Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 15, 2014

A few years later they announced $150 million in a funding round at $1 billion+ valuation and are ramping up jobs to secure their market-leading position. And consider Snapchat – one of our hometown favorites as they’re based in LA (Venice Beach). Locally we call it “the Snapchat effect.”

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Company Companies Startup Snapchat 369

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 10, 2017

the parent company of Snapchat , have driven the stock of a completely unrelated, over-the-counter company, Snap Interactive , through the roof this week. which has yet to hit the market--intends to list on the New York Stock Exchange. Enthusiastic, yet clearly unsophisticated, fans of Venice, California-based Snap Inc. ,

Snapchat 133

Snapchat Venice Marketing Develop 133

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2014

We know the perceptions you have of our market from our past. We have a large number of highly talented engineers and entrepreneurs now developing companies in our local market. I’m super proud of the work produced by Gravity , a local #LATech company I invested in who was recently sold to AOL for $90 million. FullScreen.

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Startup Santa Monica Snapchat Yahoo 318

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 2, 2017

the parent firm behind Snapchat , has joined up with R/GA Marketing --which helps run the Dodgers Accelerator in Los Angeles--to launched a new startup accelerator, the R/GA Marketing Tech Venture Studio with IPG. Venice, California-based Snap Inc. ,

Snapchat 100

Snapchat Startup Venice Advertising 100

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 6, 2015

As an active investor in the Los Angeles technology market we’re always seeking to better understand the data and trends of why our market has grown so rapidly since 2009. Everybody now knows that LA produced SnapChat, Tinder and Maker Studios. The report on the LA Tech Market can be found on this link.

Marketing 150

Marketing Newsletter Venture Capital Blogging 150

socalTECH

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Disney offered up up to $120K in investment capital, access to entrepreneurs and executives at Disney, and other resources to its startups. The Disney Accelerator said that Smart Toy was acquired by Los Angeles-based children''s product firm Cartwheel Kids, and that SnowShoe raised $2.2M in its seed funding round. READ MORE>>.

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Class Startup Seed Funding Entertainment 185

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

TrueCar, an LA-based company, sells more cars now than any physical dealer in the country and recently went public and has a $1 billion market cap. I don’t need to tell you what else is LA … SnapChat, Whisper, Tinder. We have invested $17.3 All great communication companies. Angels & Recycled Capital.

Startup 390

Startup Venture Capital Capital Funding 390

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2017

Back then only 15% of our dollars were invested locally whereas today 50% of our dollars are invested in LA. It’s not just Snapchat, although there’s that. Don’t we know it.

Dollar Shave Club 321

Dollar Shave Club Cornerstone OnDemand Riot Games Venture Capital 321

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2013

” Case in point: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, SnapChat. Delaying going out of business gives you way more chances at product / market fit than any other strategy I know of. In your market conditions knowing what I know I would tend to go for it. The market. But that’s not what happens to most of you. Same thing.

Venture Capital 412

Venture Capital Startup Funding Snapchat 412

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

With small amounts of money invested (sub $3 million) the risks are reasonably low for most VCs and the consequences of bad decisions or decisions a VC has limited say in is tolerable. Unless you’re SnapChat, Instagram or similar this is probably 3-5 years into your existence. how to market our products and company.

Startup 325

Startup Sales Technical Review Software Review 325

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 19, 2013

Josef Gorowitz , Swagbucks (Torrance, online marketing/rewards). Amanda MacNaughton , PromoJam (Glendale, marketing software). Evan Spiegel , SnapChat (Los Angeles, mobile app). Adam Goldenberg , Intelligent Beauty/JustFab (El Segundo, fashion). Matthew Goldman , Wallaby Financial (Pasadena, financial).

Southern California 279

Southern California SoCalTech Dollar Shave Club Santa Monica 279

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 17, 2018

“We are the preferred prescription provider of Snapchat Spectacles,” says Lensabl chief executive Andrew Bilinsky. It’s a secondary market in the same way that you would put new rims on the car,” says Bilinsky. ” Powering that effort is the new $3.7 every frame that people buy that needs to be re-lensed.

Snapchat 179

Snapchat Los Angeles Pricing Startup 179

socalTECH

APRIL 3, 2018

The report said the move is related to an effort by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to help train Saudi youth to develop content for the market. READ MORE>>.

