SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc. 500 Hats , February 1, 2010 When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Google Friend Connect for Authentication? 500 Hats , February 1, 2010 When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Google Friend Connect for Authentication?

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Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

At our mid-year offsite our partnership at Upfront Ventures was discussing what the future of venture capital and the startup ecosystem looked like. First in late-stage tech companies and then it will filter back to Growth and then A and ultimately Seed Rounds. What is a VC To Do? And reset they must.

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Venture Capital Marketing Technical Review Seed Funding 416

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Over the past month a colleague ( Chang Xu ) and I sifted through data on the venture capital industry (as we do every year) and made a bunch of calls to VCs and LPs to confirm our hypotheses. As a result of the IPO window shifting we saw a massive inflow of public-market capital into the latest stages of venture.

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Venture Capital Invest Seed Funding Startup 328

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Understanding Venture Capital. I recently wrote a blog post on understanding how the size and age of a venture capital fund might affect you when you’re raising money. I believe these VC funds have suffered some amount of reputation fall out.

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Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Invest 265

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 7, 2014

No VC will be so naive as not to see straight through it. ” Here’s how all the drama started for me. When I first became a VC, seed rounds were typically $500k – $1.5 A rounds back then seemed to be anywhere from $2-3 million (LA or NYC) or up to $5 million in Silicon Valley. $5 Nobody cares.

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Seed Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 399

socalTECH

APRIL 27, 2012

Six companies started by students at the University of Southern California's Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at USC Marshall have been awarded a total of $50,000 in seed funding, after competing in the center's New Venture Seed Competition held this week. providing online tutoring. READ MORE>>.

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Seed Funding USC Competition Funding 244

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

Los Angeles-based peer-to-peer commercial real estate investment site AssetAvenue said Friday that it has raised $3M in a seed funding round. According to the company, the funding was led by Matrix Partners and NetEase, with other investors, including Vectr Ventures, Russ Meyer (Grandpoint Capital); Bam Ventures; and LaunchpadLA.

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Seed Funding Funding Venture Capital Platform 178

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

This was the first episode where Jason wasn’t on the show, which gave me the chance to have another VC on the show to discuss deals. Rustic Canyon is an LA-based, but geography-agnostic VC that is currently investing from a $200 million fund. VC Financings: 1. I keep meaning to get him drunk to spill the stories.

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Venture Capital Capital Rustic Canyon Mobile 270

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

Often when startups who have raised venture capital need another round of financing they will turn to their existing investors to give them money before raising from outsiders. It starts as a debt instrument (e.g. VC’s money comes from mostly institutional investors called LPs (limited partners).

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Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

socalTECH

JULY 31, 2014

San Diego-based Portfolium , a startup developing an online platform to share a students'' academic portfolio, has raised $900,000 in a seed funding, according to startup incubator EvoNexus. The funding came from the Tech Coast Angels, Taner Halicioglu of Keshif Ventures, and others. READ MORE>>.

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Seed Funding Tech Coast Angels Funding Incubator 157

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

I was reading Danielle Morrill’s blog post today on whether one’s “ Startup Burn Rate is Normal. I love how transparently Danielle lives her startup (& encourages other to join in) because it provides much needed transparency to other startups. Let’s set up a framework. Gross Burn vs. Net Burn.

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Startup Company Companies .Net 383

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 3, 2013

Glendora-based eGood , a startup developing a social giving platform, said today that it has raised $3M in a seed funding round. The funding came from Wolfgang Buehler, and angel investor. According to eGood, it is using the funding to develop its mobile and in-store check-in platform. READ MORE>>.

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Seed Funding Glendora Funding Venture Capital 170

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

Photo by Scott Clark for Upfront Ventures (no, Evan is not standing on a box) Last year marked the 25th anniversary for Upfront Ventures and what a year it was. 2021 saw phenomenal returns for our industry and it topped off more than a decade of unprecedented VC growth.

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Startup Venture Capital Writing Invest 408

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

how on Earth could the venture capital market stand still? One of the most common questions I’m asked by people intrigued by but also scared by venture capital and technology markets is some variant of, “Aren’t technology markets way overvalued? The most connected and high-potential founders start with wads of cash.

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Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2016

The funding environment for tech startups is an ever shifting ground as we go through predictable shifts that go hand-in-hand with the slowing of the overall market. In other words, it isn’t that VCs suddenly got smart, it’s that the costs of starting a company went down dramatically. Boom in Number of Startups.

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Venture Capital Capital Funding Seed Funding 150

socalTECH

APRIL 4, 2019

Los Angeles-based eTailPet , a new startup which helps pet store owners create online e-commerce sites, has received a round of seed funding, the company said this week. Size of the funding was not announced. The funding was led by Moonshots Capital. The funding was led by Moonshots Capital.

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Seed Funding Funding Template Southern California 154

socalTECH

MARCH 25, 2021

Los Angeles- and Palo Alto-based MaC Venture Capital has launched a new, $103M seed stage investment fund today, saying it plans to invest in technology startups across the fintech, e-commerce and marketplaces, interactive media, connectivity, enterprise SaaS, space and aerospace, logistics, and other sectors.

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Venture Capital Seed Funding Capital Funding 124

socalTECH

APRIL 8, 2014

There seems to a perpetual shortage of local venture capital investors in the region, despite the huge growth in startup activity here, particularly along Silicon Beach. Among those funds is TYLT Lab (www.tyltlab.com), which recently announced a new, $20M early stage investment fund specifically focused on companies here.

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Seed Funding Santa Monica Funding Startup 220

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. LPs Still Believe Strongly in Venture Capital as a Diverse Source of Returns.

