TechCrunch LA

JULY 21, 2020

In 2014, we established the Play Equity Fund, the only nonprofit focused on Play Equity as a social justice issue,” said Renata Simril, President & CEO of the LA84 Foundation. Together, we aim to build not only a winning team on the field, but also to develop a passionately loyal fan base,” said Portman in a statement.

Writing 171

Writing Los Angeles Equity Startup 171

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 22, 2018

The Alliance estimates that Southern California’s tech community could be one-third the size of Silicon Valley’s by supporting or further developing the six pillars it already has for innovation to occur. We’ve also seen a substantial inflow of venture capital from all over the world.”.

Southern California 224

Southern California Dollar Shave Club SoCal Develop 224

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

Riot Ventures , the Los Angeles-based, early-stage and deep technology investment firm is going out to market to raise a $75 million second fund to finance the development of startups in LA and beyond, according to fundraising documents viewed by TechCrunch. Oculus, Snap, Tinder and others.

Los Angeles 126

Los Angeles Artificial Inteligence Invest Angel 126

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 23, 2020

The proposal sets out four big initiatives, including zero-emissions vehicle manufacturing, assembly and adoption; zero-emissions infrastructure investments; commitments to public transit investments; workforce development; and job training. The funding would include $20 billion for utility upgrades.

Southern California 261

Southern California Los Angeles Rosemead Incubator 261

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 31, 2020

The company was funded entirely by grants from the National Institute of Health, amounting to millions of non-dilutive dollars in all. And we should not forget that non-profits of all types depend upon grants for a significant amount of their funding, often employing professional grant writers on staff or as consultants.

Equity 156

Equity Writing Education Research 156

Tech.Co

DECEMBER 29, 2023

As investors continue pouring funding into artificial intelligence and consumer habits shift, many AI and subscription model startups have been enjoying rapid growth. Source: runwayml.com In June, Runway raised $141 million in funding, nudging its market valuation to an envy-inducing $1.5 Organic milk formula product Bobbie.

Startup 210

Startup Generative AI Newsletter Tool 210

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. One of the most important aims of a fund-raising process is to keep similar firms at the same stage of your process. Why 8–10 and not just 3–4?

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

TechCrunch LA

JUNE 9, 2021

Even as NFT sales dip below their most speculative highs, startups aiming to tap into their potential are still scoring big funding rounds from investors who believe there’s much more to crypto collectibles than the past few months of hype. The round was led by WestCap. The startup has raised a whopping $120 million to date.

Platform 308

Platform Framework Los Angeles Design 308

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 28, 2018

Every entrepreneur needs help and support along the way, from developing the initial idea, to selling off the successful business (exit strategy). It’s helpful to think of startups as proceeding through several stages, which I have defined some time ago from a funding perspective. Funding or rollout stage.

Funding 94

Funding Startup Organization Incubator 94

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? Did they really need a Startup CTO or Developer or both? Did they have a Weak Development Team ? He needed some kind of CTO and as well Developers. These “startups” are almost always mostly-non-technical founders offering 1-2% premoney for a “lead developer” position.

CTO Hire 241

CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity Develop 241

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2018

A critical stage for most first-time entrepreneurs is getting their idea developed into at least a prototype to validate their technology. Acquiring seed-stage funding is admittedly tough, but a source that I find often overlooked is government grant funding, accessible in the U.S.

Funding 90

Funding Technical Review Startup Research 90

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Seed investments are down by any measure (funds, deals, dollars) over the past 3 years in deals < $1 million AND in deals between $1–5 million. As you can see below the number of seed funds shot up dramatically between 2006 and 2014. It’s very noticeable in terms of funds raised, dollars invested and deals completed.

Venture Capital 328

Venture Capital Invest Seed Funding Startup 328

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2017

Recently the firms two founding partners (and also Managing Partners) —  Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham  — decided to transition management of the firm to Andy Weissman (who joined in 2012) and Albert Wenger (joined in 2008 and writes one of the most thoughtful blogs in our industry ).

