On one side, you had Mark Suster of GRP Partners and Mike Jones of MySpace who were saying “yes”, and on the other side, you had Jamie Montgomery of Montgomery and Co. , and David Sacks of Geni/Yammer , who were saying “maybe/no”. Last week, one of those never-ending topics of discussion came up at Twiistup on a panel about whether or not Southern California was a good place to put your startup. It was, at least for me, somewhat of a downer way to lead into the last day of Twiistup.

in a venture round Wednesday, telling socalTECH that the Series A-1 round was led by GRP Partners , with participation by First Round Capital . Tanz said that GRP's Mark Suster will be joining the firm's board along with the funding. Advisors to the firm include David Sacks of Geni (formerly of PayPal) and Vince Thompson (formerly of AOL and Facebook). "Publishers Santa Monica-based GumGum , the online startup headed by Ophir Tanz which licenses photos on a CPM basis to online publishers, confirmed it had raised $2.6M Other board members at the firm are Michael

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