TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 19, 2020

Yellow , the accelerator program launched by Snap in 2018, has selected ten companies to join its latest cohort. The new batch of startups coming from across the U.S. and international cities like London, Mexico City, Seoul and Vilnius are building professional social networks for black professionals and blue collar workers, fashion labels, educational tools in augmented reality, kids entertainment, and an interactive entertainment production company.

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Artificial Inteligence Social Network Los Angeles Snapchat 331

L.A. Business Journal

FEBRUARY 24, 2020

BYD Motors Inc., a downtown-based electric vehicle maker, delivered to Anaheim the first two electric buses of a previously announced 40-bus order, BYD announced Feb. 24.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2020

Every year, a personal Upfront Summit highlight is getting to sit down with experts in a field I care about. Sometimes that’s venture capital generally (like last year’s conversation with Reid Hoffman ) and sometimes it’s in a space where I’ve invested (like mobility and city innovation with Bird’s Travis VanderZanden , one of our portfolio founders.

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Content Netflix Platform Mobile 244

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

Our challenge is getting more difficult. How many of us have “hired” independent contractors over the years, a bit worried over the gray area between employee and contractor as defined by the IRS? Or separately the State of California? I’ve experienced the results of a wrong decision, and the IRS and state agencies are not forgiving in their pursuit of penalties, interest and most damaging, assessing a company with the on both employer and employee taxes when reclassifying the person as an emp

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Outsource Development Tool Services Report 177

Advertiser: Aggregage

Office leases are one of companies’ largest expenses, and if your whole team is working from home with no clear end in sight, you may be wondering what to do about your lease.

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socalTECH

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

San Diego-based Seqster , which develops software used f[link] health data management, said today that it has received an investment from Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Size of the investment was not announced. According to Seqster, it will use the new funding to accelerate adoption of its technology, which is used for managing clinical trials and patient engagement.

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Invest San Diego Platform Software 169

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

As a mentor to entrepreneurs, I tend to see many of the same obstacles appearing in every new startup, and since I don’t want to appear to be a downer , I’m not sure how to properly warn people ahead of time to be on the alert for these challenges. In fact, since most entrepreneurs are eternal optimists anyway, they would never believe any negative scenarios could happen to them.

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L.A. Business Journal

FEBRUARY 14, 2020

Steve Isakowitz is president and chief executive of Aerospace Corp., the nation’s only federally funded research and development center focused on aerospace.

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Research Funding Develop Development 264

Xconomy

FEBRUARY 6, 2020

Scripps Research is charting new territory with its Calibr division, a drug discovery and drug development group within the research institute that is advancing its own experimental treatments. This week Calibr announced it had received the agency’s go-ahead to move a CAR-T cell therapy it has been evaluating for the treatment of certain blood cancers, including relapsed/refractory B-cell malignancies such as non-Hodgkin lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia, into human testing.

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Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

How it happens. When you seek professional investors, whether organized angels or venture capitalists, one of the early questions you are asked is “How have you financed the business so far?” Investors love to see entrepreneurs who have used their own money to ignite their businesses. But often, entrepreneurs turn to others for initial capital. Describing that capital using the phrase “friends, family and fools,” or “FFF,” has become as common as to be trite.

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socalTECH

FEBRUARY 4, 2020

Amazon is in a major expansion in Santa Barbara, with plans to hire as many as 300 people in a new, three story downtown location, all working as part of the Amazon Alexa team. Amazon's new space, at 1001 State Street, is expected to draw workers from UC Santa Barbara, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and other local universities, as well as from the region's existing supply of technology companies.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2020

There is an old saying that good lawyers run away from risk, while good businessmen run towards risk. Entrepreneurs see “no risk” as meaning “no reward.” In reality, all risks are not the same. Many risks can be managed or calculated to improve growth or provide a competitive edge, while others, like skipping quality checks to save money, are recipes for failure.

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TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 17, 2020

Max Q is a new weekly newsletter all about space. Sign up here to receive it weekly on Sundays in your inbox. This week turned out to be a surprisingly busy one in space news — kicked off by the Trump administration’s FY 2021 budget proposal, which was generous to U.S. space efforts both in science and in defense. Meanwhile, we saw significant progress in SpaceX’s commercial crew program, and plenty of activity among startups big and small.

