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'There has been much discussion in the past few years of the changing structure of the venture capital industry. On the surface the narratives have been. The rise of “micro VCs” or seed-stage funds. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). The poor performance of the asset class (this analysis has largely been wrong as I pointed out here –> most analyses were clumsy rear-view mirror looks at the data).
'Brock Pierce , the Southern California angel investor who is one of the most active proponents and investors in Bitcoin and its startups, has made another investment in the space, leading an AngelList syndicate funding of ZipZap. ZipZap operates an online, global transaction network focused on letting consumers buy, sell, and use digital currency like Bitcoin.
'A version of this article previously appeared on Forbes. Steve Benson, Founder and CEO of Bay Area Badger Maps , intends to hire so many interns this summer that he will effectively double the size of his startup. According to Steve, "Startups are, by their nature, a great place for interns, because there are more essential things that must get done than there are people to complete them.
'When meeting with investors, during the period devoted to feedback after your presentation, you will hear comments and recommendations that don’t resonate with you. Some will be from a misunderstanding of your explanation. Some listeners will challenge your assumptions. Some will seem to ask just plain show-off questions, in which the questioner wants you and others in the room to know that s/he knows more than you do.
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.
'The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. I often get asked about the real alternatives to bridge this valley, and there are some good ones I will outline here.
'If you think sitting in your Aeron chair for longer than 6 hours is just uncomfortable, guess again. It could be a lot worse than just comfort. While we have become more productive as a society, with the advent of computers aiding our work, physical inactivity has become a high risk factor in contributing to chronic illnesses. We need to sit less, and move more.
'Since 2009 we’ve been in an unequivocal bull market. Venture capitalists have raised increasing amounts of money from their investors (LPs) every year. An impressive number of new VCs have been created – most of them with new seed funds. We’ve had an explosion of alternate sources of financing from crowd-sourcing, angels, accelerators, incubators, corporates, corporate incubators.
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'Since 2009 we’ve been in an unequivocal bull market. Venture capitalists have raised increasing amounts of money from their investors (LPs) every year. An impressive number of new VCs have been created – most of them with new seed funds. We’ve had an explosion of alternate sources of financing from crowd-sourcing, angels, accelerators, incubators, corporates, corporate incubators.
'reQall , the wearable software developer headed by former Apple Principal Scientist Rao Machiraju, said this morning that it has tapped MIT MediaLab Professor Alex (Sandy) Pentland as a strategic product advisor. Pentland has been called the " Godfather of Wearable Technologies ". reQall--which has major operations in Ventura--said that Pentaland will advise the company on product evolution and strategy.
'A version of this article previously appeared on Forbes. The broad implications of the sharing economy are only beginning to be felt. The ability for people to turn their time, residences, cars and other personal assets into viable income streams is revising the traditional definition of "employment.". The sharing economy is also proving to be a significant source of bootstrap startup capital.
'Marketing is a science devised to help drive customers to your door. There are lots of ways to define how to market well, including the four P’s of marketing (1): product, price, promotion and place. This is considered to be the producer-oriented model. These are still the driving focus behind most marketing courses, and deserve to be so. Then there is the four C’s, the consumer-oriented marketing model (2).
'I talk to many people who have spent years struggling up the corporate ladder who dream of jumping ship and becoming an entrepreneur. I hasten to tell them that every job move is fraught with risk, but the move from employee to entrepreneur is on the high end of the risk curve. It’s a big jump, especially in today’s economy, so do your homework first on this one.
'Last year’s Samsung Galaxy S4 Active rocked the world with its IP67 water and dust protection, allowing the device to go underwater for up to 30mins. With the release of this year’s upgrade, what better place to check out a water-resistant phone than at a water park? Last week, AT&T invited a small group of bloggers to check out the updated Galaxy S5 Active at Six Flags Hurricane Harbor in Valencia, CA for #attmobilereview.
