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. But as sweet as that success has been (we invested pre-revenue in a small team) today my even more important news was the further expansion of our partner ranks. He will be a venture partner. I’ve known Hamet for 5 years.

Invest 340

Invest Venture Capital Startup News 340

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 30, 2011

This is the final part of a 3-part series on the major changes in the structure of the software & the venture capital industries. The result was a massive increase in startups & a whole group of new funding sources: both angels & “micro VCs&#. But … Downsizing Venture Capital.

Venture Capital 289

Venture Capital Capital Cloud Computing Marketing 289

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2010

It was especially fun for me because we got the chance to talk about the VC industry and how entrepreneurs should think about the VC industry in addition to discussing deals. Clearstone currently invests out of a $200 million fund based in LA with offices in Menlo Park and in India. Segment Three: “VC Deals Funded this Week”.

Clearstone 236

Clearstone Venture Capital ReachLocal Google 236

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

In the VC insider baseball world a discussion has gone on about “VC platforms” over the past 5 or so years. While firms define platforms differently, let’s just say they are the services that a VC offers outside of investment capital and partner time on boards or providing intros.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Platform Startup Resource 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 18, 2011

What I’d like to do is tell you the story of how the investment came to be, what my thesis is / was and share some thoughts on macro trends. The Team – I’m on record as saying that 70% of my investment criteria are team related. I’m also on record as saying I invest in lines & not dots. Pose is no different.

Invest 303

Invest Company Companies Web 2.0 303

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 26, 2010

Leaving your real competitors off of you presentation to a VC is not recommended. The “competition slide&# of your investment deck is such a great opportunity to talk about how you’re positioned (premium product vs. economical product? where do you need to make investments to make up ground and therefore need capital?).

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital Slides Competition Education 313

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 29, 2012

And no wonder, lately he and his partners are on a tear, investing out of their $200+ million VC fund. They recently exited their investment in Gaikai for $380 million while their rival OnLive (who had raised > $200 million) just went through bankruptcy. Nate, tell us a bit about Rustic Canyon Venture Partners.

Rustic Canyon 279

Rustic Canyon Venture Capital Southern California Userplane 279

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

To see the video of This Week in VC click on this link. What a pleasure that I got to spend an hour talking with both Om Malik (whom I’ve always respected his views) and Paul Jozefak , a venture capital partner at Neuhaus Partners in Germany (and formerly the head of Europe for SAP Ventures).

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Google Web Sites 225

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

We had a special edition of This Week in Venture Capital this week shooting out of the Next New Networks offices in New York. Our guest was Mo Koyfman of Spark Capital. Topics we discussed in the first 45 minutes of the video include: What is VC like in NY? Content, of course, is the same!]. Total raised: $129.0mm.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

- SoCal CTO , January 13, 2010 5 Lessons from 150 startup pitches - A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks , July 11, 2010 9 Reasons Why Many Smart People Go Nowhere - Life Beyond Code , March 29, 2010 No Accounting For Startups - Steve Blank , February 22, 2010 Startup Advice In Exactly Three Words - #StartupTriplets - OnStartups , January (..)

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

They have marked-up paper gains propped up by an over excited venture capital market that has validated their investments. Logic tells me the following: It is hard to make money angel investing. For venture capitalists this isn’t troubling. It was an investment management class. That is conformity.

Invest 299

Invest Angel Technical Review Venture Capital 299

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 11, 2021

And some of this can be attributed to the increased pressure on the available platforms not only to facilitate acquisition at scale but to do so in an increasingly “walled garden,” privacy-restricted world. Why Did I Invest in Trust? Why Did I Invest in Trust? That’s where Trust comes in?—?it

Product 424

Product Platform Advertising Acquisition 424

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

It’s always fun chatting with Jason because he’s knowledgeable about the market, quick on topics and pushes me to talk more about VC / entrepreneur issues. Next Wednesday we’ll have Dana Settle of Greycroft Partners, a New York / LA early-stage venture capital fund. I’d link to it but it’s behind a paywall.

Venture Capital 285

Venture Capital Startup Advertising Redpoint 285

socalTECH

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Illumina Ventures , the early-stage venture capital investor which was founded by San Diego-based life sciences equipment maker Illumina , says it has raised $230M for its first fund. The venture investment fund was founded by Nicholas Naclerio, Ph.D., The fund launched in summer of 2016 with $100M from Illumina.

Venture Capital 138

Venture Capital Capital Funding San Diego 138

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

Our guest this week on #TWiVC was Dana Settle , partner at Greycroft Partners , a venture capital firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles. Greycroft is an early-stage VC. Closing a VC fund in 2009/10 is a major achievement in and of itself. Read more: TechCrunch , Reg Form D , WSJ interview w/ Susan Lyne.

Venture Capital 240

Venture Capital Startup Platform Technical Review 240

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.

Venture Capital 324

Venture Capital Startup Blogging Platform 324

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).

Venture Capital 356

Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

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.

Venture Capital 360

Venture Capital GRP Partners Startup Invest 360

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?