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SpaceX Newsletter Los Angeles Sites 272

L.A. Business Journal

FEBRUARY 6, 2020

AllVoices, an app that enables employees to anonymously report harassment and other workplace issues, raised $3 million in seed funding.

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Report Seed Funding Funding 260

Xconomy

FEBRUARY 11, 2020

Pfizer and Merck are each cutting ties with a smaller clinical-stage biotech after experimental drugs being developed under separate alliances fell short in human testing. Pfizer (NYSE: PFE ) is walking away from a partnership with GlycoMimetics (NASDAQ: GLYC ) a Rockville, MD-based company developing drugs for diseases where carbohydrates play a role.

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Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

By Harley Kaufman, guest author. Note from Dave: Harley is an old friend and avid reader of BERKONOMICS. With a background in management and technology, he gives us something to think about regarding today’s top-of-news subject. Addressing the issue to small and medium businesses. The CoronaVirus (Covid19) could potentially cause some real disruptions in the US generally and, specifically, to the small and medium sized businesses that probably make up the bulk of your readership.

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News Competition Capital Entrepreneur 156

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Irvine-based Ingram Micro , the big computer and technology distributor and provider of technology and supply chain services, said that its strategic business unit, Ingram micro Commerce & Lifecycle Services , is seeing record growth of its Canadian e-commerce business. The company said it saw an 87 percent increase in apparel/footwear orders and a 25 percent increase in consumer electronics in Canada in 2019.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2020

Selling services has always been about relationships, but the challenges of building relationships with services clients have exploded. Customers today extrapolate their relationships not only from personal contact, but from every aspect of their interface with your company, including web site and social media interactions, access to peer reviews, as well as the actual services experience.

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Services Social Media Technical Review Media 128

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 20, 2020

During the days when Snapchat’s popularity was booming, investors thought the company would become the anchor for a new Los Angeles technology scene. Snapchat, they hoped, would spin-off entrepreneurs and angel investors who would reinvest in the local ecosystem and create new companies that would in turn foster more wealth, establishing LA as a hub for tech talent and venture dollars on par with New York and Boston.

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SpaceX Venture Capital Help Snapchat 173

L.A. Business Journal

FEBRUARY 7, 2020

As digital media continues to evolve, and as entertainment plays an increasingly crucial role in the category, Silicon Beach has developed into an essential location for big and ambitious companies.

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Media Entertainment Develop Development 244

Xconomy

FEBRUARY 23, 2020

A migraine drug that Lundbeck added to its pipeline via its nearly $2 billion acquisition of Alder BioPharmaceuticals won FDA approval on Friday. The drug, eptinezumab (Vyepti), is part of a new class of antibody therapies developed to prevent migraine attacks before they start. These drugs block calcitonin gene-relate peptide (CGRP), a protein associated with the onset of migraine pain.

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Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 20, 2020

Is the guarantee still required today? More than ever, the banks and lenders today require personal guarantees from entrepreneurs, and even from CEO’s of angel or some VC funded businesses. Starting and running a small or growing business can be a challenge to the most confident and optimistic entrepreneur. And the process of borrowing money or financing asset purchases can be an eye-opener for those who are not used to today’s lender and seller aversion to grant easy credit.

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socalTECH

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

Santa Monica-based GumGum , which develops artificial intelligence software for the advertising and media market, has raised $22M more in a funding round, the company said on Thursday. According to the firm, the new $22M funding came from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, NewView Capital, and Upfront Ventures. All three of those investors are existing investors in the company.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 16, 2020

Every new venture that survives the first five years starts to drift away from their entrepreneurial thinking, and assumes they have achieved the path to longevity. In fact, even within Fortune 100 companies, almost 90 percent have encountered growth stalls or flirted with failure, or worse, in the last 50 years. No company can afford to lose the agility, flexibility, and innovation of a startup.

