Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

With the advent and growth of crowdfunding over the past few years, many entrepreneurs have predicted the demise of those demanding angel investment groups and venture capital organizations. Way back in 2015, the Kickstarter Pebble smartwatch raised $20.3 Later funding rounds can’t deal with a thousand shareholders.

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Equity Statistics Platform Entrepreneur 164

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 5, 2020

Today, one of the companies that is supplying produce and other items both to consumers and other services that are in turn selling food and groceries to them, is announcing a new round of funding as it gears up to take its next step, an IPO. Source tell us it is now between $400 million and $500 million.

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Technical Review Startup Marketing San Diego 343

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

Even if you work every day in the world of new-venture funding, as I do, the options are confusing, and their meanings seem to change on a regular basis. Crowdfunding is rapidly becoming the major source of funding for seed-stage startups. Business accelerator funding. Startup incubator seed funding.

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Funding Venture Capital Startup Seed Funding 104

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 26, 2015

We recently released the video sharing app Ferris and announced that Upfront Ventures led the funding in the company in our seed round of $2 million and I personally joined the board. So Why Did We Invest? Imagine if your friends could all contribute the Burning Man 2015 album and create a group story. L1I6RUWYJu.

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socalTECH

DECEMBER 26, 2014

After investing in 60 startups, we realized that the biggest pain point was to help them raise the first $1M in financing. Not only did they have to work 24/7 to build their startup, but they also had to invest the same effort in raising capital. What technologies or things are you looking forward to most in 2015?

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Activision Southern California Los Angeles Capital 191

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 21, 2015

Even if you ignore all the hype around crowdfunding, there can be no doubt that it is a real alternative for entrepreneurs to achieve visibility and funding today. In Europe, other investors can buy equity, with platforms such as Seedrs. Other popular funding assistance sites for startups, including StartupAmerica and Startups.co

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Venture Capital Angel Satisfaction Equity 108

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 20, 2016

With the advent and growth of crowdfunding over the past few years, many entrepreneurs have predicted the demise of those demanding angel investment groups and venture capital organizations. In 2015, the new Kickstarter Pebble smartwatch raised $20.3 Later funding rounds can’t deal with a thousand shareholders.

Equity 54

Equity Platform Entrepreneur Demand 54

socalTECH

DECEMBER 26, 2014

After investing in 60 startups, we realized that the biggest pain point was to help them raise the first $1M in financing. Not only did they have to work 24/7 to build their startup, but they also had to invest the same effort in raising capital. What technologies or things are you looking forward to most in 2015?

Activision 100

Activision Southern California Los Angeles Capital 100

socalTECH

APRIL 22, 2016

funding round this week for its mobile gifting app. We've done that, by bringing some really, cool, awesome curated gifts to our platform, and made it really easy to send those to people in essentially two clicks. The other, interesting part of our platform, is it integrates with all of your contacts. How does Giftagram work?

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Mobile Platform Commerce Class 100

socalTECH

JULY 10, 2019

in seed funding, from E&A Venture Capital and SOSV. Spencer Price: The customer experience with e-commerce has become less and less human, as algorithms on digital platform replace human interaction. The challenge of any AI platform, is to understand that. Talk a bit about your funding, and how you got to it?

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Pricing Startup North Hollywood Platform 113

Xconomy

JULY 21, 2016

The funding, provided by Santa Barbara, CA-based Rincon Venture Partners and Venice, CA-based CrossCut Ventures, represents the first institutional investment for Zingle. The company raised $1 million last year, according to a 2015 regulatory filing. Happy #TBT from our fearless Founder & CEO @fordblakely !

Technology 40

Technology Santa Barbara Venture Capital Venice 40

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 15, 2015

Founded by Los Angeles billionaire spinal surgeon Gary Karlin Michelson, Karlin Ventures has seen 3 exits, grown its portfolio to 34 companies, and invests in late seed and early Series A funding at anywhere from $250,000 to $1.5 The first session will be held in early summer 2015 in LA. million per company.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

Considering that many of our funds are in the $200–300 million range, these returns were more meaningful than if we had raised billion dollar funds. Obviously the funding environment has changed considerably in 2022 but as early-stage investors our daily jobs stay largely unchanged. What do you do with a $650 million platform?

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Xconomy

OCTOBER 24, 2016

Intel Capital has invested $38 million in 12 technology startups since July, highlighting its venture investment focus on innovations in self-driving cars and machine vision, the Internet of Things, sports and health, drones, and virtual reality. We’re aligned, but not overlapping, is the way I like to look at it.”.

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InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

Twilio has now raised around $235 million, including a July 2015 round totaling $130 million. In the startup world, the former happens when a VC makes a bad investment, and the latter occurs when they miss a great opportunity. Yet most VC's bury their failures under six feet of denial. Unicornless. billion) and ISS (sold to IBM $1.3

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Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100

socalTECH

OCTOBER 29, 2015

in a funding round. Brew Johnson: At the high level, it's a marketplace, a lending platform for real estate. We said, let's create a technology marketplace and platform that creates benefits for those existing lenders, as well as investors. One, is how to create a more scalable and efficient platform.

