Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 12, 2013

It is with great pleasure that I can finally announce that we have added Greg Bettinelli as a partner at GRP Partners. Greg was the CMO at HauteLook from the early days all the way through growing the business to 12 million registered users and far in excess of $200 million in annual sales. You won’t regret it.

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Venture Capital GRP Partners Startup Invest 360

socalTECH

JULY 31, 2013

The startup, which is backed by Upfront Ventures (which also just went through a renaming effort, from GRP Partners), did not say exactly why it decided to rename itself. As part of the rebranding, the company said it has named Stephanie Grossman as SVP, Business Development, Sales and Marketing.

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GRP Partners Santa Monica Advertising Startup 168

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AUGUST 16, 2012

Little Black Bag , the women's merchandise and online commerce site that is a take on the Japanese concept of a "lucky bag sale", has raised $8M in a Series B round, just six months after its Series A funding. The new funding round was led by GRP Partners, and also included DCM. Both are existing investors in the company.

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GRP Partners Commerce Sales Los Angeles 153

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2011

Actually, I think the advice in this post applies to any sales meeting also. Occasionally one of my partners would intro me because I’m the newest parter at the fund (at just under 5 years, they have been at GRP Partners 8-15 years). I am a big believer in VC pitches that the bio slide should come up front.

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Slides GRP Partners Venture Capital Writing 296

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 17, 2010

Never say never – GRP Partners is actually looking very closely at a company in its A round that is raising a large sum of money. my firm, GRP Partners, was an investor). You can hire a talented head of marketing, business development, technology and sales. I’m sure others have, too.

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Company Companies Technology Startup 290

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NOVEMBER 30, 2010

The round was led by GRP Partners and Rincon Venture Partners, and brings the total raised by the company to $7.5M. RingRvenue develops technology which tracks responses to phone calls, allowing calls to be used for affiliate sales and tracking.

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GRP Partners Santa Barbara Custom Development Sales 154

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FEBRUARY 7, 2013

The round was led by GRP Partners and Redhills Ventures. According to Health Data Vision, the new funds will go toward scaling its operations, developing new software and services, and expanding its sales and partner channels.

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Software GRP Partners Burbank Platform 159

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SEPTEMBER 3, 2010

TrueCar uses actual car sales data from local dealers to present car shoppers with information on the actual prices paid for new cars in their neighborhood. The company said the new Best Local Deals feature was specifically launched ahead of Labor Day, which is traditionally one of the largest volume car sales weekends during the year.

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Truecar Pricing Tool Arcturus 154

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FEBRUARY 2, 2012

Los Angeles-based startup Little Black Bag , a new e-commerce startup backed by GRP Partners and DCM, said this week that it has launched its online shopping site--a play on the Japanese concept of "fukobukuro". Little Black Bag is headed by Dan Murillo, and has reportedly scored $2.75M in funding from GRP, DCM, and David Tisch.

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GRP Partners Commerce Los Angeles Sales 124

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 11, 2010

DataPop's product also creates landing pages, geo-targets offers, and uses pricing details, sales and promotions, product specs, and retail location information to tune those search marketing ads. DataPop is one of the companies in LaunchpadLA, the business mentoring and incubation effort being spearheaded by GRP Partners' Mark Suster.

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Yahoo Paid Search GRP Partners SoCalTech 145

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

They often make great team members such as head of products, CTO, head of sales, CFO, etc. I run the recruiting process for my VC firm, GRP Partners. I joined GRP Partners in 2007 before they raised their current fund (we closed a $200 million fund in March 2009). What about VC’s and Risk? It was May.

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Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital CTO Hire 293

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 18, 2012

Mark is a Partner at GRP Partners and authors one of the most widely read startup blogs, BothSidesOfTheTable. Number one is sales. Life is sales. Business development is sales. Winning customers is sales. Getting press is sales. Raising money. Hiring employees.

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Entrepreneur Startup Conference Santa Barbara 272

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JULY 8, 2013

Gradient X is backed by Rincon Venture Partners, GRP Partners (now Upfront Ventures), CrossCut Ventures, Founder Collective, Siemer Ventures, Baroda Ventures, and Double M Partners. We caught up with Michael to learn more about what Gradient X is doing, and why the three have teamed up at the company. What is Gradient X?

