In an interesting footnote to last week’s Los Angeles Venture Association awards, it’s noteworthy to see LAVA Hall of Fame winner Jon Funk (now running Ocean Road Partners, previously at Allegis Capital) has just booted up an effort to help educate entrepreneurs about receiving venture capital. Funk has just announced a plan to run a [...]
If you’ve ever lived in Silicon Valley or spent time pitching there, you realize the huge contrast in pitching local Southern California venture capitalists and the usual run through Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park. I used to bicycle my way through Sand Hill Road every weekend after work (I was living in Mountain View, [...]
from ussocom via flickr There’s been a lot of attention given to the Navy SEALs in the last few weeks since the Osama Bin Laden raid, so I wasn’t surprised to see the post from Jeff Bussgang, a well followed venture capitalist blogger, this week. Jeff posted a few tips on what entrepreneurs can learn [...]
For those of you interested in the full presentation from Clearstone Ventures’ William Quigley on why he thinks we’re due for a venture capital revival (complete with cute title slide reference to the Sequoia “RIP: Good Times” presentation from back in 2006), we’ve embedded it below. Quigley draws on the recent fundraising numbers from venture [...]
Among one of the biggest issues new entrepreneurs face when trying to raise money, from both angel and venture capital investors, is not doing their research and getting to know their investors before approaching them. In my years tracking the high tech companies getting–and not getting–funding, particularly here in Southern California, I’ve noticed that those [...]
An interesting article this week from Reuters, talking about how Venture capitalists set sights on Hollywood, implying that venture capitalists are flocking to fund entertainment-related startups in Los Angeles. Although the venture numbers are correct (yes, venture funding is up nicely in Los Angeles), the conclusion–that those investments are in entertainment-related companies, is, I believe, [...]
An interesting comment by Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital yesterday, claiming that all of the innovation in Silicon Valley can be funded to the tune of just $400 million a year. To put that into perspective, we recently tallied Q3 investments in Southern California at about $1 billion. $400 million is a fraction of the [...]
In what is a twist to the typical startups-pitch-VC events, tonight’s Meet the VC event tonight by the Los Angeles Venture Association in Santa Monica has, instead of startup pitches, local venture capitalists pitching startups about their firms. In the event, just about every local venture capital firm will talk about what they are about [...]
Anyone interested in hearing my opinions and observations on tech hostpots and venture capital on the 101 Corridor–or just interested in networking with other folks in the area in technology–might be interested in the Meeting of the Minds (MOTM) event next week in Westlake Village on Wednesday, September 1st. They’ve asked me to give my [...]
Just a quick disclosure. We (and many others) have covered that USC has appointed Pat Haden — former USC and NFL quarterback — as athletic director, after a long stint in private equity at Riordan, Lewis & Haden. By coincidence, my very first exposure to venture capital, what it was, and how it works (as [...]
Thoughts and commentary from Benjamin F. Kuo, publisher of socalTECH.com.
