LA Venture

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Eric Schiffer -- Tech Coast Angels Nov 25, 2019

Show notes

Eric is the president of Tech Coast Angels, but we definitely got caught up talking about his prior experience as CEO of 99c only stores. This one is a great listen if you're at all interested in selling consumer goods or scaling operations.

Miki Reynolds -- Grid110 Nov 18, 2019

Show notes

Grid110 is a fantastic free accelerator program in DTLA (no cost, no equity). Miki started Grid110 in 2014 with a focus on fashion tech, but now Grid110 is open to early stage entrepreneurs in all sectors. Miki's awesome and what's not to love.

Laurent Grill -- Luma Launch Nov 12, 2019

Show notes

Laurent Grill is lead investor at Luma Launch, an LA pre-seed fund that does both B2B and B2C, with a particular interest in storytelling. In addition to funding (average check size $250k), Luma provides great mentors and services for it's teams. Laurent explains why Luma (and others) have moved away from the accelerator model.

Peter Lee -- Embark Ventures Nov 04, 2019

Show notes

Peter is a founder and managing partner at Embark Ventures, one of the very few deep tech/frontier tech focused investors in town. They write $500- $1M checks into pre-product companies with important science behind them. Peter is full of interesting thoughts on robotics, brain computer interaction and tech transfer out of universities.

Alex Rubalcava -- Stage Venture Partners Oct 24, 2019

Show notes

Alex is an early-stage enterprise B2B investor, typically writing checks $300-$600k into rounds of ~$1-3M. He is full of interesting insights and convictions. I could have talked to him for a long time.

Dana Settle -- Greycroft Oct 18, 2019

Show notes

Dana is a Founding Partner at Greycroft and heads the west coast office. She invests in seed, series A and out of the Greycroft growth fund. We talk to her about tracker funds, acquirers, her relationship to email and other interesting things.

John Waller -- Okapi Ventures Oct 10, 2019

Show notes

John is a gem. He is also a partner at Okapi Ventures. Before Okapi he was a founder (twice), he worked at Idealab and in corporate M&A. As he says, he has sat on all 10 sides of the table.

Brian Garrett -- Crosscut Ventures Oct 03, 2019

Show notes

Brian is one of the founders of Crosscut. Crosscut has been doing seed investing in LA since 2007. Brian explains their portfolio construction ($1.5-3M is "typical" but they stretch in both directions), the personalities of the Crosscut team and how they think about their reputation and the ecosystem they have been a part of growing for the past decade. From the episode: Nick Kim's post on Platform as a Product. Evolution coaching: https://www.evolution.team/

Peter Pham -- Science Sep 25, 2019

Show notes

Peter Pham is the co-founder of Science. Science is a startup studio here in Santa Monica that partners with founders at the earliest stage of company-creation. Peter educates me and David on D2C margins and radiation-preventing underwear over tallboys of Liquid Death.

Join us at Innovate Pasadena with great upcoming guests and a podcast if you can't join us in person.

Paul Bricault -- Amplify LA Sep 19, 2019

Show notes

Paul is founder and managing partner at Amplify. Amplify started as an accelerator, they still have the great office space, but now Paul describes Amplify as "pre-seed with benefits". They have a heavy LA focus to their investments ($250-500k) but not funding LA companies exclusively. Paul is also a venture partner at Greycroft and a nice person.

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