socalTECH

JUNE 17, 2020

San Diego-based startup Trust & Will , which offers up online estate planning, says it has hit 100,000 members to its service. The company was founded in 2017, but only raised its Series A in December of 2019, when it raised $6M in funding. READ MORE>>.

Tech Coast Angels 113

Tech Coast Angels San Diego Seed Funding Competition 113

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 3, 2023

One of the reasons that now is the time to be an entrepreneur is the explosion of startup assistance organizations, usually called incubators or accelerators. Most of these are non-profits, set up by a university to commercialize new technologies, or a municipality to foster business development for the local economy.

Organization 92

Organization Incubator Startup Resource 92

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2010

Last week, the University of Southern California 's Viterbi School of Engineering announced that it had established a new, business plan competition, the Maseeh Entrepreneurship Prize Competition ([link] specifically aimed at students in the engineering school. Why a business plan competition, and why in engineering school?

Competition 154

Competition Southern California Mentor USC 154

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

At our mid-year offsite our partnership at Upfront Ventures was discussing what the future of venture capital and the startup ecosystem looked like. First in late-stage tech companies and then it will filter back to Growth and then A and ultimately Seed Rounds. Please follow him & welcome him to Upfront!! <==

Venture Capital 416

Venture Capital Marketing Technical Review Seed Funding 416

socalTECH

DECEMBER 17, 2019

San Diego-based Trust & Will , a startup which offers up online services to help people create trusts, wills, and guardianships, has raised $6M in a new funding round, the company said on Tuesday. The startup had announced $2M in an earlier funding in January of 2019. READ MORE>>.

Tech Coast Angels 100

Tech Coast Angels San Diego Seed Funding Competition 100

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2021

A while back I received a discouraging note from an entrepreneur with a patent and a medical software application who couldn’t find a dime of investment, and was grousing that seed funding just wasn’t available anymore. Fundraising is indeed brutally tough at all stages, and seed funding is the hardest to find.

Software Review 123

Software Review Seed Funding Funding Startup 123

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.

Tool 100

Tool Seed Funding Class Research 100

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

[side note: our last fund at GRP Partners is currently ranked as the 5th best performing fund of the year 2000. Our current fund was raised in 2008/09.] Many funds have not performed and will start to disappear. PEHub followed up their analysis with this. Think about the math.

Venture Capital 311

Venture Capital Startup Seed Funding Rustic Canyon 311

socalTECH

OCTOBER 10, 2013

In what is a fairly unusual move, last week, Tradesparq (www.tradesparq.com), a Chinese startup in the area of B2B trade information, said it was planning on setting up its operations here in Southern California, as part of an expansion and scaling of the company. Michael Kleist: We started in 2010. What is Tradesparq?

Southern California 170

Southern California Startup SoCal CTO Hire 170

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2016

One of the reasons that now is the time to be an entrepreneur is the explosion of startup assistance organizations, usually called incubators or accelerators. Most of these are non-profits, set up by a university to commercialize new technologies, or a municipality to foster business development for the local economy.

Incubator 106

Incubator Startup Help Resource 106

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

I was reading Danielle Morrill’s blog post today on whether one’s “ Startup Burn Rate is Normal. I love how transparently Danielle lives her startup (& encourages other to join in) because it provides much needed transparency to other startups. Let’s set up a framework. Gross Burn vs. Net Burn.

Startup 383

Startup Company Companies .Net 383

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

Revolution, the parent company of Revolution Ventures , the Rise of the Rest Seed Fund and Revolution Growth , has evangelized its approach to backing companies in emerging markets, helping promote entrepreneurialism in geographies often overlooked by Silicon Valley’s Patagonia vest-wearing venture capitalists.

Venture Capital 211

Venture Capital Funding Seed Funding Activity 211

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2017

Not just Tinder, Dollar Shave Club, Riot Games, CornerStone OnDemand and the companies you’ve heard of but there are large successes that are less well known but now very large startups businesses like Ring, Zip Recruiter, GumGum, Laurel & Wolf and too many other great companies to mention. We love LA!

Dollar Shave Club 321

Dollar Shave Club Cornerstone OnDemand Riot Games Venture Capital 321

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

Often when startups who have raised venture capital need another round of financing they will turn to their existing investors to give them money before raising from outsiders. It starts as a debt instrument (e.g. They likely are extending payments to debtors way beyond that expected payment terms and start damaging supplier relations.

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 17, 2013

A while back I received a discouraging note from an entrepreneur with a patent and a medical software application who couldn’t find a dime of investment, and was grousing that seed funding just wasn’t available anymore. Fundraising is indeed brutally tough at all stages, and the seed funding is the hardest to find.

Software Review 106

Software Review Funding Startup Seed Funding 106

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.

Coach 180

Coach Seed Funding Training Platform 180

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

The VC market has right-sized (returned back to mid 90′s levels & less competition). Lower costs to start a business (95% reduction), many more companies created & funded by angels / seed. ” The new narrative is “will my seed funds be able to fund the prorata of their winners?”

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 3, 2016

I find that this type offers the most value to new entrepreneurs or startups in the early idea stage. Most incubators start their program with some aptitude and business acumen tests. Costs, returns in equity and funding access. The best ones also charge an up-front participation fee for services provided.