Southern California 113

Southern California Report Snapchat Venice 113

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2016

In 2016 I finally cracked SnapChat with the launch of Discovery. It’s hard to be discovered on SnapChat right now so I occasionally tweet my SnapChat add handle: https://www.snapchat.com/add/msuster. So this dude on Twitter says that I’m “trying to hard” because I’m using SnapChat in a new way.

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Snapchat Product Startup AMA 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 16, 2016

Computer Vison Startup Nanit If you follow me on Snapchat ( msuster ) you might already know that I’ve been looking at and investing in a number of companies in the computer vision space. Today I am so excited to announce our latest investment in the category —  Nanit  — which is a smart baby monitor.

Invest 150

Invest Course Startup CTO Hire 150

socalTECH

MAY 31, 2019

the parent firm of Snapchat , has sold off Placed , a developer of location intelligence and offline attribution software tools. The acquisition by Foursquare came after it raised a new $150M investment from the Raine Group. Los Angeles-based Snap Inc. , Financial terms of the acquisition were not announced.

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Snapchat Acquisition Los Angeles Tool 124

socalTECH

AUGUST 12, 2020

Venice, California-based Snap , the parent company of Snapchat , has reportedly been in talks with New York-based Dubsmash on an acquisition, according to The Information, which says that Facebook also has been talking with the TikTok competitor. The Information cited "a person familiar with the matter". READ MORE>>.

Report 113

Report Snapchat Venice Acquisition 113

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2017

It’s hard to remember that in 2012 it was still hard for LA VCs to persuade investors into funds that LA was a viable market for great venture capital funds or convince many VCs that LA was a market worth investing dollars into startups. They always ask whether I see this as threatening as Upfront Ventures. Are you kidding me?

Riot Games 191

Riot Games Los Angeles Technical Review Venture Capital 191

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

Or you know the other one — the one where Snapchat lost $2 billion in just one quarter. They hired a marketing team to promote their products more broadly. If there was strong market demand for their product then this investment might pay off handsomely. Two-f **g-billion! What a disaster!

Startup 227

Startup Venture Capital Sales Course 227

socalTECH

MAY 20, 2015

Venture capitalist David Lee , who was Managing Partner of seed and angel investing fund SV Angel , one of the most active venture investors in San Francisco, has resigned to spend more time with his family in Los Angeles, the fund told its Limited Partners on Tuesday. READ MORE>>.

Angel 100

Angel Snapchat Venture Capital Los Angeles 100

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 16, 2018

Venice, California-based early stage, pre-seed investment fund and accelerator Amplify.LA pointed at all of the companies in Los Angeles that came out of the demise of MySpace, and argues that the growth of Snap is about to trigger another wave of startups in the market. In the report, Amplify.LA In the report, Amplify.LA

Snapchat 100

Snapchat Venice Los Angeles Report 100

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

SEO marketing vs. social marketing. So common are founder tensions that my intervening is a weekly occurrence and it’s so common that if I ever write about it I’m sure that instantly every company I’ve invested in and every company in which I’ve been an informal advisor thinks I must be writing about them.

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Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2016

This is a huge moment for Michael Dubin who had the vision, the market genius, the operating chops and the perseverance to prevail even after the venture funding markets had wrongly written off eCommerce as a category. It doesn’t always have to be humorous but it needs to be high quality and memorable.

Dollar Shave Club 150

Dollar Shave Club Venture Capital News Snapchat 150

Tech Zulu Event

JULY 16, 2013

Previously known as GRP Partners, Upfront Ventures has focused on early stage investments since 1996. Marketing: SteelHouse. An ad:tech Innovation Award-winning company, SteelHouse is the technology industry’s real-time marketing solution for online retailers. Social Media: Snapchat. Incubator: Amplify LA.

Startup 111

Startup Snapchat Venice Social Media 111

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 14, 2018

The world’s top tech companies have heavily invested in AR/VR and are persistent in broadcasting the technologies’ potential to blur the lines of how consumers interact with the digital world. Beyond the tech titans, it’s the small startups that are dialing into what’s missing in the ecosystem right now.

