HB Startup Olloclip to Pursue $7.5M From Investors

Huntington Beach startup olloclip has hired Irvine-based Moss Adams LLP to help the company attract institutional investors.

Olloclip, which makes cases and a double-sided camera lens for Android and Apple mobile devices, is seeking to raise about $7.5 million in its first funding round, founder Patrick O’Neill told the Business Journal at a launch event at the International CES convention in Las Vegas.

The proceeds will boost marketing and sales efforts and brand awareness with retail exposure.

“We’ll be able to accelerate things even more,” O’Neill said.

The company has gradually expanded its Huntington Beach headquarters to about 17,000 square feet there; it handles design and final assembly.

Blizzard Adds Finance Role

Irvine-based Blizzard Entertainment Inc. enters the new year in search of a finance chief to help the company navigate new revenue streams and an evolving business model.

The newly created role at Orange County’s largest software maker—a unit of Santa Monica-based Activision Blizzard Inc.—carries several hallmarks of a top finance position, such as overseeing budget, investor relations, taxes and financial processes, but it also includes some specific requirements highlighting Blizzard’s shifting strategy on game development.

The role calls for experience in “evolving financial tools and technologies” and “competency in free-to-play business/revenue models.”

These are telling inclusions, as Blizzard last year debuted its first free-to-play game and has another in the pipeline. The collector card game, “Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft,” has amassed more than 20 million players since its March release, racking up about $40 million in revenue every quarter as players use real cash to improve their card decks. The game’s first expansion set, “Goblins vs Gnomes,” is planned for this year, along with an Android tablet launch. 

The company’s other free-to-play game in development, “Heroes of the Storm,” pits favorite characters from its Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo franchises against each other in online brawls and clashing universes, drawing from two decades of Blizzard lore.

The company hasn’t disclosed the business model, but free-to-play titles typically incorporate an e-commerce mechanism to boost power levels and add weapons or accessories.

Blizzard, which employs about 2,000 in Irvine, typically drives more business than its parent company.

It increased revenue 42% in the first nine months of last year to $1.1 billion.

Philanthropy in 3-D

Costa Mesa Airwolf 3D, which makes 3-D printers, appears to have broken a world record in its efforts to spread holiday cheer.

The startup last month held a print-a-thon that attracted 170 3-D printers to mass produce prosthetic hands, besting the previous Guinness record of 152 3-D printers at a recent event at LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas.

“Everyone from engineers to high school teachers volunteered their printers to contribute to the cause,” cofounder Eva Wolf wrote in email.

Airwolf donated 201 hands in various sizes, along with $2,000, to Atlanta-based Robohand USA. It appears some of the prosthetics will be headed to orphanages in China.

Guinness still needs to verify the record.