TechCrunch LA

JANUARY 26, 2020

The Los Angeles startup community is joining the rest of the world in mourning the death of NBA superstar, entrepreneur and investor Kobe Bryant who was killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, Calif., shortly before 10 a.m. Last year, the investment firm expanded with a $1.7

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Venture Capital Los Angeles Legalzoom Calabasas 359

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 3, 2015

Santa Monica-based Super League Gaming , the newly funded startup which aims to bring videogames into movie theaters, says it is launching its first Super League National Championship, starting with a premier in Los Angeles on September 16th.

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Los Angeles Angel Santa Monica Startup 100

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2014

We’ve been dying to tell you all for a while that we had raised a new venture capital fund and of course given SEC filing requirements the story was somewhat already scooped by the always-in-the-know Dan Primack a few weeks ago. Wait, didn’t you just raise a fund? Was it hard to raise the fund?

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Venture Capital Funding Technical Review Startup 396

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 3, 2021

Grocery delivery startup Good Eggs is announcing that it has raised $100 million in new funding, and that it’s planning to launch in Southern California in either the summer or fall of this year. In addition to the funding, Good Eggs is also announcing that it has hired Vineet Mehra as its chief growth and customer experience officer.

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Southern California Orange County San Diego Commerce 318

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 1, 2010

Los Angeles-based Equipois , which develops ergonomic arm technology, was the winner of a fast pitch competition hosted by the Monte Jade Science & Technology Association last week at Caltech. in the first tranche of a Series B-1 funding round, led by Penny Black. Equipois recently raised $1.3M READ MORE>>.

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Competition CalTech Hollywood Venture Capital 133

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 11, 2021

Los Angeles-based XPRIZE, which runs competition to spur technology development to help solve world challenges, and the Musk Foundation--the charity organization funded by Elon Musk--says it has awarded $5M across 23 different student teams, to help them compete in the larger $100M XPRIZE for Carbon Removal.

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Competition Los Angeles Organization Funding 113

socalTECH

JUNE 8, 2018

Los Angeles-based on-demand scooter rental service Bird will have to compete against both Uber and Lyft in its fight for the San Francisco market. According to The Verge, both companies have applied for electric scooters in San Francisco, and are hoping to operate electric scooters there. READ MORE>>.

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Competition Demand Equity Los Angeles 100

TechCrunch LA

JUNE 10, 2021

Just over three months after its last funding round, European fintech giant Klarna is announcing today that it has raised another $639 million at a staggering post-money valuation of $45.6 in markets such as New York and Los Angeles. True competition is coming to this space, this decade,” he said. Making sense of Klarna.

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Los Angeles Funding CIO Marketing 266

socalTECH

JUNE 6, 2012

Crowdfunder , an online site offering up a platform to help startups raise money for their firms via crowd funding, is dangling $25,000 in a contest open to Los Angeles companies.

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Competition Startup Sites Platform 200

TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 19, 2019

“For us, the broader mission is A+ personal care for guys everywhere — not just guys in New York or guys in the Bay Area or guys in Los Angeles,” he said. The startup has raised $1 million in seed funding from RXBAR founders Peter Rahal and Jared Smith, CXT Investments, and Lean Luxe founder M. Paul Munford.

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Startup Seed Funding Los Angeles Competition 217

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 7, 2019

Los Angeles-based ECMC Foundation , a foundation that provides funding to both nonprofit and for-profit ventures focused on college success and career readiness, has helped backed two female entrepreneurs, along with investment firm Chloe Capital. Live, where women entrepreneurs pitched live for up to $250,000 in funding.

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Entrepreneur Los Angeles Invest Competition 113

socalTECH

MARCH 5, 2019

The Cleantech Open , the Los Angeles-based effort which is helping clean technology startups with acceleration, support resources, and more--run by the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI)--is one of a number of organizations which have received part of a $1 million grant total from the Wells Fargo Foundation.