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Southern California Google Technical Review Manhattan Beach 100

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 27, 2016

Upon the platform of the new Machine Shop, they have brought both their Creative Team and Management in-house to effectively drive innovation. More recently in 2015, Kiel helped launch Machine Shop Ventures, a venture capital fund that invests in early-to-growth stage companies with a global scope. Joe received his B.S.

Startup 40

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StartUp Beat

NOVEMBER 9, 2017

Mikayelyan returned home in 2015 having had dinner at a Sushi restaurant in Glendale, California – the experience had gifted him his next business idea. Mikayelyan was determined to test the idea properly before investing “a penny” in it. And saving up an investment fund, to boot.

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socalTECH

MARCH 11, 2016

But, what we're building now is a social contact platform. Not only is it a software-a-service to help organizations run their businesses more efficiently and effectively, but it also allows partners, such as third party developers, tap into the platform to give the best of breed software to nonprofit organizations.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2015

Establish visibility and attract funding sources. Investors invest in people as much as the idea. All of this is possible on every entrepreneur’s budget, since the major blogging platforms, including Tumblr, WordPress and Blogger (Google) are free. Marty Zwilling First published on Entrepreneur.com on 7/15/2015.

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Blogging Startup Search Engine Optimization Social Media 110

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 21, 2017

More recently, the desire for extra income has become the key driver in new startups, according to a 2015 study. This usually means not taking money from equity investors, since investors want fast growth, high profits, and an exit event, to allow investments to be recouped. Startup funding comes from personal savings and family.

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Entrepreneur Startup Equity Course 69

Xconomy

SEPTEMBER 26, 2016

Georgian Partners and Bain Capital Ventures, the investment firms that anchored Tealium’s $30.7 million Series D round in early 2015, re-upped in the latest round, which included all existing investors and some debt, Tealium CEO Jeff Lunsford said last week. For us, it’s never been about tags or Javascript. It’s been about data.

Customer 40

Customer Custom San Diego JavaScript 40

socalTECH

MARCH 9, 2017

However, if you think about IT security, all the systems everyone is familiar with, ERP systems, web, and email, and other basic network systems, all those systems that are designed to run companies, my history and background is in securing those platforms. However, industrial security is very different. That's how Veracity was born.

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Networking Startup Incubator Orange County 124

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

Under Bruce’s innovative guidance, the company was an early adopter of the Internet, creating online videos long before platforms such as YouTube became ubiquitous. In 2015, LinkedIn purchased Lynda.com for $1.5 In 2015, LinkedIn purchased Lynda.com for $1.5 billion, making it a bonafide unicorn.

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Sales Education Startup Class 113

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 2, 2017

It was really a meeting of the minds with the fund. We're very excited to be working with them, to help us create a platform for us for future acceleration and growth, and we're working on additional investments down the track. Finally, with the new funding, what's next for you? Anne Fulton: That's a big question.

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Help Southern California Startup Technical Review 100

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. Explosion in Seed Funds. Now seed funding is conventional wisdom. Here is a brief history first to put the changes into context. Rise of Seed. I Leaderless Rounds.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2016

It is an heroic accomplishment in a brutal fund-raising market in which only market leaders can bring in that sort of money. We started planning our fund raising as much as 14 months ago. Invoca had grown steadily and consistently since 2009 and by 2015 SaaS companies with scale had become hot – trading at a median of 7.3x

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Funding Startup SaaS Venture Capital 150

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Some of the big milestones we did, include a seed round of financing in the fall of 2015, which was led by Upfront Ventures. That was an insider round, where ssetnailly, Upfront led and angel Brian Spaly, the former co-founder of Bonobos and the CEO of Trunk Club ended up investing. That money was meant for us to expand.

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Training Customer Custom Software Review 100

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 11, 2022

This experience prompted her to launch her first fertility startup in 2008, Fertility Authority, a content platform and fertility clinic review website for those facing infertility. A few years later, in 2015, the company was renamed Progyny after it was bought by Kleiner Perkins and TPG Biotech.

Help 161

Help Startup Technical Review Education 161

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 19, 2015

I believe the days of the “job work” mentality are thankfully waning, with more people looking to get satisfaction by making the world a better place, rather than just tolerating brain-numbing work to fund enjoyment elsewhere. Funding for early-stage startups is more available than ever.

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Startup Social Media Entrepreneur Satisfaction 108

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 14, 2015

Tuvia Elbaum (@Tuviae) July 14, 2015. Then I checked the NY Times and realized this that the US has passed an historic nuclear deal with Iran and since for me Twitter is a real-time news platform I figured I would Tweet what I was thinking. Mark Suster (@msuster) July 14, 2015. As you can see Tuvia asked me this June 25th.

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Blogging Writing Email Startup 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 18, 2015

The market has yielded what investment guru Michael Moritz recently termed “ subprime Unicorns.” First, corporate investors including Google, Rakuten, Alibaba, Comcast and others have increased their investments in venture and often don’t have the same profit motive (and thus pricing motive) as traditional investors.

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