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With an angle on a long-neglected part of the shipping industry — the short-haul movement of cargo from docks to logistics centers — Dray Alliance is joining a growing startup scene for logistics businesses based in Los Angeles. With some of the nation’s largest ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach, the Southern California region is now fertile ground for businesses hoping to tackle what amounts to a trillion-dollar industry.
Southern California startup founder Isaac Saldana --who co-founded SendGrid --is hoping to help other entrepreneurs create companies , after the $3 billion, all-stock acquisition of SendGrid by Twilio in October. According to Techstars, it appointed Saldana Chief Technology Officer for Techstars Studio , which will help members of the the startup accelerator "rapidly envision, validate, and launch disruptive startups.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019 -- How to Pitch to Investors. Russell Ficher Business Collection, Camarillo Library. For anyone starting or thinking about creating a startup, one of the most important parts of the process is pitching and looking for investors. In this presentation, Benjamin Kuo, Founder and Editor of socaltech.com, Southern California's leading online resource for information on startups, venture capital, and the technology industry all across Southern California, talks about some hint
I’ve sat on many boards over the past 2 decades and seen my share of high-functioning boards and low-functioning boards. Here are some observations I have from this exposure: If a company moves from strength-to-strength with predictable outcomes, easy financings, low staff turn-over, limited competitive threats then the composition of the board probably doesn’t matter as much.
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.
Andrew Erskine has developed his legal career along with the rise of the tech startup scene in Los Angeles. Today, as a partner at Orrick in its Santa Monica office, he works with companies large and small in the area and beyond. His approach: “The way that I practice and the philosophy I have is that clients aren’t really coming to me with legal problems.
Redland-based geographical information systems (GIS) giant Esri announced today that it has acquired indoo.rs GmbH , a provider of indoor mapping software. Financial details of the acquisition were not announced. According to Esri, indoo.rs's headquarters in Vienna, Austria will serve as a new research and development center for the company. indoo.rs develops interactive, indoor mapping software, used to map corporate facilities, retail and commercial locations, airports, hospitals, event venues
It’s a fact of life that a banker, lender or lessor will ask for a personal guarantee from the founder or entrepreneur most every time. But what if you’ve diluted your interest from 100% to something less than 50%? Should your investors expect you to carry 100% of the risk? The short answer is “yes.” Seems unfair, doesn’t it? To most lenders, the guarantee is still a requirement, putting the entrepreneur in a position of additional risk that is not spread among the shareholders.
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It’s a fact of life that a banker, lender or lessor will ask for a personal guarantee from the founder or entrepreneur most every time. But what if you’ve diluted your interest from 100% to something less than 50%? Should your investors expect you to carry 100% of the risk? The short answer is “yes.” Seems unfair, doesn’t it? To most lenders, the guarantee is still a requirement, putting the entrepreneur in a position of additional risk that is not spread among the shareholders.
I have been writing a series on how startup boards get selected, who sits on them and what to avoid. I will also delve into how to prepare for them, how to make the meeting effective and how to best follow up to make sure people take action. Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash In response to one of my posts I saw this great Tweet by Bilal Zuberi and it resonated.
Every time I challenge a business plan with little or no budget for marketing, I get the answer that they will be using “viral” marketing, which costs nothing. The founder explains that the product is so “buzz-worthy” that usage will spread rapidly through word-of-mouth only, meaning people loving it and recommending it to their friends. First of all, Seth Godin pointed out a long time ago that viral marketing does not equal word-of-mouth.
Los Angeles-based Phyn , which develops "smart home" technology to both monitor water usage and also help prevent major water damage, has inked a deal with an insurance company to offer up its technology to consumers. According to Phyn, it has linked with property and casualty insurer PURE Insurance , to offer up its Phyn Plus product as a discount to the insurance company's members.