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TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 25, 2020

Another on-demand transport app is making a move into payments to expand the existing relationship with its customers (and subsequent margins that it makes from serving them). Bird today announced the launch of Bird Pay, a service that will let people use its app to purchase items from local participating businesses alongside renting scooters. The service is being tested first in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, the company said.

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Santa Monica Startup Demand Los Angeles 158

L.A. Business Journal

FEBRUARY 7, 2020

While Silicon Valley remains home for many technology industry heavyweights, Los Angeles is rapidly gaining ground as a hub for both startups and established firms.

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Los Angeles Startup Technology Angel 165

SoCal Tech Calendar

FEBRUARY 28, 2020

Thursday, March 5, 2020 --.

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Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 6, 2020

Where’s the threat? It is hard to separate this kind of advice from economic lessons in running a business, when office politics can threaten a business in ways that are subtle, but sometimes just as devastating as economic shocks or continuing poor management. Examining the petri dish. Most any office with more than one level of management (more than ten employees) can become a Petri dish for office politics.

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socalTECH

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

Los Angeles-based ringDNA , the venture-backed startup which is developing artificial intelligence tools to help sales teams, says it has acquired a popular podcast focused on sales. According to the company, it has acquired the sales podcast "Accelerate!", which is run by Andy Paul, and will appoint Paul as its new Head of Revenue Performance Evangelism.

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Artificial Inteligence Sales Tips Los Angeles 140

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 21, 2020

Many of the entrepreneurs I advise or invest with spend considerable time on the Internet, keeping up with technology, customers, and competitors, but very few feel the need for an early personal presence. In fact, some totally avoid it, assuming their product or solution will speak for itself later. They don’t realize that you need to build positives early, to offset any negatives later.

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TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 24, 2020

Max Q is a new weekly newsletter all about space. Sign up here to receive it weekly on Sundays in your inbox. Busy week for SpaceX – across funding, space tourism, and next-gen spacecraft. There’s also a space station resupply mission coming up that it’s getting ready for, and signs ( this time literally ) continue to suggest that its first human spaceflight mission is imminent.

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SpaceX Sample Study Newsletter 153

L.A. Business Journal

FEBRUARY 28, 2020

Parsons Corp., the multibillion-dollar engineering and infrastructure firm, is opening a new facility in L.A. County to pursue the rapidly expanding space satellite business.

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SoCal Tech Calendar

FEBRUARY 28, 2020

Thursday, March 5, 2020 -- SCALE is North America's leading open source community conference. Held annually in the greater Los Angeles area the conference draws over 3500 attendees from around the globe.

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Conference Los Angeles Angel 100

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 3, 2020

It is human nature to start in a new position with enthusiasm, lofty goals, new ideas, and a heightened awareness of those around us and their ideas for the business. After time in our job positions. And it is an unfortunate truism that most of us become a bit stale in our jobs after some time, even if we are most successful at it and appreciated by all who work for or with us.

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socalTECH

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

In the latest move by a tech billionaire into the neighborhood, Jeff Bezos , the founder of Amazon , has paid a record $165M for a mansion in Beverly Hills. The mansion had previously been owned by David Geffen, who had owned the property since 1990. It's unclear how much the move will benefit Southern California's technology industry, as many other tech moguls with property in Beverly Hills have not necessarily gotten involved with the growing technology industry here despite having residences

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Beverly Hills Malibu Southern California SpaceX 140

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2020

In this world of constant change, new technologies, and a thousand cultures, it’s evident and somehow comforting to me that the basic rules for business prosperity really haven’t changed in the last hundred years. Business success is still more about the people than the technology or idea involved. As an angel investor and a mentor to entrepreneurs I still see this every day.

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TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 10, 2020

Max Q is a new weekly newsletter all about space. Sign up here to receive it weekly on Sundays in your inbox. Two rocket launches were set to take off Sunday , including one from Wallops Island in Virginia and another from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first is a relatively standard (but still exciting — we are talking about rockets here, very little is “standard”) ISS resupply mission, and the second is a major scientific mission from NASA and the ESA called the “Solar

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SpaceX Startup Newsletter Los Angeles 142