Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 29, 2012

Nate Redmond is the managing partner of Rustic Canyon Partners – he’s probably one of the youngest managing partners of a major fund you’ll meet. And no wonder, lately he and his partners are on a tear, investing out of their $200+ million VC fund. Nate, tell us a bit about Rustic Canyon Venture Partners.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2017

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.

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Funding Venture Capital Santa Monica Invest 287

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

My 1,000th Post on This Blog - Tim Berry's Blog - Planning Startups Stories , July 21, 2010 HTML5 video markup, compatibility and playback - Niall Kennedy's Weblog , February 8, 2010 Your Product Needs a Soul - ArcticStartup , February 12, 2010 Product Friday: Monetizing Content is a Product Problem - This is going to be BIG.

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Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

socalTECH

MAY 13, 2013

Los Angeles-based Greentoe.com , which operates an online marketplace which lets people name their own price for electronics and other items, has raised a round of angel funding, the firm said today. The funding came from Parker Thompson from 500 Startups/Dave McClure. Size of the funding was not announced. READ MORE>>.

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socalTECH

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

The new funding came from Subtraction Capital, FF Angel, 500 Startups, and other investors. Jackson--said the funding is an expansion on its Series A funding it announced in the first quarter of the year. That funding was worth $3M. The startup--which is led by PayPal veteran Erik M. READ MORE>>.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 9, 2011

Let’s help get their funding get finalized or the company sold if it’s already in play. And VCs scrambled to raise their own funds. VCs hate downrounds to even good companies struggled to raise money. But I guess you could say the same about VC. Stock market declines would bring back dog days of VC.

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Marketing Venture Capital Funding Technical Review 305

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2014

We are often asked how companies get funded, why VCs make the decisions we make and what we’re looking for in entrepreneurs. I think this is a Seriously great example of how this process works for at least one VC – Upfront Ventures. We met in August (so much for VCs taking the Summer off!) The results?

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Funding Technical Review Startup Screening 373

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

Nearly four months ago we rebranded at Upfront Ventures. You can watch the video above for a very brief overview of why we rebranded and where we see our place in the VC ecosystem along with what has changed in our industry. Relaunching our brand is part of our larger initiative to build a VC firm of the future.

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socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

Los Angeles-based peer-to-peer commercial real estate investment site AssetAvenue said Friday that it has raised $3M in a seed funding round. According to the company, the funding was led by Matrix Partners and NetEase, with other investors, including Vectr Ventures, Russ Meyer (Grandpoint Capital); Bam Ventures; and LaunchpadLA.

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Seed Funding Funding Venture Capital Platform 178

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

Photo by Scott Clark for Upfront Ventures (no, Evan is not standing on a box) Last year marked the 25th anniversary for Upfront Ventures and what a year it was. 2021 saw phenomenal returns for our industry and it topped off more than a decade of unprecedented VC growth. What do you do with a $650 million platform?

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socalTECH

JANUARY 20, 2022

Los Angeles-based Untapped Ventures said on Wednesday that it has launched a new, early-stage venture capital fund, which it says invests in companies that "help people live the best version of themselves, personally and professionally." The size of the new fund was not announced.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

I am thrilled to announce that we have added Hamet Watt as a Partner at Upfront Ventures. This is a big news day at Upfront Ventures. In other news we announced the closing of $61 million in funding at Maker Studios , which I’ll talk publicly about soon. Mark, why wouldn’t you fund him? Startup DNA.

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Invest Venture Capital Startup News 340

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. I have seen bad behavior from later-stage VCs, believe me. They often create the biggest tensions between investors who are investing at different stages in the business.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

If you track the venture capital industry it would be hard to miss the conversation going on this week over AngelList “Syndicates.” My favorite new VC blogger, Hunter Walk, weighed in with some thoughtful comments about how Syndicates might actually pit, “ angel vs. angel.” Bowery Capital).

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Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

TechCrunch LA

MAY 23, 2019

The Los Angeles ecosystem is $76 million stronger today as Fika Ventures , a seed-stage venture capital firm, announces its sophomore investment fund. Fika invests roughly half of its capital exclusively in startups headquartered in LA, with a particular fondness for B2B, enterprise and fintech companies.

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Funding Startup Seed Funding Los Angeles 218

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 8, 2014

And there’s none that makes me happier than to announce that Jordan Hudson has been promoted to a Principal at Upfront Ventures. What is a principal at a VC firm and how does it work at Upfront Ventures? ” Associates have different functions at different VCs. VC firm admin. Portfolio community building.

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Help Invest Venture Capital Technical Review 365

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 12, 2013

Because my role as a VC requires me to take and endless stream of meetings I long ago decided I need to learn as much as I can from the meetings I attend so I often just ask tons of questions and assimilate knowledge. When I think about what defines us as a VC I think: Operationally knowledgeable / strong startup competence.

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Venture Capital GRP Partners Startup Invest 360

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

Last year I was on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley meeting with one of the most prominent venture capital firms in the country. The VC partner, somebody I greatly respect said, “Yeah, we like Gil and what they’re doing. Funding is different outside of Silicon Valley. Let me use LA as an example.

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TechCrunch LA

MARCH 2, 2021

. “ 2020 was a blowout year… People needed an interactive streaming platform that they could spin up quickly that they could launch on their website.” Since the launch of monetization tools in May of last year, Evans estimated that the platform has paid out at least $5 million to entertainers who used the service. “We

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Tool Commerce .Net Entertainment 315

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

I’ve become fond of saying “if I had a dollar for every person who told me just how much they loooooved Kara Nortman, I’d have a 10x fund.” So mostly we just had to listen to customer feedback from founders, VCs and LPs. She worked for 5 years as a VC at Battery Ventures and co-headed M&A at IAC working with Barry Diller.

