L.A. Business Journal

APRIL 27, 2018

K-Swiss will introduce an esports shoe in a partnership with esports group Immortals; a new social network for girls founded by former Disney execs gets $2.7M in seed funding; and WME expands its podcast portfolio.

Social Network 100

Social Network Seed Funding Networking Report 100

socalTECH

JULY 19, 2012

Los Angeles investor Baroda Ventures , the venture capital arm of David Bohnett, has re-upped on online fashion and e-commerce site Fab.com , in a big, $105M third round of funding for that site. Baroda has been an investor in Fab since its seed funding back in June of 2010. Bohnett is the founder of Geocities.com.

Funding 178

Funding Seed Funding Commerce Social Network 178

socalTECH

APRIL 5, 2016

Bombd , a startup which develops a social networking and messaging app revolving around sharing instant photos with others, has set up shop in Venice Beach. in total, valuing the company at $10M; the company is apparently currently talking with venture investors both locally and in Silicon Valley about a new funding round.

Social Network 100

Social Network Venice Networking Startup 100

socalTECH

JUNE 1, 2011

Altly detailed its plans to create an alternative to Facebook last week, complaining in a lengthy manifesto from Shapiro that an alternative to Facebook was sorely needed due to privacy and other issues with the social networking site. Shapiro was the former founder of Veoh Networks and head of MySpace Music. READ MORE>>.

Veoh 174

Veoh Draper Seed Funding Venice 174

socalTECH

JULY 16, 2012

Los Angeles-based Fliptu (www.fliptu.com), headed by Jeremy Gocke , thinks it has this figured out, by providing a central place to access a brand's content, across social networks. The firm already has seed funding from such investors as Kelly Perdew, Sugarmaker Media, and support from talent agency ICM Partners.

Social Media 268

Social Media Media Social Network Seed Funding 268

socalTECH

JUNE 10, 2021

Los Angeles-based venture investor Trousdale Ventures announced this morning that it has made an investment in Preamble, a startup offering up "ethical artificial intelligence" moderation to social networks. Size of the seed funding round was not announced.

Artificial Inteligence 113

Artificial Inteligence Seed Funding Tool Social Network 113

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

Ribbon, the developer of a social commerce platform which lets users list items for sale, distribute that through their social networks like Facebook , and accept credit card payments--said today that it has raised $1.6M in a seed funding round.

Draper 164

Draper Seed Funding Commerce Social Network 164

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 8, 2018

seed funding in that firm. The second firm, New Knowledge, develops software to uncover the farms of "bots" which are being used to influence social networking sites--and in fact, was the company which uncovered the large-scale Russian efforts to influence the U.S. Moonshots led the $1.4M

Invest 150

Invest Capital Seed Funding Social Network 150

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 16, 2008

San Diego-based RealGifts has a new take on earning dollars from Facebook applications: allowing users to purchase real, tangible items from the popular social networking site. RealGifts is one of nearly 600 startups competing for funding from Facebook's fbFund, the $10M seed fund run by the Founders Fund and Accel Partners.

Seed Funding 100

Seed Funding San Diego Social Network Sites 100

socalTECH

MAY 23, 2011

The firm said it is preparing for a Series A, and is using the new seed funding to expand its functionality. Apptango, Unsocial's parent firm, is headed by Bruce Brown, and develops and designs mobile applications for clients. READ MORE>>.

Seed Funding 154

Seed Funding Conference Networking Los Angeles 154

socalTECH

APRIL 6, 2016

Los Angeles- and Sydney, Australia-based Clapit , a startup developing a social media crowdsourcing app, said it has raised AU$2.57M ($1.94M US), to bring its mobile app to market. The seed funding came from Australia angels Mark Moran and Paul Siderovski. Clapit, which says it is based in Sydney and has its U.S. READ MORE>>.

Social Media 100

Social Media Seed Funding Venice Social Network 100

socalTECH

MAY 18, 2011

Earlier this month, Los Angeles-based MySocialNightLife.com (www.mysocialnightlife.com) announced a seed funding round, and its technology platform for the nightclub and bar industry. Artin Nazarian: What we've pushed live as a beta, is the front-facing, social networking aspect of this. Where is the site now?

Social Media 174

Social Media Seed Funding Startup Design 174

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

This has led to the creation of incubators, accelerators and seed funds. The movie, “The Social Network” might have had more of an impact on creating future entrepreneurs than any other event of the past 5 years. From this we have seen a commensurate boom in the number of startup companies. Thank you, Aaron Sorkin!

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Startup 347

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2010

Since then Mike his built his career by investing in early-stage companies (seed or series A), which is remarkable given that Polaris Ventures is a $1 billion fund. Web service that allows parents to monitor children’s activity on social networks in realtime for about $10/child/month. Total raised: $30mm.

Venture Capital 230

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Fandango 230

socalTECH

MAY 26, 2011

We raised funding in January from Mayfield, on top of the seed funding we raised at the onset. Because of that, we don't need to do the latest social network, or some whizzy mobile app-- we can focus on stuff that people really, really need, and do it right. READ MORE>>.

Startup 249

Startup Pricing Southern California Networking 249

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

The irony: a sad state that even with the huge number of social network applications we have at our disposal, we’re oftentimes lost, unable to keep up, or still lose touch so easily. It’s not your fault that we can only be social creatures to a certain extent before brain overload.

