I’ve always been surprised by how current the commercial real estate brokers in the region are in terms of high tech startups and venture fundings. You’d be very surprised, as they tend to be the first to hear about new companies, new startups, and venture fundings. So, it’s not all that unusual to see they [...]
Among the rampant fear the bouncing market has instilled in entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, there are more than a few people hyperventilating about what that means for the high tech market. On the other hand, there are some who are trying to take an objective view on what this really means, in the long term. [...]
Self plug alert: for anyone interested in clean technology, I’m moderating a panel next Wednesday in Altadena at Los Angeles Technology Week, on Sustainable Energy. Panelists include: Rao Surampudi, PhD, Technical Group Supervisor, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, fuel cell and battery expert; Michael Bissonette, Vice President and General Manager, Energy Technology Center, Aerovironment; Gregg Ander, FAIA, [...]
For all the hand wringing I’ve heard in the last week (since Silicon Valley had its own “crisis of confidence” capped by the Sequoia RIP presentation), I thought I’d point people to an article Steve Mednick posted to our Insights & Opinions section quite some time ago: Bootstrapping Your Business. Get Real. Get Started. Steve [...]
As folks try to sort out the impact of the market downturn on their businesses, one thing is clear, at least from my conversations with entrepreneurs and investors in the community: angel investment deals are slowing down, and companies looking for angel investment may be seeing a delay in their funding rounds close. The simple [...]
Wired has the great story of Comcast giving away free cable TV service to people who (still) don’t have cable or satellite TV. Which reminds me of many years ago, shortly out of college, when I moved into a condo, and never bothered to hook up cable — the local cable installer stopped by my [...]
There’s been lots of fear and anxiety out there given the state of the markets, with not much an entrepreneur can do (except to avoid looking at your stock portfolio). However, Jared Reitzen, who is CEO of Los Angeles-based mobileStorm, posted some practical tips and hints on how best to survive through challenging times Tuesday [...]
Here’s an interesting lesson in how VC works, demonstrated by local venture capital firm GRP Partners, which highlights the highs and lows venture investors see all the time: Looking at the Venture Investor’s behind eBay’s Latest Deal (WSJ) – GRP is an early investor in BillMeLater — just bought by eBay for $945M — and [...]
There’s been some speculation lately on what the “good” startups to be at are in a extended downturn, using the amount of venture capital raised by those firms as a proxy for “good.” Unfortunately, it’s not how much venture capital a company has raised: it’s how fast a company is burning through the cash it [...]
I was chuckling last week about this item on Mashable about the acquisition of San Marino-based Bankaholic (we reported on this last month) — a one-man operation run by John Wu, acquired for about $15M. Southern California has a lot of these stealthy success stories — companies no one (in Silicon Valley) has heard of [...]
Thoughts and commentary from Benjamin F. Kuo, publisher of socalTECH.com.
