socalTECH

FEBRUARY 10, 2010

A few weeks ago, Rahul Sonnad --a serial entrepreneur who is best known for founding and selling thePlatform to Comcast--alternately confused and dazzled attendees at Twiistup, the Los Angeles tech conference, with a fake-stilted-Indian-immigrant and ukulele-singing-and-dancing studded pitch for his firm, Geodelic (www.geodelic.com).

Clearstone 124

Clearstone Incubator HTML Twiistup 124

Jason Nazar

MARCH 22, 2011

I recently hosted a panel at the Twiistup Conference about LA tech companies. I have some pretty specific thoughts on the differences between companies in the two cities, as I wrote about in my previous post A Tale of Two Tech Cities. Challenge #1 – Tech Companies are Not Typically Started by Technologists.

Company 111

Company Companies Startup Twiistup 111

Steve Reich

MARCH 30, 2012

New companies are being created at stunning speed by today’s founders. As you may have gathered from my blog, I’ve spent the last couple of months visiting with companies and incubators. My key takeaway–companies are being created faster and more cheaply than I would have believed possible. $20k

Incubator 91

Incubator Web Entrepreneur Santa Barbara 91

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 22, 2013

Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur and VC, Karl Mehta has launched Code For India (CFI) to empower the country’s citizens to actively participate in improving their communities. Organizations such as TiE Silicon Valley, TiE Mumbai, TiE New Delhi and The Morpheus Fund and several others are among the first to support CFI.

Clearstone 79

Clearstone Organization Education Google 79

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 4, 2009

But, in running it now for the second half of January, the keyword that popped to the top was: Layoffs And this is definitely a sign of the times.

Layoffs 159

Layoffs Woodland Hills Southern California Orange County 159

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

He didn’t tell it in the video but, ever the entrepreneur, Scott started a business to take couples up on a “mile high club&# flight on airplanes as a way of getting all of his miles logged to get his next class of airplane license that required a certain number of hours logged. He calls it his “Tom Sawyer&# company.

Zag 248

Zag Truecar Venture Capital CarsDirect 248

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 18, 2013

Topics of discussion will be Wearables Technology, Bitcoin, SaaS, Cloud, Mobile, Gaming, Social Markets, what surprises are coming for 2014, creating value with your company, hiring problem solvers, and building a sensible businesses. We will also have some of the top companies present that each of the panelist has invested in.

Startup 111

Startup Entertainment Media Santa Barbara 111

socalTECH

JULY 13, 2009

GRP has just recently closed on a new $200M fund, and Mark has been one of the more active venture capitalists in the Los Angeles area in recent months. billion to Yahoo, we did CitySearch, we invested in the largest travel site in Europe, called LastMinute.com, and also CyberSource--a number of very early stage, Internet companies.

GRP Partners 157

GRP Partners Southern California Santa Barbara Rustic Canyon 157

Jason Nazar

DECEMBER 7, 2008

If the limited partners who fund venture firms either a) change the percent of funds they allocate to VCs or b) don’t come through on their capital calls, we’ll all quickly find the venture community becoming drastically constrained. So what does this mean for internet entrepreneurs?

Venture Capital 44

Venture Capital Rustic Canyon Capital Clearstone 44

The Quigley Report

FEBRUARY 22, 2008

Most of the companies Clearstone invests in have angel money. Perhaps they previously started a company in the same industry or were part of a successful company targeting the same market. Perhaps they previously started a company in the same industry or were part of a successful company targeting the same market.

Angel 40

Angel Venture Capital Clearstone Startup 40

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 5, 2014

Speakers listed: Brock Pierce – Digital currency pioneer investing in Bitcoin, games, and online gambling businesses; Clearstone Global Gaming Fund. Peter Csathy – CEO Manatt Digital Media Ventures, accomplished media and digital media entrepreneur. The company hopes to prepare advertisers for varying screen sizes.

Startup 95

Startup Google Education Venture Capital 95

The Quigley Report

MARCH 2, 2008

I really don't know a lot of VCs who scour market research reports to confirm growth rates in a new industry or peruse 10Ks to confirm the gross margins of a market leading company. They get funded by VCs who have little more than a superficial understanding of the underlying trends in the industry. Let me offer this observation.

Venture Capital 40

Venture Capital Clearstone Startup Education 40

The Quigley Report

MARCH 2, 2008

I know that I am part of the problem here, as I too expect to see a revenue projection from the management team when presenting its business to Clearstone. I may be in the minority in saying this (but I do not think that I am): NONE of the 2 dozen start-ups I have funded over the years has ever hit its first or second year revenue target.

ASP 40

ASP Startup Clearstone Sales 40

The Quigley Report

MARCH 4, 2008

At the formation stage, when a start up is little more than a business plan and a few dedicated engineers, there are a host of other factors that influence valuations more so than PE multiples of public companies. These firms most definitely do look at public stock market valuations as a measure of how to price a private company.

Startup 40

Startup Slides Marketing Clearstone 40