Sat.Jun 24, 2017 - Fri.Jun 30, 2017

article thumbnail

Where is the best source of early stage investment?

Berkonomics

If you have been following our recent insights, you’ll be up to speed knowing that professional investors negotiate tough terms, from provisions of control over asset acquisition, eventual sale of the company, future investments, forced co-sale when others attempt to sell their shares and more. And yet, in an earlier post, we spoke of the problems that come when taking unstructured investments from friends and family.

Invest 243
article thumbnail

One Simple Way You Can Make an Actual Difference in Somebody’s Life

Both Sides of the Table

Fresno State students receive supplies for school with help from Renaissance Scholars staff John Hunt, Jr. (left) and Kizzy Lopez (right). We’re all bombarded with social media campaigns asking for us to Tweet, share, like, change our badge, use a hashtag or generally show outrage at a topic du jour. We jump in when we feel compelled or want to support the person who enlisted us.

UCLA 221
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

As the LA venture market booms, Upfront closes its sixth fund with $400 million

TechCrunch LA

As the firm looks ahead to its own future, Suster and the firm he's helped grow remain committed to the future of Los Angeles. The two are paired, and these days if an investor is #LongLA (to use the hashtag the firm coined), it looks like limited partners are saying that it pays to be long on Upfront, as well. .

article thumbnail

Maersk Halts Operations at Port of Los Angeles After Cyberattack

L.A. Business Journal

Shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk shut down its operations at the Port of Los Angeles’ largest terminal Tuesday morning after a cyberattack hobbled its computer systems worldwide.

article thumbnail

Can You Ask for Office Rent Relief? How to Manage Your Lease During COVID-19

Office leases are one of companies’ largest expenses, and if your whole team is working from home with no clear end in sight, you may be wondering what to do about your lease.

article thumbnail

UCLA Pulls Commitments From Binary Capital

socalTECH

UCLA , a limited partner in venture capital investment fund Binary Capital , has pulled its committment to the venture fund over the weekend, after Managing Director Justin Caldbeck was accused of unwanted advances towards women. UCLA had been one of the venture capital fund's first investors. Caldbeck is accused of unwanted sexual advances on women pitching the fund for investments.

UCLA 186
article thumbnail

Expert Dojo Investor Festival

SoCal Tech Calendar

Friday, June 30, 2017 -- Expert Dojo Investor Festival. Q2 Investor Festival – Where Startups Meet Investors. You have been working hard building the foundation for a great business. Now its time to meet strategic investors who can provide you the investment you need to grow to the next level. Without a doubt we have over 80 of the highest caliber investors attending and can cater for seed, series A and series B funding.

Invest 100

More Trending

article thumbnail

Jessica Alba’s Honest Co. Settles Fraudulent Labeling Lawsuit for $7.35 Million

L.A. Business Journal

Actress Jessica Alba’s Honest Co. has reached a $7.35 million settlement in a marketing fraud lawsuit that alleged the company fraudulently labeled home and personal care products as natural, plant-based or chemical-free.

Marketing 203
article thumbnail

LA, and Southern California's Surge In Venture Capital Funds

socalTECH

To the newly initiated, it might seem that Southern California is not particularly well known for its venture capital funds--however, for those insiders keeping track, Southern California is actually seeing an unprecedented upsurge in local venture capital firms seeking to make funding available to entrepreneurs, particularly at the seed and Series A stage.

article thumbnail

Initiative to Boost SoCal’s Startup Scene Teams With GV Founder

Xconomy

A Silicon Valley entrepreneur has set out to boost the startup ecosystem in San Diego and the rest of Southern California—and he already has scored a coup by partnering with Bill Maris, the founder and former CEO of Google Ventures, now known as GV. Steve Poizner, who sold two of his startups to Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM ) and served as California Insurance Commissioner a decade ago, has signed a collaboration agreement with a venture fund that Maris founded in suburban San Diego.

article thumbnail

R.E.D. Talks: Building a Successful Brand in LA [ LOS ANGELES ]

Tech.Co

R.E.D. Talks: Building a Successful Brand in LA. Speaker : Tracy Dinunzio , Founder and CEO of Tradesy. Hors d’oeuvres and cocktails served. SPACE IS LIMITED — REGISTER TODAY. [link]. Tradesy—a ground-breaking e-Commerce business conceptualized and launched in Los Angeles by Tracy Dinunzio—has revolutionized the e-commerce industry. Tracy was an early pioneer of the trust-based online consignment shopping model, which enabled her to build a successful business around the new concept.

article thumbnail

PermaCity Completes World’s Largest Solar Rooftop Project

L.A. Business Journal

L.A. solar developer PermaCity Inc. has completed the world’s most powerful solar rooftop generating project in San Pedro, company and L.A. city officials announced Monday while touring the facility.

San Pedro 154
article thumbnail

Headspace Lands $36.7M More

socalTECH

Los Angeles-based Headspace , which develops meditation applications for your smartphone or tablet, has raised $36.7M in funding, the company disclosed on Friday. The funding came from Spectrum Equity. The company has now raised $73.7M in total. Headspace is now led by co-founder Rob Pierson, after a widely publicized management shakeup and ousting of the company's CEO.