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Advertising Mobile OpenX Software Review 253

socalTECH

OCTOBER 7, 2008

HTGC said that the firm received $650,000 from the sale of Teleflip, which the firm said occurred this month. Teleflip was venture backed by GRP Partners, and apparently went out of business sometime in August after failing to find additional capital. HTGC had invested $1M in debt financing in June of 2007 to Teleflip.

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GRP Partners Santa Monica Email Sales 100

socalTECH

JULY 9, 2009

Zag provides a white-label version of its automotive configuration and pricing engine to USAA and other affinity groups, which provides a detailed, in-depth quoting system for "fleet" sales of automobiles. Zag is backed by USAA, Capricorn Investment Group, LLC, GRP Partners and Anthem Venture Partners. READ MORE>>.

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Zag GRP Partners Anthem Santa Monica 100

socalTECH

JUNE 10, 2009

Zag's technology provides a level of customization and detail on "fleet" style, pre-negotiated sales of autos, down to the accessory level; the firm has deals with USAA, Capital One, Overstock.com, AAA groups, and others to provide its service. Painter is the former CEO of CarsDirect.com. READ MORE>>.

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Zag GRP Partners Anthem Santa Monica 100

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 20, 2012

I had one of the biggest mental breakthroughs about what I want to do differently at GRP Partners in 2013. I’ve written about these sales mavericks before. I was at the Lobby Conference a few weeks ago in Mexico. My wife and I went down 3 days early and had some chill out time. I don’t want to be on autopilot.

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Venture Capital Conference Ideas Entrepreneur 400

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

He eventually applied his lessons learned in these experiences when he founded Zag, a company that helps consumers buy cars over the Internet at pre-negotiated prices with nearly 4,000 dealers across the country [disclosure: my firm GRP Partners is an investor in Zag]. And it carries no inventory. a fbFund winner. Current round: $4.

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Zag Truecar Venture Capital CarsDirect 248

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

I just completed an exercise where I went out to hire a new associate for my VC firm, GRP Partners. I do find it strange that the most valuable skill for any employee in any company isn’t emphasized AT ALL in my experience: sales. Sales is the lifeblood of every organization. I had to laugh a bit reading it.

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Startup Venture Capital Study Course 337

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OCTOBER 14, 2008

Zag said it has promoted Bernie Brenner to Executive Vice President in charge of the firm's consumer initiatives, named David Pributsky as VP of Partner development. The firm also named Steward Easterby as VP of Sales; Bill Lepter as VP of Business Intelligence; and Star Marcus as VP of Human Resources. READ MORE>>

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Zag Arcturus GRP Partners Anthem 100

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

For example, my firm, GRP Partners, has a $200 million fund that was closed in March 2009 and we have 4 investment partners. A round investor implies they are the “first institutional money in the deal.&# GRP Partners is stage agnostic. What IS relevant about the size of a VC’s fund?

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Venture Capital Funding Invest GRP Partners 269

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 18, 2009

But then I got a call from my lead investor (coincidentally it was GRP Partners where I now am a partner) and they told me not to lose confidence. That was our first year of sales. We started drafting out plans for what we were going to do in order to have an orderly winding up of the company. But we did $2.1

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Startup GRP Partners Venture Capital 298

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

My firm, GRP Partners, invested in the company that innovated this entire category – Overture (formerly known as GoTo.com). further down the sales funnel from CPC advertising where you pay for a click but still need to convert on your own). But higher value product sales often require a phone call.

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Advertising Invest RSS CPC 284

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

” Who cut you in on their bonus because even though you’re “just an sales engineer” they know you really deserved more credit for this deal. I started working with David when I was an entrepreneur and he was an associate with a VC firmed called … wait for it … GRP Partners (now Upfront Ventures)!

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CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

I have no quarterly sales targets for the first time in a decade – For anybody who’s ever been in a company with sales targets you can attest to what a fire drill the ends of March, June, September and December can be. But let’s face it, as a VC you spend time with whichever companies you want. Not any more for me.