'I recently attended and presented at Dave McClure’s PreMoney conference in San Francisco. I go every year because I love events hosted & moderated by insiders involving discussions by insiders because it maximizes the amount of real discussions people have. What you’ll see if you watch the video is an unscripted and unfiltered look into how Scott Kupor & I see some of the changes and challenges of the venture industry. tl;dr version.
'The latest venture capital totals from the PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association''s MoneyTree Report was released this evening, tallying up $761.12M in investments in Q2 of 2014 in Southern California, up from Q2 of 2013, when $616.83M was invested in the region. The numbers are based on data provided to the two by Thomson Reuters.
'A version of this article previously appeared in Forbes. With the 4th of July around the corner, Zack Brown had potato salad on his mind. As any enterprising entrepreneur would do, he initiated a Kickstarter campaign with the goal of raising $10. His appeal is written in a hilarious, deadpan style. For instance, he notes in the Risks section of his campaign that, "It might not be that good.
'When making a presentation to a new audience, the smart thing to do, if there is an opportunity, is to ask your audience by show of hands, if they have some knowledge of your industry or space. If you are making a one-to-one presentation, don’t start without a conversation about the other person’s knowledge of your space. With that conversation, you create an immediate connection with your audience even before beginning to present, and you know better how much explanation you will need to accom
'Every inventor seems to think their invention is worth a million dollars, but I haven’t seen anyone pay that much for one yet. In fact, I often have to tell aspiring entrepreneurs that their inventions have zero value, at least not until they are put in the context of a business plan, with qualified people committed to executing the plan. Early-stage ideas fall in the same category.
'Everyone’s favorite online award show, the Streamy Awards is quickly approaching. For the 4th year in a row, the Streamy’s will be held in honor of the hard working people responsible for creating and producing online video content. Last year , the Streamy Awards garnered over 7million live and VOD views, and this year, expect many more.
'Southern California has a growing number of companies in the customer relationship management area, including a fairly new company in the area, Pipeliner CRM (www.pipelinersales.com). The company--which originally started in Austria--set up shop here two years ago to further expand its footprint in the US, and most recently hired away the entire Los Angeles marketing team of crosstown CRM software developer Nimble.
'Los Angeles-based deal site Slickdeals (www.slickdeals.com), an online deal site, has nine million, highly loyal users and a daily updated list of great, user-generated, deal listings. Now, a new, Los Angeles team--led by Josh Meyers --is tapping a team of experience LA technology vets to take what is a diamond in the rough, and polish it up, to bring the deal site to the next level.
'Very few Southern California startups make it from seed funding all the way up through an IPO, and rarely do they do so with their original founder. One of Southern California''s big success stories -- from startup, to venture funding, and a recent IPO--is Los Angeles-based TrueCar , which had its IPO in May. We spoke with Scott Painter , CEO and founder of the company--and already a successful serial entrepreneurs--about the journey from startup to public company, lessons learned, and his advi
'For the last few years, startup accelerator MuckerLab has been helping very early stage companies define and grow their businesses, using the accelerator model and small investments to get companies to the next stage. Recently, the team behind MuckerLab has made a subtle shift--becoming Mucker Capital (www.muckercapital.com)--focusing on seed stage investments.
'Most entrepreneurs, when starting to model their business operations using a spreadsheet, start with expected revenue by month. Then they calculate cost of sales, and then project their expenses, to find the bottom line profit or loss each projected month. There is a rarely-used twist that makes lots of sense. Add a new row at the bottom of the spreadsheet.
'O-Labs , new Los Angeles-based accelerator/incuabtor has launched today, create as joint venture of Originate, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP and ICM Partners. According to the three, they have created O Labs as an independent company specifically to create, grow, and operate portfolio companies focused on helping large and growing enterprises.
'Los Angeles-based crowdfunding technology developer Invested.in said Wednesday that it has launched a new site, INVST , a new network for institutional-quality alternative investment funds. Invested.in said that it has partnered with Carillon Capital, LLC--run by former E*TRADE Financial executives--on the site. Carillon Capital is led by Steve Dervenis and Rob Snow.
