will oversee the company’s outbound marketing, communications and demand generation efforts. Abair will remain based in San Francisco, while Hall will relocate to KIT’s Prague headquarters.

Kyte reported fiscal 2010 revenues of $3.7 million, derived primarily from SaaS platform fees. Kyte adds nearly 100 clients, including CBS, Clear Channel, FOX News, MTV, Walt Disney Company, Nokia, Publicis, Swatch, Oprah Winfrey, and ESPN Europe.

Kyte raised $23.4 million in funding.

We’re still digesting all the news and plan to talk to some key players shortly to gain more insight. Stay tuned.

One thing I want to note straight away, though: Kyte, Kewego and KickApps raised over $74 million in venture funding combined, so a $77.2 million aggregate acquisition price seems terribly low. We’ll update when we learn more.

Update: more details about the deal terms:

The aggregate consideration paid for the acquisitions of KickApps, Kewego and Kyte was approximately US$77.2 million on a cash-free, debt-free basis. This consideration is inclusive of time-based and performance payments, but excludes certain incentive compensation programs for the personnel of acquired companies, which are estimated not to exceed US$4.0 million over a period of years, in a mix of cash and equity.

Approximately US$62.3 million will be paid in KIT digital common stock (based on the closing market price on Friday, January 28, 2011), with approximately US$14.8 million paid in cash. In aggregate, the transactions are expected to be accretive on both a 2010 revenue and EBITDA multiple basis, while meeting or exceeding KIT digital’s EBITDA margin target of at least 24% for 2011.

The total number of shares expected to be issued over time in association with the three acquisitions is approximately 4,611,346 of which 96% are subject to staggered resale restrictions between 12 and 24 months.

Following the completion of these acquisitions, including payment of deal-related fees and charges as well as payments of approximately $4.2 million in net positive working capital adjustments, management estimates KIT digital will have approximately 37.9 million common shares outstanding and approximately US$115 million in cash.

I loathe press releases like this one from Ooyala, who I must say is our trusted video platform provider in the interest of full disclosure. I’m singling the company out today, because I’m quite fed up, but this is an honest plea for every company that loves to tout growth without saying anything substantial to, please, stop doing that.

So apparently Ooyala “grew revenue by nearly 200%, its customer base by over 50%, and delivered a record number of video technology innovations”.

Sounds impressive, except the statement says absolutely nothing about its revenues, the size of its customer base or what the company has done to innovate video technology.

Listen, we understand, you’re a privately held company and can’t disclose revenues at this time. We get that. But please stop touting your revenue growth in percentages in an effort to gain some exposure with regards to your income if you don’t feel like talking numbers.

For all we know, Ooyala made $1 in 2009, and $2.9 in 2010. That would mean they grew revenues by nearly 200% last year. Except it wouldn’t be all that impressive, right?

We get emails about this sort of stuff all. the. time.

Hey TechCrunch, we figured you and your readers would be interested to know that we managed to triple our revenues in 2010! What those revenues were, then? Sorry, can’t say, we’re privately held as I’m sure you know, so we can’t disclose revenues at this point.

Wait, why did you get in touch again?

Excuse the rant, but it annoys me to no end. We’re a blog that loves sharing information about the technology business, and primarily Internet startups, with readers, preferably before anyone else does. Numbers are terrific: they provide context, enable readers and industry watchers to gauge trends and startup valuations, allow for honest comparisons to be made between companies across various industries and for us to monitor their growth.

You do not have to report numbers if you don’t want to. That’s fine, no time wasted on either end, and perhaps one day you’ll be a public company and you won’t have any choice but to disclose revenues for the last quarter. Trust us, then we’ll really pay attention.

But until that day, feel free to share numbers we can work with – we appreciate it when you’re straightforward. But if you choose not to, then, sorry, just don’t bother.

Don’t pretend to share information about your revenues when that’s really not what you’re doing at all. It’s obnoxious, misleading and a huge time sink for everyone involved.

Oh, and by the way, have you heard? Ooyala saw a 10x increase in hours of video viewed and a 2x increase in active unique users in 2010! Champagne for everyone!

Update: thanks to a commenter, this relevant Dilbert strip:

AOL Europe has lead an acquision of video distribution network Goviral today, to the tune of $96.7 million. Goviral distributes branded video content for mainstream brands, as well as content producers and advertising agencies. Originally out of Copenhagen, the company now has offices across Europe. The initial purchase is for $74.1 million and $22.6 million in a two year earn out. It joins others AOL acquisitions in the last year including, StudioNow, 5min Media, Thing Labs, Pictela, about.me and, er, TechCrunch.

We’re hearing this deal was lead directly by Kate Burns, head of Europe for AOL.