socalTECH

JANUARY 8, 2013

Are you looking for free mobile data, text, and calling? Two, Internet-enabled communications startups, FreedomPop , and TextPlus said this morning that they are working together to introduce a 100 percent free mobile data, text and calling service, by combining plans and technology from the two companies. READ MORE>>.

GRP Partners 157

GRP Partners Startup Mobile Los Angeles 157

socalTECH

JUNE 27, 2013

Santa Monica-based Gradient X , the programmatic mobile advertising startup backed by GRP Partners, Rincon Venture Partners, Crosscut Ventures, Founder Collective, Double M Capital, Baroda Ventures, Siemer Ventures, Walter Kortschak (Summit Capital), and Mark Suster, said today that it has exited its beta.

GRP Partners 168

GRP Partners OpenX Santa Monica Advertising 168

socalTECH

APRIL 25, 2013

Los Angeles seems to be cementing itself in as the capital of celebrity and e-commerce, with the latest deal being Moonfrye , a new, "celebrity mom" startup featuring Soleil Moon Frye, best known to the rest of us as Punky Brewster. The new startup revealed today that it has raised $2.5M READ MORE>>.

Activity 178

Activity GRP Partners CitySearch Commerce 178

socalTECH

DECEMBER 13, 2012

Marina Del Rey-based textPlus , the provider of free texting and calling services, said Thursday that it has begun offering up inexpensive, international calling services via its Android application. textPlus said Android users in the US and Canada can make calls to any international mobile or landline number starting at two cents a minute.

Marina Del Rey 159

Marina Del Rey GRP Partners Mobile Startup 159

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 30, 2011

Los Angeles-based Burstly , the mobile advertising startup headed by Evan Rifkin, has raised $5.5M The round came from GRP Partners, Rincon Venture Partners, and SoftBank. Burstly first opened up its service in October of last year; the firm raised $1.8M in a Series B round, according to reports.

GRP Partners 150

GRP Partners Advertising Los Angeles Mobile 150

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 ). Let’s start from the highest level that will not be rocket science.

Mobile 282

Mobile Invest Company Companies 282

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. He had joined a young startup in LA called HauteLook and was interested in getting to know the local tech community. So I started introducing him to portfolio companies. You won’t regret it.

Venture Capital 360

Venture Capital GRP Partners Startup Invest 360

socalTECH

JANUARY 30, 2013

Rad and Mateen are both high tech veterans, with Rad having previously founded Twitter advertising startup Ad.ly; Mateen was most recently founder of CoverCanvas. went on to raise venture funds from Greycroft Partners, GRP Partners, and Matt Coffin. READ MORE>>.

GRP Partners 224

GRP Partners High Tech Advertising Mobile 224

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

Over 500 startups applied last quarter to Launchpad LA’s accelerator, but only eight were chosen. Meet the Graduates: · Connectifier, which connects recruiters to potential job candidates, consists of 4 ex-Google employees and local angel investor, Terrence Yang, has dubbed Connectifier one of the best startups of 2012.

GRP Partners 96

GRP Partners Startup Tech Coast Angels Bertelsmann 96

socalTECH

AUGUST 10, 2011

Los Angeles-based GOGII , the text messaging app developer behind textPlus , said Tuesday that it has started offering up free phone numbers for texting in Canada. GOGII is venture backed by Matrix Partners, GRP Partners, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers iFund. READ MORE>>.

Gogii 160

Gogii GRP Partners IP Startup 160

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Continuing my series of posts that I’ve been collecting that live at the intersection of Startups and being a Startup CTO : Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March here are the top posts from May 2010. It is to out friend. Enjoyed this post? Disruptive. We get it! I Be specific.

Startup 248

Startup Venture Capital Conference Social Media 248

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 17, 2010

I was recently interviewed for an article that appeared in Fast Company titled, “ Why you should start a business in LA.&# If you’re interested in the topic it’s worth a read, but I thought I’d elaborate on the topic since it comes up all the time. my firm, GRP Partners, was an investor).

Company 290

Company Companies Technology Startup 290

socalTECH

JUNE 19, 2013

TestFlight recently joined forces with Burstly (www.burstly.com) to create a suite of apps for mobile developers and publishers. We spoke with Ben about how Burstly is now creating a company to help mobile developers create, develop, distribute, and monetize their apps. How did you guys end up combining forces?

Startup 262

Startup Mobile Outsource Development Tool 262

Tech Zulu Event

JULY 16, 2013

Today’s startup innovators come from about six hours south of Silicon Valley. Previously known as GRP Partners, Upfront Ventures has focused on early stage investments since 1996. Fun Fact: One of the most prominent figures from their firm, Mark Suster t, runs a blog startups follow religiously. Silicon Valley?

Startup 111

Startup Snapchat Venice Social Media 111

socalTECH

JANUARY 7, 2013

LaunchpadLA Opens Up Spring Applications. In the latest roundup of fundings (big few weeks for San Diego, apparently): PatientSafe Solutions ($20M, San Diego, mobile health). How to find a startup mentor. Broadcom Powering New Mac Wireless. Surf Air Gets First Aircraft. Solarflare ($22M, San Diego, high speed networking).

Southern California 168

Southern California Technical Review SoCal San Diego 168

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

Los Angeles-based Ad.ly , the Twitter advertising startup, is further looking to diversify its service from Twitter, saying this week that it has added support for Facebook. The move is similar to a move by fellow Twitter ad startup TweetUp, started by Idealab's Bill Gross, which added Facebook status updates at the end of August.