Web 74

Web Social Network Email Networking 74

socalTECH

MARCH 14, 2017

Last week, Los Angeles-based iExhale (www.iexhale.com) announced a seed funding round, to bring its mobile, mental health service to life. We've combined online therapy with phone calls with licensed professionals, and also added an online social networking aspect and mood checkup. What's iExhale all about?

Social Network 113

Social Network Startup Platform Networking 113

socalTECH

OCTOBER 10, 2013

It''s a social network for world trade, kind of a combo between Alibaba and LinkedIn. Michael Kleist: We''re seed funded, and have already raised money from twelve investors. We''ve now reached critical mass in content, and in Asia we''re number three in the amount of information on products and suppliers online.

Southern California 170

Southern California Startup SoCal CTO Hire 170

socalTECH

APRIL 1, 2013

In the age of social networking, everyone has hundreds--even thousands--of connections online. But, to a business person, those connections and network are only good as the real life relationships they create.

Networking 178

Networking Startup Software eHarmony 178

TechCrunch LA

JANUARY 14, 2019

Betaworks is betting on the content studio aspect through companies like SuperPlastic , a new startup launched by Paul Budnitz, the founder of the alternative social network ello and Budnitz Bicycles. Budnitz is perhaps best known for Kidrobot , a manufacturer of branded collectibles and toys for adults and kids everywhere.

Social Media 261

Social Media Content Media Artificial Inteligence 261

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 7, 2013

Sure, there will always some seed funding (10% of overall deal flow), but you can bet that this money goes to entrepreneurs who have been there before and won. Get introduced via one of the social networks, or a professional organization, before you approach a VC with a business proposal.

Venture Capital 101

Venture Capital Startup Capital Seed Funding 101

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2011

billion jump in funding over the same quarter of 2010 with a similar number of deals, so it clearly shows a trend to larger deal sizes for fewer startups. Sure, there is always some seed funding (10% of overall deal flow), but you can bet that this money goes to entrepreneurs who have been there before and won.

Venture Capital 93

Venture Capital Startup Capital Seed Funding 93

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

Our focus is providing anyone who is active online already with the ability to leverage their existing social networks for monetized one-on-one conversations. From there the user promotes their access to their social networks through our easy social sharing, and others can come to their public profile and request a huddle.

Mentor 94

Mentor Platform Social Network Chief Technology Officer 94

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Back then Michael Arrington accused some of Silicon Valley’s top seed funds of “colluding” by meeting secretly to talk down the valuation of startups. Of course a group of 10 seed funds can’t fix the prices of a market. What hogwash. For the past 7 years prices have risen steadily. Even Sequoia.

Startup 150

Startup Company Companies Venture Capital 150

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 18, 2012

As a social platform, exploreB2B is to a small degree, in competition with other social media platforms used for business (Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora). Yet, exploreB2B is an article-based platform for B2B, which is completely unique in the social landscape. Any funding yet? Subscription to industries, authors or keywords.

Networking 71

Networking Help Social Media Platform 71

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2009

A few years ago it became fashionable for large VC’s to do seed funding. Many VCs who do lots of seed stage deals are very supportive and active. I think they definitely qualify as a VC and not a seed fund. What exactly is seed funding anymore? They do many early-stage deals.

Seed Funding 283

Seed Funding Venture Capital Funding Software Review 283

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

” The new narrative is “will my seed funds be able to fund the prorata of their winners?” ” Stated simply – if you seed funded Uber at $4.5m Seed funds now represent 67% of all funds being created now, which is up 100% from 6 years ago. .”

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

socalTECH

JANUARY 15, 2016

in a seed funding, the company said Friday. The funding came from Greycroft Partners, and also included Comcast Ventures, Crosscut Ventures, Betaworks, as well as the NBA's David Stern and Robert Kirkman of "The Walking Dead".

Seed Funding 100

Seed Funding Funding Los Angeles Tool 100

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

Professional angels / former entrepreneurs / seed funds – In Silicon Valley there are people like Ron Conway, Jeff Clavier, Mike Maples and many more. Social Network s / Search / Blogs – Obvious, huh? Also, make sure that your investors are accredited.

Angel 291

Angel Funding Venture Capital Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

There was no viral social networking products back then like Twitter where people could easily discover your content. So far at the company I have raised seed funds of $500,000 of which $470,000 is still in the bank so I’m in pretty good shape. I hadn’t thought about the fact that he would become aware of my link.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

The expanding pool of angel, seed, and super seed funds is another. Making Money From Social Games - ArcticStartup , August 23, 2010 Games Developer Conference Europe 2010 (GDCE) took place last week in Cologne, Germany. Social gaming was naturally one of the key topics, covered in many presentations.

Startup 191

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Hire 191

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

Graphs - Chris Dixon , July 22, 2010 It has become customary to use “ graph &# to refer to the underlying data structures at social networks like Facebook. Computer scientists call the study of graphs “ network theory ,&# but on the web the word “network&# is used to refer to the websites themselves).

Startup 217

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Software Review 217

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 18, 2015

On the one hand innovation is clearly at an all time high unleashed by smart phones, fast telecom networks, social networks that spread commerce and the fact that we are all one click away from buying things on Amazon, Apple, Google or PayPal. The truth is always more nuanced.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Pricing Platform Marketing 150