socalTECH

JANUARY 2, 2020

While it was a good year for our merger and acquisition practice in the SaaS and fintech space, our most exciting news is in our merchant banking sector where we invest in and advise growth companies often for several years. Are there any technology innovations, gadgets/devices, software, that you found most interesting in 2019?

Capital

socalTECH

JULY 27, 2020

Santa Barbara-based Invoca , which develops call tracking and analytics tools, says it has released a new version of its software. Growth Partners, Accel, and Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners, and last raised a round back in October of 2019. Invoca is backed by Upfront Ventures, H.I.G. READ MORE>>.

Product

Xconomy

JULY 31, 2019

We at Xconomy are excited to announce that we are honoring Mark Levin, co-founder and partner at Third Rock Ventures, with our 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award in Boston. The award recognizes Levin’s extensive contributions to the biotech industry and to the Boston life sciences ecosystem.

Venture Capital

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 22, 2021

According to reports, the move came due to the difficulty of marrying Ford and Rivian's hardware and software together. Ford made a $500M investment in Rivian in 2019. In a small post-IPO setback for Irvine-based Rivian, automaker Ford said Friday that Ford and Rivian have abandoned plans to jointly develop an EV together.

Software Review

socalTECH

JANUARY 15, 2021

Irvine-based Viant Technology, a developer of advertising software, has filed for an IPO, saying in a filing with the SEC that it is looking to raise up to $150M in an IPO on the Nasdaq Global Market as DSP. in net income on $164M in revenues for the year ended December 31, 2019. The company reported $9.9M

Advertising

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 5, 2018

Scott McCorkle has spent most of his professional career thinking about business to business software and how to improve it for a company’s customers. And its software monitors and manages the full spectrum of the customer relationship with that product. What is it that they want to achieve and why did they buy my product.

Chief Technology Officer

TechCrunch LA

JANUARY 29, 2020

Kleiner Perkins , one of the most storied franchises in venture capital, has already invested much of the $600 million it raised last year and is now going back out to the market to raise its 19th fund, according to multiple sources. Speaking onstage at the Upfront Summit, an event at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

IBM

Xconomy

JANUARY 28, 2019

Venture capital firms invest in potentially disruptive technologies with the hope of profit, then keep watch for further advances that could overtake their existing portfolio companies. Palo Alto, CA-based Norwest weathers the uncertainties of technology and the economy with an investing strategy. Read more » Reprints | Share:

Venture Capital

socalTECH

AUGUST 29, 2019

The USC Viterbi Startup Garage , the startup accelerator that is part of the University of Southern California, has scored backing from the Amazon Alexa Fund , the venture investment arm of Amazon that invests in startups using Amazon Alexa. Financial details of the investment by the Amazon Alexa Fund were not announced.

Marina Del Rey

socalTECH

JANUARY 7, 2019

During the holiday season, our tradition over the last few years has been to post reflections on the past year and some predictions for 2019 from Southern California's technology industry. Are there any technology innovations, gadgets, devices, software, that you found most interesting in 2018?

Technical Review

TechCrunch LA

MAY 20, 2021

So in 2019 she founded Eano , a San Francisco-based startup that aims to walk a homeowner through a renovation and help connect individual contractors with new clients. We’re also helping these individual contractors increase the brand, and helping them with the administration and customer support side with our software.”.

Technical Review

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 5, 2020

The funding is coming from funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Reimagined Ventures, Trinity Capital Investment, Celtic House Venture Partners, Marubeni Ventures, Sixty Degree Capital, Mojo Partners alongside with previous investors GGV Capital, WI Harper Group, Digital Garage, CentreGold Capital , Scrum Ventures, and other unnamed participants.

Technical Review

socalTECH

JUNE 15, 2021

Camino Financial's biggest backer is Mexican financial services company Credito Real, which led an investment in the company in 2019. Guschchyan previously was Director of Marketing and Analytics at Go. Herrera previously was a Senior Manager of Community Development Lending at Charles Schwab Bank.

Artificial Inteligence

socalTECH

DECEMBER 30, 2016

Here, we have the thoughts of Jeb Spencer of TVC Capital (www.tvccapital.com), a software focused growth equity fund, and has had some great success in the market. Jeb Spencer: We closed our nineteenth and twentieth software focused growth equity investments this year, a significant milestone for our firm. READ MORE>>.

Capital

socalTECH

JANUARY 2, 2019

As we close out our contributions for the end of 2018, we have a contribution from investor and investment banker Peter Cowen of Sutton Capital Partners. More in-person contact is one of my 2019 goals. One company that we have mentored, invested in and serve on the board of, is in lending and has hit a very exciting tipping point.

Capital

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 1, 2019

If anything, the presence of a growth capital investment firm like Bond, which has not invested in companies operating in what some investors have considered to be frontier markets or technologies, speaks to the strength of the space industry as a whole. Relativity is building a 3D-printing rocket manufacturing hub in Mississippi.

Chief Technology Officer

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 19, 2020

A major chunk of this activity is provided by the newer class of “super angels,” who often look more like micro-VCs, except that they are investing their own money. Institutional venture capital dispensed in 2019 was down a bit from record highs the previous year, but up significantly over the last few years.

Funding

socalTECH

DECEMBER 31, 2018

Are there any technology innovations, gadgets, devices, software, that you found most interesting in 2018? While the tech industry has historically remained comparatively removed from the process, 2019 will be a much different year leading into the 2020 elections. It is truly an amazing company with HUGE potential. READ MORE>>.