Startup 408

Startup Venture Capital Writing Invest 408

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2010

I’m very pleased today to announce that I invested, on behalf of GRP Partners, in Burstly alongside Rincon Venture Partners , an early stage VC in Southern California whith whom we love to work (and were our co-investors on RingRevenue ). Naturally I’m excited about this investment or I wouldn’t have done it.

Mobile 282

Mobile Invest Company Companies 282

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2016

The second major trend was the rise of the angel that was a function of the boom in Silicon Valley wealth (Google, Facebook, Zynga, Twitter, Salesforce.com, etc) plus the rise of crowd-funding platforms (AngelList) plus the rise of Y Combinator / 500Startups / TechStars. Non VC Growth Rounds. VC Infighting. I Leaderless Rounds.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Funding Seed Funding 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

One of the investment themes I’ve been focused on in the past 3 years has been Performance-Based Marketing. When I started investing the US advertising market was $300 billion with only 10% of it ($30 billion) of it being online and measurable. When we tune into any stream: Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc., Thus, we click!

Advertising 284

Advertising Invest RSS CPC 284

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

They often create the biggest tensions between investors who are investing at different stages in the business. 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?

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

Current round: $20.0mm Series-B led by Andreesen Horowitz, with USV and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. A social analytics platform for Facebook app developers and publishers that provides detailed demographic and engagement data. Includes 70,000 apps for all major mobile OS platforms, including Apple’s. Total Raised: $21.4mm.

Zag 248

Zag Truecar Venture Capital CarsDirect 248

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. We’ll invest in about 15 new companies every year or just over 2 per partner.

Funding 287

Funding Venture Capital Santa Monica Invest 287

socalTECH

APRIL 8, 2014

Santa Ana-based technology distributor Ingram Micro has made an investment in cloud hosting software developer Parallels , the company said this morning, as part of a strategic deal between the companies. ingram micro parallels venture capital strategic investment cloud marketplace' READ MORE>>.

Invest 147

Invest Venture Capital Software Development Platform 147

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

This is part of my series on Raising Venture Capital. Many businesses that pitch to me have White Elephant issues and I’d like to tell you how to deal with these when you’re raising venture capital. But the VC is thinking about the issue whether you address it or not. You raised $1.5

Venture Capital 264

Venture Capital Startup Training Sales 264

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

She worked for 5 years as a VC at Battery Ventures and co-headed M&A at IAC working with Barry Diller. Venture capital is about backing the leaders of tomorrow who imagine the world as it should be and aren’t constrained by what it is today. And all the platform stuff. So What Does All This Mean?

Venture Capital 361

Venture Capital Startup Invest CitySearch 361

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

I took the opportunity this past week to publish summary notes of some of the VCs and entrepreneurs I had interviewed on This Week in VC. One of my goals in doing the show was not only to educate entrepreneurs but also to put a human face on many of the VCs in our industry as VCs can be hard to get to know. Thank you. (if

Capital 265

Capital Venture Capital Veoh Startup 265

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

CapLinked develops an online, cloud-based platform used to manage due diligence and deal documents, and which competes against deal room management software. caplinked venture capital investment dealroom virtual document collaboration saas software' That funding was worth $3M. READ MORE>>.

Software Review 235

Software Review Funding Draper SaaS 235

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 13, 2011

The venture capital industry is so heavily skewed to Northern California, which the remains spilled over Boston, New York & Southern California. So it was wonderful to hear from a leading venture capital firm based in Washington DC. I run Revolution’s VC investments. Revolution, what is it?

Venture Capital 277

Venture Capital Examples Startup Invest 277

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

Tool 315

Tool Commerce .Net Entertainment 315

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 25, 2010

Most investors wait to see who else is investing. &# Social Proof&# weighs heavily on investors in making their decisions. Most early-stage entrepreneurs who have worked with me (either as an angel or as a seed VC) know that I don’t rely at all on the social proof of other investors. Here’s where I feel common ground : 1.

Venture Capital 286

Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review Startup 286

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

Morphlabs , the developer of cloud-based infrastructure software, announced today that it has launched a new, Openstack-powered public cloud platform. MorphLabs is venture backed by AO Capital, BroadBand Tower, CSK Venture Capital, Frontera Capital, Global Gateway Investment Group, and Siemer Ventures.

Platform 157

Platform IBM IBM Web 157

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 venture capital fund is led by Founding General Partner George Bandarian.

Venture Capital 113

Venture Capital Funding Los Angeles Invest 113

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 28, 2017

Los Angeles-based venture capital investor OCV Partners has received $200M from j2 Global--and added outgoing j2 Global CEO Hemi Zucker--to ramp up its investments in technology companies.

Invest 133

Invest Venture Capital Los Angeles Platform 133

socalTECH

DECEMBER 5, 2011

The new subsidiary will also backed by a new, venture capital investment fund worth $100M, called the Qualcomm Life Fund , which will invest in medical device manufacturers. Qualcomm said investments in the are currently include Sotera Wireless, Telcare, AliveCor, Cambridge Temperature Concepts and WorkSmart Labs.

Funding 210

Funding San Diego Venture Capital Invest 210