GRP Partners 191

GRP Partners Advertising Idealab Social Network 191

socalTECH

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. We cater to mobile phone developers--right now the iPhone, and coming soon to Android. What is Burstly? What is Burstly?

Startup 164

Startup Platform Advertising GRP Partners 164

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

Another topic we debated early in the program was “lean startup” vs. “ fat startup ” where we both took the obvious hedge and said “it depends.” But truthfully both Dana and I are more aligned with the lean startup principles and believe you only go FAT when you’ve really proved out your product / market fit. OTHER DEALS: 1.

Venture Capital 240

Venture Capital Startup Platform Technical Review 240

socalTECH

JUNE 20, 2012

There is a large menu of startup accelerators in the Los Angeles, but one of more established efforts in the area is LaunchpadLA ([link] The effort actually started as an informal mentoring program, but has grown and expanded to follow the accelerator model. We were founded in 2009 by Mark Suster from GRP Partners.

Class 261

Class Mentor Startup Santa Monica 261

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 29, 2010

GRP Partners is looking to hire two analysts (maybe even three) to join our practice in Los Angeles. At the highest level we’re looking for somebody really intelligent, digitally native, financially numerate and interested in startups. Or if you did something really interesting / innovative in a startup company.

Venture Capital 290

Venture Capital Technical Review GRP Partners Email 290

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 21, 2013

Funds were contributed by returning investor GRP Partners along with Double M Capitol, Karlin Ventures, LaunchPad LA and Daher Capitol, all local investors. As the pioneer of Facebook ordering, ChowNow has created opportunity for all types of restaurants by integrating online ordering into social, mobile and viral spaces.

GRP Partners 73

GRP Partners Email Incubator Platform 73

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

In fact, he’s personally started 34 businesses and run 17 of them. He started a car washing business as a way to be able to drive other people’s fancy cars. So while it started more about finding solutions to get him driving cars more or logging airline miles he also focuses on big, industry-changing ideas.

Zag 248

Zag Truecar Venture Capital CarsDirect 248

socalTECH

DECEMBER 30, 2010

1) Mobile web. Mobile app downloads went from 300mm in 2009 to 5 billion in 2010, Android ad impressions up over 2,000% as two examples. The current incarnation of the mobile web changes what the Internet IS to users, and the manner in which it is incorporated into their lives. (2) There are lots.

Technical Review 160

Technical Review Southern California Cloud Computing Venture Capital 160

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

I’m super excited to announce that GRP Partners led the investment in Ethan Anderson’s new company MyTime (link has LA-based merchants but will give you a good feel for the product). In the same year they won Business Insider’s Startup competition. Let me not bury the lede. The company was called Red Beacon.

CTO Coach 359

CTO Coach Google CTO Hire Yammer 359

InfoChachkie

JULY 14, 2011

But, when it comes to tracking what ad placement or publisher was responsible for getting a consumer to pick up the phone and call, that’s pretty difficult. In my experience a big part of building a winning team is recognizing who the MVPs are from the start. Why aren’t there a half-dozen well-funded startups running up your tailpipe?

Marketing 209

Marketing Advertising Paid Search Startup 209

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

When I started investing the US advertising market was $300 billion with only 10% of it ($30 billion) of it being online and measurable. My firm, GRP Partners, invested in the company that innovated this entire category – Overture (formerly known as GoTo.com). Early evidence is good. Enter RingRevenue.

Advertising 284

Advertising Invest RSS CPC 284

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

But should you actually write one if you’re a startup, an industry figure (lawyer, banker) or VC? People often ask me why I started blogging. It really started simply enough. I know that I have not yet earned these kudos based on investment returns (although my partners have. By definition, you read blogs.

Blogging 373

Blogging Startup Writing Venture Capital 373

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

We will be bringing you some of the hottest startups around to give you a quick rundown about their companies and get to know the entrepreneur behind those companies. For those of you who may not know about StartupDemo, it is an event that TechZulu and Schmoozd have partnered up to bring you some of the hottest startups around.

Social Media 71

Social Media Technical Review Mixergy Tech Coast Angels 71

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 24, 2010

We would like give a huge thank you to Social Media Week and the supportive startup community here in Los Angeles. For those who ever said there is no startup community in Los Angeles I most certainly beg to differ. In attendance we had startups galore with VC's and Angle's mixing and mingling all through the night.

Social Media 60

Social Media Technical Review Tech Coast Angels Venture Capital 60

socalTECH

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.

Tech Coast Angels 100

Tech Coast Angels Ideas Entrepreneur Invest 100

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

I’m inspired by the enthusiasm of the young, emerging startup ecosystem that is here. As I gear up to give a keynote at the annual Seattle 2.0 awards dinner on Thursday night I started reflected on what it would take to “change the trajectory&# for Seattle or for any regional market, really.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

I talked to one startup CEO who told me, “you have young engineers who want to make $200,000 or more to work for me. It’s hard to get people to take a risk at a startup or for a reasonable salary with all this competition. And many of the ones that do want to do startups are plotting their one YCombinator company.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital Southern California Google Startup 313

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2011

Today I’m announcing that GRP Partners is doubling down on the Twitter ecosystem by investing in DataSift , a company who provides a real-time data platform and tools to third-party developers and corporations. But that’s not the deal they made with us when we signed up. The Importance of Twitter.

Platform 307

Platform News Startup Invest 307