Venture Capital 161

Venture Capital Funding Capital Startup 161

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

Very few people fund individuals. Professional angels / former entrepreneurs / seed funds – In Silicon Valley there are people like Ron Conway, Jeff Clavier, Mike Maples and many more. Do you work as a civil engineer on water projects and have great access to wealthy project developers? Team: You need a team.

Angel 291

Angel Funding Venture Capital Startup 291

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

Los Angeles-based FreedomSpeaks.com an online web site focused on political social networking, said Tuesday that it has launched a new application programming interface (API) targeted at helping developers tap into information about publicly elected officials. The firm said its API provides access to over 10,000 public official profiles.

Develop 100

Develop Development Social Network Web Development 100

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 1, 2010

There has been much discussion about VCs doing seed funding in the past year. I’ve written about it myself (Is VC Seed Funding Dead?) and (Is There Really a Signaling Problem with VC Seed Funding?). Knowing What the Seed Funding Policy of your VC is. million of our $200 million fund for seed funding.

Seed Funding 298

Seed Funding Funding Venture Capital GRP Partners 298

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

I spent my first year developing proprietary deal flow and learning the business and then the Sept 2008 / Lehman Bros collapse / financial meltdown happened. As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. I am closing 3 new fundings in April (2 new, 1 follow-on).

Venture Capital 387

Venture Capital Downey Writing Press 387

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 1, 2022

One of the best ways to assess development risk is to build and test a prototype, or minimum viable product (MVP). Investors expect this step to be proven successful before funding. Don’t be hesitant to use focus groups, crowd funding, and personal interviews to quantify interest. Be ready to pivot at any point in the process.

Ideas 145

Ideas Startup Case Study Writing 145

socalTECH

MAY 25, 2016

Santa Monica-based March Capital Partners (www.marchcp.com) has just announced a brand new, $240M venture investment fund, led by longtime venture investing veterans Jim Armstrong, Sumant Mandal, Gregory Milken and Jamie Montgomery. What is the investment focus for this fund? All of that represents opportunity, as well.

Southern California 113

Southern California Capital Funding Invest 113

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 18, 2011

I have been through many months with them but because of lack of funds, I spent lot of time doing non-technical work for first 4-5 months, spending time with them on putting pitches for investors, cash flows, budgets, writing business plans, product prototype setups etc. Do they recognize any Startup Founder Developer Gap ?

CTO 167

CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity 167

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 26, 2022

Most business advisors I know will say that writing a business plan is the first step to starting your own business, but I believe that a better first step is to do a self-analysis of your real drivers, strengths, and assumptions before committing to this lifestyle. Assess your own resources as well as funding sources.

Social Media 105

Social Media Writing Ideas Resource 105

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 18, 2011

I have been through many months with them but because of lack of funds, I spent lot of time doing non-technical work for first 4-5 months, spending time with them on putting pitches for investors, cash flows, budgets, writing business plans, product prototype setups etc. Do they recognize any Startup Founder Developer Gap ?

CTO 150

CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity 150

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 19, 2014

If you set around quietly waiting for someone you know to offer you money to fund a startup, you will probably have a long wait. We would all love to have a million dollars of funding to “do it right” and build the company of our dreams. Communicate the risks, and write down the agreement. Don’t be one. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 106

Startup Funding Technical Review Ideas 106

socalTECH

MARCH 4, 2011

Los Angeles-based Border Stylo , the developer of Write On Glass , software which allows you to share comments on any web page, chat with friends, and others all through Firefox and Chrome browsers, has scored $3.5M in a funding round, according to a regulatory filing by the firm this week.

Writing 153

Writing Web Los Angeles Software 153

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 15, 2013

Every entrepreneur needs help and support along the way, from developing the initial idea, to selling off the successful business (exit strategy). It’s helpful to think of startups as proceeding through several stages, which I have defined before from a funding perspective. Funding or rollout stage. Marty Zwilling.

