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TrueCar's Scott Painter On Entrepreneurship And IPOs

socalTECH

Very few Southern California startups make it from seed funding all the way up through an IPO, and rarely do they do so with their original founder. One of Southern California''s big success stories -- from startup, to venture funding, and a recent IPO--is Los Angeles-based TrueCar , which had its IPO in May.

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Why Has LA Suddenly Gotten So Much Attention from VCs and Entrepreneurs?

Both Sides of the Table

Let me start with the obvious baseline that most people probably know instinctively: Los Angeles is the 3rd largest technology startup ecosystem in the US. Given how efficient markets are when a large market like LA starts to blossom it attracts capital pretty quickly. LA By The Numbers. But even this is changing.

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Upfront Ventures Raised New $280 Million Fund

Both Sides of the Table

Our 3rd fund began investing in March 2009 (raised in 2008) and our 4th fund started in April 2012 so this fund will naturally begin investing around March / April 2015. Our investment strategy has always been to do predominantly Series Seed & A round deals, which makes up > 85% of our first investments. Who gave you the money?

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How to Kick Start Your Community’s Startup Scene

Both Sides of the Table

I have never been more optimistic about the impact that the tech startup community is having on cities in America or about the role that cities outside of San Francisco / Silicon Valley can play in our future. Changes in the Startup Ecosystem. Open source computing, which reduced costs to start a company by 90%.

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Interview with Mark Suster, GRP Partners

socalTECH

Mark has also been quite active mentoring entrepreneurs, We caught up with Mark to hear about what kinds of investments GRP is looking at nowadays, his view on the software-as-a-service market, and how best to approach him with a pitch. Mark Suster: Let's start at the 50,000 foot level, then I'll segue into that question.