Equity 170
article thumbnail

7 Business Lessons You Can Learn From A 7-Year-Old

Startup Professionals Musings

Parents, it’s never too early to start nurturing entrepreneurial talents in your kids! As an active business advisor and angel investor, I’m convinced that we are rapidly entering a new age of the entrepreneur, and those who are best prepared will be the first to reap some big rewards. You may think you need more entrepreneurial courses in school, or more advanced degrees, but in my experience it’s more of a mindset, some good coaching, and learning by doing that separates the winners from the l

Coach 80
article thumbnail

The IT Summit Los Angeles 2017 [ LOS ANGELES ]

Tech.Co

The IT Summit is the executive technology conference series returning to Los Angeles for our eleventh annual event on October 11th, 2017. The purpose of the summit is to provide educational and networking resources for the IT leaders in Southern California. The conference is driven by an Executive Board of regional IT professionals that directs the content of the conference.

article thumbnail

Silicon Beach Report June 30: Jessica Alba’s Honest Co. Settles Fraudulent Labeling Lawsuit for $7.35 Million

L.A. Business Journal

Jessica Alba’s Honest Co. settles fraudulent labeling lawsuit for $7.35 million, SpaceX loses U.S. Air Force launch contract to ULA and Boring Co. test tunnel makes progress toward car elevator.

SpaceX 140
article thumbnail

Illumina Gets Win In UK

socalTECH

San Diego-based life sciences equipment maker Illumina announced a win in the United Kingdom today, saying that Genomics England has been selected as the primary variant interpretation and reporting software vendor for tumor and matched normal samples characterized as part of the 100,000 Genomes Project. Financial impact of the selection was not announced.

Sample 164
article thumbnail

10 Guidelines For Storytelling To Hype Your Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

The entrepreneur’s challenge is to effectively communicate their value proposition, not only to customers, but also to vendors, partners, investors, and their own team. Especially for technical founders, this is normally all about presenting impressive facts. But in reality facts only go so far. Stories often work better, because humans don’t always make rational decisions.

Startup 72
article thumbnail

Boston Is Arguably the Heart of Biotech. But Who Makes It So? Have Your Say.

Xconomy

By the end of this year, for the first time, patients with certain deadly types of blood cancer might have a new option, CAR-T cell therapy , to prolong their life. Immunotherapy could further entrench itself as a mainstay of cancer treatment. Newer drugmaking methods— RNA interference and gene therapy —could get their first ever FDA reviews.

article thumbnail

Silicon Beach Report June 27: Maersk Halts Operations at Port of Los Angeles After Cyberattack

L.A. Business Journal

Maersk halts operations at Port of Los Angeles after cyberattack, Belkin starts selling backpacks and messenger bags and Snapchat pitches advertisers on advantages of Snapchat’s smaller audience.

article thumbnail

Two Uber Drivers In LA Accused Of Sexual Assaults

socalTECH

Two drivers on ridesharing service Uber have been accused of two, separate sexual assault incidents in Los Angeles over the last week. One of the two women victims has filed a lawsuit alleging that Uber has a "toxic culture for women inside the company and for women riders on the road." The first incident involved a groping incident on June 9th. The second incident, reported on Monday , said that an Uber driver with a felony record took a passenger to a motel and sexually assaulted her, rather t

Report 160
article thumbnail

5 Reasons NOT To Start With A Non-Profit Business

Startup Professionals Musings

A common misconception I often hear in the startup world is that non-profits are easy and safe, since they don’t have to pay taxes, and they don’t have to make a profit for their shareholders. In reality, from the feedback I get from non-profit executives, exactly the opposite is true. Technically speaking, in the United States, a non-profit corporation or association is one which has been exempted from Federal income taxes by meeting the criteria set out Section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue C

article thumbnail

New Study: DNA Tests For Healthy People Have “Uncertain Value”

Xconomy

Genome sequencing is becoming more common for people diagnosed with cancer. Should it become part of a healthy person’s checkup, too? A new study published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine questions the practicality of making DNA tests standard for people who don’t have a cancer diagnosis or aren’t trying to identify a mysterious disease.

Study 62
article thumbnail

Deals & Dealmakers: Upfront Raises $400 Million

L.A. Business Journal

Upfront Ventures said last week that it has raised a $400 million venture capital fund – the Santa Monica-based firm’s sixth core investment vehicle – giving it some $2 billion in assets under management.

article thumbnail

Elon Musk's Tunneling Project Completes First Segment

socalTECH

Elon Musk , the tech billionaire behind SpaceX and Tesla Motors, said on Wednesday that his tunneling project has completed its "first segment of tunnel" in LA. Musk as been discussing an idea to dig tunnels underneath Los Angeles to cut down on traffic jams and commute times. Musk did not provide details on how long or where that first segment of tunnel will lead to; apparently, the digging operations before now had been confined to the SpaceX parking lot.