Last year was a remarkable year for biotech companies going public. Not only did an unusually large number of biotech companies go public, but a significant number of early-stage biotech companies went public at premium valuations relative to their later-clinical stage peers. There were approximately 58 biotech IPOs in 2018 (excluding offerings with under $25 million of proceeds) for total gross proceeds of $6.3 billion [1], of which a significant number were early-stage companies — either in pr
Most board meetings are administrative updates that accomplish very little other than inform board members about the performance of the company since the last board meeting. That’s certainly one function of every board but if your board is your “brain trust” and the people you can most use as a sounding board to help you make the toughest decisions in your company and if its the one group truly privy to your most confidential information and your hardest choices then it’s a shame if you don’t ge
Thursday, March 7, 2019 -- Global LAVA: Investing in Israeli Start-Ups. Panelists: Liron Brish - CEO of Farm Dog; Liat Sade-Sternberg - CEO of fuse.it; Guy Katsovich, co-founder of Fusion LA.
Los Angeles-based food brand Beanfields , a manufacturer of vegan, gluten-free, non-GMO, kosher chips, said this week that it has raised a Series B funding round. The funding was led by PowerPlant Ventures, and also included NRV and Western Technology Investment. Size of the funding was not announced. PowerPlant Ventures acquired the majority ownership of Beanfields back in 2017.
Eric Schmidt believes we’re entering an era where artificial intelligence will underpin most facets of human life. But we don’t yet have enough people with the right skills to build that future. Schmidt, the former CEO of Google and former executive chairman of its parent company Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL ), argues that the A.I. talent shortage is the most pressing challenge facing the industry today.
When you set up a board it is often initially a combination of the founders and the early investors. It can start 2–1 founders to investors and then sometimes moves to 3–2 but sometime around the A, B or C round the idea of “independent” directors comes up. This post sets out how I believe founders (and investors) should think about independent board members having worked with many of them for the past 20 years.
Thursday, March 7, 2019 -- Newport Beach Investment Networking Expo. Evening of investment networking at Fashion Island's Mariposa Restaurant as we bring together Southern California's top investment professionals to form new connections and discuss opportunities.
Santa Monica-based PatientPop , which develops healthcare practice management software, has rolled out a new product, aimed at helping independent healthcare providers compare themselves to other local competitors. According to PatientPop, its new tool--the PatientPop Competitive Scanner --helps businesses compare their business growth to the top three competitors in their local market.
A big trend in business these days is hiring freelancers or contract personnel for the duration of a project, rather than permanent staff. According to a recent poll , contractors and freelancers could make up half of the American workforce within a decade. Yet I find that few of today’s workers realize that succeeding as a freelancer requires a whole new focus on “marketing” yourself.
Photo by Filipe Delgado from Pexels We’ve all been in meetings that get off track?—?sinking ever down the proverbial “rat hole,” from which rescue feels impossible. How does it happen? And how can you avoid it? This is part of a series on Managing Boards. In my last post I wrote about board preparation before the meeting and frankly this can be applied to any type of meeting.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019 -- ACG101 Food Manufacturers and Distributors. California's agriculture is the most productive and varied in the U.S., owing to the climate, topography, complex systems of water delivery and diverse population of growers in our state. This year, the ACG 101 annual Food and Ag program takes a look at a different aspect of this fertile industry: Manufacturing and Distribution.
Los Angeles-based real estate crowdfunding site RealtyMogul says it has sold some technology it has developed at its research and development lab, to another company. According to RealtyMogul, it has sold the proprietary loan underwriting software it developed in its labs to Hunt Real Estate Capital , in an all-cash transaction. Financial terms of the sale were not announced.
Walmart’s Store No 8 innovation arm has acquired an Israeli machine learning startup , the retail giant announced Wednesday. Aspectiva joined the two-year-old Store No 8 Monday, and its employees will remain in Tel Aviv. “Store No 8’s record of innovation and of developing capabilities that will transform retail as we know it makes for the perfect environment to leverage Aspectiva’s technology throughout the shopping funnel,” Ezra Daya, Aspectiva’s CEO and co-founder, said in a prepared statemen
In this age where every person feels the need for a relationship with people they do business with, introverts like me might seem to be at a distinct disadvantage. Most of us just don’t have the urge to proactively get out and talk to new people, face-to-face, online, or through an app. This is equally hard at work, especially when many of our peers may be remote, anywhere in the world.
The world of telecommunications is expanding quickly as the cloud, 5G, the IoT, and other new technologies gain traction. The new dynamic is exciting, potentially lucrative, and extremely tricky. Where will capacity be needed? How should networks be configured and equipped to support the services businesses and consumers are demanding? These questions – and many more – must be answered on a continual and near real-time basis.
