The event is October 26th in Marina Del Rey , at the Ritz-Carlton, and should be an excellent opportunity to hear from local investors and other influential folks here–it looks like right now Tim Draper (DFJ), John Babcock (Rustic Canyon), Mark Suster (GRP), and Scott Sangster (Tech Coast Angels), Jason Nazar (Docstoc), Jeff Tinsley (MyLife), Shawn Colo (Demand Media), and Scott Painter (Zag/TrueCar) are among the many folks speaking at the event. If you’re interested in a ticket to the Perfect Pitch, send an email to me, telling me what you like best about socalTECH. Hi everyone–we’re giving away a ticket to the Perfect Pitch , the investment pitching event later this month which features a keynote by Richard Branson .

Venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson , of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, is the lead on a $60M venture capital round in Hawthorne-based SpaceX , the space rocket firm headed by Elon Musk, according to PE Week . SpaceX--which disclosed earlier this year via regulatory filing (and reported in socalTECH) that it had raised $15M out of $60M in a funding round--has Jurvetson listed as a member of its board. Jurvetson is a well known enthusiast for rockets. READ MORE>> ...Tags: Tags: jurvetson steve capital venture space

A study of the venture capital deal flow in Southern California conducted by socalTECH shows that venture capital deals dropped for Q3, to around $720M in deals, in a market dominated by clean technology firms. The numbers, which were drawn from venture deals tracked and reported in socalTECH's proprietary venture capital database, found that there was $719.7M The numbers--which in venture capital deals in the third quarter, down dramatically from $1.2B invested in Q3 of 2007, and down slightly from venture numbers in Q2, when there was approximately $966M in venture deals. The