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Incubator Los Angeles Organization Resource 133

socalTECH

JUNE 12, 2018

Los Angeles-based on-demand scooter rental service Bird is report raising yet more funding, at a $2 billion valuation, according to a report on Tuesday. Bird is in a massive battle with a large list of players launch or looking to enter the on-demand, "last mile" scooter rental service, including Lime, Uber, and Lyft.

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Report Funding Demand Los Angeles 100

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2017

Upfront Ventures was created 20 years ago as one of the original VC funds in Los Angeles. https://medium.com/media/3c33723f326245292958d4b055dfb424/href Today we learned that another great fund was announced — Fika Ventures. See in the end, in LA VC firms are far more collaborative than competitive. We love LA!

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Dollar Shave Club Cornerstone OnDemand Riot Games Venture Capital 321

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 10, 2014

Los Angeles-based dog sitting marketplace DogVacay has raised $25M more in a Series B1 funding, the company disclosed this morning, as the competition heats up for the "top dog" in the market. The funding comes as competitor Rover.com also has been ramping up its funding and marketing efforts. READ MORE>>.

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Competition Venture Capital Startup Capital 166

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 19, 2019

With the step into groceries, Impossible Foods moves into direct competition with its bigger, publicly traded rival Beyond Meat, which is already selling its patties and sausages in major stores nationwide. Its next stop is going to be another store chain on the East Coast later this month, the company said.

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Southern California SoCal Los Angeles Sample 195

TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 29, 2019

When ProGuides pulled the covers off of its service earlier this year, the young Los Angeles-based startup intended to give gamers a way to train with professional and semi-pro esports players from around the world. million in pre-seed funding last June. “Our tagline is ‘Play with pros’ now,” says Wang.

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Coach Seed Funding Training Platform 180

socalTECH

JANUARY 27, 2016

FACEIT , a online, competitive gaming site founded in London in 2012, says that it has set up shop in Los Angeles, and raised $15M in a Series A funding round. The funding round came from Anthos Capital, Index Ventures, and United Ventures. The company's founder and CEO is Niccolo Maisto. READ MORE>>.

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Competition Los Angeles Sites Funding 100

socalTECH

OCTOBER 21, 2010

According to Los Angeles-based MK Capital, it made the investment in Poptent, led by partner Yair Landau. As part of the funding, MK Capital said Poptent has hired Andy Jedynak as CEO. The funding had been originally been uncovered yesterday by socalTECH. The firm had previously been known as XLNTads. READ MORE>>.

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Funding SoCalTech Advertising Hollywood 150

socalTECH

AUGUST 8, 2019

Los Angeles-based SUN thinks there is, and said on Wednesday that it is getting set to launch a new, shared scooter model in California. The company says that so far, it is offering up its scooter service in Los Angeles and San Diego. Is there room on your curb for (yet another) on-demand scooter company?

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Demand Marketing San Diego Los Angeles 124

TechCrunch LA

MAY 29, 2019

Los Angeles-based PlayVS (pronounced “play versus”) wants to become the dominant platform for amateur esports, starting at the high school level. What esports means is playing video games competitively bound to governance and a competitive ruleset. Eric P: What then drove you to found PlayVS?

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Startup Coach Competition Los Angeles 204

socalTECH

OCTOBER 23, 2012

One of the biggest complaints that local entrepreneurs have with Los Angeles has been a dearth of local sources of venture capital. However, the recent surge in startup activity has attracted a lot more capital into the area, including a significant amount of capital from LA's latest fund: Karlin Ventures (www.karlinvc.com).

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Funding Startup Invest Commerce 253

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 20, 2019

The feature illustrates how Postmates, one of the earlier entrants to the billion-dollar food delivery wars , is trying to remain competitive by appealing to price-sensitive customers. Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Phoenix, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Orange County, Calif. cities in which it currently operates.

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Orange County Long Beach San Diego Los Angeles 200

TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 9, 2022

The funding, a Series C, will be used to continue expanding Boulevard’s product and engineering teams and to build out more tools targeting an ever-wider set of users in the bigger wellness and beauty sector (those product additions are typically big — it most recently added a whole new payments feature). Focusing on the U.S.

