Sat.Mar 03, 2018 - Fri.Mar 09, 2018

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The VC Inclusion Clause #MovingForward

Both Sides of the Table

Upfront Ventures has a deep-seated commitment to equality in funding & building diverse teams across all ethnicities, nationalities and genders. We do this not just because it’s the right thing to do but also we believe it will help drive large and differentiated returns. In 2017 we began inserting an “Inclusion Clause” into our term sheets because we believe that the culture one establishes at the earliest stages of one’s business will set out the course of how it will grow and develop.

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Bird is raising $100 million to become the Uber of electric scooters

TechCrunch LA

“It feels like investing in Uber when it first launched.” That’s what one investor said of the hot new Santa Monica, Calif.-based startup, Bird — an electric scooter company that’s now in the process of raising as much as $100 million on a $300 million valuation, according to several people with knowledge of the company’s […].

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How do you pay an early stage board?

Berkonomics

Give one percent equity to each outside board member vesting over four years of service. Many early stage CEOs and board members have asked for some guidance regarding pay and time commitments for board members. Here is my best advice, based upon many boards and many years. Pay early stage board members of companies that are not lifestyle businesses one percent of the fully diluted equity in the form of an option that vests over four years of service.

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Startup Boost Targets Los Angeles With Pre-Accelerator Program

socalTECH

Do you have a startup idea, and a team, but no seed funding, and are even too early for an early stage startup accelerator? A new program in Los Angeles, Startup Boost / Los Angeles , says it is launching a "pre-accelerator" program which aims to help bridge the gap between a team with an "evolved" idea and seed investors and accelerator programs. The program--which is taking applications here in Los Angeles until March 22nd--said it is looking for eight startups to include in a six week mentors

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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.

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“Visibility” — A Powerful Lesson on DACA and The American Dream from @LeonKrauze

Both Sides of the Table

León Krauze from Univisión gave an impassioned keynote presentation at The Upfront Summit on the topic of “invisibility” of immigrant workers in our society. It moved people to tears, was widely Tweeted and several people asked me to share this video. Invisibility. The millions of immigrant workers who silently wash dishes in restaurants, are prep cooks, pick the agriculture that feeds us, build our houses, clean our houses, watch our kids and do our gardening are vilified as criminals by those

Education 174
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Bird is raising $100 million to become the Uber of electric scooters

TechCrunch LA

“It feels like investing in Uber when it first launched.” That’s what one investor said of the hot new Santa Monica, Calif.-based startup, Bird — an electric scooter company that’s now in the process of raising as much as $100 million on a $300 million valuation, according to several people with knowledge of the company’s plans.

More Trending

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Miso Robotics' Officially Deploys At CaliBurger, Inks Sports Partnership

socalTECH

Pasadena-based robot developer Miso Robotics says it has officially launched its burger flipping robot, "Flippy", at CaliBurger's Pasadena location--and, separately, has inked a partnership to bring its robotics technology to the sports and entertainment venue market. Miso's robot flips burger patties and cooks them to order, removing them from the grill when ready.

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TCVN Workshop: How to Build a Revenue Machine

SoCal Tech Calendar

Thursday, March 15, 2018 -- TCVN Workshop: How to Build a Revenue Machine. Many startups and small businesses view online advertising as an expensive, risky, and confusing undertaking. However, it is actually very inexpensive to test and can be highly profitable if managed correctly. In this workshop, Alex Jewett will demystify the workings of Google Adwords and show you the simple steps to getting started with a search pay-per-click advertising campaign.

TCVN 100
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WHOOP raises $25 million to tell everyone from athletes to execs about their health

TechCrunch LA

WHOOP, the company behind the Tesla of health tracking and sports performance wearables, has raised a whopping $25 million in a new round of funding. The round was comprised of a slew of prominent investment firms and individual investors including the Durant Company, the National Football League Players Association, former NBA commissioner David Stern, Twitter […].

Invest 256
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Silicon Beach Report March 7: Snap Inc. Expected to Announce Layoffs

L.A. Business Journal

Snap Inc. expected to announce layoffs; AeroVironment secures contract, narrows losses; and Ordermark raises $3.1 million.

