Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 21, 2011

When I first got into VC I decided I better have some investment themes. My background was 8 years of telecoms & mobile and 8 years of cloud computing & SaaS – so these two themes were a given. Two big themes have emerged in my head in the past 3 years: offline / online integration and mobile computing.

Mobile 329

Mobile Advertising Media Marketing 329

socalTECH

APRIL 9, 2012

Santa Monica-based Kuapay , a new startup aiming at the mobile payments and loyalty markets, has scored $2M in funding, the firm has disclosed. The startup is headed by Joaquin Ayuso de Paul, one of the angel investors in Border Stylo and co-founder of Spanish social network Tuenti.com (acquired by Telefonica). READ MORE>>.

Mobile 244

Mobile Santa Monica Social Network Sales 244

socalTECH

OCTOBER 6, 2017

Hopscotch, led by Laurence Sotsky , has built software which enables sports teams, venues, and others to rapidly create mobile apps for their fans. We caught up with Lauren to hear about Hopscotch, and why teams and schools are turning to the company to power their mobile apps. What is Hopscotch? What do your apps do?

Mobile 162

Mobile Platform El Segundo UCLA 162

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. Gilt Group is currently the largest private sale web site in US.

Venture Capital 240

Venture Capital Startup Platform Technical Review 240

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

I know that you can use an email system with this to track my open rate, whether I forwarded the email, the IP address where I read it, whether I was on a mobile device or a wired computer and you can tell who else read the document. Your deck should be so good that a VC asks you for permission to show it to his or her portfolio companies.

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2010

This episode of This Week in Venture Capital featured Michael Montgomery, president of Montgomery & Co. You have to be selected to present and it is typically reserved for companies that have already raised early-stage capital and are well into revenue growth. Should you use investment banks to raise venture capital?

Venture Capital 242

Venture Capital Mission Ventures Capital Help 242

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

Company plans to use the capital to build out sales and marketing and r&d. -a led by Altos Ventures and Maverick Capital, with Larry Braitman. Total raised: $6.0mm. -Incubated by Clearstone Ventures in 2008. Includes content mobile guides, ie. Tags: This Week in Venture Capital.

Zag 248

Zag Truecar Venture Capital CarsDirect 248

TechCrunch LA

JULY 16, 2020

The round was led by Greycroft, which had been following the company’s progress for years, and included participation from strategic investors like Okta Ventures, the venture capital investment arm of Lincoln Property Companies, Allegion Ventures and Sentre, and included follow-on from existing investors.

Los Angeles 177

Los Angeles Mobile Sales Venture Capital 177

socalTECH

JUNE 26, 2013

The company said that its products now include products for online, mobile, tablet, kiosk, group and call center ordering, loyalty programs, email marketing and mobile marketing products, and more. emn8 snapfinger merger acquisition venture capital restaurant ordering dining food point sale' READ MORE>>.

Allegis 164

Allegis Venture Capital Acquisition Mobile 164

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Many observers of the venture capital industry have questioned whether its best days are behind it. I can’t help feel a bit of rear-view mirror analysis in all of “VC model is broken” bears in our industry. They are, in fact, great news for traditional venture capitalists. This article originally ran on PEHub.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Startup 347

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 ). The world is going mobile. I’ll explain in detail below. Enter Burstly.

Mobile 282

Mobile Invest Company Companies 282

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Draw Your Ideas - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , May 16, 2010 I saw Jack Dorsey give this talk at The 99% Conference last month. Through advertising or direct sales, these sites harvest intent. He’d wasted a year of his life and had a pile of stock options that weren’t very interesting. Tesla is not.

Startup 248

Startup Venture Capital Conference Social Media 248

socalTECH

JANUARY 27, 2009

Irvine-based WiSpry announced today that it has hired on Lewis Boore as the firm's Vice President of Marketing and Sales. WiSpry, which develops RF semiconductors used for mobile phones, laptops, and other wirelss products, said that Boore joins the firm from Newmerix SA in Switzerland. READ MORE>>.

