Bring your OC startup pitch to share with dozens of local venture capital and angel investors! FundingPost is throwing an exclusive PitchFest Speed Dating event where every startup founder in the room will have an opportunity to pitch! Join them Thursday, June 13 from 5:30PM to 9:00PM at WeWork The Boardwalk 18575 Jamboree Road in Irvine, CA. How is the... Read more →

Medical Waste Processing Technology Startup OnSite Raises $3.5 Million Seed In An Oversubscribed Round Investment Led by Mark IV Capital and Co-Led By The Cove Fund II. Proceeds Will be Used to Accelerate Sales and Employee Growth NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF. (PRWEB) MAY 22, 2019: OnSite Waste Technologies, a leader in modernizing on-site medical waste disposal, today announces the completion of... Read more →

Congratulations to CLI Studios and IntelliVision Entertainment - winners of the LaunchPad startup pitch competition at OCTANe's annual Technology Innovation Forum. Held at the Marriott Hotel & Spa in Newport Beach this week, the two day TIF conference brought together hundreds of local executives involved in our local Orange County startup ecosystem. The highlight of the event was the LaunchPad... Read more →

OCTANe's annual Technology Innovation Forum was held at the Marriott Hotel & Spa in Newport Beach this week. The two day TIF conference brought together hundreds of local executives involved in our local Orange County technology and life sciences startup ecosystems. Day Two featured local startup success story, Lori Torres, the Founder and CEO of Parcel Pending. JC Ruffalo, the... Read more →

Angel Network 2018 Year End Report Shows Strong Year in Diverse Sectors New Companies and Percentage of Investment in New Companies Near Record Highs IRVINE, Calif. -- May 7, 2019 – Tech Coast Angels (TCA) invested $10.8 million in a total of 53 companies in 2018. There was a diverse mix of investments: Life Sciences and Software were by far... Read more →

Pritzker Group Venture Capital Leads Round IRVINE, Calif., April 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Specright, Inc., a software company that enables customers to control critical supply chain specifications such as packaging, products, and raw materials, announced today an $8.8 million Series A round of funding. Led by Pritzker Group Venture Capital (PGVC), with participation from previous investors Okapi Venture Capital, Fika... Read more →

Thursday night's "Investor Speed Dating" was a big success! With over 100 local startup companies presenting and 40+ investors in the house, the energy was high and startup innovation was in the air for this startup pitch competition. Hosted at the UCI Merage School of Business' Beall Center for Innovation, the auditorium and lobby were packed with local entrepreneurs and... Read more →

Buy It Installed, Inc. has announced the appointment of Todd Banhidy to the position of President. Banhidy will also continue to serve as the company's Chief Product Architect over its digital properties Buy It Installed® and Craftsman Republic®. With 34 years in the global Installed-Sales industry, Banhidy's unparalleled depth in industry knowledge and experience is perfectly suited to lead the... Read more →

Local OC angel investors recently realized a 15x return from a 2003 investment in CaseStack thanks to its $255 million sale to Hub Group, Inc.. IRVINE, CALIF. (PRWEB) FEBRUARY 14, 2019 Tech Coast Angels (TCA) announced its sixth highest exit ever when Hub Group, Inc. recently purchased CaseStack for $255 million. This successful exit was unique in many ways: the... Read more →

Parcel Pending Announces Acquisition by Neopost Agreement will help bring Parcel Pending’s innovative package management solutions to more residential, commercial, retail and universities properties nationwide. IRVINE, Calif., Jan. 31, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Parcel Pending, the nation's leading provider of innovative package management solutions, today announced that it has been acquired by Paris-based Neopost, a global leader in mail solutions,... Read more →

Welcome new OC Startup Council members: Foreknow and Next Level Management! The Foreknow Experience Platform allows brands to predict exactly when and where their customer will be, along with what purchases they might make, engaging with them at the most opportune moment. http://www.foreknow.com OC Startup Ecosystem Directory Category: Advertising Startups Artificial Intelligence Startups Software Startups Next Level Management: We are... Read more →

Welcome to Okapi Venture Capital, a new Member of the OC Startup Council! Okapi Venture Capital: The longest standing early stage venture capital firm in OC, Okapi invests in technology driven companies, particularly those leveraging software and focused on enterprise B2B applications. We are based in Laguna Beach and are hands-on investors, bringing our capital, experience and networks to aid... Read more →

Please welcome EventMeow, WellTuned, and TerraManta as the newest Bronze Members of the OC Startups Directory! EVENTMEOW EventMeow is a low cost DIY mobile app platform that allows conference organizers, event planners, and corporate marketing directors to easily and inexpensively build their own conference schedule apps. A self-serve DIY SAAS platform based in Anaheim, EventMeow’s solutions are 10x better than... Read more →

Orange County fintech startup darling, Acorns, recently closed a new investment round that brings the investing and savings startup’s valuation up to a whopping $860 million! This funding was a Series E round of $105 million, as previously reported here in December. Acorns’ investors in this financing round include big venture investing names such as NBCUniversal, BlackRock, Bain Capital Ventures,... Read more →

Welcome to VYRL, a new Silver Member of the OC Startup Council! VYRL is building the Global Commerce Network for Modern Brands. A community for social influencers, VYRL enables users to connect, collaborate, and transact with each other in an exclusive environment. And for brands, VYRL’s “Carro” mission control system makes finding influencers that love their brands easier than ever... Read more →

2018 brought the most growth capital investing to our region since 2000, according to Pricewaterhouse Coopers and CB Insights, which published their annual "MoneyTree" report of regional venture capital trends and figures last week. The overall number of funding transactions in the Los Angeles/Orange County region decreased slightly (to 419 deals from 2017's 432). But 2018 yielded $6 Billion of... Read more →

BlackBerry Limited recently announced it was acquiring Cylance, Orange County's artificial intelligence and cybersecurity leader, for $1.4 billion in cash. The deal is expected to close by February 2019, pending approvals and closing conditions. Founded in Orange County in 2012, Cylance's cybersecurity software uses artificial intelligence, algorithmic science, and machine learning. This predicts and prevents known and unknown threats to... Read more →

Orange-based ListReports recently received an additional $550,000 to support its continued development of technology that makes the home buying and selling process a delightful experience. The new funding is the seventh tranche of financing Lighter Capital has provided the tech startup, dating back to 2016, with a total of $2.042 million in funding to date. Since the first Lighter Capital... Read more →

OC’s leading angel investment group, Tech Coast Angels (TCA), recently announced that the venture capital firm SWS Venture Capital (SWS) joined its network as an affiliate member. Steve Streit, the General Partner and Chairman of SWS, received capital and mentorship from TCA when he founded Green Dot, which is now a multi-billion-dollar publicly-traded NYSE company. “This is truly a full-circle... Read more →

Our friends at PriceWaterhouseCoopers are back with more interesting numbers quantifying the local Orange County capital investment and funding environment. While the first two quarters of 2018 demonstrated generally strong deal flow, unfortunately it looks like deals and funding activity in the Los Angeles and OC region declined again last quarter. As you can see, the dollar volume of that... Read more →