'While Internet and startup companies have widely adopted the cloud for both their computing and storage needs, enterprise companies are only now starting to widely adopt cloud services. However, there''s a number of startups--including Irvine''s Zadara Storage (www.zadara.com)--which are making easier and easier for enterprises and other businesses to adopt the cloud.
'Santa Monica-based videogame maker Activision has been sued by former Panama dictator Manual Noriega, over his depection in the game "Call of Duty: Black Ops II". Noriega is suing Activision Blizzard over what he says is using his name and likeness without his permission. Noriega rules Panama from 1983 until 1989, when he was unseated by the United States in a military invasion.
'Whole home music system developer Sonos is dropping support for Apple''s iOS 4 and 5, the company told its users Tuesday, meaning that the company''s systems will no longer work with first generation iPad, iPhone 3G, and second and third generations of the iPod Touch. According to Sonos, the move comes as it looks to "balance our need to innovate with our desire to maintain support for older devices".
'Lake Forest-based Newport Media , which develops low power Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chipsets, has been acquired by Atmel , in a deal worth $140M in cash. According to Atmel, it will use the buy to strengthen its position in the Internet-of-Things (IoT) market. The deal also includes up to $30M more in earn out, based on future revenue thresholds. NMI offers up both 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth products, which it has been selling into the industrial, home and building automation, and consumer products
'Los Angeles-based prodege , the parent company of Swagbucks , said this morning that it has acquired Sodahead , the online polling and discussion platform founded by Jason Feffer. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. According to Prodege, it will acquire all of SodaHead''s assets and staff from its Encino headquarters, and will move them to Swagbucks offices in El Segundo.
'Pasadena-based MetaCloud , the provier of OpenStack cloud deployment and management, said today that it has partnered with Trace3 , a provider of IT and other services to businesses. According to the companies, MetaCloud has been selected as the "open source cloud solution of choice" by Trace3, which will help implement and recommend Metacloud''s OpenStack solutions to its own customers.
'Los Angeles- and San Francisco-based Dealflicks , an online service which offers up discounted movie tickets to help theater chains fill empty seats, has raised $1.7M in a seed funding. The company disclosed Monday that the funding came from 500 Startups, Siemer Ventures, Archer Gray, Rubicon VC, Wefunder, Be Great Partners, Rosepaul Investments, Mogility Capital, Sierra Maya Ventures, and Warner Brothers, along with angels.
'Costa Mesa-based Eventure Interactive , a developer of social, photo sharing applications, said last week that it has raised $4.1M in funding from Kodiak Capital Group as well as angels. The funding said $3M of the funding came from private equity group Kodiak Capital Group, with the remainder from family offices and high net worth individuals. Eventure is led by Gannon Giguiere.
'Los Angeles-based private equity investor OpenGate Capital reported Monday that it has acquired two, Latin American information technology system integrators. OpenGate Capital said it acquired the shares of Damovo Mexico SA de CV and Damovo Do Brasil SA, from parent the Damovo Group. Financial details of the buy were not disclosed. Both businesses provide Internet Protocol (IP) and Unified Communications (UC) systems integration services across Latin America.
'I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked away from deals where the entrepreneur insists on a start-up premoney valuation that is so high, no angel could expect to make a return upon the investment, even with a reasonable sales price for the company down the road. There is always another attractive deal at the ready, and most have reasonable expectations of valuation.
'San Diego-based Qualcomm is expanding its efforts in the education sector today, saying that it has acquired EmpoweredU , a developer of mobile learning technology for the K-20 market. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. EmpoweredU was headed by Steve Poizner, who has been very active in California''s Charter School movement. Qualcomm said the move would help it accelerate mobile innovation and help provide 24/7 access in education with its mobile tools.
'A new, Los Angeles startup, Whim , has recently launched, looking to cut the time between mobile contact and a real date--saying that its app make it possible for users to find a person, and get a date the same day. The startup--one of dozens looking to hook into the popularity of such mobile dating apps as Tinder--says it wants to reduce the time waiting and planning dates, filtering and messaging other users, and to increase the frequency and ease of getting a date.
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