Venture Capital

socalTECH

JANUARY 3, 2019

Technology investing is the best job in the world, but it can be fraught with failure. Once you make enough technology investments, as we have over the last decade, failure at multiple levels will increase and sometimes it feels as if these failures are often sudden, surprising and multiplicative. Two big lessons in 2018.

Capital

socalTECH

DECEMBER 26, 2018

On the one hand they can provide meaningful validation, and investment can support a deeper business relationship that significantly helps the startup. We had great news in 2018 from the companies weve invested in and supportive over the years. Happy Holidays! What was the biggest lesson you learned this year? READ MORE>>.

Southern California

socalTECH

DECEMBER 27, 2018

For the second year in a row 8 of the 10 companies selected for Techstars LA were local and we anticipate that trend continuing in 2019. Are there any technology innovations, gadgets, devices, software, that you found most interesting in 2018? And I'm hoping to do fewer meetings and spend more time reading and thinking.

Startup

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

He came to work in our offices at Upfront Ventures as an EIR and immediately began building software to improve how storage was picked up, photographed, scanned and routed to a warehouse. Understanding how your company will change as you move through these phases is critical if you hope to scale to a large business one day.

Startup

socalTECH

JANUARY 11, 2017

Semiconductor advances are infamous for costing millions of dollars and requiring very significant investment in infrastructure. How did a startup like yours go from that research to a product without millions and millions invested in semiconductor infrastructure? Thanks, and good luck! READ MORE>>.

Startup

socalTECH

DECEMBER 27, 2018

Are there any technology innovations, gadgets, devices, software, that you found most interesting in 2018? 2019 will be the year we start seeing a lot of pricing models that entail companies charging their healthcare customer a percentage of what they save them. We have 14 companies in our portfolio now.

Pasadena

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 14, 2019

The challenge a lot of those businesses have, is likely have built their sites and are using a lot of different software-as-a-service platforms. Fast forward to 2019, and Shopify now has over a million stores in the world, man of them direct-to-consumer stores. How supportive is that environment to third party software and partners?

Startup

Tech.Co

FEBRUARY 8, 2019

The company has stated that it plans to spend a total of $500 million on podcasting investments, meaning it still has a few hundred million to burn. Whether Spotify doubles down on its walled garden of audio or opts to invest in podcast ads, they’ll snag a big piece of a growing industry. Finally, podcasting is a growing market.

Acquisition

Tech.Co

DECEMBER 28, 2022

The company, which was founded in 2021 by researchers from Harvard and Stanford, has invested in clinical-grade deep learning to unlock the potential of image data, helping oncologists make much more informed decisions about their patients. Screenshots from Wander's mobile app. Source: wander.com. Tapping into the US 16.9

Startup

socalTECH

DECEMBER 26, 2018

Are there any technology innovations, gadgets, devices, software, that you found most interesting in 2018? Andy is a leader in the Southern Californian innovation ecosystem and has started, led or invested in more than two dozen tech start-ups.

Southern California

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2019

With my IBM software product background, I could talk at length about competing with other players with big brands, but your problem may be a wealth of small competitors with no brand. With a small time investment on your part to help others, you may be the biggest beneficiary. Practice by asking for help from your own team.

Help

Tech.Co

JANUARY 6, 2020

2019 was the year podcasting turned into a major industry. This is just a look at the technical side of podcasting: The software, hardware, and infrastructure knowledge you'll need to get a podcast up and running. A reasonably high-quality microphone is likely the biggest investment you'll need to make. How to record a podcast.

RSS

socalTECH

DECEMBER 31, 2018

Are there any technology innovations, gadgets, devices, software, that you found most interesting in 2018? I had expected a correction much earlier in the year and I was wrong. We do, as of the writing of this in early December, seem to be seeing a correction at this time. The massive explosion of the Smart Speaker.

Southern California

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2019

Even though investors, like myself, have long made it clear that we invest in people, not ideas, new venture owners insist on talking about their latest “ million dollar idea ,” rather than their “ million dollar team.” Marty Zwilling First published on Inc.com on 09/27/2019. Use and reward curiosity as a basis for relationships.

IBM

Tech.Co

JUNE 28, 2021

Tech start-ups are usually spearheading a new narrative in their respective industries,” says Tobias Dawes, CEO of The Software Institute. ” Sharper Startup Focuses Warrant Investment. It, apparently, is the only provider in the world of Salesforce-native request for proposal, or RFP, response, and automation software.

Startup

Xconomy

NOVEMBER 7, 2016

Early this year, IDC predicted that worldwide spending on public cloud services will be $141 billion in 2019, while last year Amazon Web Services achieved net sales of $7.88 The Continued Growth of Cloud. Companies want to be convinced that the cloud can improve their performance, optimize value, and protect their data.

Artificial Inteligence

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 2, 2019

Evelozcity rebranded as Canoo in spring 2019 and unveiled its prototype electric vehicle several months later. Samsung appears to be yet another company stepping back from a pursuit of full autonomy and refocusing efforts and investments towards advanced driver assistance technology. At least for now.

Newsletter

Southern California Edison Blog

JULY 29, 2020

eliminate extraneous expenses and reduce investment risks. million, according to a Ponemon Institute and IBM Security 2019 Cost of a Data Breach report 1. Enterprises investing in private networks and security tools can minimize the risk of a costly malicious attack. Enterprises looking to improve their network.

Networking

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

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. Today, we help enable returns in-person, but we also provide software for retailers that want to outsource their return portal. That money was meant for us to expand.

Training