Entrepreneur 102

Entrepreneur Funding Incubator Startup 102

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

One of the hardest things about the fund-raising process for entrepreneurs is that you’re trying to raise money from people who have “asymmetric information.” I thought I’d write a post about how to talk about valuation at a startup and give you some sense of what might be on the mind of the person considering funding you.

Venture Capital 324

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 324

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

The rise of “micro VCs” or seed-stage funds. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). Lower costs to start a business (95% reduction), many more companies created & funded by angels / seed. ” Stated simply – if you seed funded Uber at $4.5m Why is this?

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2019

Yes, VC / Startup Funding is up Massively If you look at how much VC firms have raised from Limited Partners (LPs) over the past 2 decades you’ll see that we’ve returned to a level that we haven’t seen since 1999. Taken together these “mega rounds” represent nearly half of the funding in 2018. More on that later.

Venture Capital 292

Venture Capital Capital Startup Funding 292

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2020

Every entrepreneur needs help and support along the way, from developing the initial idea, to selling off the successful business (exit strategy). It’s helpful to think of startups as proceeding through several stages, which I have defined a long time ago from a funding perspective. Funding or rollout stage.

Resource 171

Resource Startup Organization Incubator 171

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

The first check I wrote was just over 10 years ago into a company called Invoca who just announced a new $56 million in funding led by Scott Hilleboe at HIG Growth Partners. We not only have our Series A funds that can write $500k?—?$15 15 million first checks but we also have three growth funds.

Venture Capital 223

Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

Berkonomics

MAY 8, 2014

I am chairman of a company that, as I write this, is twelve years old and has not yet taken a dollar of outside investment. The company has been funded entirely by grants from the National Institute of Health, amounting to millions of non-dilutive dollars in all. Grant writing takes skill and immense amounts of time.

Company 166

Company Companies Writing Education 166

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2021

If you set around quietly waiting for someone you know to offer you money to fund a startup, you will probably have a long wait. We would all love to have a million dollars of funding to “do it right” and build the company of our dreams. Communicate the risks, and write down the agreement. Don’t be one. Marty Zwilling.

Invest 135

Invest Technical Review Startup Ideas 135

socalTECH

MARCH 16, 2017

Earlier this week, Derek Norton , a long time advisor to the media, Internet, and technology industry in Los Angeles, announced a brand new venture capital fund called Watertower Ventures (www.watertowerventures.com). We sat down with Derek to learn more about the new $5M fund and what it's all about. Tell us about the new fund?

Invest 145

Invest Funding Capital Startup 145

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

Los Angeles-based eByline , a startup developing a marketplace for journalists and freelance writers, said today that it has raised $1.5M in a first round of funding. The funding comes on top of an angel funding round the firm announced in September. The round came from E.W. Scripps Company. READ MORE>>.

Ventura 133

Ventura Writing Venture Capital Los Angeles 133

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 31, 2021

Tech companies have spent the past decade or more developing innovations that can be applied to old-world industries like agriculture, construction, energy, education, manufacturing and transportation and logistics. A Biden presidency doesn’t need a Green New Deal to make progress on climate change. ” Climate resiliency .

Startup 229

Startup Technical Review Invest Research 229

SoCal Tech Calendar

JANUARY 11, 2013

Each year the federal government awards technology grants to companies like yours to conduct research and develop innovations for the government. You can then convert the funded research project into commercial business opportunities.

Research 124

Research Writing Technology Funding 124

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2010

By Adam Hoeksema According to a report distributed by the Angel Capital Education Foundation , total startup funding from venture capital funds, state funds, and angel investors totals approximately $20.8 Tags: entrepreneur startup friends and family funding business. billion annually. Have an exit strategy.

Funding 90

Funding Startup Blogging Invest 90