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Help Startup UCLA Tool 195

socalTECH

MAY 29, 2013

A local, clean energy business plan competition started by the California Insitute of Technology (Caltech), the University of Southern California (USC), and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has awarded $160,000 in prizes in its latest competition. READ MORE>>.

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Draper CalTech Southern California Education 191

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 8, 2020

Today, a startup that is doing this in the specific area of distressed property is announcing a round of growth funding to ramp up its team and expand its business. The funding is being led by QED Investors; Founders Fund, Susa Ventures, Navitas Capital, and Prudence Holdings also participated.

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Sales Demand San Diego Funding 282

socalTECH

MARCH 27, 2019

Los Angeles-based startup Trellis Research , which is developing decision making tools and maintains a database of California court records, said on Wednesday that it has raised $2M in a seed funding round. Source of the funding was not disclosed.

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Tool Seed Funding Class Research 100

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

Manatt Venture Funds, which we dedicate a specific portion of our funds to targeted digital media investments, is also part of the Manatt Digital Media network. You are going to have competition in the angel round and seed stage for the next couple of years. Does Manatt Digital Media operate nationally or globally?

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Los Angeles Media Invest Startup 84

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 14, 2015

Good news, Fixed , the San Francisco app that helps drivers fight tickets has just launched in Los Angeles after raising an additional $650,000 in seed funding last February. Fixed is not without competition, LA-based Cited launched last year and charges 20% of the cost of the ticket. Yeah, purposefully vague.

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Los Angeles Angel Software Review Seed Funding 40

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

million, our Seed Funds mostly between $200–300 million and have delivered median ownerships of ~20% from the first check we write into a startup. We could talk with customers, meet the entire management team, review financial plans, review customer purchasing cohorts, evaluate the competition, etc. By 2021 we had to write a $3.5m

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Venture Capital Marketing Technical Review Seed Funding 416

socalTECH

JULY 26, 2016

Los Angeles-based Kite & Lightning , a new virtual reality studio, has raised $2.5M in a seed funding round, the company announced this morning. According to Kit & Lightning, the funding goes to expand its title Bebylon Battle Royale, a virtual reality title which focuses on "competitive spectator gaming".

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Seed Funding Venture Capital Competition Los Angeles 100

TechCrunch LA

MAY 20, 2021

Eano, she said, offers competitive and transparent pricing so that homeowners aren’t surprised as a remodeling project goes on. For now, Eano is operating in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, with plans to expand to Seattle and Houston this year. And in the first quarter of this year, business was up 70% year over year.

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Technical Review Startup Venture Capital Software Review 185

socalTECH

JANUARY 24, 2019

A new, Los Angeles-based startup, Wheels --founded by the founders of dog walking marketplace Wag--has jumped into the crowded "last mile" transportation fray, saying it has raised $37M and launched its services in San Diego. READ MORE>>.

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San Diego Southern California Entertainment Competition 113

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. Kleiner Perkins gets back to early-stage with its $600M 18th fund. We went out to market to LPs.

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IBM IBM Venture Capital Invest 164

socalTECH

JUNE 6, 2013

A new, Los Angeles-based startup, iCrumz , said today that it has launched a new, free social bookmarking tool aimed at helping users find their way back to websites and share content with others. The firm said it is in the midst of raising $1M in funding for the venture. READ MORE>>.

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Tool Sites Competition Los Angeles 230

socalTECH

JUNE 28, 2017

Los Angeles-based prize competition company XPRIZE is trying its hand out as a publisher of literature, saying today that it has launched a new online science fiction anthology site, Seat 14C , which takes a look at what the year 2037 could look like. The effort is being funded by Japanese airline ANA. READ MORE>>.

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Competition Los Angeles Sites Funding 113

socalTECH

APRIL 25, 2013

Los Angeles-based SBIR Source , which maintains an online database of grant opportunities from the Federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, said this morning that it has launched a new product, GrantIQ. sbir source grantiq database small business innovation research grant funding' READ MORE>>.

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Research Tool Writing Competition 166