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You’re building a company from your vision and a passion, and lots of people are going to tell you that you have this or that wrong, and that it just won’t work. Business plans rarely survive market contact. The truth is that very, very few early business plans survive in a form completely recognizable when looking back a few years. But even with massive changes, the vision and passion usually don’t diminish in the process of morphing a business plan into a profitable business.
Venture capital investments rose in 2018 to levels not seen since the heady days of 2000, the last year U.S. startups collectively took in more than $100 billion. That’s according to PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association’s Venture Monitor report, released this week, which tallied nearly 9,000 deals made last year, through which venture investors sunk $130.9 billion into companies.
During the holiday season, our tradition over the last few years has been to post reflections on the past year and some predictions for 2019 from Southern California's technology industry. Here's the contribution by Matt Stodder of StartupBoost LA (our apologies to Matt for the late post, our fault, not his!). What was the biggest lesson you learned this year?
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.
You’re building a company from your vision and a passion, and lots of people are going to tell you that you have this or that wrong, and that it just won’t work. Business plans rarely survive market contact. The truth is that very, very few early business plans survive in a form completely recognizable when looking back a few years. But even with massive changes, the vision and passion usually don’t diminish in the process of morphing a business plan into a profitable business.
Contrary to what you might guess, the highest rate of entrepreneurial growth over the last few years is not Gen-Y upstarts, but Boomers over the age of 50, now called encore entrepreneurs. In fact, according to the latest Index of Startup Activity by the Kauffman Foundation and recent press reports , these Baby Boomers are actually driving a new entrepreneurship boom.
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Southern California raised $2.96 billion in venture capital in Q4 of 2018, according to data from Dow Jones VentureSource , released on Friday. According to the report, Los Angeles garnered the lion's share of the local funding, with $1.77 billion in deals, followed by $0.77 billion in San Diego and $0.42 billion in Orange County. The region had a total of 124 deals logged by Dow Jones VentureSource, split between 75 in Los Angeles, 29 in San Diego, and 20 in Orange County.
The partial government shutdown could soon become the longest shutdown in history, and biotech firms that have submitted regulatory filings are facing greater uncertainty about their future plans. More than 40 percent of FDA workers and thousands at the SEC are furloughed, and FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is resorting to Twitter to post updates about how his agency is using its fast-dwindling funds.
Camarillo-based CSU Channel Islands is boosting its efforts to reach out to the local business community, saying it has named a new director of its Entrepreneurship & Small Business Institute (ESBI) , part of the school's Martin V. Smith (MVS) School of Business & Economics. According to CSUCI, Assistant Professor of Management, Cynthia Sherman, Ph.D., will head the institute, which is designed to help launch student entrepreneurs.
The changing of the guard transforming retail is accelerating. Sears, the nation’s first “everything store,” is teetering toward bankruptcy after years of stagnation as industry leaders prepare to gather in New York at the National Retail Federation’s annual conference. Yet, new startups—aided with tech tools like artificial intelligence, chatbots, and the like—are trying to reinvent how to connect shoppers with the goods they want to buy.
Super League Gaming Inc., a Santa Monica company that organizes amateur e-sports competitions, filed a $25 million initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission Jan. 4.
San Diego-based Qualcomm has put its backing behind a startup, ClearMotion , which is developing computer-controlled automotive chassis technology, which replaces shock absorbers with active components to dampen movement while you are driving. According to Boston-based ClearMotion, it raised $115M in a Series D funding, which was led by Franklin Templeton Investments, as well as clients of J.P.
Many aspiring entrepreneurs are looking to the Internet as an opportunity to get rich quick, instead of a place where you can start a business you love, for very little capital and minimal technical expertise. The reality is that if you build a business you love, you may in fact make big money, but if you start a business to get rich, you will probably fail.
Sunday, January 13, 2019 -- brunchwork w/ Netflix and Backstage Capital. You're invited to an unforgettable brunch with Netflix Originals Launch Strategy, Product Innovation Victoria Young and Backstage Capital founder Arlan Hamilton. Enjoy a fireside chat with Victoria and Arlan curated connections, a business challenge and pitch off. over a seasonal, locally-sourced meal.
Pasadena-based engineering and security consulting firm Parsons Corp. announced Jan. 8 that it has acquired OGSystems, an imaging, mapping and data analytics company based in Chantilly, Va., for an undisclosed sum.
Irvine-based cybersecurity software developer Cylance and El Segundo-based devuce security software developer CUJO AI are in a partnership aimed at the connected home, the two said today. According to Cylance, the two are in a strategic alliance, aimed at network operators, which will combine the AI endpoint and network security products from the two companies, to offer up "end-to-end" protection for all connected devices in a home.