Sales 100

Sales Tech Coast Angels Marketing Venture Capital 100

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 13, 2021

With the new capital, SpotOn has raised $628 million since its inception. The latest investment is being used to finance the acquisition of another company in the space — Appetize, a digital and mobile commerce payments platform for enterprises such as sports and entertainment venues, theme parks and zoos. Image Credits: SpotOn.

Technical Review 296

Technical Review Software Review Invest Acquisition 296

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

All the data actually suggests with the growth of mobile, inbound sales calls will double from 30 billion to 60 billion in 3 years (source: Kelsey). In fact 61% of all mobile searches where a customer contacts a business it is via a phone call (source: Google). In the US alone there are 30 billion inbound sales calls every year.

Email 339

Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

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

socalTECH

MARCH 26, 2015

ChowNow said the new funding round was led by Upfront Ventures, and also included Steadfast Venture Capital, Daher Capital, and Karlin Ventures. Along with the new funding, the startup said it has named Nick Kellermeyer as Vp of Sales, and Arpan Jhaveri as VP of Product & Marketing. READ MORE>>.

SaaS 100

SaaS Venture Capital Mobile Los Angeles 100

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. Most experienced VCs won’t push you to give up founder control at this stage of the business nor should they. how much energy to put into channel partners vs. direct sales.

Startup 325

Startup Sales Technical Review Software Review 325

socalTECH

DECEMBER 9, 2009

San Diego-based Transaction Wireless , a developer of mobile gift card and other mobile marketing products, announced this morning that it has raised an additional $2M in funding. The funding came from its existing investors, Mission Ventures and Okapi Ventures. READ MORE>>.

Mission Ventures 133

Mission Ventures San Diego Mobile Venture Capital 133

socalTECH

JANUARY 16, 2013

MuckerLab has been fairly successful in attracting venture capital interest in its prior class of companies, with a significant chunk of the group's inagural class gaining venture or angel funding. MuckerLab's model is based on the TechStars incubation model, and the group is an affiliate of that startup accelerator.

Class 159

Class Startup Incubator Los Angeles 159

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

I invested in LA-based Gogii , one of the fastest growing, most exciting mobile social networking companies you’ve never heard of and maker of a product called textPlus. Scott Lahman , Zack Norman & Austin Murray were the three co-founders of JAMDAT, the most successful mobile 1.0 Sorry, moms. Zack is the creative talent.

Gogii 310

Gogii Invest Blogging Startup 310

socalTECH

DECEMBER 30, 2016

Despite the Q1 correction in valuation, and subsequent drop in VC funding, we saw numerous LA companies not only survive, but thrive - despite the macroeconomic trends. I studied East Asian religions in college and was intrigued to hear that a Buddhist monk was delivering meditation and mindfulness via a mobile app.

Santa Monica 124

Santa Monica Southern California Venture Capital SoCalTech 124

socalTECH

MAY 16, 2019

Tealium--which says its products are used for "real-time customer data orchestration", develops software which handles integration of "tags" into websites, mobile applications, and connects them to point-of-sale (POS) systems, call centers, and other systems. The company is led by CEO Jeff Lunsford. READ MORE>>.

Silver Lake 113

Silver Lake San Diego Activity Mobile 113

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. We haven’t hit that wall yet for three reasons: 1) not enough elapsed time, 2) the VC market is frenzied now, too and 3) we haven’t seen a market downturn since the volume picked up.

Invest 299

Invest Angel Technical Review Venture Capital 299

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 3, 2012

How do you come up with a compelling, mobile videogame title? We thought it would be interesting to hear the story behind Jonathan's startup efforts and where he hopes his mobile gaming startup will go. Now that we have the technology for mobile phones and tablets, to put out a game like Infinity Blade, that's what we are going to do.