SpaceX 154
article thumbnail

Details of Upfront Ventures New $400 Million Fund

Both Sides of the Table

I am so proud and humbled to be able to formally announce that Upfront Ventures has raised its 6th venture capital fund in the past 21 years. Upfront VI is our latest core fund and is $400 million to invest in early stage entrepreneurs. This brings our combined funds under management to nearly $2 billion. A huge thank you to all of the Limited Partners who have entrusted us with your capital, time and reputations.

Funding 287
article thumbnail

Vivace Therapeutics Comes Out of Stealth With $25M for Cancer Drugs

Xconomy

Vivace Therapeutics, a San Mateo, CA-based biotech that has kept quiet about its research until now, has reached across the Pacific Ocean to close $25 million in financing to support its work developing drugs to target two different mechanisms of cancer biology. New investor Cenova Capital, based in China, led the Series B round of funding, which included Sequoia Capital China as well as earlier investors Canaan Partners, WuXi Healthcare Ventures, and Mission Bay Capital.

article thumbnail

Silicon Beach Report June 29: Recreational Video Game Competition Super League Gaming Raises $15 Million.

L.A. Business Journal

Recreational video game competition Super League Gaming raises $15 million, Boring Co. completes test tunnel and Upfront raises $400 million for sixth early-stage fund.

article thumbnail

ViaSat Gets $88.3M In Military Contracts

socalTECH

Carlsbad-based ViaSat said this morning that it has won $88.3M in contracts from the U.S. Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR), to provide tactical radio terminals for the U.S. Navy and Air Force. According to ViaSat, it is tripling production of its Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) terminals specifically for those contracts. Those software defined radio (SDR) terminals are used in battlefield communications, providing voice, video and data communications with a line-of-sight,

Software 149
article thumbnail

6 Ways To Spot Innovative Thinkers For Your Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

Entrepreneurs are usually highly creative and innovative, but many innovative people are not entrepreneurs. Since it takes a team of people to build a great company, the challenge is to find that small percentage of innovative people, and then nurture the tendency, rather than stifle it. A few years ago I read a classic book “ The Rudolph Factor ,” by Cyndi Laurin and Craig Morningstar, which is all about finding the bright lights that can drive innovation in your business.

Startup 61
article thumbnail

Bio Roundup: Senate Drama, A.I. Stories, Data Dives, Shkreli & More

Xconomy

There is no Obamacare replacement, at least not as of this writing. The Senate Republicans are fractured, with a handful of conservatives and moderates each giving a cold shoulder to their chamber’s version of healthcare reform, the Better Care Reconciliation Act. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office report Monday put the bill’s potential effects in stark relief: $321 billion in deficit reduction because of tax cuts and a Medicare rollback, and 22 million more people uninsured

Writing 56
article thumbnail

Silicon Beach Report June 28: Mobile Game Developer Wonder Raises $14 Million

L.A. Business Journal

Mobile game hardware startup Wonder raises $14 million, SpaceX to launch final Falcon 9 upgrade this year and Snapchat users can create custom filters in the app.

Mobile 100
article thumbnail

NGEN Partners Gets Exit At Choose Energy

socalTECH

Santa Barbara- and New York-based clean technology investor NGEN Partners has scored an exit at Choose Energy , a startup which lets consumers comparison shop for and select electric energy providers, according to a report. The report, from Fortune, said the deal was worth less than $100M. Choose Energy had also raised funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, BlueScape Resources, and angels, and was based in Texas.

article thumbnail

9 Reasons Why Execution Trumps Thinking In Business

Startup Professionals Musings

In my role as an advisor to entrepreneurs and new businesses, I often get asked to critique an idea, but rarely get asked to comment on an implementation plan, or execution actions to date. For the record, my experience tells me that success in a new business has very little to do with the idea, and everything to do with execution. Execution trumps everything in a new business.

Ideas 72
article thumbnail

U.S. IPOs Surge Amid Nettlesome Risks; Top 10 Deals So Far in 2017

Xconomy

Improving economic fundamentals are stoking the IPO pipeline in the United States and elsewhere, according to a report issued Tuesday by the global consultant and accounting firm EY. Eighty companies raised a total of $22 billion on U.S. exchanges during the first half of 2017, according to the report EY Global IPO Trends. That’s a sharp contrast to 2016, when uncertainty and doubt about the economy and presidential election clouded U.S. markets.

Report 55
article thumbnail

Silicon Beach Report June 26: Sean Parker Leaves Spotify Board

L.A. Business Journal

Sean Parker leaves Spotify board, Leaf Group added to Russell 2000 Small-Cap Index, and Instagram Stories’ daily active users rise to 250 million, and more.

Report 100
article thumbnail

Cybersecurity Training Effort In El Segundo Aimed At Next Generation

socalTECH

An all week, cybersecurity training effort being held this week in El Segundo--run by AT&T and the Air Force Association (AFA)--is educating teenagers on cybersecurity careers and skills, in hopes of building the next generation of cybersecurity efforts. The camps, part of the AFA's CyberPatriot National Youth Cyber Education Program , are ongoing at AT&T's offices in El Segundo all this week.