Layoffs 140
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LA's Iconic Canter's Deli The Birthplace Of LA's Newest Startup, OrderMark

socalTECH

In an only-in-LA story, a newly funded startup-- OrderMark , the newly funded startup focused on helping restaurants juggle online ordering from multiple services, has been birthed out of LA's iconic Canter's Deli. Ordermark--which has the making of some of LA's smartest investors, TenOneTen Capital, Act One Ventures, and Mucker Capital, among others--has developed a system which takes the online orders from a dozen or so different online ordering systems, and prints them out in all one place in

Startup 157
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LA Female Founder Office Hours

SoCal Tech Calendar

Tuesday, March 13, 2018 -- LA Female Founder Office Hours. This is the first in a series of Female Founder Office Hours, staffed by female partners from a collective of VC firms. For our first event, we'll be focused on helping seed-stage female founders with their pitches. We'll be offering forty 1:1 office hour slots with 10 female VC partners from Benchmark, Canaan, Cowboy, Forerunner, Freestyle, Lux, Sequoia, and Reach.

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Technology infrastructure launchpad The Fabric raises $15 million

TechCrunch LA

The Fabric, an early-stage investment company developing new infrastructure technologies, has raised $15 million for its third investment vehicle. Announced at the Montgomery Summit in Santa Monica, Calif., the new financing came from Verizon Ventures (the investment arm of TechCrunch’s parent company’s parent company) and March Capital Partners a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm.

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Bird Raises $100 Million in Series B

L.A. Business Journal

Santa Monica-based Bird, an electric vehicle sharing company, announced a $100 million Series B funding round on March 9. Valor Equity and Index Ventures were the primary investors, while Craft Ventures and Goldcrest increased their existing investments. Additional investors included Tusk Ventures and Upfront Ventures.

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Amplify Adds Two New Companies To Portfolio

socalTECH

Venice, California-based Amplify LA , the startup investor which got its start as one of LA's first startup accelerators, said this week that it has added two new companies-- Kulagy and Tapcart --as part of its portfolio of companies. Financial details of any investment in the two startups were not announced. Kulagy helps connect physical therapists with patients, and bills itself as the "world's first mobile physical therapy clinic".

Company 147
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Annual Update: California's Food and Agriculture Industry

SoCal Tech Calendar

Wednesday, March 7, 2018 -- ACG 101 Annual Food and Agriculture Update. California's $45 billion agriculture industry has long had to deal with problems like drought, labor shortages, steep land prices and regulatory pressures. This year, natural disasters have brought even more challenges to our area's food and ag industry. Today these vitally important food producers have to respond to new demands from retailers and consumers, and conduct business in a global market.

ACG 100
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Meet the Investors & Tech Leaders Judging at Startup Night SXSW 2018

Tech.Co

Whenever you get the opportunity to talk with an investor, do it. Getting face time with VCs or people of influence is an ongoing challenge for startup founders, and it may take layers of introductions to get to the right person. Fortunately, for those headed to SXSW, Startup Night SXSW 2018 , presented by the Kauffman Foundation and TechCo, will be filled with investors from a multitude of industries who are looking to discover and fund startups building the latest solutions and tech innovation

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Silicon Beach Report March 9: Bird Raises $100 Million in Series B

L.A. Business Journal

Bird raises $100 million in Series B; Tech Fair LA; and Upfront Ventures proposes term sheet requiring companies to interview women and underrepresented groups.

Report 100
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SpaceX Sets Hispasat Launch For Tuesday Morning

socalTECH

Hawthorne-based SpaceX said today that it is now targeting launch of the Hispasat 30W-6 satellite for tonight, at 12:33 a.m. EST, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. SpaceX--which had originally planned to launch the satellite payload in February--said the satellite will be the largest, geostationary satellite the company has ever flown.

SpaceX 147
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Mobile LAVA: Silicon Beach Ecosystem

SoCal Tech Calendar

Saturday, March 10, 2018 -- Mobile LAVA: Silicon Beach Ecosystem. Come learn from VCs and Angel Investors about funding for your Mobile company, moderated by Peter Cowen. Our panel will discuss what their investment appetite is for 2018, what has changed recently with criteria and pitches, where they see deals coming from, and more!

LAVA 100
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Battling Cyber Hackers: The Next Generation of War Games

Tech.Co

In 2017, society experienced more data security breaches than any year prior. “The final number of data breaches reported was 1,579, a 45 percent increase over 2016’s number of data breaches. Businesses continued to suffer the majority of breaches and more than eight times the number of Social Security numbers were exposed in 2017 than in 2016,” according to a report by the Identity Resource Center.

Report 70
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Silicon Beach Report March 6: SpaceX Successfully Launches Hispasat 30W-6

L.A. Business Journal

SpaceX successfully launches Hispasat 30W-6; FreedomPop to partner with Prudential; and Triton Digital renews relationship with Beasley Media Group.

