3 SILICON BEACH and LOS ANGELES

There’s no better way to escape the Silicon Valley bubble than to come to the warm sands of Silicon Beach, where kids are founding startups like they used to found rock bands. Silicon Beach is both incredibly huge and incredibly diverse—from the many elite universities to Beverly Hills to Compton, there is every kind of person here, and this diversity is the area’s greatest strength. For example, the Silicon Beach benefits from its proximity to Hollywood, having some of the leading digital video startups as well as celebrity endorsements for companies across the board. With less engineering talent but more of an understanding of mass-market practices, Silicon Beach founders (and their surfboards in the office: a different kind of board meeting, if you will), speak the language of art and advertising instead of C++ and Java. Even if it might be faster to go from San Francisco to LA than from LA to LA, companies like Snapchat, Tinder, Oculus VR, and Beats call Silicon Beach home for a reason.

AGGREGATE VENTURE ACTIVITY Q4’15 - Q3’16

VC FUNDING: $13.2B

DEALS: 939

EXITS: 309

5 YEAR YoY FUNDING GROWTH: 32.3%

5 YEAR YoY DEAL GROWTH 8.2%

Source: CB Insights

Match the COMPANY…	… with the CELEBRITY FOUNDER
1. THE HONEST COMPANY Sells eco-friendly baby and household products. Has a $1 billion valuation.	A. KIM KARDASHIAN Really not sure what she’s famous for, but she does have 33.7 million Twitter followers.
2. SHOEDAZZLE E-commerce site that provides members with a catalog based on their personal taste.	B. DR. DRE Rapper who happened to earn his MD in West Coast G-Funk.
3. BEATS An audio product company most well known for its headphones, often worn by the biggest names in sports. Acquired by Apple for $3 billion.	C. JESSICA ALBA Actress known for Academy Award–winning roles in Love Guru and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Just kidding.

SNAP: A brief, ephemeral, ten-second story.

A TINDERELLA STORY

In the hectic life of an entrepreneur, LA-based company Tinder offers the chance to meet someone—a Tinderella story of sorts. Some tips to navigating the Tinder scene.

1. PICTURE Every picture of you should be of you and your very attractive, sexy friend. Gotta keep ’em guessing.

2. BIO There are two options for the bio. The first is the simple college name and year—remember, however, that it is unlikely you are sixty-five and part of the Stanford Class of 2018. The second is the generic—you like wine perhaps, or running, or pandas, or pandas running with wine.

3. INSTAGRAM Linking to your Instagram immediately gives you a boost of credibility. Having three filters applied to every single one of your photos dips that credibility, and having over 2000 photos destroys it.

4. ATTRACT Have a member of the gender you are attempting to attract fill this out for you, promptly Google all of these subjects as the matches start coming, and soon you’ll be the Steph Curry at the three-point line.

Top Celebrity Venture Capitalists

From Ashton Kutcher to MC Hammer, tons of celebrities have poured their dollars into investing in the hottest businesses that they believe in. In fact, Madonna loved Vita Coco so much that she invested in them. Here’s a list of the most notable celebs in VC.

Ashton Kutcher, Actor

Invested in: Airbnb, Chegg, Skype, Casper, Fab

Bono, Musician, U2

Invested in: Facebook, Yelp, Forbes, Palm

Leonardo DiCaprio, Actor

Invested in: Mobli, Diamond Foundry, Rubicon Global

Jared Leto, Actor and Musician

Invested in: Blue Bottle Coffee, Nest, Meerkat, reddit

Nas, Rapper

Invested in: Coinbase, Genius, DeviantArt

Justin Bieber, Musician

Invested in: Spotify, Tinychat, Stamped, Shots

Magic Johnson, Former

Basketball Player

Invested ownership in: Starbucks, Los Angeles Dodgers, Fast Food chains, Sodexo

MC Hammer, Rapper

Invested in: Square, Bump, Pandora, Flipboard

Kobe Bryant, Former Athlete

Recently launched $100 million venture capital fund.

Tyra Banks, Former Supermodel

Investments in: The Muse, Videogram, The Hunt

REJECTED!

In 2013, Snapchat rejected a $3 billion buyout offer from Facebook and a $4 billion offer from Google. The widely criticized decision paid off, with Snapchat now valued at $16 billion. Here are some of the other largest rejected buyout deals.

Facebook

Company Interested: Yahoo!

Offer: $1 billion (2006)

Market Cap: $350+ billion

Groupon

Company Interested: Google

Offer: $6 billion (2010)

Market Cap: $2+ billion

Yahoo!

Company Interested: Microsoft

Offer: $44.6 billion (2008)

Market Cap: $40+ billion

Twitter

Company Interested: Facebook

Offer: $500 million (2008)

Market Cap: $13+ billion

ANGELS

Brad Jones

Chris Sacca

Guy Oseary

Mark Suster

Paige Craig

VENTURE CAPITALISTS

CAA Ventures

Clearstone

CrossCut Ventures

March Capital Partners

Rustic Canyon Ventures

Upfront Ventures

ACCELERATORS

Amplify

Disney

IdeaLab

LaunchPad LA

Media Camp

MuckerLab

Science Inc.

TYLTLab

ENTREPRENEURSHIP EVENTS

CoFoundersLab Matchup Santa Monica

Milken Institute Global Conference

Santa Monica New Tech: Startup Pitchfest

Startups Uncensored

Techout LA

The Montgomery Summit

The Startup Conference

BIG SUCCESS STORIES

BEATS

Cornerstone OnDemand

Rubicon Project

Snapchat

SpaceX

The Honest Co.

Q4’15 - Q3’16 TOP FUNDING ROUNDS

Snap—$1.8B

Relativity Media—$400M

Pharmaron Holding—$280M

William Morris Endeavor—$250M

OTG Management—$250M

A GUIDE TO SNAPCHAT

If you’re still sharing pictures with your friends using e-mail, you’re doing it wrong. Extremely popular with millennials, Snapchat is the platform to use to chat by snaps.

BREAKING DOWN THE SNAP

1 You can draw on, add emojis or text to your photos using these buttons.

Pro-tip: Don’t overdo this. Remember, this is Snapchat… not Crapchat.

2 Snapchats are timed so your friends can view them only for a few seconds. After that, they “disappear.”

3 Save your photo or video and share it on other platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

4 Add your Snap to your Snapchat Story and share it with the Snapchat community. Don’t know what a Story is? More on that below.

5 Once you’re satisfied with your photo, click to send it off to your friends. If you don’t have friends on Snapchat, make some. Social media requires being social.*

SNAPCHAT STORIES

Snapchat Stories are a collection of Snapchat videos and photos taken that live on the platform for 24 hours.

Pro-tip: Fake it until you make it. A great Snapchat Story is the fastest way to seem cool. Even if your life is boring, do something interesting for one minute.

SNAPCHAT DISCOVER

Snapchat’s Discover is becoming one of the best ways to consume the news. Hate reading boring articles? Snapchat Discover is for you. A few swipes right, down, and up and you’ll know everything that’s happening from your attic to the Arctic.

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SILICON BEACH and LOS ANGELES

AGGREGATE VENTURE ACTIVITY Q4’15 - Q3’16

SNAP: A brief, ephemeral, ten-second story.

A TINDERELLA STORY

LOS ANGELES AT A GLANCE

Power Breakfast

Coffee Shops to Start Up In

Go-to Drink

Offline Tinders

“Must Be At” Local Events

High-End Social Clubs

Startup Neighborhoods

LA Networking Tips