socalTECH

OCTOBER 10, 2013

In what is a fairly unusual move, last week, Tradesparq (www.tradesparq.com), a Chinese startup in the area of B2B trade information, said it was planning on setting up its operations here in Southern California, as part of an expansion and scaling of the company. Michael Kleist: We started in 2010. Tell us about your backers?

Southern California 170

Southern California Startup SoCal CTO Hire 170

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. The startup was founded by Paul J. READ MORE>>.

Social Media 100

Social Media Seed Funding Venice Social Network 100

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

Lower costs to start a business (95% reduction), many more companies created & funded by angels / seed. ” 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

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

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. Curious to what Siemer has been investing in lately?

Draper 164

Draper Seed Funding Commerce Social Network 164

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

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 7, 2013

Based on the final report for 2012 from Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), it may appear that IPOs are back as a viable startup exit strategy. 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.

Venture Capital 101

Venture Capital Startup Capital Seed Funding 101

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

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 spoke with founder and CEO Aaron Robin to learn more about the app and how it started, and how the company is hoping to reduce the stigma associated with seeking mental health support.

Social Network 113

Social Network Startup Platform Networking 113

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. To me, this indicates that venture capitalists (VCs) are looking for business, but not from first-time startups. Energy deals climbed with funding increasing significantly.

Venture Capital 93

Venture Capital Startup Capital Seed Funding 93

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. We caught up with Artin Nazarian , the firm's co-founder, and chatted about what the company is hoping to do. What is MySocialNightLife all about?

Social Media 174

Social Media Seed Funding Startup Design 174

socalTECH

MAY 26, 2011

Jake Winebaum is a veteran of the Southern California technology industry, having run and sold a number of successful, Southern California startups. He's also on the board of hot Silicon Valley startup Gigya. We caught up with Jake to hear why he's turned his attention to dentistry, and what he's trying to do with Brighter.

Startup 249

Startup Pricing Southern California Networking 249

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

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2009

A few years ago it became fashionable for large VC’s to do seed funding. So they set up seed programs that allowed for rapid decisions for $500k or less, often done as convertible debt for both speed and cost reasons. Many VCs who do lots of seed stage deals are very supportive and active.

Seed Funding 283

Seed Funding Venture Capital Funding Software Review 283

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

On December 2nd, 2006 I wrote the blog post published later in this post when I was CEO of startup Koral about my experiences in pitching VCs. There was no viral social networking products back then like Twitter where people could easily discover your content. My blog was wiped out. And covered we did. After Office 2.0

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

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. “We started doing cartoon live streams and the founders of Musical.ly Lil Miquela and fellow brud avatar Blawko22.

Social Media 261

Social Media Content Media Artificial Inteligence 261

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

Good idea & plan: You must start with a good idea and a PowerPoint deck (my outline is here , scroll down mid way). And a great product starts with the founder. Professional angels / former entrepreneurs / seed funds – In Silicon Valley there are people like Ron Conway, Jeff Clavier, Mike Maples and many more.

Angel 291

Angel Funding Venture Capital Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2010

He started his career as a lawyer (he even clerked for a supreme court justice!) 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. I’ve already started the business modeling. Total raised: $17.0mm.

Venture Capital 230

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Fandango 230

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. See Reminder screenshot].

Web 74

Web Social Network Email Networking 74

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. Andy Wilson: (Laughts) Where should I start? There is a lot of activity on connecting and building your network.

Networking 178

Networking Startup Software eHarmony 178

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

We caught up with the CEO William Zell. 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. Any funding yet? We have received seed funding from a friend and it is personally funded. Future plans?

Mentor 94

Mentor Platform Social Network Chief Technology Officer 94

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Most are sitting on large portfolios of private companies that are raising money now or will need to do so in the future and they know that they’re up against some headwinds. The Motive for Speaking Up. ” “Mark has a vested interest in talking down valuations of startups.” So prices start dropping.

Startup 150

Startup Company Companies Venture Capital 150

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

August was a slow month in terms of traffic and I was away for a lot of the month, but there were some really great posts at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. He blogs to 10,000 web entrepreneurs at Software by Rob and co-hosts the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us. equity debate.

Startup 191

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Hire 191

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?

Networking 71

Networking Help Social Media Platform 71

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

There are obvious reasons the industry has had less-than-desirable returns, including: massive over-funding of the sector, huge increases in inexperienced venture capitalists that took a decade to peter out, and the massive correction in the value of the public stock markets that closed many exit opportunities for half a decade.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Startup 347

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. Here is the Wikipedia definition of a bubble. ” ring hollow.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Pricing Platform Marketing 150

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

Some great content around the intersection of startups and being a Startup CTO in June this year. This continues my series of posts: Top 30 Startup Posts in June 2010 Top 29 Startup Posts May 2010 Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March The following are the top items based on social signals.

Startup 217

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Software Review 217