Some investors seem to focus wholly on the strengths of the management team, or a sustainable competitive advantage, and in reality these are the core attributes for every funding equation. While these may be necessary for funding, they may not be sufficient to make your startup the great success embodied in your vision. In the last few years, perhaps in reaction to the business integrity issues leading to the recession way back in 2008, I am seeing a renewed focus on other less tangible attribu
The flow of biotech news is particularly heavy today, and for good reason. The annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, one of the biggest gatherings for the biopharmaceutical industry, kicked off today in San Francisco, and many companies, whether they’re speaking at the event or not, use this time to get their news out. Xconomy is on the ground covering the conference this week.
A new, Los Angeles-based startup, a href="[link] , has launched its first product, a "smart" baby monitor which it says captures and analyzes a baby's breathing and sleeping patterns, the temperature and humidity levels in a baby's environment, as well as other data. Miku--which launched its product at CES 2019--says its sensors connects with smartphones "from anywhere in the world" and sends alerts to parents using AI and machine learning technology, using both optical and wireless sensing.
A large portion of your competitive advantage and your potential value to investors is the size of your intellectual property portfolio. When someone says Intellectual Property (IP), most entrepreneurs think only of patents. In reality, patents are only one of at least eight items that should be in your IP portfolio. You need all these before you start looking for funding.
Beta Bionics, a startup developing a medical device that monitors and manages blood sugar levels in diabetes patients, has closed $63 million to back late-stage clinical tests of its AI-powered technology. The cash tops off a Series B round of funding announced last year. The Boston company, which counts diabetes drug giants Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY ) and Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO ) among its investors and partners, says the capital will support Phase 3 studies of its device this year, and if all goes
San Diego-based Taoglas , which develops antenna technology to the Internet-of-Things (IoT) and automotive market, has acquired ThinkWireless , a developer of antennas for the commercial vehicle industry. Financial details of the acquisition were not announced. ThinkWireless develops automotive antenna systems, which cover two or more frequency bands, including those for SiriusXM satellite radio, GPS, AM/FM, weather band, DAB, HDTV, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and LTE.
Business trust seems to be in short supply these days. Perhaps it’s because we are reminded daily of scams on the Internet that result from unscrupulous businesses and people. Yet if you run a business, you know things won’t get done, and most customers won’t buy, unless they trust you. Thus, it’s critical to your success that you build a culture of trust in you and your business.
Diabetes drugs are Eli Lilly’s bread and butter, but the pharmaceutical giant hasn’t lost its appetite for cancer drugs. It grabbed hold of a few more this week by betting $8 billion on Loxo Oncology. Loxo (NASDAQ: LOXO ) has made a name for itself by becoming one of just two companies ever to earn an FDA approval for a drug that targets a tumor’s DNA fingerprint, no matter where in the body that cancer is found.
Fountain Valley-based HyperX , the gaming division of Kingston Technology, is hitting CES hard with its product releases, saying this morning that it is launching headsets, microphones, mice, and memory at the consumer electronics show. The company said its new product includes new products including the HyperX Quadcast Standalone Microphone, HyperX Predator DDR4 RGB 16GB modules, and new HyperX Cloud Orbit and Cloud Orbit S Headsets, plus its HyperX Pulsefire Raid RGB gaming mouse and HyperX Cl
Irvine-based semiconductor developer Skyworks Solutions says it has been selected by Inseego , to provide chips for Inseego's next generation 4G and 5G mobile hotspots. According to SkyWorks, its SkyOne Ultra 30 chips are being used by Inseego's new MiFi 8800L device, a 4G/5G hotspot which supports more than 23 wireless radio bands. Expected shipment volumes and financial impact of the win were not announced.
San Diego-based Sun Genomics , which provides custom probiotics to customers based on what it says is a personalized analysis of your gut bacteria, has raised $2.9M in an ongoing funding round, according to a regulatory filing by the firm. Details on the ongoing funding were not announced by the company. According to the filing, the company is in the midst of raising $3.8M for its efforts, and has so far gained commitments from 20 investors in the round.
Hawthorne-based SpaceX --despite a continuing string of successful launches--is cutting 10 percent of its 6,000 employees, according to a report published on Friday. The report--from the LA Times--confirmed the layoff with the company, which said that Space "must become a leaner company" to continue to deliver for its customers. The company had a successful West Coast launch on Friday morning, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, delivering the Iridium-8 satellite communications payload into space.
Hawthorne-based SpaceX is hoping to launch another set of Iridium NEXT satellites into space this morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base, north of Santa Barbara, if the weather and other conditions hold. According to SpaceX, the instantaneous launch window for the launch is 7:31 a.m. PST, which should be visible across Southern California, depending on cloud conditions.
IMDb , the online movie information site which Amazon runs partially out of Los Angeles, has launched its own, free movie and TV streaming service, called IMDb Freedive. The new service also features "IMDb Originals", content generated for IMDb itself. A glance at the service showed such titles as 80's Steve Martin movie "Roxanne", Arnold Schwartzenegger's Last Action Hero, Winona Ryder's Little Women, and family films Stuart Little and Muppets In Space.
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