Thursday, January 22, 2009 -- LAVA Venture Awards Dinner. Lifetime Achievement Award in Entrepreneurism awarded to Ted Meisel, Elevation Partners; awards to * Hottest New Company * Best IPO * Best MandA * Best Funding in New Media * Best Funding in Online Advertising * Best Funding in Clean Technology * Best Funding in Bio Tech and Medical Devices. See [link] ... mor

Thursday, January 21, 2010 -- LAVA's 7th Annual Venture Awards Dinner. 2010 LAVA Hall of Fame Inductee: Jake Winebaum; Best Exit Life Sciences: Corevalve, Inc.; Best Exit Internet Technology, Networks In Motion; Best Funding in New Media/Internet: Rubicon Project, The, HauteLook.com, Zag; Best Funding in Software/Services: OpenX Technologies, Inc. (FKA: Master of Ceremonies: Ken Rutkowski, METal International. FKA: Openads), Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc.;

socalTECH is a media sponsor of the LAVA Special Event: Meet the VCs on November 17th. The event features an interactive networking roundtable at which more than 30 venture capitalists from California, who will talk with local entrepreneurs about deal flow and the types of investments they're looking to fund. This Register for the event at the LAVA web site today! ...Tags: It's a can't miss opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs looking to connect with investors in Southern California technology companies. This event series is designed to help investors and

The Los Angeles Venture Association has launched a new entrepreneur and startup focused event next month, at their Meet the VC event, which will allow entrepreneurs to get to meet pretty much every one of the local (and some non-local) venture funds in a “speed dating” session. Entrepreneurs tell me that one of the biggest barriers of entry to funding is getting face time with venture capitalists; it looks like LAVA is looking to overcome the lack of time (on the side of venture capitalists) and the lack of connections (on the entrepreneur side) with this, and it might help

Thursday, October 23, 2008 -- Funding Clean Tech Venture. LAVA. Market conditions have changed since the heyday of the first half of 2007 but funding in this sector continues. Panel providing the latest information about where Cleantech investors are making investments and the relative state of the market compared with recent periods. See [link] (mor

LAVA. Discussion includes: * team building and recruiting * business plan issues * developing a concise message * building credibility (with customers, partners, employees and early investors) * getting the business model to work properly * getting funded. Tuesday, January 12, 2010 -- CEOs Talk Startups. What mistakes did they make? *

LAVA. An interactive networking roundtable at which more than 30 venture capitalists from California, will talk with local entrepreneurs about deal flow and the types of investments they're looking to fund. Wednesday, September 23, 2009 -- Meet the VCs: The thrill of speed dating for startups. This event series is designed to help investors and entrepreneurs engage with one another.

The more successful (and funded) entrepreneurs I know spend much more time getting to know an investor, their investments, their interests, etc. Your goal, in an informal event like this one (or even, I would argue, LAVA’s upcoming Meet The VC event ) — is NOT to try to speed through a PowerPoint deck and overwhelm the investor with your business plan and handouts. Sid Mohasseb, one of the Tech Coast Angels, just emailed out about a new “entrepreneur happy hour” the group is running in Orange County, which got me thinking about how entrepreneurs should (or shouldn’t) approach angel and venture investors.

LAVA. Discussion on start up issues including i) team building and recruiting, ii) business plan issues, iii) developing a concise message, iv) building credibility (with customers, partners, employees and early investors), v) getting the business model to work properly, and vi) finally getting funded. Tuesday, November 11, 2008 -- CEOs Talk Startups. CEOs Talk Startups ...what

LAVA Breakfast Meeting. While having a thorough understanding of their breakthroughs in technology or science it is the routine acts of fund raising, hiring resources and managing for results rather than publications that make taking research out of the lab and into a start-up a special case. Tuesday, December 8, 2009 -- Out of the Lab and into a Business. Getting research out of the university lab and into a growing business poses a unique set of challenges - especially when the scientist is assumed to be the entrepreneur.