SpaceX 100
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Qualcomm Shipping 802.11ax Gateway To Japan

socalTECH

San Diego-based Qualcomm said this morning that it has shipped the world's first available draft 802.11ax carrier gateway product. According to Qualcomm, the company's new IPQ807x family of 802.11ax chipsets are being deployed in a new device, the BL1000HQ, to home subscribers in Japan, and will offer up 4x higher wireless networking throughput to users.

San Diego 147
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CSULB VR Day - Long Beach, CA

SoCal Tech Calendar

Friday, March 9, 2018 -- CSULB VR Day. The California State University Long Beach Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is proud to sponsor the first campus-wide Virtual Reality (VR) Day on March 9, 2018. VR Day is an interdisciplinary collaboration amongst the colleges of the Arts, Engineering, Health and Human Services, and Liberal Arts. The full day event includes a keynote, faculty and practitioner panels, demos, short films, a VR career readiness workshop presented by the Career Dev

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Big Data Meets Big Biology on April 26: Early Bird Rate Ends Soon

Xconomy

Xconomy will explore the confluence of “big biology” with “big data” at our half-day forum on April 26. Just as the computing industry opened the way to technologies that enabled people to manage and analyze information in unprecedented ways, a new era in biology is opening the way for new technologies for understanding and using the code of life. And just as software focused initially on the IT sector before revolutionizing industries through companies like Amazon, Ebay, and Lyft, today’s innov

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Silicon Beach Report March 5: SpaceX Set to Launch Hispasat 30W-6 Satellite

L.A. Business Journal

SpaceX set to launch Hispasat 30W-6 satellite; Miso Robotics unleashes burger flipping robot; and LA tech companies raise $411 million in February.

SpaceX 100
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BioDuro Acquires Molecular Response

socalTECH

San Diego-based BioDuro , a life sciences contract research and development provider, announced this morning that it has acquired Molecular Response LLC , which provides a large collection of viable tumor specimens for the oncology market. Financial details of the buy were not announced. According to BioDuro, Molecular Response has a biobank of over 100,000 viable tumor specimens, which are used for drug discovery, oncology, and immunooncology studies.

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R.E.D. Talks - Fireside Chat with Joanna McFarland

SoCal Tech Calendar

Thursday, March 15, 2018 --.

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Price Check on Aisle 3: Groceries Use AI, Devices to Battle Amazon

Xconomy

If a shopper interacts with technology in a typical grocery store, it’s usually at the very end—as they are paying for their items. That could be about to change, though. “Scanning loyalty cards at checkout is a lost opportunity,” says Eliahu Sussman, marketing manager at Aila Technologies, a Boston-area maker of retail devices such as digital kiosks and handheld scanners.

Pricing 69
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Flipping the Script

L.A. Business Journal

Robots and other automation are coming to a local fast-food chain.

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Disney to Launch New Entertainment Technology Effort, Disney StudioLAB

socalTECH

Walt Disney Studios and Accenture are in an effort to harness emerging technology in the area of entertainment, with a new effort they are calling Disney StudioLAB , the two said on Tuesday. According to the companies, StudioLAB will be dedicated to "reimagining, designing and prototyping" entertainment experiences and production capabilities, using cutting-edge, innovative technologies.

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SCALE 16x. The Sixteenth Annual Southern California Linux Expo.

SoCal Tech Calendar

Saturday, March 10, 2018 --.

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Five Questions For: Melinda Richter, Global Head at JLabs

Xconomy

Healthcare innovation is very personal for Melinda Richter. She was an ambitious 26-year-old, posted by a global telecom company to Beijing as part of its fast-track leadership program. “I had the express intent of being president one day,” she says. “I thought I had the world by the tail.” But during a walk in the woods, Richter was bitten by a bug, a seemingly inconsequential event that would later threaten her life.

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Silicon Beach Report March 8: Atom Tickets Raises $60 Million

L.A. Business Journal

Atom Tickets raises $60 million; EvGo taps Cathy Zoi as CEO; and Stamps.com’s ShippingEasy targets Amazon sellers.

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Rockley Photonics Gets $40M

socalTECH

Pasadena, California- and Oxford, UK-based Rockley Photonics , a new startup focused on integrated optics for high-density digital systems, has raised $40M in a funding round, the company said on Wednesday morning. The company says it has now raised a total of $100M. The newest round goes to expand the design and production of its high performance optical networking solutions, according to the firm.

Pasadena 127
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10 Investor Approaches To Avoid When You Need Funding

Startup Professionals Musings

Many new entrepreneurs are so excited by their latest idea that they can’t resist contacting every investor they know, assuming the investor will be equally excited and want to contribute immediately. Others will work hard on a business plan, and then mail it indiscriminately to every potential investor they can find on the Internet. Both of these approaches are a waste of your time and theirs.

Funding 62