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Venture Capital Startup Invest CitySearch 361

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 1, 2015

*. What is the role of a VC for entrepreneurs? I suppose it can be different for every founder and for different VCs but I’d like to offer you some context on what I think it is and it isn’t. Platforms have changed. Crowd funding now exists. Kara worked in VC for more than 5 years but more than a decade ago.

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Venture Capital Course Guide Entrepreneur 150

socalTECH

OCTOBER 30, 2020

Los Angeles-based SUMA Wealth , a startup which operates an online platform designed to help U.S.-born, born, Millennial Latinos with financial literacy, has raised a round of funding, the company announced this week. According to the company, it received a pre-seed funding round from a number of female investors.

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Venture Capital Funding Seed Funding Los Angeles 113

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

To grow faster businesses need resources in today to fund growth that may not come for 6 months to a year. Do you imagine eventually raising VC and trying to build a faster growing company?” They don’t want high burn rates but they will never fund slow growth. million to fund operations in their first year of operations.

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Startup Venture Capital Sales Course 227

socalTECH

MARCH 20, 2020

Venice, California-based Robin Games , a startup that is developing mobile games aimed at women, has raised $7M in a seed funding round, the company said on Thursday. The startup, led by Jill Wilson, says it is developing "lifestyle gaming" titles, which run on such platforms as Apple's iOS and Google Android.

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Seed Funding Funding Venice Venture Capital 140

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 18, 2011

I hope you’ll excuse me when I do the latter in combination with the former to try and explain how I see macro trends and help you think about the mind of a VC. I first met the founder of Pose, Dustin Rosen , when he was a junior person with an LA-based venture capital firm called The Mail Room Fund.

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Invest Company Companies Web 2.0 303

socalTECH

MAY 25, 2018

BlueCart said this week that it raised $5M in its Series B-1 funding, bringing its total raised to $22M. Dana Settle, the LA-based co-founder and Managing Partner of Greycroft, has joined BlueCart's board as an observer, with fellow Greycroft venture capitalist Bo Peabody joining BlueCart's board.

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Artificial Inteligence Funding Sales Los Angeles 189

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

I was sick of hyperbole articles pronouncing that VCs were “scared or AngelList&# or “it was disrupting VC&# or some other BS exaggeration like that. Let’s be clear: AngelList doesn’t scare a single VC I know. It is a communication platform. But it’s not cutting VCs out.

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Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292

socalTECH

MAY 26, 2020

La Jolla-based Platform Science , a developer of fleet management software and technology, has raised $42M in a Series B funding, the company disclosed recently. The funding was led by Prologis, and also include Daimler Trucks AG, 8VC, NewRoad Capital Partners, Schematic Ventures, and Cambridge Capital.

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Platform Software Development Capital Software 124

socalTECH

JUNE 8, 2018

Los Angeles-based venture capital investment firm Bonfire Ventures is the lead investor in a San Francisco-based enterprise drone startup, Kittyhawk , Kittyhawk announced this week. Bonfire announced its inagural $60M fund in January. READ MORE>>.

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Funding Startup Venture Capital Los Angeles 140

socalTECH

APRIL 8, 2014

There seems to a perpetual shortage of local venture capital investors in the region, despite the huge growth in startup activity here, particularly along Silicon Beach. Among those funds is TYLT Lab (www.tyltlab.com), which recently announced a new, $20M early stage investment fund specifically focused on companies here.

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Seed Funding Santa Monica Funding Startup 220

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 21, 2021

Welcome Tech , which has built a digital platform aimed at immigrants and their families, has raised $35 million in a Series B funding round co-led by TTV Capital, Owl Ventures and SoftBank Group Corp.’s s SB Opportunity Fund. Its efforts are initially primarily focused on the Hispanic community in the U.S.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 29, 2020

For example, professional investors put great priority on your previous experience in building a business, and they expect to own a portion of the business equity and control for the funds they do provide. Most provide free resources to startups, including office facilities and consulting, but many provide seed funding as well.

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Funding Startup Equity Examples 174

socalTECH

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Among the announcements at the demo day were the funding of smartphone toy company SnowShoe , and an acquisition of Smart Toy , a developer of an interactive toy. in its seed funding round. Disney offered up up to $120K in investment capital, access to entrepreneurs and executives at Disney, and other resources to its startups.

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Class Startup Seed Funding Entertainment 185

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

Who’s going to help you with improving your marketing / positioning to become a clear platform category leader like Twilio? I need to take some VC meetings. But it did take Brad as a public spokesman, consummate networker and successful VC to help create legitimacy to let David’s ideas flourish.

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Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2014

Last week displayed the best of LA last week for a gala event of all of Upfront’s portfolio companies + the CEOs of many of LA’s top technology companies + 75 VC firms from LA, SF, NY & Boston + 25 LP Funds + the Chairman of Yahoo! Burstly is a Santa Monica-based team that I also proudly funded.

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Startup Santa Monica Snapchat Yahoo 318

socalTECH

MARCH 28, 2019

San Diego-based biotech startup Biolinq , which is developing wireless-enabled biosensor patches for continuous monitoring of biomarkers, has raised $4.75M additional Series A funding, the company said this morning. The funding came from JDRF T1D Fund, Aphelion Capital and LifeSci Venture Partners. READ MORE>>.

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Marketing San Diego Venture Capital Study 168

socalTECH

MARCH 6, 2013

The new features are an outgrowth of the evolution of CapLinked from providing its services to startups and venture capital firm, to large clients like Thomson Reuters, Sun Capital Partners, AI Verified, NextView Ventures, and Equity partners CRB. CapLinked is headed by Eric M. READ MORE>>.

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Services Venture Capital Equity Los Angeles 218