LA Venture

"Good paperwork makes good friendships".  Deron Quon, co-founder of Menus.com, Datassential, and Collective Solution shares thoughts on scaling and navigating a sale to private equity.   Now an active angel investor and founder of Hoopla.com, Deron also talks about the importance of investing back into the LA ecosystem.

Roy Rubin dropped out of UCLA to start Magento, a massive eCommerce platform that scaled to over $100B in transactions annually.   Roy is now writing $500k to $1M checks out of his fund, R-Squared Ventures.   The story of his success and lessons learned is inspiring and worth a listen!

There are so many great founders and VCs moving to LA! Vinay Singh is a Managing Director at Anthemis where he leads seed and Series A investments out of their early stage fund.  Vinay tells us that Anthemis is a global investment platform focused on the digital transformation of financial services, investing across all stages of growth.

What are the best ways for a startup to partner with a big corporation?   Beth Kearns from Touchdown Ventures tells about different partnership models, best practices and pitfalls to avoid.   This interview includes information from third party sources believed to be reliable; however, we make no representations as to its accuracy or completeness. References to strategies are for illustrative purposes only and should not be relied upon as a recommendation to engage in any particular strategy or to invest in any particular security. Opinions expressed herein are based on current market conditions and may change without notice and we reserve the right to change any part of these materials without notice and assume no obligation to provide an update. Recipients are advised not to infer or assume that any securities, strategies, companies, sectors or markets described will be profitable or that losses will not occur. Any description or information regarding investment process or strategies is provided for illustrative purposes only, may not be fully indicative of any present or future investments and may be changed at the discretion of the manager. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.  

Word on the street is that more deals have structure.  Kareem tells us about structured equity--when it makes sense and who it's right for. Arrowroot is an 8+ year old growth equity firm in LA and Miami on Fund V ($500MM+ invested globally across 28 port cos.) that specializes in structured equity for venture-backed enterprise software companies.

Talking with Jeffrey made me wonder if I need to get a celebrity for our venture fund.  Jeffrey had the opportunity to work with Alex and Drew of the Chainsmokers to set up Mantis VC and it sounds like an amazing team. Jeffrey explains the value that the Chainsmokers are able to bring and how entrepreneurs and funds can best work with celebrity.

Fred is the Chief Innovation and Partnerships officer at Caltech where he oversees the Tech Transfer office and recently set up two new funds : The Caltech Fund and the Wilson and Hill fund. Fred gives us a behind-the-scenes look at how Caltech labs are run and how his team thinks about the translational potential of scientific work.

Why is a Series B pitch so much different than pitching a Series A company?  How do growth stage investors think about multiples today?   Mike Fernandez talks about what he is seeing in growth rounds today and the sort of support that is needed for later stage companies.

This is a great explanation of PLG from the guy who coined the term.  Blake Bartlett tells us about the different eras of business software and the problems it was built to solve--from solving a CIO's problems, to solving a business problem, to solving an end user problem. Blake explains how to get started with PLG, how the funnel changes going from a sales-led motion to a product-led motion, how to think about PLG metrics, and much more.

I learned so much about working with celebrities from Jackie Fast at Sandbox Studios : * Celebrities are not doing this for impact.  It is for the money * George Clooney's $1B payday from Casamigos caught everyone's attention * It's not only about choosing the right celebrity, it's also about having the right team around them * Celebrities are so eager to work with startups, they are resorting to DMs * Celebrities and startup collaboration is going to explode