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Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Entrepreneur 312

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

The “private sale” market phenomenon was started in France by Vente-Privee (literally means “private sale”) and was replicated in Germany by BrandsforFriends. Gilt Group is currently the largest private sale web site in US. To be fair to Ben Horowitz – I think he thinks this as well. Time will tell.

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Venture Capital Startup Platform Technical Review 240

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

Look beyond California and you have group purchasing (GroupOn in Chicago, LivingSocial in Washington DC), private sales (Gilt Groupe in NY, HauteLook in LA), artisan marketplaces (Etsy in NY), eCommerce (Amazon in Seattle) and on and on. Scott Painter , founder of CarsDirect has created TrueCar (backed by GRP Partners).

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Venture Capital Southern California Google Startup 313

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

I know that I have not yet earned these kudos based on investment returns (although my partners have. GRP Partners last fund is the single best performing VC fund in the US (prequin data) for its vintage year). Do you have sales productivity software? I chose for my blog to be independent of my firm, GRP Partners.

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Blogging Startup Writing Venture Capital 373

socalTECH

JUNE 20, 2012

We were founded in 2009 by Mark Suster from GRP Partners. We don't get excited about derivative businesses, like yet another daily deal site, or another niche flash sales site. For readers, LaunchpadLA is all about? Sam Teller: Launchpad is an accelerator in Santa Monica.

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Class Mentor Startup Santa Monica 261

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

side note: our last fund at GRP Partners is currently ranked as the 5th best performing fund of the year 2000. You don’t have to hire as many sales people because much can be sold online. VC will shrink. Oh yes it will. This means that some funds will disappea r – Returns are not even.

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Venture Capital Startup Seed Funding Rustic Canyon 311

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APRIL 1, 2010

in a venture round from GRP Partners and Rincon Ventures, for the firm's mobile ad management platform. Mark Suster lead GRP's investment in the firm, and Jim Andelman led Rincon's investment. Earlier this week, Los Angeles-based Burstly (www.burstly.com) announced that it had raised $1.8M

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Startup Platform Advertising GRP Partners 164

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2010

I’m very pleased today to announce that I invested, on behalf of GRP Partners, in Burstly alongside Rincon Venture Partners , an early stage VC in Southern California whith whom we love to work (and were our co-investors on RingRevenue ).

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Mobile Invest Company Companies 282

InfoChachkie

JULY 14, 2011

Value Prop Twitter Style : “Ringrevenue’s call performance marketing platform enables ad networks, agencies, advertisers & publishers to generate more inbound sales calls.”. For businesses like this, finding new ways to drive more of these high-value inbound sales calls is key. Rincon Venture Partners and GRP Partners ).

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Marketing Advertising Paid Search Startup 209

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

Huge structural under-employment in much of the country and full employment in some niche tech markets where it’s impossible to hire developers, designers or sales professionals. So at GRP Partners we’re very active now. You know what I’m talking about. You feel it, too. It’s surreal.

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Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

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JUNE 19, 2013

Burstly is headed by Evan Rifkin, and backed by GRP Partners, Rincon Venture Partners, SoftBank Capital, and Founder Collective. I told him how we were looking to track people who were looking at Hiphop events in a city, and do direct sales to them and present them to brands to highlight that matched their interests.

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Startup Mobile Outsource Development Tool 262

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JANUARY 17, 2013

We spoke with Christopher Webb, the firm's CEO, to hear about how ChowNow's goal is to make mobile, social orders something any restaurant can afford and implement--and how a new $3M funding round from GRP Partners, Double M Capital, Daher Capital, Karlin Ventures, and Velos Partners is helping it to deliver on its mission.

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Mobile Startup Platform GRP Partners 197

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FEBRUARY 9, 2009

We brought together Peter Cowen of Groundwork Equity , Mark Suster of GRP Partners , Rick Smith of Crosscut Ventures , and Richard Yen of Saban Ventures -- all of who will be on the judging panel for the Tech Coast Angel's Fast Pitch on February 24th, to give us a their hints and tips about pitching to venture capitalists.

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Tech Coast Angels Ideas Entrepreneur Invest 100