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Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2014

We all know that funding markets have changed for startups. The trends are well understood: more angels, more seed funds, more crowdsourcing and so forth. Does he blog about venture capital and try to advise entrepreneurs? Has written a book on venture capital. There is a reason for this.

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Venture Capital Seed Funding Email Blogging 352

TechCrunch LA

MAY 25, 2019

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a newsletter published every Saturday that dives into the week’s most noteworthy venture deals, fundraises, M&A transactions and trends. Let’s take a quick moment to catch up. Haus, like any good consumer startup in 2019, is shipped directly to your door.

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Startup Venture Capital Newsletter Tips 223

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. I have seen bad behavior from later-stage VCs, believe me. would you want to give up the right to invest in subsequent rounds? ” Some do, some don’t.

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Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 24, 2012

I wrote a blog post on how to work with lawyers at a startup nearly two-and-a-half years ago. If you don’t have much experience in working with law firms at a startup it’s a good primer. In that post I talked about how to select a law-firm for a startup. Startup-focused. It was very widely read.

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Venture Capital Startup Los Angeles GRP Partners 299

socalTECH

OCTOBER 13, 2017

Santa Monica-based VY Esports , a new startup focused on connecting esports, brands, and media companies, said on Thursday that it has raised a seed funding round. Size of the funding was not announced. Blair Ford of Raine Ventures joins the company's board as part of the funding.

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Seed Funding Funding Santa Monica Venture Capital 113

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

I became a VC 12 years ago in 2007 when the pace of deals was much slower. I had just left Salesforce.com where I was VP, Products, after they had acquired my second startup. It proved to be fortuitous because it allowed me the time & space I needed to get to know tons of founders and VCs and to hone my craft.

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Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

socalTECH

MARCH 20, 2020

Venice, California-based Robin Games , a startup that is developing mobile games aimed at women, has raised $7M in a seed funding round, the company said on Thursday. The startup, led by Jill Wilson, says it is developing "lifestyle gaming" titles, which run on such platforms as Apple's iOS and Google Android.

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Seed Funding Funding Venice Venture Capital 140

socalTECH

JULY 16, 2020

Los Angeles-based PocketList , a new startup which is starting up a rental marketplace driven by feedback from current and past tenants, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $2.8M in a seed funding round, and officially launched. Nick Dze is the co-founder and CEO of PocketList.

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Seed Funding Funding San Diego Startup 113

socalTECH

APRIL 19, 2017

Venice, California-based startup accelerator Amplify.LA reports that seed funding in Q1 of 2017 dropped precipitously, falling 42.2 According to AmplifyLA , the number of seed deals dropped to 27 in the quarter, down from 32 from Q4, and--making a grim quarter even worse--the average seed size declined to only $1.9M

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Seed Funding Funding Venice Venture Capital 124

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

The frantic pace of technology cycles, the amount of tech news, the blogs, the conferences, the demo days, the announcements, the fundings, the IPOs. It got me thinking about the advice that I often give to new VCs. Building Startups for Basecamp. In my view it’s by freeing yourself up from email for a bit.

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Startup Technical Review Venture Capital Email 317

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2010

I never implied that startups are all great and job hoppers are all at fault. Most of what I learned about operating startups I learned from the really tough years at my first company from 2001-2003. That is when no customers wanted to work with Internet startups because we as an industry had burned so many customers.

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Startup Venture Capital Sales Software Review 285

socalTECH

OCTOBER 15, 2014

The Disney Accelerator , the startup accelerator sponsored by Walt Disney and being run by TechStars, had its demo day Tuesday, showing off the nine companies to emerge out of the accelerator. in its seed funding round. disney startup accelerator walt angeles entertainment consumer funding venture capital techstars'

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Class Startup Seed Funding Entertainment 185

L.A. Business Journal

APRIL 20, 2017

While venture capital investment in L.A. startups rose slightly in the first quarter of 2017, seed-stage investments went in the other direction.

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Seed Funding Venture Capital Funding Invest 150

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 29, 2018

Sound Ventures , the Los Angeles-based venture capital investment firm of Ashton Kutcher, is one of the lead investors in a funding round for LearnLux , a startup which develops software that helps employees of companies with financial wellness.

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Seed Funding Venture Capital Funding Guide 124

TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 30, 2022

MEDU , a Mexico-based startup, wants to reduce that waste and replace single-wear medical garments through the creation of a line of sustainable, virus-resistant reusable pieces, including surgical gowns, head coverings and full-body suits. The funding gives the company fuel to grow as it expands into the U.S. Image Credits: MEDU.

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Develop Development Venture Capital Startup 257

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 12, 2010

In the technology world there are a few websites that most startups track to keep up with the latest financings, acquisitions, product announcements and gossip: BusinessInsider, TechCrunch, Mashable, GigaOm, etc. In the VC & Private Equity world there’s a small number, too, with one of the most respected being PEHub.

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Venture Capital Slides Seed Funding Google 232

socalTECH

JANUARY 2, 2014

Santa Monica-based venture capital investor Siemer Ventures is one of the backers of a new, Japanese mobile video entertainment startup, Breaker. According to Breaker, it has raised $2M in a seed funding round, to help bolster its efforts to produce and distribute mobile video entertainment in Japan.

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Mobile Santa Monica Incubator Seed Funding 224

socalTECH

JULY 17, 2017

Los Angeles-based startup AdQuick has raised $1.1M in a seed funding round, the company said over the weekend. The funding came from Initialized Capital, and also included VTF Capital and Haystack Ventures. AdQuick is led by Matthew O'Conoor. READ MORE>>.

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Seed Funding Funding Advertising Los Angeles 113