Los Angeles-based Fisker , the newly reborn electric vehicle manufacturer led by Henrik Fisker, said on Monday that it has added former U.S. Representative, Richard (Dick) Gephardt as an advisor to the company. Gephardt, who previously was a member of the board of Ford Motor Company, has been a consultant to Fisker over the last five months, according to the firm.
Section 32, the venture capital fund based in San Diego’s Cardiff-by-the-Sea community, has raised nearly $200 million for its second fund. A document filed with securities regulators Friday shed light on comments made the previous week to Xconomy by Section 32 founder Bill Maris, who started the firm in 2017. Maris on Feb. 15 confirmed that Section 32 had raised a second fund , but declined to share the amount that had been raised.
An entrepreneur lifestyle that continues to gain in popularity these days is being a “social entrepreneur.” In the simplest of terms, these are people who seek to generate “social value”, rather than profits, and use traditional business principles to provide solutions to social issues On the surface, this sounds like entrepreneurs who want to build a non-profit organization.
San Diego-based Inseego , which develops wireless hotspots and other related technology, said it has partnered with Ericsson to bring new 5G NR (New Radio) products to the market. According to Inseego, it is launching a set of 5G NR products in 2019, which will provide high-performance 5G mmWave and sub-6GHz mobile and fixed wireless solutions for worldwide deployments.
Cybersecurity experts have uncovered a vulnerability--now patched--which would have allowed hackers to both view and inject their own video into the Ring Video Doorbell, developed by Santa Monica-based Ring. According to researchers , they were able to figure out a way where they were able to intercept audio and/or video footage from the Ring application, letting an attacker arbitrarily watch and listen to any Ring doorbell, and even allowed a hacker to inject their own video into the Ring's vid
Van Nuys-based Jet Edge International , a provider of aircraft management and private jet charter services, said this week that it has raised $60M in a equity and debt funding round. The funding was led by Los Angeles-based private equity investor Solace Capital Partners. The company said it will use the funding to fund strategic initiatives. Jet Edge says it currently manages more than 50 large-cabin and super-midsize aircraft.
San Diego-based antenna developer Taoglas , which develops antennas for the Internet-of-Things and automotive markets, said that it has launched a new line of MIMO LTE antennas, used for indoor distribution antenna systems (iDAS). According to the company, the new antennas are designed for DAS systems improving connectivity for indoor locations such as office buildings, stadiums, conference centers, shopping malls, hotels and other locations.
Irvine-based Zadara , which develops cloud-based, data storage products, said it has enhanced its Virtual Private Storage Arrays product running on Amazon Web Services (AWS). According to the company, its product now allows AWS users to create virtual private storage arrays of any size up to 288 terabytes, selecting their own mix of flash, hard drives, NAS, SAN, CIFS, and other options.
A new report says that there are now a total of 11 lawsuits filed against troubled Los Angeles-based electric car maker Faraday Future , as it struggles to restart its operations after massive layoffs after its main investor, Evergrande Health, pulled its support from the firm. The lawsuits--filed against the company by its suppliers and contractors-- reportedly seek nearly $80M in back payments, damages, and fees, mostly over unpaid bills.
In an important move towards launching astronauts into space, Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX is getting set to launch an important, test flight of its Crew Dragon on Saturday, from Florida. The first Crew Dragon spacecraft was rolled out onto Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, where it is now being prepped for an early Saturday morning launch.
San Diego-based Verimatrix , a developer of security software for video service providers, set top-box providers, and others, has been acquired by French company Inside Secure , according to Inside Secure. Inside Secure paid $138.1M in cash, plus up to $9.8M in escrow to cover potential post-closing adjustments and earnout. According to Inside Secure, the two companies have a complementary, large global customer base across the entertainment, mobile, and IoT industries.
Los Angeles-based warehouse robot developer inVia Robotics said on Wednesday that it has named its first Chief Marketing Officer, Kristen Moore. Moore was most recently Chief Marketing Officer and Head of E-Commerce at LifeSeasons, and also had served at Demand Media, FedEx, AT&T, and Lucent Technologies. According to inVia Robotics, Moore has more than 20 years of strategic marketing and communications expertise. inVia Robotics develops warehouse robots, which automatically transport items
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