Incubator 58

Incubator Startup Seed Funding Equity 58

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

We All Know That Dollars into Venture Have Gone Up … As a starting point, we know that the dollars into venture have steadily rebounded to pre great-recession levels, with just under $30 billion committed to US technology venture capital in 2015. That’s money that fuels our startup ecosystems.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2014

One of the reasons that now is the time to be an entrepreneur is the explosion of startup assistance organizations, usually called incubators or accelerators. Most of these are non-profits, set up by a university to commercialize new technologies, or a municipality to foster business development for the local economy.

Incubator 98

Incubator Startup Help Resource 98

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2022

After many years in business, working in large companies as well as startups, I’m no longer surprised at why mature and successful companies struggle with introducing innovative new ventures as the market and environment changes. Commit a source of internal or external seed funding.

Incubator 143

Incubator Seed Funding Metrics Customer 143

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

We started this week’s show with a Q&A session where I answered viewer questions about fund raising and the VC industry. Heck, stick around and watch me discuss the seed funding debate that is going on right now and what is happening in the VC industry overall. Finally we covered this weeks deals.

Venture Capital 210

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 7, 2013

Based on the final report for 2012 from Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), it may appear that IPOs are back as a viable startup exit strategy. Sure, there will always some seed funding (10% of overall deal flow), but you can bet that this money goes to entrepreneurs who have been there before and won.

Venture Capital 101

Venture Capital Startup Capital Seed Funding 101

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

An impressive number of new VCs have been created – most of them with new seed funds. For what ever reason we’re wired to have amnesia during the run up and prescient memories of how we ‘knew it all along’ as soon as the slide begins. When markets start to turn shelfware companies are the quickest to die.

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. would you want to give up the right to invest in subsequent rounds? Do investors always take up their prorata rights in later rounds? ” Some do, some don’t.

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2018

One of the reasons that now is the time to be an entrepreneur is the explosion of startup assistance organizations, usually called incubators or accelerators. Most of these are non-profits, set up by a university to commercialize new technologies, or a municipality to foster business development for the local economy.

Incubator 87

Incubator Startup Resource Seed Funding 87

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

I’m over-paying for every check I write into the VC ecosystem and valuations are being pushed up to absurd levels and many of these valuations and companies won’t hold in the long term. Today you have funders focused exclusively on “Day 0” startups or ones that aren’t even created yet. By definition?—?I’m two founders in a garage?—?(HP

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

When to start PR? This is somewhat changing in the world of crowd funding where people actually raise money so that they can build products but at a minimum your product design ought to be complete and ready to execute. In a startup this is a mistake. I raised a small seed round. I have no money?

Press 319

Press Startup Writing Training 319

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 3, 2010

Yesterday I received a discouraging note from an entrepreneur with a patent and a medical software application who couldn’t find a dime of investment, and was grousing that seed funding just wasn’t available anymore. Fundraising is indeed brutally tough at all stages, and the seed funding is the hardest to find.

Software Review 95

Software Review Startup Seed Funding Funding 95

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2011

billion jump in funding over the same quarter of 2010 with a similar number of deals, so it clearly shows a trend to larger deal sizes for fewer startups. To me, this indicates that venture capitalists (VCs) are looking for business, but not from first-time startups. Energy deals climbed with funding increasing significantly.

Venture Capital 93

Venture Capital Startup Capital Seed Funding 93

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2011

A while back I received a discouraging note from an entrepreneur with a patent and a medical software application who couldn’t find a dime of investment, and was grousing that seed funding just wasn’t available anymore. Fundraising is indeed brutally tough at all stages, and the seed funding is the hardest to find.

Software Review 98

Software Review Funding Seed Funding Startup 98

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

As I’ve written about recently, at Upfront Ventures we started talking a couple of years ago about wanting to fund stuff with more meaning. I think this is a combination of being realists as venture capitalists that outsized returns in our funds must come from taking on bigger, more impactful projects that can move markets.

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

On December 2nd, 2006 I wrote the blog post published later in this post when I was CEO of startup Koral about my experiences in pitching VCs. This blog post ended up on Valleywag (which had much bigger presence back then). Anyway, the starting point for this blog entry is a cartoon I remember reading in the New Yorker.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 18, 2014

We were both in college when we came up with the idea. We were both very good friends, living together, and we came up with the idea and thought this could go everywhere. After a couple of months, we realized there was something special about this, and starting building a team, and tackled the website and partnerships.

Commerce 140

Commerce Help UCLA Organization 140

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2009

A few years ago it became fashionable for large VC’s to do seed funding. So they set up seed programs that allowed for rapid decisions for $500k or less, often done as convertible debt for both speed and cost reasons. Many VCs who do lots of seed stage deals are very supportive and active.

Seed Funding 283

Seed Funding Venture Capital Funding Software Review 283

From the Venture Trenches

APRIL 30, 2013

But like a Darwinian experiment, the extent to which these gifts are utilized remains entirely up to each individual entrepreneur. We heard how Jeff transitioned from a start-up founder to an institutional investor when he helped found Amplify towards the end of 2011. Setting up for Eric Garcetti.

Web Design 103

Web Design Social Media Seed Funding Design 103

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

Have you looked at competition? How well financed is the competition? My advice: Do not mention the other VC firms, angels, seed funds, etc. It’s called competition. And sometimes VCs want to fund companies where we take the whole round and don’t mind paying slightly higher than angels want us to.

Pricing 292

Pricing Entrepreneur Technical Review Venture Capital 292