Amplify is an awesome accelerator in Venice by the beach on Windward circle (I just had lunch with their investment director today). One of their portfolio companies, Invested.in just announced that they raised a round of $830k from a large number of angel investors (a fit strategy for a crowdfunding platform). Rather than creating their own platform to push out, they created a white label back-end to support new crowdfunding sites, and the strategy seems to be going well. (link)
Science Inc. is an incubator in LA started by Mike Jones, ex-CEO of MySpace. What makes an incubator different from an accelerator? Most people say that at an incubator, ideas are generated internally (like Idealab in Pasadena), but Science is a little different and takes in ideas from outside like an accelerator. Difference is, they take a larger stake ownership (often majority), which is significant when compared to the 3~5% that most accelerators take.
Dollar Shave Club is one of their portfolio companies and just announced that they raised a round of $9.8 million from from investors such as KPCB and Andreessen Horowitz. You’d think that selling razors for a $1 isn’t a money making business, but as with most startups, execution is everything, and Dollar Shave Club did that really well. I mean, have you seen their videos?
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