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UCLA Startup Snapchat Los Angeles 185

TechCrunch LA

JANUARY 14, 2019

“The way I look at it… a lot of it is going to be like any kind of content studio,” says Peter Rojas, a partner at the New York investment firm Betaworks Ventures. Flinn got exposure to the virtual media world while at Rothenberg Ventures, the now defunct fund that invested in virtual reality and augmented reality.

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Social Media Content Media Artificial Inteligence 261

socalTECH

JULY 15, 2016

billion round for Venice based Snapchat. Other big fundings contributing to the total included a $220M funding round for San Diego biotech firm Human Longevity Inc. , $111M raised by Marina Del Rey-based Thrive Market , and $100M raised by Irvine cybersecurity sofwtare developer Cylance. Nationally, venture capitalists invested $15.3

Southern California 100

Southern California Marina Del Rey Venture Capital Company 100

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

Most recent investments: GOAT, cloudvirga, Vemba, LootCrate, Invoca. Most recent investments: EventBoard, Sensay, Shipt, Scopely, ALL DEF DIGITAL. Most recent investments: Ring, Flipagram, Snapchat. Most recent investments: Ring, Flipagram, Snapchat. Most recent investments: Zingle, Keen.io, mPulse, Invoca.

Southern California 100

Southern California Dollar Shave Club Lootcrate Orange County 100

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 5, 2019

We did our first close in the summer of 2014, and over the first nine months we raised our fund and started investing. Fund I was fully deployed by June 30th of 2017, and we went out to raised Fund II, which was a wet close, where you invest as you close. Those investments have really broken out. They're all big winners.

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Funding Capital Artificial Inteligence Startup 160

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

There are so many events to attend that one could become a full time conference attendee and you could easily feel like you’re missing out with each event that happens without you and of course there is Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat to remind you just how fun it was for everybody else. What is one to do?

Software Review 150

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Invest 150

socalTECH

MARCH 16, 2017

We are going to write checks of between $100,000 and $500,000, and we are going to invest in what we are calling first institutional capital. We're taking a bit of our playbook from First Round Capital, where, if you look at their website, they provide market help and raising their next round of capital.

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Invest Funding Capital Startup 145

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

I recently survey more than 150 VC friends from all stages and geographies what they thought about the market by asking “Which of the following statements best describes your mood heading into 2016?” We write about $40 million of first-checks into new deals / year and about $40 million of follow-on investments.

Startup 150

Startup Company Companies Venture Capital 150

socalTECH

MARCH 3, 2017

NBC Universal has invested $500M, as part of the big IPO of Venice-based Snap Inc. NBCUniversal said the IPO investment was part of a strategic investment and partnership. The company reportedly is one of the investors in the IPO who agreed to hold SNAP's stock for at least a year before selling any on the market.

Venice 100

Venice Invest Report Marketing 100

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

We led a $4 million investment along with Thrive Capital, GLG and Sound Ventures. It’s actually very easy to spot when a founder has decided to focus on a concept because he or she has “spotted an opening in the market” or building a derivative business that is “Uber for X” or “Airbnb for Y” or “Dropbox for Z.” So Why Imbellus?

Design 150

Design Ideas Startup Writing 150

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 12, 2016

Why Invest? For six years before that he was at Siebel who was the market leader in CRM before Salesforce, and he has both a masters in product design from Stanford and an MBA. And while my relationship with Chuck was critical to my investment, so too was the leadership of Trevor Templar , the Chief Revenue Officer. Why Invest?

Software 105

Software Mobile Artificial Inteligence Oracle 105

socalTECH

DECEMBER 27, 2016

To that end, we brought in Kelli Castellano as Chief Marketing Officer, formerly with NextGen Healthcare, and Kirk Paul Kirkman as President of the TigerText Client Organization, from athenahealth, to drive our healthcare integration. Prior to that, Brad worked for investment banking corporation Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette.

Southern California 113

Southern California Social Media News Entertainment 113

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 19, 2015

Phillipe Browning , SnapChat. Gunnar Lovelace and Nick Green , Thrive Market. The socalTECH 50 is aimed at identifying and highlighting the top 50 people in the technology industry here, who are most likely to create the next big thing, produce the next big exit, or influence the industry in a significant way. Chad Billmeyer , Panjo.

SoCalTech 100

SoCalTech Lootcrate Southern California Snapchat 100