Startup 217

Startup Mobile Venture Capital Resource 217

socalTECH

OCTOBER 23, 2017

SmartDrive said it will use the new funding for expansion of its strategy for fleet telematics and mobility services. The company said it will invest in R&D, sales and marketing, and expansion in North America and international markets. SmartDrive is led by CEO Steve Mitgang.

Funding 113

Funding San Diego Invest Mobile 113

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

We held a 90-minute demo session where 150 of LA’s VC’s and senior technology executives watched the LPLA V2 group present in small groups of 12-15 each. The VC’s & executives were then asked to make “commitments&# (in writing) to 3-5 of the companies that they felt they could make some sort of contribution to.

Company 276

Company Companies Startup Southern California 276

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 27, 2012

But it’s kind of hard to say “don’t plant near the big trees” when you just completed a big sale to Microsoft building an app that they should have created and dominated. I remember a discussion with an older VC who told me that in the early 90′s they wondered whether the VC industry had a future.

Technical Review 299

Technical Review Venture Capital Yammer Google 299

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 29, 2014

We also built two very high-quality mobile apps that we were experimenting with in terms of building better customer acquisition toools. We at Upfront Ventures enthusiastically led a $7 million round of funding in a combined company on track to top $10 million in sales soon and geared up for growth.

Startup 296

Startup Southern California Marketing Activity 296

socalTECH

JULY 31, 2013

In the world of mobile app and Internet startups, it''s not that often that you see companies who touch the hardware side of the world get funding nowadays. As you probably know, with your own mobile phone, those batteries don''t last nearly as long. They''re not currently in a cell phone coverage zone.

Technical Review 213

Technical Review Software Review Networking Technology 213

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

Tapiture, which is based in Venice, announced this morning that it has raised $825,000 in a new funding round, which will help it accelerate its existing traction, launch its e-commerce solution, and help drive development of new mobile apps. Tapiture is led by John Ellis, and was founded by John and Leo Resig of Resignation Media.

Commerce 194

Commerce Venice Sites Mobile 194

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 7, 2010

TechZulu will be streaming Digiday : Mobile live from 8:00am - 5:00pm PST Monday 3/8. Scott will share data and results from both ChaCha and other industry sources that will highlight the compelling opportunity that brand advertisers now have in the mobile arena. Presenter: Scott A.

Mobile 40

Mobile Media Case Study Advertising 40

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

Los Angeles-based MobileCause , which operates mobile fundraising, CRM, and communications services for non-profits, revealed today that it has recently raised $3.2M According to MobileCause, the funding came through "several rounds" of additional funding, from super-angel and micro venture capitalists. in funding. READ MORE>>.

Funding 124

Funding Mobile Los Angeles Sales 124

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2021

Customers today quickly get beyond these, and put a competitive priority on the experience of others, reflected in reviews and social media, and their own total experience with your sales process, delivery, returns, and support on their schedule. You need to be part of a larger ecosystem. These tolerate negative cash flows for growth.

Competition 142

Competition Software Review Social Media Custom 142

socalTECH

AUGUST 20, 2010

For this morning's interview, we thought we'd talk with Los Angeles-based Sidebar (www.sidebar.com), a venture backed startup in the mobile space, to learn more about what they are up to. Patrick Kennedy: Sidebar is a company that was founded to bring consumers personalized content, focused on mobile delivery of that content.

Content 189

Content Screening Mobile Custom 189

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

They have a mobile app and I felt like it crashed too much for my liking. All applications crash and this is especially true in the nascent mobile world where dealing with device types, OS’s & networks adds one hell of a configuration management problem. If you have multiple versions of your product, how many are web vs. mobile?

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup SEO Custom 346

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 25, 2015

The reason I’m thinking about the topic this morning is that several months ago Jason Spievak , the Founder & CEO of Invoca , the very first company I backed when I became a VC, started talking with me about whether he was the right guy to take the company to the next level. – the market moved massively our way.

Demand 150

Demand SaaS Startup Sales 150